#somewhere out there I have a small compilation of thoughts regarding this whole thing specifically with krok and spinister

[random-kido]

pov: your husbands a little fucked up actually

(it’s ok so are you)

[fallintosanity]

What are your thoughts on 7 Remake’s ~controversial~ ending? It’s been a few weeks now since I finished and I legit feel like I’ve journeyed through all 5 stages of grief and finally landed on Acceptance 😅

haha that’s fair! I have a lot of thoughts about the remake, but they’re coming from three different angles. 

(Spoilers under the cut obvs; also this got fucklong even after I cut a bunch of non-ending-related thoughts, and I apologize to those of you on mobile)

From the POV of someone who played and loved the original

Overall, I really enjoyed the remake, ending and all. I replayed the OG prior to the remake’s release, finishing literally four hours before the remake became available in North America, but it had still been months since I did the Midgar parts so it wasn’t too immediately fresh in my mind. Still, I was impressed by how faithful the remake is to the OG for the vast majority of the game. They noticeably cleaned up a few things, like Tseng slapping Aerith, which didn’t age well or stopped making sense with regards to the greater Compilation, which was nice to see. But they also doubled down on some of the ridiculousness of the original. I can’t tell you how much I cackled when the Hell House showed up, or how many times I said to my fiance in joy/disbelief, “They really managed to fit that in!” 

I also love all the little nods to the greater Compilation. I saw one interview excerpt from like... 2015 or 2014 or something that said the Remake is considered canon to the Compilation, and the content of the Remake itself suggests this. While some of the cameos could be considered nothing more than cameos (as much as I love Kunsel, I don’t think his name being dropped means anything other than that they needed a name and wanted to give a nod to him), there are other clear hints that Crisis Core and The Kids Are Alright, at minimum, are canon to the Remake. Hojo mentions “S and G type” SOLDIERs, i.e., Sephiroth-type and Genesis/Gillian-type. (Roche is a G type I am not taking arguments on this point) The description of the Buster Sword says it carries the hopes and dreams of those who came before, implying more than just Zack (i.e., Angeal). Zack’s scene right before he charges the ShinRa army is shot-for-shot the one from Crisis Core, which could have just been a nod, but the fact that he also says the same lines as the original is telling. There’s a lot of lore loaded into those lines. Leslie and Kyrie are both from The Kids Are Alright (which makes me wonder if the third ShinRa half-brother is floating around somewhere). You could make an argument for Before Crisis being partially or completely canon to the remake as well, since someone mentions a previous assassination attempt on the President, which happened in BC. 

But now we get into the issue of whether Advent Children is canon to the remake, i.e., the ending and the thing you actually asked about. ^^; This is where I’m more torn. My initial reaction to the ending was “Oh crap, we went from FFVII-Remake to Kingdom Hearts - oh shit now we’re in Advent Children - oh fuck now we’re in fanfiction-land.” Which... is definitely not what I was expecting from the ending of Part 1. 

On first playthrough it feels a bit like they overplayed their hand with Sephiroth in the ending: “everyone wants a Sephiroth fight in a FFVII game, so we’ll give them a Sephiroth fight”. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the fact that Sephiroth appears in person in the Midgar sequence, when in the OG all we see of him before Kalm is the aftermath of President Shinra’s murder. I do think Sephiroth’s appearances prior to the ending were done well - the writers clearly intended to emphasize Cloud’s mental issues, and Sephiroth is too big a part of them to ignore. His appearances prior to the top of Shinra Tower both serve as a bone tossed to those who wanted to see him in the remake, and set up the Cloud-Sephiroth relationship a lot earlier and in more depth. You can see how utterly terrified Cloud is every time Sephiroth is around - even sometimes frozen into immobility. Depending on how things go with the Kalm flashback, this may also help cue new players in to just how wrong things are with Cloud. (After all, a SOLDIER First shouldn’t be afraid of another SOLDIER First, should he?) But the final fight against Sephiroth, or at least, a clone wearing Sephiroth’s face, felt premature, out of place, something that’s only there to appease people who wanted to fight Sephiroth now. 

Aside from the Sephiroth thing, I’m reserving judgment a bit on the ending as a whole. On the one hand, I’m deeply curious to see where the story goes from here, and how the writers use their newfound freedom (more on that in a minute). On the other hand, I don’t want this to turn into Kingdom Hearts 4, and I don’t trust Nomura in that regard, especially after all the bullshit that went on with KH3, Verum Rex, and FFXV/versus 13. I love Nomura, but like George Lucas, he desperately needs someone to rein in, edit, and shape his ideas.

