Would you believe this was actually supposed to be short?
Yes, it's that time again! Time for speak of my love of two incredibly nerdy things! Well, three if you count anime watching. Which I probably should. No, wait, four! There always has to be a Pokemon update!
TUMBLR:
I've been a little afk from tumblr recently because I've been on an anime-watching binge, but I'm slowly getting into the habit again. I've given up trying to keep up with the Madoka Magica section, because tumblr's limit is way less than what Pixiv posts every day (even if I'm only posting the really pretty stuff!) so I'm just going to be more haphazard about it now. But I have been posting on girlsofmagic @tumblr fairly frequently again.
FARMVILLE:
I tried to stop playing so much, but Zynga really has this game's addictive qualities down to a science. Every few days there's something new (or something being announced/teased--I just want the English countryside stuff already! Let me breed my sheep already, Zynga! Give me a second farm area!), something new to collect or do, something that makes it exciting again. And, by the time you're getting tired of the previous round (I was so sick of Valentines by the end), they're phasing it out and you're on to the next thing! (Though, I think they put collecting Valentines and collecting Gold Pieces a little too close together, can we hold off on that for about a month or so now?)
Even if it's something you can accomplish in a day (I had completed both expansions on my duck pond pretty much instantly because of all the watering cans and shovels flying around, plus I have a stockpile of 200+ special deliveries), it's something to look forward to. I'm having trouble letting go of some stuff, though. I mean, do I really need the animal coop? I have all the animals available and they don't really get exciting stuff anymore. Elephants are all right, but they don't fit my themes at all! And I'm considering just selling off all my reindeer because, really, I don't need Christmas stuff on my farm when it's not snowy anymore. On the other hand--what if there aren't any more reindeer next year?? That's what I struggle with. :/ What I really wish is that I could put the buildings I'm not using into storage. And that I could have more than 500 storage spots--I liked to collect the different prizes for Christmas and Valentine's Day! And animals! I'd like a way to store animals until I need them later! MY PENGUINS ARE CUTE BUT THEY DON'T FIT MY SPRING THEME.
Also, I want some goddamned tall grass decorations back, because my horse pens look god-awful the way they are and I think that could make them look really cute! Also, DIFFERENT KINDS OF FENCES, PLZ. And not just holiday themed stuff! I want some fences that I can use year-round!
So, basically, I have a wish list going.
→ More expansions, as always. Not that 28x28 is bad, but I would ideally like, say, the ability to get to 50x50 eventually, because I think it would be a lot more fun if I could have some real room to decorate! Alternately, if the English Countryside really does give you a second farm area to decorate, I will be totally placated. One of the few ways that ngmoco :)'s games are superior to FarmVille (aside from how they are far, far prettier) is that you get five different areas with We Rule and We Farm. It is so much fun to dedicate one entire area to a theme I particularly liked!
→ Better fences, more variety to them. There's only really the basic ones in the market right now and you can get a couple of different types from the free gifts page, but nothing has really jumped out at me as a good style for my horse pens. Also, some tall grass decorations--I've seen the ones they used to have and they look perfect, I would really like to see those brought back.
→ After a discussion with sherryilk, I agree that more variety with the cats would be nice! Not that I don't appreciate the Himalayan and the Siberian (Siamese? I'm not sure now) because I have a couple of each and they're darling! But, if you're going to offer animals, I'd love to see more chances to breed things. Same goes for rabbits! Variety and coops for those, plz! I'd love to be able to breed chickens, too! And don't put the clover chicken as the highest level, because now I no longer feel half as smug about having a heart chicken, you guys!
→ Not a wish list item, but rather a compliment. I am totally enjoying the Greenhouse seeds! It's tough to master them (and the menus take foreverrrrr to load) but the extra experience for them? Jeez, I've been going up a level a night (and I'm currently on level 80, so it's not like I'm on the easy levels anymore!) because I mastered straspberry and can now buy them whenever I want. So, I spend a night (that I'm otherwise just watching tv during) planting those every two hours (along with using a Fertilize All and having them polinated) and I just sail through the levels. It's fantastic.
→ I'd like it to be easier to get Farmhands, please. I never have more than 15 of them and it's frustrating because I have a lot of animals. Arborists are much easier to come by (and I usually have about 40 of them at any given time), I'd like to see Farmhands evened out a bit.
→ Another compliment--I'm enjoying that watering cans are easier to get now! I like that you only need eight (instead of ten) to grow a seedling and I like that upgrading your duck pond throughs them out a lot more frequently. I haven't wanted for quite some time.
