Journey into Mystery

First things first. I revamped my domain despite the fact I haven't worked in any sites forever. Mostly because it had been so long with the same layout and most images were broken and that's sad. So here it is, a little dull but at least it's clean and a fairly good practice to some CSS3.


mercury-retrograde.net

If I ever get less lazier, I'll make the avatar-ish image in the sidebar a random image of fandoms I like. And maybe make skins in different colors. But so far it's enough as it is.

Fandom-wise, I haven't been up to a lot of stuff. I've kind of been really active on plurk but mostly because a lot of friends from the RP are over there. I've been limiting my time on Tumblr because it's a fucking black hole for visual magpies, but I still check the dash and update my blogs at least twice a day.

( New anime season, other shit I've watched, me failing as gamer forever )

ETA: I did buy a HDD in the end. It's a 1TB electric blue WD which I named TARDIS.

You know why I disappeared for the last few days? My Okamiden copy arrived on Wednesday, two days early again :D Still not finished, though.

I feel very dirty for saying it, but going in with very low expectations this game is going much better than expected so far. I MEAN, there are still WTFs and all, but I have yet to find a butchery that makes me throw my DS to the wall and raegquit. If anything, I like that Benkei's quest for fish makes sense now and they even throw a reference to the original legend. Yeah, I'm all for tiny details. But they better justify the Tao Troopers' disappearance or I'm cutting a bitch! They're also giving me brand new Moon Tribe canon I need to mull over.

The stylus as the Celestial Brush is the best thing ever. Too bad about the d-pad controls and the camera being horribly awkward, but it's still hella fun. It's good that there's a skip button for cutscenes, but the automatic scrolling text is such a bad idea (sneeze and you missed a line).

Oh, and I fucking love Kagu! Kurow was a given because me likes the lunars, but this girl is so amazing.

I think, if I do a reaction post of it, I'll save it for the second playthrough. Pokémon is very straight-forward, but I always end up overthinking Okamiland stuff and I want to play more quickly.

1) I can't recall which ones of you guys live in Japan, but I hope that everyone is fine :<

2) Some people in America are getting Okamiden a few days earlier. CLEARLY, THIS IS KARMA FOR ME GETTING PKMN BLACK SO SOON :| Can't I ever have something shiny first without being screwed somewhere else? *grumbles and waits until the 18th* Oh well, at least Game has a release date in their database so I know they won't pull a Ghost Trick on me.

3) No Korra until 2012? STOP COCKTEASING, DAMMIT!

4) And to feed my Norse mythology phase, I just got The Penguin Book of Norse Myths on the mail plus DWJ's Eight Days of Luke. Oh yeah!

5) The name Luke haunts me. Have I ever mentioned that? Because it does.

With that said, the usual reaction post. This will probably be the last but one post, since shit is getting real next time.

( A biker gang now called the Black Munnas. That's both cute and creepy )

So, um, okay. In the Japanese version of Okami (and Okamiden, I guess? IDK) Amaterasu -and Shiranui for extension- didn't have an actual gender. We can agree on that. Then in the English game, there were hints for female (Waka using French female pronouns and adjectives, Yatsu seeing her as a maiden) so most people think of her as a gal in fanon. Me included, but that's not the point.

So now the English localizators of Okamiden have randomly decided that the Shiranui incarnation is male. "Always remember: it’s people that assign gender to the gods." And by people, we mean us.

No, your reason is utter bullshit. Shiranui might be another incarnation, but she was the original Amaterasu with full powers and memories. Shiranui is the name humans gave her because they didn't know who the fuck the white wolf was, and they used "it" pronouns. Waka thought of Shiranui as Amaterasu. Ishaku called her Ammy. The Brush Gods called Amaterasu their mother, but they were born from Shiranui. No one is seeing a huge distinction between Ammy and Shiranui in the original game. Actually, does she turn into a dude in the final battle to you guys?

Why don't you just say WE FELT LIKE CALLING HIM A GRANDPA or admitting you are afraid of girl fleas cooties instead of using the Japanese lack of gender as a loophole? Mind you, I'm not pissed that Shiranui gets her gender changed to male. It's the inconsistency. If they had changed BOTH Amaterasu and Shiranui as male, I wouldn't agree but I certainly wouldn't complain about it. Then it's just a translation choice. But by doing this picking, it feels just wrong and badly thought. IT'S THE SAME CHARACTER, YOU DUMBASSES.

Sigh. I'm done with my wank. Back to replaying Ghost Trick and uploading Okami fanart on Tumblr.

SO YOU KEEP ON TROLLING, CLAMP. Let's talk a bit about Gate 7 and pretend I'm still in this fandom. Dibs on the "megane guy is a Clow descendant" theo-- oh wait, he totally is, this is not 2004 anymore. Nevermind then |D Of course, by the looks of it, there's no way in hell this could ever be a one-shot like they originally said. They either planned to serialize it from the beginning, or they changed their minds and redid it from scratch. I lean to the latter: by that time XXXHOLiC or Kobato might be ending, so they need a new cash cow to milk. So when I heard this thing was going to continue, I just grinned, shook my head, and thought "oh you!" And of course the characters look really cute so far, but the X vibes of whatever the premise is don't bode well for them. My favorite character design is the light-haired Kurogane lookalike but I love megane boy's ;o; faces. But yeah, I don't want to get attached because it is CLAMP and I have moved on and I know better. Or so I hope.

