#This was a loooooong journey filled with things such as

[jorvikzelda]

Horses and girls, SSOBlrites and SSOBlrinas: the again-new and re-improved Zelda Bowsmith <3 (and her darling horsie Noblestep, of course)

[nutmegpirate]

Tao Kallan

[GENERAL] Age: 343; looks/feels 22 Gender: Female Species: Tiger Therian Height & Weight: 5'6 (167.6cm); 130lbs (59kg) Birthday: May 15th Occupation: Waiter (former mercenary) Relationship Status: Single Orientation: fitesexual currently undecided Faction: Rosario

[IDENTITY] Personality: + Confident + Fearless + Enthusiastic = Competitive - Hot-headed - Stubborn - Reckless

As a born fighter, Tao loves the thrill of a good brawl, whether it be an impulsive scrap in the street or a coordinated, weapons-out battle. Despite her explosive personality, she keeps her head clear in heated situations - especially those she creates herself. While not at all shy or introverted, she is a natural loner due to her hard-headed stubborness. She works best alone and even better against others, preferring casual rivalries to actual friendships. Fortunate is the soul whom she calls friend. She uses her love of fun and competition to bury uncomfortable feelings such as grief, loneliness, and especially romantic ones, which confuse her the most. These feelings do not exist, okay??!! Despite her ability to hold rational thought under stress, she often overextends herself when the blood runs hot, throwing herself into situations much too large for her to deal with or addressing people with too much enthusiasm or anger and driving them away. She views frightening things merely as new challenges to take on, which she does with glee. Backstory:

When Tao was young, she ran away from home.

Not for long, of course. She was still a child, barely tall enough to turn the door handle on her own. She slipped away when her tutor's back was turned, leaving her history lesson on the table, and was almost a mile into the woods around the estate by the time her family caught her and took her home. It was her first escape, and it wouldn't be her last.

Tao's family were artists, all of them in different disciplines. Her mother was a writer, a literary architect, crafting great literature and collections of poetry. Her father sang, and had once graced the stages of concert halls before settling down at the estate to raise his family. The eldest brother learned music from him and filled pages with compositions both vocal and instrumental. And the second brother became a master of paint and canvas, drawing forth worlds of color and light with his brush.

And not a single one of them knew how to have fun! So Tao ran away from home. She got better at it, the more she practiced. The longer she stayed away, the fewer fistfights she got in with visiting families' children, and the fewer scoldings she received for dancing too wildly at the stately dinners and galas held at the estate. She learned new lessons, not from a tutor, but from nature. She learned to stand in the stream until the fish nibbled her ankles and to snatch one out of the water with her claws. She learned how to snap sparks using magic into a dry pile of leaves for a cook fire. She learned how the animals moved in hidden trails through the underbrush, and how they rested, camouflaged, in sun-speckled shadows. She learned how the winds brought the weather and how to dig out an embankment for shelter in a storm. At first, she could stay away for hours. When she reached her teens, she was gone for days.

Then she never came back at all.

Her shirking of lessons came back to bite her. With little knowledge of the lay of the land, Tao went a little too far from home. The wilderness called her, and within a few weeks, she had lost the way back entirely. She felt a change in the land while wandering the vast plains and rolling hills - a drought, it felt like. Foliage withered, prey grew scarce, and the little brooks she drank from became muddy and shallow. The sparks she made with her fingertips came less and less easily.

Just a few miles away in the ruins of an old outpost, secluded from civilization, lived a sorcerer who feared death. Despite his elvish longevity, a terrible sickness had taken hold of Aegis, and so he shut himself away to find the secret to immortality using dark and forbidden methods. Each day he grew weaker, and so used the life force of other living things to sustain his spells and experiments with no regard for the waste of life he perpetrated. In the cold undercroft of his outpost he devised a spell - successful in theory, but risky. He'd need a test subject first before applying it to himself. Out here, though, where could he find one in time?

Tao stumbled across the outpost, footsore and fatigued after days without food or rest, desperate for a safe place to bed down. She entered the ruin without her usual wariness and selected a level section of the earth floor to make camp.

"You'll do."

As Tao turned, a cold numbness gripped her limbs, spreading quickly through her body. Her eyes remained fixed, frozen, on the elf before her. He looked crestfallen. "Can you move at all?" he asked her. Tao longed to tell him what she would do to him if she could move, but of course, being completely encased in frost, she could not move, and therefore not speak. Nor could she blink, or look away, or even breath. Rage consumed her, but it did no good, and her life for the next immeasurable span of years became one monotonous day after another, with the sorcerer pacing before her, in and out of her field of vision, studying her and the effect of his spell.

He had accomplished at least part of his goal, it seemed, as his captive did not age or wither over the years. But being unable to move or free oneself made the spell a failure, useless to him. Existing, frozen, for eternity? That was not living. He began anew, though death drew ever nearer, determined to preserve himself even if it meant the end of more lives, and Tao could only watch him with ever-burning hatred.

Then the day came when Aegis left the outpost and never returned, and Tao's endless fury, without a person to focus on, gave way to fog. In the fog, she found, she didn’t notice the time passing so much. And so she slept. Nothing is infinite, however. Without the sorcerer to sustain it, the spell, regardless of how strong the magic, began to degrade. The fog in Tao's mind cleared a little when she felt the change. The process was slow, agonizingly slow, a true test of her mental fortitude as she waited for the right moment. Years further must have passed by the time she felt the icy bonds become brittle. With a roar pulled from the darkest reaches of her tiger soul, Tao moved, and the ice shattered. She collapsed on legs that couldn’t remember how to stand and struggled to draw breath after forgetting how for over three hundred years, years she had no idea had passed.

When she recovered, she wasted no time heading home, but found she could not quite remember the way. What should have been a few days' journey stretched to nearly a month. When she at last found the estate, it was not the home she remembered; it had been converted to apartments and flats for rent, and the people there were little help with their strange, garbled speech. They directed Tao through the woods, and there she found a city that had not existed before.

Thus began her time in Almaria.

First, she studied. Through a great deal of questioning and delves into the library's special collections and archives, she found that more than three hundred years had elapsed since her imprisonment by Aegis, and in that time, the Kallan line had died out with her youngest brother's family. The estate and all its contents had been auctioned off or donated -  much of the art ending up in the archive itself - leaving Tao with nothing.

