#oh would also add Yggdrasil = tree = family trees

[rivetgoth]

I’m sure I’ll add more on this later but as I think on House of Leaves (finished it, loved it, listened through all of Poe’s Haunted and loved that too) I think the conclusion I’ve come to (and this isn’t a wildly novel conclusion, but ah well) is that it is at its core fundamentally an exploration of grief, and specifically grief of the loss of a family member. This is especially obvious because… Mark Danielewski has literally said that it was inspired by the death of his father. Poe’s album as well. So like, this is no secret. And I think this is invoked in the very obvious way of the fact that a house that should feel like a home but instead feels unsafe, surreal, and literally larger and emptier on the inside than it naturally should be is a very clear metaphor for grappling with the loss of a parent, right? But I think it goes deeper than that… I think House of Leaves also spends a lot of time dwelling on the weird, impossible to untangle intricacies of trauma, childhood and generational trauma especially, mental illness, and genetics… the things you carry with you and the things that loom over you from your family, especially those deceased who you no longer have direct contact with, left only with this awareness weighing down upon you.

I think Chad and Daisy are pretty clearly functionally author inserts of Mark and Poe, right? And Will Navidson then is their father? Both are even filmmakers. But I also think that Zampanò himself is Mark as well… his middle initial is literally… But complicatedly I’m not saying that Chad is Zampanò, I don’t think HoL is straightforward like that, it’s more like that’s another embodiment of the grief. The child experiencing that, the adult retelling it, grappling with it, imagining and reimagining it, and I think I believe that Tom Navidson is functionally an author insert of Zampanò into The Navidson Record, functioning kind of like a guardian angel to his childhood self, this sort of stand-in hero character who sacrifices himself to protect the innocence and life of the child self. I think the slippage of “me” within that one line, where he refers to Tom in first person, alludes to this, as well as his emotional outburst over his chapter where he tries to write about the relationship between Will and Tom. And in the very back of the book, there’s the fragment of a typed page where Zampanò considers an ending where Chad and Daisy die instead, are killed by the house, with this much more pessimistic tone (similar to when he gets upset about writing about Tom and Will), than what’s shown in the published/Johnny’s version of The Navidson Record.

And would it complicate things too much to say I think Chad, Zampanò, and Johnny represent a sort of trinity of different stages of Mark’s life—the child experiencing it in real time, the young adult trying (and failing) to cope with it all, and the elder now looking back and engaging with it from an aged perspective. I think Johnny represents that crushing weight of this impending, unknown genetic fuckery, constantly feeling the weight of this figure who died long ago but who you know lives within you, and you’re trying to figure out what’s traumagenic, what’s just this completely unavoidable tumbling towards fate—his mother died severely psychotic in an institution, is this unavoidable? Can he escape this future? How much of what he deals with is her, her influence, her fault, and how much is caused by trauma inflicted upon him. I really don’t like the theory that his mother/Pelafina “was” Johnny all along or that Johnny never existed or that he was a stillborn baby like in the story and she’s functionally created a Johnny headmate. I think it’s sort of silly, like I can see some interesting merit in it (there’s clearly a bizarre Oedipal psychosexual complex going on between Pelafina and Johnny and her writing these detailed accounts of her basically stillborn son’s sexcapades is a pretty fascinating idea), but I’m more interested in a sort of backwards-reading of that theory where the end represents Johnny kind of embracing or succumbing to his mother’s identity, for better or worse, and the idea of this baby in critical condition that maybe just maybe had a slim chance for life but dying the moment his mother asks him to revealing instead his relationship to her, the helplessness of those genetics and the control and power she exerts over him even in death. When Shilo Wallace says “You, I've mistaken for destiny / but the truth is my legacy is not up to my genes” at the end of Repo! the Genetic Opera, House of Leaves says… terrifyingly… what if it is? What if your genetics are your destiny? And then you lose that genetic lineage, it becomes just story, infamy, legend, but you’re there and alive and trying to grapple with it?

