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[ID: gifs from the 18th episode of the series "Mysterious Lotus Casebook." Li Lianhua says to Qiao Wanmian, "A-Mian. Today, we should say goodbye. Live the life you want." Qiao Wanmian says, tears in her eyes, "Okay." They both smile sadly at one another. She nods and says agian, "Okay." /end ID]

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...the world doesn't need this kind of Sigu Sect.

Qiao Wanmian 🖤 Mysterious Lotus Casebook

+ bonus:

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each chapter i have to figure out how kazami feels and each time it's a pain in the ass

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just found out about this cute little birdy and i am in love

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dug a little deeper in my memory and here is the tally of times furuya responded truthfully to kazami and those he avoided responding to a direct question from kazami about himself:

(ztt anime only) kazami asks him if furuya has ever failed before: ODIOUS AVOIDANCE. JAIL FOR FURUYA. he responds "let's see... for example...for example...um" and kazami tells him it's enough. i've always wondered, i think hiro's death is his biggest failure, but....that's too raw for a nomikai to cheer kazami up huh. it could also be that he genuinely...doesn't remember his failures....but that's pushing it a bit. responding with a real failure would make him look uncool to kazami either way, though.

kazami asks him why he's going to the vet: TRUTH CARD ACQUIRED. furuya answers truthfully he's going there to get some vaccinations done.

kazami asks him what happened to him / how did furuya get injured at the curry shop: TRUTH CARD ACQUIRED. furuya answers truthfully "it's something from yesterday". it was. he didn't go into details, and kazami didn't inquire further, but it was the truth

kazami notes furuya looks preoccupied with time, and asks him if he has plans later: TRUTH CARD ACQUIRED. furuya answers he's going to play a game (he was!) and asks kazami not to repeat this to his PSB colleagues. he looks miffed that he had to reply, but he didn't have to? he chose to reply?

kazami asks if the doggy is doing well: TRUTH CARD ACQUIRED but it's not that impressive since it's a benign question and kazami knows about haro anyway. but furuya does add "he probably misses you" which. hinting kazami should come over sometime? or....

kazami doesn't really ask, but hints a question by saying "survival class? you told me you were on another mission" when furuya got trapped in a basement and had to ask kazami to rescue him: ODIOUS AVOIDANCE. JAIL FOR FURUYA. furuya hits him with his usual curveball of "a lot has happened". it's not exactly a lie though. i mean you could consider it the truth...actually maybe it is a TRUTH CARD ACQUIRED. hmm. but yeah, going into details would have made him look uncool

kazami asks him if he was showering just now (...kazami.): TRUTH CARD ACQUIRED. furuya responds truthfully with "yeah". then again, it's more a thing about why is kazami asking this? than why is furuya answering, since it IS a benign question, but also kazami, you don't have to ask

kazami doesn't straight up ask but he hints pretty heavily that he'd like to know about the makeup remover in furuya's bathroom, and the hairpins...and the toothbrushes...and the hair...: TRUTH CARD ACQUIRED. (WHY! HOW!) furuya takes him through each of the items, except the make-up remover, to prove he hasn't brought a woman home (because that's what kazami cared about) and even goes as far as to check with kazami if he had "any other unclarified doubts". ok

kazami asks furuya if he was at haido shopping mall the other day, cuz he tried to call out to furuya but furuya didn't reply to him :( : TRUTH CARD ACQUIRED. furuya basically lays out his whole doppelganger problem to him.

kazami asks furuya what exactly he is investigating by blowing on a train window: ODIOUS AVOIDANCE. JAIL FOR FURUYA. furuya hangs up before having to reply, and does say "sorry" and "thanks" for the help. a situation where replying would have made him look bad in kazami's eyes

kazami asks furuya what he's looking at in the basement of hatoyama farm (the shoji piece) cuz he's been fixated on it for a while: TRUTH CARD ACQUIRED. furuya shares what he knows (which is not much).

kazami asks furuya why he's fixated on kid all of a sudden: ODIOUS AVOIDANCE. JAIL FOR FURUYA. furuya even spins a lie about how he's concerned for the queen but oh! lies! jail for furuya! he just needed kazami's help because he has no friends!! but he can't tell kazami that. it would make him look bad in kazami's eyes. however, even so, he adds truthfully that "he has a good reason he can't lose to kid now". which is objectively wrong, cuz his reason is shitty and petty, but to him, it's a truth. so there's that.

all in all, 3/4 instances of jail for furuya (depending on how you look at the answer), and pretty much only in situations where telling the truth would make him look uncool in kazami's eyes. kazami's record of "make furuya tell the truth to him through direct questions" is still very high, considering the character that furuya is.

I just love kazami asking questions away like "why are you going to the vet?" "do you have an appointment after this or...?" "what are you looking at?" "i found make up remover in your bathroom (why is it there?)" to furuya with no thought for whether it could be linked to a confidential mission that he's not privy to. it's in his space and scope of vision so he's gonna ask. if furuya didnt want him to ask maybe he shouldnt be having him in the "able to notice and to ask" vicinity

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i'm still thinking about this. like... is it just that kazami has a power to make furuya speak the truth when he asks? the only time it doesnt work is when furuya knows he owes kazami something (the something is: an apology) so instead of telling the truth he goes around it then, but otherwise i cant think of an instance where furuya hasnt answered kazami truthfully when he asked him a question directly?

isn't that kind of crazy considering furuya's character on the whole? like his cute subordinate asks him a question and suddenly mr triple agent super spy is like "let me explain"

?

