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Playable Schneider

I just want to share a quick tip for all of you if you want playable Schneider: Don't complete the tutorial book. And if you do, don't collect all the rewards.

As long as you do that, you can use Schneider in combat whenever you want!

Yes, it's in a very specific scenario with very specific enemies and incantations. Plus, if you don't claim the tutorial book's rewards, you'll never get all Sonetto portraits, but... it's worth it imo. Idk. I'm leaving her here forever, or at least until Bluepoch brings her back lol.

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Sonetto's notebook

So, was trying to get P5 Sonetto and noticed something interesting in the tutorial book.

You see it, don't you? Those little notes were left by Sonetto for Vertin. This is literally the notebook she let Vertin borrow from her when they were in school.

She even told Vertin specifically which information would be required for what exam, and I think that's pretty sweet of her.

This of course aligns with what she tells Jessica during her event, and we know she even lets her borrow Jessica's old notebook so she can improve faster in her studies.

This also aligns with the fact that, at some point, Sonetto actually started tutoring Vertin, especially when it came to her arcane skills, so she could do better in her exams. So, it makes sense that the notes we see in the tutorial book are all about arcanum usage.

Maybe this was all very obvious for some, but hey, it wasn't obvious to me. I'm just really surprised that the game actually shows us Sonetto's notebook and even makes us practice the knowledge in it. What's even better is how sassy the achievement for compleating all of it is lol.

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Decided to draw Schneider and Anjo Nala in each other's outfits because, at least appearence-wise. they look quite similar imo. Plus, I love them both XD.

Hope you like it!

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Tristes tropiques: The worst chapter in Reverse 1999

Alright, so I’ve wanted to talk about ch8 of the main story since I’ve finished it because it’s, imo, the worst drop in writing quality we’ve seen in the game so far. It has a lot of inconsistencies, things that aren’t explained or happen off-screen, and the emotional segments are rushed/not impactful enough, and about characters we’ve barely seen (excluding Anjo Nala, who is the best part of the chapter imo). Now, as you can see, this will be quite a negative take, so if you liked this chapter, please don’t let me ruin your fun lol. Also, it’ll have spoilers, so be warned.

Part 1: The representation.

Alright, had to get this out of the way first because it’s what everyone is talking about. The representation.

Is the representation bad? Yes. Really, really bad if we compare it with literally all other stories in the game. To put things in perspective, imagine if in the Notes of Shuori event nothing changed but they clamed this was Japan instead of China, yet characters still spoke in Chinese, had Chinese names, and many of the references were Chinese. That would have been outrageous, wouldn’t it? Well, that’s basically what happened here but with Brazil and other Latin American countries.

What they tried to do, basically, was dump all of Latin America (you, know a region that’s bigger and more diverse than Europe) into one singular “culture” and put this in fictional Sao Paulo. Why do I say that? Because many of the words they use for different things are in Spanish, and many characters speak in Spanish, have Spanish-sounding names, and reference things from other countries in Latin America. Also, one of the npcs, whose name I don’t care to remember, is literally a walking Mexican stereotype. To me what this says is that they didn’t do any research at all about Brazil (for those of you who don’t know, they speak Portuguese and are also far enough away from Mexico that these two cultures aren’t really comparable); enough that they couldn’t get even the language right, or even the geography or the Sao Paulo landscape, judging by what I’ve seen being said by Brazilian players.

Remember when they accurately portrayed the Secession building in Vienna? Or Jantar Mantar in Mor Pank? Or how they usually have characters speak small phrases in their native language, which is appropriate to the region and their character? Well, Bluepoch doesn’t, apparently.

Then there’s the whole “life here is hell, this is hopeless and everything here sucks” aspect of their portrayal of Sao Paulo (and their infamous tweet). This feels especially disrespectful when the story so far has always had quite a good amount of nuance. Vienna for example, having the contrast of being the “city of freedom”, yet having such a strict oppression of arcanists. Or San Francisco, having such a huge poverty and gang problem, yet still portraying the people living in these conditions as actual humans with hopes and dreams that they sometimes were able to accomplish.

