#ive basically had the whole game spoiled for me at this point | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

macklives · 5 years

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homestuck recap

i hated this so fucking much bc my 2 am bitch-ass didnt want to read a recap thats probably longer than any slowburn out there

anyways here it is

also, uhhH sorry im using this as a end of session discussion bc that shit gets explained in her as well. and im not writing up more recaps of a recap so this is where im done for the day. (by done for the day i mean last nights session, im still doing a liveblog soon. i just wrote this yesterday)

also that this is long

you dont have to read it, theres nothing of importance

ive been coping with humor to get me through it

neato.

have fun with what i suffered through:

why was “beta” the only thing unhighlighted?

like did i miss a page???

OH its the beta version of HS thats why

damn its like 5 pages and thats it

mmh

well youll all be happy to know im clicking every single one of these links again bc i like looking back like ahh i remember that. good times. also in case i forgot some shit existed.

do you think andrew had fun writing this? or was he like “fuck”

thats a lot of fucking package talk. good thing im not confused as of now and remember it pretty clearly. of else, this early on in the recap, id be screwed.

god remember when i did an analysis on each item and what it did

i feel as if i have the technology engrained inside my head right now

cruxite, alchemeter, all that jazz

flashbacks are starting up already

yeah, that was the good part in homestuck where i knew 100% that i probably would continue on this liveblog in its entirety, ngl

that one explosion scene. bc it kept me going.

OH W A IT SHIT

i just realized how the intermission spades probably fucking foreshadowed the whole jack revolts thing and gains the ring, which was also technically JOHNS fault considering he slashed up the doll in the first place

my god, i guess thats the only good aspect of the recap. looking back at things and realizing the missing pieces.

oh that makes sense for the whole “this prototyping had no effect on the enemies, since he was already in the medium” i didnt actually think about that

little did rose know where that would get her right now

oh yeah

there’s still the whole entire lab terminal thing and how mom basically knows the place exists. i guess we’re still venturing onto that and itll come up later when we find out how mom knows SO MUCH about the game.

still think shes some weird spy or secret agent

i kinda love her ngl

anyways, theres literally no reason for skaia to produce a cloning machine. so technically, they only sent the meteors in, right? so who put the cloning machine in if not mom?

oh yeah that impact was nerve wrecking asf

and still at this point in the comic i called dave fuckboy red

huh, how times change

i hated reading that whole paragraph ngl, the frustration just kicked me in the boobs again

yeah nobody else got tornadoes, huh?

OH that makes also much more sense

bc she did prototyped them before she entered the medium.

i gotcha

man one of my favorite edits i made, rose hitting that meteor with a bat

are you

telling me

the exiles structures they arrived on were in the form of the items the kids used to enter the medium?

THE EGG

THAT EXPLAINS “EGG”

of course it was 413 years ago. that was never explained. simply vague “many years in the future....” but i expected no less from this

man serenity is the most wholesome character in hs no doubt

damn thought andy here was really gonna spoil us jade’s planet

okay cool, im glad i now have the layout to the whole “their stations went to the coordinates of the home button” shindig

man i honestly dont know what else to say besides “yeah cool recap” when i already pretty much know what went down? ofc im looking into each link and shit and adding in things when i see fit, but otherwise its just me going “ah good times” yknow

the whole meteor thing kinda makes sense now?

we’re still missing a few pieces of info but we’re getting there, folks

oh yeah that reveal

god jade and dave have it in the shits for parents huh

bro isnt the best and jade has a fucking dog

who lowkey

is doing better than bro

who knew a fucking dog is a better guardian than bro lmfao

dreambot = terminator. im telling you.

sorry im still on that idea and it will never leave unless i have the actual proof in front of me that its not going to become a thing. meaning, ive finished hs and theres still no terminator dreambot or either andrew himself gives me a canon letter with “the robot is not arnold, mackenzie, pls just let it be”

why is the entire game session highlighted

i swear to god if this is like to a second recap or smth of the whole game session i may fucking CRY

okay thank god its just a design of the skaia layout

which is honestly cool

idk why its blurry tho but i can at least see the layout now. which is honestly how i pictured it anyways.

yeah, john did make a huge impact in his friends’ life and i find that so fucking touching

yep. got that. everything loops around. cool.

especially when the trolls come in. god we havent even gotten to that recap portion yet, we havent even gotten to the INTERMISSION

pls can this be the halfway point to the recap

AT LEAST

so they were exiled after the whole jack: ascend thing, right? considering theyre way in the future. man no fucking wonder.

speaking of jack

man that whole dad and jack interaction was gold, ngl

OH THAT EXPLAINS THE RING THEN

and wow, andrew’s really giving us the best female content huh. andrew is the true god of equality and diversity.

also hey, i didnt realize that wow. so PM tricked the queen in showing the parking ticket to be able to take the present from jack. she’s a smart cookie, that one..

she and PM basically snitched on jack and it was the best thing that has happened to me so far

oh yeah okay

but why did AR panic over bec? bc thats something we havent learned yet, right?

anyways

exile town, the only town which should exist. facts. i dont make the rules.

noice

i love PM being queen. like.. thats canon now. shes an actual queen.

yeah that was a fun game and the consorts were cute

fuck yeah the dick head

hate them even more now that i know john was killed because of them

anyways, i wonder what dick move dave’s denizen did? maybe thats why its filled with lava bc the denizen was like “fuck it. make the land red. kill them all”

UH WHAT

WHAT

OH MY GOD HOW DID I JUST FORGET NANNAS LETTER LIKE THAT LMFAO

THEIR TITLES WERE THERE THE WHOLE TIME!

so i still dont know what they mean but i can gather it has something to do with the game giving them abilities. considering dave is the “knight of time” and he can go back in time. whack.

which means john can either control someones breathing or simply wind. and rose is... like that one girl in the winx club who does the sun shit. bc whenever i think of light powers, i think of stella.

and jade is space. witch of space.

nice

i have no idea what that means ngl

okay finally

we’re at the trolls

maybe this recap will end soon

i remember when i thought they were internet bullies

yesss

someone asked if i basically knew the trolls were on a different veil than the kids, so not presently with them, and i know lol. i was making a joke before btw. jsyk. dont think im incompetent to forget these things when sometimes i choose to forget it so i can add in a joke

it be like that, i annoy many

then again, pls dont assume im trying to say im not incompetent bc im also a fucking dumbass and DO forget shit and i have no excuse

imagine being so bored on the meteor, your last resort is speaking to aliens

ngl me if i was ever trapped on a meteor and could potentially do that

nah ik its bc its their only hope at helping with their session or whatever tf CG said to john. but there was BOUND to be a conference meeting between them like “okay guys. humans. that needs to be sorted out” and you just hear CG screaming in the background

i cant wait to meet them honestly bc im growing on all 4 of the ones we’ve seen already. and on top of that, i know what they look like and i know theyre not THAT bad, just a little on the crayy zee side sometimes

but theyre trying

OH MY GOD

I GET IT

FUCK

DOES THAT MEAN THE INTERMISSION IS *APART* OF THE MAIN FUCKING STORY??

AND SPADES IS WV FOR THE TROLLS

GOD D A M N

wow

i didnt expect that. but maybe the signs were there and i was just willingly choosing to ignore it or smth bc “haha couldnt be, right”

flashbacks to how i thought the trolls were humans

anyways, i guess he got his revenge on the kids version of “snowman” ie the black queen. but really

he did not have to do that. he could have cut off the finger and fled. but he decided “nah, lets implode her” so the loml is dead and all i got was a catchy song

i knew they were different types of “bullies” but now i just have to replace bullies with uhh

trolling strategies

anyways, this is cute. i love how they’ve come to be friends through mutual frustration. good part in the comic.

i wonder why it explodes

more importantly

....

terminator time?

this was my favourite sequences of dialogues in the whole entirety of homestuck. that is to say the back and forth thing that the kids went through to become a sort of wingman for the other.

absolutely gold.

all except AT’s rap.

GC was the only smart one with the linear shit

anyways fuck he still has to kill the denizen now but apparently its hard to beat for a sleeping dick head so

that will be fun for the future

john will probably need to kill A LOT of imps to get there

yeah rose is a badass bc she slayed that thing with needles of all things

OH and the white queen was the cursive

damn did AR ever do the whole guide process to a kid yet? maybe he will with dave, idk

oHHH

i fucking SEE

thats why he said DNA

to use it and replace all the life forms in the ocean

fucking neat wow

man that sounded sarcastic but im genuinely impressed bc all i got was bullshit as i read jaspersprites log

so thats the secret. it was “meow” bc that somehow translates to the genetic code she needs then. and that code apparently took fucking years to write as well. sick. whack. oh man.

derse is very pretty, ngl

and wow shit

“dave had already been awake in his tower all along without realizing it” how tf does someone just

do that, awake in both places at once

i didnt even fucking realize that fact as i read that pesterlog wow

ah yes, around the time things got confusing

okay so the capsule makes sense bc at first i didnt know it was a fucking time capsule so i got confused as to how it just apparated the game lmfao

the more you know i guess *twinkle*

i find that a neat concept tho

like the whole whatever you prototype affects the imps and shit

yeah so that whole “he had no advice” basically impacted his future

no shit dave wanted to reset things bc he probably thought he caused some sort of bad butterfly effect and killed his best friend

fuck calsprite thats all im gonna say

i read that first sentence and i think i got an aneurysm

and then everything else just made me sad again

i mean good thing he fucking did amirite?

we got pain at first but now we got cool shit like idk

fucking DAVESPRITE

damn idk how that works

will rose have like two minds now? or will this be some steven universe fusion shit?

“and understood their meaning” course well i fucking didnt so could you pls elaborate, rose?

okay but then what the fuck did he use that was inside the fucking box

bc i thought he used his knife?

im only every going to refer him as that now, thank you andrew

alright okay..

god that was a lot

i dont know what will happen once i click on those links but i am going to see that for myself bc i refuse to add ANYTHING ELSE

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thethirdwheel404 · 4 years

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Med Rewatch Series (#1)

Right, monkey brain said no sleep no rest, only suffering at the hands of med.

I am going to start with the first episode of S2: Soul Care. Reasoning? I need to check if Latham references Ava in his first interaction with Connor.

If my memory serves me right, when Connor is passed over to Latham for his fellowship, Latham says that he was not his first choice. In fact, his first choice was a brilliant surgeon from South Africa. In the first episode of S2, a season where Ava Bekker is only introduced with one line at the end of the last episode.

If I remember correctly and Latham does actually say that in the first ep of s2, it will be huge for the continuity (and my theory that I came up with today, if you’re interested in following this you should really read that really long post that came a little before this where the basis of the theory is laid out).

Also in rewatching this I see more of Sarah which, again, I have not seen in two years, and she was the reason I became invested in the show, and the reason I stopped watching after she left.

And all of this even before I start the episode.

There are so many emotions and thoughts running through my brain it literally hurts. I think i’m getting a headache. I’m already really regretting this, this cannot be healthy for me.

(btw, this will basically be a train of thought type thing, I’ll do my best to keep it coherent)

- omg its starting

- i completely forgot how s1 ended but its not importnat in anyway

- just, why are they in a helicopter

- how fast does the episode move ive forgotten and i need to know

-JESUS CHRIST SO DRAMATIC

- THE BEGINNING WITH WILL WHY

- it is at this point where I apologize to all those who made it this far bc we’re literally not even 30 seconds in yet

- i just have a lot of med thoughts

- oh god save me

- i am laughing hysterically

- JESUS CHRIST THE APRIL TB STORYLINE AND TATE WTF

- god that feels like a lifetime ago it was relevant holyshit

-remember when she was pregnant?

- literally what have I missed

- side note, i really like the cup april drinks out of.

-THERE SHE IS

-SARAH

-SHE’S HERE

-and she’s a barista

-literally wtf is this show

-and the dramatic music is still going literally chill man god

-THE WAY SARAH SMILES HOLY SHITTTT come on man there was literally no way i’d survive this but fuck not even a minute in...

- okay but i never understood charles’ family scenario but this is already too fucking long for a minute in so i hope we can just skip past that

-hahahah sharon’s fucking divorce? holy shit, this is too dramatic for the first ep literally save me (at least she acts well)

-yeah the one thing I will say about med (thats a lie ive already said a hundred but yk) is that for the crap storylines and all, the actors take what they’re given and give it their all and i appreciate it so much

-the helicopter’s number is N365UCC and just... succ

-ethans bird (!)

-also the fact that’s so big for ethan to be chief resident is so weird to me. like the last medical drama I watched was greys and they are all like grizzled veterans and have been doing that stuff for actual decades and i tend to put med and greys on like the same level bc they are the only medical dramas ive watched but.. holy crap the people on med are so young?? half their main cast is med students and residents. when nearly every main character on greys is a department head. its wild.

