A Reyvateil's Melody forum revival!

http://artonelico.isisview.org

Long story short: please go here for the new unofficially-official forums, which will be run by a team of moderators (the better to spread power) and backed up daily with database dumps so that we can restore them if something should go wrong.

Many, many thanks to wizzardx for hosting and technical advice, and Deciare for more technical advice, in the face of this problem-- and to all who contributed, listened, or were simply there for us.

Here's to Metafalica: the new green land.

Also, please post in your blogs about this if you can. We need as many people as possible to know that these are the new forums in order to avoid confusion and community fracture. Please tell everyone you know!

Go~ go~ Miracle Editing Force~! Also, GODLY ART.

So, looks like the translators are done with the first batch of scripts! Now it's the editing team's turn to take these apart, pretty them up, and generally get on with the task of making everything sound fluid and natural. Having unofficially grabbed the editing coordinator role for myself, I'm going to be starting in on these first, and passing them along as I complete them. Hope you're all okay with that. <|

In other awesome news, please, feast your eyes on this absolutely magnificent Reyvablog request pic by Linearis. It's a beautiful sketch (I was particularly fond of heartofharmony's rendering, as I've had so much trouble with getting pictures of her to look right-- this captures her personality and her fashion sense so well-- but they're all cute!), and it just gets even more impressive when you discover that the artist did this in four minutes. FOUR. MINUTES. Timed to a song, apparently.

Wonderful, wonderful stuff. Soon as I get the URL for the translation project stuff (as I'm woefully bad at remembering where things are), I'll get cracking on that.

Shurelia in SL!

So over in SL-land, our latest project just came to fruition... the creation of Shurelia! We managed to get a designer to produce some custom hair for us, which is now on sale at Discord Designs in-world (just search for it), titled, yep, Shurelia. I really hope some random AT fan stumbles across it at some point and does a double-take....

Mir eyed it with some suspicion before we tried it out on an actual Shurelia-ish model. (We need to get a better skin for her... the problem with SL skins is that they're generally far too huge in the lips.)

As you may have noticed, we're on a floating piece of land in the sky-- somewhat appropriate, and we just found it randomly.... Less fortunate was when Mir accidentally stepped backwards and plummeted into the Sea of Death. (This was made even more amusing/horrifying by the fact that Shurelia teleported her back up to the sky island again, only to misaim the coordinates and send Mir falling for a second time....)

Schoolgirl Shurelia is cute.

Shurelia the Mir fan!

Over time, they finally came to understand each other... with the help of a little bit of Dive Therapy. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

[Edit: The image that replaced "Mir falling into the Sea of Death" previously has now been swapped out for the right one. Consider it a moment of "Bleep"-style censorship. This image was too awful to show viewers, etc.]

werewolf biology 101

What do knotted ropes tied to the fridge door handle, large quantities of probiotic drinks, and a dog's water dish have to do with each other? Well, they're all in dhezeall's kitchen, and not because she owns a dog. They're actually three things that she finds very useful because of her ability to shapeshift.

When dhezeall shifts forms, the energy released by the transformation causes everything on or in her body, that's not actually part of her body, to be atomised. It's a very localised reaction-- if you're touching her arm at the time you may get the top layer of your skin burnt off, and clothes have various chances of survival depending on what they're made of (though they can expect, on average, to get a little scorched), but the main things that go are things like dead skin cells and bacteria.

This has a couple of obvious advantages: for one, every time she changes forms, she becomes preternaturally clean. Even a baby, newly born from its mother's womb, is an unpleasant creature by comparison; having spent nine months surrounded by and drinking in the fluids of its mother, it's been part of life's natural interchange of microscopic lifeforms for quite some time. When dhezeall reforms, she does so as a being that has had no contact with the world until that point. She may look like a wild animal, which doesn't normally inspire thoughts of dazzling cleanliness, but in truth she's basically sterile to touch; her breath is pleasant, and her body doesn't carry the slightest hint of scent. As one might suspect, this feels pretty wonderful-- like the best exfoliating treatment imaginable, and then some.

The other advantage to this, of course, is that any bacterial or (non-computer-)viral illness she was harbouring inside her will be utterly destroyed, making her effectively invulnerable to infection as long as she has energy to shift. This isn't actually as impressive a skill as it could be, that said; most Reyvateils can achieve similar effects with healing magic, and a simple heal generally requires a lot less energy than a full physical transformation. dhezeall is a rare Reyvateil in that she doesn't really know how to heal at all, and so shapeshifting is her only way of shaking off disease.

In addition, this skill has one major downside. You need bacteria in your body to be healthy; the "friendly" kind, as they're frequently called, that help dispose of nastier bacteria and assist in food digestion. dhezeall's shapeshifting powers don't discriminate between the two, so every time she shifts, whether from Reyvateil to animal or back again, she needs to replenish that supply of bacteria or else have trouble digesting her food. Hence the large amounts of probiotic drinks, which she'll usually pour into a drinking bowl beforehand if she knows she's going to be shapeshifting; for the occasions where the desire strikes her suddenly (her magic is fairly unpredictable), the rope on the fridge door makes an easier pull handle for animal teeth to clamp onto, and she buys the drinks in large cardboard cartons so they're easier to tear open. There's also a similar rope attached to the faucet, so she can get herself water; the energy release from shapeshifting also dehydrates her cells, and she generally wants to drink a lot afterwards.

If asked what these are for, she'll generally say she has trouble with her wrists, and the ropes make it easier for her to operate handles that would normally cause her pain. It's quite easy to believe considering that she walks with a cane, and not everybody in her life knows why.

