SF's "Write Your Butt Off" Competition HD II.5 Remix

[Ottservia]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Different from the rest of the entries here with its use of bloodshed and the seriousness and sorrows it brings. Sometimes that helps, being the whipped cream and berries amid savory steaks (although.you're the blackened shrimp here and the rest are more like the creme patisserie).

Contrast within a work keeps things from monotony. I also like a good baby name story, so that was a particularly sweet moment. I'm not at all familiar with most of the Awakening and Fates characters beyond their names and little summary blurbs, but this was a nice work and the characters were likable.

 Romance isn't usually my forte either, so you're not alone on that here.

Thanks and yeah that’s a fun analogy. I’ve really been in the mood for very sad, dark, and angsty stories as of late I’ll admit as you can no doubt tell. I can’t help it sometimes you need a healthy dose of tragedy and dread to keep you going. 

 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching/playing stuff like fate/zero, madoka magica, danganronpa, and even Naruto is that contrast can be a very potent thing if you take it to high enough extremes. Hope and despair are very interlinked things and one can easily turn into the other. The greater the hope the greater the despair that’s born from it.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Go ahead if you want to. I was considering posting a laundry list of explanations of things big and small behind the choices I made in my entry. Not to judge it based on them, but just for the curious.

I might if I get the time. Been a little busy with some real life stuff this week. I also definitely could go on a tangent explaining all the decisions I made with this story. There’s a reason I put a lot of emphasis on the the “lighting” of each scene. Like you said contrast is effective.

[Dragoncat]

4 hours ago, Ottservia said:

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching/playing stuff like fate/zero, madoka magica, danganronpa, and even Naruto is that contrast can be a very potent thing if you take it to high enough extremes. Hope and despair are very interlinked things and one can easily turn into the other. The greater the hope the greater the despair that’s born from it.

Xenoblade does this too. Holy freaking crap, it's a roller coaster...I laugh, I want to cry, I feel like a badass, I go "wtf just happened"...all of this in a game about people fighting robots with light sabers on the frozen corpses of titans that became landmasses. I need to go back to it and finish the damn thing. Learned the hard way not to start fanficing until the end -_- AU it is.

Okay, I'll have to reread Chloey's soon, and I sent Ana her feedback on Discord, so this will be yours, Otts.

It was very sweet and fluffy, much like mine I guess, only with some sorrow at the end. I think we can all agree that the Fates method of 2nd gen is godawful compared to Awakening's but you worked it in well enough. Is Soleil's name origin canon, or did you come up with it yourself?

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

Alright, I’m dividing my reviews into two parts. First, I’ll go over @Interdimensional Observer and @Anacybele.

Sorry it took long. Had D&D stuff to do, and the aforementioned delays with the shutdowns of SF. I do not feel like doing all of the reviews right now as a result.

Interdimensional Observer’s entry:

Spoiler

I may not have played Genealogy, but this was a nice read, nonetheless. I mean, I know some plot, and I really understand the chemistry between both Shannan and Oifey. I feel this communicates some of the best parts of the Jugdral saga: people going through war and tough times for the sake of the greater good. And the discussion of fatherhood was great, too.

However, I feel the focus should have been more around Shannan and Patty. The pregnancy was merely a side point rather than the focus of the plot (well, biggest focus, that is). I mean, if we are talking hard definition, yes, this does go by everything, but I think I should have said the pregnancy was to be the focus better. There were also some confusing terms here and there when I was editing your work, but I understand why you’d try to use them after your explaining.

It might have been best for Shannan and Oifey’s friendship to be a side thing. And maybe we should have had more focus on Patty here. Maybe when she was talking with Eyvel (a.k.a. the grandmother).

Did not have to read it again for review, though, since I already did when I was editing your, as per your request.

Anacybele’s entry:

Spoiler

This might be a contender for my favorite of the round so far, even when I first read these through. The pregnancy is the biggest focus, but we have a nice subplot revolving around one of Frederick’s flaws: self-overwork.

