#hopefully ill have time and motivation to finish the next update this week | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jamielea81 · 6 years ago

Text

Back to School

Chapter 1

Pairing: Professor Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: Some cursing

Description: After taking years off of school, you finally decide to go back and finish up that degree.

Word Count: Approximately 1,800

A/N: Welcome to my new series Back to School! This is a professor AU with a twist. This series will be on the shorter side (no more than 10 chapters) and will be updated weekly. I’ve tagged those that have asked to be tagged before, if you would like to be removed just let me know.

*Italics are internal thoughts.

Sticking out like a sore thumb wasn’t your idea of a good first day back to school. It was like high school all over again, but instead of wearing cheap clothes from the clearance rack while the other girls in school wore designer jeans, you wore business attire. Black pencil skirt, blouse, heels, makeup done up, that was your staple most days at the office. Students hanging around campus and in your first class were dressed in pajama pants, jeans, gym shorts and t-shirts. You were vastly over dressed, but it wasn’t your fault, you had to go back to work after your second class.

You had taken a few years off of school. Who were you kidding? You took 13 years off. It was always your intention to go back to college and finish up that degree, but life got in the way.

During senior year, you had gotten sick. It started out simple enough with pains in your stomach, but no amount of pain killers and rest could cure it. Once it was apparent you weren’t getting better, you made numerous trips to the health center on campus. They in turn referred you to the regional hospital that diagnosed you with an ovarian cyst. It was already quite large and your doctor recommended surgery as soon as possible. Two weeks later, you had the surgery to remove it. Because of the recovery time and the days you missed being ill, you had no choice but to take incompletes for all your classes that semester. Your job on campus was also terminated because you were no longer enrolled in classes.

Life back at home with your parents wasn’t a breeze. After being away for nearly four years, it was quite the adjustment living under their roof once again. They encouraged you to take classes at the nearby University which you did, but you struggled. Driving into the city was a pain and finding parking was even harder. You stuck with one of the two classes you enrolled in and managed to finish it leaving eight credits to go.

You found a job fairly quickly after a friend working in a call center gave you the heads up about an opening. It started as a fulltime position that summer, and you planned on going part time in the fall so that you could take a couple of classes to complete your degree. You ended up moving in with said friend at the end of summer. The money was rolling in as you turned out to be quite the sales woman. Deciding to take one more semester off to put some money in the bank, turned into a year off. Student loan bills started to arrive in your mailbox since you weren’t enrolled in classes. That one year turned into two. You moved out on your own. Took a new sales job with great benefits and a 401K. Two years turned into five. A job in middle management became available and you took it. Even though you were great at sales, you didn’t particular love it. Motivating others and knowing how to manage a team was more your forte. At that point you were doing quite well for yourself that school went on the back burner. Before you knew it, you were in your mid 30s worrying about a fifteen-page paper due at the end of the semester.

The campus is nice, as far as colleges go. It was also conveniently located thirty minutes from your home and office. Lush green lawns, loads of maple trees, benches and tables scattered along the wide walk ways. There’s a coffee shop in the student union, but you found a coffee cart located outside near a row of benches that faced a large water fountain in the center of the campus.

You acquired yourself a cup with two shots of vanilla. Grabbing a few capsules of cream and adding them to your cup, you planted yourself on an empty bench. You reached into your briefcase to grab out the syllabus from your first class, Economics in the Modern Age. There was no point in acquiring a backpack when you had only two classes and you had to get to work right after your second one. An hour between classes was more than enough time to look over your notes and get a cup of coffee.

“Can’t believe classes have started up again.” A deep voice in front of you said.

Looking up, the sun partially blinds your view. You put your hand up to shield the sun to get a better look at him.

“Sorry.” He says, moving about a foot to the right to block the brightness from your view.

And what a new view it was. Broad shoulders, dark blonde hair, nicely groomed beard, and those eyes. A poet could write several books about those eyes. He looked to be about your age, which was refreshing. Dressed in dark blue jeans, buttoned down checkered shirt and a brown sport coat over it. You were starring. Once you realized it, you looked down and quickly took a sip from your cup and nodded.

He stuck out his hand and you quickly set your cup down next to you on the bench. “Steve Rogers. History.”

“Ah, um, Y/N Y/L/N. Business administration.” You said, shaking his hand. His fingers fit nicely against yours. You really hoped he didn’t notice the blush.

“Do you mind?” He asked, gesturing toward the empty space beside you.

“Not at all.”

Be cool Y/L/N. Just because the hot guy wants to sit next to you, it does not mean he’s interested.

Going slow was never easy for you, which is why you were single. Your mind had a hard time differentiating between guys who were being friendly and guys who were interested. One would think with age and time, those kinds of problems would be sorted.

“Beautiful day.” You offered. Not really knowing what to say.

He hummed in response. “I’m looking forward to the cooler weather. I hate always feeling over dressed this time of year.”

You nodded. Giving him a small smile. “Same.” You said, gesturing to your long-sleeved blouse. At least you had opted to go bare legged. “It’s not so bad in the shade.”

This small talk is killing me.

Steve nodded his head. “How’s your schedule this semester?” He asked.

“Only two courses. Think I’ll manage.”

“Nice. I’ve got four, but two are twice a week.”

“Ouch. I’ve always hated those.” You replied.

He smiled. Eyes crinkly as he looked at you. “Why haven’t I seen you before?”

“I’m new here.” You said, shrugging one shoulder.

“Well, you can count me as your official welcoming party.”

You laughed. “I give you my thanks then.”

A small alarm sounded in your briefcase. Reaching in you pulled out your phone seeing you had twenty minutes until your next class. Not knowing where all the buildings were, you wanted to give yourself plenty of time to get there and hopefully find a seat in the back.

“I better get going.” You said, standing up and grabbing your bag. “It was nice to meet you Steve Rogers, History.”

He stood up as well, laughing hard, throwing his head back slightly. “You as well Y/N. I hope to see you around campus more.”

Your face flushed and you hoped he didn’t notice. “Hopefully.”

You quickly turned your back to him heading in any direction to get away from the handsome man. Not that you really wanted to run away, but you didn’t want to ruin something that hadn’t even started by saying something stupid.

After walking aimlessly for ten minutes, you consulted the campus map on your phone and started walking in the correct direction. You reached the History building with a few minutes to spare. The room wasn’t far down the hall and all rooms were numbered legibly. Finding the door was still open, you felt relieved. The room was a large lecture hall with stadium seating. Stepping inside you felt a small wave of panic as most seats were occupied with only a few open ones in the front rows and a couple single seats scattered in the middle.

Next week I am so getting here a half hour earlier.

You begrudgingly walked down the staircase, dodging careless backpacks left in your path. Sure, you wore heels daily to the office, but that was mainly at your desk or in a conference room, not down a large staircase with legs stretched out, ready to catch a victim not paying attention.

As you made your way down the steps to the mostly open first row, you couldn’t help but notice eyes on you. Instantly you felt self-conscious, thinking perhaps you had something on your face or coffee down your blouse. You took your seat and the eyes drifted away, back to their phones or conversations with the people they were sitting with.

They thought I was the teacher. That’s it, I’m changing at the office from now on.

You dug out a notebook and pen. Blue ink, not black of course. We all have our habits. You scribbled “History Beyond the Walls” on the front cover of the notebook. You picked the course randomly as you only needed a 200 level history class to complete the requirement for your degree.

The door in the back closed with a loud bang. A muttered sorry was heard and you, much like everyone else, turned around to see what caused the disturbance.