Opening cartons in animal form tends to make a heck of a mess, though, so she tries to avoid it where possible, instead resisting the temptation to eat until she can return to Reyvateil form. There's another reason she prefers not to eat as an animal, too; while her intelligent mind remains largely intact, pretty much the only food that seems palatable to her in that form is raw meat, and if she gives in to the temptation to hunt something, she's inevitably sickened by the memories afterwards. She can eat cooked meat, too, but actually getting access to it is the trickier part; there's rarely anyone around to cook it for her (and she trusts few people with the secrets of her magic), and she can't very well do it herself.

Furthermore, even consuming vast amounts of yoghurt drinks won't replenish all the bacteria that need replenishing-- not in such a short space of time. In practice, she's frequently not at her healthiest after a shapeshift until her body's had time to return to its normal state.

So there you go: being a werewolf isn't quite all it's cracked up to be, although there's still little that compares to the feel of bounding over open land, the earth beneath your paws and the wind in your fur. (Except... she actually can't do that, either. The install port doesn't go away in animal form, and neither does the limp.)

So what unusual items do your characters keep around the house, if any?

~reyvablog: omake post 2 (spoilers follow)~

More omake!

Lyuma's IPD card, pages 2 and 3.

And inspired by the Reyvateil fusions thread on A Reyvateil's Melody... dhiyante/brizeall, and Lyr/Miuma. dhiyante is uberhot and conflicted about whether she wants to wear these clothes... Lyr is just an adorable gothic lolita. XD

dhezeall's genderform!

dhezeall: So, at long last, I finally decided to go through this monster of a thing. May as well post it as an omake. Try one too, if you want.

Also, forgive the vast amounts of whitespace. Lemme know if you have a clue how to fix on Blogger. :\ Huh, apparently removing all the whitespace from inside the table, even the parts that came way after where the whitespace was displaying, worked. Weird.

Hello My name is

dhezeall

My identity is

ALWAYS!, activist, admirer, alien, ambiguous, androgynous, bent, big sister, boy with a vagina, boy with boobs, caring, casually-dressed, chapstick lesbian*, chaser, confidant, counselor, creature, drag king, dude, female, female guy, female-bodied, femme-loving, flirt, friend, friend with benefits, friendly, full of love, gender confused, gender euphoric, gender expressive, happy, homo-romantic, homoemotional, homosexual, huggy, illusionist, impersonator, liberal, lover, mage, male lesbian*, manly-hearted woman, midgender, non-humansexual, non-trans, nonhuman-sexual, obsessed, outgoing, outspoken, oversexed, passionate, pervert, playful, polyamorous, polysnuggler, pro-sex feminist, promiscuous, Reyvateil in pants, Reyvateil-chaser, Reyvateilsexual, samespeciessexual, secretly male, sex positive, sexual, shaman, shapeshifter, singer, snuggly, soft butch, Teru-curious, third gender, top, transhuman, versatile, witty, wolf, working class

What's yours?

*Where "lesbian" isn't really accurate for reasons I've mentioned before, but it was the closest thing I could think of to convey the idea.

Ask The Reyvabloggers!

For those of us who haven't yet achieved Sublimation/enlightenment/Nirvana and are still here on Earth missing our interactions with the Reyvablog people, I thought I'd start a thread in which people can ask questions of our characters-- either things you've always been curious about that might not have been explained during the course of the plot, or lighthearted meme-type questions just for fun. You can ask questions as your characters or as yourself, but characters have to respond in character. (They can also decline to respond-- that's fine too! And you don't have to answer a question before you can ask one-- obviously, since you may not even have a character.)

I'll kick off with a few....

dhezeall asks winters: So how much control do you have over that tail, anyway? Can you move it like an arm, or is it more limited?

heartofharmony asks polyhymnia: Can you describe the best experience you've ever had using your magic?

AR asks Rigil: I do know you two got engaged, but did you ever get to sing for Crystal after all, and how did she respond?

neonsunray asks celeliss: If you ever got to play Truth or Dare with Mir, would you ask her to tell a truth or do a dare, and what would the truth/dare involve?


Also, when asked what happiness was (and therefore what they would probably be experiencing in Sublimation), my characters' first responses were as follows:

dhezeall: Happiness is a warm Reyvateil. ♫ And, generally, affection and kindness and stuff.
heartofharmony: Happiness is being at peace and not having to fear or worry about anything.
AR: Happiness is a world where people don't seek to hurt each other just for being different.
neonsunray: Happiness is being able to be what you've always known in your heart you were meant to be.

What are your characters' first thoughts on what happiness is? Not complex philosophical theories (we can get to that later XD), just... the first things they think of?

~reyvablog: omake post (spoilers follow)~

So, just kicking off here with a couple of the omake bits I've created for the Reyvablog so far....

Lyuma as an IPD. I'll create page 2 of this at some point....

Randomly, isn't every city in the AT world an airport city? Firefly Alley, Nemo, Rakshek....

And a little bit of background for this next omake... I believe, at some point in the story, dhezeall mentions an experience where she went diving with her friends and couldn't handle the subsequent embarrassment she felt when they told her about what had happened in her Cosmosphere. As a result, she became uncomfortable with the idea of diving. Basically, the first level of her Cosmosphere dealt with her fears about being perceived as feminine and stereotypically Reyvateil-esque, as well as the secret crush she had on one of her friends. So, in her Cosmosphere, she approached said friend, acting shy and coquettish... and wearing a big floofy dress. Her friends didn't stop laughing for quite some time, and of course, she was mortified....

I do, however, have her permission (yes, I really do) to show you a couple of pictures of what that might have looked like....

Fitting quotes for the moment.

