#I have to replay the games and then rewrite the entire story to fit around These Two Characters (as usual) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sunshine-in-a-bottle · 1 year

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Okay pls tell me how rivals would be amzing for mass effect AU

(Mass Effect was the first game i ever cried about (happy tears though))

OK OK OK OK LISTEN TO ME LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN I HAVE A WHOLE THING ABOUT THIS I HAVE HALF WRITTEN FANFICTION AND VAGUE STORY IDEAS AND HAVE REDOWNLOADED MASS EFFECT SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS

ok so first of all listen to me Commander Shepard is Techno. Listen to me he was Earthborn, fighting in the pits of his city, and then he became a Hero and he's the very best at what he does as a human and he is a Soldier and what the fuck do you mean the government is just going to ignore this very obvious threat. Its Time For Techno To Go Off The Fucking Rails I Guess. Fuck the police and fuck the government there is a Giant Ass Murder Thing attempting to destroy the galaxy and Techno actually likes living there sometimes. And maybe he picks up some old friends, some new ones, maybe he learns he doesn't have to do things by himself. There are people he can rely on, friends even. And they mean so much to him. He'd do anything for them. He'd sacrifice himself for them even. (People always hc that Techno's totem scars are cracks down his face. In Mass Effect 2, when Shepard's brought back to life, they have facial scars too. Commander Techno, awakened, with scars glowing gold.)

Listen To Me. Listen. Dream as a Quarian. The Mask The Faceless The Hated By All For Bringing The Geth. And he's a scientist and he loves his family, his flotilla, he wants to bring back things to how they used to be. He wants their homeworld back. He wants so much, and when he has the chance to bargain with Techno and the Council, he takes it. He's going to use every advantage he has to bring his family home. But he's also Just A Guy. He's got a fun little LED smile on his mask, he gets So Excited over the stuff in Techno's ship. Techno Do You Know What This Cool Thing Powering Your Ship Does Because I Do I Have To Talk About It Now. Dream has a million tools and traps for his enemies and his adhd demands he infodump about the concept of Life and Death and What Does It Mean To Have A Soul and How Does This Relate To AI. Dream thinks AI can love, Dream thinks that his little combat drone is adorable and he calls it affectionate pet names. He has no sense of self preservation even when his suit is the only thing keeping him alive. Techno brings him with on almost every mission, because even if Dream can be annoying as fuck sometimes, he's also incredibly useful.

(Its an injustice, how the quarians are treated. Techno sits with him at the ship's core, and Dream grips the railing so tightly he hears it creak.)

Dream's ideas of AI maybe Actually Having Souls and maybe being able to work with the geth are not popular ones, so him sharing it with Techno is a sign of trust. He is so much less open with a lot of the other people on the ship. He needs to look strong, because he is. Because anything less will get him crushed by the system that scorns him.

When he hears about Techno's sacrifice, Dream is quiet. A trusted ally, a friend, family? He could have been considered family. They relied on each other to save the world together, and Techno told him that his ideas werent foolish (mostly,) and when Dream finally succeeded and got to build a house on his homeworld, he had wanted to invite Techno to come see.

(when he meets Techno again, he's wary. Doesn't want to get his hopes up that its really him, and not some clone that Cerberus made to get him off his guard. But Techno cracks a smile and knocks on his helmet and makes fun of him like he used to, and despite everything, its still him.)

Techno has a Lot of thoughts about Cerberus (A lot of them consist of Fuck These Guys) and a lot of thoughts about his own humanity. People accuse him of being a fake, less than human, a computer that just thinks he's Techno, Not A Person. He was brought back from death, is it really still him? (It is, Philza says, it always will be) but it haunts him. Its only when he cuts ties with Cerberus and takes off with their ship that he can breathe. He still has his ideals. He's still himself, at his core.

