Welcome! If you're looking for my many theories on Obey me, my Battle guides, my fics, or just have questions, please click the links below ( ಠ▿▿ಠ)و ̑̑
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OM! Theories Masterpost
These are part history of demonic mythology, part occult symbolism interpretation, and part the basis of the Mammon longfic I’m writing,
Wolf At Your Door 🐺
All Obey Me asks will be answered! I do them after my writing goals for the day.
Thank you so much for all the great feedback! 💖
Character theories:
🐺Mammon:
The Theory of Mammon
Mammon the Protector (& Lucifer the Guardian)
Mammon: The Fallen Warrior
Mammon: Angel Eyes
The Theory of Mammon’s Markings
The Theory of Mammon’s Loyalty
Why Mammon isn't Rich
Money Isn't a Blessing?
🦚Lucifer:
In Defence of Lucifer
Obey Me: Lucifer’s Army
Lucifer: The Strongest
Lucifer: Always Covered Up
Lucifer the All-Seeing Eye
🐍Levi:
Leviathan: The Grand Admiral of Hell
🦄Satan:
Satan & Lilith
🐰Asmo:
Asmo & Lilith
🐻Beel:
The Attic Sandwich
Beel: "I'm Hungry"
👑Diavolo:
The Theory of Evil Diavolo (+ angel!Lu + Barb/Lilith)
⏳Barbatos:
Barbatos vs Rat
🪶Simeon:
Obey Me: The Theory of Simeon
OM: The Theory of Simeon's Prophetic Power
Obey Me Theory: Simeon’s Virtuous Birthday
🪄Solomon:
Obey Me: The Theory of Solomon
🥀Lilith:
Lilith and the Great Flood
Lilith, Avatar of Despair
If Lilith Survived
Lilith & Thirteen
👥Multiple:
OM Theory - Purgatory & Royal Sins
Obey Me: Most Angelic Brother?
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Symbolism theories:
Obey Me: Symbolic Animals
Obey Me: Symbolism of the Battle Stages
Obey Me: The Theory of Demon Symbols
Obey Me: Symbolic Creatures
Obey Me: Zodiac Signs
Obey Me: Colour Theory
Obey Me: Nail Colours
Obey Me: Colour Choices
Obey Me: Casual Wear Symbolism
Obey Me: Animals and Power
Obey Me: The Theory of the Intro
Mammon & Lucifer - A Design Contrast
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Demonology theories:
The History of the Seven Deadly Sins & Lords
Obey Me: Seven Heavenly Virtues
Obey Me: The Theory of Nephilim
Obey Me: The Theory of Sloth
Obey Me: How Many Wings?
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Devildom theories:
Obey Me: The Theory of Magic
Obey Me: The Theory of Time Travel
Obey Me: The Three-Legged Crow
Obey Me: The Theory of Karasu
Obey Me: Names and Power Ranking
Weather in the Devildom
Obey Me: The Three Realms
Obey Me: The Exchange Program
Obey Me: Little D's
The Writer of The Seven Lords is... (old)
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OM! Headcanons:
Obey Me: Hogwarts Sorting
Obey Me: -Dere Classifications
Obey Me: Seven Deadly Corruptions
Obey Me: Pact Marks
Obey Me: DiaLuci Canon?
Obey Me: Future Civil War?
Obey Me: Secondary Sins
The Theory of Mammon the Himbo
Which Brothers Are Closest?
Which Brothers Get On Least Well
Demon Brothers: Love Languages
What Qualities Does Each Brother Fall For?
How the Demon Brothers Laugh
How the Demon Brothers Dance
Lucifer if Out-Powered
Brothers Betrayed
Mammon’s Tail
Mammon and ADHD
Mammon and MC Mortality
Demons Reacting to MC's Fear
Brother Reactions to MC Pregnancy
Headcanon Heights
Was Lilith A Triplet?
Demon Abilities
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Songs & Translations:
The Theory of Arcadia (+ Lyrics Interpretation)
Are You Ready? Lyrics Interpretation
My Chance! Lyrics Interpretation
Audio Drama #02 Translation: Mammon and the Cat
OM! Manga Translation Transcription
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🔎 Or hit my obey me theory tag 👇
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If you ever want to use any of this info or build upon it, just do a link back to the relevant theory and go for it! 💖
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OM! Guides Masterpost
- click above for all the battle guides I've written, along with game guides, event maths, and Lonely Devil schedules.
[To clarify - the focus of this post is based on happenings in the Love and Deepspace fandom. Obey Me is not being boycotted!!!]
I've been tracking the revenue stats for the various Obey Me games for a long time now, and alongside those numbers I have also tracked several key competitors, in order to contextualise how well or otherwise OM has performed.
Most of the gacha games targeted specifically towards fans of otome, joseimuke, BL, and husbando games are smaller successes - earning from below $100k a month up to a few million.
One game alone in this category is up there with the gacha big hitters - Love and Deepspace, which often sits higher than Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail.
