#and also the ten of swords

[threepercentmiilk]

[b4kuch1n]

wizard of both ways

[wizardlyghost]

thing about deltora quest that only occurred to me in hindsight is not only just how much jasmine carries the entire party on this quest but also how genre-defyingly brutal she is lol. like, this is a kid's series that hinges on riddles and puzzles far more heavily than combat - even when deaths occur, they're often the result of cleverness in some way rather than straight up combat ability. that said, let's look at the villain kill count at the end of book five of eight of the first series:

- lief: 1 - even there it's with a well-thrown bottle of cursed water rather than his sword.

- barda: 0 - i'm not counting that one unnamed sand beast, that's an animal not a villain.

- filli: 0 - he is a squirrel, this is unsurprising.

- kree: 1 - killed an invincible sorceress all by himself, good bird best friend.

- jasmine: 5 - dropped a tree branch on a mf, drowned two cannibals in quicksand, cut a giant snake's throat, shoved a dude down a pipe full of toxic mold (after having to be told not to cut his throat while he slept jfc).

idk it just suddenly struck me as really funny how this one character who isn't the protagonist is almost from a different, far more brutal story, and uses that fact to consistently be the mvp and save everyone else's asses. i need to read this series again it's been too long.

[ok-pop-1]

a "doodle" of sky and wars (and fi!) from @sapphicseasapphire's cryptids au!

[soft-pine]

i believe it's what you would call a tragedy 

hello tomorrow is november 19th. and i need to reserve that day for fix-its and talking about how dean is extremely, aggressively, flamboyantly alive.

but i do want to talk about the supernatural finale. content notes for discussion of Dean's death and mentions of abuse and sexual assault.

i've rewatched 15.20 as much as some of my very favorite episodes of supernatural. it compels me. it enrages me. it astounds me. every fiber of my being screams that it cannot possibly be that stupid, that hollow, that cruel. and every time it is - and more.

i watch it in part because i think somewhere i truly, truly believe that this time it will be different. that this time i will have loved dean enough to save him. that if do good enough analysis that shows, really shows, how sad, how wrong it is, that somehow it will re-form itself. maybe not into something good. but i can imagine something... different.

instead, every time i watch i'm hit with more and more little moments, little details, little callbacks or parallels or revelations that crack me open so i always have this hole inside of me where 15.20 sits and rots the flesh around it.

but here i go wanting to unpack it again. maybe cause of the sisyphean reasons above. maybe for the same reasons i want to unpack every aspect of dean's relationship with john. maybe because they are actually inextricably linked. dean and john and 1.20 and 15.20.

i started watching supernatural on may 23rd, 2021, knowing full well dean was going to die.

so i looked at his beautiful doe eyes in s1 and thought "they are going to kill you" and ached. i looked at his private, chaotic grief in s2 and thought "they are going to kill you." i looked at his self-sacrifice and self-worth in s3 and thought "they are going to kill you." i watched him stumble on resurrected bambi legs in s4 and thought "they are going to kill you." i watched his protective defiance in s5 and thought "they are going to kill you." i saw his patience, hope, and worry in s6 and thought "they are going to kill you." i saw his exhausted, brittle husk in s7 and thought "they are going to kill you." i marveled at the mix of resignation and rawness in s8 and thought "they are going to kill you." i choked on the self-loathing in s9, thinking "they are going to kill you." in s10 i heard dean say both that he didn't want to die and that he knew he'd have to and thought "they are going to kill you." s11, beloved s11, that opens with some of the most down-to-earth moments and ends in some of the most cosmic. dean saves the world by talking and listening and explaining how to forgive and i thought "they are going to kill you." in s12, i watched him struggle as his mother unwittingly repeated the patterns of his father and struggle to bite his tongue and i thought "they are going to kill you." i watched the s13 speedrun of all his worst fears and thought "they are going to kill you." s14 again mixes the visceral and the cosmic. dean strips michael's clothes off his back. he welds himself a magic coffin. he talks about reading mommy blogs and i listened and thought "they are going to kill you." in s15 i watched him proved right about everything he'd ever said about god and wanting to be free. i watched him win. and i thought "they are going to kill you. now."

