#the wizcourse

[evilwizard]

I do want to say, my views on AI “art” have changed somewhat. It was wrong of me to claim that it’s not wrong to use it in shitposts… there definitely is some degree of something problematic there.

Personally I feel like it’s one of those problems that’s best solved via lawmaking—specifically, AI generations shouldn’t be copywrite-able, and AI companies should be fined for art theft and “plagiarism”… even though it’s not directly plagiarism in the current legal sense. We definitely need ethical philosophers and lawmakers to spend some time defining exactly what is going on here.

But for civilians, using AI art is bad in the same nebulous sense that buying clothes from H&M or ordering stuff on Amazon is bad… it’s a very spread out, far away kind of badness, which makes it hard to quantify. And there’s no denying that in certain contexts, when applied in certain ways (with actual editing and artistic skill), AI can be a really interesting tool for artists and writers. Which again runs into the copywrite-ability thing. How much distance must be placed between the artist and the AI-generated inspiration in order to allow the artist to say “this work is fully mine?”

I can’t claim to know the answers to these issues. But I will say two things:

Ignoring AI shit isn’t going to make it go away. Our tumblr philosophy is wildly unpopular in the real world and most other places on the internet, and those who do start using AI are unfortunately gonna have a big leg up on those who don’t, especially as it gets better and better at avoiding human detection.

Treating AI as a fundamental, ontological evil is going to prevent us from having these deep conversations which are necessary for us—as a part of society—to figure out the ways to censure AI that are actually helpful to artists. We need strong unions making permanent deals now, we need laws in place that regulate AI use and the replacement of humans, and we need to get this technology out of the hands of huge megacorporations who want nothing more than to profit off our suffering.

I’ve seen the research. I knew AI was going to big years ago, and right now I know that it’s just going to get bigger. Nearly every job is in danger. We need to interact with this issue—sooner rather than later—or we risk losing all of our futures. And unfortunately, just as with many other things under capitalism, for the time being I think we have to allow some concessions. The issue is not 100% black or white. Certainly a dark, stormy grey of some sort.

But please don’t attack middle-aged cat-owners playing around with AI filters. Start a dialogue about the spectrum of morality present in every use of AI—from the good (recognizing cancer cells years in advance, finding awesome new metamaterials) to the bad (megacorporations replacing workers and stealing from artists) to the kinda ambiguous (shitposts, app filter that makes your dog look like a 16th century British royal for some reason).

And if you disagree with me, please don’t be hateful about it. I fully recognize that my current views might be wrong. I’m not a paragon of moral philosophy or anything. I’m just doing my best to live my life in a way that improves the world instead of detracting from it. That’s all any of us can do, in my opinion.

[kingarise]

People on this Damn website

People really be like: 

“Black Lives Matter!” Then in the next breath: “All straight and cisgender people are gross. All of them. They’re too sensitive.” Don’t think y’all slick You’re not. I spotted that. You fake wokesters and false progressives are getting more and more lowkey by the day but still don’t get that POC can see right through you. And good job at using the same argument that certain other groups leveled at certain other groups of people before.

Learn to tell actual funny jokes and maybe you’ll get a harder exhale of air. Until then, you thinly not so veiled bigotry will make due for comedy. 

[fryriree]

BE CAREFUL GUYS, I said not to hate people for the way they were born..

[swordsmanofsweets]

So, I'm trying to make an outline of a fic I wanna do (rare moment! 😅) And my completionist, perfectionist ass of BAKA needs for former Headmaster Randolph to have a first name because I absolutely cannot continue calling him Mr. Randolph because I'll just cry and die like he's not my friend's dad wtf so I looked up his last name to get some inspo to what I think his first name could be and I'd like to see if anyone else agrees! [It might be a bit of a long post, you have been warned.]

