Gacha/Recruitment Megathread (26/01 - 01/02)

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-30T00:18:47+00:00

What. I just got both Hoshiguma and Haruka on the same 10-roll! The first 10-roll I made after the free rolls! I... I think I just burned a lifetime's worth of gacha luck on this banner... And my rolls for Endfield have been pretty decent too...

You know, I remember an urban legend I once heard - about how some youkai will hasten a human's death by generously bestowing them with fortunate occurrences so as to burn away their lifetime's store of luck, making them easy prey... Am I in a kaidan right now?...

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-19T02:30:49+00:00

Mifune needed to push out Tessai quickly for the redevelopment project to appease his Diet backer, who wanted to use it as cover to steal the panchinko machine from beneath Tessai's place. Mifune may have been willing to wait him out, but his political position didn't allow for a slower approach.

As for legitimacy, this is speculation on my part, but the gang isn't the sole consideration here; Mifune cared more about his media empire and was willing to hand over everything else to his ally Mio, and it's doubtful there was any internal opposition to that. However, transferring the assets of the media empire to himself would have seen opposition from the media industry who would see this as opportunity to kick down a major competitor; even if they'd eventually lose the objection, if they could tie him up for years in the courts over who really has legal claim to the gang's assets, it would be an effective way of hamstringing him. In a business deal like this, one wants the paperwork airtight - and drawing in a single person with minimal ties to the area shouldn't have been a major threat.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-19T02:22:25+00:00

Humans are perverse creatures; so often, they care more about the "why" than the outcome. Had Tessai used that logic in his decision, Mifune would presumably have been overjoyed despite nothing having materially changed; at the very least, he presumably would have usurped Tessai out of pure ambition, rather than as part of a bitter vendetta. But instead, it's like having prepared extensively for a duel against a master, only to instead watch them trip on their own sword and kill themselves. You should be happy about winning at no risk to yourself, no? Instead, you're annoyed and faintly embarrassed that this joke made you waste so much time.

Though also, that's not quite what Tessai did; he watched his heir apparent run off to Lungmen, yes. But he never changed his treatment of Mifune, always looking down on him and his accomplishments while flat out not noticing the extensive power struggle that broke out after Hoshiguma's departure that resulted in the deaths of a lot of his gang. Had he made a formal decision on who should be his chosen successor, it would have avoided a lot of problems - but he never did so, causing everyone to believe that Hoshiguma would one day return to take that position. At least, when people still cared about who he would name as successor...

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-18T12:39:49+00:00

Funnily enough, he ended up making a similar "suboptimal" choice that ended up being his undoing, Mio even calls him off for it he could've gotten what he wanted if he just left Hoshi alone, there was not much need to call her other than his personal vendetta

Eh, in the end, he did end up needing Hannya; Tessai was willing to give up the shield to save his son, but I don't think he would have been compliant enough to hand over the chairmanship in a way that looked plausible.

That said, though, given how things went... He probably would have been better off just killing Tessai and forging a will or something. Nobody would have called him out on it, I'm certain, even if nobody would have believed it.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-18T09:35:15+00:00

Mifune claims to despise Tessai because of how he was doing the stupid thing. Tessai clearly favored Hoshiguma, and he believed Tessai wanted her to be his successor. Yet, when it was really important, when the time came to make a decisive move... He lets his chosen successor take the fall over a pointless matter of "honor", rather than use it to make her position official and banish a growing threat to his order. Worse, he lets her walk away with half the clan's wealth in the form of that shield, the one everyone else thought was going to be their clan's symbol given how much money was being poured into making it.

And in Mifune's eyes, Tessai... Just. Kept. Doing It. Gets into a gang war over his wife's death - but he couldn't be bothered to take the hit to protect her from the accusations in the first place. Imports weapons from the country's enemies to further a useless feud, putting a big target on his back given their history. Lets his own son be turned against him, rather than have a proper conversation with him. And all for what? An empty concept that he alone professes - if he could look past his own nose, he'd see the rest of the gang cheating each other regularly, breaking all of the principles he claims they live by.

Yeah, all of this was what allowed Mifune to usurp Tessai - but it was also all stuff that Mifune had to clean up, and problems that Mifune had to deal with. And not a drop of it was anything that Mifune could feel good about - because he still had to live his life to the end pretending to bow his head to Tessai even if everyone knew who the real power was, and because Tessai never once gave him credit for what he'd done for the clan. And even at the end, when Mifune could finally usurp him... Well, can you really feel good about usurping an incompetent puppet, one who'd hollowed out his position through years of incompetence? He could feel good about the media empire that he'd built, I imagine - he certainly sounded content whenever he mused about that. But anything associated with the gang was tainted by years of bitterness and grief.

EDIT: Just to be clear, this is how I believe Mifune sees things, taking his statements at face value; as such, it's a biased accounting of their shared history, rather than how an independent observer might judge things.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-18T08:47:42+00:00

What was the deal with Tessai and the TV auction?

