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connan-l · 2 years

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Long Rant incoming, but I finished playing Yoigoshi from the Higurashi console arc and god, it really reminded me of how much I hate how it handles Yae Towada's character.

I like Yoigoshi in general, I even think it's one of the best Higu side-arcs, but man the entire abuse narrative has such an insensitive and gross undertone and framing.

There’s always been criticisms about how Ryukishi handles abuse, especially in Umineko, and generally I'm more lenient than most on the topic because I think that Ryu still manages to portray it in a very nuanced complex way, but damn Yoigoshi is the only instance where I’m really like "hey fuck this." The story is just so insistent to tell you it was Bad that Yae killed her abuser that it ends up feeling like insidious victim-blaming.

I have no problem with humanizing abusers or portraying abusive relationships as complicated. I think it's even important, because that’s often how it is in real life. But there's a difference between giving depth to an abuser, and putting the abuser's feelings over those of the victim and then downplaying and shifting the blame of the abuse, and Yoigoshi 100% fall in the latter. I think what pisses me off the most is especially... the implication that Somehow her boyfriend was about to get better; that if she'd just waited long enough instead of taking matters into her hands then he would have stopped abusing her and their relationship would have turned out for the best. Even though there is zero evidence that he would have stopped hitting her, and that we know how these stories turn out in real life, with the girlfriend dead. But here we're supposed to believe that she's in the wrong for killing him, and so the story put the blame on her for not… loving and trusting the guy who put her in the hospital enough somehow??

And like, okay, obviously it's awful she ended up having to kill him, and usually I always respect and appreciate Ryu's insistence that violence only breeds further violence and is never a good answer to problems, but here the general vibe feel so much like a "well okay it sucks he was abusing her, but murder is still worse" and highlighting the fact she "made a 'mistake' instead of properly trusting him," which comes across as just so unsympathetic towards her situation and how she was still the primary victim in all this. Honestly fuck the boyfriend, he had it coming

The other thing that bothers is the other characters' reactions too. Like okay Journalist Dude is an asshole so him victim-blaming makes sense, but none of the others actually defend her? Everyone agrees she’s 100% in the wrong?? The most sympathetic is probably Otobe, but even then he’s pretty mild. I genuinely feel it's insulting that Mion, who has a personal experience with abuse victims via Satoko, doesn't try to defend Yae at all, even saying Journalist Dude has a point, like what.

The console arc actually makes it worse tbh because we're stuck in Journalist Dude’s head who is just The Worst + Miyuki having this horrible speech at Towada and victim-blaming her even more, wtf?? (which, okay, she's a cop to be fair so that does feel in line with what cops do orz, but that still feel so wrong because Miyuki within the story is portrayed as a pragmatic, intelligent person, like she’s a voice of reason, and no one call her out on her bullshit speech either, so that just frames it as if she’s Objectively Right about this when. She’s just not!!)

And then Yae’s sidelined after the reveal, play no role in the final confrontation when even Journalist Dude get to play hero and just show back up at the end so that we know she'll "pay for her crimes" and go to prison.... urgh, I hate everything about it. The only way I’m staying sane with this ending is by headcanoning Shion afterwards being all "nah that’s bullshit" and busting Yae out of prison thanks to her Sonozaki connections so that she can live free without having to throw away years of her life because of her abuser.

To continue on this, suddenly it hit me how Yoigoshi actually feels pretty similar to Tatarigoroshi regarding their narratives about abuse; however the difference is that to me Tatari manages to works in what it’s trying to say, or at least that it manages to say it in a more sensitive and compassionate manner, whereas Yoigoshi fails badly at it.

The two arcs have that same premise of having a victim stuck in an apparently inescapable abusive relationship, and the solution the characters comes up with is to remedy to it via violence in killing the abusers. Doing so result in the situation becoming worse and making them lose what they wanted the most. The message put forth that in the end violence only ever creates more violence and problems, and that no matter how horrible the situation is there are always (peaceful) alternatives to be found.

Ryukishi always had a general emphasis in all of his stories that violence only breed more violence and for a push to find other alternatives solutions instead (with a few exceptions and muddy framing here and there), and this is something I usually like. Tatarigoshi/Minagaroshi are specific narratives that function really well when it comes to this, and manages to do so while being (mostly) respectful to the abusive circumstances and the victim it portrays. The reason why I believe that Tatari/Mina is able to work compared to Yoigoshi comes down to two central differences:

First, there’s the fact that in Tatari the one killing the abuser is not the victim of the abuse (Satoko), but an outsider (Keiichi). Tatari’s second part really highlight the fact Keiichi becomes increasingly self-righteous in thinking he’s the only one who truly cares about Satoko and that he can solves the problem by himself; he doesn’t consult his friends or any adults properly (not about the murder), and more importantly he certainly doesn’t consult the primary concerned, Satoko --- something the narrative reproach him, and in the end 'punish' him for in how he completely wreck his relationship with Satoko and ultimately even fail to protect her at all, when that was the goal in the first place.

In Yoigoshi, the killer, Yae, IS the abuse victim. Unlike Tatarigoroshi, she’s the one with the agency deciding to carry out the murder because she feels she has no other ways of escaping. Neither of these are ‘better’ than the other per se, but that’s an important distinction, because Tatari puts into perspective the thing Keiichi’s murder really does in the end is denying Satoko’s input and agency as the victim and dismissing her own feelings on the circumstances; something a lot of people tends to do in these situations, thinking they already have the whole thing figured out without actually listening properly to what the primary concerned feels and what they want to do.

The second point is the entirety of Minagoroshi. Tatari has the benefit of proposing an actual alternative on the murder, and by doing so emphasis it has to be done with 1. the help of a community; even with the system failing Satoko badly, the story says there’s still hope in relying and working with people he trusts. 2. It finally let Satoko have agency and highlight her feelings as the victim; SATOKO is the one who has to makes the final decision to leave her abuser, to tell the social services that she’s abused. No one can makes that for her, and this is what saves her. In the end, the others can offers her help, but SHE’S the one who has to save herself.

But Yae, on the other hand? Yoigoshi doesn’t have a ‘Minagoroshi’; the only alternative Yae is offered is that she should’ve... just trust that her abuser was going to be ‘better’ now, because he said so and found a job he hasn’t even started yet. That she should just believe he was going to stop hitting her; despite the fact even in the brief scenes we're shown with them together before his death he's still seen as having to actively force himself to not be violent with her. No community or support is offered to her; she vaguely mentions having friends from college but she never seems to be in contact with them, we're told nothing about her family, or about having any kind of support network who could help her, really; we’re told she thought about leaving, but the story never really explore that more that it. Yae’s only alternative to murder is just... to blindly hope that her boyfriend was truly going to 'change.' (I suppose you *can* make an argument the story say it was just the murder that was bad and that she could’ve left him afterwards, but it’s never hinted at anywhere, be it in them manga or the VN). And there's nothing offered of the sort a the end of the story once she committed the murder either, except for her going to prison.

Tatarigoroshi/Minagaroshi and Satoko’s original arc are very important to me and ones of my favorite aspects of Higurashi.

I’ve seen criticisms of it because of how passive Satoko seems to be in them, only being there to be ‘saved’ --- hell, even Ryukishi himself said last year GouSotsu had kind of been written because he wanted to give her more spotlight because she felt too much like a ‘damsel in distress.’ There are some ideas and premises about GouSotsu I do enjoy and respect, and Satoko never having a proper spotlight in the original Higurashi is a fair criticism, but calling her a ‘damsel in distress’ actually annoys me, because as I’ve said here, she was anything but; she’s an abuse victim whose story is entirely about how her agency should be prioritized and how in the end she’s the one who saved herself, and I’ll always cherish how much Higurashi consistently make a point in saying and showing that she is genuinely a very strong and brave person.

And Tatarigoroshi/Minagoroshi is able to do all this all while acknowledging that yes, generally, murder and violence are wrong, but even in Tatarigoroshi the narrative never entirely blame Keiichi for coming to this solution --- and that's pretty clear in how it treats Satoshi too, whose situation was pretty much the same as Yae’s, and who is offered a lot more compassion and understanding on the matter, here too emphasizing that even if he did murder his aunt it was only because he was a child everyone around him failed and that he felt he had no other options.

Yae Towada’s story /should/ have been more like this, because in the end what she did was very similar to what Satoko did. She saved herself, the only difference being that there was no community to help her out like Satoko had, and so she had no other choice but to resort to violence.

The story does makes a point in saying she’s determined and, in some way, a strong person, but it seems to be mostly there as a weak attempt to parallel Rena, and the attention focus more on the fact that she made a ‘mistake’ that she has to pay for at the end. What Yae was led to do is definitely a sad thing, but one that was done out of desperation; and as it is, the framing only makes it seems like the narrative’s punishing her for this, when just like Satoshi it certainly should not be something she should be blamed for.

#Higurashi no Naku Koro ni #Higurashi #Yae Towada #Yoigoshi #Satoko Houjou #Yoigoshi-hen #Houjou Satoko #Towada Yae #Abuse #Tatarigoroshi #Domestic Abuse #Connan's Ramblings #Long Post #Higurashi When They Cry #Minagoroshi #Connan's Posts #Putting it out there too cause why not

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connan-l · 2 years

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I’m the only bitch in this entire fandom who uses the ship name ‘Ritoko’ instead of ‘SatoRika’ but I don’t care, it’s the cutest and best shipname for them and I Shall continue to do so <3

#Higurashi no Naku Koro ni #Higurashi #Ritoko #SatoRika #It just blend their names so well!! and at least there's no confusion with Satoshi #not that I think there's anyone out there who actually ship Satoshi and Rika but you know #Connan's Ramblings #Higurashi: When They Cry #Connan's Posts

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connan-l · 2 years

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Steins;Gate 0 scattered thoughts

Sooo I finally managed to finish Steins;Gate 0………… (NO I STILL HADN’T FINISHED IT…… I put it on hold last summer and didn’t get the occasion to continue it until now lmao. WHICH is stupid because I really didn’t have a lot left to read lol)

Anyway, it was okay! I enjoyed it overall but man, the story is really a mess and there were some parts particularly frustrating and disappointing.

I think S;G0 is interesting in how it is basically a Frankenstein story. The writers took some bits and pieces from other stories (ie the original Epigraph light novels from which it was inspired, and the Arclight CD drama/manga most notably), then added some other stuff and sew all of this together. Which, at times it does give some interesting things, but at others it just fumble really badly.

The original S;G was pretty flawed, but at least it was clear that the narrative knew what it was doing and what the plot was about; all the plotlines and characters had a purpose and it was able to come all together at the end pretty neatly. In S;G0, there are just a lot of story bits and plotlines that simply… never goes anywhere, never get concluded in a satisfying manner, or just seems to be forgotten altogether. Which means that even if they did an interesting and cool thing with the final and true ending in tying the two principal routes, the narrative as a whole still feel very disjointed and awkward. I honestly think they should have tried to do a more linear storyline, rather than doing the double routes thing.

This VN just isn't sure what it wants to be at times, so it does throw at you some potentially cool concepts and ideas but never know how to properly handle or explore them as it should. The pacing as well was all over the place, because in the first route it has a very slow build up and meander around until it all explose at the end but it doesn’t really feel super earned, and in the second it kind of get lost here and there, then throw at you some cool stuff to keep you entertained (ie Okabe going to the future), and then go back to just meandering around (seriously, the end of Kurisu’s route felt very… anticlimatic in a lot of ways).

The most glaring thing regarding this was that plotline with the encephalitis patients and where Okabe arrive in warzone Okinawa in the timeline where the URSS still exists or something, with also that Fubuki girl who apparently has Reading Steiner, and it just…. Never leads to anything?? Like what was the point of this whole thing? It feels like a plotline they originally intended to have but then scrapped at the last minute, but for some reason they still left some of its plot bits here and there??

