Summer Dream Refrain

tl;dr

The Story Itself

• I like the use of continuity from the Sheffy and The Big Errand event.
• The theme of the story is executed well.
• I like how the story isn't afraid of punishing Eris for her past bullshit.

Difficulty

• This is supposed to be easy, but I missed the theme of the story somehow on my first read.
• Had to reread.

The Story Itself

Relation with Sheffy and The Big Errand event

The story starts pretty generically with Sheffy, Precia and KSKN doing some side hustle freezing tunas. Sounds familiar? This is a callback to the Sheffy and the Big Errand event. There, Sheffy ran into a problem when doing one of the errand because some bandit blew up a bridge. This caused trouble for everyone because people were carrying perishable goods and going the long way around would cause them to spoil before they could get home. Thanks to a kind stranger's hint, Sheffy was able to figure out that she could use her ice powers to freeze the river for everyone to walk on, and freeze their groceries to preserve them.

Later in the story, she also uses this power of hers to freeze the beach on multiple occasions. Both for recreation and combat purposes.

While Sheffy and The Big Errand event was pretty meh because Illya and Ruka were barely utilized, I still thought it was a decent Gourmet Guild event, and I'm glad that Sheffy's development from there actually sticks. She was acting a bit retarded from time to time there...

Event's theme

The theme of this event is "putting your thoughts together and telling others about it". This is the main driving force that advances the story, appearing in 5 episodes: the prologue, episodes 3, 5, 6 and the epilogue.

Prologue

Looking at Sheffy work her ice magic makes Precia wants to try it out, too. Precia tries freezing a tuna, and was successful, but it's too thick which would make transporting them harder. Noticing this, Sheffy offers Precia to train her ice magic together. Sheffy tells Precia to put her thoughts together, the exact "method" of this isn't really shown, because the moment Precia tries it, she gets hungry and bites Sheffy's tails, triggering her baby mode and ending the training session. However, I assume it'd go exactly as Sheffy said. Precia would give it a try, think about it, and then tell Sheffy about it, and from there, Sheffy can give her feedback.

It starts of pretty cheerful, but believe me it will have "serious" applications later in the story. Sheffy feels like the group's therapist in this event in general, lol.

Episode 3

After dealing with the baby problem in the Wish-Granting Beach, Precia starts to withdraw because Eris is here. Happy-chan wonders why, and Sheffy says "it's complicated". Happy-chan wishes if only everyone could be happy as it is. Sheffy counters, "if only it's as easy as that", and the wish inexplicably thinks that's a wish and everyone is suddenly filled with the urge to play together.

One of the activities they do is ice skating. Here, Precia asks why Sheffy likes ice skating so much. Sheffy says that it helps her putting her thoughts together. She skates better when she's happy and things aren't half as bad when you can skate the sadness away. She also adds that she also just likes the feeling of gliding on ice. Precia is impressed, and this is probably the point where she takes Sheffy's advice to heart.

While still mostly cheerful, the fact that Precia being impressed is important here to make sure the audience actually knows that she's learning. Remember, the first time she took this advice, it didn't go too well. This ensures that when the moment Precia takes the advice seriously, it actually makes sense.

This part also emphasizes just how strained the three's relationship are. After all, it took a fucking wish from a Wish-Granting Beach before they could play together.

Episode 5

This is when shit starts to get serious. Actually...it starts an episode earlier, but that part deserves a whole section for itself, so I'm going to talk about it first.

During the fight with Shadow Eris, she sends Precia away to see her dad. Precia actually meets her Azold, but comments that he's "all the way over there", and figures that if she goes there, she won't be able to go back. So, she decides to put her thoughts together and talk to him from over here. She says that she feels terrible for biting Eris earlier, but also doesn't want to forgive her. She tells him about the memories Eris showed, about how lonely and painful and desolate it was. She then ties it to Azold's own situation, where Azold did bad things to save Precia, and Eris did bad things because it's all she knows. Precia says that justice is hard, and resolves that her justice will be to help Eris out despite her hating her because their situation aren't so different.

