With friends like these...

Handy list of my fanfics.

If you're wishing to read the entries marked [M - Locked], then you'll need to join the usxuk community (or the giripan community for the GreecexJapan fic)! Though chances are if you're reading this then you're already in it. =P The entries marked [M] contain mature content but are located in my journal, rather than exclusively on a community.

( America x England )

( Greece x Japan )

( Denmark x Norway )

( France x Scotland )

( Prussia x Canada )

( Prussia x Hungary )

( America & Canada )

( Austria x Switzerland )

( Lithuania x Poland )

( Germany x England )

( Prussia x England )

( England & Scotland )

( Others/Misc. )

( Fanart )
 
( Prompts List )

... it's always such a pleasure.

While my Plurklist and various other forms of media are exploding over the recent Assassin's Creed III release... I've finally played Portal 2. I'm not sure about my feelings on it yet. On the one hand, it seemed less about the puzzles. On the other, I do love a game when it's story-driven. I suppose that they both have their merits, but in different ways.

I certainly enjoyed it, though!

Other people are getting these annoying Youtube spam links, right? :1

I haven't watched the one I got, just delete/banned it, but I hear some of them contain viruses.

So, I've been working with a social enterprise called Joining Communities, whose primary aim is to get unemployed people back into work. Unfortunately for the most part a lot of people who come in have been forced to by the JobCentre, and they don't really want to be there, but those folks are nothing to do with me. Not yet, anyway.

I've been working on drafting a couple of policies. As a new company (not even two years old), there are a lot of things that are simply taken as read. So, I got given the task of drafting up a social media policy, and a communications policy. They're both currently almost 1200 words long and I don't even know if they're right, but I think they are. They're finished, anyway, as much as they can be without someone giving me some more direction and I spent the last hour of the work day yesterday dragging my poor abused brain out of the mire of data protection law that it had got itself stuck in.

The weirdest thing about looking back on these things is I don't feel as if I'm the one who wrote them.

Well I don't have to think too hard about them now. Tomorrow, Kay N. and I will be going down to a course that's on in the building for confidence building for vulnerable women and taking some photos for the site's blog. Of course, we'll be making sure that they're comfortable with it first and if they don't want their faces shown we can set it up so they don't have to show them. It's just going to be nice to get away from those bloody policies and do something more fun.

Oh, yeah, I'm uh.. still alive?

How are you all doing?

I was put onto this by a person I know who plays one of the characters over at Ruby City, and it looked interesting, so I thought I'd have a go at playing it.

( Cut for small spoilers and gratuitous posting of fanart )

Title: White Flag [3/?]
Genre: Romance
Characters/Pairing: America, England, France. US/UK
Rating/Warnings: PG for later. Possibly R. I'm not sure yet.
Summary: Arthur finally plucks up the nerve to ask Alfred out on a date, only to find that the American nation has never looked at him 'that way'. However, the simple request sets off an uncomfortable train of thought in Alfred's mind as he begins to wonder exactly why that might be.

A/N: Also titled 'oh god I am still writing this'.


( “What the bloody hell was I thinking? Of course he doesn’t see me that way.” )

Yes, it's me, I'm still alive!

How long has it been since I last posted properly.... erm. Wow. Nearly a month.

Jeez...

Guess I should let y'all know what I've been up to! To be honest... roleplaying, mostly. I've joined a couple of games on DW and they've been keeping me pretty busy, but I've settled now and should definitely get back into writing. I noticed it's been a month since my last fic update I am so sorry about that I haven't even noticed the time passing so quickly. It's even half done and everything. I'll have that up soon as I can remember where I was actually going with it.

I still don't have a job and I'm still not much closer to getting one, but I'm still trying. I suppose it won't be much longer before the Jobcentre starts pushing even harder at me but I can't do more than I'm already doing and I'm not going to spend a load of my own money to go trolling around Wigan/Manchester/Warrington looking for jobs. I'm unemployed. I can't afford £4.50 on public transport however many times a week. It's the undeniable flaw in their logic, I think.

Though speaking of work I'm still volunteering at the British Heart Foundation. I've managed to garner myself a couple of admirers and while the attention is flattering it isn't exactly wanted. One of them has backed off, but the other is being a little more persistent. Not pushily or creepily so, but I think he's got it into his head that if he can just persuade me that I'd like to try to have something with him then it would all work out fine. I don't get into relationships anymore for a variety of reasons, and the fact that he's on the rebound after coming after an eight year long relationship with someone who just left him about three weeks ago would mean that even if I did like him that way I wouldn't be getting into anything with him now.

He's a nice enough guy and I think he's trying to be understanding about why I don't want to be with anyone, but I don't think he can quite get his head around the idea of someone who has no sexual desire.

Still, until he starts getting annoying, I'll allow it. He's not doing any harm and it's not like he's cornering me and demanding anything. I'd just be reluctant about doing anything with him 'as friends' in case he takes it as a sign that I'm starting to come around to the idea.

Hmm.

Last Saturday, I met up with the amazingly awesome nasty_show again and we went to see The Avengers. I hadn't been terribly bothered about seeing it since superhero films aren't one of the things I lose my shit over, but I was curious, and Holly once again swept me up in her enthusiasm as she has a tendency to do.

Luckily, that morning, the birthday present that I had bought for her had also arrived! It was late, but it was the first I'd seen her after her birthday so what can you do.

This is what I got her.



It's a pendant, and I bought it from a seller on Etsy. It's about a centimetre high and hand made, and the cutest thing. We had some lunch at my house and then went off to the cinema.

