Thursday, August 31, 2006

   pix
lol, yeah, those pictures were taken at Madame Tussaud's. not bad, aren't they? i do have some more, but they're not as nice.

i've felt terrible ever since i have cut off most of my hair. thanks lilvalchan for the compliment... makes me feel better ;-)
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Wednesday, August 30, 2006

   Tis`me!!











and THAT was before i got my new haircut...



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   Guess who`s back, baby!!!!!!!!
yay!!

i`m in canada! made it in one piece with ALL of my luggage!! now that`s what i call an achievement XD

on the down side, i checked in on the new yahoo messenger, and it refuses to cooperate and show my nickname. it keeps showing the old one!!! i`m at my wit`s end to change it, i`m definitely writing a blast line to the Yahoo messenger customer care.

a new wallpaper should be up shortely too, as soon as i unpack my stuff... and i promise to post some of the pictures i`ve taken in london too!!

take care ppl!
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Saturday, August 26, 2006

   Giggles... the wise lunatic
lol, i know, i know. that last post was weird :-p I felt weird XD

what i meant was i was lucky enough but still got so tired i could hardly think of what others would think :-p oh boy, looks like i'm doing it again....

i'm just spending some days in the UK before i get back to Canada for university. which reminds me... i have to check WHEN my classes start... :-p

love,
the befuddled, involuntarily wanderlust-struck otakuite
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Friday, August 25, 2006

   The CHAMBER
Hello!

I am in London! finally! lol. from the number of times i have missed this, i thought i was going to get diverted AGAIN!

looks like the gods were smiling on me this time ;-)

Went to see Madame Tussaud's and I love the Chamber! took a couple of pictures; they should be up as soon as i can find my usb cable for the camera ;-p it's buried somewhere, i know it.

oh well, i'm dead, so see you later folks!
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Sunday, August 20, 2006

Dirge of Cerberus: Prologue
Hi!

Here's what I have been working on lately.. I hope you like it, i've still got some work to do on it. So if you find any errors or anything strange, please leave a comment!

******************************
Prologue


In the fury of the darkest of days, gusts blow debris around the doomed city. A red omen of death, Meteor, looms above it, surrounded by the clouds of a stormy sky. Meteor was the only splash of color in this concrete death trap, a blood-red eye overlooking a sea of gray destruction. Below, in the midst of chaos, men and women were fighting to save those who could still be. They all worked together as one, directed by the most unlikely of AVALANCHE members: Yuffie Kisaragi, heir apparent to the throne of Wutai.

In the midst of the sound of helicopters landing and taking off with evacuees, the young woman could be heard giving orders to her men. She was miles away from her home, fighting a war that was not really her own and helping people who, not many years ago, had killed her mother, invaded her country, and made a mockery of her people’s pride and civilization.

That did not mean that she had either forgiven or forgotten; only that this was a greater evil that had to be stopped, and that all of the people of Midgar were not the bloodthirsty brutes who had conquered and ravaged her country when she had been a toddler. It was only recently, at sixteen, that she had realized that many of those people living in Midgar were innocent men, women and children who had only listened to what they had been told by Shinra; namely, that Wutai was a dangerous foe who seeked to annihilate them and claim the world as their new empire.

Shinra had messed up badly this time, she reflected. Monsters, desertification, the extinction of numerous species, Sephiroth, Mako Cannon and now that. It was Shinra who was responsible for all this mess, and she’d be damned if she didn’t do something to put this all right. Plus, that annoying Cloud Strife would go bonkers if she didn’t follow his orders.

”Hurry up, hurry up! The injured are our priority right now!”

A captain approached her, his bright yellow uniform, which covered him from head to toe, dirtied and damaged. Yuffie turned to him. Her own clothes offered little protection against the elements: a forest green high-necked cropped knit top, a tiny pair of tan shorts and white calf-high stockings. She was too highly strung –as was usually the case, to her entourage’s dismay- to feel anything beyond an occasional shiver. But right now, it was the urgency of the situation that kept her from noticing the cold, bitter gales. That, and the fact that she got to be in charge, for once.

