idk what it is but the fallout 3/new vegas deathclaws are way more intimidating to me compared to the ones in fallout 4

Is campaign 3 worth watching 😭 im somewhere near ep 45 and there have just been so many arcs that do nothing for me. The stakes feel absurdly high for uhh level .. 6? and i thought it would get good at some point but if they still cant make a plan by ep 80 i dont think i care to waste my time 😭😭

yuhhhh i don't know man. the malleus key and the fallout of it is pretty dope, and idk how many spoilers you've seen so i'll leave it there. but after that it gets very boring again i can't lie.

you're so right about the high stakes!! these characters haven't had any space to breathe or grow since like episode 20 or whenever it was they found out about predathos and the world ending. they've been chasing a plot they're not ready for without doing any of the character work that makes you care about their goal. it's difficult to see why the party is together in the first place because they don't talk to each other or have any reason care about each other (except fearne/orym and imogen/laudna but the latter is so bland it's actually painful).

the party doesn't gel, there's no motivations from anyone beyond orym having a personal stake in it. imogen is so wishywashy about everything. none of them care about the gods except FCG, and no one in the party cares about FCG. except ashton, who is played so passively and unpleasantly that it doesn't even matter. there's no caleb/vax doing his biweekly checkins with each party member to unlock new dialogue. there's no fjord/grog to make a buckwild (yet thematically relevant) decision to direct the party in any direction. there's no driving force behind any of these characters like sorry liam and travis, turns out if you take a backseat to let your friends have the spotlight, they will do sweet fuck all!!

another problem i think is how they're given so many pieces of the puzzle at once, whilst the big bad is already in play. i don't know if that was matt's intention, but it's led to them barely following up on any character driven plot points because, well, the world might end. so any extracurricular character development is nixed in favor of chasing a maxxed out uberbaddy who is almost definitely going to kill them. any cool character moments kind of happen in spite of rather than thanks to the events, and honestly feel a bit forced sometimes because the characters have all been so stagnant for so long, and honestly the most interesting things about the characters are their backstories, which have already happened. their current motivations are a mystery and none of them seem interested in learning more about each other. it just feels very awkward and stale.

PLUS, the stakes are absurdly high but also there are no consequences for anything!! laudna dying didn't feel important because it wasn't permanent! because they can apparently just ask a member of vox machina for a resurrection!!! absolutely bizarre choice from matt to allow that, if i'm being completely honest. like sorry i know that's your wife but marisha should be 40 episodes deep into her backup character by now because there's absolutely no way anyone in VM would agree to resurrecting a delilah briarwood puppet let's be so serious. the party (especially imogen) dealing with a PC death would have made for some really interesting development, and would have created an opportunity for imogen to either take a leadership role to get revenge on otohan, OR break bad and turn on the rest of the party. some delicious pvp. but unfortunately laura doesn't seem to know what to do with her character and therefore does nothing, so it felt extremely flat and meaningless, which kind of sums up c3 tbh. some of the highest stakes but barely a PC who gives a shit.

the past say 10 episodes have been a slog for only a handful of cool moments, so i really hope post episode 82 it picks up a bit. plot is fun and situations are fun but i'm struggling to care about any of these characters because it doesn't seem like any of the cast care about them either. which is a shame because some of them have huge potential, FCG is literally an aeormaton!!!! my god you have GOT to get into it. why is no one getting into it!!!! will someone PLEASE pick up what sam is putting down!!! the payoff is always so good!!!

"the top three of its forty floors are filled with brass telescopes of every size, pointing in every possible direction, including several that do not exist within the normal three dimensions of space." thats SUCH a cool image / "If any harvest will come." ooh i wonder whats going on / "The roofs are of red tile, the stucco of the houses painted in shades of blue. It stands empty, but has not had time to fall into disrepair." the little bits of detail getting added to the picture im LOVE (1/?)

I’m gonna do these all as one post but broken up for ease of reference, I think.

Thank you! 🥰 Deciding the theme for the Tower and giving it that visual anchor really helped to pull things together. If you consider the whole setup, it seems unlikely the Tower was originally built as an observatory, since those tend to benefit from height (especially if you’re looking around you rather than up, but for the up ones also) and the builders could easily have put it on top of a mountain or at least some hills, but instead put it by the river. It’s above sea level, and it’s away from light pollution, but there were better locations. Nearby.

So either it wasn’t an observatory, and it’s been refitted as one, or they had so many observatories they didn’t care about locating them optimally, there was some other factor making having the tower there important even if it was suboptimal in terms of observation capacity. Or, potentially, it’s been moved since it was built!

:} Yay thank for being interested by the foreshadowing. I tried to put just enough in without actively overshadowing the actual place-setting-up and making the reader impatient with the description. 

"If you look through an enchanted telescope you may see trees without needles fail halfway up the nearest of the great peaks, and even these fail before the top, though there is a span of nearly barren stone past that line, before the snow begins." you: mentions different plants living in different climates me: :0 / there's so much good description!! its all so pretty!! (2/?)

sflka;l;jlk i mean yeah, that’s pretty straightforward isn’t it. But! It establishes How Much Mountain it is visually rather than by saying ‘it was a big fucking mountain’ or ‘it was tall enough for the thinness of atmosphere near the top to create a small tundra region.’

o(*￣▽￣*)ブ

<3 Thank you! I kinda cut loose lmao.

"blocks veined with every color, pale blues and purples, reds and greens and golden-duns all mottling toward white and grey and black" god i want to live there so badly!! this tower is meeting all my standards!! cool pretty magic tower with rad telescopes!!! / "make a remark no one present understands about a Doctor named Seuss. His guide, the dousing tracker Amnaphi, will assume this person to be a famous astronomer from his homeland." im love!! misunderstandings about references!! (?/?)

💗💖✨ Yay! That’s an important feeling to create in fantasy, imo. The wanting. 

I really enjoyed playing with the standard forms for ‘thing made of marble’ here, because all these marbles really exist, but in spite of the existence of the word ‘marbled’ our narrative uses of it tend to be tied up with Neoclassical aesthetics. So very white and smooth, yeah?

Also idk if it’s obvious to the reader but this Tower is to some degree in dialogue with Orthanc, which made a great impression on my mind as a child as the iconic wizardly tower, and while I don’t disagree with any of Tolkien’s use of symbolism for the purposes he was deploying it, there’s so much potential in Isengard as a setting that LotR had no space to explore, even if Tolkien would have noticed those angles at all.

Like...the parkland around the Tower is shown being despoiled for the orcish war machine and then reconquered by the forest, but of course it wasn’t forest to begin with. What was it for before Saruman lost his shit? Ordered gardens, for peaceful contemplation? Who dedicated the space that way? Who maintained it? 

Did Saruman employ a gardener? Did he design his own gardens, or did they come with the keep, which we’re informed was built not by him but by the Numenoreans? 

(“I liked white better” is still one of the greatest lines in a fantasy novel, Tolkien does not get enough credit for his contextually hilarious one-liners that rely on pointed code-switching, but Saruman’s evil rainbow oil-slick robes also sounded really baller and it’s kind of a shame they were not attempted for the movie lol.)

The fact that this is a world designed around a kid getting portal-fantasied into it and staying for 30 years really gives me some options which are fun to deploy but also like. Risky lmao. Because it encourages the reader to surface from the setting-logic and apply their own perspective, which can really break up the magic.

Being able to zoom out on the Tower after all that detail and be like ‘it’s awesome but also it looks like something Doctor Seuss would draw’ was fun though.

"Within the even hexagon of its outer wall, the Tower encloses a great parkland, enough that if it was all put under cultivation it could easily feed as many people as could live in the Tower itself." the tower has PLANTS i love it so much / "Ten Years’ Winter" god PLEASE tell me this is going to get into the agriculture and society stuff game of thrones didn't about long winters that would be SO cool / "Watchers of the Stars" AND they have a cool name holy shit (?/?)

Plants are important! As is food supply. As everyone who’s been reading this blog for a while already knows I think lol.

I mean, it’s not about that, really? The Ten Years’ Winter is a historical event--the most recent meteor impact severe enough to have global climate fallout. The dust it kicked up took a while to settle, and the famines were pretty severe.

But the cultural consequences of something that happened a hundred and fifty years ago exist, and are important, including the relationship between governance and disaster preparedness, which varies a lot regionally as you may imagine. 

Astronomy has a long history as a wizardly sort of activity in the real world, both because it’s had continual overlap with astrology and just because the process has always been mystical and abstruse. In this setting, with a history of both devastating meteor impacts and being invaded from the Moon, but also actual magic, it’s got more obvious practical importance. Although since neither of these are remotely everyday occurrences, the average person on the street might not agree lol.

So it’s on the one hand a purely descriptive title, and on the other hand a serious boast, suggesting as it does that they are primarily responsible for Watching The Sky For Stuff. While also having broader philosophical implications and just sounding nice lol. 

You gotta have good marketing if you want to persist as a wizardly order, because if talented students aren’t motivated to come to you how will you gain new members? Natural replacement is not an ideal strategy to say the least. That’s how you turn into a cult instead of an intellectual powerhouse.

"The northern third of the Tower’s park contains neatly regimented orchards, apples, pears, plums, and a few rows of carefully tended peaches and apricots, all clipped flat against low brick walls angled south and slightly west." hhh t r e e s / "wizards, while enthusiastic about innovation in the abstract, hate change." me too, wizards. me too / "The Tower grounds are filled with refugees." ooh now we get to why everything was empty earlier (?/?)

Trees! Which are also food!

And technology lol. Greenhouses built against fruit walls with good insulation are so much more sensible than ones heated from inside. Obviously as a passive solar-powered technology these only work when the sun is available and not, for example, cut off by a giant dust cloud. 

These people are fairly acutely aware of their dependence on the sun and it figures prominently in a majority of their religions and their magical theory, even more than in ours.

There seems to be a mild consensus that the wizards are relatable. In truth: we are all wizards. :D

Yup! At long last lol.

"This division corresponds imperfectly to the usual split of the town by the course of the Meroda." because people!! take comfort!! in what normalcy they can find!! / "Makeshift pallets line the spaces between every fruit wall—the injured are being laid out here, now that the Tower is full, to get the benefit at night of the warmth meant to mature fruit." the awesome magic tower people trying to do everything they can for the injured who come to them for help in case i thought i couldn't be (?)

more in love / "Half of them are making ready to turn south along the Meroda." oh nooooo / "but the Moon People are the successors of the ancient magics, and just because they could not break the walls the last time they came, according to legend, does not mean they have not worked out a method now." im so worried for the people oh no (?)

Yeah! It really seemed natural. But of course they also aren’t recreating it obsessively; lots of people are grouping up with relatives who normally live across the river, or with people in the same line of work on the river, because people also adapt to circumstances.

No institution is ever perfect, of course, but I’m glad the Watchers have come across this way so far. They’re broadly well-intentioned and mostly well-organized.

And they were not ready for this.

A significant fraction of the reason for the order of the Watchers to exist at all, particularly in this observatory with its great eye fixed ever on the face of the green moon, is to be able to warn the world if this ever happens again. But the Moon People knew they were being watched, this time, and they kept all the build-up to mobilization that might have given them away on the far side of the moon until the last minute.

What the Magister is doing, as I hope was made clear or at least successfully indicated--I wish your commentary on the ending had come through!--is summoning what turns out to be an actual child from another world to do hero stuff.

Even if he’d gotten an adult that would be kidnapping someone to help with your problems, a routine element of the portal fantasy whose ethics have been addressed in a variety of ways, most famously ‘is Lion Jesus and always right.’ 

The reason they need a hero from another world is that the Moon People build a lot of their wards and their offensive and disabling magical attacks around a targeting system based on what planet people are from, because even though they’re originally from the same stock--they’re the descendants of ancient moon colonists who evacuated ahead of a major meteor impact somewhere approaching four thousand years ago--on a magical level having been born and raised on the planet or the moon makes a pretty huge difference. 

So no one can get into the place their magic space elevator is anchored and fuck it up so they can’t keep bringing troops and supply in and loot out. Their single supply line is their only strategic weakness, and they’ve taken appropriate precautions.

Getting someone in from a third location is the best idea anyone’s been able to come up with in the very limited time available. Since no one can figure out how to turn one of the Moon People against the cause they came here for, on short notice, when they aren’t even stopping to talk to anyone so far. Like, that’s clearly not going to happen.

Heron Yl Fanult isn’t unaware that it’s ethically questionable, but he’s doing it anyway.

So I’m glad the ominous imminent oncoming of the Moon People can really be felt, because that atmosphere is fairly essential context for the decisionmaking going on at the top of the Tower.