Also someone will have to explain to me WHAT was the point of Fubuki and Kaede’s characters as a whole. I don’t have anything against adding new characters to the cast (I mean, I absolutely ADORE Maho, and even if her character have a lot of issues I still like Kagari), but in their case they… literally served NO purpose, to the point where they actually annoyed me whenever they popped up because!! I don’t care about you two!! Who are you, what are you even doing here. You could get rid of them and lose practically nothing of the story. They pissed me off because it felt like they were taking away plot points and screentime that could’ve been spent on, oh I dunno, some actual established characters like FARIS AND LUKA??

Seriously Faris and Luka were SO sidelined in that game it’s not even funny. Imagine how much better this whole storyline with Fubuki would have been if it had been with Luka or Faris instead! Imagine one of them actually getting Reading Steiner and the narrative making something interesting with it! How cool it would have been?? But no, instead we’re stuck watching those nobodies doing nothing for the entire story. The only thing I like about them is actually seeing Mayuri hanging out with her own friends without Okabe being invovled, but y’know, we could’ve had that without this bullshit.

It’s all very frustrating and confusing because, the encephalitis thing could’ve been so interesting if dealt properly! I really love the perspective of other characters getting Reading Steiner and the Evil Scientist OrganizationTM trying to experiment on this once they learn about it; I think it ties pretty nicely with Okabe’s conclusion in the original game where he thinks that in the end, everyone probably got Reading Steiner on some level. How come this plotline didn’t get actual consequences on the overall story and true ending. Hell, maybe have the real Yuki involved in there too! Poor Yuki as well was treated so badly orz

Now, to be more positive, on the things I liked better compared to the original game: the POV switch! I know some people will argue with me that it makes sense the og game had only POV from Okabe because he’s the center of the story and it’s kind of thematically important for him and us to have a very tunnel-vision of what’s happening, which yeah I get that, but man, the story felt SO much more alive and dynamic when we’re allowed to follow the perspectives of other characters. And it also does wonders for those characters; whenever Maho, Suzuha, Kagari or Luka were allowed to have their little introspectives tidbits it added so much depth to them.

I also really like that the labmems where allowed to have more relationships with each other; in the og S;G, most of them were friends with Okabe but didn’t have any relationship with others except some rare cases like Kurisu and Mayuri or Mayuri and Luka (but even then, it’s not like we saw a lot of these friendships given everything was in Okabe’s POV). Because of this the labmems have always been a bit weird, because sometimes the story tries to push for them to be this group of kind-of outcast, weirdo friends, but… none of them are really friends exactly, they’re just friends with Okabe and because the story is so focused on him we barely see any of the other potential relationships. So here it was nice to see Luka and Faris being friends, or Suzuha and Mayuri having a peculiar relationship, or of course Maho and Moeka’s slow burn romance budding friendship. It made them feel… you know, like an actual group of friends with different, complex dynamic. And I also really liked how most of them got to know and be involved directly in the time travel shenanigan right off the bat instead of being kept in the dark; in the original, it’s really only Okabe-Kurisu-Daru-Mayuri and Suzuha for a time who knows the whole truth, Luka and Faris are always sidelined and kept out of the group which I never liked. (It’s especially wild with Faris because like… with her wealth and connections you’d think she’d be super useful in the plot?? And with the fact we knows her dad was researching time travel with Suzu Hashida AND was a friend of Kurisu’s dad?? Gah, Faris was so wasted in the original story! And unfortunately she was wasted in S;G0 as well -_-).

On that note, I also loved the endings much more than the ones from the original game. The thing with the different endings from the og S;G is that, most of them are basically ‘here’s an ending for each girls that Okabe get to more-or-less date!’ in that typical harem fashion. Meanwhile S;G0’s endings actually focused on the characters individually and actually offered different interesting alternatives to the events? Like, I was SHOOK when I saw that Maho’s ending was ENTIRELY about Maho and her complicated feelings about Kurisu and her friendship with Moeka, or when Kagari’s ending was entirely about Kagari and Mayuri, and that Okabe had almost NO role at all in either of them! Like wow, a S;G game where its female characters don’t entirely revolve around Okabe, incredible, right?

Like it’s funny saying it like this, but thinking about it in a way S;G0 actually did a better job at letting its female characters exists by themselves and having motivations and goals that doesn’t relate to male characters — things like Maho’s relationship with Kurisu, Mayuri’s relationship with Kagari, and Suzuha’s relationship with her mom was even arguably more important that the one with her dad at times (they still fumbles with it and drop the ball after a while. But still. It was nice while it lasted.) Given how nonenxistent moms were in the original S;G compared to the dads, that was a neat improvement imo (I mean, we even got a brief cameo of Okabe’s mom lol!)

All in all I think S;G0 really worked the best when it came to (some) of its characters and emotional moments; there were some raw scenes that were well executed, especially for example with Okabe and Maho’s grief over Kurisu, or with Suzuha and her complicated feelings about her parents and her situation, or hell even if I have issues with them even some Mayuri and Kagari scenes were pretty effective. (Suzuha and Maho’s breakdown scenes in Mayuri’s route, for instance, were both very well build up and handled.)

But in the end the best thing the story has to offer to me is, hand down, Maho. Even when the plot isn’t necessarily about her, she’s still the character that manages to shines the most, and she’s just… such a cool, charming, complicated person with lots of intricates relationships; and she just always made me smile whenever she was onscreen. Like, if you ask me if S;G0 is worth it, then I’d say yes 100% just because of Maho.

And to be honest, that’s kind of an impressing feat to accomplish? Because the thing is that, the writers really weren’t in an easy position I think when they decided to make Steins;Gate 0; they had to make a Steins;Gate game where Kurisu isn’t in it AND with a new heroine, and given Kurisu’s literally the most popular character of the franchise and basically the emblem of S;G as a whole it must have been a bit of a challenge. I think I’m not the only one who were feeling not super invested in a big S;G story where Kurisu is just dead in it. So they had to make it so that new heroine manage to 1. stand on her own without feeling like a Kurisu 0.2 and 2. still not make it feel like she’s ‘‘stealing’’ Kurisu’s place as the original main heroine.

And somehow it worked? Maho is similar to Kurisu on a lot of points (young brilliant scientist lady, strong character and harsh and cynical personality but still pretty kind person deep down, asocial/lonely person) but she still manage to stand on her own, have a very good and compelling arc even in the route/ending that isn’t her own, and have a very interesting dynamic with the rest of the cast, especially with both Kurisu and Okabe.

I absolutely loved her complicated relationship with both Kurisu and Okabe; here too it’s actually impressive they were able to implement her friendship with Kurisu in a way that you can buy the both of them were really close and had a deep connection, despite the fact that this is a retcon (as originally Kurisu was meant to be a lonely person without any friends in America) and that Kurisu is dead for the entirety of the story. They do such a great job at portraying Maho’s complex feelings of admiration and resentment and jealousy, all while without never negating the deep love she has for Kurisu, and, as a result, how much she’s struggling with her death (once again, her ending!! is so good!! and her last conversation with Kurisu in there is aggghh. Or how in Mayuri’s ending Amadeus says to her she thoguht Maho was the real Amadeus all along… They’re the second best ship of the series, don’t @ me (even first depending on your perspective ;p)). And in parallel the relationship she slowly builds with Okabe is also very cool and interesting on its own, with how they instantly connect with each other through their shared love of Kurisu and grief over her and manages to develop a deep friendship over it and how it balances and contrast their own character development; I said it during my playthrough but those tow as well as their complex relationship with Kurisu are the actual driving force of S;G0. She basically manages to be a foil and parallel to both Kurisu and Okabe at the same time and it’s just. Very cool.

I also really dig the inherent tragedy of their relationship, because like… obviously I’m sure Okabe and Maho will be able to become friends again in the Steins;Gate world line, but it still will never be the same thing as the deep bond they formed in Beta. In Beta, they specifically became friends throughout Kurisu’s death; that’s something only the two of them can understand and the first thing they’re able to relate to each other, so without it, their relationship will inherently be different — and they know all that, yet are still willing to sacrifice all this just to bring back Kurisu in their lives. And I love how in that sense it also sorts of parallel Kurisu’s sacrifice in the Alpha world line ; just like Okabe and Kurisu’s meeting and romance, Maho and Okabe’s friendship could have only happened in world destined to die.

Although I absolutely could have done without Maho catching feelings for Okabe… I SWEAR I know that S;G is a pseudo-harem but not every single woman needs to be in love with this guy! Stop it, writers!! (I also rambled in lenght about it on my twitter back then but I genuinely think it harms Maho’s character.)

My only grip with them is that it’s actually wild that there is no actual proper confrontation or big reveal over Okabe killing Kurisu. Like it’s something they tease and build up in the two routes, and yet it’s another one of those plotline that is just never resolved? I know the game seems to imply that Maho must have guessed what happened, but there still should’ve been a more emotional confrontation between the two of them at the end; I think it should’ve also played a role in Okabe finally deciding to ‘revive’ Hououin and work towards saving Kurisu; especially if Maho had been the one to forgive him explicitely? But no, I guess, whatever lol.

Anyway, in the end I just… love how they actually allowed Maho to be this very flawed and messy person in her own right and not just go for the route of her being another cute additional girl with yet another crush on Okabe (…even if her STILL getting a crush was annoying but well sdsdfs). What I personally find the most compelling with her is that… honestly, in all of Steins;Gate she’s probably the one character the story... really allow to have ugly and messy feelings? To actively be unlikeable at times. Other characters had that in the og story with Okabe kind of, and a tiny bit with Moeka and Kurisu, but it was never to this level and because S;G0 actually let its characters other than Okabe have POV then she feels much more fleshed out and solid than just the glimpses we get. Honestly, dare I say that even Kurisu, for as much as I love her, doesn’t get as much as a proper arc and character exploration as Maho does in S;G0 (which makes me very mad tbh lmao) There is her entire ending/route dedicated to her to showcase this of course that is very good, but that scene specifically in S;G0′s bad ending ‘Gehenna’s stigma’ is the one that stand out the most to me about this (Gehenna’s Stigma is very messy and weird, but Maho steal the entire spotlight and is amazing in it so I still really like it just for her sdsfs).

It’s not like her character writing is perfect either, because like I said earlier the route structure make it that… in the end some of her development and conclusion either feel pretty rushed (the end of Mayuri’s route) and almost completely cut (Kurisu’s route), and it’s really only in her ending that she gets to have that proper closure. It’s frustrating, because man, it’s your main heroine, you should have done a better job with this! I think Maho’s arc should have been what she goes through in Mayuri’s route + her friendship with Moeka + her ending ALL throughout the game. Also her relationship with Moeka is one of the best thing of the VN and it should have absolutely been a more important part of the story, especially given aside from Maho’s ending Moeka is treated pretty shittily.

Also, man I really hate how in the true end Maho’s codename is ‘Kurisu’? Like!! You do realizes that the biggest point of her character arc is about how she wants to step out of Kurisu’s shadow and how she needs to learn to respect and love herself and her abilities as a scientist and person? Giving her the codename ‘Kurisu’ just goes against everything about this, it just sucks!

Okabe was pretty solid in this too. It was honestly refreshing to have him just be… a normal dude for most of the VN. Because to be honest, one of the things I like the most about Okabe is that he is not actually a ‘chuunibyou.’ He pretends he is one for Mayuri’s sake, but in reality he’s very self-aware about being a very average guy, who is even actually a pretty serious, socially awkward introverted person at heart. I’m always sad that’s not something that’s much more explored than that in the original story, and even here the duality with his made up persona is very… not dvelve much into, or at least not in the way I personally wish it was. Still, here in this case he just feels particularly relatable as a mentally ill, depressed college student desperately trying to run away from reality with the end of the world looming over his head lmao. It was… actually kind of surprising they handled his struggle with PTSD/mental heath seriously and this more-or-less throughout the whole story, with actually showing how much he suffers from panic attacks (well. They still could’ve done more with it though. How come his therapy sessions never come up again after the prologue? I’m so also pretty sure the Epigraph manga actually made a big deal of him being very dependant on his meds, but it’s not every seen mcuh in the VN which is a shame.) But his actual character arc still feel a bit either too rushed at the end or not well-implemented. I don’t like that they choose to have two separate occasions where he ‘revives’ Hououin, because it felt like it lesser the impact it should have had. Personally, again, I think the narrative should have been more linear, and that his ‘revival’ should have ultimately happened after a combination of Mayuri leaving with Suzuha + time travelling into the future + confrontation with Maho about Kurisu’s death.

