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pengiesama · 5 years ago

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The Snow Prince (Fic, TOZ, Sorey/Mikleo, Fairy Tale AU)

Title: The Snow Prince Series: Tales of Zestiria Pairing: Sorey/Mikleo

Summary: Upon a beautiful day in late summer, Mikleo's heart is frozen by a terrible curse, and he is spirited away by a woman in dazzling winter white. Sorey sets out on a journey to save his one true love, and winds up making friends with half the continent along the way.

(A variation on The Snow Queen, written for the 2018 Chocomint Fairy Tale Compilation. With illustrations by Nami/defragmentise/@shamingcows!)

Link: AO3

This was written for the 2018 Chocomint Fairy Tale Compilation. @chocomint-srmk is a Sorey/Mikleo fan project!

The zine’s purchase period is now over, but you can check out some of the other fic and art from the zine in the links below. You might start seeing more of the Fairy Tale pieces go up now that the exclusivity period has ended!

Chocomint’s Tumblr: https://chocomint-srmk.tumblr.com/ Chocomint’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/chocomint_srmk

Read on Tumblr!

Once upon a time, there was a mirror, and the mirror came with a most terrible curse.

The mirror did not reflect, it only distorted. Even the loveliest of landscapes would show as a barren wasteland in its glass. A delicious feast would be shown as rotted, stinking refuse. Art that should properly stir the heart with exquisiteness would be transformed into something repulsive. It turned beauty to disgust, love to disdain. The stronger the feeling, the greater the deformation.

What kind of being would craft such a wretched artifact?

It was the work of a terrible spirit known as Symonne.

Symonne loathed the world and everything in it; from flora to fauna to humans and her fellow spirits. One can presume a fairly tragic event that caused her seething hatred, but her resulting behavior did not inspire sympathy. She was cruel and merciless, and tormented all living creatures that crossed her path, regardless of whether they had done a thing to deserve her ire. But this did not satisfy her thirst for terror, and she set her sights higher – most high. Symonne’s spirit magic allowed her to craft powerful illusions, and with this skill in her arsenal, she set forth in crafting her awful mirror. She poured every ounce of her magic into the mirror, and planned to carry it to the throne of Maotelus, the king of the spirits, to force him to look into its glass and behold the truth of his form.

However, the crafting of the mirror had exhausted Symonne’s strength, and while carrying the terrible thing to the heavenly palace, she dropped it. The mirror shattered into a thousand tiny shards, and the thousand tiny shards flew over the world to lodge in the hearts of humans. Symonne was furious, but when her raging calmed, she realized that this presented an altogether wonderful opportunity to terrorize the world that wronged her – on a scale that she had never achieved before.

This is what brings us to the matter of Sorey and Mikleo.

These two boys were friends from the cradle, and played and grew and learned together. Their hearts were as one, and their love for each other was a simple truth of the world – like the movement of the stars, or birdsong in the morning. This made them a perfect target of the wretched mirror, as it was an artifact that craved the distortion of everything right and true in the world. If it could destroy the love between these two kindred souls, it could surely shake the very foundations of the world.

Sorey and Mikleo were adventurers and scholars, and adored all things archaeological and natural, all things great and small, just as much as they adored each other. They would often race each other on the dirt-and-cobblestone path from their tiny town to the ruined castle in the nearby forest. This ancient stone castle was a beloved play spot of theirs, and over the years, they continued to explore and examine and study its crumbling walls and aging artwork. Sunlight shone through the cracks in the ceiling, and rainwater pooled in the ruined floors; blanketing the ground with a soft cushion of moss to nap and read upon. The very walls echoed with the sounds of their laughter and the warmth of their love.

One fateful day, Sorey and Mikleo were walking the path to their castle, with packs full of notebooks and sketchpads on their backs, and a picnic basket in Mikleo’s hand. It should have been a wonderful afternoon, full of happiness and joy. But a glint from the sky and a terrible whistling noise heralded the arrival of a mirror shard. The shard was thin and crystalline; too fine to be seen by the naked eye, and too sharp to be felt even as it pierced the skin. The shard pierced Mikleo’s chest, and his heart.

Mikleo fell to the ground, causing their picnic lunch to spill over the path. Sorey was at his side in less than a moment, carefully helping him to his feet and dusting the dirt from his clothing. Sorey’s own heart ached with sympathy at Mikleo’s bloody palms; scratched and cut from his tumble.

“Mikleo, are you okay?” asked Sorey. “Did you trip?”

Mikleo looked around them, at the apples and prepared sandwiches and treats that he had so carefully packed for their afternoon trip. His lip curled in revulsion.

“It’s okay,” Sorey assured him. “Five second rule, right? We can just pick out the grass and--”

Mikleo’s gaze finally fell on Sorey, and Sorey could hardly understand the disgust he saw there. Mikleo shoved Sorey’s comforting arms away, and stumbled backward, shaking his head.

“…Mikleo?” Sorey said quietly. He reached out to him, still. “Are you hurt? The castle still has the supplies we stashed there, let’s go in and get you bandaged up--”

“And just why,” Mikleo said with annoyance clear in his voice. “Would I want to traipse through that crumbling wreck with you?”

“Because it’s…fun?” Sorey offered helplessly.

Mikleo rolled his eyes and wandered off in a random direction, scowling at everything around him. Sorey scrambled after him.

“Mikleo! That’s not the way back to town--”

“I know,” Mikleo said irritably. He yanked his arm out of Sorey’s gentle grip. “Why would I want to go back?”

“Because…” Sorey grasped for words to try and describe the obvious. Why wouldn’t he? “Our families are there. And…and the harvest festival will be on soon, and then the merchants from the city will probably be by and we can buy more books with the money we’ve been saving up…”

Mikleo just shook his head at every word out of Sorey’s mouth, as it the very sound of his voice repulsed him. Sorey was at a loss. They’d fought before, but Mikleo wasn’t like this when he was upset with him. This was something different. Something terrible, and something that Sorey had no idea how to handle.

“…if you don’t want to go back to town, where do you want to go?” asked Sorey, finally. He would go with him, if Mikleo wanted to leave. He’d follow him anywhere. “Please. If you want to leave, let’s treat your hands, first, and get some supplies and money from home before we--”

“‘We’?” Mikleo repeated coldly. Blood dripped freely from the scrapes and cuts on his hands; dripped from his fingers to the grass beneath his feet. It looked so painful, and Sorey’s heart ached at the sight.

“Your hands,” Sorey said. “Can you at least let me help with them?”

Slowly, Mikleo looked to his sides. His arms were slack, and he seemed to be observing the sight of the blood with the same detached disgust as he now regarded everything else. He did not resist as Sorey touched his shoulder to guide him into the ruined castle; their special place. He did not resist.

The castle, their little home-away in the forest, was well-stocked with supplies that they had carried in from town over the years: food, medicine and bandages, blankets, and books. All things necessary for a happy home. Sorey washed and tended to Mikleo’s wounds, and was pained himself at his cruel silence. The water was fresh and clean, but it surely would sting such raw and deep cuts. Were the bandages too tight? Mikleo did not respond when asked. He did not even spare Sorey the flushing of his cheeks when Sorey leaned down to kiss his freshly-bandaged palms. He would only stare into the distance; his disdain such that he would not even look at the things that repulsed him so. Sorey despaired.

The supplies in their special place kept them in comfort for that night �� Sorey did not dare to bring up the subject of heading back to town, lest Mikleo try to wander off by himself once more. However, before the morning sun broke the horizon, while there was still dew on the grass, Sorey awoke to a commotion outside. Panicked, he looked beside him – to find nothing. Mikleo was gone.

Sorey raced outside, to find a frozen world of dazzling white.

It was early autumn still, and the heat of summer still thrummed in the soil. It was far too early for frost in the mornings, or for Sorey to see his own heaving breath. But there it was – frozen grass, and puffs of mist, and a grand silver-white sleigh pulled by a team of silver-white reindeer. A woman in a snowflake crown and white robes was helping Mikleo up into the sleigh. Mikleo’s chestnut-brown hair had become frosted with white. It shimmered in the first rays of the morning.

“Mikleo!” Sorey called out, racing forward. “Mikleo, wait! Wherever you’re going, please, let me come with you--”

The woman turned her attention to Sorey as she settled in the front seat of the sleigh and picked up the reins. Hers was an expression of great pity, and with a wave of her hand, she summoned a herd of little snowflake-capped creatures to block Sorey’s path. Mikleo’s expression was completely blank as he quietly settled himself to lie down on the back seat of the sleigh – Sorey would have preferred his previous cruel disdain. He did not appear to hear Sorey at all, no matter how Sorey screamed his name.

The woman in white stole Mikleo away, and left behind a remnant of winter. Sorey wanted to race after the sleigh, but was stopped by the little creatures that surrounded him.

“Whoa there! Easy, buddy,” said one. “Don’t worry about your friend. Lailah will take good care of him.”

“Where did she take him!?” Sorey demanded, tears stinging his eyes. “Please, tell me – he’s hurt, and barely ate anything last night, and--”

“He’s hurt more than you know,” said another of the little creatures, solemnly. “Mistress Lailah has taken him in, and will do what she can to save him.”

Sorey’s stomach dropped out. “What happened to him? Please, tell me…”

The creatures murmured amongst themselves for a moment, peeping over their shoulders to make sure Sorey wasn’t eavesdropping. After their discussion, one of the creatures stepped forward to speak.

“A terrible curse is spreading throughout the world, and your friend was unlucky enough to get hit by it,” the creature said. “It’s a curse that…makes people hate everything good and beautiful in the world. Makes them cruel to the people they love. Miss Lailah’s been charged by Lord Maotelus to gather up the people who’ve been cursed, and take them away to try and break the curse before…”

The creature trailed off.

“Before what?” Sorey asked quietly.

But the creature was silent. The whole troupe of them joined hands in a circle, and began to dance. The summer snow swirled and blew into the air, blocking them from sight. When the air cleared, they were nowhere to be seen. Sorey rushed forward in a panic, and begged the empty clearing for answers.

“Please! Please, I’m begging you, tell me where she took him! I can help save him, I know I can!”

An answer rang out from the trees:

“Seek the mountains beyond Meirchio. Your Snow Prince awaits you there.”

And after that, there was silence.

Meirchio was the northernmost city of the land. Beyond it, there was nothing but impenetrable mountains and frozen lands. But if Mikleo had been spirited away there, if Mikleo’s life was in the balance, there was no other possible trajectory.

The compass of Sorey’s heart was pointing north, and he would follow it to the ends of the earth for Mikleo’s sake.

Sorey set out on his quest from his tiny home village that very evening, loaded with what supplies the town could spare, and the tears and well-wishes of his own family and Mikleo’s.

His mother provided him with warm-weather clothes: a scarf, thick gloves, and a warm woolen travelling cloak, with wool from their family’s own sheep. The love woven into it would surely keep the cold at bay, even in the forgotten, distant mountains beyond Meirchio.

Mikleo’s mother provided him with the money she had been keeping safe for them: the money that Sorey and Mikleo had been saving for the harvest festival that autumn. It pained Sorey to take it without Mikleo’s permission, just as it pained him to use it on fares and inn stays instead of the books and gadgets that he and Mikleo had dreamed and talked about all year. But coin was a necessary thing, when it came to the matter of adventuring and rescue.

And Mikleo’s uncle provided him with the gift of knowledge: a copy of his beloved encyclopedia, filled with maps, wisdom, and countless fond memories. Turning its pages, Sorey could recall any number of nights where it was just him and Mikleo under the covers; just them, a candle, and this book. They would read about the wide world beyond town and whisper and dream until dawn; curled around each other, two hearts as one.

Meirchio was a far trek, and it took Sorey a few nights’ worth of camping under the stars before he stumbled onto the first roadblock of his quest. The thicket of trees had looked like a lovely spot to settle in for the evening, and Sorey had done just that. However, when he was lighting a fire atop a pile of gathered sticks and fallen leaves, he heard a sneeze from the surrounding trees. He looked up to see a small girl there; bedecked in spring flowers and lace, and sporting a miserable scowl as she shivered. While it should have still been summer, ever since Sorey saw that mysterious woman and her sleigh, ever since Mikleo was stolen away, the weather had been…strange. Winter seemed to be seeping into everything overnight, and was becoming keener with each passing day. Sorey was warm in his cloak and scarf and gloves, but his guest was clearly suffering.

Sorey smiled and beckoned her close to the fire.

“Are you cold, miss? Please, come sit by the fire and I’ll make you a hot drink.”

The girl snorted, then sneezed again.

“C-c-cold? W-why would I want to accept drinks from a t-t-trespasser—ACHOO!”

Sorey blinked, then looked abashed.

“I’m so sorry. There are no towns or farms anywhere nearby – I thought this was un-owned land. I’m but a traveler, passing through on a mission to save someone I love. Please let me stay on your land for the evening.”

The girl, despite her scowl and dismissive words, had bundled herself up to the fire to get warm. She glared at Sorey, then huffed through her nose.

“You may address me as Lady Edna, human. And where is the drink you promised?”

Sorey prepared hot tea for his host, and presented it with a smile.

“Here you are. Lady Edna, are you a spirit? Have you heard any gossip of a mysterious woman stealing people away in her sleigh? Or word of what is causing this strange weather?”

“Yes to all three,” Edna said, snatching up the tea and warming her hands around it. Her shivering began to ease, which gladdened Sorey’s heart. “I suppose you want me to spill the beans on it, though.”

“If you have any information, any at all, please tell me,” Sorey said. “I have to find Mikleo before it’s too late. I’ll do anything.”

Edna eyed his warm clothing.

“…give me that scarf of yours. The gloves, too.”

“Of course,” said Sorey, already winding it from his neck.

Edna arched an eyebrow. “That’s it? Honestly. I was hoping for something more dramatic.”

Sorey blinked as he held out the scarf and gloves to her. “Hmm?”

“Normally when I make a trade with humans, there’s a lot more haggling involved. You could’ve argued me down to just the scarf, you know.”

Sorey tilted his head to the side, confused. “…but you’re cold, and need it more than I do.”

Edna eyed him suspiciously, and huffed again as she snatched up the offerings and put them on.

“Whatever. Don’t come crying to me when your fingers fall off in this weather.”

Edna took a deep drink of her tea, cleared her throat, and began to explain.

“That woman in the sleigh is Lailah, a spirit. She serves the Great Spirit, Maotelus, and does his dirty work for him. If she stole away your little boyfriend, then he was probably collateral damage in some drama at the big palace upstairs. Said drama is probably also to blame for this weather.”

Sorey’s heart twisted in worry. “Her little creatures said to go to the mountains beyond Meirchio to find Mikleo. Do you know what I’ll find there?”

Edna shook her cup at him, wordlessly demanding more tea before she spoke. Sorey obliged.

“The Killaraus Mountains. Home to a dazzling array of absolutely nothing at all. It used to be the seat of the heavenly palace until they moved it to somewhere more hospitable, so Lailah and her irritating little normins might have your boyfriend locked up in the old ruins somewhere.”

Sorey smiled happily and bowed low to Edna in thanks. He had so much more to go on now – he had evidence that Mikleo was being taken care of, and would remain so until Sorey reached him. It renewed his hope that he’d be able to reach Mikleo and save him.

“Aren’t you going to beg me to teleport you there with a snap of my fingers?” Edna drawled. “Whine at me for a map? Try to threaten more information out of me?”

“Do you have a map? Or – the finger thing?” asked Sorey, curiously.

“No,” Edna said. “But I don’t know what you humans think we’re capable of, anymore. I know what your kind is capable of, though, so you’ll excuse me if I keep some information to myself.”

Sorey nodded in understanding. He bundled his cloak tightly around himself – he was already feeling the chill from the loss of his scarf and gloves. His money was carefully rationed, but perhaps he could find some inexpensive replacements when he next encountered a town. He knew he was careless, and foolish, but he was not so inexperienced to run full-tilt into the icy mountains without protection.

He was quite tired, and his eyes were heavy. He closed them, just for a moment; just so he could conjure up the image of Mikleo’s sparkling eyes and smiling mouth beyond his lids.

“Sorey,” dream-Mikleo laughed as Sorey buried his face in his neck. He smelled so sweet; like the dampness of the soil at the start of spring. “I swear. What am I going to do with you?”

“Do with me what you will,” said Sorey. “You’ll never get rid of me.”

Mikleo’s smile went so soft, then, and Sorey’s heart soared.

“Is that a promise?” Mikleo asked.

“A promise.”

Mikleo’s lips, too, were very soft.

When he opened them again, it was morning, and the fire was nothing but embers. Edna was gone, and there was little more to be done than to pack his things and keep heading north.

Sorey noticed the root vegetables and apples that had not been in his pack before. He also noticed a small, perfect yellow bloom. He thought upon these gifts as he continued to travel another three days, then another three days after that, until he reached the outskirts of a harbor town. He would have to buy passage on a ship headed to Meirchio – Sorey suspected such a vessel might be difficult to come by. Meirchio was a distant, quiet town, and was certainly not a hot tourist spot or business destination. He would potentially have to wait weeks for a vessel to have business going there; camping outside the town the whole while in the freezing cold, with dwindling supplies.

One day, after a week of asking at the docks for any vessels headed to Meirchio – after a week of sailors laughing in his face, acting like Sorey was asking them to ferry him to the moon – he came across a ship he had not seen make port before. It was a small but stout vessel; clever-looking, even. Sorey spotted a red-haired woman on its deck, inspecting a shipping list, and shouted for her attention.

“Hey! Are you guys headed to Meirchio?”

The woman eyed Sorey and his ragged countenance with an amused expression.

“Meirchio? That dinky little mining town? Who’s asking?”

Sorey bowed deeply, and let his desperation show clear on his face. Though he likely looked desperate enough already – the cold nights of camping were taking their toll.

“My name is Sorey, and I have to get to Meirchio as soon as I can. Please. I’ll pay you everything I have, I’ll work your ship during the passage. Anything you ask.”

