fashion fashion fashion!

As you can probably tell by now if you know me irl or have been following my blog, I’m a fan of funky fashion.  Not the regular stuff but the goth, lolita goth, the industrial, cyberpunk and even vintage.  I used to be on a site called shoutfit before its owners decided to move on big and better things.  For those of you that didn’t get a chance to see, shoutfit was one of those social networking tools geared towards fashion where you can take photos and tag pieces of clothing instead.  Groups would consist of a particular genre.  The site had attracted alot of non conventional fashion lovers, which was what attracted me to this site.  Unlike some of the other ones out there that are currently more mainstream, shoutfit inspired groups such as “corporate goth” and “steampunk”.  And it also inspired me to dress a little funkier and be a little more creative.

Too bad the site is gone, ne?

That being said, I want to introduce you to the blog of this cool girl I met.  She maintains a fashion blog that after browsing through a few posts, I really like.  So go check her out: http://www.stylesymmetry.com

All that said, it’s only fair I launch into my own views.  Now it doesn’t take much to be funky.  The art of thirfting is very important, but it’s all about mixing and matching to your heart’s content.  Adhering to a particular genre is a little harder, and sometimes more expensive.  (Anyone have any idea what a pair of bondage pants and a corset costs?  Holy….) But then, what’s the fun in being a sheep?

In the corporate world, a good rule of thumb I’ve read before is to choose one item that is a little more unique, but keep everything else relatively normal.  For me personally, besides the fine blond streaks through my black hair, along with the large blue streak in front, I like to play around alot with jewelry and the occasional tie or so.  It really depends on the mood, but overall, comfort is a huge, especially if you are stuck in that one place all day.

Now, at this point, I must bring up again something I mentioned before.  Second Life is a great platform to experiment.  Sure, you might not exactly look as good in those cloths as your avatar does, but hey, it’s a start!

The ultimate secret though, if there was one, is to keep looking at others.  I saw this girl at Metro on the weekend wearing a full lolita goth outfit, pure black with lace in the back.  Expensive dress I’m sure (and I would fall every 2 steps in those heels), but I’m already scheming on how to duplicate the look, just a bit.

The birthplace of inspiration and creativity is not from the mind, but from external.  Your imagination is what makes those appropriated ideas into your own, twisting and reshaping them into something that then truly is unique and your own. That, my friends, is true creativity.

new job, new life, but more of the same wacky stories

So with the new job, I’ve been determined to work on this so-called “Work-Life Balance”. <insert blaring trumpets> It seems to be this huge craze in the corporate world. Something about a healthy mind brings the top game. Apparently, working 20 hours a day as per the Chinese culture is not healthy, but I wonder what does working 9-5 then scheduling exercise, dinner with friends, drinks with friends, movies, shopping for the occasional event gift, going to do more drinking at friends’ place is really that much healthier. Mmmm somehow, it feels like I’m trading off early blindness and arthritis with liver and diabetic problems. (Yes, drinking doesn’t ONLY entail alcohol. There’s alot of bubble tea involved as well.)

Nonetheless! I still have my funny stories to share. So here are two particular email exchanges that I have promised to post:

Personality Test
This came from an email thread that discussed a personality tested, posted by the individual that is described here. You can find the personality test here: http://www.kisa.ca/personality.

Of course, to preface this conversation as well, we have a certain individual in our social group (*coughs*CaptainKirk*coughs*) that is rather fond of tazers. Now this is a sensitive topic due to the near-recent events of a man that was tazered to death at the airport, so I will treat this topic with care and say no more. But our dear Captain Kirk, on the other hand, seems to have developed an even more unholy passion for the little device afterwards, as demostrated by this convo that Chyly described, later on in the email thread. (Don’t ask me how we got from personality test to that.)

From Chuly
Here is my imagination for [Captain Kirk] on the big screen…

Anchor woman: In today’s highlight, we have a suspect running…
[Captain Kirk] : Tazer him.
Anchor woman: Later Prime Minister Chu…
[Captain Kirk] : Tazer him.
Anchor woman: Translink board decided…
[Captain Kirk] : (With Cramer’s mad money scene) *press buttons&* Tazer them, tazer them! Tazer now!
Anchor woman: Our special guest today is…
[Captain Kirk] : Already tazered.
Anchor woman: ICBC today announced…
[Captain Kirk] : Tazer them!
Anchor woman: The airport authority…
[Captain Kirk] : Used tazers appropriately?

