ReadingLirael, As You Like It, The English Patient, Heart of Darkness, Suikoden III, Candidate for Goddess
Watching House, Rick Mercer's Monday Report, Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, Corner Gas, Aishiteruze Baby, Prince of Tennis, Hikaru no Go
Playing The Bard's Tale, Katamari Damacy, Curse of Monkey Island, Final Fantasy VI, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Pretty Barbie Dressup Party Final Fantasy X-2(group gaming)
Back-burner Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Star Ocean: The Second Story, Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, Planescape: Torment, Final Fantasy VII
Obsessing Firefly, Erik and Ray, Impulse/Bart Allen, Ford Prefect, Monkey Island, Nostalgia.
Upcoming Things of Importance January 5 First day of classes January 14 Birthday party January 16 Jaryn and Matt Are Old Day
layout
Is by Meimi, that wonderful Goddess who brings joy and happiness to the hearts of Ingrids.
This time, Meimi brought joy by doing a layout of Isumi Shinichirou and Waya Yoshitaka, of Hikaru no Go. It is full of wub.
.
FFX: I love Cid
4/3/2004 12:47:34 AM
"'I came...' Yuna begins, causing me to start gagging. Oh, then she finishes her sentence. Whew. 'I came to stop you!' she says in a voice about as threatening as a pink fluffy bunny floating on a lavender cloud surrounded by pixie dust." -Jeanne, Final Fantasy X Part 13, Videogame Recaps.
Tomorrow, supposedly, Dad's flight is going to be getting in from Vancouver and, in theory, he'll call me and swing by and pick me up and I'll go to Prince Albert for less than twenty-four hours, so I can get presentsdo laundryeat real food listen to Wesley's Palm Sunday service. 'cause the choir is good, for a bunch of old people.
Spent tonight zoning out in front of FFX, in between wanting to kill fucktards who play loud, loud music from their cars. More annoying than Tightass they are.
The group of idiots is still stuck under lake Macalania, and someone's busy singing in the background. Tightass is more concerned with the singing than getting out of the lake. There's some bull explanation about the singing being a gift from the temple fayth that . . . doesn't make sense or anything.
Apparently whatever the song is, it was around in Zanarkand too, because we find out from Auron that both Jecht -and- Tightass used to sing it.
Crappily.
Tightass figures out some stuff that was already known (like the fact that Sin is what connects Spira and Zanarkand . . . as if the whole thing with him coming to Spira from Zanarkand when Sin swallowed him wasn't enough . . .), and the singing stops as sings turn Bad and Sin arrives.
Sin brings confusion, and the evil white screen, wankese, and flashbacks as Tightass finally accepts that Sin is Jecht.
How many hours has he been told that for, now?
There's some confusing stuff where Tightass sort of talks to his dad/Sin before the white screen appears again and we find Tightass floating in some water for no apparent reason.
. . . Tightass is alone, but not for long. He falls into a random battle, and Lulu and Auron appear to save his ass. Thus follows everyone randomly wandering around the desert, looking for the rest of the party (well, Yuna, they don't -care- about anyone else).
When everyone -but- Yuna is together again, Rikku reveals that she knows where they are - the island where the Al Bhed live. Boy howdy yay. Rikku continues that Yuna's probably in the creatively named Home where the Al Bhed all hang out and do their wacky machina things, and she'll show them where it is . . . if they promise not to reveal the location to any Yevonites.
Like the Yevonite are in any mood to listen to a bunch of people who killed a maester, y0.
I proceed to spend the next who-knows-how-long wandering through the desert, battling evil plant things that lurk in bits, and cactaurs, and giant sandworms that pointless swallow up a party member and then regurgitate them with ABSOLUTELY NO DAMAGE DONE. The hell?
We get to Home, only to find it's currently under massive attack by the Guado, which means no rest for me. Instead, I have to wander through the area while someone repeats, over and over through an intercome, 'I'm annoying, huh?'
It makes me want to kill. Maybe that's it's purpose.
There's battles and battles and me stumbling into a random room where I'm ambushed by monsters and then open some stuff that's password protected . . . in Al Bhed. Thankfully, I've found enough Al Bhed primers that I can make an educated guess as to the answer, and I get free stuff.