→ Better organization of the egg system, please! I appreciate that this is a social game, you're meant to get your ass out to other people's farms to help out (less graphics intensity might get me to do so more often, but as it is? no, thanks, I'll just load my own farm for now), that it's meant to be gifts for other people, but what's the point of pushing myself to get better chickens and thus better eggs if I don't get to keep them for myself? I'd like to keep one for myself and share with another person, please!
→ Also, please reorganize the coloring of the eggs! When you have low-level Golden Chickens that lay mediocre golden eggs and higher level chickens that lay awesome golden eggs, it's hard to know what you're getting. While I realize everything is a crapshoot, it would certainly cause a lot less confusion.
→ The model farm is actually kind of excellent! It's nice to see things arranged in a cute fashion and helps me decide what I want to get and what I don't need to bother with.
→ I'd like some new recipes for the crafting buildings, please. Not even necessarily with the Greenhouse Seeds (though, I would really appreciate that) but just something new.
POKEMON:
Current Team:
Janovy, lv21
Shimama, lv17
Otamaro, lv13
Dokkora, lv16
Mamepato, lv13
Current Game Time:5:20
→ Sturdy can go diaf. D:< What sadist thought that idea up!?
→ I kind of started to feel badly taking kindergartners' money in the Yaguruma Forest. All the more so because they really didn't have a lot of money. >_>
→ The Yaguruma Forest was seriously pretty aces for leveling Shimama, what with all the Mamepato (flying) and Otamaro (water) pokemon running around. Leveling goes so much faster when Shimama just kills everything in one shot. :D
→ That one younger kid trainer, who just caught his pokemon, when he loses: "I just caught them, I didn't train them yet!!" I laughed. WHATEVER, WHINER.
→ Also in the Yaguruma Forest was Kentaro the karate guy. When you approach him, he says, "I have been trained with much training! And my pokemon...? EVEN MORE TRAINED!!" I laughed. Kinda hard.
→ Janovy finally has more than one grass type move that I actually want to use! LEECH SEED, MY FAAAAVORITE. Well, not my favorite. But certainly beloved.
→ N was surprisingly easy in Shippou City, I was expecting something a little harder for the second time you met him? He's hilariously ~*mysterious*~ as ever and it pains me that Touko can't talk, because I'm pretty sure her reactions would be hilariously, "....wtf?" about him.
→ Uggghhhh, fighting type pokemon are NEVER CUTE. And Dokkora's evolutions ARE NOT CUTE, EITHER. The only reason I have it on my team is because the second gym is weak to fighting types, so I'm going to level it as much as I can and hope that it'll at least take the edge off. THEN I AM DROPPING IT SO FAST.
→ I dropped Tabunne because I was never going to use it much, but at least I still have it. o/ I dropped Hiyappu because I'm not going to get a water stone for ages and I wanted a water type that I could put experience into. And Otamaro's first form looked like it could be cute...? Then I looked it up and UGH DNW. I AM GOING TO FIND A NEW WATER TYPE SOON, I SWEAR IT.
ANIME:
I have a trade going where I need to watch 120 episodes worth of anime by the end of March. Totally, we're a couple of geniuses to do this, but whatever! Pushing myself like this will totally make me feel productive in the end! If nothing else, I've started a couple of new series and been enjoying them a lot.
Including one where I had to do screencaps because I wanted to share how very, very pretty it is. *___*
Mouryou no Hako is a series that I remember airing, but I remembered almost nothing about it beyond that it sounded vaguely interesting because I like horror anime. I couldn't have told you what it was about or anything, so it wasn't until I was browsing... er, MAL, I think? Some place that had recommendations and suddenly the premise sounded interesting. (No, wait! It was on TVTropes!) I decided, well, it couldn't hurt to watch the first episode--which wound up surprising me with how hard I fell in love with it. Now, I'm going to try to avoid the big spoilers when I talk about it, but I do want to talk about the tone of the series and my general impressions of it, both good and bad.
Which are about 95% good, maybe 5% bad.
There is only one real flaw to this series, but it is one that kept me from enjoying it as much as I could have. Which I will explain through a brief summary of the basic premise/why it should be watched, along with a screencap:
This is from the first episode, where one beautiful, elegant, brilliant girl is distant and the other is poor, shy, and lonely, the two of them somehow become friends. And decide they're each other's reincarnations. And then hold each others' hands and dance under the moonlight while sakura petals fall and the breeze blows through their hair.
And then one of them is pushed in front of a moving train, taken to a hospital, has all her limbs hacked off, and disappears. The mystery of the show is WHERE DID SHE GO!? WHY ARE THERE BODY PARTS TURNING UP EVERYWHERE!? HOW THE HELL IS HER HEAD IN A BOX STILL ALIVE!?
