I keep thinking to myself that I can't possibly be playing Prototype. This must be some game I dreamed up, because it can't honestly exist.

It's not to say that it's perfect. It's very, very, very  not perfect. It has a lot of flaws. The controls, the story, etc. But on some other level, it's some weird mix of things that really shouldn't be possible to make into a game, all of which I desperately want in every game I ever play.

Hell. The main character is a sociopath who eats people. That's not a spoiler. That's... that's the opening. That's the game's concept. It only gets worse from there.

(No I seriously never mention inFamous during this, but I do like Prototype, so if you intend on forcing the comparison, don't bother)

( NOW there are spoilers )

You know, completely unrelated to Prototype, every time I see this magazine page about Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep I get kind of happy. It's just this sort of weird joy, and it's because every part of that page is some odd kind of amazing.

My thoughts on the whole health care issue. Summed up by delicious copypasta:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US department of agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issued by the federal reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.

Then, after spending the day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the department of labor and the occupational safety and health administration, I drive back to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and the fire marshall's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log onto the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.


I'm sure a lot of you have read that already but good copypasta deserves a repost or too. Or maybe this says it pretty good too.

This is your non-fandomy, non-self-pitying post for the month.

Seem to be having some trouble deciding on vg_best samples, so here's a poll. >>

Pick as few or as many of them as you like, I just want to get an idea on which people who aren't me like best. Also as various people can attest to I'm really indecisive when it comes to picking what icons I think are best for things.


( poll under the cut! )

pedophile: I'D HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR SHIT
pedophile: I'M DONE
pedophile: FUCKING DONE
pedophile: YOU HEAR ME
pedophile: AND YOU KNOW WHAT?
pedophile: FUCK YOUNGLINGS!

pedophile: FUCK YOUNGLINGS!

pedophile: FUCK YOUNGLINGS!

『the STRONG and weak point icon-meme』

I am not just totally doing memes lately! I mean, I am. But! >>

So I discovered tonight if I do things then say it's my birthday I get off free, so I'm using that defense here because it only works for 24 hours.

Okay, so maybe it's technically october 12th already, but in honor of what day it was a few hours ago, here's a fantastic article.

FTA: "Every person coming to Washington—whether they are religious or not—does share one faith, and that is faith in America. We can and must do better. As the progress of history has shown, Americans will prove themselves able to see beyond religion-based bigotry to the promises of equal treatment for all. Those who use religion-based bigotry to persecute and discriminate against LGBT people are on the wrong side of history, just as they were with slavery, interracial marriage, the treatment of women, and so many other issues."

I um think I have something in my eye. *sniff* >>

I don't know what's the matter with me most days. I'm pretty sure I've stopped trying. Trying at what? Well, everything that really matters. I feel like once I find happiness, equilibrium will follow, or once I find equilibrium, happiness will follow... but all I've found lately is that I'm a pretty stupid, lazy person when I stop caring about anything.

There's a very large, stupid siamese on my lap and he's drooling on me a bit. Trying to play keepaway with my booze from his face isn't very fun. I'd like to try more intoxicated gaming, but my options without a ps2 are fairly limited.

So here, have a meme!

the ~mirror-me~ meme


While I try to chase the beast out of my lap. There isn't room, Simon!

♔ your icons through the years ♔
The icon meme where you can show how much you improved as a maker.

(My thread - at least I'm pretty sure I'm not getting worse lol?)


Oh, and I changed my display name a bit back. I want to keep this as my display name for a really long time again, because it's the sort of joke that just keeps on giving.

I have finally moved out of 2006 and taken the step into the unknown, the scary, and the slightly less flexible (insert flexisquares pun here) than I would prefer to work with - s2. Behold, I have finally made a real, working, personal journal layout in it! One that I'm even willing to use myself. In honor of such an esteemed occasion I even decided to put some real effort into trying something new with the entry layout. I've got userpics on the left! A subject/date combination I've never worn smooth and that I didn't even copy from more creative people!

And you don't even want to know what it took to make it work in internet explorer even as poorly as it does. Let me assure you it was nothing less than a blood sacrifice. If you are the sort who looks at other's code, I implore you not to think less of me, but rather of IE, if you see the silly nonsense gibberish classes that I've put in there. Believe it or not, those are actually recognized by IE. I know those aren't real css, I swear, but writing things IE will accept is a bit like talking to a senile, horribly out of the loop person who will not refer to things with their correct names - you eventually start calling things the silly gibberish terms they're using because it's just easier to be understood with gibberish.

Line for contemplating my blatant shallowness in making a layout for a game not even yet out begins in the comments.