I also like the OCs introduced to flesh out relations and the like. James might be my favorite, because I feel that him taking both Frederick’s request to train the knights and Isabelle’s request to hunt with her implies the apple did not fall far from the tree there. As in, Frederick took the overwork flaw from his father. I mean, James might be better about it now, but still.

Naming schemes are on point, too.

I felt this was a nice enough length, honestly. Though, I felt that Frederick’s trainee knight friend may have been unnecessary. I dunno, it just felt that way.

But nice work.

Will give my next three reviews and my vote on the morrow. If we have time.

[Anacybele]

22 minutes ago, Azure in a Roundabout said:

This might be a contender for my favorite of the round so far, even when I first read these through. The pregnancy is the biggest focus, but we have a nice subplot revolving around one of Frederick’s flaws: self-overwork.

I also like the OCs introduced to flesh out relations and the like. James might be my favorite, because I feel that him taking both Frederick’s request to train the knights and Isabelle’s request to hunt with her implies the apple did not fall far from the tree there. As in, Frederick took the overwork flaw from his father. I mean, James might be better about it now, but still.

Naming schemes are on point, too.

I felt this was a nice enough length, honestly. Though, I felt that Frederick’s trainee knight friend may have been unnecessary. I dunno, it just felt that way. 

But nice work.

Yayz, thanks! And yeah, that's quite possible. I said Frederick got his doting habits from his mother, not his over-working habit, so that one definitely could've come from his father!

Ralph? I suppose so, though truth be told, one reason I did create him was so there could be a male singer that's different from the ones we've gotten so far. Reyson and Rafiel are feminine-looking and all, and Shigure doesn't look super masculine either, and he isn't even a refresher class. The other male refreshers are either a child (Nils), or another kinda feminine looking dude (Elphin, who I once thought was an older Lucius...). Ralph is somewhat muscle-toned from Frederick's training and is a MAN man who sings. He also rides a horse. We've yet to get a mounted refresher.

The idea to make him Frederick's childhood friend came when I wondered who Frederick could've known in his village and if he had any friends then. When he tells Panne about the wolf attack, he mentions that the other villagers didn't think he'd survive, and that implies that he did know others there. So I gave him a friend from there thinking that the idea wasn't farfetched at all.

[Ottservia]

15 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

It was very sweet and fluffy, much like mine I guess, only with some sorrow at the end. I think we can all agree that the Fates method of 2nd gen is godawful compared to Awakening's but you worked it in well enough. Is Soleil's name origin canon, or did you come up with it yourself?

thanks I tried my hardest to make the deeprealms feel grounded and realistic so I'm glad I was able to pull that off. The main problem with the children in fates is that they really have no relevance to anything regarding that game's story and themes and just kinda feel tacked on as result. I mean at least the kids awakening served some kind of thematic purpose that central to the core of that game's narrative. 

Also as far as I'm aware the soleil name thing is purely headcanon as neither Laslow nor Soleil say anything about within the game but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what the devs were going for. What I was trying to go for in this story is the idea that a parent will do anything to protect their child even die for them. The first couple scenes are supposed to reflect that idea from the child's perspective. The tragedy in losing your parent and not fully understanding why they left you with such despair so you could live. Then that idea is flipped around when the roles are reversed when Laslow has his own kid and well now he understands what it means to be a parent. It's kinda poetic if you ask me. I'm sorry for rambling like that. I just like explaining the thought I put into my stories.

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

21 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

I'm not getting what you're saying is "nameplay" here, do you just mean the title?

Correct. The way I did phrase it was somewhat sloppy.

21 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

The battle banter in Xenoblade is glorious for sure. And as for the exact thing I think you're insinuating...look at the AU I linked to for the answer to that. It's in the spoiler under the story.

Maybe I will later.?

 

21 hours ago, Anacybele said:

All we get is that he lived in a village in the hills, his family somehow has traditionally served the royal family for generations despite that, he was attacked by a wolf when he was a kid, and Nowi reminds him of his mother. xP And even then I think those first two are a bit contradictory because how did his folks serve the royals from so far away?

If they say "served the royal family", but don't outright say "knight", there is wiggle room. They could have been commoners, serving the royal family by breeding say the steeds whom the kings and queens ride. Or perhaps the village was crown land directly under royal control, and not delegated to nobles.

