#Were it not for the fact I have a bunch of FF Games to play I would go replay FF15

[wayfinderships]

hi again, robin :)! i'm here to ask a bit more about your ffxv s/i!

have you ever thought of any in-game interactions they'd have with the other party members?

do panchi, noctis and prompto use any pet names for each other? if so, which ones? do they get to go on any dates during the trip :O?

And I'm happy to answer!! :D

I have thought about interactions between my s/i and Ignis/Gladio! In terms of Dialogue, I don't have anything in particular, i'd need to replay the game ^^" One thing is certain though and that is that both have to be subjected to Panchi's bad puns-

But in terms of dynamics, Panchi really respects Ignis and always calls him by his name instead of "Iggy" because of it. Panchi often helps him out with cooking! ...and trying to persuade Noct to eat his veggies. I'm sure the two have bits of dialogue centered around Noct and his well-being. Noctis aside though, Panchi probably has a few lines of dialogue trying to mimic his accent-afjsnfnd Maybe finding a random ingredient and asking "Hey Ignis! Think you can come up with a new recipe with this?"

As for Gladio, Panchi was kinda intimidated by him at first ngl-agksjfndj He's much bigger and stronger than them so they were pretty nervous. But once Panchi gets to know him better, two also get along pretty well! Gladio absolutely has teased the three of them-afksnf All three have such an obvious crush on each other! How can he not? Also once Panchi realized they've caught Feelings™ for their best friends, Gladio is the first one that Panchi goes to for advice. They've probably learned a pick-up line or two from him and used it on Noct and Prompto-gjdnfjddj

As for petnames for Noct/Prompto/Panchi...Panchi just uses more classic stuff like "Love(s)" and "Dear(s)"! Sometimes they'll call Noct and Prompto "My moon and sun" which I think is pretty sweet! Panchi also likes calling them "My King(s)", they always enjoy seeing how flustered they both get from it (especially if it was before the three got married). For individual ones though, Panchi has always affectionately and playfully refered to Noct as "Prince" since y'know. He's a prince. For Prompto, they sometimes playfully call him a Chocobo-but hey! Chocobos are pretty cute if you ask Panchi! I have a hard time thinking about what Noct and Prompto call Panchi since I get pretty flustered but I do think it'd be cute if they both call Panchi their Star 👉👈

In terms of dates...I guess it depends on which canon we follow? If we follow canon exactly then no bc neither of them are dating (even if they all do have feelings for each other) but the three have wandered on their own a few times either bc Prompto wanted to take a photo or Panchi saw something they wanted to grab or look at for their scrapbook or Noctis saw a perfect finishing spot-okay. Maybe it was more than a few times...But yeah! There is this one time where the three look up at the stars together and get all close..just Guys being Dudes! Just some good ol Bromance! (It was not just a Bromance)

[dutchdread]

Why do you think SE celebrated other ff couples like Zidane and Garnet on ,for example, their website, but not Cloud and Tifa. In fact other ff couples have been confirmed as exactly that but not Cloud and Tifa. Why do you think that is?

Well, there are a bunch of ways to answer this since the question is very vague to me, so first I gotta ask: What makes you think Cloud and Tifa aren't celebrated?

Not pictured: Cloud and Tifa getting celebrated apparently.

FFIX is my favorite game of all time but I can't think of a single time where Garnet and Zidane got "celebrated". I'm sure you can find times if you go out and look, but the same goes for Cloud and Tifa. When I think about them I can remember countless times they got "celebrated" in a multitude of ways. For instance, we have SE consistently liking Cloti posts:

Or bringing up things like "words aren't the only thing that tell people what you're thinking".

Or giving them matching outfits:

Hell, I could argue that the very existence of Advent children is a "celebration" of Cloti, seeing as it was originally envisioned as just a short story about Cloud, Tifa, and the kids.

How is Traces of two pasts talking about how Tifa fell in love with Cloud not a celebration? How is "2,000 Gil Leading to a Hero" talking about Cloud wanting to become Tifas "special existence" not a celebration?

And this is ignoring of course that essentially the entire Remake has felt like a celebration of Cloud and Tifas romance to the point where it has been more central to the story than even the romance of Squall and Rinoa was in FFVIII. So when you say they're not celebrated, what do you mean? Do you mean that they're usually described as childhood friends in relationship charts and descriptions and the like when characters like Zidane and Garnet are not?

Because if so it makes me wonder why Zidane and Garnet are described as "important person" rather than "favors" (the same term often used to describe Tifa btw). It also makes me wonder why Beatrix and Steiner are merely described as "friendly", why Beatrix is described as "loyal to Brahne", and a bunch of different things. Fact is that often times these relationship charts merely describe the predominantly occurring relationship DYNAMIC during the story AS it is essential to the story, rather than exactly describing the nature of the relationships at the conclusion of the story for the sake of shippers. Which is why we have stuff like this:

Even though Wakka and Lulu literally end up raising a baby. This is also why the relationship chart for Advent Children only lists Aerith in relationship to Cloud as "sense of guilt", because while obviously Aerith is more than just an object of guilt, the fact that Cloud feels guilt towards her is what's actually important to understanding the events of the movie.

So when we have stuff like this it doesn't tell us that three girls favor Cloud, but Cloud doesn't favor any of them, or that all three girls are equal, or that the game doesn't confirm anything. It just means that the predominant dynamic we see played out in the story is of them favoring him. The actual objective confirmation of Clouds feelings then come from the myriad of quotes we have where it's stated that in the lifestream it is revealed that Cloud and Tifas feelings....are mutual. So even if it were the case that Garnet and Zidane were described as mutually favoring each other. That would not be something that's to be wondered at. Zidane and Garnets main dynamic right from the start is that of a girl and a boy who has a crush on her. It's neither a reveal not a change of dynamic, but what matters FOR THE STORY is that they're important to each other. With Cloud and Tifa the fact that Cloud has always been in love with her has historically always been presented as a twist, even in Rebirth while it's clear that Cloud is in love with Tifa the notion that this has gone on since childhood, along with the depth and the fact that it's the primary cause of Clouds internal strife, is still something of a reveal, and you generally avoid revealing important twists in books that essentially discus the state of a games story as it is during the game itself. The remake Ultimania doesn't spoil the exact nature of all the different Sephiroths, nor the exact nature of Aeriths knowledge, those are for part 3 to reveal. But even if none of that were true, and Square-enix absolutely refuses to "celebrate cloti", whatever that means, it is still kind of a moot point, because the unwillingness to explicitly confirm a ship is not the same as no ship being canon. As I've discussed at length in the following article: Link

Nomura : “AC is a piece of work made by Japanese people. In Hollywood movies, I think there is a tendency where the meaning of all the scenes have to be expressed clearly but, this isn’t something like that. With our work, the viewer is free to decide how they interpret or enjoy it. The staff has their own answers to all the scenes in the movie such as the angel statue that makes an appearance many times. But, even if someone who has watched it interprets it differently, then that is just another answer. I guess “comparing answers” with friends is one of the ways you can enjoy the movie. I think AC is a movie that makes those who have watched it, want to talk about it with others.“ ~FFVII AC Prologue Book

The reason they might not want to be too explicit about any specific ship might simply be that they don't want to deprive people of the pleasure of having their own interpretations. That doesn't mean that things aren't canon. After all: " The staff has their own answers to all the scenes". A sentiment that is again reflected in the following interview.

A straight forward path has Cloud ending up with Tifa, and there are no branching paths here. The game allows you leeway to project your own feelings onto it, but it doesn't actually change the story. The developers have their own interpretation, and that's the interpretation that's guiding the story. If YOU want to believe Cloud actually loves Barret, you can, there is nothing or no one stopping you......but they'll never get a kiss. Additionally, if we are to agree with the premise that Cloud and Tifa (and by extension Cloud and Aerith) aren't celebrated, then there is a corollary question to yours that should be asked as well. If both ships are valid, then why aren't they just both celebrated? Rather than not celebrating either ship....why not celebrate both? Make it explicit that that his a "choose your own waifu" game and Cloud genuinely loves whichever girl you want. Quintessential quintuplets probably is the most famous anime "love war" of the last few years, and it has 5 women vying for the same man, with one unambiguous winner. And yet, rather than the other 4 not getting any "celebration" the 5 are almost always portrayed as equal, all 5 of them often even wearing bridal gowns.

So why not Cloti and Clerith? Why doesn't Square enix celebrate Cloud and Aerith by putting both Cloud and Tifa, AND Cloud and Aerith on some official Couple page? Or hell, I'll do you one simpler.....why doesn't Square-enix celebrate both Cloti and Clerith by giving BOTH an optional Kissing scene? Answer? Because they're not both valid, because this is not a game with branching paths, it's a game where you end up with Tifa, but has in the past given you leeway to project your own incorrect interpretations onto it. But the interpretations are still incorrect, even if not outright corrected. And when telling the story properly requires those incorrect interpretations to be overruled, they will be, as shown by the following quote by Nojima.

"in FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE, there will be much less room for player imagination. This fact will probably change the feel of the story considerably. People who know the original might not know quite how to take it. Such is the fear that I have. But I also have conviction. It should be possible to feel a much deeper connection to Cloud as you join alongside him"

Anyway, I'm too busy (and lazy) to spend too much time going around looking for more times that SE celebrated Cloti, but I think enigmaphenomenon already did that pretty well with the following article, so I'll link that as a nice resource: "Cloti Merchandise by Enigmaphenomenon"

Tl Dr; concerning celebrating Cloti.....Who got a kissing scene again? Oh yeah

[egg-emperor]

honestly I just expect and accept that in a bunch of official media, even including the games with Frontiers to a small degree, will have the odd bits of OOC dialogue with Eggman. there are times where I still go "he would not fucking say that" because there's just no way he'd ever actually say and mean such a thing, would ever say it that certain way, would ever actually feel a certain way to say it in the first place, etc

but my priority now is what were they actually going for and does that part work for his character? sure dialogue is very important and adds a lot, I love writing it the most myself and making it feel exactly like what the character would say and how they'd express it. but it's just highly likely for people to get it wrong from time to time and I personally would say that they are really just occasional and small

overall I'm happy with what all the strongest parts of the writing points towards most and revealed intent by the writers, that's what matters to me. I'd like for all the dialogue and scenes to never miss but there will be times where the odd couple of lines shouldn't have been there or could've been rephrased, vocalized and written in a way that was much more in character for him if anything

but again, I'm happy understanding what they're actually going for and what all the strongest writing and main sources point towards the most. for example, I think game Eggman overall is fantastic as ever. I think there's just some flubs here and there as they explore already existing assets of his character in different ways but will settle into it properly over time and gain more solid footing for the better

as for things like takeovers, it's been OOC for characters since the beginning, they've forgotten facts about the games and/or accidentally replaced them as a result, they've even gotten the names of things in games wrong. it's just simple social media fun lol. but I still enjoy them overall because it's not the solid finalized fully stamped and approved published media like the games

the big writers aren't involved, it doesn't go through tons of checks and changes, they're written fast on a time limit often based on how funny they think it'll be. they made Shadow a Taylor Swift fan ffs XD of course a big majority of the fanbase will treat it like canon, most of those don't play or like the games much anyway. it's honestly out of sight out of mind now, really not interested in fandom shenanigans anymore

I couldn't care less about fandom's wild takes and overemphasis on any sides anymore. all I can say is people will find ways to twist and misinterpret literally anything and it's a losing game lol. my blog is just to gush about Eggman, analyze things, share my thoughts, discuss with those who ask in my inbox/replies and then I leave. it's all become much more enjoyable after stepping back from general fandom

and that's what this post is again now, just my two cents as usual. not directed towards any situation or people in particular, just an overall observation of recent fandom from afar as I've taken a step back and where I stand on it based on focusing on the official media alone and avoiding the opinions of random strangers at any chance I get. the way the world is supposed to be but the internet's existence changed lol

I'm really satisfied and at peace with official Eggman and this is how I handle any small occasional OOC moments. I still understand and like what they're going for based on what all the strongest writing and writer commentary points towards. I don't concern myself with what general fandom thinks and if they latch onto the small OOC parts, they don't have the power to influence anything beyond the social media acc

I also tell myself that sometimes writers on official media aren't as insane and obsessed about Eggman like me to the point I remember every line he's ever said and think very hard down to every last word and the inflections and ways it could be interpreted when writing him lol. so yeah chances are at that, they're gonna have him say some things where I feel it should've been different or removed at times

but again, as long as I'm happy with the official media with its strongest parts and especially the game canon media then it's all good with me!

[twistedtummies2]

From what Final Fantasy’s you’ve played and only partially counting* what characters we’ve seen so far, what other FF Characters would you want to see in KH

(*Partially because we could do more story with them)

Personally, I’d love to see more iconic FF monsters make new appearances rather than just 1 heartless, 2 nobodies and Gummi Ship designs (Behemoth, Dragon and Dancer technically)

Honestly a whole FF world could be really cool- imagine a Keyblade incorporating a bunch of monster designs or something like that

I'm honestly not super familiar with Final Fantasy. I know a little bit about some of the games and the characters, but really not a ton; it's a franchise I've never really been able to get into. :P In fact, Kingdom Hearts was my INTRODUCTION to Final Fantasy; it wasn't till after the fact, so to speak, that I learned characters like Cloud, Leon, and so forth were based on Final Fantasy characters. HAVING SAID THAT...I think it would be nice to get a couple of FF villains into the games. Like, we've had Sephiroth appear a couple of times, why not throw Kefka into the mix? ALSO, with "Dream Drop Distance" we got a character from a completely different Square Enix property, "The World Ends With You." So why not bring some characters from other Square Enix titles into the mix? I've been into Dragon Quest XI a lot lately, maybe some characters from there would be fun, for a start. XD

[sarasa-cat]

Fwiw, after various casual hypothesis testing (oh so casual, oh so non-scientific) last week on how this latest round of so-called "chatbox AI" (aka, bad investment nonsense) is able to write fanfiction, last night while watching partner play a video game on our big screen, I had a few more pointed/strategic convos with the Stochastic Charlatan.

