#but i doubt i'm ever going to play it again or any sequels or anything | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

icharchivist · 7 months ago

Note

Please answer this venting some more about ff7remake

^ you and me rn

aww <33 such a cute meme to illustrate it hi <333

Before i dive into it, a few disclaimers

-I've been fan of the franchise for over 15 years and there's definitely an aspect i'd say of having sat with the previous games for so long that there is a chance there will be bias against anything new. I try to be as objective as i can but as it's a game that means a lot to me, I doubt i would fully manage to be so

-Rumors of a Remake has been brought up ever since the release of Crisis Core because of how the mid-credit scene was adapting the beginning of the OG, and also because of test footage for a possible Remake then. And then when the Remake was announced in 2015 it really took fans by storm and we had to wait 5 more years before seeing the first part, which means a lot of hype and expectations have been built around this Remake which probably also colored the way fans will approach it.

-In the end i'm just one random fan with my own opinion and therefore this will be colored with my own feelings, and i think if people feel any other way about what i say, their own interpretation also matter, so it's a nonexhaustive aspect of all of it

-It's going to get long. In fact this whole ask is over 10.5k long. I'm so sorry.

-I'm going to spoil major aspect of the compilation, or at least won't try to dance around spoiler if i have to mention them.

-I am not touching the Yuffie DLC because i havent played it yet, and that contrary to the Remake it's not an "adaptation" of plotpoints from the OG and should be an original story and i'll judge it as such.

-It is just about Part 1 of the Remake, if i mention Rebirth i'll be vague.

Under the cut!

The Remake is based on the very first few hours of the original game, which is a very tight narrative to start with. If we follow the canon OG, it means they would have to stretch things out and pad in addition to have a proper game runtime.

As such the Remake isn't a straight adaptation of the beginning of the OG, but also will fill in with some original material. Call backs to the other game, supplementary lore, or fully new materials, as well as reworking previous scenes.

But it also includes a completely unique storyline that ends up taking center stage, and said storyline is a sequel to Advent Children. This one story therefore comes with its own problems.

Therefore there are different angles on which to judge the remake, both as an adaptation and a continuation of the franchise.

But frankly i'm allergic to the continuation aspect so bad that i can only see how it doesn't work, instead of how well the game is delivering on this scenario.

I should also mention that i started watching a cutscene movie of the remake in 2020 but stopped after the Wall Market scene because i wanted to play for myself but also was bummed by the way the plot was taking. then i started playing the game in 2021 when it released on computer and i dropped it right before Wall Market because i was seriously getting bummed out by the developments it took, and it made me disconnect with the saga for years just because i was bitter. So that also colors my vision of it that it managed to make me uninterested about a saga that's so close to my heart. I've only decided to give the game a shot again because i ended up rewatching the movie recently and was so emotional i wanted to see through with the remake.

Let's go:

First, the Good.

-The Fighting Gameplay is fantastic. It's a good middle ground between the fast paced action game and the timed turn by turn from the original. It preserves a lot of what made the fights memorable while modernizing it fantastically. In term of pure fighting gameplay, the game is a treat to play.

-Adding to it the equipments menu is a massive upgrade and you have no idea how grateful i am to be able to access each of the characters' set up and switch their materias from one chara to the next without needing them in my party. The scars of the OG are too real. Also very happy that everyone level up at the same rate even if they're not in your party for a while. The OG doesn't give exp to characters who aren't in your party when you play and if you don't switch out regularly, once the game forces you to play specific character, you run the risk of being massively underleveled. So happy the remake doesn't do that.

-The Enemies fights are fantastically adapted. In the OG because of the turn by turn format, the attacks weren't as distinctive from one another as they could be. Being able to really see how each enemies move and work was a pure treat.

-The environment design. The places are either faithfully reecreated or updated in a way that makes them very vivid and interesting. My only grip was with how bright the undercity looks on the regular, but the way to adapt it by having the brightness pushed as much as it does when the Sector 7 plate fall still made for a horrifying perspective, and i do think there's values on the aspect of putting the player in the same mentality as the people in the undercity thinking it's not so bad after all.

-Also adding in, character designs and updates have been really great and faithful to the compilation and it's a treat

-Also big mention to the new English cast that, i think, are almost all perfect replacement. Except Zack, which i think is a terrible replacement, but one miss out of all the wins is honestly not stopping it from being a plus

-Additional scenes of each characters that don't have them talking about the whole Whispers thing are usually pretty good. Barret especially gets to win a lot in personality by constantly seeing how he reacts to things. The OG didn't have as many character centric moments and it rarely shows us the intra-dynamic of the group outside of Cloud (rarely, but not never), and the remake was allowed to really allowed to bring it up a notch in a way that really makes you feel on how those characters care about one another.

-Fleshing out NPCs especially linked to the Sector 7's incident were good moves. Jessie, Biggs and Wedge taking more room in the game developping them especially with the full chapter dedicated to them was great and really allowed you to feel for the devastation of what would happen to them.

-Most of the New NPC are really cool and interesting and i'm very glad we got Andrea for instance. Linked to that, getting rid of the homophobic elements of the Honey Bee Inn to replace it with Andrea in particular genuinely healed me a little inside i think. Also i really like Roche.

-Every Turks scene are incredible as far as they're concerned. I really like the dive into their point of view and the way to prepare for their late game shift. Genuinely no complains there.

-Added quests in Sector 7 and Sector 5 to get to know both sectors. I genuinely think it's a good way to really develop an attachement to those places and the way they matter to our protagonists.

-The whole storyarc added to the Sewer and the Train Graveyard was genuinely great and served to really show how Tifa and Aerith grew closer, and ways to explore some specific character angst for both of them, and i really liked it.

-I was surprised at first but i do like replacing the climbing of the wall to reach the upper city with climbing the ruins of Sector 7 instead. It's another case of taking away a section with unique gaming mechanisms, yeah, but i also think it hits much harder and help you really sit on the devastation that occured in a way the OG couldn't show us. I think it was genuinely a good change.

-The adaptation of the infiltration by the stairs was also incredible.

-Seeing Shinra constantly trying to restart a war with Wutai and using the terrorists for this really drive home the propaganda that was in the work at Shinra and it's really neat to see.

The On-The-Fence.

-The Deep Ground stuff. Genuinely liked the first time it's quickly mentioned by the NPC, and actually connecting it to the researches around Jenova during the lab portion was interesting, but i think they kinda overplayed their hand a little.

-Everything about the lore of Avalanche outside of Barret and his crew. Having a main cell sometimes helping or not, and the Mayor being part of it, are choices i can't really say where i land on about. I found the Mayor reinterpretation fine but it came at the cost of all the gameplay that got changed because of his inclusion for example.

-The Reinterpretation of Wall Market. On one hand i do like the more flashy approach to the Market and really feeling how Corneo's fingerprints are basically everywhere. On the other i find it unsettling how "Glam" the whole approach to enter Corneo's house was. There's a huge difference between getting the help from the little folks who are ready to help you as you make your plan yourself, and having just to impress 3 of the authority of the whole town.

-The Return to Sector 7 plotline is very difficult adaptation wise for me because i think it shouldn't be there, but it's the one section of the game that really gives Barret time to shine and i really like what they do with him, and i do think it makes sense for him to want to come back and hope for the best. Barret carries this section because everything else makes it jarring.

-The Sunlamp sections to reactor 5. Way too long and overstuffed but it helps really setting up just how wasteful and hypocrite Shinra's energy use is.

-The removal of ambiguity about the action of Avalanche especially. This one is difficult to explain. Since we rarely leave Cloud's POV we don't really see if Shinra, say, provoke a bigger explosion to the Mako Reactor and then pin it on us, or if our actions genuinely hurt people. The Remake is constantly reassuring you that the worst of our actions are only because Shinra are making them worse on purpose. The OG doesn't really give you this reassuring. I'm... miffled about it because i think losing this nuance is particularly a problem for the set up of the Barret/Reeve conflict in late game, because there's never a moment Barret can just brush off they didn't do anything wrong. The question is more, are you willing to sit with the consequences of those actions, of the people who may die as you try to achieve the greater good? Which is also exactly in parallel to Reeve who, after seeing Sector 7, will be the one to kidnap Marlene to pressure Barret because, just like him, he's doing an "specific sacrifice" to stop harm from happening. But the remake constantly absolves Avalanche from any of that by making it clear it's Shinra's propaganda. And i do think it's making this plotline an injustice.... while also recognizing that perhaps it's necessary to spell out considering how otherwise people would easily side over Shinra, especially in a world post 9/11. And meanwhile this whole discussion between Barret and Reeve late in the OG might not happen at all because in Rebirth, Reeve doesn't kidnap Marlene. We're in a situation where the two men who considered maybe one sacrifice for the greater good, aren't even doing sacrifice anymore because they're too morally good for it. It cheapens their plotlines, but at the same time i don't know if i'd trust audience going into this conflict anyway. So it's difficult. It feels like the conflict was simplified and dumbed down, and i'm torn between "well it's necessary because audience needs to understand their pov" and " 'gratz on the loss of nuance everyday".

-The Further inclusion of Project G and S in the storyline when Hojo talks about it. I'm really on the fence so it's not easy to say, but i found it really jarring when Hojo mentioned them. Since the Remake itself doesn't bring much more answer as to how those Projects are implemented in the story, my memories of CC made it seem very weird. A friend told me about how it's used in Rebirth and it may be a good point but... wait and see.

-Related to that, the Mako degenerecency addition. Or more like. We knew Mako Poisoning was a thing, we knew of Project G and S Degenerecency, and it's not a stretch to think Mako will destroy its host on the long run -- but it's never been outright said in the OG nor addressed outside of CC, and i'm on the fence about how i feel about it. It seems to have a bigger part in Rebirth so i'll genuinely hold my judgement until i see what they do with it i think.

The "That could easily have been better."

-Back to Wall Market, the big de-queerification of the plotline despite the Honey Bee Inn section. The 1997 portion wasn't great sensitivity wise, but there was this clear element of how Aerith and Cloud agreed together on the crossdressing and worked their ass off specifically to cross dress Cloud together. In doing so you meet also Jules, who's a drag queen and will challenge you to a squat off in exchange of one of his wig, and you inspire the dressmaker by helping him discover he could try making dresses for other purpose than cis-women. The dressmaker find solace in the queer approach to his work. In the remake you have no mention of Jules being a drag queen even if he looks more gnc, the dressmaker just needs a reminder that girls dancing is hot to be inspired again, and Cloud crossdressing is imposed on him at the very last minute without him having prepared nor agreed with it. Andrea replacing all of the homophobic elements of the Honey Bee Inn, mainly the fact that the male hosts from it are making move on Cloud that makes him uncomfortable even if it helps for the crossdressing, and that in itself is great because Andrea ends up the mouthpiece of queer positivity replacing the most hiffy queer part of the original game. But it came at the expense of de-queering literally every single other plotlines of this part and robbing Cloud of his agency in his own crossdressing. Meanwhile to replace the quests in which Cloud is actively looking into crossdressing himself with quests in which Cloud has to prove he's the Manly Man. It's so jarring to me.

-Cloud's mental breakdowns. Hear me out. I'm a huge fan of Cloud's mental breakdown in the OG that starts pretty early. On one hand, i like some of the way they implanted more mental breakdown. The one Cloud has while Biggs talk about him being attached to his sword? amazing bit, for exemple. On the other, they really struggle with showing them in a way that's like... genuinely interesting. A lot of the early mental breakdowns in the OG usually black out the screen, pause the music, and then you only have white words showing up on the screen. The Remake cannot help but being flashy with them in a way i find particularly tacky. Re: "Back Then, i only got scrapped knees", when he falls from Mako Reactor 5. In the OG it's a reminder of when Tifa was the one who fell that day and Cloud tried to help her, fell with her, only got scrapped knees while she was in a coma, and then he was shuned out by the rest of the village because he was believed to have caused the incident, and Cloud developped his first survival guilt out of this one. When he falls in that scene, it is because Tifa was the one endangering herself to try to save him, and it flashed him back to it. In the Remake you get to see a model of him adult in a white landscape trying to talk to him, until Sephiroth hijack the whole situation and makes it about him. The whole tension is ruined like that. Likewise, when Cloud remembers Sephiroth calling himself an ancient, same "black screen, white text, no music", instead being interpreted with a weird flashback on a white background before Sephiroth hijack the scene to spell out that Cloud's fear of "being unable to save anyone" is seriously starting to eat him alive. Or how, in the whole new Deep Ground section, Cloud flashes back to when he was prisoner in a tube, and you see it clearly again. Yes it's realistic for Cloud to break down, no he doesn't break down seeing tubes in the OG, but showing flashes of him being in one is so vulgar for the audience. And meanwhile we completely lost one of the most terrifying mental breakdown Cloud has in an optional scene in the Honey Bee In where a copy of himself jumps on him to strangle him for the way he is denying the reality that's happening to him. like man. It sucks.

-Special mention to how i'm sad they removed Aerith scamming people with her flower business. Because it was always funny to me and sad not to see in the remake. At least the remake is a major step up from every single appearance of Aerith after the OG that tends to make her too pure and sweet (and i include Crisis Core in it) while in the OG she can be a menace, and the remake did manage to make her more of a menace than not, so it's nice-- but i want her to scam people. god forbid a girl does anything.

-Cloud and Choices. So i discuss about it often but in the OG during the whole first part of the game, you're often the one having to determinate how Cloud replies to some things. Said things will somewhat shape the scenario, most importantly: who are you going to go on a date with between Aerith, Tifa, Yuffie and Barret. On a metatextual level, those choices are also clearly supposed to indicate the different personas Cloud pulls off around people, in order to really have it hit home the moment he regains his memories and you can't control his words anymore.

The OG could more easily do it because the game isn't voiced, so it's easier to prepare, and the Remake couldn't do as many of those and honestly, that's fine.... the problem is how they replaced it.

Example: the Special Affection Scene with either Aerith, Tifa and Barret. The requirements for either of them is how many quests you did with Tifa on Sector 7, how many quests you did with Aerith in sector 5, who you decide to wake up first when the two of them fall in the Sewer, and if you tie or if you have less than 3 points with them you get the Barret cutscene.

