Pixie 2

I really didn't like how the other Pixie drawing turned out, so I decided to take the time to actually smooth out the lineart, attempt to shade the hair, and redo the pose. This one looks much better.

Blog update

Hey!

So as you can probably see, the blog has been given a complete makeover, with a gorgeous new theme, new URL, new title, and most important, a blogger with a new determination to make blogging regularly a thing in her life.

When I first started this blog, I meant for it to be personal, a place where I could write my own thoughts freely. However, after some thought, I decided a public blog probably wasn't the best place to put all my internal ruminations. I keep a paper diary for that kind of thing.

So what do I have planned instead? Well, hopefully, lots of posts with stories from my life. When I go out and do something fun, maybe I'll blog about it! If I notice something funny happen in my day, I'll blog about it. I want to write more reviews: reviews of games I play, books I read, TV shows and movies I watch. Maybe I'll share some of my crafting projects. I want to share shopping hauls and outfits of the day. Basically, I want this to be more of a documentation of my thoughts and my life. I want to be taking more pictures, remembering more events, and I hope that this blog will be a way for me to do so.

I'm looking forward to a future of blogging, and I hope you enjoy reading!

A guide to buying from Yesstyle

I'm kind of addicted to shopping, and one thing I love shopping for is clothes. One of my favorite places to buy is Yesstyle.com, an online retailer based in Hong Kong that sells Asian brands of clothing.

I really love Yesstyle because my own fashion style leans more towards the classy and cute style of Asia, but buying online clothes can be risky; you can't see or feel the clothes, you can't do try-ons, and usually you can't do returns, or it's a hassle to return things. So whenever I buy I'm always super careful with what I choose to get.

I've made ten orders with Yesstyle, and I've only ever been disappointed once. When I first was researching Yesstyle, I was scared to order because I'd heard so many horror stories about the site. But after a few orders I learned a few tricks that have kept me happy with my purchases and I thought I'd share them to help some other people out.

So what are my tricks for buying cute asian clothes online?

1. Don't buy clothes with inherent risk
This is always my first rule. What do I mean by inherent risk? I mean clothes that are difficult to buy even when you can see and feel the product in front of you. Things like shorts, shoes, pants. In other words, clothes that require a very precise fit. Since you can't try the clothes on, it's best to avoid things that have even a chance of not fitting properly. When I shop on Yesstyle, I tend to only buy tops or skirts. With those types of clothes, there's a bit more leeway on the fit so it's not as much of a risk.

2. Be careful about material
When you're buying clothes online and you can't feel the clothes, it can be hard to tell the quality of the material. A good general rule of thumb is, "You get what you pay for." That is, more expensive clothes will have higher quality material. There are some cheaper brands that are still excellent quality, but it can be hard to tell until you've bought it. Knits are generally good, as are hoodies and sweatshirts. Be careful about fabrics like chiffon and lace as well. Stock photos are often deceiving, and these two fabrics can easily look or feel cheap in real life. There is also the danger of sheer fabric being too sheer. If you're really eagle-eyed you might be able to tell from the photo, but it's not easy. If you're suspicious or would rather not risk it, just skip it.

3. Measure yourself, and be aware of asian sizing
It may surprise non-Asian shoppers that on Yesstyle, the majority of clothing does not have sizes. Most clothes are one size fits all, or "free size". However, be aware that this one size fits all is geared towards young Asian women, who are generally shorter and have petite body frames. Yesstyle lists measurements of the clothing on the item's listing, so before you buy, measure yourself to see if what you're buying will fit. On the other hand, the measurements can sometimes be inaccurate, so take the measurements with a grain of salt. At 5'7", I am much taller than most Asian girls so this is something I'm always aware of when buying from Yesstyle. I recently bought a dress that fit perfectly on the top, but it was so short on me that there was no way I could wear it without tights or leggings underneath. On an Asian girl of more average height, she probably would have been fine. 

4. Check the brand

One of my favorites!

I don't want to sound like a snob, but I usually only buy from a few brands I trust. I have bought clothes from Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese, and Hong Kong brands and I can say that usually, Korean brands have the best quality clothes. They are also more expensive, but again, you get what you pay for. The others are of a lower quality that is by no means bad, but not excellent like the Korean brands. The one time I was truly disappointed by a Yesstyle purchase was a skirt from a Taiwanese brand, and as a result I now stay away from Taiwanese brands.


5. Be patient and wait for sales

If you want the higher quality clothes but can't afford the higher quality price, just be patient. Yesstyle has brand-wide sales all the time, and there's usually a discount code or promotion floating around that you can take advantage of.

I'm a gold member. In other words, I've spent way too much money here

If you sign up with their rewards program, you'll automatically get 3% off everything in the store, and the discount gets larger as your membership level increases. You'll also get coupons for reaching new membership levels. Also, the prices on non-sale items aren't fixed and fluctuate pretty often, depending on supply and demand, according to Yesstyle's FAQ. I recently bought a sweater from Yesstyle, and when I checked the listing the next day, the price had dropped five dollars. What I usually do is browse from time to time and save things I like in my cart, then wait for a discount code to come out. Then I buy. 