However, while it is easy to find the monthly numbers for these games thanks to sites like SensorTower and AppMagic, as well as week to week or even day to day numbers elsewhere, these metrics are often then presented on social media without any of the original context.
The tl;dr is this - all measurements not given directly by the game company are estimates with a large margin of error. They are not accurate absolute numbers, rather they show the overall trend on a month to month basis, and the comparative trends against competitors.
They are better at estimating “better or worse” than they are at estimating actual revenue, daily active users (DAU), player demographics, or even number of downloads.
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Obey Me
For my purposes - measuring how well the OM games have done compared to each other and their competitors - these estimates are very useful, as they clearly show the trends of success (sadly a downwards one almost always), as well as highlighting the games in the same category that have trended upwards over the same period of time (eg Tears of Themis).
OM games have also always been on the lower end of gacha games by revenue - they are smaller games, this is not a diss! But that also means the estimates aren't as prone to errors as the highest earners. The revenue of every OM game has never spiked particularly high one month over another. (There are other factors that cause this, eg the VIP system on the original game being fairly accessible to many and thus contributing a base steady income stream.)
Solmare have also released figures themselves that corroborated estimated metrics - whether that's download numbers or annual revenue via their parent company.
But for other games, particularly those developed by Chinese companies, these numbers should always be seen as very rough estimates.
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Love and Deepspace
LaDS isn't the only game this applies to, but it is the one currently under most scrutiny when it comes to revenue, player demographics, and DAU, with a lot of misinformation flying around as a result.
There are various sites and subreddits that provide the monthly data, and all differ based on their own source and/or algorithms. Broadly, they usually agree on how the numbers stack comparatively - ie which game is earning more, and whether a game has improved or fallen off since the previous month.
However, there are a number of factors to bear in mind when looking at these figures.
• Location - a game with a sizeable market in China does not have information available due to Google Play not being the platform in that country. Instead the android version is available via other platforms, splitting the estimates. Most revenue and DAU calculators use a multiplier to best estimate this figure instead. Different sites use different multipliers, hence different estimates.
<more below cut ↓>
• iPhone vs Android - Apple has the majority of the market of mobile phones in the US, but this is not the case in most of the rest of the world, and especially not in China where Android has the vast majority of the market. Which means that on top of the above point, said data becomes even more unstable.
[Not applicable to LaDS, but this is also relevant to games avaliable via EroLabs - revenue from those versions is also not taken into account.]
• Banners/events - smaller games have a more steady stream of revenue and DAU, but ones that are more banner driven at higher success have major spikes and major dips. This kind of game can double or half its revenue month on month, and this is extremely difficult for statistical modelling to take into account. Basically, the revenue and DAU is not predictable by user trends, and that makes for a very very wide margin of error.
• Out of app sales - games that are available on PC or console have whole other revenue streams that app metric trackers are not measuring. Games that have top-up or item shop websites are another revenue stream that is not counted. Often times these methods give more value for money and are favoured, thus the app tracker numbers may be VASTLY lower than the reality.
• Corporate vs player - yes corporate accounts with SensorTower and others gain access to further metrics. No, that doesn't change any of the errors of margin.
• DAU vs revenue - while revenue can be estimated (albeit with the errors mentioned above) based on sampling and statistical modelling, there is absolutely zero way to accurately predict or record daily active user numbers. It can be estimated when total download numbers and/or revenue are announced by the game company, but otherwise it is a complete shot in the dark.
• Month vs week vs day - again, these are comparative metrics, which are better at identifying an overall trend than actual solid figures. A month worth of data compares better to a month worth of data for this purpose. Day to day is largely meaningless, as is week to week. There is no accurate tracker for a single day of revenue, unless the game company puts that information out themselves.
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How It Works
So why do these external data trackers exist? The answer lies in the fact that the player is not their customer!
These are platforms utilised by corporations to observe and track competitors, and in such cases it is the trends that are important, not the figures themselves.
Additionally, if the corporation utilising the platform can see what, for example, SensorTower has for their own app's metrics, they can then use their actual figures to reverse engineer the margins of error that particular platform has.
Meaning they can then similarly work out more accurate estimated figures of their competitors ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
That's why this information is valuable, and why a corporate account costs a fuckton of money. It gives them the ability to benchmark their app versus the competition and identify opportunities for maximising app store strategy.
Put simply, if you do not have access to a company's actual daily data, such platforms are not very useful or accurate for you.
App data is all privately held by the company owning the app, and that includes data via Google Play and App Store.
This isn't unique to mobile apps either, most financial data of any property is held privately because duh, who wants their competitors to see how well or poorly they are doing in the minutiae?
TV viewership, ebook sales, video games - it's all estimated via a mix of actual reported sales and statistical modelling, eg a small sample scaled up.
Are APIs involved? Sure, if a company has signed up to do so, but many don't, and that info is again held privately. APIs do not give revenue numbers.
Does the info from the app stores take into account the percentage cut that Google and Apple take? Nope.
Does it take into account in-game ad revenue? Nope.
