#finally resumed my last playthrough

[manofmanymons]

NOT THE FOUR SHADOWING

[blackjackkent]

It legitimately feels weird having reached the weekend and not doing any BG3 liveblogging. XD I've gotten so attached to it over the past few months.

Tragically, though, I did not receive an invitation to the Patch 7 beta which means Rakha's playthrough is on hold until sometime in September. For those who have been following along with her, I appreciate your patience and hope you'll enjoy picking up the thread when I resume for her Act 3 adventures. <3

---

In the meantime... lots of other writing to do. I've actually had a productive morning so far:

Made a lot of progress on that Jaheira one-shot that compelled me out of nowhere yesterday. XD

WIP snippet under the cut for anyone interested, bc I'm pleased with where it's going, tbh. XD

She claps Caden lightly on the shoulder and gives him a nudge forward in the direction of the Promenade's northeast side where the tavern waits. "Go on, then. Take us rooms as well and I will join you later." He catches her hand, gives it a quick, affectionate squeeze, and then jogs away obediently. Aerie, as always, keeps to his side like a shadow, and Imoen and Minsc fall quickly into step behind him. To Jaheira's surprise, though, Rasaad stays halted next to her. She raises an eyebrow at him. "Something the matter, monk?" she asks softly. "I would ask you the same," he says; his voice is calm and placid as ever but he is watching her with a curious, intent expression. "This business you must attend to - it is something that troubles you." A slight pause. "Is it to do with the Harpers?" "Ah-- no." Jaheira smiles in spite of herself at his concern. "No. It will be many months, I think, before I can trust myself to think of Harper matters again. No, this is... a personal matter." He nods, lets the silence stretch for a moment. "In truth, I do not feel prepared for raucous celebration myself tonight," he says carefully after a little while, when she doesn't elaborate. "I would not intrude on your solitude if that is what you wish, but if company would aid you..." Jaheira draws a slow breath in, lets it out in a long sigh through her nose. "It is kind of you to offer," she says quietly. "But..." She hesitates, thinking it over. "Well," she adds, more to herself than to him. "It might be good not to be alone..." She fidgets her boot heel absently into the roadway. "Where I must go, I would not drag Caden and Minsc and Imoen back to. I would not inflict those memories upon them again. But you... you were not there..." She breathes out again heavily, rattling her lips. "I would not wish to keep you from resting, if you do not mean to celebrate..." she says doubtfully. A slight smile tugs at his lips. "I think being alone with my thoughts at present would do no one any service," he says with dark humor, "least of all myself." He cocks his head at her questioningly. "Where is it that you must go?" She swallows and looks away from him, up towards the northern pathway that leads out of the Promenade, deeper into the city. "Irenicus is dead," she says quietly. "His lair beneath the city remains, where we were first captured and tortured; with its master finally gone, it might be explored again in safety. I must..." She feels a sudden tightness in her throat and swallows it away, forcing her voice to steadiness. "I must return there and find Khalid's body, and see him properly buried at last."

[a-scummy-hybrid]

So ive decided to restart my Pikmin playthrough in favor of moving it to my Desktop rather than have it on my laptop.

So, i will be playing Pikmin 1 on GameCube via legitament means, why not choose the Wii Version? Well, mainly because im unsure as to how to properly connect the Wii Remote to the PC and do all the things necessary, but also because i'd rather not exert myself in trying to figure all that out tbh. But i do know that Pikmin's Wii version has some QoL improvements such as being able to switch color pikmin on the move. I also do understand the Switch version is cheaper but... iunno.

However, besides all that, back to the main topic at hand, i have a battle strategy as to how to approach the game now.

Day 1

Obtain enough Red Pikmin that are obtainable, then complete the tutorial.

Day 2

Go to The Forest's Navel and get the Yellow Pikmin, but also amass enough Red Pikmin using the red pellets and smallest bulborbs nearby the Red Onion.

Once having reached a sufficent amount, fight the biggest bulborbs but also open the passage to the Yellow Onion.

