#howdoiexplain

[bilyfoster]

Ma wanted to go shopping today... of all days... to a makeup store... and now she’s asking me questions and I have to explain I’m not ‘that kinda gay’... #backstageBily #bilySelfie #howdoiexplain #iDontKnowWhatThatIs #iStillDontKnowWhatThatisMa (at Ulta Beauty) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6dyaAAnsPE/?igshid=1wtif37rr63du

[ellediablo98]

I’m just an American trying hard not to seem like an American, you dig? #USA #wedoalotofweirdthings #andnooneknowswhy #Americans #howdoiexplain #internationalfriends

[howdoiexplain]

Just saw a picture posted by one of my friends (that my group has known for under a year) with 4 of my other friends at a party at another friend’s house, and she’s done this before and I keep wondering what the fuck I did wrong to upset her that I don’t get invited to her parties and I fucking hate missing shit like this because I do it all the time bc of my anxiety so it feels like triple shit when somebody doesn’t invite me and I just want to cry and stop thinking about it

[howdoiexplain]

Slam Dunk Midlands 2016

This’ll be a long one

So, here’s a review of sorts

Organisation - Very Mixed

The email I received telling me I had to pick up my ticket from the box office (which other people apparently got) was wrong, we had to go to a totally different building to get our tickets. The venue wasn't quite right for the style of the festival. There were a couple of choke points between the main buildings that made getting to a couple of the stages incredibly difficult and time consuming.

The people who had their tickets delivered had to go through 2 bag searches for some reason, and in the entry queue, they separated all the girls who weren't with guys into a separate queue about 1/8 the size of the normal one, and I just have no idea why.

The stage timings were excellent. Moose Blood had a technical issue and were a couple of minutes late to start, New Found Glory were about 3 minutes late, and the announcer for The King Blues spent 5 minutes hyping them up so they started late too, but the times were kept much, much better than most festivals, or even just normal shows, that I've been to.

Food - Meh

I didn't eat much. What I had was, unsurprisingly, overpriced and average quality. There were vendors for 3 different brands of hot dogs though, so there’s that.

Bands

Moose Blood - Fantastic as always. They played their newly revealed single, which was excellent. I'm surprised they didn't play Cherry, and a tad disappointed that Pups was chosen instead, but the atmosphere was great and the set was still excellent.

Gnarwolves - Great. I'd completely forgotten how good they are live, and they reminded me I really need to go back and listen to their self titled LP again. Excellent, and the fans were really up for it.

Real Friends - Really good. I forgot that they were releasing an album until they mentioned that they did it on Friday. I lost interest after their first LP didn't catch me as much as their EPs did, but the new songs sound great, and hearing songs from the LP played live made me reconsider how I felt about them. Real Friends are always better live, in my opinion.

Set Your Goals - Good. I like Set Your Goals, but I'm not their biggest fan or anything. I like their music, but don’t know many of their songs. I did get to hear my favourite SYG song, Certain, played live, though. I didn't think I would because it's from their poorly received LP, Burning At Both Ends; so that was cool.

Creeper - Great. I saw Creeper in Southampton a while ago, and I talked to their drummer a bit (without realising who he was) about Moose Blood, who were the headliners that night. I was looking forward to seeing them actually knowing some of their songs, and I wasn't disappointed. They have a really strong cult following. The worst thing was that they've put out 2 more EPs since I saw them, literally trebling their catalogue. I think I need to catch up before I see them again.

New Found Glory - Good. I've wanted to see NFG for a while, so it was nice to get the chance. An entire massive room singing My Friends Over You was pretty amazing, and they played all the hits I expected and wanted to hear, as well as their cover of Kiss Me, which was a little unexpected but not unwanted.

The King Blues - FUCKING SICK. I've wanted to be able to see TKB since before they split up and I'm sad as all hell that Jamie Jazz left so soon after they reformed that I didn't get a proper chance to see him with them, but it was still phenomenal. They played everything I wanted to hear, and more. Itch is an amazing showman, and seeing them live really reaffirmed them as one of my favourite bands, even if Long Live The Struggle wasn't quite as good as their previous albums. I need to get the new EP as soon as I can now. Itch even hung around after the set, as the festival was being packed up, to meet fans, so I got a picture with him and was able to tell him how much I Got Love means to me since it helped me realise that I'm asexual. The perfect way to end the day.