The woman put her hand on her hip and looked Sorey up and down. He lowered his head.

“I know it doesn’t look like I have much,” Sorey admitted. He looked an utter mess – he was filthy, and his clothes were wrinkled from days of travel on the roads. His hair was wild and windblown. Dark circles bloomed under his eyes – a good night’s sleep was hard to come by, sleeping on the ground. His bare hands were stiff and aching from the cold; the inclement weather having skyrocketed cold-weather gear to a price he simply couldn’t afford. “I’m but a traveler, passing through on a mission to save someone I love. I have to get to Meirchio to find Mikleo before it’s too late.”

Sorey dug in his pockets to present the woman with his travelling funds – the money he and Mikleo had saved up all year, through chores and hard work.

“All I have is yours. Including an extra pair of hands on your crew.”

The woman traipsed down the plank to the dock, and took Sorey’s money pouch from him to count it out.

“…it’s not really enough to make me consider deviating from our delivery schedule,” she said.

Sorey’s heart dropped. But then, the woman was twirling the flower Edna had given him between her fingers, examining it with great interest.

“But this herb here more than makes up for the difference. A single petal from this thing sells for a cool mint in the spice market. If you’re willing to trade it, I’ll be more than happy to put my deliveries on hold to shuttle you to that frozen wasteland.”

Sorey gave an excited shout, and bowed deeply from his waist.

“Thank you, thank you so much--”

“But if you’re coming on my ship, you’re gonna need to clean up first,” the woman said firmly.

Sorey’s cheeks flushed, and he scratched at his wild hair in embarrassment. The woman tossed the coin pouch back to him.

“Go to the inn with the green sign on the main road, and tell them that the Sparrowfeathers sent you. You’ve got enough in there for a hot bath and a good meal. And believe me, if you’re going to Meirchio, you’ll need all the help you can get.”

Sorey bowed again in thanks, then turned and headed down the road. The woman called after him again.

“The name’s Rose, by the way. And your flower is back in your pouch – were you just going to leave it with me while you ran off to blow all your money at the inn?”

Sorey blinked in confusion. “…Yes? You wanted it as payment, after all…”

Rose snorted. “And you were just gonna trust me to not run off with it? You barely know me.”

Sorey smiled a sweet, self-conscious smile. “I guess I don’t. But you seem like a good, trustworthy person to me.”

Rose laughed and shook her head in disbelief. “Go and get washed up, and make sure you keep that herb safe. We leave at sundown.”

Sorey dutifully parted with the money required for a bath – he knew Mikleo would never let him hear the end of it if he showed up to rescue him looking like this, after all. However, though his stomach growled at the thought of hot stew and warm meat, he saved the remainder of his coin for the trials that surely awaited him in Meirchio.

As his freshly-washed clothing dried next to the fireplace, Sorey brushed his fingers over the illustrations in their beloved encyclopedia. Just as its knowledge of edible plants and berries had kept him fed over his journey, just as its maps had kept him on the right path, the memories of reading this book with Mikleo kept his heart and spirit strong. Sorey’s eyes fell on his own stiff, frozen fingers as they turned the page. They were a sorry sight in comparison to the memory of Mikleo’s beautiful hands.

“So to the capital first,” Sorey said in the haze of his dreams. “We’ll check out the libraries and architecture, and then heading south, we’ll be on the pilgrim’s path, so there’ll be plenty of roadside shrines to examine--”

Mikleo laughed. What a beautiful sound, even as a memory!

“You say that as if you’d ever be finished ‘checking things out’ in Pendrago,” he chided. “I know you could happily set up camp in a library for a year. Or a lifetime.”

“A lifetime?” Sorey teased. Head on Mikleo’s lap, he buried his face in Mikleo’s thigh, making Mikleo squeak. “Only if you’re there too.”

Luckily, Sorey awoke from his fevered sleep with time enough to get down to the docks and Rose’s ship. He handed over the herb, and she was true to her word – they set sail for Meirchio.

It was a journey made longer and all the more difficult with the terrible weather; that grew only more terrible as they approached Meirchio. It was proof enough to Sorey that they were approaching where Mikleo was being held, and it was enough to make Sorey pace the deck anxiously as the ship slowly wove its way through the icy waters. Sorey hoped Mikleo would forgive him for being late, just as he hoped Mikleo would forgive him for spending their money, and losing his clothing in this weather. Mikleo had always fussed over his health, ever since his sickly childhood. Sorey hated making him worry, but he seemed rather incapable of not doing so, all the same.

They arrived in Meirchio, and Rose called to him as Sorey made his way into the town proper from the docks.

“Hey! If you’re looking for info, you’re going to have the best luck chatting up the miners at the tavern.”

“Thanks!” Sorey said cheerfully, waving farewell to her. “I will. Mikleo and I owe you so much, Rose.”

Rose watched him go, and quietly said a prayer aloud for his safety. He was a clueless young idiot, and needed all the help he could get – lucky for him, that smile of his could melt the heart of damn near anyone, Rose would bet. It was like the light of spring. Or something cheesy like that. She sighed and wondered if Sorey would question why there was more money in that coin pouch of his than he remembered, and hoped that he wouldn’t get scammed out of all of it anyway at the tavern.

Rose’s prayer did not go unheard, for unbeknownst to her, there was a young wind spirit accompanying her ship. This wind spirit was named Dezel, and, being a spirit, was bound by ceaseless compulsion to grant the prayers asked of him. Heaving a sigh, he trudged unseen by all along the roads after Sorey, irritably sending out gusts of wind to knock over suspicious-looking individuals who were eyeing Sorey like a walking target. The town was not wealthy to begin with, and the cold weather had made people all the more desperate. With Dezel’s assistance, Sorey made it safely to the tavern. Cheerfully, Sorey turned and opened the door for Dezel to enter after him.

Dezel paused. “…you can see me?”

Sorey smiled. “Of course. You’re Rose’s friend, right? I saw you on the ship on the journey here. Did you want a drink before you headed back out?”

Dezel sighed and entered the tavern wordlessly. He could understand why Rose was so concerned about this idiot’s safety, and maybe even understand why she was fond of him. Maybe. A little.

As they entered, they overlooked a sea of dour-faced miners. Sorey didn’t really know where to start asking for information – the bartender was likely a good start, in any case. Sorey walked up to the bar (Dezel following him, still unseen by most) and sat down stiffly. The bartender raised an eyebrow at him and waited for him to speak.

“Do you. Um. Know anything about a lady in a white sleigh? Or a palace in the mountains?”

The bartender wordlessly polished a glass. Sorey fumbled out his coin pouch and carefully counted out a few coins – what, exactly, was a good payment for information?

“Less than that,” Dezel hissed in his ear. “You don’t know if this chump knows a damn thing.”

Still, the coins that Sorey offered seemed to make the bartender more willing to talk. He hummed, as if deep in thought.

“A lady, not so much. But I’ve heard talk about a white sleigh, being driven by a lad with white hair. Dressed like a prince. Sightings started ramping up when this damn weather rolled in, and people constantly whisper about seeing that sleigh when the worst storms roll in. As for your mountain palace, that’s just a fairy tale. If you’re planning on heading into the mountains to go looking for some palace, or that snow prince, may the gods have mercy on you.”

“Is there anyone who knows anything about the palace? Anyone at all?” Sorey asked. He held up his pouch. “I have money, and…”

Sorey heard someone whistling for him nearby, and swiveled his head. A man sat in a corner, and beckoned him near. Sorey nodded his thanks to the bartender, and moved to where the man was sitting.

“Lookin’ for the old palace in the mountains, eh?” said the man. “Has that snow prince stolen your heart away?”

“I – well, maybe,” Sorey said. “You see, my friend Mikleo was stolen away by a woman in a sleigh, and his hair had turned white when she got to him, and he’s so beautiful that anyone would think he’s a prince, so I thought that it’s possible that--”

“He’s a spirit, you know,” Dezel interrupted, gesturing with his chin to the man Sorey was speaking to. “A wind spirit, like me. He’s probably just looking for juicy gossip, and doesn’t have a damn relevant thing to tell us.”

The man clutched at his chest dramatically. “You wound me, my brother-in-elements!”

Sorey hummed thoughtfully. “I figured he was a spirit,” he said. “I’ve always been able to sense them, even when others couldn’t. But I thought a spirit would know better than anyone where the old heavenly palace is in the mountains. Especially a spirit that looks as old as him.”

The man looked far more legitimately heartbroken at that comment. “Really? Do I look old? Is it my hairline? It’s my hairline, isn’t it…”

He patted at his hairline mournfully.

“No, it’s just that you have a certain…air around you,” Sorey said. “An air of worldliness?”

It wasn’t a lie, but it was also kind of the hairline. Still, the man puffed up a little at the compliment.

“The name is Zaveid,” he said with a little flourish of his hand. “And I too have had my heart stolen away by someone driving that sleigh. Her name is the Lady Lailah, and she has had to freeze her fire on the order of the Mao-Man to clean up after some heavenly politics.”

“Politics?” Sorey asked. “Please, tell me whatever you can – I have to save a person I love, and his life might depend on your knowledge.”

Dezel sighed in irritation. Sorey didn’t even need his help to make this Zaveid character talk – there was nothing wind spirits loved more than drama and gossip. (Except Dezel. Dezel was proud to Not Be Like Other Wind Spirits. He was entirely and perfectly undramatic.) Zaveid’s eyes sparkled with tears.

“A romantic rescue…” Zaveid whispered mistily. “You see, there’s this spirit named Symonne who’s a real piece of work. She’s got it out for Mao-Man, and made some crazy cursed mirror to make him think he’s ugly or some shit, I dunno what her endgame was. But she accidentally smashed the thing in the process, and all those little mirror shards flew across the world. They pierce people’s hearts, and suddenly, they’re not who they were anymore – full of hate for everything they once held dear.”

Mikleo’s strange behavior before he was kidnapped made sense now, but the knowing was almost worse than the mystery. Sorey swallowed hard, his heart beating in his ears.

“How can they be fixed?” Sorey asked quietly.

Zaveid shook his head sadly. “That’s something Mao-Man is still trying to work out. In the meantime, he’s having Lailah head out and spirit away the victims and keep them in the palace on the mountain. If she stole your man, he’s there.”

And that was enough for Sorey. He stood up and bowed to Zaveid.

“Please. Lead me to the heavenly palace,” he begged.

Zaveid blinked at him. “…why don’t you ask your other spirit buddy there?”

“I’m not his to ask,” Dezel shot back. “And I wouldn’t do it anyway. I’m not venturing that far away from Rose.”

Zaveid nodded sagely. “We are all slaves to love, I see.”

Dezel sputtered. Sorey bowed deeper.

“Please, spirit; Lord Zaveid. I’m so close to finding Mikleo again – I just need someone to lead the way. Won’t you please grant me your assistance?”

Zaveid grimaced and leaned forward, waiting for Sorey to look him in the eye.

“Leading someone to the heavenly palace is no small thing to ask,” he explained. “Even though the big cheeses have since moved house, the enchantments are still there on the old place. You’ll need to give up something incredibly dear for me to even be able to help.”

Sorey had gotten used to giving things up on this journey. But he had so little left – and he knew that Zaveid wasn’t talking about the few coins he had left in his pouch. Sorey took out his and Mikleo’s beloved encyclopedia, and touched the cover with aching fingers and an aching heart. It was a precious memento. The notes they had made in the margins, the memories in the pages, were irreplaceable.

But what was more precious and irreplaceable was Mikleo himself.

Sorey bowed again, and offered the book to Zaveid.

“Please, spirit. Lord Zaveid. I’m but a traveler, on a mission to save someone I love. Won’t you please grant me your assistance?”

Zaveid accepted the book, and tucked it into his pack.

“It ain’t gonna be easy. Let’s set out while the sun’s still high.”

They parted ways with Dezel, who quickly beat a retreat back to Rose’s ship, and set out from Meirchio into the barren snowfields and towering mountains beyond.

Zaveid spoke true – the road to the palace through the mountains was difficult indeed, even with the assistance of a wind spirit at Sorey’s back. The weather made their way all the more treacherous. The snow weighed down Sorey’s cloak, freezing the fabric and making the cold bite through deep into his bones. Even tucked firmly under his arms for warmth, his bare fingers felt numb and useless. Sorey truly did not know if he could make it through. He kept the memory of Mikleo close to his heart, a gentle warmth that prevented him from freezing all the way through.

“Sorey! Buddy! Eyes up ahead!”

Sorey squinted through the blowing snow, and thought he saw the outline of a structure. Zaveid shoved him forward, and guided him to what looked like a chasm standing between them and the palace. Zaveid whistled aloud, and the chasm glowed with white light. A beautifully-designed bridge appeared to shuttle them across – Sorey would have loved to examine it closer were it not for his duty to Mikleo, and his imminent death in staying outside a moment longer. He and Zaveid hurried across, and Zaveid grabbed him by the hand, dragging him along through the strange glassy doors with their intricate silver filigree work. Through them – as if they were passing through mist.

Sorey had not known what, exactly, to expect when he found where Mikleo was being held. Perhaps maybe Mikleo, chained to a wall, swooning sweetly into his arms. Perhaps that was a bit too much. But what he did not expect was a receiving-hall filled with frozen statues. Sorey wandered up to one, and to his great dismay, he found that these statues were not statues at all.

“Zaveid! These are – these are humans! Frozen humans!”

Zaveid was examining a few of the statues himself, with a grim expression.

“This was their solution to the mirror problem, huh…” Zaveid murmured.

Sorey dashed from statue to statue, trying to find one that was still alive, dreading finding one wearing Mikleo’s face.

“Solution? What do you--”

One statue’s eyes stared back at him, listlessly. Sorey nearly jumped out of his skin, but calmed himself enough to take action. He loosened his cloak, as if to drape it around the frozen person – as if they had any warmth left to keep in.

“Sorey!” Zaveid yelped. “Keep your clothes on! You’ll freeze just like the rest of ‘em!”

Sorey hesitated at the thought of not being capable of saving Mikleo, but – but he couldn’t just leave this person to…to…

“Useless,” said the person in a flat, emotionless tone. The ice around their lips and neck cracked as they spoke. “Why would you sacrifice yourself so readily? Our frozen hearts are beyond saving.”

Sorey’s own too-soft, foolish heart ached. “Who did this to you? That spirit Lailah?”

“The mirror filled our hearts with hate,” said another frozen statue across the way. Their neck snapped with an awful sound as they slowly, painfully slowly, turned their head to look at Sorey. “The spirit Lailah froze our hearts before they rotted from it.”

There were so many statues. So many people. Some murmured their assent to the previous statue’s statement, but others were silent – frozen through with the silence of death. Sorey’s pulse raced, his eyes darting around the room. Not Mikleo, not there, not there either; none of these poor souls were Mikleo, so where—

The gate that Sorey and Zaveid had entered through glowed. Another guest stepped through – but truthfully, this was no guest. A trumpet blew, and snowflake-capped normins raced from every nook and cranny to form a receiving-line. The doors at the end of the receiving hall flew open, showing the throne room – and the throne, perched atop a dazzling frozen lake.

Through the front doors came that same familiar sleigh that stole Mikleo away. But instead of Lailah at the helm, it was Mikleo himself.

He was so beautiful. Mikleo was always beautiful, always, but he was simply…otherworldly. It was no wonder why there were whispers of a snow prince. Mikleo was dressed in a suit and cape fit for royalty; white and icy blue, trimmed with silver and royal navy. His high boots clacked against the marble floor as he dismounted, and his white hair glimmered in the iridescent light of the strange silver flames that lit the lanterns around the palace hall. Mikleo reached up to help his passenger off the sleigh, and led them to stand with the rest of the frozen people. The passenger went wordlessly, and stood without complaint or comment next to their new neighbors. And then Mikleo turned and walked, straight-backed, toward the throne room. He made no indication of seeing Sorey, or caring about the plight of the frozen people around him.

Mikleo was a kind and warm person, who cared deeply about the pain and suffering of those around him. What had that mirror done to him? What had that Lailah done to him?

“Mikleo!” Sorey cried out in despair. “Wait! It’s me!”

Mikleo did not turn to acknowledge Sorey’s voice, nor did he even slow down. He walked across the frozen lake confidently, without slipping a bit on the ice, and arranged himself on the throne with the same air of wordless complaint as the new arrival to the receiving hall. Sorey raced down the hall toward the doors to the throne room, his muscles aching with weeks of stress and strain, his heart aching, also—

The normins blocked his path, again. Sorey gritted his teeth and was about to just vault over their tiny heads, but one stepped forward. They raised their trumpet, and tooted another receiving flourish.

“The Lady Lailah approaches! Show some respect to your host, human.”

Sorey whirled around, trying to see where Lailah was approaching from, trying to see if he had time to grab Mikleo and run (he was sure driving that sleigh wasn’t that hard). And then, she appeared in a crackling of silver flame in the doorway to the throne room. Her expression was pained, and she extended a hand to Sorey.

“You are Sorey,” she observed. “I am Lailah, servant of the great spirit Maotelus--”

Zaveid wolf-whistled. “Lailah! My heart was about to waste away without you. Why don’t you turn those flames of yours back on to warm us up--”

Several of the normins rushed Zaveid to whack him in the shins with their trumpets, causing him to yelp and stumble back into the arms of one of the frozen people. Lailah’s cheeks were colored pink, and she coughed lightly, and started again.

“I am Lailah, servant of the great spirit Maotelus. Sorey. You have travelled so far, and touched so many hearts. Truly, you bring spring wherever you set foot.”

“What did you do to Mikleo?” Sorey demanded.

Lailah folded her hands and stared at her intertwined fingers.

“I am Maotelus’ closest servant,” she began. “And the only one who can wield even a portion of his power. Maotelus charged me with the mission of gathering those afflicted by the shards, and bringing them here for safety…and freezing their hearts so the shards do not destroy their very immortal souls. But I am a fire spirit – the taking away of heat is within my purview, but a more graceful application of the art of ice magic is…beyond me. My clumsy attempts at it have only caused more disaster – this terrible weather, for example.