... those aren't real choices to influence the cutscene imo. Except maybe the "who you wake up", just "doing sidequests or not" isn't indicative at all of who you'd have an affectionate scene with. and Barret instead is only there if you fail with them.

now, in the OG, the Barret scene does happen only if you failed with the other girls, but he actually had options giving him point too, like calling him Cloud's boyfriend when Corneo flirts with Cloud, or giving the flower to Marlene.

The Remake doesn't give you any of that. There's a fake choice in the first scene with Aerith where she gives you her flower and then you have no choice but to give it to Tifa, where in the OG you could give it to Marlene there. ok whatever.

but those are fake choices.

Likewise for the dresses: they're determined by how many quests you did, not about your actions, not about what you decide to collect, it's literally just filling a check list. and most aggravating, no matter if you do good or bad during this scene, Cloud will be picked as Corneo's lover no matter what, because he distincts himself by calling Corneo's pathetic. In the OG, if you don't crossdress Cloud in the perfect outfit, one of the girls get picked instead.

And it feels so.... anti-game in a sense? why do you remove anything that had the player interreact with the story in some way? or more like, if it was to be replaced why give conditions this lackluster?

this is maybe a nippick and all and it could be dealt with, but considering the thematic linked to Cloud and choices and persona this feels like such a lackluster way to replace it.

-Weird timing with some of Cloud's flashbacks? It bothered me but it might be nippicky. But we regularly see Cloud flashes back to when Tifa was a kid, which i believe he shouldn't (reason in a further down section). The only one that is important is the promise under the stars one, but they moved it to be triggered on Cloud when he's out with Jessie and the gang, while in the OG this scene is triggered after Tifa tries to remind Cloud of it, and it's because they have a conversation about it that we get to relive it with Cloud. I think it's a problem because it makes Cloud the one who initiates remembering those instead of Tifa, which is a problem to commit to the gaslight storyline with Sephiroth, when Sephiroth will manage to convince Cloud he never existed by cornering Tifa into saying she doesn't remember Cloud in one of his biggest memories. Because as long as the only flashback is one prompted by Tifa, you can argue that it's Tifa who plants the idea in Cloud's mind and therefore maybe Sephiroth is right. But the more Cloud remembers things unprompted to himself, the more you'd question Sephiroth's manipulation since "well no it doesn't make any sense if Cloud remembers things like that on his own."

-Reeve was great but showing Cait Sith early was a mistake and i think this set up is going to influence Rebirth in a bad way

The Bad

-The Padding. That's the core of all the problems of the game is that they wanted desperately to extend the runtime and therefore would use any excuses to make you waste time. Some exploration can be great, but eventually you'll really feel it when scenes start to seriously stretch out

-The Removal of puzzles and exploration in order to constantly guide you from one battle to the next and one cutscene to the next, and eventually very long mini game. It's probably hard to explain but it became very jarring to me. The OG kinda have you doing things yourself, and everything i can think of were replaced by very vulgar "quests to cross" type. Like Cloud's dress in Wall Market depends on how many quests you've done which are unrelated to how Andrea sees Cloud, while in the OG you have to find each pieces of the perfect dress on your own, make individual decisions for each of the piece and hoping it works in the end.

The Integrality of the Shinra's exploration puzzle were replaced as well to instead focus on cutscenes with exposition. The archives are supposed to be a puzzle game to get a password from the mayor to get to the next level. In the remake, the Mayor gives you an extended cutscene to say he's on your side and gives you a key to move forward and he tells you to talk to another Avalanche helper. You're supposed to overhear people talk about "last time i was in the bathroom i swear i could hear voices" to figure out you can infiltrate the vents to eardrops on the meeting. The Remake just downright tells you to go to the vent, but only after you proved you can fight. And even there rather than telling you to look for something, there's always clear quest markers to guide you, you dont need to think. After a while the game just gives up with adapting the others floor, including the elaborate puzzle where you have to sneak into a vent maze to get into locked rooms.

Instead they give an extended Lab Dungeon that doesn't exist in the main game, that is very weird from Hojo at this point, and for the "puzzle" it is, the characters are always telling you what to do and it's mostly finding ways to open door in very easy way to get to more fights. There's no intentions of genuinely having you work out how to play. Meanwhile instead the mini games take too long and are often just new mechanisms for one scene and then you move out. I like the mini games, but the balance has been very jarring to me. That said this is colored by the fact i'm playing the pc-port with keyboard+mouse and the port itself hasn't been well optimized for the mini games making them a lot more frustrating than they would be on controller.

I think it's wild also that for a game desperate to pad its runtimes, it refuses to let you just get lost into a puzzle to, yknow, lose time.

-The Fear of Committing to the Fucked Up aspect of the game. The major problem i have with that is that the remake specifically set up how those elements could become even more Fucked Up, and then genuinely refusing to follow through with them. No one you know survive Sector 7's fall of the plate. Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, they all die miserably at the pillar, and everyone you've met at Sector 7 don't seem to survive. The Remake develops all of this in a way that it will make it devastating to experience... and then they pull back at the last minute. Actually everyone you met and who mattered are fine.

Sephiroth's massacre of the Shinra's Lab Floor that covered everything with trails of blood are replaced by the fact Jenova is in a remove area only Hojo accesses to, and so the trail is just Jenova's purple goop and Sephiroth probably didn't murder anyone (other than the president) this time. Lol. Lmao even. Adding to prev point, the discovery of Jenova having been taken away was totally anticlimactic compared to the way the OG delivers on it, because of the muted music, lack of build off, and refusal to show the death that surrounds her tube.

Present Shinra gets an extended scene to shame Barret and then when Sephiroth stabs him, he only leaks black mist, compared to the team going to the President Office to see he has been impaled. The Hell House, that haunts you in the Collapsed Sector, is now a thrilling action piece of a show. Cloud's most fucked up breakdown (seen above) is removed.

Hojo's plans to force Aerith to breed with Nanaki to experiment on their offsprings that would live for a long period of time thanks to the length of Nanaki's species' lifespan, is replaced instead with Hojo talking about breeding her with human experiments who are degenerating because of the Jenova cells, because it's not about the lifespan anymore but just having many experiments in case Aerith dies. Still fucked up and all, and it can work out fine, but it's still the remake getting cold feet about the bestiality aspect, and therefore Nanaki's introduction has to be different from when he just happened to be in the same cage as Aerith. It just constantly pulls back from going all in when it can afford it. the Train Graveyard is the only place they really are allowed to show fear, but even there it's more creepy than the majorly unsettling set pieces.

And i heard it happened in Rebirth too, where the whole haunted section with monsters being people who were experimented on to an horrifying degree and you are the ones who have to put those living people down, be replaced by a full VR experience.

Like, i think pulling away from one of them wouldn't be so bad - i'm like, also willing to hear the bestiality replacement point for example, but when it's a pattern like this it starts just to cheapen every scenes that have a punch into it.

-speaking of i hated the speech President Shinra gives Barret and the whole "you only care about clearing your name, not about making things better for Midgar". in the OG there IS an aspect of Barret's desire to save the planet being a selfish wish for revenge. He cares for the planet yes, but this revenge is what he holds on to to cope with the guilt of having believed in Shinra once. Still his desire to save the planet is real, and he does actually want to dismantle Shinra no matter what. This aspect of his character is what creates a conflict with Reeve later on, and it's where the conflict shines well because we have two morally ambiguous characters having to come to term with why they want to make the world better and what are they actually willing to sacrifice for this. This Discussion with Reeve later on doesn't really pick a side (even though later in the game Reeve will do everything to help the gang and fully switches side), but it's two sympathetic characters who are trying to make the world a better place who come to a clash because of the different motivation and willingness to commit.

Having Barret run in about clearing Avalanche name, which i don't recall him being that dedicated about doing in the OG (if only because the propaganda was less pointed to because of what will be my next point), is the thing that allows the President to have a gotcha and point out that Barret had no long term plan to help people and he was a scam, and that the president might be a bad person but at least he thinks about it.

I really hate it because if it's about outlining that Barret is more in for revenge than for ecology, it's giving President Shinra, a one dimensional villain, the benefit of having the upper hand on Barret. And Barret is left speechless because he lets this guilt settles in, rather than how he fights for his own POV against Reeve later.

It's like they're trying to prepare the Barret/Reeve conflict but the way they went at it was leaning too hard on letting the President have his moment, while also framing Barret as much more selfish as even his dreams of revenge from the OG let him be.

and at the same time it's weird in the remake because the remake goes hard on how much Barret is into Planetology, much more than the OG, so the guy has done his researches and has invested a lot more into ecology for it to just be a selfish barging.

And like i mentioned, this whole scene doesn't exist in the OG because we have an earlier confrontation to the President when we get arrested and Barret is mostly still mad at him for having killed his friends, not for how they're being framed, and the president is so one dimensional villain he barely invest himself in this conversation, and the next thing we see, the president is dead. They made the President more cunning in the Remake which i don't /mind/ (it helps setting up the kind of person Rufus is without having to expose that Rufus will bring a real shift to Shinra's policies, by having his father already show you what Rufus may have been raised into thinking, which means that Rufus' appearance can only be about vibes and threats without needing to expose who he is, especially this late into the remake), but by allowing him to be alive in this situation it ended up being a terrible look on Barret on something that isn't an issue in the OG.

-The whole arc between Sector 7's fall and running to Shinra to save Aerith. This one is a doozy. Everything they had added up to this point had at least a good reason to be there for the timing of all things. Like the Jessie chapter happened at night on a point in the OG where nothing happens between two big plot point, it fits organically, it's nice.

But this one really had me annoyed because i think the previous arc extended even more on why Tifa and Barret would jump right away into wanting to rescue Aerith like in the OG, but instead this is the moment the two of them pull back from going to help Aerith so instead they can focus on totally new plotlines.

On paper i don't mind the idea of them going to Sector 7 in the hope to find people who survived it, because i do think they would need this closure. In the OG there's no secret passage under the doors of the sector though, so they don't have any means to get back to the Sector. I get it in term of characters' motivation, but it also somehow manage to put the tight plot into a halt.

Now it takes them a few days to think about saving Aerith, because first we need to be reassured everyone who matters in Sector 7 is fine, saving Wedge, discovering more Deep Grounds, having Cloud has new "i shouldn't be there" flashbacks, and then doing all sort of missions for people in the aftermath of the fall of the plate, until having to help Leslie on a whole sidequest for him to tell us how to climb the wall. All of which are interesting ideas on paper but i think ends up padding the time so badly it ends up frustrating and removing completely the urgency of "Aerith was taken as a lab rat because she tried so save a stranger".

And this arc births the problem i was mentioning in my prev point that therefore the trio remains in the slums for at least two days of hearing Shinra's propaganda and the way they frame Avalanche in the way that cause Barret to be so upset it's the thing he challenges the President about, while in the OG he's still mourning first, the anger is due to the loss and grief, not on how his friends are remembered.

Actually i think that sums up a lot of the problem with the Remake when it comes to the thematic of grief, which in the OG is about how you have to accept this grief as a part of yourself because else you're going to lose yourself to its stages (and Barret therefore is kind of more this representation of the anger side of grief, compared to Cloud being stuck on denial) , and instead changing it more on "how you are remembered", either by denying the death from happening at all, or having Barret just wanting that the way his friends are remembered in death to be honorable.

-The Hojo Lab Arc. Boy is this one ways too long. Clearly wanting to compensate for the Shinra's floor that has been removed by giving this sort of exploration episode in the unsettling Jenova/Deep Ground's lab. On one hand, the atmosphere for this is chilling (at first) and it does make sense to move Jenova in a more secret floor room.

But the gameplay ended up being lackluster, just going from one obvious step to the other with the characters repeating to you want to do, only so you can get into fights, and i can think of like ONE moment that was genuinely scary, but the rest was really just.... the most padding things could get.

I also think it lampshade Hojo as a villain too much this early into the game. Also while i'm at it i hate that Hojo remembers Cloud in this timeline now. I think Hojo's disinterest for failed experiments meaning he wouldn't even consider Cloud noteworthy is an interesting way to build tension, and i hate that Hojo is aware of things and now is just maniacally playing his cards for now just for fun to see what Sephiroth will do next. Hojo is a very interesting antagonist, and while i do think he would love to commit unethical experiments with however he meets, this whole sequence was too much. Also the fact he mostly "tests" the gang by having them fight advanced weapons and like a couple monsters that happened to escape, it kinda takes away from the mad scientific vibe when he's just trying his new toys, rather than actively trying to do something more interesting and fucked up. They frame it as him wanting data on Cloud knowing he's been experimented on, but again, i don't like that he knows that, but also i think those tests weren't exactly interestings for this exact data either. and meanwhile showing him actively letting Sephiroth get away remove any type of possible tension about where Hojo stands in this whole company.

but yeah the Labs could have been a great concept but it took the most boring way to execute it and instead it just felt like dragging.

The Terrible

-No respect for the mysteries of the saga. Everything that the OG built a mystery around is spoiled in the Remake, or teased in flashforward. This is so aggravating to me.

Like, it feels to me that the devs were so convinced the game will be played by people who played the OG, or who would play the OG for themselves, that they did not bother with keeping any of them out. Sephiroth keeps popping off being more ominous than he should be. The mention of Zack gives Cloud a mental breakdown so much so they mute Aerith to really point out that something weird is going on with Cloud and Aerith's ex, compared to how in the OG Aerith just don't originally mention him and when the name Zack is finally uttered, Cloud is too far in denial to connect anything at this point.

Cait Sith coming on the scene of Sector 7, while not linking him to Reeve yet (but i heard Rebirth jumped into doing so right away), therefore setting up that Cait Sith has at least an emotional reason to be joining the crew, therefore setting up the plotline once you have everyone in your party about how there's a mole in your group into making sure the players have suspicions about Cait Sith to start with.

Zack appearing in the ending of the game, showing he's close to Cloud, showing he has Cloud's sword, totally exposing the existence of this character while he is a mystery the whole game.

