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steampunked) wrote2011-09-24 01:50 am
steampunked) wrote2011-09-24 01:50 am
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Sooo. KK's corruption heart game went down here. Because KK is nothing if not intensely complicated, her heart game was equally so, with a great big sprawling landscape and multiple paths to it. I am going to cover mostly everythinggg that was there/that got done/that changed. THIS IS GONNA BE LONG.
The Corruption
Represented as machine oil because of Knife's natural mechanical leanings and also because of the inorganic theme throughout her heart, Knife's corruption was the fish that ate Jiminy Cricket, the death of conscience. Instead of an active addition, if the game had been a complete failure, Knife as she is in Aather's moral compass -- which is a hugely strong factor in her daily life, which is why it was absolutely everywhere in the game -- would have died. The corruption choice was at heart an act of canon comparison! The fundamental difference between KK as a character in FreakAngels, and Knife as a character in Aather, is that she has had the experience of being human for a time in Aather. This development led to the development of a strong, uncompromising conscience. While the FreakAngels do try to do the right thing in canon with varying degrees of success, it's only Connor who actively shows that kind of conscientiousness, and the others have been known to call him soft regarding it. While they do sometimes make good choices, KK has personally ripped the bodies of intruders to Whitechapel into several different pieces. Never mind the apocalypse in of itself.
Failure in the final corruption game puzzle would have ensured a complete sway back to the canon rationale. Success in every puzzle would have led to a complete actualisation. The game overall was two-thirds successful, which means we gotta talk about stuff \:D/!
Right okay let's go section by section.
Section 0: Flotsam
[You are standing on an abandoned factory floor. There are many windows along the west side of the room, but it is dark outside, though there might perhaps be a hint of light out there. The factory is full of old, discarded metal parts, large machines that look like they may have done something once, though now they are rusted and tired, and dust. There are big cardboard boxes stacked to above your heads on the east side of the warehouse.
At the north end of the warehouse, there are two doors. There is a brass plaque on each door. Both are somewhat tarnished, but still glint brightly enough to catch the eye.
One reads "BELIEF". The other, "CHANGE".]
A "reception room", of sorts. This room was the bridge into various parts of the heart, and represented Knife's subconscious mind. The doors were actually carefully and consciously crafted by her -- the "belief" door representing the way into her present life and the "change" door into her past. They both had well-maintained and well cared for plaques because both parts of her life are of equal value -- one she just believes in the quality of, and one she believes needs a changed perspective. That's the meaning behind the two plaques.
Things in this room:
- the windows! Nobody looked at them, but if you had looked out of them, you would've seen the aurora borealis. That's more a comment on the electromagnetic qualities of the package than anything else.
- The leaking machine -- fixed by Hisoka. It was the only piece of corruption in Knife's surface mind, and would've been repaired either way, but it was a good way to give an immediate corruption visual, since you would be seeing it again later. A lot. Once you fix the machine, the boxes on the side of the wall come down either way, they just tumble, because Knife's natural defenses are very susceptible to helpful people.
- the boxes. These represent two things -- one, Knife's conscious mind's desire to not let people fuck around with the package, since the door that was hidden behind them is exactly where that goes. However, there were so many of them and they were so filled with rubbish because Knife's mind undergoes constant traffic when awake. She is constantly hearing things she doesn't need to hear, people's thoughts and so on, but endeavours to keep a tidy mind nonetheless, thus the rubbish is stored away and put to something practical. The cleaning products in the one box represented the self-maintenance aspect of Knife's conscious mind.
- the pieces of paper. Again, these were prepared by Knife's conscious mind, partly as a warning, partly to wind people up a bit.
Anyway, you mess around with the room a bit, you find the DIFFERENCE door. That plaque was dirty as hell because Knife isn't so fond of the things that make her alien to other people. In fact, in her conscious mind she tries to downplay them if at all possible. Cleaning it off makes her more open toward being proud of her differences.
The divisions were:
- Roxas, Kyouko, Naruto, Suzaku for "belief"
- Jade, Bonten, Sasuke, Itachi, Mitchell for "change" -- though Mitchell moved paths but that we will get to later.
- Lloyd and Hisoka for "difference".
BELIEF
The "belief" path was all about Knife's present identity - the "Knife" identity, as it were, rather than the previous "KK" identity. The difference between Belief, Change and Difference is a factor of past, present and future. Since technically all six parts of the Belief and Change paths are accessible to people who go through either one of the two doors, the door choice makes a difference in what you can personally change. If Kyouko had tried to kick down one of the statues in the City, for example, no matter what she'd done, it wouldn't have gone over. That's because of Knife's sharp division between aspects of what she was and what she is and how the two make up her current identity. This compartmentalisation has a both positive and negative effect on her daily life, which is true enough in the game as well, since well-meaning people off the Change path wouldn't have been able to do anything for the damage done on the Belief path, and so on.
Aaaanyway.
Section 1 - Forest World
[After stepping through the "BELIEVE" door, you come back to yourself at the centre of a garden maze. It is a beautiful summer's day, a little hotter than it ought to be, but with the beginnings of a breeze on the air. But if you step forward, the pebbled path clinks rather than crunches under your feet, and if you examine the high walls of the maze more closely, all of the leaves of the bushes, the stems and twigs, the grass, in fact everything as far as you can see is made of delicate metal. It is coloured perfectly and crafted perfectly, beautiful, but nonetheless an imitation.
The only thing at the centre of the maze is a large snowglobe on top of a concrete -- well, metal, but it is pretending very hard to be concrete -- plinth. The way out of the maze is in front of you. There are small drops of oil leading away from the centre of the maze and on. There is a faint smell of blood on the air.]
This is arguably the most important section in terms of Knife's daily life, activities, and the way she presents herself. In the different parts of Forest World -- including the lake here, though that's a different aspect -- self-image, secrets, guiding influences and personal responsibility are all housed. It is interesting therefore that it was this place that suffered the most violent damage.
This is the first obvious place where the theme of organic/inorganic is played off -- all of the greenery in Forest World is crafted carefully out of metal. That is a product of being a FreakAngel among a large amount of comparatively normal people -- Knife plays down the difference between herself and others in general conversation, but is constantly aware of the gap that's there. Therefore everything in Forest World is beautifully crafted and seems precisely how it should, besides that one crucial element.
The first part of Forest World encompassed the maze, Emerald, and the clearing. The maze had a self-perpetuating snowglobe at its heart, with the FreakAngels watchtower in it. That is a representation of how her previous judgements effect her current judgements -- they're there, in her memories, and they effect and influence her, but that influence while the snowglobe was in the maze was filtered through common sense and veiled.
Changes around the maze:
- Moving the snowglobe from the plinth at the heart of the maze to the dressing table in Emerald (Suzaku). This is an interesting thing to do! The dressing table is the heart of Knife's self-worth/self-image. Placing the snowglobe that represents her past there is going to change the way the past influences her. This is a negative change in that Knife had pretty much gotten the way to take her past and present today sussed out -- now she will reinterrogate those choices and be forced to integrate them more into the person she is. So it's a negative with a positive at heart.
After you leave the maze, you can turn left to the clearing or right to Emerald. People went right first, so let's go right first!
Emerald
Okay, so you get to Emerald, and Emerald is not a simple cabin at all, but rather a great big three-storey house. The symbolism behind that is pretty simple and obvious -- KK sees Emerald as something much bigger than itself, and it's also deeply tied in with the concept of home and family. The representation of Emerald here isn't a simple one — you couldn't actually edit Knife's feelings on any member of Emerald in her heart. There are certain things in her heart that are utter constants. Emerald's representation here relates far more to how she identifies with the team, and most prevalently her perceived responsibility for said team. Emerald is a wooden house! It is the only thing in Forest World that is made from something that was alive at some point. It is the most organic feature, and that's because there is no conscious or subconscious layer of artifice in how KK treats Emerald. It is what it is what it is. The windows and curtains were closed in Emerald as a protective gesture.
The first NPC on the Belief path is outside Emerald! All the versions of Knife in Knife's heart have their own names, but all but one of them will answer to "Knife", they're easygoing like that. The one outside of Emerald is "Guardian". There are only two versions of Knife in the heart that wouldn't enter Emerald if prompted — she is one, and the True Heart is the other. More on the True Heart later, but Guardian doesn't enter Emerald because she is the personification of KK's original isolated protective instinct that has now been focused upon Emerald. The FreakAngels don't enter into human life, but they do strive to protect it when they're not being douchebags, and she's a representation of that.
Emerald was laid out in three floors -- two floors of three beds apiece, and an attic room. There wasn't any popularity contest or any difference in how fond KK is of a teammate in who was on each floor, it's ordered instead in terms of how responsible KK feels for the safety of that individual. The three on the bottom - Bonten, Jade and Itachi -- are people she takes a very relaxed approach about looking after. The three on the second floor, Natsume, Roxas and Hisoka, are the three she would take on a giant dinosaur for. It is not so much a defining of "older" versus "younger" as the different relationships. Eventually Hisoka and Bonten will probably swap over :')!
Beside the beds was a bedside table, on the bedside table was a box. Most of the beds had something on them too. Inside the boxes were mostly things KK has gleaned using her abilities or from indepth conversations, and the thing on the bed was a more casual kind of knowledge. These items are the only representation of Knife's actual levels of fondness for members of Emerald, but they're carefully veiled -- the boxed ones give an emotional impression when touched, but only if they're touched by the actual member of Emerald they belong to. Otherwise, they're just items.
Jade: a fonstone in the box, a military uniform on the bed. Amusement, hope.
Itachi: a set of ninja shuriken in the box, a pie on the bed :'D! Companionship, affection, a hint of .///.! Notably, Stealth's items are switched -- that's just a representation of how comfortable she is around him lately.
Bonten: three razor-sharp feathers wrapped with Coral ribbon in the box, a hairbrush on the bed. Concern, comeraderie, protectiveness.
Roxas: a large peridot in the shape of a heart in the box, a keyblade on the bed. Zen, watchfulness, friendship.
Natsume: a snowglobe with a cat in it in the box, a pile of friendship bracelets on the bed. Alertness, careful protectiveness, warmth.
Hisoka: the other exception! There's nothing on the bed, but there's a beautiful, locked box made of gold on the table. It cannot be moved from the table or opened. The table is glued to the floor. If you try to force it, you get kicked in the nuts by Kaitlyn.
The attic floor was where all the action was happening. There was an oil trail leading up to the attic, because that was where the corruption was hanging out. The attic was a representation of Knife's self-image and how she herself relates to Emerald. It was candlelit, full of alcohol bottles, had a big log fire in it, a wooden box with a clasp in it that contained some items, and a dressing table with six drawers. There was a mirror atop the dressing table, cracked but not broken, a ring hanging off the mirror, and items in some of the drawers. The corruption was in one drawer in particular. Once you find it, you got a drawer full of oil. The first puzzle was pretty much HOW DO I DISPOSE OF THIS GUNK.
Representations! The fire was all about team protectiveness. If you extinguish the fire, when you go back down, the beds from the second floor are on the first floor. The fire is what sustains the natural urge Knife has to protect and worry over and fuss over her teammates. The wooden box contains her memories of her previous teammates. They're all together in one box, and are in the attic, which isn't meant to be an expression of forgetting but rather that it is the highest away from the ground, the most protected. She guards her feelings about her lost teammates pretty jealously! Anyone can feel the feelings connected to those items once they're found because those teammates aren't around to feel them, and this is the list of stuff:
Setsuna: a metal apple … a feeling of quiet absolution.
Asuka: a battered shield … affection and frustration hand in hand. a feeling of failure.
Mytho: a hula skirt … consternation, protectiveness and helplessness.
Watanuki: a frying pan made of stone. Touching it will give you the same cold feeling you get when touching a statue, and then boundless regret.
