deprivation and differentiation

I'm probably going to just knock off all the AC hype for a while and concentrate on revision. It's supposedly better for me this way, but I sure don't know how to achieve that. Even if I do get over AC, LO just pops up in AC's place and demands I watch it.

Of course, this demand has got to be refuted, otherwise there's really going to be nothing in the end to look forward to.

It's amazing how AC's delays actually benefit us people. Or me, at least. Living life with a goal seems like a very motivating idea. And it's good.

Besides, the more delays, the more we want it. Heh. Such is adding fuel to fire... unintentionally.

I'm not sure whether I see disaster in the near future, but I sure hope not. Most things have been coming along quite alright this year, but I suppose one can't expect everything to be the way she wants it to. Even if she's an evil unstoppable pool of fangirlitic enzymes.

One point, though, is clear. I abhor exams.

Really no choice, but no thankies. I don't see the point of putting so much emphasis on examinations. They're important, I know, but I do wish for people to understand that you can't judge the best of a person through exams like these.

I'd touched on this topic before, and said that I would fail terribly if exams were otherwise. (i.e. not word-based)

Still, I'm left in great wonderment how exactly I can still sit here and slack away.

You all probably know by now.

Notice:

Missing In Action til after examinations or school happens to find my mutilated body somewhere after convulsions and unexplained actions due to overstress or after I get revived by the thought of seeing LO and AC again. Or back to participate in all the bishie talk.

Bishie-induced motivation has an astounding impact on brain activity and the will to live.

Good luck to me til then. I think I need that lucky 7s effect.

and then again

I've read a few reports, and it has come to my realisation that depending on what type of die-hard fan you are, you'll react very differently to AC.

Scenario 1: Die-hard fan type A

Generally, these fans begin first with expressing their disappointment after watching AC. They've always had high expectations of FFVII and thus AC as well, and waste no time pointing out all the flaws they've spotted. Which accounts to, in the end, a lot of stuff.

Severe disappointment for these guys.

Scenario 2: Die-hard fans type B

These are mainly the people SE hs been targetting at, and sing AC's praises. They are also die-hard fans, but are already satisfied with what they got. They are mostly able to pick out the underlying themes and seem to like the ideas.

See Daniel's reviews: General and Spoilerific

Scenario 3: movie-viewer C

They have a good idea about the FF world, and have a certain amount of experience in dealing with video games and such. They normally see both sides to AC, but, well, can get a bit annoying -yet amusing- at times.

You may read this to get a better idea of what I'm talking about.

Scenario 4: neutral movie-viewer

Simple. They go "WTF?!"

Scenario 5: normal fan of FFVII

Typically can lean over to any side, or may be undecided in the end.

Scenario 6: non-fan of FFVII

I've seen cases where people who've played FFVII and didn't like it didn't like AC either. Of course there were logical explanations behind everything. Yeah. Sadly so.

But logical in their sense does not necessarility equate to logical in our sense.

--- - ---

You know, I actually felt a little disappointed in AC right after I watched it because there were so many things I had wanted to see but did not.

I had expected more flashbacks, but then there weren't many. There were too may fight scenes, IMO. And another thing is that I think we've all been spoiled by the magazine scans and trailers in recent days, that most of it is nothing new.

There were a few ideas that you just had to get used to, which took some time. Of course, there seems to be some loopholes in the plot.

Nevertheless, I'm rather satisfied with what I got because unlike FFVII, there is a major limitation, which is the time constraint. You have only 100 minutes to tell a story. Naturally, many things get left out or simplified. I'm also glad that SE left AC open-ended. No, we didn't see Cloud and Tifa getting married, though I know people who would have loved that to happen. Whatever became of Aeris, Zack and the SHM are also up to speculation, if you really want to. And till now, I'm not sure where's Seph still. The end of AC seemed even less conclusive than the end of FFVII.

Well, AC may be fanservice, if you want to put it that way, but at least it's impactful fanservice. I haven't seem LO, but from what I've heard, LO is just pure fanservice, much more than AC.

The part I found I love about AC are its themes. Sure some people find it amateurish, but I thought that there were a whole lot behind the SHM. I actually think that the focus isn't really on "Redemption". There's plenty more on relationships... or the lack of them.

AC is a short story, but in comparison to TSW, I think its better because we've already have the basic idea of FFVII. Everything just continues on from there. TSW lacked the basis. People didn't know what that world was like, and thus there were plenty of shortcomings. It had less chances of development because they had to convince the audience to take that entire version of Gaia in, and to accept it. By the time you did, however, it ended.