“However, your friend Mikleo is possessed with a gift for magic. When I froze his heart, it awakened his latent abilities. He was able to take up my duties with far more dexterity and finesse. He has saved so many souls from eternal damnation, and once the Lord Maotelus has determined how to purify the mirror shards--”

Sorey slowly approached her as she spoke, and carefully, bones aching, went down on one knee. He bowed his head.

“Please, Lady Lailah. I’m but a traveler, on a mission to save someone I love. Won’t you please grant me an audience with the prince of this palace?”

Lailah extended a graceful, smooth hand, and Sorey accepted it with his battered, bloody one to rise to his feet again. Lailah made no indication of disgust – only pity.

“You may speak to him,” she said. “But he is unlikely to respond or recognize you for who you are. His heart is frozen through – were it not for his magic talents, he would be just as stiff as the poor souls you see here.”

That seemed like a challenge Sorey was willing to take up. Sorey would never be able to forget Mikleo – through trial and tribulation, through death and on to the ends of the earth. Sorey limped across the frozen lake; his feet not as sure on the ice as Mikleo’s, but his path just as set.

The throne room was dazzling, and an architectural marvel. Intricately-carved white marble spires twirled up to the high ceilings, which were under some strange enchantment – it showed the night sky, and an ever-moving map of the moon and constellations. These enchantments reflected onto the surface of the frozen lake, making Sorey’s path an otherworldly journey through the cosmos. The room sparkled with a sheen of ice and snow, which grew into flower-like blooms around the foot of the throne.

Mikleo did not acknowledge him as he drew closer. He did not acknowledge him as Sorey collapsed to his knees in front of the throne. He was as pale and lovely as a fine marble statue, but his eyes – those beautiful, expressive violet eyes that sparkled with love and intelligence – were so terribly blank. Sorey felt his tears freezing to his cheeks.

“Mikleo,” he said quietly. “It’s me. Sorey.”

Mikleo did not respond. Sorey continued.

“I was so worried when you got stolen away,” Sorey said. “I was worried the night before, when you were acting strangely, too. I’m so sorry I didn’t realize what had happened. You must have been in so much pain from that shard, and your hands were all scratched up on top of that, and you didn’t even eat the lunch we’d packed. Have you eaten since?”

Mikleo remained impassive.

“I wish I had more to offer. I only have some jerky left in my pack,” Sorey went on. “It’s not really a meal meant for royalty. You look even prettier than usual, Mikleo. I didn’t think either of us would have our hair going white for a few decades yet, but it really suits you. So do those clothes. Do you remember how we used to dress in our best for the village festivals? You always looked so nice in that vest and ribbon tie. I always just looked like a barn animal stuffed into a suit. Or I think that’s how you put it, once.”

Sorey flexed his battered hands, watching as fresh blood oozed from the cracked skin. He was battered, as a whole. He was dirty and ragged from travel, he was bruised and bloody and looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He was a sorry sight, compared to how stunning Mikleo looked.

“I lost my gloves and scarf on the way here,” he admitted. “And all the money we saved up for the harvest festival. And…and our encyclopedia. I’m so sorry, Mikleo. I’m…I’m so sorry…”

Sorey crumpled, and crawled forward, shuffling over to press his forehead to Mikleo’s knees.

“Mikleo,” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

He wept, and wept, and wept. Perhaps if he stayed here long enough, tears frozen to his cheeks, he would become a statue like the ones in the receiving hall – a statue that crouched at the foot of the throne like a loyal dog waiting for his beloved master’s return.

He almost didn’t notice the soft touch to his ruined hands.

Mikleo examined Sorey’s hand, turning it this way and that. Sorey felt color flood his cheeks, and pouted, despite himself. He knew his hands looked terrible, but Mikleo didn’t need to rub it in. Mikleo blinked slowly, and rubbed his thumb across the dried blood on Sorey’s knuckles.

“…hurts…hurts?”

Sorey stared at him, tears beginning to fall from his eyes anew. Mikleo bent, and pressed his other hand to Sorey’s chest, over his heart.

“Hurts here. You too?”

Sorey nodded, and reached out with an aching hand to press his own palm to Mikleo’s heart in turn.

“It hurts for me, too.”

Mikleo’s hand twitched, and as if on reflex, he moved it to cup Sorey’s cheek and brush his tears away with his fingers. Sorey gave a choked-off wail, and buried his nose into Mikleo’s hand – he thought he’d never feel this touch again. He closed his eyes, and pressed a kiss to the soft skin of Mikleo’s palm.

He heard a sharp intake of breath, and slowly opened his eyes. Mikleo was looking at him – really looking at him – and he looked absolutely distraught.

“Sorey,” Mikleo whispered. “What happened to you?”

Sorey really had thought his crybaby years were over, but here he was, weeping again. Mikleo scrambled down from his seat on the icy throne, and wrapped Sorey in his fur-trimmed cape, rocking them both back and forth and shushing him with gentle noises. Sorey had thought he’d never be fully warm again – how wrong he was.

“I had my heart stolen away by a snow prince on a white sleigh,” Sorey said, through his sobs.

Mikleo pouted at that, and color rushed to his cheeks. It was the most beautiful sight Sorey had seen in weeks, even after travelling the whole of the kingdom. Sorey smiled up at him, and leaned up, tilting his chin, pleading for a kiss. Mikleo leaned in as well, ready to oblige.

They were interrupted by sloppy crying from the throne room’s door.

“I-i-it’s so beautiful,” wailed Zaveid, sobbing into the arms of a normin who was weeping just as hard as he was. “Love! Love is what melts hearts and purifies cursed mirror bullshit! LOVE!!”

He trailed off into more crying. Lailah tugged a hankie from her sleeve and dropped it on Zaveid’s head for his later use, then approached Mikleo and Sorey, happy tears in her own eyes.

“Mikleo,” she said. “You are well again. Though the Lord Zaveid’s explanation was…simplistic, it seems that Sorey’s love for you has rid the shard of its corrupting power – in addition to melting your heart of my magic.”

Mikleo touched his hand to his chest, as if testing it for any sort of pain.

“…I can’t feel it at all, anymore. The shard. Do you think it’s gone?”

“I do not sense its presence within you any longer. A tiny piece of glass is surely nothing in the face of such powerful love. The Lord Maotelus thanks you so much for your service. Do you remember where you are, what has happened…?”

Mikleo nodded slowly. “…I do. Those – the people I spirited away, whose hearts I froze. Will they be…are they…”

“When the Lord Maotelus finds a way to purify the shards, it will be safe for them to be unfrozen. Your skillful work with your magic will ensure that they will live again – it will be as if they wake from a deep winter sleep.”

“And the rest of the shards?” Mikleo asked.

Lailah hemmed, and plucked at her sleeves. “I will tend to those shards that remain. You must tend to Sorey, to get him home and back in his own bed – you have gone above and beyond your duties, and Maotelus will surely bless you in all your endeavors for the rest of your days--”

“I do need to get Sorey home and patched up,” Mikleo said. “And bathed. But please. You saved my life, so I want to make sure no one has to suffer while we wait for a cure. I’ll come back to help, I promise.”

“I’m coming too,” Sorey said, a bit miffed at the bath comment. “You’re not leaving without me this time.”

“Do I really have a choice in whether you tag along?” Mikleo asked mildly, though he already knew the answer. Sorey smiled mischievously.

Lailah gave a watery smile of her own, and curtsied. “Thank you. Please, take the time you need to make Sorey well. He has journeyed far to save you, and his heart has melted a path through the coldest winter.”

A pair of normins trotted up to slide a pair of warm snowflake mittens onto Sorey’s hands, and wrap a matching scarf around his neck. To top it off, he was blessed with a snowflake cap, like the little creatures themselves wore.

“I will see to it that this foul weather is lifted,” Lailah said. “Now that I can rekindle my flame to do so. Mikleo, please take your sleigh and carry Sorey home to care for him.”

“Can I drive?” Sorey asked as Mikleo helped him to his feet.

“Absolutely not,” Mikleo said.

Zaveid stumbled up to the two of them, still crying, and bundled them both into a bear hug.

“You’ve allowed me to bear witness to the greatest romance in the past few centuries,” Zaveid sniffled. “Sorey, my man, you’ve overpaid me for my services.”

With that, Zaveid handed Sorey the encyclopedia back. Sorey took it gratefully, and clutched it close to his chest. Zaveid loudly and obnoxiously blew his nose into Lailah’s hankie, and it was clear one of the normin at his feet wanted to nail him in the shins with their trumpet again out of spite.

They journeyed home with incredible speed, sailing across the skies and making it back to their tiny village before the sun rose. They were welcomed back with open arms and tearful faces, and Sorey was bundled into his family home for a hot bath, a fresh set of clothes, and a big warm breakfast.

“The fruit trees are blooming all over the village,” Sorey noted to his mother and grandfather as he stuffed himself. “And the harvests look even bigger than I remember them. What happened?”

“Well, we thought we’d lose the whole harvest to the early frost,” his mother said. “But somehow our little village was spared the worst of it. It was a miracle.”

Sorey had seen Edna on the way back to his home, sitting on a bench in the town square, pretending to ignore him. She had still been wearing his gifts. He hoped she hadn’t strained herself too much.

Luckily, Sorey and Mikleo made it back just in time for the harvest festival – although they were out the funds they’d saved for it (“Sorey, stop apologizing for spending the money – I would have done the same for you!”), they enjoyed the hustle and bustle, and each other’s company, and the sight of each other in their festival clothing. On the second day of the festival, a caravan bearing the name “Sparrowfeathers” rolled into town, bearing an array of goods and gold to be traded for the village’s envious harvest bounty.

“For the wool, cloth, and goat cheese,” Rose said, handing Sorey’s mother a hefty pouch of coins. “And this here is on the house.”

Rose handed Sorey a stack of freshly-printed novels and journals, straight from the capital. Sorey smiled at her brightly, and thanked her profusely – and waved to Dezel where he sat atop the caravan, also pretending to ignore him. Spirits were so moody, sometimes.

The festival went long into the night, and Sorey and Mikleo curled together under a blanket in front of the bonfire, sipping at hot cider. Sorey was healing up well, and soon, they would be off on their mission to gather the remainder of the shards – Sorey wanted to make the most of this evening together. He nosed at Mikleo’s still-white hair, and watched as the firelight played off the silky strands.

“Is the fire too warm for my snow prince’s comfort?” Sorey murmured.

Mikleo idly traced the air, sending a few snowflakes flying into the night sky. “Hardly. I’m not a delicate, swooning thing, Sorey. I help you and your mother wrestle sheep for shearing.”

Sorey laughed. “I know. But isn’t that below your station, now? Wrestling with barn animals.”

Mikleo slanted a look up at him, and the side of his mouth twitched.

“Wrestling with barn animals is something I’m quite passionate about, thank you.”

It was Sorey that was a bit too warm, now. But with the light of the bonfire, and the beauty and crispness of an autumn night to enjoy, Sorey could make do for a while longer before they headed inside. He tucked his cheek against Mikleo’s silky white head, and sighed happily.

Yes, a while longer.

#sormik #soremiku #suremiku #soymilk #sorey/mikleo #tales of zestiria #i guess this is my personal tales of zestiria tag now #a tenderly crafted fanfiction #chocomint-srmk #chocomint fairy tale compilation #chocomint

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kazemon15 · 6 years ago

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So, chatting with my friend, Moezy, we were listing our top 10 (.5) anime guys that we liked in all anime and/or manga that we have watched/read...here is my list starting from 10.

10. Kogami Shinya from Psycho-Pass.

Badass and intelligent. I just love this guy. His backstory is a sad one, but it’s not something that he regrets. He can be a bit emotional, but really, who isn’t? What I like about him is that he knows what the right thing is morally, but he just can’t help his emotions. He knows when he is doing the wrong thing, but won’t run from it either and accepts the consequences of his actions. And he isn’t bad to look at either!

9. Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.

This guy is such a dork, but also badass. Powerful and smart, with a cool head (most of the time, which is funny, considering he uses fire). Like Shinya, he can also be a pretty emotional guy, and he uses his past as a reminder to not stray from his goal. He is also in one of my favorite ships, but that’s for another post. Also, did I mention he’s such a dork? lol

8. Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia.

Now this guy is how you do a likable main character. Cocky and sarcastic and loves teasing his friends. He is also has a strong belief in stepping in and doing something about whatever wrongdoings is happening right in front of him, even if it means breaking the law and becoming a vigilante. He’ll do anything he can to set things right for those around him. Not so much of a sad past, but still a fun character! I love his sarcastic attitude at times.

7. Kai Hiwatari/Ray Kon from Beyblade 2001/V-force/G-Revolution

Okay I’m cheating a little bit here, but I just couldn’t decide who I liked more. Let’s begin: Kai: The cold emo Russian/Japanese boy with blue/gray hair. His past is extremely sad and it is understandable why he is such a cold jerk. However, I found his growth in the series amazing. He started off being forced to be a Team Captain for his group. This annoyed him to no end as he wanted nothing to do with the happy bunch. As time went on, however, he gained a soft spot for them and even started to become a real captain, giving advice and caring for their well-being. At first, he was prideful, so very prideful... but as time went on, that pride still remained, but only changed. He takes pride in beating his opponents fair and square and defending his comrades. (Despite betraying them 3 times in 3 seasons but...I chalk up the very first time to PTSD and mind-control of his past...other 2 times... well, that pride problem right?). Also, the irony, a cold emo FIREUSER. Right? lol

Ray: My Chinese catboy! Ray is very friendly and reserved. I was instantly drawn to him when I first saw him. Ray is one of the reasons why white tigers are my favorite animal. He will do anything for his friends and even a stranger if they need help. He always listens to both sides of the story before making a judgement and is the guy to go to for advice. Though later in the series, he does have his own personal battles which causes him to become a bit cocky and jerkish at times, but what can you expect from a nice guy who always put himself last and just wanted to do something for himself for once? Self-care, Ray! Self-care. And he isn’t the only catboy on this list...

6. Kimura Kouichi from Digimon Frontier

Another emo boy! But not a jerk like Kai. Kouichi’s past made me like this character so much and his struggle with his inner demons throughout the series is what made me love him. He was the first character to show me that the power of Darkness does not have to be evil, for without Darkness, there is no Light. He always holds a place in my heart is one of my favorite digi characters.

5. Eizen from Tales of Berseria

I wasn’t sure where to place Eizen. I had to think long and hard. At first I thought at putting him at 7, but then I realized I just loved this dork just a little more than the other characters. The comically serious... no seriously, this guy can fanboy at the silliest things with a straight face, like arguing over the name of a bug...or wanting to build underground tunnels...on an island... ...yeah... ANYWAY, I just love this guy because of his morals and creed. He never compromises his ideals and always faces the consequences of his actions. Yeah another one of those huh? Hm, starting to see a pattern here... Oh yeah, touch his little sister, and he’ll beat your face in and break all 10 of your fingers. Seriously, just...don’t touch Edna. Why couldn’t he be 1,000 years younger (2,000 in Zestiria...)? Such a badass long living adult!

4. Narumi Ayumu from Spiral. It’s a shame this manga isn’t that popular as Ayumu is a great character and his growth is amazing in the manga (not so much in the anime..) His growth is both sad and inspiring. He is such an inspiring character for me. He starts off as a stoic, with having no confidence in himself at all because of his brother, since he is constantly being compared to him and is reminded he can never be as good as his brother (I can relate)... but by the end of the series, despite all the sad things that has happened to him, he learned to smile in the end, no matter how painful. I really can’t go into details about why I love him so much, but you’ll just have to read the manga to find out why!

3. Niwa Daisuke and Dark from D.N.Angel

Yes I’m cheating again, but this is my list, okay?! Daisuke: I love this guy to death. A bit clumsy and timid, but never gives up. Always smiling and managing to find the best in people, even those who keep convincing him he is the enemy, he can end up friends with and change anyone with just that smile. However, even he is not all smiles and has his own concerns... even so, Daisuke doesn’t let such things get him down for long. He is a naturally empathetic person, and I have never seen him cry for himself. He cries for others, but also knows when to be reserved.

Dark: I wasn’t sure if I wanted Dark here or Hiwatari Satoshi, as they both have equally sad pasts. However, seeing as Dark lived for over 400 years and still manages to put up a cocky womanizing front to spare the feelings of others, Dark won out in the end. Again, can’t go into much detail, but the manga is amazing. I like Manga Dark so much more than his anime counterpart.

2. Sawada Tsunayoshi from Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Ah yes my favorite series of all time....so then why is Tsuna at number 2?! Well, I’ll get to that when I get to number 1. Like Daisuke, Tsuna is a pretty empathetic person who cares for his comrades. He doesn’t necessarily have a sad past, but his growth is amazing in the series. Because he is around, he managed to help his friends through their own emotional turmoils and is just the light of the series to everyone.

1.5 Zeno from Yona of the Dawn/Akatsuki no Yona

Zeno and my number 1 favorite have ALOT in common, which is why I put him at a 1.5. Despite this, Zeno does have alot of things I like him for him. I love the fact that Zeno does not hesitate to help his family or be in pain for them when the situation calls for it. It is the only thing he can do to help and despite always being in pain, he would rather have all the pain in the world than to have pain inflicted on his family. That is what I love about him most. Of course, his silly childish side is so lovable too! Him and Eizen can talk about the suckiness of living a long life together...

1. Train Heartnet from Black Cat.

Of course, for this guy, I strictly talking about the manga, not the anime...the anime just does not show how awesome and badass he is.

Like Zeno, he is also a very empathetic person who always wants to protect his family. What I like about Train the most is, though, like Zeno, despite having one of the saddest pasts, and has all the reason in the world to go around being bitter and emo, he decides not to. He decides it’s better to smile, have fun, and make the most out of life. He does have some tendencies to become emo, but only when the situation calls for it. And despite being childish and silly, always having fun, he never let’s that get in the way of being serious and protecting those close to him when needed. He always tries to cheer everyone up in a bad situation, and is not above asking for help when he really needs it. Not to mention, he’s a catboy and left-handed at that, like me! All my favorite things in one!

