#euden would steal him though..

[valeriefauxnom]

Summer Euden's Other Set of Expressions

So, as we know, Summer Euden was long awaited ever since he and the main crew gained their own outfits in the first year, where he looked like this:

Cleo, Ranzal, and Luca all surprisingly were apart of the first summer rounds of units, the latter two as easy-to-get 4 stars. Those are all big names, so it made sense that they were going to be a lot more sparing when it came to the remaining Big Two (Euden and Elly) in the original group. Indeed, next summer neither of them appeared as playable units.

Third summer, however, in what was probably a subtle signal they were going downhill and trying to give The People what they wanted by throwing out all the favorites with a jam-packed summer with favorites like Leonidas, Chelle, Ieyasu, and Mitsuhide, Summer Euden finally entered the game (and as a completely free giveaway that you didn't even have to fill out a friendship meter because Euden is friendly with most everyone!), making minor adjustments to his outfit:

Aside from the most notable change that he obviously now lacks an inner shirt (of which I'm likely going to attribute to him just feeling comfortable enough doing that around friends with the whole royal etiquette standards around dress, etc), he also gained the same pendant thing (presumably Zethia's?) that he's holding in his Gala on his belt, as well as a little hair tie and flower necklace.

Even before he became playable, though, he already had a pretty varied set of expressions (that he didn't change at all for his playable variety). Here are his 'eye parts' (if you've never seen/used the fantastic portrait viewer, essentially, dragalia divided expression into eyes and mouth, so they could mix and match as well as animate the blinking/talking):

As just said, his second summer outfit carried his expression capacity over, cut and paste. Made sense, it's his same 'art' but altered a bit.

...Except summer Euden was notable in a few different ways. First: his animation angle. Previously, I believe all units in Dragalia kept the camera angle they were using when attacking all the time as not to mess up players. Euden, however, experimented with camera angle, starting off his skills in a way that flipped the camera to facing him for a hair. You could disable it, but still.

More curiously, he also gained a new skill cutaway art wherein he just really looks like he's about to beat you up for stealing his friend's Legos or something and is in the course of getting ready to deck you very hard:

This is obviously in the pose of his full unit art, but definitely isn't exactly it. This seems to be what they did for most units, cut out or alter their full art to use for their skill cut ins.

...But they also usually used this cut-down version of the full screen art as their 'resting'/talking art for most characters.

But Euden uses his old summer art's pose and talking art. Okay.

...And yet, his cut down version also has a full range of expressions:

He only uses like, two, three expressions in all, for his skill and damaged art, and yet he has all of these expression possibilities.

This is all a lot to say that despite having a full spread of emotions for what would normally be his talking art, they instead went for the altered version of his original summer art for reasons unknown. If I had to guess, I'd say that his art was too 'dynamic' and screen-consuming compared to most art, and just too far a departure from most talking portaits. This is a mock up of what Summer Euden alone would have looked like on screen:

So, uh, yeah. That's how summer Euden has not just one but two sets of full expressions!

As a sign-off, in case you never saw it since while Euden was a pretty good free unit, he was competing in a vicious shadow economy and thus didn't see much use, here's his victory pose!

[zephyr-paladyn]

masculaxi character analysis/appreciation

it's been over a year since gala masculaxi's release and i'm still not over it

(heavy dragalia lost spoilers ahead)