i knew it was coming all along and i thought i would be ready for it. instead, i sobbed in the car on the way to work for two weeks. i sometimes still do. you will always end up here.

i think in every supernatural circle that's worth even a moment of my time, 15.20 is considered a tragedy (or not considered at all). and so much has been said already. so i'm not going to rehash that killing a character who constantly said he wanted out of the life of violence he was forced into is a tragedy. i'm not going to belabor the twisted knife of killing someone who was so frequently suicidal. i'm not going to go on about how the last time cas was dead dean didn't feel like there was anything to live for and was fine suicidally throwing his life away on a routine hunt and the chance he could save a couple trapped ghosts. i'm not going to wax about the job application. i'm not going to unravel - at length - that they had to kill dean because he loved cas and they couldn't let him live long enough to say it. and though i'm not a chuck won truther, i would never pretend i don't see the math.

but i think one of the issues with having watched the finale so many times, is i notice all the little things. there is so much extra-episodic context that makes 15.20 a godawful, crushing, devastating mess. but i'm always torn over which kills me more because some of the intra-episode parallels and details feel so specifically, acutely cruel.

for example, why would they have dean say, "but if we don't keep living, then all that sacrifice is gonna be for nothing" and then literally kill him 10 minutes later?

why is there a scene emphasizing the mercy of a quick death compared to the pain and anguish of long-drawn out suffering...

DEAN: You see, this... This is quick. It's clean. You know, no muss, no fuss. You blink, and you're dead. SAM: But a blade this small... I'm gonna have to keep sawing and sawing to get your head off, and you'll feel it. Every muscle, tendon, every inch. It could take hours.

if we about about to watch dean bleed out for 8 minutes?

why did sam pie him??

why did they have dean say "you never took any of dad's crap" and then four minutes later send him to "heaven" just down the street from john?

speaking of, let's look at dean's face upon hearing his dad's "got a place over yonder" versus after "well, cas helped."

and that brings us to the other themes the finale. because while the intra-episode moments feel cruel and pointed, it is the way it ties off the rest of the show that makes it a tragedy.

i've said before that it's eerie how well dean's speech in faith would fit into the finale. well, let's look at some other lines that show dean never thought he deserved anything different than dying on some random hunt.

1.12 faith

Look, Sammy, what can I say, man, it's a dangerous gig. I drew the short straw.

2.04 children shouldn't play with dead things

I never should've come back, Sam. It wasn't natural. And now look what's come of it. I was dead. And I should have stayed dead. 

2.22 all hell breaks loose part 2

I'm not even supposed to be here. At least this way, something good could come out of it, you know? I--I--It's like my life could mean something.

5.17 99 problems

Look, I have no illusions, okay? I know the life that I live, I know how that’s gonna end for me. Whatever. I’m okay with that. 

6.06 you can't handle the truth

It's the gig. You're covered in blood until you're covered in your own blood. Half the time, you're about to die. Like right now.

8.14 trial and error

I'm a grunt, Sam. You're not. You've always been the brains of this operation. And you told me yourself that you see a way out. You see a light at the end of this ugly-ass tunnel. I don't. But I tell you what I do know – it's that I'm gonna die with a gun in my hand. 'Cause that's what I have waiting for me – that's all I have waiting for me. I want you to get out. I want you to have a life – become a man of Letters, whatever. You, with a wife and kids and – and – and grandkids, living till you're fat and bald and chugging Viagra – that is my perfect ending, and it's the only one that I'm gonna get.

10.07 girls girls girls

Now, the truth is... I'm past saving. I know how my story ends. It's at the edge of a blade or the barrel of a gun.

10.16 paint it black

You know, the life I live, the work I do…I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key in the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later, I’d go out the same way that I live – pedal to the metal, and that would be it.

15.20 carry on

You knew it was always gonna end like this for me. It was supposed to end like this, right?

