Promises: Serah Farron

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Samantha
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Re: Promises: Serah Farron

Post by Samantha »

Ahhhhh I'm super late to commenting on this (though I totally fhsdjkhgjksdhkjfa on twitter when I saw it)! I know how long you've wanted to get something up for Serah and how important she is to you--I really think this comes across on your site!

I've avoided reading too many spoiler-y sections because I hope to finish the XIII trilogy one of these days, but I wanted to tell you how much I've liked what I have seen on your site so far. :heart:
Todd
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Re: Promises: Serah Farron

Post by Todd »

Rems, this is amazing! I love the layout, first off. The changing images is so neat, and everything flows so well.

I'm avoiding spoilers as well. FFXIII's trilogy are some of the few FF games I haven't played yet, but great job on everything. <3
Destinie
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Re: Promises: Serah Farron

Post by Destinie »

Hi Rems!

First of all - happy early birthday! I, too, finished a shrine on my birthday one year and it was a wonderful treat. :) I am excited for you that you have this done!

I apologize that I am so late to commenting on this but I still haven't had the opportunity to read through the shrine in its entirety. (You have so much content! I love it!) When I do, however, I plan to leave you some more feedback! Right now I have to say that I love the design and navigation. The XIII pages are nicely written, easy to read, and very informative. Love it so far!
Lethe
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Re: Promises: Serah Farron

Post by Lethe »

Rems, congratulations on finishing this, both as a dream project and as your first shrine in quite some time! I remember seeing you participate in Nanowrimo and then jumping straight into this and was like O_O. So admirable. ;_;

As someone who does like both XIII and Serah, your writing... is so so so engaging. You write with such power and fondness while still keeping things accessible; you side-eye some voices re: FFXIII and state your own while still acknowledging why others might not be as fond of it. Your introduction pages to the trilogy are some of my favourites among introduction pages, due to the variety of things you touch upon without things getting overwhelming from the get-go, and because they're enjoyable to read even from the perspective of someone who has played all three games. ("so what if I slept through a solid five days at the end because I’d completed everything, at least I did." o-omg same... No shame.)

Your Etymology page is a fantastic introduction to Serah and the hints of her role within the story, omgggg the entire thing about FF's Sarahs and princesses. <3 Same with Motifs, because Serah's omnipresence in some of FFXIII's most important tracks just go with her being the catalyst behind the story, and several people's motivation... I'M SUCH A BIG FAN OF ALL SERAH-RELATED THEMES OK. (Seconding Larissa on linking all the themes... I went to crawl YouTube to listen to all of them again, then had the soundtrack run in the background while perusing your shrine.) YOUR SHRINE NAME IS PERFECTION BTW, ONE OF MY FAVS.

OMG THE ENTIRE YUNA WRITE-UP AND THE YEUL/LENNE THING (especially after the nod at the Summoner's Garb before)??? Also +1 to all the Kairi bitterness. (I had taken note of their similarity before, especially since you love both characters, and yeah, putting them next to each other really shows how different the two narratives they're in are, despite the similarities of their initial circumstances. I don't have much hope for Kairi because I feel like the entire framework is already BS when you look at female characters in KH in general - number, roles, individuality, relationships, etc. - whereas FFXIII really, really shines as a narrative centered around women and their diverse relationships. But I guess there's still some hope. ;_;)

The entire Journey section really stands out due to how much it says about Serah and her growth specifically, from so many angles and with such a strong voice, without the need to roll up the plot of the games in summaries. It's quite masterfully done, that extreme focus on what things mean to the characters involved, and what they say about them - all the introspection rather than what might be happening at which point. SOB SO ELEGANT AND POWERFUL AND RICH.

I'd also like to voice how much I love your humour and extra tidbits of info throughout the shrine! (The Yuna and pendant details on the Outfits page, or the NPC melody under Motifs, for example.) You've got such strong opinions and strong love too, and I love how you let it all out (lmao the short Voice page just to swoon over Laura Bailey??). <3 <3

What I liked seeing the most is the contextualizing of Serah as a person and as a character type within FFXIII, the Final Fantasy series as a whole, and also JRPGs and the video game industry in general. This extends to your focus on women in general throughout the shrine, notably the women of FF and the women of the FFXIII trilogy... I love how you analyze all their connections, similarities and differences, even between two characters who barely interact such as Serah and Fang, and then Lumina and Vanille THROUGH Serah OMGGGGG. <3 Really lovely and insightful and important work!!!

A-and omg your Snow/Serah feels under Catalyst and then their page. ;_; brb sobbing over the perfection that is your relationship pages, especially Noel and Hope. (More relationships like these plz, as you say.)

Rems, you've made an incredible shrine - an incredibly beautifully written shrine, and I admire your writing so much! Having read your Kairi shrine more than once before, I also see how different the two shrines are, and it makes me look forward to what you'll be making next. Plz pump out more shrines k!!!

I've come across a few small mistakes if you care to know; if you don't, ignore this!

Show/HideSPOILERSPOILER_SHOW
LIGHTNING RETURNS
- which is what you get what you cross paradigms with dresspheres from X-2 -> which is what you get when

TERMINOLOGY
- Years after the initial fall, Ragnarok, are suffixed as AF, or 'After Fall'. -> not sure what this says
- Eidolons challenge l’Cie when they are most susceptible and emotional, their most frightened and confused. -> I think this is missing a word somewhere, "at their most"?

