I hate "love"

Despite what I'm saying in the title, do not take it wrong. Read the rest of the post to find out what I do mean.

Love. Love love love. I'm not a very big fan of this word, I actually kind of despise its use in the English language. I know I'm not the only one that dislikes it either; many don't like "love" because it has a certain ambiguity to it, a word that people can hear and completely miss the meaning that the author or speaker was aiming for.

I firmly believe in what C.S. Lewis said in his work, "The Four Loves." To summarize, he described the four loves this way (thank you TV Tropes for this)

• Storge (Affection/Family) - This is fondness through familiarity, especially among family members or people who have otherwise found themselves together by chance.
• Philia (Friendship) - Friendship is a strong bond existing between people who share a common interest or activity. This includes what Lewis calls companionship; that is gregariousness of the kind which is found in a Good Guy Bar or Local Hangout; as well as friendship proper which is between Heterosexual Life-Partners, Platonic Life Partners and the like but often starts as companionship.
• Eros (Romance) - This is love in the sense of 'being in love'. (This is distinct from sexuality.) This kind of love longs for emotional connection with the other person. According to C.S. Lewis, sexuality is called "Venus." It can be part of "Eros," but on its own, it is not one of the loves, just desire (not to be confused with Lust which is this desire expressed in a sinful way).
• Agape (Unconditional Love) - This is the love that brings forth caring regardless of circumstance. The essence of agape love is self-sacrifice. It is also a decision, not fueled by pure emotions (theoretically). However, emotions such as the other three loves can provide a "booster rocket" into agape. Note that true agape is never self-destructive; it is not the willingness to sacrifice oneself that, say, someone with a Guilt Complex would have. It builds the soul, and, like the other types, fosters emotional health and self-confidence. It's difficult to express the differences between a Martyr Without a Cause and someone who's accepted agape love into their heart, but they exist; one key distinction is that someone might love a vile monster even while actively opposing him/her, even to the point of a Mercy Kill, like a mother might love a son that passed the Moral Event Horizon a long, long time ago and needs to be put down. Agape love need not always be spiritual, but it is often based in spirituality. 

 Alrighty, that's a mouthful. Also, for a disclaimer, I'm not a huge fan of TV Tropes (especially with how it's been lately), but I still think they're a great source for information on various tropes and even books, movies, and televisions. Also a great time waster.

But this is why I'm not a fan of the word Love. It is so ambiguous, so open that many interpret it differently every time it's said. If I said I loved one of my friends, would I mean I actually love them in such a way that I wanted to romance them? Nah, that's not what I'd want at all minus maybe a few.

This also brings up another subject I always thought was strange: Kissing. Now, I'm no stranger to this, it's a practice within my family, and I had plenty experience with my ex, but I never saw kissing as "love", that is, romantic, but rather just an affectionate gesture. Just like how in various countries it is a method for greeting friends and family alike, with different customs for the various genders. I'm not saying french kiss all your family and friends, just a peck is fine enough.

But at the same time, here in the USA, I hear plenty of times that many families do not practice it. They fear messing with their children's sexuality, and it's somewhat taboo, with people thinking that the gesture automatically associates with romance. Just like "love," people can take it the wrong way. It's weird just how defensive and strange everyone is about it. Hell, in most (and by most I mean ones for younger audiences) movies, a kiss is only seen at the end or something between the movie's official couple.

All I'm saying, society really doesn't seem to understand "love" itself. It might just be the baby boomers messing up things yet again and not knowing how to deal with any of this, but I feel like we ought to start treating "love" differently. Perhaps new words are in order (English is a constantly changing English, ESPECIALLY in America, so why not?).  That way, I can love the word "love" again.

Comics

I don't really feel like giving any big review on anything, so here's something completely different instead.

So today I feel like talking about one of my favorite subjects: Comics.

Comics have always appealed to me, ever since I started reading I have always enjoyed looking through the pages, look at the art and action, or in newspapers, the jokes. In fact, I remember the first time I read Garfield, my mother had the first seven collections of it. While the jokes are stale to this day (Garfield likes lasagna, hates Monday, punts Odie, berates Jon, etc.), they are still a good starting point to demonstrate humor. In fact, as a younger child, I started learning more about humor and how it worked via reading these. There's some jokes that don't make immediate sense and you have to use your noggin. The comic humor is the same, playing around with puns or references and usually poking fun at them.

Pictured: How I spend most nights

I think the most important thing in these comics are the characters though. You have to at least like this person that you have on there. Garfield, while being a jerk, is still kind at times. Charlie Brown is a rather depressing person, yet he's likeable because of how we can relate to him at times. Comic characters like Spiderman have tragic stories yet likeable personalities, and yet at times, they can also be completely over the top and silly like Deadpool and we'll still like it. As long as these characters are written well, the populace will continue to enjoy them. And sometimes, they just feel rather human.

8-bit Theater is a good example of a comic done right. It is a sprite comic, yes (as in, using normal or modified video games sprites and using this instead of actual drawings), but it's so fantastically written that I can't help but reread it now and then. It's certainly very long, with large blocks of dialogue that I would normally critique a comic for, but it does a decent job at making fun of itself. The characters are very fun, the main four in general, Fighter, Black Mage, Thief, and Red Mage, all having these dysfunctional personalities that allow them to really stick out. Their strange adventure and the people they meet, enemies included, are all a pleasure to see whenever they appear. The jokes are also really smart a good chunk of the time, rather than just relying on crude humor. I would give this one a recommend if you feel like reading a lot. There's a bunch of references thrown around you might not fully get, but that makes discovering more about them that much more fun.

