Faerie Tale Love. Except not.
Dec. 15th, 2004 11:18 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
yesthatnagia.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ship_manifestoTitle: Long Hard Road
Author: Nagia
Pairing: Ashley Riot/Callo Merlose (Vagrant Story)
Spoilers: The game. The whole game. Nothing but the game.
Vagrant Story is a small fandom. An extremely small fandom. We have fewer than a hundred fics on The Pit of Voles, and probably between 100-150, with my best WAG at 125, in total. Those are only counting the English-language fics, because I don't look at non-English pages. But for such a tiny, tiny fandom, there are sharp divisions. The VS fandom has drawn as many lines in the sand as there are traceries in the Rood Inverse. Okay, there are only three (Ashley/Sydney, Sydney/Hardin, and The Family: Real or False).
I propose something a little different. Something rare.
I: Hero and Damsel; Knight and Slutty Maiden. (The Who)
"...you're no Knight, are you?" -- Sydney Losstarot, Vagrant Story
The male of the 'ship is Ashley Riot, the player character with the funny hair and the even funnier shorts. But just because he looks kind of silly doesn't mean he actually is. He's a very serious guy, and he's not somebody you want to take lightly. Just about every battle with a human enemy in the game proves this point1.
But one of the most spectacular and interesting things about Ashley Riot is that he seems to experience little to no emotion. The Ultimania guide mentions that he has a "closed-off heart."2 It seems that the only way he could become the perfect Riskbreaker that he is, was to close off his emotions and separate his body from his soul.
We learn why not two hours into the game. Ashley once had a wife and son, Tia and Marco. But they were slain, in his own words, by "fallen knights, jackals", while he stood by helplessly. It rent Ashley to pieces. His wrath at the murderers and hatred of himself for his failure drove him to join the Riskbreakers, Parliament's special brand of hatchet-men.
But then, in the snowfly forest, we learn something different. It seems that the black-clad jackal who slew Tia... was Ashley himself. And he or one of his comrades also fired the shot that slew Marco, and another comrade slew a man who looked somewhat like Ashley.
So his family was a lie. Or perhaps the slaughter of an innocent family was a lie. Or perhaps both were true, or both were false? Who can say?
But, for the sake of this exerise, we're going to pretend that Tia and Marco were Ashley's wife and son, and that the family-slaughter was a separate incident, easily confused with the deaths of Tia and Marco.
So, to sum up: Man. Emotionless. Lacks fashion sense. Traumatized. Likely suffers from erectile dysfunction.
"...sounds like you're quite taken with him yourself." -- Ashley Riot, Vagrant Story.
And then we have Callo Merlose, a bright young Inquisitor with a penchant for asking really good questions3. In the "just the facts, ma'am" version, we know that she's twenty-three, has two PHD's (religious psychology and criminal psychology; she specializes in the study of cults and religious terrorism), and has the ability to maintain objectivity under the most stressful of situations, as well as a habit of information analysis. Most of Callo's lines are interrogative, and she doesn't seem to have grown out of that childish love of knowing why.
Even when she becomes a hostage, Merlose doesn't stop asking questions. She hassles and she queries and she infers and she makes statements until Hardin snaps in half and answers her.
And then she gets the nifty ability to scrye into people's inner hearts4. And suddenly, she starts getting answers to her questions. If she were a fangirl, and squee-ing weren't unprofessional, I bet you could've heard her squee in Maine.
So, to sum up: Girl. Curious. Wears slutty clothes. Unapologetic Plot Device.
II: Hero Meets Damsel. Hero and Damsel do NOT run off into the sunset and get married, do NOT pass Go, do NOT get 200 dollars.
Ashley meets Callo as she stands in a dark forest, her back to him, peering at the manor he is to infiltrate. They have a little verbal sparring: she tries to get the social niceties out of the way, he just wants the facts. Then, when the Blades make their move and start shooting flaming arrows at the manor or some such jazz, Callo responds with, "--- What is this!?"
