#Writeup

[v-67]

Just Luffy being all cute cute

Look at that cheek, and those eyes.

And idk man, I was just really happy to see Law

[boxturret]

One Tenth Scale Mata Nui

Mata Nui is a cool place, but did you ever feel that it was a bit...big for what it was?

The official maps put the island at 357 kio long, which if you take to be a stand in for kilometres¹, would make the island 357 kilometres long.

This lines up roughly with what we can see in the concept art: they say that Mata Nui is around the size of Denmark, the real measurement being 368km, and it matches with what we see in the Mata Nui Rising cgi video.

So that's all well and good, Mata Nui is 357km long, the GSR itself is 3300km tall, all hunky-dory, as long as you ignore some guy named Greggory yelling about how the robot is actually much bigger, but its fine to ignore him.

But now, actually consider what this means. Denmark is by no means a small country, it has a population of 6 million and would take hours to drive across by car on modern roads. Now that isn't an issue really, but in most media depicting the island its shown to be a place that can be traversed by foot or on animal back in a reasonable time frame.

But now let us look at this earlier map:

Initially the most interesting thing to me on this map was the 3rd measurement: the height of the Mangai volcano²

Now on the one hand, this was cool, now I know how tall to make the volcano, on the other hand... 23km seems pretty big.

It is. 23km is higher than Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in the solar system, standing at only 21.9km. So that's pretty big. This made me start thinking about how far various things are apart and how long it would actually take and using some very VERY generous numbers I started plotting out how long it would take to actually get from place to place.

It wasn't very pretty. In the Mata Nui Online Game it would have taken Takua roughly 5 hours to walk from the beach to Ta-Koro, and another 18 to get to Onu-Koro using the highway. Now this would be fine in an epic like Lord of the Rings, but in Bionicle Mata Nui is consistently treated as a place people can pretty quickly get around on.

The Toa are running all over the place and bumping in to each other. Kopaka getting in to the Caldera at the top of the Mangai volcano isn't the equivalent of climbing 3 Mt Everests in a row, its just something he does [correction: It wasn't the caldera, but a lava pool half way up the mountain, so just 1.5 Mt Everests]. Takua travels all over the island in a pretty small amount of time, unless we're supposed to insert day long journeys in between every screen transition.

But then I noticed something. Something very interesting.

Now lets look at the two keys for the sizes on the released and the early map:

Seems pretty consistent, the sizes of the island are the same, a Toa is 1.6 bio on both (incidentally a real Toa figure is approximately 16cm tall), everything seems to match.

But then I counted the zeroes.

The old map has a kio being not 1000 bio, but 100!

You can even see it on the other version of the map.

Now this is incredibly interesting! This shrinks Mata Nui to 1/10th of its commonly accepted size! It goes from being the size of Denmark to being the size of the Isle of Man.

Which....really works a lot better! This turns Takua's trip from the beach from a 5 hour hike to a short half hour walk. This turns the cable car to Mt Ihu from a massive 70km mega structure to something that's dwarfed by real world constructions.

I don't think this is a mistake either, looking at the details of the map.

You have much finer details, such as these ice shelves collapsing in to small icebergs, whereas on the full sized map some of the larger chunks of ice are kilometres across.

One of the major things it includes are the mesas that can bee seen in many of the promotional renders set in Le-Wahi which are nowhere to be seen on the final map. At this 1/10 scale the plateaus seen would match up well with the massive mesas seen in monument valley in terms of size, but with the final size they would be absolutely massive (10 times as big if you can believe it!)

So suffice to say, I don't think this is just a case of a zero being dropped, it really seems to line up with the level of detail on this earlier map.

But what does this do to the GSR? I hear you cry, well it varies. Going by the earlier numbers it would simply be 1/10th the size, so 330km tall instead of 3300km, so still very large, but depending on the size relationship between the robot and the island it could be as "small" as 180km

The island in this picture is roughly the same size as normal, just covers more of the GSR. The final GSR's head is so proportionately tiny compared to its body that the Mata Nui island had to be very small to cover it. But in any case, a robot "only" 180km tall standing up is still going to tower over anything, its many times higher than airplanes fly, its taller than most clouds, really it would be quite consistent with this render:

So, in conclusion, an earlier concept of the island of Mata Nui has it being 1/10 of the size of the final, and that size seems to work better with what we see in various media from the time, and works better with the story.

Personally this is what I'll be going with in terms of the scale of the island going forward, as it really fits with my vision of the setting and works well with all the story and media from that time.

¹-I don't care about someone saying a bio is 4.375966487787¾ feet, feet aren't real and neither are you. ²-Mt Ihu is NOT the highest point on the island, the GSR isn't Pinocchio with a big pointy nose, this has never been reflected in any visual media.

thank you for reading/have a nice day

Update: I have made a companion post with many renders of George visiting places on the island to hopefully better illustrate the scale.

[extensionallydefined]

Okay, so, I need to talk about the relationship between Persona 5's ending and Persona 5 royal's ending, because I think it isn't discussed enough how one puts into question the themes of the other and in doing so it elevates everything that came before.

Spoilers are coming, you've been warned.

The main thing that's given me an outlet to think about this is a few quotes from the Phantom Thieves when they're in the Velvet Room after being Thanos-snapped by Yaldabaoth. Specifically these quotes:

Ann: "I... I never want anyone to have to go through what I did!"

Yusuke: "Just as art is meant to break boundaries, people should be saved even if they frown upon it. I won't allow the justice I believe in to be shaken any further!"

Ryuji: "We're doin' this to make sure people don't go through the same crap we did. It doesn't matter if they think we're just or not. We gotta do what we believe in!"

Futaba: "I can't let people suffer like this, even if I don't know them personally"

They mention some core ideas: 1. They want to prevent people's suffering because of the suffering they've felt. 2. They must do this regardless of if people want it, because they think it's the right thing to do. 3. Their justice is worth fighting for by virtue of being what they believe in.

Does this seem familiar? Maybe makes you think of a certain therapist who shows up in Royal?

I think Takuto Maruki serves a decent amount of purposes narratively and thematically, but one of the most genius things about him is that he serves as a foil to both the Phantom Thieves and Akechi, and in being that foil, he is, deep down, following the principles that the Phantom Thieves fought for - In the end, it was largely Joker who inspired him to fight for his reality.

Maruki fights for a reality where suffering straight up doesn't exist, because he doesn't want anyone to feel the suffering he's had to endure. Maruki wants the Phantom Thieves and Akechi to never feel suffering anymore, regardless of their stance on the matter. He is "saving" them regardless of their wishes, and will fight them to keep the reality he wants. He thinks the world is unfair, so his "justice" is to make a perfect world for everyone - and that's what makes it worth fighting for, because that's what he believes.

Maruki's rationale to fight against the Phantom Thieves and Akechi is (partly) the same reasoning that the Phantom Thieves use to regain their motivation to fight the Holy Grail/Yaldabaoth.

So, narratively, Maruki serves as a mirror that's telling things not to be told for the Phantom Thieves to look into and to see the ugly parts of their own way of acting. Can they really fight Maruki, knowing that he is just acting how they did?

I see people sometimes refusing Maruki's reality because it "wouldn't actually work" or "it's imperfect". But as far as I'm aware, it's imperfect because it hasn't been completed yet - I think the game is a lot more interesting under the pretense that Maruki truly has the power to erase all suffering, once his reality is complete, past the deadline. I also see the argument, and even the game uses it, that Maruki's world "isn't reality". But did we listen well to Morgana's speech before he disappeared in the Yaldabaoth arc? The world itself is made up of cognition, reality is born from the points of view of everyone. Maruki *can* change reality, and the real question of the game is not about the logistics or "ontological dignity" of his reality, but rather - Do you want a world where all your wishes are granted and no suffering exists?

In the end, the game shows the Phantom Thieves that "sticking to their justice" will make them fight against people with similar ideals as theirs. It's funny, in a way, how Akechi was the one fully willing to fight Maruki from the start. His rebellion has always been more individualistic in nature than the Phantom Thieves' - he wanted revenge for himself, then redemption for himself and now he wants a reality where he isn't under anyone's control anymore. To him, Shido's country, Yaldabaoth's ruin and Maruki's world are all the same - Maruki just has a nicer, more therapy-speaky way of presenting his proposal, and sees people as his equals rather than as insolent masses, but his goal is the same. They're all worlds that shackle you for the "greater good". And in the end, Maruki, and Royal, force the P5 gang to become more like Akechi - to value their individuality in the face of the public's "justice".

To fight for what you believe in you will face people with the same determination as you. They will be your equals in many, many ways. In the end, you can only stick to your guns and hope that what you believe in is worth more than what they believe in.

I have a lot more to write about these topics but I'll leave it there. Maybe about the relationship between Maruki's reality and individuality next? That could be fun ^^

Btw - Special thanks to @thedaythatwas for inspiring me to write up stuff about Persona 5 Royal!

