girlofprey

Handsome Jack :(

( Borderlands 2, spoilers to the end of Where Angels Fear To Tread )

The old kinkmeme for LA Noire has been deleted. Woe. Especially since there isn't a lot of other fic around for it, and the kinkmeme was the only place my favourite fic for that game was posted in a way that I could have copy-pasted it to my hard drive. I wish I had done that when I first read it, but oh well. The fic in question is on fanfiction.net, but their html means you can't copy-paste from there anymore. So I'll just have to hope that doesn't get taken down too. The ephemeral nature of the internet is hard taskmaster sometimes. My greatest fear right now - besides all the big ones - is that the Borderlands kinkmeme will somehow get deleted before I finish the second game. I know it probably won't, but still.

I'm going to a volunteer training day tomorrow. I have to get up at 8 to be in Wakefield for 10. I'm not looking forward to it. Also the training day involves learning how to handle people who call in and are or seem suicidal, and given my past problems with depression I'm not looking forward to that either. But I do want to start volunteering, hopefully at that place, so.

HELLO! Happy Easter. It's a bit belated, but I'm still saying it in the spirit of the holiday. I hope you all got great eggs, or egg-equivalents.

This post could just be a list of my irritations lately. Number one on that list is the fact that my Hotmail account recently 'upgraded' me to Outlook, and a feature of my new inbox is apparently that it will only let me open emails sometimes. Sometimes if I right-click on an email first, that helps. Sometimes going to the page to create a new email, and then back again helps. Sometimes it just lets me open my emails. Sometimes NOTHING helps. I have sent Microsoft a bit of 'feedback' about this feature. They assured me that they can't get back to every complaint and situation personally. So I am probably on my own with it. To be honest though, all they could probably do is send me an email, which I couldn't open. So the annoyance continues.

I'm going to try not to let this post become just a list of irritations though.

My birthday on Wednesday went pretty well, all things considered. Mum and I got to Leeds, we had a pretty nice day walking around, seeing all the shops I haven't seen in a few months at least. I put my name down for that jewellery making course again. We had a nice lunch and I bought myself some things. Then that evening we went out for a meal at a local restaurant we haven't been to for years, which has improved quite a lot since we last went. I had a Bolognese pizza, which I assumed would be a pizza with like mince and tomato topping. It turned out to be a pizza smothered in Bolognese sauce, to the point where you couldn't see the cheese anymore. It was delicious though. The only hiccup came when my sister called, needing mum to immediately give her some money for - reasons. Mum hadn't mentioned, as usual, that we were even going out for a meal, so she had to reveal that while having the argument, and setting a (pretty short) amount of time we needed to be back from the meal by. But mum's car had also ended up having some sort of wheel problem that caused it to start glowing red on the five minute drive from our house to the restaurant, so in the end we decided to leave the car where it was, tell my sister we'd transfer some money when we got home rather than going up to her house, and walk home in the light snow. It was quite pleasant and my sister didn't particularly blow up at not having been invited anywhere with us. She might be coming for Easter dinner tomorrow though, so we'll see if she says anything then.

And since then the weather seems to have not been as bad. I'm putting that down to the glory of my birthday. No-one can prove differently.

The Mass Effect fandom is still proving unsatisfying. That's an irritation. It's like every pairing I'm genuinely interested in has either no or little fic with male Shepard, but at least some or quite a lot of fic with female Shepard. IT'S LIKE THEY TOOK THE FIC I WANTED AND PUT IT BEHIND A GLASS WINDOW. But it's fine. In more my frustrated moments I think uncharitable things about the situation - but I know it's more likely that, like I said, the people who would normally write slash are writing fem!Shepard. Or maybe the voice acting of fem!Shepard is just a lot better and more suggestive or something than male Shepard. I would write mal!Shepard, but that make him sound evil. ManShep. I think that's the preferred fan name. Some people though, they write about their pairings and say their OTP is "femShepard/whoever". It's not even like it's "Shepard/whoever, but my Shepard is femShepard". IT'S LIKE THEY LITERALLY THINK A PAIRING IS MORE SHIPPY WHEN ONE OF THE PAIRING IS FEMALE RATHER THAN MALE. Even though the character is supposed to be essentially the same whether you play them male or female. Even though other characters treat you pretty much the same, as far as I know, whether you're male or female. Even though the game is set in a fictional future where gender is supposed to matter less. Or is vague enough that you can decide how much gender matters. It's fine though. It's fine.

Also, there are obviously quite a lot of men in the fandom, even on the kinkmeme. It's hard to tell when everyone's anonymous, and I really don't want to get into a mindset of "that's a male sort of prompt" or "no woman would want THAT". But there was a least one prompt where someone insisted that Shepard's love interest should be female no matter what, because reading about guys might be great for 'you ladies', but wasn't for them. Also there seems to be a lot of prompts about "[one of the villains] takes all of the female members of the crew hostage and uses mind control to turn them into willing sex slaves". In that way that doesn't sound like they're interested in said female crew members' perspectives on the events/ Also, any prompt for femslash that includes the phrase 'explore each other's bodies' I automatically assume is from a straight guy, and I also decide to never read it. And it's fine and all, and gender equality and safe open spaces on the internet. But. Blagh.