The alcohol … is an expression of how Knife likes to drink, often with the team … not all of these things are complicated okay :'D!! The dressing table, meanwhile, is more complicated. The mirror is self-image, pure and simple. It's cracked because her self-image is pretty poor, but it's reformed a little lately on recent memories. The Emerald ring that was hanging off the mirror is a tool to be used later on the "believe" path -- the team that were here didn't get to the point where they would use it because Kyouko made some excellent decisions, but more on that later. The ring represents family, at heart. The drawer that was full of oil represented conscientious response -- the eye in it represented watchfulness, the finger was action. The dreamcatcher in the top drawer represented coping mechanisms for pain and horror and grief. The space pony was … just a representation of Mithos as an honourary member of the team, really. It's kept upstairs in Knife's dressing table because it's a personal interpretation.
There is a violent and a non-violent way to solve every corruption puzzle in Knife's heart. That represents the old way she would solve problems and the new way she has learned to solve them in Aather. By violent I don't always mean physical, I mean that it would have a negative effect on the heart overall. In this case, the non-violent solution was to just take the drawer outside and downstairs to "Guardian" Knife: she would then get rid of it for you. The violent way to get rid of the oil in the drawer is to put it in the fire.
Changes in Emerald:
- opening the curtains and windows (Suzaku). Having them closed was, as I said, a protective gesture -- that'll put the latent protectiveness she feels for Emerald down a bit. Which is a good thing considering what's coming up.
- throwing stuff in the boxes around (Kyouko) -- ninja shuriken thrown at wall, fonstone thrown about, cut herself on feathers. All cleaned and replaced by Roxas and Suzaku. Not much effect here, as the items were moved back! A little more healthy respect for Itachi's ninja skills, perhaps. Not that she didn't have enough kyaa Stealth you're so competent.
- tidying up the alcohol bottles (Suzaku) … not much effect really, the only thing that could've effected the bottles was taking them out of Emerald, which wasn't done. I am glad, I'm not sure what Knife would be without a healthy love of drink.
- dumping the corruption oil in the fire (Naruto). This. This was a bad idea. The conscience corruption that originated in the conscientious decision drawer -- that means that corruption was all about making horrible decisions for the sake of Emerald -- got dumped in the team spirit and protectiveness fire. This will be a sleeper effect — as long as nobody goes out of their way to harm one of her team members. The decision to carefully disable anyone who tries to do that may have just become the decision to detach their heads from their body.
- dumping the eye and the finger in the fire (Naruto). Action and watchfulness went out of the conscientious decision drawer and into the team protectiveness fire. So not only will she shank at will to protect Emerald, she will be watching for the need to do so. And because of a set of later actions she may not be waiting for opinions on the matter.
- dumping the dreamcatcher in the fire (Kyouko). It was retrieved by Suzaku but was more than half burned. The dreamcatcher and the drawer that surrounds it represents coping mechanisms! Most specifically the ones for grief, horror, fear and pain. Burning them leads to an instability that would, again, relate to damage caused to the team.
-Space pony put in dreamcatcher drawer (Kyouko). That'll lead to an association between Mithos and coping. Which just means KK will flop about with Mithos a bit more when she's sad.
-breaking the mirror (Kyouko). An attempt at mirror reassembly by Roxas, mirror pieces placed together atop an Emerald jacket. S-s-shattering of self-worth. This will lead back to some of her more horrid self-destructive, self-loathing tendencies.
-The remaining corruption oil in the drawer was emptied and the drawer was returned to its proper place (Roxas.) Best thing that could be done here. The drawer being returned means the conscientious decisions outside of direct attacks on Emerald will still occur as normal -- which means nothing about Emerald's team policies will change, unless Knife hears about anyone attacking them maliciously in games, which may be … more of an issue.
So yes. The amount of damage provoked was large, which is why Kaitlyn was invoked. Crazy Kait, one of the other FreakAngels, is Knife's representation of mental defenses. She can only appear in the first section of both paths, where the most day to day decision making is represented, and she can remove you forcibly from whatever premises if she must. She was not however, invoked in time to prevent Knife from being turned into a sleeper Violently Protective Girlfriend for the whoooooole of Emerald.
Right. The other part of Aather available once you were done in Emerald was the Ring!
The Ring
[When you reach the ring, it certainly looks different from normal. Aside from the fact that all of the greenery is still fashioned in metal, there is a large fountain at the centre of the ring. Currently, it is gushing dirty water. There is mud and perhaps a hint of oil in the water. There are four statues surrounding the fountain -- at the east is Dream, who is covered in metal vine creepers. His face is pointed toward the fountain. At the west is Three, and is chipped and half broken, with her back to the fountain. North is Beauty, who is facing to the left. South is Maleficent, who is faced to the right.
There are large handles at the bottom of each statue.]
These four statues quite literally represented Knife's moral compass. They really aren't much to do with the Personae themselves, though Three and Dream have more of an alignment with their moral counterpart, and Beauty and Maleficent's polarity made them the other choices.
Dream: compassion.
Beauty: past.
Maleficent: future.
Three: caution.
The representations of past and future in this case were making choices based on the past, and making choices for the future. Compassion and caution are pretty self-explanatory. Turning all four statues in to face the fountain would have made the fountain run mercury, instead of dirty water, and you would have had a button choice -- "fade" or "break". The choice defines what you're armed with when you get to the Fair, which was never gotten to because Kyouko made excellent life choices. I mean that genuinely, because the Fair is the most dangerous part of Knife's heart by about 400%.
Changes in the Ring:
- shattering Three's statue (Kyouko). Literally throwing caution to the wind. KK already did not have a lot of caution so that was not a terribly good decision to make either.
-turning the rest of the compass inward (Suzaku). Will promote more self-reflection! It is probably the thing that will eventually help to heal the rest of the damage in this section. It will also lead Knife to neuronauting a lot more than she currently does.
-leaving Three's coin where her statue was (Lloyd). On Lloyd and the True Heart's wander through the heart at the end of the game, he left this coin here. Lloyd received the coin from Three's heart game, and it is, AJ tells me, a coin that represents perfect balance. There is now, therefore, balance where caution is supposed to be. This has led to a huge new focus in Knife's decision-making — she will decide to do things, or want things, and is far more likely to just decide on them finally rather than confer. It is a huge drive boost, in other words; great normally, but could lead to bad things in conjunction with the damage to Emerald.
Okay, so you could leave Forest World here, and go to The Fair.
Section 2 - The Fair
Not going to go too much into this, as I said! But just a few things.
- The ring found in Emerald had a specific purpose here; it was, as you say, a life-saver.
- I was about 80% sure that any group who arrived here would die here. That's why I knew I had to include the Difference path, because otherwise it might have been an abortive game for some people.
- The facets represented here are Knife's personal fears. Anyone who played with me in that one game the Masked Lady did that had the displaying fears aspect can probably work out how that section would've gone. 9_9
- A loooot of the FreakAngels stuff is here too, which is why we were a touch short on it in the rest of the game.
- There's no way to get to the True Heart from the Fair. The only way to get to the True Heart from the Belief path is through The Lake. You can however get to the Lake from the Fair if you manage to survive.
- The NPC in the Fair is called "Destruction".
Section 3 - Forest World: The Lake
[You walk out to the lake! It's clouded over as you walk. Once you get there, the lake seems much bigger than you remember.
The entire surface of the water is a dirty oilslick, except one small portion. You can see two people standing in the water in that portion. There is a boat not far away from them.
Even though it's beaten down, this place still feels extremely warm. Not temperature-wise, but emotionally.]
OH NO LLOYD YOU'RE IN THE SAME PLACE IN THE HEART AS THE BOAT
OH NO
I mean. Think of the lake as the great big dere section. This is pretty much the boom-de-yada boom-de-yada place. Everything here are things that Knife just adores. Of course, the oilslick … is not supposed to be there so much. The lake is, in a sense, the root of the tree of Knife's conscience -- it only developed because she wasn't isolated, because there were people to keep pushing her, and so on. The lake water is a representation of that lack of isolation. IT'S AN OCEAN OF FEELINGS!! Okay I joke but in all seriousness, leaving the corruption in the lake would have led to her isolating herself from the people around her.
In this area of the heart, you find the Aeris and Lloyd NPCs. Lloyd, Mithos and Aeris were the three non-Knife NPCs you could find anywhere in the heart — her three closest knight friends. It was the knights and not Emerald because of the way Knife compartmentalises things — Emerald belongs in Emerald, but the knights are free to go anywhere. In the normal heart, Aeris is always at the lake, and will always give you flowers for the Graveyard; the flower is self-acceptance, which is a huge part of what Aeris means to Knife in general, and one of the things she has learned most particularly from her knight friends. Lloyd, meanwhile, is not always at the lake. He is a free mover about the Change and Belief paths, though he's barred from the Difference path (everything in the heart is). He's Lloyd Irving, he goes where he wants. The True Heart made a comment to the actual Lloyd about him "never liking the way things run in here" — which is a reference to the fact that Lloyd pushes Knife more than anyone else she knows. Sometimes into rivers. This leads to the kind of cute image of the Lloyd NPC regularly making faces at the True Heart. "This is stupid! Stop being stupid!" "IT'S HOW THINGS ARE :(a"
In the corruption game, however, he goes to the lake, and Lloyd and Aeris's presence there means that the area can't be fully corrupted. That was mostly a safeguard for me in case people didn't manage to get to that area of corruption! But Naruto did. This was the other corruption puzzle in the Belief area. Naruto again solved it the violent way -- by using the matches and alcohol in the boat, and setting the lake on fire, whether that was unintentional or intentional. The non-violent way was to use the boat to go out to the middle of the lake through the oil, where there would've been further things to see and do to fix the problem.
When the Lake is fixed non-violently, Lloyd (of the NPC variety) would have given you a wooden bracelet in reward and takes you to the Graveyard. The bracelet represents striving for achievement. When the Lake is fixed violently, that's where your story ends, you don't go any further.
If a member of Emerald appears at the Lake, as Roxas did, Aeris gives them the flower and sends them to the Graveyard. It's a bit unfortunate, but Emerald does get an all-access pass on the Belief path, it's how it is. The flower from the Belief path is the only way to finish off the Graveyard, however, so that's a thing.
Changes at the Lake:
-burning the oil on the lake (Naruto). Far better than the corrupted alternative, but … we have gone over what fire represents in Forest World. Protectiveness. The matches and alcohol were placed there because of Knife's natural latent ability to protect herself and her own mind. Using them to burn the lake leads to her being that aforementioned Violently Protective Girlfriend for not just Emerald …..... but all her close friends ….. oh god …
- burning the boat (side-effect from burning lake). HA. IT DOES NOTHING. KK x BOAT IS THE SHIP THAT LIVES FOREVER. YOU GET IT. SHIP. HAHAHAHAHA --
okay okay we're moving on.
All paths meet at the Graveyard! But it truly belongs to the Change section so we will cover it there.
CHANGE
The "Change" path represents everything Knife has remembered, everything that has gone before, everything she has decided to work on and change about herself, basically. This is not the more dangerous path, but it is in many ways the sadder one. Her feelings on the FreakAngels are all stored here, also, but the overall path here is a path back in time. You start at the most recent remembered things — the City's overall look and most of its contents regarding Whitechapel, Fallen London, and life post-apocalypse. You end up either at the Graveyard, the representation of the effect the apocalypse has had on Knife which is the gate to the True Heart, or at the Chase, which is a trip to the past that ends with a meeting with the True Heart's parallel opposite.
Section 1 - The City
[After stepping through the door, you come back to yourself on a dilapidated, empty street. It might have been a busy shopping street once, but now all of the windows are broken and the shopfronts are all emptied. There are broken down cars on either side of the street, their windows smashed and anything valuable within long since taken away. It doesn't smell too great -- in fact, it smells a bit as if the plumbing's gone wrong -- but nonetheless, this place doesn't feel hopeless or miserable, despite looking it. There's almost a feel of warmth about it.
