Happy day, Shepards! How about that Mass Effect: Andromeda trailer?! It looks pretty great, but Mass Effect 3 really broke my heart to the point of having major sleep problems for around 2 months lol. I’m hoping Andromeda can repair our relationship â¤
Back to Gaming
I’ve happily found some time for GW2. I finally got caught up on the Living Story and did some of the Halloween content which has been a huge relief.
Proper skeletons howl at the moon while on fire.
I’ve also been hitting up Skyrim: Special Edition. Ahh, it’s so good to be back in Skyrim! For me, November is Skyrim and soup season. It just feels right! Fun fact: I have over 500 hours in Skyrim, but haven’t beaten the main story line lol. I have a terrible habit of doing every single side story I can and then just messing around until I get to a point where I’m too busy to play or other things come up. I have been too busy to put in much time with Skyrim SE, but have big plans for the next few days đ
Thanks, kid.
On Social Anxiety
I have a lot of personal change/growth happening right now, so let’s get to talking about social anxiety! Growing up, I had crippling social anxiety. It was actually painful for me to interact with others. My chest and throat would tighten and I’d be overwhelmed with stress. I’d have to be very comfortable to communicate with someone verbally other than a few words here and there. Middle school was when it was its worst. I avoided people like the plague because I might have to interact with them and did not have the slightest clue how that would work. To this day, I struggle a lot. It comes out especially when I’m reeling from having a fun time with people I enjoy the company of. I get stuck in a loop of thinking about what I could have possibly done wrong in the situation even if everything is fine. I’m still pretty much garbage at verbal communication. I often struggle to find the words to express my feelings or to just have a conversation and probably come off like some sort of strange animal.
Anyway, that’s enough personal stuff for now! I’ll take lots of screenshots of my new Skyrim adventures and post the funny things that go down. I have also vowed to actually beat the main story line this play through. Thanks for reading.
Well, it’s been a busy several months! I got an awesome new job, new car, brought home some baby rats, and btw I’m polyamorous.
I have identified as poly for years, but have been sort of private about it. I’m now at a point where I’d rather just be open about it because it’s a huge part of my life. I’ve only been actively part of the community for a few months, but making new friends, learning more about myself, and building relationships has been very rewarding. I hope this isn’t offensive to anyone who might be reading, but really, too bad if it is đ
I haven’t had a great deal of time to play many games lately, but REALLYÂ want to get into the Guild Wars 2 living story. When we have the time, Shalien and I have been playing GTAV together and it has become our little secret place…of crime, murder, and flipping cars off mountains đ
What games are you playing right now? What’s hot-to-trot these days? (I have a habit of using old/cheesy catchphrases and I’m not sure where I picked that up from.)
Rats
I brought home 3 baby girls in April named Spooky, Smokey, and Shadow. They’re hyperactive maniacs, but I love them so much. Spirit passed away in August which was really hard because it’s the year anniversary of when Nimh and Dovah also passed. Fitz got really sick and depressed due to the loss of her sister, but I was able to nurse her back to health, so she’s still the boss lady of the mischief.
Tats
I’m happy to say that I have some new ink coming on November 1st. I’ll be getting Robbie the Rabbit’s face on my foot and a Rocky Horror Picture Show quote on my butt because I want it dammit.
I accidentally slam-dunked my phone into the ground while camping recently. I’m going to think about replacing it during lunch lol. That’s all for now!
Yesterday, a very kind person gave me a key to try out The Secret World. Vampire: The Masquerade has me on a huge supernatural kick at the moment, so I was very excited to try out TSW. I made a character in the Dragon faction that uses blood magick and elemental magick. I may not be able to play as a vampire, but the blood magick in TSW gives off a vampire vibe *thumbs up.
