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gerdy-sertorius · 8 months ago

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The Definitive Damsel Analysis (if I do say so myself)

(Disclaimer: I know it’s absurdly long, and for that I apologize. I apparently am more unwilling to make cuts than I am to present subpar work. I’m working on it. Only editing I do for my autistic ramblings is copyediting, baby! Whoo! I will be updating this for the Pristine Cut once it comes out and we get even *more* Damsel. Obviously, as I’m sure you can tell from the length, I really like Damsel. There will be all of the bias. It will be great.)

(Author’s Note: For the love of the most high God, it took me like twenty read throughs for me to standardize what I wanted to call the Scorched Grey. Here is a brief list of all the terms I used to refer to her: Scorched Grey, Burned Grey, Burning Grey, Fire Grey, Damsel Chapter 3. Sometimes but not always preceded by “the” or “The”.)

Alright, ladies and gentlemen. I have oft made the statement on here that Damsel is the best route in the game, and this began as me trying to definitively prove that, by microscopically going through the route, I could establish exactly why, it would seem, that Damsel has objective superiority. It sorta… evolved, though, so instead I will be going relatively chronologically throughout, and trying to point out a couple things that all of you know about and maybe a couple things you don’t about the best character in the game. With that preamble out of the way, let’s begin with the goofy stuff, the grab bag if you will.

This will certainly be more personal taste than anything else, but I do think there’s a lot of miscellaneous stuff that Damsel does better than the other chapters. For example, I am convinced that it has the third best music, behind Tower and her routes and then Thorn. I am genuinely obsessed with “It Was Always That Easy”. The basement has some *fantastic* art, and I think that really carries a chapter that is otherwise generally bland when it comes to actual visual activity. It’s really carried by its genuinely perfect dialogue.

Overall, and most importantly, this chapter is the undisputed master of the idea of positive ambience. You know elevator music? How it’s there to artificially increase the cheeriness of an otherwise dreary moment, like a hotel hallway or, yanno, an elevator? Well, this is the chapter that does it perfectly. Everything is designed to make it “nicer” than it actually is. The Narrator even takes that into account when describing the basement. The sound design is fresh and relaxing, the music is uplifting, the Princess’s voice is obviously fantastically done, but also the Voice of the Smitten plays a large role in making it feel “good”. It’s something that exists in order to communicate exactly the feelings it wants the player to feel, which is all warm and fuzzy inside. But let’s move on to the actual content, shall we?

Damsel has *the* best Chapter One and it isn’t even close. Certainly not in the horror department, where I think Beast and Nightmare shine, or even in the whole characterization bit, where the award can only go to Spectre and the masterclass that is her Chapter One. But Damsel has something else to it. Damsel has tragedy, almost Shakespearean in nature. Nobody else has it (except Witch, to some extent, but nowhere close to the same level), nobody manages to reach that connection, there and then broken, to honestly feel for both Princess and Slayer. Allow me to paint a picture of a playthrough.

You are on a path in the woods. At the end of that path is a cabin. In the basement of that cabin is a princess. You are here to slay her. But you don’t do that. That voice itching in the back of your skull, the one you quite literally call Hero, your moral compass even, raises some objections. You don’t want to kill *anybody*. That isn’t something you want to mark yourself with, especially not solely on the word of an individual you just met. For now, violence is a nonstarter.

You enter the cabin. And you hear her voice. And you see her. You even talk with her for a while. The moment is… hypnotizing. Despite the Narrator’s warning of manipulation, well, you cannot help but be manipulated. This is a genuinely nice, sweet, scared Princess who simply wants to be free. You have to save her. It is the right thing to do, it is the… only thing to do. Anything else marks you with the dirtiness of simply being unwilling to help someone in need when you had the full ability to.

You go to get a key. Unsuccessful. The door locks. Even worse. The Narrator is moving from irritating to downright malicious, clearly enjoying recounting the lock of the door. Disgust for Him has been present since you entered the cabin, but it shifts to anger very quickly. That shift continues with full force as you attempt with what little ability you have to save the Princess, even if you don’t quite know how you will get out. The question does not last long. For the shift to anger shifts once more, to a sort of incomprehensible fury.

For the Narrator has crossed a line. Not only has he taken away any semblance of choice, not only has he raised your own knife against an innocent, someone who has been nothing but kind to you, but you are the one who must bear the shame for it. You are the only one who is doing the foul deed in any eyes but your own. Speaking of, the Princess’s eyes are filled with genuine happiness at the moment, as you are finally giving her the freedom she has yearned for such a long time. Yet through no fault of your own, you raise the pristine blade, the one you refused to bring down to the basement in the first place. You scramble through the list of options, attempting to find anything that could provide a sliver of hope in the situation, anything without the grim finality of ��Slay the Princess”.

At last, you find one, and are able to bark out a warning to the Princess. That happiness in her eyes is shifted to a look of fear, one directed at you alone, one condemning you with such a sorrowful betrayal that it almost hurts to see. She begs for you to stop, and then she says something that almost calms the internal storm of the player: “Please, I know this isn’t you.” She recognizes that it isn’t us that betrayed her, she understands that we aren’t trying to do this, that we are flat-out trying to stop it. But the eye of that storm is passing, and soon.

And as she takes the blade, as she prepares to do what she must to live, that same look of tragic betrayal crosses her eyes, this time not directed at us, but at herself. She hates that this is her only option, the only way that she can live is to kill another, one with every intention of freeing her and no intention of harming her. And in the end, she simultaneously underscores the tragedy of the moment while confirming our perception that she could never be a threat to the world. As she plunges the blade into our chest, she has failed to even do the bare minimum of making our death painless, something that fills her with even more guilt, tears streaming down her cheeks as she tries and fails to end our own agony. The last thing we see of her are her endless cascade of both tears and apologies, as everything goes dark.

This… is beautiful. A glorious tragedy, one with limited theming, simply two characters with emotions that feel natural. And, quite strangely, the first chapter has almost nothing to do with the second chapter. But it is still important. I’ll get to that later. Better things await now! For with the end of the tale of the Hero and the Princess, we have a new individual, everyone’s favorite buddy, the Voice of the Smitten.

I am certain I do not need to underscore just how popular Smitten is. Easily the most fan favorite of the fan favorites, especially solidifying his place within that roster with the Kiss from a Thorn. He is jovial, passionate, he is Don Quixote, complete with the unlimited self-delusion that comes with the territory. There’s a reason people love him. Romantic in a game entitled a love story, the largest of personalities in a game stuffed with them, he is the storybook hero come to life in a game that has just as much reverence for storybook heroes as the deconstructions of them. In short, he is the visage of likability itself, with all the bombast that comes with that. Yet that is only from a wholly external perspective.

For what I am certain I do need to underscore is just how sinister Smitten is. For all of his likability, the Smitten is also probably the single slimiest voice out of all of them with the possible exception of the Opportunist. This is not a new revelation – people have understood that since the beginning with his frankly disturbing behavior regarding the Princess. What is perhaps more interesting is his relationship with the player. For he is one of the two options that reflect the player at this point within the story. Either the player is trying to do the right thing and free an innocent, or they have somewhat… different motivations.

The former reflects the Hero. Somewhat naive, in many routes somewhat bumbling even, but first and foremost focused on the external. That is, “how can I make a positive impact on the world around me?” As contradictory as it may seem to how the Hero is presented, it’s something of an intellectualist approach. The Hero is trying to find the best possible world and working towards that with all of his might. It is, one could say, devoid of emotion except that determination to change the world, to make it a better place. While the goal remains the same, the path to get there is fundamentally continuously being calculated. The Hero is your conscience, and as such he must *always* work overtime for that.

The Smitten is not that. No, he has made no secret that he is the path of passion. Even when he is generally considered to be a better person, he declares that, “Whatever world would condemn two star-crossed lovers to a cycle of violence and despair isn’t a world worth saving.” His focus is internal, it is on ourself and our romance. There is no extensive study into what is the correct option, there is only what would assist in our relationship, which is somehow ordained by the universe. To put it into understandable terms, Hero is a modern hero while Smitten is a Romantic-era hero.

There’s an important line when going down the stairs that I think speaks volumes about the type of player and playthrough currently occurring. That is “We can still do right by her without all this over-the-top fawning.” *That* is the line of demarcation between the route of the Hero and the route of the Smitten. If you decide to embrace or repudiate the Smitten at that point, I think the route is sealed. I am convinced that the game will continue on in a fixed way based on that philosophy. The point where you must, internally that is, decide if you are doing this out of a desire for what is right, or an infatuation with the Princess.

Now, of course there isn’t anything wrong with taking the path of the Smitten, and it’s personally one of my top points in the game, but whether you admit it or not, you are long past morality being what decides your actions. That has come and gone. Now, the goal is to express the passion of the moment and delve into your romantic relationship with the Princess. I’ll be evaluating each of the routes differently, loosely organized with a focus on how it reacts to the player. After that, I’ll go on into theming of each route one by one and all that jazz.

The path of the Smitten first. The player embraces that he has been sent to save the Princess from her unjust and foul imprisonment above all else. So that is what he does. He marches downstairs, the blade being nothing but a passing afterthought as it is immediately dismissed out of hand. When it comes to the crucial point of “doing right by her”, the justification is made that two things can be done at once, that you can do this for her and do a little bit of fawning on the way. Doesn’t harm anyone.

And with that the basement arrives, and you see the Princess on the floor. She is perfect in all ways. There is nothing wrong with her. And that’s before you start talking to her. When you do begin talking to her, all of the kindness and innocence from Chapter 1 are magnified to the greatest degree possible. She can do no wrong. And, from a meta standpoint, there’s another thing that stands out – it is really, *really* funny. From everything the Smitten says to the “Then I didn’t end the world!” to the Narrator’s (a villain at this point) growing exasperation at your trust for the Princess, it endears you to the moment even more.

Because it’s not only that it’s funny. It’s not only that the Princess is genuinely nice to you. It’s something more than that. Something that I am loath to talk about but will anyway. The Princess is incredibly – *sigh* – **cute** within this chapter. This is objective, with science to back me up, I’m sure. But she is specifically designed to be as heartwarming as possible, and every line makes her more and more into someone who should be saved by you, into, well, a Damsel. While it isn’t explicitly stated, throughout the progression of dialogue, the need to protect her becomes more pronounced. You were already primed to like the Princess, you already internally committed to a romantic future. But after stepping into the bear trap willingly, you cannot escape.

And if you’re anything like me, you are perfectly fine with that. So you take in the moment, you rescue her from her chains and laugh at the way her hands slipped out of the chains and the Narrator’s comical anger at it. It’s all very feel-good, all cleanly written dialogue, and both the Princess and the Smitten are likable, they’re fun, and the Narrator is a fun enough villain for the Smitten and you to unite against. The Hero, if we’re being honest, barely registers, and if he does it’s usually as an extension to the Narrator, as a foil to yourself. And with her finally free, she embraces you, sealing the deal on her perfection.