#sawada tsunayoshi #train heartnet #kai hiwatari #ray kon #zeno #kogami shinya #eizen (tob)#yuri lowell #Niwa Daisuke #Dark #Narumi Ayumu #Kimura Kouichi #Roy Mustang

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applegelstore · 6 years ago

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My sis and I are through with the actual main plot of KH3, so I can officially go back to scheduled ToZ fangirling now. …Well, I promised Cray a bit of fix-it-fanart, so after that, I guess.

Hit the cut for a resume. It got super long and has endgame story spoilers, so you might not want to stumble upon it by accident.

Another extra big shoutout (again!) to @crazayrock for bearing my liveblogging on Discord, screaming without context and occasional spoilers. And linking me fluffy Soriku doujinshi. Here, have my favourite, spoiler-heavy excerpt of our conversation:

Okay anyway, let’s get started: GAMEPLAY

Kingdom Hearts 3 is BEAUTIFUL. The gameplay is so smooth and intuitive that you can immediately get to playing like you’d never done anything else; in fact so smooth that I doubt I will ever be able to pick up the first game ever again. It’s always been fun, but the looooooong years’ gap actually did wonders to the gameplay.

The keyblade form changes are fun and keep things fresh, you can do flashy triangle button shit every other minute, and shotlock is still insanely useful without being a game-breaker.

It seems easier than the first two main games, though?

The gummi ship is still a pain in the ass to steer, but I do enjoy the open world-like travel options (even if there’s not… much to discover except heartless lasering the shit out of you). I’m also eternally grateful that they kept the gummi ship thing from KH2 where you can just use a new gummi ship once you got the blueprint and don’t buy actual fucking legos as in the first game.

Thank you, Square. Not thanking you for the dumb cherry flan game, though.

The Caribbean being basically an open world stage was delightful! Apparently what our resident island kid needs is a big ship and tropical islands to plunder.

VISUALS AND STUFF

PRETTY LIGHTS EVERYWHERE

The long gap between the games also did wonders to the visuals.

There’s finally, FINALLY a few towns with actual NPCs you can talk to. Why it took the team so many years and the Gods know how many games is beyond me. The magic effects are beautiful, the animations smooth (honestly you can hardly tell apart cutscenes and fully rendered CGI scenes in this day and age of the PS4. I’m probably the only person still amazed by this because the only games I played on PS4 before were a few hours of Child of Light and of course Tales of Zestiria and Berseria. No, I still haven’t played FFXV but that’s a topic for another day). How far videogames have come.Even space finally looks like space, lol. Not really high-end what the PS4 can do I assume but god, it’s such an amazing and much needed upgrade from the terrible textureless colourful tubes you flew through before.

No excuse for the terrible battleship thingy before the Keyblade Graveyard, though. I got lost and beaten up so many times and crashed against more walls than I can count.

Nothing beats the World that Never Was, but the Keyblade Graveyard also has creepy cool potential, as does the beautiful but ghosted City in the Sky.

Still not getting what’s with JRPGs and very Definitely Final Dungeons (TM) that are basically space. …………or heaven. Or nothing. I’m getting the bad kind of original NGE TV series ending vibes. But. Okay.

The soundtrack is splendid

.……I miss Traverse Town and Radiant Garden, however.

Which brings us to:

THE WORLDS

I guess I can live with no more Final Fantasy characters being there (although I always loved that), and the meta jokes in Toy Story world really got me. Seeing Disney characters calling the KH villains call out on their shit was delightful. …the KH characters lampshading their own games’ sloppy dialogue writing was delightful.Still, those Disney worlds are always so much more in my head than what I actually get to play. This has been bugging me ever since the first game and it still does. I do not expect or want to replay the entire movies, but would it hurt to give the cutscenes some goddamn background music? Whenever there’s cutscenes, either the world’s usual BGM keeps playing or the music stops altogether. Together with the shortened dialogues and generally drastically shortened plots with odd cuts, that leads to scenes that are awkward at best. They never even remotely have the impact the movies had. You just sit there and think “oh wow that is so silly and awkward”.

Dancing scene in Corona? My favorite scene in Tangled. Zero impact on me without the lovely BGM (at least they made it a minigame so the moment isn’t over after 3 secs). Just for example. You can ask me like, world by world, but I can think of only exception off the top of my head and it’s not helping:

Let it Go of course. Listen guys, I actually love the song. But it’s so overused (and Frozen is an overrated movie at best that doesn’t deserve its hype in the slightest) that I can’t even really enjoy it being there. Like.

 IF THAT’S OKAY WITH YOU,WHY DIDN’T YOU INCLUDE LITERALLY ANY OTHER ORIGINAL SONG FROM THE ORIGINAL MOVIES. Instead of BGM just not being there entirely, or in odd, cringey re-renderings that nobody wants to listen to (*cough* Atlantica *cough*).

Why torture me and not give me the one good scene from At World’s End (the up is down scene) when you had the chance?Kingdom Hearts is also prone to super lazy level design and wasting chances at wonderful scenery for no apparent reason other than I suppose empty cliffsides are quick to render. All games before did that, and KH3 is, sadly, no exception. We get to see a bit of Corona and Athens and they finally have NPCs, too, but you cannot even get near Arendelle. You cannot enter Elsa’s palace. You spend the entire time there climbing around in the snowy mountains of Norway, and unfortunately it looks less interesting than one would expect from the lovely concept art that the film unfortunately never used.You cannot enter Rapunzel’s tower although Sora can apparently parkour his way up even without her help.

………In short, the places you can go are, again, very limited, and a lot of interesting places and scenes you never get to see.

And to follow the plot you still only need the stuff that does NOT happen in those Disney worlds because they’re all beach filler episodes. It’s always been like that, but I keep wondering whether I’m the only one bothered by that. I’m also still salty they didn’t introduce a single new world from a 2D animated movie.

Also, as I said, I miss Traverse Town, it felt so warm and welcoming and beautiful.

And I get behind The World that Never Was missing although I loved it there, but why not give us back Radiant Garden? Destiny Islands since they’ve been restored? Disney Castle?

As much as I love the series, it never fucking lives up to its own potential. Idk whether it’s made more difficult by copyright issues or whatever, I just know that it bugs me.The first two games also had like twice as many worlds.

PLOT

I mean it’s never been deep; however, it’s complicated. No analysis or whatever from me because plot analysis and meta writing bore me like seven hells, just my emotional reaction: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH  Okay, bad news. I got into it expecting nothing, and still got disappointed. I don’t actually enjoy the prospect of writing essays about it, but here’s my tea with it; in not particular order:

1) the pacing is terrible. Nothing happens for like 30 hours and then suddenly like 20 characters’ arcs are (naturally poorly) resolved within the last few hours of cutscenes. Build up anyone? At least they actually did pick up Maleficent and the box thing again. …In the epilogue.

2) Speaking of build ups, Sora’s breakdown could have been developed nicely and steadily over the game to feel natural, and instead it’s hinted at in the beginning by everyone picking on him, but then it’s never further developed and comes out of fucking nowhere. Like. For real? It felt terribly OOC.

3) Why on earth have they shown 90% of the plot in the trailers already, and why are those scenes so massively disappointing in context

4) Kairi. Oh god, Kairi. What are we gonna do with you. I want to love her, I really do, but she’s a prime example of shittily written female leads. Mostly because she’s not leading. It’s not her fault. She’s just a fictional character. But honest to God, Nomura, why. Her screen time is almost nonexistent, and she’s entirely use- and helpless whenever she’s on screen (which isn’t often). Her ONLY point in the plot is being rescued because she is fucking useless. Why. Just why. Why waste her character like that. All we know is that she’s shoehorned into being the token love interest, but she has zero plot relevance and there is even less build up of her relationship with Sora. It’s all tell and NEVER show; and not even much telling, either. She has literally zero direct interaction with in the entire game before they share their paopu. The question remains: why are straights like this

5) On a related note: look, I don’t even ask for (or expect, or even hope) my ship to be canon. Squeenix doesn’t exactly have a rich history in queer representation. I’m totally fine with Sora and Riku being best friends. BUT. Building up Sora as the most important person in Riku’s life (and arguably, vice versa) over the course of several games, just to then hardly have them interact in the finale and then SUDDENLY bring back Kairi into the equation, who hasn’t interacted with him since the ending of KH2 (except for one unsent(?) letter) is just piss poor writing, period.I actually love Cray’s suggestion she gave me over Discord: let Sora, Kairi and Riku all share a paopu together (and let them group hug, too, you cowards). It would have been the perfect message to send (Sora as truly all-loving hero, and loving all your friends equally; romantic love isn’t more important than platonic love and doesn’t need to be singled out). Really sad that this isn’t what happens. Apparently that wouldn’t have been no homo enough.

LET THE DESTINY TRIO GROUP HUG YOU COWARDS 

Do Riku and Kairi even interact once in the whole game?

 HOW IS THIS A TRIO, IT’S JUST A SHITTILY WRITTEN LOVE TRIANGLE

6) Time travelling is a bitch, Christ. It doesn’t solve plotholes or can be played for drama, it just adds MORE plotholes. It just got WORSE. The cloning blues and people not aging doesn’t help, either.

7) Just so you know, I care absolutely zero for wild fan theories. You’re not Nomura. I want a statement from the man who wrote this shit himself why on bloody earth Sora dies when he apparently successfully found and brought back Kairi (and since nobody aged a day, apparently it didn’t even take that long lol). DUDES, THIS IS KINDA PART OF THE PLOT, AND YOU DON’T BOTHER TO EXPLAIN IT INGAME???? And how was Ienzo/Zexion able to revive Naminé while Kairi was still missing/dead/whatever…?

Okay so in short the writing is worse than ever and that’s saying something.

However, let’s try to find something good in this trainwreck; it wasn’t all bad. There’s some really nice scenes which sadly are better enjoyed without any context at all.

So, guess my favourite scenes.You had time enough, here’s the solution:

1) Purifying uhm er rescuing Aqua. Poor girl. She deserves the rest. Poor, poor Aqua. The only properly wirrten female in the whole damn franchise. Also the only person other than Riku who fucking gets shit done.

2) The Gayblade (TM)

3) Happy Axel in the reunion with his kids. Oh god, the poor chap deserves it so much. Thank you, Nomura. I don’t care that it makes pretty much no sense. Make him happy. Give him his friends back. Just give Axel all his friends and let him happily set things on fire. Hi I love Axel

4) The party at the beach cutscene before the credits roll. Axel and Xion get clothes. Half the organization is on our side now. I almost teared up at the Wayfinder trio saying goodbye to Eraqus’ forceghost. Hey come on he’s the voice of Luke Skywalker

5) Sully yeeting Vanitas

6) Woody calling out Xehanort that nobody loves him

7) Jack Sparrow bad breathing Luxord

I wish we had gotten:

1) justice for Kairi

2) a happy Zexion, the poor emo kid. Well maybe now he will be, with all the orga members who changed sides now, lol.

3) I will never trust mobile games ever again so I don’t want to play KHUX but I would have loved to learn about the Keyblade Wars :;)))) 

WHAT WAS THE KEYBLADE WAR ABOUT CAN WE SPEND MORE TIME IN THAT COOL CITY IN THE SKY WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH MIKLEO I MEAN THAT EPHEMER KIDDO

 WHAT’S WITH THE MASKED DUDES AND DUDETTES FROM THE MOVIE 

WTF WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM AFTER THE MOVIE???? WHERE THOSE KEYBLADE USER NAMES ACTUAL MOBILE GAME PLAYER NAMES??? Next game? PLEASE?

I really, REALLY hope the epilogue means we will get Xiggy/Luxu as our new big bad and we learn more about the five dudes and dudettes from the movie. Please. PLEASE. I’m so up for it. Them finally pickung up the bit with Maleficent and the mysterious box again? Hell yeah.

The secret movie was really unexciting in comparison, although I laughed very hard at the “Verum Rex” scene in Toy Story world. Maybe that’s why it was much cheaper to unlock than in KH1 and KH2.

4) give Ven a drink

DLC ideas I would actually pay for because I’m a sad human being: 1) more Disney worlds 2) Japanese audio 3) at least one of the following as permanently playable characters: Riku, Kairi, Axel, Ven, Aqua. At least as a guest member as in KH2. THIS SUCH A BIG STEP BACKWARDS I’M FUMING

FINAL THOUGHTS

Kingdom Hearts 3 is a hella lot of fun, beautiful, and also moving when it sets its mind to it. Unfortunately it doesn’t always do so. I don’t feel like it wasn’t worth the wait; it was. However, I’m very salty how rotten the writing is. I do not mind logical fallacies, I do not mind the cheesiness and cringeyness; however, I do mind how so many interesting characters do not get the screentime they deserve, and Kairi is a very bad joke.

I’ll probably find more to nitpick about (Gods. Just. Don’t come up with dub excuses why Sora is lv 1 in each game. JUST LEAVE IT BE. You don’t explain why Donald and Goofy are lv 1 again, either. JUST. LEAVE. IT. BE. The sacrifice was dumb and not even moving, I’m just still furious that Kairi’s ONLY point in the plot is being so useless that it’s literally getting herself KILLED and she needs constant rescuing to the point that Sora has to sacrifice himself for her, effectively. Kairi deserves better, Sora deserves better, I deserve better than to think about this absurdity.…I’m just… gonna cherry-pick the good bits from the lore and try to pretend the finale didn’t exist, I guess. GODS.

#long post #random rambling tag

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b1a4seeyou · 5 years ago

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A-5, B-4, C-3, D-10, E-6, F-8, G-9

Oh me oh my, Anon. I see what you're trying to ask me about. 👀👌

These answers will contain majority of the Tales of Series spoilers and VERY LONG so heads up!

From this ask! :

A-5 - Favorite major antagonists

I couldn't tell who's my favorite main villian but it's either Chronus or Julius (wait, does he count as a villain? Idk but he fought the others anyway xP) Something about their reasoning to stop the team's tracks is kinda... something. Well, Chronus is more to giving the team the "trial" but Julius knowing he'll be part of the fractured piece and trying to stop them from going any further just SADDENS ME. He already knew it might affect to Ludger, thus the bad end, and forcing himself to work under mister greedman, Bisley so Ludger won't get involved is just JWOEBFOCJV. JULIUS DESERVES TO BE HAPPY WITH THE LIFE HE HAS BUT NOOOOOO, THE GAME JUST LIKE TO WRECK OUR HEARTS ;;

B-4 - Favorite parent-child relationships

Okay, I'll be honest here. *INHALES* The Lhant boys and their parents, especially their mom. Yes, the boys ended up separated, Hubert as a step son to.... I forgot his name aksnldkc, and Asbel went to this knights academy. Even tho these two went separate ways, their parents still love them and let them have their own choice. Tho except rebellious Asbel skdjfkcn. Their mom still thinks of them, even after the lost of the father, as if theyre still little baby boys. Mom instincts, man. They still treat them as babies even theyre all grown adults. XD If I'm not mistaken, there's this one cutscene where Hubert and the mom had a little teatime together and talk about how she misses him being inseparable to the big bro and honestly, I giggled and cried at the same time bc it's JUST TOO PURE!!!! We all know he still loves his family even tho he still has the grudge but hey, it's mom and son bonding!! And of course, their father still loves them even tho Hubert is taken away and had a fight with Asbel. He always does. ;; And Asbel repaying him by keeping his kingdom safe and continuing the quest just shows how he tries to prove his father that he'll take the responsibility he left!

C-3 - Favorite worldbuilding

OH, THIS IS INTERESTING!!!!! I'll have to say Xillia one and two's world. The combination of modern and tradition made me happy to see!! Focusing on each region from both games intrigues me to walk around the city and also around nature. uwu. Vesperia's travel to one continent to another is pure genius. I love it~!! Oh!!! Forgot about Berseria/Zestiria's too. Their plain fields and caves are all stunning 👌👌

D-10 - Favorite green place locations

WBPSFJCOVJ HOW CAN I PICK ONE IF THERE'S SO MANY OF THEM XDD. Maybe the majority of Zestiria's fields count cause there all just... green. Jsowlnekfv

E-6 - Favorite event battles

THE KATZ KORNER BATTLE IN ZESTIRIA BECAUSE I CACKLED A LOT WHILE PLAYING. FREAKING LUDGER AND JUDE TURTLEZ. AMAZING 😂😂

F-8 - Favorite character theme song

Ah. I see youre making me emotional over one song uwu. Does Hymm of Proof count?

youtube

G-9 - Favorite school costume

Too broke to get these akandockv

#Asks #Anon #Tales of #Tales of Series #Sobs I'm using mobile so the keep reading link isnt here ;w;#And I think I'm more biased with Xillia KSOSJCKB

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shipcestuous · 6 years ago

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Tales of Berseria, part 1 (Submission)

I just finished playing what has become one of my favorite games of all time, Tales of Berseria. And while it might not be a Fire Emblem game, it’s way up there with FE when it comes to… interesting familial relationships.

There’s a lot of different sibling pairs to talk about here, of different levels of “suggestive,” and I’m going to start off with a submission about the more minor ones, even though they’re all interspersed throughout the story of the most major ones I’m going to talk about in part 2. And that’s when I’ll get into the plot itself and those most prominent relationships, between the main character Velvet Crowe and various members of her delightfully, tragically screwed up family.

Beware of spoilers and feels.

Rokurou and Shigure:

(Older brother Shigure is on the left; younger brother Rokurou is on the right.)

The first party member that Velvet teams up with is Rokurou Rangetsu, a swordsman whose main motivation is to kill his older brother Shigure in a duel. That doesn’t sound especially ship-worthy, until you take into account the kind of people that the brothers are. For both of them, fighting is their life, their one true love… and each of them anticipates fighting the other brother above anyone else.

