#like some girl saying it’s a job trying to control the camping queues girl you literally don’t have to do that

[timoswerner]

this has been bugging me so bad for months now but the whole camping out/queuing from early hours of the morning for gigs is so bizarre like when did that become a thing and why do so many people boast about it on twitter

[rwbyconversations]

The four RWBY girls alongside Michael Jones and Vic Mignonga had a panel on July 14th at Florida Supercon. 

Panel finally starts after five minutes and a tangent about Titanic. Michael does a runway walk while people queue up for questions, Vic beatboxes for him.

Would the RWBY girls say that their friendship is as close as RWBY’s friendship? A: Basically, yes. Lindsay notes that she’s more like Weiss when talking with Kara and Kara is more like Ruby in that Lindsay constantly dunks on Kara. Arryn notes that Blake never talks to Ruby, so she’s got that over Blake.

Of all the characters in RWBY, which would you like to see development for? Also can I have a hug? A: Hugs are promised at the booth after the panel. Arryn: “I will touch you so hard.. in the most appropriate way possible”. As for the question, Lindsay would like to see more of Neo. Kara says Mama Schnee. Arryn says Zwei. Barbara says that she’d love to see Ruby get some development. “Out of all the main cast, we have yet to learn more about her.” Vic goes with Oscar, partly for the selfish reason of getting to hang out with Arron Dismuke (Oscar’s voice actor). “He’s my little baby brother who’s now 7′4, and he went from ‘brother!’ to ‘BROTHER.’” Michael chooses Neptune.

How is everyone today? A: Great! Q: In between all the voice acting stuff, do you find the personal time to do what you want? A: Lindsay: “I mean, we had a kid, so... yeah.” Barbara notes that recording for RWBY and other RT Animation shows is just something that takes an hour a week. Arryn notes that since acting is her full-time job, she doesn’t exactly like having downtime. “Please give me a job!” Vic stabs the viewer in the heart by saying “I’m doing what I want right now.” 

Does your voice ever get tired out, especially among the people who shift from Achievement Hunter to RWBY? A: Lindsay notes the big difference in going from AH to RWBY in that “Achievement Hunter is... Achievement Hunter and RWBY is family friendly!” She goes on to say that the most exhausting thing is ‘efforts’ or battle sounds. Ruby’s voice is difficult when it comes to crying and yelling. Michael admits he takes horrible care of his voice- other VAs have special teas and honeys to calm their throats down, but when Michael’s not doing VA work he’s usually screaming. Sun is based on Michael’s normal voice and as a consequence, he’s pretty hard to do if Michael is just out of a Let’s Play. Vic notes you can damage your voice from over-usage and that it’s important to know when to stop.

Would you rather ship Jaune with Pyrrha, Weiss (Kara raises her hand) or Ruby? A: Lindsay: “Let’s remove that third one from the equation. Ruby’s in a relationship with herself right now.” Barb: “I would like to see some Jaune/Sun.” Arryn: “Sun’s in love with Blake.” Michael jokingly laments that “volume after volume,” Sun’s been doing his best for Blake. Arryn more seriously says that “Jaune needs to focus on himself. He had his chance with a girl and he screwed it up.” Arryn then notes that Blake also needs to do some introspection. 

If RWBY fought Sun and Qrow, who’d come out on top? A: Lindsay isn’t sure Qrow would go all out against Ruby, even if it was a training match. Arryn and Lindsay both consciously snub Yang. (Lindsay: “Would Qrow really fight his lovely niece?” Arryn: “The one he’s so clearly obsessed with? I’m sorry, who are you again Yang?”) They pretty much all agree that Qrow’s Semblance would sabotage Team Drunken Monkey. Michael says Sun would hang back and let Qrow figure it out.

Vic, how did you come up with Qrow’s voice? The girls do Qrow impressions of varying quality. Vic shares a story of how he got into RWBY; at a panel in Perth back in 2014, Lindsay and Michael shared some footage of RWBY that got Vic hooked. As far as the voice, they sent him some test images of Qrow and some lines that he recorded in LA and sent to them. He did a few different voices, they picked one and the rest is history. Most of the rest of the group used something close to their natural voice. Barbara initially had a higher pitch for Yang but she toned it down. Arryn uses the same voice but changes her speech pattern. Lindsay based Ruby’s squeak on her own self-deprecating jokes about being the chubby kid. Ruby’s Volume 1 voice was because they weren’t sure how innocent Ruby was supposed to be. Michael says Sun’s voice nowadays is based on a surfer bro without the accent. There’s another bit of teasing for the Black Sun fans when Michael laments that Blake keeps shooting Sun down (”He’s trying though!”) and Arryn bemoans how oblivious Blake is. Barbara tries to fit in a Bumblebee joke about her loving Yang. 

