meriel

First of all: it’s a wonderful route. I often feel like some sequels are written just for the sake of existing, but not this one. The whole route has the form of a journey, which is a nice change from vibing in Obsidian for half a lifetime (yes, I’m looking at the first sequels). If you miss Kagari and Matias, I recommend playing it—there’s quite a lot of them here. As for Azel—you can either bring flowers to his grave like Keith, or break into his house like Silvio. Theoretically Azel is dead, but if you know, you know.

The main point is that Emma feels insecure and unworthy compared to Silvio, who’s about to become king and already has many achievements to his name. Emma tries her best to be useful, but she feels like she’s not doing enough. This was already noticeable in earlier events, so I’m glad they developed this theme further. My absolute favorite scene is when Emma admits all this to Silvio and says that because of her origins, she’ll always be seen as insufficient in the eyes of others—after all, she comes from common folk—and she’s afraid that one day she’ll lose Silvio because of it. Silvio hugs her and confesses the truth about his own background, which we as players know, but which he hadn’t revealed to Emma before. He confesses that he’s not the king’s biological son, and he used to constantly fear losing everything—so he understands her desire to achieve things on her own.

Silvio and Emma keep calling each other “my treasure”, and you don’t want to know how many times I cried over that. You can see how both of them have matured. Emma is beginning to recognize her own worth and that she’s fit to be a queen. She conducts steady negotiations, and even the grumpiest people notice that they’re dealing with a girlboss. And I absolutely love that, because she’s not just an accessory to her tsundere italian london tipton, but actually takes part in the political life of Benitoite — and GOD, I’M SO JEALOUS THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE SUCH A QUEEN. Silvio and Emma still have their wonderful dynamic and haven’t lost their sass.

After this sequel, I can’t imagine Rio as the king of Benitoite. Silvio is just so perfect for the throne that if anyone else sits there, I’ll join Azel in his grave. Sorry, Rio, I’m insane because of your brother.

Oh, and Silvio built something like a merchant city (no one knew about it because apparently everyone is blind and deaf) and named it after Emma. Earlier, he bought her a ship, which is basically a floating residence. 

So far I've only finished the romantic ending and I can't wait for the next one.

I want to live in Emma City.

BONUS

Emma and Silvio's ship:

AND EMMA CITY:

After some time, here are Lydia and Adria from Benitoite 💙

As always, I mostly relied on my imagination for the outfits and tried to implement their sons' features in their design in a more subtle way.

Hopefully, I managed to not copy from Rio and Silvio too much, compared to the Rhodolite mothers who sometimes look too similar to the princes 😅

I wanted Lydia to look kind and pure, while Adria showed her haughty nature and noble status.

For those who are acquainted with the Ricci/Ortiz brothers' stories and know what Adria did to Lydia, here is a scene I wanted to reproduce:

(RIP to Valerio's anatomy here)

I wanted to add more drawings but to be completely transparent, I started another project right in the middle of doing this and I'm too invested in this one now 😂

But I want to eventually post some more doodles of them in the future!

I want to thank everyone who helped me find references to their descriptions and for other side characters!

The next character design will probably be a male side character or Gilbert's mother.

Clavis just catching stray shots off-camera! Notice he didn’t say he’d rather stop Clavis! Clavis cannot be stopped (Yves continues to cry, nightly).

Don't be coy now, Sariel! Get it all out:

Gil represented all of yandere-dom, and said it with his whole chest!:

Azel, done with it all (reminder: this whole thing was his idea), decides to move on to purification step two: having you all close your eyes with your backs facing him.

Would a benevolent "god" trick you? Would?? he??:

If anything, Silvio is (somehow) underreacting.

Azel completely drenches all of the princes, head-to-toe, with the bucket of water he pulled out of...somewhere. But because Azel totally isn't into you at all, he made sure to only get your sleeve a little bit damp.

Don't worry! Gilbert is right there to be dramatically concerned for your non-issue:

Is he referring to his cold, black heart or his cold, black soul? We may never know the answer to this question for the ages.

While Gilbert is simping away, and Sariel is surely regretting leaving all his whips at home, you’ve got (valid) questions, and Silvio is puffing up like a spitting cat:

Now that Azel has you right where he wanted you all along, he breaks out his Avon Lady case and gets down to his infomercial:

Just 938,509,458 easy payments!!:

Luke, did you just meet Silvio today? Meanwhile, Gilbert is still determined:

Haven't seen Silvio and Azel for a couple of panels? It's cool. They're in the background, trying to murder each other at the edge of a lake in a random oasis, as is tradition:

Azel, clearly forgetting Silvio's endless stamina, decides to bring arcane arts to a run-of-the-mill fist fight:

If you can't beat 'em, remind them that you're literally magical:

You suddenly wake up in your bed, in Rhodolite, poorer than when you went to sleep because you all got scammed by Azel in your dreams! Happy New Year!: