#metaleach

[mr-leach]

I live for the tumultuous relationship between Dhaos and his demonic army, honestly. I feel like he's the manager of the worst employees in the world and he has to try and keep the company afloat long enough to reach retirement. Meanwhile some of them are actively trying to get him fired behind his back and are vying for his job and the only reason he's managed to avoid getting sacked is because of a series of coincidences that save him but are also incredibly unfortunate.

[mr-leach]

Like, reminder that Miguel was seen as a safe haven, an oasis amidst a world constantly under siege by demons, and the reason being that Dhaos actively kept that entire region clear in order to protect the tree. Also... Towns that did not have an active military force were relatively safe, including Freezekill, which was literally at Dhaos' doorstep. I mean, I believe he kept them from being targeted due to his conscience, but also the prevention of despair and chaos would keep the generation of miasma to a minimum, and that would keep the demonic population under control long enough, hopefully, for the great blossoming to occur.

[mr-leach]

I'm really glad Cress is at least pure enough that he can be approached by the spirits (and actually listen) and that the group solved the mana problem despite it not superficially benefiting humanity, because everyone forgets that demon kind is it's own autonomous force and honestly Dhaos being their "King" was the only thing keeping them in check, if the tree had been dead when Dhaos died all hell would have quite literally broken loose and then they REALLY would have regretted killing him.

[mr-leach]

Also: she couldn't just be healthy and have been kidnapped later by Gilland when he caught on to Alvin's wavering loyalty, because not only does looking out for his invalid mother ~this whole time~ make Alvin seem more sympathetic and add a sense if urgency to his goal of getting her back home, but assuming she's not a terrible person who'd be totally fine with the way her brother's treated her child, he'd probably have been protected by her from the lifestyle that made him into the person he is, and that just isn't conducive to the plot.

And of course the invalid family member he's made to look after all his life can't be his father. I mean, pssht, what?? No. Don't be silly. Being weak and helpless is a lady thing.

[mr-leach]

Leticia was literally only there to give Gilland more power over Alvin as the game progressed and Alvin's morals started to tip in the right direction, but he still needed to betray the party for the plot to progress. She would have just been another soul lost to Alvin's tragic past, if just going back to Elympios by itself were enough motivation for him to screw everyone over and make sure the lance was activated. But because of his personal growth throughout the game, it made it unrealistic for him to stab all his new friends in the back "for real", so for the scene at fezebel to work, Gilland had to have something to hold over Alvin, and tickets back to Elympios weren't gonna cut it.

[mr-leach]

I just realized that I never really put much thought into what Julius was planning to do with Elle. Nothing good, probably... There's a chance he was gonna try to complete the trial himself using her to save Ludger from having to go through the trial, or perhaps he didn't care about the trial at all and was simply going to kill her. After all he never was going after the waymarkers for himself, the first one he stole just to lure Ludger out (or at least guarantee Ludger would have to run into him eventually since spirius would no doubt want Ludger to go after him), and then after that he wasn't really 'seeking' waymarkers so much as being a diversion for Chronos. Either way it's unlikely that he would have wanted to protect Elle from spirius, I mean if that were the case, why not let Ludger in on it? He most likely wanted to separate her from him to prove to Bakur that Ludger was not the key and hopefully dissipate Bakur's interest in him. And without his watch, Ludger wouldn't be able to use his chromatus, and not only would he not be able to work as an agent anymore, but he'd likely be scrapped as a candidate for the soul bridge. To Julius, Elle was most likely just another threat to his brother. It wasn't until Julius saw just how much Elle meant to Ludger that he started to show any compassion towards her, and decided to help Ludger make it to Canaan by keeping Chronos at bay.

[mr-leach]

ensanguinedbirdy said: I feel like I remember something in snes phantasia about the Shadows(multiple) being in that cave because it was dark? They changed what happened in there between versions.

OKAY ACTUALLY YOU MAY BE RIGHT I think I must have gotten confused and here’s why: I told myself it couldn’t be Phantasia because in the PSX version I haven’t gotten to Shadow’s dungeon yet and otherwise it’s been like 7 years since my last full Phantasia playthrough or sth ridiculous like that. HOWEVER when I’m writing AUs or fic I often go over the raw game script and now that I think of it I definitely remember reading a section from the Darkness temple, so yeah I think it might have been from Phantasia’s English GBA script that I read that from.

[mr-leach]

I remember now it was definitely Phantasia where they discussed spirit influence on biomes. They mention something similar in DotNW too, I think. I remember something about the Darkness Temple and how it’s in a dark place, but also, it’s dark because Shadow is there. Like, it was already dark, but Shadow being there made it ULTRA DARK