I just picked my skills so I’m still fairly early into the game, but wow, is it cool so far. I have a feeling I will commit to it. I tried to take some screenshots, but I was pressing the wrong key đ
Vampires Forever
I received the first four clan books for Vampire: The Masquerade and have begun with the first: “Toreador.” This clan can be described as:
” A clan of sensitive, artistic, and sometimes debauched hedonists fascinated by the mortal world and its artistic creations. The Toreador are enthralled by the ever changing mortal world and are one of the few clans, as a whole, to seek to keep up with it. Toreador often Embrace for beauty or to preserve some artistic talent. Beauty can utterly captivate them causing them to become immobilized and unable to act for a period of time. They are one of the founding seven clans of the Camarilla.”
In my opinion, if I were to have a run in with any type of vampire from the World of Darkness universe, Toreador would probably be the best option for a human lol.
Unfortunately, the Malkavian clan book is the ninth in the series, so I will have to be patient, but I am enjoying
Redbubble has a good selection of Vampire: The Masquerade products! I’m definitely picking up a Malkavian shirt and maybe some more stuff in the near future.
X-Files
I love X-Files. I was too scared to watch it as a child (I was a huge wuss), but I watched every episode years ago and watched the related shows, The Lone Gunmen and Millenium. Having X-Files back is great. It keeps poking my feels. Yup, right in them.
I’m extremely excited for next week’s episode because there was a quote like, “We have a case and there’s a monster in it.” in the preview. I’m a long time dedicated customer to Monster energy drinks, so a big part of me found that very punny in addition to being a funny “monster of the week” type episode.
In a panicked state, I ordered four of the “Vampire: The Masquerade” clan novels. I now watch the tracking page like a hawk.
I also made another vampire – this one’s a Tremere. She’s like a wallflower, but with blood magick.
She’s pretty cool so far, but nothing quite beats being a crazy person.
Speaking of crazy, I did my first Mesmer Mantra Meditation this morning. Last spring, Prak (aka Doory) signed me up for some Transcendental Meditation (TM) classes. The whole thing goes like this: there’s an opening gratitude ceremony, followed by the training, and then practice. You get a mantra and you repeat it to yourself in your mind while you meditate. Don’t focus on it, just let it be a vehicle.
Anyway, I’ve been slacking, so I logged into Guild Wars 2 as my mesmer, went to the hidden part of the Grove, cast a mantra and then meditated. Cheesy? Yes. Weird? That’s me. But it was a helpful way for me to back on track. Also, it’s nice to open your eyes to some lovely scenery.
I just finished Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and must say that it is very likely the best vampire game… ever. The closest in quality in my opinion is the Legacy of Kain series. What do these have in common besides being amazing? They’re in sequel dev hell. These poor games have had sequels planned and cancelled like crazy. It’s seems like it’s almost purely to torment fans at this point.
In Vampire: The Masquerade, they talk about a vampire apocalypse called Gehenna. It’s a lot like Gehenna actually happened for vampire video games, because nothing comparably good has come out since 2004. Why? WHY?!
I Â will probably play through VM a couple hundred times and hopefully, someone will make another quality vampire game sometime soon because my love for early 2000s vampires is burning and I’m having a meltdown!
My first play through was a Malkavian and loved it. I want to try something else, but don’t at the same time! If you’ve played, what’s your favorite clan?
I have not played Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption which came out in 2000, but I may look into trying to get a copy of it. I’m also considering getting some of the books that go with the series.
If you know of a fantastic game where you play as a vampire, please, please, let me know! D:
I really love Spotify.  At the beginning of each year, it puts some metrics together of music you listened to, such as top artists, top songs, top music genres, etc.
If you use Spotify, you can pull up your Year in Music here.
At the end of all of it, you can choose to build a playlist (in the right menu) of new music based on your tastes during the past year called, Play it Forward. Sometimes, you’ll get some gems -sometimes, you’ll get some weird results. Shalien’s playlist last year consisted of foreboding cinematic music ONLY despite hardly listening to any.
I listened to 36,000 minutes of music on Spotify in 2015.