Hojo telling Cloud he was never in Soldier, Cloud getting recognized in Shinra HQ by people who therefore confirm he once existed, Cloud flashbacks about being experimented on....

All new stuff that instead of working as foreshadowing end up lampshading things that should have been more quiet mysteries, element to explore later on.

There's also so many "spelling the lore out in the remake way earlier than in the OG" like having a whole Shinra propaganda room about them looking for The Ancients' secret while if i recall correctly, this was a secret endeavor only revealed further into the game.

And then the flash forward, especially in the last part of the game but not only. Cloud having a flash forward to the plate falling. To Aerith's dying. Literally showing the intro of Advent Children as the future they're trying to avoid to tease Meteor, Aerith's death, Cloud fighting Sephiroth.... and Nanaki running in a world post-civilization centuries later? this one is the most bewildering one to me because this specific scene should mean nothing to the characters about what the future has in store for them, but they played it up because it only matters if YOU know the saga. God this part was annoying to me.

I feel like the game is expecting so much that the player has played the OG that they're just begging them to tune in for part 2 because things might be different this time since we have NEW mysteries to worry about now! Will the horrors happen? teee hee who knows!

and for new players, it's confusing, but it also ends on "we're not following the OG anyway" so you kinda just have to stick with part 2 when it comes out instead.

i find it so aggravating and it takes me out of the story every single time. It's like none of the mysteries matter to be treated seriously for someone who might discover the saga.

But it therefore also comes at the price of completely ruining some characters' motivation.

Speaking of.

-Sephiroth.

Now to start with something positive, this Sephiroth is supposed to come from the Advent Children timeline, and on that regard, he's beautifully characterized. Yes, Sephiroth in Advent Children would be saying those things. Yes, he would try new ways to torment Cloud, yes he would play his cards differently, yes he would be hyper homoerotic and want Cloud by his side more than ever. All of that tracks very well with his character by Advent Children time.

.... glad to see new audience will never know how Sephiroth was before that then???

Sephiroth has one of the greatest villain built up in video games because of how slow burn his appearance is. First you hear about him in a flashback in good light, then you hear his name in a second flashback but this time in horror. Then Cloud collapse with a memory of Sephiroth, and then when they go to rescue Aerith they get to escape because the floor they were on has been massacred by Sephiroth, Jenova is gone, and the president has been found impaled on Sephiroth's sword. Cloud and Tifa react in horror as people who know Sephiroth, and then you have to escape, and once outside of Midgar, they will start discussing "what's up with Sephiroth actually"

and then once you're at Kalm, Cloud will give you an extended flashback of the Nibelheim incident with Sephiroth as a playable unit and you see he's mad strong. You try to pass through the cavern guarded by a Midgar Zolom which will be your first terrifying boss experience because of how hard it is to beat, only to pass this by stealth to see Sephiroth just empaled one before you. AND THEN you go to Junon where Sephiroth is rumored to have been and once on the boat going to the Costa Del Sol, you will run into him. Cloud will challenge him, and Sephiroth will barely recognize him, and then let them fight a bodypart of Jenova. And it's only from this point on that Sephiroth will seriously start to pay attention to the crew and will slowly but surely try to manipulate Cloud, developping an obsession toward him.

the Remake ends when you leave Midgar. So Sephiroth shouldn't have appeared. And clearly the Remake was scared that not showing the fan favorite will cause problem, so they justified a way to have Sephiroth into the story early by having him be late-development Sephiroth.

which just means that if you haven't played the OG, you're getting a wrong impression of Sephiroth and the way he specifically approached Cloud. As well as completely missing out on the slow built of his capabilities.

But if you have played the OG you therefore get to really notice how he hijacks scene and therefore change them into things they're not. I hate his appearance in Cloud and Aerith's first meeting, completely changing the mood of this scene to make it all about him. I hate that everytime Cloud has a mental breakdown, Sephiroth appears to take advantage of him.

AC!Sephiroth would! but this is a horrible way to build him for a first time audience, and it's so vulgar in the way it spells things out for him.

And you know he's going to play his cards differently because of how he lost the previous time; For example in the Rebirth trailers they did the whole marketting around Sephiorth wanting Cloud to doubt Tifa, saying about how she shouldn't be alive and will manipulate Cloud. It's a direct response to the fact that neglecting to take into account Tifa is what caused Sephiroth downfall because she was the only person who knew Cloud so intimately that she was able to guide him through his memories, thanks to how much Cloud trusted her. Sephiroth, therefore, logically, need to make sure Tifa is not going to get in the way this time.

.... and that's swell and it makes sense but we're getting a whole other story aren't we?

The remake was adverticized as a remake and instead a huge chunk of it hinges on the fact you know the saga and because of Sephiroth and the characters knowing Fate is oncoming, it's actually a sequel.

And it's deeply frustrating to play because aside from Sephiroth and Aerith, no one knows what the previous timeline was. (coming back on Aerith in a bit). All of the cast suddenly is working to change a fate they do not even know about because Sephiroth and Aerith want to challenge this fate.

As a player it removes you from fully connect with the story because the characters don't even know what they're fighting for!! They don't have the context of what the bad things are going to be!

And like okay you either like it or you don't, but personally i hate it a lot.

-Desamorcing any emotional scene by the new mysteries.

The remake wants you to be invested in the new mysteries around Sephiroth and the Whispers so bad that scenes get to be completely hijacked by those characters ruining the tension any scene is supposed to build in.

Cloud and Aerith first meeting is supposed to be a quiet scene as he runs into her after the Reactor exploded. You can also completely ignore her and she'll move on, but otherwise it's a really quiet and simple scene. The Remake builds a whole Cloud hallucinate Sephiroth scene out of it, has Aerith tormented by the Whispers, she approaches Cloud to thank him, and Sephiroth will appear to threaten Cloud about how he intends to let fate repeat, implying the threat of killing her. The whole sweet scene starting of to establish a dynamic between those two? had the focus changed on Sephiroth instead to be ominous.

Fighting Reno in the church is a good addition and all, but Cloud trying to murder him only so the Whispers can come and take him away so the whole "escaping the Church" bit is all about the Whispers? You had a good tension over two characters physically interreacting and you had to ruin it.

And the worst for me was really the whole Sector 7 incident, constantly seeing the whispers just to stop us from getting to the pillar, seeing the whispers everytime one of the Avalanche Three is having a big moment just so you can then see them as they make sure they die. Scenes that should be about Cloud and Tifa realizing they are losing people they're caring about, Cloud starting to have his whole "i can't save anyone" panic settles in, and it ends up being distracted by the Whispers doing their things and making it look like the only reason those characters die is because it's meant to be, not because yknow, they got killed?

Oh and Hojo recognizing Cloud and the Specters taking him away was so damn bad too.

It's like. Any scene that are trying to build a tension, perhaps even a good one!! suddenly gets ruined by the whole "let's keep things on track" antagonist. Scenes that would have emotionally hit hard instead becomes confusing because of a whole new plotline that only works on a meta textual level. Embarrassing as hell.

-Zack. Why would you do that. Why would you show Zack why would you create a whole alternative timeline.

oh, well, i know why. Zack is too popular not to and you gotta include him. But the fact Zack is a neat character because of how much you can feel his absence when you know why it is there, the way they just dangled him in front of our face is so insulting, especially as being the scene right before our heroes go to defeat fate. It's something that only matter to hardcore fans, who would also be fans because of how Zack haunts the narrative, and so now instead we get an alternative timeline story that would be all swell and game in fanfictions, but is bond to be confusing for non-fans, and just really antithetical to what made Zack so beloved to start with.

Every Zack fan i've talked with after the remake did that had the same reaction of being both happy he lived, and then "but what the fuck are they doing with that". It's a mystery, a zinger for the next game, to try to keep you invested

... but it feels cowardly, as well as the Sephiroth stuff feel cowardly. It feels like the game had no confidence in it doing well without fan favorites, and therefore included them in the game no matter what, even if it defies why they are fan favorite to start with.

-The Fate plotline. I've been rambling over this one a lot at this point so i don't know what much to say. I hate that the Remake is a story about defying fate. About how things are not written in stone and all of that. I feel like the game is basically in denial of the original game if only to lure the player into this state of denial. And it could work to mirror how Cloud will go through his journey, considering the OG is a lot about grief and Cloud is specifically about the harmful aspect of denial, but i think this is imposing ways too much metatextual commentary over the actual text to the point you're denaturing what the story was about.

At the end of the game, everyone have to accept together to change fate, a fate they know nothing about, a fate they just imagine could be bad. the PLAYER knows what they're talking about, but them, themselves, do not. At this point the characters don't really react out of their own arc and motivation, but on about trying to change an abstract idea they have no idea about.

Except for Aerith who knows about stuff in the future and is so determined to not let it be set in stone, Sephiroth who is implied to come from the AC timeline and wants to do things differently, and Nanaki who understands the Whispers and knows vaguely what to expect.

In a bitter way it puts any hardcore fan who expected to replay the plot of the OG in the position of the bad guy for implying that changes are wrong, actually, regardless of why fans would think this way.

To me, it's antithetical to the plot of the OG. Final fantasy manages to do stories about fate, FF15 is a great story about not being able to defy fate, Crisis Core COULD have been a story about fate due to its ending but it decided not to be, but the OG was not about fate in any way and pushing this as the core theme feels alien to the story.

The characters barely know what it's about aside from out of context flash forward and are supposed to make their stand to correct this.

Meanwhile the story also goes into so many loops to try to make you curious about the Whispers, or the way they fix the timeline, like when they save Barret's life, but everything is artificially contrived for my taste and every single scenes with the Whispers made me wish i had never been hype about this whole project to start with.

-Aerith and Nanaki becoming dev's mouthpieces at the expense of their own character arc. There are many scenes when those two will suddenly stop in their track just to do exposition dump about fate and destiny.

Nanaki is noteworthy because legit 80% of his dialogues are about Fate and Destiny, and his introduction to the squad literally had to rely on Aerith showing him a glimpse of the other timeline so he knows they're supposed to be friend, which is infuriating to think about. Because Nanaki developping a natural friendship with the gang is too much to imagine i guess. For a story about defying fate they sure make sure you know Nanaki only is talking with you because Fate told him so.

Meanwhile for Aerith it's so.... So much to me because at some point it's like her being a character stops and suddenly she ends up discussing exactly how there's a fate in front of them that will be scary to change. She wants to change it because of her own fate into it, but also fear changing it and all of that...

Which plagues Aerith with worries she didn't have at first, which means that for a bit, Aerith stops being her own character on her way to her character arc because she needs to look straight at the audience to explain them the themes of the story in case they didn't catch it up. It is so sloppy to me and i hate the idea of turning Aerith's gradual arc of reconnecting with her heritage and realizing she's the only one who can change something, into one where she's already wise and having it all figured out.

I saw someone comment on how Rebirth feels like a 5D Chess game between Sephiroth and Aerith both trying to change fate in their favor, but while i love their natural antagonistic dynamic, it genuinely bugs me how their independant actions are taking a cosmic weight right from the start of the remake. The more Sephiroth pulls in one direction the more Aerith is pulling on the other, and this natural nemesis relation where Aerith is constantly trying to one up Sephiroth and the other way around took a much bigger dimension now that Sephiroth comes from the Future and Aerith is aware of Fate.

-"Tee Hee Maybe They Won't Die :3c"

It's the frustrating aftereffect of destroying the keeper of fate, is that now the game is showing you a timeline in which Zack is alive, and is trying to act like "maybe Aerith won't die this time". Which feels cruel to me because either they go through with it and keep them both alive and we removed all the stakes from this story or why the game has a lot to say about grief, or they go through with it and they specifically manifactured a way to raise our hopes up for the sake of wanting to see them again.

Aerith and Zack are easily my favorite characters with Cloud, i've read countless of Fix It fanfic, AU where they come back, i know this denial, this desire they'll be okay.

and i know i don't want it from the main game because their death matters too much for what the story is trying to tell.

Zack needs to die for Cloud to even become who he becomes. Without his death, Sephiroth won't be able to manipulate Cloud properly. It's the reveal that Cloud has usurped Zack's life that will lead Cloud to the pure mental collapse that will have him give Meteor to Sephiroth and Sephiroth would trigger the apocalypse. Grieving Zack is a major element to explain the lowest of lows in Cloud's life.

The alternative timeline therefore lose those stakes, and may instead try to prove that Zack has to die else bad things will happen. After all, Cloud doesn't wake up in this timeline, so clearly Zack being alive means his own timeline may get unlucky as it goes.

Meanwhile Aerith's death is necessary for the powerstruggle between Sephiroth and Aerith, with the fact that by killing her, Sephiroth actually made her more powerful.

Sephiroth decides to kill Aerith because her power as the last of the Ancients and the Holy Materia are the only things that can reach out to the power of the Planet to counter everything Sephiroth wants to do. The moment he realizes She is the Menace, he will use Cloud to try to kill her, and when Cloud breaks the mind control, Sephiroth kills her himself. That way he ultimately have two birds one stone by both getting rid of Aerith and being able to break Cloud's mind and make him his and therefore getting Meteor.

But since Aerith was deep into a ritual and when she died she returned to the Lifestream, she managed to keep doing what she was doing from the otherside, more powerful than ever, and it's why the ending is as it is, with Aerith unleashing the lifestream as a way to shield the world from the fall of Meteor.

Aerith's death is essential to how to stop Sephiroth, on the aspect of, by killing her, Sephiroth dug his own grave.

But now what? Either they're keeping her alive and the 3rd part of the game will go in a complete different direction, or they'll kill her still after having raised people hope that she may survive.

-So the saga is setting itself at ending on a totally different note as the OG, at some point it will have to stop trying to adapt the OG at all because it completely went off rail... Or things will go back on rail and we've been played all along.

So yeah it's either the remake will follow through with the major plot beats and will therefore betrays its own new themes because turns out you can't win without following fate after all, or it will go completely off the rail and it will just Not Be The Plot Of The Original Game.

I'm sure we can try to see it as a sequel, i'm sure some people may be able to, but the more i get reminded of how close it is to the OG the more the things that go off rail just feel out of place, because it clashes with the themes of the OG.

