Lucent Heart Beta: First Impressions

Impressions?

Lucent Hearts is a cutesy anime game that has a closed beta right now (very closed from what I saw) but the world is certainly already full of stuff.

Much of the initial game revolves around picking your astrological sign—in fact, the character creation involves delivering your birth date so that it can pick your astrological sign. (In my case, it’s Gemini.) Also, like many Asian-style cultures you can give your blood-type as that’s often connected to mysticism about personality.

In game, these elements build together in order to create a romantic matching system so that players can find “soul mates.” After people pair up, they’re able to gain a type of relationship points, which they can turn into temporary buffs, special items, and when a person plays with a soul mate in game they both earn experience together faster.

In fact, a great deal of the game seems to be written around anime romance. Just watch the trailer on the official site and you’ll see a dungeon group get wiped out at a boss—but the hero sees his life flash before him, and his time with friends with a romantic interlude, and he stands tall with a rush of emotion.

Rather like the Power Of Love fiction trope.

A bit of the game also seems to be centered around emotions.

I’ll know more as I get deeper into the game.

Green Dragon Inn: Archaeology in World of Warcraft

For anyone who happens to actually level their archaeology secondary trade skill in World of Warcraft may like this little reminiscence on how it’s being handled in game.

In abstract: it’s too OCD for me.

Now, when archaeology actually got released into the game it came to me as a little bit of a disappointment. I expected to see another glyph-like system based around it, so-called “Paths of the Titans” at the time which filled me which much glee. The chance to find other ways of tweaking my characters both after they’d reached their level 85 pinnacle or during their careers as rising stars really appealed to me. Then, when it finally came to fruition, I’d learned too late that Paths of the Titans had been scrapped and what I got in its stead is the old hitting rocks and…playing a game of hot-or-cold?

Link, via Green Dragon Inn.

Just watched Halo Legends

And I liked it alright.

I went and published a review over at Vox Ex Machina for everyone to read, final conclusion: fairly okay, if you have Netflix, popcorn, and a night to burn.

Just last week, I fired up the Netflix and saw that Halo Legends had finally wound its way into the instant queue and I figured it was about time that I sat down with my favorite My Little Pwny pillow, a bag of popcorn, and the effervescent glow of the laptop monitor and watched it. So there I was, cozy with my pillow, sipping my Raume soda, and I’m watching a series of animé shorts based on a best-selling computer game.

Not exactly how I expected I’d be spending my night if I’d pondering this a few days before.

Link, via Vox Ex Machina.

CrimeCraft servers having issues…whilst I write a review

I am done with the review, as much as I can with the trouble I’ve had. It’s been kind enough to work properly for the last 3 days in a row just not now. I am putting the finishing touches on it. So when I am done, I’ll be able to direct people to read it, should they choose.

For those not in the know, CrimeCraft is a free-to-play FPS MMO published by Vogster. It’s mostly guns-and-mayhem style with a deeply immersive narrative written onto a post-apocalyptic United States like city after the world runs out of oil.

I have Loque’nahak

After a grueling 10-day hunt, and approximately 113.3 hours, I have finally tamed the elusive spirit beast, Loque’nahak. (See me above, posing for the picture with my newly tamed kitty on Ogrimm’s Hammer in Icecrown.)

The case finally broke when a newfound friend of mine, Maidentaiwan, located the furball patrolling next to the Skyreach Pillar and called me in—she is Grumplepuss’s kaywng (yet another hunter who I’ve befriended from my time in Scholazar Basin.)

While I might be going there on-and-off in order to run Oracle quests for reputation, I think that I’m going to spend time in Icecrown to uncover the storyline unfolding there (and perhaps I’ll actually check up on the devastated Azeroth.)

I ended up naming him Yule after the the season that I’ve finally tamed him during.

Camping Loque’nahak: Day 8, and another hunter got him

Yesterday, before I prepared to go to Mill Ave, I had to take a shower—otherwise I would be an extremely stinky royal out in my domain—and while I was purifying my body, Loque’nahak spawned in my camp spot and another hunter picked him up.

#%*!

