Nuzlocke Challenge - Day Twenty

The Game: Pokemon Fire Red
The Character: Vera
The Pokemon:

Frankie - 35

Ms.Feather - 35

Bri - 32

Knight - 33

Jordan - 33

Rogen - 33

Day 20

My newer Pokemon care catching up to my two originals in terms of levels. That also means Frankie and Ms.Feather aren't really seeing a lot of action these days. Ah well, they'll get their chance again soon, I'm sure.

Today my team and I started out training on Route 15. However, after days of battling there, I was bored. We took off for the other side of Fuchsia City and Route 18. There we met and caught a Spearow. His name is Robin and he's joined Titan the Seaking in Box 1.

Route 17 up to Route 16 and Celadon City was slightly fun a slightly annoying. Riding up the giant hill is a pain, while watching my little sprite roll down it on frequent trips back to Fuchsia City's Pokemon Center was fun. On Route 17, the first Pokemon we cam across was a Spearow. Knight gleefully killed it. The next Pokemon we met was a Raticate. I caught him and named him Fred. He also joined Titan in Box 1.

I hadn't realized that Route 16 to Celadon city was blocked by a Snorlax otherwise I'd have gone the other way around and caught something else. However, since Sleepy was close to my heart, I opted to go ahead and catch the Route 16 Snorlax. I named this one Bo.

After refreshing my team at the Celadon City Pokemon Center, we headed back to Route 16 in order to battle the group of Bikers and Cue Balls there.

That was essentially all I had time for this evening. We had another good day in which no one died, thankfully. I was kind of worried whenever a Cue Ball sent out a Wheezing.

Love ya, Jessie

P.S. Gaiaonline's having a short back-to-school event that started yesterday. It's essentially just quoting people over and over in the forums for an item, achievement, and possible bragging rights at the end of the event for your team... or whichever one you end up on. Go check it out!

The Week In Which Everything Is Back

Okay, so technically it's two weeks. But that sounded wrong so I decided not to put that as the title.

Starting tomorrow evening, everything should be back on its regularly scheduled course.

• The Vampire Diaries is back tomorrow.
• Grimm is back on Friday.
• Doctor Who is continuing Saturday.
• Once Upon a Time is back on Sunday
• Arrow and Supernatural are back Wednesday.
• Warehouse 13 is back the following Monday. FINALLY.

I'm going to be house-sitting starting Friday night, so I might not get Initial Reactions out for Grimm. Depending on the availability of BBC America where I'm house-sitting, I might have to find an "alternative" method to getting my Doctor Who. And, of course, depending on when I get home on Sunday, I might not get Initial Reactions out for Once Upon a Time. So this weekend's gonna be a little topsy-turvy.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get myself on a proper schedule starting next week, though. Hopefully.

The Part In Which I Gush Over Gaia's Monthly Collectibles

As you may or may not be aware, though I'm not sure how you missed it, I am an active member of Gaiaonline's community. For those who don't know, Gaiaonline is an anime-based chat site in which you earn "gold" by chatting with other players in order to trick out your avatar is stylish clothing/hair/eyes/pets/background/etc./etc.

Every month, there are a pair of collectible items that are released. These items started out as a thank you to people who donated to keep the site running. They are only available during their particular month, unless you happen to snag them in the Marketplace. They are often themed to the month or are completely random.

Some of the items that have continued to show up as Monthly Collectibles have been Pixie/Sprite items. Previous releases have been Pixie (pale blue), Scarlet Sprite (red), and Silver Sprite (silver). This month, we got the Pixie Queen. She's gold themed and includes a wig, wings, gold pixie pet, I AM pixie, crown/wimple, dress, and a cape/arms poses. I adore this item... which is obvious because I've just explained all that to basically get to this point. Having Pixie Queen has enabled me to wear all the Pixie/Sprite items together, too. I hadn't been able to mesh them properly beforehand. I seriously can't wait for the next Pixie/Sprite MC Gaia puts out. This one is just phenomenal.