My Top Artists
Ghost
Kero Kero Bonito
Stepdad
Health
Indian Summer
Top Album
Jungle – Jungle
My biggest playlist is DGN (stands for Drinking Games Night) Â – this is about 33 hours long right now and I update this beast frequently. Need a buttload of music? Here:
Here’s my other most reliable playlist:
Now I am off to a birthday party! I hope you find some good tunes to listen to đ
I made it back to work today and it was a doozy as it seemed to be for many. I think I got around 3 hours of sleep last night. I was not prepared. I expected to post on here or stream, but Shalien and I had sort of a busy yet private holiday week. We spent a lot of time with family, with each other, with pets, and with the Steam sale.
We got a lot of games. I’m talking A LOT of games! My biggest catch of the sale is easily “Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines.” This game has been out since 2004 and I have no clue how I haven’t played it until now. I’m having a fantastic time and wish there were more games like this.
In Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines, you play as a newly sired vampire thrown into the ropes of vampire society in 2004 California. Â There is a series of questions you may answer before beginning to determine what clan of vampire you are or you can choose your own stats. I went through the questions and was determined to be Malkavian. What’s a Malkavian?
“The Malkavians are one of seven playable clans in Vampire: The Masquerade â Bloodlines. Malkavians are all clinically insane; the mental illnesses they suffer range from schizophrenia to near-catatonia. Strangely enough, they are a pillar of the Camarilla; historically they’ve been Kindred’s seers and oracles, bound by strange insight and compulsions.”
Many hours later and I’m not sure I would play anything else! Malkavians forever! If you’re a fan of RPGs and vampires then you better get this game.
One of the other games I acquired during the great Steam sale is The Evil Within, which is a survival horror game about a detective that trips over everything. I’ve only spent a little bit in game, but that dude is clumsy! At the same time, I’ve nearly fallen out of my chair because of how spooked I get!
Much of my Guild Wars 2 time has been spent doing Wintersday stuff as Spectral Paw (she’s like the Krampus of Wintersday, right?) and playing my norn to embrace maximum winterness. Like many people, winter kicks my butt. The cold and darkness can be quite brutal, but I’ve found that hanging out in the Shiverpeaks as a norn is strangely therapeutic. Give it a try đ
Some guildies and I are going to start up Everquest II again on the Maj’Dul server. I can be found under the names: Ginmere, Blodwin, Cheeriz. I won’t be on a whole lot until I’ve sated my vampire needs, but it you want to hang out in game or want a guild, send me a message!
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that 2016 treats you well đ
Happy solstice to all! Spectral Paw wishes otherwise though >:]
Only a few more days of work and then I am off for the holidays đ
I will be filling my cart with vodka and champagne (I always keep a full stock of rum) and then I’ll be set for a week of awesome relaxation.
Star Wars
I went to see the Force Awakens Friday night and it was amazing! I won’t say anything about it, but I encourage anyone to go see it! Just do it!
Cookie Bread Snowman of Solstice
Late Saturday night, Shalien and I watched “A Very Murray Christmas” and it was the most charming Christmas special I’ve seen in a while.
Shalien and I decided to do some baking with just the materials we had at home. Also, we don’t really bake much and decided to wing that shit. This was the result:
We wanted to try and make a cookie, but we ended up with a chocolate chip cookie – bread hybrid. It was solid with a bread center. This snowman was made with coffee and a bunch of random stuff, so it had an awesome taste, but it was solid. Like a breadstick…. but also a cookie.
I don’t think we’ll ever be able to re-create this guy.
Masters of the Universe
I noticed this beautiful gem is now on Netflix! I loved this movie as a kid and want to watch it again. I’ll probably stream this from Rabb.it next week and will leave the room open for anyone who also wants to watch it. I think the room limit is 11-15 ish. Let’s hang.
Steam Sale!
It’s coming. Prepare your wishlist. Prepare your wallets. You will succumb!
