#I fucking love karma tl so much oh my god

[karmalelou]

Karma tl really was cooked up in a lab specifically for me. Like it's THE Lulusuza au. It's like they read my fics and said damn girl, this is good. Let's make it official.

[many-gay-magpies]

NO BECAUSE YOURE SO RIGHT. THATS EXACTLY THE THING I WANT THE VAGUELY SINISTER ALICE-IN-WONDERLAND SHIT. I WANT CANT YOU SEE ME AND ETERNALLY PT. 2 I WANNA SEE MVS ABOUT THE BOYS JUST TRYING TO LIVE THEIR LIVES AND BE IDOLS EXCEPT THE WORLD KEEPS THROWING SOME MAGICAL BULLSHIT AT THEM (“goddamn it gotta fight these evil wizards now we’re gonna be So Late to rehearsal”) THAT KIND OF SHIT. HYBE I AM BANGING ON YOUR WINDOW LET ME DIRECT YOUR MVS

artzyy seems really nice i see her on my tl sometimes bc of you (hey what if we became mutuals for the sole purpose of ganging up on you wouldn’t that be fun !)

0x1 love song best song i agree. ok well frost and dear sputnik have special places in my heart but love song is That Bitch— BUT YES WE DID GET A LORE MV FOR FROST AND I ADORED IT AND I NEED MORE OF THOSE THERE WAS SO MUCH SUBSTANCE IN THERE IT WAS SO DENSE AND GOOD AND Y E A H IF HYBE GAVE US ONE FOR THIS ALBUM ID GO INSANE

NO LITERALLYYYYYY THE SINISTER SHIT IS MY FAVORITE. I LOVE THINGS THAT ARE SWEET ON THE SURFACE BUT JUST A LITTLE (OR A LOT) DEMENTED AND MESSED UP IF YOU DIG BELOW THE SURFACE. ITS SO !!!! (thats part of what really drew me to enha when i was still bigtime-- their lore was just so RICH (or it seemed like it pre-dark moon) and the concepts were so beautiful and poetic. very "everything looks soft and pretty on the surface but deep down we are Fucked Up"). AND ASKFBFKFNFN LATE TO REHEARSAL BC THEYRE FIGHTING EVIL WIZARDS IM DEAD

oh i guess that would be my karma huh... [wink wink nudge nudge because artzyy's other alias on here is karma]

OMG YES DEAR SPUTNIK THAT SONG HAS MY S O U L. youre so real for that.

tcc:freeze gave us so many beautiful songs fr... lovesong (THE "oh god i am projecting onto this song and concept a bit too much" anthem of the year), dear sputnik, frost, magic, anti-romantic, new rules, ice cream... yes i just listed almost the entire album. i am aware

YES CMON HYBE!! GIVE US THE LORE!! CHOP CHOP 👏👏

[fictionkinfessions]

god i keep almost forgetting about the two 80s ttrpg fictives who integrated into me a year and a half ago and then somebody will say i seem very 80s and im like. fucking THANK you. SOMEbody noticed. which is very funny because i am not even kind of doing this on purpose i actually grew a mullet because i made a (modern! not 80s! late 2010s!) human version of my main kin and gave him a pseudo-mullet kind of initially as a joke and then i thought it looked so gender that i decided to grow an entire mullet from scratch and start lightening my hair again. and its been almost a year so i guess it just kinda stuck. (im considering changing the whole character design so none of my friends ever find out actually because i know my sibling- who also has a mullet mind you- would make fun of me and it would be 100% fully deserved and also probably count as karma because i make fun of their mullet and their mulleted blorbos all the time but thats not the point.) and yes its not impossible that the little part of me that was once a 17 year old with a mullet and an earring saw this 17 year old with a mullet and an earring and said “oh we have to start looking like this IMMEDIATELY” but i really dont think that was a major factor here. anyways it turns out having a mullet in 2022 kind of makes everyone read the fact that i wear a jean jacket and/or a flannel all the time as kind of 80s and makes my list of 80s movies that make my brain go brr seem longer than it is and makes folks assume that my playlist having a few songs from the 80s means i listen to a lot of 80s music (which i mean- i actually do love a lot of 80s music i just dont listen to it that much because i tend to fixate on specific albums and most of those albums are from the past 20ish years. also not the point though) and im definitely not complaining but i really wasnt expecting to get… i dont know, fictive euphoria? over characters im not even technically a fictive of. although im starting to think i might be kin with one of them (the one who had a mullet lmao) so i guess it might just be kin euphoria. the whole situation is very complicated and the line between fictive and kin can get blurry for us but tl;dr growing a mullet was a great idea why didnt i do this earlier

