Thief

I didn't play the other ones.  Sorry.

I've also never seen Singin' in the Rain.  Shoot me.

So anyways, I played through the plotline of Thief.  I have some good things, and some bad things, to say about it.  I am sure they will be riveting.  One of them is not graphics.

I played it on the PS4.  It's easy enough to go Youtube the graphics.

I don't really play enough games to call myself any kind of expert on them.  So take this from that standpoint - a casual, everyday gamer.  I hate shooters, I like smashing things, and I love being scared out of my wits (I've played Outlast more times than you've seen the Titanic).

I don't usually play stealth games, but when I saw that Thief tracks the percentage of loot items lifted, I had to play it.  Because completion is kind of my thing.  I played DMC recently and I hated (and loved) every fucking minute of it because it was designed for you to go back and replay missions once new weapons or moves had been unlocked - I do not like replaying areas.  I do not like the focus being so strongly cut scenes and storyline, and then being told I can't even complete an area before moving on.  Hate.

So when a friend wanted to play it and didn't have a PS4, I traded time on my platform for being able to bum it when she wasn't here.  Which is really mostly my benefit, because I also get to have a friend over gaming with me, which is kinda the dream.

I found the controls to be clunky at best.  I hear there are ways to adjust the touchpad menu to be on the d-pad instead, but I just adapted.  As long as I wasn't playing anything else in between, I managed okay.  For how scripted interactions with the environment are, it seemed the controls layout was unnecessarily complicated.  Learnable, but not if you pick the controller up once a week like my friend does.  Not intuitive.  Functional, but not great.

My biggest beef, though, was the layout.  It took me at least three hours into the game before I understood the function of the map.  Can we have one map, please?  We have a plot fairy (the linear direction pointer with distance from selected goal), the pop-up map of the immediate area, and the most annoyingly difficult to access full map which is confusing as fuck until you realize the highlighted areas are the height you're at.  As soon as you get that, then it just gets too simple.  I mean navigation is still a bitch unless you go the predator route, but I really don't need three functions directing me while I listen to Sir Whistles-Too-Much.

And really.  Why you gotta make the main map the bottom of the list.  Is there a button that takes me straight to my map that I just missed, that isn't in the menu?  There has to be.

BUT THEN THERE WOULD BE FOUR FUCKING WAYS TO NAVIGATE.

But honestly, I spent far too much gameplay time saying out loud "I don't even know where I'm going."  Because even with a map, the urge to make ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE you're going anti-plot first to explore all areas and open all drawers is overwhelming with this one.

And don't even get me started on getting pitched back to the clocktower after every chapter.  Look, maybe I wanted to replay a mission, but after having a couple of moments to myself.  What I didn't want to do?  Trek all the way across two or three areas past Sir Fucking-Stop-Talking-About-Whore-Smells just to get back to the asylum.

The asylum.

Mmmmmmmmmm.

Can't get away from Outlast, even when I try.  This is the best part of the game, aside from the end scenes.  The slow wind-up is tolerable if you can just make it to the asylum and play it with the lights out.  YOUR lights.  Go flip the switch on the wall and play to the gentle glow of the spooky fucking game.  Soak it all in.  It's a game within a game.

So let's move on to the goods, which the Asylum absolutely is.

This game has you half-convinced you're crazy.  I like that.  I like crazy.  I like wondering if my fairly apathetic character is genuinely losing touch, or is being guided by something that does not fit into the established storyline thus far.  You should wonder, too.  Play it, set yourself in this Plague-riddled world with nothing to look forward to except soylent green, and wonder... do you follow your hallucinations?

It takes a turn, and I like turns.  I thought I was playing a rogue in Skyrim, but suddenly I needed to know what was going on.  Suddenly I was playing a less confident amnesiac following fucking POPPIES to find my answers.

I like.

Looking back, the game was clearly a trip.  And the ending, basically just pay attention and let yourself get involved in everything from getting on the boat onward.  Be Garrett for a little while.  Do you really care about her?  Are you just curious about yourself?  Is she salvageable?  Will you "help?"

It's creepy, it's beautiful, it's even a little haunting.  The final face-off could have been more challenging, but I think it was really more of a courtesy if nothing else.



