fayromance

[fayromance]

A couple days ago I saw this theory on Reddit about the Village being some sort of the Purgatory (I know, I know, most of us would hate that plot twist 🥲)

BUT! I remembered I have some screenshots from my most recent replay that seem to add support to the idea that there's a certain cycle happening in the village. So I posted them on reddit myself and decided to share here as well

Three different characters mention that there's a cycle (or a wheel, a circle which is also an icon of the Ties stat and the Three Sisters' birthmarks) where everything repeats itself and it's hinted it's impossible to escape from it (the Koschei tells Lada that she's not the first and not the last: there were and there will be others like her)

I've already posted some theories here that this cycle could be happening every 18 years when a human sacrifice is needed to banish the attacking koscheis back to the Haze and save the village. But what if the real reason they're performing those sacrifices is their hope that a right sacrifice of the Chosen One will break them from this cycle of possible rebirths?

If this village isn't entirely real or at least their reality is different from ours, that could explain some historic inaccuracies or straight-up scientific mistakes. Like, paper, glass windows, kerosene lamps in (supposedly) early Medieval Eastern Europe. Or the fact that they all somehow not dying from vitamin D deficiency in a village that gets little to no sunlight. Or the fact that people in this tiny village that's been cut off from the rest of the world for centuries aren't all closely related. What if those things aren't the writer breaking all possible rules of world building but actually they're pointing to the idea that things aren't what they seem in that village and their reality might not be fully real?

Also does anybody else think that the story of Tata suddenly appearing in that old woman's house as a baby with no parents sounds a lot like... a game character spawning in a game? Like, she just appeared there... And I don't really believe that a local woman could get away with concealing her pregnancy for 9 months, going into labor, then discreetly planting her newborn in someone's house and successfully escaping. So either Tata's mother is someone supernatural or she's a gift from the gods or she's like a "glitch in the Matrix" 👀

So basically I think our Lada is the Chosen One who on High Ties will "break the wheel" (yep, I'm making a reference to Daenerys — which is fitting since koscheis are obviously inspired by White Walkers from GOT 😅) and free the people of the village from this cycle

[fayromance]

Got my coveted Black hair after all 🥳

Now my girl is the prettiest witch in the kingdom with purple verbena flowers in her raven hair 🪻🖤

I got every hairstyle option by selecting "try again" and afterwards it was there waiting for me in the wardrobe 💆🏻‍♀️

But I still think "get everything" should work all time, even if it's not free unlike other choices

I am crying 😭😭 Why is the prettiest hairstyle free so now I have to "get everything" to get it in black?

My two SC MCs, both East Asian and Black, are dark-haired in my canon. I can't see them as redheads. But I really want that braid 🥺

It would be fairer if I had to pay for this one hairstyle in the color that I want instead of paying 156💎 for all of them to make free hairs color-custimizable

ATHWTU has the same system and it grinds my gears there too

Also, like, fine, okay, I'll pay you 156💎 for the Black Braid, lemme just... oh right... "get everything" doesn't work during DRs 🫤

So I am not getting this braid at all unless I replay after DR is over and buy everything. Ahhhh, this is driving me up the wall 😫

Just keep "get everything" available all the time! They can make it stay non-free during DRs so that people would be still incentivized to replay during Shopping Day

It's doubly annoying when I feel like I wanna replay this particular story where I've already tapped on "get everything" and the mood hits during DR days. But now I have to buy each item individually again (and miss out on special stats, additional hair colors and accessories) because that option is artificially unavailable at the moment

I don't have to ruin my play mood and wait for 3 days for DR to be over to replay what I want to replay. Just keep the damn option on!

[fayromance]

On UID and data security on RC

Hello, RC folks! Some of you might hear but there's an increase of RC users' accounts being hacked and stolen via UIDs. The hole in the security seems to be even worse: one RC blogger conducted an experiment. Her friend was able to log in her account just by knowing her UID despite the fact that the said blogger linked her account to login and password, her Google account, and also has two factor authentication on Steam (Source: her post on her TG channel in Russian)

Right now I highly recommend you not sharing your UID at all (Even with people you know and are 100% sure in). As far as I know RC team hasn't commented on this problem yet.

Stay safe

[fayromance]

I am crying 😭😭 Why is the prettiest hairstyle free so now I have to "get everything" to get it in black?