The name Randolph originates from English and German, 'rand' meaning the rim (mainly) of a shield, and 'wolf' (it's original spelling is 'Randolf' so that's where the wolf component comes in). I wanted to find a first name that meant 'protector' because of the shield and all, and wolves are fiercely protective of their territory. The former Headmaster is 2 of the 3 Mages that were chosen by the First King of Gedonelune to tend and protect the land and the Academy they built to raise the new generations of wizards, so I HC him to be fiercely protective of what he has grown to cultivate over all these years (hence why he felt it his responsibility to find Hawkeye and end the organization that his own student had made, but! I'm rambling). So! I wanted to find a nice name that means protector but also have a couple wildcards that don't fit the bill, but I liked the meanings of the names nonetheless. My top 4 names are listed below, say the first name with Randolph 3 times each and tell me what your favorite suggestion is! :D

1. Edward/Edmund

2. Henry - this name actually translates to home ruler, which is a bit befitting.

3. William

4. Louis - this name actually translates to famous in war, and one would assume Randolph had to have fought in many wars back in the day.

[wizardessheart-sideb]

I honestly hate starting off a new event with negativity, but I’m livid and it needs to be said. I’m incredibly disappointed and upset with the lineup of this event. If you guys don’t remember, the Love Holiday collection last year had a nearly identical lineup. The only change this year was swapping out Cerim for Glenn. Meaning that Klaus, Leon, Vincent, Joel, Zeus, and Mel are getting another Love Holiday story for the second year in a year.

This is unacceptable. Out of a cast of 21 guys, Solmare is giving the same 6 another story AGAIN when there’s another 15 guys who deserve that story more than the current 6 do. Not to mention there are characters who would fit the Love Holiday theme to a T and deserved a story. Hugo and Caesar (as much as it pains me to admit the latter) should have had stories in this event. The Returning 6 should NOT have gotten an event story; the only one who deserved his spot is Glenn.

The aesthetics of this event are gorgeous and the avatar items are stunning. But frankly, the lineup is absolutely not okay and I’m livid that Solmare decided to okay this. Because of this blog and my niche I know I’m more aware of lineups than most people, but did no one in the Wizardess team think to look back and double check??? Was this done intentionally and why in the world would they do that? Klaus I totally understand, but everyone else? Really? I know I should be happy for fans of those guys, but it’s honestly unfair to just keep doing the same guys for the Love Holiday. It screws everyone else over. I was honestly really looking forward to this event and seeing that lineup felt like a punch to the gut. I’m very disappointed in this event and the Wizardess Heart team.

Quick Facts

Type of event: Collection

Total points: 3500 points

Early bird ends: February 19, 2019

Event ends: February 25, 2019

Event Stories

Glenn (130 stars)

Leon (290 stars)

Mel (540 stars)

Joel (1080 stars)

Zeus (2040 stars)

Vincent (3150 stars)

Klaus II (3250 stars)

Prize Breakdown

2,600 Lune

2,200 Magic Grade items

2,200 Romance Points

10 Story Tickets

1 3/4 Aruenaristy

5 Magic Keys

3 Luca's Spicy Macarons

3 Elias' Classic Muffins

2 Blue Medals

10 Dressers

8 Storage Warehouses

9 Garden items

5 Avatar items

[pekuliar-observations]

thanks for tour good opinions during the wizcourse u just earned a follower

ah thank you!!

[swordsmanofsweets]

The "Forever Grateful" CG photo slot in under the "Group" section.

As for the kind of photo we want? Honestly, still on the fence about that as well. Idk if we're gonna get what we want vs. a chibi photo saying "thanks for playing uwu!" It sucks, but we've all just gotta try to be mentally prepared for it. 😕🤷🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️

You know, as the days go by I'm honestly getting more and more convinced that the last photo will just be a group photo of the chibis. The main thing that's making me believe this is well this,

You can see that there's no extra slot for the photo, so,, is it going to be the photo that we want or a chibi ver?

[explosivequill]

Petition to make an entirely new wiz community without the toxic shitheads having the run of the place

[wizardessheart-sideb]

@yunekirkland I honestly have a lot of issues with how Solmare’s set up Rembrandt and the implications of a romance between him and the MC, Liz. I like Rem as a person and if his circumstances had been different, I so would’ve been down for his route, but given what’s actually canon I can’t get excited about it and the whole thing squicks me out. 

1. Teacher/student romances have always squicked me out. They just. No. No no no no no. They highkey disgust me. The thought of dating a teacher or someone who was my teacher makes me want to vomit. it’s gross to me and I think it’s a very dangerous game to be playing when it comes to depiction in the arts. For me, it’s also just another variant of a school girl “fetish” and that really disgusts me (which I am not going into my hatred of that predatory behavior disguised as a fetish because that would make this post 4 times longer). 

