girlofprey

*Sadly though, the Bioshock kink meme turned out to be disappointing when I looked at it again after finishing Bioshock 2. Not least because I thought I'd finally know who all the characters are and all the spoilers about them. But no, it turns out there's still DLCs and some sort of weird website storyline thing I don't know about. But mainly it just sort of turned into crack, crack prompts and crack writing, in the last few pages. Then moved over the Dreamwidth. Then sort of died. And the Anon Meme thing that had maxed out comments also turned out to be an anon commenting meme, rather than an anon fic meme. So I have basically read all the fic there really is for my pairing. Woe.

Although yesterday I found some new fic for another pairing, probably my most terrible pairing that I hardly ever talk about, a year after doing extensive searches for it. And found people discussing it on a messageboard. So you never know.

And I was looking forward to the new Bioshock game that's coming out next year. Except that it turns out it's set about 50 years before either of the previous games, in a completely different place. I suppose you can't just keep finding excuses to go to Rapture. But still. It might still be good I guess. But still.

And Dishonored has no kink meme at all, contrary to my opinions while playing the game. And the only fic I can find is for the het pairings and a slash pairing that isn't mine. Hmph.

It's extremely hard to keep writing Dishonored instead of Dishonoured.

Hello. I went to Crete. I am now back from Crete.

Here are the places I visited:

Agios Nikalaos (where we were staying)

Spinalonga

A Cretan Olive Farm experience place.

Elounda, and the surrounds.

The Knossos ruins.

Heraklion, though mostly the Archaelogical Museum bit of it.

These are the things I wish I'd known before we left: That even though it was October, it was still going to be hot. I would have bought some suncream BEFORE I got sunburn. And that it was a four hour flight from Manchester to Crete. I would have bought a book, before the only ones I could find were about 13 euros in the Duty Free shop in Heraklion airport.

It was a bit of a funny holiday. Before we went I was barely able to muster up any enthusiasm for it, since it had dropped in the middle of a bunch of other things I needed to do. My mum, while packing, kept saying that sometimes it felt like these holidays were more bother than they were worth, and my dad said "I'm fed up already". Then, on the day we travelled there, I ended up coming down with some sort of stomach bug, and spent most of the evening doing things whatho wouldn't want to hear about, and other things the rest of you probably wouldn't want to hear about. I couldn't actually stand to go into the dining room, and ended up going to bed at 10 o'clock with the shivers. Mum thought it was just because I didn't get much sleep before we went, then travelled all day, and maybe ate too much chocolate on the plane. I suspect it was something to do with the fact she had my ON over the night before we left, and my MN had been throwing up that day, and my ON then apparently was throwing up that night. My dad was also suffering on that first day with some sort of stomach thing. My mum saw no connection. Hmm.

But after that, it turned into a pretty nice holiday. I felt much better by the next day, the weather stayed pretty nice most days of the week, and it was sort of nice that it was so relaxed. It was a bit funny because we went at the end of the season, and there were basically no tours, or trips, or anything to really just go on. As the man at the Cretan Olive Farm, who was very nice, explained, most of real Crete is up in the mountains, and all the towns and stuff by the sea were basically built for tourists. So essentially, everything just started to close down. Even our hotel, which was huge, was apparently closing today, 1st November, until next Spring. So it was sort of quiet. The boat trip we took to Spinalonga was the last one for the season, so we were lucky to go on that too. It was a lovely trip though - Spinalonga's a tiny little island that has in the past been a Venetian sea fortress, then a settlement for the Turkish, and finally a leper colony. We joined a tour group on the island to learn a bit more about it's history, and I really thought the leper colony aspect would be the one that was least interesting to me. But the woman explained it, and it was really pretty cool. The lepers couldn't leave the island, but they had houses, and markets, and grew their own vegetables when people from the mainland tried to price gouge them, and had constant access to medical care, and got to hang out with a bunch of other people who didn't just hate the sight of them. There were a bunch of marriages on the island, and 154 children were born there, even though their parents couldn't keep them. Only 10 of those children ended up with leprosy when they grew up. So it was pretty lovely. The guide woman said she always cried on the last day of the season, and she did, but it was lovely all the same, and really sort of eye-opening. Also she was pretty permanently annoyed about an art exhibition that had been set up on the island, which was pretty fun too.

