Editorial

I'm not sure when I stopped writing here, or rather when I lost the urge to write. I used to describe even insignificant things but now I skip even major ones. I've only had about 30 posts this year and at that rate I might quit doing them altogether. Not sure why it's like this. Maybe it's the wonderful fandom I'm in or maybe it's just a natural change. It would have scared me some years ago but now I got much calmer about things. The only posts I made regularly this year is game/drama posts. That's rather specific kind and I still want to compress hours of playing or watching experience into a short review.

I haven't even written about my new job and that's a major thing. So I guess I'll just do it now. I've attempted academic writing 3 years ago but I gave up after 2 orders. Yet, I remember contemplating an editor position even back then but deciding I need to have writing experience first. However, now it seemed like a natural step. I wasn't even aiming for this job, I was aiming for a certain copyrighter offer but then it appeared and now it's obvious it was a better choice. It's one of the best things that happened this year, really. I really felt a lot f pressure and I needed the money and it offers me decent pay with optional load and very flexible hours. A great deal, really. Of course, there are certain issue with it but they're worth it and I feel like the experience it great for my future employment and even for my writing. It's only been two month but I already feel like I got a hang of it. Obviously it's not a dream job, at least now that it's not official, but right now it's perfect for me and I couldn't ask for more.

@темы: work, snapshot

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Finally decided to replace the images on the last two pages. Of course I'm not going to go back 11 years and fic it all but looking at it every time is annoying and besides I want to write a summarizing post and that will help to remember things.

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RIP Marvel Heroes

Been playing it for over 3 years, it was my second and most beloved MMORPG. I legit traded my beloved WinXP for 7 mostly to play it. Its demise feels premature but I guess all things come to an end. I really hoped the servers would last till Dec 31 as announced but come to think of it it wasn’t realistic. At least I got to try on all the costumes I always wanted and play another 10 days. It's sad leaving something you invested into. Sure, I wasn't one of the veterans and didn't do cosmic, knew nothing about builds and never even did a red raid. But I spent many hours playing it and it brought me into the world of Marvel even more, I got really attached to some characters. And then there's the cool community. I could stay in touch but I don't think I will, hardly there's another game that could compare to MH. But thinking in a affirmative way, all things come to an end and now I can clear up 20 GB of space on my HD as well as having more time for other
Goodbye, Laura

@темы: Games

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Kanjam did an episode on Visual Kei and it gave me and half Japan sweet nostalgia. Though the show was far from perfect in its representation, it made me look up some bands and video. As a result, I am in love with "Dress". So late but good music and beauty is beyond time...

@темы: video, J-Rock

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Barely slept this night so I woke up every few hours with a new dream in my head. Like, there was one where I hung out with Gackt and he was a little busy sculpting a golden statue of himself. He did it from liquid pool of gold, building it from bottom up by pouring the gold layer after layer. It looked cool tho. I only remember us talking about Tegoshi, him being problematic and I remember saying "There is nothing PG about Tegoshi." Which makes surprisingly much sense. There was also the one where I lived in this cool apartment and all the neighbouring apartments had Johnny's living in them, and not even those I particularly like.

@темы: Dreams

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Halt and Catch Fire

Season 1

Feminist Frequency turned my attention to this show and damn I needed it. There's a lot of good shows on TV now but very few that suit me. It's all thrillers and murder investigations of all sorts and I really don't need this shit. But here - finally - a show that's engaging but low-stress. The plot is good, the characters are good and you have no idea where it's gonna go. It's complicated, it's messy and it's very human. Lee Pace is fucking amazing in this and this is the kind of bisexual character TV needs.

And then there's a strong and weird romance. Dysfunctional one may say but fascinating. S1 ended with a crash but I'm sure there's a lot more to it. I feel like most women would side with Cameron but I'm not very sympathetic to her right now. And not saying Joe hasn't been a manipulative dick because he sure was but Cameron hasn't exactly been a sweetheart either and she fucking knew what she was getting into and it excited her. She was using him too if not as skillfully. And forcing someone to open up to you only to mock them with it later is an immensely dickish move. But just like Brian and Justin I feel like there's a lot of growth potential here.