The answers turn out to be far more complex than I could have guessed when I first started watching the series, because the mystery unfolds and unfolds as you go along. The biggest problem with the series was the struggle to keep up with everything that felt scattered at first, like it was telling two different stories and there were so many names and places to keep track of, and the show was pretty ballsy in that it had two episodes in a row where nothing took place in them except three men sitting in a room, talking. That's all they did! And it was a major infodump! (If it sounds like I'm warning you off the series, bear with me for a minute here.) More than once, I finished an episode and went on-line to read reviews (I like Star Crossed Anime Blog for that a lot--the reviewer often times mistakes things because they're not 100% fluent when watching raws, but the comments wound up being super helpful!) to help me clear things up.
If the series had been any less stellar, I don't think it would have been able to get away with that. But what made me tolerate this (aside from it just being a really brilliantly told story) is the way everything came together in the end, the way the final episode (or maybe the final two episodes) pulled absolutely everything together, every storyline that I couldn't figure out why we were hearing about this or what that had to do with anything, all of it was pulled together in the final episode to show you how everything had come to where it was. The intensity of those scenes, what should have been a fairly standard reveal because it mostly included people standing around and talking, was somehow brilliantly done. You didn't know who was going to go off like a loose canon, you didn't know who still had a secret left to hide, you didn't know whose life was going to be destroyed next.
I do feel I should warn that it's got a lot of talking and you have to pay attention to names and remember people's roles, but a little extra work goes a long way. And you can't be like me, who watched the first episode and assumed that the story would focus on these two girls, because I felt let down that it switched to other characters. They are incredibly important to the story, but they're just two cogs in the wheel, same as anyone else.
It was a wonderful horror story (or perhaps I should say psychological thriller?), it had a fantastic cast, it did a marvelous job with its animation budget, it did some really creative and surprisingly interesting things with simpler shots, but also used its character designs by CLAMP to good effect (this is one of my favorite CLAMP designs of recent times, because you can tell its their work, but it's toned down just enough to not be so extreme) and some scenes are just flat-out gorgeous. Both of the two young girls from the beginning (Kanako and Yoriko) are lovely, Chuuzenji Akihiko (the used bookstore owner/the onmyouji who likes to talk a loooot) is super hot, and the scenery is gorgeous. There was no part of this series that wasn't beautiful to look at.
Certainly, it's one of the most intricately plotted things I've watched in quite some time.
TUMBLR:
I've been a little afk from tumblr recently because I've been on an anime-watching binge, but I'm slowly getting into the habit again. I've given up trying to keep up with the Madoka Magica section, because tumblr's limit is way less than what Pixiv posts every day (even if I'm only posting the really pretty stuff!) so I'm just going to be more haphazard about it now. But I have been posting on girlsofmagic @tumblr fairly frequently again.
FARMVILLE:
I tried to stop playing so much, but Zynga really has this game's addictive qualities down to a science. Every few days there's something new (or something being announced/teased--I just want the English countryside stuff already! Let me breed my sheep already, Zynga! Give me a second farm area!), something new to collect or do, something that makes it exciting again. And, by the time you're getting tired of the previous round (I was so sick of Valentines by the end), they're phasing it out and you're on to the next thing! (Though, I think they put collecting Valentines and collecting Gold Pieces a little too close together, can we hold off on that for about a month or so now?)
Even if it's something you can accomplish in a day (I had completed both expansions on my duck pond pretty much instantly because of all the watering cans and shovels flying around, plus I have a stockpile of 200+ special deliveries), it's something to look forward to. I'm having trouble letting go of some stuff, though. I mean, do I really need the animal coop? I have all the animals available and they don't really get exciting stuff anymore. Elephants are all right, but they don't fit my themes at all! And I'm considering just selling off all my reindeer because, really, I don't need Christmas stuff on my farm when it's not snowy anymore. On the other hand--what if there aren't any more reindeer next year?? That's what I struggle with. :/ What I really wish is that I could put the buildings I'm not using into storage. And that I could have more than 500 storage spots--I liked to collect the different prizes for Christmas and Valentine's Day! And animals! I'd like a way to store animals until I need them later! MY PENGUINS ARE CUTE BUT THEY DON'T FIT MY SPRING THEME.
Also, I want some goddamned tall grass decorations back, because my horse pens look god-awful the way they are and I think that could make them look really cute! Also, DIFFERENT KINDS OF FENCES, PLZ. And not just holiday themed stuff! I want some fences that I can use year-round!
So, basically, I have a wish list going.
