Send Me A Fandom And Ill Tell You...

⊱send me a fandom and i’ll tell you...⊰

am i familiar with it?

do i like the fandom itself?

who’s my favorite character?

if i had to choose, who would i roleplay? 

divinaaquis:

Well, it appeared the fox went for the bait. If not for the danger that would soon come, then perhaps Mikleo would have been amused, and maybe sighed in relief. This one was a hellion, a beast, and all he wanted to do was wreak havoc and gobble up human and seraphim as he so pleased. He couldn’t let that happen. As much as being near the other froze his breath in his throat, he had to swallow his fear back and try to keep Lunarre back. Especially when he was after Alisha. Sorey and the others would arrive soon. They had to. 

A fireball soon hit a branch he was perched on before he could make his jump, and it was quickly engulfed in fierce, blue flame. The water seraph had to grit his teeth as he pushed himself up from where he had stumbled, feeling a pain shoot through his body. Dammit. He hadn’t landed too well there. 

“Unless you would prefer entire body a frozen statue, I suggest you back off now.” He threatens, leaning on his staff a slight. “I’m not playing these games of chase with you. It won’t be just your foot alone next time.”

Lunarre laughed. It was shrill and wild. Somewhere in his mind there was the memory of a different laugh, echoing from a different life. Lunarre pushed it further back into the dark. 

This was his life now. Here he was alone, but powerful. Alone, but happy. Singing, laughing, tap-dancing happy.

But devouring the little seraph brat would make him that little bit happier.

Blazing balls of blue fire erupted into existence and burned in the palm of his hands as he faced his enemy down. The little magic trick had worn off, and the seraph was now in plain sight.

“I agree,” Lunarre said, grinning. “Playtime’s over. But your ice won’t touch me again.”

Lunarre had been taught to spot weakness in others for as long as he could remember. Weakness that would equal an easy target that would equal a job well done. It had served him well in his thieving days, and his time with the Scattered Bones, and so it continued.

The seraph had not got off without injury from his fall. He favoured one foot over the other, and his staff was doubling as support. There was a weakness, and any weakness could be readily exploited.

One as alone in the world as Lunarre could rely on that universal truth alone.

Seizing his moment, Lunarre lunged forward, using his superior speed to catch the seraph off-balance. With a sweep of his arm, he unleashed an arc of flame that fanned out low across the grass, singeing the green blades black. No matter where the serph went, left or right, the weak spot should be hit. Such was the hellion’s thinking.

Two New Verses!

ROYAL GUARD. - POST-XVERSE

Lunarre survives the battle with the hellions and Lord of Calamity, having joined forces with Sorey and the group after becoming invested in their struggles, full of hope he hadn’t felt in a long time. He was also purified in the process.

After the celebrations end, however, Lunarre is left not really knowing what to do with himself. He is baffled, then, when Alisha offers him a job as one of her personal bodyguards.

Once the shock wears off, Lunarre starts laughing at the irony, but gratefully accepts. Starting a new chapter in his life, he cuts his hair, dons a new uniform, and gets to work.

SERAPH. - POST-ROYAL GUARD VERSE.

As if things couldn’t get more ironic, the ex-thief, ex-assassin, ex-hellion, ex-Royal Guard Lunarre finds himself reborn as a seraph. Of course, as with all humans who become seraphim, he has forgotten his human life. However, traits and emotions garnered from his previous life have carried over.

As a result, Lunarre can’t shake a sense of humorous irony that someone like him is now a seraph. A fire seraph, at that.

Lunarre finds himself drawn to many places on the continent of Glenwood, Ladylake in particular, for reasons he cannot recall. He wanders, searching for forgotten memories and traces of his past life.

His true name is Movawu Ivuwriluk (’Lunarre Overcomes’).

A Hellion with No Purpose

I swear making Lunarre an aimless, wise-cracking Observer of All was the worst thing they could have done for his character. Even in the games he had a drive, while not particularly explored or examined, he at the very least had one. Namely, vengeance.

The anime, on the other hand, stripped Lunarre of his loyalty to, betrayal of, and ultimately his desire for vengeance against, the Scattered Bones and his former boss Rose. It stripped him, also, of his desire to pursue Alisha for longer than the plot would allow. Three episodes in and suddenly Lunarre is more interested in sightseeing along with Alisha than having her for dinner.

