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crazy56u · 8 months

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I had to force myself to wake up half an hour ago in order to catch the premiere; it's gonna be a challenge to do this for as long as they have the show scheduled at 8PM, but I'm ride or die, let's go.

Previously on Quantum Leap: The timeline almost got broke in half, and the main characters were unaware that they had gotten renewed (hence why Ben is still leaping).

I love how they included the fight in the Accelerator.

And Ben is in a broom closet. "This can't be happening." Welcome to Season 2, buddy.

"Maybe if I say all the names, I'll be allowed to leave."

"Somewhere over Russia. Fuck you if you want specifics. You're not even getting the full date, that carried over from Season 1."

I love how they are blatantly foreshadowing the Roswell episode that the season trailer teased.

I am half expecting this to turn into that one bit from Uncharted. Do they have the money to have the plane open mid-flight?

"It's a SAM!" Hey, Sam finally shows up in this, nice. (ba-dum-tish)

"I can save the plane!" Ben, that is what we in the business call "Tempting Fate".

Cut to Ben unconscious on the ground, looks like he saved the plane!

I love how this is blatantly the Arizona desert.

"Hey, help me move these giant wheels!" "Maybe physics will save the day."

Okay, he looks less like he's in pain, and more like he's trying to not laugh.

"Addison, this leap fucking sucks, I hope you can hear me say that."

Lady, choose your priorities, that crate is gonna get you killed.

The CGI explosion powerful enough to slow down time. Truly this is 1978.

Maybe kick the radio, that should fix it.

What kind of name is "Grier"?

"Should we say something about the captain?" "...well, uh... up until the plane crashed, he did good..."

Look, Iowa and Idaho are basically the same state, he gets points for trying.

Ah, yes, rob the corpse, that's classy- "His wife should have this." And I feel like a dick.

Meanwhile, in Timeline B.

Let me guess, Addison B is the person who showed up in the Accelerator at the end of last season.

"Look, Ben, trust me, it's for the best that Addison is leaping instead of you, you don't want to be in 1978, pretending Arizona is Russia."

[I only just now realized these are meant to be flashbacks.]

"How are you saying this is a metaphor?" "Well, fuck off, how about that, buddy?"

I will laugh if it turns out that crate secretly contains the Ark of the Covenant, or some shit like that.

"I AM NOT WASHED OUT, IT'S JUST THE COLOR PALETTE THEY CHOSE FOR THESE SCENES IN EDITING!"

"So, we're gonna die 'cause of feminism?" Can he die next, show?

What if it turns out Ben invents MacGuyver?

And this is the third time Ben is openly talking to himself out of stress, he is the most relatable character in the episode.

Plot twist: Ben has to save the crate, everyone else is expendable.

"I thought you were an atheist?" "Honestly, at this point, I might still be, today's still young."

Talking about the importance of memories to a swiss-cheesed man is the most unintentionally rude thing you could do.

"Buddy, did you secretly become a different person in the middle of the plane crash?"

The Russian Pickup Truck of Evil

Luckily, no one looks up, so Ben and friend are hidden.

[Can you tell that, outside of Grier, I don't know anyone else's name?]

And now they have hostages. Ben and friends are winning Russia.

Yep, just casually speak Russian, it's bad enough you forgot you were supposed to be a single-guy atheist, Ben...

At this point, Ben is just agreeing to whatever he wants in order to made the leap end sooner.

[Even if these are flashbacks, you can just tell that a certain person online is fuming over the Project subplots still being in Season 2.]

Hi, Ian, I'm from the future, fuck your math.

Maybe if they spent less time using Ziggy as a dating app and more time trying to fix the thing preventing her from talking out loud, a lot of the problems they had last season could've been avoided.

And the loot crate is bricks. They were set up for fucking failure with this flight, hot fucking damn.

I think they should each take one brick for themselves, as a treat.

I still say Puffy Jacket should die.

"I'm mad at myself for believing. ... ... ...like, in general."

"Put one foot in front of the other." Luckily, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town already came out by 1978, so everyone got that reference.

"You can do a lot in an hour!" You can also do a lot in five seconds. For example: Shoving you out the back of the truck.

"I believe in our country." In a post-Watergate world? Lady, even in 1978, that's bold.

Maybe Ben should start saying he has a concussion from the plane crash, that will excuse all the character inconsistencies he's creating.

At what point does Ben start to suspect he accidentally erased the Project from the timeline? After all of this talking to himself, you'd think he'd jump to that by now.

Guy accidentally walked onto a landmine? I too saw that episode of MASH / Legends of Tomorrow.

["The Exorcist Believer" is a shitty name for an Exorcist movie, hot damn.]

[What if 2022 Quantum Leap has the stones the original never had, and does a Magnum PI crossover?]

And Ben is now trying to Raiders of the Lost Ark this shit, I technically called this.

...is 2022 Quantum Leap about to blow up a gay man? ...survey says "Fuck that shit," good.

I love that Ben's new plan is "What if sandbags, but more?"

"Do you have a better plan?" "No!" I admire the honesty.

Okay, honestly, I didn't think that was gonna work.

[Firefox is starting to lag again, that's how you know we're back.]

FUCK YES, JUMPING JACK FLASH!

"Something doesn't feel right." That's just the blue filter.

"Look, just let me get onto the roof, nothing bad will happen."

"Wait, did they hear you?" "That would've been the ideal outcome; they noticed we left shit behind, we're walking ducks."

"We gotta blow up the base." "Well, not all of it."

Ben got his action skills from fucking GTA Online.

"Hey, Ben, why are you having another flashback?"

"Look, Ben, calm down, I'm gonna be the leaper, not you, okay? This is totally not tempting fate."

"Guys, I remembered Chinese food exists, we can totally blow up that panel."

"I HAVE FUCKING HAD IT WITH ALL OF YOU! GRIER MAD! GRIER SMASH!"

I love how they are showing how easily replicable this is.

Ben, if you don't floor it, the Russians will win.

I hope to God that wasn't CGI, that was metal as shit.

"Hey, Ben, we were trying to reach you all day, why did you blow up a base?"

...okay, sure, drop that random plot twist. "Hey, the reason you didn't see Addison all episode? It's actually 2026; the Project got shut down. Guess forgetting about that one senator bit us in the ass. Okay, bye, Ben!"

["There are no limits. We randomly included a three-year time skip, and Ben apparently leaps into an Alien. Welcome to fucking Season 2."]

["Oh, also, Addison married some random fuck instead of Ben, hopefully no one tells him, bye!"]