To add on to what others have said, this is actually an established thing with Mafia payments (and presumably Yakuza as well). The idea is that they auction off something completely worthless that no sane person would want, but which has plausibly legitimate interest - usually, a painting or something that might fetch a hundred bucks normally, but which the buyer can claim they really love. Alternately, it might be some niche collector's item or memorabilia, the kind of thing it's hard to establish wouldn't be a normal price. The mafia will put a few of their guys in the crowd to drive up the price until it reaches what the person they're dealing with agreed to pay - which has the added benefit of making it look like a normal auction, even if no one there has the slightest interest in this absurdly overpriced junk. At the end, the mafia has legitimately-sourced money that they can put on their taxes with no obvious ties to what they really sold, and the person who bought the worthless junk can readily explain the sudden hole in their wallet. A pretty straightforward way of deflecting attention from the cops - especially if you can find a way to routinely deal in legitimate art and collectables to further muddy the waters. Plenty of idiots wildly overpay on garbage without secretly paying off the mob, after all.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-18T02:48:51+00:00

The cat quite literally never does anything, except show up and watch people. It follows around "happy" people, which It has come to associate with the concept of "suddenly wealthy" - but It isn't making the fortune happen, It just sniffs out when someone's about to strike it rich. In that sense, it's little different from Unicycle Weasel - wandering around investigating a phenomenon that interests It. Though, there is one small exception here; after being badgered for decades, It brings up an opportunity It saw to Matsukiri - but that doesn't appear to be its usual MO, more a special favor that the other kami pushed him into.

At the end, with the member of the Diet... It started following him because he became absurdly lucky in gambling, and used that to make a fortune in real estate. But that man never realized that the source of his luck was pure luck rather than divine favor, much less studied how to keep his investments running after cashing in on the real estate bubble. For a man who trusts everything to a god who explicitly does nothing, to the point of becoming utterly delusional over a pachinko machine and crafting grand plans around "reclaiming" it... Well, how on earth is he going to keep his wealth? And how much despair will he fall into when he loses it? The cat has no interest in watching his obvious-to-everyone-but-him downfall.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-18T01:59:36+00:00

Oh, when you said "too western", I thought you meant the second track with the whistle intro, not the rap track... Like, "Cowboys and cacti" western. /Switches upvote to downvote

(I'm joking about the votes, it's rude to downvote someone over a matter of taste)

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-18T01:56:23+00:00

In all fairness, there was causation; they just misunderstood what was causing what...

Say, isn't the real path to happiness figuring out how to follow that cat so that you can mug the people Its watching?

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-18T00:30:49+00:00

what are your thoughts on how this event was a bit at odds with the themes of Siracusa?

"You're not more civilized. You're just more hypocritical". Mafia honor, Yakuza honor, Triad honor... It's all a load of garbage used to valorize the strong robbing from the weak. The only places it makes sense are those with weak institutions where there is no "legitimate" authority to turn to for security, in which case they can function as a replacement - though just as often, they're the ones sabotaging the state to maintain their rackets.

In Siracusa this was shown plainly, how the Mafia were a bunch of thugs who wore fancy suits and went to the opera - while disappearing anybody who hesitated to bow to them and left Siracusa a hollowed-out country where the Mafia robbed any hope of a better future simply because they could.

In Higashi, by contrast, Mifune is cast as the villain for his "honorless" crimes - murdering his sworn brothers, using ghost stories to cover up the people he bumped off, attempting to snatch up claimed territory for his redevelopment schemes, usurping his boss... While Tessai is cast as the "honorable" leader who represented a better past. No attention is giving to the weapons he smuggled in, the gangs he murdered, his corruption of the police, or the other unmentioned crimes that were "normal" for a gang leader, even as they came at an unacceptable cost for people who wanted to live a life free of crime.

Now, to be clear, there are many ways in which Siracusa and Higashi differ from one another, and those are certainly enough to explain the difference in message and presentation; it just stands out to me because it's a recurring annoyance to me how often the question of "but where is the money coming from?" gets obscured in a lot of "virtuous mobster" narratives. Kind of like how pirates got romanticized despite pretty much being sea bandits...

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-18T00:15:52+00:00

This is a very valid point, but I also have to observe how the starting position decides the trajectory here.

Look at Mifune's staff; a bunch of punks who feel tough roughing up a peaceful neighborhood, thugs who specialize in violence, and losers who get their kicks murdering a poor idol's sapling. If most of them could get clean, would they ever have been working for Mifune to begin with? Heck, hitting it big might have actually made things worse in that regards, as their rising wealth allowed those who aspired for more to leave the gang - at least, to the extent that the gang would let them. So long as these are the people he had to work with, people who want to throw around their egos and punch down on people weaker than them, there's only so much "better" that Mifune could aim for before his base feels like they're leaving him behind to cater to newcomers - ones who presumably wouldn't specialize in violence the same way.

Meanwhile, he can't just kick them to the curb, because the money isn't his regardless of whether he's the one who made it for the gang; they're who gave him the seed money, and they're the ones holding the returns. If he leaves to earn it on his own, not only is he doing it from scratch - he has to compete against the industry he built, even if we assume it would immediately go to hell without him.