And Captain Kirk’s response to this:
WOW.
I just hurt myself laughing out loud.
That was epic [Chuly], epic!

Promotion

No, I got a new job but not quite a promotion so this conversation wasn’t about me. This was about Mr. Chuly who sorta got a promotion, taking over for honjai’s previous team lead position. Of course, I sent an email right away to congratulate him. His response:

“I will go through a workout, then become lean, then I will join the seven sigma methodology to develop a bigger, fatter, and spikier head than our boss’s.”

Now, honjai has has spiky hair that he likes to gel up every morning. (Somehow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it otherwise, except for baby photos. Yes I’ve seen baby and kid photos. Bwhahaha!) He’s also joked about how he can develop into a pointy headed boss (pointed head sideways, aka Dilbert’s boss. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. So that puts the previous comment into some context I hope.

Of course, I had the pleasure to forward this on to honjai directly. And honjai’s response?

“You might not be able to handle it. We wouldn’t want you to turn into Timmy with A.D.D. and a wheelchair. There are also known problems with disproportionate head to body ratios and you’re as skinny as a stick already.”

And attached is the following pic:

And that’s it for now! More updates to come!

pixies in the Wired

I took a little break from blogging for a little bit, preoccupied with my new job in Second Life as a DJ as well as a work stuff, etc, etc, but now I’m back…

…to share with you a story of tears and joy, of blood sweat and tears.  Oh the drama!

Just kidding.  But let me tell you…dealing with a trojan horse sure feels like it sometimes.   Approximately two days ago, I had caught a Trojan Horse named Vundo, or as Avast likes to call it, Win32:TratBHO [Trj].  Now normally, something like this is no big deal as the virus scanner very politely (in the sound of a police siren and something like a SWAT annoucement) declares at there is an infected file with a nicely written image that says “no need for alarm”.  (Anyone see the irony of this?  Who said developers don’t have a sense of humour?)

Unfortunately, some of the files were locked by processes that ran no matter in Safe Mode or not.  I tried several other fixes, including the one on Symantec.  But nada!  There were alot of fixes posted only but most were a little too complicated for me to be suspicious.  (Mind you, I’m comfortable mucking with Registry Keys in a minor degree, but these solutions were over even that board.)  So what did I do?  Call for help!  Lucky for me, Tank and my other aikido brother came over to fix it. How? Read his post here. The key is to discover which process is using that dll (in this case, qomlk.dll) then kill that, then delete the file.  (Drop me a comment if you need more detailed explanation.)

So why is this entry named “pixies in the Wired”?  In a way, this concept is stolen from my favourite author Charles de Lint who wrote an entire short story and later on, intersprse lots of his stories with similiar themes.

I’m a developer by trade, but even I don’t quite understand why something goes on?  I bet not even the developers at Microsoft can explain every cause behind the famous Blue Screen of Death.  So what causes those unexplainable things to occur?  Maybe to others, it is all just bytes, packets that did not order themselves properly, but maybe, just maybe, it’s because there are pixies in the wires.

What are pixies?  Or better yet, what are spirits.  One potential definition is that it is a psychic manifestation of a mind, or an environment.  Is not the online world becoming more and more of an environment, with MMORPGS coming out and Web 2.0 becoming the place of “social media”? With so much emotions, thoughts, time and caring spent to create and craft this new environment, is not possible, maybe, that we have created another “world” linked by wires, different than the natural world we live in, but still an almost separate plane of existence? Then by the same token, if spirits can exist in the natural world, can they not, by the same parallel, exist in the wires?

Not so crazy, am I? HA! (Just nod and smile.)

The theme is common amongst the recent literature, besides that of Charles de Lint.  The first media that presented this hint at this alternate consciousness online to me was the anime Serial Experiment Lain, which has a twisted, yet elaborate and sophisticated plot surrounding that consciousness can exist entirely online.  It’s an interesting anime, give it a read.  Besides that, more and more books are playing along similar themes as well, that makes you wonder.  Is it possible?

Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei – So Long Mr. Despair

I haven’t been able to get this short series out of my mind ever since I watched it. It’s a hilarious anime with very satirical characters and a twisted random second opening sequence that really makes you go “WTF?!?!” (My fav though is the ending of the show.)

