fallinflames (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fallinflames) wrote2013-01-14 04:43 pm
fallinflames) wrote2013-01-14 04:43 pm
Heart Write-up from forever ago
Okay, so I finally got in the mood to write it all out. Sorry for the delay... and the wordiness :x
Heart of Flames
Spitfire’s Heart Design
I’m going to try to keep this specific to the overall design of the heart at first and then I’ll get into more details about the area and the some of the changes that took place within it.
First of all, the heartdelvers all start out in the Ring. For Spitfire the Ring is kind of a symbolic place for new beginnings. He also has quite a bit of fondness for the Rings in both Beauty’s Forest and Three’s Cove, thus the presence of their trees at the ring. Wonderland’s glass tree is there as well, but it is considerably smaller than the others simply because he doesn’t hold the same affections for it.
The heart design itself is essentially floating islands in a sky featuring a sun and a moon. Originally it was going to be two islands, one moonside and one sunside, but that concept didn’t really work when it came down to it. Eventually each area became an island to itself, loosely interconnected though some areas were more firmly connected than others.
Sunside versus moonside was a concept that has been around for as long as I have been considering the heart, and there’re actually a lot of things going on with the symbolism of the two sides. Moonside kind of obviously deals with Spitfire’s past and his life back home. The moon here is partially literal in that most of his memories of home and what he associates with home deal with nighttime activities. As a more symbolic aspect, it’s also in the past. It is not an area where a lot of changes can be made unless a person was very determined to make those changes.
On the other side (literally) is the sunside. Sunside dealt with the present. This was a much more mutable area of the heart since it’s less foundations than it is current. This is a representation of changes and personality that he has developed in Aather – in the present and active time. Again, part of it is literal. Most of his dealings in Aather have been during the daytime. There’s not a good lighting system and most people in Aather are diurnal instead of nocturnal. So he very literally associates Aather with daytime, but it’s also symbolic in that things grow and change in the day so this area was about the ability to do that.
The sun and moon were also important to the True Hearts, but I’ll get into that later.
Movement in the Heart
This was actually one of the most enjoyable aspects of his heart for me. When I originally began plotting the heart, I had considered having rope bridges linking the islands together with the additional ability for anyone to fly if they were willing or had the confidence to do so. That was almost a year of play ago, however, and in that time, flight became a huge factor in Spitfire’s life so the bridges were nowhere near as important or relevant to the heart anymore. So they disappeared and the only option for leaving the Ring became flight.
The only hint to this (aside from knowing Spitfire at all) was the phrase:
“Everyone has wings from the moment they are born.”
This is a very important part of Spitfire’s beliefs. It also meant that if someone didn’t have the confidence to step off the ring themselves with just that encouragement, they would not be able to get further into Spitfire’s heart. I was kind of afraid when I set that up, that no one would try it actually. It would have been a very boring heart if that had happened (though I may have provided cards or something so that the people stuck in the ring could keep themselves entertained). Thankfully Selenia took the leap of faith and others followed suit based on his example.
Everyone’s wings were different. A lot of that is based on Spitfire’s perceptions of the person. Some of them were kind of literal (Rook had rook wings, Kamui had sparrow wing), and others were more symbolic (Selenia had barn owl wings and Chariot had osprey) and drew from his knowledge of different birds – prey, carrion, song bird, etc.
Since I had given flight as an aspect of everyone’s movement, there was also the need to restrict that movement since going from the Ring to the True Hearts would have been awkward and pretty unrealistic of how his heart is. Thus set paths of movements were created between the islands. This actually took a long time because the different paths had to make sense (to me at least) coming off each island. For example, there are no logical connections between the Hospital and the Big Bird islands even though on the diagram there is a straight “line of sight” connection. One also couldn’t move directly from the Sunflowers island to the Sunside Tower island. The sunside was actually pretty easy to draw connections to. The moonside took a day and a half to figure out.
The Inner Ring
The inner ring area refers to the islands directly connected to the Ring, and the first islands that anyone could reach after leaving the Ring. These islands are actually some of the most closely connected and served a very specific function within the heart. They are the easiest to reach, and are designed to keep people from venturing further into the heart.
The most effective use of the inner ring islands was seen in Toboe’s run. His progression moved from Forest to Sunflowers to Salon, which gave him access to several areas of Spitfire’s personality, but very surface level aspects. Friendliness, general Aather team feelings, and love of hair styling – they were all things that Spitfire doesn’t really try to hide, but they don’t encourage movement beyond them either without a certain level of comfort and willingness to push further into his heart.
Selenia’s run took him briefly out of the heart, but he actually got directed back to the inner ring at the end without delving too deeply into the deeper levels of the heart. Rook and Chariot were the only ones who made it past the inner ring and then stayed there. Chariot... I... I’ll come back to Chariot later because it made me laugh.
The Outer Rings
These are largely just deeper levels within the heart. The sunside is actually set up in a much more connected series of levels than the moonside. There are areas of moonside that are just flat out difficult to get to (the Sleeping Forest and Big Bird islands specifically) whereas the Ditch is one of the most easily accessed islands outside of the Ring. The two moonside islands represent aspects of Spitfire’s life that he is flat out uncomfortable with discussing and the difficulty getting there is representative of the difficulty getting the trust to get that deep within the heart.