[careydraws]

SIX WEEKS LEFT until tazgn6 is out (7/16/24)! I wanted to share a writeup about the process of making the cover for this one, which was a really fun challenge. Apologies and thank you to Nozaki-kun.

There's still time to submit your preorder receipt here and get a free acrylic keychain from :01 (US/Can)! I think it runs until they run out of keychains? It's cute, I had fun designing it, go snag one!

[romulusfuckingroy]

no because imagine being roman roy, spending your whole life hearing how useless and fucked up and broken you are from both your dad and your siblings, growing up knowing you’ll never amount to anything.

and then the unthinkable happens. your brother fucks up. loses his claim to the throne. you’re suddenly in pole position to take over… you think, until your sister who’s not even in the fucking company reveals that it’s her.

okay, fine, it’s not like you don’t know your sister is smarter than you are, it’s fine. except… then she loses it, and your dad gives it to some outsider, some random woman from a completely different company. it starts to feel like he’s sort of desperate to give it to anyone but you.

the woman quits after some events that you get the sparknotes of while flying home from being held fucking hostage. someone has to go to prison, and it’s your brother for some fucking reason. you’re alone again. so maybe…?

but no, your dad’s just calling you to tell you to go find your sister. he asks you if she’s solid, he trusts you to make that determination, and you say yes because you love her. so it’s suddenly her again.

and then the unthinkable happens again. your siblings decide to rebel. this is your one fucking shot. but suddenly they’re goading you into joining them, and you… agree, because you fucking love them, fuck, you really do. no matter how many times it fucks you over, you love them like a dog loves the child that keeps pulling its tail.

(when you get to your dad’s hideout he tells you that the heir will be you if you abandon them right now. you have no evidence for or against this. you’re starting to feel like he’s just dangling it in front of you to get you to do what he wants. (you’re right, but you’re not quite aware enough to fully realize it.))

so… it’s none of you, and that’s… fine. the world doesn’t end. time goes on. you decide that teaming up is kind of… nice. you have plans, real fucking solid plans. except… your siblings swerve sideways and start specifically trying to fuck over your dad instead of just… working together to build something.

they goad you into it, obviously. they’ve always had the ability to make you do things you don’t want to do. except for one factor that’s out of their control…

dad says he needs you. you. roman.

so you’re back on team dad. he was right the whole time anyway. and he respects your opinions (you believe), like with mencken. you’re ideologically allied (he’s indoctrinated you).

he dies when you send him one fucking lousy voicemail about how shitty it felt firing your… your… gerri.

your dad is dead. your dad is dead and the last thing he ever told you to do was fire gerri. which… which you did, so at least you can rest easy knowing it was you, you were the best child after all, he finally saw you deserved the company.

except kendall’s name has a line through/under it, and you’re not fucking mentioned. fucking greg is mentioned, but not you.

you tell yourself shiv’s right. it’s crossed out. you tell yourself that for a different reason than she does. you were so sure it was gonna be you. after everything he fucking put you through. it had to be you, right?

deep down you’re sure it’s an underline. and you’ve never felt more useless. more like a manmade mistake.

you can fucking be like dad, though. you fucking fire two senior women- one of them gerri, again. you let kendall do whatever the fuck his manic ass is up to- dad seemingly trusted him, so fuck it. you try to tank the deal with matsson, because you can do this. you can run waystar. you always fucking could. fuck anyone who says different.

you put your reputation and waystar’s prestige on the line for a fascist presidential candidate, because that’s something you and dad agreed on. that’s when you felt like he was actually fucking proud of you. shiv throws a hissy fit, but fuck her, okay, she’ll never fucking understand the bond you had with dad. no one can.

you… make a bad call. well- you don’t make a bad call, everyone thinks you made a bad call. mencken deserves to win! why is it such a big fucking deal?! you’re on top of the world, about to deliver a banging eulogy and swoop in and take the company from matsson’s grubby little hands.

and then your uncle speaks. and then you get up to speak. and then you cry. and fucking kendall logan roy gets up there and delivers a better speech than you ever could. and then so does siobhan.

you find out mencken betrayed you. your brother tells you you fucked everything up, and he’s not joking around like usual. you think about that fucking piece of paper, that fucking line. well, fuck this. you get beat up a bit for old times sake and then fuck off to barbados.

but they find you there. they beg and plead for you to come back, to vote with them, they need you. you’re with your mom in barbados, finally having time to just… breathe and think, and your siblings come back and try to goad you into coming back, into putting everything you are on the line once again, for fucking kendall’s benefit alone, pretty much.

…

you go with them. they’ve always had the ability to make you do things you don’t want to do. especially when you try to back out- come on, gerri’s there for god’s sake- and your brother pulls you close like a boa constrictor and hurts you the way you like it until you yield.

you get why his name was (you believe) underlined. it was never you. never.

because you’re roman roy, and there’s something really fucking wrong with you, and there always will be.

[ceramicteapot]

you sit in your bed, turning the pages of a book you've been trying to finish for the longest time. this used to come so easy to you- reading. in a matter of days you'd gobble up hundreds of pages and not feel tired in the slightest.

getting to the end of a single one feels like a chore now.

you miss the middle school you. not in its entirety, but in the bits where you were the most productive you had ever been, where you had been relatively unscarred and full of naive hope. where you could read like it's the only thing in the world you could possibly do.

sometimes you think if reading is best enjoyed when engaged in as a form of escapism? is that why every time an exam or an important work task rolls around, the books abandoned on your nightstand suddenly look absolutely enticing? is that what you've done all of your childhood? escape?

[rainatdusk]

love you?

i’ve heard many a times about how loving someone you know will never love you back is a ridiculous mistake. but i am an arrogant teenager who’s only learnt lessons of life from their own doings.

so i’ve allowed myself to get stabbed in the gut one too many times: the blunt pain of sitting in the back while they’re all the way in the first row; of trying to match their eyes just to find them already looking at someone else; of yearning to see them smile despite knowing i would never cause it.

but regardless of the fact that my blood stains on the knife now glisten in the sunlight, i know the handle of the knife possesses their fingerprints. that is all i crave for, at present.

and i don’t reckon i need to have them to know that.

𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬

𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐰, 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐲𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐮𝐞

𝐝𝐨 𝐢 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮?

𝐧𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬, 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦𝐬

𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬

𝐢 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐰, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐞

𝐝𝐨 𝐢 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮?

[thatstolenpayal]

"kab tak chalega aise, ab bade ho rahe hai hum, aur yeh sab bachpana, band karna padega"

dear aditi from yjhd,

i understand and feel you completely today. you have always been my favourite among everyone. you knew it all, you accepted it and told bunny to not give up on his dreams, yet felt everything deep down. i sense something, today, the end.

this separation, from people i've known since childhood, my room, my neighbourhood, the air that surrounds me, seems to be fading away, every moment. my shoulders feel lighter, detached of something i don't want to let go. it's not like everyone is leaving today, but the realization that stabs me in the back drive these sudden waves of sadness through me.

they say this feeling is beautiful, you let go of things only to keep sweet memories to cherish forever. but is it okay that i feel terror in my heart, a fear of losing myself, this place, and an unwillingness to face what's next?

i have not had enough of it yet, there is so much more left, so many memories left to make, songs to be sung together, and late night conversations. i miss everything already.

i am so scared. growing up isn't beautiful after all.

i wish it could stay a little longer. just a little.

ban liya apna paighambar, tar liya tu saat samandar, phir bhi sukha man ke andar kyun reh gaya?

kabira, yeh jawani hai deewani

[woesofwiltedwisteria]

Why do I keep promising myself happiness in the future, when that future isn't even promised to me?

I know that future might not hold me. But what scares me is that I might not be in the future that I dreamed of and paid the price with my present. To conquering my dreams that my present self is afraid to pursue is what the future is all about. The future always seems brighter. I am always much better there. Much different from what I am. But when that future starts to unfold, I find myself breaking my own promises. Those sacred promises I made to keep going. To find solace in knowing that the future has everything I ever wanted. But I forget about the part that I too exist in the future. And I never changed. The self that promised the future to get through the present exists in that future too. By Keeping my happiness secured in the future so as to not let the present steal it. Do I get any part of it? No. Do I get that future with happiness? No. I delay my happiness to an even further future, to make sure that future has it and present shouldn't. To accept happiness in this messed up present feels like failing. If this is happiness why even bother chasing that future which has nothing other than this messy present? So to invent hope I secured my happiness in the future. The farther it is from my hands, the hopeful I get. 

[captureversepalette]

[v-67]

I was looking for tissues online

And I suddenly remembered this scene from Kotaro lives alone

Where how there's this particular part suggesting that Kotaro had to eat tissues for sometime, and which is why he still buys high quality expensive nutrients tissues

And then the manga artist guy tells him that he no longer needs to buy those tissues anymore and then his realisation

And my heart just kinda you know? Felt a tinge remembering that.

It's such a minute thing, but it's not.

