#patch 1.7 spoilers

[anonymocha]

Joke about how Marcus is probably jacked due to her carrying that bigass case everywhere

SPOILER VERSION UNDER CUT:

[rensply]

Zenless Zone Zero allowing me to replay cutscenes is very important because I have been studying the 1.6 main quest a lot over the past couple of days with a friend and holy shit there’s a good bit one might miss on a single play through.

On a completely related note: I’m never allowed to call my own prose “purple” ever again because I have absolutely NOTHING on Maurice Leblanc.

[fishareglorious]

shitpost idea for when i get home: 37phi yass bitch slay for 1.9

[eta-volantis]

More Hugo talks because he is living rent free in my head

(contains patch 1.7 SPOILERS)

One of the thing I absolutely love about 1.7 when it comes to Hugo (but this also applies to Lycaon) is how they portrayed Hugo as someone who had matured on his own before the current events. Even during the inner demons part, we can see that it's a result of that maturity rather than being the process of maturity itself.

I love the contrast of the line 'I am the only one who can kill me or save me.' between 1.6 and 1.7. In 1.6, it came off as arrogance when emotions were high talking to Lycaon again for the first time in a long time. I think they use that to show Hugo to us from Lycaon's perspective. But in 1.7, they turn it around and used it to show Hugo's maturity by using it when he completely dropped his act and show himself under the dramatics fully to us for the first time. This time it's about autonomy. Despite feeling powerless, he came to accept that his choices are his and his alone and it became a strength.

I also love that they didn't go 'Hugo didn't do anything wrong actually' but while he didn't actually kill anyone, his hands weren't clean either. When he was still a kid, after his sister was murdered, he hunted down the ring leader of his siblings and beat the kid almost to death. While Hartman was responsible for his father's death, Hugo still planned to kill his father, actually attacked the man, but failed only for his father to lash out and killed innocent people in direct response to what Hugo did. That also led to Lycaon losing his eye and legs trying to save innocent people from the situation and the Hollow disaster happening at the same time. There is so much layers to him and his internal conflict.

I also love how they showed that time and experience has helped him move on from his past and create his own future. But it also is a stark contrast to his younger self, and also Lycaon too, where both were very quick to judge and fight rather than communicate. In 1.7, while still be very much himself, he was willing to openly talk to Lycaon without pretense even if he still feels hurt about what happened.

I actually really love what they did with him. No need for deus ex machina, or situations made specifically to make him and Lycaon reconcile, Hugo just does it because he is a point in his life where he is at peace with himself.

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH.

[corndasby]

Patch 1.9 Full Event Summary! (Live Updates)

The 1.9 event summary got posted! I ran the patch notes through google translate and combined them with some translations from the official server. If I find anything else major I will update. Skin/Character previews can be found in my previous post, and I'll post some new character kit rundowns later! I will tag every spoiler post with the version number, so add that to your filters if you don't want to see anything about it.

Things You'll Care About

Full translated list is after this section.

Free Six Star for everyone: Semmelweiss, a mineral support that drains ally health to give them buffs based on their missing health.

First banner: Lucy, an intelligence DPS/support that spends Electricity to give their incantations extra effects, such as hitting more targets or buffing ally afflatus damage.

Second banner: Kakania, a plant support/tank/sub-healer that absorbs a portion of damage taken by allies and uses it to enhance her self-healing and damage.

Lorelei is a star afflatus five star support/sub dps. Her incantations haven't been released but her i1 Passive gives a buff depending on the most common card type in your hand, and her i3 passive gives her moxie when critting with her ult (Just Star Things). She is obtained from the new roguelite mode so may be accessible to players starting after 1.9.

Free Sonetto skin for logging in!

New skins for Mesmer Jr., Desert Flannel, Voyager, Regulus, and Jessica.

Thirty combined free pulls just for logging in. I'm sure clear drops will be showered on you elsewhere in the event.

