I found enough time to take a break and catch up on the new season of Voltron. 

Still barely interested in the main plot? Check.

Still shipping Sheith, albeit without serious investment? Check.

Still mildly amused and disturbed in equal measure at the consistent level of vitriol in the fandom’s myriad shipping wars and representation quibbles? Check.

agoddamn said

Personally I get the sense that the two male lords won’t be that important, but it’s an interesting idea! If so, I think Edelgard will be Eliwood and Ninian rolled into one. That “please remember me” and closeup on dragon loli screams secret dragon & tragic sacrifice

Since FE7 is very much Eliwood’s story overall focusing on one lord more than the others would still be in keeping with the basic skeleton of Blazing Sword. I’ve also considered that Edelgard may have the first or closest initial connection with Byleth in the same way that Lyn serves as that first connection with the player, and that the other two may come in and establish their importance later on – unless there really is a route split each sold separately. Either way I’d love to see a take on a story concept comparable to Blazing Sword that isn’t hamstrung from the beginning by the narrative requirements of a prequel.

Just throwing this out there since I don’t have a lot of time for blogging at the moment. What does everyone think about the possibility that Three Houses is a soft reboot of FE7, in the same sense that FE6 is considered a soft reboot of FE1? Kind of jumping off from what @agoddamn was saying about Mark’s merits (or lack thereof) as a self-insert and the obvious similarity with the three lord setup, plus the trailer voiceover not giving any indication of a standard political antagonist which Blazing Sword also memorably lacked.

Lyn’s all over the place in Heroes and Warriors, FE4-7 is the period of the series people are talking about for remakes, and FE is now a major international Nintendo IP that could be looking back toward the game for which many pre-Awakening fans hold a lot of nostalgia. So…maybe?

And now for that trailer reaction.

  • Two things stand out to me about the world map: the shape vaguely resembles Magvel, and the land trails off the edge of the map to the right not unlike Tellius and in contrast to Fates’s setting trailing off to the left. Series-wide continuity potential abounds. Just pair something with Fates so that setting can make sense, damn it.
  • The “Houses” of the subtitle makes me wonder if this will be a game with some overt Jugdral influences, which would be well-timed if FE4 and 5 remakes are indeed on the table at some point. If it’s a game with split routes my feeling is that it’ll be less personal in execution than Fates, if the focus is more on civil/national strife than on the decisions of the self-insert – aside from who they’re screwing, naturally.
  • I don’t know how I feel about squadron battles. It’s not something that appeals to me in other games and if feels off for an FE, but it may just be limited to the lords or be like FE9 Tanith’s Reinforce.
  • Not crazy about the Germanic flavor, but I suppose it’s better than the unholy mishmash of cultures that is Nohr. Now give me back my pseudo-Catholic clerical orders.
  • Do we know for certain the guy running around in the open world is a customizable Avatar? I’m almost completely certain he is just because I don’t think we’ll be free of those outside of remakes anytime soon, but I wonder if there’s any actual confirmation.
  • Even if it doesn’t help the theorycrafting about this new goddess and whatever the hell Ash(une)ra actually is, at least they seem to not be playing coy this time with the setting’s deity being a dragon.
  • This explanation of the seasonal motif of the Japanese subtitle is an interesting thread to consider, especially with the implication of there being a fourth, summer-related house/lord. It’s the Avatar, right?

All in all my hype levels are lower than they were for Fates but higher than Awakening. This may be shaping up to be another one of those experimental FE stories, and I’ve already expressed how much I like those, but the setting hasn’t grabbed me yet and we’ve seen very little of any unique mechanics. Kind of a toss-up right now.

I’m blogging tipsy on a Sunday night again – call it an occupational perk in this case – and am in a strange place with my various sexual partners both immediate and remote. Feel free to send asks related to my sex life, anon or not.

Continuing in the vein of short reviews of queer content I’ve come across on Netflix*, Alex Strangelove is the same sort of fluffy gay rom-com as Love, Simon, only with more raunchiness for a less restricted medium (which I fully support, particularly when it comes to writing realistic dialogue for teenage boys). It’s not something I can relate to much personally seeing as I’ve never been intimately involved with a woman for any reason and have indeed never really felt pressured to be or act straight, but I acknowledge that not everyone was raised in the unusually libertine (not necessarily liberal) circumstances that I was. As a bottom I do however fully identify with the protagonist’s recurring problems with penetration.

*I’m still holding off on Versailles as a delayed palate cleanser after Merlin, mostly because I don’t have much time for binge-watching series at the moment.

The Sense8 finale was indeed one big slightly confusing bout of wish fulfillment, but given the circumstances it’s just about the best way to wrap up the series anyone could have expected. This is, what, three entire seasons’ worth of story concepts crammed into two and a half hours? (Plus I never was able to follow the main plot of the show very well, but maybe if I rewatch the whole thing in one go sometime it’ll make more sense.)

And because in getting invested in this show one must play favorites and in some cases it’s fairly easy to do that for cultural reasons, I found myself getting most invested in how the finale handles Latins and our various cultures. Almost all of it was set in either Paris or Naples so that was surprisingly easy, and while Georges was fun for a minute and Amanita’s dream of falling in love with a “tragically detached French girl” was amusing I would have appreciated some more actual human (or sensate, close enough) presence to go with the lavish backdrops. Where for example was Jean-Pierre, friend of Rajan and owner of that conveniently well-stocked but unoccupied château? But these are mostly nitpicks.