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Follow my progress as I strive to become a better writer, student and all round person. Join me in my journey and consider how it may parallel your own.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Stream of Consciousness

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Why am I here? I don't know. I'm feeling down, and that usually means I'll try to write something, give up and leave it to the purgatory that is my blog's drafts page. Will this one go the same way? Probably.

I'm kind of stuck you see. There are things I want to say, but the people I want to say them to I can't trust with what I want to say, and the ones who I can trust don't have any relevance to what I want to say, making telling them about as helpful as keeping it all bottled up. I don't even have the returning reader count to feel like I'm telling people online things, because of the ridiculous restrictions I placed on myself at the start of this blog. If I break them then I feel like a hypocrite, and if not then I fail to see what can be achieved by this blog that can't be acheived by posting on Facebook.

Do I make a new blog? One I can pour my self indulgent rants into without fear of reprisal? Just keep this one as a posting place for my various non emotive activities? Certainly I like having somewhere to keep all my pokemon posts. That is something that is really special to me right now and I like pretending that I'm sharing it with the world.

But that won't work. you see, I am horribly objective. The moment I feel anything that seems like it might be negative I rationalise it and store it away. It's just automatic now. This often means that whenever I try to write something emotional, fiction or non, I can't. Especially non fiction which tends to be met with the thoughts "Everyone feels like this, you aren't special" or "This is just self righteous teenage BS". This is something of a stumbling block, for someone who a few non pokemon posts ago swore he would be something approaching the literary equivilant of the messiah.

Lots of things are happening in my mind and I can't sort them out without a good long period of self reflection or something, generally something I don't have time for. If everyone is feeling like this, then no wonder the teenage depression rate is so high. Everyone I meet seems to have had some trouble with it at some point or another. Or maybe that's just the crowd I'm drawn towards.

Look at these people. Bastions of misery, all.

Ah, here we go. The self righteous teenager thoughts return. "you haven't suffered" Well of course I fucking haven't. I'm a teenager from a relatively well off family, a family who are comparatively less fucked up than others I have known. Does that make my thoughts any less valid? "Yes." Well fuck you, me. "And no feeling sorry for yourself. You're not allowed to do that either."

I can't even feel guilty, lest I feel guilty for feeling guilty.

I have just noticed my continued use of the word teenager. I suppose that might be a problem. I have been kept back 2 years in order to redo my A Levels. I am stuck in the mindset of an A Level student when by rights I should have moved out a year and a half ago, to go to Godknowswhereingham University, learn the things I want to learn in an environment that will force me to work and think for myself. Then again I wouldn't have met some of the people I met in Bristol, and I honestly think that I am better off for having met them. This isn't sentimentalism. Objective, remember? The people in my old 6th form were so...How to explain it? Churchill was essentially isolated. There was no variety. It was all the same people, the same surroundings, the same convenience store/post office down the road. The same incestuous groups of friends that would end up fucking one another eventually, the same dramas between those friends replaying themselves over and over, becoming more predictable than an Eastenders storyline. The same underage serving pub where everyone met on occasion, and that worked for me. But when I fucked up there and went to CoBC, I realised how much more there was out there. I was the less-ignorant-than-most country boy coming to the big city. It was exciting. There were no boundries. No fence marking out the school boundries. No, this was a college, and I could go where I wanted. Hungry? No 6th form common room cafeteria and their paninis for you, no sir. I could go to Subway, I could go to cafes, I could go to god damned Tesco. Hell, it was an entire year before I even felt the desire to check out the college canteen. Bored? Screw trying to pry the network key from the incompetent IT guys, navigating the school network to get on the internet, before meeting an Orwellian filtering system. No, instead I offer you 3 words my friend:

This symbol was a beacon of hope in a dark and unforgiving world.


There are buildings and businesses devoted to serving you food and hot drinks, while letting you roam the internet to your unfiltered will.

And oh wow, the DRAMAZ. Churchill's isolation meant that any trouble was concentrated into this tiny area, and you simply couldn't escape. I broke up with a girl, and it took 2 weeks of spending my free time in the LRC before I felt comfortable enough going back into the common room, whereupon I would be glared at by teams of girls for a further 2-3 weeks. I know, I broke up with this lovely girl and obviously I was going to be the bad guy for a while. That's fine, you know, that's the formula that has persisted in teen society for years now. But I can't help but feel that if there was more dispersal, then the result would have been less intense. If there are more places to hang out, more different friend groups to hang out with until the heat dies down, then it's easier to handle that kind of thing. I was by no means the worst of it. The best analogy I can use is one of my favourite games, Dorf Fortress (Dwarf Fortress, to the layman). In this you lead a team of dorfs to create and populate a fortress. There is huge depth and such like that there is simply no space to put here. Basically, much like The Game (Oh, grow up), you can be winning, but you cannot win, and there are many many ways to lose. One of these is the dorfan tantrum spiral. The link leads to an example, but in short, something happens to make Dorf A unhappy, he tantrums, and kills Dorf B's cat. This pisses Dorf B off enough have a tantrum, who breaks Dorf C's stuff, who tantrums and punches Dorf D and Dorf A who had just finished his previous tantrum, and both tantrum, etc etc etc. This could be simulated, however in a much less lethal scale, in the Churchill 6th Form Common room. Person A pisses off Person B. In the city Person B could go cool off somewhere else, but in Churchill, there is nowhere else. So Person B is forced to get angrier and angrier until they do something in anger or retaliation, like sleep with someone's boyfriend, pissing of Person A and/or C. This is what I spent 2 years of my life trying to avoid, and one of many reasons why when Churchill is brought up around me I will darken in mood and grumble obsenities. I gained some great friends at Churchill, ones that I wish I talked to more, and hope they know how much they still mean to me. But there was a lot of shit at Churchill that looking back from this new perspective I don't want to get into, and really want to forget.

