#this house being the ff7 universe

[accala]

YOU KNOW WHEN I JOKED ABOUT FF7 HAVING MANDELA CATALOGUE VIBES I MEANT IT AS A JOKE. WHO IS ALISSA AND WHY IS SHE IN THIS HOUSE

[thorntopieces]

i'd like to think that the island of mideel is a sort-of ff7 universe equivalent to real-world iberian peninsula, with banoran being portuguese and mideelian being spanish. it's not as simple as that, of course, as (specifically european) portuguese and spanish are very different languages despite sharing approximately 89% of their vocabulary

but i'd like to think that it's a good basis for developing language and cultural headcanons for mideel. banoran is the far smaller language, with all of the residents of banora being expected not only to learn mideelian but also common at a very young age. their culture is similar to the rest of mideel while staying distinct, partially due to the influence of shinra moving their staff there around the time of gillian hewley's house arrest and partially due to natural cultural development differing despite small geographical distance

people from mideel generally don't learn banoran - they understand enough of it and why bother to learn such a small language if all the residents speak mideelian anyway. there are of course exceptions, but mideel in general also has very complicated views on banora due to shinra's influence over the time and banora's sudden rise to fame with its banora white production. it sucks to live so close to the source of the best fruit in the world but mostly losing access to it due to all of it being either processed into juice and other food items or being exported to midgar and the gold saucer

both genesis and angeal learn mideelian before they learn common, but by the time they join shinra they are more than fluent in all three languages, with only a mild accent betraying where they're from. genesis does more than angeal to hide his accent. while he's not ashamed of where he's from, he embraces the city life of midgar with all he has, even if it means picking up the same odd way sephiroth speaks. it's a lot of effort and whenever he gets top emotional he stops caring. angeal doesn't care. as long as he's understood he doesn't give a shit if he has a perfect midgar dialect or not

they still speak banoran together whenever it's just the two of them, and after a while they start to teach sephiroth some of the words. they're proud of their language and culture and will always always be quick to correct people when they say they're from mideel (we're from banora, you utter imbeciles - genesis, probably) because at the end of the day, it is its own distinct place with its own history, similarity to mideelian language and culture or not

[tummyisyummy]

Ideas for Voice claims!!

Levi- Vinnie Vincent from the band kiss or cloud strife from ff7

Mathew- Charlie Kelmeciks from the perks of being a wallflower/ for when he speaks Spanish jim Hawkins from treasure planet (Spanish dub) Atreus is also a good choice too

Ziya- Nagisa shiota from assassination classroom. (Crona is also a good option too)

Dahlia- Tracy lord(Katherine Hepburn) from a Philadelphia story

Ciel(he’s dead but still)- Frederick Loren (Vincent price) from house on a haunted hill

Theodora- Tempest Shadow from mlp

Vasilios- Riot from Jen and the holograms

Yanira- penny proud from the proud family

Clara-catrine demew from monster high

Cesar-Prince naveen from princess and the frog

Njeri-Bismuth from Steven universe

Ophira- Urbosa from BoTW

New Gen voice claims

Gabriela- angel gabby from angel hare

Kurai- echo from rainbow six siege

Caleo-herb cookie from CRK(bro I couldn’t find a good Spanish accent one 😭. Just imagine a Spanish accent with this voice)

Anala-Camila noceda from the owl house

Almos- Himmel from frieren

[crisiscutie]

Random Sephthought

Another HoS thought? More likely than you think.

Imagine a special episode of HoS where the darling is exploring one room in the basement. She ends up being sucked into a hole where universal fuckery happens, resulting in her meeting every single version of Sephiroth. Yes, ALL of them! Even the versions with minor differences from their main counterparts.

Like the Polygon Field Sephiroth from OG FF7, Last Order Sephiroth, OG Crisis Core Sephiroth, Dissidia Opera Omnia Sephiroth, etc...

Most of the Sephiroths are confused as hell, while C.C, Last Order and OG C.C Sephys viciously compete for their mommy's darling's love.

And the Darling... just fucking faints because she can't handle anymore Sephiroths. Dealing with the main five (with the occasional house guests) Crisis Cuties are ENOUGH. But now she's with every single version of him!? She can still tell the Sephiroths apart by their bangs.

Darling later wakes up in her room, scared as hell, glad it was just a dream~. Or was it? 😈

On a last meta note: These two versions of C.C may or may not marked the start of my love for Yandere Sephiroth.

Their intense yandere vibes were slamming into the terrified kid me like a wave. 💜💜💜

And a decade later, I'm writing this AU xD Should I write this?

[sapphire-weapon]

Have you ever imagined your own character for the RE universe?

No.

Fandom OCs were considered a forbidden practice until I was about 26 or 27, so creating one is a skill I never developed. When I was growing up, if you created a fandom OC, you were toeing the line of being a soulbonder in the eyes of most people and were outcast from most fandom spaces. At best, people would just ignore you, and at worst people sent you hate for self-inserting and/or not having a solid grasp on the difference between fiction and reality.

Because my generation is the generation of FF7 House. Anything that seemed like it could or would remotely go in that direction was shouted down in an effort to prevent anything like that from ever happening again.

My generation was also the generation of accepted misogyny, both internal and general -- the generation of the Mary Sue. The effort it would take to build an OC that wasn't just written off as a Mary Sue was monumental and never actually worth it, because if people didn't actively hate against and make fun of your OC for Mary Sue reasons, they just straight-up didn't care about them. So, anything you wrote with that fandom OC was kind of pointless anyway, because no one wanted to read it.

The stigma against fandom OCs was so strong and so pervasive for literally my entire life in fandom that, in 2019, when Devil May Cry 5 came out, I tried to flesh out an idea for Nero's mom because we know literally nothing about her other than she was someone in Fortuna who fucked Vergil... and I couldn't do it.

I tried. I tried real hard, actually. But everything I came up with felt so contrived, and I always felt like "this isn't good enough/it's not original enough/I'm just self-inserting." It caused me way more stress than it was fun for me to do, so I just stopped.

And Nero's mom is actually a real character who really exists already in the Devil May Cry universe. It's not like I was making up an OC for funsies. She's a real lady. She really exists in canon. There were certain parameters that I had to follow per canon while trying to make her into more of a real person, because details about her already existed.

And I couldn't.

I couldn't imagine trying to just create a brand new fandom OC wholecloth. I'd be so embarrassed and so self-critical the entire time; it'd be torturous for me.

