kokoro no yoroi

So, I know this isn't commission fic, but those guys are in progress, honest! This little ficlet just came out of left field at me this morning (well, as much out of left field as it can when one has been mainlining light cycles for a week straight) and it's been such a shitty day in several ways, I want to cling to the bright spots. (This morning I was thinking about packing some sort of Easter dress for my upcoming trip this weekend; now it appears I will have to pack my black dress for a funeral, as well.) There are nice bright spots, like having an italian ice with my baby after work, and like having clever little goldfish that know when it's dinner time, and like writing about Tron getting brain-raped by his best friend's evil twin.

Yes, well.

I can't in good conscience call this a new fandom. Not when I remember my cousin's birthday party at the arcade in 1983, when at seven years old I was too young to play with the older girls, so I took a bucket of tokens and fed them into the lightcycle machine. Or the times I played Program v/s the MCP with my sun-faded red frisbee and a long-suffering maple tree in the front yard. So no, it is not a new fandom.

Realizing it is gayer than a tree full of monkeys is a newer development, however.

PS: Odessa Castle? Our website? Hugeass update, long overdue. More to come.

( Abort, Retry, Fail? )

I'm offering fanfic commissions for Japan's earthquake relief efforts. All the details are here! Please send a shout-out on your lists even if you can't afford to donate. I'm starting with ten slots but I really hope those are snatched up so I can do another round. Thanks!

I also have a fic for auction on the help Japan lj community here: http://community.livejournal.com/help_japan/2978.html?thread=1124002#t1124002

Hey guys, it's Xenogears day! What does that mean? It means starting today you can download Xenogears for PSP on the Playstation Network! Also, the new Xenogears orchestral album, -Myth-, is out today. These awesome things happen to coincide with a Xeno-themed project I've been working on with Joy, so I was already in a Xeno mood and had been drawing face portraits for like two days already.

So I thought I would celebrate by drawing a shirtless Billy Lee! Nevermind that I cannot draw guns for toffees! Or people with their arms crossed, either! Yet I always try to draw just those things. Anyway, it's my way of celebrating one of my favorite games in the whole world ever, with one of my favorite characters in the whole world (ever). Probably if he was a real-live uber conservative right-wing religious gun-toting wackjob, I would hate his guts! But somehow because he is fictional and has daddy issues I love him. Huh.

( Okay. Bang. )

Anyway, go download Xenogears, and buy the new album! Let SquEnix know that there are other franchises we'd like to see get a loving redo.

It is time for a little bit of a rant. Though sad to say, it is less of a rant than an exasperated sigh, because I have been around this so much and over it and through it and back and forth that mostly, I am just tired. But I have exhausted all other options save complaining to my friends. Know, therefore, that you are my last resort, and possibly by making a fool of myself by ranting in public I will please the mercurial spirits in charge of our nation's parcel post, and they will have mercy at last.

( post involves dolls, but only as far as their absence, so there are no pictures to worry you. You cannot take pictures of what hasn't arrived. Ay, there's the rub. )

Once, when I was a baby fan (or at least a much younger fan than I am now) it was very hard to get your hands on anime merchandise, especially if you were a broke college student. But I was a broke college student with prisma markers and easy access to photocopiers, so I learned to make my own goodies. While this included lots of jewelry, clay sculpture, oil paintings, and other folderol, my favorite thing I ever did was a full set of Samurai Trooper paperdolls. True, the art may not have been the greatest, but I drew them lovingly and included all their series outfits, sub-armor and full armor, and a lot of other outfits besides. It was an act of pure affection for the characters and also an act of pure procrastination of my homework.

Also my major was costume design, so I liked drawing clothes.

It's been a while, and I am very out of practice, but I thought I'd give it a whirl again. And you can all play along, if you like!

( cut for boys in victorian underpants )

Okaaay yeah Kuroshitsuji II was pretty retarded. We're talking like, Highlander II retarded, where suddenly everyone is from Zeist.

I'm trying to think of a redeeming factor, here.

Hrm. None of it is actually canon and it has nothing to do with the actual storyline? So it is all imminently discardable? Suddenly FFX-2 looks like a work of discretion, taste, and literary sensibility? The effects were good?