In the end, AC cannot be compared on the same plane as FFVII. It's not a fair comparison. In fact, we should see them as two different things with some connection, but surely AC is not as well-developed as FFVII, despite being just about as large a project. SE just doesn't have the ample experience in this area.

As for music wise, I did expect so many old songs to make an appearance again, but it's quite to my liking. Come on, it's not that sappy. I have a distaste for sappy stuff, but since I like the newer version of the songs, my sap-o-meter says it's not.

So there.

By the way, someting funny's going on with the recent FF:AC FAQ. Machine translations are the best/worst! (depending on how serious you are) You'd never think Aerith=air squirrel. lmao.

Besides, I've found a couple of pics of Cloud's swords in AC, which clears things up a bit. One of them can be found here. Sheesh... who are these hardworking people.

to a better tommorrow

The wait was worth it! *cries*

I see why people say AC rocks! Because it does! ^-^

Okay, that didn't explain anything.

And I've got the Limited Edition!<33 *happiness* It was the last piece yesterday, and I didn't know lol. Of course, I cancelled my preorder for the normal one.

Wonder who was the one who rejected the reserve or something. It wasn't for sale the day before that.

Nevermind.

*drools over AC:FPLE*

One thing off the list now. ^^

*glomps all bishies*

We knew how hard it was, and now we'll all look forward to a better future. It's there, if we just look hard enough.

Affinity

I should have known the sheer number of AC fans there are residing in Singapore. I've just checked, we rank 7th (coincidence or not?) in country of most hits for AdventChildren.net.

For a small country like us, it's quite an achievement.

If you want an illustration of how many and how scary AC fans can get, here's one.

MMM imported 150 copies of AC to be sold on the actual release date, i.e. 14.09.05, meaning yesterday, and it got sold out in 50 minutes.

I never stood a chance. They only accepted walk-in purchases anyway, so that means that unless I skipped school, there wasn't any chance that I would get it yesterday.

And I've had quite a few more amazing finds today.

Record of Findings:

1. It pays to wear the hongzi to MMM.

This is apparently so because seeing the hongzi gives the staff an impression that you're (in Laoba terms) "affluent". Thus the staff will suddenly become rather friendly towards you and will kindly tempt you with many things (that I don't suppose he does for everyone else who've stepped in).

And I've remembered to cover the back of my file up today, because I totally forgot about it yesterday. Strange how I don' want to give my "I'm a total crazy rabid fangirl" identity away. AC pics on the back of file certainly says alot. It also says that I don't invest in something more "official".

2. First Print Limited Edition was just out of reach! Just!

I saw it!! It was the first print limited edition! The cover looks sooo nice and it was really right in front of me. No, it wasn't just another magazine scan, it was the actual thing. It even had the price tag on.

Of course he would first try to tempt me with that.

My eyes went wide and I immediately asked "Is that for sale?" Which he promptly replied "No, only for reserve. It's not for sale"

Ahem. An obvious clue that he must be plotting some trap. Show me something so droolworthy and tell me politely that it's "not for sale" and "for reserve only"?

3. Ultimate Edition is damned expensive.

Remember last time I calculated and said that it costs approximately SGD450? Looks like I was wrong. It is, officially, a whopping $650, at market price. Goodness.

This is what it means to be extremely Limited Edition.

I was informed that there are only 77,777 sets of this Ultimately Limited Edition in the entire world, and that Singapore has only 15 sets(I think). By the time I got there, there's only one left in their store for sale.

Who on earth are these insanely rich people who can actually afford and don't mind paying for something like AC. I mean, it's not that worth it, I think. $650 down the drain. I think my mum asked for the price at least three times.

But but but, it was so grand a feeling, perhaps because of the size of the black box which contained the whole set. Larger than what I expected, and I saw the smaller black box with "Cloud and Fenrir" printed on its top fit snugly into one of the corners of the larger box. Oh shucks.

The mere fact that I've got to see it already stuns me. The guy was actually nice enough (or plotting enough) to open the box for me. Otherwise, those people who just stare at the display case will only get to see the outside and admire just how beautifully black the box is. With the design there, of course. But to see what's inside...! I think I was too shocked and excited that I forgot to take note of how everything looked like. My mind's pretty much blank now. Don't remember anything else.