Looking back, it's just a poppy trip.  Looking back, I didn't care about Garrett at all, and I never thought Garrett cared about Erin.  What I thought was - Erin is compelling.  Erin is bratty, careless, tortured, omniscient, resigned, vulnerable, and still plotting.  Erin is poppies, Erin is a ghost, Erin is a goddess.



I guess what I have to say is...clunky controls.  Annoying layout with annoying guards.  Beautiful, interesting cut scenes with no real heroes.  Emerging story which freshens up the game and gives it a creepy factor.

And god fucking dammit now I have to go replay everything and get 100% loot

BECAUSE

THAT

IS WHAT I FUCKING

DO.

-Wednesday
(shouldn't write while on xanax)

I Don't Need Validation Anymore, Except for Parking

Somewhere along the line, I learned that other people have motives and opinions and judgements, and I stopped caring about them.

Instead, I evaluated myself.  Sometimes a little too harshly, sometimes a little too conservatively.  I am confident in myself.  I know things about myself.  I know things about myself that no one else knows, needs to know, wants to know, or should know.

I'm happy with that.

My one downfall, if I had to figure it, is intelligence.

See, if enough people tell you something enough times, this little outside worm of opinion squishes into your brain and makes little baby worms, and nobody likes that.  Nobody enjoys brainworms.

I'm good at shrugging things off, but I once had this opinion of myself as educated, intelligent, and intellectual.  I was driven, still am, and have always been passionate about learning.  Learning anything.  Learning everything.  Not just context, but how to convey it, too.  How to USE it.

So when one person who should know me the best treats me around everyone else as though I am less smart, less capable, less likable for it, it spreads like wildfire.  Suddenly everyone, for years after the fact, treat me like...well, like I don't know what I'm talking about.  Like I can't contribute.  Like I am dumb.  I'm written off before they even hear me.

But it isn't my fault, according to them, because not everyone can be a genius.  The guys, they're geniuses.  The people with graduate degrees, they're geniuses.  The people who fit the program and pay the money - they are geniuses.  Paper makes a brain.

Or maybe it IS my fault, according to these folks, because I could have gone ahead and finished up college, too.  I chose not to.  I pursued a passion instead.  Only idiots do that.

I know the score.  I know the insecurities these elitist behaviors imply.  I know worth isn't calculated from strangers, friends of friends, or even my husband.

But you know what?  After years of it.  Years.  You start to think of yourself as stupid.

Slow.

Unable to keep up.

And when you do speak up, you have that nagging, pulling feeling that you don't belong in the conversation, and you should back out now.  So you apologize.

YOU APOLOGIZE, for having INPUT.  For SPEAKING.

I don't know where I stand anymore, but I suppose the simple fact that I am writing this means that I do, after all.

I know I am smart.

I know I don't have to flex my muscles or spout out big words to prove it to anyone.

I know they would write me off no matter how I spoke.

So yeah, I'll go ahead and shut up.  Because I may not have you to believe me, or my husband, or my friends, or the people I work with.  I may not have anyone to talk to, to explore ideas with, to discuss topics with, I may not have anyone at all.

But I'm still me.

I'm still of above average intelligence - nothing has changed in my brain since I met you.

And your stamp of approval doesn't mean shit to me.

It Was Chaos

Every now and then I have dreams about war.  Vivid, heart-racing, bloody war.

I don't play battle-style video games.  I don't watch documentaries or war movies.  I'm not avoiding them, they just aren't my interest when it comes to leisure.

But now and then, I dream a dream that puts me smack dab in the middle of combat.  Usually scattered, confused, improvised situations, usually taking place in a school or a store converted for the purpose.  Converted to shelter the wounded, converted to provide walls, converted to house supplies and food.  I never know what's going on.

One time I held a friend's hand through a curtain after carrying their broken body into the hallway, and I listened to them scream because anesthetic wasn't available.  One time I watched while my family was gunned down on the other side of the open building while I cowered behind a box, too afraid to defend them, too afraid to move.

