#for context i was hashing out plot points

[silverskye13]

Duality of man

[spent all morning planning a really nice, happy scene for the characters]

[spent all afternoon planning a horrible, evil, perilous scene for the characters]

[iasmelaion]

uuuggghhhhh Steve's stupid Endgame characterization/ending really is the "gift" that keeps on giving!! Currently hung up on this WIP that isn't even about him because I finally need to make the call one way or another: stick with canon, or fix it? And if I do fix it, how much? For plot purposes, I do at the least need him to hand the shield over to Sam and seem to have stayed in the past. In other fics, I've just had him come back, but in this one, Steve's choices are a hinge upon which Sam and Bucky's reactions and characterizations swing. How Steve acts in this post-battle, pre-old man Steve scene, determines how they react.

I've done my best to seed in hints that Steve might do something like go to the past and stay there, but man, being faced with actually having to make that bit of canon work makes it clear that this is just--a fundamental characterization thing that I struggle with a lot. Steve going back to the past and staying there is a characterization choice that ripples back to how you characterize him from the start, it impacts how you write his relationships with Sam & Bucky, and frankly, I have never entirely seen how you get from Point A (CATFA & CATWS Steve) to Point WTF (Post-battle Endgame Steve). The best I've ever been able to manage has been that the Blip really extremely fucked Steve up.

And again, this is not even what the fic is about! I'm ending this fic at the end of FATWS! So even if I do fix it in terms of "surprise, Steve's just lost in the timestream, he'll be back!" that's not something I'm planning to address in the fic. but like, it feels bad. It feels cheap if I do fix it like that, it feels like it trivializes some of the Sam & Bucky angst I intend to indulge in. It also feels bad if I don't fix it! But also, this is fic. Who cares if it's cheap or self-indulgent or wtfever. That's kind of the whole point. I can absolutely have my angst cake and eat it too.

Really, I just resent having to deal with Endgame Steve's characterization at all, tbh, especially when it comes to having to hash out what it means for Sam and Steve's friendship. Because as awful as Steve leaving Bucky behind is, there are still ways it can make sense in the context of their relationship. Sad ways, sure, but there's some canonical support for Steve and Bucky having actually talked about it, at least a little bit.

Sam and Steve though? Sam just gets handed an enormous responsibility he never asked for, along with some nice platitudes from the old man version of Steve, and as far as we know, that's it. No support, no follow through, just here's the shield, bye. Which is fine, I guess, if you assume Sam and Steve weren't actually ever all that close at all. But, well. I have never assumed that. I don't think I've written that, in the context of this fic. So...feels bad, man.

I guess a perfectly cromulent solution for my fic is to just...let it feel bad. let my characters struggle with it, leave it as this shitty thing Steve did, leave it as something they can't quite square with the Steve they knew. Because five years of the apocalypse turned him into a Steve they didn't know. idk.

I'm really proud of this fic, I've loved writing it, except for this one stupid thing that is having to deal with stupid Endgame canon, which presents so many characterization and even just logistical things for me to struggle with. (like, as an aside, wtf at the way everyone seems to have canonically abandoned/forgotten about Wanda?? don't intend on going there in my fic, but this presents a characterization issue for steve and sam! why did they bail on their presumed teammate and friend!)

[mikkeneko]

This post got me thinking about plagiarism as applicable to fandom works, and how like many other things that used to be topics of common discussion and common understanding in fandom, no longer are. Got me thinking that perhaps a touchstone on the topic would not go amiss.

Obligatory disclaimers: I am not an IP lawyer, nor a BNF, nor any kind of authority on matters; I am only familiar with copyright and IP conventions in the United States; and I am speaking from the perspective of "I was present for the discussions that hashed this out in excruciating detail in the _journal days, and this was my takeaway from those discussions."

WHAT PLAGIARISM IS:

1) The direct copying of actual text, that is to say the exact same words in the exact same order, from a source text, republished in an independent context without permission or acknowledgement that the text is copied, without acknowledging the original author, or by claiming to be the original author. 2) A dick move. 3) Grounds for specific retaliatory actions in specific communities, i.e., an academic setting or an archive, which may choose to reject a plagiarized work or expel a member of the community found to have done it.

WHAT PLAGIARISM IS NOT:

1) Illegal, in the sense of being punishable by legal action. 2) Using some of the same words, in sort of similar order to the original text. 3) Using the same title as a different text. 4) Using the same story setup as a different text. 5) Using the same characters, settings, plot elements, or narrative arcs as another text. 6) Translating a text into another language. 7) Reading, saving a copy of a work to your hard drive for re-reading, printing a copy for hardcopy reading, etc. 8) Copying out sections of a text in a comment, or as an excerpt to accompany a work in a promotional post. 9) Using a work as reference material. 10) The only kind of dick move there is.

Thousands of hours of round and round debate boil down to this: You cannot own an idea, but you can own the actual words that you write, and you own those words by default, without needing to take any specific actions to that end. (Proving that you own the words is something that you might, under some circumstances, need to take action to do, but really only if someone else tries to stick their oar in to claim ownership for some reason, which is one of the reasons why plagiarism is A Dick Move: forcing people to defend ownership when they shouldn't have to is inconveniencing and unpleasant.)

Even then, there's a fair amount of wiggle room on the topic of Actual Text which falls under fair use. For instance, if you reference a line or several lines of canon dialogue from a book because you are retelling the scene from a different perspective, that is generally considered fair use, but copying the actual text of the entire scene would not be. By the same token if you had a line referencing canon dialogue in your fic, and another person references the same line of dialogue in their own fic, the other person is not plagiarizing you. And if two people in completely separate fandoms reference the same Hozier lyric as a title for their separate fics, that is not plagiarism either.

I also said that plagiarism is not illegal, because strictly speaking it's not. It's an extremely rude thing to do, but it doesn't become illegal in the sense of being punishable by legal action until a lot of other factors start coming into play, most of them having to do with money. At which point the objectionable action is usually not described as "plagiarism" but as "copyright infringement" or other more legally granular terms. (You'll note that I said up above that you cannot own an idea; whether you can own a specific implementation of a character or a setting is another matter, and where IP law starts getting really into the weeds. But this post is only about plagiarism, not copyright infringement.)

Generally speaking, you can't get the law on your side unless you can pose a reasonable argument that the other person's actions have harmed you in some way, including some financial way. This last distinction is the primary reason why fandom creativity has stuck out as long as it has despite our society's (historically speaking) very restrictive IP laws; IP holders are not losing money to sales if fanfic authors are not selling, and they are not losing reputation or recognition if the fanwork is not seeing wide reach.