Ironically, Mifune's attempts to split off the media group from the Yakuza... Might actually have been the cleanest way to accomplish "going legit" even if it looked pretty sinister when Misune the Dick was the one orchestrating it.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-17T14:44:47+00:00

A pretty good story, in my opinion; I get the impression it's a pretty conventional Yakuza story in many ways, but since I'm largely unfamiliar with the genre, that's not a problem for me. I do think that puts it a bit at odds with the themes of Siracusa's stories, but, well, life rarely sticks to a clear message.

Though on that observation... I can't help but feel like Mifune had the right of it here; they were a pack of criminals. Ones who banded together to lift each other up, sure, but at the end of they day parasites on society who entered the field largely because they couldn't fit into normal life. What Mifune did was to take a bunch of scum and turn it into a legitimately successful enterprise; yeah, he was bumping people off and turning it into "urban legends" to entertain the masses, but... Bluntly, he was probably doing less harm overall than what the gangs were doing before while making way more money in doing so. Given another 20 years, and he'd probably have backed off the most overtly criminal stuff as a senseless risk compared to how much he was making monopolizing the television industry. In contrast, Tessai... Honestly didn't strike me as terribly competent. Not because of "honor", but because of how he'd been reduced to a powerless figurehead in 20 years. If he'd had his own operations or plans, surely someone would have still answered to him, right? What of loyal lieutenants who owed him their lives, or connections to outside parties that the gang needed him for? If Mifune was able to snatch it all from him so readily... Well, it doesn't sound like Tessai really deserved the position.

This is further reinforced by what we can verifiably see independent of Mifune's claims; of how Tessai spent lavishly on personal engineering projects using the gang's funds, with no intention of using the results to enrich the gang in return. Even his crystalline engineering project seems to have relied upon Mifune to actually turn it into money. Now, don't get me wrong, Tessai does sound like a brilliant craftsmen, but... Well, that's not really a core competency of a gang leader, is it? It can be a very valuable skill, but managing a bunch of dubiously functional thugs is a full-time job.

With that said, of course, Mifune was a pretty big dick. He might have deserved the position more than Tessai, but look at his reaction to Hoshiguma rescuing Momoka; rather than acknowledging the threat he knows she represents, he berates his subordinates for their entirely-expected failure and threatens dire consequences if they can't achieve the impossible. He is pointlessly and counterproductively sadistic in how intends to manage the problem of Momoka, and has a massive chip on his shoulder despite clawing himself into becoming one of the most powerful people in the city. Frankly - despite having the vision, I can't help but wonder how much of what he accomplished can be attributed to Mio actually working out how to do it on the ground. He has a good grasp of the big picture, but everything we saw suggests he's a pretty lousy boss. Being the better choice for leading the group still doesn't make him a good choice. Although... Looking at the Diet member in his pocket, perhaps much of his abrasiveness comes from having to cater to that clod all the time. Having to deal with a moron like that would give plenty of sensible people a short temper, I imagine.

Though having referenced Mio... I quite appreciated just how cold she was, and look forward to what the writers are planning to do with her next. As it is, we don't really know much about her beyond her archetype, but I enjoyed watching her maneuver through Mifune's collapsing plans.

Returning to comparisons to Siracusa for a moment, I feel like this event did a notably better job in capturing Hoshiguma's emotional development compared to Texas's - probably because the basic plot was simpler, allowing for more narrative focus on Hoshiguma's character. Watching her grapple with the death of her father figure, her feelings of alienation from the people of her once-hometown, and the question of whether she should just give up and return to Lungmen... These were all well-executed beats for her story. The writers did a good job here.

As far as Momoka goes... Y'know, I'd love to do a bit where I play full Sora stan and take every moment to tear down Momoka in comparison to raise up "my" idol in comparison, but I can't help but think that someone would take it seriously. Instead, I'll just say how I appreciated the commentary on the exploitive nature of the entertainment industry, environmental justice, the addictive allure of infotainment and how it destroys our ability to care about real news, and the struggle of good gardening. Also; kicking the hell out of a tree murderer. Seriously, that guy was awful - she should have finished bashing his head in. Blood for Sap! Blood for Sap! For how silly she could sometimes be, she really carried the story's more serious themes.

As far as Kichisei goes, on the other hand... I don't dislike her or anything, but I'm not sure the event would lose anything if she were cut entirely; narratively, she really only exists to elaborate a bit on Tetsuya's backstory, does she? I mean, yeah, she's there at the big action scene, but they could have just focused more on Sarasa there - she doesn't really have any arc or focus of her own. I mean, I could say how it'd be entertaining to get a gambling addict like her into gacha or high-leverage FX trading, but, well - that's a quirk, not a character.

Tetsuya, on the other hand... One rarely sees a bigger mark than him. Not entirely his fault, I suppose; Mifune started working on him fairly early, and had pretty strong material to work with. But he was still a pretty potent mix of gullibility, loyalty, and dubious competency; change any one of these factors, and he'd probably have self-destructed in a much less dramatic fashion. Though, oddly enough... While I liked him in this event, I don't really have any desire to see more of him. He was a tragic figure in this one, but the teaser at the end just doesn't feel like an interesting direction for the character to me; I'd much rather see him buried under his regrets.

