STAHN: Dymlos....
DYMLOS: I want to say one final word to you.
DYMLOS: I lied to you. You were not chosen.
STAHN: .........!
DYMLOS: In the beginning, people were blessed with the power to truly understand one another.
DYMLOS: However, this power was lost by the time of Aeth’er Wars.
DYMLOS: But you found that quality within yourself even before you met me.
DYMLOS: It was very unusual to find someone like you, but your abilities are not extraordinary.
DYMLOS: This is because this power, this ability lies dormant within everyone.
STAHN: Is that all? Hey, don’t worry, it doesn’t bother me at all.
When people (usually English-speaking people, because Japanese fans of Destiny often have this attachment to the original game because of nostalgia) ask me if I seriously prefer the original version to the PS2 remake of the game in terms of overall narrative and characters, I really mean it unironically.
I feel like in the bigger picture, the message of the original game (like why it was even called Tales of Destiny, for instance) had truly been lost when it was remade, and I lament for this loss more than anything else. In terms of gameplay, yes, it’s more polished and I’d argue they had turned one of the most horribly-aged games to something that’s so damn fun to play, and I know that’s what matters the most when it comes to videogames in general, but I wish it had retained what made the original game so special to the people who have played it, despite of all of its faults. (As a disclaimer: I started with this game, however, I don’t have nostalgic attachment to it like a lot of people do; that nostalgia is for D2 in my case, as it was the first one that wholly captured the magic of Tales to me. However, that doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate D for what it was at the time.)
Sure, you can say more details are fleshed out (debatable for the characters, as I feel they have become more of flanderized or even outright contradictory versions of themselves at worst, and ‘softened’ at best, not allowed to act truly like humans at times, compared to their original counterpart with all their 人間臭い qualities), but is it worth it in place of muddying or even distorting the message it was meant to convey in the first place? I’ve said before that in my opinion, overcomplicated worldbuilding just for the sake of it is overrated. In trying to explain how the Swordians work in the remake, they changed the setting, but then the above doesn’t work anymore in this context. It’s gone. Just like that.
Making the characters more ‘palatable’ beats the purpose. I deliberately used the word 人間臭い because you know what? Yes, they stink, but you can feel the humanity exactly because of the stink. Humans are good, but humans are also bad. If you’re gonna say Stahn (or anyone for that matter) is not that special, then show it to me, show how human he can get. I’m not saying the original version of the characters are that well-written either, because honestly, they could’ve been fleshed out more... just not in the way how the remake does it, if you can call that fleshing out the characters. There are so many ways you could’ve expanded on them without truly erasing what made them charming in the first place. As well as, again, I want to believe the characters were created and written that way for a reason, and getting hung up in the details of these characters make a lot of people miss the point.
(There’s a beauty in Stahn having done all the things he did in the game because he believed he was destined to do so, but deep inside, even if he wanted to tell himself that, he was still doing all of these because he believed in what he had already believed, long before even meeting Dymlos. That’s an admirable character.)
(By the way, I know a lot of these issues also stemmed from how D2 tried to expand on the world of D though they can't even be consistent with D2 despite coming after it; for the record, I’m not absolving D2 for these problems either. However, at the same time, if you let my bias speak for just a moment, D2 is there to tell its own story. It doesn’t try to override D. The remake of D’s raison d’être is to be the definitive version of D. That’s the biggest problem there.)
These details don’t matter much to me, what matters is if these details truly serve their purpose, which in my opinion is the themes along with the messages. For me, everything has to begin with an intent, with a broad idea, as well as end with that intent, that idea. And I’m not sure if the remake manages to expand on the idea the original game represents... it just seems like they were confused about what D was really about in the first place. Applied to things like world and characters, it might make it seem like I don’t really care about the individuals, that it might make me seem so detached, but on the contrary, I want to appreciate something as a whole, and to appreciate that whole, I need to appreciate every individual element that is there, that is needed to build it. Because the individuals, when divorced from their contextual whole, mean almost nothing to me. They shine more because they work together to make up something that is whole.
I know you’re life isn’t always serene but I do appreciate how you’re willing to openly talk about the more serene moments here! It’s really helped me like find joy in the the little day to day things instead of getting completed overwhelmed and burdened with the more depressing parts of life ya know? Not that it’s a ~cure~ for mental illness and stuff but taking the time to just be happy about the little things has really helped me a lot and I’ve learned how to do that from you <3
yes of course :-) i did not mean anything rude by that answer i just wanted to dissect my online presence a little, you know? well....this is a new thing for me, too, because a while ago, in my first semester of college, i called my mom sobbing and homesick and wanting to hop on a plane asap but also kind of hoping that this hypothetical plane would crash. and she told me to breathe and find one small ass thing i liked about each day, because generalizing is dangerous and leads to bad statistical conclusions where you ignore smaller but still important parts of the data set. she almost taught math instead of english and its very evident sometimes.......life has gotten a lot more complicated past the point where my biggest problem is homesickness..........but it helps, and youre right that its a not a cure but it really does help that we are trying. im glad i could share that with you i really really am.
today i went on a funny date with my beloved and saw a little bee on a sunflower and met a goat named mario who was super into licking my hand and tried to eat my bracelet 🤗😵 i pet 4 dogs and 2 cats (one of them being apple, of course) here.........little bee and big apple (pink) 🐝🐐🐈
sorry for being late! i hope you’re having (or had) a great Christmas and i hope you like my gift! happy holidays! 🎄🎄🎄
and THANK YOU @soupery for making this happen! i truly am lucky to be a part of this event and it’s all thanks to you and your hard work! stay awesome, man
(lyrics under the cut if ur interested)
.
What should I do on this cold snowy night?
The forest is asleep and moon's shining bright.
I've got books, cozy sweaters and some tea.
Everything I need and all my friends here with me.
And we're having a tea party...
.
"Hey HW", said Finn suddenly. "Are those spell books?"
"Yeah, sure"
"Oh! You could show us some of your spells!" suggested Jake.
.
So I took the biggest book I had
And I opened it on a random page...
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"This spell is called... A Happy Ending"
.
I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree.
.
"What do you care about then?" Finn interrupted.
"Shut up, Finn, I'm trying to read this spell!"
.
And though I'm happy, chill and free
There's one thing I want to see
Don't let my dreams go fading
All I want for Christmas is... a happy ending.
.
What if Bubbline was canon?
What if Fern and Finn were bros again?
What if Martin wasn't such a jerkface
And Minerva could feel the light of day?
Simon and Betty aren't crazy
And they're together, and they're happy
And despite all the sorrow they have been through
They're making snowflakes out of paper.
.
And though it sounds unbelievable
This spell could make it achievable
Don't let my dreams go fading
All I want for Christmas is a happy ending.
.
"What?.. What was that?!"
Huntress Wizard was shocked. But Finn and Jake just shrugged, for they didn't really hear the song. And even though they had no memory of what just happened, they felt... they felt as if the world became a little bit better, a little bit bigger, a little bit... happier.
@breebird33 finally got me to watch Crimson Peak last week and I loved it! Granted, I spent much of the movie cringing, wincing, and hiding behind a pillow (so many hand injuries and bugs...*shudders*...two great horrors of mine). Anyway, gotta run back to freelance work but I had to get a little fan art out of my system. My poor instagram has been neglected since everything I'm working on is a secret!
