Honestly I just love profanity. Well, most of it. There are a few words that are on my shitlist, because I find them too hostile to specific groups of people. I can force myself to speak or write at length without using profanity, but I resent having to do it. I love it when these jokers are like, "People who use foul language just have poor communication skills and/or a weak vocabulary." Motherfucker, my vocabulary could choke a horse. With words. Very asphyxiating words. Like 'emphysematous'. Suck that one down, Trigger. But bad words are more visceral. Saying "these contemporaneous vicissitudes are deplorably deleterious" is not really very satisfying. Saying "fuck this shit" is.
I really like to think about things like the intersection of emotion and language, about how we try to construct symbols that represent ineffable experiences but which inevitably fail to do so. I find that describing strong emotions works best for me when I just give specific examples of how what I'm feeling makes me want to ACT. That still doesn't always get the exact point across, but it's better than "I like it a LOT."
Your inference is in no way a slight.
I can't relate to the military thing, as I've never served, but I have had a couple of very close friends who did, so they shared a little of their experiences with me. I definitely wouldn't consider a military story in the same light as a typical fantasy adventure story. I wouldn't expect romance to be prevalent in that circumstance. I think the experience of being a soldier, in a very strict hierarchy with an ironclad chain of command and a compulsory code of conduct, would be quite different from being a member of a standard D&D adventurer party. A soldier probably spends a lot of time doing exactly the thing that they are required to do, in a very focused way, as you've described, whereas a fictional fantasy "hero" mostly does whatever the fuck they want, and doesn't really answer to anyone. I wouldn't expect romance in a cop story, either. I mean, I didn't think that there should be romance in Disco Elysium, as that was about two detectives trying to solve a murder within a very short time frame. If there was an RPG about being in a modern military unit, it wouldn't feel weird to me if romance was never a factor.
That's really interesting about PTSD, I didn't know that. I can see it, though. Trauma is a real tricky thing. I kinda wish it was a topic that more RPGs explored, actually. It would have to be done carefully, of course.
"To be honest, most of my (few, fragmented, and unreliable if) fondest memories of former flames usually concern those things that went wrong which we found joy in anyway, rather than those perfect nights." Oh hell yeah, THIS. I fuckin love disasters, that's where I really bond with people and have the most fun. It sounds crazy to say that disasters are the most fun, but I'm kind of messed up anyway. I get weirdly gleeful when shit starts going horribly wrong. Especially if I'm with someone, and then I can try to lift their spirits about the whole thing. "It's an adventure!"
Well, okay the massive scale of human potential, sure. I mean I guess on a grand enough scale, most anything can be considered insignificant. But I think most humans don't really do much with all that potential. Most of them probably don't contribute much to the world beyond reproducing. Some not even that. I do like the IDEA of that potential, though. I am always wanting humanity to evolve to new and greater heights. It seems slow-going, though.