"Young wizards sit in their bunks, six each to rooms that were previously individual, and hold lighting cupped dancing in their palms." a quick break from being worried to point out that this is rad as hell / "some with their heads decorously covered..." cultural differences!! especially with regional purposes like the Hedro!! 

Thank you! 😆💖 I thought so too lol. 

It also establishes the parameters of the magic system a little more. Throwing lightning bolts is pretty iconicly high-powered, right? And here it’s what most of the student wizards are practicing in anticipation of a battle, because most of them aren’t specced into combat and this is actually one of the easier lethal spells to master, especially if you have an academic background.

‘Electrocute’ isn’t a very flexible spell and it’s easy to lose control of, but it’s actually easier than, say, ‘set on fire to a significant degree in a non-electrical manner’ because concentrating a lot of heat in a certain location takes a lot more brute force than encouraging ionization. 

You can pull most of the actual destructive force for the palm lightning spell out of the physical air and/or earth if you grasp the principles, which is much easier than channeling a comparable amount of magic directly because it doesn’t have to go through you. 

The limiting factors on magic in this setting are how much power you can tap into and how much of it you can actually use without hurting or killing yourself. It’s not usually a lot, though the amount can be increased by things like choosing your workspace, prepping your workspace, and a whole lot of practice and meditation and things like that.

Magical traditions that get bundled under the heading of wizardry tend to focus on force multiplication, obtaining enough contextual understanding of a subject to make whatever power is applied go further. This means a lot of studying theory and using magic to make observations (such as the existence of microorganisms and their connection to disease) and often results in making clever devices based on what you’ve learned that may not actually wind up being magical at all. 

Which is why the solar greenhouse proposal is considered ‘more wizardly’ than the fruit walls, which are wizardly in the first place even though the technology is pretty widespread at this point--it’s carried the principle of minimizing the energy you have to invest to get the result you want to the logical conclusion, where you don’t have to do any magic at all, you just set up the situation and get out of the way and the sun will do the work for you.

Other schools of magic, particularly religious ones, are more likely to emphasize just getting better at handling energy for yourself, which tends to yield a lot more in the way of immediate practical dividends and in a lot of quarters wizards who don’t do something obviously practical like physic or smithcraft with their theoretical background are considered crackpots or dilettantes 

An impression helped along by the fact that being taken on as a student of wizardry at a basic level tends to focus more on your reading comprehension than your ability to actually do any magic, so in places where religious and wizardly institutions coexist the most talented students have a tendency to gravitate toward the religious life. This is particularly marked in areas religiously dominated by the Compact of the Golden Circle, wherein full ordination is contingent on being able to pull off certain fairly hefty rituals, so if you aren’t physically or mentally up to that kind of magical heavy lifting your religious career will stall out in one of the lay fraternities. In some of the cities on Sutouchel, the landmass to the southeast where the Compact is based, a slang term for wizard is ‘sanctum washout.’

But of course force multiplication is something that can scale up pretty far, and studying theory doesn’t stop you from also putting work into your practical skills, and not having talent isn’t the only reason someone would choose not to seek out a clerical career, if it’s even an option. Religion along the Meroda is pretty localized; communities tend to have local deities who correspond to a natural feature like the nearest mountain or the river or something, and if that deity rates a fulltime shrine the keeper also tends to be the major local medical provider, and since the wizards got settled in at the Tower it’s become pretty popular for shrinekeeping families to send their kids there for a year or two to get some educational polish in addition to what their parent already emphasized.

So depending on where you live and what your personal experience has been you’re going to have very different ideas about what wizards are good for.

Hrm. I’ve gone on a tangent. But that wound up taking so long you came back! :D I love it when being turtle works out in my favor.

Or was this actually the meta I was supposed to be doing in the first place? Aaaaa who knows.

im fairly confident you said eight asks survived so this is number nine? anyways onwards! "The hale survivors of the First Battle of the Second Descent sit waiting in their leathers, jack-chains and helmets laughably inadequate armor against the coming danger, and yet the best hope now just as they were on Carun Tol once the wizard fell" i have a lot of emotions about how their best bet is also a terrible bet but its all they have (9/?)

Yes 8. 

Woo, thank you! ^^ & I love that you described it that way because that also describes the ‘summon alien’ spell Yl Fanult is casting and echoing the same emotional theme throughout the scene was very much the goal here.

"Threads have escaped from the braids pinned across the top of her skull: she has not had the chance to take them down for two days." god just the continuation of how desperate everything is / "He leans forward to peer through the narrow glass that has been turned on its articulated base to face the middle of the room, and relaxes very slightly. At least there has been no catastrophic alteration there, either." what does that one do id assume theres no approching army in the middle of the room -

:D Yeah, the fact that one of the chief medics available is already overworked to the point of neglecting nonessential personal hygiene and the enemy isn’t even here yet I hoped would resonate.

Well, remember how some of the telescopes at the beginning point in directions not included in the normal three dimensions of space? :}

- "trained as it long has been upon the face of the moon" also forgot to mention their enemies being from the moon is Rad As Hell / "He snaps his fingers for a spark that falls into the deep circular groove full of distilled spirits, and steps through that as well. He is not burned." ooooh whats he doing / "At his feet lie a glittering piece of gold ore, a moonstone, and a carefully sanded round of pumice." i see the connection to the moonstone bc moon army but i wonder about the others -

Thank you! It took a fair amount of poking before I decided it was a solid approach; it provides just enough physical alienation that there’s no direct cultural relationship and you can have that ‘everyone in the entire world Disliked That’ vibe, without needing to create any complicated magical and cultural explanation for such a long run of isolationism. They were out of contact because they were On The Moon.

Also I really get a kick out of putting space invaders in a fantasy setting in a way that stops just short of turning into sci-fi.

I’m glad the ritual lead-up is exciting! Even if the foreshadowing wasn’t as obvious as I thought it was lol. That’s fixable. 

Gold is for the sun, moonstone is yeah for the moon lol (although in other circumstances people also use jade, because it’s been a long time since the moon was uniformly silver on account of it having been terraformed a few thousand years ago) and pumice is for the world--it’s a stone full of air that floats on water, so it’s popular as an anchoring device for rituals that call on all three local celestial bodies.

"He cannot take much time. He has only until the ring of fire dies." whats he doingggggg / anyways i love this so much!! the descriptions are gorgeous and im so invested in all of everything!! i hope you write more im so curious about it all!! 

XD Ok I covered this already, I would have saved it for down here or Been Mysterious if tumblr hadn’t eaten the last few asks the first time lol. Thank you so much again! For encouragement! Before and now! I’ll try! To keep it going!

Here’s hoping this successfully posts, tumblr just kicked me onto New Dashboard again and disabled the turn-it-off button, so now my alternate posting strategy is borked up too. 🤞😅😘

finished the story quests for bl3 (but barely any of the side missions yet) and i got...Opinions(tm)

(sorry if this doesn’t cut on mobile! also if you want to hide spoilers i’m tagging all my bl3 posts as “bl3 spoilers” so ny’all can blacklist it)

in no particular order:

i honestly wanted to give gearbox some slack and try my best to like this game bc i know people had probably unfairly high expectations for this game given all the build up, but they really just kept letting me down in everything but the graphics

said this before but overall, the characters are all Quite lackluster

^^ tyreen and troy included. adding the word "bitch" to every sentence does not automatically make it funnier

that being said, i super love their backstory + relationship with typhon/nekofeyo-whatever

the character designs are equally boring. moxxi was the only one who got a real improvement imo. lilith and maya are okay. rhys...i dont think i have to explain. lia...i dislike her hair; the black felt like it balanced out her design better and the white streak was interesting and cool but full white just looks bad tbh. zer0 feels less sleek and more bulky which doesnt fit him much. tina lost her pretty color palette and cute outfit. where are all the bright pretty color palettes in general???? there are other colors besides brown and black???? use them?????

ending of pre-sequel: “you will need all the vault hunters you can get” me: “ooh does that mean all the vh’s from previous games are back? i can’t wait to see everyone meet each other! :D” bl3: only nine of them come back, 3 of them die, the rest are involved in maybe one mission at most

boss fights. super. boring. and tedious. i mean this could be partly because i was playing on ps4 which made it extra not fun but if the only reason the fight is difficult is because they have a lot of health...it's not fun or challenging. i want fights like handsome jack with interesting mechanics. i want fights like angel with emotional impact. i want fights like the pre-sequel final boss that i forgot the name of with variation that isnt just "now they have an attack that shines bright lights in ur eyes, covers the whole arena, and can knock you down in one hit im looking at you traunt and killavolt". tyreens fight was the only one that i somewhat enjoyed because of this. all the others were just like "ughhhh again?"

im really enjoying melee amara playstyle. taking out badass enemies in four hits is my jam. this is just my fallout 4 playthrough all over again babey heck yea

typhon just wanted to be a good dad!!! he called tyreen starlight which is adorable!!! he did the best he could and tyreen hated him for it!!! i don’t blame either of them for that tbh, it makes sense from both their perspectives. tyreen definitely should have been more understanding, but she’s a dick so :/ (not saying this is a writing flaw, just a character flaw)

hammerlock needs higher standards in men but i really appreciate the undeniably in-your-face "fuck you" to all gamer dudes

i really. hate. how little the player character seems to matter in the story. in pre-sequel the vh's all had unique dialogue AND npcs would respond, sometimes even with character-specific lines. even when it was the same across vh's, it still felt like the npcs were interacting and speaking directly to them. the player character felt like a character of their own, rather than just a vessel for the player to do quests and kill enemies with or an errand runner for the important characters. i thought that was the direction they were going in with bl3 too but this just feels like bl2 only worse. there’s a separation again between you and the story and it feels like you’re just watching things happen. now ur not just a silent protagonist, but instead your a speaking protagonist who gets completely ignored. whats the point of including unique dialogue if it's not even acknowledged beyond an "uh-huh, moving on"?

sometimes the logic just feels kinda dumb. the twins killed/disabled maya and lilith in a heartbeat, they can literally disintegrate the most powerful beings in the universe, but the vault hunters? absolutely not. they must fight them for 40 minutes and then die.

after the fight with troy, no one even touched tyreen. there's no way they could have thought "yup she's definitely dead, no need to shoot her in the head or anything just to make sure. we didn't do anything to even hurt her, we just assumed." turns out she's 100% alive and gets up to start the apocalypse. who'da thunk! i know they wanted the end to seem more dramatic but it just seems stupid that they could have stopped tyreen like 5 missions earlier had they even the slightest bit of common sense.

lilith was one of the biggest threats to tyreen and troy's whole plan. of course they should leave her alive and simply steal her powers. let's kill the monk siren instead.

i know they didn't include this to give all players a fair experience instead of favoring sirens, but it kinda sucks playing a siren character and it's just completely ignored outside of ur action skill. tyreen and troy are sapping siren powers left and right, but they choose to leave you with yours. when you enter the eridian place with typhon tannis starts glowing because it has "something to do with sirens". what about the one standing right next to her? this applies to bl2 as well...jack i would willingly charge ur vault key for u pls why do u take lilith instead :'(

oh yeah speaking of tannis! i LOVE that she got angels powers. for some reason it just makes me really happy. maybe it's bc i think it's sweet that part of angel survived. maybe it's because it makes for cool fanart. maybe it's just cool. idk. also like that we got a solid explanation of what angel's powers were (influence over technology). i always thought her having control over it in bl2 might've been cuz it was hyperion tech and she had access to it same as she had access to the satellite from bl1. it wasn't super clear since it seemed like she could also materialize things like the ammo during her fight.

that also reminds me: all the dramatic reveals in this game felt kinda badly done.

the very first one with zer0/katagawa. like the whole time i was walking around looking for him i was trying to think why he might've turned/something must have happened to him or rhys. everyone was saying it was undeniably zer0. i finally meet him and take one look at his bright ass maliwan armor and its like. really. you couldnt have made it anymore obvious that thats not zer0. and then his helmet gets knocked off and surprise! it's not him. i totally didnt already figure that out with one glance 10 seconds ago. (maybe even earlier when you got glimpses of him around the building but i always missed it cuz i was looking at the fish tanks n shit)

also the tannis reveal. she was speaking to me in the same way that only known siren characters could. weird unexplained things were happening and seemed to be related to tannis. i wonder if she's a siren? surprise! she's a siren.

tyreen and troy knew about the great vault through some unknown means. typhon was talking about having a son and a daughter who he told stories about the great vault. typhon calls tyreen his daughter a while later and lilith acts surprised like honey ur a little slow, i figured that out several lines ago.

basically i'm not saying they were so obvious that i knew from the beginning of the game; i only figured them out a little before they were outright stated. but it was enough that it kinda ruined the effect and the characters acting surprised only when it was blatantly spelled out for them just made it annoying.

i feel like most of this is pretty negative, but i don’t mean that i hate the game and was miserable playing it. it was honestly okay...like i said i wanted to like it, but gearbox hates me specifically and killed/ruined all my faves just to spite me sooo...*waves hand back and forth in a sort of “ehhh” gesture*. i think my opinion on bl games from most to least fav would be: tftbl, bltps, bl2, bl3, and bl1. so it’s not the worst, but deeefinitely not one of my faves. i mean jack’s not in it (or if he is he doesn’t have a big role) so it’s already at a huge disadvantage. the ending was ok, it was all dramatic n stuff and it kinda makes sense i guess, but it was just about as okay as the rest of the game really. i don’t hate it but it’s not great either yknow?