2. Power Imbalance. I have concerns regarding the power imbalance between the two, and honestly this is an issue I have with a lot of the Wizardess routes. Rem, as a headmaster and even former headmaster, has a lot of power over Liz and to me, to date someone in this scenario is lowkey predatory and just icky. The saving grace with other routes like Klaus, Sigurd, etc, is that it’s more like “grad student dating college sophomore” vs Rem’s “professor with tenure and a mortgage dating a college sophomore.” 

That being said, I do appreciate Solmare removing Rembrandt from the position of power to make the playing field more fair, but there’s still that stain on it and tbh, if I’m being very cynical, it kinda feels like that old “Oh, we didn’t start dating until she was legal, we promise!” excuse that a lot of people push when they’re been caught dating a minor. I’m worried how they’re gonna handle it and I’m admittedly more apprehensive when it comes to this aspect. 

3. The implication feelings may have started before his route. Spoilers for Hisoka’s route, but during the fight scene between the Prefects and Rem/Felix, Rembrandt willing attacks Caesar without being ordered to and apparently goes pretty hard. To quote Caesar, “Ever heard of using a little restraint?" And then later, he responds to Alfonse’s attack with force. But when Liz attacks? Nothing. This is even before sh does that whole “I know you’re a good person at heart” speech. It’s only when Hisoka attacks that he starts to respond with force. For me, this indicates he already has a soft spot for Liz and that his feelings for her may have started before his route did. 

4. The loss of a father figure. Pre-betrayal, Rem was a fantastic father figure. And to me, that role is incredible important. In-game, we have a lot of Prefects with family problems or they’re orphans. Alfonse has a rocky relationship with his dad, Liz is an orphan, Caesar is an orphan and never had a good dad, Lucious’ parents are dead, and Yukiya is essentially an orphan. Rem seemingly cared about them and wanted the best for them. He filled a fatherly role for all of them and it’s important have good parental figures. Solmare gave us a great father figure and now he’s gonna be our boyfriend? No. I want Rem as my dad, not a boyfriend. Give me the wacky adventures of Dragon Dad Rembrandt and his Prefect kids, not him turning around and dating an old student. 

5. I personally don’t like older men. This is super subjective and based on personal tastes, but I don’t like older men. At all. Older men disgust me. Fantasy age gaps don’t usually squick me out, but in this case Rem is like the equivalent of a 40 year old man, so no thank you. I’ve had bad experiences with older men since I was a child and I’m just not here for them. For non-immortals, the oldest I can go is 28 (4 years older than me). Immortal creatures-wise, as long as they’re in a state where they’re analogous to my age, we’re fine. But yeah I’m honestly just not here for a dude that feels way older than me. 

Other Issues I’ve seen brought up that I’m so-so on.

6. The age gap. Tbh I don’t have an issue with fantasy ages gaps, like immortal beings and non-immortals, granted both parties are over the age of consent and they’re at similar maturity levels and life goals. However, I’m on the fence when it comes to Rem. The age gap isn’t too weird for me bc Liz is 20/21 and as an adult should make her own decisions, but she and Rem aren’t at the same maturity and life space. The idea of dating Rem, to me, feels like a 40 year old man looking for a young sidepiece. So I’m kinda so-so on the age gap. Generally it’s not an issue for me, but in this case it makes me raise an eyebrow. 

So yeah. I like Rem as a person, but how Solmare had set him up as a professor and a dad figure makes me not want his route. If they had made him younger and like a local Gedonelunian man who helps them solve mysteries (kind of like what they’ve done with Klaus in later routes), I would be thrilled for his route. But given what Solmare actually did I honestly can’t find it in me to be excited for this.

[swordsmanofsweets]

Don't worry, someone in the fandom is bound to make a Luca sequel.

Whoever it is, here's a bit of info for you to go off of! ❤️

I KNEW IT

[wizardessheart-sideb]

@stephdaninja Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of mixed feelings on Serge’s sequel. I personally liked it, but you know the major reason why I liked it. Put a Kuze in it, either my babydaddy or my sweet emo bean, and I’m pacified. But a lot of my close friends really disliked it (esp my best friend whomst is a Randy stan) so I totes know the feel and where you’re coming from. 

