#rodyle (tales of symphonia)

[asotin]

Tales of Symphonia: The Animation (2007) Tethe'alla Arc Episode 4

“Are you okay? Then all is well."

[tosrcountdown]

🌠 14 Days Left! 🌠

Our last entry for today are two fantastic artworks by Lyhdyr of the Desian Grand Cardinals, Rodyle and Pronyma! These two antagonists, though both belonging in the same group, have different loyalties that sets them miles apart.

[goseijin]

Here is my piece involving Kate for Day 15 on the Tales of Symphonia Countdown ( @tosrcountdown ) without the writing on it.

Below it are the chibi versions of Botta and Rodyle with his dragon included that I created for the piece. The dragon's body got cut off but it was all right because she was a big girl, but it made for some entertaining interactions with some of the other chibis!

[ciryze]

Butterfly Effect turns 1 year old today :D (I pushed the release date on AO3 back in the day but it counts!)

For all 3 of you actually following the story, have a cute family picture <3

Also some Butterfly-Funfacts under the cut :)

The actual "Butterfly Effect" is actually not Raine turning to look for her mother in the prologue, but Kloitz holding Genis instead of Virginia doing so.

The flashback chapters are intentionally scrambled through the actual timeline as Raine doesn't exactly remember the order of events herself

Zelos did return several times to the spot where he met Raine for the first time. However at that point, she was already with Pronyma

Presea is still alive in this story. However she is held in the underground research lab in an isolated container, making her crystal grow under similar circumstances as Expheres do in human ranches. She dies during Raine's first test-run with Odin in Sybak.

Regal is also absent in this story. Mithos has him executed in order to take over his company

The spelljammers (both Tethe'alla and Sylvarant) are made and built by Lezareno company. The ones in Sylvarant are brought over by Cruxis and built by Desians

There's a total of 6 human ranches in Sylvarant (the original 4 as well as one in Triet and one in Hima. Both these locations were suggested by Raine

Sylvarant is much heavier regulated by the Desians. With several large borders, it's harder to manuver around, so most rebel groups are local to their respective city.

Raine manipulated the Cardinals enough so that they raised the minimum age for new recruits. She also made them offer childcare and education in their ranches. Kvar thinks it was all his idea though

Raine still caries a scar on her back where the flames of the Broken sprouted originally in The Broken Ones. It looks like a shard of broken glass.

Zelos made several trips to the Meltokio slums in his life, disguised under rags and looking for Raine

Both Zelos and Colette have elvenblood in them

The higher ups in Tethe'alla have their children operated on if they turn out to have even slightly tipped ears. It's common procedure, although it was made less painful after a few years. Zelos had a particular bad case of tipped-ear-syndrom which is why his ears seem unnatural if you look close enough

Raine in this story is nonbinary, preferes the 'she/her' pronouns though. She occasionally goes around as "Ray" having he/him pronouns

Raine is also demisexual

Zelos is pansexual. He's also the only one thinking of Raine as nonbinary, thus avoiding any pronouns for her as well as he can, which is also the reason he calls her 'Master' instead of 'Mistress'

Kratos is genuenly interested in Raine up until the Altamira incident

Although not explicitly said, Sheena tries to convince Zelos to leave several times while they are still in Sylvarant

The heavy accent Raine has naturally is a mix between her growing up with elvish and the accent they carry in Sybak. It sounds remotely like russian

[dany36]

oh they’ve fixed the triet slowdown issue finally 👍

[frayed-symphony]

Once upon a time I had a Tales of Symphonia OC called Reimi.

It was the early noughties. I was a teenager obsessed with 2 things - Tales of Symphonia and Full Metal Alchemist. I had seen on my favourite website at the time; DeviantART, that people would sometimes self-insert themselves into their favourite shows/games and even though I'd thought about it before, I loved these two things so much I finally decided to do the same and 'Reimi' was born.

She was my ideal version of how I looked and because I was being bullied almost every day at school, the world of Symphonia in particular was a great comfort to me. Anytime I had a particularly bad day I started to draw Reimi.

