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ghostofbambifanfiction · 3 years

Note

My dear little man (cat) is back home and healing after a stroke so now that my heart is back inside of my body I am here to list off just some of my (many) favorite things you have written. I’m keeping it to 5 because that seems reasonable.

I’m sorry to hear you’re having such a rough go of writing at the moment. Hopefully some effusive praise will, at the very least, distract from that. Here we go, in no particular order:

1. The Audition from WATJP

This whole fic is so excellent. Truly delicious writing. (Could I do five favorites just from WATJP? yes, yes I could) I love the relationships between James/Sirius/Remus/Peter - you’re always so good at setting up a clear and interesting dynamic between everyone with just your dialogue. I’m especially delighted by this after James has raised his hand - the interaction between James, Remus, and Sirius there is so funny and lived-in and real.

Of course, your banter between Lily and James is top notch, but I love how you can show so much of their relationship dynamic and their chemistry when they’re speaking someone else’s words.

2 - 3. James’ tells and general misinterpretations in (The Mostly Unwilling Participants on) The Bachelor

It’s so fun in this fic to watch James figure out that he’s into Lily - it’s not a dynamic we get to see often and you roll it out so beautifully - where there are tells long before James knows how to articulate it. One of my favorite examples is in Chapter 5, when you do this, first with James’ enthusiasm growing every time Lily plays along, and then with:

“"You’re not even his type!"

James’s sharp "Ha!" likely made it across the room, through the open (and stupidly) French doors onto the patio, and halfway across the garden.”

and finally with him getting so caught up that he hugs Lily.

You capture so much about the behavior of two people utterly smitten with one another and it makes my heart all fluttery!

Something else I love about your fics where you write from either James or Lily’s perspective is how you write their misinterpretations of each other’s behavior or words - it’s such a fun unreliability that, obviously creates some of the best dramatic irony. In this same chapter (because you are, despite how you may be feeling, rather prolific) is one of my favorite examples of this, with Lily’s pov:

“Clearly, the best she was going to get from James was confirmation that she'd been foisted upon him by Rita Skeeter, and a blokey comparison to a bloody dinosaur.

A velociraptor, of all things.

Dinosaurs were wicked cool, it was true, and she understood the compliment it implied, but he might as well have punched her in the shoulder and referred to her as dude for all the good it had done her. The resulting effect would have been exactly the same.”

*chef’s kiss*

4. James’ humor in Salmon Fishing in the Olympics

Ahhh, another that I love so much. James’ humor is especially delightful here. I feel like other people have brought up specific excellent quotes from this fic, but again:

She comes to a standstill in front of him. "As if you're allowed to eat at McDonald's."

"I'm not, but I sometimes press myself up against their windows."

"What a treat for the diners."

"Puts them right off their nuggets."

"What kind of car do you drive?"

"I—er—" Vernon is taken aback by the change in subject, but can never resist an opportunity to discuss his car. Lily has taught James well. "An Audi A4. What car do you drive?"

"None," says James. "I sprint everywhere."

Vernon blinks stupidly. "Everywhere?"

"Yeah, but I can only do it in 200 metre bursts. It took months to get to Rio."

"They always let me skip the queue at Starbucks because I'm a national hero."

"I hate you."

are all a sheer delight.

5. All the pining in Shelf Awareness

I’ve read this approximately 128 times because obviously your writing + bookshop setting is perfection for me. And my goodness, the chemistry of it all!

He's so fit that she can't look him directly in the eye without a tell-tale, inconvenient, irrepressible smile that screams, 'I want to wear you like pyjamas,' which makes her feel guilty for looking in the first place—she has a boyfriend, after all, and she's never been the kind of girl to flirt about when she's with someone—so she shrugs and buries her nose in her phone while he scans in the rest of the books.

Or: “smiling at her in a way that makes her feel like her secrets aren't her own” - I mean, come on! The economy of that. A whole culinary school’s worth of chef’s kisses.

All of this is to say that you are a terrific writer and I’m always happy to revisit your writing because it’s so full of humor and pining and banter. Every one of your characters are full, amusing and entertaining and so specific.

Also apologies for the wonky formatting - I am frustrated with my thumbs at the moment.

I don't really have words. I'm just sobbing reading this. I can't believe you took the time to write it all and send it to me, especially when you've just been through the ringer yourself. You have no idea how much this this means to me, no idea. I'm in tears. I'm so glad that your cat is recovering. Actual tears. Thank you so much.