There is an open archway in front of you, with steps leading up into a courtyard. Against the wall of the building beside it, there is a ladder leading up onto the rooftops. You can also go up and down the street, of course.]
So! The cityscape is basically Whitechapel, Knife's home area where most of her memories are based, with a few additions, naturally. The City, along with the Change path in general, is about backstory, backstory, backstory. And not so much about how that story effects other people, but how it effects her. Looking back on her past and thinking about how she would change her decisions knowing the things she knows now is one of Knife's favourite awful things to do to herself, and there's a lot of that here too. But the City isn't really represented as being alarming. You don't get a feeling of alarm or panic about how the place looks when you arrive because this is the state of affairs as they are. Knife's realism about the situation has long since kicked in, and is relatively unmoveable.
There are three parts of the City to interact with -- you can go up the ladder to look out over the city, forward into the marketplace, or down the street to the bar. As I imagined it, I figured people would go toward the marketplace and the bar, and then only go up to the roof when they realised they were missing a key, but dear Colonel Jade immediately superseded that thought of mine by going up to the roof first. So let's talk about the roof -- there's not much to change up there, but. Going up there you get to escape Knife's realistic view on how Whitechapel is -- escape the feeling of how the place just looks like that, and see the city for what it really is, a great big destitute mess. Everything above ground is about reality. There are twelve statues up on the rooftops, those are the FreakAngels. They were ice statues back when Knife had a negative opinion of her friends from home, they are normal statues now her thoughts are ambivalent-positive. After a few more memories of childhood they will probably live and breathe up there. The FreakAngels protect Whitechapel, so they're high up, watching over the City.
The whole area is a reality check, so the key that was hung around Sirkka's neck also bears the concept of a reality check. There's nothing to do up on the roof except find the key, see the statues and look out at the landscape. Just remember about the key for a minute, 'cause I'm gonna talk about the bar next.
The Bar
Only two people in the game saw the bar -- Mitchell and Itachi. Stealth's brotherbothering pretty much saved him an unfun day out in this instance. The bar is pretty much Knife's bad decisions centre. We are talking about bad decisions from "I'll try to stab Three of Three with my brain" to "that boy looks very nice and I'm very drunk, I'll go home with him". It is where all the action happens, you guys. Mitchell exercised the principle behind the part of the heart by deciding to sit down and have a drink with the version of Knife that was hanging out behind the counter.
That NPC answers to Knife, as do most of the others, but her name is "Isolation", and she is the part of Knife that is afraid of being alone. She's not pushy about it to start with. She'll ask you to stay, if you say no, she'll let you go. If you come in, though, she will say pretty much anything to get you to stay in the bar with her. In a normal heart game she won't poison you. In the corruption game, with the attack on conscience, she takes the logical leap of deciding that clearly you should stay with her forever. Through the medium of death. It is not one of Knife's social high points, put it that way.
This place has a lot of differences between a standard heart game and the corruption one. In the normal heart game, the drinks represent the process of making a bad decision -- the first drink tastes like pure happiness, the second one tastes like contentment, and then, given that we're talking about bad decisions, the last drink tastes like shame. This is how the heart restores itself to the bad decision status quo. In the corruption game, you end up drinking the corruption oil, which isn't a nice way to go. This corruption wipes itself up when you solve the main corruption puzzle in the marketplace, thought it can be solved separately.
The place is well-decorated! Well furnished. It's well-kept, it's not shabby at all. That's because Knife is still very good at making bad decisions even to this date. If you poke around the premises a little, there are some memories of previous bad decisions lurking around. The decor is both purple and green, which are the two colours that represent the past and the present for Knife. That is another comment on how changing so thoroughly has not actually stopped her from making bad decisions in any way.
Changes in The Bar:
- REJECTION :(a (Stealth.) This pretty much affirms Knife's belief that Sasuke is for sure the most important thing to Itachi, more important than the rest of them. She will be slightly more reticent about bothering him for things.
- Drinking here is clearly a great idea (Mitchell). Because of it being a corruption game, Mitchell never got to drink shame, he died instead. That leaves bad decisions related to Mitchell somewhat unresolved in Knife's head. That is a +10 inclination to make bad decisions as regarding the potentially dangerous vampire. This is clearly excellent.
The main event of the City, though, occurs in the Marketplace. There's a trail of oil akin to the one in Forest World that leads into the Marketplace. When you get in there, there's a variety of stalls set out like it were a busy market day, though there are no people present. There's a thing you can actually do between the Fair on the Belief path and this part of the Change part regarding repopulating the marketplace, but perhaps that again is a thing for another time. The marketplace represents a few different things -- indulgences, community spirit, and so on. The corruption here relates to Knife's place in a community both at home and in Aather. She takes a protective role, in a way, in both places; leaving corruption here would have caused her to reject it.
So when you get to the end of the oil trail there is a locked door with a thumpthumpthump behind it, like something's banging on it. The key to open that door is the one from the statue! Behind that door is a music box that's covered in oil, and the thump is coming from that. You can either smash the box or wind it and open it with a key you can find on one of the stalls. If you wind it properly, you find a heart inside; keeping the heart intact is the best thing you can do, because the heart represents learned instinct. If you break the box, you also damage the heart, and that's the negative effect in question. Bonten and Jade solved the puzzle without breaking the box! EXCELLENT JOB.
Solving the puzzle without violence triggers the Mithos NPC. He's the only one of the knight NPCs in this particular game who starts off on the past path, and that's because Mithos and KK have a tight bond that is partly based on the similarities of their stories/past actions and how they want to change themselves for the better. That's the difference, and why he's placed where he is. If you solve the puzzle without violence, he leaves the doll for you - the doll looks like Asuka, and represents learning - and guides you to the Graveyard, which is the gate to the True Heart. If you damage the heart in the box, he doesn't appear, the Graveyard gates don't open, and your heartventure probably ends at the Chase.
Changes in the Marketplace:
- Bonten and Jade cleaned up the music box as well as winding it. That'll give further clarity to the actions that are guided by Knife's instincts. As seen by the other changes … this can be either good or bad.
I THINK THAT'S IT FOR THAT AREA ACTUALLY if you guys did something else here and want to know what it was just ask.
So! You follow Mithos, you end up at the graveyard. You go the other way, you end up at a railway station. That's the way Sasuke and Itachi went. That's the way to the dead end. There's a vending machine at the station with a golden bottle in it, and once you get the bottle the train arrives at the station. You can choose to board the train, but you end up at the Chase section.
Section 2 - The Chase
[The train pulls out from the station.
It's a plain train. There aren't even seats. The walls of the train seem to have been painted a variety of vibrant rainbow colours, though. If you look out the windows, it's as if the scenery is winding back in time -- from dilapidated buildings and sodden parks with pools of dirty water to beautiful, rustic countryside.
Odd, huh.]
This is mostly a trip down memory laaaane. It is a quite literal trip into Knife's past, though it is not shown literally. You can watch the past shifting by through the windows — the train is painted all of the Aather team colours, which is a quite simple message to herself, really, of "remember where you're viewing this from". It's a grounding, in a way, of this particular set of memories. You can go into the driver's part of the train -- unlike the walls of the train, the walls of the driver's cabin are made of glass. You can see the world around you as if you were in a bubble. Instead of train controls, there are three levers: "pain", "song" and "sharp".
"Pain", "song" and "sharp" make a balance of control. The driver's part of the train is all about control — the control, debatable as it is, Knife has over her abilities, her emotions, and her reactions to what goes on around her. Messing with "pain" will make her less susceptible to emotional or physical pain; "song" increases her ability to feel joy uninhibited by guilt; "sharp" decreases any violent reactions she might have.
Once you decide to leave the train, it's become night-time, and you're outside a military compound. You don't get very far towards it, however; the spotlights from overhead fix on you, and it's as if you've stepped into a memory from that point on. You're influenced by other emotions than your own — Knife's, naturally — and most prevalently that emotion is fear. The section is called the Chase because it's at this point that fear would drive 99% of people to run away.
It is possible to turn around and face the fear. That has an interesting effect on the heart, really; it decreases any feeling of justification Knife had about her actions in the related escaping the government memories she has. If you do turn and face it, there's nothing following you at all, just air. However, you then end up lost in an unhospitable forest. If you keep running until you no longer feel the need, you end up at a moonlit pool, and waiting for you there is the one version of Knife that doesn't answer to the name "Knife".
It is easiest to think of the NPC KK as the previous True Heart. The reason the Chase section is a dead end is because the heart has shoved her as far as possible out of its way. There is no corruption in this area, because it is not an area that Knife herself particularly sees her conscience having an effect in. Really, this representation is just a memory of the person she used to be; nothing more, nothing less. KK is extremely bitter about her treatment, but doesn't bitch about it overmuch. You can give her the golden alcohol bottle from the vending machine, and that cheers her up a bit. It also strengthens her reach somewhat, and then if you desire she can place you back into the City. But once you've met KK the True Heart won't open to you. This is once again a case of Knife's compartmentalisation. You get to meet one of them or the other.
Changes on the Chase:
- Pulling the "sharp" lever (Sasuke). Decreases Knife's violent tendencies, as said. Considering changes above, aren't we glad something did.
Section 3 - The Graveyard
[Mithos disappears when he reaches the gates at the end of the road, but the gates swing open.
Beyond the gates is a graveyard. It stretches as far as the eye can see, just grave after grave after grave. But there's a monument in the distance that looks colourful.]
This is the bridge that links the three paths -- if you are going to "succeed" on your path to the True Heart, then you will inevitably end up here. That is because all roads in Knife's life lead to and away from the Crash -- the apocalypse. This section is about the apocalypse, about grief, and about guilt - the three parts of her life she holds closest to her bones, and thus the "gate" to the True Heart.
There are thousands and thousands of graves in the Graveyard. There isn't an exact number at all. Each grave represents feelings on the individual lives Knife knows she has destroyed. The monument covered in metal flowers you can see when you enter the Graveyard, meanwhile, is all about the actual act. If you touch it in any way, you get at least a part of the experience. If you touch it with your skin, you get the whole thing -- sight, sound, feel, everything. Jade bled on the monument, which just gave him the feel of causing the Crash without the actual visual.
The Knife NPC at the Graveyard is "Memory". Yeah yeah memories trapped by grief I CAN DO OBVIOUS IMAGERY IF I WANT DON'T JUDGE ME. She was wearing an exceptionally long, heavy white dress, which is all about burdens. That is why you can't cut the dress or harm it in any way -- it just won't go. If the corruption was left, eventually the NPC would have been too tired to move, and wouldn't have been able to go on laying flowers on the graves. Without the drive to make up for what she'd done, we are talking a massive downward spiral.
There is no second way to fix the corruption at the Graveyard. The people on the Change path have to get the gates opened and the people on the Belief path have to bring either Aeris's flower or Lloyd's bracelet to the Knife in the graveyard. Or, I mean, you can not, but you wouldn't complete the game. The two different relics cause two different changes, but both will solve the corruption on her burdens. That opens the way to the True Heart.
Changes in the Graveyard:
- bleeding on the monument (Jade). That just means the feeling of a closer connection to Jade, really. Oh no, Jade, we might have to bond.
- leaving the Ginger doll at the monument (Bonten). That doll is all about learning from your mistakes. Great big boost of drive.
- attempting to cut the dress with the flower (Bonten). The action is one of an attempt to lessen Knife's burdens. +10 affection for Viridian '^' it is my V I must love it.