4. I'm starting to see 7s everywhere. And yes, I mean everywhere.

Look, FF7; I'm 127 on the preorder list; my FFVII Platinum Edition has the serial numbers 00867, 10867, and 20867; Singapore's 7th on the list; My printer printed an error page 7; yesterday wwas the big day and it was the 7th post in a row! And no doubt SE wanted exactly 77,777 set of that ridiculously expensive Limited Edition set.

Next thing I want, is an all lucky 7s effect during exams. And I think we have 7 major subjects.

5. People in school are rather good at the art of ripping and burning things.

And are rather effiecient too. However, people in other parts of the world are even more efficient, because they are the ones who make the subs, rips, and uploads in the first place.

As a final note, yay for Free Trade Agreement and a whole lot of other stuffs that make AC more possible to come to us! Fortunately (or rather, unfortunately) my hyper has died down a bit, so at least I won't be able to go without sleep for long now. Off to bed!

The Big Day

14.9.2005
(7th post in a row!)

We've been waiting since January last year, we pulled through too many delays to count, read so many reports of various events, compared the stark difference between last year's Venice and this year's, last year's E3 and this year's, crying over mistakes made in the rendering process, discussed every detail found over and over, got exited over every single magazine scan, watched every trailer at least thirty times or more, got to know so many rabid fans, ran away from spoilers in the recent days... After so much, in fact, one year and nine and a half months, we finally get to see the product!!!

Except that it's not in English.

Well, that aside, it looks brilliant (shall refrain from saying it's "awesome", since that's about all the vocab to the fan group), and its CG animation is completely stunning. I haven't seen much of the plotwise developments, but only the action scenes. But the action scenes... *fangirlitic attack* ... obviously don't obey the laws of physics.

*spoilers below* (whatever little I may have)

I missed a great deal on the Tifa, Yuffie, stuff happening with the group, because I stoned there for a while and had to go in to talk to the shop keeper for a while. Whatever I missed while I was busy inquiring is anyone's guess.

But the first scene I remembered watching is from where Kadaj had just lost a fight with Cloud, and is holding on to dear life (not really) on the edge of a building/platform. Cloud gets the box away from Kadaj, and it falls down down down below. Kadaj, being the insane nut he is, well, went after it. Cloud followed after.

As Cloud reaches Kadaj (somewhere in the far far below) the box opens and Kadaj fuses with the substance assumed to be part of Jenova, and right when Cloud strikes with his sword, Kadaj had been transformed into none other than Sephiroth, who then parries the blow with his Masamune, which was formed out of seemingly nothing.

Crazy fighting ensues, as well as conversation on "why does Seph want to destroy this world; just exactly how insane is he?" and Seph asking what on earth Cloud fins precious. It's here where the answer to the question in the E3 '04 trailer is answered.

hmm... More crazy fighting, but Sephiroth injures Cloud first. Meh, you could actually see how Cloud found fighting more and more difficult: the stiffening, the slowing down, it's clear as day.

And Seph did it again. He stabbed Cloud!

Well, that wasn't exactly no creativity, but he did, technically, do that once before. In fact, that was seven years ago.

Okay, so his craving to stab something came back. Fine with me. But kill him damnit. You have better aim than that right? I mean Cloud was just sitting there waiting for you to do something. Don't forget to get killed as well. [/evil insane fangirl mode]

Well, the next part seemed like a replay of some scene I've seen before.

Cloud pulled the Masamune out of his shoulder -oww- , and foces it into the wall instead.

Deja vu.

At least he didn't try throwing Seph off the building. That would be the exact replay of the events seven years ago.

Then comes the part most people felt was the most "awesome" CG animation in AC. Cloud's new limit break. It was rather cool, but I didn't want to see Seph die yet again. I wanted Seph to kill Cloud, then kill himself. Err... not really. What I'm saying is that he'd probably get killed by someone else anyway. (Especially either the SHM or AVALANCHE, or even ShinRa)

Finally, you see Seph with his trademark one wing! It's like KH , but in much better graphics. Besides, the feathers were really black this time round.

Followed by -by now- trademark sentence:

"Watashi wa, omoide niwa naranai sa"

Folds, his wing over himself, and disappears, leaving Kadaj, back into his original form.

Hmm.. THat was only one scene, but it took so much ranting. Shan't go on to the Bahamut fight scene then; it's more or less like the trailer anyway.



Edit: I've now got the script for the entire length of AC! 1 hour and 30 minutes. And I thought someone told me 100 minutes.

and the agenda for today is...

AC's release date! It's supposedly 14.09 there already... and a couple more hours to go over here.