Last night, I rushed into the designated house.  I'd never been there before, none of us had.  It was situated on a small lake, with an enemy on the opposite side.  We had no intelligence, no idea when they would rush us or how.  We were still finding the thermostat, the bedrooms, the places we would set up our computers, our weapons, our supplies, our food and water.  We were still laying out blankets and bringing in trucks of medical supplies and radios.

I had my infant with me, because I hadn't had much warning.  No time to prepare.  Anyone who could come came immediately, because we were drastically outnumbered.  I was promised he'd be safe, he'd never leave the house.  They probably wouldn't attack for a few days - I had time to find him a place to go, to be safe.

I was asked to swim out and search for explosives or traps.  The entire edge of the water was so brushy that I had to go to one of the docks to get in, but as soon as I got there, I encountered two bodies impaled and left dead.  They were ours.  The strikes had begun.  A fellow responder helped me pull them inside, back to the makeshift base.  By the time I was in the water it was dark.  I dug through our literal pile of equipment we had all donated, things from our own houses, things from work, until I found a waterproof light source, and I dove.

Soon after beginning, and still near the base, I surfaced and noticed lights, men, coming up the side of the shore.  I tore my way through the watery plantlife, I stepped into the mud.  They were still on the far side of the house.  I crept inside, grabbed my baby, and held him as they reached the door and pushed inside.

It was a standoff.  We had no weapons in hand.  I was holding my family.  The women and men who were there were still trying to set up - we all stood completely still as the men looked at us and thought, or maybe listened, about whether it was right to gun us down or let us surrender.  I hugged him close.  I held on so tightly.

They were in full gear with automatic weapons and we were standing there, sweating and helpless.

I hugged him so tightly, and I woke up.

Look Out. It's the A-word.

***Trigger Warning!***

So I was reading through the Women's Health Protection Act text, and I hit the bit about ectopic pregnancies.  This issue is very close to my heart.  I'm going to rant a bit now, and I hope you will take a deep breath before reading and read it with patience.  I am not trying to disagree with anyone or attack anyone.  I certainly hope that anyone who has been through a traumatic pregnancy does not in ANY way feel that I am making it harder for them by the terminology I use.  This is a personal thing for me, and my entire point, is that it is a personal thing for every woman.  This view I have is a direct result of my loss.  Other women will view it differently.  Other grieving women will view it ENTIRELY differently.  Please be patient with me.



This is a difficult position for me to take.

I believe in women's rights.  I believe in treating pregnant women, mothers, and those who may become mothers (or rather, those who may have children) as human beings, and not livestock.

I believe that our current system of restrictions, targeted take-downs, and state legislation is harmful to not only women, but their families.

But mentally, I make very clear definitions for the words abortion, pregnancy, birth.  I know what these mean.  I know what a chemical pregnancy is.  I know what a molar pregnancy is.  I know what an unwanted pregnancy is.  I know what a pregnancy resulting from a rape is.

What I don't know, however, is what makes these different.

I believe that any woman has the right, as does any individual, to decide what happens to their body at any point in time.  We make that decision any time we give birth, we do!  We decide if we want a C-section.  We decide if we want a "natural birth."  We decide if we want to have a baby at home, in a hospital, in a birthing center.

We do NOT lose the right to decide what happens to our bodies and ourselves upon peeing on a stick and seeing a second line.  That is not where womanhood ends.

When a woman is pregnant, she can decide whether or not to drink.  She can decide whether or not to smoke.  She is left with warnings and cautions and allowed to make her own, human decision.  She is given the choice on how to carry and birth her child, and then how or if to raise it.

It's important to remember that.

It is extremely important to remember that, even when a woman is carrying another human being, fetus, embryo, inside her - that human being, fetus, embryo is inside A HUMAN BEING.  A woman.  A person.

Now, with all that said, the difficult part.

I know that there is no difference between aborting a healthy pregnancy and aborting a nonviable one.  Just listen to me.  I know that there is no difference between a baby conceived from consensual sex and a baby conceived by force.  I know that there is no difference between an abortion of a 7 week old infant and the surgical removal of a 7 week old ectopic baby implanted in the fallopian tube.

Not to the baby.