And finally, to wrap up this representation thing… it feels disrespectful that the only Brazilian character we get is Mr. Duncan. Mainly because it seems he’s not really Mr. Duncan, but actually Mr. Karson. You know, an English man. I think they should’ve made Lopera Brazilian because so far having her be from Colombia adds nothing to the story, and if she was from Sao Paulo it’d make a lot more sense for her to be Vertin’s guide/translator in the city.

Okay, so that’s what we get from the representation in this chapter, which is pretty bad (haven’t read Anjo’s character story, which I’ve heard is better in this aspect, but that’s not actually part of ch8, so I excluded it). However, honestly I wouldn’t mind that much if the story had at least been good. So… let’s talk about that next, shall we?

Part 2: The story.

The good.

Okay, first let’s get the good things out of the way, because I don’t want to sit here and pretend that everything about this chapter was bad; that would be unfair and disingenuous.

I liked Lopera and Molly. They were interesting characters and have a lot of potential for the future of the story, which I really hope they deliver in future chapters.

I liked White Rum; she’s a funny character, and the concept of an Awakened pirate ship that has the skeletal hand of her former captain (Anne Bonnie, my favorite pirate of all time) is quite an interesting and unique idea, and I wish we got more characters like this. Also, I need to see her interact with Regulus lol.

I absolutely adored Anjo Nala. She’s the highlight of the story for me; an interesting, complex, and adorable character with a lot of potential for stories to tell, both about her past and her future. I really became attached to her over the course of this story, and I think they did a good job making you care for her… in this specific chapter. Don’t look back at versions 2.0 and 2.1 if you don’t want to get your fun ruined, because consistency is something they didn’t care about at all while writing this patch. And that brings us to…

The bad.

Buckle up my friends because what’s bad about this chapter is really, really, REALLY bad. Consistency is something they don’t believe in anymore, retcons are on the market, and setting up characters/settings/relationships is a thing of the past.

Does it sound like I’m being too harsh? Maybe, but it’s deserved, so idc.

Let’s start from the least bad, shall we? Anjo Nala’s hunger. In 2.0 and 2.1, as well as the first of Anjo’s monologues (the things you unlock after getting traces of a specific character), it’s implied that she can’t eat human food. Not that she doesn’t find it satisfactory, or that she doesn’t like it. It’s heavily implied she literally can’t eat it.

But then she steals some bread and Vertin gives her chocolate, and she eats both, so… what’s up with that? Also, they never really explain what her hunger is for. Was it really just normal human food? Or something else? In her trailer (which btw I wouldn’t consider it part of the main story because it’s a freaking trailer, but whatever) she “feeds on someone’s love” by using her tail. Okay, but then that person turns into a “walking corpse”. Does she have to do that every time she’s hungry? What happens if she doesn’t? Is human food substitute enough? The game never answers these questions, which is a mistake because this whole thing is a central part of Anjo’s character, as well as her turning from her bloodthirsty self to the Anjo we meet in this chapter.

And this brings us to my second issue… the inconsistency of Anjo’s character with the two events we had before this patch. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying anything she ever did was her fault since she was simply a slave following orders, and one thing that is consistent about her character is that she doesn’t like when people do give her orders. However, what really annoys me is how in 2.0 she was very bloodthirsty. Sure, she didn’t know J and his gang, and she had done these types of jobs before, but imo it would’ve been more consistent with the other patches if she was indifferent about killing them, rather than excited. 2.1 was slightly more consistent with ch8 when it comes to Anjo’s character, but it’s kind of implied it was all an act, and her “real” personality was that of 2.0.

Now, I’ve seen some ppl explain this as “well, in a wilderness interaction she says she acts however her master prefers her to”. Okay, but why put such important information in a freaking wilderness interaction and not in the main story??? You can’t even see those unless you have the character, and seeing as Anjo is limited, not everyone will have her. This is a fact.