Yeah, I'm out six hours of my life and I got nothin'. Well, it did have a few good laughs, I'll give it that. But yeah. Somewhere Sebastien is waking up from a really shitty nightmare. No more doublesoulstuffed oreos before bed, Bas-chan. Srsly. That shit will give you bad sequel dreams. I'm pointedly reminded of the Escaflowne movie, which was supposed to be this great work of animation art, but just looked to me like Folken got a bad hairdo, while everyone else was vaguely suicidal and bored the rest of the time, and when it was over nobody could be arsed to give a shit about it. Half the cast died because they couldn't figure why else they were even around, and there was nothing else to do, really. (The only bonus was Dilandau keeping his penis, and a couple of dragonslayers keeping body and soul together.)

So let's uh, let's just forget that whole thing, shall we? Yes? Forget the gross fanservice for all of those straight horny teenage boys NOT watching the show, forget Alois taking all the tropes I like and turning them into a steaming pile of horseshit, forget giant gaping plotholes all covered in cheese.

All gone now? Good. I'm going to go make some goddamn tea.

My office has just done a crazy logo change and the purge of the old design has been pursued with all the zeal of some kind of ethnic cleansing. Is your tiny airplane red and not blue? Are the last two letters not subtly touching? REPORT AT ONCE TO THE NEAREST DISSOLUTION BOOTH. The good news is I have fistfuls of crap that I'm no longer allowed to have visible at my desk (because using an old logo mug is akin to FELLATING SATAN), and if anybody wants something, they can have it. Of particular note are the keychains I have, which have attached a sturdy, metal, screwtop, water-tight-ish container good for holding pills or portable reliquaries or pico drives or whatever. In this case, they hold and come with FREE EXCITING EARPLUGS because we insure pilots, and everybody knows pilots loooove earplugs. They provide a far more satisfying chew than ordinary gum. If you're not into earplugs, and having them handy on your keys all the damn time, you can of course REMOVE them and put SOMETHING ELSE in. I don't judge. Also I have ball-point pens. Like those once used for writing checks, and they are suitable for all of your late 20th century live action RPG and living history activities.

If you want one let me know, I will bring it next we meet. If you live far away and want one, let me know so I can find out postage cost to stuff it in a padded mailer and send it out for you.

Note of course that my company name is on the object (INSCRIBED, EVER BURNING, IN THE HORRIBLE UN-WRITING OF THE ANCIENT LOGO GODS, WHO RULED IN BLOOD AND IN FIRE) so uh, if you get one, you'll know where I work. Also you will be advocating high-quality airplane insurance from the only direct writer! If either of those things bother you, you might want to abstain from the offer, or cover the thing with pastel-colored hamster stickers the moment it arrives. Whatever works for you. But if you get 20 of them and turn around and refurb them with hand-painted Naruto characters and sell them on Etsy, I will want a cut of the profits. Unless you are sued for copyright infringement. In which case I don't know you. Even if you do know where I work.

The new year has kicked off with some awesome fangirl news, at least for me and mine! And here it is!

* This spring, Tomu Ranju will become the new top star of the Takarazuka Cosmos troupe! Even if you don't know Takarazuka from a hill of beans, you should know Tomu, because she put on a pink tie and made the very best singing dancing cross-dressing Phoenix Wright ever. Also she's the hottest thing since the invention of the four-slot toaster. I've been hoping she would make top now for years, and I hope she stays there a good long time before retiring. At least long enough for me to sell off a kidney and go see her perform. Also I hope her star goods are awesome, because I will want one of everything.

* In February, SqEx is releasing a new Xenogears CD! Sadly, it does not plug up the sucking cavity wound that is the second disk of the game, but I'll take some official musical love. It's called Myth: The Xenogears Orchestral Album. After the unsightly mess and piecemeal selloff of the -saga games, we'll probably never see Xenogears get the loving remake it deserves, but at least it is not utterly forgotten. Still, someday, to see in proper animation the moment when ID levitates the Yggdrassil above his head one-handed without even touching it, such things are worth waiting and dreaming.