I want to highlight the fact that Precia realizes that if she went after Azold, she wouldn't be able to go back. Here, we finally see Sheffy's advice having an actual, live-saving impact. Imagine if Precia didn't get this advice, she might've actually gone for Azold and stayed in a coma forever, which would also doom Eris because by this point of the story, Eris is losing steam against Shadow Eris because the latter keeps reviving herself.

Episode 6

After dealing with Shadow Eris, Eris and Precia tell the group to start evacuating everyone because Elysium, the perfect paradise for two, might start leaking out. It does.

Shadow Eris starts attacking and the group starts to job. Overwhelmed, they hatch an idea to wish Shadow Eris away. KSKN asks Shadow Eris to let them go, but Shadow Eris goes all bashful, "oh, I wish I could, but not now...", but it was enough to trigger the wish and Shadow Eris was sent away, only temporarily, though.

Eris then explains to the group that Shadow Eris is the result of her lingering desire to be with KSKN all alone in Elysium. She knows she shouldn't, but can't help it. Sheffy then tries to relate to her by giving her own example of desiring something that is impossible, and that is wanting to get rid of her baby mode problem. She knows it's not going anywhere, but having people to talk about it (and probably to also help her snap out of it) helps. She suggests Eris to put her thoughts together and telling the group about it, although it probably won't help, it will make her feel better. Eris goes along with it, although she still uses the excuse of "this will help us devise a strat against shadow eris".

This part is not super impactful, and more so used as a vehicle to get Eris exposed to the advice so she can give it to another person herself.

Epilogue

After banishing Shadow Eris by showing her memories of the actual Eris, all the wishes become undone, as Happy-chan can no longer talk. But wait...that means KSKN can't swim anymore! Eris goes underwater to look for him and just as she's about to grab his hand, she starts fading away. While not explicitly stated, this is probably because she's been skipping out on her restorative sleep.

She apparently fucking dies and goes to heaven. There, she meets Shadow Eris.

Eris chastises Shadow Eris at first for making use of her paradise to cling into existence, although she eventually realizes that Shadow Eris has no one she can talk to, pats her head and then asks to her to put her thoughts together and tell her about it. Shadow Eris then goes on about how she works so hard for her wish only to be rewarded with nothing, and that she once saw a dream where she couldn't help KSKN. Eris relates with this because she just died in front of a drowning KSKN.

From here Eris realizes that all she wanted to do was to thank KSKN and maybe one day tell him that she likes her. Although she laments that it's too late. Shadow Eris thanks Eris for the talk and reveals that she's been siphoning Minerva's power from Eris. Sounds bad, but Shadow Eris uses it to send Eris back to life. Eris manages to save KSKN.

The story ends with Eris offering help to look for the Lost people. I really like this part. She's been on our side since I Wish, but it's nice to actually hear it straight out of her mouth. Maybe this is also foreshadowing that she will also help in the next raid, this time with her at full strength?

Eris almost died twice and got saved twice by the same advice. Shadow Eris could've easily banished Eris even further with Minerva's remaining power, but she didn't because she appreciated the talk that much. Two lives are saved because Precia was terrible at freezing fishes which prompted Sheffy to give the advice that saved lives. If that isn't a massive example of the Butterfly Effect, I'm not sure what is.

Eris' Punishment

If you've been keeping up with my blogposts, you may realize I'm not the kind of the guy to look into too much into the lore side of things. Probably because I've said a thousand times that I value character interactions more than anything. Good character interactions can liven up even the shittiest of premises to be at worst readable.

For example, I don't care too much about how good or bad the story's MacGuffin is, I care more about seeing how the characters goes about dealing it with it. Ideally two or more, interacting along the way.

A more blunt example is that I don't really care when I get spoiled about who dies in the story, I'm more interested in seeing how the characters react around it. "What a tragedy...", "Good riddance." Reactions like that speak volumes about the character that just died and the witnesses of the death.