Another really decent one is Nedroid (even though the lack of updating has left me sad). To puns, to taking phrases and idioms literally, to messing around with his own characters, the author really shows a good sense of humor without having to make dirty humor. Plus, having a jerk and a straight man together (that is, a straight man being one that balances out the weird with a more normal attitude) is often a plus for me, and here it is done well. The comic itself doesn't take itself seriously like the previous one, but unlike the other that tries to be consistent with its plotholes and such, this is more played around with. Overall, this one I definitely recommend to any comic lover.

Yeah, yeah, I know. One Piece is a manga/ anime. Well, a manga is basically a comic anyways, just stylized a little bit differently. But I'm still going to throw it out there as one of my favorite manga series ever. Just the evolution of the art and characters really make this for me, and Oda himself balances out a ton of characters emotions and personalities. Another really enjoyable thing from it is the fact that a lot of characters will have bizarre traits, such as a unique laugh, a fun appearance (although I will conceed to too many of the women either being monsterous or nami clones), a weird trait (Zoro always getting lost, even on a straight line), what have you. It's a very long series that's been going for over a decade now, but I definitely feel like it's a must. Even with a style that's not like a typical anime.

There's several comics and manga I do enjoy, and I think that they themselves really helped me move into reading books and such as I grew older. I still enjoy looking at them (One Piece still has a long time to go before it's even done) and enjoying their stories and humor to this day. It's really a shame that comics aren't appreciated more as a literary form, as I feel like it's a style that can bring certain people into reading, even if their imagination isn't fully being taken advantage of. I feel like any way of making people read will help.

I feel like that's all I really have to say for now. I think I'll talk about bad comics (or good comics turned bad) sometime in the future here, but for now, I'll just keep it simple and clean, so look out for comics.

Oh, and another thing I'll throw out there is that I'm really excited for Stripped, a documentary which will be about the decline of newspaper comics and the future for comics themselves. Seeing as how Nedroid was in the trailor, I'm excited to see that, not to mention interviews with Bill Watterson (creator of Calvin and Hobbes) and Jim Davis (Garfield). Check it out below.

Space Dandy

Disclaimer: Wanted to write this after watching last night's episode. It is produced by Bones and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, famous for Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.

"Space Dandy. He's a dandy guy... in space." A silly sounding concept at first, Space Dandy has so far shown us that it's a series mostly focused around comedy, but has its serious moments now and again. The story follows Dandy, a dandy (a man who plays importance on physical appearance) with a pompadour and a love for women (especially their breasts and butts) and a job as a fellow who has to bring in unidentified alien species in for cash. Along with him is QT, a robot who resembles a vacuum cleaner who is more of the straight man of the group(which doesn't stop him from being silly at times) and Meow, a Betelgeusian (alien cat) who finds new planets for Dandy but is otherwise extremely lazy.

 Depending on the episode, our heroes can either be completely competent, or just straight up be complete morons (to the point where even the narrator has to snap them back to shape). Whatever the case, from the first episode onwards, we have them adventuring to different types of planets and meeting strange aliens on their way. Sometimes this is completely played for laughs, other times it is emotional and heartwarming/heartbreaking. Basically, imagine Cowboy Bebop, except invert it so that instead of being mostly serious with some comical elements, it's mostly comedic with some serious moments.

From Left to Right: Meow, Dandy, and QT celebrating the fact they're
missing the point of the particular episode completely.

So what makes this anime really stand out? Well, plenty of things actually. One of the biggest things about it when it was announced was that it would first be shown on Toonami here in the states and then it would be shown to the Japanese audience. Not only that, but the dub is actually very good, with some great voices (although the intro's not as great as the Japanese one). It seems Toonami wanted to pander to the Cowboy Bebop crowd by wanting to make sure that this would be an anime like it.

Another thing that's great is the animation. Holy cow is it crisp and great to look at. While there are moments where the animation isn't too great, there are plenty of scenes that are beautifully animated and fun to watch, like the gif above. Heck, the first episode alone has a really fun scene to watch in the second half, and even the first half is knee-slapping hilarious. Just the emotion and action with it alone makes it great to watch.

I know I summed up the characters rather quickly, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I didn't love the main characters as it is. Dandy's this guy just goes with the flow, because "That's the dandy way, baby!" The fact that he doesn't bat an eye half the time with all these strange aliens makes him that much more enjoyable. Even better, he does have a kind side that he occasionally shows when he's not trying to be a complete show off. QT nerding out whenever he/she finds something that he/she likes(for the sake of not doing that every time, we'll just go by she) is hilarious along with her limited amount of expressions which are taken complete advantage of. Meow can be a complete dumbass at times but you can't really be mad at him.

Is that your final dandy?

On top of the main characters are the villains, Doctor Gel and Bea who try to capture Dandy at every turn (he has some secret that they want), yet despite all their efforts, the Dandy crew isn't even aware they exist. They're entertaining in their own rights, even with their constant failures.

What did you say about my hair?

Side characters are also enjoyable. Whether it's the ditsy Honey from the restaurant BooBies (a restaurant not unlike hooters with cute looking women which has one breast on top and one on the bottom, almost like a capsule), the serious Scarlet who works at the alien registry, or the plethora of characters that our heroes come across, there is never really a dull moment that makes you think, "Just get on with it!"

