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sinni-ok-sessi · 3 months

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Fic writer interview

Tagged by @bitterflames, thank you!

How many works do you have on AO3? 21, a number that surprises me every time by being both more and fewer than I think it should be

What’s your total AO3 word count? 186, 378 (again, feels like this is both way too many words and also not as many as it ought to be)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Moonlight as My Guide (The Untamed) The Naming of Small Things (The Untamed) Continuing Professional Development (The Magnus Archives) Noli me tangere (The Magnus Archives) Spin Me Right Round (The Untamed)

Nothing suprising here, given the ridiculous size of those two fandoms, but I am always charmed by the love CPD gets, given it's mostly me making jokes about a librarianship conference I went to once

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Aaaagh, I wish I did? I'm bad at thinking of things to say! I think I do better at responding in small fandoms where I know/know of most of the commenters and 'thank you for being on this small liferaft with me' feels like an appropriate sentiment

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? I don't really do angst-angst, but The Winding Roads They Led Me Here is probably the most obviously not-a-happy-ending thing I've written?

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? I am surveying my corpus and learning that wow, I write a not inconsiderable number of things about learning to live when you don't really want to? Shan't be analysing that too closely, tyvm, but I do remain pleased with the way And Green the Ground Below and Breathe In For Luck came out. For sheer straightforward glee at the ending, it's gotta be never knew a part of you / you didn't set in ink

Do you write crossovers? No, I imagine crossovers at great length and then make no moves towards writing anything down (see: the sprawling Nirvana in Fire/Vorkosigan series Entity that gets passed around between me and several friends, which consists entirely of one of us going 'hey have you thought about if X met Y?' and then yelling about that for several hours straight)

Have you ever received hate on a fic? lol, only from the one person who told me 'toxic xiyao' was ruining MaMG, which is very funny to me because that's kind of the point in that fic

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? yeahhhh but I find it very difficult. A long, hard process, in fact. As for 'what kind', uh, mutually obsessive D/s dynamics pretty much covers it, I think

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yeah! Someone on Wattpad was translating MaMG into Spanish, though idk how far they got

Have you ever co-written a fic before? No because I am very secretive about showing people my writing until it's 'presentable' and I think that would kill me

What’s your all-time favorite ship? [Douglas Richardson voice] Sir is fickle and changeable [/Douglas Richardson voice], but I think the ship I have spent longest actively contemplating is proooobably MCS/Jingyan?

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? All of themmmmmmm. (No, I would really like to do more with the Langya Hall prequel fic, but I think it's currently beyond my confidence as a writer so...)

What are your writing strengths? Fraught conversations and minute observations of body language, my beloved

What are your writing weaknesses? Plot? I don't know her. Pacing? A distant acquaintance at best

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I doubt I ever would, because I'm not confident in the spoken forms of any language I quote-unquote 'know', and I also find the 'multilingual character uses non-English endearments for their beloved' trope to be...a little painful, but I'm not averse to the idea on principle, though I suspect it requires more skill than people generally think to pull it off well

What was the first fandom you wrote for? hhhhh fucking. Sherlock Holmes (ACD stories), I think. Maybe the Psmith books by PG Wodehouse? I think it's for the best that the fic I wrote as a teen is marooned somewhere on LJ

What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? I'm not going to do it, because it involves way too much compartmentalising not to set off my RPF squick, but god those sad boat men from The Terror are compelling and would bring me nicely back into my wheelhouse of repressed Victorians and also the Navy (I think I never actually finished writing anything for the Hornblower fandom back in the day, but my god it was not for lack of trying)

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? usually my most recent fic tbh (in this case, Make A Mercy Out of Me, which is, uh, unrepentant Disguiser smut and therefore of interest to like. three people worldwide, but that's fine)

tagging: @tallangrycockatiel, @goingsparebutwithprecision and anyone else who's interested and hasn't already been tagged

#tag games #writing about writing

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persephoneflowerpetals · 4 months

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Okay I've seen the movie plenty of times, but getting into the series I somehow just realized that Hades is the younger brother? Like it totally went over my head because in other adaptations and greek history anyways he's the eldest! Is there any reason you think disney had him be younger than Zeus?

YES!!! I’M GLAD YOU NOTICED THAT TOO!!! I’m totally about to ramble about this because I got a lot to say about this subject lol. Buckle your seat belts, my dudes because this is gonna be a long one 😂

I’ve mentioned on here a lot that it’s crazy how they don’t even bring up the fact that Zeus and Hades are brothers in the movie. You only get hints of it like Zeus’ interactions with Hades and when you look closely at Hades’ chess board throughout the movie you can see that he has himself, Zeus, and Poseidon on there (as well as the monsters and I think Hercules?), so he’s pretty much targeting his brothers and his nephew.