And after that, something else happens. The deconstruction begins. You want to see if her dialogue has any more of that saccharine present throughout the rest of the chapter, and are immediately rewarded with the “The princess closes her eyes in deep reflection” and the follow up joke. Hungry for more, you click through some more of the dialogue, but something begins to happen. She begins to… unwind. The Smitten seems to reciprocate in turn, to a lesser extent. In fact, she really starts to return to the horror that this chapter was a nice respite from. So you cut your losses, decide to leave with her, and everything returns to normal. Bathed in the glow of your future, you immediately forget about the deconstruction.

After that, you finally get out of the basement, get a genuinely great moment opening the door alongside the Princess, never think twice about clicking “You’re not doing that.” as fast as humanly possible, and finally await the door at the end of the cabin. You finally get your fairytale ending. The princess goes out into the world together with you. You brought her out. And then she is taken by the Shifting Mound in a way reminiscent of her dying. Even if this wasn’t your first playthrough, it still comes as a shock. For the most part, you were being that Romantic hero, living in the moment with your passion. The thought of this happening was gone entirely. This wasn’t supposed to happen. And it *hurts*. And the chapter is over.

The route of the Hero has a different point of view on the whole situation. That’s not to say it’s not easy to get drawn in by the hilarious dialogue and sheer cuteness of the Princess – far from it. It is, after all, what drives the conflict within this. For the Hero, and the player that goes along his path, has one bit of information stand out. That the world ended after the Princess killed you. Now, you can naturally be skeptical of the information, but the Princess isn’t helping her case here. Entirely vague, entirely unwilling to mention anything about it. The only thing she seems to care about is getting on your good side.

Now, you still want to save her. That much is clear. You still don’t take the knife in the beginning, and you saw her Chapter 1 incarnation. She is still a good person, kind and loving. But there are questions raised, important questions. Which is why not all Hero routers get the same ending. There is a conflict between how far you’re able to go before the risk of the world ending eclipses your distrust of the Narrator and your trust of the Princess. If the whole world really does end if she’s free, is it worth it? And as such you get to the major points of the Hero ending.

The first is the Deconstructed ending. As you question the Princess, you desperately try to figure out what the best way to go forward is for you. And that starts with getting a straight answer from the Princess on what exactly she plans on doing. The operation… does not go well. As you try and push for anything, any sign that she isn’t going to end the world, the same rejoinder comes in, alongside a distorted track. “I just want to make you happy.” The Princess is not an individual anymore, and begins to change shape. But you are locked in with a horrified inability to look away, like one who sees a car accident. And with that, the Princess is a Princess no longer, and the Shifting Mound takes her away.

There’s also the option of taking the Hero’s advice when confronted with the scenario: to leave. You don’t like what’s going on and you try to do whatever you can to undo the doing. Perhaps surprisingly, it works. And then you’re forced to deal with the cognitive dissonance of the Princess and *that* being the same individual. But you, not without a healthy dose of skepticism, still head upstairs alongside the Princess. In the end, you can’t bring yourself to kill her. Throughout it all, she still has been the beautifully endearing picture of innocence, if a questionable one, and especially with regards to the knife on the table, there is no way you can take it to her chest with no warning, especially after everything you did in the first Chapter. So you leave with her, and the “end of the world” really does come in one fell swoop with the call of the Shifting Mound. You can’t help but wonder if the decision you made was the right one, not really. Like, you still believe she didn’t deserve to die, but maybe, just maybe, it would have been a better ending.

So what if you did kill her? What happens when love *truly* melts away into skepticism. After the continuous question dodging and whatever the… other thing was, this is clearly not an ordinary Princess, it is not the same Princess that you tried to save at the beginning. There is only a sliver of her, a shadow of her former self. Slaying her, well, slaying her is probably doing her a favor. It might be doing the world a favor, too. Maybe she is an individual with malicious intent. And as you take the blade and plunge it into her chest, you instantly know you made the wrong decision. She does not oppose it. She simply lets you kill her with a single tear hanging in her eye, saying “I think this is what you want.” It’s meant to feel dirty and it does, even heartbreaking in the moment, although it is immediately counterbalanced by the effect of the Smitten killing you over it.

I won’t exactly go over Scorched Grey the same way, I think there’s generally only two frames of mind going into it, and that’s either the standard “Hero-Skeptic” framework that I’ll expand on later, or simply a completionist mindset. Plus, it’s technically not The Damsel. Plus I’m lazy. But this is the point where I will try to expand on the theming of each and every route and mindset to go through within the Chapter, and that *will* include the Scorched Grey theming.

It’s made quite clear from the chapter that one of the primary themes is objectification, the making of the Princess into nothing more than a vehicle to live one’s fantasy into. The taking of an individual and making them into an it. The destruction of humanity by your own desire, and what that says about your desires in the first place. Ironically, this is merely one fourth wall away from the rest of the Princesses, each of them being a piece of fiction that many simply engage with *because* they are an object, but with the Damsel it is directly nodded to within the narrative. One meta-layer is peeled back, if you will.

Nothing hammers this more home than the entirely jarring line that escapes the Shifting Mound’s lips when you ask about the vessel she holds. Unlike the rest of the fragments, which are all given an indication that they have been fulfilled after the Shifting Mound takes them, the only note she has to say is that the Damsel has “served her purpose”. There is nothing that she wished for, as anyone who has obtained the deconstructed ending can attest to. But even in the more standard runs, she is simply a tool to be used and discarded. And there are three general reactions to this line.

The first is the hardcore Smitten route’s preferred choice, denial. “The Princess was far more than an object, she had character, she had kindness, she had motivations from the beginning! The narrative is what is wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the Princess. She. Is. Perfect. Not just from a narrative standpoint but a metanarrative one as well. She has depth, she *is* a character.” All in the hopes that if they insist on it enough, it will become true. The Damsel was not designed to be viewed in a vacuum. There are themes that run through her character, and including negative ones, and the denial of them is a far truer denial of the character than any sort of objectification could ever be.

Then the more moderate Smitten routers get a different response. A slap in the face. They did all of this, they had fun, they laughed with her, they cried when she was taken. They were connected to her, they had a real connection to what she was. One could even accuse them of… loving her. They honest to goodness cared about this Princess, they were invested in her story. Yet, in the end, they also formed her around themselves. They “molded her to love you”. As much as they loved the Princess, that was only because they cut out a piece of the Shifting Mound that they *could* love, a caricature of her true nature. They still took an individual, and despite truly loving her, made her into something that she was not so they could do that very thing. She is not a person. She is a plot device, an individual made to love and be loved with nothing beyond that. She is an object.

Lastly, those who went on the route of the Hero get that same slap in the face, that selfsame bucket of water poured over their heads, but in a different way. They didn’t try to objectify her. They didn’t want anything of the sort. All they wanted to do was the right thing. Right? Yet even in that desire to do the right thing, they still get that same chilling text from the Shifting Mound. They have built an individual just like those who went on the route of the Smitten. Just a different one. Not one who was built around your “glorious romance”, but rather one built around something of a glorious Romance. The need to be a Hero. The desire to do what was right, to save an unjustly imprisoned Princess. The Princess became a plot device in the end anyway, just one that needed to be saved rather than one who needed to be loved.

I want to continue off of that. The player is trying to do nothing more than the right thing, he is simply doing what a Hero should. And that determination to do what is right leads to him getting impacted the most by that line in the ending, the line that implies that whatever right he was doing, he was still being driven by selfishness, by that need to be a Hero. That hits the player right within where it hurts, it almost could be said to strike at the one emotional vulnerability of them. To have your hard work, your pain, your desire for what is right to be considered nothing more than the delusions of a Don Quixote tilting at windmills in order to fight giants, just as lost as Smitten, that doesn’t feel too great. It almost minimizes your struggle, and it is genius. You play as a Hero because you want to feel like a Hero, not because the morality of this world means anything to you. It is stripping that meta-layer down one by one.

But objectification is not the only theme present. While it may seem like something of a potpourri topic to throw in, earlier on the server we were talking about the Damsel in particular’s perceptiveness with regards to perception. When the door shuts and locks, it is the first and only time the Princess gets visibly **negative** in any way during the entirety of the Chapter. Even when you kill her, she still does so with nary a frown on her face. Even as a tear rolls down her cheek, she still smiles. But not at the door. The narration points out quite clearly that she frowns. This is, I reiterate, the only thing that happens. And her response is not “we’re stuck down here”, it is not “I’m unable to leave now”.

What it is happens to be “that’s not supposed to happen”. She recognizes the construct in a way very few allude to within the game. Adding onto that note, within the Scorched Grey chapter, she (correctly) determines the very nature of the construct and that inherent “cycle of violence and despair” inherent to it, even (correctly) determining that the only way to leave was to annihilate that very construct. This is shown even clearer at the other major event at the door. When you ask if the Princess can open the door, the sole question she throws back at you is “Do you think I can?”, and after a response in the affirmative, “Then I can”. In the end, it is quite clear that she is, *heavily* ironically, one of the more aware characters in the game with regards to your circumstance.

While speaking of the Scorched Grey, I think this route also exemplifies another major theme – the nature of the Princess as a being of perception. All routes exemplify one facet of the Shifting Mound: Spectre represents the gravity of her, Tower her divinity, Prisoner the very incarnation in and of itself of her within the construct, and so on. Damsel has something different, though, and that is that she’s just a slippery little fella. Far more than anybody else, Damsel changes throughout her chapters, in ways more pronounced than anybody else. The Shifting Mound declares that we “molded her to love you”, as I quoted previously. That molding takes stage front and center throughout all of our interactions with her.

The most obvious example is her deconstruction, which when her sole true motivation (to leave) is discarded, she begins to break down, unable to offer to the player anything beyond the only desire every other Princess has. With the compulsive need to love the player, etched into her core, there is nothing she can do other than try to add to that love, losing herself within the process. But that is not the only time she changes. Because she is willing to give up that freedom in, well, a heartbeat. Attempting to kill her does not lead to any sort of resistance from her. The one goal she had, staying alive and winning her freedom, is out the window despite being (questionably) willing to kill for it in the last chapter. Now, throughout the Scorched Grey, it’s made clear that she did not, in fact, want to die, that she just wanted to be free together, but the complete unwillingness to save her own life is a stark contrast to the first chapter.