As for the sunside, the second level of islands is indicative of Spitfire’s underlying emotions. The Library representing curiosity, the Castle representing the games, the Sands and Cliff (which no one reached) represented danger and determination to face it. Even further back in the outer rings here are much more deeply buried feelings: Firefields is deeply possessive and deals with trust issues, Iolite is all about his innerteam feelings, and the Sunside Tower represents those who hold a special place in his heart for a variety of reasons.
(Trivia: once upon a time, Spitfire’s Iolite feelings were much easier to access.)
The True Hearts
Yes, that is very deliberately plural for a variety of reasons. Remember when I said the Sun and Moon were important? They’re super important. They’re the main representations of the True Hearts. But! you say, If that is true, how can they be reached?!
There were six points of accessing the True Hearts, three on each the sunside and moonside of the heart. Chariot is the only one who made it this deep into the heart and actually came into contact with any of them. On the moonside, the candles representing the three pillars of Spitfire’s True Heart were guarded by Kokuen, Ine, and Aeon Clock. Note that I say guarded here. The areas of the True Hearts could be accessed without actually interacting with the True Heart itself. Chariot did this most notably in Ine’s area where he did not approach or attempt to interact with the candle on the piano at all. Each of the three guardians had different ways of dealing with people coming into their areas, and some of them were more violent in their protections whereas someone could have entered the Ditch area without ever seeing the candle Kokuen was guarding at all. It was up to each of the True Heart’s guardians to decide whether or not to allow the True Heart to be accessed.
Nominally, the sunside’s trinity of True Heart access points were easier to reach, and they were not guarded exactly so much as highly inaccessible. They were located within the Sunside Tower, Iolite, and the Mists. Of these, Iolite was actually the easiest candle to reach as it was simply sitting on the table inside Iolite’s kitchen. The candle in the Sunside Tower was easily accessible once a person reached the tower, but the tower was also locked to those who did not have a key to it (one of those who had a place within the Tower or someone who had picked up a glass key from somewhere on the sunside islands). The candle in the Mists was the least accessible candle simply because it was so terribly deep within the heart and the Mists themselves made it difficult to navigate the area.
Now, you’re looking at these two trios of candles going, “yes, but how do they have anything to do with the sun or moon?”
Easy, if anything had happened to one of the candles, that area would have gone dark. If all three candles in either sunside or moonside were extinguished, it would effectively kill that area. If both sides were extinguished, everyone would have been immediately kicked from the heart as Spitfire died a very, very literal and difficult to revive from death. (Aren’t you glad you were careful, Chariot? :D)
Changes and Runs
Toboe
Not actually a lot was changed in this run. As I said earlier, Toboe’s heart run actually put the Inner Ring to its intended effect. He had a conversation with Spitfire’s friendliness fox in the Forest and took a look at some of Spitfire’s intrateam feelings. The boost left at the Iolite here didn’t have a lot of effect. It does boost some of his surface level feels towards his team, but the actual team feels were actually a much deeper area within the heart. Then he headed to the moonside to the Salon where he interacted with the Spitfire there. Spoilers: the Spitfire there did not recognize him at all. The boost left in the brush here simply increased Spitfire’s enjoyment of hair styling and playing with people’s hair.
Kamui
Kamui only had the smallest of changes made within the heart because he dropped no boosts and didn’t make it off the Hospital island. He did, however, interact with a few areas on the island that left a bit of an impact. The first was Kokuen’s hospital room. Because Kamui didn’t really identify himself as a teammate, the Spitfire there assumed he was hospital staff, so there’s the slight expectation that Kamui will be able to help when someone’s hurt. Secondly, he came out of the hallway which set the Volcano group members who were waiting there on edge. He did identify himself here as a teammate, which helped, but it did leave a slight tension and uneasiness attached to him. His final destination was Spitfire’s hospital room. This interaction left him with a mild sense that Kamui (a teammate) would be there for him if he was hurt.
Rook
Rook actually made quite a number of changes though most of them weren’t drastic. His first island was the Waterfall which represented Spitfire’s zen and calm. This area was populated by another fox version of Spitfire who represented calm amusement, banter and teasing, and mild physical comforts. Rook’s not knowing about the trick rocks in the pool in Beauty’s realm and the subsequent dunking amused him greatly. Rook relocated the Fox first up to the top of the cliff… and then chucked him off. Being the fox of the zen island, he kind of zenned in freefall, but this did increase an awareness of Rook’s willingness to push him over the edge of comfort or out of his comfort zones.
Rook’s next stop was the Library island. This represents knowledge gathered in Aather and is populated by a very curious young Spitfire. There is a loooooot of information in this area. Some of it is about Aather, some of it is stories gleaned from people he’s met in Aather, some are stories he’s made up. Rook ran into one of his made up stories about a threesome. Rule of thumb, never let a tiny Spit ask questions first when you’ve introduced banter and teasing into his realm, okay? Rook found this out the hard way when tiny asked him if he’d had sex yet. Then he closed the door on Rook and kept the fox. This is an interesting mixture of feelings inside the library that will eventually get sorted out on its own.