Whoa. Steve’s in this class.

You silently prayed that he’d take the seat next to you. Just for the camaraderie of adults going back to school, nothing more. Right? You continued to watch him descend the staircase hoping he’d see you. You subtly move your eyes to his left hand to check for a ring since you didn’t do so earlier. It’s naked which makes you smile. I suppose he could have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend.

Shaking your head slightly to get out of your own mind, you go back to the intense eye contact that pays off as Steve sees you. His face is a mix of surprise and confusion. A small smile graces his face but it quickly fades. His eyes crinkle and small lines appear on his forehead. Head tilting to the side you hear a muttered “Y/N?” You give him a slight wave as he walks completely past you, setting his bag on the desk at the front of the classroom. Now it’s your turn to be confused.

Steve turns around and looks at you briefly before scanning the rest of the room.

“I’m Professor Rogers. Welcome to History Beyond the Walls.”

Well, shit.

Tagging: @thefanficfaerie @humandasaster @violetadefebrero @estillion14 @xxloki81xx @lookwhatyoumademequeue @thefandomzoneisdangerous @tanelle83 @symonlyjen5 @niaese @lilypalmer1987 @unlcvings @linkingdolans @imissyoualittlemoreeveryday @allaboutthebooz @joannie95 @chita0027

#College AU #professor!steve rogers #Steve Rogers x reader #Steve Rogers #Marvel AU #Back to School #University #College Trope #Steve Rogers x you #Steve Rogers x Y/N #Steve x you

393 notes · View notes

chrisbbaegopayo · 6 years ago

Text

Hold Your Breath (Stray Kids: Stalker AU) ➻ Chapter 3 (part 1)

....

Genre: Thriller, Angst, Gore, Mystery, Suspense Characters: All of Stray Kids, reader, OCs. Word Count: 1.2k Warning: This story will contain elements of gore, on- and off-screen abuse, torture, mental illness, and stalking. It will feature themes that are not suitable for all ages, readers discretion is advised. Each chapter will have its own specific warning.

Sorry for the short post. I’ve managed to hit a very bad case of writer’s block, as well as other things, more on that below. (updates will now be once every two weeks)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

She and Hyunjin ended up getting along really well in class, as they introduced themselves in the timeframe that the professor had given them. She learned that he had been here to earn himself a bachelor’s degree in literature, much like his parents wanted. He had been a pretty hardworking student and liked to participate in extra-curricular activities, although he didn’t really elaborate on which clubs he had joined since attending the university.

It had come to a surprise, then, that he knew who she was. It was kind of strange for her to introduce herself to someone who had already know of her—he did say that he knew of her and knew who she was, but never made an attempt to say anything to her, which, to her, was understandable. University could be somewhat of an intimidating place. And Hyunjin, who kept to himself during classes unless he was asked to participate in group work or class discussions, was naturally relatively inside his head.

He had a small circle of friends, she learned, of which he had dropped after coming to this university. He told her that he stayed in touch with most of them through social media and that he had missed them.

They didn’t manage to get too deep into their conversation, although he did tell her that he was in a few of her classes back in first and second year, and much of the reason of keeping to himself most of the time didn’t say anything to her, as they were practically strangers.

Professor Lee stopped the discussion then and then began his first lecture. Much of it had to do with what goals to set at the beginning of the semester, what they would be covering throughout the semester, as well as the many assignments they were expected to do and their due dates that accompanied these assignments. Much to her displeasure, every week, there would be a test that summarized the terms they learned the week before, just to keep them on their toes, apparently. This was probably the most for her, as her memorization skills weren’t the best…

…this would also mean that she would have to do a lot of reading. And note-taking. As much as she enjoyed reading, the mind-numbing technical terms might just defeat her.

However, the silver lining was that there would be some hands-on case studies and there might be field trips planned in the course, although the professor did not specifically say if they were definitely included. As for these field trips, they were still in the process of negotiating some plan, of which professor Lee did not specify.

They also had to write two essays throughout the semester. Great.

As the professor started lecturing, he covered what the meaning of crime was, what each term meant, and how it integrated into society on a very base level. As for the rest of the two-hour lecture, Professor Lee merely just taught through most of the time with interesting examples and various experiences that he had encountered. He made things interesting, and the majority of the class was completely engrossed. The mid-lecture break had gone by and soon, had buzzed by without much of a fuss.

“All right, remember, class, make sure to read up on chapter 2, pages 60 through to 90! You will be expected to go through it with your teaching assistant in your tutorial later,” Professor Lee said. “Feel free to visit during my office hours should you have any questions or problems regarding class! See you next week!”

She placed her notebook in her bag and looked over at Hyunjin, who looked rather pleased with the class. “Tutorial, huh?”

He nodded and leaned back against his chair. “Yeah, it should be exciting. At least the professor was interesting, hopefully, the teacher assistant will be just as interesting. When do you have yours?”

She pulled up her schedule, and scanned it, trying to figure out which day she had her tutorial. Turned out that she had her tutorial at 11:30 a.m. in two days with a person named F. Lee. And upon showing it to Hyunjin, she was surprised to learn that he also shared the same tutorial. It seemed like a pretty pleasant surprise, she thought. To be in the same class and tutorial—it was as though something was being conveyed to her through this strange arrangement. Or not. It just seemed like a pretty interesting coincidence.

But life didn’t have coincidences, did they?

Regardless, the two left the lecture room and went their separate ways after swapping numbers.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

She had never been so glad to be home. After that stalker fiasco earlier on in the day, she was ready to retire to bed. However, she cracked open the textbook she was required to read for the class and sat at her desk, trying to make some from sense from the lectures. She got a few paragraphs into the reading when her phone buzzed with a text message.

>> Hey I’ve got food Open up OMG bless thank you <<

Jisung seemed to know exactly when was hungry because her stomach grumbled a bit. She went downstairs, and as soon as she got to the door, the doorbell rang, and she opened the door, letting her best friend in.

“You always come at the best time, ever,” she said, ushering him into the house. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Seriously.”

He laughed. “That’s why I’m your best friend, right?”

The two of them ate and chatted about their day and by the time they finished their food, Jisung had gotten up to toss the containers into the recycling bin.

She stared at her phone for the time being and sighed. She should go back to reading, but she really didn’t want to do any reading that night. It seemed like a great time to just lay back and chill for a little longer until it was time for her to go to bed.

It was still relatively early in the evening—or late afternoon, and perhaps she could just put her feet up and catch up later on.

But then her mind wandered off to the letter she got—it was unsettling.

“Jisung?”

He made a noise of acknowledgment, while still staring at his phone.

“I got another letter.”

His fingers that were once tapping away, seemingly mid-text stopped. He placed his phone down and faced her. “What did it say?”

“It was...something like ‘a new semester will start new things’ or something...and then something about more gifts to come,” she recalled.

Something about Jisung’s expression worried her.

“Did you file the complaint to the school like I said?” He asked.

She shook her head, but then upon seeing his concerned expression deepen, she held up her hands and reassured him that she was going to file it in the upcoming days.

“I haven’t exactly had time, you know, I promise I will—I’ll even let you know! I promise!”

He sighed, and with a heavy tone, he said, “fine, as long as you know.”

She was about to say something when he leaned over and put his hand atop her head, almost in a maternal gesture.

“I’m just really worried about you, you know? These are just some precautions that you have to take, okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah, thank you, Jisung, you’re always looking out for me...”