6. Read the reviews

This may sound like common sense, but it's very important. Not just to look at the average review, but to actually read what people have written, because the number of stars isn't always indicative of quality. When you read the actual reviews you'll get a lot more information, when people say things like, "It was nice, but the color was darker than the photo", or, "It's not as thick as it looks." Some people will even say how the item fits on them and give their height and weight, so you can use that for comparison. Reviews are often essential in my decision on whether or not to buy something.

7. Expect things to sell out

Items on Yesstyle sell out surprisingly quickly. And once it's gone, it's very unlikely that it will be restocked. Keep this in mind if you do the "browse once in a while" shopping method that I do, because usually after a few weeks, items I've saved will be no longer available. In other words, if you see something you really love and have to have, don't wait too long before buying.

8. Check availability

This isn't really related to making sure you're getting good quality clothes, but a lot of the bad Yesstyle reviews I've read complain about the slow shipping, so I thought I'd add a final tip to make shipping faster. Yesstyle has two availability statuses, "Will ship in 24 hours", and "Will ship in 7-14 days". If you want your clothes to ship quickly, only buy things that say they will ship in 24 hours. That means that the item is in stock in Yesstyle's warehouse. If you choose something that says it will ship in 7-14 days, that means Yesstyle has to order it from the brand retailer, which takes extra time. I've only ever ordered 7-14 day items twice, but both times my order was gotten together and shipped out in a week, which is pretty reasonable. Usually Yesstyle ships that night or the next day, and the package gets to me in about week and a half, give or take a few days because of customs.

...And that's all! I hope my tips make your Yesstyle shopping excursions a little more stress-free and help you get some adorable Asian clothes you love! I have an order coming in soon so maybe I'll do a haul post once it's here. This package will also be the first Yesstyle order I've bought and used Express shipping, so I'll be able to comment on how good that is as well. See you next time!

First Impression | Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

Ah, Luigi's Mansion. This game I remember well from my childhood, because it was a game that actually scared the cuss out of me when I was a kid. I'm still a little scared of it today. I could never play the original Luigi's Mansion myself, and I never played that game all the way through; I watched my dad play it instead. But when Dark Moon came out, I figured it would have to be a game I got because it looked fun and because I'm an adult and shouldn't be scared of video game ghosts anymore.

Even if I was scared of the game as a child, I've always loved the Luigi's Mansion games for having King Boo as the main villain and Luigi's nemesis a la Mario and Bowser. Boos have always been my favorite Mario enemy and King Boo is an awesome bad guy. Whereas lately Bowser has been reduced to more of a comic villain, King Boo gets eviler in this new incarnation and it's great. Just look at him in that official art. He's cunning and sneaky and scary, and he feels legitimately threatening.

I like the fact that this game has a bit more of a plot than the first Luigi's Mansion, and the missions make it easy to remember what you're supposed to do next. In the original game I'd play for a bit, come back, and completely forget what I was supposed to do next. Having gameplay broken up into discrete missions removes that, but I do not like not being able to save in the middle of a mission, which means I have to play the whole thing through at once, which I sometimes don't have time for. If I can't finish an entire mission at once, I can't just turn it off and play something else without losing all my progress. This can be annoying, especially if I'm stuck on a puzzle and want to stop for a bit.

The mechanics themselves are pretty easy to get a handle on, and some new elements have been introduced that make ghost hunting a lot easier, such as being able to get a power boost to the vacuum, or being able to dodge enemy attacks while sucking. That last one in particular is a life-saver, since in the original you were completely at the mercy of the other ghosts that would gang up on you as you sucked another up. However, you still can't change directions when charging the flashlight, which is a major annoyance to me. 

The puzzles are also pretty inventive, so far I've played through one and a half mansions and very rarely are the puzzles exactly the same. That's an impressive feat considering there are only three main gimmicks in the game, the vacuum, flashligh, and dark light. Each mansion is an individual and very distinctive, which adds to the inventiveness of the gameplay.

So far I haven't had any major frustrations with the game, which is great, but for some reason it's not really grabbing me like Fire Emblem did. However, that's not to say that it's not a fun game. It's great for passing time, but I don't find myself wanting to play more than a few missions at a time. At the moment I just play one mission per day, which is enough for me; some of them can take really long if you don't figure out the puzzles right away. Without saying too much more, this game is a good time killer, a nice step up from the original, and a cute, quirky addition to the Mario games.

First Impression | Fire Emblem: Awakening

This last Friday I had to stop by my university bookstore to pick up my textbooks for this quarter. It's impossible for me to go into a bookstore and not stay for at least half an hour to peruse, so I wandered upstairs to where the store also happens to have an electronics section. With a shelf that has "GAMING" in nice, prominent letters over it. I've been pretty starved for video games lately, so I went in just to see what they had.

What they had was a game I'd been wanting for a long time: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. And Fire Emblem: Awakening. I'd never played a Fire Emblem game before, but since Lucina and Robin are going to be playable characters in the upcoming Smash Bros., I'd been thinking of giving it a try. And so before I knew it, I left the store with both Luigi's Mansion and Awakening.

I played both of them when I got home that night, and a first impressions post on Dark Moon will be coming soon. First, I'll talk about my first impressions of Awakening.

