It’s been nearly a month since my PS5 got here and I resolved to complete games before I buy anymore. How has that gone?
Not bad actually. I have bought 1 game (Fitness Boxing 2) for the Switch, and as that’s an ‘exercise’ game, it doesn’t count. So I have kept my resolve and not bought any new games. I was helped in this endeavour by sending mum my christmas list early. I put them on the list so I can’t get them for myself.
How has completing the games gone? Mixed is the answer.
I completed the free Astro’s Playroom game that came with the PS5. It’s not 100% because I haven’t beaten the time trials. I’m not good with timers so I’m giving myself a pass on that. Otherwise it’s completed, I think it’s showing 92% or something which is close enough.
The next game on the list was Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on the Switch. That confuses me a bit. There’s some equippable crystals, what’s good? I don’t know. There’s some other advancement trees and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to put the currency into first. Why do they have to make it so complicated? I haven’t quite got to the end of the story, and then I think the idea is you start over at the beginning on a harder difficulty. I’ll go back to it eventually but it does feel like one of those ‘never ending’ things rather than something I can actually complete.
Which brings me to Assassin’s Creed: Origins. I’ve become fairly obsessed with it again over the past week, ever since I discovered I could link my PS5 controllers to my PC and use those instead. All my camera problems, my complete inability to aim a bow and arrow? Gone. Turns out the right controller solves all of that. Today I finished the main campaign but I still have a ton of sidequests, all the DLC and most of the achievements to tackle.
I’ve played Ratchet and Clank a couple of times on the PS5 but I’m not very far into it yet. Now I’ve got to a natural pause point with AC: Origins I should perhaps go back to it. On the other hand I do have about another 9 AC games still to go.
AC: Origins is such a beautiful game though. Visually it is stunning. It’s also easy to understand what I need to do for gear, ability points, quests etc. I’ve had little trials of some of the other AC games and I know I found parts of them confusing. I’m probably easily confused. I read yesterday that they are thinking 2024 before another AC game comes out. Given how much I have to complete I’m relieved. Maybe I’ll be up to date by then.
I wish I could say that oneshot I just posted will be the end of this nonsense but I don’t think it will.
On my list for a couple of months has been a pencilled in ‘Egypt + Italy globe-trotting adventure’ in reference to the Sanctuary summer Bingo cards. My brain is now thinking it would be an excellent idea to make it a Warehouse 13/Sanctuary crossover with a little Assassin’s Creed flavour sprinkled in there (yes I have been playing AC: Origins again).
Honestly I knew I was doomed when I started to get headcanons. I went and worked out the timeline for when Artie and MacPherson would have worked together (the 80′s) and I’ve made it work with Carol and everything.
So yeah it might be a thing but, but I have WIPs!! So I really shouldn’t even think about this anymore. However, honesty compels me to admit the last time I said ‘might be a thing’ about a fic was re: the Librarians/Sanctuary/Stargate crossover – and that eventually became over 50k of a thing. It was also a lot of fun that I’m not sure anybody actually read (too niche) and I’m heading in that direction again with this nonsense.
I tried talking myself out of it because it’s so annoying when characters have the same name, and with this crossover I would have James MacPherson and James Watson – ugh! There’s also Helen and Helena though I can use HG for the dialogue tags at least which would help with that.
Seriously I am supposed to be finishing stuff, and clearing the deck, so I can start something new for NaNo. This is not helping.
I’m watching Warehouse 13. I’ve watched it a few times now.
At the end of season one this time through I got vibes between Artie and McPherson. “This was to be our house. I didn’t want you gone, I wanted you back” like that’s fairly obvious right?
Anyway I’m now on the episode ‘Where and When’ aka the time travel one and usually this is when I am grumpy with Artie for hating on HG. However, this time I saw it a bit different. Artie said something like you have to “be able to trust the agent next to you and I couldn’t trust McPherson” and Myka has swapped to ‘Helena’ and I suddenly wondered if Artie saw the sparks between Myka and HG. Can he see that Myka is falling for her and thinks of his own heartbreak with McPherson and that is what he is reacting to?
I mean I know HG was crazy thanks to the isolation of the bronzing making her marinate in her pain, and she was kinda plotting to destroy the world. So yeah I get Artie’s mistrust wasn’t actually misplaced but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t also have been more to it. Maybe he even doubted himself and wondered if he was seeing what wasn’t there, and then he felt even worse when he was proven ‘right’.
Had another excursion for ‘gambling’ aka Lego Marvel minifigures.
No repeats this time. I got 2 more of the figures I wanted (Bucky & Scarlet Witch), and 2 more that I wasn’t bothered about (Loki & Sylvie).
So I’m still missing Monica Rambeau and White Vision. Technically there’s still Zombie!Cap and whatever that version of Gamora is but I’m not worried about those. In fact I actively don’t want the zombie one *shudder*.