...okay, not gonna lie, now it makes sense that they announced they were adding two new regulars to the show...

#this took too long!#spoilers #quantum leap #macguyver #brick #santa claus is comin' to town #mash #legends of tomorrow #magnum pi #raiders of the lost ark

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captainstressed · 1 year

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gonna tell my kids this is raiders of the lost ark

#fast x #indiana jones #raiders of the lost ark #fast x spoilers

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tinytveit · 2 years

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i have exhausted island for the day

#callie plays ffxiv #it remindds me of liike..... those ??? farm mobile games?? but also?? lost ark um gatherables except they respawn.#also u can play the market #but ive gotten to the point where i gotta wait for shit to be built and stuff so i peaced out #very cute though i love it alot #6.2 spoilers

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pedge-page · 2 months

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I can imagine preggo wife literally talking and talking and talking in the middle of a movie and gets offended and leaves when Joel tells her to quiet down

Joel Dealing with Preggo Wife : Yapper

notes: Oh I had fun writing this! no warnings (maybe some Fugitive and Raiders spoilers), Enjoy!

- - - -

Joel’s pretty excited for movie night. It’s one of the few films the two of you don’t argue over and can pretty much watch the entire way through without disruption.

Or at least, it used to be.

Joel settles against the couch armrest with his feet propped up, knees bent slightly so you have room to sit in front. He’s got any snack you could think of within an arm reach away, and he’s got the title on pause so you can scooch your fat booty and big belly comfortably. Usually takes about 15 minutes of squirming, smacking his chest to “fluff” it up, adding a pillow at his crotch, then taking it away because you like his hard cock there instead, elbow in his groin and then his knee, then you gotta get up to pee before starting the whole process over.

“OK Im ready!” You say after 15 minutes on the dot, snuggling close to him with the back of your head rested against the crook of his neck.

He finally hits play, and the Lucasfilm logo flashes across the screen. The tropical forest and ominous music plays as the familiar font of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark fade on to the screen.

“Joel. Joel. Hey Joel.”

“Y-yes?”

“Did you know Indiana was named after George Lucas dog? Who also was the physical inspiration for chewy?” You ask rhetorically.

It takes him a second to understand you’re asking him a question. “What?”

“Chewbacca! From Star Wars!”

“Oh ok neat,” he says with some enthusiasm, but quick to end it and get back to watching the movie—

“Yeah also Sean Connery is also apparently—well guess how much older he is to Harrison Ford.”

“Um—I don’t—I don’t know.” Joel says slowly, watching as Indy carefully removes the sand from the pouch and weighs it to the gold idol.

“C’mon, guess!”

“I really don’t know, can we—“

“12 years older than Harrison in Last Crusade! My mom was like ‘WHAT no way’ and I was like ‘Yes way’ and she was like ‘He's his father and he's got all that white in his hair and receding hairline’ and I was like ‘Joel's only in his late 30s and he's got white in his beard.’”

Joel can’t hear a damn thing happening on screen except the shouts about hating a pet snake named Reggie. “Wha—“

“Not that you look anything like Sean Connery in Last Crusade. Maybe in like Bond —oof he was the hottest Bond. Plus you got like a receding beard-line with all the patches, I don’t know, but my mom was like ‘Ya know Joel's got more white hair lately since you've been pregnant’ and I was like ‘Nah uh’ and she was like ‘Ya huh’ and I was like ‘Huh I wonder why that is…?’ Anyway but nope only 12 years between him and Ford—“

Joel turns to look at you with a frown, a bit confused and amazed at how you have so much to say, right now, oblivious as ever.

It doesn’t phase your rambling one bit: “—Like damn, but you know Harrison Ford has always been handsome. But like in the bad boy kind of way, not like handsome upstanding like Christopher Reeves? When I saw The Fugitive, I was like ‘oooohhhh I'll be his wife now’ hahaha! no no I’m sorry, he’s famous and I’m not so that’s why I married you, but that's such a fall film don't you think? Minus the murder and betrayal and fucking Dr Charles Nickles like was he British or not? He was in and out of an accent the whole time? Didn't make sense to me but yeah, it's just such a fall Cozy film.”

Joel looks back at the screen and realizes Marion is already being cornered by the Nazi creep: “Ah huh—honey—“

“OH! I Love her song! It’s kind of like Leia and Han’s from Empire except the last notes are different, like it goes do doooooo instead of da dat dada daaaaaaa, That’s just John William’s for ya, but you’d never notice they were so similar!”

Joel opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out as you continue:

“—Also I know you said my mom made good apple pie but I really wanna try to make it because I want you to like mine more, so I need you to get some apples and pie crust and butter and stuff from the store, I’ll make a list so you can get it. They said we need ground cinnamon but I think ours expired like 5 years ago so don’t forget that. And then I'm gonna tell you how to slice the apples since I can't handle sharp objects and then oh I need you to get the mixer from the top shelf and then you have to mix it all together and slice the top with like little heart patterns and then put it in the oven n stuff ‘cause it's hot and I don't wanna burn OH and that reminds me—!”

“BABE!”

“Hmm? yes?” You ask with a innocent smile.

“Let's try to be quiet and watch the movie ok?”

He offers a gentle smile and nods, pointing towards the TV again and settling to watch it with his beautiful wife.

His very very very unhappy wife. Your eyes haven’t left his, face now downturned in such a scowl, he should be shitting his pants.

You roll your jaw at him once, teeth grinding against one another with slitted, murderous eyes. Joel gulps, too afraid to glance back at you again. His eyes are wide staring at the commotion on the television but, now in your deadly silence, he can’t seen to focus on it at all.

Instead of saying anything, you roll polly up to your feet, arms crossed over your chest defensively as you utter a loud “Hmph!” before storming away from the living room.

He’ll have to deal with groveling tomorrow morning when you might be a little more welcoming. But on the bright side, he’s got way more room to spread out on the couch and he can hear the movie much better now!

.........

He switches it off and runs upstairs to get on his knees by your side of the bed, begging for your forgiveness and promises of a Clyde's milkshake to go.

- - - -

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gogopierogi · 10 months

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Light of Destiny Story Summary

Earlier this week “The Light of Destiny” storyline was dropped on the Korean LOA servers. This post is a summary of its major events and character beats.

This post contains MAJOR spoilers below the cut!