I have not done a raid in GW2 yet đ My guild has been doing raids but Shalien work schedule has gone a little bonkers. It does that sometimes – he works for a start-up, so it’s kind of an expected un-expected thing. In a secret stance of solidarity and a pretty hefty load of RL tasks of my own, I am waiting to do raids until he is ready lol.
I have however, gotten every base profession in the game to 80 finally and am up to 3 specializations unlocked. I am incapable of deleting characters anymore, so I added one and made an asura finally. Deleting characters hurts me emotionally – I can’t even delete RP characters anymore like Aco Cupid
I MIGHT NEED HIM IN MY LIFE!
So now I have 14 characters.
This is Fiatz. She’s named after my rat, Fitz. I say “FIAATZ” when she’s in trouble.
The Ritual on Weylyn Island
I picked up this game on Steam a few weeks ago and found it to be pretty fun, but it’s very short đŚ I beat it in under 2 hours. This is a weapons-free story game created by Zemagamez. It mixes some paganism/druidism/Christian beliefs. It uses some Furthark runes, but from what I can tell it’s just jibberish placement. It’s pretty interesting though and I think it might be the studio’s first non-mobile game. I hope they come out with more games like this — just much longer đ
WINTERSDAY!
Annnnd back to Guild Wars 2! It’s Wintersday in GW2 and I am thrilled. Wintersday is so nostalgic of some of the most fun I’ve had with my guild. Wintersday was the birth of Aco Paw (now Spectral Paw) and was one of the craziest RP events we’ve ever had especially since Aco Claus was actually very very drunk and our nice Wintersday poetic play turned into hilarious chaos.
I hopped in game yesterday to luckily bump into a bunch of Anet folks partying in Divinity’s Reach and also to find a bunch of guildies including one of our Santas (we have many!) Â hanging around.
I’m hoping to be on for guild festivities this weekend and might stream. If you see Spectral Paw, she may be out for revenge…. and dirty socks (I’m talking to you, Aco Grinch, if you’re reading this lol).
During the first Wintersday, we had a New Years party in Lion’s Arch. I drank a lot… I remember a lot of funny stuff happening and waking up in the quaggan cave of Timberline Falls.
“Swimming swimming swimming. All summer long.
Swimming swimming swimming
Keeps the flippers strong
All summer long!”
I will never forget that song.
I’ve also subbed EverQuest 2 again and finally bought mercenaries! I have never used a merc until I grouped with a friend a few months ago. I’m going to get Ginmere max level, I tell you!
But first, random announcement: I have a week off for Thanksgiving. There will be so much Guild Wars 2. I’m so excited.
I will leave spoilers for the bottom half of this post – no pics included so you don’t accidentally see something you didn’t want to.
It Begins!
Friday the 23rd, I arrived home from work with my game ready to go. As I created my Revenant, Shalien shook me and sang (badly) at me to drive me insane. I created Xinrae Ascendant and got started right away.
Revenant / Herald is the profession I’d been waiting for since launch. It’s crazy fun, powerful, and maximum nostalgia mode. The legends are oddly motivational, including Shiro (maybe not so much Malyx), but whenever they start saying things like “Together, we’re unstoppable!” I get so pumped and feel like they’re my new BFF.
Shiro, you were a jerk in life… and much of your afterlife, but you’re a very friendly slave. No, I won’t release you.
Glint. I love Glint. I have a baby tortoise named Glint. Praise, Glint. Herald is brilliant and oh so satisfying. The facet skills are very useful and have different effects when activated or passive.
The sounds of the Herald’s facets confused me for days. I thought they were some weird ambiance in the game and was wondering wtf was going on. Oh, just my facet…. derp. Reminds me of the days of the Queensdale spaceship…
Side Note: I finally finished my ascended heavy armor set, but I still lack an ascended back piece. Progress! Wow. Such gold.
