You know what? This blog isn't controversial enough, so time to throw a grenade in the water.
I find it very fascinating how, and this isn't exclusive to IDV, readings of IDV often feature what I like to call "Systemic Scapegoat Syndrome," where one character is declared the enactor of all bad deeds, so that the reader doesn't have to confront the idea that their favorite character is capable of systemic harm, or that harm is not always intentional and individual.
You can see this very well with characters such as Philippe, Orpheus, Keigan, and others unmentioned. Notably characters who often look "unattractive" as Hunters because The Halo Effect never dies. The individual actions of these characters (Philippe's physiognomy and its effects on Patricia, Luca, and Amanda/Dogma; Keigan's corruption of the justice system; Orpheus' vengeance quest) outweigh any commentary the text is trying to offer on the systems that hardened such characters in the first place.
What is the reason for highlighting Philippe's mother was likely killed by Richard Sterling, an attractive changeling in a wealthy white household, but Philippe focused on crimes supposedly conducted by poc and disabled people? What is the reason why Keigan felt the only way to retain power in society was disfigurement and corruption, and why is she placed in opposition to Edmund Reed? What are the systemic circumstances that lead Orpheus to having such a cynical outlook on the nature of humanity?
But assuming that a character like Orpheus' biases are the source of discomfort is much more palatable than admitting, say, that Mike Morton is enacting misogyny towards Margaretha Zelle.
From a horror perspective, it’s a shame. Gothic is so interested in the horrors of system, while cosmic fears an uncaring system, and for neither to be acknowledged is lacking. I suspect this is the source of the common complaint that “there’s no focus on horror” in IDV. It’s not bloody, but it’s much more disturbing.
But these readers want to be scared, not uncomfortable.
so i did a whole analysis/explanation/infodump about luca's newest letter on my discord server and. figured i may as well post it here! theres a lot of fun tasty things in here and some confirmation of things that have been implied in previous letters which is fun to look at. please keep in mind i dont have the entirety of every character and manor game's lore memorized so while i did double check some things i mightve missed some stuff. anyway its all below the cut since its Long have fun :)
(also feel free to chime in with any thoughts/feelings/opinions/ideas!)
so theres three sections to this letter! im gonna go section by section, but some parts of the last section are mentioned earlier so uh. sorry if you havent read it yet (id recommend u do read it first)
so part 1 is pretty fun. luca is confirmed to have survived game 10 (which also features tracy, charles, and bonbon though we dont currently know who the fourth survivor participant is) And its implied that hes the only survivor of the game (according to the "fleeting victory" thats the assumption at least). his traits w being able to connect the ciphers is also officially tied into the lore here; there are in fact wires running underneath each arena (or at the very least whichever arena lucas game was in which we dont know yet iirc) so its canon that he can do what he does in matches and its not something that the detective incorrectly deduced lorewise (idk if any of the survivor abilities are Actually incorrect deductions/not actually things that theyre doing (like for example priestess's portals, etc that seem more far-fetched) but since we know hes done other things incorrectly (like "prisoner" and "psychologist" titles being in quotes/technically wrong) i figure he mightve gotten some of those wrong too). luca is also Super Fucked Up w an unusuable left arm (and his previous injuries which we know includes at Least severe brain trauma but likely physical trauma too considering his time in prison + the leg braces) so uhhhhhhhhhhh. my money is NOT on him for the next game.
which is the fun next thing to talk about: baron deross is making him do another game!! this confirms whats implied in emmas 2022 letter (she writes "I've won the previous round, for now" which implies a second round if not more), and probably means that helena and galatea would also go through another round even though its not confirmed yet. so far we dont have a record of what happens in any second manor game for a player who has won (as far as i remember); usually what happens is entire groups are eliminated before the game and the only survivor goes on to the next round to try again by default rather than having won the game (like murro and luchino). so far luca's second game is the only one we have ANY info about for a survivor whos won their first game; we know that alva is in it and its heavily implied ann is in it (we'll get to this later) so we'll likely find out what happens once we get either of their experiment letters. its also interesting that the baron seems to reveal more information about the experiments to luca after luca won his game, but its hard to know whether thats because luca is also a scientist or if he reveals that to everyone who wins. my guess is maybe the former bc u Know luca would have questions and theres also no mention of baron deross saying anything like that in emmas, galateas, or helenas letters.
