#mapping the Revenge

[skepwith]

More Parts of the Revenge for OFMD Fans

Part of a series: Revenge Master Post.

This post is about stuff in the body of the ship, going more or less from top to bottom. I’m saving the sails and rigging for my next post. If you want to know more basic terms like fore and aft and bow and stern, look for “Parts of the Revenge” in my master post.

Obviously, using these terms is entirely optional, since David Jenkins et al. are free and easy with the ol' historical accuracy. This list is for pedants like me and people who like historical and specialized language. Enjoy!

Main Deck

The low “walls” on the sides of the open decks were called the bulwarks—they were to keep people from falling overboard. On the Revenge, the bulwarks are topped by a rail (railing).

A gap in the bulwark, together with a set of rungs on the hull, was called an entry port. It allowed people to climb aboard from a dinghy.

The top edge of the bulwark was the gunwale, pronounced gunnel. The expression “loaded to the gunwales” is still used to mean very full. The top edges of a dinghy are also called gunwales.

An opening in the deck is called a hatchway. I wrote about hatches a while ago, but what I didn’t realize was that the hatch is the part that covers the hatchway. The wooden grid that lets light and air through is called the grating.

In the bow, the curving rail that goes from the figurehead to the hull is called the head rail, which would’ve been really helpful to know for my toilet post. Oh well.

Stede’s journal could at a stretch be called a logbook (or log). This was a book in which an officer noted details of the ship’s daily progress and journey. Probably a bit less fanciful than Stede’s version.

Weaponry

The Revenge has guns (the word used for cannons) on her main deck and her gun deck. Before a gun was fired, the barrel was cleared with the sponge, then loaded with gunpowder and shot and wads of cloth, all of which was tamped down with the rammer. There were different types of shot, or ammunition; cannonballs were called round shot.

To fire a gun, a lit fuse (usually a slow match) was brought in contact with the vent at the top of the gun—called the touchhole—to ignite the gunpowder. (The wick added in OFMD isn’t accurate. Shocking, I know.) The slow match was usually held with a staff called a linstock, tucked into a notch on the end. You didn’t want to be right next to the cannon when it went off, because there was a non-zero chance it would misfire and explode in your face.

Despite what you see in movies, cannons didn’t produce a lot of fire and smoke; the cannonball did damage by going unstoppably through hulls, masts, and people—often many at a time—like a deadly Energizer bunny.

The gunpowder was kept in kegs in a small room called the powder magazine. (A magazine is an ammunition storage area.) This room was in the hull of the ship, below the water line, to minimize the chances of a stray spark sending the whole ship up in flames. The shot was kept in the shot-locker, a small room in the hold (though this word wasn’t recorded till 1805). As we know, Stede calls this the ball room.

Besides the regular cannons, the Revenge also has swivel guns, small cannons mounted on swivels. These were too small to damage another ship; they were there to fire at boarders and approaching boats. Or, you know, to set off fireworks.

To take an enemy ship, sailors might use a grapnel (or grappling hook). These were attached to a rope and thrown at enemy bulwarks or rigging so the ships could be pulled together for boarding.

The Gun Deck

Everything on a ship had to have a special name: stairs were always called ladders; the floor was called the deck; and a wall or partition inside the hull was called a bulkhead.

Some of you may know that a ship’s kitchen is called a galley. However, this usage wasn’t recorded until 1750; the earlier word was cook-room.

Likewise, the mess is where you eat on a ship, but this sense wasn’t recorded until the late 1800s. In OFMD’s time, mess meant “a group of people who eat together,” like officers of the same rank or sailors on the same watch.

You might know a berth as a shelf or box to sleep on, like Stede’s (and Ed’s) bed, but this usage wasn’t recorded until the 1790s. The earlier meaning, used from at least 1706, is “a room where a particular group (such as officers or midshipmen) eats and sleeps.” So you might call Jim’s room a berth—except that it changes hands, and its name has been firmly established as the Room.

A berth is also a place in a port or harbour where you can moor (park) a vessel, and thirdly, the safety margin around another vessel or object, which gives us the phrase “to give [it] a wide berth.”

Finally, the area where the animals (remember them?) were kept was a small triangular area in the bow called the manger. This seems to be where the Revenge’s en suite is, at least as far as I can figure, but if you want to include the animals for whatever reason, they’d probably live somewhere around there.