Actually, the reason why I felt inclined to do so was that I just read an opinion essay by Noam Chomsky (ffs) that gave ChatGPT quite the spanking (I'll provide an unlocked/paywall-pass-thru link in another post) **and then** in the comments section of that essay, I read one truly inane comment by someone who mistakenly believed that the deep conversations they had been having with ChatGPT had been teaching them all sorts of new concepts in a variety of academic topics of their interest.

Now, I know -- from my initial test of chatgpt in late 2022 -- that this software hallucinates all sorts of nonsense. Back then (maybe early December of 2022?) I heard a whole bunch of conservations about how university students were using chatgpt to write essays for homework. I wondered, "hm, can chatgpt do my (prior) job of designing and teaching a university level course?" The answers I received on that lazy saturday afternoon were both HILARIOUS and TROUBLING. It wasn't just that the answer was "omfg NO! It definitely CANNOT" but that the chatbot acted as if it could.

DUNNING KRUGER EFFECT LEVEL CONFIDENCE while giving me horrid results for curriculum design. But boy oh boy did little ChatGPT act super confident while hallucinating nonsense and while propagating certain kinds of bias. Anyhow, back then I just wrote it off as one big whatever.

But then, a few months passed and this nonsense was back in the news full force, hyped up like wild. Last week @sarahawke posted a few hilarious chatgpt-written fanfics, which made my brain start forming casual hypotheses (and, see first sentence of this post).

Last night I had a few ideas for discussion topics that I knew (or strongly assumed) it was trained on: topics that are publicly available on the internet, that tend to have "correct vs incorrect" answers for certain factual things but that base collection of factual propositions also lend themselves to a lot of inferencing/wiggle-room/interpretation in how they are applied, that have contained amounts of controversy (meaning, the topic has reasonably strong signal strength w.r.t. signal-to-noise ratios), AND (most importantly) the topic has some a few sources on the public internet that are considered 'authoritative' for the facts. And, of course, topics that I happen to have relatively deep levels of expertise in -- meaning, I could "easily grade the papers without an answer key" or I could lecture on the topic or demo the topic or discuss it in length or whatever. After all, my interest was in fact checking a hallucinating bot. ;)

The results were ... interesting. As in serious Stochastic Charlatanry. Dunning-Kruger effect a la chatbot.

The things that have me concerned are these:

Unless you actually know your shit about the topic you are asking it to tell you about, you could very easily fooled, especially when the chatbot's results are plausible and some of it passes a fast, cursory-skim google test.

This is troubling because someone with expertise will never feel a need to go through the painful process of getting anything vaguely useful out of this chatbot whereas someone with lower level knowledge will ... but they just won't know which bits are nonsense and which bits are factually correct, much less how valuable the factually correct statements are with regard to context. As in: yes, Fact A is technically correct but impractical or uncommon in the context they are discussing with the chatbot.

The other thing is that once the chatbot says something that is 100% factually wrong, it starts doubling down on that mistake, and it will continue doubling down on that demonstrably wrong statement every time you ask or re-ask the question until you finally prod it hard enough with factual evidence that forces it to correct itself. Alternatively, you could just tell it "dude, you are wrong. X is never the case when Y" and it seems to weigh that input heavily and immediately correct itself (although I have no idea if it always carries this correction over to future conversations with other people -- something for me to test by making a separate account). I have some more "experiments" to continue conducting tonight to look into this further but, also, to see how it carries those corrections forward during future inferences that require knowledge of those corrected facts.

Honestly, chatgpt's lack of being able to correctly inference and apply important contextual knowledge Does Not Shock Me because that doesn't seem to be how it was created.

(Fwiw, I did not click on the thumbs up or thumbs down icons, or the "redo your answer" icon, or provide any feedback via the UI. all I did was chat with it like I was having a text chat with someone else because I wanted to simulate being a person who thinks this thing is providing authoritative info)

Currently, my largest concern about these kinds of "suck up the internet and make massive statistical inferences about """knowledge""" bots" is that their confident charlatanry is very enticing to the lazy, the busy, the overburdened, and the ill-informed.

IRL, I have dealt with my fair share of people who engage in confident charlatanry, or who repeat nonsense and then double down on said nonsense repeatedly. I mean, part of that is being human -- we all carry mistaken info in our heads -- but the confident charlatanry really makes me concerned. It... reminds me too much of dinner table conversations with people I (no longer want to) know in Silly Valley.

[realcube]

haikyuu!! boys when you come out to them as bisexual  🏳️‍🌈

characters: yamaguchi, tsukishima & kenma

part two!!

tw// fem!reader, fluff, coming out, 

Tadashi Yamaguchi

ok so hot-take but i think yamaguchi is straight

(or maybe bi but with a heavy preference for females)

but rn he identifies as straight 

but like..he’s so supportive of the lgbtq+ community

like tsukishima gives off ‘gay but homophobic’ energy

but yamaguchi has ‘straight but a strong ally’ energy

and this is hugely bc while tsukishima fell down the alt-right pipeline, yamaguchi was going through that ‘women 😍🤩💕’  phase which i think every WLW has went through at one point

like while tsukishima was watching ‘sjw get rekt compliation #125′ , yamaguchi was watching those heart-wrenching lgbtq+ short films on youtube 

and on tiktok his fyp was probably originally cottagecore (bc it’s his ideal lifestyle ofc) and somehow he is now kinda on sapphic cottagecore tiktok 

like not to fetishize them or anything, just bc he’s awed by how in love they are and that’s kinda what he wants for himself

(also he uses them as date inspo for you and him DFBZVAYUL)

anyway this was just my lengthened explanation as to why - unbeknownst to you or anyone - he was an ally to the lgbtq+ community (if not apart of it)

you didn’t really expect him to be disgusted or unsupportive of it tbh - i mean, it’s tadashi ffs! 💞 you know he’d never break up with you or judge you for something like that, but that didn’t stop you from being slightly nervous

but he was ten times more nervous when you texted him, asking for him to meet you by the local park’s fountain bc you had something important to tell him

mans thought you were dying ngl

he almost burst out crying on the walk to the park bc he imagined a whole scenario where he was sitting next to your fkn death-bed 

but you seemed healthy enough so his next assumption was that you were going to break-up with him

so when he approached you by the water fountain and you noticed that his eyes were glossy and his hair was damp with sweat, you were quite worried for him now

‘tadashi! are you okay?! your eyes are all puffy and red! do you have hay fever?’

yamaguchi rapidly shook his head, hastily escorting you to a nearby park bench so you could sit down beside him, ‘it’s nothing; what is it that you want to tell me?’

‘oh’ you choked, quickly averting your gaze from his kind, damp eyes. ‘it’s- um, i don’t-’ you cut yourself off, mentally cursing at yourself as you had practised what you were going to say to him hundreds of times before he arrived yet you still couldn’t stammer it out

yamaguchi was hanging on each word you uttered, but once he noticed that you were struggling, he placed his hands upon yours and shot you a reassuring smile

you let out a sigh in hopes to relieve your nerves while rehearsing what you were gonna say one more time in your head before blurting it out,

‘babe, erm, i’ve been questioning for a while and i’ve concluded that i’m bi - as in bisexual; and i just thought i’d tell you bec--’

you genuinely thought that you might have to explain to yamaguchi what bisexual means so IMAGINE your surprise when he simply replies, ‘you’re bisexual? is that all you wanted to tell me?’ and once you hum in agreement, he lets out a heave of euphoric relief

‘(y/n), please don’t make fun of me but on the way here, i was almost gonna cry because i thought you were going to tell me something horrible.’ he clutched his chest, breathing heavily - usually he’d never admit to something like that but right now, he felt that it was appropriate

you snickered at his rather exaggerated actions, ‘awh, baby. i’m sorry.’ a pout formed on your lips as you soothingly rubbed his back.

yamaguchi rapidly shook his head before turning the tables and rubbing your back instead, ‘nonono, it’s fine! i’m fine!- and i’m glad you’re fine too.’ he stumbled, hastily placing a kiss on your cheek before whispering in your ear, ‘i’m so proud of you. congratulations!’

although you couldn’t see his face, you could tell from his light voice that he was beaming 

after that, he buried his nose into the crook of you neck and snaked his arms around your waist to pull you into a hug, which you both stayed in for a good 5 minutes

Kei Tsukishima

let’s be honest, tsukki’s definitely part of the lgbtq+ community but in deep denial

like if you ask him, he’s not even questioning his gender or sexuality, he’s just ✨straight ✨

so when you just randomly joked one day ‘oi, four-eyes, turn this shit off. she’s too much for my lil’ bi heart to handle.’ while y’all were watching a movie and you instinctively made an off-hand comment about how gorgeous the female lead was 

upon realising what you just said, you turned to him with the most awkward grin plastered on your face, ‘tsukki, i’m bisexual, by the way.’

‘no shit, sherlock.’ he hissed at your use of that little nickname 

you turned your head to look at him as you blinked rapidly, finally  mentally processing his response 

while he did the exact same thing simultaneously, dramatically turning his head to meet your gaze before muttering, ‘was that you coming out?’

your eyes widened as you realised, then nodded slowly

tsukishima smirked, shifting his attention back onto the movie, ‘congrats.’ he spoke in a mellow voice, a slight sense of amiability laced into his tone 

‘thanks-’

‘have you told your parents yet?’ he quirked a brow, his eyes remaining glued to the screen

you hesitated before shaking your head, ‘no.’ 

‘what about your friends?’

‘yeah, i came out to my friend group a few months ago - along with yamaguchi.’

tsukishima couldn’t help but frown at the fact you came out to yamaguchi before him but honestly, he couldn’t blame you - he was aware that his bitchy exterior probably discouraged you from telling him sooner, so he was just glad that you had the confidence to tell him eventually  

‘so how long have you known that you’re, like, y’know, bi?’  he inquired further

‘a while.’ you hummed, biting your bottom lip, internally so relieved that he wasn’t being too awkward or weird about it

‘good for you.’ he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, not a hint of sarcasm or irony detected in his voice for a change, ‘oh, and good luck with coming out to your parents’

‘thank you.’ you murmur, happily shifting your attention back onto the movie

 tsukishima honestly doesn’t mind/care tbh

like he’s supportive and will beat a bitch up if they don’t accept you - but in general, he thinks that it’s none of his business who you love

as long as it is him (ಥ _ ಥ) 

Kenma Kuzome

ok so fun story 

you were both chilling in his room on a saturday, he was playing on his nintendo switch as always and you were on your phone

you had been meaning to come out to him for a while now but every time you tried, it seemed as though something happened to prevent you from doing so 

for example, you tried to come out to him while y’all were chilling at the park but then a bunch of geese started terrorizing y’all and it completely ruined the mood

so you thought that now you were in his room - where there was less of an abundance of geese - it’d be a better time than any to just lift the burden that had been weighing on your chest

you were as nervous as any one would be but you kept on trying to reassure yourself that kenma would be supportive 

however, he had never discussed any lgbtq+ related issues with you so you had no idea where he stood with that sort of stuff but tbh, he doesn’t give off homophobic vibes 

after a while of staring at the wall and working up the courage, you finally spoke up, ‘hey, kenma. i think i might be bi.’

you mentally cursed at yourself as you didn’t ‘think’ that you are bi but rather you knew that you are bi, yet you felt the need to add that filler just in case things went sour

he perked up upon hearing this and turned to look at you, a small smile gracing his lips, ‘okay, that’s cool. congratulations.’ 

you couldn’t help but beam back at him, ‘thanks, babe.’ you almost whispered, gladly going back to whatever you were doing on your phone

honestly, you were happy to leave the interaction at that - i mean, his brief and calm response was satisfying beyond expected, as it was probably the least awkward way that could’ve possibly gone down

however, what happened next filled you with endless amounts of euphoria 

‘oh, and (y/n).’ kenma said to grab your attention, ‘i’m bisexual.’

you did a double-take 

your instincts told you to throw yourself into his arms and rave on about how proud you are that he had the courage to come out but after a moment of reflection, you had a better idea

‘okay, that’s cool. congratulations.’

kenma automatically pouted at how you used his own words against him when he was clearly expecting a hug, ‘(y/n)..’ he whined lowly, shifting his gaze back onto his game

but you were weak so ofc you pulled him into a hug as you both muttered sweet, reassuring things into each other’s ears

‘i love you so much, (y/n) no matter what.’

‘i know.’ you snickered.

‘bitch-’

‘i love you too. and i’m so proud of you for coming out - you’re so brave.’

‘aw, thanks. so are you, babe.’