Also I forgot to tag @fetchalgernon because she's responsible for James in Bachelor fic and she 100% deserves credit for that <3

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softer-ua · 3 years

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in regards to what you pointed out a few posts ago, ngl one of my least favorite fandom things is when they make Kaminari the Har Har Stupid Joking ADHD Bi Playboy Who Is Never Serious Trope. like, he's very smart, 'worst in ___ area of a UA course' is very impressive and I don't remember if it even said that or just that he was studying with some other students, worried about his grades overall, calls himself stupid with implied insecurities about it, and didn't think he was very smart compared to the other people in the course. quirk overuse makes him loopy, incoherent, and think everything's funny. and yeah, he's a bit of a flirt and made a few perverted comments and actions that he clearly didn't think through that well. I'm pretty sure he's not ever stated to be bi in the manga because it was written by a coward, so I think people should think more about why they're associating and pairing together the idea of "hot flirty playboy who if legally able would sleep with everyone he meets" with emphasis or joke in the captions of whatever the content is on him being bi. I don't think this is inherently bad, even put together, but the execution feels kind of :/ and shallow. and I mainly just wish they'd pause to consider if there's any reason (subconscious or intentional) why one of those makes them think about the other, and at the very least lean back to see if they're blatantly making those traits centric around each other and tweak how they're showing them a little. Part of this is also because it's basically his fanon sexuality, but then they stick together "oh he's bi and everyone thinks that" and "he's made flirty or perverted comments and actions in canon at some point" and then mentally exaggerate and have this Canon Image of him as *waves hand at above* and I don't think that's happening consciously in most cases but. again. Cookiecutter Bi Party Playboy Who's Made a Date Offer to Everyone In The Building. not a flirty Person or a Playboy who is bi and flirts with more than one genders

I myself headcanon him as adhd and while the exact sexuality depends on my mood I think of/have him as bi in a lot of my content, but it's the same thing with why non adhd people see how he acts and label "adhd!" Especially about comprehension speed and derpy acting and intelligence and attention span jokes/tropes. Again, not bad in and of itself, but the specific parts of his behavior that make them think he's adhd, or that they start making jokes about or Ha Ha ADHD'ing, or that they think is why we project ADHD on him, (which they aren't necessarily wrong about, but like right in a really disrespectful look at how funny this is oh look squirrel way that's only funny when adhd people are doing it and it isn't all mocking like that) when they see other people calling him adhd, are the wrong ones, I think, and it shows in their characterization of him.

I'm not saying that any of those traits are bad in a character, but as a queer adhd girl with very high annual test scores and Gifted Kid Intelligence but extremely poor grades, focus, and brain damage (admittedly nothing like his, it was a longterm passive thing that mainly just made me have a Lot of Really Bad headaches, and closest thing it did to me was make me sluggish and emotional on bad days and also techincally have the potential kill my language bit if left untreated or the surgery messed up, which it didn't, and it won't be a problem again. but even after explaining that it wasn't cancer or any sort of tumor, and after seeing it do very little at all to affect my behavior outside of irritability and performance, because y'know, constant migraines, gone after the surgery but this was before that, Certain People I Was Vaguely Kind Of Acquaintances With started to treat my like I was a fragile glass thing going to to drop dead and revive myself speaking like a comic relief cartoon crazy person at any moment which was. patronizing.) I've since had surgery for, the way the fandom combines them into stereotypes and portrays them really just rubs me the wrong way- "Flirty Bi(tm) Playboy" "Har Har ADHD Can't Focus Or Get Things After They're Explained To Him, He's Still Confused And An Idiot" "Stupid Person With Brain Damage Who Can't Take Care Of Or Think For Themself And Acts Stupid And Funny For People To Laugh At" which tbh is super ableist even and especially when people irl do fit that description, and also reminds me of the Autistic Person Freaking Out And Being Dramatic sense of humor. And I know it's not helped by canon, because it done for comic relief and to limit his powers, but explored more I think it as a limitation could have been used way more interestingly than canon did and also call me biased but that quirk induced brain frying sounds at least as concerning as Izuku's quirk's backlash.