Storage

Some of the stuff on board was stored in casks, a.k.a. barrels. These could be any size, but a large cask was also called a butt. A scuttlebutt was a butt full of water attached to the deck for sailors to drink from. Unfortunately, the word wasn’t recorded before 1800, and the “gossip” meaning not till a century after that. But it’s a great word and you should use it anyway.

A keg was a small cask, usually less than ten gallons, used for things like gunpowder or rum.

A sea chest was a wooden box used to store an officer’s personal effects—or to confine a nosy hombrecito.

The Ship’s Bottom

(As it were.)

In several of my posts and diagrams I said the lower decks of the Revenge were the gun deck, the orlop, and the hold. But my friends, I made a grievous error: the Revenge has no orlop. I know!

In season 2, for the first time we get to see what’s below the gun deck. When Frenchie opens the secret passage in the kitchen, he reveals a set of stairs—sorry, a ladder—down to a grim, damp space. The kitchen is on the gun deck, so this is the deck immediately below it, and while on most ships that would’ve been the orlop, in this case it’s the hold.

The hold was the lowest compartment of the ship, used for storage and cargo. It also sometimes held the ballast—heavy stuff (e.g., pig iron, gravel, stones, lead) put there to improve the ship’s balance. The lowest part of the hold itself was called the bilge or bilges—the area where bilgewater collected and had to be pumped out.

Episode 3 shows the water on the floor—sorry, deck—making it pretty clear we’re in the bilges of the hold. On top of that, an Instagram post by crewmember Will Giles (shared on Tumblr by @ourflagmeansbts) mentioned repurposing the “bilge set.”

Which all proves that the Revenge’s hold is immediately below the gun deck, with no orlop in between.

The keel is the structural piece that runs lengthwise along the middle of the hull’s bottom. Keel-hauling was to drag someone along the outside of the keel, underwater, as a punishment—very nasty, often fatal.

Also underwater, at the stern, is the rudder, whose movement makes the ship turn. On a dinghy you steer by moving the tiller, a horizontal bar attached to the rudder post. On a ship like the Revenge, you turn the ship’s wheel, which is attached to the tiller via cables, and that moves the rudder.

That’s all for now! Coming next: sails and rigging, in port, and more sailing lingo.

Sources: Wikipedia, historicnavalfiction [dot] com, Oxford English Dictionary

[filmap]

Revenge Coralie Fargeat. 2017

Villa Villa K, CW7R+3HG, Oumnass, Morocco See in map

See in imdb

[pdqsketch]

I read this fic done by @tallstars-rewrite and was overcome by emotion and blacked out. When I came to a week later, this was in my files.

The link to the fic is HERE. Please read it it’s so good.

[artaintfartwarriors]

[aryomengrande]

"i swear someone will commission you if only you offered your services," "okay, how much are you willing to bet on it?" this was a convo between my bsf and i on a random day. aug 1 last year, i opened commissions. on the same day, i lost that bet lmao and the rest is history. i've always held my art in high regards just for the sole reason that it has always been my backbone. but i wasn't sure if it could provide the same magic to others. a leap of faith—that was what it took to put my uncertainty to rest. i guess delulu is really the solulu (งツ)ว sending love and light to everyone who has poured even the tiniest amount of appreciation towards my art ! ♡

aryomengrande 2024 ©

[andi-o-geyser]

the girls who get it get it PLEASE I am begging for you to listen to this song for either of these three feral men in their mid-20s on a grief and rage fuelled revenge quest with a gun and a pack of smokes

[artsyebonyrose]

inktober day 5: map

(guybrush and elaine from monkey island 2)

one of my favourite games :))

[rinupi]

sorry for the late reply was drawing boys kissing

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

Oh to be lost wondering around in Shibuya with a tr map, guide the way Izana!

[skepwith]

Yet More Parts of the Revenge for OFMD Fans

Part 3 of a series: Revenge Master Post.

Sail Names

The Revenge is a square-rigged ship with three masts: the foremast, the mainmast, and the mizzenmast. (The masts are further subdivided into three sections, each with its own name, but this shit is complicated enough already so we’re not going there.) The sails on each mast, from bottom to top, are:

Foremast: foresail, fore topsail, fore topgallant sail Mainmast: mainsail, main topsail, main topgallant sail Mizzenmast: spanker (yes, really), mizzen topsail Before the foremast: fore topmast staysail, jib

The spanker doesn’t follow the naming formula because rather than being square rigged, it’s fore-and-aft rigged, meaning it moves differently and is a different shape.

