I Think We All Knew I Wasn't Going To Keep The Project On A Reasonable Scale.
For each of my major fandoms, I do a short writeup talking about how it fits into my fandom history. A fandom qualifies as 'major' if I've written five fics for it, or ten thousand words across at least three fics.
I wasn't sure at first whether to count Final Fantasy XIII, as most of my wordcount for it comes from With These Signs Upon Our Souls, a Final Fantasy VIII/Final Fantasy XIII fusion that only actually features any XIII characters in the last couple of chapters. But I've just remembered that I did a writeup for Animorphs, which also qualified mainly based on fusions, so here we go!
I'm going to steal part of this writeup from the Final Fantasy XIII page I recently added to my Final Fantasy VIII website.
('There's a part of me going, Hey, if you added the Balamb Garden flight deck, you could let visitors fly to locations from other Final Fantasy games. Please stay calm, Riona; let's at least try to keep this project on a reasonable scale.' rionaleonhart, 16 April 2024)
Final Fantasy XIII series
I was really excited by the early trailers for Final Fantasy XIII. It looked so gorgeous! Lightning seemed so cool!
Before the game came out, though, I read a scathing review of it, which deflated my enthusiasm. The news didn't get any better once the game was actually released; the fans seemed to hate it. It was a real shame, but the universal opinion seemed to be that this game was terrible. Maybe I wouldn't play this one.
Half a year later, squeemu played Final Fantasy XIII and summed up their reaction as 'holy crap, possibly my new favorite Final Fantasy?'
I was surprised and intrigued. This didn't fit anything I'd heard about the game! By all accounts, Final Fantasy XIII had no redeeming features. But Squeem had enjoyed it, and I respected Squeem's opinion more than I respected a bunch of strangers on the Internet.
I first experienced Final Fantasy XIII at the age of twenty-two. I didn't have a PS3 at the time, so I watched a playthrough on YouTube.
I loved every moment of it. I loved the characters, the concept, the music, the visuals. I felt silly for letting other people's opinions discourage me; I love Final Fantasy VIII, after all, and that's a game that gets a lot of criticism as well!
My favourite aspect was the character dynamics. The game really takes the time to build up different relationships within the party. It's also fun to have negative dynamics within the party as well as positive ones; I haven't played many RPGs in which some party members outright hate others!
As soon as I got a PS3, I played Final Fantasy XIII myself, and I still loved it just as much with a controller in my hand. It's a game with a tightly limited scope; it's pretty much all battles and cutscenes. But they're great battles and they're great cutscenes, so I had a great time.
I don't love the sequels as much as the original, alas! Final Fantasy XIII-2 was fun, but I felt it did everything slightly worse than the original: the removal of stat caps made battles less strategic, the two-person party meant you couldn't have the fun variety of character dynamics, the non-linear story meant that relationships couldn't develop in a satisfying manner. I wasn't really a fan of Lightning Returns, which not only stripped away the party completely but made the protagonist dull by removing her emotions, although I did hugely enjoy how ridiculous the ending was.
Favourite character: Not an easy choice! Even if there are individual characters I love more from other titles, Final Fantasy XIII has my favourite overall cast of characters of any Final Fantasy. But I think it's probably Sazh. He's a nicely balanced character - warm-hearted with a cynical streak, funny without being reduced to comic relief - and his plotline with Vanille is one of my favourites in the game.
Favourite pairings: Serah/Hope, but only in Final Fantasy XIII-2. When Hope first sees Serah after she travels to the future, he's so excited, and then he gets embarrassed about his own excitement; it's pretty cute! I like the weirdness of Serah going from a world where Hope is younger than her into one where he's older, too, and it could be interesting to see her dealing with the complicated emotions of developing feelings for someone else while her fiancé is missing.
Number of words written: 30,547, technically, although most of those words don't actually feature any Final Fantasy XIII characters! If I count only the parts of my writing that include characters from the game, the wordcount comes to about 7,000.
Snippet: For a while, I toyed with the idea of writing a series of ficlets about Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy VIII characters interacting, set after With These Signs Upon Our Souls. I never got far, alas.
“So,” Zell says, carefully, “I’ve been watching you fight.”
Snow breaks into a grin. “Yeah?”
“Did you have any, like, martial arts training?”
“Totally self-taught,” Snow says, proudly.
Yeah, that makes sense. “It’s just, I had training at the Garden, and the way you hit things... you could hurt yourself.”
Snow pauses. “Well, it’ll still hurt the bad guys more, right?”
“Uh,” Zell says. “Maybe? I guess?”
“Don’t worry about me.” Snow claps him on the shoulder. “I’ve been fine so far.”
“Yeah, I get that, but have you ever had a broken thumb? I have. It sucks.”
Snow just looks at him for a moment.
“I mean,” Zell says, quickly, “I’m not trying to overstep or whatever. You can do your own thing. It’s not my business.”