(gala mascula does not exist btw) i just love how mascula and laxi are designed as two parts of a whole, basically one half of the same ideal/same person. you can't have one without the other. if you heavily favor one over the other i dont trust you... only half joking. when laxi went berserk and mascula had to save her by giving her his heart in their debut ch11, that was just... such a moment... it shows them at their most "separate" (laxi in berserk/annihilation mode, and mascula stopping at nothing to disengage combat.) which sets us up for their development as two hearts in one body. in masculaxi (flame blade)'s story, they're still at odds but they begin to learn to cooperate in the same body, and this is the beginning of their "convergence." in ch14 of the main story is when we see the beginnings of eden mode. when all the androids sacrifice themselves for euden and co to advance, mascula realizes it his empathetic heart that influenced them and led them to their painful deaths. he then shuts down his ego circuit out of guilt. when the team is in a tight spot, and only masculaxi can save the day (since their body is unaffected due to the miasma only affecting organic lifeforms,) laxi goes into their heart to search for mascula and plead him to help her. all this time, laxi had envied mascula's heart for being "more human," but realized that maestro had written the fear of death in all of the android's hearts, and as such, laxi understood the weight of their yearning for peace, with the act of their self-sacrifice for euden. (later we do learn with gala masculaxi that mascula had been influencing laxi more. here we see laxi's influence on mascula to urge him to fight.) laxi gets mascula out of the gay baby jail zone, releases her limiters, and activates annihilation mode hastily. mascula then guides her attacks to the correct targets, which is the first instance we see of mascula engaging in any sort of fighting. in this state of laxi's annihilation mode combined with mascula's guided assault, a new mode beyond annihilation mode becomes available to them: eden mode, when their hearts become one. this mode concentrates all the mana around them inside their body's mana kiln, and gives them even more power. mascula still dislikes fighting and does not want to do it as much, but has a newfound conviction and will not run away when he is needed. an interesting line here is mascula saying this: ▷It's as if he knew our hearts would one day become one. But how...?◁ indicating that from the start, they were truly two halves of a whole ideal. shortly after the release of ch14, we get the release of the flame dagger gala masculaxi unit, which contains eden mode in their gameplay, and expands upon the "two hearts acting as one" deal they have going on. laxi, mascula, and luca head to the ruins of maestro's lab in order to gain more clues on how eden mode works. laxi equips a new armament meant to accommodate eden mode (and demands praise of how good she looks, lol. also laxi is much more snarky in this story which is a treat. she's so funny. but also this shows mascula's emotional influence on her!!!!!) laxi learns of how eden mode works, and essentially it's a release of all limiters and rerouting all circuits to their internal mana kiln, but elimination protocol is activated automatically as well which does not make any distinction between friend and foe. it enhances laxi's combat ability, but mascula has to take care of elimination protocol since he has access and control of it. hence, in eden mode, laxi goes all out in attacking, while mascula controls the body's movements and targets. however this is only possible if their hearts act as one. the two are attacked by dyrenell forces and activate eden mode against them, but mascula temporarily loses the will to fight in the middle of the battle, destabilizing and deactivating eden mode. luca is captured and a villager shields them from an oncoming attack, believing in mascula's peaceful ideals. laxi engages tactical retreat and they escape. they engage in a plan to save luca but are attacked by imperials again. they try to go into eden mode but mascula once again disengages eden mode. mascula tells laxi of his regrets and frustrations that he keeps holding her back, but laxi tells him that she found herself synchronizing with him. with the villager (that mascula had saved before and in turn protected masculaxi earlier,) laxi found the value in mercy for enemies. by having laxi bend towards mascula's will, they're able to take on the imperials who chased after them with a truly synchronized eden mode. ▷Laxi, give me the strength to fight!◁ Granted. Now give me the kindness required to temper my actions. ▷Heh. Take all you need!◁ their system strain falls, and they're able to defeat the imperials. laxi, mascula, luca, and euden talk together after all is done. laxi takes interest in a cat, while mascula teaches her how to interact with it. Euden: Laxi and Mascula say the maestro who made them was a peace-loving man, but... Luca: No, I getcha. Why would some peacenik give something THIS much power? ch14 and their gala story really shows how the two embodied different sides of the same ideal -- "fighting for peace," and how they begin to converge upon that ideal. initially laxi only focused on "fighting" and mascula only focused on "peace," but A compassionate heart. ▷The courage to fight.◁ -Eden Mode, activate!- their character development after this is a bit wonky at times because it sets up for gala mascula who is really poorly written and doesn't necessarily align with the ideals established within ch14 and gala masculaxi, or even the development directly before it either. with ageless artifice and ch18 (when the team first enters the faerie kingdom and gets lost,) we get teasers of mascula with his own body. in ageless artifice, eirene steals mascula's body and intends to use it against masculaxi, but mascula takes control of his body and proclaims that his body isn't necessarily him, but what IS him is his resolve to fight for peace alongside his friends. (stays in line with gala masculaxi, right?) in ch18 we also see mascula having a "nightmare/illusion" in which he gains his body back but at the cost of laxi going berserk once more, showing that they truly cannot function at their "fullest ideal" without each other in the same body. laxi asks mascula if he wants his own body back, and mascula says he sometimes misses it but overall he wants to continue fighting with her the way they are. this is echoed in ch19, take this exchange for example: Mascula, I know you were thinking of your own body while lost in the mountain's illusions. You gave up your body to save me, and I owe you an apology for that. ▷Don't apologize—I wanted to do it. Plus, being with you makes me happy.◁ I want to see a peaceful world just as we are in this body now—together. ▷I feel the exact same way.◁ ▷No more hesitation. You and I are going to fight with Maestro as a team.◁ And together... ▷...we will bring peace.◁ reaffirming their ideals together and keeping in line with their development, right? mascula doesn't WANT his own body back. he wants to keep fighting with laxi, that's THE WHOLE POINT OF THEIR CHARACTERS. which does not make sense when we get the remote control BS IN THE SAME CHAPTER??? (teased from the ending of ageless artifice with chelle) and mascula has his own body again as a remote control system. now the portrayal in the main story wasn't AS bad but... the real problem comes to gala mascula as an adventurer with his stories and voice lines. this "mascula" proclaims of how much he loves/misses his body and how he "doesn't need laxi dragging him around anymore." like sure he sometimes feels being in laxi's body with her is bothersome but overall, at his heart, he wouldn't really say something like that??? mascula your voice lines are so contradictory to what just happened in the main story and what you said in ageless artifice what happened!!!!!!! his adventurer story lacks the cooperative laxi-mascula dynamic we knew and loved, and instead pushes mascula front and center to try to push him to do things himself. we didn't really need mascula getting his own body back anyways, but you COULD'VE AT LEAST written it so that they have more emphasis on cooperation with each other?? god im sorry i just. AUGH he's so OBVIOUSLY hastily pushed into their development arc and he loses his characterization. it's obvious gala mascula wasn't intended to be a thing in the initial plan for masculaxi... i am not forgiving every single one of you who sent in feedback for playable mascula. once again only half joking... maybe only a quarter joking. 1/8ths joking. radioactive decay graph joking. (also just a tiny nitpick: you can apparently run gala mascula and laxi/gala laxi on the same team. lore compliancy who? eden mode can't be activated while the remote control unit is active. but whatever) though another interesting plot point is brought up in his story though? maestro's origins, the writing of "seek peace" on mascula and laxi's bodies being in a language that only the sky city ark people would know.. with such an elaborate plan for such a complex android duo, and everything else mysterious about this man, just who is he? his master plan of masculaxi was really amazing to see come to fruition... maestro fought on the side of dyrenell, against dragons -- against elysium you could say. although ex machina seeks the destruction of terrestrial life because they "allied with the dragons" (a misconception,) on the contrary maybe maestro aimed to create an ultimate weapon for terrestrials to defend themselves against the dragons. however this weapon had to also understand the value of what it was fighting for -- learning for itself how to go about "fighting for peace." thus, the creation of the twins mascula and laxi; two halves of a whole. by having a compassionate and adaptable heart, they can change with the times, understand the people around them, and decide on their own what the best course of action is in various situations. i love love LOVE masculaxi and how they're written!! (for the most part.) two of my faves in the game and i love them and their characterization so much, i just wish more people could see the intricacies of their relationship and how they're literally like. 1/2 of the same thing. it's such a beautifully written dynamic and development, and i want others to appreciate it too.

