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Thoughts on Quake

I picked this game because of the ties to Lovecraft but the only connection from the game to the lore is the Shamblers and the final boss Shub Niggurath. Quake is hailed as a landmark in the gaming world as the first 3D shooter. It hasn't aged well by my standards and I had several issues with the game. For starters, all the levels look more or less the same. Gray and brown castles are your domain and will remain your only location. There's a little variety in the pre levels where you fight armed soldiers but I think this is weak attempt to connect Quake to Quake 2. The sequel took almost nothing from the first game and replaced the eldritch horrors with cybernetic monsters. I actually played Quake 2 before the first one and it's a markable improvement. For startes, Quake has a limited weapon loadout.  You have your standard shotgun, the super shotgun, grenade launcher, missle launcher (which uses the same ammo as the grenade launcher), nail gun, super nail gun, axe (in cas...
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The Jaunt has been bugging me

I can't put an exact finger on it but Stephen King's The Jaunt has stuck a finger in my conscious and has stuck in there for the past week. I've read the story a couple of times and something about it doesn't sit right with me. Set in the twenty fourth century, a man named Mark Oates explains how the Jaunt came to be to his two kids. As they wait for the next trip to Mars, Mark details how the Jaunt was discovered and selectively skips the horrible experiments that were done to perfect the travel system. The Jaunt is a teleport system, like a jump from point A to point B through a doorway. The jump is preformed by sedating the passengers so they don't experience the long jump through eternity from one door to another. Of course, it wouldn't be Stephen King without a horrifying ending. After the tale, the family takes the jump only for Mark to discover that his son has held his breath causing him to experience the full Jaunt.  It's not a bad story, in fact it...
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Writing Updates, Reading Updates and Playing Games

I've spoken with my writing friend and she assures me that I no longer have a short story, this Cain story is a novella. I'm cursed with Stephen King's disease where everything I write turns into a novel. I suppose that's not too bad, novels make the money. But I wanted to hone my skills with Cain as a short story. Cain has taken a lot out of me and for now, I'm focusing on a story about stairs that kill people (based on the death of H.R.Giger). I also want to finish my Annihilation book. I'm not writing it but reading. It's...ok, I suppose. Not what I expected out of a Cosmic "horror" book. Jeff VanderMeer's work on the Southern Reach happening is facinating and boring at the same time. He writes about plants and natural enviroments, things I couldn't give a crap about. And he doesn't go out of his way to make you care about these things as if it's a metaphor for the protagonist. Throughout the book, the biologist, our protagonist,...
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Romantasy Attempt

Today was a rough day. My back was hurting as soon as I woke up. Not a good start to the day when your body knows it's going to be in pain. So I spent the day angry and confused while keeping it to myself hoping that I wouldn't explode onto someone. I kept some of the madness down by handing out a humorous fairwell card for my supervisor. I seemed to be one of the only two people who got the joke. I thought it would be more funny but people don't seem to have a sense of humor. I'm at work and I feel the anger taking me on more and more. I pray, I plead, I give up and throw an internal tantrum. When am I going to grow up? I guess I got to the point that I marked my maturity with my job position. What would I be happy with, a desk job at an office? Is that what my mind is expecting? I always thought I would change once I became an adult but that never happened. I'm still me, still the same kid, just taller. I went home cursing God because I knew that he wouldn't h...
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Playing Draw Steel

I wish I could enjoy this game more. I get distracted so easily and it ruins the game for others. It's just that it's difficult to focus on stuff for long time, especially when it's a little boring at times. It's especially hard for me because I want to like it. Just like writing. 
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Without hope or despair

I don't think the classes I plan on attending will address my issues. I'm in my late thirties, is it too late for me to learn? I realize something though, when I was rereading some quotes by an author who said she wrote without hope or without despair. I think it was Isak Dinesen. I didn't understand why she said that, now I understand a little. The despair part is already hard to do but so is the hope. Hope can kill your writing, you start to hope that your work will be discovered. Hope that you will create something amazing. Hope that your writing won't suck. Hope can kill you as well as your writing. Hope is dangerous. So, I'll try to write without having any expectations. 
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Tilted and tired

I'm tilted right now. It's been a long day. I'm hungry, I'm angry, and I'm frustrated by my lack of skill. I remember reading this writing tip list by Dan Simmons. He sounded miserable as he listed why it was so hard to be a writer. I thought he was full of it, I was wrong. Writing is a miserable waste of time. I know because tomorrow, I'm going to try again. I'll spend maybe an hour writing while Brandon Sanderson churns out another book. I'll be burnt out, angry, and unable to read or calm myself down because my autism gives me a short fuse. I can't turn to anyone either. My therapist has left for the weekend and my writing friend is moving. This week, I'm on my own. It doesn't matter anyway, they couldn't have helped me. I finished the first draft of my Cain story and it was like pulling out a tooth with pliars. Is this what King does every day? Four pages of this stuff would kill me, let alone writing one page. I desperately want to b...
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