joudama scribbling

Dissidia Cloud vs Sephiroth!

homasse99@yahoo.com — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:26:44 GMT

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.

Yay!

homasse99@yahoo.com — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:45:33 GMT

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.)

Fictunes!

homasse99@yahoo.com — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:49:00 GMT

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...

homasse99@yahoo.com — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:50:56 GMT

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

And because I hate depressing entries...

homasse99@yahoo.com — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:27:49 GMT

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

Update on the job thing

homasse99@yahoo.com — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:00:00 GMT

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.

Still working on the new Mac...

homasse99@yahoo.com — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:47:59 GMT

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

So, getting used to the new comp

homasse99@yahoo.com — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:39:57 GMT

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

When it rain, it fuckin' pours...

homasse99@yahoo.com — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:18:16 GMT

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.

blah

homasse99@yahoo.com — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 07:50:45 GMT

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

When the city of Daerimmun fell, it was far simpler than they expected. Daerimmun was the capital of Chochung, and the 'king' of Chochung was, from all accounts, a despotic madman. It had been the Wutai themselves, retainers to the king, who had in desperation come to the ShinRa camps, and offered information in exchange for toppling the "Mad King of Chochung."

If the stories Angeal heard from them were true, he could almost understand why they had come--shooting his own retainers full of arrows? Stabbing two women to death after a play?

Angeal had been left in charge of "securing" Daerimmun as Genesis swept north and Sephiroth south. That included the more unpleasant aspect of things--overseeing the clearing of the bodies from the castle, interrogating the people who had been swept up and detained, setting the castle up as a base and organizing operations; all of the tedious things that wore down at you because they never seemed to end.

It was the bodies that got to Angeal. There had been a lot, and that included the women and children in the palace. There were too many bodies, and decisions had to be made about what to do with them, and quickly.

The most expedient thing would be to burn them, but he hated the smell of burning flesh. They didn't quite have the manpower to spend right then to bury all of them, not with the work that went into securing the whole damned city, and that meant they would have to force Wutai into the work, and that never worked out well.

Once a decision had been made, and black smoke rose into the air from the courtyard, blocking out the sun, Angeal sat down tiredly in what had once been the Mad King's chamber but was now Angeal's quarters, and wondered just what it was he was doing here.

Thank you~!

homasse99@yahoo.com — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:02:30 GMT

Whoever gave me a permanent account?

THANK YOU~!

:DDDDDDDDDDDD

cue panic

homasse99@yahoo.com — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 06:31:34 GMT

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.

There really is no nice way to say 'Sensei, I do not want your Chinese Death Cookies.'

homasse99@yahoo.com — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:24:39 GMT

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

Oh gaaaaaaaaaaaaaawd, my 0tP prompts

homasse99@yahoo.com — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:27:43 GMT

I am SLAIN.

January First through Seventh
Gong-gil and Fran: It was a dark and stormy night--
Sephiroth rescues Chie from some kind of trouble
Angeal and Balthier: transformation of some kind (genderswitch? body swap? species shift?)
Fran has amnesia -- does Zack try to help, or take shameless advantage of the situation?
Balthier/Zack, intoxication
Balthier and Gong-gil: an unexpected act of kindness
Sephiroth and Genesis have nothing left to lose

January Eighth through Fourteenth
Angeal and Gong-gil with the title, "A Hope in Hell"
Chie and Fran, first impressions
Zack and Genesis with the title, "By Any Other Name"
Balthier and Gong-gil: "Who do you think you are?"
Sephiroth and Angeal: O body swayed to music, O brightening glance / How can we know the dancer from the dance?
Chie and Zack: "Well, I never saw that coming."
Fran and Balthier with the title, "One More for the Road"

January Fifteenth through Twenty-first
Genesis and Fran -- I've traveled the world and the seven seas / everybody's looking for something
Sephiroth and Gong-gil, eternal rivals!!!!
Genesis and Balthier, working together
Fran and Sephiroth, gambling for interesting stakes
Gong-gil and Chie: "Virtue is its own punishment."
Zack and Angeal with the title, "A Wolf at the Door"
Genesis and Chie: "I'd hate to ruin the surprise."

