Some whiskey in that fantoddy?

[flemmings]

Advent Children gives me, yes again, the fantods. It's the colours, mostly, and the shimmery grey skies, *so* like the polluted sky of Tokyo in 105F July. (reminiscent shudder) Remember I saw it first without exposure to what luxetumbra calls the Lego people of FFVII in their brite primary colours, so there's no sense of a corrective happening. It's creepy, and the idea of writing fic about it is creepier still. (I'm not saying it isn't beautiful. But it's creepy. And full of sulky children, which to someone of my profession is not a plus.)

The anime is more to my tastes. But if FFVII in all its avatars looked like the anime, would it be as popular as it is?

I've now seen a background short's worth of Lego people, and my reaction is largely bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah! (Aerith's design especially scores high for painful and silly) followed by deep admiration for the djka who somehow derived recognizable people from those graphics. Perhaps not so difficult when you cut your teeth on the deformities of shounen manga but quite a feat from *my* POV.

However if I ever had any doubts about the batshittery of the gaming mullahs' 'You must play the whole game in its entirety before you can even think of writing fic for it'- which, on a parallel with manga fandom, I was willing to consider- it's been put to rest. Waste 24 hours of my life making robot-people shoot things so I can explore the character dynamics between one or two of them? Hell no. If Weiss and Eroica can run entirely on fanon, so can gaming. In fact gaming probably runs better on fanon, since so much of the canon is completely useless to the stories one wants to write. This fact is perfectly clear to the Japanese, who created the thing in the first place, but gaming in Japan is a pastime, not a religion.

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

you get a different "feel" for the characters when you control their actions and follow their perspective for 50-odd hours

You get a different- and much more accurate- "feel" for the characters when you hear them speaking their own language rather than an English translation, but somehow no one thinks you have to be fluent in Japanese before writing fics for Japanese manga, anime or RPGs.

go through several hours of fighting and solving puzzles in order to get hold of one extra bit of character building: that's the carrot, the gold star.

Then the fighting and problem solving aren't enjoyable in themselves. So why do it? Pain as a necessary prelude to pleasure? 'I suffered to get this, dammit, so you must too.' Now you mention it, that *is* a common attitude amongst that set. Only somehow they never apply it to things like learning the language their anime is spoken in, or even paying for the anime itself. Nope, sorry, not convinced. Puritanism would be bad enough, but selective and convenient puritanism is more usually called hypocrisy.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

somehow no one thinks you have to be fluent in Japanese before writing fics for Japanese manga, anime or RPGs.

Sure, no one will argue this, but it's a perfectly argue-able position. :P

Then the fighting and problem solving aren't enjoyable in themselves. So why do it? Pain as a necessary prelude to pleasure?

*scratches head* Are sudoku or crosswords enjoyable activities in and of themselves, or does one do them for the satisfaction of having solved the puzzle? It's a bit chicken and egg. One wouldn't do them if one knew one couldn't solve them, but there's no point to being told the answer either.

Anyway, fighting in turn-based RPGs rarely comes close to the experience of... well, fighting. There are other types of games that do that sort of thing (and some of them even have good stories, of the John Le Carre type). The excitement one derives from it tends to be more along the lines of timer chess.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Crosswords may be a bit of both, but if someone looks up the answers then by me they've missed the *pleasure* of the crossword. My reaction isn't OMG you cheated how dare you quote that acrostic when you didn't do it yourself, it's-- what's the point? If dedicated gamers truly enjoy the endless hours of fighting bumpf why isn't their attitude puzzlement that someone else skips it, rather than mouth-frothing outrage?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I'm not even sure whom you're talking about here so I can't say. XD My personal reaction is indeed puzzlement - it's a bit like being told "Why don't you just tell me the plot of the anime/manga so I can write fic for it without having to watch/read the thing." "Er, okay... If you're sure..."

(I have actually had this conversation. I'd guess it happens a lot more often if you replace "write" by "read". But I'm one of those people who have no interest in reading fic if I'm not into the canon, and these days my need for twenty-chapter slash epics is not so great that I would get into a series purely so I could read the fic. XD)

Anyhow people online get outraged over all sorts of things. A lot of it being hyperbole from the first.

As xsmoonshine suggested above you might like the Myst series, if you don't find it too... fantoddy. Except there is no real point as there are no hot ambiguous men in Myst either (how I wish there were ^^;;).

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I'm not even sure whom you're talking about here so I can't say.

You have a mercifully short memory.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Oh P.S., I should've mentioned this in my original comment but forgot - Midgar is fantoddy even in the game. It's supposed to be. The point of it is everyone is living in the bowels of a giant nuclear reactor. At least in AC you can see the sky. XD;;

(As for the primary colour chibis - they used to be even more primary coloured and 2D to boot. XD One's mind fills the blanks, almost as if one were reading a book. Part of what impresses gamers so much about AC and the other CG "updates" Square does is that it looks exactly like what people see in their heads all along.)