Hi! Idk if anyone still remembers me, I assume people do because I posted a lot like ages ago ago and there can't have been that much turnover, but i haven't posted here in 9 months so with the fact that my self esteem, much like my emotional state, varies wildly from positive to negative, might also lead me to believe that no one actually remembers me and this is going to be really awkward.

WHATEVER

anyway, So by the time december rolled around, I was busy not thinking of anything to do with the fact that I, and my parents were becoming homeless, because our apartment priced us out and my brother and his girlfriend left and didn't help us because fuck them. Also rent in general in Portland is crazy. Thus, January rolled around, and we were homeless! We rented an RV for a month from a former bandmate of my father, who is literally bipolar and didn't take any meds. Let me say that the anxiety I got from living there was pretty bad. So Febuary rolls around, we spend a large amount of Febuary sleeping in the car which sucks and I would very much not recommend. We actually got into a shelter late febuary, and stayed there until we finally got an apartment we could afford.

The shelter was this old army reservists base, and it was actually pretty okay. It helped me become less anxious about my transition (there were so many transpeople there and I finally knew where to get women's shoes in size 11), and thus I started going full time whilst I was there, which was awesome; roughly 6 months in fact! Even if my 'full time' is actually just kinda t-shirts with varying degrees of tightness and pants that you would wear to a job, it's still nice to be able to go outside, wear makeup (lipstick actually i have no idea how to do other makeup) and not worry that much. I don't wanna post a pic because that's not really the point but you can look at my tumblr (same user name) if you really wanna know.

So I actually got my first job as soon as I became unhomeless, which was basically a janitorial training thing for people with disabilites, of which anxiety counts, so yep. It was probably the worst job for me because A: I am not very clean, as a person, B: It was a night job and I'm a morning person, C: My anxiety was actually very much not helpful because I had a timeline and that did not help! I did finally end up meeting friends there, because apparently I am actually super funny and likable once people get to know me, which was the first time I'd made a new friend irl since, like, high school. pretty sad, really, but I'll take it!

I actually quit because both my body and my mind couldn't fucking take it anymore, because I'm like tired all of the time and shit anyway, and I had to take my bike 4 miles to the MAX (light rail) station to get there and back, and fuck that. I haven't looked very much because I'm still super tired and I suspect it's a iron deficency due to my estradiol dosage, but hey, things are going okay without it. Actually I still feel guilty because my mom is working and I'm not but whatever

Anyway, for all of the people who wondered where that dumb trans shit poster was, here I am!

(PS if anyone's wondering about games I've played, Life is Strange is dope, Fallout 4 is not dope, Lightning returns is SO GOOD OMG)

My cat of like 18 years, had him since I was 5 (or 6?), was put down because the vet said he wasn't long for this world and he was suffering, I am really fucking sad right now :(

r.i.p. buddy

Okay, so, I'm not the biggest soccer fan in the world. Before playing FM I barely knew what the differerences were between a full back and a half back. I got into it via screenshot LP's, one of them in Something Awful and the other on this other site (runofplay I think it was).

Now, why is Football Manager the greatest strategy game of all time?

It's a lot like Crusader Kings 2. It gives you the information, and you fill it in if you want to or not. Just like CK2, you do not compete in the battles, as it were, you can merely shout at your players to stop fucking up or yell at them to mark dudes or whatever. You can also change tactics. But that's it, and changing tactics in the middle is a dangerous move. The rest is you looking at stats, the rest is you hiring players and doing press conferences and looking at stats and hiring staff and looking at stats and deciding which stats to train. (you look at stats a lot)

It creates stories. I had a star striker that came through my youth system, and I was real excited for him.