I kinda like the theory that Johnny rewrote the end of The Navidson Record to have a happy ending, or maybe Zampanò did. I think they both desperately want the story to have a happier ending. And honestly, I love the ending of The Navidson Record as published by Johnny. Though maybe cliché on paper I love the idea that there is a hopeful answer to all that emptiness and fear and a way to silence those endless inexplicable winding hallways and the answer is to replace that emptiness with genuine love. Like, to overcome that fear and embrace the ones you’ve loved for all that they are and that this love can fix all of that… It can make all of the fear and uncertainty of the empty, insurmountable, nightmare house literally dissolve... I think the end of Poe’s album (“If You Were Here”) speaks to that too.

Uh there’s obviously way more to it than that. House of Leaves is a lot of things. Duh. But I do think right now my primary takeaway is just how informed it is by the crushing helpless grief of the death of an immediate family member with which you have an extremely tenuous or strained relationship and the weight of family history.

[vyladromeave]

Mr. Zvahl has updated!

Chapter 5: Growing 

(Read the full thing on AO3!)

FUCK cannon, dale and molly stay in phoenix drop, kiki would too for now but i think she would move to scaleswind later so there's still a bit of cannon continuity there. Brendan still lives out by meteli ruins but he visits town often. Also I dont think i wanna write his wife in cuz she had like No character or relevance?? Also gay rights. Luca (Donna and Logan’s youngest kid) is Babie years old by the start of S2, so i dont think she exists yet right now. Half of these notes aren’t even relevant to this chapter whoopsies.

It had been a week since his conversation with Levin. And he had stayed. He still wasn’t quite sure why- he promised himself he would have no attachments, that is the only way to stay sane as a Shadowknight after all. But he had stayed. And he had a new list of observations to add to the town.

1: Many of the children of the town had stayed, save for one named Brian, who was apparently a traitor. He hadn’t been seen since the day Aphmau disappeared. Many of the children had grown up and taken up jobs in the town, despite being all too young in Vylad’s opinion. Levin was apparently only 17, and had already taken up position of lord. Levin’s brother and assistant was also apparently 16, but he gave off an odd air that made Vylad think otherwise. He had only passed by him once or twice, but he didn’t give off the air of a Shadowknight, and he didn’t seem to be immortal due to any elvish heritage, so Vylad had no clue what his deal was. (He did approve of his sense of style though.)

2: Many of the guards were teenage as well, save for Dante and the ex-guard Dale who assisted from time to time. He wanted to have faith in the safety of the town, but he knew it couldn’t be too reliable judging by the durability of the wall, and the qualifications of the guard. Many of the houses that he assumed were just abandoned at first glance, he now knew were most likely ransacked too. If he was really planning on staying, town security would be something he would need to focus on. (Vylad considered becoming a guard for a split second, but decided against it. He wasn’t cut out for the job. Not that he wasn’t qualified, he figured he was much more qualified than the many children who were recruited to guard it. But his talents lied better used elsewhere.)

3: Some of the older residents had actually stayed, or at least stayed nearby. Kiki, the local animal expert and now farmer, stayed on the edges of town. Not a very safe place to live, but apparently the only place with a big enough building to house her animals. Brendan, her brother, lived a bit further away, but came in to visit often. Dale and Molly had stayed to take care of their daughter, who had refused to leave the town she had grown up in. Donna and Logan had a large family that seemed to only be getting larger, with three sons, two of which were twins. The eldest seemed to often be out on business, and the twins were convinced he was part bird. (Long story. They had spotted him in an odd part of the large tree in town, and yelled up at him for hours trying to ask how he had made it there. It was a bit annoying, but it reminded him of Garroth and himself as kids, so he tolerated it. They seemed like good kids.)

4: In better news, Vylad had found a decent place to live. The Yggdrasil tree in town was absolutely huge, and even better, nobody dared climb further than the already established paths up it. Vylad did though, and he’d found a nice, (mostly) quiet spot in the branches. He basically lived up there, he “slept” there at night, and went there when he was tired of the town. It reminded him of his days spent camped in the woods outside Phoenix Drop, except with a much… much larger tree. He was sure many of the town residents thought he was odd, although he didn’t particularly care. He liked staying in the tree much better than staying in an abandoned, ransacked house.

 And so in the tree he stayed. He wasn’t particularly busy, just looking out over the town like how he’d done in the good old days. The view from his perch was nice, much better than any view he’d gotten from his early days of spying from outside the town. From up here, the town didn’t look as bad off as he’d originally thought. Sure, the wall was a bit ruined, there was no way around that, but the houses were mostly just empty, not broken, and the overgrowth had a certain charm to it.