So far, I like it. It's a very different type of game from others I've played in the past; I've never played a strategy RPG like this, nor have I played any other Fire Emblem games before. I was worried that it would be too complicated to learn, but the in game tutorials are easy to follow so far.

I have no idea how the stats or different weapons in this game work, but I'm hoping I'll learn as I progress. The way the characters move and battle reminds me of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, since you can only move a certain amount of spaces per turn, and attack in turns.

What's really drawing me into this game is the story. I absolutely love the animation used for intro cutscenes, and I wish all the cutscenes could look like that. The scenes using the chubby sprites just don't covey the scene that well, although using character art over the dialogue helps. The voice acting is also great, which is a relief, because fully-voice acted video games are not always stellar. (I'm looking at you, Xenoblade Chronicles and Super Mario Sunshine). The characters are also interesting, if a bit stereotyped right now, and wow, Chrom is really attractive. There's a lot of characters though, so I wonder how much development is going to happen.

First Impression: Chrom is really hot.

I've already been spoiled on one of the major plot twists of this game but it doesn't really matter since I know next to nothing about the rest of the plot, so hopefully I'll be able to enjoy the rest of the story as it unfolds.

So far I'm really enjoying this game and I can't wait to explore more into the world of Ylisse. Sorry I don't have much to say, I've only played an hour into the game so far and everything is so new to me that I don't have much of an opinion yet. Maybe I'll post an update when I'm a bit further in. Looking forward to it!

Goodbye, Quizilla

The end of an era

Today I learned of a heartbreaking fact: Quizilla is shutting down for good. I'm actually quite sad about this. Writing my silly little fanfictions and taking quizzes was my life for a good part of 2007, and although I now look back and cringe, I still have a lot of fondness for the site and how it introduced me to the world of fanfiction and fandom communities.

After learning of this, I logged into my old account and salvaged my stories. I copied and pasted them into word documents so I could save them, because again, I have a lot of fondness for them, and rereading them gives me a good nostalgic laugh. A quick tumblr search revealed I am not alone in feeling this way, as dozens of posts lament the end of Quizilla, a site, which gave many of users (me included) their writing start. It's just funny, how a site that hosted so many of our old shames and cringe-worthy writings can still stir up these feelings. 

I actually wonder what demographic was using Quizilla recently. I would say that 2006-2009 was the peak of Quizilla's popularity, and the majority of the users then seemed to be in middle school, and are now in the end of high school/college. However, back in 2007 when I was using Quizilla, there wasn't much in the way of other sites for fandoms to gather. Today we have Youtube, tumblr, deviantART, all of which are infinitely more popular than Quizlla when it comes to fandom communities. So who was using Quizilla for these last five years? Still middle schoolers?

Anyways, Quizilla, you were my first step into the crazy world of fandoms. Even if my writing was the worst, most terrible drivel to come out of my brain, I still have a crazy sense of love for you. I'll always remember the hours spent updating my Naruto OC fanfiction and taking Seven Minutes in Heaven quizzes (girls only, of course). 

It's been real, Quizilla. Godspeed.

If you want to read my post about revisiting Quizilla for the first time in years, check out this post.

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I'm back!

After a sustained absence over the summer, I have finally returned to my blog. I didn't expect to leave it for so long, but between a vacation, work, and research, I didn't have much time to write. Now school is right around the corner so I don't expect I'll be having much more time in the future either, but I'm serious about my desire to write and blog more, so I'll try to make it a point to blog regularly even during the school year.

As for the blog itself, there are a lot of changes coming up. I'm planning a complete overhaul with a new theme, new title, and new URL, which has already changed. I'm hoping I can figure out a way to structure the scheduling of my posts to fit everything I want to blog about; this is a personal blog with no particular topic, but I might try to post about certain topics on certain days, just to give the blog a more structured feel than it had when I just posted whatever came to mind. (Of course, there will still probably be plenty of that).

I'm so excited about starting to blog more seriously, and I hope you enjoy reading! Thanks as always!

I'm an artist, kind of.

Art in any form has always been a hobby of mine. In elementary school I learned how to knit and crochet. In middle school I began to draw and scrapbook. In high school I focused mainly on drawing and writing. Now in college I've begun to learn digital painting. And throughout my entire life I've always been a very musical person. I can play three instruments (Piano, which I am very good at, violin, which I am terrible at, and guitar, which I am currently learning), and I love to sing. Art has always been a part of my life, and often I am creating it. And yet, I have always hesitated to label myself an artist.

I'm not sure why. After all, the definition of "artist" is "a person who practices any of various creative arts", and I certainly fit the bill. But maybe the problem isn't me, but what I create. I think I just don't have a high enough opinion of my work to call it "art", and therefore by extension, I am a not an artist.

I'm not sure why I think this way either. It's not like I don't have pride in my work, because I definitely do. I know I'm better at drawing than the average Joe. I believe that I have creative and unique ideas. But a lot of the time, when people ask to see my drawings, I hesitate. Half of me wants to show them, to be able to brag, but the other half doesn't want me to show them, because I don't think they're good enough.