Special banner for a single 6* rate up selector (If you win the 50/50 on this banner you get to choose ANY six star up until 1.6 excluding JNZ! This is a crazy good deal and you can pick up anyone you missed before the next saga of the story)

New main story chapter of course. Chapter Six is called Vereinsamt. Apparently, 1.7 is not a direct continuation of 1.5, but 1.9 will combine the two for a proper ending.

Brand new roguelite mode. The reception to 1.6's attempt was pretty poor, so I think this is a revised version that will be left in the game permanently.

New story events for Lucy and Kakania.

New anecdotes for Eagle and Semmelweiss.

New maps for Three Doors! I enjoyed the Mesmer storyline so I'm interested.

Reruns of all the skins from 1.1 - 1.4. The London wilderness will now be permanently available in the shop.

All of the standard stuff you can find in events. There's a shop, new wilderness, free items all over the place, and puzzle side events. Uttu is going to be there. You know the drill.

Edit 1: They're finally adding a system to let you seamlessly connect water tiles in the wilderness. No more dumb transition tiles!

Edit 2: They're adding new animation upgrades to older skins!?!? Confirmed list so far: Jukebox Bkornblume, Halloween Sotheby, Halloween X, Jukebox Matilda, Summer Pickles, Wild West Tennantt.

Full List

Some of these are literally just titles in the patch notes so if I don't elaborate that is why!

Login event: free 6* character: Semmelweiss, a mineral support that drains ally health to give them big damage buffs.

Free Sonetto skin

Login event: free decalog (exclusively for Lucy's banner)

Login event: daily free Unilogs (total 20 Unilogs)

Login event: free Matilda Portray (why did we wait a year for p1 Matilda lol)

Login event: free clear drops and anniversary item

Login event: free Wilderness building

Login event: free golden materials

Shop crystal drop reset (I think this means the "first time buy" bonus is reset?)

Special banner: free single 6* rate up selector (If you win the 50/50 on this banner you get to choose ANY six star up until 1.6 excluding JNZ! This is a crazy good deal and you can pick up anyone you missed before the next saga of the story)

New main story chapter: Vereinsamt

New story event: Lucy

Limited collection: Thoughts Alone in a Tank.

New story event: Kakania

Event: Practice of Phantom starts.

New permanent gamemode: Roguelite

Three Doors: new maps

New function: select BGM on suitcase lobby

Anecdotes: Eagle and Semmelweiss

Mane's Bulletin: Abyss, Opera, and Lord of Dreams

UTTU: Mesmer Jr. skin

New function: event atlas

Limited collection: Promise of the Lake

New Jukebox: Desert Flannel skin

New skins: Regulus, Jessica, Voyager new skins

New Wilderness set: Laplace

New packs

Patch 1.1 skins rerun

Patch 1.2 skins rerun

Patch 1.3 skins rerun

Patch 1.4 skins rerun

Patch 1.1 Wilderness is added to the shop permanently

Event starts: Little Steel Gold Rush

[lakesbian]

ok Worm Bigotry Breakdown in more detail for @silverflyingpikachu

tl;dr: author is Cishet White Guy From Canada In 2011. he ostensibly thinks he is progressive. this does not change his proclivity for tossing his Cishet White Guy From Canada Biases into the books and then saying even more bigoted things in defense of those writing decisions on forums. wildbow is just some cunt on the forums with bad opinions on wildbow's writing. the book is 1.7 million words long but i believe in my ability 2 categorize this shit with decent accuracy. everyone who has ever said worm's CWs can't be categorized, including wildbow himself, is a lying ass bitch. this will include some vague spoilers, because i can't really go in-depth without a few examples, but i'll stay away from anything too plot-critical.

racism:

- worm is fundamentally a book abt systems of power and the ways in which they suck. some of the critiques worm issues--e.g, its depiction of how school systems enable bullying, inspired by wildbow's own experiences w/ the school systems as a deaf kid--are viscerally accurate and incredibly compelling. but wildbow fundamentally doesn't understand how certain systems of oppression work--e.g policing--and subsequently, his attempts at depicting them occasionally fall flat onto their face and land in racist territory. this gets particularly nasty when combined w/ the White Guy Author propensity for racist stereotypes--for example, his chosen face of police brutality is a black girl portrayed as predatory & animalistic.