Anonymous submitted:

for tash again pls from https://aplaceforthesoul.tumblr.com/post/620183874016870400/anonymous-submitted-from

i’m really sorry that i keep hammering on about this but some days im ok and i thought im getting over it but sometimes like today it all comes in waves and i’m overwhelmed with sadness and cry about it again and i dont know where else to turn because i dont really have friends and my family expected me to be over it.

i used to have a friend who is still working there (lets call her C). we bonded bcs we’re from the same country, on the same visa, and the same age, although she’s been working there longer than i have. our visas expire around the same time, and we both had spent a lot of time together worried about what to do about it (we wanted permanent residency, but it’s not easy) so we talked about maybe going to regional australia and study something else, maybe we’ll just return home, and we can live together. we bonded over how we were not getting paid, our toxic employers, etc.

C came to australia as a student, on her own, and started working at this restaurant years ago, when it once was a small takeaway shop, before it reopened in a bigger place - thats when i joined the team. in some way, the original boss had acted as a sort of maternal figure to C, who is obviously far away from her family, and she is also epileptic. so the boss had done things like fetch her to and from the airport, the clinic, advice for living in the country, etc. and somehow, in this employer’s twisted mind, she thinks it is then ok to treat C like free help for her shop rather than an employee because she had done all this for her. so instead of paying C properly, as well as paying her super and everything else an employer should do, she finds it ok to abuse C by paying her whenever she likes, screaming at her for not answering her phone, overworking her, etc.

and C has on numerous occasions complained to me about the abuse she went through. she clearly doesnt like the boss, as on numerous occasions she had brought up the idea of reporting the business, she complains about the work, not being paid and the difficulty it had caused her and flat out said doesnt like the working conditions. BUT. if u were to ask her about the NICE things the boss has done for her, she changes her tone. she boasts about the GOOD things the boss has done for her like the flowers for her birthday - the pictures of her holding the bouquet is her profile pic everywhere, and how the boss takes care of her during an epilepsy episode - (and then put her to work the next night.)  i’ve always thought it was weird , but never questioned her more about it. soon after the fallout with the two bosses, i was on the phone with her. i was crying bc i was distressed about the change, and she said: “we are the children, and they are the adults. if the business fails, it fails. let them deal with it. we’ll just carry on our work."

we were talking everyday after that just before i realised i had gotten fired. our last conversation was in february, on the phone, when we were talking about hanging out after work. and suddenly, everything dropped. i realised i had been let go from work, and suspect that the boss had told C not to talk to me anymore. i know C had extended her visa by changing to a student visa, to study cooking, because the boss said she would sponsor her if she did that. she went to study with borrowed money from her family (since she isnt getting paid nearly enough to even pay her rent smh) which is something she told me she didnt want to do. like i dont understand that at all.

what a shit show huh.

now C is not returning my messages. in fact i saw her at the shopping mall just last week. my first instinct was to go up and speak to her, until she spotted me, stopped in her tracks, and went the other direction. i truly did not expect her to be the one to turn her back on me, after everything we’ve been through.

my visa is supposed to expire next month, but after the lockdown my family and i decided that it is the best decision to stay put in australia for the time being. so i applied for a visitor’s visa for a year. the form asked for proof that i had stopped working, in the form of payslips or contract, both of which i dont have, obviously. but i submitted it anyway so now im still waiting on my application.

it just baffles me how one bad employment and two incompetent bosses had fucked up my life this bad. i cant apply for anymore work in australia, so i have no income, the only other person who understood my situation is now gone, now im just waiting until its safe to leave the country. sitting at home, doing nothing but mulling over how i had lost my job, lost my best friend, lost the opportunity to do my masters, and leave the country i had lived in for this long.

im trying not to think about it anymore but its like half a year later and its still causing me grief but nobody knows or gets it.

anyway. sorry that this is long winded i just need to vent. you’re amazing tash, if only i could borrow your residency while you’re in the uk.

hey again <3 yeah getting permanent residency in australia is a nightmare, australia’s government is mostly anti-immigration which makes me sad. 

I can honestly understand why you’re still thinking about this and being negatively impacted by it all, the job gave you hope of completing your masters and staying longer in the country? and hope is a very powerful emotion! to then have it all taken away in such a brutal and unfair and cruel way...well that would affect anyone pretty badly. add in the fact that the ending of the job has created a lot of other negative situations and distress? it makes a lot of sense about why you’re still upset over this. 

this business needs to be reported, honestly what they’re doing is cruel and illegal. it’s quite clear that they are using the promise of sponsoring study as a way to manipulate vulnerable people into underpaid work, it’s also now very clear that they have no intention of following through on that promise -- it’s now become a pattern of behaviour if they did it with C as well as you. they shouldn’t be allowed to continue to operate and to profit off the backs of immigrants and illegal wages. you’re the one who’s suffered, it’s up to you whether you do want to do this? but I would think a lot about it -- I know you mentioned that your parents are close with the owners, but this isn’t ok.

I think all you can do now is put this behind you, accept the reality of the situation and try to be as kind to yourself as you can. spend time looking after yourself, practising self care, prioritising you and your well-being. maybe that means daily exercise and walks, or creating art (clay, painting, drawing?), or spending time gardening, or practising yoga / meditation, whatever works for you. as long as it’s calming and relaxing for you, and you find some measure of peace? then that’s what matters. 

know that what happened to you wasn’t right, it wasn’t your fault at all. you were exploited and taken advantage of, and you didn’t deserve that. try to keep yourself busy as best as you can, take it one day at a time. make a conscious decision to work on letting this go and looking forward, see how things go. I think right now is the hardest bit, because you’re kinda stuck in limbo and there’s lockdown / social distancing measures to deal with too? but once you get moving again and things change, it may have a more positive impact on your mental health when you’re being kept busy again and you have a change of environment. 

I’m glad you were able to vent and get this off your chest, I hope you’re able to find some peace and acceptance moving forward xxx

- tash

Found this in my drafts, so I’m posting it with no shame to give this blog some life while I’m busy trying to deal with post-endgame feels in the mcu sector of tumblr:

So I had a dream last night that made me realize I spend too much time on this site because it included some of my mutuals and people I enjoy like @theuriearchives ,@yagirlcammmm ,@i-think-im-ready-to-go ,@canyousevmyheavydirtysoul ,@dunjosephurieimagines , and @andbeingblueisbetter to name a few.

I have very vivid dreams and since I write all of them down I figured why not write it here where everyone can see it.

The genre for this dream: a mystery.

The setting: A beautiful cabin (apparently mine) plucked straight out of a “Visiting your SO’s family for the holidays” or a “fake-dating for a visit to your frenemy’s family” AU, my personal favorite. And there was a snowstorm going on outside.

I should also mention everybody had their own appearance. Usually I attach someone’s name with the face in their profile pic, meaning about everybody in this I previously imagined as Brendon Urie at different angles and in different lighting. But thanks to my brain randomly generating faces for everybody, I will be greatly confused in the case that I ever learn what you actually look like.

So, the topic at hand is, as it always is, Brendon Urie. Everybody’s cuddled up on the couch and on the floor in their pajamas drinking hot chocolate, eating dessert, and writing/giving ideas. In the background AFYCSO plays on an old record player, the fire is flickering beautifully alongside some black and white videos of old Panic! performances playing on one of those old big-backed TVs with lines across the screen – at this moment I feel like I am once again a preschooler laying on my stomach and watching movies in a pile of other preschoolers at my old after-school program but I digress–

Then somebody has the audacity to break into my house.

Me being the host of this gathering, I feel obligated to check on the noise. It doesn’t help that literally everyone stops what they’re doing to push me in the direction of the mysterious noise before going back to talking about the size of Brendon Urie’s dick (a conversation brought up by i-think-im-ready-to-go, just thought I should mention that).

So I get up, the second my back is turned nobody cares and I go into the bathroom only to find it flooded because this intruder flushed literally everything it could down the toilet.

To name a few things, it flushed:

1) The monstrous dildo linked on a post by beautiful-tragic-fallout (i don’t mean to call anybody out but its been on my dash with every damn refresh for the past week), who i-think-im-ready-to-go and theuriearchives make a point to explain is out of the house buying us more chocolate-covered strawberries.

2) Every single piece of Pretty. Odd. memorabilia I can imagine because someone just has it out for that album.

3) For those of you who have seen Monsters Inc, the toys Boo flushed down the toilet in that one scene.

4) An entire manuscript that my mind recognizes as smut written by @xxip-smut

5) And pink, fucking, crocs

So I walk back into the living room and round everybody up, declaring we’re on a manhunt for whoever the fuck had the audacity to break into my house, and with that we separate into groups. Accompanying me is Cam who wields a flamethrower while wearing pastel yellow pajamas with baby elephants printed on them.

Eventually after getting tired of Cam pointing the flamethrower at my head even when in ‘resting position’ and scaring the shit out of me, we go into the basement only to find everybody else chose to search the basement and the rest of you have been arguing about who actually gets to search the basement.

Long story short, the basement doesn’t get searched.

Instead to deal with the tension, dunjosephurieimagines suggests we all go back to talking about Brendon’s dick. So we go back to talking about Brendon’s dick.

We sit on the floor in a circle in this basement not realizing its dark and creepy as hell, and if you’ve seen That 70s Show the ‘camera’ moves around in this circle to focus on the face of whoever’s talking. The conversation adds up to smut, theuriearchives pulls out a blunt and i-think-im-ready-to-go pulls out a gun, we start playing russian roulette. Out of guilt for not writing a request sent to me months ago because I suck, I give andbeingblueisbetter a free shot at me. Being a saint they don’t take the opportunity yet.

So anyway, being high and creative a thought comes to us all at once. This thought…where the fuck is @loverontheleft ?

Now we’re all mad and sad and scared and alone because where, the fuck, is cece? Everybody starts asking everybody if they’ve seen her, we conclude the answer is no and we all start freaking out.

Then we realize canyousevmyheavydirtysoul (codename: Sev) is being really quiet.

We all turn and just stare like “So um….whats up?”

Flash-forward, this is all of us trying to figure out cece’s identity, sev is just sitting on the floor smiling and reacting to everything we say with reaction gifs they pull up on their phone, meanwhile we’re all screaming running around, we’ve made a literal office out of this basement and we have glasses and slip-on ties on top of our pajamas.

Then there’s a noise upstairs because we forgot there was someone who broke into my house.

Y’all turn on me and push me up the stairs to my death, I realize this is the cabin that appears in the bodyguard series at one point (wonderfully written by canyousevmyheavydirtysoul, binge it), and in front of me is the super fancy dining room table. There’s mail on it, some envelopes, and I’m like uh no and turn around to come back downstairs.

But you’re all at the bottom of the stairs staring at me and threatening me with your knives and Cam’s flamethrower – where you got the knives I don’t know. I hesitate in turning around for a second so andbeingblueisbetter shoots me.

But I’m like, you know, walk it off. So I do and I go to the table. I’m terrified, break out into a nervous sweat, but it’s fine.

I go and open the folder.