Or if they were knights, you could say they defended their fief maybe 9/12 months of the year or so, visiting the capital for the rest. Or they just remain on the fief being landlords until called to serve for a gathering of the elite for governance or for battle. Serving doesn't mean having to be in/near the capital all the time, even if it'd be good to do so for social fun (and political patronage for the ambitious).

-Just some possibilities I can think of off the top of my head.

 

 

And this is just the laundry list of explanations, and some self-criticisms I mentioned before. Absolutely positively unless you really want to, DON'T have to read this.:

Spoiler

By design, I started utterly impersonal. "Duke Chalphy" and "King Issach" are not terms of affection but titles, and the rest of the language is ritualized. Yes, it does refer to particular events and mention the individuals' names, but this is largely a template future generations and proceeding ones could easily alter for their own use. It is public and formal spectacle. 

Overall, I structured this work as going: Very Formal-Less Formal-Casual-Intimate/Personal-Casual-Formal.

As a most minor detail, I picked silver regaling Shannan’s ceremonial group and left out any mention of gold. I once recall reading that in India around the late 1500s-early 1600s AD that silver was worth more than gold, and that Dutch merchants used silver acquired in Japan to trade for gold in India (and Chinese products too). So I decided, to make silver more precious in Issach than gold. But I didn’t understand the reasons for this real world value difference in India, so I tried to think of what would cause this. In passing I chose to mention gold mines in Issach, which if productive enough, could provide a cause for a depreciation in the value of gold relative to silver capable of causing a cultural preference for the usually less precious precious metal.

The choice to invent a wife for Oifey as opposed to using one of the 2nd Gen females was because of his age. Yes I gave Shannan Patty, but given Oifey was certainly seen as a father by Seliph, I felt it was too weird to pair him with any 2nd Gen female, who he could be twice the age of, even those he didn't raise like Fee. Helping is there being fewer 2nd Gen females than males, so I wasn't leaving any woman sadly unwed. Although parents in relation to each other, and separately them to their children, is a theme which I answer with "blood doesn't matter”, I couldn't help but want to connect Shannan and Oifey's lines somehow. Clidna being distantly related to Shannan does this, helped by the circumstances in which Oifey and Shannan found themselves post-Belhalla making her feasible. I couldn't have done this if everyone had fled to say Orgahill.

The lunch begins the breaking down of the formalities, with notes of the individuals coming through despite a reliance on titles for address. Issach was stated in an old interview to be based on Central Asia, so I wanted food that wasn't standard Western fare. Not knowing much of Central Asia cuisine other than Uzbek flatbreads and melons, my choice of skewered meat and yogurt is actually Turkish. Well the Turks were originally from Central Asia before conquering the Arabs and Greek Byzantines right? And it isn't like Issach is perfectly Central Asian, not a single horseback warrior to its name, for shame.

Ulster never physically showed up in the story, I had considered tossing him in at the end as a “Our proud child” moment. The point to him wanting to pass on Dozel was partly me reacting to Lex!Ulster becoming Duke Dozel over IucharbaxLarcei at the end of my Genealogy run IIRC. But I integrated him as parents having a mundane discussion about a child of theirs'. As in one parent saying "You know, I'm not sure Samantha wants to play soccer anymore, they've been saying it's too rough." and the other "Well let us wait and see and go from there, she's still very young, who knows what she'll end up being truly passionate about?”. It's parenting chatter, but done such that neither Oifey or Shannan recognizes it as such, and so they don't stumble talking about it each other.

The dinner continues the breaking of formalities. From an introduction open to all, to a luncheon open to the general court of Shannan from nobles to peasant servants, but not something you could just because you heard about it stroll over and see. Now things reach a dinner where pretty much everyone save the well-acquainted trio of Patty-Oifey-Shannan, Eyvel, and a few servants have been removed from the picture. Oifey cracks a quip of his Shannan wishes would have been lost to posterity, and Patty announces her pregnancy, two more personal moments.