He was my top scorer and the league's top in the Skrill Premier (5th highest league in England) AND the Sky Bet League 2 (aka the 4th league no I don't get it either). He got his first national call up at the age of 18! It was Wales so not a whole lot of choice there but still. So, I get into Sky Bet League 1, and Chelsea (who won the Premier league 4 times in a row and are king shit in all of England) comes by with an offer of nearly 9 million dollars. I'm floundering pretty hardcore, in both the league and the finances (this is why going up back to back is very dangerous) so I accept. It was heartbreaking :( He was loaned back to me for the rest of the season and I barely stayed up. Luckily I have some others that could potentially be pretty exciting, but none of them came through my system. I connected with the digital man in a way I never was able to for CK2.

Now, I know a lot more about soccer but i'm still pretty bad at the game. I look at stats, go, "WELL THIS IS A HIGH NUMBER" without regarding their other stats... having a star player with a weak consistency is the goddamn worst. But sometimes they'll play way better then their star rating would lead you to believe.

It's all pretty fantastic.And rage inducing, but I'm pretty sure regular soccer is like that vOvThanks to @nev for making sure this blog could exist! <3and thanks to... everyone on my friends list who listens to me talk about it because they're all americans and thus do not care for soccer.Also the reason I chose Rorie to be the head coach was because I had his 90's picture from the GOTY videos and I felt that 90's rorie would be a perfect head coach. For anything.

So, I really need to stop playing Europa Universalis 4 right now, but I'm still thinking about it, so... What better way to get it out of my system than to type about it?!

No?

WELL WHATEVER.

I'm going to write a review pretty soon I think? I mean I do want to get to the end date on a converted save and one on a regular save. I'm thinking the regular save should be one of the Japanese Daimyos...

but let's get started!

Okay, so this is my converted save from Crusader Kings 2. This was a preorder DLC taht you got for CK2 for preordering EU4 that would convert your save game from that game and put it in this one. Pretty self explanatory. I started as the tribe of Tavastians (because they had the best province in Finland) (aka the one with Helsinki in it) and formed Finland and had a gay old time. I was doing pretty well.

ALAS...

So, at first glance and knowing nothing about the games, FInland seems to be in a fine position. Half of Sweden, half of Norway, some parts of Russia...

but as anyone who knows literally anything about the game (or knows about European Geography) will tell you...

I literally got all of the shitty provinces. De jure Finland includes Finland, Karelia (which was Finnish all the way up to WW2 afaik), and Estonia! Estonia has good provinces, the two southwestern Finland provinces (Finland proper and Uusimma) are pretty good too, but most of Finland is, well, cold. Coldness does not lend itself well to living. So, I, in my infinite wisdom because I didn't realize how shitty the provinces actually were, got all of the bad ones from Norway and Sweden and Russia. The only good provinces I got that was not part of Finland were Pskov (the one to the east of Lithuania) and halsingland (the most southern swedish province I have).

Now, Rus controls Novgorod and Ryazan and all those little nations. They also constitute the good parts of Russia, and they also had Ukraine, which made them a fucking pain in the butt to deal with. For the first 40 years, I did very little... other than stealing a province or two from Lithuania when I allied with Poland.

Now, the cool part is when the new features work :) There are coalitions in the game, basically if a nation gets too big than other nations near it might band together and say "if they attack us or we attack them, we all go in" but only for that country. This allowed me to ally with Lithuania (who, while also mad at me, also got wrecked by Rus pretty hard), Poland... So the first war I had with Rus whilst in that coalition was brutal. I ran out of manpower, so I had to sit still while Poland and Lithuania fought them to gain back one of Lithuania's provinces (barely too; Lithuania and Poland were close to running out as well). 5 years later, they do it again, only this time Rus gets broken first and we release Ukraine, which severely hits Rus's manpower.

The Il-Khanate, which I haven't mentioned but are the strongest army in the game by FAR (they are also christian so while they don't like us all that much, they're not chomping at the bit for my shitty russian provinces), decides to take advantage of Rus's lack of manpower, and invades them. My white peace was up, so we all invade Rus at basically the same time and Rus gets dismantled pretty hard, compared to their earlier dominance.

