Eluvianii

Trying really hard to think if there's anyone else at all that Battler and Erika never meet... Also, just going off the easiest conclusion with Will's explanations, I'm trying to use illusions to illusions as no deaths and earth to earth as deaths. But if we used that, there would be entire episodes without a single death. Might have to rethink that one.

I'm taking it as an omission. He didn't tell every detail about the two weeks that took place there, and happened to not mention a detail that would paint him in a bad light. Now, if omissions count as lies, then there's a problem yeah. Oh. Ok. I'm more sad now. That's a huge help. I think I'm just too hung up on the bit about it actually being 16 people so I forcefully want to remove one, or barring that, fusion two. And since they do say that the whole furniture thing was an inner conflict of Lion's, and the two people directly affected by it are Kanon and Shannon, they were too good a candidate. You could take it the opposite way to mean that Erika was already one of the people on the island but that is more difficult to see. She has a whole backstory about college, living alone, heartbreak, all in the outside world. A double life as a servant here would be reaaally stretching it. Last solution is killing someone but how? sigh I figured that was the case. It's all somewhat cryptic but I realize this is the biggest clue I am going to get, so I took pictures of the whole thing. Looks fun to solve.

Ah I see. Sorry, I was going down a completely different line of thinking. At this point I was convinced the cast we're presented wasn't the actual cast. The whole "the witch's illusion can only kill illusions" at Kanon's death convinced me that he wasn't real, so I discarded him and Shannon along with him and decided that Lion was some severely injured mix of the two. Guess not then, back to the drawing board.