And O - fucking - kay

If you haven’t read the bodyguard series or ready to leap I’m not gonna detail any spoilers, just the main plot given right away, and even if you have it probably won’t help this make any more sense. Here….is the story:

Our beloved Cece started off as a teacher, right? But not just any teacher, Ms. fucking Milton, who started a relationship with the music teacher of her high school, Mr. Urie, who in this case is in fact Brendon Urie of our universe and lead singer of Panic! at the Disco. But the deal with him is that he got tired of the fame and through extensive work he managed to get rid of all the files that legally point to him as being Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco. And for the first few years of his teaching, all the kids knew he was Brendon Urie I mean come on, but eventually the whole school and town settle on the idea that this is just one of those situations where twins are separated at birth and coincidentally given the same exact name. So boom, they do what they do – but newsflash, Cece is Y/n from the Bodyguard series and knowing Mr. Urie’s relationship with Ms. Milton, S.H.I.E.L.D pulls a Hydra Bucky Barnes situation in order to train Brendon into the best damn bodyguard the world could imagine because Cece is a valuable asset that needs the absolute best protection. Canyousevmyheavydirtysoul was like a journalist or something for S.H.I.E.L.D and witnessed all of this go down, knows every little thing about these two. So they get trained, they get close, drama happens, then they’re all put under-cover. Brendon goes back to being Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco, Sev and Cece are assigned to live their current lives and specifically assigned to write their stories for this Tumblr community to get everybody off their trails.

And then I look up. And there’s cece and I think…

“She is about to fucking, kill me.”

I try to throw the folders at her but for some reason I can’t throw anything in my dreams, so I get frustrated that my arm just won’t work, Cece in the meanwhile uses this time to approach me. My mind can’t even generate her an appearance and I think that she’s wearing a disguise because she’s like a spy or something that did after all break into my house to clog my toilet with dildos.

We maintain eye contact for what my dream-self recalls as a long time. I feel this energy in my soul I have never felt before and it is not fun, I don’t like it.

She takes the folder from me and gives me a red one.

And with her eyes piercing my soul, I get this feeling that literally has my skin vibrating even after I wake up, and I hear this voice that’s like “I know you know. And I’m watching you.”

So I woke up in a cold sweat obviously and tried to suppress this whole thing but it kinda lingered in the back of my mind all day. Then the weird tiny details came back to haunt me when I saw the elephants at the zoo. 

Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2018

Congratulations dear reader. You survived 2018. And you know what that means. It’s time for another best of/worst of list. Welcome to Quill’s Swill 2018. A giant septic tank for the various shit the entertainment industry produced over the course of the year. The films, games, TV shows and various other media that got on my bad side. As always please bear in mind that this is only my subjective opinion (if you happen to like any of the things on this list, good for you. I’m glad someone did) and that obviously I haven’t seen everything 2018 has to offer for one reason or another. In other words, sorry that Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald isn’t on here. I’m sure it is as terrible as some have been suggesting. I just never got around to watching it.

Okay everyone. Grab your breathing masks and put on your rubber gloves. Let’s dive into this shit pile.

Hold The Sunset

The news that John Cleese would be returning to the world of BBC sitcoms was incredibly exciting, being a massive Fawlty Towers fan and all. Unfortunately Hold The Sunset was not quite what I had in mind. It’s one of those rare breed of situation comedies that chooses to offer no actual comedy. It’s not a sitcom. It’s a sit. Like Scrubs or The Big Bang Theory.

An elderly couple plan to elope abroad only for Alison Steadman’s son to barge in, having left his wife, and forcing them to put their plans on hold. Hence the title ‘Hold The Sunset.’ It’s like a cross between As Time Goes By and Sorry, but if all the humour and relatability were surgically removed by a deadpan mortician. The characters are weak, the plots are thin on the ground and the humour (hat little of it there is) feel incredibly dated. The middle aged mummy’s boy is something that hasn’t been funny since the 90s. It’s an utter waste of great talent and what hurts even more is that this tripe is actually getting a second series. I can only assume the people watching this are comatose. Either that or there’s an epidemic of people in Britain who have lost the remote.

Avengers: Infinity War

Yes this is one of the worst movies of 2018 and no I don’t regret saying that one little bit. Avengers: Infinity War was fucking terrible. Period. There were too many plots and characters going on, which made the film hard to follow (and what staggers me is that the so called ‘professional’ critics have condemned movies for having too many characters and plots before. Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and even Deadpool 2. But because this is an MCU movie, it gets a free pass. Fuck off). The characterisation was weak due to sheer number of characters they try to juggle, resulting in characters coming off as one dimensional caricatures of themselves and scenes where characters such as Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord sound completely interchangeable. The villain, Thanos, is a stupidly and poorly written villain, but that’s hardly surprising considering what a shit job Marvel have done building him up over the course of these 20+ movies. And let’s not forget that pisstake ending. A bunch of prominent Marvel characters die and it’s all very, very sad... except all these characters just so happen to have sequels planned, which makes this ending fucking pointless and have less impact than a feather on a bouncy castle.

I don’t know which is more shocking. That Marvel and Disney think their audience are that stupid and gullible, or that their audience are actually validating their view. Fuck you Disney.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

I’ve always wanted a Harry Potter RPG, where you could customise your character, choose your house and actually live a full school life at Hogwarts. This year, Warner Bros and Jam City gave us just that.

That was a mistake.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the mobile gaming market right now. The gameplay is boring and involving where you just tap images on a screen until a progress bar fills up. Wizard duels are little more than rock-paper-scissors challenges that require no kind of skill. Bonding with friends and caring for magical creatures just consist of pathetically simple pop quizzes and yet more boring tapping. Oh and of course you only get a certain amount of energy to complete these tedious tasks. If you run out of energy, you wait for it to fill up... or pay up for the privilege. So determined are they to extract your hard earned cash from your wallet, there’s actually a bit where Devil’s Snare strangles your eleven year old avatar and the game effectively tries to guilt trip you into paying micro-transactions to save them. It’s sleazy, gross and manipulative. Honestly, you’re better off just playing Candy Crush.

Agony

When the developers of this game said they wanted to give the player a trip through Hell, they had no idea how true that statement really was. Agony is dreadful on a number of levels. The design for Hell itself, while visually interesting at times, is often not very practical and gets quite dull and repetitive after a while. The stealth mechanics are a joke and the AI of your demonic enemies are pitiful. All of this alone would have been enough to put this game on the list, but then we also have the casual misogyny. Agony is a gorefest trying desperately to shock the player. We see men and woman get tortured, but it’s the women that often get the extreme end. The violence inflicted on them is often sexual in nature and the game seems to go out of its way to degrade and dehumanise women at every turn. The orgasmic cries of ‘pull it out’ quickly become a staple of the game’s experience as we see naked women raped, tortured and murdered, all for the purposes of ‘entertainment.’

I would call Agony sexist, but honestly that would be giving it too much credit. Agony is like a little child trying desperately to be all dark and edgy in a pathetic attempt to impress everyone around him, and we should treat it as such. Go to your room Agony. No ice cream for you.

Peter Rabbit

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Beatrix Potter rotating in her grave.

Yes we have yet another live action/CGI hybrid, but instead of something innocuous like the Smurfs or Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sony instead decides to adapt Peter Rabbit, with James Corden in the title role.

It’s about as bad as you’d expect.

Their attempts to modernise the story are painful to say the least with pop culture references, inappropriate adult humour and twerking rabbits. Plus rather than the gentle, but slightly mischievous character we got in the source material, here Peter is a sociopathic delinquent who seems to revel in making the farmer’s life a living hell. He’s unlikable and unwatchable as far as I’m concerned and the film doesn’t in anyway earn the emotional moments it tries so desperately to sell to the audience. And the worst part is it’s getting a sequel.

Wait. Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of Beatrix Potter tearing out of the ground, ready to kill whatever idiot came up with this shit.

Fallout 76

I was excited for Fallout 76. A MMORPG where players band together to rebuild society after a nuclear apocalypse. Could have been great. Pity it wasn’t.

Fallout 76 is a dreadful game. Not only is it a buggy, glitchy mess that requires a constant online connection to play, which could result in you losing hours of progress if your WiFi went down, it’s also unbelievably tedious, and that’s because there’s nothing to do in the game. There’s no other characters to interact with, the various robots and computers you come across are really little more than quest givers, there’s no actual plot so to speak, and because of the sheer size of the world and the number of players allowed on a server, the chances of you actually meeting any actual players is remote. And let’s not forget all the behind the scenes drama. Bethesda falsely advertising Fallout themed canvas bags and players getting shitty nylon ones. Bethesda accidentally releasing the account information of various players trying to get a refund for said bag. Bethesda failing to program the year 2019 into the game code, meaning that the game’s nukes don’t work.

Maybe there’s a chance that Bethesda could pull a No Man’s Sky and fix everything over the coming years with various patches and DLCs, but the damage has already been done. It’s incredibly disappointing. The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have be fucking incredible to win everyone back.

Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again

I can’t stand jukebox musicals anyway, but Mamma Mia was always one of the worst. Its boring, meandering story with its one note, obnoxious cast of characters screeching out ABBA songs like they’re at some drunken karaoke session at some poor sod’s hen party has always grated on my nerves. So imagine my delight when they announced we were getting a sequel. Ever wondered how Meryl Streep met her three lovers and founded her hotel? No? Well tough shit, we’re going to tell you anyway.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is basically just Mamma Mia again. The actors still can’t sing, the characters are still annoying and story is still boring and meandering, completely at the mercy of the chosen songs rather than the filmmakers using the songs to compliment the story (you know? Like proper musicals do?).

How can I resist you? Very easily as it turns out. Gimme, gimme, gimme a fucking gun so I can end my misery.

The Cloverfield Paradox

A lot of people were unhappy about the direction Cloverfield was going. They wanted a continuation of the found footage, kaiju movie from 2008, not an anthology series. I was personally all in favour. Partially because I thought the first Cloverfield was a tad overrated, but mostly because I thought it would be a great opportunity for more experimental film projects and could be a great launchpad for new writers and filmmakers. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a great start. Then The Cloverfield Paradox happened.

The Cloverfield Paradox is basically JJ Abrams trying to have his cake and eat it too. Maintaining the anthology format whilst connecting everything together in a ‘shared universe’ (yes, yet another shared universe). The result was a cliched, poorly edited and idiotic mess of a film that actually took away from the previous two films rather than added to them. Everyone hated it and, as a result, 2018′s Overlord, which was totes going to be part of the Cloververse, was made its own standalone film and Abrams double pinky promised to make a true sequel to the original Cloverfield. A complete and total disaster. No wonder it was a straight-to-Netflix film.

The Handmaid’s Tale - Season 2

This is probably going to be the most controversial entry on the list, but please hear me out because I’m not the only one who has a problem with this season.

I was reluctant to watch The Handmaid’s Tale simply because of how gruesome the original book was, but I forced myself to watch the first season and I thought it was pretty good. It remained faithful to the source material for the most part and included some nice additions that helped to expand the story and mythos. If it was just a one off mini-series, everything would have been fine. But then they made the same mistake as The Man In The High Castle and Under The Dome did where they commissioned another season and attempted to tell a story that goes beyond the book.

There’s a reason why the original story ended where it did. The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t meant to be an empowering story about women sticking it to the patriarchy. It’s a cautionary tale about how fragile our civil rights truly are and how easily they can be taken away from us. It’s designed to shock, not to satisfy. So seeing a handmaid blow herself up in a suicide bombing feels very incongruous and just a little bit silly. It would be like doing a TV adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 where the first season followed the source material and then the second season turned Winston Smith into this heroic freedom fighter trying to overthrow Big Brother. It would represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the book was about in the first place.

And then of course there’s the increased level of violence in Season 2, which many have complained about. In Season 1 and the original source material, the violence was justified. In Season 2, the motivation behind the violence has gone from ‘how can we effectively demonstrate how easily a fascist patriarchy can happen in the West?’ to ‘what brutal act can we inflict upon Ofglen to shock the audience this week?’ It’s purely for shock and nothing more. And with the showrunner (who I feel I should mention is a man) announcing that he has planned ten seasons of this, it seems that The Handmaid’s Tale is going to go even further with this depravity until it effectively becomes the equivalent of a Saw film.

The Handmaid’s Tale exists as a way of shining light on and critiquing misogyny in its most extreme form. Season 2 however demonstrates that there is a serious risk of it becoming the very thing it’s criticising in the first place.

The Predator

I love the Predator franchise, but The Predator is the worst.

People thought that this would be good because director Shane Black had actually starred in the first Predator movie back in 1987. Instead we got this bloated, confusing, obnoxious and insulting mess of a film that seems to go out of its way to ruin everything that makes Predator so good. There’s no tension. No suspense. No intrigue. Just a bunch of gore, explosions and shitty one liners from annoying and lifeless characters. They essentially took this big alien game hunter from outer space and turned him into a generic monster from a bad summer blockbuster. It no longer hunts for sport. It wants to take over the world and splice our DNA with theirs. But don’t worry, a rogue Predator doesn’t want to kill humans (even though he himself kills a bunch of humans), so he gives us a Predator Iron Man suit to set up a sequel that will probably never happen because this movie was a box office bomb and it fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEDDDD!!!