If nothing else, the alien designs look great. There's some that are just completely over the top, and others are simplistic yet unique. Robots and space creatures alike are rather entertaining. Even the ones I didn't exactly enjoy still feel like they belong in this weird universe.

Overall, I'd say that Space Dandy is an anime worth getting into. It's about halfway done, so there are plenty of episodes, and the ones that we have already do not fail to deliver. Bottom line, if you want an enjoyable little series that'll keep you entertained and intrigued, don't hesitate to pick this up. Or don't. That's the Dandy way.

Here's some gifs to boot, courtesy of /a/.

Thoughts of Mediocrity

So the laptop which I usually write these is currently down, so I thought I'd just write something on one of the school computers as I'm waiting for the charger to arrive. Should get my mind off of stuff.

So I keep having these thoughts about my writing, how I just can't seem to properly find the right words, and that whenever I look at my words, I can only but feel contempt that I'm not a better writer. I understand that there must be constant revision and editing in order to make a piece as good as it can get, but it also bothers me when I look at some of my work with disgust and an upset mind. It's not like I'm not able to write good, and I've done stuff that people have liked in the past, but it just feels like sometimes I won't be able to deal with these problems.

I guess that's what they call suffering as an artist. Never feeling like your efforts are quite good enough to display in any sort of book, whether they're short stories or not. Many ideas run through my mind, but I always wonder what should I write about, and how I should write it like, and whether or not the characters are roughly my age or younger, and how these characters would respond and talk, and... well, you get the idea. I suppose I spend too much time thinking and not spending enough time writing stuff down. The main piece I would like to write will be hard to work on, as I have many ideas and events planned for it in my head, but I don't know where or when to put them, and I don't want any character to really suffer being put on the shelf.

To me, characters move the piece forward, and if I don't care for them, it will be hard for me to continue looking at the piece with a positive mind.  I usually find something I like about with characters that I enjoy in books, like Van Helsing from Dracula's strange way of talking and religious and scientific ideals that he has towards vampires, or the Whale Caller from the book of the same name's sense of loyalty to Sarisha, a whale that he falls in love with, and his love for senses not related to sight.  In fact, in general, bizarre characters tend to be the better ones, because they stick out like a sore thumb and typically have their own strange problems.

My own characters have their own little quirks, but I sometimes wonder if there's not enough or too much. For example, one of my characters has a more rebellious sort of archetype to him, but he's also not really bad at all, just going through a strange sort of supernatural event involved with his less than caring family. Or the main character who is among a race that is looked down by nearly every other type of "Hiddy" in the story, and wants to show them that it's not the right view while also being rather clueless about the strange surroundings. Or the leader who always does his best to remain jolly and be there as a cool older brother figure, but soon discovers something that puts in to question what he should be doing with life. Or the other main character who suffers her own problems and fights to be her own person while being haunted by her past. Or one character who is a type of being that will live way longer than everyone else, and he has to come with terms with the fact that he'll be around well after they die, and more importantly, how much he values them. Or one girl whose running away from her responsibilites by taking a completely different name and doesn't want to be shackled down to one particular role in life.

I know that some of these sound pretty out there, and some have been dealt with before, but I don't want to exactly spoil who these characters are, or even how their role in the stories will change and mold, and how with the addition of more characters, there's a lot of stress to deal with along with the sort of adventuring and action. I can paint the images of these people in my head over and over, but giving it order or reason is difficult, and it always feels like there's a better series of events that work better than others.

Setting is also a little tricky for me. I like to paint a nice picture of where these characters, but sometimes I worry about an over amount of detail that would bore the audience, or too little to where I might as well having these people wanting on a blank sheet of paper. But I suppose that's the beauty of the english language. Once you get the power to bend it to your will and temper with it, you get a grand blade that will cut into your reader's minds and hearts with emotions and ideas and language that they will be able to take with them.

Perhaps I'm just overthinking it. I still need to properly write up a list of events that will happen within the first book in that. Sometimes I even wonder though if I should try and do a different book first before I tread into that territory, allowing me to get some experience before I decide to fully dive in into the world of writing series. But these blogs do help me, if only to vent out some stuff and to let me think and write to myself. I feel like there's at least a few other people looking at these, and I thank you for taking the time to look at them. I still want to post more here before I make this official and put this on my facebook or anything. I guess I do wish for comments and feedback to eventually happen, but I guess I can't be too greedy either.

And wow, I'm pretty sure this is the longest blog that I've wrote so far.

The Worst PB&J Ever

So I got the idea of telling this story from my Review Writing class, and how we had to discuss good and bad sandwiches without saying anything along the lines of "delicious" or "gross." So I'll give it a shot here.

I'm not a seafood person. Whether its salmon, shrimp cocktail, or lobster, any type of sea life tends to just taste terribly to me. The only exceptions to this rule were the fish nuggets I had when I was young, which I can hardly call actual fish, and some Thai dish my friend made yesterday which includes fish oil that made it a little saltier (which I have to add, was very good, despite the fact she didn't truly believe I thought so. That also reminds me I have to send her a link to this crappy blog).

I'm only saying this because of one time when my parents, my little sister who could barely utter a sensible word at the time, and myself were at an oceanside hotel over at California. I was about 11 or 12 at the time, just in time for the wonders of puberty. I specifically remember the spot as it was small, but had a great position next to the ocean and had a sweet Pizza joint with giant slices I have to guesstimate were 15 inches long at least. I remember that the slices had to be at least that length because last time I brought my laptop with me and it was even longer than my 14" laptop.

