Trabia Garden

I'd forgotten what a terrible craving I get for the Red Dead Redemption world after playing in it for a while. Apparently this craving is not much reduced when that world is full of zombies. IT'S SO PRETTY. (The final treasure map location on Undead Nightmare, in particular, is breathtakingly beautiful. I was becoming quite frustrated, endlessly sliding down the mountainside in my efforts to reach it, and then I managed and got that fantastic view of the whole area and forgave the game designers everything.)

New favourite John Marston quote: I was trying to lasso Famine, one of the horses of the apocalypse, and failing miserably. Marston, evidently as frustrated as I was, shouted, 'Stupid nature!'

I have now completed Undead Nightmare! It is a cracking expansion pack. Frustrating at times (perhaps there are people who can comfortably pull off a headshot without the use of Dead Eye; I am not one of those people), and not as varied as Red Dead Redemption itself, but great fun. I love that it never quite takes itself seriously. I love being able to hear John Marston's fantastically sexy voice again. I love that I was able to ride a unicorn across the Mexican wilderness, leaving a rainbow trail behind me and singing 'Always' by Erasure.

I think Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare is ripe for a respectawoman crossover, actually. The ladies originated from a zombie game; zarla already came up with a Western AU for them; what could be more logical than throwing them into a Western zombie apocalypse game? Most of their infected forms have Undead Nightmare counterparts, too: Smoker would be a Retcher, Hunter a Bolter, Charger a Bruiser. SOMEBODY WRITE THIS.

(I've been wondering which horses they would ride. Smoker rides Pestilence; that's easy enough. Hunter, who has a bit of an aggressive streak, could ride War. Bit torn on Jockey: my first thought was Death, because she has such a strange relationship with the concept of death, but then it occurred to me that if there's a butterfly-surrounded rainbow-trailing unicorn to be had, you can bet that Jockey will ride it cheerfully through a horde of zombies. No idea about Charger, though.)


In other news, it's time for Strange Things I Have Discovered In My Notebook Theatre:


CHORUS
We are but students, with empty bellies
And so we call upon the God of Cakes,
Dionysus, probably, as he is god
of many interesting things.
Surely the gods will not abandon us in our hour of need
(for cakes).

MESSENGER
I have such a wonder to relate!
An eagle swept down from the sky,
right in front of my eyes, swift as a ship
(a swift ship, obviously), and at my feet
it dropped some Jaffa Cakes - not one packet,
but two, enough for every student here
unless I have miscounted.

CREON
Pah! Jaffa Cakes are not real cakes!

MESSENGER:
And who are we to question cakes from heaven?

CREON
The cake is a lie, my city!
You must eat only the cakes of Thebes!

(And so on.)


I miss studying Greek tragedy. Also, I'm really confused. (I think - I think - that my plan was to sneakily leave this work of art and a couple of packets of Jaffa Cakes on a desk before a Tragedy seminar, but sadly (tragically, in fact) I never carried it out.)

Today I gave Sanjeev Bhaskar a hug and officially received my degree! (These were related events; Bhaskar is the chancellor of the University of Sussex and was congratulating graduands. Most people just shook his hand, but a few hugged him or asked him to wave to their families. I asked him, 'May I hug you?'; he said, 'Please.' Hug achieved!) And then I came home to find that Mr Bhaskar is to be on Would I Lie To You? tonight! I look forward to it.

Not on Would I Lie To You? tonight but still wonderful and from whom I also received a hug: Barbara Allen, the best teacher I have ever had. She's leaving the university, sadly. I feel very lucky to have been tutored by her. (She told me an anecdote about a previous graduation ceremony, at which a graduand turned to the audience and pulled his robes aside to reveal that he was, as she put it, 'stark bollock naked'. I did not do this.)

Favourite verbal typo ever: when speaking about the new government in his introduction, the vice-chancellor managed to insert an unfortunate 'n' into 'the financial cuts'.

So, yes! I have now graduated. That's quite exciting, isn't it?


