It occurs to me that if I plan to rewatch Voltron in anticipation of S7’s release next Friday I’m going to have to start soon or else I won’t be finished in time. It’ll be good to remind myself of all those plot points I couldn’t recall when I watched S6 without refreshing myself, and in light of certain recent revelations it’ll be good for some new character examination.

(I’m also going to be looking at ships, less so the one for which I already have a pretty solid grounding and more so the very loud and infamous fandom juggernaut whose popularity eludes me to this day. But, you know, gay-or-otherwise-into-men Shiro helps out with the former anyway.)

Octopath Traveler Liveblogging

Chapter 3 concludes with Cyrus and Primrose.

Cyrus

See, this is why reusing sprites for the all the mysterious evil NPCs causes problems. The one trailing Cyrus is revealed to be the headmaster’s assistant Lucia, and while she does indeed intend to harm him there’s no indication that she or Yvon have any connection to the Crows or to the cult Ophilia encounters or to any of the other conspicuous black-garbed individuals that have shown up so far. Maybe they’ll all be tied together in the end in some way that culminates in the final boss, but I’m still having trouble seeing how they’ll reach that outcome.

Yvon’s particular brand of evil – and I cannot believe that his red eyes were used as a plot point of all things – is motivated by a desire to hoard knowledge and manifests itself as hulking out on blood crystals because something something forbidden unspeakable magic. Eh, I’ll forgive the turn of two-dimensional villainy when there’s nuance to be found elsewhere and when it comes accompanied by some of the most evocative dungeon settings in the game. Yvon’s cellar is perfect as the gloomy lair of an obsessed academic, and it’s not a cave, forest, or (mostly) a mansion which is good enough for me to praise it. I fully expect Lucia to reemerge in Chapter 4 as an antagonist and possibly Cyrus’s final boss given how she abruptly disappears from this chapter. 

As for Therese, this is probably the end of her active involvement in this story, though it’s already more than I expected from her. Her interactions with Cyrus are significantly more palatable now that she’s not trying to force a romance and is just rolling with the reality that he’s never going to be into her as much as he’s into being a massive nerd. I hesitate to headcanon him as ace or aroace for much the same reason that a mutual declines to headcanon Lukas from FE15 as ace despite ample evidence to support it, but regardless of what one thinks of Cyrus’s sexuality I think it’s safe to say that he and Therese would only be an interesting couple if they went all in on the kinky wrongness of the hot for teacher angle

Party banter highlights: Alfyn and Primrose continue to stumble over Cyrus’s inability to understand what would otherwise be going on with him and Therese, Therion retains his low opinion of academics, and Tressa gets subjected to an hour-long(!) lecture in the middle of the chapter demonstrating that Cyrus is easily distracted. Ophilia meanwhile theorizes a potentially non-evil use for blood magic, an unusually open-minded stance for a cleric in this setting.

Primrose

Behold: the first Primrose chapter to not feature prostitution. On the contrary, she gets to reunite with a bunch of people who knew her as a girl, up to and including a duplicitous ex-lover, who delicately decline to comment on the last scion of the local ruling house walking around town half-naked. There are stranger things one sees as an NPC in a JRPG, I suppose.

In all seriousness, I actually enjoyed the revelation that Primrose had a sweetheart in Noblecourt and that she’s too quick to trust him. It indicates a romantic sentiment in her at odds with her previous profession, something that I find quite relatable. Of course it gets her stabbed in the back front by what will presumably be her final boss, but before that she gets to take her second act of revenge and help a former Azelhart retainer work through his lingering feelings of regret and betrayal at the same time. Not a bad bit of writing, though I don’t know yet how I feel about Simeon. He’s great in the early scenes when he quickly reestablishes Primrose’s trust, but when he reveals himself as a Crow he drops any sense of subtlety and becomes a cackling over-dramatic supervillain. I understand and appreciate the theme of the performative nature of romance/sex and revenge as they tie into Primrose the dancer, but like with Cyrus the sexy teacher they’re going to have to go big or go home to make Simeon’s posturing really feel meaningful. Unlike with Cyrus though I think Primrose’s story may actually do just that.

Party banter highlights: Tressa is too young to understand relationships (at 18?), Cyrus sticks his foot in his mouth, and Primrose wants to show Ophilia around Noblecourt – notably the only one of the three banters following the first Simeon scene that doesn’t mention Simeon himself, read into that as you will. Everyone else expresses concern for Primrose in what is admittedly a very trying time. There’s also more of Olberic getting flustered by Primrose if you’re into that sort of thing.