The final destination on Rook’s adventure was to the Castle. It was patterned off of Beauty’s castle because that was one of the biggest game changers for Spitfire, which should make it unsurprising that this was the “games” area. The Spitfire here was trapped within a web of blood red strings. If someone touched them from the outside, it would hurt (or kill) Spitfire inside. If Spitfire touched them from the inside, it would hurt (or kill) the persons outside. The Spitfire inside the cage was in pretty bad shape. He’d been pretty sorely worn down by the games and pretty much constantly expected that Iolite would be targeted. This was a most defeated and dejected place.
It’s also where Rook deposited one of his boosts. This boost could have gone a couple of different ways depending on what Rook did at this point. If he had left, Spitfire’s defeatism and expectations of Iolite being targeted in trauma games would have increased. However, Rook gave him the boost and then encouraged him to figure a way out of the trap. This boost then increased instead a sense that games can be defeated if necessary, that teammates are going to be there to help figure things out, a focus on finding unusual ways of looking at things, and a feeling that Rook specifically is someone who can be relied on in games. He also ended up giving Spitfire an apple from the Ring, which gave warm fuzzies more than anything.
Selenia
Selenia has the honor of being the first person to step off of the ring. Not a huge thing, just worth noting that it was his example that led the others to try it, too. There’s a mild uptick in seeing Selenia as someone who is capable of leading and possessed of confidence in himself. His first destination was the Hospital, and the first hallway he investigated was Spitfire’s room. He got a flash of memory from the doctor touching him, and then announced himself as Spitfire’s friend. The doctor lets him in to talk to Spitfire since he’s the only visitor. He tells Spitfire that he’s not alone and that he’ll “fly again” and promises to be there when he wakes. This is kind of a huge thing, since this is the room that houses all of Spitfire’s utter terror of getting hurt and being alone/abandoned after injuries.
From there, Selenia heads back out to the lobby of the hospital and talks to the group of Volcano members there. When he announces he’s with Spitfire (read as a team member not Spitfire the person), they relax their guard a little and tell him about the two hallways on their side of the room – both where teammembers were injured. He ends up going down a hallway where two of Spitfire’s injured teammates are being treated. The Spitfire there is exhausted – a “post getting told to calm the fuck down” state. He startles Spitfire a little and then tells him he’s a priest there to offer support. Selenia gets a second memory here when he touches the glass, casting a healing on the riders. He gives Spitfire one of the boosts before heading off. This area has several levels and the boost hit most of them. There is flashpoint rage of teammates getting hurt, willingness to let trusted people talk him down, and cold rage and revenge.
Selenia’s next order of business was to head over to the Volcano Group’s party island, get adopted, get drunk, and have a great time. One of us!!!!!!!!!!! He also dropped a boost here. In addition to Spitfire feeling as though Selenia really is team, this also increases Spitfire’s feelings of what team meant back home and what it still means to him. This does not affect his Iolite feels. It just boosts his feelings of what a team should be, could be, and what the Volcano group was. Also, Selenia being adopted into the Volcano group means that Spitfire will mafia for him in a red-hot second (especially after also boosting the second hall’s Spitfire).
Once the Volcano members realize that Selenia didn’t have his A-T with him, they sent him off to the A-T shop to get them. (Because obviously if you’re in the Volcano group, you have A-T right?) Selenia keeps up a mild habit of lying to hearts, but it’s pretty minor stuff, so no biggie here. He ends up at the A-T shop, dealing with the very cheerful attendant (Simca). He picks up custom A-T here, and she offers to take him for a run. When she disappears though, Selenia learns his first thing about A-T: the weight shift to motor engagement, and hurtles himself face first into a wall. :D!!!! She comes back out and chides him about not admitting he was still learning and then they go off to learn A-T. This area is all of Spit’s love for A-T and his eagerness to share that love. Simca is there because they have a very similar view, love, and dream for what A-T can be. His antics here increase Spitfire’s desire to teach and share A-T.
Chariot
Okay, spoilers: I nearly gave Chariot Albatross wings. I decided against it because while the clumsiness is a part of Spit’s view of Chariot, Spitfire knows he’s also a very capable and deadly adversary. (Besides Chariot can make even an osprey fly like a dying duck, no help needed.) Chariot also manages to get deeper into Spitfire’s heart faster than anyone else mostly by not getting distracted by the surface stuff and trying not to change things too much.
Okay so anyway, Chariot makes it off the Ring after some hesitation about tossing himself off a floating island, and eventually lands on the Bookstore island. He steps into the store and runs into a younger Spitfire and Sora making a commotion. Well, Sora more than Spitfire, but still. Sora’s teasing Spit about liking shoujo romance and how he’ll never get a girl like that, and Chariot comes to Spitfire’s defense over it. Sora is drapy and kind of a pest. Spitfire is embarrassed to know him. Chariot ends up getting pointed towards the back door after Sora loses interest in him. This area represents Spitfire’s knowledge and interests from back home. It is also home to the boy-crush part of Spitfire and the romantic inclinations. Chariot’s defending romantic things was a push in the direction of “oh, it is okay to be interested in that. '-'?”