WHAT ABOUT AI?

That said, there's an awful lot of breadth between what is considered outright illegal and what is considered a really rude thing to do which may start seeing social penalties accrued. Which is why scraping someone else's Actual Text and doing something like feeding it into an AI bot without their consent is an incredibly rude and unpleasant thing to do, even if it does not fall under the definition of Literal Plagiarism, and if a person does this a lot and word gets out about it, that person may find themselves very unwelcome in the community.

[imperial-nuisance-rudje]

if you click the unrebloggable red catboy haterade readmore it's your own damn fault

i am so tired of people trying to defend g'raha's writing in ew

"they're capable of subtlety" switching between being a manipulative asshole and the writer's most perfect prince who can never do wrong and is the wol's bestest friend 5ever (don't look at shb) and never allowing the player/other characters to say "dude wtf" at the former is not "subtle writing", it's complete lack of awareness that the character is being an asshole

like it was bad enough that the writers forced you to be buddy-buddy with him in shb with only a token option of expressing mild distaste , doing that and also making it very clear that he's still a manipulative shithead (because if he was meant to trying to put on a brave face they would have had a "dude wtf" line where he would have apologized in the post-credits, not acted like the promise made under duress was still valid) is just bad fucking writing given that on the other side of the corridor is zenos, who they constantly deny even acknowledgement of his humanity

you can try to compare it to urianger's writing but uri's writing never flinches away from the fact that he's being a fucker when he's being a fucker even when played for comedy, and they still have this gaping gap of not touching the fact that urianger functionally killed thancred's foster daughter/little sister onscreen (while they probably would have realistically hashed it out over like 3 years, you really don't get to see any of that at all so it's very strained; even having thancred still kind of mad before he gets snatched and having the more cordial relationship we normally see during shb would have communicated that better).

idk. so much of ew is just written really damn poorly (even parts that, in isolation, i find acceptable to actively enjoyable (ie the 6.0 zenos cutscenes) end up falling flat in context) because of external factors forcing the sardine treatment for plot points and i'm tired of seeing people pretend that it's not. i can't exactly compare the gameplay side well given i started in 6.0, but i can break down the writing just fine and ew's fucking dire even if you consider how heavily i weigh 4.2-4.3 against stb.

i really hope they sideline the scions besides krile (or tataru, but i think she's probably going to live in side content for a while and krile has been badly neglected for so long). i don't want to interact with g'raha again anytime soon but especially not if his writing remains this bad. either acknowledge that he can be an asshole and let me be colder to him or stop bringing him up, i'm fine hating major recurring characters if they're actually well written (asahi, varis, thordan) and the catboy isn't at this point, and even when he was better-written there was still the major problem of "let me call him a dick or at least untrustworthy you pricks".

"what about estinien don't you like him" if they just have him being a weird hungry vagrant that only shows up sometimes to be deeply strange and get mobbed by baby mamool ja that is ideal, actually, i love when he's a bit of a freak. or they could have him get adopted by another fancy prince, having him repeatedly reel in powerful fancy prince types with the power of

dragon autism

would be the funniest shit on the planet.

but like. i want a break from even the scions i like, barring maybe the twins, and the twins are best when i don't have to refer to them as a unit, yknow? i want new people to take center stage. i'm not going to get that given the trailer, but god. please. make this the erenville-and-wuk lamat show with cameos by the scions and not the other way around. they can come back in 8.0.

(plus, doing that might mean we don't have the fifth expansion straight of y'shtola death fakeouts (i counted: arr/hw (given timing it's hard for me to define where catgirl blunt best belongs), stb (vs Zenos), shb (sailor moon catgirl), ew (ultima thule)). i am so fucking tired of her fakeouts. do literally anything else with her as a character i BEG OF YOU. we all know you aren't killing Miss Final Fantasy 14. her fans would flay you. the merch sales would plummet.)

[koreandragon]

alright finished squid game 2. i have some thoughts! like overall i enjoyed it it’s been a hot minute since a drama has made me want to sit down and binge it, im siwan is my baby and i will never complain about seeing wi hajoons hot ass on my screen, but if i wanted to put on my media literacy cap and think critically …

it felt like season 1 had purpose. the critique of capitalism, the desperation of poverty, the enjoyment of suffering for (white) vips, etc etc. whereas this season just felt … tacked on. i also think it suffers the catching fire treatment of rehashing the plot of the first (like literally just repeating the games) like the stakes are lost!! i don’t think there was much development in terms of plot or gihuns character. tbh if i were writing the show, i would have him more suspicious. have him distrust his friend (jaebyung? something like that) bc in s1 of being betrayed by sangwoo. and he toootally should have figured out inho was lying and suspect of another worker being in the games (like the pseudonym was literally 001, i mean cmon).

anyways those are my hashed thoughts! overall i mean yeah i had decent fun, i just don’t think it had much of an impact (whereas survival shows like alice in borderland did WONDERS in terms of developing the plot and message in s2) and it def does feel that the director was made to continue the drama for international popularity.

okay i'm gonna defend it a bit because i think it's a much needed context that they decided to split the second part into s2 and s3 because the episode count would've been too high for one season. this is what hwang dong hyuk said "I originally envisioned seasons 2 and 3 as a single story," he says. "That's how I wrote it. But in the process, it came out to be too many episodes." so i think that's why narratively s2 kind of suffered from being the set up season for the finale. i remember when they ended the finale on that scene and i was kind of confused like ?? that's it?? but it makes sense knowing this

i've seen people say gihun should've been more suspicious but i don't agree, not only because that would've taken the fun out of it (for me at least), i don't think it would've made sense either. like why would he think that the guy with the same player number oh ilnam had would once again be an inside man? inho was doing his best to make himself likeable to the point that i actually started liking him a bit even though i knew who he was. he never did anything to make them doubt his loyalty so even if gihun was suspicious at the start, his suspicions would have been mollified during the course of the games. as for his friend jongbae, i think he was closer to him than sangwoo who he hasn't seen in a while before the start of the games. also you gotta trust some people at least. and it's also important that gihun doesn't become too jaded or loses his faith in humanity as to push everyone else away from him and become paranoid because then the game makers would've broken him. but that's my thoughts!

personally i think they fumbled junho this season, he basically did nothing but float around on a boat the whole time, but all in all i enjoyed it, we had some fun new characters and i think it's leading up to a bigger pay off in s3.