[boxturret]

BMOP: A history of the Abandoned Koro

Now that things have all come out, and the project is well and truly over, I thought I'd take a moment to talk a bit about something I worked on in the game, the "Abandoned Koro" area, now that there's video footage of a playthrough I can easily reference.

I suppose as a quick primer, I was with the BMOP team from around March of 2021 to November of 2022, serving as both 3D art lead and Level design lead for a time. There's a post out there about my experiences with the leadership of the team that I mostly stand by still, I do feel bad for how the project ended, and I have come around a bit to remember the positive times more than the negative, but that doesn't erase what happened.

So to begin, when I came on level design was a fairly inactive sub channel of the game development discord, some ideas got tossed around occasionally, but not much seemed to be happening, before I'd joined there was a rough map drawn up by the then current level design lead.

It was very basic stuff, there was a version of this map in engine that had been extruded a bit to make it a kind of playable space, one area had some trees on it and some random platforms.

One area that interested me greatly was this part in the south, the so called "Abandoned Koro"

The rough idea being that it was the Le-Koro seen in the GBA game Bionicle: Quest for the Toa, that had been abandoned in favour of the one seen in the browser game Mata Nui Online Game and the cancelled PC game Bionicle: Legend of Mata Nui, as the one in QFTT had a lot of wooden structures while the one seen in the other two was more like a woven nest.

At the time I was just a 3d modeller, and had never really done any real level design, but the concept just really inspired me, so I went off and in blender sketched out a possible level layout for this area.

I made a bunch of renders and wrote out how I thought the level could work, which can be seen in this document HERE.

For a quick overview, the idea was you'd enter the area, the bridge would break, you'd have to clear a river to activate the water wheel on a large mechanical tree that would allow you passage upwards, and then navigate through the Nui-Rama infested ruins of the village before coming to a cave.

The tree was something I poured a lot of time in to, its worthy of its own post at some point in the future.

Now I'll be honest, I was super nervous about releasing this document to the team, I thought I was overstepping my bounds. I was just a relatively new 3d modeller on the team, I didn't have the right to be talking about level design, but to my surprise people were really receptive to it, and I very quickly got added to the level design team¹.

I ended up doing a rough blockout in engine. This was back in the time before Lewa had been chosen to be the main player character, so it was still Tahu.

This was the first time I'd ever touched Unreal, so it took a while. That's why the sky is black, I didn't know how to add a skybox.

I never got in to level scripting, but as a proof of concept, I think it was successful.

You can see that in this version of the level it had already progressed, now there was the idea of using the Pakari to break the dam, so finding it was the first task on the ground.

This version wasn't in the actual demo map, because as I said before the demo wasn't really very fleshed out at the time. One thing my map showed though was that the demo was way too big. The level design lead at the time had decided the size based on how long it took to get around the map as a perfectly flat plane with no terrain, at max run speed, with no obstacles. This is a very flawed methodology to say the least. Having an actual level with things scaled to the character really started to show the holes in this, and eventually, once I became lead, the demo area was massively shrunk.

Here's a version from just a month later. The version is now part of the new, more compact demo area, but its mostly barren at this point.

This version was actually completely rebuilt from the ground up because it had been decided to try out voxels as a basis². They were a pain to deal with and this was overturned eventually. I'd say in total, including the 3d sketch I did, I re-built this map maybe 4 times.

One benefit of voxels was it was trivial to have caves, so this is where the idea of the pakari being found in a cave started to emerge.

As I continued to play and refine the demo it became clear how much the movement systems would need to be tweaked. There seemed to be this idea in the team that everything could be done separately and bolted together later, so character moment was all handled by someone jumping around on some big blocks in a test map whereas level design was off doing their own thing, but it really wasn't working. So while the movement felt good in a vacuum, actually putting it in context really exposed a lot of issues. You could easily jump over any enemy you could come across, as said earlier maps had to be huge in order to make the world seem big while you were running at full speed, and after about 3 jumps you'd be 20 metres in the air.

At this point the idea still was to have the entire island of Mata Nui be one large open area you could freely explore, so the sheer size of the maps resulting from the over powered movement was a major issue. I lobbied very hard to have things pulled back and eventually they were.

its a bit out of order, but here's the demo area from closer to when I left. Its a fraction of the size of the original map

Here's another video from a month later.

As much as it pains me to say it, this is basically it in terms of meaningful development. By this point Lewa had been locked in as the playable character, and the movement had been dialed back to a more reasonable degree, so I was able to really start trying to refine the area. This is where I ran in to a fatal issue.

No one else wanted to play the game.

And what was worse barely anything worked.

The level is still in what I would call a grey box state. I used a couple tree trunk assets I'd made here and there, and put in a big canopy asset from one of the many asset packs we had for a bit of ambience, but it was all still very basic geometry, easily changed or modified.

Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do for playtesting your own area. You built it: you know where everything is, what's supposed to happen, where you're supposed to go. You can try to pretend to play it as a new player, but that only gets you so far. I was hoping people on the team would play it and provide feedback³, but outside of maybe one or two people a handful of times⁴, trying to get any really feedback was was a futile effort.

The thing was that this area was very complex. If the demo was a vertical slice of the game as a whole, this area was itself a microcosm of the demo⁵. It had platforming, puzzle solving, combat, mask powers, the lot. Now unfortunately for me, barely any of those systems actually worked.

As an example, this long ledge was for a long time a stand in for vine swinging, then rail grinding⁶, then was ultimately just replaced by a platform.

So things had kind of hit a wall. I couldn't properly design areas with combat in them until combat existed in a more stable state, I couldn't design platforming sections until platforming worked in a consistent way. I couldn't even adjust the overall flow of the level because everyone else basically refused to give feedback.

But the unfortunate thing is, in August of that year they'd released a teaser trailer.

And that trailer had gotten hundreds of thousands of views.

This is where the whole development of this game really went off the rails. Now there was this push to get things in a presentable state, start set dressing and making final assets so things could be shown off.

But I refused. Everything was too up in the air to commit to set dressing, this is why block out exists, if the jump changes height its no big issue to grab the couple cubes an area is made out of and shift them up or down, if combat is found to need more space its easy to make things bigger, or add or take away walls. If something is confusing things can be shifted. Once set dressing starts now you're dealing with dozens to hundreds of objects being scattered about, even the smallest tweak can lead to a mess.

Not to mention set dressing raised its own series of issues, from plants triggering the IK on the toa's feet, making their knees go up to their chin when walking through a bunch of ferns, to collision volumes being oversized or offset, meaning that big rock face they just added has now created a massive invisible wall in another area. Once the addition of some plants caused all ledges within a wide radius to no longer work⁷.

It was a miserable state of affairs. My mental state rapidly deteriorated as I fought against this, I became very short tempered and irritable, and eventually near the end of 2022 I was kicked from the team. It was such a relief honestly.

I think the tragic thing is, set dressing is actually quite a fast process. The starting area went from looking like this to something quite like the final in about a month?

But you can't show off the first screenshot on twitter⁸.

I guess I'll spare a quick moment to talk about the final version seen in the video.

Its at 46 minutes in if the link doesn't work

Its...fine? The assets they've made are all good, though I think they lost the QFTM inspiration along the way. The thing that stands out to me is just how...little its moved on from 2022. Just look how much progress was made in like 3 months, compare that to now, 3 years later. Temporary platforms I placed are still in the exact same spot. I do find the addition of a matoran with a key for the cave to be a not great addition, if only for the fact that you need to find a tiny green man in amongst the overwhelming greenery to proceed.

One part I found quite amusing was the final enemy encounter. It was supposed to be this large hut, probably Matau's, that had been completely overtaken by a hive, and Nui-Rama would spawn constantly from it until the encounter was over.

There were a lot of concepts drawn up, but I guess it just...never happened. I also don't know why there's waves of fikou there either, that was after my time I think.

So that's really all I have to say about that version, it looks okay. Its still clearly unfinished. It kinda works more than it did when I left, but its shockingly not that much different, outside of some new assets.

I'll be honest, I did intend this to be more of a happy, reflective post, but when watching part of the developer commentary a quote stood out to me.

"Traditionally you would kind of have really basic blockout for an environment and play test that to see how the level design is working. Because of the the situation we had we were kind of forced to just go ahead with set dressing and prettying it up and everything so if it were in a perfect world I would have loved to have gotten to do some more play testing early on but we did what we could with it. And I mean you basically had to just blindly trust the process because many systems weren't working at the time things were designed." -AN UNKNOWN BMOP DEVELOPER (2025)

And I just fundamentally disagree. This was a fan project, there were no deadlines but those that were self inflicted. This process they blindly trusted just lead to a thing that on the surface looks okay, but is still riddled with bugs that were well known for years. I've seen some people on the team say the game was 90% completed, feature locked, just 3 more months of polish and it would have all been working, but from what I've seen of the game I really doubt it. They say themselves in the commentary that there's bugs they've been fighting for nearly a decade still rearing their head.

