girlofprey: (Default)
I've been thinking about some of my favourite Christmas songs lately, and some of the ones I really like are quite dark. There's Fairytale of New York, which is ultimately about a really unhealthy relationship, and uses the f-slur if anyone's particularly upset by that:



And Can You Stop the Calvary, which is an anti-war song which is pretty fucking relevant today:



Also partially about the threat of nuclear war, which I hoped would never again be relevant in my lifetime, but here we are.

But I've been thinking about it, and I think it's pretty natural to be a bit melancholy at Christmas. I mean, Christ's birth was supposed to be in September anyway, so a lot of the point of celebrating it in December was to take over from the old celebration of Yule. And as far as I can tell, a lot of the point of that was to light candles in the depths of the dark winter, to 'call back' the sun. So I think it's pretty natural at this time of year to be a bit sad, and to think about sad things, and just let yourself exist in the darkest time of the year. But also to put up lights, and remember that the sun will come back round again.

Don't kill yourself this Christmas. That is honestly kind of a side-note I was thinking about when I was thinking of the stuff above, but it's still pretty important. x
girlofprey: (R for raygun)
I like summer thunderstorms, but I don't like being caught in them, which I just was when I attempted to go for today's walk. Did anyone else get thunderstorms on Friday night? I had my window open, so the sheer noise of the rain woke me up first, then the constant flashing - more than we had of thunder - and then when I tried to get back to sleep thunder that sounded like a bomb going off kept waking me up. But then the next morning my dad claimed the lightning woke him up but he didn't hear any thunder, and my ON slept straight through all of it apparently.

I'm currently playing Affordable Space Adventures on the Wii U, and if more people on my flist were gamers and had Wii U's I would recommend it to everyone. I specifically got it because a game magazine I had said it was great, it was a Wii U exclusive, and it made a real point of using everything it could on the Wii U gamepad, every experience you couldn't get on any other console. And it's all true, and it's amazing. It's sort of Portal-like, but without any sort of GlaDOS figure. Just an eerie/cute sci-fi puzzler. It's really making me enjoy the Wii U - the way a game that used everything the PS Vita could do really made me enjoy the PS Vita. But everywhere I'm looking is saying the PS Vita and Wii U are commercial failures (which is true, but not because they're terrible machines), and very few game designers are tailoring ANYTHING specifically to what they can do, and there probably won't be that many games for them at all in the future and they're basically 'dead'. Sigh.

Does everyone know about Nicki Minaj's Starships? If not:



And have another song I have just discovered and love, could probably describe quite a lot of my pairings. Annoyingly, I have the album it's supposed to be on, so it's probably a bonus track on a version I don't have. Warning: It is a bit murdery.

girlofprey: (R for raygun)
Steam is pissing me off at the moment. The game software, not actual steam. EVERY TIME I switch my computer on, it needs to update. Sometimes I switch it on a couple of times in a day, and almost every time it needs to update. Multiple times a day! What updates could there possibly be hours since the last updates? And I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but I'm playing Skyrim again at the moment, and a good half of the time the game won't load, and I have to switch my laptop off and on again before it will. What is that? Is it so much to ask that I can just play the games I have paid for? Must I constantly have to ask Steam's permission, and often be refused it? And what is the point of constantly updating your software - usually before my computer is completely switched on and connected to the internet - if it still doesn't work even when you do? I am genuinely considering buying a copy of Skyrim for the Playstation because fffffffff. Fuck's sake.

Anyway. It's SUPER COLD here. And wet. Apparently 'wet snow' is on the cards for tonight? A White Christmas is usually too much to ask, never mind a White November. I may have to buy some jumpers at some point soon.

Also I have been rewatching Death Valley and I genuinely don't understand why there was never a fandom for it. Aside from being reminded how much of an MTV show it really was. So much unnecessariness. But it was genuinely funny a lot of the time and everyone was beautiful. Especially Dashell, and someone should have written me Dashell/Santos fic by now. I might start a kink meme. And write all the prompts, and fill all the fills.

Also, a decade on, I still don't understand how Coldplay's 'Shiver' is anything other than an out-and-out song about stalking:



And googling that has revealed: " Martin actually wrote the song in a "glum" day, when he felt he would never find the right woman for him. He described it as something of a "stalking song", admitting he wrote it for a specific woman.". Something of a? I do genuinely like it though. Frankly I was never a huge Coldplay fan, but I think they were better when their songs were as emotionally dead as their voices. Oh well.