But that's not the point here. There's a very large pier within walking distance of this hotel, and at the end of it is a seafood restaurant. My mother and father told me to come with them, and at the very least, I just hoped that there was something edible for me, as I was starving at that point after being out on the beach all day.

When we got there, it was a rather cramped little spot with several busy people running around carrying orders. Having been sat at our table, the only thing I could find on the menu that I would enjoy is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Now that's the sandwich that's my bread and butter and my go to meal when I have nothing else. Naturally, I thought I should order that, thinking what's the worse that could happen.

Well, the worse happened. The sandwich was very bizarre. The bread was a dark brown, much different to the white bread that I was accustomed to, but I was fine with that. Then it really stuck out to me; the jelly and the peanut butter in the sandwich itself. Each had to be an inch thick at least in the sandwich, nearly as wide as the slices themselves. I was obviously upset, but my mother told me to not complain and eat, so I did.

Well, when I say I did, I mean tried. The sandwich was not one you could properly eat without making a mess. One bite and a ton of ingredients spilled out onto the plate at the opposite end. And that first bite told me something was off. The texture of it was so bad, with too much peanut butter making a sticky mess that made it hard to chew, the jelly rather chunky, and the bread itself felt a little stale. Looking back, this must've been a dish that they never really had to serve. Imagine years of your life teaching yourself how to fry up a fish, and then for whatever reason someone tells you to make a sandwich. Well, that's a bad analogy, but I can only help but feel they hadn't made a sandwich with these strange, foreign ingredients before.

I tried taking another bite, and it was somehow worse. Since a ton of the jelly had spilled out like I had said before, that left way more peanut butter, almost as if I was having a peanut butter sandwich. It practically felt like I was being choked. I could feel the tears in my eyes, some out of disappointment, but mostly out of the fact I felt like I could barely breath.

I think my mother could tell I was suffering because she had to call the waiter and ask about it. They tried bringing another sandwich, but by then, I was just sick to my stomach. Not only had it been bad, it just didn't process well. I don't know if they somehow threw a fish in there or something(that is the ingredient they know best after all), but it was bad.

In the end, we left the restaurant and my parents got me one of those giant pizza slices, since I could actually process that. I still eat PB&Js to this day, but I definitely know not to go to that place for them. Don't go into a Seafood Restaurant asking for a Peanut Butter and Jelly. Although I guess that situation can apply for a lot more things to, like "Don't go into a bar asking for milk" or "Don't go into a gun fight with a knife."

Katanagatari

I think this is the first time I'm mentioning Anime here, but I just finished this up and wanted to give my thoughts.

The main characters, Togame on the left, Shichika on the right.
Note that Shichika is actually twice the size of Togame.

Katanagatari, a story about 24-year-old Shichika Yasuri (for the sake of being an English speaker, it'll be first name, last name for this review rather than Eastern ways), a tall man who is the 7th generation of a family who practices Kyotouryuu, or No Sword Style. He lives on an island with his sister Nanami, sheltered away from the world and therefore never truly interacting with anyone. 

Suddenly one day, a woman who is slightly younger than Shichika comes to the island, a woman by the name of Togame, who seeks 12 powerful swords that a great swordsmith has made, seeking the practioner of Kyotouryuu (a style that is actually meant to combat swords) to help her. Not wanting to have people collect them for her for greed or power, she decides that the only way for her to get a reliable right hand man is another solution entirely; love. When she orders Shichika to fall for her, he considers her offer of leaving the island and exploring the world unknown to him, agreeing and saying he fell for her despite the fact he doesn't actually know what that means. Thus starts the adventure of the two getting the 12 swords.

Shichika's actually pretty damn tall, being twice the height of Togame.
Also Togame shows her catchphrase/running gag of punching Shichika and yelling "Cheerio!"

 The characters are very charming. Shichika is a character that starts off as a blank slate, with no real emotions and not acting in a very humanly way, but as he moves on in the story and spends time with Togame, he comes to get more emotional and even develops a proper personality. Togame is a character that is rather proud and arrogant, but she also realizes her limitations and does become more and more delightful to have around as the series goes on. What's even better is that the two become closer and closer as the series goes on, which does mean that there's a hint of romance in this more action focused shonen. The two are just a delight to see together, and their relationship is playful and a little intimate.

Even the villains are enjoyable. While the beginning ones are nothing to bat an eye at, each one feels very human soon after, and you can't help but feel sorry for them. Even the ones that you begin to really hate have traits that make them not completely unlikeable. It's always a nice twist to sympathize with villains, and that's what Nisio Isin, the creator of Katagatari excels at. As a writer myself, I feel as though that this is a good example to follow, allowing the characters to flourish and grow during the story and through their actions rather than just throwing it all out on the table.

What's rather strange however is the swords themselves. There are 12 swords that the characters collect, but half of them aren't even truly swords. One sword is a suit of armor, another is literally one thousand swords. While it's strange, it does give an explanation for some of the later ones, and it makes wanting to see which swords you'll see next that much more exciting.

"Sir, how the hell did you make a robot while trying to make a sword?"
"That's not even as weird as the time I tried to make a sword and ended up making 1,000 of them."

Another thing that I should make note of is that each character has unique eyes. This is something that I myself have been doing with my series, but to see it in action is very enjoyable. Most of the eyes do feel meaningful, whether it's Shicika's normal black average eyes that reflect his rather beginning dull self or Togame's mischievous eyes, each has a level of importance to them.
The art is splendid, throwing away a typical anime style for a rather unique style. The characters themselves stand out and the backgrounds are nice and colorful. The designs are great even if they are a little crazy at times.