Actually, the entire anime does that to you. If interested, check out the summary at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayonara_Zetsub%C5%8D_Sensei

It’s sick and twisted where each character (with their names being puns to describe their personalities) has issues (sounds familiar?) which are exaggerated to unbelievable proportions. Thus the recipe for comedy. There’s the suicidal teacher, an eternal pessimist, the obsesssive-compusive, shiny straight hair girl, the eternal optimistic happy girl (foil to the teacher who prevented his first suicide attempt in the show), the stalker girl, the forever-injured girl, the immigrant from China that sneaked over the border and bought someone’s identity to go to school, the “normal” girl and a whole bunch of other colourful cast. Oh yeah, and most of the girls have a crush on the teacher.

My favourite though is Meru Otonashi , the abusive phone girl (which I have been ranting about for the last couple days at work.) Short, cute, and super quiet, nearly completely mute in the show, she shows her true side when she texts on her phone, always abusively insulting in her comments. I LOVE HER! When she texts, there’s always this high pitched electronic sound that goes “Mail mail”.

Given my attachment to Protocol, I may consider taking Meru on as an avatar in some places. I need to get that for my ring tone, especially since I think it’ll annoy quite a few people around here. BWHAHAHAHA

the hollow tree in the fog, drunk in blood alley and other related stories

There were several times in the last couple days where I went “oh I have to blog this!” and then promptly forgot about it. That or I remember then go home and get all distracted by pretty things like anime and SL and I get so busy “oohing” that I completely forgot to go “blogging”.

So without further ado, here’s my catch up post, first thing in the morning after I get into work! (Stop looking at me funny tank! You’re no longer the boss-substitute!)

Drunk in Blood Alley
On Valentine’s Day, I got the pleasure to be the 100 watt light bulb between Tank and his wife. (It’s a Chinese metaphor. Imagine a couple making out on a park bench in the middle of a dark park. What do they fear most? The big spotlight!) We went to a little tasting bar named “Salt” right on Blood Alley. Yes, the alleyway, looking like any other alley in down town, was actually called Blood Alley.

How cool is that?

Now, I’m not much of a cheese person, and I was definitely skeptic when the little plates of cheese and meats came out. I stared at it and went “oh boy…I’m going to need a hot dog later.”

Er…no?

You put everything on bread. Lots and lots of bread. I think between the three of us, we went through 3-4 baskets of bread. And wine. Oh my, the wine. for $15 dollars more, you get to taste 3 small glasses of wine to go with the 3 small combination of meat/cheese with a “condiment”. I fell in love with Reasling. Now, normally, I’m not much of a wine drinker. If I want something heavy, give me tequila. Light? I like my girly fruity drinks. But oh dear gods! Forget about the red wines, Reasling is where it’s at!

Strange. I can handle 3 shots of tequila, but what’sone glass equivalent of wine, knocked me right out. I spent a portion of the evening walking down Blood Alley and other similiar streets going “ooohhh… I don’t feel so good….”

(I didn’t have pictures of the food unfortunately, or else I will be blogging this at hoyummy.com. But watch for my future guest posts there!)

The Snow Angel Murderer

We really struggled a nickname for T&T, so we decided to go with T&T. She hates it. We love it. (But let’s not confuse it with the supermarket!)

We includes Mabs (aka Killer), Chuly, Honjai and Deeb. It was great. She hates it. But she never chucked a snowball at us in all of the three hours of us snowshoeing this weekend. Amazing ne?

We threw snowballs at her! Or rather, sometimes we threw snow at the branches that hung over her, so that snow would fall. WHEEE!

Snowshoeing was AWESOME. Except when T&T went down to make a snow angel, then got up, she ended up destroying it. It was a very very sad event and so in revenge, I pointed at her all day and called her murderer!

I love my friends.

As a side note, honjai and I also stopped to build a snow pirana out of one of the mounds. It WAS suppose to be the face of Prince Charles at first, but somehow, it didn’t quite turn out. Well, I suppose if you take it Picasso-style…

Hollow Tree in the Fog
Downtown. It’s a maze of one-way streets. Fair enough. Because you can almost depend on the next street going in the opposite direction. But what’s with all these no left turns?!?!?!?! What started as a 5 minutes drive from my new office to my acupuncturist, turned into a half an hour drive because the entire street wouldn’t let me turn left! So what happened? I nearly got stuck in the busiest bridge in the area, Lion’s Gate Bridge, and ended in another city over water!

