Sailor §trange

I've just been thinking, over the last few hours since I got thinking about Larsa Solider, about kids in FF games, and it seems that practically all the games since FF7 (since I don't know any of the pre-7 ones well enough to give an opinion) have some sort of Token Kid - either of the Cute Kid, or Smart Kid type.

FFVII - Marlene.
BC - Yuffie.
AC - Denzel (though he shares with Marlene).
DoC - Shelke.
FFVIII - Ellone.
FFIX - Ekio.
FFX - Bahamut's Fayth.
FFX-2 - Shinra.
FFXII - Larsa Solider.

I know, I didn't include FFXI, but I know crap all about 11 and am never likely to bother since it's a MMORPG and my internet connection is crap for things like that.

Also, KH kinda doesn't count, since the lead character is still young either that he scrapes into the "Cute Kid" catagory - or at least he did in KH1, before puberty really hit him. (That makes me wonder, has anyone ever written a fic that actually brings up how much Sora grew while he was asleep between CoM and KH2? That'd be interesting reading.)

This isn't what I had originally thought to write when I decided I wanted to write more for the Griever-bunny, but this is what has come out first.

Prettymuch Griever-Squall-centric, heavily based on Summon theory from the plot analyses of Glen Morrow (aka Squall_of_SeeD), and the writing is probably as rough as hell.


( Self-Made Legend )

Okay, so I've made up a neighbourhood. The landscaping isn't spectacular but that's because I still haven't gotten a full grip of the conversion between SC4 and TS2.

If anyone tries making their own landscapes, keep in mind that you only get the middle of the city plot you've transfered - that means, don't plan out roads on the outer edges of the map and expect to be able to use them.

As much as I love the peak in the middle of Never Was there's not many roads on the map that I can use - which is a pain, because the long shots show there's more roads further out.

Anyway, the plots I've managed to make aren't great for landscaping but what they do have in their favour is enough roads to suport my collection of FF and KH sims. Predicably, for a neighbourhood that is intended to be my perminent FF/KH one, I named the primary area Radiant Garden, the university Hollow Bastion, the shopping district Twilight Town and downtown Traverse Town. It was a bit of toss-up which would get Twilight and which Traverse, but I get the idea that Traverse Town is perminently night so it got Downtown.

The big problem now is setting up the sub-neighbourhoods - the uni, the shops, downtown. I think I am going to have to plunder the official neighbourhoods to get stuff - I am definately going to have to clone that nightclub I adjusted in Pleasantview Downtown (I didn't do much, I just altered the bathrooms to include Rejuvenation Chambers) and I am very inclined towards setting up a nice little vampire population as well.

But I still want to get all the Org families housed before I start moving them out of Never Was - and get all the Org toddlers trained in at least the basics (walking, talking, potty) - means less lots to shift that way.
I also need to do some work on some of the other houses - Supernova (Seph and Cloud's house) needs a garage, since the loss of the savegame I had before I transfered to Fanyarë erased the one I had made, the Kingdom house, Wutai, Spira house (if I keep it) and Square Round (the Hubbard house) will all need extensive remodelling to get a garage into them - if I don't just declare it a bust and just yank the families in question out of those houses and build new ones.

But the Org first - then neighbourhood setup, then I start placing houses and doing renovations to existing family homes. I'm still in for the long haul yet!

You know that disappearing sim?

Well I got the Ignatius family (Axel's) housed and Ïethacan turned up on... probably the third day (I've shoved in some of the SimSlice electro-boards so all three members of the family can work up some skills without interuption) and I decided to temporarily get an NPC Generator cabinet (another SimSlice toy - a recoloured shower that teleports other sims into the house as visitors) so I could have Saïx over as well and weirdly enough, there's Calista on the character selection piechart for the Nathyus family.

( The disappearing, reappearing, made-over nanny )


So, I don't know what I'm going to do with this girl, maybe I'll see if I can get her to stay solidly in a house. I still feel like playing out the irony of hooking up Ïethacan and Selwyn though, but maybe I can engineer a few intervening memories and use Calista as one of my subjects for that.

At the moment, I'm going to do a bit of Body Shop work to get some of my yet-to-be-implemented sims ready to place so I may start on an idea I had in that direction - making up Edea as mother to teen sims - ones like Selphie and Irvine - so I can put the Teens into Uni.

Strangely, in this case, I am glad of this game's stubborness about surnames - it's kinda nice that I know Calista won't change names, even if I transplant her into Edea's house so I can work things around to getting her to fucking stay put.

Maybe I'll see if I can tweak the Ellone model's face into something I like better while I'm fiddling in Body Shop. Both of them I need to find clothing for because they either didn't come with custom clothing or the clothes didn't work. I at least have a dress chosen for Edea.

Actually, I'd like to download SimPE and start poking about with it - I read somewhere one can reset family relationships with it, but that sounds rather high level alterations that could potentially go wrong very easily. Meh, maybe I'm a bit too ambitious there!