So yeah, its not exactly a happy tale. I'm quite proud of the work I did, I learned a lot, and met a lot of people I'm still friends with to this day. Its a shame the project had to end this way, and I'm sad everyone's work has gone to waste, but I'm also not going to pretend this was some amazing project that was struck down right before achieving greatness.

But most of all: Fuck you lego.

If you're interested in seeing a few more of the things I worked on in my time with BMOP, go HERE. I may post more publicly about some of them in the future, who knows. I have a post about the regional Kini temple I designed and built for the game HERE. Also some renders I did for some of my game design reports HERE.

¹-I say team, it was maybe two other people who were barely around. ²-I'll be honest here: Some people wanted to have the entire map destructible so that they could have Bohrok dynamically destroy it. For the post game DLC after we'd finished this Zelda sized free fan game⁹. ³-💯👍👀 isn't helpful feedback at the end of the day. Its supportive I'll give you that. But sometimes you need more. ⁴-One person on the team even outright refused to play the game until final release, to "save their first reactions for their stream"... ⁵-idk if its clear at this point but the "demo" is, was, and now always will be the entirety of the existing game. Oh there were ideas for other things, but nothing concrete ever materialised⁹. ⁶-You know, like Sonic⁹ ⁷-The ledge's over sensitive detection for something blocking it is one of the most frustrating things about the game's development for me. ⁸-You absolutely can show off real development stuff, there are lots of people who find that fascinating. ⁹-This game was nothing if not ambitious.

You see that kind of mop is called a "Bee Mop", because of its sponge's resemblance to honey comb.

[extensionallydefined]

Okay, so I've finished my first playthrough of both of the new chapters of Deltarune, and boy do I have thoughts! I just want to put down first impressions/theories (more directed at understanding ch3/4 thematically than predicting 5/6/7). So of course major spoilers ahead, be very careful with this post!

Alright, so, for context, I obtained both eggs and both shadowcrystals, and I also got the shadowmantle. So you can imagine more or less how I engaged with these chapters. I have not yet played them in Weird Route.

So, thoughts!

- I love Tenna and Gerson. Wonderful new characters added to the cast.

- I adore that Toby gave my boy Rouxls more stuff to do. And he's a bisexual poly king! Go Rouxls! That whole part of Chapter 3 was delightfully hilarious. I also quite enjoyed Elinina and Lanino, on that note.

- Ramb is very Spamton/Jevil coded. He's very shadowcrystal boss/freedom coded. I feel like his role in ch3 is analogous to that of the other secret bosses, but it makes sense that he isn't a fight. I feel like narratively he also serves a role, weirdly enough, related to Ralsei? They both seem to be extremely selflesss darkners with the purpose of aiding Kris. For Ramb, it's to give Kris the games they want, and "freedom". For Ralsei, it's preventing physical and psychological pain for the heroes. It makes me think in what other ways Ramb and Ralsei could parallel each other, if there are any (one comes to mind - Ralsei becoming a pushable block in the videogame sections/Ramb asking Kris to push him out of the way).

- What was up with the curtains in the S Rank Room? Who could've been behind them? They give Kris a sword and check if he's hurt, they ask if they can dream... It's very strange. I feel like someone else can dissect that more effectively. I also find Mike as a whole quite confusing, even with the new information we're given lol.

- Friend Inside Me was not real. My last minute investment did not pay off. Oh well. It was still a funny theory.

- One of the craziest things about these chapters to me still has to be the fact that freaking image_friend shows up on endogeny's body of all things during Ralsei's beginning speech in ch3. Like, huh????? Endogeny and image friend??? There's an implication there of friend having to do with dark stuff, probably? It also shows up in Queen's basement and on the cats that Eram/Shadowmantle uses against you.

- On that note, I'm very curious about the thematic importance of the yellow/pink color scheme. It shows up on the oddcontroller, in Spamton's eyes, in Mike/cat's eyes (although I doubt that's important), it also shows up on the loading screens for the game boards... it seems to be some sort of freedom/corruption color scheme?

- On the topic of the oddcontroller, could it be the controller under Asriel's bed?

- Is the Kris that leaves the videogame being controlled by Eram/Shadowmantle? That kind of seems like the implication to me, since it says that it has work to do. It's a very cryptic character. But I feel like little videogame Kris might come back to haunt us players who got the mantle - kind of like how people have been theorizing for years about the discarded vessel.

- Chapter 3 is a wild ride. It feels like a constant mix of "haha happy go lucky games!" and "hey remember this lore thing you've been theorizing about for 4-7 years?". And the cherry on top is the Knight reveal. I think I prefer Chapter 4 overall, but comparing them is kinda lame. I do love the whole aesthetic and sountrack of Ch4 though, and it's so JUICY in lore implications. The whole section in the Holiday Estate must be studied.

- The Knight looks like a Holiday. My current thoughts are it might be Dess/created by Dess/created by Kris during the events of Dess' disappearance. It's definitely connected to the Holidays in some sense, that's for sure, and to Kris too - after you fight it and survive, it very clearly "knights" Kris instead of attacking them.

- The theme for the shadowmantle boss is called "BURNING EYES". Based on its post-fight dialogue and on the whole videogame theme, I feel like it might be referencing when you play videogames for so long/so locked in that your eyes burn. It could be just another case of Deltarune directly referencing getting "sucked into a fictional world", a videogame in this case.

- I find it interesting that when playing the shadowmantle videogame, Kris tries to run away from the bunker/shelter rather than try to go towards it. Basically, they don't want to go there in the game. Originally I chalked this up to Kris having some sort of trauma regarding the bunker, but after playing Chapter 4, could it be moreso that they don't want us to see what's inside the bunker?

- The Titan's battle theme is called GUARDIAN, and its pre-fight sprite resembles an uncanny human head. Slight photoshop Flowey vibes. What could it all mean? Well, Ralsei says Titans are fear-of-the-dark. Coupling that with his early chapter 3 speech... If Dark Worlds are what happens when you take away the light that isn't there, letting the imagination run wild and see things beyond light, then creating a dark fountain out of that makes sense as somwthing that would invoke terror. A Titan being an intense fear of the dark makes sense.

- However, the Titan's angelic and humanoid appearance is a bit confusing. In the prophecy excerpts during ch4, it seemed like the angel *wants* to be banished. Could the angel have something to do with the Titans? Is the angel a Titan? Is it the boss Titan? If the Titans represent fear of the dark, maybe the only way to defeat them is with bravery, like how Susie and Kris defeat the Titan. Then maybe banishing the angel might entail some sort of sacrifice? Maybe this is what Susie saw in the prophecy that Ralsei wanted to hide. But what is a Titan a Guardian of? The darkness? The angel?

- Speaking of that, I also thought it might have to do with Noelle. Weird Route might give me answers there, unsure. Maybe it involves fighting Noelle, or sacrificing her? "SHE WAS USED UP"

- Gerson's dialogue about rewriting stories/changing them as iterations go on is soooo interesting. On one hand, I feel like it goes directly against the supposed idea that "there is only one ending". With Ralsei himself saying that he can't bear there only being one ending, I feel like this idea was something Toby intentionally planted as part of the story, and not unbiased dev commentary on the game. Also, it further brings out the parallels between Dragon Blazers and Deltarune, connecting them to the prophecy and to Lord of the Hammer. It makes me wonder whether this will connect to Deltarune and Undertale's relationship - Is Undertale another iteration of Deltarune's legend, one written countless times after the original? Is it the other way around? I can't wait to see what Toby pulls off there. I trust him as a writer to make the metatextual part of the game make sense and be awesome.

- "The place where it rained" hit me like a truck. Chills. Does this mean we've been mistaken about Sans' name? Is he truly Sans Deltarune and not Sans Undertale? I don't have a concrete answer, but I'm soooo curious.

- I feel like the way that Gerson as a darkner works kind of refutes the idea that Ralsei could be made from Asriel's dust, because whilst it does show that a darkner made from dust and an item is entirely possible, the mechanics seem to go against the idea. "A very specific will" creates a dust darkner according to Ralsei, and Ralsei is not straight up Asriel, he has different memories and a different life. By all means, the knowledge that Ralsei has, which seems incredibly vast and sometimes perhaps beyond his own comprehension, is not knowledge Asriel would reasonably have. Their connection must come from elsewhere. Ralsei's chapter 3 dialogue about his face also makes me sus - perhaps he only adopted that face to make himself palatable to Kris? Maybe he didn't have that face until he took off the hat.

- What the hell is going on with Tenna/Kris/Knight? Game-world Tenna seems to have made a deal with Kris, whilst regular darkner Tenna seems to have made a deal with the Knight. Does Kris Knight still have hope? I'm very curious about this all. It seems the Knight wanted Tenna to keep the Heroes occupied, and Kris also wanted something from Tenna. This might imply a connection between Kris and the Knight.