[liberifatalis]

and now i gotta poke you for the others i've thought about. zack was easy, i had to peg him as a sagittarius because i have a bad habit of falling HARD for that particular sign (i'm an aquarius, goofy fire signs are my kryptonite). angeal, the only thing i thought fit him was taurus. there's some earthy, unmoving aspect to him. but i think other influences in his natal chart soften him a bit. that or being so close to genesis his whole life, lol

i'm so sorry for the late reply, work has been kicking my ass😭

spot on with sagittarius! it's actually my favourite sun sign and i love sag suns sm, makes sense why i'm in love with zack. funny you say you're drawn to fire signs/sagittarius suns as an aquarius, because aerith is canonically an aquarius sun! you're definitely not the only one

i honestly think being a sagittarius sun really suits him and the headcanons i have of him as well, especially modern headcanons. sagittarius placements are stereotyped for being very extroverted, which zack is, and he's also a huge flirt and playful. he'd be a massive party animal which is another sagittarius stereotype, and honestly, it is true for every single sag sun i meet. they're all party animals. they love it. they're literally the life of the party.

i see cancer in him too. i personally see him as a cancer moon, which is a domicile placement so yay for zack! cancers are stereotyped as big manipulative crybabies, but that's only if their placement is in an insecure spot. i see zack as very grounded at times, and i think his cancer moon would be fully-realised and secure. that doesn't mean he'd never struggle with his emotions and anything inernal, but i think he has a stronger grasp and understanding of his emotions/mental health more than the average person. at least in the ff7 universe.

he's without a doubt, absolutely, positively, a libra venus. which is another domicile placement smh sephiroth would be so jealous. venus is happy here. it loves it here. it thrives here. he's a flirt, which absolutely suits libra venus. he loves love. can't get enough of it. is unable to help himself.

i can't think of a rising sign or the rest of zack's placements, but i'm getting back to it i promise!

angeal has a taurus placement. he even looks like a taurus sun or rising it's uncanny. not only is there a stereotype for taurus placements loving food but there's also a stereotype of them, and all earth placements, having a natural affinity to plants lol. quite on the nose but it makes sense. taurus placements are softer than their other earth counterparts, but they're very unyielding and stubborn (taurus is fixed earth, ugh they'd be such a pain. when they are set on something they do not change lol. taurus is also the opposite sign of scorpio, which is fixed water, so like...yeah...yikes. the similarities are scary).

i'm gonna need to replay crisis core to delve into angeal's character a bit more because my memory is a bit foggy, but i think he'd be very earth placement heavy. i need to construct a basic natal chart for him asap. but i think he'd be very 10th and 11th house dominant!

[an-inspired-eternity]

I MISSED THAT THE POLL ENDED. i can say now the lie was the crossdressing one! (a trick answer, there's multiple scenes of disguising but only the one specific crossdressing sequence)

you can flirt with the man running a brothel: in og, during the wall market sequence, if cloud gets picked by don corneo you have the option to pick dialogue to flirt back with him, and when aerith and tifa come in they're like ....cloud wtf

there's a character voiced by and designed after gackt: genesis from crisis core (initially debuting in a cutscene in the ending of dirge of cerberus, but crisis core is where he became a full character)

a npc character commits suicide on screen: barret's friend (as well as the biological father of marlene) from his hometown, dyne, realizes that he's become far too much of a monster to go back and see marlene, and throws himself down a cliff. we don't see the impact, but like.. Yeah

one of the antagonists is survived by uploading himself as an ai: ....yeah... hojo in dirge of cerberus.

the talking cat character was created by a 35 year old man: i regret not specifying this was in-universe, but even then i realized i think i blorbo post about reeve and cait too much for this to be taken as a lie

you can go on a date with a male character as cloud: the gold saucer date sequence from og is most commonly taken with aerith or tifa, but if you play your cards exactly right you can go on a date with.. barret. you skip doing the play and go straight to the gondola (and barret's theme plays instead of words drowned by fireworks), but hey. it counts

a character slept through an entire village being massacred and burnt down: vincent's 30 year depression nap in his coffin in the basement of the shinra manor in nibelheim

you play as characters other than cloud in the original game: i was surprised by the popularity of this one. the game is 36 1/2 hours long without doing side stuff guys. but yes cloud is entirely missing from the party for the first half of disc 2, the replacement party leaders during his absense are tifa (initially), and cid (after tifa leaves the party to stay with cloud)

cloud tells a dying woman she owes him a pizza: i had a huge laugh at the popularity of this one, and it won the vote. the context lies in the ff7 remake, when jessie is dying on the sector 7 support pillar, cloud and tifa are trying to keep hopeful she won't die, and cloud mentions that jessie owes him a pizza because she wanted him to get to properly come over to her house and have her mom's pizza

i KNOW 99% of my followerbase doesn't play this so i want to see how this goes LMAO

[sullustangin]

Fan Fic Writers Meme

I remembered one of the memes I wanted to do!  I saw this one on @walk-ng-d-saster‘s blog, so I’m doing it. 

How many works do you have on AO3?  26 (for some reason tumblr is making this answer huge in font size)

What’s your total AO3 word count?

492,356 (CHRIST)

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Things I have completed and posted:  SWTOR (AO3), DC Animated (Bruce Timm/Paul Dini productions from the 90s and early 2000s) (AO3 and FF.Net),  FF7 (FF.net), Doctor Who (FF.NET), House (frigging forgot about that one until I saw it in my files, yikes)

Things I have completed but not posted:  Star Trek

Things I have not completed nor posted:  Law and Order: SVU, West Wing, FF6, Highlander, Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes (ACD), the Mandalorian (now totally out of canon, thanks Luke), Tombstone, and Sin Takes a Holiday (a random Basil Rathbone 1930s film I latched onto like a leech for a few weeks and this mangled file is all that remains)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Parthenos, In Theory, and The Slow Road from DCAU (Wonderbat ship), then The Grand Reveal (Rishi fic, my latest complete multi-chapter), A Shan Family Tradition (possibly canon Baby!Shan fic), and Who She is In the Dark (the first fic in the SWTOR series I have running.

Do you respond to comments; why or why not?

I don’t when I feel guilty because nothing is in the chute. (Hi, Slow Road people.  I know. That whole kerfuffle about Batman earlier this summer took the wind out of my sails because I didn’t want it to come off as a Bat Stan... because if you read the series, you know what’s happening soonish and now I’m waiting for that to die off.)

I absolutely do when I’m still writing and creating content (Hi, SWTOR people)

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don’t like ending my fics on an angsty note.  I like hope at the end, if there is nothing else left. 

Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

When I was a young teenager, I plotted out an extensive FF6/FF7 crossover that paired Celes Chere and Vincent Valentine.  It never got written, but it was elaborately planned.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No.  I have received.... comments?  Statements? that could have been constructive and could have started a dialogue, but then the commenter’s follow-up behavior indicated they were not being sincere; they weren’t actually worried about the issues they presented, but rather, they were trying to get a reaction out of me. (They went on another platform and made snide remarks.)

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do write smut but it’s unpublished at the moment.  I fail utterly at writing PWP (so far), so I can’t just have them do the thing and leave it at that.  I think (hope?) I’ll be more comfortable publishing smut once I get to that point in my plotted Yavin fic. 

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I have had someone take my FF7 fic premise and poorly recycle it.  When I messaged them about it, I was then accused of stealing THEIR fic (somehow, in a time machine).

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I would be open to a collab with someone on a translation.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

In terms of what I write, there’s an ongoing thing of Relatively Orderly Guy/Relatively Chaotic Gal recurring.  