1.12 faith, once again

that is his attitude for so long. but notice the gap between season 10 and season 15? i'm not at all saying he full abandoned the attitude that all he was good for was dying on a hunt. but in 10.17 he also says, "there’s things, there’s…people, feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time." in 13.23 he's talking about retiring if he knows the world is safe. in 14.13, he says "I have a family." he says, "I'm good with who I am."

in 15.18, when he thinks he's going to lose a huge part of that family, he says "She's gonna get through that door. And she's gonna kill you, and then she's gonna kill me." and although cas did eventually end up in heaven as well, they very much did kill cas and then kill dean.

and if in the finale after dean dies, the way they showed sam grieving dean was blearily shutting off his alarm at 8 and sleepily getting out of a messy bed and sadly petting miracle, then why.... why did the episode open with dean doing the exact same things if not to show he was grieving.

it reminds me of another thing that happens in canton ohio in november: elliott ness telling dean, "Boo-hoo. Cry me a river, ya nancy. Tell me, are all hunters as soft as you in the future?" and then he continues...

this is maybe one of the smaller little connective gut punches. but there are so many of those.

like why was dean forced to kill lee by impaling him against a wooden pilar if 13 episodes later...

like why is the episode called "carry on"?

like remembering 15.10 when dean says, "Yeah, it’s just how I wanted to die – with a freakin audience."

like when you look at the supernatural wiki transcripts page, it looks like this:

like the parallels between the hunt in faith that dean almost dies on and the hunt in 15.20

like despite all the times he said he knew this was coming, the moment when dean turns away from sam and says, "Well, I did not think this would be the day."

like even if he was trying to be a little silly, we know how he described the funeral he imagined for himself in 11.23. and even in 15.20 there were so many people still alive who loved him and yet only one person is there to grieve him...

like this exchange from 1.20

JOHN: Once a vampire has your scent, it's for life. DEAN: Well. what the hell do we do now? JOHN: You gotta find the nearest funeral home, that's what.

of course john means for dean to go get dead man's blood so he can watch dean play bait while he waits with sam and tipped crossbow bolts. of course he doesn't mean a vampire will get your scent and you're dead so go pick out a coffin. he doesn't mean that; it's only that getting the colt to avenge mary is more important to him than the risk that a vampire might pick up their scent and, oh let's say, one day track them down and kill them.

like the theme of vampires being specifically sexually predatory toward dean (kate kissing him in 1.20, boris assaulting him in 6.05, starr playing with him in 10.08 - not to mention the framing of gordon in 3.07 and desmond in 8.09 drinking his blood). the way jenny stalks over him as he's pinned to the ground in 15.20 doesn't break from this pattern at all. and i hate the layering of violences. i hate that this is who kills him.

like some of dean's first words in the pilot being "It's okay, Sammy." and some of his last being, "tell me that it's okay." over. and over.

like maybe i could handle it being a tragedy if it felt like it was meant to land that way (i still wouldn't be able to, for the record)

like that he wanted rice crispy treats for his next birthday.

like that chuck, even human powerless chuck, outlived him.

like that john lived longer than him too.

and so of course we end up here. with john. i do think we must concede that dean dying on one of john's unfinished hunts - in fact on two unfinished hunts - could not be more cruel. when you can defeat god and escape and his plan for your life but not your own father...

and the thing about the first unfinished hunt with the masked vampires is that john was working it in 1986. the vampires, "target[ed] families that are living outside of town, that are isolated, kids usually between the ages of 5 and 10." the thing is in 1986, dean was 7. was that the first time john used dean as bait, i don't know. but it could have easily been is the thing.

1.20 sets up 15.20 in so many ways. the episode where vampires are introduced. where jenny (though unnamed) is introduced. the episode where you see exactly what dean meant about sam "never taking any of dad's crap." meanwhile in 1.21, when dean starts to push back against john, john says he's "not too crazy about this new tone."

in 1.20 john sets dean up to be bait while he and sam wait in the shadows. in 15.20 dean needles and distracts jenny while he waits for sam to pick up his machete. it recalls 1.20: "you know what to do." it recalls 1.02: "you thinkin what i'm thinkin." like the most common footpath worn into old stone stairs.