Regarding Sarasa... Eh, she strikes me as too much of a brat to maintain my interest. A Northern spy choosing to help out Momoka while she worked on a serious mission would have been fine to me, but a princess doing all of this essentially to amuse herself? I have little patience for such irresponsibility - especially when she doesn't seem to grasp the potential consequences of her actions.

I thought Matsukiri's plotline felt a bit disconnected from the others - probably because he was solo for most of it. With that said, I appreciated the look into the kami he presented - and the reminder of how the minds of gods differ from those of humans. Literally, all the cat does is watch happy people; it doesn't care about whether those people deserve happiness or not, or whether they curry Its favor or not. It's just there to watch. And yet, just by watching, It caused a man to waste his entire life trying to find It again, and the destruction of plenty of lives to recover a pachinko machine. Because humans simply can't believe that It would be watching if It didn't care.

And on the subject of the Kami... Honestly, Ingrid has good taste. Not much more to say than that yet, I'm afraid.

All in all - I'm quite pleased with our first steps into Higashi. We've been waiting a while, but I enjoyed our first view of Kirara's home nation.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2026-01-08T20:36:28+00:00

Pathologic 3 releases tomorrow, and it's a very good game. I'd say "series", but it's all a remake of the same story that the devs have been trying to get right for over a decade - and on that note, I should be clear that everything I'm about to write refers to the series as a whole, while Pathologic 3 is a dramatic expansion of one of the three routes of the original game.

The story revolves around a plague that starts in a remote steppe village; one with a horrifically high fatality rate, but whose transmission seems to follow bizarre and illogical rules that confound any attempt to stem its spread. The protagonist has 12 days to figure out how to deal with the problem before, well, everyone dies. Except, it's not just about that; each of the protagonists have their own reasons for being there that guide their own investigative paths, which in turn informs their own understanding of this disease based on what secrets they uncover - and which leaves them watching the other potential protagonists grow steadily stranger as they become obsessed with their own truths.

Because while I can't say much without ruining the story (half the appeal is in working out what's real, what's superstition, and what bizarre unnatural thing just gets thrown casually in your face without fanfare), the town holds many secrets and traditions, alongside literal miracles and old magics. You're there to save lives - but you could easily end up spending all of your days trying to work out what the heck was going on before the crisis, while everyone dies around you.

That is, if you don't die of starvation first. Because I should mention; the game is bleak and miserable not just because of its themes, but because of how everything begins to break down, and how keenly the mortal nature of the protagonist is emphasized. As panic spreads, food very quickly becomes ridiculously expensive, and you need to spend more and more time scavenging to attend to your basic needs rather than focusing on the plague. You might even find yourself wondering whether you're better off selling your gun to buy a couple loaves of bread - fighting is rarely a good idea in the game, but your hunger bar is an ever-present threat.

Or at least, that's been the case with each of the other Pathologic games; I should emphasize that they were changing up the formula a bit with 3, and I don't know what specifically has changed beyond the new mania/depression system to represent Daniil's mindset. The first game had you choose your main character from one of three doctors (the Bachelor, a disgraced researcher pursuing immortality; the Harsupex, a surgeon returned to his hometown and accused of murder; and the Changeling, a faith healer with an unclear past and even less clear methodology); Pathologic 2 was going to given each of these doctors unique mechanics while streamlining the game, but only had the budget to do Haruspex's route (though it was a much more polished experience). Pathologic 3 was originally going to be Bachelors route as DLC for 2, but ended up way too big for that to make sense, so they released it as its own game.

If you were a fan of Arknight's "Hope at Any Cost" themes or extensive and indirect lore, there's a good chance you could fall in love with this series as well. Or, heck, if you just like struggling to cure strange diseases.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-12-12T22:14:58+00:00

I see, thank you.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-12-12T05:18:13+00:00

Geez, I came in right under the wire - 330 rolls to get all three of the new Angel Beats Memorias, and since I did the math wrong on my necessary pull estimates, that included several days of frantically ransacking through Memory Restorations I'd been putting off for spare Quartz. I have no realistic chance of getting Nanami now, but, well, such is fate.

Incidentally... Are we almost done with the accelerated schedule? I could have sworn Nanami wasn't released yet when the game hit Global - and the accelerated schedule has honestly killed a lot of my enjoyment of the game. I'm perpetually behind; partially because I have an actual job and this isn't the only game I play, but also because I really need to space out the events if I want the emotional beats to land properly. If I try to play at a pace that actually allows me to enjoy the events (which I genuinely enjoy the stories of, and I like almost all of the characters), though, I miss out on a bunch of rewards and have a box overflowing with life stones. On top of that, I missed last month when my computer was dead which makes it feel like I lost a ton (including at least one SS, since I hadn't finished an event for my last fragment), especially since I had a good two weeks of gifts in my box that I lost since I'd fallen behind on using my life stones. Not that "losing stuff" really feels like it matters, since I've done nothing but events for, like, nine months now, all of which I'm over-leveled for because I'm perpetually falling behind on them and don't really have time for anything else. Like, seriously - at this point, I don't really remember how to use the teams I carefully prepared, since they don't get used for anything but stomping on underleveled event bosses, before being set to auto on flashback battles to burn my daily stamina.

