In time loop stories, there's an expectation that you can change things. That the person whose PoV you are observing the narrative from has enough agency to break the loop as long as they have awareness.
so it is absolutely no surprise that at the end of everything in the first game she utterly fucking snaps and says "FUCK THIS FUCK YOU NONE OF YOU ARE GETTING A HAPPY ENDING" and kicks off the events of the second game lmao
She has all the components of an Artemis character: unhinged woman, musing on the role of the unseen parts of the narrative, robot, autistic, trans. (Not textually but you aren't able to change my mind on this.)
Or, well. The person who looks exactly like him and has his memories drip-fed to them over the course of the game but who is very definitely not her tormentor.
They're used as a vehicle for the player, a lens to view Ayin through, a shell so hollow that they can go through all the hard work to help the Sephirot
And the reason why I am OBSESSED about X is that the narrative doesn't think about them at all. Funnily enough, while the game's narrative spends a lot of time ruminating on Angela's overt tragedy—WHICH IS REALLY FUCKED DON'T GET ME WRONG—it doesn't spare any thought for X, who from a metanarrative position, is the Angela for us players playing the game.
I can't help but wonder. When did they realize they weren't getting out of this alive? When did it sink in that they were doomed to die after fifty days because Ayin was convinced that his death was the only way he could redeem himself?
just. god. trapped in a body that you can't move on your own for who knows how long with the only people who acknowledge you as a person being your sister who you love with all your heart and will do anything to protect and your mother who sees you as a tool for her revenge and your heart is breaking because you can't even choose between the two
you have no choice, no agency, you are just a machine for suletta to pilot and you can't even scream about how unfair it all is and how you want to be free too
I put it down to it being a really compelling video game story that FELT like D&D (which, it turns out, is because Conor Kostick was a designer for one of the very first LARPs) so I couldn't get enough of it.
Erik is a lore-obsessed kid in a defunct colony that's run via Epic, this MMO-equivalent-ish that was never meant to be used as a means of government but dumb ideology and dumber governmental practices led to it being implemented as a tool to institute a farcical parody of capitalism
Erik's farm is seriously down on its luck, having lost a precious solar panel (as current technology is unable to fabricate them), and his family is due to be "reallocated" to hard, miserable labor because of it
also i think the devs put in an acknowledgment of some fanmail i sent a few months ago in one of the idle conversations? off topic but it absolutely staggered me
How bad they'll make you feel
Sometimes you try to freeze time
'Til the slots are a blur of spinning wheels
But I am just a broken machine
And I do things that I don't really mean
Morning frost
I'm still here
But all is lost
Speed up to the precipice
And then slam on the brakes
Some people crash two or three times
And then learn from their mistakes
Morning frost
I'm still here
But all is lost
Feel the storm every night
Hope it passes by
Hallucinate a shady grove
Where Judas went to die
Draw a white-chalk Baphomet
Mistreat your altar boys long enough
And this is what you get
Sad and angry, can't learn how to behave
Still won't know how in the dark arms of the grave
Morning frost
I'm still here
But all is lost