Overall - Wonderful day

I was waiting around for a while waiting for the box office that was never going to open, and I got caught up in a couple of bottlenecks, but those are minor complaints. This is the second festival where I've not been able to see Four Year Strong, my favourite band, because they've clashed with other acts I want to see and haven't seen yet, so they've ended up losing priority. I'll need to catch them at a festival one day, but having them play an acoustic set just for me kind of makes up for it I think. I even managed to finish the last couple of chapters of my book in the gap I had between bands.

[howdoiexplain]

I AM MADE OF SALT RIGHT NOW

So I just had my Analysis exam and it was total shit. I may have missed the entire term but I have been revising and the 3 questions, of which at least 2 have appeared in all of the last 7 papers, (and there are only 4 questions per paper) didn’t show up at all. So I’m salty. I was really good at 1 of them and decent at another, and those 2 showing up would have essentially passed the exam straight out. The third one would have been alright, but the shit we got instead was ridiculous. 5 or 6 fucking edge cases of evaluating limits? Are you shitting me Vesna? I’m seriously mad because I’ve pretty much failed the year at this point; it’ll take a miracle for me to not have outright failed after these exams, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to retake and if I get kicked out of uni then I’m fucked because I can’t even attend my fucking lectures so I’ll never hold down a fucking job this is fucking bullshit depression is bullshit I just want to stop everything I want to be alright I want to not be anymore. It’s starting to feel like it would genuinely be good for me if I got run over by a car and put in a coma for a year or some shit and I know that sounds dumb but it would give me another attempt and more time to try and get my shitty mental illness under control which is essentially what my life is riding on right now, if I could get this shit under control I might be able to be successful.

[howdoiexplain]

So we come to the last week of term. I guess this is a sort of write up of how it’s been for me

It’s been shit, to be honest. I got to 6/12 lectures in the first week and 0 in the 8 or 9 weeks since then (I’ve just lost count of how many weeks it’s been). No coursework handed in, only 1 class test attended. All I can say is I’m glad the exams are 80% of the modules this term. It means I’ll only need 50% in them, rather than 60% or so I’d need last year. It’s still been pretty horrible. I’ve had a load of issues with sleeping and leaving the house and my energy levels.

I had a meeting with Carsten last week because of the lack of any work and also lack of communication with Nansen and the department as a whole. It ended up feeling more like a counselling session. I exaggerated a little, but he seemed understanding and echoed my sentiments that it’s bad, but not desperate.

Aside from uni, the term has been okay. Messaging Lucy on and off, been really consistent D&D sessions with Ryan’s campaign, which is progressing nicely (I crit-killed a dragon with an attack of opportunity a couple of sessions ago), I’ve been going to FNM very regularly since Graham has been doing it pretty much every week. Some very good drafts, some terrible. Got a promo Roast that looks sweet. Got the U/G Precon Commander deck and it’s hilarious, looking to seriously upgrade it before the EDH FNM next weekend back at home for the first time. Missed a few GameSoc meetings, but not too many, and played a massive game of Dead Of Winter at Henry and Michael’s house (that broke my heart in the final turn)

Have a few plans for the holidays. Spam revision so I might actually pass these fucking exams. Already have 1 or 2 game days planned and have a bunch of new games to play: Codenames, ONUV, 7 Wonders + Leaders, Mafia De Cuba. Would be nice to have Mysterium or maybe Sheriff Of Nottingham or something but not looking likely.

Money hasn’t gone well. Staying in means doing less shopping, which means more ordering in which is more money. That’s just what my depression does to me though.

[howdoiexplain]

Please don’t read this

I’m not sure where to start for this. There have been a lot of thoughts floating around in my head this last 7 days, and almost none of it has been good.

