Football / Gaming = OTP

[seventhe]

Well, I pulled through in my first week of fantasy football - got a win (Head-to-Head league), although my points were atrocious.


(1) So the first mistake I made this week was, apparently, playing Jake Plummer. Now look, if you had Daunte Culpepper vs the Steelers or Plummer (SHUT UP, OK, THE AUTODRAFT GAVE ME SHITE FOR QBs), the safe bet in my mind was on Plummer. But, no. Three interceptions, you motherfucker. Not that Culpepper had a great game, mind you, but at least he didn't get NEGATIVE POINTS. And it's the same thing next week: Culpepper vs Buffalo (more on that later), or Plummer the Fuck again?

(2) JOEY GALLOWAY? WAY TO FUCK ME, MAN, WAY TO FUCK ME. Bitch didn't even get 1 yard. Zero points. Nothing. That's a big fat 0 where there should have been at least an 8.

(3) Rudi Johnson? Love you. Willie Parker? Love you too.

(4) Defenses! What is up with our scoring! When Buffalo's defense racks in more points than Pittsburgh's, there's something going on. AND I FOUND IT. Apparently there are some huge bonus points to be found in good returns - which Buffalo is excellent at, according to their 2005 stats. Little known fact. Soooo... Here's the conundrum:
(4a) Buffalo vs Miami. Miami is probably going to take it - they've got Culpepper, whereas Buffalo's got Fuckhead Losman. And possibly, if I played Culpepper, I could also play RB Ronnie Brown, which might be a good combo. (It's a gamble, too.)
But playing Culpepper conceptually means I shouldn't play Buffalo's defense -- every point Culpepper gets loses me points for them, and every interception the DEF gets loses me points for QB. Which leaves me with Washington's DEF, which isn't bad, but also isn't quite the point-racker that Buffalo appears to be.
And if I play Buffalo's defense, and decide not to play Culpepper, I'm gambling on Plummer again. Who knows?!

THE DRAMA!


---

And, today I think I will be bored. So amuse me, fandom!

I was reading fanficrants and got to the "Which pairings do you hate?" portion. And I started thinking, and listing by game anything that might totally turn me off. There wasn't much.


I did discover that I'm actually slightly against most FFVII pairing-fic. It's usually done so poorly and there's so much fucked-up-ness in each individual character that gets ignored so often. Gen fic is FTW. Unless it wants to be any sort of post-game Turk/AVALANCHE combination pairing, because I like those dynamics. But even then, I like the gen-dynamics better!

But then I got to FF8, and that's where all my whores live, apparently.

Canon pairings? Squall/Rinoa, Cid/Edea, even Zell/That Library Girl? OK! Semi-implied pairings like Selphie/Irvine, Quistis/Squall, Seifer/Edea? Tasty. Fanon-favourite pairings like Quistis/Seifer? Also tasty.

Slash? Pretty much anyone, if you make it plausible. Squall/Seifer = delicious. Irvine/Anyone = totally awesome because I love Irvine's character. Seifer/Zell? Great dynamic. Squall/Laguna? Cracky, but if you deal with the issues, definitely interesting. Aaaaand the always great combo of Laguna/Kiros/Ward. Mmm!

Girlslash? Um, YES. Rinoa/Quistis is a personal favourite, but really, you can match up any of those ladies and I'm all for it.

OT4: Squall/Rinoa/Seifer/Quistis. Gods, that's amazingly hot.

Even the crackpairings are fantastic. Selphie/Squall or Selphie/Seifer? Imagine working the kinks in that out - it'd be hilarious. Quistis/Irvine? Or Rinoa/Irvine? Both would be amazing to see working properly. Quistis/Laguna? I read one once and it killed me with joy. Zell/Selphie and Zell/Rinoa - both totally ded from cute. And there are lots of minor characters to be fleshed out as well, if people got bored with the main cast.

The only one I honestly can't see working, I think, is Zell/Quistis. And that might just be due to lack of imagination.

(Although this will probably launch my FF8-romance rant again, so I should stop here.)



So - any pairing comments? Plz to be amusing Sev today.

Comments

[hilldo.livejournal.com]

Haha of course I skip the fandom rant but read the fantasy football one. :) I started culpepper over vick on the advice of someone in the office who should NEVER be listened to when it comes to fantasy football. But I still won as well.
:P

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I should've started Culpepper. It looks (at least in our league) like a fair number of QBs did shitty this week.