[littleladymab]

oh you know i want something davey/theo <3

I'm also tagging @jadeoxfordrose in this because they restrained themselves on requesting davey/theo lmao

GOSH WHERE TO BEGIN beyond just me sitting with my head in my hands because i love them??

You know, one of the things about my time in FTL is that the format of it never let me dig into histories and relationships in a way that satisfied me. I did lose the scope of Davey being a Hamlet but a vlogger pretty early on, but I do think that given the chance, I would have really wanted to dig into the perceived madness of him being able to hear spirits because of the broken reticulum, and then actually present his relationship to Theo in that setting as, well, literally anything than something Jade and I ostensibly made real off camera in chat. We joked about Theo being his Horatio, but what does that mean, really, in this context where we didn't actually get to fully see them be friends or have any history together before this?

(this is because I'm terrible at making space for myself at a table so truly I only have myself to blame)

So saying, I think it WOULD be kind of neat to do a full hamlet inspired story using them, but honestly, I don't actually have brain power to hash out a coherent plot and then write it.

Instead I do actually more enjoy the karma verse version of them because there's something about Davey getting to be mundane when in these other settings he's something important -- a lost prince, an orator, etc. He's not the special one in that setting, not compared to like any of the other people he interacted with over the course of that, but I love him being the one person that the supernatural reached out to and then brushed off, especially because he made it his job for so long to be The Supernatural Guy!

And then that's where Theo comes in! Like, Theo coming into his life at a point where he's retiring from the Personality scene and learning how to be a person of his own again and Theo being there to be the person who holds him together when the version of himself he marketed and the character version that everyone else saw starts to finally crumble and flake away!! OUGH NOW THAT'S LOVE, BAYBEEEEE

Davey going "I don't know who I am when I'm not a person in front of a camera" then meeting Theo and going "Oh I want to be the person that they can love and rely on" I eat that SHIT UPPPPP.

Here is a little snippet that I wrote that I can't remember if I ever shared (it sure as hell has no formatting or editing) because it is so stupid cute.

(Also I found something from a daveytheo request you gave me back in '21 after the hotel california game and I have no memory of sharing that either and it makes me SAD so I'm going to post it separately LMAO)

[[Ask me about my OC OTPs!!]]

Davey watches Theo and Els' conversation, hands flying faster than he can interpret though he gets the gist of the exchange.

Princess, ever curious, keeps trying to grab Theo's hands as they speak, but they're skilled enough to avoid her grasping fingers.

Soon, Els flounces off, a look on eir face that Davey recognizes as one right at home on Theo's, and he can't help the fond smile as his spouse settles back into the couch with a sigh.

That's when they notice his gaze, and turn to him with a soft smile. "What?"

"Nothin," he says, grinning.

"That's the face of a man with something to say."

"I always have something to say."

"And right now?"

"I love you."

Theo's eyes widen, then their ears and cheeks flush a soft pink as their smile turns shy. "Oh," they say, clearly pleased with that answer.

"And I'm just happy you're here with me," he continues, reaching out so that his fingers can tease the soft flyaways that escaped their braid, tucking them behind one ear.

"There's nowhere else I'd rather be," Theo replies.

From in front of the couch, amidst the pile of movie options, Tiago wrinkles his nose at them. "Are you going to do the Kiss?" he asks with all the world-weariness of a ten year old.

"That's right, kids," Davey says, letting his fingers brush back through Theo's hair so he can pull them in closer. "I'm about to kiss the heck out of your mom."

There's a collection of groans, mingled with Theo's laughter, as Davey closes the remaining distance between them. He can feel the delighted curl of their lips pressed against his, and their fingers land light and cool against his jaw as they kiss him back.

[niuxita21]

Sorry. I got carried away with the gay stereotypes. I too have a lot to learn. And I went a bit too far sending Elena to kidnap you. I’m sorry. Ana, you and I are a team and complement each other perfectly. And you’ve taught me a lot about the business world, but I know other things as well that I can teach you.

Bonus: Ana’s reaction to Mariana saying she could teach her other things... 

[toh-tagteam-au]

Tag Team AU Synopsis – Something Ventured, Something Framed + Escape of the Palisman

Synopsis Masterpost Link

Previous [Lost in Language + Once Upon a Swap]

Next Part [Sense and Insensitivity + Adventures in the Elements + The First Day]

Starting to double down way more, but we have a Luz-centric ep and a sibling ep today!

Something Ventured, Something Framed

There’s not much plot I wrote for this one. Luz goes to Hexside to tutor Amity, since she basically fired Lilith from the position in Covention. Amity gets some Luz lore, mainly that she’s the same age as her and that she was taken in by the Emperor when she lost her family. 

Eventually, Amity notices that Luz is a bit uncomfortable getting stared at by the other kids, and she pulls her to the bathroom to change her into a Hexside uniform.

(hood is up, so ears aren't showing)

On their way to a classroom, they run into Gus. Luz and Gus hit it off pretty instantly, as Luz recognizes the acronym on his HAS president crown. Luz introduces herself as a Human appreciator, and Gus gets his nickname. They get to talking about humans, but at some point Luz’s learned-bias against humans comes up.

(This isn’t stuff that Belos taught her necessarily, but it’s definitely something she picked up given how much he says she’s helpless without Hunter to protect her. It's more self-depreciation than anything she'd think about anyone else.)

Luz goes to the bathroom to angst about knowing less about her own humanity than someone who isn’t even human (cool visual of her looking at her ears in the mirror and sighing), when Amity comes in and comforts her a bit. It doesn't work super well considering she has no idea what Luz is going through and Luz can't exactly tell her.

Their goal in tutoring is to get Amity to learn the spell she learns in Adventures in the Elements, the purple fire spell. After a few failed attempts, Luz's haphazard explanations of how she thinks casting spells should feel, and generally hitting a brick wall, Luz tentatively shows Amity the fire glyph and explains some of the glyph theory behind fire spells in general – you need to know what you need in order to cast it.

While they do that, Gus goes through some stuff of his own – mainly, Mattholomule succeeds in stealing the H.A.S. presidency from him since Gus doesn't have human Luz to fall back on. He's walking outside the room Luz and Amity are training in after losing the presidency when he recognizes the glyph as something that Hunter brought up in Hooty's Moving Hassle – that if you see someone using one, chances are you can't do magic naturally. He connects the dots as Luz not being able to do magic (not necessarily that she's human), and gets some context for the whole "magic-less = useless" spiel she went on.

After they stop training, Gus approaches them and he and Luz hash it out. Luz admits that she probably doesn't know a lot about humans, and that Gus was probably right. Gus says that they can learn a lot from human ingenuity, and that the fact they do the things they do without magic is inspiring (hint hint).