The two belonged to a family of honor-bound warriors, but their other brothers died young because of that honor. Only the first and sixth sons lived, and as Shigure was the head of the family with all the adoration that entailed, Rokurou resented him. He started a rumor that Shigure was a traitor, and ended up being sent on a mission to kill Shigure. He failed. He tried and failed again (and again, etc). He literally became a daemon because his desire to defeat his brother was so powerful.

Near the end of the game, they finally get their big, For Real, Rokurou-actually-has-a-shot-this-time duel to the death. And let me just say, both brothers are having the time of their lives. When Rokurou finally manages to deal the killing blow after so, so many failures, it’s obvious that Shigure is immensely proud of how much he’s grown. He’s happy for his brother, and they have a nice little conversation before he dies. That duel was the only possible way to clear the air between them, and since fighting is what they love best, it was… almost heartwarming, in a twisted sort of way.

Later, Rokurou says that when they really put their all into fighting each other, “I got this sharp, vivid feeling that pierced straight to my core. …We wanted to keep on fighting forever, like an unquenchable thirst. That’s a feeling we only got from each other.“ What a suggestive way to put it. Surely the writers didn’t word it that way without realizing the implications. I mean, come on!

Eizen and Edna:

Eizen is another party member of Velvet’s, and we don’t find out for a long while that he has a younger sister. (Technically, as this is a prequel to the game Tales of Zestiria, most people would already know, but still.) When he’s caught writing letters, his friends assume he has a girlfriend. When Eizen is rattled by an enemy’s illusion showing a young girl with an umbrella, again they assume she’s a girlfriend. Finally, he gets frustrated enough to tell them that it’s his younger sister.

In ToB, we don’t meet Edna directly, though she’s influential in ToZ, but still, Eizen speaks of her in such fond terms. Even her flaws, he speaks of in a way that makes it obvious how much he loves her. He also makes it very clear that his little sister is completely off limits to guys. When he’s labeled “protective,” he disputes the terminology, saying he’s more “obsessed.“ Hmmm.

The two aren’t human. Malaks, their species, don’t have biological families. Eizen and Edna were born from the same location… but that alone didn’t make them siblings. Eizen tells the party that there were many others who were born there, but they never felt like family to him. But when Edna was born, he felt it right away, drawn to her, like they were meant to be brother and sister. In a way, that’s even sweeter.

Eizen has a terrible curse on him that brings bad luck on those around him, so he left Edna behind to protect her. He sends her letters out of guilt, even though she never writes back. In a sidequest, it’s revealed that she’s tried to write him back but had trouble expressing her feelings adequately.

A brief digression about Tales of Zestiria, which takes place hundreds of years later (malaks can live a while): eventually, Eizen turns into a feral dragon and Edna is forced to mercy kill him, and it’s super sad. (From what I hear, he’s spared in the anime adaptation, though.) Still, their bond is sweet as heck.

Oscar and Teresa:

Finally, we come to the most explicitly suggestive sibling relationship of the three, between these two lovelies. Blonde hair, green eyes… are they secretly Lannisters? I mean, if the shoe fits…

Oscar and Teresa are members of the Abbey that Velvet is fighting against throughout the game. However, they’re definitely some of the most sympathetic antagonists in the game from the start. Oscar is a noble man in more than just social status, and he truly believes in the cause he fights for. Teresa might seem cold to most people, but she’s warm and loving to Oscar.

The two are half-siblings. Oscar is the second son of the illustrious Dragonia family, and he was often ignored by his parents in favor of his older brother, the family heir. The only person who paid him attention was his older half-sister. As an illegitimate child, Teresa was of a lower social status and was like a servant to the legitimate members of her family, but her little half-brother always treated her with kindness, and as a result, she adored Oscar. Really, really adored him.

(An aside: Teresa and Oscar are explicitly set up as mirrors of Velvet Crowe and her younger brother Laphicet, but I’ll talk about those two in my next post. Still, it’s important to note.)

At some point on one of her birthdays, Oscar gifted Teresa a pair of beautiful blue earrings that he’d been entrusted with. What he didn’t realize at the time was that those earrings were supposed to be a gift for the woman he would eventually marry (a theoretical woman, that is–his only love interest in the canon is Teresa, haha). When Teresa informs him that he was supposed to give the earrings to the most important woman in his life, the woman he loves most in the world… he smiles and says that, to him, Teresa is the woman he loves most.

That’s right, even knowing that they’re supposed to be for his future wife, he asks Teresa to keep them. She wears them every time she appears in the game, and he comments on how well they suit her in their first scene together. If they didn’t look nearly identical, I’m sure a lot of people would’ve assumed they were lovers from their dynamic in that scene. And to be fair… they’re probably right anyway.

Oscar and Teresa are recurring minor antagonists through a lot of the game, and Teresa’s main motivations are getting revenge on Velvet because Velvet wounded Oscar near the start of the game, and otherwise protecting Oscar. When Oscar gets a dangerous assignment that’s basically a suicide mission, Teresa concocts a scheme to keep him safe.

She lets herself be taken hostage by Velvet and her party and volunteers to help them stop Oscar’s mission, on the condition that they spare his life. During this time, Teresa opens up a little bit about her and Oscar’s childhood, strengthening the parallel to Velvet and her own brother.

Then they run into Oscar, and when Oscar is persuaded to drop his weapon to save her life, she breaks free and ends up fusing herself with a daemon (the very thing the Abbey fights so hard against) in order to defeat Velvet and co. and protect Oscar. Even then, she pleads with Oscar to not look at her when she’s so hideous. (Her priorities, tho.) It’s also noteworthy that the daemon is basically the embodiment of lust. Just in case anyone had any doubts about the nature of Teresa’s feelings for her brother.

Velvet incapacitates her, but then Oscar attacks and she ends up killing him in self-defense. Teresa is enraged (“you killed my Oscar!”) and attacks, and Velvet ends up mortally wounding her too. In their dying moments, Teresa crawls over to Oscar, saying she’ll get his wounds all fixed up. She reaches out with the last of her strength and grasps his hand in hers, and they die like that. Lying beside each other in a field of white flowers, Teresa clutching Oscar’s hand.

It’s exactly as tragic as it sounds, and their deaths REALLY shake Velvet. She usually acts like she doesn’t care who she kills (and often really doesn’t care) but in this case, the death of this loving older sister and her beloved younger brother shakes her to her core. (You’ll understand why once I get into the story with her own brother.)

In the end, Oscar and Teresa do kind of get another chance at life. They are reincarnated as two of the “Empyreans,” gods of the world, as their souls that were taken by Velvet are used to revive the Empyreans. So… despite all that sadness, they do get another chance at life, in a way. It’s not touched upon in-game, because the story’s nearing its end then, but this means they can be together again. In a way… they almost end up having a happy ending, right? I can live with that.

–

So that’s all for the more minor sibling relationships in Tales of Berseria. Next time, I’ll get into the main plot and how it concerns Velvet and her family. And let me just forewarn you… it’s a doozy.

What a wonderful write-up!!! Thank you so much for all of the details and pictures. I love your passion for the game and you make a really good case for each of the relationships you mentioned. Shippable AND suggestive. I love them all.

#asks #anonymous #tales of berseria #r: brosis #r: brothers #rokurou and shigure #edna and eizen #oscar and teresa #video games #submission #nr #first post #commentary #noiv

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wildhybrid · 7 years ago

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One of the things the Time of Guidance manga did that I really appreciated was taking a little time to develop a dynamic between Mikleo and Dezel, as well as their struggles in seeking their true paths. In the game, it’s Mikleo who makes the point that Dezel’s plan to save Rose is suicidal, but in the manga, it’s Sorey.

Instead, Mikleo’s part is to convince Sorey not to stand in Dezel’s way. Having listened to Dezel speak some about his past, having observed Dezel’s protective nature in regards to Rose, Mikleo has a deeper understanding than the rest about how Dezel operates and who he is as a person. He understands that in this dire situation, Dezel has a chance to correct his wayward path:

Rose is Dezel’s answer.

One of the key themes of Zestiria is finding one’s own answer or, in long form, finding the path that allows one to be true to one’s self. The reason for this, of course, is that not having a personal answer and allowing too many contradictions in one’s life invites Malevolence. It’s something the manga understood well while the anime missed it almost entirely following the earliest episodes, especially in regards to Rose, Dezel and the Scattered Bones. (If anything, Sorey’s attempt in the anime to convince Rose to cease her assassin work should have turned her malevolent rather than help her.)

In the manga, Mikleo struggled a lot himself with his feelings regarding Sorey and, in a way, his own path. He realized the differences between himself and Sorey, between seraph and human, that their connection can and may be severed with greater ease than he cared to admit at first. That one day, they may not able to be together. In a way, this parallels the dynamic between Rose and Dezel, and how they operated as a team for a long time even though Rose didn’t entirely realize it. Mikleo wanted what was best for Sorey and, ultimately, Dezel wanted the same for Rose. This was their unspoken understanding in one another and proof of their love for the humans who they had been alongside for so long.

(Note: I corrected the speech bubbles in Zaveid’s panel. They were set up to look as though he’s speaking, but it should be Dezel’s dialog, I believe.)

#tales of zestiria #time of guidance #sorey #mikleo #rose #dezel #character analysis #fandom discussion

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alteredphoenix · 3 years ago

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A collage of some of the leading ladies in a few of my stories I’ve drawn throughout the years. From left to right, earliest to newest:

- Ladio, a husky/shepherd mix, who is apprenticing under her adopted mother to be a field medic and eventually accrues an internship at a neighboring country’s military base. She is friends with Shadow Fox. She is one of the few husky anthros that lives in her community, and a rarity as one who is also of mixed heritage. Although she is still a teenager and she is still figuring out what she wants out of life, she enjoys her studies and hopes that one day it will lead her to finding out who her birth parents were and if the fabled Deep Six City, a community comprised solely of huskies, actually exists.

(Notes: Notably the first anthro I’ve made. She’s kind of flip-flopped between being influenced from Star Fox Adventures, Sonic, and - even I’m shocked when I look back on it - Dragon Ball Z (to be fair, it was one of my first anime, back in the day. But since Ladio’s universe is a hot pot of anthros, reptilians, humans, robots and cyborgs, fairies, and aliens and all manner of creatures, I shouldn’t be so surprised.)

- Jinkei Haotome, a high school student who can wield phoenix fire in an urban fantasy world that leans hard into the concept of Guardians of the Four Directions from Asian mythology. Her favorite subject is mathematical topology. Is not Japanese; it’s just a cool name I came up with in middle school, so it’s stuck with her ever since.

(Notes: She’s pretty much a more hot-blooded, foul-mouthed Kusanagi Kyo from King of Fighters but she takes her academic studies more seriously...somewhat. AFAIK I never made a K’ or Iori expy to compliment her; a shame, really. She did start out as a KoF/SNK OC mentoring under the Sakazaki Team, though.)

- Rita Lusaloff, a girl trained in the swordsmanship and born with a left-handed astrolabe, a rare birthright that is only found in left-handed people that are able to use all magical elements. When she was nine her parents gave her up to be fostered by an elf to be cared for and trained in astral arts due to prejudice to those that bear the mark of the astrolabe.

(Notes: She has some heavy Tales of series influence, mainly Abyss...but between her and Luke, she’s much more grounded and is her age (19). There is also some Code Geass inspiration, but I don’t see Rita as someone who would ever be as morally grey as Lelouch is. If I had to describe what Rita’s personality is most like among the Tales of protagonists, I would say Lloyd - but with more education, but both share the same level of idealism.)

- Maaya Lawson (biologically born Maaya Endomere), the leading military commander, or Lord-General, in the country she trained and served - but not of her own will; prior to this, she was a law enforcement officer. She is the youngest person to hold the title, with the misfortune - or, as some would say, good fortune - of being the first human lycan to sit in office; because of ongoing hostilities between humans and non-humans, she is regarded with hostility by most of the public and as a result has only very few friends. She loves wolfdogs and has a pack that is bred for psychic attunement, all of whom serve as emotional support and jogging partners. The white-blue portion of her hair and sharp blue eyes indicates her lycanthropic nature.

(Notes: She surprisingly has origins rooted in Shakespearean tragedy, of all things, but I wanted to try my own take on the tried-and-true anime harems but with an absolutely gay as fuck, romantic as fuck, and eventually down to fuck protagonist who’s buff as fuck and surrounded by hot as fuck women, so I ditched the Shakespeare concept because yuri is better.)

- Airi Lacard (transliterated surname), a young woman who lives alongside wind elementals in her region who take on the form of bald eagles. She has an interest in demonology, cultural history, and theatrical arts. Her destiny is somehow tied to that of the Demon King, Lord Tel Ossei Al-Sharaad, even though he is regarded as a being that is not real and only exists in fiction. As a member born into the animistic culture of the Houses of the Wylde, everyone is given both a true name and a use-name. However, ‘Airi’ is usually reserved as a true-name, and only for those women in positions of power. Airi was born with this name and she would later accept it as her use-name, so technically it is both her true-name and use-name; however, it is said she has a true-name she gave herself, but no one knows what it is, much to the chagrin of her elders, clanmates, and even siblings. For all her love and fondness of birds, she has a wary distrust of great horned owls, the bald eagle’s greatest rival.

(Notes: Airi’s origins have an interesting development. She started out as an Eleanor Hume expy for a Tales of Berseria/Zestiria fanfic that never took off, described as someone who was a ‘hero who would eventually be forgotten by history and known only in folklore’. Then she became her own person but her story was going to be my attempt at a children’s tale...until I made the stunning realization that I needed Airi to suffer immensely, preferably with existential angst, in order to grow, so that idea got quickly nixed. Then the previous iteration ended up making her either die and have paradise eternal throughout all realities, become forgotten by time again or a much happier Highlander expy who would evoke the Ascended To A Higher Plane of Existence, and I hated all of those for depressing me even if the four of the six endings I wrote for her were mostly bittersweet. Thus began my journey to give Airi a much better, fulfilling outcome, which began with watching bald eagle cams back in 2019, which is where I got the idea of attributing them to her. At the same time, I was obsessively putting the entirety of Kikuchi Momoko’s discography on repeat as I dabbled with the worldbuilding in notebooks, so Airi has quite a distinct mid-1980′s to early 1990′s feel that emulates the women of that time period: elegant and mature and kind with a hint of mischievous mirth lurking underneath. Magic Knight Rayearth should also be thanked for inspiration regarding the development of Airi’s family, which is where the idea of her having three older brothers comes from. Hikaru herself also helped flesh Airi out, but whereas Hikaru is very energetic Airi is ten years older and is more composed - at least until there are bald eagles in the picture. Sadly the mecha portions of MKR didn’t carry over to Airi’s story, although I do wish to find a way to include them in some capacity even if the story itself is not mecha. Although the angst stays; you must understand that I can’t just make things a cakewalk for my girls. That’s too easy!)

#armi's ocs #traditional art #traditional sketch #holy shit did this get long #maybe i should make a separate post for a AMA OC edition or summat #if you got all the way to the end - congrats!#if you didn't - well - i hope you liked the art at least!#i wouldn't blame you: this post wasn't meant to be that BIG #i want to draw the other female MCs in my repertoire #as well as do a version for the male MCs too #tfw i realized most of my ladies had the same hairstyle down to a T and panicked #if it's one thing i want to improve on other than sameface it's hairstyles #but i love my long hair - i can't deny it #armi's art #original characters

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arcxnumvitae · 6 years ago

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Tales of Zestiria for Arata

Send me a fandom and I’ll give you five headcanons of my muse in that universe.

Arata would be a fire seraph. Because of the elemental circle (Fire > Wind > Earth > Water > Fire ) he’s weak to water-based artes and works well with wind-based ones. His specialty though, unsurprisingly, is fire.

He mainly wanders the world but generally has to take care not to linger around human settlements since he seems to be exceptionally susceptible to malevolence (something he won’t comment on if it’s ever brought up or asked about). Which is a shame because even if the humans can’t see him he likes being around them and watching them live their lives. And occasionally playfully messing with or helping them he can’t help it

Though seraphs don’t have parents, there was another seraph close to him that was as good as a mother to him when he was young and growing. However, she was turned into a hellion through the actions of a particular human with high resonance and his own seraphim in tow.

Arata, in his quest for revenge, took an oath to give him greater power. In exchange though, and for the conditions of the oath, he took on a higher sensitivity and lower tolerance for malevolence. A gamble, and one that would undoubtedly see him turn into a hellion or a full-blown dragon at the end of his mission, but by then it won’t matter anymore.

Using this blasted chart, his true name is ‘Arata the Resolute’ or roundabout ‘RukimosuAwasa’. Then, going on from how it seemed the dev team then polished the names to look and sound more natural, I’ll go with ‘Rokmos Awasa.’

#thewolfisawake #{Arata Answers #we're lucky personal negative emotions can't turn a seraph into a hellion #or this boy would have been a full on dragon long ago #also yes I went with this icon because he's a fire seraph and it has fire in it #because when else am I /ever/ going to get an excuse to use my Joker icons?

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hypeathon · 7 years ago

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RWBY Animators Spotlight #1: Joel Mann & Harley Dwortz

*Last Updated May 6th, 2019

This is a personal small project I’ve considered doing, inspired by The Canipa Effect’s Animator/Studio Spotlight videos & AnimeAjay’s Dragon Ball Super Animation Supervisors mini-series. I’ve spent a few months researching animators that have worked on the 3-D anime-inspired webseries, RWBY for a while out of desire to acknowledge and better appreciate what they’ve worked on. And as of this post, I decided to take the plunge and make a blog post using info from a combination of tweets from animators, con panel videos, blu-ray/dvd audio commentaries, behind-the-scene videos, and demo reels.