I can't enjoy the fully new "sequel stuff" because it's always coupled with a reminder of the OG i love and this sequel just seems wrong there.

-It feels unfinished. And despite all of this, the game doesn't feel finished. You may add as many stories you want to give meat for the game to keep going, but ultimately you just barely introduced the concept and the characters since you legit only adapted the prologue, you left mysteries opened that are not being answered to keep people on a hook, but you end the game basically feeling you just started this trip. After a 60h+ long experience at least, you are left on a cliffhanger telling you to tune in next time.

This was always going to be the risk by cutting the game in part and even more so when the part one decided to only be about Midgar. I mentioned how i think the remake could narratively have tried to push to Junon since it would have ended with a battle with Sephiroth like they wanted.

but by finishing the Prologue, seems just seem rushed, nothing is finished, and there's a lot of plots that open at the end of the game. Like Rufus, for example, who is one of the major antagonist of the game, who can only come last minute. And because he comes in this late to the game, you can't actually have him explain what he's going to do as the antagonist. So he's just there for the vibes and it feel slike a weird addition that is just a cliffhanger for what's to come.

-"If you want to play the plot of the OG you just need to replay the OG or Ever Crisis"

Then you shouldn't have called the game a remake.

^ this is something a dev said btw and it still annoys me to this day. then you should have been transparent about it not being a remake. And saying that if people want to replay the OG they should play Ever Crisis, which is a GACHA live service game that will inevitably be unplugged one day because Square Enix doesn't have a good track record with taking care of their gacha (starting by what happened to the First Soldier, which was closed after one year of service), genuinely made me annoyed.

All in all, in the end, i'll take their word for this because it sure means i have no reason to be interested in the remake. So i will replay the OG instead.

And then they weep when Rebirth do less sales than the Remake. Lol. Lmao even.

But also just this mentality saddens me. Many people won't try the OG because it looks and feels old. It's a great game, but when the rest of the saga has only HD elements, it's difficult to get into or recommend. That's why people wanted a remake. Just being dismissive about it seems sad to me.

DEEP SIGHS.

CONCLUSION.

I didn't come to the remake wanting to hate it. In fact at first i really tried to rationalize everything it was building itself for.

But i powered through the remake more and more irritated and the irritating part took over all of the way i could interreact with the remake.

And the game isn't even that bad. It still genuinely feels like you return to the characters you know and love. I spent more hours having fun than i've had not having fun.

but the problem is that the good things are in the details and in the small interractions here and there, and that the flaws are the Major Plot Elements that you genuinely can't ignore.

And i'm torn, because i love those characters and want to see more, and the gameplay is so fun!

But by the time of the Ending of the Remake, i was just genuinely tired. Like the whole ending portion of the Remake broke me a little because no matter how in character Sephiroth is compared to his AC self, no matter how fun and camp the scenes are in isolation: this is still such a shitty choice to make about the thing that was called a remake.

I'm sure i've forgotten things despite how long this ask is. but yeah. That should be a good run down of my problems with the game.

..... sorry if you expected anything shorter. Turns out it just ended up being a good opportunity to sort out my thoughts and well. well....

Anyway hope you had a good read if you read all of it, and take care o7

#ichareply #pinkwesker #ichafantalks ffvii #ichablogging ffviirg #ichasalty

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xenokattz · 1 year ago

Text

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @htbthomas. Hi! How've you been?

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

616, 114

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has eaten my soul. But I also have works in X-Men comics & movieverse (Summers brothers, Gambit/Rogue), MCU Avengers (mostly Taserhawk but a few Captain Hill thrown in there for fun), and possibly my longest running faves, Clois, in all sorts of media.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?*

Investigations Into Interoffice Relations : Outsider POV Clois. Man of Steel (13,104 words)

The Pearl I Carry in My Heart : World-building, political drama Nashuri. Black Panther MCU (115,128 words)

Peace With a Faulty Heart : Gen/Family dynamics, minor Taserhawk. MCU (7,486 words)

I Would Like To Give You the Silver Branch : Atmospheric Clois. Man of Steel (4,697 words)

Dilated Eyes Shooting the Breeze : Dramedy Taserhawk. MCU (2,620 words)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I'm trying to be better at it but I did go through about 5 years of not writing so I never answered those comments. Right now I try to reply as soon as I post the next chapter of the same fic.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

A very very very VERY old Gambit/Rogue fic that I would disavow except I believe in archiving everything even your shittiest piece of work.

Angstiest ending of a fic that I don't mind naming? Toss up between Because Thorns Have Roses, a X-Men Fox movieverse involving a time-travelling Gambit; or Polish Them Rockets, Swallow Those Pills an MCU Taserhawk break-up fic (which has a sequel that negates the angst).

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of my fics end happily. They just go through the wringer to get there.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I don't think so? Unless there are some subtweet style comments out there that I'm not privy to.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yeps. Yeppers. Absolutely yes. About half of my fics have smut. I can't write PWP though; all my porn has plot.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Yes. I wouldn't call them crazy by any means but I have 2 X-Men/Superman ones-- one where the Kents with a young Clark ended up adopting Scott Summers|Cyclops after his parents' plane crashes in their field. And another where FoxMovieverse Cyclops' ghost possesses Richard White from Man of Steel, just because James Marsden played both characters. Neither are on Ao3 at the moment. I should really post them there with FFN in its death throes.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so. I hope not.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nopes.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have too many control issues to co-write anything.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I don't know if I have one favourite. I don't write them if I'm not utterly compelled by their chemistry.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

LeBeau, the third installation of my D'Ancanto series. It's not a even a WIP, really, more like a detailed outline but I don't know if I'm in that headspace any more. Even if I was, I remember thinking the outline needed such a major overhaul that I'd basically have to start all over again except the very last scene.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Possibly world-building? It's my favourite part anyway. Dialogue for certain characters.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm very verbose. That world-building thing. Also, sometimes I think I rush endings especially on the longer (> 50,000 word) fics

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Depends. Long conversations in another language, I just write in English with a comment somewhere in the beginning that it's in whatever language. Phrases or words that have no "English" translation, I'll put in said language with translations in the notes. Also, if the character tends to say those words/phrases in another language. I try my best to find a real person translator though I've started to learn a few languages trying to translate it myself.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Probably X-Men. Or the Anne of Green Gables books.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh my god! I don't have just one, it rotates a lot, and usually whichever one I'm working on is my fave. My current top 3 are:

The Pearl I Carry in My Heart : The world-building, political drama Nashuri I mentioned before

Cho Chang and the Jasmine Code : an HP fic about using magic based on other cultures not just Latin/Greek/British-based lore; specifically, Chinese magic which is based on calligraphy and music/tonality.

and, D'Ancanto : an gory whodunnit X-Men FoxMovieverse, post-X2, with Rogue/Marie D'Ancanto is a detective in the first police department where mutant cops solve crimes against or by other mutants.

Soft, no pressure tags to @pilesofpillows, @gaal-dornick, and anyone else who wants to play.

#nashuri #attoye #clois #gambit/rogue #fanfic

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tboy-boone · 1 year ago

Note

1-15 for the wip asks :)

this is like an entire school assignment, sorry it took so long <3

how many WIPS do you have right now?

too many.... i can't finish anything

2. what is your oldest WIP?

I have this goofy sequel I made to this one story i wrote in middle school and I have to finish it. For everything else, I can't finish anything, but for this WIP, I am required to!!

3. what is your newest WIP?

The last WIP i worked on was Cold, and it's my favourite of all of them. My favourite child without a doubt <3

4. Do you have any WIPs that will never be finished?

I never ever finish anything and I love it! Some things are meant to be small and unfinished thoughts, and I will do it again!

5. What scene did you write first in your current WIP?

The first part I wrote in Cold wasn't the beginning. Since the idea came to me in a dream, I wrote it in segments. So, I wrote the beginning like 6 months later.

6. How long do you tend to spend on your WIPs?

It's usually like two days or almost a year. No in between.

7. What's the longest time you've spent on a fic?

When I was writing I Saw Your Ghost Tonight, it took so damn long.... I started it in October '22 when I was working sound at a play and..... then I hated it after trying to work on it for long. So, it took even LONGER. I have a whole hate/love thing with it, more hate than love.

8. What's the fastest time you've finished a fic?

My last fic took me a little under three hours I think. There was something in the air that night.

9. Do you write your fics as you go, or finish before publishing?

I finish my fics before publishing. I didn't always used to do that, but it helps me commit to the fic. Otherwise, all my works will never be finished.

10. Do you outline a fic before you write it?

Sometimes I'll outline a fic, but I don't usually. If it's a little on the longer side, I might outline it. It just depends on what I'm writing about.

11. How close has your WIP stayed to its outline/original version?

I never finish an outline..... but usually it'll stay pretty close.

12. Do you have a title, working or otherwise, for your WIP? How did you come up with it?

My word docs are given a working title, and it's usually the first sentence so I know what it is. I don't typically give it a good title until I publish it.

13. What's been part of your WIP since the beginning? What the newest idea that you've added to it?

Well, in unnamed wip, I have this bitchy to lovers concept that I like, but I'm thinking of changing some parts of it. I need them to be bitchier and the catalyst needs to change, I'm not feeling it anymore.

14. Rewrite a scene from your WIP from another character's perspective.

Ben had fallen asleep on the couch, but when Riley or Abigail nudged him awake, he would say he was just shutting his eyes for a moment. The occasional snore told them otherwise. Sometimes, he’d snore loud enough he heard himself through his sleep. Tonight was no different than any other, Ben woke himself up with a snort. His eyes burned after hours of reading and researching, so he lay there with his eyes closed, listening to Riley and Abigail in the kitchen. Riley’s laptop was still on, he didn’t get up that long ago. The blue glow dried out Riley’s eyes like the dizzying blur of pages dried Ben’s.

“Howdy, stranger,” Riley’s voice crackled.

There were days when they were all so invested in their research that hours went by before they spoke to each other and discussed their findings.

“You should get some rest.” The soft wrinkling of Abigail’s gloves echoed in the silent apartment. “The both of you.”

“Don’t tell it to me,” Riley grumbled. “Tell it to Indiana Jones in there.”

Despite his snarky tone, Riley kept his voice low for Ben. Although, Ben wasn’t sure if Riley spoke quietly for Ben, or because he cranky enough to start talking shit.

15. Rewrite a scene from your WIP in a different person (first, second, third, etc.)

Although, you should think about getting a new couch. You kneaded the cushions with your palm before sitting down, but it never made the seats any softer. You glanced at the clock on the wall, far too late to be awake, but far too early for you to sleep. The ticking bounced off the bare walls and through the barren rooms. There were plenty of things you needed to do, but the very thought exhausted you in an instant. Ringing echoed from the kitchen, another phone you forgot to disconnect. Can't a man sit in his home and listen to the drone of the news in peace? Once you hoisted yourself onto the crutches, you made your way to the phone hanging on the wall.

thanks for the school assignment brother golfball

#asks

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thebreakfastgenie · 2 years ago

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I would like to request A, G , K, M, P, & R for that ask game please! ^_^

A - Your current OTP(s)/OT3(s)/OTX(s)

I'm super into Hawkeye/Margaret right now so I guess that's the main one but I'm enjoying multiple ships. Also having a CJ/Danny renaissance thanks to @onekisstotakewithme and them being a great ship.

G - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it

Oh yes... Jenny/Gibbs, NCIS. I had ships before that (Indiana Jones/Marion Ravenwood comes to mind) but this is the one that got me into fanfiction. The thing is, I had a huge crush on Lauren Holly, but I didn't know I was gay, so I was self-inserting as Gibbs. It was a whole thing. Lovely fandom though.

K -Say something nice about someone in any of your fandoms

I'm sorry this is such a copout because it's not online, but the people who showed up hours early to Billy Joel at the New Yorker Festival in 2015 were so nice to me, the 19-year-old there by myself, even when they nearly came to blows with each other over holding places in line.

Also, every time you interact with me I'm like omg!!! because I remember your post that breached containment from before my M*A*S*H days.

M - Say something genuinely nice about a ship that you don’t ship (or its shippers, or anything related to you)

Hawkeye/Mulcahy shippers never seem to have any drama at all they're just doing their thing and I love that for them.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

Harry Chapin AUs!!!! I keep saying this and no one ever listens.

Taxi AU Person A is a taxi driver who picks up a beautiful, well-dressed fare. Person A thinks they recognize this person, but Person B denies it at first, before realizing they do. Person A and Person B were high school sweethearts, who went their separate ways to pursue their dreams. Now Person A is driving a taxi for a living and Person B is married and wealthy and neither of them is happy. They have an awkward cab ride and Person B says they should see each other again, which Person A doubts will ever happen. Person B leaves a large tip and Person A regrets letting Person B go. OPTIONALLY you can follow this up with a Sequel AU, where Person A returns to the same city ten years later, now successful, and finds Person B, who has gotten divorced and is no longer wealthy but is much happier. They finally have a heartfelt talk and, possibly, sex. The song doesn't end with them together but you can do whatever you want. I Wanna Learn a Love Song AU Person A is homeless and feeds themself by giving guitar lessons. Person B is married and well-off, but timid and sad. Their spouse seems somewhat threatening. Person B hires Person A for guitar lessons, and always wants Person A to play and sing for them. They slowly fall in love, and one week Person A arrives to find out Person B has kicked out their spouse. Person A stays.

R - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships

Joanna McCoy/Pavel Chekov. In the first draft of the hippie episode, Chekov's girlfriend Irina was Bones's daughter Joanna, and she was a love interest for Kirk (gross). But a love interest for Chekov? Hilarious.

