Actually no sorry I'm not done sjkbfvjksdfhv

The concept of like, okay we have to start at the beginning because is the introduction scene not the coolest sequence of events you've ever seen?? When I first loaded it and played through that initial CG segment, I immediately went back to the main menu to do it again, because I could not believe how fucking sick that was. 

Being born into another body, waking with eyes that aren't yours--and having eyes at all, because before this you were nothing, you did not exist, and now suddenly you do with a body borrowed. Or stolen, or given, depending on how you look at it, it's not like we knew at that point. 

The art style captures the essence of the character perfectly here, the game doesn't tell you right away that something is off with the envoy's emotions, but just the glazed, empty look in her eyes was an IMMEDIATE sign that something was not right. There's no shine, no light, just a fog of murky pale purple. I love it. The dull expressions, Maisy Kay's beautifullll voice work, I genuinely couldn't think of a better introduction to the character.

It's hard to word specifically, but the concept of being this creature born from an impossible power, being so scary in essence and theory, your sole purpose is to bring the cold comfort of death, of nothingness, of the abyss, and you could do it. It would be so easy, and you wouldn't feel a thing. 

Because when you were called into being, either something didn't quite go right, or the Abyss never wanted you to feel anything from the start. We have Alpheon to thank for that. 

That's the thing that gets me, or one of the many things that get me, because every single thing that happens from that point on, could be attributed to Alpheon. 

He takes the lid off your emotions, he lets you feel, in a roundabout way he gives you your kindness if that's the kind of MC you play. His own empathy is what sets the potential for change in motion, if he were not as kind as he is, he wouldn't have thought that you deserved to feel life.

But you do, so he did, and then nothing is the same, nothing goes as the Abyss planned. 

You start paying attention, you learn about the people who took you into their care, you start to spread yourself out and experience the world, and the world you experience shapes you in turn. You  might have been a rock at the start, with little capacity for change, and then Alpheon made you into clay. You can be molded into a different shape, something other than what the Abyss crafted you to be, or you can render his kindness meaningless and do exactly as you were born to do, you can deny the option to deny your destiny.

Is that not so fucking cool??  How do you get over that??

How do you come back from a story where you're born to be a weapon, many of the characters know it, and the rest will either have to suffer your cruelty or feel blessed to have witnessed your blossoming. It doesn't shy away from the darkness either, you see the grit and the real evil, you can hurt people and it will mean something. It feels terrible. 

I haven't done those endings yet, btw. I probably won't unless I need the context for my fic LOL but the potential for angst is just so high with the quality of writing, and I'm not sure my poor fragile heart can take it.

Marané's scenes in particular capture a specific feeling that I wish I could see more of, when you're comforting her after her vision, and she's awestruck at the fact that you are so beautiful, so horrifying, and so kind. The blood in her eyes when she says it,  Savy's unfairly velvety voice, the music, that moment perfectly encapsulates the beauty of the Envoy as a character to me. 

"Bottomless, ravenous, ever-devouring. And yet gentle and soft in the touch of Its Envoy....Creature of blood and flames, how can you appear so ferocious and yet be so kind?" 

Those lines KILL me dude, her delivery for this scene is so compelling, and it feels so romantic. Even from a platonic view, it's such an intense bonding moment for them, the gentleness coming from what Marané can see is a creature now, one beyond her comprehension, one that demands her blood and her secrets and her shadows just to see beneath the surface. And she's enthralled.

The Envoy is fascinating. 

I love seeing a monster-adjacent character be treated with the severity it deserves. Often I feel horror media is softened for consumption, and this isn't necessarily scary horror, but it captures that feeling perfectly. She is a monster of sorts, she has an immense capacity for cruelty and brutality, and it's by a hairsbreadth that things don't go horribly wrong for the entirety of Carolisé.  

It doesn't always need to be showy, we've seen what she can do, we know what she would do if we allowed her. Our choices are the only thing to keep her in check, so if you choose not to hold her back, then she will become a monster. We know it, and we're not the only ones, which makes it even better. 

I love watching the characters who know what she is interact with her, it's part of why I love Ascanio, just because there's so much subtext happening every time they're on screen together.

In the single second it takes for them to wipe their lenses before putting them on, the very first time you meet them in the Halls, I can't help but wonder if it's because they immediately knew they had to hide their eyes from you. 

The way their face changes when you tell them that you're here for a friend, and that means the Envoy sent to kill them is befriending the people they protect. 

When they walk into your room and see that you have a brother of Dawn hiding there, that you saved his life and now you're asking that they grant him sanctuary.

Their very innocent questions with absolutely no ulterior motivates whatsoever, their thought experiments, the scenarios they play out to test what kind of Envoy you will be. 

Wanting your thoughts on regret, on human nature, and every question they ask is so much more loaded with intent when you play it again knowing who they are, what they stand for, and what they might be thinking of you in those moments beneath the moonlight; two wolves in sheep's clothing, but one that wants to protect the herd, and the other that was sent to cull it. How incredible of a dynamic is that?

There's so much you can infer from these interactions, and it's the NOT KNOWING that makes me unable to stop thinking about it LOL but I can't go down that train of thought because i will not shut up.

So on the flip side, Marané, who should be terrified of you, who should reject everything you offer. In any other story you would be the corrupting influence that she needs protection from. She knows in part what you are, and seeks you out, she seeks understanding of you and finds the abyss, she glimpses the unending through you. 

You represent everything Ascanio and [most] of her mentors spent a lifetime warning her away from, and she can't help but be drawn to it; moth to flame.  So desperate for freedom that she's willing to overlook the blood that must be spilled for her to get it. 

But she's not cruel like you could be, she's not the monster you were born to be, she wasn't built to dissolve her shackles with the lives of thousands. She cares too much, you see it even in her pursuit of power, her unbridled rage at being unable to help. How often do you see a woman who initially appears to be the average self-centered, haughty noble mage, fucking crumbling to her own anger, because she is so enraged at being helpless that she'll even turn to forces that will corrupt her. Change her forever. Take away something that she'll never get back. 

And she would, because the festering corruption and avarice that she's fighting against feel just as evil, but it would probably kill the parts of her that only desperately needed to be healed. 

[Or maybe she's super into it and is totally fine idk I haven't tried that path LOL feel free to check me, let me live vicariously through you if you set the town on fire bc im too much of a coward.] 

I just love experiencing a story like this from this specific perspective. If you flip it around, it'd be easy to assign just about any other character an MC role, and you could explore what it would be like to push back against the Envoy sent here by the Abyss just to paint your hometown red. It would be compelling, and thrilling, and probably have a very fulfilling ending, and the Envoy would be a good villain. Apathetic, cruel, but ultimately innocent in the same way the siren is. We would be Charybdis.

Okay i need to stop i'm just gonna keep going and i've been typing this for like 2 hours already LOL I fucking love this game if u couldn't tell