His scar on his chest came after an accident and subsequently a surgery
Overworking himself to fill the role as firstborn son and heir to a vast, growing kingdom at a young age, he wore himself to all his limits at once by studying instead of sleeping
One day he sparred versus his father, and James miscalculated how fast his father could swing at him with a new club, and how much slower James moved his body
Later he awoke to his mother nursing him, and he found an aching sore across his torso
His latent self-regeneration wasn’t as potent as it is in his adulthood, so surgery was necessary to fix the tear in his heart valve
Now, he knows better. His body failed him. He’ll do what he can to prevent another injury/organ failure, but wouldn’t trust pushing his physical limits
“Mind over matter, after all”
Erik
Scars across his right eye, hidden under his bangs
Hyper self-conscious about it, that he’s super sure to cover it with his bangs, and especially with glamour once Matthew learned to concoct the potions
He’s a people-pleaser, especially towards women due to his mother’s upbringing
It’s no surprise he tried to make as many ladies as happy as possible
One of the cat demon girls he comforted clawed at his face in an attempt to claim him, saying that if he weren’t pretty, all her competition for his attention would go away
Since then, he’s learned to layer masks upon masks, pleasing people but not letting anyone as close as he let others before
He picks at his scars when he’s under stress of disappointing someone important to him
“It’s ugly, isn’t it, Princess?”
Sam
Cuts on his lip from getting into fights, busting them open
Scars on his back between his demon armor, almost reminding you of chain links how lines start and stop across his skin
He doesn’t start any fights, other demons jump him cause he looks tough and like a good fight (and boy does he know how to throw punches)
He can only shield himself against so many persistent brawlers before the cuts start to sink in
Those days are over though, but occasionally remind him that he’s a hulking Brute and a monster that others want to take down
“I know it looks bad! Just look at something besides me!”
Matthew
Scars on his fingers and hands from his early knife handling
His mother really wanted him to study to be the next heir to the throne for their happiness, that her dream was for him to rule when she isn’t able to
Though, Matthew couldn’t become the next heir right away so he wanted to give something else to his mom in the meantime
He decided to pick up cutlery, to make something different, to show his mom that he’s different from his brothers and can create something by himself
So he tried cooking up dishes with the little ingredients he had. He carved wood and cut fruits, trying to figure it out on his own without worrying his mom
“And that’s how I learned to cut apples and apply first aid in the same day!” 😀
Damien
Knicks and small scars on his hands and arms from rescuing animals
Birds, kittens, small creatures of the Demon World, he’d cradle them to safety in his arms, setting them down somewhere soft and dry where he’d then try to find its family (getting bit or scratched along the way, of course)
If it were orphaned, then he’d do his best to feed it and give it water
Looks at his scars in fond memory; he made many animal friends from this
“The minor injuries are worth saving another life”
Diana
A huge scar across her chest, due to an attempted assassination by a vengeful huntress who sought out temptress demons
Thankfully our then princess gave the huntress the slip, but the injury unfortunately stays
Holy magic isn’t something she can easily heal from, nor will it fade anytime soon
When she finds the time to, she’ll ink a tattoo that incorporates or flows with the scar that’s as elegant and powerful as her
“Perhaps I don’t want it to disappear when it reminds me of my will and conviction to serve my kingdom. Won’t it be more beautiful to make the scar into a symbol of strength than to think of it as shame?”
Just replayed Seduce
Me recently, and I wanted to express some of my thoughts on Diana. In
the second half of the game the succubus is presented as the villain
of the arc if Mika chooses one of the boys as her love interest, but
very much of the story is presented that way simply because it is
Mika’s point of view and not Diana’s. Now, I adore the boys of Seduce
Me, but I think it’s interesting that their actions can be seen in a
completely different light if you shift focus for just a bit.
What we see of Diana
in any of these five routes is very limited. What you know of her is
based solely on what the boys tell you of her and her own actions
toward Mika, which to be fair are very antagonistic right from the
get go. It’s very easy to see her as the next big bad followed right
after Malix but in reality it’s a much more complicated story.
Take into account
this. Diana, or Ezaeur, was only a child when the marriage was
arranged to Raestrao. She’s not even his age, actually only as old as Damien.