I keep the quotes below in a file on my computer, because I like to be inspired by them from time to time. Looking at them now, I realise they're all extremely fitting for the Reyvablog, in various ways.

Implied Reyvablog spoilers follow.


The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer.
G. E. Lessing (1729 - 1781)

There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone's life.
Sister Mary Rose McGeady

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Wisdom and spirit of the Universe!
Thou soul is the eternity of thought!
That giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion! Not in vain
By day or star-light thus from by first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul,
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
But with high objects, with enduring things,
With life and nature, purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying, by such discipline
Both pain and fear, until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)

We've always been here and we'll always be here. We are a specific arrangement of particles and this instant is infinite. Did we luck out, or didn't we? The odds against this sentence having ever being typed, much less the odds against you reading it were inconceivable. Smile, because the fact that you're able to is almost impossible to comprehend.
Jeffrey Rowland

There was a blithe certainty that came from first comprehending the full Einstein field equations, arabesques of Greek letters clinging tenuously to the page, a gossamer web. They seemed insubstantial when you first saw them, a string of squiggles. Yet to follow the delicate tensors as they contracted, as the superscripts paired with subscripts, collapsing mathematically into concrete classical entities-- potential; mass; forces vectoring in a curved geometry-- that was a sublime experience. The iron fist of the real, inside the velvet glove of airy mathematics.
Gregory Benford - Timescape

If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, also we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world.
C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963)

I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves in the mire and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amid the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail.
Charles Austin Beard (1874 - 1948)

~reyvablog: behind the scenes (major spoilers follow)~

EXEC_with.METHOD_SUBLIMATION/. ~omness chs ciel sos infel~ #Mir with Lyuma extracting
Ending song



The above linked file is actually EXEC_over.METHOD_SUBLIMATION/. ~omness chs ciel sos infel~; the lyrics are mostly identical, with one small change. Please open your heart, and use your imagination. :)

Thanks to aquagon for the original translation and the translation of my edited lyrics.


Chs hymma en famfa der ciel,
Like the birds that fly in the firmament

chs plina en grlanza art fhyu,
Like the plants that dance thanks to the wind

chs hasyu en zassyen der sielp,
Like the fish that swim in the rivers

chs bister en rana anw dor,
Like the animals that run on the land

was yea ra messe anw briyante.
I will be happy to convey to the world my voice of joy

Wassee anw fane lusye,
Let's praise love's shining light

wassee zess frawr bautifal en afezeria,
Let's praise this blessing, as beautiful as a blooming flower

wassee en chs Sublimation.
Let's praise our own Sublimation

Was yea ra omness chs ciel sos infel iem, wassee!
Now, I will be happy to turn my life into a world for the sake of love. Let's praise!

Wassee!
Let's praise!

Was yea ra wael yorr uteu enw fernia,
I'm happy to see you sleeping with a smile,

en sorr quen art ftt omnis crudea.
a smile that exists because suffering has vanished.

Was yea ra wael yorr yaserwe,
I'm happy to see that you are relaxing,

en melenas oure en yanwe oure sor.
and thinking "What do I love the most? What is most important to me?"

Was yea ra grandus ciel sos infel.
I will be happy to protect this world, because of love.

Was ki ra fogabe van anw na fogabe cupla.
I will concentrate in forgiving even the unrepentant

Wassee, fatele gyajlee haf alroetsue,
Let's praise, so that the sinners can find atonement

wassee forgandal dauane keenis na nozess,
Let's praise, because the radiance of the dawn will not disappear

wassee en chs Sublimation.
Let's praise our own Sublimation

Was ki ra yorra sarrifis anw omnis noes, wassee!
Now, everyone, offer yourselves to me. Let's praise!

Wassee!
Let's praise!

xN rre cia n.m.l. ut talam ag f.r.l. du tussu/.
The sky is being dyed with the color of the dawn, and I tremble with the presentiment of change

xN rre sarr m.n.g. du tyui lyuma/.
Let's try to catch that tiny star once more

xU rre urgn zz tUkd ut LYAglansee,
The laments no longer reach us,

targue rre qejyu zUzx
and even if the people are still despairing,

ag tUn za vUt dn balduo sefanl/.
they will stop living in the forest of darkness

Wee yea ra rre lyafre famfa en jass anw iasien;
I'm happy that the morning dew is claimed by the flying butterflies;

en tarfe tou yos maun.
they gently rest upon your closed eyelids

xU rre sefanl s.n.k.k. aje qraffa,
I'm sad that the trees have finished sprouting their new leaves

en h.k.t.t. nafan du ouwua kouf/.
and that they have wrapped us gently in their whispers

Was nyasri ga hieg yorra guaysu
I'm sad that you are depressed

art crudea en raklya art idesy memora.
because of the sufferings and cries that come from the memories of the past

Tasyue anw gyuss en yosyua yor,
I will offer my embrace to you and console you

tasyue anw ciel en dople anw omnis lamenza,
I will offer myself to this world, and I will remove the laments from it

tasyue en chs Sublimation.
I shall offer myself, and my Sublimation

Was yea ra sonwe sos yor en valwa anw ciel.
I will be happy to sing for your sake, and to purify the world

Was yea ra omness chs ciel sos infel.
I will be happy to turn my life into a world, for the sake of love

Was yea ra grandus ciel sos infel.
I will be happy to protect this world, because of love

Wassee anw fane lusye,
Let's praise love's shining light

wassee zess frawr bautifal en afezeria,
Let's praise this blessing, as beautiful as a blooming flower

wassee en chs Sublimation.
Let's praise our own Sublimation

Was yea ra omness chs ciel sos infel iem, wassee!
Now, I will be happy to turn my life into a world for the sake of love. Let's praise!

