♥

<watching C-SPAN2>

I think I'm in love with Patrick Fitzgerald.

!#@*&!!

ARG. I was working on a new rant about patriotism and how it's a contagious and fatal disease that will ultimately destroy the entire world and I lost it. <headeskheadeskheadesk>

Jumpstart

Man, I am having a hard time getting going today. I just want to curl up on the couch under a warm blankie and watch TV until it's bed time.

I'm starting to hurt, physically.

Holy mothering god. I think someone's just moved into the empty apartment next door, and they apparently have a child. This child has – and I am not making this up – been screaming for the past thirty minutes without stop, and this is the third or fourth bout of this today, for a total of about three hours of piercing wails. I mean, at first you think, "Okay, temper tantrum", but now I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking "Torture by red hot pokers". It's gotten so bad that for the sake of my own sanity (the mental images I'm getting are growing increasingly unpleasant) I just called the main office. I never do this. She said she's going to pop down and see what's going on, and I'm guessing she will, if for nothing other than the idea of a potential child abuse case.

I mean, for the sake of the kid, I hope everything's okay, but on the other hand, if it's just fucking screaming for no goddamn reason ... Man, I hope it's a short lease.

Good morning?

I think I just slept for 11 hours straight.

Man do I feel strange.

While the Mike's away ...

I hadn't realized it was quite so soon, but apparently next week (beginning of November) is when Mike will be going to visit his parents for a week. I'm thinking Roman-style orgy. Anybody want to come?

City of Self-Indulgent Screencap Dumping

Before I knuckle down for today's writing streak, I felt like sharing my Heroes Gallery. As those who've played know, the character creation in City of Heroes is really quite phenominal. I don't consider myself to be particularly good at the task (I tend not to vary it up enough – visually speaking, I'm very uncreative), but it's fun regardless. And with something like 10 servers and seven slots per server, there's oodles of room to experiment.

These are my current favourites. I have I think three or four more that aren't included here, but I think those are fairly unimpressive, so you're not missing much.

This is Thermodynamic, my most recent hero. She's a level 5 mutant fire/ice blaster. I really wanted to call her "Freezerburn", but surprise surprise, that name was already taken. She doesn't have an in-game bio, but in my head, she's an outcasted Outcast (one of the villain groups in the game). I haven't taken it a whole lot further than that. I keep making blasters because I think they'll be fun for me to play, but I so often come to find that isn't really the case. I think I'm just too much of an in-your-face kind of player. I do love her orange sneakers though.


I created Roving Mark just after archery went in. It's a fun enough skillset, but again, it's a blaster and for me, blasters just move so darned slowly. I should probably try teaming up with a blaster, that might make a lot of difference in how much fun I have with them. But anyway. She's a level 7 tech archery/technology blaster. I really like the yellow/green/red colour scheme on her. This design ranks as one of the more personally visually appealing. Roving Mark, sadly, lacks any bio, even in my head.


Meet Fibrillation. She was my first alt. Her powers?

Electricity, natch. She's a level 12 science electric/electric blaster. I was doing really well with Fibrillation until I got stonewalled on the Frostfire mission. I think I died five times in a row, and I haven't really played her since. I suppose I should try to get her to 14 at least, so I can finally have a character with fly But anyway. Fibrillation also lacks an in-game bio, but unofficially, she's Ultrace's little sister. Her look and personality, I realized a little bit after I created her, is heavily influenced by Lightning Lass/Spark from Legion of Super-Heroes. I think her hero name is probably my favourite.


I don't know why I created a defender. If blasters aren't my style then defenders sure as hell aren't either. But still, sometimes you just wanna kick back and let someone else do all the heavy work. Hence RX-911, a level 7 tech empathy/electric defender. I play her side-by-side with Mike's Dr. Taccalo (readers of his LJ will catch that reference). Or, well, we did that weekend I created her. She hasn't been out since. But I still like her look, and I figure that if nothing else, I can whore her out for influence if necessary. She's very blue and silver, which is a colour scheme I like a great deal. Also, RX-911 is the first character shown here to be blessed with a bio, which was created in about three very quick and bored minutes. Her name amuses me greatly.

Next up is my "main" who is steadily becoming less of a main these days, the narcissistically named Jet Wolf.

