Coming Home To Balamb Again.

[rionaleonhart]

I'm watching Tem play The Great Ace Attorney! We're very early in it - we're at the start of the second case and have just hit the first deduction sequence - but I'm enjoying it a lot.



I'm absolutely outraged that this game killed Dr Watson Wilson in the first case and Kazuma in the second. You can't kill the boyfriends of both Ryunosuke and Sholmes immediately! Unless you want them to seek comfort in each other's arms, I suppose.

Both Tem and I shipped Ryunosuke and Kazuma very hard and were extremely unhappy when Kazuma was killed in the second case. Sholmes is not a satisfactory replacement boyfriend, although he is definitely hitting on us.

Also unhappy about Kazuma's fate: Zuko, our cat, who had a great time attacking Kazuma's bandana whenever he was on the screen. I've never been able to pinpoint a cat's favourite character with such certainty before.

I'm really puzzled by the question of what language the characters are speaking. It's canonically established that Ryunosuke can't speak English and Sholmes can't speak Japanese; how are they communicating? How does Ryunosuke converse with the Russian sailors? Is there an interpreter just offscreen? Did the interpreter commit this murder?

Wait, now that I double-check, Ryunosuke actually can understand the English spoken in the first case! It was a confusing decision to put it in an unreadable font; I suppose it was just to make it clear that Brett was speaking a different language from everyone else? I wonder if it was in plain English in the original Japanese version.

Frankly, making Ryunosuke sleep in the wardrobe on the ship is a tragic waste of an 'only one bed' scenario. Come on, let me believe he and Kazuma shared the bed at least sometimes. Maybe they tried sharing the bed for a few nights and then Ryunosuke insisted on sleeping in the wardrobe because he was having too many feelings.



On an unrelated note, I've been trying to write Squall/Zell, the first pairing I ever really shipped, and it's just impossible. Who's going to make the first move? Obviously not Squall. I can't picture Zell doing it either. It's hard to picture either of them even recognising any feelings they might have for each other, so I can't even write pining.

I used to be confused that Squall/Zell wasn't a bigger pairing, but it turns out it's physically impossible to write. I suppose that explains it.

Strictly speaking, I have written Squall/Zell once before - it was my first ever attempt at writing romance - but I was thirteen and it was dire. (It's only seven hundred words, but maybe I could do a miniature Old Fanfiction Book Club at some point.) Perhaps one day I'll manage to write something less terrible for these two; they deserve it!

I've been thinking a lot about Final Fantasy VIII lately. I've gone through so many fandoms over the years, but every so often my heart will fly back to this game; it's the single work of fiction that's most important to me and the one I'll always, always, always come back to. I've loved it for twenty years, and I'll love it for the rest of my life. These messed-up teenage mercenaries are a permanent part of me.

If you have something similar, I'd be interested to hear about it! What's the story your soul is anchored to?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm avoiding most of your post, as I own The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles but have yet to enter the mood to actually play it! I am up for deduction but not so much pixel hunting so I have not played it yet.

I suppose it's only fitting that your heart stays with the canon that inspired your username. I'm deeply fond of FF8 and will defend it to anyone who is dismissive of it rather than just, y'know, not enjoying it. I remember trying to find a good let's play of FF8 a few years ago and being crushed because they tended to be either from people who had played the game who basically started off saying "lol FF8, this game is so bad" which at least signposted me quickly to the backbutton, or from people playing for the first time who experienced major comment backseating into all the ways of how to break the junction system while complaining that the game was too easy (the irony of complaining about a game being too easy while actively telling people how to make the game easy was apparently lost on them).

Yes, you've mentioned that you ship Squall/Zell and I do agree with you that it seems highly implausible that either of them would make a move. There is zero change it would be Squall so you'd have to focus on what would make it plausible for Zell... Maybe he would do it to piss off Seifer?