Maybe this mentality comes about from spending too much time on DeviantART. The problem with art community websites like DeviantART is that they can be real confidence crushers. Too often I'll draw something I think is really great, post it on DeviantART, then see somebody else's work, look at mine, and think, "Oh. My drawing isn't that great after all."

Of course, most of my friends or people who ask about my art don't spend time on DeviantART, and if I show them my drawings they'll automatically give praise because to them it is good. But to me, I know I'm just mediocre, and I don't want to show people my stuff if I don't don't 110% believe that it is amazing.

Another source of my frustration with art is the disparity between vision and skill. As aforementioned, I believe that I have good ideas, creative ideas that would be beautiful. But I don't have the skills to execute my ideas exactly the way I want. This is one of my hardest struggles with learning digital painting. I consider myself pretty accomplished at drawing with pencil and paper, so I can draw linearts exactly how I want. But once I start coloring in photoshop, my picture looks like it was colored by a fifth grader because I'm still learning, and part of learning is sucking in the beginning. I understand that, but I hate it too.

That's why I can't call myself an artist. Insecurity and an inferiority complex. I wrote this post because I wanted to start posting some of my "art" on this blog, so you could view this post as a sort of disclaimer...at times, I honestly think my drawings aren't that great, for the reasons above. But I still have some pride in my work. I'll put a few of my most recent drawings below. What do you think?

The Blessing and Curse of Short Term Attachment

100% of my working life has been in jobs that deal with children. I've been a summer camp assistant, a private tutor, and a children's ski instructor. I spend entire days with children, teaching them, helping them, and getting to know them. And as a result, I always get attached.

It's so hard not to. I always get hit the most when I'm working in summer camps. In a camp of about 20 kids, there's always two or three who become my favorites after the first two days. They say the funniest things, come up with the craziest ideas, and just generally make my heart melt. It gives you all the warm fuzzy feelings when these kids run up to you to tell you a secret, or keep an inside joke with you. Knowing that they see you as a friend, or even look up to you and admire you...it's one of the most heartwarming things I've ever felt. But all too soon it's Friday and they leave. And I never see them again.

Of course it has to be this way, but every time, I can't help but wonder about these kids who I've become so fond of in such a short period of time; I wish I could know how you are going to grow up. Most of the kids I meet are ten or younger, and so much can change so quickly when you're young. Every time I say goodbye I think, "I wish I could meet you again, just to see what kind of person you became."

I think the saddest part is that most likely, the child won't remember you at all. I certainly don't remember any specific camp counselors from the myriad of camps I went to when I was ten. The adults from my childhood who have really stuck with me are people who were in my life long term, like teachers, or my first babysitter. The fact of the matter is that these kids, who I grow to love, just won't remember me after a few months.

I remember them, though. I remember all my favorites, those kids who really made an impression on me. There's William, who once asked me if the counselors have secret parties in the Pacific Science Center at night. The twins Caleb and Cameron, who I was always able to tell apart despite their tricks. Krystal, who gave me a picture she drew on the last day, since she knew I liked drawing. James and Alessio, the brightest and most creative kids I had come through my Lego camps last summer, and Dylan and Jonah, Jonah who ran back in one day after camp had ended to give me a quick hug. And then my favorite of favorites, Noah, who was just the sweetest and funniest ten year old boy I'd ever met. It's been three years since I had to say goodbye to him, but I've remembered him ever since.

It probably seems silly, that I can get so attached to these kids in the space of a week. It's a little crazy to me as well. Before I started working with kids I didn't think I'd like it at all, but now I love it. And thinking of all the kids I've had to say goodbye to always makes me a little sad. I wish so, so much that I could see them again and just know that everything is going well for them. I wish I could ask them, "Do you remember me?" And wouldn't that be something, if they said, "Yes."

Why I'm Glad I Revisited Quizilla

Are you having flashbacks yet?

Hello, it's May 27, and today I'm going to talk about a very important period of my life: middle school.

Ah, middle school. Those years when you begin to break out of infancy, throw all things childish away, and become an adult, at least to yourself. No, not an adult. Adults are stupid. You become a teenager. Which is arguably even worse.

I always considered myself unique when I was young in the sense that I was never a kid who wanted to grow up too quickly. When I was a kid I was acutely aware of the fact that being a kid was way more fun than being an adult, and I wanted to stay "a kid" for the rest of my life. So strong was this desire that I even cried on my tenth birthday because my age was now in the two digit numbers, and I could never go back to single digits. But of course there are benefits to growing up, and one of them was: increased computer privileges.

I was introduced to the internet through my elementary school after-school care. If you wanted to, you could go to the computer labs and just sit there and play on the internet for an hour or so. We were only allowed to go to five websites: cartoonnetwork.com, barbie.com, clubpenguin.com, nickelodeon.com, and neopets.com. It didn't matter that we were restricted from everything else; those sites were plenty for a fourth grader just wanting to play games. In middle school though, things stepped up a notch. And so my addiction began, the summer before seventh grade. How well I remember it.

I was attending a summer camp at my middle school. It was basically glorified day care for middle school aged kids, but I didn't mind because I had a friend there so it was like having a playdate every single day of the week. Again, we were allowed to go to the computer labs and use the internet, but now we were allowed to go to other sites. The two that I frequented most? Youtube and Quizilla.