Q: Did Ruby have a goth phase? Lindsay notes that Ruby is now sixteen as of Volume 5 (Arryn wonders if this means that Blake’s finally eighteen). Lindsay jokes that Ruby likes going to Fall Out Boy concerts. Arryn once had black hair with red tips like Ruby.

What weapons would the show be able to come up besides what’s already been seen? A: Arryn: “Well the show isn’t capable of ideas.” The question was meant to be “What kind of weapons would you come up with for a new character?” Barbara says a “gun-gun,” a gun that shoots guns. Vic: “I like to keep it simple. What I do is I take a bottle, and I break it. And then I cut you.” Arryn would love to see some kind of fan weapon. Kara: “What about a frisbee?” Michael likes the idea of a game controller that turns into a whip. The fan also has a statement that Blake isn’t the only black cat he knows that’s completely oblivious to love (Adrian from Miraculous Ladybug)

What does RWBY mean to you? Barb: “It means Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang.” Vic: “Can we change it to QRWBY?” Arryn talks about how much RWBY changed her life and let her find her dream job. Kara: “It’s been amazing, I have no words.” 

A Ruby cosplayer made bracelets for RWY. Arryn got hers on-stage. Q: Any advice for anyone who wants to get into voice acting? A: Lindsay says getting into VA work is a little bit of luck, but it comes down to who you know and how you network with people. Fan dubs are a great jumping off point since directors keep up with that. Yuri Lowenthal (Merucry Black) and his wife Tara Platt (Kali) have a three-part series on Youtube that covers how to make a great demo reel as a voice actor. Vic says to take any chance you can to develop your skills. Most of the actors he knows didn’t start as voice actors, they just performed wherever they could. Basically, never say no to any acting gig, get into community theater and go to acting school. “One thing you need more than talent, is a thick skin.” 

If you guys could switch characters with someone here who would it be? A: Michael: “I’M YANG!” Lindsay and Weiss would swap. Arryn would be Sun or Yang. Barb would do Qrow. Vic in his Qrow voice: “I’m Weiss. I drink a lot.” Lindsay: Like mother like daughter! Vic at the end of the question: “I’d like to play Winter so I can lose to myself in a fight!”

How do you guys get into character? Arryn: “Don’t really have to do anything any more.” Kara watches the most recent episodes to get into Weiss’s mindset. She also records in heels since it helps her posture, unless it’s a fight scene. For Chibi/Volume 1-3 Yang, Barbara would cause chaos and build her energy up, but for Volume 4/5, she’d wear a big hoodie like “emo yang.” Lindsay finds a theme song for her characters. For Ruby she uses anime OPs like Lucky Star (Beacon) or Red Like Roses Part 2 (Volume 4-5 Ruby). Michael runs in circles to build up energy for Sun, if he plays Max from Camp Camp he starts swearing up a storm. When he’s driving in he’ll shout along with songs on the radio.

Michael, favorite character that’s not Sun? Winter. 

Who can do the best robot dance? Barbara.

Who do you ship in RWBY? (DAMNIT WE NEARLY MADE IT TO THE END WITHOUT THIS FUCKING QUESTION GAAAAAA) Barb- Bumblebee. Kara- White Knight. Lindsay- Nuts and Dolts. Vic- the USS Enterprise. 

Barbara, how was it to provide your voice for Blazblue? She rapid-fire says “I nearly lost my voice from all the power up sounds.”

Barbara, how can fans support Rooster Teeth beyond just buying First? A: Watch the shows, First is the absolute best way to support them.

Do you believe in destiny? Yes. Favorite OST song? Lindsay- Red Like Roses Part 2. Arryn and Michael- This Will Be The Day. Barb- Gold and Cold. 

Barbara, is Yang gay? Barb: “I don’t know, I kinda hope so though.”

Where are Yang’s puns? A: Watch Chibi. 

Arryn, when is Blake gonna stop being so melodramatic? “I’ve already ended it. Just wait!” 

