infinity zone

Finished Dark Dawn.

... 8| I cried. Just a little.

And yet I'm not surprised by some of the twists. What I am surprised about is how much I enjoyed the new characters, and how much is introduced without being given proper explanation. A good way to set things up for future games.

Jumping from Golden Sun to The Lost Age to Dark Dawn is crazy. I feel like I'm playing in a different world in each game, just because of the geography.

I find it hilarious that the hero manages to become more explicit than the last two. I was tempted to go through the entire game with angry-face answers after Karis responded to an angry-face reply with "Wow, graphic."

Now I'll go to sleep and be glad I don't know the series well enough to app characters. Except for maybe Pewter. Pewter was awesome.

NaNoWriMo's over. I managed a little over 6700 words. Pfft. But that's still more than I've written for one story in over a year, so I'm still proud of what little I did. I'll work on improving my writing habits so I can do better next year.

Under the cut is the first section of the story (Suikoden fanfic) I wrote for NaNo -- tentatively called "Shards" or "Chaotic Shards" for now. No editing, no revising; I just let the writing take me where it wanted to. It's interesting how the story became divided by perspectives along the way; it had happened before I realized it. I still need to decide if I'll post this thing once it's completed or in finished Revolutions.

( ‘Plotting’ has such negative connotations. )

Finished Final Fantasy XIII a few days ago. I can't muster up the desire to go back and play out the missions I didn't finish, now that I've finished the game. Oh well.

( Video game lists for my records )

Also blazed through re-watching The Colony and all of my Mythbusters DVDs. I need something else to play in the background while I'm working. Hrm...

So I drop one angry guy and app another angry guy.

...

Yeah, that would go over well. I think I better wait out this finished-a-new-game rush before doing anything stupid. But augh, I'm getting random KH muses all over the place.

In related news, Birth by Sleep has my favorite battle system of the series so far. And I think it's the first one since the beginning of KH2 to make me cry. Very good game.

First off... *kicks internet* I swear, it cuts out at the weirdest times.

Let's see... Not getting as many projects at work as I would like (for the money), but it's nice to have the free time. My manager tries to keep me busy by having me do scheduling and little note-taking jobs, but it doesn't add up to an eight-hour day or anything. Ah well. As long as I have enough hours per month.

Yesterday, I went to the gym by myself for the first time in months. It was nice. I need to get back in the habit of kicking myself into going every other day or so. Wasting that gym membership needs to stop.

Also went back to the university campus for the first time in ... geez, a year or so? It's weird going back as a visitor. I think it'd be even weirder to go back to high school as a visitor, but you need to do all that stupid security (checking in with the front desk, etc.) to go onto high school campus. No thanks.

I got to see my cousin's design show while on campus, and it was nice to analyze his work and offer him compliments on a critique level. Our majors shared some visual design elements, so I enjoyed hearing him explain his typography and design formatting choices. It also gave me some affirmation that I still recall my major well enough to talk about it, which is ... well, comforting after being away from school for three years. (Geez, three years already.)

Hopefully going out to karaoke tomorrow night. Being stuck in my car on the freeway for an hour gave me a good excuse to belt out songs. ...Even if things like Simple Plan and Bowling for Soup aren't doing anything for my tone. Pfft.

On the RP front, tags have slowed down to a crawl while I've been doing other things offline. I really need to backthread some things, but my interest comes in small bursts lately. At least I have an idea of all the things I need to do with my characters.

Currently playing Disgaea Infinite, which I oddly enough found out about only yesterday (the day after it was released) while shopping for other things on Amazon. It's a nice change of pace from Record of Agarest War, which I've been taking a "forced" break from while my brother plays catch-up to me. (Record of Agarest War is super long and much more of a day-killer, just because of how long a single battle can take.) The time loop function of Disgaea Infinite was just getting to me when I finally made headway with the storyline, so I can safely say that I'm still enjoying it. And it's longer than I thought, which is a pleasant surprise.

...But that means I won't be able to finish it tonight. Which means I'll have to somehow force myself to turn it off. Dang.

edit: As suspected, I couldn't turn it off. ( Mild spoilers )

It's a lot of fan service, and I enjoy it greatly. The database and character profiles are neat, and it actually makes me a little interested in Disgaea 3.

So remember how I mentioned awhile back that I bought the three Mario & Luigi games? I received them today.

Superstar Saga was a demo version that you would have seen in game stores. It even has the NOT FOR RESALE sticker on it.

Partners in Time was obviously a knockoff, with off-color covers and a noticeable cut on the instruction manual.

Bowser's Inside Story looks slightly off, with a wrinkled back cover. Like a game that was rejected from in-store sale.

......

When my dad mentioned that a lot of the scammers and whatnot had been moving from eBay to Amazon, I didn't really believe him. I sure believe him now.


I've sent messages around and am in the process of looking for another copy of Superstar Saga. In the mean time, I'm gonna go back to RPG Maker VX. I've gotta convert my RPG Maker XP data manually.

...I used to mess around with RPG Maker 2000 and RPG Maker XP awhile back. I decided to play around with the game again when I noticed there was a new version out.


Meet Factival. The inspiration for the character should be obvious.

( Lots of images under the cut )

In other news, went to the office yesterday for a team meeting. Got a contractor badge, so I can get into the building whenever I need to without my manager needing to buzz me in. The team meeting was the best part about work yesterday. When I got back home and started working (heh, how many people can say that?), I was flooded with e-mails about different projects and crap. Ugh. I've thankfully been able to finish the two immediate projects, and I can sleep in a little today.

And I'm sick, to boot! What a lovely week this is turning out to be.