Also on tonight is the second-series finale of The Mentalist, although the Five reception here is so poor that I won't be able to watch it until it's on Demand Five. It is probably not the episode in which Patrick Jane confesses his asexual love for the entire team, as I imagine the Americans who have already seen it might have mentioned such an episode when reviewing my Jane/everyone fic, but I can hope.

(A couple of episodes ago, 'You are the queen of my heart, Grace' made me clap my hands over my mouth and squeak. HE IS IN LOVE. HE IS IN LOVE WITH HER, AND WITH LISBON, AND WITH CHO, AND WITH RIGSBY. I REFUSE TO BELIEVE OTHERWISE.

I get weirdly distressed when Jane/anyone not on the team (apart from Jane's wife, obviously) is suggested in canon. If I so firmly believe there is room in his heart for four, you'd think it might be possible to squeeze someone else in.)

I've never been a tennis fan, but I found myself strangely fascinated by the match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut over the past couple of days. For those unaware: to win the fifth set, one player needs to be two full games ahead. In the case of Isner and Mahut, this didn't happen. It didn't happen for eleven hours. They played and played and played. On Wednesday, the match was suspended due to failing light levels at 59-59. On Thursday, I watched in increasing disbelief and cheered every time the score was equalised again, but eventually Isner won at 70-68. This one set went on longer than any full match of tennis ever played. You could have watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in the time they were playing.

(When the set finally, finally finished, there was a little unexpected ceremony and the players and umpire all got presents. I thought that was rather sweet. Also, the audience cheered Mahut far more than they did the actual winner of the match, which was an extremely British thing to do. We do love a person who fights and fights and then loses anyway.)

So, anyway, now some part of me wants Mahut/Isner fanfiction. Hour after hour playing against each other, and eventually a sort of bizarre, exhaustion-induced Stockholm Syndrome sets in. Does either of them really want it to end?

...I'm a bad person.

(The Guardian live blog for the first day of Groundhog Set is hilarious (start from the last paragraph of the 3.45 entry). My favourite part:

The scoreboard is barely visible through the grass and weeds and trails of Spanish moss. It shows that John Isner and Nicolas Mahut are locked at 37 games each in the final set.

I'm wondering if maybe an angel will come and set them free. Is this too much to ask? Just one slender angel, with white wings and a wise smile, to tell them that's it's all right, they have suffered enough and that they are now being recalled. The angel could hug them and kiss their brows and invite them to lay their rackets gently on the grass. And then they could all ascend to heaven together. John Isner, Nicolas Mahut and the kind angel that saved them.

Also, I enjoy the fact that the highest-rated comment by far on the next day's blog is this:

I take Mahut off to them both. Just because it's been a ridiculous match of tennis, Isner reason for puns ay?)

Did I really just make an entire entry about tennis? How unusual.


Today, I find out what class degree I have.

I'm really scared.

[GIF of David Mitchell having a meltdown on WILTY no longer available]

My final university deadline is the day after tomorrow and I want to beat myself unconscious with a book on child language acquisition. I've already handed in the two extended essays and I've got a complete draft of one of my two dissertations and I still loathe myself. THIS RESEARCH PROJECT IS A NIGHTMARE. I WORK ON IT FOR HOURS AND HOURS AND IT NEVER SEEMS ANY CLOSER TO BEING FINISHED.

Listening to 'The Final Countdown' on endless repeat probably isn't helping.

Thanks to everyone who's put up with my panic and provided me with sanity-preserving amusement over the past four months. It won't be long now. (To my horror.)


(I am really, really sorry about the uncut GIF. The idea is that it will judge me whenever I go onto my journal. YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE, RIONA. GET BACK TO WORK.

I'll probably cut it in a few hours.)

Oh, my goodness, writers on child language acquisition, why can't you just agree and write a nice little list of the order in which children learn to produce simple/complex/compound sentences? I feel that I am trying to draw conclusions on a tiny platform perched on top of a wobbly pole in a high wind.

