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the-insomniac-emporium · 3 years

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thoughts on Bela///Donna?

What a lovely can of worms you've placed in my inbox, dear nonnie. I cannot wait to open it and lose followers (regardless of what I actually say).

Since this is, uh, a subject of some debate among RE8 fans, I will be inputting my thoughts on the idea of the ship (and the possible controversy), as opposed to doing HCs or something for it (which I recognize might be what you were asking for, despite the excessive /s).

This is all based on my playthroughs of the game, as well as what I've managed to double check on the fandom/wiki for it. I know that a lot of people who read fanfic for the game haven't actually played it, likely having been lured in by Tall Vampire Milf, and so I hope that some people will be open to a reminder of, like, canon vs fanon? I've mentioned in a previous post that there's a lot of details for RE8 that are not made clear, and I feel the need to reiterate that in this post. Capcom left a lot of stuff up to people's imaginations, or kind of just hinted at in game or in concept art.

But more importantly, regardless of what game we're talking about, regardless of the conclusion I come to (and the one you come to) at the end of this post, I want to say that I absolutely understand the need/desire to have your own perspective/take on the characters from the game, as well as their dynamics. If a ship makes you uncomfortable because you see the characters as being family members, it's totally okay. Block the ship tag, or filter it out when you look through fandom stuff, don't follow people who post for it, etc, etc.

If you think of characters as being family-family (like, not just "we got married and are now a family" but, like, "we're siblings/parent and child") and still ship them? uh. sorry, bruv, maybe think of hitting that unfollow button. No, seriously, hit that unfollow button. This blog is anti-incest, thank you very much.

The last thing I'll say before putting it under a read-more (for both length and major RE8 spoilers) is that I recognize that I might have missed something, either in game or developers talking about things on social media, and so if you read through this and go "god, J, you're such a dumbass for forgetting *critical piece of media*" or even just "okay but have you seen *small but meaningful piece of media*?" please. Just. Please. Tell me. Link me to that shit. I WANT to know if I'm wrong. I've literally avoided talking about this for as long as I could in order to TRY and make sure I have all the context I need.

With that said, let's examine what context we are given for Alcina Dimitrescu, Bela Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, and their relations to each other. I will be leaving my personal thoughts on Bela///Donna at the very end of this, as somewhat of a conclusion, somewhat of just a "hey, this is what you technically asked me about".

Firstly, let me begin by explaining what I consider to be the 3 tiers of "canon"

In-Game/Direct: The highest, truest tier, the definitive canon. This is everything that takes place in game, excluding certain hallucination scenes (ex: Mia was not really in House Beneviento, but we can infer some things from what Donna made Ethan hallucinate about). Things either happen, or are directly stated by characters. There's some wiggle room for dialogue, as characters can lie, but overall we, as the audience, assume we are being told the truth. At the very least, games usually eventually make it clear when a character has been dishonest. Examples of Direct Canon include the following: Ethan is infected with the mold, Lady Dimitrescu drinks blood, Heisenberg wears sunglasses, Mother Miranda can shapeshift.

Concept Art/Developer's Notes/Indirect: Mid-tier and debatable, the "we think, but we're not sure" of canon. Resident Evil: Village contains lots of concept art that the players can browse through, all of which include notes from the developers about the game, characters, environments, and story. Sometimes the notes make something "direct", but oftentimes they do not specify whether the listed idea is still canon or if it was removed during development. This tier also includes information that is implied/can be inferred from tier 1 information, but is not directly stated. Examples of Indirect Canon include the following: Donna's mother died by suicide, Moreau was going to have his lover fused to his back, Duke was originally a fifth lord, Heisenberg was going to have a twin. As you can see, not all of the concept art ideas made it into the final version of the game, so it can be hard when some information seems like it might still be true (such as the matter of Donna's parents).

Fanon/"False": Sometimes collective ideas in a fandom become so widespread that people start interpreting them as actual canon. Sometimes it gets hard to remember what's just obscure lore and what's fanon. When we get a piece of fiction as overall vague as a lot of Resident Evil: Village is, there's bound to be some confusion over time. That's one of the main reasons I waited to talk about Bela////Donna until after I had recently replayed relevant sections of the game, as I wanted to remind myself of what we're actually told. Examples of False Canon are difficult to pinpoint, but might include things like: Hufflepuffs are good at finding things? The Avengers got along for awhile and all had their own rooms in the tower? There's a number scale for the danger level of ghosts in Danny Phantom?

For this post, I will be limiting the majority of my notes to the first two levels of canon, and will do my best to mark them as such. Now... let us... begin.

Alcina Dimitrescu:

Born no later than 1914, Alcina Dimitrescu was 44 years old when she was granted the Cadou by Mother Miranda. (1st Tier: Canon. Source: A note in the castle basement from a servant is dated 1958, and mentions both Alcina and her children. Secondly, Miranda's experiment notes state that Alcina was the 181st subject, and was given the Cadou at age 44. By doing math, we can then determine the earliest Alcina could have been born.)

Alcina refers to the other Lords as her family once without any disdain (when Ethan first arrives at the castle and is caught, Alcina says "you've escaped my little brother"). In a private journal (located near where she threw the infamous vanity) she insults the other Lords, and expresses anger that she is "treated like a sister to them". She argues with Heisenberg without any hesitation, and seems honest in her hatred of him (per Maggie Robertson's wunderbar performance). (1st Tier/2nd Tier: Canon with a sprinkle of interpretation for the last line)

Alcina openly refers to Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela as her daughters, and wrote in her experiment journal that she felt instantly connected to them (as mother and daughters). (1st Tier: Canon).

Bela Dimitrescu:

Likely born in the 1930's or 1940's, in order to be an adult by 1958 (the first dated appearance of the Dimitrescu daughters). (2nd Tier: Based on inference)

Dialogue shows that all three of the daughters do love their mother, and reinforces the bond Alcina's journal mentions. (1st Tier: Canon)

We are not given any information about how Bela feels about the other Lords, or even what she knows about them. Once can assume that she shares the ideas of her mother, either because Alcina tells her things directly, or because Bela (who is eager to please her mother) picks up on them over time. (2nd Tier: Based on inference)

Donna Beneviento:

No idea when she was born. If you've read one of my recent posts, then you know that it's almost entirely a matter of 2nd and 3rd tier canon.

Of the four lords, Donna seems to have the most story within the 2nd tier, and has very, very little in the 1st tier. Duke says she's somewhat isolated, and that her "playmates" never leave the house. Miranda's notes state that Donna is mentally ill, and the gardener's diary states/implies (bit of both) that Donna has severe social anxiety. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly canon)

Supposedly, her parents committed suicide while she was still a child. This is indicated in concept art/the attached developer's notes. However, the only part that's also directly stated in game is that her parents (specifically her father) died while she was young. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly canon)

While Donna only has one voice line in the game (and it's sad), Angie talks a fair bit. Angie seems to disapprove of the other Lords, or at the very least enjoys mocking them, as well as enjoys watching them fight with each other. As Angie is connected to Donna, and Donna has some level of control over her, one can assume that the two have similar (if not the same) opinions. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly Canon)

Donna was adopted by Mother Miranda as an adult. It's unclear exactly how old Donna was, or what exactly Miranda did as her "mother", just that Donna was excited about it. (1st Tier: Canon)

Other Relevant Information:

Heisenberg refers to the other Lords as his siblings a minimum of 1 time. Similarly to Alcina, however, he openly insults them and seems to hate them. He just, you know, hates Mother Miranda the most. (1st Tier: Canon)

Mother Miranda does not actually give a shit about the four Lords, intended for them to die before the ceremony, and has been manipulating them for her own gain this entire time. Her notes and dialogue make it clear that she only cares about getting Eva back. Somehow mother of the year and worst mother ever. At the same time. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly Canon)

It's unclear who treats Alcina "like a sister" to the other Lords. Were there cut lines of dialogue that cemented the idea of them being a "family"? Did Miranda call them a "family" as part of pretending she cared about them? I've done my best to dig around, but there's very little in game that treats them as a family of any sort.

As each Lord ruled their own section of the region, they don't have any mentions of interacting with each other outside of meetings with Mother Miranda. None of the notes for any Lord (and their relevant experiments) mention what the others are doing. In game, their environments are very separate, very well divided, though this is likely as much for gameplay as it is for story.

Conclusion:

I do not not believe there is enough in game evidence to suggest that Alcina and Donna consider themselves to be siblings. There's the possibility for a large age gap, Alcina was a fair bit older than Donna when she met Miranda, Donna is a social recluse whose closest bonds were with dead blood relatives and dolls, Alcina openly dislikes (if not hates) the other Lords, they seemingly lived very separate and distanced lives, and Mother Miranda does not enforce the idea of "family". Furthermore, the sheer contrast between how Alcina interacts with/speaks of the other Lords compared to how she interacts with/speaks of her daughters says a lot about her feelings. Even if Heisenberg takes the brunt of her anger, Alcina never once says anything remotely positive about anyone other than Miranda and her daughters.

As Alcina/Bela and Donna are not blood-relatives, the definition of what would count as "incest" does vary depending on who you ask. Personally, I do count non-blood relations as potentially incestuous. For example: Alcina "dating" one of her daughters would be incest, regardless of the fact that she's a mutated human and her daughters are weird swarms of flies.

Now, I do understand how popular the idea of the four Lords being a real, chaotic but still close family is. And as I mentioned above, it's totally valid to not like the Bela///Donna ship, whether it's because you think they're family or some other reason. I don't personally see them that way, even in my definitely-not-canon stories.

Do I personally ship Bela///Donna? Nope. Have I liked art for the ship? Admittedly yes, even if I thought some of it was, like, maiden x Bela because Donna didn't have her veil and I'm a DUMBASS who doesn't always remember to read tags. Would I ever write for it? Yeah, probably, assuming I didn't miss anything in game/that I don't eventually change my mind.

#*incredibly deep sigh*#*incoherent screaming*#it's 6 in the morning #i spent too long doing research #again feel free to send me links if you think I missed something #what do I even tag this as?#asks #anonymous #meta shit #i'm procrastinating on posting this because of anxiety #I'm worried 2 specific followers are going to unfollow me #and possibly one mutual #somebody just kill me already

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freddiekluger · 3 years

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Do you think that if the ghosts sees period dramas set in their time, it will reignite memories of their life?

i think it definitely depends on the accuracy and style of the drama- if they're too poorly researched, any attempts at reverie would be totally disrupted by the historical and visual inaccuracies (think: thomas yelling about the 'roccoco legs' during the byron shoot). of course the other big thing is setting: it's all well and good to watch to a movie set in your time period, but if it's based in a country you've never been to (especially for the older/less privileged ghosts like mary and robin, who probably didn't have much knowledge of the world outside of their continent when they were alive), it's not going to feel particularly familiar.

working on the assumption that we have at least partial historical and geographical accuracy, here's how i think each of the ghosts would respond to

robin: considering how little we actually know about early human history, i don't think robin would be that fussed by any attempt to put that on film- he'd still appreciate a good caveman joke, although he's not a big fan of how stupid every movie assumes they would have been (it's not like they had omega-3 tablets back then!). robin's unspeakably old, and for the most part he seems to have processed through all the parts of his past that he possibly can, and is now committed to enjoying his time at button house as much as he can (a big part of this is his prankster spirit and frankly underrated friendliness), so it would have to take a lot more than a stone age movie to rake up serious conflict.

mary: given her incredibly traumatic death, mary avoids virtually anything that hints of fire or witchcraft which is where things become difficult. i think mary could really enjoy a film set in her time if it follows a working family not dissimilar to her own- it could help her remember some of the positive things from her life, and probably help her feel a lot more seen as she often ends up misunderstood or ignored by the other ghosts (pat initially dismissing mary's advice about the camera work because he didn't think she properly understood what was happening; the ghosts focusing on correcting her speech more than what she actually says). the problem is, almost all movies set in mary's time that follow people from her class end up focusing on the witch trials, which is a BIG no no for her.

humphrey: i think humphrey could really enjoy watching some tudor set films. like mary, he often gets ignored (and straight up left behind), so watching a period film absolutely gives him the opportunity to feel a bit more seen and stew on those long forgotten memories like post-meal games of cards with friends, or the occasional hunting trip when the king came to visit (the trips themselves were more stressful than anything, but mouthing off about them with the king's entourage after he went to bed was always a highlight). humphrey would definitely have a keen eye for inaccuracies, but i don't think they'd bother him. it's just nice to have things be about him for a change (if by him, we mean having all the ghosts watching something that is vaguely related to his alive-period and actually looking to him with questions instead of just using his head as their personal football/security camera/magic 8ball).

kitty: kitty is one of the ghosts who accesses her memories pretty easily- she has no problem with thinking about her life, even when the anecdotes are screamingly sad to anyone listening. so a period film would naturally bring some memories, but i don't know if they'd be anything radical or new- kitty's real growth and drama would come from her leaving behind the rationalisations of what clearly was severe neglect. actually on that note, while not quite kitty's environment, i think she might get a lot out of Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. something about the themes of the loneliness that comes with growing up in high society and only being valued for what your status and your biology can give to your family and your husband (who you likely didn't choose), along with feeling like an outsider and being visibly othered, even by those you outrank, no matter how friendly and approachable and like them you make yourself (while not necessarily linked to the broader themes of familial neglect kitty's character touches on, i think her experiences as a georgian noblewoman of colour would have to have impacted her growing up and also socially- i'd love to hear any thoughts on this from fans of colour, as i'm white and so any theories i could come up with would likely be a poor approximation). and she'd definitely like the pretty dresses and stunning rooms of versailles, and for that i can't blame her.

thomas: most of thomas we sort of got to see in Free Pass- the detail nitpicking, the excitement until a specific trigger from his life (in this case, lord byron, the man thomas considers his greatest enemy, although i’d be curious to know whether byron acually had any idea of thomas thorne’s existence) causes him to go into a full thomas hissy-fit. sure, the emotion is real to him, but he absolutely plays it up, even trying to get humphrey’s body to fetch alison so she can see how ‘upset’ he is (thomas reminds me of a child in this respect). there’d probably be less of the tantruming for a movie that had already been made, although i’m not so sure about the memory point. The Thomas Thorne Affair sort of brought out thomas’s big Unresolved Life Mystery, and now i think all that’s left for him to work through has got to be a lot more internal. sure, he’d be reminded of a few good old parties, and maybe any romance scenes might trigger some of the sad isabelle/general lost love emotions, but i don’t think they’d be anything particularly spectacular.

fanny: now fanny would be a real stickler for accuracy. she would be calling out every makeup, decorative, hair, wardrobe, architectural, and lingual failure with the classic lady button judgement in her voice. this is probably half because she can't help herself, but half a measure to distract herself from actually having to pay proper attention and relive her life. i think fanny struggles a lot with no longer running her own household (along with the shifting morals, and fashions, of the modern world), and so to be reminded of everything she can no longer have would be tough. i'm not saying she would long for a time when women didn't have a lot of rights, but she went from a wealthy society woman who held a lot of power in her own sphere to a ghost, unable to touch anything or even be seen by the living (save for the photo glitch), and stuck spending her days with a motley crew of equally frustrating ghosts whom she doesn't always feel respected by (noting that 'respect' to fanny is much the same as deference). she could have it a lot worse, but i think fanny would much prefer to not have to think about her old life.

the captain: the captain is an interesting one. he's one of the few ghosts who actively seeks out media related to his time, although that's within the impersonal war documentary which focuses on facts and mechanics as opposed to day to day realities and feelings. on the one hand, any war film for the captain would be sure to rake up memories of wartime (even if he never made the front- that remains unconfirmed), and the immense grief that comes with watching the people around you slowly stop returning home. the captain is a war fanatic, and has no problem talking about the great battles, victories, and tactics, so i think the heightened emotional states that a film presents would be the key to unlocking the captain's inevitable wartime trauma and going beyond the surface level facts. for that reason, i'd really like the captain to see Peter Weir's Gallipoli. i know it's the wrong war and the wrong country (although the australian's were technically part of the British forces), but i think the overarching themes of the idolisation of the military, the deconstruction of the glory of war, and the intense (bordering on the homoerotic) although never quite realised relationship between Archy and Frank (which, spoiler alert, ends in tragedy), could give the captain a lot in terms of food for thought and unlocking some of those deeper experiences. on the other hand, the captain watching a period film set in the years before his war could be equally interesting- i think they'd play on some his is insecurities and general issues surrounding the difficulty he may have had fitting in with day-to-day life (not just due to his homosexuel répression, but due to his broader issues with fitting in socially which we see through his interactions with both the ghosts and his own forces- some particularly valid fans have used these to headcanon cap as autistic). in short, films would unlock a fair few memories for cap, but even more EMOTIONS.

pat: with pat and julian it gets interesting because while yes, technically any movie set in a non-current time period is a ‘period piece’, you also have to deal with the fact that they’re going to have less impact on their respective ghosts because you also have actual movies from those periods floating around. for this reason, my answers for pat and julian are relatively similar: they wouldnt have any more memories appear than for any film coming from while they were alive. for pat, this means he’d get pretty excited about ones that came from his childhood (pat would be a giant sci fi fan don’t @ me he loves technology), but i think anything that came with too strong a family attachmet, or that he watched in the weeks/months/year leading up to his death might bring out the angry pat we saw in Happy Death Day and Perfect Day. anger is how his inherent death trauma (and the additional loss that comes from the world moving on without you) manifests, so i definitely think that would come out here, even if he isn’t quite able to put his finger on why specific movies make him so angry/irritated. for pat, childhood memories would abound, but the closer we get to his death, there’s less memories but definitely more unresolved emotion.

julian: see my point above about the whole period-film-vs-regular-film thing. julian doesn’t really strike me as a movie person, and i definitely think he wouldn’t give much care to the influx of 80s/90s set british political media (think The Iron Lady etc). in his words, “i don’t really care for politics, and they’re all too busy trying to push their labor propaganda”. he just makes a captain-inspired noise when alison reminds him that he WAS a politician. julian is another character who accesses his memories pretty easily (although they’re usually either horny or at least slightly morally bankrupt), and i honestly find it hard to give a tory emotions so i’m very excited to see how the christmas special manages. julian is a self-centred bloke though, so i think only things that are directly about him could have the power to rake up buried memories and feelings. now i really want to see julian watching a documentary on himself and just getting outraged.

thanks for this one, sorry for the delay!!

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dr-thh-rewrite · 2 years

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this blog is primarily for rewriting Trigger Happy Havoc and i doubt i’d ever rewrite the other games (mainly because i think Goodbye Despair is already pretty well written and Killing Harmony is such a dumpster fire that i have no idea where i’d begin) but i wanna explain how i’d rewrite one of the trials in Goodbye Despair

specifically trial 3 (spoilers under the cut)

as we all know, the third trials across the Danganronpa games have a history of usually being the worst written ones, either because of the motive or just that there was no reason for a second character to be killed. Mikan’s trial is usually heralded as the worst of the chapter 3 trials (at least, from what i’ve seen) and while Mikan’s trial was actually the one i enjoyed the most from chapter 3 trials, i understand what people mean, so here’s what i think would make the trial run. better, i guess? or at least more believable

firstly - i wouldn’t have it that it’s Mikan who remembers who Junko is or who she was outside of the game. i would have it that it’s one of the original victims (namely Hiyoko) who is inflicted with the sickness in chapter 3 and remembers what everyone was like outside of the game. more specifically, that Mikan was one of the most loyal followers of Junko, which may lead to Hiyoko thinking that Mikan is the traitor Monokuma mentioned earlier in the game and would then try to kill Mikan as an attempt to keep everyone safe. this would end in Hiyoko attacking Mikan, but Mikan managing to kill her in self defense with no clue why Hiyoko attacked her as she has not been afflicted by the sickness.

as to why i specifically clarified i think it would be Hiyoko who attempted to kill Mikan as opposed to Ibuki, Ibuki doesn’t really seem like the type of person to do something like that, even after finding out about everyone’s past? however she does still die because while she isn’t a killer, she’s definitely a protector in my eyes, and walking on to the scene at the wrong time to see Mikan kill Hiyoko would definitely spur some panic, and with no promise that Ibuki would stay quiet about the whole situation, Mikan would be forced to kill her.

now Mikan is scared and confused, having just killed two of her friends, and no clue as to why Hiyoko attacked her in the first place and only having a hint that it��s connected to a “Junko” that she mentioned in her attack.

which leads to Mikan willingly being afflicted by the sickness in hopes she is able to remember whatever it was Hiyoko did, and she does. and instead of returning to her remnant of despair state she stays the same, only with the guilt of knowing why Hiyoko tried to kill her, and probably even letting herself think that Hiyoko was actually right to try. which would keep in the main theme that sticks out in Mikan’s trial - asking for forgiveness.

even outside of the trial, Mikan is constantly asking for forgiveness. when first introducing herself to Hajime, she makes what she considers a mistake and asks for him to forgive her in future encounters. Mikan would ask for forgiveness at the end of the trial like she does originally, however i think she would understand that she isn’t deserving of it, especially after remembering her involvement with Junko.

she would still be vague about Junko and Izuru because now she would at least partially know why everyone is on the island and wouldn’t want to spur a panic of telling everyone who those two are and why they are connected to them, most of all fearing the reaction from Hajime.

Mikan has always been one of my favorite characters in Danganronpa, even with how they treat her as. fan service. which sucks because she genuinely has a lot of potential that hopefully can be shown in how i’d rewrite the third trial

...and also possibly her execution (words cannot describe how much i fucking hate it) but that’s for another day

#danganronpa 2 #mikan tsumiki #again sorry for posting this on the assigned thh rewrite blog #but i wanted to get this out there #especially since it's still like #rewriting stuff

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neverlearnedtoread · 3 years

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Spin the Dawn

⭐⭐⭐⭐; me @ the main characters: so many things would work out if either one of you had a slightly more developed (emotionally, intelligently...) braincell....and one of you is FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OLD 😡🤬

Oh?? 👌😉😏

diversity!! richly described southeast asian inspired-setting. as a southeast asian myself im always into that sweet sweet asian-inspired worldbuilding

inspired by the myth of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl! at least, im pretty sure. the story itself uses a lot of other elements that don’t happen in the original story but i still got that vibe from the characters

i liked the main character, maia - she was a little feistier than she was cold hard BDE, but! she put her money where her mouth was when it came to a challenge, and worked hard for her victory

lots of weaving imagery, which i love - if you’re gonna have a protagonist who creates some kind of art, you better believe im expecting extensive metaphors and painstaking depictions of pouring your whole heart into something breathtakingly gorgeous, powerful enough to bring the masses to their knees

No.. ❌🤢🤮

male love interest is *hand-wavey motion* much older than the female protagonist, on account of him being a hot sexy immortal magic man. im not too annoyed by this, because the dynamic was relatively balanced in-story, but it does annoy me as a trope on its own merit. why does he need to be that much older, especially when he’s not that much more mature??

not necessarily a complaint, but an observation: some of maia’s decisions were very YA protagonist; as in, i needed her to stop using her emotions as an excuse. if you’re gonna do it for the sake of a good dicking down, at least admit it to yourself, woman! it’s okay to be H word. you and i both know you’re gunning for that ass. just stop lying to me

Summary: Maia, the lone girl in a family of three boisterous brotherss, is a talented seamstress poised with the skills and the drive to take over the family’s tailoring business. Only she possesses both the patience and the artistic flair for making the most beautiful of dresses - so when the imperial palace summons the greatest tailors in the kingdom to become the new empress’s official dressmaker, she disguises herself as a boy (Mulan-style!) to take her aging father’s place. After some Project Runway shenanigans, the emperor’s bride-to-be throws a perfectly staged curve ball on things - she refuses to accept the royal wedding unless her appointed tailor is good enough to complete an impossibly gruelling task - crafting three beautiful, handsewn, uniquely-designed dresses to serve as her wedding gift. Oh, and if that wasn’t a tall enough order for one lone (and relatively inexperienced) dressmaker - the dresses she has in mind are made from the laughter of sun, the tears of the moon, and the blood of the stars. So that’s fun.

Concept: 💭💭💭💭 The cover. The COVER. Whew!! I make no pretenses about being a shallow reader, and this cover hit. right. Her cover artist really doesn’t miss! The blues! The stance! The spinning golden thread! The blurb actually managed to curb my excitement somewhat because I can smell a protagonist-falls-in-love-with-someone-she-probably-shouldnt subplot like a freshly rotting carcass, but I took another look at the cover and thought, I’ve made worse decisions than this. I’ll read it for the weaving metaphors. No regrets.

Vague spoilers under the cut!

Execution: 💥💥💥💥 And the verdict is....no regrets! Guess I will continue to go on being helplessly shallow about beautiful book covers. I didn’t love this story, but it was a fun romp through a well-paced plot and a gorgeously detailed fantasy world (the moon, sun, and star imagery.....monkey brain says huhuhu sparkly things do bring joy and I believe that), so there was really nothing to hate. I’m not too desperate for the sequel (except that I really need to know if my babe Sarhai gets her happy ending) but I want to pick it up eventually!

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤ This book took me 3 days to finish this after taking two months (two attempts! why didn’t I just dnf..) to finish To Kill a Kingdom. It got me out of the bad reading slump so well, so fast! I really liked the writing style - the cadence rolled, instead of stabbed (insert bad weaving / sewing metaphor here). However, I really could’ve done without the rapidly intensifying no-braincell energy (NBE) of the two protagonists. While I’m in no way opposed to NBE, the fact is that the BDE wasn’t strong enough to justify the lack of thoughts - I kept thinking ‘where were the two of you when they were handing out the good braincells?? huh??? HUH????’. Love made them stupid but not more unhinged. *deep sigh* What a waste of a good simp

Favourite Moment: I have the distinct memory of Lady Sarhai stomping around the gardens with a handful of arrows and dead hawks (doves? she was trying to shoot the enchanter if i remember right. BDE honestly) and Lord Xina following after being a simp. maia did some shit too but i was paying more attention to the important stuff

Favourite Character: its a close match between Lady Sarhai and Lord Xina. Lord Xina only appeared like twice in this whole book but damnit im probably more invested in HIS love life than i am with maia’s. maia can figure her own shit out, she’s proved capable, but that Lord Xina dude willingly chose to simp for a highly pissed-off, hotheaded viper of a woman, and that can only mean one thing: he is a Man With Taste. we have no choice but to stan! plus in the narrative it’s pretty clear to me that Lady Sarhai and Lord Xina fully communicate their next moves (desperate, desperate moves on a sparse chessboard, bless their lovestruck souls) to each other before they pull anything. Sarhai’s next moves are calculated, and defiant, and Lord Xina plays his bad hand in a losing game with such precision. I just *clenches fist* we love open communication and clear co-conspirators in this house!!

#spin the dawn #elizabeth lim #books #book review #booklover #bookblr #reading #sorry this is a little late ive been vibing out

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queenofeden · 4 years

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okay so look, i wasn’t going to make a post about this because i genuinely didn’t think it was anything worth making a post about “publicly” but apparently some people disagree and i’m petty enough about this to not want there to be any confusion on where i stand.

i really enjoyed the new prologue update, and the changes made to the routes (minor ones, and i’ve only play tested nadia and julian so far to see them but they are there) to reflect them. i really enjoyed the last update they made to it as well. i always enjoyed the prologue, clearly it’s what got me into the game in the first place. i found it engaging and fun to play and i enjoyed the characters immediately off the bat.

however that prologue was written a long time ago. 2016 if i remember correctly, and a lot about the game has changed since then. the prologue, even up to yesterday, was still full of what i would consider hanging plot threads and characterizations that simply no longer reflected or suited the game that we have today. a game which i love very much and still actively enjoy the direction of.

i really want to thank @raquellle-arcana for their post on the matter (linked here) because it was the first one i saw that reflected my same excitement amidst and field of far more negative feedback, but especially for this quote,

“I love that they went back & changed it, like that to me, shows how much they still care, & that the creators genuinely want to improve & nurture their game”

this is what it comes down to for me. as a creative and a creator, i think it’s really important to be able to look at work u have made, work you’ve been proud of, and still acknowledge that it can be improved. this is not a published novel that lives in perpetuity, this is an interactive narrative game. as the narrative progresses and matures and expands, things that used to be priority no longer are and that is okay. looking back on where the characters and the story were based on the information given in the art book vs where they are now is fascinating to me, and i love seeing how the game has evolved and grown. i agree wholeheartedly that it does show a genuine love and care for the game on their part.

it shows that they want and continue to want the game to be relevant and enjoyable, that they want the “new” routes to have more substantial representation, that they wanted to integrate the new plot lines into the prologue in a way that made them make more sense as potential outcomes as opposed to “well they just had to make them different from the original 3″. i don’t know a single writer or artist or any creator that doesn’t look at their old works and wish that they could change things or, if they had known then what they know now, go back and adjust for it. the devs have the opportunity to do that, and i’m glad that they continue to take those opportunities to make their game, a living document if u will, the best version of itself that it can be.