I’m also not sure how I feel about all the theories being thrown out there - such as that at least one of the Sephiroths we see is the one from after AC, somehow flung back in time to fuck things up; or that the OG was, 999-style, Aerith seeing into the future and now in the remake she’s taking control to put everything on the path she wants. They’re interesting, for sure, and I think that with careful handling, it’s possible Squenix might be able to pull one of them off - but given what I know of Squenix (again, more on that later), I don’t trust them to do it well. I am, to be blunt, very concerned that later installments of the remake are going to turn into an incoherent tug-of-war between those who want to be faithful to the original, and Nomura’s desire to inject weird Kingdom Hearts nonsense everywhere. 

I say this with all the love to Kingdom Hearts, but it’s a very specific kind of story and it’s not what I want to see in my FFVII.

On a writing meta level

On the meta level, I’m fascinated by the choice to go with the whole Whispers/Arbiters of Fate thing. I don’t know how much of that is pure Nomura-injected BS vs how much was a deliberate choice by the writing team, but for right now I’m going to assume it was mostly a deliberate and unanimous choice. 

I’ve seen a lot of other Remake opinions along the lines of a reluctant, “I guess they had to put the Whispers in there because a perfect remake wouldn’t have been satisfying to everyone. There’s always someone who would have complained.” I... don’t think that’s entirely true. Like, yeah, sure, someone’s always going to complain if it’s not a pixel-perfect remake, but based on the overall satisfaction I’ve seen from OG fans (including myself) regarding the parts that are true to the original, I think Squenix would have done just fine if that was the path they chose. And given how much attention they paid to making most of the game into a nearly-perfect recreation, I think the writers knew it. 

So why’d they go the whole Whispers route? 

My guess would be that the writers were giving themselves freedom, on a meta level, with the Whispers. It’s a way of both poking fun at, and solving, their own dilemma: do we make a perfect, hi-res copy of the original? Or do we change things to make it our own? 

The “change something to make it your own” is a longstanding trope when someone new is put in charge of something old. You see it in everything from Disney live-action remakes to new managers who change their employees’ routines just to “make an impact”. Most of the time, these changes are neutral / un-impactful at best, or outright frustrating / terrible at worst. I wonder if the Remake writing team wasn’t fully aware of this, and possibly tangled up in knots internally about how to handle it. Would it be seen as a bad, “make it their own” change to have Tseng not slap Aerith? What about adding Chocobo Sam, Madam M, and Andrea Rhodea to the Wall Market sequence? What about the changes to how the Avalanche gang reacts to Cloud, now that we have full animation and voice acting and it’s clear Avalanche has no reason to want to keep him around except for Jessie being horny on main? Where’s the line? 

I could see the Whispers being the writing team’s way of making sure they stay in line where it’s important, while also giving themselves the freedom to make the updates needed to allow the remake to work. They’re kind of a meta nod to the audience, a “don’t worry! If we get too far out of line, the Whispers will bring us back.” In that sense, the entire ending where you (the player) kill the Whispers and free yourself (the player) from destiny is you giving the writers permission to continue making those small changes. 

In FFXV, almost the entire ending sequence is a cutscene: Noctis on the throne, being murdered by his ancestors and descending into the spirit realm. But there’s one single quick-time event in there, one point where the player has to take action and push a button. It’s not even difficult, and on the surface it seems pointless. Except, if you don’t, Noctis lives. (Trapped in purgatory maybe, but he’s still there.) If you never push that button, Noctis doesn’t sacrifice his spirit and those of the Lucii to destroy Ardyn and wipe the Scourge from Eos. By asking - requiring - the player to push that button to commit that final act, the game makes the player complicit in Noct’s sacrifice. It’s a powerful moment, and similar to what (I suspect) the Remake writers intended with the Whispers. 

Because they could have left the Whispers in forever. They could have had them be a continuous presence throughout all episodes of the Remake, a little reminder that no matter what tweaks the writers might make to update the story, to “make it their own”, the Arbiters of Fate will ensure things are on track. That things will play out exactly as in the original. But by asking the player to destroy the Arbiters, the writers are asking for the player’s permission to make changes. And by killing the Arbiters, you’re granting it. Because, just like you can keep Noctis alive by not pushing the button when prompted, you can keep the original game more-or-less on track by never stepping through that portal, never killing the Arbiters. But if you do step through that portal and go through with it, you’re agreeing to accept that things might change, thus freeing the writers from the constant double jeopardy of changing things vs keeping them exactly the same. 