He chuckled, “that’s what I’m here for, remember?”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sorry about the lack of updates lately. I’ve managed to land myself in a really deep ditch called writer’s block, and it’s honestly really draining to write when my motivation is zero most of the time. Sorry, it’s been pretty hard most of the time, especially balancing both work and creative writing at the same time. I do writing for my day job too, and every day I’ve pretty much felt like I’ve exhausted most of my writing into work, and the creative juices are NOT flowing into what should belong to creative writing. Hashtag excuses lol.

However, I did find a good way to keep my motivation up—the story is planned out, I know what’s going to happen in the bigger picture, but the details aren’t exactly set. Sometimes if I see an opportunity to implement new ideas, I will, such as relationships between certain characters and their history and such. I do have several pages of notes of the character’s relationships and backstories.

I will be publishing their backstories starting with Hyunjin, and I think it will make for interesting future plot segments.

As well, I will be changing the updates to every two weeks until I can get out of this really bad writer’s block.

Whether or not people like to read it or not, I’ll just keep on writing anyway because I genuinely do love creative writing. As well, I have been planning this story for wayyyy too long and even though my execution of the story might be slow and not what my mind wants me to write, I think I want to continue regardless. I’m just really grateful for the readers that I do have, and appreciate the time you invest in my story. Please feel free to poke me/talk to me about the story and let me know what you think of it. I know I haven’t advanced enough into the story for people have a true understanding or grasp of it, but I will be publishing the character’s relationships with each other and how they’re all connected. Because they are.

If I have any jumping tense problem—I’m sorry, I do try my best to catch them while writing, and I will improve and do my best not to disappoint too much.

Thank you! c:

18 notes · View notes

diaryoftheunidropout · 2 years ago

Text

DAY 50

Very brief message because it's 3:30AM and all I want is to SLEEP.

I made the reckless decision to brutally go off antidepressants completely just so I can experience the full syptoms of whatever mental illness(es) I have so I can get a better and hopefully more accurate diagnosis and be take more seriously next time I see a psychiatrist.

Three days ago I felt EXTREMELY anxious for asbolutely no reason at all. I wanted to go to the restaurant, I went, and almost as soon as I stepped foot out of my flat, I got anxious. Over nothing. I just FELT anxious. And I was also super irritated by everything. That was the case yesterday too, and a little bit today as well, but it really is less and less.

These past two days I've been feeling super motivated and happy. I can get lots of stuff done and I want to get lots of stuff done. I believe in crazy shit like "I'm going to write a book and have it published" or "I'm going to study 3D animation" or "I'm going to become a tattoo artist". And to think 3 days ago I just thought I was going to do none of that and just work whatever job I'd be given...?

Anyway, I know this is probably very temporary and a relapse is probably going to kick in soon, hopefully in a week or two only, but it's probably more a matter of a couple of days.

I got my Heartstopper tattoo and I'm so so happy about it. I also love my tattoo artist. What I see in her is like... a 15 year older version of myself? We happen to have quite a lot in common except she is under medication that really treats her illness well and therefore she is pretty stable and enjoys her daily life, and that just gives me hope for my own future.

Anyway, I'll try to keep this blog updated more regularly, especially because I wanna keep track of how my mental state evolves, especially since I've had a hard time focusing and remembering anything lately, and also because whenever I feel bad I get sort of "black outs" and forget :')

See you soon hopefully

Update:

I posted the first part at around 3/4AM so in order to update I must do it on the same post.

Around 2AM I felt peaceful and like I was about to fall asleep but I made the very stupid decision to reply to my grandma's messages knowing it was going to take me 2 hours. So at around 4/5AM, when I finally could go to bed, I felt super anxious, I felt like someone was in the room watching like lowkey paranoid. I think I even woke up in the middle of the night hearing someone's breath but honestly it was probably just mine obviously. I think I fell back asleep and woke up again a little before 12PM.

Then I knew I really had to finish preparing my trip to England which is just under two weeks away from now but it made me so fucking anxious. I still managed and ended up taking a lot of pleasure in it! I was pretty much laughing hysterically at everything.

Then I got up to get prepared because I'm getting my 2nd booster against Covid, which I was totally chill about until I left the house and almost had a full blown crisis with tears and anxiety, which I've been trying to fight for the past hour. It's only 10 mins til my appointment. I'm not scared of the shot in itself, I'm just too unstable. I'm not even sure the vaccine in itself is the real cause of my mental anguish, I think it's mostly because I promised myself after this shot I would stop wearing my mask, which should be liberating but instead makes me feel miserable.

We're the 21st of April and it's day 3 (I think) with no medication at all. I refrain from taking anything, not even a bit of medication against anxiety.

At some point I tried to remember what I did yesterday and just couldn't for about a minute. I still feel dizzy when I walk most of the time. When I say or think about the words "death" I just wanna cry. I wish I could die to end the suffering right as I'm writing this but when I think of dying I just get traumatizing flashbacks from my dad's death.

I'm trying to sit down somewhere and collect myself because I really must not cry in front of some poor strangers working at the pharmacy. They haven't done anything to deserve to see me like this.

I am so in pain right now. I wish a doctor would listen and try to help.

0 notes

tothedarkdarkseas · 3 years ago

Note

Is your fic coming along since the potato salad scene? :) Let us know how you're doing! <3

Thank you so much for checking in! But I have to say reading this message without any context is hysterical, haha. Something's gone wrong when you can describe your fic as having a "potato salad scene." Sounds like a real thrill-a-minute story!

You're very kind though, thank you! I write completely out of order, so I do have a great deal of the story after that scene written, but that isn't all new material. I was able to write a bit recently, but I admit it is not nearly as much as I hoped to get done. As a personal update, I've spent the last two weeks on "pause" with my primary job, essentially, and hopefully I will know tomorrow afternoon if everything has been reinstated again. The silver lining is that I should've been able to write, right? But it felt a bit like the creative conundrum of the pandemic, where I suddenly had an excessive amount of free time but often found it difficult to be productive due to the stress.

It's hard to estimate what I think the final wordcount will be, but I would optimistically estimate that I have more than half written, as well as several scenes later in the timeline that need to be finished and connected. The last writing session I had was unfortunately one of those where you become sure that the idea for this scene was ill-conceived and should be scrapped. That is a normal part of the process, I'm told, so I'm trying to just leave it be!

I'm sorry to have such an unproductive and noncommittal answer for you, but it really means a lot to me that you've kept interest in the story. I will try my very hardest to set a goal for tonight and a goal for this week and push myself to meet them as best as I can, but I admit that my job situation may impact that. I can wring my hands about why it is so difficult to find motivation and confidence and so on, and all of that is true, but it ultimately falls on me to simply do it if I want it done. So I will try to have a better update for you next time!