And it's a shame!! Because he's so much more interesting than that! Instead, the fandom gives me the Cookicutter Funny Bi ADHD Flirt Who's An Idiot and I am sad about it.

tbh it reminds me of what happened to percy jackson, esp with the ADHD Idiot Trope thing. which sucks because apparently it originated in the author making up stories around characters like his adhd and dyslexic kid inspired by Greek myths to tell him after running out of actual myths because it was his special interest and he wanted more. and then the series got kind of all over the place and the fandom processed that the adhd and dyslexic main character who does dumb things sometimes but is very combat smart and great at strategizing and leading gets bad grades and has trouble focusing and has, y'know, adhd, and made him the ADHD Idiot and erased his Gifted Kid girl friend's traits and ADHD and dyslexia into No Nonsense Calls Him an Idiot And Thinks He's Stupid And Has To Tell Him What To Do And Manage His Life For Him and honestly that just kind of sucks and it reminds me of what happened to fandom Kaminari. and now that I think of it people have jirou like that around him a lot too.

im fine with you answering this publicly if you want or have something to add but probably tag as ableism and maybe a biphobia mention content warning for people who don't have the energy to deal with thinking about those kinds of negative things rn because I kind of Went Off About It

I love this! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences 💚(and double thank you for tag suggestions)💚

I couldn’t agree more that a lot of fandom has messed up Kami’s character, which is why I’ve kinda been posting more about him cause he’s just stuck in my head.

I think a lot of fandoms have trouble with characters like this, people have a hard time with duality in characters and fast/fun posts are easier to make if you flatten a character down.

The did it to Kami, they did it to Percy, they did it to Ron Weasley, they do it to Thor, the list goes on. If being the Smart One ™️ isn’t your thing and you can be goofy than you get pigeonholed into the idiot trope.��

I feel for Kami a lot(probably because I have adhd/brain damage too)

It sucks when you’re smart but it’s not the traditional, measurable kind of smart(even if by national comparison Kami technically is).

I got terrible grades growing up, and I pretty much got the absolute lowest gpa you can get and still graduate. But absolutely no one would have known if I didn’t tell them, because I’m not dumb.

(It’s okay if you are “dumb”, I love me a head empty just vibes friend. You’re 100% valid, stil worthy of joining discussions, and should be listened to and taken seriously. This just isn’t about that tho)

I joke sometimes that I’m clever and witty but not smart, because that’s exactly what it feels like.

I have lots of thoughts and ideas that I think I articulate pretty well, I am excellent at finding the humor in things and expressing it in a way that’s funny to others too, and there is almost zero problems I can’t find a work around. And the people in my life love it, and they love to use it.

But eventually everyone in my life finds out that I’m not smart. They see the way I have to pause to Google how to calculate a tip, that I don’t know the name of all 50 states or even where to find them on a map, or I legitimately just can not spell (if you ever see a post where it looks like I used a weird word choice it’s probably because I tried 4 times and autocorrect+Google couldn’t help me and voice to text wasn’t an option)

No one ever questions my intelligence until they find out about my adhd and/or catch me struggling with it. After the mask comes off it’s like they can’t even hear me anymore, nothing I say could be true or matter because I’m now just the goofy accident prone spacy girl. My family literally calls me Spacy

And ya know what sometimes I just let people think that because it’s easier, it’s easier than explaining that I’m dyslexic and that I didn’t have a single geography/history clas until 10th grade and shocker the capital of Iowa doesn’t come up much by then. And it’s easier for me to laugh off losing my keys again than dwell on the fact that sometimes it feels like I’m losing my marbles.

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if after this post I get a lot more “fact checkers” and push back on anything else I post.(not talking about people who want to genuinely engage,y’all are always welcome, I’m talking those people who don’t wanna look it up themselves but no longer trust me to know what I’m talking about)

Kami is a sweet brilliant boy. He’s in a nationally high ranking school, he loves the weather channel, he’s careful about his quirk that could easily hurt his friends in combat, he has a very high emotional intelligence level, he wears dorky shirts with electricity puns on them, and he pays attention to his friends and remembers a lot of little things about them.

He wants to be a hero and he takes that seriously, and the series has tried time and time again to tell y’all that smiling and laughter are an important part of that. Kami excels at this part! So what if his history grades don’t rival the top of the class, the top 5 students would struggle hard to do what Kami does.

