girlofprey

At the moment, I'm playing the Nathan Drake Collection, which is all the Uncharted games remastered for the PS4. Uncharted 4 is coming out at the beginning of May, and everyone's excited for it, so I kind of want to catch up and be excited too, especially since Uncharted games tend to be quite narrative and movie-like, so I don't want to get spoiled. Anyway - also they are great games, and Nathan Drake is a great character, if a little odd. I just finished the second one, and there was a guy in it who was a baddy, and he just seemed so familiar to me. I thought it was just because he was British, and I spend much of my life in Britain. But then he had a slightly serious scene, and I realised. It's Alistair. It's Alistair from Dragon Age. Being a baddy. And in a game with Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun), who is also Morrigan from Dragon Age. It was a special moment. He died, obviously. But not before being probably the flirtiest baddy I've ever seen. He definitely wanted to fuck Nathan Drake. But anyway, he's dead now. Maybe. Enough weird shit happens in Uncharted games that you probably bring him back through fanfiction means.

Also I'm still playing Stardew Valley. I'm about to get to the beginning of my third year, which according to a weird shrine on my farm, is when my dead grandad will return. So. We'll see how that plays out.

( Dragon Age: Inquisition, you should get used to seeing this cut, I am )

So Tumblr's apparently being run by people with links to the KKK. Who knew?

Just been to the local Proms event in a castle, like last year. It was really lovely, as before. We took my ON this year, and my dad decided he'd come - last year it was just me and mum - and I was a little worried my ON would just be bored and bugging us all the time. But he brought a friend and then met a bunch of his schoolfriends at the event, so he spent all his time running around a castle ruin on a summer's evening while classical music played. Not a bad way to spend time. We had a little picnic, and it was threatening rain all evening, but it held off for the most part. A weather forecast I saw yesterday said it'd be sunny where we are this morning, then some rain would start coming in from the west in the afternoon - and then Sunday would be THUNDERSTORMS. Kind of skipped out on Saturday evening. But it was sort of spitting on and off for most of the night, and only started raining properly during the last two songs. We had a bit of time to pack up our things and get our brollies out, and it didn't ruin the Firework Spectacular they like to end things with, which really was pretty Spectacular. So, result. It's a lovely night out for £6 each.

It's throwing it down now and I am exhausted. I'm also super-annoyed by the Dragon Age thing. ( Blather )

I'm so tired lately, and I can't tell if it's the heat, or light/curtain issues meaning I don't sleep, or the heat stopping me from properly sleeping, or anxiety build-up from some CBT stuff I'm doing at the moment. Or not writing suddenly keeping me up at night the way writing did when I first started to.

There's a festival in my town tomorrow, but I probably won't go to it. Tired.

( Dragon Age: Origins spoilers )

In other news I still cannot with fandoms where people get SO het up about other people 'liking the bad guy', and self-congratulatory about arguing with people about it. I mean, some people like bad guys in terrible ways, but. What are you doing? What are you achieving? asjdaklsjdklj.

AND OF ALL THE FANDOMS TO GET HUNG UP ON MORALITY, BORDERLANDS? BORDERLANDS, REALLY?

Oh my God, I forgot. I forgot that when you have a cold and then it gets better, it doesn't actually get better, it just moves further down your throat. I spent most of last night not being able to sleep or breathe. Technically I spent most of today not being able to sleep (or breathe) either. Ughhhhh....

I finished most of the Deep Roads main quest on Dragon Age: Origins today. ( Spoilers, sort of )