‘i know’

kenma playfully nibbled at your neck for being such a clown during a sentimental moment

but anyway, you helped kenma come out so- yeah :))

[aeronbracken]

You're right! It's not as focused in the fantasy aspect as most ff (which I think it's why the fanbase usually not prefers 12, since the story is bit political) but it's still just so good. It's one of my favorite aspects of that title if I'm being honest, I love a well constructive plot and 12 has it!! Still u have a bunch of good magic lore and main characters to keep ur mind busy during the serious plot, which is really nice!! I'd recomend looking for the remaster (zodiac age) since they even fixed few mechanics on that one but also... I'm not sure were u live but in my country it's like not that cheap lol so I'll pray steam gets a sale soon for ya (and I mean, they had a amazing one with ff9 not that long ago so WHO KNOWS! I bought it immediately lol I hope you have a chance to experience 12 <3)

And oh man, it really helps that I love Thancred since we first saw him lmao KINDA EMBARRASSING IF YOU ASK ME but you know how u started to write for urs and estinien? I did the same right after I finished HW and now I have like at least 1 fic per expansion where I go like "aight what are they relationship in this expansion?" And I don't even post anywhere. It's just for me and my hcs. So yeah, I'm down bad for that mf. I hope you enjoy like the development he got through shb from now on, in the patches you're playing! Also I love ur vision of him, he really is the one that always shows how much he cares. The dialogue exchanged before the amaurot dungeon made me cry so damn hard lol with a highlight for the quote "Words cannot express how much this has changed my life, or how grateful I am for your support...So I shall express my gratitude through action instead. No matter where you decide to go, I will be there, guarding your back." Because it's SO HIM. I love a dedicated / extremely loyal couple dinamic. Which makes me think that man I cannot wait for u to play EW tbh, I'm sure you're going to love it!

Also bless Radovan man and you're right IT'S ROMANTIC. Specifically since my WOL and Thancred aren't really together when they start learning the ~ secrets of the gunblade ~ if you haven't noticed yet, I love the get together part and the whole thing before that. THE YEARNING. THEY BOTH HAVE TO PROTECT. AND PROTECT EACH OTHER. So good. I have embarrassing amount of thoughts about them so excuse my rambling lol I stil have side ships for my wol but Thancred is just. My mans. Adore that dude.

And please if I can help u with your journey through hades ex lmk! I had so much fun (and luck lol) with it, I hope you get to experience it too <3

Oh, it is super expensive here too (like most of the games I am still bitter over not being able to get Elden Ring). That is why I am waiting for a sale I hope I can get it soon! Also, I LOVE political stories. I don't know if you have played it but the Landsmeet part of Dragon Age Origins was my fave and I feel like I would really enjoy 12.

I understand how it feels to LOVE a character from the moment you see them (it happened to me with Estinien at ARR DRG quests) And about Thancred I see him as my WoL's bestie because he was the first Scion I started to see as my WoL’s friend. I hope my man finds happiness. I am playing Eden raids right now and spending some quality time with him. 

And GNB part that you mentioned... It is really romantic due to their masters being friends, the fact that GNB not being common among people and they are the tanks of their group too. Truly a power couple. (not counting G’raha because he is all-rounder shh)

+I got the pics you send me and not going to share it like I promised but she is SO beautiful. Especially the second pic because I never saw that hairstyle on female Vieras and it suits her so well with lvl90 GNB armor. Thanks for sending those!

[a-heart-thats-healing]

The Fast and the Furious

Well, someone has been dating lately. Here's that update.

Lots of dating has been done since we last spoke. Trying to find out what qualities and characteristics I would like to see in a partner. I'm getting plenty of likes on Bumble, Tinder, and other dating apps, so now I can be picky with who I want to spend time getting to know. The next woman I date will end up being my wife as long as no serious issues arise.

Bloody Mary (BM): I'm naming this chick after a name of a drink since this is based on her actual name, she seemed angry so a drink like a Bloody Mary is perfect, plus the fact that I met her at a bar. We danced at the bar, made out, and enjoyed the night together. We decided not to fully hook-up that night, which ended up being the better decision which I'll get into in just a second. It was a wild night with BM though and I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it as a first attempt to date. When I say she looked good the night I met her, I mean, she looked goodddd. She did her make-up quite well. Unfortunately, the romances didn't last too long because I had a change of heart after seeing that we were looking for different things in dating. She, um... she didn't take it too well 😅. She called me immature, some other mean words, and after she was done ranting, came back to a baseline level of chill. This was a doozy.

Overall Reaction to BM: I think I upset her royally because she still said I was "iffy" in the photo my friend sent of us. It just made me laugh so hard because I know she still wants it. I wish that we could still be friends though, I just don't see me wanting to chat regularly because I'm a busy man.

___________________________________________________________

Fast and the Furious (FF): This woman is new. I met her on a dating app called "The League" and we've been talking consistently for about a month I believe. She is Trinidadian and Jamaican, which is a great mix, and obviously, I like it since I find her pretty cute. The reason why I call her FF is because she says she's quite the racer on the streets if she gets egged on. I started singing Toyko Drift in my high-pitched voice when I discovered this about her. She drove down from her city which I thought was nice of her to do. We had trouble finding parking for the first location, but the second beach was easy to park. We hit the beach after grabbing food and drinks to enjoy the atmosphere. She brought along card games such as "Never Have I Ever" and we played the ENTIRE deck! Some of the cards were quite embarrassing, but I played through them. We got to know each other really well with this game. We decided to show cards to each other and guess if the person had done it which ended up being more fun just by making assumptions about the other person. FF didn't collect as many cards as I did by well over double the amount of her deck which means she lost, but this is the kind of game that you want to lose. After it turned to half-past six, we decided to try our luck at the first beach that had a pier to watch the sunset. Although there were a BUNCH of tourists, we managed to see the sunset just after 7:30 PM. We can home, showered (separately you perv), and got ready for the night wasn't over just yet. We had decided to grab some pasta at a local Italian joint that I am always impressed with. This restaurant served us a phenomenal cabernet with excellent sweetness without a tannic feel (new terminology that FF taught me 😉 ). We decided I should pick what FF and I would eat. I decided on the fish for her and then the shrimp scampi for me. It ended up being about 10 PM when we finished with dinner and I was so surprised with how late it had become. We drove back to my house and I said my goodbyes to her.

Overall Reaction to FF: She was really cute! I made sure I let her know, but no kisses as it was just the first date and I didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable. She decided to pay for everything from the wraps at the grocery store to dinner. It's strange dating a woman that is independent in her own right without the need for a man to pay for things. I don't know if I like it, but it is different. She didn't really look like she had the appetite to eat from any of the places that we ate at which makes me think she was grossed out about it. She said it's because she's used to not eating the entire portion provided by the restaurant, so I dunno. I'd be interested in going on a second date with her, but FF doesn't create any spark in me at the moment. I do have the feeling that I wouldn't mess it up with her if we were to start dating for real. FF would be fun and would broaden my horizons, but I'm just not sure I feel that spark.

[pinnochiro]

pinn reviews - final fantasy xv

a long ramble about final fantasy fifteen that sort of looks like a review, as written by someone who finished the game fifteen minutes ago and needs to get these words out of his head. spoilers inbound.

i'm a pretty big fan of video games. i don't know what my first was, but it was probably either banjo and kazooie or mario kart 64, at my cousin's house when i was very small. i think that video games as a medium are so interesting, since the fact that video games are inherently interactive changes the way that they tell any story. it's a shame that despite loving video games so much, i'm absolutely terrible at them.

i'm absolute dogshit at video games. whenever i boot up something new, i always play on easy mode because. i'm that bad. unfortunately, this means that a lot of video games are simply. impossible for me to beat. that's fine, as at the moment i live with my good friend lizz, who is certifiably Good at Video Games, and so we've been playing video games together for a little bit now. typically this means that she will actually play the majority of the game while i sit with her and watch, but occasionally i'll have a go, but she'll end up with the controller as soon as a boss fight or puzzle or a mechanic i just can't seem to grasp shows up. we recently played through the entirety of the kingdom hearts series together, and this was an absolute blast of a time. i'm glad to say that i adore kingdom hearts now, and it's become one of my hyperfixations, which you might be able to tell from my icon. but we'd finished the kingdom hearts series, and we were left to move onto something else. we'd also played final fantasy 7 remake, so in my wisdom, i suggested that we play another final fantasy game.

we looked through the ff games that were already purchased on our consoles thanks to lizz's uncle, and eventually, we decided that we should play. all of them. however to start, we were going to play final fantasy xv, 15, and work our way backwards through the mainline, single-player games.

i'd heard that xv wasn't very good, but honestly, i was still quite curious. one person who i'd been following on twitter for years was pretty obsessed with the main party members, to the point where i knew their names and what-not even though i didn't have much of an idea what the game itself was about. i remember watching a video by supereyepatchwolf a few years ago about how the game sucked, but i couldn't remember much of the details, and i knew, based on my obsession with kingdom hearts, that xv had started as a different game called final fantasy versus xiiv. i don't know all the details about versus thirteen, but i do know that it was originally helmed by the creator of my beloved kingdom hearts, mr tetsuya nomura, and that after many years, the vast majority of the game was thrown out, nomura wasn't in charge any more, and the whole thing was rewritten and reworked, which sounds like a fairly rough development cycle. but so what, i don't care about gameplay. i want to play the video game with those cute guys that i see fanart of on twitter, and lizz seemed happy enough to play through it with me.

and so we started final fantasy xv. i've been told that since the game was practically dead on arrival, they threw in a bunch of new content and reworked a lot of the early game before i got my hands on it. so my gameplay started with a scene of the four guys fighting some demon dude on fire and they're all old and grotty. whatever, that cutscene ends and we're put into a combat tutorial. that's over and we're on the road in what looks to be central america, pushing a car.

our four leading lads are noctis, the prince of the lucis empire, his best friend prompto, his bodyguard, gladio, and his chef and other things, ignis. i do quite like the main four members of the party in xv. prompto is quite easily my favourite, voiced by robbie daymond of goro akechi fame and with a bunch of fun little animations and quips that make him very likeable. he gets extremely excited at the idea of riding chocobos and has what i considered the best scene of the game, where he and noctis meet on a motel rooftop and discuss prompto's imposter syndrome, since he's only part of noctis' official retinue as his best friend. noctis is a fairly typical main protagonist, he's in love with a woman he hasn't seen in eight years and needs to go marry her or something, i don't care. gladio is a tough macho man with a mullet who wears leather jackets and wields a greatsword, and is apparently only 22, which is at least 10 years younger than i assumed. ignis is a strategist and chef, who takes on the most authoritative role and constantly tells noctis to not drive his car at night. i was not a fan of ignis at the start, but he grew on me, especially with how hard the game hit me with his personal arc. the four boys are off, driving to noctis' wedding in a different country across the desert when their car breaks down. we then run into the first issue of the game.

cindy is a mechanic. she also has her ass and tits out constantly, like your sleazy uncle's shirt with a naked woman was instead semi-alive as a video game person. she fixes your car and acts fairly sexual and it's just like. why do we have to do this. aren't we over overtly sexualised women in video games who have no reason for the way they dress other than the character designer was horny? whatever, i like women as much as the next guy, but cindy's design just. makes me feel so uncomfortable.

anyways you get to do a little driving around with the boys, until you stay the night before catching the boat to your fiance. overnight, you find out that noctis' kingdom has been basically destroyed by an invading empire called niflheim, and practically everyone noctis knows, including his father, are dead. you learn that noctis and his bride to be are also assumed dead, with noctis hearing his own death announcement on the radio. the game has a bunch of added cutscenes that are actually footage from the three-hour-long prequel movie that came out after the game, are extremely hard to follow and honestly i had no idea what i was looking at. anyways, noctis' family is dead, so it's time to do some hunting sidequests.

that brings us to the combat, i suppose. rather than the turn-based or even active turn-based combat that the series is known for, xv opts for more modern action rpg-styled combat. i was, naturally, terrible at this, but i managed to get around it with the fact that. it is almost impossible to die in this video game, provided you have enough items. the game allows you so much time to heal yourself that there's practically no way to have your entire party wipe unless you're doing absolutely terrible, and even then, your party members will probably try and heal you themselves before that happens. lizz tells me that the combat is boring, you just push the same button over and over and then you win. i do appreciate that, for someone like me who is terrible at reading enemy movements, there is a giant button that pops up on screen that tells you when to push the block button, but even then i was prone to fucking it up. whether that's the bad game design or my terrible gaming abilities is up to you to decide. anyways, the game is fairly easy but has annoying combat, your teammates limit breaks will only land about 50% of the time (or never, if you are gladio) and i was still bad at it, so i didn't have all that much fun.

instead of an active levelling system, the game will only tally your character's level ups when you either make camp or visit a hotel. camping is, in my opinion, the only saving grace of this game. each time you make camp, you get to see the characters doing fun little camping activities together and just hanging out, ignis will cook up a new meal in a dramatic fashion and everyone will compliment him and eat it off their coleman's branded plates, it's just very fun. you also get to see what pictures prompto has taken, which is one of my favourite gameplay features. prompto's passion is photography, and while i support him in this wholeheartedly, his picture taking skills are, quite frankly, awful. the game will randomly take shots while you're on the move, which leaves you with a delightful selection of awkward poses, characters hidden behind bushes, pictures taken while someone is half-dead in combat, and snaps where the natural lighting absolutely makes it impossible to tell what's going on. it's hilarious and going through prompto's collection of photos each night is honestly the best part of the game. we managed to wind up with a few shots that, even despite being scripted events, turned out absolutely terrible, and i will cherish those forever.

anyways, since noctis' father and fiance are dead, that leaves him the king of lucis. the only important person to make it out of the capital alive tells you to drive to the middle of nowhere, where he randomly springs on you. hey. go into a bunch of these dungeons and absorb a bunch of swords, this is your destiny as king and how you will defeat the empire. noctis goes, uh, alright i guess, and you're set loose again to wander around for a bit collecting the 'royal arms'. this plot point wasn't explained well but hey, whatever, we're collecting the glowy swords and that's fine.

