What Have I Done

I have The Hobbit on the brain. Listening to the soundtrack right now while I draw. Even played some Skyrim just to get a watered-down medieval epic kind of feeling. Maybe not the most conventional mindset to be in when making a black and white comic about black and white toons, but eh.


I first heard the Misty Mountains Cold song linked by someone's Tumblr. When I first heard that song, she was a treasured ally. It's weird to think that I'll never hear that song and be her friend again. Hell, this month I had to cut someone out of my life IRL. Someone I'd known since the 10th grade.


I wonder who changed. I doubt I got better, because I feel worse than ever. But every time I talked to him, without even trying, all he did was make me feel like the biggest piece of shit. Like all of the world's problems were my fault. Because I cared about stuff. I really don't even think he consciously noticed. My personal and mental health has to come first, but it's still hard to believe that he won't be a part of my life anymore. It's not a decision I made lightly, and I'm sure as hell going to miss him. I just don't think he's the same person as the man I befriended.


What an awful thing, for people to stop caring for each other. When someone's mere presence is too sharp to hold onto, and when they can't soften those edges. Even if they want to. I had to have been that person to a lot of people.


On December 1st, I'm going to get back into contact with someone of immeasurable importance to me. I don't know if it will be face-to-face or through writing. Some things need to be said. I don't know what I'm going to say. It might be the last thing I ever say to her. Too many people have unceremoniously left my life. I couldn't be there for her when it counted, but the least I can do to honour our friendship is give it a proper end. We both deserve "Goodbye".

Smash Bros. For 3DS

Smash Bros. for the 3DS has the worst control scheme I’ve ever experienced in a video game. I say this because within the first 2 minute match, my hands were hurting from the clumsy button placement. Nothing else has ever accomplished this.


It's so awful, I almost wonder if this was done on purpose so more people would buy the Wii U version, thus boosting sales for the struggling console. I can't believe a video game in this century plays this terribly. And worse, from a franchise that was heralded for its' near-perfect precision gameplay.

Portal 2: First Thoughts

So I bought Portal 2. Still making my through. Some early impressions:

-Solid writing, although most of it has been spoiled for me by the internet parroting it all.

-I was seriously stuck dead in my tracks during one puzzle for about half an hour. And I figured it out right before I was going to surrender and look up the solution online. Figuring that out made me feel a lot smarter than I really am. Very few games have accomplished this. Most veer wildly too far into frustratingly vague territory, where you're punished simply for not having a psychic link to Tim Schaefer's schizophrenia.

-I miss when Chell was a person of colour, instead of a plastic-surgery-riddled Strong Female Character. Considering you're not even supposed to see her, and she's not even on the box, that's pretty disappointing that they would whitewash her just to appeal to a "wider audience".

-When I "rescued" the turret and brought it through the field that destroys anything you carry through it, I felt so bad I restarted from the last checkpoint and just left it before that part, intact. Just so it would "survive" my playthrough. It takes a very special game to make me care that much about the soulless robots shooting at me.

-The fat jokes get old, fast. 

END OF LINE

~A.H. 

 

Late Night Stuff

It's almost 11 pm. I should be asleep. But something is keeping me awake. The very odd feeling that I am about to do something great. I just don't know what it is yet. And I doubt anyone will notice.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just getting nostalgic reading one of Roger Ebert's books. I wish his bio-documentary was playing anywhere in Canada. I guess I'll have to stream it on Amazon or something.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

That Wizard Came From The Moon

Peter Dinklage can barely contain his excitement for being in the video game "Destiny". This is what $500 million can get you, ladies and gentlemen.

Between this, The Elder Scrolls Online and The Old Republic, maybe this will finally be the year where the large-scale multiplayer game dinosaurs finally collapse under their own weight.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

The Walking Dead: In Harm's Way

Just finished downloading this episode.

Let the heartache begin!

Stories And Stuff

One day, I want to create a story that makes you feel like you’re home. A place and people you get comfortable with, who you think about at the weirdest hours of the night. Characters and moments that become like old friends. Situations you daydream about, and spend days and weeks wracking your brain trying to figure out how it will end, and if it’s possible for a happy ending.

And then I want the end to approach faster than you can prepare for. I want an audience that almost doesn’t want to see it end at all, because it would mean saying goodbye to a place in their lives that shielded them from the horrors of reality. Maybe even strengthened them to it.


And then I want the end to come and be so perfect, so shattering, so right that you don’t know what to do with yourself for a while after it’s over. Nothing but to sit in silence and absorb what happened, how it will never happen again, and how grateful you were that it happened to you.


I guess what it comes down to is paying a debt. I want to write that story to repay the stories that did that for me. The stories that make life worth living.

I don’t know if I’ve done that yet, but I think I’m getting closer…

END OF LINE 

 ~A.H.