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docholligay · 7 months

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The House in Fata Morgana: Door 2--1707

I have never reviewed a visual novel before, but iscahwynn made me a very generous offer and a long line of patience, knowing that we are trying something very new. To that end: Please don’t spoil me for the game at all! If you are reading this, I have only gotten through the part written above, and I don’t want to be corrected, even if I’m wrong, even if I’ve missed something, i don’t want to have anything confirmed or denied, and I don’t need any trigger warnings or extraneous explanation. Iscah would like my pure, naive experience of the game. Thank you!

Non-spoilery: This story was solid as a standalone horror story, though I think it took awhile to come around to whatever it was doing, and I don’t know if it needed to be as long as it was. What’s more I’m not sure it knows what conclusion it wants us to draw from the tale, and while I do personally kind of like that it leaves us with a bit of a hearty shrug about what the nature of a man is, I could see it being frustrating to some people. Weirdly, I was about to accuse it of being hamfisted and cliche halfway through, only for it to twist on me and me to go, “Oh. Carry on then.” This makes me sound like I didn’t like it but its bizarrely easier to tlak about its weak points without spoilers than its strong ones.

Spoilers below:

So before we even get into the whole door situation as she stands I want to talk about the fact that before we descend in to the cellar we apparently don’t have any reflection, and this is very interesting to me. Who the fuck is the Maid, is one of the great mysteries of this, and I have a handful of thoughts on that, none of which really coalesce in a way I love but it’s early days as far as the story itself goes. (Which is one of the great and frustrating things about these reviewlets) So, on that note, why don’t we have reflections and who the fuck are we? I would say it’s far too easy to say “ghosts” because if we’re ghosts I don’t understand what is pinning us here, and particularly what is not only pinning the Maid here but compelling her to serve? Are we ideas within the story itself?

Because one of the interesting frameworks about this story is the nature of evil and specifically of savagery, and we see so many times that the house itself--though not the Maid--is telling Yukimasa that he is a beast, that he’s always been a beast, that he loves to kill, even when he is trying to escape from that fate, from that future. It’s not the Maid. The Maid serves the HOUSE, and so what is the house? Is the house the narrative itself, and is that why it attracted the violence to Yukimasa, and why he never could have shaken it? Is that why the house itself hungers for this sort of tragedy? The tragedy of Mell and Nellie and the White Haired Girl*? What is it about this place that drives PAIN? Because remember, in the first story Nellie found out about the incest from an accidental (sort of) ripping of a painting. I laughed about the convenience at the time, not unkindly, but what if it wasn’t convenience? Or rather, what if the convenience was the hand of the house, and this “writer” (I know I know I’m obsessed with the role of writers in their own stories) wants this house to be tragic, so it is? No matter what.

But interestingly, the story goes to pains, as sopon as we’re feeling so sad for Yukimasa for being treated racistly by the big, mean, Spanish villagers, and that’s why he became cruel and mean, the story shakes its head and not only tells us, “nuh uh. Isn’t so.” but shows us. That he was not only tempted that way, but he was a killer long before he ever set foot on Valencian shores.** When this whole thing was playing out I was like, “Lol Valencia is right across from Algiers and while Tensions Are High it was only like 100 years ago that the Moors were living among you, I’m not sure beating a Japanese man for looking ood is all that likely in a port city” and then the story tells you that he was emaciated and all that, but more specifically they DID see this quality of beastliness in him, and he DID murder a lot of people, and that we are absolutely not doing an over-simplified version of this story.

By the by, I am sure you could write a fucking DISSERTATION on the choice of having the protagonist and villain, all in one, be a third-generation European-Japanese man, who is obsessed with the idea of Japan as motherland, to the point of wielding a katana and going on about honor and the samurai class-- and coupled with this insane violence of his it puts me to mind of the way bushido was used by the government and military in pre-WW2 in similar ways as Aryan ideals to unify and create this notion of longstanding cultural value that’s not quite BULLSHIT, I don’t think I’d be comfortable saying that, but it’s not quite on the level either--and he is the beast, and he was always the beast, and he’s misleading Pauiline about having ever seen Japan, but he says it calls to him, he says it’s his heart, but it’s a place he’s never seen and frankly probably doesn’t even fucking belong anymore. I do not have the words to put around that, but I KNOW it’s something and I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted a writer to tell me everything about something but I do RIGHT NOW. (If you did not write Fata Morgana, please don’t attempt to explain this to me until I finish in November)

Anyway, let’s get to the beauty and the beast aspect of all this. So, the Whtie Haired Girl shows up, is blind, apparently, an in fairness I do think sight prbnlems are more common in albinism, so, congrats I guess writers. I don’t know how much I love a “Love a man good” narrative, and I think I’m oversimplifying it a little bit to call it that, but I don’t think I’m oversimp0lifying why we’re supposed to back her play by a lot. She really doesn’t have a character? She lives to serve Yukimasa in the same way she lived to serve Mell, and is that another part of this too? That this house, this Maid, and this Girl, are all here to serve the Master and his larger story? I mean, it could absolutely be international, what’s going on here, but I’m just not sure. I love the incredibly boggling moment where she tries to convince him he’s not a beast with her literal pussy. I am not making a joke here, friends.

The whole thing with Pauline is fascinating, because there could be so many things that make her appear a beast to him as well, but I THINK she is added in to tell us that Yukimasa couldn’t be saved by something as simple as love itself, that the White Haired Girl maybe is, in her own way, a witch, for the power she can command over others, much as she did Mell. Maybe she actually IS the villain here, that would be interesting, maybe all of this is about fucking with men and ruining their lives in twisted ways, and you know what I think that would actually fit into the whole Morgan Le Fay thing and I rather like it. We’ll see where it goes.

And of course, we start at the very bottom of our nature, and we end there, because the house craves that, it wants the ruin to return. The damp and the blood.

Wow! This is way more than 1000 words, sorry, I have gotten carried away with this whole fuckin thing. I really enjoy this VN so far, and I gotta say, I wasn’t even entirely aware there were VNs like this? A few more quick thoughts:

“What appear to be many plants are all connected in the soil”--we’re talking about inhabitants of the house, it’ll come back around, I can smell it.