Luckily, last second before I got shoved on to the bridge, I saw a turn-off into Stanley Park. Now, all day, the sun has been shining, birds have been chirping, and life has been good. But once you turn into the park, with all the large trees looming over you? Oh dear…

Now, normally I love the forest. I can spend an entire day sitting still there. But somehow, with the fog, and passing by the blackened tree stumps caused by crazy storms that swept through the park a couple of years ago, everything just seems a smidge creepier. Just a smidge.

Did I mention I never drove through Stanley Park by myself before and at this point, had no idea where I was going anymore?

And then, I see a sign! A sign! I’m saved.

It said Hollow Tree.

Greeeaattt. The most haunted spot in all of the park, and I get to be driving through it in the park, completely lost, alone and near no visibility in the fog. Sounds like the beginning of a horror story, does it not?

By now, I’m speaking out loud to myself. “It’s okay, just follow the road, follow the road.” And so, the brave soul I am, I drove on.

For the record, luckily, I didn’t see anything besides the fog. And I made it to my acupuncturist okay, only 15 minutes late!

Hey, just because I love the dark side doesn’t mean I’m all that eager to meet angry spirits looking for retribution…

SL Updates
Following my rather popular last post, I just wanted to give an update that I am revelling in my abilities to be a consumer whore on Second Life. Having completed my new make-over, my avatar now has white hair tipped with red, light-gray skin, silver lips and dark eye-liner.

I love fashion. Contrary to some people’s believes, I revel in my own style, a cross between punk and goth, I also love steam punk though I don’t believe I have been able to grasp that fashion entirely yet to be able to come up with my own combinations. I see SL as a medium to explore this cheaply. Hey, if something looks good on my avatar, maybe I’ll buy the items irl and give it a whirl.

I fund my consumer whoreish tendencies by selling paintings and doing commissions. Not that I’ve made much yet, but I have one commission outstanding right now that I have to work on tonight. That’ll justify my recent shopping spree!

Seccond Life in general however (not just sex), is really a place to explore and take risks. I’ve done things in there that I would never have been able to in real life. I’ve sold a piece of my writing. I’ve sold my art. I get to wear all these crazy clothing, and have crazy hair-dos only to run into someone that has crazier clothing and crazier hair-dos. What more can you ask for?

(Some of my favourite stores right now include Goth::Gemmed, Curious Kittens& Deviant Kitten and BareRose. Go check them out.)

The “I Have Issues” Group
There has been a suggestion sent out today to work off-site in a group to do some team building. Basically it consists of us heading to the apartment close by work, and doing some hard core program and sharing of what each other is working on. This is honjai’s response:

<raises hand at the back of the class>

Umm … Mr. Chuly … have you seen Mabs’ place let alone been in Mabs’ place? That’s like stuffing a sarcastic Mii character, some T&T, an issue laden work-a-holic, little bo peep, somebody’s biatch, and a dictator in with a can of sardines. How do you think that’s going to turn out? In real time, the 22nd floor ain’t that far from the street.

(Guess which one I am! Yups, you got it, the “an issue laden work-a-holic”!)

Chuly’s response:

Yes, I am glad that you asked that question, what is your name again?

The plan works out perfectly along with the combination. The dictator can drive somebody’s biatch and that little bo-peep, while the work-a-hol-ic can work happily regardless. Some T&T can get food from T&T with the sarcastic Mii character to feed the dictator.

After all, it is a self-sustained environment that will deliver!

Wait…did Chuly just offered to feed honjai?! Why do I have this picture in my mind of Chuly feeding honjai by hand? Wait…I don’t want to know. *shudders*

“Valentine’s Day – because love isn’t complicated enough”

Taken from my dear friend, the self-proclaimed-a-hole’s MSN name. (Aka Capital-K, you know who you are. Hugs to you too! ^^)

I used to hate the holiday, really really hate the holiday. Now I just have a love-hate relationship with it

Love: all the candy and chocolate and cupcakes and cookies….oh man, the office is littered with free food! And yes, after nearly working for two years, I am still not over the poor-starving-student mentality. There’s so much goodies all around, and honjai bought me and the other girls hedgehogs, and then there were these delicious cupcakes just hanging around… oh dear gods, it’s sugar heaven here!