I did have one real life friend, my best friend from primary school and we'd chat on the phone every night. I convinced her to play ToS with me and the two of us fell down this rabbit hole and I made her an OC too. We called her Beatrix and she was Reimi's older sister. It was your typical 'human girls fall into fantasy world and crush on their favourite character' story. I liked Lloyd and my friend liked Kratos. We would roleplay them together and write stories for each others birthdays and Christmases. It got me through the horrible things happening at school.

In time we started to make other characters. I decided I wanted Reimi to have a summon spirit - a polar bear called Meikai who could change between human and bear form. My friend had a similar 'devil' summon, Kainashi and I started to draw them as well. (Totally stole this from Sheena but it was very fun)

The final character we designed was Harvey - he was the only one we tried to give a canonical link to Symphonia. He was the Prince of the Tethe'allan royal family and Hilda's brother. The reason you never saw him in the game, we reasoned, was because he didn't want to be a Prince and left to travel the world in secret. He runs into our heroines and becomes a part of the group. I also wanted to write some love triangle stories at that point so he has a crush on Reimi.

For a long time these characters were my whole life. They filled my brain and I would always be thinking of stories for them. The ToS characters always factored into these stories but I was too embarrassed to draw them or have anything romantic happening and that might have been because of the backlash I saw a lot of self-insert authors get. I kept my stories mostly off the internet.

But I kept drawing them as the years went on, even designing bosses and creatures for them to fight, this was one such creature - 'Malcolm' the robot. One of Rodyle's machines.

In time life got in the way. My friend and I didn't get to speak as much so the drawing motivation started to fizzle out.

I still thought and cared about these characters but there was no fresh ideas forming for them. As I got older I started to have less time for them.

This is the last drawing I ever made of them and though you might still see me draw Reimi from time to time, its been years since I drew any of the others.

I did use them for animation practise on my University course though

So that's where we are today. I had a lot of AUs for Reimi. You may have seen this potion shop picture before, it's one of my favourite ideas where Reimi is living in the slums in Meltokio, working to keep her family's store open by selling potions. It even got a Daily Deviation on deviantART! I'm sure most people didn't know it was a self-insert drawing.

Another idea I liked was Reimi being the daughter of Kvar. She's grown up in the human ranches (though largely away from their brutality) and Lloyd's group visit is a wake-up call to her that what her father and Cruxis are doing may be wrong.

I came up with way too many stories to list here.. but uh... maybe I did draw some Reimi/Lloyd art occassionally...

and thats all you're gonna see!!

Anyway I just wanted to revisit these characters since I've been doing that with my books this month. Maybe you already knew about this, maybe you didn't!! It's just a fun look into my teenage self. I am trying to draw a new outfit for Reimi now, to see how much I've improved drawing her. I hope I can post it soon.

Thanks for reading!

[baronaliswritingcorner]

Tales of Symphonia Stray Thoughts #12: Mizuho/Ozette/Toize Valley Mine

-Orochi: “Sheena! How could you bring outsiders into the village!”

We learn Orochi is a pretty swell individual, but this is the first inkling we get that not everyone's warm to Sheena in Mizuho, which...I have feelings about. We'll get back to that in the Temple of Lightning post.

-I often credit Tales of Symphonia for many things -- be it my first foray into fanfiction or setting firm my progressive politics -- but I hail Lloyd as a personal hero of mine and almost nothing exemplifies that better here than his mission statement to Tiga here. From the very moment everything was turned upside down at the Tower of Salvation -- or perhaps even during Colette's angel transformation -- Lloyd's endured nothing but sacrifice, caste systems, racism, and bigotry. Tethe'alla's flourishing world was hailed as a promised land of abundant mana, yet beneath the glitz and glamour existed the very same societal ills that plagued Sylvarant -- and it was only a matter time before the scales were turned. And he's finally had enough.

Really, there's so much I could elaborate on this one scene alone. The gentle ocarina of Lloyd's theme, an assuring promise ensuring that every one of his dreams will come true. The first of many parallels between Lloyd and Mithos -- a tragic parallel that, despite Lloyd's protests here, he'll have to face by the end of his journey. Lloyd echoing the humble desire etched at the heart of every civil rights movement in history -- "I want a world where everyone can have a normal life." What's spoken (Sheena’s “yes, sir!” is as infectious as every word of Lloyd's speeches -- she's caught up in his vision too!) and unspoken (It's here Regal first learns of Lloyd’s compassion for others and undoubtedly motivates his compliancy with the group. I'd also like to imagine it seeps through Presea's heartless state as well -- perhaps the seeds of her humanity begin budding back here?)