Listen I have More Thoughts Many Thoughts But Thats For Another Time I Am Zooming But Listen To Me They Are So Important Do You Understand My Rivalsduo My Boys My Guys

#my writing #suds asks #Listen To Me Are You Listenign #I have to replay the games and then rewrite the entire story to fit around These Two Characters (as usual)

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loregoddess · 3 years

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aaand, I finished Cindered Shadows. The final boss took me...5 turns. I had more trouble w/ the battle before it bc of the stupid mages with Bolting and an unusually high hit and crit rate (aka, my bad luck w/ rng). Anyhow, some thoughts under the cut:

Cindered Shadows plays really well in my opinion. Mechanically it’s sound, the fixed assets (units, classes, etc.) made management easier while adding an interesting layer to the general strategy. All the extra fluff from the main game was cut, so gameplay pacing felt a lot more natural. The DLC classes unsurprisingly handle really well, being more powerful than they were in Awakening, and the Valkyrie's +1 to attack range was especially nice. I can only imagine that the +Avo skill from the flying skillset will be divine to use w/ the Dark Flier class in the main game, since it’ll mean I can stick a glassy mage in enemy fire w/out having to worry too much about them actually getting hit. Also, the maps were not as bad as I’d head, and neither was the final boss, but I’m chalking that up to good strategy and Normal mode rather than developers’ intent, since mismanaging the units would have made the final boss annoying.

Aesthetically it continues with the lackluster but endearing CG art, and all the characters fit with the art direction of the game. Some fully animated cutscenes would have been nice, but this is DLC so I wasn’t expecting anything grand. The actual design for Abyss itself offered some really interesting environments to walk around, and provided a much needed change of scenery from the monastery. It’s still got nothing on the environmental world building that Echoes “walk around various villages and dungeons” has, but it was still neat regardless. Can’t wait to see how that area plays out in the main game whenever I decide to replay it.

Musically it’s about the same as the main game, there’s not too many tracks that felt like they stood out to me. The final boss theme was excellent, although I still personally like Funeral of Flowers and God-Shattering Star a tad better.

Story-wise, it’s...still got the “good idea, lackluster execution” inherent to uh...basically every FE plot that I’ve ever played, but it is stronger than both Crimson Flower and Silver Snow, in my opinion. Actually, it would make a really good backbone for Silver Snow, as it introduces the themes surrounding Rhea and the cardinals a lot more strongly than the base game’s plot does. Rhea feels a tad more sympathetic in the DLC, which would set up the conflicts in Silver Snow so, so much better, but alas. We’re not getting rewrites of anything, so I can sit here and stew in potential AUs where things happened differently. I’m a little miffed at the inconsistency of the writing, which is like, present in all of 3H so I’m not surprised, but how Rhea handles Yuri versus how she handled the entire Lonato situation, from son to father, still...irks me bc it just doesn’t jive. The fact that Ashe was the Lions character for the DLC doesn’t help any either, since it just makes the lackluster execution of the writing all the more obvious for me (although I’m not complaining entirely bc Ashe is one of the best Lions units in the game and I’d much rather have him for battles than literally anyone else). The actual characters unique to the DLC were a blast though, I really loved the writing for them all.

So, the long and short of it is...

Mechanics: 50/50 Art: 8/10 Music: 8/10 Story: 21/30 Total: 87/100, B+ (worth the money I paid, even though I can’t remember how much that was now)

#oracle of lore #all the review stuff is based on personal interpretation and bias so like #don't read too much into it #I'm here for mechanics first and everything else second

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fheythfully · 6 years

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fanfic author meme

my friend tagged me to answer all the questions in a fanfic author meme, and it is primarily for the Final Fantasy XIII fandom, so it’s located under a read more. :)

Fanfic Ask Meme

A: How did you come up with the title to [fic of your choice]?

Most of my fic names come from lyrics in songs that have to do with the story content, no matter how vague. Poetry also makes its way in there, and on the very rare occasion, something I come up with that sounds pleasantly appropriate.

A Series of Firsts was the only one in the past five or so years to get a title that accurately and simply described the story, something which I typically never do.

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

No, actually. I write primarily angst and I have a very satisfying and healthy life, so… it all just comes out from somewhere? I am not entirely sure where.

C: What character do you identify with most?

Most recently, maybe Makoto from Persona 5? Growing up I felt that I had all these expectations on me from my family and the adults in my education (which I totally dug myself into by being smart and eager to please) and I always wanted to just say “fuck it” and stop caring about pleasing others and being the perfect student. Which took me until my third year in university to actually achieve but hey, better late than never.