From the Bookstore, Chariot heads off to the Moonside Tower, where he runs into the Original Sleeping Forest team. This is actually one of the potentially dangerous areas in the heart, but it’s also old confidence, hunger for A-T battle, knowledge of his own potential to be the best, and a bit of arrogance in that knowledge. The group gives Chariot a hard time before sending him on his way. Sora ends up wind tripping Chariot, kind of a challenge to see how he’d react. When Chariot doesn’t, he’s able to leave without getting attacked by the Kings.
And then he ended up in the Ditch. Kokuen greeted him and revealed the True Heart candle. Chariot asked if he could help, and Kokuen passed the candle over to him, this revealed both a memory and the True Heart Spitfire, who was kind of amused to see Chariot on the moonside of things. Chariot asks again if there’s anything that he could help with, and the True Heart directs him towards the Flickering Flame, unfortunately it’s all the way on the sunside of the heart, and Spit tells him to go through Ine. They talk about about Aeon’s area. He says he’ll visit later if he has time, and heads off to Ine’s area.
Kokuen’s area is very central to who Spitfire is, especially since coming to Aather. The memory here was the first memory Spitfire arrived with. It was literally the building block of who he was back home. This is an area of calm, personal strength. A support system put into place that he can always fall back on. The True Heart guardians are also the only ones other than the True Heart itself who are aware of things going on within the heart and of each other. They keep in pretty close contact with each other and all of them support the True Heart Spitfire.
When he arrives at Ine’s area, the Apartment, Chariot is ushered in by Ine, and finally he ends up poking around a while when she invites him to. He wanders into the kitchen, finds a chair with a tuning suit laid out on it, and then wanders up to the bedroom. He ends up leaving a tie in the closest there, bumping Spitfire’s desire to dress nicely and leaving a part of himself in one of Spitfire’s most intimate places. He comes back down from the bedroom, and Ine stands to show him to a short cut to the sunside. She presses her cheek to his for a moment, listening to his sound, and probably would have tried to figure out what was going on with his clumsiness if he had remained any longer.
Ine’s area encompasses intimate feelings of love and affection, often bittersweet, and focuses largely on things which bring him feelings of comfort, safety, and love. Each area within the apartment kind of showcases the small things that brings him pleasure – good meals, A-T, piano, etc. Ine herself is someone that he loves an incredible amount; she is also the one person he has ever hurt terrible because he couldn’t. She is someone he could not possibly be more intimate with, though they’ve never had sex. If Chariot had touched the tuning suit, he would have received a memory, but Ine would have changed to her younger, more innocent version. She is also fiercely protective of the True Heart candle here. While she may not have killed him for trying to mess with it without her permission, she certainly would have incapacitated him.
Walking through the doorway Ine opened for him, Chariot stepped out into the Sunside Tower. It leads into a circular stone chamber with a pillar in the center. One of the True Heart candles is burning steadily upon it. On the walls are shields representing a number of people from Aather (Chariot, Throne, Liberty, Breeze, Kazu, Ikki, Drift). By putting the owner’s key into the intentions on the shields, it unlocks rooms specific to them though every room retains the pillar and candle in the center of the room. If someone had attained a glass key to enter the tower, they could have used it to view the rooms, though the key would have cracked a little after each use until it shattered. The passage from Ine’s area can only be accessed from her side and the Spitfire shield will only open out to the outside of the tower.
Chariot didn’t do anything here, just looking around, and he didn’t touch the candle here so he didn’t get to interact with the True Heart in this area. He eventually left however, and got a helpful nod towards the Mists. This is where the Flickering Flame is. This area represents the Future, which, is reasonably easy to understand as insubstantial and mutable for Spitfire. He is still largely uncertain and doesn’t really have any way of knowing what will happen. It has produced an area where nothing is really solid. When Chariot touched the candle holder of the True Heart here, it allowed him to communicate brokenly with the figure of Spitfire which was also flickering here. He tells Chariot that the door which is letting out the cold wind that’s causing the candle to flicker has to be closed. Chariot carries the candle deeper into the mists and eventually comes across a circle of eight pillars and four doors:
From a question meme:
As it says, Chariot did get the door closed, and ended up setting his jacket on fire, which left him with a golden Spitfire emblem emblazoned on his coat. Once he got the door closed though and made sure he wasn’t going to burn to death, the True Heart Spitfire had appeared solidly this time as the flame stabilized. A pillar had appeared for the candle in the center of the circle. And then they had a nice conversation about Kokuen and Ine and the heart until Chariot was pulled out.
… now if you want anything else about specific things or areas, you’re going to have to ask it because I’m frazzled. I will answer them as best I can.
Heart of Flames
Spitfire’s Heart Design
I’m going to try to keep this specific to the overall design of the heart at first and then I’ll get into more details about the area and the some of the changes that took place within it.
First of all, the heartdelvers all start out in the Ring. For Spitfire the Ring is kind of a symbolic place for new beginnings. He also has quite a bit of fondness for the Rings in both Beauty’s Forest and Three’s Cove, thus the presence of their trees at the ring. Wonderland’s glass tree is there as well, but it is considerably smaller than the others simply because he doesn’t hold the same affections for it.