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turian · 8 months ago

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honestly i have many grievances with the fallout show as a long time fan of the series but i think it's really enjoyable in the little moments. the lore mistakes are GIANT and it's not a leftist game in the way that (most of) new vegas was a leftist game - i have issues with new vegas as well but those are more just a long list of critiques of my favourite game that i think abt all the time. and maybe later i'll make a longer post about my issues with the show and with the series in general. i think that it was somewhat unoriginal because it was trying to cater to people who have never played the games, and while it does a lot of winking at the already existing fanbase, it feels like a show that is trying to be both a reboot and a sequel. it can't do both. i think it also tries far too hard to be grandiose, and also. the irony of it existing as it is, distributed by amazon. the communism lite. the events which are literally impossible given the new vegas canon unless they're meant as a GIANT retcon, which i don't accept. lmfao. it shines when it's just being irreverent dark wasteland comedy.

another point wrt fallout i've been thinking about a lot lately is like... the reasons it may be loved. personally i adore it because my family were displaced by genocide, and as a nomad with that history i really relate to a lot of the themes in new vegas (i also have a lot of issues with new vegas and the way it frames benny's story - he did nothing wrong imo - and just. the racism) but like. watching this show i'm also reminded of the horror of the western genre (which is lampshaded a little in the show but it's like... yall are doing this Right Now, writers). haven't seen westworld and i doubt i ever will but there is something about science fiction western which avoids really touching on the racism inherent to the genre by setting it in the future. and in fallout sometimes i feel like that is where the horror comes from, and again, i don't know shit about westworld. in new vegas some of my fave parts are the parts that lean into and do not shy away from the horrors but i feel like the fallout show like? it really? can't grapple with that shit, because it doesn't really understand it. it's a western and it's not really much more than that, but it's trying to pretend to be deeper.

this doesn't mean i fully disliked it but it's like... seeing that shot of new vegas at the end of the show didn't fill me with excitement lmfao it just filled me with dread! i don't feel like this show should go anywhere near new vegas content. i don't want them to hurt it. it's not perfect by any means and i don't mean to uphold it as that, but. judging by s1 i don't think the showrunners have anything close to the nuance required to measure up to a lot of the obsidian writing.

giant list of grievances aside the protagonists are cute i rly love maximus !!! all three of them are chill but i think he is honestly the most interesting lmfao like... cooper and lucy are very fun but i think they're a little more cookie cutter (not a complaint, to be clear - i do enjoy them). maximus like... was also the least predictable to me and i think his motivations at first, despite being clearly stated by the show, seem sort of nebulous because his performance has a little more subtlety and so. yeah. may he rediscover oysters. + from a screenwriting standpoint it's cute that it ended like. with him and lucy both reaching their goal and realizing "oh shit. this is not the vibe."

also genuinely enjoyed the minor characters and cameos!! genuinely just really wish it wasn't trying to do this much, because like... imagine the same story but a little smaller scale. like. all they'd have to have done to make it all make sense is set it a decade or two later and/or simply not destroy the WHOLE ncr.

+ this detail was so cute !!!

#fallout spoilers /#fallout 2024 #fallout #nonzero chance this is going to turn into a fallout blog #just like the inside of my brain...

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rioblitzle · 11 months ago

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i think one of the reasons why i'm disproportionately insane about cappy (super mario odyssey 2017) is how he's remembered from a meta perspective. people are drawn to referring to him as an item or an extension of mario- because, from a gameplay and character design perspective, he absolutely is, and it's not like the character writing in mario odyssey is particularly deep- but it's completely overwritten perceptions of him as a character, a person, despite the game clearly also wants you to see him as some sort of genuine companion as well. i would argue that he's just as fleshed out as any other mario character tends to be, if not even more than average, but at the end of the day he just inherently lacks that same sticking power that other mainline characters do because he is basically a powerup. he's fludd 2 this time with objective (but completely ignorable if you're not currently playing the game) sentience.

(there's also the whole deal with him being pretty much locked out of ever appearing in future sequels because the presence of his character invites the idea of the capturing mechanic, something i doubt nintendo ever wants to acknowledge or program into anything super mario ever again outside of a potetial direct odyssey sequel. he has a chance at maybe mario kart but ultimately, he can be as much of a character as he wants, he is never ever going to be solidified into that core cast of recurring characters)

#i could make a video essay about this wee guy but im not bothered so have a post that only means anything to me instead #but yeah i remember seeing a joke comic once where someone said something like 'oh we should have burned that cappy thing'#and no hate obviously lol it was a joke but that struck me as something so odd with the context that that's an entire guy #he has a sister and a hometown and a personality and opinions and friends in-universe #but he's doomed forever to be perceived as this weird super crown haha possesion mario parasite thing forever #which is no moral judgment on people who do remember him like that- he is not real- but something i find kind of tragic yknow #the inherent dehumanisation of being a bonneter in the super mario universe

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bahamutgames · 1 year ago

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BIG RPG PLAYTHROUGH PROJECT AFTERTHOUGHTS: THE SEQUELS

Hello! I've talked about it before but it's been a little bit so I'll go ahead and update everyone: I'm trying to play through the full main series of a few RPGs! Named Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Dragon Quest, and Tales of. I plan on playing each entry alongside eachother (all the first games together, all the sequels together, ect ect) so I don't get burnt out on one specific series. And although I am probably going to be changing how I go about this ALREADY, I did recently finish going through the sequels. So lets talk about 'em so I can finally draw my new Pokemon team!

Game: Final Fantasy 2 (December 17, 1988)

Console: Playstation 1

Starting us out is Final Fantasy 2! The sequel to Final Fantasy 1! I've heard from MANY people that this is the worst FF in the series. And even though I've only played 5 main titles so far... I agree! This is without a doubt the worst one I've played so far!

This game does do a lot of cool stuff that actually becomes series staples. And I'm VERY shocked they were introduced so early in. Named characters over self inserts, multiple teammates you get over the course of the story, a more character driven plot. Chocobos. And I respect it for doing a lot of that. But ultimately the game just really drops the ball with a lot of this. None of the named characters are that interesting imo, all the teammates you get throughout the story eventually die and I don't think you ever have multiple at a time to swap between so they don't matter. And the plot in general was kinda boring I honestly don't remember most of it? Also, yeah, the gimmick of this one where every action raises different stats sounds cool but it really is not that fun and ultimately makes the game a slog. And in the end none of that matters cause you just kill the final boss with 2 blood swords in a couple hits anyway! AND BAHAMUT'S NOT EVEN IN THIS ONE!! BOOOOOOOO!!!

It does still have some good stuff in it, I think it looks fine. It actually had some pretty cool cutscenes. Again, Chocobos are in it. There's some nice music in it (although I don't remember a lot of it). Overall most of the positives just kinda get drowned out by the negatives and how boring the game is. I hate to be so brutal to it because it is an old FF game, but I find that to be less of an excuse when in my opinion FF1 was so solid! Even without named characters and new teammates it managed to keep my interest and make me really care about the world. And ultimately this one just didn't do that. Full disclosure, I did start cheating pretty early into this one cause it was just not clicking, I basically made myself invincible for most fights. Although I ran into a glitch where I couldn't do this for boss fights. So, it's a shame. But I think it'll have to go at the bottom of the tier list.

I really doubt there's any other games in the series I'm gonna dislike as much as this one. I don't know anything about FF3 but I expect it to be a little bit more fun!

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Game: Pokemon Crystal (December 14, 2000)

Console: Gameboy Color

Next up is Pokemon Crystal! The sequel to Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow! Without a doubt, this was the best of the sequels I ended up playing. A LOT of people tell me Johto are some of the best games in the series, and I actually personally believe the remakes Heartgold / Soulsilver are objectively the best Pokemon games ever made. But ultimately my opinions on the original Crystal are a little mixed, at least when placed next to Red.

So for starters. This game is SO charming. It makes SO many improvements over the original. From small gameplay tweaks like making the bag not suck down to having some of my favorite looking sprites ever? The actual battle sprites in this game are so nuts and I absolutely ADORE how they look! The music is great and relaxing, I think Johto is a super cute region and I actually like that it's a little less modern in its technology, it's a region much more in tune with its past and the game overall leans into the mystical side of the world more than Kanto did. Which focuses a little bit more on the technology side (you can see it a lot in its legendaries, GS has two Pokemon from folklore and myth while RB has a manmade monster as the big boss). I also really love that it takes place a few years after RBY. It's cute and it actually has some interesting early into the series weirdness in its world still. Particularly an interesting note, if I understood correctly. Is that the new Pokemon are NOT native to Johto and instead are new species that have just randomly shown up in the span of 3 years. Interesting stuff that absolutely is not still the way the world works today lol. But outside of that it's neat to see Team Rocket build back up, see what Oak and Bill are doing now ect ect. I also like a lot of the gyms and of course the new Pokemon are GREAT, I really still think Johto doesn't have a single bad Pokemon in its lineup. They're all adorable.

And with all that praise, you may be shocked to hear me say... I don't know if I liked this one as much as Red and Blue? Obviously it's like, objectively better. Better sprites, gameplay, it has a Day and Night cycle for crying out loud! But I think it drops the ball in a few ways. For one, I don't think Team Rocket is interesting this time, they're cool, but ultimately kinda boring. I don't think the Rival has as interesting a progression in his character as Blue did (although him stealing is starter is actually really cool lol). I found a lot of the missions not related to the main quest to be less interesting than progressively tearing down Team Rocket. And I also just thought the build up to the elite 4 was a little less cool although to be fair I don't think that one's their fault once the concept is introduced you can't really keep it the same mysterious allure twice.

HOWEVER, while I think a lot of these issues are only issues because RBY was surprisingly fun and solid in my opinion. There is one issue that I think reigns over all the others. And it's the Pokemon distribution in this game. Obviously, there's gonna be some Kanto pokemon to pad out the region, I get that. But ultimately there's WAY too many Kanto Pokemon in this game! You run into so few new Pokemon during the course of the game and THIS is what killed it for me! I didn't run into a Spinirak, the early game bug type, until like the 3rd or 4th gym badge iirc. And most of the new Pokemon are locked in Kanto, which comes at the second half of the game! I was running into tons of fully evolved Kanto Pokemon JUST so I wouldn't run into ANY new Johto Pokemon, it was nuts. When I play these games, I really wanna see the new creatures that are made. Not all the ones that came before. And I think this game particularly messed that up. I wanted Magcargo SO bad but you don't run into Slugma until a bit through Kanto, and by that point I already had a team that defeated the Elite 4! I'm not gonna train a level 3 Slugma at that point! Very frustrating. I think all, if not most Kanto Pokemon should've been locked to Kanto itself so the Johto Pokemon could shine. I barely ran into most of the Johto Pokedex and again, this is what killed the game for me.

So, ultimately, even though Crystal is superior to Red in almost every way. Personally right now, I just don't know if I found it as exciting to play. I don't know what to expect from the series going forward, but I've heard from tons of different people that one of the next 3 regions is their favorite of all time! And Hoenn was the region I grew up with! So I'm certainly excited to see if the excitement of discovering a brand new world can be recaptured going forward!

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Game: Dragon Quest 2 (January 26, 1987)

Console: SNES

Third up, Dragon Quest 2! The sequel to Dragon Quest 1! Another one that, sad to say, I was not super into. I think similar to FF2 it was a little boring, especially when compared to the charm of the first one. Although, again, I respect it for bringing in additional teammates and a ever so slightly character driven story. I also liked that it really takes place in the future of the first game. With everyone being a descendant of that protagonist and even meeting the descendant of the villain and getting help from him (he should have joined your team though).

But again, it was just VERY boring. The story didn't grip me very much which again, neither did DQ1 but I still enjoyed DQ1 more. And I would argue the first was more focused. This one really felt like I didn't know WHY I was visiting any of these places. In DQ1 everything is contributing to getting Erdrick's equipment, but in DQ2 I honestly don't know how most of the stuff we do contributes to killing Hargon. If that makes any sense. And there was SO much just running around doing nothing this time. Like, so many locations on the map you cannot walk directly to, you have to go through crazy backroads to reach them. And you run back and forth between so many locations. Maybe it was like this in DQ1 as well but if that's the case, it was SO much worse in this one I swear.

I don't know what more to say, I just found this one very boring, and while I was also not super into DQ1 when I first played it, it's really grown on me as a simple charming little game. But I don't think this one will grow on me the same way. Again, full disclosure, I cheated to make myself invincible by the time I reached the final dungeon. Which sucks but by the time I got there I was just so drained.

So I think that currently. This is my least favorite of the bunch. But, on the plus side I don't think any of them will be worse than this one? I know 3/4/5 are HIGHLY regarded, and they're personally the ones I'm most excited to play! So I'm looking forward to starting 3 whenever I get around to it!

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And that's it! Now, I know what you're thinking. Where's Tales of Destiny! And I hate to say it, I didn't play through it. And here's where things for my big replay project are gonna change. I STARTED it. But I noticed it with the first games and now especially with the second games. I have a lot of energy for 4 RPGs at the start, but by the time I reach Dragon Quest and Tales Of, I really lose my steam. And I'm ultimately just enjoying them less. So I think going forward, I'm mainly just gonna play Final Fantasy and Pokemon. Now, I will still play DQ and TO but just, not with the same intensity, and maybe not always in order. Though I will TRY to go in order. And who knows, maybe I'll lose the oomph to keep playing FF and PKMN back to back as well. But for now, I'll mainly be moving forward with those two. I know it doesn't REALLY matter and ultimately I'll play these games how I feel works best. But I just thought I'd bring it up if anyone was curious about how I'll be approaching some of their favorite games.

Anyway, that's it for me!! I'll keep y'all posted on how my playthroughs go going forward! Thanks for reading all this mess lol, have a good day!

#2023 #Thoughts

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lilmissbacon · 4 years ago

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Why Jelsa is Ridiculously Stupid

Let me start off by saying that the idea of this ship was cute at first, I have nothing against it. In fact I have a few ships myself that have nothing to back them up. I am not making this to convince people to be anti, stop the ship itself, or spread any form of hate what so ever.

But this Jelsa fandom has gone too far. And when I say "jelsa shippers," of course I don't mean ALL of them, just about 80% of them.

In fact, I'm very appreciative of the few jelsa shippers who don't go around harassing others because "jelsa is life."

Also, allow me to correct you in saying that I'm not a jelsa hater, I'm a jelsa loather. There's a difference. Most jelsa haters, hate jelsa for the sake of hating it.