BUT but but unfairness in life prevails, thus we all just have to wait a little bit longer. A little.

I should just comfort myself that at least I won't be so distracted during exams because of AC.

Nya!!!

(( And no attempt at converting and/or polluting the sec one juniors' minds! ))

politics talk, not

Which is better? The politically correct answer or the politically incorrect answer?

What is the use of a politically correct answer? To create an impression? An image?

What harm can an incorrect answer bring?

Who will you have higher expectations of? The one who knows best at what's right and wrong, or the one who constantly thinks up alternatives to current solutions?

Would you want to stick to safe ground, or venture into potentially dangerous territory?

What risks are you willing to take in life? Will a wrong choice cost you your livelihood?

Are you willing to be restrained by society? How limited are your choices?

Is life meaningful living within boundaries, bound by these pinions? Is this the cause for the increase in jaded individuals?

How much courage does an individual need? Or is indifference more important?

Do all questions have right answers? Who are those willing to accept yet more than the regular response? How much regard do you have for those involved?

How much should we focus on self-image?

Which direction should we improve in? Are our steps to the left or right? Or will we create a path in the middle?

I'm starting to think that the right answer is not the right choice, but long-term general perception affects this acceptance. We tend to recognise certain things as the better alternative, or even the best choice, and this inevitably affects our judgement of situations around us.

I've only started to formulate these questions and thoughts only after realising how narrow-minded I am. Looks like I've got a whole world to explore.

There's a lot more to learn.

biological disaster #2931

It has come to my understanding that writing Chronicles of Urea through the Urinary system is going to be disaster.

If you want to know, it's tribute to the dustmites, part three.

Goodness, someone come and save the poor urea molecule before it gets humiliating.

tommorrow it's war all over again

I personally enjoy blogging, because you're up to rant all you want. Originally yes, but discussions some time ago have proven that bloggers are responsible for whatever they say, be it intentional or unintentional, coherent or incoherent, on their blogs.

Thought that you were safe commenting about others?

You are, for most part. It depends on your comfidence where unknown readers are concerned. Sure, yours is only one in millions.

I've realised that I rant a lot, as stated in the previous post, and the most probable reason is that everything's accumulated in my brain because I do not get them politely out of that little space through this method called talking. The simple observation of my lack of participating in this communicative activity otherwise known as talking explains quite a few things. It does explain why I tend to rant excessively when I happen to receive phonecalls, which happens, at best, -an approximate- once a week.

And lack of MSN souls when I need to find people.

Meh, lately I've been feeling the urge to move to LJ. But if I want to do that, I must -somehow- instigate persuade others to do so as well. LJ isn't fun without a whole bunch of people to constantly nag at you.

'sides that, LJ communities -> <3

Hope you guys will have comments about that appeal. (LJ from next year? Whoo...)

Time to cherish the last three to four hours of holidays.

Tommorrow, we fight. Again.

tell me there's a better day ahead

First off, congratulations to me for finally starting on my revision.

Finally.

A painfully slow process, that probably won't be done even by the time that it's exams. Pfft.

Perhaps it's because I'm convinced now that exam marks don't really reflect anything except i)you can memorise things well ii)you are good at studying iii)you have somewhat impressive general knowledge (especially with new formats implemented)

I can't say that they aren't doing improvements to the system, but still... well, you can't possibly do anything to maths and science.

I mean, formulae will remain as formulae.

The irony lies where I should be thankful for test retaining -more or less so- the current form. Otherwise, I'll be in big trouble.

I'm not exactly a very creative person, if you haven't noticed earlier. I seem to have some problems regarding thinking imaginatively, and expressing myself correctly. Well, I even have problems understanding other people. >.<

Tips regarding this point(s) will be greatly appreciated. And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

Anyone else read the ST article this morning regarding new science? I was interested but I didn't quite get what it was getting at. I do understand that Physics is fascinating because one day you may just wake up, and find that due to a certain discovery of a strange new element or dimension or the like, you have to reconstruct all your physics theories all over again. Starting from stratch has never been this depressing.

Of course, this new point comes from my brain. Heh, it doesn't even sound like anything that'd come from the papers.

And speak of depressing, I don't wish for 1up.com to be right this time, although I do know that chances are rather slim.

After reporting two false release dates, they just have to right with the most depressing one out of all. Damn, why do they have to be right this time?

Looks like we'll be waiting for a November/December release. I'll need even more self-control then. And I thought I'd manage (somehow) to watch AC right after exams! Meh, fangirl whining is not going to get me anywhere.