 He heard an odd shifting in the leaves, and a creaking from the branches closer to the trunk of the tree. He looked over to see Dante, shakily making his way towards him. He stared curiously, climbing wasn’t his greatest forte. He tried his best, but the tree groaned precariously whenever he tried to make his way out too far.

“That… miiight be the closest I can get. This armor isn’t meant for climbing.” He laughed awkwardly, although after a bit of struggling in the branches, he wasn’t too far away.

“That’s alright. Did you need something?”

“No, not particularly. I just wanted to chat.”

Vylad raised an eyebrow. “I’m not exactly the ‘chatting’ type.”

Dante laughed. “A bit blunt, but I gathered that. I guess that’s why I wanted to talk, if that makes sense.”

It didn’t really, but Vylad didn’t say anything.

“Like uhh… I dunno. Where are you from?”

Ah. So that’s what this was about. Luckily, a week of free time gave Vylad time to make a workable cover story, though he really didn’t need to change much. The best lies are built on truth, after all.

Vylad shrugged. “O’khasis.”

Dante seemed a bit shocked. “Really?”

“Yeah. Grew up there.”

“... And how do you feel about it now?”

“Well, I don’t live there anymore and don’t plan on going back, so I think that’s clear enough.”

The tension eased.

 “What about you?”

Dante blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“I answered your question. So what about you? Where did you grow up?”

Dante paused a moment, then laughed a bit too stiffly. “Middle of nowhere, really. The town’s probably been wiped off the map by now.”

Something about it seemed off, but maybe it was just a bad memory of him. Vylad had no intention of judging. (For all he knew, it could’ve been him doing the wiping. His early history as a Shadowknight was not the brightest. He swallowed hard at the thought.)

 Vylad paused a bit too long, so Dante butted back in. “Ok, my turn again.”

“What? That’s not how this works.”

“That’s exactly how this works! That’s what you did.” Dante continued. Vylad was wise enough to know that there was no winning an argument against a child.

“Aaaanyways. Why’d you leave?”

“I… well I used to work as a guard there. But it wasn’t for me, and I got sick of it. One day I just… packed my bags.” A bit bland, but it seemed realistic enough of a lie to him. Strangely enough, it was much more believable than the truth.”

“A guard, huh? So you’re combat-trained?”

“Hey, it’s my turn.”

“You said you didn’t like to chat.”

“I don’t, and it’s my turn. Anything else you’d like to add?”

Dante scoffed, but remained silent, so Vylad continued.

“Why’d you stay here? I mean no offense, but the town has seen better days. Why not just get up and go?”

Dante sighed. He took a moment to think on this one. “This town… means a lot to me. The place it used to be, the people who used to live here… it all means a lot. I think even if I did move, it’d still come back to haunt me.” He laughed hollowly.

“Besides, I’ve got a family here. Wife and kid. And the people who are still here, we might as well be family too. We’re happy here.”

Fair enough.

 Dante cleared his throat. “So. Combat-trained? Wouldn’t mind a little help with the guard. Or a spar sometime.”

“I haven’t picked up a sword in a long time. Besides, I’m better with archery, and I haven’t done that in years either. Too rusty for a fair fight, probably.”

“Ah, oh well. Keep it in mind, I’d really appreciate the help with the guard sometime if you ever felt up to it.”

“Mm. I’ll be sure to do that.” He did not plan on doing that.

 ~~~

Mr. Zvahl had begun to look a bit bored. He’d began to pick at the bark next to him, and seemed more focused on the tree than the conversation. Perhaps Dante had overstayed his welcome. One more question each, then he’d get out of his hair.

“Why do you call me Mr. Zvahl?”

“...Zvahl is your name, is it not?”

“No, not that. What’s with the ‘Mr.’ title.”

“Oh. I guess it’s just formalities? I can just call you Zvahl, if you prefer that.”

“Formalities were never my thing either. Go ahead.” He gave him a slight nod.

 “Alright. One last question and I’ll quit bothering you for the day. Why do you stay up here so much?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. I’ve always liked nature. Plus its quiet, and the view’s nice.”

“You know, you can get just as good a view from the guard tower, and you don’t have to worry about falling off constantly.”

“The guard tower? You mean the one that’s so overgrown that you can’t see out of it?”

“I… You get used to it.”

“Mmm. I think I’m good up here, thanks.”

Dante sighed. “Fair enough. I’ve got work, so I should probably go. I’ll see you around, Zvahl.”

He awkwardly scooted back to a platform built into the tree, and walked away. It hadn’t gone as bad as he thought it might, they’d actually managed to have a conversation. This one wasn’t even steeped in tension and mistrust! Definitely a success in Dante’s books. Maybe he could grow to get used to him.

 The next day, before Dante went on his morning guard duty, he couldn’t help but notice that the overgrowth on the main guard tower seemed to be gone.

