Note to self: mail off your damned phone bill. >_<

Anyway. Today just a few random links and social blogging, not much to say. Am sleepy.

Neil Gaiman on fanfiction! :D Whee! (Note: it's the second entry down.)

Bonnie, N000! You ARE a gamer girl if you love games. That's the POINT. I don't think there's anyone who would say that someone who loves games and gaming is not a gamer. Your level of skill at various games has nothing to do with it. As for those Aesthe girls, they don't have what Kristish and I call "gamer soul." That doesn't mean one is good at games. It just means that you love them for what they are (and not for what new series of smutty doujinshi you can buy after playing them). And, okay, we were moxx0ring their gaming skills, but only because unlike puzzle games or action games, ANYONE can beat an RPG if they have enough patience. Besides, gaming, like any other pursuit, is something you get better at with practice.

Well, I suppose I'll do the FF Good/Bad lists. Lessee.

FF6 -- PROS
1. Locke!
2. the chainsaw
3. the music *_* [has the 3-disc midi OST]
4. Relm! :D Okay, and Terra.
5. Kefka was a great villain.
6. Edgar's castle.
7. It was the first RPG I played on the SNES.
8. For its time, the graphics were pretty amazing. Although really, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, and Tales of Phantasia blew it away, as did Chrono Trigger (and Phantasy Star games on the genesis)... but it was definitly a stepping stone to their greatness.
9. The way that the game made use of "parties" of characters and stuff so that you'd be able to use up to 12 of your 20 characters at a time every once in a while. That fucking ROCKED.
10. the story, of course, especially in the first half, and also individual character stories (locke, terra, edgar & sabin, and setzer spring to mind). Also the amazing number of sidequests and mini-games and hidden shit.

FF6 -- CONS
1. The world of ruin. Well, more specifically, the way the game had this engaging plot and in general, though you could constantly run off and play any number of mini-games, do a ton of sidequests, and so on, there was always what we might call a SPINE to the plot. There was a path to take, though you could meander back and forth across it and take the occasional detour or alternate route. After the World of Ruin came about, suddenly the plot disappeared and you were left to do a bunch of sidequests and defeat the final boss. I love sidequests as much as the next person, really, but when the ENTIRE 2nd half of a game is NOTHING but optional sidequests, I find that annoying. (And yes. It was. You can tell by the fact that as soon as you get three characters in your party so that you can make 3 "groups," you can go fight the boss and beat the whole game.) Non-linearity is cool, but I suppose I'm a fan of there being at least a semblance of a main plot.
2. Well. I guess that's really it. Fantastic game in all other ways. ^^

FF7 -- PROS
1. Pretty graphics! Watched a friend play this game through the first reactor, had to own it. I'm an old-school gamer, but I'd be lying if I denied that I like to look at pretty pictures. (Especially the in-battle graphics.)
2. Dressing Cloud up as a chick. Had never done anything like that in a game before. Was struck by how much all the characters had to say.
3. Sephiroth. I saw him in the game booklet and went *_*. Then I found out he was the villain and became sad. Then he killed Aeris and I was like, *_* again. But even though he did us all a favor by doing that, I still don't LIKE his selfish, annoying, bitchy guts. He's only here in the "pros" section because you're SUPPOSED to dislike the villain. He was a really excellent villain.
4. The fantastic design of the dungeons, the characters, the whole world; not just the graphics but just the kinds of places you'd go and how they were put together and how they made you feel (I can think of old-school SNES games where I thought this also, like Terranigma. It isn't really related to how shiny and nice the graphics are, though of course that makes it easier for the designers).
5. Being able to cheat at Chocobo Racing. Mwahaha.
6. Never being forced to use Yuffie. Thank god.
7. the plot. It seems cliched now, but only because it was so major. It's like how many of shakespeare's plays seem really cliched, because now everyone is so familiar with them and the ideas seem so obvious. Just remember that FF7 did it first.
8. Red XIII. While I didn't have a massive obsession with any of the FF7 characters, after careful consideration I'm pretty sure he was my favorite. Plus he looks kinda like a moomba, and I fucking love moombas.