The good news? The hunter who picked him up happened to be Grumplepuss, aided by his kaywngstiad MaidenTaiwan, who have been helping me find the spirit beast as well. In fact, they tried to see if I was online first—as I wasn’t—and then tamed the critter. At least I am very happy that they cat didn’t go to waste, even if I failed to tame him myself.

The worst part of this is that the kitty spawned in my camp spot during the 20 minutes I was out to take a shower.

Talk about the worst of the bad fortunes.

Still, I’d like to thank Grumplepuss and MaidenTaiwan (Thunderhorn) for their help so far. I’m not going to be able to keep this up without some sort of help.

Mill Avenue Nights: Saturday, November 27th 2010

Once again winter closes its grip around the valley, dropping temperatures into the 50s. On the same night as the Festival of Lights parade leaving behind interesting trashcans and a slightly smaller presence of people on the Ave.

Certainly the temperature has a little to do with this.

Upon arrival, I got a little bit of interview time in with some buskers and some of the usual street rats who had stories to tell. In particular, a pair that I love seeing outside of Hippy Gypsy who wished us well and warmth.

I made it out there and discovered the street preachers out and about. Marcus and his sister had taken up on the corner with the Post Office as well as Al and his crew. I meant to get an interview with him as well, but it felt so cold I felt it would be necessary to close up the night a little earlier.

I also had a chance to speak with a part-Welsh (ethnically) woman named Winifred. The conversation ran the lot about languages, history, linguistics, paganism, and anthropology.

I have very little in the way of notes. (The temperature fell so far that my fingers ached from it.)

Crystal also made the street.

The Mill Avenue Resistance did not make a show. As usual for this year the drum circle remained empty and dark, the melancholy of the vacant space still calls out to me. I hope some day soon it will be filled once again with the sounds of hands on music.

Not too much to report again.

No photos, only footprints and red bricks.

Camping Loque'nahak: Day 5 and King Krush

I've been camping the kitty-who-swallowed-a-willowisp (I don't know why he swallowed a willowisp, perhaps he'll die). I've been trying to do this from 9am until 2am, or whatever times of day I can possibly stay up. The spot I've chosen in the easternmost spawn points in Sholazar Basin where the gorillas gather.

Well, today I was sitting around minding my own business when NpcScan went off. I looked eagerly down and noticed it had triggered on King Krush—a huge, green Tyrannosaurus rex who happens to also be a rare spawn in the region. I don't really care for the dinosaur.

However, he is a rare, so I figured: Sure, whatever.

I flittered off down past the wasp hive, spotted the dinosaur stomping his way blithely through the swampy ground. Landed, set down my trap, and hit tame.

The big guy went straight through my trap and whomped me with a fearbomb. As I ran, I waited for it to wear off with the big green dino on my tail. I quickly recovered, hit tame again, and waited. He hollered liked a giant, pissed-off elephant as hearts appeared over his head. As the hearts flew, he slashed chunks out of my health with his colossal flesh rending teeth.

At about 2% heath, he tamed.

My kaywngstiad suggests that I rename him: Killasaurus.

The Shattering

Now that The Shattering is upon us, I have still been working out various in-game reporting for The Green Dragon Inn. Azeroth has gone through some strange events lately in the prelude to Cataclysm.

Come along and keep up with me!

Cataclysm Elemental Invasion: Papers Please. When Orgrimmar became a post 9-11 wasteland, our reporter came to the scene to watch Blood Gaurd orcs frisking incomers. Those who were found to be holding cultist paraphernalia or literature were immediately arrested. Also, oddly, numerous cultists had set up around the city trying to open rifts into the elemental planes.

Cataclysm Elemental Invasion: Under Attack! Giant elementals have been emerging in the city themselves assaulting citizens and heroes alike! They have been trapping people in elemental prisons and the cities have gone into lockdown. Orgrimmar has been set aflame as fire and earth elemental manifestations stomp through the streets and the population flees out the gates; Thunder Bluff hunches underneath peals of thunder and glittering claws of lightning as water and air elementals harass and zap the unwary.

