#vespy time

[lesbianmarth]

jesus fucking christ i just noticed one of repede’s dlc costumes is jotaro

[lesbianmarth]

the ristelle scenes at the inn in heliord are consuming my thoughts so i’m writing a whole post about it.

so these scenes (as it’s really multiple) have a lot of nice moments of affection and interaction between rita and estelle and obviously i love that, but in particular, i like that you can start to see a big shift in their relationship around this point. and i think you can kind of trace what’s going on in their heads, too.

for one thing, we know neither of them is used to having friends around. estelle grew up in the castle, and she outright said she’s never been friends with a girl her own age when rita joined the group, and rita lives alone in a town where nobody will go near her. so this is all new to them.

but they try their best early on. estelle’s very enthusiastic about her new friend. she goes for the high five, she showers rita with compliments in that one victory animation, she’s generally very nice to her even when rita picks fights with the boys. rita is more cautious, but she’s much softer with estelle than with yuri and karol, even calming down (and tripping over her words) when estelle interrupts their spats.

and then that’s kind of the way things are until heliord.

so the blastia goes nuts and rita runs out to tend to it, as she does. estelle, who we now know is a princess and thus somebody fairly important who Should Not be risking her neck in these situations, runs out to help her, and due to estelle’s mysterious shiny magic they both live. and then not only that, but when they bring rita to the inn and put her in a bed, estelle sits next to her and keeps healing her in the hopes that it’ll ensure a smoother recovery.

and then she falls asleep tending to rita because she refused to take a break even though she got hit by the same explosion, and when she wakes up she tries to heal rita again, and then when the dragon rider shows up at the window, what does estelle do on instinct?

she lunges forward to protect rita before pulling her down to hide behind the bed. with two camera angles, no less.

the big thing here is that all of this is way past the previous extent of their friendship. before they interacted like friends, but this is estelle deciding “oh fuck i have to protect rita” and essentially running into heavy traffic. i want to say it’s yuri’s influence? him and his habit of overextending himself just to help people in need, plus him telling her that she’ll find “something that matters to her” somewhere along the journey. both of those rubbed off on her, and as she got closer with rita, she started to think rita was someone who mattered to her, and so naturally estelle would jump into harm’s way to protect her.

now for rita this was probably a bit of a shock.

she is, again, not used to trusting people or being vulnerable around them, so the sheer self-sacrifice behind all these gestures is weird to her. and while she’s not too put off by it at first, there is a hint of distress after estelle pulls her off the bed and she says this

so this marks a shift in the way rita acts towards estelle too. for the obvious, she starts calling her estelle soon after this point, something that a couple of skits draw attention to. in one of those skits, yuri and karol catch her complaining to herself about estelle putting herself in danger, another expression of the same worry she’s showing above. most remarkably, though, is the bit where estelle is about to leave the party and return to zaphias, and general alexei or whoever is giving rita an assignment that she doesn’t want to do. what she wants to do instead?

SUPER out of nowhere. she doesn’t say exactly WHAT she would do at the capital or how long she’d stay there, but she’d still rather stay with estelle than go home. estelle (and the background music) are appropriately surprised.

like estelle, rita is suddenly investing way more of herself into this relationship than she was the day before. partly she’s just holding on to the experience of having this kind of friendship, but she’s also responding to estelle’s actions as well. when rita asks yuri what he thinks estelle thinks of her, he tells her “Compared to those formulas of yours, she should be easy to figure out.”

so when estelle protects her from the dragon rider, she takes that as a cue that estelle is really devoted to her. then, when they’re about to separate, she thinks it’s only appropriate that she follow estelle back home.

these two don’t know what they’re doing in this friendship, but the journey of traveling together has given them the opportunity to experience the kind of bond they’ve both been missing, as well as thinking harder about their goals. with that information, rita and estelle both decide that what they want to do is stick together and protect each other. possibly more than they should, it’s a bit early in their relationship, but the sentiment proves that their connection has become really strong even in that short timeframe.

... i’m excited to see how things develop later on.

[lesbianmarth]

i’ve been forgetting to make this post for fucking weeks but i needed to say it

[lesbianmarth]

oh right i also made this

[lesbianmarth]

felt a jump in serotonin reading this one

[lesbianmarth]

well i beat the final boss last night. the fight was tricky enough but not really a huge challenge-- the fact that his mystic arte can’t actually kill is a pretty big weakness-- but now that i’ve remembered that the battle difficulty settings exist, i can forgive it.

the ending was also shorter than I wanted but I had more or less heard as much. plus abyss was kind of the same way. i just feel like in this case, since there’s a slightly more uplifting ending, it wouldn’t hurt to show a little bit more of the return to regular life. they did in the credits illustrations, but that didn’t have dialogue, which is what i wanted.

at any rate, normally i’d probably be done here, but one of my friends who’s never tried the series expressed interest in doing a co-op playthrough when i get home, so i’m gonna work on farming grade for those sweet new game plus perks. and some skits and maybe some other stuff like bonus dungeons

[lesbianmarth]

what a good relationship. i love how these two turned out in the end it was so unexpected

[lesbianmarth]

oh also, i mentioned before how after watching estelle jump into danger to save her, rita suddenly started vocally worrying about estelle way more? it’s good that i caught that bc she’s evolving into a proper nervous helicopter girlfriend before my eyes.

when you have that night in torim harbor where everyone splits off and you can talk to them one-on-one, rita is suddenly adamant that estelle should quit her journey and go back to the capital, even though she had no problem with it before. and why’s that?

mmm! interesting!

yuri basically brushes off her irritation and assures her that he can keep estelle safe, but rita isn’t convinced and shoos him out of the room angrily. they don’t get to resolve that disagreement that night. so you’d expect a little friction in the morning, since the group is moving on to another continent but rita wasn’t actually supposed to go with them. and just when estelle is wondering if they should wake her up to say goodbye?

suddenly she’s found a way to follow her assignment while tagging along with the group, and she’s all smiles. until estelle expresses her happiness at having rita around more, and then rita loses her cool a little bit.

(screenshots largely unnecessary i just like looking at em)

I can’t help but conclude that rita went to bed still mad about estelle waltzing into a treacherous desert to find a big dangerous monster that obviously would want to kill her, and after thinking hard about it, realized the only way she would feel safe letting estelle do this would be to personally accompany her and protect her. what a nice little shift in her priorities.

bonus: rita gets tormented yet again for being a predictable lesbian