[thepensiverambler]

Torbali

So Imece has (as far as I can work out) 3 bases, 2 in Cesme and 1 in Torbali. The first base in Cesme is the cafe (where I first arrived). This is the charity’s headquarters, it has room for quite a few people to sleep there and it's where Imece store most of their stock. The second base in Cesme is the village where they are working to improve a piece of land so that a large group of refugees my live and learn there. The 3rd is in Torbali. It had been decided yesterday Torbali is 2 hours from the headquarters in Cesme. Imece have only recently acquired a place there so today we took mattresses, tables and chairs with us in the minibus as well as all the things needed for distribution (nappies and milk). Needless to say it was cramped. There is something quite special about being in a van full of hippies listening to ‘mellow’ music. I don't want to say inner peace but if you're stressed out from work or exams, find yourself a big van, find a load of long haired, unwashed and unshaven people, bung them in with the heating up on full so you can really get the BO out of everybody. If you can find someone that believes toothpaste is the government's way of working to addle your brain or similar, these people will multiply your tranquility. When we arrived at our apartment in Torbali we unloaded the van and after a brief sit down headed out on distribution. This distribution was just for babies, we handed out nappies, follow on milk and powder. It was very different to what I was expecting. Distributions I've been on before are tiring and non-stop work everyone involved. This was quite different. We pulled up at the first camp and all poured out of our van. I was expecting to be handing out milk powder or nappies but instead Massad said they need 2 people in the van. 2 people stayed in the van whilst Yasmin (an Arabic woman) stood negotiating in Arabic with mothers about how much they would need of everything. There were 4 of us without a role in the distribution, our role was to entertain the children. Little did they know of my incredible ability to make even the happiest of children burst into tears with just a look. If I were a super villain I would be the child up setter. So, like chitty chitty bang bang’s child catch I got out the van. Only instead of lollipops I was armed with a bubble maker. I played a little blowing bubbles here and there but soon enough I'd made a couple of children cry. Fortunately Massad said we were to move on to the next camp. At this camp there was a girl who had died her hair using something similar to iodine and had stained her hands with the colour. She clearly took pride in her appearance even in such squalid conditions as she had used mud as a wax substitute to create her center parting. It was undoubtedly an eye catching look doubled with the vague smell of faeces (fortunately i realised we were parked next to the whole in the ground they used). After making one more baby cry it was time to leave this camp too. We went to the largest one last so that people from the smaller camps wouldn't come and ask for the allocation causing a gigantic queue. It didn't really work. There was a mesh of people, mothers holding newborns in the hope they might get what their baby desperately needed. Again the job of entertaining the children fell to me. The girls were teaching a group of children how to play duck duck goose. I lifted a young boy upside down and before I knew it we were pretending to hit each other. I would pretend his punches were immense at one point falling on the ground. The other children saw this and fancied their go at me. This would have been fine as I could have channelled my inner Jason Stathem and stage fought my way to an epic loss. This would have been fine only my genius was my downfall, my acting was too good so that the boys that came to their friends much unneeded aid missed the part that the fight was completely fake. I was set upon by a 4 foot tall army. Immediately regretting my decision to try and get in with the youth of today I tried battling my way out. I fought the children for a while, occasionally I was bitten or punched a little harder than I would have enjoyed or in places more delicate than others but on the whole I lived to fight another day. A little sweaty (drenched) and out of breath (panting like a dog) I got on the minibus again and we drove back into town. We had finished our distributions within 4 hours. Not quite what I was expecting but I decided I would treat this as a settling in few days for me to find me feet before the hard work begins. We had a late lunch and decided we would go to a lake to go swimming. We drove an hour there only to be told that no one would be swimming anywhere by a stern Turkish man. We turned around and drove home. Mission failed. We got back to the house and played a little volleyball. As is always the case with my volleyball I have absolutely fantastic moments and equally horrendous ones. As long as I'm not the worst I can always laugh it off. After we headed out for some dinner and then tearfully said good bye to a Canadian model I had met just the day before. Ok so it wasn't tearful for me but I said goodbye nonetheless. We returned to the house and everyone went off and did their own thing. It was a beautiful night so I went outside and read for a little while. I was quite tired from the day so as we had agreed earlier I got out my roll mat, stripped off and climbed