INCIDENTALLY, MORE OKAMIDEN BULLSHIT. I don't know, guys. I'm both fascinated and terrified by this stupid game. I even check the Pixiv tag. Either way, the second weirdest WTF ever in an interview is that in here, Eshiro said that the plot is sort of inspired by the film Stand By Me. Yeah... I don't even. Ah, another thing is that the American cover is out, and probably the Konohana cherry tree in the background of the Japanese cover isn't badass and manly enough to make it. ( Image comparison under cut. ) I think, though, it could be a lot worse and it sort of looks like Okami's Western cover for the PS2 anyway. (For the record, I also think the Western cover is an improvement from the Japanese which is not a common occurrence in video games.) Oh well... Stand By Me, really? Yeah, so compatible with the "ancient faux!Japan with magical godmode wolves" setting.

But let's talk about shinier things that perhaps don't kick me in the ovaries! My current anime/manga obsession is Kuragehime. I don't even like josei! But I really like everyone a lot and I can't wait until more of gets released. I'll probably do a lengthier post when the next episode is out all my impressions until now.

outou pointed me out that Pixiv is an effective place for spoilers. On one hand, now I know what I wanted to know. Good, it's not the worst option! It gives me more questions, but they're new questions at least! On the other, now I know the particulars of the thing I vaguely heard they were going to pull, and I think I didn't want to know about that one. The implications of both facts is very D: to the point it's eclipsing my distrust of the game itself with just... staring at angsty fanarts of Japanese fanon forever. Like Waka didn't have enough of those already.

So I guess I'll have to pull my big girl panties and...



Eshiro, you do hate everything I love. But hey, I made a silly animated gif!

And now I'll shut up about Okamiden, at least for a while. Spoilers will surely be in comments, instead of being a normal gal and use a cut.

1. Quick PSA for those who are into Pokémon games. I have quite a few baby Gastly from a daycare frenzy, so if you want one check this out and we can trade. They're all gallegos Spanish.

2. In Okamiden news (bleaaagh), the chibi Waka clone has official art and a name now. His name is Kurou (and dude, does that katakana give me flashbacks, as it's the same as Clow). I suspect it comes from crow, as in the karasu tengu myth. To my infinite horreur, his speech patterns are similar (using "mii" for I) and they actually recycled Waka's voice acting -if you can call that voice or acting- with him.

3. Man, I miss it when my seinen manga were more interesting. Voiiiiiid.

Um, so. I idled out LJ for some reason. Sorry for not commenting lately, I have been reading you guys regardless.

a) Oh, most of you have already heard about a Fullmetal Alchemist sidestory coming up next month ♥ I've seen idiots complaining about Arakawa milking the cow (pun probably not intended) but anyway, haters to the left. I'm so fucking excited! And I'll be agonizing over whom it will be about. I don't care as it's just more goodness, although I'd like to see minor characters or something in Xing. Or both.

b) With FMA and soon Ouran, I'm kind of lost. I need something to look forward to read every month. I mean sure, I have my historical Afternoon seinen, but both Historie and Vinland Saga are going slow and even boring lately...

c) ...So in an attempt to give more excitement to my months without resorting to the inconveniences of shounen, I just had an affair with some American comics. Needless to say, it backfired fiercely. From DC I'm only keeping Booster Gold, I love it and feel so alone in this. And I'm hoping to see Jaime Reyes and the rest of the Blue Beetle peeps one day in something non-Teen Titans (I tried, then got kicked in the balls when I felt safe.) From Marvel I, um, I'll probably finish the Siege event (shuddup, I like Asgard-in-Oklahoma), maybe keep Thor for the lulz, and read spoilers for the Young Avengers... but fuck me if I get more involved with that messy mindfuck 'verse. I just concluded Marvel is the manry, Western version of CLAMP and no one will convince me otherwise.

To show my point? Doctor Strange is a Clow descendant. HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THIS ARRAY I DON'T EVEN.

d) More news on Okamiden with a new trailer. ( trailer spoilers )

e) Is it me or Sherlock BBC and Inception have eaten the Internet?

e.1) I still haven't downloaded Sherlock, but I'm such a geek I've been reading Watson's blog and Sherlock's website. And I've taken pride on the fact I've solved the three hidden messages on the same day they are released. They're way too easy to me, but it might have to do with the fact I liked secret codes since I was little and I already knew the first and the third system. The second I figured out with Google. Sherlock is right, this stalker is BORING.

e.2) I did watch Inception (at the cinema, even) and it didn't leave me much of a impression. I even disliked the ending. I think I'll just quote what I said to my family yesterday at lunch: "Do you guys realize we're doing exactly what Nolan intended? He left all those vague threads and plotholes hanging so people wouldn't stop talking about his movie. And it IS working." I also believe he wrote Tom Hardy's dialogs with Joseph Gordon-Levitt all slashy on purpose so this would have a fandom. Again, apparently it is working too.

Thank you, new Okamiden trailer, you just mindraped me without lube.

( Spoilers, I guess...? )