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  1. eugh

    By Padraig!,

    yknow when you go into an exam all hyped like

    "yeah

    im gonna kick this

    exams ass"

    and then you're all like

    "this is really



    really




    hard"


    it puppys up your motivation doesnt it, especially when thats meant to be the easiest exam you do



    1 down, 9 to go
  2. As mentioned in an earlier thread today (http://www.hyrule.net/forum/topic/19173-twitchtv/), I knew there was a few people here who streamed and I wanted to help them hopefully get some new viewers.
    You'll now find that there is a new widget in the sidebar that shows current live streamers, the game they are playing and their channel status.

    Clicking their picture or name will take you immediately to their twitch channel page. The little bubble on the right is the current viewer count. You then have the game they are playing as well as their channel status.
    If you are a frequent contributor to this community and you stream, feel free to post your twitch channel in http://www.hyrule.net/forum/topic/19173-twitchtv/ and I will add you.

  3. Baba

    By Necropolis,

    I like this little writing thing. Lemme know what you think, its nice to put these things somewhere, even nicer to talk about them.

    We walked alongside the shore. Which shore I could not tell you, nor what waters went up and down in rhythmic motion along it. Each of us was young, younger than I am now at least. 12 or 13, just at the age where the world is changing for you but while your still powerless to do anything about it. There were probably 10 of us, and each one of us in the procession carried a large hiking bag. Naturally I was at the front.

    Leading our little group was a woman of about 55. Her face was long and there was something wicked about it. As I think about it now she was familiar. She was every teacher who ever found fun in cruelty to her students. Every crooked nosed, wicked librarian who takes a certain glee in SHUSHING those that visited her. Every witch who, perched in her legged home, threw spite through crooked teeth like acid. I knew that she was nothing less than pure evil, and that whatever her designs for us followed suit. I knew all this, and I suspect my compatriots did also, and yet we all followed her with nary the complaint.

    She commanded us without speaking to drop our packs as we walked, and we did, every one of us in the same place. Then a short while later, she told us all to sit. And we did. Every one of us were sitting with our legs crossed as she had them, and she spoke.

    “Close your eyes children. We’re going to tell scary stories.” She said.

    “This is the story of The Black Mansion, and Judgement day” she said. My eyes were closed, but I knew somehow that she was looking at me. She poked me in the stomach. “Have you heard that one?” She poked me again, harder “Huh?” She poked me again and again, each time it was harder, and it was punctuated by a “Huh?”

    A slow horror dawned on me. The pokes were starting to hurt, and I knew somehow that it would only stop when I opened my eyes. I also knew that when I opened my eyes, there would be something horrible to greet me. But despite this, I couldn’t stop myself. Trying as hard as I could to keep them shut my eyes slowly, painstakingly opened

    The woman, eyes wide open staring with evil glee sat 15 feet away from me, the waves lapping around her.
    And then I woke up. That was this morning. Its strange how much fear this dream provoked in me while it was going, when nothing to terribly frightening happened until the end, and the bit at the end was more subtle than nightmares tend to be.

  4. APRIL 10TH 2013

    By Teto,

    Today I woke up at 7:00. Then 7:09. Then 7:18. Then 7:27. Then 7:36. Then 7:45. Then I was finally able to actually switch off my alarm with confidence that I would then be able to go out into the day. I showered. I sat around a bit and waited until 8:45 when I went to class, which I had to rush for, because I am no good at time management and should have left earlier to allow for travel time. On the way I listened mostly to "
    " and " " by Eels, the second moreso than the first. I arrived at 9:05 which wasn't a big deal; it hadn't really started yet. We just had to get results, but like half the class puppyed up and nobody had any cell growth. We got someone else's results. Class ended at 10:15, and I was released back into the wild.
    I went to Greggs and got a Scotch Pie, which you shouldn't eat with your hands because it's way oily. It was kind of weird. I was careful not to make a horrific mess, and was successful. Then I took a picture of the dragon statue.





    I then went off to Waterstones, looked around halfheartedly at the comics and books. Read the back of The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. Read the little staff-written recommendations on the front of A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick, and one of the Doctor Who books, based on the Ninth Doctor. I looked at the Judge Dredd comics and wondered why volumes 12 or 13 onwards of the complete case files were so much smaller than the first dozen. I also looked again at the manga, which never ever changes, and I wouldn't buy even if I saw something I wanted. I saw a popular science book that had "Electric Sheep" in the title, in larger letters than the rest of the title. I mistakenly thought it was something to do with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, which I recently finished.

    I went off to the Costa upstairs, and ordered a pot of tea instead of my usual mocha latte, because I have given up trying to think coffee doesn't suck. I sat down in a corner of the cafe next to a couple people who I assumed were lecturers for a gaming course. They were discussing Heavy Rain, and generally the whole ludology vs. narratology debate. They got onto the American archetype character of the big hero who walks off into the sunset after winning the battle and killing the bad guys, and they noticed how often that comes up. Like in Fallout 3 and stuff, and apparently Bioshock Infinite? I struggled to read Game of Thrones with them there because A) They were like arms length from me; They were kind of loud; C) Their conversation was interesting.