On a business meta level

As cool as (I think) that all sounds, the bigger question is, can Square Enix actually pull it off? And here’s where I start to have my most significant doubts. After the FFvs13/FFXV debacle and the hopeless mess that was KH3, I do not trust Nomura to tell a coherent story, even if it’s supposedly a retelling of an existing, well-known story. I don’t know anything about the inner workings or politics at Square Enix, other than that there are politics at play, so in fairness to him I can’t really say it’s because he himself is bad at telling a story, or just doesn’t have the support he needs to convey his vision well. But that gets into other issues with Squenix. We know their last several major games have had long and troubled developments. Someone way more attuned than me to the Japanese video games industry can talk in depth about why; all I know is that it happened (is happening?) and that it’s something of a miracle the remake came out as well as it did. 

On top of that, I’m a bit concerned that even if Squenix can get (and keep) its shit together, it might be up against external forces that constrain how it can tell the story of FFVII in the present. For example, from what I’ve heard, the reason Crisis Core never got ported the way so many other games did, and the reason Genesis Rhapsodos has never been seen outside it and a Dirge of Cerberus cameo, is due to image licensing fights with Gackt, Genesis’s face model. CC established Genesis as a key player in the events leading up to the original game’s story, and enough hints have been dropped about CC in the remake that, like I said earlier, it appears to be canon. But if Squenix can’t reach an agreement to use the character again, they might be trapped in a corner where they either have to completely rewrite the parts of the story involving Genesis, or dance around his existence. 

And on top of all that, it’s just expensive and time-consuming as hell to make games on the remake’s scale. Everyone expects the PS4 to be retired by the time Remake Part 2 comes out, which is going to pose huge logistical issues for releasing it. Squenix has been having a rough time of it lately, from what I’ve heard - are they, as a company, capable of handling all those logistical issues? I don’t know, and that makes me nervous. 

Still, they did do a remarkable job with the remake overall, even grappling with the pandemic around the launch date. So maybe they’re getting their shit together again, and things will be smooth sailing from here. We’ll have to wait and see. 

[noafterparties]

Hey it’s 1am who wants taz angst(?)

Taz Balance Spoilers!

It’s that feeling again. The bone aching tiredness mixed with treacherous loneliness. —————-

Barry Bluejeans has had a long night. The IPRE is buzzing with life, even as Barry trecks back to his apartment on the shitter side of town. Since the announcement of The Mission, every department has been working around the clock, trying to show it’s prowess and dedication, all in the name of being represented on this mission. 

Barry himself has been spearheading the scientific department’s efforts, revamping and revising every calculation, specification, and project under the suns. Gods he wants to be chosen. To see what’s out there, explore what has never been seen. To travel. 

So long days were the norm, falling and fading into a pattern of stress, work, and fitful sleep. Considering the sky above him, a deep amethyst, pinpricked with light, he’d wager it was about three in the morning. A smile drapes across his face as he considered the universe stretched around him, and then-

“Watch it!” A pair of elves brush past him, sparking him from his daze. He continues on his way home, alone.

———————

Taako and Lup have just left their apartment, barely taking notice of the human that stopped dead in their path. It’s been a busy few months for them too, and they finally, finally, have a corresponding night off from the IPRE. Naturally, they head downtown, dressed out in coordinating outfits.

Taako is sporting an off-the-shoulder tank that is a stark blue, with white pants, knee-high black boots, and wicked eyeliner, applied by Lup’s steady hand. He’s got a ludicrously tall hat on, one that Lup mocked right up until Taako actually put it on, then conceded to it actually completing the outfit, rather than just throwing the whole thing off. Lup is in tall stilettoes, fishnet leggings, a white overcoat, barely covering her favorite clubbing dress: a similarly-stark blue dress with a dipping neckline, and a collar to accentuate her cheekbones. Her hair is intricately done into a braided bun, courtesy of Taako’s deft hands.

They were going Out. They had already agreed that this night was about the two of them, and nothing would stop the two of them from seeing the first sunrise from their favorite rooftop bar. They’d figure out what to do after that. With the sheer amount of alcohol they were planning on drinking, it wouldn’t be too hard.

As they chatted about which of their favorite haunts to hit- they still had at least a few hours ‘til the first sunrise- they passed a dimly lit shop with only one patron inside. They aren’t lonely, but maybe they rejoice a little deeper that night because they know this life won’t always hold.