Except her drive for vengeance.

Burying all the complex feelings that came with finding out one's family has been dead for 300 years, Tao began her hunt. She tried her best to exist peacefully in the modern world, all the while honing her fire magic and gathering whispers. Three hundred years should have barely touched an elf; Aegis had to be out there. The archives bore no record of him, nor did any of the graveyard headstones. She gathered allies, friends and rivals, and walked dangerous roads with them, getting into trouble here and there. At last, a lead, but a false one. The return to the outpost gave her nothing but more secrets and ash. Though the world is altered now, and Arcadia's history different from what Tao remembers, she knows Aegis is still around, somewhere, well hidden. She won't let the paradox in her memory deter her. She will find him, and inflict all the pain on him that he ever did on her.

Abilities: - Tiger Senses: Sense of smell and hearing are stronger than your average human's, and she has night vision. - Firestarter: This covers creation of sparks with a snap, or heating small objects in her hands. - Flame Resist: She is somewhat resistant to her practiced element of choice, but not immune. - Burning Hands: Allows her to light her hands on fire and extinguish them at will, as well as maintain and control the flame's intensity. (unlocked through RP) - Blaze Command: Tao can manipulate the movement fire to a small extent, even blazes she did not create, though they do not listen as well as her own flames. (unlocked through RP) Strengths & Weaknesses: + Fighter: she’s got moves and muscle and can take quite a few hits + Survivor: she knows how to last in the wilderness a loooooong time + Rhythm: despite her lifelong rejection of her family's practice of the arts, Tao has an excellent sense of rhythm and beat and can tap a drum quite well - and dance along to it even better. - Hard-headed: good luck getting her to function on a team or to follow orders she disagrees with. - Loud: when around other people she can get pretty… shouty. Usually not tactful things, either. - Short fuse: not always in an angry way, but she’ll challenge anything with a “fight me,” and not sarcastically. - Ignorant: there's a lot she just doesn't know yet, from slang to locations to magic to technology.

Likes & Dislikes: + fighting or competing (and winning at both) + exploring the outdoors + swimming + free food + dragons - confined spaces/being trapped - bossy/stuffy people- formal events - being touched in a friendly way (wrestle? yes. hug? no.) - Aegis

[EXTRA] - She's flown twice on dragonback, fulfilling a lifelong dream of flying, and longs to go again someday. - Her hair used to be long, worn in a ponytail. She cut it short not long after breaking free. - She has pads on her hands and feet, and fur on her ears, tail, lower legs, and feet. - Enhanced vocal chords allow her to make these kinds of sounds. - Her speech is still pretty old-fashioned, but she's making a conscious effort to adopt modern speaking patterns.

Relationships: - Whole immediate family has passed away. - Akane: Best friend and slam-dunk pool buddy, troublemaker-in-arms, etc etc; current employer. - Aithne: Fire rival; secretly friends but Tao will never admit it. - Yao: Detested enemy for minorly poisoning her when they first met. - Delta: An ally, though kind of a fragile one. - Nisha: Boss with the money. But not anymore! Because she has a new job now. :D - Yelena: Sharp! And fighty, like herself. They get along pretty well, though Tao is not totally sold on the person-shaped-sword thing - it mystifies her. - Takuto: Another fighting ally. Though they met on shaky terms, she'd have his back in a scrap. [RP PREFERENCE] Media: [Discord] |  [Google Docs] Methods: Paragraph | Literature | Script | Headcanon Timezone: MST

[antitheticalsymbiosis-blog]

Beginning the long journey... (Year 0, Day 1 [sorta])

As I begin down this long and arduous path, I figured why not catalog all of my progress (and failures) in a blog for the world to see! 

All memes aside, I should probably begin with an

INTRODUCTION:

I’m Manuel; my friends call me Manny. I’m a recent graduate from a bachelor of music (B.Mus) program in southern California where I was fortunate enough to meet some great friends, mentors, and professionals who helped guide and inspire me to create some awesome aural artwork. I’ve loved music for as long as I could remember, and it was always something that drove me to be my best. I’ve aspired to play many instruments from a young age and always sought perfection trying to master their intricacies. I studied both composition and saxophone performance in college, while frequently freelancing as an audio engineer (my current line of work).

But wait, isn’t this a game development blog?: Yes, yes it is.

Due to a variety of circumstances and personal interests, I’ve decided to jump ship from one extremely difficult creative field (concert/classical/experimental music) to another (game development), leaving behind a life I feel indebted to and, honestly, still love very much. I’ve been thinking of making this jump for quite some time (a year or so), with a long, loooooong history of engaging with the video game medium on a deeply-infatuated level, which ultimately backs up this decision. Throughout my life, video games always played a pivotal role in my own forms of expression, happiness, leisure, and community. From my very first Gameboy Color to the now flourishing Nintendo Switch, from Pokemon to Monster Hunter to Bioshock and more, I’ve been hooked. Honestly, I’ve always considered these worlds my second, third, fourth, and n-th homes. Because of this, I’ve felt like I have a duty to give back to the community however I can. After five years of collegiate study and ridding the struggle bus, I realize that there’s no better time than the present to chase this dream. THE NOW, or WHERE TO START:

In firmly deciding on this change, I didn’t necessarily know where to begin. Hell, I didn’t even really know what careers or roles existed in the game development community. After finding scouring the internet and finding some helpful resources, I was blown away at the sheer amount of readjusting I’d need to do to even think about entering this field. 

For example, this messy bundle of terms flooded my brain while trying to get a grasp of the industry:

Senior-level

Lead

Technical Director

Junior-level

Temp

Frequent moving

Designer

Level Design

Mechanics

Game Design Document

UX/UI

Programmer

Game Engine

Systems

Game Engines:

Unreal

Unity

Doom

Quake

C++

Python

Scripting

Engineer

Architecture

Audio

Tools

Networking

Artist

Environment Artist

Concept

3ds MAX

Maya

Autodesk

Animation

Skeletal Meshes

QA

Automated Scripting

Debug Databases

Localization

Producer

Disengaged from content creation

Overseer

Independent

Freedom to create vs automated jobs in AAA

AAA companies

Subsidiary studios

Outsourcers

Art

Animation

Publishing

Audio

First-Party Studios

Publishers

Outsourcing

Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs)

Marketing

Analysts

Free-to-Play

Microtransactions

Community

Blogging

Twitch

Streamers

Issues

Pay Disparity

Poverty

Under-appreciated

Sexism

Representation

Minorities/POC

And this list over-simplifies the complex web these roles create with each other. That being said, the last month or so has consisted of me scouring the internet for resources, deciding on what my long-term and short-term goals are, and orienting myself towards taking on Goliath.