Ashley, laconic and confident, states what she already knows (or SHOULD already know), and then strides off towards the manor, calmly responding to her shouting about needing reinforcements with the bestlineevar: "Reinforcements? I am the reinforcements."
We next meet Callo staring at the contents of a small room (the VKP outpost at the entrance to Lea Monde, presumably) littered with bodies. We don't get to see Callo poking them and prodding them and examining the wounds, but considering that Callo's only report to the VKP consists of saying, "Riot fu**ed up, lost Sydney in the Manor, believes Sydney headed to Lea Monde. So we pursued to Lea Monde; here's what I found," one may assume that she did so.
And then:
MERLOSE: (snip)They say his charisma is such that his followers offer both body and soul to him...
ASHLEY: ...sounds like you’re quite taken with him yourself.
This is the only flirtatious line in the game that Sydney didn't say. Oddly enough, it comes from the person least likely to flirt with anyone. There are plenty of questions about this line-- is it a straight question? Is he teasing her out of dislike? Is he teasing her as a flirtation? Is it a combination of the above? All of the above?
III: Okay, so with Minimal Subtext and Major Competition, and Very Few Face-to-Face Scenes in the Game, When Does the Romance Happen? And, Equally Importantly, HOW?!
In a short answer: after the game, dorkus, and however you want to.
In a more detailed answer: after the game, dorkus (and we'll take the how in sections). So far as we know, we've got Ashley's and Callo's entire lives for them to fall in love. It is almost certain that Ashley will find Callo at some point after the game, because she's a Great Giant Liability. She could get caught, and verify that Ashley is a traitor, and then tip the VKP off when she screams under torture that she never went near Bardorba's manor the night of Bardorba's murder, and she can name [insert number] witnesses off the top of her head. Suddenly, the VKP will put two and two together and realize that Ashley has the Rood Inverse and is no longer their tool.
And not only that, but the Ultimania guide says, "The path the survivors of Lea Monde will take is as plain as day to him. Callo, Tieger, Neesa, even young Joshua; any road they choose will inevitably lead to him."5
This is where Ashley/Callo becomes tenable, because we can establish that Ashley and Callo have the time to develop a relationship. What we need to establish now is whether they would have the inclination to do so, and why it would be with each other.
Callo is almost certainly attracted to Ashley. Part of this is physical and is alluded to in the very beginning. Part of this comes from what would be a clear psychological reaction to two different stimuli:
A) she and Ashley Riot shared a temporary bond, wherein Ashley could see through her eyes,
and
B) Ashley has been her only hope for rescue6 for about 19-24 hours7.
We can establish that Callo has those kinds of feelings for Ashley. They may or may not be bundled up, at the beginning of ther Post-Game relationship, with the other kinds of feelings (namely resentment over the fact that he got her into the situation she's in, anger that she has become a kidnapper, "righteous" rage over him betraying the VKP, astonishment at his ability to find her-- the list of negative emotions could go on as long as my left arm).
Now, can we establish that Ashley has those kinds of feelings for Callo? Let's take a look at hard evidence, here:
IV: Have a Little More Respect for Fairy Tales (Some Arguments Against, and Why They Don't Work)
"...have a little more respect for faerie tales, Riskbreaker..." -- Sydney Losstarot, Vagrant Story
V: In Summary
In summary, Ashley and Callo aren't perfect for each other. There is no such thing as perfect love, and Vagrant Story spends lots of effort reinforcing that point. "Love is gentle, love is kind," but that side of it fades away like morning dew. You need only take a look at Ashley's fragmented memories and the outcome of the Guildenstern/Samantha romance to realize that nobody in Vagrant Story is perfect for anybody else.