————————

Lucretia hadn’t meant to come out this late. She barely ever left the house after the suns set normally, but she simply couldn’t wait ‘til morning. 

She had woken up in a cold sweat, new thoughts and ideas running through her head like a song. Immediately awake, knowing she shouldn’t (and indeed wouldn’t) waste a creative jolt like this, Lucretia reached for her bedside journal. She’d planned to just jot something promising down, and then let her mind rest after such a busy day at the IRPE, but she knocked into her ink well before she reached her journal.

Grumpy, partially sleep-deprived, and definitely underdressed compared to the elves she’d seen on the street, Lucretia found herself in one of the only all-night writing stores within a sketchy ten-minute walk to her apartment. It was small, dimly lit, and smelt of parchment, and even as grumpy as Lucretia was, she appreciated the place. Without it, she’d be out of luck, ink, and the creative spark that had oh-so-wonderfully awoken her at three in the morning.

She bought three wells- they’d empty so fast- and then watched as the storekeeper carefully packaged them. Taking her parcel, she turned towards home...and then shook her head. No, clearly she wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight. She turned towards the IPRE instead, and began her walk.

When she reached her department of the IPRE, she wasn’t surprised to see several people still working. There were the usual: Ingran, the elf from accounting, Cyas, the library keeper, and Johnston, the compiler. She nodded hellos to them, walking past them in favor of the sanctum that was her office.

Lucretia was clinging desperately to the creativity that had woken her up, determined to get it down on paper. She knows her muse is fleeting and will leave her bare the minute ink touches paper. She barely noticed the small form of a gnome, chatting with Cyas.

————————

Davenport knew he was an outlier at the IRPE. His clan had mostly been nocturnal, and growing up, so had he. Even moving to Brillow, the city where the IRPE was based, didn’t really change this. He got up a little earlier, usually an hour or so before the first sunset, to overlap with regular day staff, and then stayed a little later in order to coordinate with the day staff again in their ‘morning’.

He had been a little surprised when the day staff started to stretch that system, staying longer and longer, showing up at less reasonable times of their ‘night’, but he supposed that he should have expected it. When The Mission was announced, he wasn’t particularly concerned with showing off for the bosses. As lead astrologer at the IRPE, a trained head captain of interplanar ships, and already possessing an advanced knowledge of physics and mechanics, the IPRE Board would have to be deaf or blind not to pick him for the mission.

This was simply a state of fact: Davenport was qualified for the position. But that didn’t stop him from working a little harder when everyone else did too. A human woman passed by him, reinforcing how important The Mission was, if she was up at this hour. He was currently working with Cyas, the bookkeeper for the IPRE library, to expand the literary material regarding manipulations of electron fields. They’d been petitioning for weeks to coordinate with their co-facility the Materials Research Society and it looked like they were getting somewhere. The head of the IPRE had okayed them to link frequencies and discuss sharing equipment between the organizations.

Making their way back towards the library communications hub, they pass through the windowed hall facing the IPRE courtyard. The windowed hall distorts his short reflection, and even as he walks he is towered and overshadowed by his coworker. Outside of the window, which is much easier to focus on, the courtyard only has one silhouette on it: a tall figure with broad shoulders and bushy sideburns.

————————-

Magnus doesn’t even know what he’s doing here. Insomnia had struck him earlier that night (morning?) and he had just...wandered.

He’d always been skilled at pushing off feelings he didn’t want to contemplate during the day. During the day there were things to do, people to talk to, boxes to fill and move, data to check, activities to get to, obligations, life. At night everything felt...still. Magnus knew that was an illusion, sure there were parties and clubs and people, but it wasn’t his. He felt disconnected from it all.

When he got that way, the only workable solution was to walk. Feet to pavement, night air moving, living, around him. His feet would take him across town, up random alleys, across bridges, through crowds just to feel that life, that purpose. And then they would bring him back. Whether the walk had been an hour or all night, Magnus always felt ready to go to bed or disconnect in the way of his own choice.

So he was at a loss as to why his feet brought him to the IRPE and then left him there. He felt rooted to the courtyard, deeply connected to what was happening around him. Except. Nothing was happening. Shadows were passing through the windows of the IRPE, but they did that at all hours. Magnus was intimately familiar with the life here because this is where he lived his.

Securing the discoveries and safeguarding the employees at the IRPE, Magnus spent hours watching the patterns and life at the IRPE. After The Mission was announced, maybe those patterns had sped up, gotten a little more frantic and dizzying, but that only made his work all the more crucial.