 ~~~

[sparklyjojos]

--[Disco Wednesdayyy 21/?] In which Nils recounts a case related to the Styrons, the detectives talk a lot about higher dimensions, and can we just ditch Disco and make Nils the lead character already? [tw: suicide, mentioned csa]--

After the Mizutarou sequence, Disco comes back to the hotel and finds little Kozue sleeping peacefully like nothing happened, next to a half-started box of chocolates that Shakuko probably got her. So maybe really nothing bad happened and she’s been here all this time. Maybe her memory about the Black Bird Man’s assault (the one that Kikyou found) has been fake all along too? [You know, I can’t help but feel like this is a poor cope-out... well, let’s wait and see how this unfolds.]

--

Disco jumps back to the Pine House just in time to see an ambulance arrive to take young Mitamura and still unconscious Daibakusho to the hospital. [Man, that’s gonna be one awkward conversation if the latter wakes up.] The detectives Disco revived earlier are all here and thank for the help. Hakkyoku announces that from now on, it’d be inappropriate for them to call themselves “great detectives”. [That would be the answer to Tsukumojuku’s question in Jorge Joestar as to whether you can still call yourself a great detective if someone gets to the solution before you -- it seems that no, you can’t. At least before the next novel...?]

Disco asks Nils about the case he solved that concerned the Styrons. Unfortunately Nils can’t reveal any details, as it’s one of the things Styron-related gang guys don’t want him to share, and if he lets something slip out, they’d detonate a small bomb they implanted in his body. [Oh Jesus. Nils actually mentioned that earlier when they talked after Kiyuu’s reasoning, but I thought that was just a joke. Please don’t hurt my precious son! But I like that Nils is such a successful detective that he probably knows a bunch of government secrets at eleven.]

Disco uses his space-time warping powers to safely take out and destroy the bomb, because I guess he can do anything the plot demands now. To be fair, Disco believes that since Nils (like the other great detectives present) underwent the same ‘realization’ about space-time as Disco and changed his ‘worldview’, he could probably remove the bomb himself, but it’d be scary as hell to fiddle with explosives in your own body.

Nils can now talk freely about the case in Columbia he once solved. Seven of JJ Styron’s underlings had been found suffocated in their backyards, one leg tied to a tree branch so they were hanging upside down. Styron believed they could have been killed by a traitor (you know, gang wars and shit). Nils noticed that each time the rope was long enough to reach the victim’s bedroom. He put forward the theory that the murderer would kill each man in his bedroom, strung him between the tree and the house, then use the body like a bridge and cut the rope connected to the house, which left the victim looking like he died while hanging from the tree. All the other branches on this and a nearby tree were cut beforehand, so that they wouldn’t get in the way.

However, later Nils realized that this could have been a series of suicides. It’s highly probable that the seven men did something JJ Styron would be really angry about, and apparently suicide is a better option than having an angry JJ Styron have a go at you. Nils recalls seeing pictures of some things Styron did to people he didn’t like and their families -- these photos weren’t pretty. The seven men couldn’t just kill themselves, since then Styron would suspect something and maybe take revenge on their families, so they had to fake a serial killing.

Apparently JJ Styron was following Nils’s movements closely, since he seemed to realize the truth too. The two had a long phone call, in which JJ Styron gave him a long lecture about “doing your job” and “responsibilities” and this kinda stuff, forbid Nils from contacting the victims’ families, and told him to go back to Japan already. Nils answered that guess what, in that case he’s going to keep in constant touch with the families, and do all he can to help everyone and one day take everything away from Styron. [I didn’t think I could love Nils more but I was mistaken, holy shit.]