- who is also one of the only black people in the book overall, alongside--for example--an addict portrayed as having less interiority & being less deserving of empathy than A Literal Fucking Nazi. also, the main characters have to team up with the nazis "for the greater good" (defeating the mean asian villains) at one point. it is a mercy to the readers when this part of the story ends. - there are two black characters in the main cast. for the first, wildbow just Straight Up Forgot to include the most compelling aspect of their background + characterization in the text (it was provided via WoG instead, which i provide to all wormreaders like a fuckin' DLC patch when they get to where it's relevant) & entirely forgets they exist towards where the end of their character arc should have been. the second is introduced w/ the most misogynoiristic description on the planet but blessedly has a largely compelling and well-written arc as the book goes on. - depiction of china is just like. fox news level sinophobic "it's all a brainwashed indistinguishable evil cult" shit. not relevant for very long relatively speaking but insufferable to read. asian characters are also like. we got Brutal Yet Honorable Asian Man. we got Fiery Asian Girl With Blue Eyes. it fucking blows it's not good

- oh yeah forgot this one someone mentioned in the tags. #it's an insignificant paragraph and nobody talks about it but the part where it goes #“yeah literally EVERY cape in South America is with a cartel and the heroes are barely distinguishable from the villains” #fuck you #not that the others aren't bad the fatphobia gets really gross but nobody mentions this and that one got me so yeah typical Insufferable Awful Imperial Core Author Understanding Of What Other Countries Are Like - i could make this section one million bulletpoints long but the gist is summarized i think--wildbow's varied racist biases leak fucking everywhere, into character design, into narrative assumptions about who's deserving of interiority/empathy or not, into attempts at Saying Anything About Society, into which characters he prioritizes, into who he offers validity via the narrative, etc etc etc.

homophobia: - theres a girl named amy dallon in it and she is the worst lesbophobic stereotype ever known to man. no other Problematic Lesbian™ you can think of has anything on this girl. the worst part is that she genuinely has a decently compelling character concept and arc, which her being awful is integral to, so you might accidentally find her interesting anyway and then she'll move into your brain - wildbow kept accidentally writing characters that scan as massive dykes and then got really mad about f/f ships for the book being popular in the fandom. he responded by making a deranged forum post involving the phrase "pandering is pandering" insisting everyone (but the bisexual "hedonist") is straight and writing a scene into the book where one of the characters literally turns to the camera and tells the readers "not to get the wrong idea" about her hugging her friend. - over the course of 1.7 million words he finds excuses to loudly inform you that all of the relevant female characters are straight and it's sooo shoehorned in you can always tell when he's doing it - basically worm is like if naruto was about homoerotic teenage girls who do violent terrible things, in terms of levels of unintentional homoeroticism, and the author responds to ppl going "lmao gay" about the unintentional homoeroticism with poorly restrained seething rage

fatphobia: - generic brand of fatphobia you'll see in p much all mainstream media where only side/bg characters are fat and it's obliquely used as a descriptor to indicate that someone has negative personality traits or should be viewed as sort of gross

anti-addict shit: - wildbow generally likes writing about how social circumstances--i.e neglect from society, oppression, failure on behalf of systems--causes crime. he generally likes demonstrating the ways in which the villainous main characters are traumatized teenagers failed by society fumbling to keep existing & holding each other up through The Horrors. unfortunately all of this intelligent writing flies out the nearest window when addicts are involved. there is a gang comprised entirely of addicts, all of whom are portrayed as disgusting, violent, dangerous, and of course often racially stereotyped. it is a mercy to the readers when they're no longer relevant to the story. - on a more subtle level, characters are every so often just like. a little more anti-drug than they would realistically be and you can tell it's wildbow's opinions leaking into their characterization. this is largely what the anti-addict writing is kept to after The Addict Villains leave the story iirc.