Magnus turned to head home, uncertain of whether he would be able to sleep or not. Insomnia really was a bitch.

———————

Merle hadn’t seen anyone in hours. He was currently sitting in a dark greenhouse, waiting. Yawning more like. He wanted to be in bed. He hadn’t been home in a day or two, too excited over the potential to see Portulaca grandiflora bloom for the first time this century.

The plant’s blossom structure had been perplexing him for days, refusing to open early, despite his many efforts. The only thing that remained was to wait. Merle wasn’t great with that, and offered up a silent prayer to Pan to hurry up. P. grandiflora belonged to genius that had developed the unique trait of neoteny, making it extremely difficult to tell juveniles from adults. As head botanist at the IPRE, Merle was hoping to be the first to witness a true first bloom of the plant. Generally speaking, it would be very cool and very pretty. Scientifically speaking, this plant could reveal how to prolong a life cycle by proxy of prolonging true sexual development, as well as a host of other uses in medicinal practices thanks to the pollen.

Merle isn’t a loner by nature, no dwarves are really. Merle comes from a huge clan of Highchurch hill dwarves, and born into a family so large leads to a support system unmatched by most. Striking out on his own to join the sciences, learning botany and scientific cataloging distanced him from his family in a way he isn’t particularly proud of.

He’s used to the crutch of a support system that is his greenhouse.

———————

We’ve met our crew. But they’ve yet to meet each other.

Authors Note: Hey! Its taz (I know, everyone’s shocked) but I had this idea spinning in my head for an hour or two about how weird it would be if none of the birds knew each other pre-mission announcement. Then that spiraled into, well, this? So idk if it’s angst in the traditional sense, but I did kinda like writing it since I’m in a similar mood. Hope you enjoyed

[skinnylittleredwrites]

My best friend, my lover.

TITLE OF STORY: My best friend, my lover. CHAPTER NUMBER/TITLE/ONE SHOT: 2/? AUTHOR: skinnylittlered. WHICH TOM/CHARACTER: Actor!Tom. GENRE: Romance. FIC SUMMARY: Andrea and Tom have been friends since the beginning of time. Until a confession of love is made. This story follows the events of their subsequent relationship (sequel to You Wanna Play that Game? ) RATING: Explicit (language, references to sexual activity). WARNINGS/TRIGGERS/AUTHORS NOTES: - FEEDBACK/COMMENTS: -

Chapter 2.

I don’t see how I could ever tire of this.

Surely, this feeling might be greatly influenced by the fact that, due to his absolutely hellish schedule his job all but demands, and the very static nature of my own job – I am, more often than not, essentially tied to my desk and the seemingly never ending piles of papers that consume most of my time at work and sometimes my free time as well, so more time than I’d ever care to admit to myself or any who may inquire – we have probably spent somewhere in the vicinity of maybe a fortnight in each other’s presence in the last three months and, while I would have been completely content with the situation should things have transpired in that way, there’s more to a relationship, I’m being told, than fucking each other’s brains for the whole of the time we’re together. Thusly, precious time which could have been dedicated to mindless penetration was regrettably wasted on romantic niceties and such other nonsense which I could have really done without, regardless of how cute they may be.  

This is precisely why, as I find myself kneeling against the headrest of his bed – well, technically, our bed now – and being pounded into with the fervour that I thought was only reserved for pubescent boys furiously masturbating against any surface even remotely resembling the softness that is specific to the female kind, I am relishing maybe more so than I generally would during copulation. Not to cause any misunderstanding, Tom has proved himself to be quite the competent lover, effectively obliterating the sparse doubts I may have amassed in regards to that topic. Doubts, I should add, that were compiled during the not infrequent locker talk that I either overheard or was a present participant to over the years of our friendship. Honestly, men have such a way of perorating about their sexual conquests that it renders a female of the even coarser sensibilities (or maybe especially her) to regard their grandiose claims as at least dubious if not entirely unbelievable. But, fortunately for all the parties involved, that is both myself and him, those claims are, irrefutably if not quite as monumentally, backed up by facts - he is a man of a certain degree of mastery, not to be overlooked, when it comes to gratifying the beautiful sex.