It's all so, so good -- enough that I could write a whole essay about everything I just wrote here. I'm a starry-eyed kid when it comes to Lloyd's infectious idealism and I'm a sucker for that theme alone. Wading through the wretched history of real-world politics has undoubtedly proven a difficult journey, but I forge ahead in the values he instilled at a young age. If he can prove the impossible, so can I.

-Zelos: “Is he for real?”

...who’s he referring to here?

-OH MAN FINALLY REGAL’S PERSONAL. I've been reserving most of my equipment for customization purposes, so this'll be a big help.

-Aight Regal got his chef costume on. Look at my line-up:

Lloyd: Beach Boy

Colette: Maid

Genis: Katz Katz Katz

Raine: Glamorous Beauty

Sheena: WOW!

Zelos: Pickup Artist

Presea: Dream Traveler

Regal: God of the Kitchen

It's seriously goofy -- if I have time, I'll capture a group shot.

-"Reasons for the Shackles" has gotta be one of my favorites -- just the hypothetical visual of Regal running around clamping shackles on people always has me giggle. lol

-Ever notice how Lloyd acts all distracted when Presea runs off in Ozette? "Huh? Yeah..." What’s up with that?

-Man, Ozette checks all the boxes for my ideal high fantasy village. Houses embedded in a towering majestic tree, winding branches serving as natural staircases, nestled amidst an enchanted forest isolated in the idyllic countryside. Mmm! Talk about coooooooozy.

And how, pray tell, do they ruin it? Good ol' fashioned racism.

Like look at this fucker at the entrance – “THERE’D BE NOT BE ANY HALF-ELVES MIXED IN WITH YOUR GROUP…” like yeah okay creeper way to ruin my dream home

-“I wonder what went wrong in this village…”

me too buddy

-“It seems this village is the birthplace of the Pope”

what a shocker

-“Just so you know, I won’t sell any to half-elves”

jesus. Indoctrinating the kids when they're young. "Tranquility", my ass.

-Rodyle: “Only Presea can retrieve the Sacred Wood.”

...is there a particular reason for that? Hmm.

-Zelos roasting Rodyle, while funny, is random as all hell, lol. Love the banter between him and Genis, though.

-The presea house scene holy shit. Imagine her sleeping in the bed with her father’s skull staring at her

Anyone ever make a fic of this? Prime for horror material.

And the way the music just fades out…

-Colette tripping for no reason lol

-Tabatha: “I DO NOT KNOW IF THAT IS IN HER BEST INTEREST”

but why tho

(No, really, why?)

-“Perhaps it is because she does not engage in respiration.”

regal jesus christ what did you witness in those meltokio prisons

-In the "Use Your Head" skit, Sheena briefly mentions a "tunnel to Moria -- another Tales of Phantasia reference much as it is an obvious Lord of the Rings one.

Y'know, some may've wished for more intimate/elaborated connections to Phantasia, but after two decades I rather prefer Symphonia standing alone as its own thing.

-“Exsphere mines”, how do they work?

No, really, how? I went over some of this before in the Asgard Ranch post, but the whole Exsphere process isn't explained that well. I think we're supposed to understand it as Exspheres being mined in Toize, then shifting hands somehow from Lezareno to...Vharley? The Desians? Cruxis? Whatever the case, it's all over the place, although we can presume the chain of custody goes wrong somewhere -- leading to their interdimensional usage for Desian ranches. (And that's not even getting into the whole "sucking the lifeforce from humans" deal, which...well, let's wait until a certain sidequest before diving into that.)

We're told that human usage of Exspheres isn't common in Tethe'alla, yet we witness its applications to machinery such as the Grand Tethe'alla Bridge -- undoubtedly the work of Lezareno and whatever other megacorps deal in the Exsphere biz. So that makes sense, at least. Maybe. I dunno. If there's ever a remake, this is one of those things they gotta clear up.

-Regal: “The door’s guard system is out of control. Someone must have destroyed it when trying to force their way through.”

Bruh, it’s totally still.