What are your writing strengths?

I can come up with an original plotline.  I do the research and I try to get things ‘right’ within a universe, so there are lots of details.  I have been told I can strike to the heart of a character’s dynamic with other people. 

What are your writing weaknesses?

I sometimes worry the details can be too overwhelming for people and they tune out.  I think I sometimes have too many ‘talking heads’ chapters where there’s lots of exposition -- too much tell, and not enough show.  Per spouse, I also get reaaaaally defensive about my writing (particularly professionally, but even in fan fic ), so I have to have a policy of letting the comment sit for a certain period of time before I attend to it.  The interim time is spent woe’ing and beating myself up.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Minus a few words that are sprinkled in (like how Mandalorian is used), I tend to just say they’re speaking in that language.  I do read a few languages, but dialogue is so much more informal and less stiff than the written word.  Also, it’s easier on the reader.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Star Trek.

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

I have affection for the pieces on the cutting room floor; things I cut out or have never published that sort of stay on the hard drive as a monument to the effort and also a little bit of a cheat when I need a scene for something else.  For example, parts of the casino scenes from The Cosmic Deck were cannibalized from the unfinished, now totally AU Mandalorian fic I have.  I’ve taken a bar scene from one fic and redone it as another universe’s party.

[crusty-the-snowman]

AU Where Sora Is Aerith Gainsborough/Zack Fair’s Son

Because I can

1. Sora was ✨conceived✨ about a month before the Nibelheim mission, hence why Aerith kept trying to call Zack while he was in Nibelheim

2. ‘Sora’ is an Gongagan name! Aerith went to visit Zack’s parents to tell them about their grandson and heard the name; she decided she liked it :) 

3. Aerith wrote all about Sora (and Sora drew pictures!) in her letters to Zack, telling him every little thing she could about their little boy. She never lost hope that Zack would meet his son... 

4. Sora has Zack’s eyes! Aerith wasn’t sure about the effects of having a child with someone repeatedly exposed to Mako, but from she could see, Sora didn’t seem to be affected in any way other than his eyes...

5. Sora and Aerith sold flowers together 🥺

6. Aerith told Sora everything about his daddy. When she tells him the story of how they met, a 2-3 year old Sora went and laid down in the flowers, in the same spot Aerith said he had landed. It quickly became a thing he did a lot, whenever he was lonely or sad. 

7. Aerith is such a good mom, y’all. Disney may not exist in the FF7 universe, but that doesn’t stop Aerith from being a Disney Mom™️. She and Sora would sing silly songs together as they cleaned her church, they would try and do a good deed every single day, and Aerith made sure to teach her baby how to be loving, compassionate, and kind. She makes some fumbles, as all first-time mothers do, but Elmyra is there too, to help her every step of the way (Elmyra loves her grandson, and Sora loves his grand-mère!).

8. Sora spent the first four years of his life with Aerith in Midgard. One day, however, after a visit from Cissnei, Aerith wakes up in the morning... and she can’t help but feel like something’s missing. She searches every room in the house, the uneasy feeling of missing something sitting heavy on her stomach... but it goes away soon enough. Her mother and her don’t remember why the guest room is completely empty. She finds a baby pacifier, and thinks a cat must’ve brought it in as a toy. Life goes on...

9. Until a year later (after FF7 Remake), when visiting Radiant Garden and her cousins Leon and Yuffie, a teenage boy with an oddly familiar name and similar appearance to her shows up. Aerith can’t put her finger on it, but she feels like she knows this boy. His eyes remind her of Zack’s...

[thefloatingstone]

If you’re doing Self Quarintine (and you should be if you can help it) here’s some Youtube recommendations! Some of these I have posted about or recommended before but with almost all of us stuck indoors now’s a good time to remind you of some cool things you can watch for free!

I’m not gonna imbed the videos, I’ll just post the link because otherwise I would only able to post 5 and I want to collect a few so you can make a playlist or something. (I could make a playlist too but then I couldn’t tell you what each video is and you can’t pick and choose which one sounds interesting to you)

In no particular order:

Polybius: The video Game that doesn’t exist

An hour long documentary in which the youtuber did extensive research to find the origin of the “Polybius” Urban Legend, which speaks of an early arcade game reportedly seen around the early 1980s which reportedly gave people migraines, insomnia, nausea, subliminal messages, and in some cases heart attacks.

The Universal S

A shorter video in which LEMMiNO does his very best to try and track down where exactly this S that we all drew in middle school comes from? Why does literally every country on earth seem to HAVE their children draw this S?

I also recommend LEMMiNO’s video on the Dayltov Pass Incident and the perplexing UFO cases

Down the Rabbit Hole: Henry Darger

Fredrick Knudsen has an incredible fascinating series called “Down the Rabbit Hole” which simply focuses on... anything you can discover and go digging into. From weird internet personalities, to bizarre happenings in history. This video is about the artist Henry Darger, a man who lived in the early 1900s and for all intents and purposes had a perfectly average, lonely life, until it was discovered just before his death he had spent literally decades writing and drawing a fantasy world in what is possibly the longest piece of literature ever written.

I also recommend his video on the Hurdy Gurdy

Bedtime Stories Channel

I’m actually just gonna link the whole channel for “Bedtime Stories”. If you like weird and creepy stories, all of which at least claim to be “true” then Bedtime Stories is great. Coupled by illustrations and subtle sound effects, Bedtime Stories is literally listening to someone tell you a story about such things like hikers who mysteriously went missing, Sightings of Bog Men in Florida and giant Birds over Chernobyl, as well as weird and unsettling murders that remain unsolved. Sometimes the facts are a little dubious or have been disproved, but that’s not the point of the channel. It’s here to tell a creepy story, not give you a documentary.

A Journey Through Rule of Rose

Rule of Rose is a Survival Horror gave for the PS2 which has rather bad gameplay... but a FASCINATING story with just as many layers and symbolism as Silent Hill 2 could boast. It tells the story of one young woman traveling back into her own childhood in an orphanage in the 1930s, and all the horrors that contains. From repressed grief, abusive relationships, child neglect, abuse, and bullying... but it ALSO contains symbolism of societal class structure, politics, eating the rich, and how power structures work. Not for the faint of heart, but HIGHLY recommended.

I also super highly recommend his video on the similarities between Silent Hill 2 and Solaris

Clemps Reviews Crisis Core

Mr. Clemps is a great internet gamer who reviews JRPGs and other games he simply enjoys. Sprinkling in a heavy dose of comedy and very fast jokes and observations, Clemps’ videos are always upbeat, fun, and incredibly enjoyable to watch. I’m linking part 1 of his Crisis Core video in which he explains why the PSP game remains a personal favourite of his despite its flaws.