How inaccurate can it be? For actual numbers it is estimated that the margin of error can be anywhere from -100% to +100% ಠ_ಠ;;
So, you see what I mean about it being more useful for trends than hard figures, right?
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Important Factors
So what does have an impact on mobile game revenue and DAU, and do boycotts have an impact?
There are various methods for trying to predict consumer spending when it comes to gacha games, and almost all of them are faulty.
This is mostly because there is a giant gap between what people say will impact their spending decisions in game, and what they actually do.
And that, in turn, is why these metrics are seen as so important, because the best way to understand player spending is to work backwards from what they have paid for compared to what hasn't opened wallets.
Gacha games are money makers for one primary reason - gambling. They exist as a game to generate money, to encourage people to keep spending to get what they want, to keep things at a chance rather than a guarantee, and to prey upon the spontaneous and impulse spenders - with an added aspect of engineering an addictive quality to keep the player returning to spend more.
While players will say they want fair mechanics, that they'll protest if profit is prioritised over content and player experience, and even that they'll leave if such changes are not made… this rarely happens.
And when it does, it can be offset by attracting enough new players to fill the gap and drive expansion.
Gacha games are not intended to have a long shelf life, rather to maximise profit before collapse when the playerbase and all potential players have been exhausted.
In more recent years we are seeing gacha games live a little longer, perhaps because of the insane revenue they have generated since the pandemic. Mihoyo has specialised in this, still pumping out new story content and characters, being multi-platform, and generating lots of positive attention.
Their games still aren't reaching the heights they once did, but they are defying the odds nonetheless, and have certainly not left their games to stagnate.
As a very obvious counter example, Obey Me came before many of the current frontrunners, cultivating a small but loyal fanbase and earning an explosively successful start… only to flounder and give up on the game when it was still a constant earner. They've since failed to repeat their success, and now look to have moved away from gacha mechanics entirely (which may well suit the fanbase better).
And with LaDS we have an even bigger success story, with a very new kind of otome gacha that has eclipsed all others... but one that has come with increasing player unhappiness due to perceived lack of story and lore vs gimmicks and greed.
This isn't just talk either, with the game consistently earning less every year, and never quite reaching the heights it hit with the Sylus release since (though projections do suggest that Valko could have achieved a close second place).
Gambling though, is a hard addiction to break, not least when paired with an encouraged parasocial dependency. It is no coincidence that a sizeable number of gacha players are people who are neurodiverse - people with ADHD are more likely to fall prey to impulse spending and gambling mechanics.
It is always important to bear in mind the fact that this is gambling. That is not to say the games cannot be played, or even that you should not spend money on them - we all spend money on entertainment! But it is good to be mindful of not getting carried away and spending more than you would wish to.
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Boycott
Boycotts can and do work, but they require a seismic shift in the usual playerbase ecosystem. If a game makes an error or move so egregious that it gives a focal point for player resentment and frustration, then revenue can and will fall.
These things are difficult to predict and measure for all the same reasons as above.
Day to day and week to week are not reliable.
Absolute figures are not reliable.
Even the month to month comparative numbers have a large margin of error - the statistic models cannot cope with large shifts, and can take another month to readjust accordingly.
So why do boycotts work?
Because the game company sees the actual revenue, the actual DAU, the actual demographics, and has accurate figures on how those numbers change on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. By country.
Papergames has all of that information.
Estimated numbers and predictions and approximate graphs really don't matter, only the actual actions of players do.
Panicking and focusing on these numbers and graphs is really not going to do any good - it's actually very pointless. The daily numbers might as well be made up.
What makes a successful boycott will vary from game to game, but there are two factors that are important across any game boycott:
Important note - having the LaDS widgets on your phone may count towards DAU (daily active users) count. If you are boycotting, you may need to lose the widgets to count!
I also want to note that DAU metrics are not an absolute. Sensortower and AppMagic and similar sites are rough estimates in both revenue and measuring DAU. However, because these are constantly adjusted as more info is available, they are pretty reliable when it comes to tracking trends of data, ie if numbers go up or down.
A caveat to that is that it is far less accurate when it comes to the Cn userbase - however there are other ways of measuring that based on multipliers, or from info unavailable to those outwith the country.
All that is to say, these graphs need not be alarming and the title is a little extreme imo, but it is a good reminder that logging in is a metric that mobile game companies pay close attention to in ADDITION to revenue changes.
As with all boycotts, you are only in charge of your own behaviour. Spread the word for sure, but trying to pressure others - whether to play or not play - is counterproductive to any goals ( ಠ▿▿ಠ)و ̑̑
So far in the world of Obey Me we've seen hell, we've seen heaven, and now it's time to see purgatory. Or should I say, Purgatorio...
It's no secret that OM has taken liberally from Dante's Divine Comedy - most depictions of hell and heaven have! - going so far as to label the layers of the Underworld by the same names, right down to the four concentric circles of Cocytus, and the City of Dis above.