(The bit with him time travelling in the future is such a cool thing too but I hate how much they... rushed it. Okabe should have stayed a lot longer in the future I think, and it made him seems like an asshole that he wasn’t even williing to interact with Mayuri & co. It’s also super weird that him staying in the future for, like, an hour manages to convince him that war sucks, but in the Vega & Altair route when he’s stuck in warzone Okinawa where he stays A MONTH he’s just like... ‘idk whatever, let’s ignore this and move on’?? WHY are you so inconsistent game!! Although I do hate the way they killed off Luka in the future just to further his angst, it felt veru cheap and shitty.)

One thing I got pretty disappointed about concerning Okabe, though, was the way they didn’t touch much on some of the impact and consequences his actions in the orginal Steins;Gate had, specifically regarding time travel. By which I mean, obviously we see the consequences the events of S;G had on him, but it’s mostly focused on his trauma regarding Kurisu’s and Mayuri’s deaths. There are zero mentions of his guilt regarding what he did to Luka and Faris, for instance; which feels especially off when this time around, Faris and Luka knows about the time travel stuff. You’re really going to tell me that someone as perceptive as Faris never connects some pieces together and confront him about her father? I know that really comes from the fact that, again, Faris and Luka’s presences in the game are nonexistent, but it’s so frustrating. There IS a little bit of something when it comes to Suzuha and Moeka; I really like how initially he feels very awkward around Beta Suzu because she is so different from Alpha Suzu, and how he specifically mentions her suicide in Alpha as one of the events that marked him the most and as to why he refuses to get involved with time travelling again, but honestly in the end there’s almost no conlusion in their relationship (like, they DO try a little in Kurisu’s route, but it still feel unsatisfying?) It’s wild to me there’s no followup, for instance, on Suzuha’s breakdown in Vega & Altair where she threatens him with a gun, we just... never seem them discussing this incident at all afterwards, like it’s just forgotten, when it should’ve been a big deal? And with Moeka/Tennouji, his reaction and relationship to them is also really bare minimum stuff, when again, with them being proper allies this time there should’ve been a lot more done.

So, regarding Kurisu/Amadeus… See, I actually really liked the idea of Amadeus. I think it’s a pretty neat way to use and showcase Kurisu’s research and neuroscience skills --- and yes it was also a way to have ‘Kurisu’ still be in the game even though she’s technically dead, but I think it worked really well in the sense that it ended up making her some sort of ‘ghost’. In general, for the most part I quite liked some of the ways they handled Kurisu’s presence, the way that even if she’s dead almost everything still revolve around her and her ghost haunt every single actions that is taken in the story, not just by Okabe and Maho, but by all the characters. Characters who are dead but still end up haunting the narrative is actually one of my favorite trope in fiction, and that’s why I really enjoyed that aspect of S;G0 because there is something very cool that they do in the way the different people remember and portray Kurisu after her death. So, Amadeus really works for this, in being there to haunt Okabe (and Maho) every step of the way and never letting him escape what happened, no matter how much he wants to (which is then made double so by Kagari’s presence). But it is a little frustrating that in the end… they didn’t do as much as they could have with her? There’s this storyline they hint at about Amadeus developping ‘normal’ human feelings (and specifically romantic feelings for Okabe) and the way she’s Kurisu but also not Kurisu, but they never really do much with this at all? I also dislike how little weight the story give her being deleted in BOTH routes when it should be a much bigger deal, especially emotionally for the characters (again, the only time where it worked for me where in Maho’s ending, which is truly the superior end of them all). So, yeah, Amadeus was a cool concept, but as most cool concept in S;G0 it ended up falling kind of flat at the end.

(On Kurisu, though, I was surprised her parents had no role at all in this. I would’ve expected her father, and hell her mother too, to have a bigger presence. Especially with the way moms appeared to have a much bigger role in S;G0 contrary to the og story, i would have really worked well thematically.)

And, on that sense, although I really liked the way the story make a point to presents Okabe angsting over Kurisu’s death in almost every scene and the whole OkaKuri tragedy (that one moment where they meet again in Alpha…. Yeah it worked for me lol), I felt disappointed that she… didn’t seem to play much of a role at all in the final part of the game. Like yeah obviously in the end Okabe still does all this for her, but that’s why I thought she should’ve been… idk. More integrated in the the final. It felt off, like she was almost sidelined.

And then, there was…. Mayuriiiii…. SIGH. So Mayuri’s the character who disappointed me the most. S;G0 is so damn weird about her, because on the one hand, it is INFINITELY better than what she had in the original game. Like them actually giving her some agency and an actual storyline that doesn’t involve Okabe? GOOD! Because let’s be honest, Mayuri in the original game doesn’t really… does anything besides dying and being Okabe’s motivation for most of the game. And yeah slapping him at the very end too I guess. So S;G0 was definitely a step further from that, and I also think that them deciding to make her a mother was such a great choice; you can argue maybe giving one of your most traditionally feminine female characters whose story only revolved around the male protagonist before now a story that now mostly revolve around her being a mother is not super great, but I think it works specifically because Mayuri’s biggest problem is that she’s always SO infantilized, not only Okabe but the narrative as a whole; so her getting a kid was a really good way to have her actually grow up and some great interesting character development. And she Does get it, for the most part — the last part of her ending where she decides to actually get invovled in all the time travel bullshit and went with Suzuha is one of my favorite things! But then, as I’ve rambled in those threads at large last year, they still… never do more than that with her. Even her big moment at the end of her route come off as not as impactful as it should be, because they don’t build it up at all throughout the route! (Especially since we get NO POV from her, even when the game actually does POV switch! Which is just WILD)

Her perspective on being a mother and her relationship with Kagari is dealt with a little bit in Kagari’s ending, but it’s very… superficial, it never goes into details about what it must be like to suddenly have a grown up traumatized daughter thrown at you when you’re barely an adult yourself, which sucks when that’s the most interesting part of those types of storylines (they do the same with Daru and Suzuha, to be fair, but yeah, it sucks here too lol.) They never let her get angry, never let her move on properly from her codependant relationship with Okabe, hell they STILL barely let her know about hte Big Plot Stuff happenings, EVEN when it concernes HER OWN DAUGHTER. It’s bonkers to me that she never actually get to know what truly happened to Kagari or that she plays no part into getting her back when she’s kidnapped by the Evil Scientists OrganizationsTM.

Mayuri should’ve just been A LOT more involved in the plot as a whole, not just at the very end of her route, and I’m endlessly frustrated that they consitently refuse to let her grow from her Innocent Ditzy Childhood Friend/Little Sister archetype whom Okabe is obssessed to protect, even when S;G0 gave them the perfect occasion to do so!! Her ending was good, but there should’ve been a more proper buildup throughout the narrtive, with moments including her POV; there should’ve been a narrative about her remembering her deaths from Alpha and actually deal with that trauma, there should’ve been an instance where she remembers KURISU too, have her interact with Amadeus and Maho and deal with her complicated feelings regarding her sacrifice, and it should’ve deeply impacted her finale decision to time travel and help save her (seriously, why was Kurisu and Mayuri’s friendship was so undermined??); and ultimately, I’ll always maintain that she and Okabe should’ve had a falling out of sorts at some point and gotten a Divorce Arc, and it doesn’t make sense that there’s no big clash between them other than the fact that the writers refuses to let Mayuri act like a normal, real young woman her age rather than a fantasy. Like… I’ve seen people who apparently complained about her big love confession at the end (although mostly from anime-only viewers, because in the VN Mayuri having feelings for Okabe is pretty explicit) but I’m going to be honest, it’s the least of Mayuri’s problems as a character. I don’t like her being in love with Okabe either as I much prefer their platonic, siblings-like relationship (and to be fair yeah, there are some parts they handled this in S;G0 that I think was shitty, like Mayuri having this speech where she says that in the end she’s the one who loves Okabe more than Kurisu?? Like okay??? Way to randomly do the misogynist trope of pitting your two main heroines against each other), but if they’d given us a proper arc with her where she’s treated like a real person I wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass about this. You people really have weird priorities.

(And on a personal level? I actually like the perspective of Mayuri feeling jealous of Kurisu and Okabe’s bond and feeling left behind (especially in S;G0 when it’s about a dead girl she knows nothing about and who, from her point of view, had nothing to do with Okabe up until now), if only because it’s the ONLY instance where Mayuri is allowed to have ugly feelings and, y’know, feel a bit like a multi-layered normal teenage girl; but it should definitely be handled with nuance and never undermine her love for Kurisu either, which... tbh I don’t trust the S;G to be able to write this lmao.)

And honestly, I also didn’t like the fact that Okabe end up going to ‘save’ her and Suzuha at the end, because it feel like it undermines the ONE heroic moment of agency that they gave Mayuri, to still makes it all about goddamn Okabe in the end. Mayuri and Suzuha DIDN’T need to be saved, because regardless of what they do they’ll get to Steins;Gate afterwards either way so? Did we really need to STILL relegate Mayuri to a damsel in distress status AFTER her big moment?? CAN’T MAYURI HAVE ANYTHING IN THIS GODDAMN SERIES

Related to this, Kagari was… god, she’s such a mess of a character lmao. Okay, so, the thing is that for some reason I can’t really explain I’m actually kind of fond of her. Maybe blame it on Megumi Han’s voice acting that manages to makes her super endearing, but yeah I do actually like her and I genuinely think there could’ve been… so much they could’ve done with her. She’s just a pile of wasted potential. Her story with Mayuri was very touching, and one of my favorite part of the game actually, but they could’ve done MORE. Because in the end, she only really feel… either very bland or annoying. And it’s like, I’ve seen some people who called her… ‘cringy’? Which is a bit of a weird term because, what does that even mean concretely, but it kind of bugs me a little bit because I don’t think there’s something inherently wrong with the way she’s portrayed. She’s a war orphan who was then forcefully separated from her mother and family and was tortured and groomed most of her life, to the point that even as a 22 years old she still has the mind of a child. She’s heavily traumatized. To me her behaviour about being so clingy to Mayuri and throwing tantrums about not wanting to change world lines makes sense, because Mayuri is quite literally her whole world and there’s nothing else that matters to her. Like… it’s wild to me how dismissed her concern that she wouldn’t get to be with her mother again if they go to the S;G world line is, because she’s right? Suzuha seems to have at least some guarantee she’ll still be born (and even then, it’s weird that it’s not something really questionned either), but Kagari has no such thing. Her very existence and only happiness was threatened. So calling her ‘cringy’ annoys me because she’s literally a mentally ill child with such heavy baggages, like what else would you expect from her?