I just love kazami asking questions away like "why are you going to the vet?" "do you have an appointment after this or...?" "what are you looking at?" "i found make up remover in your bathroom (why is it there?)" to furuya with no thought for whether it could be linked to a confidential mission that he's not privy to. it's in his space and scope of vision so he's gonna ask. if furuya didnt want him to ask maybe he shouldnt be having him in the "able to notice and to ask" vicinity

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kazami's tea time when??? 😩

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kazami's tea time when??? 😩

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I want to see an incident like this.

(I think B-kun and A-kun have many moments where they think "Eh? Was it like that between those two...? Are they dating??" and in fact they're not dating yet)

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Clicked on an article from the anthropology subreddit about loneliness and was immediately blasted into oblivion by this opening paragraph

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"All these years, he’s been alone. You are the only friend I’ve seen him with."

Li Lianhua & Fang Duobing | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023)

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I've asked 2 other users this and I wanna ask ur opinion this time :D

Other than the childhood friends to lovers trope, what other tropes could gosho use? Cause I realized that the childhood friends to lovers trope is everywhere and I wanna hear ur thoughts on it.

Apologies for the late reply!

I think Aoyama has already made use of some better plots when it comes to his romance. Sato/Takagi is slow burn coworker romance. Shuukichi/Yumi is a meet-cute with secret identities.

In all honesty, I don’t think he needs to use cliché tropes. Imagine if Kobayashi/Shiratori was instead Shiratori being charmed by something Kobayashi does and finding himself slowly moving on from Sato. I still wouldn’t really be into it since I don’t care about either of them. But it wouldn’t be a trashfire that implies that Shiratori doesn’t care about who Kobayashi is today- if he found out a different woman were his “childhood friend”, he would drop Kobayashi like a hot potato.

My main issue with the childhood friends trope is when I feel if the characters lost their memories of each other and met today, they wouldn’t become friends. Many of Aoyama’s childhood friends fall into that camp for me- where they seem to only “love” each other because they happen to have met as kids, regardless of who they are as people today.

Negative thoughts about Aoyama’s childhood friends ships under the cut:

Take say, Hattori and Kazuha. Hattori likes Kazuha because she… dressed up in a kimono and makeup as a little kid and looked really cute? Okay. No wonder Hattori never prioritizes Kazuha over literally anything else in his life, he has no real reason to love her. Would he even like spending time with her if his parents hadn’t forced it since he was little?

I think that’s why I still like Yui/Kansuke (and for non-canon, Hagiwara/Matsuda). They both feel like pairs who would get along even if they weren’t childhood friends.

I can’t think of a single thing Hattori would say if asked if he likes Kazuha. He’d probably go, “I don’t know, I just like her!” That’s a death knell for a ship, in my opinion.

It doesn’t help that Aoyama has stretched himself way too thin with too many characters and too many ships. No wonder most of his canon ships are badly written when he wants to write dozens of them. I argue that a big reason why we all like satotaka is that he let them develop their relationship further off-screen, which he doesn’t do with a lot of ships- meaning they’re stuck with whatever scraps of screentime they can get.

Of course, it also doesn’t help that he just doesn’t seem to care about some of these characters outside of their ship. Not to bring up Kazuha again, but I’m not over how when asked “What hobbies does Kazuha have?”, Aoyama went, “Cooking [like other girls], I guess?” She’s a love interest first and character second to him. And that too is unappealing.

I argue that Momiji and Kazuha’s karuta rivalry in M21, despite being centred around a boy, was still far more compelling than anything we got in canon for Hattori/Kazuha. And it’s probably not a coincidence that this was a storyline not written by Aoyama.

In sum: the problem isn’t childhood friends, despite me not personally liking the trope.

The problem is bad writing.

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Per Sonoko in Hannin no Hanzawa-san, cousins count as childhood friends under the inescapable childhood friend romance laws of the Detective Conan universe.

From this, one can argue that Akai and Akemi being revealed as cousins wasn’t an unintentional move Aoyama only noticed after making their mothers sisters, but in fact a fully intentional play to make them “childhood frien- /shot

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Conversations with ancestors

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[ID: gifs from episode 20 of the series "Mysterious Lotus Casebook." Fang Duobing points to Di Feisheng and says angrily, "If it weren't for me, you would still be lying in a coffin with Yi Cunhong, who had maggots on her body!" Di Feisheng smiles and looks down. Fang Duobing continues, "You caught me off guard before. But now, my Erya sword is very lonely. Let's have a battle." Li Lianhua steps forward and stops him before he can attack Di Feisheng. He pulls him backwards, saying "Enough. I cooked a new dish today. Let me take you to try it." Fang Duobing points at Di Feisheng and says, "Who are you saying has bad martial arts?" Li Lianhua continues pushing him out of Lotus Tower, saying, "Stop talking." /end ID]