Final Fantasy Fun

...because if I actually replied on Tumblr there'd be a shitstorm.

(Note: I am doing this partly because I am in near paralytic-depression mode, and thinking about fandom stuff is a good way to put my brain in a separate spot instead of whinging.)

I received a compliment on Love Her and Despair on Tumblr, which is gratifying all this time, especially when I've been thinking about finishing it again even if the fandom mostly moved on ten years ago.

Quoth the anon:

"Hey I read your fanfic something like... 10 years ago. I loved it and still love it. However I honestly feel like your writing is way better then the source material! I recently replayed FF10 and this game has soooooooo much sexism it's disgusting. Not to mention the sexualisation of 15 year old girl. Gross. Love and Despair is still great and incredibly enjoyable. You totally surpassed the canon material"

I thanked them for the compliment and nattered briefly (by LJ standards) about my fic, and pointed them to mintywolf's Guardian graphic novel which started with a similar premise ("What if Yuna had accepted Lulu's offer to become the Final Aeon") and is probably about 3 pages from being finished, unlike mine.

[EDIT: Rereading this post, I'm tempted to delete it. I feel like my brain and/or my writing has atrophied from being outside of academia too long. But I guess I'll leave it.]

I commented very superficially on sexism and did not touch that comment about the "sexualization of a 15 year old girl" with a ten foot sword.

( Read more... )

Okay, so I’m all caught up to where I left off on my old Let’s Play Final Fantasy X liveblog.

It’s been so long since I posted those that I’d almost forgotten some of the themes I was trying to highlight during my playthrough.

Lemme recap some of these themes. [SPOILERS!]
( Read more... )

You probably remember most of these anyway, but when I glanced over my last post, I noticed that the names are starting to pile up.

( FFVII Who's Who )

...saving this here because Tumblr's tagging and archive system SUCKS.

Why one needs a parachute in even-numbered Final Fantasy games.

Crossposted from my Tumblr (ack, when did that start happening?!)

Square-Enix had a livestream interview at E3 today with producers Kitase and Toriyama. Here's the original video:



Their interview starts at about 05:15 and runs for an hour.

I have written out a complete transcription here.

Addresses a lot of juicy stuff, but fails to answer two questions:
Last Mission not yet confirmed.
Release date not yet set.

Reposted from Tumblr, because Tumblr blows as a place to talk about anything or find anything you posted earlier.

Note that some of my comments derive from backstory provided by the Ultimania guide rather than from the game itself. Ultimania is a supplement put out by Square employees, rather than what really happened or what was said in-game. So I regard Ultimania as subject to fan interpretation and selection. Here's what I took from it.

( When Lulu Broke (and Why), a Character Study )

I'm still sloooooowly digging my way through FFIII again and still need to create write-ups for what I've done so far.

But in the meantime. Sev and Rina have posted their playthroughs (both hilarious as usual) on moogle_university, plus some thoughtful meta and commentary about FFIII and the early FFs in genera.

Here's all their posts on FFIII. I left a loooong rambling comment on Sev's post about early FFs, for what it's worth. We're discussing story and characterization and early job / character classes and the oddities of black and white magic.

Which all sounds boring, but is anything but. Go look! And be amused by their zany summaries of the games!

I was just reading Liv's Let's Play Final Fantasy VIII, which has some spot-on comments about (a) every character's failure to grow up and (b) the game's reticence to show them growing up and reacting to what's happening.

These are two different problems. Both of which are common in video games, particularly Final Fantasy.

I think the early games were aimed at a younger audience -- yes? -- then, around FVII or so, the games started to be aimed at late teenagers, and the characters were their age or just a bit older. In FVIII, I feel, the game was aimed at players who were the same age as the characters.

So here we have a fictional fantasy depiction of teenagers being child soldiers. It's less idealized than many "teen heroes save the world" stories, in that these characters often act like teenagers, self-centered and mixed up in their feelings and coming up with boneheaded, idealistic, and impractical plans (see: Rinoa, would-be freedom fighter and trust fund baby). In Squall's case he's got a serious case of "I don't care" nihilism which is a common stance at that age. (And we know some of the reasons for this, but Liv doesn't, because she hasn't played that far, and anyway, I'm not sure if it's sufficiently justified.)

We've also got the adults who put them in this situation, and that's a whole other fascinating issue.

The game doesn't fully deal with either of these issues: the immaturities of child soldiers and young people in a military organization, and the grown-ups who exploit them. But it raises those issues, which is fairly unusual for a "teenage heroes saves the world" story.

