girlofprey

Stardew Valley is coming to PS Vita next Tuesday.

What a time to be alive.

I don't know that Shane sits well with most of my video game husbands. I don't know that he would get on with Joseph Seed. Although Joseph Seed would probably love him. But then I suppose there are a few other nice people in there for company. Ah well.

Other things I have done in the last week:

• Found out that some tarantulas are actually really beautiful.



• Wrote fanfiction for my own dream.



• Had a different dream last night that David Platt in Coronation Street actually did try to kill himself over what happened with Josh, and that's how his family finally found out about it. I just love it when people love David and want to protect him, and I just want to see that happen. GAIL WILL BE SO HEARTBROKEN AND UPSET. And Gary will look at him with so much sympathy. I want to see that happen and it's not happening yet. Who knows when it will happen. My dream made it real.

I finally married Shane in Stardew Valley. I found him a few mornings later in his little nook, contemplating whether to have a beer or a cider at 6am. I don't know why all our boyfriends have to be so unfulfilled and alienated.

My ON is down at the moment. Apparently his dad is moving out today. Or meeting with a landlord at least - my mum's not convinced he'll actually be gone right away, but still. It's something? Things moving on at least. We'll still have to wait and see how things are when it's just my sister and the kids living on their own, but yeah, it'll be a change. And I'm glad he's going.

I'm sort of happy about the next few weeks. After today, I have a short week at work, then another long week, and then I have a week off. And it'll be E3, so the current games news drought will be over, and we'll find out way more about a few games that have been announced lately. There's a wild shooter coming out that pits you against a militant cult in rural America, and apparently according to some people on the internet, that's true racism. Whereas previous games in the series being set in Africa, a South Pacific Island, and Asia, and having you fight Africans, Pacific Islanders, and Asians definitely wasn't. It's weird when people show how nothing they are.

And in the meantime, Wonder Woman is coming out, which I'm going to see, a new series of Camp Camp is starting, Tekken 7's out, the Elder Scrolls Online's Morrowind is coming out, and the Let's Play company I watch are bringing out a new game-focused podcast show, which is nice, because I was just thinking recently how much I miss the old one they did. The format of the new show seems a little annoying, but eh, we'll see. Of course, in the middle of that we're going to have an election (which I still think they should postpone), which will probably have a very depressing result, but. Apart from that giant blemish, it looks like a nice few weeks.

I wish there was some way I could show you the Justice League poster I got in a comic a few weeks back, and has been sitting next to my keyboard ever since. It's most of the male members posing like they're members of a boyband. And then just Batman being a freak. Never change, Batman.

I literally walked out of my Stardew Valley door, and found a truffle my pig had found for me the night before. That'll do, pig.

I was in the desert caves in Stardew Valley, looking for some iridium so I could upgrade my pickaxe, and I got a little overwhelmed by slimes and died, and I thought "Well, I've probably lost the iridium now". I woke up in Harvey's clinic, checked my inventory, and I had kept my iridium, and also I had two rabbit's feet.

Calloo, callay. Oh frabjous day.

It finally rained in Stardew Valley, and the first fish I caught was a Walleye.

Stardew Valley update:

I got real confused the other day, because I assumed most of the kids in Stardew Valley were highschoolers. What with their kickflips and emo hair, and constant complaining about homework. It turns out most of them are probably college age, and one works in his basement as a freelance programmer. Even the one constantly talking about 'school' is apparently taking some online classes, and seems to be more working on a degree than anything. I was fooled by Americans' tendency to call everything from kindergarten to studying for a PhD 'school'. Anyway. It did seem really creepy that the main character was of an age to have a job and own their own farm, but most of their romantic options were young teenagers. But now it's a little less creepy. Although I still consider them emotionally immature, what with the kickflips.

My farm is in its second year, which means I get to raise the new crops. And I finally gave in and started using sprinklers, so I could have some energy for anything other than watering, and do anything else with my mornings. Such as fishing. I still can't remember when you can catch sturgeon, but other than that I think I'm probably en route to completing the community centre this year, if I can upgrade my barns and get all the animals I need. I've been whizzing through it a little bit, trying to get to the same place I was in during my last stint in the game, but it's all coming along pretty nicely.