-Scaria sends a letter to Thirain declaring both him and the adventurer under arrest for “murdering god’s priest”, particularly Bishop Antoinio. Thirain and the adventurer put their heads together to plan what defense they can. The adventurer sends a letter to Jederico asking for help since he was witness to the events in Pleccia (like the kidnapping of Delains around the world and the church’s human experimentations) and is a friend within the Scarian Church.

-During this, the adventurer experiences episodes of fatigue, hearing voices, dizziness, and fainting. When they try to rest, a light emerges from their body, followed by visions of Armen’s past. These visions include a child Armen having a conversation with Archon Gustaven about the Ark and Kazeros; Gustaven sending the now grown Armen, who promises to follow the path of the light because that’s what his mother would want, on a pilgrimage; and Armen’s point-of-view during Lostwind Cliff.

Speaking of Lostwind Cliff, we learn those events forced him to relive the trauma of Claudia’s murder. We see the shadows taking on the silhouette of his mother pinned to a tree with a sword in her gut, for example. He also wasn’t cognizant while slaughtering those priests and Solas.

We learn that Armen has followed the adventurer's journey this entire time. And, well, he’s been really miserable and lonely without them. It’s not so much that Armen WANTS to walk his current path, but rather feels it’s necessary.

-The adventurer discovers that Luterra, towards the end of his life, also experienced visions of other peoples’ past and emotions. Shandi later explains this is a trait unique to the Ark Inheritor.

-Thirain and the adventurer go to Pleccia for their trail without a fight because Thirain doesn’t want to give Sacria an excuse to invade Luterra, and it’s pretty obvious the Sacrians are eager for slaughter.

-The trial is held at Ignis Cathedral in Pleccia. Bishop Lazarus is fixated on the adventurer, condemning them for slaughtering innocent holy men, for defending Armen at Lostwind Cliff instead of apprehending him, and for making up lies about Sacria. Lazarus points out demons appear wherever the adventurer goes, and accuses them of causing the demon attacks.

It quickly becomes apparent Sacria is really after the adventurer alone. Lazarus offers to let Thirain and his kingdom off the hook if he validates Sacria’s accusations and blames everything on the adventurer. We’re treated to a shot of Thirain reaching for Vanquisher when Jederico and the Avesta burst through the cathedral door. Jederico successfully presents his evidence defending the adventurer. The judge overseeing the trail, Judge Pio, dismisses the case.

-A pillar of light is seen from far off in the horizon. Bishop Lazarus and his soldiers rush out of the Cathedral. The adventurer discovers this pillar was the missing Archon Gustaven’s power. They also discover an encrypted document which is a map to Gustaven’s prison. Turns out he’s being held on the lost island of Praeteria. The adventurer, Thirain, Jedricio and the Avesta go to rescue him.

-The island is swarming with Twilight Priests and filled with Sylmael statues. The presence of so much Sylmael saps the adventurer’s strength and blankets the island in a thick fog. At one point, the fog becomes so thick it separates the adventurer from their friends. The adventurer is attacked by Twilight Priests. During this, the adventurer is incapacitated by another vision of Armen’s past.

-The flashback shows Armen and Kharmine, who is disguised as Morphous, meeting with Balisio. Balisio claims to know what Armen is actually, that he can show Armen his fate, and release Armen’s true power. Armen accepts Balisio’s offer and a pillar of light surrounds him.

Later, Armen tells the adventurer Balisio wants the seven Arks combined and their power released. For what end, however, we don’t know. Unfortunately we still know next to nothing about Balisio or his motives.

-Armen saves the adventurer. As the two of them head off to rescue Gustaven, Armen pours his heart out about how hard he tries to keep the people he cares about happy and safe, always seems to lose them in the end.

-Thanks to all the Sylmael, Armen and the adventurer are caught up in a curse. Armen is forced to again relive the night his mother died and all the trauma of it. I’m not going to summarize it in detail, but basically the adventurer guides them through it and helps him heal from his grief and sadness, breaking the curse.

-Armen and the adventurer catch up with Thirain and the others, who are all fighting Lazarus and his Twilight mooks. Adventurer and pals beat the shit of them and Armen uses his divine magic to free Gustaven from his Sylmael powered prison.

-Once outside and alone together, Armen reveals he’s the Lost Ark to the adventurer. He tells the adventurer he’ll stand with them against Kazeros and promises to not leave their side again. He also believes the adventurer, who has the power to overcome fate and destiny, can stop the Prophecy of Chaos from reaching its desired outcome.

-Kharmine shows up one last time to poop the party by telling Armen things might not go the way he thinks and that no one can escape their fate.

-We cut to Petrania where Brelshaza tells Kazeros and Thaemine that Akkan did well completing the Red Moon. Kazeros rambles off some mumbo jumbo about the Prophecy of Chaos as the Red Moon dissolves.

-Finally we get a flashback to 500 years ago when Luterra was preparing to seal Kazeros. Azena demands to know why Luterra is not killing Kazeros instead. Luterra explains he can’t and that he’ll leave it to the Successor of the Ark. As he prepares to release the Ark’s power, he calls out the adventurer’s name.

Here's a video with all the cutscenes:

youtube

#lost ark #lost ark spoilers

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konzokomo · 9 months

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Thirain's affection quest as a male character is so funny to me...

You know, in the way that if you're not laughing you'll start crying

Smilegate went out of their way to kind of rewrite the progression of the questline in a few minor ways depending on what character you're doing the quest on. I knew what I was getting into ahead of time XD but still wanted to see how things translated for the English version.

I didn't get a screenshot of the end, but he extends his hand instead of going in for the kiss. Part of me knows WHY they were scared to keep the more explicit romance bits out for male characters, but it is still disappointing. If it isn't to avoid upsetting a certain type of gamer, I can also get that maaaybe they don't think it makes sense for a monarch to get with a guy with the whole system being about bloodlines etc. But man.

That being said... I think it's so interesting that smilegate basically created a world state where Thirain has no intention of marrying you/is just not in love with you, but is also not considering marrying anyone else and is so consumed by how much he cares for you. When playing a female character and doing his rapport, it's very clear you will be the future queen if you want to be. For male characters the current queen candidate is... no one? At least for now. Wanting to be with you instead of all the other suitors on the balcony, mirroring his parents meeting and falling in love, and ending it with a firm handshake is so so funny.

The changes for specialists I can understand though, that can get real weird real fast if they leave things as is. And the headpat is really cute (I wish Thirain would give my paladin a head pat at least T-T ).

I'm still not sure how much actual dialogue changes in the questline itself. I know they started early by giving you different ending dialogue in his previous quests, where for ladies he hints at a future confession and for the bros he's glad you'll be around to take care of future generations.