Fight the final big Bulborb then approach Yellow Onion to obtain my first Yellow Pikmin.

Then amass enough yellow Pikmin to pick up the defeated Bulborbs to feed to the Onion to amass a sufficent amount of Yellow Pikmin.

Day 3

Resume exploration at Forest of Hope.

Perform demolitions with the Yellow Pikmins and obtain the Extraordinary Bolt (to gain access to Forest's Navel for Blue Pikmin) & Radar (for being able to see Treasure on the Map).

Day 2 might mesh into Day 3 depending upon how Day 2 goes considering its 13:30 per day.

And hopefully by Day 4, i will be able to get Blue Pikmin at the Forest Navel, which will open access to the rest of the areas in Forest of Hope.

Day 4

Be at Forest's Navel and do all the things i can do with Blue Pikmin's, although mainly probably just amassing Blues.

Day 5

Return to Forest of Hope to obtain the rest of the items that are there now using the Blue Pikmin.

Granted, i dont spend Day 5 in Forest's Navel again if there are things that are interesting there (like ship parts). Or if I had lost a bunch of Blue Pikmin and i wanted to replenish my troops.

Summary

It may be a bit messy, i might lose a few Pikmin, honestly i might mess up horribly, but what i do know is that there are only 3 Pikmin Types to obtain, and once i have access to all of them, im pretty much open to explore and collect the ship components i need. I also have 5 to 6 hours to complete the game because its a very short game but with lots of replayability. I want to get all the ship parts and aid the Pikmin in surviving.

Something else i want to do is save the second ship part thats at the Impact Site for last, if thats an option.

I know there are:

2 Ship Parts at Impact Site (First is obtained for the Tutorial)

8 Ship Parts at The Forest of Hope (Some are locked off and can only be accessed with Blue Pikmin, but Extraordinary Bolt & Radar, mainly Extraordinary Bolt, as it grants me access to Forest Navel which then lets me obtain Blue Pikmin)

9 Ship Parts at The Forest's Navel (from what i recall seeing on Day 6 there, was a lot of those Flamethrower Creatures, whifh means ill most likely need Red Pikmin with me as i do reconnaissance and then some mushroom creature, which i think is very bad news for my Pikmin if i am not careful).

So if anything, that means there is 17 Ship Parts to collect in total for the first two exploration areas. Which likely means I'll probably be spending quite some time there before i go anywhere else.

Anyway, i now conclude this blog with this.

I dont know where i got this, i think it was from the pikmin subreddit. Regardless, i found it very silly, and i just love animation intended for humanoid models applied to models that are not of the humanoid shape.

ADDENDUM (updated at 12:06 PM 9/5/2024)

If i am unsuccessful with Day 2 in obtaining enough Yellow Pikmin and i go into Day 3 with not enough Y. Pikmin, i will most likely instead perform a B-Line for the Extraordinary Bolt instead and save the Radar for later if i have enough time to do so. As Bulborb's are weak in the back, i will need to be "stealthy" in my approach and hope i do not lose all too much pikmin on Day 2 nor spend too much running back and forth to amass more Pikmin/replenish Pikmin lost in battle.

I think the only "time wasters" that are to be concerned about are losing Pikmin while tackling Bulborbs & the Walls that you have to break down with sheer numbers and the bomb walls, which sometimes just take a lot of bombs to bust down which is sorta annoying.

[cloudwolfieaskblog]

Videogame Scene concept

Nearing final act of the game the heroes are fighting a Devil named Dakuth. As he reaches the 30% HP left mark the fight stops as a young voice calls for him. He excuses himself claiming it's an emergency and turns to leave the scene, forcing the party into a branched option.

They could let him be and recharge then follow him to see what exactly lured him away, or ambush him while he's vulnerable and win the fight.