- solving the corruption puzzle with Aeris's flower (Roxas). The flower is "acceptance", and leads to an accepting of failings. Another huge drive boost, good lord. For the record, solving it with Lloyd's bracelet — "achievement" — just makes her more convinced to make up for the things she's done. So one of them is more of an actions boost and the other is more of a heart boost.
DIFFERENCE
The future path. This path was a partly canonical representation of what is actually in Knife's head, the Package being mostly identified as a strange electromagnetic thing in the brain that defies explanation. But this path was far more about her feelings on the Package, and most prominently her personal future — what she will do when she leaves Aather. Knife's feelings on what happened when the FreakAngels fixed the damage they did to the planet have been carefully veiled pretty much since the beginning; she has lied about it to a large proportion of her important CR, and been veiled about it to the others. Since usually Knife's pretty frank and straightforward, that led to the literal boxing off of the Difference path at the beginning of the game. While Knife is pretty open regarding talking about everything else, when it comes to what happened that day she finds herself just not wanting to talk about it much. It's a thing. Anyway.
Section 1 - Twilight Stair
[As you step through the door, for a moment you experience a powerful, vivid headache, enough to make you flinch at the very least. When you open your eyes again, your senses have extended themselves immeasurably. In fact, whether your companions are talking or not … you can still hear them. Yep, that's right. You're psychic now.
You are also standing in on what appears to be a thin, railed stairway made of violet light in a world that is otherwise entirely black, like a night sky without stars. The stairway is encircling, though never touching, a huge tower made of industrial metal. The only light, aside from the dim glow of the staircase, comes from a luminescent ball of light above the top of the tower. You can't quite make out the detail of it right now, you're too far away, but the stairs do seem to lead up there.
But I figure you'll probably want to deal with being psychic for a minute.]
Upon stepping through the Difference door, you end up in the part of Knife's heart that's devoted to the Package, pretty much. The psychic ability you get when stepping through the door is just evidence of that! Hella status effect. There's not too much to do on the twilight stair, it is mostly a case of getting where you need to be. There are two ways up the stair -- on the first landing, there is a statue of Arkady, the one FreakAngel who is seen to teleport in Knife's memories. Touching it teleports you where you need to be without any detours. If you choose to walk up the stairs yourself, there's another detour about attitudes toward the future, but I shall keep it to myself in case I recycle.
At the top of the tower wait the future FreakAngels. This is a bit of a canon thing -- on the top of a metal tower is where the future FreakAngels canonically hang out. When one of the FreakAngels would otherwise die, this is the particular scene they see. The energy version of Knife is there, you converse with her, you continue your way up to the glowy ball in the sky. The glowy ball is a representation of Knife's brain supercomputer, in a way, but it's really a representation of the relative omniscience that the FreakAngels had when fixing the world -- being able to see everything. Lloyd got that directly fed into his brain when he touched the glowy ball.
Anyway, there wasn't anything in particular changed on the stairs, but it led right to the Processor.
Section 2 - Processor
[You step into what looks a bit like a hotel corridor, except it is carved entirely of bright stone. An infinite number of doors line the left and right sides of the room.
The door you entered by has closed. There is the sound of dripping from behind you.]
The Processor is the location that is representation of the Package in Knife's heart. Not so much the skills themselves, they're not accessible, but her feelings and thoughts and memories on her abilities and what they mean for her is what is contained here. Her thoughts on what good can be done and what evil can be done with the tools she's been given on, all of that related stuff, ll there.
The Processor was created as a hotel corridor with an infinite number of doors. The objective was to get into the hatch -- the keys that came down from the hatch represent skills Knife has come to understand she has in the past but doesn't know how to use now. Depending on what key you use in the door, the representation of an ability pops up; the default is the puppet, because the consequences of mind control is the one Knife spends the most time mulling over. The Processor wasn't heavily explored -- if the corridor had been walked down, there would have been other things to do, someone might have even had the fun experience of reliving fixing the geomagnetic field -- but they did get the corruption in this area thanks to Lloyd being a dab hand with a pair of pliers.
Things:
- The puppet was, as said, the mind control ability. It grows heavier and heavier when touched because of Knife's constant internal rejection of the concept.
- The grandfather clock represented the ability to freeze, slow and travel in time.
- The golden statue was full empathy.
… I think those were the only ones that were shown. If there were more feel free to go SIAN WHAT WAS ___. Anyway, the puzzle involved with those was getting the bikocopter keys, which Mitchell and Hisoka managed with aplomb. If you don't find the keys, you don't get to leave the Difference path, full stop. If you reach the top of the Watchtower without the keys, future Knife just sends you back to get the keys. The bikocopter and its keys represent freedom of choice -- in what to decide, what to do, who to do it with, and most prominently in this area, what abilities to develop or not develop. Placing the cube in the statue's hands and finding the keys leads to Knife finding and reasserting her freedom of choice in the area of ability development, so she'll be more open to pushing the Package and learning new skills outside of the package too. Freedom of choice is a huge deal. That small act will probably lead to huge huge things in the future.
The corruption puzzle was working against freedom of choice in this respect. It was only a small leak, not a massive oilslick like in the Lake, but it could have been fairly devastating if left unhindered, purely because Knife would have eventually stopped thinking about how she could use the Package to help people. Fortunately that got fixed, not in either way I had planned! But instead Lloyd Irving and a pair of pliers. \:D/ WHO CARRIES AROUND PLIERS, LLOYD, WHO!
Changes in the Processor:
- trying to force the hatch (Lloyd). The closed hatch represents limitations. Trying to force it open causes only a bit of an eyeroll feeling in Knife, but actually getting it open is a big eyeopener. This all contributes to the new drive that we will get to at the end.
- solving the keys puzzle (Hisoka, Mitchell). As aforementioned, that restores full freedom of thought in terms of what she feels the Package might be able to do. Since the Package is technically limitless, that's relatively awesome.
- touching the puppet (Lloyd). The heavier that puppet got, the more vehement Knife gets about the idea of mind control. To have it be heavy enough to shatter the floor means a really vehement response to anyone else who uses it too. She now considers it even more exclusively damaging than she did.
- solving the corruption puzzle …..... with pliers. (Lloyd). +100 manliness points, Lloyd.
Section 3 - Top of the Watchtower
You go up and up and up.
When you reach the top, the Knife that was made out of energy is leaning against some railings at the top of a high watchtower. From here, you have a view of the entire heart. You can see Aather, a city, a fair, a lake, and a graveyard from where you're sat.
You've stopped being psychic. You're back in the "real" world now. And in this world, the energy Knife has faded somewhat. She isn't as bright as she is in the dark.
There is a fucking awesome bikocopter sat beside her which is also perfectly real looking.]
Mostly used as a segue in this case. Lloyd used the opportunity to do some healthy topping. Mitchell used the opportunity to annoy the crap out of the NPC. The point of this section is that this Knife -- both the most powerful and the most ambivalent NPC in the heart -- is not powerful outside of her sphere. That's the real reason why she states to not care about what goes on in the rest of the heart, because in reality, outside of her own sphere she can do very little about it. The truest reason why the Difference path was boxed off was revealed -- because Knife didn't want anyone from her present to see her future.
The bikocopter is the all-access-pass to the heart. In a normal heart game, you wouldn't have to go to the True Heart, you could decide wherever the hell you'd like to go from there. As a tourist, however, anywhere outside of the True Heart. Because of compartmentalisation, people from the Difference path also couldn't effect the Change or Belief paths. OH NO, IT'S HOW IT IS. Future heart games might have the goal of stamping down the sillier walls in KK's heart, who knows.
In the corruption game, partially because it was about 5am by that point and Sian was geeeetting sleepy, the bikocopter took you directly to the Graveyard, and in turn to the True Heart. SIMPLES.
Changes at the Top of the Watchtower:
- Lloyd told future Knife she was being stupid, pretty much :T GO AWAY, LLOYD IRVING. +10 comfort about talking to Lloyd about potential futures.
- Mitchell got on her nerves. HFFFFFF. :T -10 comfort about talking to Mitchell about potential futures.
The Field: True Heart
[There is a crack of thunder. The world before you shifts.
Before you is a field. It should be an idyllic place, but the clouds have gathered and a storm has blown in, cracking its lightning a little too close for comfort. Most of the grass is blackened; it is stained and dirtied with oil, which is flowing out from a tree in the distance.
There is a gate between you and it. There is a sign on the gate.]
Only those who carry the keys may enter.
You could only access the True Heart if you had acquired or touched one of the following:
- Aeris' flower - acceptance
- Lloyd's bracelet - achievement
- Mithos's doll - learning
- The bikocopter keys - freedom
- The Emerald ring - family.
Those are the "keys" to unlock the gate. KNIFE IS COMPLICATED. It is very hard for her to let people in that close. So you gotta have touched the heart relics or you weren't getting nowhere. Once you got into the True Heart, it was a big, beautiful field that was completely marred with oil. It was leaking from the tree in the centre! To get there, you had to slug your way through the oil, which was pretty torturous. It is a struggle representation! LIFE IS HARD. LIFE IS HARD. When you get over there, you end up seeing this:
[You've reached the tree. The tree is metal, an organic imitation. An odd scene confronts you. Two versions of Knife are on either side of the tree. One is wearing black and is blindfolded, and has black skewers through the chest, hands and stomach, and seems to be bleeding the oil that has stained the field in such a way. The other Knife is wearing white and is merely chained in the exact same position on the other side of the tree. She is gagged, and she looks away from you as you approach, frustrated.]
Final corruption puzzle! This one is pretty much the be-all and end-all of the corruption puzzles. The Knife in the white dress is "Conscience". The one in the black death, in turn, represents the death of Conscience. Just like there was no violent way to solve the Graveyard puzzle, there is no non-violent way to solve the puzzle in the True Heart -- you basically have to decide which one of them to kill. You can free the death of Conscience by pushing the skewers through and killing Conscience, which is something she will try to convince you to do.
Conscience won't speak on the matter, because she doesn't advocate killing, it's against her existence. However she will get increasingly frustrated and grumpy. SURPRISE, SURPRISE, KNIFE'S CONSCIENCE IS A DEEPLY CRANKY INDIVIDUAL. She also had like a billion feelings before she was freed, because all of you gave her feelings stop that. This is the main reason that when the puzzle was solved, she had fucked off. Knife's conscience is a profound tsundere.
Anyway, the folks who got to the True Heart made the right choices, freed Conscience, and invoked the real True Heart. You get one of three results -- a sunny day on the field if everything has gone swimmingly, a rainy day if things could've gone better but you got it right in the end, and a storm if you fucked up and killed Conscience. If you really fucked up the True Heart's colourings would realign themselves to black hair and purple eyes and then she would forcibly send you back to your bodies in a none too comfortable way. But you guys did pretty good all in all, despite the bunch of changes, so she hung out, bestowed cuddles, topped Bonten, took Lloyd on a heart date.
The True Heart is a human version of Knife -- it is Knife exactly as she would be if she had arrived in Aather and never received the Package back. Because Knife herself, consciously, no longer sees that version of herself as relevant, the True Heart can't enter Emerald in Forest World. She is mostly pretty adorable. As True Hearts are.
Changes in the True Heart:
- STOP TOPPING, LLOYD IRVING (+oh no more Lloyd dere)
- since when can Mitchell logic (+some Mitchell respect)
- oh no Hisoka don't give me feelings (CAN'T DERE FOR HISOKA ANYMORE LEAVE ME ALONE)
- Jade gets shit done. (+some Jade respect)
OVERALL RESULTS
SO! THAT WAS INTERESTING, WASN'T IT.
Ten thousand or so words later we get to the tail end. I am going to do a helpful summary of how things changed overall for people who want the Cliff notes:
+Knife's conscience is not corrupted in any way when it comes to making conscious decisions that are not of a personal nature. This includes all game decisions, because she doesn't actually consider them personal at all. 95% of the decisions she makes and the way she handles conscientious decisions and objection has not changed at all. However.