On the plus side, I dreamt last night that I was in a ménage à trois relationship with David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Thanks, subconscious!


I probably won't be able to answer the rest of the questions from the character-number meme of a month or so ago (remember that?) until after May, but, just to prove that I haven't forgotten about it entirely, the answer to a question from nevcolleil:


Dean Winchester, David Mitchell, Yuna, and the Master are the only people left on the planet. How do they handle being all that's left of civilization?
The Master, of course, was the one who destroyed the rest of civilisation in the first place. He is sitting with his feet up on a desk somewhere, smirking smugly and occasionally broadcasting unsettling messages to every radio and television in the world, just to play with the possible survivors. Yuna and Mitchell are appropriately unsettled; Yuna especially so, as her first reaction upon hearing the broadcast was delight at the possibility that someone else might be alive before she realised that the message was hostile. All Dean cares about is what the messages can tell them about what they're dealing with.

Dean tries to stay focused on finding the son of a bitch who did this and not to think too much about the fact that he wasn't able to stop it. He is more successful at deceiving his two companions than he is at deceiving himself.

Yuna is surprisingly optimistic, or at least she tries to appear so outwardly. They may be the only ones left, but, so long as there's someone left, there's hope. She's not quite as certain of this as she would like to be, but she keeps smiling for the sake of the other survivors.

(One night, Mitchell wakes and realises that Yuna is crying; he hesitates, wondering whether he should try to talk to her, but he knows he's terrible at being comforting, and eventually he just closes his eyes again and tries, unsuccessfully, to go back to sleep.)

David Mitchell spends quite a lot of time thinking about the fact that, as Yuna appears to be the only woman left, perhaps they should try to impregnate her in an attempt to keep the human race alive. He's far too embarrassed to actually bring the subject up, though. As Dean is obviously flirting with her, perhaps he won't have to. Really, they should both try to father children, in order to ensure that the gene pool retains at least a tiny bit of variation and thus reduce the chances that their efforts will be scuppered within two generations by horrible genetic diseases, but he can't even consider suggesting that aloud; it would be absolutely mortifying.

Some part of him hates himself for remaining constrained by the chains of embarrassment imposed by society even when the society that imposed his mental restraints has disappeared. Really, the future of the human race should matter more than meaningless social convention, but he cannot overcome his fear of awkwardness. (He also hates himself for the possibility that he might just want sex and be trying to justify it.)


I like this question because it makes me think about the possibility of David Mitchell/Yuna as a pairing, which I think could be bizarrely adorable. Yuna isn't a particular wit, and so I don't imagine she would make a great bantering partner for Mitchell, but she's intelligent and brave and lovely, and, whilst Mitchell might underestimate her at first, in the face of adversity I think he could be a bit awed by her strength of character. For her part, I think she'd rather like Mitchell. I think he would make her giggle a lot. THIS MENTAL IMAGE IS SO CUTE I CAN BARELY COPE.

(On the subject of women who could make good bantering partners for Mitchell: David Mitchell/Donna Noble? I'd read it.)

Thank you so much for being so lovely in the comments to my panicky previous entry! My dissertation supervisor has proposed a course of action that means I can simply add a couple of explanatory paragraphs to my dissertation and keep my sentence analyses as they are. The day is saved! (Seriously, I would have had to redo everything.)

Naturally, this calls for celebration with stupid crossovers. Have the beginning of an incredibly ill-advised Top Gear/Prison Break fic; I wrote this a while ago, but it never actually got anywhere.


"Good evening!" Jeremy addresses the camera, beaming despite his obvious exhaustion, the thin layer of grime coating his features and the inexplicable forest setting. "Now, eagle-eyed viewers may already have noticed that we are not in our traditional studio for this episode, and there's a very good reason for that." He pauses, apparently for dramatic effect. "We are on the run... from the law."

Another pause, this one somewhat less dramatic.

"James?"

James, sitting on the ground behind Jeremy, gives the camera a look of deepest misery.