Gliding
Who doesn’t love falling with style?! Gliding is a lot of fun and very relaxing at the same time. To activate gliding, you need to earn and spend mastery points along with leveling the skill you want. These points can be earned by completing events in the deep Maguuma jungle or locating them throughout the new maps. After unlocking gliding initially, you can then unlock other gliding skills as well as many other important skills you need to get around the jungle. You can switch out gliders for different skins, but I think the only new skins you can get are on the gem store at this time.
Soundtrack
Maclaine Diemer is a musical hero. The HoT soundtrack has reached my top favorite soundtrack list. The HoT theme is powerful and  a great call to action for players to kick dragon ass. My favorite song in HoT is the Tarir battle song that plays in Auric Basin during the Octovine event:
It gets your blood pumping and it’s so uplifting – I think due to inspiration of the location.
I really wish that the full soundtrack was on Soundcloud or anywhere!
SPOILERS
Please, don’t read beyond this point if you have not finished Heart of Thorns!
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I warned you!
How many people cried throughout the story? *Raises hand*
How many people love Tizlak? *Raises hand*
How many people encountered bizarre bugs? *Raises hand*
Heart of Thorns is another reminder that Guild Wars 2 is a dark game. Terrible things happen to characters throughout all story in the game and HoT is no exception. We lost Eir and Trahearne.
I read the first two books before the game launched and had developed an early love for Eir Stegalkin. She was a bad-ass norn ranger, hero, artist, guild leader. I really wish she didn’t have mercy for Faolain. I find myself angry at Caithe for all of this too. During season 2, Caithe’s actions made me quite pissed off. The fact that she sided with such a psychopath for so long and how her secrecy has hurt everyone… I can’t help but feel angry at her for Eir’s death even though she’s not responsible for it.
When Braham is talking about her when she dies and mentions Garm, it just twisted my heart.
Now I know there are many Trahearne haters out there that are probably happy about his death, but I enjoyed his character. My first main character in GW2 is sylvari. I say “is” instead of “was” because she isn’t retired or anything. I still play Gladiolus quite often and am so proud that she’s now a dragon hunter. Trahearne comes into the story a bit earlier for sylvari characters and maybe it makes more sense that way, but I’ve never found a reason to dislike him and considered him a close friend to my characters.
The future of Destiny’s Edge is a little concerning at the moment. Logan and Zojja are in pretty poor health. Who’s going to trust Caithe? I suppose we can sort of have a new Destiny’s Edge with Kasmeer, Marjory, Braham, Rox, Canach, and Taimi getting updated into the guild roster. I hope Logan and Zojja can get back on their feet and that Taimi builds a sweet new golem.
Tarir. When I first entered this city, my eyes watered … The city is breathtaking and the exalted are beautiful and very intriguing… until they talk shit about me being a mist-walker (revenant).
Although, Durmand Priory folks in Tarir are saying the exalted are not related to the Mursaat, I’m still a little uneasy about the similar appearance. I’m nervous about the egg and what it will become. Will Glint Jr. be our dragon savior or will he/she be a scumbag? And if it’s a scumbag, can we un-scumbag it?!
Bugs (still spoilery)
I encountered a few memorable bugs during my play-through of the story. The first one was during “Sign Cutting,” Â but I think this is fixed now. I played the story with Shalien and during this chapter, only he was getting credit. We tried a few things without any luck, but fortunately the GW2 forums were able to figure out a strange workaround by completing the story steps without people around. But what a stupid bug lol.
The next bug is during the final fight. Not sure if this got fixed or not, but the boss scales up throughout the battle when key events are triggered. If you wiped (at least this was the case in a party), he would stay up-scaled when you rez. Mordremoth is a douche. All in all, the bugs weren’t horrible for me. I know Shalien had constant crashing issues, but it seems the 64 bit client resolved that.
I’ll need to stop talking now, so I can finally post this, but there are infinite more things I want to talk about regarding HoT.
Proper skeletons howl at the moon while on fire.
The Adventures of Xinrae 