Granted, this was kinda a poor threat, since it’s not like Styron doesn’t have enough influence on bureaucrats and the government to not care about some kid. In the end Styron seemed to just go “eh, whatever”, maybe because he knew about the implanted bomb and that Nils couldn’t say shit to anyone. But so far the victims’ families seemed to be doing okay, and just like promised Styron donated money to charity as payment for the case. [I don’t know if it was a one-time thing, but if not... You’re telling me this kid doesn’t even take money for his detective work, but instead has the client donate the right amount to charity? WHY IS NILS SO DAMN AWESOME?!]

--

There’s something about that case that Nils didn’t notice before, but that Sakurazuki is able to point out because of his ‘weekend job’ of fortune-telling. The way each victim was hanging from the tree resembles the Hanged Man card from the Tarot de Marseille, down to the cut down branches of the trees. So the long rope wasn’t meant to connect the tree to the bedroom, but two trees together, to create the image from the Tarot card.

Needless to say, Nils is pretty shocked at this development and asks Sakurazuki what the card means in Tarot: suicide, death? Nope, it’s something much more interesting: a portrayal of the god Odin, who in pursuit of knowledge stabbed himself with his spear Gungnir and then spent 9 days hanging upside down from Yggdrasil, after which he gained new perspective on things and invented runes.

According to Sakurazuki, upright Hanged Man symbolizes ascetic practices, endurance, training, and service [I would add ‘self-sacrifice’ and ‘surrender’ here]. Reversed Hanged Man means “wasted effort”, “useless perseverance”, or “failing a trial”. Sakurazuki proposes that since the victims were found hanging down, so in the ‘upright’ position, maybe they had wanted to say that they had chosen to endure suffering for the good of their families.

Disco thinks about how weird the card is. If the man’s upside down, he’s also ‘upright’, and when he’s standing normally, he’s ‘reversed’. ...did this mean that his Guilt, that horrifying man in the ceiling mirror, was somehow the one ‘upright’? Or maybe Disco has just been standing in an upside down universe all this time?...

“So, Mr. Wednesdayyy...” Nils starts. “Was even that case supposed to be a calling for you? Did everything happen just for your sake? All those people dying, me being summoned there and led to wrong conclusions...”

To change the topic, Disco turns to the recently revived detectives and asks why they stabbed themselves. They don’t have a clue. Everyone’s memories around the moment of death are fuzzy, as if they went through the motions without thinking. They can recall a vague feeling “like it was necessary to do this”. Almost as if there was some higher power at play here... Well, if the Black Bird Man could edit time, then maybe there was another powerful entity around that caused all this, someone that also ‘invited’ Disco here.

Dezuumi interrupts them for a second and asks Disco to please go and explain this mess of a case to the police somehow, but Disco just tells Dezuumi to do it himself. (“Huh? But I didn’t even do anything?” “Then you’re gonna do something now. Don’t worry, I’ve read an article from the future which gives you credit for solving the case, wanna see?” “I’m sorry what”)

--

Disco asks the detectives to think about the important question: how could one possibly go outside time?

But of course, the others are not really on his level of understanding space-time yet, so Disco makes a little demonstration first. He jumps in space-time from person to person so fast that it looks like there are multiple Discos, each touching a different person’s arm at the same time (quite a feat considering we have 13 detectives and 19 Angel Bunnies in all). Of course he’s not cloning himself or anything, it just looks like he’s in many places, just like a moving electric fan seems to form a circular surface.

After this demonstration, the detectives finally grasp how space-time jumping works and are now having a hell of a time playing around with it. Dezuumi and Neko Neko are acting out a living 4koma with a set of their own copies in each ‘frame’, while Nils splits into three Nilses, all embracing Disco from different sides [awwww, but also HELL YEAH MY PRECIOUS SON IS A REALITY WARPER NOW].

--

Let’s tackle the subject of ‘going outside time’. Nils says that if their opponent is ‘outside time’, it means he’s an extradimensional being they’re not able to perceive. A 2D manga character wouldn’t understand there’s a world ‘outside the page’. But we who live in 3D/4D can shape the 2D page as we please, and manipulate 3D space as well. Following this logic, a 5D being would exist ‘outside time’ and be able to change the lower four dimensions freely.