a little bonus, in this character art, you can see the "star tetrahedron" shapes. in sacred geometry symbolism, the "star tetrahedron" is the sixth shape enclosed within "metatron's cube." these shapes, and this cube, are said to maintain the balance of the world itself and its flows/processes. as for the "star tetrahedron" itself, it represents duality: physical body and spiritual self; male and female; and heaven and earth. this ties into mascula and laxi's characters: mascula controlling the "mind" in eden mode while laxi focuses on the attacking "body;" and mascula and laxi being of different genders. as for "heaven" and "earth," this could represent maestro coming from the sky city ark, and masculaxi being technology intended to aid humans. alternatively for "heaven" and "earth," the fact that the star tetrahedron is enclosed within "metatron's cube" may be a pointer to metatron in-universe. the archangels all have white hair, a trait shared by masculaxi. additionally, sandalphon is somewhat mechanical/technological herself. masculaxi being man-made (of the earth,) versus their potential connection to the angels (of the heavens.)

[astarion]

I had planned to make this post a bit before Dragalia Lost chapter 15’s release, but life happens and the chapter’s here now so I’ll just have to do with making this before doing the chapter myself. (Spoilers for the CH. 14 interlude ahead)

The interlude did answer some things and has set the stage for what’s to come. Biggest relief is that Elisanne was no traitor! That nervousness I picked up on just turned out to be the classic nervousness of “how could I have hesitated like that?” shame that comes from hiding a secret like that.

On the same token we now have a name for the Agito leader: Nedrick, and he does seem to be claiming to be the dead former Euden here to take back what’s his. All the story and the chapters are setting this up... But I’m not buying it, not yet! There’s still a few things that don’t work with that claim.