    They left, and I got on finishing the chapter I was on, which is just the first chapter after the prologue; Bran. It was really good and I liked it. I'm going to enjoy this book a lot. I had to get up to get a third sugar for my tea because two wasn't quite enough. I didn't have enough tea for a second cup, but I poured it anyway and put in way too much sugar. I finished that and left.

    I decided to call up my flatmate and see if she wanted me to go by the print shop to pick up her postcards she got printed out, because she's going to have a booth at the upcoming anime convention we're having in Dundee on the weekend. I went over, since it was on the same street, and picked them up, with surprising ease; I just gave them my friend's name and they handed over the stuff. I learned later that the shop called my friend to make sure that I wasn't just some stranger stealing her stuff.

    I was going to go buy a Magic the Gathering booster but I decided against it because it's not so much fun when you don't have obsessive pros around you to tell you which cards are utter rubbish. Instead I went off to a shop to buy some more cord for making dice bags.

    So I went and got on the bus, came back to my flat. Not a lot happened between those two things.

    I got back, unpacked all my stuff, met up with my flatmate, talked briefly. Moved my stuff through to the living room because she was going to do some clay making for jewellery she's planning to sell at the convention as well. I was going to make dice bags there but I decided against it because being in her company is really uncomfortable, even though she's nice; I just can't stand being around her for extended periods of time, I just end up feeling antisocial because I can't think of anything to talk about, and she's constantly forcing enthusiasm out of herself, and I can't help her there at all and I can't match the enthusiasm, and so I feel like I make her feel bad about herself, and so I get tired quickly.

    We went to the Tesco because she needed stuff. I didn't really, but I got Pringles and chocolate because I am fat. We return to the flat. She finds a weird egg in amongst the eggs she got. Look at this weird egg.





    Not even cracked, it just looks like that. How does a shell get like that.

    The time is 2:19. It felt like 5pm at this point. I felt bad, but I went back to my room to be by myself. I listened to Eels a bit, watched the first episode of the second season of The World God Only Knows, that god-forsaken show, and then put on The Big Bang Theory because it's piss easy to watch. From then until sometime around 9:00, here was the playlist:





    Over this time I sat and made another dice bag, which I posted about. I used some of the cord I bought earlier, and was more careful with measurements and keeping the stitches closer together. It resulted in a better made bag, with a worse cord. The cord was too rough, and so it's more difficult to open and close than the first one I made, which has since broken, since part of the cord came loose due to not being very securely fastened to the felt body. Here's the second dice bag.





    Then I wrote this. I might read more Game of Thrones and then sleep. Here is my Twitter feed for the day, oh haha what I charmer I am.




  5. Appeal for help

    By Teto,

    Nobody here has heard my voice in a long time. This is because, as of June 20th 2014, I have been held vocal hostage by a technospider. Not many people are aware of technospiders, or how many people are effected by them. Some even don't know that they are living with this parasite. My intention today is to spread awareness.

    On June 20th 2014, I briefly visited the social media site Reddit.com, and it was from there the technospider came, and crawled in my mouth. It made a technoweb in in vocal chords and connected to the internet. I no longer have the will of my own to speak, and whenever I try, I only speak in memes. I cannot stop the memes, and now the memes control my life. No matter where I am; the church, the morgue, the room full of grannies, the spider will find a subreddit full of relevant memes, and control what I say. I have lost many friends, and am no longer allowed near primary schools. This is troublesome because when I need medical care I cannot tell doctors my symptoms, and must communicate through writing.

    So this is the only medium left to me. I can't go through this hell any more. Until they find a fix for the technospider controlling my life, all I can do is ask this: Stop the bad memes. Everybody must stop doing memes as soon as possible. Rid the spider of his ammunition, and I will take back control. The memes must end. Please.

    I want my life back.

    Thank you.
  6. I had a dream. Long ago I dreamed of making a video game. Many of you remember if you were around when Pokefan and I tried making a few games. In 2008 we started a conjoined project called "Project Tundra" which fell through. After the frustrations and realization I have no talent at games I gave up making games directly, but often day dreamed of stories for games. In 2010 I was often criticized by my language arts teacher that I had no talent in writing and had poor understanding of the english language. One day while stuck in study hall I got bored and decided to try writing out a story to practice. I decided I sucked and gave up.
    A bit later that year I picked it up again and tried writing it out on my computer. The story in question was a modified version of one of my stories I had day dreamed up in school instead of paying attention and several of my ideas from the scrapped project tundra. After showing an early version to one of my friends he said it was all confusing and I again gave up. In about February of 2011 I was again bored the crap out of my mind in a study hall and decided to give it one last try. I started writing out the story as well as other guide line scripts to help the story flow and thus my project was born. Having two friends reading it to make sure things moved along fine as well as constantly having pokefan help me to make sure things were fine in terms of story and writing I managed by late spring to get going on a fairly decent script. I worked hard on it as I waited for skyward sword. I would spend about 4 hours a day writing with two hours of just planning and working on a general script of events to follow.
    Finally in November 2011, I finished my first manuscript of my book. Unsure of what to do with it I pretty much sat on it and worked on the sequel until I could figure out what to do. After a while I went back and rewrote huge chunks of the manuscript until I came up with what I have today. Now I have an idea of what to do and I am currently writing several agents a day with query letters hoping someone is dumb optimistic enough to pick it up.
    So what is my book? Allow me to introduce it to you all. Ceatera is an urban fantasy book set in a world of magic, demons, technology, and I really don't know how else to describe it easily. The general setting of modern fantasy was drawn by Final Fantasy VII, but quite frankly it has taken many, many sources to inspire my works. The current first book is about 140,000 words long, with the second book being halfway done. I am so tired I don't know what else to put, so here is the 'catcher' one paragraph thing on the back of books I was supposed to write for one agent. Understand I can't talk too much about Ceatera in terms of plot and details until some point in the future.