#thank you! ;~;

0 notes

avpdnoisearchive · 7 years ago

Text

sum updates~

things are going pretty good lately and i get self-conscious about making like 47 textposts a day like “look at another good thing in my life!” bc i feel like i’m being obnoxious but i also hate not posting bc it helps to organize my mind and like. Put The Thoughts Out There instead of stagnating in my mind. anyway

this is the first time in the new semester that i’m properly stressed out. considering i just finished the second full week, that’s not bad? like i had almost two full weeks of being relatively chill. anyway i have so much to read and even though i read loads today i still have SO much more to go and a presentation to write and blahblah this is boring but i just hate the feeling of doing tons of work and not feeling like i’m getting anywhere

i kinda accidentally ghosted the guy on tinder i was talking to.. i literally haven’t texted a dude other than my brother or dad in YEARS and i forgot how garbage they are at messaging (short answers, don’t keep the convo going) (even tho that’s how my brother and dad are actually, i forgot it applies to the majority of their garbage gender). so i didn’t reply bc i had no fuckin idea what to say to his last message and it’s been days now and the more time that goes by the more i don’t wanna start talking again fdhjsfkhsdjf why are men Like This

told one of my new profs about my avpd!! i was even more awkward with it than i was last semester (like..SO awkward..ugh) but i’m glad i did it at the beginning rather than towards the end. she’s REALLY nice and actually also did her dissertation on mental illness narratives! the next day in class i felt like she was looking at me all class with her Knowing Eyes. i hate people knowing intimate things about me like that (like lbr she probably googled avpd and even if she didn’t i told her it’s kind of like severe social anxiety so in any case she Knows Things About Me now) but hopefully it’ll help my mark a bit?

side note straight up my greatest fear when i tell ppl about avpd is that they’ll google it bc the first thing that comes up is the wikipedia summary of symptoms and it’s literally the most pathetic sounding thing hfjkdfhjskfhjs (not that us avoidants are pathetic but u know from an outside perspective It Doesn’t Sound Great)

rly nervous for next week as i have an appointment to lower the dose of the medication i’ve been on for going on 8 years now and the therapy appointment aaaaaaaaa. nervous n excited

family drama back home is getting out of control and while i’m really glad i’m not there to deal with it, it makes me feel even more disconnected from my mom

i feel like there’s more but when i’m stressed out with school it makes it difficult to process literally anything lmao. generally just feeling pretty grateful for where i am in life right now, both in terms of better mental health + making progress in recovery but also (ik this is weird bear with me) grateful about and proud of the fact that i’m a woman doing a phd bc i read loads today about all these shitheads in the 18th century who wrote about how women shouldn’t be educated. and not only a woman, a mentally ill woman who would’ve rotted away at home or possibly even been thrown in one of the asylums that was growing in popularity at the time. nothing motivates ya like wanting to stick it to those long dead misogynist ableist fuckheads lemme tell ya

anyway wow can u tell i’m having trouble processing things this week, this is all over the place. thanks if u read i’m embarrassed about having written so much n might delete but i think writing this all out helped to calm my mind a lil bit. gn

#mm no obvious triggers in this i don't think?#mom mention /#meds /#i think that's it

6 notes · View notes

chickenkooks · 8 years ago

Text

[!!!]

hey guys!!!!! just an update for you all :-) yesterday was my day off from school and work so i spent some of it writing as i promised!!!!! i managed to write around 2K that im content with!!!!!! so thats like. 1/10 of the way finished THAT DOESNT LOOK LIKE MUCH PROGRESS BUT FOR ME IT IS i’d been struggling with this first scene for weeks just because i hated it. but now im happy with it and its really motivated me to finish the part whenever i have time to!!!!!! ill have some time on wednesday and then i have a day off on friday and ofc time this weekend so hopefully ill be able to finish it by this weekend!!!!!!! if not. definitely next week. i wont make any promises but thank u for the positive messages and im sorry for being so slow with getting back to u guys!!!!!!! D-:

#i was thinking today #if im behind on my ask now #i dont even want to think about how behind im going to be #once i post tra pt 4 because #I USUALLY GET SO MANY MSGS #WHICH I LOVE!!!!!!!#I LOVE MESSAGES #BUT I FEEL SO BAD #BECAUSE IT TAKES ME LIKE A WEEK TO ANSWER THEM ALL #but thank you all for being so patient #i admit i had some performance anxiety about it #like i was afraid somehow u guys wouldnt like it???#just because its been a while n it was hard getting back into the mood #BUT I THINK I DID THAT JUST FINE!!!!!!#i love u guys :-)#see u soon!!!!!!#t:txt #o:imp #q

7 notes · View notes

ratherbeem-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Down the line again

After an unexpected procrastination hiatus, I’m going to give blogging another go again. What better way to start than dwelling on those goals I said I’d stick to.

1. It’s pretty easy to see that I haven’t kept up with this one – the last time I blogged on here was October 15th. I haven’t really got a good excuse, but I found that writing is useful to me to get my thoughts out and track them, so I’m going to try and get back on this wagon. I want to be able to look back on my progress over the year, so I’m going to make more of an effort to keep this updated for myself.

2. I haven’t read a full book yet, but I have started on The Great Indoors by Ben Highmore. I’m very into interior design and homeware, so it’s a good starting point. I need to make more of an effort to finish it, so let’s make this my own smaller goal – I’ll post something proper about it on this blog by 5th December at the very latest.

3. I haven’t got involved in community things specifically – I’ve done a bit of shopping in charity shops, but nothing that gets me directly into the community. I want to do a big food shop soon and donate stuff to the food bank, but I’d also like to do something more hands on. There’s a community theatre down the road from my flat, and I’d love to paint scenery or something for them, but I’ve not got round to contacting them yet. I’m getting more involved at work, in a way – I’ve been talking to people more and I’m doing the Secret Santa, and someone even came to me for programming advice on Friday. While I’m hoping to connect to more people in real life, I’ve been posting a bit more on Reddit recently, especially in AskWomen and AskUK. I’m also doing the Secret Santa over there because I really enjoyed shopping for someone last year and they sent me a really sweet thank you message.

4. I’ve seen my old friends Robert and Ryan a few times since I last posted, at random events and hanging out in pubs. I’ve also voice-chatted with Daniel to talk about D&D. I’ve never played it before but we’re starting a campaign on Monday. I flaked for a while, but I’m so glad that Daniel was patient with me and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be playing with Jamie, Felix and Ryan – Daniel is the DM. I’m playing a half-drow sorceress based on Daniel’s suggestions.

5. Haven’t done cooked for anyone but James and I yet, but I’d still really like to!

6. We went to the cat café in Manchester when we were visiting James’ brother, which was nice. The cats were a bit more active than the last time we went. We’re going back to James’ hometown next weekend, so we’ll probably visit the cat shelter. We both want to get a pet but we know that we need to make sure our flat is cat-proofed and that we get permission from the landlord before we get one, and make sure that we’ve got money saved up for any big vet bills.

7. It turns out that my payments for council tax weren’t going through properly, so this has been a rough month financially because I had to pay the whole bill for six months in one go. I’ve still got £1500 more in my bank account than I had at my lowest point in the summer, though, so I will be able to recover. I’ve also got my pension sorted through work, so some of my savings will be going into a retirement investment account that I can’t touch for about thirty-five years. I need to set something better up for my own personal savings, maybe getting a high-interest current account and passing money between my main and my secondary current account via a standing order to ensure that my money is liquid. I’ve not been able to pick up any shifts back at uni since five weeks ago so I can’t count on that income totally, but I did do a few hours of overtime at my day job. I’ve been filling out YouGov surveys so I should hit the payout threshold for that in a couple of months.

8. Our trip to Ireland is very soon now! Also his cousin is getting married in France next summer and his parents have invited me along for the week before. I’m excited to travel with James and hopefully see a lot of the world together. I’d like to go to America and Canada at some point, but I still want to go inter-railing – I’m not sure how much Brexit will ruin my chances of that, though.

9. I haven’t started a handmade recipe book yet, but I’ve been looking for the perfect book to do it in. I’d like something with removable recipe cards, so maybe a photo album or a file of index cards would be good. James’ mum gave me a recipe notebook but I’d like to be able to reorder things as I need to. I know that makes me sound bratty, but I’m quite particular about the way I do things (or maybe I’m just lazy and making excuses).

