r/Reverse1999

If you don't count Paper Heron and Cheng Heguang, because two Chinese characters are going to be released every single year in the CNY patch, then Ramona is the only non-European character of the entire 3.x series.

That's one out of 18 characters, from Sentinel to >!Narcissus!< (again, not counting the CN duo). Even 3.5's other character was the fourth blonde French woman released just this year, instead of a second Mexican/Latin American character like Añil.

I know a lot of people dismiss posts like these with arguments like "I don't care about characters' nationalities or where the story is set, I just care that they're well written and that the story is good!", which is fine. Everyone plays for different reasons and it's your right to not care about something like this.

But still, other players do! The first two years had a lot more variety when it came to settings, and this change of direction is noticeable. Year 1 specially had an unmatched globetrotting vibe, going from the US to India to "Greece" to Australia to China to Austria and so forth, each patch felt super fresh. The second year had a bigger focus on the Americas (US, Brazil and Argentina) but still got some variety with a patch set in the middle of the Pacific and of course a couple in Europe lol

We already know the main story in 4.x will be focused on the British Isles, but nothing is stopping the Event patches to be more varied. On 3.x even the "side quest" patches like 3.1, 3.8 and 3.9 were all set in Europe.

I know that at the end of the day these Reddit posts are borderline useless (just like all my posts about wanting more dark skinned characters), and BluePoch just does what they want and ultimately caters to CN's opinions over anyone elses, but nothing stops me from voicing my disappointment either. tbh, my interest on the game is at an all time low, I've been playing for two years and for the first time none of the upcoming patches have any characters I want to pull for (including the current one). I already took my first break and uninstalled during the AH collab, but now that I'm back I don't feel super compelled to keep playing/logging in outside of just reading the story. I keep hoping there's some kind of shake-up and I fall in love with the game again, but oh well :/

Just finished Chapter 13 and the ensuing anecdote, and before I say anything else...
I really, really liked this chapter. Now, please be aware, I will be talking in detail about most of the critical plot points of the following chapter, so PLEASE do not read on if you haven't beaten it yet.

First of all, the scale of it was really awesome. I really enjoyed the fact that we had so many side-lined arcanists come back. IT was cool to see the Laplace members contributing tools and gadgets, (but not too much attention cause to be frank, they've had alot of spotlight lately). Seeing Druvis take more of a commanding role after being left in a purely supportive role since the early chapters was awesome, and really had me feeling a new respect for her character. Regulus and her general shenanigans, seeing Nautika come in and be an absolute powerhouse was amazing, and even Eagle and J coming back to have some story relevance.

But obviously, the meat of the story that was really gripping, was Ms. Stranger, and Merel. Ms. Stranger had always been an exciting character since her very induction, starting with the Kayla mystery regarding Argus, and escalating to the Free Breeze hostage situation. I'd always considered her a very well-written character, especially the fact that her actions were SO deliberately balanced between acting cruelly and sadistically, and also minimizing as much damage as she could to ensure her cover story. Her reveal in C10 to be the eponymous Moth, and her ensuing aid in the conflict made her a really fun character, and a lot of people have been waiting to see her become playable.
And honestly, I think the reveal of what she was in this chapter, a forcibly wiped and re-indoctrinated soldier meant to pick up and discard identities at the Foundation's whim was everything I was hoping for. She had guilt, she had resolve, and more importantly, she had a disdain for not only Manus Vindictae and their casual cruelty, but also the Foundation and their callous indoctrination of soldiers to act as their front-line.

https://preview.redd.it/24mdbpbismkh1.png?width=2752&format=png&auto=webp&s=330aecf551b4c366a7b75c1d741e3ce12701dce1

Her whole life, the life as SHE knows it, has been in service to a cause. And that's not to say of all the previous lives, previous memories she's had erased. In this moment though, she chooses to fight. She risks her own identity, dons the mask, and goes to save not the Foundation, but the people inside it from an ordeal that she blames herself for. That she should have caught, and seen, and protected them from.
Miss Stranger rightfully calls out the Foundation, the Foundation that pulls in only a staggeringly tiny handful of adults and soldiers who will fight and die for them, and then otherwise? Children. Children too young, too innocent, and too naive to understand the worlds they've been ripped from.
A great example of this is Eagle. Eagle is deemed 'too old' to enroll in the SPDM, and thus is protected by the Storm by X, and then subsequently Lorentz Butterfly, both making sure she is educated and trained to survive in the coming world. Do they have an Agenda? Eagle is a soft-member of Institum Lorentz afterall, a shadow organization operating within Laplace. But, above all else, they encourage uniqueness. Individuality, identity, and the ability to operate outside of the restrictions and mandates of the Foundation. If not for X and Lorentz, Eagle very well might have been lost to the storm. Simply due to being too old to fall for the Foundation's brainwashing.