But at the very least, the highlights are still there: the chaste hand-touch, the rumors being spread about you two, and the cinderella moment when you enter the ball. I'm at least grateful for that. What are you going to do now Meehan?? Thirain doesn't want to marry he wants to exchange high fives with me in the corner.

Of course Amazon borked up and forgot the characters whose hair color was changed.

which is something they tend to do in events and stuff that bring back older characters. I hope they don't mess up poor Jederico in the upcoming story continents he's featured in, I really like his new look in our version.

I'll end it here, but if I had to nominate a queen that isn't our adventurer, I pick Adeline from your stronghold. She already knows how to basically run a town all on her own (sorry Adeline), and they can chat about how well they know the Adventurer. If I didn't camp exclusively at the pier in my stronghold I would chat with her more (sorry Adeline!)

#lost ark #thirain #lost ark spoilers #lost ark rapport #at the end of the day we are multiple characters of varying gender identity who are all the main hero #who can jump in and out of the timeline at will without question

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jamdoughnutmagician · 1 year

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Young Dumb Thrills

Eddie Munson x Female Reader

Summary:One things leads to another after Eddie confesses something to you on your Friday night movie nights. (Sorry I suck at summaries!)

Warnings:Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Smut, Confessions of Love, Making Out, Pet Names (perhaps an overuse of Eddie calling the reader “Sugar” but Eddie is a “Sugar” kind of guy and I will die on this hill), Grinding, Nipple Play, Oral (F receiving), VERY BRIEF Sub!Eddie (like mentioned in ONE sentence) Unprotected Sex, Cowgirl Position, Hand-jobs. Slight spoilers for 80s Star Wars movies (but nothing that nobody didn't know already

Word Count:2,706

Author's Note:I think my horny brain took over when I wrote this tbh, so if there’s any mistakes which I hope there isn’t then that’ll be why. Also I wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to name this fic after a McFly song (it came up in my playlist whilst I was writing it and I just felt like it fit)

At the knock on his trailer door, Eddie rushed up from his seat to open the door. He opened it to greet the familiar face that he knew would be waiting for him behind it. It was a Friday night, and that meant only one thing. Friday night was movie night with his best friend. It was a tradition that they started years ago, and Eddie looked forward to spending his evenings eating trashy snack foods and laughing at the bad movies with his closest friend.

Eddie had known you from when you were both kids, and you had moved to Hawkins. You lived a few trailers down from him and being the only other kid his age in that trailer park, you two had become fast and firm friends.

The other reason why Eddie looked forward to your shared movie nights, was something of a secret, and one that he kept to himself, and had done for years.

Eddie had a huge crush on you. You were always very sweet and kind to him. Made him laugh until he was crying, and were always there for him through those rough patches, where the loneliness would seep in whilst his uncle would work long night shifts at the plant.

Not to mention he also found you crazy attractive, with gorgeous eyes, and a warm smile it was very easy for him to fall in love with you.

“Hey! Come on in!” Eddie welcomed you warmly into the trailer.

“So I swung by Family Video! I picked out ‘Raiders of The Lost Ark’, since I know you missed it when it was in the cinema and wanted to watch it!” you wiggled the video cassette in your hand excitedly, whilst your other hand hid behind your back “and then I figured, why not make tonight a double feature? So I also picked out ‘Temple of Doom’” you beamed as you showed him the other cassette in your other hand.

“Awesome! Tell you what, I’ll go make a start on the popcorn, and you go set up the video! I trust coca-cola is still your drink of choice, m’lady?” he throws over his shoulder as he makes his way to the small kitchen to put the popcorn in the microwave.

“It very much is still my drink of choice, my good sir” you reply with a chuckle

_____________________

It wasn't unusual for you two to get close to each other on movie nights, more often than not you would end up with your head resting on Eddie's shoulder. He liked to joke how you had probably never seen the ending of any movie you’ve watched with him. The best was when you had, unsurprisingly fallen asleep on him during your first watch of ‘Return of The Jedi’ and thus followed what Eddie had dubbed ‘The Great Luke and Leia Sibling Reveal of ‘83’ where the credits rolled on the vhs during your Star Wars marathon, he got to tell you all about how that scrawny kid that kissed the space princess in ‘Empire Strikes Back’ were actually brother and sister.

Still to this day, you didn’t believe him. Thinking this was some kind of long-running joke that he was keeping up.

With you sitting so comfortably next to him, Eddie’s body was tense, he was usually good at keeping his feelings for you under control, but there was something about the intoxicating smell of your shampoo invading his senses and just you being as cute as always that had the butterflies in his stomach fluttering like mad.

You could sense that Eddie had gone quiet, and didn’t seem like his usual joking self, making silly remarks on the film just to make you laugh. Pausing the film, you turned your eyes to him.

“Hey Ed, you okay?” you looked up at him, your eyes connecting with his big brown ones.

“Y-yeah, I-I’m alright..” he stumbles, not trusting his own voice to give him away.

“Are you sure? You seem awfully flush? Is it too warm in here? I can open a window for you if you like?” Damnit, Eddie thinks to himself, it wasn’t his voice that was giving him away, but rather the increasing heat of blush taking over his face.

“N-No it’s okay, sweetheart. I just…” Eddie trails off. Why was he just about to admit to his embarrassingly large crush on you? Perhaps he was more comfortable with you than even he realised?

“You just what?” you pressed, setting your hand on top of his.

Huffing out a sigh, he couldn’t believe he was doing this.

“I just..look…I’m going to tell you something, something real big, okay? But you have to promise me that you won’t laugh at me or anything okay?”

“You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“I like you, y/n” Eddie confesses.

“Yeah I like you too, Ed!” you beam back at him with a smile.

“No, I like like you, have done for a while too if i’m being completely honest” he insists.

“Yeah, me too!” your smile taking over your face.

“No, I mean I like you more than a friend..” he tells you. This was a big step for Eddie. Giving you his heart and trusting you enough to handle it with care and not break it.

“Eddie..” you started. “I like you too, perhaps more than I should as a friend. I've been wanting to say something for the longest time, I just never knew how to tell you” you confessed to him.

“Wait..wait..hold on. You’re telling me that you’ve got a crush on me? On me?”