I genuinely hate it.

And don't go commenting about, "how do you know you don't like it if you've never tried it?" Because you see, that's where you're wrong. I did used to ship it, when I was 11. I was a child, I was new to the internet, I didn't know better. But I do now!

I am writing this so that some who may not know, will now understand why jelsa is bad and because I need to get all of this out of my system. I am slowly dieing inside.

First; I'm gonna go into how all the excuses to ship this are pointless. Next, I'll talk about just how these two would never work out as a couple. Then, will be what the toxicity has done to not just to the ship itself, but to the big four as well. And finally, I'll go into how uncreative the shippers are and just what horrible/stupid things they've done and are still doing.

1) Excuses are Pointless

Excuse #1: They have the same powers.

...Yeah, that's like saying you ship Lavagirl (Sharboy and Lavagirl) and Bolin (LoK) because they can both control lava. That's not a valid reason to ship anyone. There needs to be actual substance and I'll only say that once because that sentence applies to every excuse here.

Excuse #2: They look alike

🤦🤦🤦 First of all: that's also like saying you ship Tiana (Princess and the Frog) and Frozone (The Incredibles) because they're both black. Second of all: no they don't. It may be because I'm an artist so I notice small details, but here's how it is; Jack's hair is white, Elsa's is platinum blonde. Jack has a square chin, Elsa has a round face. Jack is much paler! THEIR EYES AREN'T EVEN THE SAME SHADE OF BLUE!!! Your excuse is null and void. Even so, if characters do look alike, then they're most likely to be related. Especially in animation.

Excuse #3: Jack can teach Elsa to have fun and Elsa can teach Jack to be serious

This clearly proves the point that jelsa shippers don't know these characters. The job of teaching Elsa how to be social and have fun is already taken by Anna. So if anything, Elsa will see Jack as a younger brother. And Jack wouldn't have been chosen to take on such a responsibility of guardianship if he didn't know when to quit. I don't know what it is about playful characters that make people think they're obnoxious. Jack is an immortal teenager with the heart of a child, that's what makes him a good guardian. But he's been alive for over 300 years, he bound to have the mind capacity of an adult and he does know better. He doesn't play when he's in battle, he's dead serious.

Excuse #4: They understand each other because they were both isolated for a long time

I don't know where you come from but people don't really "bond" over their trauma. Infact, if anything, that would make the relationship more unstable. Plus, Elsa isolated herself for 13 years because she was afraid of her powers. Jack was forced into isolation for 300 years! He has never been afraid of his powers and Elsa could still be seen throughout the day by parents and servants. They would never be able understand what the other went through.

Excuse #5: They both have a sister they love

SO WHAT?! At least half of the population have sisters. Simple as that. It's a horrible excuse.

Excuse #6: They both have an enemy in fear

Bruh, almost every fictional character has to deal with their fears, literal or mental. It's not at all unique to these two.

Excuse #7: Jack can teach Elsa to control her powers

She already has control of them by the end of the movie. And even if you mean prier to that, the reason she couldn't control them was because she feared them. I doubt that even if she could see him and if he showed her his powers, she's be irrational, believing that their powers were different.

Excuse #8: William Joyce says he ships it

Really, you're going to base the possibility of a ship because the writer of the 'books' that "inspired" rotg says he likes it. First: the books and movie are not the same worlds. Two: he most likely stated this in order for jelsa shippers to shut up to him about it. And three: his own canon with the books is a mess as it is. With him adding a bunch on random/unnecessary details on twitter that have no relevance or reference in the books. Even if he does ship it, everything that's going on with Jack's character in the books is weird enough as it is. Plus he's physically 14 in the books. I know age doesn't really matter but Elsa would definitely feel weird about dating someone who looks so young when she's currently 24 by the second movie.

Excuse #9: They could've met before the events of rotg

Not a reason to ship them but whatever 🙄 Even if their stories were based in the same world (which it isn't), Elsa never would've believed in fairy tales. Having to grow up so soon and all. She believes in magic, of course, but you need to believe in the individuals themselves in order to see them. Plus it is very clear in rotg that Jamie is Jack's first believer.

Excuse #10: Now that Frozen 2 is out, they are both spirits who followed the memories of their loved ones. They can live forever together!

Once AGAIN, how does this factor to them being a good couple? Plus the title of spirit is different in the Frozen-verse than the Guardian-verse. Guardian-verse; they are un-aging beings who keep the entire world in balance. Frozen-verse; never confirmed to be immortal (especially since 3 out of 5 spirits are inanimate objects), magical things that keep a single forest secure. The only reason the elements needed a fifth spirit was most likely because the one before Elsa died of old age. Plus the idea of Elsa outliving Anna goes against the theme of sisterly love that both movies strive on. This can be changed in fanfiction but I hate how people lie about her mortality for an excuse to ship.

Excuse #11: They're both single

So what? People ship characters who aren't single with other characters all the time. That's not a reason to ship them. Especially since your statement is false because Tooth is Jack's canon love interest.

It is true that jelsa haters will give reasons to not ship that I necessarily don't agree with.

•Like the age gap — Jack has the mental capacity of an adult, as I've said before. He's smart enough to make his own choices.

•Elsa not being immortal — that doesn't mean they can't still date, even if he outlives her. Plus you can change that in fanfiction.

•They come from different studios and will never be canon — Again, this is fanfiction, we can do whatever we want.

•Elsa is independent and shipping her with someone takes her independence away — for one: most of the world is bound to find love at some point in time. I would imagine that Elsa would want to find love like her sister. Two: Mulan, Pocahontas and Jasmine are very independent and they all still ended up with men. Three: she's not that independent to begin with. Independence isn't relationship status, it's your ability to make it on your own and Elsa is clearly, very dependant on Anna and her safety. Which is actually what pushes her to being a bad sister in Frozen 2. In fact it is because they made her more 'independant' in the sequel that Elsa clearly, no longer loves Anna as much as Anna loves her (you can check out Watso Videos' video on YouTube about how Elsa is a bad sister bc I'm not gonna go into it here).

My god that was ALL just part one. This is gonna take forever 😰

2) How they would never work out

For Elsa, she needs someone who is calm and collected. A rock for her to stand on when she's being irrational. Possibly even someone who is very stoic and straight to the point but with enough sense of humor to lighten the mood. And now that I'm thinking about it, Honeymaren fits that description to a tee. I'm not one to push LGBT+ in anyone's face, but I'm not gonna judge ships on characters assumed sexualities either. Even though Honeymaren didn't have much screen time, her personality still showed through and Elsamaren could very well work.

Jack on the other hand needs someone who would be able to keep up with his playful nature as well as be a rock for him to stand on when he's emotional. Tooth is a good suitor even though I don't really ship it myself. Hiccup, Merida and Rapunzel could also fit in this description.

They don't have the ability to be each other's rocks. They can't be stable if they both need someone to keep them so. If they were to date, the relationship would crumble before it even began.

Plus Jack has to be a guardian and there are a lot of fanfics that go into this idea of Jack being the king of Arendalle? First off: I'm fairly certain that you can't marry into royalty to become king. At least in the real world. Second: Jack wouldn't be able to handle that responsibility with him already being a guardian. And he can't just leave guardianship either, it was what he always was and was ment to be. And Elsa has the responsibility of keeping a magical forest in check, she can't leave to become a guardian.

3) The Toxicity

Oh my God! The fanfiction! As I usually say, you can do whatever you want in fanfiction. But if you have to butcher all the characters so much in EVERY fanfic in order to make the ship work, then there's clearly something wrong here! In every fanfic I've ever seen, the characters are so out of character it's insane. Not just Jack and Elsa, every character.

Olaf for example, is practically in love with Jack first meeting, in every fanfic. If he were to actually meet Jack, he would be apprehensive of him.

It's horrifying in not only that, but jelsa shippers will add Rapunzel a lot, just in spite of Jackunzel. They turn Rapunzel into a needy ex-girlfriend of Jack's when in reality, she's a very sweet and kind soul. Even if she and Jack had dated, they would've split on good terms and stayed friends after. There have also been cases where they do the same but with Tooth. Sometimes even both and it's honestly sick.

And let's talk about the sexism as well HAHA! I swear to God, they will rewrite Frozen but where Jack will save Elsa instead of Anna. They write Elsa as a hormonal teenage girl who falls in love with Jack within seconds.

This is from an actual jelsa shipper, my dude. WTF!!! They make Jack super dominant as well as a douche who cheats on Elsa half the time. Jack is not that dominant, he's a very emotional guy. And he'd be the most faithful boyfriend on the planet. He was alone for 300 years! If anything, he'd be clingy but not too clingy because he also understands personal space.

And if you like angsty fanfiction where a character cheats on the other, there are literally no fanfics where Elsa cheats on Jack. As if a woman couldn't possibly cheat. This is very sexist towards men and women and is toxic as hell.

If anything, Elsa would cheat on Jack, she's not exactly trustworthy in keeping promises or being loyal.

I swear, half of the jelsa shippers has never even seen rotg and just go by what they read in others fanfiction.

Jelsa shippers have gotten so bad about this ship that they've low-key harassed people for not shipping it, as well as start shipping wars within the big four fandom. That's the reason the fandom truly shrunk after 2013. I've seen posts about people admitting to leaving the fandom because it got so bad.

4) The Shippers

Jelsa shippers have literally threatened lives, not just to other fans but even to the creators of the movies. Literally threatening them into making the ship canon. They've made patitions to make it canon as if that would work. They've even harassed a lot of recent shippers to Elsamaren because "jelsa is canon."

Oh look at that, they're homophobic too...

...

... That's great 🙃

Isn't it a bigger sin to love a celestial being though? Therefore the fact that you –as a toxic christian– ship Elsa with a spirit it worse.

THEY'RE DELUSIONAL!!! So many of them have shipped jelsa so long that legit think it's canon!

Not only all that mess but there are literally more jelsa games on the internet then there are Merida games. I'm specifying this for personal reasons (aka Merida is my fave Disney princess)

And let's continue on with what really aggravates me as an artist. Jelsa shippers, stealing artwork, mostly from Jackunzel. This is not just a rumor, it's very much real.

And it doesn't help when all of their actual original fanart is just them taking scenes from Frozen and adding Jack. Then to add more salt on the wound is that almost all the fanfiction is the same, whether it'd be based during Frozen, rotg or in a highschool au.

There's literally nothing original about or going on with this ship, even after Frozen 2 came out, the shippers and fanfiction haven't changed. If anything it made the shippers spike up again.

The only thing that could say is original about jelsa is the frost daughter fanon. Oh boy! What we have to unpack here.

This is something that I recently heard about...

...

I am mortified.

Frost daughters is this little thing that jelsa shippers came up with, believing Jack and Elsa (if they could get pregnant) would have nothing but girls. What's scary about it is they're designs. Like they're trying to be original... But it's not really going great.

Most of them are just young!Elsa copies, some are edits of Elsa with Jack's hair color.

For example:

This is fine, this follows genetrical rules. I'm fine with this.

But what has me low-key petrified are some of the other designs.

Like... WTF IS ALL OF THIS!!! Where are this colors coming from?!! I don't understand 😭 You can see in the screen shots that these are literally titled as daughters of jelsa.

The white haired ones are fine. The ginger is understandable. Got it from Elsa's dad's genes. That's okay. A few are wearing pink? They can wear what ever they want. But wtf I'd going on with Nevada? Why is she black? Jack and Elsa the pastiest of white! And you cannot tell me that she got it from Elsa's mom because this was made BEFORE Frozen 2 and her mother is still white as an adult.

Where tf does the blue and pink hair come from? None of these make sense!

I want to kill myself, just looking at these!

That's gonna be the end of this rant

Now I'll say it again, I really have nothing against the ship itself. I too have casual ships that make no sense. But with ALL the fanfiction and fanart being so unoriginal and most jelsa shippers low-key being dangerous, it's hard for me respect people's opinions about it.

I try, trust me, I do! But it's become so murky in my brain that I can't tell the difference anymore and I'm also just not a fan of Elsa's character in general. And I like ships that actually make sense.

And being that I'm an equalist... it's really hard for me to look at this stuff and not get pissed off. I'm sorry if all of this comes off as aggressive because it kinda is.

I'm just very passionate, okay?

I hope you understand where I'm coming from. None of the pictures I used are mine. And I hope you have a good day?

#anti jelsa #antijelsa #jack frost #anti elsa #DreamWorks #disney #ships #hate jelsa #the big five

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jlf23tumble · 4 years ago

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Hi! I've seen you rec fics before and I'm wondering if you have any recommendations for Harry Styles fics that deal with gender. Like Harry being either nonbinary or that being the focus of the plot in some way. Thanks!

I have GOT YOU, my friend! I answered a similar ask a long time ago, so I’ll bring those recs over, plus add newer ones, just to keep us up to date. Same caveat as before, though--these fics delve a bit deeper into the genderfluid side of the fine line rather than just the “harry in panties” side because I think you’re more interested in the former, but if I’m wrong, let me know! Enjoy!

Us, Me, We, @homosociallyyours, 2.3 (Harry/Harry, Harry/Louis). Featuring Harry trippin’ balls and truly seeing “her” in the mirror.

you make me wanna (how deep is your love), orphan_account, 2.5k (harry/louis). As the notes say, “straight up porn,” featuring trans Harry.

Friendly Fire, @vondrostes, 2.6k (Harry/Ny). Look, you’ll see a lot of Terran here, I had to hold *back*, but he writes tons of pairings, so there’s something for everyone, and I rec it all! In this case, Harry learns an important lesson about why he shouldn’t date straight women.

No Control, thegirlwthekittentattoo, 2.6k (Harry/Louis). The dialogue here is EVERYTHING, it’s cute and hot and emotional yet still funny, like Harry’s bra being named Christi with an “i”, and I loveeee how much is packed in here.

Silent Night, @sulkingroom, 2.7k (Harry/Xander). I’m 99% sure this is Melissa, not orphan_account, but she’s another author who writes stunning fics that play with gender, this one featuring trans Harry at Christmas.