D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with cause I’m a vampire smile (you’ll meet a sticky end)?

The title comes directly from the song ‘Vampire Smile’ by Kyla La Grange and it entirely fits so well for that fic. I definitely had it on replay the entire time I was writing.

E: If you wrote a sequel to Serendipity, what would it be about?

EDITED because I wrote for A Series of Firsts instead oops.

Serendipity would have a much shorter sequel - just lots of the gang being happy, of Fang and Vanille traipsing around the world, Yeul living in a big city and being amazed by all of it, Serah and Snow in a small French village with rose bushes and a kid or two and Light living in the same village with Hope being the Cool Aunt. Snow would have a motorcycle (and try to modify it to have a baby seat). Sazh would have a farm with chickens and livestock and live with his son and finally get the life he deserves. Maybe he runs into the reborn version of his wife and she remembers him. And live happily ever after.

F: Care to share a favorite hurt/comfort fic?

I don’t have one :( I even went through my favorites on both FFnet and AO3. I just like anything that makes me cry, and I cry easily, and sad fics make me happy.

G: Care to share a favorite crack fic?

I rarely read crack but an amazing one I’ve been reading is Sincerely, Me by Ignis_Sassentia and SharkbaitHooHaHa on AO3. It is a FF15 texting fic and just phenomenal.

H: How would you describe your style?

Lots of run on sentences and disjointed narration. I prefer writing drabbles because I feel like that format lets me get away with using the style better. I like using metaphors and a good balance between simple and more flowery language.

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

Angst. All the angst. Also, if a fandom has some sort of divine figure in it, then you can bet it’s gonna be worked into my fics – usually as either a passive or active antagonist. This is a big reason why I still love writing for FF13 so much, because thank you, Bhunivelze. And Etro. Mwyn too. I need to write more Mwyn.

J: Write or describe an alternative ending to any Bhunivelze!Hope and Etro!Light fic.

I said to the sun, tell me about the big bang is my favourite out of the few (two?) I’ve written where both take after the divinity. Alternate ending to that one would be, their friends catch on and end them before they can succeed in destroying and recreating the world.

For just Bhuni!Hope, of which I wrote more, eve as my latest one – I considered Light actually realizing what’s happening within the fic itself and being the one to kill him. She would realize this in the midst of a relationship Bhuni!Hope has succeeded in constructing with her, and there would be lots of tears, and horror, and the symbolic knife stuck in Hope’s torso.

Gosh, I just can’t give you guys happy things, can I?

K: What's the angstiest idea you've ever come up with?

The premise in A Series of Firsts, where Hope and Snow have to come to terms with failing the world, and Light dying and becoming the Goddess, and then having to witness Light and Serah as children and then take them in, and do all in their power to prevent Orphan, and having them be family and Hope has a child with Light and then… they fail. And have to start all over again.

I’ve always appreciated time loops.

L: What's the weirdest AU you've ever come up with?

I discussed an idea with RainbowSerenity about a texting crack fic in the new world about the gang placing bets on how long it will take for Light and Hope to get together, and just being little shits in general (with a very liberal use of emoticons) and then Light and Hope are just there, like… should we tell them? When do you think they’ll realize we’ve been together for months now?

Also, an appearance by Bhunivelze via repeated friend requests to Light’s Facebook through a multitude of accounts. The sentence “how the hell does he have service in the deep ass of space!?” is written down in my phone.

I have to be in a very specific mood to write something of this sort, haha.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you'd care to share?

The AU fic above. Hope finding the temple with Light’s statue in 13-2, and ritually visiting it before it becomes inaccessible. Also, a fic I will shortly be releasing on – once again – Bhuni!Hope.

Outside of the 13 fandom, I have further ideas for my 14 OCs and how they meet, fall in love, and then go their own ways. An idea for an original fantasy story I’ve been sitting on (I have the entire plot written out, too…).

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?

If someone could read my mind and finish that one FF8 fic I started in 2007 and never finished, despite rewriting like three times, it would be a miracle. The OC I created for it has grown alongside me all this time and I treasure her deeply, even though her story will never be properly finished.

