#(also a bit of plot inspiration which I have blatantly stolen)

[marypsue]

Ahh I’m so excited to see what’s cooking up with former heroes especially bc I know some of the things that bothered you with season 3 were some of the plot points I have the most so I’m excited to see how you change them. Also I’m excited to see the rise of Joyce Byers, love triangle fiancée who is on fire ! (And hopefully not with a hopper that was s3 Hopper) Robin and Steve still scooping maybe?? Nancy and Mike being peak siblings and also Lucas hopefully getting some time shine.

Also I was wondering you hand any sneak peeks available for the Bodyswap AU or the Vampires+Steve pt3 fic!!

Hello hello nonny!

First and most importantly, I am fistbumping you through the computer screen over season 3. I'm really hopeful that this AU version is going to be satisfying, and avoid the major issues I had with season 3 without being unrecognisable from the canon. While I was considering what changes to make and how, I tried to tie it back more meaningfully to the themes of seasons 1 and 2, and I'm pleased with how that's coming through in the outline so far. Hopefully it'll work in the finished product! (Also, I can promise considerably more Peak Sibling Nonsense, and considerably less of season 3 Hopper. Although I am not making any promises at this time on the matter of dumb teenage romance bullshit.)

Also, because you asked so nicely, from the third and (hopefully) final chapter of don't let the sun go down on me:

“Did you hear? They found the Byers kid.”

Steve doesn’t have any kind of a response to that, beyond a blank stare. It’s too fucking early in the morning for how fucking early in the morning it is. He was up way too late last night, again, thanks to Nancy and Jonathan. The last thing he’s prepared to process is Tommy Hagan’s weird enthusiasm about knowing some piece of gossip Steve doesn’t.

Ordinarily, Steve wouldn’t rise to the bait. He’d play it cool, like he doesn’t actually care. Tommy will fill him in eventually, whether he cares or not.

But ordinarily, Tommy isn’t casually dropping a bombshell that could decide the future of Steve’s sanity. If they’ve found Will Byers – then there’s no reason left for Nancy and Jonathan to stick around. “What? Where?”

Tommy’s shit-eating grin gets even wider, and he slings an arm around Steve’s shoulders, steering them both deeper into the crowded, noisy halls. “Floating facedown in the quarry. Sounds like maybe whatever took a swipe at you decided to go after easier prey.”

Tommy keeps talking, but Steve barely hears him. There’s a weird roaring buzz rising in his ears, drowning out all but the pitch and cadence of Tommy’s voice. Suddenly, the crowded hallway is suffocating.

Steve barely manages to mumble out some halfassed excuse before shrugging off Tommy’s arm and breaking for the bathroom. He tries not to look like he’s running. He doesn’t know if he’s succeeding.

He’s no sooner made it into a stall than he’s hitting his knees on the grotty tile floor, clutching the porcelain bowl as his hasty breakfast makes a surprise reappearance. That bagel hadn’t tasted like anything special on the way down. It’s not improved the second time around.

When his stomach seems to be finished turning itself inside out, Steve sits back on his heels, coughing out the last lingering flecks of vomit as he wonders what the hell just happened. It’s not like he ever actually met Will Byers. Or like he’s known Jonathan for more than two days. And Steve had spent part of one of those days thinking Jonathan was a murderer.

Except. He’d been so angry when he’d thought Jonathan was a murderer. Like Jonathan had personally betrayed him. Steve’s not sure what that means. If it means anything. He’s not sure he wants to think too much about it.

Whether or not Steve actually cares about Jonathan Byers and how hurt he’s going to be by this, though – still. Still. That’s a kid. Will is just – was just a little kid. And – Steve’s memory, unhelpfully, decides to play him the highlight reel of that monster’s teeth, his dad telling him there were bites missing, Tommy saying easier prey, the excruciating pain in Steve’s stomach where the monster had slashed him open –

He wonders, with fresh horror, whether that thing got Will while Jonathan and Nancy were busy taking care of him. Even though that timeline doesn’t make any sense, he still has to dry-heave over the toilet again.

“Stevie?”

It’s the last voice Steve wants to hear right now. He groans as he twists to look over his shoulder at Tommy, and it’s only half exasperation.

Tommy ignores him. “Hey, man, you okay?”

“You look like shit,” Carol says, with a pop of her ever-present gum, following Tommy into the boys’ bathroom like she belongs there. “Rough night last night, Steve-o?”