Mill Avenue Nights: Saturday, November 20th 2010

The Ave felt pretty dead.

All things being considered, it had become quite cold over the past few days and that perhaps chased people into their homes and away from the red bricks.

The crowds had dwindled down to a trickle of people passing through the intersections.

I tarried only an hour on Mill, bought a soda from The Thirsty Dog, greeted everyone I could, and then headed back home again.

Mill Avenue Nights: Saturday, November 13th 2010

Mill Avenue had a strange visit today from a belligerent set of street preachers led by Ruben Israel.

Amid his group, Israel brought five extremely well-girthed men, five large plastic signs, and one bullhorn. They stopped in front of the popular Mill Ave bar the Mill Cue Club—a place where other preachers have done a similar thing—the major exception, however, is that Israel’s crew are actively abrasive. The men with Israel used a particular tactic of insulting first and then asking questions later, they would pick elements on a persons clothing, their attitude, or racial features and throw epithets and slurs to gain attention.

Marcus Mattingly, one of the proper Mill Ave Christian street preachers, describes Ruben Israel as a heretic and people shouldn’t listen to him anyway. The presence of the new preachers and their signs did not affect the major Mill Ave preachers at all. The crowds did start to clutter around the Mill Cue Club, but it didn’t draw attention from the street preachers nor did it cause them any frustration. Other than a few shrugged shoulders and rolled eyes, thus was the entirety of Israel’s impact.

The Mill Avenue Resistance, in the persons of Gadfly and Kazz, quit their usual position protesting the usual street preachers and moved next to Israel and his crew in front of the Mill Cue Club.

Instead of putting up any sort of rational discussion or civil conversation, Israel and his posse only spat back insults and vituperations. Responses consisted primarily of non sequitur nonsense, abuse, racial slurs, and political insults. Gadfly brought the brunt of the attacks with her femininity being called into question and other hyper-misogynistic speech. Kazz was met with name-calling about his appearance every time he spoke, being called a hippy and branded as effeminate. These men obviously have massive problems with women—it certainly explains why there wasn’t a single woman among them.

“Please don’t put that girl on again,” whined one of the preachers over his bullhorn. “She’s annoying.”

Passersby also absorbed some abuse from them as they tried to shout over the noise from within the bar.

Mostly they would stop random people and call them “gay” as if that were actually an insult.

When I attempted to stop Rube Israel himself to ask him who he was with and what they were doing he chose to insult me ineffectually. At one point he called me out for not being able to read his sign even though I wear spectacles (wouldn’t that be why I’m wearing spectacles?) The address of his web page, whilst visible on the signs, was printed over the point where the pole inserts into the sign itself and thus made it difficult to make out. He also casually claimed that I was a Satanist. Not that I am, nor is that really much of an insult either, but he used it with the same role as their attention grabbing insults.

There wasn’t much of any substance to Ruben Israel’s circus act.

Cataclysm Elemental Invasion Warcraft Reporter

I’ve gotten a writing gig with Green Dragon Inn to do reporting on happenings on the Horde side of Azeroth—if there’s anyone who is familiar with my Around Azeroth reporting, it’s similar to that—so far I’ve written two articles for them, so I’d like to send people over to check them out.

They’ve also got an excellent podcast.

Cataclysm Elemental Invasion: The Cult in Azeroth. There's a strange cult spreading around town, in this case Orgrimmar, that I'd like everyone to meet. They appear to be an extension of the Twilight's Hammer, doomsaying and preaching end times dogma for all to hear. Except what you'll find surprising is who they're working for.

Cataclysm Elemental Invasion: The Elements Agitated. In this one our intrepid reporter becomes a one woman broom and dustbin service for the street of Orgrimmar and singlehandedly fights off a dragon. Well, not really, but read up and you'll see how that goes. Do I smell ash?

Mill Ave encounter with The Door on Hallowse’en

This post entails an anecdotal narrative about an experience on Mill Ave, Hallowse’en 2010, involving a Christian congregation called The Door. There have been previous problems with them and their behavior on Mill Ave; but this year they managed to comport themselves mildly and without too much friction.