Iida can’t relax, Momos rather shy, Todo struggles with social cues, Midoriya is canonically not funny, and jfc where to even begin with Katsuki. I’m certain they’ll all grow up to be excellent heros in their own right, but none of them are going to bring the level of joy and camaraderie that Denki can. You can’t test that into someone.

Kami also just notices people differently and has any easy way of joining in with them, he doesn’t struggle approaching Katsuki or Shinso. Sure he doesn’t hit the the nail on the head the same way Deku does but he’s the only one who has the guts and skills to try. Also he’s not that kinda friend, he’s not looking to a save these guys but pal around with them

I think Kami 100% realizes what a special case and tough nut to crack Bakugo is, I don’t think he’s just careless or too dumb realize his life’s at stake or whatever.

I think he’s purposely testing Bakugos boundaries all while trying to not be a threat to Katsukis actual ego and calling Bakugo out when he needs it in a way that not to serious. Kami knows how to be just goofy enough that he’s approachable. He’s also keyed in that the way to Bakugo is through Deku, meanwhile everyone else is stuck believing the opposite.

Kami also realized how important music is to Jiro and saw an opportunity to let her display her skills and combin the two worlds she lives, and he wasn’t afraid to get some back lash from her for it.

Like Deku Kami isn’t afraid to be uncomfortable. You really can’t teach that level of social ease, you can teach the posture and feed people a couple of lines but it’ll never hit the same. Funny approachable people have spent a lifetime learning the craft, usually out of necessity.

It’s actually what gives me the biggest adhd vibes from him, because adhd is (speculated to be) a dopamine deficiency disorder. People with adhd are constantly trying to raise their dopamine levels, and that means looking for praise and reward and nothing makes the human brain light up faster than postative human connections.

Adhd children struggle a lot with connecting with peers and often find making people laugh a fast way into people’s circles and makes it more likely people will overlook being interrupted or spaced out on.

Also adhd people are pretty much forced by their own brain structures to be genuine in all they do, low dopamine levels make it very hard to do things you don’t enjoy because there no promise of dopamine from the activity and you don’t have enough to spare, plus impulsiveness makes it really hard to not show when you do or don’t enjoy something.

I agree that Kami is also painted as overly perverted at times, he’s a little flirty but in a fun casual way but it’s not the foundation of his personality and it’s really mellowed out over the course of the series.

And while I subscribe to the bi hc from his interactions with Jiro and Shinso, we should all be very mindful that we don’t lump these characteristics together. The are separate facets of his personality that are not dependent on each other in anyway.

Kami deserves all the respect and love, I can’t wait to see our electric king again 🖤⚡️🖤

#tw ableism #ableism #tw biphobia #biphobia #softy answers #I have a sorta sad one shot about Kami and his quirks effects #should i post it?

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thedeadflag · 5 years

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G!P characters aren't necessarily trans, it seems pretty offensive that just because they share the same genital configuration as trans people (sometimes temporarily) do, that they should be deemed trans. There is so much more to being a trans person, especially the identity struggle that is just not in these characters.

You’re literally thisclose to understanding.

There is absolutely more to being trans than our typical genital configuration at birth. You don’t need to tell me that, I’m a trans woman, I know this intrinsically.

When it comes to the g!p trope, he’s some major points of what we know:

It became a known, if rare trope as trans porn started taking off in the late 80s and early 90s. As trans porn became more popular, it also became more prevalent in wlw fandom, solidifying its presence in the late 90s/early 00s, making a bit of a jump in popularity when the a/b/o trope took off during the height of the Supernatural fandom.

As a trope, its sexual content heavily mirrors the core elements of trans porn. It doesn’t deviate from that framework.

The g!p characters overwhelmingly possess the major aspects of transmisogynistic stigmas that get passed off as erotic taboo elements for people who aren’t us. The same things that amplify the cis gaze’s taboo fantasy gets us abused, exploited, hurt, isolated, and killed.

I could go on for a few hours on everything that makes g!p function as a trope, but I’ll limit myself and leave you those to chew on. You can look through my archived posts for some more detail on the nuances and specifics if you want.

But here’s what we also know:

Trans women are the overwhelming majority of women with penises. We’re virtually the only women with penises that cis people and trans people alike have come across in any form of media content.

This means that we are the framework worked off of when people think of women with penises, and we are the ones affected by media representation of women with penises.