I'm honestly not sure why I placed Eyvel in there. And canonically, I later checked, and I messed up- she doesn't regain her memories until 7 years after Thracia 776, I thought it was ambiguous. I actually like the idea of a longer delay, but it's a minor detail to blur, it's only mentioned in her character ending. Though her having her own outlandish story of raising another daughter in Mareeta, maybe Nanna to some extent, and a possible other son in Leif, plus any other youth in Fiana, complements it not mattering about being blood parents to be parents.

Dew slipping in might have been my mind because of his age being comparable to Gen 1 Oifey and Shannan. All mentions of him could easily have been deleted. And to be honest, DewxBrigid was my other consideration for this prompt, which I think I couldn’t forget, but I couldn’t flesh out idea for. Shannan wedding the daughter of a friend maybe adds a little lighthearted zaniness to add comic effect and highlight the unusual familial relations are totally fine. 

Dew not being sure of what the Balmung is, is a reference to false Shannan in Gen 2 if Daisy- Patty’s replacement if Brigid died/was unwed by Gen 1’s end- or Hermina- Fee’s replacement- visits a certain village. The false Shannan proclaims to be the real one, the girl asks for proof, and the liar shows the “Balmung”, which is a shield and the girl sees through his lie knowing the Balmung is a sword.

The story the storyteller at the dinner is again the entertainment of yesteryear. While I had Western ideas of medieval-early modern entertainment in mind with the lunch, the dinner's entertainment was supposed to be more Middle Eastern in the same time period. The outline of the story they told was derived from what little I know India's Mahabharata- the world's longest epic poem (the Iliad and Odyssey and Aeneid can all fit comfortably inside it with room for Canada; the Epic of Manas is apparently longer in form, but possibly shorter in word count).

The turn to the bed chambers brings things to its most informal, private, and personal level, allowing Oifey and Shannan to discard proper behavior and be honest to each other. Although I primarily kept the language of a certain sophistication due to my own preference, they certainly were not letting their hearts melt and catch on fire. The choice to have Oifey relieve himself in the opening expose was just for a hint of realism and perhaps of the two’s familiarity.

Breakfast the morning after was a step back towards towards the level of the dinner the night before. With the issue having been resolved, the duo involved can resume their daily public existences, first with Patty and the soon realized to be old familiar friend in Brigid. And then on the very end note they head back out into the world on a level comparable to the lunch the prior day. Things are back to normal after a night's worries (err... fixing a problem a few hours after it was made wholly felt now sounds unrealistic).

For the bedsheets colors, I was thinking of this:

Treasure official artwork of Gen 1 Shannan, his father Prince Mariccle, and Marricle's half-sister and Shannan's aunt, Ayra. Notice the quantity of purples, I assumed if highest Issachan royalty is wearing this, that purple is symbolically prominent in Issach. Four shades on the bedsheets and pillows was because I was counting four shades here. 

That was why I chose purple, but I was well aware that coincidentally, I had chosen lavender, which I knew to be the color that isn't rainbow which is associated with the LGBTQ community. The Lavender Scare was post-WWII late 1940s-early 1950s purge of all suspected homosexuals from government service and American universities. For a related example, an "amethyst marriage”, amethyst a purple gemstone, meant a lesbian and a gay man who got married to adhere to social norms, but didn't actually love each other and pursued their true romantic inclinations outside of it hidden from the general public.

I tried to balance Shannan and Oifey as persons, I didn't want to make one particularly one way or another, both show reason and strength, both show insecurity and issues. I wanted them to be similar and average-ish, so as to not cast their bond as to have one be the "woman" in the relationship, or either as some gay caricature. The results might have left the duo bland though.

Yes, the "unburdened souls" and "numinous" meant they had sex. I threw it in only in passing, because I didn't want it to define things. I did not want at all for Oifey to caress Shannan's face and say how beautiful his long hair was. Since I left it vague enough, one could interpret it as just hugging, kissing and sweet affections without sex though.

They started as strangers in Verdane, and became close platonic friends by the time they left Sigurd just before Belhalla. In Issach, under the unusual circumstances they found themselves, they bonded as parents over the children they raised together. With the pressures of Grannvalian occupation and persecution, and a future of liberation in mind, causing them to withdraw from pursuing the luxury of heterosexual romance. It is in these conditions in which they shared in each other's joys and suffering and had been doing so since before Belhalla, that their bond became something more.

