#post-game stuff

[hishap]

Do you ever think about Kabbu's Request and how Kabbu didn't even have bodies to bury?

I mean, his friends were eaten so. There's nothing in that grave. They just planted two sticks in the ground so Kabbu would have a spot to sit and mourn

[instructor-aki-archive-blog]

So I have often headcanoned that post-game, Balamb Garden, Trabia, and Galbadia kind of form this cooperative, with Balamb being the administrative hub.  They get the ball rolling for funding to rebuild Trabia, repair the damage done to B-Garden, and assimilate the G-Garden students into the new order of things.  

Canon-wise, Galbadia Garden kind of just....isn’t mentioned following the battle of the gardens, if I recall correctly, which always struck me as kind of weird. Game script oversight, more than likely, but I think it could be an interesting thing to explore in a post-game AU setting.  How awkward would it be, getting the B-Garden kids and G-Garden kids to kind of accept ‘oh hey, we’re all under the same umbrella now, so play nice!’   After they were all at each other’s throats with Galbadia being the aggressor.  Talk about a hostile takeover.

Except, it’d be better handled if B-Garden kind of annexed G-Garden; maybe with some kind of intervention by President Loire, who probably could smooth over any tensions and nip them in the bud (I also headcanon that Laguna is an excellent accidental diplomat).

Anyway, kind of just barfing up some random post game thoughts.  feel free to add or w/e!

[emeraldmew]

Um, Looker? Looker...

Why is it somehow better to put an eleven-year-old in danger against the UBs than it is your adult partner who has the skills of a Frontier Brain? (Not that anyone in this universe knows what that is, but she still has the battle skills so...)

Why do I get the feeling it’s because the game designers still expect the player will be a boy? I really hope that isn’t the reason but it kinda feels like it.

Looker, I get you want to protect Anabel from the fate of your earlier partner but I really don’t see the logic of saying it’s a-okay for the eleven-year-old new Champion to be in the same situation.

Other than not really letting Anabel shine as much as she really, really should have...I wonder if the other Faller was the ghost who kept appearing and saying “No, you aren’t the one” or whatever the exact quote was in XY and ORAS? I assume her absence in Gen 7 is due to the lack of Hex Maniacs running about to be her sprite?

More positively, I have some extradimensional monsters hanging out on Pokepelego that the secret branch of the international police wanted eliminated so I’d say that makes me a pretty powerful trainer. And I love the way Poni Island’s meadow made use of the gen 7 graphics. The UB plot really could have used some tidying up - either made longer to better fill in why Looker and Nanu are so much more willing to protect Anabel as though she’s fragile or something than the actual child (like actually showing her vs the UBs she’s implied to have fought off or maybe referencing a time she in particular was hurt or something) or maybe just smoother in how it delivered information? I mean, I like that they left parts of it more vague for the player to put together rather than spelling it all out, but I think it could have stood another draft of writing.

And maybe also not having the populated areas the UBs could appear in being utterly unchanged aside from the music when they’re supposed to be causing havoc enough to leave Anabel tired out (Is that why there were always two possible locations? So the player could interpret Anabel as dealing with UBs in the area you weren’t? That doesn’t make much sense as you weren’t done until you fought all the UBs of the mission.)

Idk, maybe the “mission” style is what really holds the Looker stuff back? I feel like it (and the XY version) could have been more organic without the game telling you you’ve entered a specific chapter of the story.

Of course, I could just be salty because I was spoiled by how much the main plot was driven by female characters for a change (Lillie and Lusamine especially, but Hapu gets a special mention) and the UB missions felt like they were trying to force Looker to look like the hero even though the player was doing the work and made Anabel feel more like a plot device than a character, which is rather disappointing for her first appearance since gen 3.

It’s not even just the gender divide (though I will admit that is part of it that rubs me the wrong way), it’s that it feels like the game was trying to downplay Anabel in favor of Looker the whole time. We see her weakened and tired out from her part in the mission, but we never see what caused her to get into that state because the player never sees her while actively hunting UBs. It tries to talk up Looker like he’s doing the hard part and being the secret hero when he really spends the time telling you where to go to actually stop the threat. I’m not saying “backup” isn’t an important role. I’m saying Looker seems to be given your credit as well as his own for your part in the plot due to the way it’s framed... while also flat out taking any possible credit from Anabel in the final mission especially because he tells her to go to the wrong location. That’s the kind of writing that really needed to be edited and polished and honestly I’d have felt the same if it was some other Frontier Brain being left in the dust by the clumsy writing.

At least there’s a lot of fanfic fodder and theory fodder from the UB collection?

[runningfromdesians-blog]

@ninthcompanion

She didn’t have the energy to go on, not for lack of food or sleep, she hadn’t needed either for almost a year. No, it was from loss of blood. Just because she couldn’t feel pain, didn’t mean she couldn’t get hurt. It was so easy to sustain injuries when she couldn’t tell they were there. And she was out of healing items as well.

That was perfect, of course. She couldn’t call for help of any kind, and she was bleeding out... and the monsters she’d accepted the job to kill were still out there. At least, there were only a few left compared to before. She hadn’t expected them to get help.

So she stumbled through the woods, trying to staunch the flow of blood from the worst of her wounds. She was getting slower by the minute, less energy, less clarity. Already she could barely see, the edges of her vision dark. She couldn’t draw in a breath properly, and some things seemed unusually bright to her eyes. So bright it actually hurt to keep them open.

No. I can’t stop now.

She’d never find help that way... stumbling through the trees some more, she lost her footing and fell into a tree. For a moment, she lost her breath, and had to force herself to remember to breathe. A glance up brought a comforting sight... a house of sorts. Anna gathered what little strength she had left and made her way closer.

A hand poised to knock on the door, but her strength gave way at the last minute, and instead she stumbled to the ground, falling halfway against the door. Sliding to the ground, she knew she was in an awkward position, one that honestly should have been painful... but that was the least of her concerns. If no one lived out here, she was out of luck.

Brown eyes stared almost blankly at the nearby trees, as she still struggled to breathe. Please. She thought. Please, let someone live here.

[mightyinvincible]

Minor spoilers, but i was able to forge a Superior Sword of Light +3 and it feels real good. Gunna hit some stuff real hard with it.

[0isms]

' only you can decide where to go from here. '

“You say that like there is somewhere to go,” the mechanic muttered, turning to look at the island they were in. “We’ve done some pretty messed up stuff, man. I… don’t think we should go back to living with other humans, really.” Turning back to the other, he gave him a small laugh. “It’s kinda amazing how you could sound so hopeful in our situation. I mean, I know a lot of time has passed since we woke up from the simulation, but still…”