Dream Within a Dream

Too tired, can't write, can't think, can't anything. @_@

According to wordle, my current NaNo project's word cloud looks like:



The pairing is Zack/Cloud.

*cries*

Why is this happening?!

Some people are fucking suicidal.

Dude, can you not take your evening run during fucking rush hour? Or better yet, move the evening run in the morning! And if you must run at night, how about wearing something that isn't black?!

Grar!

What is wrong with people these days?

Edit:

4008 / 50000 words. 8% done!
About 2.6k words behind. Glah.

The thing with an on-going fandom, especially with canon that comes out slowly is that sometimes people just can't wait for the full story. And when that happens, people start growing attached to the characters before they know everything that's happened, start building elaborate back stories for these characters that they don't really actually know will be revealed some decades down the line and then BAM!

Canon disagrees.

Things can get pretty hard to swallow.

I know, for this is one of the reasons why Tezuka/Atobe pairing has been my OTP yet I feel less and less desire to write for it. Canon just fucks with my perception of these characters too much.

But this isn't about Tenipuri. No, this is yet another FFVII rambling.

( Because characterization is difficult )

1049 / 50000 words. 2% done!

Yeah, not doing too well on my first day. ^^;

Also, no porn yet, am upset I haven't reached the fun stuff.

OTP!

Um, I have nothing more to say. Just wasted an entire day watching AMVs and being all "bawl, Zack x Cloud is so baaaaaaaaaaawl!"

Yeah. I fail at life.

(On that note, I'm beginning to realize that a lot of my OTPs involve one half of the pairing dying horribly. I'm an awful person.)

Edit:
Cashew plans to NaNo again this year. Clearly, she's crazy, as she's super behind on things and really shouldn't be having time to NaNo. WTF self?

Note to self:
Attempt this kink that seems semi-abandoned...

Cashew's perfect RPG would be a blend of the following:

1. FFVII's battle customization
   
   
2. Kingdom of Loathing's self-referential humor
   
   
3. Guild Wars' party flexibility
   
   
4. GaiaOnline's avatar customization
   
   
5. Pokemon's inventory management
   
   
6. Every other online games' special event items
   
   
7. WoW's mounts/pet system
   
   
8. And CLAMP's art.
   
   
9. Oh, and Chocobos. Those are a must.

Story? What story? XD

Sadly, this will never happen. *sigh*

I've never really got cosplay until...

The Battle You Never Saw

Quotes:
-"What are you waiting for?" "My time gauge to go up." *ding!*
-"Anime convention...tentacle monsters...I don't wanna get raped!"
-"Miss...miss...miss..." "Oh c'mon!" *punch* "9,999 dead."

And of course, it's sequal The Battle You Never Saw 2.0

Quotes:
-"I superglued them on." "Why?!"
-"So, bought us a summer home."
-"What the hell are we going to do about food?!" *WARK*

*giggles*

My resting heart rate is 52 beats per minute.

*freaks out*

(P.S. Yes, that's on the low side.)

Edit:
Okay, they changed my medication so my heart won't beat quite so slow. *phew*

So finally got a chance to catch up on Tenipuri music, aka listened to Oki's new singing and the first impression is thus:

Why are the chords so awkward?

Don't get me wrong, some of the songs were pretty decent (not all of them, but it's Oki so even the weird ones weren't that bad), but they had the oddest arrangements. I'm not even talking about the general atmosphere of the songs, which it seems the composer can't decide on, but the fact that all of the new songs were just awkward to sing. There's these really weird minor scale jumps all over the place and generally notes that don't mesh in very well with the melody.

Not even going to touch on the oddness of the rhythms.

It's almost like whoever wrote the song was trying to be a bitch and make things hard.

But it's still somehow better than the first album.

Y'know, I'm pretty sick of the argument that piracy is killing [insert industry here].

The entire argument relies on the unfounded belief that if a person had no way of pirating the video/music/show/whatever, they would then shell out the money to buy the product.