Fascinated by the Maid’s hiding the ‘truth’ of Yukimasa from us, so she, too, has a role in how the stories are told, or maybe that’s part of the house’s control over her, I’m not actually sure.

“A beast wants a tether” what a fucking great idea, that freedom is not all its cracked up to be, and that unchecked freedom is death in a sense? I dunno, interesting for certain.

Yukimasa looks a little like Keanu Reeves

*I’m going to assume for the moment though please no one tell me anything inany direction that we are the White Haired Girl and the reason her name is so frequently blocked out is that we aren’t supposed to learn our name yet. I do not love this paired with the “She is blameless, in this or any time” and frankly I don’t love that even if we AREN’T the poor widdle white haired girl, but it’s na interesting conceit given that she seems to not be reborn, necessarily, but always…there? Is she herself bound to tragedy?

**Because though Rose Manor was in England, Weeping Manor is in Spain. So the manor can move. I don’t have a thought on that right at the moment, but I did not google “Where can you grow oranges in Europe and when was Spain unified” for nothing.

#doc plays the house in fata morgana #the house in fata morgana #doc plays games #commission review

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docholligay · 6 months

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House in Fata Morgana: Door 6.75

Okay so I absolutely did not make it to the next door, which is frustrating for me from a scheduling standpoint, but makes sense narratively, I should have trusted that the door situation was streamlined and that’s on me.

So, let’s first get aside all of the notes about Morgana’s life. It much the way it frustrated me with Giselle, it frustrates me that none of Morgana’s problems can be a result of her own actions, or feelings, or whatever. I feel really fucking bad for her, but in the sort of way you do a kicked dog, not a human being you feel empathy with. She acts like a fucking saint, it is very difficult to think of that sort of person as being a fully realized human. BUT, I do love that we meet with Mell and Yukimasa and Jacopo, though of course owing to the shortness of the story but, they’re all very mustache-twirling and not nearly as interesting and layered as I found their stories within their own doors. But I think that’s fair.

Couple standout things here for me: I am not so sure that she doesn’t have some sort of power, but I also think the argument she doesn’t is completely legitimate, and I love that! I love not really knowing, certainly not every person who ever had a torturous life and horrible death gerts to wreak fucking havoc, i’m just saying. But I love that it could just be sheer faith, in both love and hate.

The way that she cuts herself, and people love her and praise her for it, and so she comes to cherish her hurts and cuts. Loved this as an example of the ways that, in how we online socially reward sadness and brokenness with attention, contribute to this idea of cherishing our hurts. This isn’t me saying that we should never share anything that sucks online, but I think all of us are pretty aware of how responses to a creative, or happy post can be versus a post about something bad can be, and I think that can be reinforcing, and you start to see those as immutable parts of you. Anyway, send hatemail, it’s fine.

BUT WHAT WE’RE REALLY HERE FOR. Okay so I called Michel being Michelle but I have to confess, “Michel is a trans man” (Kinda????????? I guess???????? I don’t fucking know, he says his body is male now and that was not strictly speaking possible in 1099, so unless there was magic involved or he’s being metaphorical or something here, I have no idea what’s going on) is NOT where I expected the game to go and I am sucking my TEETH with nervousness about how they’ll handle this. All of my reticence for Michel and Michelle being the same person comes out of my fear that they will handle the gender thing so so so badly, and I still absolutely feel that way.

I am pleased, I guess, in a narrative sense, that they have Giselle respond in a reasonable and common way for a woman of her time, and honestly, all the times she’s lived in. I expected full on “Bodies don’t matter to me <3” which does annoy me in “historical” fiction. Of course it happened, but it was not all that commonplace, and it’s just something that grates me. So even if she comes around, and I suspect she will, I’m glad we got to avoid magical cool girl from 1099 Giselle. She had a reaction that feels bad and is historically plausible as shit. We love that! Gives her room to move and makes everything feel less fake.

Also, did Michel seriously think he was never going to have to confront this KID, COME ON. For someone who has built up a shield of never trusting anyone around yourself you sure are trusting that Giselle is going to this thing that she could not reasonably have seen coming REAL FUCKIN WELL. It’s such a part of the contradiction of Michel. He’s closed off, he’s vulnerable. He’s cruel, he’s tender. He’s intelligent, he’s A FUCKING MORON. I love him! I am going to punch him in the fucking face!

ONTO DOOR 7 FOR REAL I GUESS

#doc plays the house in fata morgana #doc plays games #commission review

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docholligay · 6 months

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The House in Fata Morgana: Door Six--The Maid's Tale

Okay so this was not God’s most thrilling episode in Fata Morgana, admittedly. That’s not to say it was bad, but it’s a lot of ground that we already have been over, and it leads to an idea that we’ve been introduced to within the story before, with a few extra details, some of which are neat, but regrettably none of which seem to do enough to deepen the character of Giselle that I can fully adore the chapter, and the end of which is definitely prolonged in a way that doesn’t keep me engaged.

Spoilers below:

Genuinely the most interesting idea that comes up in this is something we’ve thought about mildly before, but really haven’t delved into deeply, and that is: At what point along the line do you stop being yourself? The whole point of this chapter is to watch Giselle lose herself, bit by bit, on the backdrop of stories we know. And i LOVE that. I love watching Giselle try to protect herself, but in trying to protect herself, she is chipping away at herself, bit by bit. It’s like, you know how freezing preserves things? But, if you leave it frozen for long enough, it gets freezerburnt, until eventually, whatever you saved, is inedible. Is nothing. Bears no resemblance to what it was. What is the moment for that?

This is a thing that I love thinking about. I love the idea that you can’t trust yourself, and how easily we can be convinced that our memories are different. How we are all the unreliable narrators of our own lives. You tell yourself a story enough times, and the details get tweaked just enough, each time, slipping further and further away until the cliff of the reality falls away into the sea. What does truth even mean, if the story that now stands has meaning to us? I love this idea that so much of Michel is no longer a memory but a STORY, and in being a story, it can change as it needs to, which is what leads us to the white haired girl.

