Trabia Garden

A couple of days ago, I thought I'd pick up the Undead Nightmare add-on for Red Dead Redemption again, as I'd never finished it. As I rode through the New Austin desert at night, I suddenly saw an alert informing me that a mythical creature had appeared in the area. Said mythical creature was War, one of the horses of the apocalypse, and it wasn't difficult to find; its mane, tail and hooves were on fire. I broke it and hitched it and now it is my trusty steed.

In my last entry, I said that if John Marston had a Pokémon, it would be a Ponyta. I'm pleased to have my belief so thoroughly justified.


In other news, I was watching Channel 5 yesterday. During an advert break, a short trailer for Big Brother played, in which the hosts (I was going to say 'judges', but I don't suppose Big Brother really has judges, does it?) stepped out onto a balcony above an arena and one dramatically announced 'Let the fun and games begin!'

I don't know whether this is deliberately trying to echo the phrase 'Let the Hunger Games begin!', but I really hope so. The publicists for a slightly cruel reality show deliberately evoking a work about reality shows taken to outright evil extremes? Got to admire that.


The thing I was watching, incidentally, was 'Desperate Souls', episode eight of Once Upon a Time. My thoughts mainly consist of 'MR GOLD, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD'. At the beginning I was thinking 'Well, Mr Gold seems sort of... nice? Bit creepy, but pleasant enough? Not particularly like his fairytale counterpart?' And then he became more and more magnificent and bastardly until I was just gaping at the screen. I fear and sort of admire him.

I am more amused than I should be by all the mirror-based puns whenever Sidney Glass is around. Keep it up, Once Upon a Time.

And I really like the friendship between Emma and Mary Margaret. I want Mary Margaret to find out Emma's true relationship to her - it could be so interesting! - but it doesn't look like that'll happen for a while. Still, I'm enjoying this series immensely, so for now I'm happy to wait.


It's just occurred to me that the ridiculous Once Upon a Time concept is one that can be applied to other fandoms. What if the characters of Avatar: The Last Airbender or Final Fantasy X were living in a small town in our world, having lost their memories? ...well, they'd just go about their business, I suppose, unaware of their former lives. It would essentially be a 'mundane existence' AU. This is a terrible crossover idea.

(Hey, what if the cast of Final Fantasy VIII were living in a small town in our world because Rinoa secretly put them there with her sorceress powers, trying to keep them from fighting Ultimecia and getting killed? One day, it occurs to Squall that, although he and Rinoa are married, he can't remember how they met. She becomes quite strange and cagey when he asks her about it. Slightly more workable as a concept, but I still don't think I'd be able to write it.)

I have now completed Uncharted 2! I think possibly my favourite part of the game, save the perfect opening and ending scenes, is the bit where Nathan and Flynn are working together and just snipe at each other the entire time. Hee!

I did come to like Chloe, in the end, which pleased me. I like her the most when she's with Elena. Then again, I also like Nathan and Sully the most when they're with Elena. Is there any character that can't be improved by the company of Elena Fisher?

Well, yes, probably. Pyramid Head, for example, would probably stab her, which I wouldn't approve of. But she definitely brings out the best in the main cast of the Uncharted series.

(NATHAN AND ELENA

HEARTS FOREVER

they are adorable and I 'ship them so much. The way they work together and worry about each other when they're in danger; the way they poke fun at each other in quiet moments. The ending. ♥!)

The first thing I did upon beating the game was purchase the 'Dirty and Beat-Up' character model for Drake, so he can be covered in blood whenever I please. Although I do also love his winter jacket. Mildly saddened to find that the character model on its own doesn't cause him to stagger around in obvious pain. I swear I'm not a bad person.

The second thing I did was load up the 'Where Am I?' chapter and pet the hell out of some yaks. (Forget every other criticism levelled at it: the worst thing about Final Fantasy XIII was the fact that it wasn't possible to cuddle the little round sheepy things. The first time I saw a yak in Uncharted, I immediately steered Nathan in its direction and was saddened when he didn't interact with it. But, as it turns out, it is in fact possible to pet the yaks! Amazing!)

I've only realised upon writing this that these two things display very different sides of my personality.


Unrelatedly: why are the radio and television trailers for this year's Children in Need (for the benefit of non-UKers: Children in Need is an annual television event to raise money for children's charities) backed by the song 'Fuck You' by Cee Lo Green? I am really confused.