The heart design itself is essentially floating islands in a sky featuring a sun and a moon. Originally it was going to be two islands, one moonside and one sunside, but that concept didn’t really work when it came down to it. Eventually each area became an island to itself, loosely interconnected though some areas were more firmly connected than others.
Sunside versus moonside was a concept that has been around for as long as I have been considering the heart, and there’re actually a lot of things going on with the symbolism of the two sides. Moonside kind of obviously deals with Spitfire’s past and his life back home. The moon here is partially literal in that most of his memories of home and what he associates with home deal with nighttime activities. As a more symbolic aspect, it’s also in the past. It is not an area where a lot of changes can be made unless a person was very determined to make those changes.
On the other side (literally) is the sunside. Sunside dealt with the present. This was a much more mutable area of the heart since it’s less foundations than it is current. This is a representation of changes and personality that he has developed in Aather – in the present and active time. Again, part of it is literal. Most of his dealings in Aather have been during the daytime. There’s not a good lighting system and most people in Aather are diurnal instead of nocturnal. So he very literally associates Aather with daytime, but it’s also symbolic in that things grow and change in the day so this area was about the ability to do that.
The sun and moon were also important to the True Hearts, but I’ll get into that later.
Movement in the Heart
This was actually one of the most enjoyable aspects of his heart for me. When I originally began plotting the heart, I had considered having rope bridges linking the islands together with the additional ability for anyone to fly if they were willing or had the confidence to do so. That was almost a year of play ago, however, and in that time, flight became a huge factor in Spitfire’s life so the bridges were nowhere near as important or relevant to the heart anymore. So they disappeared and the only option for leaving the Ring became flight.
The only hint to this (aside from knowing Spitfire at all) was the phrase:
This is a very important part of Spitfire’s beliefs. It also meant that if someone didn’t have the confidence to step off the ring themselves with just that encouragement, they would not be able to get further into Spitfire’s heart. I was kind of afraid when I set that up, that no one would try it actually. It would have been a very boring heart if that had happened (though I may have provided cards or something so that the people stuck in the ring could keep themselves entertained). Thankfully Selenia took the leap of faith and others followed suit based on his example.
Everyone’s wings were different. A lot of that is based on Spitfire’s perceptions of the person. Some of them were kind of literal (Rook had rook wings, Kamui had sparrow wing), and others were more symbolic (Selenia had barn owl wings and Chariot had osprey) and drew from his knowledge of different birds – prey, carrion, song bird, etc.
Since I had given flight as an aspect of everyone’s movement, there was also the need to restrict that movement since going from the Ring to the True Hearts would have been awkward and pretty unrealistic of how his heart is. Thus set paths of movements were created between the islands. This actually took a long time because the different paths had to make sense (to me at least) coming off each island. For example, there are no logical connections between the Hospital and the Big Bird islands even though on the diagram there is a straight “line of sight” connection. One also couldn’t move directly from the Sunflowers island to the Sunside Tower island. The sunside was actually pretty easy to draw connections to. The moonside took a day and a half to figure out.
The Inner Ring
The inner ring area refers to the islands directly connected to the Ring, and the first islands that anyone could reach after leaving the Ring. These islands are actually some of the most closely connected and served a very specific function within the heart. They are the easiest to reach, and are designed to keep people from venturing further into the heart.
The most effective use of the inner ring islands was seen in Toboe’s run. His progression moved from Forest to Sunflowers to Salon, which gave him access to several areas of Spitfire’s personality, but very surface level aspects. Friendliness, general Aather team feelings, and love of hair styling – they were all things that Spitfire doesn’t really try to hide, but they don’t encourage movement beyond them either without a certain level of comfort and willingness to push further into his heart.
Selenia’s run took him briefly out of the heart, but he actually got directed back to the inner ring at the end without delving too deeply into the deeper levels of the heart. Rook and Chariot were the only ones who made it past the inner ring and then stayed there. Chariot... I... I’ll come back to Chariot later because it made me laugh.
The Outer Rings
These are largely just deeper levels within the heart. The sunside is actually set up in a much more connected series of levels than the moonside. There are areas of moonside that are just flat out difficult to get to (the Sleeping Forest and Big Bird islands specifically) whereas the Ditch is one of the most easily accessed islands outside of the Ring. The two moonside islands represent aspects of Spitfire’s life that he is flat out uncomfortable with discussing and the difficulty getting there is representative of the difficulty getting the trust to get that deep within the heart.
As for the sunside, the second level of islands is indicative of Spitfire’s underlying emotions. The Library representing curiosity, the Castle representing the games, the Sands and Cliff (which no one reached) represented danger and determination to face it. Even further back in the outer rings here are much more deeply buried feelings: Firefields is deeply possessive and deals with trust issues, Iolite is all about his innerteam feelings, and the Sunside Tower represents those who hold a special place in his heart for a variety of reasons.
(Trivia: once upon a time, Spitfire’s Iolite feelings were much easier to access.)
The True Hearts
Yes, that is very deliberately plural for a variety of reasons. Remember when I said the Sun and Moon were important? They’re super important. They’re the main representations of the True Hearts. But! you say, If that is true, how can they be reached?!