It doesn't look like I got much, but that province I circled is Novgorod (now called Veliky Novgorod apparently) which at this point in time is an extremely rich ass province and it honestly bumped my economy up 3 gold per month, which is huge considering I was getting .55 per month with my army fully reinforced.

Also I was colonizing which probably explains my lack of money.

Honestly I'm pretty much the only colonizer at this point; Not to say that colonization is all that important in this game (which is converted from a CK2 game with Sunset Invasion, which basically makes an alt history where the Aztecs invade Europe), but I'm still taking it all! I'm surprised France hasn't gone for it yet; the others are busy with other things (England with Scotland and Aragon with trying not to get conquered whole cloth by France).

Also I renamed Massachusetts to Drakeland, because you know.

Now, I'm kinda fucked. The Reformation is happening and I converted to protestant, because most of my provinces were, but my colonies were not so I'm getting mad rebellions there... plus the Il-Khanate is getting all up in my grill finally.

They're fucking huge D: From Saudi Arabia to Siberia, they're the largest army still and Byzantium barely won a war they called me, Sweden, Lithuania and Poland in... and by won i mean white peace D:

So yes! I think this game is pretty good. If any of y'all have any questions (and you invariably do if you bother to read all of this), hit me. I played 11 hours today, which basically means i am an expert.

Europa Universalis 4 is coming out. With the release of the converter... holy shit. Preorder immediately.

It'll convert any and all Crusader Kings 2 save files and convert them into mod files for EU4. So you can theoretically take a nation from 867 and go all the way to 1821. MAYBE I'M A WEIRDO but that really appeals to me and goddamnit, I want to colonize all of Canada/North America as Finland and you can't fucking stop me. No one can. I took Norrland, I took fucking Iceland, I took Trondelag and Northern Norway... Finland is unstoppable.

(Unless The Il-Khanate decides to stop me)

(and unless France decides to colonize it instead)

I am only mildly unstoppable but I didn't want to convert too powerful.

but THAT IS NOT THE POINT. I'm really way too fucking excited for this thing and the hype has built to excessive levels. I spent all of a night literally watching preview videos. What helps you when you are hype for a game but it's too far away?

SUP Y'ALL, IT'S THE THIRD INSTALLMENT OF WHATEVER THIS IS!

I still haven't played much of the sailor moon RPG because that game is mad old and also it's annoying, but I will get to eventually (I'm not giving a date because I will undoubtedly break it like I'm douglas adams up in this). Regardless, let's revisit the two games I bought 4 days ago:

Zeno Clash

well actually I bought Zeno Clash 2, but that game is not out yet, so I played through Zeno Clash 1 again. Also spoilers if you haven't played zeno clash 1 yet (but if you haven't, I'm giving one away at the end of this blog post)

This is the fourth time I think. That game is so good and the sequel looks even better, but that's not what I'm here to talk about! By finishing up I mean I wanted to do all of the achievements.

I'm here to talk about two annoying achievements in particular (which were the only ones I was missing): Heavy Brawler (defeat a heavy enemy without taking damage) and Street Fighter (only use guns/weapons when absolutely necessary).

I tried doing street fighter once but failed. It's like, sometimes it's easy to know when you're supposed to use guns (the fights with hunter, for example). But occasionally they'll give you guns to hunt rabbits and I dont think you can use it there, you have to kick them dead which is super annoying. Also punching giant bugs is gross. It's a terrible achievement because it's way way way too vague.

Heavy Brawler sounds easy at first, but every single fight with a heavy includes little guys that hang around, and THEY COUNT TOO. oh my god. It's so annoying. I don't know how many times I tried fighting Gabel, or Deinother, only for one of those assholes to hit me from behind. I finally did it by fighting the little guys first but that's kinda hard because you also have to keep an eye on bigass elephant/chipmunk/other elephant.

Also playing through it again made me appreciate the little touches. When you fight Father-Mother after blowing a skull bomb in both yo faces, both his model and portrait have a piece of pre historic gauze with an eye on it, to replace the eye he lost? I mean his other eye just kinda glows yellow so it's not even accurate.