Sasori, aka the love of my Naruto obsessed life. Strangely,
I never wrote a fanfic about him. I still may or may
not have an anime crush on him.

I was a massive otaku in middle school. I adored all things Japanese, whether it was manga, anime, the Japanese language, or Japanese cuisine. I loved it all. Mostly though, I was a huge manga/anime fan. And that summer, the summer it started, my major addiction was Naruto (I still have a nostalgic soft spot for the manga in my heart). I was head over heels for that show. I got my friend into the show as well and that was it. My entire summer was Naruto obsessed. I spent so much time watching Naruto AMVs, flash animations, drawing Naruto OCs, reading fanfiction, and writing fanfiction. I did all this on Youtube and Quizilla. My fixation died off several months later, and I moved onto newer sites like fanfiction.net for my fangirling needs. I began to fangirl over other series and make OCs for other stories. In short, I left my middle school otaku life behind me and became, you know, a regular human being. Relatively speaking.

So why did I tell you all this? Just today, I heard a little fairy whispering in my ear, "You should see if your old Quizilla account is still there." I don't know where it came from, but I'm the queen of nostalgia, so I thought I'd do it, just for fun. I found my old username from an email and logged in, and hey, there it was. All my stories that I'd written in 2007, still on the site.

Don't forget the generic anime girls that everybody used as faceclaims.
 I distinctly remember this one. I think I even used it once.

Not without trepidation, I began reading. And horror, disgust, disbelief, and hilarity flashed through my brain in .0001 seconds. It was terrible. It was so awful I couldn't believe that I had written it. Surely even thirteen year old me was a better writer than this. But nope. It was me. Once the horror passed, I found myself reading with a smile on my face. Yeah, my stories were complete garbage, but reading them put a smile on my face, and I reread all my old stories eagerly.

Now we finally get to the title of this post. Why am I glad I revisited Quizilla and subjected myself to reading my past literary indescretions? Because reading them was fun and it reminded me of how much fun I had writing them when I was thirteen, as silly as they were. One of the biggest problems I have today with writing stories is worrying how they're going to turn out and trying to get everything right the first time. Thirteen year old me didn't worry about any of that at all. She just had fun putting together a story she wanted to tell. In a way, I was more free as a writer at thirteen than I am now at nineteen, and re-reading my old stories reminded me of the sheer happiness that churning out a new fanfiction chapter gave me. The summer of my Naruto obsession was also the summer I began to really practice drawing, so I can credit Naruto with both my love of drawing and writing. Reading my fanfiction brought back all those good memories of being a complete and utter fangirl with my friend about a show that we loved. And while most people would probably cringe at those memories, let me repeat that I am the queen of nostalgia, and it just puts a silly smile on my face to remember those times. So that's why I'm glad I revisited Quizilla.

Really though, my stories were awful. Like, vomit-worthy levels of terrible writing. And this was before I started learning to speak Japanese properly, so there's too many instances of horribly misused Japanese words. But again, everybody has to start learning to write somewhere, and I'm glad that the worst examples of my writing are buried deep in the darkest recesses of the internet where nobody will ever find them. Hopefully.

Review: A Link Between Worlds

Hey everybody, I'm back and I just finished playing A Link Between Worlds! And when I say "just finished", I really do mean just finished. I closed my DS five minutes ago and I wanted to write this immediately while it was still fresh in my brain.

I'm going to go over a few categories: gameplay, the look of the game, and the story. Let's start with gameplay. (I'll go over the story last and avoid spoilers up until then. But once I start, there will be spoilers everywhere, so keep away if you don't want to see them.) Also, this review only covers the main storyline, since I haven't finished any sidequests.



If you read my first impression post on this game, you'll know I wasn't impressed. I consider myself to be a pretty good gamer, but when I first started this game I was getting swatted down left and right, and the lack of hearts wasn't helping. However, this game does get easier as it goes on. After beating the first two or three dungeons you've accumulated enough heart containers to be able to withstand attacks. You also get new tunics that reduce enemy damage, which is nice.

I think one of the reasons I had such a hard time in the beginning was the controls. This game uses the circle pad and buttons, whereas past DS Zelda games have used the stylus. Personally, I prefer the stylus. The circle pad can sometimes make it hard to face exactly the direction you want which is important when fighting, and using buttons only allows for one basic slash. In Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, different stylus touches translated to different sword moves, which was helpful. The stylus also allowed for more precise controls of some tools. I think the stylus would have been extremely helpful in this game for tools such as the ice rod and fire rod, the two I had the most trouble with. As for the circle pad, generally it was fine, but as aforementioned, sometimes it was hard to face exactly where I wanted to face, and in boss battles, it was sometimes difficult to maneuver just because my hands sweat when I'm in intense situations in games, so the circle pad became harder to use. However, I managed to work around most of my problems with the controls and they weren't terrible to the point that I couldn't play.

There were also several puzzles that were not very intuitive. I had to use a guide for this game more times than any other Zelda game I've played, mainly because several mechanics were new and I just didn't instinctively think to use them. I often forgot about the painting gimmick in the early parts of the game, and later on I got stuck on parts of dungeons where you had to drop from one floor to another, especially in the Ice Ruins.