However, I do agree that her writing and characterization is way too over-the-top and super clumsy at times, which makes the character feel very off (…and, also, there’s this fucking stupid twist with Yuki BUT it is one of the worst twists I’ve ever seen in any fiction so let’s just pretend it doesn’t exist lmao). The thing with Kagari, is that I’m very invested in the idea of what she could’ve been; of her being this traumatized girl who has this idealized version of her mother as this perfect, kind person, but who still felt horribly hurt by her when she had to abandon her, and then when she goes to the past she actually has to reconcile those two things all while actually meeting her mom’s younger self and realizing she is her own, flawed person as well. At the same time, I think I did like the arc they tried to give her in her ending of her deciding she couldn’t just cling to Mayuri forever and actually take the active decision to time travel with Suzuha (even if honestly it doens’t make much sense… like what would Kagari do once she gets to the past??), but it didn’t really feel… well build up or earned. I also dislike that the abuse and grooming she went through is like, heavily brushed aside; and her relationship with Okabe was… interesting but also really messed up, and it’s never properly addressed. Because like, Okabe heavily project Kurisu on her, at times even struggle to see Kagari as her own person, but this and the whole plotline where she gets Kurisu’s memories implemented in her just… never really leads to anything…

And honestly, same thing with her having Kurisu’s appearance, like what was up with that? I DID thought it was interesting, and I was so sure they were going to reveal something about how she was a baby created with Kurisu’s DNA for X reason or something, but no?? Apparently she just looks like Kurisu for no reason. Like man. Why. It’s just… I think the idea of her being both Mayuri and Kurisu’s daughter in SOME way was a pretty cool concept, and it especially would’ve been nice to explore this with Okabe’s projection of Kurisu on her and the memories implant where you could’ve had an arc with Kagari ultimately asserting herself as her own person.

And also… I kept thinking that honestly, I think that she could’ve been a very cool final antagonist in a way. Because again, I do believe Kagari’s motive to not go to Steins;Gate are very emotionally resonnant and valid, because from her point of view that’d mean losing her mother and her entire life altogether. This plus with her being abused and groomed by Leskinen, it would make sense she would try to stop the group from saving Kurisu (which would be darkly ironic if Kurisu had been her kind-of bio mother), and actually give her some agency in that story where she’s not just a victim who, in the end, doesn’t really do much of anything in the storyline. And you know, I kept thinking that, I hate what they did with Moeka and her relationship with Kagari in the Vega & Altair route, but I genuinely think that Kagari and Moeka’s relationship could have been very interesting because of how similar they are (both are heavily traumatized and orphaned young women who are desperate for love/parental approval and get used/manipulated into doing terrible things because of this). Imagine if we had a proper redemption arc for Moeka that would have paralleled Kagari’s descent into villainy, and how in the end Moeka could have fought to save her because she knows what it’s like to be in her place?? And how they could’ve done something with Moeka and Mayuri’s relationship through this as well??? (Yes I’m just writing fix-it fanfics at this point but!! Idk it would’ve been cool.) Kagari’s ending in the true end also feel… kind of off but whatever.

Also it’s a detail, but man, I think it’s really ridiculous they gave her some Upa as Mayuri’s memento instead of Mayuri’s grandma’s watch. Like what the hell, the watch would make a lot more sense thematically and emotionally than some random Upa. …Actually, it made me realize that Mayuri never ever bring up her watch at any point in S;G0 which, honestly, is super fucking weird. Did the writers just forget about it???

But anyway. Suzuha is also a character that I really like, and I specifically really love Beta Suzu, and during the first part of the game they actually… do some pretty interesting things with her. At least in Mayuri’s route. For the first part of this route, I love the way they characterize her as being this traumatized, no-nonsense young woman who is struggling between her responsability towards her missions and just spending time with her family that she never gets to have while growing up. I think they do a good job at portraying her complicated feelings towards her parents, and especially towards her mom, and the way at first she keeps exhausting herself until she has a breakdown and threaten Okabe on the roof. That’s one of the rare arc that was actually build up and earned properly in the whole story. However… well, the thing is that after her breakdown they really drop the ball hard with her? There’s no actual proper conclusion to her arc, not with her mother, not with Okabe (they have a little something in Kurisu’s route but not by much), not with trauma. They seemed to put forth an arc where she learns how to be, like, a normal girl her age again in the present era,bu they just… never deliver in the end. I was also surprisingly invested in her relationship with Kagari; the responsability she felt towards her as a big sister and how she failed her and is struggling about the perspective of having to fight her (and the guilt she felt towards Mayuri because of this too!), but here too it’s just… never lead to anything, except for a little bit in Kagari’s ending, but barely so.

And then in Kurisu’s route she doesn’t even get an arc at all. No like seriously, she’s only there to occasionally be a badass and say stuff sometimes, but that’s it. Like?? That’s so disappointing. I’m very sad they didn’t do anything, with, like the resentment and anger she’s implied to have towards her parents and Okabe at times. I swear, Beta Suzuha has so many interesting aspects but in the end they all feel glossed over. (And also, unlike Okabe they do a pretty poor job at handling her trauma… Like guys she was a literal child soldier, you’re not going to tell me she doesn’t have a minimum of PTSD.)

Special kudos too to that one Kagari/Suzuha fight scene where she’s completely naked, and she doesn’t have any scars or muscles or anything. Like okay, man. I think S;G0 in general had a lot of inappropriate fanservice that actually deviated from the story too; like obviously the original game had these too, but they didn’t feel as overwhelming as those and they didn’t pop up in serious moments at least. Seriously, why was S;G0 so horny with no reason sometimes, wtf.

I do really appreciate that they actually took the time to develop her relationship with Daru this time. Daru is also a character that is greatly improved in SG0 because this time around he actually feel… well, you know, like a character, instead of a plot device. He’s still not Good and I hate that they won’t let got of his gross jokes but at least he feel more like a person than just a walking stereotype who’s here to facilitate the plot (that scene in Mayuri’s route where he punches Okabe?? That was very cool. And there’s even one scene where he comforts Okabe after he’s had a panic attack which is… surprisingly sweet?? Like, wow, some genuine feelings between thos bros that let you know they do actually like each other, amazing.) I love how somehow the writers suddenly woke up and where like ‘Hey what if we Tried to write this guy as an Actual Character who's allowed to show varying emotions instead of as a joke?’ But anyway, yeah, it was nice and it really reflected in his relationship with Suzuha; which, again, had its issues but at least it was a lot better than what they did in the original game. Here I could buy at least that he genuinely come to care for Suzuha even while being a bit awkward with having this grown traumatized daughter thrown at him out of nowhere, and even despite some bullshit moments they still had a few nice scenes

Yuki’s character on the other hand was just… fucking bullshit lmao, like god. You know, initially I was pretty excited to learn that Suzuha’s mom would be introduced and play a major role in that story, because I always disliked the way she was completely non-existent in the og story, just as a joke “lol Daru will end up marrying a hot wife.” (Seriously, Suzuha herself barely talk about her when she’s the person who RAISED HER?? ALL ALONE? She should be a lot more importnat to her than her dad!) But in the end... well, there was one of the stupid twist I’ve ever seen in a story with the whole ‘well she was actually Kagari all along!’ in the Vega & Alair route and it’s just!! WHAT was this twist! It’s so ridiculous and in the end serves absolutely zero purpose I’m just… why! Why what the point of showing us those scenes of Daru & Suzuha bonding with Yuki if it was to undermine all of this for that….. And then in Kurisu’s route idk. She’s just there I guess. Being almost as useless as Kaede and Fubuki. Man, would it have really killed the writers to give her some personality and an actual arc and role in the overall story??? Even just a SMALL one? PLEASE? Even her romance with Daru was subpar and like I said her relationship with Suzuha lead to nowhere, so EVEN at just being A Wife and A Mom she fails at it!! (And again, that sucks because imo, her relationship with Suzuha could have been very interesting and nice, and HELL even her romance with Daru could’ve been cute (as long as they portray him as an awkward smitten nerd and not a gross perv)). I hate you, S;G writers. I hate you.

The rest of the characters though were just… kind of there. I’ve already rambled about how useless Fubuki and Kaede were, and how Faris and Luka really SHOULD’VE had their screentime as well as a bigger rôle; but honestly I could say the same with say, the Tennoujis. They also had no purpose in this story, just popping up to reminds you they still exist I guess. Moeka was lucky enough to get a pretty nice short development in Maho’s ending, but it WAS very short and ONLY in Maho’s ending ; the rest of the story she’s either pretty sidelined or treated pretty shittily (like seriously… the way they handle her character in Vega & Altair makes me want to punch someone. She deserves better than this!!) It sucks because her friendship with Maho and the development she gets in her ending is the best thing that happened to her character! I don’t understand why we couldn’t have gotten something like this throughout the entire game? Have her (and Tennouji too!) get a proper, actually ‘redemption,’ this time around (even if they don’t remember what they did wrong) ; let Moeka have a more solid character arc where she learns how to value herself properly thanks to Maho and have her actually interact witn Tennouji so that they resolve their issues too? Idk. I DID like they were allies to Okabe this time, but like… they could’ve done so much more with them it’s disappointing.

And then there were the bad guys, which…. Ugh, okay, not gonna lie but Leskinen and Reyes were very weak antagonists. See, one thing I actually really like in the original S;G is that there is not really a ‘proper’ villain. Moeka and Tennouji all play the part of antagonist throughout the story, but in the end they’re mostly like, victims of circumstances (well, there’s Kurisu’s dad too but he’s something else entirely). The ‘true’ big bad are either : SERN, which for the entirety of its story is just some formless entity that we never concretely ‘meet’ or really understand what it’s about, or it’s just… ‘fate’ or the ‘universe’ itself, as the the thing keep killing Mayuri over again (or Kurisu at the end). And I think that’s one of the coolest aspects of S;G that works very well as its overall theme of coming-of-age story for Okabe. So it was pretty disappointing that they decided to have a pretty classic ‘bad guy’ in Leskinen. Like he and Reyes feel very flat and corny, the story never tries to give them any depth and deeper goals beyond being Evil Mad Scientists,’ and yeah it makes sense as they’re mirroring Okabe what with them being Actual Mad Scientists and all but they still… could’ve had more? There are some instances with Leski & Okabe and Maho & Leski where I thought they had the opportunity to make them interesting, what with him feeling a bit like a father figure for them at times — and the story was very centred around parenthood — but they just never do it, so their ‘betrayal’ are incredibly predictable, and end up feeling ridiculous when Okabe seems so hurt over it too, so in the end they mostly made me cringe. (They could’ve very compelling stuff with Leskinen’s relationship with Kurisu compared to his relationship with Kagari, but noooope... Like I said, it would’ve been SO much more interesting to get Kagari as the final antagonist but ohhh well!)

Anyway, yeah, that’s pretty much it. So I complained a lot, but I do think S;G0 was an interesting ride in the end. I’m glad I got to finally play it because I’ve been wanting to try it since, like… 2015 lol. I feel like there’s some very mitiged receptions on it; I’ve seen some who says it’s better than the og game, and others that it’s worse. Personally I’m somewhere in the middle, but in general I dont think both stories are comparable, they feel more… complementing?

There’s a lot I liked about it, sometimes more than in the og VN (again, stories that dealt with messy grief are always my jam), but also I’m just very disappointed about cause so many cool concepts that could’ve been so much better. I’ve also seen some complaints that the time travel stuff was less well-written than in the original, like with things like Mayuri and Kagari’s song being a bootstrap paradox, but... I dunno, I think there are problems that can be easily found in the original story too. Like, yes, I do think the worldbuilding and time travel science is generally well put togeter in the original story, but at the same time it was never mean to be very grounded or realistic, so those type of details don’t bother me. Same with the ridiculous bigger plot points and all, where it’s like... obviously the whole thing about World War III and the two secret organizations and all are kind of silly, but that’s a type of silliness and over-the-top-ness that’s expected from S;G and that works within its universe. I’ve sait it before I think, but to me Steins;Gate have always been more of a coming-of-age story for Okabe than a time travel stotry, really, and that’s how it works the best.

Now an odd criticism from me maybe but I... didn’t like huke’s art in this? Like, it is a lot more... polished and ‘standardized’ than the art in the first game, and as a result didn’t feel much like S;G. I don’t know, I’m aware some people don’t like it, but to me huke’s arstyle is definitely one of the most charming and defining aspect of the VN (and why the Elite version sucks ass, just like the anime’s artstyle), so I didn’t like seeing it being made more... ‘normal anime,’ I guess. I was pretty disappointed with the music as well too? Like most of the tracks were either the same than the original game, or utterly forgettable...

