GrimmPhoenix'sArtDump

Sadie (Kris) - The Fat Frog of FATFROGRUNE fame. The idea is simple. Your name is SADIE LASTNAME. You are a RETRO GAME ENTHUSIAST. You and your GIRLFRIEND are going to meet your parents in your HOMETOWN. You're staying here for SEVEN DAYS. Talkative, slightly obnoxious, really observant but to a point where she describes everything she looks at sort of. It's weird and it kinda started recently like someone's watching her now but what the hell. She's not a bad person. . . She knows she isn't but people seem to not think that. THE GATEWAY OF FROG'S SPAWN.

Nami Vergil Everett (Susie) - The daughter of ■■■■■■■■, local hero of her and Sadie's hometown. She was never really the same after her mother's passing, she couldn't bare to look back. She's stuck in the present, always moving forward without direction. Has a bit of main character syndrome and feels like she has to do most of the work for her and Sadie. She doesn't blame Sadie for what happened, she knows that deep down the things they said she did couldn't have been her fault, but maybe she's just too afraid to look back to notice it. THE TRIAL IN HUMAN SKIN.

Dante Everett (Noelle) - The adopted daughter of ■■■■■■■■ and Ms. Modeus Everett. She was never really the same after her mother's passing. She got stuck in the past, stuck in the memories of all of the good times between her and her mother, always fawning over her mother's old hiking equipment and field notes even if it interferes with her Entological work. Her heart's in the right place but she's not one to let a loose end linger and keeps one hell of a grudge. She believes what they said about Sadie, even if she won't say it to her face. How could she ever find the right time to bring it up. AT FIRST, THE SISTERS. AT LAST, THE SISTERS.

As with the original Chapter 2, the way to start the Weird Route is unlocked after Dante, the sort of Noelle of the game, joins the party after Sadie and the Gang are separated. The important thing to note about Sadie and Dante is that they've both been playing nice with eachother for Nami, and without her as a buffer Dante begins to treat Sadie worse and attempt to call her out for what she thinks Sadie did to ■■■■■■■. With this general hostility, I think this will lead to a lot of Sadie's major character flaws coming to light and general put her in the worst possible light she could be taken in so that when Yusuke Fortune is reintroduced the gears in your head will sort of be turning as you meet someone who's much more confident and well liked and just generally everything Sadie isn't. It's almost like the game itself wants you to envision her as the main character, where you're a talented nobody in a small town solving the mystery of your friend's mother's death with your quick wit and skill instead of the person who seemingly caused the mystery to most of the characters. That desire for Yusuke to be the main character is the fundamental drive of this route and will be one of the most important plot points to understand the fate of ■■■■■■■, in a way.

From the moment Dante joins the party, she has access to the spell Charm. Charm is a very powerful option to immediately get a lot closer to sparing an enemy with the cost of a lot of MP, with the spell itself giving like +50-75% spare. This ability to Charm others will be integral to the future steps of the route. You need to do nothing but get Dante to Charm enemies for every oncoming fight, along with some very esoteric puzzles on the side. Dante usually won't follow your orders, especially during the Yusuke fight, so you have to do absolutely nothing but make Dante use Charm in order to get her closer to using the spell on Yusuke. But why would we want to Charm Yusuke, you may ask? Well, for that, the puzzles are where you need to look. This brings us back to Baalpit.

Instead of Baalpit having a shop, Baalpit has a little area in the Trash Dump Equivalent where you can do little minigames to eventually get the key to the basement. I imagine you'd have to intentionally fail several minigames while doing the equivalent of punching in the wall code in FNAF 3 to let Dante attempt to talk to Baalpit. Dante eventually begins to open up with her disdain of Sadie and her grief of her mother's passing. If only she could spend a few more minutes with her. . . That nostalgia reminds Baal a bit of themself, and an idea begins to brew. While Sadie is distracted with the mini games, you make Dante use Charm on Baal repeatedly, and with no MP, she's basically wasting away partially by the time Baal eventually gives in and gives her the only thing he thinks could help.

A golden hand.

Whatever open the Spirit Gate over the Dark Fountain probably must have left this by or something. . . It feels like the golden artifacts you've seen the Main Bosses carrying. Baal says that they can sense a dark power emanating from the hand but has no way to harness it. Like they'd even need it for their plans. . . Dante. . . Dante goes pale. Dante stops talking. Because she knows now. On her heart, gripping tightly to her jacket, is a cold, dead hand. Not like the weapons or armor she had been given up to this point. Whether it was the figure who made the gate or Baal themself. . . She just. Shuts down. It feels so. . . Cold. . . Dante won't do anything if you fight normal enemies now. She just. . . Stands there. Stunned.