From Cloud Strife's wiki article - see if you can spot the thing that had me laughing for three minutes straight:





And today's featured article is twewy! fuck yeah twewy.


Sorry I haven't been replying to people's comments to me or posts much lately on LJ. My ability to focus on things for more than a few minutes is pretty shot, and I've been available less than usual (even if I leave aim on while I'm out these days) because the internet has just actually been really making me feel like shit. :') And I really am not enjoying that because internet should be happy fun escape, and it's not the fault of anyone I haven't replied to here because right now LJ is probably the only place where someone hasn't seriously upset me lately.
/serious intrusion to hilarity

Yes, I know, it would be better if I went to the trouble of actually giving her the right clothes rather than just shooping it so half-assedly, but the point is the face, really.

( You know you want to see what new travesty I've made in photoshop )

I'm sorry I haven't posted in forever, but I feel somewhat in limbo lately. Without a job or school I don't have a lot of things really "anchoring" me, and my interests seem to change from day to day too. I'm trying to look for something to really feel excited about, but it's not working so well. I got into Kuroshitsuji briefly, but it's short enough to read it all in a few days, and the fandom has disappointed me so I don't really feel like I have much to do there. I started rereading a lot of my favourite books, but since I packed up about half of my collection the first time I almost moved out, that didn't take too long either.

The only RPs anyone's running irl are all a little boring, because it doesn't matter whether a GM is good when your fellow players don't have any backstory or voices to their characters and thus couldn't care less about yours. I have to wonder how any of them enjoy it, because it just must feel like an mmo to them or something. I tend to recycle characters from dead online oc games as a result, because it's not worth spending days coming up with someone interesting to waste on no one caring. But the only thing they all want to do is upstage each other, and sadly only a few of my characters are really written as the sort of flamboyant attention whores that can keep up with that - and I genuinely don't feel like being mean enough to always play Ashlea, Samail, or Anya just for the sake of a pissing contest. When your fellow players come up to you and say "I'm so sorry for walking all over you there, you know I didn't mean to right?" after a session where you though you got a lot done and your character got to speak their mind and reveal a little about themselves to the other characters, you know something is wrong. They'll try to argue about who would be the main character if it was a novel, and I just end up rolling my eyes because the GM and I have the most incredible plot planned that involves my character and I have to wonder if they'll even notice when it happens, as it's supposed to be something of a major event in the story. I'm known for my lack of subtlety in online RPs - that I can be subtle enough to be ignored completely in tabletops is a little annoying. I was terrified I had already given away what was to happen, then people admitted they hadn't even noticed the private scene that had gone on with my character. It's still kind of a shock to realize that people are genuinely not paying attention to what the other characters are doing, or even caring! Even when it could potentially seriously affect theirs!

As far as online RPs, I'm ridiculously psyched about fromrapture. Hell, I'm just psyched at the idea of getting to play with people who notice that I'm playing. I should probably get to working on apps, but I'm still trying to make up my mind who to take.

And speaking of communities, would people please go nominate at vgbest? The anime one got like ten times as many nominations. I'm not asking for people to nominate me, I mean other people actually. I feel kind of weird having nominated so many people as it is, but there are categories with no one there. Maybe it's arrogant but I just think it'd be more fun to see my name up there against way more people. It makes victories more epic, and losses more understandable. >> And it just seems like right now it has to represent such a small cross-section of iconists.


Also, dyed my hair red. I posted the photos at twitter already, but here they are again. 1 & 2 They're with a borrowed camera, since I haven't bought a replacement charger yet for mine. That's why they're all fuzzy - if the camera is less than a pound I just don't know what to do with it. Mine is nearly 2lbs with the lens on, and I've gotten so used to that weight that I just can't hold a little point and click steady anymore. =/

( fake cut to art )

No previews for you. One of I've posted here before. Feeling kind of lazy and a little tired and not like bothering with more bells and whistles than that.

Also, icon post on hanzaisha.

As always, please comment on the respective post of the actual thing posted.


I've got a sore throat, but no congestion. Worried it might be strep again. I think I'd take pig flu over strep again.

( My thoughts on the AT&T /b/ debacle, in full )
I HAVE NO REGRETS.

Except for the bacon. I shoudn't have eaten that, it looked a little raw. But none about this.

Anyone who knows me well enough knows that there's an easy way to make me see red and try to punch you in the face, and it's the old "talent" vs "skill" argument. I hear a lot the idea that art is something you have or you don't, and that no amount of study will change that.