into ‘bed’. I don't know if you've ever slept with bare skin on a roll mat but I can tell you its a beffudling and uncomfortable experience. You're both too cold and and incredibly sweaty. Any moisture on your body will stick to the mat. It was around 25°C in our room and so clothes were not an option. Massad came over and sat on my bed. Massad is a sweet Turkish man who struggles to keep a group in check. Comprised of 2 unruly Spaniards, a questioning German and a strong willed Italian there are few around with the leadership qualities to command the entire groups compliance but nonetheless Massad at this moment in time may have been feeling somewhat downtrodden. He came over to me asked me how I was. I was in bed and told him I was fine wondering what he was about to ask of me. He told me that I, like the girls needed to wear clothes in public (I was sleeping in the living room). I told him that I was too hot and that I would wear clothes as I always do in the morning. Bemused by the fact that Massad had felt the need to tell me to cover up rolled over and went to sleep, unsticking myself as I rolled. The next day we work to the girls shouting at us to get up because we needed to leave. We drove in the same direction as the lake we drove to the day before only this time for distribution not a jolly. We pulled into a house after an hour of driving. Today was a bigger day for the team as whilst 3 of us were on distribution, the rest of the team were helping with the education. This is one of the most important things for the refugees, if you are to integrate properly into a society you must first speak it's language. So teaching the children Turkish is one of the most important things the charity can do, only there are not so many in the charity fluent in both Turkish and Arabic. This means that they spend a few hours every week or so learning a language. Obviously anyone who has tried to learn a language or teach anyone knows that this isn't the level of intensity needed to learn. This all helps to explain (finally) what I am doing here. ‘The village’ will be an education centre in which for 10-14 days mothers and children will come and intensively learn Turkish and other life skills to aid them. Imece aims to run 2 courses a month and hopes to have the first one in mid August. There's hope that these courses will help a new generation to leave the low paid work of agriculture and broaden their horizons into a Turkish society that is ready to accept them. I'd volunteered to go with the distribution team as I felt it would give me less contact with children. It did. It also gave me more contact with a man tasked with navigating through the confusing dirt tracks that made up this area. I never caught his name but from the moment he stepped in the van one knew he knew how to be in charge. His slicked back well groomed hair and thick sweet smelling cigarettes were uncharacteristic of the refugees I had worked with in the past. This was a man in control. He would flick his wrist at Massad whilst jabbering away on the phone and Massad would obligingly slow and turn. Occasionally, the refugees may ask for more than their fair share, this exchange is all in Arabic but I know when it's happening. With our camp guide at the helm there was no nonsense to be had, he would firmly but politely tell them to stop lying to him or stop being greedy, he would light another cigarette and we would move on. Perhaps the most impressive thing about the man was his family. He had 2 wives and a total of 18 children, 3 of which were from a previous marriage so only 15 with him in Turkey. Only 15. The amazing thing was that with 15 children you would imagine that they would all be spaced out over perhaps 15-20 years, I didn't see a child older than 10. With each child he had a different party trick. With one he slapped on the back of the head and then made the boy kiss him on each cheek. With another he lifted the boy up by his ears, not once but twice leaving the boy to walk away rubbing his ears slightly unimpressed with his father's jokes. We left the camp, drove home and got on a train to Izmir. It had been decided for me that we (Claudia, Linda and i) would leave to go to the village today. We caught a bus from Izmir to Cesme. Once we arrived in Cesme we walked the short half hour in 30° heat to the village. Upon arrival in met more of the group I would be spending the next couple of months with. Victorio, Massaki (the Japanese fella mentioned previously) and Beertrit (I have no idea how to say or spell this name and avoid it at all costs. When I arrived they were building a laundry room with a beautiful glass bottle wall. This is a little under halfway through on two walls. I set up my tent, made it my home for the next couple of months. I returned to the main building, had a coffee and offered my help to a girl planting corn in the field. I kept wanting to go to shower I hadn't known what to expect from the camps but what I saw didn't surprise me. They were simple campsites, blue tarpaulins hung making the tents just as they had in Calais only instead of hundreds there were 5-10 in one place at a time but these places were spread out at the most 1 km apart from each other. This made distribution all the more difficult, with a large camp you can create a system, a degree of order. With masses of small pop up camps you must constantly change the way you do things, constantly change where you go from week to week.