I’ve said before that if you watch the movie without a lot of context or without watching the series then you’ll think that Hades isn’t even related to Zeus or Hercules and that he’s just some random, bitter villain that hates Zeus for putting him in the underworld. I honestly think they should’ve put something in the movie about them both being related. Even if it’s just a small one off line. It would’ve helped us understand Hades’ character and motivation. He’s not just some random god that hates Zeus, he’s Zeus’ little brother and he’s ticked that Zeus is the big shot while he got put in charge of the underworld by his older brother.

Honestly, I’m not completely sure why Disney made the decision to make Hades the youngest. It could’ve been for a lot of reasons. Like, maybe they wanted him to be the “bratty little brother” that’s jealous of his older brother’s popularity and authority. Or maybe they wanted us to pity him a little bit because it’s most likely that Hades was left out and picked on by his older brothers and has always been the “black sheep” of the family, so the final straw for Hades was when Zeus, his oldest brother, decided that he should run the underworld while Poseidon gets the entire ocean and Zeus himself gets the heavens AND the earth. Or maybe they were just like “well, we already twisted the story up by making Hercules the son of Hera and all that, why not make Hades the youngest brother AND the villain?” lol. I do know that the series is an alternate universe prequel version of the movie where Hades knows Hercules is alive before he’s 18, so it’s possible that Hades is the youngest version in THAT universe only. The Horn of Plenty graphic novel also seems to take place in the animated series universe and they mention him being the little brother of Zeus, so yeah.

Tbh, I really love the idea of Hades being the youngest of his brothers because he really does have that “bratty and bitter little brother vibe” lmao. I love how he constantly makes the excuse “I’m your baby brother! We’re family!” when his brothers are about to beat him up in the series lol, like Hades totally would try and pull the “I’m the baby” card as a defense lol. Also I just really like the idea of Hades being the youngest. Idk why I just think it’s cute lol.

But, I will say that I did just finish the Hades comic book series (still working on my full review of them all lol) and I’m not completely sure if Hades even IS the youngest brother in the movie. He may be the eldest and we just don’t know it (and I guess we never will know because they never bring it up in the movie since, y’know, they didn’t even mention they were related). I’ll be talking about that more in depth in my comic review post, but I guess to sum up what I’ll say there is the Disney’s Hades Challenge computer game seems to take place after the events of the movie. I’m not quite sure when the Hades comic book series takes place (I assume it’s before Hercules is born but idk for sure), but from what I put together, the comics and the Hades Challenge game seem to share the same lore, so I want to assume that MAYBE they take place in the same universe but I feel like that’s a stretch. Like, I don’t think the comic writers are gonna base the comic lore off of stuff they got from a slightly obscure kids computer game from the 90s lmao. Anyways, all I’m saying is that it’s possible that Hades was meant to be the eldest all along in the movie universe and we just never knew.

I know in original Greek mythology Hades was the eldest so it makes sense that Hades would be pissed that his youngest brother ended up ruling the cosmos while he ended up in the underworld. Also he does give “bitter older brother vibes” too, so either way I’m not against going with the traditional “Hades is the eldest” idea lol. In a few recent reading material that has come out featuring Hades (namely the comic series and the book Fire & Fate from the Disney Villain book series), they’ve been saying that Hades is the eldest brother, so yeah…I honestly don’t know if Hades is truly supposed to be the eldest or the youngest of his brothers. Disney obviously doesn’t make that very clear. I suppose it just depends on the universe I guess lol. Like, maybe in the animated series universe he’s the youngest and in the movie universe he’s the eldest? Idk

Personally, for me, I headcanon that Hades is the youngest of his brothers (because like I said, I really like the twist of him actually being the youngest). I just think the idea has a lot of great potential for character building for Hades. Like, he was probably picked on by his brothers and pushed around by his father because he’s was youngest in the family. Also he definitely got babied by his mom for being the youngest (and is still babied by her lmao) too. I use that headcanon for my movie & series AU as well lmao. I really like the dynamic of Hades being the youngest of his brothers in his family and Persephone being the eldest sister in her family.

#I’m sorry this is so long anon lol I’m sure this isn’t the response you were expecting 😂😅#ask #anon ask #long ramble #rambles #disney #hades

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epersonae · 2 years

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Fic asks: 25-29

What do you look for in a beta?

I want someone who can see both big picture (is there a whopping great plot hole? does it land the ending?) and little picture (what is UP with my verb tenses? does this moment need more detail?). I love getting another perspective on what I'm doing, to have someone who sees what it is I'm trying to do and helps me be better at that.

(I also appreciate getting comments in my docs about what does work, it's a huge confidence-builder!)

Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?