* ....But if you want to see that moment in the original version, you soon can! The ESRB has cleared both Xenogears and (aksjdfaksdjfkj) Vagrant Story for release on the Playstation Network in North America. OMG OMG OMG! Prepare for a deluge of approximately six more fans! Boy, I better finish my damn Christmas fic, hadn't I? Seriously, if I could, I would orchestrate a y!gallery and journal site online flashmob of Xenogears themed fanart, fanfic, playlists, handicrafts, whatever! And perhaps I shall! One for XG and one for VS on consecutive days! Kindly select your copic markers in all shades of 'religious zealotry' and perhaps I will come up with a snappy banner and logo for the event! Or you can make one, because you're probably better at it than me!

Just make sure you get rid of any of the old banners and logos first. We will know if you are keeping any of the forbidden materials, decreed obsolete by our Overlord. The Order of the Red Airplane shall fall, and it will be as ashes upon the wind, along with the memory of the old empire. Only the Blue Plane is true. Only the Blue Plane endures.

Hail to the Azure Wings. Hail to your Future.

SO. Of all the things I mentioned yesterday I needed to finish, none of them were Rinoa-centric GF fic. Seriously. What.


Silence and Motion


"It's short for Guardian Force," Squall explains, as he snaps fresh cartridges in his gunblade's chambers, deftly sliding each gleaming shell into place with a practiced motion of his gloved thumb. "They used to call them Summons back during the Sorceress Wars. Have you used one before?"

( 'No.' )

I'm playing FF8 on the PSP! Which means, unlike my other replays, I'm not using my souped-up coded save! Which makes me want to say I'm playing the game... longhand? Hrm. At any rate, I haven't done this business the hard way since 2000, and I was a younger woman then. Now, with age and experience, I just have to ask... why can you not jam Rinoa's head into the keypad to uncouple the trains? I mean seriously! Also the pink! In her room! It gave Squall fourteen negative status effects just by walking in. And that's nothing really against Rinoa, though it does look like someone vomited wall-to-wall pepto-bismol in there, with bows on. She's sixteen! and I guess that's what girls do when they are sixteen! Kids these days! but anyway. It's just that, Squall, man. The man is anti-pink. He is so anti-pink that his very nipples are a shade called 'tarnished ivory.' He is only allowed to go a little pink when he is flushed from hard fighting or the sweet urgency of a spell on his fingertips or perhaps Zell's face buried in his crotch or if he has had too much high fructose corn syrup! You know, extreme cases. And also if loose strands of hair are clinging slighty to his damp cheeks and parrted lips and shivering with his ragged breathing pardon me I've just got to go and run to the lavatory.

I really intended to give Rinoa a fighting chance this time, honest! but then I remembered that all my other from-scratch playthoughs died horrible deaths because UGH GOD TIMBER IT NEVER ENDS. But I have to say it looks tons better on the PSP than it does on the big screen.

also today I sort of rooted around in my old fic files and found this totally amazing Squall/Zell thing that I'd started at some prompt request way early last year and never finished? and I opened it up and went, "Hm, the next sentence is this!" Which is always a good feeling! So I hope to get that all done up with ribbons on. I was really stuck for why Zell would keep lube in his room. I mean, his room at home, not in Garden. He's not the sort to buy that kind of thing just for his own private times. (Irvine, on the other hand...) But I think I've sorted that out! Aren't you glad! But not as glad as Zell is! Because as lovely and scrummy and tarnished-ivory tumescent as Squall's cock is, nobody wants to take that up the ass unaided. (Would the various Nobodies please sit down, that joke isn't even funny anymore.)