[thenightisland]

explanations/updates under the cut

i haven’t been able to maintain much in the way of interaction with most of the people i care about, also haven’t been able to do much more than get out of bed every day because it’s one thing to be depressed and another to have just had such a goddamn terrible few months that there’s no way your antidepressants can keep up with all the awful

i already had several weeks without my second in command because she’s cursed and had to have another surgery. our unit lost two of our main techs (for new people inexplicably reading this, i charge a locked acute psychiatric ward, and losing techs is a /massive/ loss). the admin demons have been instituting various new things that have been having terrible effects on the units which i won’t get into because that would be a really really long explanation with a lot of jargon in it. one of the things though is the fact that the “do not readmit” list has been low key thrown out the window, so all the pts who were on that list /with good fucking reason/ are of course, now coming back, and spoiler alert they’re just as terrible still.

this one bookstore closed which sounds stupid as fuck but that place was the closest thing i had to a church and it literally kept me alive when i was in high school like i say that completely without exaggeration so it closing was the equivalent of someone hacking off one of my limbs because it was still the main place i went to when i was upset and wanted to feel less miserable and i don’t have it anymore and you wouldn’t believe how hard it is like imagine if your church got demolished or whatever you believe in like it destroyed me and i feel unmoored i don’t have that safe space feeling now because it’s gone

meanwhile the person i spent seven years of my life in love with had a baby with the boyfriend she described as Guy Karen, named me godmother of their firstborn son, and unknowingly made his middle name the pen name i’ve used for a decade because fucking of course this might as well fucking happen too. but i have other romantic bullshit going on now that’s honestly fucking me up worse.

also somehow i still can’t escape a little life like it has haunted me every waking moment since march 2016 and i hate how much i am like the protagonist and it’s kind of fucking with me??????

a fucking garbage man bashed off the side mirror on my car which i still haven’t had the fucking time to get fixed that was great

spent my whole vacation anxious having panic attacks like what is the point in having a long vacation if you’re going to be constantly stressed over nothing like goddammit can’t i just have this

within the last month and a half five people i know have died. three of them were our patients which like doesn’t sound like a thing that would cause that much distress, but due to the nature of our unit, we’re the only family a lot of our career patients have most of our pts are homeless, schizophrenic, intellectually disabled, just plain unwanted people of varying illnesses, like we literally look after the people no one else wants so when we hear one of Our Patients has died it fucks us up so badly. and it’s even worse because it’s not like they died in their sleep or something all of them have been post-discharge suicides like our work already feels like a revolving door exercise in futility because that’s the nature of the field unfortunately but it still hurts like i spend forty hours or more a week with these people i literally see them than i see my friends and family our patients are mostly so close to us that like when the day shift charge nurse came back from maternity leave, pt who had been there when she was pregnant who were there again were asking about how the baby was doing so three of our pts killing themselves in the last month in a half is soul crushing

then the closest thing i had to a friend in nursing school, well, she died too. out of the fucking blue, out of nowhere. she was a 28 year old healthy woman with two young daughters. she worked so hard for her and her girls she went to nursing school to build a better life for them and she genuinely wanted to be a nurse meanwhile i originally got into it for the money like she only got to live her dream working in L&D for two and a half years. and then she was on vacation in florida with her girls who were doing like a cheerleading camp. and she just. went to sleep and never woke up. and i still don’t know what killed her no one has posted it on facebook, and unfortunately, all the people who might know are the people that i cut out of my life because the rest of our class was a toxic mess so i can’t very well be like heyyyyy so i know i deleted you years ago and all but what killed linda? so still no closure. i just hope to god her girls didn’t find their mother dead. like it wrecked me.

i also say that every time i come back from a vacation something awful happens like when i came back from boston/nyc i discovered i was the only nurse left on my shift and when i came back from st louis last fall my dog died a very traumatizing [for me] death, so when i came back from dc i was like hmm what next.

well, another fucking person died is what next. /one of my coworkers/ my alpha tech from my original 11-7 team one of the people who has literally saved my life and kept so many people from getting hurt this is someone i saw five days a week for the last two and a half years of my life. he was already going through a lot because him and his wife split, so he was staying at a friend’s house, a friend who happened to be an NP for one of the psych docs, and the NP’s sister who works as an internal medicine assistant. and then on cinco de mayo we got word that his car had flipped and killed him. and a lot of people attributed it to a classic cinco drunk driving fatality but it gets worse because of course it does because lol it wasn’t /his/ car that flipped. it was the NP’s sports car. and apparently, the NP was driving, and the sister was following. the sister and NP were off the grid for a couple days and then the sister came back to work, but the NP has been taken off the on call list “indefinitely” so not only is one of our team members dead, but he is probably dead from a /drunk driving vehicular homicide done by another team member/ because apparently the world was like fuck our unit specifically.

