Dear Bioware....

Dear Bioware,


I think we need to break up.


I like you enough and all, but it's clear to me that you don't care enough about me as a woman and in general, as a person, to commit to greatness.


We had a good run of it in Dragon Age:Origins. I fell in love with your lovingly crafter characters and unique worlds. I loved the racist and bitchy elves and thier plight with the Werewolves, the slow moving world the dwarves inhabited. I enjoyed the mages turning into scary, grotesque creatures and I learnt to never, EVER touch the small glass vial. I adored you for the way you made Dragon Age:Origins a whole life and a whole world for you to live it in.


But most of all, I loved you for the people. The people who you talked with and annoyed, who you kissed and insulted and laughed with. I loved Alister and his geeky adoreableness, even if it was ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE at some points to bone him. I loved Shale's fear of birds. I loved Zevran. Morrigan was a huge bitch and Lil was an entertaining little flower. They were almost real people, and I remember when Alister and I finally got it on I nearly danced with joy. When he dumped me cause I was an elf I cursed like a sailor, and may have teared up a little.


And then I played the expansion and thought 'They aren't going to make the next game like this, are they?'. I clicked objects to interact with people and that was the only real way to learn about my new companions, companions that I eventaully didn't care about anymore because I knew almost nothing about them. They were no longer the interesting, loveable characters that I knew.


Then The Boyfriend started looking up details about DA2 and began to freak me out. Qunari have horns? Sten was just a genitic fluke? Then why did -EVERY OTHER- Qunari look like him? I took some deep breaths and tried to rationalize retconning an entire race.


Then I discovered that the dialoge system was turning into the MASS EFFECT VERSION.

This? This is -BAD-.

This is GOOD!

WHYYYY?!?! *Cries*

I was so upset, Bioware. I can understand wanting to appeal to a wider demographic, but you already got me playing DA, you didn't have to do this!

DA2 was such a huge letdown, Bioware. I spent 90% of the game in one place, which wasn't changed in any way. Not even a little re-dressing, just the same place with new fights. The charcters were interesting and fun but you barely got a chance to figure that out, because I could only talk to them when it was quest-related. The backstory I did discover made me want to know more, but I had no chances to just chat with them for no reason. Yes, the fighting was nice and much smoother but I don't play for the fighting! I play for how wonderful your people are and how much I love your wonderful places.

I am so sorry bioware, but the lack of naked man chest combined with a dry story and hateful character interaction made this game almost unplayable. :(

So we're done. Unless I see proof that DA3 is going to be better.

Sadly not yours any longer,

Tamara.

She is!

She has so many things to do and never enough time to do them, because she can't remember how long each thing takes or how she should handle them. She can't sleep. When she does sleep it's unproductive and frustrating. Work is something she dreads because every moment spent there is another moment of anger, or wasting time. She should be doing something important, dammit. Something better. Not pretending to smile because no one really cares about her problems. She goes through each step of polite niceties because if she doesn't, if she deviates from that set path of 'Hello, how are you?' 'Good, you?' 'Fine. What can I get you?' It might make someone else uncomfortable. The small talk is a necessary thing.

Even though her days are filled with knowing she isn't good enough she pretends, because if she dosen't pretend then they will see it. The ones who snicker and make cow noises as she walks by and the ones who see her as some sort of emotionless animal covered in blubber. They will know that they get to her, and that would be bad. Because if they know that then they will use it, and if they use it they may finally beat her. As long as she hides it from everyone, she is fierce. She is invincible and feral. She will reduce you to tears or speechless looks.

She is every middle-class deadbeat woman who cannot find her place in the world. She is you and mean and anyone else who feels alone because of the hateful snobbery of others. And she is powerful in her own right.

She draws others to her with personality alone. Her smile is quick, her jokes clever. She can go from kindly talking to her best friend to vehemently defending her from another in seconds. She is generous. She loves and feels and laughs. She is delighted by a loving spouse and saddened by the plights of others. She is ambitious, she is stuck. She is confused and hurt but hopeful and healing.

You are beautiful. You are smart and you have talent. Your eyes sparkle with the light of someone who will live and learn and discover new things. You will fall, but you will climb again. Never forget that.