So, yes. Boys fucking! Do I even know how that works anymore? Seriously my OCs have been arranging matches so goddamn long I don't even know. Although the other day I really wished I could draw, because I got this crazy idea for a Cloud/Sephiroth hair porn picture. And yes, those names were in the right order. (Of course Sephiroth would let Cloud fuck him. Sephiroth would be so proud, don't you see. Nobody can beat Cloud. Only Cloud can beat Cloud. Not even Sephiroth can beat Cloud. And Sephiroth. Made. Cloud. What. He. Is. Let Cloud fuck him? Of course. If it stokes his rage, and his fury, and keeps him at the narrow edge of sanity. The blade's always sharpest before it breaks. Sephiroth's notions about Cloud, to my way of thinking, are disturbingly possessive and almost fatherly. Not that Seph's got fgreat ideas about dads, jesus.) anyway, it involved Cloud with Sepiroth's hair wound up around his forearm and his hand fisted in it at the base of Sephiroth's head, keeping Sephiroth's head up while he got done. The whole thing was about Sephiroth's neck tendons and Cloud's taut knuckles, but I lack that kind of delicacy. Last time I drew a porn picture it was for the sake of some eyelashes, so maybe my impetus is skewed.

And I find I can't really follow that image up with anything. So. There you have it.

sdbjkasdbhfggkjabhsdffffft

http://yaoi.y-gallery.net/view/744662/

kajsdfgkadjfbgkadjfbgkadjfg

CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY
AND FROM STRANGERS

(also my ipod was prodding me this morning to write songbirdy things but I had heaps and heaps of paperwork and I couldn't.)

One of two FF7 Christmas fics in the works. (The other one, being, naturally, Seraphim)

So maybe it was good that Cloud was down in the lab, Tifa thought. He could take some time to make some peace with the past, have some closure, and then come upstairs and drink himself under the table with Rude's excellent wassail punch. Tifa was a bartender through and through, and she greatly believed in the healing power of alcohol. She also knew that Cloud was an easier lay when he was smashed. So he could have his pity-party in the cellar, get good and properly wasted, and everybody concerned would have a much better Christmas. Even if Cloud might not remember the better half of it, that was fine. Cloud was in general a much more well-adjusted person when he was suffering from amnesia and multiple identity disorder. Everyone said so, including Cloud himself.

Conscience assuaged, Tifa got up to get another cup of punch, silently admiring Rude's impressive biceps in his trim black suit. The scenery in Nibelheim had certainly improved lately. She took a deep sip of her drink, and smiled. Yes, things were shaping up just fine for a nice, relaxing holiday weekend.

That was when the panicked screams started coming from the basement.

THE MEME

S T E P . O N E

Make a post to your journal. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related (fics, picspams, fanmixes) to medium (dvds, books, bracelets, etc) to really big (a new computer, a car, etc).

The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want. - If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your e-mail address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.

S T E P . T W O

Surf around your reading list to see who has posted their list.

And now here's the important part: If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use - or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free - do it.

You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call. There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just... wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

~ * ~

Often what I want the most are not really things, but intangibles. But I love presents, and I love to be surprised with presents. It matters to me not so much what they are, but that I was thought of. When it comes to presents I'm like a kid, and I mean the good kind of kid, not the bratty kind. So whether it's an old lego minifigure or a sample BPAL vial or a doll you can't manage to re-home, you can be sure I'll be delighted with it.

I haven't listed my addy here, as this is an open post. If you don't have it and want it, even for just a card, just email me at tenshi@bishink.org! And you don't have to tell me what you're sending, or even if you're sending anything. I won't expect anything just because you asked for the addy. Though I might wonder if you're going to stalk me on google streetview or something.

( wish list! )

I'm really really sick of my IJ being targeted by spam. It's like having cockroaches. Once they target you you can't get rid of them, and they keep springing up in different posts of mine. I really really wish IJ had more requirements for new accounts before they could start posting everywhere; these are obviously fresh-made spam accounts and as soon as I nail one and report it they make another. I don't want to have to lock everything, but honestly it seems to be my only recourse.

If you post about nike dunks for a living, I hope your intestines lunge up out of your own abdomen to garrote you, you parasite. Conversely you could just die in a goddamn fire.

And I'm leaving this post open just in case you aren't a bot. It's a useless gesture, of course, but it would be a bitter irony if you started dribbling your copy/paste bullshit here.

Do you like dolls? Do you have a DoA Account? Can you take ten seconds to send an email? Would you like to see if it's possible for me to ditch my terrible, terrible contest jinx once and for all?

Then go, and vote for my photo in the Ringdoll Photo Contest!