In fact, that perpetually changing nature alongside her being so objectified means that it’s really, *really* hard to figure out her true character. There is very little in her that does not change and very little remaining that isn’t specifically put there by you. She is an eel, wriggling out of your grasp and impossible to pin down, in a large way like the Shifting Mound herself. But… for the most part, there are two facets to her character beyond the already listed themes. And a sharp divide between them.

Chapter One Damsel and Chapter Two Damsel are not the same person. That’s usually true for most of them, but they also usually have some semblance of similarity between their counterparts. The only exceptions I can think off the top of my head are Spectre and *maaybe* Stranger if you want to count that. The rest of them act as exaggerated versions of the existing individuals shown. Chapter One Adversary likes fights. Chapter Two Adversary likes fights. Chapter One Witch is built on the back of distrust. Chapter Two Witch is built on the back of distrust. Everything lines up nicely.

That is not the case for the Damsel. The only thing that you can say with both of them is that they are nice and do not want to hurt you. The Chapter One incarnation (henceforth Princess) is a tragedy of a character that doesn’t want to kill you but still must to secure her own life and freedom against a renegade puppeting you. The Chapter Two incarnation (henceforth Damsel) is a Horror-”Feel-Good”-Comedic-Tragic character that shows nothing about the emotional anguish she went through in chapter one. I love both of them, but they have an unmatched disconnect. And I think that sort of adds to the character. Now, there is absolutely a benefit from an emotional through-line (there’s a reason Thorn is my second-favorite chapter), but in this case, only brief touches to the beginning enhance the story.

The most striking thing is the sense of comedic horror that comes when Damsel just completely ignores any expected trauma from the Princess’s emotional destruction. It, depending on the route you take, either makes you love her character more and more as the humor begins to entrap you, or it begins the process of getting the player unnerved, exactly like the developers wanted. It is a key dividing point in the mindset of the player and the route that they have chosen. The Damsel says nothing about what happened, heck, she barely acknowledges it except to indicate that “You died!”

Secondly, it sets up Damsel as a sympathetic figure while still allowing her to begin establishing herself. Without the setup from the Princess, the player has no idea how to view Damsel, potentially even seeing her as a less on-the-nose Razor, with her comedically hiding her sinister intentions. The Princess allows the player to begin on a note that the Princess is *actually* friendly rather than simply pretending to be so. At the same time, it’s divorced enough that apart from that frame of reference at the beginning, Damsel is still allowed to shine within her own character.

Lastly, and most importantly, it sets her up for the Scorched Grey. The guilt at causing the death of an innocent and the belief that you would be unable to cause the death of an innocent yourself leads her to blame the construct and attempt to bring it down, which seals your fate in the third Damsel chapter, the only time where the two chapters meet in a beautiful climax of Passion going too far and causing pain, in attempt of running away from that very thing, morphing into something that not even the Smitten is able to remain devoted to in an awful tragedy of love being not enough in the end.

Wait, wait, wait. Did I hear “the end” being spoken? At this time of year? Localized entirely within this essay? Well then, it’s time to talk about what puts this saga at pure perfection, shall we? I probably could just use the awesome power of Ctrl + V to get the desired effect, but I still do want to offer my narration, so I’ll compromise and do a bit of both. “Your lover drives a stake into your body. And another. And another. And another. And another. Do I miss your heart because I cannot stand to see it go? But the stakes meant nothing to you. You had a desire, and you set that desire free, you lifting me and me lifting you, forever and ever and ever, consumed by true belief, there was nothing that could hold us back.”

Do I even need to explain why that’s so good? Definitively the best poem in the end, it isn’t even close, especially when coupled with Ms. Goodnight’s awe-inspiring delivery. Did I say that the Scorched Grey was the perfect synthesis of the Princess and the Damsel? I was lying. This is. Every word so lovingly placed, the language sounds like it comes from the pen of God Himself. It is emotionally resonant, the art is beautiful, I have not run into such a short piece of dialogue that outdoes it. Gonna be honest, mostly just wrote up this essay to gush about it. Even now, it is considered by most everyone to be one of the best lines of dialogue in a game filled with magnificent ones.

And the other one, that of the Scorched Grey. It’s simpler, ironically. “I kill you. You kill me. Back and forth we go, faster and faster and faster. I kill you. You kill me. Hollow eyes watch from the dry corners of a memory. A home built on all of the futures that were supposed to be, preserved until the moment of reunion. The fire of the heart sets it all ablaze. I kill you and me.”

This, this right here is one of the most slept on ending poems and it’s not even funny. So fantastic at expressing the heartbreak inherent to the Scorched Grey’s character. I don’t know how you can see the line “A home built on all the futures that were supposed to be”, especially with the Scorched Grey dead and charring in a wedding gown, and not feel *something*. It’s not as good as the standard Damsel stuff, but then again, nothing is. It’s still deserving of more praise than it currently receives, and one of my top three ending poems of all time, only edged out by Prisoner. Gosh, this game belongs in a museum.

Seems I need to debunk some stuff that happens to get a lot of traction regarding those who speculate on Damsel, too. First of all, her character motivation is not guilt nor gratitude. That sort of thing works incredibly well in fanworks, and I’m happy to see it ~~because that means I get to see Damsel in a fanwork~~. It has little to no backing within canon. Damsel is a chapter about the only motivations for the Princess being those put in place by the objectification of the player. There is nothing regarding anything beyond that, and it detracts from the existing, well-elucidated themes that are actually within the chapter. The only sort of substance to them is both Chapter 1 Princess and Scorched Grey indicating guilt for killing you, but that is almost entirely repudiated within the actual Chapter 2.

Speaking of the Scorched Grey, another thing I saw somewhat extensively is that you somehow “taught her” that killing is the way to love one another, and that’s why she kills you in Chapter 3, and I honestly do not know how that gained any traction at all. It’s pretty clear that she views all the death as a pretty terrible and messed up thing and only kills the two of you to escape the cycle of death. It’s spoken of as a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. I am genuinely confused on how this got started, because it really just… opposes the main *in-narrative* themes of the Chapter??? Like, you don’t even have to analyze it, it’s just within the text, plain and simple.

Anyway, I deeply apologize for the length of this once again, look forward to an appendix when Pristine Cut comes out. I’ve already played it because my uncle works at Black Tabby, but I don’t want to spoil it for you gents. If my opinions change massively after playing through the new update from today, I will change that too. Anyway, Damsel is the best character, literally does not do a single thing wrong within any of her chapters, has definitively the best Shifty stuff, and you should invest in her. As more people vocally become willing to throw money at anything related to Damsel, the likelier it is that we get Damsel merch. I need it so badly. Please. Anyway, if anything stands out to you or you disagree, I am begging you to tell me to get my act together and explain what I said wrong, so do that. Also please.

#slay the princess #the damsel #the princess #black tabby games #I spent an ungodly amount of time writing this up #But I honestly think this could be the be all end all work for this tiny character in a tiny game #Also #Seriously #Play Slay the Princess

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timeforafuckingcrusade4 · 5 months ago

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Gore Mod Review

Okay I'm not sure where to begin. Most of what I can say is just...wow. I'm going to be completely honest I installed this mod on a complete whim, I wasn't even really looking for a follower mod specifically, it was more of a I've experienced the mods I have repeatedly by this point. I'm not complaining I still love the mods I have and the followers I already have that being: Kaidan, Lucien and Inigo, but I kind of wanted something fresh and I got all that and much more.

Spoilers but extremely vague ones

Okay so when I initially met Gore I went in with the mindset of not comparing him to my other followers I already have grown to know and love because that would not only set high expectations, but its also completely demeaning to the mod creator.

When you first meet him I was just immediately drawn to him because he is just so easily likeable, but I think the moment that truly solidified that I'd never play another playthrough without him was during the climb to High Hrothgar. His presence and reassurance was just everything to me because thinking about it if I was truly the dragonborn I'd be terrified, all that responsibility in such a short amount of time is daunting (especially considering that it was only recently you were about to be executed) and he really reminded me to take a moment to prioritise myself and what I was feeling.

The small things really sold this mod to me as well as the amazing voice acting and story...he just feels so real? Not to mention that I sobbed his entire story because it was like looking into a mirror. I really resonated with him and I could really see him as my best friend.

Okay now for genuine spoilers depending on choices

His optional romance route was just utterly stunning. It flowed so so easily and didn't feel forced or rushed it just felt so natural. It all really hit close to home though his struggles with relationships and the concept that someone would actually like him for him and not be disgusted by his past. As someone who's never been in a relationship let alone been near another person in that sort of fashion it was just so comforting to both be in the same boat. The build up and everything was just so well executed from him trying to push you away by giving you reasons to end things to finally accepting that you do want to be with him even if it's foreign to him.

But whether you choose to romance him or to remain friends my favourite quality of his is that he is uniquely him; by that I mean he genuinely feels like a real person because he's humorous and he has his own thoughts, feelings and opinions and he will make them known and he stays true to himself and his beliefs all whilst growing as a person and learning to be better. Despite everything he's been though he's such a positive figure to have even if he thinks otherwise and its so nice to get to be apart of his journey and watch him learn to be content with himself as well as his past. I cannot sing his praises enough I genuinely have so much love for the character and the creator. He's become my favourite companion in such a short time and I could write for hours and hours about how much I love Gore and how much I appreciate your work but I won't...Just thankyou so much for making me and everyone who plays this mod seen and felt and much love to you! And I urge everyone to get the mod to experience this absolute treasure! 💞

#gore skyrim #skyrim followers #i love him #thank you so so much

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toptophat · 1 year ago

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Top Hat's thoughts on the FNAF movie (Spoilers)

I thoroughly enjoyed it! Smiled throughout the whole thing

As a FNAF fan, seeing some key moments from the games as well as acknowledging the fandom (e.g Game theory's MatPat and The Living Tombstone's iconic song at the credits) made my jaw drop

FNAF veterans such as Dawko enjoyed it so that made me optimistic

The animatronics were replicated perfectly and the entire set for the restaurant is just too beautiful

Scenes such as the break-in, while not exactly scary, were still intense enough to keep me invested

Unpopular opinion - I kinda liked the pillow fort scene, it was cheesy but it could be seen as the animatronics trying to gain Abby's trust to lure her to be stuffed into a suit. Also I'm jealous, i wanna make a pillow fort with them 😭

And here's where I'll address (some of) the main critiques people gave to the movie (references: anything in the media that would link to this in a way)

"The movie wasn't scary at all, it should've been gory"

Yeah, I agree, even though I got shocked a couple of times (like the balloon boy gag) it wasn't really terrifying

But honestly, after watching countless "playthroughs" as a kid, you start to realise... The games were never that scary in the first place

To be honest, the only thing scary about it was actually some areas in the fandom (you know who you are..)

