Okay, I often tend to be ~2 years behind on video games. My excuse is that I am too thrifty to shell out full price for most games, so I tend to wait until the price goes down or I happen to find it at a used games store, because I don't like spending more than $20-25 on a game.

In Crisis Core's case, I have to admit that although I knew I wanted to play it eventually, I wasn't in a particular hurry because I'd been so put-off by Advent Children. I don't think I've ever talked about it here, but I really didn't enjoy Advent Children very much, but never mentioned it because I figured fandom would kill me. Admittedly fandom is probably half the reason why I didn't like AC; I felt like all the fangirls made it into so much more than it was, which IMO ultimately was nothing more than an attempt to show off their latest and greatest graphics technology and shameless fanservice. I didn't think the story was compelling and couldn't find myself giving a rat's ass about whether anyone other than Cloud lived or died. Fandom's obsession with the Sephiroth remnants made me want to puke and is one of the reasons why I will no longer come within a mile of FF7 fandom, which is kind of sad because it does hold a very special place in my heart (as my first console game, first JRPG, and first fandom I ever wrote fanfic in).

Point being, when my dad gave me Crisis Core for Christmas and I started to play it during spare moments, I didn't go into it with high expectations. I was basically expecting it to be the same as AC: shiny graphics and fanservice, and nothing more.

I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Okay, it was shiny, and admittedly there was fanservice. But there was so much more as well. The story was great and the characters were all surprisingly likable. I loved seeing Sephiroth as a human being rather than just a vicious super-villain. I didn't expect to like Genesis or Angeal (I expected them to be basically the equivalents of the remnants in AC: pure fanservice), but I did, especially Angeal. (I was ambivalent about Genesis until I read that he was basically an incarnation of Gackt, and then I had much more respect for him.) And Zack! I liked Zack! I'd never shared fandom's obsession with him, but I found him to be an enjoyable protagonist, and I definitely cried at the end. I also have new-found respect for the Zack/Aerith pairing. And Cissnei! I loved Cissnei! I really wish we could've gotten to see more of her.

So, yes. I was impressed, and very happy that I finally got to play this game.

On a somewhat related note, those of you also into games should all sign up for newgameplus, an art and ficathon just for game fandoms! And not just obscure ones, which in this case was really good timing for me because it means I can request Crisis Core fic without having to come too close to FF fandom, which I'm still not really brave enough to do. 8);

I don't usually do yuletide recs because I don't expect anyone else to particularly care about my opinions. However, as I was going through the archive looking for things to read, I noticed that yes, surprisingly, there are a lot of stories that are even more neglected than my own. And yes, mine have been fairly neglected. Added up, their hits don't even come close to 100 yet.

Once again, it all boils down to game fandoms. This really is the year of game fandoms for me. But many of these stories I'm reccing, I'm not even familiar with the canon of. Despite my recent obsessions with games like Assassin's Creed, most of the games I play are Japanese RPGs, and as it turns out, what receives even less Yuletide love than the Asian video games? The non-Asian ones.

So, without further ado, here are recs focusing on mostly non-Asian video games. ( 10 Stories You Didn't Know You Should Read Because You Skip the Video Game FandomsCollapse )

By omission, this should make it even easier to guess which fics are mine. Oh, well. Here are the hints again, with a few new ones.

• I wrote two stories, both for game fandoms.
• One of them is a chromatic source.
• One of them was in a fandom I've written in before, the other is not.
• My total word count for both stories combined was nearly 14K.
• One story has porn, the other is gen.
• Both stories have fight scenes, though two very kinds of fights.

Sometimes I do wish there was a separate yuletide for animanga/games/Asian dramas etc.

I like the idea of writing treats/stocking stuffers, and now that I have the time I've been going through the entire Dear Yuletide Writer post trying to find a prompt that catches my interest, but about 80% of yuletide is books I haven't read and TV shows that I don't watch.

I wish there was a magical button to filter out everything like that that isn't relevant to my interests...

恭喜發財!新年快樂!

Man, Chinese New Year is my favorite holiday. Nothing better than an excuse to stuff yourself full of delicious food and get money from random relatives you'd almost forgotten about. Don't really have time to do anything fancy today, but we went out with the ARCC board to Orient Kitchen (one of the most authentic places in Pittsburgh) on Saturday and completely gorged ourselves on Cantonese cuisine. We're having our own CNY celebration this coming Saturday, where we're spending all day cooking a 10-course meal for some 60~100 people. It's probably the day I look forward to the most all year. So much fun. E. Wu and I are making fried tofu with stir-fried vegetables this year.

In other news, I realized today that I've sort of been forgetting about LJ lately. I hadn't checked my flist in almost a week. It's weird because aside from just generally acclimating myself to the new semester, I haven't really been all that busy. Last week was a little hectic because of the Activities Fair and all the organizations I'm in, but overall this is definitely my lightest semester yet.

Still,
* boyfriend
* Mass Effect
* almost nightly get-togethers at boyfriend's house with mutual friends to watch Battlestar Galactica
* bitching about the cold weather
seem to all be taking precedence over my interest in the Internet with the exception of things like LOLcats and Woot.

I suppose it's all right; at least I'm glad that I'm learning how to relax and enjoy myself in ways that are not at all related to school and clubs and things that are as stressful as they are fun. On the other hand, sometimes I worry about what this means for my own hobbies and interests, because if I have any significant amount of free time, I am usually with the boy, possibly even at the boy's house, which means we wind up doing whatever the two of us and anyone else who may be around find amusing. So, I still get to play Mass Effect (because it's as much fun to watch as it is to play), but I don't know when I should do things like writing. I still need to actually write my suikosantaredux fic, and I have a few ideas for Mass Effect fics that I eventually want to explore because it's the first time in forever that a fandom has actually gotten in my head this much, and I can STAND the other people in it, and there's just such a big 'verse to play with. But I don't know when I'd find the time to be alone and write because that means telling the boy to go away for an extended period time and... we're just not used to that.

As far as Battlestar goes, Austin's housemate James turned us onto it and we all got sucked in, watching at least 2-3 episodes together every other night. It's weird, though, because I don't generally get into TV shows, and in this case I'm obsessed enough that I want to watch the rest of it, but at the same time I'm not convinced that I actually *like* it. I greatly disagree with a lot of the decisions the writers made. I suppose part of the reason I got sucked in is that it's an ironically appropriate companion to Mass Effect, in that they both deal with space + the military + scary robot lifeforms gone rogue. But for all that Battlestar has actually managed to run for 4(?) seasons, it's definitely not as good as Firefly, which was less than a full season.

Anyway, more later. I have a lunch date with my love at 1:30pm~