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shielddrake · 6 years ago

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FFXV and KH3: The Challenge of Setup and Payoff

So, having recently finished Kingdom Hearts III and taking a few days to digest it, I have concluded something: the current writers on staff at SquareEnix have problems with setup and payoff in regards to storytelling. This is something I think warrants discussing because it is one of the most common techniques in creative writing (including video games), but it appears to be what the developers of both Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III seem to have the biggest problem accomplishing.

This is not meant to be a review of either game. Plenty of other people are doing or have done that, and I feel I don’t really need to add to that discussion. I also don’t mean to be preachy when I talk about setup and payoff in terms of writing. This is merely my interpretation of what I experienced while playing these games.

Finally, I don’t mean to say that using Chekov’s Gun is the end-all, be-all of story telling. Setup and payoff are not absolutely necessary to tell a good story, but as they seem to only try to use this technique about halfway, this seems to be the biggest, rather glaring flaw of both of these games, although in different ways.

WARNING: Spoilers under the cut for both Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III, more so for the latter because it just came out and the former has been out for a while. You all have been warned.

In play writing and screenwriting, it is said that if there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, then it better go off by the third. If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t be hanging on the wall. This is well-known as Chekhov’s Gun, basically saying that if something is mentioned, it better be mentioned because it furthers the plot in some way. This technique has been discussed by far more educated people than me, so if you want to know more about this, you can do your own research. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s just say that if something is brought up, it needs to payoff in the end somehow, or else it’s not important enough to mention.

Let’s look at a few Final Fantasy moments that do setup and payoff well, and there are quite a few. The Hymn of the Fayth in FFX is mentioned, and sung, several times over the game, and it is revealed that when Sin/Jecht listens to it, he calms down. It ends up being a key part of making Sin docile enough to be attacked, infiltrated, and then destroyed from the inside, thus ending its thousand-year destruction of Spira. Final Fantasy VIII has the mention of Squall’s ring named Griever, which later ends up being the Guardian Force summoned by Ultimecia in the final boss battle of the game. (The significance of this is left up to the player.) And, very famously, there is Final Fantasy VII’s Aerith and her white materia, which she claims does nothing but is actually what saves the world from Meteor by casting Holy magic at the end of the game. There are many others, but those are a few examples.

That being said, both FFXV and KH3 suffer from issues of setup and payoff, but in sort of opposite ways. Let’s start with FFXV.

First, this is not to say that FFXV completely fails at setting ideas up and then paying them off in the end. The entire situation with the Ring of the Lucii is set up and pays off by the game’s end, and the story of Shiva and Ifrit’s love story sets up the end of the battle with Ifrit when Shiva is summoned to finish him off (at least, the set up is there better in the Royal Edition). Episode Ignis also has the alternative ending where Ravus ends up coming to terms with his sister’s death and gives Noctis his father’s sword willingly, rather than dying and Noct finding it after the fact. The setup of Ravus having issues with Noctis finally has a proper payoff when he accepts that Noctis is the Chosen King and supports him, and Ravus finally gets the character development he so desperately needed and was cheated out on in the original version of the game. This concept of setup and payoff is not completely lost on SquareEnix.

There are times, however, when the setup is there but the payoff is little to nothing. The Royal Arms are brought up by Cor roughly at the start of the game, but then they become nothing really more than a tidbit of information at best and an optional sidequest at worst. During my first playthrough, I actually forgot all about them between meeting Titan and obtaining the Katana of the Warrior. I was like, “Oh, right. Those things.” They are brought up again at the end of the game where the Kings of Lucis all kill Noctis to purge the Starscourge and defeat Ardyn, so I guess that’s some payoff, but it seems so minor compared to the other plot points that I find this debatable.

I also have big problems with the use of Luna. Her character is absolutely fine, don’t get me wrong there, but there is an almost complete lack of use of her character as she relates to Noctis. If they are supposed to be close, possibly in love or at least in like, then the flashback sequences from their childhood don’t really do it justice. They show interactions that don’t advance their relationship at all. As such, when the “payoff” of Luna’s death and Noctis’ despair from it happens, it doesn’t really mean anything to the player. We’re sad for Noctis, but not necessarily sad that Luna had died. There was no setup for her relationship with him, so her loss isn’t all that poignant. This could have been fixed if the journal the two share could have been read by the player, even with just small snippets of their written conversations with each other, but this wasn’t an option.