But while the Inferno isn't a one to one match for the Devildom, what with the seven deadly sins differing from those Dante deems hell-bound, and while Paradiso doesn't seem to hold much in common with the Celestial Realm, the middle volume, Purgatorio, has a great deal that is relevant to our fallen angels.
[Note: while the OG game was more in line with the Devildom and its layers being akin to the Inferno, but replacing the bottom frozen layer with the home of the sleeping Demon King, Nightbringer moved away from this, introducing the nine layers proper as a distinct realm from the eight-layer Devildom.]
The Underworld, as it is termed in NB, is set out in the exact same manner as the Inferno - nine layers, with Cocytus at the bottom.
The first, topmost, layer of Dante's Inferno is Limbo, a name often conflated with Purgatory, but the two have a distinct difference - Limbo is for those not condemned to hell, but neither afforded the ability to atone and work their way to heaven; while Purgatory is for those who are not condemned, but are given the ability to atone.
The bad but not bad enough and the good but not good enough yet, perhaps.
In the image released above, the title is Purgatory - so not Limbo of the Infernal realm, nor the gates of the Celestial. This is truly the inbetween.
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Judgement - the Seven Sins
As I've written about before, the nine layers of the Inferno did not match up particularly well with the notion of seven deadly sins, and thus with our main OM cast.
But those very same sins form the structure of Purgatorio, where a soul must ascend up each layer, conquering each sin, in order to reach salvation.
And while the Inferno is structured to be travelled downwards, Purgatorio is structured to be travelled upwards. An inverse.
It is here, with some uh, educational methods that happen to look a lot like punishments, that relates directly to each sin, and the angel of the opposing virtue guards each gate.
The first of these seven layers... is Pride.
Guarded by the Angel of Humility, the proud walk with large rocks upon their backs, doubling them over, surrounded by sculptures depicting humility, and warning statues of Lucifer below.
The second layer is Envy, guarded by the Angel of Charity, where the envious have their eyes sewn shut with iron wire as they listen to examples of their sin.
The third is Wrath, guarded by the Angel of Peace, where the wrathful are swallowed by acrid smoke and visions of wrath.
The fourth is Acedia (Sloth), guarded by the Angel of Zeal, engaged in ceaseless activity.
The fifth is Avarice (Greed), guarded by the Angel of Moderation, where the greedy lay face down reciting psalms.
The sixth is Gluttony, guarded by the Angel of Temperance, where the hungry are starved of delicious fruits forever out of reach.
The seventh is Lust, guarded by the Angel of Chastity, where the damned run through terrible flames (direction dependent on sexuality which ew, but also surprisingly progressive of the time to not just send them to hell so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).
<art by Seymour Chwast>
All seven sins are said to be a form of twisted love. The first three are described as perversions of love into the harm of others (pride, envy, wrath); the fourth as deficient of love (sloth); and the final three as excessive or disordered love (greed, gluttony, lust).
What does this mean for Sinner's Choice? Well, see my full theory below ¬ᴗ¬ But it's pretty neat that each of the sins is represented as being in this Purgatorial space, alongside the opposing virtues and the opportunity to atone.
In the case of the world of OM, we know that the brothers do not want to atone - at least, not in the future. But upon their time of actually falling and grappling with their new identities? It may be more nuanced than that, and separate from their anger.
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💫 Full theory and plot speculation below the cut! ↓
Purgatory 101
[Nb - all that is written here is vastly condensed, the subject matter is huge! I am also writing from a non-religious point of view - my interest is in comparative mythology, not theology. No DMs about the state of my soul pls ¬_¬;]
Purgatory as a place is not terribly old, or rather, that place being called Purgatory is not terribly old. The idea of an afterlife that is neither punishment or reward is as old as the notion of an afterlife itself - perhaps even older. The notion of atonement in death and the current meaning of Purgatory, came later, the naming of the physical later still.
Enkidu climbed the great stairs to the Sumerian Underworld, Innana traveled through the seven gates of the same, Orpheus plunged into the Greek Hades to try and save his wife (really, all the Greeks were popping in for a chat), various apostles made the trip, several religious and folklore figures fell down holes, and of course Dante wrote arguably the most famous trip - a repeating great story adapted over time to change the landscape, the occupants, and the political meaning to suit the author and/or readers.
Most cultures that have left written records across the centuries had a notion of an Underworld, and it was later that the idea of judgement came to be. In its earliest forms the Underworld was often a grim and sombre place, underground as the name implies, dark and dust and nothingness.
This grim fate was not terribly inspiring for those still living, which is perhaps the point - it reinforced the importance of survival, of living.
Later, when survival was not so tooth and claw, and when religions and faiths began to cause friction between warring gods, the notion of a death earned in battle being rewarded arrived, along with the promise of evil deeds ending in everlasting punishment. A call then to defend one's land and expand the rulers' reach with the blessing of the gods, and to live by the laws of the land to earn reward after death. (Oh look, that only benefits the rich and powerful, what a coincidence!)