I'm a young woman on Livejournal. I see my friend's posted a series of adverts, so I check them out, and I'm laughing so hard I wreck your car.

Somehow.

Despite being in my room.

Why is your car in my room, anyway? That's just asking for trouble.


Here's a meme I haven't done in a while!

- Write a list of characters and number them.
- Input the number of characters into this random number generator as the maximum and generate two numbers.
- Ramble about how the corresponding pairing/partnership/general interaction would (or, indeed, wouldn't) work. Perhaps write a snippet/one-sentence fic for it if you're feeling brave.
- Repeat to your heart's content.

(Although I haven't actually done this meme in over a year, I've kept my numbered list and continued to add characters to it as new ones enter my awareness and my affection, hence frankly ridiculous numbers like 143 cropping up in here.)


( Represented below the cut: Peep Show, Pokémon, Just William, Glee, Silent Hill, Sherlock Holmes, Disney's Mulan, Supernatural, Kingdom Hearts, High School Musical, Waterloo Road, Fullmetal Alchemist and, erm, Arnold Schwarzenegger. )


Finally: have you always wanted to see strangely adorable zombie ultraviolence set to an upbeat Japanese pop song? zarla knows you have, and she has provided. (She's made an entry about it here, if you'd like to learn about some of the detail that went into it or leave her a comment.)

Here is something I have been enjoying far too much: a compilation of Rob Brydon singing one song to the tune of another on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. His performance of 'Who Do You Think You're Kidding, Mr Hitler' to the tune of 'Yesterday Once More' (four minutes in) is one of the best things I've ever heard, although I also very much enjoyed 'Anarchy in the UK' to the tune of 'Just When I Needed You Most'.

It doesn't have his spectacularly creepy rendition of the theme from Jim'll Fix It to the tune of 'Mad World', but you can hear that here, in a compilation that also includes David Mitchell singing 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' to the tune of the theme from The Muppet Show, Tony Hawks singing 'Girlfriend in a Coma' to the tune of 'Tiptoe through the Tulips' and Harry Hill singing 'The Ugly Duckling' to the tune of 'Without You'. It is glorious.


Recently, I've been seeing posters at bus stops around Brighton advertising mobile phones with Facebook or Twitter compatibility. The problem is that the messages the adverts use to illustrate this exciting feature are so incredibly banal: 'Sun is shining!' and 'Babysitter sorted. Phew!'

Surely the message you intend to convey is 'buy our phone so you can keep up with all the incredibly interesting messages your friends are putting out on Twitter', advertisers? Here are some suggested tweets for your next poster.

- Turns out genies are real. Any wish suggestions?
- Bored. Exhausted the local culture already. This is apparently the only part of Pluto with Internet reception, just my luck.
- ZOMBIES TOO LATE HERE SAVE YOURSELVES RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN
- First person to RT gets half my lottery winnings.
- @hypotheticaltwitters suggestion didn't work. tigers asleep again but wont be for long. any other brilliant ideas?
- Look behind you.

You don't have to pay me; I'm just happy to help.

A number of disconnected things today (she says, as if that's unusual). Firstly, I recently began re-reading the Harry Potter series in preparation for the release of Book Seven, and I suddenly realised, in a bizarre sort of flashback, that, back when I was ten or eleven years old, the first non-canonical pairing I ever picked up on subtext for - my first real 'ship - was Hagrid/Hermione.

My first ever pairing was a highly disturbing crackpairing.

Oh, self. (If you're lucky, I'll never work out exactly why it made perfect sense to my eleven-year-old self and inflict either the reasoning or fanfic upon you.)

Secondly, I'm sure you've heard this already, but it bears repeating for the sheer 'what the hell?: a 'reality TV' programme will decide who gets a new kidney. I mean, that is Celebrity Plague Train levels of awful.

Thirdly, I have just found a series of adverts I've been looking for for years! Behold, the Greatest Advertising Technique Ever:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

(EDIT: Continuing the theme of 'silly YouTube links': have the latest 'please have your mobile phone turned off during the film' Orange trailer. I love these things. 'No! They will be smoking hot, but they will not be actually aflame.')

And, finally, I fell hopelessly in love with xkcd two days ago and read through the entire archive. It fluctuates between being hilarious and being absolutely charming, and when it's the latter it's the sort of thing that makes me want to go out and hug a stranger. If you haven't seen it before, do take a look. (Every strip has hovertext, by the way. The longer ones get cut off in Firefox, but you can view them by right-clicking on the image and selecting 'Properties'.)