[obsidiancreates]

I Did That Hunger Games Simulator With My OCs

Some, y’all may recognize. Some... you might not. So Naomi is Leilani’s girlfriend (who I may or not have forgotten I’d made until I found the piece again...), and then Serissa, Grant, Glade, Paisley, Kruff, and Karma are from a thing I started writing when I was 12 right after I read the actual The Hunger Games.

Oh and Authoress is a um... well a-an ego... like, she was an apprentice of The Author form Danger in Fiction... I was like 13.

Anyway.

Oh also there’s a Summary at the very end, so um, TL;DR at the bottom I guess.

The Bloodbath

As the tributes stand on their podiums, the horn sounds. Kruff runs away from the Cornucopia. Ferox runs away from the Cornucopia. Evelyn's Mom runs away from the Cornucopia. Serissa runs away from the Cornucopia. Naomi No-Last-Name gathers as much food as she can. Avery Still-No-Last-Name stabs Haley Amandi while her back is turned. (NOOOOOOOO but also fitting because Avery is dating Mary the demon Hunter and Haley is married to a demonnnnn) Carter Clevman runs away from the Cornucopia. Liv runs away from the Cornucopia. Steve Pennerman grabs a shield leaning on the cornucopia. Leilani Kealoha finds a backpack full of camping equipment. Authoress runs away from the Cornucopia. Jessa, Karma, and Ashlyn Searson work together to get as many supplies as possible. (Hmm, interesting group.) Eric Rodriguez runs away from the Cornucopia. Glade runs away from the Cornucopia. Mary Ferrend runs away from the Cornucopia. Grant finds a bow, some arrows, and a quiver. Malum Amandi runs away from the Cornucopia. LavaDestroys runs away from the Cornucopia. Evelyn Serenatis rips a mace out of Paisley's hands. Dee runs away from the Cornucopia.

Day One

Carter Clevman picks flowers. (Good for you, man.) Avery Still-No-Last-Name questions his sanity. (And that takes a lot. He acceppted Demon Hunter with no issues when Mary told him.) Naomi No-Last-Name injures herself. Grant makes a wooden spear. Eric Rodriguez kills Ashlyn Searson as she tries to run. (ERIC NOOOOOOO SHE’S YOUR NEIGHBOR AND FRIENDDDDDD) Liv explores the arena. Mary Ferrend steals from LavaDestroys while she isn't looking. (Heh) Serissa injures herself. (Wh- girl how you are a Mary Sue,) Ferox questions her sanity. (Yeah that’s fair.) Paisley hunts for other tributes. Authoress kills Leilani Kealoha with a hatchet. (NOOOOOOOOO) Evelyn's Mom questions her sanity. Dee sprains her ankle while running away from Steve Pennerman. (Oh no her ghost ankle) Jessa practices her archery. Kruff runs away from Evelyn Serenatis. Glade injures herself. Karma camouflauges herself in the bushes. Malum Amandi injures himself. (Why did so many of them injure themselves?)

Fallen Tributes

3 cannon shots can be heard in the distance. Haley Amandi District 2 Ashlyn Searson District 1 Leilani Kealoha District 6 (TOT)

Night One

Grant receives fresh food from an unknown sponsor. Glade destroys Carter Clevman's supplies while he is asleep. (Damn Glade, you’ve grown ruthless while I was away from your story.) Mary Ferrend defeats Malum Amandi in a fight, but spares his life. (Holy shit wait what the fuck she is dead set on killing him this is nuts) Liv sets an explosive off, killing Authoress, and Steve Pennerman. (STEVE NOOOOOOOO) Evelyn Serenatis and Dee run into each other and decide to truce for the night. Eric Rodriguez quietly hums. LavaDestroys questions her sanity. Serissa tends to her wounds. Naomi No-Last-Name thinks about winning. Jessa defeats Ferox in a fight, but spares her life. (Frenemies...) Kruff goes to sleep. Evelyn's Mom and Paisley huddle for warmth. Karma and Avery Still-No-Last-Name sleep in shifts.

