joudama scribbling

OK, this is my fic master list to end all master lists. Everything as I post it will be linked to from this post. So, yeah. The Almighty Master List. Some things aren't linked yet, because I haven't uploaded them to this journal yet. Meh, I'll get to it one of these days. XD

( FF7 )

( FF12 )

( CCS/X )

( Yami no Matsuei )

( Fullmetal Alchemist )

( Grab bag! )

...ye gods. This is where all my time went, isn't it?

This month's to-do list is going to be very, very thin because of the JLPT. Mind you, I'm rapidly discovering that I just don't CARE about the JLPT anymore, and it's the weirdest feeling ever.


Nov:
DONE IS GOOD! In This Together: On the Road - It's not just me; we're a stubborn pair.

One of these days:
Drabble/Fic challenges:
For shadowweaver06: X/1999
For mewsrissicat: [birthdayfic]

Short Fic:
Puppyverse: How to Train a Puppy
Devil Went Down On Gaia (it's halfway done, dangit)

Long Fic:
Harrow Children: Part the Second
TTYNKAP: Ch. 9 - Roadtrip

Finally, finally, they are showing us Cloud. I'm gonna have to wait to pick it up, just to save money, but I daresay a week or two after it comes out the used game shops should have it.

Cloud vs Sephiroth game play.

Five minutes of just pretty.

I have dark chocolate Tim Tams, and that makes the world a better place.

Also, it occurs to me that if Zack is a puppy and Seph is a cat, then Genesis is a squirrel--loud, obnoxious, and making the same noise over and over again. And convinced they rule the world (a friend told me about watching a hawk going a squirrel and missing, and then the squirrel angrily chasing after the hawk chittering at it--and deny Genesis is the squirrel to Seph's hawk in this case.)

So, because my computer gave up the ghost and the new one is melodramatically hacking up blood, I haven't been able to get a list together for fictunes like I planned. So! Begging y'all! There is a free-for-all post, where you can post any song you think would be cool for people to fic to. Right now, there is only one song up, and it is sad and lonely and would like company. :(

...also, related to nothing, I got called 'cute' again at lunch. I...dropped a cup trying to pick it up so I could get something to drink, and it went bouncy-bouncy-bouncy in the little cup tray place. People saw my butterfingers move, so I went, "Hai, otchokochoi desu...[I'm clumsy...]" and gave a grin-wince, and this was immediately called 'kawaii'.

...o_O?whut.

Dear new comp,

I take back every nice thing I said about you.

You are going back to the store Saturday and they are giving me a new one. Because you suck. I said this morning if you did one more squirrelly thing, back you went, and oh, you had to do two to three squirrelly things (the iPod locking up when I plugged it in to you may not have been your fault, since it is also squirrelly). Back to the store you go.

No love but plenty of frustration,

jou

The concert yesterday was fun. We were all supposed to wear red, black, and white, so I wore a fuzzy black shirt, black tights, black boots, and a rather short red skirt that had black straps because that's how I roll. XD I also did my hair in two braids that were more twists, meaning my hair becomes an even bigger toy--I tug on a braid and let go, and it bounces, something that causes me and the people around me hours of amusement.

I totally futzed up the time I was supposed to get there, since I didn't leave home when I needed to and misjudging how long it'd take me--I figured an hour at the most to get to Osaka; but it took an hour fifteen. So I was late, and trying to find the place--only a minute's walk from the station--I got so horribly lost. XD To make things worse, at one point, I actually walked past the place and missed it. I was backtracking back to the station, determined to try one more time before I gave up, called A-chan and went, "COME GET ME, I AM LOST," and as I'm almost back to the convenience store near the station, I check down the road I think it is and go, "AH!" because there's A-chan, standing outside. Victoly!

It didn't matter I was late, because I was not the last person and it was just for a practice before the concert--and we weren't actually singing until 8, and it was only 3. So, yeah.

