straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2017-07-16 10:47 am
straightforwardly) wrote2017-07-16 10:47 am
144 | reading the Kalevala, and playing Solstice
► Lately, I’ve been slowly making my way through the Kalevala. I’ve read bits and pieces of it before during that Tolkien class I took when I was still in college, and I’d always meant to go back and read the whole thing, but it wasn’t until now that I finally sat down and started. (Blame Stand Still Stay Silent.) I’m reading it at a pace of two sections per day, which means that it’ll take a while before I’m finished, but that’s okay. I need to get better at pacing myself with my reading anyways.
Today, I read up to section 20, “Slaughtering and Brewing”. (I’m reading the Keith Bosley translation, btw, since that’s the one I had to buy for my class.)
So far, Ilmarinen is the only male character I still like, and I’m hoping that he doesn’t do anything to change that. Väinämöinen isn’t too bad, especially not when compared to some of the others, but his attitude towards his hunt for a wife (and especially Aino’s death) does irritate me a whole lot. Lemminkäinen is the worst, ugh— I dislike him even more than Joukahainen, and that’s saying something.
I do feel a lot of sympathy for both Aino and Kyllikki, and just want them to be happy. I… also kind of ship it? Idk, Aino did pop up as a fish already, maybe Kyllikki could wander down to the sea and Aino could show up as a water spirit or something, and… that’s about as far as I got with hypotheticals, but it would be nice. Ditch Lemminkäinen and be happy together, please. ♥
Though, I have to say, Lemminkäinen’s mother is… kind of awesome? I can forgive her for caring about Lemminkäinen / bringing him back to life because he’s, you know, her son, and that whole section where she’s searching for him just took my breath away. She’s amazing. ♥
I also like Louhi a whole lot, though I'm not sure if I’m supposed to.
► I’ve also been slowly playing through Solstice, because my visual novel backlog is starting to get truly ridiculous. This one’s been fairly high on my list for a while now. It was made by the same people who made Cinders, which was a game I liked enough to write for multiple times for Yuletide. Plus, it has a snowy winter setting! My favorite kind! ♥ (That’s… actually 100% of the reason why I decided to play it now when looking over my backlog, haha.)
I’m not quite done with it (due to the whole “trying to pace myself” thing I mentioned above), but I did get all of the main endings once, even if I haven’t seen all the achievement-worthy events or got all the variations yet.
Spoilers ahead.
First of all, Madame Ghede was in this game! ♥ Only briefly, true, but I hadn’t expected to see her at all, so her showing up was such a delightful surprise— it turns out that one of the main characters (Galen) is her nephew / student. ...Tbh, this meant that I was pretty much immediately considering the possibilities of a Cinders crossover, but more on that in a little bit.
The canon pairings were pretty cute! I was actually vaguely shipping Galen with Kasiya in their first interactions, despite not being all that interested in Kasiya himself, so it was the most delightful surprise when I realized that their chemistry was actually intentional! I also liked Yani/Sem right away, though some Sem’s arrogance in the lead-up to their romance did wipe away some of the shine from the pairing. Still, I did like it when they ended up happy in their endings, and Sem’s reaction when I finally went the route where Yani accuses him for Lev’s murder was very painful, and very believable.
That being said, as content as I was with Yani/Sem, I do wish that Yani/Yakone had been an option. They were my two favorite characters, easy, and I shipped them so much. ._. I do know there’s a variation on the True Winter ending where they (and maybe Galen?) run off together, so hopefully that’ll soothe my shippy heart, but I have to wait until I actually get it to see.
One thing I really loved about this game is how everyone in it has so many secrets— including, and maybe even especially, the main characters! It made me so happy every time someone said or did something, or Yani-or-Galen responded to someone with something that the player had no way of knowing! Galen’s purpose in being in the city was a big one, as was his actually being behind Lev’s death (I actually did vaguely suspect him of that one, but thought I was being ridiculous / had been reading too many Agatha Christie novels, because I hadn’t yet figured out that the murderer and the saboteur weren’t the same person, and I couldn’t see Galen as the saboteur); I also really loved it whenever Yani revealed how much she knew about the compacts, and the Faculty’s role in them.
