So Jon wrote two excellent pieces about his RP characters, based in a completely divergent universe where world events are massively different. It inspired me, to the point at which I essentially wrote this in one sitting, with a pause for SLEEP in the middle.

I warn that this is pretty crass in a lot of places. Sort of the same Miriah and Lydon as ever. Only... not.

( DUCK, IT'S AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE.Collapse )

I have an interview today at the jobcentre where I'm doing my work experience. It's for a temporary placement as a full signer-onner, lasting until March, and I find I want it. I've been thinking extensively about the sort of thing they might ask me, but at this stage my main fear is that I'll step into the interviewing room and freeze up. This is what happened when I had that super casual interview to get the work experience placement in the first place.

I want the job because I want to stay on, basically. For years I've suffered some pretty terrible anxiety around people, offline and online both. My best friend in sixth form told me I was a good listener, and that's kinda the only social praise I've ever had. So! I thought I would suck in this role. I thought I'd be panicky and terrible and be unable to look people in the eyes.

Instead I've risen to pretty much every challenge. I've helped completely computer-illiterate people get email addresses and learn how to use them - well enough that one woman has now had three appointments with me, over the course of which she's picked up all the skills I've tried to transfer and has gone from hating computers to wanting to buy one... and after that third session my manager wanders over and tells me that particular customer has learning difficulties, too.

I'm completely comfortable meeting people as they come in the door, redirecting them to advisers and answering queries, or providing them with forms, or helping them on the phone, or telling them that no, we can't help their 17 year old son until he is 18, but I could maybe give them this sheet, right, which they didn't get from me, right, which has all the websites on it, and maybe he would like to sign up for some job alert emails?

I've reordered the form storage system; I'm developing a program to help with reordering; I've labelled everything ever; I've patched up broken files; I've made up a million of the customer information packs; I've made over 700 cover sheets; I've compiled a progress report on the state of the Internet Access Device; and I've just generally kept busy accepting tasks from people and thinking up tasks for myself. More importantly, I've developed a self-analysing tendency that allows me to work out what I've done well and how to fix what I've done poorly without feeling crap about it, and I regularly ask for help from other members of staff. I feel sort of like, I don't know, a balanced person.

The people are lovely too. I took my first emotional suckerpunch from an unexpected source on Tuesday and actually shed a couple goddamn tears in front of a colleague, and when I tried to apologise she's all no, don't apologise for being human. Then on Wednesday she and another colleague took me out to the charity shops at lunchtime and were incredibly rowdy. x) She entered one shop, went straight to the shopkeeper, pointed out the other two of us and said we were trouble, keep an eye on us. So the shopkeeper's apprentice was following us around all KEEPING AN EYE. YOU LOT BEIN' TROUBLE? THINK THAT'S BEING TROUBLE, LOOKING AT THAT SCARF. It was quite excellent.

I think I'll be good at the advisor job because my work experience placement has been slowly building me up to it, and I have yet to fail the challenges it's put in my way. I will have to give people bad news if I'm signing, it's true, but I think I can. We'll see if boss agrees. D:

can I just say

working in a women-only office

is kind of the best thing ever

I had a casual meeting at Belper jobcentre today, not to sign on but to take up a job experience opportunity overseeing what is essentially nothing more than a new computer terminal, but involves sufficient planning and supervision to be referred to as a "job seeker communication project" that I will be "leading."

I wasn't at all nervous heading in, even though the trains were at awkward times and my Googlefu had failed me so I wasn't entirely sure where in Belper the place was (turns out I couldn't find it properly on Google maps because it's set back from the rest of the shop fronts for no discernible reason).

I am bloody nervous now. It doesn't make any sense, being nervous after the meeting, but apparently my brain is as stupid as I am. Which shouldn't be a surprise to me, I guess. My thinking is generally along the lines of oh god I made such a fool of myself because of my stupid plummy voice and oh god everyone I help will know I'm shy and useless and apparently I take up religion when I'm self-hating.

I start on Monday, anyway, and they have a casual-but-no-jeans policy that has me buggered at present. I will have to hit the charity shops in search of something that fits, but I am a UK size 6-8 depending on the cut, and that is not a size-range that's often well covered by the charity shops.

Look! I'm terrible! I'm assuming the charity shops are full of middle-aged ladies with cats.

Everyone I am going to work with will know I am the sort of terrible person who lets god and stereotypes into my heart under times of stress.

Terrible terrible times.

HELPS ME WRITE THE THINGS.

Which may be an ongoing issue.

This is terribly written but has actual prizes, so if anyone has any WoW fanfic lying around on their computer, it's prolly worth throwing in on the off-chance. What isn't too awesome is that the entries are being shortlisted by comments and favourites, so it's a bit of a popularity contest. But, well, I guess that makes me feel a bit less like a lousy cheat when I say heeeey, do us a favour and like this and this. I will... love you... forever?