Yeah... No binging rule was in effect until Beatrice finished her confession, which she did yesterday so I said, what the heck. A questionable move that turned into a session around 8 hours. Probably for the best though. If I had stopped at any point during that, I think I wouldn't have come back to it for weeks. Better to get it all in one go. Ok, sleeping is nice, sleeping is wonderful, coherent thoughts would have been impossible last night, waiting was the right call. Well, a couple things about the confession before going into tea party. I like that the whole secret about the gold involved a complicated secret passage puzzle. Those may be forbidden but that's only when it comes to locked rooms. Nice. So, I'm no longer 100% sure about the events of that day, but I will assume at least most of it is the same. Meaning after this nothing appears to change, but in reality Lion becomes the de facto master of the mansion. Meaning if at any point she goes to the servants being like "Hey, help me kill everyone", I think it's not out of the question that they would agree. She also said that was enough to reason out her motive. Uhhh I don't think I'm quite there but let's try, I guess. I will have to go with essentially the same as last time. There was a duel and the result was almost decided she said. Both Shannon and Kanon "existed" at this point, and they both had developed their own relationships, but Shannon's was by far the one that was further ahead. The winner of this duel. Cue Battler coming back to the family the day the duel was to be decided and suddenly that root that she had separated herself from comes flying back to her. Now there are no good options. Now no matter what she chooses, someone will be hurt. If she just continues with the plan, that's technically the right choice, but thanks to this new development, she wouldn't be happy with it. She still, after all this time, wants to be with Battler. However, even if she wanted to change course, Battler doesn't seem to remember her. He didn't send her a letter two years ago, what's to be said about now? So she pulls a Kinzo. She stakes her life, and everyone else's, on him remembering before midnight. Sure, the competition was directed at everyone, but the mystery expert was him, right? Surely he'll get it before anyone else. Plus, he doesn't ignore the heart. If he solves this, he might realize who's doing this, he might realize why, he might remember. The enormous risk taken was to give more power to the ritual. And if he, in fact, did not remember, then so be it. Her chances of a happy life were low anyway, back to the dust with her and everyone else. Now, I did think from time to time that maybe the reason we aren't shown a face beyond the various personas she creates was because she had scars on her face or something. I mean, thrown from a cliff as a newborn and makes a complete recovery? Unlikely. Not to mention that if we're already told that she's literally Lion, we pretty much know that they share a face, so why not just show it? That had to be it. And it was, but apparently there's more? "This body isn't even capable of love", and in red no less. You could argue that's a classical My face is destroyed, no one would love me, but I'm thinking more along the lines of her being paralyzed from the waist down. However it would be impossible for her to activate the mechanism if that was the case so, probably not. Either way, if it was bad enough to make her want to die, well it has to be bad. Thing is, I don't know if I'm supposed to factor that last bit into the equation, since the biggest clue we have of that is her saying the mirror will just show her her pitiful self, and we weren't explicitly told until after the confession. But if that, and the context of the accident, were supposed to be enough clue, then it kinda helps my previous paragraph. Whether it was true or not, she absolutely believed she had no chance at being happy, except, maybe with Battler. Her emotions might have been strong enough on that day to actually risk everything into that ritual. I might compare notes with those chapters later today. Now comes the big However. Was this actually a confession about a crime that was planned but never committed? Have we actually seen different fragments or was it all a fiction to spare the sole survivor the pain of knowing that her parents did it? Wait actually, regardless of whether or not that is the case, my biggest question is this. Is that Kyrie? That "game" as a whole bypassed hearts left and right but not completely. Eva worried about her family, Rudolf worried about Battler. Rosa was pretty deranged during the scene but even her actions seemed to be motivated by the (very unhealthy) wish for her husband to come back. But Kyrie was the only one who genuinely seemed to care about no one but Rudolf. And even then she lost interest after he died. Is that the takeaway from this? No matter the fragment, this woman is dangerous, be careful? Is this why we are asked to pay attention and truly learn the personalities of every character, so we can realize "one of these is not like the others"? True, if I look back she was the craziest one by far. Rosa is probably the worst person around in terms of actions but hers are motivated by emotion and trauma, ones that she could overcome if she at some point started caring, but you can see a degree of love for Maria, that just happens to be weaker than the memory of her husband. Eva would be the obvious choice if you were looking for a crazy character but as you go along you realize she's just passionate. She can easily be overcome by emotions (anger especially) and she's constantly looking for ways to screw people over, but in the end she's the one who showed the most love for her family. Kyrie on the other hand, whenever she starts on the subject of love, seems to be very far down the "love is war" rabbit hole. It's not an emotion, it's a competition. Very unhealthy, but I was willing to balance it out with the other scenes she had, there were times where she gave good motherly advice to Battler and treated him like a son. Having her saying now that literally all of that was an act is, conflicting to say the least. I thought I'd have more to say about the tea party but the rest of it is actually kinda easy to accept. Temptation is shown as the devil here and I can see that. Eva regrets killing Krauss and wouldn't touch the children, she's human, but also admits that she would eventually have reached the point where she's at least willing to kill her siblings. That I can see. People forcing themselves to ignore emotions when the solution to all their problems is presented to them is not hard to believe. It was just Kyrie appearing so seemingly inhuman that threw me for a loop. Ok, Kinzo apparently wanted to steal the gold. I'm not happy about that, but it's not too big a stain on his record compared to the rest. His apology to Lion probably included that. And of course, the little scene with Beatrice II was nothing we didn't know already. We just needed to feel a little worse after all that. I'll try not to take Lion and Will's death literally. Unless the message here is "They died while believing in the future, so they won". The last scene, well I get that it's supposed to leave you uncertain. One side promises a bloody story with no happy ending, the other promises a happy story to send a kid to sleep. I'm just worried because Battler is trying to console an Ange that already lost her family here. So it sounds like it won't be a story about how they actually left the island alive but about how they didn't suffer as they died. Hope I'm wrong, but to me it felt like that scene supported the "long eulogy" theory. Good scene though, I spent that whole chapter bottling stuff up, so when Battler announced the next episode and the credits started rolling I kinda broke down crying. Dude flipped a switch there. I'm still somewhat worried about Episode 8 but I'm a lot more pumped to read it than I was last night (that crap actually seeped into my dreams). As a final note, Will told Lion that he was the one hope out of all the Lions and that he should seize it and be happy for their sake. I get that and I like it. But I would also like the other Lion to discover that there are ways to be happy for her even with whatever scars or disabilities the accident might have left her. Might sound irresponsible for a healthy dude to say that, but if this was like "Oh, she fell from the cliff so she had no chance since that point" it would be really depressing. Now I get to ask, are the confession chapters easy to find or are they like in the middle of the episode? To avoid spoilers and all.