I do! And I enjoy it! I hope to be the kind of beta that I want; I know that there are specific detail things that I'm good at, both technical writing things (hi I have been doing some kind of editing as part of my work for more than 20 years now) and attention to canon details. I like to think about what the story wants, and try to be gentle as far as people's particular writing style, rather than trying to push it into something that's closer to my style.

(also: you tell me, what kind of beta am I?)

How do you feel about collaborations?

[stares into space]

The only person I've ever actually collaborated with was Ryn.

It's not even that I'm not open to other collaborations, or haven't been [hooboy there's a whole other story there that is NOT for public consumption], so much as it's just never happened, and honestly at this point I wouldn't know how to start.

It's also that the writing collaboration we had was so intimate, and I don't mean that in a sex way (it's INTERESTING, she notes in retrospect, that all of the writing we did where we were picking POV characters, none of those pairs were ones we shipped. I mean none of them.), I mean that in a very emotional way, where we lived in each other's heads about it. To look back at the previous ask: we were both writing about our deep emotional vulnerabilities through the characters of Lucretia and Taako, working out things that both of us were still kind of in the middle of in our lives at the time. (Goddamn 2018 was a fuckin time)

And so maybe in the way that I am apparently unable to casually date, can I casually collaborate as a writer? I honestly don't know.

Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

I'm going to pick OFMD folks for this one, since that's what I've been reading lately.

I will read almost anything Fyre/@amuseoffyre writes for OFMD; it's ranged all over, and all of it is just goddamn good writing. (the vampire/werewolf AU? remarkably moving and also funny as hell; I love selkie!Buttons with my whole heart.)

not only am I FUCKING OBSESSED with gangnamstiles/@sassygwaine's modern/mob AU, I loved the ttrpg podcast AU, and not just because it was my idea lol

finally, I'm going to go out on a limb, and recommend some just plain old smut, actually: alsaurus/@ofmd-alsaurus writes stuff that is weird, like genuinely quirky stuff, but always makes it so fun and enthusiastic and joyful that I'm always game for it.

If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

I will admit that isn't something I think about very often? but I'm extremely tempted to write something in the same universe as @sassygwaine's a small adventure; I even started writing a bit of Lucius POV, and how it is he decides to join Stede's game. we'll see if I ever get back to that!

#I did realize in the course of this that two of my favorite TAZ authors pulled a bunch of their stuff #and that fucking sucks actually #one of them is - well - yeah - you remember that story #I'm still sad (Ryn was still mad)#otoh: there's SO MUCH good writing for OFMD #it's an embarrassment of riches #also FUUUUUUCK I miss writing with Ryn #CAN YOU IMAGINE THE SHENANIGANS #asks #ask games #my fic #ofmd fic #go read these authors if you aren't already

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mishavacado · 3 years

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SPN has so much spinoff potential and so much canon to work with, it's such a waste that none of it's getting used. This post is just all of my spinoff ideas, I'll apologize in advance because it is VERY long.

Wayward Sisters, obviously. There are so many possible storylines to work with, so many stories to tell. I'd really love to see some Charlie, Eileen, or Krissy Chambers cameos. I think that Charlie and Claire would get along really well (just read this post). Rowena is another character that I think could easily be worked into the canon. She could teach the girls all kinds of magic and be the fun wine aunt that spoils the girls on their birthdays. I don't think that Claire would like her very much, but, Rowena and Alex would probably get along just fine. How much I need this in my life: 1000000000000000000000000/10 when I heard that this idea had been tossed out I was so angry. Why doesn't this exist?

Men of Letters prequel that's mostly set in the bunker. This show could really expand on the canon lore and give us some more background on the Men of Letters, as well as any other similar/rival organizations that were around before the main show's time. The Men of Letters have so much story potential for a spin-off; corrupt leadership, new monsters, other organizations, expanding the MoL to outside the U.S. Episodes could be in a monster-of-the-week (MOTW) format, starting and ending with the Man of Letters the case is assigned to making notes in his journal or case file or talking about the case, as well as the overall season arcs. Episodes would be titled by their case number, i.e S1 E1 Case No. 1925-4, etc How much I need this in my life: 1000000/10, the supernatural/historical drama combo would be absolutely stunning.

A series focusing on all of the alternate timelines and universes, both the ones mentioned in the main show and ones just randomly created for an episode. There are infinite possibilities. Each episode would be in a MOTW format, but with different versions of Sam and Dean. The HunterCorp universe, Jared and Jensen from the French Mistake, a universe where their names are switched, a universe where Dean went to college and was the one with the demon blood powers, a universe where they drive a Mustang instead of the Impala, a universe where Sam isn't scared of clowns. I could go on, but I'm going to stop myself here. How much I need this in my life: 9/10 I think it would be pretty funny, but it's not my best idea.