Was yea ra chs yuez en yanje yanje pitod yor.
I'm happy to be with you, and I want to be forever, forever with you

Was yea ra chs yuez en yanje yanje pitod yor.
I'm happy to be with you, and I want to be forever, forever with you

Was yea ra chs yuez....
I'm happy to be with you



The players

Mercís Enfandria (AR): 31 years old, long-time activist and independent Reyvateil, and owner of the blog "Falling Through the Generation Gap". After becoming interested in Reyvateil rights in her teenage years, she made a vow to herself, as many other Reyvateils have, to live independently of "the corps"-- the Church and Tenba, the two big organisations in Sol Ciel who provide free Diquility to Reyvateils in exchange for what she saw as emotionally demanding and coercive work. After working several regular if low-paying jobs, she fell upon dire circumstances and for several years worked as a prostitute, doing volunteer activist work by day, until a strange and random act of kindness turned her life around.

While she was a prostitute, she began to look to Mir as a symbol of hope in times of adversity, and, as revealed in the side-story The Flesh Fair, covertly wears a hand-crafted red-and-black pendant in dedication to her.

She shares the same last name as Leish Enfandria, one of my other OC Reyvateils, but they're not actually related (or at least, only very distantly, in the same way that two people with the last name Wood might share a common ancestry many generations back). She's extremely tight-lipped about her upbringing and family history; even those close to her know very little about it. Much like Luca Truelywaath, she has amber eyes.


Daire Nakayoji (dhezeall): 26 years old, long-time activist and independent Reyvateil. Known for her use of dry wit, dressing casually and androgynously, and flirting with anything with an install port; carried on a hush-hush relationship with Mayalan, a Church Reyvateil with a human partner and a friend of polyhymnia's, for a large portion of the plot, though only celeliss was in a position to know about it. Because of bullying inflicted on her as a teenager, her right ankle (where her install port is) is weak, and she typically walks with a cane.

Despite her sometimes sharp words towards people she considers ignorant, Daire is a caring, friendly and socially responsible person. She, like AR, has a history of being heavily involved with offline activism, though she joined the movement several years later. At various times, her floor and couch have been home to several Reyvateils in need of shelter, including celeliss.

Her father, who hated Reyvateils, forbade music from being played in the house when she was growing up. As a result, she can't stand silence, and plays music at a low volume constantly when she's home. She carries a portable music player for the commute to and from work; the ride isn't exactly silent, but she says being able to shut out the crying babies and bickering teenagers makes her journey bearable.

She's interested in the concept of non-binary gender identity as it applies to her, and considers her gender to be "Reyvateil in pants", a statement she made quasi-flippantly but with serious meaning behind it; she prefers female pronouns but considers her femaleness to be secondary to her Reyvateil nature in terms of what defines her. In 21st-century queer theory terms, "soft butch" fits her pretty well as a descriptor. Being only attracted to Reyvateils, rather than females as a whole, she rejects the definition "lesbian", arguing that there ought to be another word for Reyvateil-specific attraction.

Daire has never had a great deal of control over her magic; it tends to come to her suddenly and only when she's in dire need, and has no consistent theme. She manifested her first spell, a powerful blast of fire, as a teenager to escape her abusive home. Though she never mentions it to anyone, she also has shapeshifting magic, and has been known to occasionally look something like this, amongst other things. (Not my art.)


Alodia Hyafazerie (heartofharmony): 19 years old, Reyvateil employed with the Church of Elemia. A shy, introspective girl, raised by her father on dreams of an ideal life in the Church, she was subsequently partnered with a controlling and unpleasant man and forced to confront the stark reality that the Church guaranteed no happily ever afters. Realising that even those she believed in might not always be telling her the full truth, she began to wonder what else she'd not heard the truth about, and, driven by her increasing understanding that forced partnering was unfair, she found her way into activism.

On the outside, Alodia is exactly what many people expect a Reyvateil to be: feminine and graceful in her demeanour, with a fondness for pretty clothes and a seeming willingness to submit to authority. However, her brain is also very much alive and ticking, and while she's still sometimes brought up short by the things she was indoctrinated to believe, she values critical thinking and tries hard to implement it in her daily life. She's a voracious reader of all kinds of things, from novels to the political and scientific journals she finds in the library, and has never quite been able to shake her weakness for pulpy romantic fantasy, even if in reality she's grown wary of the romance game. Like many Reyvateils, while she's not entirely asexual, she leans more towards harmonic bonding with her own kind as her primary way of relating emotionally to others.

An extremely non-aggressive person, she'd like life to simply be peaceful and free of conflict. Eventually, she gets her wish, from the source that she least expects.


Lyuma Sechel (neonsunray): 18 years old, college student. Came to the blog after following a trackback link from a news article that featured her, written by an undercover journalist without her permission. One of the few Reyvateils in Sol Ciel ever to pursue a college education after being funded by her rich parents and encouraged to pose as human, she studied business, wanting to do something for her species by someday making it to the top of a big corporation and helping to change working conditions for the better; but deep down her heart always lay with the arts, specifically painting. She tells people that she began painting Mir because she wanted to explore the many controversial issues that surround her, but secretly Mir had always fascinated her for more reasons than that.

Lyuma is empathetic, even for a Reyvateil, and prone to dreaming big and believing wholeheartedly in those dreams, even when they make her seem disconnected from reality to others around her. The turning point in her life came when she decided to leave her prestigious college position to pursue Mir to Metafalss, where she ended up being shot in a riot and rebuilt with mechanical parts. During this time, Mir also upgraded her to be insanely powerful-- enough to be guaranteed to be able to handle an Extract Hymn, which put her at a level almost on par with a Beta Reyvateil-- and attached her to Infel Phira, so that she could sing the METHOD part of the Hymn Sublimation.