    Meir Lorne is a mercenary working for the Desrua Guild in the city of Ceatera, genetically altered to be stronger, faster, and superior than others. Tensions rise fast when entire cities disappear and prisons become overrun. Facing down a war that could bring down an entire country, ancient wizards and demons with grudges of their own, and even other guilds of his comrades Meir must make decisions and experience things that boggle the imagination


    Also in the somehow chance this book publishes and takes off well, I will laugh and laugh, probably puke from anxiety since I hate being the center of attention, and laugh.
  8. It happened again today. The vision. As I was lying in bed, waking from a warm slumber, it came to me. A premonition of sorts, or maybe just a fantasy- I suppose only time will tell me that. But either way, it happened once more. A vision of a great warrior.
    He carried this big ass sword made out of crystals or diamonds or something, and it’s guard was all clusterpuppyy. He wore a cloak that was black but super bright... like black light i guess. His ears were pointed and his eyes were black, which looked totally awesome. Long, cobalt hair ran down his pale blue face. Like a true warrior he was nasty strong. A body that could withstand bullets and arms that can crush skulls. But despite his ferocious and violent behavior, I knew he was kind. A hero, of sorts.
    But today was different. It happened again, the vision of him, but this vision was drastically different from any other vision I had previously had. For one, it happened after I woke up, in the morning, while the rest occurred at night before I fell asleep. But even more disturbing was what the vision foretold. Instead of a victorious fight ending in the hero’s victory, he was slain.
    Every time he fought, it was with someone new. And every time he fought, he won. But not this time. This time he fought a warrior even bigger than him. The enemy wore red armor made of the finest metals, and had a head encompassed in flames. He carried a massive black axe with a crimson eye encrusted in the blade. This guy was seriously evil.
    In my vision, the two warriors fought in a burning forest. It was probably burning cause of the bad guy’s head. I mean, lets be honest you don’t just run around with a fire head without burning a few trees in the process. Anyways, they fought for what seemed like hours before the bad guy raised his finger to the sky. I could see on the hero’s face that shit was about to hit the fan. The villain shot a red laser into the sky only for it to crash down on the hero seconds later. Huge explosion occurred, like wow man you had to see it. Once the dust settled, I saw that the hero was no more. Instead, a huge hole was in his place. I saw down the hole, and all i could see were clouds. The hero was gone....
  9. I've been talking to this guy for a few weeks. We meet online but he lives pretty close. We are gonna meet this Saturday. It'll be his birthday and his friends are throwing him a party. I'm super nervous. Not only does he havta like me, but so do his friends. Nobody wants to date someone when their friends hate him. But I also hope i like him. I mean you can only know somebody so well from text messages....

    Hmm, this is a pretty lame first part. Oh well, I hope you'll all continue to read this as more entries are entered.
  10. Before my freshman year of high school started around 2007, on my first day of band camp, I bought Nabisco peanut butter sandwich crackers at the nearby gas station because I noticed that the label said 99$ rather than 99 cents. I paid the regular price for them and kept them for novelty. Later, I met a cool kid named David, who I hung out with at school during band hours.

    Near my final year of high school, I realized that I still had the crackers in my trumpet case, still vacuum sealed, though the crackers had been reduced to dust. I literally had them for my entire high school career; from the first day at the school to my last. So I decided that David, then a sophomore, would carry them as the new owner. He took care of them until he too, was a senior.

    He just recently handed off our legacy to another sophomore. I regret not coming to school events or their subsequent band camps. David has truly made me proud. (: Hopefully the third generation owner will take care of them too.
  11. Um hey. So last entry, I was high on Vyvanse and getting ready for the end of my semester. Well, yesterday was my last exam, and it's summer already! That finals week was barely anything, it felt like. Now I have hardly anything until mid-August. I'll take it.

    More or less spontaneously, one of my roommates invited me to roadtrip with her and one of her friends next week up to Colorado. We are stopping in St. Louis for a night to go to a baseball game (?) and see the arch, and then we are camping about 40 minutes outside of the city. Then we're driving up to Colorado and staying with one of my other roommate's older sister, who lives out in Boulder. In Colorado (which it may be snowing, lol shit) we'll be hiking and finding stuff to do. On the way back, we're stopping in Tennessee. In total it should be a 10 day trip, so I'm excited. This is the longest drive I'll have made since my family moved my sister out to Texas ten years ago. About 1500 miles (~2400 km, UK folks) there, and then 1500 back. Should be a good time, right?

