girlofprey

Today I had a long conversation with my boss about what happened yesterday and the way I've been feeling lately, and I cried a bit/lot, but overall he was really good about it, and he's agreed to take over some of the more shitty car park duties/stuff we have to put up with, and he's going to see if he can organise for me to have some time off work soon, even if it's unpaid leave. Hurrah!

On Emmerdale right now, they have a very solid murderboy. I feel a bit guilty about how much I like him.

It's the end of the year, which means it's time for the Slash Awards 2017, aka 'The Slashies'. It's a time when I look back over what slash pairings I enjoyed this year, and give them prizes for being the best. So without further ado, here are the Slashies 2017.

( Best Newcomers (spoilers for The Hitman's Bodyguard, Spiderman: Homecoming, Fright Night (2011)) )

( Best Buddy Pairing (spoilers for Hitman's Bodyguard, Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2, Kong: Skull Island) )

( Best Enemy Pairing (spoilers for Spiderman: Homecoming, The Hitman's Bodyguard, Alabaster: Wolves, Justice League and Batman Vs Superman, Fright Night 2011) )

( Best Incest Pairing (spoilers for Emmerdale, Casualty, Coronation Street) )

And now it is midnight, so I must go. I guess I'll have to do the rest of this in the New Year. Enjoy!

ETA - Added 01.01.18

( Best Pairing (Spoilers for The Hitman's Bodyguard, Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2) )

( Most Beautiful Man (Spoilers for Spiderman: Homecoming, IT (book), Rick and Morty, Superman (the DCU films and other sources)) )

( Most Beautiful Woman (Spoilers for The Hitman's Bodyguard, Alabaster: Wolves, Mass Effect: Andromeda, mention of the Weinstein story) )

( Best Dressed )

Happy New Year, everyone!

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.

sfkjlskdfasklfhklsjahfjk The most infuriating soap person on Tumblr just made a post about scene between two female friends, and tagged it with stuff about how rare strong friendships are in soaps, especially between women, that aren't 'demeaning' and just all about men, and Tumblr won't let me reblog the post or @ the guy, and every time I try to make a post about how WRONG he is, WRONG, I have to start off explaining all the things Tumblr won't let me do and it's so awkward the whole post feels ridiculous after that. HE'S SO WRONG. And he doesn't watch Coronation Street because he tried one episode and 'the hypocrisy was too much for him'. But he still talks shit about Coronation Street, and everything they should change about the show, every time it comes up, even though he doesn't even watch it. If he wants female friendships he should just go to there. He's going to feel that way when apparently he mostly watches Eastenders.

Anyway rant over. Tomorrow, I have accidentally scheduled a shopping trip to Leeds, a soap podcast, and voting in the EU referendum. The EU referendum is almost making me feel sick. I mean, I finally get to do the one thing I can actually do about it, and vote to stay in, but also we're going to have the results by tomorrow night. And so many people are being hugely racist. And is that if, if the country votes to leave? Do the politicians have to do it? Or do they just have to take it under advisement? I know if we vote to leave and then we don't, people will just vote UKIP in the next election. It's weird how much momentum the Leave campaign seems to have, but I also assume that they're just loud extremists. And there was a lot of buzz about Scotland leaving the UK during their referendum, and they didn't. I guess I just worry that the Stay people might not bother to vote like the extremists probably will. Like how people forgot to vote against the Conservatives.

The shopping trip can't really be moved though - it's my mum's birthday on Sunday, and she's actually going away over the weekend, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to give her a present. Or what to get her. Mum's one of those really annoying people who don't really want anything, and if you ask them, say "really - don't make a fuss" - but is also the person who least deserves to get up on their birthday, and then realise "oh...nobody did make an effort". But I'll find her something. Even if it's just bath stuff or whatever.

My parents are getting on with buying my sister a house, as I mentioned before, and then they booked a holiday for this year for my sister's kids. Which seems like a lot of expenditure. My mum joked afterwards that they might have to borrow something off me to pay for it - but in that way where people wouldn't even make the joke if they weren't kind of thinking about it. And then today my dad asked me 'where's your money?', and about my bank accounts, and how easily I could access my savings. And...I really don't want to lend them money. And it feels really ungrateful when they're letting me stay here for free and paying for stuff for me, but I know if they borrow anything it's just going on all this stuff for my sister, and my sister is a black hole as far as money is concerned, like she is definitely contributing no money to the holiday my parents are taking her kids on, zero. And I really don't want to get dragged into that. That is an insecure enough investment that I really really don't want my finances - what little I have - dragged into it too.

AU number fifty-eight that the Daredevil kink meme came up with and then barely used: a highschool AU where Matt and Fisk were opposing debate team captains, and every time they argued their friends just rolled their eyes because the UST was incredibly palpable. Someone prompted that, and someone else wrote 300 words about it instead of 30,000. Why?