10. No new fun facts, but I’ll keep you posted!

11. I’m “ill ill” for the first time in a year or so at the moment – lots of phlegm and losing my voice. From a more long-term view, I went to see the GP about my mental health, and he seems to think that it’s something along the lines of OCD or anxiety, maybe both. He prescribed me some beta-blockers to take when I know I’m going to be anxious, and they make things a little bit easier – I’ve found that they’re really good for when worrying about something is stopping me from sleeping, but not so much on the social side of things. I’ve not been to speak about my physical health yet, but I’m not noticing symptoms as much lately. I’ve been overweight for most of my life, and ended up buying a scale sometime in October. Since then, I’ve lost 7 pounds (actually, I lost some of it and gained it back again, and then lost some more – but I’m 7 pounds lighter now than when I started). I’m hoping to reach a healthy weight in 2019.

12. I haven’t spoken to any of my siblings yet. I’ve been trying to sort some sort of family dinner or something out via my parents, but they’re not very cooperative. I’m spending Christmas with James’ family, and I’m excited for that.

13. I’m still watercolouring, and I can see improvements in my work from week to week. I need to practice more and I’m hoping to send my Reddit giftee something I’ve painted along with a commercial gift. I’d also like to make something for James, and something for his parents. I’m continuing learning HTML and CSS – I’ve used it to tweak an application at work and entered a little site I made in a hackathon. I’d like to get around to using the skills I’ve built to make my Tumblr a bit more personal.

14. I figured out most of it, and then James figured out how to get the radiator in the bedroom to work. We don’t have it on much – a couple of hours in the evening, if at all – but it’s nice to know that we’ve got it when we need it.

15. I haven’t done this yet, but I might try doing Veganuary or something. We’re still eating very little meat, except for when we go to restaurants.

16. We’re going to see Come From Away soon, watch this space…

17. Getting my five-a-day hasn’t always been successful – I think if I track it a bit more I’d become better at it. James and I eat a lot of vegetables compared to my parents, but we’re not always on track to five-a-day and I’d like to get better at this and become healthier.

18. I haven’t been to the market in a while because we’ve been pretty busy for a few weekends (and I was pretty ill yesterday). We need to get around to buying from that bakery soon still. I’ve picked some homewares and clothes up from the charity shops, so that’s something at least.

19. In an effort to reduce my plastic consumption, I have bought a mooncup, but couldn’t quite get the hang of putting it in comfortably on my last period. When the next one comes around, I’ll give it another go and hopefully have more success. I try to buy loose vegetables where I can and such.

20. I bought some chocolate hearts with sweet messages on to hide in his jacket pocket, but he ended up finding them before I did it and assumed they were just part of the regular chocolate supply for the week, and ate them... oh well, I guess they got to the intended recipient! Even though we live together, I want to post him a love letter or something to make him smile. I make his lunch when he’s rushing around some mornings and he’s always very appreciative.

21. The only step I’ve really made career-wise has been competing in a hackathon (with James, who’s never programmed before – we won a prize for being the best newcomer project!). We’d like to do more of them in the future. I got to interact with a lot of other computer geeks and do a little HTML side-project and complete a site under time pressure, so I’ve got a few more skills I can highlight on a CV. I taught James a bit of HTML, and it would be nice to do something more with that. I might get involved in some community GitHub projects or something to sharpen my skills. I think my medium-term plan is to find a job as a programmer in the transport industry, because they seem to have jobs for XSLT developers and have nice benefits like free travel for employees and their partners, which would definitely help with the seeing the world side of things.

22. I’m still badly organised, no real progress here. I know that my boss doesn’t really mind, but I think my goal for the next fortnight is being early for work every day without needing to get a taxi.

Some things have been successful so far, and some haven’t, but I want to motivate myself to get these things done. Let’s do this.

0 notes

uniblogyear2semester2 · 7 years ago

Text

The beginning – week 1

Another great start to a new semester in game design prototyping, again juan took the lecture and set us off on a very quick journey to a new destination on the course.

This semester we are to create a 3rd person game with a very lenient brief meaning we can base the game off of anything we wanted really in terms of themes and dynamics.

At the end of the first lecture juan told us to split off into pairs and come up with a 2-minute pitch idea for a story and so me and paddy split off into our partnership and started coming up with ideas for the coming presentation next week.

Immediately I already had an idea as I had my mind set on a theme and story for a while.

I wanted to create a medieval fantasy adventure game with a different post-apocalyptic theme embedded within it and so I started to ponder more thoughts into that and coming up with a good story and plot for it as well as exploring the lore.

Over the course of the next week I had come up with an idea which I absolutely loved and so did paddy, he was on-board. The idea came to be “The Blight”, I have created a brief description of the blight to give a little context.

“The story is set 5 years after the war where a great tragedy befell one kingdom turning it into the blight. The blight, slowly devouring the world birthing creatures of nightmare and demon spawn from its dark magical essence. The story follows Elias Lycian, a renowned ranger tasked with protecting the borders of the Bree kingdom from the blight and its many evils.

Elias accompanied by his 4 legged companion, Sphax are to watch the borderlands of the kingdom and protect it from the inevitable approaching death that the blight brings forth.”

Now that is just a very brief description of the idea that I have and I will go into more detail on the idea if it gets chosen next week as a project to work on for the semester so fingers crossed.

Week 2

So it was presentation day today and we absolutely smashed it, paddy left the talking to me and was designated PowerPoint clicker. Luckily my idea was chosen which I am very happy about. We managed to get six people who wanted to work on our idea but despite that me and the lads all still wanted to work with each other just like previous projects as for some reason we seem to work very well together despite being friends although this time around we have the addition of Ryan so in total there are myself as the narrative director, programmer and assistant artist. Toby is the project lead as he is better at the managerial tasks than I am. Paddy and Brad as our artists again and as well as Ryan who is also an artist and a very good modeller.

The workload this week for myself is to construct a one page game design document to outline the concept of the game, the mechanics, gameplay and other important elements.

After having completed the GDD I’m very happy with the amount of detail that I put into it and I’m very certain that the group will be too, this is a very important piece as it is the base foundation for the group to work on. Im happy with the amount if detail that we put into it though I am looking forward to the extended GDD where I have more space to write about the idea.

Week 3

Me and the group had a scrum meeting today and all decided what it was we were going to do this week and we looked over everything we did last week and I was impressed with Ryans wolf I must say was quite impressive especially at this stage. Paddy’s art work was good and brad made a basic log cabin for us to work with. In terms of workload this week for me I was tasked with working on an environment piece as well as some character development. The environment is a piece where Elias is stood at his post looking into the blight and at the black figure staring back at him. Im really happy with the outcome of the piece although I want to go back over it at a later stage and add more detail and the same for the character sketches that I am working on. I still feel as though we need to be producing more work as a group at this point and so next week I think we all need to have a talk about where its going.

Week 4

This week I happened to miss juans lecture due to a personal matter but none the less I managed to reconvene with the group outside of class and get to grounds with what the ball plan was.

For me this week I had to create the start of the alpha prototype level and I already knew what I had in mind, I knew it would be tough as I haven’t used the unity level design features for quite some time but I got back into swing of things fairly quickly.