Next, I want to talk about the DLC. Ignoring the fact that I’m one of those people who think the events of Episodes Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto should have been included the game proper from the start, the absence of them also hurts the setup and payoff techniques of the story. The setup is in the DLC, but the payoff exists in the original game. So, in a way, we’re getting the payoff before the setup even happens, chronologically speaking.

For starters, let’s look at Episode Ignis. This episode is arguably the best of the three DLC, so it is no surprise that it has the strongest story. There is actually an example of really good setup and payoff within the episode itself, and it starts where Ignis and Ravus are hiding while they wait for the Niflheim soldiers to leave the area. Ravus mentions that he tried to use the Ring of the Lucii for himself and lost his left arm in the process. So, anyone who isn’t of Lucis Caelum blood pays a price for using the ring. Okay, plot point established. With this knowledge, when we see Ignis put on the ring, we know that there will be some kind of price he has to pay to use it, and this is confirmed when he loses his eyesight. And there’s the payoff.

The problem is that Episode Ignis wasn’t released until December 13, 2017, just over a year after FFXV was originally released. So, we already knew about Ignis’ blindness and saw the consequences of it, but we just didn’t see the event that caused it. Heck, we didn’t even really know the reason why he became blind, just that it happened during the events in Altissia. So, when Gladio goes off on Noct about how “Ignis took one for you too,” instead of thinking that Gladio has a point and Noct needs to step up, we just think that Gladio’s being a jerk. Ignis could have been shot by a Niflheim soldier or fell off a building and his eyes were injured for all we know. The context of how Ignis lost his sight is lost on not only the player but Noctis as well, so the payoff feels empty. We see the consequences of him being blind in that he can’t fight as effectively and can’t cook for the team, but again this is all after the fact. The payoff is there, but it seems like it came out of nowhere because there was no setup for it. Seems like they set of Chekhov’s Gun without ever showing us it was there to begin with.

And then there’s Prompto…

Oh Prompto. I feel he really got the short end of the stick when it came to his background. His story is actually a really good one and could have been a really turning point for his friendship with Noctis, but it is so rushed at the end of the game that it feels a little forced. The slower pace of Episode Prompto fixes this, but just like with Episode Ignis, the payoff that happened in the main game had already been seen by the players.

The whole conflict for Prompto during his DLC is that he worries his origins will mean that Noctis and the others will no longer want to be friends with him, and as a child that grew up very much alone (where the heck are his parents?!), friendship is vital to this poor kid. The sequence where Prompto dreams he is an MT that is being pursued by Noct adds so much suspense and is an excellent visual to the anxiety he is feeling…or it would be if we didn’t already know that Noct accepts him with practically no convincing at all. We already know that their friendship survives this revelation, so there is really no suspense for the players as they watch Prompto go through the motions of coming to terms with his origins.

All of this could have been avoided if the darn DLC had been included in the main game in the first pla—No! Not getting on that soapbox! I could go on about how much that bugs me, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

Now, if FFXV suffers from lots of payoff with very little setup, then KH3 has a lot of setup but very little payoff.

For those of you who have read this far and didn’t see the spoiler warning at the top, this is your final notice: There are major spoilers for the events of the recently released Kingdom Hearts III. Turn back while you still can if you don’t want to be spoiled!

With that out of the way…

There are a lot of cutscenes in KH3, and I mean a lot. It’s one of the controversial points I’ve read in a lot of reviews, but the presence of a lot of cutscenes doesn’t bother me too much when the game is trying to tie up loose ends and explain things in what is perceived as the final installment in a series. Metal Gear Solid 4 had the same problem, but again, they were trying to tie up loose ends. The fact that the series has continued from there and thus only added more loose ends is also a topic for another day. My point is that several long cutscenes are not necessarily a bad thing if they are used well.

The problem with KH3 is that many of them are not used well. There are numerous cutscenes with Ansem the Wise, Ienzo, Dilan and the others that don’t really seem to have any point to the plot. Sure, Ienzo talks about trying to find a way to help bring Roxas back, but they never end up doing that anyway. They bring back Namine, certainly, but what were they trying to accomplish with all their talk about atoning? I get what they want to atone for, but what are they doing to actually do that? It’s a bunch of talk that doesn’t really go anywhere.

