I was indecisive regarding what other OCs I wanted to use for @stardustshimmer's Dream Circus AU so for now it's just Fright.
She ran away from her home to join the funny haha circus as an aerial performer. Her act is similar to that of @moon-mage's Selene but Fright mainly works with ribbons instead of a ring.
So, how Ava became a circus member in thr Dream Circus AU by @stardustshimmer ...
Ava was there since the very early days of the circus, and everytime they saw it bringing joy to others, it kind of like enlightened them- Giving a new purpose of "Make everyone's life a bit better with joyness"
Sorry it's been ages since this quest came around but I needed some time to get my head around it.
The latest quest in the Klein Record series gives us a peek into tightrope walker, Arika's past. Except there is no Klein record.
Spoiler warning. For this quest as well as quite a few circus related ones. Also warning for a little bit of coarse language.
Up to now, we’ve established that the ringmaster of the circus, Dan, had brainwashed all the performers into thinking they are his “daughters”. Following that pattern, Arika starts off by greeting him as her “father”.But Dan says that Arika is not his daughter, but an accomplice in the brainwashing.
Dan: “You are not my ‘daughter’...you’re an ‘accomplice’ in the brainwashing experiment”
Arika actually has the power to brainwash people but she doesn’t seem aware of it. She subconsciously uses it on herself and reverts to her younger self when she thinks about the past.
Who would think to brainwash themselves? What an outrageous tamashii....
In a way, the self-brainwashing is indicative of how desperate Arika is to buy into this lie she created herself: it is a form of escapism. However this unreliable narrator tactic has quite a few implications for a lot of circus-related quests, which I will go into later.
In a flashback, we learn that Arika came from a troubled family setting. Arika’s mother is concerned her daughter doesn’t seem aware of what she is capable of doing, while her dad just chalks it up to lack of love. Ironically, this cliched attempt to resolve an issue in a warm and fluffy manner ends up in a fight between the parents.
Arika’s mum: “You’re always like this, leaving all the domestic issues to me and saying all these things without taking any responsibility yourself!”
Arika doesn’t understand why people think she is scary. She runs away from home and finds the circus. Inside the tent she sees “the world of dreams”.
“I want to stay forever in this dream circus,” so Arika prayed, and the very next day her parents fucking sell her off to the organisation.
And then she brainwashes them to make her dream circus a reality.
“Hey Mister, you want to go (to the circus) too right?”
“I also, want to go to the ‘Dream World’”
(analysis bit starts now)
I find this quest particularly interesting because of the implications it has on our perspective of the very long series of quests revolving around Dan's circus.
This quest actually has two layers of deception. The first is when we discover Arika is actually an “accomplice” of the organisation in the brainwashing, despite calling Dan “father” like all of the other circus members. The second is when we find out Arika actually brainwashed the organisation to create the circus in the first place.
This raises some fascinating questions about characters and events we thought we knew.
First is Arika. In this quest, she is clearly painted as a victim of a dysfunctional family. The abuse she receives from her peers and the adults in her life cause her to seek some form of escape. Unfortunately when she starts thinking too much she ends up brainwashing the people around her. Conversely, this power gives her the ability to make her dreams a reality.
The morally ambiguous bit starts with her “collaboration” with the organisation. From the ending of the quest, it seems like Arika had the organisation wrapped around her thumb. They will create her dream circus that will last forever, exactly as she wished. And they did, but it seems they’ve perverted the original concept of the “dream circus” to a “death circus”. From previous quests, we know that Dan’s circus is full of excellent performers, who will literally place their life on the line to perform feats capable of receiving their beloved “father’s” approval. Past performers have indeed died in these attempts, only to be replaced by better ones. What is the purpose of this circus? I am aware the spectacularly dangerous performances help rake in loads of money. Is it to fund the organisation? Frankly, I don’t know the answer, and this quest actually confuses me more.
If the reason was that this was totally an unexpected thing that happened and is all the result of one girl’s wish; that it was totally out of the control of the organisation, I would be satisfied. But why would Arika desire people to hurt themselves in order to create the perfect circus? There's probably something else going on beneath the surface here… it might be linked to why the organisation wanted her brainwashing powers in the first place...