This film also has a very nasty streak towards those with disabilities. There’s a lot of jokes at the expense of a character with Tourette’s and it has an extremely ignorant and patronising view of autism, portraying the main character’s kid as being a super genius who can decipher the Predator language and even going so far as to say that he represents ‘the next stage of human evolution.’ Presumably the Predators want social communication difficulties because apparently it helps them hunt somehow.

What with Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox, the future of both the Alien and Predator franchises were very much in question. This film needed to be a success in order to make a case for Disney to keep making more of them. It wasn’t. Congratulations Shane Black. You might have just killed off this franchise for good. Thanks arsehole! :D

So those were my least favourite stories from 2018. Join me on Wednesday where we shall discuss something more positive. Yes, it’s awards season. Who shall win the coveted Quill Seal Of Approval? Watch this space...

Or don’t. It’s up to you. I don’t want to force you or anything. It’s a free country.

under umbras of bundles  of stars,

canopies of leaves & branches that shatter-scatter sky image held indirect

as a gleam in eyes

as conscious lay in fabricated gardens watching memories, & desires in dream form

from across highway covered by

blue-white, 

yellow,

& orange lights

sound of tires, mufflers, sirens, 

amidst a higher sense 

attuned to

muffled far cries muffled while crossing empty lands

filled with chilling wind howls, stealing hope, 

which

kickstarts the power on survival mode..

ups& downs 

drown the cries further,

that

war, warn, or cheer..

or just sing..

maybe

a hymn made by souls for souls under same umbra to set free to lead to wonder & beauty beyond the surface of senses directly to free to seek love loss between me and me

buried beneath  road of longest journey to reach

turn feet all around

all about a world I have no idea about

just mad ideas about Kept in journals i turn over

to all but from in front of views not yet exploited by value of which is, views are power,  & are the will in word- to-page transaction

self diminished to substantiate

entries from entrails, not shown to be conquered

win or lose is how I never saw things.

win or win, only optionss, only progress..

yet..,always over complicating;

marathon sprints from start to finish

as I choose, If i choose, to continue to choose to overlook slopes in existence, where hides I, in ruins, digging for recognition

contribute to a mind overloading with what I know I owe society, &me,

burden of see-through beast, I see illusions of future thru,mistaken as truth, play victim, get stressed or believe I'm down on luck ,in dumps of depression and slum of beliefs,

 in a slump with headphones on temple and music up, reminisce about the golden olden, me and broseph, SSB, PSO, kanto, johto, cartoon cartoons, many one saturday morning’s, plenty cinnamon toast, fruity pebbles, so many card games at Books-a-million

but when I open eyes from trance

I'm forever face to face with today is today

not then not later...

just

 changes who changed how I changed regret and anger to compensate for blaming everybody but me

now I stare afraid at dilemmas mass effect decisions

 daily in-and-out-terventions

to keep from falling back into resentment.. spite blinding shelves of subconscious-self- disappointed perpetuating judgment of others binding progression, tying tongue, boiling blood because old habits die hard and I continue fucking up, up raging rapids w/o a paddle,   almost 3 decades of failing infinite (according to projections) feel I missed and am missing out on so much, so much world, so many words coiled inside, waiting to explode,

all the time, just like everybody.. everything mind sets sights on turns to target issue     how unfortunate for aforementioned coordinates, for anyone close enough for me to put in poems' , important enough to torment conscious over, used to be everybody, used to be nobody, used to be just some people, now its just me and i dont know him

   attempts to speak, to learn again, to teach me about me       to learn to teach                     myself, to set example for ambition directed toward a better version, better verses, better reimbursement of time given tryna be an extrovert, free from bitter, free from bitch asses, set internal standards to never  get fucked with again, fuck you, fuck him, fuck her, i only fucks with a journal & question  everyone,  everything, every word, every whisper, shit ima tell my children every day, breakfast lunch dinner,  do your best and fuck the rest, get it, get lit off enlightenment, fuck rest, save roosting for death, dont look at me, looknat the sky, seize the day in everyway brain permits, dont reach for others' and if anyone tries to take yours, that means they dont fundamentally respect life, so always permeate passion, ignore distractions keeping you from creating, test limits, test intentions, challenge imperfections with wisdom, know that perfect is just cosmetics, but i remain quiet.. remain tied up being alone, wondering..           whether I'm right to do any god damn thing        'cause if I don't do it right..       was I right to think I could, wrong to think I understood

am i wrong not to try?

what of what's sacrificed ?

how do i keep count

how did I end up here       in standby...

standing squeamish & deer eyed in light of opportunities rising in horizon of night skies, to step in to obtain warmth, maintain from days before, to do something, do the one thing, but when will I be ready will eyes be ready to comprehend right or wrong

only me, here. only us, on planet.

only who's responsible? how is who is affected by, afflicted by? when is too late? when is just right, always too soon to tell and.. if I don't do it now, then why expect change..

why, why, why

'cause I expect anything at all

anger toward unmanned vehicles imminent to collide with mine

driven mad up eighty-five degree angled walls during rush hour, sun beaming heat into ride, where i travel on path, thru battlefield of past where fallen intentions decompose to ignorance and wisdom sprouts in the mean time.. I'm in between times, feelin down, down down down down by the way

a trail thru fears past dead ends, rotting trees, looks like fallout hit

a past I try an' forget..

but remember out of reluctance 

to accidentally revisit regret,

stand next to biggest fears,  see if facing them uproots soul

rolls ideas in head, non-stop

like trolls troll under bridges 

to which billy goat gruff temper charges like crono's katana on zenan crossing,

lodes of odes to oaths, lightning loaded, aimed at negative minded sapiens bioshocks via rhythm and syntax, cryo cascades of ideas, locked away in moleskine or computer files to put to rest the rest of an inside in arrest to judgment, in side quest of public playthrough, i feel im on public display, static complaining in front of pretty much strangers   modes of awareness to mental problems i exploit to people who might not think im crazy, who might like what i write, might like to write about the same thing, might see giants in those same nodes i stand near, i hear crisp crackles filling an awkward air as i stare at words on sheets that i might tear, might let collect dust, or share prolly might be quiet, only sound is poetic drafts that fill in under open windows, I open slowly, cool rush, goosebumps, awake aware always, even when mind is a crinkled, crumbled candy wrapper still just construct wrinkles in time via           hairs stand, ovation, and encores to

     helping to cross over doubts, screams of slander, stop it all, right now, shed truth in another light, fed through veins like pen's ink to go over and correct vision of pinheads vane turnin art, free thought to cash and competition, trade purpose blow for blow with obstacles in the name of the next step, over opponents, trade nervous for nerves robust to withstand standing up to stretch and spread chest to stand up for work where time invested is braided circulation    goin in circles,        time wasted pet peeve number 1

    a nowhere never felt before        but something seems familiar.. overlooked,   under yards, under pressure of bone leverage, give life a lift thru cracks of a collapsing effort stretched behind chest and ribs

a heart glows in

hot coal hues hearth warmth under carbon sheets

till blood boils till steam coils from pores to kill the cold along roads

sun or none

no light above, isn't lack of.. 

(look inside)

----

harsh heat of reality hot enough to feel cold

make me go ghost in dark times..

friction strong enough to spark moist..

continue until i sear nerves disembody fromm pain till im felt by meta-form of others

heartfelt arcs between soul and soul-mind 2 mind

light releases thru iris folds spectacle in spectacles----

spectrum wheel of emotions spins &spins to  understand self an urge that intensifies the more  i live life as well as I can Improve every day, no excuse, don't ignore the corners, get behind my ears,every nook and cranny in creative muse-um, uhm, duh, raised on books, nintendo, animation,& wishbone, outside, only myself as playdate, use every square inch as play-scape under every hair in head, a mind uses face and body as way to create 4 fourever& vice versa to escape who ever & know I can do whenever, wherever

wherever i go, a voice in mind goes

that keeps on talkin , keeps me talkin tellin me I've talk--, wrote enough hoped enough to last a lifetime, but that's not enough

and I still got a lifetime

to either solidify or fuck it up

gradually let go of 

to concentrate on life's finest moments i build to build form in appreciation, saying get up, enjoy the sun rays breaching clouds just before dawn; gett off yo butt and do what you know what you taught you to do when you were at multiple low points and you promised you, you'd never fall to end, even if you fall again, again, and again, never stall in the middle of  takeoff stop in middle of road, cant press play if you lost remote, might as well get up and do it, crawl, run or walk away when the times calls to brawl dark-inner energy only honorable mentions defend health during dishonorable discharge of nega, into rivers, into blue sky.. bordered by white clouds and linear silver

a safe place, work space, desk clerk sifting day to day thru file cabinets memories in memos in notebook; written relativity explaining how I see, what I think say what i want like im eight, glad i spent so much time with words and space-bars,   to escape judgment, hatred,

anxious surrounded by bad vibes

above an Earth, below expectations; over a self under surveillance by approval from inside, crazy dimensions, On the fence between people and myself I close eyes, ride waves of nostalgia once more..

see plenty light to traverse pathways, walk fer hours, walk like back in younger days, playin, runnin, completely captivated immersed in games played, tv, roller blades, monopoly, scary stories, trampolines

&10thousand songs later, 10million thoughts later, here I am doing what I made me to.

can't wait for the next chance

supplied energy through lines to hidden gracelands.

Ep. 3: “Quite honestly it was a train wreck” - John

Zack M

really disappointed in my tribe right now. 

we are about to some telephone challenge and we needed 3 people to do this. literally excuse after excuse after excuse from everyone on the tribe as to why they couldn't do it .... and we wonder why we are losing. ugh. anyways, i'm going to do this shit with my crappy wifi because i rather act like i'm helping than bow out out of fear. and honestly i want to show that i'm committed to the tribe. it would be fucking beast mode to pull out the first win of the season for us. literally let me be the first to do everything for this tribe.

also my game feels strong so if we lose again lol whatever. 

oh yeah, amy went home. *as we go on, we remember....*

James Hayden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v17lq3Nh054

Aimee

https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/165556484/Screaming-woman-in-car

Zack M

storytelephone confession time: i killed it. at least with the information that made it's way to me. i only missed one question that ben told me. the main reason we got 9.9/10 is because leanne forgot 6 of the 8 animals when telling ben and then we had the 10% disadvantage. i know leanne is to blame for 5% of that. curious about who got the other 5%. but like here's the thing, i love leanne. i feel confident in her loyalty so i'll smile and let that one go. i got her back. ben told me at the end of the challenge that aimee shared with him that i'm "social". so like i guess i have to stop being nice to her. i don't really want her to be the next one eliminated but strike one was how upset she seemed to be with me after telling her the only reason we didn't tell her was because neil threw her name out as someone he was talking to. i really wish she would have listened to me and not messaged everyone. i feel like that put a target on her back. strike two is mentioning my name once. right now she isn't my target but she is on the edge. i don't know who my target is right now tbh. really there's only aimee and najwah that i would consider. i hope we don't get a tribe swap because at this rate, making the merge isn't even a question for me and i'd like to keep it that way. also, ben and i are starting to call each other a power duo. i really would like to make it to the final two with him even though i've promised cody a final two. cody is hilarious but he gives me anxiety. he seems to be losing his cool and going into messy territory. he has too many conversations going which gets him worked up. i need him to focus on what's important. i want someone who i can work with. i'm not trying to babysit. but no plans of cutting that tie until the merge happens and then i will revisit the thought. cool calm and collected. you get like one freak out "what if" moment a day with me and then i'm done. what ifs ... it's what kills people's games. if my 5 alliance would just let me vibe and feel people out we would be perfect. i haven't been wrong yet. *knocks on wood*

Pedro A

i feel like those two tribals were completly different...Neil was voted out for talking too much.....and Amy was voted out for being quiet...and coming late

Ryan

These stupid idols... I feel like im so close every time! Who knows, maybe im way off? I seriously just want, no NEED that extra layer of security, even though I'm feeling alright right now

John B

Another Challenge, another time when our tribe can't seem to make a decision. I totally get why nobody ever wants to step up when it comes to taking charge in a challenge, but honestly I have no clue how we keep winning when the other tribe seems to have no issue making group decisions. There must totally be a Head Honcho over there running things behind the scenes. I have some new juicy details about the tribe now thanks to Pedro. Pedro, Amy-Louisa, and Ryan have started their "outsiders" alliance and this is stressing me out. Pedro says I'm his number one and then goes and makes an alliance without me. I think I'm getting too hung up on Pedro and I being a pair I need to worry about myself and nobody else. Obviously I'm not going to break things off, but I don't really feel like he needs to know everything I'm doing now. At least I think we are in a pretty good position. I am pretty tight with Kalle, Grae, and hopefully Maddison, and He's really tight with Ryan and Amy-Louisa and we both had a good relationship with Alan and Olivia. Between the two of us we are in an ok spot for the time being. If Tyler goes first if we lose, which still feels like the case for now, I am not sure what we are going to do after that, but we will cross that bridge when we get there. I'm going to keep working on my relationships with everyone for now and hopefully I can keep my paranoia in check. WISH ME LUCK YALL!