Another problem I have with Anjo (this is the last, I promise) is that we’re not introduced to her again in ch8, which surely is a decision. Why? Because 2.0 and 2.1 aren’t part of the main story; they’re side events, which are time-limited and, at the moment, not available in-game. This is a problem because anyone who didn’t play those events for one reason or another will be very confused by Anjo Nala and how Vertin reacts to her. It would’ve been better if we were introduced to her from the pov of Lopera, for example, when she raided the Manus base and captured her. And then we could have Vertin run into her on the ship and explain to Sotheby (with a little more detail than what we got) that she actually met her before.

I’m just saying, this isn’t the first time we got a character in a main chapter that had been previously introduced only in an event (Marta/Bessmert), but in that case, if you missed the event, you could still fully enjoy the main chapter, because you wouldn’t even know that you were missing information. That’s not the case here.

And speaking of Urd… okay, let’s talk about how little sense it makes for the Foundation to want to find her in this chapter. In ch5 Vertin and her team found a suspicious radio that talked about a travel note about Aperion written by someone named “Urd”. In this case it makes sense for them to want to investigate, since the base Ms. Radio was in had things that belonged to the Manus, and they found some Manus followers there as well. Even after ch5 and everything that happened, it still makes sense for Vertin to want to keep looking for Urd because now she has the suspicion, based on what 6 said, that Urd is her mother.

However, although it makes sense for Vertin to want to find Urd, it doesn’t make sense for the freaking Foundation to want to find some random UTTU editor. Because that’s really all Urd is, isn’t she? She’s not the head of UTTU (that’d be Pandora), and the fact that she can traverse the storm, which is the only reason we’re given in ch8, is shared among all UTTU editors, as we learn from Barbara.

But even if we assume the Foundation wants to know how UTTU keeps its editors safe… first of all, why? We already have the equilibrium umbrellas, don’t we? We spent a whole chapter seeing their creation, and even saw ppl die for this cause. Why would they need yet another method for surviving the storm? If they instead suspected UTTU to be involved with the Manus somehow, and that’s how they’re traversing the storm, then at least give us that!

Furthermore, the Foundation already knew where she was! They were the ones who gave her the white marble chair with a button! If they just wanted to speak with her, surely a simply call would’ve sufficed? Why send Vertin?

And that’s another thing! Constantine knows Vertin’s mom, and I'm sure she’s not the only one in the Foundation who does, yet the Foundation tried to cover it up and tell Vertin that she doesn’t have a mother. Clearly they have some motivation for keeping it hidden, right? Then… why send Vertin specifically to search for Urd? Why not send some other random investigator, preferentially one with experience finding ppl? Why Vertin???

If Vertin had gone out of her own will, like in ch5, I’d have no problem with this, but no; the Foundation sent her this time. And I just can’t bring myself to understand why.

Maybe if Urd isn’t Vertin’s mom, that would explain this, but for now this makes no sense at all.

Next I want to talk about Lopera and Molly’s relationship. I said before that I truly liked their characters and their relationship, which is true, but… I wish it had been better stablished. Why? Because we had only had one, one single scene, of them together and the suddenly there was a grand betrayal and we’re supposed to feel bad for Lopera? Lmao.

If I felt slightly bad for Lopera it was because of the voice acting, the music and the art. I can assure you, not one single ounce of those feelings came from the actual story being told. It’s even worse when it comes to Igor because he barely exchanged words with Lopera, and all we know from their relationship comes from Lopera telling us “he’s better than my biological father”. And let’s not talk about Ptoleme. He literally only appeared to be a jerk for like five minutes and neither Molly nor Lopera seem to care much about him. How are we supposed to care about that entire family? They really don’t feel like a family at all (except for Lopera and Molly, but even then, it’s the bare minimum this chapter could do with this concept).

It would’ve been so much better if we had this whole chapter to stablish Lopera’s relationship with her adoptive family, with Zeno, the veterans and the Sao Paulo community, and then in the next chapter we could have the big betrayal be more impactful. But here? We barely spent any time with these characters!