She do love her cape.
Jet Wolf was, of course, the first character I created back when we got the first free trial. At level 27, she's my highest toon, and she's still a blast to play ... when she's not dying every few seconds. Jet Wolf's counterpart is, of course, Ultrace. She's a mutant claws/super reflexes scrapper, which would be a whole lot more fun to play if the claws attack animations weren't quite so long. She deals some serious damage though, as is fitting. Jet Wolf, of course, has a bio:

She has another costume as well, including Supergroup colours (for the "Wolfpack", which was created just because we could), but I forgot to get caps of those. Ahh, another time.

And last but never least ...

Hero Brand X, and his uncomfortably close package!
Hero Brand X was created a little different from my previous characters, in that I had his origin worked out before anything else. I forget where the idea came from, but when I menionted it to Mike, he just fell in love with the concept (to the point where he talks every now and then about making up a website specifically for the character). I pretty much had little choice but to follow through after that.

HBX is a level 22 science dark/regen scrapper, and is just too much fun to play. The upcoming changes may alter this, but right now playing Hero Brand X really does make me feel superheroic. Last night I'm wading into groups of five or six orange guys and just beating the shit out of 'em. Of course, that wouldn't be possible without Mike's Penance Healer to keep him all buffed and not-dead, but the fun remains. He is one bad mutha.

"One day I'm gonna jump that bitch."

As mentioned several days ago, X and Penance Healer joined the Galactic Defenders supergroup. Their colours are actually quite complimentary to X's already established purple and black.

And finally, of course, Hero Brand X's (not so secret) origin:


But wait! There's one more!


Willow the Dark. Magic electric/fire blaster.
I couldn't help myself.

Go quicker!

Only 3h 50m before City of Villains beta finishes downloading. And I wait.

Is it just me, or is life nothing but one long sequence of waiting?

Hold On

A tragic tale, told in haiku.

Notes, random, no point
Meant to please but I am not soothed
Death to hold music

I watch my minutes
Precious cell phone currency
Wasted on this shit

"Shortly"? I must laugh
My life drains, my soul empty
Lifetimes pass. I rot.

<sigh>

City of Gender Bending

This has been a good weekend. Just a nice, relaxing, rejuvenating sort of weekend.

One in which I did nothing but KILLKILLKILL.

Mike and I started playing CoH on Friday night, and I swear that except for food, bathing and sleep, we didn't stop. I interlude for a moment to say that I love the fact that Mike has Saturdays and Sundays off now, instead of Thursdays and Sundays. Mind you, I'm running a pretty good track record for getting nothing done at all on weekends, but anyway.

We've sort of stalled on Jet Wolf and Ultrace at level 27. We play with each other pretty much exclusively, and at these higher levels are finding it a tad difficult for a scrapper and a blaster to go it alone. Or, well, it's much slower than we like to play it, anyway. Our main alts (yes, main alts) run much more smoothly, however. I have another scrapper, but this one is dark/regen, which feels so much more fluid and effective than Jet Wolf's claws/super reflexes. Instead of a blaster, Mike plays an empath/radiation defender.

This team, if I may say so, rocks. Since we play together, Mike's defender has nothing but healing and buffs. No wasted slots on weak attacks that do practically nothing. Because I have dark, I only need the first three attacks and ignore everything else, so I can focus on kicking as much ass as possible. When we really settle down to play, the xp just flies by.

I love these toons. Except for one little thing. I created a guy and Mike created a girl.

As they're steadily gaining ground (both level 21 as of today), we sort of can't call them "alts" any more, and it bugs me that I'm "stuck" playing this male character. Which I know seems sort of silly, but it's a thing. I have breasts. I feel that my primary representation should have breasts too. This is especially going to get tricky as today we joined a Supergroup, the Galactic Defenders.

We got in by virtue of a million influence costume/bio contest in which my character, Hero Brand X, took third place. All the finalists were invited to join their group. I said that Mike (Penance Healer) and I were a package deal, but if they wanted to consider "her" as well, then we'd see. From there it was an in-character Q&A session that was actually pretty funny, and then a Battle Royale in the Arena where we were all de-levelled and fought in teams against three of their also de-levelled guys. Surprisinginly lots of fun. (And I won with 39 KO's. Go go Hero Brand X!) They had an observer in as well to see how we did. Obviously I have no idea how much observing she was actually able to do, but I was impressed by the effort. It looks like these folks are really gearing up for City of Villains.

More than that, though, they were a friendly, funny group, and I have to admit that I enjoyed the process more than I thought I would. It reminded me very much of my old clan days back on Aardwolf. They also get bonus points for being part of a Coalition which includes groups with names that use the word "legion", and my personal favourite, "Galactic Defenders West Coast".