Let's walk through each path:

Allowing Dakuth to comfort the child: The party is given the opportunity to explore the chamber and look for hidden treasure, weapons, armor and potions. From here follow Dakuth to the kid's room to find him singing in Infernal, soothing the crying werepup, who had a nightmare. The player is then given the option to call it a truce and leave him be or resume with the fight.

Leaving Dakuth be: return post-game to see Dakuth and the werewolf sparring. Dakuth changed entirely and the kid joins the party voluntarily as Dakuth's Warlock. They specialize in cold magic both melee and ranged,. making them a pretty useful party member.

Finishing the fight: The party ends the boss fight and slay Dakuth, leaving the werepup alone and abandoned once more. This may or may not unlock a post-game boss fight taking place in the Neverwinter Wood.

Ambushing Dakuth while he's vulnerable: There is no need to roll for damage, the player automatically wins the fight. Then they receive a quest: Silence The Child. Follow the quest arrow to the werepup's bedroom and face another decision: Soothe the child or Slay the child.

Soothing the child: the heroes start looking for items scattered in the room to calm the werepup who is constantly crying out for "dada". The most efficient item is a book of lullabies and rhymes written in Infernal. You need at least one party member to either speak the language or have access to the Comprehend to read from it. The child will then join the party as a passive member, unlocking the Full-time Babysitter achievement. Later on during the adventures as the kid matures they unlock actions of their own they can perform and lead the party through safe short cuts on their way to the final boss fight, as well as uncover hidden treasures, repaying the player for the trouble of raising them.

Killing the child: Considering it's a werepup and it was under the influence of a Fiend, the party can decide to prevent a potential catastrophe and end the child's life there and then, winning them the Extinction Party achievement. Moving forward, the party will face nations attacking them which could've been avoidable. Going back to change the decision will unlock a secret: the werepup will be floating above its bed like a ghost, its body lying on the floor with flies circling above. Interacting with the ghost will get the party the Consequences achievement and trigger the following lines in random order, one in each interaction:

It's too late for that now.

Why?

Why did you hurt me?

I want my dada.

I just had a bad dream.

I dreamt that you hurt dada.

Maybe it's not a dream at all.

Where's dada?

Special lines if the player is a Drow Paladin:

Are you one of them?

Why did you hurt mommy?

She's not waking up... Why isn't she waking up?

Do you remember their whimpers too?

Special lines if the player chooses to kill them after saving them in a previous playthrough:

I thought you loved me.

Weren't we friends?

Remember the fun we had?

Could we start again?

I promise I'm a good pup.

To fix this, although the game will remember, delete the save file from the device and start over. If you chose to soothe the werepup after killing it the kid will ask the player a question: "Why did you kill me beforehand? I was just a pup."

Achievements:

Full-time Babysitter: adopt an underage NPC and raise them to adulthood.

Extinction Party: Slay the last living member of a race.

Consequences: Face the ghost from your past.

[toonabby]

Yesterday was a leap day. The first leap day in a while since 2020.

Today is the first day of my birth month, March. Ten days from now will be my 18th birthday.

It's the last month of the first quarter, the last month where the earth rotates in the Southern Hemisphere (at least in the first half), and the last month where the clocks shift one hour forward instead of two.

Also, SenpaiBlade finally resumes his Neptunia: Sisters vs Sisters playthrough with a new video. My satisfaction is immeasurable and my day is saved.

[dereksmcgrath]

Ko-fi, Patreon, Substack: Which platforms should I use?

I wish I had better financial news.

The last year and a half has been rough. Thanks to this ongoing COVID pandemic, I am limited to remote work options. But one job contract ended, and with it a remote work opportunity that I was depending on. Then you have unexpected costs, such as my computer giving out months ago and requiring that I pay for a replacement. (And soon I will have to pay for new eyeglasses to replace the ones I have on.) Finally, moving into 2023, my health insurance cost is going up, along with the price for my Viz subscription that I use for this weekly Sunday livestream. 