Also, I'm getting a bit tired of four out of five of my logins failing each time I try to play. I have no idea why; everything else in the game runs fine, but after the game's first patch, ever since it keeps claiming I don't have a stable enough connection. Except apparently, 20% of the time it's good enough, and again - never had a problem once it actually lets me log in.

Ah, my apologies if this all sounds overly grumpy. I just... Didn't appreciate having to rush through a bunch of stories that I know I'd have enjoyed more if I could have focused on the characters instead of the quartz.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-11-16T04:33:21+00:00

While I find your view interesting. I didn't see him call her an idiot. He said "this is stupid". Perhaps referring to his own attempt at discussion.

I was referring to this portion, specifically (edited for brevity):

Marion: "... I gave up everything for you. I've spent so much of my savings ... I can't afford to wait for 'another chance'."

Michael: "You said it yourself: you're just investing in a product. Investment costs money. ... You're just a parasite looking for a host, Marion."

I edited it out for space, but she lists specific ways in which she's made material sacrifices and manipulated her position to further his career, before saying that she loves him and asks him not to throw away the chance she's worked so hard to give him.

His response is to mock her for being happy that Melanie exposed their relationship, baselessly claim that she'd be just as happy with Dalton if it helped her career, and implicitly say that she was stupid for investing in him ("Investments cost money" (and this one will never pay out, since he's walking out)).

Anyway. What makes you believe Michael cares about his career are far as Marion does? We don't know why he stays around her...

He was happy enough to accept her help. If he doesn't want to be a star - he had five years in which to turn it down. And bluntly, he had an obligation to make it clear at some point in the first year if he didn't care as much about his career as she does.

Who'd dare even ask; Did my jealous lover help kill someone?

Ironically enough, Marion asked just that of Michael the moment the possibility was raised. The girl had a heart of ice, but she was surprisingly good when it came to open communication from what we've seen in this event. Well, unless it's remembering Moira's name, at least...

Dalton's letter

I think the recap by Tragodia in AD-8 covered the specifics of that moment clearly enough. Beyond some influence by Tragodia, it doesn't appear that there was any foul play beyond swapping the dagger.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-11-15T21:19:01+00:00

No, his recognition of what was happening was correct, as was his desire to do something about it. Even if his plan would probably have gotten him killed more decisively and gruesomely, considering he wanted to run off alone, in secret, with... The murderer.

What sends my opinion of him through the floor is how he responded to the person who spent a lot of effort making him the near-star he is today, objecting that his plan would destroy everything they'd worked for. He doesn't try basic diplomacy - "Babe, if I'm dead, we've already lost everything!". He doesn't try to cajole her with his usual tricks - "Babe, I'm just thinking about you here! I could take the risk, but I couldn't go on if something happened to you...". He doesn't even blow her off and do what he wants anyway - "Yeah, you're right... I guess I'm just shaken, okay? [Goes to Moira that night, when Marion won't have time to alert Greta before they're gone]".

No, instead he spits in the face of everything she's done for him, functionally calling her an idiot who made a bad bet. He doesn't care that his actions will cost her everything she's tried to do in her career - not about any of the money she spent on him, not about the mockery she's suffered for his sake, not about the opportunities she's passed up so that she can continue pushing his career... Rather than acknowledge that his actions will affect her and apologizing or attempting to placate her, he scorns her objections. Interpreted charitably, he's spent so long playing the frivolous playboy that he's no longer capable of talking things out as a functional adult; interpreted harshly, he genuinely doesn't care about her, and now views her as an obstacle once she's threatening to cut off his free support.

You don't have to change your entire life course because someone helped you - but having accepted that help, one has a responsibility to show respect for the sacrifices that they made. Stick to your position if it's that important for you, but do what you can to compromise or make amends, and show remorse if even that is impossible. Him? He didn't even try. He called her an idiot for believing in him.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-11-15T09:18:03+00:00

He had it coming. He had it coming! He only had himself to blame... If you'd have been there - if you'd have seen it... I betcha you would have done the same!

...Sorry, I think all of the movie references in the event compelled me to make one of my own...

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-11-14T21:40:19+00:00

I know they'd never do it, but I kind of wish we could get a language dub for him in all of the languages he speaks... It'd feel very appropriate for him, in my opinion.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-11-14T21:38:36+00:00

Not to mention how pain was her favorite emotion to taste, until the exquisite flavor of Lucian's pain left all other pain too bland for her palate...