So we practiced, it was all good, and then we sat around gabbing. And giving A-chan shit, because his shirt was white with pink and brown stripes. We were all going, "That's not red," "Un, aka ja nai yo ne," and feeding off each other to needle him. XD He tried to say it was "light red" and we were all, "Pink." I told the story of the Great Laptop Meltdown, and everyone was like D: Because it's D:

At one point, I discovered A-chan is the only one tall enough for me to comfortably lean on. Mwahahahaha. I will abuse this shamefully, because that is also how I roll.

A Santa hat was pulled out by one member, D, and C-san said she'd wear it. She put it on and said it was too small, so I said fine, I'd wear it. ...I tried to make someone else wear it, and they all said no and that it suited me. ...whut. Yeah, OK, I just think no one wanted to wear the Santa hat. XD And no, there ARE NO PICTURES. :p

...one of the guys in another acapella group said something to clown us (he's friends with D and knows all of us; all the other groups had members who had originally been in the group I'm in), and discovered that a) I had a rubber band and b) I had no problems shooting that rubber band at him. I'm a mature adult, honest. >XDDDD

*snerk* On the train out, me, A-chan, and R-chan were riding back the same way, and we both started the "That's not red, yo" just because. >XD After he got off (he was one stop before us), I told R-chan A-chan was adorable and I wanted to, like, feed him and pat him on the head or something (he's adorkable, he really is) and she went, "No, you're adorable" and said I was just too cute. ...I blinked at her lots and lots.

Then I took my train home and played Star Ocean, and yeah, I stand by my "Vulcans, angels, and werewolves, wtf" at it, especially when it came out the pointy-eared people have copper-based, and therefore green blood. I snerked my head off, because any Trekkie worth their salt knows that. And the "warp"ing. And the Guardian of the Time Gate thing was, like, any old school ST mystery barren planet X locale. Oh, Japan. You and the way you steal so shamelessly and then use your ill-begotten goods to make crack. And what wonderful crack it is. >XD

So, the newest news is this.

First, let me make it easier to understand. I work for a contract company, and my contract is with Government Research Facility A [not the real name; y'all know I never say where I'm working until I'm no longer working there] but located inside Research Company Z. The researchers are all employed by RCZ but under the umbrella of GRFA. Most us grunts are contracted with GRFA. Right now we're at the RCZ building, but we were to be moved to a GRFA building in April.

All the researchers for my department were let go from RCZ, but told they could apply to work at GRFA. If GRFA decides to take them, then us grunts go with them--our contracts are yearly from April-March, so we'd get new contracts and do our same jobs. If the researchers decides not to, then sayonara bye-bye job. It seems a lot of researchers will, even though it's a pay and status cut, in order to continue their research (one just started a five-year project last year). They can apply from the end of last month though this month, and GRFA will decide in...February. And from what I heard, some of the RCZ research was the same as the GRFA stuff, and doubtless they will not want double-researchers, so not everyone who applies will get in, in all likelihood.

...I am more than slightly worried because my researcher seems to have a 'here until I'm gone' look on his face lately. *stomachache*

At any rate. December is a crappy time to look for a job, so I'll start the job search in January. I'd like to keep this job, so if it turns out that my researcher decides to apply and gets accepted, then I'll keep this and port over. But I have no idea. Everything is completely out of my hands; there's nothing I can do but wait and try to squirrel away money (thanks, iBook, for dying when you did) so that in the worst case scenario I have money to keep going for a while.

All in all, though....GAAAAAAH.

I was out all day yesterday because my acapella group had a concert (it was fun, and I am apparenly 'adorable' and a Santa Claus hat suits me. Whut).

This morning I dl'd Firefox, hoo-ray, but am trying to get all the plug-ins I had before. Which I can't remember. So I figured, hey, a lot of y'all use firefox. What are some plugins that you have and love? :D

OK, the new touchpad? Is full of awesome. I had been kinda GARRR!! at the shortcut keys I was so used to being gone, then I discovered how the new touchpad does all of them with finger swipes...or rather, by caressing the dang thing with four fingers, I'm not even kidding; I'm kinda like, "...I think I'm molesting my computer..."