She, Myself, and I, @vondrostes, 3k (Harry/Nick). Angst city, with Harry telling Nick exactly who “she” is.

Every Drop of Rain, haemophilus, 3.3k (Harry/Taylor). Told through Taylor’s eyes, a fascinating look at Harry and his gender journey. (I highly rec this author’s work in other pairings for similar vibes!)

if they find out, will it all go wrong? blankiexrry, 3.4k (Harry/Louis). Gender exploration behind the scenes when the D played MSG, plus extra kink added!

The Assassination of Harry Styles’ Dignity, wishforwishes, 3.5k (Harry/Nick). This one was in the pubefest, and it’s gryles angst hours gorgeously done as Harry ponders shaving past and present (highly rec this author for gender exploration in other pairings, too).

She Feels So Good, Zedi, 4k, and its sequel, Turns Out She’s a Devil In-Between the Sheets, 3k (Harry/Louis). Mannnn, this universe is so good! Part one is behind the scenes of the Late Late Show after Kiwi, and part two is sexi times in Italy. I utterly adore how this Harry shifts right along with her pronouns.

Fertile Ground, Blake/ @newleafover, 4.4k (Harry/Louis). Jesus wept specifically at this story, CHRIST, so much dysphoria-related angst!! The sheer number of moments guaranteed to make you stare at the wall for one (1) hour, help!

into joy i’m sailing, @hereforlou, 4.6k (Harry/Louis). The tenderness LEAPS off the screen in this one, Harry forgets he’s wearing a dress when Louis comes over for dinner, and I peel my heart out of my throat every time.

weird honey, orphan_account, 5.4k (Harry/Louis). I’m a big lurker in fic comments, and these ones give me joy because big names from a time when this Harry drew even more hate than today are here, spreading love and support--who was this author? This story is so GOOD, I’d love to know what else they did! (In this case, a sex toy helps Harry deal with not having a vagina.)

violence of my own touch, 14hrflight/ @got2ghost, 5.2k (Harry/Louis). Chi is yet ANOTHER author to read for spot-fuckin’-on genderfluid characterization (here, it’s alpha/alpha with all kinds of bdsm, dysphoria, angst, and more).

it’s you i want to take apart, orphan_account, 5.9k (Harry/Louis). This author--in the year of our lorde 2012--watched the nail polish interview and created a work of art that went even deeper, their MIND!!! What else did they foretell??!!!!!

Love at Home, @vondrostes, 6.9k (Harry/Xander, Harry/Zayn/Xander). This fic is HYPER-current, like, mid-quarantine, and it features some Zarry history, some pregnancy-related dysphoria, and so much more, plus horses!! (The horses aren’t actually all that involved, I just love to see ‘em.)

Vinyl and Lace, objectlesson/ @alienfuckeronmain, 7.5k (Harry/Louis). This one kills me because it’s XF days, and you get the full-on sensation that this is meant to be kinky play funtime, but it’s going to end up being something much bigger on so many fronts, we love to see it!

Are You Gonna Be My Girl? LoadedGunn, 7.5k (Harry/Louis). EASILY my fave fic this author wrote, basically, Louis talks about his first time with a girl, Harry decides to be that girl, and the dirty talk hits different in the end!

call me anything you like, but my name is, wishforwishes, 9.9k (Harry/members of CHASM). [muffled internal screaming whenever I think of this fic] It starts with BSE Veronica/Zayn and ends with Harry Veronica/Zayn, and so much revelation happens in between, goddddd bless.

fallin’ and laughin’ at the drinks we spilled, enbyharry/ @non-binharry, 14k (Harry/Louis). Asia’s description in the notes kills me, but #vanlife Louis runs into proud Harry in some bar and shenanigans ensue is the upshot!

But She Doesn’t Know Who I Am series, jaerie, 15k (Harry/Louis). I love that one of the tags here is “louis asks inappropriate questions” because that’s honestly most of what happens!!

o/o angst series, HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals, 17k (Harry/Louis). I miss Nina’s writing like a phantom limb, and I doubt they’ll return to this universe, but I swear, I will read (and rec) ANYTHING they produce when the muse visits them again! This one is as its title says, and it doesn’t disappoint, heavy sigh.

Grenadine Sunshine, objectlesson/ @alienfuckeronmain, 18k (Harry/Louis). This fic is a peach of a pearl written as a gift for one of this fandom’s best authors, and it perfectly captures the Mood of that author, with so much softness, makeup, gender, and tender.

Alpha Louis/Alpha Harry series, 14hrflight/ @got2ghost, 22k (Harry/Louis). SO MANY GENDER ISSUES EXPLORED HERE, WOW!! College roommates come to terms with their identity, and, mannnnn, do I love it when a/b/o gets unstraightened, if you will, chef’s kiss all around.

Nothing You Can Do (But You Can Learn How to Be You in Time), Teumessian, 28k (Harry/Louis). Also known as the pinterest fic, this one is just so soft and lovely, an identity story told through hair (among other things).

genderfluid!harry series, istajmaal, 33k (Harry/Louis). This entire series hits just as hard today as it did when it was written in 2013, a time when people were aggressively trying to make fetch frat boy Harry happen (some of ‘em still are, lmao). Anyway, this is another author I highly rec for all their other fic, but this one does an A+ job of describing Harry’s gender exploration mid-D madness.

Amor Victorious, HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals, 38k (Harry/Louis). Another brilliant work from Nina, you feel like you’re on this journey with them, PLUS it dives deep into gender identity struggles, PLUS it throws a/b/o for a loop, all of which equals a big yes from me!

hush., wankerville, 41k (Harry/Louis). One of my all-time faves, this one tackles so many phobias, all while being set in a small-town America high school AU and managing to be the softest, most gorgeous, most hopeful thing in spite (because?) of that.

Time Passed, coffinofachimera/ @belialsmiracles, 66k (Harry/Louis). LISTEN, I WILL NEVER, EVER SHUT UP ABOUT THIS FIC, I can only hope the author will bless us with a timestamp or something else entirely, it’s so beautifully done, it makes you think of nothing else for days, it RUINS you for other fic (I highly rec the author’s other work, too). You’ll never look at Tokyo Harry the same way again (or listen to “She” or “Fine Line” without getting more than a little misty). GOLD STAR!

Made of Lightning, @vondrostes, 74k (Harry/Louis, Harry/Liam, Harry/Louis/Liam). Just...the tags on this don’t do full justice to the journey of it, to the imagination of this specific timeline! I adore how Terran writes trans Harry!

Second Spring, @vondrostes, 103k (Harry/Louis). Speaking of Terran writing trans Harry, this one covers all the ins and outs of her surgical transition, how she recovers, and how she and the people around her deal with puberty no. 2.

#fic rec #gender #harry styles #whew it's a long one!!

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makkoskafanfic · 3 years ago

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hello may i dump every idea i'm too lazy to write right here -they are very unoriginal, do what you want with them. Plus, you might not like them at all since my fav is hashirama and i guess urs is madara (and I used to prefer him too, but something in me changed when i went to look up the tag madara/hashirama on pixiv and discovered smithsan- such a great artist. okay i'll stop telling my life, but honestly it made me understand how ships worked so much, to switch points of view like that. anyway)

- three words: mokuton cancer cells (but it shows up before he's an old man)

- european medieval au (totally the idea of akatsukiarts but i'm shamelessly asking a talented author to write it :D)

- u probably prefer bottom madara -i've read all ur fics lolol and have i tell i love them all? cuz i do (which i totally get! we can't choose which one we're projecting one) buttttt may i ask for kinda nasty dom madara and obedient sub hashirama? (i'm again going on a tangent but it's so funny how people get "vibes" for who is top or bottom when it doesn't work like that. I mean yeah, u can get clues, but you could turn those clues totally upside down. The opposite situation is soft dom hashirama and bratty sub madara and it fits them just as well - according to me, because opinions are personal-. But that's what i'm getting at. It usually goes from "the sexuality u feel fits the character" -> finding the clues indicating it fits the character. And not the opposite direction. ANYWAY. I'M TALKING TOO MUCH.)

- tajima lives au; what does it change? -probably nothing. I'd like to hear ur opinion hehe (or worse; butsuma lives old au. what happens?)

- do u write hashitobi? i feel like i read one of urs but i might be confusing with another author. Anyway, idea: yandere/dark tobirama (honestly i feel like im so predictable it's not even funny, sorry for those awful ideas this is the worst)

- au where it's tobirama with the mokuton and hashirama (so without mokuton, to be clear).... well u tell me, but i doubt he would fit the scientist role.

okay, i think im done because the rest is even worse and u probs won't use them but here we go! do what u want with these! thank you for the opportunity to share ideas with u! bye now i'm going to hide in a ditch somewhere. urgh why did i write that. :(

Oh Anon, this is a treasure island or a minefield of ideas depending how you look at it!

But first of all, I have to say that if I have to pick one favourite, it is Hashirama and I do project to him maybe a tad too much. That’s why I like to write him from different aspects and see him suffer now and then. Let’s not dwell on this too much hehe.

(Smithsan is indeed a great artist!)

Mokuton cancer cells sounds way too sad! Not that I can’t see Hashirama turning into a tree or something, not knowing how he actually died and all that, but I’m not ready for it!

European medieval AU! Now that sounds a whole lot of fun, especially with some fantasy elements? Dark magician/warlock Madara and knight in shining armour Hashirama? But I do love akatsukiarts lovely arts there, will need to check them again. I fear this might be something longer winded than I currently have the capacity for atm!

I’m all for switching, but yeah, I do picture Hashirama toppier and Madara bottomier. Which makes bottom Hashirama all the more fun to write. Spice things up and all that! While S/D isn’t necessarily my cup of tea, I do like to play around with the dynamics. I actually really getting into the obedient sub Hashirama idea as I can clearly picture him struggling big time with that role, while Madara, I can equally see him struggling with being all dominant (though probably not with being nasty!). Anyhow, this can be gold for The Awkward Sex Scene I Always Wanted To Write, But Never Got Around To Do It.

I have maybe half a page started on a Tajima (and Butsuma) lives AU! It’s one where H&M managed to achieve peace pretty early on and their biggest concern is introducing the other as their boyfriends to their family. I wanted to write it for that one scene where Izuna tries to set Hashirama’s hair on fire with the Katon over family dinner as he can’t stand him having his hand over Madara. Not sure I’ll ever write it though!

I did on one (okay, two, it had a sequel) occasion wrote HashiTobi and I killed myself with it. I’m not saying never again but anything that comes to mind is rather sad and dark. (wow, you’re asking for Dark Tobirama and it’s Dark, who would have ever thought so.) Never wrote any misuse of Edo Tensei (bringing back Hashirama temporary) kind of story, so when I feel I’m in the mood I might go for it.

And nothing loads in my mind when I think about Tobirama and the Mokuton, but knowing me, this will wake me up one day 3 am hehe.

I’m really happy that you took the time to share all these ideas with me. I absolutely don’t promise anything, but I have two weeks before starting a new job and I plan to spend it as any responsible adult would, with playing video games and writing fanfic.

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crystalelemental · 4 years ago

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I know it's way too early for this kind of speculation, but what do you think FE17 will be? the Genealogy remake would be interesting, but that'd possibly damn FE18 into a Thracia remake, much like Shadow Dragon/New Mystery. unless they decide to make it into 1 game, which doesn't sound probable to me. maybe they'll make a new story, with less, uh, questionable morals to keep the new 3H fans interested into the franchise? will they keep the calendar, the instruction stuff, or go back to the laid back way of Awakening/Fates/Echoes? you don't have to give a long answer if you don't want, I'm just musing a bit here

“You don’t have to give a long answer,” as if that’s ever stopped me.

What do I think it will be? I have no idea. But given its popularity, they could be considering it like a Tellius situation, with a prequel game. I don't think they can go sequel (more on that in the other response), but prequel with Seiros as the focus, going from the Red Canyon Massacre to the end of the War of Heroes? Sign me up. I would love more on that. And I adore games that focus on side stories (Thracia, Blazing Blade), so I'm super on board for a fleshed-out side story about that period in Fodlan.

I can't say what they'd try to do with gameplay, but I do think they'd keep a sort of "home base" kinda thing at a minimum. The instruction aspect of Three Houses was very specific to that game, and truthfully, I don't know if it will maintain. Not to be how I am constantly, but I hope it doesn't. I really feel like the monastery exploration and having to fine-tune instruction for students was more tedious than anything, and ultimately didn't add much to the gameplay experience. I also feel like the calendar was kind of a bad call too. A lot of events, as they're laid out, feel like they should be happening back to back. But because of the calendar focus, you have situations where it implies you traveled far off to engage in a big battle, but then just walked back to the monastery for a whole month before marching out the same direction. I don't think it blends events together all that nicely. Frankly I think Fates' decision to have a pocket dimension where you can take care of your bullshit was a better way to hand-waive the question of how you're able to backpedal and stock up in the midst of a campaign.

That said, any non-remake game, and possibly even the remake game, will take inspiration from Three Houses in the same way Fates and Echoes did from Awakening. The massive success of Three Houses is guaranteed to be an anomaly to them. They still don't know why Awakening worked, I doubt they'll know why this one worked. So I anticipate a lot of character tropes and storytelling angles will be reused in future games. They'll try to mess with perspective and the idea of hidden history muddying the morality of things for sure. I don't think there's any benefit for them to go back to more clear-cut morality. Even if there's a lot of fan argument about it (Edelgard and Dimitri fans), that's never a bad thing. That's still attention being drawn to your game. That's still discussion around it. No press is bad press, and this game is still more popular than the rest of the series ever had been. So they'll keep characters like Lysithea, and Bernadetta, and have that attempt at a complex plot, and a bunch of mysteries that never get answered, and oh god every MU is going to be like Byleth now oh god oh fuck.

But personally, I want the next game to be a Genealogy remake. I have issues with Genealogy as a whole, both gameplay and story-wise, and a remake could salvage at least some of that. Support conversations definitely could, and a changing of certain story elements would be nice, although Fallen Julia's already in FEH so like...there goes my greatest hope.