Now I'm not sure if I could have made it romantic without sexual and it still being gay, I'm not at all versed in LGBTQ Studies. Well, thinking about it now, I absolutely could have with acts would be unusual for anything short of true romance. But I wasn’t thinking that as I was writing this entry. To be on the safe side, to rule out it simply being a deep bromance, I felt I had to add a mint leaf of sex. Though the point must be stated they weren't drawn to each other because they saw each other's nether regions while bathing one day. Sex did not start their relationship. Sex was a side effect of being so close to each other derived from a friendship-turned-shared-parenthood, a not so important to the individuals involved afterthought.

Not to say that gayness is an accident caused by circumstances! And to call sex an afterthought might be weird if they didn’t mind it enough to do it multiple times over years. It would have been easier to just write things with the two married, but I couldn't because Shannan has a kingdom and Oifey had a dukedom to rule. And this a world where holy blood inheritance matters, while gay marriage doesn't exist.

 

-Was ANY of the above relevant thinking to the topic I was being asked to write about? No. Not really. But I did. 

 

As for self-criticism and a little more explanation.

I acknowledge that things could’ve used more action. Perhaps I could have started the day with the pregnancy conundrum, them silently not talk about it directly, gone through a day of more kinetic events. In the background through said events recalling, with little actually said, of Oifey and Shannan's time together over the years. And then in the night together they reach the resolution by piecing together all they recalled. Or for something less radical, I could have had them been a little more interactive in the bedroom (no, not that way) and not just sitting on the bed talking back and forth.

And I acknowledge the biggest elephant in the room- the large direct absence of the pregnancy. Patty the bearer of the child who causes the insecurity of Oifey and Shannan, which is the crux of the pregnancy’s presence here, is not present in the personal discussions. She only first met the duo in 776 Jugdral Count, at the tail end of their relationship, and she doesn’t know the full truth of it in this story. I certainly ran a high chance of this problem by picking men I chose to be gay, and it expectedly got me.

Something that drew me into OifeyxShannan though, was trying to detail a situation where the couple was already versed in parenting and past the stage of young love in their relationship. It isn’t simply “I’m gonna be a mommy/daddy!” and or dealing with the effects of adapting to parenthood and away from horny youth banging. ShannanxOifey have already raised a farm from seedlings just breaking through the soil to adulthood, they’re veterans here, and they likely never had the “I MUST lose my virginity before I’m 18!” phase that would have begun earlier.

Could have I made a couple past young love and or versed in parenting in another way? Yes. It just didn’t come to me, but I could have. Why the prompt when I examine it now didn’t say it had to be announcing a first pregnancy, it could have been Tiki announcing her 24th with Henry. I just didn’t think of that at the time. Nor did I think of having Shannan confess to Patty his secret history with Oifey and framing it like that, thereby placing the pregnant woman in a more central position.

 

[Anacybele]

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If they say "served the royal family", but don't outright say "knight", there is wiggle room. They could have been commoners, serving the royal family by breeding say the steeds whom the kings and queens ride. Or perhaps the village was crown land directly under royal control, and not delegated to nobles.

Or if they were knights, you could say they defended their fief maybe 9/12 months of the year or so, visiting the capital for the rest. Or they just remain on the fief being landlords until called to serve for a gathering of the elite for governance or for battle. Serving doesn't mean having to be in/near the capital all the time, even if it'd be good to do so for social fun (and political patronage for the ambitious).

-Just some possibilities I can think of off the top of my head.

Huh, yeah, I suppose that is all valid.

[TheSilentChloey]

A fifty-fifty split huh?  Wow that is surprising.

[Anacybele]

We get ties a lot though... But if I win, I'm going to start wondering why my only "good" entries involve Frederick. Surely I can write other characters/stories just as well as I do him... xP

[Ottservia]

I still think we should extend the voting period by at least a day

Edited June 1, 2019 by Ottservia

[TheSilentChloey]

17 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I still think we should extend the voting period by at least a day

Agreed especially since we had that forced off SF time which made it difficult for Annon to update the thread...