I dl'd AbiWord and at first liked it, then saw how it was pretty broken with its fail with spacing and italics, so I'm dl'ing NeoOffice. I just...I really liked Word, is all. As much as I hate all things Microsoft, Word was the exception because it did everything I told it do, with only a minimal amount of "NO, you stupid fucker, DON'T DO THAT!" configuration. Most importantly, it showed a minimal amount of whitespace, something OpenOffice fails at (I used OpenOffice at work, and if I wanted my work to be in a pseudo-real page, print preview-esque layout, I'd configure it to do so, you stupid POS. All I want for a page break is a little dotted line, THANK YOU) and AbiWord did...but yeah, broken spacing=NO. I know NeoOffice is based off OpenOffice, so I'm sure it will piss me off in the same way. GAH.

Also, the comp's speakers PWN the old one's. :D

Guess who is typing this on a brand new Mac?

Guess who didn't have a choice about getting a brand new Mac, because her Mac DIED and DIED LIKE WHOA, opera-heroine type dramatic Wagnarian death?

This was not a good time for my Mac to decide that hey, working and not having the screen do freaky-ass shit and not giving error message in multiple languages saying YOU MUST RESTART NOW and then not restarting but making pathetic little fan-whirring noises and nothing else, well that's just too much effort.

Right.

So now I have a new Mac, minus word processing software because Apple has decided the peons don't need such things, and minus Photoshop, since my Photoshop won't work on the new Intel Macs.

I...am not a happy camper right now.

Blargh.

Thankfully? A little voice told me to back up my fic last week. I routinely copy it onto my memory stick, so I copied my entire folder over a day or so ago, and most of the new stuff, I worked on at work secretly and so it was on google docs. THANK GOD. I can tell y'all right now, had I lost my unfinished fic? Yeah, I would have thrown my hands up in the air and said, "Screw it, I can't reproduce that much work." But I'm paranoid about my data after working tech support, so important files get backed up like WHOA. I've still lost a lot--all my image files and my bookmarks and all that--but my fic are safely nestled on my memory stick and are about to be copied over.

....I still hate life right now, just so you know.

BLARGH.

I started working on one of my 0tP fic, and this one? Is going to be a long doozy of a fic. But then, anything titled "A Hope in Hell" is going to by nature be a long doozy of a fic.

It's five pages so far, and here's a preview. :D

( It was the bodies that got to Angeal. )

Whoever gave me a permanent account?

THANK YOU~!

:DDDDDDDDDDDD

So the plan was for my division to be moved from the floor of the building we're in to another building in April. Everyone thought this was dumb, but hey, when does anything in a bureaucracy make sense.

But there was a meeting today of the bigwigs, and new plans were made.

Instead of moving us in April, we're all getting cut. Everyone, researchers down to the grunts, in my department.

*panic*

A lot can happen in four months, but I'll tell you right now, I'm having an AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA moment and am a wee bit too shell-shocked to think clearly. I've definitely put the Squeenix application higher up on the "things to do," as well as getting in contact with a US manga publisher a friend gave me contact info for, and I think early January--because around the end of the year is a crap time to start looking for a job--I'll start sending out resumes other places.

I swear to god, if I have to go back to being an English teacher, I will cry. I've done it, I know I'm good at it and can find a job easily, but I fucking hate it. I hate being fake, I hate pretending to be happy and smile, I hate playing the Happy Gaijin, I hate the feeling of being in a dead-end job where everyone says, "Oh, when are you going home?" because the idea that you really live here does not compute, I hate it.

So, yes. Panicking slightly. And very glad I didn't just buy myself a new comp, as much as I need it. I had just today decided to join a gym and try and go swimming a few times a week (I can't do any other exercise without risking injuring myself; even walking will kill my ankle, and stairs make my knees cry) and I just decided "Yeah, no" on that. I can cut out the few splurges I have (*waves good-bye to the pizza aspect of pizza-booze-gaming Friday*) and put more money away so I won't be screwed come April if I don't have a new job lined up.

This suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

So I had Chinese class tonight, for the first time in, like, a month. I kind of had not studied in, oh, A MONTH, so it was...yeah. *dies*

It was, as it has been for forever it seems, a private lesson--the other two people in the class cancel all the time; I think it's only been all three of us once, and just me and this other American dude maybe twice.

Today was just me, the teacher, and the teacher's nine-year-old daughter, who doesn't speak Chinese, just Japanese (which, as an aside, is something that just boggles my brain. If I got married here and had a kid, my kid? Would be able to speak English. Because that is the only language I would speak to the child in, because I can't imagine having a child that couldn't speak to my side of the family), but she picks up Chinese during the lessons like a little sponge. Because she's nine. *jealous*

And having the small child there reminded me of a fact I had forgotten--my hair is a small child hand magnet. Adults over here will (usually) refrain from grabbing it without permission, but small children? Oh god. Thankfully, I like people playing with my hair, and I know hair like mine is rare over here, not unless you pay out the nose to perm it. XD (Seriously, people ask me if my hair is permed, and their eyes just bug out and finding out no, I don't perm it, no I don't curl it, and yes, it is naturally like this. Spiral curls FTW.) All through the class, she'd occasionally come over and just tug on a curl. It was cute.

When class ended, though, I'm getting ready to go, when all of a sudden my teacher goes, "Oh, yeah! I almost forgot!" and pulls out a box of Chinese individually wrapped souvenier-type cookies and says, "Here, these are cookies from China! :D" and offers me some cookies.

...there is no nice way to say, "Sensei, I do not want your Chinese Death Cookies."

She looks at them and sees tasty cookies from home; I look at them and see melamine-chip cookies.

Class was ending, though, so she said to take a few home with me. And since, yeah, no way to turn down the Death Cookies, I take one.

"Have more! :D" she says brightly. So I take another. "More! :D"

So I had four Death Cookies. And there was one left in the row, and she said to take that one, too.

BU YAAAAAAO~ (DO NOT WANT~!)

But no way to say "IDNWYCDC," so I took the last Death Cookie, knowing I was going to have to eat one melamine-chip cookie so I could tell her the cookies were death-laced delicious.

She then opened a Chinese Death Cookie and started eating it as she was running around, and all I could think was DDDDDDDDDDDD:

She left to go into the back to do something, and I realized I was going to have to actually take the Death Cookies and started putting them in my bag, and then my teacher came back into the room, making a face and going, "Juan Yi [my Chinese name], don't eat the cookies. They taste terrible!"

Ahhhh, the lingering taste of melamine.

"Oh, OK," I said, but a voice in my head was cheering the fact that I was free from the melamine-chip cookies.

"Oh, and in the back, there are sweet potatoes! Please, take some!" she says. Apparently there is a field or something where sweet potatoes are grown, and the guy who was the super of the building ha said for us to take some before we left.

So I went and picked a sweet potato. "Take more! :D" my teacher says, so I ended up with three freshly-dig out sweet potatoes and wondering how I was going to cook them, because my gas range isn't hooked up yet and I haven't got a toaster over. This gives me a reason to get one, looks like.

And that, that is how I managed to go to Chinese class but come home with a bag full of dirt, sweet potatoes and Chinese death cookies.

My life is so weird. XD

I am SLAIN.

( Set one )

( Set two )

OMFG, some of these. People on lj were screaming at me to do The Piano Fic, and it looks like they might actually get it. *dies* This is what I get for saying I'd never write it. Also, I'm in throes of joy over the Balthier/Gong-gil one, because it sets me up perfectly for the idea I had that nudged me to do 0TP.

Also, the Seishirou/Genesis one kind of scares me. So does the Seishirou/Tsuzuki one.

