I have to think about this one carefully... (Radiant Historia)

I got the scene where Raynie ~confesses~ to Stocke and it was so... uncomfortable. Not in the least because it felt really shoehorned in, very 'oh shit we forgot to give Stocke an obvious romantic interest, quick, let's pair him with the busty chick!' and not terribly in character for either of them. I find it hard to believe that Raynie would be like, "I LOOOOOVE YOOOOU let's stop fighting and run away together~" when she knows what's at stake; I REALLY can't believe Stocke would be "well a girl said she loves me so uh fuck the whole destruction of the world thing, time to settle down and have babies that will starve to death in less than a decade!"

I reloaded my save and refuse to trigger that quest at all. Bleeeergh.

 

Can't exactly blame you for disliking it, but you need it for the true ending, which you absolutely want. My recommendation is mashing the start button.

Spoiler: My thoughts on 'Well that escalated quickly: The Ship'

I admit I like the ship sort-of-because-of, sort-of-in-spite-of canon. It's definitely poorly-written and not well built up, but I have a fondness for Stocke's "WAIT WHAT *404 response not found*" reaction. (Also, Raynie's side makes more sense if you consider it as what he actually brings up in the decision dialogue- she's really, really, really worried about him because he constantly runs straight into danger and barely makes it out alive, and she wants him out of this because one of these days he won't. Doubly so because two of the three flags for the quest are "run ahead to save someone without even stopping to think.")

 

BLEEEEEEEEEERGH. I guess I'll go through with it, then... :P (I do have to admit Stocke's reaction was hilarious. "I thought we were talking about some guy you know!" Buddy...)

I can see it from Raynie's side minus the 'so let's run away together right now, fuck the world' nonsense - she has seemed to be nursing a bit of a crush, at least - but not from Stocke's side. This is the guy who keeps pulling a Homura to keep his best friend alive! I can't see him entertaining the idea of dropping everything the fate of the entire world and running away with a girl, even one as cute as Raynie, for even a second. I'll just... pretend he lets her down gently but promises to stop fighting once things are fixed, with a silent "If I live that long" added in.

edit: and then Marco gives Stocke a thing for her and says he always keeps an eye out for stuff she'd like??? Why is the game throwing Raynie at Stocke, again??? *throws up hands*

 

She doesn't know ~saving the world~ is on the table in AH, though. Eruca never gives her speech in AH, so as far as Raynie knows he's just... really invested in this war. So I can kinda forgive her for that.

About the only way I can make sense of Stocke agreeing is if either a) he spent the entire time furiously digging through magiscience books to try to find some hints about how to fix the mana drain/desertification (he's got a line in the quest about "is it possible to save the world without fighting?" so. plausible as a headcanon, at least) or b) he's so exhausted and burned out from all the crap he's been through in the last subjective ~2 years that just stopping for a while is tempting (and the army seems to be doing decently without him having to carry the team now- Rosch even stops dying so much). Or some combination of the two.

 

Fair enough. I'm still going to displace my annoyance at being sick on this poorly written plot point, though. Grr. Argh.

In other news: Fennel is SO WEIRD. And Dias has met an ignoble end. Good riddance.

 

It is definitely poorly-written, and I know the majority of the people who ship it ship it in a "let's fix this mess" way. :::PPP

Re: Fennel: Yes. What is his deal. Why is he a zamboni with robot arms. Inquiring minds want to know.

Re: Dias: He has the most embarrassing deaths, it's hilarious. Karmic vengeance for his pretentious speaking style, probably. :::PPP

 

And why does it seem to float? Is that just some weirdness with the sprites, or does he legit have antigravity going on?

Re: Dias again - I just ran into two female npcs having the most HILARIOUS conversation about him. "I just can't envision someone like him as a traitor... those strong, soulful eyes... there's no way they could have been so shortsighted..." Having a bit of a jab at certain kinds of fan there, I see! I'm not sure if the commentary about how he did seem a bit different than the other knights is/will be meaningful, but her followup of "He's dead now so we'll never know" is pretty funny.

 

... The screaming match Selvan is having with Hugo is amazing. I want more political drama like this in games!

 

Who even knows. Alistel has some serious schizo tech going on.

That conversation is hilarious, yes. Also relevant: @Quicksilver and I decided there are trashy RPF romance novels with the names changed juuust enough to not get executed featuring, among other things, totally-not-Dias/totally-not-Selvan. Protea reads them.

 

... I like how there's this long pause after Hugo's dramatic speech where you just KNOW everyone has the biggest D: faces the world has ever seen. Holy SHIT that's a creepy scene.

 

Honestly, I wound up shipping it because I worked so hard trying to make sense of the awful mess of AJE. =P

Spoiler: Reasons Stocke/Raynie is a godawful mess of a ship (but I love it anyway). Spoilers beyond this part of the plot have been redacted.