the last main theme i want to talk about is parentification. i know i'm not the only one who felt betrayed by sam sorrowful acceptance of dean's death. there's grief, yes. but there's something so profoundly unsettling about basically back-to-back watching dean trying to resign himself to his impending death. and in 15.18, cas' response to that being that he won't let dean die. meanwhile in 15.20, sam's response is to -

but then it clicked for me.

it's because on some deep level, beginning to some extent when sam was less than a year old, dean became in a lot of ways, his parent. and parents are supposed to die before you, right? so sam can be sad. he can grieve. but it's not a grief at the injustice of it - not grief at dean's unfinished life or his early death. sam always knew he would outlive dean.

because if this is not setting in stone the parentification that happened to dean, then why is sam telling dean "you can go now" paralleled only a few minutes later with dean jr later saying the same to sam?

and if not to swing the parentification as a cudgel against my knees, why is every speech dean makes before he thinks he's going to die focused on making sure sam's going to be okay. right up until the very end.

3.16 no rest for the wicked

Keep fighting. Take care of my wheels. Sam, remember what Dad taught you... okay? And remember what I taught you.

9.23 do you believe in miracles

Sam. Hold up. Hold up. I got to say something to you. I'm proud of us.

11.23 alpha and omega

Listen, if—when—when this works, Sam—he's gonna be a mess. So look out for him, okay? Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.

14.12 prophet and loss

I know I wasn’t always the greatest brother to you.... I know things got dicey… you know, with dad… the way he was. And I just… I didn’t always look out for you the way that I should’ve. I mean, I had my own stuff, you know. In order to keep the peace, it probably looked like I took his side quite a bit....

15.20 carry on

I'm fading pretty... I'm fading pretty quick, so... there's a few things that I need you to hear. Come here. Let me look at you. Yeah, there he is. I'm so proud of you, Sam. You know that? I've always looked up to you. Man, when we were kids, you were so damn smar... smart. You never... You never took any of dad's crap. I never knew how you did that. And you're stronger than me. You always have been...

1.12 faith, once again and again and always

DEAN: Hey, you better take care of that car. Or, I swear, I'll haunt your ass. SAM: I don't think that's funny. DEAN: Oh, come on, it's a little funny.

i think about 27 year old dean lying in that hospital bed. and i think about 41 year old dean hanging on that beam in the barn and just thinking you know, he did it. looking at sam and being proud. cause dean knows enough about horror movies to see sam as the final girl. sam made it. dean was always gonna make sure he did. he understands it enough to know he's dying so sam doesn't have to. sam can go on and live a life and have his survivor credits montage and dean's like, yeah, this is how it's supposed to go.

dean knew it was never gonna be him.

AND THAT'S WHOLE GODDAMN REASON IT FUCKING SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

he should have gotten to outlive the god who tried to write his story and he should have gotten to outgrow always putting his life behind his brother's (and everyone else's) and he should have survived the deadly path his father forced him onto and he should have gotten to live a long and beautiful gay life in the world he loved so deeply.

and you should be able to watch goddamn supernatural without seeing him be declared dead in 1.06 and feeling the pit in your stomach and without watching 3.11 and going well that's just not funny and without watching fucking 5.07 and going well now that's the oldest he ever got.

anyway, this whole episode fucking destroys me. here's dean as the ten of swords.

and here's to us saving him. lady, he's tolstoy

[dark-elf-writes]

Wait but also a pjo/hades game crossover that solely exists for Nico to have an absolute ray of sunshine older brother that will slaughter anyone who tries to hurt him with extreme prejudice

Also to spiderman point at Percy every time he breaks into the underworld while Zag is trying to break out

[racke7]

Trans-Kirito story-idea

After the SAO beta-test, Suguha "borrows" (read, follows her god-given right to be an annoying little sister) Kirito's NervGear.

As Suguha very much doesn't want to run around "as a boy" (yuck), she redoes the body-scan.

Kirito is very much not amused by Suguha stealing his shit, and takes it back. Kirito checks that nothing is actually broken (it works just fine), but doesn't think about "resetting" the body-scan.

The in-game avatar isn't changed (Kirito picks "male"), and Suguha the preteen and Kirito before his growth-spurt have very similar body-types), so any "this feels a bit odd to get used to"-feelings are attributed to Kirito lying about his height.

