#twining threads

hi. observe my yuri.

Also more I Corp. Outis propaganda

This definitely feels like more of a “connective tissue” intervallo than one that develops a new plot.  That’s fine for me, though, as I feel like a lot of this material was lacking in the most recent canto.  It’s nice to have a bit of downtime and just see some of the sinners reacting to their experiences and discussing the events that just went down, especially given how little we got to see of the sinners talking with Ryoshu in Canto IX.  

I’m happy that this intervallo plays on the connections between Heathcliff and Ryoshu (“my loved one was erased from reality”), and we also get a bit more context on what the other sinners remember precisely about the events of Canto VI.  I appreciate that the game has finally shown us that Dante and Heathcliff have been actually making an effort to tell the sinners about Catherine and what happened during that portion of the story, instead of just having the two stew internally about it.   Ditto for the fact that Dante also shares details about Ren, Sora, and Araya.

I also like that we got a bit more on the apprentices and their relationships with one another, as well as some of the stuff that was originally left to combat passives that are easily missed (like Lucio’s plans to kill Valencina).  I feel like a lot of the details on the apprentices and their relationships with one another were kind of relegated to ID stories and fanon, and it’s nice to see stuff like Kira trying to get Lucio into her media fascination of the week.  I was originally not a huge fan of Kira (I’m always leery of the characters that use child slang heavily, as it can make the writers come across as hopelessly out of touch and be very cringey), but I’ve warmed up to her over the story.  I like seeing her grapple with her complicated feelings about Matthias, and I like the dynamic she’s been developing with Ryoshu, who to some extent understands her situation better than just about anyone else.  Ryoshu ragebaits Kira by using slang incorrectly and making fun of her hair, but then also goes out of her way to save her life and it’s giving me sisterhood.

I’m also extremely happy that we got more on how Ryoshu feels about the nursefathers!  We get actual dialogue between her and the other sinners on some of her past experiences.  A discussion on how she developed a taste for art despite Callisto’s bungling of the situation, a confirmation that Matthias is actually a super shitty person for those in the back row, a discussion of what Valencina was like on her good days.  The writing here really showcases that Ryoshu lived with these people for a very long time and knew them very well, and that her feelings about them could be a little more complex than just pure hatred (though there is a healthy amount of that as well).  I love the fact that Callisto was genuinely trying to supportive and just could not get over his gore fetish enough to realize that it wasn’t an appropriate way to comfort his daughter after her elementary school class was brutally attacked, and Ryoshu’s response was like “well, kinda shitty, but he thought he was helping.”

I also think that this has further cemented the Ring as one of my favorite fingers (behind maybe the Index).  They tend to be one of the scariest, as I feel like their motivations are the most insane, and their calm politeness and frequently wild designs give them a very memorable presence in most situations.  I love the designs of the Fauvists (bloodbourne ass motherfuckers), and I think their art is cool.  I also really liked Ryoshu’s conversation with the Docent about the specific distinctions between their styles and what she likes, as Ryoshu going into detail about what she likes specifically in art is something that’s been pretty lacking.

I also love that the scabbard is Araya’s EGO, so now Ryoshu has a sword daughter.  I love that Araya can still be present in the narrative and provide color commentary on Ryoshu ragebaiting people.  It’s really adorable.

On the minus side- I personally found the Gregor content a little underwhelming.  He’s my favorite sinner, though, so I suppose I probably would have found most things underwhelming.  He gets a story node with Moses giving him talk therapy, and that’s about it.  I really really like Moses and definitely feel like she was the absolute perfect character for this (an emotionally intelligent person with fairly similar trauma) and I didn’t have any particular issues with any of the specific dialogue, but it felt very perfunctory for a character who has such a deep, dark stew of issues.

I’m also kind of bummed that he didn’t get to interact with Rodion at all, but I do feel like PMoon does frequently go out of their way to avoid some of the more popular fandom ships- I feel like they avoided putting Ryoshu with Sinlair like the plague in her canto.

Also, I get insane whiplash whenever we get a scene that reveals that there are just normal people living normal lives in the city.  It’s easy to forget that not everybody does murder for their living in this setting, lol.  I do really like a lot of the mundane little details about Gregor’s post-war life (the fact that he was a hire purely because he was a veteran, his dislike of having people approach him from behind, etc) and they do make the ennui feel really really good.