I'm aware that FNAF was never for kids, no matter how many elsagate vids were made on it. So it would make sense for it to have blood and gore. It definitely would've made scenes like the spring lock scene more traumatising to look back at

You know what else was expected to be more adult oriented? Cuphead's Netflix adaptation. While I understand that both of these beloved franchises could've been adapted to be more adult, it can also be noted that the Cuphead show is actually accepted by the fandom as while it did have a rocky start with S1, it showed that the writers were testing the waters to try something new, and by S2, they had a better idea of what they wanted, and a lot of people fell in love with it. While it would've definitely been cool to see more gore, it wouldn't improve the movie automatically

"The movie doesn't follow the original lore"

While, yes, it would've been cool to see all theories confirmed by Scott himself during the film, it's also good to remember this: they're called "adaptations" for a reason

Many popular franchises, when adapted to the big/small screen can experience changes in the known story and lore as a way to bring this fresh new start and perspective, they never aim to continue or tell the story again when it wasn't necessary in the first place (*cough cough* Lion King 2019). Last time I checked: Luigi wasn't the one who gets kidnapped by Bowser (SMB23), Cuphead never lost the right to his soul due to a carnival game (TCS), The Echidnas never had beef with freaking owls over the master emerald (The Sonic movies)

Let's be honest here, Scott may have made FNAF, but all the popular fan theories wrote the story, so everything is kinda messy. Maybe this was Scott's chance to rewrite everything, to start over and stray away from the messy lore that others made, MatPat seemed to be cool with it, he was even in the damn movie!

While, there have been times when repeating the same story makes it stale and repetitive (Disney), Changing important elements of the story (Also Disney) can make it unfaithful and pointless, so I understand that.

The changes that were made in this movie were interesting, making Vanessa, Afton's daughter could add more impact on the whole Vanny thing as she's been around this horrible man her whole life. Not making Mike, Abby and Garrett, Afton's children doesn't really deepen the personal connection and conflict between Mike and Afton so it'll be interesting to see how that one goes especially with Circus Baby now that Abby has no real connection to Afton other than that one encounter

Also I heard from one review that the movies take more inspiration from the books, but I don't have enough knowledge on the books to elaborate on that argument

Unless there's some weird twist, which is highly unlikely, I'd love to see how they develop these newly established dynamics if there are sequels being planned (pls make more, I need to see how this goes)

Besides, like I said, often, the first movies, seasons etc are there to experiment, it has the potential to improve in each new installment. For example, JJBA, it took until around parts 3-4 for Araki to have a better idea of what he wanted it to be.

Conclusion

That's about all I really have to say. I understand that many had high expectations going in and, who wouldn't? It shows we value ourselves and that we want to experience things that are worth our time. People are not obligated to love everything and don't have to agree with everything I said. I personally found the movie to be enjoyable and worth my time, and, while i know it lacked in some aspects, who knows?, as it progresses, opinions could change and if we get more of the revamped FNAF, then, we could see if it changed for the better or for the worse. And while first impressions do matter, it won't always be the same impression moving forward (for people who liked and didn't like the movie)

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk!

#five nights at freddy's #fnaf movie #review #freddy fazbear #bonnie the bunny #chica the chicken #foxy the pirate #william afton #mike schmidt #abby schmidt #fnaf vanessa #spoilers #pls tag spoilers #I don't wanna ruin anyone's experience

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dandelionpixels · 7 months ago

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abed nadir x reader

(romantic)

ask: Hello! I like writing short stories, listening to indie music, analyzing fiction and I love horror, the Zelda games, and Studio Ghibli! Also I'm autistic and have ADHD. I would like to request romantic hcs for me and Abed Nadir from Community!

- You guys are lowkey everything omg.. a perfect match forreal!!

- Both of you love to do ‘project trades’ where you show him your newest story, he shows you his newest film, and you guys exchange reviews!! Helps get some fresh eyes on what you’re working on, and you love to see each other’s stuff.

- Movie nights go crazy!!! Sometimes you’ll draw movies out of a hat and sometimes you’ll each pick one and watch both. You’ll try to line up genres, like both picking horror or both picking something animated, etc! And you guys absolutely have matching letterboxd profile pics.

- Zelda playthrough. Everytime you play Zelda, Abed wants to just sit with you and watch. He’s not a backseat-gamer really, he just likes to ask a lot of questions about the lore. Sometimes he’ll do his homework on the floor while you play, cause he likes the game’s ambience.

- He’s kind of obsessed with your music taste. Like he genuinely thinks you’re the coolest person ever. When you guys first liked each other, you made him a playlist and burned it onto a CD just because you thought he’d like it better that way.

- When you gave it to him, he kinda shut down for a moment, before looking at you and completely deadpan going “I need to go to my dorm and listen to this right now.” and scurrying off. He came back the next week with a CD he made for you with his favorite songs. Despite his solemn exterior he was almost clearly nervous to give it to you and disappeared the second you tried to ask any questions.

- Matching halloween costumes. You guys do a whole halloween week thing so that you can do all the fictional duos (and trios when troy was available) that you could think of.

- Whenever you guys go to a theatre to see a movie, you always make sure you’ll have plenty of time afterwards to get something to eat and talk incessantly about it. It’s one of your guys’ favorite ways to decompress, especially when finals season rolls around.

- You guys go to a fair amount of conventions together, and whenever you cosplay, he’s always even more obsessed with you than usual. Typically you guys end up matching, (Howl + Sophie, Zelda + Link, etc) and he genuinely just thinks you’re so cool and so pretty.

#x reader #community hcs #community x reader #abed nadir #abed x reader #community #x reader requests #abed nadir hcs #requests #dandelionwritescommunity

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crystalelemental · 2 months ago

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What do you wanna see the postgame in Pokemon you want? I feel like it's kinda tricky to figure out myself when I replay the postgame content in numerous times.

Okay this might go for a while, because the short answer is "I don't think I know anymore."

Part of the issue is defining what count as "postgame." Like, is Kanto Redux in Gen 2 postgame because the League is the finish point, and Red is optional superboss content, or is that part of main game? Is the second half of Unova optional postgame content, or is it main game because you technically never finished your League quest? Some situations, like the Emma and Anabel quests in Gens 6 and 7, feel pretty decisively postgame, as do things like Delta Episode. But what counts and what doesn't is up for some debate, and I'm...not really sure where I draw the line. I've referred to everything in the second half of Unova as postgame, but now I question that decision.

More to the point, postgame runs into two specific problems in both story and gameplay areas.

Gameplay is probably best explained by Bopper's Gen 2 video. In it, he expresses that a major selling point of Pokemon is the emphasis on continued growth and development, talking about how moves being learned late or late appearing Pokemon give players something to work toward, and keep the game fresh and interesting. And to be honest, this tracks. As someone who's owned cheat devices most of his Pokemon career, you do try to hack in final teams right at the start and they get stale really fast. Having something to work toward is part of the fun.

Postgames tend to run into the problem of not having anything left to specifically work toward. The difference between Crystal's Kanto Redux and Platinum's battle island is that in Platinum, my team is done and has learned everything. As a result, that island doesn't really offer anything particularly fun. While I've been a proponent of Gym Leader and League rematches in the past, they also have the issue of...not doing anything different. Red as a new final conflict requires a different approach from facing off against Lance and the League, but Cynthia 1 and Cynthia 2 go down to exactly the same strategy. There's less to work toward, so the island feels entirely boring to me. It's a complete slog.

While there are opportunities to switch up the team, sometimes that comes a bit late, and isn't exactly...engaging. It works in a game like Crystal because of how type matchups work, where Misdreavus can be caught and immediately blank Red's Snorlax, or Tyranitar countering half of Red's team. Or in Emerald, Mawile can hard counter Steven's entire team with careful play. But later games don't have that opportunity. It's just lower level stuff, sometimes weaker stuff, with no real gameplay benefit.

Which leads to the main thing. This is a Monster Collecting game. Its postgame is effectively completion of the dex. Which is something Pokemon is uniquely terrible at. A game like Nexomon (which is excellent and should be played) lets your postgame be hunting down everything, which is all available in that one playthrough. But Pokemon has version exclusives that demand two games, and internet connection, and with Switch paying for online connectivity. In addition, while Nexomon has a ton of Legendary status mons, it also gives a ton of Golden Nexotraps for assured captures to simplify the process. Meanwhile, Pokemon gives you one (1) Master Ball, then gives you a gauntlet of like a dozen Legendary Pokemon that are wretched to catch because of how annoying their systems are. Monster collecting in the most popular Monster Collecting Videogame is terrible by design. It's never been good, and they're never going to make it good. Though I guess they tried with Galar's Dynamax Adventures and Paldea's fights with main legends. Though they both still do the stupid catching thing in other ways, like the Galar birds and Treasures of Ruin.

I think ideal gameplay actually gives you something to work toward, but also Pokemon really just needs to improve how it operates with catching everything. Which I think it has. To its credit, Galar and Paldea do make it easier to complete the dex by making near everything available. But that's also predicated on dealing with the awful raids and dens, which is somehow worse.

The other element, story, is where things get dicey, and I'll use a comparison to explain. In Nexomon, your postgame events are...honestly the most story intensive segments. They're really good, and my personal favorite parts. More critically, they're continuations. Nexomon 1 follows up the main story of defeating Omnicron with your story of destroying his soul so he can't regenerate (spoilers I guess). Neoxmon 2 follows up all the heavy stuff that happens with a bit of a departure, but only in the sense of setting up the connection between things that happened and things that are about to happen. It's all excellent, and the postgame story is the hook. Granted, alongside new boss fights and challenges and developments that are engaging too. Shame about how the hunt for Tyrants goes, but I digress.

Gen 2 and Gen 5, while they offer postgame, tends to be very light and disconnected on story. There's not as much relevance. Even with things like XY and SuMo and the Paldea DLC, which are much heavier on story, they have...literally no significance to the main event. Like okay, you can argue the thematic relevance of Emma as a character, or that the UB hunt is related to Lusamine's actions, but like...it's really not that connected to what was going on before. Teal Mask is just 100% disconnected, and when they do connect in the Mochi Madness thing, it kinda sucks ass and they wrote Carmine out of it entirely like assholes. I will never forgive that.

I can't say Pokemon's ever really had a great story-centric postgame. It completely lacks in that area, and tells the story it wants to tell centrally. Not that Pokemon's ever been that intense on story. So this is an area it can't really work for. But the ones that do stand out...also run into issues. XY and SuMo have great events with Looker, Emma, and Anabel...but the actual playing of those segments isn't great. And going back to the initial question, does Teal Mask count as postgame if you can do it, entirely, from nearly the start of the game?

