Knowing Shadows

I got hold of the new FFXI Piano Collections today. Of all the FF's I've played, I'd say FFXI is the one I have the most conflicting feelings about. I really like the game in itself, it's good fun, and at first I was excited by the whole "play with other people" thing.

However, I soon realised that the online aspect of it was the bit I hated most. I hated that progression in the game was totally reliant on other people. I hated that you had to spend hours sitting around doing nothing waiting for people to add you to their party. And I hated the fact that everyone was so bloody serious about it all. So I often felt that other players looked down on me because my whole life didn't revolve around the game, and didn't know every single intricacy of it, and wasn't levelling up my 50th character, etc. So eventually I stopped playing around level 17/18 because I just couldn't bear it any longer.

(Incidentally, this is why I like FFXII so much - it reminds me a lot of FFXI, but it's not an MMORPG! So I can be antisocial! Woohoo!)


In other news: I'd forgotten how much I liked cream cheese. And Kanda/Allen is still eating my brain.

Brain: You know you want more established-relationship-impossibly-sweet-and-OOC!Kanda/Allen, with an opportunity to beat Allen up and make him suffer. Look at Allen, he's just asking for some pain. He's like Cloud, but in a fandom that hasn't been done to death already. He's fresh meat!
Me: Noooooooooooo!

So I really love most of the FF music, Nobuo Uematsu's mainly, and I own a lot of the CDs Square Enix has released for the games, but even I have to balk slightly at the thought of a dance remix album, no matter how official. And even if it does have Liberi Fatali on it.

More exciting for me is the new FFXI Piano Collections that's being released next week. As far as I can gather, this is different from the piano collection released as part of that big FFXI music boxset thing. Which is good because I didn't particularly like it, but on the other hand there's no Distant Worlds on the new tracklist.

Dear Squeenix, please for the love of God give in and do some kind of arranged Kingdom Hearts album. For orchestra, for piano, anything I don't care, just DO SOMETHING.

In more important news, my friend in Okinawa spotted two Giant Wood Spiders (the spider from the previous post) yesterday, and sent me lovely pictures of them she'd taken.

I have decided that the SPIDER OF DOOM below has to be eliminated from Okinawa before I go there (which is in two weeks so I hope someone has enough time to go do this for me).



Seriously, what purpose does this animal have except to drop out of trees and scare the living crap out of people like me who will blatantly blunder into their giant webs of terror? Except for their immensely strong and immensely useful webs of course but my poor heart is far more important than that.

I needed a "DO NOT WANT" icon of some kind just for this post.

This is the fault of reading about 100 chapters of the manga in a short space of time, and then aphelion_orion writing awesome Kanda/Allen fic. And then I couldn't help myself ;_;

Title: (Un)certainty
Fandom: D.Gray-man
Pairing: Kanda/Allen
Rating: Hard-R/NC-17
Word count: ~2900
Summary: Kanda returns after a mission to someone he's left behind.

Just spent the last day or so reading the D.Gray-man manga online. I'm glad I did - since it explained the random episode of the anime I caught on TV a few weeks ago where I thought my favourite character had kicked the bucket.

I like D.Gray-man, if only for the fact it makes me smile every time I go past Kanda station, which is even written with the same kanji. I would love to work for JR East, if only so I could sabotage all the TV screens on the trains to display a pissed-off-Kanda picture whenever they go there. Maybe like my new icon.

- I had a brief period of respite and now I'm overwhelmed with mid-semester exam-things :( But another week and they should be finished, thankfully.

- Still addicted to It's A Wonderful World/TWEWY. Stupidly addicted. Like, having to study until midnight for tests the next day, and then thinking, "I don't need sleep, I'll just put my DS on for a couple of hours..."  I really do need to play it in English, or look at an English-language walkthrough or something. I understand the majority of the story and the game mechanics , but there's a few things I don't get. I'm not entirely sure what happens if you "sub" your badges. And I think there's something about Joshua/Neku's special move that I don't really get - most of the time I get the same move, but one of the characters always says something like "Katte ni kimeru na!" which I'm pretty sure has a bad meaning? Like "Don't decide so selfishly/recklessly!" or something like that? And then one time, I'm not sure what I did and I got a different special move that seemed to do more damage. But I don't know what I did and it hasn't come up again :( I really need to check it out.

- I was actually doing some writing before all these stupid tests.

- People should stop me browsing through iTunes, because I end up coming across old songs that I used to love before downloading things was so easy. So today I found a load of old dance tunes from the 90s/early 00s that made me smile, like the ones below.