The search for Yuna continues while Rikku's dad is waiting impatiently to blow Home up. Rikku gets angst and cries on Wakka, who's finally gotten over his Al Bhed hatred, I guess, by seeing their entire HOME being totaled.
Thank god.
The mystery of the disappearing summoners is revealed in the cutscene after this because some people haven't figured out that the Al Bhed are still kidnapping summoners. There's this whole angsty scene as Tightass confronts Rikku about it, laying the smackdown about preventing the summoners from saving Sin, and everyone gets this 'Yuna's going to die~' look on their faces that Tightass fails to pick up on. He shouts questions when no one explains things to him, and everyone leaves in this stupid slow motion shot to actually try and -find- Yuna.
In the room where the summoners are being kept, there is a distinct lack of Yuna. There is Atobe, though, and the trio of brothers, who, well, tell us that Yuna isn't there. In case we couldn't see that.
Once there, Tightass -finally- finds out, with sad confessions and crying and shit, that Yuna's going to die if she defeats Sin.
FINALLY.
Tightass realize he's been an idiot encouraging Yuna on her pilgrimage, and we get a flashback to that -horrible-, -painful-, -awful- laughter scene back in Luca.
Now, I know some of us gamers have short attention spans . . . but that scene was so painful we will NEVER BE ABLE TO FORGET IT. I will have forgotten my own name, but I'll still be able to remember that hideous scene.
Anyway, after the pain of revelation, everyone escapes Home, and gets onto an airship Rikku's dad (the game's Cid) has. On the airship there's this awesome scene where Cid throws Tightass across the room while he's sobbing about needing to find Yuna and apologize.
I love Cid.
The airship flies off, and the Al Bhed blow up Home with big missiles. Everyone is Very Sad. But not for long, because they're off to find Yuna and save her from the Guado!
Tightass wanders around for a bit talking to people while the search for Yuna continues, and finds out nothing of interest, so he eventually returns to the area where all the important people are, to overhear a fight between Cid and Auron about Yuna's fate (assuming they even save her from the Guado) that reveals stuff we already knew about Cid being Yuna's uncle.
Thankfully, Rikku's Brother has found Yuna by now - in the process of marrying Seymour. Everyone is, of course, shocked.
They head off to Bevelle, where Yuna and Seymour are getting hitched, and as they go, there's an attack of fiends. Whee!
Cid wants to blow the ship up, which makes me like him even more, but Rikku stops him. I mourn the lack of shit being blown up.
I kill fiends and the ship is attacked by the guardian pink flying worm of Bevelle, so I have to fight that, too. While standing on the airship. Despite the fact that the airship has perfectly good blow-shit-up missiles.
The battle isn't that hard. Tightass and Rikku can tell Cid to move the ship for . . . reasons I'm not quite aware of, and I pull through it okay. The problem is after, when the group surfs on cables down to where Yuna is, and I have to fight a bunch of guards.
I get my ass kicked by these bastards with flamethrowers and get a fucking game over.
Full of seething bitterness, I turn Hugo off and get some tea, vowing revenge on people with flamethrowers who aren't me.
Inwardly rejoicing over the promise of death, Almighty Ingrid, Signing Off
Officially the least crappy birthday ever
4/1/2004 10:44:11 AM
"I also sincerely hope that the person you are infatuated with is not Sengoku Kiyosumi, for then you are quite insane." - Inui Sadahara, Advice Column #2, Match Point.
I don't keep up with Match Point anymore (I think I've mentioned this before - Christmas holidays, coupled with no internet for several weeks, plus the sheer sprawling hugeness of it all . . .). But Meia does, because she rocks, and she gave me the link to Sengoku-and-Inui's new advice column entry. Because, dude, Sengoku. Awesome way to start out the morning. You go, lucky leprechaun!
In other news, for those who might not have heard the details yet, yesterday was not only my twentieth birthday, but it was the least sucky birthday I've had in -years-.