Alan B

Tyler put a huuuge target on his back by calling the other tribe trash when they've been doing so well, like not only they probably want to get him out asap but now everyone on our team also wants him out? and also he fluked his first challenge? How on earth did he think that comment would do anything but lower his chances at winning and make him look like a jerk to everyone playing? It's honestly kinda hilarious how bad a move that was

Leanne

So, tribal was nice and easy and went as planned, which was a very good thing, albeit with a couple of downsides. The most obvious of these is, we’ve had our easy vote... now what? I seriously do not even have the first inkling of how things are going to go next time we have to have a vote. Either I don’t realize the wind is blowing in a certain direction, which is scary, or there simply aren’t any real targets right now... and I’ll expand on that possibility later. For now let’s talk about another downside. Yesterday afternoon I got a message from Najwah asking if I’d heard the whispers about someone possibly having an idol. I said no, I didn’t know anything, and asked her where she heard it from. She said, one of the guys. Well, which one? That’s when she asked me to video chat. Finally she told me it was Cody who said to her, *we* think someone has the idol. We. I haven’t heard about this from anyone else, and I know Cody and Zach are tight. I hesitate to ask Zach about it. Who would I say I heard it from? I had to drag Cody’s name out of Najwah, and I don’t want to give her up as my source. I don’t think she made it up. Either Zach or Cody or both are stirring something up. I want them separated. I want Cody out but I don’t think I could get enough people together to make it happen, not to mention the fallout if I tried and succeeded, or failed for that matter. The thing is, I don’t know which of the two is instigating this stuff. First it was the weird vote out of the blue, now this. I’m not going to do anything with it for now except sit on it, but I see they are both schemers who came to play. I’d rather have Cody gone because I haven’t spoken to him individually, but he talks to plenty of other people and I don’t like what he’s up to. Zach, at least, has the appearance of being loyal to me. He hasn’t said word one to me about this potential idol. We check in fairly often with each other, how are you feeling, what are you thinking, we still on?, we got this. Like I said I don’t know what to make of this and don’t want to act rashly. The good news is that Najwah and I had a really nice talk, about all sorts of things. I’ve been trying to get personal with her, telling her things about my life, telling her about things like my ex and our relationship then and now. She seems to respond well to things like that, and I’m grateful for the chat because it’s a good way to make a stronger connection. So we talked about the personal life stuff, and also some game talk. She says she isn’t as close to Sarah as I thought she was. Plus we discussed how much to trust Zach and Cody, which is still an open question. And we compared notes on the idol search. We both made the same error and got the disadvantage in the same place. I asked her if the perfume was an advantage and she said yes. So now we know, and we each told people about the perfume so maybe we can increase our odds of winning something, and hopefully we don’t have to spend our own coins to do so. Really the best thing I got out of the conversation was that I feel even stronger about my relationship with Najwah. I think she is trustworthy and we’ve exchanged info completely upfront, at least I think so anyway. Right now she’s my most important ally. Last night, just after tribal, I reached out to James for the first time one on one. His answer caught my eye. I told him I appreciated that he’s willing to fight for us, and then we got to talking. It was mostly a conversation about what it would be like to be on the real show, but we talked about our shared ineptitude when it comes to anything physical, and debated whether or not we wanted to be on for real. Him, Hell yes. Me, 39 days with no food and no sleep, no thank you. But it was a start. A really good start. No game talk yet but at least we’ve got a foundation. The thing I noticed about James from that conversation was that he’s very hard-core about this. I made some comment like, this game is intense, to which he responded, when I got that buff I was in it to win it. He means business. His love for the show is so strong and shines through everything he says. He’s taking this seriously in the extreme. That’s something to watch out for. A quick sidenote about his answer regarding the potential for a swap. The question said there had been talk of it. Talk? What kind of talk? None that I knew about. Something else to consider. Finally, the challenge. I was having such a hard time deciding whether to step up for it or not. For one thing I was just plain terrified about freezing up under the pressure and letting the team down. But I’d like to think I have a decent memory. Najwah even commented about my memory a couple of times prior. And she was urging me to do it for a few minutes before I told the tribe I would. My thinking was, if there’s something down the line that we don’t all have to be in, maybe something with pictures or something that I really suck at, well, I will have already taken my turn and it’s someone else’s. At least if I try this I might have *some* success. Besides, I owe this tribe after I got us part of that disadvantage. But oh wow was it hard and scary! I take reassurance from Jay saying that was one of the better scores she’s seen in this challenge. Still there was so, so so much that I missed. And now that it’s over I fear I may have miscalculated. Remember how earlier I said there doesn’t seem to be any real public targets right now? Yeah... that. If we lose it’s going to be because I dropped the ball. So either we win and I am the big hero, which doesn’t hold much weight as we saw with Neil, or I lose and there is one clear culprit for the loss. Nice going Leanne.

Zack M

welp. it's happened. someone has sent a message to the wrong group. my literal nightmare. 

leanne: That’s what I’m thinking. I’m just deciding whether I want to use up all my coins that way, especially when I don’t know how to get more. najwah: ya sure 

LOLOLOLOL what? look i know leanne and najwah are close so this isn't a surprise. also, leanne is the reason for our disadvantage so she is obviously out hunting for the idol. just something to keep in mind when it comes to voting out leanne or najwah. definitely going to have to split the votes in the chance one of them has an idol. nothing exciting is really happening today. this is low key why i like losing. it keeps people on their toes and active. when they are active they don't have time to think. less thinking = more time for zack on this island. 

Zack M

this is a post to just to shout out najwah. it's so fucking nice when someone is like i'm available to talk to you about real life stuff and not just game. i love having open honest conversations about feelings. i do feel a little bad saying how much i want to work with her and leanne. it's not a lie but like i have a majority 5 alliance going with 3 choices to vote out and i think those 3 are talking. who am i supposed to say? i refuse to be the first one caught throwing an alliance members name out.

Kalle N

WE FINALLY LOST AND I'M SO HAPPY!! I'm excited for people to start throwing out names, although Tyler seems to be on everyone's chopping block from what I've heard so far. This should be exciting

Amy A

We lost the challenge and I KNOW it was my fault. I didn’t remember half of the stuff Jay told me. Urgh I feel so terrible for my tribe. Fingers crossed I don’t leave the game first.

Cody A.

Hey all!!! I am happier than a white girl at Starbucks in UGGS. I’m so pumped we FINALLY won immunity!!! 🤩🤩🤩 That being said... I’m kinda sad we won’t get to vote Leanne’s ass off tonight. LMAO. But if we’re being honest.. I think she might have the idol anyways, and Aimee would have taken the hit 😭 which is sad. I like aimee. I REALLY like Amy, but we saw how that worked out. Anyways.. I’m thankful we’re not losing another number, with a tribe swap looming, that could have been bad! BTW, I do like Leanne, quite a lot actually, but the girl literally has not had a single conversation with me. Amy missed half the game and still found time to talk to me about her badass hair and struggles with relocating! I guess I should try and end this confession now, TTYL. 

Pedro A

we LOST...and i kinda feel like me and jonh are kinda running this tribe....i hope a swap doesn't screw us over

Pedro A

Tyler is the name that everyone came up with ..hes rubbing people the wrong way 

Olivia A

I was disappointed about losing our first challenge but I feel better because everyone seems settled on voting for Tyler. The message he sent after the other tribe lost for the 2nd time seemed to rub everyone the wrong way. I think it’ll be an easy vote. 

John B

That challenge was rough, honestly I was crying laughing the entire time. Quite honestly it was a train wreck. Im not going to say it was Amy but like.. It wasn't not Amy. I'm not going to throw her under the bus though. Luckily I have my new core four alliance. My dream alliance of me, Pedro, Grae, and Maddison. I am super close with Kalle and Pedro has the outsiders and we both have Olivia. I am cautiously optimistic that this can be an easy vote for Tyler. We will see what happens though.

Zack M

we won! huge shout out to leanne + ben. #teamwork look at god. i'm so glad i was a part of the first win for our team. 11 to 4.5 lol whatt?!? (i don't count the disadvantage because i am not responsible for that) it's been too silent today and i feel like my alliance members are starting to get annoyed with me because i'm may be spiraling a little bit but honestly i've proven myself to be a threat. this isn't for no reason. in this game + real life .... give me validation and i'll shut up. it doesn't have to be the truth.

James Hayden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpw07_jlqxQ&feature=youtu.be

Aimee

https://elysiankardia.tumblr.com/post/623755743585255424 This is what I will be doing tonight after that INSANE WIN! Love these legends getting it done 👑 👑 👑 It was great getting to video chat with Ben and Cody! It finally felt like we had camp life in the game instead of just challenges and tribal. Right now with the bonds I have formed at this point in the game... I am working closest with Najwah and Ben. They are my ride or dies! 💞💖 I trust them to the moon🌙 and back. We really needed this win and I’m so happy Leanne, Ben and Zack were able to pull this through! We all needed a night off. https://64.media.tumblr.com/908f7a445a41c1e3b6c3c0fd4820ebfe/a53f344a539857da-cb/s540x810/80e7cf8f5ad8a99a80784a359c7f03d683aa3efe.gifv

Pedro A

tonight is our first tribal council....Tyler will probably go home...i hope this is the last time we go to tribal....cause after this vote...idk who will be eliminated from our tribe

Sarah

The plan is to vote out Neil tonight and cause a blindside. Everyone is on the same page tonight about not trusting him so I am confident that the plan will go through but also scared as heck. 

Kalle N

So far everything has been relatively quiet and simple which terrifies me. Either this will be a 9-1 vote against Tyler, or there are things happening that I'm not involved in... I just have to trust the people I'm talking to and hope it's not me going home I guess. I'm like 75% sure it'll be Tyler that leaves tonight though. 

Zack M

i really don't like days off. low key wish someone else would have done the challenge so we could have lost. i get paranoid everyone isn't actually taking today off. cody also shared that najwah and aimee are close so i hope najwah doesn't share that i mentioned aimee because that's bad news for me. should we have kept amy t? ugh. 

Maddison

Inevitably our tribe is attending tribal tonight. This seems to be a comprehensive easy vote, but there is never an easy vote in Survivor. Hopefully an idol doesn’t come into play and shock us all. Alliances have definitely been formed and the game is well underway. I have to remember that everyone is playing, regardless of their outward threat level. 