    Anyway, other than that, I've been playing Pokémon Heartgold and I've really enjoyed it a lot. I didn't know what to think of second gen (I really don't think I'll actually play Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald or Diamond/Pearl/Platinum ever) so it's been really cool. My team for the time being is: Quilava (starter), Ampharos, Quagsire lol, Murkrow (a puppying bitch and a half to capture), and Eevee, who I plan to evolve into Espeon. I was getting along just fine with Quilava, Ampharos and Quagsire, but the lack of a flying pokemon was becoming a little tolling without the use of Fly. Also have you guys played the game corner game in this game? The sudoku/minesweeper game? So puppying addicting. I'm trying to get 10k coins for Thunderbolt and it's taking a while, but at least it's not slots or buying a bunch of coins. I feel like I actually earn the coins, you know? It's a cool idea.

    That's it for now, I probably won't update for a few weeks after the trip (in which I hope nothing bad happens) and I won't be gaming too much. :>
  12. So more or less spontaneously I decided that I owed myself a purchase of a video game, so I ordered one that I'd been itching to buy probably since the time of its release in 2010. Really what prompted me to make the purchase was my boyfriend making me realize that the last game I bought was SSBB, and that was jointly with my brother back in...what, 2009 when it came out? Then, as I thought harder about it, I honestly don't know the last game I've purchased alone, since new games are a rare thing for me and they've always been gifts. I also like borrowing games, and I'm not a scummy friend that keeps them forever. Anyway, this game, Super Mario Galaxy 2, was kind of a rare thing for me to find someone to borrow from since I don't know many people here in college that have Wiis...well, about none actually.

    I guess I'll preface it with the difficulty I faced in finding this game. A few months ago, while I was either in Target or Walmart (could have possibly been late last year), I was shopping for whatever reason and decided to see if the price of this game had dropped since it was a few years old now. The answer was no. It is still a $50 game, new, and I suppose that's due to the positive ratings it has garnered. Used, I could probably find a little less (like at GameStop) but still quite an expensive game, when you think that Super Mario Galaxy (1) can be found for $20 and it was fantastic and is even like, a collector's edition or whatever. When I finally made the decision that I was going to purchase SMG2, it was no longer in stores like Walmart or Target. I ended up going to Amazon and buying it for a little less than $40 for a very good quality used game. Given the prior information, I think I actually made a smart move here.

    Now I'm gong to gush why I love Super Mario Galaxy.

    In all honesty, I 100%'d the first game just last year - After being stuck at 116 stars for about 4 years, I got all 120 stars, with ones like "Luigi's Purple Coins" taking me probably about 60-70 tries, Melty Molten Galaxy's Daredevil Run taking me possibly even more tries to get...while there are a lot of easy parts of this game (some would complain too easy, while I'm a mediocre skilled player) there were certainly some stars that made me want to scream (which I did) and rip my hair out (which I did not). The satisfaction of earning each one, though, in a nostalgic SM64 manner, is what really me drew in though. Then I found out that after earning 120, you could use Luigi to earn 240, and I snorted and shut off the Wii and went on with my life. Yeah, puppy that.

    It's a pretty game. It's a very bright game. While a game like Skyward Sword could also fall under that category, SS tries to make a play on a different art style, with its impressionistic backdrops and whatever. SMG (and SMG2, to some degree) feels like an updated SM64. Mario is not a blocky polygon. Stars are not yellow, but truly golden and shiny like you wanted them to be. It's "glowy" too - there are several instances of "cosmic" influences showing through. It's definitely Mario in space.

    Mario in space to the extent of really playing with some game physics. I mean, the gravity in these games is unbelievable sometimes. You can find a small planet, do a long jump, and make 2-3 orbits around the planet before it finally pulls you back in. You can even orbit around, get caught in the gravity of another planet, and start orbiting that one, then return to the original planet. I probably spent 20 minutes laughing at this (might have been drunk and found it extremely amusing) on the first level on SMG2. It is seriously a lot of fun.

    I could gush about the music for probably a really long time, but I'll leave it at this. This soundtrack (other than the Zelda series) is probably the most memorable for me. It is also puppying orchestrated and it's brilliant, legendary, and really plays on your heart strings. It's nostalgic and just wonderful. Even SMG2 somehow managed to BUILD upon some of the tracks from SMG, like made them better. I don't know how. But it is fantastic and I am going to shamelessly download all of it.

    I'm going to point out some things that I did and did not like about SMG2. Or maybe some contrasting things that I had hoped would be better.

