With friends like these...

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 )

In the past two weeks I have finished the main storyline for Assassin's Creed: Revelations, played over 130 hours of TES: Skyrim, and started playing Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. I also started Bioshock and I have Bioshock 2 and Deadly Premonition still waiting to be poked around at. I've also restarted Eternal Sonata and The Last Remnant after I lost the saves when my old Xbox 360 crapped out on me.

My mum finally asked me a question a few weeks back, a question that I've been trying to get the answer of across to her for the past several years. Owing to some stupidity on my part I had cancelled a direct debit before I should have and had to call the customer services of the phone company that I used to be on contract with. If you don't know me very well then you won't know that talking on the phone to strangers (and sometimes even people that I know) is something that I really, really hate doing, and I was nervous as hell until I finally got talking to the person who answered the phone. Thankfully I managed to sort it all out, and I was totally chuffed with myself for doing it.

But I'm getting off the main point here.

She came up to my room and finally asked me what I've been trying to get across to her for a good long while - I have a social anxiety problem. Yes, I do have a social anxiety problem, thank you for finally noticing. Pfh. She gave me this book to read which I think is, quite frankly, a load of bollocks and doesn't really address my problem at all. I know the only way to get better, really, is to push myself to do things that I don't want to, but that's certainly easier said than done.

Anyways, it was my birthday ohhh.. eleven days ago. Pfh, feels like forever. I'm twenty three now. I don't like it. I never really get many presents on my birthday, which is fine 'cause I usually get plenty at Christmas, but I got some pretty neat things this year. My mum got me Skyrim, and my sister got me Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. I had lemmi162 over that week and he got me a pretty silver bracelet with maple leaf charms on it that I'd spotted on ebay but hadn't bought because fffh expensive, and Assassin's Creed: Revelations. I got a couple of DVDs and a bit of money as well, and season two of Hetalia from nasty_show (who was terribly subtle about the whole thing, I was very impressed).

I think my dad has got me the most awesome thing though, and he has been keeping it a secret since around April - as soon as I book it, I'm going to the Blue Planet Aquarium to swim with the sharks. Sharks 83.

Gonna be OSSUM.

Also, I am quite mad. The day before my birthday (the 13th), I did a reverse bungee. You can see what that is here. Here is a picture.



Fun. o7o

I've decided that today is going to be a writing day. At least I'll feel like I've done something constructive (even if it doesn't look that way to certain people who think I'm just lazy.. looking at you mother). I have all of those things to do from the Alphabet Meme and I'm rather determined to do all of them, as well as replying to all my roleplays bar one and I want to get some ideas down for the Jack the Ripper fic I've had in mind for ages as well as this Hetalia/Fallout one that's been bugging me for a few days.

Speaking of Fallout, I'm still plowing my way through Fallout: New Vegas. I've done the Honest Hearts DLC, and I had a go at Lonesome Road for a while before I got annoyed by the stupidly overpowered deathclaws (linked for reference) that kept killing me in four hits despite my HP being almost 500. After my repeated failure at that, I caved and downloaded Dead Money and Old World Blues, the latter of which I'm playing and it is eating all of my stimpaks because of the goddamn nightstalkers, which are like horrible hybrids of coyotes and rattlesnakes, which annoyingly high perception. They attack in packs and when I'm backed into a corner my aim isn't terribly good, so I tend to panic 8| Not cool.

Still can't wait for Skyrim. 8)

We went into London yesterday, though I didn't sleep terribly well because of Amy's blasted coughing. We've managed to make a joke out of it though and that somehow makes it easier to deal with. I'm not feeling half as twitchy today as I was yesterday, but Amy isn't coughing as badly either so maybe that has something to do with it.

Anyway. We went into London to see Les Misérables, and the underground was hot as always. Bleugh. I don't think that I could live in London. Taking that kind of journey every day would just wear me down. There's something so depressing about the underground - everyone is in their own little personal bubble and no one talks to anyone. Me, I like to talk. I'll talk to anyone. It's probably not that much of a good thing but it hasn't got me into any trouble so far. Coming out of the underground I saw someone playing bagpipes, and then Amy and I watched a man put himself through a tennis raquet.

We had McDonald's for lunch because pfh, convenience, but there was nowhere to sit inside because LONDON so we ended up eating our lunch in a churchyard. Along with about forty people who'd had the same idea. Amy managed to drop pretty much her entire Chicken Supreme (I think) off her lap and onto the floor, and then insisted that she wasn't hungry and I was pretty sure we were gonna have a grumpy sulk on our hands after that but nope, colour me surprised. We went down to the theatre after and waited a little until it opened, then went in and sat down. I've only ever been in a couple of theatres in London but I've been consistently surprised by how small they are. Once sat down I was immediately struck by a feeling of dread as not one but THREE young children were seated around me. One in front and two behind. I may not have expressed my dislike for children on this journal before but I really dislike children, especially when said children are in a place where they will be required to be quiet and also somewhere where something will be happening that they likely won't understand.