Most of my party is still a few levels shy of being ready for Chapter 4, so the next entry in this series will be another interlude with exploring and optional dungeons and sidequests. Maybe the advanced job bosses too? From what I read it may be better to wait until after Chapter 4 for those….

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Chapter 3 for Therion, Ophilia, and H’annit.

Therion

The gameplay of this chapter comes with a few twists, including a few fake-outs before the boss and a hint of that Path Action-related variability I suggested last time with Olberic. Even the boss had some new tricks, including instant revival after a break and partial weakness guarding. There’s also a treasure chest right at the end you have to backtrack into the dungeon to get because of cutscenes…damn trolling designers.

The story is really what to talk about though. While I am fully aware that the surface-level explanation for Therion’s feelings regarding Darius is that he’s slow to trust people because he fears betrayal and that betrayal in his case meant being shoved off a cliff, this chapter gets so much better if you assume they were screwing. Not just in the sense that gay sex makes everything better, but because it lends a heftier weight to their interactions and to the various bits of party banter wherein the characters dance around the subject. Cordelia Ravus is the one to get through to what Therion is feeling in the moment by revealing to him how her money-hungry relatives descended upon her after her parents’ death. I can relate – though not in a way that I would consider that betrayal. But I digress.

I am excited to see how Therion’s Chapter 4 unfolds, since we’ll be getting more scenes of Therion and Darius’s bad romance and also more of Heathcote the suspiciously well-connected butler. Darius’s theft of this chapter’s dragonstone also removed some of the predictability from Therion’s story, giving it less of a “collect X plot trinkets in dungeons” Zelda-esque feel.

But why does Wellspring’s black market have so many giant bugs in it?

Party banter highlights: The black market makes Cyrus uneasy and Tressa weirdly excited, H’annit couldn’t speak slyly if her life depended on it (even ignoring the weird dialect), Primrose refuses to take this seriously, and Ophilia and Olberic try and fail to get Therion to open up about what happened between him and Darius. Alfyn’s may be the best though, as it’s a cute and shippy scene with Alfyn doing his best to look out for Therion.

Ophilia

This chapter overcompensates for the absence of a relevant plot in Ophilia’s last chapter with an overabundance of it, to the point that I wish they had employed a cutaway or some other technique for foreshadowing to better set this one up back in Saintsbridge. To wit, there’s an evil cult (that might be the same as the ones who killed Primrose’s father? All the mysterious evil guys in this game dress the same) who opposes the teachings of the Sacred Flame, and they manage to steal the Flame from Ophilia. Their first attempt fails because it involves small children* and thereby underestimates Ophilia’s legendary prowess with those, but the second attempt – which comes after the boss and the conclusion of the chapter’s main action, by the way – involves manipulating Lianna’s grief over her father’s death by dangling over her head the possibility of necromancy or something like it. I assume that, unlike a similar situation in FE8, there won’t be any implied necrophilia this time.

All in all, drama and suspense and an interesting boss fight with two targets with no shared weakness and mostly (entirely?) magical damage. It rivals Therion’s in how well it builds up to a big Chapter 4. I wasn’t surprised at all that the trader from Chapter 1 made a reappearance, and if he turns out to be evil I’ll be even more unsurprised.

*One of whom is the daughter of the local bishop, further adding to my theory that many of Orsterra’s problems wouldn’t exist if they mandated clerical celibacy.

Party banter highlights: Ophilia bro-zones Alfyn (not that there was much there to begin with), H’annit/Ophilia sails strong, and Primrose at last discusses her definition of faith with the party cleric. Aside from the femmeslash potential this chapter was kind of dull for banter honestly.

H’annit

H’annit gets her animals to beat someone up, explores a forest, and slays a massive supernatural beast, Round 3. This time she really sets the bar high for the inevitable showdown with Redeye by facing an actual dragon, and not an easy one either. I don’t fault H’annit’s story for having perhaps the most formulaic narrative rhythms; hunting like this is just her Thing, and each chapter so far has been sprinkled with enough character work to keep them from feeling repetitive.

Her adventure in Stillsnow features Susanna, a seer who uses real world divination techniques to tell fortunes rather than anything magical. She regards H’annit as her adoptive granddaughter via Z’aanta while also making coy remarks about her other adoptive son’s obvious crush on H’annit. That’s a lot of quasi-incest. It’s reassuring to note that, in this tale of slaying dragons and curing petrification, the banter between the characters remains grounded and fairly heartwarming if one is into found family narratives. Linde also gets to play around with some kids, so there’s something for the internet’s perennial love of cats as well.

Incidentally, for the first time since her Chapter 1 I’ve been playing around with H’annit’s capture ability. It definitely comes with some of the frustrating RNG elements of Pokémon, but I can see why people praise the potential if you’re willing to seek out the really good captures.