The first man to approach us from The Door zeroed in on me and immediately said, "I just wanted to let you know that Jesus loves you." He said this over-and-over as if I were failing the proper social reply. He was a small Latino man, the orbits of his eyes set further apart than is normal, but his face appeared round that gave him a sort of intense effect. He'd cropped his dark hair short against his skull and wore jeans and a collared shirt. I never even got his name during the entire discussion, but I did attempt to steer the conversation away from culture shock, but he felt rather committed to the hard sell.

"Thank you," I said, thinking that the "Jesus loves you," meme is generally a sort of blessing that Christians use (especially this evangelical type) to connect with the other person; however, that didn't do it for him. He quickly went on into his mirror speech, something that probably fits the jargon term "witness statement." Such as cliché to these statements he starts talking about how he used to live a self-destructive life, he did drugs (marijuana), drank alcohol, and partied all the time. And, now that's all changed.

Ostensively he would have attributed this change to his conversion to a particular religion. I am not certain what sect of Christianity that the Door belongs to, but it's probably theirs he would espouse.

His mirror speech followed script extremely well as he passed onto the question, "If you were to die, where would you go right now?"

And, as I like to work from Celtic mythology, as is my heritage, I said, "Well, the Otherworld."

He immediately went on to talk about Christian mythology, including about how they propose that when people die they'll be judged and then be sent to one of two places: Heaven or Hell. Here his mirror speech failed him for a moment as he ran into someone to whom these two terms create a sense of culture shock. So he attempted one of the worst metaphors I have ever heard on the subject,

"What do you see right there? In the street," he asks. Well, it's a street and it has cars driving in it. "What would happen if you tried to drive the wrong way down that street?" Well, you'd collide head on into another car. "After you die there's only two directions you can go."

That's not what the rest of the world thinks and it's certainly not related to any knowable reality (i.e. Heaven, Hell, the Otherworld, Xibalba, etc. aren't demonstrable so pretending they are is just stupid.) So I said, "No they're not..." I didn't get a chance to go on that every culture that has ever lived as invented itself afterlives of different sorts, from heavens, to hells, to happy hunting grounds, to the dwelling abode of the gods. There are near infinite and myriad answers to that question and not a single one of them can be tested (although some of them are logically absurd) so I have no reason to accept his assertion over any other.

Then he said something actually interesting and mentioned that The Door had a visiting preacher who had gone to Romania. I asked if the preacher himself was Romanian, no he wasn't, but his wife was.

Anyone who doesn't know, but there's a famous critter on YouTUBE, ZOMGitsCriss who also lives in Romania. So I'd be interested to see what she thinks about some of these subjects, but I have no reason to bother her.

Finally, our conversation ended when said missionary from Romania appeared.

He was a large man, almost taller than me—in fact loomed over me because I stood in the street and he stood up on the curb--square spectacles, broad shoulders bearing a plaid shirt, and dress slacks. His hair, dark from its appearance, buzz cut into a flat top. He carried with him a Bible that his hands dwarfed and introduced himself as John. When he spoke he delivered his mildly accented Midwestern words with a cheerful bombast that grew on his face and I could hear the slight pull of another language in some of his words (knowing that Romanian is a Romance language gave me some insight into some of the pronunciation changes, but I could have been supplying that through my own bias.) In all, John's ability to cover a full range of language and answer questions made him an interesting foil to the Latino man who had originally approached me.

I should point out that because he's a visiting missionary he's not connected to The Door or their cultish behavior directly and he's probably using them to help score himself money for his missions in Romania. This would readily explain why it felt like a totally different level of discussion talking to him rather than the Latino man who never gave me his name.

His experience in and of Romania really intrigued me. He mentions that Romania is primarily Eastern Orthodox (probably under the auspices of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Wikipedia gives the stat as 87%.) If John is working with The Door, I suspect this means that his sect is Protestant, which means that he'll face a certain amount of resistance from the local culture. He mentioned also that he had three mission churches erected in Romania—specifically in the Transylvania section, a huge chunk of the north western region.