-Lloyd’s Shiden is soooooo cool. Look at that lightning crackle. Shame its usefulness doesn't long.

-Oh god I hate those basilisks ugh look at how they petrify you. Nothing worse than getting caught up in button-mashing only to realize half your party's been turned to stone. Bugger off!

-Y'know, despite sticking out like a sore thumb, it took me forever to realize you can't get past that big metal door. Another Phantasia reference, I'm told.

(Actually, I think I heard you *can* get past that door in DOTNW but, well, who cares about that game)

-AW GODDAMIT I FORGOT TO BUY THE POTION FOR THE GNOME. WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN AUGHHHHHHHH

-“oh yeah sorry I forgot about the Indiana Jones trap lol whoopsie!”

a little much don't you think

-The Bacura from Xevious! I love whenever Tales draws from Namco's history and this is a fun example -- that SLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAP whenever your poor avatar walks into its patrol zone is some great comedy.

Unlike Xevious, however, it's not indestructable -- cleverly maneuvering around the boulder trap dispatches of it easily, unveiling Colette's Devil Arm in Evil Eye. Interesting implications connotations there!

While we're at it, I always assumed the "Professor Naploosa" was a fun Xevious reference, although apparently that's a name Symphonia made up. Did Raine hear of Professor Naploosa (what a name lol) from her youth? Despite her background, sometimes it feels like she knows a little too much about Tethe'alla's history -- in the aforementioned case of Summon Spirits, that's definitely an oversight -- but it's fun to imagine.

-Zelos: “Oh, please, I’m not going to go through all those boxes! Let’s just blow them all up!”

but then you’d destroy the inhibitor ore tho

-God, that Regal murderer reveal is terrible. Everything wrong with the silent dialogue scenes and then some. - The amateurish overuse of dramatic ellipses. Lloyd's "if you're suffering, it's alright to at least say so" falling completely flat in drawing parallels to Regal. Colette's awkward stammering being exactly that. Aaaaauugh!

It's not just Symphonia's bad habit of conveying vital story beats in complete silence (at least that has the excuse of Gamecube disc limitations) but while the voiced cutscenes have their own fair share of goofiness, the innate production values means they can't get lax with the scriptwriting -- in contrast, a not-so-insignificant number of these unvoiced scenes feel profoundly lazy in everything from unnatural dialogue to weird animation to just...auuuuuguhhhhhghhghghgh. It's a lot.

-On the bright side, "You and I are..." does a much better job in contrasting Genis's struggles and awkwardness with Regal -- an individual he doesn't care much for. I enjoy Regal respecting his boundaries with "I see."

-That snitch in the hat. I hope he died in the fire. Probably deserved it.

-"Loooooong liiiiiive the poooooooooope"

lol what's with that delivery

-Listen to the sound effect when the dragons fly away lol geez

-Ever notice how despite the obvious clues Presea's age isn't what it seems, the cast aren't...exactly consistent with this knowledge? The Wells scene (not to mention some of the other Ozette villagers) explicitly spell this out to the cast and yet barring Regal, they still treat her like she's actually 12.

-Another fun headcanon of mine is imagining Kratos watching over Presea/Regal joining the group and smiling to himself. The band's getting together for his boy!

-Raine: “Internal strife? How pathetic.”

Kratos: “Say what you will"

(Internally: fuck)

-Zelos: "My cute little Presea.”

See what I mean??? Like, he "knows" she's a kid and yet??? Really??? I dunno...

-The Tranquility kid that goes “you’ll play with me, won’t you, Presea!”.😭😭😭😭

Presea, do it now! Or you'll regret it foreverrrrrrrrr!

-Oh hey Presea’s costume just reset to her default. Yeah, it’s a glitch! It was still on the title when she left. Weird.

[randomnameless]

List of candidates waiting for a fallen alt:

The other priestess possesed by Medeus, the Deadlords from genealogy/thracia, the rest of the risen black fang, fallen Idunn, fallen Greil, Vallite Scarlet, Vallite Gunther, Vallite Sumeragi and Vallite Mikoto. And from three houses we had Maurice, Crest beast Micklan, Crest Beast Dedue and Umbral Beast Aelfric. And even if we count Cypher now as inspo with both Fallen Ike and Chrom we have Fallen Nohrian King Leo and Fallen Sara. In total we have like 36 options for fallen unit. 37 if we count that antagonist/miarge!Aversa from Tokio Mirage.