For anyone who's seen Les Misérables, would you honestly take a five year old to see it? She had barely any hope of understanding the romantic plot let alone the historical context and why everyone kept violently dying. Not to mention the sexual innuendo and dirty jokes. I managed not to get too wound up about it though 'cause to the kid's credit she was very well behaved, she didn't talk during the quiet parts but would every now and then pipe up asking 'who's that?' or 'what's s/he doing?' usually after a time skip or abrupt scene change. Had it been a pantomime I would have been more annoyed at the talking - not that she did much of it, it was more that the pitch of her voice was high enough that when she talked you could hear her, and five year olds have no concept of whispering.

As for the show itself, I loved it. I have to say Javert was my favourite character, and I nearly cried several times during the performance. I'm not big on crying so to get me to the point of welling up says something about how well it was performed. The last time a musical nearly got me going was when I went to see Blood Brothers, which I will highly recommend if you haven't seen it.

Today, we went out to meet one of dad's friends from work for lunch. I've met her before but Amy hasn't, and I dare not say exactly why it was so important that Amy meet her for fear of inciting my father's wrath becausehelikesher (teehee). It didn't exactly go according to plan since the place we were supposed to go was packed and then the backup place had no parking so we ended up going back near to where we picked her up and just having a sandwich, which I can't say I really minded even though dad kept apologising. It's not as if I'm a fussy kind of person. After that we went into town because Amy wanted to shop, though I ended up buying more than her. I found the 15th trade edition of Fables, a comic that I read in Waterstones, and also, in HMV, dad found the first season of Hetalia for £10 and got it for me. I hadn't expected to find Hetalia DVDs anywhere but online so that was a very pleasant surprise.

I also bought a new game. After spending 162 hours completing Elder Scrolls: Oblivion I needed a new game to play, and I'm not really in the mood to get back into Assassin's Creed or Fallout 3/Fallout: New Vegas just yet, so when we were in Game I noticed an interesting looking cover in the pre-owned section, which was this.

Madness Returns takes place directly after the events of its predecessor. Alice was released from Rutledge Asylum for the Wayward and Lost Souls at the end of the original game, and now lives in Victorian London under the care of a psychiatrist, where the traumatic memories of her parents' deaths in a fire continue to haunt her. Although she seemed stable for a decade, she now begins to experience previously repressed memories that indicate that the fire which claimed her parents' lives (which in the original game was seen to have been caused by a cat knocking over an oil lamp near the fireplace) may not have been as accidental as she remembered; these memories will take the form of retcons to the existing backstory. However, the stress caused by regaining these lost memories has caused her hallucinations and internal struggle to increase in severity, and she returns to Wonderland in hopes of security and comfort. Unfortunately, it has once again become warped by her growing insanity, and she must save its residents—and herself—from the evil that is taking over Wonderland and also embarks on finding the true cause of her family's mysterious deaths if she wishes to retain her precious sanity.

I have admittedly not played the first one, and the only thing I know about it is that it's a PC game and it's available for 800 MS points on Xbox LIVE. I'll probably just read the plot and see what I can make of it 'cause I don't really want to spend 800 MS points on a game that I don't need. I'm sure that if it's good I'll be keeping everyone updated on what I think as I'm playing it. When I bought it the girl behind the till told me that she hadn't played it but she'd heard good things. I then told her I'd just spent forever playing Oblivion and she told me that Skyrim was coming out soon. Apparently it costs nothing to reserve a copy, so maybe I'll do that when I get home.

Speaking of home, we'll be going back there on Saturday, so we have tonight and tomorrow night left here. Tomorrow, we're going to go to a pie shop for dinner. It's next to a barber's. The name of the shop is 'Sweeney & Todd'.

>=D

This entry has no tags because I'm now in the process of re-working all the tags in my journal. Apologies for any trouble this gives people until I'm done, but going through over two years of entries is going to take me a while.

I.. am so... stoked.

Omg.

----

Snagged from synnerxx 

Give me one of my fics, and I'll give you three details that didn't make it into the fic. Background canon, deleted scenes, or a look into the future. If you have a specific question, feel free to ask!

----

I'm getting far too into Oblivion. To the point I'm actually pondering fic ideas. So there may be an Oblivion fic coming your way, following the Dark Brotherhood questline. Please do tell me if you'd enjoy reading it XP

I went a little quiet on you all for a while there didn't I? Well I think I deserved a break after that month-long ficathon. Jeez. I really outdid myself there, even if the LJ outage seemed determined to stop me from posting the last one how I wanted it. Ah well.