Jenn messaged me saying she had my birthday present and was going babysquatting, so she could drop it off on her way there. I, never being oppossed to random gifts, said sure. She came by around 6ish and asked if I could help her get it out of the trunk, since it was kind of big. I said yes, pulled on some socks and shoes, and went out to the car with her.
Geoff the evil trunk monkey sprung out, I yelled at him and hit him, was given stuff, and told me that I was going out for supper.
We drove to Sarri's, and Sarri wouldn't let us in, because she was still working on my birthday present. So we sat in Jenn's car and waited, listening to Toast, and Geoff got antsy because he wanted to hear 'I Pulled My Groin'.
Eventually Sarri and Jaryn came out, I was given a sparkly purple gift bag that would put Mizuki to shame, and we went to the restaurant.
At the restaurant, while we waited for a table, Matt and Shelly appeared. My hair was pulled on, people were introduced, the world did not explode, and we got a table.
There were random conversations, I filled Matt in on the new Suikoden IV info, told him about my progress in FFX, bitched about the butterflies and had everyone laugh at me, and we argued about whether or not a ninja would beat a three-headed monkey in a fight.
Of course, ninja always wins.
I had a very nice veal marsala (which has many leftovers, since I filled up on bread!), people sang at me (twice - first the Arrogant Worms song, and then the entire restaurant sang the proper birthday song) and I threatened to stab Matt with my fork.
There was desert, yummy yummy oreo cheesecake, and people paid for things, and Matt got my present out of the Mattmobile. And for some reason Matt decided he wanted to ride around in Jenn's trunk for a bit. So we all piled into the car (Jaryn the bugger stole my seat, so I had to squish into the back with three other people) and drove around, but couldn't find any speed bumps, pot holes, or hills.
People parted ways, we went to Sarri's, where someone decided to stick a candle into a macaroon and have me blow it out while Jaryn videotaped. My mum called, and people looked at Sarri's mold.
And it was officially the least crappy birthday in many a year.
I got a good haul, too.
Happy birthday wishes from Meia (plus a declaration of my brilliance and general wonderfulness), Meg, Meimi, Katie, Puu, and Meril. A new layout for Logic and Chaos from bell (who also called me an evil lawyer among cacti <3), of Akio and cacti! It's awesome! An e-card and a phonecall from Stephen. A phonecall from my mum. A new AIM icon featuring the Dukylon boys -stripping- from Jinxer. A poster with a happy bunny on it saying 'I'll be nicer, when you're smarter' from Jenn. A gift certificate from Geoff (GTO~!). A t-shirt with an evil bear on it and the words 'Of all the times I've wanted to kill you, this is the most recent' on it (an Ingridism, y0) from Sarri. A copy of "Deus Ex: The Conspiracy" from Matt. Although the real gift was -not- being given his copy of FFX-2. And, of course, everyone chipped in on my meal.
Best birthday -ever- (even if I didn't get cracked out Vegas Sengoku/Kou-chan fic - but I'm working on that ~cracks knuckles).
Temporarily feeling good about humanity, Almighty Ingrid, Signing Off
I have evil hand envy
3/31/2004 12:19:21 AM
"Stop it evil hand, stop it." - Lindsey McDonald, Angel.
I may have had something intelligent to say, but I forget.
I'll be going to bed shortly, and when I wake up, I'll be twenty.
When I'm twenty, I'll probably do up an angst-filled entry about all the stuff that's happened to make me hate the world a little bit more in the last year.
Technically, it's the entry I would have posted at Hogmenay, but I was too depressed to even bother when I got back to the apartment.
For now, however, I'll talk about the Angel repeat that was on tonight. It was episode 2.18 (Dead End) aka The Evil Hand episode. I'd forgotten how much I adore this episode.
(Blacking it, just in case. You never know, right?) It's not just because this is -the- Lindsey episode, pretty much, aside from Blind Date, although, as a fan of the evil lawyer, that has a lot to do with it.