That. Was. A lot. I'm having a hard time dealing with this one, I'm scared to even start Episode 8. I'm sleepy and disgusted and scared and it's almost 3am. I might have a very long post tomorrow, hope that's ok.

Same. Although it's a given not every country will be visited. If Kondo really goes "Actually, this will require another arc. Also, two games is too short for grand finale, have four" on us, I'm thinking Calvard, Arteria, and one other. I know nothing of the east tho so I have no guesses.

I feel like Kondo will have to go back on at least some of the things he has said. Back when Reverie was new in Japan, I think he said 3 arcs left, and 70% done. Those are some tight numbers, 3 arcs don't quite fit in 4-5 games, and the most recent announcement backs that up. Kai is the 90% mark. So I think we're already there, whatever comes after Kai will be the final arc.

Huh, Featherine did get very vocal about that last episode. Well, I do respect that view, but I'm also grateful that he eventually wrote it down. I can be a bit of a potato brain and while I have thoroughly enjoyed hitting my head against the wall so far and wouldn't ask for an answer about every single mystery (I plan on trying to solve those on a second read or the manga, now that Knox is on my side), I would at least like to have a clear answer on the single biggest mystery of the story. I mean, even if I managed to arrive at the right conclusion, not having confirmation one way or the other would just bug me forever. In other news, DUDE. So that was the promise! Of course, Battler is an avid reader (by my way below 100 books a year standards), it makes sense that they would connect. I can't help but being amazed then. How did he ever remember the "promise"? I can imagine she then designed the game so that her reasons could be, uh, reasoned, but Battler rarely, if ever, went beyond "None of them would do this", let alone consider "But if they would, then why?" So, if this is going the way I think, now that she has freed herself of her feelings for the time being, the thing with George will happen. A couple years to go from an act of kindness here and there, to dates outside the island, to a proposal. Damn, George moves faster than Battler. They said Battler coming back in 1985 or 1987 wouldn't have been as bad. If that's the case it would make sense. A year before, her relationship is not set in stone and there is conflict, but also hope. A year later and her relationship is set in stone and she can settle for a "What's done is done", even if she harbors any doubts. But him coming back at the critical moment was probably the worst case scenario for her emotions. Though, that still doesn't quite make it. I mean, look at it. She's about to get engaged, her old crush comes back. That creates conflict in her heart but she also is able to see with her own two eyes that he truly moved on. That would hurt, of course, but I do believe it should allow her to do the same. I guess there's also the epitaph, she solves it at some point which gives her an interesting amount of money. Now, there is absolutely no logic behind this but I'm putting a couple chips into the epitaph also telling her who she really is. So she's Battler and George's aunt. Would that make a difference? I genuinely don't know. "We should count our blessin's that we can bring the whole family together like this without a single one of us missin'" Oh come on, Hideyoshi, that's such a direct attack it almost feels intentional. And then George immediately hands her the empty envelope when she tries to ask if there's anything for her. Yikes. These accidents must run in the family. Natsuhi, I love you. The way she relentlessly defended Battler's point of view in Rudolf's face was amazing. Ok so, Kanon is next. Last time Beatrice made a change, it was to split the kid into Shannon and Beatrice. I mean, they were already treated as different characters, but the end result was only one person in the room, so there. Point being, her altering the setting is a mental change rather than a physical one. If that follows, then Kanon would indeed not be real. I don't know how I'd feel about that, but we'll see. Bit of a side note but I'm starting to get worried about Maria's story. I want her and Rosa reach a resolution of some kind, and I guess I'm a bit worried about the idea of there being enough time for that right in the finale. A 30 hour episode should be plenty but, well, can't help being uneasy. You know, today was kind of different. From here on out I have more time in the evenings so I could just keep reading and reach Act IX tonight. But I've also decided that this pacing of making theories based on the small portion of the story I read today, and see how much of that turned out to be true tomorrow is really, really fun. So even though I'm at the last stretch of the kid's story, I think I'll do that for another day. The final episode will probably be more appropriate for binging.

That is a really unusual choice. I guess I'll have to visit those after Episode 8.