if youre wondering wellwhy does anyone read this book then. to that i would say that unfortunately despite it all it'sa fucking excellent book. so we all carry on reading the parts that suck and thinking about how they suck and then reading the parts that fuck and going "ouuugh my god" and rolling down 20 flights of stairs about how hard they fuck.

[ihaveforgortoomany]

Initial 2.2 reaction here, more detailed and focused analysis will be later

Spoilers for 1.9 ofc ofc here:

HOLY SHIT.

First off, wdym Mr Duncan is actually Mr Karson? In some shape or form like Paulina from 2.0 where the Paulina Joe saw to the picture was different? Woahhh.

Anjo Nala wow enjoyed her story here, so happy she is now free. Btw OH MY GOD Vertin in that cg where she looks like shes shooting Anjo just like Schnieder oh god.

White Rum was so much fun, her whole concept was so cool I hope we see more of her.

Urd confirmed to be the Friend From Afar? Relations to the White Marble Doves/ higher ups of the Foundation? Igor and Urd know each other? Dammit I knew we were not getting Vertin and Urd interacting this time.

Lopera and Moldir? Alright I will be so honest but yeah their story was mid, I think 2.2 is suffering the same problem as the earlier Books with juggling multiple characters and storylines that Lopera felt weak to me so far, I mean I feel bad espeically at the end but so far her character felt the weakest here, Ill see if GN will change my mind.

Its clear the current patches out have been used to setup the 2.0 story lore wise, so in terms of being emotional hitters like 1.7 Im not mad they dont hit as hard as 1.7 or 1.9 but I hope it is building to something later down the line.

So Antarctica is next I think? Thats pretty cool, heh penguins.

Alright.

OH FUCK ITS CONFIRMED PEOPLE DO NOT DIE WHEN THEY GET REVERSED.

It seems the person is altered in a sense? So for example Mr Duncan is likely Mr Karson had history been different, so Mr Duncan is the result of an altered timeline, we are meeting a future Mr Karson BUT in an altered timeline Im assuming. (It is likely he did know Sotheby's parents maybe?)

We see similar with Mr Karl's child, its clear from Heinrich the child was either a boy or girl but this was altered after the Storm.

So far we cannot say anything about people meeitng their past selves (like Kakania for example meeting herself in 1908 or something, we dont know what would happen if anything)

More importantly.

WE COULD MEET SCHNIEDER AGAIN. Or at the very least meet a version of herself in an altered version, potentially if we went to Italy or something.

This could go for anyone we know reversed now, even The Ring and Issabella. This is huge.

The Manus under Sophia specficially seem to aim to create Storms now, instead of just accelerating an existing one.

But it is wild now its confirmed that people do not necessarily die in the Storm, instead another version is created who retains similar history to the original but altered enough to see a difference (I smell the Mandela Effect)

[wyzzze]

[Early 1.7 live reaction but not spoilers]

Lycaon's new English VA actually sounds a lot better this patch! I think the 2nd VA took notes from everybody's comments online last time and is capturing his character far better! His enunciation and ability to capture the nuance of Lycaon's "calm gentleman" persona and "restrained" side is sounding far smoother so far!

_

(Also, please remember when giving feedback about new VAs online to give fair criticism but never cruelty. It's highly likely that these people were brought in with very little time to prepare compared to their original VA's and they had to crunch to redo all of the current lines plus new ones in a short time. Even if it's not what you're used to or what you want, be considerate and polite when expressing disappointment because they can still grow into their roles and they're people too.)