Hate: I feel so sick now. I’ve officially sugar crashed and my tummy hurts… ‘Nuff said.

All that aside though. There was a special insert by one of the more respectable newspaper here, titled “The Love and Sex Issue”. (Yes, I jacked it from the office lounge. The label said that it belonged to the-self-proclaimed-a-hole, but I figured he would let me “borrow” it.) It had all kinds of goody columns, including interviews with a “retired” sex-worker/dominatrix, who compared her old line of work to seeing a therapist. In some ways though, I do agree with her. Let me quote:

“I’ve heard all kinds of different stories about people’s backgrounds and about how they have a particular fantasy and you know what, they’re probably better to come and see me and working it out with a sex worker than going to see a therapist who’s going to charge them much more money in the long run and probably screw them up worse.”

Some people are just wired differently. They might prefer things that a lot of the “regular” people don’t. So why not, as long as there is consensus, right? Different doesn’t mean broken. Homosexuality and how it has been officially recognized as “simply is” is just one example. It was once thought of as a sickness, but society as a whole, accepts that gay doesn’t mean you’re sick. Just means you’re different. Herein lies the difference. But while a therapist might attempt to treat it as something broken, a dominatrix may be a little more open minded. (Generalization again.) Some of my closest friends are wired differently in a variety of different ways that main society may considered “wrong” or “strange”. But you know what? I wouldn’t trade these friends for anything in the world.

I’d like to bring up another article that I read in that insert as well:

Virtual Babylon – Second Life offers social networking with a happy ending – and only vanilla sex is taboo

They are not exaggerating. I find that the most popular places are the one that sells kinky sex in some shape or form. Usually the more vanilla places are either (a) businesses, which is a fair PR effort, one that I’ve been quite impressed with and (b) ghost towns that no one visits that much. That or malls. Lots and lots of malls and stores, but even what they sell is sex in some way, whether it be in the kinky clothing or nice “skins” the avatar can adopt, or hair styles or even the “naughty” parts. Even in one place that is a simulation of a fighting mmorpg, there is lots of blatant kinky sexuality involving demons and angels. Getting the idea yet?

On the other hand, I have had the pleasure to meet some of these people outside the game or even real life. And like the article details, they lead quite plain, ordinary lives. One woman I spoke to said that she was purely just curious. In real life, she has a great job and is quite a family person. Another man I had the pleasure of speaking with holds an even esteemed position in society.

I’ve been reading alot of Spider Jerusalem comics these days (courtesy of Haplo), written by Warren Ellis. If you get a chance, grab a copy. I’m also reminded of a book by the same author, called “Crooked Little Vein”. In both, there is a repeated theme of whether this world is turning more perverted, and what we treat as open-mindedness, is really leading society straight to hell instead, to a place where there are no longer morals and values, all in the name of “freedom.”

You know what? I don’t have an answer to that. But the title of the article sure drives it home. Kink is good. A fear of kink is often likely to be thought of as repression. Every year, it feels as though what is an acceptable subject to discuss in public seems broader and broader. Within some of my social circles, it is even frowned upon on to treat sex as anything more than a pleasurable activity. These articles are just examples of how the media pushes the boundaries a little more every year to create sensationalism. Yet, as demonstrated, these articles do hold more than just a grain of truth.

My only answer? Uphold what values you believe, but live and let live.

After all, like the old Chinese saying goes, you can’t control other’s people’s mouths.

(I am referring to how you can’t control what they say you pervs! Get your minds out of the gutter!)

after the workholic splurt

(Apparently that’s my personalized spelling of the “spurt”)

So I’m owing a few blog posts, but work has been hectic with some migration for a tool on to a more sustainable structure, as well as some the-initiative-that-shall-never-be-named, known hereafter as “you-know-what”) developer work.

Here’s an article that my dear friend and often partner-in-crime, Seraph, sent me a little while back.

Let’s just say, it made me go “BOOYAH!”

