Magical Mondays: The Power of Clothing in Final Fantasy X-2

As someone who sells artwork at anime conventions, one of the things I look forward to most is seeing everyone’s cosplay. Being able to dress up and put time and effort into bringing a beloved character to life can be a magical experience in the real world. What’s especially great is seeing people in the different costumes that a single character may wear over the course of a story.

(via WTF Gamers Only)

Clothing can be a powerful narrative tool—sometimes certain clothes can give some character new and special abilities. Other times, the clothing can be a symbol of internal change, growth, and a renewed sense of confidence. This can be an especially important mechanic for video games, and my best experience with this was in Final Fantasy X-2.

Fanfiction Fridays: The Agony of Breathing In and Out by argle_fraster

Final Fantasy XII was just re-released for the PlayStation 4 and I have been playing it nonstop these past couple days. With the exception of FFVII, I would say that XII is my favorite game in the series. It has some problems, but on the whole, it’s a great story with some amazing worldbuilding and interesting conflicts and characters. And as I’m still hung out over how bad XV was, playing XII has been an amazing throwback to better times in the series. As such, I had to go looking for some fanfiction for it. XII has never had that many fics in the past—there’s only about a thousand on AO3—but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any gems out there. Most of the fics I’ve ever read for XII have been true to the characters, insightful, and a lot of fun. That also holds true for The Agony of Breathing In and Out by argle_fraster.

(via BlameTheLag)

Trigger warning for PTSD flashbacks and disordered eating up ahead.

Fanfiction Fridays: Boom by Soyna

(via FinalFantasyUnion)

After the abysmal catastrophe that was Final Fantasy XV, I found myself in need of Final Fantasy stories that didn’t suck. As VII’s remake won’t be released for quite some time, though, I decided to turn to fanfiction. Boom is a humorous Final Fantasy VII oneshot written by Soyna, featuring the characters Cid and Rude. Despite being former enemies, these two opt to test fly a new plane together for Rude’s employer, Rufus. Unfortunately, a dragon attacks mid flight, causing them to crash into a chocobo farm. Now in a fight for their lives, things look hopeless, at least until the dragon pisses off a chocobo and the bird takes that motherfucker down, successfully saving the day. Like a boss.

Buying Final Fantasy XV Was a Mistake: Everything About It Is Awful

(via Gadgets)

Final Fantasy XV has been out for a while now, and I only just recently got around to playing it. The game is open-world, and while that is hardly a new concept for Final Fantasy, the current technology and graphics allowed for some really impressive visuals, as well as a large number of fun side quests and optional dungeons. And… that consists of the good things I have to say about this game. Final Fantasy XV was in production for a long time—I remember first seeing videos and articles for it back in 2009–10. In the past decade, the story definitely went through a number of weird changes, and it sure as hell shows. I was aware of some shitty things about FFXV even before it was released. The game writers decided not to include playable female characters because they thought having them would change the dynamic of the male characters as they take a road trip across the world. Literally every Final Fantasy game is about a bunch of characters traveling the world, but this time, there’s a car involved, so I guess it must be different.

Oh, wait, no it’s not. (via PlayStationTrophies)

But the problems in Final Fantasy XV go well beyond blatant sexism—although there’s plenty of that to go around too. I hardly thought the story would be perfect, but this game was a decade in production. I expected it to at least have some solid characterization and worldbuilding, but even that seems to be too much for FFXV to handle.

Spoilers up ahead.

Oh, My Pop Culture Gnosticism: What if God Isn’t God?

Nothing says pop culture like 2000-year-old theological debates, right? You’d be surprised—and we’ve discussed it before.

Gnosticism—a heretical branch of early Christianity—faded almost entirely from view after its founders were edged out of the Church by what would become orthodoxy. With most of their works lost or destroyed, their ideas survived only in the denunciations from the likes of Tertullian and Irenaeus. The Gnostic focus on secrecy didn’t ensure a broad legacy, either—early leaders such as Valentinius and Marcion privileged access to the deeper nature of the universe for initiates and other worthies. Modern Gnostics avoid the secrecy, and as with many aspects of Gnosticism which may seem troubling, the marginalization of Gnosticism limited our understanding to unfriendly characterizations by their orthodox contemporaries.