But Ashley and Callo come about as close as anybody else, and probably even closer.Their relationship is one that is doomed to be full of complications. They might love each other. They might trust each other. But that comes after they recover from Lea Monde. Ashley's emotions are beginning to wake again, and Callo is doubtless reeling from the shock of the one thing to which she sacrificed everything repaying her in blood and the taste of ashes in her mouth. Add in the problem of Joshua Bardorba and Ashley's immortality, along with a nigh-inescapable case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for the both of them and Ashley's deification of Tia, and you have a really rocky start.
Trust and love are most certainly a long way away. But the ultimate fulfillment of that journey is worth every complication, and their love wouldn't be half so awesome if it didn't take so long to develop.
V: Fic Reccs
I think I'm the only person who writes this, and I don't actually have any real live honest-to-goodness Ashley/Callo fic posted (though I have about dozen A/C smut fics started...).
There used to be something called "Let's Do the Rite!", but I never actually got to read it, and it's down, so I can't tell you whether or not it was Ashley/Callo, although Google pulled it up on some keywords I'm pretty sure were tailored to Ashley/Callo.
However, there are a few moments in some fics that made me, as an A/C shipper, squee that maybe somebody liked my pairing too!
Author: Nagia
Pairing: Ashley Riot/Callo Merlose (Vagrant Story)
Spoilers: The game. The whole game. Nothing but the game.
Vagrant Story is a small fandom. An extremely small fandom. We have fewer than a hundred fics on The Pit of Voles, and probably between 100-150, with my best WAG at 125, in total. Those are only counting the English-language fics, because I don't look at non-English pages. But for such a tiny, tiny fandom, there are sharp divisions. The VS fandom has drawn as many lines in the sand as there are traceries in the Rood Inverse. Okay, there are only three (Ashley/Sydney, Sydney/Hardin, and The Family: Real or False).
I propose something a little different. Something rare.
I: Hero and Damsel; Knight and Slutty Maiden. (The Who)
"...you're no Knight, are you?" -- Sydney Losstarot, Vagrant Story
The male of the 'ship is Ashley Riot, the player character with the funny hair and the even funnier shorts. But just because he looks kind of silly doesn't mean he actually is. He's a very serious guy, and he's not somebody you want to take lightly. Just about every battle with a human enemy in the game proves this point1.
But one of the most spectacular and interesting things about Ashley Riot is that he seems to experience little to no emotion. The Ultimania guide mentions that he has a "closed-off heart."2 It seems that the only way he could become the perfect Riskbreaker that he is, was to close off his emotions and separate his body from his soul.
We learn why not two hours into the game. Ashley once had a wife and son, Tia and Marco. But they were slain, in his own words, by "fallen knights, jackals", while he stood by helplessly. It rent Ashley to pieces. His wrath at the murderers and hatred of himself for his failure drove him to join the Riskbreakers, Parliament's special brand of hatchet-men.
But then, in the snowfly forest, we learn something different. It seems that the black-clad jackal who slew Tia... was Ashley himself. And he or one of his comrades also fired the shot that slew Marco, and another comrade slew a man who looked somewhat like Ashley.
So his family was a lie. Or perhaps the slaughter of an innocent family was a lie. Or perhaps both were true, or both were false? Who can say?
But, for the sake of this exerise, we're going to pretend that Tia and Marco were Ashley's wife and son, and that the family-slaughter was a separate incident, easily confused with the deaths of Tia and Marco.
So, to sum up: Man. Emotionless. Lacks fashion sense. Traumatized. Likely suffers from erectile dysfunction.
"...sounds like you're quite taken with him yourself." -- Ashley Riot, Vagrant Story.
And then we have Callo Merlose, a bright young Inquisitor with a penchant for asking really good questions3. In the "just the facts, ma'am" version, we know that she's twenty-three, has two PHD's (religious psychology and criminal psychology; she specializes in the study of cults and religious terrorism), and has the ability to maintain objectivity under the most stressful of situations, as well as a habit of information analysis. Most of Callo's lines are interrogative, and she doesn't seem to have grown out of that childish love of knowing why.
