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These profiles used to be on the Valiant Hearts website, but I keep getting redirects from that page now. So, I decided to grab them with the Wayback Machine and stuff them here for future reference, since there are a lot of little tidbits in the profiles that aren't included in the game.

( Valiant Hearts Main Cast Profiles )

✿ This week was exhausting. But! I get a four-day weekend. That more than makes up for it, let me tell you. Hopefully I'll be able to pound out the draft for the trade fic I need to do. All of the prompts were great, but I think I've decided which one I want to do and where I want it to go, so we'll see if I'm successful with that.

✿ It's a good thing I'll have extra time this weekend, because I have a ton of running around to do. Don't know how these things pile up so much, but they do. Need to buy mum a birthday present and make a reservation for supper and so on and so forth. There's this Italian place that opened a couple months ago, and I'm hoping to take her to it. Might be nice. I hear it's pretty swank, which means it probably won't be open long - I can't see a place with a dress code actually lasting in a city like this, so we'll have to enjoy it while we can.

✿ Still working on that VH FST. Ended up having to adjust the concept a little, because it was getting to be too much history-focused and too little character-focused. I can do a history-based playlist later (apparently there are a bunch of them on 8tracks; I should have thought to look, hum). We'll see... I need to do a lot more testing, but I think it's starting to shape up the way I want it.

✿ I've seen people say the Valiant Hearts has little replay value. I would say.... I don't agree with that at all, because I've replayed almost every part of it several times and I still enjoy it. Worked my way through Ypres while on the bus today, and still enjoyed playing through that. Not to mention the cut scene before Reims - I've seen it at least half a dozen times, and played Reims that same amount, and it still has impact. (Then again, I'm a sucker for Anna taking risks and Karl in distress....) But I'm, uh, probably a lot more invested in the story/characters than the average player. Most of what I see is people talking about the emotional impact of the ending, and not much beyond that. :|a Hmm.

Still feeling out of sorts, so I'm going to continue hiding away a bit and being unsocial. Pardon me.

Just a few Valiant Hearts thoughts today -

☆ Whenever a well-liked LPer does a Let's Play of Valiant Hearts, the tag inevitably gets filled with stuff that has less to do with being fannish over the game itself and more to do with people being fannish over the LPer. I always get a little disgruntled over it. But I try to be glad for it too, because it'll be good to have the names on-hand as reference for when I put together my Yuletide letter, since of course I plan to offer/request VH. It'll be useful to have a way for people who think it sounds interesting to experience it without actually playing it - especially since I found it hard to get it to run, needing to play it on a borrowed computer. (Note to self: Cryaotic did the LP that people were crying over last year; Jacksepticeye is the one that people are flailing over more recently.)

☆ One upside of people being excited over LPs is that sometimes, do they end up doing stuff related to the game. Today I came across some nice fanart of Marie - here (postgame, spoilery I suppose). I never actually stopped to seriously consider how she would react to that letter, and now I just - Oh, man. So sad. There have also been some nice screenshot-based photosets - a lot were made by one person, so I'll just link their tag for it (and of course these are spoilery too).

☆ I was going to transcribe the diary entries from screencaps for the VH wiki this past weekend, and I just didn't feel like it. But I really should get around to it. A lot of people don't like the ingame diaries; I've heard several say that they're one of the weakest parts of the game, that they don't really add anything, and so on. While I do feel that the individual voices could be stronger, and that the individual entries would be better if they were longer and included more information that isn't included in the game narration, they still give some useful character information. Admittedly, mostly for the timeline, but that's still important. (I still haven't been able to put together a solid/good version of the timeline... Keep getting distracted)

☆ Thinking about transcribing the profiles from the official site for the wiki as well. It isn't really necessary, since... they're on the official site, but it might be useful to have all of the information in one place. Especially since some of the stuff over there can't be found anywhere else (birthdates, the name of Anna's father, almost all of Emile's biographical information....) Eh, well, I'll get to it eventually. Probably.

One of those days where everything is going just fine, AND THEN

..."Nurture" from the Valiant Hearts OST came up on shuffle.

And I burst into tears.

I thought I was over the ending of that game, but I guess not. Probably won't be for quite a while.

Though it's a rather sad tune even without the context, I think. Pretty, though. I have a thing for slow, gentle piano songs.

( Embed under the cut )

I was going to be productive tonight, but I decided not to bother. Today was a very long day and I needed to relax a little instead of worrying about writing fic and whatever else.

So, I played some Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I've had this game for quite a while but I'm only just now working through the last case. Going to be perfectly honest here - it's an okay game, and I'm glad that I understand some of the inside jokes that fly around fandom about the series, but it's not one that I'm going to be replaying. And I probably won't be playing the other games in the series either, unless I can find them used and for a good price.

I'm actually rather disappointed - I was hoping that I would latch onto it, because a lot of my friends like it. And one of my favourite authors has written for the fandom, I think? Though it's hard to be sure, and I don't even know how I would find their stuff, since they're always anonymous (... It's a long story). But yeah, probably won't be seeking out anything for this. Oh, well.

Speaking of games, I replayed some of the later chapter seconds in Valiant Hearts today. I'm trying to 100% it, but some parts of it are hard. Like that one part where Anna needs to save Karl again without making any mistakes and it's like - okay, I'm crap enough at rhythm games as it is, but it's even harder when there's a guy screaming in agony in the background as you do it. :'D

To say nothing of the actual end of the game. Yeah, I cried. Again. I thought I could get though it but nnnnope. Managed to get some useful caps for the VH wiki, though. And photosets, perhaps. And icons. And.... Well, anyway. I technically shouldn't think of that stuff right now because I have so much to do but we'll see.