Speaking of Yani… I was so intrigued by the conversation between she and Constance in the ending where Galen had been jailed for Lev’s death. Their perspectives on their own lives and the amount of agency they’ve had in them are so different, and I loved it when Constance pointed out how similar they are, in a lot of ways— especially since pretty much every ending I got involved Yani leaving the Faculty, sooner or later. I have to wonder if that conversation with Constance had anything to do with it, in the Yani-faces-Constance-alone scenario.
I do kind of ship it (and have since their first interaction, even before the truth about Constance was revealed), but mostly I’m just fascinated by how they interact when neither of them have anything left to hide.
Also: after Constance dies in the Yani-faces-Constance-alone ending, she quietly asks if “you” would be proud of what she did, and I’m really curious about who that “you” might be.
Another thing I want to talk about is Yakone— specifically, her endings! I’ve gotten a decent amount of them, and I think my favorite might be when she goes to the Islands on Galen’s recommendation, and ends up training with Madame Ghede. I never really liked the Cinders-runs-away endings in Cinders too much, but I’d honestly love to read Yakone/Cinders in the context of the Cinders-runs-away-with-Madame-Ghede ending. I’m also a bit intrigued by the idea of Madame Ghede/Yakone, mostly because every time the slide read (not a direct quote) “but Yakone formed a deeper bond with [Galen]’s teacher”, I had a split-second of thinking that they fell in love before the next slide clarified that it meant that Madame Ghede became Yakone’s teacher.
But I actually do genuinely like all of the Yakone endings I’ve gotten so far (which is good, because like I said above, she’s probably my favorite). The one where she goes to the Faculty is probably my least favorite, but I do still like it. Her returning to the tribes is bittersweet, since she lost their trust, but I do love the idea of her returning to the Northern magic. Her staying in the city (I got this one under the Jewel of the North ending; I don’t know if it’s possible or not under any of the other endings) and bringing together the city and the tribes was intriguing, but how it affected her made it a less palatable option for me.
One thing I do find depressingly realistic about this game, though, is how… none of the endings are actually satisfying in regards to what happens to the city? I got Clear Waters first, and I was tempted to say that was my favorite because the springs weren’t destroyed (and that was more important to me than the city), but the city got rebuilt anyways, and the cycle of misery continued.
Lifeless Technology has the springs being destroyed, which is depressing, but it does mean that the city is finally abandoned— but that doesn’t actually solve anything either, because the Bank just moves on to the south and starts a new cycle of suffering there. Everyone dies in True Winter, and while I don’t think it’s explicitly stated (though I could be misremembering), I highly doubt that the Bank acts any differently in that ending than it did in Lifeless Technology.
I saved Jewel of the North for last, because I figured that it would probably be the “true” ending, but it wasn’t any happier. In fact, I’d argue that it was actually the unhappiest ending outside of True Winter (and then only because everyone died there). Yes, the power structure gets turned over— but it doesn’t make anyone any happier; it just twists the new people in power into being just as bad as the previous ones. For instance, at least in some of the other endings Slava will escape and travel the world like she used to. I can’t remember if Laura ever has a flat-out happy ending (I do remember that she lets herself freeze to death in… Lifeless Technology, I think) but the variation where she grows into a cruel puppet-master definitely wasn’t the happiest path her life could have taken. Plus, it’s impossible for Yani and Sem to have a happy ending on this route, and though I’ve only got one variation re: them so far, it’s clear that Sem’s life in particular is pretty awful afterwards.
To be clear: this does work for me on a storytelling-level. The forces which created the misery in the city were much larger than any of the characters, and it makes sense that their efforts really only can affect the happiness of themselves / some of the people surrounding them, and the short-term survival of the city and the springs. It’s sad— but it makes sense.
Today, I read up to section 20, “Slaughtering and Brewing”. (I’m reading the Keith Bosley translation, btw, since that’s the one I had to buy for my class.)
