#blazingtextpost

I wanna preface the upcoming word vomit with the sentiment that: I am only such a big Elysia Truther™ today because I did NOT like her at the beginning .

Back to where it all started

When we entered the Elysian Realm for the first time, you gotta remember the mindset we were in…. On the other side of the Herrscher of Dominance fiasco (Everlasting Flames & Moon Halo had already been released on CN servers by this point, for reference regarding the emotional state most of us would've been in)... Mei has just been KIDNAPPED (taken in) and whisked away from her girlfriend — bc they just had a very nasty breakup — by some WEIRDO (a person who says he knows how to help her hone her Herrscher powers) named Kevin….  and after only a month or so[1] of working with them, big boss Kevin comes and says to Mei, “There’s somewhere I need to take you.” AND STUFFS US INTO HIS BASEMENT FULL OF PEOPLE EVEN WEIRDER THAN HIM!!!! (THAT WAS POSSIBLE??)

  From the Concept trailer, to the in-game setting/gamemode of Elysian Realm, the first voice— first silhouette we see — is that of Elysia’s.  And from the get-go, her purpose is shrouded in mystery. Within our first couple dialogue options, she comes off as a little flirty (or.. rather, really flirty), but given the foreign situation we’ve just been thrust into… idk about you, but I’m on the weary end…  This is the place where World Serpent agents get “initiated”; the greatest secret of Kevin’s organization. And at this point in the story.. World Serpent isn’t exactly high up on my list of “People I can trust”, and it’s definitely the same for Mei herself.

From the beginning Elysia puts on this “Cute girls like me only want the best for beautiful girls like you. / You can trust me, I’ll be here for you all the way, no matter what.” face, and at that moment it was just SO superficial !!! It was portrayed as if it was a mask that Elysia put on... It was like: here comes this beautiful woman trying to wriggle her way into Raiden Mei’s (and by proxy the player’s) good graces with her (ARROGANT) self-important and romanticized words... this,,, air of all-knowingness that she has, and the notion that SHE is key to all of our questions (which admittedly is a very enticing notion, because we came here for answers after all—), trying to convince us that she’s this sweetheart who can do no wrong…??

BITCH!! NOT on MY WATCH 🤨🤨🤨.

Girl, you better back the FUCK UP, my girl Mei is hurting rn, and she’s lookin’ for ANSWERS pertaining to SURVIVAL!! Get your SLEEZY mindgames OUT of my FACE! I am not falling for it.  I will NOT trust you (to the extent that you say I should)!!! >:((

How it's going

So... here I am.  on edge.  in a brand new environment being followed and doted on by a beautiful woman who still won’t readily give us any easy answers… and I’m fightin’ my inner demons .  Because every NERVE in my body is saying “oh hell nah. I ain’t fallin’ for this…”, but every NEURON in my BRAIN is going "beautiful sapphic woman,,,,, do whatever she says”.

Truthfully, I only put up the indignant “Who is this bitch” act for all of like.. 3 weeks, during that period where people would post screenshots/CGs from the upcoming version (referring to Version 5.0 — the launch of ER) because it was already out on CN servers. Once it released on global and I started playing through the realm myself, I was admittedly very smitten,, very quickly:

(this picture is towards the end of ER Chapter 2 btw; so much later, but the point still stands)