The final issue is one of...well, the Battle Facilities. I hate them, personally. I have no investment in playing literal cheating AI at reading minds. Gimmick frontier stuff like in Emerald and Platinum can be fun, but stuff like the normal Battle Tower sucks. Add to it that legendary Pokemon don't count, and there's also very little benefit to gathering legends. You don't really get to do much but stomp the League with the box legends, and...then what? Do a bunch of extra stuff? Run battles that don't allow them? What's the point of having the postgame without those benefits? Galar fixes this a bit by letting anything into Tower, but it's a small concession more than a proper fix.

Honestly, I don't really know what this all adds up to. Part of it is desperately wishing Pokemon had better capture mechanics, because god do the current ones suck. Part of it is thinking that postgame should be a little quick, because usually my complaint is it goes on too long. But I really don't even know what I'd expect anymore. I think that, to some degree, postgame in Pokemon works while the generation is current, but falls off in importance on replays. It's why Daybreak made Legends Arceus worse.

#hoeddeok-rkgk

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nochocolate · 2 years ago

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Theory: Chara's motivations

lucabicono submitted to nochocolate:

I recently found this blog and got drawn back in to reading theories and speculations, and after reading a few, I noticed a common thread that I never had before, connecting a lot of elements regarding the narrative of Undertale, Chara's behavior and motivations, and the significance of the Goner/Gaster characters: the idea of being forgotten. I'm not sure if anyone else has pointed any of this out, but I wanted to submit it for consideration. I also haven't come up with any theories of my own in a long time, and my knowledge of the inner workings and unique scenarios (fun values, kill count changes, etc.) present in Undertale is elementary at best, so I figured you might be better at piecing this together and seeing if it holds water at all.

First off, the obvious connection to the idea of being forgotten, or rather, the concept of memory. The game itself remembers the actions of the player, even in new games and fresh resets, but it doesn't simply stop with the game. Characters like Sans and Flowey obviously either know about previous playthroughs, or at least have some awareness of them. Even Frisk is implied if not outright stated to have some recollection between runs; Toriel's comment that they look like they've "seen a ghost" if the player kills her and then reloads a previous save, and Frisk outright telling Asgore how many times he's killed them.

Another pretty obvious connection is with the Goner characters, specifically Gaster and his followers. Gaster himself was completely erased, past present and future; forgotten by existence. The only people remaining who know about him (aside from, implicitly, Sans) are characters like the Goner Kid, whose entire spiel is about "a world world where everything is exactly the same...except you don't exist", or essentially "a world that has forgotten you". The Goner Kid also asks for the player to forget about them when bringing them an umbrella.

And there are plenty of other allusions to the idea of being forgotten, and having the world move on without you. For example, the Echo Flower that Flowey speaks into says the following: "She'll find another kid, and instantly forget about you." This also ties into the game’s overall theme of letting go.

Having read the theory on here regarding how Chara's influence is tied to number of kills and how the player isn't necessarily corrupting them, as well as the theory surrounding the use of the “*...” dialogue, I began thinking, what exactly is Chara's motivation? Because just having them be a demon or whatever is boring.

Could Chara be motivated at least partially by a fear of being forgotten?

It would explain their hatred of Toriel during a genocide route, who took in fallen child after fallen child even after their passing. It would explain how they're able to one-shot Mettaton NEO despite his monster soul being protected by his robot body; the fountain having possibly been made in to celebrate Chara's arrival having been altered to instead honor Mettaton. I would explain why Chara makes sure to remind the player of the consequences of the genocide route in a soulless pacifist run. It would explain why, even when the player is on a neutral or true pacifist run and they have no soul of their own and basically no influence, Chara is still Determined to let the player know that they're there through things like flavor text ("You laugh and keep laughing", "All you can do is FIGHT", etc).

Given how prevalent the concept of being forgotten by the world is, as well as Chara implicitly wanting to become the angel to "free" the monsters, and how their/the player's in-game theme is quite literally "Megalovania", I think it's entirely possible that they would find the idea of being forgotten terrifying.

#submission #nochocolate submissions #lucabicono #undertale #undertale spoilers #mod felt #solid theory #what's meta is that this being forgotten motif is hard to find in the game since the goner characters have such a low chance of appearing #very cool

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theinstagrahame · 4 months ago

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Another month and a bit, got some more great games coming through! It's time for the indie/small press RPG mail call round-up!

Die - Bizarre Love Triangles: I generally love Rowan, Rook and Deckard's work, and really enjoyed the roughly half that I read of The Wicked and the Divine by Kieron Gillen. So, the original book was a match made in heaven for me. The promise of a Collectible Card Game adventure for it? Done. Sold. I'm there, and sign me up.

Inevitable: I think a lot of people had similar reactions when they pulled Inevitable out of its box: Whoa, this is big. The last few books have been closer in size to the middle row of books, but there's apparently too much ruined Western Arthuriana for one book to contain. Played this on a stream, it's good.

Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast: I honestly can't wait to dig into Yazeba's, because it seems like the kind of game we need more of. It's that Found Family experience, the whole character-based gameplay that people love, but also designed to really keep things fresh even on repeat playthroughs. I'm really curious to finally dig in.

Wickedness: This was offered as an Add-on to the Yazeba's Backerkit, and I was intrigued by the pitch: You and two other players form a coven, and you do queer witch stuff. It's a beautifully made book, and I've got a lot of friends who I think would dig it.

Songbirds 3e: I picked up an earlier edition of Songbirds in an Itch Charity Bundle, and was really intrigued by the game. Snow does amazing things with layout and vibes, and is a really excellent game designer. I really wanted that edition in hard copy, but never found it, so a third edition was an instant get.

Kids on Bikes 2e: I know KoB mostly through the Brits on Bikes podcast, and I really enjoyed the system. I love systems that make use of all the dice in interesting and fun ways, and I really couldn't wait to see what a new edition would look like.

Apocalypse Keys - Doomsday Delights: I've recently been reading the Hellboy comics, and thoroughly enjoying them. I also already have Apocalypse Keys, which does an incredible job of making the comic even more queer, so completing the set with the fun stretch goal books was kind of an obvious call.

The Wolf King's Son: Vincent and Meguey Baker make amazing games, including the engine that runs so many of the games I like. I've been following their recent series of zines, and this popped up in that feed. I haven't checked out Under Hollow Hills, but even based on what I've seen from this, it's a must-have.

Pitcrawler: Wizards are the 1%, and we Pitcrawlers, disposable adventurers, are here to rob from the rich. It ticks all my boxes, and it looks good doing it. The campaign also hit while I was about halfway through my Magnus Archives listen, so it was an instant back for me.

Outliers: Everything Sam Leigh makes slaps, so yeah. Weird corporate science horror? Solo adventures? Hell, even the Far Horizons Co-op association really got me.

Here we Used to Fly: Picked this up also because of @partyofonepod, who played a really beautiful and bittersweet episode with the creator. I have always been a little too anxious as an adult to consider breaking into an old theme park, but I definitely have my share of fun memories of them as a kid. I'm also starting to envision other games this would pair really well as an epilogue to, should I ever get back into the AP scene.

Another game has arrived in the mail since I started this, but that's gonna be next month's first game, I guess!

#ttrpg #indie ttrpg #indie ttrpgs

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1960z · 3 months ago

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SOJ: Final Thoughts

So when I first played spirit of justice at 14 I remember really loving it, the new characters, the cases, just the whole vibe of the thing. however, that was towards the end of my ace attorney hyperfixation and because of that I had never revisited it. when I returned to the fandom recently, I began to realise that quite a good amount of people hold this game in relatively low regard; and while the positive feelings I had from my initial playthrough still lingered, I had to admit I didn't actually remember the game very well, and maybe there would be things about it that would bother me now that wouldn't have back then. and because of that, this was the game I was most excited to return to. and now that I have re-played it and been able to experience it with fresh eyes I can say that while I definitely have more nuanced thoughts surrounding the game, I'm happy to say most of the stuff I enjoyed about it still really holds up

one of my biggest criticisms surrounding dual destinies is that while I did enjoy almost every individual case on some level, it never really coalesced beyond the sum of its parts, leaving the overarching story unsatisfying and disjointed, not to mention uninteresting thematically. I did not have that same problem here! my theory for what happened with DD is that takeshi yamazaki attempted to mimic the style of pacing shu takumi employs more closely in a way that just didn’t really work, meanwhile in soj, I think the pacing is much more in line with what we see in the investigations games where everything takes place over a few days (or in soj, the better half of a month) and connects unlike other main series games that often have months long gaps between cases. characters and scenarios set up in the first case are deeply connected to the fifth and each case barring perhaps case 4 is quite focused on setting up everything that’s about to happen in turnabout revolution.

and turnabout revolution is an absolute monster of a case. its scope is extreme and its twists are insane and honestly I doubt it would have worked if the rest of the game didn’t dedicate as much time as it did to building up to it, but because it did, the payoff felt amazing. I understand that if you zoom out and look from the perspective of the whole series a lot of it may feel like a lot and out of left field and I get why that’s off putting to some people - but taking the game in its own singular context I actually think it does an amazing job of making each twist feel earned. like for example are they basically rebuilding apollo’s backstory from the ground up? yes. does it work well with what was previously established in aa4? no not at all lol. does it work within the confines of spirit of justice? I actually think in that context it works extremely well.

my love for nahyuta is pretty obvious but honestly I think the character that captures the true heart of this game is rayfa. seeing this naïve, sheltered kid go through the process of realising that basically everything she took for granted about her world, even who her parents were, was a lie, and having to deal with that was truly captivating to watch. her entire world being shattered and then still doing everything in her power to make sure the truth came to light, no matter how much it hurt her I think exemplifies a lot of ace attorney’s themes and ideals and I think having a young girl be the centre of that is really cool. my favourite character in aa is franziska and while you will NEVER catch me calling her underdeveloped, because the series does actually give you a lot of insight into her if you want to engage with it, what I WILL admit is that I don’t think she ever got as much narrative focus as the other characters. and to me, rayfa feels very much like what we could have gotten if the narrative had chosen to focus on franziska more.

as I’ve said before also I really theoretically love khura’in. I found myself getting genuinely quite invested in the people and culture and politics of this world that the writers had created. especially since spirit channelling has been a huge part of the aa world since the first game, it was cool to inhabit a legal system that just accepted it unconditionally. it feels like the opinion of the japanifornia courts’ opinion on channelling is that there is something to it but the logic of arguments can’t rely on it definitely existing too heavily and if it does, proving channelling can happen is part of said argument. and god forbid testimony of someone being channelled is used as evidence because of what happened in DL-6. none of these factors exist in khura’in. in case 3 for the first time we get testimony from a victim through channelling and it’s a huge part of the case and case 5 of course relies on channelling massively to explain its events as well and getting to explore these possibilities without having to worry about narrative justification as to why a court of law would accept this was a treat.