It all comes out with the royal siblings. Leonidas and and Chell, specifically, as Emile turns out to be doing, well, what could be expected of him. Anyways, Leonidas and Chell’s conversation in the interlude shows three important things:

1: They know Euden’s not actually their sibling (which is also great that they don’t care about that and that his deeds have already won them over). And that leads into number 2: Chell knows of Nedrick’s existence, but has no idea who he is.

Chell and her cats through Cait Sith have been able to get dirt on EVERYTHING, so far, so if she doesn’t know that Nedrick’s supposed to be their dead brother then either he’s hidden his tracks so well that not even the supreme spymaster could suss him out, or he is lying and using the information of the dead sibling to impersonate Euden’s identity to steal Zethia. He did have Volk and Cibella steal top-secret documents after all. But if he truly is the sibling that died, why would he need that information? He would have already needed to know that to even start this operation in the first place. And his objective in Chapter 14 was specifically Zethia. Not the throne, and not Euden’s life (at least right now), which gets into the third point.

3: Aurelius had a secret to tell Leonidas, but it wasn’t about either Player!Euden or Original!Euden. Leonidas already knows that Euden’s a fake, so if that was that big secret Aurelius wanted him to know, Aurelius could’ve directed Leonidas to his study, right in the castle where Harle had found the document, rather than tell him to go to Gram, the city of the church, to do so. Considering how Zethia is a key religious figure in the land, and Nedrick’s scheme is centered not on taking Alberia (which he could’ve done at the end of Chapter 14,) but only on Zethia, odds are great that this is actually a secret about her; and that was the true goal of the Agito’s assault on the church for the documents to begin with.

Plus, this fits with Dragalia Lost’s theme of not always going the expected route in terms of plot twists. In the recent Summer Event in the game, Doomsday Getaway, all the signs, from the opening cutscene through most of the chapters, hinted at a traitor in the team, done through the event boss Scylla possessing a member and bodysurfing from person to person to whittle them all down, but it was actually a word curse maintained by her magic and Carmen instead that anyone could fall to. So, it’s clear that the plot makers don’t always go the expected route with these things.

So even though some of my chapter 14 theory has been debunked already (re:Elisanne), I am not buying Nedrick’s story until we see the wyrmscale on his body, and even then that could be jumping the gun on it (only slightly related, Danganronpa V3 has a good example of an association fallacy like that, so I’m wary of falling into that again) and while I can’t confidently say that Zethia was adopted as well, I will say there is a major secret about her that we don’t know that is making her a target.

Now to actually do Chapter 15 and see if any of these guesses actually hold up!

[zeravmeta]

hey since this is my blog and i can do whatever i want im gonna lose my absolute shit at the parralels between Akasha and Heinwald because hoLy BALLS these two

The main thing between the two of them stems not from their interest in knowledge but from their responsibility with it. Akasha from her adventurer story was revealed to originally be this push-over scholar who believed that all the indignities she was made to suffer would ultimately never matter because she was "nothing" and she would eventually reach her own truth. However she's showing this in an illusion to Heinwald, who after seeing her sacrifice/combine herself to the entity within the grimoire (very likely the TRUE Hastur or even the Ancient-One thats referenced multiple times based off the Stirring Shadows event) to truly become Akasha or "Void", immediately questions the truth of the illusion to which Akasha herself says it may or may not be true but the reality is that she doesn't remember how or why she became this way. Akasha also apparently can apply a universal concept of permanence through time to make either past or future events exist in the present which is why the friendship gang know her even though they've technically never met until the "future" and how she can communicate to her younger self and inspire her to actually be selfish for once. This permanence through time was only circumvented by Heinwald, Lathna, and curiously Curran as well.

Heinwald, after learning about all this just laughs at how much of a hypocrite she is and that he would have much preferred to meet her original self who actually wanted to learn because of her natural curiosity rather than amass information aimlessly, which may seem hypocritical from him but a very clear distinction between Heinwald and Akasha here is that Akasha doesnt care about the consequences of her actions anymore while Heinwald cares too much.

Heinwald in his adventurer stories reveals he's massively empathetic of people and that he feels personally responsible for any suffering caused by his investigations and sleuthing habits because it ultimately got his family killed. He goes so far as to call Euden a greater genius than him solely because Euden helps him realize that he shouldn't be responsible for every single problem ever since that's Eudens mission to build a greater kingdom. Heinwald criticizes Akasha because he doesn't seek truth for the truths sake, but he does so to help people. Akasha on the other hand lost any and all empathy for the people around her because she finally believed she found purpose and didn't have to restrain her emotions anymore. Her family was abusive and negligent, her professor was stealing her research and she was hated by jealous scholars for her work, but she was able to keep it all in because she still had an escape in her studies. However when that was taken she decided to fully give herself up to the entity and merge with them (its implied by the dialogue here that Akasha may have thought she would die in this ritual), abandoning everyone and wanting to unleash the Ancient-One for no reason other than that she has freedom to do something for once so she wants to see what happens.