Also Golem's rubix cube is really funny still. Also also the music is (still) really really fucking good, and the little bit atlus posted of the music for the second one is incredible:

He was also really good in Rock of Ages too, he's probably my favorite western video game composer. Really wish I had the money for the soundtrack... though it'll just go up on youtube after the fact so it's not the hugest deal.

(also the chorus in that video is great, it's just a bunch of random ass looking people that look way out of place)

REGARDLESS YOU SHOULD PLAY THIS GAME IF YOU HAVEN'T IT'S PRETTY COOL.

Also I'll probably play it again, just to add all the other characters, primarily so I can post these things on a theoretical Animasta page (because I'm a horrid narcissistic bitch or because I think that would be funny, the world may never know).

(I will know)

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

My problem with xcom is not a problem with the game, it's a problem with me; the game is amazing, bugs aside... also I really hate the fact that women are way less likely then men to show up on your squad, but there's a mod that allows you to change it so I made it even more uneven on the other way around.

STILL.

my problem with xcom is that I keep restarting the fucking thing. It's like, oh no I think a thing went wrong, and it can be the most innocuous shit in the world, but I'll restart anyway. I'm technically on game 18 right now. I mean come the fuck on. Game 17 was actually going really well but I restarted because... I honestly can't even give you a reason. It was because I found that mod that would let me change the dynamics but I'm pretty sure it would've worked fine on a regular save.

Oh well! I'll complete it eventually... maybe on game 30.

MY SUPER SECRET CONTEST TO WIN ZENO CLASH:

do I like you/know of you/think you are funny and don't have zeno clash? you win!

NEXT TIME ON BLOGIMASTA:

I want to revisit E.Y.E., maybe I'll have finished the last remnant, maybe Cargo, I'm also real close to finishing V:TM:Bloodlines... the world is my oyster

Okay, so, me and my family moved from Hell on Earth (Las Vegas, Nevada) to Portland Oregon. In a car. Admittedly the trip was better than I expected, the cats were great fun when we took them out of their carriers, but regardless... we had an apartment set up but we had to wait in a hotel for 2 weeks while they set it up or something.

SO BORING.

I also meant to do a blog before I left but I was too slow before the internet shut off. So, instead of doing it then, I shall do it now. and instead of writing about one game, I shall write about every single (well not every single because I've forgotten some but whatever) game (my brother brought his PS3, along with his laptop)/movie/TV show/etc. I ingested over that two week period. Also a 4 day period after that with no internet (but my computer)

Movies:

Kung Fu Panda 2

terrible, boring, and unfunny, about what I expected.

Snow White and the Huntsman

this was on HBO every single fucking day we were there, I swear. It was also terrible! but Kristen Stewart has a pretty convincing english accent which is more than I expected from her.

I also saw reruns of movies I liked but meh, you don't really want to hear about those

TV shows:

Pretty Little Liars

I watched almost up to the season 2 finale (from the end of season 1), but I couldn't fit the last four on my phone. I mean it's not the most sophisticated show in the world, but I like it. It's about 4 girls who are being blackmailed or something by some anonymous individual named A. They have also floated the idea of A being more than 1 person. and guess what they named them then?

THE A TEAM (because of course).

but it's basically half soap opera and half teen mystery/detective show; one of the liars is shacking up with her english teacher, for example (she's also the worst because all of her problems revolve around him). Also, Nolan North is in the show and that's pretty weird. He's really a pretty good actor, though he sounds like what Nathan Drake would sound like at 50.

game of thrones

we don't get HBO so I never saw it, but the hotel had HBO so I finally watched some... I really don't get the furvor. It seemed like any other dark fantasy bullshit thing, political intrigue, shitty people, dragons.

Then again that may just be confirmation bias at work, so who can say?

Also I'm tired of british voice actors in fantasy. Just like we need more space british, we need more American dark fantasy.

I also watched a bunch of terrible reality shows about car buying and shit.