I also recommend his video on Eternal Sonata

Defunct TV: The History of Dragon Tales

Defunctland is a channel that deals with theme parks and theme park rides that are no longer standing, or which are no longer around in their current form. Defunctland also has a sub series though, called “Defunct TV” where they look at the origin of children’s TV which are no longer airing. I recommend the video on Dragon Tales which is incredibly wholesome, and a genuinely uplifting and soft story of good people trying to make good things for children. (I also recommend the videos on Bear in the Big Blue House, Zoboomafoo, and Legends of the Hidden Temple)

Hagan’s Histories of Polar Exploration

A Playlist for Diamanda Hagan’s videos about the doomed Franklin Expedition from the late 1800s, where England tried to find a passage through the Northern Arctic to the Pacific Ocean. This went horribly horribly wrong, with every member of the Expedition dead. Over a 100 years later we are still fuzzy on what EXACTLY happened, but apart from the arctic chill, there is also evidence of faulty canned food, a series of bad decisions, and cannibalism. Caution advised for this series.

I also recommend the rest of Diamanda Hagan’s channel. She is NOT for everyone, but if you enjoy somebody reviewing Z grade indie movies as well as just BIZARRE films, really bad Christian media bordering on Science Fiction (without making fun of religion itself) hot takes of classic (and modern) Dr. Who, an introduction to Red Dwarf, She’s an EXCELLENT channel to check out.

Good Bad or Bad Bad: Pass Thru

A half podcast half review show where two guys watch a terrible film, decide if it’s “Good” Bad or just Bad Bad and tell you if you should watch it too.

That’s it. That’s the whole show.

I recommend diving into the untold madness that is one of the best(?) bad film makers currently still producing batshit insane movies, the immortal Niel Breen.

There is literally nothing I can say that’ll prepare you for Niel Breen.

(I also recommend their more recent video for “Dancin’ It’s on!”)

History Buffs: Apollo 13

Do you like History? Do you like movies ABOUT History? Do you want to know if the movies about history you watch actually resemble what really happened in any way at all? History Buffs is an EXCELLENT channel, which does talk about the merit of a film itself, but is mainly focused on letting you know just how true to life that historical film you watch is. I highly recommend his longest video which covers the space race between the USA and the USSR, leading to what is known as “The most Successful Failure in NASA’s History”. The Infamous Apollo 13 and where the words “Houston, we have a problem” came from.

If you’re not interested in Apollo 13 however, I also recommend his video on the movie Casino, as well as his video on the female philosopher, Agora.

The Internet Historian: The Goodening of No Man’s Sky

With videos with literally MILLIONS of views, you probably already know the Internet Historian. But I still want to recommend him very highly because his videos are just THAT good and entertaining. I recommend his newest video, documenting that time we were all pissed off about No Man’s Sky, the difficulties the game studio was in when the game released, and how they have been working hard to finally create what is now a truly brilliant game which is winning major awards. A really good underdog story of how a video game company actually saw what was wrong with their game, and FIXED it.

I also recommend his video on Fallour 76 as well as the Failure of Dashcon

8 Creepy Video game mysteries

Hey. Did you know that sometimes there’s some REALLY weird shit in video games, hidden easter eggs which took literal decades to find as well as just a lot of “what the actual fuck?”. Oddheader is a channel with a dedicated discord and Reddit form solely focusing on trying to find or replicate bizarre video game finds, mysteries, and hidden glitches. Even if it means getting in his car and driving to a specific arcade just to check a rumour about Street Fighter II’s arcade version. So if you like getting spooked by weird game shit that’s not just some dumb creepypasta, this is a great place to start.

I also recommend his video on weird discoveries in DVDs and movies.

Red Letter Media: Best of the Worst

Look you already know who Red Letter Media is.

You know... these guys:

Here’s a video of them and Macaulay Culkin watching 3 terrible movies together.

I recommend literally any and all of their videos. Their discussion on Carpenter’s The Thing is amazing.

The Impact of Akira: The film that changed Everything

Ok trying to pick just ONE Super Eyepatch Wolf video is literal torture. Originally I was going to suggest his recent video on Final Fantasy 7 for the PSone but I realised I recommended something FF7 related with Clemps, so instead I will recommend The Impact of Akira, a video talking in depth about Akira both as a film as well as a manga, how it completely and utterly changed the anime industry both in Japan as well as the west, and why it is still a meaningful and one of the most important anime/manga even to this day, still being unsurpassed despite so much competition.

However, ALL of Wolf’s videos are incredible, so I also recommend his videos on wrestling (despite me not caring about wrestling at all), His video on how media scares us, The bizarre reality of modern Simpsons, Why the Dragon Ball Z manga is great, and literally any other video he’s made. He hasn’t made one bad video yet.

Was Oblivion as Good as I remember?

Exactly what it says on the tin. The Salt Factory goes back to playing The Elder Scrolls Oblivion and now with hindsight and modern sensibilities, gives feedback on his experience and whether Oblivion still holds up. This isn’t a super in depth review of the game’s mechanics or how its put together or how it was made. This is simply one guy talking about his experience replaying it with somejokes thrown in and how he felt revisiting it. It’s pretty good.

I also recommend the video he did on Morrowind (because I’m biased).

Weird Japan Only PS1 games

Thor High Heels is SO GOOD and deserves SO MUCH MORE subs than he currently has. THH focuses a lot of obscure and lesser known games as well as big popular titles like the Yakuza series, talking about what he likes about them, what he thinks is cool, and just what kind of atmosphere and mood a certain game has, even if the game itself is kind of ass. He’s done several videos on games that were only released in Japan, as well as videos talking about the fashion in Squaresoft games and how it inspired as well as was inspired by real world street fashion, the aesthetic of PC-98 games and other topics. He also styles his videos and thumbnails after promotional art for video games from the 90s and generally just has an excellent style to his channel over all. Very chill.

Blue Reflection Review

ValkyrieAurora is a channel run by Sophie where she talks about games she personally likes and enjoys. Her videos are really laid back and her voice is really calm and pleasant to listen to. She’s made a bit of a reputation for herself as “The channel that talks about the Atelier Games” and general is just a really enjoyable channel worth checking out if you just want something soothing to listen to.

Ancient Chinese Historians Describe Japan

Voices from the Past is a channel were historical text is read out loud in english. These can be anything like the above video where Chinese historians describe the people of Japan around 297 AD, Accounts of “Dog-Men”, or the worlds oldest letter of complaint from 1750 BC. If you’d like something interesting historically to listen to but don’t want a full blown history lesson, this is a really good way to hear contemporary people talk about their experiences and what they thought about each other in their own words, without opinions or input given by the narrator.

The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet

Whang! is a channel that covers weird internet stories, some horrifying, some curious and interesting, and some just plain weird. His video on The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet and its update, are about a song which was recorded off the radio in Germany around the 1980s, and after one person online asked if anyone knew who the artist was as they couldn’t find any information, led to the realization that NOBODY online knows where this song came from or who sang it. It’s a fun mystery to look into that, unlike some others on this list, is not creepy or unsettling, although perhaps a little frustrating.

I also recommend his video on The Most Mysterious Anime theme song, and the haunted Ebay Painting.