- Tenna and Spamton's connection is also a bit confusing to me still and I feel like we don't yet have the full scope of Spamton's fucked-up-ness. Tenna and Spamton's falling out seems to be more focused on their interpersonal drama which stems also from Spamton's metaphysical issues but isn't directly affected by them. We can also see that Tenna straight up does not recognize Spamton in the Dealmaker Bonus Room scene. Spamton might've actually changed and shrunk since he was in Ch3. Tenna also mentions that "they never should've took that laptop home", which coupled with Ramb's dialogue kind of leads us to think that Spamton and Tenna's meeting happened when Kris and presumably Dess took Queen and King home and all the darkners interacted. Does that mean Spamton's "corruption" happened during that time too, before Queen returned to the library? I feel like there's a lot to speculate about there. After all, King always says the lightners left him behind. Perhaps he misses the days of Kris and December playing with him, and that's the "being forgotten" that he references.

- The videogame Tenna edits is just Dragon Blazers, right? Then why does the title screen appear to say Manhole? Is it yet another iteration of Dragon Blazers, like Gerson said?

- Susie and Gerson's dynamic is actually goated. One of the best parts of the entire game. I also quite liked Gerson's fight mechanically and narratively - I'd say it was peak ludonarrative consonance.

- I also quite liked the Knight fight, although some attacks maybe could've used some more refining. I'd say the Gerson fight overall feels a bit better, although I understand that the Knight fight is meant to be very very tough. I'm sad that the Knight is a shadowcrystal boss that doesn't use the freedom motif, but it's fine... I just really like that melody. And I do dig the idea of getting past a loss that seems scripted. Gaster sort of breaks the fourth wall in a new sense with encouraging you to go against a seemingly scripted failure.

- Speaking of the Knight, its BlackShard seems to do quite a lot of damage to the Titan - Kris did basically as much damage with it as Susie did with Rude Buster, in the final Titan fight. This leads me to believe that BlackShard's SlayDark ability applies against the Titan. Nothing revolutionary, sure, but it makes you wonder about the Knight's relationship with the Titans, if it holds a weapon that can heavily harm them. BlackShard also doesn't seem to do extra damage to the Titan's *shield*, so perhaps the winged angel-like shield is actually light element wise? More fuel to the weird angel-Titan connections.

- The Egg Man has gotten quite more interesting. He seems to be increasingly associated with liminal spaces, and his location in ch4 seems to even parallel/resemble/be a mental hospital? Frankly, that implication is one of the most unsettling things so far in the game. Is Man okay? Are they letting him be okay? Are they letting him not be okay?

- From what I know, obtaining the Eggs is also that one method of avoiding the chapter end achievement. I wonder what this means. Do the Eggs let you bypass some sort of normality principle? They're not too important... but not too unimportant.

- I feel like everyone was so certain that Jockington and Catti would show up in a dark world, and then they just... didn't, lmao. Seems to me like ch2 doesn't really establish a formula but rather very intentionally brings Noelle and Berdly specifically into the dark world.

- I do kinda hope we get to bring Berdly back into a dark world. He's fun.

- Dess seems extremely essential to everything going on. Not a surprise, but it feels earlier than I expected?

- Gaster (presumably him, pretty likely it is him) talking to you when you retry the Knight boss is hype as fuck, and really curious. It feels like one of those "defying fate" moments. I hope we get to use all our shadowcrystals on a non-weird route for something. Gaster also speaks at the very end, and title drops the game... very fun Mr. Fox.

- My favorite minigame was by far the rhythm game, not just because I'm very good at it, but the music and lyrics are very interesting. The lyrics seem to invoke Dess, but also our possession of Kris.

I think those are all my initial thoughts, at least right now. I hope they at least gave you avenues to think through! Feel free to leave your thoughts in a comment or reblog.

[te-pu-si-ti]

The Persephone Un-loop

Inspired by:

Lily Jo Ockwell | Mallory Gracenin | Stephanie Nightingale | Fania Grigoriou | WenHsin Lee | Yilin Kong | Anna Finkel

Sam Booth | Eric Jackson Bradley | Ali Goldsmith | Folu Odimayo | Carl Harrison

The man in the grey suit steps out into the town square, singing. "It's a lonesome old town, when you're not around. I'm lonely as I can be..."

He picks up a bouquet of narcissi from the flower cart. He carefully sets down the flowers one by one on the ground of the Trojan square, then he returns to his office and shuts the door.

Outside, a spotlight is moving slowly across the length of the square, from the office to the flower cart to the department store, finally settling on a well in the corner. You'd hardly notice it, if you didn't know it was there.

The spotlight lingers. The music begins to swell. Just then, a woman bursts out of the water. She looks around, her hair dripping, her eyes large and uncertain, examining her surroundings.

She climbs out and lays her bare feet on the bricks, leaving behind puddles. With inquisitive eyes, she picks up a daffodil, and another, and another, breadcrumbs leading her... somewhere.

She walks by a man dressed in rags who seems to recognise her, but she flinches away from him. She continues following the flowers, and they take her to the office door, underneath the blue light. She knocks.

The man in the suit opens the door and takes her in. "Welcome home, my love," the strange man says.

"Home?" She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, I don't remember..."

"The waters," he says coolly, "It's the waters. Give it time." He wraps her in a blanket and sits her down in a leather armchair.

She looks with consternation at the framed photo on the side table. It's... her. And him. He holds up his hand, showing her the ring on his finger, and pointing to the matching ring on hers.

"What's going on? What is this place?" She stands up, and looks at a painting on the wall, so dark, so terrible, and yet...

She shakes her head. "Where am I?"

"It will come back to you. It will all come back to you."

"The keys to the city," he says, nodding towards the rack of keys on the wall. "Don't rush yourself. You have all the time in the world."

She walks over, examining the keys, and the little wooden puzzle toy on the table. A labyrinth with a tiny metal ball inside. Seven keys, each hanging from their own hook, each on a keyring. A horse, a bull, a flower...

He's grabbing his coat. "Where are you going? Can't you stay?"

"I have to go," he says. "You have to find your own way." The only person she has in this strange city, and he's already leaving her alone.

He shuts the door, and she's alone with her thoughts and the sensory overload of waking up cold and wet in a strange world, with a strange man, who seems to know her even though she does not know him. But he is kind to her, and he shows her love, and somehow, she trusts him.

The more she thinks about this situation, the less it makes sense. The more she looks around this room, the smaller it feels, the more trapped she is. She spins around in the empty office, gasping for air, adrift. Blue lightning flashes outside the windows as the power surges, as if in tune with her. She would scream if she could, but there's not enough air.

Thunder rumbles. Discordant piano. Gasping, spinning, turning, choking, it's too much it's too much it's much too much --

She's exhausting herself. She goes to the desk, sits down, and counts backwards. Grounding. One thing at a time. One foot in front of the other.

She leaves the office, into the city, and finds a fashionable-looking shop. No one is working there, and she has no clothes of her own, so if nobody's looking then nobody can mind... She takes a red jumpsuit that fits her perfectly, and a pair of shoes, and a lovely fur coat. In the pocket, there is a torch...

In the alleys of the city, she finds a map pasted on the wall. Shaped like the wooden toy from the office, an intricate maze - no, a labyrinth. Labelled with strange names.

Hesperides? She sees the sign lit up above her head. She wanders into a beautiful flower shop, with roses and greenery dangling from the ceiling and every type of blossom you could imagine laid out in the corner. Once again, it's empty behind the counter.

So she searches for clues - What is this place? Where, and when? How does she fit in? Did she once belong here? She rifles through drawers, papers, a box full of... feathers? A portrait of a Grecian goddess? It's all so strange.

A man in a yellow velvet suit comes up to the counter. She freezes. Act natural. "Hello," she says, "...How can I help you?"

The man gazes around idly with large, round eyes. "I'd like a bouquet," he says softly.

"Sure!" she says. There's one right on the counter. "Here you go."

He chuckles and shakes his head. "I was hoping for maybe... that one, by the mirror?"

"Of course." She goes over and retrieves it. The flowers are beautiful, but they're all fake. Such a large shop, is there such a high demand for faux flowers?

She lays down the bouquet for him and he smiles. "Actually, could you add something extra for me? Something special. Your choice."

The charade is wearing thin. She doesn't actually know anything about flower arranging. What flower would suit? She looks around at the stems on the counter, and grabs the one that catches her eye. A fluffy pink peony, a splash of colour in the pale bouquet.

She unwraps the bouquet to add in the extra flower. But there's something else inside... a paper parcel falls to the counter as she's unwrapping. She sets it aside so her customer cannot see.

She wraps up the bouquet in some fresh tissue paper, with a green ribbon cut with an unnervingly large pair of scissors. "Here you go," she says, relieved that she has not been found out.

He examines the bouquet and sniffs the flowers. "Oh, uh," the woman says, "You do know they're fake, right?"

The man in the yellow suit, blue neon reflecting off his skin, smiles. He picks a business card up off the counter. "Yes," he says, "The finest." Hesperides: Finest Fake Flowers.

She laughs uneasily. "Right. Of course. Have a good day!"

