girlofprey

Video games are being so good to me lately. Handsome Jack is basically getting his own Borderlands game next month, and might be partially in another one? They're bringing back my favourite villain from Saints Row in a new expansion, AND APPARENTLY HIS ROLE IS HUGE, HE SEEMS TO BE YOUR GUIDE THROUGHOUT THE GAME AND GIVES YOU JOBS AND STUFF. And they're bringing out an art/backstory book for Dishonored, which in a way is better than a new game because they're unlikely to bring Daud or the Brigmore Witches back, and outside of that I only really care about the art and the world-building.

Maybe they will fix elves in the new Dragon Age game.

Maybe they will do something interesting with the Batarians in Mass Effect 4.

Maybe there will finally be a sequel to Wet.

Also, to my weekendmates from this weekend: I solved the mystery of the lost pen and pen top. It turns out I took an extra pen. Sorry dudes. But on the plus side, I have an extra pen now.

Also I have been complaining about fandom on Tumblr lately - albeit mostly in my own head - but the other night I discovered a community about my favourite pairing from Wanted, which was being updated up till last year, and a TFLN blog, and they're both dead now, but I am so happy, SO HAPPY.

Yesterday for Valentines Day, I bought myself a return ticket to Coventry, and £50 worth of videogames. That's romantic, right? They were gifts I truly wanted. Also I bought a heart-shaped huge brownie from Marks and Spencer's. It wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be. But it was still pretty nice.

And now I've got my period. That isn't usually something to celebrate, and today it still kind of isn't, but I would much rather have it now than next week when I'm supposed to be away at Redemption. So hurrah!

Also I've now finished The Cave, barring achievement hunting. Also I love Wrex from Mass Effect. I DON'T CARE, I LOVE HIM. Also I found a kink meme for Dishonored, the video game. Including fic for my pairing, for which there was otherwise no fic that I could see. It's always nice when that randomly happens. It's kind of made me annoyed that there still isn't a kink meme for Infamous though. Even though it probably still wouldn't turn up the Cole/Bertrand fic I truly desire. Still. I'm not going to make a list of all the fic I'm still annoyed no-one ever wrote. BUT I COULD.

*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.