#definitely wouldn't have survived Heart I don't think alas

[megoomy]

got a request for my vesperia berseria au designs and i do have character sheets for them so: everyone is free to draw these if they want! credit is nice but, well, these all heavily reference official tales designs so i dont want to take too much credit for them lol. you can also write about the au and take any amount of what we've come up with, i really don't care, it's all for fun.

UNDER THE CUT: a vague summary of the concept. warning for Profound Self Indulgence and Somewhat Half-Assed Worldbuilding (world...changing? world editing? whatever)

okay basically flynn and yuri met as kids in a village that basically serves as the lower quarter of the au, but after spending a few years together daemons attack the village and nearly everyone dies. yuri survives, but in the process he’s become a daemon. flynn also survives, but is deeply traumatized and gets picked up by the exorcists (conveniently too late to save anyone in typical form). neither knows the other survived. to make matters worse, flynns trauma causes some memory loss…he still definitely remembers that time in the village but its very fuzzy now and as he gets older that only gets worse. and like he thinks all those people died so hes not really trying to remember them.

flynn becomes an exorcist (some flavor of legate) and is going around eradicating daemons when he runs into yuri. he doesnt recognize yuri but yuri is pretty sure he recognizes flynn. but yuri isnt about to say that when flynn is trying to kill him LOL. the general arc is that yuri keeps slipping away and flynn keeps seeing more about him in his efforts to hunt him down, realizing that this strikingly handsome strangely familiar daemon is actually...very kind? takes care of children? helps people for no gain? and this calls into question everything that he thought he understood about the world which is quite troubling.

you can think of them as similar to velvet and eleanor. but I think when flynn joins yuri it's by choice, not because yuri's forced him to be a vessel or because flynn's a spy or anything like that. or at least, he's been thrown out by the abbey for one reason or another and joins yuri instead. (we've tossed around quite a few versions of this. we love playing in the space.)

we've bounced around ideas about the rest of the cast but i only have a sheet for estelle, who is a malak controlled by the abbey ala phi. assigned to flynn, ends up with yuri one way or another. i think rita sees that malaks are people and while she wants to coordinate with them to use their strength she doesn't like how they're treated as tools (the way she feels about blastia more or less).

if you're curious about why flynn and yuri have different fates, like, in terms of lore compliance. i think yuri seeing the thing he holds most dear, the community that cared for him, destroyed in an instant, would probably fill him with malevolence no matter what, especially depending on the circumstances. (like, if the abbey was manipulating things to create daemons or therions) yuri's like...a deeply conflicted character full of self loathing, so, being a daemon really suits him. i think that malevolence would only grow as he sees the world and the abbey for what it really is. unlike someone like rose, yuri NEVER feels unconflicted about Doing Murders.

flynn in canon is pretty conflicted himself of course but i see him as similar to eleanor who can sometimes produce malevolence but has a certain purity of heart that keeps them as pretty good vessel material. nowhere near someone like sorey or rose, and definitely wouldn't have had enough resonance pre-artorius' plot to see anything. also i think the brain trauma and being picked up by the abbey leads to him having very clear purpose and a black and white view for some time, so that helps. (look, let me be real with you, half of the impetus for this au was "it would be funny if flynn had like, religious trauma")

design notes not on the sheets: - yuri's daemonblighted skin is cooler to the touch than his regular skin. but he's a guy with cold hands regardless - i've got purple highlights in his eyes but i think of them as glinting purple in the light. like an animal i guess? - yuri's outfit is mostly inspired by his spirit gear in rays, aside from his normal game canon outfit. - estelle is pulling from a lot of different abbey associated characters but mostly her own design...i didn't want to give her something weird like A FUCKING COLLAR especially bc she's not given to A WEIRDO EXORCIST but i wanted some kind of symbol of captivity so i went instead for a golden mask. pulling from the common malak's gold mask/helmets and seres' mask. in canon a lot of estelle's arc is about being sheltered so i feel like covering her eyes feels, appropriate? idk. - i think yuri still gives estelle her nickname but she wouldn't start out as estellise so its more like yuri gives her a name - you may notice she has the flame of purification (does that have a different proper name? blanking on it) which kind of implies that she's connected to innominat. please don't ask me to elaborate on that point because i literally don't know yet. i think if i were to make her a normal elementally aligned malak she'd be water like her spirit gear in rays, but it feels like she should be Special just like how she's a child of the full moon in canon. we just, haven't really figured out, does the berseria cast still exist, are we replacing them, what would that look like, etc. sorry that stuff should be more important to the concept but we are simply playing with the dolls. teehee

[mistwraiths]

3.5 stars

This series is one of those that both is good and is a bit of a disappointment. I flew through both Aurora Rising and Aurora Burning, but Aurora's End took me several days to get through.