on to section 2!!! (there was a slur against disabled people in the last line of this section so. thats whats blocked out)
OKAY SO. definitely confirmed that hes in a second manor game, its not even subtext its just right there. assuming the "mechanisms" refer to the same mechanisms that are running under the arena and connecting the cipher machines my guess is that this is what he used to shock other participants?? rather than just being to conduct electricity through himself like he does in the game?? idk thats just spaghetti at the wall its not clear here how he actually got shocked and why. it Is clear that he passed the fuck out at some point or another/his memory issues have gotten worse and the wiki points to that guy in his dream being hermann, so that's. interesting. theres an implication here that luca and hermann used to be closer, but once luca started w physics hermann went mmmm time to stop being a father. which. checks out knowing hermann. whats even more interesting is that luca calls hermanns ideas "ludicrous fantasies" that are neither idealistic nor realistic, because like luca you went and did THE EXACT SAME THING. BRO HE WORKED ON PERPETUAL MOTION. YOURE WORKING ON PERPETUAL MOTION. IM SORRY YOU CANT CLOWN ON UR DAD FOR RUINING HIS LIFE OVER PERPETUAL MOTION WHEN U DID LITERALLY THE EXACT SAME THING
anyway.
i do wonder if this is meant to imply that hermann was in fact actually working on a More ridiculous version of perpetual motion or if luca is just biased as hell against hermann. im banking on the latter there is no way in hell that luca is a reliable narrator considering all his memory issues + his general tendency to outright grab people hes mad at by the throat (<- fun fact we see this at least twice once in alvas backstory video and again in gattos backstory video. luca is the same across all timelines). also implications that hermann became an alcoholic. im guessing as a kid luca was told it was medicine and he hasnt put the pieces together?? or its ironic. idk could be either with him. i highly doubt its actually medicine. ALTHOUGH. theres an alternate explanation here; when luca says "swallow them down" i initially thought he was referring to hiding his "final feelings", since sometimes swallowing down feelings is a phrase used for that kind of thing. but potentially this could be implying that hermann had luca take some kind of medicine potentially to get rid of those feelings in some way?? personally i think its the former because we already know hermann was wasting his life and money so becoming an alcoholic would be an easy answer, but this is probably just because i dont have any answers if it were the latter. something to think about
now the third part, which gives us info about the next manor game!
so first the "gaunt old man" is (according to the wiki which i agree with in this case) mad eyes, which makes sense because mad eyes was involved in game 8/9 right before this and game 10 was filled with inventors + bonbon so it only makes sense he was there. no idea where he went though. whats more fun is that luca is now In The Fucking basement Walls where mad eyes used to be bc luca doesnt trust the rest of the participants. considering the "abnormal eyes" and that alva is here we know for sure that this is those related to the eye of darkness cult, which means ann is also definitely there. whats even more interesting is that this implies the existence of at least one more member of the eye of darkness cult whos going to be in this game; luca says "new participants" and "these people", and considering how specific the letters usually are with other things i would guess hed say "those two" if it were only ann and alva (of course its possible that theyre the only two have arrived at the writing of this journal, but considering he refers to a ritual coming up soon my money is on all the participants being of the cat cult except luca). luca makes a good note that this new game is likely the opposite of the previous and more focused on religion/spirituality which checks out w the participants, but DAMN hes an asshole about their writing style LMAO. sorry luca not everyone can have the same notes u do
the "brother in faith" guy here is alva, and i personally believe that he can in fact believe see through walls just bc thats funny as hell. just kidding its likely because luca is not as subtle he thinks he is because alva Literally Knows Him. other people might not be able to know hes there but like. that guys also a scientist. hed be able to figure out that theres someone in the walls AND he does in fact know luca. its difficult to tell bc of lucas memory issues but this probably also implies that alva looks very different from how he did in life (i doubt its as tall/etc as in his hunter form since thats what they all see when drugged not what he Actually looks like but im sure theres some stuff like his shorter hair/grayish skin/etc that carries across). i for one am fucking thrilled that theyre in a game together bc oh my god this is a time bomb and im just waiting to watch it explode (again).
as for the last line about a ritual... teehee. im very excited for whatever this is going to be and its killing me that this is the Only Information we have on it so far. likely we're going to have to wait for more alva and ann letters on this one, as well as whoever the third eye of darkness cult member is going to be, but i have no doubt that we'll have some more info eventually. if i had to take a guess its going to heavily affect how game 10-2/11 turns out; i highly doubt any ritual goes on without a sacrifice, and, well... theres only one guy here whos not already part of the cult. things are not looking great for lucas future.
Current thoughts on the Reunion Time trailer: the little blonde girl is most likely the DeRoss's daughter - I've thought this for awhile, especially since the DeRosses are blonde and BonBon's deducs mention her wearing a white dress. The dark-haired woman on the files kinda looks like the one who was holding the girl during the fire in one of the older story trailers- possibly the biological mother of the DeRosses' adopted son, since he has dark hair and it's maybe implied she was at the riots
No idea who the dark-haired guy on the files is - maybe the son's biological father?