Day Two

Serissa, Jessa, LavaDestroys, and Evelyn's Mom raid Carter Clevman's camp while he is hunting. (Damn. No mercy.) Eric Rodriguez receives fresh food from an unknown sponsor. Karma, Naomi No-Last-Name, Ferox, and Glade raid Kruff's camp while he is hunting. (KARMA THAT’S YOUR OWN TWIN BROTHER!!!) Evelyn Serenatis discovers a cave. Mary Ferrend receives fresh food from an unknown sponsor. Paisley fishes. Liv tries to sleep through the entire day. (Mood) Dee tends to Grant's wounds. Avery Still-No-Last-Name goes hunting. Malum Amandi tries to spear fish with a trident.

Fallen Tributes

2 cannon shots can be heard in the distance. Authoress District 9 Steve Pennerman District 7

Night Two

Kruff passes out from exhaustion. Grant looks at the night sky. Ferox begs for Avery Still-No-Last-Name to kill her. He refuses, keeping Ferox alive. (Ferox, the hell?) Serissa, Dee, Jessa, Eric Rodriguez, and Mary Ferrend sleep in shifts. LavaDestroys loses sight of where she is. Paisley defeats Glade in a fight, but spares her life. (I should hope so, that’s your little sister Paisley.) Carter Clevman destroys Malum Amandi's supplies while he is asleep. (The friendly rivalry has escalated.) Evelyn Serenatis throws a knife into Liv's head. (HOLY FUCKING SHIT) Evelyn's Mom begs for Naomi No-Last-Name to kill her. She refuses, keeping Evelyn's Mom alive. Karma loses sight of where she is.

Day Three

Naomi No-Last-Name runs away from Ferox. Glade forces Evelyn's Mom to kill Carter Clevman or Paisley. She decides to kill Paisley. (GLADE! WHAT THE HELL! YOU’RE WHOLE STORYLINE IS HOW MUCH YOU LOVE YOUR SISTER AND WANT TO FIND HER AGAIN!) Jessa receives a hatchet from an unknown sponsor. Karma stalks Grant. Mary Ferrend searches for firewood. Dee sprains her ankle while running away from LavaDestroys. Eric Rodriguez searches for firewood. Serissa tries to spear fish with a trident. Malum Amandi scares Evelyn Serenatis off. Kruff searches for firewood. Avery Still-No-Last-Name receives a hatchet from an unknown sponsor.

Fallen Tributes

2 cannon shots can be heard in the distance. Liv District 5 Paisley District 11

Night Three

Karma quietly hums. Carter Clevman attempts to start a fire, but is unsuccessful. (Honey you are the god of Cleverness how did this happen) Glade receives a hatchet from an unknown sponsor. Grant tends to Dee's wounds. Jessa loses sight of where she is. Avery Still-No-Last-Name tries to sing himself to sleep. Eric Rodriguez thinks about winning. Kruff questions his sanity. Ferox is unable to start a fire and sleeps without warmth. Naomi No-Last-Name and Evelyn Serenatis track down and kill LavaDestroys. (I am okay with this.) Mary Ferrend, Evelyn's Mom, and Malum Amandi cheerfully sing songs together. Serissa receives clean water from an unknown sponsor.

Day Four

Kruff goes hunting. Evelyn Serenatis searches for a water source. Glade tends to Karma's wounds. Mary Ferrend explores the arena. Avery Still-No-Last-Name goes hunting. Malum Amandi receives fresh food from an unknown sponsor. Dee diverts Evelyn's Mom's attention and runs away. Naomi No-Last-Name receives medical supplies from an unknown sponsor. Carter Clevman and Grant split up to search for resources. Serissa sprains her ankle while running away from Jessa. Ferox and Eric Rodriguez work together for the day.