(cut for length bc i continued to ramble and also potential spoilers for the new content)

i love that asra and mc’s relationship is well established now, i love that so much of the story and lore feels organically given and much more show and not tell. i love that asra’s characterization feels more consistent with how he is in his and other routes instead of the hinted but never actualized “ominous, dark, and vaguely spooky” angle (which don’t get me wrong, is a really valid and interesting version of asra that i do love to play with but tonally it just didn’t work with where he’s ended up now).

i love that julian is no longer so bent on a revenge angle that is never concluded in his route bc it was no longer relevant. i love that his background and involvement is more well integrated. even so far as his acknowledgement of malak, not as his magical familiar obviously, but just in that he’s clearly important to julian specifically. the wanted posters were one of the things i loved best about the first prologue update, just that little bit of information felt like the sun parting the clouds so far as world building and i’m glad that kind of thing was expanded upon even further with him.

i love that nadia’s motivations are much clearer, and that her characterization is much more in line with her morals given in the text. truly, i felt that she read as so much more competent in this newest version, something i never doubted about her, but really seeing it so early made a huge difference to me. i’ve always been a nadia main and i have loved her from the moment i set eyes on her, but i i’m well aware that many people do not feel that way and never get to her route where many of the criticisms no longer hold water. i’m hoping that this is no longer the case. it makes me happy to see her relationship with lucio cleared up, that thirst to prove herself is made very apparent, but at the same time so is her genuine compassion and kindness. the explicit statement that the masquerade is no longer a celebration hinging specifically on the murder of julian makes SUCH a big difference. nadia states over and over in her route that that is not the kind of ruler she wants to be so it’s lovely to see that reflected. she is a woman searching for the truth, no matter what it is, something that the high priestess would be proud of i think.

i could go through and itemize everything that i loved about what they’ve done, but we would be here for 12 hours and nobody wants to read a post that long, i know. to mobile users, i’m already sorry lmao.

but listen, much as i am excited about the new stuff and the updated stuff, i do understand being disappointed at things that have been taken out. i do, i really do. i also loved feeling julian up, but on the whole i also acknowledge that scene as deeply fanservice-y. that’s not a problem by any means, but it’s also something that i think shows the devs and their growth as writers to potentially be able to look back on that and say, “this was fun and we liked it but it doesn’t actually serve the story in an appropriate way anymore”. that takes a lot of maturity, and i think that maturity is reflected by the state of the prologue now. it feels much less at times like a “silly, horny otome game” and more like a proper visual novel with a lot of meat to it. and there’s still plenty of room for the fun horny stuff. it’s littered throughout the routes and not at all absent in the prologue, just, i think, integrated in a far more natural, gracious way.

i felt, on the whole, at least so far as my MC’s personal characterization, that in the old prologue i was much more wont to pick paid scenes bc i had bought them and i wanted to see them over whether they actually made sense narratively in my version of the story, or whether my apprentice would actually do them. i didn’t feel that conflict anymore, anything i wanted to do, i felt i was able to do and with a level of choice i was comfortable with. not only did the canon characters feel more “in character” now, but i would argue that MC feels more like a real character far more quickly than they used to.

i’m sorry to the people who feel disappointed by the new updates, or that in some way the game has been “ruined” for u. your opinions are yours, and your decisions with what to do next are your prerogative. media consumption and how someone interacts with it is a deeply personal thing. i only wanted to speak my mind and make this post if only because these attitudes were all i was seeing, and i was suddenly inundated by the negative reaction and it was upsetting to me. it made me angry. i’m still a little angry, and i could certainly cite and quote a bunch of the nonsense i’ve seen spouted off in just the last few hours alone but honestly, i’m too tired for it and i’m liable to get catty and petty.

what it comes down to is this, the new update made me excited about the game again, it made me want to replay everything with fresh eyes, it made me want to dig my fingers into the lore again, it made me want to talk and play and enjoy canon for what it is after being very much more consumed with aus lately. i want to openly thank NH and @thearcanagame for continuing to make a game that is fun to play, a story that is engaging and keeps me on my toes, and for sharing something that they’re clearly proud of and want to continue to be proud of. that level of responsibility and dedication to their work is inspiring to me as a creator and as a fan, and it makes me proud to be even a tangential part of the whole of it. i hope that over the months and years, the game continues to update and improve and build upon itself, even if for whatever reason i’m no longer around to see it.

#arcana blogging #that's that on that i'm not here to play disc horse with y'all #grandma is tired go back to ur salt mines kids

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ihaveatheoryonthat · 6 years

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Some Time to Think it Over

Warnings: Hellbent spoilers, but that’s about it.

Arthur woke up in the back of a semi-truck.

Normally, that would be bad news, but he had the distinct impression he’d narrowly escaped something worse. For several foggy seconds, he watched as the shadows playing over the sides of the trailer shifted and tried to make sense of anything that was going on.

The truck seemed as good a place to start as any. He didn’t remember working on any semis recently, let alone have any business in the back of one. His head throbbed and he moved to investigate, but only one hand responded; he gave the prosthetic a flat look. So they were playing that game. What was it this time? Mechanical failure? Electronic?

The light source abruptly stopped and moved the other way and, startled, Arthur whirled around to keep it in front of himself.

Oh shit. The ghost. It had caught up to them, hadn’t it?

It didn’t seem to notice his return to the waking world, re-tracing its path along the length of the truck like nothing had changed. As it drew nearer Arthur could make out a steady stream of vocalizations, and even though he could pick out the occasional bit of English mixed in, it was too inconsistent to make any words out—too fast, too indistinct, switching rapidly between languages that Arthur could almost recognize and something that sent a thrill of fear down his spine.

He took several instinctive steps backwards as its path brought it just a little too close, until his back hit the other side of the trailer. It… didn’t look like it had calmed down since the last time he’d seen it; while it wasn’t exactly obliterating its own haunt this time, flames spat fitfully from its shoulders, warding away even the smaller ghosts that seemed to follow it. Its free hand balled into a fist and, haltingly, creaked open—it didn’t even uncurl its fingers all the way before clenching it again.

Arthur’s eyes flicked toward the trailer’s door—the shutter wasn’t fully drawn. It would make for a loud escape, but an easy one. If he waited until it was at the very front, he might have enough of a head-start to—

The ghost turned on its heel; its followers hastily moved out of its way, and then made to keep trailing after it.

Inexplicably, Arthur’s nerveless fingers itched to reach for it. Where the urge came from, he didn’t know and he didn’t care. He was almost glad his prosthetic was malfunctioning, just because it meant he was only half as likely act on the impulse.

A wordless growl escaped the ghost’s nonexistent throat, underlying its frantic muttering for half a second. If the situation had been more appropriate, Arthur might have wondered how that worked, even for a paranormal being, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the flame-wreathed hand that flew to its skull.

Just for a moment, the sight of its open palm made the world fall out from under him.

He—he really had to get out of here. The sheer amount of fire in this truck was a hazard, never mind the fact that it was responding to an emotionally unstable ghost. His first—only—plan had been a good one. He should just run with it. Literally.

His feet didn’t obey. He made it two steps away from the wall, but the instant he made to turn, it was like he’d been weighed down—like he didn’t just have one useless limb, but three.

(And for the second time in his life, his arm betrayed him.)

When the ghost’s path brought it nearest, Arthur’s prosthetic shot out towards it. He only grazed its sleeve before one of the followers snapped at him, but it was enough. He could actually feel the spark that trailed up from his metal fingers, shocking the sense back into him.

He remembered.

The ghost—Lewis—didn’t respond at all, dark eyes unfocused, hair spitting embers whilst he spat furious Spanish to nobody in particular.

If the ghost was really Lewis (he remembered. He remembered kicking at thin air, desperate to find purchase wherever he could. His arm moving so agonizingly slowly, a burst of flame that left something more than ash in its wake.) then—then he had died. And he had tried to—tried to—

‘Tried to scare him’, said some little liar in Arthur’s head, and for now, he chose to believe it.

The cave was gone. The stalagmites were gone. Right now, there was a truck, empty save for Arthur, his best friend, and a handful of anxious ghosts. He’d been searching for months. Now, when he had the answers right in front of him… there were more important things to do than remember— (oh god, he was going to fall. He was going to die here).

He forcibly pushed the thought away. Not now. Soon, maybe, but not now.

“L-Lewis?”

It was impossible to miss the way the hand still clutching at Lewis’s skull shook; he snarled something incomprehensible and oh-so-wrong to Arthur’s human ears, but it wasn’t a response. He only noticed because he’d been looking for any indication that Lewis had heard him, but almost as soon as the outburst died down, it was succeeded by something that might have been a whimper.

“Lewis! C’mon, can you hear me? Look at me!”

He froze in midair, though his hands still visibly trembled, and whipped his skull around to look at Arthur. Pinpricks of light bored into him, so small that he’d almost assumed the eyes trained on his were empty.

Arthur took a deep breath and acknowledged the fact that, yes, this was the same ghost that had made three separate attempts on his life, but he couldn’t let that scare him away. Something was obviously wrong—even ignoring the fact that the Lewis he knew would never entertain the idea of hurting someone, there was still the undeniably distressed behavior. He had to be missing something here.

They stared at one another for half a second before Lewis barked something at him. The meaning was clear, and, between the otherworldly language Lewis had said it in and the tone he’d used, part of Arthur really did want to make a break for it. He could feel his legs wobble, but stood his ground.

Eye sockets narrowed at him and, in the exact same tones, Lewis bellowed, “Leave!”

It was almost enough to make Arthur obey, in spite of his conviction. Though his voice was still distorted, it was recognizable—and in English, colored with such alien hostility, recognizable and uncanny. That wasn’t how Lewis spoke or acted. Arthur had never—

...no. He had heard that timbre before, just once. They'd been running from a pack of something that weren't dogs, and Arthur had been cornered. Up until just a second ago, he hadn't been sure whether Lewis's intention had been to scare the not-dogs off or draw their attention, but now he knew. If the creatures had been there with them, he was certain they'd have fled towards the gap in the door.

He wasn’t sure why, exactly, but the thought was encouraging. There was still someone vaguely recognizable in there. He took a tentative step forward.

Lewis backed off.

“Lewis, wait. C’mon…”

“What are you doing? Nothing happened! Just go!”

He spared a thought for the odd claim and then took another step, to the same response. Lewis let go of his skull to wrap the arm around himself instead. Any other time, Arthur would have taken the hint and let the topic die, but today he couldn’t do that.

“There’s nothing for you here! Leave me alone!”

“There’s nothing…? You don’t actually expect me to buy that, do you?”

“I don’t know.” Lewis snapped, “I don’t know what I’m—what you’re—“ He broke the sentence off with a frustrated grunt and shifted his stance again, moving to feel blindly for the semi’s front wall.

As soon as he processed it, Arthur lunged, catching him around the wrist before he could escape.

He expected resistance. He did not expect Lewis to stumble the rest of the way backwards, or to start trembling so badly that it alone nearly shook Arthur’s mechanical grip. Out of desperation, Lewis yanked his arm upwards, over Arthur’s head, and managed to lift him up off the ground instead.

The instant his feet left the truck bed, Arthur felt himself go limp. His gaze immediately dropped, searching for the spikes below. Metal met him instead, less than a foot down from where he was hanging in the air.

Right. Right. He was the one keeping himself aloft this time. Even if he let go and fell, worst case scenario, all he’d do was land on his ass. Didn’t mean he was looking forward to it, but it wasn’t exactly fatal.

He took a deep breath and looked up, where his best friend flinched away from his attention. Lewis gave his arm a pitiful—though, admittedly, deliberate this time—shake and made a futile attempt to slink further away.

Earlier, as he stalked up and down the truck, it had been impossible to tell whether he was angry or scared. His behavior since had indicated the latter more than the former, but until Arthur had seen his face—not just the skull—he hadn’t realized just how far the balance tilted.

Lewis looked utterly terror-stricken.

Without a thought for what he was doing, Arthur reached out in a gesture of support.

With a half-strangled sob of “No!” Lewis dropped his arm, landing Arthur—as predicted—right on his ass. In spite of Lewis’s ability to defy gravity, Arthur somehow managed to drag the both of them down, and the strange new vantage point gave him a very brief look at something stony grey and deeply cracked. Whatever it was, when Lewis righted himself, he deliberately angled it away, never once tearing his gaze from Arthur’s prosthetic.

He tried to pull away again, but it was different this time—not the desperate bid for freedom from before, or even to test Arthur’s grip. It was almost like he’d made to move it and just forgotten he couldn’t, which made absolutely no sense, because…

Actually, now that he thought about it, the whole time, every shift in body language he’d watched had been the work on one arm. He hadn’t even noticed that the other stayed stubbornly tucked against Lewis’s chest. If he’d been so violently opposed to being touched, why hadn’t he just used his free hand to pry Arthur off?

It was almost silly to ask—the answer had almost literally been dropped in his lap. Lewis was holding onto something, trying to protect it.

He didn’t think he’d be able to get an answer from Lewis; apart from somehow keeping him from leaving, Arthur was in no position to force a reality warping ghost’s hand. That was okay. It only took a few seconds to narrow it down.

The grey lump he’d gotten an eyeful of had once been a little golden heart.

There was no world in which that could be a change for the better.

But realistically, there was no way Arthur could do anything about it. Not right now, when Lewis was defending it so vehemently. It… would be okay, right? It had broken before, and been mended, hadn’t it? He felt certain that it had thrummed gold in the phantom cave, but doubt lurked just below the surface. He’d had only a second to process what was happening between being grabbed and dangled over the side of a cliff—and, while it was infinitely more pleasant to try to focus on the heart, that wasn’t where his attention had been at the time.

He shuddered and tried to move on for the time being. It was all too recent for him to process, and too much for Lewis to handle at the moment. The problem would either correct itself, or keep until it could be addressed.

Somehow, he wasn’t quite able to believe the liar that had taken up residence in his head on that one.

A sharp and wholly unnecessary breath next to him alerted Arthur to the fact that, during his brief venture back to the stone outcropping, he’d subconsciously grasped for whatever he could reach. Which would still be Lewis. He turned his attention back to his friend’s face, worried for what he’d just caused. It was bizarre, but he looked… less freaked out now? His eyes were still trained on Arthur’s hand, but the one laying on top of the prosthetic rather than the metal fingers that were visible beneath it.

Arthur made to move it away but, at the last second, curled it around Lewis’s instead, the same way he used to lead him around town, even after Lewis had learned the way for himself. It was trickier now— it had been ever since Lewis had finally hit his growth spurt— and awkward against the grip on his wrist, but, in some small way, it made Arthur feel better about what was going on.

Lewis’s fingers twitched, the same as he’d absently tried to pull his arm away before. Like he was reminding himself not to do something instinctive.

“No,” He hissed to himself, and Arthur didn’t know whether to look him the eye or keep his attention where it was as the larger hand grasped back, “No, it’s wrong. I can’t.”

When he risked a glance upwards, Lewis’s eyes were distant and unfocused, betraying the fact that, mentally, he was somewhere else. Awkwardly, Arthur dropped his gaze again, staring at the pitch black hand that enveloped his. He had a feeling he knew what that had been about.