Even when she becomes a hostage, Merlose doesn't stop asking questions. She hassles and she queries and she infers and she makes statements until Hardin snaps in half and answers her.
And then she gets the nifty ability to scrye into people's inner hearts4. And suddenly, she starts getting answers to her questions. If she were a fangirl, and squee-ing weren't unprofessional, I bet you could've heard her squee in Maine.
So, to sum up: Girl. Curious. Wears slutty clothes. Unapologetic Plot Device.
II: Hero Meets Damsel. Hero and Damsel do NOT run off into the sunset and get married, do NOT pass Go, do NOT get 200 dollars.
Ashley meets Callo as she stands in a dark forest, her back to him, peering at the manor he is to infiltrate. They have a little verbal sparring: she tries to get the social niceties out of the way, he just wants the facts. Then, when the Blades make their move and start shooting flaming arrows at the manor or some such jazz, Callo responds with, "--- What is this!?"
Ashley, laconic and confident, states what she already knows (or SHOULD already know), and then strides off towards the manor, calmly responding to her shouting about needing reinforcements with the bestlineevar: "Reinforcements? I am the reinforcements."
We next meet Callo staring at the contents of a small room (the VKP outpost at the entrance to Lea Monde, presumably) littered with bodies. We don't get to see Callo poking them and prodding them and examining the wounds, but considering that Callo's only report to the VKP consists of saying, "Riot fu**ed up, lost Sydney in the Manor, believes Sydney headed to Lea Monde. So we pursued to Lea Monde; here's what I found," one may assume that she did so.
And then:
ASHLEY: ...sounds like you’re quite taken with him yourself.
This is the only flirtatious line in the game that Sydney didn't say. Oddly enough, it comes from the person least likely to flirt with anyone. There are plenty of questions about this line-- is it a straight question? Is he teasing her out of dislike? Is he teasing her as a flirtation? Is it a combination of the above? All of the above?
III: Okay, so with Minimal Subtext and Major Competition, and Very Few Face-to-Face Scenes in the Game, When Does the Romance Happen? And, Equally Importantly, HOW?!
In a short answer: after the game, dorkus, and however you want to.
In a more detailed answer: after the game, dorkus (and we'll take the how in sections). So far as we know, we've got Ashley's and Callo's entire lives for them to fall in love. It is almost certain that Ashley will find Callo at some point after the game, because she's a Great Giant Liability. She could get caught, and verify that Ashley is a traitor, and then tip the VKP off when she screams under torture that she never went near Bardorba's manor the night of Bardorba's murder, and she can name [insert number] witnesses off the top of her head. Suddenly, the VKP will put two and two together and realize that Ashley has the Rood Inverse and is no longer their tool.
And not only that, but the Ultimania guide says, "The path the survivors of Lea Monde will take is as plain as day to him. Callo, Tieger, Neesa, even young Joshua; any road they choose will inevitably lead to him."5
This is where Ashley/Callo becomes tenable, because we can establish that Ashley and Callo have the time to develop a relationship. What we need to establish now is whether they would have the inclination to do so, and why it would be with each other.
Callo is almost certainly attracted to Ashley. Part of this is physical and is alluded to in the very beginning. Part of this comes from what would be a clear psychological reaction to two different stimuli:
A) she and Ashley Riot shared a temporary bond, wherein Ashley could see through her eyes,
and
B) Ashley has been her only hope for rescue6 for about 19-24 hours7.
We can establish that Callo has those kinds of feelings for Ashley. They may or may not be bundled up, at the beginning of ther Post-Game relationship, with the other kinds of feelings (namely resentment over the fact that he got her into the situation she's in, anger that she has become a kidnapper, "righteous" rage over him betraying the VKP, astonishment at his ability to find her-- the list of negative emotions could go on as long as my left arm).
Now, can we establish that Ashley has those kinds of feelings for Callo? Let's take a look at hard evidence, here:
- His emotions appear to be returning after a rather long absence. Therefore, he is now capable of falling in love (or just lust).