(Yay no deaths for the daytime)

Fallen Tributes

1 cannon shot can be heard in the distance. LavaDestroys District 8

Night Four

Avery Still-No-Last-Name passes out from exhaustion. Naomi No-Last-Name looks at the night sky. Ferox sees a fire, but stays hidden. Malum Amandi bashes Dee's head against a rock several times. (MALUM SWEETIE HAVE YOU GONE FULL DEMON BECAUSE HALEY DIED?! HOLY SHIT) Evelyn's Mom goes to sleep. Glade tries to treat her infection. (Oh hey she’s the medic in her story, this lines up shockingly well.) Evelyn Serenatis and Carter Clevman hold hands. (Awww, frens. Dumbasses in crime.) Mary Ferrend and Serissa hold hands. (Wow... you know what, they would actually be cute together.) Kruff and Jessa fight Karma and Eric Rodriguez. Kruff and Jessa survive. (KRUFF DID YOU FUCKING KILL YOUR OWN TWIN SISTER??? YOUR BLIND AND MUTE TWIN SISTER WHO YOU SPENT YOUR LIFE DEFENDING???)

Grant receives medical supplies from an unknown sponsor.

Day Five

Jessa begs for Naomi No-Last-Name to kill her. She refuses, keeping Jessa alive. Carter Clevman fishes. Serissa runs away from Evelyn Serenatis. Mary Ferrend tries to spear fish with a trident. Kruff discovers a cave. Avery Still-No-Last-Name silently snaps Glade's neck. (Holy. Shit. Mary taught Avery well.) Ferox overhears Grant and Evelyn's Mom talking in the distance. Malum Amandi makes a slingshot.

Arena Event: Wolf mutts are let loose in the arena.

Jessa is eaten by wolf mutts. (She probably tried to pet them.) Carter Clevman knocks Mary Ferrend out and leaves her for the wolf mutts. (Damn. No mercy from Carter...) Avery Still-No-Last-Name knocks Serissa out and leaves her for the wolf mutts. (DAMN! Avery is fucking ruthless!) Naomi No-Last-Name is eaten by wolf mutts. (Awwww noooooo!) Kruff pushes Ferox into a pack of wolf mutts. (Yeah, yeah this one is fine.) Malum Amandi is crushed by a pack of wolf mutts. (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) Grant survives. Evelyn Serenatis survives. Evelyn's Mom survives.

Fallen Tributes

10 cannon shots can be heard in the distance. Dee District 5 Karma District 10 Eric Rodriguez District 7 Glade District 11 Jessa District 9 Mary Ferrend District 4 Serissa District 12 Naomi No-Last-Name District 6 Ferox District 8 Malum Amandi District 2

Night Five

Carter Clevman sees a fire, but stays hidden. Avery Still-No-Last-Name tends to his wounds. Evelyn Serenatis receives fresh food from an unknown sponsor. Grant loses sight of where he is. Kruff bashes Evelyn's Mom's head against a rock several times. (HOLY SHIT KRUFF I KNOW YOU’RE A TOUGH GUY TROPE AND ALL BUT- WHAT THE FUCK)

The Feast

The cornucopia is replenished with food, supplies, weapons, and memoirs from the tributes' families. Kruff decides not to go to The Feast. Evelyn Serenatis, Avery Still-No-Last-Name, and Grant start fighting, but Avery Still-No-Last-Name runs away as Evelyn Serenatis kills Grant. (Welp, bye Grant.) Carter Clevman falls into a pit and dies. (Of course that’s how you died you dumbass.)

Day Six

Kruff overhears Avery Still-No-Last-Name and Evelyn Serenatis talking in the distance. (And... apparently that’s the only thing that happened all day.)

Fallen Tributes

3 cannon shots can be heard in the distance. Evelyn's Mom District 3 Grant District 12 Carter Clevman District 1

Night Six

Kruff receives medical supplies from an unknown sponsor. Evelyn Serenatis catches Avery Still-No-Last-Name off guard and kills him. (Oooooh, so it’s down to Evelyn and Kruff... this’ll be interesting...)

Day Seven

Kruff attempts to climb a tree, but falls to his death. (Oh. Nevermind, then.)

The winner is Evelyn Serenatis from District 3!

Ahhh, that’s my girl.