She’s giving Steve an out. A way to save face. He flashes her a grateful smile, and hopes he doesn’t have bits of upchucked bagel stuck in his teeth. “Guess I must still be hung over.”

“Aww,” Carol tuts, with a sarcastic pout, as Tommy leans over to offer Steve a hand up off the disgusting floor. “And you didn’t invite us?”

“Hey, I know what’ll make you feel better,” Tommy announces, like he’s about to put a man on the moon. “We skip first period and hit the diner. Get you something hot and greasy to fill that bottomless pit.” He thwaps the back of one hand against Steve’s stomach with a grin.

Steve’s stomach gives another lurch. He swallows bile.

“Thanks, man,” he says, when he trusts himself enough to open his mouth. “But the diner’s been closed since Monday, remember? The owner killed himself?”

Tommy’s face falls. Steve swallows around a stab of guilt. Tommy’s his friend. He’s trying to help.

He just – he has no fucking clue what Steve’s gotten himself into this time. Neither he or Carol do.

And it’s gotta stay that way.

“Good idea, though,” Steve offers, an olive branch. “Skipping. Think I’m gonna ditch for the day.”

Tommy doesn’t totally lose the kicked-puppy look, but he does try for a smile. “You want us to tell Sanderberg you’re out sick? Sorry, sir, he was throwing up all morning,” he says, to the absent first-period teacher, voice pitched up and eyes wide in a mockery of innocence.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Steve says, knowing Tommy will at least get a kick out of winding up the notoriously suspicious Mr. Sanderberg. “Thanks, man.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tommy says, slapping Steve on the back just a little too hard.

“Are you actually sick?” Carol asks, or maybe ‘demands’ is a better word. “You’re acting weird lately.”

Steve forces a smile, hoping it doesn’t look too much like a grimace, as he shuffles over to the sinks to rinse out his mouth. “Nah. Told you. I’m just hung over. Gonna head home and sleep it off.”

Carol, in the mirror behind his head, does not look convinced. But she doesn’t say anything more, either.

Steve does feel a little bad about leaving her and Tommy behind, as he heads out to the parking lot and his car. But they’d never understand. They’d never believe him. Hell, in the cold, bright light of day, Steve barely believes himself.

And, he thinks, as he peels out of the high school lot, there’s no way he could bring Tommy and Carol with him where he knows he has to go now.

#chatter #this is mary's fic tag #stranger things #figuring out that the themes of seasons 1 and 2 included both 'what happens when love becomes stronger than fear' #AND 'things are not always as they seem' #really brought it all together imo and I do have to thank season four for providing me with clarity on that front #(also a bit of plot inspiration which I have blatantly stolen) #writing the vampire fic at the moment feels kind of like speeding down an icy hill in a car that is on fire #we're going somewhere and we're going FAST and things keep happening! but if I am not careful to keep in control #the wheels are going to come off #I think it is going to need a lot of editing to turn what made it onto the page into something that has the impact it had in my head #sometimes you get possessed by an idea that is SO COOL that you forget not everybody can see all the cool parts inside your brain #and you write it down very very fast and then have to give it a little while to cool off before you can look at it with a stranger's eyes #and go 'oh yeah I totally forgot to explain why that bit matters didn't I'

[the-crippled-god]

Ys: Memories of Celceta

This is the first SEVENS engine game I've finished. I played about 5 hours of Ys: SEVEN on the PSP, and didn't enjoy the combat system much. That carried through to this game, at least for the first half. It's too button mashy, and the AI partners are useless.

However, once you start getting skills, and enemies get tough enough you actually have to dodge/block it starts to be fun. Really wish the AI was a bit smarter, but I ended up enjoying the system none the less.

It really feels like you can break this game in half if you found a reliable way to farm gold and abused the weapon upgrade system. Only shame is that bosses are immune to all status effects.

As a general rule, I was struggling to get through this game up until I got to the Primeval Lands, then the story actually kicks off and the combat gets good.

As far as complaints, here:

- This is a PC port of a PS4 port of a Vita game, and you feel it. Everything works, but certain aspects of the controls, and all of the interfaces and menus, are designed for a touch screen. It's never really a problem, but it looks ugly. They tried to make the game look better with shaders and AA, but the models are really low poly and the textures are pretty low res, it looks fine most of the time, but sometimes cutscenes look really rough.