I think aa’s format also just lends itself to… for a lack of a better word isekai stories?? like learning about the rules of a world through how said rules can be manipulated for crime is an extremely interesting way to learn about and engage in a fictional world. you see this with plvspw and even fan made projects like that mlp-aa crossover from years ago. and while khura’in does exist in “our” world, obviously there are still a lot of supernatural elements that khura’in takes for granted that wouldn’t be in other places.

but this is were we have to address the elephant in the room and soj’s huge glaring flaw. the thing that went completely over my little 14 year-old-head but looking back now I go "holy shit, that is bad." and that is how soj treats khura’in as a country and the irl political implications of said treatment. from the get-go, khura’in is shown in a very othered and orientalist lens. their way of doing things is depicted as being “spiritual” and “folksy” at the best of times and “backwards” at the worst; and the plot centres around our leads, most of who are not from khura’in, showing the khura’inese people the “right” and “just” way of doing things. in the version of the story I assume most of us are familiar with the characters are american, in the original version they’re japanese, neither country has a good track record with imperialism. this is a colonialist narrative. and while it’s tempting to say that because khura’in is fictional, the implications while problematic still exist more in a vacuum, I think it is important to point out that khura'in borrows a lot of aesthetics from real life cultures such as tibet and india, and when you create a fictional country that is like khurai'n, one that is portrayed as spiritual but unenlightened, one that has a lot of distinctly asian but not distinctly japanese (sans the magatama) aesthetics, you are in fact reinforcing negative, orientalist stereotypes surrounding the real cultures said aesthetics come from which deserves to be called out.

and while yes, there are khura'inese characters who still very much engage in their culture while also fighting for revolution... when combined with the context of dd's overarching narrative that, imo was basically "there are no systemic problems with the legal system, the dark age of the law is simply a result of bad actors" it very much feels like there's this attitude of "revolution for thee but not for me." as if they're only comfortable with telling this story about revolutionaries that are often framed by their own government as terrorists if it takes place within a fictional country that players can paternalistically look down upon. I think this definitely undercuts the rest of the story and I can totally understand why this could all really fuck with a person's ability to engage with and enjoy the game.

in closing, I genuinely think there's a lot to love within soj, it fixed a lot of problems I had with dd. I love each case, I adore the characters, I was thrilled by a lot of the mystery and political intrigue it created. with that being said I absolutely believe reinforcement of colonialist ideas in the text needs to be called out. it didn't ruin the game for me but if it did for someone else, I couldn't blame them. despite all its flaws, I found the closure it provided for these characters both old and new very satisfying. it will always have a place in my heart.

#soj #spirit of justice #ace attorney #abe plays the aj trilogy #one day I might convert all of this into a format that’s more appealing to read than just a wall of text #but to those who do read it in this form ty. I hope u got something out of it at least #also I WILL be live-blogging the dlc case i just wanted to get this out before i started

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aha-chuu · 1 year ago

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It really frustrates me how HSR chose to dole out information in 1.2. Ofc, mystery is important and good! I don't need to know why Luocha is here or what he's up to, and Blade's past can remain vague rn that's fine.

My issue is Dan Heng/Dan Feng and how poorly they've explained the stakes of that situation.

Like, think about this:

Do Vidyadharas remember their past lives?

If so, how much do they remember?

If not usually, do the elders get that privelage?

If not at all, why are so many characters worried about Dan Heng being a criminal in a past life?

Does Dan Heng specifically remember his past life?

If not, how did he know how to break the seals?

If yes, can he only remember some things?

If he can remember everything, why is he lying about it?

Is he lying??

How do Vidyadhara powers work?

How does Dan Heng have high elder powers if Bailu is the new high elder?

Do the powers usually get passed down through past lives (so Feng -> Heng) or are they picked fresh every hatching rebirth (Feng -> Bailu)?

How did Feng's actions make all vidyadhara weaker?

What were the actual consequences of his actions?

How did Blade stabbing Heng give him the body & powers of Feng but not the memories/personality?

I wanna make it clear: not all of these need answers. But when it's all either poorly explained or straight up unclear, I find myself struggling to care about the dynamics at play. When JY is sad that Heng isn't Feng, should I feel sympathy that he can't let his friend go? Or, like so many characters say, are Heng and Feng much, much closer than Heng ever says? When the Xianzhou characters can't see past the rebirth thing, it implies stuff about the vidyadhara culture that should flip how we see it.

When Heng distances himself from Feng, we don't know if that's a reasonable thing (like, "guy you never met who looks like you committed a crime so ofc you're not responsible"), or if he's being insensitive ("you got blackout drunk and stabbed someone, but you don't remember now so you don't believe you should be held accountable"). There can be a middle ground in there, but what is the morality here? It might be grey, but I could form completely misguided opinions if I consider JY as rude now when Hoyo actually want us to think Heng is the problem.

It's really late but like. I think the 1.2 quest really needed a moment to explain some of the vocab (all that vidyadhara stuff gd) and to outline the characters' understanding of the context. If JY knows that vidyadhara can't remember past lives and knows that Dan Heng is no different, and that he and Feng are essentially different people, then how is any of his behaviour justified? I understand Blade not getting it (he's crazy), but JY is all over the place.

And as I think about it now, Dan Heng must remember being Feng! Like, he opens the seals for one, but he also recognises the Alchemy commission (and that it borders the vidyadhara realm) even though we know he only saw the inside of a cell during his time on the xianzhou as Dan Heng. So if he can remember then he's lying, but that would mean Hoyo really wants us to think he's not and it's like!! This is the sort of thing you kind of need an answer for.

They mention that Feng's rebirth got fucked up. Here's how you deal with confusion while maintaining mystery:

"usually vidyhadara can remember their past lives, but we fucked up this one so idk" "I don't remember" "shit"

"usually vidyhadara can't remember their past lives, but we fucked up this one so idk" "I don't remember" "cool but we can't trust that"

Like, it's also totally likely that this is answered in game. But I've watched multiple playthroughs at this point and most people I've seen don't know what's going on either.

Hoyo dumped a ton of terminology on us, introduced new factions to the enemy roster (and secret behind-the-scenes alliances between pre existing ones) and then said "here's a bunch of lore that the characters will be openly confused and contractadictory about". I'm starting to miss Paimon requiring simple summaries of every lore plot point in order for any dialogue to continue.

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tyrantisterror · 1 year ago

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I'm having too much fun with these.

Some context:

I did research on the Dark Urge route before playing it, because I'm the kind of nerd who feels the need to plan out their strategy for Role Playing Games before heading in, and ultimately decided to keep the default race of the Dark Urge as a white dragonborn while changing his class from sorcerer to paladin - the former because the evil albino snake aesthetic is pretty killer, and the later because I think playing a capital H hero with a code of capital H honor while dealing with a supernatural urge to be an evil murder man is thematically fun.

But I also had an ulterior motive in keeping the white dragonborn option - you see, if you romance Karlach, she'll ask you to try to figure out a way to cool her down, and being a white dragonborn gives you the option to blast your girlfriend in the face with ice breath so you can smooch.

I made intelligence and dex my dump stats since I knew Astarion would cover the later for me while Lump the Enlightened would cover the former. Thanks for the Flowers for Algernon crown you man-eating bastard!

I spent one section of the game adventuring with Lae'zel and Wyll in place of Astarion and Shadowheart, because there were two storybeats I thought they'd be well suited for (Karlach remained for obvious reasons). Eventually there was this dowry hidden in a hay bale that NONE of my characters spotted, so I quick went back to camp and swapped Wyll out for Astarion to get some fresh eyes on it. Well, when we go back to the main map, Astarion is inexplicably on the roof of the building and won't leave of his own volition. So I take control of him and make him jump off, which deals a significant amount of damage to him (which I imagine is why his AI wouldn't make him jump on its own) - and worse, during the five seconds or so I was controlling him, the Dark Urge and Karlach jumped on the roof and now have to be made to jump off. It became a very stupid back and forth for a bit and I like to imagine that's why Lae'zel doesn't go out on that many missions with the gang.

One last, "serious" comic about this run after the cut.

(well, last for now I suppose, I might make more of these if the mood strikes me)

So, like I said before, I initially tapped out of this playthrough when I hit the moment where the Urge unavoidably kills Alfira, because I grew to really like her in my Tav playthrough and it kinda fucked me up to see her, you know, die by my hands. I just didn't have the stomach for it.

But as my brainrot sketching has shown, the hook of this playthrough struck a chord with me. There is something so damn compelling about a Dark Urge trying so damn hard to be a good person, to be helpful and kind, all the while his own instincts and even the omniscient 3rd person narrator conspire to make him look at everything through a lens of cruelty and violence. I didn't want to kill Alfira, but I didn't want to abandon the Dark Urge either.

So I read up on the work around where you knock Alfira out cold so she doesn't show up in camp - the game compensates by having ANOTHER bard show up, establish her own distinct and likable personality, and get killed by you instead. Which I guess means that if I had to kill someone, I'd prefer it to be a stranger than a person I know? I don't know, it's emotionally affecting either way, but at least Alfira's alive.

We're going to get through it, Durge my buddy. We're gonna get you the help you need.

#Durge Brainrot Comics

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kujo1597 · 1 year ago

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Before I even got halfway through Sea of Stars I promised people a post about Garl when I finished the game. Well, it's been a week since I got everything I could in a single playthrough and I finally have time to write that post. (Original Post Link)

I'll start off with non-spoilery talk, and then put the part where I reach spoilers under a Read More, as is the norm in this fandom.

I absolutely positively love Garl. That never changed. He is such a good character. When I played the demo for Sea of Stars I pretty much just came from Live A Live. The remake specifically. And in it was a pretty typical fat character, he loves food, and his motivation is eating. When I saw Garl I remembered this LAL character and so many other fat characters and honestly sighed. Because I expected him to be the same way. Then I bought Sea of Stars the day it came out and even in the first cutscene we see Garl in it's clear that there's so much more to his love of food than it just being a love of eating. And I am really happy about that.

Garl loves food. And his love of food goes so far beyond him just liking to eat. He loves food because good food makes people happy. And this wonderful man just wants people to be happy and enjoy life. He wants his friends to be happy so he makes them their favourite foods, when he was a kid he made jam using the sap from a sacred tree and his two best friends absolutely loved that jam. So what did he do? He used some of that jam in a batch of cookies he baked for them. He couldn't see his friends until they were done their training so he left the jar of cookies behind.