Along the same lines is the scene with Even and Demyx. They talk about atoning and being benched and betraying the Organization, but the only thing that comes of it is Demyx brings Ansem and a vessel for Namine to Ienzo. And then the conversation between Even and Demyx is never mentioned again. What was the point? Is Namine being brought back supposed to be the payoff? But then we never interact with her at all. She’s only seen during the ending cutscenes and has no dialogue with anyone. Not very satisfying at all. Where did her heart for the replica even come from anyway? Her heart was in Kairi, who by that point is dead...sort of. I actually think she was sent to the heavenly place Sora went when he had to gather up pieces of himself, but I have nothing to support that theory.

Speaking of Kairi, her scenes with Axel during their keyblade training are great. They are cute and provide good setup for both Axel’s vague memories of Xion and their abilities in wielding keyblades…which end up being pointless since Kairi ends up kidnapped (again) and Xemnas destroys Axel’s very cool fire keyblade, although it does come back later, so there is really no reason for Xemnas to taunt Axel about not being a guardian of light anymore.

I’m not going to talk about how Kairi being kidnapped robs her of the agency she should have gained during her training (again, plenty of people have already talked about that), but it does make the scenes regarding her training seem like a cop out. What was the point of showing all that if she was just going to be a kidnapped damsel again? She doesn’t really do anything with the keyblade that we see, so it doesn’t add much to see that she was even training to begin with.

Axel has the same problem since he loses his keyblade. He was training to use it, but then Xemnas destroys it at the first possible opportunity. There was no scene where he saves the day with it or manages to defeat Isa or something along those lines with it, so watching those scenes again feels empty. The setup was there, but there was no payoff. What use is it to show the player that these two characters are training hard with keyblades if they end up not ever really using them? The gun was shown, but not shot.

Conversely, and very briefly, it was good that there was setup of the Riku Replica earlier on in the game so it didn’t seem like he completely came out of nowhere when he came to help Riku against the Organization’s Riku (man, there are a lot of Rikus here).

Then again, there was supposed to be some reason that Marluxia, Larxene, Luxord and Demyx were brought back? Some “important purpose”? The “ancient keyblade legacy”? Which is…what? It’s not explained and it’s never mentioned again. And what about all the scenes with Maleficent and Pete searching for the box? The game kept cutting back to them but never went anywhere with them. What was the point? Wouldn’t it have built more suspense if we hadn’t seen what they were doing? Otherwise it added nothing to the plot other than the fact that the black box was missing, which the player already knows…or at least most of us do, who know about the Master and Masters and all that. Hey, look, there are a bunch of guns hanging on the wall, but they remain unfired!

But...And it’s a big but…There is one way that Kingdom Hearts III really does setup and payoff well, and that’s when you look at the story of the game as a whole.

Near the end of the game, Young Xehanort warns Sora that using the power of waking too much will cause him to “condemn your heart to that same abyss,” meaning that Sora will fall into darkness, something that almost came to pass at the end of Dream Drop Distance. Mickey also warns him that he might not come home from his journey to find Kairi. The final cutscene (not the secret ending) of the game shows Sora disappearing from Destiny Islands while everyone else is partying and having fun. It is presumed that he died after finding Kairi again, though personally I’m not sure if death is really what happened or if it was more of falling into darkness. I think that’s left up to the interpretation of the player.

Whatever the case, Sora is separated from the group, having given himself up to darkness in one form or another to bring Kairi back. Believe it or not, this is actually foreshadowed during the events of the various Disney worlds Sora visits over the course of the game. What is the common theme seen through each of the Disney worlds? The loss of a loved one.

The Toy Story world has all the toys worried about whether they’ll ever see Andy again. The Caribbean shows Will and Elizabeth separated, just like at the end of the movie that world is based on. The Kingdom of Corona shows Rapunzel being willing to sacrifice her freedom for Eugene’s life, and Eugene ends up giving his own life to cut Rapunzel’s hair to defeat Mother Gothel. Arendelle…do I need to explain? Elsa is terrified of hurting Anna, which she unintentionally ends up doing. The 100 Acre Wood has Pooh worried that Sora will go away, leading to Sora worrying that their bond has grown weaker. Monstropolis has less to do with the loss of a loved one and is more about Sully and Mike needing to protect Boo, whom they care about very much. And San Fransokyo has Hiro dealing with needing to destroy the first version of Baymax, his good friend. Only Olympus doesn’t fit this pattern in terms of its plot, but that’s probably because that was already done in Kingdom Hearts II…but Sora and Hercules do have a conversation about Herc wanting to save Meg with all his heart. Sort of parallels Sora’s desire to rescue Kairi, doesn’t it?