“Yeah I mean, how could I not? You’re just so adorable when you talk to me about your Hellfire campaigns, even though I know you know I don’t know anything about D&D. When you secretly learned ‘Material Girl’ on the guitar for my birthday that one year, even though it’s not “technically a guitar song” as you told me afterwards”

“Yeah, I remember Wayne would come home to me playing that song over and over to make sure I got it just right, I think he thought I was going crazy. Laughing at me saying how “he didn’t have me down as a Madonna fan.” Oh but it was worth it though, I mean the look on your face when I played it for you? It warmed my heart, Sugar”

“Sugar? Are we doing pet names already, Munson?” you gently teased.

“Well I..U-uh I guess it kind of slipped out" Eddie shyly admitted to you.

"Hey, I'm not mad at it, I actually kind of liked it, never been anyone's 'Sugar' before!'

'There's been something I wanna do for the longest time, and since I know now that we're on the same page, I just have to ask. Can I kiss you?" Eddie says, despite your confession of mutual admiration he's still unsure of himself.

Swinging your legs over his body, you settle yourself down to sit on his lap. Making yourself comfortable, you place both your hands on either side of his face.

You feel his larger ring-adorned hands settle themselves on your hips.

“Eddie, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that for ages” you say as you lean to tentatively place your lips against his.

He takes the hint to deepen this kiss, his warm plush lips parting to slip his tongue between your lips, in a desperate, long-awaited kiss.

However, now, with you sitting so prettily in his lap, kissing him like you needed it to survive, your hips are gently rolling themselves against his increasingly hardening length.

Reluctantly Eddie pulls away from you, your lips connected by a string of saliva.

“Sugar..Sugar, you gotta stop or this is all gonna be over a lot faster than you, and certainly I want it to be” he chuckles with a cheeky grin.

“How about we make things interesting then?” you say, feeling a sudden burst of confidence. Gripping your t-shirt at the bottom in twisted arms, you pull upwards to pull your shirt over your head, leaving you in your lace bra.

Eddie can hardly believe what’s unfolding before his eyes. The girl of his dreams, is sitting in his lap, scantily clad in her delicate lace bra and looking into his eyes with adoration. Sliding his hands upwards from where they were resting on your hips, his hands settled over your back, the clasp of your bra under his fingers. His brown eyes looking at you in a question.

“May I?” he questions, toying with your bra clasp.

“You may.” you nod.

That simple nod was all that Eddie needed to go ahead, popping the clasp of your bra with a quick flick of his guitarists fingers. He takes the straps off your shoulders and flings your bra to the corner of his room, she won’t be needing that, not if I can help it, he thinks to himself.

She’s beautiful, Eddie thinks. He already thought you were beautiful before, but now he’s looking at you, kiss-bitten lips and your naked chest heaving with anticipated breaths, and he thinks that you have never looked more stunning than you do in this moment.

He leans his head towards your breasts, letting his lips kiss over your tits, nipping a few hickeys here and there, before his mouth latches on to one of your nipples, sucking it into a hardened peak, and using his fingers to pluck and tease the other nipple.

The feel of Eddie’s soft lips leaving a trail of hot kisses over your breasts left you desperately whining and grinding into his lap even more, you needed more from him.

“Eddie…” you whined “Please...I need you..”

“Well who am I to deny such a sweet request” he said as turned around with you in his arms, settling you down amongst the pillows on his bed.

Caging you underneath his arms as he held himself up above you, his dark curls falling like curtains in front of his eyes.

“Wait..wait a minute” you say, slipping your hair tie off your wrist with a slight giggle, gathering his hair in a little bundle at the nape of his neck “There! That’s much better! Now I can see your handsome face!” you finish, pressing a quick kiss to the tip of his nose.

Now with his vision unimpaired by his long mane of hair, his lips begin their descent down your body, Laying kisses on every patch of skin he could find. Stopping at the waistband of your jeans, kissing just below your navel, before popping the button of your jeans and hooking his fingers into the waistband of your panties, dragging them both down the length of your legs.

“Well, now that’s out of the way..let me do something that I’ve only ever dreamed of doing.” he smirks.

“Dreamed of?” you question. “My my, Ed how many times have you fantasised about me before?” you press again.

“Oh Sugar, you have no idea how many times I’ve lied where you’re lying right now, with my hand wrapped around my dick, just thinking about how pretty you would look cumming all over my tongue”

“Well then don’t let me be the one to stop you from following your dreams, Munson” you giggled.

Eddie leaned his head down until he was face to face with your pussy, his tongue sneaks it's way out to wet his lips before going in to lick a long swipe from the very bottom of your wet slit to the top, the tip of his tongue flicking over your clit with little kitten licks. He swirled his tongue around your pussy a few times, the lewd slurping sounds echoing off his bedroom walls. Eddie slips his middle and ring fingers into the tight wet heat of your pussy, curling them upwards to press against that spot deep inside you that has your eyes screwing shut in pleasure. His other hand is placed firmly on your soft stomach, pressing down with a gentle pressure, his clunky metal rings a welcomed chilling sensation against the heat of your skin.

“Come on, Sugar…I can feel this pretty pussy clenching on my fingers..” Eddie mumbles against you, just as he seals his lips around your clit, sucking it into the warm heat of his mouth.

“That’s it baby…you’re so beautiful…fuck..”

Continuing with his ministrations, it wasn’t long before you were coming around his fingers, with a moaning gasp. He delivers soft little kitten licks to your clit, as you come down from the high of your orgasm.

“I don’t know why we waited so long before doing that” you chuckle, as you try to catch your breath.

“Neither do I, but certainly want to do that again”

“There’ll be plenty of opportunities for that another time, right now I just want to ride you”

He Throws off his Judas Priest t-shirt and tugs his sweatpants down and tosses to some corner of his room, eager to feel you on top of him.

You take this opportunity to appreciate him in his full, naked glory, his tattoos like intricate artworks on the gallery that is his body.

“Get yourself comfortable on that bed, Munson.” you say, your eyes sparkling with desire.

“Yes Ma’am, don’t need to tell me twice”

“Good boy.”

The heat on his cheeks rose, blushing further down his chest. Oh. He liked being called your good boy. You’d have to remember that.

Settling your body over his, you lick your tongue over your palm, before reaching behind you to stroke his cock a few times. Rising up on your thighs you slip the leaking tip of his cock inside you, and begin to slowly lower yourself over him inch by inch until he’s settled deep inside you.

Placing both your hands down over his torso to steady yourself, you start to roll your hips, quickly falling into a steady rhythm that had both of you moaning. The creaking sounds of his bed fall into the background as you enjoy each other's bodies. His hips thrusting up to meet your hips grinding into his.

His hands find their place, gripping your hips.