- He has shared a temporary bond with Callo, enabling him to see through her eyes. If this bond has given Callo any fondness for him, or any feeling of affinity, then doubtless it does the same to him.
- View the following:
SYDNEY: I give you the city, Riskbreaker! All its power -- all to you! Make haste! Join me! Already, your powers are close to readiness! Come!
ASHLEY: Keep your accursed city! Where's Merlose!?
This shows that he cares enough about Callo in some bizarre fashion to brush aside the gift of immortality and incredible power and inquire after her location. Yes, finding her is his job. But by this point, he's not quite so fond of Parliament or the VKP, and I sincerely doubt that even Ashley could be that devoted to his job. - He and Callo, if they don't somehow wind up as deadly enemies8, will probably wind up working together in some fashion to avoid the VKP. In order to do that, they're going to have to learn to trust each other. And once they trust each other, the stage is set for the relationship to go other places.
IV: Have a Little More Respect for Fairy Tales (Some Arguments Against, and Why They Don't Work)
"...have a little more respect for faerie tales, Riskbreaker..." -- Sydney Losstarot, Vagrant Story
- Wouldn't attaching Callo to Ashley be saying that she needs a man? I'm so tired of making the female character the love-interest.
- I disagree-- attaching Callo and Ashley would neither negate nor deny her strength. In fact, it would probably be her strength that Ashley found so attractive. Callo wouldn't be able to withstand the journey towards a loving relationship with him if she weren't strong. Callo is strong-willed and very intelligent, as well as curious. She has shown that she's willing to give her life for the good of an organization that repaid her with nothing. The pairing doesn't change that-- in order for the two of them to live long enough to formulate a romance, she has to be strong.
- You have no proof that Ashley prefers women!
- You're right. Technically, I don't. But I find it very, very unlikely that Ashley would be so in love with his wife as to destroy himself and his emotions with her death. Yes, it's equally likely that he did so out of both grief at losing her and rage at his failure, but the point is that he cared enough about his wife and son (or an imaginary wife and son) as to destroy himself. This strong attachment to women (you will note, playing the game, that he forms that bond only with women) does not compute with a sexual attraction to men.
- Okay, whatever. But how can you say that Ashley would be attracted to Callo?
- Um, I can't. But I can say that it's possible, and it's equally possible that Callo is attracted to Ashley.
V: In Summary
In summary, Ashley and Callo aren't perfect for each other. There is no such thing as perfect love, and Vagrant Story spends lots of effort reinforcing that point. "Love is gentle, love is kind," but that side of it fades away like morning dew. You need only take a look at Ashley's fragmented memories and the outcome of the Guildenstern/Samantha romance to realize that nobody in Vagrant Story is perfect for anybody else.
But Ashley and Callo come about as close as anybody else, and probably even closer.Their relationship is one that is doomed to be full of complications. They might love each other. They might trust each other. But that comes after they recover from Lea Monde. Ashley's emotions are beginning to wake again, and Callo is doubtless reeling from the shock of the one thing to which she sacrificed everything repaying her in blood and the taste of ashes in her mouth. Add in the problem of Joshua Bardorba and Ashley's immortality, along with a nigh-inescapable case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for the both of them and Ashley's deification of Tia, and you have a really rocky start.
Trust and love are most certainly a long way away. But the ultimate fulfillment of that journey is worth every complication, and their love wouldn't be half so awesome if it didn't take so long to develop.
V: Fic Reccs
I think I'm the only person who writes this, and I don't actually have any real live honest-to-goodness Ashley/Callo fic posted (though I have about dozen A/C smut fics started...).
There used to be something called "Let's Do the Rite!", but I never actually got to read it, and it's down, so I can't tell you whether or not it was Ashley/Callo, although Google pulled it up on some keywords I'm pretty sure were tailored to Ashley/Callo.
However, there are a few moments in some fics that made me, as an A/C shipper, squee that maybe somebody liked my pairing too!