But yeah! The only thing I really take from it is Maho (she’s now officially my second fave S;G character <3) and everything related to her; her ending is just the best, as well as Maho/Kurisu and Maho/Moeka, truly the best parts of the story, the Okakuri angst, and a liiiittle bit what they tried to do with Mayuri and Kagari. A little. The rest is kind of *shrugs* to me.

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connan-l · 2 years

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Countdown to 10th Anniversary

Okaayyy I'll try to do this too~

Unlike on Twitter I didn’t get to reply to those every day, so I’ll just post all of them at once!

Day 1 - Unexpected

So there's not actually any character I specifically disliked the first time around, but still if I had to choose then probably Jacopo ssdfgd Thing is, he’s usually the type of characters I’m very hard on, especially as he is introduced in Door 3; and tbh I wasn’t very fond of him by the end of the main game either cause I thought his backstory was super rushed and didn’t do a good job of making me invested and understand him. But then I played Requiem and it completely ruined me... Now he’s fighting with Morg as a spot for my fave character.

Day 2 - Favorite Ending

Okay so as a whole Requiem’s ending/The Revenant’s Dream has my heart forever <3 But speaking about the main game’s endings specifically thennnn to me it’s a mix between Ending 3: ‘Bonjour, Poupée’ and Ending 5: ‘Never Let Go.’

Ending 3’s perspective of having Michel stay in the mansion with the Maid is just endlessly fascinating and bittersweet to me, and also because I love the Maid so much and I wishwishwish she’d be more respected and we’d had more of her dynamic with Michel and everyone tbh. So having an ending where she gets to stay ‘herself’ instead of going back to Door 5!Giselle is just soooo :3 Ending 5 is pretty cool in itself but I admit I like it more because of its followup in Tir na nog, which is one of my fave Fata side stories. Here too the idea of giving WHG a sort of ‘happy’ end where she gets to live her life even at the expense of Giselle and Morgana is very sad but in a strange hopeful way.

(On that sense, I could give a special mention to Ending 4: 'A Moment of Hesitation' as well, just for its followup story ‘Pain’ where Giselle completely kick Morgana's ass and I always loves seeing Morgana having her ass kicked <3)

Day 3 - Favorite Character

Morganaaaa.

I love her so much. She just hits a lot of stuff I dig in fiction; the way the main game slowly build up her character and introduce her, how even as just as a voice she has such a strong, charismatic presence; how genuinely fun she is as the main antagonist; I love her personality, her design, her backstory, all the complexities she has regarding her fractured identity, her relationship to religion and the way it prevent her from forming bonds and relating to others, the way she starts out as a genuinely very kind-hearted girl who still struggles with ugly emotions and self-loathing and self-righteousnss but end up getting so warped because of trauma, abuse and loneliness.

But to be honest, the thing I love the most about her is how absolutely awful she can be for most of the story. I don't like when people tries to argue that she’s Done Nothing Wrong because, yes obviously she has every right to wants revenge on the men who abused her, but also it kinds of gloss over that she’s... you know, she’s not a good person. She’s pretty horrible and caused so much harm towards people who've done nothing to her and never even apologize for any of this; and I love the way she weaponizes her own trauma and use her status as a victim to justify those things - but also, that even despite all of those things, the story is still adamant that her anger and her pain are valid and should be respected, that even with all the awfulness she deserves to be heard and understood and be given a second chance. That she can grows and move on without having to literally stay stuck in place.

One of the reason Fata has stayed with me more than 4 years after I’ve read it now, is because I genuinely think it is one of the best stories I’ve seen that was able to put forth that kind of message of ‘your pain and revenge is valid but you cannot hurt others to obtain it and if you keep staying so wrapped up in your own pain without moving on at the end of the day you are only going to hurt yourself’ in a way that felt so compassionate and non-judgemental.

Day 4 - Unforgettable Scene

Pheeww okay so the most stricking Fatamoru scene ever to me is actually in Requiem, when Mell lure Morgana to open her cabin’s door and Yukimasa cuts off her arm. Just… the entire mental breakdown she experiences right up until she meets Jacopo in the tower is so raw and effective and amazing, and her ‘I wasn’t born to spend my entire life suffering’ is also my favorite quote from the game.

(Another one that always get to me is in the first part when she experiences a whole meltdown after the festival and lashes out at Ceren, because again, it just feels so genuine & ugly and a culmination of her issues and messiness and identity crisis (and of course the following scene where Jacopo comfort her is just very sweet.)

My fave CG is probably this one just cause Im a basic bitch and she is very pretty ok <3

Now from the main game, it would probably be Morgana’s death scene in Door 8, when she dies in Michel’s arms and then he has to carry her outside... I think that moment of seeing Morgana completely dissociating and then her dying in Michel’s arms before he brings her outside the mansion is just a perfect encapsulation of the story’s climax and ending. And that’s also where my fave CG is too, of course.

(Now obviously there’s a lot of other scenes/CG I love wrt everything with Michel/Door 7/the Maid but... Yea I just love Morgana whump I guess sdsgsf)

Christ right I also feel obligated to give a special mention to the scene also in Door 8 where Michel has that conversation with Morgana's past self in a dream before his confrontation with Yukimasa. It's just... there's so much in this quiet scene on the way both of them connect with each other and Michel desperately trying to reach out to Morgana and it almost made me tear up the first time I read it lol.

Day 5 - Best Relationship

This is the part where I get cancelled lmaooo but Jacopo/Morgana and the entirety of their relationship throughout the two games and the tragedy of their story will always own my heart. I was very obssessed with them for like almost 3 years straight when I finished Requiem back in 2018 and while like most people they leave me super ConflictedTM they’re still very important to me. Like with Jacopo's character it's really Requiem that got me very invested in them, with the way it portray them as kind but traumatized people who manages to connect in quiet, simple ways, to their stupid but affectionate banters, to having an innate understanding and complicity and longing for each other; and then of course through the way it all ends up crumbling away and they just end up destroying each other. Fragment, and especially The Revenant's Dream, is also what really cemented their relationship to me because of how it works so well in concluding their story both in a very sad way but still leaving a vague optimistic note, and I like the ambiguity of it.

I'm so captivated by Morgana's complicated feelings of hating Jacopo and being unable to forgive him but also being unable to stop a small part of her of loving him (and hating herself for that) and Jacopo still loving her but feeling he needs to be punished and that he doesn't deserve to be by her side anymore and how at the of the day they'll still always care deeply for one another even while having hurt each other so much and it's just soooo. sooo angsty and compelling. I do believe that the most healthy outcome for both of them would be to cut ties even while acknowledging that they'll always be important for each other, but at the same time there's a part of me who find the idea of them being able to reconnect again even if they'll never be the people they used to be and will never be able to love each other the way they used to very meaningful.

(By the way, I absolutely recommend this fic by CONSUMER_ELECTRONICS on this topic because it's very beautifully written and manages to encapsulate all of this perfectly: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35846557)

Anyway, I'll always love them both in all their messiness and Problematic-nessTM glory.

Special mention to Michel/Giselle of course because they’re still the pair who MAKE the entire main game, as well as Morgana & Michel and Jacopo & Maria.

Day 6 - Comic Relief

Pfff I’m gonna be honest, I always thought the comedic aspects are the weakest parts of Fata. I don’t really have any that specifically stood out to me, but every time Maria and Morgana roast Jacopo is beautiful. This one actually made me chuckle out loud:

Day 7 - What Fata Morgana is To You

So it took me a while to think about this one cause I admit I'm not sure I can really put it into words in a way... that makes sense lol. I can't say Fata is a work that like, fundamentally changed or saved my life or something like that (I played HiguUmi first and so Ryukishi took that honor before haha, although it probably would have been the case if I'd discovered Fata earlier when I was still a teen), but I think it basically kind of represents the type of story I love and that is instrinsically so... "me" on a core level.

I spoke a little during Day 3 about Morgana & what she means to me, but basically the story's themes of emphathy and forgiveness and tragedy and identity, the way the narrative's structured and how every scene and character and dialogue has a meaning and purpose is just exactly what I look for in fiction and what resonantes the most with me. If you ask me what is the most like "me" when it comes to stories, then Fata is just the first choice that comes to my mind. I also first read it when I was in the middle of a pretty low point in my life and I do think that it managed to help me a little to get out of that depressive state I was stuck in and, in a way, led me to get more proactive in what I wanted to do with my life. It's what motivated me to get more involved into fandom online spaces as well, whereas until now I used to be more of a quiet lurker, and thus thanks to that I met a lot of cool people I really enjoy talking with!

So yeah. Thanks a lot FataMoru and Novect. You mean a lot to me and I'll always be glad and grateful I got to discover you at the time I did ❤️🦋

#The House in Fata Morgana #FataMoru #CountdowntoFata10th #Fata10thAnni #Connan's Ramblings #Long Post #Connan's Posts #Fata 10th Anni #Countdown to Fata 10th #FataMoru 10th Anniversary Week #FataMoru 10th Anniversary #The House in Fata Morgana 10th Anniversary #Fata Morgana #Fata #Fata Morgana no Yakata

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connan-l · 7 months

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Speaking of Taki and friends. I really hope that girl reappears again and becomes a proper character. She's cute and Taki needs an actual female friend in the manga lol

I think it'd be cool if she were to become friends with Natsume & co and become a part of their group too (I'd love for him to have another recurrent female friend besides Taki. and Hinoe I guess. but Hinoe's a yokai and I mean like. another human more normal friend.) but maybe that'd be asking too much.

(Also she clearly has a crush on Taki and I think it'd be neat we get non-messed up lesbian rep in Natsuyuu. to balance things out.)

#Natsume Yuujinchou #Taki Tooru #Give taki a gf 2024!#NatsuYuu #Natsume's Book of Friends #Connan's Ramblings #Tooru Taki #Natsuchou #Connan's Posts

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connan-l · 3 years

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Still can't believe that Morgana deliberately knocking off the books on Giselle when she's cleaning the library at the beginning of Door 5 is canon.

I’m really laughing about this cause I remember reading this scene in the VN and then later on thinking “lol it must be Morgana who made the books fall” and the manga just actually went and confirmed it.

She is so fucking petty sffghjfhsdf

#The House in Fata Morgana #FataMoru #Morgana FataMoru #Giselle FataMoru #FataMoru Manga #Giselle Bollinger #The Veil Over Your Eyes #Morgana (The House in Fata Morgana)#Novect #Giselle (The House in Fata Morgana)#Giselle and Morgana #Connan's Ramblings #Connan's Posts

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connan-l · 3 years

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GOD that entire dialogue in Chapter 9 where Okabe calls Kurisu is GOLD, it seriously crack me up but it’s also one of my fave interactions between them. It’s really just the “my wife is a bitch and I love her so much” John Mulaney meme and at the same time it says so much about each of them as individuals and about their dynamic.

Honestly though, that’s why sometimes I tend to be annoyed with portrayal of Kurisu that are too tsundere-ish or too mellow/soft because damn. Girl is fucking rad.

Yes she has that act-tough-to-hide-her-vulnerabilities side and is very sweet and caring at heart, but she is also genuinely harsh and merciless when it’s needed -- and, to be honest, it’s the way her character manage to balance those two things without feeling contradictory that I like about her.

I’m not really sure if she would’ve actually gone through with killing Moeka or would’ve been fine with Okabe doing that, but the ruthleness when the situations ask for it is definitely here and real. And like Okabe says that’s speficically what helped him get his head straight throughout the entire ordeal. (Dare I say that portrayal of her as too soft sometimes is likely a symptom of the way she’s been consistently waifu-ified by the male otaku fanbase but that’s another topic)

#Steins;Gate #Kurisu Makise #OkaKuri #Rintaro Okabe #Steins Gate #Connan's Ramblings #Science Adventure Series

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connan-l · 3 years

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Recently I’ve randomly decided to do a Steins;Gate replay and... Huh, this exchange and Okabe outright telling Kurisu to her face he genuinely do respect her so early on (it’s chapter 3, so they’ve just barely started the D-Mails experiments) actually surprised me, I’d forgotten that. Of course he instantly deflect it by pissing her off cause these two can’t be genuine with each other unless they’re about to die but the intent is there and that's actually a good illustration of what I love about them.