Hmmm. "I am one yet many", huh. So Shannon represents her desire to become a respectable servant, worthy of praise instead of the abuse she got early on. Beatrice represents the freedom she wanted, to be rid of responsibility and live life away from everyone. The mirror represents her escaping her own reality, and the face of the culprit. For the numbers to add up Kanon has to figure among these "many" I think, but I can't figure out how. On more physical matters, I guess this is the way Lion kills the witch by being accepted into the family. If that happens, they never get into mystery novels, they never learn the tricks from those novels, and never use them to prank the other servants, so the legend of the witch is never even born. Well, the trick with the keys is, for once, easy. The kid can just take all the time in the world to take the key out from her own key ring, hide it inside... uhhhh Asne's? locker. Then when she's not looking she just swaps them. I don't know if the goal here was revenge or education but she liked it either way. Got addicted to it. Unless someone figures out how I'm doing this, I'm a witch, and as long as I'm a witch, anything I wish to be true, is true. You know, if Shannon and Beatrice are indeed different parts of the same person, that tea party becomes one hell of an identity crisis. The menu said green Beato was just Bern's doll, but now she's canon. Another one to the list... Oh yeah, the whole thing about the kid being possessed by Beatrice, and that giving her magic powers kind of reflects how witches actually seem to be born. If you're selected as a piece, the witch "possesses" you to do her will, you gain more awareness about fragments, and once it's over, you're screwed. Good luck dealing with the trauma and the boredom in the eternity that awaits you. Was Battler able to go to a higher plane because he was selected as a piece? Will he turn evil in Ciconia? So, I'll get there and all, but I just can't wrap my head around this kid's desire to have some control in her highly stressful life, even by turning to illusions, turning into a murderous rampage. I guess at some point she has to find out her true identity but, is that really enough? sigh the opposite happened today and I had to stop mid-chapter. I don't like doing that. So I'm yet to see exactly how Shannon's relationship with the cousins is. I really, really want to listen to the vocal version of Golden Nocturne.

Ah, the intermission. What was it? "A Brief Respite"? A very appropriate name considering the rest of the game.

Alright, getting hyped for that. I love the general cheery tone of the series but the absolute lows the mood reaches early on (Sky 3rd especially) made for an amazing contrast.

Two of my favorite bands releasing songs on the same day. I'm eating good today.

Noticia was also a Sky reporter iirc. Her name means news too, which is funny.

Finished Unicorn Overlord at around 88 hours and a half. That was an amazing game, I confess I haven't played many strategy games, but I think I've found my preferred kind of strategy gameplay. The cast was great and it was huge. Once a character joins your army they are pretty much never mentioned again, but rapport conversations more than make up for that. I was initially disappointed to see most pairs of characters had only 1 or 2 conversations, but they actually add up and there are entire character arcs contained within. It doesn't look like it at first glance, but there are a lot of them. There are a lot of them. Cue me about to finish the game and deciding to unlock every conversation I'm still missing through the power of spending 300,000 funds on steak. Not only was the steak-eating process itself a surprisingly taxing endeavor that started eating into my sanity, but once I was finished there were enough conversations out there that, even though each one is around 1-2 minutes tops, it took me 7 hours to watch them all. Naturally I'm extremely happy with my decision. I tried to marry Tatiana but game said "No, friends only". Storm it game, let me be happy. As I said I enjoyed the gameplay greatly, it's deep like a canyon but still very forgiving if you're not a master of minmaxing (I'm not). Music was fitting for the most part, with a few amazing tracks sprinkled in. Art was, I mean, it's Vanillaware. That should speak for itself. That epilogue was bold. A warning for anyone who wants to play it. Plan your final session accordingly. There is an epilogue with detailed descriptions of what each and every one of your 60+ characters did after the ending, FE style. This scene alone took me like 30 minutes I think. I loved every second too, but I think it's good to keep it in mind. I don't think this is a game I would replay too often since it's not exactly one you can play passively, but I'm looking forward to a second run eventually. Now that I watched literally every conversation in the game, I want to try new teams based on who's friends with who. Also try to marry someone the game actually wants you to marry I guess. Overall, loved the game.