• Badly-written and shoehorned in. Clearly we're supposed to find Stocke's sudden reciprocation believable because she's Busty Girl.
• But it's actually worse than that!
• Because when you choose the option to elope with Raynie, Stocke never says it's because he loves her; the one factor he considers when Thinking About This Carefully is "is it possible to save the world without violence?" He doesn't actually seem at all interested in her romantically at the start.
• .....but then out of nowhere, the Bad Ending text refers to Raynie as Stocke's beloved and indicates he stayed with her for a whole year.
• Apparently he fell in love with her during that year.
• So he eloped with her on false pretenses and then accidentally fell in love with her. That's not even a little bit awkward.
• Oh, also, they were together for an entire year. They probably boned.
• (and if they didn't, was he able to have an honest conversation with her about why he's not interested in it? I mean, even "I'm ace but I still love you" is pretty fraught given he came into this with no recognized romantic feelings for her, and "I'm ace and don't love you" is going to hurt her, and "I'm ace" with romantic feelings unspecified is going to be a bit of a lie by omission if he says it early on.)
• So anyway, regardless of whether they got it on, Stocke now has a FULL YEAR of memories of living with her and has probably seen her naked and knows a lot of minor and major things about her.
• While Raynie has been set back to "oh, I guess I'm in love with him after all" start-of-relationship feelings and knowledge and Stocke's extremely closemouthed about himself so she just has so much less knowledge of him in general anyway.
• So there's this huge differential in experience with and knowledge of the other person.
• It's actually really creepy.
• ...
• And ALSO, when you turn her down, he proposes they shack up post-war. So it's reasonable to interpret that as "they are now going steady".
• But that was just in AH.
• Sooooo what about the other timeline? Is SH!Raynie in love with him?
• If he snogs her in SH, is he cheating on AH Raynie?
• But if he doesn't snog her in SH and leaves her pining unrequitedly, is the timeline echo effect going to cause problems for their relationship in AH?
• Also, [SPOILER #1 REDACTED], sooo that's something else that's pretty awful for her, although at least it's not Stocke's fault.
• and don't forget [SPOILER #2 REDACTED]
• I'm so mad about [SPOILER #2].
• What the everloving fuck, Stocke.
• Like, especially given Raynie's backstory that's just awful.
• I'm just going to headcanon that you're a really late bloomer/grey-ace/demisomethingwhatever who was a virgin prior to AJE (because Rosch was too busy trying to convince himself that he's straight to kiss him), and also underestimate just how devoted to you all of your friends are, because then it makes sense that you've made a complete hash of your relationship with Raynie.

And, most importantly:

• It's a pedo ship because the artbook ages put Stocke at 19 and Raynie at 17 and it's a LEGAL ADULT with a MINOR and also TWO WHOLE YEARS age difference, and also Stocke isn't a legal adult in Japan and his age is a *teen number STOP SEXUALLIZING TEENAGERS!!!11eleventy

They also have some about totally-not-Ernst, usually with him falling in love with a commoner or an impoverished yet deserving noble girl. After Victor gave him the axe, they started ending with him dying tragically but leaving the blank-slate heroine with Someone To Remember Him By.

 

Last point: Pffft. XD

I see jRPG time dilation is in effect with their ages. Stocke is about as 19 years old as I am. I pegged him at 30ish and I'm keeping my headcanon there, as he's way too competent to be under 25.

(Once I have finished the game I will come back and tug at your sleeve if I'm not sure what the redacted text refers to. Hopefully I will also be less sick so I can actually talk intelligibly about the game.)

 

The artbook ages are completely ridiculous and I cheerfully ignore the hell out of them. I'm 90% sure they were changed by marketing after the fact because ~nobody will buy the game if the main characters are over 20, you gaiz~. Stocke's not even the worst one, though his causes the most obvious plot holes because backstory.

Spoiler: Warning: mind-boggling levels of 'lol no'

Worst one is Rosch. Look at his face. Look at the number "21." Look back. Let it sink in that the artbook apparently expects you to believe this.

 

I'm mad about [SPOILER #2] for reasons far more general than just what I think is under your redaction. :::PPP

 

(Incidentally, I look forward to Mercury getting to Endgame Reveals so I can rant for pages and pages about my Feelings about dysfunctional royalty. I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about dysfunctional royalty and I refuse to shut up about them once I get started.)

 

Those ages are super ridiculous! Sheesh!

 

Sonja, a highly respected doctor who is also an engineer, is allegedly 18. Marketing guy, did you even play the game.

 

They listed Kiel's age as "???" for no reason, and my personal suspicion is that they realized he was portrayed as significantly younger than the party members, and since they were pretending the rest of the major characters were in their mid-to-late teens, this meant frankly horrifying implications about just how young he would have to be.

 

It also puts us back on the "he lied about his age to join the army" theory. Presumably his real age is the Alistel equivalent of """18""".

 

That is 100% my theory. The bisexual puppy did not make good life decisions there.