I HAVE NEVER HAD LESS REGRETS ABOUT SEEING A FILM I DIDN'T INITIALLY CARE ABOUT.

Seriously. If you have not seen The Avengers yet then you need to. Even if you don't care about superhero films.

I would see it again. Easily.

Nothing much happened through the week. The manager was off work so we actually got stuff done. Honestly, the manager is lovely but she tends to flit about and get under your feet, while the assistant manager actually organises herself and everyone else. The only major problem we've had is one of the new staff seems to be dating all the new stock incorrectly. We've found stock dated 9/12 (9th of December), and if anyone from head office came in and saw that we would be in so much trouble.

I did, however, have the shock of my life on Friday afternoon. The phone rang, and Sue had her hands full downstairs so she called up to me to answer it. Kurtis, one of the other volunteers, is a nice guy but a bit socially backwards. He was closer to the phone, so he said he would answer it. I said okay.

However, had I known he would give off the 'hello British Heart Foundation' etc spiel in the most bored tone imaginable and then top it off by saying 'what do you want', I wouldn't have let him within ten feet of the phone. It is a place of work. You do not answer the phone like that.

I ended up having to take the phone off him anyway and apologise to the woman he was speaking to before I took down her address and number because he was just mumbling into the phone and couldn't seem to fathom how to hold the phone between his ear and shoulder while he wrote her address down. He's lucky it was just someone ringing for a pickup, not the manager, or the area manager, or someone from head office, or anyone. I smacked him over the head with a clipboard when I put the phone down and told him to never answer the phone again.

For the love of GOD.

Anyone who has made it this far, I congratulate you. There's still more.

Last night, my dad took my sister and I to see Avenue Q. We've seen it before, but dad hasn't. Our dad is one of those cool dads who is an utter nerd and lets you cuss (within reason) and goes to see things like Avenue Q with you. He loved it, and I had actually forgotten how rude it is.

Before that, though, we went to my nanna's with my aunt and two cousins. My cousin Sam is eight (I think?) and one of those kids who tends to just ignore you. I brought a Simon's Cat book along with me, which I'd picked up at the shop for £2.50 (£12.99 new, bloody bargain), to show to my nanna because I know she likes Simon's cat, and my cousin took a liking to it and spent an hour going through it with us. He then went through it again when we were done because he liked it so much.

Sometimes, he can be cute.

Now to the latest thing - my sister has expressed an interest to go to MCM London next year - a pan-fandom convention. She's not into anime, and has never really shown any interest in this kind of thing before, but now she wants to go.

And she wants to cosplay.

She gained so many cool points from me for that. More than she got from being able to quote the Magic Cupcakes video despite never having read Homestuck. Which my dad can now also do since I showed it to him. Amy wants to cosplay Rapunzel, á la Tangled, and I'm going to be her Mother Gothel. I have a friend who makes the most beautiful cosplays and she's going to see how much it would cost to make them for us, rather than having to settle for whatever we can find on ebay (because Gothel costumes are non-existent and Amy doesn't really like the look of the Rapunzel ones).

She's going to have a Pascal and take a frying pan with her. xD

*DEEP BREATH*

So. How are all of you?

This week feels like it's been going on forever.

Monday - Jobcentre in the morning, then work, then trial hours at Tesco
Tuesday - Jobcentre again in the morning, some sleep because I didn't get enough, a couple more hours at Tesco
Wednesday - Work again

It doesn't seem like much but it's about three times more than I usually do and involved a lot of walking and lifting (in the case of being at Tesco). I think I might have pulled something out in my back today because it's started to twinge quite badly in the past couple of hours. I've had some paracetamol and ibuprofen and have a hot water bottle against the sore bit and hopefully won't start nodding off early.

Something cool did happen today though. I'm normally downstairs on the shop floor, but I was upstairs doing tagging because there was no one else up there doing it. Julie came upstairs and asked me if I could grab a blanket from a high shelf down for her (because she is small), so I did, and asked her what it was for. Turned out a guy in the shop was buying it for the dog of a homeless man who sits outside, because it was very cold outside and the poor dog was shivering. This homeless man is rather tragic - he's clearly not a druggie or a drunk, he's always very grateful and polite when you give him money and he'll talk to you if you stop to have a chat. He takes good care of his dog and never begs for change - if you have it and give it to him then fine, but you never hear him ask. Sometimes he'll play his guitar.

And the person who had come into the shop was getting a blanket for his dog. The manager was going to just give it to him for free, because we would have never sold it anyway, but he insisted on paying for it, so she just asked for 50p. What a nice guy, eh?

Then there's a weird thing.

Ages ago, I made a blog post on tumblr that was pretty much a calm protest against the stereotypes that are slapped on Hetalia fans because of the anime that we enjoy. Months later, this damn blog post is still being reblogged. It has over 2300 notes now.

I just noticed someone reblogged it with a comment all GYAR WHY DOES IT MATTER IT'S JUST A SHOW... but that's the point. The show isn't the problem, it's the opinion that a lot of people have of the fans. I don't think this person has actually read what I wrote.

Title: White Flag [2/?]
Genre: Romance
Characters/Pairing: America, England, Canada.  US/UK
Rating/Warnings: PG for later. Possibly R. I'm not sure yet.
Summary: Arthur finally plucks up the nerve to ask Alfred out on a date, only to find that the American nation has never looked at him 'that way'. However, the simple request sets off an uncomfortable train of thought in Alfred's mind as he begins to wonder exactly why that might be.


( “He, uh… I think he asked me out on a date.” )