So far, Ilmarinen is the only male character I still like, and I’m hoping that he doesn’t do anything to change that. Väinämöinen isn’t too bad, especially not when compared to some of the others, but his attitude towards his hunt for a wife (and especially Aino’s death) does irritate me a whole lot. Lemminkäinen is the worst, ugh— I dislike him even more than Joukahainen, and that’s saying something.
I do feel a lot of sympathy for both Aino and Kyllikki, and just want them to be happy. I… also kind of ship it? Idk, Aino did pop up as a fish already, maybe Kyllikki could wander down to the sea and Aino could show up as a water spirit or something, and… that’s about as far as I got with hypotheticals, but it would be nice. Ditch Lemminkäinen and be happy together, please. ♥
Though, I have to say, Lemminkäinen’s mother is… kind of awesome? I can forgive her for caring about Lemminkäinen / bringing him back to life because he’s, you know, her son, and that whole section where she’s searching for him just took my breath away. She’s amazing. ♥
The mother sought the one goneSeriously, how could I not love someone who ran great swamps as a wolf? ♥
astray, for the lost she longs:
she ran great swamps as a wolf
trod the wilds as a bruin
waters as an otter roamed
lands she walked as a pismire
as a wasp headland edges
I also like Louhi a whole lot, though I'm not sure if I’m supposed to.
► I’ve also been slowly playing through Solstice, because my visual novel backlog is starting to get truly ridiculous. This one’s been fairly high on my list for a while now. It was made by the same people who made Cinders, which was a game I liked enough to write for multiple times for Yuletide. Plus, it has a snowy winter setting! My favorite kind! ♥ (That’s… actually 100% of the reason why I decided to play it now when looking over my backlog, haha.)
I’m not quite done with it (due to the whole “trying to pace myself” thing I mentioned above), but I did get all of the main endings once, even if I haven’t seen all the achievement-worthy events or got all the variations yet.
Spoilers ahead.
First of all, Madame Ghede was in this game! ♥ Only briefly, true, but I hadn’t expected to see her at all, so her showing up was such a delightful surprise— it turns out that one of the main characters (Galen) is her nephew / student. ...Tbh, this meant that I was pretty much immediately considering the possibilities of a Cinders crossover, but more on that in a little bit.
The canon pairings were pretty cute! I was actually vaguely shipping Galen with Kasiya in their first interactions, despite not being all that interested in Kasiya himself, so it was the most delightful surprise when I realized that their chemistry was actually intentional! I also liked Yani/Sem right away, though some Sem’s arrogance in the lead-up to their romance did wipe away some of the shine from the pairing. Still, I did like it when they ended up happy in their endings, and Sem’s reaction when I finally went the route where Yani accuses him for Lev’s murder was very painful, and very believable.
That being said, as content as I was with Yani/Sem, I do wish that Yani/Yakone had been an option. They were my two favorite characters, easy, and I shipped them so much. ._. I do know there’s a variation on the True Winter ending where they (and maybe Galen?) run off together, so hopefully that’ll soothe my shippy heart, but I have to wait until I actually get it to see.
One thing I really loved about this game is how everyone in it has so many secrets— including, and maybe even especially, the main characters! It made me so happy every time someone said or did something, or Yani-or-Galen responded to someone with something that the player had no way of knowing! Galen’s purpose in being in the city was a big one, as was his actually being behind Lev’s death (I actually did vaguely suspect him of that one, but thought I was being ridiculous / had been reading too many Agatha Christie novels, because I hadn’t yet figured out that the murderer and the saboteur weren’t the same person, and I couldn’t see Galen as the saboteur); I also really loved it whenever Yani revealed how much she knew about the compacts, and the Faculty’s role in them.
Speaking of Yani… I was so intrigued by the conversation between she and Constance in the ending where Galen had been jailed for Lev’s death. Their perspectives on their own lives and the amount of agency they’ve had in them are so different, and I loved it when Constance pointed out how similar they are, in a lot of ways— especially since pretty much every ending I got involved Yani leaving the Faculty, sooner or later. I have to wonder if that conversation with Constance had anything to do with it, in the Yani-faces-Constance-alone scenario.