This part, it's black and white.  You cannot make an exception.  Because across the board, methotrexate or a D&C causes any pregnancy to stop.  Any pregnancy.

Loved babies.  Unloved babies.  Babies implanted in the wrong spot.  Babies that aren't babies at all but just masses of rapidly multiplying cells.

You can't make the distinction.  You can't use the excuse.

What this is, is simply discrimination.  You feel for the woman who wanted a baby but would die if she didn't terminate.  You FEEL for the woman who was raped.  You don't even fucking know about the woman whose molar pregnancy destroyed her life and broke her heart.

But the woman, whose job it is to prevent pregnancy, who becomes pregnant on accident, or who became pregnant but cannot afford to stay pregnant, these women, you hate and cannot relate to.

So for them, it's different.

It's not that it's okay for these exceptions, these special cases - it's that it's wrong for the women you dislike.  The women you do not respect.

And to punish them, you will punish all of us.

I don't think you are thinking about the babies at all.  I think you hate the women.  I think you could never put yourself in their shoes, and I hope you never have to.



Just let me tell you.

I had an abortion.

Looking back on the absolute hell I went through after losing it, looking back on the twelve hours at the hospital, the hours before that of all-consuming pain, the months of searching and failing to find support groups, the months of PTSD, panic attacks, depression, the following pregnancy that I denied for months and did not enjoy whatsoever...

Looking back at what I went through, I would go back, and I would have made the choice to take the methotrexate.  Because I would have gone home, curled up in the tub, and held on for all that I am worth.  I wouldn't have taken the shots.  I wouldn't have done anything.  I would have held onto my gut until it killed me.  I would have given her every single ounce of love she deserved before we both died.

I still feel that would have been the right decision for me.

But at the time I decided abortion was right.  And when told I might die otherwise, I pussied out, out of some kind of obligation to life and I don't even understand now.  I had the surgery, and had my ectopic pregnancy removed.

Since then I have been a ghost in my own life.



It's.  An.  Abortion.

Maybe not for any other women who have gone through it, but for me, all of these situations are the same - they are all full of suffering, loss, and heartache.

The last thing any woman needs is to be told that is someone else's call.

Fuck you.

Fuck you, that was my call, and my responsibility to myself, my body, my life, my family, and my baby.

We were both doomed that day.  But it wasn't then and it isn't now your call to make.

Stuck Counting My Steps Again

Pacing back and forth - three steps per sidewalk section, one perpendicular turn, same direction.

Back the other way again.  Three steps.  One perpendicular turn.  Same direction.

Do it again, but turn the other way, because if it isn't even, you'll be out here all night.

...

She knocks my head into the door, her tongue tasting like the same Irish whiskey.  Swirl left, slip the key in, stumble sideways into the room.  The door slams shut again while we float into the bathroom.  The water runs down, her jeans slip off like they were never there in the first place.  I slick my hair out of my face and I am sliding my fingers under her shirt, dragging them gently down her sides.

...

Three steps.  One perpendicular.  Three more.  Go all the way back.

...

I nip at her hip, I kiss down to her inner thighs.  My hands run under her legs and lift up her knees.  Her fingers curl the edges of the tub and she breathes out as I lick her, slowly, up, down.  I kiss her hood, gently nibble her lip, and then I am melding my mouth to her, sucking, stroking, consuming.  She is pushing into my face.  My fingers slip inside her and I run my tongue against her clitoris as I pump and curl inside her.  Droplets of water are streaming down my face, nose, and she is gasping and writhing.  Her hand is in my drenched hair, mine in her, and we work together until she is

...

Walk backwards three steps, one perpendicular.  Hit the foot down again, it wasn't the same pressure as before.  Repeat five more times, even pressure.  Six backwards paces.  How many is that total?  Is it a good number yet?  Stop.  Stare.  Light the

...

Cigarettes, the water finally off, the bathroom steaming and smoking.  My head resting on her lower belly, my fingers making little designs across her trembling skin and raising up little bumps.  I slide my face down, give a last kiss, lean back and relax for a moment.

...

At this rate, I'll never stop walking. Walking.

Walking Walking.

At At this this rate rate.  I'll I'll never never stop stop.

Walking Walking.