-proud of ethan. proud of my boy (did you know that adam jacobs who played aladdin on broadway was in a s3 episode? fun facts) (fun fact: did you know that ava is the only main character on the show who’s status is now deceased? I’ll shut up now.)

-oh my god i say roland buck III’s name and GOD noah jesus

- i find noah incredibly annoying, especially bc he tries to overshadow reese (my fav) but also just bc hes spoiled [that thing that said that one of the biggest mistakes med made was not having sarah get the emergency med residency at the end of s1 comes to mine, and the fact that noah got his residency easy peasy] - but, i will say that the moment at the end of this season where noah and reese dance together at the party is very adorable. (pre reesker brain showing lmao I really did love sarah with my whole heart) (moreover my snapchat memories were filled with just recordings of reese scenes lmaooooo)

-okay at this point I need to stop once i get to the potential ava thing bc what is happening we’re not even two minutes in why is this so long. (so many thoughts)

- i find will annoying but,,, he is kind of nice to look at. and what i mean is like facial acting (i am a lesbian). like. just. don’t speak. and when he’s being a good character he’s fine. it’s very few and very far between ig

-natalie annoys me so much and shes only had one line, and it wasn’t even a character line, it was mainly exposition.

-EW

-FUCKING EW

-ITS CONNOR HE’S HERE. god i forgot what he looked like in red scrubs and his poofy hair. child compared to s3 and s4. hopefully we see latham soon so we all don’t have to suffer through this. and he looks so angsty. he definetly glowed up in the later seasons.

- i have no clue how to spell definetly. I am guessing literally everytime.

-latham please come and end this all.

-oh haha there’s downey hes dead.

-okay so i actually watched s1 after i watched s2 which is so weird to think about. like that means that i liked s2 so much that i BOUGHT THE DVD FOR S1. yeah. I liked it that much (it really only means I was that much of a simp for sarah). but it also means that technically i watched s1 after i met ava?? like i honestly had NO CLUE what was in my future. did young me ever think she was going to stay up late at night, avoiding history hw while analyzing a defunct character from this show on a whim? a character i was super annoyed with at the beginning? who has no become a huge part of my personality? honestly? no. no she did not.

-and the story with downey was so jarring. and the story with zanetti. like i think i first started watching with the first ep of s2 (the one im talking about rn) and i was a bit lost. so going back and watch s1 to like connect the dots. but i never expected the dots to look like that. its like each season of this show is a completely different show from all the other seasons. like i’ve said before, this show is a headache. but literally latham please come and end this for now.

-GOD CONNOR LOOKS SO YOUNG WHAT THE HELL thats so weird lmaooooo

- like i had absolutely no clue who downey was going into this. and they they started talking like ‘oh yeah he killed his attending’ and i was just like ‘damn bro ill cheers to that’

- that’s literally ava’s first line actually. “i heard your girlfriend went insane and you murdered your attending.” - which was why she was hated at first. that was literally her first line to connor which is like, so hilariously rude that it was instantly iconic.

-also HAHAHAHAH CUE FUCKING ANGST ABOUT CONNOR HURTING EVERYONE AROUND HIM WTF BRO THE EFFECT YOU HAVE ON PEOPLE

- but i’m also sad now. --- “I heard your girlfriend went insane.” Oh. Oh, sweetie. Ava... No. --- but why does s2 ava (all two lines) foreshadow s4 ava in so many ways. like literally what were the writers on.

-baghdad.

-ah yes. the return of baghdad. been a long time since i heard that one, but it is easily one of my favorite running things about med. its just a little detail but the nick name is like perfect. (when i read fanfic where the chars are actually doing doctor stuff in the hospital it makes me light up) the WORLD BUILDINGGGGG. but whatever

-this is the girl who has the fake baby right? that was a really good ep (bc sarah content. can you see my favorites? for the same reason the one where the girl has split personalities easily ranks high with me.) oh wait this is the one where the dad like dies but then comes back for a split second to see his grand child. there’s not really a lot I can say about that, but the fact that i remember it vividly is... weird.

-okay but I actually love the ED in this show. I love how the show is centered around the ED and not the OR like greys. its fast paced, you see a lot about the characters really quickly (one of the reason’s connor’s intro to the hospital in the pilot is certified iconic in my mind [his interactions with will are gold]). the team works well together (usually, when things are good. - which is another reason I hated the show more as time went on. The personal lives interfered more and more and more with their work as time went on. it got so annoying). but like right here will just calls maggies name and maggie is just On It. I love it. I love the fast pace. it’s why this show got me to come back. so many things happen, it overloads my brain, like the way a video game works y occupying all of your attention.

-when is the dad gonna pass out i’m just waiting

-AHAHAHAHAHA JEFF NOOOOO. what even was the deal with jeff that storyline annoyed me so much I never got it. he was friends with nat’s husband (who died) and they were both named Jeff? and she actually ended up getting with Jeff a few times?

- the more you watch med and see how the characters get with each other, the more jaded you become

-omg they’re transferring the girl to the bed i love it when they count

-maggie was great but from what i heard/read they ruined her character too??? just not the same

-lmao only real g’s remember the chicago fire backdoor med pilot (if you want an explanation ask me lmao it was a ride)

- i was a real med simp bc I bought that episode on apple video.

-ahahaha this is so stupid. Jeff tries to do things and Will (being a fucking asshole and jealous, doesnt’ let him). he’s a med student let him fucking learn. also i remember why i hated will

-okay but if you look at greys vs. med, greys literally gives their med students no rights. scratch that. they give they’re interns little to no rights. (i only watched the last three seasons bc lesbian, but in those seasons they introduce the bottom of the totem pole, the sub I’s, who are a step ahead of med students, yet they are jokes on the show.) its just a weird juxtaposition is all.

-”lungs are wet.” dramatic music intensifies.

-OKAY BUT I LITERALLY FORGOT NATALIE SPECIALIZED IN PEDS. LIKE I COMPLETELY 100% FORGOT. HOLY SHIT THATS SO FUNNY i can’t believe in my mass hyperfixation i forgot, just more proof that she doesn’t deserve anything.

-why did will make nat do that call? also idk why but is it weird to anyone else when the characters call each other but just.. their names.

-ahahahah i laugh literally everytime i remember that will is supposed to be in charge like he is threatened by anything that MOVES. (also more juxtapositon to greys bc here the attendings are treated as a joke!)

- hly shit i just remember monday mourning and god damn the angst literally never takes a day off but whatever.

- i dont usually get like this but the dad’s acting here is actually making me sad lol. Usually i get annoyed when family members get emotional (im weird uhhhh)

-why did we have to watch the tube being put in for so long - med is so dramatic this fucking show whyyyy

- i bet u the dad is gonna pass out

-oh ig not oops

-OKAY FUCK ME THAT LITERALLY ONLY TOOK US TO THE TITLES HOW DO I HAVE THESE MANY FUCKING THOUGHTS.

-wait latham introduction we may just be able to call it here.

-haha i fucking hate him (connor). he just... comes off so fake-charming its annoying. i cant get over it lmao

-okay but literally every gives connor shit and I am here for it. Latham: “did you kill him?”

- it is literally so funny but annoy how connor throws hands with literally everyone in his path (like dude just chill come onnn)

-okay. okay. okay. finally the part i was waiting for.

- Latham: I preferred a young woman from Groote Schuur, but I was outvoted.

That’s an actual quote, from Latham. For those who are wondering, Groote Schuur is a famous hospital in, you guessed it, South Africa. This is where I’m calling the episode. This is all I needed.

I just want to restate. This is the first episode of season 2. Ava Bekker is introduced to the show in the last episode of season 2. What does this mean, my friends? It means everything.

For those of you who stuck through to the end, I am very thankful. Here we have probably the first piece of evidence to my theory, at least chronologically.

I, personally, think it’s absurd I remembered this point, but I did. That point, that line, presently, watching this episode with no idea of what the future holds, is only there to tell us that Latham and Connor are not going to agree. But this is the single greatest piece of foreshadowing med has ever done.

Med has never planned anything. I feel confident when I say that. Look at their storylines. They are literally on fire, and every decision the characters make reads like the writers going ‘we have no idea how we made it this far, we thought we would get stopped like ten steps ago.’

When has med ever planned things more than a few episodes in advanced, honestly? Almost never, and going a full season sitting on a plot point, that’s major. This was the first time med has ever planned something miles in advance.

In all honestly, yes I am probably giving the med writers a lot more credit than they deserve. It’s quite possible that as the season progressed they just decided connor needed a new love interest or at least a new dynamic, so they could have just easily looked back and thought ‘oh, hey, here’s a fun little thing we said earlier in the season, wouldn’t it be fun if it paid off?’ That could be true.

Here’s why it probably isn’t. The med writers have no respect for their own continuity. you really think that, in order to come up with a whole new character, they went back to the first episode of the season and paid off a line that is said in less than 2 seconds? no way. Bull. Shit.

honestly, it is probably equally unlikely that either of these things happened. The med writers don’t look back at their story. It’s true, but they also don’t plan things in advance either.

here’s the thing, the more i write, the more absurd it starts to sound. Yeah. Sure. the med writers sat on a character for an entire season, that’s totally a thing that happened and not sarcasm. When pigs fly. everyone knows med is impulsive and messy. But what I am saying is that they planned one thing. One thing.

Ava has an accent. That was a commitment. A pretty uncommon one too. South Africa is such an out of the box choice that god its barely on the map. It asks a lot of someone to act hard while also doing an uncommon accent. If the med writers just decided they needed to give connor a new dynamic, they could have made it a n y o n e. Yeah, sure it would have been nice to have the latham dynamic with the new character, but it would have been so much easier to just create a new character that doesn’t have such a commitment. We all know people who play opposite of Connor Rhodes do not stay around that long.

There is absolutely no reason Connor’s s3 love interest had to be the girl from South Africa. It could have literally been anyone. They could have kept Robin on. They could have made the new character not have so many specific requirements.

At this point, I’m pushing this really hard. Yeah, obviously Ava was planned from the beginning of s2. She had to be. It’s way too specific to be anything else.

What I’m pointing out here is med has never done that before. (at least to my knowledge, if i’m wrong please tell me i don’t want to be a fool) They have never had such a concrete plan for a character, so much as to tease them a full season before they were introduced.

I’m saying, that Ava was special. She was the only character who was teased ahead of her arrival. The one who they knew they wanted, other than the originals, and honestly saying the ‘knew what they wanted to do with the originals’ is being generous. But Ava was different. They had big plans for Ava.

It’s undeniable. Ava was the only character who was planned and teased ahead of her arrival. Ava has such a different style and character than anyone else on the show. She was always planned to be, even when she was just being teased, a rival to connor, meaning she could stand her own against him (or without him).

Now of course, the med writers forgot this when writing s4 and s5. But for the purposes of the important things, all that really matters are the two mentions in s2, and what happens in s3. (for the theory at least).

In conclusion: think about how odd it is that Ava was the only character that was planned over the course of the show. Like sure the characters are planned, but never this far in advance. Med writers don’t really plan anything. I would be shocked if they did anything but through a dart at a spinning wheel. But they had plans for Ava, and they had plans for s3, when she was good.

Think about how odd it is that the med writers had a character planned from the start of s2, that they sat on for a whole season. They never, ever did something so slow and deliberate. Never. It goes against their formula. Like a fucking shark, they have to be moving or they die, at least in their heads. But Ava was always a change to the formula. They had a plan for s3.

that’s it for now. we will see what happens when i watch the last episode of s2.

read the next parts:

Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Extra

#chicago med #med rewatch series #mine #soul care #ava bekker

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enigmari · 4 years

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Oh my GOD Please infodump abt hatoful.... ive repeatedly tried to get into it but have no idea how/how to connect any of the lore. Thanos !

I SAW THE TYPO TOO LATE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO END WITH “THANKS”,

SKDFSKJSLKDFJ no worries anon, it happens to the best of us. Anyways, how should I start this…

So, if you’re totally new here, Hatoful Boyfriend is a visual novel dating sim whose basic premise is “what if cliched boyfriend archetypes… but birds?” And it takes this premise completely wholeheartedly, while still maintaining a comedic tone. You pick classes and club activities each in-game day to increase your skill points, and depending on your levels (and a few dialogue options) you’ll either successfully romance your birdie of choice or get a Bad End. Most of the birds make their interests/level requirements obvious from the start, and you have a bunch of save slots to work with if you wanna go the scum route. Pretty simple and straightforward.

(Actually, that’s a lie, it gets much more complicated later. Don’t worry about that right now.)

Most of HBF is framed through the perspective of the protagonist (I’m gonna use her canon name for convenience) Hiyoko, and she is… not the brightest bulb in the box. Especially in the first game, when events in one character’s route will be foreshadowed in other routes, she will rarely call them out or make note of them. Naturally, this also means some reveals will be spoiled depending on which order you do the routes in. You also unlock documents in the Archive section after completing each route, which adds another level of puzzle piecing to the mix.