“Fuck..Sugar..You look so sexy like this..Making me feel..fuck..feel so good.” he groans out.

One of his hands slips from its place on your hips, fingers finding their way to clit to rub deliberate circles.

“Eddie…” you cried out, the knot in the pit of your stomach tightening with each of his thrusts up into you. “Please..don’t stop..I’m so close..” you desperately whine.

It didn’t take much more than a few more rolls of your hips, and Eddie’s skilled fingers on your clit before you were coming around his dick with silent scream. Slowing down your movements as you ride through the aftershocks of your orgasm.

What you hadn’t accounted for was that in the heat of the moment, you had forgotten to use any protection, and Eddie was warning you that he was quickly approaching his end, a consequence of your walls constricting around him.

“You gotta get off me, Sweets..I don’t think we’re quite ready to be parents yet..” he huffs, the few strands that have come loose from his bun sticking to his sweaty forehead.

Leaning forward you let his cock slip from your entrance, and reach back behind yourself to work him through the end of his orgasm with your hands. Twisting your closed fist over his sensitive head. That’s all it took for Eddie to spill rope after rope of his release all over your hand. His cum splattering his lower stomach and dribbling down your fingers.

Whilst he recovers and catches his breath below you, you take the opportunity to clean up your fingers, swiping your tongue over your digits, tasting his cum from where he had spilled in your hand.

“Fuck...Sugar..You can’t just do that. You’ll get me going again.” he chuckles breathlessly.

“Don’t worry about that, we’ve still got to make up for lost time.” you say leaning forward on his chest to capture his lips in a passionate kiss. “..And I plan on making every second count.”

#Eddie Munson x reader #Eddie Munson x Female Reader #Eddie Munson X Reader Smut #eddie munson smut #eddie muson x reader fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #Eddie Munson imagines #eddie munson stranger things #eddie munson #Stranger Things

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canmom · 4 months

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The themes of NieR Reincarnation

A post about the recurring elements of Drakenier and the use of branching timelines as a storytelling device. I'll be discussing spoilers for basically every DoD/NieR game.

Records

A somewhat understated recurring motif of the Drakengard/NieR series is the idea of stories or memories of humanity being stored in some massive archive.

It's an idea that first entered the series in NieR Gestalt/Replicant. Early drafts of the game focused on the idea of a world built out of stories and fairytale characters, and while most of this was cut, some remained in the Forest of Myth area.

Following NieR's obsessive love of hopping between different game genres, the story here is delivered through prose/text adventure segments. There is a sense that this area of the game exists as prose, with the characters slightly aware of narration - narration which absorbs the characters until you find a way to escape. Eventually you find out - it's rather cryptic in the actual game, but spelled out explicitly in Grimoire NieR - that it's a huge computer system storing records of the deceased humanity.

In your second visit to the area, the story focuses more on distant history, that all these stories are fragments of memory of the lost pre-apocalpytic world. You encounter a Gestalt (human soul extracted from body) that is eating the memories stored in the tree, and kill it, and for Nier and co., this is enough - but for the player, you really don't know half of what is going on.

In the story The Lost World, which was adapted for the additional Ending E added in the Replicant remake, Kainé returns to the Forest of Myth and finds the computer system expanding. She fights clones of herself before eventually speaking to a mysterious administrator and descending into a virtual world that seems like a corrupted version of her memories. But she's able to connect to her memories of NieR, Emil and Grimoire Weiss, and through that connection cause a kind of timeline collapse effect that allows her to resurrect Nier. Terms from DoD3 such as 'singularity' come back again.

youtube

In NieR Automata, the idea of the legacy of humanity becomes increasingly central. While the androids believe they are reclaiming Earth for humanity, the Machine Lifeforms' motivation is in large part driven by their efforts to pore over the records of humanity and learn how to evolve their condition, even by blind imitation. Many of the different Machine Lifeforms you encounter are shaped by their interpretations of human society. The motif of human buildings recreated in white blocks recurs at certain points.

In the final sequence of the game, you climb a tower, and inside it visit simulacra of locations from the Replicant/Gestalt. You learn that the machines have infiltrated the androids' network and downloaded basically all the information the androids have, including all their records of humanity. When the machines' 'Ark' is launched into space, it carries their memories and consciousness in data form.

The YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse raid series in FFXIV continues this idea of obsessive, blind reconstruction. The machines you fight here are now all the more explicitly connected to the apocalyptic shit in DoD; they have also been frantically creating duplicates of YoRHa android 2P, the Bunker and so on in corrupted form. Although the story here has mostly other interests, it's another recurrence of the idea of trying to recreate things that were lost.

Along with this idea of the archive comes the idea of preservation of that archive. Whether by accident or deliberate attack, the survival of the archive is not guaranteed.

This is all absolutely central to what Reincarnation is about.

Branches

The Drakenier series has played around with branching narratives pretty much from the start. It's somewhat infamous for it in fact - did you know that NieR is actually a spinoff of ending E of Drakengard, the one where you appear over Tokyo and have to do a rhythm game? Yeah, so...

Most games are fairly cagey (ha ha) about the mechanics of these branches. Indeed, although we speak of branches, the structure of these games is not really a branching one like a visual novel. The branches and 'endings' are usually unlocked sequentially.

Drakengard/Drag-on Dragoon (DoD1) is probably the closest you get to a traditional branching structure. You can unlock routes in certain missions by fulfilling certain conditions. The exact logic of these branches is not really explained - you can go back to a point before you recruit a party member and get a different branch where they're present for example. That said, it's not like a visual novel where you can be 'on' one branch or another - you can always jump to any level from any timeline.

This oddness of the branches is also lampshaded a little more in DoD3, the game that is most explicit about the nature of the branching timeline. DoD3 is, from the player perspective, a linear game. After you complete the first 'ending', you unlock new levels that appear at earlier points in the timeline, and diverging branches appear. In the later branches, the logic of the world is starting to break down. Party members who you'd recruit later in the story are in your party much earlier, in some cases suffering from amnesia, the implication being that it's an effect of the Flower's corruption.

The game is intermittently narrated by a character called Accord, an android 'Recorder' whose job is to document all the different versions of the story for an unknown party. Accord isn't supposed to intervene in the story, though she occasionally talks to protagonist Zero, and in the final D route, she decides to break the rules and save Zero. Otherwise, she's responsible for 'sealing' branches where it seems the world cannot be saved.

This is Accord:

The final cutscene of DoD3, available only after you beat the ludicrously difficult rhythm game that is the 'final song', shows a bunch of other Accords appearing and talking about what a mess this all is.

