#also huge thankyou to feluka for releasing the unhyphenated url for me!! ty ty

[otherworldlygate]

The Fascinating & Frustrating Experience of Writing AUs for Tales of Symphonia

You might have been wondering when I would type out some juicy meta for this blog instead of just reblogging art, so congratulations! Here.

Enjoy this "meta" about AU fics and concepts.

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The truly fascinating/frustrating thing about designing any remotely serious AU within the ToS fandom at large is dealing with the fact that the characters in the game are heavily—and I mean HEAVILY—ingrained into the world. I’m not necessarily talking about Sylvarant and Tethe’alla, but rather their universe at large. Aselia as a whole has so much going on, and the cast is firmly rooted in it. We can’t even separate the history of the world from our cast, because despite being 4,000+ years in the making, we have 4,000-year-old characters thrust upon us.

The world of Aselia is a deeply interesting place, and there’s a lot to explore there. This is probably why in-universe fanfiction is so incredibly popular.

I’ve been in many fandoms over the years, and something I’ve noticed is that most of them have a pretty balanced ratio of canon to completely AU fics. That is decidedly not the case for ToS. While there are AUs, quite a few of those continue to explore within the canon world using the rules the canon has given: for example, a semi-popular idea is Tethe’alla as the declining world where Zelos is the current journeying Chosen. We also have a handful of canon divergent stories (what if X didn’t happen within the story/what if Y happened instead of X?). Lastly, there are a wide variety of fics that explore the world or timeline at large: there are stories about the original Hero Group, stories that poke around in the rich concept of the Balacruf Dynasty, fics that utilize the Otherworldly Gate in interesting ways, and even stories that detail the lives of other Chosen, like Spiritua.

I shouldn’t discount the difficulty that comes with writing these kinds of stories, especially large sweeping concepts that require a lot of thought. The best example of this is Declining!Tethe’alla. At a glance it sounds so incredibly simple: all right, so…Zelos is the journeying Chosen, then!

I mean, yes. But you have to consider everything that comes along with Tethe’alla as the declining world, not just the fact that Zelos is the one making the journey, now. For example, I think it’s especially important to imagine the kind of world Sylvarant might have become, if the Balacruf Dynasty had never lost its seat of power (or if it had, but to another military force). Copy-pasting Tethe’alla’s particular brand of “flourishing” into Sylvarant doesn’t work; you have to put more thought into it than that! Colette, as part of the mana lineage in Sylvarant, would always remain there. But the Ranches would be in Tethe’alla now, so Anna wold have been there, and Lloyd should be, too.

Would Sylvarant send a team to Tethe’alla (via Yuan) to assassinate Zelos? Would Raine and Genis have gone through the Gate if they lived in the declining world, and if they didn’t, what kind of place would Sybak be in an impoverished world? Would they even be forced to go there? Would Presea have been experimented on? Would Alicia have followed after by circumstance? Would Alicia and Regal have even met when competition to work for a rich family would be so intense in the first place? (Would the Lezareno Company even still exist at this point? Would Regal’s father still be alive and heading the company? Would Regal have gone to prison?) Would you even place these characters in the declining world, or move them to the flourishing one?

Like, the easy road is just checking similar boxes to the canon to keep things familiar, but that isn’t always the right—or best—choice for a story. Like, if we’re here to read about Declining!Tethe’alla, I think most people are interested in how the world has been affected by that difference, as well as the characters within it, especially our main cast.

Even then, those considerations branch out: would Kate exist in this version of Tethe’alla? Would Corrine? Would Sheena’s fate be different or the same when it comes to Volt (would Mizuho be more cautious or desperate?). How are half-elves treated? What is the caste system like? What kind of village is Heimdall now, after 800 years of the world declining and everyone scraping by for mana? Is the king’s power tentative or is there even a king anymore? (Is he constantly in danger of being overthrown? How has this affected the way he rules and the laws he enacts? Does he have many children and wives to ensure the bloodline doesn’t end?)

Tethe’alla knows about Sylvarant in the canon, so with Sylvarant as the flourishing world, do they know about Tethe’alla? How widespread is this knowledge? Is the Otherworldly Gate even working in Tethe’alla when it’s declining? Is there perhaps a Gate to match it in Sylvarant that is working? Would Raine still be obsessed with history or language if she was not abandoned at a historical-looking site as a child? (What might their education look like in this world, if they even get one?)

Did Zelos’s father still die in the same manner, or did he die on his own Chosen journey? Would Zelos’s father have taken the role of Chosen more seriously if he’d grown up in the declining world, or would he have carried on with a lover anyway? What about Mylene? Knowing Zelos would die either way (trying to save the world or actually saving it) how would this affect Zelos’s relationship to his mother? Might she be able to love him? Would Seles even exist? Would Zelos want to save the world so that Seles would not have to?

Not every “Chosen” bothered going on the journey; many simply continued the lineage instead; what about a Declining!Tethe’alla story where that is Zelos’s responsibility and he does not have to journey, but will have to give up one of his own children to that fate?