then i got to spend several days being targeted by a pt who was a behavioral case [aka they’re not actually mentally ill, they’ve learned to play the system to avoid going to jail, basically] and that involved her being in seclusion for seven goddamn hours and her literally endlessly threatening to kill me for days to the point that i was confined to our walled in nurses station because she was you know trying to kill me and just constantly standing on the other side of the glass throwing around some of the worst verbal abuse i’ve ever experienced like i’m already exhausted and fatigued and miserable can’t you shut the fuck up i need to find some kind of meaning in my job because it’s all i have and you’re making it very hard for me to feel like i’ve done any good for anyone

all of this built up nicely into a good old fashioned nervous breakdown to the point that i had to call in sick because lol turns out that that is a lot of fucking shit to deal with in the span of a month and a half and emotionally things are only going to get harder from here this year for a variety of personal reasons that suffice to say have literally kept me up at night and upset me enough that i even had some nightmares break through the medication because i’m seeing so many of my friends find their happiness and i hate that i can’t feel that happy for them because i’m so tired and when the fuck will it be my turn i don’t want to resent my friends’ happiness and successes i’m just fucking exhausted and would really like for some good goddamn things to start happening here any time now i’ve been under so much stress i’m just a human version of the song running on empty at this point it’s all too much and i still can’t write i’m still stuck in the same hell from a manuscript i wrote nearly four years ago all i’ve been able to write is Coping Poetry to keep from going off the deep end and honestly everything in my life just feels completely out of control and i’m just tired of so many bad things happening in such a short amount of time like i can handle my own emotional problems until you dump all this other fucking nightmare fuel on top of them then it’s too much

so for the unfinished ao3 wip i’m sorry for the sheet music requests i’m sorry for the unanswered messages i’m sorry i’m safe i’m not in any danger of hurting myself or anything but i’m overwhelmed and i barely have the energy to get through all the shit that’s been happening lately so i can’t even promise when my interactions with anyone will be back to normal especially given my already awful skill at withdrawing from the people who care about me because i don’t want to bring them down any so just. tolerate the queue’s work. if you see me posting more but not answering you it’s not you it’s me i just cannot manage even talking to more than like three people max right now hence the until further notice psa you’ve seen at the top of my blog

the worst part is that there’s actually /more/ but it’s also three in the morning and i have to work tomorrow so here’s the highlights turns out averaging one death a week takes a toll on a person who’s already isolated and exhausted

hopefully at some point, things won’t suck as much and i can go back to being regular me. till then, apologies, and enjoy the queue

[erinlennox69]

Creamfields 2017

coWhile enduring the dramatic anti-climax which has been left following the conclusion of Creamfields, I felt that if I put my thoughts into words in the form of a blog post it might help to ease the pain ever so slightly. I’m just going to start off by saying that the overall experience was UNBELIEVABLE. As my first real festival, I must admit that it set the bar rather high in terms of standards. 

Throwing it back to February, the line-up for Creamfields had just been announced. “We definitely need to go this year” Aimee, my sister, would say to me. This was something that had been discussed for the past two years but continuously fell through on account of a variety of reasons. I believed that this year would be the same. I was wrong. My student loan somehow wiggled its way into my account and within a matter of minutes my sister and I had our deposit paid. This was it. We were GOING. 

After leaving virtually everything to the last minute, from the boat tickets to the camping gear, I found myself losing sleep on the run up to the departure day. I panicked myself useless about the concept of driving through Liverpool by myself. I panicked about how many bags my sister and I were going to take with us. I panicked about money. As this trip grew closer and closer, I found myself growing more and more anxious. It was safe to say that I was not looking forward to it. Then, before long, the day had arrived. My sister and I took an early morning trip to Asda to gather up alcohol, amongst other things, before heading to get breakfast. After getting some well-deserved shut eye before packing up my belongings, it was time to leave for the ferry. We stopped to collect a tent from Aimee’s friend, Sam, who was supposed to be meeting us there. He was giving it to us as he was getting a flight over and had too much to carry. We agreed to take it, believing that it would be one of those two-man tents which only required 10 minutes and a general understanding of construction to build. To our surprise, it was not one of those tents but a whopping nine-man tent which more resembled a small block of flats as opposed to a tent. With the backseat of my car, and my boot, being jam-packed with our stuff, Aimee and I could only laugh at how the hell we planned on carrying all of this stuff to the campsite. We laughed because if we didn’t, we would most definitely cry. After an 8 hour boat journey which felt like a sleepless lifetime watching the live action remake of Beauty and the Beast, we had arrived in Liverpool and it was my time to shine in terms of driving. I had managed to convince myself that driving in England was no different to driving in Northern Ireland. Oh, and I was wrong. It was completely fucking different. Northern Ireland was a lot more green and a lot less huge. If I took a wrong turn, there was a possibility that I would end up in North Wales and that was something I took extreme measures to avoid. After driving on the motorway for about 30 minutes, we began to notice signs that directed us towards Creamfields. I don’t know whether I was excited or just buzzing because it meant I was going the right way. Probably a happy mixture of both. 