Housekeeping

Tomorrow will hopefully by my Initial Reactions for The Vampire Diaries. I'm waiting with baited breath, now that Elena's given the boys her ultimatum.

Love ya, Jessie.

Shakespeare Code Returns

Yes, I know, crappy title mix up, but hey, there's a surprise there. I've been re-watching Doctor Who with my dad, who's watching it for the first time. We finally caught up to where I stopped reviewing so... I have a surprise Doctor Who review for you!

SPOILER WARNING

If you have not seen tonight's episode of Arrow or the third season of Doctor Who (2005-present series), there will be spoilers.

Doctor Who - "The Shakespeare Code" - Review

Oh, where to start on this one? "The Shakespeare Code" was fun, I'll say that. This was one of those episodes that got some flack from older Whovians, I noticed. After watching it for what seems like the zillionth time, I've got to agree with some of their points. I haven't really outlined what those points are, but there are some of them in the following paragraphs.

Martha Jones was rather... I dunno, a mix of boring, brash, and pouty. She goes through some of the normal "first time travel" bits and then up and starts randomly blabbing stuff she shouldn't. The Doctor telling her not to step on butterflies apparently means she can just say whatever she likes without worrying about the timeline. Gah! And then she gets all pouty when The Doctor doesn't give her the time of night while he's thinking. I just want to strangle her sometimes!

I thought Shakespeare was awesome. This "rock star" interpretation of him was amusing, though The Doctor quoting randomly at him was annoying. I did not like the Carrionites, though I found the explanation of their "witchcraft" interesting. But can anyone use words that way then, or just that race? And how does it work exactly?

The whole thing together was fun, though. I enjoyed the running around. I enjoyed Shakespeare for once. I even enjoyed the Expelliarmus to get rid of the Carrionites. With witches on the brain, I'd probably have blurted that out, too.

Arrow - "The Huntress Returns" - Initial Reactions

•  W00T strip club...
• Hello bit of the comic outfit.
• The club is finally finished?
• That was corny, McKenna.
• See, Alex Kingston I can take seriously. Ian Somerholder, not so much.
• Because it creates drama! Can't have a show without drama!
• Roy's back. Yay.
• He called the club Verde? Did I hear that right?
• Significantly nerve-wracking?
• Well Olly looks disappointed.
• Awkward...
• Gee, confrontations are fun.
• Saw that coming a little bit.
• Much smoother liar than Olly.
• Oh! Verdant! Not as green referencing as I thought. I'm slightly disappointed.
• Don't know why you thought he'd be the same when he got back anyway, Tommy.
• Always a pertinent question...
• Gonna blow that puppy up.
• When in doubt, hit it.
• Does Olly keep calling her "Speedy" or "Sweetie"?
• And apparently he doesn't even get a mention during that scene.
• Even simulated clubs on TV give me a headache.
• Angry Olly is scary Olly.
• He didn't do anything to try and stop her in the first place...
• And Felicity meets Helena and instantly gets shot down.
• This again?
• He's a really good shot.
• Because it's not his secret, Laurel. You should really just tell her that.
• Cute, Roy, real cute.
• This is where Roy gets to be the hero.
• If he's quipping, he's probably okay.
• Car chase time.
• Of course Olly got the decoy. It wouldn't be fun otherwise.
• She looks a bit Catwoman with that mask.
• Apparently that eye-makeup came off easily, but just enough to leave tasteful eye-makeup.
• Starling City has a bar instead of a metal look for the handcuffs.
• Hello breakout.
• I'm sure the teen-girls are being all "OMG, his shirt is off!"
• Nice, Thea.
• So why send her to Rome, then?
• Oh hey, that B-story/flashback thing...
• So now Olly's gonna break up with McKenna...
• Or not.
• Good girl, Felicity.
• Hello really obvious plot-thing.
• Gee, that's a nice way to greet people who come into a semi-public office, even if it turned out to be Diggle.
• Helena vs Olly. Fun fun.
• That was an awesome jump, there.
• McKenna's probably going to get seriously hurt here.
• Nice, she caught it.
• You were being a bad guy, of course he'd have killed you.
• Called it!
• And now Olly's all broken up about it.
• And there's the break up, 'cept she's breaking up with him.
• Good on you, Detective Lance.
• Yup, that sucks... and really, being in a relationship does not make you automatically happy.
• Apparently their mistake is not looking close to where they are.

