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Temple of Doom “Dia’s temple is right over there," Levanna said, directing their attention. “You know, here’s a fun fact you might not know. Inside is one of the last remaining Mother of Pearl stones in all of Naviim.” Olivander kept his expression composed but a mental torch was now burning brightly in his head. "One of the last, huh?" he thought to himself. Best not to draw attention to himself too soon, especially before he had an opportunity to survey the temple, its immediate surroundings, and their various security. Nevertheless, Olivander now had an immediate goal in mind: find and steal the Mother of Pearl stone. Mission Start! The Mother of All Pearls! Olivander hadn't yet had the chance to "reveal" what he overheard with Levanna's conversation, but it would seem he wouldn't have to. As she escorted the dogs to the Temple Square and attempted to highlight the temple of Dia -- whom Olivander was wholly interested in investigating, among others -- there was a ruckus. And judging by her almost immediate and incessant demand that it be paid no mind, this was an ongoing problem. The doors of the Taros' temple flew open as if by storm force winds, and there were not quite discernible, but angry voices coming from the entrance. “Please, could you contain this rabble for me?” Levanna asked of her summoned pet guards, who quickly appeared to her side. That was something Olivander would have to keep in mind. These guards were very quick to come to her aid. “See, it’s all under control. Shall we visit Dia now?” Levanna requested. At this, Olivander chuckled. "Forgive me, Levanna. But that it is--" "No. It's not." Kitt interrupted. The previously calm demeanor of the Taros dog had suddenly melted away to reveal a burning magma forge beneath it. He began marching toward the Taros temple to investigate it himself. As he walked away, Olivander couldn't quite make out his words. "Taros, grant me strength for what I'm about to do..." Olivander folded his arms and stood his ground. "Well. This will be entertaining. So, Finn," Olivander said quickly. "You wanna go pray or watch the street brawl?" Despite having previously focused all of his attention on listening to Levanna's conversation beyond that large door, Olivander did indeed hear Finn and Kitt introduce themselves to each other. To be able to notice these things in an environment was key if he was going to be a legendary thief.

When you're going through a visual novel, is the right verb reading or playing?

One of the few to feature an actual gun: .

With two kobolds remaining, Estelle was struggling to channel another arrow to fire immediately. Thankfully, Lana was on the scene and had tangled with one of the creatures. The tussle had ended in the lizard falling into the pit that had almost taken Lana herself. Perhaps it was a cathartic act to let something finally fall into it as intended. Regardless, the Fereis' mind was eased seeing her companion still moving well enough to pull something like that off. And the easing of her mental burden helped her in the channeling of her magic. At this point there was one kobold left which had thrown a rock at Lana. Estellise was impressed to see the anger this elicited and the kobold too seemed to realize the danger it was in as fear took hold. With its defense down, Estelle manged to fire off another two quick shots, one of which found a mark in the creature's face, downing it quickly like the one before. "Is that it..." Estelle started through panting as she scanned the area. She could see no additional Kobolds behind or ahead of them though the lighting wasn't helpful to that effort. If Sergei and Chris had taken down the magic caster from earlier, then everything seemed to be in the clear. With a sigh of relief the mage nearly fell backwards before catching herself. Too close a call given the proximity of the pit. She went to Lana's side and offered an arm of support to her friend's back. This held a second purpose in the form of a simple healing spell to help her walk with less pain while they regrouped with the others. Soon the group reunited, and all but Estellise had sustained injuries through the course of this floor's proceedings. But, on the plus side, the stairs to the next floor were not much further ahead from this position deeper into the tunnel where the magical kobold had been. "Goodness, that was more trouble than I had anticipated." she remarked as she took stock of the injuries among her friends. "Here, everyone stand together somewhat. I shall have everyone in proper shape before you know it." Estelle stated, trying to add some of her usual pep despite her fatigue. As they moved together she took a moment to compose herself. She needed a fair bit of magical power to see to this. But soon enough once again, a great light began shining from the whole of the woman's body as she raised her hands in the praying position from earlier. So too did her voice magically reverberate as she spoke the words of the spell. "Seven sisters rest in heaven. Fountain of life. Spring's renewal. Let flow streams of light and embrace the broken. Grant me mercy, for I am Estellise! First Nurturing Star, Maya!" At the woman's words a heptagonal glyph about six feet in diameter formed around the three injured members of the party appeared on the floor with Chris at its center. Once it had finished drawing itself, light sprung forth, a pure column of it engulfing the group. This light however was gentle on the eyes, and more importantly was a powerful healing spell. All injuries would begin slowly mending as Estelle sustained the spell. Were Sergei, Lana or Chris not mentally occupied, the light from the spell might remind them of a mother's embrace and would even bring to mind memories of those who had loved them. But, these thoughts were but a nudge in the mind. If not desired no one would have to have entertain the thoughts and feelings the magic influenced. It would take some minutes to fully heal the three of them, but one Estellise was satisfied they were as good as new she released the spell and the light both from the glyph and her own body faded away. Almost at once she stumbled to the ground as exhaustion from the overuse of her magic took hold. "T-there... all better!" she smiled through heavier breath.