Party banter highlights: Cyrus possibly foreshadows a future sidequest on Susanna or at least some exposition regarding her, Ophilia and H’annit bond even more over Linde, Primrose prods at H’annit’s questionable attraction to men, and Alfyn literally prods at her in a culmination of this chapter’s strange recurring motif of people not respecting her personal space. I can’t even tell what Susanna and Z’aanta (in a flashback) are meant to be doing based on the sprites, but H’annit’s clearly not comfortable in any of these situations. Your guess is as good as mine. *shrugs*

Octopath Traveler Liveblogging

Chapter 3 for Olberic, Alfyn, and Tressa.

Olberic

Well, this one threw me for a few loops.

Not only is Erhardt not the final boss of Olberic’s story, he’s not even the boss proper of this chapter, with that designation instead going toward a giant lizard. As with Ophilia’s Chapter 2 the conflict here is tangential to the actual story, but Olberic fighting the lizardmen leads into his confrontation with Erhardt so it’s a less glaring diversion. I was surprised to see the Challenge UI pop up in the middle of the cutscene after the boss, and even though a duel with Erhardt is narratively fitting I think it would have been more interesting if the game had given you the option to decline. By the way, since you don’t get a Game Over if Olberic loses a duel in normal circumstances, does that mean you can lose to Erhardt and continue playing? Not that he was very hard with a sword weakness and the warrior divine skill, but either a refusal or a loss would have allowed this story to have a bit more of a variable outcome.

On the other hand I have no complaints about how Erhardt is handled as a character. There’s no easy resolution either in forgiveness or death, and it’s left to Olberic (and the player) how to feel about him in the end. While the reveal of another antagonist behind Erhardt could be called a slight cop-out in order to allow for this ambiguity while still giving Olberic someone to kill to finish his story, I expect Werner to tie into the combined final story in some way and so he won’t feel like he comes completely out of nowhere. I’m still undecided on the question of whether or not Olberic and Erhardt were screwing at any point, because you could certainly read their relationship that way though there’s almost nothing in the way of steamy subtext.

Gameplay comment: not as hard as I expected despite a mostly underleveled party. This was the first boss where I took full advantage of the Leghold Trap skill from hunter, which does indeed trivialize single target encounters and is easily the best thing to come out of what has so far been one of the less impressive jobs.

Oh, and Erhardt has a skill called Blazing Blade. Coincidental FE references abound.

Party banter highlights: H’annit and Ophilia try to get us to feel sorry for the monsters of the week chapter, Therion and Olberic agree to disagree, Tressa is an overeager kid again, Primrose flirts with Olberic must to his annoyance, and Alfyn again shows off his knack for accidental innuendos. He’s probably telling Olberic to figuratively pull his thumb out of his mouth, but my mind immediately went to somewhere else a horny and enterprising guy might be sticking his fingers.

Alfyn

Fitting that I’m doing him and Tressa back-to-back, because that way I can get the two most aimless stories out of the way and get back to the heavy plot stuff. Seriously, Alfyn still has no specific goal in mind even at the end of this chapter, and his next destination is set, for no apparent reason, by the ending narration of all things. At least this time it’s not on the other side of the continent.

Meanwhile the theme of his story, such as it is, appears to be building to an examination of the ethics of the medical profession – another parallel with Tressa’s tale of ethical sales practices. His Chapter 3 accomplishes this via another pair of conveniently well-timed appearances, only this time one of them was bad because the guy he saves is a child-kidnapping murderer. Whee. I’m not sure whether Vanessa from the last chapter or Miguel here works better as an antagonist; neither is obviously evil from the start, and both indirectly teach Alfyn about the world and force him to get his hands dirty (particularly here, as it’s implied that he kills Miguel or at least lets him die in the forest?). Miguel may not uncannily resemble any FE characters, but he’s an amusing example of English localizers using British slang to skirt a higher rating for language. Sodding buggery and Alfyn (and Greg Chun) saying “bollocks” – hilarious. He was also the hardest boss I’ve faced yet, being able to change his weaknesses, take multiple turns, and hit the entire party hard.

I assume Ogen will be making a reappearance in Alfyn’s last chapter, particularly after his cryptic final comment. Are we ever going to hear more about the apothecary Alfyn idolizes or what?

Party banter highlights: Tressa makes the connection between her low-stakes story and Alfyn’s explicit, Therion teaches Alfyn about the practical benefits of a bar crawl, Cyrus continues to admire Alfyn, and Alfyn fails at flirting with Primrose while getting overly complimented himself by H’annit (with no mention of an itching ass this time). The one that stuck with me most is Olberic’s, as it’s the first of their banters where the two talk to each other on equal footing. This is all the more notable as it comes right after Miguel has run off with his kidnapping victim, the emotional low point of the chapter for Alfyn.