My two SC MCs, both East Asian and Black, are dark-haired in my canon. I can't see them as redheads. But I really want that braid 🥺

It would be fairer if I had to pay for this one hairstyle in the color that I want instead of paying 156💎 for all of them to make free hairs color-custimizable

ATHWTU has the same system and it grinds my gears there too

Also, like, fine, okay, I'll pay you 156💎 for the Black Braid, lemme just... oh right... "get everything" doesn't work during DRs 🫤

So I am not getting this braid at all unless I replay after DR is over and buy everything. Ahhhh, this is driving me up the wall 😫

Just keep "get everything" available all the time! They can make it stay non-free during DRs so that people would be still incentivized to replay during Shopping Day

It's doubly annoying when I feel like I wanna replay this particular story where I've already tapped on "get everything" and the mood hits during DR days. But now I have to buy each item individually again (and miss out on special stats, additional hair colors and accessories) because that option is artificially unavailable at the moment

I don't have to ruin my play mood and wait for 3 days for DR to be over to replay what I want to replay. Just keep the damn option on!

[fayromance]

One of my favorite RC content creators just can't shut up about how she's annoyed by Black people in ATHWTU

I literally don't get what's her fucking deal. They erased their one and only relevant Black character from canon (and, of course, she chose white Volot). The only other Black person in the whole village, Zora (one of Ozar's fangirls) is pretty much absent from the story. She only appears in Ozar's premium scene and says, like, two lines

They successfully scrubbed all Black people from the village. But instead of celebrating this major triumph (well, for them obvs), they complain that there are some Black people in the crowd in the backgrounds. I swear, you have to specifically look for them there because it's literally blink-and-you-miss-it situation

And this right here is one of the most heartbreaking things about this whole situation for me. I had to unfollow so many creators and TG channels I've loved because they couldn't keep their racism and anti-Blackness to themselves. Sometimes I miss their content but I can't bring myself to support racist posts so I have no other choice but to quit

[fayromance]

Trying to finish up on HHW this DR and I didn't expect this Sails in the Fog reference 👀

I am guessing the crazy possessive ghost is supposed to be Sebastian's ex?

Also this made me remember that the idea of a supernatural deadly fog with monsters inside had already been done by RC even before ATHWTU — in their very first story ever, no less 🌫👻

[fayromance]

Little did I know back in the fall when I commissioned this cute "lovebirds chilling by the sacred oak" fanart that their actual interaction by a tree is going to be so scary and heartbreaking 😰

The Fate* is laughing at me 😭

*also known as Alice from RC

[fayromance]

Minor complaint about the "revisit my choices" feature in Soulless

I'm lowkey bummed you can only "try again" after buying both an outfit and a hairstyle (sometimes even accessories too)

So when there are more hairstyle options than there are outfits (practically all the time) I have to spend more time clicking on the same outfits I've already bought to get to the missing hairstyles

It would've been easier if this feature was implemented like in other stories — when you buy an outfit and immediately "try again" and buy something else; then after buying all the outfits you go to the hairstyle section and do the same separately with them

So just to clarify: I'm not hating on Wincy and it's not a deal breaker or anything. It's still miles better than in GoE where there's no option to revisit your choices whatsoever: you can either get everything (doesn't work during DRs) or buy only one fit & hair or use the old system of rapidly quitting to main menu and going back to play (which is annoying and doesn't always work as intended)

[fayromance]

I swear this guy is SOOO unattractive to me 😭

His neon white eyes glowing like those of the Hound of the Baskervilles or something just keep sending me in the fight-or-flight mode 😰

BUT!!

His route is tied to this Anti-Capitalist class consciousness thing which highly resonates with me as someone who grew up in a financially struggling household. And that despite the fact that my country should by all accounts be very rich but thanks to oligarchs gorging themselves on natural resources, the population has become quite poor

So... I guess I'll just have to ignore his looks and love him for his personality 🫣

[fayromance]

Okay, I might be reading too much into this

But does anybody else think Alice (ATHWTU writer) made some allusions to THAT cliffhanger in Lada's outfits? 🧐

Both outfits are offered in episode 3 (the same episode Volot attacks Lada) so if a player chooses either of them, Lada will be wearing one of the symbolic dresses at the moment of the attack

As to the symbolism in the outfits:

The white dress has a picture of a young woman in a Slavic dress with a long braid (possibly Lada herself) standing under the roots of a tree. The last thing Lada sees at the end of the episode is a mysterious upside-down tree and then she thinks he's going to hang her on it. Plus the dress is literally called Omen in the wardrobe 👀

The sleeves of the blue dress are decorated with embroidered white hares. And the writer compares Lada to a sacrificial hare when she is getting attacked (this one is kinda even more morbid than the previous one 😰)

[fayromance]

I am so sorry but what in the world is going on with Eva's and Anubis' eyes?