When she was injured, she lost her left arm, which meant she also lost the use of her install port (it was on her left wrist). Thankfully, she had enough Diquility within her to last her until the end of the world; it's unsure whether Mir could have found a way to manually give her Diquility if she'd needed it before then.

She formerly had long brown hair, but cut it when she went to college. The red-and-black dye job she frequently sports is a subtle, codified way of expressing her devotion to Mir.


The politics

Falling Through the Generation Gap was heavily inspired by real blogs in the field of activism, particularly race and gender equality activism. While my activities in the sphere of activism are, unfortunately, pretty much limited to reading said blogs and trying to reform my thinking based on what I've learnt from them, I do feel that my attempts to understand the uncomfortable social issues they raise, as commented on by those who have to live with the impact of them day in and day out, have helped me to develop my personal morality.

As a result of becoming increasingly aware of these kinds of social issues, when I played Ar Tonelico for the first time, I immediately started reflecting on the problems a disenfranchised "second-class species" like the Reyvateils would realistically face. Disappointed that the game hinted at these problems but didn't really develop them, and that other fans didn't seem to be interested in speculating much on them either, I decided to start exploring them in my own fiction, directly comparing them to existing social issues in this world, with two aims: to get fans to think more about how Reyvateils don't have the same advantages and options as everyone else, and to raise awareness of similar inequalities that currently exist in this world. The plot veered away from that structure a bit at the very end, as it took a more supernatural turn, but judging from the comments I've received, I think I still managed to make a few people think harder about various social issues.

...Somehow, that all came off sounding incredibly arrogant; as if I, a privileged white male, could ever really speak for these people. But, at least in this fandom, no one else was going to if I didn't say something first, and I felt something needed to be said. I hope I did some justice to the diverse range of voices out there, and I'm extremely thankful to all the players who added their voices to the mix and helped keep it from being a monolith.

Thanks to, among others, the people at The Angry Black Woman (who inspired the Angry Reyvateil's name), Feministe, Feministing, Alas, a blog, and Shapely Prose, for being a constant source of inspiration, insight, and perspective as I constructed this work of fiction. Also, special thanks go to innumerable LiveJournal people, whose usernames I've long since forgotten, who participated in various iterations of International Blog Against Racism Week; your posts were what sparked off my first tentative forays into privilege theory and the activist community, and made this whole thing possible.


The media

One of the fun things about writing the Reyvablog was getting to play with various sorts of media. I wanted the blog to be as authentic a facsimile of a real activist blog as I could make it, and so early on I made the decision to link to screenshots of various fictional news articles, which all used templates shamelessly stolen from actual news sites. People seemed to like the feeling of authenticity and gravity this lent to the story, and so over time I used this as an excuse to get even more creative with various forms of media, even going as far as to typeset, print out, and then subsequently scan a four-page article to make it look as if it had been scanned from a real magazine. This was printed actual size, on A3 paper, at a print shop; it's totally the real deal.

Players joined in, too; we even had one of our players compose a poem which one of the characters was meant to have found on an amateur poetry website. It was a good poem in its own right, yet it wasn't even a feature piece; it was casually tucked away within a comment in the middle of a long thread, and largely overlooked. Such was the attention to detail that was put into this work of fiction.

The aural aspect of the blog was particularly fun to play with. I figured Reyvateils probably rely on sound quite heavily, so I'd like to have included even more sound clips, but I'm no audio expert and they're fairly time-consuming to do. For the speeches in Hymmnos, I sent the scripts in English to Lazy and had him translate them into Pastalia Hymmnos and Standard Hymmnos respectively; the Pastalia Hymmnos was so insanely complex that I reduced it to a phonetic approximation of the syllables before sending it off to haounomiko, who performed as the voice of Mir and Shurelia. Deciare also aided in the translation of an important part of the Standard Hymmnos speech. Background crowd noise on the speeches was acquired from various YouTube videos, including some clips of street celebrations for Obama when I wanted the noise to lean more towards cheers than jeers. The song of the streets was created by blending whale song, New Age harmonic chants, and the Hymn of the Fayth from FFX played backwards. XD


The ending

...Yes, I "killed off" all my characters. I "killed off", at least in this timeline (I'm sure iterations of them that belong to any other stories you're writing will be just fine), all your characters. I hope that you're able to be comforted by the words of Sublimation, the knowledge that they truly are now in a better world, and this compilation of thoughts and reflections on the story.

My intention, for what it's worth, was not to craft a bad, cruel or negative ending. Rather, feeling that it got a raw deal in the original game, I wanted to write a story that showed a different side to Sublimation. I believe that change doesn't have to be a negative thing, that even such a complete transformation of the world we're used to doesn't have to be bad. I don't believe, as many stories want to argue, that we're necessarily best served by holding onto everything that makes us human (or Reyvateil, or Teru), including all the flaws.

I've also, since the end of AT1, wanted to see a story in which Mir finally gets to create the utopia she's always dreamed of. AT3 may yet be that story-- but just in case it isn't, I wanted to write this one, because I believe it's a story worth telling. Again, too often in stories (RPGs in particular), the person who wants a "perfect world" is shown to be misguided, because people would prefer to live on just the way we are. I think living on as we are is great-- but we can also, potentially, do better. For once, I wanted to write a story where the person changing the world was in the right.