Gaiaonline Easter Event

It has officially begun! The war for or against cute is... interesting, but not nearly as fun as it could have been. There's essentially a lot of thread-spamming and egg-hunting. Egg-hunting is... difficult without a list of eggs. I'm having fun with it, anyway.

Love ya, Jessie.

Dodger's Best Friend With Benefits

I've pretty much been floored for most of the day by the most insane and annoying headache. Not sure what caused it, but it hurts like no one's business. Gah!

You also might have noticed that this post is devoid of TVD initial reactions. That's because I have a little time to kill earlier in the day before TVD airs. I should have initial reactions on that for you later.

Right now, I have a giant SPOILER WARNING for you. If you have not seen this week's episodes of Arrow or Supernatural, I must kindly ask you to either skip down to the Gaiaonline section or just leave and come back later. Yes, I said Gaiaonline section. There's stuff.

Arrow - "Dodger" - Review

This episode was a lot of laughs, at least from the perspective of how much I like seeing Olly and Diggle be awkward. Them on their dates was just amazingly funny. And for once, Olly didn't have to cut his date short. McKenna did that for him. How nice of her.

I really enjoyed Felicity as part of the "Green Arrow" team. Yes, I'm giving them a name. They need one for the sake of simplicity. Anyway... Felicity was just awesome. She's the tech-girl, she's acting a bit as Olly's conscience, she's being bait, she's getting bombs attached to her neck... okay, that part had me rolling my eyes. While it was quite awesome that Olly was able to take down the Dodger, I thought Felicity going after him herself in that moment was a bit... weird. Don't get me wrong, I like that the girl can take initiative, but it made her virtually useless when she shouldn't have been. And then she soldiered through it, which was good. Oh, and another thing, why did Felicity have to ditch the glasses and the geek-chic for totally Barbie-Girl-Glam? She could have at least kept the glasses. Just sayin'.

A bit more of Olly's backstory was revealed here, too. We got that guy who I totally wasn't buying essentially being left to die by Olly. I think it was a good choice on his part, but I was taken out of those moments by the beat-up-guy himself. Don't know what it was about him, but he just wasn't right. Good on Olly for leaving him behind. That might come back to bite him in the butt, but... I don't think so.

Last on my list of things to talk about: Roy Harper. I like him. I really, really do. True, I had a little brain-fart during the episode on who he was, but now that I know for sure, I'm happy. For those who don't know (or didn't read my initial reactions), Roy Harper is Green Arrow's sidekick and hero in his own right in the DC comics. He went by Speedy while being Green Arrow's sidekick, then switched to Arsenal, then apparently Red Arrow. Yeah... I don't know much more than that. Go read the Wiki. Anyway, I like that Roy's connected to Olly through Thea. I smell a romance between the pair blossoming at some point.

Let me know what you thought about this episode in the comments, pretty please. I feel all cut-off and stuff.

Supernatural - "Man's Best Friend With Benefits" - Review

Familiars in the Supernatural universe remind me a lot of Digimon. Ya know, without the digital-ness and evolution involved. I quite like how they're explained, though my question based solely on this episode is: why haven't we seen them before? None of the witches we've seen before had familiars, including the really old feuding couple. I think that's a little hinky, but meh.