A Bobby and Rufus spin-off where they talk about cases they worked on together or with other hunters, but the stories are told similarly to Tall Tales. It's the same story but told from different points of view depending on who's talking. I wish we'd gotten to see more of Bobby and Rufus because I think those two are hilarious and really think that this could be funny, even if it was just a web series with twenty-minute episodes. How much I need this in my life: 10/10, I love Bobby and Rufus and I think that they have a lot of interesting hunting stories to tell.

GHOSTFACERS GHOSTFACERS GHOSTFACERS. How much I need this in my life: 100000000000000000000000/10, I love the Ghostfacers. That's my whole idea.

A Jack-centric show that's almost a political drama. Jack is the ruler of heaven and is constantly being manipulated by angels, demons, and Death herself. He just wants to make an afterlife paradise, but power-hungry angels won't leave him alone. Remember that Jack is very young and trusting by nature, so there is a lot of potential for disaster if he gets goaded into doing something, like making new universes or ending existing ones. Cas is a main character and he does his best to protect Jack, but he has to be careful to not seem overprotective/like another manipulator or Jack won't trust him either. I have no idea if I'm making any sense, but shoutout to me if I am. For some reason, I've always thought that heaven would be an interesting setting for a spin-off, and those angels are pretty similar to power-hungry politicians. How much I need this in my life: 800/10, I would totally watch this.

A very short series that just destroys the canon finale. Twelve episodes, detailing the storylines that were ignored or destroyed by Carry On. E1: Rescuing Cas from the Empty and he and Dean have a long talk about their ~feelings~. They kiss, and for the first time, Dean’s mind is free of doubt about whether or not anyone could ever love all of him. E2: Eileen returns. She says nothing when she sees Dean and Cas holding hands, just raises her eyebrow and smiles knowingly. Some excellent movie night content. E3: 1 year later. Sam and Eileen’s wedding. Dean and Cas aren’t legally married, but their matching gold rings are very prominently shown. It isn’t mentioned. The wedding is almost canceled because of the rain, but with a wave of Jack’s hand the clouds disappear and the birds start to sing. E4: Sam and Eileen have moved out of the Bunker. Cas finally convinces Dean to downsize, so they find a little house in Lawrence and settle down. Cas works as a special ed teacher. Dean works as a mechanic. Miracle loves the backyard but makes sure to stay away from the beehives in the back corner. E5: Sam and Eileen’s twins, Mary and Maura, are born. Dean and Cas love their nieces, and Jack loves them too. He doesn’t know what to call himself, so they settle on Uncle and call it good. E6: Deaths. They all die old. Cas’s vessel has aged, but he can’t die, so when Dean finally passes away in his sleep, Cas scatters his ashes in the woods and disappears, ascending to heaven, to spend eternity with Dean. The closing scene is a dark screen, with the whoosh of wings and a soft “Hello, Dean.” OK. That was a long one. My apologies. How much I need this in my life: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000/10. I would reach nerdvana thirty seconds into episode one.

Another spinoff of that idea is just...Dean and Cas living a normal life. Short episodes. Cas goes to the grocery store. Dean drags Cas to a horror movie fan convention. Cas meets a roomba. How much I need this in my life: I can’t type enough zeroes to express it.

Campbell prequel that focuses on Mary and her childhood. Mary being raised as a hunter but not being allowed on hunts. Mary rushing home to finish her chemistry homework so she can help her dad track a nest of vampires moving east. Mary missing her prom to help Samuel on a hunt. Mary trying to keep her real life secret from John, a man she knows loves the parts of her he knows about. Mary always being an outsider, the kindest and most beautiful girl in her class, but so slow to trust and quick to speak that everyone is afraid to be her friend. Mary is a character that has the potential a lot more development, for twelve seasons she’s the burning martyr in every Winchester’s imagined paradise. She deserves more. How much I need this in my life: 11/10, Mary isn’t my favorite character but I would die for her.

Gabriel spin-off. That’s it, that’s the idea. How much I need this in my life: 10000000/10, Gabriel is a character that we don’t know a lot about so there are so many possible directions for a story about him to go.

Show set in the SPN universe that doesn’t really interact with the main show’s canon. It’s about two cops in the 30s that become hunters by accident. After investigating the apparent suicide of a hunter in their small town, they become enthralled by her library, filled with books about ghosts and vampires. They pour over her journals on their own time, fascinated by what they’re reading. They get to know the hunter through her writings, her accounts of her hunts and travels. Eventually, a nest of vampires settles in the town and the two put their newfound knowledge to the test. This show would just be based on canon lore, there wouldn’t be any mention of the Winchesters or other main characters, although a few MoL team-ups is definitely a possibility. The two become quite a team, tracking werewolf backs on bulletin boards in their basements and hoarding rock salt. How much I need this in my life: 89/10, I think this could be really interesting and I am a sucker for historical hunters.