January Twenty-second through Twenty-eighth
Sephiroth/Zack: the first day of the rest of our lives
Gong-gil and Genesis: "Don't give up now."
Fran versus Angeal, battle of wits
Chie/Angeal: don't cry now babydoll / nothing too good ever lasted long
Balthier and Sephiroth as the main characters in a fairy tale
Genesis and Angeal, first-time kink
Zack and Gong-gil: telling stories

--

January First through Seventh
Zack and Li Syaoran: It was a dark and stormy night--
Qian Xiao Zhen rescues Genesis from some kind of trouble
Rude and Tsuzuki: transformation of some kind (genderswitch? body swap? species shift?)
Li Syaoran has amnesia -- does Tseng try to help, or take shameless advantage of the situation?
Tsuzuki/Tseng, intoxication
Tsuzuki and Zack: an unexpected act of kindness
Qian Xiao Zhen and Seishirou have nothing left to lose

January Eighth through Fourteenth
Rude and Zack with the title, "A Hope in Hell"
Genesis and Li Syaoran, first impressions
Tseng and Seishirou with the title, "By Any Other Name"
Tsuzuki and Zack: "Who do you think you are?"
Qian Xiao Zhen and Rude: O body swayed to music, O brightening glance / How can we know the dancer from the dance?
Genesis and Tseng: "Well, I never saw that coming."
Li Syaoran and Tsuzuki with the title, "One More for the Road"

January Fifteenth through Twenty-first
Seishirou and Li Syaoran -- I've traveled the world and the seven seas / everybody's looking for something
Qian Xiao Zhen and Zack, eternal rivals!!!!
Seishirou and Tsuzuki, working together
Li Syaoran and Qian Xiao Zhen, gambling for interesting stakes
Zack and Genesis: "Virtue is its own punishment."
Tseng and Rude with the title, "A Wolf at the Door"
Seishirou and Genesis: "I'd hate to ruin the surprise."

January Twenty-second through Twenty-eighth
Qian Xiao Zhen/Tseng: the first day of the rest of our lives
Zack and Seishirou: "Don't give up now."
Li Syaoran versus Rude, battle of wits
Genesis/Rude: don't cry now babydoll / nothing too good ever lasted long
Tsuzuki and Qian Xiao Zhen as the main characters in a fairy tale
Seishirou and Rude, first-time kink
Tseng and Zack: telling stories

--

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:
Gong-gil (The King and the Clown) and Fran: It was a dark and stormy night--
Balthier and Gong-gil: an unexpected act of kindness <--this and the first will be together. And this is PERFECT. And will have Gong-gil and Jang-seung because they are a pair.
Angeal and Gong-gil with the title, "A Hope in Hell" <--...*glee* This is perfect. ABsolutely perfect, especially for a fic with only Gong-gil.
Zack and Gong-gil: telling stories <--next 'verse, same as the first.
Genesis and Angeal, first-time kink <--The Piano Fic.
Qian Xiao Zhen (Auntie Qian) and Zack, eternal rivals!!!! <--Oh HELL YES. SHE OWNS A RESTAURANT. THINK ABOUT IT. XDDDD
Tsuzuki and Zack: an unexpected act of kindness <--Zack and a death god. Yeeeeeeeeah. I have ideas.

Maybes are:
Sephiroth and Genesis have nothing left to lose <--*whimper*
Fran and Balthier with the title, "One More for the Road" <--NO COMMENT
Balthier/Zack, intoxication <--AHAHAHAHA
Genesis and Fran -- I've traveled the world and the seven seas / everybody's looking for something <--...Fran will chew Gen up and spit him out. And with style.
Fran and Sephiroth, gambling for interesting stakes <--...see above statement, only change Seph for Gen.
Zack and Angeal with the title, "A Wolf at the Door" <--it occurs to me that this would be a perfect Puppyverse Angeal-flashback fic. Hmm...
Sephiroth/Zack: the first day of the rest of our lives<--Puppyverse
Gong-gil and Genesis: "Don't give up now." <-- This would be that same 'verse as the one with Gong-gil and Angeal
Balthier and Sephiroth as the main characters in a fairy tale <--*sneeeeeeeeeeeeeerk*
Qian Xiao Zhen rescues Genesis from some kind of trouble <--AUNTIE QIAN. AND GENESIS. XD
Seishirou and Tsuzuki, working together <--*whimper*
Seishirou and Genesis: "I'd hate to ruin the surprise." <--*WHIMPER*

...Proof I have lost my mind, or been in Japan too long

homasse99@yahoo.com — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:54:57 GMT

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

Star Ocean 1st impression

homasse99@yahoo.com — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:15:50 GMT

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

Woo-hoo!

homasse99@yahoo.com — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:43:37 GMT

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

homasse99@yahoo.com — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:10:58 GMT

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.

