An Aloof Intel Officer's Dossier

The simplest way to my heart is color contrast. Ringo and Seiran, Jo'on and Shion.

Note: Casual mentions of adult H-works, and toxic relationship dynamics ahead.

It all started because I was playing modded L4D2. A Chinese modder ported the 4 Moon Rabbits into the game for the L4D1 gang. I personally decompiled and re-assigned them to the L4D2 gang, so as a result, I can play the Moon Rabbits Team in either L4D1 or L4D2 maps.

I also subscribed to a Neon Transparent Weapons skins set. And each weapon class has its own color. Submachine guns are magenta, Rifles are purple, Tier 1 Shotguns are light blue, Tier 2 Shotguns are blue, Scoped rifles are orange and yellow, and then other weapons are all the colors of the rainbow.

Because Ringo is either Francis or Coach, she defaults to the shotgun. Blue.
And then Seiran is either Zoey or Ellis, she defaults to the scoped rifles. Orange.

I see them standing side by side, and my heart melted.
Blue holding orange. Orange holding blue.

Complete coincidence. Nothing was intentional.

And then I had a flashback of that one H-doujin I read years back about Ringo and Seiran. Speed Strike Seiran by Yudepii. Name is enough to get you searching if you want to take a look. It warms my heart. The story’s good, the art is good. H-doujins can tell amazing stories too.

I never play anything lower than Expert Realism (because I have addons and scripts that allow me to hoard resources, gotta keep the challenge on). And I unironically loved using the Hunting Rifle on Expert Realism despite its penetration penalty, taking 3 shots to kill a common zombie. So, I mostly play Seiran so I can have the Sniper role to myself. I only ever learned to appreciate the shotgun once I get around playing as Ringo, and it was also enjoyable.

For months I had an Aoringo brainrot, and by extension a Moon Rabbit brainrot. I imagined their lives on messy, impure, zombie-infested Earth as independent contractual military soldiers, their inherent immunity to the flu being invaluable to the military of the cruiser filled with other carriers. I would play the Two of Us mutation, modified to include Chargers and Jockeys, and I had played 117 campaigns of almost all permutations of the four moon rabbits (I refuse to play as Reisen, because she is an AK-47 and Magnum main lol.) Starting with playing Ringo and then my bot Seiran, then playing Seiran and then bot Ringo, then Rei’sen II with bot Reisen, and so on…

In my mind, they were doing re-sweeps of areas already cleared in the main campaigns. After every deployment they go back to the military cruiser. No one bothered to question their ears.

I completed all duo permutations, and started making solo mutations for myself.

A Solo Seiran Mutation mod, where with her ability to fire bullets from other dimensions, the Hunting Rifle or Military Sniper has infinite penetration and can kill SI through a mountain. The rules are as follows: You are alone as Seiran, only the scoped weapons have infinite penetration. The SI are highlighted red so you can shoot them through walls. They spawn one at a time, but three of them spawn per director SI attack. As long as they don’t see you, you can kill them for free. But there is a catch. In addition to having the Wandering SI addon, I play with the Taunt add-on, with someone’s Noise Sensitive Zombies addon. The sniper is loud; a shot can attract zombies to you. So, I play in a way that if I shoot the SI now, will that outweigh the risk of attracting a room of zombies to me? And each shot makes the aggro radius bigger. A Charger with a lot of health is enough to have the whole map of zombies coming to rush to you. Of course, with the director limit, it’s only about a few dozen zombies on the whole map at a time. It was a fun, thrilling challenge. You are given wallhacks, so if you are pinned, it’s entirely your fault.

Then I made the Solo Ringo Mutation mod. All three SI can spawn at once in one director SI attack. Alone, she eats 3 dango, and is in the strongest state she can be. With a team, Ringo can be pinned as she’s lazy and eats only one dango, so she doesn’t work as hard and lies on the floor until you pick her up. But alone, she doesn’t have to hold back and think about friendly fire. Chargers bounce off her, Jockeys are easily thrown off her head, Smokers cannot pull her, their tongues snap and they stumble. Hunters however have adapted. They’re clever bastards. Rather than bothering to pounce, he just runs to you and scratches you. These fuckers deal a ton of damage with their scratches. 40 HP on Expert Realism. So, Hunters are Ringo’s nemesis. While she cannot be pinned, she can still die from war of attrition. And with the addon that attracts zombies when using loud weapons, a shotgun is louder than a sniper. Each buckshot is a dinner bell, and for Ringo, who uses fists (tonfa replacement), all I need to do is stand by a doorway and start punching.

Fast forward to GTA SA, playing and modding a different game, I am instantly drawn to the colors of Jo’on and Shion, Yellow flames, blue flames.

Unlike Ringo and Seiran being more like Senior and Junior Officer defecting to Earth together, and living a life selling dango to the village, stripping their rank and just being business rivals and roommates… Jo’on and Shion are toxic, codependent, inherently inseparable partners in crime.

In the end of AoCF they split, and then in Sunken Fossil World, they’re back at it again, but their dynamic had shifted slightly. Jo’on doesn’t insult Shion, and they are more like a duo of funny cartoon villains that are bound to lose by the end of an episode. (Petroleum? Having value in Gensokyo? Jo’on is both aware of what makes the rich filthy rich in the Outside World, and a moron for missing the context of where she currently is.)

For sure, it’s not a one-way victim and abuser story. These two use each other, they are toxic to each other. Jo’on just happens to be more visibly and loudly so, while Shion is quieter and more insidious about it. And no, it’s not in a very dark way. I just mean that Jo’on verbally abuses and uses Shion, while Shion in her own way also manipulates and uses Jo’on. It’s shameless. I’ll talk about this in detail in another post. Simply, Shion is not some innocent cinammon roll. She's a con artist for poverty's sake.

I notice that while there are sentiments of which the Yorigami sisters are better off apart, until Sunken Fossil World dropped and they are together again, there were a lot of Japanese songs that sing about their inseparability, and how they stick together to weather the world that hates them. ヨリガミサマ from RD-Sounds album 契 is one. A more recent example. The Western sentiment was the whole ‘they are healthier apart’. The Eastern sentiment is keeping the Yorigami together, singing about the concept of two beings born hated with no one else to turn to.

When I first played Sunken Fossil World and completed all stories, I had a lot of fun playing the Yorigami. Their controls are fun to play. And Shion’s role as someone you don’t control fully but supports you and reacts according to the situation remains. Their duo setup in AoCF is preserved in Sunken Fossil World and I am glad for it, because that concept is unique to them. To lose the two-unit one playable character concept just because it’s healthier to split them apart is a waste of that unique duo boss status and mechanic. And that was years ago. At the time, I’m not really obsessed with them.

Ah, this post is about colors!

Okay, so yellow flame and blue flame. It’s inevitable. Not only do I love color pairing, I also love their height gap. Shion is clearly taller than Jo’on. So it’s a double-whammy. Colors and height gap. I can’t take it. My mind is completely consumed. Damn it. They got me making a shrine for them. I gave them the whole world, well, San Andreas at least...

I also notice the two pairs I love use the same weapon type.

In L4D2, Ringo uses shotguns, and Seiran uses snipers. In GTA SA, I prefer to give Shion a sniper because it’s a one shot one kill per one second weapon. And as Jo’on, if I MUST use a gun other than fists, I naturally gravitate to using a pump shotgun. Close range and long-range synergy, gotta have that, always. In addition, Jo’on is a fists main, Ringo is a fists main... Shion is taller than Jo'on, Seiran is (in my head) taller than Ringo...

I ran out of things to say. All it took is colors.

🧡💙