Speaking of historical hunters-Samuel Colt prequel. Cowboys, vampires, cowpires. Hunting in the wild west, galloping across the prairie chasing a pack of werewolves. This show could also tell us a lot about how different types of monsters spread across the U.S. Ghosts will go anywhere people go, but what about vampires? Shapeshifters? Ghouls? What was it like to hunt without technology to help with research? The hunters in this series would be the authors of the journals that modern hunters use every day. They’re the ones that tested tracking and trapping methods. Again, no idea if this is making sense, but I think that a supernatural western would be really awesome and would expand/substantiate the canon lore. How much I need this in my life: 1000000000000000000000000000000/10, I love cowboys and I love Supernatural. This is literally the best thing that could ever happen to me.

Crowley. I want to know more about him. A series that tells us all about Fergus Roderick MacLeod, starting with when he was born in Scotland and ending with his death in All Along the Watchtower. We know that Rowena was his mother, that he was a tailor, that he sold his soul for an extra three inches ~down there~, and that he was a terrible dad. I want to know more about his childhood, about the people he made deals with, about how he became king of the crossroads and of Hell. Crowley was a very interesting character that was abused by the story. I want to know more about him. How much I need this in my life: 10000000000000000000000000000000000000/10, I really do love Crowley and I would watch this a thousand times over.

Final idea: MOTW only. No season arc, no overall storyline. New hunters every episode, from all different times, from over the world. All kinds of monsters. One episode in Victorian England, the next in 1990s Los Angeles. Very few recurring characters, if any. The recurring characters would be the Bobby Singers of the world; the lore guys that you call when you need help. Each new character has their own style, own car, own music, own personality. The show could have some a m a z i n g guest stars because they’d only appear in a few episodes. There are so many possibilities for episodes, even if they weren’t full length. How much I need this in my life: 100000/10, I love MOTW episodes and would really like to get to know the characters. It would be very easy to write one-off fanfics for this show, and also very easy to introduce this show’s characters into Supernatural’s canon.

You made it to the end!!!!!!!! That’s all I have for now. Sorry for writing so much, I just can’t stop thinking about SPN and all of the wasted stories.

#al speaks #spn #spn spin-offs #my ideas #i worked hard on this #big brain time #do you like it?

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pinnochiro · 3 years

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pinn reviews - final fantasy xv

a long ramble about final fantasy fifteen that sort of looks like a review, as written by someone who finished the game fifteen minutes ago and needs to get these words out of his head. spoilers inbound.

i'm a pretty big fan of video games. i don't know what my first was, but it was probably either banjo and kazooie or mario kart 64, at my cousin's house when i was very small. i think that video games as a medium are so interesting, since the fact that video games are inherently interactive changes the way that they tell any story. it's a shame that despite loving video games so much, i'm absolutely terrible at them.

i'm absolute dogshit at video games. whenever i boot up something new, i always play on easy mode because. i'm that bad. unfortunately, this means that a lot of video games are simply. impossible for me to beat. that's fine, as at the moment i live with my good friend lizz, who is certifiably Good at Video Games, and so we've been playing video games together for a little bit now. typically this means that she will actually play the majority of the game while i sit with her and watch, but occasionally i'll have a go, but she'll end up with the controller as soon as a boss fight or puzzle or a mechanic i just can't seem to grasp shows up. we recently played through the entirety of the kingdom hearts series together, and this was an absolute blast of a time. i'm glad to say that i adore kingdom hearts now, and it's become one of my hyperfixations, which you might be able to tell from my icon. but we'd finished the kingdom hearts series, and we were left to move onto something else. we'd also played final fantasy 7 remake, so in my wisdom, i suggested that we play another final fantasy game.

we looked through the ff games that were already purchased on our consoles thanks to lizz's uncle, and eventually, we decided that we should play. all of them. however to start, we were going to play final fantasy xv, 15, and work our way backwards through the mainline, single-player games.

i'd heard that xv wasn't very good, but honestly, i was still quite curious. one person who i'd been following on twitter for years was pretty obsessed with the main party members, to the point where i knew their names and what-not even though i didn't have much of an idea what the game itself was about. i remember watching a video by supereyepatchwolf a few years ago about how the game sucked, but i couldn't remember much of the details, and i knew, based on my obsession with kingdom hearts, that xv had started as a different game called final fantasy versus xiiv. i don't know all the details about versus thirteen, but i do know that it was originally helmed by the creator of my beloved kingdom hearts, mr tetsuya nomura, and that after many years, the vast majority of the game was thrown out, nomura wasn't in charge any more, and the whole thing was rewritten and reworked, which sounds like a fairly rough development cycle. but so what, i don't care about gameplay. i want to play the video game with those cute guys that i see fanart of on twitter, and lizz seemed happy enough to play through it with me.