If I have one complaint, I would argue that there is a huge amount of talking. Seriously, half the characters feel like they could be quoting full pages from books at certain times. While I can give this a pass because it's fine later on, it did put me off a little bit in the beginning episode if only because the villain there never shuts up. It comes to the point that you're happy to see Shichika beat the crap out of him.

I won't spoil the ending, but know this; it has quite a few twists thrown in and definitely wraps up everything better than expected. I will keep this part ambiguous for the sake of not ruining anything.

Overall, while Katanagatari isn't the most well known anime, it's still a great watch. Each episode is roughly 50 minutes long (minus about 4-5 minutes of opening/credits), and with 12 episodes, that's about the average length for an anime to run on. Katanagatari is definitely an anime worth your time, and your heart.

Oh, and I feel like I should at least mention this; thanks Google image search for these images. The images come from various sites. The series itself is written by Nision Isin, illustrated by Take, and published by Kodansha.

Warcraft 3

I know I post a lot about video games on this blog, but it also just helps waking up in the morning to write something to get some of the creative juices going.

Anyhow, Warcraft 3. A game from 2002 (2003 was when its expansion would come out), which in a few months will be 12 years old. Here's a game that I still find myself playing with my friends on a near weekly basis, to the point that we like to set up regular rooms and play games in it. It's amazing how much replayability it has, and most of it comes from one core element: Custom Maps.

Now, Starcraft 2 is a game which the custom editor had so much potential, but Blizzard ended up just not getting it right. Who knows whether it's the strange hero and leveling systems implemented, the lack of items, the lack of variety for races and customizable skins or what, but there simply isn't enough to keep the attention of someone who loved Warcraft 3's maps. The graphics might look more refined, but Warcraft 3 maps prove to have much more heart, so much that people still replay the games today, even if Battle.net has become a bost infested wasteland where its hard to find certain games.

The variety of these maps is truly incredible. Sure, you have some basic stuff with Hero Arenas, TD, and more, but there's so much more to it than that. Even with those original ones, there's plenty of variety in each.

For example, Wintermaul is probably the most popular of all Tower Defense maps. The original had a select number of races and consisted of 9 people defending from hordes of enemies. That's not to say they didn't have problems; only three people had spawns, gray had a lackluster position of being the last person to defend, and the other spots wouldn't be fed enough gold to stop incoming leaks, aka monsters that flow through the lines. However, as later versions came out, each person got a spawn, allowing for each person to get involved.

Along with Wintermaul came Wintermaul Wars, a straight up 6v6 map where the name of the game is to summon units while building a maze and trying to stop the enemy team's spawns from going into your base. Having to do all these at the same time was exciting, not to mention the addition of several race builders, meaning each time you could pick something new, or pick a race you liked. There's also Wintermaul One, a map where each person is by themselves in their defense, and have to use more critical thinking to decide how to build their mazes seeing how typical building won't help you as much.

There's also stuff like Island/Ice Troll Tribes, a map where your team has a troll with different class options and you must survive together. Whether its a hunter finding food, someone back at base to build stuff, a healer, a gatherer or whatever, you compete against rival troll tribes to see who will survive. Or maybe Werewolf is your cup of tea, where everyone can build their own villages, with the exception being that one of the people is picked randomly to be the werewolf, and you must discover who it is and kill them off before they can become too strong. Add in Vampirism and Dark Deeds which are another spin which has someone be vampires going after people, and you have fun maps.

There's elaborate Risk maps, whether it's on Planet Earth or Azeroth. While it's not exactly the same as normal risk, the rules still apply; you have to keep one person on each base, and you branch out to other countries and try to take them over, building units to siege or defend your bases. Azeroth ones are interesting because you pick various factions with selected areas and must take over Azeroth with armies of human, undead, night elf, orc, blood elves, demons, and more.

I already mentioned Hero Arenas, but those are also a good bit of fun, controlling a hero and being with a team of warriors. There's Angel Arena, a map that contains various secrets as you try to eventually get new heroes in the forms of angels and devils, including God himself. Later maps eventually add several different methods of getting powerful heroes, allowing for replayability and discovering new parts, or possibly just rushing to get the best people to wipe the floor with your enemies. There's also more fun ones like Custom Hero Arena, where you select heroes and choose what abilities they have, meaning that you can try several different combinations in order to see what works and what doesn't.

Maybe you like making Heroes and going on an adventure? Welcome to several different RPG maps, whether they're ORPGs, which you can save in and it'll give you codes you can load next time, or just large scale RPG maps. One of my favorites in general is Video Game RPG, a map where you can play as several different video game characters, such as Link, Pikachu, Master Chief, Cloud, Megaman X, and Sonic, and have to fight against various video game villains by going to various worlds. While it has its faults, it's quite enjoyable. Curse of Time RPG is an ORPG where you can pick a hero and then decide whether to become a freelancer or to be a general and build a base.

How about Roleplay maps? On a huge set of land, you are given nearly every unit and building in the game, along with custom ones like Heroes that look like normal units. There are several themes that can be played with these. SotDRP is one, where you have a ton of customizable options, turning buildings, increasing size, changing color and tint, using items, etc. Just get a group of people, have a central theme to it, build up, and see where you're taken.

I've rambled on a lot, but that's only a slice of the pie. If you know the game DotA, it was popularized here (although Aeon of Strife on Starcraft originally started the genre). There's plenty to do here, and while Battle.net will never truly go back to its formal glory, there are still people that make new maps and people that play stuff. Either way, Warcraft 3 will continue to be a game that I'll be able to enjoy for several more years to come.