On the flip side, that's not to say that there was no suffering or loss involved in the transformation. Even those who truly believed in the goodness and necessity of it had their doubts, at first. I had Mir give the characters five days to reflect on their situation because I wanted to highlight that, when confronted with the certainty of their world's ending-- even if they were explicitly told that that ending was for the better-- people would need time in which to process things. For some, even, five days didn't seem like enough. For others, no amount of time could ever truly feel like "enough". For others yet, five days was almost longer than they could bear. The main characters inhabited various spaces on that spectrum, at various points in time. I wanted to provide a space for people to explore the idea of what someone faced with a world on the brink of transformation would think, feel and do.

I hope I did a good job of conveying the bittersweet nature of the transition, from speech and sorrow to the final, hopeful event. If you haven't yet, please do listen to EXEC_over.METHOD_SUBLIMATION/. ~omness chs ciel sos infel~, read the lyrics as you listen, imagine Mir and Lyuma's voices singing to create the new world of spirits, and reflect on the time you spent among these characters and what they meant to you.

With your help, I was able to craft a much greater work of fiction than I ever could have alone.

Thank you for playing.



Feel free to add your thoughts, questions, character profiles, bits of info you never got to reveal on the blog, etc., etc. to this thread!

AR: screenshot showcase, and a little backstory

In these last days of the world of Ar Ciel, the homeless Reyvateils who slept outside AR's apartment complex are no longer there. She hopes that, wherever they've gone, it's somewhere safe, a warm and comfortable vantage point from which to watch the end of the world. Maybe they returned to their families, finally able to reconcile and put the issues that held them apart behind them. Or maybe some charitable soul was able to give them a new start. Either way, somehow, the atmosphere in these slums feels a little calmer, a little less laden with suffering and doubt, than it did several days ago. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Back in AR's small apartment, the room seems cleansed by the still light of sunset, liquidy and gold. Even these dark places are slowly having their pall lifted from them, it seems, in preparation for a new world's arrival. Not a thing can feel too cruel, too cold, or too shabby in these final hours, for cruelty and coldness hover on the brink of banishment. 1 / 2 / 3


A sidenote: The doll is Amarie, the physical inspiration for AR's Mind Guardian. (Named that well before AT2 came out, incidentally! I guess it's a popular name in that world....)

She was actually once somewhat intelligent, about as much so as a household pet; the technology that produced Reyvateil-level artificial intelligence went through a lot of refinements, first creating beings with the mental capacities of simpler animals before going on to replicate humans. This cruder technology, in the modern day, is now fairly cheap, and is frequently used to produce toys for children that cost about as much as a "talking" doll using very simple technology would today.

Through the development of such beings-- possessing the intelligence level of animals, yet capable of speech-- humans learnt a lot about the emotional capacities and needs of various animals, and stronger animal cruelty laws were introduced in many nations. Ironically, however, the dolls themselves are often treated poorly for being "artificial", with many simply discarded when they break or the child gets tired of them. While they don't feel pain, don't take offence, and are generally extremely meek, kindly and non-destructive, in order that they might be fit playthings for children, they still have needs for comfort and security, which can often conflict with the desires of a child who sees themselves as having outgrown toys. Reyvateils are often much more sensitive to the needs of these toys than humans, and many have found them to be steadfast companions whom they treasure as dearly as flesh-and-blood pets.

AR has carried Amarie's physical counterpart with her from home to home since she was five years old, occasionally relying on advice from hobby forums in order to carry out servicing on her that she couldn't afford to pay someone to do. Several years ago, Amarie simply stopped functioning, and there seemed to be no way she could be repaired within the limits of AR's budget; AR debated whether to keep what in some ways seemed like a corpse, but found she simply couldn't bear to part with her. Thus Amarie now lives with her as a silent companion, a continuing source of comfort, yet her only life within AR's own mind.

Oddly enough, the time the doll-Amarie stopped working was around the same time as AR found herself out of reputable work and took up an unfortunate career on the streets. The symbolism of this is not lost on her.

In AR's mind, she wears a small suit of armour and carries a spear.

Hymmnos lacks words for a lot of things.

That little comic I talked about yesterday. (Warning: contains spoilers for today's Reyvablog plot.) Born as a result of the problems we had translating Mir's speech....

and she may cry, but her tears will dry/when I hand her the keys to a shiny new Pastalia....

Further to my previous "no Reyvablog posts until Sunday" missive, winters just made a guest post over there, so there's something up right now after all. :) Go check it out.

Did another Reyvablog photoshoot in SL last night; mostly just test shooting, putting together new avatars for some story-related snaps we're going to take later, but got several images in the meantime that I wanted to show off (as well as a little outtake comic that I'll post after tomorrow, since it contains spoilers for the current plot).

Mir and Lyuma 2.0 chilling at the Mirbunker as furnished by IKEA, and looking far more villainous than they really ought. If you were wondering exactly what happened to neonsunray and what she looks like as a result, here you go; that respirator actually makes some pretty terrifying hissing sounds in-game, by the by. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Just a random shot I thought was amusing; it looks like Mir's checking out a stain on the carpet.

And, at long last, our esteemed blogger herself, AR, enters the picture! And is also chilling at the Mirbunker, for the reason that we'd already set up the room and were basically just putting together her avatar. 1 / 2 / 3

And, taken a while back, but haounomiko got some wonderful glamour shots of briyante posing and enjoying the Tenba facilities-- and IIRC none of you have seen what she looks like yet, so I had to show these off when I got them in my inbox. 1 / 2 / 3

And finally, courtesy of haounomiko-- JAKURI PER4MANCE UPGRADES 4 UR MIND. That's all I have to say.

Reyvateil rights goodies ahoy!