5 Lost, Destroyed, and Locked away Broadcasts

Yesterworld is similar to the Defunctland channel in that it talks about obsolete rides, theme parks and other forgotten pieces of entertainment. Although the majority of the channel focuses on movie rides, rollercoasters and Disneyland, I recommend the video on lost and locked away broadcasts which you can no longer see. I also recommend the video about Lost and Rediscovered movie props.

The Nightmare Artist

I talked about this one recently as I just discovered this channel. This video is about the renowned Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski who painted surreal and horrifying paintings during his lifetime. There is no mystery here or anything like that, it merely talks about the impact WWII left on Beksinski and how the trauma his country and people suffered influenced his painting, and how certain images and motifs can be seen to directly reference this terrible part of Poland’s history.

Disabilities in Prehistory

Modern media likes to portray how “savage” the ancient past is, and tell us stories of how any person born with a deformity or disability would be thrown over a cliff or dumped in a well because they would be too big a drain on a community to look after. But here’s the thing... according to archaeological evidence, it turns out our ancient ancestors actually did their best to look after its disabled members to the best of their abilities. This video talks about archaeological finds of people who had genetic disabilities and what we can learn from their remains. TREY the Explainer is a great channel for archaeology and also talking about what answers we could have for sightings of cryptids. (not ALL of which we have answers for)

I also recommend his video on Pre-Contact dogs as well as Homosexuality in Nature and the Genetic History of the Ainu.

Decoding “The Secret: A treasure Hunt”

“The Secret” was an art book released in the 80s full of beautiful paintings, but it is also more than that. The book has a fantasy story talking about 12 fantastical races who left wonderful treasures for humans to find,and the book’s paintings and riddles will tell you where you can find each of these treasures which are yours to keep if you can solve the puzzle... and the treasures are 100% true and can actualy be found and claimed, if you can solve the riddles in the book. The video tells the story of the artbook, who was behind it, what the treasures are, how many have been found and various other facts and details.

I also recommend the videos on this channel “The Game: A scavenger Hunt” and “The investigation of Erratas”.

5 Ancient Inventions That Were WAY Ahead Of Their Time

I would recommend you be careful with this channel as its main focus is existentialism and rather alarming topics such as “how close are we to the apocalypse” and other things whose titles alone are enough to upset me. However this video is nothing like that. This video is exactly what the title suggests it is. 5 ancient inventions that were so incredibly ahead of their time you’d think they were made up. From the computer used by ancient Greeks to steel swords we don’t know how to replicate, this video is a great mix of mystery and history.

Although I caution you with this channel, I recommend Joe’s other videos about mysterious books, as well as his video on the most inbred people in history.

However, I know I keep repeating this, I highly recommend caution with this channel. Perhaps its just me and the topics of life and existent are just triggering for me, but I’d recommend maybe just doing a search for the titles I mentioned and not to go searching through the video library unless you’re not bothered by this kind of thing.

-

Anyway I could keep going, but I think that’s a LARGE amount of videos to keep you occupied for the time being as well as some suggestions for further viewing.

Please enjoy, let me know if you found something interesting, and look after yourself!

If you enjoyed this list at all, please consider tipping me for a coffee

☕️ Ko-fi ☕️

[shinneth]

Do you listen to music when writing?

Well, that’s a bit of an interesting story.

Prior to writing Steven Universe stories, I absolutely could not listen to music of any kind while writing. Even if was just lowkey instrumental/ambiance, for some reason it ALWAYS triggered my mind to imagine other stuff, which made writing all but impossible for me as long as there was noise around. 

So for 85-90% of my writing career, that answer would be a hard no.

When I started working on Gem Ascension, suddenly that changed. I still can’t listen to music where there’s actual singing involved (unless it’s just really subdued or aesthetic choir noises), but I found myself better able to write whenever I had some scene-appropriate BGM playing. Usually from video games.

There’s a few wonderful souls on Youtube whose entire channels involve posting BGM tracks of all sorts of different series (seen it with games, anime, and wrestling tunes at least) - in 30-minute loops. 

This is immensely helpful for me, as I write huge amounts of content and thus tend to be stuck in a scene for a good while. And my momentum would be broken up big time if the track ran out at its original time and shifted to something that completely throws the mood off. Having the tracks extended to 30 minutes makes that much of a difference to me.

I’m really not sure why now I’m able to listen to at least some form of music while writing when I spent nearly 2 decades not being able to do it at all. But there you go.

I’ve gone through MANY tracks from many different games, anime, and wrestling themes throughout my tenure of writing my Gem Ascension continuity, but I’ll say my go-tos are largely due in part to the tracks of Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross (by Yasunori Mitsuda). 

Best of that pack for writing: Corridors of Time, Mystery of the Forest, Undersea Palace, Silent Light, Chronopolis (my default Homeworld scene music), Star-Stealing Girl, Death Volcano, and Edge of Death.

David Wise’s music was also just as much-used and essential to my progress. Choice tracks include:

Fear Factory, Aquatic Ambiance, Life in the Mines, Northern Hemispheres, Treetop Rock, Crocodile Cacophony, Forest Interlude, Flight of the Zinger, Mining Melancholy, Hot-Head Bop, Hot-Top Volcano, Jungle Falls, Darkmoon Caverns,

Koji Kondo gets an honorable mention, because Dire, Dire Docks was a VERY often-used one for me. As did Koopa’s Road, Mario Kart 64′s version of Rainbow Road, Inside the Deku Tree, Forest Temple, Spirit Temple, Water Temple, Last End, Ikana Valley, and Stone Tower Temple (+ Inverted Version).

Super Mario Galaxy has an OST made for epic Steven Universe fics where off-world stuff is the focus. Buoy Base Galaxy, Space Junk Galaxy, Pipe Interior, and Ghostly Galaxy just to name a few.

And of course, I often used some choice Nobuo Uematsu classics from Final Fantasy. And also the Final Fantasy games after he stopped composing for them. Anxious Heart, FF7′s Main Theme, On That Day 5 Years Ago, Life Stream, Chasing the Black-Caped Man, Who Am I, Shinra Army Wages a Full-Scale Attack, If You Open Your Heart, The Birth of God…

Stevidot scenes often had me using Tifa’s Theme and Serah’s Theme - Memory (the latter very shamefully).

I remember spamming New Bodhum for the scenes at the Crystal Temple/Steven’s house. Surprisingly the singing didn’t throw me off here.

Same can be said for Historia Crux and Plains of Eternity.

And yes, I have used tracks from Final Fantasies IV, V, VI, VIII, IX, X, and so on. But I’d be here all day listing those.

Hilariously, I recall special songs I had playing in 30-minute chunks as I neared the end of GA Act III: Super Mario World’s Ending Theme, Super Mario 64′s Staff Roll, Chrono Trigger’s To Far Away Times, Sonic the Hedgehog 3′s Credits, Sonic CD’s Sonic Boom (Ending Version) (one of the few exceptions where songs with singing didn’t throw me off)…

But the very last track that played as I finished the original Gem Ascension trilogy? 

To the Moon - from Ducktales Remastered. Though honestly, I was cycling between that, the original version, and this amazing orchestral fan remix.

