#based on what I've seen of this route from mutuals and reviews

[super-who-locked-me-in-here]

I'm so tired of dealing with people who can't acknowledge that an adaptation of one piece of media can be a bad adaptation and still a great piece of media.

I'm gonna start this off by saying, I have not read The Vampire Chronicles so I don't have all the context for the Interview with the Vampire tv show, and I also am aware that I exist in the tumblr echo chamber where iwtv has been trending nearly nonstop for like 2 or 3 weeks with thousands of adoring fans.

But I think the show is a good piece of media, regardless of how good an adaptation it is.

I was talking to my boss about the show because she loves the book series, and she says she won't touch the show with a ten foot pole because every adaptation of The Vampire Chronicles up to this point has been horrible. She complained that all the actors in the show are too old because characters like Armand and Claudia were turned at a much younger age than Assad or Delainey are. She complained that Armand shouldn't be Indian (I'm aware Assad is Bangledeshi, not Indian but Armand was born in Delhi, India in the show) too. She was super concerned with the character accuracy.

And I showed my mom (who has also read the books) the Vampire Lestat s3 trailer, and at the end of it she just kinda awkwardly smiled and said "Oh... They went the Dr. Frank-n-furter route, huh?" in a disappointed voice which I totally don't understand because my mom loves Rocky Horror.

And of course people are allowed their opinions. People are allowed to not like a piece of media. But it just annoys me to no end when people won't give adaptations a chance or just automatically judge them as bad whether they've seen them or not because it doesn't live up to the source material.

The live action Avatar: the Last Airbender show was still a beautiful and gripping show, even if it didn't live up to the animated series. I love the Red, White, and Royal Blue movie so much and think it's a great and fun movie, despite the fact that I've gone on so many angry rants about everything they changed or left out from the book that I can't even count them anymore. There are so many Marvel movies that I enjoy greatly even though it pisses me off from time to time how much they stray from and mix and match the comic storylines. I've read countless reviews about the 2023 romcom Anyone But You that said it's one of the worst Shakespeare adaptations some people have ever seen (it was supposed to be based loosely on Much Ado About Nothing) and I don't even care if it was a bad adaptation of that play because it's such a fun movie regardless!!!

I don't know, I guess I'm rambling at this point, but what I'm trying to say is, there's gray areas when it comes to liking and judging media just like there are in any other area of life. Just because you don't like something or it doesn't live up to your standards doesn't mean it's a bad piece of media. Give it a chance. Be respectful of the ships or scenarios or tropes or genres that your friends and neighbors and coworkers and mutuals like, even if they aren't your cup of tea. No one's gonna like everything, and not everyone can always like one thing, but you can choose to be openminded 💗

[lananiscorner]

Since you seem to be following the Hopes playthrough of other Tumblr people, does that mean you don't know spoilers for it? If so, I will avoid discussing any so you can continue to enjoy their reviews as they post them. However I do have a question for you. You have a good outsider perspective as an audience who is not playing the game directly but still reading other reviews of Hopes. What are your thoughts about SB, GW and AG (assuming what you know by osmosis and thru reading reviews)?

Thanks for your ask, Anon.

I honestly don't mind spoilers, since I don't intend to play the game myself, nor will I use it as research for my writing.

As for what my thoughts on the routes are, I'm putting these below the cut, for those who are avoiding spoilers entirely. I should also preface this by saying that in 3 Houses Azure Moon was my favorite route, with Crimson Flower my least favorite, and Snow and Wind in the "meh" spot. I don't hate Edel, but I do think she's one of the villains of 3 Houses, so anyone who doesn't want to read any Edel criticism can bow out now, if desired.

Scarlet Blaze:

Monica's Edel simp personality has been retconned to be her actual character, rather than something weird that happened after she got Slithered. From what I've seen she even counts how often Edel sighs? If she were a guy, we'd slap a restraining order on him, so I can't take this seriously as good lesbian representation. Ferdinand apparently got even more shafted than before. Bernadetta's father supposedly has a similar personality to hers, which makes no sense with what we've learned of the man in FE3H. Linhardt's dad is... there. Caspar's dad has a crest he canonically is not supposed to have. Caspar has apparently been reduced from "I wanna grow taller and stronger and fight evil and injustice!" to "I wanna grow stronger and fight", which is sad to hear. I have not heard anything bad/OOC about Linhardt or Dorothea yet, so that's good. Petra's support with Dedue is about how he and Dimitri taught each other their respective languages, but Petra had no one, which only reaffirms my desire to recruit her out of her house asap.