I have deviated from the main point somewhat, and I'm not sure I can find my way back. I'm not even sure there was a main point to begin with. This has been something of a stream-of-consciousness post that I think I shall put an end to here. I won't spellcheck. You can read it in it's original sleep deprived form. Maybe I'll put some pictures in. Please, do tell me if this is a posting style that you would like to see more of.

Night.

P.S. There shouldn't be anything in this post to offend anyone. If there is, it's probably just poor phrasing brought on by the fact that I am still awake at roughly 3 in the morning.
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Saturday, January 1, 2011

32nd December

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0038 James: "Holy shit! there's Relentless!"

0054 Tom: "The less time between having sex, the laster you long."

0058 Oscar: "I'm so good I don't masturbate, I Master-bate."

0138 James: "We've had a colorful past."
Char (To Oscar): "I didn't know you slept with a black man!"

0234 Tom: "I can't dance for shit."
Oscar: "I can't shit for dance."

0248: Tom: "Is Dave under the table?"
Ellie: "That's what I've been thinking for the last half hour."

0255 James: Everybody get on the floor. Walk the dinosaur.



1130 Ellie: "What day is it?"
Char: "32nd December."
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Saturday, December 18, 2010

Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures - Episode 7-10

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 Another bunch of PTA recordings. Things are really starting to get moving now. My PCs can rest assured in the fact that there is in fact a plot and it is incoming. Ask me about cross classing!

For my players, Mystic Update PHB


Episode 7 (45:05)
In which our heroes are attacked by a Scyther. It takes Dave out from the beginning, slicing into his arm, leaving the others to fend for themselves. Yuki does so by running away again. At the end of a climactic battle filled with fire and blood, Bonsai throws a pokeball! And fails. Dave passes out from the sheer excitement of it all. Persuading others not to attack, and with Casey's pokemon enduring a fearsome blow, Bonsai tries again, and succeeds! All rejoice! Or not, as Casey points out that they don't actually get the XP if the pokemon is caught.

Episode 8 (57:56)
In which our heroes are still buzzing from their battle. Casey calls their old friend Youngster Shelly, not realising, given the dence forest that it is in fact the middle of the night.They swiftly escape the research place, and are attacked by crickets! Dave incurs the wrath of the gods as he is assaulted by a powerful Noctowl, and after long last, the group reaches Pewter.

Episode 9 (FT:FY)
In which I guess I caught a Missingno because the recording is corrupted as fuck. I have taken out the worst of it, and there is a lot of content left, albeit with sudden jumps in dialogue, but really I only bothered with it for the sense of completion in my music library. Scratch that. It actually seems to have been replaced with episode 8. Suffice it to say I am pissed. The fuck. Off.

In short, the group wake up, and challenge the gym. Bonsai and Patrick gain badges, while Dave wisely forgoes battling for now on account of his only having Bird types. He subsequently takes a quick trip to the Pewter Battlegrounds.

Episode 10 (46:20)
In which our heroes earn money in the tried and true method of trainers everywhere. Gambling on the outcome of fights. This should really be Episode 9.5 but I thought it would be nicer to end the year on 10.

Finally, as something of a christmas present, I present to you a collection of the best clips from the recordings so far.

Protected by this painfully adorable Vulpix
How is it holding that cookie? I don't know and I don't care.



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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Digital Love

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"What are you doing?"
"Just working on Pewter City for my RP PCs
"Right. Cool..."
"What's wrong?"
"Hm? Oh, nothing."
"Hey now, don't be like that."
"Like what?"
"You're upset about something. Come on, you can tell me."
"...I just feel like you don't appreciate me."
"Hey now, don't talk nonsense. I love you."
"I know, I just...I know I'm being selfish, but I don't feel like you love me 'enough'. I've seen you with that Apple slut. I've seen the look in your eyes."
"Look? What look? Me and MacBook are over. Through. She's out getting all manner of viruses from my sister."
"But when you were with her...did you love her more than me?"
"That...it's not that simple."
"Yes or no!"
"It was a different time. I'm not that person any more. I've grown. Learnt to like less childish computers. More complex, interesting."
"You had to 'learn' to like me?"
"You know that's not what I meant. I had to work to get you to work with me. You are so much more to me, emotionally, than her. I have grown through you. She was easy. Just a piece of eye candy. I may have tricked myself into thinking I loved her, but it was a farce. You are the one for me."
"Until the next model..."
"I can't tell the future. It's unfair of you to ask me to. I can't promise you tomorrow, but I can promise you today. Please tell me that that is enough for you."
"I just don't know."
"Ok. You're upset. I understand, and you have every right to be. But just remember that I'm here for you."
"I know. I'll be ok. Just give me a little time."
"Sure. Then, do you want to watch A Bit Of Fry and Laurie?"
"I'd...I'd like that."

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