“Report!”

“The evacuation is complete. All of the injured are safe.”

That was what Yuffie seemed to have been waiting for. With wide gestures, she signaled to the remaining helicopters on the ground.

”Okay, now go!”

The storm seemed to intensify and lightning flashed overhead. Thunder rumbled, almost drowning out Yuffie’s orders to the captain.

”Keep your eyes open for trouble until the helicopters have reached the secure perimeter.”

Patting the captain’s shoulder in encouragement and praise, Yuffie took off the goggles shielding her eyes from the dust being blown about by the tempest. Dark brown eyes scanning the sky overhead, Yuffie reached for her PHS and contacted her partner for the first time since they had split up.

”I’m done here, what about you?”

Just at the foot of the ruins of the Shinra super structure in the centre of the city, Vincent Valentine was also scanning the area around him with an unfathomable gaze. He was a tall, lean man; his height did not make him as gauche as many tall people often were. Instead, his movements were controlled, purposeful, fluid as to be almost graceful. A wide high cowl hid from view the lower half of his face; and the rest of his cape, torn and tattered from the numerous battles he had engaged in, flew around him like a scarlet pennant. Playing in the wind, long unkempt hair as black as the leather clothes that totally covered his body were partially restrained by a red scarf wound around his head. His newly gained gun, baptized Cerberus, rested low in its holster against his right leg, secured by silver buckles.

Whenever lightning struck, the clawed metal gauntlet on his left hand flashed a dull gold; the same material adorned the upper part of his boots. As well as protecting him, the claws and the pointed tips of the boots could seriously hurt his enemies were he to engage in a melee; sharp enough to tear into armor or flesh just as easily as any sword could.

However, the most captivating part of Vincent Valentine was his face; eyes of a translucent red that he had inherited from his father, sparkled beneath the shadows of dark eyebrows. His finely chiseled features, from the high aristocratic nose to a firm, authoritative mouth, retained something of the innocence of youth while expressing experience gained from a hard life; this made for an intriguing combination that often perplexed and stunned those who meet him.

But the solitary gunman was often as communicative as the proverbial stone and the mystery around him had more or less remained whole throughout the journey he had undertaken with AVALANCHE to track down Sephiroth and Hojo. Hidden behind the high cowl of his scarlet cape, the shadows on his face retained all of their secrets…

“I’m done. But, Yuffie, check the Mako Cannon.”

What in the name of Leviathan was Vincent playing at? Diamond WEAPON had blasted that part of the building with that dratted beam and all who had been up there had perished, except for a lucky few who had already been rescued. Vincent should know that. What the heck. She was going to check it, if it was going to make him happy.

The life sensor was a bulky little thing, but quite useful when it came to situations like this. It showed not only the layout of buildings and areas, but detected heat-emitting life forms too. Yuffie wondered what had happened to his.

“You know that this place has already been…specially…H...huh?”

The rest of her sentence died in her throat. She just could not believe it. Next to the wrecked Cannon, someone was still alive!

Yuffie’s astonished gasp was the confirmation that Vincent needed.

“After all…”

His hunch had been right… someone was up there, someone who could get into the building’s higher reaches, who had all the pass codes, and who was capable of surviving death. Something in his mind whispered that it was him. If this too was true, then his mission was not finished.

Yuffie’s excited babble came once again on the PHS; but he had no time for her now. The end was near, and he had to make sure that he completed his task, the most important of all.

“Wa… wait. This is not totally abnormal… This can’t be. No one could have survived that!”

“Yuffie, go back to where Cloud and the others are. It seems that I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

“Wa…Wait!”

But Vincent had already cut the communication with Yuffie and refused to answer her calls. Frustrated, the young ninja stomped her feet. She had been so sure that everything would have turned out OK. This after all, was the easy part; all that they had to do was to rescue and protect the civilians!

