#icynovas

i don't even go here and i'm swooning (also +a ship name)

Thane is basically what you’d get if Vincent stayed a Turk and was an alien. Kaidan’s basically an older version of Cloud, if the mako exposure was an accident.

...shit did you ever just realize something about why you ship a thing because lmao

requiemforarainbow replied to your post: “what if on one of his bad days, Kaidan had a horrible migraine and...”:

That is beautifully brilliant. *cries*

elimymoons replied to your post: “what if on one of his bad days, Kaidan had a horrible migraine and...”:

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Aw, thank you! <3 I always have a few FF7 ideas floating around in my head, but so far none I’m crazy enough about to start writing. A lot of my fics are spur of the moment things, though.

i swear no one treats cloud worse than cloud/tifa shippers

truer facts were never spoken

the worst thing is how oblivious they are to it

it never ceases to amaze me how much they lack in self-awareness. but this entire ship is based on willfully ignoring the actual version of events in favor of the delusional fantasy the game goes out of its way to debunk...i mean, that’s literally the plot lmao

but somehow they forget her even saying herself “yeah i thought it was kinda weird when he made me that promise bc we aint even know each other like that and yeah i knew he was in a bad way and lying but i enabled his delusions bc i was desperate and lonely”

i would have a lot more respect for this if i saw even 1 single person acknowledge that they would have to start from scratch instead of buying into the fantasy buuuuut

dandelionofthanatos replied to your post: “the no. 1 problem/fallacy I’ve seen in how fandom has treated cloud...”:

If Undercut Princess Soft Butch Tifa fell into Cloudy's psyche she'd cop to everything and look for memory Zack

dandelionofthanatos replied to your post: “the no. 1 problem/fallacy I’ve seen in how fandom has treated cloud...”:

I still like our alternative timeline canon thing where they were baby gays

yeah really

i mean i’ve always seen cloud as fundamentally bisexual but leaning really hard to the upper end of the kinsey scale and i can’t read what he went thru in nibelheim as anything but homophobic bullying

when i saw them standing next to each other for the first time i was like: sold. faved. subscribed. i never fell for a ship faster.

that was literally all i needed too

2: one of your favorite comments/reviews on this chapter/verse?

Years ago when I first read your fic (I think on Darknest of all places!) I was drawn in by the idea of a M/M/F ship, something I hadn’t really seen in my fandoms, especially not in WoW. I’d accepted sometimes stories don’t get finished so was disappointed this hadn’t, but moved on. Then this morning looking over Warcraft tags for the first time in ages I stumbled back into this fic. I’m glad you chose to keep writing it! WoW especially doesn’t seem to get many fics that have the decadence AND kindness you portray. Your fic makes me care for these characters in ways I didn’t before; I almost want to go back and adventure in Outland and feel a bit sorry for solo'ing all these bosses! So, thank you for continuing this when you can. I love the politics and the fashion porn and the pining and that it *isn’t* ridiculous sex every chapter, I love how even “random” demon NPCs are characterized, I really like how you handled Valas and Kael. Your writing is worth the wait.

HotP is my most commented on story (which isn’t saying a whole lot admittedly), and I really appreciate everything kind that people say but this comment on the last chapter really got to me.

First of all, just hearing that people had been rec’ing it in circles of fandom I never even ran in was enough to floor me. But also, the thing with WoW is that so many of the NPCs we encounter as players exist barely as a name, a model, and maybe some quest text if you’re lucky. 95% of the bosses have basically no lore and just exist to kill for loot. So part of the challenge in rewriting an entire expansion is taking what are tantamount to blank slates, making them three dimensional people that readers care about and get invested in. I mean, I had practice doing this with Final Fantasy fic even years before, but I fully credit my background in tabletop DMing for being able to do it. And being recognized for that really makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. “You made me care about these characters I didn’t before” is like the ultimate compliment to me because I try so hard to do it, because everything I write is so character driven.

Also, I felt really relieved that this reader specifically enjoyed the fact that it was an m/m/f triad at the heart of the story. As we all know slashfen have a tendency to get Weird when women are involved, and one of the reasons I started writing so much Kael/Illidan fic in the first place was because Vashj is so frequently marginalized in it and falls victim to the usual misogynist tropes in m/m fic, despite the fact that she is basically the lynchpin in their entire alliance and Kael and Illidan both literally owe her their lives, several times over. I say this a lot but HotP was never intended to be a massive rewrite of an expansion, just the story of how Kael and Illidan got together, but when it became clear that I had more to say and the story took on a life of its own, I knew she needed to be included in a fundamental way. And I was legit worried about losing readers who came into a fic thinking it would be Kael/Illidan only to start turning into Kael/Illidan/Vashj. A long, long time ago I had someone ream me for doing something similar with Rosa in a Kain/Cecil fic funny enough, so I’m…sensitive. And getting that positive feedback made me feel good.

35: any foreshadowing/symbolism you wrote that you hope readers didn’t miss?

There’s a bunch. I just hope I’m not being clunky about it. There’s a scene where Kael’s at the Sanctum of the Stars and Pathaleon is in the background examining some red crystals, which is meant to allude to the Hellfire Peninsula quest chain in BC with the colossi (the first time you “meet” Pathaleon in WoW). There’s also some intentional Luciferian symbolism going on with Kael, because I can’t help but insert esoteric symbolism. That specifically ties into just why Shahraz’s faction of demons broke away from the Legion and are loyal to Illidan, despite the shivarran in particular still being devout followers of Sargeras. (tl;dr: they believe Illidan is Sargeras’ true successor, and that Kil’jaeden is a usurper and a false prophet. the Legion loyal demons think the Illidari splinter sect are heretics. it’s fundamentally a religious conflict between the demons in Outland, no stupid retconning involving the Shrine of Lost Souls necessary).

38: do you title your chapters? what’s your favorite chapter title? what’s its significance/why did you choose it?

HotP is the only time I have, usually I stick with just numbering chapters because it’s hard enough for me coming up with one title. Like the FF4 WIP I have going is just numbered. For HotP I dunno, a few of them are song references (Depeche Mode, Queen, and the current chapter I’m editing is named for a Smashing Pumpkins lyric). One of the earliest chapters is a shoutout to the title of a mission in Warcraft III. In general I feel less weird/gimmicky doing this kind of thing with a Warcraft fic because Warcraft from the beginning has always made pop culture references like that, even in the RTS. I just hope I’m a bit more subtle than modern day WoW about it.

My favorite one so far is Beyond the Sea–another song reference, albeit quite a bit older than my usual 70s-90s frame of reference. Part of it is kind of a cheeky joke because that’s a Vashj-centric chapter, but the lyrics themselves are relevant to Vashj and Kael’s story and v. poignant in light of the inner conflict Vashj is going through, torn between loyalty to her (abusive) queen and her feelings for Kael and Illidan:

1) Ezio’s story should have ended with Brotherhood and we should have gone to Constantinople with another ancestor, preferably a Turkic one.

2) Desmond should never have been killed off like that because it destroyed the modern day story. Hell make it like Bioware and give us a chance to save him, and our choices are what determine his fate.

3) Instead of Unity we should have gotten a 1920s Prohibition-era NYC based game with the Harlem Renaissance being the centerpiece of the Brotherhood. Tammany Hall as the major Templar antagonists and machine politics being the focal point of a proxy conflict between them.

4) More Assassins of Color, in general. Aveline and Shao Jun should have been main series protagonists. We should have had a game with that Egyptian assassin who did the job on Cleopatra VII. And instead of Black Flag w Eddie we should have had Aveline and Connor as pirates and married