The man pauses as he leaves. "Have a good night," he corrects.

She lets out a sigh after he walks out. How did she get into this mess? But something about the little paper parcel intrigues her, and she unwraps it. It's some kind of bureaucratic form, SPECIAL PERMIT. Inside, there's a little metal horse figurine. And on the paper, someone has scribbled an address: PEEP BAR, 3rd ~ C / 3rd Division / UW.

She takes her torch back into the alleys, reading the strange names on the posters and flyers and neon signs of the city. Philotas. Sikinnis. Terpsichore. Who are they? HIC HABITAT MINOTAURUS. What?

She emerges into a square, and she can hear pounding music from across the way, and she sees the sign for PEEP. There it is! And she wouldn't mind a drink to settle her nerves. So she goes in.

It's a wild and debauched place, this strange bar draped in velvet. Ghostly faces leer at her and cheer at the dancer on stage. It is a tall, thin creature in a black catsuit, beckoning one of the emcees on stage with a clawed finger. The emcee jumps up eagerly, and the dancer licks their lips, pulling their victim closer and then choking them and shoving them to the ground.

She finds a seat, and gasps at this dark entertainment that is driving the crowd wild. But there's something incredibly alluring about it.

The dancer leaves the stage to raucous applause and gives her a wink as they pass. She sips her drink and wonders if she should leave, when suddenly...

The door opens. The bar host drops their martini glass in surprise. "We have a visitor. A friend? A presence. A gift! A surprise guest has descended upon us!"

It's the man in the grey suit again. He gets on stage, and the bar hosts kiss him on each cheek. Unprompted, the band starts to play.

She decides to stay for a little while longer. Is he a performer too, like that slithering dancer dressed all in black? He doesn't seem the type at all.

"If the sun should lose its light,

and we lived in an endless night,

and there were nothing left that you could feel...

That's what it would be would be,

What my life would seem to me,

If I didn't have your love, to make it real."

He's singing to her. She doesn't know him, not really, but he knows her, and he's serenading her with this strange and beautiful song.

"If the stars were all unpinned,

and a cold and bitter wind swallowed up the world, without a trace,

That's where I would be! That's what my life would seem to me!

If I couldn't lift the veil... and see your face."

The lights swing around to light her face in red and blue. She feels herself blushing. All this for her? Why?

"To make it REAL! ...Real!" During the instrumental break, he fills the time with a cute little shuffling dance. He blows her a kiss - overcome by this whole sweet gesture, she catches it.

"If the sun should lose its light, and we lived in an endless night, and there was nothing left that you could feel...

If the sea were sand alone, and all the flowers made of stone, and no one that you hurt could ever heal! That's how broken I would be, that's what my life would seem to me... if I didn't have your love... to make... it... real..."

"Well. Shoot a speeding arrow through my tiny, tiny heart." The hosts of Peep pop up through a trap door behind him and usher him off the stage.

The man comes down and puts his arm around her shoulder. "That was wonderful," she says, brimming with sincerity. "Nobody's ever done that for me before."

A beat. "...I have," he replies. "Let's go."

He pulls her through the square with an odd sense of urgency. But she wants to see, she wants to know this city that he claims is her home - and why is this young man drawing a circle of chalk in the square?

But there are sirens blaring, it might not be safe, so she turns and heads towards the office. Another man, in a long leather coat, scared, desperate, is turning the corner just then and collides with her. He rushes away with hardly a chance for an apology. She scurries into the office, her makeshift home.

The man in the suit guides her to the desk. He offers her a pair of headphones, which she gratefully accepts. Anything to drown out those terrible sirens.

Take a deep breath and exhale for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

He hands her a papier mâché pomegranate from a wooden bowl, which she clutches as she closes her eyes and sinks to her knees.

Close your eyes and picture yourself in a meadow, on a beautiful May morning. The air is filled with the scent of wildflowers. All around you things are growing, blossoming, bursting with life. Feel the grass between your toes, the sunlight on your skin. Now, open your eyes and know that the sunlight is with you still. Even in the middle of the darkest night, it shines forth from within you, awakening life around you. As the world turns and season follows season, everything is unfolding exactly as it should. You have all the time in the world. All you need is here.

Slowly she opens her eyes and rises up from the floor. The pomegranate in her hand is real, fresh and juicy.

"Did I just...?"

The man claps his hands and has a broad smile on his face. "Yes, my love! You did!" He takes one side of the fruit, and together, they split the pomegranate in two.

"You're... you're my husband."

As she disappears into the cabinet, he smiles dreamily. "That's my wife," he says with affection.

Inside the cabinet, she moves backwards. Time rewinds, and she finds herself at a table, facing a pinboard of clues, speaking into a tape recorder.

"Meditation tape number... 572. Take a deep breath and exhale for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."

"Don't panic. Every time you panic, you lose yourself."

Frustrated, she shakes her head. "No, that's not right. You can't just tell someone not to panic. That'll make you panic."

"Take a deep breath, and exhale for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The mind is a maze, isn't it? The mind is a dark, mysterious maze of winding streets that are only seldomly lit by knowledge, and experience, but ultimately, memory. Memory lights our way through this dark maze.

And every time I come back, it's as if the power has gone out. As if I'm drowning in a sea of darkness. It's as if I am dead.

But every once in a while a glimmer of light shines from around the corner. An object, or a song, or a face... Your face. That feeling guides me the most.

I hate that it has to be like this, but show me the light and I will come back to you every time, my love, like a moth to the flame.

I can feel the seasons changing, and I know that I will leave you soon. I hope this tape can be a beacon for you, the way you are for me. Know that I will come back. I always do. Always."

She's not sure where to go next. She wanders back to where she started: Alighieri's department store. As she passes, her husband looks down at her from a balcony - she waves shyly, but hurries on.

Her next clue is the special permit border pass and the tiny pewter horse. She sees a sign - BORDER CROSSING AHEAD, HAVE PAPERS READY. So she crosses over.

She rummages around the border crossing station, finds other border passes like her own - or, the one addressed for Judith Kore. The one she has claimed as her own.

She wanders into some sort of store room, cold and deserted, full of massive wooden crates. In the corner is one covered in horseshoes. This must be the place.

On the floor of the crate is a horse, splayed out, motionless. She sits beside it for a while, looking for signs of life. Instead, she sees a coin resting on its head.

Harsh torchlight shines into the crate.

"You. Out. Papers?"

She slips the coin into her pocket as she marches out, not wanting to cause any trouble. She hands over the only papers she has.

He looks them over with suspicion. "You shouldn't be here. It's not safe. Go, now." The Watchman waves her away.

She heads back to the city - to Troy, judging by the poster plastered over a wall, reading TROY WELCOMES YOU. Troy doesn't feel that welcoming... it's dingy, a bit rough, with all the graffiti on the walls and the yellowing papers wheatpasted one over another. And in the corner of the square is a man, huddled up in his rags: by all appearances, a beggar.

But he looks... familiar. Yes! He was the first face she saw in this place! He takes her hand, spins her round, and... snatches the silver coin from out of her pocket.

"Hey!" She runs after him, chasing him to the doorway of a hotel - The Elysium. He holds out his two fists and nods for her to pick one. When she does, he opens his hand to reveal a key. Another link in this strange chain of events.

Then he stands stock-still, and points her into the hotel. "Rrrrrrring, rrrrriiing," imitating the sound of a telephone. She steps inside the cramped hotel reception area, and picks up the receiver.

She listens for a moment to the voice on the other side.

"Hello? ....I don't know. I can't remember."

"OK, fine. There was this big party, a chandeliers and caviar kind of thing. I felt... out of place. So I got a drink. A martini, I think. And there was this beautiful woman, covered in sequins, and she walks up to me and asks to read my palm."

"She traced her finger along the heart line, and said I was a hard girl to pin down. That I'd find love later down the line."

"Then she reads my head line, and she said I was... I dunno... Forgetful or something."

"And then she read my life line, and that's when things really got weird. She looked at me with her big smiling face, and she said, well the funny thing is, according to this, you're already..."

The line goes dead.

She goes back to her husband's office. He's not around, so she has a chance to search out clues.

She lays her border pass out on the table, and notices some stationery on the desk. His cards and letterheads all say HH, 9th C, 1st D, UW.

H, H? U, W?

She rifles through his papers, finding magazines, punchcards, music scores... Nothing helps.

She looks back to that haunting painting on the wall. Those lost souls, falling into darkness. 9th C, UW... 9th circle...?

The address on her pass matches. "Welcome home, he said... I am Judith Kore?"

Her husband walks in, and she hastily puts away what she's been searching through.

Judith scoots to the edge of the room and changes the music that's playing. She puts her arms around her husband's neck and sways gently. A solitary piano grows into a sultry tango.

And they dance.

Slowly, closely, until they find each other's rhythm. Then it grows. They are a whirlwind together, this tiny office cannot hold them.

They burst out of the door, and the city opens up before them. And though she's never done this before - or maybe she has - she feels like she's always known these steps. It's effortless.