SAO starts, and Kirito is having zero issues with his avatar.

SAO becomes a death-game and Kayaba makes the mirror-item happen.

The mirror-item uses the recorded body-scan to create the avatar (and a video-feed for recording faces and facial-expressions).

So Kirito now has the body of a preteen girl, and the face of a very cute boy.

Let the chaos begin.

[hirazuki]

Me, episode 1: Oh, a relatable protag! And a relatable female protag, at that. Sweet! That never happens.

Me, a few episodes in: Wait, the protag really is going to be my character? The one I identify with the most? Seriously? It's not going to be a strange, at least somewhat sinister, seemingly hostile male side character? It's gonna be a female character and the protagonist? That's insane, that literally never happens... what's the catch??

Me, more than halfway through the season: ... huh, I guess Maomao really is it. Okay, then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Me to myself, after episodes 22/23:

[puppetmaster13u]

Can I just say if Batman (from DC) met Hiccup (From HTTYD) he would definitely adopt him. Smart malnourished & neglected child sneaking out at night is sending alarm bells ringing through his mind.

[blujayonthewing]

the best day of my life, rivaled only by every single other day I've gotten to spend with him

[bywandandsword]

As a TA, I've started giving some of the lectures in the cultural anthropology class. I'm naturally a pretty sweary person, and some swears must have slipped in during the last lecture without my noticing because a student emailed my boss and complained about me

Bro. That's fucking hilarious. Like, are you serious? Do they know where they are? Do they think the standards in high school apply here? If my saying 'fuck' is going to make you clutch your pearls so, keep a hold on them for the rest of your college career, cause babes, academics are fucking weirdos (affectionate, myself included) and most of us are not paid enough to pretend to adhere to arbitrary standards of puritanical professionalism outside of fancy conferences, especially, in a social sciences department. Get real

[chatter-crow]

linktober day 16: time

i actually never got to this point in sksw.. i was too scared of the silent realms but oh well. the gate of time looks sick

[exhaustedwerewolf]

when the dnd session was so insane you’re like “damn I want to rewatch that bit” but you can’t because it was not an incredible fantasy film but just you playing make believe with your friends

[randomnameless]

Drankengard done (land 2!)

A lot of nice things in this part, so far it feels like the most FE-like land, and some characters from this land are really interesting!

l firstly love how the plot starts with "we have to rescue this midget prince from 100k soldiers" in one of the few defend maps of this game with various catapults and other engines to attack/defend against a cluster of loldiers coming at you - that was nice compared to the nigh useless ballistas and other engines in FE.

Granted, Gilbert's defining moment after being revealed is basically protecting his vassal from a gotoh-like character who's twice his size and more or less recruiting her for the defend map -

(localisation thingie : no "kisama" for eng/fr script Gilbert, sure it's kind of complicated to put it in words - like an agressive "you" - and yet it gives some nice characterisation, after Amalia rekts Leah and while Gilbert is standing seconds before being surrounded by 100k peons in front of someone who's basically stronger than anyone else around, he is still angry and pissed for his friend's sake) -

Just before being upset at asking our party - aka a foreign nation who was at war with his for the last few decades and revealing that his dad only granted asylum to the princess of said foreign nation to marry her to his heir to conquer it later on - for help.

Hopefully for him his game is no Triangle Strategy, so no one will actually tell him to eat shit because he wasn't the one who liberated the land even if he participed to instead worship the "foreign" person who led the liberation army.

Hell, idk what kind of PR campaign Gilbert and his few loyal soldiers pulled out, but some NPCs are really acting as if he liberated his kingdom single handedly lol

His relationship with his elder brother was sort of developed in the main plot - but more in the equivalent of the support convos - but as I said in another post, I really loved that part where he feels like he's still a second prince, and if his older brother returns, older brother should get the crown even if older brother feels like dirt for failing his country and his father, and became a wandering... mercenary who's busy saving priestresses from jails (and leaving them in the middle of battlefields).

Ultimately, they reunite and more or less solve their issues, and Ludwig manages to tell him that he wouldn't be half the king Gilbert is, because Gilbert is the one who led a rebellion and ultimately led Drakengard free, is loved by this people etc etc.