Anyway, Reunion Time seems to be the map from the last story trailer, which had Orpheus injured and running from the hunter with the bird mask and trying to help the blonde girl (who was transparent, like a ghost) escape from bird mask as well as some other hunter-looking guys (one of which was also transparent).
The title of the story is also interesting - there's been some theories that Orpheus may be the DeRoss's son, so if that were the case he'd be reuniting with his sister, the dead little girl. Now, this theory is both reasonable and odd because Orpheus has amnesia....which supposedly happened 3 years ago (why then, specifically?) And if the riots were 10 years ago, Orpheus should only be like 20-something because the son was still a kid at the time (imo he looks in his 30s to me but who knows).
However, this theory does make more sense in context with the Memory Pages (you can find a translation on the wiki) in the Netherwalker's Offer package from last year. The pages, mentioning a game and hunters, don't seem to be based in COAverse or Truth & Inference-verse and refer to a young girl named Alice with a brother who lost his memories, likely due to a plant-based drug known to cause hallucinations and amnesia of the time while under the drug's influence.
This might also explain Orpheus's "other self" - it could be a product of the drug.
Anyway, idk if any of this means anything, but weird timeline aside, I'm thinking Alice may be the DeRoss girl and Orpheus is her brother? And Reunion Time will be about them meeting again?
Btw, the reason I don't think the missing girl is the blonde one is because we actually kind of have a picture of the missing girl from the game intro and she looks older than the blonde girl and also has completely different hair and face styles.
(Also side theory but like imagine Baronness DeRoss is Ms. Nightingale and the Baron is the bird mask hunter....I have nothing to support this except that the Baronness has feathers on her dress and and the bird mask hunter had access to the manor files *but* I like the idea so I'm sticking with it for now)
One day the IDV community will be ready to recognize the same face/body syndrome is 1. primarily a female character problem and 2. has been going on for years.
But I think that would require a willingness to self-reflect on female character designs that I do not this the community is currently capable of.
I have been thinking about this due to the surprise usage of DID in Truth and Inference, but I really hope that because of the greater attention to the intentionality of the writers and artists of IDV (because of the acknowledgement Joker Studios =/= NetEase), the fandom will also start to reflect on how it reconstructs ableism.
The majority of my discussion regarding uncomfortable topics revolves around the story, but I did want to briefly touch upon this.
Since the early days of the fandom, I've noticed a trend that disability (particularly mental illness or brain trauma) is treated with extremes. Mental illness is either ignored or softened to be a source of angst to be comforted about, or it is overblown into exaggerated stereotypes as a form of conflict.
Unlike the internal writing of IDV, this trend hasn't experienced major changes over the years. Emma, Kurt, Naib, Luca, Andrew, Orpheus, Frederick, Lily, and others have experienced this characterization.
Since his release, Luca's brain damage has been either used to portray him as ditzy, impulsive, and forgetful, rather than the uncomfortable side effects it has on him in the story. He's bitter, sarcastic, and reflective. Alternatively, it's used to portray him as unstable and mad, rather than how it's implied it was used as justification for medical torture in prison. It's not a part of him but a set of symptoms to exaggerate or remove depending on intent.
Lily and Emma usually feature the "quirky illness" version, particularly Lily. She's treated as being silly or completely out of touch with reality, rather than examining the intersection between domestic abuse, mental illness, and why Lily chose to listen to Galatea's advice. Emma usually has her mental illness removed entirely, alongside any traits of hers seen as "uncomfortable," such as her vengeance. This is a common plight of female characters.
I watched a small but notable shift in the perception of Frederick as his psychasthenic symptoms intensified from '"the voices" as an indistinguishable concept to the "Blueberick" of Frederick's Concerto, with intense internal criticism, anger-based anxiety (alongside Andrew), and possible disassociation. Curiously, I also notice this intensification the same time Ode to the Eternal Night and Cage of Yesteryear reveled Frederick left his family rather than direct disownment. I think it's possible there is an unconscious belief the ableism he faced is less meaningful if he chose to remove himself from it.
The most upsetting cases I've seen have involved Orpheus, due to his position as the Baron being a morally ambiguous one that places him in opposition with numerous other characters. He has DID, a highly stigmatized, misunderstood dissociative disorder, and was (mis)diagnosed in an early IDV text with BPD, another stigmatized disorder.