There were six points of accessing the True Hearts, three on each the sunside and moonside of the heart. Chariot is the only one who made it this deep into the heart and actually came into contact with any of them. On the moonside, the candles representing the three pillars of Spitfire’s True Heart were guarded by Kokuen, Ine, and Aeon Clock. Note that I say guarded here. The areas of the True Hearts could be accessed without actually interacting with the True Heart itself. Chariot did this most notably in Ine’s area where he did not approach or attempt to interact with the candle on the piano at all. Each of the three guardians had different ways of dealing with people coming into their areas, and some of them were more violent in their protections whereas someone could have entered the Ditch area without ever seeing the candle Kokuen was guarding at all. It was up to each of the True Heart’s guardians to decide whether or not to allow the True Heart to be accessed.
Nominally, the sunside’s trinity of True Heart access points were easier to reach, and they were not guarded exactly so much as highly inaccessible. They were located within the Sunside Tower, Iolite, and the Mists. Of these, Iolite was actually the easiest candle to reach as it was simply sitting on the table inside Iolite’s kitchen. The candle in the Sunside Tower was easily accessible once a person reached the tower, but the tower was also locked to those who did not have a key to it (one of those who had a place within the Tower or someone who had picked up a glass key from somewhere on the sunside islands). The candle in the Mists was the least accessible candle simply because it was so terribly deep within the heart and the Mists themselves made it difficult to navigate the area.
Now, you’re looking at these two trios of candles going, “yes, but how do they have anything to do with the sun or moon?”
Easy, if anything had happened to one of the candles, that area would have gone dark. If all three candles in either sunside or moonside were extinguished, it would effectively kill that area. If both sides were extinguished, everyone would have been immediately kicked from the heart as Spitfire died a very, very literal and difficult to revive from death. (Aren’t you glad you were careful, Chariot? :D)
Changes and Runs
Toboe
Not actually a lot was changed in this run. As I said earlier, Toboe’s heart run actually put the Inner Ring to its intended effect. He had a conversation with Spitfire’s friendliness fox in the Forest and took a look at some of Spitfire’s intrateam feelings. The boost left at the Iolite here didn’t have a lot of effect. It does boost some of his surface level feels towards his team, but the actual team feels were actually a much deeper area within the heart. Then he headed to the moonside to the Salon where he interacted with the Spitfire there. Spoilers: the Spitfire there did not recognize him at all. The boost left in the brush here simply increased Spitfire’s enjoyment of hair styling and playing with people’s hair.
Kamui
Kamui only had the smallest of changes made within the heart because he dropped no boosts and didn’t make it off the Hospital island. He did, however, interact with a few areas on the island that left a bit of an impact. The first was Kokuen’s hospital room. Because Kamui didn’t really identify himself as a teammate, the Spitfire there assumed he was hospital staff, so there’s the slight expectation that Kamui will be able to help when someone’s hurt. Secondly, he came out of the hallway which set the Volcano group members who were waiting there on edge. He did identify himself here as a teammate, which helped, but it did leave a slight tension and uneasiness attached to him. His final destination was Spitfire’s hospital room. This interaction left him with a mild sense that Kamui (a teammate) would be there for him if he was hurt.
Rook
Rook actually made quite a number of changes though most of them weren’t drastic. His first island was the Waterfall which represented Spitfire’s zen and calm. This area was populated by another fox version of Spitfire who represented calm amusement, banter and teasing, and mild physical comforts. Rook’s not knowing about the trick rocks in the pool in Beauty’s realm and the subsequent dunking amused him greatly. Rook relocated the Fox first up to the top of the cliff… and then chucked him off. Being the fox of the zen island, he kind of zenned in freefall, but this did increase an awareness of Rook’s willingness to push him over the edge of comfort or out of his comfort zones.
Rook’s next stop was the Library island. This represents knowledge gathered in Aather and is populated by a very curious young Spitfire. There is a loooooot of information in this area. Some of it is about Aather, some of it is stories gleaned from people he’s met in Aather, some are stories he’s made up. Rook ran into one of his made up stories about a threesome. Rule of thumb, never let a tiny Spit ask questions first when you’ve introduced banter and teasing into his realm, okay? Rook found this out the hard way when tiny asked him if he’d had sex yet. Then he closed the door on Rook and kept the fox. This is an interesting mixture of feelings inside the library that will eventually get sorted out on its own.
The final destination on Rook’s adventure was to the Castle. It was patterned off of Beauty’s castle because that was one of the biggest game changers for Spitfire, which should make it unsurprising that this was the “games” area. The Spitfire here was trapped within a web of blood red strings. If someone touched them from the outside, it would hurt (or kill) Spitfire inside. If Spitfire touched them from the inside, it would hurt (or kill) the persons outside. The Spitfire inside the cage was in pretty bad shape. He’d been pretty sorely worn down by the games and pretty much constantly expected that Iolite would be targeted. This was a most defeated and dejected place.