“What, you think I’m pissed off with you?” Snow asks. “It’s fine. I’m just thinking, maybe you teach me what you know, I show you some of my moves.”
I wasn't sure at first whether to count Final Fantasy XIII, as most of my wordcount for it comes from With These Signs Upon Our Souls, a Final Fantasy VIII/Final Fantasy XIII fusion that only actually features any XIII characters in the last couple of chapters. But I've just remembered that I did a writeup for Animorphs, which also qualified mainly based on fusions, so here we go!
I'm going to steal part of this writeup from the Final Fantasy XIII page I recently added to my Final Fantasy VIII website.
('There's a part of me going, Hey, if you added the Balamb Garden flight deck, you could let visitors fly to locations from other Final Fantasy games. Please stay calm, Riona; let's at least try to keep this project on a reasonable scale.' rionaleonhart, 16 April 2024)
Final Fantasy XIII series
I was really excited by the early trailers for Final Fantasy XIII. It looked so gorgeous! Lightning seemed so cool!
Before the game came out, though, I read a scathing review of it, which deflated my enthusiasm. The news didn't get any better once the game was actually released; the fans seemed to hate it. It was a real shame, but the universal opinion seemed to be that this game was terrible. Maybe I wouldn't play this one.
Half a year later, squeemu played Final Fantasy XIII and summed up their reaction as 'holy crap, possibly my new favorite Final Fantasy?'
I was surprised and intrigued. This didn't fit anything I'd heard about the game! By all accounts, Final Fantasy XIII had no redeeming features. But Squeem had enjoyed it, and I respected Squeem's opinion more than I respected a bunch of strangers on the Internet.
I first experienced Final Fantasy XIII at the age of twenty-two. I didn't have a PS3 at the time, so I watched a playthrough on YouTube.
I loved every moment of it. I loved the characters, the concept, the music, the visuals. I felt silly for letting other people's opinions discourage me; I love Final Fantasy VIII, after all, and that's a game that gets a lot of criticism as well!
My favourite aspect was the character dynamics. The game really takes the time to build up different relationships within the party. It's also fun to have negative dynamics within the party as well as positive ones; I haven't played many RPGs in which some party members outright hate others!
As soon as I got a PS3, I played Final Fantasy XIII myself, and I still loved it just as much with a controller in my hand. It's a game with a tightly limited scope; it's pretty much all battles and cutscenes. But they're great battles and they're great cutscenes, so I had a great time.
I don't love the sequels as much as the original, alas! Final Fantasy XIII-2 was fun, but I felt it did everything slightly worse than the original: the removal of stat caps made battles less strategic, the two-person party meant you couldn't have the fun variety of character dynamics, the non-linear story meant that relationships couldn't develop in a satisfying manner. I wasn't really a fan of Lightning Returns, which not only stripped away the party completely but made the protagonist dull by removing her emotions, although I did hugely enjoy how ridiculous the ending was.
Favourite character: Not an easy choice! Even if there are individual characters I love more from other titles, Final Fantasy XIII has my favourite overall cast of characters of any Final Fantasy. But I think it's probably Sazh. He's a nicely balanced character - warm-hearted with a cynical streak, funny without being reduced to comic relief - and his plotline with Vanille is one of my favourites in the game.
Favourite pairings: Serah/Hope, but only in Final Fantasy XIII-2. When Hope first sees Serah after she travels to the future, he's so excited, and then he gets embarrassed about his own excitement; it's pretty cute! I like the weirdness of Serah going from a world where Hope is younger than her into one where he's older, too, and it could be interesting to see her dealing with the complicated emotions of developing feelings for someone else while her fiancé is missing.
Number of words written: 30,547, technically, although most of those words don't actually feature any Final Fantasy XIII characters! If I count only the parts of my writing that include characters from the game, the wordcount comes to about 7,000.
Snippet: For a while, I toyed with the idea of writing a series of ficlets about Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy VIII characters interacting, set after With These Signs Upon Our Souls. I never got far, alas.
“So,” Zell says, carefully, “I’ve been watching you fight.”
Snow breaks into a grin. “Yeah?”
“Did you have any, like, martial arts training?”
“Totally self-taught,” Snow says, proudly.
Yeah, that makes sense. “It’s just, I had training at the Garden, and the way you hit things... you could hurt yourself.”
Snow pauses. “Well, it’ll still hurt the bad guys more, right?”
“Uh,” Zell says. “Maybe? I guess?”
“Don’t worry about me.” Snow claps him on the shoulder. “I’ve been fine so far.”
“Yeah, I get that, but have you ever had a broken thumb? I have. It sucks.”
Snow just looks at him for a moment.
“I mean,” Zell says, quickly, “I’m not trying to overstep or whatever. You can do your own thing. It’s not my business.”
“What, you think I’m pissed off with you?” Snow asks. “It’s fine. I’m just thinking, maybe you teach me what you know, I show you some of my moves.”