And here I am, being thoroughly gratified – thoroughly being the operative word – as I am taken from behind, with great enthusiasm. He’s got me by a fistful of hair and a fistful of hip, grunting as he thrusts into me, and it is music to my ears, accompanied by the sounds of his pelvis slamming into my ass – a symphony of absolute debauchery if I’ve ever heard one. I, naturally, being the refined erotic artist that I fancy myself to be, am holding my own to this most exquisite harmony of sounds, positive that my moans and screams of pleasure can be heard from across the street, but I indulge in expressing my satisfaction shamelessly, completely neglecting any sense of the basest form of propriety or moral value instilled in me since infanthood. I revel in the delights of the flesh to the uttermost extent, I am unabashed and completely incorrigible and I am -

Oh, god, I’m -

I cry out my climax, bending backwards toward him in a way that I am certain might be highly uncomfortable if not impossible were it not for the adrenaline shooting through me. He reaches to my ear and whispers rough words that would otherwise be insulting, that he would not be caught dead addressing a woman in a different scenario, but right now only intensify my pleasure, coaxing it out of me. I whimper and I come, as I am commanded, and it doesn’t register in my brain that I am no longer at my apex even minutes later, when he stiffens to his own release.

Panting and sweating, we both let ourselves fall on the crumpled sheets of our lovemaking. Tom is, soon enough, fast asleep, but I am, although physically spent, nowhere near enough to drowsy. I am somehow full of energy but unable to manifest it, and, to save myself from the eventual frustration that will overcome me in this paradoxal state and because of it, I raise from the bed and head for the shower, pondering almost disinterestedly at the domestic tasks that I have to accomplish for the day and other such things.

It’s been three months. Three very convoluted, intense, consuming months. So much so, that, except for the occasional talks we have confronting the subject during our very infrequent times together, we did not really have the time others may have to slide into conjugality, it’s still quite foreign territory, although broadly discussed. Between travelling to every and all corners of the world, filming and catering to his fanbase and, winning awards, we tried to fit in our newly developed liaison. We went on dates and held hands and our interactions slowly metamorphosised, without losing the friendly quality of the ones prior to our respective confessions, into something entirely new, but still very familiar. Our romance, we learned, is in the small things. Not much of our demeanour towards the other has changed, but the subtleties which make all the difference in the world are ever present, and those lay in our knowledge. He doesn’t look at me any differently, nor does he speak to me differently, nor does he hug me longer nor tighter, but his love, professed and recognised, gives other meaning to what was before. There are, of course, the intimacies that are entirely strange to the realm of platonic, but those are hardly ever on display – I am the part of him that the world shall merely know of, but never know – and to the couple of us, they seem but a natural extension to something that was present all along. But that does not domesticity make. This we shall learn as we go, one morning waking up together at a time.  

Or one homemade meal at a time? I speak the question rhetorically, as there is no one in the room to answer, and giggle at myself a bit as I’m chopping various vegetables for supper.  

Cooking was not an activity that I have ever particularly enjoyed or was any good at. Obviously, nobody is particularly proficient at anything from the onset, lest for an inherent propensity that might as well be divinely gifted, as the general consensus seems to be with the average folk, but I appeared to be, from early times, especially unskilled at any culinary endeavours. My attitude towards the matter was the insurmountable obstacle toward my progression in the field – I would never, for the life of me, be caught in the kitchen, either by myself or others, when the convenience of the ready-to-eat, brought-to-your-own-door meal was an available commodity, even in college, when money was less than it is now. With an upper middle class family to support me and a part time job as a barista, money was hardly the issue – it would be highly hypocritical of me to not acknowledge the very fact that beauty pays for itself; I am an example of the basic caucasian standard of classic beauty: honey blonde hair, blue eyes and a slim oval face, the body that I religiously keep fit to serve my vanity more than my health or any other purpose, and a sweet disposition that I nearly cunningly employ to my advantage, I would never dare say that life wasn’t made easier by those cumulus of facts.  

But cooking, or any other traditionally womanly activities, I discovered as I was growing up, became more tolerant, even pleasant when their result has a recipient. I may not enjoy preparing my own food, I am still as guilty of succumbing to pre-prepared commodities as I was in my youth when mine is the only mouth that needs feeding, but I certainly do enjoy putting a meal together for my partners, and Tom is no exception. If anything, he’s the instance reinforcing the rule. In the little time we’ve had together, I’ve made it my mission to bring him a home he can take refuge in anywhere we may be.

“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?”

Ah, speak of the devil, there he is, all six feet and two inches of freshly roused glory, donning just boxers and a tee, and a self-satisfied smirk on his face, for somewhat reason.

“I did not buy it then; I don’t buy it now.”

“First of all, you said you did-”

“I lied.”

“And second, mean.”

“Am I?”

“You hurt my achey breakey heart.”