The level would coincide with the story as the section of the level that I have built is the hill side where the rangers live in the log cabin which overlooks the blight and is the border that they have to protect, obviously I am not able to make a full border for the kingdom but I started on a specific section overlooking the forest and village which is my plan anyway.

This week I managed to complete a good section of the map, which was just the borderlands, hillside and cabin. Ill insert the images I too below. Due to it being the alpha stages I used very basic textures to provide some depth for the player to appreciate. The cabin and all of the assets are still very basic but in a few more weeks it will look much better. In terms of narrative this will be the first level in which the ranger, Elias who the player will control is tracking a demon that managed to cross the border and venture into the kingdom towards the village which I have yet to create. We are quite a fair way away from using any combat features yet but hopefully soon we will see some action.

We are using a place holder character model for now also until the artists make our own, the group as of now are working very poorly for the most part, everyone is very demotivated but im hoping that will change around soon. I need to work on the story a little more at some point but I think next week I will continue with the level and hopefully have something more presentable and fully fledged although I think one of the main priorities is to actually have gameplay rather than a level as juan said. That Is something myself and the group need to realise as the alpha testing stages are coming up quickly. Im very happy with the work I have done this week, I would have liked to have had more of our own models and assets to play with but unfortunately we aren’t there yet so I did what I could with what I had. The level itself I think looks nice. It still needs a lot of work of course but I want to have a finished alpha level by next week so I will be keeping updates on how the next sprint goes but all in all im happy with the work I put in, though I always feel I could do more and so I will try and better myself each time.

Week 5

This week was more of a semi productive week, as I mentioned in my last post I was aiming to have more work done on the alpha level for the game, im really enjoying the level design at the minute. Unfortunately my laptop decided to break half way through the week which set me back quite a lot and so it wasn’t until the day before the deadline that I was able to actually continue with the work when it was back up and running. I mapped out the rest of the level world for the most part, there is still a great deal to be done but for the alpha I think it will be okay. I added a very small settlement with brads new cabin variants in a circle formation down at the bottom of the map at the base of a rough mountain formation.

I added a few more forests around the world too but the only problem is that if I add too many the game will really lag due to the high poly count of each tree. I then went around and start to change the terrain a little more to add more variation from the flat plain, I also added a few place holder textures into the world also.

One thing I really wanted to focus on was a water fall but I am not yet skilled enough to actually use the particle effect system effectively and so I managed to make a river and I am going to leave the waterfall for now. The water I used for the river was also a place holder texture object but it is very effective for what we need at this stage.

The main struggle for our group at the minute is motivation, everyone is still doing the bare minimum and its putting us behind massively, there’s no passion this semester for some reason and it is very frustrating. I really do want to make an amazing game and I know that we can if we apply ourselves.

The upcoming code for the game will be very difficult to actually accomplish and it will require many hours of watching tutorials to figure out how to actually make it work, we need enemy AI’s, player health, damage calculation, sword and bow combat, the enemy attack function and a lot more, there is a lot to do but there are only two programmers and we aren’t the most experienced by any means so this is going to be a big struggle to accomplish but I think we might just manage it.

Overall im happy with the work that I produced though I wish I had more time to do more and to a higher professional standard.

Week 6

This week was a very slow week and very little was accomplished despite my hours of effort due to my skill level now being high enough.

My task for the week was to figure out a way to make combat within the game and use various scripts to make this combat work effectively. I spent roughly 9 + hours watching videos and trying to figure out combat for the game but I just couldn’t do it, either the type of combat wasn’t correct for the 3rd person camera or the scripts would clash with the character within our game. After spinning my wheels for so long I decided to go with another approach. None of the methods I had tried worked so I started to watched a tutorial series from scratch on a personal scene in unity until I had some solid combat working. I had to create a new, different type of 3rd person controller and followed along as well as I could. This camera was a point and click camera without the use of WASD for movement though if required I think I would be able to implement that in to the script.

The series is very long and the combat doesn’t come into it until about two thirds of the way through but I don’t want to miss anything out. The game mainly focuses on the use of an interactive script which all of the other scripts reference so they use everything within that script. I think this script will be derived into the combat script eventually. I have started somewhat creating an inventory system for the game which is very confusing but I’m following along the best I can and making it my own as I do.

I think I will be sticking with this work for the coming weeks but I think I need to look back at the story at some point to see how that it coming along and how we can reference it into the game and make it an immersive experience.

Week 7 – following the events of the 27th of march

Unfortunately, I was met with some events which would really off road my progress in the group more than I would’ve liked. On my birthday the 27th of march I went out to celebrate with some friends and a group of people decided to start some trouble which ultimately resulted in me breaking my leg and so from this I was forced to move back home leaving all of my work station in my accommodation barren for a few weeks. Due to this the amount of work I was able to put in was limited as keeping track of everyone and with everyone was extremely hard as I prefer to communicate and sort things out in person and due to me not being able to I found it very hard to adapt.

I found this whole thing extremely frustrating as I put in a great deal of effort into the game and the narrative and level building side of things and to make matters worse my laptop broke again and that took me a fair while to get it repaired and once it was repaired it wouldn’t let me unity game function properly and so I was no longer able to have an input in the game which wasn’t the end of the world, I could still help with the managerial tasks such as presentations, game design documents and story etc.

Luckily, I had already built the game world and it only needed a few extra tweaks which I believe toby added. I managed to get to call Toby 3 times per week and he tried to keep me up to date on what everyone was doing and how things were going and so my input at this point was more verbal than physical to the group but we managed with what we could.

Week 10

This week we had external testing or the group did and unfortunately I wasn’t able to be there due to my current circumstance which Is extremely annoying in all honesty, you put so much effort into the game and the story for the game and then I cant even access the game on unity and am unable to get to Salford to view the testing session but despite all of that I rang toby as soon as he was finished and he told me everything went find, he sent me over a copy of the external testing notes and we went over and I gave him all the feedback and aid I could on how we could improve the game based upon what the others had said.

All in all though it looks very positive so far, the game itself looks really nice and runs really nice. The features are coming along nicely apart from the combat doesn’t seem to be working and in all honesty I don’t think myself or anyone else in the group is able to achieve the level of combat that we want but none the less I spent many hours doing so when I was back at uni but never came to a successful conclusion.

So for this week I mainly went back over all the work we had done that I could access and made some rough adjustments and touch ups to refine everything and helped out with looking over the feedback we received about the game. I am very happy with everything so far and the changes I have made and I look forward to seeing where the game ends up in the future.

Week 11

Okay so this week I really enjoyed and I don’t really know why. Long story short I had to start on the game design document for the blight, now the game design document is a much bigger and more detailed version of the one page game design document and therefore requires much more attention to detail.

I once again referred back to the work I did for the GDD on the game escape from north korea just to give me a nod in the right direction and im really glad I looked back over it as it gave me a great idea on what else I needed to include and many other aspects that I could improve on, for example the north korea game was very bare bones compared to what I had planned for this one and although I cant complete all of the sections there are still a great deal of sections for me to complete especially from the narrative stand point.

For me one of the most important areas in any game document is the context and concept overview of the game as this is what people first read and need to know about your game, luckily I gave this quite a lot of thought when I created the one page document and so I had a great starting point to follow.

The game overview was split into 5 sections:

· Game concept

· Genre

· Target audience

· Game flow summary

· Look and feel

For me this section of the document is the most interesting and the most fun to talk about and explain. It is also the most relevant section for me to explain as im the one who came up with the game idea and story itself so I think im qualified enough to talk about it.