Sakurazuki proposes to call the 5th dimension ‘consciousness’ or ‘awareness’. Spacetime would then be contained ‘inside consciousness’, which would explain how the changes in their perception were able to change how they interacted with the Pine House. One could say they’re able to touch and manipulate things ‘inside their consciousness’, too.

Here Disco thinks, I quote: “I've already touched 'consciousness'... and, well, fucked a ‘consciousness’ in the ass. That's right. I was able to touch Kozue's Feelings.”

[...He treats it like it’s a joke. He really does. Y’know, I was willing to give Disco a chance to redeem himself after the last part, but no, even after his subconscious outright told him ‘hey dude, you better think about what you’re doing cause you’re this fucking close to being a child abuser’, he doesn’t care. Please step away from Nils, Disco, you’re not worthy of his hugs.]

Anyway... the detectives draw a chart of dimensions. The circle representing a ‘point’ (1D) is contained inside the circle representing a ‘line’ (2D), which is inside the ‘surface’ circle, which is inside ‘space’, inside ‘time’, inside ‘consciousness’. [They will be adding even more circles as their reasoning progresses throughout this scene.]

We have defined 5 dimensions. What could be the 6th one? Nils says that outside ‘consciousness’, there should be ‘unconsciousness’, so things they don’t know about. Neko proposes to call it ‘wisdom’, to show that it’s the sum of everything that can potentially be known. So the 6th dimension is ‘wisdom’.

Sakurazuki believes the 7th dimension would therefore be some sort of ‘creation’, ‘invention’, something that cannot ever be known. [I guess in a way of a god whose nature is impossible to be grasped by a human brain or something.] Nils isn’t that convinced about it -- wouldn’t that still fall under ‘things we don’t know’? In the end everyone makes a quick vote whether or not they want to stick with ‘creation/invention’ as the 7th dimension, and everyone votes yes. Even Nils, who met with surprised looks just says bashfully that “Um, I guess the idea of ‘creation’ surpassing ‘wisdom’ does sound really romantic...”. [Some of the female Angel Bunnies react to this with “ahhhh how cute!”, thank you for voicing my opinion, ladies.]

Is there an even higher, 8th dimension? Hongou throws propositions like ‘love’, ‘dreams’ or ‘logic’, but they’re quickly dismissed. Hakkyoku thinks about what things can be seen as controlling the shape of ‘creation’. If we consider a work of literature as a ‘creation’, then its shape is controlled by things like ‘internal logic’, ‘aesthetics’, ‘safety of a topic’, ‘taste of the audience’...

Disco proposes to call the 8th dimension ‘like and dislike’. After all, a person’s sense of ‘liking or disliking’ something influences his ‘creation’, his ‘wisdom’ and ‘consciousness’, and can change the shape of the world. As the 8th circle is added to the graph, Disco thinks that it’s gotta be the last one, so now he has to think really hard about how to proceed -- how to ‘show that the event of Kozue getting hurt [by the Black Bird Man] didn’t happen’. [...I guess he’s trying to find a way to force the universe to retcon that event?...]

But then Mercury C shows up out of nowhere, like he’s always fond of doing, grabs a marker and adds something else to the graph...

...the last, 9th circle of ‘Mercury’. Actually, it’s not a circle, it’s a giant letter C and ‘Mercury’, together making up the name ‘Mercury C’.

“How’s that? See, it says I’m controlling everything in the world!” Mercury C laughs at his own horrendous joke.

Disco thinks that you know what, this dude may not have a shred of common sense, but things kinda ran out of common sense a while ago, so maybe it’s good he’s hanging around. There must be some meaning even to his presence.

“Hey, detective,” Mercury C throws towards Disco, “let’s go back to the Pineapple Home! But this time instead of cozing up to Norma, let’s kill that motherfucker with the glasses!”

[Which sounds awesome, but we’ll be sitting in the Pine House discussing confusing stuff for a while more. See you next time on “How The Hell Does Space-Time Work’.]