It’s also where Rook deposited one of his boosts. This boost could have gone a couple of different ways depending on what Rook did at this point. If he had left, Spitfire’s defeatism and expectations of Iolite being targeted in trauma games would have increased. However, Rook gave him the boost and then encouraged him to figure a way out of the trap. This boost then increased instead a sense that games can be defeated if necessary, that teammates are going to be there to help figure things out, a focus on finding unusual ways of looking at things, and a feeling that Rook specifically is someone who can be relied on in games. He also ended up giving Spitfire an apple from the Ring, which gave warm fuzzies more than anything.
Selenia
Selenia has the honor of being the first person to step off of the ring. Not a huge thing, just worth noting that it was his example that led the others to try it, too. There’s a mild uptick in seeing Selenia as someone who is capable of leading and possessed of confidence in himself. His first destination was the Hospital, and the first hallway he investigated was Spitfire’s room. He got a flash of memory from the doctor touching him, and then announced himself as Spitfire’s friend. The doctor lets him in to talk to Spitfire since he’s the only visitor. He tells Spitfire that he’s not alone and that he’ll “fly again” and promises to be there when he wakes. This is kind of a huge thing, since this is the room that houses all of Spitfire’s utter terror of getting hurt and being alone/abandoned after injuries.
From there, Selenia heads back out to the lobby of the hospital and talks to the group of Volcano members there. When he announces he’s with Spitfire (read as a team member not Spitfire the person), they relax their guard a little and tell him about the two hallways on their side of the room – both where teammembers were injured. He ends up going down a hallway where two of Spitfire’s injured teammates are being treated. The Spitfire there is exhausted – a “post getting told to calm the fuck down” state. He startles Spitfire a little and then tells him he’s a priest there to offer support. Selenia gets a second memory here when he touches the glass, casting a healing on the riders. He gives Spitfire one of the boosts before heading off. This area has several levels and the boost hit most of them. There is flashpoint rage of teammates getting hurt, willingness to let trusted people talk him down, and cold rage and revenge.
Selenia’s next order of business was to head over to the Volcano Group’s party island, get adopted, get drunk, and have a great time. One of us!!!!!!!!!!! He also dropped a boost here. In addition to Spitfire feeling as though Selenia really is team, this also increases Spitfire’s feelings of what team meant back home and what it still means to him. This does not affect his Iolite feels. It just boosts his feelings of what a team should be, could be, and what the Volcano group was. Also, Selenia being adopted into the Volcano group means that Spitfire will mafia for him in a red-hot second (especially after also boosting the second hall’s Spitfire).
Once the Volcano members realize that Selenia didn’t have his A-T with him, they sent him off to the A-T shop to get them. (Because obviously if you’re in the Volcano group, you have A-T right?) Selenia keeps up a mild habit of lying to hearts, but it’s pretty minor stuff, so no biggie here. He ends up at the A-T shop, dealing with the very cheerful attendant (Simca). He picks up custom A-T here, and she offers to take him for a run. When she disappears though, Selenia learns his first thing about A-T: the weight shift to motor engagement, and hurtles himself face first into a wall. :D!!!! She comes back out and chides him about not admitting he was still learning and then they go off to learn A-T. This area is all of Spit’s love for A-T and his eagerness to share that love. Simca is there because they have a very similar view, love, and dream for what A-T can be. His antics here increase Spitfire’s desire to teach and share A-T.
Chariot
Okay, spoilers: I nearly gave Chariot Albatross wings. I decided against it because while the clumsiness is a part of Spit’s view of Chariot, Spitfire knows he’s also a very capable and deadly adversary. (Besides Chariot can make even an osprey fly like a dying duck, no help needed.) Chariot also manages to get deeper into Spitfire’s heart faster than anyone else mostly by not getting distracted by the surface stuff and trying not to change things too much.
Okay so anyway, Chariot makes it off the Ring after some hesitation about tossing himself off a floating island, and eventually lands on the Bookstore island. He steps into the store and runs into a younger Spitfire and Sora making a commotion. Well, Sora more than Spitfire, but still. Sora’s teasing Spit about liking shoujo romance and how he’ll never get a girl like that, and Chariot comes to Spitfire’s defense over it. Sora is drapy and kind of a pest. Spitfire is embarrassed to know him. Chariot ends up getting pointed towards the back door after Sora loses interest in him. This area represents Spitfire’s knowledge and interests from back home. It is also home to the boy-crush part of Spitfire and the romantic inclinations. Chariot’s defending romantic things was a push in the direction of “oh, it is okay to be interested in that. '-'?”
From the Bookstore, Chariot heads off to the Moonside Tower, where he runs into the Original Sleeping Forest team. This is actually one of the potentially dangerous areas in the heart, but it’s also old confidence, hunger for A-T battle, knowledge of his own potential to be the best, and a bit of arrogance in that knowledge. The group gives Chariot a hard time before sending him on his way. Sora ends up wind tripping Chariot, kind of a challenge to see how he’d react. When Chariot doesn’t, he’s able to leave without getting attacked by the Kings.
And then he ended up in the Ditch. Kokuen greeted him and revealed the True Heart candle. Chariot asked if he could help, and Kokuen passed the candle over to him, this revealed both a memory and the True Heart Spitfire, who was kind of amused to see Chariot on the moonside of things. Chariot asks again if there’s anything that he could help with, and the True Heart directs him towards the Flickering Flame, unfortunately it’s all the way on the sunside of the heart, and Spit tells him to go through Ine. They talk about about Aeon’s area. He says he’ll visit later if he has time, and heads off to Ine’s area.
