inquiry and bloodlust

FFXIII-2 is fucking fantastic. The plot is good, the gameplay is good, and Hope! I loved him in the first game; he's been my PS3 background since I unlocked that theme. It's really great to see him ten years later, all grown up and hot successful. Seeing Serah come into her own was great as well, and I can't help but love Noel. The ending left me a bit stunned and annoyed, but I'll probably be first in line to buy XIII-3, so good job, Square, I guess. Oh, and I love the rambunctious chocobos. Not only are they awesome and pretty, their music is BADASS. And hilarious. Pretty much the greatest song ever.

In other news, I totally ship Noel/Hope. Started out because they're both so lovely, but now I have legit ship reasoning. Sigh.

In other other news, I've been oddly productive today. Working on plush for ontdcreepy's Spring Crawl, cleaning the kitchen, unpacking the most gorgeous doll ever, finishing my art for originalbigbang's Reverse Bang... help me keep this going?

Stolen from anglepoiselamp:
1) Name a fandom. Or two. Or ten. However many you want!
2) I'll draw a picture of my favorite character from said fandom.

Ready? Go!

Edit(11:45pm): I'll start this thing off with some fandoms Jaime suggested: ( Mythbusters, Persona 4, Community )
( Edit(3/4): Have some Glee and FFXIII-2! )

Stolen from carolinecrane and jengeorge:
Post an excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
( The Glee Stuff )
( The P4 Stuff )
( The Other Stuff: SYTYCD, FFVIII, Original )

Oh my god, you guys, RuPaul's Drag Race is back! I kind of had a super-early favorite going into it, and now that I've seen the first episode? ( Spoilers for said episode! )

Mmm, and the stubbly new pit crew member? Mmmmm. Approved.

Not approved, however, is this (HORRIFICALLY SPOILERY FOR FFXIII) FFXIII-2 trailer. The fact that there's going to be a sequel at all pisses me off, as XIII was a complete story. It didn't need elaboration. It especially didn't need elaboration in this particular form. One of the things I loved about the first game was the delicate balance it struck between celebrating and deconstructing RPG conventions. This trailer portrays the sequel as some very... standard anime/JRPG woman warrior thing. I don't know. There's no guarantee that the game won't be fantastic (though I'm doubtful since, as I said before, XIII was a complete story in and of itself), but the way they're choosing to introduce it makes me uncomfortable. Why you do this to me, Squenix?

I've been boosting my wardrobe pretty heavily lately, including many additions from Threadless, the most recent of which arrived today along with this sticker sheet:

I couldn't find this particular set scanned anywhere and I figured someone else might be interested in seeing it. For the curious, the shirts referenced are, left to right, bottom to top: Case Study #48: Bunny Family Anomalies, God Hates Techno, Cookie Loves Milk (which I own :D), Funkalicious, Runnin' Rhino, and Peace.

Now if I can just get to a Zara and manage to find this Kurt hat, I may explode with style-y happiness!

They're finally introducing an Isul doll. Isn't he gorgeous? Just wait until there's a dandy version. I'll be $100 poorer.

So Laguna's officially in Duodecim now which... on the one hand, Laguna Laguna, but on the other, SOD OFF OLD MAN.

How do you guys feel about fanfic companion stories? Like, I read this one prompt that really intrigued me, but it's going to require a lot of set-up and will still (by virtue of the angsty prompt) have some far-fetched elements. I'd like to write it, yet at the same time I'd like to write the set-up I have planned and then follow it through to completion without introducing the big wham the prompt calls for. I guess in the end I'd have a branching fic - two stories that share the same beginning, but then take two decidedly different turns. Is that something that would be interesting to people, or should I just stick with one or the other?

For Halloween trick-or-treating, anglepoiselamp gave me: "How about posting a picspam about all your favourite videogame critters? By which I mean anything non-human, I guess." About ten minutes into my list-making, I realized how difficult it was to find good pictures of some of these guys, so instead I hit up youtube for some fun footage. Hope a vidspam will suffice.

( And here we go! )

That's all, folks! I'm sure as soon as I hit post I'll realize I forgot something, but for now, I'm just gonna go to bed and hope to sleep off the remnants of the virus I've been fighting for almost two weeks now. Blah.

I finished FFXIII a couple weeks ago (on my mom's birthday, which she heartily approved of) and am now whittling away at the post-game missions. Not sure why everyone hates it so much - I'm in love. The cast is great, the battle system is set up smartly and fun to use, and the story is an excellent deconstruction piece. Given the superstitions around the number 13 (in Western culture at least, and yes, FF is Japanese in origin, but I figure Squenix had to be aware of the connotations), the fact that this game is a subversion of so many standard RPG/epic components struck me as kind of brilliant. And it's just fun. And the ending! ( Cut for MASSIVE spoilers! )

I'm also very very very happy with the new Jimmy Eat World CD "Invented". It's a true return to form. After the utterly amazing "Stay on My Side Tonight" EP was followed by the utterly mediocre "Chase This Light", I was concerned about the direction they were taking - namely, none at all. I needn't have worried. They still sound like themselves, only veered a bit more towards an indie rock vibe with clapping beats and a guest female vocalist. It's pretty, it's melancholy, it's at turns harmonious and driving. It's just plain good music. Most importantly, it doesn't sound like a rehash of old CDs. It's new Jimmy Eat World and it's delicious. Congrats, guys. You really nailed this one. "Invented" just might stand on the same tier as "Clarity" and "Futures" in my brain, and that, my friends, says something.