Watching it, I'm reminded once more of the -sweet- relationship that used to exist between the gang. I miss Cordelia so much. I think they've been trying to make Fred into the replacement Cordelia, with her being the centre of everyone's universe, and I just can't believe it . . . But watching how concerned Wes and Gunn and Angel are for her, because of the pain the visions bring, I can believe that. I can believe Angel clumsily going out and buying her a huge lunch because he just wants to see her stop hurting for a little bit, and the way she just -smiles- when he admits what he's doing, and the way he smiles back at her.
I actually -like- Angel in the earlier seasons, I realize. I didn't really like him on Buffy, and I don't like him much this season, but I like him when it was like a little family, and when he -did- smile, and he did do immature things, and he was happy sometimes.
I love that scene more than words can say, in the same way I love and am horribly saddened by Cordelia and Angel watching the video of Doyle trying to advertise the agency after his death and . . . Sometimes, it just fits, and it works for me.
But my favourite moments for the funny in the episode come from Lindsey. I mean, Lindsey's just great here, from the quiet opening with the silent hand-angst, to the way he's calmly one-upping Lilah in their meeting, to the scene in the karaoke bar and the immature way he screams at Angel when Angel saves him from being killed by the parole officer wanting to know -why- Angel isn't trying to kill -him- . . . It just makes me smile and grin and go "Oh, Lindsey, you dork".
Best scene, though, aside from the final meeting at Wolfram and Hart where he shoots the guy in the foot and is cheerfully going on about his crazy hand, is when he's sitting in his apartment after getting the new hand, and after he realized the hand was writing 'Kill Kill Kill Kill' all over his paper during a meeting with a client . . . And he's sitting there, pen in hand, paper out, -waiting- for it to start writing again. And when it doesn't, he takes a pen-knife out and pokes at it! Just . . . awesome.
And, because bell's not here for me to babble this too . . . (Season five spoilers, plus stuff about Dead End)
It's things like Lindsey's return that I think strengthen my 'television is a flawed medium' argument. Not as flawed as movies, obviously, but there's still problems. Like characters being brought back because the fans wanted to see them again. I'd expect more from a Whedon-run operation, really. Because it really throws a wrench, as I told bell earlier, into understanding Lindsey's character.
At the end of Dead End, Lindsey and Angel -still- don't like each other, but I think Angel gains a bit more respect for Lindsey and Lindsey is, as he says, just tired of it all. Lindsey, possibly, has had an epiphany, and is going back to Oklahoma or wherever the hell he's from to find redemption and a normal life . . .
And then he comes back in season five, and is trying to kill Angel again.
bell and I speculated about this, too. That after working for Wolfram and Hart for years he's so morally corrupt that he -can't- function properly in the real world. That Wolfram and Hart still own him (they own the dead, after all, and there's no sign they burned Lindsey's contract after he left) and whatever's left of his conscience that drives hime nuts whenever he's confronted by Angel isn't enough to keep him on a normal path, let alone a straight and narrow one. That even if he wasn't constantly falling off the path, he'd be worried that someday he would. That he really holds a grudge. That he had an un-epiphany that threw him back into the whole evil thing. That he just got so -used- to focussing all his rage on Angel, and blaming him for everything, that he couldn't function without that kind of weird anger anchor.
-Anything-.
The only conclusion we could reach, of course, is that before the end of the series, the writers better bring him back one more time and -explain- what the hell was up with Lindsey. If not, we will be very disappointed in them all.
And that's all the meaningless rambling and character speculation for tonight, at least until I get at bell again.
All she wrote, Ingrid, Signing Off
Final Fantasy X: The Ponytail Enhanced Flashback and the Most Annoying Cloister of Trials Yet
3/29/2004 08:41:30 AM
"Yuna mouths 'thank you' at Tightass, because of course she needs a man to take care of her problems. However, she'll settle for Tightass." -Jeanne, Final Fantasy X Part 10, Videogame Recaps.
There are a few short minutes between me and episode twenty-five of Full Metal Alchemist . . . but let's not think about that. Let's think instead of Final Fantasy X, and try to ignore the butterflies.
I decided that I really didn't want to spend my Saturday night chasing after a bunch of butterflies. Possibly it is less pathetic if I do it sometime during finals. Possibly not. Who can say? Regardless, I choose to skip the butterfly minigame for the moment. I will return! I won't let some goddamn butterflies beat me, dammit.