MOVING FORWARD:

After being bombarded with this information, I decided that the best course of action for moi was to shoot for a game engineering/programming role, as I also had a brief two-year stint in astrophysics research and STEM coursework during my undergraduate degree. Another one of my passions, the STEM fields have always held a dear place in my heart and I picked up a lot of programming skills/languages in college, notably Java & Python. Intensive music study has also done wonders for the technically-oriented work I currently do, so I figured it would be fun to challenge myself with STEM-oriented work once again. So far, I hold a great, great admiration for lead game designers like Hideo Kojima and others, so design is also something I’m looking into. RESOURCES:

In doing my research, I’ve found a variety of extremely helpful resources that provided me with the insight to start this journey. I’ll post the most helpful ones below: GameDevUnchained (Podcast/Website): 

This podcast, hosted by Brandon Pham & Larry Charles (both established AAA game developers), explores the current state of affairs in the video game industry. Their conversations are filled with wit, charm, and tons of information, from wage negotiation and employment to indie development and technical direction. No topic is missed* (well, except for the exact technical aspects of being an artist, developer, or programmer). Despite this slight oversight, it’s still worth its weight in gold due to the fact that they bring in a new guest every week who touches on a specific topic. I’ve gained most of my working knowledge about the industry’s complexities from this source. [Currently on episode: 26] Game School Online (GSO): 

This revolutionary piece of pedagogy is an online game development school that is ENTIRELY FREE. Founded and ran by the hosts of GameDevUnchained, GSO’s main focus is free game development education with a focus on artwork, modeling, and technical artistry done through the Unreal 4 engine. The school is optionally supported through Patreon and provides special benefits to subscribers; however, a subscription isn’t necessary to enroll. Enrollment periods happen 4 times a year, with heavy waitlists for non-subscribers due to the need to keep class numbers down. Their educators consist of “Scholars” who teach and monitor the courses, all of whom are active AAA/Indie developers. Notable Scholars include Brandon Pham, Larry Charles, Leo Gonzales, Olaf Piesche (my mentor!), Matt Brown, Tai Chen, and many others. For subscribers, there’s the option to interact 1-on-1 with scholars, serving as lessons and mentorships to poise the budding student to enter the field. I’m currently a $40/month subscriber, which gets me a 30-minute session every month with Olaf. I’d like to stress, however, that at its current state GSO seems heavily oriented towards artists, with the art-oriented roles overshadowing the engineer/programmer roles 8-to-2. In addition, all classes are oriented towards art or design. This means Olaf & Matt are only doing 1-on-1 sessions. -_- *Oh well, better than nothing.*

The next two are both variations on the paid-online-schooling trope, but they seem alright nonetheless... 

Coursera:

Coursera is a platform that hosts specialized “certification” courses that were designed by universities around the world. These certification courses are essentially a compilation of videos, assignments, and online templates that are moderated by online staff (and presumably not monitored by the actual course instructors ever). Each certification consists of about 4-6 classes and takes anywhere from 6 months to a year to complete. Each class runs an average of 1-2 months and has about 1 assignment due every week. There is a peer-grading system which can be iffy at times, but it’s worked out well for me so far. The only downside is that these courses can be EXPENSIVE; however, there are financial aid options for those of us *ahemmeahem* that can’t afford the costs. Luckily, my cost for the first class was waived completely. I’m currently enrolled in the Game Design certification course created by Cal Arts. I’ll be updating you all on my progress every week as I work through this course. Something odd I’ve noticed is that the videos for the Intro to Game Design course are astoundingly short; I’m surprised this course costs anything at all given the kind of information I’ve received out of it so far.

Udemy:

Like its quasi-academic counterpart, Udemy hosts courses created by content creators (I’m not too sure on the qualifications these creators have...) that consists primarily of video tutorials. The beautiful thing about Udemy is that, unlike Coursera, their courses often times cost very little if you go through the right channels! This means promo codes from websites like IGN or your favorite tech reviewer, etc etc. I was fortunate enough to grab the Unreal Crash Course course for $10 through an IGN promotion last month. Also unlike Coursera, there are no assignments or grading systems in place for your work. Instead, there are often forums that host dozens and dozens of posts from current and past students of the course. This feature has felt surprisingly fresh and fun; however, not receiving a lot of direct feedback has its downsides. I’ve been slowly chugging away at this course, having finished 1/4th of it so far. I’ve also found that there tends to be much more technical work to be learned from Udemy as opposed to Coursera (in terms of game development); however, this may just be my limited scope, as I haven’t looked around too much more.

Game Engine Architecture, Third Edition by Jason Gregory 

(Naughty Dog Lead Programmer):

This book is AMAZING for the aspiring game engineer, as it’s filled to the brim with a detailed analysis of common game engine architecture as told by the lead programmer at Naughty Dog (go Uncharted/Last of Us teams!!!!). I’m currently in the second chapter of the book, but to give a brief overview of its entirety along with my own descriptions below each heading:

Introduction

“discusses the ins and outs of the industry

Tools of the Trade

“an in-depth look into programming tools”

Fundamentals of Software Engineering for Games

“development cycles and tool usage”

Parallelism and Concurrent Programming

“the title says it all”

3D Math for Games

“3D geometry and Linear Algebra, along with programming algorithms” (go STEM!)

Engine Support Systems

“a look at memory and systems”

Resources and the File System

“how to handle game assets”

The Game Loop and Real-Time Simulation

“graphics rendering loops and gameplay loops, along with dealing with time”

Human Interface Devices

“dealing with I/O”

Tools for Debugging and Development

“the title says it all”

The Rendering Engine

“rasterization and rending pipelines”

Animation Systems

“skeletal meshes and processing”

Collision and Rigid Body Dynamics

“physics systems and other collision systems” (go STEM!)

Audio

“Dealing with sound design and 3D audio” (go music!)

Introduction to Gameplay Systems

“dealing with data, game objects, and world editors”

Runtime Gameplay Foundation Systems

“dealing with all of the constituent parts and updating the game”

You mean there’s more?