…. I didn’t expect that answer to be nearly as complex as it became. Uh, enjoy the music selection that inspired GA, I guess? :P

[murfeelee]

My Top 10 Games of All Time

I saw this games list on my dash, but I felt it was dated, so here we are:

10. Tetris

I don’t like puzzle games and platform games and stuff. But Tetris might be one of the very first games I ever played, and to this day it’s just a ton of fun. Very nostalgic.

9. Castlevania

Vampires, medieval, bishounen, great story? Sign me up! I got into Castlevania while I was neck-deep in all things gothic and dark and creepy. It’s such a fun game! The Prince of Persia-esque mechanics with swinging from the whips and chains were freaking hard, and the dungeons were cool, and I love the out-of-place cartoony summons, that dial back the creep factor just a smidge so I don’t feel I’m trapped in Dark Souls where everything’s tryna give me a frikkin heart attack. I wanted so many more Castlevania games. But nooooo~! It’s all about effing pachinko machines now! Jim Sterling said it best: F*k Konami. >_<

8. Warriors Series

The ham and cheese of it all in this delicious sandwich of a Chinese, Japanese, and Asian mythology hack and slash series. Delicious. Tedious and predictable AF. But still delicious. Unfortunately, Koei just about tanked Dynasty Warriors with the more recent installments. U_U And it’s so hard to play the Samurai Warriors games since they bailed out on effing localizations, like thanks, that’s rude.  >_>

7. Shin Megami Tensei/Persona

I freaking luuurve how effed up and zany and twisted this dystopic cyber-ish world is. SMT and Final Fantasy have hands down the best summoning systems in games (Pokemon does NOT count), with an entire array of multicultural pantheons incorporated into the in-game universes. I swear, just researching the references they use is half the fun for me, cuz I’m that kind of nerd; sue me. :P

6. Legend of Dragoon

I never got into Final Fantasy 7 the way other folks did, cuz I was busy playing Legend of Dragoon, baby~! ^0^ The FF7 train whizzed on past me, but that was fine. I was happy right where I was. LoD’s battle mechanics were HARD, but SO good to master. I was always excited to keep progressing; the story’s one of the best I’ve EVER played (ROSE! My bish!); and the worlds and cutscenes and music were BEAUTIFUL. When TF is Legend of Dragoon getting it’s next-gen remaster with Cody Christian voice-acting Dart, Sony, huh, HUH. HUH!? >_<

5. Tomb Raider

My girl! ^0^ YES, I’m the RL archaeologist who’s never seen a single Indiana Jones movie (cuz eff ALL that racism), but you best believe I saw both the Tomb Raider movies, and played a crapton of the games! XD Gravity deaths, T-rexes, zombie samurai and all. Werk it, queen. With your double pistols. And Double-D cups.

4. Skyrim

I hate 1st-person perspective in games, in literature, everything. If they hadn’t added a 3rd person I’d’ve been like nope. But yeah, Skyrim’s freaking epic. It’s got DRAGONS, for starters, and sith lord lightning spells, and giant open worlds to explore, full of lore and magic, and one of the most amazing soundtracks of all time, and did I mention the dragons? I was so hyped for Elder Scrolls 6, but with Bethesda being frikkin INCOMPETENT lately *(*cough* Fallout 76 *cough*) I dunno about ES6 now. :\ If it stinks, I won’t be surprised. But Todd Howard KNOWS the entire community will FUS RO DAH his arse if it bombs! >_<

3. The Sims

Skyrim’s Hearthfire EP tried it, but NOTHING compares to The Sims franchise, allowing us to create our characters’ entire lives in a game. From birth, to childhood, adulthood, the elder years, death, and even afterlife, in The Sims we can control and customize every aspect of the characters’ story, to fit our own unique tastes and style. And that’s why I love TS3 the most out of the bunch, with it’s in-game Create-A-Style, open world with CAW and Edit Mode, and so much more. I wish all games had non-linear customizeable aspects where you can just sit back from the main story and quests; take a gander at your surroundings, build a house, marry that cute NPC you bumped into in the marketplace, have some babies, and let Alduin just do his thing till the next Dragonborn comes along; cuz I’m retired and living my best life in this here village; bye Felicia. 8)

2. Final Fantasy

No game franchise has ever made me cry as much and as hard as I did than while playing Final Fantasy. Holy. Crap. Their stories? THE BEST. EVER. You get seriously ATTACHED to these characters! Aerith, Angelo, Vivi, Sir Auron, Fran, Fang, the Regalia...they’re FAMILY! XD And the villains? ICONIC. Simply iconic. Eff Dark Souls; the side-bosses in FF are frikkin IMPOSSIBLE. SO dang good! And I love the touches of in-universe continuity, with Phoenix Downs, chocobos, cactuars, tonberries, airships, and the strangest fashion choices I’ve ever seen. Say what you will -- what I HAVE -- about certain polarizing entries in the series, but that’s just because we KNOW there’s a certain standard FF has, and a bar it’s classic titles have set, that you just don’t sneeze at. You just DON’T. (But FF15 was a piece of shhiiii~!)

1. THE WITCHER 3

If y’all can’t tell, I LOVE me some RPGs. Give me a set of beautiful ancient/medieval worlds to explore, full of elves and dwarves and of course MONSTERS; and protagonists with magical powers and big freaking swords, and I’m in it to win it, baby. Suffice to say: I WAS NOT READY for TW3. I STILL haven’t recovered from how good that game was! Even the MINIGAME within the actual game was legendary (Gwent had me BROKE, lemme tell you). And the Blood and Wine DLC was...like....something else; bumped it from a 10/10 to a 15/10, easy. The combat, the world building, the characters, the dialogue, the sidequests, the main plot, the MUSIC, UGH. If Netflix effs up The Witcher tv series Imma be MAAAAD.

[moistwithgender]

Monthly Media Roundup (June-July 2019)

Well, I neglected doing a post last month, and now another has passed. I haven’t done too much, about three games each month and not anything else media-wise, so let’s get it all done right now!