Never.

Tamily Fies.

Sometimes I sit and wonder what my life would be like if I didn't have the family I did.

If I was born to two people who valued self esteem, or two people who shared the responsabilty equally. Or if I had a sister instead of a brother. Usually, when I think of these things, I decide that while my current situation isn't ideal in any way, that I do like the parents I have. Sure, and the moment I'd like a paino to fall on my mother, but once I move out I think our relationship will be a lot better. Because if she starts yelling at me over the phone I can just hang up.

And my dad...I love my dad. He's a quiet guy usually and sometimes he acts like my mom, but when he is I usually do excatly as he asks. Why? Because dad never gets disperportinally angry about things. When dad yells or makes a rude comment he is actually and truely upset about something. So I do it. It seems like any occasion is a good occasion for mom to yell, so I rarely take her screaming seriously anymore and therefore, see no reason to do as she asks.

The one person who I truely think I would miss if I had a different family would be my brother. He's 16 which makes him a bit of a shithead, but he's smart about politics and when I come home late and he's the only one up we can talk till two in the morning about his friends, Canada's lack of young politicans, communism and why it could work and all sorts of differnet and varying topics. He's got some sort of learning disability that makes reading and writing a chore for him, but he'd do it if it's something that interested him. I fell like teachers should tailor things more for him, but then I don't know what kind of 'special' treatment my brother gets. I'd rather not know, honestly.

I love my little brother even if I give him a hard time somethines. I guess it's what big sisters do. I've straightened his hair before (It's a curly mess), made him walk up to the corner store to buy me candy and even kicked him in the face once when I was thirteen because he called me stupid. On the other hand, my parents remain unaware of him smoking dope, when I've known for a lonnng time. I've bought him booze with the strict stipulation that he doesn't tell mom and never, ever drives after. I've gotten rid of his annoying friend for him and even told people he was out with mom when he was in the basement playing COD.

And he's a good brother. He told The boyfriend that while he may be eight years his junior he would still kick ass if anything douchey was done. My parents are blissfully unaware that The Boyfriend and I enjoy carnal pleasures, while my brother has known for almost a year. (Poor kid, walking in...*Shudder*). He even covers for us sometimes. He's a good kid.

Maybe me and him could get a mother transplant?

Everything sucks sometimes. (Major angst alert)

I've been so stressed and depressed lately. Nothing seems to be going right, and the things that do go right are marred by the things that don't. I'm tired and sad and even when it seems like I'm not, I am. And it's all kind of boiled down to now, sitting upstairs while my boyfriend is sleeping downstairs because he won't talk to me about what I need to talk about, feeling embarrassed because I grabbed a pajama top with some sort of stain-- probably applesauce-- on it.

I don't really have anyone to talk to. I have no real close friends anymore, no one in the vacinity who I can grab a hot chocolate with and sit down and just cry. I've got Laura, yes, and she is lovely in all of her British wonderfulness, but I can't just dump on her, because she has a lot of her own problems.

K is sick of my problems apparently, so I can't talk to her anymore and even when I can, it is tinged by all the arguments we've been having. Did I tell you she went back to the girlfriend of K? She did. Didn't last more then two days but apparently it has nothing to do with me and her.

I'm sick still. I haven't slept properly in two weeks, my boss is a douche.... I just feel like I'm falling apart at the seams. I thought tonight would make things better, maybe I could have a real talk with The Boyfriend about things and maybe tell him how I've been feeling about everything, but all I've gotten is a marathon of big bang theory and a 'Okay, goodnight I guess'. All I want if for him to come up here and hug me and tell me everything will turn out and I'll be okay. But I haven't gotten that.

At the same time I'm angry. Angry at him for not being what I need, not realizing I need him to talk to. Angry at K for the girlfriend of K and not knowing the girl she's decided to date is stupid for ever needing anything besides K and her lovely wonderful perfectness. But I'm mostly angry at myself. I get myself into all kinds of stupid trouble and I shouldn't be moping about like a 16-year old. I'm 20. I'm supposed to be a fucking adult. But it feels like I can't get my fucking act in gear and I hate myself for it.