And they had to go with nopes female Byleth. The focking wasted potential in here... This feels as when they made "Fallen Dimitri" bc having a mental breakdown and depression also counts as being possesed by a magical artifact/evil being in the heads of FEHeroes staff.

Anon,

I'm pretty sure the next Fallen banner will be a FE17 fest - you can't make me believe Fallen!Emblems weren't thought with FEH in mind.

Fallen!Lyn, Fallen!Marth, etc etc.

Morph!Linus being such a chatterbox really pisses me off, but what else could they do with morphs, especially the endgame ones who are just more or less zombies?

(BTW I could rant all day long about FEH's Vigarde, FEH tried to make us believe he was under Fomortiis' control like a second meat puppet? But imo it was clear in game Vigarde was an animated corpse, like an upgraded Monica!)

Fallen Heroes stopped making any sense and are just a way to sell edgy!alts, even if some are hits, some are clear misses (and some try to correct plot points that were never mentionned in their base game like Fallen!Rhea lol).

I still note you forgot the only Fallen Hero I'm expecting : Fallen!Wrys.

Also I really really really don't want to have Momo - because all materials, from FE16 to Nopes to even FEH (thanks to that newest Sothis/Billy alt) are allergic to shed too much light on relics, Nabateans and the Red Canyon - but damn if Momo "uwu the femur I picked from a subhuman I used as weapon - complete with the essence of said subhuman acting as its core - corrupts me and I'm so so so sad save me :( :( :("

It's like hearing Rodyle from Tales of Symphonia's sobfest that "oh noes the device I've been building by harvesting hundred of people doesn't make me super powerful but turns me in an unstable monster instead T-T"

Ditto for Miklan, especially if this goes in a "crust bad" tangeant, because omg, a bandit, again, steals bones and hearts of a nabatean, again, to do bandit things, again, and suffers from backlash - but somehow it's the nabatean who is used as a weapon's fault because his blood wasn't passed on the Miklan? Nopes managed to make him more bearable, returning to his FE16 version would be a disservice.

But with this alt, I hope Nopes' vanishes from memory and we return to more "normal" fallen!alts, even if we're scrapping the bottom of the barrel - but given what they managed to do for Maria, I have hope they could pull something for the FE5!Deadlords, the Cipher cards, some Fates risen and, ultimately, the entire Engage cast.

[wingedcatgirl]

30 Day Tales of Symphonia Challenge

me when i forgot to do this yesterday until after i shut off my computer and i was like "ugghhgh i don't want to do this on mobile"

anyway

10. Character you want to kill

Eh. Honestly? The only characters I hate are the ones that are like, Rodyle-tier, but even him I'd rather completely mortify and humiliate him by making all his plans collapse around his ears. He doesn't need to die, just lose, and feel it. In my imo.

Magnius is an asshole, but anyone who reads Leaf story knows I just got him lost somewhere. I guess I don't do the 'asshole gotta die' thing anymore.

... Even Kvar, I wouldn't kill him myself, but I wouldn't try to stop Lloyd and Kratos either.

[tales-of-sweets]

⚠️ Sound warning!

🎶 General Base - Base Of Love Pt.3

Idk why but part of this song sounds vaguely like a section of the Desian/Renegade base theme to me. That combined with a title that sounds like it could be a Desian dating sim or reality dating show... Well, here we are 😆

[lyhdyr-illustration]

Day 14: Empty

Scene from my ToS fic with young Rodyle and his past companion Gerutha (oc)

[asotin]

Tales of Symphonia: The Animation (2007) Sylvarant Arc Episode 4

Even if there were a way to extend our time together, it would only make parting that much more painful. I knew that. But you know what? I don't regret any of it.

[tosrcountdown]

TOSR Countdown Compilation & Navigation

With the Tales of Symphonia Remastered Countdown fully completed, we’ve made a small navigation post of all creations made for fans to look through! These include all 31 days, with each day having multiple entries. You can check out the links below under the “Keep Reading” for each day and the works that were made for it. These have also been divided into characters and fanwork types! (This may be updated in the future).