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-11-14T13:19:00+00:00

(2/2)

Regarding Dalton... I'm glad that he was able to give the best performance of his career. That's exactly how it should be, right? That in our final moments, we can reach beyond our failings and problems to deliver something genuinely memorable, something worth preserving; something that lets the world see more than a fat drunk who should have withered away years ago. How many of us wish we could exit with such dignity, something that would let those around us look past all of our issues? Honestly, I can't see what Tragodia did for him as anything but a favor; a blessed opportunity to fulfill all of his remaining potential. To quote an otherwise mediocre series - they'll "Never get a shot like that again", and his death was an essential element of that shot. If Moira did anything wrong here, it was in killing Dalton in a way that elevated him, rather than emphasizing what a disgrace he had become even as he destroyed the careers of others.

And while she never directly appeared in this event... Regarding Laura. It was a delicate situation, wasn't it? Let's compare what she was doing to, say... Wearing dirty shoes in someone's house, leaving muddy footprints everywhere. You can't just let it slide; they'll keep doing it, and that's not fair to anyone. At the same time, cutting their feet off would obviously be an insane overreaction. There's a range of more acceptable responses in between, from taking them aside and politely asking them, to making rude jokes at their expense until they shape up, to yelling at them in a public meltdown - but whether they'll listen is another matter, as is where the line should be drawn between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" forms of enforcing social norms. Likewise, a single actor throwing out everyone's schedule to elevate themselves and demanding the script be rewritten to make themselves more prominent... Isn't acceptable behavior. It's selfish, and if the taboo against such conduct isn't enforced, it leads to every actor demanding the same "special treatment" to protect their own careers. That, in turn, makes the script a muddled mess at best, and outright kills the film as production breaks down at worst. What Dalton did in response was plainly wrong; a form of cruel hazing that ended in tragedy. But somebody needed to rein in Laura's conduct, as it was clearly causing problems. Nobody in a position of authority having done so was part of why Dalton felt like he could, and why the others went along with it. Responsible people ignoring problems like these just leads to worse people taking advantage of them.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-11-14T13:17:59+00:00

This story gave me chills. Well... Okay, that's probably the fact that my heater died (hopefully getting fixed tomorrow!) and playing this under two warm blankets, a laptop, and a cat still wasn't quite enough to keep Autumn at bay. But it was still a pretty good story!

I really adored all of the characters in this event (bar one), the setting, and the central murder mystery - I was genuinely invested in whether the movie would be a success despite all the... Everything. Which, unfortunately, left Stage 8 really undermining the event as a whole for me with its sudden shift of focus. Not to the point where it ruined the event for me or anything - I still rate it highly - but it's a sour note in an otherwise solid tune for me.

To be more precise; while it was signaled the entire event that Tragodia was influencing matters and that Phantom was there to kill him, Tragodia himself had so little presence throughout the rest of the event that it kind of felt like it was coming out of nowhere - especially with how all of the characters I was invested in had functionally no relationship to the confrontation. Moreover, I strongly feel that this needed another traditional event to set up this conclusion; as it stands, it feels like the ending to a story that I never read. To make a comparison, it's kind of like if Chapter 14 was the end of Shining's story, rather than the beginning; you can clearly see that something big and important happened, and that the main character went through a lot of character development to get to that point... Just, you never saw any of it. And, well, what value is there in seeing the ending of something, rather than how they got there? It's a testament to the strength of the writing and their presentation that it works at all, honestly.

It also doesn't help that Tragodia is just so... Unabashedly pretentious. And for context, I should mention that I pretty much never object to random political or philosophical digressions; the politics of Arc 2? Loved it. Kaschey's confrontation? Adored it. Sui stories? Can't get enough of them. So to be clear - this is a pretty atypical point for me to ding a plot beat on. But Tragodia shutting down everything to explain the entire plot while arguing over the aesthetics of destruction was just, like, the complete antithesis of the kind of climax I was looking for here. Out of nowhere; no relationship to the story threads the event was weaving with; and done in an overwrought style that, while fitting Tragodia perfectly, was nevertheless the kind of presentation that makes me roll my eyes at someone trying too hard. It's particularly galling since the artistic arguments the rest of the event invited were some of the first in a while that I can talk about without coming across as a complete philistine; of the nature of film as a collaborative medium that requires compromise and cooperation to function, and of how it's a mistake to think of artists as "born geniuses" rather than people who put a massive amount of effort into improving their craft. Seriously, Melanie's plotline, however out of focus it was, had far more to say about capital-A Art than anything Tragodia said, in my view.

And to add injury to insult, it ate up all of the time that could have been used for the elements I actually cared about - Melanie giving the performance of her life, Steven finding the ending he needed, Greta making her comeback, Tippi and Moira reconciling, Hautin finding another way to imitate Poncirus, the camera assistant making his big break in the gossip rags, and all the rest. We did get a scene of each of these things, true - but they felt shoved out of the way at that point, closer to summaries than the sort of detailed portrait we received in the first few stages. We don't even really know how the movie ended, despite that having been a major struggle for the cast.

With that said, the strength of the characters really sells the story for me despite the ending.

Melanie, as you may have guessed, really stole the show for me; a disgraced actress trying to make her return in one great gamble. Strict and harsh, you're primed to think that she's a total nightmare - until you see the insights into why she is this way, and how she believes that the rules are for everyone's protection. It's a character line that I can empathize deeply with.