He also went on to say that treatment of women in Romania is next to the most ugly, citing that they're second highest in the world for lack of women's rights; also that Romania is second highest in the world for abortions. He mentions there is no 911 service and that he continually hears crying and weeping where he lives in a multistory apartment building of women and children pleading not to be beaten. (I have no way of verifying these anecdotes or statistics, so I invite Romanian citizens and scholars to opine.)

I enjoyed speaking to him, but didn't get a chance for a full interview of his experience. He had to leave too early for that.

Welcome to Mill Ave, John. Just, next time choose a better congregation to spend time with.

What to Read on the Web for Halloween

Looking for a good Halloween read? Look no further than your browser. There’s a great deal of excellent weblit out there, tonight Irk and Char bring some of them to us with a blog post,

Let's get this out of the way - Halloween is my favorite holiday. It's sort of my Christmas. I share it with the goths.

Every year I like to get in the spirit of the season (pun not intended but impossible to avoid) by writing something creepy, like last year's Halloween story and... this year's Halloween story! You can read the 2010 story on the 30th and 31st, but I wanted something to keep you busy until then. So I asked everyone on Twitter to send me Halloween story links. As it is with Peacock King, all of these stories are available online to read for free! It's just like trick-or-treating, except I guess tricks don't happen unless someone's server goes down. Please enjoy these stories and support the authors if they show you a good time.

Stories include 100 Candles, DarkSight, Haunting Sins, Bradbury’s Ghost, and The Legend of Sleepy Phoenix (by moi). Irk and Char are the two authors of the Internet famous The Peacock King story weblit serial. If you want more to read after getting your scare on, theirs is a good place to look.

Link, via The Peacock King.

My All Hallow’s Read Offering: The Legend of Sleepy Phoenix

My favorite folklorist and author, Neil Gaiman, has created the first annual All Hallow’s Read. And this Hallowse’en when I hit the bricks of Mill Ave, I will be carrying physical books with me—but, for those of you so far away from me, you can still get in on my tweet campaign for the The Legend of Sleepy Phoenix e-book.

It’s free! Just tweet.

It’s also a ghost story. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow updated for modern times—a motorcycle instead of a horse, but no Ichabod Crane, just our daring Vex Harrow and her taxi cab.

Link, via Mill Avenue Vexations and All Hallow’s Read.

 

The Byzantium Outcast for sale at Amazon.com on Kindle

I just published The Byzantium Outcast e-book Kindle edition in the Amazon.com marketplace. Right now it's going for $2.99. For the moment, I'm going to make the Arsenal stories about that much, while I'll keep the shorter volumes at $0.99.

"In her ongoing search for magickal artifacts in and around Phoenix, occult detective Vex Harrow makes a strange discovery during one of her favorite hunts--at a yard sale. She procures a strange, bronze statue that seems to have a lot more going on than at first it may appear."

Perhaps I should also get some longer, better back matter written. It looks short and weedy compared to others.
The Outcast--as seen on the cover in that oddly torturous and twisted pose--is a bronze-copper statue that I bought at a yard-sale somewhere in Chandler. It took a bit to clean off all of the scabrous green corrosion and centuries of grime, but there are some stains that even TarnX cannot remove. If you are interested in what this has to do with Vex Harrow then I suggest that you visit the story and read up.

The cover artwork is the lovely work of one of my artists, Nicole Cardiff. She's also the artist who did the cover for the 5th volume of Mill Avenue Vexations, "Drum Circle."

Link to buy The Byzantium Outcast at Amazon.com's Kindle store.

SB 1070 really? Prison industry helped draft this debacle of a bill

Just saw this one and I’m not really happy about what I’ve read. The bill itself inflicts stupid holes in the ability of our police to do their jobs as well as provides dangerous leeway for arresting people who happen to be suspiciously not … white. There is a long held understanding that industries often assist with laws that would affect them, and the route to dangerous conflicts of interest is fraught there.

Over at NPR, there’s an article on exactly where this sort of conflict of interest can go.