Getting the chance to watch Last Order will be even more difficult, it seems. No bootlegs, no bootlegs...

No Bootlegs.

I'm just trying to convince myself to stay off the bootleg track. The Dark Side is very tempting, you know. And Singapore's getting stricter with copyrights, it seems, though that's a little unrelated at the moment.

Sigh. Life is determined for me to handle one thing at a time.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

There's never only one thing for you to do at any time here. Even while you sleep, you still continue attending school in your dreams. Or spend precious time with your bishies. Well, alternatively, you can bring your bishies to school if you want.

It's inevitable that modern teens are so good at the art of multi-tasking. It is making use of time and achieving quite a few objectives simultaneously. I, for one, fail terribly in this area. Never try asking me to read or study or write an essay (especially if it's in Chinese) with music turned on. And don't even think about the computer.

It's the second last day of Sept hols, and I'm still spending my time here ranting. It's either my brain has malfunctioned, or I'm being rebellious, or -most probably- it's plain old slack-in-broad-daylight. Except it's moonlight.

Anyways, my mum has finally comprehended that her little girl has got a blog. Thank goodness there hasn't been any violent reactions. No violent reactions. Good.

I get to keep this. ;P

And it has come to my realisation that people my age don't usually type long entries like this. It must be my paranoia... of something.

I was bored, so...

Sheesh, instead of studying or doing homework, I decided that it's a good day to test Jason's statement.

And it turned out to be very true indeed.

Before you start wondering wtf have I been doing, I'll just restate my observations.

All you need is one link, and you can basically find almost everyone in the class. Or CCA, or level, or school for that matter.

I started with cheryl's and found, as expectd, a long list of links. Just imagine when every one of those linked links to yet another long list of links. Hmm.

Actually, I should know this fact very well, well... since I er... did use a lot of blog links to stalk track people down. Or sometimes it's by pure chance.

Another observation. I think I've lost count how many people like dark colours as background. Nothing wrong with that. I admit that most people have the Love-Black Complex.

And androgenous bishies have the Love-Leather Complex.

Ahem. cough. OT.

Anyway, I still think I prefer simplicity over complexity (and I shall try, as far as possible, not to drift over to what my piano teacher said about that very topic just yesterday) but I'm not saying that it's wrong or anything. In fact, I think it's kinda cool to have such layouts. Meh, but it just boils down to purpose.

If you have a certain purpose, you'll probably just want to focus on that and tend to ignore the other things. Hmm, yeah. That's the basic idea.

Of course, it'll be good if one day I can just sit down and spend -even more- time revamping this bloggie. Whoo.

Earth to drax

I was prepared to post something today, but big thanks to Mr Chan, who kindly reminded me yet again.

Reality check: It is but three weeks to Language Arts Exam!

=.=

Greatly appreciated.

wasn't supposed to, but I did

I've finally got my desired slack time, and I couldn't believe how extreme I could be when it comes to slacking. As I always say, I'll probably live to regret it.

Well, my brain was probably fried by all the slacking, ironically. Maybe it was yaoi overdose, or maybe lesser brain activity than normal, or even thinking too much of school reopening, that gave me a very strange dream. In fact, I'm so freaked over it that I think it should be classfied under "peaceful nightmares". And don't try asking me what it is about. If you were in my shoes, you wouldn't want to speak a word about this either.

But I felt rather good just when the dream ended. Until I started thinking rationally and conclude that I should be freaked out rather than feel happy about it.

But I'm mentioning it here, because of memory's sake. That's what this whole blog is for, anyway.

What I should be doing now is to look into the near future and see that the end of year examinations aren't that far off, and I should be doing something about that. It doesn't help that AC's offical release date is only slightly more than a week from now; it takes up an astounding amount of willpower not to view the spoilers that are not floating all over the Internet, or just scream my lungs out that I can't watch AC along with the lucky Japanese. Or those who were at Venice.

Instead, I choose to stagnate temporarily and look back into the past years. I can't help but suddenly feel as though I've come a long way in the past 3 to 5 years. Truth to be told, it may not be that long as it will be in the next 3 to 5 years.

I will probably come around to write a proper review about what has changed and what hasn't. I don't recognise my old self anymore. My old self was the conscientious one, or so I've realised just this very afternoon. I'll hang around to observe how I'm like these days. Grumpy, I think.

Tsk tsk, getting old already?

I shouldn't have looked back, but I did.