And then we have the actual betrayal scene, which is… nonsensical. At best.

What happened in it? Molly arrived at the Colonel’s manor with her squad of Zeno soldiers and attacked the few Apostles Brotherhood ppl that remained, then says she’s glad that Lopera was able to rescue Dr. Dores and that they should all go back to the base. None of this is suspicious, imo, because Vertin had already told Lopera that she was going to call Zeno for reinforcements, specifically to assist with the rescue of Dr. Dores. It’s true that Molly hesitates a little when Lopera asks “what about the timekeeper?”, and that she dismisses Lopera’s concerns about evacuating Sao Paulo, but imo this shouldn’t be enough for Lopera to be so suspicious of her freaking sister. Also, why ask “who’s waiting for you in Tierra del Fuego”? Why would Lopera every think this was anything other than a mission from Zeno???

Sure, they didn’t tell her about it, but also she’s been gone from the base for a couple of days and she knows there’s been traitors and rebels. A lot could’ve changed in that time. Even if she didn’t want to leave because she got attached to Sao Paulo, I think it’s weird that she immediately was so confrontational about it, especially with her sister, who famously just follows their father’s orders without questions.

This could’ve worked if Lopera was already suspicious of her family beforehand, or maybe even of Zeno’s higher ups, or if Molly and her squad had just waltzed in without attacking the Manus or being attacked by them. But that’s not what happened. Also, if she really was suspicious, why not go back to the base and question Igor about this whole thing like Molly suggested? I don’t see why she immediately would think base=bad when her whole family and the army she’s part of is currently at the base.

Like, I get she already had trauma because of her biological father being a jerk, but that situation doesn’t seem to have anything to do with this one imo. All in all, what I’m saying is that the bad writing of this scene lessens the emotional impact.

And it’s not the only emotional scene that’s affected by the blatant bad writing in this chapter. No, that “honor” goes to the scene the trailer for this patch opens with; Anjo being ordered to kill Vertin by Ptoleme.

Okay, so as a refresher, Igor requests that his son, Ptoleme, is sent to the base because “he can only trust in his children because they always obey him”. Okay, so then what does Ptoleme do when ordered to bring back Kimberly, preferentially without a fuss? Of course, cause the biggest scene imaginable, which leads to Kimberly being freed.

Now, I wouldn’t be so harsh on him if his actions were reasonable but due to circumstances led to an unfavorable outcome for him, but that’s not what happened. Okay, he ordered Anjo to kill Vertin. Whatever, he’s a sadistic asshole, but this at least kinda makes sense. What makes no sense whatsoever is that he not only gave Vertin a gun because “he won’t shoot an unarmed civilian” (why does he care? Also ultimately he orders Anjo to kill her, so he wouldn’t have shot an unarmed civilian anyways), but also that he kept trying to make Vertin shoot Anjo.

Why? Just why? There was no reason for him to want Vertin to kill Anjo. None at all. And if what he wanted was to convince Anjo to kill Vertin… he can’t play both the “I’ll free you if you kill her” and the “Vertin, kill her, she’s a monster” cards at the same time. It makes him look like a pathetic moron with no sense of reality whatsoever, and in retrospective makes Igor look like a bigger idiot who doesn’t know his children at all. I think the reason they did this is because they wanted to replicate the infamous orange scene from ch2, but without all the logic, lore and emotional impact behind it, just hoping players would feel emotions by association.

And finally, we come to my biggest complain about this chapter: the retcon about how the storm works. Because yes, it is a retcon. Why do I say that? Mainly based on ch6.

In ch6 we learn that Heinrich, in 1912, left Vienna to study at Berlin. There, he met the Manus and joined them, surviving that storm, and subsequent ones, until time returned to 1913 and he went back to Vienna, reuniting with his old friends and telling them about the storm.

Now, how is this relevant? Well, from Heinrich’s story we learned two things; 1) you can indeed see again someone who was once reversed by the storm, but only if time ever goes back to that era, and 2) The fact that his friends recognized him and he recognized his friends, and his friends’ existence was consistent even though the storm had once reversed them. You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?