(I suppose I should put a warning for music elitists lol: CRAP DANCE MUSIC BELOW, BEWARE! They have terrible music videos as well.)

Chocolate Puma - I Wanna Be U Does anyone remember this song? I used to love it, but for some reason it was really hard to get hold of online. So I forgot about it until the gym I used to go to back home started playing it, and then I came across it on iTunes :D

Bhangra Knights vs Husan - Husan I love this song. It's the one that got famous from the Peugeot car advert years ago.

Gorillaz - 19-2000 (Soulchild Remix) This is awesome, and the video is not quite as bad as the others lol.

Corona - The Rhythm of the Night Early 90s dance = amazing Y/Y?

Reflekt ft. Delline Bass - Need To Feel Loved This was used in It's All Gone Pete Tong.

They all sound even more amazing now I have my beloved Sennheiser headphones.

I'm so glad I'm not one of those people who only likes 'cool' music, or who seem to think music is only good if no-one else has never heard of the band before. How boring must that be?

[EDIT] Woooo, I felt a real earthquake for once, not one I'm just imagining!

[EDIT 2] OMG JAPAN HAS GIANT JUMPING SPIDERS. The ones back home are tiny, like less than half an inch across - but I caught one today in my room on the wall that was at least an inch across. I'm terrified of spiders. And jumping spiders freak me out even more!

I'm really not looking forward to when it gets warm and all those horrible giant spiders of doom appear again. These were everywhere when I arrived last September, and legs included were usually several inches across. I almost walked into one hanging at face-height from a tree at night once - I don't think I've ever been so freaked out in my life.

It's been a very Square Enix-orientated day. Finally tracked down the Square Enix shop in Hatsudai today. Oh Squeenix, well done for picking the most awkward spot in possibly the whole of Japan to put your shop. What was the point of putting it there? To make sure only the hardcore gamers make the trek? Except for the theatre, the only remarkable thing near it is the Park Hyatt, and maybe some government offices. I really don't get it.

Either way, after having tracked down the shop (in the rain, I might add), we wandered in and had a good nosy around. It's nice, if overpriced. The Sephiroth statue in the floor is awesome, I have to say. For Genesis fans, they also have Gackt's Genesis outfit in a case on display (at least, I assume it's his one? Unless they made lots?). I wanted all the Sora figurines, and the miniature mounted Gunblade, and lots and lots of things, but it was too expensive.

Best thing was the TV screen they had up showing trailers from all sorts of games. They had a long trailer for Versus XIII which I'd never seen before, which was very exciting for me. They also had a trailer for the Complete Advent Children DVD thing (I've kind of lost touch with this - is the Complete version out yet? Not yet? I have no idea). But anyway, it was good fun, and I'm glad I went, even if I couldn't buy everything I wanted. Or anything, really. :(

I also finally gave in and bought It's A Wonderful World (I guess most people know it as The World Ends With You, but as I'm still in Japan...)  today at the second hand store nearby. I've been wanting to play it for ages but I heard about the apparently complicated battle system and thought it would be bad enough in English, let alone Japanese. But I gave in.

Just started playing and it seems pretty cool so far. The battle system is scary - especially on the 1st day where all those battle explanation screens come up and it's full of kanji and just looking at it made my head hurt. But I made it through!

I guess it's kinda fun on a different level for people who live in Tokyo, or at least have been to Shibuya. I love Shibuya, it's probably my favourite place in the whole city. So it's fun to see stuff like the Hachiko statue (the only meeting place in Shibuya that anyone ever uses, so finding people there on Friday/Saturday night is somewhat horrific), the Shibuya crossing, and the 109 building (I love how on one view of the building they've even tried to draw the 4 of 104 as close to a 9 as possible). I'm gonna have fun exploring. But possibly die many times as I do so, because I probably won't get the intricacies of the battle system.

Anyone who's on my flist living around Tokyo remember the 6.7 magnitude earthquake from a few weeks ago? It was about a week before the big one in China.

Ever since then I've been convinced I keep feeling minor earthquakes, but whenever I check Japan's Meteorological Agency website, there hasn't been one. I'm going crazy. It's really distracting.

After hearing the Kingdom Hearts tracks, I decided to buy the new "Drammatica ~ The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura" CD. Anyone who's a fan of her music from KH, Heroes of Mana, Legend of Mana, Front Mission or Live A Live, it includes orchestrated arrangements from those games so it's well worth getting. It's worth getting even if you don't know all those other games - I've never heard her stuff from anything except KH, but the other tracks are very strong. The Mana tracks especially stand out.