- With Eyes Closed to the Sun: An Epilogue, by Croik. A really excellent fic. It takes place in that week before the end of the Lea Monde adventure and the final scenes in the game. Ashley/Callo shippy moments: 1.0
- Antic Round by GlassShard. Will never be completed, but a very fun thing to read. Ashley/Callo shippy moments: 1.0
- Godhands by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mullenkamp. Not actually shippy in the slightest, but it's a great fic. I usually go back and reread when I'm desperate for an A/C fix and wishing to hell somebody else would write A/C. Ashley/Callo shippy moments: .5 - ***Edited to add:***Beautiful and Terrible, by yours truly, tainted4life. Outright A/C (well, C/A). Warnings for D/S&S/SM and asymmetrical kink. Ashley, the presumptuous peasant, makes an advance he shouldn't and Callo sets him straight. Ashley/Callo Shippy moments: So many it broke the meter.
- The Vagrant Story Picture Show by mullenkamp. It contains a song that, while not textually shippy ("Stay Close, Merlose"), the song it parodies was a lovesong. Hence, indirectly shippy. Ashley/Callo shippy moments: .5
- Questioning One's Faith, by LunarCry. A great piece with Callo as a first person narrator. Ashley/Callo shippy moments: 1.0
- Lead Your Beast Unto Me, by Solain Rhyo. Another Callo-narrated piece, this time third person. No actual A/C shippy moments yet, but considering that the genre is Action/Adventure/Romance, I think there just may be some in the future.
- Affinities, by threewalls. It takes place in-game, so it's not actively shippy, and I beta'd it, so this may be a conflict of interest. But it's a great fic, so what the hey. Ashley/Callo Shippy moments: 1 (.5 + .5)
- Requiem per il Re delle Spade, by Whitney Cox. A very interesting plot from one of the Technomancy chicks. Ashley/Callo shippy moments: .75 (implied Ashley/Callo).
Please, feel free to add a fic recc (read: "if you have an Ashley/Callo fic that I've missed, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE mention it!") or your own thoughts on the subject.
=====
Footnotes and links to where you were before you clicked the footnote. Hahaha.
--- I -- II -- III --- IV ---
1Especially the Grissom battle. Every time I replay the game, I point and laugh at Grissom. Very hard. Don't get me wrong, I love Grissom too, but he's an ass (which is part of why I love him. He is so obssessed with his brother that he gets himself killed because of it. Hee!).
2It doesn't mention the likelihood of erectile dysfunction, but I think we inferred that for ourselves when Squeenix depicted no reaction to Callo's clothing OR to Sydney.
3I'm serious. She says almost nothing that isn't prying for information. But they're good questions, and a lot of them are questions I had just shouted at my TV screen.
4And everyone shuddered with dread, because HOLYFUCKTHEEXPOSITION. And I sobbed, because Callo got turned into Plot Device.
5Taken from This translation of the epilogue (what, you thought I spoke Japanese? Hah. Not bloody so).
6When I say rescue, I mean "getting out of the clutches of the cultists who may or may not decide to use her as a human sacrifice". She obviously has a vested interest in escape or rescue.
7Though you can say more if you want. The Technomancy Chicks said three days, and I know one person who guesstimated 16 hours; I went with a little under nineteen, placing Dawn at 7AM and the first Wine Cellar scene at about 12 (technically at 11:42 AM, but actually, more like 11:57, giving her ten minutes to poke and prod at the first bodies, and another five to talk to Ashley while poking the other bodies).
8And even there, you have a lot of potential...
*Edited to add the only outright A/C fic on the web. By myself.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-12-13 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-13 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-13 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 01:15 am (UTC)It's like FFVIII without beating your head in with the ship of choice!Your theory that Ashley can't get it up is brilliant. I always just figured that his problems were limited to his wonderful shorts, the thing on his back, and being in a cursed city. xD
no subject
Date: 2004-12-17 02:24 pm (UTC)