“more to be learned”

As you can tell, there’s a whole lot of information to be gained by reading a textbook like this. Jason states in the Foreword that this is really meant to be used to teach a three-class series on game programming at the university level; however, I find that you’ll be able to understand a lot of this pretty well so long as you have an ample amount of programming experience (preferably with C++). That being said, it’s a perfect springboard for me and I’m so eager to continue that I sort of want to finish writing this entry already so I can get back to it! *o* It cost about $85 for a physical copy and $47 for a digital copy (Kindle).

So, that wraps up my currently used resources list! I hope it can serve as a starting point for some of your own deep-dives into the world-wide-web for resources! CONCLUSION: Thanks for sticking with me this far everyone. I know I didn’t dive into my past that much, but I hope it gives you somewhat of an idea as to who I am. In starting this journey, I’ve realized the importance of documentation and reaching out to build a community with others, so I hope that we can all interact and take this journey together, in some form. Tomorrow I’ll be delving into my current projects that I’m aiming to work on and some of my personal inspiration for taking the game development plunge, as well as discuss what I’m currently working on in terms of study/development. I hope you all have a good day, and never feel like it’s too late to start chasing your dreams again! - Manny Extra: Game of the Day - Disgaea 1 Complete on Nintendo Switch I’ve loved this game since I first played it way back in the early 2000s, so when I heard this was coming to Switch as a slightly remastered port, I couldn’t wait! The updated artwork looks great and I’m eager to get all of those extra scenarios completed! ;) GO SRPGs!

[cancerbiophd]

What do you think is more important in choosing a full-time thesis lab, the potential for a really interesting and big project and a friendly PI that offers good guidance (and a co-PI that has a lot of clout), or a lab that you feel like you fit in better and you're personally/generally happier and like all the people, but the project is maybe less grand and the PI is more distant?

Oooo that’s a tough one.. but in my opinion, I think the latter may be a better choice, and here are my reasons why:

You’re spending 40+ hours/week with the members of your lab; not your PI (unless they’re working right alongside you). In my experience, lab mates can play a pretty significant role in one’s mental health. If you have a healthy community of peer-to-peer support, it’s much easier to bounce back from set-backs (and there are plenty of set-backs during grad school and research in general). No matter how introverted some people are, we’re still social creatures and good human company feels, well, good. 

As far as the project is concerned, what you work on now for your dissertation may not be what you’ll continue on for the rest of your life. Sure, a fancier project may land you fancier papers and whatnot, but being a PhD trainee is really about filling your toolbox with research techniques, knowledge of your field, and thinking skills. Any project, big or small, can provide you with those tools. Any project can become interesting and exciting if you make it interesting and exciting. And who knows.. maybe one day something huge will happen in your field and your project will suddenly become The Next Big Thing. No one ever thought mustard gas could kill cancer cells, and then it became the first cancer chemotherapy. 

And keep in mind that you can have as many mentors as you want (and you should definitely have more than one mentor). You PI is your main mentor, obviously, but all the PIs on your committee, and the PIs you collaborate with–they’re also part of your network, and they can also offer their services in helping you and your project grow, and eventually landing you a post-doc or job after you graduate. Keep in touch with that 1st friendly PI and the co-PI; put them on your dissertation committee if possible. If your main PI is hard to reach, you can always go to your committee members for advice. 

Your PhD journey is also what you make of it. If you’re proactive in seeking out publication and presentation opportunities, networking events, novel techniques, patents, and creative ideas, etc etc, then you can make a name for yourself, even without the help of the co-PI with a lot of clout. If you seek out guidance from a variety of interdisciplinary sources (like your committee members), then you can achieve proper mentoring even with a slightly distant PI. The PI, the lab, the project–these can all be relatively small slices compared to how much effort you put in to everything in the pie chart that is your PhD journey. 

Lastly, a PhD is a loooooong time. 4-7 years. And at least to me, being happy and mentally healthy during that long long stressful time is a pretty top priority. I can make a distant PI spend time with me by scheduling regular meetings. I can make my project interesting by delving into it and thinking creatively. I can make my future guaranteed by putting in the effort to publish papers, present at conferences, and network. 

But I can’t just make myself happy if I’m miserable in a place I spend 40+ hours a week at. 

I will also say: all of my successful and happy classmates in my PhD program ended up choosing labs that they said felt like home. they chose people over project. and the ones that ended up choosing project over people are either unhappy, have switched labs halfway through their PhD, or have dropped out of the program. 

Anyway, that’s just my two cents, completely based off of my own personality and experience. But keep asking around! See what other grad students may have to say. Some may make an argument for the 1st choice, and then you can compare, contrast, think, decide.. win, conquer, rule the scientific world :D

[ecotone99]

[MS] The Computer Room

I have slowly been scratching the skin off my face. It started when my index finger got itchy, I started scratching it and scratching it and scratching it and scratching it……when I starting scratching the muscle tissue off my skin and the bleeding would start I would move to another part of my body. When my right arm got filled up I would move on to the left, when my left leg got filled up I would move on to the right. My body was fully covered with recovering protruding muscle that came back as small hills, permanently scarring me. After a couple of days almost every single part of my body was covered, every single part except my face.

I signed up at 18 years old. I did nothing and was nothing. The ads were more intrusive and annoying than those porn ads that imply a want for your body that you have never known and will never know. Every video, every website, every click.

MAKING 20,000 DOLLARS CASH EVERY MONTH IS JUST A FLIP OF A SWITCH AWAY MAKING 20,000 DOLLARS CASH EVERY MONTH IS JUST A FLIP OF A SWITCH AWAY WANT TO MAKE 20,000 DOLLARS CASH? ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS FLIP A SWITCH! WANT TO MAKE 20,000 DOLLARS CASH? ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS FLIP A SWITCH!

I’m not an idiot, I know better than to actually click those, but I was just so damn bored. Sitting in a room all day you tend to get a little more influenced. I clicked the ad and it had two words on it, YES and NO. I clicked yes.

As soon as I clicked I heard a vehicle in the distance going at a stupidly fast speed until the dying screEEEEEEEEECH of brakes being worked to death brought this object to an immediate stop. I looked outside my window and there was a white van stopped right there in front of my house, waiting. The back doors slowly opened and it continued to wait, it waited so patiently. I am not a patient person and I don’t like to keep people waiting so I went off.