My appeal hearing is next week. A week tomorrow, in fact. I called an ESA assistance charity earlier this week to see if they had any tips for me, and they suggested trying to get medical evidence. I have no idea what medical evidence I can really get, since I hardly ever see my doctor about my OCD, even for a medical note, and my counselling wasn't through the NHS. I have called my counselling service, to see if my old counsellor would write me a letter, only to be told that the receptionist 'didn't know of anyone there by that name' (??), but that someone could write me a letter just generally on behalf of the service. They said that person would call me back on Tuesday, but they didn't, so I called again yesterday, and they told me that that person - the only one who apparently has the authority to write this letter - was training this week, but might be back tomorrow. If they do call tomorrow, I'm not entirely sure what to say. If they're not my counsellor and can't talk to her they won't know about my problems, specifically, and I don't know if she kept notes, she never mentioned it. And the charity people said it would be better if the medical evidence could specifically address the questions they ask in the ESA assessment, and whether I would be able to manage with those problems. Which seems like a complicated thing to have to write with no personal knowledge of me, before next Friday. But there we go. I can't think of anything else to do other than to ask my GP to give a general run-down of OCD. And the doctor on the panel ought to know enough about that.

Partly it's my own fault, I know, for leaving it this late. I guess I thought I'd have more time between getting the court date and having to attend it. But I had months before that, and I left it. The charity people did say that I could ask the Tribunal to adjourn until I had more medical evidence, if I didn't know I was supposed to have it, but they do ask you to get any medical evidence you need in the tribunal papers. And I don't know if I could go to the court next week not knowing whether we were actually going to have the Tribunal, or adjourn it. So I don't know. I don't know how much of an option that is. I guess it depends what response I get from the counselling service and/or my GP, and how long it would take to get evidence from them. The charity people also said that the government keeps changing the parameters for being eligible for benefits, so someone who got them last year might not get them this year. So. There's that.

Blah blah blah blah blah. I'm so tired. And so ill. :(

At least if I don't get ESA awarded to me next week, I have enough money in the bank and in an ISA to be able to cope for a few weeks while I decide what to do next, and what I want to do. I don't really want to have to go back at Jobseeker's. Particularly not if they really are making some people be slave labour. But I might have to.

I want you all to know I'm an emotional wreck right now because of Dragon Age: Origins.

Fuck Dragon Age: Origins. Don't ever play that game.

Dragon Age 2 is so dull. SO DULL. I am into Act 3 now, and I don't care, all the care I previously had went away. And all my companions are dicks, I literally hate asking them for help, and I know it's because game 2 is all about Politics and Fantastic Racism, but aksnldcmclndlanj. Where is the part where they say "You're right, Hawke. You're beautiful and amazing and ALWAYS RIGHT, I will stop being such a dick now"? WHERE IS THE PART WHERE I CAN CHANGE THEIR PERSONALITIES TO SUIT MY WHIMS, I'm PRETTY SURE I get that option in most RPGs nowadays. Is that the ending? Is a big party with cake and everyone realises the error of their ways? Are the errors of their ways still to come in the story, and THEN maybe they'll have a change of heart over it? Because I don't care. I no longer care. I hope most of them die. After they've finished helping me in fights and stuff. Pretty much the only companions I care about are Varric and Anders, but my relationship with Varric is going nowhere since all we ever discuss are the stories he tells about me (AND I CAN'T TELL HIM I LOVE HIM), and Anders is going weird. I'm pretty sure I mostly only love Anders because my PC from Dragon Age Origins recruited him, and she would LOVE HIM, no matter what he did. Barring a few things, obviously. Ugh. I hate Templars, but I'm pretty sure they're going to give me a reason to hate mages shortly. And every other quest is basically a fetch quest, where my basic reward is a bit of money and a 'tick' next to the quest in my journal.

It's fine. It's perfectly fine. I'm just really bored.

In other news, people are saying Livejournal is no longer sending comment notifications, is that true? It sucks if it is true. I'm assuming I will get a 'notification' on the home page, or my journal, if you comment on this post. If not things are going to get a lot more complicated around here.

I have also been watching Springwatch, this week and last week, as I attempt to do every year. I love Springwatch. And I love Michaela Strachan now she has calmed down and stopped trying to do cheesy jokes and wacky presenting all the time. I have to assume either the others told her to calm down, or she found a genuine love for nature, or - in a way that is sad but perhaps for the best - she witnessed one too many 'tragedies', like entire nests of cute chicks being eaten by weasels, and it soothed her manic soul. In any case, she's a lot better nowadays. And I seem to be detecting a frisson of sexual tension between her and Chris Packham on the show. If not, they're still really lovely with the way she makes him laugh despite himself all the time.