Story-wise, I find it hilarious that Edel gets support from the church in routing the Slithers, gets to reform her country as she pleases... and then still goes on to declare war. Almost as if the imperialism had always been there. Apparently the church sent assassins after Count Varley once he became head of the Southern Church, which is super OOC for the Central Church (not so much the Western Church). I know the official summary talks of Edel looking to rout the Slithers, but apparently she doesn't even get to take out Thales--Rhea sacrifices herself to do so. The route ends with a high five from Edel and Shez, which... seems appropriate. I have heard nothing about this route that makes me think it's any more engaging than a high five. There are apparently two different endings, depending on if you recruited Byleth or not, but both of them leave the war open ended, which sucks. Overall, it sounds like Crimson Flower 2.0.

Golden WildTrashfire:

Poor Claude can't catch a break. In 3 Houses, the writers gave him a copy paste route, in 3 Hopes they decided to go against his established characterization for something closer to the first draft they originally had, and from there right into Edel Lite territory. I have not heard anything outrageous about the characterization of the rest of the Deer, so I can only imagine they got out relatively unscathed. Hilda is apparently even more bisexual in this than she was in 3 Houses, which I applaud. I am looking forward to hearing my mutuals talk about Leonie & Jeralt supports, if there are any.

Story-wise, the route touted itself as dealing with Almyra... which it apparently did for all of 8 chapters, before Claude suddenly decides to believe that Edel is right actually and killing Rhea will solve his problems. He then goes on to fan a border conflict between Sreng and Faerghus and ends up murdering Rhea. I think a Chinese reviewer put it nicely when he said it's like Claude spent three years hanging upside down, so all the blood rushed to his head and turned him stupid. Just like Verdant Wind, this route had SO MUCH POTENTIAL... and then they just decided "nah, fuck it, let's copy paste an Eagles route in the second half". It's tragic really. This route had the chance to be amazing for Claude and Almyra and instead just ended up being CF 2.Claude.

Azure Gleam:

The Blue Lions definitely drew the best straws, as far as I can tell. Dimitri is mostly in character, from what I hear (except for one weird line about how he started the war by sheltering Rhea and his super hedged response to Claude trying to get rid of the Church). His PTSD is still there, but never gets him has bad as it did in 3 Houses. Dimidue and Dimilix shippers get all the nice things, because these two in particular are actually there to support him. We get to see Sylvain's dad, who is much more fleshed out as a character, and Miklan gets to die defending a fort from the Empire, so Sylvain gets some juicy extra bits of family lore/characterization. Ingrid is apparently heir to her house. Other than that, I have not heard much about the girls. Oh, also Felix and Annette apparently only have one support conversation (but my OTP ... T_T) and Felix's mom exists, but still has no name.

Story-wise.... Dimitri's uncle was apparently involved in the tragedy, kept Dimitri locked up post Duscur, spied on him and even tried to kill him. I watched the cutscene where Dimitri gets to execute him and I have zero regrets. I have heard this game described as "Dimitri tries to reform his country while Edel and Claude play catch with the idiot ball in his yard". I know he ends up giving Duscur back to its people, arrest a few more people who were involved in the tragedy, and mostly defends his Kingdom from the Empire. Somehow this all ends with Edel being brainwashed by Thales, who gets killed by Dimitri? Ngl, as much as I like Dimitri getting revenge for his father, the last thing Edel needed was to lose even more of her agency. Aside from that though, Azure Gleam players seem to be happy.

Now as for everybody else: the wolves are there... I guess? Yuri apparently flirts with Sylvain, which just underscores his canon bisexuality. Sothis apparently got hit with the OOC hammer as well and is now acticely commandeering Byleth's body sometimes? Also, I hear she talks about the Heroes' Relics in titles (like Rhea's title as a dragon is The Immaculate One), which is super weird, since those are her kids. I mean, she never struck me as the best mother ever, but it still seems OOC. The church characters are... there, I guess. I haven't seen anyone talk about Alois yet. Catherine and Shamir are still gay for each other, which is good for them--they are my favorite sapphic couple in 3 Houses. Seteth and Flayn dye their hair at some point, and very badly so. Cyril gets some nice lines from Rhea during a paralogue which show that she really does care about him. Poor Rhea can't catch a break outside AG and dies in the other two routes, which sucks.

I also read the dev interview where they basically said "it's canon if you want it to be" and "we didn't want to invalidate the experience of 3 Houses" to justify their shitty cliffhanger endings, but ironically pissed off more fans than they made happy, from what I can see. I am curious to see what DLC they'll drop for this (because you just know they will).