Then Willow probably comes in, has tension with Amity, recognizes Luz's voice as the GG, and Gus freaks out as an ending gag.

Escape of the Palisman

Luz and Hunter are on a GG mission in the Bat Queen’s woods to gather palismen for Belos.

Eventually, they hear a screech, and all hell breaks loose as the bat queen appears. Luz is kidnapped while Hunter is fighting off the babies. He chases after them, but is quickly lost when…

Flapjack appears!

(i had this written before the name reveal, so Flapjack is Rascal in my notes occasionally).

Cut to Luz, who wakes up from being kidnapped and finds herself in the Bat Queen’s cave. They talk about the situation, mainly that Bat Queen is pissed and figures she’ll take the Emperor’s child since he keeps taking her own. Some dialogue about how Luz feels about Belos taking her in and BQ’s views on that until Hunter appears and frees Luz, and THERE’S FINALLY A TAG TEAM SIBLING FIGHT.

It’s pretty slapdash, though. Luz gets knocked out, the staff is kicked away, and Hunter is cornered by BQ.

He escapes on Flapjack with the bag of palismen, the staff, and Luz. He lands in a clearing and Luz wakes up.

They go back to the castle. There’s probably a scene where Belos chews them out, and the way he talks to them kind of hints towards him being more pissed at Hunter than Luz. 

Previous [Lost in Language + Once Upon a Swap]

Next Part [Sense and Insensitivity + Adventures in the Elements + The First Day]

Synopsis Masterpost Link

[silverskye13]

I have a question about the "short" story (and seriously, don't sell yourself that short (ha), that was incredible and amazing):

what level of canon is this? Is it still the same sort of "filler episode in anime" canon, or more, or less?

Regardless, absolutely stunning and I loved every single second of reading it in my bones. It's so wonderfully done, from Tango's realisation that HK is more complicated than evil or not evil, to Wels' begrudging help (if only because HK is suffering more than he would wish on anybody), to the universe section (and just you wait universe, that spark of never was and never should be is going to become a shining, glorious star and you will love it all the same as your precious hermits), to the simple act of cleaning the armour, setting right what was wronged. So absolutely gorgeous and breathtakingly written and every time I read your writing I fall a little more in love with the way you tell stories!!!!

[wiggles my hand back and forth]

Canonicity is hard to answer, I still think "anime filler episode" fits best. It's not going to be brought up in RnS, but it's affected by RnS events. If I tried to put it in the main fic, it would destroy the canon timeline, but it clearly happened after one thing and before another. For me, these shorts are mostly character exploration [which is why I compare them to anime filler because that's what filler episodes are generally used for, aside from padding time.] It's helping me clarify thoughts and motivations, so when I breach similar things in the main plot, I have a better idea of What, How, Why. So to me, they're canon.

Helsknight having a very real, and very new, fear of being overly cruel in the face of violence when he started the story as a character who thought knights were allowed to be both knightly and, you know, mean, and still be knights -- I think that's something he'll have to wrestle with. And Helsknight worrying about being measured based on his own choices and perceived shortcomings divorced from Wels is something I think he'll have to reckon with. And the fact that the Hermits don't know about shaky helsmet respawn, don't have context for how Wide a world hels is, also needs reckoned with in RnS.

I don't think it'll necessarily be handled the same way in RnS. The specific circumstances of the short isn't going to happen in context. But things that bring up similar points will happen, and it's nice taking a second to start hashing them out for myself in a lower stakes place first.

Hopefully! That makes sense!

As to the rest of that! Thank you!! For the kind words!! Honestly this "short" [hah] was a lot of fun to fiddle with. A lot of fights and philosophy, and also? RnS Helsknight and Tango fun dynamic? I wish they got to interact in the main story more. There is so much shenanigan potential there. Both of them need someone who'll pump the breaks on whatever crazy things they're gonna do next, and while Helsknight isn't necessarily an enabler, Tango sure as heck is.

[Also! Glad the Universe bit was well received. I like the idea as this Thing That Exists and it's not quite sentient enough to have intent but not quite elemental enough to be blameless in what it does. I always picture it as like if a hurricane could observe and feel, but still couldn't necessarily control where it went. A force of nature that is along for the ride, and sometimes shifts its weight to throw things off the rails.]

[lesbianlutherhargreeves]

Honestly, for me, a huge element of the Viktor and Allison conflict is the ‘Viktor has amnesia’ plot of season 2. Because Viktor had amnesia, he and Allison couldn’t actually hash out their season 1 issues or what led to the first apocolyspse. Viktor apologized when Diego mentioned the apocalypse (Allison not even present), but of course he didn’t actually know what he did. It makes the whole mess easier to just accept and forgive- because at that point Viktor has innocence of the act itself and so the siblings are willing to concede for their own screw ups in the situation and move on this week’s apocolypse.

Allison, bless her, never gets an actual apology for what would have killed all of them including her daughter, or the neck slitting that was extremely traumatic and led to more trauma once dropped into the 60s as a mute black woman. Allison was willing enough in season 2 to move forward, knowing Viktor knew nothing and being secure enough with Raymond and the knowledge Claire was ‘safe’ in a future.

So when we get to season 3, and Allison is justly furious and absolutely done with these endless apocalypses, all her loved ones in the life she made for herself being gone, and everyone having to run around preventing apocolypses Viktor causes through accident, or in season 1, purposefully. For her, everyone just coddles Viktor, she puts all this emotional effort into caring for Viktor, and the world blows up anyway. And Viktor rubs that in by lying to protect someone who to Allison is a dangerous stranger, and risking the entire universe.

Now for Viktor’s side of events- in the span of a week he was manipulated by a murderer, forced into a withdrawl from drugs he was on since toddlerhood, locked in a cage designed by his father to contain him by his own siblings, found out his whole life was a lie- and blew up the world and almost fatally killed the only sibling who had shown him care. Then amnesia blank period, where he does attach himself to the people who find him and show him kindness. Viktor almost didn’t come back with them because even if it was only a month, in that month he only had Sissy and Harlan, and so they became his chosen family who truly prioritized and loved him. Even with memories back, Viktor still has that bond with them, esspecially since the felt love between him and his siblings is newer after a lifetime of planned isolation by their abuser and then only bonding in these in between times between apocalypses.