And to be honest, I kinda agree. Although I’m happy they reran a Klaus birthday, I think they should have made “Be My Personal Assistant” permanent and just focused on Phantom Rose as his new one. And Boys Night like. I love the concept and I think it’s a great spin-off, but I just really don’t like Zeus and the other guys I don’t really bend over backwards for so while I enjoy it I do wish it were with different guys. 

And yeah ngl I love Klaus but Hugo was my fave part of his spin-off I’M SORRY HUGO’S MY SOULMATE. And I’m hoping his appearance in Phantom Rose is a sign we’re getting a good spin-off with him cause. My man needs content. If I wasn’t so backed up with Love Holiday fics I’d make a Hugo bday fic but I probs won’t have time bc back up and school T-T 

But yeah. Let’s hope for a slot and a spin-off! Hopefully Solmare gives us extra Love Holiday content and everything will be coming up Milhouse. 

[wizardessheart-sideb]

@stephdaninja Yeah like. I’m trying to stay unbiased but you know I am absolutely SMITTEN with Hugo and seeing him not get content for a holiday he’s perfect for honestly makes me incredibly angry, especially considering he’s only gotten one event story and when Lucious came out, he not only had several stories but he got a spin-off ending BEFORE HE EVEN DEBUTED LIKE THAT’S SO UNFAIR. GIVE HUGO LOVE.

My hope for Hugo is that his birthday is Valentine’s Day, so Solmare’s dropping his birthday spin-off in a couple of days, but I’m not going to lie, see them pulling this shit makes me doubt them a LOT. 

Like my only explanation for the same lineup is that we’re getting a second Love Holiday event in the form of like a story slot or blue medal slot and it has the other guys, so who’s in the collection event doesn’t matter overall, but as I said, my hopes are honestly pretty low now. 

[wizardessheart-sideb]

The latest episode of the podcast is out! Although all the eps have built-in subtitles, I’ll now be sharing the videos with a transcription under the cut in case people live in areas where internet providers are pieces of shit.

HELLO Hello everyone, welcome to Royal Magic Academy Radio, a podcast about Wizardess Heart. I’m your host, Mari. It’s our 10th episode YAY!!!! Our next big milestone!!! It seems fitting we’re having a milestone when we’ve got a lot of cool stuff to discuss, so let’s get on with the show!

GAMING NEWS We got two new events this week. I was RIGHT, the next guy for the stories re-release event was Yukiya. The event’s called YukiyAmore and it’s a romance point slot. The stories being re-released are The Love Holiday, Flirting Time with Him, Flirting Time with Him and After, Heart-Pounding Moment in Bed, His Sweet n' Spicy Special Lesson, His Devilishly Sugary Kiss, and "Our Hands Stuck!" It’s running until June 8. The login bonus event, Detective Rex, also started. It’s going on until July 25 and the final prize is a CG so yay! That’s exciting. We also got a very interesting birthday event. Instead of a spin-off, we have a Randy-themed collection event! It’s called The Greatest Surprise -Randy’s Birthday- and I think it’s pretty cute! In addition to stories, we’re also getting CGs, one you can get with stars and the other is a ranking prize. But anyway, it’s going on until June 16, just as a heads up. 

SPECULATION So, we’re definitely going to be getting the CG part of YukiyAmore fairly soon. And if we’re still going in order of sequels, after YukiyAmore, we should be getting Vincent. However, I’m not really sure if we will. Vincent’s fallen from the most popular list and with the Happy Party Trainwreck his sequel was, I don’t know if Solmare’s gonna let him have a re-release event so soon. I mean, I def think he’ll get one, but considering he’s not as loved as he used to be, I dunno if he’ll be next, even though if we’re going by sequel line-up, he should be. Also while we’re on the subject of the re-releases, since the story line-up is the same for Yukiya and Klaus, I’m going to guess we aren’t going to get reruns of The Love Holiday, Flirting Time With Him, Heart-Pounding Moment in Bed, His Sweet n’ Spicy Special Lesson, His Devilishly Sugary Kiss, or “Our Hands Stuck!” because we’re getting the content through the rerelease events.Then, of course, Rex’s login bonus is a pretty strong hint that his route will be next. And now we have the biggest speculative piece of them all: Randy’s birthday event. Amelia’s birthday event back in late October was a collection event, but I have to say, I don’t think any of us were expecting a love option to get one of these. To be honest, I’m wondering if this is more or less a test from Solmare to gauge how we’d feel about birthday collection events for other dudes. Randy’s the fandom darling and if we approve of this kind of birthday event for a favorite, then it more or less indicates we’d be down for this for other dudes. Or maybe even multiple. After all, Ninja Shadow does their birthday events where multiple dudes are featured. Maybe we’ll get that for Wizardess. However, this event has stirred up the fandom a bit. 