(No, this is not the complicated part I was talking about earlier. Sorry.)

In this next bit, I’m going to briefly run through the routes of the first game from least to most complex in terms of lore, as well as what things are foreshadowed when. I’ll also toss in the archive documents when I feel they’re most relevant to the information you have. We ready?

Okosan’s routes: Mostly joke endings, unless there is some greater plot significance to pudding that I’ve missed for all these years.

Ryouta’s route: Mostly about character building, the only real hint you get is that his mother is sickly and it’s implied he inherited this from her.

Azami’s routes: You could get here with the same stats as Ryouta’s route, but then you fuck it up by taking this job opportunity away from him. How rude, Hiyoko.

Sakuya’s first route: He opens up to you about his abusive and bigoted dad, and with some encouragement you encourage him to run away and become a musician like he always wanted. Mr. Le Bel is very important to multiple other characters in this game.

Sakuya’s second route (needs perfect stats/dialogue choices): Same conversation about his dad, but he chooses to live with you instead. Your big hint is at the end, when Yuuya sends you a letter saying there’s “something he’s wanted to tell [Sakuya] for a long time. Something important.”

Yuuya’s route: You don’t actually get to find out what the "important thing" is, whoops. You do find out that Yuuya’s a spy for the Dove Party, Shuu is one for the Hawk Party, and the school has been increasingly influenced by the Hawk Party as of late.

BAD END: You may have gotten it earlier, but now you have context as to who’s killing you when you fail a route- it’s the Hawk Party. The reason why is still unclear.

[CW for gore, child death, medical abuse, suicide, and attempted genocide from here on! This game is a trip!]

Shuu’s first route: Absolutely not a romance route and if you ship Shuu/Hiyoko please block me and tab out immediately thank you very much. You learn that Shuu has been killing students for medical experimentation, confirming Yuuya’s suspicions about the quills in the student store and the food in the cafeteria.

Shuu’s second route (needs perfect stats/dialogue choices): Same ending where Hiyoko dies, but he’s attached enough to her that he takes her head in a jar when he goes on the run. You do learn that Shuu doesn’t care about the Hawk Party’s politics, just that they can enable his personal experiments.

Archive Note 11: Someone (Shuu) knew that Yuuya was a Dove Party agent from the start. He also notes that some of the students are “fascinating”, which you know from his route means they’re good experiment fodder. You learn that he has reason to believe his victims won’t oppose the experimentation, but not the details.

Archive Note 10: Shuu makes notes about human “adaptability measures.” Given that Hiyoko is the only human at the school, you can guess that this will involve her in some way.

Archive Note 06: Notes about the Spanish Flu, how deadly it was to humans, and the connection to an “Avian Influenza.”

Archive Note 04: Notes about a “Goodwill Ambassador” for humanity, who needs a strong natural immunity to Avian Influenza. Hiyoko’s stats show that she has a base level of 800 Vitality, so you can guess that she’s the ambassador. This is why she dies when you fail a route- the Hawk Party saw she didn’t build a good enough connection to the birds, so they take her as a lost cause.

Archive Note 07: Shuu makes notes about “carrier capacity” in the student body, inducing it in some way in a “normal” individual. You can guess this is the details of his medical experimentation, but not who the victim is. You can also guess that the disease to be carried is Avian Influenza.

Anghel’s route: It’s not actually that complicated, but I think you need to complete Shuu’s route before the “mad love of a fallen angel” option is available. (EDIT: you actually just need to complete one playthrough to unlock this option. Even the Azami solo ending will unlock it.) This ending seemingly undermines all the things we learned about Shuu right before, but this is just Hiyoko’s perspective.

Archive Note 01: A certain student (Anghel) has hallucinogenic properties that can affect bystanders, putting them in a trance-like state. This explains why everything went totally off the rails in his route.

Kazuaki’s route: Again not a romance route (no matter what he says about “waiting”, ew) because the whole point is that Kazuaki is afraid to open himself up to love of any kind. You learn he had someone he cared deeply about in the past but lost, and now he’s been soured from the experience. You also learn that he smells like bleach.

Nageki’s route: You learn that he’s a ghost, that he killed himself in the school some years ago, and that he doesn’t have all his memories. He disappears before you learn anything more, but he’s happy so it’s okay and why am I crying agai-

Archive Note 02: Someone (Nageki) writes about how they are trapped, and can’t remember what happened to them.

Archive Note 05: Nageki remembers he made a promise to someone very important, but he can’t remember who or what it was.

Archive Note 03: Nageki once woke up in a place that wasn’t the library- somewhere with bright lights and a white ceiling. He’s not as trapped as he first thought.

Archive Note 14: Nageki notes that he can move between floors, going from the library to the chemistry lab below. You can guess that the place with the bright lights is somewhere below these two rooms. This also reveals that Nageki knew the layout of the school when he was alive.

Archive Note 12: Nageki notes that after meeting Hiyoko, he feels fulfilled “just as he did back then.” He still can’t remember everything, though.

Archive Note 08: Notes about an underground facility, a fire, and a Subject 00 whose remains are in storage. You can guess that the facility is the place with the bright lights, and Nageki is Subject 00. You can also guess that Nageki set the fire, since he said that he killed himself.

Archive Note 09: Notes about Subject 00′s relative, whose remains are also in storage. You can guess that this is the “important person” that Nageki made a promise to a long time ago.

At this point, the only documents left are Note 13, which is about a terrorist incident at the Heartful House orphanage in which only two birds survived, and Note 15, which is about another terrorist incident some years ago in which the Ave’s High City building was bombed. Nothing in the main routes hints at these notes, so it’s a good time to move to…

Bad Boys Love route: This route is literally the length of the rest of the routes combined, so we’re doin’ more sections, baby!

Kazuaki’s lost loved one and Nageki’s important person turn out to be each other. They were the survivors of the Heartful House incident, and Kazuaki (real name Hitori) took care of his little brother by himself. Nageki was sickly, so he volunteered himself for a medical experiment at the school that could potentially cure him to take the burden off of Hitori.

Unbeknownst to them, the Hawk Party was already in control of the school and their real motive was to investigate the disease Nageki was carrying- Avian Influenza. Shuu was specifically the lead for this project, and he also witnessed the Heartful House incident when it happened. At the time, he went by the name Isa Souma and was a medical researcher. He worked with Ryuuji Kawara, Ryouta’s dad, until Ryuuji’s death from disease.

Ryouta and Hiyoko were also there, because her parents were former human ambassadors too. Unfortunately, they became some of the casualties, which left the two kids heartbroken. Shuu, seeing them and recognizing Ryouta, offered to grant them a wish. They both wished for a world where humans and birds would never fight anymore, which Shuu took to mean “kill all the remaining humans so they can’t fight the birds” because… he’s like that.

Shuu decided that the easiest way to kill all the humans would be to spread the Avian Influenza, and this is why he sought out Nageki. Nageki was forced to kill humans as part of the experiments, and this traumatized him so much that he set the lab on fire to stop it, trapping himself inside. Hitori witnessed this too, and swore to get revenge despite Nageki asking him to destroy his remains and live a happy life. He bleached his feathers and swapped identities with another bird to fake his death, and applied to the school as a teacher under his new name.

Nageki’s plan didn’t entirely work, and the Hawk Party was able to store some of his remains for future experiments with Avian Influenza. This brings us to the timeline of the main routes, where Shuu took advantage of Ryouta’s sickly constitution to make him a new carrier for Avian Influenza. Yuuya tried to interfere on behalf of the Dove Party, but Shuu blackmailed him with the knowledge that he killed his real half-brother because he hated Mr. Le Bel and wanted Sakuya to live instead.

The new strain of Avian Influenza that Ryouta carried was enough to make Hiyoko sick and kill her. The death of the Human Ambassador kickstarts the beginning of this route, and Shuu planned for the humans who would retaliate to also be infected. It doesn’t go as he planned, of course, but that’s laid out pretty well in the rest of the route so I won’t re-summarize it here.

Aaaand that’s about everything for the first Hatoful Boyfriend game! I’ll gladly do infodumps/lore summaries for Holiday Star or the other side materials if anyone wants, but this took almost three hours to write as is so I’m going to give myself a break.

#anonymous #ask me #mari.txt #hatoful boyfriend #EDIT: THIS IS VERY SPOILERY. I HOPED IT WAS OBVIOUS FROM THE LORE REQUEST BUT YEAH.#i don't think it'll spoil your enjoyment of the game bc i didn't go into that many details (also experiencing =/= reading) but yeah.

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swordbreakerz · 4 years

Note

✨ for all of them, 🎥 for treasure planet and guardians of gahoole, 🍀 for 9-1-1 and penumbra, 📃 for unicorn chronicles, 🏳️‍🌈 for howls, treasure planet and legend of zelda, and 💎 for any ones you have facts for lol

you spoil me uwu

🎥 - ok for treasure planet, gotta be the 12 years later scene in the beginning and the zoom in to the spaceport, the way it transitions from jim reading under the blankets to him flying on his solar surfer is so chefs kiss, and just like. everything about to the spaceport lmao, fr guardians definitely the scene where soren flies through the fire and then blows up the pulley system to get rid of the flecks energy, bro when hes flying above it all holding the lantern before he dives down to save them? chills

🍀 - you know im on that projection shit w/ juno steel, ive truly never like connected with a character like that before and he’s really really helped me thru my recovery and transition lol, fr 911 uhhh ig buck or eddie? i havent Thought About It or like consumed it enough times yet to rly settle on someone but fr now,,, they

🏳️‍🌈 - ok for howls, Everyone Is Bi/Pan, howl is trans and autistic and i will die on that hill, fr treasure planet jim and cpt amelia are both trans and both of them + doppler are autistic, fr loz link is trans, autistic and semi nonverbal and communicates primarily with asl, post twilight princess zelda says fuck it and finds a way back into the twilight realm and she midna and link hang out, most of these boil down to everyone i love is trans gay and autistic because i say so lmaooo

📃 - OK SO. without like, spoiling too many plot points, our main character is cara and she lives with her grandmother. her mom is dead and dad is out of the picture. one day theyre getting chased by these people that her grandma knows and cara gets thrown into an alternate realm full of fantasy creatures using her grandmothers amulet. she meets a unicorn named lightfoot and a bunch of other rad people and basically, starts a journey to save that world from the Hunters. the Hunters are an organisation who specifically hate unicorns and want them all dead, led by Beloved, and cara and her friends have to try and stop them from entering the world and wiping them out. its sooo so so good and i highly recommend it cause i have no one to talk to about it please god

✨ - oh boy uh, well. im just gonna like list them out lmao

unicorn chronicles: i loved unicorns as a kid and read it when i was in elementary school, and over the years its remained just as compelling and well written as i remember and like. god the whole concept is so godamn cool and all the subplots that get introduced are fuckign fantastic and like all the different creatures are amazing i literally cant sing its praises enough

howls moving castle: must i have a logical reason? is it not to vicariously live my fantasy of running away to the countryside with a wizard boyfriend, his demon and his apprentice?? for real though, its such a fantastic story with beautiful visuals in the movie and wonderfully compelling prose in the book, and esp in the movie the whole time travel subplot with sophie seeing howl and calcifer in the past and then howl finding her in the future makes me go feral

penumbra: gays in space. need i say more? im a huge slut for gay found family and especially in futuristic space, and im a huge big fan of the lgbt utopia its created. like yeah capitalism sucks but at least im not gonne get misgendered in space starbucks, u kno? all the writing and dialogue is so incredible and the SOUND DESIGN GOD, alex i know u specifically can relate when i say i would kill a man for sophie and her incredible sound design skills, like dude the dance scene in man in glass p2 you can hear every single individual step they take and every swish of junos dress and i jusT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! god its so good, plus the whole the characters help me work through my trauma and repressed anger haha

911: this one is entirely your fault. so obligatory horny on main everyone on that show is so hot i want oliver stark to cradle me gently in his beefy arms oh my god. other than Men, the way it drives home the whole ‘you can’t save everyone, and it will kill you to try, so just focus on what you can do and keep living’ makes me so emo. the way it tackles big bureaucratic issues as well as closer to home interpersonal ones is amazing and i love how it shows people going through and dealing realistically with trauma.

treasure planet: again, who doesnt want to live in Cool Steampunk Space Travel Future? i really really love jims story and his arc, the way he deals with his trauma is uhh very familiar lol and his relationship with silver is like the ideal. the story is just the coolest concept and i love all the wonderful character design and animation, plus the soundtrack SLAPS and everything is beautiful

legend of zelda: ive been associated with this series from a very young age due to my name and as soon as i gave into my fate and looked it up for real i just kinda fell into it lol. i cant really tell you exactly what draws me to it besides ‘wow fun game!’ and ‘god i wish that were me,’ but like the absurd amount of detail thats put into each installment and the creative ways they retell essentially the same/similar story over and over is incredible

guardians of gahoole: so i had the same experience with this and treasure planet which is i remembered ‘oh hey this is a movie that exists and i cant clearly remember watching it, ill look it up :)’ and then it consumed my life for a solid 3 months. firstly this movie is absolutely gorgeous, the animation and framing is fucking stunning and the way they handled owls talking like people as far as the movement of their very inflexible beaks was amazing. it sort of has the same draw for me as warrior cats? secret animal society ft incredibly traumatic experiences and the characters dealing with it. like, the whole concept is just so fuckign wild and it works so well, i rly enjoy this niche genre.