+Due to the corruptions left in Forest World and the damage done there Knife now has the potential to be violently protective of a) Emerald and b) anyone else who is truly important to her. Normally, this would be a desire that would be questioned, but --
+A variety of different actions around the heart have installed what one might call HERCULEAN DRIVE in Knife. She will question her instincts a damn sight less and believe in their clarity, believe in her own ability to decision make more, generally drive herself hard to get back up every time she's knocked down. It is like hero drive without the heroics and with a hefty pack of this is necessary. She will believe significantly less in limitations and learn from her mistakes when she makes them.
+This getting up when she's knocked down is very necessary because her ability to cope with things on a snap basis has been ruined. She will show more emotion -- grief, pain, and so on. Fear, however, will register even less than it usually does, because Kyouko destroyed caution and Lloyd replaced it with balance.
+Her self-worth, meanwhile, is in absolute tatters. So that will lead to snap decisions that are not necessarily good for her personally if they're for the common good. She already had a latent leaning towards this but that has thoroughly woken it up.
+A new freedom of thought and objective in the use of the Package to improve her life and other people's lives.
So yes. Aside from the sleeper revenge tragedy now waiting inside her brain, that was quite successful, I thought.
And that was 11289 words on a heart game. YEP. YEP.
Questions can go below … if you have some …
The Corruption
Represented as machine oil because of Knife's natural mechanical leanings and also because of the inorganic theme throughout her heart, Knife's corruption was the fish that ate Jiminy Cricket, the death of conscience. Instead of an active addition, if the game had been a complete failure, Knife as she is in Aather's moral compass -- which is a hugely strong factor in her daily life, which is why it was absolutely everywhere in the game -- would have died. The corruption choice was at heart an act of canon comparison! The fundamental difference between KK as a character in FreakAngels, and Knife as a character in Aather, is that she has had the experience of being human for a time in Aather. This development led to the development of a strong, uncompromising conscience. While the FreakAngels do try to do the right thing in canon with varying degrees of success, it's only Connor who actively shows that kind of conscientiousness, and the others have been known to call him soft regarding it. While they do sometimes make good choices, KK has personally ripped the bodies of intruders to Whitechapel into several different pieces. Never mind the apocalypse in of itself.
Failure in the final corruption game puzzle would have ensured a complete sway back to the canon rationale. Success in every puzzle would have led to a complete actualisation. The game overall was two-thirds successful, which means we gotta talk about stuff \:D/!
Right okay let's go section by section.
Section 0: Flotsam
At the north end of the warehouse, there are two doors. There is a brass plaque on each door. Both are somewhat tarnished, but still glint brightly enough to catch the eye.
One reads "BELIEF". The other, "CHANGE".]
A "reception room", of sorts. This room was the bridge into various parts of the heart, and represented Knife's subconscious mind. The doors were actually carefully and consciously crafted by her -- the "belief" door representing the way into her present life and the "change" door into her past. They both had well-maintained and well cared for plaques because both parts of her life are of equal value -- one she just believes in the quality of, and one she believes needs a changed perspective. That's the meaning behind the two plaques.
Things in this room:
- the windows! Nobody looked at them, but if you had looked out of them, you would've seen the aurora borealis. That's more a comment on the electromagnetic qualities of the package than anything else.
- The leaking machine -- fixed by Hisoka. It was the only piece of corruption in Knife's surface mind, and would've been repaired either way, but it was a good way to give an immediate corruption visual, since you would be seeing it again later. A lot. Once you fix the machine, the boxes on the side of the wall come down either way, they just tumble, because Knife's natural defenses are very susceptible to helpful people.
- the boxes. These represent two things -- one, Knife's conscious mind's desire to not let people fuck around with the package, since the door that was hidden behind them is exactly where that goes. However, there were so many of them and they were so filled with rubbish because Knife's mind undergoes constant traffic when awake. She is constantly hearing things she doesn't need to hear, people's thoughts and so on, but endeavours to keep a tidy mind nonetheless, thus the rubbish is stored away and put to something practical. The cleaning products in the one box represented the self-maintenance aspect of Knife's conscious mind.
- the pieces of paper. Again, these were prepared by Knife's conscious mind, partly as a warning, partly to wind people up a bit.
Anyway, you mess around with the room a bit, you find the DIFFERENCE door. That plaque was dirty as hell because Knife isn't so fond of the things that make her alien to other people. In fact, in her conscious mind she tries to downplay them if at all possible. Cleaning it off makes her more open toward being proud of her differences.
The divisions were:
- Roxas, Kyouko, Naruto, Suzaku for "belief"
- Jade, Bonten, Sasuke, Itachi, Mitchell for "change" -- though Mitchell moved paths but that we will get to later.
- Lloyd and Hisoka for "difference".
BELIEF
The "belief" path was all about Knife's present identity - the "Knife" identity, as it were, rather than the previous "KK" identity. The difference between Belief, Change and Difference is a factor of past, present and future. Since technically all six parts of the Belief and Change paths are accessible to people who go through either one of the two doors, the door choice makes a difference in what you can personally change. If Kyouko had tried to kick down one of the statues in the City, for example, no matter what she'd done, it wouldn't have gone over. That's because of Knife's sharp division between aspects of what she was and what she is and how the two make up her current identity. This compartmentalisation has a both positive and negative effect on her daily life, which is true enough in the game as well, since well-meaning people off the Change path wouldn't have been able to do anything for the damage done on the Belief path, and so on.
Aaaanyway.
Section 1 - Forest World
The only thing at the centre of the maze is a large snowglobe on top of a concrete -- well, metal, but it is pretending very hard to be concrete -- plinth. The way out of the maze is in front of you. There are small drops of oil leading away from the centre of the maze and on. There is a faint smell of blood on the air.]
This is arguably the most important section in terms of Knife's daily life, activities, and the way she presents herself. In the different parts of Forest World -- including the lake here, though that's a different aspect -- self-image, secrets, guiding influences and personal responsibility are all housed. It is interesting therefore that it was this place that suffered the most violent damage.
This is the first obvious place where the theme of organic/inorganic is played off -- all of the greenery in Forest World is crafted carefully out of metal. That is a product of being a FreakAngel among a large amount of comparatively normal people -- Knife plays down the difference between herself and others in general conversation, but is constantly aware of the gap that's there. Therefore everything in Forest World is beautifully crafted and seems precisely how it should, besides that one crucial element.
The first part of Forest World encompassed the maze, Emerald, and the clearing. The maze had a self-perpetuating snowglobe at its heart, with the FreakAngels watchtower in it. That is a representation of how her previous judgements effect her current judgements -- they're there, in her memories, and they effect and influence her, but that influence while the snowglobe was in the maze was filtered through common sense and veiled.
Changes around the maze:
- Moving the snowglobe from the plinth at the heart of the maze to the dressing table in Emerald (Suzaku). This is an interesting thing to do! The dressing table is the heart of Knife's self-worth/self-image. Placing the snowglobe that represents her past there is going to change the way the past influences her. This is a negative change in that Knife had pretty much gotten the way to take her past and present today sussed out -- now she will reinterrogate those choices and be forced to integrate them more into the person she is. So it's a negative with a positive at heart.
After you leave the maze, you can turn left to the clearing or right to Emerald. People went right first, so let's go right first!
Emerald
Okay, so you get to Emerald, and Emerald is not a simple cabin at all, but rather a great big three-storey house. The symbolism behind that is pretty simple and obvious -- KK sees Emerald as something much bigger than itself, and it's also deeply tied in with the concept of home and family. The representation of Emerald here isn't a simple one — you couldn't actually edit Knife's feelings on any member of Emerald in her heart. There are certain things in her heart that are utter constants. Emerald's representation here relates far more to how she identifies with the team, and most prevalently her perceived responsibility for said team. Emerald is a wooden house! It is the only thing in Forest World that is made from something that was alive at some point. It is the most organic feature, and that's because there is no conscious or subconscious layer of artifice in how KK treats Emerald. It is what it is what it is. The windows and curtains were closed in Emerald as a protective gesture.
The first NPC on the Belief path is outside Emerald! All the versions of Knife in Knife's heart have their own names, but all but one of them will answer to "Knife", they're easygoing like that. The one outside of Emerald is "Guardian". There are only two versions of Knife in the heart that wouldn't enter Emerald if prompted — she is one, and the True Heart is the other. More on the True Heart later, but Guardian doesn't enter Emerald because she is the personification of KK's original isolated protective instinct that has now been focused upon Emerald. The FreakAngels don't enter into human life, but they do strive to protect it when they're not being douchebags, and she's a representation of that.
Emerald was laid out in three floors -- two floors of three beds apiece, and an attic room. There wasn't any popularity contest or any difference in how fond KK is of a teammate in who was on each floor, it's ordered instead in terms of how responsible KK feels for the safety of that individual. The three on the bottom - Bonten, Jade and Itachi -- are people she takes a very relaxed approach about looking after. The three on the second floor, Natsume, Roxas and Hisoka, are the three she would take on a giant dinosaur for. It is not so much a defining of "older" versus "younger" as the different relationships. Eventually Hisoka and Bonten will probably swap over :')!
Beside the beds was a bedside table, on the bedside table was a box. Most of the beds had something on them too. Inside the boxes were mostly things KK has gleaned using her abilities or from indepth conversations, and the thing on the bed was a more casual kind of knowledge. These items are the only representation of Knife's actual levels of fondness for members of Emerald, but they're carefully veiled -- the boxed ones give an emotional impression when touched, but only if they're touched by the actual member of Emerald they belong to. Otherwise, they're just items.
Jade: a fonstone in the box, a military uniform on the bed. Amusement, hope.
Itachi: a set of ninja shuriken in the box, a pie on the bed :'D! Companionship, affection, a hint of .///.! Notably, Stealth's items are switched -- that's just a representation of how comfortable she is around him lately.
Bonten: three razor-sharp feathers wrapped with Coral ribbon in the box, a hairbrush on the bed. Concern, comeraderie, protectiveness.
Roxas: a large peridot in the shape of a heart in the box, a keyblade on the bed. Zen, watchfulness, friendship.
Natsume: a snowglobe with a cat in it in the box, a pile of friendship bracelets on the bed. Alertness, careful protectiveness, warmth.
Hisoka: the other exception! There's nothing on the bed, but there's a beautiful, locked box made of gold on the table. It cannot be moved from the table or opened. The table is glued to the floor. If you try to force it, you get kicked in the nuts by Kaitlyn.
The attic floor was where all the action was happening. There was an oil trail leading up to the attic, because that was where the corruption was hanging out. The attic was a representation of Knife's self-image and how she herself relates to Emerald. It was candlelit, full of alcohol bottles, had a big log fire in it, a wooden box with a clasp in it that contained some items, and a dressing table with six drawers. There was a mirror atop the dressing table, cracked but not broken, a ring hanging off the mirror, and items in some of the drawers. The corruption was in one drawer in particular. Once you find it, you got a drawer full of oil. The first puzzle was pretty much HOW DO I DISPOSE OF THIS GUNK.
Representations! The fire was all about team protectiveness. If you extinguish the fire, when you go back down, the beds from the second floor are on the first floor. The fire is what sustains the natural urge Knife has to protect and worry over and fuss over her teammates. The wooden box contains her memories of her previous teammates. They're all together in one box, and are in the attic, which isn't meant to be an expression of forgetting but rather that it is the highest away from the ground, the most protected. She guards her feelings about her lost teammates pretty jealously! Anyone can feel the feelings connected to those items once they're found because those teammates aren't around to feel them, and this is the list of stuff:
Setsuna: a metal apple … a feeling of quiet absolution.
Asuka: a battered shield … affection and frustration hand in hand. a feeling of failure.