This...this is a logical fallacy.

People who are willing to pay for a product will pay regardless. Those who aren't...would rather go without than shelling out the money for whatever medium they're looking for. Even if by some miraculous event the internet filesharing completely implodes on itself, sales are still not going to go up.

Legality of piracy aside, pirating is not the reason an industry is failing nor should it be the blame. Think of it this way: people can read books for free in a bookstore, it doesn't mean the books are being bought any slower or faster. Shrink wrapping a book simply puts off the customer base, because they can't go through and see if they enjoy the content enough to want to own the material.

Personal anecdote: I can have the entire collection of Sherlock Holmes for free on the interwebs, legally. I still shell out the money to buy the complete edition because I love the books so much. This buying has nothing to do with the availability of a free version and everything to do with the perceived worth of the material I'm buying. In other words, a manga series collection is not worth buying at the same price of a 1000 paged volume of The Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes and there's no way you can convince me otherwise. Similarly, if a single DVD out of a 12 volume DVD collection is going to cost me $20 to buy with substandard subtitles, well, it's just not going to happen. Sorry.

Usually, when I buy whole fish, the marketplace person helps me to scale it before I take it home, thus saving me hours and hours of work. Today, unfortunately, the usual person was not there, instead a deli dude was filling in. This, of course, meant he didn't know how to scale a fish.

Which meant I had to do it.

The thing is, while I've watched my mom do it many times when I was little, I've never actually learned how to scale a fish. It turns out that scaling a fish is far harder than it looks. First, the fish is slippery, so getting a good grip is nigh impossible. Next, the fish has spines along its back and stomach, causing me to accidentally stab myself on said spines when my fingers slipped. Last, scales don't actually come off that easily and tends to spray all over the place when they finally do come off.

Needless to say, I had to clean up a huge mess.

But damn was fish yummy. ^_^

Okay, here's the thing, this selection of 5 best games soundtracks pretty much outshines everything from Uematsu that I've heard yet, and I'm listened to hours of his "representative" works.

The thing is, I know a lot of gamers tend to associate good music with certain epic scenes during the game, thus latching on said pieces of music as being great and whatnot, but good music should stand on its own merit. Even though I haven't played any of the games from which the top 5 list came from, I can't help but adore the sample that I hear. Not so much with Uematsu pieces that leave me going, "Okay, lots of cacophony, now what?"

In fact, the linked list of songs is one of the few lists that I can listen to and actually say the music is well composed. It's rather depressing when I go through top ten lists of gaming music only to find myself with a headache thanks to bad choices.

Was doing some stretches and tried a cartwheel. Could still do it, but was totally fearful of my neck the entire time. Then tried some bridges and basically felt my back give out.

I used to be able to do these at the drop of a hat. Not so much anymore, I guess. >.<

Because I saw a crop and decided I wanted a colored version. *shifty eyes*

Because this is relevant to Cashew's interests for two more months, maybe. :p

Also, blatant ripoff, oh yeah.

Quick note: Some major considerations for a qualifying gaming snack includes...

1. Ease of eating (i.e. will it get the controller messy or interrupt with my game?)
2. Ease of preparation
3. Ease of clean up
4. Pricing
5. Availability

Without further ado, the list.

( Cashew's Top 10 Gaming Snacks )

Perm accounts are going at $40 bucks.

I overpaid by $10. *wants $10 back*

Ah well, regret and hindsight. :p


In FFVII news, I'm beginning to see why people bitch so much about the storyline. I mean, it's not exactly that bad, at least not by industry standards, but does boggle the mind as to why heroes who are trying the save the planet from being smashed into smithereens have time to spend hours and hours racing chocobo for breeding. Wouldn't it have made more sense to allow the player to play the mini-games after defeating Sephiroth? Or earlier in the game, y'know, before the whole tragedy twist thing.

You know what? Never mind. The fanfic is infinitely worse.

