ebonwinged_nova | I Have Finished My Draft

Clocks in at about 45k words right now with one scene missing; the content itself should mostly be fine and only require some details editing. That took way too long, but sometimes that's just how things are. It's a postcanon xenoblade 3 fic with a twist, namely:

Click for ending spoilers

The worlds still separated, but instead of everything resetting to pre-Intersection, Origin dumped everyone into the corresponding world as they were at the end; also N is there because I wanted him to be.

I wrote the first draft before Future Redeemed so it's not compliant with that, but even if I hadn't I wouldn't have made it compliant, given my extremely mixed feelings about the entire DLC.

I'll be letting it rest for some time and draft something else before going back to it. In practice that'll be either the "I hurt N a lot" fic or the "Z hosts cutthroat kitchen" one. Languagefic, despite being much older than either of those ideas, apparently still needs time in the mental oven before I can knuckle down and actually write it (why do I keep insisting on writing slice of life, why do I do this to myself, I know I'm not good at it) and the FR rewrite... may or may not happen but I don't think I'm in the mood for that right now.

I'm leaning towards the cutthroat kitchen one. Despite being a more complex story (yes, there's a story to it) with a larger cast I have a clearer idea for how it'll go down.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I always felt that it was a bit... weird that they were all part blade? I guess you can say Origin Did It because who knows how any of that even works (good on the writers for not even trying to explain it, nothing good comes from explaining metaphysical tech mumbo jumbo of that degree too much lol). It just doesn't feel like it matches up with the state of Alrest, because we *know* the Intersection is not that long after the end of the first two games, certainly not long enough for everyone in Alrest to somehow be part blade.

Honestly I think a subplot like that was what the game earnestly needed. It gives a much needed character arc to Rex; hook into Vandham owning him in Uraya because he was reckless with Pyra's power and the whole "you gotta learn to be a responsible driver" and make him ACTUALLY learn something by digging into the way society expects blades to be, including Pyra even though she's definitely one of the self aware ones. It gives a coherent goal to Torna. It fleshes out what Amalthus was doing; I interpreted his cleansing thing as being the cause for "generic" blades and preventing them from developing into unique selves, which slots nicely into this. It lets you dig deeper into the nature of blades being influenced by their drivers, something that comes up and then never gets resolved or addressed arrrrghh why is this game like this it's so frustrating.

(I like xenoblade 2, I should say... I just wish it was BETTER. XD)

I Have Finished My Draft

Re: (This is gonna be a wholeass essay lmao)