Another actual example that recently popped in the story is Clear's impending betrayal. There was some stink ITT about niggers spoiling this, I also got spoiled myself, but I don't really care. I'm more interested in hearing Riri's and Precia's reactions, and how Clear will be punished for it. >inb4 the same nigger also spoils this

But before that, let's see how Eris got punished for murdering Azold. The punishment comes in the form of Precia's tears.

After being sent into a coma after having her wish accidentally granted, Precia is wandering aimlessly in the dream. Seeing this, Eris offers a truce since she knows where Rage Legion's hideout is. Precia accepts, even though she didn't at first and tried to repel Eris away. Precia is so pissed at Eris, she can repel her away despite Eris supposedly having full authority in the dream. This is both to emphasize her anger and to foreshadow who really is behind the dream.

Eventually, Precia gets hungry in the journey. The two take a rest stop to forage some food. Eris lets Precia eat all of them because she doesn't need to eat, but notices that something is happening to her body because she's been skipping her sleep. This eventually leads to her almost dying in the Epilogue.

Silent falls. And Eris breaks the silence by saying that she doesn't mind if Precia takes revenge on her now. After all, both of them are alone. While Precia was bewildered by this statement, she eventually gathers to courage to straight up ask why Eris killed Azold.

Eris bluntly answers that it was because he was in her way. This answer sends Precia into tears. Precia bites into Eris arms and all insults start flowing out. That she hates her, that she doesn't taste good, but most of all, that she doesn't understand why.

Eris simply lets Precia let it all out, and eventually, Precia cries herself to sleep. In the morning, Precia asks about Eris' side of the story. Eris simply shows her records of her memories to Precia. Precia is shaken by what she sees, saying that it's painful, lonely, desolate and sorrowful.

They arrive at the hideout. Precia thanks Eris, and asks why she bothered accompanying her. Eris answers she's simply fulfilling a promise she made to KSKN.

Man...honestly, I'm having a hard time thinking what to say here. It's just so well done. This scene and when Precia talks to Azold both. They even made a special portrait for Precia with teary eyes just for this instead of using the "uncomfortable" portrait.

I guess I just like it when characters don't get away with their bullshit, I suppose. The reasoning for this is pretty personal. Dragalia's MC didn't get punished for being a massive siscon which resulted in his kingdom almost getting annihilated. While, the story eventually did bring it up...it was at the literal final chapter that released after the EoS announcement.

Seeing characters getting punished for their bullshit is just a breath of fresh air for me, I guess.

Reminds me when Kyaru rightfully yelled at Kokkoro for acting like a cunt in the Of Cherished Bonds and Distant Hearts event. See? I have enough brain cells to admit when the character I like is acting bad, too. Ha!

Difficulty

Somehow, I COMPLETELY missed Sheffy's advice in the prologue. It didn't click until the Precia started talking to Azold. I thought that it was great that Precia didn't instantly jump into the other side, but I didn't know where this "gathering my thoughts" thing came from.

Because of this, I thought Sheffy had a pretty minor role in this event. I just KNEW I was doing something wrong, there's no fucking way they finally made Eris + terminals event only to sideline one of them. So, I decided give it a reread. One episode into the reread and I immediately went "ah..".

I don't know how this happened, honestly. Maybe I was just distracted? Still shaken by the Of Cherished Bonds and Distant Hearts event? This is a summer event, it's SUPPOSED to be easy, but I fucked up. Bigly.

Hah...at least I realized in the end, even it took a reread. I'm going to count all the lines talking about Sheffy's advice as missed. I guess add one more rule to my scoring criteria, if missing a bunch of lines means also means missing the entire point of the story, count them as missed.

96% (992/1029) comprehension.

4% might seem like a small number, but the "point" of the story are all there.

Wyell, that is all for this blogpost. See ya on the next one.

I wonder if Clear's summer event next year will tie directly with her betrayal?