I am still not certain that Michel ISN’T Michelle, somehow. I don’t know why i persist in this even though the story keeps telling me no, and I’ll be honest, I don’t even want to deal with whatever strange gender handling they would have around it, but it feels like too much of a coincidence to me that there’s two weirdass put-upon albinos running around this mansion. Also, could that be what she’s talking about when she says, ‘You havent’ figured it out yet?” because I BELIEVE I HAVE. UNLESS. Unless. What if Michelle is a construction created by the witch, in order to fool Giselle and drop her down into despair? That’s something I could not only live with, but seems to fit the general super-evil we have going for Morgana, and I think I would like it as a narrative bit.

Speaking of being two people and being one person, I actually sort of love the idea of Giselle also being the witch, even though I know we’re not going to have that be any kind of reality within the story. The idea that to protect herself, she could have split like that, that the witch fell in love with the boy who revived her (Very interesting also, that. So Michel did make a deal with the devil, that wasn’t just part of the mythos.) and when he rejected her or whatever I can imagine might have happened, she constructed this whole beautiful story, and then it wasn’t beautiful enough still, and so she created yet another layer of story on top of it. The fucking palimpsest of our own personal histories. Incredible, love it. I don’t think it’s something the story is doing, but I love the idea.

I love how I was like ‘This wasn’t a super exciting episode” but I’ve spent like 500 words talking about this one aspect. I’m not lying though! It’s just that this one idea is SO good that it barely matters that the rest sort of drags.

We give Morgana a lot of shit within the story for manipulating Giselle or whatever, and I’m not saying she’s great, and in fact I admit that she is a mustache-twirling villain, and I love that for her. But. Morgana could have been very straightforwardly, ‘babygirl I am going to emotionally tear you down over hundreds of years, but I promise you, you will find him, reconstructed to be your Michel. If. If. You can keep yourself long enough to find him.” and she would not even for one second let Morgana fucking FINISH before she said, “Yes. That’s great. I’ll do it.”

It is funny to me though, when Hayden shows up and she’s like, “Oh, i learned a few words of English in 1099, THAT’LL BE ENOUGH TO CONVERSE.” Okay, you have to be fucking shitting me, I have no idea why they didn’t just do the, ‘The house translates what I say into English or Spanish (We never bring it up in Spain) or whatever” It’s such a bizarre thing to specifically call out, and I think it’s actually more clunky than not having it be brought up at all. I did very much love the line, “Blood is nothing but an obstacle to ambition.” I thought that was great.

Okay, if I don’t talk about it now, i’m not going to: I LOVED the part where she asks if he thinks she can even come close to being the same person, if she might not hate him after having waited all this time, after his sacrifice also made a sacrifice of her. What does it mean to love her, now that she is irrevocably changed? He is Michel, reconstructed. But she is not Giselle, reconstructed. She is Giselle, who has been forced to go on. She has nearly a thousand years behind her, of watching and waiting and loving and hating. She is Giselle and she is the Maid and she is the Witch and she has wanted the best of beasts and men and white haired girls. I loved that! If course, she backtracks it so so fast, and that frustrates me because that could be so much more interesting than just literally finding her again in the darkness and, I don’t know, hitting Morgana with a chair. If he had to own up to being willing to love her while she hates him.

Love this line: “Some times I think love and fanaticism are the same thing.” I totally fucking disagree but I love the line, and I love the bitterness that comes out of the line.

“The Story behind the Story” is such an odd way to open the next door, and puts me in mind of something like a behind the scenes writing documentary mid-VN, which would be fucking hilarious and amazing.

#Doc plays The House in Fata Morgana #Doc plays games #Commission review

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docholligay · 8 months

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The House in Fata Morgana: Intro

I have never reviewed a visual novel before, but @iscahwynn made me a very generous offer and a long line of patience, knowing that we are trying something very new. To that end: Please don’t spoil me for the game at all! If you are reading this, I have only gotten through the part written above, and I don’t want to be corrected, even if I’m wrong, even if I’ve missed something, i don’t want to have anything confirmed or denied, and I don’t need any trigger warnings or extraneous explanation. Iscah would like my pure, naive experience of the game. Thank you!

So i’m going into this game, and i have no idea what to expect. I am not very visual novel savvy: i have played a hardful of them, but not enough to say that I know them well. Largely, I have assumed that they would never be more for me than “fun,” which is a perfectly fine place to exist, but not on the scale of where I would put my favorite pieces of media.

I have no idea where this visual novel is going to come down, but I will say in the intro, it has my attention.

Before I go any further, I want to say I do have one assumption going into it, based on my knowledge. Fata Morgana. A fata morgana is an illusion, often specifically a castle upside down, generally above water, and it is a natural phenomenon, but I deeply suspect that ‘natural’ has nothing to do with anything ehere, and so I focus instead on the qualities of illusion, specifically illusion of nobility, and also that fata morgana is based on Morgan LeFay, the evil fairy-sort-of-depending-on-the-version queen that opposes King Arthur. So the DESTRUCTION of nobility, of good faith, of honor, of all that, is bound up in that idea. So, I don’t know jack or shit about visual novels, but I do know about fatas morgana.

First thing I see when I open the game is this:

Now, we love a strong disclaimer. I love potentially disturbing content, and I love that people are so stupid In These Times that you have to specifically say, 'Just because I wrote

a character doing a bad thing does not mean I necessarily believe in bad things.’ Because anything where you say ‘You may have to excuse me’ usually means that we are going to push things, this is not going to be an easy romper room kind of game, that we are going to toy with the edge. And I love that! I am grown, and I want grown games.

The second thing i see is this:

And I think, “Oh, this game is going to try and scare me. Cool. I’m in.” And immediately put on my headphones.