Accord's other role in the game is to sell weapons. Another series tradition running back to DoD1 is the 'Weapon Stories'. In each game, you can collect weapons, which can be upgraded through a series of four stages. Each stage unlocks another part of a story. These stories tend to be quite brief - each entry is at most a short paragraph. They also, particularly in the DoD games, tend to be comically grimdark.

DoD 3 came out after NieR Replicant/Gestalt, but in every game since then, there have been cryptic mentions of Accord. In Automata she's mentioned in a note as a weapons seller; in the updated version of Replicant she is mentioned as visiting Nier's village while the party is away on her adventures, and you see a documention that mentions the 'Accord Corporation' supplying magic weapons.

OK, so, put a pin in that, we'll come back to her later.

The side material commits further to the branching idea. The original Drakengard is established to follow from the DoD3 Story Side novel, while Branch A gives rise to the Shi ni Itaru Aka manga and the DoD 1.3 novel. The YoRHa stage plays spawned alternative versions, namely YoRHa version 1.3a and Shōjo YoRha version 1.1a, with the gender of the casts flipped. YoRHa 1.3a also has Accord in it. The anime NieR Automata ver. 1.1a also presents an increasingly diverging version of the events of the game - notably, Adam turns into a multi-armed monster.

DoD2, something of the black sheep of the franchise, was originally written to follow DoD1 ending A; later it was retconned to belong to its own branch. Just 'cause.

With me so far? ...no? Yeah, that's fair. You can read about all the details I've gathered so far here, but in short, there are lots of timeline branches, and multiple versions of several stories with small or large divergences.

Reincarnation

NieR Re[in]carnation is a gacha game that's been running for the last three years, and is going to be shut down at the end of April. At the time it came out, it was acknowledge for having unusually nice graphics for a mobile game, but rather desultory, grindy, repetitive gameplay. Which remained true throughout the game's life, so I can't exactly recommend playing Reincarnation, especially at this point.

But! I would definitely say it's worth your time to dig up the story on Youtube/Accord's Library if you're into NieR stuff. I won't be going into all the ins and outs of the story and how it all fits together in this post, but I am gonna talk about how it's structured.

NieR Reincarnation places you in a vast stone city called the Cage, calling to mind the environments in Ico. At the outset, you play as a young girl travelling with a weird ghost-like creature called Mama, tasked with restoring the memories stored in objects called 'dark scarecrows' which are being subverted and corrupted by black birds which form into various monsters.

Within each chapter of NieR Reincarnation, you get a short story in four parts, presented in a kind of cutout style, which are the four segments of a weapon story. You collect the weapon and the character.

The Cage is shaped by the content of the weapon stories somehow bleeding into the simulated setting. A character's memories can be used to restore the stories to their proper course. It is possible to interfere in small ways with the worlds of the stories.

The corruption of the stories tends to involve subverting characterisation to make them crueller, more prone to random violence etc. - or points when a character could be threatened in a narratively unsatisfying way. For example, a peace-loving runaway prince could be turned into a warlike king.

Over the course of the first arc, you discover that the girl you are playing is actually a monster who has taken the form of a human girl and, regretting it, wants to give her her embodiment back. The second half of the arc has you playing the girl trying to reunite with her monster friend; at the end, you get her own backstory as a victim of brutal prejudice. After all is said and done, both characters transform into weapons, which Mama picks up and hides away.

The second arc, The Sun and the Moon, deals with a brother and sister from present-day Tokyo. Both of them have been transported into the Cage by more of the weird ghost thingies, to participate in a strange ritual that is allegedly going to restore the Cage. The rules are highly mystical - a significant sacrifice is needed.

In the most recent arc, The People and The World, the characters all emerge from their stories as the Cage becomes increasingly corrupted. We finally get the long awaited point where these characters can interact with each other, and advance the stories from a series of tragic vignettes to something more. At the same time, we get a lot more allusions to other games in the series - from the Lunar Tear room where Emil memorialised Kainé and later 9S memorialises 2B, to a brief appearance Devola and Popola.

There's even a nod to Yoko Taro's other terminated gacha game, SINoALICE, which is going to be made into a movie oddly enough. There's a wry nod to the game being shut down.

And in the most recent chapters we find out that the Cage is actually a server on the moon containing records of humanity - 10H from A Much Too Silent Sea is one of the main characters. 'Mama' is actually the Pod tasked with overseeing the archive, and wiping 10H's memories whenever she learns too much - though it seems at some point 10H learned the truth and affirmed that she'd protect the archive anyway and they stopped wiping her memory.

Over the course of the chapter, 10H helps the gang make their escape from the moon through the androids network, to Earth. But when they get to Earth, they find themselves in a strange white city more resembling the Cage.

We'll finally get some answers, maybe, later this month. Anyway...

So, these records come from multiple diverging timelines, and they take the form of weapon stories. You have a unity of the ideas of character - weapon - memory - world. A record is simultaneously a tragic series of events, a person who can manifest inside the Cage itself, a simulated world which other people can visit, and a weapon.

In addition to the main storyline chapters and 'character stories', each character is associated with two additional 'EX' storylines, termed Dark Memories and Recollections of Dusk. Each one is a much more substantial narrative than most in the game.

Some of these EX stories clearly take place in different timelines to the first ones we encounter. Akeha's story, for example, takes place after her death in the original version. For the brother and sister from the Sun and the Moon arc, originally from present-day Tokyo, their Dark Memories take place in the backstory to NieR Gestalt/Replicant - the period where humanity is dying out to White Chlorination Syndrome and fighting monsters called the Legion. In this one, before the siblings could be torn apart by family drama and resentment, the apocalypse happens. Both of them end up coming into their own as heroic fighters. In the finale arc, the characters learn a bit about these alter egos, and it's made very explicit that this is a different timeline.

The monster Levania's Dark Memory is especially weird. It's the story of a salaryman who plays a monster called Levania in an MMORPG. His MMO character inspires him to live more bravely in the real world, and his life seems to be improving, but he is murdered by a jealous coworker. He wishes for reincarnation as he dies - classic isekai stuff. But the connection to the Levania you encounter in the main story is far from clear. Are all versions of Levania derived essentially from this man's tulpa?

The nature of the 'enemies' attacking the Cage is still not yet clear. They take the form of black birds. The birds are given a small amount of dialogue and characterisation, and they seem to not be malicious, just confused. The girl from the first arc in particular tends to interact with them sympathetically. However, they seem to be connected with the mysterious 'God' who was trying to destroy the world in DoD1, and the Angels and Flower of DoD3.

