#whereas ringabel has

[captwaddledoo]

Of course it could be a case where I'm forgetting everything I ever shipped and there are ships I like more than what I listed

However I'm usually a hardcore same gender shipper lol

[invertedfate]

What are your thoughts on a Frisk/Lilac pairing? Are you opposed to the idea?

Frisk and Lilac iiiis an interesting case of being murky in terms of how I feel about it. I personally see them as a bit more sibling-like, but also there was an undeniable toxicity/codependency that was never quite resolved- honestly, they kinda wound up being a parallel to the way Chara and Asriel's dynamic pre-death, right down to Frisk pushing Lilac into a plan she was uncomfortable with and her getting hurt in the process.

So in my mind, them being romantic is shaky because when it's come to hashing out backstory details with them, it was always a case of like, "Are they basically found family type sibling dynamic, or is it a childhood besties/possible first crush scenario?" At this point, I lean the former, but since the comic only has so much in terms of content for them right now (that being Frisk's flashback, the two secret pages with Lilac, and recent stuff), I'm definitely not gonna scold or yell at anyone who thought the idea of them is cute. Y’all aren’t mind readers, and I don’t like the aggression that stuff can bring anyway.

I'd say it's iffy for me in the same way Charisk is uncomfortable for a lot of people in the fandom due to how many people prefer Frisk as part of the Dreemurr fam, whereas I personally feel like that should be taken on a work-by-work basis due to the existence of places to go and other in-game choices. Ftr, I totally get why folks feel this way, though in IF's case, Frisk and Chara did not form a sibling bond, and Frisk is going to end up staying with Papyrus, which certainly helps avoid some awkward shit (tho may not please everyone in that area). And despite me not going in with ships in mind, they ended up having a really cute dynamic that appealed to tons of my readers and got my neurodivergent brain goin' "this is now a cute, G-rated comfort thing. >:|" Only in the context of this AU- please, please don't ship Charisk in AUs that do have 'em as siblings. That's a big nope. D:

But also, I'm the kinda person who doesn't expect people to like all the things I do, and hell. My favorite Kingdom Hearts ship is Riku and Kairi. Antipode ships Ringabel from Bravely Default with Aqua completely on accident despite BD characters never being in the actual KH games, and Ven and Sora ended up with accidental chemistry there too. :P I'd be a huge hypocrite if I said people can only like the canon or accidentally shipteased stuff in Inverted Fate.

Frisk and Lilac just sits in a place where I just dunno, y'know? And I dunno how I should feel when for over two years, the specificity of their dynamic has been left kinda vague. Though I will say, if there is one IF Frisk ship outside of the usual suspects (e.g. Fr*ns and shit) that I'm really not comfortable with, iiit's Frisk and Asriel. Not keen on the idea of Frisk falling for someone who manipulated and traumatized them, plus the murkiness of Flowey's mental age. Like w/ Charisk, this applies specifically to IF- I'm not trying to attack it in other non-sibling contexts, even if it's not my thing.

But yeah. I just dunno when it comes to Frisk and Lilac. It probably doesn't help that the chapters where she interacts with Frisk aren't out yet, so there's a lot you guys have yet to see. Plus with Lilac being adopted into a whole different family, it's also just "what do we classify them as???" Does it count as inc*st vibes at that point? Genuine question here. :( Especially as a csa/inc*st survivor I don't wanna seem insensitive, y'know? I don’t like shipping adoptive siblings, and Ch*sriel is a big nope for me, and since Frisk and Lilac feel parallel to that in some respects, it’s just ???.

Also, apparently some people crackship IF Berdly and Frisk. And also Berdly and Lilac. This amuses me immensely.

[megaderping]