[tartagliaxx]

oof i've seen some of the 1.5 events leak and if it's what i think it is, i'm gonna do rlly rlly terribly in at least one of those events. i'm not gonna tell you bc i dunno if you even sure want spoilers, and these are only in-beta screenshots, so it may change when 1.5 arrives. i am excited for some of them though, there seems like a lot of stuff, at least through screenshots lol

my friend also apparently said inazuma is gonna be coming out in 2.0? i honestly doubt it since i know higher lvl ar ppl like my friends are getting pretty bored. they basically only log online if i need help with domains or if they need to waste their resin and do commissions. i honestly dunno how mihoyo is gonna keep us interested unless they release smth big

— r. anon

im looking forward to the future of this game in general. i dont read through leaks much but from the peeks i saw from posts i need to scroll past, they seem to be quite fun! mhy has been doing relatively well w the content they release in each patch. sure, endgame is dry but for the most part, they’ve done good stuff w the details and events to keep us more or less occupied. still, really looking forward to inazuma. i doubt it’s gonna take until 2.0... maybe around 1.6 or 1.7?

i— man i really dont think thats good for your body cycle?? like based on that you seem to only have one meal per day? i dont want mother you or stuff but i hope you take good care of yourself!

... that sounds like a better horror story than hollywood. w..what exactly did you step on? one time i was in the rural areas visiting my relatives and bc i was feeling a tiny bit homesick, i couldnt sleep so i went to get a glass of water but then i saw this... assembly of non-human, multiple legged creatures in our severely underlighted dining room and dipped. i swear i made eye contact w one. i think its the same that crawled up my leg while i was in bed. 0/10 would not be going back there anytime soon.

[vios-rockland-corner]

RoR Article 2: Get Help

To make things easier on myself, I’m splitting up my thoughts on the Rumors of Rockland second article.  I already gave an overview of this game.  Here, I’ll cover whatever random thoughts and observations I had for the events that occur when you choose to get help.

[Major spoilers below for Rumors of Rockland Article 2]

Well now, this was quite a treat.  I will say this is the first time we really get to genuinely see Avery friendly.  In the Misfits demo he’s the thug from hell.  In Rumors of Rockland Article 1, he’s an absolute mess both raging and sobbing.  So it shouldn’t be too surprising that thus far I haven’t had the most positive view of Avery.  Mostly fear and some sympathy, but this article let him just be a normal dude you can chat with (well, after the fight).

It does sound very logical that the MC would go to try to get Whesker for help.  Whesker’s not only someone they know, but he’s one of the people running the bar so yeah, he might not want a fight breaking out in the alleyway.  But he’s not there this time, so you make due on short notice. You know at least Callum and Avery are buds, so he might be able to help.

 Avery doesn’t hesitate, and the good news is that he’s able to subdue the drunks fast.  It’s not that the drunks didn’t deserve at least a punch in the face, but we know Avery was very much capable of killing them.  In fact, without Callum and the MC there, he likely would have.

Callum at least recognizes right away when Avery’s taking things too far and does make an attempt to get Avery to stop.  He does try to make a little joke of it though to the MC that Avery’s “not letting up.”  I don’t know if he was just trying to calm the very alarmed MC at the moment, or if he just assumed there wasn’t much he could do to stop Avery at this point. Maybe it’s both.  We don’t know yet if Callum’s always able to stop Avery when he’s present or if Callum just can’t read the warning signs before it’s too late sometimes.

Remember, Avery was merciless to the MC in the Misfits demo when he didn’t even know what offense the MC had committed.  You bet that Avery would have murdered the drunks for messing with Callum.

Luckily Callum is able to stop Avery from getting blood on his hands. I’m not entirely sure though if Avery stopped because Callum raised his voice on the second try, or because Callum reminded Avery that the MC was there.  I don’t know if Avery was more interested in not upsetting Callum or not killing in front of the MC.  Took Avery a second to stop looking a little fierce until he noted the MC cowering.