At the end of ch8, Vertin says “the storm doesn’t kill ppl, at least not physically”. Okay Vertin, did you have a lobotomy between chapters? The storm has never killed ppl; it’s just the end of an era, remember? It reverses time! It’s in the freaking name! The scariest part about the storm isn’t the storm itself, but the storm syndrome, which is when most casualties seem to happen. Sure, the storm sucked for Vertin because she kept traversing eras and losing the friends she made in them, but those friends remained anchored in their own time (perhaps with the exception of ppl who had already crossed the storm at least once, like The Ring and Isabella, but I digress).

My point is, that I really don’t like where this retcon is headed, but I do hope they somehow fix it in the future, either by making it clear that not everyone who gets reversed is reincarnated and there’s very strict conditions that should be met (like having knowledge about the storm, for example), or this hypothesis is wrong and the storm isn’t actually making ppl reincarnate.

One reason I especially don’t like this new reincarnation thing is that… Mr. Duncan isn’t Mr. Karson. Let’s not lie to ourselves. He looks nothing like Mr. Karson (and I wish the game would stop gaslighting me), doesn’t act like Mr. Karson, doesn’t speak like Mr. Karson, and doesn’t even have the same nationality as him! The only things that are similar about them is that they’re both old war veterans who once had a dog and now have a soft spot for young ladies. And if this is the approach they’ll use to bring back characters in the future… thanks, but I’d rather they stayed reversed.

Think about it! Will they next say that Anjo is Schneider? They look similar enough (more similar than Duncan and Karson, that’s for sure!), both were antagonists that joined the manus for reasons beyond their control, both had a fight with Vertin in which they almost got killed, and both have a snake bracelet on their left arm. Surely that’s enough to say they’re one and the same, according to this logic!

My point is that using such simple similarities, they can literally invent any new character they want and then say “this is actually this other character, who was once reversed by the storm”, regardless of if they’re actually similar at all, and I don’t think that people who wanted them to bring back Schneider or Marian, or Mr. Karson, or 888, or literally anyone, wanted them to be brought back like this.

But that’s enough of me ranting lol. What do you think? Did you like this chapter? What are your main complains about it?

To be clear I’m not saying we should stop playing the game or anything like that; from what I’ve heard the next event is actually good, and I have faith Bluepoch will listen to the players and make sure ch9 is better than whatever ch8 was, but it’s precisely this why it is important for us, as players, to speak out when we don’t like something so that Bluepoch knows they can’t get away with such blatant drops in quality.

Now, if you somehow made it to the end, thanks for reading!

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Can't stop thinking about Anjo singing while Vertin plays the piano. It's canon in my head idc.

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A cover of my favorite song from Reverse 1999 so far.

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Vertin and her new car.

"Oh! That feels so lovely. Oh, oh there... and just a little scratch behind the horns too... Would you possibly tend to my tail as well?"

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Anjo Nala, my beloved.

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Sweetheart: The first succubus in the game

So, as many of you out there, I'm very excited for the upcoming release of Anjo Nala, our first playable succubus in R1999... or is she? There's actually another character that descends from such a lineage; Sweetheart.

Yes, the 5-star beast that was a Hollywood actress. That Sweetheart. Why do I think that? Mainly a piece of evidence from Eternity's anecdote reminiscence fragments, but there's more than that.

As you can see, the game asks us to dispatch one commercial film actor, and the only one who meets this criteria here is Sweetheart. And the quote we get from her is signed as "The descendant of a succubus". Case closed, right? Yes, but there's more evidence if you're interested.

So, her grandparents were "monsters" that transformed back into their human form in a cloud of purple smoke... that's very similar to how Anjo turns into the giant goat monster we saw on 2.0, isn't it? Yet they have beaks; a reference to Sweetheart's udimo being some sort of pink bird. We learned from the livestream that the ram with a snake tail is the udimo of the oldest family of Succubus (Anjo's family), but this implies other families have different forms.