My hopes for the boys not talking about who's doing the tasks were dashed against some very sharp rocks this episode. I get that Dean's worried about Sam. I get that Dean would rather being doing the tasks. I get that Sam has issues with Dean not being okay with the situation. I get it. It doesn't need to be hammered into my head over two episodes. And yes, I know, both Sam and Dean have a track record for hashing and rehashing and rehashing stuff to death. I know. It's annoying.

This episode was some nice solid filler. I liked it. I laughed. I was not emotionally invested in any of the goings on. Let me know what you thought in the comments. And yes, I'm begging for comments. Just comment already.

Gaiaonline - 221 B Mini-Event

It's 2-21-13. Kind of looks like 221B if you squint. Gaia is full of nerds. Some of those nerds like Sherlock Holmes. So we get a puzzle to solve for... something.

Personally, I'm not into puzzles. However, this one is throwing everyone for a loop. It's been up since this morning and no one has solved it yet. It's so frustrating, people are going off on ridiculous tangents based on tenuous links. This annoys me. Be that as it may, I highly encourage you to go check it out and join in the fun.

Thanks devs, you suck.

Neopets - Tyrannian Plot

The time has come to choose your side! You have a week to decide which of the six factions you'll be joining. As a member of the Order of the Red Erisim, I must encourage you to join us. Magic should control magic. We know what we're doing.

Housekeeping

Initial Reactions for TVD coming tonight, hopefully.

Some of the section headers contain links.

I'd really love to interact with you guys, so leave me comments. We can argue about stuff, or agree about stuff, or just gush about nerdy goodness.

Love ya, Jessie.

Honor Thy Father

Good evening, my minions! How are you? Oh wait... no one ever comments to my blog so... I don't know why I'm asking that. Moving on!

Gaiaonline has kicked off their Halloween Event, which means I'm currently embroiled in a war between Vampires and Elves. I'm on the Vampire side, of course. If you're interested in joining in the fun, head over to Gaiaonline.com and choose a side.

On to the main event of this post: my initial reactions to Episode 2 of Arrow: "Honor Thy Father." There are SPOILERS from this point in. Enjoy.

Arrow - "Honor Thy Father" - Initial Reactions

• Roof Fight!
• This is such a Batman thing... making the criminals piss their pants to get them to do what he wants.
• Not sure I like Olly's friend...
• Ya know, I'm annoyed with the Press just from seeing it on TV.
• Why would you add the second one if only Olly came back, anyway?
• Geez, Laurel. Ice Queen much?
• Oh God. It's Loreo... I am pre-disposed to think he's a slimy git. (Points if you know what I'm talking about)
• Bye Olly.
• If he timed that a little better, he'd have a Stomp moment.
• Mamma Queen needs to back off, especially as she's the one sending people after him.
• How many people has he actually killed people with those arrows?
• That's totally like a box... I don't like the decor.
• Throw him into the lead position after five years on a deserted island... yeah, that's a brilliant idea, except not.
• Seagulls are soooo annoying.
• She's not gonna back down.
• Weird white-haired Asian woman...
• Lots of stuff, obviously. And I wanna know!
• Living people are harder to be close to than dead ones.
• Lol, of course that would be the thing... ice cream is yummy.
• Running companies sounds incredibly boring.
• At least he realises that.
• Hello Ninja lady.
• Bodyguards come in handy, it seems.
• It's not like it's his fault, Mr. Lance.
• Oh, let him in, Olly.
• There's a reason you don't get into things with gangs of any profile.
• That's not dirty, that's good parenting.
• Don't use machine guns in tight places, idiots. You'll end up killing yourselves with ricocheting bullets.
• Go Olly!
• And now the weirdly dressed people run away.
• Nice use of those "trick" arrows there, Olly.
• The people he hurt weren't good people.
• The book was blank when he found it?
• Oh, Mommy-dearest...
• Ouch... and also: I knew it wasn't deserted!