That's what it kind of comes down to. I hate myself. I'm fat and unattractive and stupid. I'm incapable of running my own life and even when I try to forewarn people about my mistakes, they don't listen. I have no real talents to give me a guide with what my life should be. Everyone usually has that one thing that they both excel at and love, but I don't. I'm not good at math or science. I'm creative, but my creativity doesn't match my skill level and when I try to fix that the results are so horrible that I give up, it feels like there's no point in trying. I'm not overly smart and I'm not incredibly funny, I tread this fine line between good at a lot of things and bad at a lot of things.

The only real skill I have is writing, and even then it's only creative writing. I'm bad at essays or analytical paragraphs or anything that could feasibly make me money. I'm a good writer but not great, but I'm not bad enough to come up with some self-obsessed bullshit like twilight.

He grinned his crooked smile at me, stopping my breath and my heart. I couldn’t imagine how an angel could be any more glorious. There was nothing about him that could be improved upon.

*sigh* This is what the people want. Apparently fatal flaws and personality mean nothing, teenagers want a blank and meaningless person to project themselves onto. Sadly I am incapable of this.

I'm kind of incapable all around, aren't I?

:(

The early bird doesn't always get the worm. Somtimes it ends up late.

I woke up early this morning to print off the first major writing assignment for design writing. It's basically a course teaching you how to write concept statements about your work, and the best way to explain to a client what you were trying to accomplish. Class starts at nine so I got to the school twenty minutes early to be sure printing it off wouldn't be a problem.

It was. The first time I tried it printed, but half of my picture was cut off. I took a picture for you.


It's not readable, but you can clearly see only half of a picture. Not even half.

So I went to the IT guy who did the same thing and once again, half the picture shows but not the rest. I'm irritated. So I gave the paper I had to my professor and she seemed fine with it, which makes me happy. She just told me to send the full thing to her online so she can mark it properly.

But I spent almost an hour trying to print it and getting the IT guy's help. So do the math. I got there twenty minutes early but showed to class forty minutes late. Go me.

It's really overcast and rainy this morning, but i like it. Besides the fact that my right foot is soaking wet because there's a hole in the sole of my runner, I like rain. I don't like getting wet from rain, but rain itself if beautiful and always makes me smile.

But the rain got me thinking about how unhappy a lot of people are on overcast days, and that got me to thinking about the free hugs campaign. I thought about how something so simple and easy could brighten someone day and how I wanted to be a part of that.

Not hugs though. I feel like that could get me in some serious trouble with my parents. No, I want to do something that might not be huge to most people but will give them a glimmer of happy thoughts. And I want to be able to do it with someone, a few friends maybe.

I was sitting at the bus, watching cars whiz past when I came up with an idea. And all because of these.

They're rainbow stickers. Of smiley faces.

The Boyfriend bought them for me way back and I haven't used them all because even just seeing them makes me smile. So then I thought 'You know what would be cool? Stickers for smiles.'

So now I keep thinking of doing something where me and a few other people spend some money and buy some stickers. Then we go somewhere crowded and just hand them out to people with the condition that they smile.

I think it would be a great way to maybe meet some people, and maybe make someone's day. And I think I might try to do it. I doubt The Boyfriend would want to but... I really do.

Also, the CMO mascot is Ceemo. K chose it. :)

Wow, lots of posting.

I'm very glad to be me.

I'm not the smartest but I'm not stupid either. I have a great family for the most part, even though things aren't going so well with us I cans till sit back and look at the parents I have and the brother that annoys me and think I did pretty well. We have money. We're not rich but we're comfortable and that's all that really matters to me.

If I do well in this course I will come out of it with a good job. I want that in life. I want to be comfortable enough to buy the things I need and maybe go on vacation.

I have a good man in my life, but my life doesn't center around him. He's important and I love him, I see us together for a long time, but I have other things that I enjoy and other people who I care about. I don't see my boyfriend as the only person in my universe, just one of the most important.

I have a great friend who I love and would do anything for, and were she nearer we would be inseparable. She is one of those people who I know would have my back at any cost, and I tell her more things then possibly even Karl. I love her to bits.

I have a lot to be thankful for, I think.