I suppose I've been taking a break, thanks to my muses being tired out, and the weather being bloody awful. A little sunshine is all well and good but when it goes on for days and bumps the temperature in your bedroom up to 27+ degrees (C) for over a week, even at night, it really does begin to wear on you. Thankfully, it's a lot cooler now, and has been raining a lot. Back to the traditional English weather. I missed it.

It seems that Fate doesn't really want me to have pets. One of my fish died, which granted was partly my fault because I should have seen it before I did, but now the goldfish is developing black marks on his fins and the base of his tail. I've looked it up, and apparently it's the marks of healing from ammonia burns. And it was my fault. I'll not go into details because it was a rather daft thing I did, but it was my fault. Luckily, and I'm not overly concerned because of this, his personality hasn't changed. When he had finrot he was very withdrawn and hid all the time, but with these black marks he's as active and curious as ever. I'll be keeping an eye on him over the next week and making sure he's getting better because damn it I refuse to lose another fish.

Speaking of pets. The dog had his booster jabs today. And a bath. He's asleep now but he'll be sulking later.

I've been keeping an eye on the world news lately, since the current economic crisis is something which interests me. Something is going to have to change, and it's going to need to be something big, and something very soon, and it's going to have to come from one of the larger countries or Europe, because there's no way that any country is going to be able to deal with this alone. We're all too tightly knit together now for anything like that. I didn't think I'd see global collapse in my lifetime but it looks like I might, I just hope that the governments don't turn to squeezing the 'middle classes' even harder while the top 2% wealthiest continue to get their taxes cut. We're already being squeezed hard enough, thank you very much. I'll be lucky if I move out of this house before I'm thirty.

In more personal news, left this late on because really, if you care, you will have read this far, my sister is now seeing a counsellor. She's still not got over being broken up with (it's now been six months) and from where I can see she's stuck in stage four of the bereavement process. It's... irritating. Yes, I am sympathetic, but when mother tells me that Amy's told her that she's feeling upset and 'betrayed' that I will go to her ex's house (one of my exes, who I am still friends with, lives with him and two other people), I can't really do anything but roll my eyes. She's bothered that I will see him and go to his house when she won't and can't, since she no longer knows where he lives. This counsellor business is going to go one of two ways. Either it's going to help her through things, or this woman, however nice she is, is just going to be someone else that she talks to and it never goes anywhere. Ahh I don't know. Maybe it'll help and maybe it won't. We'll see.

I spent three (or was it four?) days playing Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Awakening and Dragon Age II all one after the other. Then, after some conferring with my friends Frames and Kayla, and my boyfriend, I decided to take the plunge and buy Oblivion. I've played it before, but I could never get the hang of the combat, which really, is rather borked as far as.. everything goes. I'm not very good at FPS because I can't aim very well, which was why Fallout 3 was always perfect for me. VATS saved my arse more than once. However I noticed when I was playing that I was using it a lot less, and my aim was a lot better, so I thought I'd actually be able to play Oblivion. Thankfully, I was right, and I am very much enjoying it. With 28 hours clocked and at level 4, I'm a Silencer for the Black Hand, an Apprentice of the Fighters Guild, a Bandit in the Thieves Guild, an Evoker in the Mages' Guild, an honorary member of the Order of the Virtuous Blood. and a Knight of the White Stallion. I also have a cute house on the waterfront in the Imperial City. Yes it's just a shack but it's nice and cosy and I rather like it. I wouldn't say no to a bit of a fancier place, though.

To my surprise I've encountered very little trouble. And I haven't been accidentally turned into a vampire yet despite clearing out a vampire den. Yay me~ I might try out vampirism eventually, just to see how it works out for me.

Derp.

I've probably stated most of this in other, previous journals but I'll go ahead and bring it all together here, it's been a while since I wrote anything more than a few sentences long and I do like to think that some of you don't only watch me for my fanfics. Pfh, I know some of you don't, but I'm in one of those dramatic moods today.

A few new things have happened recently, the least important but most expensive being the acquisition of a new Xbox 360 which I've been getting good use out of. An email came today informing me of my Xbox LIVE being renewed soon so I can look forward to £40 being removed from my bank account, whey. I'm not even sure why I have LIVE anymore but I wouldn't like to not have it, if that makes any sense at all. Since I was unable, for some reason, to transfer my saves over to my new Xbox I've had to start all my games again, which I don't really mind as such, it's just a slight inconvenience for the few games that I was very near to the end of after quite a number of hours playing (namely Final Fantasy XIII and Eternal Sonata).