Anyway. I'm going to a comics convention this weekend. It comes but once a year, and I am super looking forward to it. Of course last year I had already read half the comics on sale, or bought them at least, because they have a lot of the same artists back year on year and they don't spit out a new series a month or anything. But it's still always a nice day out. Hurrah.
girlofprey: (R for raygun)
Cut for mention of animal death )

Also, I went to see Man Of Steel with dad yesterday. I quite liked it? It was 3D, which I didn't realise before getting there, so I can't tell if the slightly insensible fight choreography was to do with that, or just the way it was actually filmed. Also, I ran out to the bathroom during a bit that didn't seem very dramatic, but might have been a bit of exposition that tied the first and second halves of the film together better than it seemed when I was watching it. I don't know. Brian Holden has taught me to like Superman more than I did. HE CAN'T ALWAYS HELP HOW POWERFUL HE IS. So I quite liked it. It was fucking expensive though. Two adults for a 3D film, including 3D glasses and sweets, since the newsagents downstairs was closed - £33. Jesus Christ.

And now there's Pacific Rim out, and I have been looking forward to Pacific Rim for a few months, but suddenly everyone on Tumblr's seen it, and they're so hyped about it they don't want to spoiler-cut anything FOR A FILM THAT CAME OUT FOUR DAYS AGO. jsjdhj. There are still two other films I want to see out at the moment, one only has two showings a day left this week, and The World's End is out on Friday. Lord save me from people who won't spoiler-cut. Am I just going to have to avoid your Tumblrs entirely?

In other news, apparently sometimes skipping the intros of songs you aren't familiar with on your MP3 player keeps you from songs you will one day genuinely love. This week's offering: Sweet Talkin Woman by ELO. Hold on...

Also, I am at the part in Fallout 3 where you . But this time I told him what a dick I thought he was. It's different this time around, knowing what's going to happen later on in the story. But I do think this version of my Lone Wanderer will end up slightly more well adjusted than the previous one. Or feel horribly guilty for a while. Whichever. He's totally a dick though.
girlofprey: (This Music Is Why You're Like You Are (G)
I don't understand the "The Apprentice" format anymore. Last time I watched, it was tasks every week to get rid of someone, or occasionally two people, until you get to a final four. Then they take their business plans in to be assessed by Alan Sugar's friends/employees, and one of them gets the investment. Now there's a Final Five, but the preview of next week suggests they're going to be whittled down to a final two. And what those two will have to do then...I don't know. Maybe another task. Maybe another series of tasks. Maybe a fight to the death. Maybe just more discussing things before the end of the show, and then one of them finally gets picked. WHO KNOWS.

In other news, I got completely confused tonight when I misunderstood which results belonged to which team, and got really confused by who'd won. But after that was cleared up, it was a vaguely entertaining end to the show, in a sort of imploding way.

Anyway. Music news. I don't know exactly how famous the Studio Killers (a band, not murderers) are - they're all over Tumblr it seems, but I haven't heard of them anywhere else. But just in case I'm not the last to know, and any of you like pop music, you should give them a try:


"Jenny" by the Studio Killers.

And similarly, I don't know if everybody knows about Macklemore by now - I found this song on a song mix called "Songs everyone knows and everyone knows the words to, don't you dare lie and pretend you don't". So probably they do. But I had never heard this song before and it really makes me laugh, so here you go (some of the lyrics are NSFW though):


"Thrift Shop" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Feat. Wanz
girlofprey: (R for raygun)
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.
girlofprey: (Default)
I made it through my ESA assessment, anyway.

It was kind of gruelling as usual, but the woman doing the assessment was sort of nice, and mum was with me. I think it went okay, but it's a funny thing to think about really. Because if I was fine, I obviously wouldn't need an assessment, and if I seem fine they might decide I don't need benefits anymore. So, y'know. But there's not really much point worrying about that till I get the decision, I guess. It was weird though, because I asked the woman doing it about the review, and how I wasn't expecting to have to do an assessment until October, and she didn't know anything about a review and said this was nothing to do with that. So...I don't know what that was. Whether it was the review and she just didn't know about it, or whether it was just a sort of getting all the details/getting everything on file thing now that I'm actually on ESA. I don't know. I don't even know if the questionnaire I did a few weeks ago was for the review or for this assessment. But at the very least, if I DO have a review in October, I hope they won't ask to see me again, since I've already done a review recently. Fingers crossed.

In other news, I accidentally got into Dallas. New Dallas. I'M SORRY IF ANYONE IS UPSET OR THOUGHT I WAS BETTER THAN THAT. I'm not. There's a young guy who is handsome and has an evil father and is evil and maybe a bit insecure. GROUNDBREAKING FOR ME, I KNOW. But anyway. I'm planning to watch it on Channel 4, which will apparently take me 10 weeks. Hurrah. On the other hand, I looked up John Ross' early life from original Dallas last night. IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL. It's like a whole soap child biography, but I don't have to wait years for it to play out. Amazing.