And while watching Springwatch, I saw the presenters make a few comments suggesting cuckoos were getting really rare in Britain nowadays. Which made me lucky, I suppose, since on Tuesday my mum and I took my ON to a local nature reserve, Fairburn Ings, and totally heard one in the woods. Result.

I also had to go see a woman from the Jobcentre on Wednesday. It was the Disability Advisor, and it was just a routine checking in type of thing, but it was a new woman because the previous woman retired, so I decided I should go in and meet her face-to-face, and I was a little bit anxious about it. But she turned out to be really nice, I explained everything I was doing and everything I wasn't doing, and a bunch of things I was waiting to hear about, and she suggested a new website I could look at for volunteering opportunities, and a new service I could go to for therapy once my current counselling is finished, and that was it. It all went pretty smoothly and she'll check in with me again in three months. Hurrah.

Also, you know what I don't understand? When you see the same actor over and over again in roles where they are meant to be not very attractive and kind of creepy, but they use actors that are obviously incredibly attractive in a slightly odd way. The main person I am thinking of is Harry Kershaw, who looks like this:


(from microsite.bournemouth.ac.uk)

See what I mean? I guess that's what they mean by "TV ugly". They mean not ugly. I feel like I want to follow Harry Kershaw's career, in the hopes of one day seeing him in a thing where they treat him as as attractive as he is. Apparently he was in Skyfall. As "Q's assistant", which was probably the most forgettable role ever. Still. Maybe it means he is moving into Hollywood, and will have massive success in the future. Tom Hiddleston managed.

Also I really hate the changes Youtube have made to their site. Just so everyone knows.

I was going to make a post last night about how I had my period, but it was the kind of period where you didn't feel the pain very often but you just felt sort of lightheaded and tired all the time, which kind of sucked. Then the pain hit, and I couldn't write anything. Well, I might have been able to keysmash, but there wouldn't have been the fine detail in it that I wanted in my point. So I have my period. And I'm planning to spend most of today in my pyjamas and a blanket. However, I'm going away on Friday, so I'd rather get it now than, say, Friday. Well done body.

In fannish terms I am still trying to get Dragon Age Origins finished again so I have a better save to import. It's slightly annoying because I'm really ready to start on one of the post-game DLCs or Dragon Age 2, but I'm really not looking forward to the end boss fight again. Or all the many boss fights between here and the end. But still. Progress is being made. I also watched an entire Let's Play of Silent Hill Homecoming, and I'm doing actually super well about not just explaining how terrible and tragic Alex Shepherd's life is all the time. Literally all the time. You can thank me whenever. Unfortunately Alex Shepherd's life is also incredibly depressing, so I can't really dwell on it too much, without having to then immediately think about something happier. Alistair from Dragon Age is almost always a fairly sunny distraction though, so I've somewhat lucked out. What I'm essentially trying to say is that in both my video game loves of the moment, there's a bit of a push-pull scenario going on.

Also, did anyone watch The Fall on Monday night? It's a serial drama about a serial killer, which is pretty gruesome, and it stars Gillian Anderson, which is pretty great. But it also seems to be a reunion of every Irish character that was ever on Hollyoaks. Brendan Brady, Cheryl Brady, and I'm pretty sure Lynsey are all there. Also an Irish nurse from Holby City. It's set in Belfast so I guess they're gathering every Irish actor they can muster. Also it is genuinely pretty good. But I am kind of puzzled that they had Brendan Brady, and didn't use him as the detective who puts his coat on at a crime scene, and Gillian Anderson is so enthralled she stops a car and wanders into said crime scene insisting on being introduced. I mean, the detective who did that is fine. But if you wanted people to understand instant magic I don't know why you wouldn't use Brendan Brady. Maybe he has more to do in future episodes. Hmm.

So, after all my whining, I did beat Dragon Age today. Casual mode, but still. I did it.

( Spoilers for the ending, or one of them at least. Also for Mass Effect, it turns out )