“I think your heart is just fine, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he chuckles against my neck as he hugs me from behind, sending a shiver down my spine. “My heart is mighty fine, although I do wonder about my stomach. It is very sanitary to be cooking in your underwear?”

"I am wearing a t-shirt!”

“...and no pants.”

“Well, I was going for sexy, not sanitary.”

“You’re always sexy.”

I huff.

“There’s no point to flattery, Hiddleston, with me, you can already get anything you want.”

“I’m not flattering. I do think you’re sexy. Always have.”

“Always?”

“Yeah. I never really wanted to admit it to myself, because that would have been... problematic, but I did. You’re a very beautiful woman.”

Although I am very much aware of that, his declaration still puts a knot in my throat and, like the sap that I am, my eyes become moist with overdramatic tears. I turn and rest my forehead on his chest, holding his body closer to mine. “I know.”

He laughs at my muffled reply, but is quick to chastise my illogical crying.

“Oh, dear, none of that. I can make a list of all of the things that are absolutely awful about you, then you can hate me and stop the waterworks.”

Sentiment promptly forgotten, I take a step back and glare at him.

“There’s nothing awful about me, I’m perfect!”

“Like hell you are,” his laugh is mirthful and unforgiving.  

“Fine. Tell me three things which are awful about me.”

His reply is matter-of-fact and not at all hesitant.

“You’re self-centred, vain, and not only slightly superficial. And, while we’re at it, your cooking’s not fantastic, either. I think you take after your mother.”

“That last one was mean and uncalled-for! But, fuck, I sound terrible. Am I so terrible?”  

The fact that I pulled out the puppy eyes on him on that last bit surely only emphasises some of my shortages in good character, because I’m doing it just to torment him. I know he doesn’t and I know he’ll feel especially bad for being so blunt in his criticism, and he’ll pull his very own variation of the puppy-eyes on me to be granted forgiveness later, which I will of course provide after making him repent.  

Orally.

“Why are you smirking all of a sudden?”

“Huh?”

“What’s with the face?”

“Ah, nothing. Up for takeout pizza?”

“Fuck, yeah.”

Yeah, we’re going to be just fine, Tom Hiddleston and I. Maybe not one homemade meal at a time, though.

________________________________________________________________

Author’s notes: It’s been about four years since I last wrote pretty much anything in any way literary (maybe some poetry here and there), and I decided that I miss it (and was pestered by some folks very dear to me to get my ass in gear and just do it again) so, yeah. Decided that, since I was so comfortable with the medium of fanfic, this would be a good place to give my writing bones a good crackin’, and so far things have been surprisingly nice. I honestly thought the fandom was dead, but it seems that you guys are still alive and very much kicking. 

Aaaaanywaaayyy.

I wanted to send out a huge, huge thanks to those of you who stuck for so long. It makes a girl shed a tiny but highly valuable tear. Also huge thanks for those of you who have stumbled upon my work while I was gone, those who sent messages and likes and kudos and reblogs and all that fun stuff. I came back to quite a number of those and, well, let’s just add another tiny tear to that previous one. Also thanks to those of you who are new to the my tiny blog of stories, another tiny tear and I will be full on tiny crying.

Thank you! 

[rastagong-tearoom]

Serving of Tea #4: The last stretch

Excerpt from Devilman Crybaby, courtesy of reddit user Tomaiua.

Hello everyone!

I know it's been forever, apologies for this utter lack of updates. I am not dead yet, and I have been working on Sylvan Disappearance all the while.

It has been pretty challenging, though. It's also not over yet. I've had a pretty busy semester school-wise with a certain research project, and working on both a visual novel and my research consistently has been……… pretty difficult. I think I fared well enough, overall? Well, I still have some amount of work ahead of me.

At the same time, part of why this whole VN development thing took so long is because I didn't want to cut too much on sleep, social time, down time. For the most part, I have succeeded in this regard! Yeah for healthy habits!

Besides, I can announce that the scripting process of Sylvan Disappearance is now complete! This is the last stretch, finally.

Here is a brief description of what remains to be done:

Going through a last editing pass

I still haven't read the VN from back to back myself, and I absolutely need to do so! For the sake of editing the text itself to a satisfying level of course, but also to ensure the internal coherence of the story and to polish the general presentation.

I ended up changing a number of core scenes during scripting, and if I do not ensure that the whole narrative is consistent, some parts might feel somewhat strange in the final result.