Also I played through all of the Bertrand parts of Infamous 2. It's kind of terrible that I love him so much. But. His scenes with Cole are pretty much the best part of the game. Also he's pretty much the only character who gets to be a character all the way through the game, and not just be part of Cole's choices. Also he's a baddie who's actually bad, which is something this game doesn't always manage (wankily), and which I do appreciate. Also he has some of the best boots I've ever seen. Also I wish there was a fandom because I get the feeling I could shipwar with the Cole/Zeke fans. They would win on the relationship front, which is FINE. But I would win on the CHARACTERISATION OVER THE COURSE OF THE GAME THAT MAKES ANY SENSE front. And I think that's the front that would win.

And I started Bioshock. Which is about as brilliant as everyone says, and all the awards it got suggests. Which is nice because most of the games I've started lately have been huge disappointments. Yay. Also I bought Overlord, basically because I miss Dungeon Keeper. I MISS DUNGEON KEEPER SO MUCH.

And also, I thought I'd share some more vids from EvilVillainsStudio that I've liked. Mostly I think I like them because of the songs, but the editing and editing together of clips is really good as well. It's interesting, because some of the(made-up) pairings click with me more than others, and I can't tell if it's because of the editing (different sections seems to be made by different people), and because of the actual pairings/characters. It's fun either way though.

There is footage from new Who and Once Upon A Time in these videos. I can only apologise.

A bunch of songvids/songs )
girlofprey: (This Music Is Why You're Like You Are (G)
So, I generally like quite a lot of SNL/Lonely Island stuff anyway. But Threw It On The Ground, which I had weirdly not heard about until a few nights ago - although given that I get most of my meme knowledge from kink memes and I haven't been on that many lately, maybe that's not suprising - really, really makes me laugh. Probably because being a jerk is one of my favourite character traits there is. I could sort of do with less of the end bit. But other than that, I LOVE IT A LOT.

girlofprey: (Default)
My adventures in the last few days have also included:

  • Going to the doctor's and getting a sick note that will last me indefinitely, until a decision is reached on my appeal, yay!


  • I got the bus to my local cinema on Wednesday, and just before we reached the cinema a man on the backseat - who I'm pretty sure got on the bus in the bus station with me and seemed alright - suddenly starting shouting loudly. He stopped after a minute, and everyone looked around at him, but he didn't say anything else (that I heard) so I assumed he probably had Tourette's or something. Then, he started coughing really loudly and quite noticeably. Then a little closer to the cinema he got up and walked down to the driver, and his jeans were pretty clearly wet, in a way that it seem pretty clear he'd wet himself. He went and spoke to the driver, something I didn't hear, and then walked back to the backseat, where he'd left a jacket, but because of the bus swaying as it drove, he fell, literally, on top of a young woman in one of the seats. Still with partly wet jeans. He got up, went back to the backseat, started coughing again and Cut for possible TMI and vomiting )

    Later on, while waiting for my film, I was wandering around near the cinema, and I'm pretty sure the guy walked past me, and he didn't seem drunk and wasn't staggering or anything. So I'm not sure what was going on there. A part of me feels a bit bad for not telling him about the jacket on the backseat, but I didn't really want to speak to him or get involved much. And it might not have been his, I guess, since he left it there twice. In any case. That was fun.


  • I have discovered a new-found love of the Simon and Garfunkel song "Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard". It's quite ace.


  • I bought this necklace from Topshop, after wanting it for quite a while. It's not a collar like I thought it was, sadly. But it's still quite cool.


  • And I went to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, yesterday. I understand that this might be a bit confusing, considering all the other Deathly Hallows posts that will probably be all over the place at the moment. It is Part 1. I never saw it when it first came out in the cinemas. I saw it yesterday.

    I have to say that hands down, the best part of it was that Gellert Grindelwald is David Platt's grandfather. In many ways, it explains so much. Man. That was almost as good as when the Devil from Reaper turned up in X-Men: First Class advising the American military department on a possible war with Russia. NEVER LISTEN TO HIM, AMERICA.

    Anyway.

    Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows PART 1, and probably spoilers from the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book, up to and including the ending )

Few. Anyway. Other casting things that have suprised me lately: finding out Aunt Petunia is played by the same woman who played the evil p.a. woman in the Super Mario Bros film. And finding out that the woman who played Rita Sue Dreyfuss <3 on Carnivale went for the role of Martha Kent in Smallville. Who knew?



And also today, I found out that [livejournal.com profile] jekesta doesn't want me to have a happy Christmas. WHY JEKESTA, WHY?
girlofprey: (R for raygun)
It's amazing how often you can just apply songs to a fandom. The Decemberists' 'Yankee Bayonet' is clearly a great Niki/Jessica song. Ditto 'The Crane Wife Part 1' for Noah and Claire, or Noah/Claire if you swing that way. Noah/Claire makes a lot more sense after Season 2. Dude.

My fairy lights don't stretch from the plug socket to my tree. That's quite sad. But other than that all my decorations are up, hurrah. And my Christmas shopping's done. Except that I might switch something for another thing. Or get some other things. OR SOMETHING. But mostly, done.

New job tomorrow. Rah.
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