But the game, itself, is SURE to remind you — oh so subtly — that there is more to Elysia than meets the eye. And I'm not just talking about the absolute nuclear bomb that was the word "traitor" once we met Mobius for the first time... Even outside of that (which was huge by the way . Allow me to say rn that Mobius was an INCREDIBLY good driving force for the 2nd chapter of ER), there are a HANDFULLLL of really tense and just deadass menacing Ellie moments, if you pay attention. I can only post one video clip in tumblr posts, so unfortunately I'll have to just cite the realm interactions I'm referring to (since I need the video for something later), but: moments like Kevin's "About Elysia" and "About Betrayal 1"; Kalpas's "About the Past 1 & 2"; and Mobius's "About Memory 1"... In the 1st of all three of those, Elysia's voice at one point takes on a tone that's just so... viscerally AND YET SO SUBTLY different from her normal light, airy & happy tone, in a way that gives me goosebumps the first couple times I listen back to them. In all three of those she gets serious for a second. Still adopting an almost doting tone (like she naturally dons), but with a sense of... idk!! it's a sense of something almost malicious ! just because of how mysterious and ssssmug & patronizing she is when she delivers the lines! They're moments that poke at, and thus bring attention back to the "mask" that she may very well be wearing... Yet, at the same time, she has shown constantly through her actions that (for the most part) she is on our side, and won't let anything truly bad befall us while we're in the Realm... (Her exact level of strength in order to be (1) not only promising but (2) DELIVERING that level of protection is YET ANOTHER thing that is constantly danced around during ER... And, that, in particular is something I know I found myself obsessing over as I played, but.. that's something to save for this imaginary video essay.)

How it goed

   The Elysian Realm & Elysium Everlasting arc, in total, took place over the course of more than an entire year. Now… listen, bruh, that’s a LONG time. And Ellie is nothing if not persistent, you can be damn sure about that. So her constant presence in the story, plus the way that her actions manage to be about as loud as her never-ending words, meant that within a couple months (or, really… by the end of THE month ER released,,, because I’m gay) she did fully convince me that she wasn’t some villain, not a villain in the slightest. I still don’t know what she did to be called a traitor, and I still don’t know what power she’s hiding, but by this point — by the end of Chapter 2 (the fiasco with Mobius) — I’m like 95% convinced that her intentions are pure, and that she really does care a lot. So, I was no longer worried that she was leading us (Mei) into some strange trap or otherwise malicious situation, but there was still a tremendous air of mystery to her, and so even though my reservations were gone, my suspicions never truly faded…  Not until Chapter 29 of the main story, Tochter aus Elysium, Act 1 dropped.

Elysium Everlasting

I'm not actually going to speak much about the Story Chapters that took place in E.E... Because the moment that helped completely solidify my love for this character happens within the first hour of gameplay, and the rest is simply just history...

A moment that, despite me not having seen it for years at this point, has embedded itself into my mind:

(Clip taken from YT channel Maddoctor's upload of the whole story chapter)

"I remembered how they looked properly... right?"

Whenever Ellie would go on about saying how much she loved everyone, in my head I constantly thought: "Yeah ok sure.  You love your comrades in arms and family in the MOTHs, but you can’t seriously expect me to believe you mean everyone".... Never did I think Hoyo would go out of their way to actually double down and try to illustrate exactly what she meant when she said "everyone". I thought for sure they were just going to leave it as an open-ended, implied sort of thing. A one-way relationship, if you will; with Elysia basically saying "I treat everyone so nicely, why wouldn't they love me?"...

Never could I have even imagined that they would expand on the data simulation of the Elysian Realm and use its entire existence as A MEDIUM to convey how much Elysia cared. The realm — as a simulation — is sourced from memories and Elysium Everlasting, specifically, is introduced as being "Made of Elysia’s memories, replicating everything that Elysia loves, Elysia’s mental world." (by Ellie herself). There were dozens!!! of NPCs out and about in E.E... When she said "I remembered how they looked properly... right?" I damn near lost it… Because the idea that her own experiences & encounters with all these people was something committed to her memory to the extent that they could be.. even somewhat reliably reconstructed as sims was astounding ! to me. The sentiment here was just so pure and real and earnest in a way that, you have to understand, had previously still felt a tinge superficial whenever Ellie interacted with Mei or the other Flame-Chasers in the Realm... There is a sense of longing in her voice and vulnerability in the pause (that comes before her signature "right?") that I had never heard before, and it just struck me . so profoundly. Because I had accepted that she was sincere, but... not this sincere...