I've seen fanfics where Orpheus being institutionalized or arrested was treated as a positive fate for himself and others. Sometimes there was justification that it was a "humane" institute at the time, other times there wasn't. I've seen Orpheus be called "psycho," described as faking his disorder, and portraying some of his suicidal symptoms/actions as the beneficial outcome for himself and others. I've even seen more compassion for the Blanches ("poor Mr. Blanche wanted to save his wife") and that it was Orpheus' fault for not handling his trauma in the "right" way. Never-mind this is the exact, faulty logic he believes about others due to said trauma.
I don't believe these were written malevolently, nor do know if anyone who created these will read this, but I do want to emphasize it's tasteless in a story so interested with systemic ableism. While some places have progressed since the days of Blackwell's Island, to say the systemic abuses are gone is ignorant. I've had loved ones who have suffered from said system. It's worse if you live somewhere psychiatric healthcare is unregulated. Exhausted staff in a position of power combined with patients (possibly without families) who are unable to speak out creates a system primed for abuse, and the abuse compounds with minority status (poc, physically disabled, queer, etc). While many characters in IDV often feature flanderization of their characters to wholly sympathetic or demonized, it intersects with an ignorance about systemic ableism.
Orpheus doesn't feel anything. He's a fictional character. But his reception as a fictional character is impacted by the real stigmas disorders like DID and BPD have (and, as Detective, possible brain trauma). I have witnessed these stigmas firsthand, how they damage people, and how they disrupt living with these disorders. A person with one of these disorders could be reading your fanfic.
When IDV is very interesting in criticizing this system (and not the patients), treating being placed in these systems as a punishment regarding a "dislikable" character with mental illness is frustrating.
I believe part of this is caused by the belief that there wasn't intentionality within the IDV text. If there isn't intentionality, you can just "play will dolls" and remain above what you're implying with your reconstruction. This is, of course, baseless. Whether you agree with the subtext or not, the writers/artists were intending many forms of subtext, and the audience engages in an act of creation by interpreting this subtext. Likewise, the audience to your creation is capable of interpreting and criticizing it, just as they can with the subtext itself.
It becomes more frustrating with the aforementioned changes to how IDV handles disability, particularly mental illness, over the years. We've gone from Kurt's delusions being treated as a twist to a systemic evaluation of how the insights of the mentally ill are disregarded. We've seen characters whose shocking depiction of mental illness have either been downplayed (Jack) or recontextualized with nuance (Emma). The treatment of Lord Lumien's DID feels like a pinnacle. We started with DID being treated with ominous mystery, Villain Charm set up as an enemy within. Now, we see Unidentified Phenomena and Black Vulture are parts of Lord Luminen. They are not the source of his choices, but not disconnected from them either. The writers have improved.
There's no grand solution to this. The most I can say is consider what do you think about mental illnesses such as DID, BPD, and symptoms such as dissociation, anger-based anxiety, or psychosis. Ask yourself if portraying characters with these disorders/symptoms as yanderes, liars, psychos, or incapable of love or deserving of abandonment to a system is less a commentary on the moral ambiguity of a character, but an extension of stereotypes.
Always remember someone with one of these disorders could be reading. How you address mental illness could be read by someone who's hurt by what you say. You, the reader, are always one bad accident away from suffering brain damage and/or developing a mental illness. There is no such thing as ordinary people.
If the writers could do it, I hope the fandom can as well.
I PLAYED CRYPTIC NOTES SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO (NOT CLICKBAIT)
Joking aside, I mentioned once or twice I'm part of a team working on archiving all of Identity V (including the little birds with methods some may deem... unnatural). We avoid logging in to do so, barring designated scapegoats.
However, the designated scapegoats suck at Cryptic Notes and needed help. You may have guessed from my mentions of being high-rank before the boycott, my willingness to main a tie Hunter in hight tier, and my constant allusions to games like Silent Hill or Bloodborne.... I am a difficulty sicko. A freak. I like my games hard and I like them irritating.
So last week I was called in to help the designated scapegoats archive Cryptic Notes and, after a few frenzy-fueled nights of playing, acquired everything (including stickers and tags). I've been declared the Cryptic Notes Collector to either play or help collect everything for next update.
What did I think of the new game mode?
Not good.
So, Cryptic Notes.
The pitch of the game is that it's like Lethal Company or Content Warning but, after playing it, I think shovelware Resident Evil or Amnesia knockoffs are better comparisons, with the extraction element being pasted on as currency and an obligatory time limit of twelve minutes.
The map is procedurally generated with items either scattered around, with certain rooms such as the piano room, the master bedroom, and the Muse room being identifiable by their gold outlines on the maps.
The game mode is horribly unbalanced. It's very RNG-reliant: Sometimes you see the most difficult enemies once in an entire run, other times several spawn at once, but it's obscenely easy (even on hard mode with randoms) in a group and obscenely difficult single-player...