We paid our car parking ticket and made our way onto a field where there were numerous party-goers ready to get wrecked. I must admit, after the gruelling and traumatic venture to Creamfields, I could have used a drink, myself. We unloaded all of our luggage onto the grass beside our car and with one look at each other, we had already admitted defeat. We most definitely could not take Sam’s monstrosity of a tent with us. We loaded ourselves up with bags, made about 10 steps away from the car and gave up. This was not happening. Then, out of the corner of my eye I noticed these little men with blue wheelbarrows. At first I thought it may have been a hallucination, but then I realised it was a miracle. I approached them and put on my most audible accent because let’s face it, the English have a terrible time at understanding Northern Irish people. Fuck, Northern Irish people have a terrible time at understanding other Northern Irish people. These guys were no older than 25 and looked like they were just there for a party, which is fair play because weren’t we all? They informed me that the wheelbarrows were £20 for 3 hour use and required a £30 deposit in case they didn’t get them back in time. £50 was a small price to pay and we paid it. Skipping happily up the hill towards the queues, we were on top of the world as it seemed that this weekend was finally here after months of (not-so-much) planning. That was until we had to wait SIX HOURS before getting near the entrance. The sun was beating down, I was dying to pee and Aimee was growing more and more agitated as time went on. Not to mention this wheelbarrow was becoming more of a curse than a blessing as we wheeled it in slow motion up a grassy hill. It also was beginning to seem unlikely that we would get our deposit back for it. We finally made it past security and into the camp site. At this point we were past caring. Since I was the only one who knew how to build a tent, I pitched our tent and then blew up our mattresses while Aimee caught rays and got stuck into the drink. 

The second day started off much better. I was showered, fully rested and feeling funky fresh. Also, Sam and the rest of the group were to be joining us so I could talk to someone else that wasn’t Aimee. One problemo: our phones were both dead and we had no way to contact them and tell them where we were. On our way to get our phones charged, we heard someone yelling our names from across the campsite. I turned around to see one tall, green haired girl and another short dark haired girl in a rainbow fringed dress running towards us. Although they were completely unfamiliar to me, Aimee recognised them straight away. They were Claire and Chloe-- Sam’s friends! We immediately followed them to their tent and helped to move their tent away from where they had pitched it (which was coincidentally right next to a man who had shaved his head right down the middle and spray painted the empty space green). When we moved their tent next to ours, we happened to spot a group of guys trying to pitch their tent at the same time as ours. Claire ran over and began helping them and I followed suit. Before long, we were exchanging names. After the ever-so-snappy meet and greet, we all headed our separate ways into the arena. Within minutes of making it to the arena, Aimee managed to get lost so I clung to Claire and Chloe for dear life. Having only met them a few hours prior to this, it was quite the bonding experience. I watched Chloe get absolutely mauled by a mosh pit that she didn’t mean to find her way into the middle of. Although I felt awful about it, it was so horrifically funny that I couldn’t help but laugh. I watched Wilkinson, Sigma and began to watch The Chainsmokers when we happened to lose Claire so Chloe and I decided to head back to the campsite where we found Aimee. Shortly after, Chloe went missing. Aimee and I decided to look for her but with no avail. However, we ran into Claire who was, at this point, absolutely steaming. We headed back to the tent to find that our Scottish neighbours had returned. We were all saying our ‘hello’s’ when a Scottish accent emerged from their tent saying “Is this your pal in our tent?” I stuck my head into the tent to see a small person in a rainbow, fringed dress laying in a sleeping bag. It was Chloe. We decided to let her sleep while we all sat on our chairs outside chatting. Chloe then emerged again after a while of hiding out in their tent. We all bonded rather quickly, discussing our interests and talking about ourselves and most importantly, THOSE SCOTTISH ACCENTS. One particular guy decided to sleep in our tent with the blow-up mattresses and regardless of how much of a fight I put up, he insisted. One of the other guys then informed me that there was an extra tent and that we should put it up so we could have somewhere to sleep as his tent was severely overcrowded and so was mine. It quickly came to my attention that he couldn’t build a tent either so I took control and essentially bossed him around giving him little odd jobs to do. After constructing my fourth tent in the space of 2 days, everyone retired to their own tents, minus me and the two Scottish dudes, all of which had been displaced due to lack of space. 