I think in essence, this is what this blog is about. Just because a person may have a darker sense of humour, maybe just because that person leans towards the darker side of things and does not fit in the normal culture, does not necessarily doom them to a life of what stereotypes so fondly pictures – eating poor and broke on the streets. It doesn’t mean that we’re not normal people that have every day lives. We just…see them differently…

I’d also like to act too that it is a juggling act, but no more than it is for any other person, goth or otherwise. A coworker, very much in the mainstream culture, commented a while back how he has different faces depending on who he talks to. He definitely talks to most coworkers differently vs friends, vs business partners. That’s no more different than the juggling act that goths go through. The only potential difference (and I may be generalizing here) is that goths are rather used to being different, so may take less care to dress differently or act differently.

Whether I am goth or not is besides the point. But i know I revel in my differences. Yes I wear leather cuffs to work. Yes, I’ll wear my baggy jeans and my dead-animal-needs-love-too hoodie to work, from time to time. I’ll keep it toned down to a respectful level for the business environment (or at least try…there are no guarantees when I’m (a) tired or (b) sugar-high…wait..that makes most of the time..) I’ll joke with dark and sometimes morbid humour (albeit in softer hushed tones..never know who you might offend and I want no lawsuit!). But overall, I think that’s no more different than any other person’s quirks.

I think this article makes some fine and interesting points to consider. Who knows, maybe the person sitting next to you at work might be a closet-goth!

Fact of the matter is. We’re just another kind of people. No need to get all worked up over it, hauling out the crosses and garlic.

No Nics, we’re not reeeaaaally vampires… really!

PS.

During the writing of this post, random comments were made by my coworkers, including: “this exchange server sucks donkey balls”, as well as various interesting curses and discussions about how frustrating our technology is. Oh, and also various discussions about daikons and how to eat one… just…don’t ask.)

gung hai fat choy!

Happy Chinese New Years!

Some traditions are never to be forgotten, no matter what strange places life takes you.  Your roots are part of you and help you become who you are today. That’s my two cents on this day.

the average Chinese market

Now, you have to understand, the social consciousness is not exactly the forte of Chinese culture.

I should know, I’m one.

These average Chinese supermarket on the weekend is somewhat of a nightmare. The number of carts being pushed around and/or parked by different aisles seems inversely proportionate to the amount of aisles that any grocery store tries to cram in. And if you think Asians can’t drive (typical stereotype), you should see the cart driving skills.

Hey, I’m Chinese, I’m allowed to make fun of my own race.

Now, this time of the year is especially bad. With the coming of Chinese New Year, everyone is in a rush to stock up. Move over last-minute-Christmas-shopping, you can’t compare.

So this weekend consisted of rushing from one grocery store to another, finding just the right box of cookies or candies to give to our extended family or neighbors, buying sacks of rice to top the rice bucket off at home (superstition/feng shui), hauling around cases and cases of fruit and the list goes on. By this time, you are really building up not only your biceps, but also your navigation skills, haggling skills and best of all, the serve-me-first skills.

You know how in the deli, you line up waiting to be served? Yeah…good luck with that at the meat and fish stands.

So why multiple grocery stores as well? Two reasons. Sometimes one place just doesn’t have that particular kind of fish or item you really really want. Fair enough. Second reason? The other store is 10 cents cheaper! I kid you not. Most Chinese, especially the older generation, just can’t stand the thought of buying something for a little more price when they know that they’re selling it cheaper next door, nevermind the gas price. Yes, even though the grocery stores are right next to each other, the tendency is still to drive. <sarcasm>Afterall, those bags are heavy. </sarcasm>

And let’s not even discuss the actual parking lots outside…

my dearest akalashi

There’s a reason why when I’m feeling like a hermit, I still love my friends.

Akalashi and I have been close buddies since 5 years ago when we met in a rpg and we have grown alot closer in the last 2-3 years.   But because of our time difference, jobs and just real-life business in general, we sometimes don’t get to talk to each other so much.  Sometimes we leave little messages for each other, and last night, when she went to hang out with her husband, I left her a message about the new wallpaper I made and also a link to an interesting-looking rpg , that I think we can explore.  (Can you tell I’m trying to lure her away from Warcrack?)

This was the message she left for me to read this morning:

“Why am I signing up somewhere with ‘potato’ in the name? Oh, I know. Because you tricked me. You sent me to a page where there were pretty girls with huge racks, so of course I had to sign up.”

How can I not love her?

(Stay tuned for a review on the actual game itself.  I’ll let you know as soon as Akalashi and I explore a bit more.)