I love Bravely Default a lot... but at the same time, I can’t help but feel like Bravely Second fixed a lot of its problems? I dunno. Lots of mixed feelings. BD has my favored party. I LOVE Ringabel to bits. I love Luxendarc, the conflict between the Crystal Orthodoxy and Eternia. The slow reveal that the ideals the party relished weren’t so cut and dry. BD has a LOT of great ideas. Airy as an antagonist? GOOD STUFF because of how emotionally charged her conflict is with Ringabel... But then there’s a lot of little things that bug me, like the miscommunications with the asterisk holders like Einheria and Kamiizumi ultimately leading to their deaths (in at least the main world). Sure, they’re alive in Second, but it’s tonally jarring how Praline lives yet the members of the Eternian Forces who were more reasonable and less outright evil than the likes of Qada and DeRosa have a fight to the death with only vague warnings that what the party is doing is wrong. It sorta feels like the Airy reveal is dragged out a bit too long in some regards? Like... again, I adore Bravely Default as a game AND a story. But if Braev had just been upfront about the situation, a lot of this could’ve been avoided, too. My other issue is... I think chapters 7 - 8 were unnecessary, and I kinda feel like Airy should’ve been the big bad? Ouroboros has an AWESOME fight and I love how hype-worthy it is to have all these worlds coming together to help in the end. It’s an immensely engaging experience and I DO love the true end chapter overall. But I look at Bravely Second, which trimmed SO much fat. You aren’t repeating large portions of the game again and again- you go back ONCE. That’s it. And even then, it derails a lot from the initial run. I think what could’ve been done is like... keep Chapter 5, but add in more unique elements. Maybe make some of the group asterisk fights from chapters 7/8 happen here instead. Make Chapter 6 the last chapter before the climax. Its Conjurer sidequest? Thematically appropriate with the choice given at the end of the game in terms of which world to return to. That’d require some retooling for the ending, since I’m not sure making the break crystals approach the true ending would be as satisfying. But I do think, at the very least, trimming the game’s progression would’ve helped some. To me it’s like... BD chapters 1 - 4? Love ‘em. Chapter 6 sidequest? NEAT. True Ending chapter? VERY HYPE, but Ourboros just didn’t engage as a character as much as an obstacle to overcome whereas Airy was both. Providence is an interesting case because while he’s only introduced at the end, there’s still the stuff with Vega going on, plus the MIND SCREW that is the interface hijacking that makes for an extremely memorable conclusion. That title screen segment of the fight was so chilling my first playthrough. I’d say... both BD and B2nd have their perks? But B2nd did a lot to improve on the more tedious aspects of BD, even if I favor BD’s party. Because BD has Ringabel. :P

[chacusha]

FFVI live-blogging (1/?)

While I wait for all my game consoles and my PC to make their way here, I decided I would replay Final Fantasy VI on an emulator. In particular, I’m trying out the GBA edition for the very first time. Exciting!

Little known fact: I have never finished FFVI despite it being one of my favorite games. I have probably started a new game and played through a significant portion of the story about five or six times (the farthest I got was the World of Ruin after having re-collected most of party again i.e. able to fight Kefka at any point but still dicking around with sidequests).

Followup fact: This is because there are some aspects of this game that I struggle with because I’m really obsessive about how I play games. In particular, the magicite/Esper system is really hard for me to deal with, because I obsessively try to make sure every person in my party builds up a fairly complete repertoire of magic, which takes an insane amount of grinding. (And then I don’t really use magic other than healing spells, so uh... I don’t know why I do that.) The second thing is Gau’s Rage skills. I also get really obsessive about building up a fairly complete collection, which usually involves HOURS of grinding on the Veldt (an activity that doesn’t even give EXP, apparently? somehow I never realized that...).

So anyway, I’m now at the point where Terra rejoins your party after turning into her esper form (and Celes is back in the empire). In other words, I am now at the point where I have a new flood of magicite and the Veldt is newly accessible again and uh... it might be a while before I move on. 😅

Anyway some thoughts:

One thing I like about the early Final Fantasy games is how obviously inspired they are by Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, and I think FFVI is the game that makes that inspiration most clear. The story framing of a small group of people (each of them a distinguished person in their own right -- a king, a general, the strongest knight of a kingdom, a gambling airship pilot, etc. etc.) band together to take down an expansionist empire against all odds, even if that means sneaking behind enemy lines to carry out a dangerous mission. (I forever love Biggs and Wedge, and the “Aren’t you a little short to be an Imperial trooper?” line.)

I love the maximally steampunk aesthetic of Figaro Castle going into submerging mode.

Edgar is a very similar character to Ringabel -- charming and flirts with every woman in a kind of gallant way. Despite how that kind of behavior would be irritating in real life (and occasionally crosses into sketchy territory, like when flirting with children), they are both perennially popular characters among women. I find that fascinating. Like, I also know I’d find that behavior annoying if I encountered it in real life, but I also really enjoy both of these characters??

The reveal of Locke’s literal dead girlfriend in a basement will never not be amazingly hilarious, creepy, and very sad all at the same time.

Guy in Jidoor: “After they threw out all the poor people in town...” Me: After they did what now? (Not sure how I feel about the class politics of “all the poor people are pathological liars” that is Zozo. Then again, they also had a “rich dude betrayed everyone in South Figaro to fascists the empire for money” so maybe that makes up for it.)