Fast forward through time and organised religion then bent this to their own profit, where prayers for the dead didn't only help their lost loved ones progress through purgatory, but also lined the pockets of those promising salvation.
Dante penned the most influential trip through the Underworld, a bestseller to this day, but he was far from the first. There were multiple big hits before him, some of them extremely lurid in their graphic detail with a particular relish for the various punishments ಠ_ಠ;
Dante wrote not of a holy vision, but with political intent, which is why he is often pointed to as a forefather of fanfiction, with his various friends, enemies, and heroes all slotted into the places he deemed them deserving.
Incidentally, if you haven't read the Divine Comedy, I do recommend it. It's a classic for a reason! More than any that came before him, Dante solidified how the Infernal, Celestial, and Inbetween were perceived in the cultural imagination of an afterlife borne in the shadow of Lucifer and Satan.
[The later Paradise Lost by Milton goes a long way to explain the more sympathetic modern view of Lucifer too.]
Purgatory had became an active practise, and later the name of the previous inbetween, the place that was once the entire Underworld, and now operated as a spiritual waiting room where souls worked to jump the queue. (Unless they were in Limbo instead, which in Dante's description was a lush green place full of poets and artists which sounds vastly preferable!)
Purgatory, Purgatorio, the place in between... as the current day religions took hold, this place was given a particular shape - a mountain raised from the Earth, caused directly by the fall of Lucifer/Satan.
A great tower of tiers rising up into the sky, like a circular stairway to heaven - echoing that journey of Enkidu millennia before, and the countless stepped structures from ancient history that represent the same. (Tower of Babel anyone...?)
And caused by the fall of Lucifer you say...
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Cocytus & Hell Piercer
So somewhere along the way, OM has shuffled things around from the source inspiration of the Divine Comedy. Cocytus lies at the bottom of the Underworld, and Purgatory and the associated tower lies at the top. This is hell, the Inferno, and the Devildom with its eight layers is... something else.
It's not entirely contradictory, and implies that perhaps the Celestial Realm also has a separate Paradise/Paradiso, allowing the main realms to exist on their own terms rather than comply with older assumptions (or indeed, deal with the notion of the fate of human souls).
They have made it their own.
Cocytus has been touched upon before in the OM lore, back in Nightbringer, but little is known about it comparatively. The four concentric circles copy Dante: Caina, traitors to their kindred; Antenora, traitors to their homeland (country); Ptolomaea, traitors to their guests; Judecca, traitors to "him" (their lords).
And in the Inferno, at the centre is the prison of Lucifer/Satan, trapped in the same ice that holds all within Cocytus, the beating of his wings freezing the air as he cries bloody tears.
Fun fact, for those who haven't read it, Dante and Virgil exit hell by climbing down Lucifer and passing through the centre of the universe... in Lucifer's genitalia ⚆_⚆ Well, to be fair, it could also be his ass crack.
Obey Me though, has rather sensibly opted for an elevator instead!
The concept of an elevator to hell is, obviously, far younger than the concept of a staircase to heaven. But it is simply a modern twist on the ancient journey to the Underworld, to katabasis and beyond.
The good afterlife has almost always been up, and the bad or neutral afterlife has almost always been down. Underground is dark and scary and where dead things go. Up above is unknowable and where the gods live.
An elevator, unlike a staircase, is fast enough that a sudden drop is a popular theme park ride - terrifying, exhilarating, and acting as an inbetween space in itself as you hurtle through the air at the mercy of a mechanism that is fallible.
No elevator plunging underground is going to open its doors to Paradise, even though logically that same elevator has to come back up.
The stairs of Paradise and Purgatory require effort, work, toil. The fall to the Infernal, whether in an elevator or from the sky like a fallen angel, is a one way ticket with no options of turning back.
Hell Piercer as a name is likely a wink and a nod to the many variations on Heaven Piercer across various anime and manga - the heaven-piercing move is a trope all of its own.
For our characters facing a downwards descent, its a fitting name indeed, and a subversion of their former selves.
How much this Purgatory shares with Purgatorio is unknown, though even adding the seven sins in the forms of their soon to be avatars does strengthen that connection.
Purgatory here shows us a battlefield, a place where angels fall, and the ground cracks open.
And Purgatorio was created by that very fall.
This then is perhaps the origins of that Purgatory, and this the first ever judgement and case for potential atonement, that goes on to create a layer for every sin - every brother - thus judged.
All my own theorising and speculation ofc, but it's kinda neat!
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Lucifer
The first to be judged, the leader of the fall, and the birth of Wrath.
There's a lot to fit into the plot here, and while the game is titled for Lucifer, we do know that all the brothers play a part here, along with Diavolo and Barbatos.
We also know some of what has happened at this time in the canon, though of course that is always open to retconning.
The angels fell. Lucifer found Lilith. His oath was given to Diavolo. Barbatos did not approve of the new demon. None of the brothers knew of her being saved and reborn as a human. None of them knew why Lucifer would obey Diavolo's every whim.
And somewhere before Lilith was found, the four-winged Lucifer had already split from the Satan inside him.
