Final Fantasy Fun

Me and my bizarre shoulder kink. *hides face* I can't remember what possessed me to let slip this personal foible, but I can't really regret the indiscretion, since Flynn-the-Cat keeps catering to it.

Putting this here for ease of future ogling; thank you!






Back: Nyssa and Romana from classic Doctor Who
Front: Lulu and Fang

So I was pawing through more of leyna  's fantastic fanart thanks to the new LJ --> DW refugee friending meme.

I'm sure that I've recced her wonderful Lulu portrait in the past. (large image warning. Bonus: Fran portrait!)

It's worth digging through her whole journal. For Final Fantasy fans, I want to recommend a couple of Fang paintings, one with Vanille and one sparring practice scene with Lightning in which, so help me, Fang is tickling that exposed bit of tummy on Ms. Supersoldier's uniform. My interpretation is that Fang is attempting to seduce or simply pester, while Lightning doesn't know whether to break character and squirm or just chop off the offending foot. 

However, it's the Vanille/Fang "You Are My Only Home" painting that I especially wish to rec. Break out the angst piano, folks; it's the Last Lesbians in the World. 

>> Both Fang paintings here.

ETA: I just looked at the Fang/Vanille again, and you should go. Look at it now. Even if you don't bally know the characters. The colors are gorgeous. 

In other news, I have a happy dilemma: do I post all 4800 5100 words of Chapter 49 or break it into two installments? I may go with the two-installments thing for mugs and because that way I can keep working on the next chapter with more lead time. On the other hand, it really doesn't have a comfortable breakpoint.

 

2218 / 50000 words. 4% done!

 Apparently, everyone hated the curate's egg that was XIII, or couldn't forgive XIII-2. (For various valid reasons, and yet...)

Whereas I loved the characters in XIII (and yes, the shiny graphics and battle system), and had my heartstrings yanked everywhere and all my game kinks satisfied by the mythic/epic/personal angst blend of XIII-2. I enjoyed seeing a kickass female character receive the Sephiroth over-the-top treatment (only on the side of good). Lightning's Valkyrie badassitude rocked my world. I loved XIII-2's time travel and all the bewildering paradoxes and alternate universes. I loved the CJ Cherryh style climax. I just didn't want a Tasha Yar ending. I couldn't believe, from all the heavy-handed hints about hope and sisterhood, that the saga would just end THERE. Obviously, SE has GOT to resolve the story, can't leave it like that.

All I asked for is good characters, good world, good story, and emotional punch. The long-delayed reunion between the two sisters, when OF COURSE Serah had to make a terrible choice? Third time I've cried in a video game, ever. And that sad song in the epically dark future singing about being the last child in the entire world ever born? Yes, gotcher angst right here. That whole sequence from Serah and Noel getting separated until the story dissolved into token crack epic battle with boring Big Bad was one of my favorite game arcs ever.

I like the XIII series. I know, it's not old school FF or glory days FF (although the angst, characters, and mythic overlays remind me of X). It's its own thing. I just hope to gosh they finish the Lightning game on the PS3, because I'm not sure I can justify a new console to find out how the story ends.

In discussing a mutual obsession with Sissy, I have come up with an AU plotline for Final Fantasy XIII which would've made the endgame more satisfying and fixed at least one problem that probably jumped out as a sore point for most game players, even those who are not in any way hung up on Paula Tiso.

( Fixing the Colonel Nabaat Problem... )

This is a repost of a comment I made buried waaaay down in an LJ discussion. I thought I'd throw it out here. I don't think there are significant spoilers.

Preface this by the fact that I find I like games for the following reasons, in the following order: Characters (including their interactions, backstories, psychology, memorable lines, voices); myths and archetypes; setting (I am a graphics junkie, but also care deeply about worldbuilding); story; game mechanics; plot. (You can sell me on a childishly simple storyline, plot holes, or a story that's been done a million zillion times, if you do other things well.)  


( Repost... )

Final Fantasy XIII script question for someone who knows/has played the Japanese version.

( Spoilers thru chapter 9... )

ETA: hee hee, just found an Undub. Instead of "Tell that to my jaw," the Japanese version is "I'm going to get hit again, aren't I?"

So, mad Russians finally drive me to Dreamwidth. I've always felt favorably about it, since most of the FF gang has migrated. I'm just bummed because I had my LJ set up exactly the way I like it, and it's a permanent account, so, all the icons forever. But usericons are minor.

I shall of course cross-post, and keep checking LJ -- in fact I'm still checking LJ first, before DW, because my brain is hard-wired to think of LJ as "home base." But I don't trust its stability. From now on I shall treat DW as the primary account and LJ as the mirror.

So there's that.

Second thing is that I'm playing my way through FFXIII, finally. I meant to keep a game journal, but, well, I didn't. It is such a curate's egg of a game, but for the most part I'm enjoying it. I want to tell heavenscalyx to play it, except portions of it would make her and Rose scream. But there is a canon lesbian relationship in the party, at least as canon as Sailor Moon (original, not English dub). It's a pity one of the pair is a bit of a sap, but I am happily focusing on their ship and not the parts of the game that work less well for me. I am relieved that several of the characters have turned out to be less annoying than they were for the first hour of playing time.

And, oh, Fang. Square finally gave me the female character I have been waiting for. Except I wish she had magic, too, but I guess that would be too much Mary Sue in one package.

Also, is it my imagination, or was someone dressing Lightning in Utena clothes? Plus roses and rose petals.

I'm up to, uh, the Palamecia, Luck Be a Lady bit. Trying to figure out which combinations of characters are useful and failing miserably...I keep running around in the first spot where you're allowed to mix and match teams, and dying because I've screwed up. I did too much level-grinding with Lightning + Fang + Hope and learned every way to use them, and now it seems like trying any other party, I'm missing all my favorite tools.

LHAD is jammed like 20 keys of a typewriter smacked there by an exuberant 6-year-old. I'm half regretting posting the last chapter: I loved the first half of it, with the gang gathered on the bridge of the airship decompressing, and that was fresh, new, scene so easy to write. The second half was difficult because I'd written Lulu Post-Sin 4 years ago, almost the first thing I ever wrote, and I've had years and years to build up various alternate versions of that moment, each of which had some emotional punch, but trying to pick and choose and stitch together all of them, I feel like I lost something. I'm almost tempted to retcon and post the original version of that scene, if it would let me move forward. So frustrating. I fear it may be that way all the way to the end. I wrote early drafts of the concluding chapters first, and I find the part of a story i've written and visualized and imagined the longest is the hardest to write when I get to it, because I wind up trying to connect all the patchwork pieces, favorite moments and cool lines of dialog like a quilt, instead of blazing a path forward.