But in the 20^th century, a treasure trove of Gnostic texts was discovered by a couple of Egyptian farmers at Nag Hammadi in a sealed jar. Ever since, their ideas—which seem stunningly modern in some ways—have started to permeate back into the world, gaining influence well beyond what would be expected from their obscurity, particularly since the texts themselves are rarely read by anyone besides scholars.

Still, the ideas in these texts are starting to make their way into pop culture, directly or indirectly, and Gnostic ideas are fascinating enough to be talked about far away from their original sources. They feature prominently in the His Dark Materials series, and some concepts pop up in such unexpected places as Young Avengers, Final Fantasy, and even Futurama.

Throwback Thursdays: A Horrifying Vision of the Present from Final Fantasy VII

It’s been almost twenty years since SquareSoft abandoned its Nintendo loyalists for the sexy, polygonal temptations of the PlayStation: in 1997, Final Fantasy VII was released for the PS1 in all its blocky glory.

Dear Cloud, how do you type with boxing gloves on your hands?

Platform and graphics aside, the game’s futuristic, cyberpunk setting also marked a new era for the series. While previous Light Warriors marveled at the steam engine between treks on their flightless Chocobo mounts, Cloud, Tifa, Barrett & Co. got helicopters and a spaceship.

And kept the chocobos anyway. Gotta give the fandom what it wants.

But as I was replaying this game recently in anticipation of a PS4 remake in the near future, there wasn’t much reason to ponder over ’90s-era console wars, or fanboy rage at the shift in setting. Instead, I was repeatedly struck by how eerily prescient the whole thing felt. The game still has an outsized reputation in the history of JRPGs and console gaming, but more than anything, it should stand as a grave warning of the realities of 21^st century life, as we live through it.

Spoilers below.

Fanfiction Fridays: Second Time Around by wimblydonner

Life is awful at the moment, but whenever life sucks, we can always turn to fanfiction to make us feel better. At a shitty time like this, there was only pairing I knew I could read in order to uplift my mood: Final Fantasy VII’s Tifa and Aerith. These two were my first foray into the wonderful world of femslash, and as I needed some happiness in my life, I decided to go back to them this week. Second Time Around is a death-fix-it fic where Aerith miraculously comes back from the dead. The first thing she does is show up at Tifa’s bar, where the two consummate their love and start dating like they should have been doing during the actual game.

Oh, My Pop Culture Summon: Ifrit from Final Fantasy

(via wiki)

A while back, I wrote a post on Shiva as presented in the Final Fantasy series. To make a long story short, Final Fantasy isn’t very accurate. Nevertheless, its use of Shiva still got me interested in the original mythology. The same is true for a lot of the other summons, and so I thought it would be fun to look into their source material as well. Shiva has appeared in just about every game I’ve played, but another commonly recurring summon is Ifrit, a demon-like entity with awesome fire powers. Based on Middle Eastern stories, Ifrit’s use is nowhere near as culturally appropriative as Shiva’s, if only because Ifrit is not a deity at the center of a particular faith. Its presentation is still not quite accurate, so let’s delve into the differences between its use in Final Fantasy and Middle Eastern lore.

Fanfiction Fridays: From Out Of Your Soul by hyperion flare

One of the things that I like about Final Fantasy VII is the wide array of characters to fall in love with. Some of the characters are handled much better than others, but after replaying the game again and re-watching the movie, I finally realized that Final Fantasy VII has a lot of characters with disabilities. From Barret’s missing arm to Cloud’s clear mental issues and struggles with his identity, FFVII has a lot to offer, and as I’ve been looking for disability fics recently, this fandom was a good place to start.

Trailer Tuesdays: Final Fantasy VII Remake

I haven’t heard too much about the Final Fantasy VII remake—and to be fair, there isn’t that much information about the game out right now. What I do know is that the game is meant to be released in increments, with the first one originally scheduled for later this year before it was moved back to March of 2017. This is probably for the best, as rushed games tend to be glitchy and not a whole lot of fun. Part of me is even shocked that March isn’t too soon, considering that the game makers have to completely re-render the entire world of Final Fantasy VII, and since the game opens up in Midgar, it means they need to create a whole city from the ground up, let alone all the other places the characters are going to visit.

So far, it looks pretty good, and I am more than excited to get right back into this world. Story spoilers up ahead.