Each week on my livestream, I mention my resume, qualifications, and work interests. I don’t do these livestreams only to entertain myself–I do consider this work as part of my job. And while I appreciate all the contributions I receive from viewers and listeners, I am looking for more predictable and consistent payment options. I am applying for more jobs and trying to line up more interviews–but I also need some predictability in income. 

This is where you come in–to offer me some feedback. What would you recommend as options for increasing payments and making them more consistent? 

I already have my Ko-fi account–but would you all also be interested if I added Cash App? 

I do livestreams on YouTube and Twitch for Sunday Morning Manga, and I will be bringing back my online American Literature I lessons–but would you prefer additional content, or different ways to package it? For example, I could do the American Literature I lectures as recordings rather than livestreams–and share them as early access to Patreon contributors. 

And I could do video game playthroughs on Twitch. Would you be interested? 

I write and post on Tumblr, WordPress, and Medium–but would you be interested in subscribing to a Substack? And perhaps sharing these livestreams as podcasts on Substack and elsewhere? 

I welcome your feedback, as this is really important for me to find opportunities to support myself, when reliable and safe remote work opportunities have been limited. Please let me know in the comments which options I should explore to increase earnings from my livestream, podcasting, and writing. And please consider contributions at ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath to help pay down costs–and making sure I can afford health care the next year. Thank you in advance.

[aquarytide]

Last Bible III (1995)

[fayoftheforest]

Please i beg for a craig/kenny apocalypse au. the last of us style. you’re my fav SP author, i live by ship in a bottle.

[Ask is in reference to this post (I'm assuming :)]

Ahh thank you so much, it means so much to hear that!! I have not played The Last of Us, but I've had a snoop on YouTube and found a couple playthroughs of it so I may have a watch of it as I always like to get familiar with the genre that I’m writing in! I hope it’s not too scary though because I am a wimp 🥴

I should also probably have made it clearer on the original post that this is me resuming work on an old fic of mine, Dead End Mountain Town, the first chapter of which I wrote for Crenny week last year (although I have since rewritten it to improve its general quality). So feel free to give that a read for a lil sneak peak of what’s to come, and subscribe to it if you’d like to recieve a notification for when I finally get posting! At the moment it’s looking like the first new part will be put up some time during November/December. I’m going to write and edit it to completion first, before uploading in cerealised chapters. That way I’lll be able to stay on schedule and will also give my special guest partner time to work on their half of the project (which I’m so so excited for, OMG :D ) If you’d like a chance to read it sooner then you’re welcome to become a beta reader - check out this doc for more info! But if not then I hope you enjoy it once it’s complete!! In the mean time, you’re welcome to send any more comments, ideas or relevant suggestions (be it games, movies, music, etc) my way :)

[zaptap]

so, finished undertale finally, the real ending this time. only took me 3 years

a couple days ago, learning about the art club meeting on october 10, i decided to change my switch clock to check it out

i died 8 times on so sorry, at which point the temmie armor became the cheapest it gets, so i got it and came back. died a few more times, then i got one turn further than the previous two deaths and decided to heal only to find out the attacks were over and i just wasted a glamburger (didnt matter in the end though)

asgore, like in my last playthrough, was still hard with the temmie armor too, but since i still had healing items this time (last time i didnt know how to get more gold to buy more) i used one and that was enough to get me through. apparently on a second playthrough you don't have to fight flowey but i deleted my save data from the switch settings since it was the only way to change the name, so the game didnt know id beaten him before and i had to do it again. fortunately you cant really die in there (as far as i can tell--the fight doesnt seem to jump backwards when you resume after dying) so it isnt that hard, just annoying

so after that, i did the true pacifist ending, watched a playthrough of the genocide route, as well as other stuff i didnt see myself like glyde and the dev room and hard mode and gaster

so i guess it's time to play the deltarune demo now? i always assumed it would take me so long to be ready for it that the full game would be out first. anyway the only thing i know about it is sans is there and may be implying he has a certain thing in common with lightning mcqueen. other than that i know nothing! which is exciting

[unpredictably-ghostly]

help needed w/ undertale

Hey quick question about undertale- I’m trying to get the true pacifist route, and I’ve just completed my first playthrough (neutral), and not quite sure what to do next.

