FFX -Eternal Cost- and FFX -Will- (SPOILERS)

[The Twilight Mexican]

It doesn't sound like there's any sort of conflict in this story other than Tidus dying and Yuna bringing him back. Is that the case, hito?

If Ifarnal told Yuna about the old way of summoning and he's now back, that kind of sounds like she went and did it. I'm guessing it's not made entirely clear, though, huh?

If you're not getting annoyed with all the questions just yet, hito, what happens to Ifarnal? Does he tell Yuna his story, she leaves and he's never heard from again? Did he kill Tidus and engineer all this shit to weaken the Farplane? What's his goal here?

 

[Strangelove]

briah (or valm, another unsent who was on the same island as ifarnal but got shot by an angry albhed) goes to confront him and then he gets blown up by one of those bomb balls

so he's just dead now. i don't think he really had a plan. i don't think there was a plan here. it was just a bunch of stuff that kind of happened. tidus blowing up seems like an accident, but now that i think about it i don't know why ifarnal told yuna what to do to bring him back

he just kind of spoke to her via magic or something and told her what to do. but the price was that he would seal away her memories of what happened (which she later remembers), because if they both remember then it would all be undone. or something.

conflict would come in the forms of:

- tidus trying to spend some time with yuna the night he returned (so he goes on the boat and then yuna sneaks on and they sail away into a storm)
- tidus and yuna stranded at sea (which i thought went on for a bit longer than it needed)
- tidus and yuna on the mysterious island and how they will leave it (tidus literally just warps away, he gets that special power for reasons/i guess because he's just pyreflies. yuna gets taken on to a boat by ifarnal but i don't remember if they gave an explanation about how that happened since it was a real boat and just seems to just move from the island to the boat)
- briah going a bit insane when he gets his memories back
- tidus and yuna doing what ifarnal/kushu asks and if they will do it (i don't think they actually did)
- the nature of tidus' new existence
- yuna feeling some distance from tidus, which is a running theme

the last one is probably the most problematic part. realistically yeah, it makes sense. for yuna tidus has been gone for two years, she has gone through a lot of stuff and tidus is still 17 and how he was in ffx. but that's been a big complaint about it, yuna's treatment of tidus. she's not being a total bitch or anything, there's still love there but it's tempered with 'that aspect of tidus is bugging me'. she doesn't seem as happy as she does in ffx-2's ending, like she's just been reunited with her love.

tidus dying too. this story starts right after ffx-2. to make a timeline of the series, it would go:

- ffx
- eternal calm
- ffx-2
- eternal cost
- 100% ending of x-2?
- last mission
- will
- ffx-3 which we all know they are going to try to make now

at most it would be a couple of days after tidus came back (depending how long they spend floating at sea, which i can't imagine being more than a few hours so that would place the island stuff starting the day after he came back), and they unceremoniously blow him up. which is a bit of a bitch. but then they went from 'the world's purest kiss' in ffx to tidus being a horndog trying to get laid a bunch.

it feels a lot more like it was written to lay the groundwork for a sequel than anything else. some of the new stuff is interesting, but it's still weird overall.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Reading this thread is like reading a bunch of lore-nerds reacting to bad fan-fiction...

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

As always, hito, you are awesome sauce. As an entrée, and not a side.

EDIT: What is this exactly?:

tidus and yuna doing what ifarnal/kushu asks and if they will do it (i don't think they actually did)

What does Ifarnal ask them to do? And are we to assume Yuna really went and fucked some random person since Tidus came back?

 

[Strangelove]

yuna only had boat sex, her bringing back tidus was something different

ifarnal's request to yuna was to kill someone (i can't remember if this was briah or kushu, but i think it was kushu)
kushu's request to tidus was to give a woman sitting in a chair looking out of a window 'a little push' on the shoulder (this was kushu's real body located in one of the ruins on besaid)

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

That's ... weird.

 

[Strangelove]

it's a weird book

i am starting to think that the thing with yuna distancing herself from tidus has something to do with the whole 'if he finds out what he is he will disappear' thing

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Do you get the impression she may have done "something bad" to bring him back?

 

[Strangelove]

i think she just wished really hard, that's about it. think about tidus and wish really hard

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I guess the only question left is ... did you like it?

 

[Pixel]

Im not sure if I actually want to continue translating this book tbh. The more I read, the less I like.

 

[Tetsujin]

What the fuck is even going on in that story?

 

[Strangelove]

it feels a lot more like set up material for ffx-3 than a story in its own right, there just happens to be a little narrative bundled with it

i actually thought the story set in the past was interesting, but the rest i'm kind of like. eeeehhhhh. but that only lasts during the boy's side chapter.

 

[trash panda]

I just read the first page of this thread...and then I read the last page...and then I felt like I missed something so I read everything in between...

...And I still feel like I missed something.

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

Ok, honestly guys someone needs to find out what Nojima's preferred drugs are, then come as close to safely matching his dosage as possible before reading this. Then tell me if it makes sense

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I'll admit that my usual confidence in Nojima is somewhat addled by all this, but if a FFX-3 comes along now (ha, "if"), I feel like he'll recover the ball. Hopefully it doesn't explode in his hands, though.

 

[Strangelove]

there's a word in japanese, 蛇足 (dasoku), which means 'snake feet'. it describes an unnecessary addition or item. it's based on an old chinese story where some servants were given some alcohol, but there was only enough for one person to drink. so to decide who would drink it, they would draw a snake on the ground and the first to finish got the booze. one man finished his first, and with the cup in one hand said 'i've even got time to draw feet' as he started to draw feet on the snake. before he could finish, the other man finished drawing his snake and took the cup from the first man, telling him 'snakes don't even have feet'. by adding feet, what he drew was no longer a snake so it cancelled out his victory. so the other guy drank the booze and the first guy missed out



what i'm trying to say is

this book is snake feet

 

[Ⓐaron]

Incidentally some of the material in this thread might be worthwhile for a front page article, especially since a lot of this info probably isn't available in English.

...what? I'm not going to write it I have even less of an idea of what's going on than the people who've read it do.

 

[Splintered]

I think Nojima is just pissed they resurrected Tidus and this is his revenge.

Go Noijima, let your rage flow.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Nojima: "Ruin the best ending I'll ever write, will you? I'll show you bastards."

Between this and Genesis in Crisis Core, I am really starting to think he may be a bigger troll than Steven Moffat.

 

[Ⓐaron]

NO ONE is a bigger troll than Moffat. But Nojima is apparently trying.

 

[Tetsujin]

Orrrrr maybe Nojima's just a really hit and miss writer.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Can't it be both?

 

[Pixel]

“I adore the way fan fiction writers engage with and critique source texts, by manipulating them and breaking their rules. Some of it is straight-up homage, but a lot of [fan fiction] is really aggressive towards the source text. One tends to think of it as written by total fanboys and fangirls as a kind of worshipful act, but a lot of times you’ll read these stories and it’ll be like ‘What if Star Trek had an openly gay character on the bridge?’ And of course the point is that they don’t, and they wouldn’t, because they don’t have the balls, or they are beholden to their advertisers, or whatever. There’s a powerful critique, almost punk-like anger, being expressed there—which I find fascinating and interesting and cool.”
― Lev Grossman

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

... 'What if Star Trek had an openly gay character on the bridge?’ And of course the point is that they don’t, and they wouldn’t, because they don’t have the balls, or they are beholden to their advertisers, or whatever.

Lieutenant Hawk?