My ears would, anyway, if I won. One of the prizes is a headset and all of mine are deaf in one ear. I need to be less deaf in one ear!

/shameless

Okay, so my trip away to stay with my dad left me massively behind with Batwoman, so I trundled over to eBay and snapped up five, six and seven from two different sellers. I bought number one online as well, and my primary thought when it arrived was damn, I'm glad my postman is kind. The seller had stuffed it in a standard white paper envelope. I really don't understand that sort of complacency in packaging. Clearly if it arrives crumpled and wrecked I am going to pitch a fit and demand a refund, and they'll have an unsellable comic.

I bought from two different sellers this time 'cause one of them sells comics bagged but lacked issue five, so obv. I wanted the bagged comics where possible and had to make do with five. The bagged comics arrived together in a sort of epic cardboard lifecage. Someone meticulously cut apart a bigger box and cut it down, used a knife to make clean fold lines at the edges, and made this whole thing. It's actually folded over four times inside. The comics are so flat they coulda IRONED THEM, I swear.

I was more concerned about the un-bagged one, mind, because chafing! Danger! Augh!

It didn't show up wrapped in cardboard like the other two. They put it in a heavy-duty envelope instead, with a hard cardboard back to it. I was all hmm, acceptable I suppose. Then I opened that sucker up.

( WAT EVEN.Collapse )

I admit, as I'm looking at it all, YOU HAVE OUTDONE YOURSELF, SELLER, I was worrying that the newsprint might rub off on the comic...

BUT THAT SUCKER'S IN A BAG.

In a bag with a light-weight piece of white board to hold it steady!

Bwaaah. This is how to win a buyer to your side for life, o comic/paper-sellers on eBay. TAKE NOTE. And if anyone else tends to buy their stuff from eBay, these two sellers are Wolfcomics and Acecomics, and my comics arrived from them BEFORE the estimated arrival date.

I am so chuffed. So chuffed. :D

So I plugged in my scanner and did this. Hurrah! I have also hacked up a rose bush and sent off more job apps. Life is a tad repetitive at the moment.

Fixed bank stuff! Applied for more jobs! Drank a fekkin' Cola! Listened to this song, despite the fact that it is not my sort of song, and was happy in a weak sort of way, which isn't actually all that bad.



( Lyrics for the lazy-eared.Collapse )

So, been feeling a bit crap lately. Not in the ranty sort of way, just the grey mist sort of way, hence the lack of vent post here. It came to something of a head - in that it became too much for me to simply slog on through - today when I started to look more seriously for a job and realised a few things. One, I don't feel I have any talents or skills; two, I have allowed my social anxiety far too much elbow room lately, and it's taken over the damn sofa. Where the hell is my confidence meant to sit now?

So, having thoroughly upset myself looking through jobs that involve telephones and diplomacy and professionalism and feeling strong enough in myself to defend my decisions (and, let's face it, make them in the first place), I went off to have dinner, then came back upstairs, put on Deadmau's Raise Your Weapon, dragged out my graphics tablet and got drawing.

Raise your weapon:



( Sketch.Collapse )

Mused while I was at it. Recognised that I am not, and likely never will be, particularly good at art. I love the medium, I love looking at people's work, but I don't have the training, I don't put in the time, and I don't have any real passion for it. I enjoy it, but I don't feel compelled to do it.

That's... liberating. It's a hobby. I can be mediocre at it and enjoy it. But I can't tell if it's a good thing that my brain finds easiness in mediocrity to be liberating. On one hand - perfectionism is tiring as hell. On the other - sometimes, when I'm feeling exceptionally down, I start to want mediocrity. As in, I start to think, if only I could be happier being this crap. Which means I'm not thinking, how do I stop being this crap?

...I thought some more, mainly on how this all applies to my writing. Because I have noticed a tendency when I am looking through jobs to sight things that actually have to do with writing and thinking no, no, definitely not up for that. I find myself wanting a job that has nothing to do with what I'm good at. Presumably so I don't go from amateur writer from professional writer, as then I suppose my own benchmark for success will be higher, and therefore more difficult. Therefore further to plummet from. Perhaps also because I anticipate failure in employment, and when I know I can stomach failing as a shelf stacker in Sainsbury's, failure as a writer would be something else altogether.

But that's strange, because I love constructive criticism. In all my editing classes my heart would always drop at each negative comment to start with, but then about twenty seconds later my brain would be whirring with solutions and I'd be even more excited about the piece than I was initially. So perhaps I'm afraid of the drop before the surge. Or perhaps I recognise that university was a training ground and knew as much. I fear that, in a professional capacity, I will be expected to excel from the start. Which is stupid, but also possible - who knows who I might have as a boss, and what their demands might be.