and so we started final fantasy xv. i've been told that since the game was practically dead on arrival, they threw in a bunch of new content and reworked a lot of the early game before i got my hands on it. so my gameplay started with a scene of the four guys fighting some demon dude on fire and they're all old and grotty. whatever, that cutscene ends and we're put into a combat tutorial. that's over and we're on the road in what looks to be central america, pushing a car.

our four leading lads are noctis, the prince of the lucis empire, his best friend prompto, his bodyguard, gladio, and his chef and other things, ignis. i do quite like the main four members of the party in xv. prompto is quite easily my favourite, voiced by robbie daymond of goro akechi fame and with a bunch of fun little animations and quips that make him very likeable. he gets extremely excited at the idea of riding chocobos and has what i considered the best scene of the game, where he and noctis meet on a motel rooftop and discuss prompto's imposter syndrome, since he's only part of noctis' official retinue as his best friend. noctis is a fairly typical main protagonist, he's in love with a woman he hasn't seen in eight years and needs to go marry her or something, i don't care. gladio is a tough macho man with a mullet who wears leather jackets and wields a greatsword, and is apparently only 22, which is at least 10 years younger than i assumed. ignis is a strategist and chef, who takes on the most authoritative role and constantly tells noctis to not drive his car at night. i was not a fan of ignis at the start, but he grew on me, especially with how hard the game hit me with his personal arc. the four boys are off, driving to noctis' wedding in a different country across the desert when their car breaks down. we then run into the first issue of the game.

cindy is a mechanic. she also has her ass and tits out constantly, like your sleazy uncle's shirt with a naked woman was instead semi-alive as a video game person. she fixes your car and acts fairly sexual and it's just like. why do we have to do this. aren't we over overtly sexualised women in video games who have no reason for the way they dress other than the character designer was horny? whatever, i like women as much as the next guy, but cindy's design just. makes me feel so uncomfortable.

anyways you get to do a little driving around with the boys, until you stay the night before catching the boat to your fiance. overnight, you find out that noctis' kingdom has been basically destroyed by an invading empire called niflheim, and practically everyone noctis knows, including his father, are dead. you learn that noctis and his bride to be are also assumed dead, with noctis hearing his own death announcement on the radio. the game has a bunch of added cutscenes that are actually footage from the three-hour-long prequel movie that came out after the game, are extremely hard to follow and honestly i had no idea what i was looking at. anyways, noctis' family is dead, so it's time to do some hunting sidequests.

that brings us to the combat, i suppose. rather than the turn-based or even active turn-based combat that the series is known for, xv opts for more modern action rpg-styled combat. i was, naturally, terrible at this, but i managed to get around it with the fact that. it is almost impossible to die in this video game, provided you have enough items. the game allows you so much time to heal yourself that there's practically no way to have your entire party wipe unless you're doing absolutely terrible, and even then, your party members will probably try and heal you themselves before that happens. lizz tells me that the combat is boring, you just push the same button over and over and then you win. i do appreciate that, for someone like me who is terrible at reading enemy movements, there is a giant button that pops up on screen that tells you when to push the block button, but even then i was prone to fucking it up. whether that's the bad game design or my terrible gaming abilities is up to you to decide. anyways, the game is fairly easy but has annoying combat, your teammates limit breaks will only land about 50% of the time (or never, if you are gladio) and i was still bad at it, so i didn't have all that much fun.

instead of an active levelling system, the game will only tally your character's level ups when you either make camp or visit a hotel. camping is, in my opinion, the only saving grace of this game. each time you make camp, you get to see the characters doing fun little camping activities together and just hanging out, ignis will cook up a new meal in a dramatic fashion and everyone will compliment him and eat it off their coleman's branded plates, it's just very fun. you also get to see what pictures prompto has taken, which is one of my favourite gameplay features. prompto's passion is photography, and while i support him in this wholeheartedly, his picture taking skills are, quite frankly, awful. the game will randomly take shots while you're on the move, which leaves you with a delightful selection of awkward poses, characters hidden behind bushes, pictures taken while someone is half-dead in combat, and snaps where the natural lighting absolutely makes it impossible to tell what's going on. it's hilarious and going through prompto's collection of photos each night is honestly the best part of the game. we managed to wind up with a few shots that, even despite being scripted events, turned out absolutely terrible, and i will cherish those forever.

anyways, since noctis' father and fiance are dead, that leaves him the king of lucis. the only important person to make it out of the capital alive tells you to drive to the middle of nowhere, where he randomly springs on you. hey. go into a bunch of these dungeons and absorb a bunch of swords, this is your destiny as king and how you will defeat the empire. noctis goes, uh, alright i guess, and you're set loose again to wander around for a bit collecting the 'royal arms'. this plot point wasn't explained well but hey, whatever, we're collecting the glowy swords and that's fine.