One of the OM experts on my server suggested that the game should canonically launch on the date of Satan's birthday, and I couldn't agree more!
Satan can only be a large part of this game, as he is a large part of Lucifer - a physical manifestation of the rage that led him to rebel.
I just hope that unlike the mobile games, this one doesn't hold back from holding on to that anger and pointing the finger where it belongs.
The angels fell for their beliefs. They have nothing to atone for. What then does that say for those who fought against them...? 👀
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Demon King
<The Beast Acheron by Simon Marion, from the Visio Tnugdali by Frater Marcus, the most influential vision of hell before Dante>
A final note, that is more just my own curiosity... But we know from the original game that it was the Demon King who assigned the brothers their status as Avatars of the deadly sins.
We also know he was not present for the oath between Diavolo and Lucifer.
What political shenanigans might be afoot, and whether we get to finally see the long unknown Demon King... well, that I'm keen to find out 👀👀
Well, it's been a while since I did this but that's mostly because not much has changed - with the mobile titles at least...
Both the original Obey Me and Nightbringer are holding steady, albeit the latter with lower revenue overall, while Ido has bounced around a little - it isn't doing great but it is doing better than I expected, and managing to keep its head above water.
Ido sometimes makes a little more than the original game and sometimes a little less - which is, as I said, not great for a title that is some six years younger than the OG but still. It lives!
We're rounding out June with Obey Me: $40k; OM Nightbringer: $29k; OM Ido: $50k.
Normally here I'd input a little about the main competitors of that mobile market but uh, considering the current state of things in other fandoms, best not? (°ー°〃)
Tears of Themis is still doing well, Light and Night has hit the stratosphere with its revenue, and the top dog is still LaDS... because we don't have July revenue yet 👀
Overall though, the main competitors that have been around for at least a year are all on a downwards curve in Q2 year on year, which is likely down to a few factors - slow main story pace, less popular banners, event/banner exhaustion, and people generally having less disposable income.
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Sinner's Choice
Aside from that though, Obey Me obviously announced a brand new game that has no relation to the crowdfunder they previously ran to make a different game that nobody asked for.
However, snarkiness aside, this one is NOT a mobile game and perhaps that will make all the difference!
Obey Me: Sinner's Choice is available for wishlist on Steam, and there are lore drops and art teases aplenty on official social media and the Steam page.
And let me be clear, what we've seen? Looks pretty awesome!
This is a Lucifer focused romance game, that doesn't seem choice based (other than one choice), and is set in an earlier time than even Nightbringer, dealing with Lucifer's "sentence" for his crimes.
This does mean it bears no relation to existing MCs, save for those with headcanons to make it work, and the other characters are of course non-romanceable.
The plan does seem to be that this will be the first of multiple character-focused games (one for each brother perhaps, maybe the original sides as well?), but doubtless that depends on the success of this first Lucifer one.
It's also fully voiced!
But here's the interesting part...
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Good Smile
The publishing partner for this new game is none other than the Good Smile Company, purveyor of the popular nendoroid and figma figure lines and other highly praised scale figures.
This is a very successful company when it comes to merch (far higher quality than any that have previously worked with OM), and they've had some success with video games too - not developed by themselves, but as a collaborative partner with various dev companies.
While at least one of these games had a somewhat sketchy launch and reception, not least due to the developers relying on AI, the upcoming Obey Me game is developed by Frontwing, a long time dev of eroge and visual novels. They're most known for their Grisaia series.
While there have been grumbles against them for largely moving away from 18+ material, that's a trend that has applied to pretty much all the main VN makers in recent years due to external factors eg payment companies). Frontwing have also been sold a couple of times, and are now owned by Good Smile.
So at the very least, they certainly know what they're doing.
And hey, maybe that Good Smile factor will finally get us the Obey Me nendoroids we've long been waiting for! (ㅅ˘˘)
~~~
Fanbase Strength
And on that note, let's finish up with a quick look at the popularity of each instalment of the Obey Me series thus far.
We already know that in revenue alone the original game absolutely wipes the floor with the rest of them put together. Like, many, MANY times over.
Not even Nightbringer's launch month reached what OM made on a monthly basis for years.
But what about number of actual players?
This is usually an estimated number, but Solmare actually did us a solid here, and publicised how many downloads their games got.
Now a download doesn't equate to an active user by any means, but it does I think show fairly accurately how much interest each game generated - ie how many people at least had a go.
Obey Me: over 8 million downloads
OM Nightbringer: 3 million downloads
OM Ido: over 50 thousand downloads
Thus far OM Sinner's Choice in its unreleased state has over 2600 followers on Steam which is actually pretty good for a game that is currently without a release date. It's also in the top 2100 of top wishlists, and in the top 1700 of wishlist activity.
For comparison, the upcoming Touchstarved which had both a successful kickstarter campaign and popular demo has those numbers at 19k, 405, and 5100, while other upcoming games marked as otome struggle to hit 300 followers, or even chart in the wishlist stats. (eg the Steam ports of Cupid Parasite is at 7900 in wishlist activity, and even if Tempest at 2500).