"Well, as James is sulking, I suppose the task of introducing the segment falls to me," Hammond says, coming into shot and somehow managing to project a sense of soul-deep exhaustion and bouncy energy at the same time. ("It's our lives," James mutters audibly in the background. "It's not a 'segment', and what we should be doing right now is covering our tracks, not making a bloody television programme.") "As a car programme, one of the questions we're always getting asked is, of course, 'what do I do if I accidentally crash a home-made tank into an American government building and get arrested for terrorism?' Well, fear not, people of Britain; tonight we have your answer." He nods solemnly. "You can't say we're not thorough."


I think I was planning to have Jeremy sharing a cell with Scofield. This seems unwise. Quiet break-outs are difficult enough even when one's cellmate isn't the loudest, most unsubtle man on the planet. (Hammond, meanwhile, was going to be with T-Bag. That could not possibly have ended well.)


I just flicked to another page in my notebook and came across the line 'Dreamt about Charlie Brooker fighting Mewtwo'.

It can't have happened more than a month ago, but I cannot remember this at all. How was he fighting Mewtwo? Physically? Mentally? With the power of scorn? Why were they fighting? Who was winning? We may never know. (But I suspect that Mewtwo was winning. Sorry, Brooker, but Mewtwo has incredibly powerful psychic abilities and it does not know compassion. Your psychic powers are moderate at best.)

Thank you so much for your contributions to the happiness post yesterday, and I hope you enjoyed the things other people posted! It certainly brightened my evening. I have to give special mention to this ASL rendition of 'Party in the USA'; wanttobeatree linked to it, and it is the most ridiculously delightful thing I have seen in months. I grin all the way through it. His smile! ♥!

I am also extremely fond of th_esaurus' heartbreaking Brooker/Mitchell tale. And dracothelizard came up with the idea of Charlie Brooker being turned into a unicorn, which is just lovely. He would hate it so much! So much! I am genuinely considering writing fanfiction about the adventures of David Mitchell and Charlie the Angriest Unicorn, although I would have to take care not to make it too similar to my Supernatural unicorn-transformation fic. Sullen unicorns are such fun.

I am not entirely certain of what adventures Mitchell and unicorn!Brooker would have, but I am sure they will work something out.

(Dr Cox would also be rather fun as a unicorn, especially given JD's unicorn obsession.)

I'm still fretting over various university-related things, and today I received a gas bill that made me squawk in horror and run to turn off the hot water, but you guys really do make everything better. I cannot express how grateful I am to you, just for being there and being awesome. Soppy though it may sound, I really do love my flist.

(Seriously, do watch that ASL video if you need a smile. Best thing I've seen in ages.)


Today, I played two Charlie Brooker clips to my Discourse in Public Life seminar group. The tutor loved them. I need to fandom up my university courses more often.

To go under the heading of 'unfortunate things to happen in the midst of writing': suddenly becoming confused into envisioning the 'Charlie' in your Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell fic as Charlie Swan of Twilight.

Charlie Swan/David Mitchell: probably not true love. I love Charlie, particularly in the films, and I love Mitchell, but I do not think they would be terribly compatible. Still, Twilight might have been a better book had it been about the brief and ill-advised relationship of Charlie Swan and David Mitchell, whilst some stuff to do with vampires or something quietly goes on in the background. Eventually, Bella discovers that her father's girlfriend is a boyfriend and Charlie discovers that his daughter's boyfriend is a vampire, and the former revelation is inexplicably treated as the more surprising.

...and now I want to crack up, because my mind has just reminded me that Bella Swan is a fairly misanthropic soul, and so naturally my instinct is to consider replacing her with my favourite misanthrope of the moment. I do not think Charlie Brooker would thank me for the comparison, but having him as the protagonist of Twilight would be amazing. I'm not sure what would happen in this revised version of Twilight, as the love of Bella and Edward was sort of the entire plot of the original and I have no doubt that Charlie Brooker would despise Edward Cullen, but I would purchase several copies anyway.