Well, it was. Then I figured out how to cheese it.
How to Cheese Cryptic Notes
As of the writing, this is what I do to cheese Cryptic Notes.
What you need:
Shotgun - deal with Sighs (balloons), Wraiths (not!Banes), and Big Dolls. Make sure to reload.
Hydra staff - deal with other enemies. Allows you to dash to dodge damage and parry ability which protects from Wraiths too.
Syringe - Heal when your ability is on cd in safe zones.
Mint - to run fast without wasting stamina, good for exploring fast
Goggles - Allows you to see in the dark for several minutes
Item of your choice (ex: Flamethrower or emergency tp book)
Healer build - gives you free heal every 60 seconds and spares you from one instance of lethal damage
What to do: After making sure all your items set up, run outside and go towards the wall to your left. There should be some rubble that allows you to climb up to a wall leading to a 2nd floor door. Go through this door and turn on your night vision goggles.
From here, go run around the 2nd floor looking for two things: Locked Boxes (represented by a purple/gold vault icon) and locked wooden boxes. Collect as many purple and, more importantly, gold items you can get until you are either full (go back to lobby to deliver items then rush out) or fill your quota of 80000. Kill everything except baby dolls and pale men (axe guys reading) on sight. But if they turn hostile immediately pump them full of lead or set them on fire.
Rooms that you should keep an eye out for are master bedrooms, ballrooms, and Muse music box rooms. These almost 100% have a guaranteed A or S box in them. However they're most likely to spawn strong monsters like Wraiths so be prepared.
If you find a Muse room with the music box, make sure to deliver the music box LAST because to open the treasure room (has 4 guaranteed A/S vaults). it must be opened with the music box.
The best part about this is the profit: In hard mode, you can get 700 logic points per run, regardless of if you live or die, so you can get more logic points from Cryptic Notes than most QM, Causal Modes, or Ranked.
You can get 10000 logic points in about an hour, so you can max the logic path in about 4 hours, not all of which have to be done at once.
If you are not boycotting or soft boycotting (f2p), congrats, enjoy your new way to cheese the logic path. Bathe in your wealth.
I don't want to touch the mode until I'm called back to my personal hell.
The Lore
I'll separate this into a future post, but the lore is, as I have complained about with Cage of Yesteryear, more interested in 1. Explaining the Winston (Oletus) Manor lore for people who weren't paying attention and 2. Drumming up questions that probably won't be explained satisfactory. It's bad.
The general idea is an alternate universe where Orpheus seemingly didn't exist, so, as a result, all three Winstons (including Alice) died in the Massacre, with the protagonist being a new part of raiders breaking into the decrepit Manor, only to learn something spoooooky is going on.
The Codex Entries were missing until the 25th. For a mode they hyped up since May, it's telling to me they couldn't even prepare smaller entries before the release date. The developmental pipeline is fucked.
The Entries themselves hype tidbits about Arthur Winston/Dennis having conducted deals in the Mediterranean before. More disappointingly, it implies Jules Winston/Alice DeRoss is special and chosen by Winston/Oletus Manor in some form and that's why she was called the Cursed Girl, not because of misogyny and unfortunate circumstances. Everyone in Winston/Oletus is trapped during the night of the Massacre, which is definitely 100% what people asking for more information about the Dreamlands wanted. Arthur Winston was being compelled by the Manor to try and murder his wife and daughter, which was part of his erratic actions before the bandits murdered him.
Oh and no explanation for the little boy in the family portrait. The portrait in the text only has three people. Maybe they'll reveal there's a secret second son everyone forgot but I am tired of Moffatian bullshit.
The one interesting thing that came from any of this is that the protagonist, who is part of a second group of raiders and looks suspiciously like Orpheus, has a daughter he's trying to afford medication for, which provides some insight as to how Memory developed. That's it. Out of thousands of words that's it.
I am well-aware there are two more parts for Bringer of Doom waiting to be added, with more lore and more enemies. Including Miss Nightingale. I still think the same.
The Gacha
It's technically free but the gacha in Cryptic Notes is filled with dark mechanics to try and make you play more.
First, there's two gachas. The first gacha is made from the ink currency you get from selling items you retrieve in the mode. You get one free pull a day, with each pull giving some blueprints as pity, which can be exchanged for items in the shop. So, by both selling and waiting for free daily, it's incredibly easy to get all the items. Not too bad.