Garl has a huge heart. The fat guy being the heart of the team is another trope, less common than him loving eating and refuses to even share a roll, but still, a trope. Garl was thrilled to be going on an adventure with his childhood friends. All his life he was told that he couldn't go on this journey. That only the two Solstice Warriors could. But Garl made that happen, he met up with them and reasoned with them by saying, "Yeah, I'll get out of the way when you do these big dangerous fights only you can do. But there's no reason we can't still travel together." So Valere and Zale let him come along, this was obviously a case of Garl twisting their rubber arms, but still. And when it came time to help the Molekin Garl was thrilled to have helped do some good for a whole town. And he even took the time to hear out little Malkomud and had a great talk to him about how everybody should have been treating him better, and how his powers are special. It was very sweet. And this sweetness and warmth from Garl continued through the game. It was really well done in my opinion.

But Garl also has a backbone and can be a leader.

Spoiler Talk Starts Here

Brisk got destroyed and a lot of citizens very understandably wanted to move and get a fresh start. Garl made sure everybody building the new town was well taken care of. He fed them, kept up their strength, and eventually stepped into a leadership role. He organized town meetings and kept them going. He made sure everybody's voices were heard. And the citizens repaid Garl by having him name the time. It was a very cute scene where Garl keeps pulling his name out of the hat for town name suggestions. He goes, "Haha guys, very funny. Garl's a bad name for the town." And once Garl was clued into why his name was in the hat he gave the town a perfect name. Mirth.

The acolytes pissed Garl off, it was one of the few times we saw him get angry. And The Fleshmancer was also the target of his rarely seen anger. Garl is not a pushover. And unfortunately this did cost him his life. Living off of borrowed time Garl helped his friends make it to the Sea of Stars. He came up with a bargaining chip, he'd wake up The Sleeper and soothe his savage soul. How? Freshly baked bread of course. Because as Garl said, nobody can be angry when they wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread.

This goes back to what I said earlier about Garl loving food because good food makes people happy. This was his logic, it's only natural that a delicious breakfast would make The Sleeper not want to destroy the world. And he's so right.

After Garl's death there is a hole in the party, I missed him, and his input. I'm glad the game had that funeral and gave the characters and the player time to start to miss Garl.

Now for the true ending. We get Garl back! :D He was brought back to life through time shenanigans. Garl was given one wish because of how good of a person he is. What was this wish?

To share a meal with all his friends at the Golden Pelican and celebrate his coming back to life. Garl could have had anything in the world, and he chose to share his wish with the people who meant the most to him.

And I think that does a fantastic job of showing what kind of a guy Garl is. A man with a huge heart who loves his friends.

In short: I loved Garl from the start of the game, and I still love Garl at the end of the game.

#Sea of Stars #I was busy trying to catch up with all the stuff I neglected while playing Sea of Stars #And then I also drew some fanart to test out a new set of pencil crayons I got

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void-speaks · 3 months ago

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Bouncing ideas back with Pixelsss (btw feel free to tag me if you want I don't mind)

I FULLY AGREE with the theory that the previous chief doctor is the Ominous Voice and the fact that he didn't resign willingly that was literally like the first thing I thought.

Okay, I saw someone on like... Steam discussion? Who pointed out that the statue is actually Hippocrates (I actually don't remember the name they said but I googled it) and the oaths specifically for physicians are attributed to him. It would make sense why the Voice (I am NOT even gonna try to spell his name without reference) says he is a blind judge, and that WE need to be his witness. Because we are present in the moment, we can see the wrongdoings of the perpetrators and attribute each broken oath to each member of the staff. I feel like it's also worth mentioning that Friedrich says "there he is again" which could be just a reference about how many of those statues are around the Klinikum, but also maybe not?

NOW ABOUT THE PLAYER THEORY

The reason why I LOVE the theory that we are Joey (younger version of Joseph) is because:

1. In my opinion, it adds depth and sympathy for Joseph's character. Look at his younger self, so curious, so impressionable, so willing to help. And here he is now, so corrupt and so fueld by his own wrath.

2. I ADORE the theme of witnessing the corruption of your future self, coming face to face with the monstrosity that you've become. Joey doesn't necessarily realize this, but we do. And it's so AAUUAHAUAHA7AGAUAGAUAGAYAGAYAGAGAYAGAYAYAY

Of course, this theory is not perfect at all. Specifically in how that would work with the loophole and where it all started (I have a similar problem in Little Nightmares 2 because it's near impossible to pinpoint where the timeloop starts). The thing about Joseph not recognizing Joey I addressed in my previous post, but the reason why Joey wouldn't recognize himself in Joseph is because... well, I dunno, he just wouldn't? I wouldn't be able to recognize my future self either tbf. Hm, let's assume that Joey is somewhere in the ages of 21-22 like I initially did... so that would make at least a 9 year difference. And they do say that power changes people.

And this is where I'm going to yap about Joey and Joseph.

While Joseph is still a massive asshole and an abuser, but Joey isn't... look at him, he is so curious about everything, he comments on random things he may find interesting and pokes his nose into every corner of the Klinikum (based on my own recent playthrough of doing exactly that). He's so eager to help, seasoning the soup for the birthday guy, finding Dokhu's plushie and giving him a little crown as a birthday present, agreeing to help nurse Helene not because he exactly needs something from her, but just because of how relentlessly she's working to the point of neglecting everything else. How he feels sympathetic for Astrid and even for Wolfram (who does not deserve his sympathy that mf just tripped he can handle it). And yet... his older self is so egocentric, so ignorant and willing to harm others. So what exactly happened?

I think that it's because Joey later on felt unappreciated, ostracized and ignored. He was young, he recently moved to a new country and he's just fresh out of university. He has ideas that have potential, but no one is listening. So he becomes angry. He fights his way to the top, first making Friedrich resign, then beating everyone else to the spot and doing his best to charm the other staff so he'd be accepted. So of course, when he fought so hard to get to where he is, when someone starts to question him and tell him how wrong he is, it triggers a fight or flight response, and Joseph is used to fighting by now. Is he still more than old enough to understand the gravity of his actions and how badly he is hurting people not only physically but emotionally and mentally? Absolutely. Should he have prioritized the feelings of his staff, the other people he had to step over, his patience? Absolutely, he has the ability to, we've seen how sympathetic he can be. And yet he is so blinded by his wrath at the rejection he faced early on, that all of that goes forgotten. The way he says everything, how no one dies at the Klinikum, how the dental clinic is something the medical community should thank him for, how Astrid's paper criticizing his research is thrown away in the trashyard... it all screams of someone who is still seeking praise and validation which he didn't get before, but this time not using the knowledge he genuinely has, not using his kindness and compassion and ability to work with people, but instead using vile means that will secure his position and the things he desires. He found many, many loopholes to exploit in the system and he took that opportunity (ha, get it?) to get what he wanted, no matter how much harm he will bring and to whom.

So poor Joey ends up as the subject of that loophole. He has to face first hand how much destruction and abuse his older self brought onto the Klinikum. Just how many times has he been harmed to the point of death but has woken up again and again just to suffer more? And it doesn't matter who you are, patient, just a trainee or an employee. Unless you're willing to exploit and abuse others, you have no chance in this system. Wolfram looks completely normal at first, because he was already an abuser, his later forms only reflect how ugly he is inside. Randolph himself looks completely normal at first, but later on he is distorted worse of them all.

Anne is constantly getting shocked and will pass out if the system is shut down, yet smiles sadistically when she puts another, someone lower in power than her through the same treatment.

Sabine has the wounds from the torturous device that she uses on someone who is, again, lower in power than her, yet still puts it on them because she can't face the fact that doctor Randolph is a corrupt man. She gets salty when you don't follow her, but no matter how many times you try to run away, she doesn't attack you. She says that you're holding up well, that you did well and so on and so forth, because she just hasn't realized that this is abuse that she is going through and putting another through.

There is Hauser who saw what was happening, who knew about all the wrongs of the staff of the Klinikum but chose to cower and hide away in the attic, pretending to be ignorant, ignoring the cries of those who were suffering in favor of saving his own skin.

Wolfram took advantage of the poor patients, people who were supposed to be under his care, and when confronted with his crimes, he realized that nobody really cared. No one took the patients seriously aside from the pesky strict nurse who'd probably filed complaints against him. So, realizing that his deeds went unpunished he simply continued doing what he did for his own twisted pleasure and desire to control and exploit those below him.

Sauer was responsible for the food of the patients, arguably one of the most important things that contributes to a person's health, yet he still choose to be sloppy with it, causing more harm than good. Forced to boil alive in a pot, he still doesn't get anything, and continues being a bitch to patients and serving them food which will only make things worse just because of how bitter he is that such a "tiny mistake" led to this much suffering on his end.

And Randolph himself. Blinded by his own feelings, he neglects and ignores the feelings of those around him, only caring about his own success, only caring about validation and being noticed, proving everyone who doubted him wrong. And at the end, he is forced to face not only his own trauma, but the trauma he repeatedly put other through, distorting him into the horrible monstrosity that he became on the inside.

Astrid cared about her patients, but she also cared too much to try and hold other staff members, other authority accountable for their mistakes and heinous actions. And what did she get in return? A horrifying fate, to put it lightly. And even STILL, even after what Joseph has done to her, she is willing to talk. She hopes to see him again, to confront him about everything, to try her best to resolve this peacefully. But alas.

(Her phrase "You are not Joseph" would also be an incredible play on my interpretation/au? because yes, Joey isn't Joseph, he's not the monster that he may or may not grow up to be.)

Helene cares about her patients way more than about anything else, she just wants to make sure that they're if not healthy than at least comfortable with the little conditions she has to work with, and therefore, because she isn't that much of a threat, she's left as she is.

I completely forgot what was even the point of all of that while writing LMAO

Oh yes, maybe the moment Joey ends up in the Klinikum was the exact moment when he already began heading down the wrong path (based on how sarcastic he acts sometimes and how willing he is to disobey whose higher in power than him). So to be forced to see what his future were to look like, and not only that but to experience the harm he's would do to patients and staff first hand, it reminds him of what being a medical worker is really all about. It's not about the groundbreaking research, it's not about making a name for yourself in the medical community. And so in the end, Joey uses the same loophole that Joseph had used all this time against him, sending him down one last time, killing that abusive prick in himself.

Okay, I've rambled so much about this theory that it almost looks like I'm heavily advocating for others to subscribe to it. I'm not, I'm just on a creative roll as of later and so that's what caused me to imagine so much based on that theory and minor details. There's still the stuff I mentioned earlier that wouldn't make this theory work with Joseph and Joey not recognizing one another, and with the wording the Voice uses in our final confrontation with Joseph, he tells us how the doctor's wrath is affecting everyone, "including you," the player. That single phrase doesn't make much sense in that theory, but at the same time, Friedrich's other phrase about "I'm not your enemy. Well, perhaps... a part of me is" WOULD make sense in this theory. He's not an enemy to Joey, but he is an enemy to and in the eyes of Joseph.