And what ends up happening? Sora does exactly the same. He ends up sacrificing himself to bring Kairi back from…wherever it is she is. It’s Kairi that ends up losing her loved one in the end. That’s the ultimate payoff for the pretty strong setup that was building throughout the game.

SquareEnix has the ability to tell really good stories in their games. The aspects of the storytelling process they get right, they really get right. The problem is that they are inconsistent. There are many ways to tell a story, and as I mentioned in the beginning, you don’t have to use the technique of Chekov’s Gun to do so and do it well. But when only half of a creative writing technique is used, it can take away from the story rather than add to it.

#kingdom hearts 3 #kingdom hearts 3 spoilers #kh3 #kh3 spoilers #final fantasy xv #final fantasy xv spoilers #setup and payoff #creative writing #myinterpretation

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lfaythbleggiguarino · 8 years ago

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Got a moment? Why don’t you check out my new smancy Patreon page? If you’re into the supernatural/urban fantasy stories, random brain crack, fun little snippets of research and the descend into madness for one writer this is the Patreon for you!

You can pick between 4 different tiers of monthly donations. All tiers are loved equally though if you buy in for the highest tier you will also receive, free of charge, my utter astonishment and speechlessness. Each tier has their own perks. Go check them out to see what each is.

August 1st I will be opening up missions. Whether you follow on patreon or donate you will be added. Every dollar= 1k. Got any questions about commissions? Send me an ask! I’d love to answer all questions.

Or you could buy me a cuppa tea if you don’t want to donate monthly. Everything is appreciated!

Signal boost is greatly appreciated <3

#signal boost #patreon page #L Fayth Guarino #patreon blurb #come and join the madness

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flushthethrone · 8 years ago

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!!!EARLY!!! #WaTSV ... Recorded live March 26, 2017 @ Dirty Blanket Studios, Marietta, GA / southernvangard.com / @southernvangard on #itunes #podcast #soundcloud #mixcloud #stitcherradio / twitter/IG: @jondoeatl @southernvangard @cappuccinomeeks Inst. beds prod. Onra / “The Turn Up" - Madlib, MED and Blu feat. Oh No / "Natural Addicts" - Kaimbr / "Tyson" - Al Divino (prod. Jao x Jalal Salaam) / "Heru's Garden" - Methuzulah feat. Casual & Q / "The Cypher of Agartha" - Copywrite & Planet Asia feat. Canibus / "Nothing - Raekwon / "The Easiest" - Don Will / "Roc On" - Kaimbr feat. Grap Luva) / "Cashmere Dice" - Da Villins x Skizz / "Rick" - Benny / "IllFayted" - LiKWUiD & 2 Hungry Bros. / "Hold That (Faybels)" - LiKWUiD & 2 Hungry Bros. feat. P.SO & Donwill / "Faythful" - LiKWUiD & 2 Hungry Bros. / "Moo Goo Gai Pan" - P.SO & 2 Hungry Bros. feat. K. Gaines & LiKWUiD / "Fayce Off" - LiKWUiD & 2 Hungry Bros. / Interview Snippets - LiKWUiD (at Atlanta, Georgia)

#podcast #stitcherradio #itunes #mixcloud #soundcloud #watsv

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miraclegel · 12 days ago

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god, fuck, it should be illegal to not be able to fall asleep until four something in the morning and then already be awake again at eight something in the morning, like body we have nowhere to be today and I'm so fucking tired, can you not? I need to work on fic today dammit!

ugh. maybe my morning glass of sweet tea (I'm a us southerner, it's normal, shut up >_>) and rambling about my fic will help. thus... this post. that at the very least you have to scroll past if not read if you followed this blog.

not been doing well lately because there is Something™ still wrong with my head and my charity seems to have fucked off to nowhere instead of helping me get appointments for a scan, so I haven't worked on aftermath fic as much as I want, but one thing I have done is made the very fun, very self-indulgent decision to add in a headcanon I have had for years and yet have never before let leave my head. other than a brief mention to the bestie once, I don't think I've ever talked about it with anyone until recently, and I've definitely never thrown it in a fic before.

noct likes to draw.