Don’t be fooled by the loli, this one can be dangerous..
The other character I want to talk about is Dan. From past quests, we know that he is aware of the brainwashing, but he feels guilty and even has genuine fatherly feelings for the performers. Can we vindicate him by attributing this all to him just being a victim of the organisation? But how genuine are those feelings, if they were actually part of his own brainwashing? I want to know how voluntary Dan’s participation in this circus is.
There was something I noticed recently while redoing past quests, and it’s that there is actually at least one other circus in Shoumetsu Toshi which is also related to Dan. It’s the one Mai, Rui and Yoshiaki are from (This is most clearly seen in the trapeze artist Megu’s quest, where she attempts to kill Mai out of jealousy that she is not the favourite “daughter”). I find this interesting because the part of Arika’s quest I had the most questions about is this one:
“Dan and the other ‘daughters’ are no longer here”
There is one part of the quest where the organisation straight up tells Arika that Dan and the other performers are no longer there. But Arika says her beloved circus (I think it’s called Anglermain) will never end. This is supposedly the catalyst for Dan’s circus that we know now.
So that means there was an original Anglermain circus that Dan supposedly used to work for, and is the one Arika saw as a child. But then what actually happened to it? (Now that I think about it, Shoumetsu probably happened). On that note, what did little Arika do once she made contact with the organisation?
It’s important here to note that black coat here calls the performers “daughters”. This was supposedly before Arika brainwashed him to continue the circus. Does that means the brainwashing was already happening before the Shoumetsu?
In that case, what does this mean for Dan and Mai’s relationship? I say this because we do see flashbacks of him hanging out with a young Mai and her lion Sora (from Mai's 6* quest). But I’m not sure if this is one of his visits while he was working at Anglermain. Was he brainwashed then too? Is this why father and daughter work in different circuses? Dan probably knew something shady was up for a long time and he separated himself from Mai (I really need somebody to make a timeline of these quests).
Aand I have one more question, which might seem kind of stupid but actually, when did Arika become a tightrope walker? It’s metaphorical in the quest because she walks the tightrope between fantasy and reality, as helpfully explained by Yuki. But she’s also a functioning member of the circus right? That means she has to at least have that ability. Did she actually brainwash herself into becoming a pro? What a useful (and frankly, bullshit) power. (To have a human with natural powers of brainwashing is the only qualm I have about this quest, but tbh there are probably stranger characters in this game)
Anyway this quest left me with a lot of questions but it was a super interesting plot twist in the whole scheme of things that made me reconsider a lot of things. I’m quite interested in how they conceived this, as Arika has been around for a long time now with no backstory. Did they design her with this backstory in mind the whole time? Or was it a retcon as an excuse to throw another loli into the Klein Record quests? (I would ask a similar question regarding Kano who suddenly became a main character with the announcement of Shoumetsu Toshi 0.)
The quest itself feels out of place in Klein Record because, well, there is no Klein Record. But if it is a retcon it is done very convincingly, even going so far as to explain something I never picked up in the circus master Dan's quest: why does Peko, a baker who should have no connection to the circus, also call Dan her “father”? It's because Arika's powers will work with just her standing in the vicinity.
Shoumetsu Toshi really continues to amaze me with it’s careful attention to detail and superbly presented complex storytelling. I don’t know how many past circus quests I’ve had to pull from my memory to be able to make sense of this one. It’s possible I have not even done them all. If you think I’ve missed an important quest detail from this one or any other circus quests, or if you know something that could shed some light on some of my questions, please do tell me!
Foi no dia 14 de novembro que os Witness My Fall deram o concerto oficial de apresentação do álbum “Rise”. A banda vencedora do Festival Ribarock foi desta forma “levantar” um dos prémios do concurso de bandas de Coruche. O Santiago Alquimista – essa mítica e conceituada casa de espetáculos de Lisboa foi um dos parceiros que o SoundSpread conseguiu, em conjunto com o Conta Cenas e a Câmara…