Notice how when Avery calms down, he acts almost like nothing had happened.  There’s no remorse.  First he seems reserved when he joins Callum and the MC, but he then joins in on the conversation and sometimes even takes over a little.  

Overall it was very interesting listening to the two of them.  Rockland’s painted with a nice image at some points, but we’re also still reminded of the danger.  A couple more of my questions got answered.  It’s confirmed that if you know the right people and know how to cover your tracks, you can get away with a lot.  It helps that it sounds like people in Rockland usually take care of their own business rather than running to the police for help.  Usually at least.  Sounds like there are also several people who take charge around Rockland. I suppose if the Irish mafia has a hold on the town, it kind of makes sense why people would conduct themselves this way.

 We also learn that simply being in Rockland doesn’t guarantee you’re going to die.  Avery says you can walk by a really unhinged person every day and have nothing happen to you.  So that calms my nerves a little.  But at the same time, I have to remember that the main games to be released in the future will primarily be horror.  Hard to let my guard down sometimes.  But I’m thinking with those games it’s going to show us what the experience is like for an MC who either offended the wrong person, stuck their nose where it didn’t belong or is just plain unlucky.  Avery said don’t do stupid things that would get you killed in a horror film after all.

In the future I’ll dedicate a post to Avery completely, but that won’t be until after his game “Welcome to Rockland.”  But I will say that from all I’ve seen about him so far, Avery is a completely honest character.  He lets you know EXACTLY how he feels about something or a person (whether it’s good or bad) and won’t mince words.  All the stuff here that he warns the MC about I think is probably on point.  When he says he’s one of the people you shouldn’t mess with in Rockland, we know how dead serious of a statement that is.  

It’s kind of fun when dialogue like that pops up actually.  For the MC in the story, it’s a little unnerving but they could see it as just a joke or someone trying to put up some bravado. Though the MC did witness Avery almost killing two guys, there may still be some doubt if he would REALLY have gone that far.  As the audience playing the game, we know what the truth is though.

I look forward to more morbid or casual warnings from characters in the RoR series that we may get to see are very real in the main line games.

Other fun bits, I absolutely loved the part with Avery shaking Callum after Callum just nonchalantly confesses to getting ecstasy from Tyler. Genuinely laughed out loud at that. Seems Avery can also be a little more sensible than even Callum at times.  Callum seems so carefree about nearly everything.

I’m all for Whesker kissing guys, Callum being a little feminine and AveryxCallum as well~  Also, what the hell Kinley?! XD

Also learning that Tyler is an actual doctor is flat out hilarious. So many jokes you can make with that. Like…does that mean he’d feel obligated to tell you all the side-effects of the drugs when you make a deal with him? Drug dealer and doctor are such opposite positions it really makes the whole situation bizarre.  Not entirely sure what Tyler’s been getting away with currently since it sounds like there are luckily other characters in Rockland there to go, “NO DON’T DO THAT!”

 Oh, I forgot to mention something!  Someone else brought this to my attention, I didn’t figure this out myself. There’s a small edit that was made at least to the very end of Article 1 where Whesker does ask for and gets your name.  You just pick to play article 1 in the 1.7 patch and you’ll find it.  That’s very important because you probably noticed in this article that Callum calls you correctly by your name.  The MC didn’t formally introduce themselves in this article.  This is further emphasizing how much the MC sticks out in town since Callum was able to figure out who you were when even the MC confirmed he hadn’t turned around last week to see you.  This also means that Whesker’s a bit of a gossip, haha. I’m not really surprised since he’s a bartender, and a new person in town would likely be a hot topic.  So if he knows your name, he’s going to pass it around.  Again, that just serves as a reminder that you can’t blend into this town quietly.

It really did feel like at the end that Callum, Avery and the MC were genuinely having a good time together.  Lots of small details thrown out in the ending conversation, but I think the biggest takeaway was just there are people who’ve been around for a long time and getting close with some people gets you inheriting a bunch of stuff.