The following day, we awoke and sat out on the chairs again, greeting each other with ‘good morning’ and ‘how did you sleep?’ Most of the answers consisted of ‘not very well’ as they were similar conditions to that of a shanty town with our heads each being less than a metre to the person beside us, even if they weren’t in the same tent as us. I, however, slept disgracefully well as the Scottish bloke I shared a tent with didn’t snore like Aimee did and I was completely spacious. We spent the entire day chatting again and it was as if we had known these guys for years. When the evening began to draw in, we brought over the Aussie/Kiwi/Essex neighbours we both had and began to play drinking games before leaving to go to the arena. We all went together as if it were a family day out. We watched Nicky Romero, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, Axwell^Ingrosso, Marco Corolla and Camelphat. I headed back to the tent relatively earlier than everyone else as Aimee was not in the shape to be staying out any longer and I’m not going to be an asshole and send her back alone. One of the Scottish dudes decided to come, too. (Coincidentally, it was the one who stole my bed the previous night.) He decided to take my bed for a second night in a row, much to my dismay. As much as I enjoyed sharing a tent with this bloke because he didn’t snore and I had plenty of room, I felt like I was overstaying my welcome and I didn’t want to be an annoyance to him. I also didn’t want to be homeless that night, though, so I climbed into the tent and went to sleep. He was a real gent about it, however, so thanks for that. It was easily one of the best nights of my life. The atmosphere was amazing and everyone was in high spirits, other than a few iffy moments had between Aimee and I. Siblings, amaright? 

The third/final day was just a big bundle of emotions. I woke up feeling rather rough so I was reluctant af to start drinking again but alas, I gritted my teeth and carried on like the trooper I am. The guy I shared the tent with and another of the Scottish lads had to head home early in the morning, so that sucked slightly although I didn’t really mind because it meant I got even MORE space in the tent for my final night. We spent the whole day together again and drinking games in the evening became like a family game night tradition. We played a genius game which involved one individual reading out a word and everyone else had to sing a song line which contained that word. Although awkward at the start, the drunker that people got, the funnier the game got. We then headed out. This was definitely the night that I got the most drunk. I managed to sneak a bottle of Russian standard vodka into the arena and I got paralytic. I vaguely remember watching Alesso, Hardwell and Tiesto. I had a rather huge fight with my sister, again, though which resulted in me getting lost and crying the majority of the time (It had to happen at some point, didn’t it.) I tried to watch Eric Prydz but the tent was so packed out that I didn’t get anywhere near it so I decided to head back to the tent to change. By the time I reached it, it was 10:45 and the arena was due to close at 11:00 so I felt little point in going back. Before long, the campsite began to fill up with people. We sat round in a circle and chatted again. I can just about recall getting political with my conversation and that is often dangerous territory for a drunk version of myself, and for that, I am sorry. I went to bed rather promptly that evening as everyone else began to fade rather quickly and it was an early start the next morning to begin the clear-up operation. I adopted Chloe for the evening as it was freezing and I needed someone else to help heat up the tent. 

Waking up the following morning was an extremely bitter feeling. It was the beginning of the end. I woke up with a jolt of energy as I wanted to get everything as organised as possible as most of my stuff was spread between each of the four tents I had pitched, almost as if I was marking my territory. After we all got our stuff gathered together, it was time to say our goodbyes. We gave each of them a rather emotional hug and a drastic uncertainty if we would ever see any of them again. They all took off and Aimee, Claire, Chloe and I sat down to reflect on our time before picking our stuff up and heading on. We decided to leave our tents and our camping chairs behind as it would have been just too much to carry and we no longer had a need for them. We then took off across the campsite to the car park and then to McDonalds to stuff our faces with food we had been talking about for about 4 hours prior. (F.Y.I, the drive back was EVEN MORE stressful.) We then all parted ways in the ASDA car park and Aimee and I headed off to endure yet another gruelling ferry journey back to Belfast.

All in all, I wouldn’t change a single second of the entire trip. I would even do it all over again if time allowed me to. We couldn’t have met a better bunch of people to spend our time with. The music was amazing and the atmosphere made the experience even better. When we return next year I only hope that it can match how good this year was. 

The only thing I can safely say is that if I ever have to look at another can of Strongbow Dark Fruits in my life, I will cry myself to sleep.

EL xx