My one critique is the pace. Honestly I feel like things are happening too fast. Not only for the plot but for character development too. My last het pairing was Kalina/Cary and they took 5 seasons to really take off and it was worth it. H&CF would surely benefit from that.

Season 2

The second season was... unpredictable for one. The start was slow and a little boring even, things got interesting midway through but nothing ever happened like you would expect it to. Which isn't necessarily bad but I felt like it lacked a sense of direction, it was almost as the scriptwriter was making things up on the way. But it was pretty clear that both the fiancee and the new boyfriend were just passing characters to be discarded at the right time, you just didn't know when. Joe is clearly not meant for domestic bliss and now facing S3 he's where he should be - a lone visionary. It's fascinating how he keeps rising from the ashes time and time again. As for Gordon and Donna it's a real mess. Donna was the only sane person (aside from Bosworth) in S1 but now she's as full of shit as everyone else.

Season 3

You'd think S2 was messy but here things get even more complicated, most of all relationships. The last two episodes are 4 years away from the rest and really feel like they should be in S4. That's quite some character development with Joe, the man lost about a decade worth of fucks in just a few years. It's odd seeing him channeling Steve Jobs. Meanwhile, Cameron really pisses me off becasue she's acting like a selfish impulsive teenager. She wants all the control and none of the responsibility. Donna somehow turns into a full-scale bitch. Everyone keeps drifting together and apart again. It's a fucking mess and also probably the closest to life TV gets.

Season 4

It was slow and steady and mature. It wasn't sensational and yet it wasn't predictable. In a way it was almost hard to believe this was the same show as S1. Of course my main concern was Joe and Cam. From S1E1 I could fucking tell they will be so much more than a fling, they were like fire and gasoline, drawn to each other but only ending up hurting. But here, 10 years later, finally it felt like they had a chance, finally they both were ready for this. But the fact that they got together by 2nd episode was worrying. It was perfect but way too soon and every episode I was hoping that they stick together through it all - not for life maybe - but through the show. And yet... What hurts the most is not that they failed as lovers but that they failed as friends. I have very mixed feelings about the last episode. It wasn't bad or disappointing, I guess, becasue apart from Joe and Cam I had no expectations. But to me for the first time in the show it felt a little forced - like in the end they decided to make it some feminist statement and make it all about Cam and Donna, just Joe just being a side note.

@темы: series

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Dragon Age: Origins

I try to keep away from RPGs because they’re so addictive but fail every time. This time I took on Dragon Age: Origins from a passionate recommendation.

I wasn’t really impressed. The graphics aren't great (though I belatedly realized I didn't use a bigger resolution), the controls are hard to figure out (nobody fucking told me about TAB dammit!), I don’t like the fighting system and the gore (why is there so much of it?) and that’s what makes most of any classic RPG game. However, after awhile I realized the character development is interesting enough to keep me through it. Well, there wa also this thing where everyone was telling my char "Woah, a mage AND and woman, that's so rare!" So yeah, there might have been a bit of a female pride there as well.

The crew is hella fun: a cute male senpai, a young bitchy witch, a former bard/thief/spy turned religious, a drunken dwarf, a bisexual elven assassin, a sassy golem, a war dog. At some point it got really engaging so it took less than 2 months to finish the game and the expansion.

Of course there's also the romance thing. I am not used to this in the games I played before. Skyrim and Drakensang have very little companion interaction and Torment gets you a written kiss if you work on it hard enough. But here it's full romance options, for both genders, even more so with some mods. *wink wink* In the end though I settled for Alistair, that stupid sensitive virgin who turned out to be the heir to the throne. And since I wasn’t noble he dumped me and honestly it sucked more that it should have. And you can't go back and hook up with Zev or Leliana if you rejected them.

As I got to Awakening I was disappointed to learn that only the drunken dwarf remains in your party, the rest are rather boring, hey the best tank is the undead dude. And I was determined to enjoy it, at first being above L25 I felt "I got this", and there was no more pressure but soon enough I began to miss my old crew, after all they were the best part. Also when his Majesty king Alistair came to check up on my keep it was like seeing your ex. Fuck this shit. Overall is was too easy, even the endgame, and all the tons of armor and weapons were almost irritating because nobody needs that much. The only fun I had was hacking the game to make my character look a bit older and tougher.