Mytho: a hula skirt … consternation, protectiveness and helplessness.
Watanuki: a frying pan made of stone. Touching it will give you the same cold feeling you get when touching a statue, and then boundless regret.
The alcohol … is an expression of how Knife likes to drink, often with the team … not all of these things are complicated okay :'D!! The dressing table, meanwhile, is more complicated. The mirror is self-image, pure and simple. It's cracked because her self-image is pretty poor, but it's reformed a little lately on recent memories. The Emerald ring that was hanging off the mirror is a tool to be used later on the "believe" path -- the team that were here didn't get to the point where they would use it because Kyouko made some excellent decisions, but more on that later. The ring represents family, at heart. The drawer that was full of oil represented conscientious response -- the eye in it represented watchfulness, the finger was action. The dreamcatcher in the top drawer represented coping mechanisms for pain and horror and grief. The space pony was … just a representation of Mithos as an honourary member of the team, really. It's kept upstairs in Knife's dressing table because it's a personal interpretation.
There is a violent and a non-violent way to solve every corruption puzzle in Knife's heart. That represents the old way she would solve problems and the new way she has learned to solve them in Aather. By violent I don't always mean physical, I mean that it would have a negative effect on the heart overall. In this case, the non-violent solution was to just take the drawer outside and downstairs to "Guardian" Knife: she would then get rid of it for you. The violent way to get rid of the oil in the drawer is to put it in the fire.
Changes in Emerald:
- opening the curtains and windows (Suzaku). Having them closed was, as I said, a protective gesture -- that'll put the latent protectiveness she feels for Emerald down a bit. Which is a good thing considering what's coming up.
- throwing stuff in the boxes around (Kyouko) -- ninja shuriken thrown at wall, fonstone thrown about, cut herself on feathers. All cleaned and replaced by Roxas and Suzaku. Not much effect here, as the items were moved back! A little more healthy respect for Itachi's ninja skills, perhaps. Not that she didn't have enough kyaa Stealth you're so competent.
- tidying up the alcohol bottles (Suzaku) … not much effect really, the only thing that could've effected the bottles was taking them out of Emerald, which wasn't done. I am glad, I'm not sure what Knife would be without a healthy love of drink.
- dumping the corruption oil in the fire (Naruto). This. This was a bad idea. The conscience corruption that originated in the conscientious decision drawer -- that means that corruption was all about making horrible decisions for the sake of Emerald -- got dumped in the team spirit and protectiveness fire. This will be a sleeper effect — as long as nobody goes out of their way to harm one of her team members. The decision to carefully disable anyone who tries to do that may have just become the decision to detach their heads from their body.
- dumping the eye and the finger in the fire (Naruto). Action and watchfulness went out of the conscientious decision drawer and into the team protectiveness fire. So not only will she shank at will to protect Emerald, she will be watching for the need to do so. And because of a set of later actions she may not be waiting for opinions on the matter.
- dumping the dreamcatcher in the fire (Kyouko). It was retrieved by Suzaku but was more than half burned. The dreamcatcher and the drawer that surrounds it represents coping mechanisms! Most specifically the ones for grief, horror, fear and pain. Burning them leads to an instability that would, again, relate to damage caused to the team.
-Space pony put in dreamcatcher drawer (Kyouko). That'll lead to an association between Mithos and coping. Which just means KK will flop about with Mithos a bit more when she's sad.
-breaking the mirror (Kyouko). An attempt at mirror reassembly by Roxas, mirror pieces placed together atop an Emerald jacket. S-s-shattering of self-worth. This will lead back to some of her more horrid self-destructive, self-loathing tendencies.
-The remaining corruption oil in the drawer was emptied and the drawer was returned to its proper place (Roxas.) Best thing that could be done here. The drawer being returned means the conscientious decisions outside of direct attacks on Emerald will still occur as normal -- which means nothing about Emerald's team policies will change, unless Knife hears about anyone attacking them maliciously in games, which may be … more of an issue.
So yes. The amount of damage provoked was large, which is why Kaitlyn was invoked. Crazy Kait, one of the other FreakAngels, is Knife's representation of mental defenses. She can only appear in the first section of both paths, where the most day to day decision making is represented, and she can remove you forcibly from whatever premises if she must. She was not however, invoked in time to prevent Knife from being turned into a sleeper Violently Protective Girlfriend for the whoooooole of Emerald.
Right. The other part of Aather available once you were done in Emerald was the Ring!
The Ring
There are large handles at the bottom of each statue.]
These four statues quite literally represented Knife's moral compass. They really aren't much to do with the Personae themselves, though Three and Dream have more of an alignment with their moral counterpart, and Beauty and Maleficent's polarity made them the other choices.
Dream: compassion.
Beauty: past.
Maleficent: future.
Three: caution.
The representations of past and future in this case were making choices based on the past, and making choices for the future. Compassion and caution are pretty self-explanatory. Turning all four statues in to face the fountain would have made the fountain run mercury, instead of dirty water, and you would have had a button choice -- "fade" or "break". The choice defines what you're armed with when you get to the Fair, which was never gotten to because Kyouko made excellent life choices. I mean that genuinely, because the Fair is the most dangerous part of Knife's heart by about 400%.
Changes in the Ring:
- shattering Three's statue (Kyouko). Literally throwing caution to the wind. KK already did not have a lot of caution so that was not a terribly good decision to make either.
-turning the rest of the compass inward (Suzaku). Will promote more self-reflection! It is probably the thing that will eventually help to heal the rest of the damage in this section. It will also lead Knife to neuronauting a lot more than she currently does.
-leaving Three's coin where her statue was (Lloyd). On Lloyd and the True Heart's wander through the heart at the end of the game, he left this coin here. Lloyd received the coin from Three's heart game, and it is, AJ tells me, a coin that represents perfect balance. There is now, therefore, balance where caution is supposed to be. This has led to a huge new focus in Knife's decision-making — she will decide to do things, or want things, and is far more likely to just decide on them finally rather than confer. It is a huge drive boost, in other words; great normally, but could lead to bad things in conjunction with the damage to Emerald.
Okay, so you could leave Forest World here, and go to The Fair.
Section 2 - The Fair
Not going to go too much into this, as I said! But just a few things.
- The ring found in Emerald had a specific purpose here; it was, as you say, a life-saver.
- I was about 80% sure that any group who arrived here would die here. That's why I knew I had to include the Difference path, because otherwise it might have been an abortive game for some people.
- The facets represented here are Knife's personal fears. Anyone who played with me in that one game the Masked Lady did that had the displaying fears aspect can probably work out how that section would've gone. 9_9
- A loooot of the FreakAngels stuff is here too, which is why we were a touch short on it in the rest of the game.
- There's no way to get to the True Heart from the Fair. The only way to get to the True Heart from the Belief path is through The Lake. You can however get to the Lake from the Fair if you manage to survive.
- The NPC in the Fair is called "Destruction".
Section 3 - Forest World: The Lake
The entire surface of the water is a dirty oilslick, except one small portion. You can see two people standing in the water in that portion. There is a boat not far away from them.
Even though it's beaten down, this place still feels extremely warm. Not temperature-wise, but emotionally.]
OH NO LLOYD YOU'RE IN THE SAME PLACE IN THE HEART AS THE BOAT
OH NO
I mean. Think of the lake as the great big dere section. This is pretty much the boom-de-yada boom-de-yada place. Everything here are things that Knife just adores. Of course, the oilslick … is not supposed to be there so much. The lake is, in a sense, the root of the tree of Knife's conscience -- it only developed because she wasn't isolated, because there were people to keep pushing her, and so on. The lake water is a representation of that lack of isolation. IT'S AN OCEAN OF FEELINGS!! Okay I joke but in all seriousness, leaving the corruption in the lake would have led to her isolating herself from the people around her.
In this area of the heart, you find the Aeris and Lloyd NPCs. Lloyd, Mithos and Aeris were the three non-Knife NPCs you could find anywhere in the heart — her three closest knight friends. It was the knights and not Emerald because of the way Knife compartmentalises things — Emerald belongs in Emerald, but the knights are free to go anywhere. In the normal heart, Aeris is always at the lake, and will always give you flowers for the Graveyard; the flower is self-acceptance, which is a huge part of what Aeris means to Knife in general, and one of the things she has learned most particularly from her knight friends. Lloyd, meanwhile, is not always at the lake. He is a free mover about the Change and Belief paths, though he's barred from the Difference path (everything in the heart is). He's Lloyd Irving, he goes where he wants. The True Heart made a comment to the actual Lloyd about him "never liking the way things run in here" — which is a reference to the fact that Lloyd pushes Knife more than anyone else she knows. Sometimes into rivers. This leads to the kind of cute image of the Lloyd NPC regularly making faces at the True Heart. "This is stupid! Stop being stupid!" "IT'S HOW THINGS ARE :(a"
In the corruption game, however, he goes to the lake, and Lloyd and Aeris's presence there means that the area can't be fully corrupted. That was mostly a safeguard for me in case people didn't manage to get to that area of corruption! But Naruto did. This was the other corruption puzzle in the Belief area. Naruto again solved it the violent way -- by using the matches and alcohol in the boat, and setting the lake on fire, whether that was unintentional or intentional. The non-violent way was to use the boat to go out to the middle of the lake through the oil, where there would've been further things to see and do to fix the problem.
When the Lake is fixed non-violently, Lloyd (of the NPC variety) would have given you a wooden bracelet in reward and takes you to the Graveyard. The bracelet represents striving for achievement. When the Lake is fixed violently, that's where your story ends, you don't go any further.
If a member of Emerald appears at the Lake, as Roxas did, Aeris gives them the flower and sends them to the Graveyard. It's a bit unfortunate, but Emerald does get an all-access pass on the Belief path, it's how it is. The flower from the Belief path is the only way to finish off the Graveyard, however, so that's a thing.
Changes at the Lake:
-burning the oil on the lake (Naruto). Far better than the corrupted alternative, but … we have gone over what fire represents in Forest World. Protectiveness. The matches and alcohol were placed there because of Knife's natural latent ability to protect herself and her own mind. Using them to burn the lake leads to her being that aforementioned Violently Protective Girlfriend for not just Emerald …..... but all her close friends ….. oh god …
- burning the boat (side-effect from burning lake). HA. IT DOES NOTHING. KK x BOAT IS THE SHIP THAT LIVES FOREVER. YOU GET IT. SHIP. HAHAHAHAHA --
okay okay we're moving on.
All paths meet at the Graveyard! But it truly belongs to the Change section so we will cover it there.
CHANGE
The "Change" path represents everything Knife has remembered, everything that has gone before, everything she has decided to work on and change about herself, basically. This is not the more dangerous path, but it is in many ways the sadder one. Her feelings on the FreakAngels are all stored here, also, but the overall path here is a path back in time. You start at the most recent remembered things — the City's overall look and most of its contents regarding Whitechapel, Fallen London, and life post-apocalypse. You end up either at the Graveyard, the representation of the effect the apocalypse has had on Knife which is the gate to the True Heart, or at the Chase, which is a trip to the past that ends with a meeting with the True Heart's parallel opposite.
Section 1 - The City
There is an open archway in front of you, with steps leading up into a courtyard. Against the wall of the building beside it, there is a ladder leading up onto the rooftops. You can also go up and down the street, of course.]
So! The cityscape is basically Whitechapel, Knife's home area where most of her memories are based, with a few additions, naturally. The City, along with the Change path in general, is about backstory, backstory, backstory. And not so much about how that story effects other people, but how it effects her. Looking back on her past and thinking about how she would change her decisions knowing the things she knows now is one of Knife's favourite awful things to do to herself, and there's a lot of that here too. But the City isn't really represented as being alarming. You don't get a feeling of alarm or panic about how the place looks when you arrive because this is the state of affairs as they are. Knife's realism about the situation has long since kicked in, and is relatively unmoveable.