Shane still doesn't love me. But I'm working on it. I feel like I've reached the point now where I'd know enough about him to give him his favourite things, and his birthday is soon. The guy who made the game has really ramped up the whole depression side-story he seemed to be running with Shane though, which is considerably better than ignoring it completely but. It makes scenes with him kind of uncomfortable sometimes, from the perspective of romance. I feel like many of our dates will be spent in the doctor's office, trying to get him some help.

Quite a few other people in the town want to do me though. Success!

Anything else update:

My games shop got Resident Evil 7 five days early, so I have been playing it. I tried to play it after dark with all my lights off, but it turns out that's not so easy when you have a keyboard and mouse glowing like a rainbow behind, flashing into different colours every few seconds. And a lightbar on your PS4 controller that you can't turn off. I'm still enjoying it though. It's very puzzly. It seems a lot like playthroughs I have seen of the original game, albeit with less nameless enemies so far. I'm only a few hours in though. Apparently the whole game can be beaten in just 15 hours. With my performance and constant hiding in corners, we'll see.

It's cold today. I feel sad for the birds. I suggested the idea of getting a bird feeder the other day to my dad, but the idea was treated with levity. We had two magpies in our garden last week, and then a squirrel. Which has never happened before. Then I saw a deer from the train on my way to work. And then rats in a little green area behind where I work. Although I have no idea how common that is. At least it is finally cold though, and not creepily, unusually warm.

I've got this really awkward pain in the ball of my foot, and I'm not sure what to do about it. I get it sometimes because of wide arches or bunions or whatever, or because I'm a little heavy-footed when I walk. This time it flared up after kickboxing the other week, when I was on the balls of my feet for a long time. Although it might have had something to do with a long, long walk I took with my mum and YN a few weeks before that. Anyway - it was really hurting last week, to the point where I couldn't stay on the ball of my foot for too long, so I decided to give kickboxing a miss, thinking I probably wouldn't be able to do the moves anyway. I typed most of that last sentence with my eyes closed and only made one mistake, I'm amazing. Anyway, I figured it'd be fixed by this week, but whether it's because of the walks I take every day or just from the problem itself, it's not. I don't know whether to give kickboxing a miss again tonight - I can stay on the balls of my feet with a little less pain, but do a lot of that is probably going to make it flare up again, which won't help. It's annoying though, because the more lessons I miss the harder it is to get back into it. Well, it's not hard exactly, but the idea of a lot of the lessons is to build up my strength, and when I don't go I lose it again. But I'm not sure what to do about this foot thing. Mum says it's plantar fasciitis, which means I need to take anti-inflammatories, but it's not - I looked it up and plantar fasciitis is a pain in your heel, and apparently inflammation doesn't have much to do with it. For pain in the ball of the foot - and that is literally the only diagnosis I could find, 'pain in the ball of foot' - they say you can generally cure it with PRICE therapy. Which is Protection, Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. None of which sounds like kickboxing. So. I don't know. I'll probably skip tonight and see how it is in the next couple of days.

I'm also trying to fill in my disability questionnaire. It's due in by May 4th, and I got a strongly worded letter today telling me to send it back soon. The problem is, I don't really know what to say. I'm so much better than I used to be, even if I'm not really putting myself in a lot of stressful situations day-to-day anymore. But I feel like I could probably cope with those better. It's at the point where I feel like if I had the assessment and they found me unfit for work, I would feel like that was wrong. I might even feel a little insulted. But I'm not really relishing going back to work either, or having to depend on a job for money, especially given the state of the job market at the moment. So I still sort of want to go through the assessment process, rather than just cutting it dead. That probably sounds a little cheap, but whatever. But I don't really know what to say - I mean there are still problems, like if I'm particularly wound up one day, I find it hard to get to sleep, which sometimes means I sleep through an alarm or just find it hard to work the next day. But it's not enough to be unfit for work - like, even I feel that way. I guess it's just tough realising that this nice, supported part of my life is coming to end. They say to fill in your questionnaire thinking about yourself on your worst day, but I don't really have bad days anymore, aside from the occasional depressive blip, the last of which happened over a year ago. I'll think of something, it's just at the moment it feels like I'm either talking about my problems as if they're massive things, which they aren't anymore, or like I'm going to be talking them up to the point where I'm basically lying. Which doesn't interest me. Like I say, I'll think of something. If I skip kickboxing tonight I can fill it in tonight, I guess.