Also, just a quick question to those with more musical knowledge than I: What is the name of the piece playing in the background during the cutscene? I've gone through the entire OST for FFVII (and believe me when I say that takes time and effort and way too much energy), and I've yet to find a match. It's driving me crazy because I'm convinced Zack's theme is a re-arrangement of this piece.

Yeah, an FFVII entry that's not about Cloud or Zack, shocking, I know. (Although, knowing what I do about FFVII, I'm now playing the game and pretending that the voice in Cloud's head is actually Zack speaking from beyond the grave and still looking out for our emo hero. Hey, a girl can dream, can't she? I hope when the eventual remake comes - you know it's going to happen, no way Square Enix won't squeeze this cash cow then possibly butcher it when it's dry - they cast the voice with Suzumura instead of making Sakurai talk to himself. I mean, notice how the voices pretty much stop after Aerith dies? Clearly she's keeping Zack busy in the lifestream. *nodnod* Anyway.)

Here's the thing I never could understand: Why this irrational hatred for Cait Sith?

Look, I understand that when you're at that super important last battle and Cait Sith's slot lands on the epically failed party wipe, this can drive some gamers to crazy homicidal rages, it's still not good enough of a reason to hate him. After all, he is a chance character, and it's always a bit of fun knowing at any moment it could become a "rocks fall, everyone dies" moment. And besides which, if you truly are stupid enough to not abuse that save point before a boss fight, then you probably deserve the party wipe.

(Just to say, I'm probably feeling much less hatred due to the fact that I use both save points and save states on the emulator, but on the other hand, I got a game over on the first boss of epic easy, so yeah.)

Okay, so many the fanboys are just bitter that Cait Sith always screws with their meticulously planned battles while I find the idea hilarious and possibly adds some extra amusement. I enjoy protagonist torture.

On the other hand, I totally love Cait Sith for having a free weapon (megaphone! I can't be the only one to find that hilarious) that can load up 8 materias and allows me to level them up much, much faster (although I tend to abuse enemy skill because, hey, who wouldn't want free mp and healing?). This also frees up Cid so he can level up the "All" materia on his lances of doom. (I also love Cid for being completely unsympathetic to Cloud's mental issues. Hee! Moar wangst.)

Because after learning that mastering an "All" materia means I can sell it for 1.4 million currency and thus solve all of my money problems is very much yes. (I hate grinding for money so that I can mindlessly upgrade the party. Yes, I know I should consult the guide more carefully, but I just want to watch the cut scenes. Which is weird, because I tend to hate cut scenes in most games.)

Okay, Cashew does not profess to be a hardcore gamer nor even that much of a widely played gamer, or even countable amongst the "casuals", since Cashew's idea of gaming is sitting down and playing a game until real life comes knocking at the door and then stop for however many years it takes to get real life off her back then start again.

But here's the thing about games that I've managed to summarize up in my limited experience.

Shooter games, without exception, suck.

Now, I know, I know, some of the best games these days are first or third person shooters, but the thing is, I just can't play them.

As in, I physically cannot play shooter games. See, I have motion sickness. Even the act of watching a shooter game is enough to make me sick. Not because of the gore, oh no, it's the twisting and turning and camera adjustments that kills the game for me. I literally become motion sick when trying to play a shooter game.

Hell, it took me almost forever before I could even get used to Guild War's camera controls (which is to say, I leave it in one angle and never touch it again).

Maybe if they made more games like Duck Hunt I'll be able to start enjoying shooters again. W_W

FFVII Hey, Mickey!
FFVII Ouran
FFVII Nandemonai dance
Cloud goes to the convenience store
Birthday Cloud
Cloud Be Happy
FFVII Danjo
Crisis Core Lucky Star opening
Crisis Core Utena
FFVII Compilation Code Geass R2 ending
FFVII Compilation Baccano opening
FFVII Compilation Kodomo no Jikan
FFVII Heaven and Hell w/ guest stars
Dissidia Caramelldansen
Dissidia Build up with Protein

And now for something completely different:
Pikachu Dango