Reileen van Kaile

...you could skew this into proportions of questionable nature.

From Yahoo!News: Mario creator gagged by Nintendo brass

When he isn't designing groundbreaking video games, Shigeru Miyamoto partakes in a variety of interesting hobbies. And Nintendo doesn't want you to know what they are.

Nintendo's got their thongs in a patch because Miyamoto has a track record of turning his hobbies into multi-million dollar profits - i.e., the Pikmin franchise grew out of his love for gardening*. So, obviously, they want to keep any potential fruits of his labor (or his hobbies) to themselves, and thus they issued the gag order to choke off the source of the ideas at their roots. How utterly brilliant!

Except not, because telling Miyamoto to STFU about his hobbies in order to prevent lucrative ideas from cross-pollinating other companies is like trying to get rid of poison ivy by burning it. You might be able to stamp out most of the offending material, but then you'll have another annoyance to deal with (for the former, it's sending out the Thought Police to make sure Miyamoto doesn't violate the gag order; for the latter, the fumes from the burning poison ivy are going to itch up your eyes and lungs like damn).

Ideas are the result of cross-referencing an external stimulus with personal associations. Having just the external stimulus isn't going to get you anywhere, because it's the personal associations that prune that stimulus in a way that it blooms into an Idea. So what if you happen to know that Miyamoto likes to garden? You're not going to get a game out of that alone, unless your game pitch is to have the player play as Miyamoto tending to his bonsai trees. Nintendo's logic just seems like it's one thorn short of a rose, if'n ya knows what I mean.

All in all, while it's not a disastrous move by any means, it is a pretty pointless and stupid one.

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While I'm not entirely finished maxing out the iconspace on this account (all 15 iconspaces, woo...), I do have a couple of new things up, so check them out here if you'd like.

-Reileen
so this is how it feels to breathe in the summer air

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*Puns away!

Yahoo!TV: Ramiele Malubay is axed from American Idol.

Well, it was nice while it lasted, but it looks like Malubay wasn't able to get her act together to wow the crowd. C'est la vie...

In more amusing news: Super Smash Brothers Brawl, in the style of the Hellsing manga. OH MY GODS, THAT KIRBY WILL HAUNT MY DREAMS FOREVER and that Pikachu is lolariously manly
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Finished major work on "Between the Lines." I know this because even despite my usual aikido-style wrist-stretching exercises that I do nearly every day that have allowed me to bend my wrists and fingers in slightly oddtastic ways, I have still ended up with sore wrists. REST TIEMZ NAO. On the other hand, both vyctori and dantaron have given the song favorable reviews, so the sore wrists are totally worth it. And hey, I composed a song in less than two weeks. Not bad for someone with my lack of experience in songwriting.

Additionally, I fixed the middle transition part of "Triskaidekaphobia" so that it sounds marginally more interesting.

-Reileen
why am I walking barefoot upon this road with no one around

News from Clairvoyant Wank! Over in Stargate Atlantis fandom, nightspring is well-hated well-known for posting a lot of short SGA fics or short updates to an on-going fic rather frequently in mckay_sheppard. And by short, I mean less than 100 word.

The people voice their dissatisfaction! So nightspring agrees to stop posting...posting updates to that one fic, that is. Everything else is still fair game!

But the most brilliant part of the story - and the reason why I'm posting about this - is the series of parody fics that have popped up in response to this wankery. The fics and the subsequent feedback threads mock everything about fic posting from author's notes that are longer than the story to common squee responses to overblown lit crit on the part of the author and the reviewers. I'm not anywhere near Stargate fandom, but I lol'd more than once reading through these parodies. Might not have you roffling, but it'll get you sniggling, that's for sure.

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A slightly older entry that I just found in I Wank: OP discusses a wedding in which she wants to stage a mock duel between the bride's party and the groom's party, inspired by Firefly, Asian culture, and love of weird tech. Not technically wanking on the part of the OP, which is what the I Wank community is for, but I got distracted by the sheer awesomeness of the wedding plans. To hell with traditional weddings! If I ever were to get married (big "if"), I would totally do something like this, except mine would be riddled with video game references up the wazoo.

So let's see here. I could wear Peach's SSBM dress, and my groom could wear a tuxedo in red and blue with a matching cap; we'd have at it with the Master Sword on the groom's part and Zelda's Twilight Princess Sword on my part; the bride and groom figure on top of the six-tiered wedding cake would be surrounded by a minefield of tiny little sugar bombs instead of the pink sugar roses. The ceremony itself would be held in Sol Sanctum, and the reception would be held in Grand Chokmah.

GUYZ, I WANNA GET MARRIED RITE NAO.

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EDIT: Also, insert obligatory lulz about Intarwebs Court: Anonymous Vs. Scientology.