that's it, that's my headcanon. lmao. in my head, he keeps it a secret, for multiple reasons, most of which he doesn't understand or think about, but yeah, it's always felt like a headcanon based more on ~ * ~ v i b e s ~ * ~ than any major basis in canon, other than that one mention of him scribbling on that painting in the citadel. but then I was watching a video of someone running around with ignis before the stargazing event in episode duscae, and he and ignis kept getting these little snippets of dialogue, and two of them have to do with him drawing as a kid, and like, yeah, okay, it's just him being a menance with it but it's still art, and there's also a mention of him trying to do some photography as a kid so like. clearly there's a bit of a creative streak buried somewhere in him XD listen let me have my validation okay.

anyways, after watching that, I couldn't stop thinking about it, and then I started thinking about adding that headcanon to my fic, and I couldn't let the idea go, so I finally decided (with help) to go for it. originally I was gonna make him just draw a bit during therapy appointments as a distraction while talking, and not make it a whole big thing, but it was like, "well if I make him do that it's gonna need some kind of mention to build up to it and not feel like it's out of nowhere, right?" so I decided I'd need to add a scene early on where he tries to draw and fails cos he's not in the right headspace, and then maybe some references to that occasionally or thoughts about trying to draw and deciding against it, etc., and then I had to figure out what he tried to draw and fail and was brainstorming with the bestie and kept coming up with all these little headcanon details and hhhh long story short it's now a Whole Big Thing™ whoops.

I already wrote the scene where he tries to draw. took me two days because writing is harder than it used to be. there is like... backstory. because I can't just do things easily. sharing it here because I fucking want to 🥰

After a minute of digging, he manages to unearth what he's looking for, and drags it out, putting it in his lap. The weight of it is a familiar, comforting one, and he opens his sketchpad with a sudden lump in his throat, flipping through the pages slowly, looking back at his old drawings.

It's a hobby he's kept since he was little, but where he used to openly colour and scribble and make childish drawings, after his coma his art had changed, and, without understanding why, he'd started hiding it. They hadn't seemed like fun, goofy drawings anymore. They'd felt like—and it sounds so stupid to think, his cheeks blushing hotly when he does—pieces of himself. The hurting, messed up, angry pieces of himself that he didn't want his dad or Ignis to see.

Not that he could have put that into words back then, and he's still not sure he has all the words for it now, he just... knows that it helps. He can still remember staying up late at night in his room at Fenestela Manor in Tenebrae, hours after he was supposed to be asleep, trying hard to ignore his useless legs while he drew picture after picture in a spiral notebook he'd gotten from Luna. His lines had been heavy and dark, his movements with the pencil aggressive, and more than once he'd snapped it in half and had to replace it, but it had felt like the only safe place where he could let all those feelings out.

That notebook is gone now, left behind in Tenebrae, abandoned during the invasion and probably destroyed by ransacking soldiers, a thought that still leaves him with a pang of sorrow. He doesn't remember a lot of that time, but he remembers his art. It had been—he still doesn't know what to call it. He's certain what he'd experienced during his coma had been more than a dream. The little fox that had appeared to him... Carbuncle had never explained to him what he was, and when he'd woke to find the little figurine beside his bed he might have dismissed it as his brain somehow registering it despite the coma, but then he'd gone to Tenebrae and Luna had shown him the Cosmogony, and nestled in between a painting of Gentiana and Umbra and Pryna, there had been a winged little fennec fox that looked exactly like Carbuncle.

Messengers of the gods, Luna had said, and he knows from the reactions of his dad and the other adults around him when he woke that his coma had been serious. They hadn't been sure he would wake up. His family has had long associations with the gods just the same as Luna's has, so it hadn't been surprising to him that the Carbuncle charm his dad had gifted him would be a connection to a Messenger that would be willing to help him.

But the dreams that hadn't been just dreams had stuck with him, and those late night hours spent drawing by lamplight had mostly been him trying to put those remembered scenes to paper, to make them exist somewhere outside his mind even as he'd poured all his mess of emotions into them. They'd been childish drawings, and not good, but they'd been his first attempts at serious art, and they'd meant something to him.