I'm also also happy about the way my work is going (I now have three committee members! Sure, two of them are my advisers and the third doesn't fulfill any requirements besides awesomeness, but still!) and my plans for this weekend. My birthday's on Monday, so we're celebrating on Saturday instead by going to Disney World. Lunch by the Haunted Mansion, dinner in Japan at Epcot, I'm thinking. Plus, we got daycare reservations for Benny at the new pet resort, so he ought to have a fun day too. Then, I'm going to make cupcakes to take to class and the lab on Monday so I can force all the stubbly men to eat pink frosting and sprinkles. It will be glorious.

For tonight? Started out with sushi and Futurama with friends, and will finish with milk stout, fashion design, and Kenny vs. Spenny. Mmhmm. I like my life.

So I mentioned in the post before this that my household consists of me and my three boys. One would be Jaime, who, if you're familiar with this journal, you're likely to be familiar with. Another would be Jacks, our adorable little corn snake, who I never posted pictures of. ( Let's remedy that! ) And the last would be... well, you see this adorable dog? You see the status listed next to his name? ( You know why that is? )

Dude. Pet ownership. I love it so much.

Speaking of additions to our household, we just bought a new TV. An HDTV, even. It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm already psyched about it. You know why? Because we got it so we can get a PS3. And we're going to get a PS3 so I can play FFXIII. Yeah, I know, I'm obsessed. At least I have a hobby that makes me happy, I guess? Right?

Snake. Dog. FFXIII. And, of course, Jaime. The home life, oh, it is sweet.

I lost one of my help_haiti auctions, but I won the other, and group meeting was today, but now it's done for another week! So!

Picked up from avaaricious: The first TEN people to comment on this post get to request that I write a drabble ficlet, because I like them more, of any pairing/character. Feel free to include a prompt as well so I'm not just running blind. Oh, and the first spot is reserved for terra, as she gave me a prompt many moons ago that I never filled, so... I'll do it now! See? I don't completely suck.

01) terra - FFVI: Locke/Terra, "sand"
02) anglepoiselamp - P4/DQ, "Inaba is infested by Dragon Quest slimes and it's up to Souji's gang to deal with it somehow"
03) anglepoiselamp - FFVI: Kefka, "in a non-villainous capacity"
04) instrumentality - NGE: Kaworu/Rei, "we're one, but we're not the same"
05) dresstokill - PW: Phoenix/Mia, "dating the boss"
06) vithrar - P4/SMB, "some unsuspecting characters from another game, say p4, chance upon a certain mushroom kingdom..."
07)
08)
09)
10)

There likely aren't ten people reading this that would actually like a ficlet from me, so go ahead and request a couple if you have more than one idea. I'll try to knock these out over the next few evenings. Go go go!

Fri 1/22 - I'm planning on getting these five written out tonight. :D
Tue 2/02 - Okay, so it took me far longer than anticipated to actually start on this. I finally did 'em, though! I figure if I can't sleep, I can at least be productive.

Hiding at home, feeling a bit asthmatic from a nearby controlled burn and trying to not think about how much work I need to do before tomorrow... it's not that bad, really. Jaime's a good caretaker, and if I end up still feeling crappy tomorrow, hey! Work extension kinda! Uh. Yeah. Anyway, I figured since I couldn't do much that might mess with my lungs today, I'd do an art meme, and then while I was scanning that, I discovered a bunch of stuff I forgot to post... until now.

Oh hey, as a side note - anyone interested in coloring some line art? I did a not-obscene-but-suggestive Joshua/Neku doodle for the TWEWY kink meme that I never got around to coloring, and it's kind of pointless to post now, as it doesn't technically fulfill the kink without the necessary palette. I'd still like to get it out there, though. Any takers?

The usual warnings apply: some het, some slash, some crack, some fluff, some cross-dressing, and one instance of a dick-suit. Amazingly enough, no big spoilers, I think. Here we go!

( Death Note )
( Persona 3 )
( Persona 4 )
( The World Ends With You )
( Crossovers & All the Rest )
And the doodles I did today - ( The Polyvore Meme )

I figured it was worth compiling the icons I've made for contests lately (that I'm allowed to show off right now). Alright - let's go!

( Awards )
( All the icons! )

And that's it for now! I'll post more as the contests roll along.