There are three parts of the City to interact with -- you can go up the ladder to look out over the city, forward into the marketplace, or down the street to the bar. As I imagined it, I figured people would go toward the marketplace and the bar, and then only go up to the roof when they realised they were missing a key, but dear Colonel Jade immediately superseded that thought of mine by going up to the roof first. So let's talk about the roof -- there's not much to change up there, but. Going up there you get to escape Knife's realistic view on how Whitechapel is -- escape the feeling of how the place just looks like that, and see the city for what it really is, a great big destitute mess. Everything above ground is about reality. There are twelve statues up on the rooftops, those are the FreakAngels. They were ice statues back when Knife had a negative opinion of her friends from home, they are normal statues now her thoughts are ambivalent-positive. After a few more memories of childhood they will probably live and breathe up there. The FreakAngels protect Whitechapel, so they're high up, watching over the City.
The whole area is a reality check, so the key that was hung around Sirkka's neck also bears the concept of a reality check. There's nothing to do up on the roof except find the key, see the statues and look out at the landscape. Just remember about the key for a minute, 'cause I'm gonna talk about the bar next.
The Bar
Only two people in the game saw the bar -- Mitchell and Itachi. Stealth's brotherbothering pretty much saved him an unfun day out in this instance. The bar is pretty much Knife's bad decisions centre. We are talking about bad decisions from "I'll try to stab Three of Three with my brain" to "that boy looks very nice and I'm very drunk, I'll go home with him". It is where all the action happens, you guys. Mitchell exercised the principle behind the part of the heart by deciding to sit down and have a drink with the version of Knife that was hanging out behind the counter.
That NPC answers to Knife, as do most of the others, but her name is "Isolation", and she is the part of Knife that is afraid of being alone. She's not pushy about it to start with. She'll ask you to stay, if you say no, she'll let you go. If you come in, though, she will say pretty much anything to get you to stay in the bar with her. In a normal heart game she won't poison you. In the corruption game, with the attack on conscience, she takes the logical leap of deciding that clearly you should stay with her forever. Through the medium of death. It is not one of Knife's social high points, put it that way.
This place has a lot of differences between a standard heart game and the corruption one. In the normal heart game, the drinks represent the process of making a bad decision -- the first drink tastes like pure happiness, the second one tastes like contentment, and then, given that we're talking about bad decisions, the last drink tastes like shame. This is how the heart restores itself to the bad decision status quo. In the corruption game, you end up drinking the corruption oil, which isn't a nice way to go. This corruption wipes itself up when you solve the main corruption puzzle in the marketplace, thought it can be solved separately.
The place is well-decorated! Well furnished. It's well-kept, it's not shabby at all. That's because Knife is still very good at making bad decisions even to this date. If you poke around the premises a little, there are some memories of previous bad decisions lurking around. The decor is both purple and green, which are the two colours that represent the past and the present for Knife. That is another comment on how changing so thoroughly has not actually stopped her from making bad decisions in any way.
Changes in The Bar:
- REJECTION :(a (Stealth.) This pretty much affirms Knife's belief that Sasuke is for sure the most important thing to Itachi, more important than the rest of them. She will be slightly more reticent about bothering him for things.
- Drinking here is clearly a great idea (Mitchell). Because of it being a corruption game, Mitchell never got to drink shame, he died instead. That leaves bad decisions related to Mitchell somewhat unresolved in Knife's head. That is a +10 inclination to make bad decisions as regarding the potentially dangerous vampire. This is clearly excellent.
The main event of the City, though, occurs in the Marketplace. There's a trail of oil akin to the one in Forest World that leads into the Marketplace. When you get in there, there's a variety of stalls set out like it were a busy market day, though there are no people present. There's a thing you can actually do between the Fair on the Belief path and this part of the Change part regarding repopulating the marketplace, but perhaps that again is a thing for another time. The marketplace represents a few different things -- indulgences, community spirit, and so on. The corruption here relates to Knife's place in a community both at home and in Aather. She takes a protective role, in a way, in both places; leaving corruption here would have caused her to reject it.
So when you get to the end of the oil trail there is a locked door with a thumpthumpthump behind it, like something's banging on it. The key to open that door is the one from the statue! Behind that door is a music box that's covered in oil, and the thump is coming from that. You can either smash the box or wind it and open it with a key you can find on one of the stalls. If you wind it properly, you find a heart inside; keeping the heart intact is the best thing you can do, because the heart represents learned instinct. If you break the box, you also damage the heart, and that's the negative effect in question. Bonten and Jade solved the puzzle without breaking the box! EXCELLENT JOB.
Solving the puzzle without violence triggers the Mithos NPC. He's the only one of the knight NPCs in this particular game who starts off on the past path, and that's because Mithos and KK have a tight bond that is partly based on the similarities of their stories/past actions and how they want to change themselves for the better. That's the difference, and why he's placed where he is. If you solve the puzzle without violence, he leaves the doll for you - the doll looks like Asuka, and represents learning - and guides you to the Graveyard, which is the gate to the True Heart. If you damage the heart in the box, he doesn't appear, the Graveyard gates don't open, and your heartventure probably ends at the Chase.
Changes in the Marketplace:
- Bonten and Jade cleaned up the music box as well as winding it. That'll give further clarity to the actions that are guided by Knife's instincts. As seen by the other changes … this can be either good or bad.
I THINK THAT'S IT FOR THAT AREA ACTUALLY if you guys did something else here and want to know what it was just ask.
So! You follow Mithos, you end up at the graveyard. You go the other way, you end up at a railway station. That's the way Sasuke and Itachi went. That's the way to the dead end. There's a vending machine at the station with a golden bottle in it, and once you get the bottle the train arrives at the station. You can choose to board the train, but you end up at the Chase section.
Section 2 - The Chase
It's a plain train. There aren't even seats. The walls of the train seem to have been painted a variety of vibrant rainbow colours, though. If you look out the windows, it's as if the scenery is winding back in time -- from dilapidated buildings and sodden parks with pools of dirty water to beautiful, rustic countryside.
Odd, huh.]
This is mostly a trip down memory laaaane. It is a quite literal trip into Knife's past, though it is not shown literally. You can watch the past shifting by through the windows — the train is painted all of the Aather team colours, which is a quite simple message to herself, really, of "remember where you're viewing this from". It's a grounding, in a way, of this particular set of memories. You can go into the driver's part of the train -- unlike the walls of the train, the walls of the driver's cabin are made of glass. You can see the world around you as if you were in a bubble. Instead of train controls, there are three levers: "pain", "song" and "sharp".
"Pain", "song" and "sharp" make a balance of control. The driver's part of the train is all about control — the control, debatable as it is, Knife has over her abilities, her emotions, and her reactions to what goes on around her. Messing with "pain" will make her less susceptible to emotional or physical pain; "song" increases her ability to feel joy uninhibited by guilt; "sharp" decreases any violent reactions she might have.
Once you decide to leave the train, it's become night-time, and you're outside a military compound. You don't get very far towards it, however; the spotlights from overhead fix on you, and it's as if you've stepped into a memory from that point on. You're influenced by other emotions than your own — Knife's, naturally — and most prevalently that emotion is fear. The section is called the Chase because it's at this point that fear would drive 99% of people to run away.
It is possible to turn around and face the fear. That has an interesting effect on the heart, really; it decreases any feeling of justification Knife had about her actions in the related escaping the government memories she has. If you do turn and face it, there's nothing following you at all, just air. However, you then end up lost in an unhospitable forest. If you keep running until you no longer feel the need, you end up at a moonlit pool, and waiting for you there is the one version of Knife that doesn't answer to the name "Knife".
It is easiest to think of the NPC KK as the previous True Heart. The reason the Chase section is a dead end is because the heart has shoved her as far as possible out of its way. There is no corruption in this area, because it is not an area that Knife herself particularly sees her conscience having an effect in. Really, this representation is just a memory of the person she used to be; nothing more, nothing less. KK is extremely bitter about her treatment, but doesn't bitch about it overmuch. You can give her the golden alcohol bottle from the vending machine, and that cheers her up a bit. It also strengthens her reach somewhat, and then if you desire she can place you back into the City. But once you've met KK the True Heart won't open to you. This is once again a case of Knife's compartmentalisation. You get to meet one of them or the other.
Changes on the Chase:
- Pulling the "sharp" lever (Sasuke). Decreases Knife's violent tendencies, as said. Considering changes above, aren't we glad something did.
Section 3 - The Graveyard
Beyond the gates is a graveyard. It stretches as far as the eye can see, just grave after grave after grave. But there's a monument in the distance that looks colourful.]
This is the bridge that links the three paths -- if you are going to "succeed" on your path to the True Heart, then you will inevitably end up here. That is because all roads in Knife's life lead to and away from the Crash -- the apocalypse. This section is about the apocalypse, about grief, and about guilt - the three parts of her life she holds closest to her bones, and thus the "gate" to the True Heart.
There are thousands and thousands of graves in the Graveyard. There isn't an exact number at all. Each grave represents feelings on the individual lives Knife knows she has destroyed. The monument covered in metal flowers you can see when you enter the Graveyard, meanwhile, is all about the actual act. If you touch it in any way, you get at least a part of the experience. If you touch it with your skin, you get the whole thing -- sight, sound, feel, everything. Jade bled on the monument, which just gave him the feel of causing the Crash without the actual visual.
The Knife NPC at the Graveyard is "Memory". Yeah yeah memories trapped by grief I CAN DO OBVIOUS IMAGERY IF I WANT DON'T JUDGE ME. She was wearing an exceptionally long, heavy white dress, which is all about burdens. That is why you can't cut the dress or harm it in any way -- it just won't go. If the corruption was left, eventually the NPC would have been too tired to move, and wouldn't have been able to go on laying flowers on the graves. Without the drive to make up for what she'd done, we are talking a massive downward spiral.
There is no second way to fix the corruption at the Graveyard. The people on the Change path have to get the gates opened and the people on the Belief path have to bring either Aeris's flower or Lloyd's bracelet to the Knife in the graveyard. Or, I mean, you can not, but you wouldn't complete the game. The two different relics cause two different changes, but both will solve the corruption on her burdens. That opens the way to the True Heart.
Changes in the Graveyard:
- bleeding on the monument (Jade). That just means the feeling of a closer connection to Jade, really. Oh no, Jade, we might have to bond.
- leaving the Ginger doll at the monument (Bonten). That doll is all about learning from your mistakes. Great big boost of drive.
- attempting to cut the dress with the flower (Bonten). The action is one of an attempt to lessen Knife's burdens. +10 affection for Viridian '^' it is my V I must love it.
- solving the corruption puzzle with Aeris's flower (Roxas). The flower is "acceptance", and leads to an accepting of failings. Another huge drive boost, good lord. For the record, solving it with Lloyd's bracelet — "achievement" — just makes her more convinced to make up for the things she's done. So one of them is more of an actions boost and the other is more of a heart boost.
DIFFERENCE
The future path. This path was a partly canonical representation of what is actually in Knife's head, the Package being mostly identified as a strange electromagnetic thing in the brain that defies explanation. But this path was far more about her feelings on the Package, and most prominently her personal future — what she will do when she leaves Aather. Knife's feelings on what happened when the FreakAngels fixed the damage they did to the planet have been carefully veiled pretty much since the beginning; she has lied about it to a large proportion of her important CR, and been veiled about it to the others. Since usually Knife's pretty frank and straightforward, that led to the literal boxing off of the Difference path at the beginning of the game. While Knife is pretty open regarding talking about everything else, when it comes to what happened that day she finds herself just not wanting to talk about it much. It's a thing. Anyway.