I can't believe it's an official poster

I actually thought it's a fan edit by some player who's recently discovered generative AI and can't stop making those "artworks" with weirdly distorted faces and missing or excessive fingers and whatnot

Like, guys, even if you have to use AI this much, can you at least edit the end result?

[fayromance]

Caught up on my Determination/Haze slot and can finally add the other version of this dress to the wardrobe. The animal pattern changes depending on the path: it's a lamb for Compassion 🐑 and a raven for Determination 🐦‍⬛

Overall, I think I like Haze more as my MC's system of belief and values. She displays a healthy amount of critical thinking on that path which is a huge advantage imo

Both personality traits are enjoyable to play with though. And while headstrong Lada on Determination has certainly won her place in my heart, the gentle Lada on Compassion is still my favorite, I simply adore her. I've been through some traumatic shit which affected the way I see the world and other people. I understand that it's a perfectly normal response to difficult circumstances and yet I admire people who stay soft and kind no matter what happens to them ❤‍🩹

Basically my favorite combo of stats would've been Compassion + Haze which would make for a kind altruistic animal lover who just can't deny her own curiosity and a creeping feeling that they don't have to live like this — shedding blood and performing sacrifices on a regular basis

But it just so happened that my combos got mixed up so I ended up with Compassion + Reality and Determination + Haze. The way I see it:

Lada 1 is still a kind person but her loyalty to the gods might trump her empathy and rationality at times

Lada 2 is often feisty when she talks to people but when it comes to things that really matter (like animal and human sacrifice), she'll fight tooth and nail against those wrongful and cruel ways (as she sees them)

[fayromance]

Russian fandom try not to look like a stain on humanity challenge (difficulty level: impossible)

So some Russian people are having a racist meltdown about... (I mean, if you know them like I do, it probably sounds incredibly trivial at this point, just another Tuesday in the fandom)

This time it's about Novak, the new LI from ATHWTU

There are quite a lot of heavily liked comments against Novak under the Discussing the Highlights post on the official RC account on VK

Basically, their fragile Slavic feelings are hurt... again! 🤧💔 (womp womp)

There are requests of doing the Volot thing all over again and making him Race of Choice (picture white women on their knees begging for more white men — the most marginalized and historically persecuted social group on Earth 😭😭), racist memes, "funny jokes" about the Asian Invasion, calling him a Gypsy and whatnot...

Honestly, I really don't know why I even opened those comments. I fucking knew what I was gonna see there — the same racist shit that always has been. And yet... what a terrible day to be literate in Russian!

Also, the nerve of these twerps complaining about the Asian Invasion when their whole Asian part of the country (the Urals, Siberia, Far East) has been conquered and the local Asiatic populations subjugated and sometimes culturally assimilated

The least they could do now was to show a modicum of respect and human decency towards these people

But, again, I guess that's too much to ask from them

[fayromance]

Realized there's a couple more parallels between ATHWTU and Arcanum that I'd missed in my previous post 🧐 So I'd like to make some additions ✍️

Like I said, Selena is 27 and Lada is 18. Both numbers seem to be very significant. 27 minus 18 is 9. 9 is the number of rays on the Star of Inglia — a Slavic symbol that Lada and Ozar found on the secret altar in the woods. This symbol (well, at least its half) is also what Venciena was hiding in her room 🔎

It's not very clear to me what the writer is trying to say with this symbolism yet but, apparently, it's the Unity of the Three Worlds in Slavic Neo-Paganism: Prav-Yav-Nav

Now, both 27 and 18 (and 9 for that matter) are divisible by 3 — a number considered sacred in many cultures, Slavic included. Both Alice's stories rely heavily on the numerical symbolism of 3: the Three Sisters (Lada, Vereya and Hanna) in ATHWTU and the Triple Goddess Imagery in Arcanum (with Prima, Selena and the Old Woman as manifestations of the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone — three stages in the life of the same woman); also The Tarologist's symbol in the story is the Triquetra 🔮

One of the messages of Arcanum (the way I interpreted it anyway) is about accepting your own past, making peace with your inner child (Prima) and being ready to face the scary future as the consequences of your choices (the Old Woman)

Similarly, in ATHWTU, I think, one of the most important things is the connection between the Three Sisters. Which might be exactly what the stat of Ties is — their bond with each. The fate of the whole village might depend on their connection — with Lada on the High Ties saving everyone by harnessing "the Power of Three" or letting everything fade into the oblivion on the Low Ties