And… and if he was right, that meant there was hope. The Lewis he knew would never have taken things to these extremes under normal circumstances. If the memory of the monster-dogs and the uncharacteristic behavior they had brought out proved one thing, it was that Lewis was prone to lashing out under certain circumstances. He’d been angry, he’d been—

He’d been scared.

Arthur stared hard at their hands. He would fix this, but he had to understand what was happening, what had happened in their time apart.

He felt a lump rise in his throat. Of course it came down to that.

If he wanted to end this, he had to know what had happened the night Lewis disappeared. The night that—

“Nothing happened!”

“There’s nothing for you here!”

“I don’t know.”

His mouth went dry as something occurred to him. Arthur could only remember bits and pieces of the night he’d lost his arm, Vivi didn’t remember anything about that night, or anything about Lewis.

And Lewis…

“Do—do you know who I am?”

Lewis paused and, slowly, moved to look Arthur in the eye for the first time since his name had been called. He seemed to have a bit of his metaphorical fire back, and Arthur wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

The silence lasted long enough that Arthur felt he had his answer, whether Lewis said anything or not.

“A murderer.”

He almost didn’t notice the response he actually got, and when he did, his attention was stolen away. Buried deep beneath the accusation, more of a question than anything, Arthur heard just a whisper of his name.

He swallowed. “And—do you know who…”

Arthur trailed off, derailed by a wave of heat rushing over his hand and the plume of fire that accompanied it, nearly blinding in the darkness that the trailer had lapsed into. The hand folded over his clamped down and dragged him upright as Lewis straightened up to his full height.

Even though he was standing under his own power, Arthur’s pulse raced.

Lewis looked down his nose at Arthur and grimaced.

“A murderer.”

The fire didn’t hurt, some small part of his brain told him. It was a distant realization, and Arthur could only hope it didn’t come from the beguiling little voice he’d already bought into. The rest of him screamed to act on basic instinct and get away.

Almost clumsily, Lewis let go of the heart at his lapel and raised his hand beneath Arthur’s chin.

Arthur had expected more fire. From the look on his face, so had Lewis.

The grey lump gave a fitful shudder, purple sparks jumping between the cracks, and Lewis’s entire form sagged. He withdrew his arm and lethargically moved to cover the fluttering heart, doing little to properly conceal it.

It crackled again, and he closed his eyes, turning away.

“Why did you kill me?”

Somewhere, far away even as it seared Arthur’s eardrums, a gunshot echoed into the night.

#mystery skulls #ihaveatheoryonthat MSA #fanfic

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thelunarbond · 5 years

Text

OC Questions with Phoenix

Questions taken from this post! Sorry if there are any typos, this was super long and I’m tired lmao

1) Their age?

2) Their sexuality/sexual preference?

He struggled with it for a while, but now he’s openly pansexual. Anyone who’s nice to him for a while he’ll become attracted to

3) Any siblings?

Phoenix has a little brother called Baxter! Baxter is 12 years old. They have a great sibling relationship; they trust each other and always look out for one another

4) Their favourite season?

Autumn/Winter. He hates being too hot and sweating, and he loves wearing sweaters cuz he’s insecure about his arms

5) Who were/are their parents/guardians?

His parents were an artist and a musician, but they both died when he was 8-9 years old. His foster parents do not get along with him at all and they have arguments on the daily. Since joining the Lunar Bond, Phoenix lives with the other members and doesn’t visit them at all; he only sees his brother outside of the house

6) Their gender?

Cis male

7) Their date of birth?

3rd September! (side note; I always do a drawing for his birthday, I’ll be sure to post it here this year!)

8) What clothing style?

He prioritises being comfy over everything else. He always wears a pair of ripped black skinny jeans and old, beaten up sneakers. He’ll often wear a long sleeved t-shirt or an oversized hoodie/sweater; the biggest one he owns goes down to his knees! He’ll also sometimes wear earrings (he has a cartilage piercing and both lobes pierced). He’ll never wear anything in public that shows off his arms or legs

9) What is their favourite food after a break up?

No food. He doesn’t eat. He might drink some water if he gets a headache from thirst. And he’ll spend the rest of the time crying or sleeping. He’s melodramatic help him

10) Their favourite thing to do after a break up?

As mentioned earlier, crying and sleeping. Also listening to sad music. Help him please I’m begging

11) What happens in “the honeymoon phase” for this character?

He’s constantly buying gifts. And wants to see them every day. He becomes incredibly clingy and can sometimes get jealous. He’ll basically do anything for his S/O. He’ll turn up unannounced on their doorstep with flowers. Nobody in the Lunar Bond expects him to be like this at all, as his initial personality is so cold. However he is the most romantic person in the Lunar Bond by a long shot

12) How many serious relationships have they been in?

Three; one when he was 14-16, one from when he was 16-17 and one from recently to present day 👀

13) What is their nationality?

The Lunar Bond universe is set in a world different from our own, so I’ll just write the equivalent nationality. He’s white British

14) What languages do they speak?

He really wants to learn a language, however at the moment he only speaks English

15) What is their profession/education?

He’s currently a NEET. He dropped out of school due to anxiety and doesn’t have a job because he recently moved to the city and is too afraid to apply. In school, he did exceptionally well; he’s incredibly clever and always got straight A’s in all his classes. Perhaps when he comes out of his shell a little he’ll get a job doing something he loves

16) Their favourite comfort food?

Soup. Especially chicken noodle soup, as his mother used to make it for him. He’ll always have a bowl of soup if he’s feeling down

17) What is a food they hate?

Not a food, but he can’t stand coffee. He absolutely hates the bitter taste and can’t drink it because the caffeine makes him jittery

18) Their music taste?

Anything. His phone has all kinds of music, from contemporary pop to rock to classical to jazz. His father being a musician really helped him open his eyes to a broad range of music. The only kind of music he won’t listen to is screamo, as it’s too “noisy”. He has a preference towards calm songs as they help him feel relaxed, but he’ll listen to anything

19) Is there a story behind their name/meaning?

(For this question, I’ll write about the process of naming Phoenix!)

Originally, Phoenix’s name came from a name generator. I was struggling to find a name suitable for my main character that wasn’t too safe but also wasn’t too wacky and wild to the point where it wasn’t realistic, and it also had to suit the character. Once I saw the name Phoenix I just knew it fit him perfectly. At the start of the Lunar Bond story, he feels like he doesn’t suit his name; a Phoenix is fiery and always comes back after death and he feels that he is none of those things. However as the story progresses, Phoenix always rises back up after being knocked down. And as he opens up to his new friends, he becomes passionate and fiery about keeping them safe and close to him. He grows in the story to suit his name; he rises back up after every failure, and has the fire in his heart to protect those close to him

20) Something they do that seems childish to others?

He frequently gets lost in make believe worlds in his head. These mostly come from books he’s been reading, as he loves adventure and fantasy books. He’ll zone out for 30-90 minutes and daydream about being a part of a fantasy world; some people around him think that it’s childish as he’s not grounded in reality

21) What is their all time favourite TV show?

He doesn’t watch TV. At all. He didn’t really watch TV when he was younger either. He plays video games occasionally, but he mainly reads books or watches films

22) What is their all time favourite movie?

(I’ll write the real-world equivalent of Phoenix’s favourite films here!)

It changes depending on his mood. Hes indecisive and can’t choose a favourite. If he wants to relax, he likes animated films like Kiki’s Delivery Service. He also likes superhero movies like The Avengers. He also likes classics like The Shining.

23) How big is their family?

Incredibly small. His only blood relative he has left is his brother Baxter. Both his parents were only children, so he doesn’t have any aunts, uncles or cousins. Both his sets of grandparents died when he was very young

24) Are they close to anyone specific in their family?

As his only remaining blood relative, Phoenix is very close to Baxter. They tell each other everything and not a day goes by where they don’t talk to each other, at least on the phone or through texts. For the majority of his life, Baxter saw Phoenix as more of a parent figure as oppose to a brother as Phoenix would always look after him. Baxter also doesn’t remember his parents so relies on Phoenix to tell him about them and what they were like

25) Have they got any allergies?

Not in terms of food, but his skin is incredibly sensitive. He can’t use products that are too scented or he’ll get a rash. He also can’t use aftershave for the same reason, so he’s stuck using the same soaps that he knows for a fact won’t irritate his skin

26) Are they an emotional person?

Yes. He’s incredibly emotional. However, he won’t let it show in front of other people. To people who don’t know him well, Phoenix is cold, stoic and sharp tongued, and pushes away those who try and get close to him. He’s terrified of getting hurt, so he doesn’t allow people near him. On the inside, Phoenix is lonely and begging for someone to support him. When he’s alone, he lets out all of his emotions. He’ll punch a pillow if he’s angry, he’ll cry himself to sleep if he’s sad, he’ll giggle like a schoolboy if he’s happy. There’s only one person who can see straight through him... 👀

27) Do they get angry/lose their temper quickly?

He doesn’t get angry easily, but he’s easily irritated. He will never yell at someone or start an argument unless they’ve really touched a nerve. He will never start a physical fight with someone either. His anxiety makes him easily irritable, so he might tell someone sternly to leave him alone but that’s about as far as it goes the majority of the time

28) What are some of their guilty pleasures?

Animated films, and when he was a kid he was secretly into musical films aimed predominately at young girls (e.g. High School Musical). He still knows all the words to the songs to this day

29) Do they have pets? Do they want pets?

Phoenix hasn’t had a pet since he had a hamster when he was 5. When he moves into his own house he’d absolutely love to have a cat. Or 2. Or 5. He loves cats! He can’t have one right now though because Chase is allergic

30) Do they like kids? Do they want kids/have kids?

He doesn’t mind children. He doesn’t love them or hate them. He’s very good at looking after children/babysitting because he looked after Baxter for so long. However he doesn’t want his own children because he would worry about them all the time

31) Who’s cuddle buddy are they?

Spoilers 🤐 🤐 🤐

32) Do they have any tattoos?

No. He’s terrified of needles so he’s never getting a tattoo

33) Do they have any piercings?

Only the ear piercings I mentioned earlier!

34) What is their hair colour? Is this their natural colour?

Phoenix’s hair is a light-ish brown colour, which is his natural colour. Minami is desperate to dye his hair but he always says no

35) Do they like musicals?

Other than the teen musicals he watched in secret as a kid? Sure! He has to be in the right mood to watch a musical though. He only watches musicals that are made into films; he’d be way too intimidated to go and watch one on stage

36) Do they like marmite?

He tolerates it. He doesn’t love it or hate it. He’ll eat it if it’s there but he won’t go and buy a jar of it

37) Do they like glitter?

Not really. He thinks it’s too messy and he likes to keep stuff tidy. He’s let Minami put glitter on his face before though

38) Do they believe in the supernatural?

Phoenix is the kind of person to be totally sceptical of supernatural stuff, but then the minute something vaguely spooky happens he’ll freak out and run away

39) Have they ever seen a dead body?

Yes. Wont go into details because spoilers 🤐 🤐 🤐

40) Have they ever had a near death experience?

Being a member of the Lunar Bond is a constant near death experience

41) Have they ever broken a bone?

Yes. As a kid he broke his leg while climbing a tree in the forest. The worst part was that because he was alone and didn’t have a phone, he was found 2 and a half hours later by his mother as she was wondering where he was

42) What are they like when they’re drunk/what kind of drunk are they?

An overly emotional drunk. All his feelings come spilling out everywhere and he’ll be crying or laughing hysterically or yelling. If he has an S/O he’ll become even more clingy than he is usually

43) Did they ever get drunk while underage?

Yes. He got drunk with his ex-boyfriend when he was 15. Nothing too bad happened; he just ended up spending 3 hours telling said ex-boyfriend how much he loves him. Technically in some countries he’s still underage (however the drinking age where he lives is 18 so it’s all good!)

44) What is the first thing they do when they wake up?

He checks the time on his phone so he knows what day it is and what time it is, as he’s been known to spend a long time sleeping. He’ll then make himself some tea

45) Do they consider themselves to be popular?

Absolutely not. Phoenix spends a lot of time worrying that his new friends in the Lunar Bond don’t actually like him, and that they’re being nice because they feel like they have to be nice to their teammate. Among the members of the Lunar Bond, he’s actually fairly popular and thought of highly; but he’ll never believe them if they say that to his face

46) How do they like their tea/coffee?

Tea: Depends on the type. He’ll drink loose leaf teas slightly weaker as they have a stronger flavour, so brewing time is lessened. He drinks green tea fairly strong. Some teas such as vanilla rooibos he’ll drink black, but other teas such as Lady Grey he’ll add some milk. Some teas such as Lapsang Souchong he’ll drink weaker with a little sugar

Coffee: In the trash. Where it belongs. At least in his opinion

47) What do they smell like?

Lemon and tea tree body wash, as that’s the only one he likes that doesn’t irritate his skin. Also second hand books

48) Are they a virgin?

No, but don’t tell him I told you that

49) Do they wear glasses/contacts?

He needs reading glasses as he’s slightly long sighted, but it’s not so bad that he has to wear them all the time. He wears them fairly often as he’s nearly always reading, and he just forgets to take them off

50) Are they good at remembering significant dates, such as birthdays or anniversaries?

Yes. He doesn’t even need to write them down. He remembers dates from weird things, such as when he got his new glasses or when he got his ears pierced. He never forgets a birthday or anniversary and always buys gifts far ahead of time

#I ANSWERED ALL OF THEM HOLY SHIT #wasnt expecting that #oc questions #oc answers #lunar bond #long post

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zydrateacademy · 6 years

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Review - Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

Some of my readers may recall that I found Origins to be lackluster, or at least my review gave off that impression. I believe one of my quotes was, “An extra year of work and this is all they could come up with?” I’m going to be honest, while I did have a good couple dozen hours on Origins I feel that kind of opinion was premature. I actually found Origins to be quite fun, and I would go on to play and beat it up to three times, including a full playthrough on my YouTube channel. Origins was fine and the combat was fun. Odyssey comes to us with a lot of the same ‘feel’. The combat is largely the same but with some tweaks, and I’ll get onto that shortly. I do have some vague gripes but I’ll attempt to salvage what little I know of the game’s story to start people off with.