Dear PeTA

homasse99@yahoo.com — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:24:07 GMT

Dear PeTA,

You missed, I thought this was AWESOME.

Psychotic Cooking Mama with that bloody knife and evilly gleaming eyes was PURE AWESOME.

AWESOME.

snickering her head off,

jou

PS: ...also, good luck trying to get a Japanese company to make a vegetarian Cooking Mama. *snerk* Lemme know how that works for you.

Opinion time!

homasse99@yahoo.com — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:11:36 GMT

So, after that Yuffie fic, and someone pointing out on LJ that it was too formal in tone (it was; I've revised), I decided one bit of formality stayed--"don the clothes"--because it felt like a formal, four-character compound while I was writing.

...y'all know me. You know where this is going.

I came up with the four-character compound. *waves Overthinkers Club banner*

Or rather, I came up with several *waves banner again*, and can't pick which one I like best. Which one do y'all like? Whichever one gets decided on in the end will be jou-cannon Wutai, and will prolly show up at some point in other fic.

The choices are:

脱紫穿黄 (tuo zi chuan huang) - remove the purple and don the yellow
脱紫穿綠 (tuo zi chuan lu) - remove the purple and don the green
穿綠黄衣 (chuan lu huang yi) - don the green and yellow clothes
帝穿綠黄 (di chuan lu huang) - the emperor dons green and yellow

I think the third is too straightforward for a four-character compound, so I'm leaning towards the first, second, or fourth.

If y'all aren't familiar with any four-character compounds, here are a couple examples:

卧虎藏龙
wo hu cang long
Crouching tiger, hidden dragon.
Really powerful people hide their powers rather than showing them.

优胜劣败
you sheng lie bai
The strong win, the weak loose.

雪上加霜
xue shang jia shuang
Adding frost to the snow.
One bad thing after another; a situation getting worse and worse.

[fic] Bricks at the Devil

homasse99@yahoo.com — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:20:30 GMT

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: worksafe
Warnings: ...Yuffie. GAH.
Word count: 1,240
Summary: Don't show your tears to your oppressors; don't show your tears.
A/N: Before I even begin, let me make it perfectly clear: I. HATE. YUFFIE. No, really. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate. I can not stand Yuffie. I even hate her more than I hate Gacktesis. I'm not even kidding. Which is why I hate my brain for this.

This is inspired by the song by Sami Yusuf featuring Outlandish, "Try Not to Cry." It refers to "the Stoning of the Devil," part of the Hajj Pilgrimage. I love this song and on some level it kind of hurts me deeply to have frickin' Yuffie tied to it. ...yeah. Anyway, the title comes from the verse "I throw bricks at the devil, so I'll be sure to hit him."

"Rotten cotton" refers to a Chinese idiom, 金玉其外，败絮其中 (jin1 yu4 qi2 wai4, bai4 xu4 qi2 zhong1) - "Gold and jade on the outside, but rotten cotton on the inside." If you've seen the Zhang Yimou movie "The Curse of the Golden Flower," this is the idiom he had in mind when he made the movie. Likewise, "treaty at the wall" comes from the four-character compound 城下之盟 (cheng2 xia4 zhi1 meng) - "A treaty signed at the city wall," which means "accepting humiliating terms of peace under duress"--because the enemy is right there at the walls of the city about to sack you like whoa.

Oh, and Yuffie's 'name' I'm taking from the Chinese version of her name. Yes, I tracked it down, nerd points for me. XD Because, you know, I needed more or something.