    SMG2 has a lot of puppying Galaxies. If you're not familiar, they use this word kind of weirdly - I feel like it should be Planets<Worlds/Solar Systems lol<Galaxies. But instead it's Planets<Galaxies<Worlds. While SMG used different parts of the Comet Observatory to access different galaxies (and made it rewarding when you "restored power" to them, very much resembling the Castle in SM64), SMG2 visually looks like a Super Mario game with the "World Map." So SMG2 has 7 "Worlds", each with about 7 Galaxies. I thought this was okay. It did make returning to past Worlds easier, but it also made the Galaxies so much more...meh. Like they all started blending together because of how indistinct they were.

    You even start typing a word a lot and it starts looking weird to you? That's what's happening to "galaxy" right now lol.

    Anyway, my main point with the Galaxy thing - that there being a lot of them in SMG2 - meant that there are less stars to disperse among the Galaxies. Therefore, by logic, less of the Galaxy needs to be explored, and so the Galaxies are smaller. They're less of the mini-universes that you step into. Maybe one, two regular stars, a comet star, and you're done. Or maybe a hidden star, if you're lucky. I personally enjoyed having to find 5-7 stars in each Galaxy in SMG, and suddenly to be cut short like that...I don't know. I recognized and appreciated each Galaxy more in SMG because I saw a lot of it. SMG2, I knocked out 50-60 stars in one day and I don't really remember the process of me getting there. It went by too quickly.

    SMG2 does have redeeming qualities, though. For one, motherpuppying Yoshi being around on some levels. Luigi as well from the get-go, and eventually unlockable at the end of the game. There are some cute-as-shit characters in the game too - Jibberjays, adorable and excitable parrots; pink Bob-omb Buddies from SM64; and Whittles, cute wooden things that make very primitive but amusing statements. The new powerups are also surprisingly not half-assed - Cloud Mario is very fun, while Rock Mario can get a little irritating. I kind of missed Ice Mario (making ice platforms by jumping on water spouts was a super creative idea in the last game) and Flying Mario, but that's probably just more SM64 nostalgia talking. Speaking of which, my discovery of Throwback Galaxy (basically an updated Whomp's Fortress from SM64) got me so excited I spent quite some time examining every inch of the level.

    Furthermore, the utility of Coins - instead of Star Bits taking the role of the main currency, Coins are used for Luma-transforming instead of a "high score" for an individual star that no one cares about. Comet Medals are also a neat idea - in the previous game, Comet stars only appeared after the arrival of the Comet Luma, but now Comets will appear given if you find and collect and complete a Galaxy's star with the Comet Medal. Some of them are tricky to find and collect and it is very easy to go through a level normally without even seeing it.

    From what I've seen so far, and I'm at 104/120 stars for the moment, the Comet stars aren't nearly as difficult as the previous game. For example, there have been several instances where you need the 100 Purple Coins - but not every single one, as there are 110 total. It gives the player a little slack on those more unforgivable circumstances. Even the fact that the Co-Star Luma (aka Player 2) can pick up Purple Coins makes the Comet Stars significantly easier. Then again, I haven't raged over this game's version of Luigi's Purple Coins, so we'll see how I feel in a week.

    Since this review is getting kind of long lol, I'll sum it up a bit. SMG2 is sort of like the Majora's Mask to Ocarina of Time. Same game engine, sort of the same goal, but quite different on a lot of things. I've been enjoying myself so far and from what it looks like, I might be getting the 242 stars in this game (since it seems like part 2 isn't entirely a repeat of the first half). SMG/SMG2 are really really great games, if you're truly a Nintendo fan at heart - so much so that I don't think I can enjoy a sidescrolling Mario game again because it's not 3D. Not to say those game aren't good, but one you get used to the liberty of exploration of these games, it's hard to go back to that. I'm happy to say that SMG2 surprised me in ways that I wasn't expecting, and I'm glad it didn't turn out to be an extended version of its predecessor.
  13. Hey folks, thought I'd give another go at writing some more blogs on my non-Internet life. That sounds like I'm about to tell you about where my life's been in the past 6+ months, but that's a long story for another day and another time. To be honest, I was rereading my review on Super Mario Galaxy 2, and was inspired to write again on more vidya. I feel like I wrote a decent review and (some) of you enjoyed it, so here goes.

    As I mentioned in the "What Game Are You Playing Currently?" thread, I just purchased the Metroid Prime Trilogy from my local GameStop the other day. Considering it's three full-length games, I wasn't too worried about the price tag of $50. Additionally, because I am planning on playing all three of them in succession while I finish up summer classes, I have deemed this the summer of Metroid.

    Like I did before with SMG/SMG2, I'm gonna go into some background with my experiences with the Metroid series. Which, considering my fondness for the character of Samus Aran, is surprisingly little. I think I'll also go into some gender stuff too - what it means for me, personally, to be a female playing a kickass female character - but not overly so. But, I think you guys will find it interesting at least.

    My first Metroid game was on the GameBoy Color, Metroid Fusion. I've actually never completed this game, though I do remember enjoying it when I was younger. It is a sidescroller, as all classic Metroid games are, and I remember not really understanding how to use the map to my advantage to beat the game. Obviously, this is an obstacle that one overcomes with maturity, and I'm sure I'd have no problem going back now and finishing it. However, I remember loving the different suits that Samus would upgrade to, and this is something I'm even fangirling about in Prime. Why? Because I like the swag. It means I'm a badass. You don't want to know how much time I've spent changing different skins in Borderlands 2.