Also, there will be spoilers in this review. We return to Layla Hassan, the vaguely ‘rogue’ Abstergo employee that found Bayek and Aya in the previous game. Apparently there was a bit of a timeskip or there’s even more lore I’ve lost out on not reading the comics, because there’s some implication that she went full on rogue and is in hiding from Abstergo, now. I’m not even really sure what her motivations are anymore other than a more classic artifact hunt, from the precursor race that has haunted the series. She finds the spear of Leonidas which has the DNA of two siblings, which she can use to hunt through their memories due to an upgraded Animus, as opposed to digging through one’s own ancestors. I still find it a bit odd. In the first couple of AC games, it was implied that the precursor race and their technology was a mostly recent find and the two secret societies were practically scrambling just to get their hands on one. Here in Odyssey, we’re practically tripping over them. The main antagonists have one that is some kind of mind-reader. The spear of Leonidas turns out to be one. There’s a series of mini quests where you find a half-dozen “Apples of Eden”. Remember that? From The first three games? The entire plot centered around one, and now we get several! So we’re put in the bodies of one of two protagonists, Kassandra or Alexios. Most sources I spoke to have chosen Kassandra, and there’s some consensus that her voice acting is stronger. I admit my choice is a bit more personal. I, like many people, are starved for proper female protagonists. Evie in Syndicate was plenty of fun but the game still forced Jacob gameplay on you from time to time. Playing as Aya in Origins was mostly a gimmick, only in naval combat (a precursor to Odyssey’s current style) and during some of the finale segments. She wasn’t customizeable, couldn’t change her gear or anything so again, mostly a gimmick. Yikes, this is a lot of negative for what is really a good game! Maybe I’m getting it out of the way? I did say there are several improvements, so let’s get down to the mechanics of the game. There’s a lot of them, now.

The combat is a lot more fluid and reminds me of the days in Unity where you actually had to think about how you fought. In Origins, I basically dodged everything and used the heavy attacks exclusively. That’s been tweaked here, as I feel Kassandra’s dodge is a bit shorter range and the full on dodge puts her much further away from the enemy that is desirable so you must decide what kind of dodge to use and when, but mostly it forces you to learn how to actually parry. Parrying has been in pretty much every AC game but this time it actually opens enemies up for combo attacks, wherein you can mix and match light and heavy attacks, and there’s eventually a perk to pick up to give you bonus damage if you do exactly that.

You have three kinds of damage trees you can actively focus on this time around. Between Hunter, Warrior, and Assassin, which are all self explanatory. Rather than keeping them all even, you can actually choose to focus on one style over another. I am personally trying to keep my Assassin and Warrior lines fairly even. Stealth is, as in Origins, incredibly powerful but you won’t be able to one-shot enemies anymore if you are under geared or have been neglecting your spear (which is your blade in the absence of the hidden one). Open combat is however, extremely common so I can’t imagine going full Assassin and being able to get much done. Maybe by better gamers than I. Moving on, the world is... extremely large. I’m not sure how much larger than previous games they’ve claimed but it’s probably true. Adding to that fact is Fast Travel is only linked to Synchronization points rather than any and every city or major outpost. With a further lack of those, you’re forced to run or mount your way through the world and I’m here to tell you... you’re going to actually want to. Most of the world’s various points are in fact, relevant to something. Ancient ruins have tablets as loot that you’ll need to upgrade your ship. Alpha animal dens typically have high amounts of leather, mines have metals. Many points even have clues against cultists (which I’ll get into later), legendary gear or just fighting will lower the power level of the region which unlocks Conquests, a fun full-battle gimmick which again, I’ll describe shortly. Basically, there’s almost always a reason to actually explore a majority of question marks on your map as you’ll walk away with something that’s worth your time. Browsing my map just now, I can see I’ve skipped a few but I imagine something will take me to them in the future.

This game has a couple of new features that mixes things up. We’re in the Peloponnesian War, which reflects as an actual game mechanic. Every region is controlled by either Athens or Sparta. Your character is a mercenary and can choose to fight for either side at any time without any consequence, and you’ll be forced to after a certain point. I picked up a contract (which are constantly spawning quests, so there’ll never be anything to not do) that required me to kill three Athenian region leaders. Unfortunately, I had been favoring Sparta up to that point and all the regions within my level at the time were all controlled by Sparta. I had to kill and weaken my own favored people in order to shift the control so I could do it all over again against a different faction for epic gear and rewards. Doing all of this unlocks conquests, where are full on battles where you fight hordes of your chosen enemy faction while dealing with captains, bosses, and mercenaries that like to pop up during them. It’s probably the more fun of the new mechanics but I can already see it as just ‘going through the motions’ at a certain point, but they’re worth doing due to the amount of experience they offer.

Speaking of Mercenaries, the game has a bounty and “Wanted” system, reminiscent of earlier games. In games like AC2, your wanted meter affected how quickly Ezio got caught by patrolling guards. In Odyssey, you get hunted by enemy mercenaries which you can choose to kill or knock out and recruit them to your ship’s crew. There’s even an entire tier system as your character earns their way up a “tier” listing and eventually become the top dog. It’s all very similar to Shadow of Mordor’s orc hierarchies but it’s a less complex variant. They all have their unique names, backstories, and weaknesses but there are no over-bosses and nothing you can really do to manipulate their flow. You can only really control your bounty meter, which you can pay it off or kill the sponsor who hosted the contract against you. Beyond that, it lends to some interesting encounters. One merc helped me against a legendary animal quest, but more often than not they’ll come swarming when I’m trying to stealth or fight through an enemy fort, usually resulting me in fleeing. When they show up, it almost always complicates matters so unless you’re actively hunting for the gear they carry, it’s best to keep your bounty as low as possible.

Also having the same ‘feel’ as Shadow of Mordor’s orc mechanic is the Cult of Kosmos. I only found this story arc, maybe an entire fifteen hours into the game but that’s because I spent several doing nothing but exploring the map as my level allowed. Still, it’s a very interesting idea. Once you discover their existence you’re given an entire menu to hunt them down, and doing so is necessary to power up Leonidas’ Spear, alongside several very powerful legendary sets of armor. The idea is that you don’t have all of their identities unlocked and cannot track them all immediately (though it does give you a handful of freebies to get you started). Instead, you have to explore the world or actively investigate some of the clues they give you. This one is fairly straightforward;

However I once had one that said he was in a “Wolf’s Den” in a certain region, so I had to do some actual footwork. Another was near Athens and just told me to “help people nearby”, which turns out that I just had to do several side quests before their identity was revealed. So some of them are locked behind the story, you won’t get them all right away. It’s a very interesting way to go about it. As I said earlier about the world, you might just trip over some clues as you’re out exploring. While some cultists might be locked behind story, there WILL be some just actively wandering the world and you might not know you’re killing one until the “confirm cultist kill” message pops up. Next we have the naval combat, which I have mixed feelings towards. Black Flag is the series golden boy in terms of naval combat, and is one of the best games in the series if you can stomach the more lackluster main story missions (though the story was great overall and I liked Edward’s arc). While there’s certainly some complexity to be had in Odyssey’s ship combat, I still find it a bit more flighty and fast paced, but not in the best way. In BF, the ships felt... meatier. While not being slow, they were big and they hit the waves in a convincing manner. In Odyssey and even Origin’s own special segments, everything just hauls ass and cuts through water like it’s not even there. Even ramming is considered a major part of ship combat and frankly, I’d prefer the balancing flow of firing volleys and bracing against their own shots at the right time. You even get extra rewards if you manage to cleave a ship in two when you’re finishing them off.

I’d rather just shoot stuff, honestly. It still retains its enjoy-ability and I don’t at all ever hate going out to sea, I just don’t like more extended fights and I’m still not sure which of the three actions nets the most rewards; Cleaving, Boarding, or Shoot N’ Loot? I’ll figure it out eventually. So there’s a couple more of points of contention before I summarize.

It can be glitchy at times. I did a Spartan Kick againt an alpha lion for him to clip into the rocks. The game lacks the movement control Unity once had, so holding shift while trying to run away has Kassandra mount every brazier, stick or overhang which can lead to me losing more health than I’d like when fighting stronger enemies. There are some reports of people not getting legendary items (which only ever drop the once). You have to manually save, because right now it’s all cloud saved so if that gets lost or corrupted, you could lose dozens of hours of progress and that kind of thing causes gamers to quit. It’s not nearly as bad as Unity’s release but there are the occasional game breakers which I’ve yet to experience, thankfully. Finally, I’m a bit iffy on the leveling speed. Using very simple math based on my level and hours placed, I net around one level per hour. There was plenty of exploration within that but I was still actively doing stuff, clearing forts and the like. The world is massive and there’s plenty to do in general, I just feel like there’s a lot of footwork to get anything done. Since enemies scale with you (at 50, all regions will be at least 46, where the rewards cap out), I feel the level locked regions are a bit pointless. This ties into a current bout of controversy, so let’s dive into that before I summarize.

Microtransactions are still a thing. People are exhausted but we expect it from Ubisoft. While it’s mostly cosmetic, there are sets of gear you can buy that have their own stats and bonuses as legendary sets have their own boost when you wear all five pieces. They aren’t any more powerful than other gear, though having a full legendary set right off the bat will certainly give you an edge. The main debate is that the scaling for endgame becomes a bit skewed and I’ve heard from some players that the last few levels are a hell of a marathon to level through. The story offers a permanent 50% experience and money boost (including a variety of cheaper, more temporary ones) which some reviewers have stated does actually make the game better. I imagine such a boost probably makes questing a better incentive and thus leveling quicker. One reviewer made mention of “Pay to play the game less” I find incredibly inaccurate and they probably haven’t actually played (because of course!). As an actual player, I will say the game is massive. The story is long, the regions are large, and you can’t exactly just sprint through the main story and ignore everything else. Especially when several of those “everything else” can be a lot of fun! Even at level cap, you’re probably still hunting those last few cultists, switching some regions to your favored faction, ekeing out those ship upgrades, getting money to fully upgrade your legendary set, or even finding a full legendary set that suits your playstyle the most if you haven’t already. There’s a lot to do and while offering a permanent boost for 20$ is certainly a bit scummy, the “pay to play less” is a horrendous misunderstanding of the game. The game is good! It’s an improvement on Origins in several ways and for once I actually enjoy exploring the variety of question marks that litter my map. I’m only halfway through the world, there’s so much I want to do, armor sets that I wish to acquire to suit my more stealthy playstyle. The world is gorgeous and photo mode has returned to accentuate that fact. There’s no assassin order nor are there Templars, just a cult you’re set out to destroy for some personal slights. You’re a mercenary and the world is yours. Odyssey will also be receiving some support and attention as they won’t be releasing one in 2019, so for a game we’ll be ‘stuck’ with for a couple of years, we’re in good hands.

#Assassin's Creed #Assassin's Creed: Odyssey #Odyssey #AC:O #ACO #Ubisoft #Uplay #Gaming #pc gaming

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notontumblr · 6 years

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Character Analysis: Rean’s Opposite (CS1/2 spoilers)

Okay this gonna be super long and maybe pointless, but Trails is very big foreshadowing and catching people by surprise so I might as get my thoughts out there.

So lots of people talk about Crow and Rean’s differences and insinuate how they're opposites. It's an easy claim to make, but I'm going to argue that while Rean sure has an opposite, it's not Crow. If anything, Rean and Crow are two sides of the same coin. While there's some opposing traits- they are fundamentally the same deep down. You could write an entire essay on this and their relationship, it’s a very important relationship. But I'm not here to talk about Crow. I'm here to talk about Rean's true opposite.

And that is Elliot Craig.

There’s a lot of ways they differ in ways that had to be intentional, so I’ll just break it down into categories.

Battle Abilities

I’ll start with the most obvious one - Rean and Elliot are opposites in fights. Rean is a melee DPS/Tank while Elliot’s a Healer/Ranged DPS. In other words, Rean is a sword fighter while Elliot’s a mage.

Their crafts are also pretty opposing too. Both of them get their buff craft early on. Rean’s boosts Strength and gives a little CP (the power meter that goes up when you give or take damage), while Elliot’s boosts defense and heals HP. Rean favors going on the offense, while Elliot favors defense. Their other crafts don’t share much overlap either:

Rean: Physical attacks with an increased chance to unbalance enemies. Meant to lay on the hurt whether it be him hitting as many enemies as possible, causing burn status (which causes extra damage each turn), or even being extra enough to summon his robot friend to step on baddies. In CS2 he even gets a special form that increases his damage output.

Elliot: Only two attack crafts that can’t unbalance enemies. Instead of laying on the hurt, he puts enemies to sleep. His other crafts are a healing craft and one that scans enemy data - in CS2 this gets upgraded to one that will decrease the enemies attack strength when he scans - once again showing he’s favors defense. He’s also the only character with a healing S-Craft.

Even their elements are opposite. Rean’s elements are Fire and Time (aka darkness), while Elliot’s are Water and Space (aka light).

Backgrounds

Obviously with the reveal near the end of CS2 of Osborne being Rean’s dad, CS3 goes more into his past and gives more to say about this. But since that hasn’t been localized, I’ll just keep it to info we know from CS1/2 to spare people spoilers.

First, it’s easy to point out their social classes. Rean is an adopted noble from the countryside while Elliot’s a commoner that grew up in a big city - you couldn’t have more opposite upbringings. Sure, Rean is a commoner by birth, but his birth dad is none other than the most powerful and well known commoner in the country. Meanwhile while Elliot’s dad is a commoner with some status being a Lt. General - it’s much more limited, and only people involved with military are familiar with the name.

Both Rean and Elliot have one sister - Elise is younger while Fiona is older. That makes the relationship dynamic fundamentally different. Both Elise and Fiona really care for their brothers, but Rean is overprotective of Elise while Fiona is the one whose overprotective of Elliot. Even their personalities are pretty different- Elise is a Tsundere through and through. Meanwhile Fiona is sweet and cheerful- but is a force of nature when she wants something. If you talk to the Craigs during the 2nd day of the school festival, you find out even Craig the Red is intimidated by her.

Speaking of fathers, let’s talk about their relationships with their living parents. Elliot’s relationship with his dad is the focus of his character arc. When Elliot first talks about him, you get the impression that he’s an aloof and intimidating figure that’s trying to push Elliot to be like him. However when you actually meet him.......the stories don’t quite line up.

While Olaf IS a pushy and intimidating figure, he’s also a very loving dad that openly affectionate and tries to be there for his kids. He even makes sure to attend Elliot’s concert at the school festival despite the worsening situation in Crossbell.

Even his pushiness has more noble reasons behind it. If you choose to spend time with Elliot during the bonfire, he says this about what he realized with his dad:

"He wasn't against me going to the music academy because he was against me pursuing a career in music. He didn't want me to lock myself into it. He wanted me to be able to decide for myself just what path I wanted to follow. And more importantly, he wanted me to have the strength to do so, even if people around me tried to stand in my way..."

While Elliot says he’s just speculating, CS2 shows that he’s not far off. After reuniting with his son and seeing how strong Elliot’s become, he tells Elliot he’ll support him in whatever path he chooses. Olaf Craig wants his kids to be independent and strong enough to fight for that independence - even if it means going against him.

Another important element of Olaf's parenting? Is his honesty with his kids even when it’s an ugly truth. One example is when Fiona gets captured, the Craig kids know that if their dad has to choose between his duty and their lives- he’ll choose his duty no matter how much it hurts. Imagine a dad as loving as Olaf having to admit that to his kids. Even if it’s questionable if there’s a point of being TOO honest with your kids (hearing how your dad would let you DIE if necessary couldn’t have helped Elliot’s self-esteem issues, I’m just saying), it’s clear he feels it’s better to be honest no matter what.