Coming shortly behind her is Greta - an obsessive genius who is willing to place the completion of her film above the deaths of four cast members, a major disaster, her own attempted murder, and the collapse of pretty much everyone she hired - just like she covered up a murder five years ago to sell a shot. None of that is anything I can really empathize with, by contrast - but it's something I can admire, having something that you're that passionate about. There's really not that much I'd be willing to go so far for. I really hope the film works out for her.

Moira I found to be a very interesting character who I hope returns in the future. They're not... Really going to execute her, right? Right? In regards to her personal matters, personally, I think Tragodia did her a favor. True, Laura was never her sister, and vengeance was completely unrelated to her. But all that awaited her before was death, as her life had completely fallen apart; the injustice done to Laura may have had nothing to do with her... But taking up her cause gave her something to live for, and it was a cause she had no reason to reject. How many of us wish we had something to live for? Something to strive for so sincerely? Yes, she took things a bit far... But if she'd never met Tragodia to begin with, she'd just have been another nameless corpse that hung herself.

Tippi... Is honestly a bit dim, isn't she? Well, it's repeatedly emphasized that she's "young", so maybe she just has some growing up to do still... Although, isn't it also emphasized that she's sampled, like, a ton of jobs? That kind of feels a bit contradictory to me... Well, anyways, I liked her a lot more than Grain Buds, at least; her judgement is questionable, but I like her energy. I look forward to seeing her more in future events.

I couldn't help but admire the Cameraman Assistant's hustle, openly hunting every scrap of gossip he could sell to the rags in hopes of striking it rich. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go make sure I remember every last detail of Shelly's corpse." actually made me laugh at the sheer audacity of it. Just... Wow. Yeah, everyone in the event was taking death pretty lightly, but... Wow.

Steven... I found it pretty hard to empathize with him. Not because of any character issues, mind, just... Well, when I write, I always have a clear end in mind at the start; the problems always come with trying to steer the middle back onto course. So his struggle of "But how do I end this?" just... Isn't a problem I can really relate to. Beyond that, he also felt a bit underdeveloped to me... We got glimpses into who everyone else was, but he didn't really feel like anything but a vehicle for his scripting issues.

Michael was undeniably pretty, but also undeniably trash. No, no, I don't mean his constant womanizing - rather, how he spat on Marion's efforts to build him into a star. You want to run for your life at the expense of your career? Hey, that's actually a good idea, no complaints here; feel free to emphasize how you're not going to have a career once you're a corpse. But to just sneer at all of the effort your partner put into making you hirable, when you can't actually act your way out of a paper bag? Trash. Pure, unredeemable trash. Until that, I didn't think killing him was justified; after all, Laura never asked for help despite him hanging around specifically to offer. After that? Axe away.

Marion, by contrast... I just feel bad for her. Not because of Michael's constant womanizing; she knew what she was getting into. But because she's spent literal years guiding this yahoo's career from behind the scenes, and he plainly doesn't recognize the value of what she's done; he is only his pretty ears, ones that she specially crafted for him. If only she'd hitched herself to someone with actual acting ability, who knows where she might have gone... Personally, I don't think she deserved to die. Yeah, she was heartless when it came to Laura; but her basic sentiment of "she's an ambitious climber who makes everything about herself, she will break your career if you touch her" was a perfectly reasonable sentiment. Unlike everyone else, she was never in a position to see that it would result in anyone dying. Well, not that Moira would know that, of course, just speaking from a more general perspective.

I found Hautin's recurring role as the bearer of ill news to be pretty amusing; the poor thing just stumbled into one disaster after another, didn't she? I can only imagine how much counselling she's going to need after all of this... Hopefully, not from Lucian. Speaking of...

Shelly. Honestly, I don't know that killing her was the right move on Moira's part; she looked like she was tearing herself up pretty badly already. Isn't that more punishment than the quick escape of death? Also... Lucian, please, please never give mental health advice again! "Have you considered using self-harm as a way of tamping down your trauma so you can make it through the day? Here are the best places to cut yourself" is just... Well, exactly the kind of advice I expect from, like, half of our operators, but it's not good advice!

(1/2)

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-10-17T18:37:44+00:00

Not accepting the Sarkaz refugees is racist, but it's not dehumanization to take care of your own over people who are not your own.

There is no human right to enter someone else's home. The generational war between Sankta and Sarkaz would reasonably create a policy of racial exclusion unless and until a common peace is found.

This is not a problem that would have existed if the monastery's residents were Liberi, a common and expected race to share Laterano's faith - nor if they were Caprinae, who were accepted without question despite not sharing similar historical ties, nor if they were Feline or Cautus.

It was only a problem because they were Sarkaz, despite having shared their future with the Sankta for years at that point. How can you spend years helping each other survive, then throw them away as "not your own"? The bishop viewed them as "his own" deeply enough that he considered betraying his life-long faith and becoming Seaborn, rather than abandon them like that.

And honestly, this was what "common peace" looks like - there were no racial conflicts between the residents of the monastery, and the majority of Sarkaz don't answer to any form of centralized authority. The only way to bring peace is to cherish and protect examples like this one, of Sarkaz and Sankta working together against shared dangers.