And I have somewhat personal reasons for hating this reasoning, because, well. It's what kept me from drawing even childish drawings for most of my life, and the thing that made me too nervous to commit to art as a career even after I realized that I loved it more than any other field. I had a lot of fine motor problems growing up, and as a result to this day my handwriting is still absolutely unreadable. I was told a lot that if I couldn't colour inside the lines, that obviously, the crayons weren't for me. I hated colouring books with a passion born only of pure unfiltered spite.

The truth is, some people have a predisposition towards skill with art the same way some people are just plain better at math, or sports, or writing. Some people learn faster, start at a higher level. But to claim that art is a field completely separate from all others, where only those with an inborn gift can even attempt it, is just plain ludicrous. It's insulting, honestly.

If you don't agree with me on this, that's fine, but I'm still waiting to hear a good reason that I could start off this fucking bad and get better. If anyone's a candidate for "no goddamn talent," I'd say 13-year-old me was pretty much that. And even if your argument is that I'm not very good now - I know I'm not - I'm still miles above most of the people who tell me they've quit, citing a lack of talent as the problem. And, ironically, I'm still a bit above plenty of people who argue that talent is fucking magic, and that they've got the goddamn gift.

All I see in this argument, no matter what, are either elitists trying to hold their throne of art away from the burgeois, or defeated fatalists looking for an excuse for their own lack of dedication.

Sometimes you get these pictures you start for no real reason at all except to take your mind off of other things. And then sometimes they just turn out right. Every part of them can be something you're completely unfamiliar with, you can mess up the rhythm you usually use, do things that you usually fail, and somehow they'll just work despite that, and work well.



(comments disabled because I like keeping them on the art post itself)

Also! Sign-ups are open at vgames_lims!

Please spread the word, and join. It's fun, fabulous prizes, and um... we have fun variety of things, it isn't just "icon whatever you want" and everyone does ff or persona games and you're left high and dry with your strange love of rabbids or zombies. =D Take a look at past themes if you're curious what kind of things to expect.

So I just bought another game from Square-Enix that I'd already bought from them ten years ago. And this one wasn't even retranslated, sadly.

But I think the important part of this story is that this guy are sick on my PSP legally now, and I can actually give other people FFVII without the risk of them ruining my precious baby's disks.

No, wait. The important part of this story is obviously that I defiled some poor AC screencap to make Cloud crossdress. Yeah.



All I can say is, if I were the Don, I'd have chosen Miss Cloud too. Sorry Aeris, Tifa - it's not to say that he's prettier than you, but, well, he can rock that tall, strong girl-with-a-sword look while being all uncomfortable in his lacy underthings. Come on.

THE ANONYMOUS WRITING FEEDBACK MEME

I'm sure people know I'm hilariously insecure about my writing. There's so many amazing writers online, and it's so weird to go from being the best writer in any literature class to being... lol, barely worth reading by online standards. And it doesn't help that I don't really write much, or particularly long things. Or things with an actual plot.

But um! Criticisms would be nice, since it's kind of hard to get those online sometimes. Or compliments, idk, whatever really. =)
(But if no one replies I'll feel awful so someone has to!)

powercorrupts: AC wasn't any fun. You knew Cloud was going to live. It's okay when you know Sora will live in Kingdom Hearts. It's Disney. Of course he will.
beasts: ... sob
beasts: kitase kh
beasts: can't
powercorrupts: ...
powercorrupts: that would be awful
beasts: unthink
powercorrupts: it wouldn't be properly disney
powercorrupts: =(
powercorrupts: It would be all about the mindfuck
powercorrupts: and the protagonist wouldn't know who htye were
powercorrupts: and...
powercorrupts: god you'd play as... Roxas. Or the Riku Replica
powercorrupts: and halfway through the game
powercorrupts: find out that you're not the real one
beasts: SOBBBB
powercorrupts: ... I think I'm onto something
beasts: me too

Interested in roleplaying, but want to skip the ooc drama, or afraid to join a group full of people you don't know? Or just looking for something new?

leadfield is a month-long anonymous original character RP, and as we're gearing up to start, more players will only make things merrier. Don't let the anonymous part scare you - it actually really makes it a lot of fun. You may not know who you're threading with, but it removes a lot of fear that people are just judging you for the things you always do, and the mystery only makes the other characters more interesting and novel. xD


leadfield_ooc has all the relevant information. The setting is sci-fi, with a delicious mecha flavour.




(PS app someone with pink,red, or orange hair. We have a streak going!)
I keep thinking I should stop using this icon then I realize that that's nonsense and I should use it forever. No this is not a gip, I'm making this post to pimp a game for my dear friend, not to post this icon some more. >> What would make you think that?