Little Nightmares (PC/Steam): 

These types of spooky “cinematic platformers”, like LIMBO and INSIDE, never really scare me or fill me with dread. Part of this may be that due to the trappings of cinematic platformers. Checkpoints are very fair, and nothing is too difficult because priority is on delivering the story. Little side challenges exist, like trying to light all the candles or break all the porcelain dolls in the short 3-hour run of the game, but these are also pretty reasonable, even if you’re in a chase sequence. I’m reminded of a youtuber I briefly followed who talked about how horror games aren’t scary anymore, and somewhat unintentionally delivered the point that as you become accustomed to the limits of a medium, and therefore are less likely to be surprised by it, you’re also much less likely to be scared by it. It’s a somewhat unfortunate and inevitable trade-off to becoming more invested in a hobby. When I was a kid, all games held infinite possibility, and so an NPC in Harvest Moon telling me that wild dogs came out at night led me to think that night time held the possibility of ENEMIES in a game without combat. What the NPC meant was that you should build fences. As an adult who has spent my life playing games, I can tell you that a game is almost never going to put you in a situation without the means to deal with it. If there’s going to be combat, you’re going to know how combat works before an ambush. If there’s an escape sequence, you’re going to be in an area that facilitates your escape (often a narrow space that leads you in a direction while also making it as harrowing as possible). Games are theme park rides, and while learning that can make seemingly difficult games more manageable and enjoyable, it also gradually disillusions you. Thankfully, there are always new things to learn if you keep an open mind.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS): 

2019 has been about thoroughly enjoying the games that I considered overrated in my young adulthood. I joked on twitter that 70% of my personality was disliking Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time, and honestly, it might as well have been. I earned a lot of undeserved respect in college through arrogantly spouting hot takes about “objectively good art”, and a lot of people reasonably assumed this must mean I know exactly what I’m talking about. The way I process art and media is much looser and more personal than it used to be, partially due to burning out and becoming too exhausted to deal with other arrogant people. I think a lot about how tiring I had to be for other people to talk to. Watching Tim Rogers bleed his personal trauma into his video series on the subtleties of FF7’s japanese script was the most instrumental in turning me back toward the game. When Square Enix revealed gameplay footage of the remake at E3 this year, I was hooting and hollering with the longtime fans.

But, this is about Zelda, not Final Fantasy. I had already played through OoT, as hurriedly as possible, just to say I had done it. It was the better part of a decade ago, at the urging of a then-girlfriend who had nostalgia for it. Frustrations with the Water Temple in the original version are valid despite it being largely well designed, due to some minor shortsighted-ness that blows up into nagging issues, but I think I had put myself in the headspace to dislike it from the get-go. Similarly, I didn’t want to do any collecting in the game as a whole. I had convinced myself that there was no joy to be found in collecting in games (a take bereft of nuance). When the point of Zelda games is to inspire the player to explore every nook and cranny in search of rewards, going in as a player and stubbornly trying to avoid any of that ensures that you’ll miss the point of the whole experience. I’m not sure what it was that made me want to go back. It might be that I wanted to prove my younger, cockier self wrong, and pave over my old evaluations with more nuance. 

It certainly worked out that way, as several previous opinions changed entirely. Ruto used to be annoying to me, but was now one of my favorite characters. Doing all the little minigames felt rewarding in itself, and in turn I was unexpectedly rewarded with important items (they really did bet everything on the entire world they’d made). The Water Temple, now tweaked for a bit more convenience in the 3DS version, was extremely interesting. The side quest to acquire the Biggoron Sword was easily doable, whereas I had grown up assuming it impossible. And the story which had never appealed to me (because I wouldn’t let it) now felt relatable in a way I hadn’t expected. Link intends to do good, but through unfortunate circumstances and honest mistakes becomes unable to take part in the world, and it spirals downward for years as he remains trapped in a room, aging but inactive. Something about that mirrors my own experiences with depression. Sure, Link, can travel back to his younger self at any time, but there’s still a powerlessness in the inability to affect the seven year gap. You can flash back, but you can’t change what you’ve lost.

Banjo-Kazooie (N64): 

You know, as a kid I probably would have just accepted that Grunty was evil, but as an adult it’s hard not to see her as a product of her environment. Obsessed with asking her cauldron who the objectively prettiest in the world is, she seeks out and kidnaps the younger girl given the title in an attempt to steal her youth. Every character in the game describes Grunty as ugly, rather than evil, and even her own sister shows up in every area to tell you how gross she is and how terrible her lifestyle is. I ended up sympathizing with her more than anyone else. I’ve only played half an hour of Banjo-Tooie, but it was a relief in multiple ways to see her pivot to straight up murder after rising from the dead.

Despite playing Donkey Kong Country multiple times growing up, I’d never really grown to love Rare’s in-house aesthetic of big-eyed cartoony animals. It might be hypocritical, but Smash Ultimate’s reveals for both King K. Rool and Banjo (and) Kazooie made me see the charm in these characters. Something about how Smash canonizes characters as essential pieces of game history always causes me to drop any negative pretense and adopt them as favorites. It’s a little intellectually hypocritical, but I can’t help liking what I like. After the trailer for B-K in Smash, I immediately started up the original game in Retroarch. Thankfully the core I used was advanced enough to play the game without issues (the same cannot be said for Tooie), as other alternatives were expensive or hard to get a hold of. While the slightly-mean humor and talking animate objects took a bit of getting used to, I get it now. I get the children’s show aesthetic they were aiming for, and I appreciate the feel of the physics and control of the interspecies friendship of the protagonists working in tandem with each other, even if the game is at times quite difficult.

Dragon Quest I, II, & III (SNES): 

Yes, I did play through three JRPGs in a row! And yes, you might notice that the hero of Dragon Quest XI (and VIII, and IV, and III) was also announced for Smash Ultimate. They recently released, as of this writing! A lot of what I’ve been playing has been influenced by outside forces, whether it be Nintendo news or friends, but I’m not bothered at all when otherwise I might not have the energy to play anything. The games I’ve been playing are also ones I’ve intended to play for a while, so the excuses have been convenient for me. Though, actually, this decision had less to do with the Smash announcement and more to do with the upcoming re-release of DQXI, which seems to be related to the original three games, known as The Erdrick Trilogy. I had heard that you can play XI on its own, but that there is an extra layer of appreciation to be had if you’ve played the original trilogy. Me being me, I naturally queued them up. I chose the older fan translations of the SNES remakes, and though I did finish them, I can tell you that they have their fair share of bugs (DQII even has a game breaking glitch I had to finagle through using save states across multiple versions, phew). Besides that, those old translations lack the modern localizations of the games, so if they namedrop something in XI, there’s a chance it’ll go over my head. Oops! If you want to play these games, the best versions are currently on mobile phones.

Around a decade ago I was in early college, with no friends except for those still in high school or at another university. I was very lonely and nervous. I started playing Dragon Quest V purely by chance, and it served as the perfect salve for that loneliness, with its lonely child protagonist traveling around the world accumulating found family. It’s one of the more poignant and cathartic JRPGs I’ve ever played, and for the next decade I would actually be bothered that the rest of the games didn’t live up to the catharsis of DQV.

In revisiting the roots of the series, and playing it through to see how it develops from title to title, it finally clicked with me, and continues to click with me, as I keep learning more about the series. Rather than comparing every entry to DQV, I should have been comparing them in order. This might sound obvious, but it really did make a world of difference to see that V’s narrative is placed on top of the foundation the previous games set, rather than a singular case of lightning in a bottle. And the games have always featured loneliness, but in differing contexts, and to different degrees. The hero of DQI is almost entirely alone through the full game. In DQII, the princess comes from lonely circumstances, and one of the princes comes down with a sickness that leaves him temporarily unable to help his friends. In DQIII you can make as many team members as you want, but you grow up with an absent father, and your own good deeds receive bittersweet resolution. They are all games built on simple settings and followed through with empathy. The series is at times disarmingly heavy, which is part of what makes the games as memorable as they are. You’re never quite as prepared for Dragon Quest as you think you are.

