#Il Siracusano

[harlequin-wheels]

dumb post i immediately had to put together after seeing the merch of young penance on weibo

[phyriaxi]

after the rainy season

[burstfoot]

[mokadevs]

i finished il siracusano

[hunterfromtheabyss]

il siracusano

[dreadark]

siracusaposting

[bentosandbox]

think i didnt put these up here yet

[maridiayachtclub]

shout out to the last enemy in IS-8, the funniest guy in all of Arknights, who sits back and watches your carefully crafted kill lane destroy nearly six dozen of his fellow mooks AND their cars, then mills around a bit before trying to bypass your forces entirely by jaywalking

[haxorus612]

[mlynar-nearl]

WAIT HAHA

are some of texas' reviews written by exusiai using texas' siracusan yelp acct? because they sound more like exusiai than texas.

[texassbian]

literally il siracusano

[phyriaxi]

goodbye, Siracusa.

[burstfoot]

[n-i-v-a-d-a]

In honour of the rerun, out of all the events Il Siracusano might just be the master of pay-off. The latter half of this event is absolutely insane as every single plot point fires on every single cylinder when all the characters decide to go ham. Also, the boss theme is a jam, and Texas and Lappland got to have their yuri moment.

[her-reidiance]

I'm high and extremely emotional about Livinia Falcone (Penance) being the such a great complement and contrast to Margaret Nearl. It's like... so apparent. It had to be intentional or it's just a genius coincidence. This'll be long because I ramble, but please bear with me.

Like, first off,

I mean, you have the obvious white-black contrast in their outfits. You also have the contrast in their weapons, a nimble swordspear and a heavy hammer OF JUSTICE (and it might be cheating to mention that Nearl has long hair and Penance has short hair) (EDIT: I forgot her braid sorry), but then, then! You have the compliments! The glowing dagger in Nearl's hand, the codex in Penance's.

You also have like, the way their backstories complement each other in certain ways. Nearl was a competition knight, a hero to the masses and a symbol of safety and hope that was ultimately controlled by the interests of the bureaucracy. She was forced to leave her hometown, and live in the wilderness. Penance, on the other hand, is a judge. An enforcer of the law that supposedly keeps the people safe but was actually in the pocket of the Bellone famiglie. Despite doing everything she could, to believe in justice and try to uphold the law, she was shackled by her limitations especially to mafia affairs, even if she wasnt as tightly leashed by the Bellones and allowed to give guilty sentences sometimes. Both women were basically pawns to the powers that be in their countries, and it was an open secret that they weren't much more than that.

Where they differ is their outlook. Nearl's family motto, "Fear neither hardship nor darkness" lives through Margaret most visibly. She says it often, and she exemplifies what a platonic ideal of a knight would act like. She's noble, courageous, kind, she fights for what's right. She is uncompromising in her values but not close minded. It's beautiful and inspiring to see.

Penance is not so lucky. She's disillusioned. She has hope but it's faint and tricky. By the end of Il Siracusano she's ready to leave Siracusa behind and try to atone for her past inadequacy (hence her Operator name). She is a woman with honor that had to be compromised. She drinks, and apparently to blackout sometimes. Her codex, the toke of law she values so much, is literally bound in thorny vines and can in fact prick her. She's an idealist who had those ideals challenged, and while she didn't break, she did bend, and she has yet to recover.

Penance is the Tarnished Knight; a weapon of justice that was misused and as a result her faith in justice shaken, the hope that Don Bellone gave her in his final act a tenuous one and one that fosters complicated emotions. She fights for what's right, what's truly right this time, but she may never feel like she's cleansed herself of her previous wrongs. She fights for what she hopes is the right thing, for something to believe in. It's a realistic goal. She is beautifully tragic in that sense.

Nearl is the Radiant Knight; a symbol of hope that was discarded by her country and as a result found firm footing in her faith in the wilderness. She fights for what's right, affirmed in her beliefs by the Followers, by Rhodes Island. She fights for a better tomorrow, a very idealistic and optimistic outlook. It makes her all the more impossibly dazzling.