The Mirball!

At long last, I have acquired that one thing in SL without which my Mir avatar was not complete.... the Mirball, perhaps better known to most people as the shield she surrounds herself in at the end of AT1. Thanks so much to Eolande Elvehjem, who made this for me absolutely free of charge! (Warning: some small degree of obscured nudity.) 1 / 2

You have to see it in person to appreciate it fully; it animates, causing the texture to swirl prettily over the surface, and it works perfectly in flight, wherein Mir can hover and float around just as she does in AT.

We're Ar Tonelifying Second Life... one step at a time. =D

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.]

~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....

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.

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.

Huntin', racin', and chasin' the wimmins

So I decided that at some point I wanted to get a box shot of AT2 "in the wild", as it were, so I dropped by a GameStop while I was out yesterday to fire off a quick candid snap.

Sadly, it was on the top shelf, so I couldn't really get a great picture. It does, however, do a pretty good job of capturing all that's disappointing about the gaming scene these days. I'm not arguing that there aren't some great, fun, innovative new games being released, or that the games industry has completely sold out to the lowest common denominator, or something. It's just a particularly unpleasant spread, all said and done. AT2, with its "revamped", super-sultry NA box cover specifically designed to grab the hormonal adolescent's attention, sitting next to: a compilation of a series of racing games famed for their emphasis on reckless driving and spectacular, explosive crashes; the "Worlds (sic) Number 1 Hunting Games" (a double dose of macho, clearly: nothing like blatant disregard for the sanctity of life and the sanctity of grammar all in one package!); and a display box crudely enticing you to "cash in on your past conquests". Never before have I seen such a comprehensive example of how certain sectors of the games industry love to sell the idea back to gamers that they should think with their testosterone (because only men game, of course), not with their heads.

I'm not saying all of the things seen here are bad, and I don't think any of them are deliberately placed, or anything. The "cash in on your past conquests" boxes are all over the place, though that doesn't make them any more revolting (and the positioning next to AT2 is unfortunate); they're a slur against responsible relationship practice (and, given the male-targeted nature of most games advertising, almost certainly a slur against women) and a slur against seeing videogames as anything more than "conquests" all at the same time. (What happened to the idea that both one's relationship with a person and one's relationship with a videogame are precious things to treasure and carefully uphold, not to merely "trade in" the minute something new comes along?) And I admit to having played some of the Burnout games, and they're mindless fun in a cathartic sort of way; I don't think they're horribly amoral, or anything, especially since the emphasis is on blowing up machines and enjoying the explosive fallout, not thinking of them as containing actual people. Just, like I said, it's a sad spread. And I didn't really notice until I looked at the picture at home. It's an interesting snapshot to have captured of a certain trend in gaming in 2009, I guess.

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.

the tower has recovered from a serious error. view logs?

A friend and I had been speculating on the reasons for Shurelia's sudden personality switch halfway through Ar Tonelico. Our best guess: the Tower of Ar Tonelico was not shut down correctly and Shurelia lost some vital data, as illustrated by this cute pic I just got in the mail.

Personally, I want this to be my Windows shutdown-fail screen. Perhaps I can at least hack the text into the BIOS?

AT3 Mir design: what would work?

So obviously I've been spending a lot of time contemplating the whole idea of Speculative AT3 Mir As Ultimate Force For Good. And even if it does end up happening in AT3, I can't wait for that. I'm having enough trouble waiting for AT2 as it is. ;) So I'd like to try and design an image of what such a future Mir might look like, as well as maybe some hymns, if I can get enough of a handle on Hymmnos to not have to be running to the people on the forums all the time. ;)

The problem is, I'm really bad at costume design. =P I had some vague thoughts at first that something like SERAPH or KASHA might work for the image I had in mind, but since I'm specifically going for an image of Mir-as-redemptive-force, I think KASHA is too dark and gothic, and SERAPH... well, it's already been done. I want this costume to be unique.

Also, I'm not sure that armour, per se, is the way to go on this one. The point of future!redemptive!Mir is that she's someone who recognises that the only way to bring about goodness is to act with goodness; that there are no such things as holy wars, that there's no such concept as "fighting for what is right", that kindness is won into the world through kind acts and goodness through good acts and love through loving acts. So instead of a bulky, defensive costume, perhaps something much less harsh-looking is in order, something that symbolises her openness. Maybe elaborate robes, to emphasise a holy bearing and at the same time a reluctance to engage in physical combat?

But as I said, I'm really bad with this sort of thing. So if Mir came back in AT3 as Epic Force For Good, what kind of costume do you think would work? If I get some good ideas, I might try drawing it, or getting a commission someplace (the latter possibly because I can't do really epic, dramatic backgrounds or anything, and to get this done in full anime style looking really uber would... well, it would be uber).

Ayatane's Alphabet

As requested, the first letter of Ayatane's alphabet.

Somehow this image didn't come out as well as I expected it to, even though I got the lines really clean for once. Oh well...

Maybe he's born with it....

...maybe it's Maybelline. (Mildly un-work-safe, due to Mir wearing her usual costume of nothing, though I tried to strategically place her hair.)

Outtake of what I think happens when Ayatane gets his uber Childerich-esque makeup. Evidently, the cameras stop rolling and Mir pops on stage to lovingly apply some warpaint.

I totally plan to draw Ayatane's First Letter, but in the meantime, this image wouldn't get out of my head, so here you go. =P

(Also, Ayatane? Totally stole Lulu fron FFX's lipstick. Just sayin'.)