The finalist photos are here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=191949&id=32077868151

Pick the one you like (cough the fourth photo, by tenshi_no_korin cough) and then:

- DoA members will have from August 30th - September 5th, (1 week), to submit their
votes.
- Each DoA member is allowed 1 (one) vote. Voters must include the DoA name on the
photo and their DoA name in their email vote. If the voter's DoA name is not
provided then the vote will not be counted! Votes can be sent to
Contest@mintoncardinc.com
- The votes will be counted on the morning of September 6th. The winners will be
announced on the Mint on Card news page, and will be contacted via email.
- Prizes will be immediately shipped to the winners from Mint on Card.


The top prize is a beautiful doll, followed by second and third prizes of a lovely outfit and a fancy mechanical arm. I don't have a huge bunch of dollfriends, and I know this is probably going to be a popularity contest, but I'd love it if you'd take a minute to vote for me! (Or at least vote, because there are some lovely pictures there.)

Thank you! <3

Sooo if you have not caught it yet, the latest storyline going on Oglaf features the Xoan Ambassador, who is only my favorite character ever in the comic and probably in several other places as well. I do love me some fruity tops. Add in the elf-ears and baby, I'm sold.

It starts here.

It is light-years from being work-safe. Please do save it for home, unless you work at a porn store or something.

This and the fanfuckingtastic Teavana tea we inherited this weekend are marked improvements on a day that has otherwise been marked only by my shitty mood. (I don't want to blame the day, because honestly, it's not Tuesday's fault. I was Princess Tuesday in a play once, and I feel there's no need to disparage her namesake.)

The tea is white ayurvedic chai and samurai chai mate blend. It looks like potpourri and tastes like candy. Beautiful spicy candy.

So yeah, This guy right here? It's in our bedroom, which we're rearranging a little, storing a lot of our books and such that we haven't even looked at since we put them on the shelves when we first moved. What's taking up an entire row of it, now in pride of place that we've moved all the English anthologies of Lit out of the way?

Doujinshi.

Not even counting the whole cube taken up by Samurai Trooper artbooks, not even counting the cube taken up by other anime/game artbooks, not even counting the humongous stack of A5 sized doujinshi (mostly YST anthologies) that I haven't found anywhere to put yet. Just. one size of. doujinshi. Eighty inches of Japanese gay fanporn that I can't even read. We used to order it in bushels from HHH and JPQueen, because you couldn't buy it at cons when we were buying the most of it. What's worse? We sold off a ton of our doujin when we got into dolls to finance that hobby. This is what we kept.

Blurgh.

And because I'm sure you're curious, the winner is FF7 for the most books, followed closely by FF8 which is followed closely by Xenogears which is followed by Suikoden which is followed by YST, which only goes to show that there are/were a million and five people doing FF7 doujin, so we have a good sampling, and not many people doing Xenogears, and we have pretty much every worthwhile doujin and several that aren't, because it's Xenogears. Least doujin? Vagrant story. I only sort of have one doujin, that someone photocopied their copy for me and stapled together. ;_; The other VS sorta doujin I have is this little book with great art that has a boring story in it written by someone who is clearly obsessed with a minor character and okay I wrote that one. We have no PW or YGO doujinshi at all! Because dammit, we have the internet, and we don't blow money like that anymore (on doujinshi)!

Top circles are Emily Kujoh/Orie Asato, Yubinbasiya, & Wolfgung.

Still. What the hell. Those things probably averaged $15 a pop. I can't think too hard about that.

Now the real question!

My bed is covered in books, elbow deep!

Where are we going to sleep?

asdasdfsldk;dk



So seriously I spent three hours in a dentist chair today, which involved two root canals, an extraction, and temporary bridgework, and I did not care. Because I was thinking about this. And had been, pretty much nonstop, since 10:30 last night when I got to the scene. And saved in a new spot after. and watched it over and over and over and over and sdklfjnadklfg aaaaaaaaaaaaaa *essplodes*

gameplay quality is actually way higher than this.

