all made up with nowhere to go

Not even back at work yet (that's tomorrow), and I'm already mad at my schedule. I will have to alternate between a four and a two day "week" (because it straddles the weekend). My manager knows I don't like switching days, and yet I have to work alternate Saturdays because we have no other paid staff (yet; I hope this changes soon, and not for selfish reasons). Hence the switching around. Which I don't like, because I am a creature of habit, and I like knowing I am working the exact same days every week.

Anyway, moaning aside, I woke up this morning to discover maybe two inches of snow everywhere! In April! I also discovered it had knocked my rose bush over, so as soon as I was able, I had to go out and fix that. The snow must have melted during the night, but then refroze, as there were clumps of ice on the rose bush, which made it top-heavy, and it fell over. It's really leggy because I am a bad gardener and have no idea how to look after it, and this also contributed to its falling over. I cleared what snow/ice off that I could, and the sun's taken care of the rest. It's looking more upright now, so hopefully it will be okay!

I have also bought myself another fountain pen. A Platinum Preppy, to be precise, and only because it cost less than £5. It is purple, and I bought some more purple cartridges for it. I'm going to syringe refill them with ink when they're empty, as a converter would cost more than the pen (although it's not the only Platinum I own - my friend Rosie gave me one of her extra fine nib drawing ones - so a converter would be worth it for either pen, but maybe when I've been back at work for a bit).

I found this post on the fountain pen subreddit, which feels absolutely like it's calling me out (if you don't want to click, it's basically Massive Pen Collection versus Tiny Amount of Writing, but with a picture, because it's a meme). Also it's not just my fountain pens, it's all my pens. I miss the days where I could just write for hours and hours. I don't know where that me has gone, but I hope they come back one day.

Finally, there was another huge Among Us stream! (this links to Ellen's POV) and they used the proximity chat on the last hour, and it was hilarious and chaotic, and I hope they use it again.

Today is my last day at work before Lockdown 2.0! It's a volunteer day, so I could feasibly have skipped it but: a) I need to take back a 3DS I brought home to test, and b) I left my cat umbrella there on Saturday because I'm an idiot and I'm having A Week*.

We are supposed to open again in early December, when the lockdown ends, but right now I don't know how likely that is.

I have a lot of feelings about how the government has not handled this pandemic, but I've already vented offline A LOT, and I'm not going to repeat myself here, because I think most British people probably know what I'm thinking already.

*I left my trolley coin in a trolley at Lidl on Weds; nearly left my keys outside the house (also Weds); forgot to feed the cat last night; and forgot to put the tins back in the oven after I cooked my dinner yesterday. When I sat and thought about it, I realised it felt much like when I was badly depressed in 2004, and kept forgetting the most basic shit, and no, thank you! But this year is jerking everyone around a lot, so honestly, I shouldn't be surprised that I feel like this.

~

Meanwhile, In Dark Souls:

- I cheesed the Capra Demon because eff that. Did you know the dogs respawn afterwards? I got ambushed by them coming up from the shortcut to the Firelink Shrine/the door to the Depths.

- I then ran face first into some mini-bosses in the Depths because that's one of the ways this game is gimmicky. So I've done a couple of other things instead of fighting them, because their design scares me (they're called Butchers and they carry cleavers, and *shudders* - everything else is gross, but they legit terrify me).

- this included attempting the Titanite Demon near Andre. I got it down to about a third of its health, which I wasn't expecting, but then I also gave up on that for the time being.

- so then I did a levelling run, which ended badly to begin with because I forgot how to get from the Firelink Shrine to the Undead Parish, and ended up being mobbed by ninja, whose weapons gave me blood loss and I died! (because low level mooks mobbing you is also one of the ways this game is gimmicky).

- this person on reddit built Anor Londo in Minecraft, and it is flipping AMAZING. I will never cease to be amazing with what people make in Minecraft, ever. They have WAY more skill and patience than me.

~

More Among Us shenanigans from Dicebreaker, Outside Xbox, and Eurogamer! This is the link to the Dicebreaker stream as I haven't watched the others yet.

The other day, I discovered the PS4 controller has motion controls??? I did not know this! (It flicked on by accident while I was making an account for my nephew to use next time he plays something on the console). Apparently the PS3 has them as well???

I don't know that there's a whole lot you can use it for, because I think for motion stuff, Sony want you to use the Move controller.

But this is why consoles should still have proper manuals, GDI! I have had this console for nearly a year, and only just discovered this, w t f

~

I think I might like playing action games, y'all.

I decided to check on my Dark Souls save from 2017, and discovered I did not get very far at all. I actually wondered if it was because I didn't know how to level or something daft like that.

And...then I continued on playing, beat the Asylum Demon extremely easily in one go, and got as far as the Undead Burg. Which admittedly is not far, but I did take a detour to New Londo Ruins by accident. I also got mushed by the skellies in the graveyard near the Firelink Shrine because I didn't know which way to go to start.

MAPS, FROM SOFTWARE! THEY WOULD BE USEFUL!

(Here I hear Aoife from Eurogamer in my head saying that she likes that From games don't have maps, because then you have to explore and. Well, yeah, but also you have to explore when you have a map, because you don't necessarily know where any of it leads to. The same things could well have happened to me had I not had a map).

Also I kept wasting estus because I kept hitting X/square for attack instead of R1 (I think that's because X/square is attack in Kingdoms of Amalur, and that's the last console game I played). So I kept having to truck it back to a bonfire to reload, so to speak.

I don't know that I will continue playing, but it's given me confidence that I might be all right with Sekiro (if I ever get a copy) and has even piqued my interest in Nioh, which I had next to no interest in before, because it was inspired by Dark Souls.

I have also been watching Aoife play Ghost of Tsushima, and I like the idea in principle, but something about it makes me feel uneasy (maybe I'll be able to tap into why better when I watch Ellen play it?) The character models are a bit uncanny valley for me - they don't look in proportion, and the faces don't look right, imo (though I had this problem with ME:A, so maybe it'll pass once I get used to it). However, I do like that the majority of the English speaking cast is Asian, even if they aren't all Japanese or of Japanese descent (I imagine the pool of Japanese-American actors is small, and that of voice actors is even smaller). I'm glad Sucker Punch didn't cop out on the English voice track just being American accents regardless of time period (or a bunch of white actors doing offensive accents, for that matter).

And then finally on the "maybe I like action games" thing, my hand slipped and I bought the HD version of Okami for my PS4, when I already own the PS2 version. I shouldn't have looked up how much secondhand copies of the original are, admittedly, but I was doing it out of curiosity, and of course, the HD version came up in the results. I do want more games for my PS4, but I shouldn't be spending money I don't have on games I don't need (which why I'm still holding off FFXV and Horizon Zero Dawn, and definitely Sekiro, plus a whole other bunch of games I want).

So yeah. It's possible I only like action games with certain themes or settings, like Mass Effect is the only shooter I'll probably ever play. I guess we will see!

~

Outside Xbox, Dicebreaker, and Eurogamer did ANOTHER multi channel Among Us Stream!

(I'm linking these because I find them hilarious, and I will never play Among Us because I don't have enough friends to play with :( and I would find it super stressful).