[AnonymousSpeed]

I can do that, sure. Are there any objections?

[Ottservia]

Well you'll get none from me although that should be obvious. Also the tie broke

[TheSilentChloey]

53 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I can do that, sure. Are there any objections?

None from me either.

[Dragoncat]

None from me.

[AnonymousSpeed]

So, uh, interesting news. When I first made the voting phase timer, I actually made it a day longer than it should be. Yeah, so...is there additional time y'all'd like still?

[Ottservia]

12 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

So, uh, interesting news. When I first made the voting phase timer, I actually made it a day longer than it should be. Yeah, so...is there additional time y'all'd like still?

maybe we put that to a vote?

[AnonymousSpeed]

I think editing the poll might delete the votes, so I'll have the "vote" in the thread. If anyone else would like additional time for voting beyond the additional time allotted, please say so here.

[TheSilentChloey]

An extra day on the actual thing?  Huh that might be okay since the tie broke.

[Dragoncat]

On 5/30/2019 at 7:24 PM, Azure in a Roundabout said:

Will give my next three reviews and my vote on the morrow. If we have time.

Poke?

I should be able to do reviews today.

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

@Dragoncat

Spoiler

The thing I liked most here is how you show how much has changed since the events of the game. Brief little snippets of info. I liked that in particular.

I do feel there should have been more scenes involving the pregnancy, especially since it does not come until around halfway through the story. Maybe I’d have made the Shreds but much briefer and do what you said, and make the pregnancy known around 1/3 through. But I like this.

@Ottservia

Spoiler

I liked the story you had going on with this one. The intro devoted to Inigo’s childhood, the middle being the lead up and birth of Soleil, and the end being an extended retelling of the intro with that next generation, sometimes word-for-word in dialogue. And I admire trying to make the Deeprealms work, since... you know. And I felt it was understandable, the reason Laslow and Selena went through with it.

At the very least, Soleil will not have to deal with something similar. Hopefully.

@TheSilentChloey

Spoiler

A cute little story, though I’d imagine Chrom would not be like that. I dunno.

And yeah, “healers” can be replaced with “physician” for stuff like this. They can use magic (or science, if Miriel got that far yet), you just have to specify it.

Other than that, it was nice.

In the end, I still decided to give my vote to @Anacybele.

[Ottservia]

18 minutes ago, Azure in a Roundabout said:

I liked the story you had going on with this one. The intro devoted to Inigo’s childhood, the middle being the lead up and birth of Soleil, and the end being an extended retelling of the intro with that next generation, sometimes word-for-word in dialogue. And I admire trying to make the Deeprealms work, since... you know. And I felt it was understandable, the reason Laslow and Selena went through with it.

Yes, thank you that's exactly what I was trying to go for with this story. If there was one thing I really did like about the kids in fates it was Ophelia, Soleil, and Caeldori(to a somewhat lesser degree) because it gave the awakening trio further character development and closure to the arcs they had in awakening. Now that they're parents themselves they can finally understand the sacrifices their parents made for them. It's an idea that I've wanted to expand on for quite some time now and I'm glad I was able to pull it off for the most part. The dialogue at the end is pretty much word for word actually(when inigo dies anyway) the only difference being is that he shouts Soleil instead of Inigo. Hopefully Soleil won't have to go through the same thing. But yeah that's kind of what I was going for. I actually did want to include more scenes with Severa even writing out that infamous scene with her and Cordelia but I felt that scene would've interrupted the flow of the story and made it too long. Still there are a lot of ideas to explores with these characters and that's one of the reasons why I like them so much.

[AnonymousSpeed]

So voting is supposed to end in about...9 hours.

I know Otts was still looking at an extension, but to @Anacybele, @TheSilentChloey, @Dragoncat, and @Interdimensional Observer, I'd like to ask if you would like an extension to voting. I know most of you have completed yours, but just to be thorough in the polling.

[Anacybele]

Oh, I have no objection, it's fine. ?

[Dragoncat]

Yeah I probably need an extension.