Bright End of Nowhere

As mentioned in the last post, I have found myself in the position of figuring out what kind of Pokemon team Natasha Romanov would use. Granted, from the MCU, I have my own ideas of the theme of that team (Paper Rams and Lightning Bruisers), specializing in speed and weakness exploitation because the Black Widow does not do long, drawn-out fights and instead is a one-hit, one-kill type. (If this were a different type of game, I'd just build her as a dodgy DPS McFacestabby.)

So, comic book people, I need your help! How would you classify her combat style? Is it how I'm thinking? Or does she do the slugfests that other comic book characters do? (Am I completely off-base and she's the type who's actually slow but goddamn does it hurt when it connects? (I hate playing those fighters in games.))

I NEED YOUR KNOWLEDGE. Or your laughter. That's fine too. This entire endevour is inherently ridiculous.

Hey all. I'm still not very good at this whole updating thing but whatever.

1. Finished first solo playthrough of Borderlands 2. Now have True Vault Hunter Mode open for Zer0. Next on the list is get through TVHM with him and to play through some more with Maya.

2. The above got put on hold when Mystery Hunt came up. And the team I was on (the one named [the entire text of Atlas Shrugged], because there was no character limit on the form and we're like that) actually won this year! Which is awesome! And now means we have to write next year's Hunt.

Here's to me avoiding leadership responsibilities.

3. Handed off the tabletop ruleset I'm writing based on Persona to DMark. He's now editing it (thank god), and helping me rebalance things I knew were broken but couldn't see how to fix because I'd been staring at it too long.

I'm going to need to figure out what to do with the damn thing once it's done. There's a tabletop a friend's running that's going to use it, but my goal is to make this fairly self-contained and playable by people who are not me and do not know me. It's, well, it's probably getting close to publishable. I'm just not sure if I should put my RL name on it, since it is copyrighted material. Fair Use might cover it (it is remixed), and I don't want to make money off it.

In any case, I'm considering uploading all the documents onto a website I theoretically maintain (although I haven't touched it since 2009). I'm unsure yet, and especially unsure about the name problem.

In some ways, it might be good to have it under my RL name, if I ever want to seriously pursue my parents' suggestion of somehow using my hobby of writing games to get into some career. I'm just a bit torn by it. I'd probably be less torn if it was 100% original.

Which is possibly another reason to go write the AtLA-inspired elemental-mages-and-weaponsmasters-wuxia system I've been tossing around since 2010.

Uh, I seem to have accidentally NaNoWriMo. It might be because of an agreement with a friend that I'll attempt to write this damn fucking huge Mass Effect/Dragon Age crossover in an attempt to provide relaxation right before finals and whatever stupid her PhD program throws at her. Because I have no sense of self-preservation.

We're still without power, or at least, that was true when I left for work this morning. We're going to have to do a massive fridge purge already, and it's only a matter of time to see if we'll need to do a freezer purge as well. Yarmond pointed out that we could have the best haunted house, because it was dark! And...something. Flashlights. There's only so much sitting in the dark or reading Kindles by flashlight you can do.

Oh, and yesterday's Three Panel Soul was entirely accurate.

*blows dust off*

Um, hi. I've been busy lately.

( Birthday )

( Fallout )

( LARP )

( Work )

You know, these updates won't be so long if I updated more often. Or something.

1) I seem to have committed Tumblr. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with this thing. Well, actually, I know what one of them will be, because a certain friend is a TERRIBLE INFLUENCE and we apparently enable each other. 3shotsminimum is the collaborative one (in which we learn what happens when a couple of engineers/gamers have far too much free time on their hands). If I'm not careful, I might end up getting brow-beaten into posing Mass Effect fic bits on there. Among other ridiculous projects. (ultranos is the personal one I have no idea what to do with yet.)

2) Speaking of ridiculous projects, I seem to be writing a SIK game. Or several SIK games. Possibly also a one-night. I blame "One Night in Bangkok".

3) I went on vacation! I nearly got my speaking privileges revoked in the Museum of Science and Industry, because I am basically a snarky 12-year-old with a job. (Thank you, yarmond, for that description.)

3b) The MSI had a full-scale replica of Curiosity! It's adorable.

4) I am now only one season behind in Dr. Who. I am, however, caught up with Leverage, The Newsroom, and Warehouse 13. I am making progress! It would be easier if I didn't keep getting distracted by ME3 Multiplayer (anyone else play on PC?)

5) I kind of forgot I have an unplayed copy of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep. That might be a good thing to start soon. I miss bashing things with keys.

1) Part of me feels very guilty for having the AC already going, because it really isn't that hot, but it's for the filter. Because the trees are still trying to kill me, and we've had a lot of rain. On the upside, though, so far it seems to be working (along with "drugging myself with Benedryl before bed on bad nights") and I haven't had a night yet where I only get 3 hours of sleep due to uncontrollable coughing. Ah, spring, you do try your damnedest to murder me every year.