O: How do you begin a story--with the plot, or the characters?

I usually start with a plot idea I want to write about and then the characters usually write themselves.

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an "architect" or a "gardener"? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

The way I write my oneshots, the most planning I ever do is I have the final sentence in mind and then I have to write to get to that point. When I write (wrote) multi-chaptered stories, I typically had the plot mapped out and sometimes things would just write themselves in the process.

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

That FF8 fic. I don’t even want to talk about it, haha. Also a Narnia fic I was writing and had like, two sequels planned for. I am just horrible at finishing things.

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

Not really? I always write however and whatever I want. I really admire attica on FFnet, though – their writing takes me breath away.

Also Sylvia Plath and E.E Cummings make my heart skip a beat.

S: Any fandom tropes you can't resist?

Bhuni!Hope, and Etro!Light. As has been made obvious.

T: Any fandom tropes you can't stand?

Whenever Snow is being written as useless or dumb. That’s my biggest one.

U: A pairing you might like to write for, but haven't tried yet.

…Light and Snow, very brief in the original 13. I actually had something written down when the game first came out, but never properly wrote it.

Don’t kill me. It would be very sad where they share their angst over Serah and then realize what they’re doing and part ways.

V: A secondary (or underrated) character you want to see more of in fic?

Yeul. YEEUUULLL. I love Yeul. So much.

W: Do you like more general prompts, or more specific ones?

Specific ones.

X: A character you enjoy making suffer.

All of them. Primarily, Light, Hope, and Yeul.

Y: A character you want to protect.

All of them. From me.

Z: Major character death--do you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can't tolerate?

I love reading it if it’s written well, and I’ve never written specifics just background plot. There aren’t any deaths I can’t tolerate, because if done well, it can throw things into a nice twist.

#aloice #here u go #non ffxiv

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metatiki · 7 years

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Life ramblings

Speaking about my life in any kind of public forum has always been exceptionally difficult for me. Even though I know to the most absolute degree that no one will care what I have to say, talking about something as simple as a haircut can make me nervous and make me delete/rewrite/never bother with a post.

Case in point: the reason I've been pretty much only slightly ghosting on Tumblr and nonexistent on Dreamwidth: changes in my life.

It's one thing to endlessly research and learn and analyze and wonder, but it's always another to actually begin the journey, especially when you start it so much later than most. Self-discovery for me is a winding trail with several side paths that I always want to explore, and that makes it a road which can take me quite a while to traverse to the next important crossroads.

For the one or two of you who might actually read this, buckle up. This really is a ramble.

Coming to the realization that I was transgender was both easy and gradual. Easy, because once that bulb turned on, it explained a myriad of different behaviors, preferences, and ideations. Yet it was also gradual, because I literally had no framework to even think it might be a thing for me until I met and RP’d in a group with an FTM a while ago. I suppose to younger people it might be mind-boggling that I’d never even considered it a reality until then, but without any media presence (and I have a very narrow view of pop culture as it is anyway) or literary examples, the idea that I might actually be a man rather than masculine-leaning woman was a foreign one, and certainly not something I could apply to myself in any substantial sense. So I had to realize it was a thing, and then research gender dysphoria to see if it was just a wild idea, or if I fit the criteria. And boy, did I, to a T. *cough*

Once I figured that out, I then had to decide if I want to transition or simply accept the diagnosis and see if I could just live the rest of my life. After all, it's been over twenty years since I was in high school, after all, and I've gotten college degrees, married, divorced, and been an employee at multiple companies in that time. I’d obviously been able to live this way for a number of years as an adult, so could I simply continue and simply make small allowances here or there? Transitioning at any age is never easy, but the challenges differ from one age group to the next. I had to carefully weigh my choices and make the final decision - which was that I absolutely did not want to finish my life as a woman.

I've been absolutely fortunate to have a supportive network of family and friends, and work so far has been accepting (though it's not generally public knowledge there yet). Still, there's a lot I have to sort out, from inside my head to determining how I fit in the outside world (not that I ever figured that out in the first place).