SUMMARY

The Bloodbath Avery Still-No-Last-Name stabs Haley Amandi while her back is turned. Day 1 Eric Rodriguez kills Ashlyn Searson as she tries to run. Authoress kills Leilani Kealoha with a hatchet. Night 1 Liv sets an explosive off, killing Authoress, and Steve Pennerman. Day 2 No deaths occurred. Night 2 Evelyn Serenatis throws a knife into Liv's head. Day 3 Glade forces Evelyn's Mom to kill Carter Clevman or Paisley. She decides to kill Paisley. Night 3 Naomi No-Last-Name and Evelyn Serenatis track down and kill LavaDestroys. Day 4 No deaths occurred. Night 4 Malum Amandi bashes Dee's head against a rock several times. Kruff and Jessa fight Karma and Eric Rodriguez. Kruff and Jessa survive. Day 5 Avery Still-No-Last-Name silently snaps Glade's neck. Arena Event Wolf mutts are let loose in the arena. Jessa is eaten by wolf mutts. Carter Clevman knocks Mary Ferrend out and leaves her for the wolf mutts. Avery Still-No-Last-Name knocks Serissa out and leaves her for the wolf mutts. Naomi No-Last-Name is eaten by wolf mutts. Kruff pushes Ferox into a pack of wolf mutts. Malum Amandi is crushed by a pack of wolf mutts. Night 5 Kruff bashes Evelyn's Mom's head against a rock several times. The Feast Evelyn Serenatis, Avery Still-No-Last-Name, and Grant start fighting, but Avery Still-No-Last-Name runs away as Evelyn Serenatis kills Grant. Carter Clevman falls into a pit and dies. Day 6 No deaths occurred. Night 6 Evelyn Serenatis catches Avery Still-No-Last-Name off guard and kills him. Day 7 Kruff attempts to climb a tree, but falls to his death. The winner is Evelyn Serenatis from District 3!

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

i don’t know what the fuck just happened

i was working on my mask of mayhem analysis because im trash and i just fell down a spiral of chaos

tl;dr: aphrodite is symbolized with roses, there’s this goddess named cybele who loves lions, i go off the deep end and end up wondering if Atlas was working with/controlled by a non-eridian alien who then decided to let the company fall and focus on the children of the vault, started wondering if Typhon and Azlan get turned into either Guardians or those demon things we see and also could explain why the Watcher is so much more intelligent and can speak english instead of the weird bug screams

anyway expect that MoM analysis at some point yeet

“something mother strength surrender! [to the something something]”

i would not put it past them to make us think the roses are there due to the cultist shebang in the cover art 

y’know the whole:

but then and go pull this shit

having the roses symbolize Aphrodite who’s probably supposed to be some kinda Eridian here (making Pandora beautiful and shit)

which makes me wonder wtf happened to Azlan and Typhon... be fucked if they got turned into Guardians or Vault Monsters or something. Maybe that’s who the Watcher is supposed to be... She seems hella smart compared to the other Guardians and she speaks to us in what i assume is english and not just a weird mind-connection-translate-thing instead of terrifying screeching noises like the other ones

actually, I think this would work better if Aphrodite was not an Eridian, but instead some other alien. Consider, the “perfect vessel to bring evil into the world”. I’m pretttty sure the Eridians didn’t want us opening the Vaults on Pandora. so spreading rumors that the vaults held riches and shit to make them enticing to open would probably be the work of something non-Eridian.

That would be a kickass story with the first vault hunters, too. Azlan and Typhon get assistance from a mysterious benefactor type deal that’s trying to open the Vaults as a non-Eridian alien and end up not paying it back for its assistance so it sends them looking somewhere else to get another alien to turn them into whatever it does (possibly the demon looking things we see in the trailer?). That type of alien could end up being whatever “Mother” and “Father” are referencing in the CoV propaganda. i mean, Cybele is considered one of the “foreign gods” of greek religion.

i mean, it could also be that Cybele was Eridian and Aphrodite was not. so Aphrodite sends the two to some Eridian place and they get turned into Guardians or someshit for karma or something iunno. 

im also curious about Atlas being the Father of the Calypsos in Greek Mythology because like... what if all this time old Atlas was being run by (or working directly with) a fuckin (nonEridian) alien. I know there was a 10 year old child in control at some point. do you really think an alien would care that a 10 year old child was in control? no! they’re aliens. their work is done on Pandora (opening the Vault) so they let the company fall cause it wasn’t of use anymore. The aliens could’ve given up on being a corporation and instead looked towards the bandit population for a more powerful army and that’s where the Children of the Vault come in. “Oh yeahh for sure the Great Vault will lead you to Salvation, yup, yup, just make sure you open every single one. Oh and Tyreen? Yeah, of COURSE you can absorb the Vault Monster’s powers, whatever you want, just keep killing em, ya hear? we’ll be over here, watching, waiting...”