Also, we will be reblogging posts from our contributors that they made for the countdown in the coming days. Please be sure to give them support! Thank you all again for a great Symphonia event!

Dates

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Release Day!

Fanwork Type

Fanart

Fanfiction

Cosplay

Fan Music

Main Party Characters

Lloyd Irving

Colette Brunel

Genis Sage

Raine Sage

Kratos Aurion

Zelos Wilder

Sheena Fujibayashi

Presea Combatir

Regal Bryant

Major Side Characters

Yuan Ka-Fai

Botta

Martel Yggdrasill

Mithos Yggdrasill

Noishe

Corrine

Dirk

Remiel

Altessa

Tabatha

Seles Wilder

Alicia Combatir

The Grand Cardinals (Pronyma, Rodyle, Kvar, Magnius, Forcystus)

Minor Characters and NPCs

Wonder Chef

Frank Brunel

Chocolat

Marble

Cacao

Kuchinawa

Kate

The Renegades/Desians

Anna Irving

[ciryze]

“Field barrier!” “Indignation!”

Chapter 107 - Return to Palmacosta

Links: Masterpost, AO3 Start

Bonus: The Timeskip Designs

[dany36]

well, after 36 hours, i've finished tales of symphonia once again :) and despite the many flaws in the switch remastered edition, i honestly had a blast playing through it for the umpteenth time. no matter how many times i play through this game, it just brings me joy like no other. i've already rambled about why i love this game when i beat it for the first time in the ps3 collection, so super long junk thoughts below this time about the remastered edition, playing through the hard path for the first time ever, and wow still finding new sub-events after all these years:

i cannot BELIEVE that this game, from the gamecube era!!!, runs so poorly on the switch. there was only one update downloaded when i first started playing it late february, but that didn't really do anything to improve the experience or performance of the game as far as i could tell. it becomes super noticeable when you first go to the triet desert (2 hours into the game!) and the game starts lagging, but it's even WORSE when you go into the ruins. it's super distracting and honestly annoying as you watch your field character running slowly as fuck. and sadly the lagging doesn't stop there, there was lag in other areas of the game, like in latheon gorge and the temple of lightning. like, it's honestly inexcusable to release a gamecube port with such poor performance and if i was a first-time player, it would be off-putting and make me think twice about playing through this game!

also, as i was going through vinheim, i put colette briefly in my party and i don't know what it was but as soon as i put her in there, the battle stage would start lagging too. i had lloyd/sheena/genis/raine beforehand without any noticeable issues, but i don't know what it was about adding colette that well, i just had to switch her back out after a couple of battles. some other battle scenes would also lag but that's the one i remember the most. does anyone know if the ps4 runs just as bad? cus when i played the ps3 edition, i had no problems like this at any point in the game, so it's just baffling at how bandai-namco messed up such a beloved game!!

what was also distracting was that the field enemies would be t-posing around from time to time. i first noticed it when i went to rodyle's ranch, and it became more constant in the last few levels in the game, especially derris-kharlan and vinheim. like c'mooooooonnnnn!

i also already talked about this, but the loading screens when entering and exiting the overworld (like during overworld battles) or even i think sometimes within the same dungeons/towns? it's.....frustrating when you consider that these loading screens were non-existant in the gcn/ps3 versions, but i mean....sadly, i got used to them after a while, so i stopped noticing them as much. :/

and lastly, what was annoying was that i couldn't even enjoy the beautiful staff credits ending theme because....the sound was like skipping as it was trying to play? i can't remember any other instances of the sound skipping or having blips, so it was just honestly baffling to notice it for the first time during such an impactful theme song -_-

but like i mentioned, despite all these annoyances through the game, i think i enjoyed this playthrough more than when i played it through the ps3 last year. and i think that's mostly due to having done the hard path for the first time ever! it was honestly so cool because it felt like a brand new experience: at some points i got lost as to where to go next, and it made me look forward to see how certain interactions/cutscenes would change with sheena in my party for the palmacosta section. seeing all those additional cutscenes with sheena and the luin kids, as well as her going around trying to look for a cure for pietro, really puts it in a better perspective just how much of a kind-hearted person she really is! also i mentioned it already but seeing luin before it gets destroyed and talking to the townspeople about their fear of desians has a WAY bigger impact when you come back to luin and seeing it all destroyed, and of course makes you better sympathize with sheena on wanting to rescue the townspeople. seriously the hard path makes the sylvarant arc make way more sense than by just going to palmacosta first before luin, but it helps that sheena is like my favorite character of the bunch lol.