So, for me, Viktor and Allison’s actions are very entirely in character for them. I could and will write more on Allison as we have seen her and what we know of her through context clues- to see why this dark turn in her character arc is a good fit for where her character is right now. I expect actual complicated morality in this show and enjoy the level of interaction shown. And I see how the amnesia arc, which fits so well in comics and then here, really does bring to head all of the issues from s1 that went unresolved into s3 to be as painful as possible.

[bigskydreaming]

Also recall that Donna was distraught after COIE as well. That book had a pretty huge body count. (300+ characters with names die on panel in the main series.) And who can she go to? Garth was mourning Tula, Dick and Kory were on Tamaran, Raven was dead, Hank was mourning Don (and Don would be a better listener), Wally was mourning Barry...Pretty sure Roy would be a bit awkward. And Lilith is like "I can see the future but I choose to use my powers to annoy you."

Oh yeah, absolutely. Donna was definitely Going Through It at the time and I think she's in an extremely sympathetic mindset in general back then, and there's a lot that can be done with that.

My only real objection about the Dick and Donna fight isn’t even actually Donna its just how I’ve so often seen it framed in fan retellings of it. Like, I just I think she can be sympathetic while its also acknowledged that the fight only broke out after she repeatedly insisted on confronting Dick with a tough love talk about how he was acting, while he tried multiple times to say 'this isnt the right time for this/I can't have this conversation right now' to the point where he was literally trying to leave his own apartment to disengage BEFORE things escalated. And not even mentioning that the 'how you're acting' that Donna was specifically referring to was a deliberate nod to the two issues later reveal which the plot literally claimed was the reason for why the way he was acting was significant.....

Its the CONFLUENCE of factors that bugs, for me. Not any singular detail like 'oh there's no understandable context for why Donna was so insistent on pressing then and there, like she needed to solve or fix SOMETHING' - because no, there absolutely is.

But instead its more like 'there's absolutely understandable context or spins you could come up with that frame Donna's actions and insistence there as humanizing and not just a mean old bully and terrible friend out to be The Absolute Worst to Dick just because, all while still acknowledging that hey, it should maybe come up that this fight that has affected how Dick's perceived by a lot of people was a fight that Dick tried pretty hard not to have because his needs were in direct conflict with what Donna felt they both needed - to hash things out right then - and where Dick KNEW what his needs were as opposed to what Donna was insisting SHE knew them to be, because he kept voicing that he knew he was not in the right headspace to have the sitdown that Donna was trying for and he was absolutely aware of the possibility he'd lash out and say something he would rather not, because of that.....like I just think that at the very least this bit should come up more when talking about things Dick said while lashing out at Donna because of the headspace he was in. Seems relevant, y'know?'

I just have seen that one fight referenced sooooo many times with just the takeaway being "Dick was so mean here" while they include that page but literally leave out every other relevant panel like the above detail, not to mention any mention of the brainwashing storyline which came to a head just a couple issues later. I mean like, while I am understanding of people thinking the plot is a cheap cop-out for justifying Dick's behavior over the past years of issues over all, I do think its reasonable to expect it at least factors in as a relevant detail when interpreting the couple issues immediately prior to the reveal.

Like, I'm just saying, I do think its a bit...while acknowledging there is bias involved when people (including me, lol) jump to the brainwashing to reframe anything we don't really care for about Dick's behavior back then, I do think there's equally a bias in the other direction when people flat out pretend that there's no way it was a factor in the specific ways and the degree to which Wolfman ratcheted up the conflict between Dick and others in even just the couple issues prior to the reveal. When like, like it or not, if starting from the canon of those issues, the brainwashing was clearly embedded in those issues as being relevant to Dick's characterization at that point at least. Ignoring this completely, when analyzing the couple of issues just prior to this plot twist reveal, including Dick's behavior that contextually was written specifically to get him to leave the Titans and go off on his own....and exactly in accordance to the two issues later reveal where the Church of Blood was like yes excellent, just as we planned...

That's when I'm like okay I see that you think I am biased and you are being completely objective about Dick's character and how he's perceived and why, but I would like to raise for your consideration hey what if maybe we both can be biased and neither of us are being completely objective here?

Cuz...not wanting to apply it as a lens through which to view Dick's actions twenty issues prior? Yeah, I get that. But not wanting to apply it as relevant to any lens through which you view Dick's actions in the literal build-up to the climax that revealed it to be a plot point at all.....yeah, less so.

And again, like I said, not loving how the characters are behaving because you view their actions in a different light and degree of being problematic than Wolfman did? Changing things to make something like that more palatable? Fine by me.

But when you (general/hypothetical you, not you personally anon, lol) keep things the same and are just like 'all eyes on what Dick is saying and no context whatsoever, just look what a douchebag he is, how could he say that look Donna's crying' and that's it, the end, send tweet....I'm just sitting here like....okay I AM going to need you to at some point at least mention that Donna throwing Dick through the wall of his own apartment because of it....mmm, also not great.

Or if you're going to be like 'Donna's mindset and situations get to be used to explain her characterization to the point where it just seems mean and pointless to act like she's Donna the Terrible instead of just Donna the Trauma-Brained so we're all agreed right nobody's mad at Donna' - if nothing else, at least hand in hand with that should be 'Dick's brainwashing gets to be used to explain his characterization to the point where it just seems mean and pointless to act like he's Dick the Asshole instead of just Dick the Autonomy-Challenged so we're all agreed right nobody's mad at Dick.'

Like, fair's fair, y'know? LOL. Nobody needs to be vilifying anyone that way, everybody goes home friends.

But when someone manages to remember every single thing Dick's ever done wrong while accidentally kicking characters' misdeeds towards him over the railing and into the sea, lost and unrecoverable, even when originally they were from the exact same scenes as the stuff that fan is using as Exhibit A for why Dick is a Fugly Slut and You Should Definitely Never Trust Him....

Unf. Just love me that degree of deliberate discrepancy.

Sorry not sorry, but there's just no way there's no bias involved in never ever forgetting "Dick made Donna cry" while glitching with an Error 404 Page Not Found message at any mention of "Donna made Dick cosplay as the wrecking ball from the Miley Cyrus music video of the same name."

I don't actually think these things are the same, even, so I'm not a super fan of even treating that fight like 'mmm mistakes were made on both sides, it was about 50/50'....but when the ratio you're keeping on record is 100/0 and that isn't tilted more critically in the direction of Donna's Demolition Derby, Reluctantly Starring Dick....

I'm calling foul and I WILL in fact be holding a grudge about this.

Sorry, those are the completely arbitrary rules I made up just now and thus have no choice but to adhere to, what can you do. *Shrugs*

(LOL, also anon, lmfao at your line about Lilith. I mean....yeah, that's about right.)