I do kind of ship it (and have since their first interaction, even before the truth about Constance was revealed), but mostly I’m just fascinated by how they interact when neither of them have anything left to hide.
Also: after Constance dies in the Yani-faces-Constance-alone ending, she quietly asks if “you” would be proud of what she did, and I’m really curious about who that “you” might be.
Another thing I want to talk about is Yakone— specifically, her endings! I’ve gotten a decent amount of them, and I think my favorite might be when she goes to the Islands on Galen’s recommendation, and ends up training with Madame Ghede. I never really liked the Cinders-runs-away endings in Cinders too much, but I’d honestly love to read Yakone/Cinders in the context of the Cinders-runs-away-with-Madame-Ghede ending. I’m also a bit intrigued by the idea of Madame Ghede/Yakone, mostly because every time the slide read (not a direct quote) “but Yakone formed a deeper bond with [Galen]’s teacher”, I had a split-second of thinking that they fell in love before the next slide clarified that it meant that Madame Ghede became Yakone’s teacher.
But I actually do genuinely like all of the Yakone endings I’ve gotten so far (which is good, because like I said above, she’s probably my favorite). The one where she goes to the Faculty is probably my least favorite, but I do still like it. Her returning to the tribes is bittersweet, since she lost their trust, but I do love the idea of her returning to the Northern magic. Her staying in the city (I got this one under the Jewel of the North ending; I don’t know if it’s possible or not under any of the other endings) and bringing together the city and the tribes was intriguing, but how it affected her made it a less palatable option for me.
One thing I do find depressingly realistic about this game, though, is how… none of the endings are actually satisfying in regards to what happens to the city? I got Clear Waters first, and I was tempted to say that was my favorite because the springs weren’t destroyed (and that was more important to me than the city), but the city got rebuilt anyways, and the cycle of misery continued.
Lifeless Technology has the springs being destroyed, which is depressing, but it does mean that the city is finally abandoned— but that doesn’t actually solve anything either, because the Bank just moves on to the south and starts a new cycle of suffering there. Everyone dies in True Winter, and while I don’t think it’s explicitly stated (though I could be misremembering), I highly doubt that the Bank acts any differently in that ending than it did in Lifeless Technology.
I saved Jewel of the North for last, because I figured that it would probably be the “true” ending, but it wasn’t any happier. In fact, I’d argue that it was actually the unhappiest ending outside of True Winter (and then only because everyone died there). Yes, the power structure gets turned over— but it doesn’t make anyone any happier; it just twists the new people in power into being just as bad as the previous ones. For instance, at least in some of the other endings Slava will escape and travel the world like she used to. I can’t remember if Laura ever has a flat-out happy ending (I do remember that she lets herself freeze to death in… Lifeless Technology, I think) but the variation where she grows into a cruel puppet-master definitely wasn’t the happiest path her life could have taken. Plus, it’s impossible for Yani and Sem to have a happy ending on this route, and though I’ve only got one variation re: them so far, it’s clear that Sem’s life in particular is pretty awful afterwards.
To be clear: this does work for me on a storytelling-level. The forces which created the misery in the city were much larger than any of the characters, and it makes sense that their efforts really only can affect the happiness of themselves / some of the people surrounding them, and the short-term survival of the city and the springs. It’s sad— but it makes sense.
no subject
Lemminkäinen is an ass and his mom should have left him in Tuonela, if you ask ME. Also, you are totally not the only one who kind of ships Aino and Kyllikki. :D I read a shipfic with them on Ao3 a while back; it was pretty good. (On mobile, can't link right now, buuuut shouldn't be hard to find if you are curious)
no subject
AGREED. Like, I can understand why she saved him, since he was her son and all, but... he really didn't deserve to be saved. SUCH a jerk.
Also, you are totally not the only one who kind of ships Aino and Kyllikki. :D I read a shipfic with them on Ao3 a while back; it was pretty good.
!!!! If there was ever a pairing I thought I would be a shipper-of-one for, it was that one, so this is delightful news. Definitely hunting that fic down. Thank you so much for the tip! ♥
Edit: okay, I went, I found, and I read, and that story was GORGEOUS, omg. ♥ So thank you again!