I'm Enzel. I found Seebs through Luka, whose comic I used to read and then stumbled across him on tumblr through a mutual who followed him. I've been a Seebs Anon a few times but I didn't get a nickname because I didn't really make an effort to connect my asks to one another, hah. I'm a fashion design student and I like to do a whole slew of crafty things; sewing and drawing, cosplay, and I've started dabbling in jewelry and prop making. I love video games, general sci-fi and fantasy (Star Warssss), JRPGs especially. (Namco's Tales series mostly.) on the brain side, I have depression and anxiety, and now that I'm away from my toxic home environment I'm starting to unearth other things (autism?? OCD? BPD? who knows, if only I could make phone calls reliably to get a doctor. working on that) as well as gender weirdness that I need to figure out. She/her pronouns are fine until I sort that, but I won't object to "they" either.
HELLO YES TALES? TALES. YOU'RE MY FAVORITE OF THE DAY. And I see that's a KHX avatar as well. #so have you been following the Zestiria wank #what are your thoughts on it? #also which game is your favorite #(abyss master race) #nai's fave of the day
yay! :D Yep, I've been playing KHX for a while now, and replaying the main series. Kingdom Hearts was my Big Fandom for a while when I was younger, and it seems like it never went away entirely, but I reread the manga recently and it rekindled the love! You know, its really hard to say which Tales is my favorite. I think Symphonia and Abyss are the most well-put-together, but I have a different sort of soft spot for each one. (I still have to play the ones that are pre-Symphonia, though.) Honestly, my favorite right now is Xillia 2, even though the plot is a horrific clusterfuck. :p I actually seem to be in the minority about Zestiria: I wasn't that excited about it after how they clearly rushed Xillia 1/2 (I love the characters but wtf were the writers doing, Namco) but when the News about the Plot Twist came out I spoiled myself and...it actually made me more interested?? it's not like they haven't done something like this before (Richard in Graces, etc) so I think it's a cool twist. Also the intentionally misleading marketing is sort of funny to me, because in our day and age the only way for things not to get leaked seems to be to do that...
HA, seems like we also have that in common, I hoarded KH for years and years before I discovered Abyss on a rec from a friend in another fandom. Now I've been RPing Asch for two years and here we are. (Though my handle is actually KH-related, not that anyone can ever tell before they're told.) Honestly, I joke about Symphonia and Abyss being rivals because it seems like most of the time, if your favorite is one, then you kind of hate the other one. Might just be my experience though. d: And I don't think anyone will blame you for not getting to the pre-Symphonia ones since they're really hard to access. I mean no one blames people like me who can't Vesperia because buying a 36- for one game is out of my budget by a Lot. See, I find Richard's thing in Graces to be a completely different animal, because the reason he left the party is He Became The Villain. (Which I like as a general thing; the strength of Tales has always been in human antagonists, IMO, and when I heard that the Zestiria antagonist was the Lord of Calamity, Overlord of Hellions, I was actually really concerned that they would break that pattern.) Alisha's reasons for leaving, from my standpoint as a writer, come off mostly as "well we have to make her leave for SOME reason" in the meta-sense. I admit that I would probably not be as angry if A) accurate marketing and B) if she wasn't a female character (Tales sexism: still going strong apparently), but I'd still be pretty mad.
Symphonia was my first Tales game and my first non-computer game, I saved up for a Gamecube just to play it, haha. I was always boggled by people who didn't like Abyss, though...I guess overall it's darker, but most Tales games are pretty dark... I'm reserving my ultimate judgment on Zestiria until I play it, though. The fuss just reminds me of people complaining about Vesperia's Flynn not being playable (until the PS3 version at least) which always confused me because it didn't work with the narrative to have him join the party...but that's a whole nother can of Fandom worms. I won't deny that Namco has sexism problems but I'm a little confused about how it applies here? And I promise that's an honest question, not invalidating your concerns. I mean, if we were talking about her outfit, sure. (Girl knights don't get pants, I see how it is...)
I don't claim to understand them, abyss is my favorite and a sperg target of mine to boot, after all. It's because not just tales, but Japanese media in general so often sidelines female characters. Mind, I love Rose, but I haven't heard nearly as much about her narrative arc except as it interacts with Dezel, and that's the same kind of problem. Edna's arc is shoved into a sidequest. And so on. Alisha is just another part of the pattern that makes me angry.
Ahh, I see. It's kinda weird because Japanese media tends to have more female characters overall than, say, American movies, but they still manage to be really sexist about it. (Milla's arc near the end of Xillia 1, makes faces) I haven't been spoiled for Zestiria much more than the fact that Alicia leaves, so I can't really speak about it yet. It's just so weird to be because Vesperia did...really well with its female characters, imho, and then from Graces on things seemed to backside in certain areas. I'm doomed to love flawed things, I guess. I feel more compelled to do meta and fanwork for series that have glaring flaws for whatever reason. o_o this explains my weird relationship with xillia 2.
I actually found much of Milla's arc really great? I'm still playing through X2, but I'll admit that the early scenes of Altmilla made me really uncomfortable because it just, wasn't her, to such a great degree. (I read someone's play of Zestiria so I'm fairly spoiled, ha.)
The writers said in an interview that they were worried she wouldn't be relatable to women if she didn't fall in love :/ that soured things for me. And the fact that they claimed they were going for dual protag, but Jude has the personality of a support protagonist and they tried to thrust him into the leader role while letting Milla step back...that was weird. But you only get that on Jude's side, which means things actually happen differently depending on which protagonist you choose?? It just felt awkward. Alt Milla is supposed to be distinct from regular Milla because her upbringing is radically different. (Also...she's been abused for an undetermined amount of time. ._. ) I like them both for different reasons, tho I know a lot of people only like one or the other.
There's a difference between radically different and unrecognizable, though. Like, this is actually something I do, because my primary fic is an Abyss roleswap (where the original Luke was put back in the manor and Van kept the replica). Original!Luke has a lot of similar traits to Asch - a more reserved personality, tending to be suspicious of everything - but he doesn't have the intense temper fits, for example. Likewise, Ember has a good mix of replica!Luke's traits (because in some ways LHL and SHL are completely different to a surface examination), but he's still different enough that he couldn't really be passed off as a Luke. That's how you do "same character, different upbringing." And I didn't really feel that Jude coming more to the forefront was forced? So, to each their own. It's mostly Graces that makes me angry on the romance front, and the fact that it took them like, what, five years to recognize that Sophie is the actual protagonist and put her in the crossover games (Asteria) instead of Asbel? Yeah.
We'll have to agree to disagree about Xillia then. though if you're not that far in Xillia 2, you might not have all the info yet? It depends on where you are. Unfortunately there's some stuff that's only explained in side materials, too...I love Tales worldbuilding but it's not always easily accessible.