Sail Anatomy

Each square sail hangs from a horizontal spar (pole) called a yard. (This is what Roach jumps off during Jack’s game of “yardies.”) The ends of the yard are called the yardarms, as in “the sun’s over the yardarm” (time for a drink). The foot of the sail is secured with lines called sheets, as in “three sheets to the wind” (drunk).

Each yard has a specific name based on its location and function. So a sailor wouldn’t just say yard, they’d say main yard or fore topsail yard. This is true of every sail, line, and doohickey on a ship.

Unlike the square sails, the spanker doesn’t hang from a yard but from a gaff (specifically, the spanker gaff). Its foot is secured to another spar called a boom (the spanker boom).

The triangular sails at the bow of the vessel don’t have yards; they’re attached to lines called stays at the top (thus staysail) and to the bowsprit (or its extensions) at the front.

Fun With Sails

So now that we know what they’re called, what kinds of things can the crew do with them? Bearing in mind that the show’s canonical nautical orders are gibberish, here are some suggestions.

Setting Setting the sails means putting them into position to catch the wind and get the ship moving—that is, get it underway. Sailors climb up (go aloft) to the yards and spread out by standing on the footropes (though these ropes probably weren’t in use in the Revenge’s day). If the sail has been stowed (bundled up and tied to the yard), the crew needs to release the clewlines and buntlines to let the sail unfurl, after which they attach its bottom corners to the yard below by the sheets.

Furling The sails are usually furled (rolled or folded up) and stowed (tied to the yard) while the ship is moored, that is, tied to a wharf, quay, dock, or pier—in other words, not going anywhere.

Reefing Like furling, but only partway: to reef a sail is to fold up part of it to reduce the area exposed to the wind. This is done in strong winds to keep the ship stable. To shake out a reef is to release the sail to its full extent again.

Trimming When sailors trim a sail, they’re adjusting its angle to the wind for maximum efficiency. Yards can also be trimmed, by being moved horizontally around the mast or by tilting the yardarm up or down.

Heaving To To heave to is to stop the ship where it is, usually by backing some sails to counteract the rest. The past tense is hove to, as in “Upon seeing Blackbeard’s flag, the merchantman hove to and allowed itself to be boarded.”

Rigging

Ropes in storage are ropes; ropes in use are lines. Lines are tied into different knots for different uses—for example, a hitch is the knot used to tie a line to a fixed object, like a bollard (post).

The order to make [something] fast means to lash (tie) it securely. You can also lash something to something, as in “The hostages were lashed to the foremast.” The order to lash up and stow was a British Navy command to tie up the hammocks and stow them out of the way, usually in netting on the inside of the hull.

Each line has a specific name, like main sheet, fore shrouds, or mizzen topsail halyard. The number of different lines is truly staggering, so I’m only going to cover a few of them here. I’ve already mentioned the sails’ clewlines, buntlines, and sheets. To secure one of the lines after adjusting a sail is to belay the line. (Belay also means to disregard, as in “Belay that order!”)

A line that hoists (raises) something, like, say, a flag, is called a halyard. Cables are the thickest, heaviest lines—e.g., what the anchor is attached to—and may need to be moved using the capstan. (Though the anchor is never said to be hoisted; it’s weighed, despite what Frenchie says.)

Here, Jim is sanding in the shrouds. The shrouds are rows of vertical lines on either side of a mast. They serve to stabilize the mast, so they don’t move, which makes them standing rigging, as opposed to running rigging. Between the shrouds run horizontal lines called ratlines. Sailors use the ratlines as rungs to climb aloft.

Beyond the Revenge

When a ship’s not underway, it’s “parked” at an anchorage, which is any place a ship can anchor—usually a port or harbour, but it could be at sea or off an island.

When there’s a wharf, the ship can be moored, which usually means it’s tied to a short post (bollard) on the platform. Unmoored means untied, adrift—literally or metaphorically. Once the ship is moored, the gangplank is placed to allow the crew to walk ashore. If the ship needs major repairs, it is taken to the dockyard.