💎 - alright trivia time, so guardians of gahoole is based on a book series and the movie only covers part of the first arc i think idk, BUT theres another series set in the same universe called wolves of the beyond that i devoured when i was younger! i didnt know they were connected for the longest time and when i found out i was :000, i still rly love wolves of the beyond and wanna reread it, as well as read the actual gahoole books. in the howls books, sophie is a redhead! also, markl is named michael and like a fully functioning young adult who ends up marrying one of sophies sisters. treasure planet is, obviously, based off treasure island but its so much better than the book dont bother reading it lol i tried and it was boring. there was plans for a treasure planet sequel that was fully scripted and cast but it was cancelled cause disney sabotaged treasure planet from the start with the shitty release and advertising and tldr we were ROBBED, also amelias concept was much more octopus like and while that wldve been rad im p glad she was switched to a cat for. several reasons lol. uhh i dont have a lot of Fun Facts abt the unicorn chronicles but for the longest time i thought there were only 3 books and then last year i found the fourth book by chance in a kitsch store and nearly had a breakdown i was so happy, like full on i started shaking and crying cause there was so much joy in my body i cldnt contain it.

thats all i can think of tysm ily, to anyone who read all of this bless u please watch guardians of gahoole and read the unicorn chronicles i will love u forever

#IM LOVE U #friendos #alex #and z answers #astrallouis

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bmpmp3 · 5 years

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Have you considered playing Love Nikki? It's also a dressup game and it has a lot of different accessories

I used to play a previous game in the series, nikki up2u a Whole Lot in highschool! I really loved it, it was like style savvy before I learned what style savvy was, but I haven't played it in like thirty years cause I had to delete it from my phone at one point for space reasons ahsgdhssjxhhd, never got around to playing the other games tho

I tried it out just now! It's cute, I like a lot of the accessories, it's a shame the apps constantly full o' pop ups tryna get you to buy whatever or share whatever dhdgshsj it really slows down my phone, but the dress up battles are pretty fun and the arts cute! I really don't like the way the way skin tones are handled in the game tho hghh

I think I'll stick with it for a lil while at least tho, cause there's some fun stuff and it reminds me a bit of animal boyfriend (which also handles skin tones badly but in a different way dhsgshH) which ive been playing for like five years, or the dream girlfriend and dream boyfriend games( I like em but I basically never feel like playing them only because animal boyfriend spoiled me with how smooth and fast it runs qwq), honestly I'm always here for dress up stuff shxgshja

Low-key also wanna redownload Nikki up2u tho....is it still on Google Play... Oh god it is.........oh god I just saw my rating of it from 2015 (I gave it 5 stars)

Anyway going from up2u to dress up queen is wild holy BALLS like I think there was a game in between these two? I'm assuming they just did some soft reboot stuff though cause I have no clue how you go from mildly fantastical but still grounded slice of life to like, politics between four factions? Or something? Is there a war? Queens? Murder? In like two games? Momo's still the same tho shdbshah

They definitely improved on stuff tho, like now they have like, tags? Tags for different style categories like Style Savvy and there's actual visible stats and points now sjdbshsj you can actually figure out how it works now qwq

#ask #this is wilding me out i didnt even realize they made nikki sequels #and its changed so drastically dhshshhs

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davidmann95 · 5 years

Text

The Kingdom Hearts III Reaction

First thing’s first: yes, I got the responses to my initial reaction letting me know I could use L2 to cycle through triangle commands, and oh my god that made things so much more manageable, so thank you.

Gameplay wise, I said what I had to say right off the bat earlier: lot of fun, best version of the traditional playstyle. Gorgeous except for when it’s the most gorgeous. Way more game than I could handle on the margins, but it felt like fun available options I could choose whether to pursue or not rather than overwhelming.

Under the cut I’m gonna talk some broad structural stuff; I’ll avoid anything overtly spoilery, but it would certainly be understandable if you’d rather stay away. Under another bolded sign though I’m going to get into MAXIMUM spoiler territory, so those who just want my basic impressions but would prefer to hold off on more than that until they have their own go at it can know where to get off.

So this game does like 90% of everything I ever wanted it to do, plus so much MORE than I ever would have expected, resulting in a finale even more grand and resonant and satisfying than I might have imagined after nearly 13 years of waiting. The problem is that all that stuff is in the last 8 hours, and it is very, very clear that’s the part of the game Nomura and company actually cared about. This wasn’t interested in being Kingdom Hearts III, it wanted to be Kingdom Hearts III Part 3/3: The Finale after Dream Drop Distance and A Fragmentary Passage covered the other biggies, to the point of as mentioned before critically compromising the beginning of the game. It reached the point where Dream Drop Distance went from just baaaaarely pulling ahead of 358/2 Days to dead damn last in my ranking of these, because it not only set the tone for what went wrong here - even if this succeeded in the end in a way that couldn’t - but sponged off vital reveals and the conclusion to Riku’s character arc, both of which 1,000,000% needed to be in here so this could be a complete sequel rather than in an intermediary story where they were weakened by context.

Long story short, Nomura and Square are going to have to think very, very hard about what kind of a role the Disney worlds are going to play in these going forward, because the enthusiasm for them on the part of the writers is visibly dead. Not across the board, passion clearly went into the likes of the Toy Story and Big Hero 6 worlds, but it could not have been plainer that Monsters Inc. and Frozen were checkmarks being crossed off, perfunctory in a way I genuinely don’t feel the Disney worlds were in the past (though that may be in large part because this time around Sora is literally just there for level grinding, rather than an immediate search for friends, stripping away the central underlying emotional urgency of I and II). It would’ve been alright if there had been a major act break of the sort II had to provide a sense of forward momentum, but as is it really is just marking time while characters other than Sora drive the plot in the background, mostly in the form of catching up with what the audience already knows. They’ll always be a part of the franchise, and obviously the iconic Disney figures in Mickey and the rest will always be central, but unless the powers that be find a fresh new angle I think it’s getting to be time to scale the movie settings back in favor of the main story and original worlds, if not to the extent the Final Fantasy elements have received.

So I spent most of the game disappointed, figuring it would pull it all together for the finale and more than satisfy me, but not enough to retroactively redeem the game as a whole. And then it retroactively went and redeemed the game, because when I say it kicks off in the last 8 hours I don’t mean that that’s where things start getting parsed out in time for the finale. I mean it’s 8 solid hours of climax, physical and plot and character, the most intense and overwhelming of the franchise, answers to real-life-decade spanning mysteries and character resolutions and endgame-scale setpieces and catharsis being delivered just one after the other after the other. It’s the entire emotional underpinning of the game in a single titanic endrun, in an experience and at a pitch I’ve never seen before. Even the parts that should have been set up earlier in the game still have the entire rest of the series and years of anticipation leading into them, and while it’s a shame it had to bank on that advantage, it worked, because when I look back on the game in years to come it’s going to be this that I’ll remember, and when I someday a long time from now play through the franchise as a whole, I’ll go through the parts that previously irritated me with a smile on my face because it’ll just be a charming interlude rather than a dead stop. I can’t put this over II’s more well-rounded experience because of those structural issues, but while 0.2 is maybe the purest expression of intent thus far in the series, its brevity, and the fact that as good as it gets its best isn’t as good as this gets, puts III neck-and-neck with it as the franchise runner-up for me.

Okay, BIGGEST SPOILERS IN THE FUCKING WORLD UNDER THE IMAGE

So being a person who exists online in the 21st century, I had some key images of the ending spoiled for me well in advance, which sucked but was also maybe a blessing in disguise, because if I hadn’t been braced when those last three seconds came...that would have been rough. It was startlingly rough as is, which is odd because as much as I’ve always liked Sora as a character and appreciated the odd way his nature as a Disney hero in a Final Fantasy dark epic makes him a perfect lead and counterpoint, I never realized the depths of emotional investment I’d attached to his specific fate until the rug got pulled out. It would be as blatant a “but there’s no body!” moment as any there’s ever been even without the secret ending and the confirmation on Nomura’s part that Sora will remain the main character, it’s an emotional blow and a setback and a mystery for the others to solve rather than a full tragic ending (and one would have to imagine the characters themselves would believe that and will act accordingly given this entire story was itself about bringing back a bunch of Very Definitely Dead Folks), but it’s harsh as hell even if it’s very clearly the next step in a Master Plan rather than purely blueballing players for the cruel joy of it. Still, even if it’s reminiscent of stuff we’ve seen before, a melancholy-at-best ending is fully within the franchise wheelhouse; if I’m right and there’s one full trilogy of main games remaining in the series (I’m guessing without many if any spinoffs, Nomura’s bosses are definitely going to have his nose to the grindstone to get through the remainder of this thing on a sane timescale so as not to have another...well, this), maybe it’ll fully establish a sad-odd-numbered-ending, happy-even-numbered ending pattern, with IV having a gleeful reunion, V ending with all seeming lost, and the grand finale letting the heroes have their happily ever after.*

Before getting into the gushing praise for the rest of it, the reason this is at 90% of everything I wanted rather than complete: Kairi is bizarrely shortchanged here compared to every other central character, especially given her relationship with Sora is the foundation of the very end and she’s the logical main protagonist for IV. Even her ‘death’ isn’t my issue so much - by the end of the game Sora has rescued literally every other main character from beyond the veil of the afterlife or a living hell in fairly rapid succession, she’s just the last and biggest deal to him personally - as that even a few more scenes with her would have shored up so much. Not that her material isn’t good when she is there, I absolutely do think it was, and the emotional buildup from the series up to this point was more than enough in my opinion to carry her stuff through, but it’s the equivalent of, say, Lois Lane appearing out of nowhere at the end of a Justice League story to provide the impetus for Superman: obviously this works and makes sense because we know how much they mean to one another, but in the context of this as a lone narrative it’s a little out of nowhere. Riku gets it pretty bad too, if not as much so, but he has the ‘excuse’ of having his character arc resolved in Dream Drop Distance. Still though, it means the central trio is scarcely a thing in here the way it was in the past, though it looks like the next game is going to be entirely about getting them back together and hopefully they’ll stay as a complete unit from there on out.

Also prior to gushing praise: if Dream Drop Distance hadn’t happened, it would be so easy to restructure this in a way that would make the whole thing satisfying instead of just a perfect chunk of it. Open the game with Sora and Riku going into the Realm of Darkness to save Aqua, have Sora succeed but in the process of THAT lose his powers (making it a noble sacrifice on his part foreshadowing the end rather than a non-fuckup that the player pays for); Aqua has to recuperate, preferably with Kairi and Lea so they can get more screentime, Sora’s off regaining his powers and tracking down clues to the location of Castle Oblivion since it was under Organization control and therefore hidden, and Riku’s off with Mickey having his DDD arc. Stick the reveal of the real Organization XIII midgame, and keep the finale almost exactly as is. That way, plot and character’s doled out throughout, character screentime is rebalanced, and everything that worked stays working and comes to the exact same conclusion.

Gushing praise time: holy fuckin’ cow, this hit me in ways I did not see coming. The reunion of the other two trios was something I looked forward to well enough but not anything I fully expected to outright bowl me over, but by god they pushed those buttons as hard as they could and made them everything anyone could need them to be. But that was expected, to one extent or another; what I don’t think anyone could have seen coming was, in the final gasp of this saga of hilariously, broadly Arch villains, every single one of them turning out to be a real goddamn human being with understandable emotions and motivations and implied history and arcs. Monsters see the light (with the contextually hilarious exception of the one character fandom MOST wanted to see get a face turn with Vanitas, and even he finds understanding and peace) after a whole series of believing there’s one in the darkness when only one or two major characters had made a turnaround, and it doesn’t just make this game richer, it retroactively improves the entire series thematically and emotionally, as well as setting the stage for more of that approach based on what we know of what’s to come. And action-wise, it really does go for trying to beat II’s last Xemnas fight, and while I don’t know that it manages it in sheer cool thanks to that final laser blocking/dual wielding finale, it I think really does come out on top in the fights leading up to it and the spectacle and the emotional power and the beautiful interface screw (after the shit with the tornado earlier!), nevermind the absolute end where Our Nerd Dad Luke Skywalker** shows up to give his blessing to the franchise and usher out the story as it was.