Here are a couple of fascinating clips from Screenwipe: on the many obstacles to be overcome in making television programmes, and on the manipulative editing of 'reality' TV.

I'd quite like to see whether I can get away with showing the latter clip in my 'Discourse in Public Life' seminar (we're discussing media discourse at the moment), but the last few seconds might make that slightly embarrassing, although I suppose I could stop it before that. (I do love that Brooker himself is appalled by what he's just said. I love it when they keep in things that have gone a bit wrong. His 'I can't say that!' made me jump immediately from 'what did he just say?' to 'asdfadhfgjfhgh he is adorable'.)


I do hope my entries of late haven't been too alienating for the non-British amongst you. As an apology, have this clip, which speaks the universal language of 'adorable baby pandas going down a slide'.

The boiler is now functional! On the one hand, when the sitting room was the only warm room in the house, my subconscious was making up for the discomfort of sleeping on sofa cushions by giving me awesome dreams in which I hung out with Robert Webb and David Mitchell and the former gave me a piggyback ride and the latter accidentally adopted seven kittens. On the other, oh my goodness central heating is amazing.

(Actually, scratch the dream-related regret: I wrote that last night, and since then have dreamt a Supernatural episode in which Sam, Dean and (Cortese's) Ruby were travelling together in Scotland. They bantered! Dean spent his time throwing darts at a picture of Ruby on their hotel-room door, invoking Ruby's scorn ('It's not even a good picture')! Ruby kissed Dean just to mess with his head (and rather to Sam's discomfort)! It was wonderful.)


A confusing fact I have just realised about myself: in my head, Bradley James' name is 'Bradley Angel', a misconception probably carried over from when I was only peripherally aware of Merlin and thought the 'Angel' people were talking about was probably the blond chap, on account of the angelic way in which his hair glowed when lit from behind. That's right: I assumed that Bradley's parents anticipated his halo-esque hair and named their child accordingly. When I see people talking about Colin/Angel, I always think for a moment that they mean Colin/Bradley. Bradley/Angel, of course, conjures up delightfully odd mental images.


Whilst I'm being disjointed, HERE IS A LINK TO SOMETHING AWESOME: Homestuck, the latest MS Paint Adventures story. For those unfamiliar with the concept: Homestuck is an animated webcomic done in the style of a text adventure, using suggestions for actions from readers, and it is hilarious and well-plotted and frequently incredibly cool. The pages with music are particularly amazing. And the children have so much character! (Rose is my favourite.) Be aware, however, that it is quite long.


A quick note: I'm a term into my final year of university now, and in four months I'm going to be handing in twenty-two thousand words on which my degree depends. I may be around slightly less as I try to get these words written (or slightly more, as I turn to the Internet for comfort and sanity-preservation, but the plan is to be around a bit less). You did NaNo five years ago, Riona; yes, quality and research are slightly more important now, but you still have four times as long to manage less than half the wordcount. This is totally possible.

where doing it man.
where MAKING THIS HAPEN

Right! I have a rather nasty exam for Communication Analysis on Tuesday. It is one hundred per cent of the mark for the module, and I find myself forced to teach myself more or less everything, because the tutor, although I am sure she is lovely as a person, has generally failed to impart any actual knowledge. I have actually been staying in bed until ten for the past couple of days (it's late for me) because I can't face getting up and confronting all that revision.

So I don't like revising. On the other hand, I like updating my Livejournal, and typing out and rephrasing the things I've learnt will probably help me get them clear in my head.


( Just dumping some revision notes on Conversation Analysis (one of several communication analysis approaches) here. Probably not of much interest to any of you, apart from the one other person taking this exam, but feel free to read them if you'd like. Grice's Cooperative Principle is quite interesting. )


I cannot express how little I am looking forward to this exam. It seems as if communication analysis deals with potentially interesting stuff, but it simply hasn't been made clear enough. I have attended every lecture and almost every seminar, but I feel I could have skipped them all and still found myself beginning my revision from the same point. Doubleplusungood!