The non-linear layout of this game is supposed to contribute to more exploration and freedom, but I didn't really feel that, maybe just because it's a 3DS game, which naturally feels confined. Also, running from one end of the map to the other didn't take very long, when compared to the length of sailing/train rides in Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks. I think decision to make the game non-linear is the reason the story was so underdeveloped, but I'll talk about that more when I discuss the plot and characters.

Bosses were surprisingly easy in this game, although it seemed like they took longer to kill. They also didn't have any names/titles like they usually do, not sure why. Even the final boss, the Yuga/Ganon/Hilda hybrid pig, was pretty easy, just basic dodging attacks, the Zelda classic of Dead Man's Volley, and slashing. I will say I loved the final stage of the battle, where you shoot light arrows at painting!Yuga while Link is also a painting, it looked really cool.

That staff/paintbrush looks a lot like Bowser Jr.'s. Did Yuga get it from Professor E. Gadd?

Let's talk about the overall feel of the game. I liked it. Being a 3DS game, there was definitely a step up in graphics from the last portable Zelda, Spirit Tracks. Everything looked very crisp and stylized and colorful, and it was a nice game to look at. Again, though, I'm no graphics snob, so even if the graphics had been a little lower quality I might not have minded. The soundtrack was also very good at setting the mood of the game, especially the parts in Lorule. I'll admit that walking around Lorule for the first time spooked me a bit, just because of the music. However, there weren't many iconic tunes besides the classic Zelda overworld theme; nothing really unique to this particular game. Except one. Ravio's theme is a great song and it fits his character perfectly. But beyond that, I can't recall a single other song.

And now, my favorite part: the story. In my first impressions post, I wrote that the story was really the only thing keeping me invested in the game. And I hold to that. Unfortunately, this game is rather short, and there are not that many cutscenes that drive the story. Basically you get the set up, a chunk of gameplay, a bit more set up, then the main chunk of gameplay, then the final boss, and the wrap-up cutscenes. This is probably due to the fact that this game is meant to have an open world with non-linear exploration of the dungeons, but the consequence of that is there is no structured plot, with one event leading to another. Story is inserted in chunks, not spread out over the course of the game, and I'm not sure I liked it. There were no scenes to show character development, backstory, etc. Ultimately it seems to me like this game sacrificed story for and open world format, and if it was my choice, I would have done it the other way around.

But let's forget about all that and just focus purely on the plotline itself. I loved it. Unfortunately I was spoiled ahead of time regarding Ravio's identity, but I never suspected Hilda's true intentions. It was a great twist, and I loved how they made her a sympathetic villain. But speaking of villains, here's where I was disappointed. After you defeat the Yuga/Ganon beast, he just vanishes. He doesn't even get a cutscene detailing his defeat. Yuga was the villain who had hooked my interest in the beginning, and he didn't even get a proper final scene. I was left wanting to know more about him. Where did he get his powers from? Why was he obsessed with perfection? Why exactly did he betray Hilda? There was so much more potential in Yuga's character and he was left disappointingly flat. Not to mention Ganon, who it appears is simply a vessel for Yuga in this game. No backstory, motivation, not even any speech. The story could have given those two much more depth, which ultimately would have served the story better.

Everybody could have used a lot more backstory. So say I, Hilda of Lorule...

Ravio was easily my favorite character. His sleazy salesman persona lent humor to the game, and there was something strangely endearing about his cowardice and general smarminess. But again, why couldn't we have learned more? What is his history with Sheerow? Where did he get the magic bracelet? Did he steal it from Hilda? What exactly was his relation to Hilda? (When he shows up at the end to talk Hilda out of destroying Hyrule I saw so much romance between them, but maybe I was wearing shipping goggles.) Apparently in Hero Mode you can read Ravio's journal in the Vacant House, which gives a tiny bit more backstory to Ravio, but why couldn't that be in the main game? There's so much more about Ravio I want to know but unless he shows up in a future game, I won't get it.

A warm welcome to you, Mr. Hero! I'm sure you want to know more about me, but how about you forget that and rent something?

That's really my main complaint with the story. I wanted more. I didn't really get excited about the story until the final boss, and by that's rather late in the game. I wish there had been more cutscenes sprinkled through out the game that could have given more insight, more detail. We could have learned more about Ravio, more about Hilda, more about everything, really. I suppose the reason we don't is that the two main twists: Ravio's identity and Hilda's betrayal would be more shocking if there was no foreshadowing, but this leaves the game as nothing more than dungeon hopping with no story to keep the player interested.

My final verdict: A Link Between Worlds is a pretty good game. I speak only for the main storyline, as I haven't completed any of the sidequests. It's a little slow in the beginning and middle, but story at the end really makes up for a lot of that. The characters and overall plot are wonderful, but could have used a lot more fleshing out. Gameplay utilizes fresh mechanics that are interesting, and the overall difficulty is beginner-intermediate. For me, story is always the selling point of games. I play for the plot, and even though A Link Between Worlds was disappointing in the beginning and could have had more than was given, it delivered well enough at the end. I am glad I played this through, and as always, am looking forward to my next visit to Hyrule.