you're introduced at some point to ardyn, the main antagonist. he's old, kind of groady and wears a fedora. he's a dick to you and talks about his automobeeel. apparently my friend miri thinks he's hot, she is wrong.

i can't remember what happens specifically but you're told that your fiance is still alive and in fantasy venice, and she's talking to the gods on your behalf to borrow their powers. there's a mission where you follow some purple trees that are electric, and you do that i guess. i enjoyed riding the chocobos around, but couldn't care much for the plot at this point. ardyn leads you to a volcano, where you fight a giant lava god. he tries to step on you and i, a denizen of the internet and with an active fear of foot fetishists, was extremely uncomfortable. noctis becomes friends with foot man and a lightning god who lived in those trees, and ardyn steals your car.

very upset by this, noctis and his gang risk everything to sneak into a military base and steal it back. because this is a video game, this works out fine.

there's a little mining city which is all about Girl Power, because all the Women run the Mining Industry like Girl Bosses, and you hang around there for a bit. because all the women are so Empowered, they wear bikinis all the time with overalls over the top. gladio decides he needs to fuck off for a bit, i have no idea what he does since i haven't played the dlc, and then he comes back with another scar. you hang out with his sixteen year old sister, who has a crush on the engaged and 20-year old noctis, and then you drive her to a lighthouse. when she's in your party, she can't really fight, but she gets a pink chocobo and i thought that was very cute. we turned out own chocobo white and lizz named him 'jones' after a mount she has in ffxiv.

eventually, you have a long boat ride over to fantasy venice. this is the part where the game stops being 'fun with a few issues in combat and a rushed and poorly told story.' the open world, which was a main feature with a bunch of little areas to find where noctis can fish, little hunting sidequests and random photo spots where prompto takes touristy photos, is now gone, and it will not return for the entire rest of the game. you can 'go back in time', but the open world was the most enjoyable part of the game, and it kind of really sucks that the main story doesn't let you have any more freedom like that.

after arriving in fantasy venice, you have a talk with fantasy hillary clinton and beg her to let your girlfriend summon a god into the middle of her city. hillary agrees, and you don't get to meet up with your fiance, because even if the game is constantly telling you how much noctis loves her, there is. barely any interactions between the two in the entire game. from what i can tell, they met when noctis was a child and they haven't seen each other in ten years but are still fantasy dog pen-pals. noctis marrying her was supposed to make an alliance or something like that, but her brother has betrayed her to the army. noctis' girlfriend is also an oracle, which means she can heal people, i guess? everyone talks about how important she is and she's constantly telling people that she needs to use her powers to help noctis but she's practically a non-entity.

as can be expected of most female love interests in a game primarily focused on men, noctis' fiance is killed while summoning a god for noctis to befriend. noct gets very mad about this, and turns super saiyan and kills the god back, but his girlfriend is dead and that's super sad you guys. there's a beautiful prerendered cutscene where she says goodbye to noctis but since we barely know her, and we've only been told over and over that they're in love without anything to actually well, show this, it didn't have much of an impact. fantasy venice is destroyed, and ignis is blinded while trying to help calm the giant raging god.

iggy's blindness and how the game makes you account for this and grow to care for him was one of the highlights, in my opinion, as well as crushingly depressing. while i'm not disabled and have no right to say if this was 'good disabled representation' or anything like that, i believe that the game handles it decently enough. the group falls apart as noctis is upset about his girlfriend, gladio is extremely mad that noctis won't care for ignis, and prompto just wants everyone to get along. there's a mission where gladio constantly yells at you passive aggressive things to noctis about how he's a cunt for running, which is obnoxious, but the character arc itself is fairly strong. when you make camp, ignis can't cook anymore, so everyone eats cup noodles in a depressing ass cutscene. ignis remains in your party for the rest of the game despite his disability, and he doesn't magically regain his sight like other fantasy media would do, which at the very least i think is good. i'm not sure what the opinion of actual disabled people is of the character, considering how often disabled characters are either turned into misery porn to make the abled audience be glad that isn't them and if ignis' arc falls into this trap, but i hope that it wasn't handled too poorly, as that would just be another terrible mark in this game's list of bad moves.

the characters eventually make it to the evil empire's capital, which is abandoned and filled with daemons. the characters learn that ardyn is super evil and taught the king of the empire how to turn humans into daemons, which has now happened to the entire city. the 'magitek suits', presumed to be enchanted armour that fights as the empire's infantry, actually house the souls of the human-turned daemons. honestly i like this as a plot point but the game handles it pretty terribly. there could have been more lead up to this, the explanation is pretty lacking, and prompto's Big Plot Twist is. terribly handled. turns out that prompto was born in the empire and was going to be one of those empty soldier daemons, but he was rescued by people belonging to noctis' empire. not that the game tells you that. instead, prompto goes 'turns out i'm one of ... them' and Does Not Elaborate. The game doesn't tell you shit, not about prompto's past, not about how he feels about this, not about how anyone else feels about this either because the other party members just go 'oh that sucks, good thing you're not evil' and the scene ends. robbie daymond tries so hard to sell these terrible, terrible lines, and it almost entirely fails, i'm so sorry prompto. fortunately because i'm a nosy ass, i read prompto's wikia page and knew the plot twist ahead of time, because i don't think i would have even registered it if i didn't.

anyways everyone in the evil empire is dead and ardyn starts talking about how he's immortal and an ancient king of noctis' country but the gods thought he sucked because he's too evil. i missed most of this because the cats got the zoomies and were dashing across the couch right in the middle of his speech so i can't tell you anything else. noctis tries to get a big magic crystal to fight him and instead. gets schlorped inside.

TEN YEARS LATER

yes then ten years actually pass while noctis is asleep. the game shows this by switching the head on noctis' character model to have a beard, but that's it, no changes in animations or whatever. the sky is permanently night and only one human civilisation remains, the rest destroyed by daemons. as a plot point, this ends up feeling. extremely worthless. why was noctis asleep for ten whole goddamn years? so we can wake up and go 'damn it sucks out here'. but it's barely even a like, incentive to fix everything, because you have a long talk with a former child you were friends with where he talks about how humanity is still going fine and everyone's okay and the world has moved on without you. it feels. pointless. when you meet up with your party members, they are exactly as you left them, only with slightly different character models. there is no change in the voice performance, the character's movements or how they talk to show that they've been without you for ten years. they barely mention it. i'm just. so confused as to why they decided that a ten year timeskip was the way to go? since nothing really changes, couldn't you have made it like, two years? one year? six months?? have the characters react a little more? something??? at least if it was only a year or so i wouldn't have to deal with the fact that noctis looks like norman reedus with his shitty facial hair now.

anyways after that there's a bunch of long and boring boss fights. you fight some dead kings for some reason, your party members get a little bit to talk about how cool they are and how much they love noctis, and then you meet up with ardyn. there's another boring boss fight and god this was only a few hours ago but it's already gone from my head. you summon the gods and the old kings to beat the shit out of him after you both go super saiyan again? there's incredible music but it feels barely earned and just kind of eh. anyways, noctis dies, which was the price of using the crystal of light or whatever the fuck. his ghost marries his fiance's ghost finally, and they smile as they look at one of prompto's pictures. you can pick any picture you want to go here, and then the credits roll, showing all of the pictures you saved of prompto's shots. showing me all the pictures at the end is honestly lovely, but it really only served to remind me of how much more fun the game was in the first half. and that's the end, of final fantasy xv.

so what did i think of the story? it's terribly cobbled together and struggles to get you to feel anything and play out all the plot beats. you feel awful for the countless employees who spent years working on the beautiful cutscenes only to have them be in this game, which sucks and the story barely gets through. there were parts that i enjoyed, mostly the thing about the daemons being people, but honestly the rest of it is a mess. it's hard to follow at the best of times and just awkward and terribly written at the worst. the ending is cheap, and it doesn't feel like you've actually accomplished anything. i left that game feeling numb and empty, sad that i'd wasted so much time to end up with such a colossal failure of a conclusion.

i had fun with the game when it was my four little guys running around doing sidequests and camping together. after the midway point of the game, there's none of that, and you're bogged down into a plot that just pushes you from point a to point b and boring overlong bossfight to boring overlong bossfight. the character moments between your party are a lot of fun, but the second you hit fantasy venice, everything is pretty much on rails and you can't do anything except what the game tells you explicitly to do.

should you play this game? no lol. if anything i've mentioned about the story interests you, you'll be better off watching a lore video or reading the wiki. if you do want to play it after all that, just don't proceed after the myrthril refining quest, it's pretty much all downhill from there. will i play the dlc? unlikely, i think lizz and i will just watch a cutscene movie of those.

this game left me feeling empty and numb and not in a fun way. i wanted, so, so hard to like this game, and it all crashed around me in a beautifully overproduced and confusingly written cascade. i love you prompto, but even your cute little freckly face and terrible photography can't save this trainwreck of a game.

tl;dr - final fantasy xv sucks. i hope that 13, our next ff game, will be better.

[silver-wield]

So I just saw the cult Hojo discussion and I just was so disgusted by them even some of the CA fans were uncomfortable with it but I gotta stop and realize one of their reason why it ok for the rape to happen is that both Cloud and Aerith are in love with each other ???!!! WHAT !!

Seriously what kind of a love experience they had in their life , these two known each other for 2 days for God sake , where do they support these claims I have yet to see one quote of the devs stating Cloud is in love with Aerith !!! Nothing

These people are ruining this game , oh God imagine the devs knowing about this rape thing and these disgusting people claiming Cloud would do it I just ,...oh God

The devs know. The cult pulled this same shit 6 months ago and even tagged the official accounts at the time. 7R responded to it by low key tweeting Aerith death scene references.

I did this post because of their bs.

And I posted a bunch of snarky ss on twitter showing how Cloud says he's a soldier to other people before chapter 16, since that's what their stupid fucking headcanon hinges on.

Not to mention Cloud says it to Jessie in chapter 4 and to Tifa several more times. These morons just choose not to listen to anything but their own stupidity echoing back.

They're not even consistent. "It's rape; no it isn't" because they got called out and didn't know how to play it off to their best advantage.

The fact they think this is a joke is already disgusting. But it's also not a joke to them. They've said before they want Cloud to sexually assault or rape Aerith and then cover it up by saying they're in love so it can't be rape, then accuse us of being toxic over joking about how Cloud is horny for Tifa and they'll bang under the highwind. Because consensual sex is the same as what they're saying 🤦‍♀️

And Calli even said if it was Tifa up for assault we'd be okay with it. No, you fucking melt, we'd be lynching Hojo for even suggesting it because that's how normal people react to rape.

The stupidity in everything she says is beyond comprehension. Never mind the fact Gast ran away with Ifalna and Hojo tracked them down, so he didn't "sit back and watch them fall in love" jfc she's a moron, but she also thinks Hojo, a sicko scientist, would let Aerith be impregnated through intercourse instead of just taking a sample from Cloud and artificially impregnating Aerith in the most sterile way possible to ensure conception first time. She really thinks Hojo is gonna put them up in a lil cottage with a white picket fence and wait for nature to take its course 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

The whole scene is meant to show us how utterly disgusting Hojo is to the point the other board members and even president Shinra, who is a-ok with mass murder, have their limits and Hojo is beyond them. He is the true evil villain of the story. He experimented on his own wife and child ffs. This isn't someone you want as a supporter.

Non-shippers have seen this and they're blocking that whole side of the fandom on sight now, and Calli lost followers last time she did this, so pretty soon it'll just be her and her 11 disciples circle jerking over Aerith's HD corpse and saying se will revive her, and when se don't, she'll go back to the AC bollocks of Cloud is single even though he lives with a woman in the context of marriage and family.

I'm hoping she'll find a new fandom to infect, but since she's been wrong about the last two she liked, Naruto and GoT, even when she does finally get the message, implode and leave, she always be in the wrong cause she can't seem to catch basic narratives. I watched like 3 episodes of Naruto and even I caught how the story was gonna go lmao.

[carrackian]

‘Toxic’ Anime Fandoms (But I’m just angry)

Ok so this is gonna be a long stupid ramble because I (An idiot) found some articles online about toxic anime fandoms... and by god does it piss me off. SO in this essay I’m gonna incoherently scream about why these articles I found are just lacking in explanation, and then I point at the glaring flaws. Not to mention I’m using multiple articles, but they all like to use similar arguments.  Warning, I’m gonna paraphrase because these articles are long winded about literally nothing.

The Naruto fanbase is toxic because people compare everything to Naruto, and people get upset when you don’t put it in your best anime list!! Honey... HONEY, that’s how all fandoms are. Naruto was likely people’s first introduction to anime, and people are defensive over their nostalgia, I mean like you saw the uprising with the new Ben 10 and Teen Titans Go, other than the fact that they’re BAD, but people were upset and still are (which is yet again understandable)  Seriously, if I made a list that said ‘Best Things Ever’ and I didn’t include something that they liked, then I understand why someone would be upset, and maybe comment something. It’s the day in age where if you have an opinion someone will probably be upset with you.

The Deathnote fanbase is toxic because people like to say it’s good and act offended if you haven’t watched it! Well I mean... Yeah? That’s how fans of a show can act, it’s just exaggerated. I mean seriously, if someone told me they haven’t ever played Undertale, or heard anything about Homestuck- I’m gonna wonder about what part of the internet you’ve been on because I played Undertale for the first time in like 2019 thanks to how much my friends praised it, and I only got into Homestuck in very late 2020 because one of my friends went on a three hour rant about homestuck and I needed the context for so much stuff. Hell, I only have any knowledge on Deathnote because my friend took their old Deathnote Manga and gave it to me for my birthday- which was a touching gift since they really love Deathnote. 