I guess one thing that struck me while I was drawing was that, to get over my fear of making mistakes as a writer, I have to get back into the habit of admitting that I make mistakes as a writer. All the time. I have to apply for writer jobs and stomach the rejections. And if I ever get a writer job - I'll have to get used to looking over at other people's work and thinking, wow, that's much better than mine in x, y, and z areas. And I have to become as able to deal with that as I am with the same in my artwork, without giving up on myself. Because one thing I have realised lately, in moments when I'm working, when I'm procrastinating, and when I'm staring at the job listings in panic, is that I give up on myself very, very easily indeed. And that's certainly the thing I have to stop.

Which is totally rare and not what I strive to do every day or anything.

Hm.

I wrote this straight, anyway, with a five hour pause in the middle to sleep. I think that means it took me about six hours, though honestly? I have been writing for about six hours, mostly in the very early hours of the morning, so my brain is not happy for to do the maths!

TW for family nastiness. This is a first draft; it should stand alone; it's based in the WoW universe but it's not reliant on WoW knowledge to make sense. Basically Baelmyrr Alvantaris' backstory.
( Belves!Collapse )

News: Scroll of Resurrection, right. Missed that by about... two days by reactivating my account the standard way on, like, the sixth of this month. Jon did the same. We shared some extended ellipses over that.

Applying for jobs... sadly involves obtaining referees... I hate telephones, internet. This whole process is bad for those who hate telephones.

My novel is a stagnant piece of crap... as per usual. :D

I MISSED MY CATS SO MUCH.

Been doing quite a lot of drawing lately... even cleared my desk in aid of this...

Yeah. That's about it at the moment.

<3

So I've rediscovered something fairly bloody obvious: reading makes writing easier. My inspiration levels just hop on up if I read so much as ten pages of a good book. I really need to get back into the habit of reading during the day rather than just before bed. In fact, I need to get back into the habit of reading full-stop. It's far too easy to stick to internet articles and fanfiction and IMing. And then I wonder what's up when my brain runs dry and stupid.

In other news, I'm heading home on Saturday so I might actually have access to my money again soon. In the meantime I've been putzing about on a F2P account as a holy paladin. Now. I'd heard that F2P can be hard at the level cap because you're automatically stuck in the twink part of the battleground queue, so you're up against level 24s with all the kit in the world.

And, okay. I am up against level 24s with all the kit in the world. HOWEVER. I have level 24s with all the kit in the world on my side too, and now that I'm in the twink bracket... a lot of them know how to play. o.o That is to say... they cover my little healy butt! They help me out! They wait for me if they're the FC and I somehow fall behind!

That and, well, paladin is ridiculously good. I usually enter combat with three holy power. Hunters and rogues alike offload a craptonne of damage in the first few seconds, sure, but Word of Glory at three holy power rockets my health back up. I have a long stun. I have my human racial stun-breaker. I can heal for a substantial amount while on the move, with Holy Shock and Crusader Strike on the damn hunter pet that is probably chewing on my shield. Flash of Light is actually good at low level. Sure, it taps my mana, but it'll throw even the twinkiest butt back up to full health in a crazyshort cast.

I have to say, I do miss the domination that was going on prior to hitting level 20. I found that I was often the only healer on either side in most battlegrounds, and that essentially made me the tide-turner. Coming across other healers was quite fun too. Priests in particular can be depressing to fight one-on-one as a paladin healer because they put up that damn shield and it takes you ages to get through it. The only healer I encountered who outdid me, in fact, was a priest. Being a loving soul, I vowed revenge, ofc.

But this is pretty much how most of the pre-20 BGs turned out:



Farming the GY for great asshattery points. Feeling k about it because I needed all the honour I could get before (supposedly) becoming hunterchow in the 20-24 twink bracket. 8D

And now I should stop because apparently my typing speed is weirding out my father. Tro-lololol. olol. olol. Before I stop, I drew Lydon being happy (and took a picture with my webcam! Skills). As he often is. My art skill is at a pretty bumbling level, but I quite like that'un despite the various problems with it. That hair, at least, makes me happy. x)

Quite simply, everything is locked because small creatures have been creeping. She seems to have given up now, but I'm too lazy to go back through figuring out what I want to keep locked and what I want to open up, so boom. I am not going to bother.

Instead I went and made a thing, because my brain has been tangling in knots all day over fanfiction.net and how to manage a darker piece posted there. I know a lot of authors publish a cleaner version of their fic, but Obituary is more me toying around with the darker themes I would usually shy away from than an attempt at a strong story, so there doesn't seem to be a great deal of point. I may pull it down entirely later. As yet undecided.