TBH, while it was short, this was a nice character arc -

(complete with the support/rapport convo just after the final map I unlocked where Gilbert, wanting to know how the common people live in his kingdom, gets plastered with the a random worthless bandit/merc who's freaking out from the entire situation lol)

The other major character from Drakengard is Virginia, the MC's older cousin!

We first see her being kind of pushy and overbearing, sometimes taking the initiative to do rather extreme stuff (wanting to fetch her axe instead of recruiting the earlier worthless bandit/merc), but she's still deferring to the MC, save for a certain mission - because, and kuddos to the game for going there, while Virginia's story is basically a tragic Marth's, aka, when her kingdom was invaded she had to run away to a foreign state for asylum but without any Jeigan, she believed for 10 years and never stopped believing that she was the only one who survived, and thus it was her role and duty to restore the Cornian line on the throne and take back the country from the evil Empire.

And... MC pops up, as the rightful - aka the son of the late queen as opposed to her mere niece - heir thus Virginia's hopes of becoming the Queen and the one to restore her nation vanish.

So kuddos for the game to basically have Virginia tell her cousin that while she was happy to see him and learn he was alive after all those years... she also felt jealous, because the 10 last years she spent having this dream and hope to be the one to restore the country... vanished in 10 minutes lol.

She's not going to challenge Alain's claim to the throne and instead will support him.

Granted, this moment becomes ten times more interesting if you do her own mission before - aka the one where she zerg rushes against the dude who slaughtered her retinue against the advice of Jeigan Joseph and becomes a dreaded green unit (who loses her promotion somehow???), running in a battlefield full of catapults to have her vengeance.

Remember when I said one of her first defining moments is when she asks to be handed her axe to get rid of a worthless merc instead of recruiting him? Well, her words back then were something like "your men died for you, so you can't beg for your life" or something like that, we learn in her own mission that she was basically talking about herself.

Basically, kid!Virginia was supposed to have her Jeigans and Cain/Abel/Draugs and they were supposed to escape and run away together to Drakengard... but they were slaughtered by some general of the evil empire who thought bringing her head would make a good offering to the evil emperor, so the Jeigans, Cains, Abel, Draugs etc etc laid down their lives to allow her to escape - we have a voiced FB with a few images and a battle cinematic, where the knights basically say they will die to make sure she'll be able to escape, and will slow down the evil general with their corpses if needed.

The entire platoon of knights died, and Virginia has been carrying this trauma for ten years, dreaming of having her revenge but never once confiding in anyone from Drakengard about it - not even in her (Gilbert's) vassal Leah who she seemed to be close too earlier.

Short story, the general holds a fort and is supposed to be called back to the evil empire's capital for some reason, and instead of waiting for his departure to recapture the fort, Virginia storms at the general to have her revenge (accompanied by the knights who were just squires when she had to leave, and thus couldn't be there when their senior knights were slaughtered and want revenge as much as she does!).

You have to send Joseph to talk to her to have her turn blue again (and promoted again thank gods) and the re-recruitment scene is cool for 2 things :

1/it's Joseph, not Alain who talks to her because her beef and the one who talked to her and the one whose plan is ignored is Joseph - I love it when the MC isn't at the center of everyone's universe

2/Virginia during this convo notices her friends/knights are injured (they have the injured sprite) and realises she was going to send to their death the last remaining members of that platoon, chastises herself and her next battle lines are something like "I won't let them die/bleed anymore" or something and it's fucking powerful because hey, besides some "vengeance is empty" that she will get later on herself, part of what makes her see reason is the realisation that her allies are injured and were going to die in her quest, and she can't have that anymore (nice ludonarration moment here, Virginia is a tank, if her allies are injured, it's because she wasn't tanking well enough!).

"Vengeance is empty" moment : the evil general who slaughtered her former knights doesn't even remember the people he slaughtered, or the mission where he hunted her, aka, she's been obsessing for 10 years over something her so called "nemesis" forgot.