I can’t confirm if the MC has full friendship status with Avery and Callum here, but it definitely sounds like they could freely ask them any questions they had from this point forward.

[anonymocha]

can i request isolde and kakania doing something yuriful

YES YOU CAN!!! ✨

[ Based on the painting Romeo and Juliet (1884) by Frank Bernard Dicksee ]

[fishareglorious]

patch 1.7. this bitch.

I will beat this man with a brick for [SPOILERS]

I'm assuming Forget Me Not is still running around with Manus Vindictae so. I hope he becomes a recurring boss for fun. Except instead of fighting with his piano he keeps switching it up with another instrument.

1970s, we fight against his synthesizer. It's the fucking.. middle ages and this man beats you with a lute. Next time he has a cello. Later on a guzheng. An irish tin whistle. A kulintang. We meet him in Spain and he has his castanets ready. Somehow Arcana is there playing Flamenco on guitar as background music.

[eta-volantis]

ZZZ patch 1.7 SPOILERS under cut

OMG so with the confirmation that Hugo was putting on an act the whole time in 1.6, he SPECFICALLY suggested that Lycaon joins them because Lycaon is the only one that would make his plan work. He was playing all 'I don't actually want you to be there' but Hugo literally NEEDED Lycaon to be there. Yea, sure he said he had contingencies and I don't doubt he does, but he still relied solely on Lycaon. The fact that he still trusts Lycaon to that extent despite considering that Lycaon betrayed him is killing me.

[anonymocha]

You could say that

[anonymocha]

MARCUS ARE YOU /SRS OR /J

Footage:

I have Druvis and Six so… I may get Marcus and Vila because… This looks fun as hell…

[eta-volantis]

So after sitting with the story a bit, my biggest criticism for 1.7 would be that the story should have fully focused on Hugo's story instead of Vivian's.

(fully reasoning with SPOILERS under the cut)

1.6 heavily centres on Hugo and Lycaon. He is directly related to Hartman and the main plot, as well as the people we suspect to be the main villains we will be facing (Edmund, for example). The introduction of Dina feels really out of nowhere to me and she feels really weak imo. There isn't really enough set up for Vivian for me to warrant her taking over the ending from the characters that has been the star of the patch (Hugo and Lycaon). Imo, instead of Dina, it should be Sarah who has a hand in this and Hartman being the final boss or facilitated the final boss. While seeing Hugo destroying Hartman and the Ravenlock family was satisfying, it was also a good motivation for Hartman to lose his shit and go all out since he lost everything. It will also be a nice touch for Hugo to face the person he could have become (Hartman) to end the expansion with, especially with the contrast of the 1.6 where HE was the 'villain' at the end.

Dina fell really flat like for the first time, I was annoyed with a char and was rushing through her dialogue. I haven't done that with anyone so far from the beginning. Like even Hartman is more interesting to me considering how well they set up the Ravenlock family and how people can be shaped by their environment. And like, I'm very weak when the character is close to their dad and not to mention, lost their father, but I felt NOTHING with Dina and that's wild. Especially after we had Lycaon and Hugo in 1.6 where the arguments are nuanced, mature, and full of emotion. Dina felt so one dimensional in comparison and it really brings down Vivian's story. Her story makes a lot of sense for her. A religious group would immediately grab a girl that can see the future off the streets and exploit her. But the execution feels super one dimensional and flat. I feel like Vivian should have had her own agent story where we can really dive into her struggles and story while the MSQ should be focused on Hugo and the Ravenlocks. We don't even have to meet Sarah, just getting a whiff that she is involved as a segue into 2.x rather than have an NPC who just dies off. Dina is like Bringer lite, except Bringer's actually held weight and had lots of build up. I think Hartman waking up a sacrifice he managed to salvage to go fuck off at the city and we have to fight it, and Phaeton getting in the crossfire hence why the premonition would be a better ending imo.