I don’t yet know if the game is in fact going to try and scare me, but I will say that the sound layering in this game so far is absolutely fantastic, the song that they sing in the intro I can’t pick out the language of, and that may just be a failing on my part, but it adds to the mystery for me, I, like the Master, have no idea where we’ve come from or where we’re going. I really love, personally, that the game is not voice acted, as I have discovered that tends to make visual novels more immersive for me, versus how voice acting takes me out of the moment. I think i’m very much in the minority there, and that’s fine, but I found myself in the moment, reading the story rather than having to hear it.

So we are the ones that are carried across time, back to the house again and again, the ones ‘crucified’ and now that was an intersting choice to me, because obviously this game is dabbling in some Christian and I think specifically Catholic garb, but crucifixion, is, historically, punishment for a crime. So what is it that we’ve committed, here? What can it be that we are not even allowed to die, but God brings us back again and again?

Speaking of which, i find it really interesting the way that “You”--the story is mostly told in second person--is capitalized, like the name of God. Is that a mistake in the translation (again, PLEASE do not tell me) or is that meanignful and I’m meant to be paying attention to it? What is the master of the house but a little god?

Having just read Rebecca, I’m thinking a lot about masters and servants and strong masters and strong servants, and it does strike me particularly in that vein when she says “If you cannot remember who you are, then who am I to serve?*” because if he cannot be master than she must become it, right? She is our only guide throughout all this, she is the one who leads us down the darkened hallway, and we don’t even know her name. But she holds all the power.

I do think I might have fucked up the very first choice because I didn’t realize it was a choice! The game so far has some really glorious background and text styling, but because of it I had no clue what I was actually looking at and I didn’t say good morning. I doubt that has fucked the whole game but it frustrated me ahaha. But now I know what it looks like and I think I can make better choices.

I am so glad they cleared up the mirror thing instantly, they saw the hole and closed it up, my very first idea was to go look in a mirror and see what I look like, who I am. I love that it is totally lost to us, we aren’t allowed to deal hint at who we might be. I suppose the only indicator given is that we are a man, since Master is used, instead of Miss or Mistress or Madam, depending on one’s leanings. But the game could be taking the assertion that the masculine form is neutral, as with actor and aviator and such things, no matter how much I hate it. I could be wrong here.

In general, the story’s hook is absolutely working for me. I am so excited to move onto the door and see what the hell it is that has gone on in this house, utterly devoid of love or light or life.

*I broadly think that line is correct. However, my one complaint with the game is it absolutely will not run windowed so I can reference it while writing this. Very very annoying.

#Doc plays The House In Fata Morgana #Doc plays games #commission review #I really need a tag for those so I can give examples of what you get

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docholligay · 8 months

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House in Fata Morgana: The First Door--1603

Non-Spoilery: Holy shit, I don’t think I have consumed a visual novel with this kind of fervor. In fact, the only other visual novel I think of where I was like, ‘I have to keep reading what happens” was We Know the Devil, and while I would say that game whups on this one prose-wise (I can’t relate to a lot of what people love about WNTD, but holy shit was the prose some of the most beautiful game stuff I have ever read. I wished the whole time it was a short story or novella instead. Still do!) this one has a lot of plot driving through it and the writing is also very strong--I am used to a certain amount of ‘anime gotta anime’ writing styles, and there is none of that here.

Spoilers below

I love a story that rewards patience. I could see some people saying that this moves too slowly, but I like to read a Meaty Tome, and so it doesn’t bother me to have to deal with a certain amount of setup, especially because I know this is a collection of short stories, sure, but it’s a collection of short stories taht are all driving at an ending. It might not even be fair to call them short stories so much as…episodes, maybe? I don’t know, they are connected but years apart. I guess i’m actually spitballing too much for having actually not played beyond chapter one.

So i am 98.6% sure we are in England (please don’t tell me!) Given the references to the Thirty Years’ War, the Golden Age, and winter being a rainy season, all packed into one. Also Rhodes is a British name. I might be wrong but I would be surprised if I were.

How do I organize this “progress reviewlet” or whatever I want to call it? Let’s just go with the flow.

Again, I love that this is unvoiced. It makes the game read so much more like a book to me, which makes me consume it voraciously, and also doesn’t take me out of the moment. Intensely aware that I am in the minority here, but when I’m reading something that I think probably takes place in late Elizabethan England, and I’m hearing Japanese, it takes me out of the immersion and it’s more like watching an anime, which is fine but doesn’t light up the same center of my brain, generally. Actually, the same would be true if it were English. I can’t mainline the story and let it play out in my mind the way it does when I read it. I read this like I do a visual novel, I barely pay attention to the art except in the “where is everyone standing” way, and that’s not even very helpful for this. So in reading it like a book, I feel like I saw Mell slap Nellie, I feel like I saw the light cross the White Haired Girl’s face as she failed to strangle Mell. It just makes the whole thing more immersive for me.

Speaking of Nellie, what a wild ride that was. I mean, we knew something was going to be up with Nellie’s level of spoiled when we heard that they removed the thorns from the roses in the garden so she would never be pricked. In that moment, we learn something about the fact that Nellie doesn’t understand what consequences are, she never learns that the things we may want can hurt us. And so she keeps going for the exact things she wants, and she has no sense of danger or of the need for pragmatism, or anything beyond the desires and whims of a spoiled child.

It truly says something about the quality of the writing that pretty much my most hated squick came up and all I could do was go, ‘Oh girl what happens next” and just kept clicking. I mean, the game very much tips its hand to it, it is not trying to shock you because that’s not the sort of game it is. It wants you to understand that this is who Nellie is and of course this is how she’s going to act.

But for as monstrous as she is, you feel for her, or I do, when she says, not wrongly, that she was only ever, a “a doll for the family to play with”

The idea of paintings being alive, of being changed as they are painted, that really stuck with me, and I know the painting was the small mystery within the bigger ones contained within the game, I can’t quite get anywhere with it, but I do agree that paintings have a quality of life to them. This is why it could be some future girl, it could be Nellie, it could be another person in another time.

So witches. Let’s talk about this. I know that we have a lot of cross talk about the white haired girl, and if the white haired girl is the witch she takes herself to be or if she’s a hidden princess. And then we have the maid. These two are the unnamed characters within the story thus far, and I know they must be unnamed for a reason, but I didn’t really take the witch thing on its face until the rose turned in her hand.