All that being said, I would actually prefer for the game not to get an expansion or dlc with explanation of this stuff, because I feel like it's much more interesting to see different interpretations built on the core idea and theme of the game, which is the abuse and mistreatment of patients.

Also, a way smaller headcanon which could apply no matter the theory you personally believe is that our player has a deep ass voice based on the... erm... grunts? From the beginning of the game where we fall from the ceiling.

Also these rambles are not going to be a frequent thing (I HOPE) because these ideas are all I've had since first watching a playthrough, later on playing the game myself and then writing a thing for the game (yes it is about the Trash Collector and Joey. No I don't wanna talk about it yet. Unless you ask really nicely :)), so once I've told all that's on my mind I will probabaly go back to lurking. This was quite frankly unnecessary and I'm not even sure about posting it in the main tag but to be fair, I think I'll do it at least for the sake of categorization.

#the heilwald loophole #void speaking #I hope I didn't drive anyone mad with these long ass posts #sorry if I did #may or may not happen again :]

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eternadreeblissa · 1 year ago

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I continued watching BOTW playthrough (no commentary), and upon crossing a great fairy in the desert, I can't help but blink at what was suggested to me: apparently great fairies, or perhaps only Tera, the oldest of the sisters, can watch the activities of Wild and everything, and she even managed to predict his thoughts!

I can only imagine the... Concern in her eyes— her and her sisters' even: when Wild sets out of the shrine of resurrection in TTAU and collapses at the sight of calamity, with the fresh open wound on his forehead from repeatedly knocking himself "awake" and his dried trails of tears on his face. He looked awful, pitiful even. The horror on his face seemed like he's seen a ghost, or something so unbelievable of the sorts. He also seems familiar going around Hyrule and dealing with monsters, but somehow he seems to be struggling in the sense of.. keeping up, you could say. He seems cold. If Zelda perhaps squinted, perhaps he was even colder than 100 years ago even. But it's not just his silence, it's... This anger, or annoyance. To Zelda mayhaps she wouldn't have figured how much of it was buried in him, only suspecting that the hero is in distress and cannot even bother with anything. But if the great fairies looked closer, it's a volcanic storm on it's own; but brewing, or mayhaps contained. I'm not sure how much the great fairies can sense and watch as they observe Wild, but if they see nearly everything, it is a great concern. Perhaps they're even wary and hesitant of enhancing his items. But they can't dare to refuse mayhaps, as their powers have weakened and Wild was the only one who helped them in their predicament and letting them live longer.

They watch as he speaks to a wolf of the sorts, it's the only time perhaps they've ever seen of him being as open as he can, and a little vulnerable even. Can they hear him talk? Perhaps only Zelda, well if she communicates with him and he merely ignores her or interrupts her with whatever he'd excuse to respond in. The great fairies, I'm not sure, but perhaps they feel the comfort in him when he speaks to this wolf, whom the hero considers as friend, family even. The great fairies can't comprehend what happened to this man, but all they know is to be wary of him, and not be in his way. They wouldn't want to know what he'd do if they, or anyone, anything even, dares to do something so foolish.

@gliphyartfan @yanderelinkeduniverse

#DreeRambles #yandere linked universe #yan! lu #yandere lu #yandere wild #yandere linked universe x reader #yandere wild x reader

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maydaymemer · 1 month ago

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Hitman WOA: Ambrose on Trial - The Case for and Against

Back in 2022 IO released their final sandbox level for the Hitman trilogy: Ambrose Island. This level took place between the events of vanilla Hitman 2’s penultimate and final locations, but due to being released during Hitman 3’s lifecycle it was never treated as such. Instead Ambrose sat in an obscure spot of a specific menu, placed after Hitman 3’s locations but never having a mechanism during either campaign to go to it naturally. Until recently when a patch brought Ambrose to its chronological placement: now players upon beating Whittleton Creek’s Another Life will be prompted to play Ambrose’s main mission before moving onto the rest of Hitman 2

But was that a good decision? Even before this happened I was planning this post with the premise of if a new player should try to incorporate Ambrose into their first playthrough, but now it’s reality I want to examine if that made sense as a decision. In this little essay I will example the case FOR and AGAINST chronological Ambrose:

FOR #1 Convenience of Discovery

The first argument for placing Ambrose into chronological order is that every map of the trilogy is part of the main campaign, and keeping this consistent will ensure not only can old players who want to play Ambrose cant get there as convenient as possible but new players will know Ambrose exists without having to be told about it by the internet. Someone binging the trilogy now has a quick throughline to know what to play next, what has been played and what can be played

Even if Hitman 2’s cutscenes now change from motion comic style to cheap full motion back to motion comic and then to slightly less cheap full motion it’s at least consistently inconsistent. It was already precedent with Hitman 2’s DLC to have each level follow another in chronological order. You dont go from Sgail to Dubai; you go from Sgail to New York to Haven to Dubai. IO released this trilogy episodically so even retroactive releases earlier in the timeline should be accounted for

It also may be confusing for new players to play Romania and then see storyline targets they don’t recognize, granted they may still do that with New York and Haven but hey that’s IO’s fault for not having a convenient bundle of all the DLC

FOR #2 Fanservice, Plot, Development

It just makes sense to play Ambrose in its chronological place because the map’s identity as a pretend-lost chapter in H2 is so engrained into the design and premise of the map that anyone currently playing Hitman 2 will appreciate the details more having just played everything in a big glut. The map mixes set-pieces and characters from Hawke’s Bay, Colombia and Mumbai to give you the sense that this happened soon after those, so just outright playing it in that order will enhance what they were going for

It also helps to know what’s going on in the plot if the events are fresh in your mind. Taking out Grey’s militia is a big part of H2 but putting too much space between that and your playthrough of Ambrose might make you forget some details

With the foreknowledge of Hitman 3, IO went into Ambrose trying to patch up mistakes in the trilogy’s writing, and to clarify some plot points that were previously obscure details

For example, a conversation in Isle of Sgail that The Constant has on his phone directly references that Grey disbanded the Militia after the killing of Janus in Whittleton Creek. This detail is never mentioned again and if you dont ever hear this again the idea of “what happened to the militia?” might come off as a plot hole. Even though it isn’t a plot hole, closing an entire narrative thread in one phone call is still a bit strange

So Ambrose already fixes this, but the major problems come in Hitman 2’s DLC which inadvertently created a shadiness in Grey’s character that H3 had to correct. With the context of Ambrose people will be less inclined to get a false impression of Grey’s motives

The introductory briefing then provides minor foreshadowing of Diana’s character arc in H3, which isn’t much but it’s nice to make the trilogy seem more cohesive story-wise by including that

FOR #3 A Better Penultimate Level

I would argue that if you look at Ambrose and Sgail as two sides of the same coin, there’s some interesting thematic mirroring between the dingy, dark island of the Militia and the dark but opulent island belonging to an asset of Providence. I think its important to have that juxtaposition especially since this is the last major map of the trilogy where we tackle these sorts of themes, at least until Berlin

I also think that if you were to consider Whittleton as the penultimate level of Hitman 2, it’s a little easy. To go from a relaxing level like that to the last level in the game and one of the most intense it’s a little too abrupt. This stopgap also helps to buildup the location in-story as an important and secure area, which adds to the mystique and imposing nature when you get there

AGAINST #1 Pacing and The Themes of H2

My main issue with Ambrose’s placement is how it retroactively fucks up the one constant of Hitman 2’s design philosophy and that’s the contrast between levels

In the lead up to marketing and BTS of the trilogy each entry’s main philosophy is always touted as follows: Hitman 1’s theming is clean professionalism with each level showing 47 at the height of his career, Hitman 2’s theme is the criminal and colorful with each level visually and conceptually being the complete opposite of the last and Hitman 3’s theme was of the emotional journey, it starts out light, gets darker before ending on a more hopeful note

Unlike Hitman 1 and 3 which are more homogenous for the sake of the tone they’re going for Hitman 2 aims for this contrast and keeps it even into the DLCs: the quiet and stormy Hawke’s Bay is followed by the bright and bombastic Miami, then by the quiet and naturalistic Colombia followed by the bustling metropolis of Mumbai, then the serene Suburbia ended off with the dark and ominous Isle of Sgail which is then contrasted with the very small and modern Bank which is then contrasted by a tropical paradise in Haven

Ambrose fits the criminal and colorful (which doesnt need to mean literal color, because H2 has a ton of dingy and monochrome areas, moreso it refers to the colorful personalities of career criminals). It even adheres to Hitman 2’s more blue collar theming, contrasted with New Money in H1 and Old Money in H3. The problem is its aesthetic of the night time storm is already similar to Sgail, which is the very next map chronologically. The progression from Whittleton to Sgail was always intended to wow the audience, and I feel this plus H2 vanilla’s amazing pacing will now be lost on new players because H2 now has three levels made post-launch that are tacked onto its campaign

AGAINST #2 Difficulty Spike

The problem with Ambrose being considered now as part of H2 is it isn’t a H2 location in terms of its design philosophy. It makes use of mechanics like crafting, shortcuts and the camera which aren’t properly tutorialized until H3 and even Freelancer

I actually have any conclusion I drew from admittedly anecdotal evidence and it’s nowhere near conclusive but the fact Ambrose Island doesnt have guidance for its mission stories kind of assumes you have enough experience playing Hitman to know what you’re doing. When Berlin did this it was a calculated decision and the amount of signposting was carefully crafted to give a sense of freedom without being aimless. Ambrose isn’t nearly as well designed to accommodate the inexperienced player

So when I see streams of new players going through Ambrose I see them getting lost and finding the map impenetrable. This is with half the maps under there belt, but it seems Ambrose is maybe too much of an enthusiast’s map to be sprung on a player in the middle of a more guided experience like the other H2 maps

AGAINST #3 Repetition

This is more of a misc. category but there’s problems with Ambrose’s placement in a visual and gameplay sense. Just to rapid fire those complaints:

- The fact it reuses so many assets from Colombia and Mumbai so soon after playing those maps will make the map seem odd

- The fact there’s three island maps almost in a row from Ambrose to Sgail to Haven will potentially fatigue the play on that structure of level design

- Its briefing menu clearly uses the H3 style, but also the fact the pre-Sgail cutscene is meant to follow on from Janus death gives a slight anachronistic order to the whole affair

The Verdict

Now that Ambrose is forever part of H2’s gameplay experience, I think it’s up to the individual player to decide whether it works as part of the campaign or if they think it comes off as padding. Ive given reasons for and against, and I hope next time you play Ambrose or try it for the first time in its new Chronological order if it was truly better that way or not

And that may seem like a cop out, but that’s just because it is

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