Okabe can be a hard character to digest at the beginning because of... well, how he is, and I remember when I first got into the series it felt especially annoying with his attitude towards Kurisu; even if she can be hard to deal with at times, it came off as pretty egregious to have this guy constantly put down, dismiss and make fun of this genuinely very talented and intelligent young woman who is much more brilliant and qualified than he is.

But the narrative is quite good on making it pretty clear throughout the story that all of his disparagement are there to hide the genuine respect and admiration he has for her that in the end that obnoxious feeling faded away. It’s not even that he grows to respect Kurisu over the course of the story (that’d be more acurate to describe Kurisu’s feelings towards him that way), because he explicitely states that he was already in awe of her right from the start. I’m not saying anything super relevant or new here given it’s pretty explicit in the story itself but that’s just an aspect of their dynamic I truly dig.

I was really into OkaKuri as a teen cause it does hit a lot of stuff I like in fictional couples, by managing to have great chemistry, fun banter and rivalry, a relationship that actively challenge the two of them and push each other to grow all while being intimately understanding and supportive, as well as them just being this mix of stupid awkward nerds and angsty tragic star-crossed lovers.

But more than that, it’s Okabe’s combination of jealousy, deep admiration, longing to be like Kurisu he has for her that ends up morphing into love and where both of them have a lot of respect for the other that’s very compelling about them to me.

#Steins;Gate #Kurisu Makise #Rintaro Okabe #OkaKuri #They're good okay!! they're good.#Connan's Ramblings #Science Adventure Series #Connan's Posts #Text

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connan-l · 2 years

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I finished Seventh Lair!! (okay technically I finished it a month ago but only got to finish writing this now so shut up) And, all right, that was… something. I liked it! More than I thought, in fact, which was… surprising to me in a way, as I wasn’t expecting anything out of it.

I had briefly played Mujou no Erasmus where the whole story mostly… just left me confused and I really wasn’t into it lol, so while I was curious about Seventh Lair I still didn’t have much interest in it. But ultimately I did enjoy it, certainly much more than Erasmus, and in fact even got pretty invested in it and in its characters at times.

It’s obviously not FataMoru, and… it’s nothing particularly impressive either; if it weren’t related to Fata or written by Novect I don’t think I would have given it any attention. But it’s fine and simple, kind of cute and kind of interesting at times, a little silly at others -- and, for something that was originally a short and free April fool’s game with reused characters, it still manage to be its own solid little story with a few compelling bits. So if you love Novect’s works and is curious about it, then sure, go ahead.

(Small rant time but : I REALLY wish there’d been a more visible and detailed trigger warning somewhere about the suicide and graphic CG. I HAD been spoiled about the game tackling suicide and getting dark, but I was just Not expecting that graphic CG to pop up and it almost triggered a panic attack for me (I’m a horror fan and tend to be okay generally with all sorts of gruesome content but you know, sometimes a warning’s still nice). Yes there IS a short warning for self-harm/suicide on Steam’s page of the game, but it’s kind of vague, not very visible and not how the game was presented in bigger social media space like Twitter; plus there’s a difference between saying ‘this tackle the topic of suicide’ and ‘this game features a graphic CG of someone committing suicide with a graphic description of how he did it’ so… yeah, it would’ve been great to have some kind of more thorough content warning beforehand.)

Aaanyway, spoilers under the cut, because for as much as I said it was a fairly simple story I still ended up having lots of thoughts lol (and warning for discussions of all of the heavy topics the game includes, especially suicide and transphobia):

The best aspects of the game to me was all in all: the way it dealt with online relationships, the entire musing regarding creators/developers and handling of suicide (with some caveats but I’ll come back to it later), Michel’s psychee and his developing relationships, and Iméon. I LOVE Iméon. I mean I always love Iméon but here he was literally my favorite character lol.

I’m actually someone who enjoy a lot of isekai-harem-ish animanga, even the ones who can be bad, so the concept of ‘real nerds find themselves trapped in a video game’ was more than familiar to me; but the spin they put on it, about it being the literal creator of the game who get himself imprisoned in it, was actually pretty fun and... not something I see often, so it also felt pretty fresh to me. The comedy at the beginning was effective as well as I actually chuckled out loud a few times (which was surprising to me because comedy certainly wasn’t Fata’s forte), and even the tonal shift was… decently handled. I imagine it probably won’t be the case for everyone and I can see some people struggling a bit with it, but I felt the way they progressively lulled you in with lighthearted humor before hitting you with the drama and tragedy was done okay, if maybe a little jarring. The music was really good too! There are many catchy and memorable pieces, which is again pretty impressive they took the time for this for a free and short game.

But well all this asides what really stuck out to me the most was the… relatability of the themes and narrative as a whole. Like, listen, I’m a depressed nerd in my twenties who struggle to keep a steady job and is a small creator in my own right (although mostly only in transformative work but still) who probably spend way too much time online so YEAH of course a story like that was going to hit close to home on some level lmao. For one, I really love the way it portrayed online relationships in a way that felt pretty... genuine? One my fave parts of the game was definitely the attached website they made where you can read all the forums conversations (which I checked before actually playing the game) and I was like, lol yeah, it does truly feel like real exchanges I’ve had myself on there. Nellie was the most touching character on that topic to me, probably because even if I’ve never lied or literally created another internet persona she was very similar to how I was as a young teen online, and so a lot of her interactions and friendships with the others and especially with Michel were quite affecting (I especially loved the scene of him telling her it was fine even if she couldn’t make friends her own age at school when she was able to already make other friends online...) And all the authenticity and nuances in Iméon and Michel’s friendship as well... It’s great that they were actually able to represent as much of the bad sides of online friendships as the good — the way that yes, you can definitely create very genuine and deep bonds even with people you’ve never meet in real life or even know their real names and that they can be just as meaningful as real life friendships, but that there’s still some kind of wall between you that might lead to actively makes assumptions about others or dehumanize them, which can sometimes lead to very awful consequences like what happened here with Michel’s story. Iméon’s guilt in the epilogue about how if he’d tried to reach out to Michel more or meet him in real life then maybe he could’ve prevented his death, but that he was too scared to try, felt very real and broke my heart.

The way it explored creators/developers and their relationship with both their creations and their audience was done well too and I enjoyed a lot of the conversations it brought in, be it in Michel’s own musing and experience (the way he first started working in a big company, but then stopped because of the restraints and thought he could be more creative in the indie world but then still found himself struggling to get well-known or make original content… ooff) or with Iméon and Michel’s arguments. Shortly before the game was released on Steam, Keika Hanada actually tweeted about how Seventh Lair was one of his most favorite works and how he was anxious about how it would be received, even moreso than FataMoru, and I think I can understand why better now because… there’s definitely something that feel very intimate in a lot of this game’s writing. Now I don’t know Hanada or what he had in mind while writing this VN, but given he is literally an indie game developer himself it did seems natural to me there was a lot of heart and maybe personal experience in this that felt very genuine and sincere, and I’m speaking for myself here but I think that’s definitely something a lot of creators will resonate with. That’s probably the most interesting angle of this game in a lot of ways, to be honest.

(Also a small random thing I appreciated was Michel asking Giselle why she bothered typing out all these thoughts about his games because it takes a lot of time and effort to gather your thoughts and express them like that. I’m saying this cause as someone who does spend a lot of time typing out my thoughts on various media I really love seeing this acknowledged haha (Writing this post for instance was genuinely a struggle for me lol))

And then there’s the… entire suicide theme. So, I always tend to be... really critical of stories that broach up suicide as a focus, not only because well, I’m someone who’s had first hand experience with it, but also because much like abuse or mental illness it’s a hard topic to handle in general. It can be pretty difficult to find a just balance between not coming off as an easy simplistic “suicide is bad :( You shouldn’t kill yourself, live your life to the fullest, people will miss you :)” morale in a way that often completely disregard and downplay the very nuanced and different socioeconomic circumstances, mental illnesses and traumas that push people into this kind of extreme actions, and at the same time not depicting a bleak and exploitative “well that’s just how it is with those people, no way to save them, maybe death’s better for them” and... Seventh Lair wasn’t entirely perfect with it (not that there’s ever a way to tackle something like this ‘perfectly’ anyway), but to me at least it actually was… sort of able to juggle between the two extremities in a manner that is nuanced and, more importantly, compassionate, with how it presented different experiences and reasons that might lead people to killing themselves.

They took some very harrowing experiences someone might get through like grief with Michel, transphobia with Iméon or bullying with Nellie, but the one that stuck out to me the most was actually Jacopo, because of the genuine way he just admit there was “no real reason” he considered suicide, just that he felt like he couldn’t keep up with life and had nothing else going on. I just liked the acknowledgment that sometimes people don’t have a very specific reason for committing suicide or it being the consequences of a particular traumatic incident like being abused or losing someone; sometimes it’s just the result of a chain of simple events or of a depression that’s too big to bear — and, more importantly, that he’s still treated with as much compassion and humanity as the others. On that sense, I also appreciate the game seems to makes a point in saying that even when suicide might be a consequence of something specific, more than that it’s also often a product of the person’s environment and of the way they’re isolated and lacking a solid support system that can lead them to do this, which was the case for each of the characters here. There’s just a lot of media that simplify the issue as: they kill themselves because something bad/traumatic happened to them, when in reality it’s rarely a single particular event but everything surrounding it and then the inability to cope with it that causes the killing.

Related to this, one thing I also found interesting was the reveal of Michel’s suicide and the intent behind it; so there seemed to be a bit of supernatural mixed in with how just his Bad Emotions would trigger the others’ suicides, but I thought it was really percuting in how it echoes the concept of ‘suicide contagion’; how exposing suicidal people to graphic suicide imageries and in-depth methods of preparations can possibly lead to furthering suicidal urges and pushing them to execute it. I remember there was this whole controversy about it surrounding the show’s Thirteen Reasons Why with the depiction of the main girl’s suicide for instance, and I just thought it was effective when you consider Michel’s suicide that way given it heavily reflect this. Now, in that sense maybe actually showing a very graphic CG of him stabbing his wrist along with a graphic description lessen a bit the meaning of it as a result — I think it would’ve worked better if they’d stayed vague, the impact of the scene would’ve been just as shocking and more meaningful. Though, yeah, overall I think some aspects of this could’ve been more explored at times, but in the end it did the most of what’s important to me when you tackles suicide, and the part it did well felt satisfying.

The plot as a whole was kind of simple, and the first part of it feel a bit too meandering without a cohesive purpose, but it worked fine that way; I liked the structure of alternating between between what happened in the game and Michel’s past, all while trying to unravel the cause of the game little by little. The entire last part of the story felt pretty rushed though; from the moment they learn the truth about Nellie and Mell up until the final. They took their time at the start, but at the end they suddenly throw at you Nellie’s issues, then Jacopo’s issues then Iméon’s issues and than we learn the truth about Michel all at once without taking the time to breath. I wish we’d gotten more introspective on Nellie, Jacopo and Iméon’s characters as well? I don’t see why YUKIMASA get to have an entire part in his POV but these two doesn’t… Iméon at least gets the epilogue and that short story I guess but still.

