**dwai-yownnyownnyownn~**  Some onomatopoeia just don’t work quite as well as others…  o_O

So…some recent conversations with a special friend of mine have left some creatures/summons from the Final Fantasy series bestiary running amok in my mind, such as Tonberry lurking about in the darkness with its cute-creepy nonchalant expression and  wielding a friggin’ Chef’s Knife, or a Cactuar or two just standing there in the vast desert wasteland of my psyche…posed…in its/their seemingly petrified running position.  Wha―? …were the artists & designers at SquareSoft on peyote or something when they dreamed up the charactuar for Final Fantasy VI?  It’d certainly be fun to see the different character-concepts that artist Tetsuya Nomura went through before arriving at Cactuar’s final look.

But, honestly though, little potted cacti in real life―even without the frozen expressions & whimsically-positioned limbs/branches―are pretty darn cute.  As are venus fly traps…but that’s a topic better left for the conversational drek of another day.
Anyway, such RPG-nerdery-fueled conversations + the occasional laments/venting about the idiocy of coworkers + some rather adorable faceBook cactus-themed “Prickly Pear” emoticon-stickers (by Jayde Fish) led to the mental manifestation of the animated-image of person―in a fit of nerd-rage―throwing (or perhaps kicking) a Cactuar at some idjiot across the room…and possibly inflicting some massive PWNage~  good times!  ^___^

Upon engaging in some recent research on the titular cactus of this post, i’d discovered that its name is actually spelled “cactuar” (with the U before the A) rather than “cactaur,” as i had previously thought.  Odd twang though its pronunciation has (like kak-twar), i guess it’s still easier to remember, as the average American probably can’t be expected to remember the oddity of a name like サボテンダー (Sabotendā) in the original Japanese, based on the word サボテン, meaning cactus.
Oh, the linguistics and the details of geekdom.  To this day, the suffix of ダー (dā, or “der”) in fictional Japanese names is an occasional source of amusement for me; my best assumption is that it is analogous to “man” or “woman” in American superhero names.  So a character name like “Batman“ might have turned out to be バットダー (“Batder”) had Bob Kane been born Japanese.  While names like 仮面ライダー (Kamen Raidā = Masked Rider ) sound decent enough, other real examples like “Drag Redder” for a red-colored dragon monster-summon (a la Japanese superhero tv series 仮面ライダー龍騎 “Masked Rider Ryuuki”, aka Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight in the its North American adaptation) or its evil counterpart “Drag Blacker” for…anyone want to guess the chromatic scheme of this latter monster?  (hint: it’s not green).  Errr… yeah~

So, does anyone care to share any team-project or work stories where you’re periodically compelled to chuck a cactder―ahem, Cactuar―at someone?       >[:)