Books

Animorphs

OH MY GOD. so at some point (at the apartment), I realized I had all of the animorph books on my computer. So.

I read 30 of them.

I like the series, obviously, but I think I read a scattered 5 early on and then forgot about them. So I came back to it, and man. They have to explain pretty much everything in every single book. Like, by book 20, you should realize; "oh hey this guy is an alien he has a scorpion tail" "oh hey these humans can morph into cockroaches that's p. weird" but NOPE. they have to explain that shit every single time. Still, good reads, even if they are for people younger than I.

Games:

Skate 2

I bought this for my brother's PS3 because halfway in I was bored and needed something that would last me the rest of the hotel trip. and it did. I liked it.

Yep.

Alpha Protocol

I beat alpha protocol a 6th time, also on my brother's PS3. By the time you beat a game 6 times there's really not much you can say about it. It still rules, owns bones, etc.

Other than I don't get why you get money during the final mission when you collect intel

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

So, I finally got why everyone (Hardcore PC dudes) really likes this game. I never finished a game but it was still really entertaining. Also it's pretty effing hard, even on the easiest difficulty. But maybe I'm just terrible at it?

Europa Universalis 3

I play this a lot, but I never really played an asian game. I stick mostly to Norway. This time, I decided to play Tibet with the EU3+ mod, which includes a broken up China. I mainly chose Tibet because of the modern day situation, honestly, (I love playing underdogs). Tibet, in this position, starts like this:

pretty large, but they have shitty ass provinces. The only good ones are the capital, Qamdo, and U-Tsang. However, through clever war declaring, and other tricky bidness, I come to this: (Click for clearer text)

I have quite a bit of eastern China, of Siberia, of Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, maybe Kyrgystan and Tajikistan? I don't know, either way I am kicking ass. Qi is my ally... I think. Qi and Qin (that dark blue state between me and Qi) switch being allies to me every 10 years or so. Qi is obviously the winner of the war for China, they have been ever since they inherited Korea.

Also, Rajputana are fucking assholes. Them and Persia. :(

Still, this is one of the funner games of EU3 I've played in quite some time.

That is how I spent my time, mostly.

otherwise known as part 1 of my unincindeary blog posts! also known as a blog that won't be commented on a lot :)

I may have to come up with a cool picture for the top and shamelessly copy @video_game_king but that is not this time

okay, so I've been playing The Last Remnant (spoilers for this BTW). like, a lot. because it was either that or going through Dark Souls again with my sorcerer Parvati (and yes that is a HP reference). So, I had played it for 30 minutes like when I downloaded it (8 months ago at least) and then forgot about it, redownloaded it, finally got the gameplay, and started plowing through (I've got 40 hours and I've just hit where the 2nd disc would have been had I been playing the 360 version)

This game has the most side content of a JRPG I've played this generation, besides Resonance of Fate, and that's pretty cool. It's got so much side content that like half of my map is optional... Including, like, 6-7 cities I would never have had to go to in the main story. It's also nice to see a JRPG on the PC and why don't they do this more :(

The best part is how... weird the story is. Not in the normal sense, because the main plot is pretty much Final Fantasy 12 but with remnants (basically godly instruments of power or something) instead of magicite, but of all the small things and the characters.

This is a JRPG with a mom! a mom who is like 40-50 and who's daughter is all grown up. who looks eerily like her mother (it's a little creepy). but I honestly can't remember the last game where there was a playable mom, and especially not in a JRPG. She's also the coolest character in the entire game, because she takes no shit, she calls the MC out on being generic shounen "OH MY KIDNAPPED SISTER IS THERE MAYBE I SHOULD YELL HER NAME 30 YARDS AWAY INSTEAD OF SNEAKING UP TO GET CLOSER" protagonist guy. She even faces off against THE CONQUEROR, who basically looks like a viking and has main antagonist powers, pretty well until, you know, he kills her.she was my favorite character too :( and then her daughter just like comes in and takes her spot as one of ATHLUM'S FOUR GENERALS.

because you know she is obviously as good as her mom and why would we need to test that shut up this is a JRPG what do we care of logic

Also the main character's family is all alive! okay the dad was in a coma for a while but they're just like, scientists. I just finished a sidequest for the mom, in fact. Usually the parents are either gone, evil, dead, trapped, not mentioned, or die at the start, but nah, they're just there. They'll probably die near the ending or something, but it's intensely refreshing and if the main story was better this would probably be close to one of my favorite JRPG's just because of how refreshing it is. I mean, the side quests are cool and all, but most of em aren't very interesting in the story department.