As for the pair of post-credits scenes: in each instance I had something spoiled for me, but also in each instance not the BIG thing. I knew Xigbar would live and summon the Foretellers, which honestly is not that shocking for me. That he IS one of them, that he’s been putting on an act (one clearly in the shape of his teacher) and been a bigger villain than Xehanort THE ENTIRE TIME? I believe that got a literal gasp out of me, and THAT’S before it turned out that after bullheadedly clinging to the idea that she’s still a main villain for all these years, Maleficent might actually end up a main villain again. And the secret movie? I had the title spoiled - and god what a perfect twist, the most gleefully apeshit moment in the game and already probable best moment in gaming of the year coming back around in a completely serious way to define the future of the franchise - but assumed wrongly that it meant Sora would be in some way ‘reincarnated’ amnesiac as Yozora and needing to be returned to himself. But nope, Sora’s for real out there alive as himself in...something like the real world? Or The World Ends With You, which I understand is at least a lot closer? And Riku’s gonna wind up stuck out there too? And because Yozora’s there it means they’re in some kind of fuckin’ Flash of Two Worlds! situation?! Or if it’s in the same physical realm (which I have to doubt or Sora would rush home as soon as he got a ship) it’s the equivalent of that dope two-part Terra Obscura arc in Tom Strong?! Sora and Riku, trapped in a world where Kingdom Hearts is a Dark, Realistic Modern Urban Fantasy (which, if Sora got here by dying, does...does that mean Gritty Realworld! AU Kingdom Hearts fanfic is that universe’s version of hell? Because that would be beautiful) (did “This is a fantasy based on reality” end up carried over as the logline to Final Fantasy XV from Versus XIII? Because if not, absolutely use it here to keep that gag going) and having to fight their way back to their world and friends, hopefully with Kairi going on her own playable adventure on the other end of the cosmos to find them since there’s no way she wouldn’t be leading the search? And with the Master of Masters waiting in the wings, the perfect villain in general because if Sora is the MOST Disney character in this universe he appears to be the LEAST, and especially perfect here now that Sora’s symbolically if not possibly literally on his turf? Waiting I’m guessing another 3-5 years is gonna be hell (I’m guessing IV’ll be announced next year or maaaaaaaybe late this year because thus far Kingdom Hearts has never gone with no announced games on the horizon longer than the end of the next calendar year, and we’ll see how development goes after that; like I said, I imagine the pressure is on for Nomura), but this could not look more like my shit.

So that’s, after all these years, Kingdom Hearts III: an understandable, maybe unavoidable, but still crushing disappointment that undermined itself narratively before it even began production and ran on a burned-out crew that could never meet the impossible expectations surrounding it. Until it suddenly winks, brushes itself off, and lives up to damn near EVERYTHING on its shoulders in the most incredible ways possible while also transcending its previous limitations as a story right in front of you, and then breaking your heart before planting the seed to repair it and charting a path towards an even more exciting future. All said and done, I liked it a whole lot, and it’ll always be special to me.

* At this point, I really could go for the ending of the whole thing literally being Sora and Kairi walking into the sunset together, with the camera panning up into the sky and text (not mysterious narration like in the past, but old-school Disney-cartoon-style outside-the-world of the story cursive text) appearing to declare 𝒜𝓃𝒹 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓎 𝓁𝒾𝓋𝑒𝒹 𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓅𝒾𝓁𝓎 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝒶𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇. That is the level of closure and myth and satisfaction it’s gotta be building towards after everything thus far and everything to come.

** If you are reading this without having played or watched the game: given I know that’s now in the realm of possibility, no, I don’t literally mean Luke Skywalker showed up.

Yet.

#Kingdom Hearts III #Kingdom Hearts #Analysis #Opinion

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moczothe1st · 6 years

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Let’s Play Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of the Holy War, Part 22: The Last King of Jerkland

Part 21

Hey all! Welcome back to another exciting week of Fire Emblem IV, where we once again ignore the actual evil empire to go rough up another, smaller empire, basically because they’re louder and more annoying and invading is the only way to make them stop bitching for five minutes. You might not think this is a priority, but you don’t have Lewyn’s strong tactical mind. A new chapter, so let’s get right on into it.

As their headquarters, uncertain of how to next act. Beyond Meath and the engulfing maw of its peaks lies the dracoknights’ kingdom, Thracia.

(“He also just betrayed Arvis last week by letting Blume die so he could invade the north, but we’re going to pretend that didn’t happen, shut up.”)

Thracia is the only state anywhere in Jugdral regarded as an ‘ally’ by the Grannvale Empire.

(Guess which two of these quirky minibosses will not be important. Hint: it will be the two who we’ve killed before only they had different names and maybe slightly different hair colors.)

Travant has fortified his kingdom for one final, full-scale showdown with the liberators. And Thracia’s people hardly offer Seliph an eager welcome; fearing Seliph as a conqueror, they flock in droves to take up arms themselves. How could any justice lie in this conflict? For whose sake is this war being fought?

(… For Leif, mostly?)

For the first time, these questions now shake Seliph and his army’s resolve…

(Except, again, for Leif. He’s pretty down with this whole situation.)

Travant, Eeeeew: I’ve no interest in any more excuses! Don’t you dare belittle me, Altena. You are a warrior beyond compare, and you and Arion embody my will beyond these walls. I expect no less than for you to do your duty! And what do I find instead? You’ve ignored my orders, left an entire platoon to the slaughter, and strolled home as if nothing ever happened! I’ve never been more disappointed in you.

Altena: I’m sorry, Father, but at least let me explain! I could never agree with such tactics, which enrich only us at the expense of everyone else! How could you ever expect the proud Thracian people to accept prosperity built on the bones of others? Please, Father, rethink your ways!

Arion: Enough, Altena. There’s no place here for such meddling. Still your tongue and obey Father! Father, bear in mind Altena is still young and unseasoned. I suspect she merely found the last battle too overwhelming a prospect. Please forgive her, even just this once.

Travant: You know, Arion? If you’d just hold back on the coddling, perhaps Altena wouldn’t be so stubborn! … Look, Altena. I’ll give you one last chance. Take a dracoknight platoon and retake Meath. If you slip again, then daughter be damned, I will accept no excuses! Understood?

Altena: Yes, Father…

Travant: Phew, family resemblance indeed… it’s plainly obvious that she loathes me.

Arion: Father, you have to remember that she’s still a child. Like all children, she has yet to realize that her thoughtless words have real effects.

(I forgot what a giant enabler Arion is. You could try standing up to someone, sometime, pretty boy.)

Travant: Hmph, I suppose… I’m off to Kapathogia. I hear Hannibal’s found himself some funny ideas about my plans. And so it falls to me to ensure he loses them before somebody gets hurt…

(*sigh* You’re going to kidnap a baby again, huh.)

Arion: I’ve never seen Father so fearful… what could possibly have happened…?

(He’s realized he’s a shitty general and started a fight he can’t win? Because I am… I am just going to wreck him. Nothing personal. … It’s a little personal.)

Travant: Your armored knights will join her at once!

Hannibal: Your Majesty, I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll say it again. There is no use fighting this war! We must arrange a truce with the liberators if we wish to recover the strength to endure! Bowing to the Empire was a despicable choice to start, one which left us serving our citizens to the true enemy on a gilded platter.

Travant: I did not ask for your opinion! The rebels have slaughtered my soldiers and stolen our territory. The hour is far too late for a truce!

Hannibal: I thought as much… very well. I suppose I have no choice.

Travant: What’s this, Hannibal? Do I hear traitorous rumblings coming from that mouth of yours?

(… No?)

Hannibal: Come now, your Majesty! Never would a warrior such as I consider turning my cloak. Traitor, indeed!

Travant: Really, now… then I trust you won’t object to a test of your warrior’s loyalty. Until the war reaches a victorious end, Hannibal, I’ll be taking care of your son.

(Called it!)

Hannibal: I beg your pardon, your Majesty?! Do you truly have so little faith in me?!

Travant: You have nothing to worry about, Hannibal. If you don’t intend to betray me, then I don’t intend to so much as scratch the boy.

Hannibal: …

Travant: Men! Bring me Hannibal’s son!

(Okay, not a baby, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Travant: Remember, Hannibal. You have nothing to worry about, so long as you behave yourself. As soon as this war is won, you’ll get him back. I admit I don’t understand, though… the boy isn’t even your real son. How could he have such sway over you?

(FOOOOOOOOOOORESHADOWING)

Hannibal: Cairpre has brought much joy into my life. A true family transcends simple blood…

Travant: Ohohohoho! Could it be? Does Thracia’s great statesman have a soft spot for children? Now, then. Thracia depends on you, Hannibal!

(What a dick!)

(Nobody likes a suck-up, Distler.)

Distler the Suck-up: Rest assured, milord. Luthecia is an impregnable wall! I’ve seen to it myself.

Travant: I’ll hold you to your word. Now, I’ve reason to doubt the loyalty of Hannibal at Kapathogia. I’ve taken his son hostage, just in case, and I’m leaving him to your custody.

Distler the Suck-up: Yes, sir! I’ll not let him out of my sight! But should Hannibal turn his cloak-

Travant: Then kill the son. Don’t be lulled into offering even a child any mercy.

Distler: Understood, milord.

Travant: Good. In that case, I think I’ll leave the defense of Grutia to your hands. Try not to get too cocky with the rebels, Bishop. They’re of a treacherous sort.

(“Also, that kettle is black. Hm…. When did I become a pot? This must be Altena’s fault.”)

(“That’s because it is meaningless. Unfortunately, it seems someone on the writing staff really digs their Thracian Peninsula D&D game setting and managed to worm it into the story here. And that, Seliph, is why you always hire an editor.”)

Lewyn: The point of a battle comes from how you conduct yourself in it, Seliph.

(That doesn’t even make sense!)

Lewyn: And we hardly have much choice at this point!

(… okay that’s a better reason.)

Seliph: But what of that dracoknight who was watching us from the Manster peaks? I’ve seldom seen such a sad look in anybody’s eyes… how could I fight somebody like her…?

(Well, I mean, not to spoil you or anything, but…)

Lewyn: That’s enough, Seliph! This is war! If you can’t handle it, then leave! Run home to Tirnanog!

(… Where the fuck did that come from?!)

Seliph: Lewyn…

Oifey: I beg your pardon, Lord Lewyn?! His Majesty is tired and stressed! Such harsh words are uncalled for.

Lewyn: Look, I know. But everyone else is just as stressed, yet they all know we can’t afford to stop. With the resurrection of Loptyr on the horizon, it’s crucial we get to Grannvale and stop the world falling to ruin while we still can.

Seliph: Thank you, Oifey… but Lewyn speaks the truth. An inevitable battle lies ahead, and if we see in it naught but futility, then my duty is to carve my own purpose into it. I’ll never again flinch or turn away!

(Seliph could see her eyes, apparently, so if Leif missed her entirely he’s got a lot to learn about being a chosen prince with bad hair.)

Leif: Oh, the woman? I saw her. I don’t believe it’s every day that you encounter a female dracoknight, is it? Was there something amiss about her?

Finn: It was her weapon… she was wielding Gae Bolg, Leonster’s holy lance. And I sensed an aura cloaking her… the holy aura of Nova, like your father.

Leif: What? What are you saying, Finn?!

Finn: There is only one explanation, my lord. Your sister, Altena, must not have died in the Thracian ambush seventeen years ago. Nor was Gae Bolg lost.

Leif: Altena?! She’s… she’s still alive?! Then what in the blazes was she doing commanding a Thracian army?

(… Duh, dude.)

Finn: I’d surmise that Travant took her back to Thracia as a child, and raised her as his own.

Leif: Huh… who knew a man as cold as Travant could do something so humane?

(… Leif, for fuck’s sake, try to keep up here.)

Finn: It isn’t so simple, milord. Altena is the inheritor of your father’s holy lineage from the goddess Nova. As such, unlike you, she is capable of wielding the Gae Bolg. Power is the only reason a man like Travant would ever be so kind to his enemy’s child.

Leif: So he’s tricked my sister just so he can use her as a weapon! Travant… what a disgusting man… … I want to help her, Finn. If we can make her see the truth, I know we can work together to avenge our parents.

Finn: My lord, I believe you’re the only one who could possibly convince her now. Even after all these years, my lord, you are still her brother. I’m certain she will open her heart to you if you try. Please, my lord. Please save Lady Altena…

Whoo! And that’s a hell of an infodump, but time to start the map. First, of course, it’s time to ignore the enemy for five hours while we engage in gladiatorial combat for blood money. This time, though, I’m going to do things a liiiiittle differently. It will be pricey, but anyone… let’s who is level 15 or lower, and who has access to a solid 40K gold, will be shelling out the money to buy the Paragon Band before their run and then sell it when they’re done. This is expensive, seriously expensive, but it will double everyone’s arena EXP gains and should shoot all our levels quite a bit. And we have cash to spare, so why not? Catch you on the flip side!

