Postcards from Purgatory

Here are two side-by-side photographs of me holding geeky rectangular items in front of my face! 

So firstly, I started Borderlands a few days ago. I did this for three reasons. I know you're all way curious to know these reasons, so let me outline them for you in a numbered list!

Reasons Meg Started Playing Borderlands:

1. I needed a new game to play in an attempt to distract me from my all-consuming impatience as I wait for Dragon Age: Inquisition to come out, and everyone (like two people I guess) said it was super good and that I'd like it.

2. I wanted to cancel out my previous experience with the series, which was playing co-op Borderlands 2 with my ex Greg, the most stressful and frustrating gaming experience of our time. It was only my second time ever playing an FPS (the first being about ten minutes of shitting my pants in Left 4 Dead with no idea how to use a 360 controller and getting dog-piled by shrieking zombies, or was that my own shrieking, idk).

So Borderlands 2 was my sad attempt to bond with Greg, as video games were one of the only ways to do that, and it was terrible. He's really good at games and an extraordinarily fast reader, so he would just barrel through every quest, not giving me time to read the objectives or figure out what I was doing in any way. It resulted in me firing my gun wildly into the sky at nothing and then dying, in quick succession, over and over. I never had any idea what was going on, where we were, or how to fucking aim my gun or walk anywhere without getting stuck in a corner.

LONG STORY SHORT: I am traumatized by that experience and would like to replace it with a positive one! Yeahhh positive gaming experiences! There's actually a lot of satisfaction that's come from being able to play games, enjoy them, and most of all be good (relatively) at them without Greg's presence to pressure me, or help me, or do it for me. I've taken gaming and made it my own, and I'm super proud of myself for that?

3. I wanna talk to Stacey about it. Let's be real, all of my gaming-related decisions in life from now on are going to hinge heavily on Stacey. Is she playing the game? I WANNA PLAY TOO. Is she not playing the game? I DON'T WANNA PLAY EITHER. Am I excited about a game series that Stacey has not yet played? NAG HER UNTIL SHE DOES. Sorry, Staceyyyy I love you (too much).

So there you have it. I've played a couple hours of it so far (pretty much nothing), but already it's a million times more enjoyable than my experience with Borderlands 2. It's more difficult than other games I've played, mostly because there's no ~casual~ mode (wtf, guys? What are fake gamer girls like me to do when there's only one difficulty setting??), but I'm quickly getting the hang of it! I was busy all weekend fucking around with this stupid blog, but I'm excited to play more this week! Will keep you guys updated because I know you super care.

SECONDLY, and here's the best thing that's happened to me in probably my entire life: Stacey's Purgatory postcard finally showed up omfg!!!

No, you don't understand. A couple months ago now, when we were in the throes of full-on Mass Effect obsession (we still kinda are), Stacey sent me a series of postcards over the space of a few weeks, all from various places in Mass Effect. I got postcards from Illium, the Citadel, Feros, and one from Omega. I eagerly checked the mail every day when I got home from work, hoping for the next one and shrieking with delight every time it arrived. But when the final postcard from Purgatory didn't come, and didn't come... and still didn't come, Stacey grew worried. She asked if I had received it and I said I hadn't, even though she'd sent it. Where could it have gone?? We wondered if it got lost in the mail, if it went to the wrong address, if I'd accidentally thrown it out with junk mail. We were both devastated. The postcards had been telling a story, and I was forced to accept the fact that I would never know how that story ended.

This all took place, as I said, months ago. And then on Friday I checked my mail, pulling out the usual junk and the electric bill. But I felt one more piece of mail in there and pulled it out. And I SCREAMED. Like, I'm hoping none of my neighbors were home because I straight shouted "OH MY GOD!!" and started jumping up and down on the front step. THE POSTCARD HAD FINALLY ARRIVED FROM PURGATORY. And as I read the final chapter in the saga of Stacey Shepard and friends finally making their way back to Earth and to me, I shed a tear. No, I cried. It was an actual tear. I say that I'm crying a lot on social media, and you may think that's an exaggeration, but I swear to you that 98% of the time I'm literally crying. Just as I was in this case.

It was so emotional and I'm just beyond happy that the postcard arrived at last! I wonder what it was doing that whole time? Did it go to the wrong address? If so, did the recipient have any earthly idea what the fuck any of it meant? Because obviously they would have read it. I would have read it. And I like to think that they were transported, if only for a moment, to another world... a world among the stars, stranger and more fantastic than any they could have imagined, a world of adventure, rare beauty... and sexy aliens.