In the flashback when it’s decided she’ll marry Raestrao who himself
is very young, she can’t be very old. The Demon Lord is cruel,
conquering territory after territory as he sees fit. The fact the
parents of Diana even offered to negotiate with him seems to insult
him and there’s a very heavy implication this is not something he
ever bothers with often and considers just taking the land violently to
teach them a lesson.
Ezaeur probably
knows fully well the violence the Demon Lord is capable of, even when
she’s young. This is a man infamous for his wars, how he takes
multiple women for his wives and grants them no power, and even
enjoys in raping others. He’s a nightmare in every sense of the word,
but she’s offered up to him to join his family by marrying his oldest
son. Lives are going to be saved if she makes this sacrifice, and her
lands will become part of this empire and thrive instead of just
being yet another place that gets crushed by it.
James is raised
well, but in very cruel conditions. In his personal flashback you can
see he has doubts about his place in the world. He doesn’t want his
birthright, doesn’t like the direction his life is going, and seems
genuinely fearful of the possibility Erik mentions to him that he’ll
probably end up just like their father, a war monger and a tyrant if
he doesn’t put a stop to it. He’s raised every day of his life to
learn tactics, how to fight, how to kill, and probably other nameless
horrid things his father believes will bring him strength. Mika
notices it looks like it’s been days since he’s even slept and it’s
implied heavily this is the norm for him.
It’s easy to imagine
the same can be said for Ezaeur. Also a child of royalty, her place
has been decided for her since she was a child. She’s going to be a
bride and her father-in-law is certainly going to have expectations.
The second it was decided she probably had to buckle down just as
hard. She has to be perfect. The perfect beauty, the perfect amount
of power and intelligence, able to compliment Raestrao well without
being too much of a threat. Like James, every day of her life
probably went into grooming her for this role.
But here’s the
difference. James has to be perfect to please his father. Diana has
to be perfect to keep her people alive. The amount of stress she has
on her probably was horrid, especially knowing her rights probably
weren’t going to be that good. There is no indication to her Raestrao
is any different from his father. She’s probably never even met him, only knowing stories. His father who turned all his
brides into spirits just for bickering. She knows she’s facing a
future where there will probably be other women down the line, that
she’ll have little to no actual say in what is going to happen about
anything. Her title would be queen, but for all the good it did the
queens before her, it might as well be harem girl.
Then one day,
Raestro can no longer be found. He’s just gone along with all his
brothers. All of a sudden everything Diana has worked for is up in
smoke. She has no more hold on the throne or keeping anyone she knows
alive, that is unless she can bring the boys back. Her only hope is
finding Raestrao and pulling him back to the Abyssal Plains, or if
she has to, one of his brothers as a replacement. It’s no wonder
she’s so desperate, that she’s willing to do anything it takes to
accomplish this.
And when she finds
James, it’s almost heartbreaking really. James doesn’t want to go
back. For once, he’s not pressured or being forced into a role. In
the human world he can be whoever he wants, however he wants. He has
his brothers, a nice home, and he has no intention of letting Diana
ruin that for him. In the route where Mika picks James, Diana doesn’t
flounce around the possibility of a throne and power like she does for the other boys.
She’s pleading. She wants James to acknowledge her and his birthright, and what this means to her.
He has to come back, and she’s trying to ease him into the idea using
sweet words and the fact that she was promised to him, that she
belongs to him and him to her, the tone she uses almost romantic
despite the fact she probably has no feelings for him at all.
And James, as much
as I like him, much as he’s a sweetie… is kind of an asshole here.
Literally, like kind of a dick. He tells Diana she doesn’t have the
capability to love, that he doesn’t want the throne especially if she
comes with it. Really, it’s kind of harsh. Now, to be fair Diana has
hardly been a sweet angel to his brothers or Mika but this is just kind of cruel. This
woman who worked her entire life to be promised to him basically just
get shut down for a 17 year old human girl who doesn’t understand the
situation, and even if she does then doesn’t care. To James and Mika,
this is just some power hungry hussy who wants to be a queen. There
are no faces attached to their decision, no consequences. James even
asks, “Am I not allowed to be selfish for once in my lifetime?”
thinking about his own misery and imprisonment of being the favored
son and heir.
To Diana though, no.
He’s not allowed to be selfish, because she’s not. His actions will
condemn her people, just like it would be if she were to refuse him.
The problem? He says no, he walks away with no consequences besides
banishment. Diana walks away with a destroyed home on her shoulders.