Seliph: Seven wins, gained two levels: +3 HP, +1 Strength, +1 Speed, +1 Magic, +1 Luck, +1 Defense

Julia: Seven wins, gained one level: +1 HP, +1 Strength, +1 Resistance

Shanan: Seven wins, gained two levels: +3 HP, +2 Skill, +2 Strength, +1 Speed, +1 Resistance

Oifey: Six wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Strength, +1 Luck

Ulster: Seven wins, gained five levels: +5 HP, +5 Skill, +3 Strength, +1 Speed, +1 Luck, +2 Defense

Larcei: Seven wins, gained five levels: +6 HP, +3 Skill, +1 Strength, +2 Speed, +3 Luck, +2 Defense

Lester: Seven wins, gained four levels: +4 HP, +2 Skill, +1 Strength, +3 Speed, +1 Magic, +2 Luck, +2 Defense

Dermott: Seven wins, gained four levels: +4 HP, +3 Skill, +2 Speed, +3 Luck, +2 Defense

Nanna: Seven wins, gained three levels: +3 HP, +2 Speed, +1 Magic!!!!!!, +1 Luck, +1 Defense, +1 Resistance

Fee: Seven wins, gained five levels: +5 HP, +2 Skill, +1 Strength, +2 Speed, +3 Magic, +3 Luck, +2 Defense, +3 Resistance

Ced: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Skill, +2 Magic, +1 Luck, +1 Defense

Arthur: Seven wins, gained five levels: +8 HP, +1 Skill, +3 Magic, +2 Luck, +3 Defense, +3 Resistance

Tinni: Seven wins, gained five levels: +5 HP, +1 Skill, +4 Magic, +4 Luck, +1 Resistance

Patty: Seven wins, gained two levels: +3 HP, +2 Strength, +1 Speed, +1 Luck, +1 Resistance

Faval: Seven wins, gained two levels: +3 HP, +2 Speed, +2 Luck, +1 Defense

Leif: Seven wins, gained five levels: +7 HP, +1 Skill, +1 Strength, +3 Speed, +2 Luck, +1 Defense

Johan: Six wins, gained levels: +2 HP, +1 Strength, +1 Speed, +1 Defense

Finn: Six wins, gained one level: +1 HP, +1 Skill, +1 Resistance

Ares: Seven wins, gained four levels: +4 HP, +2 Speed, +1 Magic, +2 Luck, +2 Resistance

Not bad, though it’s hard not to be a little sad at the people starting to fall behind; anyone who isn’t a kid and doesn’t have a holy weapon is going to start finding it harder to get all seven wins from now on. Johan, Finn, and Oifey just couldn’t pull through no matter how much I screwed around with the RNG… er… I mean… no matter how… fair I was. On the bright side, though, we do get four brand new promotions!

Larcei, Fee, Arthur, Tinni, and Dermott are also on the verge, having all hit level 19. So basically, it’s hard to look at this as anything but a major win. Go go combat potential! And we will need it, since shit’s about to get fucked.

Here’s the chapter map; we start in the northeast corner, and Hannibal and Altena’s units will start moving toward us immediately. Altena, obviously, we can just talk to with Leif, that’s no biggie. But to recruit Hannibal (of course he’s recruitable, why would you even question that) we need to go save his son from Distler in Luthecia castle. The issue comes from the fact that Hannibal and his own castle are between us and there, and he’s of course hostile. Which means we need to get Seliph and presumably some other units for backup past Hannibal, without killing the dumb bastard, save Cairpre, and get him back to talk some sense into his dad. Again, without killing him. There’s a trick to it, but it’s not guaranteed to work. In general the whole thing is a pain in the ass and frankly it might be better for everyone’s sanity to just kill Hannibal, but that just ain’t how I roll. Let’s do this shit!

First, though, Faval and Patty have a chat.

(I feel like I have to mention she literally used her ability to steal money as the reason Seliph should keep her around.)

Faval: Ugh. Look, I don’t care if you’re just stealing from the enemy. I don’t like you stealing at all! Knock if off, okay?

Patty: What, do you think I like doing this? That I steal for the fun of it?! This army needs to eat, y’know, and we need gold for that! We don’t have all that many options here!

Faval: Yeah, but haven’t you heard what people are saying about you? I’ve caught people mocking you, like being a thief’s a walking punch line… “What else can ya expect from a pirate’s brat? Like mother, like child,” they kept saying. Of course, I wiped the floor them…

Patty: It doesn’t matter what people think, Faval! Let them say whatever they want. Doesn’t change a thing about Mom… and it doesn’t change that she was heir of Ullur the Crusader! I was in tears when Lewyn told me about her… I’ve never been so happy!

Faval: Yeah, me too… y’know, we haven’t exactly had the easiest lives… poor orphans and all that. I never even dreamed our mother could actually be a noblewoman! I don’t suppose you remember anything about her, Patty?

Patty: Nope, not a thing. You?

Faval: Yeah, but… only a little. She was a kind and beautiful woman…

(“And she constantly smelled of the blood of her many, many victims.”)

Patty: So is she… do you think Mom’s dead?

Faval: I can’t say for sure… but as soon as the war’s done with, Patty, we’re gonna go look for her. We’ll find our mother… Bridget… and even though we don’t know his name, maybe we’ll find our father too.

Patty gains +1 Luck from this conversation, and that must be the tipping point because canonically Bridget did survive and they eventually find her. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s canon. Look up Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 for details, but I wouldn’t recommend actually playing it.

Now, the majority of the army deploys in standard horde formation and getting ready to stab the crap out of every Thracian, but Fee is going to run off on her own. See, all the map’s villages are directly to the west of the starting castle, across a mountain range, and she’s the only one who can reach it in time to kill the bandits before any of them get destroyed.

Only the one with the axe off to the side will destroy any villages, so we have time, but I don’t want to lose a single one. Some of them have items, if I remember right, and even if they don’t I just blew like a billion gold on making everyone super buff. End turn!

Hannibal: Wait. For the time being we should remain on the defensive. I’d prefer to avoid any needless skirmishes with the enemy.

Lieutenant Palette-Swap: But sir, what about…

Hannibal: … My son. I know, but… for now, I would rather hold back and let the battle unfold, first. My apologies, Kanatz, but I’d like you to take charge of defending the castle.

Kanatz: As you will, sir!

Okay, I guess only Altena moves toward you on turn one. I coulda sworn they both did, but whatcha gonna do? Second verse, same as the first; no enemies are in range, so I move up toward Hannibal’s line and have Fee continue making a beeline straight west across the mountains. Unfortunately, all of hannibal’s units are armor knights, meaning you have to get right up in their noses before they can move far enough to attack you. I suspect next turn will look much the same as this one. End!

Cairpre: Papa doesn’t want to fight! He’s out there risking his life all because of me…

(Cairpre has a distinct, deep misunderstanding of what a hostage is, I think.)

Distler: Silence, boy! If Thracia’s legendary Shield refuses to ply his warrior’s craft of his own will, then we’ll force him to by any means necessary!

Cairpre: Oh, papa… sorry…

Cairpre might be a bit of a loser. Off to the southeast, Altena’s unit moves up again; they’ll be attacking us next turn, and will be intercepted by Tinni, Arthur, Julia, Leif, Nanna, and Faval. The rest of the team moves forward, pausing in the edge of Hannibal’s unit’s movement range on the forest tiles for extra sweet, sweet defense. Oh, and Fee continues her field trip, of course. End turn, and let’s do this!

Hm. Not great. Tinni, you could stand to dodge. And two of the wyverns went off after Finn, because he was on the edge of their range and I didn’t notice. Buuuut, I think we got this. First step, I think, is to wipe out Altena’s unit so Leif can reach her.

Awesome! Now Leif can reach Altena, and…

*twitch* Welp, mountains fucked that one up! Hopefully Altena won’t shank someone to death or try to fight someone who’s invincible.

Okay, I may have to reset this, but for now let’s play as though it’s not a horrible issue. Western front, rock out.

That was not as many kills as I’d been hoping for! This… is going to hurt. But on the plus side, I was already half-planning to reset, so… end turn.

…. Shit. Ares, please go easy on him? Hannibal, please use Pavise! Twice, possibly!

FUCK YOU, you stupid old bastard. Ulster should definitely have died in over the course of this encounter. Did you see how low his health got?! He should not have survived what he did here! And yet, he did. Everything was going not merely fine but miraculously fine. And then this jackass, who I must note had a very solid chance to survive this battle thanks to his broken obnoxious special ability, runs up to commit suicide and just leaves the Pavise behind on the kitchen table, I guess.

I should leave him dead. I should leave him dead.

…

*sigh*

Reset.

To the east, the people who did their fucking jobs last time repeat a smashing victory, with one difference: I don’t fuck up my movement and can get Leif close enough to chat with his sister.

(*snerk* “Waaaaaaait!” What a drama-prince.)

Leif: I… I am Leif, of House Leonster.

Altena: Oh, I see… the famous Prince Leif, is it? In case it wasn’t obvious… and evidently, it wasn’t… I am Altena, daughter of Travant.

(Altena’s snark game is on-point, damn. Though I guess it’s easy to be snarky when your enemy appears to have an unkempt porcupine on his head.)

Leif: Listen to me, Altena! Your true parents are Prince Quan and Princess Ethlyn, whom Travant slew seventeen years ago. You vanished in Travant’s attack, and so too did Gae Bolg, the sacred earth lance of Leonster… the very lance resting in your hand as we speak! Only a true heir of House Leonster can wield Gae Bolg.

Altena: What are you talking about?! Are you seriously trying to claim my true father is my king’s arch-enemy?! That could never be… it mustn’t…

Leif: Look into my eyes. If anything can prove the truth of my words to you, it will be my eyes. Please, sister…

Altena: Fine… What is this…?! I know you’re lying, but… but I can’t bring myself to doubt you anymore…

(This would stretch belief quite a bit, if it wasn’t established by earlier interactions that Crusader heirs with similar bloodlines actually can instinctively sense each other. So it only looks like Leif has brainwashed her with his hypno-eyes.)

Leif: Altena…

Altena: Wait! I… I must speak with Father. I need to confirm this…

(Bad, bad plan, honey.)

Altena: Or was my father really Prince Quan?!

Travant: Feh… I see you’ve found out at last. Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before this day came. It’s true. Quan did indeed sire you, but what difference does that make? It doesn’t change that it was I who raised you.

(“Am I not the one who has stomped all over your spirit and morals since you were a little girl? Am I not the one who screams at you to slaughter children and the elderly while your heart rots and dies, sick with the weight of your sins? If that’s not fatherhood, what is?”)

Altena: So you… you murdered my parents? Father…

Travant: Heh…. I suppose I did. Quan and Ethlyn died at my hand. Do you take issue with that? War is Hell, Altena. War claims lives. Worrying now won’t change a thing.

(What a dick!)

Altena: Gah… how dare you?! How dare you mislead me all these years, Fath… no, Travant!

Arion: I cannot allow this. If you dare to turn on Father, you’ll have to contend with me first!

Altena: W-wait! I can’t fight you, Arion! I could never-

Arion: It’s too late for you to stand down now. Farewell!

Altena: Nnnngh… Arion…

Travant: … You didn’t just kill her, did you, Arion? You know, you didn’t need to go quite so far…

(Now is when you decide to be a parent?! What a dick!)

Travant: Eh, no matter. I’m going to join the fray, Arion. I suppose there’s little choice now. You’re in charge of defending the castle.

Arion: Understood, Father.

Travant: I’ll entrust this spear to you… and with it, the future of Thracia.

Arion: Hold a moment, Father… this is Gungnir! What is the meaning of this? How do you intend to fight without it? Unless… Father, you can’t be-

Travant: I am. Frankly, Arion, I’ve had enough. Thracia is yours to do with as you see fit. But we don’t need to be hated by their kind…

Arion: Are you seriously suggesting I should seek a truce, Father?! No! Never! To comply with the rebels now would be unthinkable!

Travant: As I said, Thracia is yours. Do as you see fit. All I ask is that you find a way to liberate our people from their suffering. Farewell, Arion.