So what about my offense/defense dilemma? Does it make any sense to start Culpepper AND Buffalo? Cause I say no.

[hilldo.livejournal.com]

Yeah i don't know what I'd do in your situation, mainly cause I have never played in a league that picks defenses, we only do individual D players (an area I tend to do very well in). Personally, I think Jake Plummer sucks, I don't understand why he is a starter in the league still.
However, he is playing against Kansas City who isn't exactly considered to be a real defensive powerhouse, but is also missing their starting quarterback too.. Denver is only a 10.5 point favorite against them, but Miami is a 7 point favorite on Buffalo too. So what am I saying? Don't know. Make your own decision. hehe.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Well, the way the league is scored, a defense can lose and still totally rack up the points. Like Buffalo's DEF last week - they allowed 19 points in the game, but apparently with their awesome returns, sacks, and TDs, they would have gotten me a whopping 24 fantasy points. (in comparison, Plummer got me -6. Washington's DEF got me, like, 12.)

So it's a tradeoff as to who is going to get me more points overall. Which is crappy. I really don't want to play Plummer again, but I also want to play Buffalo. Suck!

[hilldo.livejournal.com]

Well play who you want to play then! It's just fantasy football, and no one expects you to do well you are a girl after all. ;) Why don't you play the one with the cutest butt.
Ok I'm done being sexist now, as I know you know more about football than that.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. I am doing research in all teh wrong things! Why am I not looking up photos of Culpepper's butt?!??!!!

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

I'm a huge fan of the Ellone/Squall pairing because I love love love Ellone so much, and she and Squall have such an interesting past together that could really be worked with. In fact, I have major bunnies for this right now that I need to work on if I could only figure out where the hell I can get some extra time!!

I also love Squall/Rinoa because there isn't that much of it since everyone slashes and cross-ships, and I like the dynamics that could be there. Also Rinoa/Quistis cause you and Rina got me into that one. :P Watch out for the FFVIII smut month being overrun by my crazy plotbunnies from hell lol.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Ellone/Squall gets totally ignored and it's so full of potential!!! Plus, it's not really incest, but it's still got that slightly squick-y feel that's still on the good side.

And Rinoa/Quistis = total total hot.

Seriously we might have to extend the FF8 smutathon because I would basically pair Quistis with, like, everyone. I'm still stuck on my Manly Request week stuff, though, and I told myself no writing for anything else until I get that done!

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

Yeah see Ellone/Squall = not actually related, but the Squall/Laguna thing really squicks me cause... ew. LoL. But I do love me some Rinoa/Quistis even though I'm not overly fond of Quistis as a character, possibly just because she was one of the more worthless fighters in my actual party by the end. I tend to be biased like that.. like Zell too, I hardly ever used him.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

HAA. See, I love Quistis because she's half like me (I even look like her) personality-wise. I'm really honestly what would happen if Quistis and Rikku had a child. Which is cracked out and actually my new OTP.

(Though I never used Zell either sssh don't tell)

But yeah ... Squall/Ellone is totally creepy without the incest. And it's awesome.

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

LoL your new OTP kinda makes me giggle a lot. I had this set party that I used all the time and it really killed me when I had to play the others because they were at such shitty levels, but I couldn't help it if Squall took away five bagillion in damage and Sephie's Limit Break was what I relied on when almost dying for the Full-Cure. LoL they shouldn't have MADE it that way!!!

Hahahahaha.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA. I know, Squall kicks so much ass by the end of the game it's ridiculous. I used Quistis and Irvine mostly cause I liked their character designs.

It was the same thing in FFX where I never used Wakka, and then every underwater battle kicked my little freaking butt.

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

Quistis / Fujin = hotter

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Oh, hells. After I'm done with Manly Request Week I'm having Pair Quistis With Anyone Request Week. Hee!

[heyheyrenay.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, I always argue against Zell/The Girl That Didn't Even Merit a Name. Mainly because there's nothing to work with and it usually just ends up with fanbrats writing horrible Mary Sue fic. >>

And there's the whole OTP thing. Yeah.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

You realize now I want to do a one-shot with Zell dating a Library Girl named Mary Sue, right?

[heyheyrenay.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, well, as least yours wouldn't suck.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I heard she swallows.

sorry, that was like teeball

[heyheyrenay.livejournal.com]

*sporfles*

I'm not good at teeball.

[lassarina]

Pairings I can't stand:

Zidane/anyone but Garnet
Relm/anyone, Interceptor/anyone, Gau/anyone

That's all I can think of thus far.