    Before I even played Fusion, though, I had my experience with Super Smash Bros, where of course, Samus was one of the original 8 smashers. Yes, this is where I'm gonna get into the whole girl thing. Because I didn't know, when I was a kid, that Samus was a gal. So you can imagine my surprise when I was going through that random character bio portion of SSB one day, and I see that the game refers to her as a "she." And that was it. This character, although her jump kind of sucks and she's sluggish as hell, is super cool. Don't get me wrong, though. Kirby was my main in SSB and will forever be.

    So let's talk about the girl gamer thing, because it's inevitable at this point and I've already talked about with some of you guys at different points, on IRC, skype, whatever. I'll go ahead and put out the idea that if you'd ever met me in real life, after talking to me for a few minutes, you might get that I'm a bit of a geek but not a gamer, per se. We all know the girl gamer stereotype. I do not match this description physically, whether you're thinking about girls who dress in nerdy t-shirts or the gamer grills on Twitch. I used to be subscribed to the r/girlgamers subreddit, but those girls are so entitled while being simultaneously offended that I seriously could not handle it. Like, games are not worth getting so caught up over, unless it's a huge freakin' deal to your identity. You guys know me, and you know that I am a generally positive, chill person. I could be one of those gamer grrrls and I could embrace that stereotype, with all its prejudice and negative connotations, but I really don't want to because I have more interests than that. The problem is, with the stereotype, is that female gamers are polarized. They're either extremely into it and viewed as, I don't know, unlikeable? Unattractive? Awkward? Or they're airheads "pretending" to fit in. So when it comes down to me, someone who's kind of in the middle, I don't get the credit for being genuinely knowledgeable and skilled, while being treated like an airhead (even if jokingly). I don't think I can ever play online with a headset, or even broadcast my playing out of ridicule. To be honest, it sucks sometimes, because even after four years at college, I have yet to meet someone else that is like me. This is how I feel, and I'm not looking to argue with anyone on the point. It's just how it is for me.

    Back to Metroid, you can see why I think Samus is a pretty cool chick. She was a badass before she was ever put in a categorical gender, which is something that nobody gets, ever. For the record, that one Metroid game that didn't come out in 2010 doesn't exist. But other than just being female, this is why she's top ten in my book.

    I'm a person that appreciates and admires physical prowess. Samus wear this Power Suit, right, in all its varieties. Has anyone else ever actually looked at this thing? Because I gloss over it all the time. This thing is a work of art. It makes her look athletic (Those shoulders?!) strong, not to be puppyed with. As well as her helmet, which stares into your soul. Again, I'm fangirling, if it's not obvious.

    She's a bounty hunter. Please, insert "independent female character" trope here. While I (admittedly) buy into the whole "puppy yeah, independent women!" thing, that's not really the reason why the bounty hunter thing is likable. Being a bounty hunter allows Samus to be a silent protagonist (2010 Samus doesn't exist, remember). She's the Link of the Metroid world. Silent, deadly, and curious. And that's something I'm coming to terms with in Prime.

    Prime...is a difficult game, but a beautiful one. I am often surprised that it is a 12 year old game, because it works so fluidly (though I guess perhaps the port to the Wii in 2009 helped a bit). The Tallon IV world is haunting and silent, for the most part. Though the game does offer music, it is merely repetitive and ambient, which is appropriate for an exploration game. I wouldn't want something like music to overpower the experience. The game is also strangely lonely; I forget that as a bounty hunter, Samus rarely has allies. Another thing that adds to the solitude is the storytelling device, which is mainly scanning and very short cutscenes with no dialogue. The scanning tells of the Chozo who once lived in Tallon IV, and the logs of the Space Pirates. While I admire the effort that the writers put into both types of dialogue, the Space Pirate logs tend to be very technically termed, with a lot of jargon that I tend to glaze over. But it's always fun to see the Pirates refer to Samus as "the Hunter" and acknowledge their inferior technology to hers. Gosh, I love space stuff. Sci fi is so great.

    I honestly was not expecting so much backtracking and lack of direction in a game. I mentioned this is in the thread, but I suppose I've been playing linear games for so long, that finding my way around this mammoth of an overworld is confusing and time consuming. I don't want to know how many times I've made unnecessary loops in the Magmoor Caverns to the Phendrana Drifts. But the exploring is enjoyable for me, as are the puzzles. One thing I don't like, however, is how easily the enemies respawn. Like, holy shit. Can we please just chill out a bit. Though I am getting closer to the end of the game, I'm pretty sick of fighting Space Pirates, with the puppying thermal visor on. That shit is cray.

    I am enjoying it so far, and I'm glad it's a lot different than I was expecting it to be. I have played a bit of Corruption (Prime 3) back in the dat, but I know virtually nothing of Prime 2: Echoes, so I'm excited to see where the trilogy is going. But first, gotta finish the rest of this game and get good at the wonky controls.