The characters is a fun topic though because... like, let’s be real, it is a bit difficult to judge them on their own merits as a result of how they do feel like the characters we know from Fata. Obviously besides some similarities they’re pretty different people in a lot of ways, but they still bear the same faces and names and some personality traits as their original Fata counterparts, which is, I think, both a bad and good thing. ‘Good’ in the sense that us knowing and in a way expecting them to acts like their Fata counterparts made some twists works well — like with Mell, for instance, where of course we’re not going to question whenever Mell starts acting cowardly or won’t support his sister when she needs it because, well, that’s how Mell is in Fata; but nope, in reality it’s just he’s not even a real person at all lmao. Or us not suspecting Iméon’s true identity because of his appearance and him saying things very similar to what Maria said in Door 8 like ‘not being a princess,’ but then obviously their reasons for saying this are radically different. However it also means that an audience who have played FataMoru first will instinctively expect and transfer what they know of their FataMoru counterparts onto these characters, even when they’re distinct people with distinct roles; I admit I probably wouldn’t have cared as much for instance about Michel and Giselle in Seventh Lair if I wasn’t already attached to them from FataMoru. So it does makes me wonder what the story would’ve been like if they’d actually designed completely new characters without them being related to Fata and if maybe it would’ve been better, and I remember thinking the same thing about Erasmus too. (Actually, I wonder what it would like for someone to play Seventh Lair and Erasmus before FataMoru lol, it would be quite an experience.)

All that asides, I did like most of the cast. This Michel’s a good and interesting protagonist — similarly to FataMoru!Michel, outside from him being an awkward nerd, I love the way he can often be very defeatist and petty and kind of an asshole, but that you can still believe he’s a nice dude at heart; Hanada is definitely great at writing this type of characters who can be genuinely good people at heart but end up self-destructing, causing harm and hurting others as a result of their own pain or unresolved issues. As I said earlier, the way his relationship to his games are developed throughout and how he switches between being kind of pretentious about it to super self-loathing is really neat. What’s interesting with him too is that, his backstory with Giselle asides, unlike Fata!Michel it doesn’t seem like he got any kind of bad childhood or trauma. He’s not close to his family, but he doesn’t seem to have a bad relationship with them either (I kind of wish they’d developed a bit more his family though. It surprised me when he mentioned he had a brother and a sister; I was like ‘wow is Georges a woman in here?’ Or does he just have siblings completely unrelated to Fata? Or maybe it’s even just a translation thing, who knows), and the way his arc revolve into getting to know and sympathize with the people he otherwise pretty much dehumanized and almost killed was effective; just like the best parts of Door 8, it was really nice seeing him interact with each of the cast. (It also… doesn’t seem like this Michel is trans/intersex, right? I mean I guess you could read him as such, but I feel if he was it would’ve come up at some point; especially given Iméon’s storyline, it wouldn’t make sense to keep it as being Not Explicit? Though I admit cis Michel is kind of an odd idea to wrap my mind around lol — that’s also a bit part of the issue with using preexisting characters as models instead of entirely new ones.)

The rest of the cast was good too; I got pretty endeared to Nellie and Jacopo. I mentioned Nellie before but she was instantly likable to me, and I like the twist of Mell being another persona she created, especially with her using it as a way to cover up her meaner streak (and it is very compelling to have a version of Nellie who doesn’t have that codependent relationship to her brother and actively get to live on her own without him). I liked this Jacopo as well, but admittedly except with his storyline regarding suicide he still felt like the less interesting character of the bunch to me… I mostly liked him in his interactions with others, he was pretty fun in this lol. And oh yeah there’s Yukimasa being Yukimasa ssfsdff. Like okay, Yukimasa was just super hilarious to me as always (did they really went with the guy being a serial killer who DECAPITATE his victims?? and killed A BABY at the age 12?? I’m sdsfdsfds. That guy is the funniest FataMoru character, I just can’t with him) but his whole arc left me… super dubitative lmao. It just legit left me wondering ‘okay… what was the point of this exactly in the end?’ I guess I can see them making a parallel with Michel’s attempt at… ‘indirect’ serial murder in the end, but even so his story felt pretty goofy and in the end his and Pauline’s presence were very annedoctic, the others even barely mention them at all after his sacrifice; even in the epilogue we got one line that’s like ‘oh yeah and these 2 died as well I guess but anyway’ lol. I kind of feel maybe scrapping him off from the game completely and instead focus more on the characters you already have would have been better, they didn’t need that big of a cast to start with. Honestly, I’m just biter that Yukimasa got to have an entire part in his POV while Nellie and Jacopo didn’t; I would’ve been much more interested in seeing their backstory and psychee explored much more than this guy orz. (It was notable though that the narrative specifically precise here Yukimasa was in love with Pauline, given the original Fata went out of its way to mention that he was not. Which honestly I find less interesting; I thought Fata!Yukimasa not being in love with her was actually very refreshing and compelling in a lot of way, so I’m not fond of them doing otherwise here. Not that they do much with it in the end either way.)

NOW Iméon. So I already said it but Iméon was definitely my personal favorite in this game; I just, well, I really love him as a person but I also really love the way his character was written and presented to us… The way how we only get to know him through his chats with Michel in the first part of the game, giving him a very palpable presence throughout the story right from the start even without knowing anything else about him, and his actual proper introduction as the ‘princess’ (which, ooff) until the last part where his identity was revealed was just really nicely executed, and it did so in conveying so much about him as a person. Everything about Seventh Lair!Iméon’s character seems conflicted, be it as a creator and his feelings on games, his feelings about himself and his identity, his feelings for Giselle and then for Michel… And of course I also really loved his friendship with Michel; even without the added context of Assento dele, there was something just so genuine and complicit between them and the way you can instantly feel that they’re very close and care a lot about each other, but also that there’s some tension in their friendship and a struggle to be properly open with the other.

I actually will even say that to me, their friendship felt like the heart of Seventh Lair even moreso than Michel and Giselle’s romance (I actually have issues with Giselle and Michel but I’ll come back to it); they really encapsulate so much of the overall story’s theme about creators and games and relationships, and the fact that the epilogue ends from Iméon’s point of view at Michel’s funerals just really cements this to me. Now, on that sense, I really wish we had… more of a conclusion on their friendship? Because I didn’t feel really satisfied by the brief exchange they had at the end, and it didn’t seems like they really cleared up or had the time to clear up everything left in their air between them — especially the reveal about Iméon being Giselle’s friend for whom he also had feelings should feel like a bigger thing with more time spent on, rather than it just being thrown at the very end; we really barely saw Michel reacts to it. I also wanted to see more exchanges and development between Iméon and the others, as well as with his relationship with Giselle (yeah we got that short story afterwards but, I don’t know, it felt pretty unsatisfying to me?). Oh well. Anyway, in my head Seventh Lair!Giselle also had feelings for Immy and they’re all living happily as a OT3 somewhere in a parallel universe.

And so on the other obvious topic about Iméon: I actually already knew beforehand that he was a trans man in Seventh Lair, because a mutual of mine who’d played the game in Japanese had told me, so it wasn’t a surprise lol. I WAS surprised though when they used Maria’s sprite to represent him (and it did felt kind of confusing for a while lmao), even if thinking back on it yeah, it must makes sense given the game was released in 2013 iirc, and at the time Assento dele hadn’t been out, so even if they’d conceptualized Iméon’s character in Fata from the start they probably didn’t have a proper sprite/design for him just yet. Now, confusion asides I do think this actually add an interesting layer to Iméon’s character and his trans storyline to have Maria’s appearance; Iméon in Assento dele is described as being very androgynous, to the point where it’s very easy for Michel to believe they are a man without second thought. Maria, on the other hand, even with her very short hair (and even without the sexy skimpy outfit) has a traditionally feminine appearance — which is important to Iméon in this story given him not being able to ‘‘pass’’ properly as a man is very emblematic of his struggle, and I think that’s a very interesting thing to tackle especially when you put him in comparison to Michel’s trans narrative from FataMoru. One thing with Fata!Michel’s story is that after puberty, even with his very long hair and being described as slender/’weak’, he actually has not much issue passing as a ‘traditional’ man even without any proper transition or surgery (which would’ve been complicated in the middle ages anyway lol); no one in the story question his gender when they first meet him, be it Giselle (even when he actively tell her he is a ‘witch’) the villagers or anyone in Door 8, and even Georges at some point said something like how ‘it’d be hard to treat him as a girl with that appearance’ ; in other words, for anyone who hasn’t known him as a child and who doesn’t know about his body, and even despite Michel struggling with gender dysphoria and often wishing he could be more ‘masculine’, he can still pass pretty easily as a ‘man’ by society’s standards. It’s more complicated for Iméon in Seventh Lair, with Maria’s obvious feminine appearance, who cannot pass as anything but a ‘woman’ and who obviously suffers from that in a more insidious way.

It is also interesting to compare those two trans masculine narratives with the way they’re developed and resolved — Michel in FataMoru comes out as a man openly shortly after coming to terms with his gender, and only present himself as such to everyone afterwards; he is very adamant about his identity, which he refuses to compromise no matter what he might endures as consequences because of it and there’s a lot of emphasis about him wanting to live true to himself, which, in the true end, he gets to have and live happily as such, even if it’s via reincarnation; Iméon in Seventh Lair, on the other hand, while also being certain of his gender identity is still trapped in his old one because of how he doesn’t feel able to either have enough money to help him ‘properly’ transition or just the fact that coming out would likely means losing his entire or most of his current life, and the ending also doesn’t say anything about him openly coming out or living his ‘true’ life as a man or anything like that. What is both compelling and really moving to me about it is that, well, the fact it takes the time to acknowledge this kind of issue at all which is obviously something a lot of trans people faces unfortunately, but also the fact it never seems… ‘judgmental’ in Iméon’s choice, if that makes sense? Even if obviously he is unhappy with his situation to the point of furthering suicidal urges, throughout and by the end of the story there’s no emphasis on him having to comes out or how he ‘doesn’t live true to himself’ (unlike, say, Fata!Michel) – and that reminded me of how not long ago I read a post about how it was nice the show Heartstopper was very clear in showing that being closeted isn’t a bad thing or being a coward/liar or a burden (I haven’t seen Heartstopper so I cannot personnally comment on it though), and how this… can actually be surprisingly rare in queer stories — at least in more ‘popular/mainstream’ ones, I’m sure there are a lot of gay/trans authors who’ve tackled the topic in more niche stories before — but that was similar to how I felt here in Iméon’s case, that there was a genuine kindness and understanding in acknowledging this awful situation he’s stuck in which can lead to terrible consequences like suicide, all while the story being very considerate to not… treat it like something insurmountable, that of course it completely makes sense for Iméon to want to stay closeted and not risk losing his job and social circle and, especially, that it doesn’t mean he cannot find other meaning to be himself in other ways — and that’s where highlighting just how important Iméon’s online persona where he could be himself so unabashedly was to him, as well as in the epilogue where he hints at creating future video games where he could express himself in this way, even if he can’t do it in real life. And I dunno, it was just one small aspect of his character that was very touching to me personally (Mind you, I’m not saying FataMoru doesn’t acknowledge that on some level, as for instance Michel not telling the truth to Giselle about his identity is never portrayed as him ‘deceiving’ her or anything, and the only one who frames it that way is Morgana, all while the way she forcefully out him against his consent has always been framed as a really heinous thing (honestly, this is legit one of Morgana’s most violent act towards Michel and it’s not talked enough if you ask me), but somehow it was made… very clear in a lot of ways in Seventh Lair and… yeah. I loved that.) Anyway, this trans Iméon also made me think back about FataMoru!Iméon and how odd it is that this one is… so far canonically not a trans man? I really wonder what was the writing process behind this character’s writing, and maybe I’ll make a separate post on it later on. One day.