Also the other day I read an analysis of Labyrinth, probably one of my favourite films, that claimed it was obviously a manual for creating a slave through mind control (Warning: that article has some probably EXTREMELY triggering material in it, also a bunch of moving gifs in the background that are probably an epilepsy risk). Which disturbed me quite a bit for a few days, partly because it's always weird when someone puts a much darker spin on a kid's films you like, and partly because mind-controlling someone through traumatising them is both horrific, and you know, a thing people actually pretty much do. But I went back to the person's Tumblr a few days later, actually to see if they were male or female since there was something off-putting about the tone of the article (they're female), and...it became clear exactly HOW MUCH they believed in the Illuminati, and 'a shadowy malevolent organisation controlling popular media'. So yeah. That kind of put it into perspective. Not that I don't think there's a shadowy malevolent organisation controlling popular media. I just think they're called 'cunts'.

Also, today cakesy mentioned Love Shack by the B52s on Twitter, and it reminded me yet again of another Love Shack song that I've been trying to track down for years, but seems to be extremely elusive, even to Google. By sheer force of will and googling every lyric I could remember, I found this page, which has the exact lyrics of the song I am thinking of. That is the song. But it claims it's by 'X', which may not be a real band, and if it is Youtube and Amazon haven't heard of it. All that comes up in the B52s. My long and possibly fruitless quest continues.

But on the other hand, I have jellybeans. Which always makes me happier. And I have an Easter egg. And some of the fic in the Mass Effect fandom is great. And a bunch of the old Nick Cave CDs I used to own or at least have access to and finally got around to buying this week have arrived so I HAVE THEM. And the sun was out for at least a couple of hours today. OH, and I was flipping through channels today and randomly found a new series of Moonshiners! I love Moonshiners. I don't know why, but it always seems to make me smile. Today I found out where the phrase 'bootlegging' comes from. I wish they would put it on primetime once a week, or bring it out on DVD so I could watch it at my leisure, instead of all in a clump on a documentary channel when I'm not really ready for it or I know my dad will want the TV after an hour or so. But still, Moonshiners! J'adore it. So it's not all been bad.

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.

I'm going away tomorrow. I'm sure you will all miss my MAD POSTING SKILLS, but yes, if I'm not around, that's why. We have to get up at about 5am tomorrow to fly from Manchester at 9.30, so I probably won't have a chance to post again before I go. Also I haven't packed. Also I need to have a bath and wash my hair. So yes.

I had only a mild panic over the past couple of weeks, when I tried on one of my dresses and it was really tight, and I became convinced nothing would fit me and I didn't have time to get more with everything else going on, and I would have NOTHING TO WEAR NOTHING, I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO LEAVE THE HOTEL. But it was shortly before my period that I tried on that dress, and all my other stuff that's the same size still fits me, and I tried all my old stuff on last night - including the dress - and it all pretty much still fit, or was doable. The holiday we're going on is All Inclusive though, so I get the feeling it might be an idea to wear the tighter stuff early on in the holiday, before we all balloon up slightly.

So yes. I'm going away. The hardest thing to contemplate, which I only properly realised a few days ago, was that I wouldn't be able to play my computer games for a week, and keep up my steady progression through the story. I plan to distract myself with Crete. And when I get back, maybe those two people on the Fallout kinkmeme who promised and sort-of-promised to write me fills will have written them. MAYBE THAT.

Also I managed to make calls to both my counselling service, who wrote to me last week implying I'd missed an appointment even though I hadn't heard about one, and offering me further appointments on Mondays, to tell them I won't be able to make that for the next three weeks, due to packing, holiday, and my dad's birthday; and to the Jobcentre to ask for an appeal form. The Jobcentre call went about as smoothly as expected, they asked for a pin I remember making up a few months ago, and not using since. But I managed to make it through the rest of the security questions. The woman sounded suprised that the form I needed wasn't in the letters I got saying I'd failed the assessment, but I remember having to go for some kind of form at some point last year, so I honestly can't remember if that's how it always was or if it's a new stumbling block they've put in the way of people trying to claim benefits. In any case, the woman who's actually offering me counselling is supposed to be calling back tonight, and the woman at the Jobcentre is supposed to be sending me out an appeal form, so that should be here when I get back from holiday. Hurrah.

The day I get back will be the day before Halloween. I will have one or one-half a day to prepare for one of my favourite holidays. And then it will be November. Eek.