The Hunter X Hunter fanbase is toxic because it doesn’t get attention from weebs, and the fans sometimes get angry. Seriously? That’s what we’re mad about? This is literally so fucking petty my god- next ffs.

The Jojo fanbase is toxic because ‘is that a jojo reference memes’ and because fans want you to watch Jojo. Fucking- AGAIN!? jesus christ. You wanna know how I got into Jojo? My tooth was pulled, and it was the first time I ever got any teeth pulled, so I was high as hell and spitting out blood occasionally. I didn’t want to walk home that day (for obvious reasons) and so I stayed late so I could get a ride from my friends parents. So when another mutual acquaintance came up, and he was playing the Jojo game on an emulator. This got into the three of them telling me about Jojo, but only super vague pieces of it. High off my ass I got home, binge watched like two seasons of it, and forgot everything that happened after the first episode. So I managed to get through the first season (again) before I got caught up in other things (ahem, pokemon) Not to mention that its normal to want to share something you like with other people. Back when I read books regularly I used to keep a list of books to recommend to my friends.

The Demon Slayer fandom is bad cuz too many spoilers :(  Okay? This... This doesn’t a toxic fandom make. Yeah it’s shitty, but like full fucking on- that’s not toxic?

The Dragon Ball fanbase is toxic because people think Goku is the strongest and argue about it, and it’s dying, but like I’m also proof that DBZ fans aren’t bad! Okay? And? Like I full on mean that. I’m a Dragon Ball fan and let me tell you- I’ve literally never seen a single fucking person actually say anything like that unironically- or during a power leveling video that’s an actual discussion about power scaling. Not to mention that for the most part people watch shows for the actual show? Like the plot, characters, storyline- ya know, the actual fucking show?

The Attack on Titan fanbase is toxic because fans sent death threats to the author for ending the manga. Jesus fucking christ- okay, yeah that’s toxic! So... where’s the catch? They also wrote their own endings to the manga. I swear to GOD- WHAT THE FUCK. Fanfiction has existed forever you ignoramus, bleach-snorting, styrofoam eating IDIOT. Seriously, I literally fucking rewrote the entirety of Naruto (Multiple Times over) are you gonna say that I’m Toxic? How about the multiple other hundreds of people who have literally rewritten entire works of fiction.

Now, what do I consider toxic fanbases? The top three are: Undertale, Homestuck and Steven Universe. The Undertale fandom managed to be so bad that people were actually kinda scared of it. Not to mention that it is a good game, people just went a bit too far. If you killed anyone people would send death threats, Markiplier (a really cool youtuber) had people yell at him for giving Sans a southern accent, and I mean the fact that it’s so big made it worse. The Homestuck fandom had many bad moments where some fans caused harm to others, damaged products, the girl who nearly killed herself trying to dye her skin for a cosplay, AND LITERALLY CHANGED THE CONVENTION FIELD. The Steven Universe fandom nearly killed a fan because she drew a fat character thin, they turned on the fucking creators for saying this was bad, multiple racist, sexist and homophobic things just existing while people pretend to be fake woke.

And this has been- I literally knew all of the bad fandom stuff because I lived through it. Problem is, I lived through the popularity of every single anime on this list while actively in more internet spaces, and I don’t fucking see it. Seriously, when I think of toxic anime fanbases I think about anime like Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, where a bunch of 30 year olds get horny over a child and then say that they’re fine because she’s ACSHUALLY 2,000 years old! I mean fuck, my favorite meme is literally the- “Men be like “You’re not a real anime fan if you don’t watch ‘Is it wrong to piss on my bunny sister’s feet?’“ Like- fucking exactly. Both these fucking articles have ‘I think that when someone is a little mean or says something kinda annoying they’re TOXIC!’ Like bitch no, when I think toxic I think of the gaslighting fanbases that end up with multiple people with mental disorders or someone dead- which let me tell you, is a surprisingly large amount of fandoms? 

Anyways so I’m done, mainly because it’s like super fucking late and I’m so tired

[macgyvertape]

50 or so hours into Cyberpunk 2077

This should be roughly the correct amount of time, ive been leaving the game running as I get up to get food or do stretches. Quests are roughly in order I did them

non spoilers above cut:

 i haven't found a single hat/helmet i like, and since you can't hide them I just am not wearing any. It matters that much.

I posted the other day about bugs, every few hours I play I find new bugs. some require me to go back and reload a save others I honestly can’t tell if it’s a bug or just really poor development

there are several perks that don’t quite do what the description says, like the Anamesis perk. Based on reddit and trying it out it seems to just not do anything.

sometimes in car chase segments the passenger will say “look out” as cars spawn in my path and hit me. Can’t tell if that was deliberate or a pop in issue

Yeah I’ve just totally given up on doing pacifist things unless required by a mission. Given up on doing stealth too unless a mission objective, except for sneaking around to set up a fight.

:readmore:

the delemain car quest is fun. From the shock of the one going "beep beep motherfucker" and doing a hit and run to start it off, to the GLADOS car i see a lot of people talking about. It was fun to explore the city when i might have missed places like the landfill apparently there is follow up on T-bug's death if you go back to the quick hack shop in Kabuki. It's not much but better than nothing I made the pass with Panam of "what if the room just had one bed". I know she won't do a wlw romance, which is fine since I wouldn’t have chosen her.  I enjoy her as a character, don’t get me wrong, my V considers her as a friend, but it seems like theres always drama going on which would be tiring. I would have gone for a fling, i like her leotard-pants combo with all the straps

but also her questline was buggy as hell. Multiple cases of having to reload due to clipping into objects, including her in a driving section, or just insta-dying when collision physics with some rocks broke "your neural network can no longer function independantly of the chip" me slapping my desk: s y m b i o te!!! come on lets have some s y m b i o s i s

in the scene with hellman i really liked how Johnny moved around the room. It made him feel like he was really there. it was hard to follow the convo as I left the room, i would not have understood it without subtitles. But i guess Takemura fucking waterboarded hellman. :|

lol I hope the dialogue is different b/c i refuse to smoke for Johnny

i am level 18 and still can't beat the first opponents in the fist fighting quest. ffs

I looked up the romances options so I went to do the I fought the law quest as soon as i got it. ACAB, but like I literally just met River Ward 2 minutes ago, and I really like him. His earring and cyborg eye, his big fluffy coat. I'm definitely gonna sleep with him Ok i like how when River Ward is dealing with the tiger claws if you interject it leads to a fight. It goes better if you follow his instructions and let him deal with it. Seriously I enjoy that sometimes its good to not pick a dialogue choice.

during the red queen club part, there was no dialogue over the phone. So i reloaded a save and got myself spotted and attacked. Then River showed up to help me <3 and it was more enjoyable having him there. I honestly am not sure if him not going to the club level is bug or not.

then uuuuuugh the worst of irl police "cops are my family" from Detective Han. Again ACAB "FRATERNITY OF CITY COPS RESEMBLES A [Nomad] CLAN NOT AT ALL" ok a few minutes ago i was complaining about bugs, but the character modeling in this game is good (when they're there). You can see body posture, characters jiggle their legs when they are nervous. Like I though character A was just throwing a cigarette on the ground, but then character B flinches back; I realize Char A threw it at B as a fuck you

I'm honestly curious if "I fought the Law" quest will have any impact later on. My choices were that I thought there was more going on than Holt being the only person behind this (based on how complicated the main questline heist is, and keeping an eye on some of the in game news), and told him not to take it to internal affairs, and I loved his response of how he doesn't give a shit what we think, he's doing it anyway.

In the elevator to report in, Johnny said "this muck is deeper than you think, tell them nothing", so i just said that the case was complicated. anyway i love how much of a sarcastic asshole V is

I thought i was being nonlethal with the monk quest, but it seems i accidently killed someone. RIP, but thats kind of the problem with this game. Like when i do the non lethal cyberpychosis quests I equip my non lethal modded gun and hope for the est. I like how a go here kill things quest led to Charles the ripperdoc. He's getting all his parts from scav gang members so I felt obligated to take him out. I got a police bounty for it but w/e.

I merged the Delemain fragments with the whole. Guess he's the meta now. (Side note: some of my favorite rvb fanfic plots are Ai consiousness/memory merging with the humans, so I’m having fun with this game and look foward to introspective fanfic)

Honestly Jonny made some good points, the fragments didn't deserve to die; but also destroying the core and freeing the fragments, they couldn't really function alone.

I was able to rescue Saul fine with stealth. Using cameras and the synapse overload really made it easy.  Can't use the sniper rifle reward b/c I don't have the stats for it, and while it has a silencer the fact that it's a ricochette weapon and not a shoot through walls weapons, makes it not as good imo; and theres a legendary one that is stats free for only 100k.

Lol made a pass again at Panam, and she immediately shut me down. I then did Mitch's quest and I love every time someone tells V they area  good person.

I hacked the operation carpe noctem shard, and wow the corporations are using ai to make people have cyberpsychosis, or something like that. What a shocker /s, I've played Deus Ex HR before

lol driving through the unifinished interstate, past the fight from Panam's first quest I found a "batcave" with a very nice car, and a manifesto written by "muckman'. But here's my complaint about the loot, there is a legendary top, but it had 16 armor. My current top has 84 armor, like why would i switch?? then later i found a bunker with soviet spies in it. Wild

Doing River's second quest, love the timing of as soon as you ask, why are we breaking in, someone shows up to tell you he got kicked off the force. It's funny how Johnny comments how maybe River's into you, and V just doubts Johnny's words. Love how the first kid asks River if I'm his girlfriend. also wow like oof both the second parts of Judy and River's quest are SUPER fucked UP!! oof like i stopped doing first person mode on the braindances for those quests as soon as i could, just made me too uncomfortable seeing that in first person.

DRIVING IN THE GAME IS BAD! nowhere is it more apparent than the sinnerman quest, which took me 3 times to get the driving section done, as cars spawned out of nowhere to hit me. Then when you restart, there is a bunch of dialogue it doesn't let you fast forward through. The rest of the Sinnerman questline is interesting. My V took every option to tell the dude that he was messed up, and what he was doing was wrong. idk, I was surprised how much dialogue there was that let you buy into his whole "forgiveness thing" and how there wasn't any real dialogue to call him the fuck out, that in seeking forgiveness he continues to do harm both emotional to the mother of the man he killed, but also that he got the husband killed via cop. The later follow up quest, I told him that what he is doing is crazy, studio is just going to profit off this vid. Then I refused to join him prayer, and told him fuck no i wasn't going to hammer him to the cross, or even watch. Yes, the man is scared of dying, and the corporation is exploiting him, but he keeps creating burdens for others.  I think the discussion on this quest will be interesting to read, it's definitely my own personal experience with religion coloring my view. Anyway back to a main quest, yeah i don't trust Placide, especially in that scene where he grabs my hand, then jacks in. I ran off to do most of the sidequests here and got some criticism from him. I do love how in the cinema the western movie switches to a mission brief as the netwatch agent talks. its a fun enviromental detail.  I took the netwatch offer, i don't think he's being fully honest with me, but he didn't put a virus in my head. As I told Placide later, I didn't pick a side. I like how you can then talk with the agent, who is a fan of Western movies, b/c they show "a simpler time where all good guys carry badges" :eyeroll:, and then V recommends Unforgiven, which from the wiki summary goes against that theme.

Looks like the Voodoo boys all got killed by Netwatch, but I as revenge for them trying to set me up I'm fine with it. Honestly after speaking with ai!Alt I don’t believe their plan of trying to be on good relations with AI would work. 

doing the johnny flashback 2, and wow Johnny really is an asshole. Like I had gotten so used to him in side missions I forgot how self centered and unlikable he was.You constantly get prompts to drink or do drugs, which I ignored. But i do love the goth/punk love Rogue and others have.

lol i called it, when Hellman said that the engram would seek to override the host, put V on the engram. I really like how as the relic malfunctions, you wind up in the chair with a cigarette, which you can either smoke and say you are turning into Johnny or throw away. My dialogue "your problem is the ends justify the means", which is true!!! He and Rogue detonated a nuke downtown, does anyone know that, and like ask Rogue about it????

(Funny you can ask Rouge about Johnny silverhand, over the phone, then the game bugs out and spawns her npc where you are. She doens't say much about the nuke, but she does say no one trusts you for jobs). The line of no one trusting you for jobs is pretty funny at level 46 street cred where im at “respected” status. really loving the family atmosphere at River's 3rd quest. Also his big strong arms, and the fact he is no longer a cop. I totally let the kids win, and wow the family dinner where they GRILL YOU over the relationship and try to set the two of you up, then the water tower scene!!!!! I don't love the first person sex cutscenes but they do have personality. I'm glad afterwards you got to tell River about the biochip and that you might die. Because he's so far removed from your personal plot. So I took that option to back out of a relationship.

I do love that you wake up with "river's tanktop" that says "fuck the police" It actually has extremely good armor stats, so thats what I'll wear now.

panam 3rd quest, when shes like why did you help me, I'm like "because it's important to you". Basically the closest you can get to "when a friend asks for help you help them", which as an ex-nomad backstory I really choose the nomad options when ever i can Paralezes quest part 2! I love the piano song but I always think of it as ocean's 11 music. It's also fun to see the computer and see Judy recommended you for the first quest. The emails talk about "forgetting" to hire a staffer, on the balocony a strange antennia was scannable, the color of the roses was remembered wrong...  lol guess i was right with those giant wall screens. Its fun environmental details that spell things out before you can notice, and it ties into some other quests where people's behavior is being altered. Actually, this quest "Dream On" I love it! For a while I've been like "wheres the illuminati conspiracy! Here it IS! I chose to follow Elisabeth's wishes and not tell her husband he was being brainwashed. In best case they program him to forget again, in worst case he ends up dead. The gaslighting Elisabeth described is CHILLING, her husband describes a vacation she can't remember and she doesn't know whose memories have been messed with. On your way to the plaza you get a call from someone/something that says the know exactly WHAT you are, any you black out!!! It's such a great feeling of helplessness that you're just one person in a world so big that you can't fight every power. As Johnny said, could be a corporation, could be a rogue ai, either way Jefferson is fucked (and so are you).