With all of this, I think the game do fumble or leave me very... confused on a few things:

— Giselle. So, I feel I’ll get booed for saying this but, man... Seventh Lair!Giselle was a pretty weak character, and her role in the story as well as her romance with Michel, actively bothered me. Like, all right, they were very cute in a lot of ways, don’t get me wrong, and some of their emotional scenes worked quite well regardless; but the thing is that it… now I don’t like using that term because of how often it can be thrown around undeservedly nowadays, but it pretty much tend to reduce Giselle to a ‘manic pixie dream girl’-type love interest. She’s very sweet and bubbly and cute, barges into the male protagonist’s life out of nowhere and suddenly gives meaning into his life and teach him how to live again — but while Michel gets plenty of inner struggle and complex emotions and development, Giselle doens’t, and we… barely learns anything else about her either. She lives in Lyon, she’s a student, and err… she loves Michel’s games? And books too?? That’s pretty much it. I just kept expecting for them drop something about her and felt suspicious at times, but no, that’s… really all there is to her. We don’t even learn anything about uhh what she’s majoring in or what plans she has for the future or her family or dreams or what; I’m shocked they don’t even dig into why she loves Michel’s games that much? I thought they’d go something about how the House Fairy game really affected her like with Jacopo but… nope. I guess they could’ve gone with her hiding her illness, but no given she learns about it until after she dates Michel, and then she just gets sick and die. If you know me then you must know that I already have some issues with original Giselle’s writing in FataMoru, but at least Fata!Giselle was... you know, an actual person. She had a lot of inner struggles and conflicted, ugly feelings; she’d get angry and frustrated and have breakdowns, had other relationships and objectives and character development. And that’s really wild especially when you compare the two of them, because this ‘manic pixie dream girl’ — type love interest is also how Door 5 Giselle is introduced at first; just as this bubbly, cute young woman, only for the story to actively deviate from the trope and reveals that a lot of her attitude hides so much baggage and that most of her ‘I’m always smiling’/positive attitude stems from her coping mechanism, which I really loved. That, plus the fact in Fata we actually gets POV from her and that Michel at first can’t stand her; in Seventh Lair it just seems like Michel is really idealizing and romanticizing this image he has of Giselle without… truly learning much more about who she truly is as a person? It basically seems like they played straight a trope that they actively deviated from and developed in a nuanced way in FataMoru, which is weird (I felt the same way about The White-Haired Girl in Erasmus too, thinking about it), and thus it makes their romance as a whole appears pretty superficial as well. The only reason why didn’t entirely felt that way is really because it felt like characters we already know and were already attached to; but if Seventh Lair!Michel & Giselle had been entirely new people with different designs... I’m not certain even their emotional moments would have worked that much.

And I admit that just… the whole her getting cancer/terminally ill actually kind of annoyed me. Like, okay, I can understand that the plot does revolve around their tragedy and how it pushes Michel over the edge so you have to kill her off, but there really wasn’t a better/less cliché way to do this? I don’t know, the trope of the terminally ill loved one when played as straight as this and presented in a very unnuanced way just tend to make me roll my eyes or irritates me — maybe it’s because I’ve actually lost family members to cancer in real life, so if you’re going to use it in a story to me you’ll really have to actually, like, deal with the illness and how it affects the person in a complex manner, and I’m sorry to say that it just... wasn’t the case here. It really just felt to me like a cheap drama tool and that only furthered my struggle to get invested both in Giselle as a character and in her romance with Michel. I’ve been thinking back about Silent Hill 2 quite a bit lately too, and (uhhh brief spoilers for the game I guess?) one thing I always liked about it is that while it also uses that trope and that Mary is dead before the events of the story and that we never get any of her perspective, it’s still somehow able to paint her as a whole, flawed person who struggled and coped very badly with the disease and the idea of her future death, often lashing out at her loved ones as a result of this, which was a stark contrast to how she’s first introduced as this sweet, gentle wife who just died tragically through James’ repressed mind — now I’m not saying Seventh Lair should’ve taken the same route of having Michel and Giselle’s relationship deteriorate like it did with James and Mary’s in SH2, or that Giselle should’ve become horrible to Michel towards the end or whatever, but there was something more in that same vein they could have done to properly humanize her instead of just portraying her as taking the illness in tow when we concretely know nothing of how she truly felt about it? The only thing we get anywhere close to this is when she actually breaks down and tell to Michel she doesn’t want to be forgotten, which was a little bit of something compelling, but that’s pretty brief and it never dwell much more than that on it. And it’s actually wild for me to say this because— You know, I’ve seen criticisms leveled at FataMoru that… basically accuses it of being tragedy porn or ‘emotionally manipulative,’ which I disagree with — you can argue it feels a bit heavy on the drama at times, but I think the narrative still does manage to use the horrible things that happens to the characters, Giselle included, in a way that is well done and interesting and, ultimately, humanizing; which, you know, is the opposite of it being ‘tragedy porn’ or using this a cheap tool. So the fact it just wasn’t the case in this story, at least in Seventh Lair!Giselle’s case, is disappointing.

Hey, you know what would’ve been actually interesting to do with Giselle’s character? Have her commit suicide. I mean, I get if she had done that she would’ve ended up, uhh, in hell as well (I… guess? The whole hell thing wasn’t very clear to me, but more on that later), but at the very least it would’ve, you know, given her some agency in how she chooses to die and it would’ve also tied into the overarching theme of the game regarding suicide. Hell, you know it would’ve actually makes that superficial portrayal of Giselle’s character and her romance actually meaningful — imagine if she had killed herself some time after she and Michel starts dating without any indication as to why. No letter or anything, she seemed just fine, and then she commits suicide — and there’s just no way to truly know for Michel what went wrong. I think it would’ve been a more intriguing twist as to her always-smiling facade hiding something deeper behind, and even added some depth as to how she ended up feeling so connected to the fairy game like Jacopo? It would’ve been more compelling as well when it come to her friendship with Iméon, whether Iméon would know more about the reason behind it or not. I don’t know lol, but I feel they could’ve gone with a route and depiction with more depth that they just didn’t. (…God and after typing all of that I just now realized Giselle was never even part of the forum’s community either orz)

— In that sense, I feel the way the story treated Pauline also felt kind of shitty — pretty much for the same reasons, except worse because she never even concretely appears in the story. Pauline is also a character that I have a few problems with in FataMoru, but at least one thing they did right with her in Door 8 is letting her know the truth about Yukimasa and makes her own decisions regarding their relationship (...well, mostly. I’ll still never like the way they sideline her in Door 8 after they save Michel and that he’s the only one who gets to hear Yukimasa’s full story because of how he thinks she couldn’t handle it somehow?? That felt pretty infantilizing towards her. At least they get to rectify it in Reincarnation for me but— anyway that’s not the topic here lol), which… sure, they kind of do this in the flashback as well, but that doesn’t change the fact she still gets killed while having no say in it before the starts of the story — and while the whole NPC thing was creepy in a cool way, it also means that unlike in FataMoru she never gets to be a proper person on her own except on the forums; she’s literally just a prop to Yukimasa’s story and given she’s literally his victim it felt… really gross. I wish she’d survived and had gotten to be an actual character in the RPG too. (Or, as I said before, just scrap her and Yukimasa from the narrative altogether, but if you keep them then at least make sure to give the TWO of them a proper place.) The others also barely seems to give a damn about her death after the reveal… Plus honestly I would’ve been interested in seeing a story where Pauline actually get to make the choice to live on her own without Yukimasa, much like Nellie that would’ve been interesting.

— I’m... I don’t know what to makes of the ending. It’s like, there are some things that are fine, but… there’s still a lot I have mixed feelings over. I think the whole religious/fantasy aspect was… kind of interesting, if a little silly, but I did like the reference to Dante and the Divine Comedy and the call back to the title. But, at the same time I think I would’ve preferred that the origin of the RPG game was… bit more ‘personal’ ? As in, not with a literal God’s messenger/angel being the source of it (even if the Morgana cameo as literally DETAINED OF GOD was hilarious ngl) but instead it being created from another character we knew… I’m going to bring back Giselle here but I think it… would’ve maybe been more compelling if the culprit had been Giselle lmao. I don’t konw, just give poor Giselle something more to do instead of simply being the Tragic Dead Love Interest. Especially given ultimately we learn that the angel’s intentions were… more-or-less to save everyone, so. Maybe it could’ve come across as a little predictable but it would’ve fit better in a sense.

The other aspect I’m perplex about is Michel’s fate. I kept wondering until the last minute whether or not they were… actually going to, you know, keep him dead or if he would be saved and get another chance at life. But in the end his demise felt… particularly cruel? Like, okay, he technically already killed himself so he can’t come back to life — I think it would’ve been interesting if he had been saved, having him learn how to live again and properly mourn Giselle and getting to know the others even better — but I can also understand keeping him dead but still leaving his legacy with Iméon and the other two, of, in a way, allowing these three to live with his, and on some level Giselle’s, memories (which would’ve been more impactful if, again, Giselle had had more of a presence and been a part of the forum like Pauline? But oh well I’m just repeating myself at this point). I would’ve been fine if it concluded that way. But then they also added the whole thing about him having to go to hell which… meh. I can get the fact that the guy basically tried to commit an ‘indirect’ mass murder which could qualify as hell-worthy, but the story put a focus on him going to hell specifically because of his suicide, so… like yeah, that’s definitely a thing that exist in Christianity; suicide is considered to be a sin and so if you kill yourself you go to hell. But I feel that’s a particularly harsh thing to implant in a story that’s been very compassionate so far about the way it handled suicidal people — to me it just kind of came across as, outside the religious aspect, keeping it in the same morale of the ‘suicidal people are just selfish and should be punished for that’ which felt at odds with what the narrative’s been saying until then. Like at least I like the angel was like ‘yeah me and my buddy God realized that whole going-to-hell-cause-you-kill-yourself doesn’t really work so that’s why we’ve been trying to rehabilitate suicidal people instead’ but if so… why still sends Michel to hell at all after all of this? And I also know the angel said he could still get out one day eventually (only cause he proved himself worthy of it though so errr lol) but ummm I dunno, it still felt weird and a not really good way to conclude his story. The others’ reactions to this seemed a bit tame too… At first I was really expecting them to like, fight the angel on this and point out how that system is pretty fucked up and be able to give Michel the opportunity to move on, but in the end they just gave up pretty quickly. Even Iméon. I was just… I dunno. I don’t have anything against endings that are not uplifting or that are even kind of depressing, but that just didn’t seem to go well with the story’s themes and overall left a sour taste in my mouth, especially when you compare it to FataMoru that had a very good and fitting ending.

The ending feel pretty cruel towards Iméon as well, not only because, well, sure he does survive, but he still lost his two closest friends in all this and there’s also that… Iméon doesn’t really feel like a friend to the other two survivors by the end? Even in the forums it doesn’t seem like he interacted much with the others besides Michel, and because of how late he appears in the RPG we don’t see him really bond with anyone there either. I absolutely could buy the cute friendship between Nellie & Michel & Jacopo, but with Iméon it just… doesn’t work because they never seem to get to share any kinds of bonds, and Iméon in general seemed a bit hostile towards everyone in the game (for good reasons but yeah). And that’s kind of a big problem given the ending really rely on the survivors’ friendship at the end, so while I can see it with Jacopo & Nellie it’s not so much the case with Iméon. And that’s what I mean by it feeling particularly cruel for him, because as a result he’s just his two best friends, escaped a suicide attempt and a pretty harrowing experience and he still doesn’t seem all that close to the ones he could bond with, which instead of making it seems like he at least has a new group of peers he can rely back on it just… makes it seems like he ended up even lonelier (which is super bad for someone suicidal too). I’m sure we can guess he’ll be able to form a deeper bond with Nellie and Jacopo later on especially given what they went through together but I don’t know, I wish they’d spent more time deepening their friendship throughout the story, maybe even make Iméon appears earlier or something. (HE DESERVES BETTER.)

But anyway yeah, that was pretty much all of my thoughts on Seventh Lair, Ithink. Which was actually A LOT for only a 4 hours short game orz. So all in all it was nice, not really something that’s going to stay with me but it has its good and compelling moments. I guess that now it’d be neat to see Erasmus being officially translated as well, even if like I said at the beginning I didn’t really like it.

For now, I’m just glad that Novect seems to finally decide to move on completely from FataMoru and properly starts new things like their new Project M, which is definitely something that I’m looking forward to!

#Seventh Lair #Seventh Coat #Novect #The House in Fata Morgana #FataMoru #Michel Bollinger #This is way too long even for me man #Connan's Ramblings #Connan's Posts #07th Lair #07th Coat

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