Tressa

So many questionable writing choices, but so very gay. Tressa’s story continues to be not really about her at all, this time zeroing in on her pirate-turned-merchant friend Leon from back in Chapter 1. His doomed love affair with fellow pirate Baltazar pings all the same notes as every pair of “like brothers” *nudgenudgewinkwink* in the playable cast – Therion/Darius, Alfyn/Zeph, Olberic/Erhardt – and even explicitly nods to two of them in party banter. Tressa is just the plucky little fruit fly along for the ride, made especially evident by this chapter’s completely random boss, a venomous tiger (ok…) hanging out in the same cave where Baltazar’s treasure lies. Good on her for being so considerate of Leon’s wishes, but I have no idea how they’re going to bring this story back around to being primarily about her aside from the thrill of seeing the world. At the very end one of those black-garbed individuals who’s been trailing Cyrus shows up, so I assume that’ll be the plot hook for her final antagonist and way into the combined story. Eh, it’s better than what Alfyn’s got.

Party banter highlights: As mentioned there’s a lot of homoromantic parallels on display here – from Olberic but especially from Alfyn and his greatest treasure, Zeph’s sack. Ahem. Meanwhile Cyrus is stuck on exposition duty again, and Ophilia and Primrose get the lesbian subtext flowing even for Tressa.

Under a cut for not especially serious reasons.

Who just had an NSA hookup for the first time in months? This guy.

The nipple play and ass biting was fun, but as with rather a lot of guys who are into watersports in theory my partner of the hour couldn’t perform on command when needed.

Until I started reading up on the, ahem, discourse of a certain popular fandom I had no idea that there’s a blog that keeps statistics on the popularity of ships on Tumblr. I honestly can’t think of a more obvious indication that the supposed moral outrage over particular ships is really just a cover for a shipping war and popularity contest.

Octopath Traveler Liveblogging

A sidequest and optional dungeon interlude, since my party is overall still a little underleveled for Chapter 3 content. I freely admit to using a guide for some of this stuff because I’m lazy.

It’s a shame that sidequests form the bulk of filler content for leveling/gearing purposes aside from pure grinding, because many of them don’t actually involve anything that awards experience. There’s a bunch of nice equipment and items to obtain including lots of nuts with colorful adjectives everyone can have a giggle over and some moderately interesting vignettes among the many NPCs, but in terms of character progression it seems like the parts of this game between chapters are destined to drag a bit no matter what you do.

Some thoughts on the experience:

  • Maybe I got spoiled by Breath of the Wild since no game I’d played before was as free with fast travel points as that one, but I love the feature here just as much. It even allows me to excuse every dungeon area (even those without bosses) terminating in a dead end as you can just warp back to town.
  • I still haven’t fought anything harder than some of the chapter bosses, but it’s nice to note that even in places where I’m overleveled there’s a modicum of strategy involved in defeating random encounters. Yeah, fishing for weaknesses when I don’t have Cyrus in the party can be a pain, but it’s not one that lasts long usually.
  • Speaking of characters who are practically forced into the party, it does irk me that Therion is needed to open locked chests in almost every area. He’s now my highest leveled character apart from Olberic, which would be great if I weren’t trying my best to keep everyone at about the same level so no one falls behind. A bonus perk of starting with Therion, I guess.
  • I may be paying the price for picking up secondary jobs so early, because right now only Olberic has a divine skill. JP isn’t hard to come by, at least, but it’ll still be a while before anyone else gets there.
  • I’m not regretting any of my job choices, and I look forward to playing around with different arrangements later on. 
  • I don’t have much to say about any of the sidequest content I’ve completed so far, which includes most of those available from the Chapter 1 and 2 towns. I like that some of them follow NPC storylines in a progression, as it gives the feeling that there are other characters having their own adventures alongside yours. I have to say though that one of the quest lines needed to unlock the final boss spoils its importance by its highly conspicuous name. 
  • It took me until yesterday to figure out what the blindness status effect was; the symbol for it looks more like a collar or something than a closed eye. Tooltips for buffs/debuffs and effects would have been nice.

I’ve got a few more level-appropriate dungeons to tackle and hopefully a few more levels to get out of them, and then it’s off to the lowest Chapter 3′s.

I’m usually not one to follow extra-canonical content like interviews and answers at panels and such, but I do believe VLD just got a confirmed canon gay character with the promise that his ex-boyfriend will be appearing on the show itself in S7.