you're introduced at some point to ardyn, the main antagonist. he's old, kind of groady and wears a fedora. he's a dick to you and talks about his automobeeel. apparently my friend miri thinks he's hot, she is wrong.

i can't remember what happens specifically but you're told that your fiance is still alive and in fantasy venice, and she's talking to the gods on your behalf to borrow their powers. there's a mission where you follow some purple trees that are electric, and you do that i guess. i enjoyed riding the chocobos around, but couldn't care much for the plot at this point. ardyn leads you to a volcano, where you fight a giant lava god. he tries to step on you and i, a denizen of the internet and with an active fear of foot fetishists, was extremely uncomfortable. noctis becomes friends with foot man and a lightning god who lived in those trees, and ardyn steals your car.

very upset by this, noctis and his gang risk everything to sneak into a military base and steal it back. because this is a video game, this works out fine.

there's a little mining city which is all about Girl Power, because all the Women run the Mining Industry like Girl Bosses, and you hang around there for a bit. because all the women are so Empowered, they wear bikinis all the time with overalls over the top. gladio decides he needs to fuck off for a bit, i have no idea what he does since i haven't played the dlc, and then he comes back with another scar. you hang out with his sixteen year old sister, who has a crush on the engaged and 20-year old noctis, and then you drive her to a lighthouse. when she's in your party, she can't really fight, but she gets a pink chocobo and i thought that was very cute. we turned out own chocobo white and lizz named him 'jones' after a mount she has in ffxiv.

eventually, you have a long boat ride over to fantasy venice. this is the part where the game stops being 'fun with a few issues in combat and a rushed and poorly told story.' the open world, which was a main feature with a bunch of little areas to find where noctis can fish, little hunting sidequests and random photo spots where prompto takes touristy photos, is now gone, and it will not return for the entire rest of the game. you can 'go back in time', but the open world was the most enjoyable part of the game, and it kind of really sucks that the main story doesn't let you have any more freedom like that.

after arriving in fantasy venice, you have a talk with fantasy hillary clinton and beg her to let your girlfriend summon a god into the middle of her city. hillary agrees, and you don't get to meet up with your fiance, because even if the game is constantly telling you how much noctis loves her, there is. barely any interactions between the two in the entire game. from what i can tell, they met when noctis was a child and they haven't seen each other in ten years but are still fantasy dog pen-pals. noctis marrying her was supposed to make an alliance or something like that, but her brother has betrayed her to the army. noctis' girlfriend is also an oracle, which means she can heal people, i guess? everyone talks about how important she is and she's constantly telling people that she needs to use her powers to help noctis but she's practically a non-entity.

as can be expected of most female love interests in a game primarily focused on men, noctis' fiance is killed while summoning a god for noctis to befriend. noct gets very mad about this, and turns super saiyan and kills the god back, but his girlfriend is dead and that's super sad you guys. there's a beautiful prerendered cutscene where she says goodbye to noctis but since we barely know her, and we've only been told over and over that they're in love without anything to actually well, show this, it didn't have much of an impact. fantasy venice is destroyed, and ignis is blinded while trying to help calm the giant raging god.

iggy's blindness and how the game makes you account for this and grow to care for him was one of the highlights, in my opinion, as well as crushingly depressing. while i'm not disabled and have no right to say if this was 'good disabled representation' or anything like that, i believe that the game handles it decently enough. the group falls apart as noctis is upset about his girlfriend, gladio is extremely mad that noctis won't care for ignis, and prompto just wants everyone to get along. there's a mission where gladio constantly yells at you passive aggressive things to noctis about how he's a cunt for running, which is obnoxious, but the character arc itself is fairly strong. when you make camp, ignis can't cook anymore, so everyone eats cup noodles in a depressing ass cutscene. ignis remains in your party for the rest of the game despite his disability, and he doesn't magically regain his sight like other fantasy media would do, which at the very least i think is good. i'm not sure what the opinion of actual disabled people is of the character, considering how often disabled characters are either turned into misery porn to make the abled audience be glad that isn't them and if ignis' arc falls into this trap, but i hope that it wasn't handled too poorly, as that would just be another terrible mark in this game's list of bad moves.