Expect some variation between posts, but the general structure will feature a brief mention of when each animator got involved in the show, an interpretation of their scenes and styles while partially mentioning the 12 principles of animation as a frame of reference, a personal comparison between certain Japanese animators (since many of RWBY’s Production staff take inspiration from anime and are anime fans, I’d figure why not do this), a list of scenes and shots that were either confirmed they worked on or can be presumed they did upon observation (and I could be wrong as to which scenes some animators did) and a demo reel of each animator. Since I’m still new to the idea of making blogs, I have no idea what kind of attention this will get if it gets any at all. Hopefully, people will like it, maybe learn a thing or two. Anyway’s let’s get started!

Joel Mann

To kick-off this series of RWBY animator spotlights, we’ll start with Co-Lead animator of RWBY from volume 3 onward, Joel Mann.

Joel’s time working on RWBY at Rooster teeth started during volume 2 with one of his first scenes being Cinder, Emerald, & Mercury’s meeting in their dorm room, in chapter 5. It’s throughout most of volume 2 that he spent time on interestingly big scenes due to either the importance of said-scene or the challenges doing so. Moments such as Ozpin’s speech in Volume 2 were what fell into the former, where Joel studied footage of speech performances and listened to the audio track for Ozpin so frequently that by the time he did motion capture, he had it memorized. And then moments like the students dancing together at the ballroom in chapter 6 of the same volume fell into the latter of being really challenging. Considering Volume 2 was the first time he did serious animation in a couple of years (as confirmed in the vol 2 blu-ray animators audio commentary), his character acting turned out pretty decently.

Since then, he has either spent timing doing motion capture as characters like Tyrian or spends time on action sequences. The first fight he got to animate was Team RWBY & Team JNPR fighting off every Grimm in Beacon in Chapter 12 and it was one of the rare occasions where fight sequences were not largely done by either Monty Oum or Shane Newville (though the former did animate the Team CFVY part). And by volume 3, he would become co-lead animator, sharing the position mainly with animator Dustin Matthews. Since then, his traits with animating fight scenes have started to fully mold. From the Qrow vs Winter fight to Ruby vs Neo & Torchwick to Weiss & Blake vs the Atlessian Knights & the White Fang to Ozpin and Cinder’s face-off (the latter two he was given a week to do each), he increasingly pushed the envelope of squash & stretch and staging, the former animation principle he utilizes on characters to create a zipping, flashy speed. Joel only goes further on the exaggeration by the volume 4 Character Short and Chapter 1 of Volume 4, specifically with Ruby’s semblance..

In terms of the latter principle, staging, this can be seen when characters in Joel’s sequences are making various stances, to the point where they sometimes pause for a split-second. This combination of staging and squash-&-stretch are what have made the bulk of how Joel has approached dynamism into action he has animated, though this has garnered mixed feedback from the fan base. Some have heavily praised him strongly by even mistakenly assuming he “worked closely with Monty”, which was hardly ever the case while others have criticized him for not resembling the way Monty animated enough and being too “stop-&-go” or having characters “teleport” too much. Ignoring the fact it’s in an animator’s nature as essentially an artist to possess and develop his/her own identity when approaching a sequence, something Monty Oum himself was always for, Joel has simply been honing his craft the way he would feel makes sense. When he has characters do certain stances or poses, it leaves a memory in the viewer’s eye whether it’s Ruby making hang time while having her feet planted on the bottom end of the sickle part of her weapon or making a quick sliding rotation as she lands before stopping or Ren staying crouched onto the Petra Gigas’s arm before jumping back and back flipping. Best case scenario, you get something like the wide-angle shot in the volume 5 Weiss Character short where Weiss both swiftly and elegantly lunges at each and every Beowulf.

Of all the animators to compare him to in the anime industry, his works come off similar to Arifumi Imai, who’s known to contributing scenes in shows like Attack on Titan, One-Punch Man and Sengoku Basara. Imai, like Joel Mann, uses a lot of zipping and trails through flames, smoke, smears or other visual effects, as well as exaggerating the human body to an absurd but effective degree (yes, that guy cart-wheeled the horse he mounted on). Another example would be animator, Masayuki Kunihiro, who has consistently been working on anime projects from studio Ufotable such as Tales of Zestiria the X, Fate/Zero, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works and God Eater. As one could see from those examples, Kunihiro shares that sense of staging through extreme poses and stances before having characters strike and lunge with that sense of distortion found in squash and stretch.

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Here are a list of confirmed/presumed scenes Joel Mann worked on:

Cinder talking with Mercury & Emerald about Pyrrha - Vol 2, Ch 5

Team RWBY at the dance - Vol 2, Ch 6

Ozpin’s speech - Vol 2, Ch 8

Ozpin approving Team RWBY’s Search & Destroy mission request - Vol 2, Ch 8

Weiss, Blake & Yang’s discussion at the campfire - Vol 2, Ch 10

Team RWBY & JNPR fighting off the Grimm at Beacon - Vol 2, Ch 12

Parts of Qrow vs Winter fight - Vol 3, Ch 3

Part of the Cinder, Emerald and Mercury vs Amber fight Scene - Vol 3, Ch 7

Weiss and Blake vs Atlessian knights and White Fang - Vol 3, Ch 10

In the Volume 3 blu-ray/dvd Director’s Audio Commentary, Kerry Shawcross and Miles Luna referred to Joel’s time working on this scene as, “the Joel effect”, since he did this scene within a week.

Majority of the Ruby vs Torchwick and Neo fight - Vol 3, Ch 11

Between the Volume 3 audio commentaries, Gray said about 10% of the fight was animated by Monty whereas Joel said the Ruby vs Neo parts were what Monty Oum did.

At least a third of Joel’s time spent animating the fight were manually applying hair and clothing physics in every shot. This was a challenge due the setting being windy in the sky.

Ozpin vs Cinder - Vol 3, Ch 12

Ruby slaying each Beowulf (presumed) - Vol 4 Ruby Character Short

Ruby fighting the Beringel until she fell through the collapsing roof (presumed) - Vol 4 Ruby Character Short

Provided mo-cap of the Beringel using child crutches

Team RNJR counterattacking the Petra Gigas after Jaune lays out his plan (presumed) - Vol 4. Ch 1

Part of the Qrow vs Tyrian fight - Vol 4, Ch 7

Wide-angle shot of Weiss striking each Beowulf and sprouting icicles from the ground - Vol 5 Weiss Character Short

Yang clashing fists with the Ursa and breaking its arm (presumed) - Vol 5 Yang Character Short

Part of Raven vs Cinder fight - Vol 5, Ch 13

Harley Dwortz

Next on the animator spotlight is Harley Dwortz. Having been involved in Rooster Teeth animated projects since Red vs Blue season 10, Harley was one of the first animators brought on during volume 1. When fans look back at volumes 1 & 2, they tend to refer Monty Oum’s own fight sequences or scenes that match that presentation from certain other animators. That may be what made the characters introduced to the audience what they were in combat, but animators like Harley brought out everything else about the characters behavioral-wise. It’s in such non-action scenes where Harley shines as an animator.

When Monty, Miles, and Kerry developed and fleshed out the story and forged volume 1′s script between June 2012 and April 2013, they established various traits about the the main cast such as Weiss and Blake preferring to drink coffee and tea respectively and Yang being sensitive about others messing with her hair. However, animators such as Harley Dwortz added a lot of expression to whichever characters they animated. This is most evident with Weiss Schnee, who has an especially girly and sassy body language that Harley puts forth a lot of thought into in her assigned sequences. In chapter 7, as janky and rough the motion capture was, the idea both Weiss and Ruby’s attitudes as they bicker with each other is made evident from the way Weiss walks in response to being told she’s bossy. In chapter 8, Weiss emotes an exaggerated distress as she falls which then leads to Jaune’s enthusiastic response as he seized the opportunity to rescue her. Even the team RWBY dorm room scene in chapter 2 of volume 2 brought forth both rather unusual and yet fairly appropriate character acting from Weiss between her thinking seriously while balancing on a chair to her shyly tip-toeing to recover and maintain her composure, a silly scene that required a bit of “trust” on Kerry Shawcross’s part.

She was even subject to praise by the late Monty Oum in the volume 2 blu-ray directors audio commentary, feeling encouraged to improve the rigging or virtual skeletons to put simply on the characters. This even extended to her adding animation tricks in the more limited Poser software that Monty himself never thought of, such as Neptune’s head-shaking in chapter 4 of volume 2 and Ruby’s arm flailing as she got the choke hold from Yang in chapter 7 of the same volume. Harley goes that extra mile with expressing the right gestures for the right characters, whether it’s Pyrrha frantically moving back and forth to guide Jaune who clings on to a Deathstalker, Neptune being moved around by Ruby while smiling and being still like a cardboard standee, Ruby being awkwardly fidgety when attempting to strike a conversation at her Mom’s grave or Ren and Nora’s rather out-of-sync waltz which follows with Penny’s rather adorable dance (which of course, got a laugh out of Miles Luna).

It’s worth putting into context why any of this matters. The character acting established by animators like Harley is what set the foundation for how these characters would be depicted in mixed media projects be it in manga installments or in Blazblue Cross Tag Battle. In the case of the latter, Weiss’s idle animation where she nonchalantly checks her nails came from something Harley herself did. This can even apply to animal characters like Zwei who was the first person to animate the character and according to Monty, she and animator Dustin Matthews previously worked on animating animals in The Sims 3: Pets Expansion. It doesn’t matter if it’s scenes from the earlier volumes or in the ones past the narrative time skip like Qrow and Raven’s meeting at the tavern or Ruby laughing at Jaune’s hoodie as her head inflates. Harley takes pride as an animator thinking about how to express each character, even when they’re just standing and talking.

Whenever she’s not preoccupied working on RWBY or Red vs Blue, this attention to character acting from her is also very present in every skit she has animated in RWBY Chibi. In the Shadow People skit in episode 5 of season 1, Harley gives Weiss an extra bounce in her steps which would seem too silly if the character models were more normally proportioned but make perfect sense as their super-deformed versions. Same goes for Ozpin in the Director Ozpin skit episode 1 of Season 2, where he shuffles his feet around as he walks like something out of a Charlie Brown cartoon. That’s not to say she constantly exaggerates in RWBY Chibi, as the focus is on making the animation believable and engaging in the context of the show’s aesthetic, be it the way Ozpin’s cheeks move as he whistles or the way Weiss’s ponytail slips off of Ruby’s hand.

Harley’s quirky and expressive animations would be comparable to certain animators that have done similar scenes in the popular, on-going, magical girl Precure anime franchise, namely animator Yuki Hayashi. You can watch Hayashi’s own scenes on mute with no context as to what the characters are talking about and still get a good grasp of their chemistry and personalities. He has also done some freelance work, animating in shows from other studios, including the popular, meme-worthy, dancing sequences in he ending theme of the first season of Blood Blockade Battlefront. Another animator known for great character acting is Norimitsu Suzuki. Although he’s known for bigger things like his smoothly drawn liquid, explosion and smoke effects and 3-D-like rotation, he is also great at animating characters express themselves. If you’ve seen an ending theme from a Studio Bones title like the 2003 version of Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater or Star Driver or the first ending theme in Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear-Card Arc, that’s where Suzuki’s knack for having characters walking, running, dancing or whatever other gestures is best seen.

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Here are a list of confirmed/presumed scenes Harley Dwortz worked on:

Ruby and Weiss arguing about each other’s personalities - Vol 1, Ch 7

Jaune holding on to the Deathstalker Grimm’s tail until he got flown to the sky - Vol 1, Ch 7

Jaune picking up Weiss as she falls but they both fall anyway - Vol 1, Ch 8

Weiss asking Blake what’s wrong and the girls discussing about the White Fang* - Vol 2, Ch 2

Harley mentioned how the part where Ruby, Weiss and Yang walked into the room was difficult because of how they weren’t really walking into the space they’re in. She had to stitch in mo-cap of walks together.

Animating Weiss zipping off the chair and back in position was also difficult due to the hair simulation on Poser only registering one character at a time and she used three Weiss models for each time she zipped across.

In the Volume 2 Director’s Audio Commentary, this is what Monty Oum and Kerry Shawcross had to say about Harley in this scene:

Monty: “She puts in that extra mile to put in like the asymmetry and like, she records her own face {Kerry: Yeah, she does.} and then acts the camera.” Kerry: “If you go look at her, for like, from her timelines, the end of it is just like her face, like, just shot at her desk. Of just like, her acting things out.” Monty: “I also, y'know, I, I, I, I’ve learned from watching them work on this stuff that I need to do a better job of like, making the rigs. Suddenly I’m in the animation commentary, make the rigs more capable (Miles chuckles.) of them to allow to do this kinda work because it’s like…”

Team RWBY going over their White Fang Investigation plan until Sun and Neptune interrupt - Vol 3, Ch 3

Ruby decides who Sun and Neptune can pair up with on the White Fang investigation - Vol 2, Ch 3

Harley, like the other animators, was given freedom on how she wanted to animate the scene and thus had Neptune frozen stiff and swaying when moved next to Yang. According to Kerry Shawcross in the Volume 2 Director’s Audio Commentary:

Kerry: We have a pretty big policy of, if an animator has an idea just like, just go ahead and just like rough it out, just like we’ll watch it, we’re, we’re probably gonna go with it. ‘Cause that was Harley when she was like “Can I make Neptune like, stiff when she pushes him?” And I was like “Yeah, absolutely you can.”

Jaune approaching Pyrrha in a dress and asking her to dance - Vol 2, Ch 7

Between all four of the Volume 2 dvd/blu-ray audio commentary tracks, It’s unclear whether she did the actual Team JNPR dance itself or if it was Monty Oum as the fandom presumes

Jaune mentioning to Pyrrha that he has 7 sisters - Vol 2, Ch 7

Part of Zwei’s introduction - Vol 2, Ch 8

Oobleck bonking the one White Fang member as they board the train - Vol 2, Ch 11

Ruby and Oobleck facing one of the Mechs - Vol 2, Ch 11

Ironwoods forces mowing down the Grimm at Beacon - Vol 2, Ch 12

Opening scene of Ruby at Summer’s grave - Vol 3, Ch 1

Sage Ayana and Dew Gayl’s brief bout - Vol 3, Ch 2

Scarlet and Neptune’s brief fight (with help of Carmichael Simon and another stunt coordinator) - Vol 3, Ch 2

Harley stated how unlike a non-fight scene where camera layout, prop and models are all set for her, in fight scenes have less information to go off of aside from how the modeling vaguely moves and thus animating can feel “nebulous” as she phrased it,

The latter-half of Weiss, Winter and Ruby’s conversation from the slap onward - Vol 3, Ch 3

Weiss & Winter’s conversation about her training - Vol 3, Ch 4

Yang and Neon talking before the match - Vol 3, Ch 5

Mo-cap for Neon - Vol 3, Ch 5

Pyrrha initially agreeing to being the Fall maiden - Vol 3, Ch 6

Opening scene where Salem and Team WTCH have their meeting - Vol 4, Ch 1

Team RNJR with the blacksmith - Vol 4, Ch 1

Weiss talking to her father in his office - Vol 4, Ch 2

Raven talking to Qrow about whether Salem has the relic - Vol 4, Ch 4

Weiss talking to Henry Marigold at the reception - Vol 4, Ch 6

Kid Ren and Nora hiding from the Nevermore until it leaves - Vol 4, Ch 10

Harley’s most recent Demo Reel:

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#rwby #rwby5 #rwby analysis #crwby #rwby6 #animators spotlight #animators #spotlight #joel mann #joel #mann #harley #dwortz #harley dwortz

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carnelianwings · 7 years ago

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So I finished the Halloween event - first off, if Leon tanks hits like a wet paper bag, then Judas tanks hits like wet single ply toilet paper. I still love him though. I wish Kongwai had some stronger AoE spells for his 4* equipment - the faster cast time is nice, but it makes him a bit of a liability actually during the challenge quest run. I actually had to resort to doing 2 separate runs per boss for the Formal Style and Student & Teachers stages instead of having both event characters in the stage for the entirety of the event. Naturally, the rest of the team got filled out by Team Zestiria because, well, who else was I going to call in to help out with extra hard boss stages? XD Rest behind a cut for length and Destiny 1/2 spoilers haha.

I think my favorite part of the entire event is Judas trying to be Best Uncle while still being the King of Tsundere. You can definitely tell he’s grown a lot as a person between, well, dying as Leon and reincarnating as Judas and traveling with Kyle. I give a lot of credit to the writers because the entire event makes it clear that he’s his own person. Like, yes, he’ll deny it until he’s blue in the face that he’s actually a reincarnated Leon Magnus, but even just in the ways he reacts to everyone, his way of quietly trying to do things behind the scenes to make Kyle happy, it all sets him apart from the much more forward and generally more in-your-face-tsun Leon.

And of course, Judas would give Stahn the anguished look, because for one thing, there’s still a part of him that’s Leon in a mask that . . . really can’t even qualify as one, and secondly, in the timeline he’s familiar with, Stahn’s dead. Shipping reasons aside, Stahn really did go out of his way in Destiny (at least, in the PS2 remake) to befriend him, even when everyone else in the party had written Leon off as an irredeemable asshole. And I love that Stahn, being, well, Stahn goes out of his way to befriend Judas too. Actually that entire conversation just punched me in the feels just because this time it isn’t so much Leon is determined to not trust anyone, but because Judas is too heavily weighed down by everything he did and thinks he’s worthless because he betrayed Stahn and the others.

And then, of course, the sub event skit with Judas is just perfect. Judas, Leon, and Marian all at once, with Judas giving Leon Life Advice that pretty much boils down to “Hold on tightly to everything you cherish in this new world” which is what you’d expect for someone who really has lost it all - Judas knows he has no place in this world, he feels like he has no worth (even history has deemed him to be a traitor to the heroes, no matter what his motivation might have been in that moment), and even here, in Tir Na Nog, he can’t really even begin to live a life of his own because Leon’s here too. And no lie, I have to wonder what he was thinking about when he politely declines Marian’s offer for tea - does he stop to think about how good her tea was? Does he wish he could have a cup, one more time like he used to when he was still Leon Magnus? There’s just so much there to think about, and it also makes me realize I really should pick up Destiny 2 again and actually finish it this time, haha.