The kobold’s eyes lit on fire, and, soon after, so did Sergei. Chris assumed one caused the other, but what did he know about magic anyway? Estellise used it, and her speaking in normal-person poems was confusing enough sometimes, let alone kobold babble. He sighed, though whether it came from a place of physical exhaustion or just not wanting to deal with things anymore, he couldn’t tell. “Chris! Kill it!” Sergei said. He didn’t need to be told twice. There were two immediate problems, though, with dealing with the kobold shaman. The first was distance; Chris had been ten or so feet away before the kobold started scrambling back. The second was the noise. The kobold just kept babbling away. “Just shut up,” Chris said, and he let a dagger fly, which landed right in the kobold’s chest with a satisfying thunk. He threw his other one, too, which landed right next to the first one, and now there was a kobold shaman with two daggers sticking out of it. It was still alive, unfortunately, but at least it wasn’t babbling anymore. And if it wasn’t babbling, Chris assumed it wasn’t casting any more spells. So now all he had to do was finish the job. Fortunately, a kobold who wasn’t casting spells was just like all the other kobolds on the floor, and Chris already knew how to deal with those. It was harder, like, it wasn’t like he hadn’t spent a bunch of energy charging the ones that had come before, but he kept his eyes on his target and lunged forward, dealing one final strike before sliding to a halt.

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Duel 05 -- The Sunlit Garden - Finale Or: This Isn’t Even My Finale Form (That Pun Was Terrible And I Apologize) I watch a lot of movies, but I’m also acutely aware of the image an amateur “film buff” tends to present. I don’t even like to refer to myself using that term because of these perceived connotations. And yet, because people know me as someone who watches movies, they will frequently bring the subject up in conversation. This is something I talked about in my AMA too. I try to get out of the snobbier aspects of the “film buff” image mostly by trying to engage with other people about a movie in question. For example, I didn’t like last year’s 1917 all that much, but I was still interested in what a friend who had just seen it thought about it. I don’t want people to be giving my opinions any more weight than theirs. But isn’t that the point of something like this? By running this blog, by putting up a thousand words or so a week attached to each episode, aren’t I placing some sort of additional weight on how I view this show? The obvious counterargument is no, it’s the readers who give someone a platform that makes their opinions matter. And that’s certainly a sentiment one can have, but it kind of falls apart when thinking about things made “for the art of it”. Far be it from me to say this blog is art, but I don’t imagine myself stopping because of low readership. I think it’s fun, really, to go in-depth like this, with little sidebars at the top talking about whatever vaguely Utena-related topic I want. If I stop or slow down, it’ll be because I lose that personal drive, not because the little numbers didn’t go up. That isn’t to deny “numbers not going up” as a reason for anyone to stop doing something, especially in this economy, just for this specific project. Perhaps it’s just the nature of the medium. I try to inspire discussion about various symbols, I bring up choice quotes like “All interpretations of Utena are true,” but this is still my blog, and these are still my words. There isn’t really room for an exchange of opinion like there would be in a conversation, and if it were a conversation, I’d already be dominating it by dumping paragraphs upon paragraphs before a reader might have a chance to even look at the episode. Better might be a book club format (I guess it’s an anime club format in this case), where everyone watches the episode ahead of time and comes in ready to discuss. But even in that case, I imagine there’s a special significance ascribed to the host. When the host asks, say, “What do you think is the significance of Miki's stopwatch?” that implies they already have a meaning ascribed to it and are guiding the discussion in that direction, ready to talk about it. I don’t really have a solution, to be honest. The best I can offer is this little essay demonstrating my awareness of it and continually asking for other people’s opinions as we continue through Revolutionary Girl Utena. Anyway, I promised to talk about Miki and his stopwatch, so let’s talk about that. There are two explanations I can give for the recurring shot of Miki’s stopwatch. The first is its use as a storytelling beat. It’s a cheap (budget-wise) way to emphasize certain phrases, telling the audience, “Pay attention here! This is important.” However, while this interpretation is useful in terms of analyzing other lines, it’s also outside the narrative. It doesn’t explain why Miki specifically, or why a stopwatch, or anything in that regard. In-universe, I like the explanation that Miki has sensed that something is wrong with Ohtori Academy, and is measuring various statements and actions in an attempt to get a handle on exactly what. The stopwatch also lets him keep track of the time in general, grounding him in a way that keeps him from getting too lost in Ohtori’s world. Maybe that’s why he’s one of the more likeable members of the Student Council. At the same time, he’s still wrong in how he sees his and Anthy’s potential relationship. Why does he fight for Anthy’s hand? But to talk about that, we have to talk about his relationship with his sister, Kozue. We only see Kozue for a couple scenes in this episode, but the contrast of the relationship between the flashbacks and the present is clear. It’s a simple line, “Are you going to try to get me to play again?” she says, and this marks the turning point. The relationship was changed ever since she was forced on stage alone and Miki seeks to reclaim that. That is the “shining thing” that he’s searching for. Between Anthy and Kozue, one can make the read, then, that Miki is looking for any sort of connection at all. But it’s an odd sort of connection he wants, because Kozue wasn’t the one to push Miki away after the failed recital, it was Miki, and it was because of the piano. Miki places an awful lot of stock in that specific moment of happiness, of playing piano with someone in the garden, instead of searching for other connections. And that is his tragedy. Miki has devalued every other trait a person might have in favor of their skill with the piano, and he only realizes this worldview might be flawed when he duels. When he duels, he believes he is fighting for Anthy and her ability to play the piano whenever she wants, but Anthy is more than that, and Utena lets her be more than that. In a rare display of emotion from Anthy, she expresses this when she cheers on Utena in a duel, breaking Miki’s illusion. The issues in Miki and Kozue’s relationship run deeper than this, something the shadow play girls get at with their “what exactly are you looking for?” skit, but this is all the episode is willing to cover. Thanks again for reading, and I’ll see you next week. -r Next time: A kangaroo is let loose on campus oh no! ←Previous Post -- Link to Episode -- Next Post→