Rean’s parents, adopted and biological, are the opposite. Let’s start with the Schwarzers. They are a nice and loving folk when you meet them, not at all intimidating. But they actually have their own ambitions for him, revealed mostly in the Drama CD for the CS1 Ymir trip. Rean’s mom wants Rean and Elise to get married and take over his father’s lordship - even though Rean doesn’t want that. While their intentions aren’t necessarily bad ones (though wanting him to marry his adopted sister is worrying), they're planning to use Rean for their own dreams.

And then there’s the honesty thing. The Schwarzers aren’t honest with their kids. Elise didn’t find out Rean was adopted until she was 12, and as for Rean? They pretend they don’t know who Rean’s birth parents are, but you find out in CS2 they knew all along. This exchange in the drama CD sums up their stance on ugly truths:

Rean: The reason why I want to learn more about myself is because I want to become the real Rean Schwarzer. To be proud as a member of this important family, and at the same time, as a comrade for my friends. Therefore, I must find the truth no matter what it takes. Teo Schwarzer: ...No matter how cruel the truth may be?

This shows Teo Schwarzer’s willing to lie and hide things if he feels the truth is too cruel. His stance is a sympathetic one. He wants to shield their kids from the ugly truths as many parents are tempted to do. But in the end, it just ends up hurting their relationship with Rean more than anything else.

But at least the Schwarzer’s hearts are in the right place, unlike that asshole of a biological dad. Osborne isn’t even subtle about his willingness to use his own son for his ambitions. The moment the civil war ends, he throws his son into helping him conquer Crossbell. As for not being honest, well the fact he hid his identity as Rean’s father until Rean remembered something says it all. While Olaf is raising his kids to be independent adults with a full understanding of the world, Osborne sees his son as a tool that’s on a need-to-know basis.

Personality

It’s pretty easy to see where Elliot and Rean differ in personality. While Elliot’s timid, Rean’s outspoken. Rean enjoys fighting, Elliot would rather play music. Rean notices girls on several occasions, Elliot notices the guys more during swim class. Rean is regularly in the center of attention, Elliot is regularly overlooked both in game, and by fans. The list goes on about how their personalities differ, but there’s one major theme:

If there’s one thing everyone knows about Elliot it’s that he’s obsessive about music. He practices constantly, he’s a perfectionist, his room is full music stuff- literally he’s a stone throw away from being an Ace Attorney character his obsession is so strong. But if you look carefully, it isn’t so much about music as he’s someone who when he devotes himself to something, he does it at 200%. In the last dorm visit while most characters express something vague like “our paths will cross again” or agreements to meet up sometime if you pick them for their closest bond, Elliot says this:

In other words, Elliot is the one character that REFUSES to break up or put his relationship on hold. He’s too devoted. Notably, you get his first S-Craft only after he decides he’s glad to be at Thors and becomes determined not fall behind everyone.

Rean on the other hand is a drifter that doesn’t commit. He studied 8 Leaves, but he stopped after beginner’s rank. He learned the lute, but he wasn’t serious about it and fell out of practice. He never joins a club (seriously Rean would’ve it killed you to join Fishing Club??). At the end of CS2 when it comes time for Class VII to separate so they can pursue their own goals -- Rean doesn’t really have one, so he stays at Thors, because it’s the only place he ever felt like he belonged.

Character Arcs

Let’s start with where Elliot and Rean were at the start of CS1

Elliot: Pressured to be in the military by his father. Not confident, and a bit at a loss at what his future would be.

Rean: Enrolling in Thors despite it putting his parents out. Fairly confident in pursuing his plan of easing his perceived family’s burden after graduation.

Now look at the end of CS2 where they were at:

Elliot: Enrolling in the Music Academy despite his father’s original wishes. Armed with confidence, he committed to a plan to find a way to use music to help the world.

Rean: Pressured to be in the military by his father. Confidence shaken, at a real loss about his future.

The situations are different obviously, but they basically switched places over the course of two games. Generally speaking when stories do that, it’s intentional for some reason or another.

What does it all Mean?

Truthfully? It might mean nothing. Or it might not.

It’s impossible to say until CS3 and 4 get released and localized. Maybe Elliot will have an important role to play in the Erebonia arc, or maybe there was a plan and they scrapped it. Or maybe it’s a red herring. With the Trails series, it is hard to tell because they really do like to give hints along the way that you don’t pick up until later.

But I do believe it’s not all coincidental. For one, in the character line-ups Elliot is almost always listed right after Alisa (the designated main heroine) in terms of importance. And second?

They outright say it in the game.

Thank you all 2 people that read this, this has been my TED talk.

#trails of cold steel #trails of cold steel 2 spoilers #elliot craig #rean schwarzer #sen no kiseki #my god this is long #i did not mean this to be so long

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thuskindlyshescatters · 7 years

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The Left-Right Rule

Also known as me, claiming that the CRWBY knows what the fuck they are doing.

So, in Western cinematography, there’s this thing where right-to-left movements and down-to-up movements make the audience wary and uncomfortable. Similarly, if there are two opposing characters on opposite lateral sides of the screen, the one on the left is usually expected to triumph. This phenomenon is credited to Western languages reading from left to right -- left comes first, and is therefore the first acknowledged.

So, I looked back at all of our pivotal fight scenes in the Volume 3 finale to see when this rule is utilized.

Major spoilers for Volume 3 of RWBY under the cut!

So, the entire volume, we’ve been experiencing feelings of dread, mostly because of the opening:

If you refer to my intro, the Grimm charge on the left and are expected to win.

Also, all of our heroines are on the left in the montage. So, we have some confidence that they’re going to win these duels. However, if you recall how Adam and Blake’s duel actually went over, you can see why it was so shocking that Blake lost -- big time.

From the top of Heroes and Monsters, we already get a glimpse into how bad it gets. Really, the only time Ruby is on the left in her entire encounter with Roman is when she gets kicked off the airship, aaaand just before she opens Neo’s umbrella.

Other than that, it’s right, right , right, UNTIL:

Roman gets eaten, Ruby jumps on the Griffon’s head from left to right, and is, strangely enough, victorious. (Roman remaining on the left during the whole fight contributed towards the shock value, I believe.)

In order of confrontation, we also get a glimpse into Blake’s storyline.

And, while she’s on the left for the time she’s winning, the next time we see her she’s on the ground (remember -- up = uneasiness) and Adam is on the left above her.

For the rest of the episode, she’s on the right. Including Yang... oh, why did it have to be Yang.

Also, I’d like y’all to acknowledge that this screenshot is literally the embodiment of “you lost.” Adam on the left, Blake’s head moving up, Adam’s sword sweeping left to right, the screen moving in on Blake’s form -- it’s a perfect conglomeration of all the ways to say “game over” in cinematography.

In Weiss’s department, Velvet is on the left for the majority of the fight, until the metalbot’s fist comes careening from the left side of the screen and hits Velvet. Weiss then runs from left to right and jumps in front of Velvet:

And looks up, uncertain, at the right-facing Paladin.

However, the camera angle immediately changes:

It almost instantly subscribes to the rule.

Now, a word on Pyrrha vs. Cinder.

These two shots are pretty much the words for “a fight’s gonna happen, and Cinder’s gonna win.” She’s on the left, but her victory isn’t absolute -- there will still be conflict, as right now they share the plane perfectly laterally.

Once Pyrrha makes it up the tower, she’s confronted by Cinder, to which the audience’s brain vaguely goes “well duh. Cinder’s on the left and hovering above, just like she was before.” Then when they actually start fighting, Cinder takes the upper hand --

but when Pyrrha starts landing hits, she suddenly obtains the left side, and it stays there, even after the tower falls.

Only at the climax does the gaze shift from left to right, and not even symbolically.

We actually see Cinder walk from the right to the left, and stand over Pyrrha.

We see Cinder forcefully move to the winning side, before drawing her arrow... and we know the rest.

None of our protagonists are faced directly with an antagonist for the rest of the episode, but the monologue, combined with the muted coloring, sort of takes on the role of “congrats, you lose.”

TL;DR: The CRWBY did a fantastic job with the cinematography in Volume 3. There’s a reason Heroes and Monsters is my favorite episode.

#rwby #rwby thoughts #rwby3 #rwby theory #crwby #rwby spoilers #pyrrha nikos #cinder fall #professor ozpin #weiss schnee #ruby rose #roman torchwick #neopolitan #velvet scarlatina #adam taurus #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #creatures of grimm

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kierongillen · 7 years

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Writer Notes: the Wicked + the Divine 455

Spoilers, obv.

The specials have been quite the time, having several ways to stress everyone the hell out. The amount of work that goes into a special is far more than any single script can justify in cold commercial terms. It's lucky that I'm only choosing periods that I'm interested in researching to death.

I suspect (or at least hope) that in terms of background reading, 455 is the most. 1831 was hard, but is a relatively tight period I looked at in depth. 455 basically involved researching the whole of the Western Roman Empire. This means the work was a much broader sweep. In the same way I suspected the 1831 story would be about Frankenstein, I knew this would probably be about what happened at one of the sacks of Rome. Not definitely – I've always got room to change tack if something more profitable turns up in the research – but likely.

As I started work, I realised the main advantage of the sack near the end of the Western Roman Empire is that it means you can do a swan song for the whole thing. Everything has already happened, so you can use it all. Thus we've got something which feels a little like a Roman Greatest Hits story.

Simultaneously, there's the awareness that while I think a lot of this is relatively well known, even the most basic facts aren't. Early readers made me aware that even basic ideas like Julius Caesar being dead for 500 years by this period can't be assumed – a level of historical literacy equivalent of not blinking if Joan of Arc turned up in a WW2 story. That's just audiences, and the vague sense of “Rome stuff” fills about 1000 years of people's imagination. As such, that our story is acounter-history required the introduction of what the real history actually was.

As I knew this was coming along way off, the research was a slow boil. I knew Rome, in various periods, relatively well. From the Punic Wars to Augustus is stuff I've read about many times – Carthage is something I've always wanted to do a story about. What I was looking for is a long sweep across the whole thing, to live with it a while, and let me think along the way. The actual device I used was The History Of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan, which goes from legendary prehistory to about 20 years after 455. It's about 60 hours of stuff, by my rough match, which I worked into my listening routine – which is mainly when working out, running, travelling or doing the dishes. I listen to my podcasts at 1.5x.

That was for most of 2016. After that, it was digging down into specific texts, the majority which happened in December/January. Trying to play with various theories about the decline of the Roman Empire was paramount. Everyone has one, and be suspicious of anyone who gives you one reason. The book which generally was most influential in terms of how I chose to present Rome was The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History by Peter Heather, which basically forwards the idea that Rome fell due to trade across their borders creating increased population density of Barbarian tribes which (as opposed to earlier periods) the Romans were unwilling to integrate into the fabric of the Empire.

I went with my own counter-theory, of course, which was that an Old Lady Did It.

(The Old Lady Did It is a Roman Trope of long standing. I'm a proud owner of a Livia Did It T-shirt.)

Anyway – too much research, and I'll try and drop some things I'd wanted to use but didn't as we go through it. Suffice to say, there's nothing comforting about reading about Rome in the current political climate.

Anyway – Andre! I'd first encountered his work in Avengers AI, written by my friend Sam Humphries. That weird, neon-infused Cyberpunk vibe was a big part of the book's appeal for me, so I started following him. I believe we started talking properly around the time of his own Man Plus, which was is a Otomo-does-Akira-In-Portugal kick, and was another thing which made me file Andre in my “Sci-fi artist file.”

However, after we got talking, he showed me some of his other in-development pitches, which included historical and fantasy work. Which made me go “Hmm.” He's got a mass of gifts, but I had one image that I knew I needed for 455 – the Roman Triumph, with a God in the chariot. That demanded a certain sort of artist, namely one who was happy to actually draw a triumph in all its ludicrous glory. Andre, someone whose work had more than its fair share of city-scapes and crowds, seemed like someone who'd nail that – plus the confluence of European and Manga influences in the work would gel interestingly. We'd get Rome as a place, and that's what we needed.

He was working on Generation Gone with Ales Kot, but they talked, and Andre took as month off the preparation for that to do the special. Thanks, guys.

Colours are provided by Matt “Eisner For Matt” Wilson, and seeing how the two of them worked together was definitely one of the more intriguing parts of the process.

Andre's Cover

Done early, before the script was actually completed, which meant we were more conservative with the choice. The Laurel reef being lowered by elderly hands, the arrogance of it. A call back to the head-shots of the first year of WicDiv too. Also, compare and contrast Matt's colouring choices here with his ones in the issue. This is a much more subdued, chalkier mode. Or that's wot I think anyway.

Jamie's Cover| We were originally talking about statues of multiple gods, but as the script was still in process we didn't want to tie down any of the cast bar Lucifer. Equally, we leaned symbolic on the cover – the flames of Rome, the statue, the grafitti's Chi-Ro in paint (or blood)? Symbolic is good. We like Symbolic.

The Chi-Ro is an old Christian symbol. It's what they say Constantine had his soldiers paint on his shields to ensure victory. My fave thing of Constantine from the research was that while he was more responsible than any for the Christianization of the Empire, he didn't convert until just before his death. I enjoy the theory that it's because the idea that baptizing may have been a one-time “clear all your sins” opportunity. The idea of confession and absolution wasn't around as much. So if you convert and then commit a mortal sin, you're off to hell. But if you commit a mortal sin and then convert, you're fine. So Constantine may have just been gaming Christianity to ensure the best chance of a good afterlife.

IFC

Oh god. Looking at the last paragraph makes me think this could be eternally long if I just keep on stopping and telling you fun anecdotes from memory. Also, factually dubious, as they're from memory, and my memory cannot be trusted.

Jamie designed the icons, and had to work out what vibe to give it. I suspect he was grateful to me for having most the cast already being dead so saving him work.

The Inverted Chi-Ro isn't a real symbol anyone used, but our best way to make a Lucifer. The biggest historical cheat in the series is using any Lucifer figure like this in the period – as far as I'm aware, the idea of a singular satanic adversary in this mode simply wasn't around. But it dovetails with our mythology.

I get asked whether any special will happen earlier in the cycle. The tendency to lean towards the ends is basically the same urge which pushed towards a Roman Special at the fall. Ends let you write about the whole thing. It's only at the end where you can say with any hope of being correct what was really happening, and even then it's only a hope.

But the 1920s special is a little earlier than the end, if only because we've seen the actual end in issue 1.

(More on the 1920s special soon – there's been a few changes in my planning on that.)

The text on the page is the standard WicDiv one, but the final two lines, briefly explaining the history of the Vandal sack in 455 were added at lettering to provide the necessary context to a reader.