But yes. Yes. here's the special cell I've built it. I'm toying with the idea of including my RP story pieces when I'm done with the body of Obituary itself, but that's a decision sitting faaaar in the future.

Footsteps on the stairs brings Okenra holding a variety of drinks in a precarious hug. Eyria follows behind him, bearing an enormous platter of chips. She's already helping herself.
[Elumeia]: ...All the gin over here, waiter.
Oke mutters completely indiscernibly at this.
[Okenra]: ...Iunno what's what... come and find y'drinks before I drop 'em.
[Eyria]: Oh, just put them on a table. And smile, or you might get fired.
The smell of chips wafts around the room. Miriah's stomach gives an unholy gurgle. Her eyes stay shut.
[Miriah]: ...Should have listened to my instincts about the green.
Elumeia, meanwhile, sets her drink down and gets up, approaching Okenra and reaching for a few glasses at random. Oke mutters again as he sets about putting the drinks on the table.
[Okenra]: ...Hey... 'm tryin' to put 'em down here.
[Elumeia]: (sharply) I'm helping.
Okenra glances up at this, there is a brief instant his eyes flash wider and his mouth stays hung open, he smoothes this over.
[Okenra]: ...Arright... calm it.
[Elumeia]: I am calm.
Elumeia subjects the new arrivals to the sniff test, and goes about picking out the glasses of gin. Eyria sets the platter of chips down on the other table, perches beside it, and alternates between taking a bite of a chip and a sip of a drink. Okenra sets down the last of the drinks.
[Okenra]: Been... 'njoyin' y'selves then, ey?
Holloe looks at him and nods enthusiastically.
[Eyria]: I consider the night a success when everyone has tried the good stuff.
Oke nods.
[Okenra]: 'right then. 'm off back downstairs. Probly, stay the night in the inn.
Okenra goes to kiss Elumeia on the forehead. Elumeia exhales gin vapour at him. Okenra sighs.
[Okenra]: Ta.
He heads for the stairs. Meanwhile, Miriah's eyes snap open and she sits up.
[Miriah]: Alright. What in Sylvanas' name is that smell?
Holloe shrugs and shuffles a little self-consciously.
Miriah looks around perhaps a little too intently, as she half-slides off her seat and only just manages to turn an impending fall into a slightly awkward rise to her feet. Her gaze locks on the chips, and she advances.
[Holloe]: So, Elum. Y'been holdin' out. How long y'been doin' Pretty?
She takes a gulp and looks at Elu expectantly.
[Elumeia]: ...Doing pretty?
[Holloe]: Yeah.
She nods at the stairs.
[Elumeia]: I... don't follow.
Miriah picks up her first chip. She turns it over in her hand. Sniffs it. Stomach gives another rumble. Holloe rolls her eyes and sighs.
[Holloe]: How long... y'been doin' Pretty Elf?
Holloe looks more intently at her.
[Eyria]: She means, how long have you and Okenra been at the horizontal waltz.
Elumeia stares blankly at them both for a moment.
[Elumeia]: We haven't done any dancing...
Miriah cautiously nibbles the chip. Her eyes narrow, then widen, and she takes a larger bite, chewing thoughtfully.
[Miriah]: (surprised) ...This is a potato.
Holloe frowns at Elu thoughtfully. She makes the humping motion and glances at her inquisitively to see if she got the message. Elumeia blanches.
[Elumeia]: No!
[Holloe]: ...No?
Holloe looks confused.
[Elumeia]: I haven't...
Elumeia gestures toward Holloe's hips.
[Elumeia]: ...with. With!
[Holloe]: ...Oh. Y'gonna?
Elumeia raises her chin, aloof.
[Elumeia]: Maybe.
[Holloe]: ...'s fine if y'not.
Holloe looks back at her drink.
[Holloe]: 'll 'ave a go instead.
[Elumeia]: What! You can't.
Holloe sniffs.
[Holloe]: Y'mean I can't. 's cause 'm dead. 's it?
[Elumeia]: He's with me.
Elumeia gestures a little over-dramatically to her chest, as though 'me' wasn't self-evident. Holloe's serious look fades and she casually returns to her drink.
[Holloe]: ...Bit surer than a maybe.
Holloe giggles into her mug. Bryma has finished her jar and has almost doubled her glass count. She appears to be showing signs of slowing. Elumeia splutters.
[Elumeia]: What- I- I wouldn't even know how!
Her ears stick out sideways, voice taking on an unbecoming squeak.
[Elumeia]: Or, well, no, I mean, biologically, I know how, but how would I even... address the subject? 'Hello there, I thought you might like to- with your-'.
Miriah swallows a chip and glances over at them.
[Miriah]: ...'For science.'