"One of"

This is just a thought that randomly came to me as I was trying to lie down and get some rest, and seeing as how I can't seem to find sleep, I feel like writing would help a little bit.

Now, this thought really came to mind when I was speaking with one of my friends, and she stated that I was "one of" the people she contacted first about this whole unrelated event thing. Now, there's nothing against her, I'm just saying the idea spawned from that.

But when you think of "one of" when associated with a subject, it almost as feels as if that thing has lost power. Compare the two sentences below:
A) Joe Smith is one of the most dangerous people in America.
B) Joe Smith is the most dangerous person in America.

Now that's just a silly example, but the second sentence holds more power. While Joe was already associated with being dangerous before, the second makes him scarier, makes him more threatening, more powerful. One of simply adds in a factor of numbers, meaning that he's just part of this group of dangerous group of people. It's not known if he really is the most dangerous person, but he happens to be.

It's just like best friends. Remember those times when you couldn't decide on who your best friend was/is? I still have that problem today. It's not that I try to rank my friends with how much I like them, but I am blessed to have many people in my life that I can bring up to that level, and I guess I can say that each holds some level of importance in my life. If I talk about a best friend of mine, I can call them "one of" the most important people in my life. It's less satisfying to hear, but it still puts them in a group of importance.

It's just like how people can say they have favorites. It's weird, but I don't think I've ever really been called someone's favorite person. Maybe that's just some sort of position that's only attainable to a spouse, or just a loved one in general. I certainly don't think I've heard anybody say that to me. Sure, "favorite son" (followed by "I'm your only son") or something, but definitely not favorite person. I've been thrown into that "one of" group by quite a number of people. I guess I don't mind, but it does leave me thinking. Who knows. I just wish some day I'd have someone that I can call my favorite person and vice versa.

Google Plus

Just writing this to say that Google is being really stupid right now. It's not secret that Google has been trying to expand its influence. Ever since it has taken Youtube, it has constantly shifted out of a comfortable format into one that pushes away independent channels and instead forces the popular ones in your face. Did you watch a video on video games? Say hello to Pewdiepie and Game Grumps on related videos.

Now, Google has decided to throw its poor little child Google+ into the mix. The poor contender against Facebook that will continue to fail because it's trying to hard to be Facebook for it to actually care about anything else. So why not throw it into Youtube? What's the worst that can happen? Well a lot, actually.

I for one, am one of many that seem to have problem commenting. I can't do in in my default browser; I try to make a comment, usually trying to give out artist and song names in the description or answering a question, or even trying to add to the conversation, but lo and behold, a window pops up, does its thing for a second, and then nothing happens. Thank you Google, you're breaking Youtube more and more. Do you just want it to die? I remember when you thought Google videos would be a good thing, only for Youtube to immediately skyrocket in popularity as everyone else laughed in your greedy face.

Now, the thing is, I'm writing this on a Google Blogger. I know they won't read this, I know people won't take a glance at it for a second. It'll probably be just me giving myself views by making sure everything looks alright. But seriously Google, you're trying to hard. Revert Youtube back. You might've messed it up, but it's okay to admit that we're wrong, it's what allows us to grow as people. I believe in a policy where we don't just point to others and say they're wrong, but think and realize that sometimes, it is our own faults. And you definitely keep messing up Google.

Sonic Adventure: Recollections

I know this is kind of coming out of nowhere, but here me out. Actually, it's not really from nowhere, just from my mind.

 But anyways, awhile back I was replaying through Sonic Adventure DX. I was playing through this just for the sake of it. Now, I usually like to go back to games I enjoy (as we speak, I'm on my 5th or 6th playthrough of Paper Mario on a low health run without resorting to Danger Mario), but playing through this, I realized that the game wasn't nearly as enjoyable as I once thought it was.

Now why do you think that is? I mean, going through Sonic's stages, he had quite a few enjoyable levels, but he had his share of awful ones too (the last one in particular throwing weird physics and gimmicks into a level which should've been more interesting). Now, Sonic's portion is arguably the best, save for possibly E-102 Gamma's shooting stages which were good minus his poor jumping ability, but the others are just painful to go through. Tails only manages to scrape by due to having similar levels to Sonic, but just "racing" with other people.

Let's start with Knuckles. In the 2D games, he runs fast, he glides, he climbs walls. Pretty cool stuff. His stages here are focused on looking for pieces of the Master Emerald, with an emerald radar that blairs in your ears louder as you get closer. These are the least worst out of the "baddie three" group, but there are stages that it's just ridiculous, including the Casino and the last level that says "fuck you" to physics and throws you around in an air hanger as you try to not tear at your face trying to get it to work for you.

"I don't know why an ancient and powerful relic breaks so easily either."

Then there's Amy, who has changed from Pink Sonic clone into curvy hedgehog girl thing (seriously what are Sonic and all his friends? They're certainly not normal animals) in the span of a few years. She's a slower version of Sonic who can use a hammer and hammer jump. Let me stress the slow part. Her parts concern herself running away from a robot that wants to capture her due to a subplot involving this bird she chills with. Now these levels aren't hard, but super frustrating because you'll be hearing the same laser noises over and over. Worse yet, there's a puzzle involving putting color cubes into matching holes. This wouldn't be a problem, but your robot friend shows up to piss you off. You can hammer him to shut him down for a few seconds before he gets right back up and continues to chase you.