Page 1-2

Steady angle shot, three panels on each page. The issue has been compare to Uber by several readers, primarily for the volume of the violence and the detail of the historical focus. It's also a little like it in its storytelling like this – this lingering attempt to make a scene very normal. We don't see the battle against the Vandals – instead, we observe from a distance. We try and make it documentary, with us an observer.

The animal being gutted is a goat.

An example of an earlier tweak, the shepherd's first line was “Wh...who in god's name are you meant to be?” This could read as that our Lucifer actually is Julius. Changing it to “Dressed up as?” brings the artifice closer to the surface. While the nature of lucifer/Julius is explained in a few pages time, it's not meant to be a mystery. Creating a false uninteresting question is just a distraction for the reader.

I kind of laugh at the idea of Lucifer wandering around near Rome, trying to find an army.

Ave Atque Vale! Is a quote from Catallus, related to death. Originally was Ave in my first draft, which of course means “Hello!” so makes no sense to say when he's heading away to the shepherd. If you were generous, you could say he was greeting the Vandals.

The first pages which Matt coloured were these, and when I saw them, I knew it was going to be something special.

Yes, panicked sheep in the second panel of page 2 is a star.

Page 3-4

WicDiv is about many things, but “The fucking obvious” certainly rates highly. Triumphs are one of the big core Roman rituals we think of, when a general is given a personal parade. They're rare and hugely important. The slave whispering “remember you are only a man” to warn against hubris is the detail which everyone loves. Clearly, in WicDiv, the resonances are all kinds of fun.

In terms of how comics panels are not one moment in time, have a nose at the last panel. You read the line, then the Oh!, and then the response of the slave seeing something, and then you look at the miracle, the smug, painted face, of Lucifer, and his Heh. That's a little journey.

The red face paint is ceremonial, to be akin to Jupiter. Bear that in mind for later, obv.

The big triumph is the first issue money shot – after 3 pages of very low atmosphere, we have the sprawl of Rome. Choosing the direction of the march was key – I gave Andre the best guess route of the triumph, and he chose his angle. By luck, he would enter via the gate here Lucifer is dragged out at the end of the issue. The triumph also ends at the temple of Jupiter, which is yet more fun subtext for those who really like digging into it.

We tweaked the colouring on the crowds, to try and get more of the cosmopolitan nature of Rome. The majority of legionnaires are white, but that's because most were Germanic in this period.

The triumph was originally planned for a spread, but I decided I needed another page later in the comic.

Page 5

Title drop, and a bleak laugh. The idea of calling a story IMPERIAL PHASE which isn't in the actual Imperial Phase trade came from thinking of Julian Cope having his single World Shut Your Mouth not on the album World Shut Your Mouth, an idea he in turn got from some sixties band I haven't time to look up.

The date was tricky to decide exactly, due to the timeline of real world events I wanted to get in. Clearly, for full trash-Roman pulp, I'd have pushed this story March, so I could Ides of March it, but alas, no dice.

Page 6

Nice atmosphere in the first panel, in terms of going from the chaos of the Triumph to something a little more contemplative.

Enter Dionysus/Bacchus. Flashback colours and... one of the thoughts of Matt was that the SFX budget for God Stuff would be lower back here. So the god powers aren't quite as SFX-y as they are in the present day. Not that there's much here, but I'm reminded by how low-key this is. The intent here is that he's done his god thing on stage and come off... but he could just be an actor, which is about as close as WicDiv gets to a 1:1 thing.

The nature of art in Rome (or “Rome”) is key here, and talked throughout. Actors were the underclass. To act was to be disreputable. The “actress as sexworker” trope arrives in Rome, I believe. I reference Lou Reed in the panel descriptions, in terms of these being a Walk On The Wild Side Romans.

Falerian is a type of fine wine. Mithras is presumably one of the other gods – Scythia being a place.

The nature of Imperial Phase has been about women involved with women, which has nagged. Having the humanising part of the story be a love story between men felt timely. It was a place we could do it, so we should. Though more on that later, in terms of the specifics.

There was the obvious worry of doing it, of course – where Lucifer ends up. Lucifer is not good representation. I haven't seen anyone pick up on that angle. We spend a lot of time worrying about stuff no-one picks up on, which is why we spend all that time worrying about it.

The word “play” is, of course, loaded, as are the name changes. Story about identity, we are in it.

Page 7

The best thing about the specials is definitely getting a chance to write Ananke again. She is a fun time.

If I had more space, I'd have almost certainly done more with Lucifer's adventures during the day. It's worth stressing that by this point, I believe Gladiatorial fights were no longer actually happening in Rome, due to Christianisation. My research has went straight on from Western Rome and barged into Byzantine Rome, and the story of the chariot races there is a delight.

Page 7-8

These scenes are very much me getting my I, Claudius on. Very limited set, two actors going off at one another. Of course, all of this will resonate with anyone who's been following the main series.

Panels 3 and 4 on page 7 are the bit of tight acting I like most from Andre here – it's all about the actions, and the space, with us positioned a little back from it.

I smile at Lucifer referencing something that was said of 2014-Lucifer in the first arc. Ananke has been doing this for a very long time.

A quick buzz through various other gods' fates in the first panel on page 8. There's a lot of historical reference packed in there to unpack for those who wish.

The Inanna/Attila The Hun panel is, I think, the largest panel description in the issue. Well... not true. The Rome Triumph one is much longer, but that's a splash. This one included a potted history of a bunch of Hun-related information for Andre to play with, in terms of deciding the looks, etc.

It was also the most discussed panel at the stage of pencils – avoiding objectifying Inanna here was key.

Attila The Hun died on (one of his) wedding night in the real life.

The “As I understand” is pretty key in the captions, as is other distancing effects. Lucifer would not have been a god when Inanna did this. It is very early in this pantheon's time.

I think this may be a place to have a word about Pantheon times through history. 455 doesn't seem to fit in one of these 90 years, if you follow that strictly.

The short version is, as seen in the first scene of WicDiv which ends the 1920s pantheon at Dec 31st 2013 and we start our story about 6 months into the new Pantheon on January 1st 2014, the question of where the 90 years is measured for has to be (to some degree) flexible. Gods appear over a period of a year or so in our 2014, and die at their own rates. You can assume that the “true” length of a pantheon can wiggle a little – some would be less than a year, some could theoretically stretch across 4 calendar years. As such, it's hard to predict exactly on which year any given recurrence could occur – even from the data we have from 1831, 1923 and 2014, we know that.

I suspect before the end I may give hard dates for every Pantheon. I suspect, anyway. I know where it would appear.

Page 9-11

You know, I suspect Page 9 – for an action scene – is one of the most story-beat laden of the issue, in terms. Lots of great Andre stuff here – the casual-ness of both the burning and the brutal-ness of the kick. Matt goes to town on the colours too, the reds taking over. Obviously the fire is a key thing with Lucifer, and his flame grows and ebbs as we progress.

There's some difficult hard cuts here – page 10 to 11, for example. We just have the “Ananke leaving” beat there, then moving to Dio and Lucifer in bed.

There is a tendency when discussing the ancients to be a bit blasé in terms of writing about their sexual habits. This normally is based around us mapping our readings of sexuality onto the past, while erasing their own social mores. I've ran with some of the information on page 11 before, when doing THREE, specifically the politics of different sexual roles. Relevantly, the status elements Lucifer alludes to here – in terms of being a bottom is always dishonourable. I could ramble at this at length, but I'll spare you.

Lots and lots of stuff here, in terms of trying to set up thematic elements here, but let's just say none of it would matter at all if Matt and Andre hadn't nailed the last panel.

Page 12-13

Lots of historical bits and bobs here. Perhaps the implicit question we don't answer is “what happened to the last Emperor?” He was cut to pieces a few days before this and thrown in the river, because he'd pissed off the Vandals enough to have them invade.

You may notice how thin the senate is populated. That's because the majority of the population of Rome have fucked off to hide. Rome's population is artificially lower during this point in history, which is a thing which tries to lend a little credulity to the Ananke/Geiseric cover-up.

The main tweaks here was making sure the exact nature of Lucifer's slip was tricky. Someone getting mixed up in the time-line requires making sure the reader understands the timeline. I half wonder why I went with Crassus rather than Pompey.

Anyway, let's hope that Lucifer manages to keep on the straight and narrow.

Page 13-14

Well, that escalated quickly.

When planning the issue, you start doing maps of time and space, and I rapidly realised with 25 pages, and so many other essential scenes, there was no possible way to show a slow descent.

The story's structure immediately suggested itself.

While the Triumph was the image we needed to enter the world, this is the one that will be remembered. People reference my Crossed work here – which is true, to some degree, in that it was also about turning flesh into art. I suspect I was more thinking of Banks, and a certain beat involving a certain object of furniture. I say, dancing around spoilers.

The influence here which gets kind of buried is Domitian, who threw the most goth parties of all time. Have a nose at this here, in terms of Things Emperors Got Up To.

Page 15-16

We've already namechecked Caligula and here comes Nero, the other of the most famous Roman Bad Emperors. The elements about Nero here were the closest thing the research unveiled which made me want to reposition the story to a different period – Nero interacting with the gods would have been fascinating, for all the reasons described here.

We had a reader question the direction of Imperial Phase, in that the insanity-leading-to-murder trope that appeared to be coming and the inherent ableism in that. It was a usefully timed question, as it made me dig more sharply into the exact choices we were making in explaining the idea. This isn't about going mad. This is – as Dionysus puts it – about excess. I'm thinking of Bowie living off cocaine and peppers. We lean into it pretty heavily in this issue, and hopefully it delineates the aim.

Just looking at my script, and found the anecdote about the time I threw up a handful of blood slipped in there. I'd forgotten that this page was autobiographical. Comics, eh?

Look at what Matt's doing with the colours here – the whole panel is bloodshot as we progress.

Page 17-20

In terms of buried research in the comic, that a hole was knocked in the roof of the Temple of Jupiter during this sack of Rome is the one which makes me laugh. Behold! Let team WicDiv present the true story of how the temple of Jupiter got a dirty great hole in it.

(I also like that this makes the sack of Rome much more efficient for the Vandals.)

This is an actor making a soliloquy scene, perhaps obviously, recalling both the stage and the Passion. While this issue is heavily in the research, it's also doing ahistorical work. Shakespeare's fingerprints is all over this, to state another obvious thing.

The “Emerge like an Eagle” thing is very much Roman Pagan belief.

I mentioned Nero, Caligulia and Julius. The other Roman Emperor who is in the mix with Lucifer was Julian the Apostate who was the last Pagan Roman emperor, and tried to revive Pagan Rome before dying early. A “What if Julian had lived?” is a counter-factual history which is always a fun one to swill around your mouth. He's the one we don't reference, but much of Lucifer's thought comes from mashing Julian with someone of lower birth and more melodramatic tendencies.

This is the sequence which I cut the page from the Triumph earlier to expand. Clearly this could happen quicker, but we need to let the death sequence come out, in all its horror. Also, the collapse on the page turn seems essential.

I'm almost surprise Et Tu Jupiter reached the final page. We were always wondering whether it was too funny. In the end, it was decided it was, but in juxtaposition with the art, sufficiently bleakly to not break the mood. Especially before the collapse on the next page, which is very much human stripped by the divine.

Clearly this plot beat, is the biggest one for close followers of the book. I suspect at this point of the story, there would be strong suspicions that the “you die in two years” isn't true. Unless this sequence is deeply deceptive, it is true. You die in two years, by yourself. We place the specials pretty carefully, in terms of what they reveal, so this being half way through Imperial Phase underlines what could await our cast.

In terms of craft, going silent for a page after the monologuing seemed key. I mean, Ananke's fundamental disrespect in terms of how she's carrying Lucifer says everything.

Page 21-25

Out the gate towards the Tiber. The names listed are famous Romans whose bodies were thrown in the Tiber so that they could have no honourable end – and in the case of Marius, that there was no place for his followers to gather. The man who did that was Sulla, btw. Marius was dead, he dug them up.

The “Pagan burial, but a shit one” is very much Ananke at peak “I will tell you the truth, but you really have to pay attention to the details” mode.

And here's Geiseric! Looking good. The Vandals have been in Carthage for 20 years, but we decided to have him be kind of pallid so as not to confuse people. Stories like THREE were all about the pure-historical aspect and risked (and often did) lose people by doing things in line with the best research rather than common belief. WicDiv has a slightly different set of priorities, especially on secondary aspects like tanned Vandals.

Heh. Story starts with butchery of a goat, and ends with butchery of Lucifer. WicDiv is a very subtle comic.

Sulla's an interesting dude, and I think the use by Ananke here seems pretty fair. The future she's pointing towards never happens – the marriage is there. Germanic hands ended up ruling what came after the Empire, but that's not really what is going. Of course, Geiseric is also entirely right in recognising he's being manipulated.

They're a fun pair, actually, in terms of the fencing. I kind of realise this is the sort of conversation which is going to be key in Spangly New Thing, which makes me excited about writing it again.

I smile at the Vandal line. People have wondered why I didn't do the earlier sack, so I could have had the goths. Well, it didn't really work for the story, which is about the end of an era. But also it would have been perhaps too much. I did have a joke take, where Ananke is debating which Germanic tribe to manipulate into invading Rome. “The Goths again? No. No More Goths.”

But 455 isn't that kind of book.

The final image! Lovely, in its bleak and awful way.

Page 26

City of God being Augustine's book, written primarily in response to the crisis of faith in the Empire over the 410 sack of Rome by the aforementioned Goths.

Anyway – thanks for reading, and thanks for Andre for joining us on this beast. We're back (eek) tomorrow, with Imperial Phase II. Onwards, etc.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #andre lima araujo #matt wilson #Writer Notes

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murasaki-murasame · 7 years

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Thoughts on Owarimonogatari Season 2 [Hitagi Rendezvous]

OK I meant to watch this like a week ago but that didn’t happen for a variety of reasons. Oh well. Hopefully I can get Ougi Dark done tomorrow to finish this off completely.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut.

PART ONE:

First of all, A+ for that Araragi shower scene at the start. Just gonna lay that one out there.

His whole internal monologue at the start was really good. It’s nice to see him growing as a person and being able to do some self-reflection. I can really relate to the whole point about fearing love because you don’t want to change or be changed, and because falling in love makes you vulnerable in general. That’s basically how I currently feel on the subject.

I was incredibly excited to see Senjougahara again, and she didn’t disappoint. I get why she stopped showing up as much after she and Araragi hooked up, but it’s still nice to see her. I still love the way they interact. Considering how I’ve technically been following the series for 3+ years now, their relationship feels weirdly . . . nostalgic to me, to seeing them just be cute together gives me a whole lot of warm fuzzies. And seeing them both grow up as people and head into their adult lives has an almost bittersweet but still heartwarming feeling to it, when you’ve been watching them from their first meeting. But even though they’ve grown as people, they’re still the sort of couple to have a lengthy back-and-forth about the concept of having wanting to go on a date, so I guess some things will never change. Which I’m happy for.