If the harbour’s too shallow for a ship to dock, its crew will make their way ashore in a smaller boat called a dinghy (or skiff or dory). These boats are kept on board the ship as lifeboats and to ferry supplies and people back and forth.

The dinghy’s rowers sit facing backwards (astern) to row their oars (not paddles), the flat part of which is called the blade. The benches they sit on are called thwarts, because they’re athwart (perpendicular to) the dinghy’s keel. When in use, the oars sit in notches in the gunwales called rowlocks (or oarlocks in Canada and the US).

If, let’s say, Fang decided to row out in a dinghy, he might take a break from rowing for a bit by resting on his oars. When he found a good fishing spot, he’d ship his oars—that is, take them out of the rowlocks and lay them inside the boat.

Zheng Yi Sao’s Red Flag is a type of ship called a junk. The junk is distinguished by its fully battened sails. Battens are strips of wood, usually bamboo, that were inserted into the sails as supports. These sails, whether fan-shaped or rectangular, were easier to handle in many ways, so a junk needed fewer crewpeople than a square-rigged ship like the Revenge.

Miscellaneous Sailing Lingo

Avast: Stede seems to use this to mean “Hey, I’m a pirate!,” but it’s actually an order to stop whatever you’re doing. I imagine Avast, ye! came to be associated with pirates because it’s what you’d say when boarding a ship: “Drop your weapons, everyone!” But that’s just my speculation.

Ahoy: word used to hail another vessel, as in “Boat ahoy!” or “Ahoy the Revenge!”

Fathom: how water depth was measured. A fathom is six feet down, or six feet of line. League: three nautical miles. A nautical mile was 6,080 feet. (For comparison, a regular mile is 5,280 feet.) Knot: a measure of speed equalling one nautical mile per hour. According to reddit, a ship that’s 150 feet long would have a top speed of about 16 knots.

Flotsam: debris or cargo left afloat after a shipwreck. Jetsam used to mean parts of a ship or its cargo that had been thrown overboard to lighten the load. The distinction was important for legal reasons to do with salvage rights; today they mean the same thing.

Lee: the side that is sheltered from the wind, whether speaking of a ship, land mass, or rock. Leeward and alee mean on or towards this side, away from the wind.

List: when a ship leans to one side, it’s listing Capsize: what a boat or ship does when it overturns in water Founder: to fill with water and sink (not to be confused with flounder, to flail around uselessly)

Pitch, Roll, and Yaw: these describe the motions of a ship. To pitch is to rock between bow and stern. To roll is to rock from side to side (starboard and port). To yaw is for the bow and stern to swivel back and forth.

That’s all, folks! Thanks to everyone who’s contributed to my knowledge by adding notes and comments to my posts. If you see any mistakes, please let me know!

Sources: Wikipedia, historicnavalfiction [dot] com, the OED

[blueflyingturtleontheway]

"I'm looking for justice. I have been looking for it for two years. (...) You didn't know my brother. He was a noble man. I owed a lot to him. I couldn't allow for the murderer to go unpunished. Unfortunately, except for the knife, there were no leads. But I'm stubborn."

On the day of Samuel's murder, two lives have ended.

Originally planned for @whumptober day 2 "you got away with the crime while the knife is still in my back"

[astranauticus]

Rolling With Difficulty as texts I have saved on my computer for some reason

(i drew every day for like a month straight and burnt out so have this nonsense instead)

[gribarrinseteyrdum]

The best part of all the discourse on Ike's design is seeing people complain that Ike looks so small in engage.

Cause they have clearly absolutely forgotten how Ike looks in the actual game cause Ike has literally been flanderized to be bigger and beefier with every depiction post RD.

Like, he literally has basically the exact same muscle definition!

[randomnameless]

Drankengard done (land 2!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More minor character wise...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gameplay wise :

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

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

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

Lolcalisation wise :

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

What the fuck does it mean ?

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

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

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

:/

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

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

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

[mothcula]

the other revenge wip I had that I would’ve never finished in time 💔

[ninyard]

44 for the ask thingy

could be fictional or not

44. you get a free pass to kill anyone, who is it?

If we’re talking fictional I’d hunt down every single person that has ever hurt Andrew and I’d kill em with my bare hands.

I don’t think I’d kill anyone in real life. Maybe the people who were assholes to me in school or something