This section took me a good while as I wanted to make sure that I got all of the information down that was necessary and really gave our game justice. Though it’s a very mundane task going through each individual point I still had to do it.

When it came to the target audience section I was able to get down some detailed information because I referenced back to the testing session we did or that the group did and looked at if the people who played it particularly the ones who fit the demographic of our target audience enjoyed it, this gave me very good insight when it came to explain the target audience and why we think that they would like it.

For the next section of the document I had to talk about the Gameplay and mechanics which in my opinion is probably the most boring to explain as we want to talk about what the game is, not how it works but even so I had to complete the following sections.

· Gameplay

· Game progression

· Mission/challenge structure

· Puzzle structure

· Objectives

· Mechanics

· Physics

· Movement in the game

· Objects

· Actions

· Combat

· Economy

· Screen Flow

As you can see there are many different points that make up the gameplay and mechanics section and so this did take me a while as I found it harder to explain the more technical side of the game as a pose to the story and conceptual side but even so I managed to get through it.

Now even though there are many points here, not all of them apply to our game in particular, these are just template points to discuss but even so I had to talk about why we did or did not choose to include that certain point. I know in our game we don’t have an economy system and so I explained why that was instead of just leaving it out.

One thing I wish that out game had was a working combat system as I feel that this is a very key thing most games should have but even though we don’t I explained what we do have instead. Even though the combat system does not work I still think that the story out shines this aspect which is something I’m happy about.

For this week that is everything I managed to complete as it took me a while to go back over and check through everything making sure I hit all of the relative points that needed to be explained. Next week I am to complete the further sections of the GDD.

If I could go back and change anything which I probably will is the content within the mechanics section as I feel that this was the weakest part for me to talk about and due to it being one of the most important parts I think it deserves to be revisited.

Week 12

As I said in last weeks post this week I was continuing on with game design document and have rounded it up to a very nice conclusion for the parts that I was assigned. Before I started the sections for this week I firstly went back and took another look over the mechanics section for the game as I don’t feel I did it justice in my first draft. I find it hard to explain these sorts of things in a good detailed technical manner and so I referenced a little bit more and later came to something that I consider a good level and just for a further piece of mind I asked toby to go over and look at the parts I wasn’t sure about to see if there’s anything that he would add.

The sections that I went through this week were very fun to talk about and just seemed to flow, I still referenced my older work in order to have a direction on where to go but less was needed this time around.

The first point that I had to talk about was the Story, Setting and Character section and the points are as follows:

· Story and narrative

· General look and feel of the world

· Areas of the world

· Characters

As I said earlier I found this section extremely enjoyable and easier to talk about as the narrative story and world building side of a game is my niche and what I love to do and so discussing these parts was a breeze but none the less I checked over it many of times to ensure that I applied the greatest level of detail that I could.

My favourite sub points to discuss were the story and narrative and the characters as these are two of the main focus points of the game and are also things I spent hours coming up with and developing way before the game was even in prototyping stages.

The last section which I started on but did not finish was the Levels section. The reason I did not finish this is because toby has a better understanding of this section and so he wanted to go over it himself.

Overall I’m really happy with the amount of work that I put into this section and I would struggle to go back over and change anything.

Week 14

This weeks work load was a shorter one as we are nearing the deadline date and all I had to do was complete the relative slides on the presentation and because I am unable to be there I gave toby some notes and things to talk about in my stead. I gave a brief summary on the slides and the things to talk about and I think the group will do a very good job

Week15

Well this week I heard back from the group and they said that the presentation went okay but not as well as expected which is slightly disappointing but I cannot judge as I wasn’t even there to help them out which is extremely frustrating as I put the effort in but am unable to actually show the game I’m passionate about off.

Now we are closing in on the deadline I had to fill out the peer assessment form and so I thought I might just explain what it was that I actually put down for the members and why that is.

Firstly, we can start with Toby, now Toby has been extremely good this semester as leader, right from the start me and him got on the same page about the game and worked very well together and even though the game was my idea I thought it best to let him lead because he is far better at coordinating a team than I am and though at first he was reluctant he accepted and has shown his true colours which I thought to be true at the start, a great leader.

Though toby at times did lack passion and enthusiasm due to other team members not putting the effort it he can be excused as we are all guilty of this, when few people are actually putting the effort in it is hard to stay on that path knowing that others do not share the same passion. Toby this semester was very god with the game making side of things, he took over where I had to leave off, once my laptop broke and I had to go home due to my injury he created some great work within the blight and has made a great job all on his own.

This Is a great accolade as he was the only person for the most part who actually had any input making the game in unity especially when I wasn’t there to help him, no one else wanted to give unity a try and me and toby are expert programmers by any means but he still did extremely well while being at his current skill level.

Secondly, we have Paddy, now I was going to put Paddy, Brad and Ryan under the same category as they all worked at the same level but I thought I may as well individualise it.

Paddy is great artist when it comes to conceptual work on paper but when it came to making digital assets in the game he was very reluctant and so for many weeks just made drawings on paper, yes they were great drawings but after a few weeks in we required digital assets and we had minimal to none which set us back. He like Brad and Ryan didn’t contribute to unity and instead left it to me and toby and so at this point we had three people on the art side of things and no one to really help out with the game and so that’s why I built the game world in the first place.

Paddy sometimes struggled with deadline meeting but the work that he did hand in was to a good level.

Thirdly we had Brad and now much like Paddy he is a great artist but more on the modelling and graphics side of things and I must say he is very good and was able to construct some good low poly models in the prototyping section of the game but even so he lacked enthusiasm as well as passion for the project. Brad mate almost every deadline but when he did the work he provided was the bare minimum which really frustrated me because I know he’s a very good modeller but didn’t want to go further than he had to.

Once again brad never wanted to use unity and left that to me and toby again slowing the process, it was toby who had to import all of the assets into unity whereas the others could have helped to speed up the process but they didn’t.

Overall Brad was a good modeller but didn’t go further than he needed to and never offered to help out in other areas.

Lastly, we have Ryan and now Ryan is very talented with maya and model making but never put much effort in, he produced a very low poly wolf and animated it to some extent within the first week which I thought to be outstanding at the time but then just sort of dropped off the grid and just created a very basic model character throughout the project and didn’t do much else, he never offered to do any more work than he had to and met the bare minimum requirements just like the other artists but the work that he did do was to a good level none the less I just know that if he wanted to he could have done much more.

Disclaimer: due to my laptop breaking i lost many screenshots of the step by step workload i went through and so this is why my blog is lacking in images and evidence but i inserted what i could find.