[azureflight]

WoW Characters as Player Characters from D&D

Alleria’s player is a minmaxer power player who keeps breaking the lore in pursuit of the ultimate build while dragging the party along.

Alleria’s Player: Oh, I wanna join this army of light group, they have this feat that I want... Oooo, look at the “void touched” prestige template! And it gives me some really powerful spells too!

DM constantly, and wrongfully, hopes that he can use her weird arcs to kill off or exile her character permanently and force her to play something less broken. But the rest of the party keeps sticking with her and defending her shit, because they are all dirty powergamers at heart. When that whole army of light thing came out, two of them straight up abandoned their old characters and made new ones just to get the max juice: Khadgar’s player now plays Lothraxion, Danath’s player now plays Fareeya.

 DM: You see before you, an Alleria that has completely embraced the void and wields its power with ease. As crusaders and devotees of the Light, there is nothing as disturbing as seeing an old friend falling so low.

Turalyon’s Player: I trust her man, she is my wife.

DM: What do you mean you trust her? You are the god damned High Exarch ffs.

TP: Yeah, but, like, I love her, you know. I feel like she is still with us.

DM: You don’t know that! Don’t metagame! But your character knows how vile and deceptive the void is, this is literally the antithesis of your faith!

TP: Yeah, but, like, I love her. That’s what my characters would do, he loves her man. He is loyal like that. And she saved me.

DM: It could all be a trick... Guys, please take this seriously.

Lothraxion’s Player: She saved me too, I trust her too!

Fareeya’s Player: If these two trust her, then so do I.

DM: You aren’t even here!

TP: It’s my wife man, come on! You’re the one who got pissed we split the party in the first place!

DM:...

TP:...

DM: (sighs) Roll a wisdom check.

Wacraft 3 was an epic campaign with two concurrent parties playing at two continents that the DM would then unite for the final showdown. But the whole Arthas/Jaina/Kael’thas stuff was basically a reflection of out game drama and it got so bad, the players of Arthas and Kael eventually left/semi-kicked out and the DM took over their characters and turned them evil. He brought Jaina’s player to the Kalimdor party and they got along mighty fine. Campaign went pretty amazingly after that and they loved it so much, it turned into a continuous game and they even managed to reach epic levels. 

However, as years passed, everyone got busier and busier. Eventually, the scheduling conflicts forced them to practically retire the characters. Now the DM uses them as NPCs for his other campaigns, but every once in a while, some of them manage to contact the DM and arrange a one-shot or short campaign like; Darkshore, Escape from the Underhold, or Rise of Azshara!

Illidan is a chronic metagamer with protagonist complex, who is constantly pissed that his friends don’t play along:

Illidan’s Player: I should be able to return to the rebel side, these guys know I was doing it all to infiltrate the enemy.

Malfurion’s and Tyrande’s Players: Nope! We know no such thing! You never told us jack shit!

Illidan’s P: WTF are you talking about? I told you both!

Tyrande’s Player: You spoke out game! We weren’t even close to you when you made that decision.

IP: But you still know!

Malfurion’s Player: “We” the players know, the characters don’t!

IP: Come on man!!!

TyP: Nuh-uh!

MP: Nope! NOPE! In fact, I fully believe my brother has betrayed us; He has always been a selfish, power-hungry prick, he totally sold us out! 

Illidan’s Player: Well screw you too guys. Fine! You know what, I’ll save everyone myself and you two will be very sorry about it!

Onyxia/Wrathion, Anduin and Taelia/Bolvar’s players are this group of friends who come up with really weird and funny character concepts and campaign ideas. And the DM rolls with them all, because they are a fun and laidback group that finds joy in every aspect of the game, including the tragic and embarrassing ones.

The first ever they came up to him, they asked for a political intrigue campaign and their characters were: An Adult Black Dragon pretending to be human, a 10 year old kid with noble background and 0 levels in anything and a widower paladin with a minus 3 wisdom modifier.

It went on quite spectacularly in all sorts of absurd ways and remains the only campaign where the final epic fight was practically a pvp: The DM allowed them to recruit players from his other games, but the dice gods willed that the kill went to the only NPC of the session, the newly returned “father” of the kid-Anduin.

Since they are a chill bunch that is all in for the new and weird stuff, DM tries his new homebrew ideas with them: When he wanted to make a new Elven race, they played a short rebellion campaign for it. They made Thalyssra, Valtrois and Oculeth and played them as book club wine snobs trying and miserably failing at a rebellion. DM liked it so much, he made their personality into racial characteristics and continues to use them as NPCs.

Scheduling conflicts, as well as the chaotic nature of their play style, means that they are not really able to sit down and have a long campaign, however, they do plan on making a sort of legacy campaign: After Onyxia’s and Anduin’s players got a one-shot set in Pandaria (in which the Onyxia guy this time played Wrathion), Bolvar’s player made Taelia and together with a now grown up and “actually has decent cleric levels” Anduin, they plan on having another political intrigue story, “Stormwind Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo.” If only they could just clear their schedule for a few weeks!

[thewrongexecution]

thinkin’ ‘bout final fantasy

I go by Not The Author for exactly the reason that I ain’t no expert on any given work of fiction, but I do like to make connections what make me seem smart: an illusion, haphazardly crafted by incident accident and supplemented by precocious pretentiousness. All the same, here are some fun thoughts I had that you might also enjoy!

I do have a point, that I do get to. I feel like I should say that ahead of time, all things considered. Like, I can appreciate if you can’t appreciate a shaggy dog story? But there is a point to all this.

...Eventually.

Spoiler Warning:

Final Fantasies 1, 6, 7, 7R, 13 and 15

Content Warning:

Discussion of death

Cussin’

Length warning:

5621 words

13 sections

16 digressions

Let’s dig in.

- - - - -

Final Fantasy 1 was not my first Final Fantasy experience, but I think it was the first I ever played by myself? The remaster for the GBA, came bundled with FF2 on the same cart, which I played briefly but did not complete and do not remember, except that it had Cid.

FF1 doesn’t have a Cid, but I really loved the narrative anyway, straightforward as it was, because it was very specifically about spitting in the face of an uncaring god who would doom the world for a laugh. Take these chains that bind us to darkness and, though we be forgot to history, strangle with them that selfsame darkness to bring an end to its tyranny.

((it is a terrible curse, to love time travel. so many grand expectations, so few ever met. play ghost trick, chrono trigger, radiant historia, majora’s mask, outer wilds. have you any recs yourself, lemme know! I digress.

((I digress a lot, as I may have mentioned. they’ll be noted in parenthetical, like this.))

This is the foundation upon which Final Fantasy is built, and while any student of architecture could tell you of many and varied perfectly valid construction techniques, it resonates. Grappling with an immutable past to course-correct an uncaring future is, too, an apt description of personal growth; a theme as universal as being alive. And I, as an impressionable youth, ate that shit up.

((I assume I was young, at any rate. my love for time travel, be it era-spanning or moment-stretching, is, I suspect, not entirely coincidental to my terrible temporal memory.))

And that was the tale of the studio, too. Final Fantasy was so titled because, the story goes, the developers knew they would shutter if it didn’t make bank. Staring your imminent demise in the face, knowing your fate is doom, and giving it your all, all the same.

And then they made another twelve, plus two-and-a-half MMOs, and god knows how many mobile games and spin-offs, and now the Fantasy is that there could ever be a Final one. so say I: life parodies art.

((the half-an-MMO is FF14 1.0, which no longer exists and is a fascinating tale, a rally against bleak futures all its own. I’ll [link] Noclip’s three-part documentary covering the developer’s side of things, because that’s the one I’ve seen. there’s plenty other material to hunt down, though, if you wanna.))

- - - - -

Final Fantasy VII is a game about fate, too. Particularly Death, that most ultimate of fates. Tragic, to be sure; preventable, or at least delayable, in many cases; necessary, at times, for the growth of something new.

Unrelenting. Unstoppable. Inescapable.

Death, and the fights against it, take many forms. There are the fascist death squads that hunt down your ragtag band and any dissent against their cruel masters, but these will only truly stop by cutting off the hydra’s head and building an entirely new society; eight dudes and their dog, faced with a corporate private military, can survive but never win. There are such disasters as do slay that hydra, be they natural or man-made. There’s the space alien and the apocalypse it ushers. There’s literal illness and injury, physical or otherwise. There are the deaths of loved ones, friends and family, that lead to some subtler deaths within those that survive them. The deaths of relationships, by neglect or abandonment. The ideological deaths we inflict on ourselves, accepting ever-growing lesser evils in the name of some impossible ideal.

Every day, the person we were becomes the person we are, and soon, the person we are will give way to someone new, and this, too, is a sort of death. In this sense, we tally Cloud’s deaths at least five: failure to become a Soldier and rebirth in shame, the massacre of Nibelheim and rebirth in grief, arrival at Midgar and rebirth in delusion, his cratering at the Crater and rebirth in nihilism, and his death and rebirth in the Lifestream of Mideel.

((you could prolly hunt down another two if you wanna be cheeky, but I lack the knowledge, motive and patience. frankly, this whole thing is to create a leading line of logic and probably isn’t, uh. academically ethical? or whatever the term is. I’m not necessarily wrong, but I’m definitely scuttling nuance. oh well!))

Now, I say “rebirth,” because that’s how deaths of identity more-or-less work. There’s usually some new identity waiting in the wings to take over. And rebirth is itself a notable theme, inasmuch as it is one outcome of death. But death is oft more final than that, and what people do in its imminence and wake is key here, too. Wutai’s collapse into an insular tourist trap. Avalanche’s vengeful fervor, in general and post-plate drop. Bugenhagen trying to pass his knowledge on to Red. The whole party’s ongoing post-traumatic depressive episodes.

Ultimately, death is the inescapable fate of all things. It’s what we do, in light of that, that makes us who we are.

- - - - -

Final Fantasies 13 and 15 are the only modern Final Fantasies I’ve beaten, and I bring them up because both deal very prominently with fate and death, and as Square’s most recent mainline FF titles, Remake can’t exist without comparison to them. Here’s what I remember:

Final Fantasy 13 was a game I enjoyed. The stagger system mixed up my casual FF tradition of Get The Big Numbers by putting a prominent UI element onscreen that says You Can’t Get The Big Numbers Unless The Bar Is Full. Suddenly there’s a natural-but-enforced ebb and flow to combat built in, where you gotta juggle chip damage, survival, and crowd control while keeping resources enough to burst down a staggered foe, but maintain situational awareness to swap back into survival mode if you’re not gonna down your enemy, all in something close to real-time. Very obviously a direct precursor to the combat of Remake. I didn’t realize the depth of it, but it was still super fun.

People at the time didn’t like the linearity of the game and, I can see that in retrospect? I think it’s closer to, there weren’t breakpoints, there wasn’t variety. It was cutscenes, combat, and the stretches of land between them; the only real thing for the brain to get a workout on was the combat, and eating only one kinda food is gonna make that food taste bland.

((I didn’t mind, but I like idle games, and, also probably had depression around then. Take that how you will.))

The story, though, I loved. You got your uncaring gods forcing mortals to do their increasingly-impossible bidding, cursing them to agonized unlife if they take too long, and with blissful, beautiful death if they succeed. It sucks! And here you have a ragtag band of incidental idiots trying to rebel against a system that, actually, wants them to? Like that’s the plan? Have mortals kill god and summon the devil to destroy all life, because god, doesn’t.... like life anymore?

((The lore gets more than a little impenetrable, and I remember bouncing off it a couple times. The throughline of God Sucks And Makes Zombies was good though.))

The biblical parallels are obvious, and if they weren’t, the final boss’ design will clue you in, god that’s a good design. hang on I can add pictures and already tossed a spoiler warning, here, look at this:

(per the Final Fantasy Fandom Wiki [X])

That’s literally The Holy Trinity But A Sword The Size Of A Building. It’s perfect.

Anyway, I love this game, because the heroes win, which is what God wants, so in winning, they lose, as was fated to be, right? Fuck All That, say the lesbians from space australia, as they turn into satan and, as satan, stop God’s shitty metal moon from crashing into space australia and destroying all life.

((this awakened something in me, though, as is becoming a theme, I wasn’t aware of it at the time. actually hold up I’m gonna rewatch that sequence.

((yeah okay wow on review that was aggressively cheesy and had a whole bunch of weird emotional whiplash that just leaves a super-bad aftertaste. I don’t really like it as an experience, but big bazonga lesbian satan with arms for hair is still a look-and-a-half.))

The whole thing is not entirely unlike if meteor was also Midgar, and there’s more than a few points where I went, hang on, are they trying to evoke 7 here? “Lightning” is ex-military and bad at emotions, Sazh is a black dad w/ guns and emotional trauma and I love him, quirky pink healer girl who might be an alien is here, the game starts on a train and leads into a robot bug fight; obviously it’s not one-to-one but the connections are there for a brain like mine to make, and only more prominent for the fact that FF7 was the more satisfying game.