Arrow - "Honor Thy Father" - Review

     I really enjoyed this episode, even the "Previously On" part. It didn't feel choppy and it didn't drag. I feel like this is really rooted in a very solid world and not just flung up on the screen. The only part I had a problem with was Laurel and her father's argument about him wanting to protect her and her wanting to actually live her life. I guess, thinking about it, that plays into a point I want to talk about in a bit.

     Olly is probably one of my favorite characters on TV these days. He's got depth, even if he doesn't show it all the time. And I like how they explained that, too. He's got a point about having been alone for so long he forgot how to connect to people, they just don't seem to get it.

     And that brings me to an interesting point Thea brought up while telling Olly how she used to talk to him when he was dead. It's a hell of a lot easier to connect to dead people than it is to living ones. I think part of it has to do with dead people not being in the world anymore and essentially boiled down to whatever they're remembered by. Living people just have too many complications that get in the way. It's also hard to protect people when they don't want to be protected. Living isn't about being in a shiny rainbow bubble of safety all the time.

     But anyway... I'd really love it if Olly brought Diggle in on his secret. It looks like that might be where things are headed at the moment, but you can never really tell.

Housekeeping

Tomorrow: The Vampire Diaries. I'm also thinking about going ahead and watching this season of Supernatural... may or may not add it to my list of stuff to react to and review. Haven't decided yet. Let me know what you think and, providing you've decided to join in Gaiaonline's Halloween Event, look me up there. I'm Sorceress Digi and I promise I won't bite.

Love ya, Jessie.

PS: I'm a vampire for Halloween.

Nerd-tastic Halloween Stuff - 1

Okay so... after I went and published tonight's blog post, I looked around on Gaiaonline and found they'd taken down the Halloween Event forum... which I hadn't known about... And I thought to myself: I should go look in the shops, see what the NPCs are dressed as this year... and I did. And I had serious nerd-gasms. So... I'm going to share them with you, because I'm such a nerd.

Okay so first we have Agatha from Barton Jewelers dressed as Dowager Countess Violet Grantham from Downton Abbey (A pleasant surprise after I finished the first season!)

 Next is Becky from the Prize and Joy shop as Saber from Fate/Stay Night

 Bildeau from the Faktori as Beemo from Adventure Time

 Brennivin from Dernier Cri as Castiel from Supernatural

 Carl from the Junk Shop as Chopper from One Piece

 Cresento from The Bifrost as Loki from The Avengers (Makes Cresento cool despite him being a jerk)

 Devin from Skin Tyte as Kurgan from The Highlander

 Ian from Barton Boutique as The Doctor (from Doctor Who). My reaction when I saw this was to shout "FUCKING SHIT!" at it. He looks brilliant.

 Josie from Global Imports as Kerrigan from Starcraft II

 Kanako from Dernier Cri as Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica

 Liam from Jock Strap as Kise Ryouta from Kuroko no Basuke. Although I'm not sure this counts as a costume... he wears a red jersy all the time...

 Logan from The Ole Fishing Hole as Heihachi Mishima from Tekken. And yes, he's supposed to be a Wolverine reference in his normal form.

 Louie Von Helson from H&R Wesley as Sebastian from Black Butler (A vampire cosplaying a butler from Hell...)

 Mirai from Phin Phang as Princess Cadence from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (In her wedding dress, of course!) I was so confused by this until I found out who she was supposed to be. ^_^

 Moira from Durem Depot as Ranmaru from Binbougami ga

 Murasaki (above and below because she's got some alternate personality going on or something) from Mecha Neko as Chrome Dukoro from Hitman Reborn

 Natasha from Skin Tyte as Monk from Diablo 3

 Nicolae from both Back Alley Bargains and The Bifrost as Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit

 Peyo from Ruby's Rack as Elliot from E.T. (Also featuring his duck as E.T.)