I spent a lot of time today doing Valiant Hearts stuff. Continuing my replay of the game, and also editing the wiki a bit. I kind of lost track of time... oops.

Going to have to put some time into it this weekend, on the computer rather than itouch. I still haven't 100%ed it, and I want to do that. Also, taking notes that way is less of a hassle because it's easier to jump between levels in the PC version (due to some fiddly stuff about how the menus work) and the screencaps of course look much nicer. And I need to take caps of a lot of the historical items - the wiki is missing images of most of them.

Still need to revise the character profiles for Emile and Karl. Anna, Freddie, and Walt are mostly done. I actually wasn't planning to work on that for a while, but then some overly-enthusiastic user began translating everything into Polish and I... uh. Decided to just write up everything properly rather than reverting the pages, since they were pretty bare to begin with. But anyway.

Recently (like, today) I saw someone suggest a sequel. This isn't the first time I've seen talk about a sequel, but that was a while back. Anyway, my reaction today was the same as it was before: No. No no no no oh hell no, I certainly do not want that. Leaving aside the fact that VH is wonderful as it is and it doesn't need a second game, what would the sequel even be? The discussion I saw from a while ago suggested a WWII sequel - because Karl and Marie's son would be prime age to get caught up in that by the time it rolls around - and there is not enough D: in the world to describe my feelings for that idea. Do not want, do not pass go, do not collect $20. That is to say -- Ubisoft pulled off this game and it was amazing, and I'm sure they could pull off one with that setting, and without doubt I would play it if they did, but the thought just makes me feel so awful, I don't even want to entertain the idea of it.

But I do like Dogs of War, so more supplemental comics like that one might be nice. There are some gaps in the game where another story could easily be fit in. Like, they could do more stuff with Karl and Anna, or Freddie and Emile while they were traveling together earlyish in the game, or maybe something with Marie during the time that Saint Mihiel was occupied, or they could do something with George the pilot since it seems like he had a backstory all set - he was supposed to be in the game but he was cut from it, after all. But another game? No way. Non. Do not want.

I also remember in that discussion that I saw, someone noted that the game ends in 1917. Which means that technically at the end of the game, there's plenty of time left during the First World War for all of our beloved characters to die horribly. Though I do think the ending images suggest that at the very least, Karl and his family survive until the end of it and can live happily... But I don't remember if there was any hint about what post-war life is like for Freddie and Anna, or if they even live through it at all. I'll have to pay closer attention to the ending cutscenes once I get through it the second time. The first time around, I was kind of, um, crying.

Anyway. Yes... Some of those things have been on my mind for a few days now. I'm still not sure I've articulated everything that I've been thinking about them, but I guess that doesn't matter.

I was going to do something productive tonight, but then the new VH comic strip came out.

It's cute! But sad! And it's only available for the mobile version, from what I can tell. So I'll talk a little bit about the contents, since console/computer players won't be able to read the strip. But I'll cut it.

( A few things about Valiant Hearts: The Dogs of War, cut for spoilers )

I took some screencaps while going through the comic, and put together a photoset. I posted it to tumblr but I'm adding one extra image here because I liked it and because it shows a bit more about how the strip is formatted. It's basically exactly like a comic strip, really, but with music/sound (no dialogue voiceover, unlike the actual game). ...I decided to go with the old photoset dimensions because I have no idea wtf to do with the new ones right now.

( Images from the comic strip under the cut )

I decided that I needed to have Valiant Hearts on my itouch as well as on the home computer. So... now I do. I'm so glad.

Really though, it's going to be handy to have a version of it that I can play without booting up the shared home computer (as I mentioned before, it doesn't run on my own laptop). Mainly because I want to write up a timeline of the canon events for my own reference. I've checked already; there doesn't seem to be a writeup on the internet. And while of course I can find dates for the historical events, I'm going to need reference for the character events if I am going to write anything set during the canon. ... Which I plan to. In fact, I already have ideas. Several of them. Some of which have to do with actual historical events.

FML, I'm going to have to do so much research on France during WWI, aren't I.

One thing that did surprise me on starting second playthrough is, in the letters, Marie is still addressed using Emile's surname. She's addressed as Marie Chaillon, not Marie (Karl's surname).
( More stuff about that )

Or maybe they are married, and there is just a logical reason that a married woman would be addressed with her father's surname in a formal letter. I'm not sure.

Oh man, this is going to bug me for ages until I find answers. I guess what I should do first is finish my replay, so that I can confirm whether or not there's anything in the game that indicates whether Marie and Karl are married or not. And then go on from there. I mean, it isn't really a big deal; going by comments I've seen in the few discussions I've found, everyone seems to assume that Karl is Marie's husband. And even when I do write fic (because there will be fic) the subject isn't that likely to come up. But it's going to bug me for ages until I know what the canon says for sure, pfffffff.

I finished playing Valiant Hearts today.

This game ripped my heart out and broke it into tiny little pieces. And that's all I have to say about that for now.

(I'd write some more tl;dr on that, and I probably will, but it's... late. And I'm still feeling Very Emotional about it. I don't want to start crying again, haha.)

Okay, so I'm up to ch 3.2 in Valiant Hearts. Hoo boy.

( Spoilertastic as usual )

Seriously though, this game is the best fifteen bucks I've spent in quite a while.