When people create media including women with penises, the penis generally exists in that content as a vehicle for a variety of desires. When a marginalized person is desired for various physical aspects of themselves, with the substance of their character, their lived experiences, their diversity all tossed away? That is called fetishization.

Your argument breaks down to be essentially that because people fetishize trans women’s bodies and create media content through that fetishized lens, that those g!p characters aren’t necessarily trans, because there’s more to being trans than those fetishized parts of us. It’s an argument that fetishized caricatures of marginalized people aren’t necessarily those marginalized peoples.

It’s a very cart-before-the-horse surface level perspective. Think of all the harmful media stereotypes out there and ask yourself if people shouldn’t be upset about them because they clearly don’t reflect the reality and complexity of the people they’re negatively representing.

Let’s take the well known character of Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter, at one point, remarks that Jame isn’t a trans woman. But every frame of Buffalo Bill’s existence in that film works to play on transmisogynistic stereotypes. Every single scene with that character sends the message that trans women are delusional, dangerous sexual predators. But since an authoritative character claims Buffalo Bill isn’t trans, am I supposed to declare the film free of transmisogynistic representation?

What about Rocky Horror Picture Show? Again, the main villain is an amalgamation of all the common transmisogynistic stigmas at that period in time, fused into a single murderous, rapist, alien entity. We also know the creator of RHPS considers (in the nicest light it can be stated) trans women to be cross dressing ‘third sex’ individuals, not actual women, and doesn’t believe anyone assigned one binary gender can actually be the other binary gender. But apparently, since it doesn’t explicitly say Frank N Furter is a trans woman, it’s not a problem? It’s not transmisogynistic representation?

No. Media literacy has taught us enough to know that there’s tremendous transmisogyny afoot in those two cases.

So there’s parallels with g!p, obviously. You get a lot of folks literally removing part of a trans woman’s experience and playing around with it and experimenting with it through people who aren’t explicitly trans women. They’re treating trans women as a collection of ideas and kink potential to be picked apart like a berry patch instead of real human beings. Even if they say it’s not a trans woman, the result of their effort is a character that is all the fetishized trans woman elements, often a fair bit of the stigmatized elements, minus all the meaningful experiences. If I carve a pumpkin and empty all the insides out of it, and put a candle in there, it’s still a pumpkin. A Jack o Lantern, sure, but still a 100% pumpkin.

And that’s bound to happen. It’s inescapable.

I mean, when 99% of cis folks don’t understand how trans women tend to be sexually intimate… when they don’t understand what dysphoria is and how it works and how it can affect us physically and emotionally…when they don’t understand almost any of our lived experiences…then they’re not going to be able to accurately portray us even if they wanted to.

And I’ve read enough G!P fics where authors wrote those as a means of trying to add trans rep. but because they didn’t understand us at all, it wasn’t remotely representative, and it was entirely fetishistic.

So while the g!p trope was built on the foundation of trans women’s fetishization, and all such characters are inherently and implicitly trans women if not explicitly, they absolutely don’t reflect our realities, whether because of a lack of understanding, or an overriding fetish, or a cissexist & fetishistic mix-and-match approach, or what have you.

It is trans fetishization, it is transmisogyny, and they are erasing us through these works by overwhelmingly flooding the market with misinformation and messaging that ultimately does come back to bite us in the form of sexual violence, community exclusion, enhanced cissexism, .

Because it’s late and I’m exhausted after working and commuting, I’ll cut things a bit short and I’ll quote trans guy user SynthDicks here on his take on Mpreg a ways back, which was very on point and relevant to this discussion

like… you cant write about pregnant men in a way thats divorced from trans men. writing about one way in which bodies adjacent to trans manhood are sexy or fun or desirable, while writing some complicated world in which the rest of the ways trans male bodies are characterised are done away with is creepy and transphobic. all it means is that both bits of the revulsion/fetishisation complex that trans bodies are placed under happens at the same time …

and using trans manhood purely for a pregnancy arc- erasing all the experiences that come from being a trans man- for the purpose of focusing on that one aspect of trans bodies is dehumanising and fetishising. its a fetishisation of trans bodies and a revulsion at trans experiences. these arent opposing statements. theyre the same statements

I really, truly hope you’re a little closer to understanding how this all works after all this rambling. If I had the energy to make a properly structured and cohesive post, I would, but alas.