[thebluelemontree]

Just to expound a bit more about fandom's mis/use of the term "gaslighting" in reference to this anon ask where I refuted the idea that Sansa was "gaslighting" Robert Arryn. I am certainly not assuming it was with deliberate malice on anyone's part. It's far more likely it came from a place of genuine misunderstanding because of how inundated pop culture and fandom can be with certain abuse-related buzzwords. Not that there aren't instances in fiction where the term is appropriate, but they are often far less common than the discourse leads people to believe. This is a real problem for many reasons, but mainly when people are seeing these negatively-charged, highly-prejudicial terms free-floating in conversations they don't belong in, they're going to derive incorrect meanings and usage of those terms. People often learn what words mean from the context clues in the surrounding sentence, right? Once they "learn," they repeat it in their own usage, and it perpetuates with unhelpful and potentially harmful results. Then on top of that, these conversations are going within the bubble of fandom communities that already tend to hash and rehash topics to death. And nothing gets fandom fired up like sniffing out abuse and abusers in fiction. I think it's important to keep in mind, that two people expressing vastly different opinions or perspectives on the same thing is not gaslighting. Even when those disagreements get heated or one is dismissive of the other, that doesn't mean the interaction is rising to the level of a gaslighting attempt. The glass-half-empty person is not gaslighting or using any kind of abusive manipulation tactic on the glass-half-full person or vice versa. They are simply different personalities with different outlooks on things. Maybe one of them has a better claim to objective accuracy in a situation, but generally, people are allowed to have their own point of view and they are allowed to say it.

To be clear, I am not a mental health professional, but google is a thing, and credible info from mental health professionals is readily available. Gaslighting is a very specific type of manipulation tactic to get another person to doubt their own reality, memory, or perception. The goal is to make the target lose confidence in their own ability to think, perceive, and make decisions in a clear-headed way. IMO, for Sansa to gaslight Sweetrobin, she'd have to know Sweetrobin's beliefs have validity but respond in a fraudulent way that makes him think those beliefs are not just wrong or mistaken, but that he's crazy for thinking it. That it's so ludicrous, it has to be a product of some kind of deficiency or defect. To say that a mildly dismissive hushing on her part rises to that level of tactical manipulation is a real stretch. Keep in mind that neither Sweetrobin nor Sansa have met Harrold Hardyng personally at the time of their interaction to fairly judge his character. All they know of Harry are things they have heard through gossip. At worst, you can say both Sweetrobin's pessimism and Sansa's optimism are equally unfounded at that point, and they both state their perspectives with a high degree of unearned certainty. On the other hand, both present equally realistic possibilities to consider, too. Sometimes people only care about what they stand to gain from an inheritance. But also, sometimes people genuinely value family and would like an opportunity to have a closer relationship. We don't know and can't know what the truth is until we actually meet Harry. If anything, Sweetrobin's perspective might have planted a seed of doubt in Sansa's mind because she ends up carefully observing Harry, taking note of some red flags, and puts him to a test of his honesty. That shouldn't matter if she's fully on board with this marriage plot and is just going to use Harry as a pawn.

[vampscience]

some post-canon roxy analysis regarding gender and stuff!

ik a lot of people hc roxy as transfeminine so i want to state ahead of time that i will be using he/him pronouns for roxy in this post and that i don't mean that as an attack on u guys, but i haven't seen much exploration of the themes present with transmasculine roxy and i like him a lot so i wanted to try and do so myself. i will also be discussing transfeminine interpretations that i've seen bc i think roxy can be read either way and i want to look at that as well. i will also state that i am EXTREMELY new to this fandom and i realize that i am quite possibly just re-hashing old points, i just felt like saying some shit bc i feel like transmasc roxy is underappreciated.

roxy is introduced to us in the original comic as someone who is very tied with biology. the ending of his name (xy) is described as chromosomal and we're shown that he likes to clone cats. he's very closely tied to the act of creation and as his beta-self is known to us as mom, he is by extent associated with motherhood. this association is strengthened by his preoccupation with rose's existence and continues throughout the series with ectobiology and the creation of the matriorb.

he is also somewhat stereotypically feminine with his pink text and his outfits and his relatively boy-crazy attitude (which we know was more out of loneliness than anything). he is constantly drawing attention to his own femininity by describing himself as a hacker femme fatale. this combined with the previous point about motherhood, especially in the sense that he always seems to pursue it through unconventional means, is what to my understanding initially caused people to headcanon him as a trans woman. and i like that hc a lot, especially within the context of the original comic. i think it's a great reading of the character and without considering the epilogues/homestuck^2 it actually makes more sense than roxy being being transmasc.

however, in post-canon we do see roxy as transmasculine, and i think with a slightly altered reading of the same content, this is still a quality interpretation of the same character. sex has to do with biology and gender is entirely to do with social expectations as it is a social construction. this is sort of basic, gender 101 type information, but transmedicalism would have you believe that these two things are inextricably tied together and that if you are going to transition to any extent in one sense, you must support that by transitioning in the other. roxy's specific relationship to transness sharply highlights the divide between these concepts.

roxy's highlighting of his own femininity is exclusively in joking context which, with the perspective of roxy being transmasc, can be taken as masking a discomfort with that femininity. while he is otherwise somewhat lacking in obvious indicators of transmasculinity, roxy's aspect is void; he is unknowable, nebulous--we aren't supposed to know everything about him and none of his friends know everything about him either, so much so that it has somewhat become a plot point that dirk does not know how to write the story around him. sometimes trans people are people you don't expect, and those people are just as valid as those who have known and expressed gender accordingly for much of their lives.

in one timeline, he has a son and has yet to transition, but he reflects that what made him decide not to at the time was that the experience of motherhood made him feel like his body was not gendered; it was simply performing a biological function. he does, however, imply that transitioning is not off the table for him in the future. in this way, just like in the original comic, roxy's pursuit of motherhood has been unconventional; he has been a mother, but he may eventually be a father. it's not about the social role for him; it's about the act of creation. his issue isn't necessarily with the body he was born with; in fact, he's awed by its capabilities. but this doesn't make him any less trans than someone whose body causes them to experience dysphoria. what he seems uncomfortable with is the social construction of femininity; he plays with it in some ways by keeping his name, his pink text, and his black lipstick, as well as his choice of heart sunglasses, but he comes at it from the stance that he doesn't have to be feminine. he can engage in gender in whatever way he chooses. in this new world that the kids created, he is working to deconstruct gender as it has been constructed.

anyways, i love roxy, i love that he's trans, and i love that he says fuck transmeds

[zevlors-tail]

@pandasfoxes05 I assume the reply to the OC ask post thing was for me lol, so here you go! Thanks for inquiring! <3 I am always thinking of my OC's! Sorry this took so long, I had to really think about some of these and I have tons of OC's too lol. ;w;

Response to this post about OC Asks!

