girlofprey

But anyway. As a palette cleanser from that - I don't think I ever made a New Year's post. What with being in Lancaster and the Red Death and all that. While I was at Jen's we held the Slash Awards 2016, which was quite a nice round up of the year. I would love to post the whole thing, but I'm just really tired, so essentially the results were:

( Slashies 2016 (warning for an underage pairing, also lots of pictures and some blood) )

I went to Fairburn Ings today with my mum and YN, which is our local RSPB reserve. It wasn't as sunny as it had been, but it also wasn't as insanely hot, and it was pretty nice, other than my nephew getting bored and being a little bastard. Also I bought some hedgehog food and have decided to start leaving some out, since we might have some in the area. I've decided not to tell my dad about this until it's established and the hedgehogs expect the food and there's nothing that can be done. Also I bought a bug/bee house, which came with some free wildflower seeds for your garden. I might try to figure out how to put those up also without dad noticing.

I had my ESA assessment the other week. It was late, as usual. They told me when I got in that I might be waiting at least half an hour, and I ended up waiting an hour. They offered me another appointment, and I could have taken it and just gotten paid for another few weeks probably - but I figured why bother, when that appointment would probably be late too, and I don't really want to be stuck in an endless loop. So I bit the bullet and waited for it. It went about how I expected. The lady was a little humourless, and I tried to be as honest as possible when answering the questions, while still making clear the problems I do have. She said it might take a couple of weeks, and I'd be paid until then - I got a call yesterday of somebody telling me the decision, and offering to talk me through it. I got 0 points, as usual, but it's not so bad this time. And certainly not unexpected. And it was nice to get a call I guess, rather than just the report. Happily, I was due a payment yesterday, and the guy said that had gone through, so I got a last payment at least, to tide me over. But I am officially off ESA now. I can appeal, of course, but I won't, I don't even feel like it anymore. So I'm going to need to go on Jobseeker's pretty shortly. Or find a job. Ideally, get a job either way.

I think I'm going to have to leave Tumblr, at least for a little bit. It's a shame because it's where fandom is at the moment, but the way it happens I just feel like I'm having arguments constantly. Without even saying anything. Of course, being in video game fandom feels like that anyway. People are going to need to learn the difference between sex, sexy and sexualised, or I'm going to start screaming. And all the Ghostbusters crap hasn't been fun. On the plus side, we got a great film out of it. On the minus side, every time I think I'm a horrible bitter person who hates the world, something terrible happens and I realise that I'm actually an incredible optimist. Which is to say that terrible things are happening to Leslie Jones at the moment, especially on twitter, because people are cunts. If any of you feel like doing anything to support her, that would probably be much appreciated right now.

Also I stopped playing The Witcher 3 and went back to Fallout 4. I'm so happy.

Emmerdale is swinging back and forth between moments of massive hilarity and extreme annoyance, dotted with the occasional moment of incredible beauty, right now. But on Coronation Street, they might finally make true the fact that David probably has PTSD. I loved Sarah wanting to look after him so much. I just want her to make him lie down on a bed with her, and put her arms round him and kiss his hair. I forget that he's the youngest sometimes.

I had an interesting weekend. We had a fire on my street. Which is really a cul-de-sac. I came down at 12.30 on Friday night - way too late to be up when I had to go to the Hospice the next day anyway - and my parents weren't downstairs, so I went into our garage and saw an orange glow and a huge plume of smoke. The engine block in our neighbour's car had set on fire, about half an hour after he'd come back home in it. Which is apparently a thing that can happen. Honestly, it was like a bonfire. Then we heard bangs, which I guess was the tire blowing, because when the smoke clear the car was all lopsided. So we all stood outside on the street waiting for the fire engine to turn up. Once it did it was all over pretty quickly, and thankfully not much else got damaged than the car. Their gutters are a little bit melted, and the plants of the neighbour next to them are a little bit singed, but somehow the car beside the other one on the driveway came out completely unscathed. The car that was on fire is completely fucked though. Like, the front is melted. Presumably they're getting that replaced pretty soon.