The opera scene is still A+++. Like, one of the things that make it so great is that the sets (like the balcony that Celes is on) would be crazy amazing if they actually existed in real life. Like, imagine going to the opera, and they have this amazing multi-level tower, complete with a balcony, pillars, and a beautiful night sky backdrop. You’d be like, holy shit, they didn’t hold back!!

Having played FFIX, I now can see how much of FFVI is in that game. The theatre troupe, the auction house, the lady-protecting thief, etc. are all very familiar.

The scene with Celes and Locke in the Magitek Factory (where Kefka claims that Celes was on the Empire’s side the entire time) reads differently to me than it did in the SNES version for some reason. I always thought that Celes was obviously what she appeared to be (a deserting general) and that Locke’s “omg is it true, Celes?? 😧” reaction was just him being dumb/gullible. But during this playthrough, this scene makes it seem like Celes actually WAS meant to infiltrate the Returners and she had a change of heart halfway through. I think the reasons it reads differently are (1) that there isn’t as much flavor text that indicates Celes’s character or personality (the SNES description of Celes having “a spirit as pure as snow” makes it sound like she deserted the Empire because she could no longer stand its crimes, but the more accurate GBA description that people have never seen the woman that lies underneath the general simply suggests that she is hard to read AKA a good spy), and (2) Kefka’s more detailed claim that Celes “deserted” and was “rescued” in order to infiltrate the Returners seems too specific for him to be making that up on the fly. I wonder if that was the writers’ intention, though... Okay, wow, looking up information on the FF Wikia and comparing game scripts, and I think spy!Celes is canon: “Celes was originally meant to be a ‘conflicted spy’ archetype—a spy working for the antagonists, but swayed by the benevolence of the people she was supposed to be spying on and how nice Locke was to her.” Woolsey translation: Cid: Can it be true that you came here as a spy, seeking to cause an uprising!? Locke: !? Celes...? Kefka: So that's it! Magicite... Cid, you miserable blockhead! Now... General Celes!! The game's over. Bring me those Magicite shards! Locke: Celes! You... decieved me!? Celes: Of course not! Have a little faith! Kefka: G'hee, hee, hee! She has tricked you all! Celes, that's so... YOU! Celes: Locke... Please believe me... GBA translation: Cid: Is it true you worked your way in amongst the rebels as a spy? Locke: ...!? Celes...? Kefka: Oh, I see! Magicite...! Excellent work, Cid! General Celes! We needn't keep up the charade any longer. Bring me those magicite crystals! Locke: Celes! You...tricked us!? Celes: Of course not! Please, trust me! Kefka: Hee-hee-hee! The sweet taste of betrayal! Oh, Celes! That's so...you! Celes: Locke... Believe me... (Cid’s line is no longer ambiguous which side Celes is spying for. Coming from Cid (a more reliable character than Kefka), the story that Celes is a spy is not so easily dismissed. Kefka is also so unruffled at encountering Celes in a secure empire facility that it just doesn’t seem like he’s improvising either...)

I love the Maduin flashback. I don’t know if it’s significantly different/pared down in the English SNES version or what, but those scenes never really stuck with me before... But seeing them this playthrough? OMG the feels. First, the ominous esper music playing throughout is so Atmospheric and Foreboding. You really get the feeling that the events depicted changed the fate of the world. (Also, it reminds me of this track from the Sailor Moon RPG, which is also a great track.) Second, Madeline is such a clear and striking character given how little screentime she has. The one trait she most clearly has is, like, a misanthropic hatred of humanity. And throughout her scenes, you get this really strong impression that she’s really fierce, bitter, and almost... thorny? Like really hard to get close to -- a determined loner. Third, the Maduin/Madeline relationship -- first off, I appreciate the metaphorical sex scene where they dance/fly around a cave together and drop two sparkles that combine to form a baby. Second, that last scene where Madeline kind of foolishly runs off and Maduin chases after her and they have this “you’re being a dummy” “I know” “let’s go home” kind of tender moment before EVERYTHING GOES WRONG. Ouch my heart.

Also, it strikes me that Terra and Aerith are very parallel characters -- half-human, half-supernatural race, captured and experimented on as a baby, mom dies trying to save her, etc.

Also, I find Gestahl a very unsettling character. I feel like Kefka is the Voldemort or Bellatrix of Final Fantasy VI -- unstable, weird, very over-the-top, god complex villain who screams “eeeeevil” with his design -- while Gestahl is the Umbridge of Final Fantasy VI -- civil, polite, reasonable, functional, and yet utterly uncaring and dismissive of other people’s concerns. Whereas with the Kefka type, you’re like, “who would follow this person?” and don’t feel threatened, Gestahl is not only a person people would follow; he’s a person many people already ARE. That’s scary to me.