Still, some similarities remain, like the patterns around Sweetheart and Anjo's eyes.

I know it's not a one-to-one comparison, but it is similar. Also, the fact that Sweetheart has these feathers in her human form is similar to how Anjo can have a tail, horns and claws despite being otherwise human-looking.

It's also interesting that Sweetheart was a famous actress, while Anjo, judging by her I2 art, seems to have been a singer, suggesting that many succubus choose to enter the entertainment industry, as it's quite a good fit for their talents.

And finally, their combat abilities are very similar, not only when it comes to their animations, but also what they do. Not to mention, they're both Beast afflatus.

Anjo inflicts "Titilated" with her one-target attack, while Sweetheart inflicts "Enchanted". Both translate to reduced damage delt by the enemies, but "Titilated" is a lot more powerful because at certain stacks it turns into "Captivated" and stuns them, rendering them unable to do anything. Meanwhile Sweetheart can't really stun enemies except with her ultimate.

So, in conclussion, Sweetheart is a succubus, but appears to be much weaker than Anjo Nala, which is probably because she's only half a succubus. After all, we only know two of her grandparents were succubus, and she's in the Arcanist category in the Atlas, not the Beyond category. Not to mention that she's a 5-star while Anjo, a presumably pure-blooded succubus, is a limited 6-star, so she's quite powerful even for 6-star standards.

Thanks for reading this rather long piece lol. Let me know what you think!

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Canon now idc. I have no proof but I also have no doubts.

congrats????? on the child????????????????????

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Ms. Grace: a Foundation spy

Okay, buckle up because this is a wild theory, which was sparked by just a single word, but it's backed up by a lot of facts, so let's dive into it, shall we?

First of, left's look at the description of an event that will become available next patch: Phototaxis in study.

You see it, don't you? Now, let's first remember that we, as the player, see everything through Vertin's eyes. As such, if someone named "Moth" sent intel to us, they're likely affiliated with the Foundation in one way or another.

Moth is likely a codename, however, and not the character's actual name. Why? Because we have already seen a character associated with moths, and her name is Ms. Grace, and she's a spy.

Quite a lot of moths in her design, right? Seems rather intentional. Not to mention that, when she's disguised as Kayla, the only difference between them, aside from the eye color, is that Grace has a moth pattern on her bandana.

Not to mention that, when Vertin encounters Grace for the first time, an odd detail is mentioned; a white moth landing on the flowers Grace was holding.

Okay, so we've stablished that Grace is heavily associated with moths, but how do we know she's a Foundation spy that infiltrated Manus Vindictae? Very simple; a trail found in this event.

First we see this report from Andreas Sylvester who, if you remember, is a low-ranking Zeno soldier that was left behind at the abandoned Texas facility. As such, he is unlikely to be privy to classified information and, although he does in fact seem to know that Grace is a spy, he came to the rather logical conclusion that she's a Manus Vindictae spy that was sent to report to them about Zeno's activity in Texas. However, Constantine's response is very suspicious.

She recommends him to not interfere with Ms. Grace's work, likely because she knows Grace is actually a Foundation spy, carrying out her orders, rather than an actual Manus member.

Also, if Ms. Grace is a spy, that would explain why she was using transformation rituals; she needed to change her appearence into someone the Manus would have no knowledge of (since she's likely a high-ranking Investigator, the Manus probably already knew her original appearence), so she picked a random country girl (Kayla) to change into her, and ended up accidentally trapping her in a mirror in the process... or perhaps it wasn't accidental at all; after all, it'd be very bad if the Manus ever met the real Kayla.

Let's also not forget that, according to Vertin, the Foundation teaches this particular transformation array to their SPDM students, which furthers the connection even more.

There's also what happens at the end of Anjo Nala's trailer. If you need a refresher, after the Manus members give Anjo order after order, she snaps and kills them... but here's the thing: Anjo physically can't disobey the commands given to her by the seal, and she also can't even touch her master, much less harm them. So how could she kill the Manus members? ... Unless she was ordered to.