[steroidusr]

etrian odyssey III part 1: prologue

holy shit, it's eo3

As if tacitly admitting it, the Senatus ruling over Armoroad have invited explorers to their city. The invitation drew throngs of eager explorers who gathered to traverse the undersea maze. But none of the throngs who came to challenge that maze were strong enough to master it. The impenetrable ruins came to be known as the Yggdrasil Labyrinth, and its legend spread further... You yourself are an explorer who has heard its legend and now sail to Armoroad to investigate. Your only objective: to challenge the Labyrinth and win fame and fortune. Your hour is at hand!

i love that the whole plot of eo games is "explore this, get rich and famous"

so the first place we can go is the explorers guild and-- ok that looks a little glitchy nds emulation is hard

"I'm here to supervise all the explorers who find themselves in our fair burg. Here's a little something I give every new guild for signing up."

the gradient text box looks cool (he also gives us a cross script, a resolve script, and an offense script. i'll get into what those are for later)

"Think hard, because that name may be known someday across the seven seas. It all depends on you."

HELL YEAH

[i held a vote on our guild name and the channel chose “The Troll Slaiyers”, but that’s too long so i went with just “Slaiyers”]

absolutely not but the people have spoken

"Well then, step two is registering explorers in your guild. You'll need to hire a few folks, but it's up to you whether or not you want to become a member too." At the Explorers Guild, you can register explorers and organize your party. Choose your favored classes from the list and form a party of up to five explorers.

you can talk to npcs in town too

"Even experienced warriors get swallowed up by that Labyrinth every day... If you've come here as weekend warriors, I'll be straight with you: hit the beach instead."

we can choose up to five characters to bring along at a time i should add: characters in the front row take more damage from phys attacks and are more likely to be targeted, so it's better to put characters with high defense/vitality there

[and this is the party the channel voted on]

"Oh, but before you go, let me explain one more thing. It’s about the documents I just gave you along with the guild certificate... Smart explorers actually read them carefully. If you don’t feel like it, just throw them away... But if you hope to go all the way in the Labyrinth, you’d be well-served giving them a look."

In this game, powerful abilities called Limit Skills can be used by up to five party members. Limit Skills can be learned by obtaining documents with the skill details written in them. Gather various Limit Skills and use them well to make your time in the Labyrinth easier.

and then we're sent back to the main town screen, only now all the facilities are available to us. we could go to the senatus first like the guildmaster suggested, or we could check out the other places in town...

ONWARD

FIFTH STRATUM

...and then youre immediately kicked back to the town screen. >:(

FINE

"Then you’d best remember this: You stand in an assembly hall of the Senatus, Armoroad’s government. And I am she who wields the Senatus’ authority to manage explorers such as yourselves. This is where so-called explorers’ skills are tested to sort the true warriors from the cowards. If you want to be recognized as true Armoroad explorers, accept the mission I issue you now."

Carry out these missions to gain various rewards and advance the game’s storyline. Select ”Accept mission” from the menu to see the details.

so there are a few things we can do here. "accept mission", like the game said, lets us accept missions from the senatus. "report results" is how we report completed missions

"report discoveries" lets us log monsters we've encountered and item drops we've won from battles. materials we get from gathering points are logged in the item compendium too. "talk" is self-explanatory:

"Just don’t get lost in the assembly hall on your way here!"

anyway, you have to accept the senatus' mission before you can go into the labyrinth, so let's do that

"The guard there will have more details for you. Look to him before you proceed. Ah, but you must have parchment first, eh? Here is the blank map given to explorers. Use it well."

when she said we have to draw our own map, she wasnt kidding--a big part of the game is drawing a map of each floor on the bottom screen (...uh, i guess it's the "right screen" here) floor tiles are filled out automatically, but you have to draw in the walls and other details yourself

NOW we're free to go into the labyrinth ...but we're not going to yet. actually, doing so now would be a really bad idea

......because we still need to buy equipment

"In that case, welcome to Napier’s Firm. We carry all the weapons, armor, and tools you’ll require. Here at our Firm, the customer is God. We’ll spare no expense for those who line our coffers. Though that is conditional on you participating in a transaction. No window shoppers, please."

you start out with 500en (short for "ental"), which is just barely enough to get your party equipped

(i start by buying shuro's sandals for everyone) ...it says theyre made of shuro tree leaf, so i have a feeling the name shouldve just been "shuro sandals", as opposed to implying there's a dude named Shuro or whatever

i also buy an absurdly expensive shield for homare, because she needs a shield to use her tanky skills, and this is the only one available

aaand we're broke

"Skilled explorers have few qualms at parting with their money. Stinginess never saved a life. All things depend upon money. Your finances dictate whether you master Yggdrasil or die penniless. Remember that. So then, what can I get for you?"