Kokuen’s area is very central to who Spitfire is, especially since coming to Aather. The memory here was the first memory Spitfire arrived with. It was literally the building block of who he was back home. This is an area of calm, personal strength. A support system put into place that he can always fall back on. The True Heart guardians are also the only ones other than the True Heart itself who are aware of things going on within the heart and of each other. They keep in pretty close contact with each other and all of them support the True Heart Spitfire.
When he arrives at Ine’s area, the Apartment, Chariot is ushered in by Ine, and finally he ends up poking around a while when she invites him to. He wanders into the kitchen, finds a chair with a tuning suit laid out on it, and then wanders up to the bedroom. He ends up leaving a tie in the closest there, bumping Spitfire’s desire to dress nicely and leaving a part of himself in one of Spitfire’s most intimate places. He comes back down from the bedroom, and Ine stands to show him to a short cut to the sunside. She presses her cheek to his for a moment, listening to his sound, and probably would have tried to figure out what was going on with his clumsiness if he had remained any longer.
Ine’s area encompasses intimate feelings of love and affection, often bittersweet, and focuses largely on things which bring him feelings of comfort, safety, and love. Each area within the apartment kind of showcases the small things that brings him pleasure – good meals, A-T, piano, etc. Ine herself is someone that he loves an incredible amount; she is also the one person he has ever hurt terrible because he couldn’t. She is someone he could not possibly be more intimate with, though they’ve never had sex. If Chariot had touched the tuning suit, he would have received a memory, but Ine would have changed to her younger, more innocent version. She is also fiercely protective of the True Heart candle here. While she may not have killed him for trying to mess with it without her permission, she certainly would have incapacitated him.
Walking through the doorway Ine opened for him, Chariot stepped out into the Sunside Tower. It leads into a circular stone chamber with a pillar in the center. One of the True Heart candles is burning steadily upon it. On the walls are shields representing a number of people from Aather (Chariot, Throne, Liberty, Breeze, Kazu, Ikki, Drift). By putting the owner’s key into the intentions on the shields, it unlocks rooms specific to them though every room retains the pillar and candle in the center of the room. If someone had attained a glass key to enter the tower, they could have used it to view the rooms, though the key would have cracked a little after each use until it shattered. The passage from Ine’s area can only be accessed from her side and the Spitfire shield will only open out to the outside of the tower.
Chariot didn’t do anything here, just looking around, and he didn’t touch the candle here so he didn’t get to interact with the True Heart in this area. He eventually left however, and got a helpful nod towards the Mists. This is where the Flickering Flame is. This area represents the Future, which, is reasonably easy to understand as insubstantial and mutable for Spitfire. He is still largely uncertain and doesn’t really have any way of knowing what will happen. It has produced an area where nothing is really solid. When Chariot touched the candle holder of the True Heart here, it allowed him to communicate brokenly with the figure of Spitfire which was also flickering here. He tells Chariot that the door which is letting out the cold wind that’s causing the candle to flicker has to be closed. Chariot carries the candle deeper into the mists and eventually comes across a circle of eight pillars and four doors:
“…the doorway is only cracked about six inches into wherever it leads. The door itself is smooth, dark metallic material. The one directly across from the dark door is a dark walnut with a lamp design inlaid in silver. The door to the left is a golden oak with a flame design in kunzite. The final door is a warm cherry with a nearly identical flame done in onyx. Besides the dark door, only the cherry one is also cracked open.”
From a question meme:
The issue [of Spitfire’s uncertainty over the future] was mostly settled during his heart run when Chariot pushed one of the battered door closed. The area represented his options and thus the 4 doors: home, Aather, Bones' world (offered by Liberty), and Dino's world. The Aather door and Bones' door were rather firmly closed, but Dino and Home were open. Home was the battered door, and it's battering came from a number of sources. First it was battered closed when he began to learn about/did learn about his death and found out from Maleficent that it was impossible for him to return home. Later, it was battered open again when Selenia started questioning him about it. With the closing of the door, most of the thoughts of returning home have been stifled for the time being. However, because of the battering, the door is never perfectly closed, so he does get pangs of homesickness, but he can at least focus on moving forward now.
As it says, Chariot did get the door closed, and ended up setting his jacket on fire, which left him with a golden Spitfire emblem emblazoned on his coat. Once he got the door closed though and made sure he wasn’t going to burn to death, the True Heart Spitfire had appeared solidly this time as the flame stabilized. A pillar had appeared for the candle in the center of the circle. And then they had a nice conversation about Kokuen and Ine and the heart until Chariot was pulled out.
… now if you want anything else about specific things or areas, you’re going to have to ask it because I’m frazzled. I will answer them as best I can.
no subject
Take Iolite for example. Kyouko's bed was very neatly made whereas Jaina's was mussed as though a couple of people had been sitting on it talking and/or working on the machinery parts littered across it. Both beds were made though where Chariot's bed was slightly unmade and slightly rumpled showing an even deeper level of comfort. Again, not an indicator of sexual relations since David's bed was also pretty neatly made.