Elysia means paradise

And it's just... and it's just that ^^^ all of that right there.. that made me fall so deeply in love with this character — like so many other people.

The biggest trait that makes Elysia Elysia is her love for humanity.

But this love had to be built up piece by piece (over the course of almost a year) in order for it to TRULY be received as genuine; before we (both through the lens of playing as Mei, and by ourselves as players) could come to trust it was real and well-founded.

As we learn more about her backstory and where she came from, we also come to learn why this bountiful optimism and love for things EVEN when they're ugly is a well-founded trait of hers. It's a result of her journey through life; it's well-founded because she, for the sake of protecting others, left her loving home village and vetured out into the world to experience the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful and everything in between. She was a Herrscher born a human and embraced by humanity, living just like a human, bound to experience the gorgeous and the grotesque.

And here is where I start to draw parallels between the Elysia of ~August 2021–September 2022 and her more recent appearances.

Something that I've alluded to a little bit throughout this rant/think piece of mine, is the idea that Elysia has always been rather arrogant, and pushy. AND THIS is something that I will genuinely stand on a hill and DIE on if it comes down to it. Because the charm of Elysia is that she's supposed to force the love down your throat. She is SUPPOSED to have a personality that is NARCISSISTIC !! She is supposed to be ANNOYING!! and PUSHY and self-important !!!! Because the point is that her actions are genuine, and that at the end of the day she only wants what's best for you; so you end up being charmed by her intentions, and perhaps not so much her actual actions.

She often forces her will onto others, she often drags people into things they don’t want to do at first, but in the end it usually pays off!! Hell ! It’s something that I took particular interest in during the creature-capture ranch-like event last update!! ("Assemble! Summer Friendship Resort" from 8.4 featuring the Golden Courtyard crew) Where she was bothering Mobius (you know, as she does) and for a little bit, Mobius wasn’t having any of it, but Ellie kept persistently pushing — you know ! As she always does — and it worked out in the end (because Mobius is as easy to read as a children’s novel when it comes to how much she cares about Klein), meaning Elysia was proven right once again…

"A being without flaw" is exactly what Elysia is not. She does sometimes claim herself to be so, however, because she is vain in that way. And I say she is allowed to be vain in that way because she only has good intentions & she only wants to do what's best for the people she loves (which she has proven time and time again); and if that's not the closest a human being can get to being considered "flawless" in most contexts, then idk what else would be. In the moments we see of her learning she's actually a Herrscher for the first time in the PE, she is in fact so painfully human that it would be a DISSERVICE to assert she's completely flawless (Also, lemme not start on how beautiful the "Herrscher of Human: Ego" story had been carried out, because then we'll be here for days...)

But I think some of the writers, ever since this arc finished (and hell, they've probaly been doing this since we were 2/3s of the way through E.E), have become MUCH too accustomed to (what I'm just gonna call) "the Post-Elysia effect". Where: we all know, because it has been well-established through this very arc, that Elysia’s assertive self-importance is rooted in a good place. And thus, they treat everything she does as an ultimately good thing that can always be excused. They let her get away with too much, let her goad unwilling others into doing the things she wants and the things she likes, and overall gets whatever she wants... This is something that I realize I'm going to delve a lot more into in the video essay (that I now increasingly REALLY want to go through with making), because the way that this effect,, took effect is fascinating to me, and I want to explore it more. I just don't quite have the room here...

I believe it is exactly this Post-Elysia effect — the rooted notion that Elysia is truly just a sweetheart — that resulted in this slight dichotomy that exists between the recent Elysia archetype that's spawned, and who she was 3–4 years ago. The archetype of a character who is paramount to a narrative; a character who is centrally important in the face of a much larger cast; and especially a character that is inherently good, well-meaning, and all around loving (specifically, someone "who loves all of humanity".... which,,, is a HEATED topic of discussion that I just don't need to get into in this post..).