→ More expansions, as always. Not that 28x28 is bad, but I would ideally like, say, the ability to get to 50x50 eventually, because I think it would be a lot more fun if I could have some real room to decorate! Alternately, if the English Countryside really does give you a second farm area to decorate, I will be totally placated. One of the few ways that ngmoco :)'s games are superior to FarmVille (aside from how they are far, far prettier) is that you get five different areas with We Rule and We Farm. It is so much fun to dedicate one entire area to a theme I particularly liked!
→ Better fences, more variety to them. There's only really the basic ones in the market right now and you can get a couple of different types from the free gifts page, but nothing has really jumped out at me as a good style for my horse pens. Also, some tall grass decorations--I've seen the ones they used to have and they look perfect, I would really like to see those brought back.
→ After a discussion with sherryilk, I agree that more variety with the cats would be nice! Not that I don't appreciate the Himalayan and the Siberian (Siamese? I'm not sure now) because I have a couple of each and they're darling! But, if you're going to offer animals, I'd love to see more chances to breed things. Same goes for rabbits! Variety and coops for those, plz! I'd love to be able to breed chickens, too! And don't put the clover chicken as the highest level, because now I no longer feel half as smug about having a heart chicken, you guys!
→ Not a wish list item, but rather a compliment. I am totally enjoying the Greenhouse seeds! It's tough to master them (and the menus take foreverrrrr to load) but the extra experience for them? Jeez, I've been going up a level a night (and I'm currently on level 80, so it's not like I'm on the easy levels anymore!) because I mastered straspberry and can now buy them whenever I want. So, I spend a night (that I'm otherwise just watching tv during) planting those every two hours (along with using a Fertilize All and having them polinated) and I just sail through the levels. It's fantastic.
→ I'd like it to be easier to get Farmhands, please. I never have more than 15 of them and it's frustrating because I have a lot of animals. Arborists are much easier to come by (and I usually have about 40 of them at any given time), I'd like to see Farmhands evened out a bit.
→ Another compliment--I'm enjoying that watering cans are easier to get now! I like that you only need eight (instead of ten) to grow a seedling and I like that upgrading your duck pond throughs them out a lot more frequently. I haven't wanted for quite some time.
→ Better organization of the egg system, please! I appreciate that this is a social game, you're meant to get your ass out to other people's farms to help out (less graphics intensity might get me to do so more often, but as it is? no, thanks, I'll just load my own farm for now), that it's meant to be gifts for other people, but what's the point of pushing myself to get better chickens and thus better eggs if I don't get to keep them for myself? I'd like to keep one for myself and share with another person, please!
→ Also, please reorganize the coloring of the eggs! When you have low-level Golden Chickens that lay mediocre golden eggs and higher level chickens that lay awesome golden eggs, it's hard to know what you're getting. While I realize everything is a crapshoot, it would certainly cause a lot less confusion.
→ The model farm is actually kind of excellent! It's nice to see things arranged in a cute fashion and helps me decide what I want to get and what I don't need to bother with.
→ I'd like some new recipes for the crafting buildings, please. Not even necessarily with the Greenhouse Seeds (though, I would really appreciate that) but just something new.
POKEMON:
Current Team:
Janovy, lv21
Shimama, lv17
Otamaro, lv13
Dokkora, lv16
Mamepato, lv13
Current Game Time:5:20
→ Sturdy can go diaf. D:< What sadist thought that idea up!?
→ I kind of started to feel badly taking kindergartners' money in the Yaguruma Forest. All the more so because they really didn't have a lot of money. >_>
→ The Yaguruma Forest was seriously pretty aces for leveling Shimama, what with all the Mamepato (flying) and Otamaro (water) pokemon running around. Leveling goes so much faster when Shimama just kills everything in one shot. :D
→ That one younger kid trainer, who just caught his pokemon, when he loses: "I just caught them, I didn't train them yet!!" I laughed. WHATEVER, WHINER.
→ Also in the Yaguruma Forest was Kentaro the karate guy. When you approach him, he says, "I have been trained with much training! And my pokemon...? EVEN MORE TRAINED!!" I laughed. Kinda hard.
→ Janovy finally has more than one grass type move that I actually want to use! LEECH SEED, MY FAAAAVORITE. Well, not my favorite. But certainly beloved.
→ N was surprisingly easy in Shippou City, I was expecting something a little harder for the second time you met him? He's hilariously ~*mysterious*~ as ever and it pains me that Touko can't talk, because I'm pretty sure her reactions would be hilariously, "....wtf?" about him.
→ Uggghhhh, fighting type pokemon are NEVER CUTE. And Dokkora's evolutions ARE NOT CUTE, EITHER. The only reason I have it on my team is because the second gym is weak to fighting types, so I'm going to level it as much as I can and hope that it'll at least take the edge off. THEN I AM DROPPING IT SO FAST.