First Impression: A Link Between Worlds

I finally got myself a 3ds XL a few days ago, and the first two games I bought were Animal Crossing: New Leaf and A Link Between Worlds. I've had about two days to play both of these, and I thought I'd give you all my first impression of the newest addition to the Legend of Zelda.

Oh wow. I am disappointed. Well, not exactly disappointed, more like frustrated. I don't know if I've lost my gaming touch or something, but this game is so, so frustrating. I've been playing for two days and I think I've already died at least fifteen times. I've beaten three dungeons, and I just died three times trying to beat the boss of the fourth. I don't know what it is, but I am sucking majorly at this game.

I can attribute a lot of deaths to the fact that the game does not seem to want to give me hearts. I've literally run around whole dungeon floors on one half of a heart, desperately smashing pots and skulls in attempts to find more hearts. And all I get are rupees. So while I continue on through the dungeon I'm now also trying to avoid certain death as I fight enemies until I eventually slip up, die, and am transported back to the beginning of the dungeon (or my house). Killing even the most basic ChuChus is a struggle sometimes. Maybe it's because the last Zelda game that I owned and played all the way through was Spirit Tracks (which I adore, ST is a seriously underrated LoZ game), and I'm still too used to the stylus controls.

I'm also not sure how to feel about the open world layout. While it is interesting and fun to be able to roam wherever you want and complete the dungeons in whatever order you want, I find that this layout causes the game to lack some of the exploring factor of old Zelda games. I loved slowly discovering new areas for the first time, and piece by piece completing the map of Hyrule. In ALBW, I ran through the whole map in a day, no more mysteries waiting beyond what's in the dungeons.

I like the gimmick of this game, the fact that Link can turn into a painting, however I will say that some of the puzzles in this game are not very intuitive. Or maybe again, I'm just dumb...

The graphics and overall look of the game are fine. I've never been a graphics snob, so how a game looks generally doesn't affect my overall opinion of it. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the top-down perspective, but it works for Pokemon, so I won't complain.

The story is alright. Ravio is a fun addition to the Zelda cast of quirky salesman characters, and Yuga is an interesting villain, but the way the game is laid out, the story is progressing so slowly. Do I really have to beat all eight dungeons before any progression happens? That's ridiculous. I want story, I want substance! This game is supposedly a direct sequel to A Link to the Past, which I never played, so maybe that's why the story and world isn't drawing me in like I feel like it should.

It's only been two days and honestly, I feel bored with this game. I feel really bad saying that since Zelda is one of my favorite game franchises, but this game just isn't doing it for me. I blasted through Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks in a matter of days, and I loved Twilight Princess. There's nothing in A Link Between Worlds that is really gripping me and making me want to continue playing. If anything, my high death rate is preventing me from wanting to play more. I want to love this game. I'll probably stick it out and play the game through to see if anything gets better but honestly, right now I'm regretting the fact that I bought it.

My love/hate relationship with Frozen

I have had a very...conflicting relationship with Frozen. When it came out I paid little to no attention to it, as I had no interest in it whatsoever. This initial disinterest wasn't anything personal against Frozen, I felt the exact same way about Tangled, How To Train Your Dragon, and Wreck-it-Ralph. And then tumblr fell head over heels in love with the movie and I was seeing gifs and edits all over the place. I listened to Let it Go and enjoyed it, but I still didn't go see the movie. Meanwhile, tumblr's love affair with Frozen was only gaining momentum and pretty soon I started to dislike the movie even though I hadn't seen it, purely because everybody else loved it so much. Finally I decided to watch the movie online. I came away with the opinion that it was all right. Pretty and with a cute story, but not the Disney miracle that everybody was saying it was.

Within the week that I watched Frozen, I also watched Tangled, HTTYD, and Wreck-it-Ralph, all for the first time, and after each one I realized: I liked all of those movies a lot better than Frozen. Then I started to actually think more deeply about Frozen and realized why I thought it was just ok.



On my tumblr I have discussed the reasons I think Frozen is flawed, ad nauseum. There's a variety of reasons that range from the lack of character development to the poor plot to the lackluster aesops the film is trying to deliver. Looking at the movie's story objectively, I can say that it's an average at best Disney film.

And despite the fact that I have analyzed the film to its bare bones, despite the fact that I straight up enjoy reading Frozen hate, I find myself being tempted to like the film based on two things mainly: the pretty characters and the songs. I don't really want to like the film because like I said, I don't consider the story to be anything particularly special.

I'll cut myself some slack for liking the songs. They were written to be catchy and they do their job well. I'll admit that I sing songs from Frozen almost everyday because I think they're good songs. Plus, I love listening to and singing them in Chinese and Japanese as well.

The problem I have with myself is that I think the reason I still hold onto a sliver of liking for Frozen is because of Anna and Elsa's characters. First of all, they're pretty. There's no denying that fact. I'd even take the leap and say Elsa is one of the prettiest Disney girls ever put on screen. And that's my problem. I shouldn't like characters or the movie just because the characters are attractive, and yet, I'd say that's what draws about 90% of Frozen fans. They see this movie with two pretty girl lead characters, that's already going to bring in a crowd. Add on some cute character quirks, emotional baggage and a sprinkling of depression and anxiety, and now you've got two attractive young female leads, one who is awkwardly cute but desperately lonely, the other who is elegantly beautiful but secretly a tortured and troubled soul.