But then there's the weapon reskin gacha. After pulling the weapon from the first gacha, you now exchange the ink and the feathers you can collect in the game mode to roll a dice to reskin each part of the weapon. There are five different parts and you can lock four so they don't change between rolls, but you have to roll in order to unlock the other parts. So, if I wanted to, say, get the rare sword design (based off The Divine Comedy) I would have to roll several times praying I get the handle, the hilt, the blade, the color, and the trait correct. I burned through all of feathers I had collected in the mad days of quest completion trying to get the rare item alone and, therefore, decided it was not feasible to archive the other swords. It's bad.
You can see how predatory this is to try and guarantee people continue playing Cryptic Notes to get the sword they want.
Is It Worth It?
I say this with a lot of passion, as someone who has played dozens of horror games, including extraction, survival, and asymmetric horror, and I say this as a fan of IDV since 2018.
Cryptic Notes was a mistake.
Yes, the mode will be patched, yes the mode will have expansions, yes there will be even other books. I know all of this and my opinion will not shift.
First off, let's look at the resources invested in every single Cryptic Notes season: A book with an entire story split over three chapters; three lore entries for each of the monsters, classics, and other significant items; a procedurally generating map with additions per chapter update; multiple monsters with several stronger variants; and a final boss.
All of that without an indication that the production pipeline of the rest of the game are slowing down: the annual story update, Christmas, both anniversary events, Halloween, Summer, several characters a year are still happening in spite initial suggestions otherwise.
This mass production is unsustainable without costs to either your team or implementation of low quality Hail Marys like Gen AI. We are already seeing the consequences of this with issues like the Fatty Wang Skin Plagiarism.
"But the seasons are several months long!" I know, and it's still not enough.
Because we also don't know the internal structure of Joker Studios, which already is split between Sea of Remnants and IDV, we don't know how many resources are now permanently redistributed towards Cryptic Notes. Imagine if these resources were distributed towards something else, such as biannual story updates, or IDENTITY Swaps.
But that's not what people want. People want skins for their faves and, when push comes to shove, characters like Memory are going to be given more lore, more love, more quality than characters who are trapped in limbo like Arthur Byers. The CN Server has speculated on some of the Essences that will be chosen and based off the names, it's for stories like Lily, Alva, and Melly. The only unpopular character I suspect could be chosen is Efron, due to Field of Reeds possibly referencing the Egyptian afterlife. Not exactly a Jeffrey or Jose-based Essence.
The Lore, too, represents a downgrade I have feared since Cage of Yesteryear. It's spoon-fed, it reduces tragedies from terrible miracles to something spoooOoooky, and it doesn't trust you to like Alice enough on characterization that it has to implement special powers for her. Oh and the doll implies that one of Winston/Oletus' quirks is that it splits people's souls, so have fun for that being the explanation for Nightinalice or Orph's DID or any ID Swap!
And Essences too are no longer unique glimpses into alternative worlds but just novels Orpheus wrote, of which the writing is so bad I've spent several days trying to decide if it was overly-machine translated, machine generated, merely poorly-written, or all of the above.
Sure, you can say this is all "Orpheus' perspective," and that it should be taken as just that, but novels are always twisted allegories and the writers should be experienced enough to know this. Again, just because you say someone breathes through their skin doesn't mean it's the reason you modeled them in a bikini.
The Joker Studios devs (either by choice or forced by NetEase) are so incapable of trusting you will play this game voluntarily that the gacha system is filled with dark mechanics so you have to keep doing runs, keep playing, keep getting stuff. Maybe you'll get the sword skin you want. Just one more game.
If it's supposed to be a chill single-player alternative, then why have complete random generation of enemy spawns, some of whom can kill you as simple as two balloons wrapping around you? (Of which one of my fellow archivists, who played Elden Ring fine, could't even complete regular mode, as a counterpoint to anyone who says "just play regular.") If it's PvE cooperative, then why incentivize randoms letting you die to steal your stuff without punishment? If it's Survival Horror, why have completely randomized levels and a time limit, prompting irritation than fear? And if it's Extraction Horror, why not embrace the cooperation and the silliness that made these games popular, without an entire gacha and currency system tied to it? Cryptic Notes is trying to be everything and succeeds at nothing.
Most egregiously, it's more profitable to play Cryptic Notes than the actual game. Once you figure out how to cheese the game-mode, you'll collect more steps on the logic path quicker from Cryptic Notes than the rest of IDV. So, unless you really want the portrait frames for Ranking, there's not really a.... practical reason why you should play the game over Cryptic Notes. You can just take photos on the maps for birthdays. You can get event items from Cryptic Notes. So either they patch it to be less profitable (dissuading people from playing it) or they let Cryptic Notes outshine the game itself.