This is just one semi-AU concept, and it even takes place within the canon world, so…we have the same magic system, expsheres, exbelua, familiar towns and cities, races, ranches, Desians vs. Renegades, summon spirits, seals, Chosen Journey, and so on.

It wouldn’t be difficult to flip the script if the characters weren’t so ingrained into the world, which, to be perfectly clear, here, IS A GOOD THING! It means the worldbuilding was well done.

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Let’s talk about Presea for a second. She’s a great character, but a lot of what makes her interesting hinges on her backstory, which is firmly rooted in Aselia. If you popped her into a modern day AU, there’s no really effective way to build a story around her that works to the degree the canon one does: her backstory of being poor, experimented on, losing 16 years of time, finding out her sister died horribly and partially because of her, finding out her she’d been hanging around with her father’s corpse for a long time without realizing it, dealing with the fact that her emotions have been severely suppressed…and a multitude of other things, is…baked so far into the ToS canon that it’s hard to find anything that works in a similar way and doesn’t feel icky or insensitive.

Like, for all intents and purposes, canon!Presea is 12 years old. Her body should be 28 years old, but it’s not. Her mind should be 28 years old, but it’s not. She remained “frozen” at the age of 12 for 16 years and she logically knows it, but wasn’t mentally present for it. That’s a huge character bit. It’s integral to her story. It’s hard to just…throw that away and carry on in a modern AU where she’s sipping Starbucks and texting Colette dog memes.

When it comes to characters like Regal or Sheena, who canonically carry a lot of guilt on their shoulders, this issue is still quite difficult. I like to imagine with characters like this, their primary character traits are not the guilt they feel, but rather, the capacity for feeling emotion that deeply in the first place. Sheena is canonically a very emotional person, so this fits her easily, and Regal comes off a lot like an empath to me, so it works for him, too. Sheena’s story is about failure (and overcoming that failure); the failure doesn’t have to be “making a pact with Volt” in an AU. In fact, I’d argue that the game never really settled the score with Sheena’s issues regarding Volt in a satisfactory way in the first place, so in an AU there’s no real need to explore the guilt if you can’t find a place to put it where it actually works. (I also take some issue with the “solution” of the guilt surrounding Volt to be…more guilt. Yikes.) Far more integral to Sheena’s character is the depth of her emotions anyway, and her desire to make friends and form meaningful connections to people (even though she struggles with it). Obviously her situation with Volt did affect her, and deeply so, but since the game tied it up so poorly it doesn’t feel like it’s cheating to largely ignore it in some AU circumstances.

In the case of Regal, I think many fans believe his primary character trait is “man who feels too much unreasonable guilt” but that belief is wrong. It’s not that his story has nothing to do with guilt, but I think at its core it’s about compassion and empathy. I wish the game had gone a bit more into Regal and his family’s history, particularly his relationship to his parents, because the only information we get about them is from the drama CD (where his father functions as his foil: an unempathetic scumbag who does not care about the health or well-being of his employees). When Regal inherits the position of a CEO and eventually the title of President, he struggles with the policies his father put into place that actively harm his employees and the rules he was raised under that don’t allow him to have any time for himself (no friends, no fun, everything must always revolve around working). It’s very clear he’s miserable living like this. The drama CD has its issues, of course, but I do like how it goes into the boring way Regal meets Alicia, and how long it takes him to even realize he doesn’t know her name, which, in the drama CD, is an extremely important part of Regal’s initial character arc. Neither the game nor the CD make Regal and Alicia’s relationship about love changing someone: rather, Alicia says something that weighs on Regal’s heart (“I don’t expect you to know my name; you employee hundreds of people.”) and he realizes he doesn’t have to be like his father and so chooses to be different. He was always a compassionate and empathetic person, but he gives himself permission to take control of his own life and do things his own way. He starts pushing for employee safety and making an effort to appreciate and protect the people who work for him. He doesn’t do this just for Alicia—he does this for himself.

Obviously he falls in love with Alicia in time and then struggles with the guilt he feels over being forced to take her life, but part of what makes this interesting is the timing of it. He’s only recently taken control of his own life, and was then forced into doing something that felt out of his control. He’s supposed to be protecting his employees, not hurting them. He’s supposed to protect the people he loves, too, not hurt them. This is the core of the guilt he feels.

Anyway, while guilt does play a role in Regal’s life, it doesn’t define him; what does is his capacity to feel compassion and empathy for others. He’s a good businessman, and he’s smart, but he makes a very real effort to think for himself and do things his own way for his own reasons. This is explored a bit in the game when he does things like passlock the Toize Valley Mine, admit that his family’s wealth was had on the backs of Sylvaranti humans, and per his ending, funnel resources into rebuilding Palmacosta despite it getting him side-eyed by people within his own company. I think it cannot be overstated, either, how important it is that he is neither racist nor classist, despite his upbringing. This is the way he chooses to be.