Then comes Yusuke. The girl named Fortune had been looking all over for Dante and when she finally sees her and Sadie she kind of brushes off the weird hand and laughs off the cold, dead expression. . . Much like all of her bouts of confidence it's only skin deep. Yusuke eventually attempts to fight again, and to seal your fate what you have to do is take Sadie down. Let her go down and force Dante to use a new move in the Magic Menu. One with an asterisk or circle in front of it like the rest of the spells in the list but without a name or potentially even glitching as if it's attempting to use parts of tilesets as characters. The only description it has only has one word surrounded by empty space as if it was originally part of a sentence "Debilitating."

Dante uses ■■■■■■.

. . . Nothing happens-

The screen goes pitch black with the exception of Yusuke in a white silhouette. A gold spike has been driven through her body and a spell tag hangs over her torso.

The only sound heard is the metal stabbing into Yusuke.

And then the screen goes back to normal. Yusuke is unharmed but eventually both Dante and Yusuke hit the ground. Both still breathing, but Yusuke seeming like she's sick. Her breathing is unsteady and she's eerily cold. Sadie. . . Sadie runs. You have to follow her through the alleyway and through whatever the manhole would be.

The mansion portion would be mostly the same as what it would normally be with the sole exception of the music being shifted down a key and the occasional eye or shape being seen in your peripheral vision around whatever the mansion will be. Sadie is also a lot more meek throughout all of this and Nami can sense it. She backs off a little bit, so does Merd. It feels so much quieter. You don't even fight Yventte, she doesn't have anyone else to control and accepts defeat gracefully, giving you the golden eye. Eventually you walk to the Spirit Gate before someone. . . else. . . makes an appearance.

From the moment it drags itself out of the fountain's own reflective darkness, you can tell this isn't Baal. Despite being Baal's body its face is contorted into a scowl and the mouths on its body are shut tight and its eyes are completely blank. It screams at you for defiling it, severing its peace in the world and dragging it back to reality. Why. Why must the tragedy be brought back? WHY? WHY SADIE? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO RELEASE THIS? WHY?? WHY??

WHY??

The Heir of Grief has been released. Someone died that day in that ballpit. There's a reason it was never brought back out of that storage room.

Eventually, you think you're able to defeat the Spirit inside of Baal's body, but alas. . . There were always more knives right when you thought they were out. As the grasping hands of the beast crawl forward towards Sadie and all hope seems lost, one last option appears in your menu. Calling Card. You have no other choice and select it.

One again, everything freezes. The screen once again goes dark with Baal's outline in white. A blue card slowly falls from the ceiling, fluttering down and eventually making it to the center of Baal's body. The lights flicker. The scene returns to normal. The only thing left besides Sadie is the card.

Nothing is said as the Spirit Gate evaporates and the Fountain closes. No one talks as you run off back to your old home. No one talks as you just. Lie in there. It wasn't going to be a surprise for them anymore that you made it into town. You can't bare it anymore. You can't even bare your mother anymore but it's better than looking into the eyes of Dante's sister. Eventually, the night gets cold. Sadie makes one last phone call to Nami and tells her she should come over before she closes the windows of that old trailer house and stabs the ground with everything she's got. The screen returns to darkness and the chapter finally ends. . .

Generally the main conflict of FATFROGRUNE to me revolves around the relationship between Sadie and Nami and their own mental struggles. Both of them have a lot of self-worth issues and they sort of got together because of how much they were able to relate to one another. After ■■■■■■ died, Sadie had a lot grapple with. With her friends thinking that she had something to do with it and her mentor - the only one she could really confide in - not coming back, she started to see herself as unreliable. Like she's better off dead for how much trouble she ropes other people into. Eventually she just decided to up and leave, going off to college and planning to never come back until she got to know Nami a bit more. Nami was the only one from her past who accepted that she was trying to reinvent herself and move on from all of that pain, and she accepted it with open arms. She never really felt that way before. . . As she started to open up more, she let more of herself show, like her tendency to narrate her life at times and generally just be a little silly gal. It's hard to tell but Nami senses that something's up with her just from how much more she talks to herself. . . I wonder why that is.

Nami, on the other hand, want to be the main character of her story. Throughout her life she's always felt unremarkable, she wasn't nearly as spoiled as her younger sister, the rest of her family were all famous and went off to do better things, her mom had a legacy that proceeded her, whatever it was that she did. . . What does Nami have? A name? After ■■■■■■'s death, she snapped fully. She couldn't bare to look back even for a second, she's the one who needed to forget more than anyone. She needed to take care of her family now that mom wasn't around. . . She started smoking a bit afterwards. Taking down her photos. Stopped talking to Dante like she used to. Ran off to college. She didn't know what she'd do but god just being in that house, it was too much. That's when she met Sadie, and Sadie thought she was the coolest person ever. . . And she finally felt like she didn't have to run, to keep pacing away from life and actually start living it. But, as always with Nami, she was the one who wanted to face her problems head on, even though she was wildly unprepared for it.

Both of them have issues with their perspective. Sadie doesn't think she's worth discussion and Nami wants her story to be told more than anything. Together they're not the best fit ever but they're together, and just maybe it'll work out. Just maybe.