So I’ve been watching Critical Role a lot in the past month. I missed out on the early parts of the campaign, but I spent this last month catching up to the livestream, and watched the rebroadcast last week for the first time on stream. 

Now, I’ve been doing shit at uni this year. I’ve missed a lot. A whole lot. I’m stressed, my depression is pretty bad and just in general life is spiralling out of control a little bit.

And so, in the last month, while I’m dealing with that, I’ve been getting more and more into Critical Role. It’s become very important to me. It’s helped me keep it together and not break down completely. So when I heard the news about Orion’s departure, especially given the shady way G&S handled it, I broke down and started crying. For what I think was the second time this year.

It felt like the group, as we know it, was falling apart. Ashley left for work, and now Orion has left (or been kicked out, if you believe certain rumours) and it reminded me of how helpless I’ve been feeling and how out of control I’ve become. Critical Role was so important to me, and it still is, but it feels slightly hollow without Orion.

The other main thing (other than my life falling to pieces in general) on my mind this week has been Lucy. An asexual person I met on tumblr, and we were conversing for a couple of months, and then, nothing. It’s been a little over a month and I haven’t heard back from her. I sent her a couple of messages to ask if she’s okay, but no response.

She hasn’t updated her tumblr either. I’m slightly worried, to be honest. She wasn’t always quick to reply but it wasn’t normally more than a couple of days. I’m not sure if she decided she didn’t want to talk to me anymore and just didn’t tell me, if she gave up on tumblr, again, without telling me, or if something major has happened, like she got in an accident or something.

And to be honest, it’s gotten me down. We didn’t get that close, I mean we were only talking for a couple of months (yes I hear you screaming Katie but let’s not go there), but I didn’t get any feeling that she didn’t like me or hated talking to me. I keep coming back to previous experiences and how I’ve never had the sense that somebody doesn’t want to talk to me until they explicitly state it, at which point I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut and winded.

And, you know, it made me wonder which would feel worse. My current state of not knowing if something terrible has happened to her, or if I found out she was fine and has just been ignoring my messages. It’s a question I’ve asked myself a lot of times in the last 3 or 4 years, and it’s beginning to worry me.

See, this is how all of my relationships end. We talk for a while, I feel like things are going well, and then suddenly, I find out things have been going terribly, or I don’t find out anything at all. One day, I get nothing but silence. I’ve never had a close relationship with anyone. You might count Oli, but I’m not sure we’re close. We’re just comfortable. Aside from that, every person I know, I either see them very infrequently and very rarely talk outside of those meetings, or I talk to them more for a period of less than a year, and then, for whatever reason, it ends.

The only relationship in which the other person didn’t break down communication was Steph, and even then she never texted me, I was always the first to text. In the end she reminded me too much of the Dark Times that I couldn’t keep it up any longer, and she never tried to keep it going either.

I think what I’m trying to get at, and this is something I’ve been coming back to an awful lot this year, is that I have difficulty thinking of people who would miss me, were I to die. Sure, some number of my friends would feel sad at my passing (I hope), but who among them would actively miss me. Who would lie awake at night wondering why I had died so young. Who would it impact. And to be honest, the only people I can think of are my parents.

Now this is sounding a bit like a suicide note, and that’s made me realise I should check in with my doctor, but the point is valid, I think. I’ve spent this year trying to work out who’s lives I have an impact on. It’s a very small number. My parents have to do a lot and endure so much stress to keep me going. My home friends only see me at holidays and I almost never speak to them outside of IRL meetings which aren’t that frequent. My uni friends see me once a month or so, a couple of them see me ~weekly, but again, I don’t have other contact with these people. The people I text are my Mum, my Dad and my mentor.

