[Update] Look, a real post!
And it's an update post!
1) NEW ICONS. I went looking for KH: Birth by Sleep icons, and found someone who made icons from the illustrations in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and practically freaked out because I LOVED those books as a kid. I'm sure my mom worried about me. The stories themselves ranged anywhere from silly ("I vant to vash your vindows!"), to creepy, to downright disturbing, but all of the illustrations were... well... you can see in the icon. Absolutely horrifyingly creepily awful and amazing at the same time. XD
I only managed to find one KH: BbS icon that I liked. Of Aqua, from the opening sequence (SO PRETTY). I couldn't find any of Ven or Terra that I liked. :/ Help?
(OMGs I SPOILED MYSELF ON ONE THING AND OMGs TERRA BUT IT MAKES SENSE THE HAIR THE HAIR.)
2) Speaking of Birth by Sleep OMGs I LOVE IT!!! Well... most of it. We'll get to that in a second.
But seriously, guys, I haven't loved a game this much since the first KH! :D As I'm sure you all know, KHII drove me batty for various reasons from the very start, and while it grew on me the more I played, it never did manage to live up to the first game. Chain of Memories is just a terrible game, period. And 358/2 Days isn't as terrible as CoM, but it's nothing special, either. I've been playing in story mode, and there's still hardly any story. :/ And that's what I play for, is the story and the pretty (well, and the opportunity to curse a lot until I beat a bad guy, but there has to be some story and some pretty to go along with that).
Guys, I think Birth by Sleep is my second favorite KH game now, and... by the time I finish it (if I finish) it... it might just be my #1 favorite. It's so pretty. And while I complained a lot about the changes in the command menu for KHII, I mostly like the changes they made for BbS. (Mostly I like that you can earn or buy Cure-related commands very early on, and install them in a free space, or potions, and they're readily available.) I don't so much like the idea that it cycles through them, only showing three at a time, but hey, it saves space. And all you have to do is hit the triangle button to activate whatever is in the center space, and then it'll automatically cycle to a command that's full. For that matter, much of the fighting style is automatic. I LOVE THE COMMAND STYLES. Holy SHIT do I love them! And I love all the finishing moves except for this one that is stupid and keeps getting me wiped out. It's so stupid I've forgotten what it's called. But COMMAND STYLES! Frenzy and Firestorm and ESPECIALLY THE THUNDER ONE. HELL YEAH. And it's SO EASY to switch to one!
Snow White (how on Earth did they find someone capable of mimicking that horrible, annoying voice of the original voice actor?), Cinderella, AURORA! :D :D :D But my favorite so far: STITCH! OMGs OMGs OMGs STITCH! I love Stitch so much, and he's so adorable in this. JUMBAA YOU ASSHOLE YOU BROKE HIS WAYFINDER. >:(
The ONE THING that so far I DO NOT LIKE is Disney Town. And the only reason I don't like it is because the way to complete the world is stupid and very unlikely to happen and oh SHIT I don't know what I'm going to do. Disney Town is basically just a world of mini-games, which I normally don't spend much time on anyway, and the game you have to score a "Fantastic!" on in order to complete the world is one of those music-based games where you have to hit the button just right in time to the music to get it right... and I have NO rhythm. At least in the ones in Atlantica in KHII, it gave you cues to help you know when to hit the button. Not here, and right now it's stopping me from completing the world and moving on.
Last thing: the world map! NO GUMMI SHIP. NO HAVING TO FIGHT OTHER SHIPS TO GET FROM WORLD TO WORLD. THANK YOU. This is the thing that clenches BbS as my second-favorite-maybe-favorite. :D :D :D
3) Books! With that $50 gift card, yesterday I bought three books. I'll go back when I have a better idea of what I want (they didn't have the one book I went in thinking about). I bought: Wizard Squared by K.E. Mills aka Karen Miller aka karenmiller, the third in the Rogue Agent hopefully-series and it has one of my all-time favorite tropes ever: an evil version of a good character. In this case, Gerald, the main character. I started reading this one first, and EVIL GERALD IS SCARY. D: And it's DOUBLY interesting because it goes back to events in the first book in which Gerald made a decision on how to deal with the bad guy. In this book, he chooses differently, creating a parallel world and a very, very different Gerald. I'm not even halfway through and I already love it.