I sat there in the back of the van with the sunshine of the outside trying desperately to seep through but the blacked out windows killed most of it. The van felt like it was a boat in water more than a car on a road. It tested my body’s resistance to centripetal forces making me shift left and right and leftttttttttttttt and righhhttttttt with its incredibly sharp turns. Finally, it made me hold on for dear life as it suddenly, and furiously, stopped. The doors opened and I was smacked by a thft thft thft thft of a helicopter roaring so loudly I almost had to close my ears, it too was waiting. I exited the van and went into the helicopter. Again, I sat in a vehicle that felt like it was trying to complete a speed run. I would have liked to look outside to see where I was going but like the van it had no windows and there was very little light. When I finally landed from wherever point A to wherever point B I was greeted by a new contraption, a giant military style plane that was the size of a commercial air liner. It had a gigantic ramp that served as its entrance, it could easily fit tanks, supplies, and a small army, but as I walked up the ramp it looked like it was only gonna be carrying me. As I took a seat and strapped myself in with a complex amount of seatbelts that felt more like I was gonna ride a roller coaster more so than a plane the giant ramp closed its humongous mouth and swallowed me. I sat, like always, in a poorly lit vehicle with nothing to exercise my eye. This vehicle did have something new about it, a glowing red light that encompassed all of the empty space in the plane. I had went from the back of a van, to the back of a chopper, to the back of a plane. I was…………..bored.

The ramp began to open. The red glow that I had basked in was being destroyed by white light from the outside. I shared the red glows pain as I had also been surrounded by almost complete darkness and the light of the outside was stabbing my eyes and forcing me to squint. I almost wanted to stay in the machinery but I drudged forward toward the blinding white light.

I was outside.

As soon as I stepped off the plane the ramp slowly started to close and it’s 4 massive engines attached to the wings began to charge up until generated enough noise and power to carry the massive hunk of metal from the ground to the sky. I watched its journey. As it went higher and higher the military plane got smaller and smaller until it disappeared towards this perfect blue sky similar to what you see on a windows xp home screen, just minus the rolling green hills. There were these perfect white clouds that were massive in size marching on towards places I would never see, I wanted to pick them from the sky and eat them. They moved so effortlessly, I so badly wish I could join them but sadly I was born for the ground. I decided to stop looking up.

I was dropped off on a loooooong landing strip that almost floated by itself, the only thing keeping it up was a building it was attached to the hip of. The building was one of the most complicated things I had ever seen. It was a abstract mix of brown pipes and rusty steel, the look was not too far off from an oil rig. The materials were only ordered by the buildings shape which was a perfect cube, and a big cube at that. It looked to be about 30 floors high. Its location was also similar to that of an oil rig as in I was completely surrounded by ocean. I didn’t see the building from the outside but I would imagine that it was being held up with skinny steel or cement legs that attached to the ocean floor. It looked like some weirdo modern art sculpture and the more I stared the more I was fascinated by its ugliness, but the more unnerved I became. Something about the obtuse architecture of bended steel taking up space from the sky and the ocean seemed kind of……..offensive? It just sat there and ate up the world.

The ocean and sky were breath taking, for a couple of seconds, but it was time to move on and find something to do. As I approached the building from the runway I noticed that between the steel and pipes there was a bright red door breaking up the soulless materials. It must have been painted something easily visible for any of the new workers, a facility like this must have a few hundred of employees to keep it running. I thought of some talking points before I would be forced to talk to anyone and I made sure to remind myself that listening and saying “mhmhhh” is the politest and easiest way to interact with people. As I approached the door I noticed there was a small paper taped to it.

THE SWITCH IS ON THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF THE FACILITY. SIGNS ARE CLEARLY MARKED, PLEASE FOLLOW THEM. THE SWITCH MUST BE FLIPPED EVERY 5 MINUTES. FOOD, TOILETRY, AND ENTERTAINMENT CAN BE FOUND AROUND THE FACILITY, JUST LOOK. SOMEONE WILL COME AFTER A WEEK FOR EVALUATION.

I knocked on the door that was for some reason, wooden, and I waited. Whatever, I turned the knob and the handle did not protest. I entered.

Small bulbs pulsated on the roof of long, dark , empty corridors. They were sprinkled across like Christmas decorations, blinking on and off at their own pace of their own will. The walls were rusted steel just like their counterparts on the outside and creaky pipes on the right angles of the wall and ceiling gave them veins. This small corridor I was walking through was about the size of that house in the PT demo, and that feeling of dread was unsurprisingly similar. These blinking lights had a weak orange glow and were seemingly the only source of light in the building I had seen so far. It wasn’t impossible to see but it gave the building a never-ending darkness at the edges of the corridors since it wasn’t lit by more conventional methods.

“I’m going to fucking die.”

I decided to get on with it since the outside only had a landing strip and I wasn’t even sure if more flights would be coming in and I probably had a better chance finding some other employee within the building than outside, so I went in deeper.

Just like the note indicated, there were “signs” marking an indication to a switch. The signs were what looked like impromptu yellow paint on the walls, reading, “this way to switch,” with arrows with hardened drips pointing at breaks in the corridor. So far it seemed that there were no doors but only doorways and breaks in the complex corridors. They branched off into different directions and every so often there could be a fork of 2, 3 , or even 4 doorways leading in different directions, every time these breaks existed there would be the yellow paint indicating which direction this switch was.

straight

straight

left

right

left

I was in a room that was about the size of a house. Its ceilings were about 3 floors high and it had windowless rusted steel walls but what differentiated this room from anything else in the building was that the wall opposite of the entrance was completely covered in pipes. The pipes ate the wall and were attached vertically, letting out soft yells of steam, they twisted and contorted towards the center creating a natural connection to it, the switch, the thing that I had been brought all this way for.

It was a simple light switch, that classic white switch you can find in every household in America. It was kind of comedic how normal looking this switch was in this disturbing steampunk sequence room. A little above it was a black digital clock that had red numbers like a prop in an action movie counting down the nukes. It had about 12 seconds left for what I assume was me getting fired so I did the obvious, hit the switch down.

0:08

0:07

"fuck. Uh. Hmmm.”

0:06

0:05

fuck.fuck.fuck.fuck

0:04

0:03

0:02

I flipped it back up.

5:00

4:99

Well that was that.