I think, in another timeline, if Cryptic Notes was the new game instead of Sea of Remnants, and that it had significantly more quality care placed into it than "started at the very least around Cage of Yesteryear based off the jump mechanic," then I would've found it a quirky little spin-off to Identity V. But combined with everything above, the intense crunch/quality drop, and the looming paranoia about Gen AI, I cannot look at it as anything but a wannabe Tomb Raiders willing to sacrifice everything about Identity V- the lore, the designs, the gameplay- to stand proudly on the bow of a sinking boat.
For me, all of Cryptic Notes has been a "Sumeru" moment for me, referencing the region from Genshin Impact: A point where the flaws in the developmental plan are not past the tipping point but nearing it, where pandering to the fanbase rather than respecting them is taking priority. Divergence/Game 0 will have a lot of heavy lifting to prove the spirit of Identity V remains.
The worst part about it is, due to how tight-lipped live service games are regarding development, it's impossible to tell whether this (the game mode, the lore, etc) was always the plan or somewhere it went wrong.
I spent eight years waiting for an answer but do I want one?
I'm curious about what lore was speculated in the Bilibili post of the Nightingale leak. You seemed pretty shocked by it
Hi there.
Link here. It seems to have been pushed down in the comments so unless you have a Bilibili account you won't see it, and depending on where you live it might not be accessible.
To summarize, the speculation was whether Miss Nightingale represents Alice's inner self being entirely devoted to Orpheus. To the point that all of her selfish actions are solely for Orpheus and her love of Orpheus, either in a "poor doomed love" or a yandere-like fashion. This would distinguish her from Memory who represents guilt and nostalgia.
I don't have issue with this on the intentional liminality regarding family in IDV, but I do have issues on that it's Alice.
Now, Miss Nightingale isn't a Hunter Identity, but in the comments, it was the closest analogy she could be compared to, though she could also be a Pseudo-Identity (such as Mary/Frederick). Another alternative is she's something like Closing Night Violetta, which IS an Identity incapable of being added to the playable game mode due to development limitations (try putting a spider in a rocket chair). Survivor Violetta exists but can't be playable. Meanwhile, Soul Weaver Violetta represents Margaretha's fear of Violetta, but also Violetta's jealousy and desperation for applause.
The justification for this rationale is what Miss Nightingale has previously represented. In the old return-from-hiatus event, she worked alongside an unknown party, possible Reichenbach, to keep Orpheus in the Manor. She also showed some association with Detective, due to both of them appearing in the Tarot Mode (Detective's arms, Miss Nightingale's statues). With the coin in the old Logic Path, she was placed on the opposite side of the coin, due to Detective and Charm being the same side. Now, she appears to be some sort of ghost that attacks the Treasure Hunters in Bringer of Doom. As a possible counter, this is possibly tied to Novelist's discussion of a "revenge story" he was writing, where it was implied the stand-in for Alice would enact revenge against the stand-in for Orpheus, but is complicated by Novelist saying he was still in the process of writing it, leaving it unclear given Bringer of Doom's seemingly-nearly finished status.
It would also re-contextualize Alice's Netherwalker Letters and her Time of Reunion diary entry from her effort to save Orpheus as a manifestation of her childhood trauma and martyrdom syndrome (thus potentially intersecting with problems such as her ableism) to she just loves her brother too much.
Intertextuality worsens this concern. When Orpheus sailed with the Argonauts, he drowned out the song of the Sirens with his music, and though the Siren song did not represent love or attraction (be it romantic, familial, or platonic) in the Argonautica or Odyssey, they have commonly been portrayed as such, so I cannot deny the intention of comparing Miss Nightingale (and thus Alice) to a Siren for the sake of highlighting attraction desire than desire.
There were some arguments that it only represents Orpheus' fantasy due to Miss Nightingale being both in Bringer of Doom as some kind of character, and Miss Nightingale being from his memories. The problem with that is, if we are to go with she's something akin to a Hunter Identity, it doesn't fulfill the criteria needed. Queen Bee is influenced by Alice being told about the tabloid, but she still represents something about Melly herself. Same for Fool's Gold, Thirteenth Gift, and Norton. Or Finsen the Dentist and Asclepios. Memory, while not Alice, is no longer disconnected from her as when their relationship was first described (Alice Concept Video) which can be see in how she's portrayed in both Cage of Yesteryear and a wide variety of official artworks. Remember, Alice is the Survivor Swap of Memory.
If the theory is true, the where is Alice's obsession, her martyrdom complex, her self-loathing, her pride? Where are the flaws of Alice that a "Hunter Identity" should highlight, the same way Memory, too, highlights Alice's complex relationship with her childhood?