And this is an excellent bridge to Merel herself. Merel has always been the rebel, the odd-one out of the foundation. She bears a lot of resemblance to Vertin herself in her childhood, someone who was endlessly curious, who wasn't able to sit still and simply take the Foundation's words at face value.
Someone who would sneak away to doodle in books in invisible ink, drawing designs of fantastical creatures and dreaming of an exciting adventure.
That is, until the Foundation slowly but surely beat that spirit out of her.

Merel is perhaps one of the youngest soldiers in the active front, and has maybe one of the most traumatizing service records at that. She was present for the Antarctica Mission, helping Ulrich to mitigate the flood while literal end of the world approached, suffering Storm Syndrome in the process. She was an active participant in the new WW1, seeing active violence and combat on the frontlines. She watched Charon get captured and even got shot, narrowly surviving a freezing river and subsequently torturing herself over the fact that her friend and rescuer was suffering through a MUCH more real torture. And even when she's finally granted relief from the front, she, along with only two other people is solely responsible for the lives of all the new enrollees in the SPDM.

When compared to Miss Stranger, it's easy to see how Merel is another example of a life that was taken by the Foundation, and groomed exclusively for war. She watched the end of two eras rage around her, and both times she fought to protect the lives of so many people who couldn't fight for themselves. But, where Merel differs from Miss Stranger, is her fear. Merel, moreso than any of the other character's who we've grown accustomed to risking their lives, is afraid. So very, very afraid of the conflict she has been thrust into. From the very beginning she never had a choice. Her school life was tumultous and rocky, and yet somehow she ended up enrolled into the Vigiles, a cracksquad of arcanists working directly with law enforcement in each era. While it seems like she might fail out of that, she's then drafted into Creius's XII squad, a band of humans and Arcanists who are often put into dangerous missions in the direct field. She tries to desert, only to be given a 'tracking serum' and immediately put back into active combat, eventually leading to her being stormed. But Merel, for all of her fear, and all of her dismay at being actively forced to fight, is an incredibly selfless individual.

https://preview.redd.it/4wbic51fwmkh1.png?width=2752&format=png&auto=webp&s=66ee68e9de25a8402a1c6eab3eca0c52620c9a5e

It's Merel who ultimately decides to brave the SPDM's central tower on her own, to get the Doves necessary to save the many children who are defenseless in the library. It's Merel who ultimately gives her resources to those children, and willfully distracts the Manus so that they have a chance of bringing those life-saving resources to the people she's fighting so hard to save.
And what defines Merel ultimately, is the fact that despite that paralyzing fear, she KEEPS fighting.
Her final run to the safe-zone, after saving so many, is tragic because Merel is still possessed of that very fear. When reading it, I hoped that she would find resolve, or even peace in the people she had saved. That she be content in the knowledge of saving so many lives. But that's not what happens.

https://preview.redd.it/7vq9a83fxmkh1.png?width=1922&format=png&auto=webp&s=c21310b1cea758c5b35ec0063a48bab31d79bb97

In the end, Merel is reversed crying out for Vertin to save her. That she didn't have enough time, that she wanted so much more to life than this constant fear, and the struggle to survive. She is mourned by her friends, given accolades, and ultimately honored by the Foundation that sent her to her doom...but so what? Merel is gone.

And that brings us to Rhiannon. Now, I'll admit. Rhiannon's introduction is almost...insulting. We just saw Merel give everything she had, and push herself to the absolute limit, and still lose it all. So it feels strange to see this happy-go lucky girl, who seemingly lives a life of peace and harmony in this new Era, devoid of the girl that many players came to love.

And then I played Rhiannon's anecdote, and saw her actual story.
A girl who lost her family at a young age. A girl who blamed herself for leaving her family to die, in a bloody, fiery conflict that was thrust upon her, despite doing no harm. A girl who blamed herself for her cowardice and weakness, all the while seeing it as her duty to atone for all of her failures.
I saw Rhiannon's anecdote, and I saw not an entirely different person wearing the same face, I saw Merel, with all of her fears, and her worries, and her sorrow.
Rhiannon is given the choice to simply forget the world, to live in isolation and hiding. To simply cower and never again face that which haunts her.
But she doesn't.

https://preview.redd.it/390upoj7ymkh1.png?width=2228&format=png&auto=webp&s=5eb512f3f79339ba97f7d4e688bcf875adccb95d

https://preview.redd.it/idx2vae8ymkh1.png?width=2160&format=png&auto=webp&s=79d598185b009b681a73568d9ffc4229f022a033

She makes the same choices Merel ultimately did. To fight. To reclaim her home, to fight for an endangered species that cannot defend itself, much like Merel fought to defend those children who were unable to fight back.
And unlike the Merel in front of Vertin, Rhiannon succeeds. She fights back, everything locking into place at the last possible moment, and saves the world and home she loves.
And ultimately, she chooses to go back into the world.