    Might come back and edit this later to add more thoughts, like when I'm at the end of the game. Or even when I've played some of the other two. But, this is it for now. Hope you enjoyed the read.
  14. Oh man, I just realized how much more I can make my chair comfortable by adding one of the extra pillows from my bed. Yes, this is good. I am in a good place to write.

    So about two hours ago (puppy, it's already been two hours) I took about 30mg of Vyvanse, aka an alternative to adderall. I am chill right now. Like very focused, but I am really feeling good. Happy, even, and I know that I have work to do. I thought I would blog it up so I could get into the writing mood before I get into doing my schoolwork. I am essentially LL in the Boston thread lol.

    But this is a different high than what I was expecting. While I've taken a large number of 5 hour energies in my life, they haven't given my the focus that I'm experiencing right now. 5 hour energy is a caffeine rush. This is like, alternative, executive thinking. I won't rant into it too much longer because I know how that gets irritating.

    It's the end of the semester for me, and I have two more days of class - tomorrow and Monday. It's nice because for once, I'm not particularly stressed (yet) about my finals. I have a short paper that I need to finish up for tomorrow and a large research project (almost like a weird annotated bibliography) due Monday night. I can definitely do it, you know? This whole week has been finishing up projects and whatever. I've been accomplishing things and relaxing and even working out. Yeah. Good vibes.

    This week I haven't been playing too much Roller Coaster Tycoon. Actually, I've been spending my evenings watching streams on Twitch, particularly Trihex, a Super Mario World 2 (Yoshi's Island) streamer. He is godlike at that game. Like takes times to warm up his fingers before he streams. It is unreal. I love that game too, so when he's completing it 100% in under three hours (yeah 100/100 on every single level and bonus levels) it kind of blows my mind, a lot. Great game though.

    Last night I played Skyward Sword after putting off Eldin Volcano for a few days. Maybe it's my dislike of the physical region (it is admittedly a little mazelike to me) but I forgot how short it was. Like, after you get into the actual Earth Temple, there's one main puzzle and you're at the boss. Such a contrast to the Sky Temple, which was a legitimately lengthy dungeon. I was pleased with how quickly I remembered what to do in the Eldin region so quickly. Of course, now I'm in Lanayru and I am dealing with the puppying quicksand, but it'll be okay when I get to the Temple of Time. I think that's what it is. I get my location lore mixed up between SS and TP, especially since I played TP last.

    Lastly, I am considering picking up Pokemon Heartgold. I never played generation 2 (save for a few feeble attempts on the puppying online playr.org emulator that puppyed up my really good Seasons file) and after watching another streamer, werster, try to do some speedruns of gold last night and the night before, I'm really excited to give it a try. Unfortunately, the cartridge I was going to use currently has a bunch of Cole's good pokemon and a 137 hour file that his roommate has. Like shit, I can't just throw that away. Like a level 100 metagross and some other shit in there. We tried to transfer the pokemon wirelessly to my firered game, but firered is a GBA game so that didn't work. Cole is considering Black or White 2 just so we can transfer it, plus Black/White are pretty good games. I enjoyed them, anyway. We'll see how X and Y come out too, eh?

    And then there's the question of buying SMG2. I'm still deciding on it. Like I know I will love it. I just am trying not to spend too much money on things that I don't need right now. Like I need a new watch because my broke a few weeks ago and I'm going nuts because I depend on that thing all the time, literally time. It's a $40 watch. About the same price as the game. Meh.

    So this summer is coming up soon, and I'm pretty excited. I will be getting in my gaming fill, as well as have time to train for triathlons like I have been and just be outside a lot. I'm also working some, as a tutor, and hopefully I'll get enough hours so I will be able to save a lot before I graduate next year. I'm ready for vacation, really. I'm burned out from school and next year with student teaching (I'm an education major) will be my most demanding year yet. So I might as well enjoy it while I can.

    Anyway, that's my update with a little personal touch to it. Can I just say I've never typed so fast in my life? This Vyvanse stuff is ridiculous.
  15. Hey ya'll. So I haven't been up to much as of these past few days, however, I spent a whopping 7 hours playing the first Roller Coaster Tycoon (think windows 98) on Cole's laptop today. Yeah. I can take a break from that game for a little while, even though I would like to get through all the scenarios.

    Cole's laptop has a lot more power than my shitty 2009 macbook does, and can even run Roller Coaster Tycoon (1) on it, although it did take a lot of work making it compatible. His pc is also capable of streaming, so today I set up Xsplit and streamed some RCT for about an hour on Twitch. Some people that I know on Twitch were nice enough to drop by and say hay, and Necropolis even came to watch for a bit. So shout out to him. :>

    Anyway, with that in mind, I plan on streaming more often now when I do have access to Cole's computer lol. If he lets me mooch of of him that much, you know. You guys should come hang out: http://www.twitch.tv/kelpsey

    And that's it for now. I started a Skyward Sword file last night but ended up losing a good 40 minutes of the file due to my wii shutting off and other dumb things. Oh well. I'll get back to that once I'm done being frustrated with it lol.