the characters eventually make it to the evil empire's capital, which is abandoned and filled with daemons. the characters learn that ardyn is super evil and taught the king of the empire how to turn humans into daemons, which has now happened to the entire city. the 'magitek suits', presumed to be enchanted armour that fights as the empire's infantry, actually house the souls of the human-turned daemons. honestly i like this as a plot point but the game handles it pretty terribly. there could have been more lead up to this, the explanation is pretty lacking, and prompto's Big Plot Twist is. terribly handled. turns out that prompto was born in the empire and was going to be one of those empty soldier daemons, but he was rescued by people belonging to noctis' empire. not that the game tells you that. instead, prompto goes 'turns out i'm one of ... them' and Does Not Elaborate. The game doesn't tell you shit, not about prompto's past, not about how he feels about this, not about how anyone else feels about this either because the other party members just go 'oh that sucks, good thing you're not evil' and the scene ends. robbie daymond tries so hard to sell these terrible, terrible lines, and it almost entirely fails, i'm so sorry prompto. fortunately because i'm a nosy ass, i read prompto's wikia page and knew the plot twist ahead of time, because i don't think i would have even registered it if i didn't.

anyways everyone in the evil empire is dead and ardyn starts talking about how he's immortal and an ancient king of noctis' country but the gods thought he sucked because he's too evil. i missed most of this because the cats got the zoomies and were dashing across the couch right in the middle of his speech so i can't tell you anything else. noctis tries to get a big magic crystal to fight him and instead. gets schlorped inside.

TEN YEARS LATER

yes then ten years actually pass while noctis is asleep. the game shows this by switching the head on noctis' character model to have a beard, but that's it, no changes in animations or whatever. the sky is permanently night and only one human civilisation remains, the rest destroyed by daemons. as a plot point, this ends up feeling. extremely worthless. why was noctis asleep for ten whole goddamn years? so we can wake up and go 'damn it sucks out here'. but it's barely even a like, incentive to fix everything, because you have a long talk with a former child you were friends with where he talks about how humanity is still going fine and everyone's okay and the world has moved on without you. it feels. pointless. when you meet up with your party members, they are exactly as you left them, only with slightly different character models. there is no change in the voice performance, the character's movements or how they talk to show that they've been without you for ten years. they barely mention it. i'm just. so confused as to why they decided that a ten year timeskip was the way to go? since nothing really changes, couldn't you have made it like, two years? one year? six months?? have the characters react a little more? something??? at least if it was only a year or so i wouldn't have to deal with the fact that noctis looks like norman reedus with his shitty facial hair now.

anyways after that there's a bunch of long and boring boss fights. you fight some dead kings for some reason, your party members get a little bit to talk about how cool they are and how much they love noctis, and then you meet up with ardyn. there's another boring boss fight and god this was only a few hours ago but it's already gone from my head. you summon the gods and the old kings to beat the shit out of him after you both go super saiyan again? there's incredible music but it feels barely earned and just kind of eh. anyways, noctis dies, which was the price of using the crystal of light or whatever the fuck. his ghost marries his fiance's ghost finally, and they smile as they look at one of prompto's pictures. you can pick any picture you want to go here, and then the credits roll, showing all of the pictures you saved of prompto's shots. showing me all the pictures at the end is honestly lovely, but it really only served to remind me of how much more fun the game was in the first half. and that's the end, of final fantasy xv.

so what did i think of the story? it's terribly cobbled together and struggles to get you to feel anything and play out all the plot beats. you feel awful for the countless employees who spent years working on the beautiful cutscenes only to have them be in this game, which sucks and the story barely gets through. there were parts that i enjoyed, mostly the thing about the daemons being people, but honestly the rest of it is a mess. it's hard to follow at the best of times and just awkward and terribly written at the worst. the ending is cheap, and it doesn't feel like you've actually accomplished anything. i left that game feeling numb and empty, sad that i'd wasted so much time to end up with such a colossal failure of a conclusion.

i had fun with the game when it was my four little guys running around doing sidequests and camping together. after the midway point of the game, there's none of that, and you're bogged down into a plot that just pushes you from point a to point b and boring overlong bossfight to boring overlong bossfight. the character moments between your party are a lot of fun, but the second you hit fantasy venice, everything is pretty much on rails and you can't do anything except what the game tells you explicitly to do.

should you play this game? no lol. if anything i've mentioned about the story interests you, you'll be better off watching a lore video or reading the wiki. if you do want to play it after all that, just don't proceed after the myrthril refining quest, it's pretty much all downhill from there. will i play the dlc? unlikely, i think lizz and i will just watch a cutscene movie of those.

this game left me feeling empty and numb and not in a fun way. i wanted, so, so hard to like this game, and it all crashed around me in a beautifully overproduced and confusingly written cascade. i love you prompto, but even your cute little freckly face and terrible photography can't save this trainwreck of a game.

tl;dr - final fantasy xv sucks. i hope that 13, our next ff game, will be better.

#ramble #review type thing #did you read all of this? im impressed #i did not proofread #so if its a mess #just pretend thats a meta commentary about the game itself #i wrote this for like an hour trying to understand the feelings this game gave me #final fantasy xv

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