End of the map, the realisation that her vengeance was nothing + she put her close allies' lives in danger (+ the little bit of salt when she mentions that Alain is the Cornian Royal people should follow because he is royalty) make her want to leave the army as fitting punishment - which, you know, coming from a series where some lord basically goes 1VS1 against the guy who killed his dad and who was followed by his kid sister who put herself in mortal danger but only receives a scold from his not-mom and slap on the wrist just makes me side-eye FE Tellius' writing even more.

Anyways, while I read on redshit that some people were pissed because "wah wah Virginia is a character who does foolish things and there are consequences about it she should be exiled forever or something", she obviously doesn't leave the army because, all of her close allies ask her to stay. Hell, Alain only gives one or two sentences that are dispassionate compared to the other 4 - again to show that MC privileges aren't everything at least plot wise - but the main voice is Leah's - aka her (well) Drakengard retainer!

When earlier Virginia told her that this story and her choice had nothing to do with Drakengard - because it's about Cornian knights who died during her flight from Cornia - Leah now reminds her that she became someone important for Drakengard too, and you know, the 10 years she spent here ? It's not just only background to give some fluff for a teatime line, no, it has more implication, if not only to have this moment where Leah says that Virginia's pride, bravery and hope to restore her country also influenced and inspired people (Gilbert, the second son who had to assume the role of the King when no one else was left!) around her and made the people of Drakengard also hope to liberate their country - if she leaves now, the named character from Cornia will miss her, but also "Drakengard" in general.

To cement her words, after this map we can talk to some Drakengard NPC who's all "wow Princess Virginia is so cool she defeated the bastard in charge of this fortress!" and while idk if Leah's speech + that NPC were added to make the ending where she becomes the queen of Drakengard (save for Alain marrying his cousin) more plausible, but it was a really nice addition.

Adding to that the fact that Virginia is the one who's basically telling Alain (and informing the player) about various map hazards like geysers around the land, giving some backstory about the desert along with Leah and also the one who tells the party about a sort of shortcut/secret passage and yes, we get it that she lived for 10 years in that land and knows it enough to act as a guide, but also that the people around know her.

I mean compare with a game where some dude apparently went to a school in a foreign capital but when he marches on said foreign capital or talks to people who also attended that school he never mentions it - it's like night and day.

Final "daw" moment that is both tied to her character but also, another example that Alain isn't the center of the universe... Virgnia is the one who tells Alain to talk to Aramis (the eldest prince who became a merc!) and ask him to talk to Gilbert to put his worries aside about the throne and the succession and ust, to reunite with his younger brother.

The characters concerned (Gilbert and Aramis) thank Alain for giving them the occasion and push to talk to each other - not knowing this was something Virginia planned, because while hers and Gilbert's issues are sort of similar (the not "legitimate" heir who took the mantle of restoring their country to glory and believed it so for the last decade, only for the legitimate one to return), she has a good enough read on Gilbert to know that he needs to talk to his brother to put his doubts and questions about his legitimacy aside and accept that he is the King.

Coming from a series with "avatar scissors", the bonds and links between the characters was really something I enjoyed, Alain will not pop up and tell Gilbert that he is a good king and should get over/or deal with his doubts about his brother, Alain isn't the one who gives the most meaningful speech about why Virginia is important to Drakengard and hell, we don't even see the exchange we know he had with Aramis to convince him to talk to Gilbert, because the most important scene here isn't the Alain-Aramis dialogue, but the Aramis-Gilbert one. Gilbert doesn't want to free his Kingdom because he envies Alain or Alain told him to do so, it's something he wants to do being inspired by Virginia.

In a nutshell, Drakengard's major characters were a good surprise and their stories and quests were cool.

More minor character wise...

We get the Drakengard version of the same plague we saw in Cornia, but instead of having "clerics" perform experiments on infected people to find a cure, the accent here is put on a wyvern knight who was to enforce a lockdown, to prevent the plague from spreading and well... no fines in this setting, instead she runs them through with her spear.

IDK how that game would have been received just after Covid lol

All jokes asides, just like the Cornian version of this plot heavily suggested, the plague was devised by the evil empire to cut down the forces of the rebellion and make sure this land would be able to be conquered easily.