FFVIII tells that story not through social commentary but via the teenaged POV of the characters, for the gratification of teenaged players who may not be interested in much gray area. For them, Squall is COOL because he's nihilist, and Selphie is the fun party girl, Irvine is a hot bishie guy, and Rinoa is a self-insert for every pampered child like me who latched onto idealism to rebel against our parents...and so on. (Or am I oversimplifying and underestimating a teenager's POV?) I view these characters from the outside as common teenaged roles, but the game is showing them from the inside to people who are likely to be surrounded by and participating in one or more of those roles in their daily lives.

Contrast that with FFXII, which seems to be aimed at college student aged players, and which ditches teen romance for political intrigue, power struggles, and artsy riffs about history and agency and fate.


annnnnd I just got a phonecall which totally broke my concentration on where I was going with this, so I'll just leave this out here.

So, Sev and Rina (see, I finally spotted your nickname, TOOK ME ABOUT TIME) have finished their glorious playthrough of Final Fantasy I on moogle_university, and I should jot down my wobbly little thoughts about the game before I forget: about playing it, and about the story (is there one?)

Playing FF was a heck of a lot more enjoyable than I had anticipated, partly because I went all in, shamelessly importing four characters from the magical gamespace multiverse to flesh out the Warriors of Light. Through them, I could inject personality and commentary into a very simple game whose party was only as interesting as you imagined it to be. If I hadn't done that, the game would've been been flat like Zork, or like ... well, early Might & Magic, not that anyone here played that puppy.

I came into Final Fantasy I thinking, "Well, this is the first Final Fantasy, so I mustn't expect the complexities and story plotting and characters of the later games. It'll be simple and clunky and the game mechanics will probably drive me INSAAANE." By virtue of the fact that I was playing a remastered edition, I didn't have to deal with the arbitrary game mechanics of the original, so I could just sit back and play it. I don't feel any burning desire to play games on PROUD or HARD or ARTIFICIALLY DIFFICULT mode. I've done graduate school three times; that's enough for me.

I liked FFI. It really did have a certain charm, despite its stock fantasy simplicity; it did have many of the beloved game and story elements that have made Final Fantasy enduring. I could believe that this game hooked enough players to rescue Square from near-bankruptcy. Even odd little things like the iconic black mage with the Jawa eyes contributed to making it just...a little...different.

Of course, all the D&D flashbacks gave me the nostalgia factor I was missing by not coming to Final Fantasy until VII-VIII. So that helped.

So, some in-game stuff. Spoilers to the ending, such as it was.

( Meta about Final Fantasy I )

I strongly recommend reading: “Oh, You Sexy Geek!”: “Geek Girls” and the Problem of Self-Objectification by Courtney Stoker (found via metanews)

I'm particularly taken with Olivia Waite's interpretation of Leia's "I will strangle you for making me wear this" slave costume.

Rambling thoughts in response to the essay... or just my own vague thoughts about cosplay.

I've always had ambivalence about cosplay: I rejected Barbie as a child, because I recognized the poisonous apple, and when I encountered cosplay, I thought (a) "Ugh, dress-up ... I hate clothes" and (b) "self-Barbiezation, double ugh."

I gradually overcame that because I learned that good cosplay is an art that takes great craftsmanship, it's fun, and it's creative. Also, I have a totemic relationship with fictional characters: I enjoy and feel satisfied when I see excellent representations of them, in the way that traditional cultures like seeing their gods or cultural symbols represented. There's something viscerally appealing about "Oh my gosh, there's Lulu FOR REELZ!" that still hits me when I come across a good cosplay photo, even though I've seen a gazillion good Lulu cosplays.

Which is fine: in that case, I'm just appreciating cosplay as a craft and as an activity. However, because I'm bi, there's also a part of me that responds to fanservice -- usually designed by and for guys, but it often intersects with my own tastes. (My self-chagrin being represented by userpic above.) In my case it's non-heteronormative, but still, I like looking at Teh Sexy. So I'm buying into and perpetuating fanservice by favoring female cosplayers with The Sexy bodytype, except that I have a slightly broader definition of that bodytype than some

Also, if a character is too visibly objectified and stripped of strength/intelligence/personality, I recognize the poisonous apple and recoil from what is my personal Uncanny Valley: a recognizable female character sapped of her soul for titillation purposes. Hentai does this in spades. Sometimes cosplay does it, mostly by body language and gestures that telegraph meanings which don't seem to me to fit the characters at all.

So anyway. Good essay, and that's my rambling response.