That said, I don't really want them to do too much? Like, Echoes added a few characters, and while those are some of the best in the game, a lot of that I feel like was to add any sort of significance to Alm's journey beyond the end goal. Alm's route would be boring as all hell without Berkut, so his inclusion was a massive benefit to the game. But I can't think of a situation where my qualms with Genealogy is "This just isn't engaging enough, we don't have enough people." Genealogy almost has too many characters. If anything their bigger problem is that characters and themes they set up are never utilized. So it's more about reworking the narrative a bit rather than needing to include things to make a blander game stand out, you know?

I definitely don't think they'd combine Genealogy and Thracia. I mean they could, but I don't think it's a good idea. Genealogy, again, has too many characters already. Combining the games leads to the question of where the hell Leif's army is, and that's adding like 50 characters to the roster. Since you deploy every unit you have in Genealogy, that's...way too much. They'd have to completely rebalance the game. Not to mention Thracia doesn't play at all like Genealogy, and is way too long to be a brief side-story or DLC exclusive. There's just no effective way to integrate the two. I think it would be better to just make the game after that the Thracia remake, which...honestly is the best possible outcome as far as I'm concerned.

Binding Blade may not have come to the west, but people know Roy, and this series started over here with Blazing Blade. We know a lot of Binding Blade information, by virtue of dedicated fans being upset the logical continuation of their starting point never got translated. Comparatively, Genealogy and Thracia are pretty damn isolated, and it shows in their CYL placements. They're not well known games at all, and gameplay-wise, they're really awkward and (in my humble opinion), not actually fun to play at all. A remake is ideal for those games, because it gives them a chance to gain more attention and popularity in the general public's eyes. Which is good! Genealogy does have a worthwhile story to tell despite my gripes about its problems, and I honest to god thing Thracia's one of the best stories in the series, with one of the best protagonists in the series. These games deserve more recognition than they get, and they're not gonna get it until they get remade to be more accessible.

It also dawns on me that the "less questionable morals" may have been about Genealogy's whole incest thing. Listen, I get it, but they can't take it out. I don't say this lightly, but that is like...the central point of Genealogy. The awakening of Loptous is a matter of converging its bloodline, which had only one surviving member. You really cannot work around this one, without making things either too confusing or too stupid. If they really felt the need for that, they might back off of the remake entirely, which would be to their detriment. But considering the Byleth/Rhea situation, I don't think they'll have much trouble. And besides, it's pretty clear that an act of incest was the catalyst for almost destroying the continent, so I think it's safe to say the game doesn't agree with the practice.

#zeldafanmaria #fire emblem

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sergeant-donny-donowitz · 5 years ago

Text

Home for the Holidays

The Traitor & The Bear Jew Sequel: Requested by @svonschroeder

I'm not Jewish, and know pretty much nothing about Hanukkah, I am so sorry if I fuck anything up, please let me know, educate me! :D <3

@owba-chan @inglourious-imagines @war-obsessed

Let me know if you wanna be tagged in these!

It was early afternoon. The pale winter sunlight drifted through the bare tree branches, over the glistening white snow beneath your feet as you marched toward the hideout.

When you, Hugo, and Omar left on your mission, the ground was covered in a blood red and golden carpet of leaves.

Each of the basterds had been divided among the whims of the wind that day, on separate missions.

You didn't know who, if anyone, would be back at the hideout in the middle of the forest by then. You really hoped everyone came home.

That was was made you most uneasy...

The idea of someone not coming home...

You couldn't wait to see him again.

You were dying to see Donny. You never wanted anything more in your life, other than to end the war with your own hands.

After what seemed like an eternity between Hugo's blaring silence, and Omar's goodnatured rambling, you made it back. Hugo may have been one of your oldest friends, but...that didn’t make him any less a basterd.

But, after that eternity, you made it. Your hideout in the middle of the freezing forest seemed almost like an oasis...

The only reason you knew it wasn't a dream was because, as usual, you could hear the boys arguing from a mile away.

You let your pack fall with a thud, stood with Hugo and Omar by Aldo, and raised your eyebrow in confusion.

"So, uh...what's going on?"

Aldo turned back, grinning, happy to see the last of his basterds had returned. "Wellll, from what I picked up," He took a sniff of tobacco, "Tonight's the last night of Hanukkah."

Omar gasped, "ALREADY?! I MISSED IT?!"

Before anyone had a chance to respond, he stuffed a handful of scalps into Aldo's hands, repaying his debts little by little like everyone else, and trudged to the rest of the basterds.

Hugo watched in silent, stoic amusement, while you turned to your lieutenant, "And they're arguing because...?"

Aldo shrugged, and commented, "Because they’re basterds, darlin’."

You smiled a little, "Good point."

Hugo smiled briefly. If you blinked, you missed it.

He would no doubt be annoyed with their ranting in a minute or so, but aside from you, the basterds were the closest thing to family he had. It had been well over a month...and it was nice to be 'home.'

"WE'RE USING MATCHES. WHY WOULD WE USE LIGHTERS?!"

Simon shrugged, "I DON'T KNOW! THEY’RE JUST EASIER TO FIND!"

Donny rolled his eyes, "HOW do you light a LIGHTER, with ANOTHER LIGHTER?!""

"Look, " Wicki sighed, rubbing the inner corners of his eyes, completely tired of the boys being...well...boys. "Use a lighter as shamash, and then-"

Donny sighed, "Genius, old man! I said that fifteen fucking minutes ago."

Michael scrunched up his face, "No you didn't!"

"Yeah, I fucken did,” Donny crossed his arms, and turned to Omar, “tell him, Omar!" Donny did a double take, "Omar?!"

Omar grinned, "Hey, boss!"

If Omar was home, that meant Hugo was home... because Hugo promised Aldo he’d take care of the youngest basterds if anything happened to him...

And Hugo wouldn’t come home without his best friend.

So you were definitely back.

"Y/n?!" Donny ran to you.

He wrapped his arms around your waist, lifted you up, and swung you around, burrying his face between your shoulder and neck.

He'd never quite held you like that before, never so desparately, and lovingly...

He would never admit it, but for a few hours he was genuinely terrified.

You, Hugo, and Omar were the only ones that weren't back yet, and until he saw your face, he was able to breathe again.

You, on the other hand, were literally being smothered with his love. You also had a recent run in with some nazis, in which you bruised a rib or two... (It was the same reason Aldo stared in awe at the sheer amount of scalps that Omar had thrown into his hands moments before...It was also why Hugo was so pleased with himself at the moment...)

You wheezed, "Donny, let go! I can’t breathe!"

He set you down, smiling, not having caught on.

You clenched your teeth through your pain until it subsided. You would never let him know he hurt you, even unintentionally... He didn't know. It was ok.

His first encounter with you, he almost killed you, and you knew he still hadn’t forgiven himself for it. It was a misunderstanding, nothing more and nothing less... But Donny would never forgive himself if he ever really hurt you, and you knew it.

Besides, you were so happy to see him, the pain seemed to be drowend out by your happiness...

The basterds often teased him for being soft around you, but he didn't care. You were home, and that was all he could ask for...

Now that everyone was home, the real fun began.

So much so, that Aldo had to tell everyone to quiet down some, or else "all 'em nazi's over the goddamn Alps gon' know where we are!"

You...were still somewhat clueless.

"So...what's...what's all the fighting about, Donny?"

"Well, uh..." He sighed a little, embarassed that that had been the reason he didn't notice you were back earlier, "We haven't seen each other in weeks, what do you expect, doll?

You nodded, "Uh-huh, and you called Wicki 'old man' because...."

Donny pouted his lip a little in frustration, knowing that unlike the boys, you had some respect for your officers.... Still, he tried to argue, "He wasn't listening! And Mikey over there-"

Michael perked up, stepping away from the ongoing argument, and attempted to defend himself, "

"Look, in the heat of the moment, lighters just sounded like_"

Hirschberg rolled his eyes, "Question..."

Simon crossed his arms, "Yeah, do you even have a lighter?"

Aldo sighed, "Oh boy..."

You were visibly confused... Donny noticed that, and took you in his arms as everyone else was busy either arguing or laughing. "It's the last night of Hanukkah, doll."

"Oh..." You nodded, as you witnessed the pending battle of wits unfolding before you, “Cause that explains everything...???”

Smitty was laughing, and then realized you really didn't know a thing.

Aldo was amused, having witnessed the same exact argument a year before.

Hugo was....Hugo...

You were clueless.

Donny smiled a little. It wasn't often that he knew something you didn't....

Moments like this were ones he waited for.

"You know what it’s about, right?"

You nodded tentatively...

All the basterds started to shut each other up, about to be more amused by you than each other's insults and rants.

Hirschberg glared at Omar, who was just starting to get into the argument, "Do you ever shut up?!"

"But I-"

"The goy's gonna some somethin' shut up!"

Omar huffed and rolled his eyes, "Fuck you, Hirschberg."

The basterds looked to you for an answer, and you murmnured "....Oil???" That was all you really knew.

You knew it had something to do with candles...which the basterds didn't have on hand...

Your one word answered seemed to fuel the basterds' argument like the oil itself.

Wicki, Omar, and Hirschberg started going back and forth...

Omar nodded, defending your answer. "Yes."

"...no.."

"yeah!"

"no."

"nope."

"Yeah?!"

Hirschberg smirked, holding up his gun, "It's about war!"

Smitty stopped playing with his lighter, and stepped in for a moment, "It's....it's both..."

All three basterds looked to the youngest basterd, "Shut up, Uti!"

He looked down, pressing his lips together, forcing back an entertained smirk, "Ok..."

Andy emerged from the pit where the basterds often carelessly chucked supplies into... He seemed to have missed the entire thing.

He smiled when he saw you, then looked back at the seemingly annual argument. He distinctly remembered that after the last year's...spat....Wicki bought candles for this exact reason....and forgot.

There was a reason Donny called him ‘old man.’

Being too amused by the distant squabbling, Andy went off on his own to find them. A quieter, but strategic basterd, he stood by you, watching in awe at how long the squabble had gone on at that point.

"Hey Andy."

"Hiya, kid." He smiled and waved, a bundle of candels in each of his hands.

Wicki caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye, cursing himself for not remembering earlier.

The debate died out into laughter just in time, as the sun began to fall beyond the bare trees and grey clouds.

You stood with Hugo and Aldo, arms around each other's shoulders, in solidarity with your Jewish brothers. The three of you weren't Jewish, but you were all in this war together. Being caught celebrating Hanukkah that night was a death sentence thousands of miles around...

It was more than just a war then.

Hugo normally never would touch anyone until you seemed to come back from the dead. And...yet, it was unlike him. But there, you were all soldiers. Basterds.

Brothers.

The rest of the basterds each lit a candle, oldest to youngest....

Almost without any incidents.

But of course, you were the basterds...

And somehow at the very end...Omar’s hair almost caught on fire.

As the laughs faded, and the prayers ended, the candles burned down, and the campfire started, you all sat around, eating together as the basterdized family you were...

As every other night, canned, processed meat and stale bread was passed around. It was the usual food you had together, bland, barely edible. But somehow that night was special.

It was nice to be home...

Even if it was cold, and the middle of war, somehow it all felt warm and safe.

You were huddled together around the fire, the burning alcohol, smooth with the sounds of laughter and crude but funny soldier’s stories.

Donny sat by you. His cool hand slipped under your coat, wrapped around your waist without any of the basterds seeing...

Or so he thought.

As everyone else carried on with the jokes, and told stories of the past few weeks, he explained what "Real Hanukkah would be like, back home...Back in Boston..."

You smiled, not understanding everything completely, but still hoping that some day every one of them would see their homes again...

It made you happy when he mentioned people, neighbors and old friends, clubs and shops from his hometown. He told you so much about them before, it was almost as if you could picture it.

After losing the land you once knew, it was almost like his home was yours...

And Donny knew that.

He hoped telling you all about it would bring you some kind of hope for a future...and maybe a future with him, "Usually we have stuff like latkes and sufganiyot." Donny was amused with your kind but helpless smile.

He knew that shy, slight purse in your lips and almost unnoticeable arch in your eyebrow: You had no idea what he was talking about.

And he loved it.

Usually, it was the other way around. Especially when you said something to Hugo and inexplicably made the man with stone cold eyes laugh...

Anyway, Donny was absolutely melting at how confused you seemed.

He smiled a little, leaning slightly into your side, "They're kind of like donuts, they’re fried-"

Omar noticed that softness in Donny's eyes.

No one ever saw it before you came along...

And they loved jabbing him about it, "Get it, y/n? Cause oil..." And Omar, arguably loved inciting arguments more than anyone else in the camp.

Aldo knew him, and knew what that basterd was up to. He narrowed his eyes as he took a bite from his sandwhich, and turned to him, "Omar...Keep your fuckin' mouth shut."

"But-"

Aldo smirked a little, leaning a bit closer to Omar so you and Donny wouldn't hear. He'd noticed that look in Donny's eyes. It was subtle, but he knew his men well enough to know Donny was in love.

They may have been in the middle of nowhere, in the dead, blistering cold of winter, but when he was with you, Donny was home.

Aldo knew that.

He smiled warmly as he glanced at you and Donny, then back at Omar as he warned him, "Let 'em kids have their moment."

He took another bite, still smiling fondly.

There was no telling how long the war would go on.

But for that night, Aldo felt like they were all somehow home...

And in that moment, Donny's eyes fell upon the dimming light of the candles. He looked around at his brothers in arms. There was a stack of scalps carelessly strewn on the snow. Everyone was still a bit grimey, bruised and bloody from the long, divided missions.

But that was war...

And sometimes, the war made Donny wonder if miracles really existed...

By chance, a few months before, you happened to fall right into his arms.

"By chance..."

Donny looked at you.

He smiled, his grip around your waist tightened a little, clinging onto the brightest light in his life.

"Yeah," He nodded slightly to himself, thinking, "miracles do exist..."

#Inglourious Basterds #Donny Donowitz #donny donowitz x reader #aldo raine #Omar Ulmer #smithson utivich #gerold hirschberg #hugo stiglitz #Wilhelm Wicki #Quentin Tarantino #inglourious basterds imagine

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