[fayromance]

Thinking about the age symbolism and human sacrifice in two of Alice's stories — Arcanum & ATHWTU

In season 3 of Arcanum there was a whole subplot about young beautiful women being sacrificed and left in the woods in the "Sleeping Beauty" state. Their bodies later would be used to make the Immortality Potion. All those women were 27 — Selena's own age. In fact, it was one of the demands of the sacrifice — that sacrificial woman should be exactly 27 years of age. Also the person who was supervising this whole process of selecting victims is Josephine — an older woman who holds all the power in that small town and everyone's terrified of her (sounds kinda similar to someone we know from ATHWTU, doesn't it?)

And now in And The Haze Will Take Us they keep bringing up the fact that Lada is 18 (as well as her now deceased twin, Vereya) and the symbolic significance of it: Lada starts hearing the Call at this age, same as Ozar who started having visions at 18; the High Priestess says Lada reminds her of herself at that age.

Lada turned 18 the night of the Spring Equinox, the same night her sister mysteriously died. And all the hell broke loose in that village after that — with the Sacred Oak losing its foliage, the Leshy luring people in unusually close to the village and, finally, an all-out attack by Koscheis. What's more, the previous attack which decimated the village's population (and left my poor boy Volot an orphan 🤧) also happened 18 years ago — the night the girls were born.

Furthermore, Novak's father willingly left the village and stepped into the Haze (taking his young son with him) exactly 18 years ago

All of this makes me think there's some sort of cycle in this village that happens every 18 years: Koscheis attack the village and the priests have to resort to human sacrifice to appease the gods and gain their protection. If Novak's father (who was a priest himself) hypothetically sacrificed himself and his child by walking into the Haze, this might be the reason the attacks have stopped for 18 years.

But now the cycle started again and a new sacrifice is necessary. The High Priestess practically won't shut up about having to sacrifice one human to save many.

Now, going back to Volot stabbing Lada in this update... What if this is a vision of the future where Lada becomes that sacrifice under certain circumstances (like her stats, relationships, special choices)? And with her blood spilled, the cycle will be complete — for another 18 years.

That being said, I really, really hope it doesn't come to this. Even on the Reality path where Lada seems to be very loyal to the gods and ready to give up a lot to win their favor. It will literally crush my soul — having to see how my beloved Volot kills my precious girl 🥺💔 And although I believe he won't hurt her if you improve romantic or friendly relationship with him, it would still hurt to see that on other paths

PS the ease with which the High Priestess speaks of human sacrifices, makes me think she's done this before. Probably to her own sister that she lost when they were young and now seems to mourn (which is another parallel to 18-year-old Lada and Vereya). Honestly, if I had my way, we'd go ahead and liberate the village from this woman's fanaticism and tyranny 😑

[fayromance]

I am resuming my hunt for missing items in the ATHWTU wardrobe!

Even though I've already got black mirror, my perfectionist self won't be satisfied until I collect every single outfit, hairstyle and accessory 👗💇‍♀️🧣

This time I got Vereya's scarf and let me tell you: it wasn't easy

I mean, technically it's easy — you just pick an option to keep it for yourself for 17💎

But damn, I was mortified to take my MC's dead sister's birthday gift that she'd obviously so cherished for myself instead of placing it in her coffin 😭

I almost died of embarrassment when both Mom and Dragan noticed that Lada had snatched the scarf from dead Vereya 👀

I couldn't bear it and immediately clicked to replay the chapter, teacups be damned

I might be a little too sensitive for this game after all 😅

[fayromance]

Finally got all four pendants in the wardrobe 💎🎉

I really appreciate RC's efforts to make something special for each MC. Everytime someone mentions my MC's eye color or some other special feature (which obviously adapts to other MCs in other playthroughs), I get so excited ��� Love this attention to details in RC🤌💖

That said, I'd be even more grateful if the pendant's shades matched Brown & Black Ladas' eye color more. Brown Lada's eyes appear to me as more hazel than bright emerald-green. And Black Lada's eyes are very dark brown, much darker than the shade of her pendant. I think using an onyx or a black agate as her pendant's gem would work better for her eyes 🖤

Still, like I said, it's a very nice idea and I just love the comparisons to various gods:

Perun's lightning for the blue pendant 💙

Mokosh, goddess of love and fertility, for the green pendant 💚

Svarog's sparkles (he's a god of smithing) for the amber pendant 🧡

Veles, god of agriculture and knowledge, for the brown pendant 🤎