And with that new male self-identity in place, other aspects of my life have shifted in fundamental but subtle ways. I'm a feminist, but not a woman. I'm questioning my sexuality (again), but it hasn't really changed so much as the POV to consider it has altered. I'm re-centering myself in the world in a way that I completely ignored before because everything was wrong so it didn't seem worth it to try. I'm actually working on my health seriously for the first time in my entire life - again, never a concern because my body was completely disconnected from me prior to acknowledging what I truly am. I'm analyzing my ASD and introvertism and a myriad of other things, wondering what will change and what won't, what was me and what was the result of my social and gender dysphoria. All this while my body is literally changing and my psyche shifts to the most calm and *right* it has ever felt since before puberty.

It's fucking amazing and fucking terrifying, all at once. And I don't regret the decision for an instant.

As for fandom, I certainly identify more closely with male protagonists and mlm romances now. To be fair, that was building as I came closer and closer to my decision to transition, but now that all that is settling into place, I understand so much more about my writing and my preferred POVs, why my favorite characters are who they are, and why I feel so distant from certain characters and ships. I had to put my playthrough of Andromeda completely on hold because I'm hoping (against hope) that the mlm romances will be improved as they promised. Ironically, I was finally able to complete a run-through of the original Mass Effect trilogy because I stopped trying to play as a woman and just gaymanced my way through with an M!Shenko story that, despite its flaws, I absolutely adored. I'm even going to go back and replay DA2 with a male Hawke and see if I connect better. Oh, and my former canon Hawke? Yup. Transgender man, always was. I just didn't realize that either.

It has put a distance between me and Tumblr, though. It's subtle, but I notice it when I try to re-engage with fandom and utterly fail. I've distanced myself from my old blog and presence even further and pretty much abandoned the two sub-communities within the fandom that I tried haphazardly to belong to: writing and modding.

For writing, I have three major stories left open/unfinished: my Warden story, my Cullrian fic where Dorian becomes the Inquisitor, and my canon Inquisitor Martin Trevelyan story. I adore my Warden, but I feel so distant from her that I wonder if I'll ever pick that up again. I love my Inquisitor Dorian story as well - I had so much politics and fun with derailing the canon plot planned for that one - and of the three, it's the one I'm most likely to return to writing. The one I want to do the most is my Martin Trevelyan story, but I'm not sure I want to pour myself into writing that story when I'm feeling so distant from the fandom itself. I don't write for accolades, necessarily, but I do like to feel a connection between my readers and myself for fic, and the time for DAI has come and gone. It's hard to write when I feel that no one will read it.

As for modding, I now regret my involvement in that community. I don't have a suitable personality or a viable skillset to offer, and I should have just backed out early and let someone else take over and do what I did, but better. A couple of other blogs have stepped up to the plate, for which I am grateful, but it's a weekly debate with myself whether or not I should just delete that sideblog - heck, my whole Tumblr - and simply move on. The only reason I don't is that I know there are quite a few links to some of the tutorials and lists on the sideblog, and I feel it would be unfair to do so. Yet I tried and failed at Discord, and am completely disinterested in modding ME:A, so I think that ship will not sail again.

In addition to that, I've been in a constant re-evaluation of my online presence and what it means. The release of ME:A had me intrigued at first, but as time has progressed, I've come to realize that even though I enjoy and love the game itself, I feel no connection whatsoever to other fans of it. I don't like the fanart, I don't like the same characters as everyone else, and I simply don’t experience it in the same way I'm seeing it on my dash. People are leaving Dragon Age behind again (which is fine, fandoms are always circular), but I don't choose to move on. And it's getting harder and harder to find meaningful ways to interact with what remains of the parts of fandom I am interested in. Outside of my perennial RPs (which is still Dragon Age), I don't really maintain an online presence except for what little I've struggled to establish here on Tumblr - and the value is diminishing enough that I wonder how long I'll be around.

So. Anyway. Many ramblings later, I guess I just needed to get all that out and written down somewhere. My apologies if you actually read all this. And kudos, as well.

At least Tiki is a unisex name. That I don't have to change.

Tiki on Dreamwidth | AO3 | FF.net

#dw crosspost #Tiki rambles #dragon age #mass effect #transgender #writing #modding #life events

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