[pinksweatergettingbetter]

// y’know since I finished DD I've been trying to puzzle out why the ending was so unsatisfying, and I think I’ve figured it out 

First off, I felt really uncomfortable finishing off the phantom; I actually ended up feeling bad for him during his breakdown. But why, though? His breakdown is actually pretty similar to Matt Engarde’s (cowering behind the bench in fright, tearing up his face). In fact they’re both quite similar villains: They’re both responsible for kidnappings in some way, both could be considered sociopaths  and both pretending to be innocent.

However, where I hate Matt Engarde and take great pleasure in making him cry as I threaten to put him in jail or leave him at the mercy of an assassin... I don’t really feel anything towards The Phantom. I acknowledge his crimes were bad, but they don’t make me feel the same hatred, so I don’t really feel especially good taking him down.

In fact, the person I felt the most hatred towards in DD was Aura Blackquill, and her take-down wasn’t satisfying at all. 

So I think the main problem with this ending is similar to the reason why everyone mistakes Dahlia as the arch-villain of T&T

Lets think about her for a second; Dahlia isn’t the true villain of Bridge; its Godot (as the murderer) and Morgan (As the person who put the evil plan in motion in the first place)

But we hate Dahlia with a fiery passion. Why? 

Because she's A) Really Unpleasant, and B) She visibly hurt someone we care about as an audience. 

Godot doesn’t register as the main villain because his actions (though stupid, selfish and fucking awful) were based from a good intention (not really though) and his victim was someone so peripheral that it hardly matters. Hell, we don’t even know who she is and how she affects someone we relate to (Maya) until quite late in the case. (tbh I actually don’t know why people don’t hate Godot more; he put every one of the Feys in danger for his own shitty revenge and he sucks. But I’m getting off track...) 

Morgan doesn’t register as the main villain because she only appears in flashback and doesn’t do anything material. She’s still disgusting for treating her daughters that way and attempting to have Maya killed, but she doesn’t appear for us to hate.

So our hatred is laser-beamed at Dahlia, who is nasty, smug, and most importantly: She hurt someone we care about. We can see how much her actions destroyed Phoenix over the course of the entire game; his misfortune is the catalyst for us to hate her, along with what she had in mind for Maya. Same for Matt Engarde and Manfred von Karma; both of them visibly hurt and endanger Maya and Edgeworth respectively, who are characters we’ve come to sympathize with and love.

Nobody cares about Juan Corrida, Robert Hammond or Valerie Hawthorne/Terry Fawles’ deaths all that much because we don’t know them. If they had been the villains’ only targets, we wouldn’t have hated them as much. What makes them an Arch-villain is how they affect a main character.  Redd White and Morgan Fey (in her first appearance) become closest to arch-villains in their one-off villain roles because of their involvement with main characters.

But, returning to DD, the Phantom doesn’t actually... do that. Sure, he killed Clay, who was Apollo’s best friend, and Metis, Athena’s mother... But they’re such non-entities that it doesn’t trigger my sense of sympathy. Now I’m not saying non-appearing characters can’t have weight; but the way to do this is to have their presence made known through the actions or words of more important characters.

We can feel Magnifi Grammarye even if we’ve never met him because of the effect he had on Zak, Valant an even Trucy. We can feel Misty Fey because of DL-6 lore and Maya’s own grief. We can feel Celeste Impax because of how broken Adrian is over her death. Or at least we can at least feel bad for Adrian and hate Matt because of it.

But they don’t do that in DD; they set up their expendable characters very poorly. Clay obviously means a lot to Apollo, and we’d probably feel his presence through Apollo’s grief....... if we were allowed to actually see Apollo’s grief. He’s basically shoved out of the story after Clay’s death to ‘investigate it on his own terms’, so apart from a couple of lines, we don’t really see how much it hurts him in depth. Meanwhile, (and this frustrated me to no end) NOBODY else seems to give two shits about Clay. Even Solomon Starbuck, his mentor, is more worried about Athena during the case. He basically has a line or two of how much it sucks to lose Clay, then he totally forgets about him. 

I love Clay as a concept, but he’s drowned out by all the other grandiose plot elements and never given a proper funeral. So I find it hard to care about his death.