After the invasion and the loss of that notebook, though, he'd given up on trying to draw the fragments of his coma dreams, but there'd been plenty of notebooks at home for him to use, and he'd found himself still compelled to at least draw Carbuncle. The little fox had been—and still is—a source of comfort to him, of safety, and he'd found himself drawing Carbuncle any time he felt bad. And it had felt easier somehow, in ways he still can't explain, to put his emotions onto Carbuncle in his art rather than trying to draw depictions of himself feeling sad or scared or lonely. Eventually it wasn't the only thing he drew, but he still has multiple notebooks full of sketches and drawings featuring his guardian friend.

Those notebooks are tucked away now in his room at the Citadel, hidden safely where the maids can't find them, but he's had this sketchpad since shortly after he moved into his apartment, bought with his own money, and it's over half-full by now—he's had a lot of struggles he'd felt the need to put to paper. And sometimes he has still liked to draw just for fun.

He doesn't know if he's any good yet. He's been drawing for ten years now, eight of them serious, and he likes to think he's decent, but he's self-taught and never had any sort of formal lessons, so there's probably all sorts of things he's getting wrong. But most of the time it doesn't matter. He just wants the feelings out of him, and his art serves that purpose.

so yeah. noct draws. and I mean look. one of the tags for this fic is gonna be "self-indulgent as fuck" and it's fanfic, I can do what I want 🥰 but why would you hate this??? it's a solid headcanon, right up there with "noct deserves a cat (2k18)"

(because he fucking does, and yes, he has a cat in this fic too <3333 her name is Benji.)

anyways, that's where I'm at. I stopped in the middle of rewriting chapter 48 for this fucking headcanon lmao. mainly because I got to the part in his therapy appointment where he has to find something new to use to distract himself while talking because he doesn't trust himself to use the new (glued down with industrial strength glue) zen garden his therapist got after he accidentally destroyed the old one while angry. and I redid her room for the rewrite ages ago because she works with kids and teens and an adult office didn't make sense so now she's got a play area that includes art supplies and it was like, "hmm. I could make him draw..." and NOW HERE WE ARE.

I am trying to go through the rest of the prior chapters to find more places to add references to his art/him drawing so it feels natural and not like I just suddenly decided halfway through the fic to make him an artist and threw in a random scene early on (even if that's exactly what I did, shhh, don't fucking judge me, I'll judge you back 👀 this is sleep deprivation talking btw, not fayth), and MAYBE IF I COULD STOP GETTING DISTRACTED BY REREADING MY OWN FIC I'd be done with it by now but gjklsdjgksl well, soon, hopefully. I really need to get back to 48. I need to step it up and get through the rewrite and starting writing new stuff so I can fucking finish this thing and post it before I die. but I'm also gonna have to go to the outline and add in all the new stuff related to drawing that I've come up with, cos like I said, it's now a Whole Big Thing™... really don't know why I keep doing this to myself, why do I keep making this fic bigger and bigger, why do I keep thinking of things to go back and add to stuff I've already written, brain can we please just be fucking normal about this fic for once???

anyways, tea is gone and I've had an egg-free breakfast wrap I made myself during meal prep cooking week, so time to buckle down and shut up and go look for places to add in more mentions of artist!noct.

ps. sometimes he doodles fish and he draws them in a style prompto would describe as cute horror, if he knew that noct drew and had seen the doodles

#fayth's aftermath fic #fayth talks #fayth snippets #fayth lore

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miraclegel · 2 months ago

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When he's done, he rolls his sleeve back down, and then uses the skink to scrub the drying tears from his face

noct stop abusing lizards like that

#fayth typos #fayth snippets #fayth's aftermath fic #TRYING to write today #but it's very slow going #at least I make funny typos

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miraclegel · 2 months ago

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✩ tag & fic masterlist ✩

─── we say goodbye to all that was

tag: fayth's aftermath fic

my primary fic. as the tag loosely suggests, it is a rape aftermath and recovery fic that focuses on noctis. it is a very in-depth slow build of a fic, set in brotherhood era when noct is sixteen, and will cover a year of time. there is ignoct, but it remains secondary for a huge portion of the fic.

I have been writing this fic in earnest since november 2019, with breaks here and there. currently there are 62 chapters completed, with 650k+ words. however, it is undergoing a rewrite that is over halfway through so far, and nothing new will be added until that is finished. I do expect this to be at least 1mil by the time it is done. sob.

this fic is not yet posted anywhere.