HEROINE
- That’s a fair reason not to get them involved if absolutely necessary -> if not/unless?
- This is an annoying, frustrating regularity with many a female character, where she given development and then it is neglected and not utilised. -> where she is given
- conceptulised -> conceptualised

DEPTH
- twice crused, twice blessed -> cursed

CATAYLST
- One of my favourite things about XIII is how that, at the start of the game, the party are presented at varying stages of their worst selves -> either "how" or "that"

SNOW
- it destroys him . It’s -> space before period

HOPE
- It’s the bond with Lightning that really bring Serah and Hope together. -> brings

CAIUS
- Serah fulfilling every wish of her heart will in turn will kill the wishes of someone else -> will in turn kill the wishes

ABOUT
- but it was Serah and Hope’s dual reveal as that garnered my attention -> remove "as"
- Even in her role in XIII was small -> Even though her role
Both despair and ecstasy are part of the elements that compose a person.
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Rems
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Re: Promises: Serah Farron

Post by Rems »

I'm so sorry for getting back to everyone so late...! :ack2: I completely forgot about this topic and the last month has been a dizzy, spinning mess. But I'm here now. Pre-emptive thanks for all your kind words! :heart: :blush:

@Megan A: Thank you so much! :D I still can't believe it's finished. I hope you enjoy the games when you do get round to them!

@Larissa: BRO... BRO... I HAD NO IDEA THIS tl;dr EXISTED, BRO, BUT AHH. AHHHHH. Unexpected Farrons tl;dr. Bro. sends tl;dr back, always down for XIII thoughts

Ah man, I had no idea the fan arrangement was blocked - I know the singer is British, so that probably explains why. I'll look into it to see if it's been uploaded anywhere else. I'm wary about embedding songs sourced right off my domain, but I know I've done it before on tumblr via dropbox or something?? So I'll have a look into that (I did link them in the meantime though, haha). Thank you for the suggestion!

For my images, I think it's a case of how my layout operates. I like to have the subject be static intstead of scrolling away (which is funny given the site I just finished, but I digress), so less is more in that case. For Serah, it was highlighting her beats that needed a visual, or to actually, y'know, show an image of the relationship I was talking about, because it's easier to picture what's going on. Other times it's just a case of splitting up content. IDK I ENJOY USING IMAGERY IN SHRINES even though I've cut back a lot from my Kairi days with an image on every page because it takes... so... long.

I JUST NEED A SUMMONING GAME ALA THE MOBILE GAMES WITH SERAH SUMMONING MOG, okay, that's all I want, that's all I need, c'mon Square you didn't give me a wedding at least give me this.

(and thank you again for all the help!! always great to have a partner in xiii crime. :heart: :heart:)

make the sister and i'll make the not sister and the triad of pink haired girls will be complete... i mean wait what

@Tara: Thank you, Tara! I'm glad it makes sense to those unfamiliar with the later games, and I'm always happy to find more people who like Ms. Bailey. Those are two of my favourite pages too, I love ranting about Serah breaking so many walls and being such a strong protagonist. Always my favourite thing to explore.

@Megan: It's very satisfying! :D Especially since it's the first I've knuckled down and finished in such a long time <3 Thank you, Megan!

@Samantha: No worries, I'm just as late replying back |D And thank you! Gently pushes you towards the games in the meantime :heart:

@Todd: Thank you, Todd! :)

@Destinie: Thanks for the birthday wishes! I really wanted to get it up for my birthday and I so often break these types of goals to myself, to actually have achieved it the day before was lovely. And I'm super glad you like what you see so far! I hope you enjoy the rest when you get to it. :D

@Lethe: oh gosh Lethe, this is such a detailed response and I'm incredibly happy (and grateful) to see it? Knowing someone has gone through everything and to share what they like is super amazing, ahhhhh. And it's always high praise to hear someone likes how I write! ;_; Thank you for the detail!

(and to mention this first, thank you for pointing out all those minor mistakes. I have a habit of changing my mind mid-sentence, or missing out connecting words once I get into a groove - and I repeatedly miss them as when I read it again, my brain insists these words are there. So this is very helpful, I shall go through and make these changes soon. :heart: :heart:)

gosh I wish I could reply to everything, but it'd mostly be me being flustered by praise and delight and repeating what you've said to me back to you, so know that reading this has given me a lot of great insights and will be something to look at when I'm floundering about in whichever project I tackle next. :heart: I'm so happy to know that XIII fans are also enjoying this site. c: and yessss.... bring all your serah love to me, serah, serahh

I'm definitely going to be looking into linking in Serah's themes on page (see above!), and I'll make this a priority as I gloss over for improvements! And possibly link it from the index so others can listen whilst browsing, we'll see what works best.

I'm crossing my fingers hard for Kairi to have at least a moment of greatness :c and if she doesn't I'll just have to finally get round to more FF games to fill the callback page with more ladies that have a better time with it, or future ones. Writing about Yuna and Serah was a treat, but I'm sure there's more out there.

AGAIN, I'm so glad you've enjoyed all the parts of this site. :heh:

And I'm definitely planning to write more shrines (sweats about the Fire Emblem one) since it's a hobby I'm enjoying much more as it keeps my writing sharp, so there will be more in the future. ;) there's a list for this year, we'll see if I get through it?!
❝ they have stolen the heart from inside you, but this does not define you ❞
Lethe
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Re: Promises: Serah Farron

Post by Lethe »

:eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

GIVE ME L U M I N A

/shakes lightning out of larissa

:heart:
Both despair and ecstasy are part of the elements that compose a person.
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Rems
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Re: Promises: Serah Farron

Post by Rems »

askddfkl she will happen, but probably not this year....! unless she does, because lumina happens when she wants
❝ they have stolen the heart from inside you, but this does not define you ❞
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