So the other issue that has arisen due to my simultaneous KH/FF7 gaming is the resurgence of a silly idea that I've had for a long time. (Oddly enough, I'm also playing Okami, but that doesn't seem to muck about in my story-maker machine the same way.) It involves clothes, as most of my silly ideas do, and in this case involves putting all of Organization XIII in Turk suits. There is a faction of fans wholeheartedly in support of shipping Axel with Reno, and I won't argue that it isn't hot, but I do think the universe might implode if they were to meet. They are, after all, the same damn person. (You can't fool me; filing off serial numbers and recycling characters used to be my prime stock in trade, I know the results when I see them. I have a good guess how it went down in development. "Everybody loves Reno! Let's make a Reno Nobody! Change up his hair a little! Give him different face marks! Nobody'll know!" Now Nobody knows, indeed. They've even got the same English voice actor.) After all, the parallel lines between the Turks and Organization XIII are strong, and I'm not just talking about the zippers.

So yes, I'm hard pressed to sort out how this might happen, as the KH canon is a hot mess and it takes a new ridiculous twist to the improbable with every game. But I for one vote for dead Nobodies washing up on some other world somewhere. And requiring gainful employment with their (let's face it) pretty specialized skill sets. And the post AC Turks surely need some more staff. You've got a whole planet and all of five people with one chopper. (Why not? Dead, shmed, this is Kingdom Hearts! It comes with a packet of crack in the manual!)

Okay, fine. I want to do it for the sake of one conversation:

"How are the new applicants, Tseng?"
"They're heartless, sir."
"I've heard that before. See how they fare when they have to break some old lady's legs."
"No, I mean, they haven't got any hearts."
"Oh." Pause. "Sound pretty much ideal then, don't they?"

I put it to you to goad this bunny into full production. Because I like making things implode. Especially when those things are Reno.

To top off my good FF7 feeling, I just got a super-sweet fanmail for Voice Mail, along with the rest of the stuff in the old FF7 arc. ♥

Soooooooooo. The upshot of the FF concert is that I went out to a game store, dropped a wad of change, and now I'm simultaneously playing both Crisis Core and Kingdom Hearts: Unrealistic Fraction at the same time. (What is it, anyway? 358/2? 643/7.8? 10 1/2 Wide? Man, I don't even know.) I'm liking both more than I thought I would, though I think they're both on the wrong platforms. Crisis Core should have been on PS2 at least, and KH:Yourmom/69 should have been on anything other than the DS. Don't get me wrong, I love my DS to bits. It's just not designed in any way for a d-pad action game. I can only play it in short bursts before my hands seize up in pain. CC is, simply, just too dang pretty for that tiny screen. Also J and I get neck cramp trying to both watch while I play. I know the future of games is supposed to be portableportableportable or MMORPG, but I would like, at times, to share the story and gaming experience with people actually in the room with me, not in their mother's basement two states away via wireless connection.

( cut for a smorgasbord of early to mid-game spoilery things )

The other side effect of the concert involves costumes, and things of that nature. I expect to be ordering large quantities of various thermal plastics in the future, and littering the apartment floor with bits of them.

In other FF news, I found this at the bottom of my "posting" wordfile, a collection of junk that sometimes develops into actual posts and sometimes sifts down to decay in the silty, nutrient-rich bottom of the document. It happened months ago when I was talking (in general) about Final Fantasy games with a coworker, and realized that most casual gamers can't really be bothered telling one Final Fantasy from another. I thought it would serve as a (very tongue-in-cheek) guide to the various FF games. Unfortunately, I only finished the blurbs for the latter half of the series, and I don't know that I'm very likely to do the first five. IV pretty much has my heart in that collection, anyway, and my commentary on the other four would be fleeting, at best. It's also lacking XIII, because all I could say about it is "that game I haven't played yet because christ almighty PS3s are expensive, and yet somehow I already have all the action figures."

Please bear in mind that with two (very obvious) exceptions, I love every one of these games dearly. And only one of those excluded two is outright reviled. I have no true quarrel with XI, as it seems very pretty and the music is nice. I only wish it had been called something else. So don't try to rip me a new one for talking smack about Terra, because I'm fond of the girl, and you'll only prove my point.

Without further ado, I give you: ( FINAL FANTASY SHORTHAND )

This concludes your moogle-flavored deluge for the day.