So one of the only things I will say relating to Cyrene, who is a separate character in her own story that tries to follow this archetype (keep in mind, I still have not played 3.7, which is meant to be her character defining patch), in this post is this:

Elysia is "the one who's important" (gets excess marketing; focus; writer-favoritism, centralization in the story, etc) because she knows how important everyone else is, too. SHE'S the one who helps to show you how important everyone else is too. It's because she's the one who has taken the time and put in the effort — IN NARRATIVE — to connect to and understand the Flame-Chasers (and, really, everyone she's met). It is NOT just because she's... Elysia. That alone is not enough; that alone will never BE enough. You can't just call someone Elysia and expect ANY of this stuff to carry over! You can't!! Not a single piece of it will transfer properly... Not her kindness, not her sense of care, not her love... It won't BE Elysia, it'll be a pink-haired girl who claims to care a lot about her homeland (***in a way that's borderline selfish — assuming you were even able to covey that sense of selfishness properly...)

(***We want that, btw. Like I said earlier, we want a recognizable tinge of selfishness in her... That's part of what makes Elysia Elysia. And from what I've - unwillingly - heard about Cyrene from 3.7 every time I accidentally opened twitter, at least that part seemed to carry over! :D And allegedly... carried over like,, 3-fold which I'm interested to learn more about)

And the wedding motif is another thing!!! The only time I have ever seen Elysia be really steeped in the wedding theme — because even her battlesuit design is never explicitly said to be a "wedding" dress; it's her dress for her final banquet — was in a fan-made music video that, to this day, has a monumentally strong hold over my emotional state.... And I really liked the wedding motif ! because as HoH:E released, the writers didn't actually play into it much at all. It was more of a lowkey thing; a simple aspect, derived from her banquet dress, that made you go "Wow... that's incredible" the more you thought about it. Her love and devotion to the ethos of humanity is so strong that you could liken her to being married to it... It signified her devoting herself to the mere concept of humanity; giving her life to the furtherance of humanity, to a better humanity; one that is as good as she has always believed them to be; one that will hopefully carry on a legacy she tried hard to build: going on to create one's own paradise for everyone to share...

That pretty much concludes the majority of what I wanted to talk about... Which is crazy, becauses literally none of this even goes to say anything about how phenomenally I think the Elysian Realm was written — by means of how thoroughly they abided by the statement/idea that "it starts and ends with Elysia" — but that's something that's been covered endlessly before, so I suppose it wasn't needed here. (I plan to rave on about the tiny details in the video essay. Like that one about the TRuE (Ed Ver.) ending with the same notes from the very first trailer)

I'm going to go on to play the current HI3rd event (contextualizing her Hi♪ Love Elf♥ battlesuit) right now, and soon after I will endeavor to complete HSR 3.7

[HER LITTLE FROWN!!  :((( ]

[SHE LOOKS SO SAD]

She waited for Ei for 500 years, got her back, and now she has to send the souls of her friends and family away.

“It’s a feast and all feasts come to an end”  [and what if I literally sob]

[My heart broke watching this I love her so much]

   Her FACE ! THAT expression. I am sniveling on the ground.

We know both Ei and Miko have lost people close to them; here we see Miko go through the loss firsthand. And even in the presence of the Traveler Miko decides not to preserve her unbothered and nonchalant mask. She’s sad to seem them go. But she knows it has to be done and she takes comfort in the fact that these youkai lived their lives to the fullest.

   good GOD I could go on and on about how hot she was for doing this in the first place (both the animation and the masterful big brain plan behind getting the whole city to do the chant along with her).

 But I won’t, I wanted this post to mainly just be about how great it is that we saw this moment of vulnerability from her.  And how this moment is NEARLY A YEAR OLD!??!    I just thought it was so delicious from like, a character-crafting perspective. ‘Cause even in the recent Mikawa Flower Festival the topic of youkai losing friends throughout the passage of time is brought up again around Miko, and she played the part of, well.. ‘therapist’ for Chizuru incredibly well.