Then over the weekend I got a little sad. I asked mum and dad when they thought I'd be getting the money back that I lent them for the house. I'd already asked dad a few days before, and he got angry at me for asking. And the answer on Saturday was basically 'not any time soon'. They really went down to the wire to buy that house, and - as I suspected - the money going to my sister isn't stopping any time soon. Apparently she needs a new kitchen in the new house, and my parents are planning to pay for it. So that's about £2,500. So. Yeah. I mean, the terms were not clear for the repayment of the money, when my mum got me out of bed asking whether it would even be possible for me to transfer them the money, because they needed it by half past midday. But I really felt like it was meant to be a short-term, 'hand us the money and when we're paid in a few days we'll hand it back' kind of thing. Instead I'm left feeling like my dad just figured my savings account was a piggy bank he could raid. I think I got my point across that I'd been expecting the money back soon, and that it wasn't nothing to me to have it, just because I wasn't spending it. I liked having that security, and a little independence from my parents, too. Also probably got across what a risky venture I think buying my sister a house is, if it's going to take them down to the wire. Dad got annoyed at me again, and we were family, and families just do for each other. But I think I got how I felt across. Mum was talking about transferring some money over this week, and paying me back £500 for starters. So we'll see. Mostly I just wish they'd never asked me. That they'd never had to ask me. I wish I was just out of it, and it was between them and my sister. You know, no-one even thanked me for the money. I had to remind mum she might do that, after running around for her transferring things all morning, and dad asked me where the other thousand I had was. And my sister - blah.

Other than that, I haven't really had much to talk about, other than my ongoing perplexed feelings about The Witcher. It's such an odd game. I'm enjoying it, and I'm way more interested now in the story than I was, but it's such a slog. And the way everyone talked about it, I was really expecting kind of a masterpiece, but the story's quite trashy really. Lots of swooning, skinny sorceresses with their tits out, 'which one will he choose?' and etc. Mostly I'm doing what I do with most stories that kind of bore me, and imagining the kind of story I'd be writing. About a spectre king, and the gutter-rat mutated into a monster-slayer for hire, who keeps vaguely tailing him and foiling his plans. I'm enjoying that story.

And I've been catching up on Coronation Street. The football really threw me, and all those random hour-long episodes. But oh my God. David.

David has weird, wizened hands, which I've never noticed before.

On the other hand he does wear a wedding ring, which I've recently realised my dad doesn't, and never has since I was born.

Once I'm done I'm going to try to finish Assassin's Creed Syndicate today, because I actually care about the story and Fallout's out tomorrow, and once I start on that there probably won't be much else on my Playstation. Unfortunately, Assassin's Creed isn't a great game to try to rush through. Mostly because the controls are slightly wonky, and - I can't explain without going into great detail, but suffice to say I swore a lot at the TV yesterday, to the point that my dad made comments.

Also - customs. I used to order quite a lot of stuff from America, and customs was a thing and certainly a pain, but I don't remember it happening EVERY SINGLE TIME I ORDERED SOMETHING. Twice. Twice I have imported something in the last couple of months, and twice I have been hit with a customs fee. I always thought it meant you'd gotten unlucky if you got a customs charge, but no, apparently it just means you ordered something.

I did catch up with last week's Coronation Street this morning though - unfortunately I always fall behind these days, because I'm at kickboxing during the Wednesday episode and my parents don't wait to watch it with me.

Some things:

1. David in his unbuttoned shirt, holla!



2. The way David looked at Callum's mum. "There's room in that manhole, Marion. There's room in that manhole."



3. Oh Kylie, shut the hell up.



4. Why on earth is Mary bothering going to Butterthorn Hall when if ghosts exist, several houses on that street are haunted as fuck.



5. I know I keep bringing it up and am kind of living in fantasy land, but honestly this year would have been the perfect year for Corrie to finally do that Halloween ghosts episode I'm always hoping for. Because Callum would absolutely be haunting the Platts - and then Richard Hillman could turn up, like "hello, young man".

Welcome to your husband, Kylie.

I think Jack P Shepherd was sent from heaven to Coronation Street, and they should handcuff him to one of the cameras so they never, ever lose him.

David's family is such a gift and a burden to him.

I think David's about to morph into his final form.