Edit: Grr! Already having issues with Edea. You know those veiny-things along the sides of her face while she's the Big Bad Sorceress? Well they are part of the base skintone for her. That's what's annoying, you can't change skintones - you can't change eye colours either - once the sim is made up.
I wish whoever had made this sim had taken into account that Edea in "Matron" mode (in the flashbacks and the final scene after the Ultimecia fight, and in the camcorder FMV in the credits) didn't have those veins and had made them facial makeup, but nooooo! They're part of the skintone aren't they?
I also hate the skullcap - it looks daft, a lot dafter than the original in FF8 - which is why I am wishing the veins were makeup or eyebrows because then I could make over Edea mid-game, from "The Soreceress" to "Matron" and back again if I wished - because my experimental "Matron" is not looking very Edea-like at the moment.

I've been wanting to do this meme since I saw it.

1) Write down fifteen ships of yours.

2) Invent a godawful shipname for them. It can be anything from an opaque melding to a bizzare abstract concept, but it must sound vaguely genuine.

3) See if your friends can guess what the ships are and why.

4) If you're doing multiple fandoms, clarify which ship's from which fandom to avoid confusing the flist.

SS Silver and Gold (FF7)
Guessed by jessara40k

Flowershipping (FF7)
Guessed by jessara40k

SS Angstbucket (FF7)
Guessed by jessara40k

SS Materia Beast (FF7)

Gunbladeshipping (FF8)
Guessed by jessara40k

SS Family Ties (FF8)
Guessed by jessara40k

SS Guns and Leather (FF8)
Guessed by jessara40k

Bonus: SS Past and Future (FF8)
Guessed by jessara40k

HMS Destiny (KH)
Guessed by bard_linn

HMS Heart's Flame (KH)

HMS Dopelganger (KH)
Guessed by bard_linn

HMS Radiant Blade (KH)

SS Brains and Brawn (KH)
Guessed by bard_linn

SS Sadist Flowers (KH)
Guessed by bard_linn

SS Bloodlust (KH)

SS Stormcallers (KH)
Bonus Edit: Because Stormcallers is fucking obscure I have an alternate ship-name for them: SS Hurricane.
Guessed by blueshinra! I wondered if someone would get this one - it practically doesn't exist beyond my imagination.

Edit: Changed one.
Edit 2: Added it back.

At least two of those seem wildly obvious to me. One of the others I may have mentioned here before. There's at least one that could be mistaken for another ship in the same fandom. There's one that is an almost nonexistant ship and one that I have only developed within the last week (one of the KH ones) that I really think needs suport.

Any guesses?

This can be counted as Mimi's Not Quite So Random Followup To Her Random Thought of the Day.


To put it simply, the observation on Balarlai's complection being similar to Xehanort's has reminded me of how Squeenix likes to make all of their bad guys (and girls) white-haired.

Let me list the usual suspects: Jenova, Sephiroth, Ultimecia, Kuja, Yunalesca, Baralai, Ansem/Xehanort/Xemnas, Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo, Wiess. All of them are white-haired.

The one who is a little questionable is Baralai - as that manifesto makes note of. He was possessed and really is only as much the true villain of the piece as say, Seifer. But it still means that through the mechanics of possession Shyuin has white hair by proxy.


I would be curious to know the hair colours of villains in other FFs - both before 7 and after 10-2. Maybe it's a theme that only started with Nomura but that would not be totally accurate because I have this impression that Nomura had nothing to do with 9 - barring borrowing Vivi for KH2. Plus going against the custom, Marluxia is totally not a silverhair - though silver-haired villainy makes its appearance elsewhere in CoM, in Riku's half of the game (if I'm not mistaken).


Anyway, it kinda makes me think that one may be able to predict who the true villain is in Squeenix productions (at least in FF stuff) by seeing who has the white hair.

And this post so demanded this icon!

This is another of my FFVII/FFVIII ficlets - you know, the ones where Vincent is a secret GF. This one I imagined from the POV of Ellone actually. I used an idea I had about the sort of position I think Vincent would take.
There's also a mention of something I thought up while chatting with angel_0f_sorrow - she will probably understand what I mean but no one else will since I didn't elaborate on the idea here.

As always with these, some spoilerism for FFVII:DoC.

( Everyone thinks Bahamut rules the Guardian Forces... )

I currently can't get laylah's latest SDRnR fic out of my head. AU!Lexaeus/Zexion is too cute.


On other things, I need to get around to a drawing I've been thinking of, I just can't bring myself to it.

At least tomorrow I don't work.

I have no idea how like Vincent this sounds like. I'm not sure if I can right Vincent. I'll leave it up to the opinions of others if I got anywhere within a stone's throw of "Vincent".

This is in the same theme as that fic-thing from a week ago. FF7/FF8 crossover. No real spoilers, not even for DoC which this is so dependent on for an excuse for why Vincent is in the FF8 world.

( Guardian )

I have a need to write something of Griever. It does follow my pet plotbunny of Squall becoming Griever and the whole timeloop of two versions of him co-existing.
There's also a big bite of my obsession with making other new GFs out of canon characters in this.

Slight DoC spoiler.

( Fic-like... something. FF8, hints of FF7. )