and well, honestly if you want to get sheena as first in your list in flanoir, the hard path is the way to go. when i did my ps3 run, i did the normal route and even after choosing all the sheena-positive choices as well as doing ALL of her overworld skits, she was still behind colette and genis. but doing the hard path, she was already first in the affection list shortly after reaching tethe'alla. so i got to see her affection scene after the mana cannon ordeal without any issues. :)

i WILL say though that they don't call it the hard path for no reason. doing the tower of mana first before the balacruf mausoleum and thoda geyser was hard as fuck!! i got there as level 13-14, and the boss just kicked my ass. colette would keep saying "wow, looks REALLY strong!" to even the regular enemies, and honestly i had to grind to level 20 to even have a chance with the boss. so that was fun! it made the remaining seals super easy to do, even defeating dorr's fake daughter and magnius. so yeah, getting past the tower of mana is definitely the hard part, but once that's done, it's easy sailing to tethe'alla!

and last but not least, i STILL found new cutscenes that i had never seen before! i started doing this in the ps3 run but i didn't know that you had to get cutscenes for everyone in the party in tethe'alla regarding their choice of where they would want to live after "splitting" the worlds (i think i only saw the ones for sheena, zelos, presea, and regal, but not genis and raine, whoops!). i always thought it was weird how this wasn't something that wasn't discussed beforehand because i mean, the last pact is in sylvarant so even if there were tethe'allans that want to stay in tethe'alla, they in theory would be stuck in sylvarant after the pact! but turns out that after you visit all of the towns in tethe'alla, the entire party comes to a decision and decides that they want to help lloyd in sylvarant and stick with him no matter what. how damn sweet!! 😭

also got some new sub-events! i don't remember getting a "Free Pass" in the ps3 version, and if i did, i must have forgotten lol. but with the Free Pass you can get an additional cutscene in the altamira hotel's luxury suite with the person you picked in flanoir (i'm guessing, either that or your highest-affection character?), so that was cool to see! and also the additional cutscene where the luin townsfolk want to give the title of honorary mayor to one member of your choice (another chance to raise the affection of someone but the honorary mayor ends up being lloyd no matter what lol), and also we see that pietro, with his mission accomplished in luin, leaves the town to help more people around the world with sophia's help!! how damn cool is that?! what an amazing character pietro turned out to be! 🥰

WELL, enough talking about how much i freaking love this game. there were other things i wanted to talk about as i was playing through, such as botta's last words or my favorite main-story skit in the game, but i didn't wanna spam the tag lol. but well, if i find out that the ps4 version's performance doesn't suck ass, or if they ever release a patch for the switch version that fixes SOME of the performance issues, then i will have no choice but to play through this beautiful game yeeeeeetttt again. :)

[copics-and-renegades]

Full Force ‘22 !!!

Big thanks to @ssc-chico for making the event happen and big thanks to @fivegrandcardinals for letting me play with his Modern!AU!!!

All the Grand Cardinals share a shitty apartment now and Mithos is their tyrannical landlord. Pronyma is trying to make a career as a streamer, but the guys keep walking in on her streams for dumb reasons (they have their fans in her chat, tho, so maybe it’s ok). Rodyle’s cooking always looks exactly like this, but actually it’s really tasty?? (Kvar’s food, on the other hand, is toxic poison that only he enjoys.)

Pronyma did not take the hair conditioner. Maybe she moved it slightly to the left when cleaning, if anything at all. Maybe Rodyle took the conditioner because it makes his dragons’ scales shine. (I don’t know where he keeps the dragons, tho. Hopefully not in the apartment. I keep thinking they live on a ranch out of town or something??) Or Magnius took it because he likes how his hair feels after using it. But Kvar can clearly see if even one singular ml is missing from the bottle.

Cardinals!!! @fivegrandcardinals got me REALLY invested in the Cardinals!!!