We progress through a sparkly wood, and Auron leads the party off to this little pool where we have to fight this . . . blob. I use Tightass as a decoy during the battle while Lulu fries it's non-existant ass, and it perishes. Huzzah! Once it's dead, Auron produces a sphere that's basically the Spira equivalent of a videocamera. One that Jecht played around with on his trip with Braska and Auron, ten years ago. This means we're treated to a random flashback! I'd complain, but, well, Auron. Plus, the flashbacks causes Auron to get a new overdrive.
All the flashback tells us is that ten years ago Auron wore his hair in a pony-tail, and Tightass' old man is just as annoying as his son. And clueless. Also, there's a sickeningly hackneyed scene where Jecht tells his son that he believes in him . . . Auron tells Tightass that Jecht really loved him, which is maybe -not- something you should tell a kid after he's found out you're going on a trip to kill Sin, who also happens to be Jecht . . .
We proceed to another random Al Bhed inn, with a Chocobo outside, and inside some totally random conversations to remind us that Yuna's marrying Seymour. I'm not sure what the point of the inn is except to allow even more random conversations, since we leave without bothering to sleep . . . and deliver Yuna straight into the hands of one of Seymour's Guado bitches. Only to have them be instantly attacked by a bunch of Al Bhed.
I hate the battle that follows. Just so you know. But I manage to pull through anyway, and the Al Bhed run away . . . And Wakka finds out that Rikku's an Al Bhed, so now we have to listen to him whine.
Wakka, Wakka, Wakka . . .
Rikku's quite sensible as she tries to explain to Wakka that people should make their own decisions and not take the teachings of Yevon at face value, but Wakka's not having any of it.
Damn you, Wakka!
After this, with Yuna bailing on the party again to go with Guado whatshisface, we continue, and there are many blissful random battles before I have to go to the Temple, where everyone's disturbingly happy over the prospect of Seymour and Yuna's wedding. That happiness is short-lived, however, when some random person is searching through Yuna's bags and discovers the sphere that belonged to Seymour's Dad. Seymour turns out to be EVIL.
Shock, horror, gasp, etc.
Since Yuna's apparently in the Cloister of Trials with Seymour, everyone runs to save her . . . I'm not really sure from what, since Seymour hasn't shown any sign of wanting to kill her, but, hey, Seymour -is- creepy. We get inside -without- having to do any trial-puzzle, and I'm happy, happy, happy. Seymour confirms he's evil, Yuna comes out and makes a pathetic stand against him (while hiding behind her guardians), and I get to lay the smack down on him, and his creepy looking aeon. It's a relatively simple battle, for me. Easier than the stupid one against the Al Bhed doohickey, anyway.
I do the 'Yay, Seymour's dead!' even though he's obviously going ot come back at some point, and a bunch of Guado drag his body away, calling us traitors. Obviously the party's in deep trouble, and for the reason that the game designers hate me, I need to go through the Cloister of Trials to get -out-.
For whatever reason, this one was really hard, and it took me about five tries before I was able to get out.
Not. Very. Happy.
The party escapes eventually, only to find out that the Guado, shockingly enough, have turned on them, and intend on covering up Seymour's evil ways. Thus follows a lot of running away from Guado and their randomly summoned monsters, only to be confronted in the end by a giant hairy, uh, thing. Another tought battle for me, which ends with everyone falling through the ice and down, down, down.
Somehow, they survive what appears to be a very long fall.
Sigh.
When everyone regains consciousness, there's more random conversations, Rikku reveals her desire to get a boob job when she's older, and Yuna apologizes for the whole stupid going against Seymour by herself idea. I save the game and go to bed.
Oh, and there was more Wankese. Of course. Like this particularly classic line "'Praise be to Yevon.' That's what I would have said, if I was a follower of Yevon."
. . . Thanks, Tightass.
I'm actually starting to enjoy the game a bit more, now. I just feel the need to set aside the time to play it for about three or four hours straight, so I get to do -something- besides watch cutscenes.
The future conqueror of the butterflies, Almighty Ingrid, Signing Off