- The game is about creating a map. But the map you're trying to fill in is offset from the terrain, so to get those last few percentages you need to hug the walls in certain areas, and it really feels like they should've either caught this in QA, or patched the game when they ported it from the Vita

That's pretty much it. Other complaints are a lot more subjective or petty (combat starts a little too hard, but becomes too easy, gold feels too scarce up until you no longer need it, etc.).

Story wise, this is a lot beefier (or at least wordier) than previous games, so I'll skim just the important bits, and bit I found charming:

- The framing device of the series is finally made explicit: What we're experiencing are re-tellings (from several centuries later) of travelogues left behind by Adol, and that Adol was a legendary adventurer who brought about the 'Age of Discovery'

- Adol finally has a personality: He's inquisitive and curious to the point of it being a character flaw, he can't help but stick is nose into everything and constantly hound people with questions. He also really likes lame jokes. I found him actually charming, which I wasn't expecting.

- The era of the world is much more clear: It's less medieval, and more early age of conquest type stuff, large empires are sending armies and explorers to frontiers in attempts to map and rule the enitre world.

- Duran is a fun companion, if only because he gets to be the butt of every joke. The twist with his background is a good way of giving the character depth when he's also the only character without his own arc in the story.

- Karna is boring. Maybe this is just because I read the (5 chapters available in english) of the Mask of the Sun manga and she's much more fun there. Her and Remnos's story just being a redo of the Fact brother's story from Origin didn't really help. I like Remnos though, which he had more presence in the story.

- Ozma is also boring. He's just kind of a type or character I don't like. The whole one with nature / compelled by sacred duty thing always feels tedious to me. He also has the least personality, he never really has conversations with the other compansions, he's just kinda there.

- Calilica is adorable. Precocious and snarky and thinks she's way smarter than she is? Fun. Every scene with her in it is a good scene.

- Frieda is cool, but the game doesn't really give her enough time to shine. Her snarking at Duran and fooling with Adol is good, and her fairy embarassing her is also good, but there's just not quite enough of it. I'm assuming both her and Duran come back in another game, because boy do they leave a lot of open plot threads lying around in Danan.

- I get that the game is trying to portray Eldeel as benevolent, but he's so weirdly patronizing in how he treats humanity that I wanted to kill him before he turned evil.

- Griselda also needs more screen time, for such a cool design it's a shame she's relegated to only a couple inconsequential scenes.

Okay, very quick high level story summary (mostly just the bits that matter to the over all series):

At the start of the game Adol has lost his memories, he's already been through the Great Forest once, but doesn't remember it. The new Governer General of Casnan/Celceta (okay this is confusing, is Celceta just the ancient kingdom, or is it also the new one run by the Ronoms? Casnan is certainly the city, but characters are inconsistent on the name of the country), Griselda, arrives and sends Adol and Duran on a quest to map the Great Forest. They set out to map the forest, and see about recovering Adol's memory. They evenutally meet Ozma and Karna, and help them with some problems their respective villages are having. In solving these problems they encounter a beast tamer and a magician, who are up to no good. Reporting on map progress to Griselda, and trying to work out where to go next, Adol runs into her new aide, Gruda. Duran recovers a journal Adol wrote before losing his memories (spoilers: presumably recovered from his grave by Frieda), that hints at how to cross the rives and reach the Primeval Lands. Upon reaching the Primeval Lands Adol and company encounter Adol's own gravestone, and the village of Highland. Highland worhips the 'god' Eldeel, who lives in a tower nearby surrounded by storms. Adol was brought there previously by one of Eldeel's apostles Leeza. Highland is surrounded by a barrier field that causes anyone who leaves it to forget anything about it. This is how Adol lost his memories. The people of Highland found his belongings at the foot of a waterfall, and assumed he drowned. Adol had previously met with Eldeel and been given something. Eldeel is a god who imparts knowledge onto various humans in order to guide civilization, because although people forget highland upon leaving, they'll eventually be inspired by the knowledge he gave them, and believe they came up with the ideas themselves. The example he gives is granting the losing side of an ongoing naval war access to a more advanced ship design, evening the odds. The game aggressively skims over how that likely just massively increased the death toll of the conflict, but don't worry Eldeel is a good guy, promise.