Also I think the main character wants to have hot steamy sex with lord david or vice versa (who is the lord of Athlum, which is basically HQ for your party) because they have a lot of cutscenes near this garden of flowers and it's intensely homoerotic but maybe this is just me!

I just love when games subvert my expectations of them. Like, when that late game twist happens in Hotline Miami (that is to say, chapter 11-12 or whatever it was). or playthrough B of Nier (because yes, I can't go a whole blog without mentioning Nier). It's also a danger of paying attention to trailers too much.

uh, so I guess I should say that last remnant is pretty cool? I don't know. It's not a bad JRPG. Also the title is bullshit because even the first town has TWO REMNANTS. fucking get your names right square

I think my next blog will probably be about the sailor moon RPG, so STAY TUNED.

I know I know, stereotypes an all that, but it's accurate in that women are the largest buyers of romance, without a doubt, and I was just wondering why exactly... I mean, usually romance has many things a guy is into (that of course being sex, hot women, etc.). I doubt it's even about the fact that nothing is really happening, because in Anime the people who enjoy shit like K-On! and YuruYuri, both of which involve moeblobs doing cute things and then nothing happens and they're both goddamn terrible, the main audience is young adult Otaku's, most of whom are male. I can't really think of a similar equivalent in the west... maybe wrestling, the male's soap opera (if any of the wrestling thread wants to disagree, well, tough shit)... I had an idea but I then lost it in the middle of doing this blog so please help meeeeeeeee

and I guess this can also be, do you enjoy romance shit from time to time? I don't mean you were into boinking Ashley in Mass Effect or whatever, but something where the romance was the main part. Even if it's just a romcom or something

okay so there's been some 'awesome' anita discussions again and those are always fun, but one thing I am tired of is people calling people white knights, because that's entirely disingenious... for a couple of reasons. Look, I respect people who can make good arguments even if I don't agree with them (@Brodehouse is a pretty good example, I disagree with him on most things but I enjoy his arguments) and I think most smart, or even 'smart', people do too (of which I assume Anita thinks herself as smart; whether she is or not is not a discussion I want to have, so shut up). And, if you're really that fucking interested in reading a goddamn feminism debate thread in a video game forum, I assume you are too! So the white knight accusation is completely inaccurate from that point, and most people who enjoy my statements (and follow me because of this) that other people might construe as white knight exemplary are people who make the same arguments, and they aren't all women, though that's because there aren't a whole lot of women here.

The second part though, is the inherent disbelief that "you couldn't think that, you're only doing it because you want a girl/girls to notice you" or fucking whatever. People believe all sorts of crazy bullshit; people believe in goddamn chem trails! i don't know why your disbelief is such that a guy couldn't POSSIBLY be some radical feminist without doing it because he wants some pussy or even... e-pussy (I don't know the word for online sex)? Like maybe comparing radical or even hardcore feminism to chem trails is a little insensitive but it gets my point across. . Hell, people (it was probably endurancefun) have even called me a white knight for patrick. LIKE COME ON.

I mean Patrick's cute and all but...

:)

but seriously, don't be fucking lazy. Think up some new, more interesting, and more debatable words then that, especially considering that will sort of derail a debate, and debates are cool.

I used white knight recently but I was joking, which is how people SHOULD use it. It's such a ridiculous term if you honestly think about it.

Also I wonder if that term is why Dark Souls doesn't have white knights... just silver.