I guess the story my soul is anchored to is The Warchild series. I am still very fond of it, and I picked it up as a teenager - I wrote about it at A Level and in my Dissertation at university, actually, among other things! The author even agreed to an interview with me regarding my subject and her portrayal of it for the dissertation which sits loudly in there as an appendix. I've written it multiple times for Yuletide which is saying a lot as normally I get obsessive over a canon if I particularly like it, but that tends to be for maybe a year or so and I drift out of it. Never have with Warchild. I know I've mentioned I like the author's writing style and that it has heavily influenced my own, but the love of her turns of phrase is only a small part of why the series sticks with me.

The author calls the series a mosaic narrative, which is basically that there's a continuing plotline/plot progression, but that the books are narrated by different characters from different perspectives/backgrounds. (The author has also written vignettes from other character viewpoints.) Although the one thing that they do all have in common is that they're all deeply damaged individuals for differing reasons (hmm, definitely spotting a theme to what I find interesting!). And, not gonna lie, I love the protagonist of the second book being an outsider POV on the protagonist of the first and finding him to be deeply rude (he's not very talkative so he comes across quite differently outside of his head than in it). The series just really caught me - and I generally take little interest in anything space themed, so it was very much a surprise to me! (I picked up the first book for an online book club.)

Here's the blurbs of the three books just to give a bit of context and contrast:

Book 1: The merchant ship Mukudori encompasses the whole of eight-year-old Jos's world, until a notorious pirate destroys the ship, slaughters the adults, and enslaves the children. Thus begins a desperate odyssey of terror and escape that takes Jos beyond known space to the homeworld of the strits, Earth's alien enemies. To survive, the boy must become a living weapon and a master spy. But no training will protect Jos in a war where every hope might be a deadly lie, and every friendship might hide a lethal betrayal. And all the while he will face the most grueling trial of his life... becoming his own man.

Book 2: The son of an infamous starship captain, the grandson of a diplomat admiral, and his home station's "Hot #1 Bachelor", Ryan Azarcon lives in a fishbowl. After witnessing a horrific terrorist bombing of his grandfather's embassy, Ryan's grief-stricken face is plastered all over the net. Now, a year later, he is still plagued by nightmares of bloody destruction that make him desperate to escape his family, the relentless media, and his memories. When his distant and domineering father takes controversial action in the long, depleting interstellar conflict, Ryan is targeted by assassins. Forced to confront the violence, he begins to question everything he thought he knew about the war and his father. He will realise that the enemy is not who he thinks and uncover a secret that may destroy any hope of peace...

Book 3: At age four, Yuri Kirov watched his home colony destroyed by the alien enemy. By six, he was a wounded soul, fending for himself in a desolate refugee camp, and still a child when the pirates found him. Now twenty-two, Yuri is a killer, a spy, an arms dealer, and a pirate captain himself - doing life in prison. That is until EarthHub Black Ops agents decide to make Yuri their secret weapon in a covert interstellar power grab. Released from jail, but put on a leash by the government, Yuri is more trapped than ever. Controlled by men even more ruthless than the brigands he's ordered to betray, Yuri is back again in deep space where his survival depends on a dangerous act: trusting a stranger's offer of help...

I believe the author has talked about some of the inspiration certainly for the first book being a horror over the existence of child soldiers in war and what they experience (...only just thought this while writing this, but this is very FF8 too, isn't it?). The books don't pull their punches.

-timydamonkey, who can talk endlessly apparently

[rionaleonhart]

I remember trying to find a good let's play of FF8 a few years ago and being crushed because they tended to be either from people who had played the game who basically started off saying "lol FF8, this game is so bad"

That sounds so frustrating! Why Let's Play a game you don't enjoy?

There is zero change it would be Squall so you'd have to focus on what would make it plausible for Zell.

I'm just quoting this because I enjoy how true it is, even if that truth is currently causing me writing difficulties.

I remember you mentioning the Warchild series! It does sound interesting; it seems like the themes might be similar to Animorphs, actually. There's something so personal about your relationship with a book or series that influenced your writing style.