I also bought The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin, which I've been seeing everywhere, and The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks, which is published by Orbit, which also publishes Karen Miller in the States, and the book has a similarly designed cover, which has effectively fooled me into believe it might be as good as a Karen Miller book. (Actually, it was mostly the "published by Orbit" part... though if it turns out to suck, then I'll know for certain that no one is perfect.)
4) RPG! I've joined an RPG. It's based in the world of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books, though it takes places around 100-150 years before the first book, Kushiel's Dart. It's a message board-based game, which I haven't done in forever, and it's a game that's expected to move much, much more slowly than games I'm used to, which is both good for me (since I don't always have time to constantly check up on a game) and bad (because I'm not used to waiting days for responses and I'm not a patient person). For example, there's one group thread that's been going on since the 22nd, and it's expected to take at least a month for that one to wrap up, and most people will be working on that thread and only that thread until it's complete. One of the mods and I have a second thread going, but it takes place chronologically before the Midwinter Masque, so it's easier to do without screwing anything up. (Especially because my character is going to pretty much hate her character and thus avoids him if possible during the masque, or has so far. XD )
I've got two characters, an adept of Valerian House, and a Cassiline. :D I'M PLAYING A CASSILINE, GUYS. (For those of you who know what that means and why it excites me so much.) And and and he's actually an ancestor of Joscelin. XD SEE ME BE CREATIVE. My poor Cassiline, he has so much drama to deal with, being the Companion to a royal cousin with tastes that run absolutely counter to everything he believes decent and proper, AND he's about to find out that his little brother is an adept of the Night Court! Of Valerian House of all awful things! At least, I think he's about to find out. It depends on how that player responds.
5) 27 DAYS!!! ::FLAILS:: OMGs.
6) I have two HP fics to write for two different fests by the end of January. Both fics are due February 1st. I... should probably get started on those.
1) NEW ICONS. I went looking for KH: Birth by Sleep icons, and found someone who made icons from the illustrations in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and practically freaked out because I LOVED those books as a kid. I'm sure my mom worried about me. The stories themselves ranged anywhere from silly ("I vant to vash your vindows!"), to creepy, to downright disturbing, but all of the illustrations were... well... you can see in the icon. Absolutely horrifyingly creepily awful and amazing at the same time. XD
I only managed to find one KH: BbS icon that I liked. Of Aqua, from the opening sequence (SO PRETTY). I couldn't find any of Ven or Terra that I liked. :/ Help?
(OMGs I SPOILED MYSELF ON ONE THING AND OMGs TERRA BUT IT MAKES SENSE THE HAIR THE HAIR.)
2) Speaking of Birth by Sleep OMGs I LOVE IT!!! Well... most of it. We'll get to that in a second.
But seriously, guys, I haven't loved a game this much since the first KH! :D As I'm sure you all know, KHII drove me batty for various reasons from the very start, and while it grew on me the more I played, it never did manage to live up to the first game. Chain of Memories is just a terrible game, period. And 358/2 Days isn't as terrible as CoM, but it's nothing special, either. I've been playing in story mode, and there's still hardly any story. :/ And that's what I play for, is the story and the pretty (well, and the opportunity to curse a lot until I beat a bad guy, but there has to be some story and some pretty to go along with that).
Guys, I think Birth by Sleep is my second favorite KH game now, and... by the time I finish it (if I finish) it... it might just be my #1 favorite. It's so pretty. And while I complained a lot about the changes in the command menu for KHII, I mostly like the changes they made for BbS. (Mostly I like that you can earn or buy Cure-related commands very early on, and install them in a free space, or potions, and they're readily available.) I don't so much like the idea that it cycles through them, only showing three at a time, but hey, it saves space. And all you have to do is hit the triangle button to activate whatever is in the center space, and then it'll automatically cycle to a command that's full. For that matter, much of the fighting style is automatic. I LOVE THE COMMAND STYLES. Holy SHIT do I love them! And I love all the finishing moves except for this one that is stupid and keeps getting me wiped out. It's so stupid I've forgotten what it's called. But COMMAND STYLES! Frenzy and Firestorm and ESPECIALLY THE THUNDER ONE. HELL YEAH. And it's SO EASY to switch to one!
