[ SECRET POST #2418 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2418 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Pitch Perfect]


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[LeeSaem of Nine Muses, Kota of Sunny Hill, Lime of Hello Venus and Minzy of 2NE1]


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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]


















16. [SPOILERS for Harry Potter]



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17. [SPOILERS for Life]



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18. [SPOILERS for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic]



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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]













19. [WARNING for abuse]



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20. [WARNING for sexual abuse]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #345.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I actually blame Kingdom Hearts for the start of all that.

[raaj]

You could probably argue it started even earlier; Cloud's cameo in Final Fantasy Tactics worked her in as a damsel in distress. I mean she's still got a bit of attitude, but she's there purely to be rescued and illustrate Cloud's grief over her death (if he leaves the party over not having enough Brave his quote is pretty much "I couldn't even save one girl, what did you expect?")

Something about cameos reinforces stereotyping. At least the way Square does it, it seems to.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh man, how did I forget about that? Shows how memorable it was as a cameo, I guess.

I think the reason that the continued illustration of Cloud's grief over Aeris's death annoyed me was that it completely nullified the closure that the game gave him--he made sure that her wish to release Holy was fulfilled, defeated his own demons (in the form of Sephiroth), and with her spirit's blessing came back into the world a full and forgiven man. Making him regress so far when he'd already been absolved was a copout and it makes me mad. :/ I even say this as a big Cloud/Aeris shipper, a lot of whom I know really loved that he was still so destitute over her.

[raaj]

Oh man I actually love Cloud/Aerith myself and I also prefer Cloud getting closure on Aerith's death, just like part of her falling genuinely in love with him required she come to terms with Zack's death. It is much more fitting to me with Cloud/Aerith that he grieves, yes, but he comes to move on with his life. The Tactics cameo is kind of okay on this note as it seems implied to have to do with his big epic Lifestream adventure, aka the suckiest mental/emotional point he was in of the whole game, but it set up a slippery slope of what Cloud and Aerith would be remembered for and auuuugh.

[thene]

Something about cameos reinforces stereotyping. At least the way Square does it, it seems to.

See also FFXIII-2, which was a whole ball of oh my fuck did you even PLAY the original FFXIII?

[raaj]

...lmfao my problems with XIII-2 start right at did you seriously just throw out the ending that I found most satisfying at the end of the first game WHAT THE HECK and augh. Seriously the basic premise of the game made me mad. Though on the characterization note, now Lightning Returns just makes me laugh for Lightning being all "IT WAS GOD" about Bhunivelze and it's like Light what happened to being no one's tool. Also I love how SE said they were "going back to the old Light" and then recently it was talked about how she and Hope have fewer emotions for some stupid plot reason

Yes I'm sure Lightning repeatedly punched Snow in the face because of a lack of feels.

SE, why.

[thene]

Why :(

Fuck it, the only thing in FFXIII-2 that didn't suck is Alyssa, and look how that went.

[raaj]

Ha, ha, ha. To be fair if we're counting Nora I'd also lean toward counting Bartholomew (implied dead by Hope having nothing to leave behind when he used the time capsule), but then you might not consider him as significant/the narrative didn't actually bother to specify.

I'd say that while XIII has much more equality in party member gender ratio than some other FFs did (though hey, FFVIII also had 3 out of 6--and V had 3 out of 5!) it's still...sexist in how some things come off? I couldn't get attached to Nora because it was pretty obvious something was going to happen to her and after it happened I was (and always will be) annoyed--why hadn't she asked to keep a gun to protect the group that wasn't going? She would have been protecting Hope more directly that way. (Actually the whole Nora plot between Hope and Snow just annoys me really badly as Snow is pretty much made say really stupid stuff to get Hope mad at him. Like "Hey, are you with me [to save everyone]?" and "You just have to look out for yourself" in the same minute, no wonder Hope's mad he can't even keep himself straight.) She's basically there to be killed off. Nabaat's built up as a calculating and venomous threat only to be unceremoniously killed off to make an old pope look big and bad, like what a waste was that? Serah is pretty much damsel in distress in the first game; we see so much of her because she's what motivates Snow and Lightning. Fang and Vanille get to triumph and save the day, but only through sacrifice. It's kind of just... I wouldn't say even the first game was that great for women. It wasn't bad, but eh. And then the second game just did not help.

[thene]

Yeah, Nora is totally fridged. I think Serah's role in FFXIII is more interesting though, because she's more active in her role as a cause of conflict and instigator of disaster, plus there's her encounters with Vanille I totally ship it.

It's not the gender ratio so much as the gender roles that I enjoy...FFXIII both breaks some of the stereotypes for combat classes and rips on a lot of gender-heavy tropes (like Hope as the brave young teen boy out for revenge for his family, or Snow as the altruistic hero, or Vanille as the manic pixie dream girl.) There's other Final Fantasies with just as many women but which have less to say about gender, I guess is what it is.