Caith Sith’s - or rather, Reeve’s- concern with the safety of the inhabitants of Midgar had prompted Cloud to dispatch Vincent to direct the rescue/evac ops with the help of Reeve and his men. Since they had defeated Hojo, Vincent had retreated into himself. The reason of his adherence to the group ever since his awakening in the dark basements of the Shinra Mansion had been eliminated.

Target exterminated, mission complete. Nothing that happened from then on seemed to interest him much anymore. Not even the apparent death of the legendary general in that last battle together seemed to have moved him.

Cloud had seen that, and had wisely given him a new mission, anything to keep him from slipping away again: gather the survivors; help the injured; move them out of the city and take them to a safe place.

Vincent had indifferently agreed, already turning away when Cloud spoke again, as if in an afterthought.

“Yuffie. Go with Vincent. He’ll need help.”

“Huh?” Her, go with coffin-boy on a rescue mission?

Cloud shrugged.

“Midgar is a big city. Anything could happen. You’re better off with someone to watch your back.”

Back then, everyone had assumed that she was the one whose back had to be watched. Now in hindsight, Yuffie wondered if Cloud had meant it that way. There had been that unfamiliar light in his usually expressionless eyes. Had he known something all along?

Blasted Cloud, blasted Vincent; so typical of men to be so darn annoying at every turn of the road! Even more frustrated, Yuffie hollered at the unseen Vincent.

“Vincenttt… come back, I have a bad feeling about this…!”


=============================

But Vincent could not hear Yuffie’s injunction. Using the exterior emergency stairs, he had reached the top levels of the building in record time. The elevators shafts inside traveled faster, but the structure of the fatally damaged building was unsound. Vincent had no desire to be crushed into oblivion, not when he still had to be sure that he had accomplished his goal: kill Hojo.

The Mako Cannon had been so huge, it had had to be mounted on the rooftop of the Shinra building itself. The best thing according to logic would have been to place it on a building other that the seat of the Shinra power, but none of the surrounding structures would have been able to withstand the weight of tons of steel and technology that made it up. With the approach of Emerald, Rufus had had no time to build another structure, so the Shinra tower it had been.

Logistically, this posed another problem: electricity. The remaining Mako reactors were already turning at full capacity, and demand was already surpassing supply; AVALANCHE had made matters worse when they had destroyed Reactor Number 8. Therefore, Rufus could not count on the gigantic reactors to help him power the Cannon. To supply the elestricity necessary to feed that gigantic machine, generators had been placed nearby, while terminals monitored everything related to Rufus’s precious cannon under the watchful eye of dozens of technicians.

When Diamond had unleashed its own blast on the building, pretty much all of the electrical facilities and wiring of the building had died along with the people in it. However the generators and terminals, constructed to withstand an eventual malfunction of the cannon and the various explosions that could ensue, had held on. The cannon itself was completely useless now, but its terminals continued to beep and pour out data, and its generators to hum.

Vincent finally reached the last platform of the building. At first sight, there seemed to be no one left about. But the keen eye of the gunman had picked out the slumped form in front of one of the terminals. The figure’s white lab coat was singed and fluttered in the wind, as did its dark ponytail. To anyone else, this could be an extremely lucky technician who had somewhat managed to survive.

Vincent Valentine knew better. As he aimed Cerberus at the lone figure, a mixture of repulsion, hatred and determination darkened his features. This was him. He had survived, after all, even if he looked more dead than alive. But now, it was the end and Professor Hojo, Shinra Class-A researcher, Head of Scientific and Chemical Department, had no way of escaping it. Vincent would make sure of that.

His aim was steady as he slowly pressed on the trigger that would send three angels of death to carry the mad scientist directly to the gates of Hades.

But the skies decreed otherwise. With an almighty crack, a bolt of lightning struck one of the remaining generators, short circuiting them all in the process; in one gigantic explosion, the generators blew up along with the remnants of the Cannon, propelling away anything near and not bolted down to fall down far, far below.