We could go with Miss Nightingale being a Pseudo-Identity, so then she doesn't really matter to Alice, which doesn't seem to be the authorial intent here. Compare how Frederick and Mary's relationship wasn't very emphasized in AoM II beyond a discussion regarding Blue Hope's origins (and not brought up at all in CoYY) with all the fanfare for Miss Nightingale and Cryptic Notes' relationship to Alice. Perhaps Alice is just projecting herself as Miss Nightingale, but that projection feels more in line with an IDENTITY Swap like Joker's projection of Sergi.
And, speaking of authorial intent, another issue regarding focusing solely on Orpheus' fantasy (which I have been trying) is that sometimes Watsonian isn't enough. You can argue your main character looks different because of emergency plastic surgery, but everyone knows the actors changed seasons, you know? Or how she breathes through her skin. Sometimes the decision is made first, then the author finds some way to justify it. Combined with her similarity to Hunter Identities, ones that reveal aspects about the character, I am skeptical we can lay the blame on Orpheus and not challenge what in the plan for Alice inspired the choice.
I talked mainly about the lore reasons why I previously hoped Miss Nightingale was tied to Mrs. DeRoss, but I didn't talk about the subjective one.
I'm going to break character: It's incredibly upsetting to me.
Alice, as a character, has been defined by her effort to end the Manor Games, find the truth of her childhood, and move onward. She represents the perspective of avoiding looking back in a negative fashion, the same way Orpheus represents refusing to move on. For her "fate" to be, to be blunt, the stewardess, shopkeeper, and customer service of Oletus Manor, one whose defining trait is an obsession with Orpheus, feels like a disservice.
I haven't discussed it in-depth and I would probably need another post to do so, but I have a complex, souring relationship with the way Identity V writes women. On one hand, it has plenty of women with many different stories, tragedies, and terrifying forms. On the other hand, it has a misery memoir-like voyeurism with female suffering, but chickening out in displaying women as truly flawed or committing monstrous deeds. This is both Joker Studios' choice, NetEase's influence, but also the audience itself, making it a spiral unlikely to stop.
And I've seen it happen before. Gothic Horror adaptions are ripe with it. Catherine Earnshaw transformed from a woman whose rage at her caged position fueling a generational cycle of abuse to a poor doomed romantic who just loved Heathcliff too much; Elizabeth Lavenza transformed into Victor's unreliable exposition of her with none of the prejudice or gossip, often making Victor or the Creature morally worse to make her less bad; Mina Harker rewritten into falling in love with the vampire who, in the logic of blood-drinking of Dracula, rapes her and does nothing but weep as the male characters kill him; Christine Daae no longer struggling to balance love, fear, and manipulation between her childhood lover Raoul and her mentor Erik, but an ingenue pure as a little girl.
Characters whose only "evil" is loving a doomed man too much. A far cry from, say, how Joker's love of Margaretha is depicted, and how that intersects with Smiley Face.
There is a potential double standard. When men are portrayed as unhealthy attracted to women (or other men), this is seen as disturbing, entitled, and harmful to themselves and their victims. When women are portrayed as unhealthily attracted to men (with an exception for butch lesbians targeting other women), this is sometimes portrayed as something attractive. It's not treated a serious fault of the character by the author. Given Detective once stood as the stand-in for the player, I fear Alice's "obsession" with Orpheus could be a fantasy rather than a nightmare.
If this is true, there is also the authorial distrust of whether this was always intended, whether this was retconned, and how to identify where when the story was obscured for over eight years.
I've seen stories write similar subjects with similar themes I discussed above well, such as Silent Hill 2 (and f) and Project Moon's trilogy, but these stories took their entire duration to explore these themes in a nuanced fashion. For Miss Nightingale, it's too little, too late. There's not enough time to remove the bitter taste in my mouth.
I wish they kept Miss Nightingale an npc, never to be explained. Some answers are best left imagined.
We won't know until we see Nightinalice in-game, which may or may not be next week, depending on if all levels are released at once. But the Bilibili discussion remains in my head. Is that all she is?
I am tired and I fear I may be in an audience Identity V is no longer interested in aiming at.
went on the b site and watched some gameplay of the new hunter (wax artist). I still dont fully understand his skills. pretty eh? naiad is deifnitely a lot stronger, WA's early game chase is pretty eh, downing surv takes too long until u get the full presence blob. chase is nice @ full presence tho. as for survs, u can't kite this guy w/ a lot of looping esp @ full presence, u need to be constantly out of sight. looping him around a wall might work early game but the wax meter might fill up quick. WA's transitioning is eh, but he can cut off kiting routes as long as he has the blob skill. i think he'll be like on smiley face level of meta? unless they can buff his secondary attack,or add some mobility to him, in which case he might even be viable for tournaplay. either way he would be terrifying for new survs to play against and a bit complicated but fun for new hunters!