For those of you who read TTYNKAP, the places Yuffie mentions--the Temple of the Silver Dragon and the Homeviewing Pavilion, show up. in the next chapter. Only, I used the 'Wutai' names (The Yin Long Temple and Wangxiang Pavilion) there because it's Rude's POV and he doesn't grok Wutai, but the names via the meanings here because Yuffie, of course, does. I, um, really am going somewhere with all these, I promise. ^^;;

--

My name is Yuffie Kisaragi now.

It's because it's ShinRa's world now, and my name is one of the things that had to change--we have to adapt, have to follow ShinRa's rules, have to speak ShinRa's language even in our homes. In the Imperial Court, where my father sits like their puppet and nothing more, shaming our ancestors, I have to speak ShinRa's words and be Yuffie Kisaragi. My people have lost so much; all I have to lose is my name and my language, and so I'll throw them away and wear this new name and speak these flat words until the day Wutai stands again.

I stood in the Great Hall of our ancestors before I decided what to do. I looked at the painting of the first Kisaragi emperor, Kisaragi no Takenobu. We wouldn't have spoken the same language; we're Yamatan by blood but when he overthrew the Kanagawa dynasty and established ours hundreds of years ago, he moved us from the rot of Nankyo and made a new city in the homeland of the Silver Dragon, up here in Beizhou.

I never read the Annals of the Silver Dragon. I never saw any reason to; who cares about tales in dusty old scrolls? I know enough; I know Kisaragi no Takenobu, after the death of the great Silver Dragon, returned to Wutai and routed out the rotten cotton that the emperor had become, and moved the capital. I know all of the tales, know what he did. He was a great man, pushed into greatness by the cruelty of the Kanagawa. He was said to have been really compassionate, sometimes dropping the purples and blues of the royalty and donning the green and yellow clothes of people to leave the palace. He often, it's said, went to the Temple of the Silver Dragon and to the Homeviewing Pavilion and prayed to the Silver Dragon.

But I won't. I don't see any point. The Silver Dragon didn't come to our aid, after all. I heard the whispers, that He'd abandoned Wutai, that His avatar had been seen on ShinRa's side...I don't need gods anyway, especially not ones that abandon us when we need them the most. I've never seen the Silver Dragon and no one's ever summoned him; what kind of god is that?

Not one Wutai needs, no matter what my father says.

My father's useless; he doesn't do anything but sigh and say we lost and that's it. And that ShinRa is rotten from the inside and will fall on her own, and we must simply bide our time and wait.

Wait, he says. Be patient, he says. The Silver Dragon moves, read the Annals and I will see. Patience. We are Wutai and Wutai is eternal. Wait, he says. Accept and wait. Wait!

It's easy for him to say; he never donned the green and yellow clothes to see what had happened to Wutai with his own eyes.

That's why I did it.

I've spoken the language of ShinRa since I was little--almost as long as I've spoken Wutai. As soon as I could talk, it seemed, lessons for me began. So I speak it...but I hate speaking it at court, to my father...but I don't have a choice; ShinRa's word is law, and their law is to use their words. I was really little when Wutai fell...but I'll never forget the bitterness of that day, of the treaty signed at the castle walls. I was there. I was there and they told me, everyone told me, "Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't show them your tears."

I didn't cry that day. I watched my father, the emperor, bow to them, bow to ShinRa, and then I had to swallow everything and bow to them, too. My head had to touch the floor. I had to bow to them. Me, a daughter of Shinobu! To them! And my father...I hated ShinRa so much that day. As long as I live, I will never forget the shame of that day. I don't deserve my real name, not until I've gotten face back for that.

I hate ShinRa.

And I hated them more after I told my father I was leaving. He couldn't object to me following the footsteps of Kisaragi no Takenobu, going out and seeing the people for myself.

It's been four years since the war ended, and it's terrible. ShinRa won't do anything to help us; ShinRa wants us to wallow in our shame and punishes us for having opposed it. So many places are still in ruins; there are towns and villages that were razed to the ground and are nothing but little burnt bits of earth, even now, years later. Everyone outside of the cities looks...they all look like I felt, when my father made me bow to ShinRa.

This is ShinRa's fault.

I see pictures of the rest of the world. Everyone seems happy, they seem to have everything...and we don't have anything and none of them care. We are Wutai and they hate us, so no one cares that our faces have been rubbed into the dirt and we are nothing now; that even our pride is gone.

