girlofprey

So, yes. Anyway. I have an interview. We're in a slight panic about what I'm going to wear, since my interview suit is actually a bit baggy on second glance, and it's a little bit heavy for the warm weather, but I've got a dress that'll work too. As long as they don't take offence to the fact I don't shave my underarms. But it's nice to have the opportunity, and the fact they got back to me immediately and the woman on the phone sounded really surprised I wouldn't have a problem working till 7pm suggests to me there might not be a lot of competition for it, which would be nice. I also applied for a receptionist job with our local NHS, which would sort of mean being sent to 3 different hospitals in the area, but still. I'd forgotten that writing application forms basically meant making yourself sound like the most amazing, capable person in the world. So I mostly did that. It helps to actually have the experience they're asking for, as well, which I do (aside from the RSA qualification - but I've explained I'm super even without that). I do actually think I'd really suit the job, and the receptionist at my mum's hospital seems to think I'll get an interview at least. Applications aren't closing until 7th September though - after my interview with the other company. But still. It's nice to feel like I might have options. Especially given how few job vacancies there really are once you narrow down a field, say you want part-time work, and ignore all the jobs the website sends you that are in Sheffield or Manchester. Not sure how I'm going to fill five hours a day if I have to keep doing that.

But anyway. I have the weekend free now, and I have finished Trails of Cold Steel. There are no Machias/Jusis fics, bizarrely. There are actually more Jusis/Rean fics. Rean isn't so bad, he's just dull. And I think I accidentally got the Machias/Rean ending, because I developed a 'strong bond' with him, spent time with him at the school festival dance, and then at the end he gave Rean a speech about how he was great and they were going to build a country which was great for everyone, together. Whoops. I did really enjoy it though.

But the game is finished. So what am I going to do now? I'm going to Nuka-World!

Holy shit, why won't this game just end?

The most annoying thing about Trails of Cold Steel is that I play it on my Vita. Which is one of the things I love about it, and I love my Vita. But its battery life is only about 5 hours, which when you are playing a game that lasts upwards of 100 hours is nothing. So usually it cuts out in the middle of a battle, or a really important conversation, because I still don't really believe in charging things before they've completely died, and then I have to plug it in and wait another 3 hours or so for it to charge before I can switch it on and continue. When I am trying to play through and finish it, this is doubly frustrating.

It will end eventually. They have to let me go to Nuka World at some point. But at the moment I am mostly playing it to find out what happens to Machias, and I think Machias might genuinely be one of my favourite characters ever? He is one of the members of the school class the game is based on, a class where commoners and nobles were brought together from across the game's social spectrum to learn how to use battle units that let you feel what the people you are linked to are doing, 'every breath they take', so you can fight as one. And mostly make linked attacks in battle. Machias started out as the commoner boy who hated nobles, and whose dad is a commoner who rose to become the governor of their country's capital city. But also he has super good grades, and is a chess whizz who won't let the noble students' habitual playing of chess, and being jerks, ruin the sanctity of the school chess club. The best way I can describe him is 'nerd hothead revolutionary'. And I love him. Because he's kind of a jerk himself sometimes, but he almost always realises and apologises for it when he's calmed down. And he's always the first to just randomly throw himself in when he realises someone is in trouble. He has a healing ability. The only other characters who have those are the literal healers, and the archer character who's abilities are described as 'angel'. HE'S AMAZING? Just for kicks I had him and the archer girl be linked for one of the battles, and whenever they ended a battle with a joint attack, they would say to each other how awesome it is to be ranged, they were like "Team Ranged!", and they didn't high-five and I don't understand why. They all have specific weapons they were found to have the most proficiency with, and his was a shotgun. A MAGIC SHOTGUN. And most of the time they treat it like a rifle, so he can be revolutionary rifle guy. Except way more awkward than that. His ultimate attack is a few shotgun blasts, and then his gun just turns into a GIANT SNIPER RIFLE for the last shot. BUT HE ALSO HEALS. After a while, with someone he likes, he gets an ability where he can just auto-heal someone when they take damage. I LOVE HIM.

We found out that the real reason he hates nobles is that his mum died when he was young, which was sad, but then his female cousin moved in with them to help look after him and his dad, and he always thought of her like a big sister, and called her 'sis'. She and a noble fell in love, and the noble's family was horrified at the thought of him marrying a commoner, and they did everything they could to fuck up the marriage, including harassing her beyond all possible bearing, which she kept to herself so her family didn't suffer, and arranging a different marriage with a noble their son couldn't really say no to. Finally, apparently, the noble told the cousin that they couldn't get married, but if she stayed with him he'd treasure her as his mistress, and she killed herself. And from the looks of the flashback, tiny baby Machias was one of the ones who found her. He told the rest of the class this - or half of them at least, while they were on a group activity - because he'd gotten to know some nobles in the class and realised they weren't all bad. He was way kinder about it all than he really should have been. He said he realised now the noble's family were just doing what they had to, in their position, and that the noble himself stayed faithful to his cousin, really. I think it's more than a good enough reason to light the flame of revolution in yourself and never, ever let it die out, but he decided to settle down about it. He had a match with the Upper Class side of the chess club, to decide whether they or the commoner side had to CLOSE DOWN FOREVER, and he won, and he and the other commoner boy - who was the only one left in the club, after the nobles pushed the rest out - said the nobles didn't have to close their club down, they could all love chess as one. It was all very Stop The Division, Live All Together.