2) I've been staring at LEGOs lately, in part because I realized I had two unconstructed sets just sitting in my closet and because I've had that construction itch again. When I found this from Ichiban Toys, I really could not resist it. (Even the Serenity model could not sway me.) But that hasn't soothed the itch, and when I stumbled upon this model of the SSV Normandy SR-2, complete with LEGO Digital Designer files so I could build it in Alliance colors myself...I'm hopeless. So now I've got a list of parts in an .xls, and I'm scouring BrickLink for parts and oh god, I'm actually going to do this. My latest Bad Idea. I have no idea where I'd even put the damn thing, and I know I'd end up having to take over the dining room table to build it. (The guys have noted that, considering it's LEGO, they really can't say a damn thing against me doing it. They're just as bad.)

Of course this leads to the Auxiliary Bad Idea: appropriate custom minifigs. I blame the fact that BrickArms and BrickForge exist.

3) Finished Bastion last week. Then promptly went and bought the soundtrack. "Build That Wall", "Mother, I'm Here", and "Setting Sail, Coming Home" are probably my favorite tracks.

4) Yarmond is playing Uncharted 2. neboat and I are having far too much fun asking him if Claudia Black has betrayed him yet. (Yes, no, yes, no, maybe? It's complicated!) Black is voicing, as far as I can tell, a treasure-hunter who may or may not be a double-agent for some terrorists and is possibly far cooler than the hero. Go on, be shocked. I dare you. (On the other hand, I had to pull up IMDB to prove one of her VA credits in the Mass Effect series because she sounds totally different.)

5) I seem to be writing another Guild game. This should not be shocking to anyone. Sometimes, I wonder why I don't just write gaming systems and attempt to indie publish them. My mom's been after me to try to turn this game-writing thing into an actual career.

The BBC was filming in my lab, not even 10 feet from my office door.

Apparently, there will be a special on synthetic biology. No, I didn't know this would be happening when I came into work today.

My reaction: "Oh. Okay." And then made tea.

I am alive! Really! I've just been kind of busy at work, and then coming home and either catching up on Leverage or buying and playing way too many games on Steam. (Steam, why do you keep having such wonderful sales?)

For the record, it's really hard to type fast when your fingers are covered in potting epoxy. Just throwing that out there. The presence of black potting epoxy on my hands might make going through airport security in...3.5 hours really entertaining.

Oh! Due to my excessive watching of Leverage and comments from friends earlier in the week about Shadowrun and recounting our crazy SR campaign that took ten runs to get our first kill (we were amazingly effective and non-lethal! In Shadowrun 3rd Ed.) somehow convinced me that Leverage-themed SR campaign would be hilarious.

I also got myself addicted to Online Dominion, which is...Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Hurray for euro-cardgames? It's to the point where I was dreaming Dominion strategies last night.

I, er, have been poking at fandom_stocking for people. Sort of. I think all my writing points have wandered off to the tenday. Or are hiding like ninja.

Things That Make Me Happy (partial list):

-Figuring out the error in my pset on units that make my answers make sense to the correct order of magnitude. This involves literally leaping out of bed and opening MATLAB to do the calculations.

-Tokyo Brass Style playing Studio Ghilbi music. What is Tokyo Brass Style? An all-female swing band who do covers of various anime music. It's just about as awesome as it sounds.

-Second-ever US showing of Summer Wars on campus, with Q&A with the director and producer tonight! And I get to have dinner with the director, Mamoru Hosoda, today! (Okay, so it's pizza, and it's being arranged by one of my professors for his class, but STILL. AWESOME.) I might be a little excited.

--Relatedly, helping map out the timeline(s) from Hosoda's last movie The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and realizing that the theory of time travel is less a "wibbly-wobbly timey-whimy" ball and more of "time travel as a version-control repository". I believe the phrase "time travel is like a git-repo" was used.

1) No, I haven't forgotten about those prompts I asked for a few weeks ago. I've just been ridiculously hosed. I'll get to them eventually.

2) Short story is now in the revision stage. I'm not entirely sure what I'll change, though. There are some parts that are bugging me, but no one dinged me on them, so I'm uncertain whether or not I should change them. Also, I clearly have been trained to write for writing LARPs or entire universes. I kind of stunned some people in the roundtable critique when asked to explain my universe's geopolitical situation. Apparently, not everyone comes up with 5 times the amount of information that actually appears in the story?

3) As if I don't have enough to do, I'm poking at the idea of running a tabletop involving time travel. Possibly in GURPS, which I've never used before. Clearly, I am insane.

4) I was looking at my list of fic WIPs and am feeling the need to write again. And not just abyssinia4077's and my Fic of Doom. I do realize I have the crack!fic that's still languishing at 10K words, and still needs it's back 2/3s. And the fic Aby wants to kill me for. And...other things. It's just that I have no time and am out of the groove for writing SG-1 right now. I think it's because I've been drilling deep in original fic and into SMT/Persona mythos for both the game I'm writing and the tabletop I'm playing. Someone make me fannish again?

5) There is no five.

6) You know what I miss? Vacations and weekends. I swear to god, I haven't had a For Reals one in weeks. I also miss cooking. I think the last time I went to the grocery store is roughly, uh, 8 weeks ago? Sometime in September, when I forgot to eat dinner, got out of lab at midnight, and went to the 24-hour grocery store for material components to make a grilled cheese sandwich. TERM, WHY WILL YOU NOT END? Wait, no, don't end. Ending now would be painful.