And who was holding Anjo's seal during that scene?

Ms. Grace, of course. She's also the one who says the final line in the trailer, in the format of some sort of report: "Towards the end of 1990, the succubus left for Sao Paulo". And we know for a fact that, indeed, Anjo followed their orders and ended up going to Sao Paulo.

So, Ms. Grace isn't dead; she's the only survivor of that massacre and, if my theory is correct, she's also the orchestrator. She used Kimberly to kill these high-ranking manus, while at the same time not blowing her cover, and making Kimberly seem unstable/unreliable, so the Manus would probably want to get rid of the seal. Quite a smart move, if you ask me.

But what do you think? Too crazy? Honestly I can't wait for the big reveal that Grace was working for the Foundation all along, if it happens at any point in the future.

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Vertin sending random frog pictures to the entirety of her team unprompted is canon idc (bonus points if it's at like 3 am or when they're in the middle of a mission).

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BRAVE THE STORM

A reverse 1999 Fan Zine

Hello everyone, we're here to finally announce the publishing of the zine! Thank you all so much for all the support you sent over these months.

We're really proud of how this project came out, and we highly encourage you to check out all the artists and writers that contributed to this project!

Cover art by @rena-yume

You'll find the link to view the zine under "read more"

The link is here

The file is very heavy and Google might send you an alert saying that you might be downloading a virus, please do not worry! The zine is 100% safe.

For any questions regarding the project, feel free to leave an ask!

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Genuinely fuck Israel. Those criminals are opportunistic bastards and I bet the attacks won't stop here. I just wish the citizens of Syria stay safe.

Israel has invaded Syria.

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The Friend from Afar's letters

Okay, so can we take a moment to talk about the letters we receive in the game's mail from "The Friend from Afar"? Not only it's interesting that to this date we haven't actually seen her, but also that she's described as "a blind lady" and has the exact same voice as Bessmert/Marta. In fact, I think in her letters we get yet another clue that she's indeed the same person as Marta, at the very least.

Here, she says "thanks for listening and sharing" and also "this is not your own story", both of these together indicate that she was also present on the current story, which in the case of this particular letter was Vereinsamt, or the release of chapter 7, where "Marta" is present.

Now, at first I thought maybe it simply was just a new format for the events in which Vertin doesn't participate, or at the very least is not the only protagonist... but lo and behold the letter we received for the 2.0 event, in which Matilda is the protagonist and we get no mention of blind ladies.

We go back to the same wording as before "although I wasn't able to witness it myself", so it was only the Vereinsamt letter that was so suspicious.

I wonder if, in the future, when we get blind ladies, or it's implied the "Friend from Afar" participated in the event, we will once again get the Vereinsamt letter, to imply she also witnessed the story.

[taniahylian]

Omg, this is so cool! Thanks for the addition!

Honestly I have no idea how the wheel would work with ppl who were in an immunity zone, but given that everyone acknowledges Sonetto as being the timekeeper's assistant now, I'd say their memories were probably rewritten as well. But of course this is all still a mystery that I hope will get explained at some point.

Sonetto was reversed by the storm

Okay, I know it sounds crazy like most of my theories tbh, but hear me out, cuz there's a lot of evidence for this one. And I do mean A LOT, especially since they changed the dialogue of the Prologue to be better translated, although I suspected it even before I checked out the new version.

So, first of all, let's talk teleport floppy discs.

The new dialogue emphasizes that the one Regulus steals was the last one Sonetto and her team had with them. You could deduce it before, with the old dialogue, but it wasn't as obvious as this. One of the investigators even tells Sonetto that they'll have to go back on foot, after Regulus steals it.

Now, this particular piece of dialogue is weird because we all know that being caught up in the Storm actually means you get reversed, but I assume the female investigator here meant that, if someone catches the Storm Syndrome, they're descualified as an investigator, which makes sense, since we also know the symptoms get stronger and stronger the closer we're to the actual Storm.