#soymilkheaven plays tales of the rays #this event is top notch like all the others #i'm really sad they couldn't keep the servers going #i wish bamco had done the same thing feh and gbf did #just drop in an english patch from the get go

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mizume · 7 years ago

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Mizme Finished Berseria (Zestiria 2.0?)

Holy hell this game is such an improvement

After Zestiria, which as we’ve mentioned really just serves as a 40 hour advertisement for Berseria and the anime adaptation, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect out of the followup title.

Well, nothing too complicated: Berseria is an incredibly vast improvement over its predecessor with just a handful of small hiccups.

Going straight into a classic breakdown and then finishing with a handful of gripes.

Combat and Gameplay

Berseria made a significant overhaul to the button layouts of the LMBS combat system but there was really just two very simple changes that returns LMBS to its proper fast paced form:

1. We’re not limited to a 4 hit maximum chain

2. The branching pathways for arte inputs are completely customizable.

What does this mean in Tales of terms. It means you can set each individual node of your arte trees to any arte you know and the revamped soul system functions much more similarly to Xillia’s base AP system then Graces or Zestirias AP/SP systems respectively.

What does this mean in laymans terms. It means you have so much more control over your combo construction and combat feels more reminiscent of Xillia, meaning face paced intensely reactive battles in which you have (near) complete control over what you’re doing.

I’d like to take a moment to explain the new LMBS and go into why its such a significant improvement.

In this new system, artes are determined by a maximum count of Souls. Starting with 3 and gaining up to 5 Souls dictate your maximum current arte chain length. Chains can be cancelled using Soul Breaks, the new LMBS battle gimmick for Berseria. With this system, each character has a unique Soul Break arte and the arte chain returns to the 0 position. Souls can be gained in the heat of combat by inflicting stun and other status ailments or by landing a finishing blow on enemies.

What this means is we now have an insane system in which you can use 5 artes, Break Soul cancel, use 4 more artes (assuming you don’t regain the expended soul withing those 4 artes) Break Soul cancel again, perform 3 artes and finish with a Mystic Arte (which restores Soul and expends Blast gauge, a carry over mechanic from Zestiria).

The sheer amount of variability is incredibly reminiscent of the free for all LMBS of Xillia and by extension its predecessors Vesperia and pre Vesperia tales games.

The only clunk in the road is the awkward remapping of attacks. All the face buttons have been rehashed to attack commands in order to allow the player character to be in a constant free run state freeing them from the 2D axis as a default. This necessitates that we maintain the 4 arte node tree from Graces/Zestiria. While the new system is incredibly gratifying, I feel that retaining the directional inputs combined with the 4 attack buttons and removing the node tree entirely would have been incredible. Absolute freedom of arte inputs is the only thing stopping Berseria’s combat system from standing with Vesperia and Xillia2 as the best and cleanest combat in the Tales series.

It’s almost as though what i’m saying is the more we emulate older LMBS systems the better the game works because we know that the system works. How strange. Bring back classic LMBS i’m begging here Bamco.

The Plot

So, this is a bit of a mixed bag for me. The first half and last fourth of Berseria’s plot are carried by solid world building, good character driven story, and Velvet being metal as fuck.

There’s a chunk in the middle where it strays just a bit. Can you guess where that is, yeah its where all of the Zestiria allusions start coming out.

Berseria interestingly has the same weird problem that Zestiria had albeit to a much lesser extent. It, in a strange roundabout way, felt like a Zestiria sequel. There are so many allusions to Zestiria in the back half of the game to the point where I guess its assumed that you’ve played and finished Zestiria. This in it of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it feels odd coming from a game that isn’t meant to be treated as a proper prequel.

For example as Scrubbing and I have discussed: Xillia2 harkens back to Xillia1 constantly, but that’s to be expected. Its in the title, Xillia2 would imply and assume that their core audience has played Xillia1. Berseria isn’t titled Zestiria2. The plot should be proper and function as in independent being without assumption that you’ve played Zestiria.

Now i’m not talking about small easter egg stuff. I love that stuff and it made me incredibly glad to find them. Small things like the town that would later become Lastonbell, Lothringen tower that would later crumble and become the City of Lohgrin. That stuff is great.

What i’m referring to are major callbacks and emotional pulls that only work if you’ve played both games. The Edna reveal, and the Maotelus reveal at the end are the two that come to mind immediately. Those moments really don’t make any sense unless you’re aware of the context from Zestiria.

It’s a very minor gripe, and ultimately it actually retroactively defines Zestiria’s world building much more clearly and makes it stronger as a result.

I few things that deserve mentioning since I bitched about them so much in the last review:

Berseria’s villains were standard fare. They’re an incredibly improvement on Heldalf but Artorius is a villain subtype we’ve seen much better realized in past Tales games and Innominat 100% feels like young Yggdrasil right down to “but sisterrrrrrrr”.

The retcons and explanations of how malevolence works feels like a double edged blade. On the one hand it again retroactively makes Zestiria’s world building so much stronger (which mind you is still ridiculous). But at the same time, having such a basic “good vs. evil” mechanic in the world build feels very very limiting. Its much better explained but still feels clunky. These are things that Zestiria should have simply done properly in the first place.

In the end, Berseria’s plot is solid and driven by a good narrative with the proper twists and plot building that Zestiria so desperately needed.

The Cast

OH BABY HERE WE GO. Berseria’s cast is great. That’s basically all that needs to be said. It finally feels like we’re playing a Tales game. We’ve got a great set of characters here each working under their own motivations with goals and backstories that influence their decisions and free will.

I think I can say that Velvet has shoved Yuri off his pedestal of being the most metal Tales protagonist to date with an absolutely incredible and over the top drive for revenge.

One of the key themes in Berseria is “to choose ones own path” and it shows here. Its incorporated in different ways for every character and it manifests as something that feels organic and smooth. Its a heavy contrast to Zestiria where it always feels like the party is together simply because they have to be.

If I have any complaints at all here it would be Magilou, simply because the incorporation of her backstory feels very jarring. It kind of comes across all at once with little explanation similar to the weird and jarring plot reveals in Zestiria. Aside from that, Eizen’s Creed, Rokurou’s conviction, Eleanor’s search for her own truth, Velvet’s quest for closure, and Laphicet’s growth as a person are all recurrent themes that are incorporated into the main storyline. It feels great. It feels like we’re playing a Tales game.

Conclusion

Berseria is a game that retroactively makes Zestiria better. But is perhaps ultimately made somewhat worse by its connection to Zestiria (jury’s out on that one to be honest)

It’s good that Bamco has finally found an iteration of this combat system that feels like it actually works, and the plot and world building feel like a proper return to form for the Tales series.

Just a handful of things stop this from being within my top tier of Tales games, most of which involve the strange nature of Zestiria and Berseria’s development. They really do feel like they were intended to be a single game, like notes got lost during development and ended up with wrong development teams.

A great beginning entry to the series and a good JRPG all around.

#Mizume Reviews #more unedited rambling #this is going to happen whenever a game makes me think about its development #for better or for worse

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mozillogames · 7 years ago

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An Interesting and Unique Tale in Tales of Berseria

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Tales of Berseria is a strong addition to the Tales of franchise and works with interesting plot directions and delightful characters to provide a solid installment to the series. Its action-based combat is fluid and energetic and has enough of a learning curve that you’ll find yourself slowly building more and more of a combo the further you progress into the game making you look back at your earlier gameplay in absolute shame.

The Tales of franchise has a shaky history. Despite being one of the longer running JRPG series, there have been a lot of installments that have fallen flat rather than standing out to be something truly notable. Despite this, the action combat has been a staple of the series and it’s progressed from a single axis of movement and engagement to a more dynamic system with a lot more free movement on the battlefield, like what you’ll see in Berseria.

Tales of Berseria’s unique selling point, as it were, is that the main party is formed of ne’er do wells such as a man who refers to himself as the “Grim Reaper”, a couple of demons and a lady who demands that she’s an “evil witch”. Your epic quest for justice, mutual understanding, saving the world or maybe even saving a princess isn’t present in this game, instead your journey is one based on revenge and payback, which is basically another way of saying revenge.

But why so much revenge? What could someone have done to earn such ire from our protagonist? It’s simple really, he killed her brother, despite being a weird adoptive father figure, tried to kill Velvet, turned her into a monster and then proceeded to throw her in jail where she was left to rot and eat demons for the rest of her life. He’s not a nice man. But obviously this wouldn’t apply to those you come across in your quest, they honestly couldn’t care less, but they all have similar tales and dark histories that all drive them in their individual stories.

For each member in your party there’s a separate story going on in the world, but it’s not such a jarring clash of tales where you find yourself having to stop the revenge train because Magilou needs to read a book, or something, instead there’s a high level of crossover with everything that takes place. While breaking into a monastery might be wonderful in your quest to kill Artorius, it also has a potential to give some information that’s very useful for Eizen so he’s got some reason to hang out as well.

Their motives for taking part in this journey could be anything, Velvet wants to stab Artorius in the face, Rokurou wants to stab his brother in the face, Eizen wants to find his captain (which later involves wanting to stab someone in the face) and Magilou also has some grudge against someone, which may or may not devolve into a desire to stab them in the face. Have you realized that you’re not playing the “good guys” yet? The point is that on your large quest in Tales of Berseria you’ll be terrorizing towns, burning down warehouses and killing those who get in your way. Your team will do anything and everything in order to achieve their goals and it was a refreshing change of pace in an RPG where the characters don’t talk about virtue and righteousness, instead it’s a lot more morally grey and it’s one of the stronger points of the game, even if I have mostly talked about stabbing and burning things.

While the exorcists in theory fight demons and provide safety to settlements, there’s a high level of corruption and abuse of power. While there are some exorcists who are virtuous and care for others, there are also exorcists who strongly believe in the enslavement of malakhim and see them as nothing but sub-human tools. Meanwhile with the main party, well, they’re evil. Velvet has little to no care for human life if it means getting ever closer to taking down Artorius and getting her revenge. Even her actions that lead to trying to save the world are driven by this goal, with the logic being that by weakening Artorius she can finally end him. That said, they are also inadvertently ending the oppressive nature and lust for power of the exorcists, you know, swings and roundabouts.

The characters don’t just stop with having interesting stories, they also have, well, character. There are an awful lot of hijinks that happen with this odd ensemble of personalities and it works exceptionally well. Due to most of the characters being devilish in some way or another there’s plenty of banter and comical conversations that kept me very entertained throughout most of the game. The optional skits can see your group discussing the exact type of beetle you might have, devolving into two fully grown men almost having a childish fight as they try and prove who knows the most about beetles.

There are odd moments where the young child of the group ends up having growing pains of sorts as two of the female characters are overly protective of him, viewing him as a younger sibling, but at the same time getting too close for his own comfort. Then there’s Magilou who just likes being an agent of chaos. The characters and the writing surrounding them may not make them seem human or real, but is ultimately enjoyable and keep things going at a fast pace, even when the main plot begins to grind to a halt.

There’s an unfortunate section of the game that feels like needless padding. It’s a very JRPG thing to do where the party realize they need to break the seven seals, collect the seven chaos emeralds or attune the seven elements and several hours are spent exclusively on just that, but with little natural progression in between and Tales of Berseria is yet another guilty party in this. The story and progression almost literally grinds to a halt towards the end of the game as you work through the run up to the final chapters of the game. It was a segment that became a struggle to get through, mostly down to the slowed pace and aimless nature, as your characters literally just go to random spots and hope something might happen. That’s actually the story.

When you’re not enjoying the mixture of blind rage and light banter of your party as they work through the story, you engage in combat an awful lot. Building on from previous Tales of games the combat uses an intense system based around trying to get and maintain combos all while shouting out the names of your moves and screaming a lot. The combat system can seem outwardly complex, but by the end of the game you’ll be dodging as if it was your full time job all the while kicking a squid in the chops and devouring its essence in order to keep your chop kicking going and finishing off with a big mystic arte for good measure. Looking back over my own gameplay the combat from later in the game is an incomprehensible mess, but when you’re in the moment it all makes sense and it’s like you see the source code, meanwhile when I saw my combat from the start of the game it was sluggish and lumbering. When a combat system starts off as alien but quickly becomes second nature it’s a wonderful realization and it’s something that definitely occurs in Tales of Berseria, and that’s without even once looking into the minor stat increases you can jump into with the equipment system.

Tales of Berseria takes place in the same world as Tales of Zestiria, but the locations all have different names as well as the terminology all being completely different. That said there is still a delightful feeling for series veterans when a location becomes familiar to you or you see the origin of something that appears in the earlier game. This continues into the side quests of Berseria that sees the introduction of some familiar characters as well as allusions to events that may come to pass in or around Zestiria. That said, there’s a severe lack of notable characters in the game. Outside of the main characters and the main villains who all sneer at you throughout the game there are almost no memorable characters or interactions. Everyone begins to feel faceless and unimportant, mostly because they are.

Tales of Berseria is still a great JRPG. Its story has a unique twist on it that was a pleasant surprise and didn’t even have too many bleeding heart moments. The characters and their interparty conversations were a true delight to behold a lot of the time as they just seemed so out there but also odd when you remember that your party are literal demons, a reaper and an evil witch. The combat is fun and engaging and the natural learning curve works great to keep things fresh, but also challenging. Sadly a lot of the bosses are all too human in nature or just a squid, but bigger now, which then means I don’t actually remember any of the bosses outside of the individual characters I fought, and even then I only remember the main characters.

The story is interesting and involves a lot of intertwined narratives, but does have moments where it really slows down to a tragic level. The main characters and villains are all really interesting and fun, but anyone memorable rapidly falls short at that list, there’s no Yeager and his daughters Droite and Gauche, like in Vesperia, and it does lead to the story turning into a bit of a haze. The story was great while I was there, for the most part, but sadly it does turn into a memory of a vague, enjoyable haze. Which may not be the best endorsement but it’s probably the best Tales of game for some time.

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mister-69 · 7 years ago

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Why I fell in and out of love with the Tales Series

Ah, Tales. I am both glad and bitter that they are now successful and popular today. They're still pumping titles every now and then, and all of them are being localized, which is great for the fanbase outside of Japan. I still enjoy their older games like Rebirth, Destiny R, and Symphonia, but I hate touching anything released after Vesperia. They did so many things right and their games had elements no other JRPG had, but they were even better at going downhill and ruining their series.

This is a historical account of my experience with Tales. What I loved about it, where things started to go wrong, and where I finally let go of a series I once loved.

Like many of the western fans here, my first exposure to Tales was Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube. I walked into a GameStop with my brothers, and on their demos I saw the opening of Tales of Symphonia. My first exposure to Tales was also my first exposure to an anime RPG. As someone who enjoys both video games and anime, it was an easy choice to buy this game.

I quickly popped it in and played with my brother and it was an experience I will never forget.

CHARACTERS/SKITS:

Tales has a unique cast of characters in the sense that they have way more dialogue and lines than your average RPG-- and therefore come off as having more personality and life. This is thanks to a staple trademark of Tales called Skits. Skits are optional dialogues throughout the entire game-- all you do is press a button and watch them interact.

Half of the time, they react to recent events in the storyline and the other half they're having light-hearted conversations about anything. The topics of these conversations wouldn't normally be brought up in a main storyline, so you find out about your characters than an average RPG.

In most RPGs, characters don't talk as much except during cutscenes and this can sometimes make the adventure seem lifeless. But the skits are like banter you have with your friends on the way to a restaurant. It gives the feeling that your characters are hanging out during their adventures. There's a life and personality to Tales characters normally not found in other RPGs.

Skits is a concept that was ahead of its time. Most Tales characters fall into some archetype which is not a bad thing, it's just unavoidable. But skits allow Tales characters to branch away from their categories by giving them more personality, development, and background.

As a gamer, it's easy to become emotionally attached to these characters and sympathize with their struggle. It's also why fans favor Tales characters over other RPGs. Whether Tales characters are better RPG characters in the genre is something I will debate against, but I can see why many others believe so.

BATTLE SYSTEM:

The absolute biggest draw of the Tales series is their battle system- characterized by their trademarked LMBS (Linear Motion Battle System). In all of their Tales games, 2D or 3D, Tales characters are controlled in real time combat.

Players can move, block, attack, or cast magic at will. This is a huge deviation in the JRPG formula, in which most of the combat is turn-based. Furthermore, Tales was way ahead of its real-time combat rivals because of how developed their LMBS are. Combos can be strung together, Skills added depth and options for each character, strategies can be set for AI-controlled characters, and guarding options all make the game more than just a button-masher.

In most of the Tales games, up to 4 party members can be deployed on the battlefield. And this meant multiplayer was possible-- which meant that for once, an RPG can be finally played with someone else! I played the early half of the series with my brother (and sometimes our cousin). It was run to riff on funny parts of the game but even more fun to play with someone else. Multiplayer made Tales even more of an enjoyable experience and I am sure many others can relate.

Unlike most video game series that upgraded the same battle system, Tales was pretty daring and significantly changed up the formula. Rebirth had 3 lines and cooldown timers for Arts, Destiny R had aerial combat, and Xillia introduced tag team combos. Even the sub-systems such as skills, learnable Arts, movement options, and combo system changed.

At the end of the day, each battle system shared the same concept of free-styled combat and that's what mattered most. The ability to string together your own combos and strategize your party members made the games endlessly fun to play.

WANTING MORE OF THE SAME:

After Symphonia, I craved for more of the same and imported the rest of the Tales games on the PS2: Destiny 2, Rebirth, Destiny Remake. I even imported the PS2 version of Symphonia because of its extras over the GC version. We imported Abyss because at the time, its localization was uncertain.

Even if I didn't understand the storyline, there were entire translated scripts of the game that we read while playing the game. But more than that, we played for the battle system and there were no regrets whatsoever.