As of this writing I’m currently half-way through a replay of Dragon Quest IV, and I’m enjoying it a lot more. I’m looking forward to replaying V. I have no idea what VI will be like. I’ve heard it’s a lower point in the series, but that’s what I heard about II as well, and I ended up loving it, so who knows. Dragon Quest is good.

---

Well, I managed to catch up. I didn’t get into the finer details of the DQ playthroughs, but DQIII is honestly so good I don’t want to spoil it for anyone (you should play these games). Maybe in August I’ll actually get back to watching and reading things. Maybe I’ll try to keep these things to a single paragraph per item, to make it more manageable to read. Let me know what you think, if you think.

[nautilusopus]

How come after FF7 Cloud and Tifa live in some dinky bar in some cobbled together slum city instead of the huge mansion on the beach that Cloud bought

Gameplay and story segregation. Realistically speaking, there aren’t really any good in-universe reasons for Cloud to have millions of gil in the first place (as mentioned, the chocobo thing would have taken years at least to get going and was run by Shinra in the first place, and random-ass animals having thousands in cash on them that you can farm infinitely and not break the economy completely isn’t exactly diegetic). Not to mention, just straight up bailing to a beach house after the complete collapse of the government in the middle of an energy crisis and epidemic (the former of which they technically caused) isn’t exactly the best look.

That said, it is useful shorthand for when a fic was written, since prior to Edge being around Costa del Sol was the standard postgame setting, assuming you subscribed to the idea that everyone survived the immediate aftermath, and not just humanity in general possibly. 

[feotakahari]

Otherkin, DID, and Acceptable Targets

I apologize if this post makes Rogan throw up in his mouth a little. The rhetoric I’m quoting gets pretty ugly.

Today there was another post on Fandom Secrets about how otherkin are crazy and we shouldn’t be normalizing them. As usual, people responded with posts about how fictionkin are crazy, and as usual, people responded to those posts with posts about how people with DID are crazy and should be “treated.”

There’s a lot I could dig into about the different conflations various posters made, and the ways in which they assumed particular traits existed across every single member of the groups they discussed. But for now, I want to assume a system with almost every trait they discussed. Some members are otherkin, some are fictionkin, they believe in reincarnation, they believe in parallel universes, etc. Should this system be treated differently compared to “everyday” people? And what factors do you use to judge how to treat them?

I’m all about boundaries, so I’ll bring out one specific post in that thread:

“My crazy abusive ex was part of the mpd/did and -kin community. And I used to be friends with a few people who were basically FF7 House, except with slightly different fandoms. “Holy fuck it's amazing how many of these people are absolute manipulative pieces of shit. I will never not consider it anything but a cult. Yeah, I met a couple who were legitimately nice people who knew they had a serious mental illness / weird coping mechanism. (Amazingly, they all stayed on the ragged fringe of the community bc admitting you have a problem and trying to fix it so you can live a normal life isn't exactly popular in a cult.) But far too many of them were full-on Join Us or Die. And these weren't confused teens, these were adults. “They take young, fucked-up kids who need help and support, and instead use that confusion and isolation against them. The reason you don't have friends and your family abuses you is bc you're Special, you're the fucking Moon Princess. And all you have to do to get "friends" and a community where you belong and an explanation for your fucked up head is to admit that you aren't really you. “And of course, it can't just stop at pretending to be something on the internet. All of these community leaders are 'out', so maybe this young person feels like they should be out too. So they out themselves as some crazy shit to their family and friends and of course no one understands, which isolates them further. And because so many of that subculture are mentally ill, it give the manipulative abusers tons of easy fodder.”

Personally, I have never talked to anyone who told me I was a wolf. No one has ever told me I’m Sephiroth, or an elf, or psychically linked to hobbits on the astral plane. That’s why I can get along with otherkin and fictionkin. I don’t believe what they believe, but I probably believe tons of things they think are silly, too.

But every time I see an account of otherkin and fictionkin being absolute jackasses, it always starts with some troubled young person being told they, too, were otherkin or fictionkin. And for that matter, I’ve read about disgraced psychologists who made up DID diagnoses and then controlled their patients’ lives to “treat” them. I can’t argue that all recruiters are abusers, but at the very least, abusers like to recruit. 

If I may go broader, this is the distinction I make for all sorts of things I don’t believe in. The religious fanatic doesn’t just believe God wants things from him; he believes God wants things from me, and by not doing those things, I’m going against the will of God. The conspiracy theorist believes the conspiracy controls not just the world she lives in, but the world I live in as well, and conversely, I believe the global warming denier’s continued pollution affects my world as well as his. Only from an anti-vaxxer do I not accept “Well, you can vaccinate your kids and I won’t vaccinate mine,” and that’s because I’m sickly and can’t take some vaccines.

I welcome all sorts of comment on this. I realize that my live-and-let-live approach isn’t the only means of judgment, and I’d like to see what other people think. Just try not to be a total dick, since some of my followers are multiple.

[an-inspired-eternity]

the original blorbo for the ask game. cloud ff7.

favorite thing about them: i am so normal about his entire character arc throughout the game (lie) i don’t know if that’s a susceptible answer but genuinely one of the things i love about cloud so much is his growth as a character throughout the game and his recovery in disc 2. i love him. i love cloud strife so much you don’t understa- 

least favorite thing about them: i genuinely don’t know actually. because alot of the moments where he acts noticeably out of line are related to. he is so mentally illinois. so to judge him based on those seems a little unfair?? i guess how stubborn and closed off he is at the start of the game but again i know why he’s like that 

favorite line from them: “I’m.. Cloud. The master of my own illusionary world. But I can’t remain trapped in an illusion anymore.. I’m going to live my life without pretending.” <-- basically that entire thing he says after he finally rejoins the party in disc 2 but i can’t find the full thing on hand 

brotp: cloud and yuffie are the siblings of all time and you cannot argue against me on this bc i have been in this fandom for 10 years and i have objectively correct opinions on all the characters because of it

otp: in a perfect scenario where eveything is right in the world cloud tifa zack and aerith would b poly. no ship wars theyre all dating

notp: notp is too strong a word for me in this scenario frankly but i'm not big on cloud and sephiroth. i get it. but its not for me

random headcanon: i believe there are chocobo girls in the ff universe instead of horse girls. and it is my belief that cloud is a chocobo girl. and being a horse girl isn’t a gender it’s a feeling but also cloud has transgender swag. hope this helps 

unpopular opinion: not to be on this again and this goes for all four of them frankly but oh my god cloud has enough love in his heart for tifa aerith and zack please for the love of god this game is twenty something years old we have moved past the need for ship wars please stop trending on twitter bc of ship drama please please pl

song i associate with them: uhhh this isnt the end all be all of cloud songs but ‘everything i ever thought i knew’ from the tangled tv show is so. him vibes

favorite picture of them: everytime he’s on screen to give an actual picture this whole sequence of cloud and aerith hanging out together at her house in remake is cute :)