It really was that easy huh, I just flip a switch. I wonder when I was gonna get paid.

The entertainment wasn’t that extensive. It was a room made up of, can you guess, yup thats right, brown rusted steel but what made it unique was that it had a desk with a working computer on it and a single book titled The Island. The computer had your standard windows OS but it came with a pre-downloaded program that had a logo of an eye and the text Employee. I clicked on it and it had my name, amount paid, when my next check would be deposited, and hours worked. It also said The internet made this check possible which reminded me of those dumb quotes underneath my checks when I worked retail that similarly said A satisfied customer made this check possible. What a bunch of bullshit.

The computer also curiously did not have a regular clock at the bottom right like other windows computers, it just had the countdown for the switch. It made me notice that this room, like all other rooms I would later find, had the same red digital clock hanging on its walls reminding me how much time I had to flip the switch.

When I discovered the food I gained a newfound respect for the “entertainment” room because this place was even more abysmal. It was 2 refrigerators and a microwave, thats it. When I opened one of the refrigerators it contained exactly 2 things, ham and cheese hot pockets and 2 liters of coke. I went to open the next one and it was filled with the exact same thing. I looked around the room for plates and more importantly cups but there weren't any, just the fridges and the microwave. It looks like it was gonna be straight out of the bottle.

I had been walking around the facility for a couple of hours, making sure to flip the switch every 5 minutes, and strangely enough there was not a single other person in the whole damn place. Most corridors I walk through simply led to dead ends which made no sense. How could a facility like this be so massive but have only 3 rooms? This is….. This is…………… really fucking boring

I think it’s been 2 days since I got here, it’s really hard to tell since theres no sunlight and there isn’t a clock or calendar in the whole facility, but on what I presume was the 2nd day I started reading The Island. Moving the empty coke bottles and Hot Pocket wrappers off the computer desk (there isn’t a trashcan in the facility so don’t judge me) I sat down by the switch and found out about where I was working at. It never talked about the switch or what it even does but it did go into great detail on the island and it’s contents.

I learned that it was built in 1971 by a company called DGSW and its purpose is to process all data sent over the internet and get it where it needs to be. Apparently 3 billion people use the Internet everyday. Books, videos, pictures, music, love, hate, pornography and more are generated and consumed by millions every second. 2 quintillion bytes are produced in a day, that’s 18 zeroes in case you were going to google that. The internet also doesn’t exist in one single place, it’s a complex give and take between host and leeches that interact with each other until one of the two gets bored or dies. It is a decentralized process that has no place it really exists, like a happy memory it usually exists between 2 or more people.

Most websites are like a concert venue or a train station, we can access them whenever we please and so can others, but someone, like a big company or a small business, has to create a venue to host all these people. Unfortunately, you cannot just appear at a concert. To access these places you need a way to get there, and in the world of the internet there aren’t any sidewalks but only roads, and there aren’t any cars to buy but only pay-per-month taxis. An ISP gives you access to the internet you so desperately desire. While all ISP’s differ in price and quality they all are actually owned by the same company that built the island, DGSW. DGSW has a complete monopoly on the internet and through pseudo corporations that are nothing but names they have survived undetected, sleuthing inside your modem. The book also included a picture of how the Island first looked when it was built in 1971, a curiously small white house with a red door. It looked like your average American home just without the white picket fence. 7 men stood posing shoulder to shoulder in front of the house, they were all smiling ear to ear in with a beautiful house and a beautiful sky behind them. It looked so warm and welcoming, like a real community. What the fuck happened?

As I continued reading I also learned what the flashing light bulbs were. Each one was a piece of individual data that flashed when that piece of data is processed so, for instance, the first bulb outside the switch room closest to the doorway is a bulb representing when a celebrity dies, every time a celebrity dies it flashes on. The book I was reading had what every bulb represented in a long phonebook like sequence. This was all dreadfully fascinating but instead of continuing to read I decided I was hungry so I brought the book over to the “kitchen” and started cooking up a hot pocket.

As I waited for the microwave to finish my nutritious meal I started staring at a bulb through the doorway, I looked it up in the book and it was the bulb for any time theres a mass shooting. I saw it blink a couple of times and I couldn’t stop starring at it. Every flash of light told the story of some cynical fuck letting his brain rot by…by… I don’t even know what by and he just snaps, the only cogs turning are ones that tell him he has to kill as many people as possible as fast as possible. Those people gunned down in streets, clubs, churches, grocery stores…….schools…… just little tiny children blasted into oblivion, forever, permanently. Blood flowing like river out of the veins of ordinary people, splattering across the inside of buildings that, up until the dreadful moment, indiscriminately housed anyone. I wonder how you react when your worshipping your god thanking them for all the blessing you have had or maybe asking them to strengthen you for the trials and tribulations which you are facing are hardening you, then out of nowhere BANG the person next to you has their brain matter invade the skin on your face. Be it the blood hitting your face or the sound you open your eyes and the reality of a AR-15 is starring at you eye to eye. There had to have been thousands of meetings between scientists, politicians, presidents, geniuses, and I don’t know who else trying to figure out just what the fuck can we do about this disease that is making public spaces a nightmare to even think about. What can be done about such a precarious situation where ordinary people like you and me can turn into beasts of mass destruction ready to appoint ourselves judge, jury, and executioner for the unknowing masses at the drop of- - oh my Hot Pocket is ready.

On the 5th day I was more bored than usual. I decided to go to the “entertainment” room and do what I usually do when I’m extraordinarily bored, masturbate. I think masturbation is one of those things that can be beautiful or repulsive depending on the context. It can be beautiful when it indicates a pure love of oneself and the appreciation of the body and its need for touch. It can also be kind of beautiful when it serves a utilitarian purpose to curve those deep desires that just can’t come into fruition yet. Like I said I masturbate when I'm bored. Theres no one here to make me feral and I don’t think my body likes me or wants to be touched by me and I sure don’t like my fucking body.

Weirdly enough I didn’t go into the “entertainment” room to look up pornography. I don’t like pornography, theres no love in it, theres no intimacy, it’s just not real enough. I like stuff that I have an effect on, something I know will see me and know me and that just isn’t possible through a pre-recorded video, so I jerk off to selfies. I usually message the person while jerking off, too.

i came to this

ur so fucking hot

i wanna cum ur tits

i wanna fuck you

i want you

i need you

You know how it goes. Instantly blocked, creep, you sick fuck, on and on and on it comes with the territory. Just call them a bitch and move on to the next one.