#g!p #creative responsibility #trans fetishization #trans representation #transmisogyny #mpreg #genitals tw #genital mention tw #education #fandom meta #fandom dynamics #fandom tropes #cissexism #writing trans #long post #wlw fandom #Anonymous

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antoinettelavoisiersblog · 5 years

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Finding hope when you want to give up

The last couple of weeks have been stressful and my anxiety kicked into overdrive due to the migraines and the inability to sleep well. When I can't sleep I pretty much drag myself along because life doesn't stop just because I might not feel like adulting for the day. It's not possible for any of us to be on 100% all the time. Sometimes we are just tired. Work gets monotonous, we get sick, bad things happen sometimes, annoying things happen more often and the alarm clock goes off and you just want to lay there.... but you gotta dust yourself off and try again and again.... This is how I scrape myself up and continue to show up regardless of the obstacles and stay determined to reach my goals.

I have never given my migraines the attention they deserve in the direction of getting help for them because there is no cure for migraines and still to this day scientists are still puzzled by them. Most people I know don't even know they are a problem in my life because I never talk about it. I didn't see the point of complaining about it to anyone when no one could help me. When I am experiencing an episode I just separate myself from people quietly to go deal with the pain. When you are in that kind of pain the last thing you want to make time for is people's opinions and ideas of what you should do; as if I haven't done everything I could to stop pain so terrible you can hardly open your eyes or touch your own face and can last for days at a time. I have been suffering in silence for too long. My husband would see me in pain but I never even discussed it with him until a week ago and we have been together for over a decade. I had decided that it was just a part of my life and their was nothing I could do and talking about it felt like I was giving it power so I pushed it into shadows and I delt with it when I had to return to the shadows with it. This is exactly how not to deal with your obstacles.

My husband knew I had migraines but I was very vague about it so in his mind he though it was just headache. To those of you that do not experience migraines it is far more than just a headache. The pain is so bad that I can't do anything when they come. It completely stops me in whatever I'm doing and puts my life on hold for however long they last. I can't eat, I cant sleep, I can't stand the light of the sun or even a dim light from a lamp. I just ball up with my arms folded around my head in a dark room. Not really talking about your struggles traps you in a world alone with them with no light of hope. I don't like needing help for anything. I'm a nerd so when I have a problem I find my own help through extensive research and fix it myself. Help is less about what someone can do for you and more about the support of just being properly understood. Just being understood gave me a sense of emotional relief. My husband is a Mr. Fixit so when I told him he got on the ball to find me some kind of relief. I'm taking CBD oil for it now that doesn't stop it but makes it easier for me to cope with through the pain. I've done more research and have changed my eating habits to pin point triggers to find out how to prevent them or at least make them more manageable. In a few weeks I will get my daith pierced in both ears(thick middle cartilage) It's a pressure point that has helped many people with migraines have them less frequently, less severe and in some cases stopped them all together.

You aren't going to feel good all the time and rather it is physically difficult or emotional ignoring what's wrong is not going to get us ahead. The longer we go without proper nourishment through our hardships the harder they become. If they get too difficult for us it can land us in dangerous territory and once we lose hope we won't even care how our life breaks down around us.

When it gets hard to stay motivated we must have self compassion for ourselves enough to tell someone we trust even if it seems like they can't help, their hope for us can be enough to cause a spark of hope in ourselves. If it wasn't for my husband's hope I wouldn't have even looked for anymore solutions because I was emotionally exhausted to even try anymore. If you are feeling down know when to rest and after you have rested even if you dont believe find your spark of hope. Those that look will find it. It is never an option to give up on yourself.

#painmanagement #migraines #findinghope #plussizemodel #plussizeblogger #inspirationalblog #inspiration

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rose-belmont · 4 years

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With the release of the long awaited Final Fantasy 7 Remake, fans of the original 1997 classic PS1 game have flocked back to the city of Midgar and to the world of Gaia herself- or rather, they see the characters walk into the wide world of Gaia as the closing credits roll. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is in interesting game to discuss. Having a discussion about this game has lead to a huge number of reactions, "you're just a purist, go back to playing your PS1 version and stop running everyone's fun", or "yeah, this new game sucks, how dare they do Midgar only, how dare they change the ending that much, what's wrong with Square?" Fans will either drop everything to destroy this game, or stand strong to defend it as if there is nothing wrong with the game. Both sides are rather extreme, if you ask me. I believe it is false to say this game is utter trash, yet it is also false to say the game is a perfect masterpiece of the modern era. This game does have its issues, but, it also has some truly great parts. I do wish, however, these great parts were more frequent than the less desirable parts. To put it simply, Final Fantasy 7 Remake (FF7R) is a mixed bag, that is perfectly average. It does enough right to look past many of its wrongs, but does enough wrong to overshadow much it does right.