Oh, Doc, so you think there’s a real witch, and you think it’s the white haired girl? One, yes, I suppose I do and two, no, i suppose I don’t. Remember, the Maid is with her, and I’m also remembering the that the title of this game is The House at Fata Morgana, and I also know, being the one thing I know from the start being about fatas morgana, that they supposedly come from Morgan Le Fay, A WITCH.

So, I’m wondering if the maid isn’t the witch, and if she isn’t creating all of this as an illusion, and IF she is creating all of this as an illusion, how much of it is the facts of that matter? Or the truth? Those are different things, but related. Is it all created of whole cloth?

I mean, i feel like the game of the story has to clearly be about the White Haired girl and the Maid, I can look at a title card--OH SHIT AM I THE WHITE HAIRED GIRL?? (Please don’t tell me but do put a pin in it) that would make sense, we’re both the two unnamed characters, we’re on the title card. Hm.

Is it better to know something, or to be happy? I mean, this is basically the core question and thesis of this segment, and it seems to lean heavily toward no. Everyone was happier not knowing, except, i do want to point out, Nellie. I’m not arguing she’d be happy knowing, she’s not, but I do want to say she would be UNHAPPY in either circumstance.

I don’t agree with the maid that his error was his kindness. His kindness was not his fuckup. It was his desire, and his drive, that came outside of any thought of the family (especially rich considering how he lectures Nellie) to HAVE this girl who captured him in her own flame. She didn’t even mean to, like the candle means no harm to the moth. But kindness, no, kindness was not the issue.

But I do love when she says that we have to follow the paths we’ve begun to trod down. He can’t change any of it, and so he has to go forward.

In all, I liked this section, I have no idea how it will stack up against the others but I can see it laying building blocks for the future of the story.

While being cautious of spoilers, please, if you have any questions, i’ll try to answer!

#Doc plays games #commission review #doc plays the house in fata morgana

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docholligay · 6 months

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The House in Fata Morgana: Door Four -- 1099

Non-spoilery: There’s a lot to like about this story for me, even before we get into the more…for the sake of not being spoilery i’ll call it “creative elements”. I think I would like the story even if it were simply the face story, but the creative elements allow us to play even more with what is happening outside of the text itself, and it gives a very different element to what has already been an interesting game

SPOILERS BELOW

So the fun about this door is that it’s bullshit, but you have to try and figure out how much of it is bullshit and how much of it isn’t bullshit, and boy would you think that’s easier than it actually is. It IS a temptingly neat story, full of love, some key beauty and the beast elements, learning to love each other, a promise that can obviously only end in tragedy, dying in your lover’s arms, a horrible bargain, blood in rivers. It’s got it all. I see what the painting was saying about not wanting to accept anything that makes it all just a little too pretty.

Because you would think, ‘Oh no it ends in death and such, it’s not pretty.” Wrong, the story is gorgeous and it provides such a beautiful justification for everything that has happened to the white haired girl, and also, in a way, made it her own fault. It’s also the stuff of fairy tales. Never in any other timeline do we see real magic, or curses, or anything like that. Remember, Yukimasa SAW himself as a beast, but he never was one, he always looked like a reasonably handsome young man. There hasn’t been magic in the story other than in THIS time, and I’m not 100% sure I believe that in 1099 curses were real and the shitty Dark Ages version of Pushing Daisies was coming about.

I do believe in the witch though, only because I’ve been thinking about her from day one, and this mansion that exists out of time, IS her fata morgana.

So now we’re left trying to untangle this story, and where is it real, and where is it a lie? The story does a really fun thing with the backlog here, where sometimes the witch communicates through that.

And there are glitches in the visuals, plenty of things for us to be told that parts of this story simply aren’t accurate. They aren’t the reality of what happened in that house.

I love the spot in the backlog where the witch tells us she’s going to rewrite the woman we loved. What does that mean, to rewrite someone? Are we creating Giselle, which may or may not be the White Haired Girl’s name--he says her name is Giselle, but it’s often xxx’d in the backlog, and the screen still says “White Haired Girl”--out of thin air? Was there ever a Giselle, or, for that matter, a Michel? It’s been hinted at that I may be the White Haired Girl, and if I am the White Haired Girl, is this all being written for me so i can feel sorry for myself? So that I’m the poor little meow meow of my own tale? Because she’s a fucking angel and doormat, and I would love if it turns out that’s all horseshit and this is all being written as something to further fool me into believing myself an innocent.

And we don’t…see the White haired girl, until we get up into the observation tower. That same tower that we saw in door one when the White haired Girl was telling Mell the story about the girl and the letters on a pigeon. That’s a very interesting choice to me, and it’s a very deliberate choice. See, for a moment there I thought we also might be Michel, because there’s this glorious screenshot:

Where we deal with the whole idea that we are trying, reaching, begging for our memories here, but those memories are being replaced by the images that are being put in front of us. We don’t know what’s real and what’s not.

I mean, to this moment, I have no idea if Michel ever existed, if there was ever a curse, if any of it was ever real. The game seems to be telling me the maid is Morgana, but that doesn’t make sense to me given that in door two, it felt like she and the house were two different entities, or is that yet more bullshit, and if it is bullshit, i think i should have been able to see some clue of that on the backlogs, which I couldn’t, or at least not in a way i noticed when I was talking about other chapters. I don’t know what I think about any of this at all! I feel terrible writing my impressions of this door when my impressions of this door were mostly “Fuck man?? I don’t know??”

But in trying to winnow out what’s true and isn’t, there were a few things that struck me:

1) I do not for a second believe that the story is just handwaving her survival, i believe the MAID/maybe Morgana is doing that, because we are being actively lied to. If the story were handwaving it, they wouldn’t be so obvious about it, because they would know it was a big problem narratively. Instead, the maid basically goes “Why was she actually alive when we were saying how dead she was, tenderly in his arms like a crushed rose petal. Beats the fuck out me!” They draw ATTENTION to that, that she is telling a story badly. That’s not a mistake, i don’t think.