I don’t know if people like cumming but personally, I don’t think I have ever had a good cum. The first one is always the best though, It’s nice and easy and every touch feels kind of like the first time, but not truly. When I'm done I usually have plenty of time to go and flip the switch. The second isn’t the worst but it takes a bit more work and I usually have to take a pause in-between just to catch my breath or I have to stop to go and flip the switch. The third, fourth, and fifth are useless but I just can’t stop myself. What else is there to do?

Sometime around the 11th day I started sniffing my shirt and oh god I fucking smell. There aren’t any showers or extra clothes here and while I don’t know exactly long I’ve been here I know its been a minute since the smell of musk is screaming from out of my armpits. There are actual physical stains from my unwashed shirt that are starting to form under my arm pits. I know it’s gross but I kind of like the smell. It’s me. I have so many grease stains from the soda and the food but hey I’m not gonna change my damn clothes because guess what! I don’t have any so piss off. As I'm on my way to flip the switch I keep breathing in my own musk and making a face but the smell is kind of….captivating. I’m starting to really like it

It has to be like a month in and Im watching youtube videos. Hours and Hours must just being murdered by but I can’t just stop letting the algorithm take me to new and useless places. Usually I’m really careful to give myself time to flip the switch but these videos absorb me and when I shift my eyes to the clock at the bottom right of the computer there can be as little as 10 seconds for me to go and flip the switch. I swear it takes longer than 10 seconds to get to the switch room from the “entertainment” room but somehow I always make it in time. Right now Im watching a video on what the worlds strongest man eats in a day. It’s a 20 minute video on, well, just him eating. In the morning he eats cinnamon toast crunch, 8 eggs, and peanut butter. The breakfast has 68 grams of protein, 74 grams of carbs, 68 grams of fat, and 1,180 calories. When the video is over the Algorithm automatically goes into a new video on 11 exercises you should never do in the gym (DO THESE INSTEAD!). Its this incredibly buff man inside of the echoeiest gym in the world talking about exercises that just aren’t that effective. He’s not screaming but his voice is powerful and he is so passionate about getting you to STOP doing these exercises at the gym, and I'm pretty pleased that I’m no longer stupid enough to never do these 11 exercises. I have never been to the gym.

On what I believe is my 7th week I’m sitting in the switch room listening to the hisses of the steam pipes and flipping the switch every 20 seconds. I came up with this method to hopefully appease whoever my bosses are and make them think I am doing an extraordinary job. How often is it that people do the bare minimum and wait till the last couple of seconds to flip the switch when there is almost no time left? It must be every employee, that is until I came along. I hope they notice not only how early I flip the switch but also how I do it. I started doing this 2 hand approach where I use my entire right hand to flip it down and then use my left hand to flip it up, never using the wrong hand to do the wrong stroke. I never use an individual finger, I think thats extremely disrespectful and shows bad work ethic, I connect all my fingers and use my entire hand to flip the switch. I swear it’s been longer than a week and yet they still haven’t came to evaluate me but it kind of makes sense since I’m such an excellent worker they probably don’t feel the need, hell I lose sleep over this damn switch. Remember, there are only 3 “useful” rooms in this whole place and none of them come with a bed, not that I need one since how could I sleep with the 5-minute timer. I haven’t slept this entire time. Now, sometimes I catch myself drifting off when I put my back against a wall but even though ill wake up and feel like I slept hours anytime I run to the switch room I always have just enough time to flip it. They really are blessed to have an employee like me.

I think its the 3rd month here. Im sitting in my trash room. It’s just an empty space I found that I decided to put my trash in. Im just sitting here surrounded by empty bottles and plastic wrappers. I’m just sitting here. It’s time. I’m so used to knowing when it is time I don’t even need to look at the clocks anymore. I make my way there and I go flip the switch. I flip the switch. I haven’t seen another person in so long but I don’t even like people. My purpose is to flip this switch. I start flipping it and flipping it and flipping it. I flip it so fast and with such furry it has to break soon, it has to. When I break this fucking switch I can leave the island. They’re gonna come in here and take me away because I broke their switch, they might yell at me, even maybe put me in jail, but I’ll finally be able to leave. I’m using all my strength but maybe my diet is the reason I can’t break this fucking switch. I’m sweating and crying and flipping the switch so fucking hard but it just wont break. I need to go home, I need to go home. The sad part is that I probably am home.

I start looking at my hands. They’re so skinny and bony they look like they’re hands from a decomposing body. I stare at them. I realize something, my hands are itchy. I start scratching my hands. No matter how much I scratch the itch won’t go away. I think I need to scratch harder…

I’ve decided I need to destroy something. I’m tired of working so hard and my bosses don’t even notice, I’m tired of sitting in my room and jerking off to people with happier lives than me. I’m tired of sitting in a room filled with garbage and staring at lights all day. I’m tired of never sleeping. I start huffing and puffing and I stand the FUCK up. I start putting my right leg then my left leg and right leg and my left leg and I am MARCHING towards the food room to search for my weapon. As my legs rhythmically stomp on the earth one after the other I notice that there is triumphant music playing. There it is, the hero music. I am going to destroy something and the orchestra has been brought out to play the hero’s music. My stomps match the tempo of the beautiful notes as I emerge into the food room. As I slAM the fridge door open I hear a bombastic French horn play their note with a rush of air that reflects the energy I used to open the door. I grab my weapon of destruction, the last unopened 2 liter of coke, and I slAM the fridge door so hard it stars to do a wobble. The music has a tempo change, it’s getting faster. I am the hero. I am stomping as hard as I can, my knees are going UP like you’ve never seen anyones knees go so damn UP before. Ooooooo im gonna fuck something UP. The music is getting so loud I swear the cymbals crashing and the horns playing are right behind me. I turn around, there is a full on marching band behind me. There is no doubt about it, I am the hero. We parade to the computer room and once we get there we crowd around the computer. The music stops, they all put their instruments down to watch me. I hold the 2 liter of coke by its bottle cap with 2 hands like a batter ready to swing for a home run. They are all waiting patiently for the show. I look at the computer and bend my knees slightly and prep the 2 liter behind my head. I can feel the power i’m about to unleash unto this fucking computer, I can feel the marching band lean the tiniest bit forward as they hold their breaths. I’m gonna swing I’m gonna swing I’m gonna fucking- the eye is flashing. The eye is flashing. I hear a collective

“hmmmm”

from the crowd. I set my weapon on the floor and approach the computer. The eye app is flashing and it won’t stop. I click it. The information was the same, my name, amount I had been paid, my next check, and the time I had worked. W***** H****, 0.00$, January 2nd, and 168 hours. Wait. 168 hours. I have been here for 168 hours. How is that possible I’ve been here for months but according to this I’ve been here for 168 hours…………a week……

A knock on the door reverberates through the facility, it is gentle.