I wandered around Wutai, seeing everything for myself and hating ShinRa more and more every day when I saw how miserable everyone was, how much they're all suffering because ShinRa took everything from us, all of our materia, and gave us nothing in return, not even one stinking power plant. But I didn't know what to do, how to fix things. I'm a Daughter of Shinobu and of the house of Kisaragi; it's my responsibility to fix this, and I felt more helpless than I did when I was that little girl in her finest, about to be sent out to bow to the conquerors.

So I went to the Homeviewing Pavilion and just sat there for a while. They offered me the hall Kisaragi-no-Takenobu used whenever he was troubled. Supposedly Kisaragi-no-Takenobu would sit there and gaze out into the forest, but I'm not him; I don't need to look at trees. No, I took another place on the other side and looked out the other way, at the cities and towns that hid and protected the Homeviewing Pavilion and her secrets from ShinRa. I looked out towards the people and just thought, as hard as I could.

It was materia that built the Kanagawa and the Kisaragi Dynasties. The Kanagawa used the raw magic stones and forced the children of the Old Ones to war until they were all dead; the Kisaragi used materia.

I'm a Kisaragi to my core, and sometimes you've just got to go backwards to go forwards.

ShinRa is rotten. ShinRa's the rotten cotton, and I've got to remove it from Wutai, same as Kisaragi no Takenobu did. I've got to overthrow them and bring glory and honor back to my people.

Until I do that, I'll do this their way. Speak their words, use their name. And I'll get in the inside, somehow, and take what I need to build us up to burn away the rotten cotton.

I need materia, all the materia ShinRa stole from us. ShinRa stole from us; I'll steal it right back.

So for now I'm Yuffie Kisaragi.

But one day, I will be Kisaragi You Fei again.

Random question!

homasse99@yahoo.com — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:57:41 GMT

So, for any of y'all who have played FF7 and have kick-ass memories.

...What color clothes was Yuffie's dad wearing? Or know where I can find pics? My net connection is flaky at home and I actually have work to do at work now. X_x

Stupid Yuffie fic. Stupid me being nitpicky. GAH. I'm about halfway through it. GAH.

*grump*

Dear fic brain,

homasse99@yahoo.com — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:31:37 GMT

Dear fic brain,

I know. I KNOW. You love writing Wutai. You love writing the Wutai war now. I know you do.

However, are you forgetting how much we hate Yuffie?

Yes. You seem to be forgetting that. Why, I have no fucking idea. Are you forgetting I would rather shove red-hot pokers up my nostrils than write fucking Yuffie? I hate her. No, really, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate. The second she stole my treasure in CC, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate. I didn't like her and her daisy dukes and aggressively perky self anyway, but CC, and knowing in FF7 she knicks ALL your materia, really put her on me "Eat shit and die" list. I doooooooooooooooooon't. Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike. Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuufie. Even my hate of Gacktesis pales in comparison to the festering, seething, loathing I have of Yuffie Kisaragi.

So why, brain, why, are you trying to convince me to write a Yuffie-centric fic based on this song?

No. No. A thousand times, NO.

...fuck you for already starting writing the fic, brain.

NO love and seething unending hate for Yuffie,

jou

Rock on, Kermit the Roosevelt, with your muppety-name badassness.

homasse99@yahoo.com — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:43:27 GMT

THIS is the angle that needs to be pushed, yo. I had not even thought of this, but hooBOY is it ever true. If this goes to the Cali SC, I hope there are a flurry of amicus curiae briefs coming in pointing out why taking away established rights via a simple majority is a BAD THING. Even taking out the gay marriage bit, it sets a terrible precedent.

California’s same-sex marriage case affects all of us - Kermit Roosevelt

W00t! No longer afraid of my apartment going up in flames!

homasse99@yahoo.com — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:34:46 GMT

I have a new power cord! It is shiny and nice and has no frayed and exposed wires. This makes me very, very, very happy. :D

I also have what might be the first few lines of the "get jou a job with Squeenix" Reno fic. I...have no idea why it wants to be first person, but hey.

And because sharing is caring...

Yeah, so, protip. You see some shiny magical artifact-type thingy?

Don't go, "Hey, wonder what this does?" and shake it. Trust me, it don't end so good.