1) What's the worst thing they've done for revenge?

Muse: I can't give much context to this because it would spoil a huge plot point for my fic series I'm trying to hash out rn, but by far the worst thing Muse has done for revenge is start an entire WAR between realms.

Cypress: Blamed Raphael for his own wrongdoings and lied to Muse about who he really was. He outright betrayed Muse's trust and lied about a LOT of things.

Uriel: Uri doesn't take revenge on anyone or anything. He doesn't see revenge as worthwhile for himself or those he loves and has never actively participated in it. He prefers to solve things diplomatically.

Claire: Trespassed into the Celestial Realm and threatened a high ranking angel for his transgressions against her friends and the people she considered family.

Silas: Used his personal connections to destroy someone's reputation, though he usually doesn't mess with others unless it's warranted. Often it's because they threaten his family or friends.

Aska: She's half angel and so her morals don't really align with revenge. Simeon, Muse, and Solomon all raised her to take no shit but do no harm, and she's just generally not interested in it. If someone wrongs her, she's more likely to drop them and never speak to or see them again than to take revenge on them.

4) Dogs or cats?

Muse: Cats. Definitely cats.

Cypress: Prefers cats, but doesn't own any.

Uriel: Loves all animals, and therefore has no preference.

Claire: Prefers cats but also likes dogs.

Silas: Very much likes cats. You could probably blame that on Solomon and Muse lol.

Aska: Doesn't mind cats, but really loves dogs. Though overall, she prefers bugs and insects!

30) Are there any secrets they will take to the grave?

Uriel: He knew what was going to happen to Lilith before she died. Also, Lilith and Cypress were the only two beings he's ever really been in love with. He currently still has feelings for Cypress despite their situation.

Claire: Was in love with Muse and kissed them out of the blue before running away for a while, but neither of them talked about it afterwards and just brushed over it like it never happened. Also, she did eventually find records of her past despite not remembering any of it. It wasn't pretty. She once paid a visit to her own grave for some closure, but ended up ripping open old wounds and running into someone who recognized her. Left absolutely devastated but did ultimately get the closure she wanted.

Muse: Fell in love with Fallen!Simeon when they were trapped in the Parallel Realm. They still miss him and keep a piece of Asmo's broken mirror (the mirror that threw them into the Parallel Realm) in their top dresser drawer beneath their clothes. They still look in it from time to time hoping to catch a glimpse of him staring back.

TW: Suicidal Ideation

Cypress: Cypress did, at some point, love Uriel when he was still an angel. He never told Uri, and he never will. Also, when Muse was at their worst, he was the one who had to listen to them beg and pray to die in their sleep night after night. He would sit with them, invisible, while they sobbed and curled in on themselves at night. On more than one occasion, he broke the rules of the Celestial Realm to try and comfort them by touch or a blessing while Muse slept.

Silas & Aska: I put these two together because realistically, there's SO MUCH STUFF they've done that they would never DARE tell another soul about. They constantly cover for each other- what are siblings for, anyways? There's nothing too specific for either of them.

[spewagepipe]

On RPG Worldbuilding, Part 1

Ginny Di recently released a couple of videos about the "mistakes" that a fledgling DM might make when world-building (although what she actually explains are mostly failures of the D&D game, not the fault of any DM). In light of that, I thought I might offer some of my own advice on the subject.

D&D is a fundamentally incomplete, broken game. Stripped down to its core rulebooks, D&D has no setting in which to play – only a very bizarre, misguided explanation of how to create your own. So before you can even start to play, you'll have to complete a shocking amount of bullshit homework/chores – and the product you'll get at the end is probably going to be complete garbage if this is your first attempt.

Advice #1: Play Fiasco instead

By far the easiest way to circumvent this problem is to just stop playing D&D. Fiasco requires neither prep nor a Game Master, and it's generally set in the real world, so the world-building is done for you. World-building creates shared context and a common point of reference for the players – there's no simpler way to do it than using the real world.

Advice #2: Play Lasers & Feelings instead

Lasers & Feelings requires more "world-building" than Fiasco, but because it's completely free and its rules fit on a single side of 8.5x11" paper, there's even less effort required to go from zero to play. The "world" of L&F is the pastiche of Star Trek and Flash Gordon that already lives in your mind – and all of the concrete details beyond that get hashed out in play instead of in advance. L&F will help you get comfortable with filling in lore-related blanks on the fly, a skill that you'll take with you into any other game you try.

Advice #3: Play Apocalypse World instead

Your first session of Apocalypse World operates much like L&F, relying on a pastiche of post-apocalyptic fiction, while you improvise the specifics. Then, using the story ideas generated in session 1, you'll refine that vague world into a more specific one to last the rest of the campaign. This streamlined process will teach you effective prioritization: you save time and effort by leaving blanks and uncertainties that to fill in later on when it becomes convenient or necessary. For the here and now, you focus on establishing the facts and lore that are consequential for only the current plot threads.

Advice #4: Play Blades in the Dark instead

When all else fails: play a game that already has a world built-in. Blades in the Dark has a digest-sized rulebook, but it contains a unique, rich, flavourful and evocative setting. It packs all that into a tiny space because the world is built using strategies like AW's: everything is tightly-focused to support the particular play-style of BitD, and the rest is "left blank", creating space for that world to evolve to suit your needs as you play.

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

Final Fantasy IV Review

Year: 1991

Original Platform: Super Nintendo (Originally introduced to Western audiences as Final Fantasy II, since the real II and III were not released outside of Japan at the time.)

Also available on: Nintendo DS, PSP (Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection), GameBoy Advance, Playstation One (Final Fantasy Chronicles), Steam (DS remake)

Version I Played: PSP

Synopsis:

Cecil Harvey is Batman a dark knight who follows orders from King Baron. The king tasks Cecil and his partner Kain with taking the crystals from the surrounding nations and cities. Cecil questions his king’s motives, leading to the revelation of a grand conspiracy. Cecil then goes on a quest to right his wrongs.

Gameplay:

The novel feature of this game was the ATB system – Active Timed Battle. This means that instead of you and the enemy waiting for your respective turns one at a time, each character takes their turn according their respective speed. One character may be slower than the other, so they will take longer to be able to perform an action. Basically, with ATB, if you wait too long to think about what to do on your turn, the enemy can hit you - JUST AS IF YOU WERE REALLY BATTLING IN REAL LIFE.

