alias_sqbr

So fred_mouse asked me to write about my headcanons for romances I've played and I was so UTTERLY BAFFLED by the idea that anyone actually enjoys me talking about this kind of thing I stalled for like a month.

So I'm just going to go through relationships my PCs have had and see if I have anything to say about each.
( Read more... )

Books:

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey: I quite liked this, a believable slow burn dystopia set in a Texas town that's become a military border zone. It's a pretty realistic take on what it would be like to be born with mild super powers (super strength) as a disprivilged person in a police state, ie not actually that helpful. It's overall quite compassionate, and optimistic enough that I didn't get depressed despite the dark subject matter (which includes rape and child abuse), though without giving any spoilers the ending while not entirely unsatisfying was the sort of thing that puts me off a lot of YA. Still, the main character is mixed race, poor, and queer, and it's an entertaining and easy read. There was a lot of stuff to do with class and race which seemed mostly ok to me but I'm hardly an expert. I remember seeing someone complain that while the main character's LI is a girl every other important person in her life sems to be a man, and that's definitely true. The female characters aren't bad they're just backgrounded.

I read some ACTUAL POETRY for this “Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative” course that's starting up soon: Ithaca by C.P Cavafy, which gains an extra layer of meaning when you know the author was a Greek immigrant, and Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came which is basically this guy going for a walk and FREAKING OUT about everything, I'm not sure if we're supposed to like him but I wanted to punch him. "He must be wicked to deserve such pain", huh.

Currently reading "The Magic in the Weaving"/"Sandry's Book" by Tamora Pierce. It's...ok, very kids-fantasy, and she mentions the black character's blackness every two paragraphs. Still, it fills in the time waiting for busses pleasantly enough.

TV:

I keep forgetting to say, we've been watching Cowboy Bebop at the fortnightly Wednesday video nights. And now we're finished! It really is a great scifi show, despite the random points where it makes NO SENSE and the way it veers from being quite diverse and humanising everyone to falling into sexist/racist etc cliches. Next up: the movie. Let's see if I enjoy it more now I'm not expecting it to tie up any loose ends from the show.

After that it's either Sailor Moon or Princess Jellyfish, or I try connecting up my laptop and we choose something from Crunchy Roll.

Speaking of Shinichirō Watanabe, I tried Kids on the Slope, his latest story of a reckless fighter, uptight dark haired guy and seemingly-flighty-but-actually-clever girl, this time set in a highschool in 1960s Japan. Being reminded of the end of Cowboy Bebop made me look up the end which made me decide to put off watching more until I'm in the right headspace. Still, it's quite good.

Still watching and enjoying Natsume's Book of Friends and Free.

Games:

Flight Rising was down for a few days and I missed it more than I expected. Since it came back I bought a breeding pair of shiny shiny dragons (..and an extra male by mistake, oops) I find playing puzzle games to earn extra treasure quite relaxing, it's partially filled the hole in my life left by Glitch.

Still playing my douchebag Aeducan through Dragon Age Origins, just murdered Wynne. The only thing that's given me pause so far was letting that demon inhabit the little girl, but it's not like I had the persuade points to save her anyway. (I deliberately haven't given him any persuade points, that way I have to murder and/or intimidate my way out of everything) Morrigan, naturally, finds him quite charming :)

Feeling tired and grumpy with the after effects of what I think was very mild food poisoning. And it turns out I haven't done one of these since April!

My new fannish infatuation is Welcome to Night Vale, and I actually got like 100 tumblr notes on my comic, which is about 95 more than I usually get (and about 95 more than I got on DeviantArt, it's not a big fandom over there I guess) The Dragon Age reverse bang comes out in a week, I'm quite proud of my art and the story I've seen is lots of fun, but you'll have to wait for that :)

Two original pics I'm especially happy with:


Algebra vs Geometry


Me in green
( Fic! Art! Cosplay! Image descriptions at link )

Books:

Still just working through "Steampowered 2". But I've reserved the first "Circle of Magic" book from the library.

TV:

ELEMENTARYYYYY :D :D

Dr Who is over until my birthday. Stephen Moffat definitely has a shtick but since that shtick involves complicated time travel plots I'm still enjoying it well enough. This season hasn't wowed me but I like the characters (Jenny, Vastra and Strax are adorable) and I'm curious to see what's going to happen next.

Chihayafuru has been becoming exponentially slower as they catch up to the manga, so I'm not quite as smitten as I was, but slowness aside it's still fun.