Just so you know, you can now treat yourself, courtesy of the Reyvablog, to a selection of pro-Reyvateil-rights goodies! We've got shirts, caps and mugs in a variety of designs, and we've done our best to make everything size- and style-inclusive within the limitations of Cafepress' system-- if you need something in a size or style it isn't in, let me know.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank all of you-- the proud, the few, the greatly appreciated-- who have participated in the Reyvablog up until now. We couldn't have done it, and couldn't continue to do it, without you, and trust me when I say that all of you who've participated have contributed something invaluable. You've all played along with the spirit of the blog extremely well, needing little guidance or instruction, and it's been inspiring to see what you've all done with the format. You've challenged our expectations, brought in new content and plot twists, and generally done an excellent job of Getting It. We hope you'll stick with us until the very end; the best is yet to come, so do keep checking back for updates, as we're forging ahead with the plot.

First "official" Reyvablog photoshoot, and a bit of worldbuilding....

So I did say, a while back, that there'd be more SL photos of the Reyvablog avatars, this time in their home environments as opposed to a studio setting. I hold to that promise, bringing you a selection of photos from the first of our shoots, focusing in on dhezeall, heartofharmony, and neonsunray.

briyante's pics are coming soonish, as well as more from dhezeall and heartofharmony, and we should be close to being able to put AR's avatar together. polyhymnia is a little further away, but eventually we'll get her put together too.


Commuter transit is pretty tiring for dhezeall.... especially when fellow passengers keep giving her the eye.

Still, breaks in the noise and the hubbub afford opportunities to relax, as well as time for a couple of portraits.


heartofharmony looks to the Goddesses, amidst dazzling church architecture. Such places can inspire a sense of serenity even in those spirits they hold captive.

Sadly, she remains elusively hard to photograph, but we got a couple of candid shots.


neonsunray relaxes at her favourite song parlour, letting herself get caught up in the music.

Coming across a giant piano, she takes a little time out to indulge in symbolism, truly embracing her nature.

Shadowed in the doorway of the song parlour, she tries to stay discreet.

Letting go of her shyness a little, she strikes a pose.

As she leaves for home, we find her pausing momentarily to look to a starlit sky, dreaming of hope.


And now, a little world info....

The song parlours neonsunray attends are a cross between cosy lounges and karaoke establishments, with private rooms for small groups of friends and slightly larger, public areas for ad hoc socialising. The public areas generally feature a small stage, surrounded by long couches all pushed together so people can recline on them, and little else; there's not usually space to dance, and people don't tend to do so, although they may stand up and join in with the singers on stage, or sway to the music. The experience is about listening to people sing, taking your turn, and joining in with the harmonies, as well as feeling emotionally conected to the music and to each other.

Though song parlours are quasi-infamous among humans for being hotbeds of promiscuity, the interactions that go on in these places are rarely, if ever, sexual. United by the music, many choose to relax their personal boundaries or let go of them altogether, but the intimacy that results is more of a relaxed, liberated openness of being than a frenzy of passions. People will curl up in each other's laps, lean against each other, snuggle and stroke each other's hair and faces, but their actions are expressions not of physical desire but of the comfortable closeness they feel as the harmonics of the group blend and align. As with all fond interactions between people, occasionally this bonding will lead to physical attraction, but the song parlour isn't considered an appropriate place to indulge these sorts of feelings. They're really a lot more like musical cuddle parties, with the added benefit of the participants being able to experience deep emotional closeness through their magic.

Generally, people tend to come out of these events feeling warm, happy, refreshed, and released from their tensions and distractions. Being around people who, through harmonics, you feel instinctively fond towards, safe around, and happy to share your feelings with is a deeply therapeutic experience for many; it's possible to relax with the people at a song parlour in ways that many people don't get to in all of their daily lives. And while song parlours aren't sexual venues, a lot of Reyvateils who attend them find that relationships with humans feel awkward and stilted afterwards, devoid of that instinctive emotional connection, and find themselves drawn more towards relationships with others of their kind.

Due to the increased need for emotional bonding that presence at these venues can awaken in people, they've been blamed for causing an addiction to diving in some Reyvateils, though others argue that someone liable to be addicted to diving will become that way through diving alone. A diving addiction can be dangerous, as the Reyvateil will often push her partner to explore deeper and deeper levels in which the Reyvateil's, and diver's, subconscious minds are at great risk of damage, and may forgo caution on these levels in order to seek a more intense experience.

Reyvateil Rights Carnival!

So occasionally I find myself Googling the terms "Reyvateil rights", just to see if anyone else has put anything out there. I suppose it's a combination of hoping other people will have put forth their views on these things, because I like reading about how others interpret these concepts, and wanting there to be more representation out there of the idea because I think a work like Ar Tonelico invites it, to the point where it's almost criminal not to discuss the issues it raises. Inevitably, I only find my own work; the term, in quotes, brings up five results at current, covering my three blogs.

I'd like that to change. AT2's release is almost upon us: seven days away, almost six. January 20th is a day when many of us will unite in hope, in solidarity, as we work towards making Ar Ciel, and hopefully this world too, a better place to be.

So why is no one talking about the issues of sexism and speciesism raised by AT's world? Why is no one writing fiction, writing essays, creating art, that addresses the problems Reyvateils face in Sol Ciel? Crucially, why are the only people attacking AT on the grounds of sexism those who dislike the series for it, instead of seeing it as a flaw but the characters and world as still worthwhile, and something we should strive to explore, strive to better, through art?

I'd like to challenge you all to a little something. Between now and AT2's release, I'd like to see you write something, or draw something, or create something, on the subject of Reyvateil rights. Even if you only post in your blog about it, I'd like to hear more said on this topic. (Exceptions made for those who are having huge moving-type upheavals this month; you can submit something at a later date, or just count Reyvablog postings. :)

If you don't have a blog, feel free to post submissions in this comment thread, although I'd ideally like to see the content distributed across a number of sites.