Still, the point is that it's urgent that they go back, and Sonetto even agrees, sending her team back to headquarters at this point. However, she stays to search for Regulus.

But, after Regulus escapes a second time (thanks to Vertin in this case), Sonetto still insists that she'll go find her, at which point Vertin actually seems quite worried about her.

She also emphasizes that if Sonetto doesn't go back now, it'll be too late. Still, Sonetto recklessly continues searching, and by the time she finally accepts that she has to go back to headquarters and abandon the mission, only ten minutes are left... although in-game it actually seems more like 10 seconds. But, even if it actually was ten minutes, that hardly seems enough time to get out of London and to wherever the Foundation is, especially considering that all employees returning from the Storm have to wait in line to get in, and many don't make it.

It's at this point that Sonetto runs off and we don't see her again until we summon her at the spinning wheel (and I'll get to that in a moment), but I'd like to point out to a scene in a trailer that was never released in their official global channel. We see the storm of 1966, which we can recognize for the cartoon patterns everywhere, as well as the café Regulus was hiding at, and caught in this storm we see... Sonetto, getting reversed.

But I hear you, Sonetto can't be reversed, right? She's still here, in the suitcase! Yes, but... How exactly did she get into the suitcase?That's right; through the spinning wheel, which has... some interesting connections to the storm.

So, the "lake" is actually made of rainwater from the storm, not normal water. Not only that, but now we know that it has that weird hallucinogenic fog that makes people fall asleep (except Vertin) and grants immunity to the Storm, just like the Aperion cave. And that's not even the only evidence here.

When you summon someone, you can see as the drops of water begin to rise from the lake, just like when the Storm happens. My theory here is that the spinning wheel isnt't able to summon anyone, but only people who were reversed by the Storm and that Vertin knew personally. Why do I say that? Because when she summons Sonetto, the game describes it as the line "forming a path on her mind", and I bet at that point in time Vertin was actually worrying about wether Sonetto had made it to safety or not, which is why she was the one summoned.

Also, let's remember that, although the wheel is part of the gatcha mechanic, Sonetto is, canonically, the only character we know for certain that has been obtained by this method. In most other cases, the game actually goes out of its way to explain how they joined Vertin and/or the Foundation (the exception being those we don't know about yet).

Also, if this is indeed the case; if the spinning wheel actually brought Sonetto back from being reversed... it did much more than that. It rewrote history so that Sonetto was never reversed. Why do I say that? Because Sonetto already had the mission capsule with her, which she had supposedly obtained in the Chicago office, and had also spoken to Madam Z and the commitee and been informed of her new post as the Timekeeper's assistant... all of this in less than half an hour? And right after the Storm too?

Doesn't seem possible, does it? Especially since the headquarters, where Sonetto was headed before the Storm, are in Europe, while the Chicago office is, well, in Chicago. To me, it's a lot more plausible that the wheel rewrote history so that, in Sonetto's memory at least, all of this happened in the past 24 hours instead of the mission to register Regulus in. Although she still remembered Regulus because it's implied that Sonetto and her team had been following her for a while.

Anyways, what do you think? Too crazy? XD

Someday I'll write my theories from the inside of the Laplace Rehabilitaion Center, I swear lol.

[taniahylian]

No, you're right. Matilda's next mission was to track down the UTTU editor Urd on route 77, but then got assigned the Joe mission instead, and that's why the route 77 mission was assigned to Vertin instead (which we'll see next patch, it seems). I didn't mention it, however, since I don't see how it could relate to the New Age market we see in this event, but... I guess time will tell.

UTTU and The New Age Movement

So, has anyone noticed that the weird statue thingy in the New Age market in the Golden City event looks kinda like the UTTU Magazine symbol?

I wonder what's the significance of this. I doubt it's just a coincidence. Maybe UTTU had something to do with the creation of the New Age Movement, since we know it was mostly arcanists who participated in it, and that the magazine is mostly for arcanists and about arcanists.

What do you think?