She runs, she jumps, he catches her, they really must have been something, mustn't they? Back before she lost herself. They're so in tune.

Almost in tune. He's under her spell, so she can lead him back in the office, and he's so blinded by her that he doesn't notice her hand slip into the key case. Judith holds the bull key behind her back as he picks up a flower and presents it to her, like a shy little schoolboy.

She accepts it and smiles warmly.

"It's beautiful," she says with sincerity.

"It's fake..."

"I know." She gives him a kiss on the cheek, and turns to leave.

"Come back to me..." he says weakly.

"Sure, I will." She'll find her way back eventually.

But first... find the bull. She hears pounding music up above - something big is happening. She climbs up the stairs into the hotel, down the long, dim hallway, into a terrible scene.

She can see it through a large window, glowing red. A gruesome gang are holding a man down, looking up hungrily at a tall, thin woman in a fur coat. The woman bends down, screams, and claws at the poor man's face. She triumphantly holds up two bloodied eyeballs.

"Shit." Judith backs away, aghast at the horror. But there's the bull, or rather, a golden idol, a man with the head of a bull, with compartments in its chest. She unlocks one to find a tiny plant, inside a glass dome. Small enough to fit into her pocket. It must be another clue.

The blinded man gets dragged into the room by a stone-faced woman. He crawls along the ground, pitiful, sobbing, alone. Crying for help.

"Come here," she beckons. "I can help you. Follow the sound of my voice."

There is a bowl of water and a cloth already there, as if waiting for him. The bloodied weeping man scoots over to her and she wipes his eyes, his injuries seemed so serious but all it takes is a few passes of the rag, and he is restored.

She wanders the halls of the hotel, and there is a strange feeling around her, as if the entire city is moving at once. As if something is dawning.

The next door she opens takes her into a room with a greenhouse inside. I thought we were in a hotel? But anyway, a greenhouse is where plants belong, so she must be on the right track. She retrieves the little plant from her pocket.

As she pokes around in the greenhouse - a strange greenhouse, where there are no plants, only barren trays of soil! - the man in the yellow suit arrives.

"Oh, hello again!" It's good to see a familiar face.

But he cocks his head. "Again?"

He's probably trying to save her the embarassment of their prior encounter...

"Is this your greenhouse? Maybe you can help." She show him her little plant. He smiles, goes to the back of the greenhouse, unlocks a safe. A safe? What does he need to lock away...?

It's another plant. Bigger, stronger, but still a seedling, and clearly precious to him. He hands it to her with reverence, and moves out of the way, as if he knows what's about to happen.

Because when she takes the plant - when she runs her fingers through its soil - she feels a connection that she has never known in her life. Or maybe, has never known since she forgot everything about her life.

Judith feels the earth between her fingers and she knows what she was made for. This is the root of her power, here in the soil. She finds herself, in the roots and the stem and the leaves.

Energy travels through her, electrifying her from toes to spine, and she bends back, taking it in, absorbing it, letting it return to her. It's terrifying and thrilling and yet it feels right. It's overwhelming, but she knows she can handle it - it's part of her. It was just waiting to awaken.

The florist looks on in awe. "Your majesty, welcome home." He bows deeply.

Your... majesty...?

He presses a baggie into her hand. "New life for Troy," he says softly. The bag is full of tiny seeds.

She thanks him, promises she'll keep them safe, and continues on her journey. Somehow, this raised more questions than it answered. But she feels she's on the right path.

She sees the man in the ragged coat, who helped her once - maybe he will guide her again. He takes her by the hand and spins her around, then holds her against the wall. With a piece of chalk, he traces her outline. Draws a pomegranate in her hand, and a crown on her head.

After this, he leads her over to a chair, and pours her a cup of tea. Sure, tea would be nice. The radio is playing; a chipper announcer is speaking.

"Hey! Thanks for tuning in. We're asking for your best party stories, we'd love to hear yours!"

"Hello? ...I dunno... I can't remember..."

Wait.

"There was this beautiful woman, covered in sequins, and she walks up to me and asks to read my palm."

The potter stretches his hand out, asking for hers.

"She said I was... forgetful, or something..."

Judith smiles, rolls her eyes, OK, very funny. Great prank.

But the man continues, tracing his finger over her palm, and she continues hearing her own voice over the radio, "And that's when it got really weird."

"The funny thing is..."

Judith cuts in. "The funny thing is, according to this, you're already dead."

The beggar holds up a candle and looks around. As he brings the light higher, ghostly figures appear out of the darkness. One by one, their pallid, motionless faces emerge from the mist. Judith staggers back.

"It's OK," the man says softly. "They don't do anything. They just watch."

She steps forward and brings a hand up to one, gently touching its face. Have they been here all along?

She takes a step, they take a step. She walks away, but they follow her. She turns a tight corner and ducks into the back entrance of a bar. Still, they pour in after her.

She tucks herself into a corner, finding a stool, and beckons the barman for a drink.

"There's so many of them..." Ghosts fill the bar, cramming themselves in, their eyes fixed on her. "There's so many of them."

"Just the right amount, I think," the barman says, oblivious, admiring his array of bottles on the wall. He pours her a drink.

Judith examines their faces, looking back at her attentively. "Maybe they're just lost," she muses. "Wandering in the darkness."

"We're all a little lost," the bartender says agreeably.

"Cheers to that. The funny thing about darkness, you know... You need the darkness to see the light. From darkness comes light, from night comes morning, from winter comes spring, from death comes rebirth... hopefully." She downs another shot of sake. Zagreus takes the empty cup and spins it on the counter.

"Over and over and over again. Circles and cycles and circles and cycles... they keep going, on and on... but do they ever break?"

The barman shrugs. "Everything breaks eventually." The spinning cup comes to a stop.

"Hey, I remember you!"

He looks back blankly.

"I recognise you, I do. We crashed into each other, remember?"

The bartender looks puzzled. "We've only just met. I've never seen you before."

"C'mon, you must remember... Nevermind. Thanks for the drink."

Judith rushes off, out into the square - outside the entrance to Peep. Familiar music is playing.

"Hey, they just played that song an hour ago! Is it just me, or is everything repeating? Going in circles, round and round?"

"I can see you... and you can see me, right?" The shade nearest to her nods.

"Right, so if this is all happening again, that means he'll be there, in there, and he'll know what to do! He can explain everything! Let's go!"

She rushes into Peep, and sure enough, Kampe is dancing on the stage again.

"Give it up for Kampe! They really glisten when they move, don't they? That reminds me..."

The emcee drops their martini glass. Judith catches it, a smug smile on her face. She nods, assuredly, "And now he'll come in... He'll come in... Where is he...?"

"...We have a visitor. A friend? A presence. A gift!"

The Peep hosts look down at her. They hold their hands out to her and hoist her on stage. They each give her a kiss on the cheek.

"No, this isn't right... It's not supposed to be me..."

The band begins to play.

"I... guess I do know this one. I think I remember the words. I can try, anyway."

"Something about... if the sun should lose its light? And we're in endless night? And a veil lifting up to see a face?"

"And if the sea were sand alone, and the flowers made of stone... Flowers made of stone? And no one that you hurt could ever heal?"

Everyone forgetting. All the flowers fake. All the water dried up. Morning never comes.

"That's... That's what this is. That's where we are. That's what this is!"

The hosts pop up from the trap door. Just like before. "...they're behind me, aren't they? I'm sorry, I have to go..."

"Well, shoot a speeding arrow through my tiny, tiny heart..." But she's already rushing off, back home, back to Hades House, the office where she hopes she will find him.

And she narrowly avoids running into the barman, because she knows he will be passing through at that moment. She swings open the door, where her husband is preparing a game of checkers for them.

A game? When outside, people are risking their lives? In a war that may be artificial, but is so very real to them. She saw the fear on the barman's face.

So they sit down, Judith and her husband, inside Hades House, and prepare to play a game.

"You see them now, don't you?" he says.

She nods.

It's a simple game, checkers, draughts, whatever you like to call it. One move after another, wait for your opponent to give you an opening. Faster and faster they trade moves, until Judith is sick of it all - she throws her keys down on the board. Look what I've accomplished, no thanks to you.

War is screaming outside. She screams with it.

He shrivels, he falls to the floor. She rips open the curtains, forcing him to see the blood that has been split.

What is this horrific place? And how do we figure into it, you and I? We are both a part of it, and not a part of it. They all forget. They all can never heal. You and I persist. What is this?

It's a shock to his system - perhaps he didn't expect her to work it out so quickly. He's frozen, stiff, curling up into a little ball, such a tall proud man now vulnerable. She softens, goes to him, picks him up. She reminds him of their bond, tangoes him to the desk, and finds...

Their pomegranate.

The one that she created. The one she gave life to.

She stands tall over him, pushes him down onto the desk. She takes the juicy fruit and squeezes, drips it down into his mouth and onto his face, the ruby seeds sparkling in the light, feeds him this product of her power until he believes again, until he begs for mercy.