I also gave in and bought the KHII piano solo book. I knew I would. The arrangements look quite simple (which is good for me lol), but not as simple as the FF Best Of book I bought before.

Sometimes I really wish I'd gotten more into music when I was a bit younger, rather than starting out now and having no time/money to study it properly ;_;

Why is my brain so all over the place? And why has FFVII refused to let me go? No sooner do I get distracted by Torchwood, the first non-Squeenix thing I've written anything for in a looooong time, then FFVII starts going, "Noooo, you cannot have her! Give her back!" and starts sticking Claws of Shininess in me again.

I've been in love with this damn game and its seriously fucked up characters since, what, 1998? That's 10 years of my life! No, wait, it's even worse than that, because I'm only 21, so that's half my life. give it back nomura!

I'm on a new FFVII kick now because of my weird obsession with the Compilation voice actors. I started watching some new  shounen-ai anime that have Sakurai in them and since he's now indelibly linked to Cloud in my mind I started hankering after FFVII-voice acting. Which made me wonder about how the voice actors in the English version of Crisis Core did (I would have imported it already except I'm waiting for the lovely shiny European Limited Edition package). So I've been watching the cut scenes on YouTube and have been pleasantly surprised.

They still talk too slowly half the time, and I'm not impressed by Angeal or Tseng, but I like Zack. Rick Gomez does a pretty good job from what I've heard so far. And despite the fact that I love Morikawa to death, I actually really like George Newburn as Sephiroth. He still sounds awkward in places, but they all do. It's not on par with the general voice acting in Kingdom Hearts (which I'm not ashamed to say I love) by any stretch. But despite that, I really like him.

I'm slowly losing the urge to shout "Nooj!" every time I hear him talk, which might be helping.

And Genesis might possibly be bearable when it's not Gackt actually voicing him, but you never heard me say that.

PS. Dear Square, I still don't approve of canon-fuckery. I will never consider Crisis Core canon. Just so you know.

PPS. I really want to do a re-write-Nibelheim-S/Z/C-fic. which i might have started already oops

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

OH THANK YOU FINALLY Squeenix has released some sheet music for Kingdom Hearts II!

Why did they never do one for the first game? I don't understand that :( Especially since Hikari was so popular as a theme song.

I also found some downloads for the Kingdom Hearts arrangements off the new Drammatica album.

KINGDOM HEARTS MUSIC MAKES ME INORDINATELY HAPPY.

Why don't I have an icon yet that expresses my extreme, nerdy excitement?

[EDIT]

LOOK WHAT I FOUND



It's Full Metal Alchemist!Hello Kitty! I found it in a Hello Kitty shop in the basement of the Sunshine 60 building in Ikebukuro, if anyone who's in Japan wants to know. How could I not buy it? It's Ed with a bow in his hair.


another kitty to add to my collection mwahaha

So what have I learned recently?

1. Japanese doctors are absolutely rubbish. No really.



2. Japanese TV gets worse the more you watch it.



3. You must see L: Change The World.



4. Although I complain about Japan a lot, it is still awesome and I love it anyway.

Where else has karaoke and taiko drumming games for Nintendo DS? Where else can you get drunk and gorge yourself on sushi in the middle of the park under the cherry trees? Unfortunately the same earthquake-prone country which then builds cities and massive nuclear power plants over fault lines.

I went to the earthquake simulator place today to prepare, since Tokyo is due a massive earthquake anytime around, oh, now. It was scary.

Torchwood is taking over my brain. And I never realised it was as popular as it is - it averages around 3 million viewers, according to the Radio Times.

And I also didn't realise that John Barrowman isn't actually American. So the video below has been amusing me all day. Torchwood blooper reel plus Scottish accent = win :D

I suppose it's a bit like fans of House seeing clips of Hugh Laurie in Blackadder for the first time lol :)

( Blooper video )

I'm dying to write Jack/Ianto fic, though. ARGH I WANT TO SO MUCH, even though I haven't finished watching series 2 yet :(

Why can't I write things focussing on just romance? Why do I always need some kind of big action plot as well? Especially when I don't know a fandom very well? ARGH >.

OMG, why did I not discover Torchwood before?

It's like everything I could ever ask for in a TV series - it's BBC, it's cheesy sci-fi, it's got John Barrowman, and CANON SLASH. HOT canon slash.