WIZCOURSE You can’t have a Randy event without having wizcourse. I honest to God wish I were exaggerating, but it seems like every single time something with Randy happens, the fandom explodes. It happened with Bubbly Candy Randy, it happened with his sequel, and it’s happening now. So let’s chat. The fandom seems pretty mixed on this event. The main complaints boil down to:

Randy wasn’t given a spin-off like Klaus, Yukiya, and Elias. It’s even more unfair considering Klaus got a rerun AND a new spin-off.

One of Randy’s CGs is a ranking prize.

With the event stories, Randy essentially has to share his birthday with 6 other guys.

The items are ugly. Wig.

People who are content with the event generally agree on the following:

Randy’s getting a whole event to himself, and not many guys have gotten a collection event to themselves. Only Caesar had this. Nox didn’t play a huge part, or a part at all in some stories in Nightmare - The Phantom Thief, so that doesn’t count.

It’s something still pretty new, and people like the collection event format because it’s cheaper than a spin-off would have been or you know. They just like collection events.

They like the outfits and the aesthetic.

In my opinion, I’m totally fine with Randy getting a birthday collection event. I think the aesthetic is pretty good and I think it’s really cool Randy’s getting an event like this. Last time we had a Randy-themed event that wasn’t a route or sequel, it was a gold medal slot and a lot of people were angry because you had to whale to get those. To be honest, I think the collection event is great in part because it makes his birthday a lot more accessible. It’s true that you can buy stars, but for the most part, we’re getting a birthday for free. We don’t have to whale, we don’t have to use up all our Lune, or keys, or story tickets. I’ve gotten up to Azusa’s story in the event and they all balance the two guys well. No one is overshadowed. Randy isn’t overshadowed. Not to mention, as I said before, I think they might be testing us with this event and maybe in the future do this sort of thing for other guys. But I understand being upset because there’s no spin-off. Randy’s fans are incredibly passionate about him and I’m sure this feels like a blow to the head for them. And overall, as much as I love the idea of birthday collection events for love options, there’s really no way for anybody to win. If they did this with Klaus, the fandom would be outraged because Klaus gets a LOT of content. But with Randy, it’s a bummer he didn’t get a spin-off and if I’m being 100% honest, some of Randy’s fans have super high standards and always get upset when those lofty standards aren’t met. It’s not every Randy fan, of course, but let’s be real, when people are upset they get loud, and loud people are the most visible in fandoms, so even if it’s not the majority of Randy fans, it ultimately looks like it is. And of course, that sends the message to Solmare that we don’t like these events and no other dude is gonna have a chance at a birthday event like this. Although tbh, the only dudes I think could pull the collection event off are Yukiya and maybe Hiro, since they’re very beloved. But Yukiya’s birthday passed and Hiro’s isn't until like. November? Either way, this whole situation is hella messy and it sucks. We should all be happy and celebrating Randy’s birthday together, but this event’s unfortunately really stirred the pot.

DARLING OF THE MONTH But onto something happier: Darling of the Month! To be honest, I was very conflicted on who to make this month’s darling. Originally, I had planned for someone else, but then a week ago I remembered it’s Pride Month. And then once I remembered that, I had to decide between Amelia or Scarlett and that was an incredibly hard choice. But after a lot of thought, I’ve decided on one. So, this month’s Darling of the Month is Amelia Nile!