I honestly almost forgot that Yotsugi is living with Araragi and his family now. That must be an awkward arrangement in general, especially since she has to pretend to be a doll whenever any of Araragi’s family members see her. I guess he’s just gonna have to live with the fact that she’s going to be hanging out with him for the rest of his life, lol. I’m also pretty happy to see Yotsugi again. She’s always been a favourite of mine. I know why other people dislike her, but something about her just appeals to me. I love her design and personality, and how much she does not at all fit with most of the cast. She’s just this bizarre little character that sticks out like a sore thumb and it works really well.

I’m glad that Yotsugi spelled out that Kiss-Shot has indeed fully revived now that Araragi has lost his vampire powers, since I wasn’t clear on that. I think a lot of my confusion stemmed from how when we saw her at the end of Mayoi Hell, the light flickering effect made me think it was meant to seem like an unstable hologram effect, which made it seem like she wasn’t fully back to her old form. But after reading some of the comments about the last arc, it clicked in my head that the flickering was probably meant to look like camera flashes at a modeling event, which makes sense given how she was definitely meant to look like a runway model in that scene. Anyway, I’m kinda curious to see what the heck a meeting between her and Gaen would even play out like. It’s hard to imagine.

Also I’m still unsure what’s going on with Kagenui and if that’s ever going to be explained or followed up on. I THINK she’s just literally dead, but I’m not sure.

Whenever either of Araragi’s sisters enters a scene I kinda reflexively brace myself, because let’s face it there’s not a whole lot to their characters outside of incest jokes, and the incest jokes are like the worst part of the entire series outside of the whole issue of how the series treats young girls in general which I’m not gonna touch right now. But thankfully the scene was totally fine. It was actually really nice to see Tsukihi just being a cute, supportive little sister.

I’m pretty sure I’d heard about this part of the scene in advance, but it was really nice getting an update on Nadeko’s situation. I’m happy that she’s out of the hospital and about to get back to her usual life. Hopefully she can stay far away from Araragi and just do her own thing. She’s still one of my favourite characters in the series and I just want her to be happy. To be honest like half the reason I want Shaft to adapt Off Season sooner rather than later is because I want to finally see what happens in Nademonogatari. A whole book about Nadeko post-Koi sounds like exactly my sort of thing.

Araragi getting incredibly surprised by Senjougahara being able to drive now was pretty hilarious to see. And I also wasn’t really expecting the detail that before he lost his vampire powers he wouldn’t have been able to get a driver’s license himself since he can’t appear in photos. I know that that’s come up before in the story, but I kinda forgot about it. I wonder how he’s managed to avoid getting found out, since things like that are pretty major indications that there’s something weird and supernatural going on with you.

Getting an update on Hanekawa was also good. I hope we see her again in Ougi Dark. I kinda miss her. I’m curious to learn about her adventures in trying to track down Oshino, which is also why I’m really happy that that’s apparently what an entire arc in Wazamonogatari is about.

This whole date between Araragi and Senjougahara is definitely reminiscent of their date in episode 12 of Bake, which makes me really wish I had have gotten around to rewatching that before this. It’s the next thing I have slated for my rewatch. Oh well. I at least remember how it goes so that’s what matters. I like the bookending feel that it has, to make their date here be about stars as well.

I wasn’t really expecting Senjougahara to be working toward studying space in college, but I guess it makes sense. It was really nice seeing her talk about something that she’s passionate about studying and pursuing as a career. It’s a side of her we don’t see much.

That was a pretty ominous little stinger there at the end, with Senjougahara saying that star maps look more like ougis than squares. Not sure if that’ll mean anything for the remainder of this arc, though.

PART TWO:

Welp, we immediately went into a whole dream sequence with Ougi so I guess the stinger was kinda immediately relevant. Welp.

I often forget to comment on the visual elements of the series, which is kinda weird since the visuals are one of my favourite aspects of the series, so I just wanna say here that the visuals in this whole scene were great. I love the space aesthetic, the harsh lighting across part of Araragi’s face while the rest of him is pitch black, and of course Ougi is her own visual presence in every scene she’s in. Watching her in action is always great, even though I tend to have trouble following what she talks about.

I’m not sure if the discussion about constellations will be very relevant, but it was interesting. It was kinda funny seeing them talk about the Southern hemisphere as a foreign place, considering that that’s where I live :V

I was definitely a bit lost during the entire conversation about what it means to be ‘right’ and how some people pursue a righteous identity by not doing the right thing. But it obviously was meant to tie into Ougi’s whole deal about returning things to zero, and punishing people who step outside of their bounds. I hadn’t really thought about it, but it makes sense that Gaen would face some sort of punishment for what she did. Even I, at the time, thought it all seemed too perfect.

I’m excited to finally learn what Ougi’s deal is, in the next arc. I think I already know the answer though, due to some spoilers I’ve read. It’s not a big deal, though. If I’m right about it, then it’s something I already figured was probably the case.

The whole date between Araragi and Senjougahara was amazing and adorable. I just love seeing these two together. It’s great. I love how we got to see Senjougahara’s more petty side when she kept losing at random games to Araragi. In general I like the little moments that show off how she’s just a regular person who isn’t perfect at everything, and can get kinda over-dramatic about stuff. I also liked the little detail that they were singing different OP songs from the series at the karaoke bar. I kinda wish we got to actually hear them sing. Oh well.

Their little chat at the cafe about Gaen was pretty interesting, and kinda reaffirmed why I don’t really trust Gaen at all. She seems like exactly the sort of person who will be opposed to Araragi either now or in the future. It’s making me a little worried about how the next arc will go.

I loved their whole scene in the car together by the sea. For one thing, the whole seaside twilight setting was incredibly beautiful in it’s own right, and the music was really nice. It was another one of the scenes that really shows how Senjougahara is kinda insecure and sorta needy as a person, and her whole sort of sadistic obsession with making Araragi be obedient to her is mostly a reflection of her loneliness and her desire to be loved. She doesn’t really know how to express her feelings in a straight-forward way 99% of the time, but that’s part of her charm. It was really sweet that her first request of him after he said that he’s swear absolute obedience to her for the rest of his life was to have him call her by her first name. Though, like always, the whole first name basis thing in Japanese culture is still sorta strange to me. The fact that even after being a couple for so long they’ve only been calling each other by their last names to this point is weird to consider. But I’m happy that they achieved this little milestone.

To be honest I can’t really explain why I like their relationship so much. Or, more accurately, I can’t really explain why I like their relationship in particular when there’s so many similar relationships out there in media that I really dislike. I just like these two a lot. Part of it’s almost definitely the vague sense of nostalgia that I mentioned before. I’ve been following these two characters for ages now, so I can’t help but be attached to them.

Now I really want to continue my rewatch of Bake so I can watch the starry night scene again, but I probably won’t have the time for that for a while.

The ED was nice. I’m a little sad that there effectively wasn’t much of any new footage in it, but I quite like the trip down memory lane, of seeing all the previous EDs. For some reason I always forget about them, even though I really like all of them. I love how consistently they stick to using Hajime Ueda’s style in them. I’d say that it makes them memorable, but I guess that’d be a bit hypocritical to say.

Well that sure was an ominous as hell end to the arc. Ougi really knows how to be threatening. It’s still hard to tell exactly what the extent of her goals in all this are. I’m happy that Araragi isn’t willing to forsake Shinobu and Hachikuji, though.

It really feels like we’re setting up for a final battle here, but knowing how this series goes, I doubt it’ll be a conventional battle.

I’ll try and watch Ougi Dark tomorrow, but no promises there.

#murasaki rambles #monogatari series #owarimonogatari #owarimonogatari season 2

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latefrequencies · 7 years

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Okay so this is how Chromarose and IHNMAIMS are related in their setting

So descriptions of the settings:

as probably most of you know, AM from IHNMAIMS basically has the last five humans on Earth kept in a setting where AM can warp reality and create tortures and imaginary (sometimes) narrative scenarios for the humans, and what most of you didn’t know bc I just fairly recently decided this was that Chromarose has a Torture Basement in which they do all their filming (at first I wasn’t sure where they filmed bc I was like “isn’t a torture basement too unrealistic and cliche” and then I went “well like real life people have had torture basements and gotten away with it for a very long time and honestly where else are you going to have the setting be”)

yes I am positing that AM basically just created the archetypical “torture basement” setting. He didn’t not do that.

So anyway both are scenarios where somebody has basically absolute power over the settings and creates sometimes very elaborate scenarios for the purpose of inflicting some kind of harm on people. Said creators of the settings have no regard for human life and they never did, thereby creating absolutely no complications in doing their respective things. There is sometimes vaguely religious imagery associated with them being “gods” of their scenarios (AM has the whole “I AM” thing and that’s a phrase associated with God in Christianity and I BELIEVE there were like...at least a few times in the short story where someone said something about about AM being the god of this setting and I’ve drawn Chroma with some religious imagery before and posited “what if they were the god of murder tapes” and I’m like actually considering making something like that canon-ish. Not like making them an actual god but making religious references canonically a thing.)

So you may be going “but Jude that’s what all murder basement settings have in common” but there are two things that basically kind of set Chroma and AM apart and make them similar to each other

First part is the fact that both people (AM is a “people” to me) created these settings and torture people in them because that’s the only thing they can do. AM is a war machine who was literally programmed to do nothing but inflict harm and probably literally only can do that. Chroma THINKS that all they’re good at is devising violent scenarios and they kill people as a means of realizing that “potential”. (I’m going to talk about this like Chroma really is only good at murder ((and also like music isn’t the other thing they think they’re good at)) because in their mind, that’s true and really in this situation what matters is that the person who made the situation thinks it’s true.)

Okay anyway Chroma is only good at harming people. Granted Chroma does kill people and AM. Doesn’t. It’s a plot point he doesn’t want them to die but yknow both do torture people (Chroma usually includes a torture sequence in any given video). They have created these settings of torture because in some way, it was inevitable for them to do so and there was nothing else they were good enough at doing or capable of doing.

Second part is the fact that both settings feature a narrative aspect. In Chromarose’s videos, there is always a sequence that Chroma personally sees as a narrative. They have things in their videos that aren’t the murders (they will interview victims, have them do something for the camera, put music in the video, etc.) and themurder is the conclusion and the finale we came to see, so to speak. To them there’s a beginning (the victim selection), a middle (everything that isn’t the murder), and an end (the murder).

This is more in the video game than any other version, but in IHNMAIMS, AM creates narrative settings. Like, it’s clear that the “game” he plays with the humans involves putting them in scenarios that come with a narrative and I would entirely not be surprised if he did this kind of thing to them semi-regularly (I mean.....I feel like it’s also implied because all of them seem to have a sense of familiarity when in their scenarios like Oh It’s This Again). Even in the short story he does make a sort-of narrative for the humans, like he does the thing where he makes them go to get the food and provides varying obstacles and painful things along the way but he’s very clearly setting up a (very simple) story (which turns out to be basicaly just a rly mean practical joke kind of but yknow) where it’s like “these people did these things to this effect” and like. It’s clear he can stage scenarios and narratives if he wants to. Granted AM’s narratives are quite different than Chroma’s but it’s still this narrative quality. Like it’s very planned out as opposed to just “hey let’s torture somebody” it’s a specific “scene” of torture (yes I’m aware I just used and quote-marked that word that’s also used in sadomasochistic contexts to mean somewhat kinda the same thing I said it just seemed like the right word) There’s just this kinda stageyness and narrative quality present in both settings that isn’t inherent to the torture basement setting.

There’s also the fact that both AM’s and Chroma’s torture basements have similar outcomes for both themselves and the people in those settings. AM doesn’t kill the humans but he does prevent them from escaping or finding relief (until the end kinda but yknow. Also how many times have I said “but yknow” to mean “not exactly but still yes” in this post.) Chroma kills everybody. It’s not like the thing where the person provides the victims a way out if they do XYZ thing or where the victim escapes there are no escapees there are no survivors in AM and Chroma’s House Of Pain (I don’t know why I said it that way it sounds like I’m trying to be funny I might be trying to be funny I do not know.) And there’s no thing where someone Finds Out and shuts the places down. Obviously in IHNMAIMS there’s no way to make someone do that with AM bc he is Truly In Charge Of Everything. In Chromarose’s story just. That just never happens.

Also vague religious references. AM’s whole “I AM” thing (that phrase is a reference to God in Christianity like it’s A Thing in Christianity) and the fact that I think at least a few characters call him the god of their world. I can’t remember who says that. I’m too tired to try to find out at this point in time. I’ve drawn Chroma in religious-esque settings (”Your own! personal! Chroma!”) and been like What If They’re The God Of Murder Tapes and I will probably make religious references at least kinda canon (not that I’ll make it so Chromarose is indeed a deity but like in one of the interviews I’m probably gonna do the Thing where someone’s like ‘I know there is a heaven for me and a hell for you” and Chroma’s just “regardless I am the god of the space we are in now and wherever you’re going to I’m very soon to send you on your way”)

Also the way it ends for the creators of the painful environment? this is kind of a spoiler but I’ve talked about it the gist of it before but Chroma stops making films at around the time that VHS becomes obsolete because they realize they can no longer get attention the same way as they’re used to and their work isn’t serving them the same end (yeah that’s a difference between Chroma and AM never did I say they were like. similar, character-wise, as such. Just that they create similar environments for similar reasons-ish.) but no one stops them they stop of their own volition, and their Final Tape happens at the end of their story when their place of residence is discovered and the protagonists go to the place where Chroma is and they’re like “I’ve been waiting to do this for years!” and they film themself doing the ultimate final video where they kill themself and film it before anything else can be done.

the reason Chroma’s ending has anything to do with AM is because I’ve seen people apparently argue abt what happens to AM at the end of the story? because there are some people who are like “no he’s not really doing time distortion on Ted that’s Ted being an unreliable narrator and genuinely thinking there’s time distortion, AM actually shut itself off on purpose and is now basically dead” which is like. obviously of course a suicide. and then there’s like. apparently uncertainty as to whether or not he keeps doing bad things to Ted after The Event at the end of the story. because some people are like “and Ted just has this one extra horrible thing on top of the other terrible things he was experiencing before” and some people just assume AM doesn’t directly do anything to Ted again (except the time distortion, if that’s a thing) because what has happened now is the Ultimate Torture why does AM have to do anything else now. and like. Chroma dying in one of their own tapes is The Ultimate, time to go home everyone we just got the best on tape. obvs they. can’t do anything else after killing themself but they did see that as their Finale so yeah. in no cases does anyone survive the pain. no one escapes. they just have to deal with these horrifying gods of pain, one of whom is wearing a weird mask.

#this has been a self related post #chromarose presents #ihnmaims /#torture /#murder /#death /#suicide mention /#religion /#serial killers /

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