Do I go back into the game normally, and go to the bridge between the CORE and MTT Resort to get Undyne’s phone call? Or do I have to reset, and playthrough peacefully until I get to that location again? I’m checking this wiki page (https://undertale.fandom.com/wiki/True_Pacifist_Route#Method) and it mentions an option is to reload the final save file of the neutral route, but I don’t know how to do that? Is reloading just resuming to play from where you last left off?

Any help would be really appreciated!

[finleyjayne]

Break A Leg

 {Chapter 1: Auditions}

Summary: After your accident, everything in your life changed. Your shared dream of being on Broadway with your best friend, Amanda, was over. But just because YOU don’t think you want the same things in life doesn’t mean that your friend won’t see through you. Taking matters into her own hands, you end up at an audition you’re sure that you’ll fail since SHIELD Theater Company is known the world over for typecasting. And you don’t fit any of your typical actress types. Little do you know that the company’s new writer - nihilistic, pessimistic, and resident drunk; Bucky Barnes- is looking for someone out of their normal choices.

Characters: Female Reader, OFC Best Friend, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes, and all your other favorite Marvel Characters, hopefully in the long run it will end with a Bucky Barnes/Reader ship.

Series Warnings: Guys, this is based on my own experiences within the Acting community after gaining weight and height after an accident. There will be fat-shaming, mentions of eating disorders, unhealthy expectations, unhealthy coping mechanisms, also like bias based on looks.

A/N:this originally was inspired by @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan​ s follower celebration challenge. I was given the opportunity to use the text prompt “No fucks given, Next please.” Thank you Star! Thank you Thank you. Also a big thanks to the lovely @cavillanche​ for giving me a gentle nudge to write for myself and for being an amazing sounding board.

"Come oooooon, Y/N. I don't care if you don't want to go out. I haven't seen you in what feels like literal months. That's saying something since you know we LIVE together. I won't take no as an answer." Your best friend, Amanda, said as she flopped on top of you. 

Amanda burst into your bedroom this morning at way-to-fucking-early o'clock in the morning, on a warpath to get you to come out with her. It didn't matter to her that you were finally getting some sleep after working all-nighters for the last week. There was no way to ignore her either, her sunny personality and eager persistence would cause you to roll over in your grave if she wanted you to.

With a groan, you smothered your complaints behind a gasping wheeze. "Kay, Manda, where are we going?"

 She rolled off of you with a high-pitched squeal and used the momentum to pull you out of bed. "Yay! I have so much planned. I was talking to my manager about how well we used to work as a pair on stage. I may have mentioned how much I would kill to be the Penny to your Tracy. Or the Meg to your Christine. The Judy to your Betty. The Glinda to your Elphaba." Her words started to fade into background noise as she milled on about the parts you had once wanted to play together.

  The dream used to be that you both would move here, to New York, and play in all of the big theaters on Broadway together. Sadly, your broadway dreams were not as much of a reality as Amanda's were. And you were okay with that. You were thrilled for Amanda. Living vicariously through your best friend, helping her prepare for her shows while working as a Math tutor and Accountant for a local firm. 

   It didn't help that you weren't necessarily what people consider the typical standard of beauty. Standing just under six feet tall, a little plushy about the middle, and some nasty scar tissue leaving one of your legs in a constant state of ghostly paleness. Not that people notice since you tend to find yourself just as pale as the damaged tissue. After so many failed auditions, you figured your best life was lived outside of the theater. You were happy, and honestly, you are kinda glad that you are where you are.  

 "....So hurry up, I'll pick your outfit, we have an appointment with Rijah in half an hour." Amanda finished pushing you into the little cubical shower. When did she turn it on? Where are we going? Needless to say, you did what she asked and stuffed down your confusion, focusing on waking up more before you accompanied her to yet another one of her 'private' lessons with your pianist friend.