And there you are. That's the perfect recipe for characters that young people (especially tumblr users) are going to eat right up. Young people are either going to love Anna because "omg, she's not a perfect princess, she's clumsy and silly and just like me!" or they're going to love Elsa because "omg she's lonely and misunderstood just like me I feel such a kinship to her."

I didn't feel a connection to Anna or Elsa. I'm not awkwardly cute like Anna. I don't have the emotional problems Elsa has. But I still have to grudgingly admit that I like their characters, because media has made out the tortured soul (like Elsa) to be cool. And that's not right. I have a huge problem with people who go around saying they have a mental illness just because they think it'll make them cooler. Mental illness is not cool. It doesn't make people cool if they have it, and it's not something you should want to have. And yet to me at least, Frozen is propagating that idea. It makes people think, "Wow, Elsa is so beautifully troubled." No. Depression and anxiety are not beautiful. Romanticizing mental illness is a huge problem in fiction, and even I, somebody who recognizes that, can still fall for the trap, because Disney just knows how to make their characters so that you can't resist them even if you can see their flaws.

That's where my love/hate relationship with Frozen comes from. It's partially a love/hate relationship with myself. I see the problems, but I still fall for it, and I can't help but feel like that mindset I have is something that I've developed thanks to stereotypes the media promotes. Maybe if I read some more Frozen hate I'll eventually get over this.

Review | Divergent

As a general rule, I don't read a lot of YA fiction. I've read all the big name ones out there: the Twilight series, The Hunger Games, the Percy Jackson series, The Fault in Our Stars, etc. But modern YA has never really been my cup of tea. When it comes to my favorite books, I tend to favor older, classic books like Gone With the Wind (one of my all time favorites), or modern classics of my childhood like Harry Potter.

But lately I've been dying for something new to read. The last two books I read were Ender's Game and Memoirs of a Geisha and neither one really did it for me. So I caved and decided to read Divergent since its movie had just come out and everybody was lauding it as the next Hunger Games.

Wow. What a let-down.



Let's start with our heroine, Tris Prior. Tris was so boring. I had no concept of her personality at any time throughout the book. I can't find words to describe her because she literally had no defining personality traits. You know another YA heroine who also has no strongly defined personality? Bella Swan. That is not a good comparison to make. By the end of the book, all I could say about Tris was that she belonged to the Dauntless faction and she was in love with Four/Tobias.

So the main character was disappointingly bland. How about the plot? Equally as bland. Divergent felt like Ender's Game to me, since the majority of both books revolves around the selecting and training of the initiates, with no real plot coming into play until the very end. In fact, the two are almost identical in this aspect. Ender/Tris have a special quality that sets them apart from their otherwise equally gifted peers. They go to special training where they learn to utilize their abilities. They get picked on by other kids and learn to fight back to prove themselves. Meanwhile, they are being closely supervised by the leaders of their worlds. At the end, their specialness comes into play in a climactic event. My problem with Divergent is exactly the same as my problem with Ender's Game. It's boring. Tris is literally training for 80% of the book. She fights people, goes into the fear simulator, talks to her friends, and romances with Tobias on the side. I didn't feel any stakes, any urgency to the plot.

And this leads me to the flimsy world building of Divergent. The society Tris lives in separates the people into different factions that subscribe to different lifestyles because...I don't know why. In the Hunger Games, it's explained that the Games and the districts are set up by the Capitol as a means of oppression. No solid reason is given for the factions of Divergent. We're told it was because there was a war and each faction represents people who think the war started for different reasons, but that is an extremely shallow reason to separate society like that. Are the people of Divergent really so simpleminded as to think there is ever only one reason for a war starting? Perhaps the real reason for the faction separation is explained in a later book, but if it's not well explained enough in the first book, I just don't accept the world as plausible.

In the end, I finished the book severely underwhelmed. I'd gone into the book knowing next to nothing about it, so I didn't have any expectations and even then the book managed to disappoint me. I honestly think this was a book that was pushed out into the market to ride the Hunger Games wave. The HG parallels in Divergent are immediately obvious. The aptitude test and choosing of a faction=reaping; the Dauntless born=Career tributes; both settings are post-apocalyptic America; Jeanine=Coin, and of course Tris=Katniss. I think with more work Divergent could have been something great, but it fell short, and I don't think I'll ever read it again.

A return to blogging

Hello internet.

It's been a long time since I last used blogger, but I'm back to give it another try. Ever since I discovered tumblr, tumblr had become my primary blogging platform, but I never got the feeling that tumblr was a true blog, more of a dumping ground for any emotion I felt at the moment. On occasion I post long, thought-out posts on tumblr, but I've never felt that the media really lends itself to regular blogging of long articles.

Hence, I have made a return to blogger. I want to be writing more in my daily life, which is another reason for starting this blog. I keep a personal diary, but I don't write regularly in it, and sometimes there are topics I want to write on that I can let other people read. I can't say that I'll be posting on this blog regularly, but I hope that I might get that point eventually, because I really do love writing.

Wish me luck!

Laurie