Arion: … Father…

Yeah, that just happened, and… I kind of hate it. I’m going to be honest, and also going to go off on a little rant again, because this moment always makes me kind of angry. It feels like Travant and Arion swapped personalities for this conversation. See, the thing is, like basically all FE characters, Travant is an archetype; in particular, he is the ‘Michalis.’ A smug, ambitious jackass, almost always a wyvern rider, who really thinks he is the main antagonist but who is generally more of a speed-bump you run down on your way to the real threat. And the thing that defines Michalis types is that they generally aren’t sympathetic in any way. They’re bastards and you enjoy the moment you riddle them with arrows.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with subverting archetypes. If they want to play around and make a character who looks like a Michalis but is actually sympathetic deep down, more power to you! But there is a different between a character being sympathetic, and the game telling us a character is sympathetic. Because King Travant has been a giant bastard in every moment of his appearance in the entire game, a smug ambitious ass who has murdered and betrayed his way through every scene he was in, while looking down on basically everyone around him and showing zero care for any of the many, many of his own men he’s gotten killed. Beyond occasional lip-service to ‘saving Thracia’, he’s shown nothing but bottomless ambition and a willingness to kill anyone who gets in the way of it. And now, all of a sudden, he’s decided to nobly die in battle and leave Thracia in better hands? This is like Sigurd revealing in chapter six that he was actually working for Manfroy all along. It’s just such a sudden, random, and extreme shift in personality, blatantly for the purpose of building up sympathy where there just ain’t none to be found. I generally really like the writing of this game but… wow. The Thracia arc is a hamfisted mess.

Sorry. Angry writer moment. Back to exciting war.

A bit anticlimactic, huh? Still, we crushed the outer edges of Hannibal’s army, and nobody is in his range so there’s no chance of a rampant suicide again. We shoooould be able to crush his entire army in one go on our next turn. Meanwhile, Fee is in the range of the bandits over in the village section, so I thiiink they’ll be attacking her? Unless they don’t move, I can’t remember. Let’s see!

Hannibal: Move in on the invaders! We’ll let them proceed no further!

… You’ve been doing that…

Okay, not bad! Now, Travant is moving up and there’s not much time to prep for that, so I’m going to try to kill Hannibal’s whole army in one go. This will be… a pain, frankly. But if we can do that, Hannibal will go briefly non-hostile as he runs to his castle to get reinforcements. If that happens, you can surround and trap him, since he won’t attack anyone who doesn’t attack him first. Let’s… see how this goes.

…. Almost. I really hope that was enough to trigger Hannibal to retreat. Run away, you old bastard. End… end turn.

Yessssssss. Hannibal didn’t attack, he’s running back to Kapothagia to get reinforcements, and he’s old and cannot run fast. Once our turn starts, we’re clear to surround him, and send Seliph running straight past him to the next castle.

Meanwhile, Fee…

My God she is a tank. How does this keep happening? Pegasus Knights are supposed to be squishy.

Our turn starts, and I ‘recruit Hannibal.’

He still has two soldiers alive, but one is a bow user that I can also trap so Patty might eat him, and the other is a healer with no weapon that Patty will also eat. She needs money and experience, is my point. Patty?

Good girl! Now, Travant’s unit will be hitting us next turn, and he’s a dick, so I’m sending a few units back that way to help out. Dermott, Lester, and Finn should be able to handle it in combination with the killers who are already there.

So here’s the King Douche himself, finally out and killable, but he’s not gonna make it easy on us. He’s a Dragonmaster, the promoted class of dracoknight, and comes with a Silver Lance and Power Ring to play off his already extremely high strength stat. All his relevant stats are pretty solid except resistance, and he comes with two skills that can make him a pain; Nihil, which nullifies all combat abilities (Luna, Astra, etc.) and in addition removes his natural weakness to arrows as a flying unit. On top of that, he has Vantage, so once his health goes down a far enough he’ll always get the first strike. Pursuit too, but he’s not terribly fast, so it’s not as big an issue as it could be. Most of the people who will be fighting him here can outrun him. In addition he has no way to fight at range and his Resistance isn’t great, so mages are his kryptonite in a big way. He’s dangerous, but not beyond belief.

I’mma try to have Leif kill him. You know why.

All right, the turn is mostly set, other than Fee finally getting close enough to save that poor burning village. Go, girl!

I love her so much. End turn!

Why do people even try to fight Fee.

…. Well, I’d like to thank Nanna for scaring the shit out of me, and like to thank every Thracian for being a dick. EVERY ONE.

Okay. Okay. Our turn. To start off? Let’s kill some frickin’ wyverns.

Ooooh, not great. There’s still several wyverns left, and nobody else can attack. If the two wyverns and Travant all go for one person, they could kill them. If ooooooooonly there was some way to stooooooooooop him from LANA GO

Clerics, motherfucker. And that’s that! Travant’s group is basically done for; the two small fries will take their potshots, but the king himself is dead in the water. Boy, that sure was a treacherous and underhanded thing of me to do, paralyzing him from half a mile away with magic. He couldn’t defend himself at all. UWEE HEE HEE HEE HEE.

And now, Fee.

Go Fee! Start flying home to promote, honey, you earned it. Patty continues plinking away at an armor knight while the cleric heals it from a distance, you know the deal; and because I’m not an idiot, I run Dermott back to our main castle and have him stand inside, because wyverns have a huge damn movement range and we’re fighting rather close to it. End turn.

*smile*

Now then, let’s mop up.

(Syyyyympathetic Anti-Villain~)

Travant: What a pathetic fool that Blume was… how could he fail to kill a runt like you?

(SYYYYYYYYYMPATHETIC ANTI-VILLAIN, SUCH A TRAGIC GUUUUUUUUUUY~)

Leif: We meet at last, Travant… I’ve… I’ve await this day for so long. This is what kept me alive all this time… I’ve lived for this alone… to choke the life from you with my bare hands!

(… Damn, go Leif.)

Travant the Sympathetic Anti-Villain: Heh… as foolish as your father. And unlike him, you can’t even wield Gae Bolg against me! You don’t stand a chance! Now hold still! It’s time you learned the last agonies your parents felt at my hands!

Shame you can’t fight, huh dude.

Travant the Tragic Patriot: Ha! How laughable! A common soldier like you could never even scratch me! I take it you’re ready to die, then?

… No, I don’t know how he dodges while asleep. Same way he talks, I guess. Life is a complicated thing. Anyway, Travant is beaten, so with Leif waiting there to kill him slowly, I start splitting the army up. Those who can promote start heading home, while the others head west to help out Seliph as he moves on to besiege a castle by himself. He doesn’t really need help, but they’re gonna need to go there eventually anyway. The enemy can no longer move at all; all our turns will be consecutive until we finish up Hannibal’s castle and/or kill Travant. This update is already too long and Patty is just gonna be plinking away forever, so let’s stick to the highlights of the combat:

Nice! And of course, now story happens.

Arion: My apologies, Altena. I had to give Father a convincing show, to ensure your survival. I had no choice but to deal such a powerful blow.

Altena: Don’t worry, Arion. But where is Fath… King Travant now?

Arion: … You won’t see him again. Father has died in battle.

Altena: He has…? How did it happen?

Arion: You’d be better off not knowing. Father’s heart was an enigma at the best of times…

Altena: … Arion. What do you think I should do now?

Arion: Join prince Leif, your true brother. I’m certain he is still waiting for you.

Altena: Then what will you-

Arion: Altena. This is my fate. There’s no helping it.

Altena: No! You can call for a truce, Arion! Now that Travant is dead, there’s nothing to stop you from seeking peace! And I… I could never fight you!

(Oh god dammit, this isn’t a brotherly ‘I can’t fight you,’ is it.)

Arion: I wish I could, and I would were it not for Father’s final words to me…

(…………….. HE LITERALLY TOLD YOU TO JUST DO WHATEVER YOU WANTED, ASSHOLE.)

Arion: Please, Altena… Go! However, be prepared. Our next meeting will be on the battlefield, and I will not stay my hand!

Altena: Oh… Arion…

(King Arion of Thracia: What a dick!)

And with that, Altena starts flying toward our army to sign up. Since there’s nothing else to do but let Patty continue plinkin’ away, I think we’ll call it a week here. Seliph, do the honors!

Seliph: Who are you? What’s the matter?

Cairpre: I’m Cairpre… I’m General Hannibal’s son. And… wait… aren’t you Lord Seliph, the Liberator!?

Seliph: Indeed I am. If I may ask, Cairpre, why would Thracia imprison one of their own generals’ sons?

(“Because apparently being king of this shitty country instantly turns you into a rampaging douche.”)

Cairpre: King Travant took me hostage. Papa didn’t want to fight your army, so the king threatened my life to force him to fight… please, sir! Please take me to Papa! If he knows I’m safe, then he won’t have to keep fighting! Please, we’ve gotta save him!

Seliph: I see…. Don’t worry. I promise we’ll find him. Move out, everyone! I pray we’ll still be in time to save General Hannibal!

Spoiler for next week’s update: we will. See you then, when we promote like seven dudes, recruit an old idiot and a young awesome princess, and just generally rock out all over whatever is left of Thracia. Go team!

Total Resets: 26. Not sure I should count this since it was Hannibal killing himself on the worst possible target in his range, not anything I did, but I’ve always has a masochistic streak.

Part 23

#Let's Play Fire Emblem #let's play fire emblem iv #Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War #fire emblem 4 #lp #my writing #let's play #long post

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tomioneer · 6 years

Text

Yyh rewatch post 3

After watching several episodes without much to say, I've arrived the very upsetting episode 12.

I know Rando brutalizes Kuwabara, and I expected it to be awful--Ive seen this before and read the manga--but it's so much more horrifying because all I can think of is that Kazuma is just a kid. He's tall and tough, sure, but he's still a child. He's scared and overwhelmed and in a lot of pain after a long, confusing fucking day

Kuwabara sought Genkai to have her turn OFF his spiritual powers. Now he's in a death match on a haunted battlefield on which he has already confirmed he can see the ghosts of slaughtered soldiers. Theyre leaving it out of the plot because it's not relevant, but this kid isn't just seeing a field, he's seeing a nightmare every way he looks

And on this ancient battlefield he gets shrunk to about four inches in height picked up by a sadist, squeezed so hard his ribs crack, and tossed around like a fucking doll. All before his arm is deliberately broken

Tl;Dr I'd kill rando myself if I fucking could

I always remembered the upcoming fight as being desperate and high stakes, but this is just. Beyond the fucking pale. How dare he touch my stupid ginger son.

And I remember that it gets worse from here out.

randos random fucking chant is bullshit Latin and English and I just. Hate him so much

Kuwabara is weirdly obsessed with fighting Yusuke even though they're like. Best friends already, they just don't wanna admit it.

Good job, Yusuke. Announce your real identity to your fucking MARK

Daaamn baby's whole fist glows. That was kickass. I only wish we could have this with the more fluid, probably higher budget animation I remember from the sensui arc.

Oh hey the shoulder wounds I remember. Yusuke: ouch.

Genkai: it appears your friend is a fool. Botan: no, just mad.

Yusuke fights a disguised, red headed demon with wind attacks. Sound familiar??

FOLKS THE FIGHT AINT OVER

Botan assumes kuwabara is dead because he hasn't been talking. GIRL, his ribs are broken

Why, pray tell, does rando's transformation cause the ground to split beneath them.

Kuwabara does the 'next time!!' trailer, which spoils that Rando is going to steal Yusuke's signature attack. WHICH WOULD HAVE SURPRISED ME, given how few details from this arc I've remembered so far

Yusuke just shouted 'and here's the kill' which (judging by my soul deep recognition of the words in that voice) was either a catch phrase in the dub, or a like from a frequently played Toonami commercial bumper.

I'm betting it's the latter

Rando has Yusuke tied up, and that's two mini arc big bads in a row to do so, counting hiei

Kinky

Rando has some fucking Issues he needs to work through

Genkai claims she's getting old now but does she ever permanently die within this series?? I'm remember crying over her death for like. A week. But I know she came back

Rando's speaking another bullshit chant but I think this one summit a giant fish with teeth

Oh, yup.

OH, SEVERAL.

"hate fish"

Rando bitch summons a demon just to make a point about the fish

Randos nail game is on point

Betcha Togashi never thought the say would come that 'rando' was itself considered a word lmao.

DUMP MY GREASER CHILD IN A POOL OF MAN EATING FISH ONE MORE TIME MOTHERFUCKER---

Ooh smarmy internal monologue. I do love this boy.

Yusuke agrees hate fish is a stupid name 😂

Kuwabara projects his ENTIRE SOUL to save Yusuke in a weird about face from the first few episodes.

I told you I'd get new ships out of this show.

Current ship count: 3/400

Yusuke blows up a lake because he's mad his more-psychic boyfriend is going to steal his job

If it wins him the fight I'm not complaining. I know we're close to the end now, and then we get a small time skip.

Botan tells her stupid child to shoot, not shout. I think we can all sympathize

"As for my Spirit Gun technique, you're doing it all wrong! You hold too much back!" Badass boast, anyone?

Isn't rando like. Fucking tiny.

Uh, nope, full size and full angry.

"even though it looks like I can't move right now, I'm very dangerous"--Yusuke Urameshi

RIGHT THE STUPID SPELL ONLY WORKS IF YOU HEAR IT. And Yusuke's been swimming in mossy swamps.