Snow White (how on Earth did they find someone capable of mimicking that horrible, annoying voice of the original voice actor?), Cinderella, AURORA! :D :D :D But my favorite so far: STITCH! OMGs OMGs OMGs STITCH! I love Stitch so much, and he's so adorable in this. JUMBAA YOU ASSHOLE YOU BROKE HIS WAYFINDER. >:(
The ONE THING that so far I DO NOT LIKE is Disney Town. And the only reason I don't like it is because the way to complete the world is stupid and very unlikely to happen and oh SHIT I don't know what I'm going to do. Disney Town is basically just a world of mini-games, which I normally don't spend much time on anyway, and the game you have to score a "Fantastic!" on in order to complete the world is one of those music-based games where you have to hit the button just right in time to the music to get it right... and I have NO rhythm. At least in the ones in Atlantica in KHII, it gave you cues to help you know when to hit the button. Not here, and right now it's stopping me from completing the world and moving on.
Last thing: the world map! NO GUMMI SHIP. NO HAVING TO FIGHT OTHER SHIPS TO GET FROM WORLD TO WORLD. THANK YOU. This is the thing that clenches BbS as my second-favorite-maybe-favorite. :D :D :D
3) Books! With that $50 gift card, yesterday I bought three books. I'll go back when I have a better idea of what I want (they didn't have the one book I went in thinking about). I bought: Wizard Squared by K.E. Mills aka Karen Miller aka karenmiller, the third in the Rogue Agent hopefully-series and it has one of my all-time favorite tropes ever: an evil version of a good character. In this case, Gerald, the main character. I started reading this one first, and EVIL GERALD IS SCARY. D: And it's DOUBLY interesting because it goes back to events in the first book in which Gerald made a decision on how to deal with the bad guy. In this book, he chooses differently, creating a parallel world and a very, very different Gerald. I'm not even halfway through and I already love it.
I also bought The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin, which I've been seeing everywhere, and The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks, which is published by Orbit, which also publishes Karen Miller in the States, and the book has a similarly designed cover, which has effectively fooled me into believe it might be as good as a Karen Miller book. (Actually, it was mostly the "published by Orbit" part... though if it turns out to suck, then I'll know for certain that no one is perfect.)
4) RPG! I've joined an RPG. It's based in the world of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books, though it takes places around 100-150 years before the first book, Kushiel's Dart. It's a message board-based game, which I haven't done in forever, and it's a game that's expected to move much, much more slowly than games I'm used to, which is both good for me (since I don't always have time to constantly check up on a game) and bad (because I'm not used to waiting days for responses and I'm not a patient person). For example, there's one group thread that's been going on since the 22nd, and it's expected to take at least a month for that one to wrap up, and most people will be working on that thread and only that thread until it's complete. One of the mods and I have a second thread going, but it takes place chronologically before the Midwinter Masque, so it's easier to do without screwing anything up. (Especially because my character is going to pretty much hate her character and thus avoids him if possible during the masque, or has so far. XD )
I've got two characters, an adept of Valerian House, and a Cassiline. :D I'M PLAYING A CASSILINE, GUYS. (For those of you who know what that means and why it excites me so much.) And and and he's actually an ancestor of Joscelin. XD SEE ME BE CREATIVE. My poor Cassiline, he has so much drama to deal with, being the Companion to a royal cousin with tastes that run absolutely counter to everything he believes decent and proper, AND he's about to find out that his little brother is an adept of the Night Court! Of Valerian House of all awful things! At least, I think he's about to find out. It depends on how that player responds.
5) 27 DAYS!!! ::FLAILS:: OMGs.
6) I have two HP fics to write for two different fests by the end of January. Both fics are due February 1st. I... should probably get started on those.