─── not yet titled

tag: fayth's lost fic

my secondary fic. a fic that was inspired by quartzguts' fic Lost Signal. it is my take on the very basic premise of noct being kidnapped and taken out of insomnia, whereupon his captors are killed by an accident and he must struggle through the lucian countryside for the next several days to find his way back home. it is set in brotherhood era when noct is fourteen, and will feature plenty of whump. it is tentatively intended to be a genfic.

I started this fic in may 2024, and it is currently fully plotted/outlined with one chapter written. no estimated chapter or word length at this point, though I don't expect it to be a longfic.

this fic is not yet posted anywhere.

─── not yet titled

tag: fayth's college au fic

my tertiary fic. as the tag makes clear, it will be a college au fic. however, rather than the meet-cute type fics that much of the trope is filled with, this is intended to be a coming of age fic instead. it will be au with no magic or royalty, but it will still be set in insomnia/eos and there are as many parallels as possible to canon relationship dynamics and character backgrounds.

for example, rather than the car carrying an eight year old noct home from the palace gardens being attacked by a daemon sent by niflheim, it is instead t-boned by another driver when noct is heading home from the aquarium on his eighth birthday, resulting in his same canon injuries. regis won't be king, but he'll own a very successful business with clarus and be rich and powerful as fuck (but still nice/a good guy, because a very self-indulgent fuck you to reality). noct and ignis will still wind up childhood friends since toddlers, with gladio being there but not befriending them until they're a little older.

as this is not my main focus right now, currently this fic mostly just has background lore and other bits and bobs developed for it. there is the tiny beginnings of an outline for the first couple of chapters, but nothing more than that. it will alternate between noct's pov and ignis' pov and eventually be ignoct, with background promptio and lunyx. they both will be struggling with a variety of issues as well as the collapse of their friendship that happened before the fic begins.

this fic is not yet posted anywhere.

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meme [writing memes and funny writing-related posts] prompts [writing prompts that intrigue me] resources [writing resources that seem useful] positivity [posts meant to encourage and/or reassure writers] writing things [anything else writing-related that doesn't fit the above]

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starry divider by strangergraphics

#fayth's masterlist

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miraclegel · 2 months ago

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✩ introduction ✩

♫ hi! welcome to fayth's sideblog. this is primarily a writing sideblog for me to talk about my own fics and share snippets of what I'm writing, etc. I may also reblog writing-related posts from time to time. my main blog can be found at @zanarkandfayth. tag & fic masterlist for this blog can be found here.

♫ my primary fandom has been final fantasy xv since february 2017, and all I write for at the moment. I most often write hurt/comfort, angst, and whump fics. many of my fics deal with trauma and/or mental health issues. my blorbo who I torture with such things is noctis and I also love all things noctis and ignis whether platonic, romantic, or something undefined. gladnis and highspecs are my notps. my ao3 can be found at zanarkand and my ffxv fics under the pseud fayth, and will be the sole place to find my fics these days. ship and let ship and I don't take requests.

♫ I'm nearly forty, I'm nonbinary transmasc, I'm bisexual demihomoro, and my pronouns are strictly he/him. I've been in fandom since late 1999 and the fanfiction aspect since april 2000. when I'm not writing I can often be found gaming. I'm disabled and not good at responding to things in a timely manner. sometimes I disappear for awhile.

starry divider credit to saradika-graphics

#fayth's pinned intro

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fulgensun · 5 years ago

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So, FFX Vocal Collection has mini snippets of dialogues between characters that I’ve been listening to these past few days, and that infuses me of new life ahah -- seriously, some of them, like the girls’ moment Lulu, Rikku and Yuna share is pretty cute. Focusing on Tidus’ parts though, I must say I was not surprised to find my heart overflowing of new sad feelings. Sad, yet nice at the same time.

Tidus’ Monologue The scene, like Yuna’s, takes place on the airship judging by the soft background noises of machinery and so on. Tidus is alone, and the echo of his voice makes it clear he’s thinking each spoken words, resounding in his head.