 Radio Jack from Dernier Cri as Giroro from Sgt. Frog

 Ribateau from The Faktori as the Original Gameboy

 Rina from Buttercup Cafe sporting an outfit that needs no explanation... Sailor Moon! If you didn't know that I have a question: Have you been living under a rock?

 Ruby from Ruby's Rack as Powergirl from DC Comics

 Rufus from Barton Boutique as Madara/Nyanko-sensei from Natsume's Book of Friends

 Sam from Sam's Body and Parts as Gadget from Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers (I'm such a nerd for knowing the show before reading it elsewhere)

 Sasha from Gaian Outfitters as Korra from Avatar: The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra

 Stein from CrosStitch as Vincent Van Gogh

 Mintaka and Rigel from La Victoire as Scully and Mulder from The X-Files (I had another nerd-gasm here)

 Victoria from Salon Durem as Catwoman from DC Comics (And it's the comic version!)

And last but not least, the Wing Scouts from the Treehouse as Children of the Damned

So there you have it, the entire list... and my random nerd-gasm moments.

Love ya, Jessie.

My Art Ideas Like To Run Away With Me

Okay so... I did not get the next section of 500 Miles read so... there's not a review today. It's actually something of a miracle I'm writing this at all. See, I had this idea to do a Gaia Avatar Art-ish thing. The damn thing's run away with me for tonight so... you'll also not be getting anything on vampires. (If you're wondering about that, go back a few posts and you'll figure it out)

So basically... Gaiaonline has released it's final Halloween Event Item which is called Gro-Gain MAX. Roughly translated: You get to pick one of the wolves from the event and either be that wolf or have it as a pet... at your leisure. I picked the Black/Shadow one (they renamed them for the item as opposed to the image pictures) and my little sister picked the Purple one. So I'm taking a picture of some wolves and doing a recolored thing of our Gaia wolves. And I'm not just grayscaling and recoloring... which is what I should have done, it would have been easier... I'm actually taking the brush tool and recoloring in the colors from the Gaia images. It takes forever. Which I knew when I started it due to one of my other ones. I can't remember whether or not I added that to the gallery, but if it's there, it's the Ninja Kitty Formal-based one... with a big wolf behind it. That one I redid from the Jacob wolf from The Twilight Saga: New Moon. He's so cute and fluffy.

So... I will try and get the chapters read so I can discuss them... after I finish the purple wolf...

Love ya, Jessie.

This one made me cry

Despite the fact that Gaia's Halloween Event is still going strong and I should be hanging out in a Doctor Who related hang-out thread in the event... I've decided to take some time out to do a blog post and fanfiction review, just for you. I've also decided to leave off reviewing 500 Miles for now because it's sort of a bunch of story chunks all put together and it's super long... so I'm going to reread it and get back to you.

Hello, Darling, Welcome Home by Blackbirdox
     Yet another in a long line of Remus Lupin/Sirius Black stories I've been reviewing. So that's the first thing: if you don't like either the pairing or the homosexuality of it, go away. Second thing: Bring tissues because if you're anything like me (ie. really, really attached to the characters), you're going to need them. Third thing: I friggin love this fic and I wrote the most sappy review for it on fanfiction.net that is not going to be posted elsewhere... at least not by me...
     "Hello, Darling, Welcome Home" is a post Deathly Hallows fanfic focused on an afterlife of sorts. Expect spoilers for the rest of the Harry Potter books in which there's a mention of Remus and Sirius. I really enjoyed the stairs metaphor and I think it's widely underused as a method of "life flashing before your eyes" thing... if that makes any sense. I swear it did in my head. So Remus suddenly ends up in this afterlife place after he dies in the battle for Hogwarts and has to take a journey through his life. He feels a kind of tug toward something and so sets off up these stairs. The stairs lead to landings with doors that have pieces of his life/memories behind them.
     Throughout the story, Remus is, undoubtably, Remus. The characterization is dead on and I even bought the explanation for why he married Tonks... well part of why he married Tonks... and I never really liked that happening in the books, but I digress. The memories of Sirius we get made me smile and as Remus continues up the stairs, I started to dread what was coming. The scene where he remembers his time at Grimmauld Place with Sirius during Order of the Phoenix made me cry because of what came next.
     And finally, because the story must have an end, there's a bit of Sirius that turned the tears into a grin... but I won't say exactly what happens here. You really ought to go read it.