Here's where the game gets a little odd. Eldeel is blatantly the same race as Reah and Feena. Adol I guess doesn't talk about this because he doesn't remember Ys? You eventually get memories back of Dogi, but never any of what happened in Esteria. Just seems weird to me that even after you recover all your memories, you can't ask Eldeel about where he came from.

Eventually we work out that Eldeel is sick, and sneak into his tower to check on him, there we find evil Eldeel, who demands that Adol return the Mask of the Sun, something Eldeel gave to him the last time they met. We now know how Adol lost his memories. Eldeel gave him the Mask, for some reason (I think to destroy it, but we'll get to that), the his sickness took over, turning him bad, where upon he chased Adol down and knocked him off a waterfall. So, the Mask should be in his grave, right? Nope, we already investigated the grave for other reasons, and found it empty.

Upon returning to Highland we find it under attack by Ronom soldiers, specifically Gruda, the soldiers are using strength enhancement masks that was being trialled on people from Karna's village. Karna's brother Remnos, also appears to be working with Gruda (along with the two shady people we'd already encountered). Gruda is also looking for the Mask, and his team quickly take control of the tower while Adol and co. are distracted saving the town. Soon after, we find that Gruda and Eldeel have both fled the tower, headed for the ancient kingdom of Celceta.

Somewhere in here we learn the purpose of the Mask of the Sun: it enables the wearer to read the Akashic Records.

Eventually our journey takes us to the hidden city of Danan (Dana? Unclear, map calls it Danan, so), Danan is populated by descendants of people who betrayed the gods 800+ years ago. Eldeel brought them here and forgave them, but the people of Danan continue to maintain records of forbidden knowledge in order to keep the world safe. Duran (and Frieda) is an agent of Danan. Duran saved Adol and brought him back to Casnan at the beginning of the game, intending to leave him, but ended up helping him out. Frieda also recovered the Mask of the Sun from Adol's grave, and it's being kept in the village.

Leeza shows up and takes the mask (believing she can use it to save Eldeel), she has a giant mech, so we can't exactly stop her. The mask is quickly stolen from her by Gruda. This is where we learn that Gruda is also from Danan. He became obsessed with forbidden knowledge a few years back, and left Danan, taking up the old (disgraceful) mantal of the Danan people, calling himself a Darkling. When he left, Frieda's fiancee also left with him, pursued by his younger brother (I'm assuming this will come up in another game).

We chase Gruda and Eldeel (now basically fully evil) to the Temple of the Sun, where the Akashic Records are stored, however we can't follow them inside because it will only open for the wearer of the Mask.

Through the Roos/Roda Tree we learn of the existence of a second (less powerful) mask, the Mask of the Moon, and seek it out. While hunting down the mask we learn some stuff about water dragons that makes Ozma happy, and learn that Remnos was just pretending to be evil (no duh) and save his life. Later we meet the ghost of the old king of Celceta, and learn that Leeza is his descendent. He explains that we can use the Mask of the Moon to surpress Eldeel's dark side, at least for a short while.

We enter the Temple, fight Eldeel, use the Mask of the Moon to make him good again (temporarily), and pursue Gruda (who now has the Mask of the Sun) into the Akashic records. We eventually kill him, but destabilize the records as a result. So, we take the Mask of the Sun and throw is into a volcano (this section is so obviously LotR that it's not even funny), destroying the Akashic Records (and thus freeing humanity from it's pre-written history) forever.

Everyone lives, and Eldeel goes off to kill himself, remarking in much the same way Feena/Reah did in Ys II, that Humanity is much better off than they were in the age of the gods.

So, a few good hooks in there for stuff to come later. The Danans obviously have a lot more going on. There's details about Eldeel and the kingdom of Celceta that hint at the same incident as Ys Origin did (a people betraying the gods, etc.). The confusing piece to me is timelines. Ys fell 700 years ago, Celceta fell 800 years ago, when Celceta was founded, Danans already no longer called themselves Darklings. So, where was Dalles and crew from? Is Eldeel actually one of the God race? Or is he like Reah and Feena, among the betrayers, but stole technology from them in order to help humanity? What's the difference between these betrayers and the Darklings? Hoping the next couple games will answer some of these questions.

Up next is the only Ys game I'd already beaten before starting this. Ys: The Oath in Felghana. I remember really enjoying this game (it's what got me in to the series), and not finding it too long or difficult. Which is weird, because looking it up, it has the repuation for being the most difficult in the series. Let's see how it is on the revisit.