Eventually though, she knows there’s no convincing him. He’s not
willing to come, and dragging him back, as much as she’d love to just
isn’t an option.
It gets even more
cruel when Mika and James finally learn what their love cost Diana.
It’s horrifying in all senses of the word. The Demon Lord is cruel to
the extent of madness, killing her family to the point of even… uh,
spoilers and trigger warnings here. This gets graphic.
Her mother is literally torn open, her unborn child, Diana’s own sister, taken out of her and
nailed to a wall, and this is even before the rebellion is even started. Diana comes home after failing to collect the boys to this and there’s nothing she
can do about it. They’re already dead and gone. When Mika is told the
story of the little mermaid by Diana, she makes it clear her opinion.
It doesn’t matter if the rest of the world burns as long as the
mermaid and prince are happy. It’s a fairytale for a teenager who’s
never experienced war or this kind of horror, who doesn’t live in a world where battles, blood and rape are the horrible norm. She’s lived a nice life and her pressures of having to inherit a company and a life of stress but infinite comfort don’t even compare. It’s probably laughably cruel to Diana the fate of her family and home was basically decided by two blissful ignorant and spoiled people who don’t know or even care about Diana’s plight. One can only imagine
the kind of thoughts and feelings welling up inside of the succubus
at the moment, probably along the lines of, “If he’d only listened.
If he’d only come back with me.”
To be fair, by the
time James learns of this, he does seem genuinely remorseful. Diana
however, doesn’t care. To her, this happened years ago. There’s
nothing to be done for it now. It would be easy to hate James, easy
to blame him, but nothing at all would come from it. Even crying and standing in front of James and Mika as they look at her in horror, she’s just done and she wants them gone and out of her life and world. Even if James
went, “My god, you’re right. Because of my decision, your whole
family was murdered. I’ll go home right now and convince him to
stop,” it would be far, far too late. What she’s lost can never be
replaced. The years she’s worked for her family’s lives were wasted,
and now all she has is the war, revenge, and the hope that this time
her preparations will pay off. James is behind her, she’s done with
him and what he did to her, and she cares little for how he sees her
now or how he feels on the matter.
“It doesn’t matter
what happens to the princess.” “It [the story of the mermaid,
prince and princess] was one thing to be a fictional story; it was
another to ruin someone’s life for selfishness.”
Well Mika, it did
matter to the princess. It mattered to her more than you could have
ever fathomed, and you didn’t even realize until you heard about what
happened to her family that she was thinking the exact same thing about
you.
Just goes to show a
villain is often just a hero who’s story has not been told yet.
Big thanks to @thebunnyofevil for
giving us this wonderfully diverse and frankly tragic character. I
adore her to bits, and I hope that after reading this that you do
too. If you haven’t played Seduce Me and you’re interested, the first game is free to play, and the sequel is very cheap too.
Personally I think Diana can be so under appreciated because she is portrayed as the antagonist in the first game. She’s a complicated personality but this perfectly explains her motives. Worth a read
Naomi and Suzu met the boys when they came over to help with the party. Despite Mika’s efforts to hide it, they wound up seeing the boys’ magical abilities firsthand. After the fear wore off, Naomi expressed interest in “taking one of them off her hands” for a while.
At first she was a little interested in James, but then something interesting happened. Naomi made some fruit punch for the group and Sam, without even trying any, insulted it as a girlie drink. It hurt Naomi’s feelings, but then Sam tried the punch and found that he loved it. He didn’t apologize, but Naomi was so smug about him going back for more that she didn’t feel the need to ask for one.
That’s what made them first start paying attention to one another.
Naomi learned that Sam, for all his tough guy act, wasn’t that opposed to being untraditionally macho or silly. And Sam learned that despite Naomi’s soft-spoken demeanor, she was strong in spirit and didn’t put up with bullshit.
…. I have a soft spot for delicate-looking and small, paired with Big Strong Tough.
Naomi and Mika are 100% ok with it! The relationship Sam has with Mika isn’t the same as the relationship he shares with Naomi, but both are strong and healthy. After all, love is infinite. In fact, one of their favorite ways to humor themselves is to compare what he’s like in bed. (With Mika, he’s rough and domineering, and with Naomi, he’s slow and passionate.)
FantasyBoudicca 