Seeing a story

I've not been reading that much these days, which I'm a bit sad about.

Depending on the book, I'm a pretty fast reader. Some books take a while, some books I'll fly through. 300 pages in a couple of days kind of thing.

Jack Campbell and Iain M Banks (hope his soul got uploaded to a good place) are examples of really fast reads. At least, Jack Campbell in his Lost Fleet series. I struggled somewhat with his Stark's War series and haven't finished that.

Suzanne Collins first Hunger Games book was a fast read too. I need to read the other two. That's where I've been today actually, watching the third Hunger Games film. I'm kinda glad this time that the third book has been split into two, it gives the story time to tell its tale. The first Hunger Games had a few things cut that added to the menace of the capital and was still quite a long film.

How is Mockingjay part 1 ? It's a stunning film and it almost got those tears out again. I'm really showing those emotions again, they're bubbling under the surface and threatening to erupt more and more. I like that. I buried those emotions for so long I forgot that I had them.

There is a positive and a negative side to that though. The positive is that I'm Feeling things more. From the emotions from a good story to the rush that gets my blood flowing and the muscles pumping. The negative is that the depression triggers are more prone to kick me where I don't want them to.

Things like attempting to interact with people but getting nothing back. A lot of that is my voice getting lost in the noise made by others attempting to interact with the same people. I do feel honoured though that the little lady aka Cupid's Gift has kept on exchanging big long chatty text messages. It always warms my heart (even outside in the freezing Bristol Xmas market today!!) to see one of those texts coming in.

Things like having an inkling, a desire to go to NEC Comic Con tomorrow but that "yeah ! let's go" being balanced by my personal batteries running on empty right now. I could do with a quiet weekend ... Genki Gear have some stuff I really, really want too.

Who knows ? Perhaps one of those new Bristolian regular readers will see this and pipe up with a "That's a great idea, let's go !" Lol :-) I should be so lucky.

So why no books ?

My skin condition has been rather messy and one place it gets messy is on my forearms. Which is where a book can tend to rest ... So I've been avoiding reading in order to stop wrecking my books. I'll not say any more there !

Except to say I'm winning and hope to beat it and be back to "normal"* by Xmas.

*Anyone who knows me well will agree that I'm anything but normal.

So what has been getting my attention outside of the books ?

I've been watching stories over the Youtubes instead. Games are getting more and more story based these days and modern hardware lets them tell the stories better too. Sometimes it's just a play through of a non-story based but campaign progressing game like Scott Manley doing Kerbal Space Program. Or it's the same guy doing a long play through of Xenonauts. In the space program, you're watching him expand the capabilities of what he can do. For a geeky engineer person like me, it's great viewing. In Xenonauts, you're watching him fight the war against an implacable alien invasion.

It's good stuff.

But me being me, it's not the first channel I go to for stories. Nah. I've always been more taken by the female voice.

And my favourite two female voices both belong to the Yogscast. There's a third and fourth now but they don't make nearly as much regular content as Hannah and Kim. Three and Four are KaeyiDream and Zoey. Kaeyi is inspirational for her continuing battle through ill health. Inspirational because seeing people like that fight through worse conditions than what I have gives me strength to fight harder. And Zoey is ... Cuteasheck (and also battling a psychological condition which is quite possibly meaner than the physical conditions)

Anyway - yeah. Hannah and Kim. Two lovely ladies with voices that I could literally, listen to all day.

In fact, I'm so behind on Hannah's content that I might be listening to her all day tomorrow. (Instead of Comic con).

I've mentioned them before but what are they up to at the moment ?

Hannah's working diligently through the Ubipocalypse. They've released a lot of AAA top games over the past week or so and Hannah is working herself into the ground covering them all. For us. Lovely Hannah.

I'm looking forward to :
Hannah's Advent - where she'll open gifts from the fans.
Livestreams - where our Yogscasts will include us, the audience, with the fun they'll have on screen.
More Hannah vids !

She's got a truly gorgeous voice and a personality that really shines through over the videos. I still need to play through the new(ish) Tomb Raider which I bought after thoroughly enjoying Hannah's playthrough.

Kim's always been a total darling for me, ever since she started doing her videos. It's personality again. If she wasn't so adorable off screen, I'd love her to bits anyway due to that wonderful, warm, mischievous, active, jokey personality shining through via her voice overs on the videos. She shares so much with us, it feels like she counts her loyal audience as her best friends.

Looking forward to her livestreams too. With that spontaneous sense of ridiculous fun coming through, what's not to like. Kim's main content is currently a playthrough of Alien Isolation.

I think that's another part of why I've been watching these stories over videos instead of playing the games. I'm actually finding playing games kinda tedious at the moment, although I suspect that would change if I found a coop partner to play games with. I drifted away from the communities in WoW that did that and was logging in too late to join in with the Silvermoon crew.

Kim's stuff ? It's part single player through of horror themed games, part coop on Minecraft or jumpy games like Alien Isolation. I have to admit, I'm finding the Minecraft content to be somewhat stale right now, although that's a failing of Minecraft. I'm still watching the Kim & Duncan and Hannah & Nilesy Minecraft content but it's struggling a bit, saved only by those voices and their ability to get spontaneous Fun out of anything.

Even being scared to death by aliens who like to look in lockers. And I think I promised a medal to someone too. We shall see there.

So yeah - I'm getting my fill of stories right now but instead of books, it's from watching the animated stories via the youtubes, narrated by a pair of wonderful voices backed by amazing personalities that really do add something to the story of the game.

And if you'll excuse me, I'm about to close my eyes to Nightwish on the stereo (they're ok, bit too theatrical polished for my liking though) and quite soon it'll be Kim in Kill Everything mode in Far Cry 3.

But not quite yet. Because that German Xmas market has reawakened an addiction to hot chocolate. Lovely smooth hot chocolate. Hmm.