Movies:

Victor Victoria: Julie Andrews plays an unemployed singer whose new gay bff persuades her to pretend to be a drag queen. She gains success but falls for a straight guy. Hiijinks ensue! Very silly and not exactly free of Issues but it was still fun and the core message is about the Power Of Love In All It's Forms which was nice. The central romance didn't convince me but there's an actual happy m/m couple at the end omg. The commentary was Julie Andrews and her husband, the writer director Blake Edwards. It was adorable if self indulgent, they spent several minutes in raptures about the acting ability of their son who has one line as a gay guy checking out the main character (played by his mother, lol)

Games:

Tomb Raider: Tried it out and as expected it is very good but really, really not my sort of game. I don't do running and jumping.

Dragon Age: Origins again! I am enjoying it very much. Here is my pretty pretty Dalish elf.
After several years of playing Bioware games the combat has gone from "so hard I gave up and used cheats early on" to "so easy I have yet to die" (on "easy" of course ;)) and I'm even EXPERIMENTING WITH THE TACTICS OMG. I was so proud of myself for not even having the console enabled...and then in Soldier's Peak the final battle refused to spawn and I had to kill Avernus with a cheat *hmmph*. Naturally my Mahariel's first major quest is going to be the Brecilian Forest, it's amusing how much friendlier all the elves are than on all my previous playthroughs. Anyway, not being in a hurry and just playing to enjoy it rather than hit any specific story buttons is fun. The combat is more fun than I remembered (even aside from being easier) and it's been long enough since I last played that the emotional buttons are fairly effective. Also it's fun seeing Flemeth etc and knowing the Part They Will Later Play.

Just finished the Dragon Age DLC Witch Hunt. This Aimo comic about sums up my feelings at the end. There needs to be more opportunities to hug your friends in these games(*). It would have been nice if there'd been at least a mention of the fact that my Warden is a dwarf, we did go to a dwarven thaig and all. But it was enjoyable enough in a crappy little DLC sort of way, and the companions, while thinly sketched, were quite likeable (even if Finn said he thought dwarves are boring)

All these people from the US talking about roast turkey is making me want some. I ate frozen cooked chicken instead because (a)It's easier and (b)It's kind of warm here right now.

(*)Yes, I know, I don't actually tend to like hugging people in real life. I'm allowed to be inconsistent.

I've finally gotten a break from my recent inability to finish anything plotty or prose related, huzzah.

I am most proud of Mass Effect 3, an honest to goodness playable computer game. Very silly, but I think it turned out pretty well for what it is.
( Dragon Age, Durarara!!, Lost Girl/Mass Effect, Homestuck/Dragon Age, original art )

I made a post about Political fanart at sqbr which some of you may be interested in.

I've also updated my Redbubble store with my more recent original art.

I was linked this disturbing picture of me and the rest of the 1999 Unisfa committee at Terracon (description below). I'm the one on the back left with the APPALLING jumper, even back in the 90s people mocked me for it. It was cold, ok :P

I've been playing Portal 2, it's awesome, though I must admit I have resorted to a walkthrough now and then (I shall blame it on brainfog and ignore the fact I have always been too impatient to finish puzzle games without a walkthrough). It took a little while to stop feeling like a gratuitous sequel with nothing new to offer, but a couple of chapters in and it got really interesting, both in terms of puzzles and plot/setting etc.

Yesterday (after getting stuck on Portal 2) I decided to finally finish my third Dragon Age: Origins character, who has been most of the way through the game for months after I couldn't face a particular long unpleasant dungeon crawl again.
( More Dragon Age: Origins rambling, no spoilers )

I am quite happy with all three of these pictures!


"Amell family reunion" on deviantART and Tumblr. Zevran/m!Amell/Morrigan, Fenris/m!Hawke, Bethany and Urthemiel.

( A comic and some art with Dragon Age 2 spoilers )

I've been having one of those days where spend the whole day feeling frustrated and ineffective then at 5pm remember that I did a load of washing in the morning... only to realise that I forgot the detergent anyway(*). But! I also discovered:

fanart_recs (a fanart recs comm! Huzzah!) and peopleofthedas (a dw Dragon Age comm)

(*)Plus I was trying to set up an emotionally charged love triangle with my new Mass Effect character, the somewhat ambiguously gendered alien Liara and somewhat xenophobic and conservative Ashley, but Ashley refused to get jealous and just ceded the field to Liara. Hmmph! *cough* These games aren't quite as much like a dating sim as this makes them sound...(And I am totally looking forward to playing my new male character in ME2 to see how he reacts to the various ethical dilemmas, not because all the female love interests are straight)

OH DREAMWIDTH HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU NEVER LEAVE AGAIN. (No idea what brought it back, but back it appears to be. FOR NOW)

Anyway, to celebrate, some fanart I drew:

DAO: Making Cookies by ~sqbr on deviantART where there is a description