#For the five noa fans who exist

[worldendercharles]

these three boys can fit so so many dynamics and themes and metaphors and symbolism and narrative tragedy and love in themī

[gascon-en-exil]

Octopath Traveler Liveblogging

Chapter 4 for Ophilia and Tressa.

Ophilia

With ambiguous musings on the status of the afterlife in this setting and an antagonist who draws on the same sort of duality of faith philosophy that I enjoy in the Warcraft universe, this chapter offers lots of theological points for consideration. I just...have a lot of feelings about pseudo-Catholic religions in fantasy, ok?

So yeah, Mattias is evil and this isn’t even slightly surprising, but what is surprising is that his master plan apparently doesn’t include reviving the fallen god or make any mention of the gate most of the other final chapters pivot around. He just seems to be siphoning off Galdera’s power via human sacrifice to empower himself. I’m still not why he needed Lianna, unless she has a special connection to the Flame as a cleric of Aelfric. Eh, details. Everyone learns a valuable lesson about accepting death and not following guys who force entire villages to speak in ellipses, and Ophilia and Lianna return home in a heartwarming series of scenes that reaffirms their sisterly bond. If that’s a euphemism in this case and there’s actually some kind of sapphic subtext there I’ll leave it to someone else to parse out.

Oh, and we finally get to see the pontiff! The not!pope was curiously absent until now, and I’m left wondering where he stays if he’s not in the main cathedral.

Party banter highlights: Primrose and H’annit are clearly fans of Orange is the New Black, because all the slashy bits with Ophilia trigger when she’s locked up in the town jail. Therion shows that he knows how to think like a cult leader, Alfyn contemplates mortality in the strange way the whole chapter does where everyone pretends resurrection spells don’t exist in this setting, and Cyrus attempts to make the staging on this chapter’s events seem less geographically convenient.

Tressa

The stakes here may be as low as Tressa’s always have been, but this is a satisfying conclusion all the same. Tressa learns what’s most important to her and shares her experiences with someone who’ll value them even more, and Ali comes back and continues to be a friendly, plot-relevant rival. As everyone has already pointed out the boss does come out of nowhere, but to be fair Esmeralda the knife-tossing thief/cultist/whatever gets built up over the course of the chapter. That’s more than can be said of Alfyn’s final boss. She also gets props for being the first Chapter 4 boss in a while to be even slightly challenging, even if it was only because her five-hit attack is really strong and randomly scatters its damage.

And speaking of Alfyn, his story feels marginally less disconnected from the rest now, yay! His hero was the one writing the journal Tressa has been following all this time, and while this raises questions about why Tressa never noticed what had to have been a distinctly medical bent to the writings I’ll take that over nothing to tie these two into the bigger picture. In any case, Tressa gets to return home with a priceless stone and an IOU from a billionaire, no doubt ready to stimulate the hell out of her sleepy seaside town’s economy. All’s well that ends well for this tale of ethical capitalism...although maybe not for Noa’s adventures, but I think that’s going to be addressed in a sidequest.

Party banter highlights: Applying Therion and Darius’s suspicious use of “partner” it may be inferred that Alfyn wants to bone Ali. Cyrus provides exposition on the Wyndham family, Therion discusses what I’d already done with his Path Action at the Grandport market, Primrose has an interesting method of combating stage fright, and H’annit likes to watch Tressa get excited. Ahem.

[albatris]

this is like half an unedited scene with no proper beginning or end but I mean. you can read it if you want. excerpts yay. it’s some Tris and Kai shenanigans 

I’m v tired and have very little impulse control, there is no way Awake Logan would upload this, it’s obviously not my best anything but fuck I had fun with it so whatever.

there’s a readmore here but let’s face it tumblr mobile will just do whatever it wants

Once inside, Kai examined the ceiling fan by standing on a chair and poking it with a fork. Tris wasn’t sure whether Kai had gotten the fork from his kitchen somehow or whether Kai was just the type of person who carried forks with them just in case. Kai seemed like the type of person who would carry all manner of oddly specific objects with them just in case. Tris could respect that.

The ceiling fan was emitting a high-pitched staticky shriek somewhat akin to a dying radio turned to the fifth layer of hell, and it jumped sharply in octave when Kai tapped the fork against it. Kai tapped the fork against it several more times, for good measure.

“Yep,” they said. “That’s a Port.”

“How can you tell?” Tris asked, feeling remarkably short standing next to Kai standing on a chair.

“It’s a ceiling fan, and it sounds like a dying radio tuned to the fifth layer of hell,” Kai said. “Do you use this much?”

“Not much in winter,” Tris said. “Not at all since it started screaming. It’s a little off-putting.”

“I hear you, I hear you,“ Kai said. “So you wouldn’t be opposed to me removing this ceiling fan from your ceiling? Making it just a fan?”

“Um,” Tris said. “Sure.”

“Great.” Kai beamed. “Now, are you opposed to me bringing a saw into your house? Because I do have a saw. Which would help me remove your ceiling fan from your ceiling. But I can understand why you might not want me to bring a saw into your house, and I can do this without a saw, if you have some scissors and a hairdryer around.”