Section 1 - Twilight Stair
You are also standing in on what appears to be a thin, railed stairway made of violet light in a world that is otherwise entirely black, like a night sky without stars. The stairway is encircling, though never touching, a huge tower made of industrial metal. The only light, aside from the dim glow of the staircase, comes from a luminescent ball of light above the top of the tower. You can't quite make out the detail of it right now, you're too far away, but the stairs do seem to lead up there.
But I figure you'll probably want to deal with being psychic for a minute.]
Upon stepping through the Difference door, you end up in the part of Knife's heart that's devoted to the Package, pretty much. The psychic ability you get when stepping through the door is just evidence of that! Hella status effect. There's not too much to do on the twilight stair, it is mostly a case of getting where you need to be. There are two ways up the stair -- on the first landing, there is a statue of Arkady, the one FreakAngel who is seen to teleport in Knife's memories. Touching it teleports you where you need to be without any detours. If you choose to walk up the stairs yourself, there's another detour about attitudes toward the future, but I shall keep it to myself in case I recycle.
At the top of the tower wait the future FreakAngels. This is a bit of a canon thing -- on the top of a metal tower is where the future FreakAngels canonically hang out. When one of the FreakAngels would otherwise die, this is the particular scene they see. The energy version of Knife is there, you converse with her, you continue your way up to the glowy ball in the sky. The glowy ball is a representation of Knife's brain supercomputer, in a way, but it's really a representation of the relative omniscience that the FreakAngels had when fixing the world -- being able to see everything. Lloyd got that directly fed into his brain when he touched the glowy ball.
Anyway, there wasn't anything in particular changed on the stairs, but it led right to the Processor.
Section 2 - Processor
The door you entered by has closed. There is the sound of dripping from behind you.]
The Processor is the location that is representation of the Package in Knife's heart. Not so much the skills themselves, they're not accessible, but her feelings and thoughts and memories on her abilities and what they mean for her is what is contained here. Her thoughts on what good can be done and what evil can be done with the tools she's been given on, all of that related stuff, ll there.
The Processor was created as a hotel corridor with an infinite number of doors. The objective was to get into the hatch -- the keys that came down from the hatch represent skills Knife has come to understand she has in the past but doesn't know how to use now. Depending on what key you use in the door, the representation of an ability pops up; the default is the puppet, because the consequences of mind control is the one Knife spends the most time mulling over. The Processor wasn't heavily explored -- if the corridor had been walked down, there would have been other things to do, someone might have even had the fun experience of reliving fixing the geomagnetic field -- but they did get the corruption in this area thanks to Lloyd being a dab hand with a pair of pliers.
Things:
- The puppet was, as said, the mind control ability. It grows heavier and heavier when touched because of Knife's constant internal rejection of the concept.
- The grandfather clock represented the ability to freeze, slow and travel in time.
- The golden statue was full empathy.
… I think those were the only ones that were shown. If there were more feel free to go SIAN WHAT WAS ___. Anyway, the puzzle involved with those was getting the bikocopter keys, which Mitchell and Hisoka managed with aplomb. If you don't find the keys, you don't get to leave the Difference path, full stop. If you reach the top of the Watchtower without the keys, future Knife just sends you back to get the keys. The bikocopter and its keys represent freedom of choice -- in what to decide, what to do, who to do it with, and most prominently in this area, what abilities to develop or not develop. Placing the cube in the statue's hands and finding the keys leads to Knife finding and reasserting her freedom of choice in the area of ability development, so she'll be more open to pushing the Package and learning new skills outside of the package too. Freedom of choice is a huge deal. That small act will probably lead to huge huge things in the future.
The corruption puzzle was working against freedom of choice in this respect. It was only a small leak, not a massive oilslick like in the Lake, but it could have been fairly devastating if left unhindered, purely because Knife would have eventually stopped thinking about how she could use the Package to help people. Fortunately that got fixed, not in either way I had planned! But instead Lloyd Irving and a pair of pliers. \:D/ WHO CARRIES AROUND PLIERS, LLOYD, WHO!
Changes in the Processor:
- trying to force the hatch (Lloyd). The closed hatch represents limitations. Trying to force it open causes only a bit of an eyeroll feeling in Knife, but actually getting it open is a big eyeopener. This all contributes to the new drive that we will get to at the end.
- solving the keys puzzle (Hisoka, Mitchell). As aforementioned, that restores full freedom of thought in terms of what she feels the Package might be able to do. Since the Package is technically limitless, that's relatively awesome.
- touching the puppet (Lloyd). The heavier that puppet got, the more vehement Knife gets about the idea of mind control. To have it be heavy enough to shatter the floor means a really vehement response to anyone else who uses it too. She now considers it even more exclusively damaging than she did.
- solving the corruption puzzle …..... with pliers. (Lloyd). +100 manliness points, Lloyd.
Section 3 - Top of the Watchtower
When you reach the top, the Knife that was made out of energy is leaning against some railings at the top of a high watchtower. From here, you have a view of the entire heart. You can see Aather, a city, a fair, a lake, and a graveyard from where you're sat.
You've stopped being psychic. You're back in the "real" world now. And in this world, the energy Knife has faded somewhat. She isn't as bright as she is in the dark.
There is a fucking awesome bikocopter sat beside her which is also perfectly real looking.]
Mostly used as a segue in this case. Lloyd used the opportunity to do some healthy topping. Mitchell used the opportunity to annoy the crap out of the NPC. The point of this section is that this Knife -- both the most powerful and the most ambivalent NPC in the heart -- is not powerful outside of her sphere. That's the real reason why she states to not care about what goes on in the rest of the heart, because in reality, outside of her own sphere she can do very little about it. The truest reason why the Difference path was boxed off was revealed -- because Knife didn't want anyone from her present to see her future.
The bikocopter is the all-access-pass to the heart. In a normal heart game, you wouldn't have to go to the True Heart, you could decide wherever the hell you'd like to go from there. As a tourist, however, anywhere outside of the True Heart. Because of compartmentalisation, people from the Difference path also couldn't effect the Change or Belief paths. OH NO, IT'S HOW IT IS. Future heart games might have the goal of stamping down the sillier walls in KK's heart, who knows.
In the corruption game, partially because it was about 5am by that point and Sian was geeeetting sleepy, the bikocopter took you directly to the Graveyard, and in turn to the True Heart. SIMPLES.
Changes at the Top of the Watchtower:
- Lloyd told future Knife she was being stupid, pretty much :T GO AWAY, LLOYD IRVING. +10 comfort about talking to Lloyd about potential futures.
- Mitchell got on her nerves. HFFFFFF. :T -10 comfort about talking to Mitchell about potential futures.
The Field: True Heart
Before you is a field. It should be an idyllic place, but the clouds have gathered and a storm has blown in, cracking its lightning a little too close for comfort. Most of the grass is blackened; it is stained and dirtied with oil, which is flowing out from a tree in the distance.
There is a gate between you and it. There is a sign on the gate.]
Only those who carry the keys may enter.
You could only access the True Heart if you had acquired or touched one of the following:
- Aeris' flower - acceptance
- Lloyd's bracelet - achievement
- Mithos's doll - learning
- The bikocopter keys - freedom
- The Emerald ring - family.
Those are the "keys" to unlock the gate. KNIFE IS COMPLICATED. It is very hard for her to let people in that close. So you gotta have touched the heart relics or you weren't getting nowhere. Once you got into the True Heart, it was a big, beautiful field that was completely marred with oil. It was leaking from the tree in the centre! To get there, you had to slug your way through the oil, which was pretty torturous. It is a struggle representation! LIFE IS HARD. LIFE IS HARD. When you get over there, you end up seeing this:
Final corruption puzzle! This one is pretty much the be-all and end-all of the corruption puzzles. The Knife in the white dress is "Conscience". The one in the black death, in turn, represents the death of Conscience. Just like there was no violent way to solve the Graveyard puzzle, there is no non-violent way to solve the puzzle in the True Heart -- you basically have to decide which one of them to kill. You can free the death of Conscience by pushing the skewers through and killing Conscience, which is something she will try to convince you to do.
Conscience won't speak on the matter, because she doesn't advocate killing, it's against her existence. However she will get increasingly frustrated and grumpy. SURPRISE, SURPRISE, KNIFE'S CONSCIENCE IS A DEEPLY CRANKY INDIVIDUAL. She also had like a billion feelings before she was freed, because all of you gave her feelings stop that. This is the main reason that when the puzzle was solved, she had fucked off. Knife's conscience is a profound tsundere.
Anyway, the folks who got to the True Heart made the right choices, freed Conscience, and invoked the real True Heart. You get one of three results -- a sunny day on the field if everything has gone swimmingly, a rainy day if things could've gone better but you got it right in the end, and a storm if you fucked up and killed Conscience. If you really fucked up the True Heart's colourings would realign themselves to black hair and purple eyes and then she would forcibly send you back to your bodies in a none too comfortable way. But you guys did pretty good all in all, despite the bunch of changes, so she hung out, bestowed cuddles, topped Bonten, took Lloyd on a heart date.
The True Heart is a human version of Knife -- it is Knife exactly as she would be if she had arrived in Aather and never received the Package back. Because Knife herself, consciously, no longer sees that version of herself as relevant, the True Heart can't enter Emerald in Forest World. She is mostly pretty adorable. As True Hearts are.
Changes in the True Heart:
- STOP TOPPING, LLOYD IRVING (+oh no more Lloyd dere)
- since when can Mitchell logic (+some Mitchell respect)
- oh no Hisoka don't give me feelings (CAN'T DERE FOR HISOKA ANYMORE LEAVE ME ALONE)
- Jade gets shit done. (+some Jade respect)
OVERALL RESULTS
SO! THAT WAS INTERESTING, WASN'T IT.
Ten thousand or so words later we get to the tail end. I am going to do a helpful summary of how things changed overall for people who want the Cliff notes:
+Knife's conscience is not corrupted in any way when it comes to making conscious decisions that are not of a personal nature. This includes all game decisions, because she doesn't actually consider them personal at all. 95% of the decisions she makes and the way she handles conscientious decisions and objection has not changed at all. However.
+Due to the corruptions left in Forest World and the damage done there Knife now has the potential to be violently protective of a) Emerald and b) anyone else who is truly important to her. Normally, this would be a desire that would be questioned, but --
+A variety of different actions around the heart have installed what one might call HERCULEAN DRIVE in Knife. She will question her instincts a damn sight less and believe in their clarity, believe in her own ability to decision make more, generally drive herself hard to get back up every time she's knocked down. It is like hero drive without the heroics and with a hefty pack of this is necessary. She will believe significantly less in limitations and learn from her mistakes when she makes them.
+This getting up when she's knocked down is very necessary because her ability to cope with things on a snap basis has been ruined. She will show more emotion -- grief, pain, and so on. Fear, however, will register even less than it usually does, because Kyouko destroyed caution and Lloyd replaced it with balance.
+Her self-worth, meanwhile, is in absolute tatters. So that will lead to snap decisions that are not necessarily good for her personally if they're for the common good. She already had a latent leaning towards this but that has thoroughly woken it up.
+A new freedom of thought and objective in the use of the Package to improve her life and other people's lives.
So yes. Aside from the sleeper revenge tragedy now waiting inside her brain, that was quite successful, I thought.
And that was 11289 words on a heart game. YEP. YEP.
Questions can go below … if you have some …
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Does this mean next time I break up with Viridian you will shank me? 8Da
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I ..... probably not, her rage trigger would mostly be an actual physical attack. But she might just decide to read Ginshu the riot act and that'll just happen.
I have to admit that "rampant yandere" was not what I was expecting to get out of this heart game.
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Also gg Lloyd Irving. Breaking heart games is your thing, isn't it?
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i like pliers
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and I was actively trying
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How much of that damage is Knife going to be able to fix for herself?
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