Crap, it's almost 4 AM. 8| That one project took way too long, even with changing the editing scope. It's a good thing that my sleeping schedule sucks! :)

Welcome to herrjustice, terra, whiteadelphi, manlidere, dynast_harmonia, ladynadiad, and marbles_chan from the Luceti friending meme! As you can see, my LJ is very open, so ... there's little benefit in being on my flist! But I appreciate you being here all the same.

Quick intro: I'm Athena, and I'm not my characters. I say this because I have this feeling that I'm somehow intimidating, and that may be because of my characters. I mostly talk about life, RP, video game fandom, and fanfiction.

I've been horrible with my RPing lately, and I totally blame the holidays. There have also been a ton of family events (birthdays, baptism, etc.) keeping me busy, so I haven't been feeling up to RP when I do get time to sit in front of the computer. And then there's work, which I already addressed in the first paragraph of this entry. I need to reply to my logs for Damned most of all, since those have been delayed since before Christmas. Then I need to get Minato positioned so he can pick up his Evoker from Abe before running into Souji.

... ...In other news, I've finished Dragon Quest IV! I've attempted to finish the game on the original NES and at least three times as an NES ROM, but I just kept running into issues -- losing the cartridge, hard drive failure, blah blah blah... It's always been the one Dragon Warrior/Quest game I felt compelled to finish; I think the chapters really made the difference for me. And Torneko Taloon's awesome. I need to finish the extra chapter, and then I can put the game to rest.

I'm in the process of waiting for more doujinshi. EMS shipping is always crazy, but I'm hoping to get everything by ... Tuesday. Yes, that would be nice. Four Suikoden III doujinshi and two Legendia anthologies.

Back to work. Let's see how much I can do before I need sleep.

So I tried to write a few more relationship replies for that one Luceti meme. Then I tried to write an Oktoberfest story for Damned so I could get Minato his uniform. Wasn't feeling any of that, though.

So I wrote about Albert's mindset for Luceti. Long overdue considering just how enigmatic he is, but I'm also not going to detail everything about him ... because I don't like revealing everything about a character's motives. I think it can ruin interactions.

( The mindset of Albert Silverberg -- some scattered Suikoden spoilers )

So I got the new KH the day it came out. (Actually, my brother bought it for me because he owes me a lot of money.) I'm on day 150 or so now, just cleared a recon mission with Xaldin. (Hope that's not too much of a spoiler?)

It's pretty good for a mission-based game. I do get tired of returning to the Grey Area, but at least the Organization members change it up every few days. I'm amused that Demyx is notably different from how fandom has perceived him, and Xigbar throws out nicknames a lot. Still waiting to hear more on Luxord. His early comment about missing half the poker league just... I can imagine them sitting down and trying to play poker. Luxord would always play dealer just so he could say, "And the win goes to the house. Again."

Won't say anything about the main trio, except for the fact that Roxas is such a :|-faced derp. Hilarious.

I've been clearing Mission Mode by myself, and I'm noticing just how much harder it is without Organization backup. I don't want to tackle the later Agrabah missions by myself, since if there's one thing Demyx did right, it was spam potions whenever he was dying (and that happened a lot).

( Edit: Demyx and his 'awesome' - cut for 'spoilers' for Casual Gear and Mystery Gear )

I'm disappointed in myself. Here I am, trying to have a relaxing weekend after ... a damn load of work that has been making my weekdays stressful, and I get surly at the idea of having to spend time away from the computer. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm obligated to do a lot of work on the computer, and then my brothers don't understand that my idea of relaxation also involves using the computer. So they pull me away to do other things.

As well-meaning as they are, it makes me wish I had a car. I need the freedom to not be pulled around by them every time they want to do something I don't consider fun.

The battle log went up for the Luceti intruders event, and I wanted to jump all over it ... or at least stalk it while it was going on. But I could never decide what I wanted to do with my characters, and I ended up missing the whole thing when my weekend got busy. I just ended up throwing in an ooc note after the fact, since the log's closed to new threads. Meh. At least I got a ton of stuff going on for the battle preparations?

I'm not entirely sure what I want out of Luceti right now. There's potential for Walter, but it's sorta reliant on a thread that's backlogged into eternity now--and now reactions would be off and very strange. So I don't know how to salvage that idea. Albert just went and departed for the twilight zone on me during the whole adrenaline-rush-and-crash of the event, so I'm debating what to do with him.

Edit because I need to gush: Caesar and Albert's interactions are so amusing. I'm really enjoying the awkward-but-somewhat-not-dysfunctional dynamic they've got going on. Their latest interaction, with Caesar's reaction straight out of the manga ending, was enough to make me smile. Made me wish I had an icon of Albert's back-turned goodbye wave.

Nightshift started at Damned, and I still haven't posted for Minato. I ... have a beginning post half-written up, and I'm quietly proud of my creativity with getting him a 'starting weapon' (broken plastic hanger, anyone?), but I don't have any solid plans for him yet. He needs to copy stuff off of the bulletin board, try and steal a CD player from the music room, look for the others... I need to stop being a chicken and PM Yukari or Junpei.

I need to see if I can get out of the campus appearance on Thursday; I really don't want to have an on-site meeting this week, with my needing to be in a different city on Friday. Hopefully my manager will be understanding and let me phone in.

Juggling several video games at the moment. Pixeljunk Monsters on PS3, Professor Layton and the Curious Village on DS, Tales of VS on PSP, and gonna try Titan Quest on the PC for my brother's sake. Hoping to finish Professor Layton soon so I can stop staying up late trying to figure out puzzles.

Daze of Zodiac Company. I am so clever.

( No plot spoilers, but character names under the cut )

I want to see a Tablet of Promise already. I want to see where all of these people fall in the 108 Stars. I've already got a feeling with ... half of my allies thus far...