Amelia is just. Absolute bae. She’s so sweet and kind, and is honestly the best friend we all deserve. She’s funny, helpful, and so so so so generous. Amelia is honestly one of my favorite characters in Wizardess and I’m so happy our LGBT rep in the game is with such a wonderful person. Congratulations Amelia, you absolute Bicon.

CONCLUSION I knew I was gonna have a lot to talk about today, but this ended up being more than I originally anticipated. This was honestly an interesting week in the fandom, but hopefully next week, things quiet down. Let’s all just take a deep breath and keep moving forward. Next week, I’ll be coming back with a theory and I’ll be talking about Amelia’s spin-offs, since she doesn’t have a route for me to review. Thank you to everyone listening for reaching this milestone with me! I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been able to put anything special together for this and our past milestone, but I’m planning to do a special episode for our 15th episode. I’m still working on the details for that, though, so stay tuned for it. And that’ll do it for us this week! This is Mari, signing off.

[swordsmanofsweets]

@eye-cri to be fair, Elias has always looked up to Klaus and even though he has had pretty good character development this last year into becoming his own person, I'm sure he still admires his older brother and would like to become a Prefect as good as he was.

I don't think they necessarily want to make him a clone of Klaus, it's just like some younger siblings to want to sort of be like their older siblings.

Wow, I didn’t expect such a reaction

[wizardessheart-sideb]

In today’s episode we talk about Vincent’s sequel and maybe getting Joel’s soon-ish.

As per usual, the video is hardsubbed in English, but here’s a full transcript under the cut

HEWWO!

Hello everyone, welcome to Royal Magic Academy Radio, a podcast about Wizardess Heart. I’m your host, Mari. I’ve finally emerged from my haze that came with Fire Emblem: Three Houses coming out and now that I’m like 60 hours into that game, it’s time to focus on my other emotional support game *laughs*. But in all seriousness. So some housekeeping things: I’m going to make this podcast biweekly so episodes are a bit longer and I’ve got more time to prepare for them. I’m also wanting to branch back into my older interests as well as make more otome content, so this podcast being biweekly will also give me more time to work on those other projects. But yeah, that’s it. So without further ado, let’s get started.

GAMING NEWS

In gaming news, a new star collection event debuted. The Pit of Curiosities is circus-themed, and yes, Caesar’s in it, which I have to admit made me nervous laugh when I first saw it because. You know. Apparently he’s not re-traumatized though, so it’s fine. I’m saying apparently because I haven’t read it. To be honest, I haven’t read any of the stories because I’m just really not feeling this line-up. I also don’t have a huge nostalgic soft spot for circuses and fairs like a lot of people do, so I guess that’s also feeding into my apathy for this event. My mom never let me on rides at the fair and I was never really into the carnival games or food so I just. Never went that often and never developed a love for fairs or circuses. 

The Seasonal Slot: Blue Ocean is back, and it’s running until September which is a blessing considering it has a lot of items and it’s 1,000 Romance Points per spin. I wasn’t playing when this slot first came out so I’m glad I have a chance to play it. 

Before I say a quick word about Joel, I want to give a heads up that the sequels mechanic is a little different now from when it first debuted. You have to spend at least one story ticket on the dude’s main story in order to read the sequel, and thank you to tumblr user einhornaufzuchtstation for the tip about only spending one ticket, and also I’m sorry if I just butched your url. But yeah, you can’t go straight into the sequel anymore. 

And finally, Joel’s early bird is being reran! It’s not a super long period, but it’s something.

FUTURE EVENTS/SPECULATION

So let’s talk about Joel for a moment in a more speculative way. If we all recall, Joel was number 1 on the sequel poll results Solmare did back in December. I’m kinda thinking this rerun may mean we’ll be getting the sequels fairly soon, or at least we’ll be getting Joel’s soon. I calculated the average time between a route’s rerun and the sequel release day, and it’s an average of 32 days, meaning theoretically, we could have Joel’s sequel around September 1. However, I wouldn’t hold my breath for it. Solmare’s been inconsistent because, remember, they reran Elias and then hurriedly reran Vincent and didn’t release Elias’ sequel for another couple months. But I do think this is a sign that the next batch of sequels is coming soon. I mean, we are going to get them eventually.