I also dug the old PS2 out of the loft which still works despite being ten years old and being unused for five years, however I only have two games to play on it at the moment - Okami and Kingdom Hearts. Any recommendations for others?

The most important thing that's happened lately has got to be my starting my internship with Bridge House Publishing. I haven't yet been given the initial email to allow me to set up everything, but I'm excited to start everything and will give some updates as I'm able, as soon as I'm able. Fifteen months.. it's going to be interesting, that's for sure.

This week I've not been very well. It's shocking how long a stomach bug can affect me for, but I was ill once on Monday morning and it's been kicking me in the arse ever since. Just when I'm getting better from that (after managing to lose 4lbs in three days, hurr) the whole being female thing kicks in and I have an annoying infection on my upper right eyelid probably thanks to being run down. Loads of fun.

In other news, my sister's arse of a boyfriend (who has been becoming more of an arse in recent months, he wasn't always that way) has finally broken up with her, over the phone. While he was in Wales. I'm not impressed. She was absolutely devastated and if I ever see him again it'll be too soon. I'm not the kind of person to wish ill on anyone but I hope they don't stay friends because she deserves better. She seems to be okay now, more or less, from the crying last night but there'll probably be a few more tears at some point when it really hits home. To be honest I saw it coming for a while, I think it was just that neither of them really knew how to break up with the other. Amy didn't want to and I don't know, it seemed that her boyfriend was just being a coward about it and trying to make her break up with him by acting like a jerk and being distant. I can't stand it when guys do that. Or when anyone does.

On Tuesday I got a text off my dad telling me he'd been in A&E since 1pm that day and it turns out he'd been rushed there from work in an ambulance after the pain from his kidney stones got so bad he was ill at work. Got his CAT scan moved forward by a month and he had it that day, and it appears that he has six (I think) kidney stones, five of them not being too large and then one that's 18mm. Probably that one that was causing all the pain. So he's been off work since then, though if I know my dad he's still been working from home. Workaholic that he is.

Aside from that, everyone in the house is on a diet except me and my step-dad has finally realised he's overweight after we've been telling him for years that he needs to lose about 20lbs. Had to come some time, I'm just glad we don't need to nag him about it anymore.

On the writing front, I've done the research for one of my fills for the USxUK ficathon, and I know what my backstory is for the other. As for Jack, a little more research needs doing into that, but thanks to amael_elen and her prodding I seem to have got my writing spirit back.

In other random news, I've started up a new character on a PC game called Diablo 2, which is a game I use to play all the damn time in college with my friends. I don't know how much use I'll get out of her but I've gone with the trusty fire sorceress as usual, and have somehow (again, as usual) managed to turn her into a tank. I don't know how I always manage to turn mages into tanks but I do.

I think that's it. Well done if you got this far xD

I can't remember where my last entry was and I can't be bothered to look so I'll just go from the beginning of the past few weeks and see how long this goes on for.

( MCM wafflage )

( Some fretting from me. )

( The week after~ )
( Game stuff. )
( Just want to see the photos? Click here. )

Hello all.

I am still alive.

My mind has been stolen by Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening.

Second chapter of From Fire to Flame ought to be soon. If you're interested. I can always stop, I guess.

Byebye.

Dragon Age: Origins is consuming my life. Everything else has been neglected, including university work, which isn't good. I've also been getting far too addicted to roleplaying with amael_elen , because she does such a good Alfred Jones. I have to get up in five hours and I'm still lying here talking to her. Hah.

So yes, Dragon Age. I must have put about 60+ hours into that game already and I've only had it a week. I tell you, if I put as much effort into my uni work...

Speaking of uni work. I'm not looking forward to getting my Green Writing mark back.. I hated the essay, and I don't think I've got a very good mark if I've passed at all. Well, it only says something about the professors if the students are failing the class, right? I wasn't the only one to think that a 2500 word essay word 50% of the mark after only five lessons is too much to ask. I said as much to one of the teachers - David. Hell if I'm mentioning it to Sharon, though. That woman scares me.

I ought to be returning to writing soon. I've completed Dragon Age twice now so my obsessive playing of it should start wearing off. I'm sure all those who read my Hetalia fanfics will be pleased to hear that.

I haven't only been immersing myself in games, however! I did a fanart for the writer/artist of Return to Eden.



You can see a larger version of this here if you desire.

What else, what else.. I think that's it. I have so much damn writing to do. I have that Hetalia fic to finish and so many ideas for others and I still have to do the Christmas one for the Secret Santa thing~! Aaaaaaaah. And then I have to do the work for my Portfolio piece for Tuesday and I HAVE to turn something in this week 'cause the prof's putting a special double session on and... guh.

Must keep off Dragon Age tomorrow. Or at least write on the Goddamn bus.