The force of the explosion blasted away the metal beams that held up a portion of metal flooring and the emergency stairs fell away. As the floor started to collapse beneath him, Vincent grabbed onto a rail and looked for his target, in a last attempt to complete his mission. But the man was gone, thrown clear of the building.

No! His fist clenched on the railings. There he was, between heaven and earth, with no escape route. And he had been unable to have the ultimate pleasure of killing Hojo himself… the blood that would wash off the innocent’s blood on his hands. His sins… his faults…

Distracted by his failure, Vincent was caught off guard by the huge debris menacing to fall on him, displaced by yet another explosion. Maybe it had been useless to fight, to try to make up for his mistakes. To try to right his wrongs and take the life of the one who had taken away his. But he had made a promise and now Fate had denied him the completion of that promise…

“VINCEEEEEENT…!”

Out of nowhere, Yuffie’s high-pitched voice pierced his dark musings. She had somehow found an operational hover scooter, survived the first few minutes on it, and localized Vincent despite all the smoke and fire around.

Vincent propelled himself in the air as Yuffie made a pass next to the crumbling platform. A moment later, they were riding away from the disaster, the platform finally falling down. Vincent took control of the vehicle as Yuffie’s legendary motion sickness finally overtook her.

“Urgh…”

Maybe Fate had something else in store for him after all.

=================================

Behind them, a lonely terminal still operated despite the chaos around. Without the energy the generators had supplied, it would not hold on much longer. Nevertheless, that was enough; a moment later, the words ‘Balestorg’ and ‘Start_ Fragment Program’ appeared on its screen before everything faded to black.

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Tuesday, August 15, 2006

   Popping up just to say hi...
Heard some more stories about new security in Heathrow, so now, i have to do some more shopping trips for a new bag ^_^

so this story does have some good sides; who would have thought it? XD

That's all folks! ;-)

Take care!
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Sunday, August 13, 2006

   Security from Hell.. think the Dark Ages
I went to the opening ceremony of the Hua Lien Club today... nothing much happened except i got a teeny bit tipsy on champagne... niiiiiice bubbly stuff, btw.

but then my mum dragged me to see some family friends, and it is there that i learned some shocking things.

1:
people always seem nicer when you are like three sheets to the wind... slightly.

2:
you have an infinite endurance capacity for inane small talk

3:
security around/in Heathrow/London/England/the entire universe had skyrocketed.

for the first two, i think i get this revelation every time i get a bit under the table.

but the third started me thinking... being given that i'm going to london pretty soon for a bit less than a week's stay, i think that the tourism aspect is going to get a bit sour. from what i've heard, you're a suspect until proven free from all sins, original one included.

which means, guys, that this last part of my vacation is gonna suck.

why, oh why does stuff like that ALWAYS happen to me??????????? ToT
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Friday, August 4, 2006

   And the answer is...
ok, ok, ok, lol, i get it ;-)

here's the answer: the church tower thingy looks like either a dunce cap on kadaj's head... or a party hat! lol

now i just hope you won't just see THAT everytime you look at it :-p *whisper whisper* because that's what has happened to me...

and don't get me wrong, i don't hate seph, but i'm admittedly and unashamedly biaised XD XD XD
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Wednesday, August 2, 2006

   Serendipi-what?
uh...guys? how on earth did that happen?? my Seph wallpaper just beat my Vincent one like overnight! O_o)*

and no one yet has found the strange thing about the kadaj wp!!! lol. i guess it really takes a twisted mind like my friend's to see THAT :-p

what's new? i've got a new haircut. chopped about 12 inches of hair off all in one go. now i rather look like Kadaj, except i've got black hair and dark eyes XD

time to find that leather outfit...ROTF. and time to find a new pic for my profile...

nothing yet on the wp front. fact is, it's a miracle i'm here at all tonight. my sis has got a sudden passion for photoshop and monopolises the thing. oh well; i'm moving away in a couple of weeks, so i'm all right with that ;-) i'm sure you'll understand.

btw, do any of you know a great site to post gorillaz fanart? thanks!


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