FANDOM HISTORY

It’s time for Fandom History! Originally for this segment, I was gonna talk about Klaus 2 Electric Boogaloo, but since we potentially  have the sequels coming up, I think it’d be fun to talk about the sequels and the mystery of what the hell happened with Vincent’s sequel. So I guess we’re really molding Fandom History with Wizcourse, Fandom Chat, and Theory Time. 

The year is 2018. Klaus and Yukiya’s sequels have been released and we’ve had reruns of Klaus, Elias, Yukiya, and Vincent’s main routes. We know there’s a sequel on the way and most people think it’s Elias’ since his main route was reran literally right after Klaus’ back in October 2017. And since we’d already gotten Klaus and Yukiya’s sequels, the fandom figured he was next. But we were in for a rude awakening. 

Ultimately, we figured out Vincent’s sequel was being released first and the Tumblr fandom wasn’t exactly happy. A lot of people were confused how Vincent ranked in the top 5 anyway, but it felt like Solmare was skipping over Elias, which yeah, they kinda were. If we’d gotten the sequels in main route rerun order, we would’ve gotten Elias’ sequel before Yukiya’s, but obviously that didn’t happen. People were kind of lukewarm to Veincent’s sequel. 

But then something happened that surprised everyone. There was an actual, real leak of Vincent’s sequel CGs on Tumblr. Now, our fandom uses the word “leak” as a blanket word sometimes, but when I mean leak, I really do mean it was a leak. All the CGs were posted before his sequel was released. And unfortunately, I can’t find this original post. I’ve searched for it before and I still can’t find any trace of it.

And as you can imagine, a lot of people were shocked that one, this happened, and two, to see Tsukasa Kuze in these CGs. A lot of people, myself included, who weren’t going to play Vincent’s sequel, were now going to play it for Tsukasa. And tbh that’s something I hear a lot that people who played his sequel either actually like Vincent or they played it for Tsukasa. So when his sequel dropped, people flocked to it and. Well. 

I can say with certainty that no one was expecting Vincent’s sequel to be like that. It’s still considered one of the worst sequels, if not the worst and one of the worst routes in the game. The plot was all over the place, it felt rushed, and it wasn’t a satisfying read. Also they took away my precious baby boy from me AGAIN so that didn’t make me happy. But anyway, it was a hot mess and people were curious as to why.

Klaus’ sequel wasn’t perfect, the deus ex machina in it was a bit on the nose, but it was still a fun read and satisfying. Yukiya’s sequel was quite literally amazing and incredibly well-done and it still holds up today. So for Vincent’s sequel to flop so badly was a huge shock. So naturally we did what any fandom does in times like this: try and think of a reason why this happened.

There’s the possibility Solmare was just trying to do too many ideas at once and they got caught up in it. You have the Philosopher’s stone drama, Devi, Tsukasa, Vincent’s job at the ministry, the school trip, the wedding planning. There was a LOT packed into Vincent’s sequel. 

There’s also the possibility that Vincent’s sequel wasn’t supposed to drop so early, but something happened with development and it got pushed forward and as a result, was rushed and the writers weren’t able to fully develop the story.

In the end, we’re never really going to know what happened with Vincent’s sequel, but it’s definitely going to be a memorable part of our fandom history.

DARLING OF THE MONTH

It’s that time again! It’s time to crown another Darling of the Month! Now, I was originally going to wait to showcase this dude and have him be our December Darling, but it’s 4am and I’m feeling self-indulgent so this month’s darling is Sigurd! Anyone who comments about pasta will be BLOCKED and REPORTED! Sigurd is a sweetheart and a flirt and and all-around great guy. He’s also a good tutor and very nice to look at. Not to mention he’s so encouraging. Sigurd’s honest-to-God boyfriend material. Congrats Sigurd on being bumped up like a whole bunch of months! Next episode will have a route review.

BYE BYE!

That’ll do it for us this week! Next time we’re doing the call and response I PROMISE, I won’t forget to put the prompt on Tumblr this time. And with that, it’s time for me to return to Fodlan and my new video game husbands Dimitri and Felix. This is Mari, signing off. 

[wizardessheart-sideb]

Petition to call any discourse around Wizardess Heart “Wizcourse”