hello sorry for not posting much at all i'm in oc x oc hyperdrive and caligula effect rarepair hell (permanently)
i'm really surprised that the carmen art took off so much wao!! tysm let us all haunt the narrative by projecting our failings onto everyone ❤️ hopefully i get the energy to cook up something new because I Love Carmen and revisiting lobcorp through a friend replaying it is making my carmen sleeper agents resurface
I gotta get my thoughts about SQ from Gnosia out. I have way too much to say and if I keep it inside I'll lose my mind.
Spoilers for the game (and the anime, including spoilers past what has currently aired) below the cut.
So like, first impressions were really strong. I immediately found her compelling as a woman who sucks, something media could do with more of. I also enjoy women who are hot, know it, and weaponise that, if written well (ie written with any kind of internality). I was eager to find out what made her tick, and how much of her was a facade.
And her full story gave me even more than I ever expected. She's just so interesting! A girl who isn't supposed to exist, struggling in a hostile world - it's no wonder she has turned out so incredibly self-focused, she's just trying to survive the only way she knows how. She feels very 'new adult' to me, which tracks, because she has only one year of life experience, despite supposedly being in the latter half of her 20s.
Now, hmmmm, what other kind of woman out there might find herself only experiencing life as a real person for a short time, despite being in her mid-20s? Yeah what i'm saying is she's transfemme-coded as hell.
Like, new to Being A Person, her entire existence is something she was not "supposed" to be (side note: she was "supposed" to literally be an empty vessel for her mother to inhabit, which is honestly a fantastic way to use sci-fi bullshit to talk about real life issues with regard to toxic parents that only see their offspring as extensions of themselves. Just make it literal!), yet she exists anyway, in defiance of a cruel family who would rather she not exist? It's not much of a reach. She's also like, obnoxiously femme in a way I find tracks with people who are new to this whole being an adult woman thing. I don't think the writers did any of this on purpose, but it's how I feel about it.
I love her personality too, she's very fun, and she wants to be. She's all about being fun, and definitely isn't just masking the chasm of uncertainty she holds inside or anything, nope. It's clear she's very self-aware, in her final story scene straight up admitting to her faults, warning you not to ever trust her in other timelines. Just, ouuugh, something about that really hits. Essentially saying "be careful around me, i'm not a good person" like daaaaamn. I wish I couldn't relate to having felt that feeling. Also, despite the fact she acts like an airhead, it very very quickly becomes obvious she's way more sharp than she presents herself to be. I'm sorry, she's just peak.
Speaking of her personality, I can't not talk about how she uses sexuality. Specifically, she uses it as a defensive weapon. Like, she gets right up in your face with it, flirts with everyone, because if she initiates, she doesn't have to worry about other people trying it on. Everything must happen on SQ's terms (honestly not just about sex there, she's like that about everything)! The game even gives you an opportunity to say yes to one of her propositions, and iirc her response is basically "wait you're being serious? haha okay chill out maybe", which is kinda fascinating. It does seem to imply that her promiscuous act is all a front, although my personal theory is that she IS serious most of the time with her propositions, and only acts the way she does in that scene because a) it's implied the protag has a very intense look when they respond, and b) she probably has deeper feelings for them (at least, she has the potential to, in the right universe), so it's all just Too Much for her to want to deal with.
I gotta talk about that final scene of her story, though. You can only get it by being a Gnosia and her figuring it out (which she's pretty decent at doing. She's not great at 'winning' the game, but she's good at surviving it), then agreeing to her deal. At first, it's her typical self-serving survival thing - I won't tell anyone you're a Gnosia, i'll even help defend you, if you promise not to eliminate me. Then later on, enjoying having someone she doesn't have to lie and pretend around, she says she wishes it could just be the two of you with the ship to yourselves. So you agree, and eliminate everyone else but her. Of course, doing that means she's in a losing position. She knows this. She's literally willing to throw her life away, just for a chance to feel special. Just to feel like someone truly cares about her, if only for a moment. Like, damn.
Then to top it off, right after she warns you never to trust her, you can hold her. And if you do, it's the only time her armour completely falls away and she becomes fully emotionally honest. The way she just breaks down and sobs in an almost childlike way, no pretense, no barriers. Being the little girl she never had the opportunity to be before. It made me CRY! and of course she can only do it in a timeline where neither she nor you will be around to live with the consequences. Fuck, man. howling screaming gnashing my teeth
Also, she's a Galatea. This is something I think and talk about often with certain characters, I'll try to explain it here. She is an artificial woman, created to be beautiful, created with a specific vision. It's not a stretch to say she was intended by her creator to be more Art than Person. But she becomes a person anyway. In this case, against her creator's wishes, but still, it counts. And if you've read this far you probably know me well enough to know how I feel about Galateas. I very much love and cherish them, and I want to save them all and make them happy forever.
I don't know if that's possible with SQ. Maybe in the true ending, she'll have a chance to grow, and lead a good life. I hope so anyway.
characters who become their ideal selves through supernatural means in order to suppress the selves they loathe deeply, then having their entire world view shaken up as they are grounded back to reality, reminded by how hopeless a person they are, only to then overcome said hopeless and rediscover the origin of the dream they once had to change, to become the hero they so wanted to be, and willingly adapting that persona once more not to run away from reality but to instead live that dream in hopes that one day it will come true
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