2) We of course have all the backlog stuff going on, which is the really obvious thing, but it was so interesting to me when things were xxx’d and when they weren’t, as well as the fact that in the observation tower we had that direct conversation Morgana, trying to remember who we are, trying to remember who SHE is, and, its only in that room. So that room HAS to mean something.

Anyway, it’s so interesting because it feels so unfinished because it is despite being the whole door. The maid is staring at me right now telling me I’m the white haired girl and she’s morgana and I just can’t bring myself to believe any of it! It feels so fake! But like I need to keep going, not like, that’s the end, it’s a door, but it’s not the end of the tale the way the others were.

I love how Michel goes on about how unusual her red eyes and white hair are like he doesn’t fucking have them himself. Amazing.

I did roll my eyes hilariously at “i’m not going to hold your hand because then you’ll die hideous” okay i know we need to make allowances for the tragic ending, but how ridiculous was that?

On that note, I know this isn’t real, but even if it’s well-trodden road i love the inevitable tragedy of a curse like that. The blood he shed saving her comes to take her away? Beautiful. Love it. I am a simple woman.

At first i was thinking, ‘Oh so he’s a vampire” and I was wrong, but actually only kinda wrong!

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docholligay · 6 months

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House in Fata Morgana: Door...3+, I don't fuckin know

Mostly I just wanted to get this down while it was fairly fresh in my mind--I've played SOME of door 4 but I remembered how by the time I got to the end of door 3 I forgot to mention the interlude at all and wanted to avoid that.

So the painting. I'm going to assume that the painting is the White Haired Girl's father as seen in Door one. I don't agree with his idea that we can bear tragedies that don't belong to us, but not our own. I think we seek out tragedies as similarly to our own as possible, to feel known, somehow. To feel understood. Or maybe this is a personality thing, i don't know.

In any case, that's all a device to tell us the next door is a lie up front. Even if I hadn't been a little spoiled for this, I can in fact interpret "When you go through the next door, remember that anything that seems to beautiful and neat to be true probably is" as "this game is going to lie to you" (and as much as I've played in door 4 DON'T TELL ME this seems to be happening) so I'm not as bothered as I might be.

Going through the mansion:

FINALLY A JUMPSCARE. I've been sitting here for 3 doors now going, "Okay, why are these bitches making me wear headphones if it never wants to do something with--okay there it is, finally"

Very interesting to me that we're seeing these shadows and ghosts, if you will, but can't interact with them. Jacopo is no longer good at pool, Nellie and Mell's names are hidden from us, it's such an interesting bit.

I love the idea that the mansion is made of history and memories and of course it is, the mansion is ITSELF a narrative.

#Doc plays the house in fata morgana

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docholligay · 7 months

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Two questions! Which of the three protag-villains is your favorite so far? And what did you think of the little interlude where you entered the mirror between doors?

Oh, I would say probably Maria? I support women's wrongs, obviously, and Maria's absolutely wild long-con game and her joy over playing both sides is just, a whole other thing, and I love it. She's horrible, and she holds a grudge, and we're completely here for it.

If we're talking about 'dudes the white haired girl ends up with' in this role, actually...Jacopo. I was going to say Yukimasa, but I thik I just find parts of his story really compelling in PART, more than I like him so much, if that makes sense. But Jacopo is a particularly interesting breed of tragedy to me, and I feel for him more than I do Mell or Yukimasa, even if I'm like, 'Congratulations! You've caused 90% of your own problems!" (Though admittedly that is all of them)

Thank you for reminding me! I have a whole page of notes on that scene but got so caught up in "It fucking was not 1869" that I forgot it completely:

PLEASE DON'T CONFIRM OR DENY OR SPOIL ANYTHING

So this guy is related to the White Haired Girl, almost certainly, and there's a part of the door where they say something about her name being female but the same as a guy's, so...is her name Michelle? Because Michel/Michelle is a real easy jump.

He says that the witch's name is Morgan, so we're definitely doing a Morgan le Fay thing here, but then he also says that the witch is me. So there's something complicated going on with identity there, and this must be why the White Haired Girl continually gets accused of being the witch. Is it about the idea of who the witch is, like, are he and her the witch in the eyes of the people, so what he's saying isn't wrong, but the HOUSE itself is Morgan, is the witch--in door two specifically I remember the house having a real malevolent nature that seemed separate from anything else. The house is the narrative, the house is the witch, the witch is the story, I don't know there's something in there but I can't quite get to it. Writers create stories, they create conflict within them, writers often bring back the same KINDS of characters with different names over and over again. I don't know if this is anything.

Giselle: i don't know who the fuck this bitch is. The maid, maybe?

I have a note about the landscape painting, but I can't go back far enough in my backlog to see the scene! It struck me for some reason enough to note it down though.

#doc plays the house in fata morgana

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docholligay · 7 months

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House in Fata Morgana: Door Three --1869

Non-spoilery: This is not so much a horror story as it is a revenge story, and one I think I really would have enjoyed if not for the fact that it purports to take place in 1869 in the Eastern United States, which unfortunately is a time period and place about which I am pretty knowledgable. It actually doesn’t want to take place in 1869--the political-social aspects of mob culture and building America are better suited for a placement in the 1890s at earliest, and really better placed in the 1910s-1920s. It gets married to both its 1600-1700-1800 progression and its desire to involve the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, and this ends up hurting the frame for what is actually an enjoyable story about the long tail of revenge and what we are born to do.

Spoilers below:

BOY, do I wish this hadn’t taken place in the time period it says it takes place in. Other than the Transcontinental Railroad, this story really does not want to take place in 1869. The music used, the cultural upheaval of wealthy immigrants becoming a part of high society, the establishment of the Sicilian mob in the US, the hairstyles used, the slang used, the social class as a function of marriage, all of this actually wants the story to take place at least thirty years later. For most people, this is going to be fine, but I found it so distracting that it made this door not particularly fun for me to play. It wasn’t even “this isn’t accurate” it was “If you just moved your year, this would be so in the wheelhouse that the inaccuracies would be small” instead of the constant buzzing glare of it. I am trying not to bore everyone with this but the first pizzeria in the entire US did not open until the 1900s. The first recorded use of “the willies” was in 1896. I assume the perfume being referenced is Guerlain Jicky, known for being one of the first prominent vanilla base perfumes, and that was released in 1889. I am dying here.