So it's somewhat in the midfield of upcoming otome releases, despite relatively low promotion and no demo.
Steam stats are a very different metric from a mobile only live-service game, and we can expect to see smaller user numbers here equating to higher revenue than the same numbers would via mobile.
It is also, hopefully, a one and done payment game with no microtransactions, meaning success is based purely on how many people buy and download the game to begin with.
While Obey Me as a franchise is far smaller than the blockbuster mobile hits, it's international fandom is ENORMOUS.
For years in a row since launch, OM topped the yearly tumblr fandom lists for mobile games, video games, and game characters. Even in the most recent lists, OM still made the top 30 in game characters - that's crazy!
And it isn't just the international audience - Satan topped a recent poll of game characters in Japan, beating the LaDS guys in popularity. (Lucifer and Mammon remain the most popular characters in OM elsewhere.)
Obey Me fandom is nothing if not loyal, and even with the disappointment of Ido and its associated crowdfunding, I think mahy of us will still be purchasing Sinner's Choice.
So far things are going somewhat according to canon...
Though Chris is currently moping over Ada because Leon got there first.
And Claire is crushing over Grace who is crushing on Steve who has been friendzoned by Claire. But Grace is distracted by bonding with her mom (Leon)... ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
It's that time of month again, but there isn't much movement for any of the Obey Me games this time around.
Obey Me holds steady at $50k.
Nightbringer holds steady at $30k.
Ido climbs a little to $50k.
These are unfortunately all firmly in dead game territory, but the original game's performance is still notable considering how many years it has now been running with no new content.
Ido could definitely have done worse, I half expected it to miss the charts entirely this month, but it has rallied a little. The April revenue may be affected however by the game being unavailable at the beginning of the month, and by the announcement of another new game...
[Nb Creek & River is an outsourcing company, so it's curious that the changeover caused such a kerfuffle.]
March was not a big hitting month for the majority of the usual players, however Twisted Wonderland quintupled its revenue in Japan, meaning the game in total pulled in over $8 million.
~
Sinner's Choice
I don't have a huge amount to say about this one, so my apologies to my inbox asking me about it, I'm just kinda ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and don't wanna rain on anyone's parade!
I'll be very happy if it's good, but at this point I've long learned not to get my hopes up, and tbh I'm not terribly impressed that they ran a whole crowdfunder for a game with barely any content and have now announced yet another brand new game soooo. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pretty art tho.
[Also I've been firmly in my Resident Evil brainworms mode since before Requiem came out, and my adhd brain can only do one hyperfixation at a time lmao]
Even if solmare was a small company, that doesn't excuse the poor product they've pushed out in the form of ido, as smaller companies/indie devs have put out much better games with a fraction of the budget.
They've also done better lmao
Yeah that is a really solid point honestly, when there are teams with way less funding and industry connections putting out some amazing games.
Sassy Chap Games came out swinging with Date Everything, Teary Hand Studio made waves with And Roger, Fields of Mistria is the debut of another indie dev, Touchstarved is still in development but has a ton of excitement in my discord server for it, and the list goes on.
Not to mention smaller hits from equally small teams...
Solmare meanwhile was in the same spheres as Mihoyo and Papergames but with more experience in gacha and romance game development.
~
I think unfortunately the truth of the matter is that Solmare decided to exit gaming as a field entirely. Hence the shutdown of their other titles, and the offloading of Ido to another company not well known in the industry.
The fact that Solmare is a rich company, and is owned by a billions-making company in turn, means that making a few million a month is arguably not worth it. Not that OM is making that, but I'd wager that's the potential if it was properly explored, to earn around 2 mill a month.
And while that's a lot in terms of otome games, it's not a lot in a portfolio dealing with hundreds of millions.
Again, I really kinda hope they sell the IP to a hungry dev team eager to make it work. I think that's the best chance OM has of surviving, because the current figures are deep in cancellation territory.
Why does your pfp look so satisfying to stare at from afar? Shit looks HD
Skkk, why thank you (‾꒳‾ )
I make emotes in my spare time, and that one is from my Obey Me Pride pack I made for my discord server. So I'd guess it's because it's designed to be that size!
It's that time of month again that nobody looks forward to, revenue time ಥ_ಥ
February is a hard month across gacha games as a whole, for obvious reasons given the end of the fiscal year.
Despite that, some otome/joseimuke games did show increases over their January stats - Lovebrush, Mr Love and Tears of Themis are in the green, and indications are that the erolabs contingent did well too.
As for Obey Me though... it's not great.
OM Ido is down to just $30k after two months, matching the revenue of Nightbringer, a game that hasn't been updated in over a year.
That is a massive 81% decrease in two months - Nightbringer did not decline that fast by a LONG way.