So yeah. We wanted to go to the Knossos ruins - had been wanting to since we booked the holiday - but there were no trips still running, so we had to rent a car. Pretty much the last time we rented a car abroad was in Barcelona, when we had that crash, so it was a little bit nerve-wracking. But without a Sat Nav distracting dad, and basically just a lot of highways between us and Knossos and Heraklion, and with us all pulling together to spot the signs for where we needed to go, we made it there relatively easily. And because it was off season, it wasn't crowded, and because it was October, it was a little overcast and windy instead of baking sunshine, so it turned out pretty nicely. We got another guide, who explained some of the history and about the Minoans. It was pretty fascinating really - I couldn't always understand because of her accent plus high winds, but it sounded like the Minoans came over from Egypt, so there culture was a lot more Egyptian-influenced than Greek-influenced. It was pretty cool. Then we went to the Archaelogical Museum to see some of the artifacts they found at Knossos and other Minoan palaces and - I cannot even explain, except that the craftmanship and the detail on some of those things were insane, and just blew me away. For things made in like 2000 BC - yeah. I thoroughly recommend looking into the Minoans, if you're interested, and going to the Archaelogical Museum in Heraklion if you're going to Crete. It's all pretty amazing stuff.

And then I came home on Tuesday. And unfortunately, after getting on pretty well with both my parents for the entire week, my dad and I fell out - and I got pretty angry at him - the night we came back. Which is a shame. But other than that it was really lovely, and good weather, and a pretty interesting time. Also I swam in the sea! Which I haven't done in quite a few years. It was lovely.

And yes, now I'm back. Halloween was yesterday, and I missed most of it, between computer games and unpacking. I started playing my computer games again, and as I largely suspected before I went away, I was pretty much near the end of Dishonored and Bioshock 2, which is always an annoying place to leave it. Except actually, I wasn't expecting Dishonored to end so soon. I finished it today, but it was a little bit anticlimactic, with a lot of loose ends that didn't seem that tied up, and irritatingly, I'm assuming - I'm pretty sure - it's because they want to pad the game out with DLCs. Which is annoying after enjoying the game so much during the beginning and middle. And I haven't finished Bioshock 2, but I'm pretty clearly on the home straight. So I should be done with it before too long - and before the next game comes out. Hurrah!

I'm largely caught up on my flist, and even managed to get through my ridiculous email inbox. The other main news I have from the internet is that Evil Villains Studio made another vid about villains being villains, and I love them. It's called Monster, and it probably deserves an epilepsy warning. Also the song is a Dubstep remix, so apologies if you hate that sort of thing. This is probably the first Dubstep-y thing I actually like though, which is nice. I can finally be one of the COOL KIDS now. It's much better than Crush On You, at any rate.



HOPE YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WELL IN MY ABSENCE. I know most of you have anyway.

And as another note in my week of wonder, I got a call from the Jobcentre yesterday to tell me they're stopping my ESA. Brilliant.

It was an extremely pathetic call as well. They rang at half past 10, so they woke me up and I wasn't immediately with it. But the lady asked me if I was me, then some security questions, and then said 'there's a chance your ESA might possibly be stopping'. She told me I needed 15 points, which I already knew, and said something about my daily tasks, which is a section on the assessment. Then she just paused like I wasn't getting it, and said "I'll put this in a letter for you, I'll put it all in a letter and send it out to you". I had to actually say to her "I don't understand - is my ESA being stopped?". And she said yes. And then sounded relieved when I didn't make a big deal out of it. I didn't make a big deal out of it because I was half-expecting them to stop it, since the Jobcentre didn't say I was entitled to it in the first place, and I had to appeal. But the very least they could do is not mess about like cowards and, y'know, actually tell you the information you need to know.

I'm going to appeal again. Because it's bollocks. Happily though, I at least had my mum there with me this time so she could confirm for me that no, the questions in the Jobcentre assessment are nowhere near as in depth or relevant as the ones they ask at the Tribunal. I'm aware also that I might not win on appeal again, that it might have just been a really good doctor and lawyer at the last one or I might not say everything I need to say again. But fuck it. The Jobcentre told me I didn't deserve ESA in the first place, and the Tribunal said I did. And now, 6 months later, even though pretty much nothing has changed, the Jobcentre thinks I don't again. But I do. I massively do not feel fit to work. Every mental health professional I see thinks I am clearly not fit to work. And if the Jobcentre/the Government thinks I am, they can arrange a Tribunal for me, again, to tell me so. Bastards.

And, the woman on the phone mentioned the answers I gave in my assessment on the 10th of September, which is the one I went for after my sister's birthday. So that WAS to do with the review, even though the woman seemed to think it wasn't. Which means either she was lying, or they're in a bit of a shambles and no-one knows exactly what's going on. And if it was a bit of a shambles, that she didn't really understand my case while she was evaluating me either. Wicked.

I am annoyed. But I'm not really furious or anything, just because I pretty much expected as much. It's just irritating, because my best case scenario is appealing, and spending another year or so - in which I'll have to keep getting doctor's notes again - waiting for a Tribunal, which might not overturn the decision. And even if they do, it'll probably only be for 6 months again, at which point the Jobcentre will probably say no again. And I'll probably have to arrange to appeal it before I go away on holiday, and I really didn't want anything else to do before then. Oh well.

On the plus side, Bioshock 2 is really good. And so is Dishonoured, which I picked up yesterday, even though the game was sort of advertised as a sneaky assassin game, but in order to get the best ending you're supposed to keep the killing to a minimum. Hmm. It's still good though.