“ I was a dream... I don’t get it at all! Even though they said I’ll disappear once we defeat Sin, I'm here right now; how can I ever disappear? ”

Being told by the Fayth he’ll eventually fade away once the dreaming ends already, it’s safe to assume these are moments prior to the attack against Sin, the singing of Spira, etc. It breaks my heart, truly; in-game, he doesn’t really talk about it with anyone, no one but Auron probably knows the destiny he’s been revealed to that extend. Sure, Yuna gets suspicious and starts asking questions, but he promptly changes subjects every time or plainly avoids to answer her. It’s selfish, kinda, but terrifying. In the Ultimania Omega novelization, when Yuna sees Tidus waking up after having touched the wall of Fayth on Gagazet, seeing him weirdly cheerful and dismissive, she says:

~ You touched the statues, suddenly lost consciousness and fell… I noticed when I heard Wakka and Lulu making a fuss behind me. I had a bad feeling, because no matter what you wouldn’t seem to wake up… [...] but once you did, it was as if nothing happened to you -- you seemed more cheerful and energetic than usual. When I saw you like that, I knew something was up. Because I had gone down the same path. When I looked at your face, I could see you hiding something terrible from me. What did you dream about? I couldn’t ask you.

He keeps it all inside. It’s the promise of destruction he’s never experienced before, living in the dream world. It has a toll on him. And painfully reminds me of the scene right before facing Sin again, where he stands in the airship cockpit, everyone encouraging him to go forward in silence, but him looking with sad eyes at all of them. Considering what he’s hiding and that he reveals moments before it happens, it all gets more tragic. The monologue, in fact, continues with:

“ If I tell everyone, I think I can probably find a way to laugh at the situation. Just like that, and I'll be totally comfortable with it... probably. But I can't tell them of course. Now, everyone's running forward, aiming for the Calm. I don't want to worry them or anything, and if Yuna were to cry, I wouldn't know what to do this time. ”

Afraid to ruin something so precious and hoped for as the Calm they have the potential to bring anew, and forever now, he tells himself to simmer it all down and accept it. It’s a thought to keep only to himself and cannot let anyone, especially Yuna, find out about it. While of course it mirrors the self-sacrificing spirit animating Yuna for the first half of the story, I believe it gets even more tragic here. For no one (aside from Auron) knows his nature and destiny; a Summoner’s sacrifice is instead something every Spiran knows well.

“ Ah, am I... scared? More than me crying, Yuna crying is much more... more than me not being here, Yuna not being here is much, much more... frightening. ”

The sheer devotion and love he feels for Yuna, the hope to never see her crying again or die, all of that surpasses the fear of death. Tidus’ ‘bond’ with death is a close one, if you think about it. It just rarely gets through -- but he lost his mother so slowly and terribly it must have been horrible for a child that young; he believed his father to have died for ten years; he literally wakes up on a shore full of dead bodies and have a little breakdown at the sight too... not to mention all that his nature entitles. So he’s not really afraid of dying, not completely; for the fear of seeing something bad happen to the person he loves feels bigger, more urgent. Scary, still, though.

It’s touching. He knows he doesn’t really belong to the world he’s in anymore, despite knowing deep inside that’s his new home, but the thought of living in it and of enjoying the Calm without Yuna is something he can’t even picture in his head-- it just isn’t possible, it’s a scary thought.

He doesn’t want to see Yuna cry ever again. I’ve seen lots of posts condemning, in a sense, Tidus kissing Yuna in the spring. Because of her state, because it did remind them of Seymour doing the same to her on the altar... while worthy of another meta post of its own haha, I don’t agree with this vision. He doesn’t kiss people around to console them, nor to remind them of bad times... that’s the only moment where Yuna cries, it’s heartbreaking, his kiss is a way to convey his emotions. Which she also returns ahah, not to mention the original script didn’t even see the two of them kissing. But the thought is a hard one to bear. Which makes me think Tidus rethinks of that eventful night, for the good and the bad it reserved them... and that the sight of her crying hurt him so much he doesn’t want to see it ever again.

The monologue ends in a hopeful note, still, despite the sadness... so typical of him ;-;

“ Don't mess with me, old man! This fine mess is your fault. Let's end this already. You couldn't believe in the infinite possibilities. I believe...and I'll make them come true. ”

#▐┊ headcanon.#meta tag.#long post #[ i'll fight in the pit everyone calling him a superficial 24/7 happy boi ]#[ he tries. but he has these dark thoughts... even in his narration #the tone is serious and he tends to overthink a lot ]#[ which is precious ]#[ because he can be that. but also be the sunshine you need at the moment ]#[ ready to do the right thing. ]#[ taken to a world he never knew and saving it ]#[ and that can't stand to see loved ones suffer ]#[ i want to translate the last snippet where the whole group is talking ]#[ laughing and all ;_; im weak ]#[ also tidus and wakka talking about life with blitzball metaphors ]

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