Consider Miss Stranger, once again. She's already lost so many lives. So many of 'herself' have been lost to the Foundation, but now, finally, she has been given the chance to live. She can keep the self she is, right in this moment, and try to grasp something that has been outside of her grasp for so long.
And in that same vein, I don't think Rhiannon was simply the loss of Merel, not an entirely new person with a different face. I think Rhiannon is Merel's wish, the wish she had of being stronger, of being someone who could save the day, and survive into the next to enjoy it. To complete her promise with Vertin of Sonetto, to meet up after the storm and move into the new Era together. Someone who fought, conquered, and became stronger than the fear that gripped her heart for so long.

And, more importantly...recall the 'Tracking Serum' Creius injected into Merel. Now of course, when it's first introduced we assume it's simply what they call it. A serum with which they will track the wayward Merel if she tries to escape again. However, when Creius is interrogated about said serum later, it turns out that he lied about it's actual purpose. It was actually a product of the 'Vessel Ensoulment' procedures, the ability to store someone's psyche within their body, even after the storm washed them away.
And, more importantly, remember what Vertin sees at the end. And what Vertin ultimately uses to track down Rhiannon in the new era. The golden thread hanging from Merel, being washed into the new era. So rather than Merel simply being gone, maybe, just maybe, she's just waiting for those memories of a previous era to come back to her.

Anyway that's all I had to say about this chapter in this post, and I hope everyone enjoyed the writeup. Regardless of how you feel about the ending, I think we can all agree Merel was a heart-wrenching and wonderful addition to the story, and her constant struggle despite adversity is something we can all aspire to.

Let me make a prediction right now, (upcoming CN patch spoilers) >!Cornerstone and the riposte team!< aren't going to turn into anything real and will be forgotten in a few months. I actually really like this team, the characters, and the idea behind it, and I might pull for them regardless of their meta value, but I have to be real here. The team is currently roughly high-mid tier, and based on Bluepoch's track record, there's a decent chance it won't get any more support.

There are some archetypes, which I like to call "major archetypes", that get endless amounts of love from Bluepoch and pretty much never go bad. Archetypes like Dynamo, Bloodtithe, Lingering Glow, and Impromptu. They have multiple DPS options, supports, dedicated sustains, and updates to keep them meta.

You can pretty much tell if an archetype is a major archetype with 95% certainty by whether or not they have unique UI elements. You see the impromptu triangle?

https://preview.redd.it/pnmao7gk0mkh1.png?width=97&format=png&auto=webp&s=9bd8ed443ad277970220e18692b333c1ea2953f2

Bluepoch wouldn't go through the trouble of making these mechanics and UI elements unless they had several more teammates lined up over the coming months and years, and whad'ya know. That dynamo bar?

https://preview.redd.it/xkzx7t9q7mkh1.png?width=321&format=png&auto=webp&s=52f2e514f490a965282ff4b95ed53c12ab4b3c9b

Practically screams "Bluepoch will love me for years". I mean damn, is there any archetype that has gotten as much love as Dynamo? Those unique conduit card borders?

https://preview.redd.it/xnrx6d521mkh1.png?width=101&format=png&auto=webp&s=29dfca02d9f544c5d340d1ad4c4ae5df9190d25e

You were wondering if they were gonna get support when it was just Coppelia and Regulus that had them, but sure enough, Bluepoch wastes absolutely no time pushing out the Twins, >!Hedone!<, and >!Everecho!<. That's how you know somebody at Bluepoch is looking out for you.

But what about the other archetypes, the "side archetypes"? Bluepoch seems to love throwing out random ideas for side archetypes during non-limited patches, maybe teasing them with 1-2 characters, and then forgetting about them. You're basically playing with fire if you like these teams. Remember the fabled "bullet team"? Sure, the individual members have found homes in other archetypes, but the "bullet team" is basically a meme. Petrify? Hissabeth and Jessica's euphoria got you excited that it might be back on the menu, but nope, no new support for years. Debuff? Noire got neglected for a whole a year and a half, and even though she finally has a euphoria, she's still only "decent" at best, and I'd feel pretty upset if I pulled for a character that got no support for a whole year and a half.

Whenever I look at >!riposte!<, I can't help but worry that it has all the signs of a team that's going to be forgotten in a few months. The team doesn't have unique UI elements, >!Cornerstone!< is a non-limited that isn't very popular, the playstyle can be rather wonky and enemy-dependent, and the team is currently only decent at best. As much as I want to experiment with characters like >!Cornerstone!<, I also don't want to play an archetype that feels incomplete, and I worry that she, like Noire, will be neglected for years.

What do you all think?