Reyvablog avatars!

So, for the last few days now we've been working on a little project over here: constructing avatars of the Reyvablog cast in Second Life! Unfortunately we probably can't do everyone's character, since we don't have as detailed an awareness of what everyone else looks like as we do of our own characters and because of the necessity of buying items every tweak and modification costs money, so unless you're willing to pay and provide a really good description (and we can find Teru tails and horns), there probably won't be any, say, winters avatars coming along soon. But at the very least, you can get an exclusive OOC glimpse at the faces behind the words of a few of our regular commenters.


dhezeall sticks it to The Man by refusing to pose in anything other than her lounging-around-the-house clothes.

Unfortunately, it was hard to get a good shot of heartofharmony; she was too shy to look into the camera much.

neonsunray is ready to face the day.

In a society that hates what you are, even little expressions of your self can be dangerous....


These avatars aren't really finished-- dhezeall needs better eyes (she's wearing temporary eyes that were Photoshopped at the moment because the ones we bought for her didn't fit her face), we'll probably acquire more clothes for her and neonsunray as well as generally poking at various tweaks until we have everyone down exactly right, and we'll be doing photoshoots with them in more realistic settings (and poses). Plus, we've yet to put together AR's avatar, but rest assured that she'll be around soon too. Still, for now, enjoy the preview of our work to come!

A very Ar Tonelico Christmas, and a hopeful New Year!

First up, letting you guys know that the Angry Reyvateil is back up and posting for the New Year! Do share your holiday stories in the current threads if you can; I'd like to base my characters' awareness of what things are like in Tenba and the Church over the holidays on your characters' reflections.


So despite the lack of AT2 this December, we still managed to have a pretty Ar Tonelico-esque Christmas over here. For your enjoyment, I present pictures of the highlights. :)


This snow-Teru might interest IC-winters. With a few twists of the foil, even an ordinary chocolate snowman can become an AT cameo! Comes with hat, too.

At Borders, we found this packet of strangely Pom-like Japanese treats.

The packaging bears pictures of all of the possible designs, including this musical Pom... Reyvapom!

Unfortunately, there aren't actually any candies decorated with "Other".

And last, but most certainly not least... someone brought a pair of tiny kittens over to the house. One in particular had a fairly familiar-looking expression on her face, and I ended up spontaneously nicknaming her Wrathface. Totally makes me want a black cat called Jakuri (who I would then also nickname Wrathface, because I've decided the word amuses me more than just about anything else in the world). This one's actually called Spooky, but... c'mon, who names a cat "Spooky"? So generic. You know that cat would make the best Jakuri-cat evar.


So now we've officially rung in a brand new year, and all that remains is to wait out these final three weeks-- less, actually!-- until the shores of Metafalss finally loom in sight. The release of a game such as this one is always a time of hope: a time of anticipating the new worlds and new wonders that will unfold before our eyes, the people we'll meet and take into our hearts for a time, the lessons we'll take away, and hoping that they will become truly beloved. Many of us know at least a little of what's coming, but who can truly say what will end up impacting us the most? What things will we learn, and how will this experience strengthen and enrich us? There's a lot to wonder about, a lot to hope for-- and in such a place as Ar Ciel, in particular, hope is one thing we can expect to find in abundance. We can even wash down release day with an extra helping of hope; as the first day of AT2's US release draws to a close, so will we also have seen Obama's first day in the US presidential office. No matter where in the world (or universe) you're from, this is the dawning of a new era, on many levels.

January 20 will bring us, I believe, a great deal of hope. Let's all take a little time to reflect on that, when the day does come.

Reyvateilian hair accessories!

So today I made a really neat little accessory for my Mir avatar in SL: a tiny set of organ pipes with a ribbon attached. Sadly, I couldn't find an existing ribbon that had full permissions, and I didn't think I was up to crafting my own, so this item is no-copy for now-- meaning I can't sell or give them away. I will hopefully soon have an appropriately-permissioned tiny ribbon, though, so these should go live soon-- with a larger range of instruments, assuming I'm up to crafting them. Pipes are pretty easy. XD

The neatest thing about this little charm? If you click on it, it plays a sound clip. Currently a ten-second clip from Harmonious Fusion, as that's what I had uploaded to that account to test with, but I'll look up some actual organ clips soon.

See the pics here.

(Also, the, uh, giant pixellated pointer is just something she happens to have attached to her head. It's not meant to be pointing at the pipes, though its position was coincidental and amusing enough that I left it in the photographs.)

Worksafe warnings apply....

So I did say I'd be posting some fanart of Mir using SL as a generating tool, and here are a few from a photoshoot I did today in a great set of sims by La TusSim. I stumbled across these earlier today, played about with some of the poseballs, and went, "hey-- this would make a great setup for an awakening-Mir shoot". Some Photoshop involved, to varying degrees, though the third image needed almost no edits (and was also a fluke, since the pose from the first image accidentally carried over through the teleport)-- and the pseudo-Ar Tonelico in the second was there to begin with!

The problem with fanart of Mir is that it generally either involves nakedness or costumes that are next to impossible to come by (or, I suppose, Funbun t-shirts), so I opted for nakedness in these images-- which, despite the fact that this is how official art and pretty much all fanart draws her, somehow manages to look more explicit than I'd tend to go for. I think it's the 3D.

Still, I think these are tasteful-- or at least, as tasteful as Mir ever gets.

Mule Birth
Virus Code
Wake Up, Mir