Aurora Burning ended with a literal bang. Finn, Scarlett, and Zila are about to die. Tyler, who escaped the GIA, about to die. And Kal probably dead with Aurora losing. After the breakneck pace, you think the last book of the trilogy would follow suit. Alas, to me Aurora's End felt like a long drag to part four where things finally happened. On top of that there were just things I didn't particularly enjoy.

Honestly, I hated that the whole gang was so torn apart from each other. Like I get it, but the book was always far more enjoyable when they were together. The whole time travel bit was okay at first, but especially with the time loop part that became so tedious that despite having my favorite characters, I was bored. The reason why everyone got specific items from the last book was cool but it really took TOO long to get there. This book is also awfully predictable, it doesn't take enjoyment from it but give us one surprise.

I think one of my main issues is that despite the looming threat, the war, the time travel, its the romance and quick pairings of each member of the squad 312 that holds the main focus of this book. I started this series because of the found family trope but even that's shoved to the side until the very end. It just made it disappointing especially since I personally struggled with one couple, let another one slide, and the other two were fine. Aurora and Kal are already established and don't get quite a focus. Scarlett and Finian do have my whole heart.

I really didn't particularly enjoy Tyler and Saedii. I like both characters individually. It felt in my opinion too shoehorned in in the second book. In this book, they just have a connection and attraction, but I honestly feel that they in reality wouldn't particularly work? Especially since we're never given a single moment in Saedii's head nor do we see any kind of vulnerability or chemistry. Give me enemies to lovers, sure, but I hate when it doesn't give me anything but instant love.

I LOVE Zila. I do she's my second favorite next to Finian. Zila is the REALA MVP in this book and she fucking carries it the entire way through. Nari Kim is a good character and was helpful although I don't quite particularly buy the romance between them when it happened so fast? They spent time together yes but we're literally only treated to like one conversation of home between them. Sorry, I don't buy it BUT I support it. Because it was obvious somebody was going to be left behind and she deserves happiness.

Thinking about Kal, Aurora, and Kal's dad and their whole part just gives me a headache because I want to yell what was the point?? To show us readers how awful the enemy is? I already know that from seeing what happened to Cat, from Aurora's dad, from Octavia and the GIA. Kal literally doesn't even have much of a role here? He fights the plant hive at the end of part 3 and that's it? I loved him in the first two books so it was definitely a disappointment. Also, Aurora didn't even get to rest for none of that except maybe once but how did she not get exhausted? Oh power is addicting, you feel like a god, yeah sure but mental capacity and headaches and bleeding constantly, your face cracking, and multiple battles one after another and she's fine??? Sure.

Ultimately, when everyone showed up and the battle truly begins, I was ready. Look y'all, I love when it's like "love is the answer, love wins, kindness/goodness/love solves the problem". However, it really bothered me in this case. Not only because it DID feel too cheesy. But because SORRY you're telling me a PLANT hive mind that wants to grow, become we instead of one, is beaten by love? Especially after they were almost wiped out but a small bit survived for millions of years, you're going to take the risk that love with hold FOREVER and they're just gonna stay wherever they went and not millions of years later maybe forget and go off again? I don't know but it just hits odd to me.

Also this is random but wasn't the plant thing contagious like really easy to infect other people? Tyler literally kissed Cat how tf did he not get infected? That's bodily fluids. Also when Kal is fighting, he mentions literally wiping his eyes from blood or whatever like again how did he not get infected??

All together it was a good story. I liked that Aurora survived, I didn't expect her to die, I actually figured they all might lean on each other so the wealon wouldn't kill Aurora in the end. I do like that she lost all the power too. You know who I didn't expect to enjoy but totally did? Kal's father. He actually made Kal and Aurora's part more humorous. There was a LOT less juvenile sense of humor as well. Tyler's chapters felt a lot more like he's narrating his own story for us than it actually happening to him. But overall, i enjoyed it and squad 312 will live on in my heart.