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

First off, in my ignorance, I have no idea what 'gen fic' means. ^^;

Incidentally, I could see a Zell Qusitis working out. In fact if you needle me hard enough I might even write one. SO DON'T FUCKING NEEDLE ME I HAVE TO FINISH THE X FIC FIRST AAH. Seriously, though. It would work if someone had the guts to write a Zell who wasn't an airhead. Quistis is rather high strung, after all. So it would be fun to watch her getting annoyed and then finally being broken down by someone as loose and easygoing as Zell. I guess she'd have a lot of annoyed moments with him, but in the end she'd probably learn to loosen up. And he might get more serious. I bet it would read a lot like the ever-popular Quistis-Seifer fictions, just... without the swearing, and without the bad attitude / pranks being NON-intentional.

Anyway, I love it when people take weird ass pairings and somehow make them work. I think I really got converted to the alternate pairings fandom stuff when I read a good X Seymour-Rikku fic. Ever since then, the concept of pairings has almost flown out of the window for me; sometimes I read stories just BECAUSE they have weird pairings in them now. Unfortunately a lot of times the stories are pretty damn bad, but the thing is this -

If someone is really passionate about a weird pairing, since the pairing is so off base, they're more likely to strive to write better about that pairing than be lazy and just use tired ideas for popular ones. So, when I go through 'popular pairing' fics, the ratio is something like... 1 really good fic to ever 25 I browse through. But when I go through 'eww, that can't be a pair, can it' fics, the ratio is more like 1:10.

Here's my own guilty little secret. I haven't actually read that many Irvine fics, because for some reason his (canon) character doesn't interest me that much. I have no idea why, it's not like I don't like cowboy hats and purple eyes. Hmm, actually I do know why. It's because I like all the WOMEN in FF8 better than any of the MEN. Still... I suppose one of these days I should give that poor old cowboy a chance. ;)

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

By 'gen fic' I mean fic in which there is little or no romance. I guess I don't mind the romancing so much but I greatly prefer plot over pairing.

DON'T MAKE ME PUSH YOU FOR THAT QUISTIS/ZELL. Most of the time when I come across that pairing, the author seems to have done it mostly because "Squall/Rinoa, Irvine/Selphie, who's left? Oh! Zell and Quistis!" and has made absolutely no concession for the complete disparity in their characters. I guess what you wrote is right - if someone could write Zell without him being a dumb kid with ADD, and Quistis not being an anal ice bitch, maybe they could meet in the middle.

You realize, now you're making ME want to write it.

What I love about Irvine's character is all the stuff that's hidden. He isn't written well very often: he's usually either (a) a cruel sex-fiend womanizer driving Selphie into the arms of Zell/Seifer/Rinoa or (b) a complete sappy romantic who sweeps Selphie off her feet and fulfills the author's sappy romantic Mary Sue dreams. But somehow to me he was this great, sincere, awkward, really caring and really meaningful guy who hid it all cause he was scared and crumbled under pressure a lot.

I dunno. About 10 minutes after Irvine came on my screen I paused the game and wrote the intro paragraph to Sincerity Cowboy. Now I don't exactly like how the story ended because I feel like I got lost in the middle, but I still feel like I did well by my Irvine.

Re: crack pairings: It's also true. Sometimes I feel like pulling names out of a hat and going all "Hmmm, really?"

Now I'll be expecting a story from you. >:D

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

Heh heh heh. Here, have a plot bunny. And it's mate. And a cage with a little blanket over it so they can fool around. *innocent whistling*

Re: Now I'll be expecting a story from you. >:D

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

DON'T DO THAT! IT NEVER TURNS OUT WELL!

*feeds bunnies carrots anyway*

It's already taking over my brains. Zell and Quistis on a mission, and Zell thinks she needs to lighten up, and Quistis being all anal-y and "stick to the map" and things just go spectacularly wrong and right.

Re: Now I'll be expecting a story from you. >:D

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

Oh god! It is a good idea.

Qustis could be assigned the mission from Squall and be really unwilling to carry it out. Then she would have to be the one to break it to Zell. Who, of course, would be in the cafeteria scarfing hot dogs. Which Quistis of course would find disgusting and tell him to learn some manners.

And then.. and then... he'd ask her to help him learn manners so he could impress Library Sue! During the mission!

... and she tries! And starts thinking that his mannerless incompetence and boyish straightforwardness is kind of cute!


OMG U R EVIL I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR ANOTHER STORY!!!!