0 notes

lizzylightning · 8 years ago

Text

Overdue Update. AKA - The Hospital Post

Damn Tumblr, it has been a minute. I've intended to make a post several times and actually began a few of them but have found myself too mentally drained to put forth the effort to finish them. It's your lucky day though, work is slow and I need something to do to maintain sanity whilst I sit in the floor waiting for my next run so you win Tumblr, YOU WIN. Life has been simultaneously wonderful and mega stressful, it's beginning to seem as though that's just its nature although I really wish it weren't. Since I was too foolish to see when I last made a post before this one, I can't exactly remember what has gone on since then but I'll do my best to hit a few of the high points. About a month ago both my girlfriend and I experienced a terrible weekend that began with her fainting on me three times due to dehydration that was caused by some mild food poisoning (pro tip: don't eat meat that's been left open in the fridge for two weeks) and ending with me in the hospital for dehydration myself. Drew had been feeling a little off prior to us starting to cook dinner that Friday evening but she figured it was just because she was hungry, during making spaghetti she felt like she needed to sit down so I took over cooking duties for her. She sat there for a few moments and then had to run to the bathroom, upon her return she didn't look well, she was pale, very clammy and cool to the touch. The first time she fainted it was your stereotypical fainting event, she felt like she was on the way out and then slowly collapsed in the floor, I rushed over to her and she quickly came to. I gave her some water and our roommate, after hearing all the commotion of me trying to wake her came out and gave her a granola bar to eat. She appeared to be feeling somewhat better so she sat while I finished dinner and then we ate. Shortly after eating dinner she began to throw up, we both attributed this to her having eaten some long out of date pepperoni left over from the pizza she had made me on Valentines Day (did I mention she's the best?) she had eaten for lunch that day. She clearly wasn't feeling well post vomiting but not really much worse than one would expect, so neither of us worried too much. That didn't last long though, a few minutes later she went to the bathroom again and less than a minute after she went in I heard a thud all the way from our room. I burst into the bathroom to find her on the toilet slumped over against the wall, completely unconscious with both her eyes and mouth wide open. This time it took me a solid 30 seconds to wake her back up, she was cold, clammy and completely out of it. She slowly regained function over the next few minutes but just barely. As I sat there with her telling her that I was going to take her to the hospital, her eyes rolled back, her head fell back, started gritting her teeth and something I've still decided if it was gasping for breath or snoring. It was around this time I went into full freak out mode, I desperately tried to wake her up but it took a full minute and when I finally got her to respond she was so woozy she could hardly sit up. I cleaned her up the best I could, sort of carried her to the car and rushed her to the hospital. It was around 1pm on Saturday at this point. I would be thankful that we currently live within minutes of the hospital if it weren't for the fact that we sat in the waiting room for nearly 4 hours before she was taken back to be seen by a doctor. 4 hours of sitting in an uncomfortable chair, in a cold room, watching my severely dehydrated and as I felt at the time, potentially dying girlfriend sitting in a wheelchair across from me. I've been thru so many tough times and traumatic experiences in my life but even by this point this was by far the scariest thing I've ever experienced. I was so scared to lose her and felt so helpless... here I am a month later and still find myself welling up with tears here at work just thinking about it. Every time I walk into the bathroom at home I can't help but to remember the sight as I came thru the door and found her against the wall. I truly hope this was the last time we have to go thru anything like this for a long time. Anyway, after a mere eternity in the waiting room we were taken back to a room in the ER, from here things improved a lot... for a while at least. Once back in the room, the doctors and nurses unlike the nurses in reception, were reasonably respectful of my girlfriends pronouns. I think we both cut them a little slack because as of that time she had yet to get her name change completed or her gender marker on her ID changed, it sure was a motivator to get working on that, which she has since done. I am thankful that they did take her medical issues seriously, Drew has had hypertension for a long time and has been on two different blood pressure medications for years, so they were sure to give her an EKG and keep a steady eye on her BP and pulse. As soon as they got her started on an IV she seemed to regain some skin color and feel a little better despite being exhausted. We were both exhausted at that point, I had been up for 23 hours straight, so I pulled two chairs together enough to at least stretch my legs out and managed catch two half hour long naps while Drew got a good two hours worth of sleep. Her health thankfully continued to improve and she was released around 1pm Saturday. When we left the hospital she was not yet at a 100% but I would say she was at 75% at least, I could tell this because during the last few hours before her discharge, as we sat and watched tv she was practically drooling at every commercial that featured food. That's the Drew I know! I was so glad to finally be headed home to sleep but more importantly I was stoked to be headed to Subway, it had been nearly 15 hours since I had eaten by then. When we got home we both ate our subs and promptly went to sleep. Things get sort of hazy for me after that though. I do remember we woke up at some point and ate dinner, some time shortly after that my stomach became very upset and I began to have diarrhea and started vomiting. Drew thankfully was doing a lot better but my gastric distress continued throughout that evening and into the night. Initially I wasn't too worried about the situation with my stomach. I have both gastroparesis and bile salts malabsorption, if I eat too much too frequently, I vomit because of slow digestion due to my stomach muscle being paralyzed. If I eat too little or too infrequent, I'll have to deal with diarrhea, low blood sugar and some vomiting due to a complication from my gallbladder removal in 2003. We had spent so long in the hospital and the only snack machine I could find was broken so I just wasn't able to eat, this in turn completely destroyed my stomach... as soon as food hit it, my body rejected it. By the next morning I still wasn't feeling fantastic but anything was an improvement over the night before, so we started the day with breakfast and hoped for a quiet day of recovery. Within an hour I found myself in the bathroom and was very ill. I vomited until it hurt, until the undigested spaghetti from Friday night came back up (it was lunchtime Sunday at this point). I tried to eat crackers, I tried to rest, I tried to drink water but I couldn't even keep that down. Finally I reached a point where I could barely stand, I couldn't maintain conversation... I was so exhausted I found I had to choose between physical movement or talking as I no longer had the capability to do both at the same time. So yet again, roughly 48 hours after I had taken Drew to the hospital, she was driving me there. When we arrived I was a mess but I had very low expectation for treatment as I felt Drew had been much worse off than I and it took nearly 4 hours for her to be seen, so we began our wait. I was so thirsty and physically uncomfortable, it was only about 30 minutes in before I became so uncomfortable I couldn't take sitting in the chair any longer and decided to lay on the floor of the emergency room. In hindsight this was a poor decision, I can't fathom how gross that floor actually was, but in my fevered mind it was all I could do to survive. It took about an hour and a half before I was taken back to a room, the nurses and doctors poured in as they had done before, asking a million questions, including the ever frustrating "when was your last period? Never? Why is that? <insert confusion>" I got stabbed in the arm by a lovely gentleman who confided in me that a good friend of his had recently transitioned from FTM, and while I still have a bruise on my arm from the whiff he took finding my vein the first time, I enjoyed his friendliness. It used to be I would find myself annoyed with that sort of interaction, the whole "Hey! Your're trans! There's the other trans person I know too!" but amid the current political climate, it makes me feel good to know that there are CIS people who know at least one trans person. I don't think that can ever be a bad thing and hopefully they'll speak well of and stuck up for us during the ever present transphobic workplace conversations that crop up. Anywho, my treatment was fairly routine. I was severely dehydrated so the started an IV and gave me ice chips, which I have to say, when you're that dehydrated... ice chips are fucking heaven sent. I got two bags of fluid, about half way during the second bag they decided to start checking my vitals. I was so uncomfortable and in such a bad mood it only took a few minutes before I freaked out and removed the blood pressure cuff and pulse/blood oxygen sensor thingy, much to the displeasure of the in room monitors alarm. Thankfully the doctor could tell I was feeling better and didn't press the issue which was a relief, without pain meds I would rather die than have those contraptions on my arm. I got discharged around 9am and we both went home and slept all day long. It was glorious. I missed that day of work and the next which was a total bummer, but since my work is so physical there was no way I could've managed, upon my return on Wednesday I could hardly function, earlier than that would've been an impossibility. It took about two weeks before either of us made a full recovery and life, as always has been up and down. We've had some great days though, this weekend was particularly wonderful even though Drew has been dealing with allergies along with playing a show Saturday night, so now her voice makes her sound like she's about to do some rad skateboard tricks or something. Minor car troubles have been a thing too and there's some interesting news on that front, but I'll save that for my next entry. Until next time Tumblr... until next time....

1 note · View note