To be honest, unless it was passed around a lot, I struggle to think of people who would even notice if I died. Honestly, nobody talks to me. If I went out in my car and took some pills, they’d probably call my parents. But then what? My Mum would probably tell Oli’s Mum who would tell him. And it might get from him to Matt and then around the group back home, but who in Southampton would find out? More than half my life is spent here, and nobody I know would find out if I died. I affect next to no one. And as a social person, who needs to be surrounded by close friends, that hurts. A lot. And I just feel so tired all the time, and I’m so far behind on uni and I just can’t see any way forward. I can’t see a future for myself. I don’t want to commit suicide, but I just don’t know what to do anymore

[howdoiexplain]

I’d like to write a little (or maybe a lot of rambling) about The Beginner’s Guide. If you haven’t yet played it and you like experiencing interesting and heavy games, I strongly advise you to go and play it, it’ll take a couple of hours, and you’ll probably remember it for quite a while.

Spoilers begin under the cut.

So I’d like to talk about the game and the impact it had on me and also talk a little about my personal interpretation of some of the themes. I have no idea how much detail or focus any of this will have so bear with me. I’ll also be assuming anyone reading this has played the game, or at least watched it being played. It’s quite hard to describe parts of it to somebody who has no idea what I’m talking about.

First off, I’ll say that I like the game. I won’t say I enjoyed it, as it was an extremely uncomfortable experience for me, and a couple of parts upset me quite a bit. However, the writing is fantastic and I appreciate it for what it is, and I know it’s not supposed to be all fun and happiness so you’re not supposed to “enjoy” it exactly. I appreciated the game for what it was.

The first 75% of the game, I was okay with. It started a little slow, but it was interesting, and it picked up and paced itself excellently, and I actually began to enjoy parts of it. The housekeeping game was a very relaxing game and was probably the most enjoyable part of the whole game for me. It made me feel quite happy and fuzzy.

Shortly after that, however, things took a turn. The games become more and more restrictive, I began to feel very uncomfortable as the narration described Cota as becoming more and more depressed. Being a sufferer of depression, this hit home and being quite empathetic, this change in tone made me acutely aware of the way I can get sometimes in the height of my depression.

There were a few upsetting games, the theatre wasn’t very nice, and the spaceship crash was frantic and very sad. The imprisoned machine, however, really upset me. It made me think about the way that my loved ones can be hurt by my apparent apathy for life, which is something that has been quite a source of anxiety coming out of my own depression.

The breaking of the walls was even worse. It worried me how much I could see myself inside that game. For me, one of the major themes of the game was depression and how it can incapacitate me, which was highlighted again in the final game right at the end with the walls closing in between the doors. It reminded me how depression can turn even the best memories sour. There were other themes (like the theme of ownership, and creator’s rights and consent, etc) but these ones, and another I’ll touch on in a moment, really hit me.

The other theme, which is probably what upset me most, by a long way, was how well you know a person vs how well you think you know them. When the first message to Davey turned up on the wall of Cota’s last game, I nearly started crying immediately. It felt like a suckerpunch. Like somebody punched me in the gut, while simultaneously reaching into my chest and holding me heart still. It was an all too familiar sensation. In fact, I’ve received messages similar to the one left for Davey here.

I’ve had multiple cases of people I’ve been talking to, becoming closer friends with, trying to be good friends with, just one day leave me a message saying something along the lines of “I don’t think you should message me anymore”

In one case, a girl I had been joking with and laughing with at about 11pm, I received a message from her phone at about 3am, saying it was her boyfriend (who was one of my best friends I’d known since a very young age, and I’d been with him when he met her about a year previously) and that she didn’t want me to text her anymore. It fucking killed me inside, and the instance of this kind of thing in the game just made me want to curl up and cry for hours on end. It’s still affecting me, over a week later. I also had a similar situation with Katie, as anybody who reads this blog religiously will know, and that was the lowest I’ve been in my entire life, so it’s no joke to say that this game was the most upsetting game I’ve ever played. But I wholeheartedly recommend playing it.

I think The Beginner’s Guide opens up a lot of discussions in many topics, from IP ownership to mental health to consent. And I think that’s important. In my opinion it strengthens the case for videogames being considered as art. Because that’s what art has to do. It has to explore ethics and morals, open up discussions and just generally be evocative. And it’s perfectly executed, and well worth the money you can spend on it. It’s gotten people to talk about issues that need to be debated, and that’s great.