Let's start with the part i feel it did mostly correct, the story. The story as a whole is largely the same, with enough differences to flesh out characters like Jessie, Biggs and Wedge. Jessie being a huge fan favorite, however i did not grow as attached to her as many others did. When this game is at its strongest is the small, interpersonal character moments, when Cloud and Tifa are simply talking to one another, seeing Barret as a loving father to Marlene, the entirety of chapter 9, the famous Wall Market chapter. These scenes are what i loved the most in the remake, and as a whole, they did the characters such justice with moments like these. I felt for Tifa or Marlene in ways i never had before. It was simply beautiful how much care went into this part of the game.

Next, the gameplay. This is where i have the most issues. The combat system is not itself bad, in fact, I like a more action focused combat, the free flowing, open combat reminds me of the Tales series. However, it's the smaller parts of the larger system that come into question. The stagger system is without a doubt a system i despise in these games. FF15 and 13 did not do these right, and 7R fails to use it properly as well. The slow build up of stagger, even from spamming an enemies weakness, is insane. You could spend over 20 minutes building up the stagger bar, only for it to fade away within 3 seconds. My biggest issue with this stagger system comes with the magic in the game. The fastest way to stagger an enemy is to hit them with their weakness, which is often a form of magic. However, your actual MP pool is so insultingly low, you can barely cast 3 spells before running out, and having to waste precious time to use multiple ether items. Its an unbalanced mess that doesn't feel like it was fully tested and prepared properly.

Next, exploration, and the lack of size in Midgar. If you aren't aware, FF7R is only the Midgar section of the game. Midgar is the opening city in FF7, in the original game it takes on average around 5 hours to get through, 10 if you aren't sure where to go or what to do. Midgar is for all purposes, the set up of the story as a whole. Its important, yes, but disappointing that it is the only part we see in FF7R. However, this gave fhe developers so much freedom in designing a huge, sprawling metropolis for us to explore. Midgar could have been this unforgettable experience in the remake. Unfortunately, they did not do this. Midgar is no bigger than it ever was in the original. We see a handful of new places, yes, but they are deligated to bring hallways or singular rooms. So what did they do to stretch this 5 hour segment into the 30-40 hour game they released? Padding. Mountains or worthless padding that does nothing but artificially inflate game time. One example is the area known as the Train Graveyard. In the original, this area is a short 10-20 minute area you pass through on your way back to Sector 7 of the city. In 7R, the graveyard is a multiple hour long disaster of a maze with a sub plot involving ghost children that goes nowhere, and does nothing but show that Aerith was alone as a kid. It doesn't build upon her character whatsoever, it purely wastes the players time with nonsense.

Next, the music. I will not claim to be a master of music, I like music often considered bad, we all do. However, I can acknowledge the butchery of Nobuo Uematsu's classic soundtrack. Many songs are updated very, very well. However, just as many are ruined by popular stylings like techno or eurobeat style remixes.

Next, summons. My only real issue is the limit of one summon per character. Overall, i think summoning was handled rather well, gameplay wise.

Lastly, the ending. I will not spoil it, but i can say this: the ending is very, very divisive. I myself am not huge on the ending. I think it is Nomura being allowed to much freedom with this project, and letting him make it to similar to the way he writes the Kingdom Hearts stories. But, i do think this is an interesting time to bring up why i personally believe the ending is as divisive. Simply look at the name of the game. Final Fantasy 7 Remake. This is a remake. This game was marketed as and sold as a remake of FF7. This is 100% false. This game, as stated by Nomura, is a reboot, a reimagening. Square marketed and sold this game as a remake, and as such, the game shall be judged as one.

TL;DR, the game has some true positives, yet these positives are outweighed by a mountain of negatives that detract to much from the experience to consider this a good game. Its average at best, mediocre at worst.

#final fantasy #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy 7 remake #ff7r #FF7

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