Based on the ending of the Stirring Shadows event, it's revealed that Akashas goal wasn't actually to use Lathna as the key and herself as the gate (which is implied to be ANOTHER attempted suicide since Akasha decribed that she would literally be wrenched open and summon the Ancient-One out of herself) but rather set the pieces in place for Heinwald to awaken his own connection to the abyss, which at the very end Heinwald pulls a reverse uno on her and says he was already awakened and that Lathna was just another necessary piece for whatever her eventual plot is. She planned to fail her ritual by setting Heinwald and Curran up to find her mid-ritual so as to ensure that Lathna awakens.

Overall these two are such opposite characters yet in Akashas final story she understands she's twisted and CHALLENGES Heinwald to see which one between the two of them would be saved, if Heinwald would accept what he is and drown in the Ancient-Ones all knowing or if Akasha would come to terms with what she is and build genuine bonds with others HEINWALD WAS TEMPTED BY HER BECAUSE HES STILL VERY NATURALLY CURIOUS BUT AT THE SAME TIME THE ONLY INSTANCE OF A VULNERABLE AKASHA WAS WHEN SHE WAS SHARING HER STORY OF BEING ALONE WITH HIM THESE TWO ARE SO SIMILAR THE ONLY REASON AKASHA TURNED WAS BECAUSE SHE DIDNT HAVE A CURRAN OF HER OWN HEINWALD WAS PRETTY MUCH NEGLECTED BY EVERYONE AND HE ENDED UP GETTING HIS OWN FAMILY KILLED YET EVEN IF HE WOULD BE BRANDED A HERETIC HE DIDNT CARE BUT CURRAN ACCEPTED HIM AS HE IS HE UNDERSTANDS HEINWALD BETTER THAN HIMSELF AND FOR SOMEONE TRAPPED IN HIS OWN MORAL QUANDRIES ITS CURRANS SIMPLE LOGIC AND ACCEPTANCE OF HIS MANNERISMS THAT CEMENTS HIM AS HEINWALDS FRIEND AND WITH THAT SAME TYPE OF ACCEPTANCE AKASHA COULD ALSO FIND GENUINE COMPANIONS IN THE TWO OF THEN AND IM LIVING FOR THIS ROAD TO EL DORADO TRIO DYNAMIC

[falco-caesar]

Alright it’s time for my theory about how Cthonius/Pluto and Alberius can still be playable. Cygames please do not read this and lose the rights to potentially do this even though I’m pretty sure fanfic writers being able to sue is a myth in the first place. Anyway...

So Cthonius and Alberius are cool and would be great to have but currently they have a minor case of dead with symptoms like ‘the emotional impact of chapter 10 would be ruined if Alberius came back via gacha.’ However thanks to a certain spotlight stealing greatwyrm we have a trick to get past all of that.

Cthonius didn’t really get much screentime and all of the emotional focus of the chapter was on Alberius. So imagine that Morsayati decides to rub salt on the wound and pour black mana on Cthonius’s dead body and send him after Euden as Void Cthonius. But they’re able to purify him leading Cthonius to join Euden. And then due to the long time spent merged together Cthonius takes a few lessons from Brunhilda/Mym and borrows Alberius’s appearance.

That way we get to use Alberius without taking away from his sacrifice. Also Alberius is definitely a light type character while Cthonius’s element was shadow for the boss battle so it’d be interesting to have a light character who can only turn into a shadow dragon. You’d have to debate if shapeshifting was even worth it against certain enemies while for others you’d pack a lot of dragon prep.

[lostdragonprince-blog]

Euden was rather happy that he was able to get back another one of his  pactstones. After all it held the power to become a Dragon in it, and he would make sure this one was just as safe as the other one he had. He had been able to tell it was connected to the Lightwyrm, or Jupiter as that Dragon was named. 

Strange, to not get the crystal-like stones in order that he got them before. It made him wonder what one he might get back next as he held the pactstones in his hands.

“I wonder who I will get next...“ He more muttered to himself, not expecting anyone around to find him. Though he wasn’t really trying to hide, and the crystals might attract someone. Though it would be useless to steal them, as the power would not go with them.