I probably won’t play again because of all the grinding needed to move forward but I kinda wish I could fast-forward and try out other options. I also did 2 small scenarios including Witch Hunt which is no more than a bridge to DA 2 but... nah, I don't think so. I really wish RPGs were more plot and character development and less fighting.

@темы: Games

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Today's unexciting story

Went outside for 40 minutes. Never again. Spent about 15 minutes at the post office trying to get my letter out of which 5 was trying to get their attention and 10 getting them to find my fucking letter. When they finally did find it I said "sorry for the trouble". FUCK my fucking conditioning. Then I went to get some ice-cream. As I paid and was about to leave a huge guy blocked the exit and demanded to look inside my purse, even moved things inside. I gave him my best "FUCK YOU" face and stormed off home. I am 5'2 of hate and fury.

@темы: snapshot

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Finally got around to reading "Realia" by Will Aitken which was a gift from my sister. Because it's about Japan obviously. I bet she didn't expect it to have a scene where a foreign woman in her 30's is spanking and fingering a Japanese pop star. I didn't finish it though, dropped it today at like 95%. Honestly I had lots of doubts about it early on but was intent on finishing it and yet... Before I felt like the worst part was the everlasting trend of sensationizing and creepyfying Japan but that's much worse. I haven't felt so grossed out since "Crash". What the fuck is wrong with modern writers, seriously? Why does everything has to be ruined by sex, drugs and madness? Seriously, fuck this shit. This awful aftertaste will surely linger for a while as I read and watch things about Japan.

My reading revival not going well, huh. Earlier I tried t tackle On The Road after watching the movie. But... I only made it about 30 pages in. It was boring and too pointless. I kinda felt like I'd drop it at some point anyway. If it wasn't boredom, it'd be sex and drugs and... yeah. Whatever happened to plots?

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Fuck you, Photobucket! I have 7.7k pictures stored since fucking 2004. It was almost unbrowsable by now from all the fucking ads and now this shit? Without any prior notice? Why the fuck would I need 7k unembedable photos for? Why don’t you just die already?

Even being on the internet for nearly 20 years I tend to forget how brittle it is. You get used to certain social networks and sites and take it for granted but one day they may disappear without any notice. I remember how in late 2000′s we relied on megaupload. It seemed so solid that it felt like all the files stored there would be there for many years. But one day it was just gone. Youtube was a special dream crusher. I remember how excited I was over my first account, I uploaded all of my fanvideos and had thousands of views but one day it was just gone over copyrights. I made another one and was more careful with it but still one day it was terminated too. I made another one but I didn’t bother upping all my videos and made sure am not as attached to it. Then there was VEOH, I had a solid account there too but one day my country was just blocked from it. Earlier this year the government closed access to some popular social networks for the whole country and while I never cared about them it made me angry. Now Photobucket made a dick move and my online diary of 11 years lost all of its pictures. You spend years building up a blog, reputation and followers and then in a blink of an eye it may all be gone and there’s nothing you can do about it.

@темы: bitching

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I haven't been seeing dreams in months but lately I am seeing them a lot again. There was one very unique dream where I went back in time and woke up in 1997 or so thought for some reason. But then family began to talk about a revolution so I thought 2004. Must have been caused by my recent ponderings on what if. The last few days have also been pretty interesting, tonight I was on stage as one of TVXQ and I think I was Junsu becasue I had so sing this really cool solo part and my voice was awesome but I couldn't remember the lyrics so I was so embarrassed that I'm letting him down. There were also a few pretty gay ones, I wonder about that.