Weirdly, this is also the first time in over a year that the original game has also seen a decrease in revenue rather than holding steady. It is still the most successful of the three this month (a fact that has always been true throughout this series), but it seems not only has Ido failed to capitalise on the success of the original, it may even be contributing to killing it ಠ_ಠ
Reasons for Ido seeing further revenue loss? I mean, I don't think it's that much of a puzzler really. Game breaking bugs. People locked out of their accounts. A half-hearted chapter 2 split in two parts. An event with cards that aren't even animated. And then every other criticism of this game that has already been put forth.
The numbers back up the fan disappointment.
Honestly, what makes me actually sad is seeing the og game start to fall now as well. It is the only one still in non-cancellation numbers, despite being the one that Solmare abandoned first.
Without Ido, I was still holding out hope for a renewal and reinvigoration of the first game. But now I'm not convinced they haven't sealed its fate.
This is not a small company. Their main app is Comic C’moA, one of the biggest digital manga platforms in the world.
The original Obey Me was still making hundreds of thousands per month until they announced Nightbringer.
The issue is not and never has been fans wanting to spend money - fans have been BEGGING to spend money, on better merch, on better content, on anime, on manga, on everything.
And as much as people don't like LaDS being brought into this discussion (again, I don't play it), it is undeniable proof that people WANT to spend money on fictional husbands. Badly.
(And Twisted Wonderland, a game I do play and do sometimes spend irl money on, constantly shows that people do want to spend money on great art and storytelling, even without romance as a hook!)
The problem has never been the fans.
For whatever reason, Solmare isn't interested in turning Obey Me into its full potential. Likely as they've turned away from games in general.
Ido is a cashgrab imo, it just isn't even a particularly successful one.
The best hope we have as OM fans at this point - imo - is actually them selling the IP to someone who wants to reach for that potential.
It's that time of month again that nobody looks forward to, revenue time ಥ_ಥ
February is a hard month across gacha games as a whole, for obvious reasons given the end of the fiscal year.
Despite that, some otome/joseimuke games did show increases over their January stats - Lovebrush, Mr Love and Tears of Themis are in the green, and indications are that the erolabs contingent did well too.
As for Obey Me though... it's not great.
OM Ido is down to just $30k after two months, matching the revenue of Nightbringer, a game that hasn't been updated in over a year.
That is a massive 81% decrease in two months - Nightbringer did not decline that fast by a LONG way.
Weirdly, this is also the first time in over a year that the original game has also seen a decrease in revenue rather than holding steady. It is still the most successful of the three this month (a fact that has always been true throughout this series), but it seems not only has Ido failed to capitalise on the success of the original, it may even be contributing to killing it ಠ_ಠ
Reasons for Ido seeing further revenue loss? I mean, I don't think it's that much of a puzzler really. Game breaking bugs. People locked out of their accounts. A half-hearted chapter 2 split in two parts. An event with cards that aren't even animated. And then every other criticism of this game that has already been put forth.
The numbers back up the fan disappointment.
Honestly, what makes me actually sad is seeing the og game start to fall now as well. It is the only one still in non-cancellation numbers, despite being the one that Solmare abandoned first.
Without Ido, I was still holding out hope for a renewal and reinvigoration of the first game. But now I'm not convinced they haven't sealed its fate.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
It’s the big day everyone! Rotten Husk is now available - in it’s entirety - on AO3! Written over the course of 5ish months for the @bluelionsbigbang, this is both my first (published) Fire Emblem Three Houses fic and my first crack at horror fiction! This fic features not one, not two, but three beautiful illustrations by @sharkinacar, who was my partnered artist for this project!
I really hope you all enjoy this fic. Be sure to grab your popcorn! (And double check those tags, folks - there’s a reason I put the Dead Dove label on this one.)
Summary:
While en route to a routine assignment, the FFV Loog picks up a pair of odd distress signals. Captain Dimitri orders the ship to divert course and investigate, only to discover a drifting escape pod containing his crew’s former space academy professor, Byleth Eisner, in cryosleep. Shortly after, they come upon the remains of the original Gareg Mach Station and Officer’s Academy, which had to be abandoned and jettisoned into space after a mysterious assault that took place five years ago.
Dimitri, his crew, and the newly revived Byleth set out to search the ruins and uncover the truth of that fateful day.
Unfortunately, they’re not alone. Alien horrors stalk the halls, and soon a search for answers becomes a fight for survival.
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & My Unit | Byleth, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Blue Lions Students, Blue Lions Students & My Unit | Byleth, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Marianne von Edmund, Dorothea Arnault/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Edelgard von Hresvelg, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Patricia
Characters: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Blue Lions Students (Fire Emblem), My Unit | Byleth (Female), Patricia (Fire Emblem), Edelgard von Hresvelg, Marianne von Edmund, Dorothea Arnault
Additional Tags: Dorothea and Marianne joined the Blue Lions, Alternate Universe - Sci Fi Horror, Epistolary Style, Unethical experiments, Medical Abuse, Child Abuse, Body Horror, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Crest Beasts as Sci Fi Monsters, Hegemon Edelgard as a Sci Fi Monster, Inspired by Dead Space (Video Game)