And even more special than that, they gave him a boyfriend. They gave him a cool, blond noble boyfriend who he hates, because nobles and commoners can never be friends, but then it turned out that the noble boy was actually a duke's bastard son, and a lot of other nobles didn't even think of him as a proper noble. Machias overheard this, and decided to be nicer to him. And the noble boy was a dick about it. BECAUSE THEY CAN NEVER BE FRIENDS. The noble boy - who is Jusis - was one of the students who wasn't there when they learned all about Machias' past, and I'm desperate for him to find out about it. Also, the noble boy was the one who Machias had to play in the chess match. Jusis isn't even a member of the chess club, but he's amazing at chess, so the other nobles asked him to fight for them, and he did, and he tried to win by just pissing Machias off so he made mistakes, but Rean, stupid bloody Rean, did a good thing for once and noticed what Jusis was doing, and told Machias to just stay calm and play how he always played, and he could win this. And he did win it. At a sport that's generally thought of as a game for nobles, against a noble he hated, who was amazing at chess. Jusis had to walk away and pretend it didn't happen and that it didn't affect him. Jusis is in the Riding Club, and I forced Machias to do a riding activity with me at the school festival end of the year thing, while Jusis wasn't there, and he said riding was more interesting than he thought and maybe he'd even go to the club sometimes if only Jusis wasn't there. Also there was a scene of the two of them taking care of a 13-year old member of the class at the festival, buying her food because she'd forgotten her purse, even though they were both annoyed with her, and it was just like they were dads. I want a scene of them in battle, with Machias taking shots Jusis calls out. I saw the duet, the duet has at least happened, and it was...more than I have ever dreamed. I love them. A lot. I love Machias a lot.

I have beaten the final boss in Trails of Cold Steel. Because I am amazing.

They're still having me walk around and do stuff, so I sincerely hope it is the final boss. If not...I shall be upset. But I can't imagine they're going to try to top this, even if there is another fight. Fingers crossed, anyway. I'm hoping I can at least get to the duet without any further obstacles.

I am trying to finish Trails of Cold Steel before Nuka World, the next (and final) expansion for Fallout 4 comes out. It is...trying. I love the game, but it's so nit-picky - there are a lot of extra things you can do that you basically only have a chance at completing if you talk to every single person in an area every time you are put in a new one. And at 130 hours in, I'm not thrilled to have been really diligent about doing that throughout the whole game, and then fail to get a whole set of something right on the very last one there is to find. However, because the game is great and knows what it is about, it's going to finish by having Machias and Jusis - the pairing - sing a duet together. So that's all to look forward to.

Another game I have been playing lately is Darkest Dungeon. Darkest Dungeon is great. I've been playing it for about a year, in a way, because I bought it when it was unfinished in Early Access, but it's complete now and even better than it used to be. A games magazine marked down its review score because the game was clearly trying to be 'raw and evocative' and didn't succeed, but it wasn't trying to be raw and evocative at all. Basically it's a game where you recruit heroes and send them down into a dungeon to fight monsters, but as well as their health and general condition, you also have to manage their sanity. If it gets too dark, they start to freak out. If they get hit with a lot of damage from a monster, they get scared. If they see something unsettling, they start to get unnerved. If you let their nerves get too bad, they go insane and start acting irrationally and not doing what you as the player tell them - or sometimes, beautifully, they become 'virtuous', and even more dedicated to the task at hand. But also sometimes don't do what you as the player tell them - to the point of sacrificing themselves for their team. It's not trying to be raw and evocative, it's trying to be a horror game where you have to manage your team's sanity, on top of everything else. And it's amazing. And has a really brilliant set of female classes you can recruit. It's quite a stressful game, but it really is brilliant.

The noble boy in Trails of Cold Steel today stated that "bad dogs need stern discipline". So that also happened.

I'm sure there was something else I was going to post about, but I got caught up talking about computer games. I am currently waiting for a new Nintendo Direct, where Nintendo will announce some of their news for the summer, and hopefully a new Wii U or 3DS game. You can always hope.

Oh, I also had a brilliant dream last night. My dreams have been weird for a few days, just choppy and a bit harried and obviously just an amalgam of all the things I'd been thinking about or doing that day. But last night's was like a proper film, and it starred Sam Rockwell as an android detective, just trying to do his job. Eventually, when he proved himself, people said he was a 'really beautiful piece of work'. It was lovely.