  16. 4/11/2013

    By Cirt,

    Well, here goes nothing. I was looking at everyone else's blogs and thought they put like, oh, 400x more effort than I would ever put into my first post. But anyway. I do think this is a cool idea, since I've been meaning to be a little more thorough with what I do here around the forums, and with gaming in general, and so picking the most self-absorbed way to do it would clearly be the easiest method.

    I picked "prime time of your life" as my blog title because I'm listening to daft punk (Alive 2007 ofc) and that was the song that was on. I'll get around to changing that later, if I can.

    Today I got LL's old 3DS in the mail today, which Cole and I jointly paid for. I am like 95% sure everyone has heard of Cole, but he is my boyfriend of some time now, like over a year and some months. He's a cool guy and knows I'm involved with this site and if you're lucky you might see him on IRC some time. It's rare. He's alright.

    But, back to the 3DS. Reeeeally puppying cool system. I am really glad we got it. I got on the internet with it (though it loads slow as shite) and was like, wow. This is it, this is the future. I had that feeling of when I held my indigo GameBoy color in like 1998 and thinking that it was the coolest thing.

    LL was cool enough to let me borrow PM: Sticker Star, so I spent a while playing that. It's a cute game, because all Paper Marios are cute to some degree. Except where the hell are my badges and leveling system? I was kind of bummed out on that, and as LL phrased it, "stressed out" by finding stickers just to battle. It seems a little constricting to rely solely on the stickers, and while I do think it is a cool concept, the game is also a lot trickier and requires poking and prodding a lot more. I also miss having a party, and this uh, Kersti character is a bit too intense for me. I am mixed on the game at the moment, but I am also on world 1-6 so we'll see.

    Anyway, I'm hoping I will give this blog a little more attention, since my tumblr has come to a near standstill and I miss doing some writing and reflecting. I think I'll mainly cover what I've been up to recently, probably music-wise and gaming-wise, since my daily life isn't much more than exercising, college, work, and eating. lol. Props to Tappy for giving us this cool new site feature.
  17. So, to kind of give an idea of what I have to do I will summarize a few things. A query is generally the term used when you send an inquiry via email or snailmail to an agent in hopes of representing your book. These can consist of several different things based on the requirements of the agent in question. Most will include the following:
    -Query Letter
    A query letter is usually a one page long summary of what's going on with you and your novel. It's formatted so the first part is the one line hooker you would find on the back of a book, a paragraph summary like on the back of a book, a very brief bio of yourself, and contact information.
    -One to Two page summary of plot
    Self explanatory. This is a one or two page summary of your book, omitting no spoilers, so that they can have an idea of what your entire story is. This one isn't as common a requirement.
    -A sample.
    Each agent requires different lengths. Most will ask you to send the first ten pages of your document while some will ask for three pages and I've even had some ask for the first fifty pages. They will never have you send out your full novel without requesting it because they are interested.

    Most times I will have to edit the query letter depending on the agent. So each inquiry usually takes something about ten to twenty minutes once I find their site. I had a website that gave off a little over a hundred names, but after time about a fourth were not able to be submitted to anymore due to leaving or being full. So since I started submitting in april I have sent at least one hundred letters. I understand the process is long and hard, even JK rowling had hundreds upon hundreds of query letters she had to send out for harry potter but it's kind of frustrating when I don't know how to really find more agents. Not to mention I have been told several times that my work is promising but they don't want to deal with any unpublished authors because of the high risk. Currently I'm just sitting on writers digest and whenever they post about a new agent I will submit to them(assuming they deal with fantasy). This is slow though since only one comes up about every week. It's kind of frustrating, but oh well. I just keep pushing onward.
  18. When I was young I was told that, being of simple mind and dull wit, the status quo would decide my role in life. However, I doubted her credibility, considering how foolish she appeared, using her finger and her thumb to form the shape of an L on her forehead.

    Time moves on at it's own pace; and, dropped into adulthood, I took to independence excitedly. I committed myself to living by my own philosophy that life is best spent having fun, and that, while academic pursuits are worthwhile, a strong character is more valuable.

    There is so much to take in and so many possibilities in the world; and so it doesn't seem unfitting to me to live outside of traditional values. Without first experiencing something, you can get no measure of it's worth. Without expressing the beauty of your soul, you can't expect others to appreciate it.

    Have faith in your passions, and express them by having fun and enjoying your life in whatever way you see fit. Take what you love, and find a compromise whereby you can live your own way, despite the constraints of society. Jump at every opportunity and follow your instincts, because to be something unique you have to push the boundaries.



  19. "It's JIF, not GIF"

    By Teto,

    Short story. Warsaw is the capital of Poland, and through it runs a major river of Poland; the Vistula. We call them Warsaw and the Vistula, but in Poland they're, phonetically "Varshava" and the "Veeswa". That's what they call them. We don't, though; we anglicised it and made it our own. As far as we're concerned the Polish can call them whatever the hell they like, but we call them Warsaw and the Vistula, and that isn't changing.

    The founder of Warsaw stood on a hill somewhere near a trade village next to a large river, and said "This town will henceforth take on the name Varshava, until the end of days."
    But we call it Warsaw.