Okay, Doc, we get it, you didn’t care for the time period it was set in but let’s talk about the story.

I actually loved the idea that Maria had been sitting around waiting for her moment for years, and the fact that Jacopo believed that their bond overrode any anger she would have over being essentially dethroned and her family murdered. I wanted to yell so much at Jacopo and his father because I feel as if this could have been very easily avoided by making Maria “our beloved sister” or something, and having her legitimately help Jacopo in his quest to establish the family in the US. I’m pretty sure there’s actually precedent for this in history, as it gives Maria a lot less reason to upset the apple cart, because she’s still benefitting by it. If I were Maria, I also would be endlessly enraged that I was serving as a maid to the boy I grew up with because his family murdered mine. I would be a little sore about that. What she does doesn’t surprise me, and as soon as I found out she had grown up with him and their families had been at war, I figured out that was going to be the story of it.

Jacopo is an interesting character because he’s trying so hard to be a strong hand at things that he ends up absolutely screwing himself over. He doesn’t know how to be genuine to himself because he has no idea who that man is, so he’s playacting at being this big tough capofamiglia guy, and eventually he has to buy into that himself, leaving him unable to make meaningful connections with anyone. It’s so interesting taken next to the last door, because door 2 was so literally violent and its consequences so obvious, but door three is such a sense of personal violence, and so drawn in. Of course he doesn’t kill the White Haired Girl, because that would be action and decision on anything personal. Of course he doesn’t speak to her. His violence is one of inaction, and it costs terribly at the end of the day. I found this so human, to be so weak in such personal ways.

I really did love the very end where it shows Maria and Jacopo in their little hideaway and they briefly talk about running away and getting a job elsewhere together, and getting away from all this, and you see how if they had just been brave enough to do that, if they had been brave enough to go against the thing that they had been told they were born for, they might have made it out. They might have found something different and better. I don’t agree with the way the game says its in their blood, because I don’t believe in that sort of thing, but I do believe we can get lockedinto things we think must be true about ourselves, and so we are the ones who pen our tragedies with our own hand.

By the way, Costa Nosta isn’t “Our house” game, it’s “Our thing” if you are going to directly reference the Italian-American mob please hit up google.

It must be said that I am getting a little tired of the White Haired Girl’s shit. I don’t do “Pathetic sad downtrodden character :(“ very well, it’s something i don’t connect with, and in the same way that I think jacopo needs to open up, she needs to step the fuck up in at least one of these goddamn timelines and stop being a doormat if she doesn’t want to be one.

Calling it Pig Iron Manor was interesting to me because pig iron is a crude iron that’s very brittle and not really useable for much. I don’t know if that’s meant to be a commentary on Jacopo himself or if they just thought it sounded cool, but I could see it working for Jacopo even if I don’t strictly speaking agree.

Don’t answer this--so why WAS all the latin about the witch in maria’s handwriting? I never did figure that out for myself, and it felt like a really strange inclusion into a story that 100% worked without any mention of the witch or the portrait.

#Doc plays the house in Fata Morgana #doc plays games #commission review

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docholligay · 6 months

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House in fata Morgana: Door 6.5 (I think)

Okay so the door system sort of breaks down here, and so I'm not sure I've gotten all the way to the next door, but I think I have? We'll act as if I made it.

Anyway we learn about Giselle and Michel a little bit, and a lot of it is either things we know, or things that makes sense. Though I will say that "Blood is a bond heavier than any chain" is a very cool line even if it's not one that resonates with me--Y'all are working on "if it sucks, hit the bricks" but please trust that I have historically had no problem doing that even as regards family, so this is not a thing I really understand.

BUT, none of that really matters, because what really kicks ass here is meeting with the three shades, who we know to be Mell, Yukimasa, and Jacopo. ANd the three keys thing is obvious, that's not even what is so interesting about it, what is interesting to me is the different reactions of the three of them.

Mell actually was the easiest for me to parse, because of fucking course even if he feels fear and anger he's going to let something else be the instrument of his rejection, and I do want to point out that for his whole sad little boy routine, he's the only one that HURTS Michel. This is the game telling us that our desire to see Mell as the most innocent of them is a mistake, that Mell is violent just as Jacopo and Yukimasa are, but somehow worse because his crime is in ALLOWING things to happen, or suggesting they do. it's not even HONEST in the way, say, Jacopo is here. I loved it, the way his weakness was made into a weapon, the way the game wants us to see him as culpable, too.

the hardest one I think for me actually is Yukimasa, and I'm glad they have Michel ask too, why he just gave him the key. If I had to guess, I would say that like a dog kept on a chain too long, Yukimasa's spirit is broken, and because he is a beast at core he cannot escape that. He rolls over and takes it, and hands over the key, because what else is left for his broken self?

Then there's Jacopo. And I ADORE that Jacopo's answer to the whole thing is that he is going to fight the witch himself. He basically implies that he's going to fucking shoot Morgana. I love it. He is still so angry, and so direct, and so his solution to this is that he is going to engage on any front, despite knowing that Morgana has him outmaneuvered. In some ways I would say Jacopo has learned nothing, and I absolutely adore that for him. He still thinks he can strong arm his way thorough everything.

So yeah, I'm ready to hear Morgana's tale, but I will say the rehash of the three, with a slightly different edge, was a really neat entr'acte.

#Doc plays the house in fata morgana #Doc plays games #commission review

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docholligay · 6 months

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House in Fata Morgana: Door 4.5 I guess

Quick thoughts:

So I did figure out I was Michel before I had to be outright told, and I think the game makes it pretty obvious so I'm not patting myself on the back TOO hard there, but one place i WILL pat myself on the back is I did not fall for the Maid being Morgana. I think her role in Door two just made it impossible for me to fathom, if it HAD turned out to be true I would have been disappointed in the story, because it took SUCH pains, especially in that door, to separate the will of the house from her will.