I don’t think that the people who directly benefit from the arrest and seizure of persons should ever have any say in criminal law. Unless it directly indicates their behavior (in which case they should have a say) but if it’s about what constitutes a crime outside of their purview or how long a sentence should go, they aren’t welcome.

Connections to private prison interests are everywhere in lobbies for criminal bills, with politicians, and other elements of our government—it is an extremely powerful, deeply set, highly moneyed industry.

That’s not safe for anyone.

Link, via NPR.

Mill Avenue Nights: Saturday, October 23rd 2010

This one is probably going to only be photographs and not that many. My camera’s batteries died during the night. Didn’t have that much of a showing on the Ave, for reasons unknown, but I did take a few pictures for everyone to see.

FREE CLOTHES. The Resistance protests the presence of the street preachers on the corner with the Post Office with charitable operations.

In the very center of the photo is Crystal, she spent some time posing – but due to the battery on my camera dying, I was only able to get one photo of her and it’s not that great.

I really need to get myself a stabilizer/tripod or something similar to go with this camera for night shots. It doesn’t deal with motion so well because of the increased aperture and exposure for dealing with the dim light.

Wannabe Vampires on Mill Ave

Cross-reported from Mill Avenue Vexations, wannabe sanguinarians Aaron Homer and Amanda Williamson trawl Mill Ave for potential victims among the itinerant culture. Not exactly the wisest choice for young-blood sangs but this pair doesn’t seem to have all their marbles.

The article writes about how they picked up some poor fellow off the street, offered him a place to stay, and then started inviting him to join in blood play (and drinking.) He tentatively accepted at one point, but quickly withdrew when the situation got beyond his tolerance. Unfortunately for him, the entire adventure ended badly when the boyfriend vampire, Aaron Homer, stabbed him a few times after he refused to give up blood the last time. Homer is now in jail pending bail.

According to Vex Harrow, anyone who wants to mess with the Millrats will have to go through her and “…if you bring harm to them, I will plant my boot so far up your ass you’ll taste the steel toe.”

Link, via Mill Avenue Vexations via FOX10.

Be aware of cold reading and cognitive bias at CVS

So, I found an intriguing blog that mentioned Mill Avenue, Miles Loves ASU, but it also had some somewhat creepy elements. I read it with an eye for the anthropology and it looks like a fairly straightforward experiential read with strong religious elements and mystical thinking. Most of the narrative takes place at the CVS on the corner of Mill & University and involves various people. A pretty basic read and insight into this culture’s thinking.

However, this is the part that I’d like to draw people’s attention to:

Amidst the awkwardness of the conversation, Kiah’s knees began to hurt and the Lord gave her a word of knowledge about one of the kid’s knees in the group. She interjected into the conversation and abruptly asked, “Who’s knees are hurting?”

One of the kids instantly responded with a mixture of shock and questioning concern. Looking quite taken aback, he tentatively told Kiah that his knees hurt. He told her that he had knee problems and that they had been hurting pretty bad while they were standing around talking.

To the kid who responded with a “mixture of shock and concern” be aware this trick isn’t exactly as amazing as it seems. What Kiah did—possibly without knowing it herself—is a form of a very old con called Cold Reading. Joint pain is not uncommon among humans, particularly the knees (especially noting how poorly our skeletons function for standing upright), so finding one person in three with hurting knees is not at all uncommon. And, failing to find someone with hurting knees, she probably would have shrugged it off.

To ascribe the discovery to a supernatural origin really pushes the whole thing beyond the pale.

The story then goes on to describe how the group uses an incantation over the boy’s knee and the pain goes away. (Did they incant over it after he took the weight off it?) “The kid walked around. And then jumped up and down on them. And then squatted and bent them and stomped his feet. To his dismay and the dismay of his friends, his knees were completely healed.” Dismayed… Really?

This sort of “prophetic evangelism” is actually somewhat problematic in that it appears to teach people to use cold reading on other people and then ignore failures (for those of you who know what I’m talking about, this is a type of confirmation bias.) It’s not actually mystical and to treat it in such a fashion can lead inevitably to poor judgment.

Link, via Miles Loves ASU.