@музыка: Placebo - Where Is My Mind

@темы: Dreams

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Кореяда – 2017

Ходила вчера на "Кореяду". Это был второй раз. Так как у них ротация и в Киеве она проходит раз в 4 года, должно быть, было это 8 лет назад. Кажется, в другой жизни. Так как в этом году было 25-летие дип. отношений с Кореей и 80-летие массовой депортации Корейцев, концерт затянулся. Вот только релевантных номеров у них не хватило, поэтому большинство выступавших имели очень мало отношения к Корее, а кто-то и вовсе никакого. Было пару ансамблей с классическими номерами, барабанщики и Тхэккён. А также один дедуля, исполнявший что-то вроде Трот. Но большинство выступавших были местными корейцами 3-го поколения и кроме фамилий "Ким" и "Пак" от Кореи у них, похоже, ничего не осталось. Так, первыми выступали две юные девочки корейского вида, которые пели песню на корейском, наверно, хуже моего.

Приз зрительских сипматий получил один хитрый певец. Песни у него были так себе, но зато вместо скучных абстрактных анимаций как у большинства выступавших, он поставил клипы популярных корейских исполнителей. Первым из которых был Rising Sun, причем, японская его версия. В зале было явное оживление, но, в основном, со стороны нашей молодежи. Что даже немного удивило, ведь клипу более 10 лет. Вторая песня была балладой, но звучала намного лучше, однако ведущий зачадочно пошутил, что первая песня ему понравилась больше.

Но, в целом, думаю, концерт был скучен большинству пришедших. Слишком мало там было корейского, да и организация страдала, особенно звук. Людей было довольно мало, не полный зал. Рядом со мной сидели три мелких корейских мальчика лет 3-х, которые весь концерт крутились и маялись. Оживились они лишь во время "Rising Sun", а также когда одна белая девушка начала исполнять "Arirang". Вот только версия ее была слишком специфической, сродни оперному пению, и мальчики, как и я, быстро потеряли интерес.

Удивительно, что пригластли несколько совершенно "левых" гостей, но не было ничего современного. Помнится, последний раз когда я приходила посетить один любительский танцевальный коллектив с японской тематикой, года 3 назад, оказалось, что все соседние помещения полны новых групп юных любителей K-pop-а. Их было 3 или 4. Неужто никто из них не захотел бы выступить на этой сцене? Не знаю, каков их увовень, но, честно говоря, планку фестиваля сложно было бы опустить ниже.


PS: Кажется, по-русски я писать скоро разучусь.

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Кореяда – 2017

Ходила вчера на "Кореяду". Это был второй раз. Так как у них ротация и в Киеве она проходит раз в 4 года, должно быть, было это 8 лет назад. Кажется, в другой жизни. Так как в этом году было 25-летие дип. отношений с Кореей и 80-летие массовой депортации Корейцев, концерт затянулся. Вот только релевантных номеров у них не хватило, поэтому большинство выступавших имели очень мало отношения к Корее, а кто-то и вовсе никакого. Было пару ансамблей с классическими номерами, барабанщики и Тхэккён. А также один дедуля, исполнявший что-то вроде Трот. Но большинство выступавших были местными корейцами 3-го поколения и кроме фамилий "Ким" и "Пак" от Кореи у них, похоже, ничего не осталось. Так, первыми выступали две юные девочки корейского вида, которые пели песню на корейском, наверно, хуже моего.

Приз зрительских сипматий получил один хитрый певец. Песни у него были так себе, но зато вместо скучных абстрактных анимаций как у большинства выступавших, он поставил клипы популярных корейских исполнителей. Первым из которых был Rising Sun, причем, японская его версия. В зале было явное оживление, но, в основном, со стороны нашей молодежи. Что даже немного удивило, ведь клипу более 10 лет. Вторая песня была балладой, но звучала намного лучше, однако ведущий зачадочно пошутил, что первая песня ему понравилась больше.

Но, в целом, думаю, концерт был скучен большинству пришедших. Слишком мало там было корейского, да и организация страдала, особенно звук. Людей было довольно мало, не полный зал. Рядом со мной сидели три мелких корейских мальчика лет 3-х, которые весь концерт крутились и маялись. Оживились они лишь во время "Rising Sun", а также когда одна белая девушка начала исполнять "Arirang". Вот только версия ее была слишком специфической, сродни оперному пению, и мальчики, как и я, быстро потеряли интерес.