Metis gets things slightly better as Athena doesn’t go missing halfway through the game... but her death also only comes up pretty late in the game and, well... Her memories aren’t altogether great. As much as Athena says she loves her, she also explains her belief that her mother had been experimenting on her, and didn’t care much for her. And it’s fairly obvious that Metis Cykes wasn’t the most attentive of mothers, no matter what Simon Blackquill says to the contrary. Anyone who lets their naive 11 year old daughter play with heavy machinery is not a good mother in my books.  So I loose sympathy for her.

Oh! And the person who grieves for her most? It’s Aura Blackquill, who is so bitter, cruel and selfish that I like Metis even less just by association. 

So our main reasons to hate the Phantom don’t really stack up. Besides that, his previous bombings don’t actually have any casualties, unless you count what happened to the HAT-1 and Starbuck. At the same time, if I remember correctly, that’s actually the fault of Yuri Cosmos and the Government who allowed the launch even when there were threats from a spy. Good going, you guys. (that might’ve been the HAT-2 actually but tbh my point still stands.)

There’s no story-weight behind his villainous deeds. Also, there’s no malice; the Phantom doesn’t kill for the horrible reasons the other villains do. von Karma killed out of twisted and petty revenge, Matt Engarde was a vain and utterly self-absorbed monster, and Dahlia (and Morgan) were both selfish and hateful.

But the Phantom kills for two reasons; orders from a higher-up, and to protect his own identity. Sounds a lot like our Other Assassin, Shelly de-Killer, who I’m not sure anyone hates, really. (I dunno. I never hated him all that much) That obviously doesn’t make his murders permissible or forgivable in any way, but it lacks the spiteful motivation that makes us hate a villain. Phantom was just ‘doing his job’. Perhaps we’d hate him a little more if we knew the origins of his mysterious contractors.... but we don’t. We don’t even know if they’re evil. They could be the country’s own government for gods sake. Hell, even knowing that would add some intrigue. But we know diddly squat. He’s a nowhere man, living in a nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody. 

In any case. The Phantom doesn’t provide us with evil personality traits or close-to-home crimes. Who does?

Aura Blackquill, of course! She’s highly unpleasant, her motivation is selfish hatred for a child, her actions are ridiculously overblown and ill-timed (could’ve done something a little earlier than the day before the execution, eh, Aura?) and the person she kidnaps?

Trucy. Our precious darling Trucy who we’ve had an entire game to get to know, love and sympathize with. 

Of course I love (read: hate) how the game tries to play this off like it’s no big deal; Phoenix barely worries about her (in comparison to his constant stress/anxiety/near panic attacks over Maya in Farewell) and when she comes back there’s like 2 lines of her being all “Nah it was cool i just did magic tricks lol” Along with Aura asserting that “none of this could have been accomplished without me”. Yes, thanks Aura; none of this could have been accomplished without terrorism and kidnapping. You sure are a grade-A hero. 

So we finally come to the final point of the Phantom; his lack of emotions. Or his semi-lack of emotions, or... Well. DD doesn’t explain it very well. Does he have emotions? Does he not? Are they very minor, or does he control them very well (...somehow? You can’t suppress an emotion so much that it disappears; by the Mood Matrix logic, they’d still be able to hear it easily underneath.) 

Phantom gives the cliché spiel of “emotions make you weak”, until the heroes insist that they don’t. And then... He doesn’t go down with defiance? He doesn’t go down cursing emotion to his grave. In his last moments, something in our heroes’ words touches him and in a moment of self-reflection he tries to ultimately remember who he is. Most villains show no remorse, but the Phantom seems very close to perhaps taking a step in the right direction. He renounces his lack of emotions and gives in to fear, and his end is really honestly terrifying to watch (at least it was to me)

This might partially be that I still associate him with Bobby, who’s been pretty much my favourite character in and motivation for finishing the game. Whatever the case, the Phantom doesn’t really make me feel smug for defeating him. Just kind of... uncomfortable.

 Then he gets shot by the most amateur sniper in the universe (unless this is just another plan) and carted off to the Police. And so, with that ONE SINGLE TRIAL, the Dark Age of the Law is vanquished. Because that’s how Trust works. 

TL-DR; the DD team did a poor job of setting up concrete reasons for us to hate the phantom, making his defeat not particularly satisfying. Also the whole plot is garbage and i hate it but meh