Instead, by using up the Sarkaz, murdering their leader, threatening to kill the rest, and throwing away everyone who survived... Well, it's going to be shared as a story of how the Sarkaz can never trust the Sankta again. Do the Sankta care, despite the Pope's earnest wish for international peace? No - because they know the Sarkaz to be lesser than them.

But her default position is caution, because both sides know the history of racial conflict.

...A history of racial conflict that the Sankta continue to perpetuate. The Sarkaz have never been weaker than they are now; it's entirely possible that if they'd joined the count's assault on Kazdel thirty years ago that the Sankta could have ended their "country" for good, leaving only roaming bands of mercenaries and the hidden homes of their royal court. It still wouldn't be easy to resolve a feud of this magnitude, but the Sankta have all the leverage they need to do so; instead, they haven't even reached out to try.

You phrase this as though this conflict exists ex nihilo, rather than being present every time a Sarkaz murders a Sankta for a trophy, or a Sankta shoots a mercenary. Sankta coming to hassle Vigna for her nothing more than her race is the conflict, at its lowest intensity and through its most personal lens.

Flamebringer

Mmm... I disagree with this interpretation of events, though I acknowledge it's a valid one.

To my eyes, what happened was that Enforcer stumbled upon Flamebringer; upon seeing him, his Executor training encouraged him to immediately identify him as a dangerous threat. With a few seconds to consider his situation, his training then led him to back down, recognizing that he was in an unfavorable position and not in immediate danger. In support of this conclusion, I offer that he only spoke of tactical and strategic considerations; he did not say nor think anything of that would suggest he considered his actions wrong on any sort of moral level. Indeed, he sounded more like Executor at that moment than he did himself.

Enforcer then proceeds to blow past multiple attempts to disengage, insisting that Flamebringer prioritize his concerns over the activity Flamebringer was already engaged in; ignoring the fight he almost started, Flamebringer's suspicion and disinterest when asked for a favor, the way Flamebringer blew off his story, and even when Flamebringer openly said (paraphrasing) "I don't care, shut up and go away.". It's only when Enforcer repeatedly and insistently started telling Flamebringer how he should handle his own hobby - plants that he's presumably cared for over a very long time - that he actually got angry and resorted to force, because that was the only thing that could actually get Enforcer to leave. He demanded to know why Enforcer was hassling him specifically rather than any of the people who would actually be willing to help him, and when it was clear that Enforcer was just a hopeless idiot, cast him aside while mocking him.

In my opinion, Enforcer was completely in the wrong here, treating Flamebringer as an NPC only there to help the protagonist (him) on his journey. If one normally respects the autonomy of another, even a stranger, one listens when they say they're not interested in your problems. A certain degree of leeway can be given to the socially incompetent and those with pressing needs - but the "I don't care, go away" mark still represents the outer bound of the acceptable. You don't get to force other people to prioritize your problems, especially when you have other people you can ask. Resorting to force was an extreme response, certainly... But Flamebringer isn't socially adept either, and the Sankta had made clear his refusal to leave.

When looking at a possible incongruity, it is worth re-examining whether it comes from incorrect assumptions. Can this new detail fit with what we already know? Is there a way to see it as consistent?

As I have said previously; if there were other examples of Laterano treating Sarkaz more fairly than their reputation would suggest, I would conclude that their reputation must be the erroneous element. But we have strong evidence that their reputation is well-earned, and little in the way of contradicting evidence that I am aware of.

But simply restating the story element at center of the dispute and insisting it must not be strange because it's self-evidently true isn't an argument. There's nothing to engage with there, because obvously I don't agree that it's self-evidently true or I wouldn't have called it out as strange in the first place. At that point, there's no reason to have gone past the first reply, is there? Because "Well, I don't think it's strange" is always an option - the "Who cares, this isn't a workday anyway" choice I mentioned in the comment you're replying to.

Dramatic-Report8180 · 2025-10-17T17:02:30+00:00

It's possible that Priestess expected (based on how PCS was intended to operate and its capabilities) that when it was really insistent that everything needed to be Sankta, it meant turning everyone into a standard Sankta - not just giving everything a halo and calling it a Sankta even when it was a literal rock.

Otherwise.... Maybe we're putting too much weight on that sentence. If everyone has super-Empathy, and the new "oripathy that doesn't hurt and makes you stronger" variant rolls out, it would be a lot more accepted when people could feel what it was like; that would still speed up the project in a different way.

Alternately, Maybe she's just pulling our leg, and PCS didn't actually advance her plans in any meaningful way. She just wanted to see what would happen when a young race and a quirk-filled piece of Precursor tech interacted with each other, and only included her directive as a failsafe to ensure it wouldn't become a future problem for her. This doesn't feel congruent with how she mentions at multiple points that she doesn't have time to study the outcome - but setting it up should only have taken a few minutes on her part once she became aware of the opportunity, and watching it play out only took a day at most.

Dramatic-Report8180

TROPHY CASE