Random Updates

• A Conspiracy of Cartographers: Year Two has a new chapter out. I'm also taking a ten chapter break from reviewing that because I think I'll get bored reviewing it chapter-by-chapter.
• Against the Moon also has a few new chapters out, still on break from reviewing that.
• I find it quite interesting to "jump universes" while reading these... I went from reading ACoC to AtM today and, well, they're pretty much at the same place so... that was interesting.
• Here's a link to the Masquerade's Doctor Who thread: LINK Come join us!
• As always, links to the fanfiction reviewed and the author's page are in the section title.

Love ya, Jessie.

Gaia's Halloween 2

Gaia has been invaded by werewolves. Or... technically they're genetic experiments released or escaped from the infamous G-corp (makers of Grunnys, Gruckens, Gramsters, and Zombies)... but who cares? They've invaded Louie's mansion and we have a chance to join them or fight them... or both! Doing either/or apparently gets you alchemy ingredients! For yay! Except... Alchemy on Gaia kinda sucks.

Mostly, the problem with Alchemy is that the items are really expensive just to make. And the actual Marketplace value of the things conjured... kinda not worth it. That, and the items needed for Alchemy have apparently not been released in any way that you can get them properly... So, I don't do it unless they give you all the stuff for free.

But anyway... that's where we are for the Gaia Halloween Event so far. It's gone from fun to confusing... and I haven't been on since 4:30 so... they may have fixed it. I'm off to find out.

Love ya, Jessie.

Gaia's Halloween 1

Okay so, the next thing on my list to review is the "Not Myself" sequel of sorts "500 Miles." This is not happening tonight and it's not going to happen until at least after Halloween. You can thank Gaiaonline and their Halloween Event... which is also to blame for me not posting an entry yesterday.

This year, Gaians are apparently fearing for the worst because we've had zombies, aliens, dark elves, vampires, demi-gods, and ghosts for the past few years. So instead of an outright battle for something or over something, we're having a Masquerade Ball! This Ball is hosted by the vampire NPC Louie Von Helson at the Von Helson manor. What that means for users is: a Flash Space and a dedicated Masquerade Forum.

The Flash space is the foyer of the Von Helson Manor in which you as your avatar can walk around and/or hang out with your friends. After you "talk" to Louie some mask options appear at the bottom of the screen. You put on each mask in turn and find a little item. After collecting all the items, you go back to Louie and he gives you an Alchemy recipie. After using this recipie via the Bifrost, you get a little masquerade-y mask brooch. I think this would have been better if we could also use it as an actual mask, but since I'm not wearing it anyway... Also related to the Von Helson mansion, on the World Map, there is a little "Beast" sprite.  The Beast shows up randomly in the Flash Space as a shadow on the window when it thunders. It's also getting closer to the mansion.

The dedicated forum is basically a forum with a background. This means that the forum and related topics take a tad longer to load, but it's worth it to be in the running to get gifts from Anons and have fun conversations and speculations.

Also, there's trick-or-treating in the shops and Towns, as usual. The NPC shop keepers are each dressed up for the occasion. This year's favorites of mine are Agatha, Brennivin, Josie, and Old Man Logan. They're dressed up as Professor Minerva McGonagall from Harry Potter; Sherlock Holmes from BBC's Sherlock; Storm from the X-Men; and Mole from Atlantis.

So that's what I've been doing the last couple of days. Hope you guys drop by Gaia and join in the fun. Link to my profile and therefore the site on the Links page.

Love ya, Jessie.