((I cannot speak to 13-2 or -3; 13-2 was fun up until the enemies were abruptly 30 levels higher than me, more or less a mandate by the game for me to do all the side content, which I was not on-board with. I skipped 13-3 entirely, especially when I learned the whole game is on a timer. did not and do not need that stress in my life.))

- - - - -

But okay, FF13 was “too linear” and wasn’t doing super great. Enter Final Fantasy Versus 13, by which I mean enter Final Fantasy 15 actually, we don’t need any more of this 13 crap. And once again, I enjoyed it! ...Right up until it was bad.

Final Fantasy 15 was not a finished game, and we know this for certain now, because all its DLC was to make it a finished game. At the time, though, there was uncomfortable and inconsistent story pacing, only one playable character, relatively sparse combat mechanics... but it was open-world, and hey, that’s what you wanted, right? open, non-linear environments? I picked it up because, Teleporting Swordsman With a Motorcycle Sword. I am of simple pleasures, and those are they.

Of the little I remember, one point that’s stuck with me is the sequence following the Leviathan fight. See, we’ve been talking about fate and destiny and how Final Fantasy likes to spite them. Here in 15, our main man Noctis doesn’t want the destiny he’s been burdened with, to Become The King and Save The World from the Coming Darkness, or whatever. He’d really rather be doing, anything else? like hanging out with his buddies or actually getting married or, I dunno, grieving the death of his father. Nope! You don’t get to do that. Go find the ghost armaments of your dead ancestors so you can ~saaave the wooorld!~ I would have been in college around then, so, eminently relatable.

Now, on this journey, you meet a guy called Ardyn. He’s the sort of character that was built as an attack on me personally: sleazy, charming, possessing airs of casual familiarity with people he’s never met, kinda helps you out in tight spots, and also, by the way, vizier to the empire that killed your dad and wants you and your friends dead too. But not in the “secret good guy” way, he just likes fucking with you! he’s perfect.

Right up until the Leviathan fight.

See, Lunafreya, your betrothed--

((I’m so mad about this stupid, stupid garbage. I love Lunafreya on principle, but the game doesn’t bother to give her screentime. you only ever hear about her incidentally, which can be cool if you then meet the character and get to compare/contrast what you’ve heard, but the initial release only has her show up for this one chapter, and your party doesn’t really get to interact with her that much.))

Your betrothed is here and she’s some symbol of the peoples’ hope, right? she’s got light magic or something, and can actually commune with the gods. the gods are on your side, but you can’t actually understand a word they say, but she can, and that’s sick as hell. anyway.

You lose the fight against Leviathan, because you’re a shitty emo teen who doesn’t know how to use your ghost swords, and she got beat up earlier when Levi got all pissy at being summoned. And then Ardyn shows up in his magitek dropship.

Now earlier, Ardyn had Luna as his captive, completely at his mercy, and right now, he who would be king of kings, destined to save the world from darkness, is clutching at rock in a hurricane, beaten, wounded and dying.

Of the two, which do you think he stabs to death?

if you thought, “the protagonist, which will allow him to win, and subvert Final Fantasy’s themes of defying fate by having the villain be the one to do it, forcing everyone else to scramble for some alternate solution and deal with the fallout,” congratulations! You win disappointment, because that idea’s cool as hell and they didn’t. fucking. Do it.

((Ardyn, before this, had given me major Kefka vibes, and thinking on it now, the world descending into darkness in the 15 we never had could have played with even deeper parallels to FF6... but I never played 6, and that FF15 doesn’t exist, so... I’ll leave that analysis to better scholars.))

now, with the benefit of hindsight, that was never going to happen. too long in development hell, game had to ship, had no time or budget for mid-game upheaval. but at the time? made me lose any interest I had in Ardyn, made me mad at the developers for passing up on fulfilling the themes their series had explored in past, made me almost stop playing the game. I’m still mad about it for crying out loud!

((thinking about it gets me tensed up, coiled, with that sort of full-body thrum that’s best conveyed with letters that jitter around. best I can do here is bold italics, but it doesn’t have the right energy. it’s a fleeting feeling, but when it’s here? god. given the men that wrote this scene I would fight all of them and win.

((inhale...

((exhale...

((and move on.))

We, the player, never really meet Luna, so there’s no real... impact, no substance to it. It’s sad, but impersonal. villain kills damsel to inflict manpain on hero. that’s it. we’ve seen this song and dance before.

But kill Noctis? The character the player’s been controlling all this time, who they know intimately? Now it’s personal. Now your party members’ grief is a mirror to your own. And now you get to play as Luna, maybe? give the game time to flesh her out, have her bond with your old companions over their shared grief, and maybe use her connections and public speaking skills to rally the people of the world, in a perhaps-vain attempt to resist the oncoming darkness, while simultaneously using that public-facingness to drive her to hide her own fear and hopelessness...? That’s a complex character ripe for drama and tragedy right there! And then her, at the head of a story about people coming together to solve a global calamity themselves, rather than await their appointed savior?

Even then, but especially now... You can see the appeal, right?

- - - - -

Lemme step back and zoom out for a moment, because there’s one more kind of Fate to discuss before I finalize my thesis. Yes, I promise, there is a point besides being mad at FF15, this is still ultimately about Remake. Bear with me a little longer.

See, Remake’s premise is that it’s not quite FF7, but that itself is predicated on Remake being essentially FF7. Certain things must be in the Remake series, or it will cease to be the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series. The developers have gone on record saying as much, that they’ll still cover the thrust of the original, and that makes a lot of sense from a development standpoint. Building on an existing framework saves loads of time, and lets them focus on details as they have in Remake.

((I think they've already set up an in-universe justification for this, too. The party may have defeated the Whispers at Midgar, but the Whispers are the will of the planet. The only way to truly defeat them would be to defeat the planet itself, which: kind of the goal of the villains!

((a bit ironic, because the villains are the Whispers’ means to keep manipulating events. Remake backends a very large portion of the plot, and I don’t think Rufus seeing the Whispers is a throwaway detail. The party chases Sephiroth by chasing Shinra in the original, so even if the party has shaken free of the direct influence of the Whispers, manipulating Shinra should in turn manipulate the party.

((on top of which, Rufus prizes power, and the power to change or control fate-- something both the party and Sephiroth have seized-- would be as enticing as anything.))

But this begs the question: How much of Final Fantasy 7 is necessary before it stops being Final Fantasy 7? Do you need all nine characters? The Weapons? Rideable chocobo? Breedable chocobo? What about locations? Can you drop the Gold Saucer? or Mount Condor? or Mideel? How many minigames am I holding up? These are necessary questions, but so is this:

“Would a one-to-one recreation of the original game have the same emotional impact as when it released, twenty-three years ago?”

- - - - -

Now, the phrase “emotional impact” is necessarily kind of nebulous and subjective, so lemme dig into that a little bit.

The first significant chunk of the original FF7 takes place entirely in Midgar, which is one huge city. Every screen is densely packed; movement is typically constrained to narrow corridors and industrial crawlspaces. The whole world is deeply claustrophobic and visually hostile, by design.

This is FF7 for the first few hours, before a motorcycle chase deposits you outside city limits, and then... you hit the world map, and everything changes. The world is rendered in three whole dimensions, now! (Then, a technological marvel in its own right.) There’s a sky! There’s a horizon! Grass, mountains, the ocean!

Boundless, terrifying freedom.

From a mechanical standpoint, there’s only one real destination, an A-to-B with random encounters before a small enclosure with an inn and shops, no real change from what you’ve already been doing. But the mood? Everything’s fresh and new, now. Everything’s an unknown.

So, how do we do that again, two-and-a-half decades on?

Let’s say, something like this: Remake 2 starts with Cloud and Sephiroth en route to Nibelheim. For new players, this provides immediate intrigue: why are these mortal enemies hanging out in a truck? how did they get here, where are they going? For veterans, it’s familiar: oh, we’re in the flashback sequence.

For both, it provides mechanical familiarity. We just finished last game hanging out in Midgar, a bunch of town squares with shops and cutscenes connected to hazardous corridors. Well, Nibelheim’s a town with shops and cutscenes, connected to a monster-filled anthill and capped with a reactor. We know this. We’ve done this. We can do this again.

And when the flashback ends, we’re in Kalm. Another town, maybe with sidequests this time; Midgar looming in the distant skybox as a reminder of how far we’ve come.

And then you leave Kalm, and the camera zooms out, and out, and out...

Remake is essentially 7, and you can’t have the impact of 7′s world map reveal if Remake isn’t functionally open-world too. Square has plenty of experience with open environments, however successful their more recent attempts have been; I’m confident that the have the ability, at least, to craft an expansive world that feels appropriate to FF7.

((I’d like to take a moment here to talk about FF14, which mixes both compact twisty dungeons and wide-open overworld zones, and is necessarily wildly successful to still be operating as an MMO... but though I have played it briefly, I don’t claim knowledge sufficient to go in-depth. The point is, Square not only can make a game like that, they have, and are, and apparently possess non-zero competency. I have worries, but I’m not worried, if that makes sense.))

So, can you recreate a given kind of emotional impact? Yeah!

Can scenes from the original Final Fantasy 7 be rendered into a new context, more-or-less as they were? Absolutely!

Would a one-to-one recreation of the original game have the same emotional impact as when it released, twenty-three years ago?

- - - - -

Aerith dies.

If you opened this post and didn’t know that, well. There were spoiler warnings up at the top, the game’s more than two decades old, and the spoiler itself is basically a piece of pop-culture, up there with space dad and wizard killer. There’re probably plenty of people who know next-to-nothing about Final Fantasy 7 except that Aerith dies.

Everyone knows because, at the time, it was so big a thing. This was a title that Square hyped to heaven and back to push JRPGs into mainstream western markets, and it worked. And this was before major death was so common and arbitrary as it is today; even now, Game of Thrones and its ilk are a relative rarity. The death of a protagonist or love interest wasn’t a new thing for games, or any media really, but usually you knew it was coming, or it served some purpose. Aerith’s death was sudden, arbitrary, you’re almost immediately thrown into a boss fight so you don’t even have time to process it right away, and it’s the first stone in an avalanche of other pointless arbitrary tragedy. It’s an obvious narrative setup for the endgame confrontation with Sephiroth; instead, Cloud has a breakdown, Meteor happens, and now there’s an entire Disk 2.

Fandom has always been fandom, even before the continuous immediacy of the modern internet, but... people wrote letters to Square, and got sad on message boards. There’s an entire subset of forum signatures, back when those were a thing, that you could sort as “people fucked up over Aerith dying.” And again, this was the world. Not just Japan, or Asia, but everyone.

((Or, everyone with the finances to have a PS2 and/or an internet connection. Gaming as a pastime remains way expensive, whether played or watched. But you know how it is.))

And that’s the problem with answering that question.

See, FF7 is a lot of things, but for better or worse, it is defined by Aerith’s death. It’s one of many factors, but you can’t... leave it out, right? or it wouldn’t be FF7 anymore.

Aerith dies in FF7, and everyone knows it.

- - - - -

But Remake has promised, repeatedly, that things will be different this time. Everyone is coming together to defy fate, and Cloud in particular is here to keep Aerith from dying. Bodyguard jokes aside, Cloud repeatedly has flashbacks (flashforwards?) to Aerith’s death and the events leading to it. When he meets her in the church, when they cross into Sector 6, twice in the final battle. Hell, the very first time they meet, Sephiroth taunts him about not being able to save her. Even from a metatextual standpoint, since everyone knows Aerith dies, that’s like, The Most Obvious Fate To Change.

If, after all that, Aerith still dies? It’s not just tragedy, at that point. That’s the developers, actively lying to the player about their intent in making this game series. That’s frustrating, and immersion-breaking, and when said death is likely to still have one or more entire sequels to come after? maybe not great for sales! I know I didn’t bother buying the complete edition of FF15; I couldn’t bring myself to care enough about a game that set up this cool possibility, and then just, failed to deliver on every count.

And, Remake is being made for two audiences. I’ve said “everybody knows Aerith dies,” but that’s not really true, is it? It’s been 23 years, after all. Remake could well be someone’s very first Final Fantasy experience. That’s why they’ve been telegraphing Aerith’s death so hard. Not everyone knows, but at least everyone can guess. Is it fair, then, to this new audience, with potentially no knowledge or understanding of the legacy of this flashy new action game, to foreshadow tragedy in the future, have everyone come together to say, We’re Going To Stop This, and then... not? Is that good writing? Is that satisfying? When this is a multi-game and potentially multi-console investment of time and money, is this, as a newcomer, a story you’d want to keep playing?

And then on top of that, it’s 2020.

I don’t mean that in the current-year-fallacy, “we’re better than this now” kind of way. Rather, the way I felt about Final Fantasy 15 is even more relevant now. People, in real life, are realizing that the powers-that-be are failing them, have failed them, have been failing them for far longer than twenty-three years. The people that already knew that are actually showing up for each other, to spite what felt and feels like inescapable fate and finding that, together, they might just be able to ruin God’s day.

Game development is, of course, its own whole beast, and projects in motion tend to stay in motion; deviating from a plan takes time and money that Square may be unwilling to spend. But, under current world circumstances: is making a game where the hero sets out to save one specific person from their fated death, and following that with a game where that one specific person dies anyway, aside from everything else, a good business decision?

- - - - -

So... Aerith, shouldn’t die, right...? But, FF7 requires Meteor, and so requires the Temple of the Ancients and the Black Materia. And, Meteor can only be stopped by Holy, so FF7 requires the Forgotten City.

FF7 is a tragedy. FF7 demands blood.