I might also cut down on the length of certain scenes! The story currently sits at a little over 45 000 words, which is actually quite a lot. I promised myself that I would not hesitate in cutting down where possible, if appropriate. We'll see.

Soo, yeah, the whole thing definitely goes a bit further than a mere editing pass.

Some amount of external testing

It's tempting to skip this step, but I know I shouldn't!

In the field of game developement, it's usually recommended to test early and frequently. This generally holds true for parser- or choice-based interactive fiction.

I am not sure of the applicability of this idea to visual novels, though. Since they tend to be longer, and more linear —in short, more alike to regular novels— iterative testing doesn't seem as helpful. It usually doesn't make much sense to have someone read an incomplete draft, unless the projected length is very high, or specific feedback on a precise aspect is needed. (I'd be curious to hear the thoughts of other writers on the matter!)

At any rate, I'll be kindly asking a few friends for help regarding playtesting, I hope it will work out!

Correctly attributing every free-to-use asset in the story

This one is going to take more time than it appears.

As I explained in the past, I rely extensively on photographic backgrounds with permissive licenses for the story, and it will probably remains so for the foreseeable future. As you can imagine, this practice of reuse extends beyond backgrounds: all sound effects and music in the story are somehow free to use.

Whether or not they use a Creative Commons license (which explicitly requires attribution), the authors of all these resources ask to be credited for their work, as they rightly should be.

I always strive to be precise and exhaustive when attributing specific assets! It's basically the least I can do, and it's even very little in comparison with the real, hard work which went into the production of original music, sounds, photographs.

However, explicit and correct attribution is not that common. It might be because in the mind of creators and final users alike, there's something shameful or cheap in the act of relying in pre-existing work, which all ties into our expectations of high production values regarding digital works. This is of course very understandable, because commercial pressure requires market value. And there is obviously tremendous value in original art.

However, I genuinely believe that assets in the public domain or with permissive reuse licenses should be valued as sources of common wealth too. And this starts with rightly attributing these assets to the creators who kindly offered them to everyone. The Creative Commons non-profit offers us both a succint summary of good attribution and an in-depth look at the best practices for attribution. I highly recommend checking out the latter if you're interested in the topic!

The baseline is that good attribution does take a little time, but not too much. Ideally, the title, the author, the license and a link to the source should be included. There are no hard rules though, it is more of an general ethical recommendation. As stated in the page: “there is no one right way; just make sure your attribution is reasonable and suited to the medium you're working with. That being said, you still have to include attribution requirements somehow, even if it's just a link to an About page that has that info.”

The best practices page also acknowledges that attribution is harder in non-textual media, like games and videos, and suggests different methods of attribution.

I've personally settled with:

A succint summary of all the contributors on the itch.io page that will host the VN. It merely lists names by category.

This summary is also reported in the rolling credits at the end of the game.

An in-depth credits menu inside the game, accessible from the main menu at any time. Each track, sound and background is visible either with a thumbnail, or with an audio player. In all cases, the credits menu explicitly lists the author, the license, background information on the asset and a link to the source.

I won't lie, coding a credits menu takes a little time! I still think it's worth it, and I hope some players enjoy having a look at the assets that went into making the whole VN, and learn a few things about the numerous real-life locations and talents behind it all!

The credits menu itself is mostly coded now, though I still have to add the audio player for sounds and music, and to fill it with all the assets. I've also coded the rolling credits at the very end, and I similarly only need to fill them with the names of all the involved authors.

Attributing each asset with all the required information will take some time, though. It's relatively easy to get lost in the task, to spend hours tracking the source of each asset if it was not cleanly compiled somewhere prior to beginning. I learnt this lesson the hard way in the past.

For Sylvan Disappearance, I prepared myself correctly. I've been using a giant spreadsheet to keep track of each and every asset used in the course of the story, with all the required information easily accessible by column. I even added bookmarked assets that I did not intend to use at first, for easier reference in case they became useful. Here's a sneak peek:

Now all I have to do is reporting each and every line in the credits menu. It will take time, but it is doable!

A potential release date?

When will this VN finally come out? ...I... still can not say for sure.

This month, this much is certain! I am almost done with schoolwork, but I will most likely be busy again in the second half of April anyway. But overall, Sylvan Disappearance should be released by April 26 at the latest!

(Most likely, it will be released right before April 26.)

That is all for today! This should be the very last long-form serving of tea before the release.

I will endeavour to write very short promotional posts. And since I still cannot show anything else from the game itself, I will find something else. I already have a small idea, I think it can prove interesting!

Until then, take care everyone!