Earlier this week, I managed to have a Teen Wolf dream. Which is quite impressive, because I haven't seen any of Teen Wolf. I think it's because people post about Derek/Stiles in the 'Red Riding Hood' and 'Little Red Riding Hood' tags on Tumblr a lot. See, I even know names. Aside from that though it probably wasn't very accurate. The next night I had a George Gently dream, which was much better, but didn't turn out so well for John, although he's probably used to that by now. And the night after that I think it was Poltergeist: The Legacy, which actually managed to be quite creepy. So. It's been an exciting week for fannish dreams. Even of things I'm not fannish about.

Things I am fannish about at the moment mostly include Bioshock. I LOVE BIOSHOCK. I knew some spoilers, because I read about the storyline a bit ago, before I thought I'd ever play it. Possibly before I got a Playstation. Or just because it's quite hard to work out what the game's about from the title 'Bioshock'. But I have sort of got past the spoilers I knew about - the ones I remember anyway - and now there's all a bunch of new stuff I didn't know about. And it's quite wicked. I think I might need a slight break from it though. It's a great game, but there's so much to do - killing enemies, stealth, hacking things, buying supplies and ammo, getting new powers - it makes my head spin a bit. Mostly what I want to do though is finish the game and go looking for fic. But I can't, because there's a second game after it, and I obviously haven't finished that yet, and I don't want to be spoilered. Even though I also spoilered myself for that. But I don't remember most of those. And I don't want to be re-spoilered. Spoiler avoidance is hard, you guys. Like how I can't go looking for people who love Dallas, because they'll probably be Americans who already know how it ends. If indeed they exist.

Speaking of which, ( Dallas! )

Also, I have been rewatching some early Red Dwarf. Lister is SO BEAUTIFUL. And his accent is SO BEAUTIFUL, in a way it sort of isn't nowadays in Coronation Street, weirdly. And the episode with the Cat Priest was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. On the whole, it is Quite Good.

I made it through my ESA assessment, anyway.

It was kind of gruelling as usual, but the woman doing the assessment was sort of nice, and mum was with me. I think it went okay, but it's a funny thing to think about really. Because if I was fine, I obviously wouldn't need an assessment, and if I seem fine they might decide I don't need benefits anymore. So, y'know. But there's not really much point worrying about that till I get the decision, I guess. It was weird though, because I asked the woman doing it about the review, and how I wasn't expecting to have to do an assessment until October, and she didn't know anything about a review and said this was nothing to do with that. So...I don't know what that was. Whether it was the review and she just didn't know about it, or whether it was just a sort of getting all the details/getting everything on file thing now that I'm actually on ESA. I don't know. I don't even know if the questionnaire I did a few weeks ago was for the review or for this assessment. But at the very least, if I DO have a review in October, I hope they won't ask to see me again, since I've already done a review recently. Fingers crossed.

In other news, I accidentally got into Dallas. New Dallas. I'M SORRY IF ANYONE IS UPSET OR THOUGHT I WAS BETTER THAN THAT. I'm not. There's a young guy who is handsome and has an evil father and is evil and maybe a bit insecure. GROUNDBREAKING FOR ME, I KNOW. But anyway. I'm planning to watch it on Channel 4, which will apparently take me 10 weeks. Hurrah. On the other hand, I looked up John Ross' early life from original Dallas last night. IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL. It's like a whole soap child biography, but I don't have to wait years for it to play out. Amazing.

Also I played through all of the Bertrand parts of Infamous 2. It's kind of terrible that I love him so much. But. His scenes with Cole are pretty much the best part of the game. Also he's pretty much the only character who gets to be a character all the way through the game, and not just be part of Cole's choices. Also he's a baddie who's actually bad, which is something this game doesn't always manage (wankily), and which I do appreciate. Also he has some of the best boots I've ever seen. Also I wish there was a fandom because I get the feeling I could shipwar with the Cole/Zeke fans. They would win on the relationship front, which is FINE. But I would win on the CHARACTERISATION OVER THE COURSE OF THE GAME THAT MAKES ANY SENSE front. And I think that's the front that would win.

And I started Bioshock. Which is about as brilliant as everyone says, and all the awards it got suggests. Which is nice because most of the games I've started lately have been huge disappointments. Yay. Also I bought Overlord, basically because I miss Dungeon Keeper. I MISS DUNGEON KEEPER SO MUCH.

And also, I thought I'd share some more vids from EvilVillainsStudio that I've liked. Mostly I think I like them because of the songs, but the editing and editing together of clips is really good as well. It's interesting, because some of the(made-up) pairings click with me more than others, and I can't tell if it's because of the editing (different sections seems to be made by different people), and because of the actual pairings/characters. It's fun either way though.

There is footage from new Who and Once Upon A Time in these videos. I can only apologise.

( A bunch of songvids/songs )