Anyway, loved the whole bit ripping and tearing in the darkness, the pain and anguish that comes when you have to face up to the person you were. It's so much harder to look at the past and see yourself honestly, see yourself with all your flaws, see your relationships with all their woes, and to CHOOSE that takes more strength than you know. And that's easy to say, but how many of us have known someone who won't own up to their role in their own misery? I know I've been guilty of the sometimes myself.

LOVE the POV switch from "your body" to "my body" it's such a small thing but it changes the way we see the story so much in that moment.

Also completely agree that if your characters in a story aren't a little ugly, a little flawed, if they are to blame for NOTHING, then they aren't real. I am so so happy that I was completely justified in my frustrations with the White Haired girl, and that this was meant to be a feature of the story, that she was too good to be real, that we were SUPPOSED to reject her. It makes me trust this game so much!

#doc plays the house in fata morgana #doc plays games #commission review

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docholligay · 6 months

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The House in Fata Morgana: Door Five--1099

Non-spoilery: Our ‘true’ story--I was going to go into this thing about how all stories are true in some way, but we’ve all been here for me saying that sort of thing and you don’t need me to say it again--is actually a lot neater than I thought it was going to be by the selling of it in the bit with the landscape painting. Not in a way that’s overwhelmingly disappointing or anything, but there’s not a lot of room to feel dislike of Giselle. She’s an overwhelmingly positive and cheerful girl who Experiences the Horrors and stays positive and cheerful, and I DO love that in a character, but I would be massively overselling it to say the idea of it being a more complex tale carries through. But, it’s a much more human story than the one we’re given in door four, with people tripping over each other, bruising each other, and a total lack of magic of any kind.

Spoilers below

I will give this to the writers all day long, i love that they let Michel be such a fucking jerk about everything. They make him very hard to like, and that makes it easy for us to understand Giselle when she straight-up tries to get him killed to get herself out of a shitty and unfair situation. (If I were going to criticize something in this door pretty majorly, it would be that I don’t care for Giselle never being responsible for any of her problems ever. I would have been happier to have had her, say, agree to sleep with Antonin under duress instead of straight up being raped and having “Harlot” carved into her flesh. That one earned a bit of any eyeroll. Or even if she took the position at the Bollinger estate initially because she wanted to grasp for social position! Something like that, where at the very least, I could go, “Oh honey, you got yourself in over your head) So much of this story echoes the fourth door, especially in the beginning, but they really give you the impression that some of Michel’s problems are Michel’s fucking fault, and I love that. He’s so caught up in his victim complex that he doesn’t understand Giselle is afraid of him because HE IS ACTIVELY MEAN TO HER. Amazing.

That complaint about Giselle being voiced, I DO like that she’s not a pushover in the same way the White Haired Girl was. Giselle yells, and says that things are fucking unfair, and is pushy, and I love that about her. She’s a far more fully realized person even if I think the writing plays it a little too careful in order to make sure you understand that Giselle is the victim here.

Continuing in the vein of “Let’s be confused about the white haired girl,” it seems like my theory that they were the same person was incorrect, and it was some sort of lost love? Who the fuck is marrying off these albino children in France in the 1090s? So if it’s a romance that went awry, is she the Devil he made a pact with? (Supposedly) Or is she the witch, and because it’s her casting all these stories as a jealous (??) woman, she is making the white haired girl out to be this perfect angel who would never do anything bad or wrong? But if that IS the gambit, why bother trying to convince Michel that he’’s the white haired girl? Is it because if Michel came back as a woman, Giselle wouldn’t be into her? They would be literally together forever but also not “together” in the way they planned. I don’t know.

The whole situation with the village seemed like a bit of an odd inclusion for me. I realize we need to give Giselle a way to betray Michel, too, so that they can build trust with each other again and all that. But it takes a fair amount of time simply to put Giselle in a bad enough situation that we can’t feel too angry at her for selling Michel up the river. As I stated earlier, this isn’t a thing I need--I could have lived with her being mad about the fact that Michel treated her like absolute shit and threatened her with a fucking knife, and selling him out--but I recognize tht they want your feelings about Giselle to be completely uncomplicated, and so unfortunately we have to endure quite a bit of misery porn when it comes to her.

I do feel bad for the girl that she has to beg for death in order to get a fucking word in edgewise.

I realy wanted something to come out of the rose, and how he didn’t know how to handle it, and so he accidentally plucked it, and realized he’d been so interested in it that he killed it. I thought for sure he was going to accidentally kill Giselle or something, because he didn’t know how to handle something he was unaccustomed to, however beautiful it might be and however much he might love it, but that never materialized.

I loved that he had the realization that the person he was becoming wasn’t. In many ways, him, but he didn’t want to be the miserable bastard he had been. That this new person he was becoming was in every way better, and that he had only ever more possibility.

The end was…fine, I guess? I don’t know, I’m certainly not disappointed with it in any way and I think it fits with the story and my expectations of it, so I’m not complaining by any stretch of the imagination, I just didn’t feel much about it. I guess that’s the downside ot a story being more real, is that there is no beautiful poetry in most of our ends. I don’t think Michel did anything wrong in saving Giselle, I think he did the only thing he could do, the only gift he had to give her.

I am very intrigued to see the Maid’s side of all this.

Bollinger as in like, Bollinger champagne? Hilarious. Amazing. I’m getting myself some when i finish this game.

I noticed in this door that there seemed to be less portraits of the characters. I don’t know if that’s to focus us in on Michel and Giselle, or if it’s because we’re running out of free cash, or what, but it was odd to me that at the very least Amedee didn’t get a portrait or anything.

On the note of art, man could I have done with less of Giselle breasting boobily everywhere I am concerned also that these artists don’t understand how breasts attach to the body.

#Doc plays the house in fata morgana #Commission review #Doc plays games

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