( Tonight's Emmerdale )

Also, I'm not thrilled with what Coronation Street are doing with Billy and Todd. Why wouldn't Billy just tell Sean about his brother? I was assuming the guy was a prostitute he slept with, when he was all worried about keeping his sexuality a secret, and he didn't think Sean would understand. You would tell someone you loved about an awful brother. Also, I think Todd and Billy work great as friends, with opposing sets of morals, and it seems like they're going to try to put something sexual in there, and ugh. Or just make Sean jealous, to throw a spanner in his and Billy's relationship. Or have things come out about the Platts and Callum, I guess. But it's annoying. I was really happy when Billy and Sean got together, and Sean got a nice boyfriend and a storyline of his own. And now it's just suddenly all about Todd. Ugh.

I ship Ross Barton on Emmerdale with his dad, because I just can't stay away from incest in soaps apparently, but honestly watch this scene where they are first together on screen and tell me you've ever seen an actor look more like they want to make out with another actor:

Emmerdale

I love Ross Barton, and I just want to put flowers in his hair.

- - -

My appointment for an ESA assessment came through, for 15th June. So I guess that's when my benefits will be stopping.

Other things:

• Damn, Johnny Depp.



• I love it when the weather is warm enough that you can just leave your window open all the time, even through the night, and everything smells slightly like outside. I appreciate that I live on a pretty quiet street and other people might not get the joy from it that I do though.

Okay, but for real though, the worst thing about our new living room is that the cat is no longer allowed in it. Maybe forever. Because we have fake leather seats in the kitchen and her claws have made lots of marks in those, so she can't ever be allowed on our stupid leather sofas. Or near them, since she occasionally stretches up at us and her claws come out. So...yeah. Some people might have thought "hey we have a cat - maybe we shouldn't get leather sofas". But not my dad. So now we have to either watch her constantly like hawks, relegate her to the garage, or keep the kitchen door closed at all times. I certainly can't stroke her while she sits next to me or let her sleep on me, like she used to. Awesome.

In happier news (for me), a few weeks ago I was out having Sunday lunch with my parents, and we ran into a neighbour who commented on how I'd lost weight. Naturally my brain is translating this as 'drastic weight loss', but w/e. My mum said I had in fact lost some weight, so yesterday I went through my wardrobe trying on all the dresses I love that I thought didn't fit me anymore. And they fit me again! Even one that I really thought was like 'those days are gone, never to come back' and only hung onto because I loved it. And all the dresses I bought even though they were a bit tight fit. And all the 18s I have that I also like still fit too, they look 'comfortable' but not ridiculous or shapeless. I'm wearing one of my old sun dresses right now. My mum says she wants to go on holiday again just so I can wear them all. That was pretty top.

In other other news, I may have to come off Tumblr. The only time I seem to talk to anyone is to argue with them, or if they seem to be in a really dark place and I want to offer them a little support or advice. I was on there because I really like talking about Emmerdale, and quite a few people on there are doing that, but - this is going to sound a little xenophobic, but a lot of them are americans, and I don't think they understand...what they are seeing. Or how soaps are written. The dude I am arguing with currently is not the guy I was arguing with before, who runs a podcast, it is just this dude who constantly complains and talks about the writing and slams every character for bad behaviour while obviously being a fan of the most misogynistic, homophobic, borderline abusive sociopath on the show. And then yesterday he was talking about an affair storyline, where an outside character was saying they'd told their wife it happened and she just blamed the 'other man', while the married woman they were related to was "blameless, of course". And this dude said he loved that line, because it was clear even the character saying it didn't believe that, when - that was the entire point of the line. When pretty much no-one in England would use the phrase "[blank]'s blameless, of course" unless it was sarcastic. BUT HE'S SO CONVINCED HE'S RIGHT. AND KNOWS WRITING BETTER THAN THE EMMERDALE WRITERS. AND IT'S NOT HARD TO DO THAT LATELY, BUT LKSJDLKASJKFLD. AND I JUST NEEDED SOMEWHERE TO VENT ABOUT HIM. GOD.

The new hard drive for my PS4 arrived yesterday. I have downloaded the Playstation firmware onto a USB stick, and copied my save game files onto ANOTHER USB stick. All that remains now is to actually replace it. I do need a Phillips screwdriver, which I'm probably going to have my dad for - I was hoping to not let him know so he wouldn't try to get involved. Already had plenty of that over the weekend when he gave me the Smartphone ("You don't need your OWN contacts Rachael, just use your mum's old ones!", "You don't need to rename them to what YOU think of them as", "Do you want to see my clever special way of organising favourite contacts OR DON'T YOU?"). Maybe he'll still stay out of it. Maybe he'll give me hints on how you know when you're over-tightening screws. I'm hoping to get some guidance on that from how tight the screws are when I remove the current PS4 hard drive.

One way or another I decided to do it tomorrow - for one reason or another I don't like doing big jobs that make me anxious when I have ANY sort of time limit at all, and it's kickboxing tonight. Today I booted up Borderlands and started to play and then remembered I'd already backed up all my save files, and backing them up again would mean deleting things, so there really was no point at all.

Really I was meant to be saving money since buying the Wii U, but then I - didn't.

People on Tumblr are annoying me so much about Emmerdale right now, I CAN'T BELIEVE SO MANY PEOPLE CAN BE SO WRONG, and the only person who's talking sense about it I disagree with about basically everything else (read: Coronation Street). As if Kal dying when he and Zeedan hadn't sorted out their issues yet wasn't the most tragic and brilliant and realistic thing, as IF.