Why are the imperials killing people? Well, it might have to do something with the fact that the totes-not-gharnef old sorcerer guy is a necromancer...

Leah's quest explored a little more the background info that "Drakengard and Cornia used to be at war" thingie, with random green units also mounting a liberation army but refusing our help, and we know how this ends with green units, we basically have to save them.

Map ends with some Drakengardians - who swore allegeance to the evil Empire? - still willing to fight us, and Alain asking Leah to please ask them, as a Drakengardian (?) to surrender because if someone from Cornia asks them they will refuse.

Also it's a bit of a character exploration, for once the usually demure + always in the back behind Virginia asks the Liberation Army to do something and insists even if people refuse, straight up saying that in that case (if they refuse) she's going to help the green NPCs herself since she's strong enough to do so and it's cool because I think at one moment Virginia sighs/laughs, but not in a derogatory way, but more in some "damn she's becoming like me" way - which is alluded to in ther rapport conversation, Leah seeks to emulate her bold and fearless (being a green unit) behaviour.

I haven't seen a lot of convos with the desert people we recruit - thank goodness we're far from Hyzante's clichés even if the "people in the desert are bandits and former prisoners" trope is still here, but given how the ones who attack us were brainwashed by the evil Empire, it's not as aggravating as, well, Nopes or Hyzante.

Gameplay wise :

Damn if promoting your units cost medals, but it's so worth it to have more than one action (at least) per turn ! It also means we can use entire new strategies because now the turns are at least longer than one round each!

Drakengard fills the Jugdral quota with the group of units coming all at once at you sometimes lol, but I loved the aesthetic difference that ultimately became gameplay difference between this area and Cornia, basically we have more mountains to less space to manoeuver the non flying units, the enemies use AoE engines to ruin you or at times, AoE map abilities from their own units to deal some annoying amount of damage.

The cities are larger so instead of fighting in a meadow with one or two small buildings here and there, at times the fight takes place in an entire city, so again, it means reduced mobility and of course, desert sucks because, just like FE, you can't move well in the sand.

Lolcalisation wise :

Virginia "I have never been fond of court formalities" says a desert full of bandit isn't a place for "royalty like us"? When the "us" is both her and her cousin reknown for their martial abilities?

What the fuck does it mean ?

At least in FR it's "a lot of people avoid this place" and not just "royalty like us" - which doubles as ridiculous because in the "people avoid this place" it's again the trend of Virginia being a tour guide of Drankengard, telling Alain that people from Drakengard think about the desert, eluding this part is also, in part, eluding part of the knowledge Virginia has about Drakengard.

I think the localisation took the "royal pride" that defines her and exaggerated it to "royal arrogance".

IDK if the meaning is the same in english, cretin is an insult like in french, but damn if you say to someone the are a "crétin" they will feel offended and insulted because that's way more rude than calling someone an idiot!

:/

And I also have a bone against whoever thought it was a good idea to throw "pseudo elvish" words in the localised script (sadly we followed this :'() when the japanese audio doesn't use them at all, was it to pretend the evles from Fevrith have a different language because Tolkien shall be universal, or what?

Elf land doesn't see that interesting plot wise compared to Drakengard, and I'm not saying this because of my Alcina bias lol but I'll just have to wait and see!

(poor hodrick is being slaughtered by those pesky pointy ears and their hybrid attacks, tfw armor not withstanding magic is universal, I'll have to promote Miriam asap to protect him or just bench him :/)

[orcelito]

Got my backpack all dressed up for tomorrow 😌 spent a bit deliberating on where exactly to put everything, but I am satisfied with what I got.

I also did pack an Akira keychain, though it seemed both hard to put on + its connection seemed a little flimsy, so I decided to not go thru the hassle and risk losing him. These vash & wolfwood keychains are pretty solid, & they survived 2 flights and a Lot of walking in my trip last year, so they'll hopefully be fine for this trip, too.

Always a risk to put things on a backpack with a big convention, but it's worth it to me to have them out on display

[purble-gaymer]

sorry for the random bombshell that in the animeverse colette is mk’s daughter but look at these things i just found