→ I dropped Tabunne because I was never going to use it much, but at least I still have it. o/ I dropped Hiyappu because I'm not going to get a water stone for ages and I wanted a water type that I could put experience into. And Otamaro's first form looked like it could be cute...? Then I looked it up and UGH DNW. I AM GOING TO FIND A NEW WATER TYPE SOON, I SWEAR IT.
ANIME:
I have a trade going where I need to watch 120 episodes worth of anime by the end of March. Totally, we're a couple of geniuses to do this, but whatever! Pushing myself like this will totally make me feel productive in the end! If nothing else, I've started a couple of new series and been enjoying them a lot.
Including one where I had to do screencaps because I wanted to share how very, very pretty it is. *___*
Mouryou no Hako is a series that I remember airing, but I remembered almost nothing about it beyond that it sounded vaguely interesting because I like horror anime. I couldn't have told you what it was about or anything, so it wasn't until I was browsing... er, MAL, I think? Some place that had recommendations and suddenly the premise sounded interesting. (No, wait! It was on TVTropes!) I decided, well, it couldn't hurt to watch the first episode--which wound up surprising me with how hard I fell in love with it. Now, I'm going to try to avoid the big spoilers when I talk about it, but I do want to talk about the tone of the series and my general impressions of it, both good and bad.
Which are about 95% good, maybe 5% bad.
There is only one real flaw to this series, but it is one that kept me from enjoying it as much as I could have. Which I will explain through a brief summary of the basic premise/why it should be watched, along with a screencap:
This is from the first episode, where one beautiful, elegant, brilliant girl is distant and the other is poor, shy, and lonely, the two of them somehow become friends. And decide they're each other's reincarnations. And then hold each others' hands and dance under the moonlight while sakura petals fall and the breeze blows through their hair.
And then one of them is pushed in front of a moving train, taken to a hospital, has all her limbs hacked off, and disappears. The mystery of the show is WHERE DID SHE GO!? WHY ARE THERE BODY PARTS TURNING UP EVERYWHERE!? HOW THE HELL IS HER HEAD IN A BOX STILL ALIVE!?
The answers turn out to be far more complex than I could have guessed when I first started watching the series, because the mystery unfolds and unfolds as you go along. The biggest problem with the series was the struggle to keep up with everything that felt scattered at first, like it was telling two different stories and there were so many names and places to keep track of, and the show was pretty ballsy in that it had two episodes in a row where nothing took place in them except three men sitting in a room, talking. That's all they did! And it was a major infodump! (If it sounds like I'm warning you off the series, bear with me for a minute here.) More than once, I finished an episode and went on-line to read reviews (I like Star Crossed Anime Blog for that a lot--the reviewer often times mistakes things because they're not 100% fluent when watching raws, but the comments wound up being super helpful!) to help me clear things up.
If the series had been any less stellar, I don't think it would have been able to get away with that. But what made me tolerate this (aside from it just being a really brilliantly told story) is the way everything came together in the end, the way the final episode (or maybe the final two episodes) pulled absolutely everything together, every storyline that I couldn't figure out why we were hearing about this or what that had to do with anything, all of it was pulled together in the final episode to show you how everything had come to where it was. The intensity of those scenes, what should have been a fairly standard reveal because it mostly included people standing around and talking, was somehow brilliantly done. You didn't know who was going to go off like a loose canon, you didn't know who still had a secret left to hide, you didn't know whose life was going to be destroyed next.
I do feel I should warn that it's got a lot of talking and you have to pay attention to names and remember people's roles, but a little extra work goes a long way. And you can't be like me, who watched the first episode and assumed that the story would focus on these two girls, because I felt let down that it switched to other characters. They are incredibly important to the story, but they're just two cogs in the wheel, same as anyone else.
It was a wonderful horror story (or perhaps I should say psychological thriller?), it had a fantastic cast, it did a marvelous job with its animation budget, it did some really creative and surprisingly interesting things with simpler shots, but also used its character designs by CLAMP to good effect (this is one of my favorite CLAMP designs of recent times, because you can tell its their work, but it's toned down just enough to not be so extreme) and some scenes are just flat-out gorgeous. Both of the two young girls from the beginning (Kanako and Yoriko) are lovely, Chuuzenji Akihiko (the used bookstore owner/the onmyouji who likes to talk a loooot) is super hot, and the scenery is gorgeous. There was no part of this series that wasn't beautiful to look at.
Certainly, it's one of the most intricately plotted things I've watched in quite some time.