Ultimately though I am 8/9 on unique minifigs which isn’t bad as things go. It’s a little disconcerting as I was wrong in my guess on 2 of them (so I’m just lucky that they weren’t duplicates). Hopefully when I go next week I’ll be lucky again and finally get the last 2.
Lol I just saw a marvel giftset and I’m totally reminded that I was tempted once to write a ficlet re: Natasha being considered ‘worthy’ for Thor’s Hammer.
I miss my OT3 :/ August was an awful month mental-health wise and I got very little done, which just made me feel even worse, so I still haven’t completed my original novel from April —> this is me judging myself because seriously?
My plan was to have finished the novel last month, take September for some fanfic (yay OT3!) and then do mixed fanfic/planning in October ready for NaNo in November. I want to do another original novel for NaNo. Unfortunately as the novel of doom is still not done gah! fanfic!September is paying the price 🙁
In mostly unrelated news I took delivery of a PS5 today. I’m sure this is going to do wonders for my productivity /sarcasm but hey at least I won’t be distracted by sitting on the stock checker all the time right?
I have to say it is massive. I mean you’d think modern things would be smaller but this dwarfs my PS2, which is plugged into the same TV (I like it for the dance mat mostly, though I do still have Guitar Hero). Fortunately my ‘TV table’ is actually an old narrow flatpack desk, so there’s no trouble with the height it just goes on top with everything else. It is almost as big as my TV though but hey that’s not hard – my PC monitor is bigger than my TV.
For the PS5 I bought a bundle of console + extra controller + Ratchet and Clank. The extra controller was the only kinda unnecessary part but my paranoia likes having a backup so it’s all good. What I’m extra pleased about is the picture showed a duplicate white controller but they shipped a black one – which is my preferred colour! So I really lucked out there 🙂
I bought the PS2 off eBay about 12 years ago so this is my first current playstation. I was inspired to take the plunge mostly due to all the exclusive games. I got a bit sick of seeing games, thinking they looked awesome, and then them not being available on Steam. I’m determined to be good and not buy anymore games though at the moment.
My MO is to play a game obsessively for a week or two and then drop it, I have so many with just a few hours played. So I wrote up a list and I need to go through and complete some before I can get anymore. Dual benefit – that means I can put PS5 games on my christmas list and as most of them are PS4 they’ll be inexpensive. They might be ‘old’ now but they are still very new to me as I never had a chance to play them before.
Anyway, in conclusion I’m sick of this novel I’m avoiding, pissed off as I feel obligated to finish it before starting another fanfic (and I miss my OT3). I want to make gifsets (I have a list of over 50) and do art (but I’m scared as per usual). So it’s no wonder that I am procrastinating with gaming as I’ve intimidated myself away from doing anything else.
I need to look at my to do list and write up some kind of schedule for the week/month/remaining 4 months of the year maybe even? I’m terrible at estimating how long things take, but if I put aside time regularly to do the things I want I’ll at least make progress. Something to think about!
So the collectible Marvel Lego minifigures came out today.
I actually went outside – to a store! – and had a look at them. I know, the horror, I hope the devil got his ice skates in time haha. Still if anything is going to get me to leave the house it would be Lego 🙂
Anyway, I’m not a fan of gambling and I hoped in squeezing the packets I’d be able to guess at the contents. I like 7/12 of the minifigs and I selected 5 packets before I lost my nerve. I wasn’t sure of my guessing abilities.
Results – 4/5 perfectly correct + one that I wasn’t just wrong about, it was also a duplicate which kinda sucks (I really need some actual Lego friends as this would be a perfect trading situation).
So with those results I’m both tentatively encouraged and also slightly nervous. My guessing skills came out at 80% on this first sample, which is pretty good odds. However, I now have 4/7 of the minifigs that I like and so I’m now searching for 3/12 – probability isn’t in my favour.
I did at least learn some things. I learned that all the packets contain not just a square instruction book, but also a rectangular display stand. I think I was incorrectly identifying a lot of packets on the shelf as Cap-Falcon when I felt the stand, so knowing that’s in all the packets should hopefully help next time.
I walked away with Cap-Falcon, Spiderman, Captain Carter and T’Challa as Star Lord (twice). So next time I’ll be hunting for Scarlet Witch, Monica Rambeau and Bucky. I’m undecided about White Vision and I have zero interest in zombie!Cap, the unknown Gamora variant, Loki in the TVA uniform or Sylvie.
It’s not a bad selection. I’ve never done the collectible minifigs before. I know they’ve done tons of sets of just random Lego ones (which doesn’t interest me). I hope this experiment with licenced versions works out for them. As much as I despise gambling I like minifigs more so another Marvel series, or we could only hope maybe a Star Wars one? would be epic!
Haha OMG yes very much so! I am utterly nuts about Lego. Hang on let me take some photos to illustrate my point.