FF7 -- CONS
1. Sephiroth, or more spefically, his fandom. Ugh. Even the Sephy fanboys are annoying, and let's not get into the fangirls.
2. Aeris, AND her fandom, ESPECIALLY the fanboys, but the fangirls suck too. Plus I just hated her. I laughed when she died. Mwahaha. I was so glad to get that holier-than-thou, prim-and-proper "I am SOOOO Perfect and nice and innocent and sweet" chick out of my party. I think my breaking point with her personality was when she chided Barret for being angry and miserable and got mad at him for not wanting to play games at the Gold Saucer with him, RIGHT after he thought his daughter and all his friends were killed. Stupid bimbo.
3. yuffie. almost as annoying as Aeris, but not so danmed psuedo-innocent. Selfish and bratty. Didn't learn a DAMNED THING throughout the course of the game. See, it's one thing when a character has major flaws when you meet them. It's another when at the end of the game, they have not confronted, reconciled, or otherwise realized their own flaws and tried to deal with them and thus grown as a person. Ugh. What the hell is the point of a character like that?

FF8 -- PROS
1. ZELL! *___* He's only one of my favorite game characters EVER. Zell is the kind of person I wish I was.
2. Squall. I liked Squall. He reminded me of a guy I really, really liked once. Also, because we were inside his head, I understood his motivations and stuff. Yes, there were those occasional times when I wanted to smack him, but in general i was very fond of him. I liked his apathy and the way he went through the motions and always tried his hardest and did his best... and yet he didn't really care. Maybe it's because I can identify with apathy and self-boredom. Squall wasn't angsty, he was bored. I suppose if you don't really know what that feels like it'd be easy to find it realy annoying, but i just felt sorta sorry for him and hoped he'd make friends with Zell. (Not THAT kind of friends! >_> ...Well, okay, that wouldn't hurt either. Mwahaha.)
3. All the other characters! :D I think FF8 was a landmark game for me because I didn't hate any of the cast members. I find that I ALWAYS hate someone in any anime, game, or manga I partake of, but not in FF8. I found Rinoa distinctly uninteresting, but I harbored no ill feelings toward any members of the cast, even the boring ones.
4. MOOMBAS!!! MOOMBAS DAMMIT!
5. The graphics. they were nice.
6. the music in the Lunatic Pandora ("Find Your Way")
7. Kiros! *___* Laguna was okay too.
8. The plot up until the halfway point or so, although this is a game where I appreciated the characters and world much more than the plot. -_-
8. the junction and draw systems. They weren't my favorite, but I didn't hate them, and like any system they had their pros and cons. I have to laugh at anyone who spent a ton of time junctioning though; you could go through and do it in under 5 minutes, and once ou'd done it you generally didn't have to do it again for a long, long time. Contrast this with the constant need to switch magicyte in FF6 (and pay attention to what you had on you when you were abut to level up!) or materia in FF7. People who complain that the junction system in FF8 took too long and was too complex to manage must be fucking idiots.

FF8 -- CONS
1. the 4th disc. It was beautiful and it wasn't a non-fun dungeon, but it was SO POINTLESS. If the theme of the game is LOVE, then don't make us keep going randomly to prevent "Time Kompression" if the love story has been resolved! This game should have ended with a big boss fight at Esthar where Rinoa was being held. Possibly with the dying "spirit" of Adel or something. Kinda like at the end of Wild ARMs (but not really). Then she could have run into his arms, it would have been climactic, and then they could have the party at the Garden, THE FUCKING END.
2. the whole "oh, well, we all knew each other as children and just forot about it!" thing. That was just really retarded. I can forgive the outer space thing, maybe. But not the orphanage. What was the point?! It's not like the characters (excepting Rinoa) didn't already HAVE a feeling of connection by the time they found this out. There was seemingly no purpose to it unless you're trying to slash Squall, Zell, Irvy, or Seifer, and you want for them to have been friends when they were little or something. which is stupid anyway as we all know that sometimes the people we're friends with as kids grow up to be assholes.
3. Having to make your own weapons out of stuff that was a fucking pain in the ass to get. See, it was okay in Chrono Cross because you've generally got fucking TONS of the stuff, you don't need to go anywhere to get it (the only exception is shiny elements, which you probably won't end up with by accident, and they're really easy to get). Also in Chrono Cross you could deconstruct things for the parts, so that was okay too. In games like FF8 and Vagrant Story, it's a pain in the ass to make even low-level weapons and armor sometimes. At least we didn't have to make armor in FF8.