alright, everyone's all equipped. we could go into the labyrinth now, but im gonna check out the rest of town first just to get it out of the way

"Not only can you spend the night here, we have doctors to treat your wounds, too! So, is this your first time in Armoroad? Isn’t it awesome? Those clear seas! Those blue skies!"

we're gonna be seeing a lot of this place

"stay" lets us, obviously, stay at the inn. this fully heals the hp/tp of all (alive) party members. it also passes the time a bit, allowing you to stay at the inn until either the next morning or until nightfall

"treatment" lets us revive dead or petrified party members (later games had dead/petrified party members heal automatically when staying at the inn)

"store" lets us put excess items in storage. this can be pretty useful because we have limited inventory space (and multiples of the same kind of item dont stack)

and "save" is, of course, the most important option of all:

anyway, we're not actually gonna stay here, because there's no need to. also we're totally fucking broke, in case anyone forgot i mean, we WILL stay here, eventually. but not right now.

ah, so youve heard about us...

"They call this the ocean city, ’cuz so many people from across the seas wind up here. I bet you’d enjoy taking a walk around town before you go down into the Labyrinth."

good idea! let's do that

"Well, welcomes to you! This is the Butterfly Bistro, and I am the owner here! Once you finish the mission that the old lady gives all the newbies, I can give you work. ...Until the then time, have some drinkings and chattings with the other explorers here!"

this is where you can accept quests, which are sort of like... mini-missions. tbh there wasnt much reason to do these in eo1 and eo2, cuz the rewards werent too great, but in eo3 they give you exp too, so it's worth it to do as many quests as you can

anyway, let's talk to this dude

(bar patrons dont have character portraits, unfortunately)

"I’m Wolfram, a troubadour. I’ve wended my way from the far north all the way to this ocean city. I’ve been here a long time... I may have a few words of advice about challenging that place."

(troubadours were a class in eo1/eo2. theyre bards, basically)

what should we ask him about first?

"Her sobriquet of the Porcelain Princess comes from her pure, white shining skin... Her voice is like music from the harps of the goddesses; radiant enough to tame monsters! But even the goddesses wouldn’t linger in her presence for having to compete with her face... She is Princess Gutrune, a lovely goddess of Armoroad in her own right! Her visage is the stuff dreams are made of... Though, mind you, I’ve never seen her in person. Each successive princess in Armoroad is named Gutrune. I’ll tell you the reason... later."

what should we ask next?

"A free city of clear skies and white clouds, an endless sea, and a vibrant, eclectic culture!

"...But freedom can’t exist without order. This country does have a royal family. Sadly, the modern royal family has been reduced to mere figureheads... Ah, but who then governs Armoroad? The aristocrats of the Senatus, led by a fearsome old crone! Consider her to be the true power behind Armoroad. You’ll most certainly meet her yourselves. There’s more to Armoroad’s royal family than that, but... Let’s leave that for another time, hm?"

the calamity, AKA the backstory

"But around 100 years ago, the center of Armoroad was suddenly swallowed by the ocean! Afterwards, the rippling waters became tidal waves... The gentle breeze gave way to earthquakes. Armoroad’s advanced technology was sunk, which ended diplomatic relations with nearby countries. It’s been a long road to recovery for Armoroad, but even today, it’s nowhere near what it once was... Not since the Calamity. If you ask anyone here, you’ll get nothing but a stony silence. Then again, that’s just because no one knows exactly what went on 100 years ago! It wasn’t all bad, mind you. After the Calamity, a Labyrinth was revealed, drawing explorers here. Though the Senatus had other reasons for gathering explorers... But that tale can wait for now."

I've Had Enough Of This Guy

"...Ah, but I jest, I jest. Come again, explorers, if you wish to hear my stories."

we have better things to do..... such as talking to the barkeep instead

uh... we're... working on it...

"...Ah, you are just heading out? You may want to gather info before you go in there. Oh, by the by the way, what’s the name of your guild? ...Slaiyers? That’s cool! I will make sure to be remembering it. I am hoping to do a lot of business with you, Slaiyers!"

u///u

alright, there's just one last place i want to check out before the FIFTH STRATUM

"You’ll need permission from the Senatus to go on voyages, so you should seek that out first."

...well, that was pointless

time to FINALLY get this show on the road