John B

Well, we are quickly approaching the first tribal council and I think things are pretty set in stone at this point. Unless I am being completely bamboozled which will make me cry. This vote is going to be too easy which is going to mean trouble for the rest of the votes after this, everybody is getting along too well so if we go to tribal again after this, lines are going to have to be drawn in the sand. I am getting worried about Pedro, I think he may start to become a bit of a liability. He is too nervous for literally everything which is making it impossible to make plans for down the line. He was saying he was wanting to vote out Maddison and I'm like would it be so hard to just vote out someone we aren't in an alliance with?... like... hello?? Alan may be a good next vote because we know they have the idol, on the other hand, them having the idol could come in handy down the line. I think if we lose again before a swap or something Olivia or Alan may be a good plan. I still do not trust Ryan at all, I really don't think he likes me and I am putting in the effort here. If we can bring the "outsider alliance" in with the core four, we would have a solid six that I think would take us far in the game, I am just worried that Pedro is going to start something I don't want to do. Hopefully we can get through this first vote and get back on a winning streak 

Ben Kessler

Baba booey! I helped win the challenge for our tribe, so you can just call me Joe Anglim. On a serious note, Zack is very paranoid about people throwing his name out, which I like because it makes him feel like we are close. I would like to vote Leanne out because it looks like she has connections I do not have. Leanne definitely worries me that she has an idol. Just need to keep tabs on everyone and make sure my name isn't thrown out. SarahI found the hidden immunity idol! Yesterday was the first time that I went hunting. I had been told information about the idol hunt through Cody and when he told me what was in the clothes and antique store I had this gut feeling that the idol was in the jewelry box. I had gotten 10 coins yesterday from searching the boat and then I got 5 from Cody and 5 from James, my closest allies, so I was able to buy the jewelry box today. I have spoken with Zack about wanting to share coins in order to get it. I plan on telling Cody because he is my number one and ride or die. I haven’t decided if I am going to tell anyone else or make it known to my alliance. I do feel better knowing that no one else has the idol, and I do not plan on using it anytime soon. This is such a crazy game aishshfbrhe

Najwah

I'm so happy we finally won a damn challenge! So basically Leanne and I had a long video call and we were discussing our advantages and disadvantages etc. In finding the immunity idol. She then accidentally sent a message in the main group lmao. Luckily only Cody and Zack so it so we used that to our advantage and told them where to go when they land in town. Thing is, they gave us no info back? So now we are idol hunting on the places they've been to chacke whether we can actually trust them coz we'd like to work with them. I love Zack as a person but I think he's dangerous as a player. I haven't connected with him as I have with Cody. Trying to connect with Aimee but she seems to keep us all at a distance. We have to go through a crazy winning streak now bc I am not in the mood for my trials. Fes great to have the evening off. Two evenings off actually. Its shark week so that's perfect. I

Najwah

I need to reconnect with Sarah. We haven't spoken much since Day 1. I know Cody talks to her. The only problem I have is that Leanne would like Cody out of the game solely because he's close with me and close with Zack. I'll do everything in my power to protect Cody though. I do feel as though he has loose lips and tells Zack everything which is a liability. Zack has the ability to win this game. He's smart and he has a ruthlessness about him. I'm definitely weary about him. I'll be watching him. He says we can trust him but idk. We will see. Pedro AIf tyler plays an idol...i have no ideia who he will write down Pedro A3 hours till tribal ...and im scared if tyler has an idol

Grae G

I formed a tight alliance w John Pedro and Maddison. I’m still working w the girls and actually like them more but it’s clear John and Pedro are very much in control and I’d love for them to continue believing it. Tyler is gonna be the first to go, just because he didn’t quite fit with the group vibe. Which sucks but you know it happens! No hard feelings if you’re reading this Tyler. Hey it could be me tonight you never know. Its still early yet in this and I’m trying to play a low key game and if it bites me later than so be it lol I honestly don’t have much time between work and life to put more time into it then I am. I think it’ll be basically everyone voting against Tyler maybe a few stragglers but I’m really expecting full majority. If anyone has an idol as of now I’m absolutely shocked and don’t think Tyler has one but who knows  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Amy A.

So everyone keeps saying Tyler is being evicted today but the game is scary so you really never know. First tribal for Maola so I’m excited and scared. Fingers crossed it’s NOT me. I hope it’s an easy tribal and tomorrow morning I’m still in this game. 

James Hayden

Today's Day 7. I found 10 coins this morning during my idol hunt. As promised, I gave five to Sarah so she could use them to find the idol. She said she trusts me and is with me 100% and wants to go far in this game together. Clearly, I trust her 100% - or as much as one can in a game like this - and like our odds together. We are also talking about adding a third person from our five. Ben is my pick and she seems on board. From the outside, I don't think we are an obvious trio. I just this move won't bite me in the ass later down the line. God, I hope she's not playing me. If she's, then good on her and she's good at this game. 

Tyler H

Not much happened for me for the past few days during this round, but I still think I’m better then everyone 

Alan B

My confession is that I procrastinated way too long on my confession XD

Ryan

I believe the plan is simple tonight... well, let's find out

July 28, 2020

it’s been over two years since my last entry. so much has changed. to update March 8 2018 me:

you give up on job searching atm until 4/24/18. that’s when you start reaching out to all the promotion companies from kucr. planetary was the other promotion company you remembered besides terrorbird. cirstina was super nice and chill and said they just wrapped internships for the summer but to inquire again for the fall. 

you wait those months while still working at mcdonalds. you get good at it and things are second nature to you. you still have moments where you storm out, but you get better at controlling your temper. 

you check back in august and cristina says there are positions open in the fall. it was pretty easy as they accepted you right away. you do this bat shit crazy thing where you try to balance the two. planetary internship Tuesday Thursday Friday and McDonald’s the rest of the days. you even do opening shift during the weekends (4am-12pm).

you’re mostly quiet during your internship. you participate in riyl’s. you mainly talk to cristina while mailing. you don’t open up much until hayoung joins in november i think. mcdonalds is the same as usual, but your sleep schedule’s FUKED UP.

you hear in december that maria (who worked in publicity) is quitting. cristina encourages you to apply. you talk with adam and the interview tbh goes horribly. not like you didn’t have anything to say, but everything you said was wrong LOL. you also talk to george and ben and they lay out what press does but you dont catch any of that.

christmas office party happens and you drink a lot. you open up a lot to EVERYONE, iNCLUDING BEN about your love life (embarrassing) you’re obviously too drunk to drive home, but you stay over the night with nik and alison (goth bless their souls)

you check in with adam on the position occasionally until feb. 2019 when he breaks the bad news. the position’s filled. like how can you be surprised? but you’re still upset. you’re able to turn this as a positive to use your experiences to boost your resume.

you continue to work at mcdonalds and interview at places until you get a random email from adam exactly one year after you first emailed cristina about the internship. adam offers you the job. ofc you accept. you quit mcdonalds and start with planetary on may 1.

learning publicity is one hell of a learning curve. heck, you’re still learning how to do shit even now. but you’re thrown on the deep end with Luna. not your fault. not totally kristen’s fault. but that was a crazy client. 

anyways, your sleep schedule’s still fucked up because of your commute. but at least you have free weekends now! 

some highlights of 2019: you finally get a macbook! but you have a galaxy s9 as a phone lmfao. placements in The Line of Best Fit and Paste! you get absolutely entranced with warehouse raves. you literally go to at least once a month. falling in love with queen of jeans and linking up with their publicist Jamie Coletta (she’s super cool and the best at the game), going on two (2) dates with a really nice girl named sara. you got in your head and probably fucked that up. but it really wasn’t the time. christmas party 2019. same shenanigans but this time you don’t drink as much. you really look for places to move out to with ryan and he finds a house that angeli and linda live. two people are moving out and the rooms go for $500 and $600. you get the $500 room and are set to move in on Feb 16 2020. news of a disease called coronavirus is first detected in china. this will be important later.

oh 2020. what a shite year. if i told myself the things i’ll write down below i would not believe it. but here it is. everything that has happened so far in 2020:

first cases of coronavirus appear in washington on january. you’re not too concerned about it. 

you’re working this country artist aminah hughes and land a placement in american songwriter for January 31 (1st time!). there are some issues and they post it one day later, but you weren’t as attentive as you should’ve been over the weekend.

adam talks to you about it the following monday (2/3) in a really calm matter but you beat yourself up over it. so much so that on your way home, you totally don’t notice a pedestrian crossing galloping hills and eucalyptus and run them over. everything feels like a blur, but you’re able to talk to the police, karen, and kimberly (state farm) about it. you take tuesday-thursday off.

you move in (night before you saw bored lord and octo octa until 3am wtf). you don’t have a car (for obvious reasons), but you’re able to commute to work via bus/subway (which you would’ve done anyway cause you love public transportation lol)

you’re able to return to normal life mostly until middle march. cases of the newly named COVID-19 have spread throughout the united states and you hear of workspaces transitioning over to work from home operations. planetary soon follows suit. our last day in the office is march 13.

literally the week after you start wfh animal crossing new horizons comes out. that keeps you busy for like two, three months tops. it’s also a nice way to keep in touch with friends. 

your first therapy session happens on march 31. you’re able to talk about the accident, but it’s quickly directed to self-esteem. it’s an ongoing process, but you’re slowly advancing. it’s not linear, but it’s better than doing nothing.

Bandcamp establishes “Bandcamp Day”, 24 hour periods in which the site’s share of profits go directly to artists/labels. Started in April, will continue through the end of 2020. All the money I would normally spend on concerts goes here now. That and I fall to the hands of food delivery apps (door dash wins)

your campaign with Atta Boy gets going. first track premieres at Atwood Magazine (2nd time! [1st time was with sophia st. helen, another awesome client]). band’s super happy about it (even mr. josh brolin himself gave a shout out [bias ofc]). by the end of may you land their second single on THE MOTHERFUCKING FADER (1ST TIME OBVIOUSLY). 

everything else is going surprisingly well for the most part (except for elp, but i don’t wanna talk about those fucking idiots) despite the ever-changing landscape of music journalism. huge blogs are letting people go while smaller sites are remaining mostly the same. 

On May 25, George Floyd is murdered by Minneapolis police which sparks the biggest wave of activity in the Black Lives Matter movement since Michael Brown’s death in 2014. organizing/activism is still going on to this day (7/28). 

For me personally, I’m making a conscious effort to highlight Black artists on my Bandcamp days and general sharing of music. I also joined a book club (6/18) and read “Are Prisons Obsolete” in its entirety. We’re currently reading a comic series called Bitch Planet. Deep and meaningful conversations.

the family hears news of Lola’s declining health. June 23rd (Manila time) is the day she passes away. We’re all able to say our last goodbyes via facebook video call. this is the first time i see my dad cry.

funeral takes place on june 27th. we’re able to partake in the ceremony via zoom. the first and only funeral i “attended” online (so far).

I start “fixing” myself physically. I went to physical therapy from 6/8-7/7. the exercises do wonders to my knees (ty dr. bailey!). also saw a dermatologist on 7/10. really quick appt. kinda felt rushed imo, but i was given a special sunscreen that works so far? also recommended otc meds like claritin.

ended campaign with atta boy. really sad to see them go. currently coordinating with their new managers on a possible podcast and press setup. 

and that’s pretty much it! it’s a lot of shit, i know, but it happened all within 2 years. overall i’d say we were pretty successful in finding a big-girl job and MOVING OUT, WHICH I THOUGHT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN LMFAO. as for the shit you were hung up on with angelica, you’re so much better now, but you think about the good memories from time to time. sometimes it gets you down, but you’re thankful for the memories (come through fallout boy LMFAO AHAHA FALLOUT AMIRIGHT) and you learned from your mistakes. maybe it will be another two years before i leave another update, might be less, might be more. 

but i’m extremely proud at how far i’ve come.

im proud of you, me.

many many highlights from The Crystal Kingdom from a first-time TAZ listener

featuring some bits from the Lunar Interlude II: Internal Affairs

travis: “it was streaming on witch. that’s like magical twitch!”

SWEET ANGO HAS RETURNED!

i cannot believe griffin went to the EFFORT of making a fantasy costco jingle

the lockpicking garden gnome called the Nitpicker that insults the damn party is a beyond brilliant object for sale at the fantasy costco

I really want to lodge a complaint with the HR department of the bureau of balance on sweet angus macdonald’s behalf bc these grown men are FULL ON BULLYING THIS TEN YEAR OLD BOY GENIUS

so is this new shitty scientist consultant lucas a bigger annoyance than shitty train butler wizard jenkins or does jenkins still retain that title

travis: "anything this touches turns to crystal?" griffin: "yeah, pink tourmaline" travis: "yeah, I'm not gonna say that, because I'm an adult"

CAREY FANGBATTLE is like on par with Jess the Beheader in terms of Cool Names

griffin: “so the three of you are currently sitting in a gondola, which is another word for a little boat” travis, singing: “the more you knoooowww”

“so it’s made of crystal, right?” “yes, everything is crystal” x1000000

the crystal kingdom song is beautiful

griffin: “you see a sign that says The Magical World Of Elevators” justin: “griffin's really stickin it to the people who say he's not allowed to have elevators in this game”

today in failed brand marketing: “Upsy, your lifting friend”

this arc is ACTUALLY set up like a video game level puzzle, when griffin says “ah, you’ve solved my crystal puzzle” it will actually apply

clint: “I rolled a 4 but I get another roll...a 5″ travis: “wow, you're really bad at dnd”

merle: “I'm gonna use Banishment on the cockroach” griffin: “okay, you're just gonna yell GET OUT OF HERE COCKROACH, I DONT LOVE YOU ANYMORE”

magnus is being fucking mean to lucas, the genius inventor, and he’s been a TOTAL DICK to sweet boy genius detective angus macdonald, and i feel like pointing out that he was WAYYY nicer to shitty evil wizard train butler jenkins who beheaded a guy with a teleportation door

griffin: “one of the signs is labeled Radiation Ventilation Maintenance Chamber, and the other is labeled Lil Genius BuddyBot R&D" travis: "I feel like this is a trick” clint: “I feel like griffin has been playing Fallout”