As much as I’m accustomed to dealing almost purely in subtext in fictional media, damned if it doesn’t feel good to have some text for a change.

Octopath Traveler Liveblogging

And finishing up the Chapter 2 content with H’annit and Olberic.

H’annit

I definitely felt the level jump here, since excluding Olberic my party was all in the 22-25 range going into this chapter. The random encounters in the dungeon (another forest this time) caught me off guard a few times, and the boss was a rough one having both the ability to summon minions and to increase its maximum number of shield points. I probably would have had an easier time if I’d had Cyrus or Primrose for AoE fire damage – one of those times when the weakness actually makes sense, seeing as the enemies are all plants – but oh well.

As for the story content – scratch what I said a few posts ago about H’annit and how she feels about Z’aanta, because this chapter hammers in how she regards him as a father. I was a little surprised that H’annit finds him this early in her storyline, but as he’s been petrified and the beast that did it is off somewhere else she’s still got plenty to motivate her. The circumstances of Z’aanta’s note seem just a bit contrived, but the moment lands dramatically enough to where I’m not questioning the logistics too much. Eliza also makes a reappearance, though the role of the Knights Ardante remains as cryptic as ever apart from a few lines in Ophilia’s party banter identifying them as an arm of the church. I would never have guessed.

Incidentally, as I haven’t been making use of H’annit’s beast capturing and summoning the two fights that required the use of her Path Action took absolutely forever. It’s a fun idea and I’m sure there are players who are really into the mechanic, but if I wanted to play a Pokémon knockoff I’d do pet battles in WoW or something.

Party banter highlights: This is the chapter that gives us lesbian H’annit. She refutes both types of men Primrose identifies for her, calls Ophilia beautiful and asks to spend more time with her (and the feeling seems to be mutual), and if I’m not mistaken there appeared to a bit of odd subtext between her and Natalia, the Stonegard woman with the out-of-place accent who Z’aanta was apparently wooing/sleeping with. 

Aside from the lesbianism, there wasn’t much going on. Cyrus picks up the thread from H’annit of explaining canine behavior that everyone knows, Tressa reaffirms that all the female characters have daddy issues, Therion is a city boy, and Olberic and Alfyn are blandly supportive.

Olberic

Hey, a nonstandard chapter design at last – given to the character who’s arguably the most standard RPG protagonist of the lot. I see what you did there, Square-Enix. Regardless I did enjoy the change of pace that this arena chapter brought, even if it wasn’t quite as hard as I was expecting it to be after H’annit’s chapter. The plot itself is also quite formulaic even down to a black knight as the final challenger, but it does lead into some interesting revelations about Erhardt that raise parallels with Primrose’s quest for vengeance. Olberic’s perennial angst over the reason he fights is really getting old, but after a bit of thought it does feel like it’s making a subtle point. What’s a video game character who goes around killing everyone and everything in their path without a bigger motive but a mass-murdering sociopath? Olberic’s current MO seems to be almost identical to Prim’s only his end goal isn’t explicitly murder, but the question remains of what he’ll be expecting to do after that inevitable boss fight that might not even end in Erhardt’s death.

On a lighter note, Cecily and Ned were a fun addition and good for breaking up some of the tension in this chapter. They don’t seem like the kind of characters who’ll be making another appearance in the story, but who knows?

Party banter highlights: Cyrus shares with us the bloody and dubiously ethical history of the Victors Hollow arena, Primrose warns Olberic against manipulative women (do male sex workers just not exist in this universe or are we just refusing to talk about it?), Therion is a realist about the question I posed two paragraphs ago, Alfyn is an Olberic fanboy, H’annit shares more of her master’s gambling addiction, and Tressa compares Olberic to a tree. Yep.

Trevor Noah’s feud with France over race, identity, and Africa, explained

I was unaware of this debate, and as such I found this an enlightening read even if I don’t entirely agree with the conclusion of the writer. Like many Louisianais the issue of my French identity is a prickly one as I neither live in France nor belong to la Francophonie (that is, I can’t speak fluent French). New Orleans society was built on an unusual foundation of both pre- and post-Revolutionary French ideas regarding race and ethnicity, contrasted against those of the Anglos attempting to infiltrate the city and claim it as their own. It’s never been a harmonious contrast, and it’s one that violently resists what this author identifies as France’s assimilationist model of national identity. The French of Louisiana know very well that our culture and to a lesser extent our language are in large part what has produced the state’s enduring allure to outsiders for the last half century, but we’re also aware that our own homeland would hesitate to call us truly French. 

Trevor Noah’s feud with France over race, identity, and Africa, explained