I turn around, the band is no longer behind me. I am in an empty room filled with wrappers and plastic. I am looking at my arms and they are scarred. My entire body is scarred.

The gentle knock continues, they are waiting.

I am walking towards the wooden door. The pipes are falling from the ceiling. The blinking lights are exploding behind me. I am walking towards the wooden door.

The knock continues.

My heart is thumping. My retinas are screaming. My pupils must be overtaking my entire eye. I am face to face with the wooden door. My hand reaches the handle, I turn it, the hinges release.

“oh Jesus it smells in here, go open up a window and let some light in”

submitted by /u/ptepoch [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2u0hpl5

[awesomecartwheel]

FROM ME, TO YOU.

I want to tell you my feelings and my thoughts

I'm scared to believe in someone. I'm scared to feel something again. love is nothing but destruction, and I bet you won't be here to pick up the pieces I left behind.

when you looked into my eyes, when you made me laugh, when we had small conversations, when we go somewhere we want to go, when I went to church, when we had deep talks, it terrified me. Loving you terrified me.

actually, I want to fall in love with someone who wants to learn every part of me. who asks about my past and wonder about my future, who lays down and listens to the stories that run through my mind. I want to fall in love with someone who is curious, who wants to discover part of me I didn't know I was hiding, and unfold his secrets out to me, one by one.  yes, you are. you care about my passion, you know how to treat me when I'm in my deepest fear, you already see the other side of me. the worst one.

I want to fall in love with someone who wants to grow up with me, alongside me, together. someone who is continually journeying with me, someone who suddenly came to Bandung just to meet me, someone who wants to Bukit Bintang and Bukit Moko just because I want to see stars (with you!!), someone who’s not afraid to try new thing, to mess up, to give his whole self to me without regret. I want someone whose heart I can hold.

yes, you have all that things.

I dont want a relationship that can't be labeled, a connection that has no commitment or promise of a future.

I don't want casual.

I don't want random dates or hookups.

I don't want moments that are only beautiful when we are together, but quickly forgotten when we are apart. f o r g o t t e n   w h e n   w e   a r e   a p a r t.

I dont want to be an option. I want something that matters. something that's special. something that’s filled with affection and care that goes far beyond the physical.

when a man really wants you, you won't have to chase after him like he’s some celebrity who barely has time for a fan. you will be his priority.

when I realized that I was starting to love you, you were becoming my weakness. like I was giving you the power to hurt me. you made me insecure about the step I have chosen. you also made me insecure about myself, about being the real me. sometimes, I feel like I wasn’t good enough for you, I always hurt you by the clumsiness I made. and you successfully made me see things from your point of view, things that what you think are best.

it makes me feel guilty about the things I have done. I felt like I was losing myself and becoming someone else you create. the more you complained or made me see my flaws, the more I hated myself. and it hurts.

it hurts because I have deep feeling for you so I was doing my best to avoid that feelings. because you already be my priority, far beyond myself, and my religion.

I know you are temporary. I know you are not going to stay for long. you may never admit it but you are here now because you know very well that we love each other till the day come /grads/. and you also know very well that I always say sorry if I made mistake, even the small one, without considering my pride. so it makes you you need me, maybe because I'm good for your ego.

I put you above everything and beyond.

I was looking for ways to make you feel secure. no matter how it is. if you didn't matter, I wouldnt be thinking about you. I always feel happy when I'm with you in Bandung, almost my 24/7 is for you. but after exams week is over and we were heading back home (you met your friends and everything) I feel like I'm losing you. and more, I am sad knowing you ashamed of having me (tiko and muslim) in front of your friends :”) even I know what you feel about cokin things towards tiko. just sayin tho.

that night, you were having fun with your friends for days. and I have something to tell about. I have problem with my family, I want to share with you. until you came home, you were still busy with your things and didn't even remember about me /want to have a call/ (it was a week after you were having fun from Bandung). I can't handle it. I can't handle to wait another chance. I was disappointed. the day you have few hours to have a call, I was really excited and want to spend the rest of the night with you, but apparently you only have 2 hour to have call because you have a plan to another having-fun-night with friends. and for the reality, you only have an hour. it made me more sure that off with you as soon as possible is the best thing I should do. I always lie to mom, I forgot to pray, I lose my faith, it’s like you didn't care about the other part of my life, you only care about me. only me. not my religion or maybe my family problem. I always blame on myself for everything, I hate being I-am-not -good-enough-girlfriend for you. it’s like I don't have anything if you blame over me and I already see things in your point of view. it sucks. from that day, I know that family won't leave me even I,maybe, ever forget them. and the most important, I realized I am already far beyond my league. now, I know what my priority is.

I am afraid to lose you after we graduate. may be better to spend the rest 2 years to be friend than be with you until graduate and not even see you for a loooooong time afterwards. it sucks.

I am afraid to get close and watch you leave like the rest. I don't want to pour my heart out to you, while you realize I'm not enough.

I no longer want to learn your deepest thoughts, the things you love, the things you hate, because the less I know the better I'm afraid of knowing something about you that would hurt me.

getting to know someone and losing them, then meeting someone new and starting over again is a vicious cycle I don't want to be part of.

the point is, I love you. I did it for the goods of us, for our religion, our family and also our future. I'm really happy that I have a chance to be part of your life, even just for awhile. to be honest, I'm proud to have you. you changed in a good way. you got good GPA in a row. I'm the happiest girlfriend alive. I just disappointed that our goodbye was not as good as I thought. and for more, I was sad that you thought that I broke this up because that guy who chase after me. actually I did it because I don't want it to be more complicated. the faster we off the better we will be.

I wrote this, just to let you know how I really feel about you. but you have to know that deep down, I love you so much.

.

.

.

I really do.