I LOVE HODGE PODGE THE LIL GENIUS BUDDYBOT!!! EVEN IF HE TURNS OUT TO BE EVIL, THE SOUND OF HIS VOICE MADE ME LOVE HIM PRETTY INSTANTLY AND NOTHING CAN CHANGE THAT

hodge podge: “magnus! merle! take-o” goddamnit griffin

justin: “can we just put the stone of far speech in front of the robit and griffin, you can just talk to yourself?”

hodge podge is exactly the kind of unsettling demon robit with a mostly-adorable voice, except for when he goes demon-y, that I expected from griffy

justin: “my character taako has innate skills in: investigation, nature, history, religion, arcana, and religion” so is he double good at religion then

taako: “okay, I got a question for you: who....do we work for?”

lucas: “hey, are you just mean to everyone?” THANK GOD SOMEONE VOICED THIS LEGITIMATE FUCKING CONCERN, THE GRUBBY GRIFTERS ARE MONSTERS

clint: “I look up what scrumbled means” griffin: “justin said that in a Monster Factory once and I’ve been using it like it’s a real word” justin: “I am the lewis carroll of my generation”

noel the friendly medic robit’s voice started at vaguely-angus like and then became straight up country southern and i really hope somebody calls griffin on it

i really think griffin introduced the nitpicker so he could have a way of introducing his own critiques of his dad and brothers’ dnd skills

the little compact mirror has some shit in it that i think must be important

there’s a rift in space and time and pink tourmaline is coming out of it and the damn song is super ominous and making me MEGA NERVOUS and honestly i don’t know what the flying goddamn fuck is happening but i am SO INTO IT

lucas: “you’re just yelling hugbears at me” magnus: “BUG! HEARS!” “what” “what”

so is lucas just like holding these poor bugbears in fucking slavery

the grubby grifters discover the tourmalined body of boyland and magnus asked if he can DESECRATE THE GODDAMN BODY OF HIS TRAGICALLY DECEASED COWORKER

griffin: “these two figures are just taking these ice robits to Fool School”

awww they’re gonna fight one of my favorite little creepy crawlies! human sized tardigrades that will absolutely fuck their shit up!!! so cute

griffin: “you’re so loosey-goosey with your possessions! ‘hi scuddle-buddy! bye scuddle-buddy! go get on that train to hell!’”

clint/merle’s immediate panic when they decide the only option here is to CHOP HIS GODDAMN ARM OFF

killian, after picking lucas up: “THIS HAS BEEN THE WORST SHITTIEST DAY EVER, WE ARE TWO PEOPLE DOWN, YOUR LAB SUCKS!!” #relatable, I feel u killian

during this arc the mcelboys keep talking about how they don’t remember shit from the beginning of the show bc that was two years ago and im like what? what? that was three days ago, friends!! its bc ive binged this shit in under a WEEK

merle basically has a plant fetish okay, that’s the only reason this soul-wood shit worked

griffin: “it actually curls up and gives you a thumbs up as if to say 'hey! I'm your arm now!’”

so like this planar system shit is probably important, right

this parseltongue motherfucker that’s like fucking haunting the grubby grifters needs to start explaining what their whole, like, DEAL is

this Red Robe dude is having a FREAKOUT over the damn umbrella and im like mmmmm maybe taako shouldn’t have just taken the damn umbrella, no questions asked

killian’s scanner is having a major freakout over a lich being present and im like, yeah, its the fucking umbrella, yall

oh, real quick, the mcelboys gotta pause the action to whine at each other about character voices

killian: “I am going to ABSOLUTELY murder that man” yeah, killian remains the most goddamn relatable npc in this fucking world

i sure hope The Adventure Zone Zone doesn’t have any super important info in it, bc im not gonna listen to the mcelboys talk about the maxfun drive from two fucking years ago

the crystal golem just called the grubby grifters bounties, and said it was time for noelle the friendly medic robit and the grubby grifters to all go back to the astral plane and im like WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? GRIFFIN! WHAT?

OH FUCK ITS BEEN KRAVITZ THIS WHOLE GODDAMN TIME!!!!! KRAVITZ!!!!!

griffin: “a D6 is like a dice-ass-dice! that's like some monopoly shit!!”

kravitz: “i don’t even know how that even worked, like with physics”

taako: “luke! use the fork!” merle: “the fork will be with you, always”

magnus: “I want to roll an investigation check on noelle...I rolled a 2″ griffin: “okay well you know noelle is a robot”

YALL!! SHITTY TRAIN BUTLER WIZARD JENKINS AND MAGIC BRIAN THE GERMAN MORON BOTH CAME BACK!!

magic brian the german dumbass: “i had an invitation to my wedding for you, and instead of RSVP-ing, you murdered me!”

travis: “when you say they evaporate, do they go back to heaven or hell or the after plane, or whatever, or are they GONE?” griffin: “it kinda seems like you obliterated their soul. kinda seems like you just kinda ERASED them” travis: “you know, at the end of day, I punch people, but dad unmakes their existence, who's the real monster?”

the fact that noelle died in phandolin when the grubby grifters and gundren rockseeker turned the whole town to glass is so goddamn fucking tragic, THANKS GRIFFIN!!!!

lucas miller: yet more proof that dickin around with science and magic and mad scientist shit is always gonna end badly for everyone

kravitz: “taako, you’ve died eight times”...[...]..”magnus, you’ve died 19 times”...[...]...”merle highchurch, the richest bounty i have ever hunted, you have died 57 times” WHAT?? WHAT? WHAT???? WHAT???? GRIFFIN!!??? WHAT????

THIS STORYLINE IS LIT

griffin: “a legion of ghosts” justin: “great”

i think both griffin and I have forgotten that carey fangbattle and killian are in this scene. also merle has had a soul-bond wood arm this whole time

the grubby grifters beat a goddamn LEGION of ghost robits, or ghrobits, and then kravitz slides back into the scene all like “uh, hey, assholes, thanks for saving me, I’ll make up some legal loophole bullshit to thank you” that’s not a direct quote, that’s me editorializing. i fucking love kravitz

taako: "they found new bodies, just because they're mechanical doesn't mean the life is any less valid - battlestar galactica"

oh fuck magnus got a cheating deck of cards in like episode goddamn THREE and he just whips em out in episode fucking 39 against kravitz

kravitz, massively misunderstanding the assholes he’s talking to: “the rules of nature are there for a reason, so lets just stop running afoul of them, as if this all just funsy-fun make-believe!”

magnus: “kravitz! tell julia I love her” TRAVIS!!!! TRAVIS MCELROY! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO MY HEART!!!

lucas: “you'll never see me again, but if you do, i'll be doing good, and please don't kill me instantly”

justin: “i give angus a thumbs down” motherfuckers

killian: “hell yes! I love this plan! me and carey, and a robot ghost with a gun arm! sounds like a plan!” magnus: “sounds like a spinoff!” killian: “that’s sounds like some torchwood shit!”

davenport the goddamn pokemon

on one hand, I’m really goddamn suspicious that the director isn’t actually destroying the relics but is collecting them for her own gain. but on the other hand, if this turns out to not be true, I will feel bad for suspecting her so hard

taako: “director, here’s the truth. what did you have for lunch on Dec 3 2015? you don’t remember right? that’s when you told us not to talk to the Red Robes. what’s I’m saying is WE FORGOT!”

YOOO THIS EPILOGUE PROPHECY IS SOOOOOOO COOOOOL GRIFFIN!!! WHAT IS THIS!!!! ITS SO GOOD!!!!!!

this was a wild wild wild wild ride and whatever griffin is doing with this story is LIT

hello it’s time for Whine Time ™ (kind of private maybe dont read, its just me bitching about some stuff but if you have dealt with the gross/ugly sides of depression or anxiety and you genuinely feel you have advice that might help go ahead. but i promise this isn’t anything juicy or interesting, it just felt good to vent while i waited for my homework to upload)

so ive been having some shitty fallouts after i came home and returned to school after surgery. i had tried to plan ahead (i did all my homework ahead of time, made sure i stayed in touch with teachers, got extensions, etc). but the recovery was a whole week more than it was supposed to be and i spent that week lazing around and playing games when i could have been catching up

ive been so freaked out about everything that ive completely fallen off the radar. i feel like im faking all of this and everyones going to find out that im not smart or organized or happy when they see me fail. im supposed to graduate in may and my mom wants to have a party, and she said she’d do all the planning, but every ten minutes is an email or a text demanding i drop everything and help. i tried saying i cant and she didnt even adknowledge it. i have so many projects due and appointments with doctors and i have already made a commitment to return to work tomorrow. i cant leave work again (i was gone for 2 weeks and theyre slammed, understaffed, its only a 2 hour shift etc)

my life has fallen apart and im doing stuff ive never done when im depressed. my room is full of food garbage and its starting to smell. my bed is covered in clothes but i dont even know whats clean or dirty. i dont sleep because i get so anxious and guilty that im not doing homework or working on something. my floor is a mess and i cant even make myself take care of my body. i havent brushed my hair in almost 3 days. i wear the same jeans, hoodie, and shoes every day because i cant take time to care. i cant even eat. i have been drinking meal replacement shakes and eating toast. sometimes i can eat small things or soft things, like nuts and jello. my body feels terrible but taking time to cook or even sit down and eat feels like im being lazy

my boyfriend says to just chill out and everything will be okay. but if i relax i feel worse - chilling out wont help. ill be so freaked out the whole time that i wont actually be relaxing or taking a break, just laying still and mentally planning all the ways i can cram all my obligations into my long day. i do it every night until i fall asleep, if i even manage to. then im so tired the next day that im afraid people will notice im not happy or confident or put together like they all say i am, and im gonna let them all down and make them all mad when they find out im not good at anything at all

i dont even know where to start. cleaning my room takes time i could spend on homework. eating takes too much time also, and i dont even feel hungry anyway. my stomach hurts but i dont care enough to pay attention and eventually it goes away. my homework isnt stuff i can bang out in quick succession, but ive been trying. i do a response during my break instead of eating. i read when i walk between classes. i stay up late until i cant think right and then when i try to sleep i just cant relax, so i stay up later and try to get progress done. 

i feel like i set myself up months ago with all these obligations and now im just being torn in every direction by all the expectations around me. 2 semester-long projects due in a few weeks. one semester long paper, and the next section is due tuesday. a semester long 2 day lesson plan that must be completed in extreme detail, due soon. two group projects coming up, but none of us have talked about anything, read anything, or even contacted each other. i had a group teach tonight - i had to make the whole lesson plan (and we were still late to turn it in) all night last night and didnt sleep until 5 something, and then woke up at 630 cause my mom texted me with party stuff again. now i have weekly essays to do, weekly responses, weekly online posts (and now those arne’t just single posts, they’re groups of 11 threads i have to watch videos in, analyze, and respond to. this week it took 6 hours to do them all and i have to do it all again next week). i have to read all of a book on teaching ethic so i can present that in ANOTHER group project in a few weeks. I have to distribute my big fiction piece tomorrow and i already printed it (13 copies, 300 pages total) but i realized i forgot to update it with a title and cant spare the time before class to print new first pages, so i have to stay up tonight and annotate the actual title, cross out the untitled label, and then sit through the critique on monday when everyone says it was unprofressional i didnt have a title and i get marked down

ive missed so much class and work and i can say no to anyone. i feel guilty for everything and i recognize im falling apart and this isnt okay but i cant ask for help, i dont want to, i cant make it happen. i feel like i dont deserve anything and i did this to myself, i chose this. its all gonna fall apart and im the only one to blame.

i dont even know where to start in getting control back. ive never had this kind of breakdown before. everyone keeps saying ‘oh well you had major surgery you have to relax and take it slow’ but they dont understand. they feel bad for me cause they think im someone who deserves a break, but i got 2 weeks to be lazy and do nothing. they all think im on top of everything and that i can manage more time off, but i cant. i cant just step away because if i do i fail everything. i got all A’s last semester and now everyone expects me to do it again, but ill be lucky to graduate. i have a’s right now but its all gonna fall apart soon. stuff is falling through the cracks and im trying to compensate by ignoring other stuff, like food and sleep. but im so afraid ill fumble and lose something more important and ill fail a class and not graduate. i already forgot my advising appointment yesterday because im fucking stupid and was distracted with playing on tumblr between classes

i just cant get the control back. i deserve this and i dont know how to fix it. its my fault and i have to deal with it all

my depression doesnt manifest like this. its always binge-eating and changing my life positively to fight back. but i cant fight this time. i cant eat and i cant sleep. i cant focus and i cant even prioritize all the stuff im juggling

i just dont know what to do any more.