I have been looking after the house on my own for about two full days now. So far, the cat has brought two dead birds to the garage door and either pooed or been sick in the garage, it was hard to tell which. I really thought that our old and slightly senile dog would be most likely to be the problem child this week, but apparently not so much. Also, a spider has made a huge web across the entrance to our little side of the garage bit where the dog goes to do his business, and I keep having to break it to get past and clean it up, and it keeps rebuilding it back up again. But so far, I am coping manfully with it. Womanfully? I am coping, either way.

Mostly at the moment I want to buy ALL the DVDs, but instead I am playing ALL the computer games. Fallout 3 keeps trying to lure me into one of the add-on adventures I have, because I got the Game Of The Year edition, with desperate and very urgent people begging me to come help them with big quests. But I haven't finished exploring the Wasteland yet, so it sucks to be them.

Mostly I am a little upset that there aren't more Talon Company or Colonel Autumn related prompts on the kink meme. But that's probably just because I love psychos, so it's not so much of a suprise. Even though it kind of is. A whole REGIMENT of psycho mercenaries, and no kink meme prompts? WHY?

Also, [terrible Futurama feelings and pairings that I'm not going to tell you about], but I found some, yay!

It's raining. It's raining so hard the cars at the end of my street are wading. Obviously the weather is feeling the need to punish us for that brief period of sunshine we had.

Also I finished LA Noire.

( Massive spoilers for LA Noire )

( The slash )

I should probably start getting into some game fandom communities, or getting some game fandom people on my flist, rather than just telling my extensive thoughts to people who probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Oh well.

Also it has stopped raining now, and the sun is out. I'm sure we'll have to pay for that later. Also, I noticed you can get Pimms in a can now. That's a little bit weird.

My dad's such a jerk. I was just watching Coronation Street (second episode only, I need to catch up at some point), and they're doing a storyline about a character's new boyfriend being a transvestite at the moment, and tonight she was going out on a date with him when he was all dressed up, and my dad literally jumped up to go do something in the kitchen, shouting something about how they'd lost 3 million viewers, and they've got a new executive producer or something, and he's friends with 'Colin' (??), and he keeps bringing in all these new stories about "homosexuals", it's all his doing, losing viewers, etc. I tried arguing with him by pointing out the number of serial killers they've had on the street over the years, only for him to say something along the lines of it wasn't him saying it, it was all in The Sun, he could show me. Twat. They've actually made Ken's gay grandson slightly more interesting tonight, although from what I've heard I don't know what the future holds for the teenage lesbians. But. It's still mostly straight characters on the soap. He just doesn't want to look at a man in a wig. It's times like these I want to tell him that I'm bisexual (if he hasn't already guessed), but shouting it in a fight doesn't seem like the best way to tell him. If I ever do. Hmph.

Anyway. I've been feeling a bit weird and restless over the last week or so. I've been going to a couple of my hometown's local festivals over the past couple of days, so that might be it. Just strung out and slightly more anxious than usual all the time. I'd like to assume it's my hormones or something, but I think I spend about half my life nowadays feeling a bit weird and assuming it's something to do with my hormones. Maybe it is. Sadly, while it has been a few weeks since my last period, I've never been terribly regular, so it's pretty impossible to tell when anything's actually going to happen. Alternatively, it might be having done all the things last week with my appeal and trying to do some volunteering that's put me a bit on edge. Or, I've been eating too much sugar lately. Possibly one of those things.

I've been watching some more Danny Phantom lately, which is an animated kids show really, but one I really like. Also, I don't think I've ever seen a show so set up for underage fic as that one. Yowza. BUT, having finished off season 1, I got onto the season 2 disc last night, only to discover - after a number of episodes that didn't seem to follow on from each other - that like the American Gothic dvds, they haven't put the episodes on it in the right order. So I have to get a list from the internet or something so I can watch them in the right order, or watch the ones I should have seen by now but haven't to start off with. Which is irritating. I never had this problem with Daria. Or only slightly.

Also, the kink memes I have been following have gone weird in a new and exciting way. Not seeing any prompts for the pairing you like is one thing. Only seeing prompts for your pairing where one of the characters is basically a Bad Guy as a plot point to set up the fic for another pairing, is another thing. Seeing prompts for your pairing where one of the characters is basically a Bad Guy in plot point fashion, but without it being to set up another pairing, or ANY other pairing, is...another thing. Hmph.

My plans for this week continue apace though. I've emailed K about possibly going to the Riverside Festival with her. She's in Berlin at the end of the month apparently, but I don't know if she's free at the beginning of August yet. And a cinema near me is showing Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 this week, which is nice because I never got round to seeing it when it came out. And I am quite interested in seeing Part 2, and seeing it in the cinemas, so. It'll be nice to be able to. Also, my DVD of Single-Handed series 1 has FINALLY arrived, and series 2 starts on Thursday. Starting with Jack Driscoll finding out a 'terrible family secret'. Oh Jack, will your family ever stop being terrible and having secrets? I shall have to watch to find out I guess (my guess is, no). So. It's not been a 100% bad week, so far.