In so doing, Lunarre becomes little more than a stand-in for the audience. An observer with little to no influence on the plot unless the plot or, more specifically, Alisha focus, demands. He even outright declares himself an observer, and has little ambition to move from his solitary perch overlooking the plot at all unless pushed.

The rest of the time Lunarre is content with muttering to himself about what he sees and how excited he is, like a good audience-stand-in. As the Observer of All he adds precious little to nothing to the flow of the plot nor to his own character as the story progresses. It makes his sudden attempt at redemption at the end utterly baffling.

Lunarre also has a strange and utterly baffling habit of constantly questioning his own motives for being in whatever location he planted himself in, as if self-aware that his actions, as a fictional character, are controlled by the gods that are the Writers and so forth.

Unfortunately, it seems that Lunarre’s constant questioning of himself, even manifesting as rhetorical questions when asked directly who he is and what he is doing in such-and-such a place.

Example: In episode 20 of Season 2, Maltran asks Lunarre who he is. Lunarre’s response is quite literally ‘I wonder?’ It doesn’t occur to him to simply answer with his name.

From my perspective, there are two main problems with his anime portrayal.

Problem #1: His Brief Appearance as a Human

We are shown Lunarre as a human, working under Rose’s leadership as a member of the Scattered Bones. If the game is anything to go on, then like in the game Lunarre will have by this point been with the guild for two years.

This alone completely fucks with Lunarre’s identity crisis, as it appears.

He is onscreen as a human 54 seconds. I know, I timed it, including the time in which he was masked, fighting Alisha. 

From what we saw, Lunarre was loyal to Rose and a keen fighter, though unable to match Alisha. 

That, coupled with the fact that he is a member of an assassin’s guild and has likely been such for two years straight, calls into question how he could be anything but serious in his belief that he belongs to the Scattered Bones, that he is part of it. 

You don’t join something like an assassin’s guild for the luls, and you certainly don’t stay there two years when you’re not sure if it’s really the job you see yourself doing long-term. Rose certainly wouldn’t have tolerated someone like that in her guild. Game!Lunarre certainly considered himself a member until his behaviour got him kicked out.

So why does he leave? And why does he suddenly become the most uncertain man in the entire Zestiria universe?

Lunarre, as in the game, never removes his assassin uniform. He keeps his tie to the guild despite so abruptly and nonsensically leaving it, and he bears no grudge or ill will towards it or Rose. Neither what little we saw of his human life nor his transformation into a hellion give the audience any indication that he transformed and went rogue other than because he’s batshit crazy. 

Yes, there was a slight indication that Rose’s comment could have set him off, but it’s one comment, with no history of similar comments or treatment that might have made this particular comment mean anything. It certainly doesn’t give the weight necessary to give credence to the fact that LUNARRE BECAME A HELLION because of it!

If we had been given more insight into what could have been a mind steadily disillusioned with the assassin lifestyle, a man realising he is, for whatever reason (let’s say skill) the black sheep of the organisation. We could have seen how he feels belittled by Rose, perhaps, or underappreciated, or lacking in fulfillment. It would have gone a long way to explaining why Lunarre became a hellion after Rose told him he was ‘no match’ for Alisha.

Perhaps that is what they were going for, but it is so poorly conveyed it goes unnoticed under the maniacal cackling from the newly-transformed fox hellion.

Problem #2: No Time, No Effort, No Shits Given (Until it’s Too Late)

The identity crisis could have been a very interesting. it could have been a rare, intimate insight into a more in-control hellion’s mind. 

Lack of time and focus on him, even through other characters, who by and large forgot his existence until they discovered his dead body near the end of season 2, meant that his entire ‘arc’ was botched practically from the start. 

The smatterings of appearance he made only raised eyebrows from confused viewers, wondering what he’s still doing here. He either comments on what the audience can already see, or acts like a deranged lunatic simply content to watch cool shit go down. Only as the series draws close to its finale do the writers suddenly realise Lunarre exists and has had no resolution yet. 

Unfortunately, it falls flat on its face (much like Lunarre does as he dies) because there has been no build-up, no tension, no time or effort given to invest in his character before. Why should the audience give a shit now, when they have never been given a reason to prior?

When there has been no build-up, there cannot be any pay-off. At all. Only confusion, disbelief, and annoyance.

Thus, as the main cast inexplicably take time out to have a minute’s silence over Lunarre’s dead body, the viewer can only sigh and mutter “Can we just get on with it? Who the fuck is this guy anyway?”