And James Marsters! Kissing other men. Seriously, how did I not get into this series before?

And my god, can Gareth David-Lloyd act his socks off. I've just watched eps 4 and 6 (I can't find 5!) of series 1, and I think I'm in love.

The only problem is getting hold of the episodes since I'm not in the UK. I've managed to find about half the episodes from series 1 online, which I'm working through. Series 2 is easier to find, thank god.

I love you British TV.

SEE THE CANON SLASH YUM

Holidays give you too much time to think. I'm on the Japanese spring break-type thing now, and don't go back to university until April. So I've been keeping busy doing some travelling and stuff, but still it's a lot different to having university work on your mind all the time, seeing your uni friends every day (a lot of them have actually returned home now which makes me very unhappy).

I'm missing things from home now, the first time I've really felt that. I miss my family, my friends and my boyfriend. I miss British food. I miss cheese. I miss the countryside. I miss being able to go shopping and not only find clothes that fit me everywhere, but clothes that I actually want to buy (Japan actually fails at fashion. I've had so many conversations with other foreigners here that are basically "Most Japanese girls look like they got dressed in the dark." Sorry Gwen Stefani).

And I miss my Playstation and my games :( Though I bought myself a DS and FFIV the other week. Cecil's voice actor sounds like Cloud's, it's hilarious. And Kain's deep, manly voice never fails to amuse me because it's the same guy who does Donald Duck in Japanese.

What else do I miss? I miss British TV! So so so so much, and I don't even watch that much TV back home. But I miss the programmes so much, and I can't even use the online BBC/Channel 4 services because the computer needs to be in the UK :( That is not cool.

At least Never Mind The Buzzcocks was on YouTube. Oh Simon Amstell, you kept me sane after I thought my brain would explode from an overdose of food-based-Japanese-TV, but now where have you gone? COME BACK.

I think they need to warn people before they come out here how absolutely and utterly obsessed with food Japanese people are. Seriously. I went on a brief trip to South Korea recently, but I'm not a fan of Korean food since it's too spicy, and when a Japanese person heard this their response was "OMG but what else did you want to go out there for?"

I also had a conversation with some Japanese people in my dormitory the other day, asking them for recommendations of where to go outside of Tokyo, to which one of them recommended Nikko. And after that, the first thing one of them said, turning to another Japanese woman, was "But they don't have any special regional food there, do they?" The other woman said, "No, but in Nikko there's the oldest hotel in Japan and they do food there, you should go!"

Ah, Japan, I love you, but at the same time you scare me quite a lot.

But since I recently discovered a local karaoke place that has mini-stages and mic-stands in some of their rooms, I think I may forgive you just about everything :D

This year, I will become a guitar hero :P

And possibly do some writing after my poor Wii burns out from over-use.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

ARGH I hate Japanese! More importantly, I hate keigo and all that horrible formal speak. We only ever really studied it once and I'm never really in situations where I have to use it. I've gotten used to people using it in shops but it's pretty standard wherever you go, so it doesn't cause a problem.

However, I got woken up from a nap today by my phone ringing, and it was someone from a restaurant I've got a reservation for on Saturday. I find keigo, etc difficult enough, but half-asleep I have no chance. For a long while all I could understand was that she wanted to know something about my reservation, and the words "8 people." I finally managed to ask if there was some kind of problem, at which point she started using normal words and I realised all she wanted was to make sure it was still 8 people.

;_; I am not amused, Japan.

But in other news, look what arrived today!

( PRETTIES )

I don't have a more coherant title than that.

I'm so annoyed. Jump Festa is on the 22nd and 23rd and I CAN'T GO BECAUSE I'M FLYING HOME FOR XMAS ON THE 22ND.

To make it worse, loads of my friends are going.

To make it worse still, some of the new KH stuff is going to be playable (I think only 358/2 Days, but still).

AARRRGGGHHHHH WHY

;_;

P.S. Has anyone played Portal? I'm amused by the newest stuff on VG Cats. The game any good?

[P.P.S.] I just ordered a couple of FF piano score books: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Piano Solo (mid- to high-level), and The Best of Final Fantasy Piano Solo (easy). The second one is pretty new, I think, since it has CC!Zack on the front cover, and from what I remember has a couple of songs from it in the tracklist. Amazon.co.jp's tracklist thing wasn't working when I ordered it, but I looked at it a while ago and it had some good stuff on it. If, when they arrive, anyone want me to scan anything for them? (over Xmas when I hopefully have a working scanner...)