Presea, on the other hand, is harder to work with. She doesn’t have a lengthy and rich history before her time was frozen for her, so her character feels very reliant on “being 12, but knowing she should be older and all the trauma that goes with that.” That said, I think one could explore Presea in an AU in the context of feeling like she was out of the loop for some years with her sister. It’s not the same as losing 16 years of life, and it’s not the same as realizing Alicia’s been dead for the last 8 years or seeing her father’s still-reeking corpse in his bed. But there is a similar “vibe” to, for example, her being separated from her sister for years and losing a connection she once felt to someone dear to her.

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That said, this mostly just proves my point: most of the characters in this game are extremely hard to separate from the world they were written into. It means great things about Tales of Symphonia, but bad things for me, a person trying to write an AU.

Like sure, you an come up with ways to kind of “copy/paste” the traumas of the canon into a modern story; for example, instead of Regal and Kratos killing someone, maybe they’re driving the car when they’re involved in an accident that ends up taking the life of their loved one. In Kratos’s case, maybe it was an accident where a drunk driver hit them, to help spread the blame; Kratos’s guilt could come from being out on a night when drunk driving rates are notoriously high—for example, New Year’s Eve. But in Regal’s case, there’s just no real way to seriously mimic the canon while still remaining true to his character. The point of his guilt in the canon is that it’s not completely misplaced: it’s just taken to an extreme. If he goes to prison in a modern story for being behind the wheel of a car when one of his passengers dies, he has to actually be found at fault: under the influence of drugs or alcohol, neglectful in caring for the car to a serious degree, driving without a license/insurance, or failing to wear glasses/contacts when he needs them. However, doing this goes against his character because the point of the canon is that even though he feels guilty, he isn’t actually to blame.

Colette can be born with expectations of her (becoming the first doctor in the family, for example) but it’s impossible to carry forward the Chosen traumas without making an AU feel convoluted. Like yeah, med school and residency require a lot of sacrifice, but it’s not the same as ACTUALLY GIVING UP YOUR LIFE TO SAVE THE WORLD. The burden feels different and will affect the characters in different ways.

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Anyway, all of this is not to say that I have anything against AUs, or that I think it’s bad that Tales of Symphonia works so hard to root the characters within the world of Aselia. It’s the opposite, actually. I think it’s fascinating how much work has to go into an AU of any kind in this fandom for it to feel natural for the characters. I love that the cast feels so “at home” in their own world that it’s reflected in the kinds of fics we see published on AO3.

It’s just hilariously frustrating that, if you want to include the entire cast in an AU, and not just the blorbo or two that you really love, you have to bend over backward to worldbuild a ton before you begin to write, lest you end up writing yourself into a corner… Or worse, you might shoehorn a character into a role because you need the role filled, even though it doesn’t work very well for the character in question.

Like, Zelos feels as if he’d be easy to transplant into a modern AU of any kind, and I would say he definitely is…but only if he remains on the fringes of the story and doesn’t play a major role. If he needs to matter to the story to any serious degree, you can’t ignore the fact that canon Zelos has so much going on in his life and world and head that taking only the easy parts of him into an AU doesn’t feel right.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of copy/pasting one big trait of a character into an AU to try to make it work, but what ends up happening is the whole thing feels flat and boring. A guilt-soaked Regal in a modern AU isn’t very interesting, for example; the guilt isn’t the trait that makes him feel whole: it’s his capacity for compassion and empathy despite his privileged position in society that does that.

I’ve toyed with a few AU ideas for Tales of Symphonia, and honestly just looking at the sheer amount of worldbuilding I would have to do is instantly overwhelming. The current one I’m turning over is a modern Aselia AU, so I can’t even come up with “similar” vibes from the canon or it instantly reads as if the characters are just on some kind of tragic hamster wheel, doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the past.

It was during my quest for world and character backstory-building for this AU that I realized the heart of what matters to me in any AU is not that the characters feel like a copy/paste of their canon selves, but like a believable version of their original self: one built not on the circumstances of their birth or life experiences from the canon, but rather, character traits they hold that feel ‘core’ to me. Lloyd and Colette’s optimism and trust, Regal’s empathy and compassion, Sheena’s emotional depth and search for connection, and Presea’s desire to be treated normally are all examples.

Still, it can be hard to apply these in a meaningful way when crafting a character’s backstory, especially in AUs that differ drastically from the canon, either due to a completely different setting (mermaid!AU), metaphor for something (werewolf!AU), or tableflip (Declining!Tethe’alla). If the setting is modern and we’re more concerned with core character traits and not putting them in Situations Similar to the Canon, does Alicia still need to die? Does Virginia have to abandon her children? Can Kate’s father just be a regular scumbag? Does Presea need to be deeply traumatized? Do so many parents have to be dead? Marble? Does Colette have to suffer so much? Can we allow the characters to live happier lives and still manage to write them in such a way that they feel naturally like themselves? Can we give them worse fates and still come out of it having written the characters well?

Things to think about!