I love this stupid greasy angry tired child.

open has A LOT of work to do, just from those few hours.

Hey, Rando got fern gully'd after all. I remember more than I thought!

If Genkai can do such incredible healing on kuwabara, and Yusuke gets her dull power during the dark tournament... Can he heal like that too??? DOES HE EVER??

I just noticed my son kuwabara is voiced by Christopher Sabat. Doesn't he do All Might now...?

On second thought I guess I do have something to say about the Artifact Recovery arc.

Couldn't hiei's green, many-eyed full demon form have come in handy at LITERALLY ANY TIME during the dark tournament. I know he doesn't do it but like. He was floating around and using reiki rings to bind Yusuke in place and just--NONE of these powers ever come back up and I am Fucking Tired of it.

Also--the dub calls Kuwabara's spirit sword Materialization and one of the other competitors in Genkai's tourney uses his power to Enhance the strength of his arm. Don't think I don't fucking notice you refining and re-using those powers in HUNTERXHUNTER Togashi!! I fucking see it!!!

The bat Yusuke fought in the yyh version of Naruto's Forest of death is voice acted as... Basically golem, tbh.

Don't you bitches lie to me and tell me Kurama only had four tails.shoukdnt he have had, like, at least six or seven?? Given how much of a badass he is and the way demons remember him as this be all end all threat??

#yyh #yyh rewatch #kuwabara kazuma #rando #urameshi yusuke #genkai tournament #call it the rando arc at your own risk motherfucker #artifact recovery arc #spirit detective arc #swearing #spoilers #l comer spoilers

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cardhouseandthecage · 6 years

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I actually am wondering about the Star recruitment process, Denizen-Star communication, and the interface between our reality and Faerie with regard to all this. Like if you or I was to get sucked into the Star process, what would it be like in terms of ordinary logistics? How would they first reach out to us? What if we tried something like getting other people involved who legit believed in all this but the Cardhouse really didn't want them involved? Apologies if this can't really be answered!

an EXCELLENT QUESTION, friend, and incidentally a subject of ongoing investigation on my part. THE subject of ongoing investigation. My whole life. Which is to say: I can’t give you a complete answer—I can’t even necessarily give you a correct answer—but you have absolutely come to the right place. You wont get any kind of answer anywhere else. Here’s what I’ve pieced together from my research, thus far:I. The first thing you need to know about Stars is that they don’t actually believe in fairies. Not Literally. Not necessarily.

You are familiar, I assume, with the Moment of Magical Proof™? You’ll find it with most stories that begin in the mundane. Our protagonist might want to believe in magic, but they can’t—magic is fake and everyone knows it—so they’ll rationalize for as long as they can. Then something happens. Magic intrudes upon their lived experience in a way they can no longer deny. YER A WIZARD, HARRY. Magic is real, and will continue to be real for the duration of the narrative.

That moment never happens.

There is no first contact for a Star, no revelation, no paradigm shift: it’s only ever a slow fade. And that little voice of in the back of their heads, the one that knows none of this could ever be real? It never goes away. That’s important. It’s part of what splits them—and without a split there is no harvest.

The Cardmaster settled upon this business model for a reason. Certainly he could present the Cardhouse more literally, but he’d be working against dominant trends: most people don’t believe in fairies literally, and our beliefs govern the channels through which fairies can contact us. So if you don’t really believe that some fairy bitch could pup up in your window and approach you with the deal of a lifetime, they’re going to have a really difficult time making that happen.* It’s much more cost-effective to build on a pre-existing system of belief than to overturn it.

II. But what’s all this nonsense about the power of belief, HQ? Are you really going to sit there behind your screen and tell me that you subscribe to Magical Thinking? Who exactly is funding this study???

AHAHAHAHAHA NO ONE, naturally, but also: no. No, of course not! I may not be funded but I take myself very seriously here: I’m not arguing that our beliefs can change reality directly. Antoine was absolutely right about the tree root: that’s a thing in the physical universe and it’s going to go on existing regardless of what we think about it—outside of what we think of it. Oxygen doesn’t care about my feelings! There’s a side of things won’t budge, no matter what I believe (I know this; I’ve tried). Even if I clapped my hands and dreamed with every fibre of my being, it wouldn’t wouldn’t make a fairy into something I could bring into a lab and prove.

But my belief would change something. It would change the Faerie-Reality interface. If I believed fairies were real, they’d be real to me. It would change how they exist in the extra-dimensional space in my head. And that space in my head—in all of our heads—that’s the dimension of things that connects up with Faerie. That’s what empties into Faerie, perpetually, without our volition or consent. I’m fooling myself if I think I’m in control of that space just because my thoughts effect it: I didn’t choose most of my beliefs any more than I chose my body. There’s a whole world of thought that I inherited, and correspondingly a whole landscape of Faerie that’s built up in connection to Reality over time. By this mechanism, then, our beliefs can alter reality: indirectly. Reality generates Faerie, but Faerie is incessantly fucking with us in return, and the ways in which it fucks with us influence the actions we take in Reality. III. Any agency behind such fuckery I term “a fairy.”

Fairies “live” in the backworld (they’re made of the same stuff it is) and can manipulate the residue that accumulates there: they’re not real by any means, but they do exist. It is worth noting that fairies, by this definition, don’t give a damn whether we believe in them. This may first strike you as counter-intuitive: if they’re made of our thoughts, then surely our belief means a great deal to them? To which I answer: yes, it does. Absolutely. Just not in the way that you’d think. I’m guessing you’ve probably encountered some version theory of belief-dependancy and the Decline of the Mythical? It’s related to a lot of things (many of which are true, see: placebo effect), but generally it asserts that the vitality of imaginary beings has diminished in direct proportion to our diminishing “belief” in them, and consequently there has been a great falling off in the power of gods and fairies and the like as we have entered the modern era. My findings suggest the otherwise. I say we still believe in plenty of “unreal” things, and as strongly as ever we did. Even our science feeds into the Faerie: it’s made of our thought! We use science to describe reality, but it itself is not fully “real.” Besides which, it’s not as if fairies are limited to drawing upon our literal beliefs. We don’t generally think of fiction as real, and yet it shapes us. And a desire can be every bit as potent as a belief. Fairies don’t care whether we believe in them: all they require is that we want to. They’ll play our beliefs against our desires and catch us between them, bring us to our knees before the impossible; we’ll yield our sacrifice readily enough, god or no god. All they require is that we dream.

So no, I don’t think we’ve impoverished fairies at all by sorting fact from fiction as we have. I think we’ve blinded ourselves to their power, locked the door and thrown away the key only to have them catch it. I think we’ve given them everything. I think we’ve spoiled them.

IV. But I digress. You asked me about the logistics of Star recruitment and Denizen-Star communication.

It starts, traditionally enough, with a fairy ring.

Not a literal ring, generally (that’s very retro), but the there are certain channels of interface—certain ‘meta-forums’—that the Cardhouse keeps open as traps for potential candidates. For a while now, the internet has been the best “place” to set up such a forum, so they frequently overlay or branch off from real online sites. But they could be anywhere. Any work of fiction can easily serve as a jumping off point (provided it’s fantastical enough), or else game of make-believe, or even a good old-fashioned glade or a shopping centre or an abandoned house. If you’re intrepid enough you might find your way to to one through pure whimsy: it’s only a matter of stumbling into the right headspace.

Unfortunately, there’s no clear indicator for when such a stumbling has transpired. The meta-forums interface so seamlessly with what we think of as plausible that we don’t recognise them when we see them and we can’t tell once we’re in.** You can’t necessarily tell when someone else is in one either. It just looks like preoccupation—an obliviousness to the “real world.” But it also looks perfectly realistic, especially from the standpoint of the Star. Because fiction exists, and games exist, and there are all kinds of things you can get obsessed with on the internet and none of them especially challenge the laws of physics. They way you engage with the meta-forum doesn’t look different from how you’d engage with any other imaginary thing. Generally, it starts out as a game or an RP or a kind of choose-your-own-adventure story through which you get to know the characters and the basic setup. That setup presents itself very differently depending on what you’re into, but you’re usually given to understand that the Cardhouse produces very special magical items, and that you can help the Cardmaster gather ingredients for these items by undertaking quests or solving puzzles or making certain offerings or blending the perfect tea or getting your two favourite denizens to make kiss or doing whatever it is you’re doing that is “playing the game”. One denizen in particular serves as your primary contact and guide. You might also be given to understand that Cardhouse products are all a part of the ongoing effort to Fight The Encroaching Darkness. It’s a very all-consuming obsession, and while you’re immersed in you often ‘forget’ it isn’t real, but never in a way that raises any suspicion. For the most part, you know it’s just a game. And for some people that’s all it ever is, and they move on.

If you are destined to become a Star, however, at some point the game will change. One day, your denizen approaches you in great distress: the threat of the Encroaching Darkness, they say, is much worse than they had previously let on. The game might end, as if it had never been! You may well never see us again, in which case… farewell in advance! It will be a very moving performance, and naturally you, the potential Star, will be deeply upset by this news. If you’re right for the job you will offer up your assistance on the spot, unprompted. You will say the magic words. Is there anything you can do to help?

…Funny You Should Ask.

And now the denizen will lay it out: there is, in fact, a way. You may not know this, but you happen to be a very special sort of person: a Star sleeps within you—a great power—but its light is not for the human world. If you were to promise to fight on our behalf, we could help you unlock that power on the other side. You would swear fealty to the Cardmaster, pledging your light to the cause and security of our House, and help us to beat back the darkness. But be warned! It is no task for the faint of heart. You would be asked to undertake missions in the depths of the Wild Lands, where evils reign free. You would be placed in grave danger. So yes, you really could save us, but we would never ask anyone to accept such a burden! If however you should choose to do so….well. You would be richly rewarded.

If it’s gotten to this point, the potential Star (feeling very heroic) almost always accepts.They are assigned to a team and presented with a “cage” to help concentrate their powers and serve as a holding space for any magical items they’re give in Faerie. The cage exists between realms and the Star can access it from either side. Generally, the more they use their powers as a Star, the more it fills up with light for them to draw upon. Doing certain things in the Mundane however can cause that light to diminish or spill out, so they learn to avoid doing those things. Yet insofar as they are human, the Star still regards this all as a kind of fantasy. Insofar as they’re a fairy, however, it is very real. How any given Star rationalizes the paradox will vary, but at no point does the human fully “believe” that what’s happening is real. So a fissure develops between the two selves, and the more and more the Star invests in their fae identity, the deeper it splits them.

And here is the difficult part—the part no one understands. People often ask me what a Star’s human self is doing when they are a fairy. Are they sleeping? Unconscious? Physically elsewhere? Mentally dead? Sitting behind a computer screen as in hypnosis? All of those, possibly. None of those, necessarily. The trouble is that there’s not a one-to-one correspondence between time spent in Faerie and time spent in Reality, so it never maps on perfectly. It’s very difficult to make it add up: I don’t have a working model for this part at all.

But I do know this. When a Star is harvested, they are harvested whole. No one notices them go, and there is no body to find. Everything that ought to have been real about them has been redirected to the other side. They make ghosts of themselves. They split off without a trace.

——

*Oh, you might say, well if it’s as easy as believing…—no. Believing is far from easy, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not convinced? Then try! As an experiment: just try to alter your basic beliefs in what’s possible and what’s not. Tell yourself you might wake up in a flower tomorrow morning. It’s possible! Tell yourself the earth of flat (come on, really in vogue). Or tell yourself I’m right! Tell yourself believing makes any difference. COME ON JUST BELIEVE IN YOURSELF,,,YOU CAN DO IT!! Ha. Of course you can’t.

**This may appear to stand in contrast to more traditional fairy-lore, but I think it’s actually very much in line (and it’s one of the many reason I’ve chosen to call these creatures fairies). Sure, in those stories, the human usually knows that they’ve crossed into some kind of Other Realm and accepts the fairies as real, but none of that especially shocks them. They’re not experiencing any major paradigm shift: either they’re in an altered state or this encounter still falls well within their understanding of “plausible.” But their conceptions of plausibility will only stretch so far: they don’t understand that time is passing differently in the other realm, that a very alien set of “rules” governs the very fabric of it. The shock only comes when the person tries to leave Faerie as they would leave a party at someone’s house, and finds that they can’t. And it’s the same with Stars. Our notions of plausible versus implausible have shifted a little, so the trick happens at a different level, but it’s the same trick. The human has passed into foreign territory, but they’re still processing it in mundane terms, and consequently they won’t pick up on the most “unrealistic” aspects of the encounter (if ever) until it’s too late.

#meta #about the cardhouse #about faerie #about fairies #from the diaries of HQ #or maybe just #IC: HQ #about stars #about denizens #dubiously correct meta from your post-unreliable narrator

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