...Hey, actually, hold that thought. How come Cloud can remember Aerith dying in the first place? He’s not from the future, right? He’s got a connection to Sephiroth, who is from the future... and Sephiroth can manipulate his memories...? but, why would Sephiroth let him, or make him, remember that?

Hey, how come Zack is alive, but like, in the “narrative scope” sense? Wouldn’t his presence circumvent Cloud’s delusions about the Nibelheim incident?

Hey, how come Cloud had multiple big climactic Sephiroth confrontations at what’s essentially the end of the prologue, including one that mirrors the very end of the original FF7? Shouldn’t that still come at, like, you know. the end?

Hey, how come--

- - - - -

Remake has these... Callbacks? Refrains? Like my favorite, when Sephiroth throws a train-- you know, The Fate Metaphor-- at Cloud, who absolutely shreds the thing. Or, for a more direct example:

And it frequently uses these to show that people are changing, that things can change. You know, the whole Running Theme the game has going on.

Sephiroth gets a refrain, too.

At the start of the game (give or take a reactor), in his first real appearance, Sephiroth philosophizes at Cloud, makes sure Cloud hates him, and tells Cloud what he wants.

At the end of the game, in his last appearance, Sephiroth philosophizes at Cloud, tells Cloud what he wants, and makes sure Cloud hates him.

Structurally, these encounters more-or-less bookend the game; thematically, it doesn’t exactly indicate change. Barret may or may not have come around on Cloud, and his admission that Cloud is important to him after all is, itself, important. Cloud, on the other hand, was always going to defy Sephiroth. He stands resolute, now, ready to fight rather than flee, but apathy was never on the table.

Now, Sephiroth’s whole Thing is psychologically manipulating Cloud to get what he wants, and as part of that, what Sephiroth wants is usually not what he says he wants.

All throughout the original FF7, Sephiroth riled up Cloud so that Cloud would pursue and defy him, culminating first in the Black Materia incident, and then again in the Forgotten City. None of the Sephiroth clones could survive the trip through the Northern Crater, so Sephiroth had to lure Cloud, with the Black Materia, to him, and then also convince Cloud to give up the Black Materia of his own accord. Mind control, memory manipulation and illusions were involved, but if Sephiroth could maintain those indefinitely, he probably just. Would have done that instead. Way easier,

The point is, in Remake, in addition to all the intermittent retraumitization sprinkled throughout the game, Sephiroth goes out of his way twice to directly ask Cloud, “hey, you hate me, right?” And, as part of that question, he tells Cloud, “this is what I want.” And Cloud? He hates Sephiroth, and will do his damnedest to keep Sephiroth from getting what he wants.

So. What does Sephiroth... say he wants?

- - - - -

One last aside before we cap off: This post would not exist without the valiant efforts of one Maximilian_dood. His devotion to the series kept myself and many others engaged and excited and, frankly, hopeful, in the leadup to the release of Remake, and his correlations between the rest of the FF7 series and Remake were enlightening and entertaining.

and had he not the gall to identify defying fate as a device to make aerith’s death more tragic, I would never have been angry enough to write this.

((I know, I know. Gaming and streaming and lit analysis are all hard individually, and I don’t begrudge losing one for the other two. And it was a first playthrough! I might have seen these lines sooner than some, but collating all this info was certainly not instantaneous. And Square can be hack writers at times-- see again my rant on FF15-- so even then, I can’t discount the possibility.

((but, still.

((Really?))

So, while I would like to believe that I have, by now, made my thesis on Remake’s narrative direction abundantly clear, here it is spelled out anyway:

- - - - -

At the bottom of the Forgotten City, at the shrine on the pillar in the lake, Cloud will find Aerith, who believes her fate immutable.

Sephiroth will descend, and Cloud will sacrifice himself, that Aerith should live.

This is Sephiroth’s plan.

- - - - -

Hey, thanks for reading this far! With my conversational tone and rambling tendencies, I’d have preferred to make this an audio post or, god forbid, a video essay, but I got a keyboard, and that’ll have to do. Diction is important to me, as the capitalization, italics and use of punctuation may have clued you in on, so... maybe you’ll get a dramatic reading sometime in the future? but, don’t bet on it.

Feel free to riddle me with questions, or point out inconsistencies with this big ol’ thing! I’m not exactly an expert, and I’m sure I glossed over, heavily paraphrased, completely forgot, intentionally ignored and/or aggressively misrepresented some stuff, but I love learning and teaching esoteric bullshit about The Vijigams. On that note, anything that sounds like it should be sourced is sourced from “I heard about it on social media or in a stream or youtube video one time, but if I actually had to hunt it down this whole thing would never see the light of day, and it has already been like three months,” which isn’t to excuse my lack of due diligence, but I do, lack diligence, so, tough.

Oh! but the Remake screens all come from [here]. Don’t care much for that splash screen, but, I Get It, so, whatever.

There were some other things I wanted to touch on but couldn’t really find a spot for. FF7 Remake as a metaphor for its own development, for example. Or, some of The Possibilities, like how Cloud’s death could very literally haunt Aerith, or how Remake sets up a more fleshed-out Midgar revisit that Cloud’s death specifically would make infinitely sadder.

On that note, if it was not yet obvious, I love speculation, and if they do go this direction, it’ll probably be their justification to go completely... off the rails? Remake only has to be FF7 until it doesn’t, after all. If there’s some wilder implications youall see for like... I dunno, a Jenova more fully-regenerated from also having Cloud’s cells back, getting into proper Kaiju-on-Kaiju battles with the Weapons, or anything like that? Feed me your brain juice, etc.

And, once more, for the road: this is interpretation; subjective, opinionated, and very much in denial of any kind of author-ity. Nor is this a claim on how things should be, or an assertion that this would be good or bad. Everything ultimately rests on Square's narrative design team and, we’ve touched on them already.

((but, for your consideration: I’m smart, and right))

Here’s hoping, whatever happens, we get the game we deserve.

thanks for coming to my ted talk, have a great day

[blazehedgehog]

Everyone is seems to be talking to you on your opinions on the FF7 Remake. I barely know the FF series, TBH. However, going in a different direction, how would YOU change the original game to bring it to this day? Try not to consider the Remake, but the original game by itself. Always appreciate your stuff, Blaze! (Sorry for the poor english)

Well I hate to sound like a broken record, but I think the gold standard is Resident Evil. Both the original remake from the Gamecube era, and now Resident Evil 2.

Those remakes change a bunch of stuff! And add a lot of new content! Puzzle solutions are different, there’s new monsters to fight, they rework the layout of environments and add new areas to explore, and so on. In terms of Resident Evil 2, they also change up where some story beats go, like when you meet Robert Kendo or where Mr. X shows up.

But they keep it in the spirit of the original games. They say, “Here is what we were trying to do in 1998, but now better realized.” The shooting is better, the mechanics are tighter, the cutscenes are more cinematic and less goofy. But you can still point at them and say, “That’s Resident Evil.”

The problem is, after Final Fantasy 7, Square-Enix started experimenting wildly with what their RPGs are supposed to play like.

Like, Final Fantasy 8, right. They did away with weapon equips entirely. You have one sword for the entire game. Magic spells are now vacuumed up from special fountains or captured from enemies like Pokemon. There’s the overly complicated Guardian Force system with affinities and learned abilities and that whole mess.

Chrono Cross goes in the opposite direction and basically does away with experience points and leveling up. You only level up after bosses in that game, so you can’t ever be under-leveled for anything (but that means you also can’t be over-leveled for anything either, a key feature I like about JRPGs).

And it continued like that. Every new game felt like they were trying new ways to reinvent different wheels because they were out of ideas on how to improve the core turn based mechanics. So Final Fantasy mutated, and mutated, and mutated… until it’s become basically unrecognizable to me.

So what do you go back to? What has Final Fantasy ever been? Can it even be defined, outside of fashion model character designs and the vague concept of “swords?”

To be honest, I would have been fine if the Final Fantasy franchise had ended a long time ago. But I feel like, with the fact that none of the games have to be connected to each other, that gave Square-Enix a license to keep going well past the point of logic or sense. Anything can be a Final Fantasy now! Which also means Final Fantasy is nothing specific, not anymore.

If I were handling the remake, I’d use this as an opportunity to re-examine turn based combat and figure out what made it appealing. We’ve had a spate of games like that recently – again, we have Resident Evil. After Resident Evil 6 imploded for being too much of a summer blockbuster, Capcom was surprised by the sales of Resident Evil Remake HD, leading to Resident Evil 7 re-focusing on horror and giving us Resident Evil 2 Remake.

And then you have Doom 2016, which similarly backpedaled after Doom 3 went in a new direction.

“Back to basics” is in-vogue right now, so instead of pushing Final Fantasy 7 to conform to the example set by 15, we could go back and just give it a turn based battle system. You could say that “Final Fantasy 13 just had a turn based battle system, it wasn’t that long ago” – but you have to remember that FF13 released eleven years ago. It’s been a while.

If not that, if they’re really set on making it in to more of an action-based experience, then go all the way action. None of this “wait until your ATB meter fills up to access your inventory” weirdness. Making it this weird half-step between turn based and an action game is what bothers me the most right now, because it feels like the elements don’t fit together.

How you’d handle the story is a different subject, and one I haven’t thought about on a super deep level, because there’s a lot of story in FF7 to sift through and remember. But I can tell you right now I wouldn’t end it the way the current Final Fantasy 7 Remake ends, which is…

Lbh svtug gur tubfgyl ercerfragngvba bs “pnaba”, naq vgf qrsrng nyybjf Frcuvebgu gb yvgrenyyl erjevgr gur cybg sbe gur tnzr, naq va qbvat fb punatrf gur gvzryvar fb gung shgher ragevrf va gur Svany Snagnfl 7 Erznxr qb abg unir gb sbyybj gur bevtvany tnzr'f fgbel va nal jnl funcr be sbez. Nf va, gur ernfba vg'f pnyyrq “Svany Snagnfl 7 Erznxr” vf orpnhfr vg'f guebjvat bhg gur byq fgbel naq erznxvat vg gb or fbzrguvat ryfr. (spoilers, paste in to rot13.com to decode)

But really, my example is just “Do it like Resident Evil and Doom did it by making it like the old games, but still good.” I know that’s an incredibly basic appraisal, but that’s what I feel like. Because, like I said, what do you even go back to? Final Fantasy’s greatest consistency is its inconsistency. The primary thing it’s been good at… is that it hasn’t been good for me for a long time. 

I just wish it was, and the FF7 Remake was a great chance for that to happen.

[sarasa-cat]

Sometime this morning I was being amused by some arts and tech fluff piece in the NYT about how elder Gen Z are into distorted, wonky, unstaged selfies for Instagram— and this involves using the wide angle back camera on a phone so you cannot see the photo as you are taking it and some of them purposefully don’t even look at the photo til later leaving it as a lolsnort surprise. The whole point is to be stupid and contagious (oops wrong Gen) purposefully messy and anti-Instagram perfection.

And the comments on the article were all from older ppl — boomers I assume (bc I recognized some of the commenters handles and know something about some of them) and it was all WHAT THE FUCK ARE WRONG WITH KIDS THESE DAYS NO WONDer ThE WoRlD is In tHE ToILEt. Rrrgggg dumb kids so lazy and stupid!!!

(And contagious).

Anyhow I already knew about this from a few years back (why do I know these trends? Idk?) and when I first noted it I thought —

Okay, hold on here, bc I need to address all my millennial gen friends bc I really do love you so much and have since you all started coming of age and entering my adult (lol university) friends circle — I do have a bunch of my literal best friends in the millennial gen especially in that Xennial crew but also younger than that too —

I thought a few years ago— omfg thank god the gen Zeds (or Zees) are growing up to the point they have an effect on culture bc they (unsurprisingly!) remind me SO MUCH OF GEN X But with modern tech and late 20teens / early 2020s problems.

The humor in gen Z is totally a revamp of gen X humor. Which makes sense. gen Z are technically gen X’s kids.

Ppl can argue whether generation theory in sociology is bullshit or has something to say. Idk. I’m on the fence. But I do see societal swings of certain sorts: like, millennials were boomers revamped in many ways, which made gen X roll our eyes. What-ever.

I’m sure gen x was actually some sort of weird console video game playing revamp of (what the fuck came before boomers? Uh…)

Uhhh wikipedia?

The silent generation. Omfg they were named the SILENT generation in america. Shit you not. The leadership of the civil rights movement and the so called silent majority. From 1951 article in Time magazine:

“The most startling fact about the younger generation is its silence. With some rare exceptions, youth is nowhere near the rostrum. By comparison with the Flaming Youth of their fathers & mothers, today's younger generation is a still, small flame. It does not issue manifestoes, make speeches or carry posters. It has been called the "Silent Generation."”

Yeah, bc the parents of the boomers who came b4 them were called The Greatest Generation lol.

Seriously- that is what the press said about Gen X in the 90s- they are losers and slackers and blah blah blah do nothing lay abouts. Yeah, whatever. And then millennials came along and they were the Golden Children who would do everything right. Whatever.

So I am not surprised boomers are shitting on Gen Z while Gen X are eye rolling.

Anyhow- we need more messy shit and less of this staged aesthetic ffs. Yeah, even if messy is an aesthetic.

I just want to have less freaking expectations about the damn professional look that millennials created for women bc it is too time consuming and so entirely not my jam and I was SO PISSED OFF when it became an Expectation(tm).

(Don’t worry millennials- ur still many of my besties. 🌟)

——

Edited to add: despite my earlier post today about the news making me feel stupider, this made me smirk 😏- it’s the real news in america that is just fucking fuck)