But then we come back to the damned thing where I'm a guy and Mike's a girl. Already I've lapsed and referred to "her" as him, and the whole thing just irks me a little. I'm not really a natural role-player – that will probably be for the best sometimes as Hero Brand X is an egotistical SOB. So I'm not sure how this will work out long-term. Try to explain, or just pretend that he's a she? And why does that sentence weird me out?

But ultimately, all that is irrelevant. It was a really great weekend. Me, an' my guy/girl, an' killin'. This is the life.

Not again.

I can't stop coughing. I can't stop sneezing.

Listen up, body! Do NOT be sick again, or that's it! I'm cutting you off! I'll just be a head in a pan! I'll do it! Don't push me!

We ♥ Veronica Mars

Shipping today, Veronica Mars S1 on DVD. Crap for extras, but who needs 'em when you have shiny Veronica goodness?

In unrelated news, I so very much wish I had time for Fanfic 100. I love The Chosen without question, but I must admit that I'm also looking forward to when I can spread a little free time around.

Writing Interlude

I am scrabbling like a mad woman to get the writing done, and all is going well today. I just finished an eight-page scene (the average act comes in around ten pages, so that should tell you something), and ... well, it's pretty heavy. Then I look at the four scenes left to come in this act.

Drama, drama, whoa BIG drama, more drama and, check, more drama.

Thank god the next act will see something that is, at least to me, pretty freaking hilarious. Because OMGTEHANGST. Batten down the hatches for this one, kiddies.

Buffy is feeling serene.

I had a great many dreams last night, but the one I had right before waking up is what sticks with me the most. I was on a movie set. Serenity was being filmed in what I think was a remake. The stars? Buffy characters. Not the actors, but the characters.

I can't remember more than three of the roles, sadly. We had Willow as Kalyee, Oz as Simon, and Tara as Inara.

My fandoms have just had a head-on collision.

Let's get stupid!

When we went to work out tonight, there was one other person in there. As per the fitness room unwritten rules, whoever's in there first gets dibs on the entertainment. This lady had chosen the VERY LOUD stereo. The song playing – I couldn't tell you who it was by – contained a sampling of "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. It was very easily the best thing about the song. What really got to me though was a song following soon after, wherein the chorus was something like, and I'm not making this up, "Let's get retarded in here".

"Shouldn't be a problem," I thought to myself in reply. "We're already off to a great start."

And then people (*cough*Wolf*cough*) wonder why I don't listen to modern music. Here is your reason.

I don't need help to get retarded in here.

Free 14-day CoH trial

With the City of Villains pre-order packet I picked up today, I have a free 14-day trial for City of Heroes. I throw it open to the masses. Whoever's interested, let me know.

Game Day

With the news released that City of Heroes subscribers won't pay more for City of Villains, the plan is on to aquire copies of the game for Mike and myself. (Two games for the price of one? I can dig it.) Because of course I have so much free time to spend on such things. Still, the allure of playing a villain is strong. I'm very curious indeed to see how they will work this. I mean, I doubt they'll have "murder as many scientists as you can find" missions, but damn, that would be cool. I desperately desire the ability to bitchslap the irritating cowering people that populate a great many CoH missions.

Of course, while looking around at that, I found more information on Civilization 4. Then I had to go find a towel to mop up my drool.

The Civ games are, far and away, my favourites on any system. It doesn't matter how many times I've played it, it doesn't matter how long I can leave it, whenever I fire that puppy up, it just sucks you in. So a new version? Yeah, I'm there.

In other game play news, the recently aquired We ♥ Katamari is a big success, and we've returned once more to X-Men Legends, which is frankly a game that is just never not fun. I very literally cackled the other night when I boosted Cyclops' optic beam to the point where I could demolish walls. It's a rush. Plus there's a little fangirl squee at exploring the X-Mansion. It's not quite the same thrill I got in first seeing it "live" courtesy of the movie, but there is undeniable coolness in poking around in Rogue's room, or flipping through Colossus' sketchbook, or trying desperately to kill all of Storm's plants. Suffice it to say, we're having a great deal of fun with this one. My recent illlness gave me a chance to play some stuff I haven't really had time for lately. Guess there's my silver lining.

But above all of that must come the writing. I have school nice and under control, so now I just need to spread that out to the writing side, and all will be well.

Then I'll make a super villain and kill me some scientists.