Удивительно, что пригластли несколько совершенно "левых" гостей, но не было ничего современного. Помнится, последний раз когда я приходила посетить один любительский танцевальный коллектив с японской тематикой, года 3 назад, оказалось, что все соседние помещения полны новых групп юных любителей K-pop-а. Их было 3 или 4. Неужто никто из них не захотел бы выступить на этой сцене? Не знаю, каков их увовень, но, честно говоря, планку фестиваля сложно было бы опустить ниже.


PS: Кажется, по-русски я писать скоро разучусь.

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The past few months it felt like my feelings have shut down, but now it seems like they accumulated somewhere deep inside to break free last night. I haven't felt such a deep pain and frustration in a long time. Funny how both stated were caused by Tegoshi. I wasn't surprised that much but this is one of those moments that could become gamechangers, both for him and for the band. Maybe for the fandom too. I kind of hope all of the above.

@музыка: Dir en grey - Sajou no Uta

@темы: NEWS., Tegoshi Yuya

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I've been on this really strict diet for a month now - no bread, no flour, rice, chocolate or coffee, chicken and much more. I got through it, it was hard but I endured hoping it would get better but today after a check-up the diet wasn't cut, it only got more severe - now I can't have any milk, sugar or eggs either. I was so proud of myself but this is getting really hard, not to mention all the other prescriptions. It's gonna be another long month.

@темы: myself, snapshot

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Torment: Tides of Numenera

First of all, there's two ways to judge the game: as an individual media or as a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment. If you think of it as a separate game it has its merits as well as shortcomings but I'm sure it has its audience. If you judge it as the latter, however, it is a failure on nearly every level. When I discovered P:T I was charmed and shaken, I wanted, needed to learn more about the Planescape world, I downloaded the OST and read a ton of articles on it. But Ninth World left me thoroughly unimpressed.

The graphics are good overall. Not as good as the concept art but still good. But surely it's not the game's crucial feature. That would be the plot and the game world. The expectations were high. I could forgive many problems and bugs if the plot was good but alas I found it very disappointing. There was some intrigue at first and a hope that the puzzle will start to make sense after a while but as it progressed the disappointment grew. The Changing God wasn't the best character and after meeting him he just came off as an egomaniac douchebag, and not even a very smart one. The Sorrow seemed like a good antagonist but the ending scene when it talked rubbish completely ruined the effect. The Ending was very disappointing. The whole time I had a slightest hope everything will make sense in the end but it did not. The whole thing just felt so... pointless.

The extensive terminology was redundant. I understand some terms would be good to highlight a world's uniqueness but there's just too much of it and it's really unnecessary to replace normal concepts with obscure terms. Fettles? Nano? That is really trying too hard. The whole tidal concept was just so raw and pointless. Why would they bring so much focus to it if it had so little influence on the game and the ending? The meres and anamnesis seemed like a good idea to add flavour and volume to the game since I really loved the Sensorium in Planescape. However, it just didn't work for me. I can't really tell why exactly but only a few stories left a strong impression. Overall, the game's lore felt too heavy and forced. As if the creators got together, got high, wrote down all their thoughts and then just went from there jamming every quirky idea into the sсript without consolidating them.

The game's fights were somewhat complex and redundant. I collected a lot of cyphers and money most of which I never got to use. The armour and weapon choice was also rather poor but since the game was so short it didn't really matter much. And yes, the game is too short. And at this point I was glad about it but no matter how you look at it the number of locations just feels too little. Sagus Cliffs was quite interesting but after that you get a few sloppy locations and then it's just the Bloom. The teaser art showed a number of unique locations such as Oasis city, Ossiphagan and a dozen locations on the world map but apparently they only appear in the novellas or meres.

When I first learned of the project I thought it was a great idea and the crowdfunding would let the true creativity flow. But the end product was nothing like what I imagined from the released teasers and nothing like P:T. If anything, the game mechanic feels more like Fallout than P:T. Not to mention the fact that the game has been delayed for over 2 years and still the original release was raw and buggy.

In the end: if I knew what I was in for I wouldn't do it. Not because the game is so bad, but because unlike P:T it wasn't worth it for me. For a couple of good thoughtful ideas I got a pack of disturbing images.