-Reileen
if you kiss me mister you must think I'm pretty

The best answer I've heard yet to the "Is Sheik a guy or a girl?" wanking debate:

I tend to think that Link knows [that Zelda can turn into a guy] and just doesn't care, personally. What better way to have both a boyfriend and a girlfriend while still remaining monogamous? Go Link! -puipui on JournalFen

I think I actually read a Mario/Zelda crossover fic aaaaages ago in the Pit of Voles in which Link was romantically involved with Zelda, both with Zelda being female and then turning into male Sheik. It was a pretty interesting dynamic.

*insert usual Ranma 1/2 jokes here, with a side of Sailor Moon reference*

EDIT: The original JournalFen post can be found here, because there have been far too many responses made of win for me to quote them all in this entry. :D

-Reileen
sugar and spice and everything nice wasn't meant for only girls

Alternatively known as "The Legend of Zelda: The Leading Cause of Carpal Tunnel For the Next 2 Years."

( Here there be game musings - possible spoilers up to the Isle of Frost )

Now should I go to sleep now, or continue playing...?

-Reileen
who drew the line that cuts to the skin

I might!

After going around a few weeks ago and turning in job applications, I got a call from the manager of Gamestop asking me to come in the next day (that is, today) to interrogate me. Today, I got myself interrogated and was told to come back next week (Tuesday afternoon or so) so that the district manager could have a chance at me. From the looks of it, I'd only really be required to work one shift a week for three or four hours, depending on scheduling needs turn out.

In other words, Reileen might have herself a summer job~

This is in addition to opening up commissions soon. I still have to get my room cleaned, because if I don't do that it's going to drive me insane, and I'm trying to figure out procedures and pricing (because one of my friends wants to request art from me and yet is begging me to raise my prices).

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I also beat Super Paper Mario. Short verdict: adorable and enjoyable, as can be expected of this series but it feels unsatisfactory after having also played its predecessors, Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Still, it's a good way to pass the time, and I'd recommend it to any Mario fans out there. You gain a whole new appreciation for Bowser - I am now a Bowser fan (though not quite a fangirl). I'm thinking of doing a re-play of Thousand-Year Door, although I have to beat my first replay still. :') I originally played through 99% of the game during senior year in high school, but that damn Shadow Queen kept on pwning my fucking ass, so I gave up and forgot about it for a while. But dantaron just picked it up and is fanboying over it awesomeness (for it is made of much awesome), and it's made me want to play through it again.

But I also have so many other games to play through once I can get my PS2 hooked up to a TV. Tales of the Abyss is high on my radar for that, as is Final Fantasy 8 and Final Fantasy 9 but only 'cause two of my good friends sent those to me and have threatened to murder me violently if I don't at least give them a try. I'm also dying to get my paws on the Phoenix Wright games for DS, since vyctori has sufficiently convinced me of their lolariousness.

-Reileen
workin' nine to five, what a way to make a livin'

Midway Games of Mortal Kombat fame was a homely little industrial building smack-dab in the middle of an industrial plain smack-dab in the middle of the North Side of Chicago. Well, okay, I don't know if it was actually in the middle of the North Side, but it was in the middle of something (like that ComEd plant). I took the Red Line to Addison, then got on the westbound #152 for a ten-minute bus ride to Addison and California, after which I hopped off and hiked one long, cold, and dreary block to the building.

Inside, we were greeted by a man named Stephan, who I think is the current director of game stuff at Midway. My ANI220 professor mentioned in class that he was French, and let me tell you, this Stephan guy had the "Frenchman director" look down to a T, with jeans, a turtleneck knit sweater, and even the freakin' beret. (Although to be fair, he lacked the curly black mustache. If he had sported one, I think I might've been a tiny bit scared.) Stephan was a knowledgeable, articulate speaker, and he led us through a tour of the hall of concept art for a game they're working on called Stranglehold, based on a John Woo movie. It was really fascinating to me to get a look at what's behind the inspiration for different parts of a production, whether it be a video game, an animation, or a movie. But here are two really important things that I learned that I'd like to share with the world:

1) Destroying things in games = very, very good. The more you can destoy, the better it is. Maximize destruction in as many ways as possible.
2) Chicago has no train yards. For that matter, neither do any of the other 49 states. Train yards are a nonentity in the U.S. of A. When trains die, that's it - they go bye-bye. There is no train afterlife. The atheist trains were right all along.

Overall, it was a really cool experience, and I've become convinced that this is a possible (and practical...relatively speaking) career path for me. I've always said that I'm more Greek than Roman, because I love playing around with ideas but throw hissy fits and sulk if I actually have to do anything with them. If I work as a concept artist, I can throw as much shit as I want out there and then have everyone else deal with the consequences! Or so it seems.

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( The final results for my first assignment in ANI105 )

-Reileen
freedom is being alone