Prepare to hear WHIIIRRRRRR BEEEP BEEEP BEEP over and over
until you like it.

Let me paint the picture for you. You're working with a puzzle. Doesn't matter how many pieces. Now some asshole comes into your room and flips over your chair. You can punch him in the face, which stuns him for awhile, but he's going to keep pushing you off until you beat this puzzle which allows you to move on. This is essentially how these levels work. Frankly, they're just annoying. Worse yet, you fight off this very robot at the end of her stages anyways and beat it just fine, so what was stopping you before? At least there are only three levels.

Now Big. Big the Cat. Big the "Let's go fishing and settle down in a game that's focused on running around and action" Cat. Your job as Big is to find Froggy and to fish him out. Froggy is his friend. You are trying to catch your friend with a hook that will rip the sides of his jaw. Next time I hang out with my friends, I will stab them in the mouth, reporting how I'm trying to save them.

Now fishing isn't the worst thing in the world. It's quite relaxing. Not here though. It's clear Sega wanted to throw in a random element at the very last minute, and lo and behold, fishing. Now, as you cast your bait, the camera shifts towards it, you can kind of move it around as it sinks. Whether the fish give a damn about the bait is up to Random Number Gods themselves. Even if they bite on your bait, you have to contend with a very bizarre system, where you can't pull too much and snap your rope, and can't pull too little and, you guessed it, snap the rope. So it's kind of a battle to let the stress meter fall so you can reel in these fish/Froggy the friend with a gored mouth, a process which can take literal minutes.

Rolling around at the speed of snores

And if the line snaps? You lose and lose a live. I don't know how this works. Maybe Big realizes his failure as a giant fisher cat and just commits suicide. Plus, you have to do this 4 times. 5 times if you count his encounter with a boss, where you have to fish Froggy out of a watery body that is Chaos 6. You just throw the lure at the boss and win. There is no trickery. The boss doesn't fight you, it sidesteps left and right. This is a being powerful enough to wipe out entire cities. Truly, Big is a slayer of gods themselves.

Now, with all that in mind, I haven't even explored glitches. Such horrible things. It's clear that even with DX, a bonus version of the original version on the Dreamcast, that Sega did not try to fix this. Whether it's Sonic spinning through a wall into a black hole or jumping out of the level boundaries themselves, these aren't hard to find. Plus, with some bugged mechanics, like springs not taking you as far as they should in some levels, you will fall to your death, with no means of stopping it.

"Look Fwoggy! I broke reality again!"

Now this is just the first adventure. The second adventure game has it's own plethora of flaws.

Sonic and Shadow's levels are fine, save for maybe the final ones that mess with gravity and are therefore buggy at times. But Knuckle's collect stupid shit levels now return, but now Rouge the Bat, is also after pieces of the Master Emerald. Now hold up. It broke so easily in this game, Eggman just carried it off, dropped it, and it shattered to pieces that went to a Desert, Pumpkin Mountains, an Aquatic Mine, and then FUCKING OUTER SPACE. The first game had an excuse; Chaos comes out of the Emerald, which causes Angel Island to fall, which the pieces are spread out to various places during the fall. But here? Why is this necessary Sega? Do you think we wanted to play a dumb little treasure hunter even more? I just want to do stages with Knuckles, is that so hard?

"But why are they in space? There's no reason for them to be in space!"

Eggman and Tails levels are E-102's levels, both piloting mechs that shoot stuff. This is honestly not too bad, with being able to focus a laser on targets that allows you to shoot flurries of missiles the more targets you hit, but here's a problem. These levels require platforming. The mechs are heavy and do not jump very high. Needless to say, there are times you will not be able to properly jump from one area to the next without difficulties. You get a nice hover ability later, but even then, there are times you'll simply plummet into the water/pits/sand/space(effectively meaning you burn up in the atmosphere), and more!

Now, while I'm not a big fan of Adventure DX (even as a kid, it was pretty average to me), Adventure 2 will always have a spot in my gaming heart for one reason: The Chao. A mini game where you raise Chao, similar to the idea of Pokemon, with various stats for you to boost. In a magical place of the Chao Garden.

From left to right: Hero Chao, Neutral Chao, and Dark Chao.
Also Sonic and Shadow too I guess. Sonic's kind of a jerk here.

The idea of this is that enemies drop animals and chaos drives in levels, and giving these things that you find to the Chao effect their growth, whether its increasing their stats or giving them an animal trait (giving a penguin for example will possibly transform their arms into flippers, getting a macaroni penguin brow, or giving them bird feet). And with that, there's also stuff like changing their little antennae thing over their head into a floating fireball, an animal that lets them breath fire, different wings on their back, a tail, one that lets your chao put on headgear, and more. So you can tell Sega put a bunch of effort into this.

"The heart on my head is a lie. Stop adding crap to me."

Not to mention, their stats effect what they can and can't do. 100 Swimming allows them to swim in water. 50 running allows them to walk, later on they can take bigger steps and trip less. 150 flying allows a small chance while flying off edges for them to glide in the air. And that's not all! With power and stamina, you also had the other sidequests: Chao Racing and Chao Karate (exclusive to SA2: Battle). The first one is a test of your Chao's abilities in a race where certain abilities are tested more than others (for example, one is climbing a rock wall, one that needs power). These grow harder and harder as you go on, but more interesting, allowing for a good sense of progression. Once you fully complete one, you get items, such as TVs, watering cans that let you plant trees, beach balls, and more.