I got to play it for free so I don't have the right to bitch but if I did pay for it expecting another P:T I would be very pissed off.

@темы: Games

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Every Day It's a New Shitstorm

It's been about 2 months now that I have gotten seriously pissed with Tegoshi. And while it happened several times before this time it was different, it was a deeper disappointment and it never quite disappeared, washing over me and taking a large portion of my love for NEWS with it. I got over it soon enough but nothing was ever quite the same. My "maybe I'm leaving" posts on tumblr are getting old and people might think I'm just being dramatic but it's not like that, really. I go on but only because I have nothing better to do and because I'm afraid to let go. It's almost like an old marriage: the feeling is disappearing but I still try to convince myself it can be fixed and rekindled.

And then there, of course, are the scandals. The last month has been a fucking drag. First Koyama, then Tegoshi, Tegoshi and more Tegoshi. Koyama's made me just plain mad. Nobody should say a bad word about this wonderful man, he just doesn't deserve it. Thankfully, he seems to be in good standing in JE so he should be fine. And Tegoshi's... are driving me crazy. On one hand, they also make me mad becasue honestly in all of the "scandalous" bits of info released lately, there was absolutely nothing really incriminating. Even the latest article, which might have well been 100% made up. But if you assume it's true, there's absolutely nothing shocking in it, all of it is easy to believe. Partying, drinking and sleeping around once in a while is what adult men do. There's nothing wrong with it unless they deceive or abuse women which is clearly not the case. But what kind of bitch would do that to him after meeting over 30 times? Tegoshi's real problem is a lack of judgement. But it feels like someone is out to ruin his career and that always has a chance to drag the whole band down.

His reaction to those scandals, however, has been truthfully dumb. The more he tried to explain himself, the more attention to brings to it. And it's irritating how people find it somehow "brave" and admirable when I think it's just selfish and dumb. Besides, the whole ticket issue didn't bother me until me denied it altogether and that was annoying becasue clearly it doesn't add up. At this point I'm just tired of it all, more than anything.

I try to make at least a few posts per day but in the end it feels like more of a habit than joy. Even my excitement for Prince was brief, it seems to be gone now. But then I don't feel excited about anything, really, as of late and that's the saddest part. I'm not sad even, just numb. Maybe all of this is just a part of my depression, I still hope I can light up at some point, that not all is lost. I want to be creepily excited like all those fans, I want to be slightly in love with Tegoshi like I used to be, but the more time passes the less likely that seems to be.


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@темы: musings, fandom, Tegoshi Yuya

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Dahlia

I never brought pot flowers before but yesterday I just saw it and wanted to take it home. I planted my dahlia to the big pot and now it is mine to take care of.

@темы: snapshot

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Recent shows

I was looking for something to watch and I came across "Travel Man" with Richard Ayoade. As expected, he's charming in a very English way. We also ended up watching "The IT Crowd". I am still not quite comfortable with the dark humour but it's just 4 short seasons.

"The Real O'Neals" has been cancelled and it is upsetting in many ways. Sure they had their ups and downs but it was a bold attempt to give young LGBT people something to identify with. Yet, I have a feeling it was that demographic that gave up on it. Anyway, don't have many options left. TBBT is closing the 10th Season and now I guess it'll be 4th Season of "Agents of SHIELD", just for laughs and "The Good Fight".

I also started watching "49". I am annoyed by Shori but there's Jinguji and also I need to know how a story about a father's spirit ending up in his son's body ended up creating a cross-dressing boy band.

@музыка: SHINee - Last Gift

@темы: series

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Torment

I started Torment: Tides of Numenera about a week ago. My mental state has been very shaky lately and I was going to wait some more but in the end one night nothing worked so I did this. It's not as good as I hoped for but still pretty good. The graphics don't feel that much different from 1999 but the thing is heavy. Anyway, this is now a solid part of my days. Sometimes I fear it makes me even more distressed but a part of me believes - hopes - it might stir something, help me find something inside, something that would let me find control. It might seem foolish but at this point I feel like it's as good a try as any.

@темы: Games