MILES to GO || before I sleep

I spent too long on That Site and ended up stumbling across this one, about Console RPG clichés.

A few stood out to me for there being a game I knew/played/was popular that broke the mold. Yay, fandom! Sometimes.

Interestingly, some are just plain wrong. And others made me remember all kinds of games and their characters, big and small. I had no idea clichés were so prevalent, but now I am thusly enlightened: and you can be, too!



And that's all...for now, folks!

So, I'm playing FF8 again. I'm on Disc 3, doing all the sidequests. As it stands, you really can't do the sidequests in any willy-nilly order; there's kind of an order you MUST do them in if you want to get things done properly.

So, I wanted to get the Adamantines from an Adamantoise. Turns out you can't mug them (they come in pairs), and they might not drop it even if you DO defeat them without mugging. Why? Because Adamantine's a RARE item. You can get a rare item if you get the Bahamut GF.

To get the Bahamut GF, you need to go to the Deep Sea Research Center. Been there, tried that, got my ass handed to me. I figure I need to be stronger to beat the Ruby Dragons that stand in my way. Not sure quite HOW, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Then there's the Tonberry King. He'll be useful in getting the items I need from monsters like the Blue Dragon or T-Rexaur that are too leveled-up to drop the ones I need. Problem? Last time I got to good ol' T.K. and he kicked my ass about seven minutes into the battle. So while I lasted, I didn't last LONG ENOUGH. I looked up strategies for beating the Tonberry King, and they recommend getting the Lion Heart, Squall's Ultimate Weapon.

So I gave in and Card Modded one of my Brothers cards (Minotaur) to get 10 Adamantines. I upgraded Zell's gauntlets to their ultimate form, but I still need extra items for Squall's Lion Heart, Selphie's Strange Vision, and Irvine's Exeter. Specifically, I need 4 Dragon Fangs, 2 more Pulse Ammo, and 3 Star Fragments. The Dragon Fangs and Star Fragments can come from the same place, but ONLY if I level down the opponent... which means getting the Tonberry King. No other GF allows you to Level Down your opponents. WTF!? Cyclical much?

I've hunted all the bestiaries online; none of them indicate any way of getting a Dragon Fang once your enemies are past Level 30. And considering Squall's at Level 100 and my other party members are in their mid-40s or 50s levels, I don't know how an enemy could NOT be higher than Level 30.

It'd be nice if I could somehow just get Bahamut, because I get the feeling that with him, I could easily beat the Tonberry King even without the Lion Heart and get this over with. In fact, my original "order" was to:
* Get Bahamut
* Fight the Adamantoise for the Adamantine (useless now, but maybe there's another enemy whose rare items might be necessary)
* Beat the Tonberry King after getting Squall's ultimate weapon
* Go back to the Deep Sea Research Center to beat the Omega and Ultima Weapons

...Being that I can't do the first one and there's no apparent way to skip to the third one and survive, I don't know what to do.

Damn video games, so frustrating sometimes! This is why if I ever write strategy guides, I want them to account for EVERY damn possibility, including someone NOT beating X enemy by Y disc in the game or something. Because OBVIOUSLY if I had, then none of this would be an issue now. I don't really like the ideas of linear gameplay anyway; it takes the fun out of exploring. So what if I want to do as much of the game as possible but not follow your order? That's no fair, to restrict my sidequests because it's the only way to beat them! ARGH!

So, obabscribbler? I've decided to name Anzu x Zell "Scribbleshipping" in your honor.

...No, I'm not really going to try and submit a crossover pairing to the shippers_club, nor am I going to start using that anywhere and everywhere, but I just think it's so cute. In my head, that's the name.

That said, I ended up moving the idea for that fic you inspired me for (which, by the way, is tentatively titled "The Aftermath of Angels") into its own planner file. Note that I only do that when it gets LOOOOONG. I can't tell you how long the planner is so far in pages, but in terms of kilobytes, it's 54K at the moment. Of course, the planner isn't complex-- there are no pictures, no fancy calendars, just boring old CSS. And yet, with all that text, it's 54K. I'm not sure whether I should be :D or D:

(And I know you didn't specify Anzu & Zell romantically in your prompt from a while ago, but it halfway ended up there with what I wrote already, and I'll be honest: the fic planner is certainly looking more Scribbleshipping than Azureshipping ATM. SHOCK!!!)

I only wish there were a way to have an Anzu x Zell icon without it looking bizarre (this is what happens when you cross anime with video games).

In other news, today's ENGL 313 - Pop Culture final wasn't so bad. I think I did pretty well, all things considered, though I may have messed up the source of one of the reading passages-- I wrote it as being de Certeau when I think it was Fiske. Oh well. :P I also didn't get my Fandom Essay back yet, because he was grading it right as I walked up and turned my Blue Book in. So I'll have to get it from him on his office hours on Wednesday. But generally speaking, I think I'll do the best in that class.

The girls and I are going to get together on Sunday (ah, my last day here in Northridge-- until January 3rd, anyway) for Margeaux's belated birthday (she's one of the girls in my ENGL 313 class that I've been working with) and just a general "YAY WE DID IT!" celebration.

I tried to sell back my textbooks-- one of them I paid over $75, and the campus bookstore doesn't want more than $8 for any ONE of them. WHAT THE HELL!? So I immediately put them on Half.com. Let's hope they sell, and sell soon (so I don't have to bring them to Anaheim or ask Baba and Grandpa to mail them for me).

Work was crazy today-- I almost ran out of breath for all the calls I was taking. Thankfully tomorrow's no final, but that doesn't mean I don't have things to do-- I still have my radical revision to write by Wednesday evening, plus two essays by Thursday! YIKES!

But today I just took it easy when I got back from work-- I played some more FF8, got Doomtrain (DOOOOOOM TRAIN!), upgraded Irvine's weapon (FINALLY! Freakin' Steel Pipes are so hard to get...!), and played a BUNCH of Triple Triad. I finally got the Pandemona and Zell cards in Balamb; next is to play the Card Queen, but I don't like her Direct Rule of trading... very risky business! It's not as if she has really strong cards (from what I could tell), but still, I don't want to lose any of my GF cards... I'd rather WIN some from her! Ehehehe. Next up: playing her again (without losing any GF cards; good thing I saved before I played her), playing Piet to get Alexander, playing Caraway to get Rinoa and Martine to get Ifrit (back), and playing Laguna to get Squall. Triple Triad's a heck of a lot easier than Sphere Break or Blitz Ball, I'll tell ya that much!

Tiiiired.

obabscribbler rec'd a fic that was done by edmondia for this meme. The meme interests me, and I need to get the brain juices flowing, so let's do this.

Crossover Meme

Choose 10 fandoms. Post the list and have your friends pick combinations. Write a drabble ficlet crossover featuring these fandoms.

1. Sailor Moon
2. Yu-Gi-Oh
3. Final Fantasy X/X-2
4. Final Fantasy VIII
5. Skip Beat
6. Kitchen Princess
7. Full Moon o Sagashite
8. Star Ocean 3 (Till The End of Time)
9. Star Ocean 2 (The Second Story)/EX
10. Full Metal Panic

So you, dear commenter, can pick two of the above fandoms, and I shall write a ficlet for them. I can't guarantee that it'll be a legitimate 100 word drabble, hence the word "ficlet" instead.