Monthly Archives: November 2011

I think stockings are the best part of Christmas. Certainly they are in my family – the finest and most extensive care package of the year. There are a few specific traditions that I didn’t need to list here. For instance, we always get a small box of Space Lego to put together before breakfast (to keep us occupied, so my parents can have time to wake up before getting to the bigger stuff – is it bad that we still need that?).  But we are sort of reasonable now. At least, we’ve taken up the practice of putting together stockings for our parents, too.

Anyway, mum, here is my list of specific ideas (most of which hardly need reiterating, but I like talking about them anyway).

Continue reading →

So look, my mum needs me to make her a Christmas list, and I happen to have this website which is all about things that I want, conveniently in need of an update. So here goes nothing. (I must warn you, mum, this list is not particularly practical – nonetheless, it’s the best I can seem to manage…)

Continue reading →

My Skryim hype, boundless though it may be, lingers particularly on certain features of the game. So to please myself, and because it’s International Skyrim Week, I’m going to list them.

Continue reading →

There’s something about a robust videogame character creation system that unhinges 13-year-old Marian from my brain and sets her flailing for control. Though really my tastes at 13 were pretty dismally similar to what they are at present (at least secretly, underneath my careful shellac of coolness. What, you haven’t noticed my careful shellac of coolness?) Anyway, here is a sheet for the character I’d like to make, more or less, depending on what I’m working with. I even gave her a birthday, because you know my feelings about birthdays.

Also, note my implementation of the proprietary “When Dealing With Stuff” system (I came up with the name all by myself). The standard alignments never quite do it for me, so this is my version, with less emphasis on good and evil, and more emphasis on, uh, dealing with stuff.

And some more translation, for anybody who doesn’t care about Skyrim, but is nonetheless good-naturedly reading through these posts: “Bosmer”, for comparison, are sort of like the Wood Elves of Tolkien. And “Evening Star” is the Elder Scrolls iteration of December. Oh, and “Argonians” are lizard guys. They look like this and I LOVE THEM.

Finally, for anybody who (like me) doesn’t care at all about their public image (or their shellac), and wants to fill out a totally unironic Skyrim character sheet, here is a blank version.

Skyrim comes out in six days, and it’s all that I can think about – so much so, that I thought I’d better declare SKYRIM WEEK and have done. Why fight a losing battle?

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Skyrim is a videogame which sets you loose in an enormous and exactingly detailed fantasy world, within which you can do very nearly anything (here is the trailer). It’s the fifth game in a long-spanning series, and its predecessors were largely what I had in mind when I was writing my posts about The Crossing.

Guys, I’ve been waiting for this game a long time.

So for my first SKYRIM WEEK post I’m planning my larder – both imaginary and realistic. On the 10th of November, to kill time and suppress anxiety before the midnight launch, I mean to make a serious larder pilgrimage, and collect enough tasty things to allay starvation while I play the game for roughly a week straight uninterrupted.

The ideal larder would be, you know, ideal. Even though I couldn’t actually consume all of that food before it went bad. But the realistic variation is nothing to damn well sneeze at. A comic artist’s budget means a nearly meatless existence (at least for me), but I have this $20 gift certificate to Oyama Sausage – a gift from my BFF – which I’ve been saving for a rainy Skyrim. I’ve been thinking about those roast beef sandwiches for weeks.

Tomorrow night I’ll dive further yet into murky nerddom, and post a (speculative) character sheet. Just you wait.