Definites are: ( under the cut )

Maybes are: ( under the cut )

So I manage to um-acquire a copy of "The World Ends With You"...in English. I had a choice of English or Japanese, but figured, hey, all my DS and PSP and PS2 games are in Japanese; I ought to try a game in English and cut myself a bit of slack.

...I got about ten minutes in before, weirded out, I shut the game off.

Why was I weirded out? Because the game was in English. It was too weird for me and something felt deeply, deeply wrong on some level. So I had to stop. And then I kinda went o_O?! for a good, long while because, English is my native tongue, yo. And yet I cannot game in it.

That is deeply, deeply weird. As weird as gaming in English.

I am just going to write this off as "It's like opera in English. Yeah, you can do it, but..." and not think about this too deeply. x_X

So I bought Star Ocean: First Departure for the PSP last week, and finally cracked it open today on the way home--I actually said "ARGH! MUST GET OUT!" and left my apartment. I went to the mall for Starbucks. I dorked out and took my laptop with me and worked on the Fic to Get Me a Job--I got about two pages done before I remembered how much my body hates coffee. I may love Starbucks's Gingerbread Latte, but it has no love for me. ^^;;

But anyway, on the way home, I started Star Ocean. Just from the opening sequence, my thoughts:

"...Vulcans? Why are there Vulcans?"

"Why does she have wings? Vulcans and angels?! WTF, Squeenix, y'all smoke the good shit."

"...Vulcans, Angels, and werewolves?! Goooooooood shit, man. Definitely."

Then I started playing and saw the the Vulcans all had tails, and now I seriously wonder about the crack Japanese game designers are smoking. XD

W00t; all the fic for the x2009 comm are posted!

I have a fic that's up; see if y'all can guess which one it is! ...I think it's almost painfully obvious which one I wrote, but hey. I also wrote it, so of course I would think so. ^^;;

Once they officially say who wrote which fic, I'll post a link directly to it. I'm quite proud of it, actually.

Dear Squeenix,

We need to talk. No, really, we do. I know, I know, I've given you shit before ('sup, killing Angeal and yet Nomura rockstar mancrush is pastede in yay!Genesis WILL NOT DIE; oh hai thar, breaking up on OT3 with your craptabulous retconning Balther into FF:T), but this is me the gamer speaking now, not me the petulant fangirl. We need to talk.

About these mini games of yours in FF12.

Now, I thought making the Vaan basically making himself jailbait for the guards minigame near the beginning was...really fucking lame. But at least it had the amusement factor of, well, Vaan yelling for the guards to come over and get him. The way he said, "Kotchi, kotchi!" ("Over, heeee~re~!") made the inner twelve-year-old snicker uncontrollably at the flirtatiousness of it all. At least I had a giggle at that, because otherwise I would have been eyetwitching. Hell, I was when the guards caught me that one time. ...I will refrain from sharing Bad Thoughts about Vaan and the guards; you can thank me later.

So that was lame. It really was. I mean, I see what you were shooting for, I do. But.

But hey, whatev. I kept on playing, things were golden...and then came the "plant the rumor" mini game.

Congrats, you managed to up the "...this is so stupid" factor, and that took skillz, yo. And I honestly didn't think you could one-up that.

I should never, ever underestimate you, Sqeenix. Never.

...the "be a glorified telephone for a railcard" minigame was WUT. I spent the whole time doing it going, "...this is the stupidest thing EVER," complete with variations on the theme of how fucking stupid it was. I should not be thinking, "when will this be OVER?!" when playing a game, Squeenix. There is a difference between "more content" and "pointless content," and guess which side you're on. And I'm truly terrified to think of what other dumbass shit crap you're going to make me do instead of actually gaming or sleeping.

120 hours in and only just getting to Draklor Laboratory,
jou

PS: Also, I want this game to end already. I kinda want to play Persona 4 and Tales of the Abyss. But I can't with FF12 breathing down my throat. This is a good game, but good GOD, 120 hours and I'm only about halfway done?! My attention span can't keep this up, yo.