This is my coffee table right now. I built all the modular buildings that I have (4 of them) and over the coming weeks I’m going to do alternate builds of them (thanks to Rebrickable). You can see the Mario TV just behind. I have broken up the console from the set but it’s my intention to (one day) design my own lego pictures to put inside the TV so it’s still built for now.
Then this is my table where I have a finished alternate build of the blacksmiths set (again from Rebrickable) and a partly done Yoda.
and in the corner we have the Pirate ship and then the folding book, plus the diorama book. Again it’s my intention with the pop-up book and the diorama to design my own scenes for them, but I’m not good at getting round to it lol.
All told I think there’s about 10 sets ‘active’ in the room at the moment. I don’t usually leave sets built as I just don’t have the room for display, plus having the raw parts is simply too useful for Rebrickable. However, I thought it would be cool to at least see all the buildings together for a time. Also I’m on this ‘alternate build’ kick at the moment. I think I have 22 different builds to make from those alone?
Once I’ve done the alternate builds I have in mind an idea for a pirate themed restaurant MOC. My history with MOC’s isn’t great (lots of intention, very little follow through) so we’ll see. I do have my annual christmas installation to plan as well. Thus far I’ve mostly picked a selection of sets and then arranged them together to form a scene. These are mostly sets I haven’t bought so I BrickLink any pieces I don’t have. This year I have some slightly different plans as I’m thinking of modifying some sets to make them christmas themed. Again have to see if I actually get round to doing that.
Anyway basically you can’t look anywhere in my room without seeing Lego. It’s everywhere, taking up every flat surface. My room is going to feel quite empty I think when I finally take the Lego street down haha.
This is fantastic! We’re mostly a Star Wars Lego house, although we’ve made a lot of custom stuff from other shows – B5, Space Above and Beyond, BSG etc. We have our own store on BrickLink, sell custom instructions through Rebrickable etc. Our house is just CRAMMED full of Lego…
Haha don’t be fooled by my currently ‘active’ selection. I have 38 sets and 15 of them are Star Wars. It’s my favourite theme by far 🙂 I’m currently waiting until they get the next wave of production sets out before I dig deep and use all my VIP points to get the Gunship. I don’t want the mistake with the imperial logo on the instructions/box hence waiting.
I really wish that I had been into Lego a few years ago. My favourite era of Star Wars is Rebels/Clone Wars and I missed the years when they focused on that :/ I’ve built some cool stuff thanks to BrickLink but it’s not quite the same.
Ooooh do you have links? I’d love to check out your stuff on Rebrickable. I’m always interested in cool space builds. Oh I think I’ve seen you post some photos before now I think about it. You do good work!
I keep going back and forth over the Mature rating I gave The Tragic Tail. I also slapped that rating on James Watson and the Curious Case of the Jarnul and I’m undecided as to whether that was necessary as well.
I think probably with both I have erred quite heavily on the side of caution. The Tragic Tail made me nearly cry (I know my own fic!) so I wanted to be cautious and I did my best to add appropriate warning tags as well.
Still they both probably quite easily could have been rated T.
I just flipped The Tragic Tail to T and then back again because as with most things I’m going with my gut. Brain says T would be fine but my paranoia isn’t quite so sure. This is probably why it’s quite rare for me to rate anything G, as I like to be cautious just in case.
This month for writing I’m trying to finish the original novel I started in April.
I have multiplying plot bunnies for fanfic though and plans to write more once I’m finished with the novel draft. I’ll be posting halfway into September anyway with the banked fanfic.
But anyway thinking about this made me think.
I’m my own target audience for my fanfic. I confess I reread my Sanctuary fics sometimes and I enjoy them. Egotistical to say that? Probably. I mean the writing is most likely crap but I’m responding emotionally to my OT3. I just love them so much.
Sometimes though I confess it gets me a bit down how little response my fics get. I know it’s a tiny fandom and a rare OT3 so I’m fishing in the littlest pond around. Any kind of response is proportionally probably quite a lot but still. It feels like screaming into the void. Like hello I put in a lot of effort here, am I invisible? Can anyone see me?
It’s disheartening sometimes. But I do it anyway and don’t regret it because I enjoy it. I plan to do more despite my current sadface 🙁 at having zero hits (according to AO3) on the fic I posted yesterday morning.
I don’t know why I’m posting this really. Because I have a sadface I guess. Because I can hold two contradictory views at the same time. That I write the fanfic because I love it, and also I am sad at the crickets. I don’t write for the kudos/comments/hits, as I said I do it because I love it – I’m my own target audience – but occasionally I get sad about it anyway.
Yes I know I’m repeating myself. I’m on a mental health downswing and just feeling very defeated. Logic tells me the lack of response is due to tiny fandom and rare OT3. My brain right now is yelling it’s because I’m shit, my stories are shit, my writing is shit and therefore my original novel will never be anything but shit. I dream of publishing one day. I did before for a short time and had a lot of crickets there too. Which makes sense, a career takes time to build, but logic is not helping me with the blackness today 🙁