For the first time, I joined a forum for Tales games and interacted with other people, joined in on speculations, had embarrassing (but high-level) debates, and constantly tried to keep up with the next Tales game.

Over time however, the Tales series changed in many ways and so do did my love for the series. Changes in management, business practices, and development gradually transformed the series into something else. I couldn't get into the characters anymore, or enjoy its battle system, and eventually I stopped playing the series altogether.

RECYCLING/REUSING CONTENT:

One of their earliest hallmarks of disappointment was how often they used the same material repeatedly. At first, they used to be a nostalgic reference to a classic Tales character but when you do it again for the next 3 games, it becomes obvious that it's just laziness at this point.

The earliest traces of this low budget tactic begins with Abyss. In Tales, Mystic Artes were ultimate attacks with amazing visuals. But in Abyss, many of their Mystic Artes were similar in visuals-- a circular glyph that deals a radius of damage.

Although it was not a huge deal at the time, it was the beginning of a trend. Namco re-used Abyss' aesthetics for the Radiant Mythology series, Tales of VS, and Tales of Innocence. DLC costumes that were first used in Vesperia are still being used 4 games later in Berseria. And instead of coming up with new Mystic Artes, Namco just slaps on old ones onto new characters even if they didn't suit the character.

What used to be nostalgic references to classic characters now became a cheap and lazy way to add content to their newer games. Ordinarily, there is no problem with a nostalgic cameo but when they are used repeatedly, game after game, then it's just obvious laziness at this point.

DECLINING SUBSTANCE:

After Vesperia, their games started to become hallow in both nature and substance, riddled with poor game design, or both. Recycled content was only one of the many factors. The bigger concern was cutting out traditional content in the games and selling them off as DLC.

Although Vesperia was the first Tales to have DLC costumes, they had the most in-game costumes of any Tales game to date. DLC costumes were not a controversial issue until Graces, which only had 2-3 sets of costumes for each character. The majority of available costumes were sold as DLC. This DLC trend went into full force with Xillia, which only had 4 costumes total. The traditional swimwear set were absent from the game and with that, the staple comic relief swimsuit scenes.

To make matters worse, these costumes were developed before released but were released on a schedule. So even if players wanted to pay for DLC content, they wouldn't have access to them right away. And finally in Zestiria, they took it to the next step and made DLC out of Artes, Mystic Artes, and Skits. Rather than providing meaningful and additional content that players were willing to buy, Namco instead decided to hide in-game content behind a paywall. Nothing about these tactics are fair or justifiable. It's just a greedy money grab at the expense of fans and quality of their games.

STORY/CHARACTERS:

I figured, okay fine the costumes are DLC now and there's a lot of recycled content. At least I can still enjoy the characters and story... Right? Wrong. Following Vesperia, the quality and writing of Tales took a nosedive of incoherent writing, falling deeper in cliché archetypes, becoming so full of itself as a series, and losing touch with their fanbase.

CHARACTER ARCHETYPES:

Graces marked the beginning of this trend, and thus the first steps to Tales' downfall. Let's start with the character archetypes, shall we? You have the goody-two shoes protagonist Asbel, ignorant of female affections, always wanting to do the right thing regardless of consequences, and all about protecting his friends.

This sums up 90% of your JRPG protagonists and some of the Tales protagonists can also fall under this description. But Stahn is a lazy stowaway with no ambition, Lloyd has his silly Dwarven Vows and questionable mathematics, and Senel is a loveable jerk whose lack of awareness can be attributed to his marine background.

Asbel on the other hand, has nothing other than his background that sets him apart from his archetype. His only motivation in the game is to protect his friends and nothing else. It's supposed to be beautiful and amazing because he would even sacrifice himself for his friends, but he's not that different than robot programmed for a single purpose.

Sadly, most of the characters from this point on have more or less the same amount of depth and personality as Asbel. You have some gems like Leia who fought tooth and nail to defend a hopeless Jude from Alvin, but you realize her character is wasted on Jude because it revolves around him. Instead, her character can be better spent finding someone else who deserves her.

Then you have Alvin the traitor, who is arguably the worst traitor of any JRPG series to date. At least Kratos was disguised as a mercenary. Sure he had his mysterious past, but nothing that would indicate he was a freaking Angel working with the organization that’s been chasing after you. Then you have Raven whose shadiness can be attributed to his silly antics, perverted nature, and propensity to drink. But one would never guess he was also a Captain of his own brigade!

Then you have Alvin who saves Jude from his predicament and then forces his mercenary services onto him, a wanted criminal. On top of that, he uses a gun which is technologically not possible on the planet he is infiltrating. You'd think a spy would make an actual effort blending in. So obviously, characters like Milla catch on and when confronted, Alvin makes a poor effort to refute her accusations which basically boils down to "I know you know but you can't prove anything." It's a complete mockery of the betrayal plot twist that the series has come to be known for.

So we have the same archetypes we've always had-- the oblivious protagonist, the childhood friend, and a shady traitor. Except now all they're doing is fulling a quota on a checklist. Yes, they each have their own stories and backgrounds but none of them are fleshed out with the same depth as the characters from previous games.

INCOHERENT WRITING:

Now, let's talk about the incoherent writing and my gosh there are so many examples of this. Let's continue with Graces and Asbel— whose friendship with the rest of the cast is as hallow as the games. The story downplays the impact of what 7 years can do to friendships.

The game doesn't address why Asbel never kept in touch with his friends over the course of 7 years. He never wrote to them or visited, and despite being the same city as Richard, the two never crossed paths for 7 years! In fact, the only reason Asbel comes back to his hometown is because his father passed away. If he didn't, who knows when Asbel would return.... if he ever thought about returning at all. In fact, Asbel brushes off the 7 years as "Oh it went by so fast." It’s as if Asbel was playing his own game too, experiencing the time skip the same way a player would.

Under those 7 years, he trained under instructor Malik so the two have a close relationship. But that's the thing, everyone's closeness with each other is supposed to be accepted by the player. It's not unbelievable that Asbel can reconnect with his childhood friends, but at this point they have all become different people.

So in many ways, it's like getting to know someone for the first time again. But the game doesn't do any of that. It just tosses the 6 characters together with the same old banter you're used to. But you don't understand what makes any of these characters close. What makes Asbel and Malik get along beside their relationship as master and student? What makes Asbel get along with Cheria and Hubert besides being childhood friends?

In Vesperia, you can see how the irritable Rita softens up to Estelle and the others. Yuri becomes an older brother to Karol. Everyone makes fun of Raven but they love him for his antics. And Judith is the sultry woman that playfully teases everyone. None of these characters except for Yuri and his dog Repede knew each other beforehand. There are no childhood friends here—these are 7 strangers who come together and become a family. When playing the game, you can see how these characters grow close.

I don't get that from Graces, or any game that follows it. What I get instead are a cast of characters who are stuck together and make do with it. There is no emotional investment between anyone and the impression I get is that they can just walk away from each other's lives without a care in the world. Any closeness just comes off as forced, because the writers stopped putting in effort to make a convincing cast of people who are supposed to be friends.

Moving on, let's revisit Alvin the traitor. So after the party finds out he's a traitor, guess what? Nothing happens! The party is upset with him but he just worms his way back in and shrugs. The party does nothing about it, and so they carry on awkwardly.

And not awkward in a way that's amusing to the player, but awkward in that the player can't even begin to comprehend the situation unfolding in front of them. Alvin obviously still has his own agenda intact even after coming back, and the betrayals continue happening. So it's not a single betrayal, but a recurring event in the game, and it makes no sense why the party allows this to continue.

I stopped playing the series after Xillia, but the general consensus about the next game Zestiria is that it is even less comprehensible. Scenes are so poorly directed and just happen without explanation. Characters ignore a problem when an actual person would just be like "Wait, what is going on? I demand an explanation."

SKITS:

So we have a declining quality of storyline and characters... How can it get worse? Oh wait, what about the skits that added to the characters and background? Nope, they ruined that too, and it started with Graces.

Remember how half of the skits were about the storyline and the other half was silly banter? Well, now they have become too silly and gimmicky. You now have random splashes of images invading the skits which tries to convey the scene of the game. I thought I was listening to a skit, not reading a visual novel. If you want to make this scene cinematic, then make a cutscene instead.

The topics have changed from ordinary topics that trail off to funny banter, to nonsensical gibberish that laughs at its own jokes. It's as if they were catering to meme culture and hoping that it would spread to the internet and blow up or something. It's as if, after several Tales games and years of development, the writers are writing skits for the first time again.

On top of that, most of the skits stopped making sense in context or flow of conversation. In Graces, most of the skits are triggered by standing at a Discovery Point. Sometimes the conversations are about the actual location, in that the characters talk about something they are reminded of. But most of the time, they talk about something entirely unrelated to the Discovery Point and it makes you wonder what was the point of having skits based on location.

In Berseria, I listened to a skit between Laphicet and Magilou, except Velvet was there randomly too. Ordinarily in skits, only the portraits of the participants are shown. Even if they are not originally part of the conversation, their portrait would be off to the side, to show they are eavesdropping. And if they leave the conversation, then their portrait disappears.

In the conversation between Laphicet and Magilou, Velvet appears out of nowhere and speaks her mind. She doesn't speak for the remainder of the conversation, but her portrait remains. But the remainder of this conversation only happens between Laphicet and Magilou. You can't tell if Velvet is listening in or not. If she's not there, why doesn't her portrait disappear. And if she is there, then why isn't she saying anything?

All these annoyances about the series would be minor in their own capacity, and the games would still be bearable. But all of them are present at the same time and collectively become an unbearable experience. It just proves that the Tales series is declining as a JRPG series.

BATTLE SYSTEM:

Okay, so what about the battle system? You imported a good amount of the games just to enjoy its battle system right? Yup, even that is ruined believe it or not. For some strange reason, Tales suffered a series of questionable design choices ever since Vesperia.

Traditionally, attacks have been divided between normal attacks and Artes. You attack with regular attacks and then use Artes to complete the combo. Graces changes this formula by getting rid of normal attacks and turning everything into an Arte. Normal attacks are now the new Artes button, and the Artes button is a different branch of Artes.

This sounds like a great idea at first, especially when it was originally advertised as Style Change LMBS. But in reality, only Asbel's fighting style changed between the two trees of Artes. For magic casters, their second Artes tree were just spells. For Melee attackers, they were just different Artes. In the end, it was just a different way of sorting the Arte tree that ultimately did not add anything. Graces had positive battle system changes but this was not one of them.

Xillia returned to the traditional format of attacks but they unified the Overlimit and Symphonia's Unison Gauge into a weird tag team function. In Xillia, characters can be tethered together and provide mutual support. The player can activate the Overlimit gauge to unleash devastating tag team attacks.

However, Overlimit required two characters to be tethered in order to activate and have access to Mystic Artes. In other words, a character cannot fight alone and go into Overlimit or use Mystic Artes alone. In adding a team functionality between characters, Tales marginalized the role of an individual character. It was a sacrifice that didn't need to happen, and this is because of poor game design.

POOR GAME DESIGN:

Fast forward to Zestiria, which attempted to introduced seamless battles. Before, characters were transported to a field of battle upon encounter. Now, enemies are fought in the fields or dungeons encountered with no transition. Upon victory however, a transition still exists for characters' win poses. Obviously, these had to stay in Tales which only made seamless transitions pointless. In fact, seamless transitions became one of the most criticized elements of Zestiria.

First of all, Namco did not accommodate for the camera angles being obstructed by objects, walls, or other obstructions. Traditionally, battlefields took place in a flat area with no obstacles and within a large radius. The camera can zoom in or out depending on the player's settings and number of enemies son the field. The player's perspective in Zestiria however, was constantly being blocked by trees, walls, or even the enemies themselves.

Second, there were no environmental interactions which is what players were hoping for since they existed in Vesperia. For example, using hazardous flowers to stun an opponent or taking out bridge switches to prevent enemy reinforcements. One would think this primitive form of environmental interactions would be present in a game whose battlefields were shaped by terrain and geography. But this was not the case, which begs the question... why even have seamless transitions in the first place? It goes back to Namco not knowing how to use good ideas.

THE ALISHA CONTROVERSY:

When discussing the flaws of the Tales series, it is impossible to leave out the story behind Alisha and Zestiria, the biggest controversy of the series. It was so serious that Hideo Baba disappeared from public appearances and ultimately left Namco. This controversy illustrates a problem bigger than any that I have mentioned thus far— which is that Namco has become so full of itself that it produces what -it- wants rather than what the fans want.

When Zestiria was revealed, the first two characters shown were Sorey and Alisha. They revealed figures for both of these characters, and there was also an Alisha cosplayer on the scene to further promote the event. JRPGs typically have a male and female lead, so these must be our hero and heroine right? And the first characters shown are always the lead protagonists, right?

Well, according to the producer Hideo Baba, if you thought Alisha was the heroine then you made an incorrect assumption. That's right folks, Alisha was never the heroine of the story and in fact, only a temporary party member for a small portion of the entire game.

Despite being part of DLC costume sets, being the first female Sorey comes across, and the character responsible for initiating Sorey's journey, she is not the heroine or a permanent party member. When fans expressed their outrage and confusion, Baba only responded with "We never said she was the heroine."

Then why was she one of the two revealed characters when Zestiria was announced? Why announce her at all, release a figure for her, and include her in DLC costume sets? This character received promotion and attention and fans were excited to play a lancer, of which there are very few of in the series. For Baba to say "we never said she was the heroine" is a mockery to all of the fans he misled up to this point.

Namco will never come out and say it but what really happened was that there were last minute changes to the story that replaced the intended heroine Alisha with Rose. It turns out that Hideo Baba was smitten with Rose’s voice actress at the time, so much that he abused his authority as producer to shift focus onto Rose. This major change in heroines affected the rest of the storyline, and writers simply did not have enough time to rewrite the story to accommodate for this change. The end product resulted in an incoherent storyline that felt incomplete and full of holes.

In an attempt to appease fans, Namco released a (temporarily) free DLC chapter focusing on Alisha after the events of the game. However, this does not change the fact that Alisha was shafted because of Baba's personal interference so the DLC chapter did very little to please the fans. And Hideo Baba was never heard from again.

This incident provides us with insight to the management responsible for calling the shots in the making of Tales games. These are people whose desire to create a Tales game are out of alignment with what fans want. Business perspective and economic thought cannot be applied to explain their behavior. The only difference between their games and fan made projects is that they are making the same garbage but within the company.

Sure there are still fans that eat up everything that Namco serves them but nobody is asking for a Tales-themed cafe, a Tales of the Abyss musical, a letter from Richard to Asbel as a bundle exclusive, or an anime of a game that was just released. These are products that Namco is throwing out there because this is what they want to exist.

It's sad how Namco is mishandling the Tales series so badly. Aside from God Eater, they don't have Go Shiina composing any music. They have a trademarked battle system that no other company can replicate. And there are so elements and quirks to the Tales games that cannot be found anywhere else. These wasted resources can be better spent giving fans what they actually want like…

REMAKES:

Namco realizes the value of the past Tales games, that's why they ported Destiny 2 and Rebirth onto the PSP, Abyss to the 3DS, and Symphonia and its sequel to the PS3. What Namco should really be doing however, are remakes of older Tales games. Specifically, they should replicate the success they had with the popular Tales of Destiny Remake.

Destiny Remake's assets were made from the ground-up. It introduced an entirely new battle system with aerial combat and an alternative to the traditional TP system. Its story and skits were fully voiced and redone. Its graphics kept 2D sprites complete with beautiful animation and effects. It will go down in history as one of the most satisfying battle systems in a Tales game.

And yet this success has never been replicated ever since. Fans were hoping that these remakes would be the beginning of a new trend. New fans would get introduced to older games with modern designs. Older cans relive their older favorites in a new way. And fans outside of Japan could get a second chance at localization.

But instead of remaking the next entry in the series, Eternia, Namco decided to remake Innocence and Hearts on the PSVita. These titles are nowhere close to being the most popular titles in the series, but Namco wanted to remake them because the DS' hardware limitations prevented them from putting in everything they wanted. Therefore, they were remade on the VIta.

The quality of work put into these remakes comes nowhere close to Destiny R's. Although voicework and scenes were redone, the character models were mediocre and the battle system was largely the same with a few improvements. They did however, retcon in new characters— a trend that Namco seems to be fond of since it was done to Vesperia and Phantasia.

What's even more bizarre is that Namco introduced the concept of the Triverse Gate, which connects the worlds of Innocence, Hearts, and Tempest. However, this Triverse Gate is only present in the remakes, not in the original games. It's a very interesting concept to make a connection between 3 unrelated games, but it only serves as an end-game dungeon. Even in the remakes, the Triverse Gates have no bearing on the story whatsoever. So what was the point of connecting these games in the first place? The only thing the Triverse Gate has done for the series is make fans wonder why there hasn’t been a Tempest R.

Regardless, Hearts R and Innocence R performed terribly. Even their combined sales don't come close to Destiny R, which sold over a million units. In fact, both of the remakes sold less than their original releases. This failure is actually quite an accomplishment in of itself, and again proves that Namco is out of touch with their fanbase.

CONCLUSION:

After reading this, I hope you can understand why I once loved Tales and why I hate it right now. It's like a relationship that worked out perfectly fine- distance wasn't a problem, money wasn't a problem, approval from friends and family wasn't a problem. But Tales just couldn't be satisfied staying the same and wanted to be something different for no reason, and in ways I could not accept.

I don't think I am asking for much here. I just want Tales to be good like it used to be. It doesn't have to take after Vesperia, Symphonia, or the legendary PS2 trinity. I just want the battle system to be fun again, for the characters to be less gimmicky and try-hard, for the content to actually be there, and for the storylines to make sense.

I don't want Tales to do open world when they can't. Or for them to make a mockery of skits and post-battle victory screens. Or to buy a Rutee and Leon for the 5th time. Just give me a complete game that's fun to play and has likeable characters like the good ole days. Please.

#tales series #namco #jrpg #hideo baba

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