I'm also getting a little sick of the news channel for the Lets Players I watch. It's a nice source of video game and tech news, but oh my god - they do all their news stories like opinion pieces, so they can put their own spin on them, but ultimately they try to be so balanced - or avoid backlash - to the point where their opinion is basically nothing. I suppose it just brings home to me that I'm not much of a liberal, which seems to be the only option other than conservative in America. Socialist and proud. Also there's this girl on there, and I love her, but her constant attitude of choice-feminism, sex everywhere, 'there's nothing wrong with sexualisation!', is really starting to grate.

But on the plus side, my farm on Stardew Valley is looking pretty great. Sort of. On the minus side, the fic for Uncharted ended up being really disappointing. They didn't even do a fic around the canonical mind control scene very well. But, on the plus side, I'm about to make Haley in Stardew Valley really happy on her birthday. Which I've never done before. And any day now I might get a rabbit's foot. Which is awesome.

Literally all I want to do is post and rant about Stardew Valley, and all the things I can't do yet. I specifically want to rant about it here, because I feel like if I go on a proper forum or something, they'll just...tell me how to do it. Which is not what I want. But you guys don't actually know what Stardew Valley is and I have a feeling the rants only make sense to people who have already felt the frustration. So instead I just think about posting about it, but then don't.

( Some things about Stardew Valley, they may not make sense )

My new mattress is here. We spent last night talking about when it might come, and if maybe they'd bring it up the stairs for us, and maybe take the old one away. In the end it was the least helpful delivery it could possibly have been. First off, I was in bed and mum was out - I set my alarm for 8, but I did not get up, my sleep has been fucked up this week and I was too tired. So they knocked and I had to jump out of bed - the bed we were hoping they might take away a few minutes hence. And then the guy was at the back door, rather than the front, which opens right at the bottom of the stairs, which would make it way more convenient for us (though admittedly, not for him). And then he just said "I've got a delivery for you", and then walked off, and I wasn't even sure it was the mattress at that point, it was just one guy. But then he dragged an obviously mattress-shaped cardboard box onto the patio and got it up through the door and pushed it into the kitchen. Then he just had me sign a thing and was gone.

So now it's just sitting downstairs, in a big box. We're going to have to move a bunch of furniture to get it into the stairwell, so my mum suggested we not do any of that until my dad gets home. And then we'll have an old mattress we won't know what to do with. But! I will have a new mattress. To sleep on. Hurrah. And to be honest - even though the stairs are going to be tricky - it's going to be way easier for me than trying to clear my bedroom floor so there's a clear path between the door and the bed, and strip the sheets off my old mattress, while deliverymen wait on the landing for me to do it and I'm still half asleep. Will let you know how it goes tonight. Or, I'll be asleep.

I finished The Division. The Division is a hell of a game, but it makes my eyes hurt. It's a cover shooter, which means you spend most of your time shooting at people and jumping behind cover, like a wall or a box or a covered railing, so they can't shoot at you. And between getting into cover, looking out so you can shoot, and using scopes to aim, the camera angle changes a lot, so if you play enough of it your eyes and head start to feel a little funny. But it's still awesome. Aaron Keener is a hell of a baddie. He wants me to join him. I probably won't.

And, like a fool, I also got into the new craze that's sweeping the games world: Stardew Valley. If you start Stardew Valley, you will have no free time. But you will love it. Growing a fake cauliflower has never been so satisfying. Don't get into it. But maybe do. To be honest the whole thing freaks me out a little bit - there's a lot of mystical shit going on in your town and the local farm, and for a while I was pretty convinced it was going to turn into a Lovecraft type thing, and they would sacrifice me at the dawn of the third year. But they probably won't. They seem nice enough. For now.

I mostly post about Emmerdale at Tumblr these days, when I bother to post at all, but I have to say Ross and Charity are one of my favourite ships that have almost not quite happened, ever. I hope they fall in love and heist and raise their baby forever.