FF9 -- PROS
1. Until the patented "squaresoft ending" happened about an hour or two from the end, I really liked the plot. It was much more coherant than FF7 or FF8, and didn't rely so much on ridiculous conincidences (though there were a few of those too). I was always interested in finding out what would happen next.
2. Lots of fun sidequests and mini-games.
3. the FMV and general background graphics. Fucking FANTASTIC. Like that scene where they're piloting the airship through the tiny hole and Vivi is angry and having a magic battle with the Black Mage #3 or whatever? That looked FUCKING COOL and anyone who pretends they didn't like it just because it looked good is an idiot.
4. Vivi! :D He was so very cute, and his angst was understandable, and best of all, it even got resolved!
5. AMARANT! XD He was my favorite! :D Dude, he fucking rocked. Too bad he looked so freaky.
6. Hell, the rest of the cast. I liked them all, including Steiner. Zidane was really cute and I got used to his tail and everything. Adorable.
7. the magic-learning system, which was basically the same as FF6 only without magicyte.
8. the music in that gimpy!Zidane scene. (And, in fact, the scene itself... I especially liked when Amarant and Freya jumped in, I think I got weepy at that point.)
9. Ozma! :D Well, actually, I fucking HATED Ozma. He is the hardest boss I have ever fought in any game, ever, and he is so insanely cheap and evil! and you didn't even get anything good when you beat him! But when it comes to optional hidden bosses, they SHOULD be hard. So that's a good thing.

FF9 --CONS
1. The big heads. god, I just hated looking at them. they ruined the otherwise fantastic FMV by looking freaky. I contented myself with looking at the backgrounds, which were lovely. I avoided looking at my hydrocephalic party whenever possible.
2. Kuja and his fandom. Look, the man was a selfish prick. On top of that he had the body of a chibi belly-dancer, which was REALLY DISTURBING. All the fangirls (and boys) told me I'd like him better at the end. So I waited and waited. When the end came around and Kuja was presented as feeling like a slightly bad boy, I probably would have reacted like Zidane did, but I still hate him. Just LESS.
3. the utter cheese moments. the ones that were so bad that I found myself feeling embarassed for the game when I watched them, and wanting to leave the room until it was over. The best example of this I can think of is that point when Zidane tells Dagger the story of "a boy" while they're at the inn. God, that was just awful.
4. Necron. Random, anyone?
5. I hated the way that they changed the entire theme of the game in the last two hours. The theme throughout the game is "what makes us 'people'? what makes us ourselves?" This theme is reflected in everything you do in the game. Then at the last second it switches to "What is the nature of the relationship of Time and Memory?" which is an okay theme, but NOT IN THIS GAME. They were disrespectful to the great original theme by doing this, plus it just didn't fit. -_- annoying.

Haven't played FFX yet, but I can already tell that I will hate chocobo racing and that I will not be dodging lightning 200 times. My guess is that I will like the game. Because I always like FF games well enough. And this is the point I wish to make: Final Fantasy games aren't always the very BEST games, especially in terms of plot. They aren't godlike and generally have problems. But I can't think of any game I like that DOESN'T have any problems, plot holes, annoying characters, or anything else. People shouldn't be judging FF games as anything different from other games. They make a big deal about a plot hole in FF8 and then turn around and say, "Oh, well, only a minor plot hole in Dragon Warrior 7 is okay, it's not like it ruined the whole game or anything, it's just an amusing thing you might notice." An annoying character is considered something you just have to put up with in Grandia 2 and something that doesn't ruin the whole game, but in a Final Fantasy game an annoying character is a Crime Against Humanity. And so on. For me, I think about how good they are as games, and they come up pretty well: I usually spend 60-80 hours on my initial playthrough, I usually like most of the cast well enough (even if I don't love them), I never feel my time or money was wasted having this game experience... and that's all I should be asking, right? Despite crazed fan hype, the games are not perfect, and I shouldn't be disappointed that they're not perfect. If I played them all expecting them to be the perfect epitomy of gaming and the best games ever made, I might be disappointed, but I don't play them with that mentality, because to expect perfection is just stupid. I think it would help if other people didn't expect it either. (And then there's the cult of FF followers, who are disturbing in an entirely different way.)

Later. "I blamed myself for being too much like somebody else..." -- Our Lady Peace