Her demands are simple: "Show me."

"I'll show you," he replies, "I'll show you everything."

They pass through the rubble of the invaded city. A princess laid out, shroud over her head. A Watchman, picking up the pieces. Judith's husband hands her a lantern, and she lights her way.

A domestic worker freezes, caught in the light. Everyone here prefers darkness.

One of the arcade cabinets is full of black sand, with tiny figures inside - figures of her and her husband.

Hades hands her the final key. He points to the stage door.

She chooses a few shades to be her companions. Ones that have been with her on this journey all along, ones that have been paying attention. Ones who will see it through until the end.

They go up the steps, together. They look out onto the city, together.

Judith goes out onto the balcony.

"Is our city not fair and vast? It shines for you, all for you, dear Judith."

"Fair and vast is your city." "Yours, Judith. Yours forever. Here, multitudes reside. They'll be your companions forevermore."

"Fair and vast is your city..."

"Here is a handmaiden, loyal to us both." A young woman in red, barely more than a girl, looks up. "Here, a vial to catch tears of sorrow, tears of joy, dropped from the eyes of time's fleeting shadows."

"The streets of your city are marked with blood. Blood runs down the walls, blood stains the paving stones. The clouds above throw bloody shadows. Who has bled for the sake of your city?"

"See, but ask me nothing. Look, but ask no questions."

"I only remember one thing: I came here because I love you. But I will not have a single door held shut against me."

"Take care Judith, you're ahead of yourself. Why hurry? We have all the time in the world."

"Not a single door held shut against me. I demand it."

"I will show you everything. All in good time."

"All in good time… In a world where time seems to stand still..."

She turns to look behind her. "I was lost when I arrived, just like you. Lost in the labyrinth of these streets. But hedged by gloom, a garden. Our garden. Filled with lifeless flowers. A fallen horse gave me solace and made me rich. Rich with abundance, rich in brain and body. I am the sunlight. So many of you, wandering in the darkness. In a world filled with cruelty, torture and war, I heard your city sighing. I heard your kingdom crying."

"...city sighing, I heard your kingdom crying."

City sighing, your kingdom crying. City sighing, your kingdom crying.

There is a crack in the record. It begins to skip. She wasn't speaking, it was only a recording.

Now... The recording is over. She walks her own path.

There is a display case in this room. It holds a record player needle.

She opens a door and finds an ancient Greek pot in another display case. On one side, a scene of violence she has seen play out in this city. On the other side, a key.

Another dark room, another case of pottery. But there is much more ground that needs to be covered, and not much time.

"Run!" she calls to her ghostly followers. Down the halls, through the strange museum, until she finds a locked door, and a daffodil laid in front of it.

This must be the place.

The last door. The last key. She steps inside, and feels sand under her feet. She walks slowly, the lantern lighting her way. She picks up a stick of chalk.

Nothing but darkness ahead.

"It's the strangest feeling... I can feel it all coming back."

A straight path. One foot in front of the other. Don't panic.

"If the sun should lose its light, and we lived in an endless night..."

She begins to draw on the wall of the long corridor, organising her thoughts.

"and there was nothing left that you could feel... If the sea were sand alone" -- she draws the waves on the wall. Not a drop of water in this place, only sand. "And all the flowers made of stone..."

"And no one that you hurt could ever heal..." She draws an infinity symbol on the wall, tracing it over and over until something breaks in her.

I

RE

MEM

BER

"I remember..."

She walks on, past more walls with more chalk scribblings, and more, and more, flowers and waves and infinities and labyrinths and I REMEMBER over and over and over and over and over, layered one over top of another.

Proof of the years gone by, proof of the seasonal cycle, proof that she always, always comes back, and she always remembers, and she's always been capable, and she's always been able to find herself again. The power was within her all along.

"My name is Judith Kore, better known as Persephone," she says, to herself and to her lost souls. "Queen of the Underworld. Child of Earth and Starry Skies. My people are heavenly, and yours are too. I grant you safe passage into the land of the shades."

She emerges, with her shades, through a curtain into a sharp dagger of light in the middle of No Man's Land, Mycenae. Iphigenia-turned-Hecate delivers to her the last tears of Patroclus before she murders him. Agamemnon ascends the stairs triumphantly to his doom. Persephone sees it all laid out before her in perfect order, ticking along exactly as it should, as it always has since time immemorial.

She heads back towards Troy - She must find her husband, Hades, and take her place on the throne alongside him. He tried to hide this from her because she had to find it herself. Would she really have believed him if he had told her from the start?

On her way to the border, she crosses paths with the Watchman. He has a talent for making things grow - he holds the last vestiges of new life in this country - she knows this. So she entrusts him with the seeds that Askalaphos gave her.

Something is brewing when she arrives in Troy Square - Hades is setting up a new cycle to begin. Or end. What's the difference, really?

They embrace. He knows that she knows. He points her to the office. One last secret?

She trusts him.

Persephone enters, puts the headphones on, and hears her own voice. She has been guiding herself all along.

"Get up," the voice tells her. "Stand up." More insistently: "Up. Higher. Higher..."

So she climbs up onto the desk.

"Now. Take a deep breath. And look around. This is where you need to be. Where you belong. There is power within you, feel it awakening deep inside you. Growing, flowing, and blossoming in spectacular profusion. You are the sunlight. This world is beautiful. This city is yours. From the highest heights, down to the darkest depths. Yours. All yours."

"When you are ready to go deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper..."

The darkest depths...

A floorboard is loose. She bends down and lifts it up, revealing a cellar, with dozens of vials of tears, exactly like the one she has around her neck.

"The history of the world in teardrops, Judith. Tears of sorrow, tears of joy... Mortal emotions, immortalised. Preserved. For us. Forever."

They kiss, finally reunited, finally themselves. She hugs him close.

"Thank you for coming back to me," he says quietly.

"Always. Always."

She goes to the record player, and lifts the needle.

"I love you..." "I love you too. Are you ready?"

Hand in hand, they emerge from the office. There are a few final orders of business.

He presents Hecuba with her coat; she wipes off her blood-stained hands.

At the end of everything in Mycenae, she finds the last soldier standing, the whole remains of the Greek army. She wipes the sweat from his brow, and points his way to join the rest of the lost souls.

The last of the music starts to fade. She throws down the rag with the sound of a gong.

There they are, the fall of the damned, rolling down the grand staircase to greet her. They are naked, broken, identities fading away, becoming one mass of the Dead, her faceless nameless subjects. She continues upwards, head held high, exuding power. She knows herself now, she is a goddess of two sides: life, yes, plants, yes, but death too. She knows both sides of the cycle. She too has died and been reborn, every six months she resets back to the start, and comes back stronger for it.

So she ascends, to meet her husband Hades, ruler of this underworld, harshly lit on that long, cold stone table.

Hades & Persephone find their spot to watch the proceedings, the last gasp of this world as it dissolves into nothing. The souls race around, Clytemnestra reaches out, desperate for any connection, but she cannot reach them.

What a beautiful piece of theatre he has built for her. She looks out with him, and points, cueing the dust to fall.

They break open a new pomegranate, each bringing a seed to their mouth. They kiss, and the lights fade.

What a beautiful record. Rips your heart out every time.

With thanks to everyone who worked on this show to make it as magical as it was.

[romulusfuckingroy]

one thing that I don’t think the succession writers necessarily intended (ESPECIALLY jesse armstrong) but I’m forever grateful to them for is fully fleshing out Roman’s sexual dysfunction in the narrative.

like they could’ve just had it be a one- or two-off joke, or quietly let it go away in the background. this is how so many other works treat it when a (male) character has sexual hangups, can’t fuck, etc. but they didn’t. yes it gets played for laughs, and yes it’s not always the focus of his story, but it’s always an intrinsic part of his character, which is rarely done in shows and movies and almost never done well.

when Roman is trying to force himself to fuck Tabitha, when he can’t seem to get the setting and factors right to go through with it, I recognized it. when he admitted to Gerri that he knew he probably wouldn’t be able to fuck her, but he really just wanted to try, I felt it.

there are characters who aren’t interested in sex. there are characters with complicated relationships with sex. but this was one of the first characters I’ve seen that shows what it’s like to want sex but be unable to do it, or do it the way they want, or make their body cooperate, or get out of their own head. maybe I’m just clueless or overdramatic but I genuinely never considered that my complicated feelings about sex could ever be portrayed with the grace and sympathy that succession gives Roman (when they’re not dogging him for it. This is the familial abuse show after all).

anyway that’s just my two cents, as a similarly fucked up person when it comes to sex

[ceramicteapot]

my blanket has never felt comfier. it happens when winter is just getting up to leave. it’s somehow my way of holding it by the sleeve, tugging, and nearly begging it to stay.

but like everyone else, winter doesn’t listen. and unlike everyone else, she follows through with her promise of return.

and so for months, i’ll do what i do best.

i’ll wait.