“Some scissors and a…” Tris squinted. “Look, I don’t mind if you use a saw, just be careful with it, okay? Don’t wave it around too much. And stay away from me.” God, that made him sound like an asshole. What an asshole thing to say. “Stay away from me with the saw. You yourself are fine, but… the saw.” A nice save.

“You don’t even have to be in the room,” Kai said, jumping down from the chair and heading for the window. They paused on their way out. “Unless you’d prefer to keep an eye on me, in which case I will definitely not wave any saws around or point them at you in any capacity.”

“Thanks,” Tris said. “Appreciate it.”

“I’ll be back in a sec,” Kai said, and disappeared.

Kai was back roughly forty-five minutes later, climbing through Tris’s bedroom window with a saw.

“Sorry, man,” they said, dropping down from the windowsill into the room. “Van was not where I parked it. That happens sometimes. You know what old cars are like.”

Tris did not.

Kai propped the saw against the side of the chair and climbed back up. The ceiling fan screamed in unholy anticipation.

“This should only take a minute or so and your house should stay firmly in this plane of reality, but don’t quote me on that,” Kai said, looking up at the ceiling-fan-turned-Port. “And then you can hold the saw if you want, if that would make you feel safer. I mean, I’d let you do the actual sawing, but apparently that’s an oc health and safety hazard.” There was a pause. “You’re quiet. What are you thinking?”

Tris was sitting down against the wall with his legs crossed. “I’m thinking that this entire escapade seems like an oc health and safety hazard. Why don’t you have any backup? Where’s all your equipment? Does anyone even know you’re here?”

Kai peered around the ceiling fan from several angles, then picked up the saw and went at it. “Ah. Well, you see, Phoenix has certain rules when it comes to dealing with and disposing of Ports, and let’s just say… this is breaking about twelve of them.”

Tris would have been alarmed, but he’d already hit his alarm quota for that day and resigned himself to feeling vaguely exasperated instead. “Twelve rules. Starting with the fact that you’re not even a real Gatekeeper?”

Kai gritted their teeth. “Who told you that? Did Noa tell you that?” they asked. “That traitor. I’m a real Gatekeeper, more or less.”

There was a firework crack of sound and a shower of sparks as Tris’s ceiling fan crashed to the floor, breaking into several pieces. Wires twisted and popped and a shrill ringing threatened to split the room in two. Tris and Kai stared blankly at the mangled Port for a few long moments.

“Probably less?” Tris said.

Kai nodded. “Definitely less.”

Real Gatekeeper or not, Tris couldn’t argue on the fact that Kai did get things done, and with frightful efficiency too–albeit rather dubious safety precautions. He’d take saws and frauds and jagged holes in his ceiling over Phoenix’s awkward sidesteps and it’s all in your head mantras any day.

“Here, I promised you could hold the saw,” Kai said, and they climbed down. They put the saw back against the chair and gathered the remains of Tris’s ceiling fan into their arms. “So you bring that with you, and I’m going to take this and put it on a table so we can poke at it and cut it up and see what happens. Sound good?”

“I… it’s important to me that you know I do live in this house,” Tris said. “You can’t break reality here. I have to live here. I don’t want any more doors disappearing. I need those. Kai–”

But Kai was already halfway out the room. Tris grimaced at the saw and hovered over it for a good thirty seconds, mildly concerned it would somehow decapitate him just by being in his general vicinity. Then the concern for what Kai might already be up to in the other room won out, and he picked up the saw as carefully as he could. He did not feel safer.

“You look like a legit apocalyptic action hero holding that,” Kai mused as Tris joined them in the living room. “The Hello Kitty socks really complete the look, I reckon.”

Tris the legit apocalyptic action hero suddenly felt rather less uncomfortable about holding a saw.

They sat on opposite sides of the table, the Port sprawled between them, sparking and flickering and looking about as menacing as should be expected from a Port. The scream was less of a scream now and more of a pitchy gurgle. Kai cracked their knuckles, and appeared to be enjoying this somewhat.

“Please don’t destroy my house,” Tris said.

“I have never destroyed anything in my life,” Kai replied simply. “There are some safety goggles in my backpack there, by the way. You might want to put those on.”

Tris had seen Ports before, of course–it wasn’t as if you could exist in this day and age without seeing them, especially in a city like Oric. He’d never seen one up this close though, and he’d certainly never engaged in the deconstruction of one. Don’t deconstruct Ports was one of the first things you learned in school, right alongside don’t touch Ports and stay as far away from Ports as humanly possible. But curiously enough, instead of anxiety all he was feeling now was fascination, and a ridiculous desire to be cool. There didn’t seem to be anything all that dangerous happening. Kai seemed to know what they were doing.

“I’ve never done this before, so bear with me,” Kai said. “I don’t know exactly what we’re doing or what we’re looking for, but we’ll definitely know when we see it. Do you want to just smash it open with the saw or should we pry it like responsible adults?”

“Yes,” Tris replied, distracted.