Solar Powered TVs are the way of the future

The other one, my personal favorite, is Chao Karate. Here, you get to see your cute little guys beat the shit out of each other. Again, stats effect where they stand up or stand down, throw soft punches or do spinning kicks, how much health there is, etc. While not very complex, it's very entertaining.

KICK HIS FACE IN, PAINT YOUR FACE WITH HIS BLOOD
I mean Karate, wooh.

Not to mention, your Chao has three different species it can be: Hero, Neutral, and Dark, as seen above. Have good guys/bad guys pet them, receive that chao type. Now remember those stats I told you about? They can effect how your Chao looks after it becomes "an adult." It can look like a normal one above, or it can be a different type all together. For example, there's dark swim types, and hero run types. Now once you do get one of these, if you focus on ANOTHER stat, it will morph even further! Not to mention, since Chao do eventually die (but are reborn if they love you), there are more ways to change them.

Click below link for all the types made. My particular favorite Chao I have, along with
along with having my favorite apperance, is a Hero Swim/Run Chao.

Chao, Chao, and Chao, Oh My!

To add in all these things, you can name your Chao by going to the Fortune Teller. Not only this, but you can take it to Kindergarten, where it will learn various things, such as how to play the trumpet, sing, play drums, play tambourine, draw, and more. What's even cooler, if you have Chao with multiple instruments, if one starts playing and others are nearby, they will join in with their own instruments/singing. And the drawings Chao are neat too. Even better, taking them to the same classes multiple times allows them to get more proficient with this!

On top of everything, there's more! (I can hear that groan, stop that!) There are eggs for Chao, and these eggs can be normal, a mono tone color, a gem style egg, or a shiny gem. Raising these will keep your Chao that specific color. But what's even better, is that if you breed (yes, Chao breeding is a thing, and it is needed to make the best Chao, so get ready to do some baby making), you can combine these to make different Chaos entirely, including transparent Chao. This is something I only barely touched upon with a friend, where we breeded our best Chao and ended up making a chao that could go dark and instead of turning the usual red, would become black and blue, which actually looked really cool.

This isn't what the Chao looked like, but your Chao CAN look like this!
The NiGHTS style Chao are pretty great themselves.

Now you might be asking, "Goose, you handsome man you, why are you going on and on about it when you just talked about how terrible the other games are?" First of all, why are you complimenting me like that? And second; THIS is what I like about the games. In fact, the only reason I play the main part of the games is to get emblems to unlock more Chao stuff, to get rings so I can afford this stuff, and get stat stuff for the Chao. Which usually means playing City Escape a million times, in the same pattern to get tons of rings to get stat items.

This is a feature in both the games, and its clear a ton of work was put into it. But it's really a shame. This is what I enjoy about these games. If the game had no Chao Garden, I would get bored quickly. I might even find the games a waste of time. With each level in the second having five missions, each one having to be an A rank to get another emblem, for EVERY character, is just stupid.  In the first, there's 3 missions for each level. Running these same levels over and over isn't fun. Especially not the bloody hard mode for Knuckles and Rouge.

What do I have to say to sum this all up? The games simply don't hold up as well as they do today. Sure, their time on the Dreamcast was stunning, with cutting edge graphics and decent music, but the charm really has gone away with time. With bugs, awkward camera angles, music that grows monotonous in some areas, samey gameplay, and more, it really takes a toll on the enjoyment overall. At least the Chao will continue to be with us. I even sort of wish that in itself, it'd be its own little game. Maybe someday we'll get a Sonic Adventure 3, with good gameplay, and even better Chao Garden.

Not any time soon, Sonic.

Handwriting Woes

So I will admit, I just thought of making this post as I was finishing up with class, but I still feel like it's completely relevant.

Manual writing sucks. I'm not saying it's not useful, and that it isn't good for note taking and such, but my main gripe with it is very simple: I'm a leftie. No, this isn't about politics, this is about me being left handed. Politics come later. (Pro-tip: Politics probably won't actually come later.)

From the time I was a wee laddie, I drew and wrote left handed. That's just how I was born, along with a decent chunk of the world's population, and that's how I will continue to live life. Anyways, it's always been a problem writing like this. Whether its doing math or writing an essay, handwriting has never been my strong suit. My a's sometimes look like u's, my o's sometimes look like e's, Not to mention,  one of the bigger woes of being left-handed, or as I called it as a kid, "the robot hand.

Pro-Tip: Left Handed People Aren't Robots

The worst part about this is that there isn't a decent way to get it off, aside from maybe spit, or a very good soap scrubbing. Now add this to spiral notebooks, or the devil books for left handers. Just look up that one buzzfeed thing about left handed people, every one of those is true.
Here ya go

But anyways, why is this a problem? Well, another thing with this is that I don't write quite as fast. So along with an awkward writing style, if I do try to write fast, it only looks sloppier. First grade is a pain when they keep demanding you keep making different o's.

The writing I'm doing in class focuses on checking out each other's book reviews, answering a few questions while also listing some facts, like the positives and negatives of the review, what it said, and more. It just really grinds my gears when I have to write out so much. I always feel bad for the person I'm reviewing. I'm not bad, I feel, as one, but  it feels like my colleagues just beat me out in speed the vast majority of the time, with better handwriting.

Sometimes I just wish my writing was better. But I think for the most part, I'm going to stick with type writing. It's just infinitely easier for me, and it's faster and smoother to boot. The last few manual essays I've had to do just bother me. But who knows? I guess I can say I'm just not all right. (Pro tip: That was a pun.)