The birds are able to gathe together to manifest much larger monsters, the largest being giant elk and fish called Cursed Gods. During the finale arc, one of these becomes something that resembles the Mother Angel from DoD1 - and yes, there is a rhythm game - though mercifully a pretty easy one.

In the same arc, the character Yurie, an AI city overlord with grandiose ambitions and a loathing of imperfection attempts to download the entire history of humanity from the Cage and become a more perfect being. She succeeds, only to find the answers disappointing...

This is perhaps the closest thing we ever get to an explicit statement of what all these stories and histories add up to, but despite all this, the throughline is very strongly that these stories are essential to preserve. NieR characters exist in small groups, and it is their intense connections to these others, their treasured memories of travelling together, that motivate them to fight to preserve that thing, even if the results are destructive.

Similar themes emerge for example in Noelle's Recollection of Dusk story, which sees her travelling to preserve a place valued by her sister in crystal. And they also connect to the theme of sacrifice - the recurring ending device where the player must delete their save data in order to help someone (something echoed in Hina and Yuzuki at the altar of the sun and moon, or Levania and Fio). It's perhaps fair to say that nothing is more valued in the world of Nier than memories of a treasured person.

What about Accord? She has in fact made a brief cameo in Reincarnation already...

It seems incredibly likely that Accord originates from the Cage, and the accumulation of weapon stories is accomplished by androids like her. Definitely in the fandom there's a lot of excitement for the idea that Accord - something of a fan favourite - will show up at Reincarnation's ending.

So mystery solved, the Cage exists in the world of NieR Automata on the moon server? Not so fast - there are various discrepancies which seem to suggest that the world of the Cage exists in a separate branch than the one we see in Automata. For example, the androids are aware that the humans are dead and what remains on the moon is a huge archive of their memories; the humans seem to have survived much longer; 2B and 9S seem to have died in different circumstances. There are other oddities which fans have compiled.

And yet, despite being a divergent timeline with a much older point of divergence, some things seem to be fixed. There is still a YoRHa, still a 10H deceived about being on the moon, still a 2B and 9S.

One popular fan theory is that Reincarnation belongs to the NieR Automata anime (ver1.1a), since Adam turns into a monster there similar to the ones in Reincarnation. The black birds are reasoned to be the Machine Lifeforms, since we know they come from Earth. I'm not 100% sure of this, but maybe?

Anyway, that's basically the gist of it.

A story told through permutations

In many fictional series with a shared universe, there is an effort to maintain a consistent shared universe, so all the different events can fit into a timeline with understandable cause and effect and characters living out their lives. Even when this proves impossibly unwieldy, as in comic books or Star Wars, the attempt is made.

NieR does not really take this approach. The creators leave many details of the world, such as place names, incredibly vague - the focus is always on telling an emotional story with characters. There is, as we've seen, an almost gleeful willingness to declare another new timeline.

There is also a certain aspect of repetition, or more kindly reiteration - the same core character dynamic revisited and retold in various forms. (2B9S gets the worst of it). A character is something like a principle or ideal, and each story shines another light on that 'core'. In the earlier storylines of Reincarnation, it became quite frustrating because it seemed like e.g. the character event stories were just rehashing the same idea rather than advance the story.

However, the more accustomed I get to this style of storyline, the more I think this kinda works. It is of course quite similar to the ideas proposed towards the end of Homestuck, or to time loop stories - the idea of varying the contingent circumstances to try to better illustrate the core characterisations and dynamics.

Yoko Taro has talked about how he constructs stories from a very simple idea, typically a moment of high emotional impact at the climax, and then works backwards to figure out what sort of story could lead into that. In Reincarnation, each character gets fairly limited time to establish themselves, so they tend to be defined in terms of a pretty narrow high concept.

For example, Akeha is an assassin in a vague historical Japanese setting; her introductory story sees her decide for the first time to disobey her lord after she finds another person who has been treated as instrumentally as her. Most Akeha stories focus on her assassinations, her relationship to her retainer, and what she sacrifices to perform the duty. Only her Dark Memory lets us see an Akeha who has escaped that life - it's a simple story about preparing food, but that's given meaning by all the other Akeha stories.

Hina and Yuzuki are defined by the same traits in their flashy scifi Dark Memory stories as in the more mundane ones - Yuzuki the quiet outcast, Hina the self-sacrificing star. Fio is defined by kindness in the context of abjection, seeing the good in monsters. Levania stories are about the desire for escape and transformation. Argo is always a shitty dad who only feels alive while climbing mountains.

The staticness of these characters seems on some level to be the point - in that we are told in Hina and Yuzuki's story that the mechanism of the Cage is to sort characters into 'Light' and 'Dark' natures, and push them to inevitable conflict, even if they try to break free. In the final arc, the characters seem to finally approach some resolution as they leave their contexts behind. Given the themes of Automata in rejecting an inevitable tragic fate, similar movement may be at work. There's an ambiguity - the need to hold on to even tragic histories, vs the wish to not be confined to them. (Perhaps it's significant that it's called the Cage...)

With so many balls in the air and so many mysteries still unanswered, it's hard to figure out how Reincarnation can deliver a satisfying resolution in just one remaining chapter, but the final arc has been really cooking so who knows! But I'm also coming to appreciate it as a kind of broader lens to notice all these recurring elements and tie them together.

Stories about alternate timelines and branching narratives are very common nowadays, particularly as a tool for revisiting a nostalgic franchise. Something something effect of the fan wiki era. So I can't exactly say NieR is doing something completely unique, but I do think there is something to its fragmented, collage-like approach to putting together story elements. There's something quite honest about it - an ability to say 'these details aren't important'.

Yoko Taro always talks about himself as an entertainer rather than an artist. And probably it is true that a lot of this eemerged from an iterative design process rather than being the plan from the beginning (the first draft of NieR envisioned it as something closer to what SINoALICE ended up being, about a world of fairytale characters; NieR Automata began life as backstory for an idol project). There's definitely a strong sense that it's being improvised. And yet despite that, it does feel like it is cohering into some sort of picture, that there is an artistic throughline to all this.

Or perhaps that's just the effect of getting way too invested in something. I won't deny that NieR brings out the fan in me.

Anyway Accord had better show up next month. Guys. You've been teasing us for so long...

#nier #nier replicant #nier automata #nier reincarnation #drakengard #drakengard 3 #computer games #Youtube

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