While Final Fantasy IV introduced ATB, it did not utilize the ATB gauge in actual battles. The ATB gauge is a visual bar during battle that shows your character’s speed. Whenever it’s filled, your character can perform an action. The gauge itself was first seen later in Final Fantasy V. Later remakes of Final Fantasy IV displayed the ATB gauge. Some configuration options were introduced later to give you the ability to change the battle system to active or wait. Putting it on wait would allow the timed battle to pause while you thought about what to do during your move.

Final Fantasy IV forsakes the customizable Job System and introduces characters with individual jobs. Kain is a dragoon, who can jump in the air and deal destructive damage. Rydia is a summoner. Yang is a monk. Etc, etc.

The Super Nintendo and PSP versions are more or less on par with each other in terms of difficulty. The Nintendo DS remake is really hard. Like REALLY hard. Like “throw-your-DS-across-the-room hard”. I myself have had trouble finishing it.

Graphics:

I haven’t played the original SNES version of Final Fantasy IV, but judging by the images it appears to be in this liminal state between NES and SNES. Not quite NES but not quite utilizing the full power of the SNES either.

The PSP version is somewhat reminiscent of the Anniversary Editions of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II, but it still has its own flair that outshines them.

Final Fantasy IV DS is pretty much a 3D remake in the same vein as Final Fantasy III DS, with an awesome opening FMV. The in-game cutscenes however now have VOICE ACTING. 

Now, the PlayStation One version has a FMV sequence that hasn’t aged well at all. We’re talking worse than the Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II FMV sequences from PlayStation One. I can’t even find a good snapshot from Google Images, probably because nobody wants to look at them ever again. You can find it on YouTube though.

Story:

Final Fantasy IV is well known for being the first GOOD story in a Final Fantasy game. Cecil’s personal journey of redemption rung in the minds and hearts of audiences. There’s a nice balance of focusing on individual struggles and an epic adventure to save the world.

The cast of characters is pretty wide. Like Final Fantasy II, several secondary characters come and go. There is one difference but I don’t want to spoil anything. I guess the least I could say is that Final Fantasy IV subverts what to expect after having played Final Fantasy II.

Like Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IV includes crystals as an important plot device. This time they hold enormous power that the villain Golbez wishes to obtain for nefarious means.

While the story is infinitely superior in storytelling to Final Fantasy II, there are still some silly moments. I could best describe the bulk of the story as “Cecil and friends are on a race to capture each crystal around the world but something always gets in the way at the last minute.” While for the most part the story is done well, there are seemingly cartoonish moments involving random trapdoors and bewitched dolls. One particular moment I found myself thinking, "So you're just going to stand there while he does that?"

But I think the most admirable part of the story is how they approach Cecil and Rosa’s romance. While most RPGs, especially today, try to hash in a childish romance subplot, Cecil and Rosa are that rare couple that are already together at the beginning of the game. Their love is tested throughout the story.

The most popular quote from this game involves a complicated matter of translation. Western releases of Final Fantasy games (and Japanese games in general) often had awkward translations. “You spoony bard!” is one such awkward translation that originates from this game.

The character who spoke this line, Tellah, is arguing with the character Edward. The translation came out at “spoony” due to the Japanese writers believing it was still used today in English. It’s an archaic term meaning “enamored in a silly or sentimental way”. It technically fits, but clearly, nobody uses that word anymore, and players laughed at how nonsensical it seemed.

While I don’t want to spoil why Tellah is angry at Edward, the scenario in question is dramatic, and so Tellah saying “idiot” or “moron” wouldn’t quite suffice. The original Japanese word that Tellah uses is “kisama”, which in the given context is akin to telling someone they are a “son of a bitch” or “bastard.” Western releases, especially North American, were very often censored and demanded less or no profanity.

Overall, Final Fantasy IV is the first notable story in the Final Fantasy series, way better and much more original than Final Fantasy II.

Music:

 With the Super Nintendo, Uematsu was able to play with more sounds. The drumming that Uematsu had wanted in his battle themes is more apparent. He also added an accompaniment to the Prelude. The main theme of Final Fantasy IV is scattered throughout the score, just like a motif in a movie score. The main theme is the map theme, and I like how, for example, the theme changes to a different beat when you venture into the underworld. The main theme even pops up in the final battle, which to me is awesome because it illustrates the heroes collectively trying to banish evil.

In one interview with Uematsu, he stated he was a huge fan of Elton John. For some reason, after I read that, I totally see the main theme of Final Fantasy IV having an Elton John vibe, especially in the epilogue with the drums and the bass.

Red Wings, which is the theme for Baron’s elite air force of the same name, is notable for its unorthodox time signature. I swore I read that somewhere years ago but now I can’t find it, so if someone happens to come across it – let me know. The theme for the Red Wings sounds both heroic and sinister, referencing Baron’s underlying motives and Cecil’s dual nature.

Cecil and Rosa’s love theme is actually taught for schoolchildren in Japan as part of their music curriculum.

Uematsu pretty much matured at this point, in my opinion.

Notable Theme:

There are so many but my personal favorite is “Dreadful Fight”, a.k.a “Battle with the Four Fiends”.

I’ll also highlight the “Theme of Love”, because it needs to be out there as the first love theme for the Final Fantasy series.

Verdict:

Hands down, the perfect place for a beginner. You want to start getting into Final Fantasy? Start with Final Fantasy IV. The gameplay is easy to pick up. The story is simple and straightforward compared to the rest of the series but still effective. To those having played the later games first, it could seem trite. Unlike most of the Final Fantasy games, the different re-releases can be quite offer a different experience due to the translations, graphical changes, and differences in difficulty. At the end of the day, I would say any 2D version is fine, the best is probably the PSP version, but save the DS remake for later, since it is more difficult.

Direct Sequel?

Yes. Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection was released on the PSP in 2011. This is the version that I played. Square created two sequels for that collection: Final Fantasy IV: Interlude and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. I haven’t played them myself yet, but there is criticism surrounding their stories, which apparently pale greatly in comparison to Final Fantasy IV.

By the way, the PSP version starts by showing the new FMV opening to Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, not the one shown in Final Fantasy IV DS. That’s a minor change but it really irked me, because the sequel’s FMV opening therefore spoils some of the story if you never played it before. I guess they wanted to distance themselves from Final Fantasy IV DS. Even so, why not just play that opening when you select The After Years?