Thirty minutes later, you were dressed, primped, polished, and not all that much more awake. Amanda stuffed a binder of music into your hand as Elijah spread his copy over the lip of his pristinely kept upright. "You know this song, I think it will be perfect. A little overplayed, but with a fresh interpretation, they'll overlook it. All you have to do is sing. They are bound to cast you. I've worked with them before, and Director Rogers values skill over appearances. So we'll show them your ability, and he'll love you."

Looking at your rambling best friend, Your confusion amplifies. Your jaw cracks as you don't even try to stifle another yawn. You rub your eyes, not questioning her pushiness. "Uuuuhhhhh, okay?" You scan through the score, making note of the cut before looking to the triangular-shaped man sitting on the piano bench. Since you had already been taken through the typical vocal warm-ups by Amanda while she played dress up this morning. You smile at your expectant friend/accompanist. "Will you give me a playthrough with the melody line in it as a refresher, please, Rijah, Repeat, and I'll join you?" 

"Of course," He said sweetly with a nod, turning to the keys and playing. Quietly you hummed along, mentally noting which registers each phrase should be sung in. Where the notes would be stretched, what you would use to your advantage. The accompaniment was simple, repeated strummed chords like most modern musical use. It gives freedom rhythmically when it comes to melodies. You could have fun with the piece. Smiling to yourself, you open your mouth and join the simplified accompaniment on the repeat. 

When the second run-through finishes with a very extravagant arpeggiation. There is a moment of complete stillness as the resonance leaves the space. You are high on the feelings of intense emotion and absolute peace, yet somehow buzzing with unlocked energy. You miss this feeling, of connection with everything and nothing, The feeling of knowing that you did something right, it's heady, and it drives you to ask yourself why you ever stopped performing for a brief second. Amanda was always saying that she would drag you to an audition one of these days if you didn't get over yourself.

 You are knocked out of your musical high by Amanda's enthusiastic clapping. Elijah looks at you with a smirk, opens his mouth, and is swiftly cut off by your friend. "God, Y/N. They won't be able to stop themselves as soon as you open your mouth!" You smile at her very biased opinions. Before she can get any crazy ideas like dragging me along to more than just her sessions with Elijah, you place the binder the music into her hands, "Why don't we go over Take me or leave me? After all, this is your rehearsal time, I'm just here to help you."

Amanda gives you a devious smirk as she nods. "Sure. You heard the woman, 'Rijah." She sends him a sly wink that you are too tired to really read much into. He just nods with a conspiratory smile and spreads the music for the RENT song over the previous. 

"Whenever you are ready, ladies," He says when he's ready. Sighing internally, you place yourself back into your 'supportive friend' role, playing out the simplified blocking of Amanda's latest show. 

Before you even fully realize it, your hour with 'Rijah was over, and Amanda was pulling you into a nearby taxi to your next destination. "If you don't let me at least have a coffee, I will not be held accountable for my actions, Woman." You warn your best friend as you eye her. You were starting to worry that you would need to be more awake for whatever plans she had for the rest of the day, You were now to the point where you could see her scheming something, but were still too out of it to figure out what it was. 

She looked at you, trying to hide behind her mask of sickeningly-sweet innocence. I knew this look and all that it implied, and it worked to shake me into a slight panic of what she was walking me into. "I don't know what you mean, Y/N. I told you where we were going this morning, I promise this is the last stop before we can go home and you can sleep the rest of the night away. But if things go as I hope, we may have a repeat of this occasion sooner rather than later." The taxi pulls up at a building with a line heading out the door and around the corner. 

That's when it hits you; That promise that Amanda had made to you all those months ago about dragging you to an audition wasn't just one of those 'get moving your ass, or I'll move it for you' speeches to get you out of bed, she was going to do it. No, she wasn't going to do anything. Amanda had already done it. She had gotten you into an audition. 

You were suddenly wide awake. The knowledge that you were at an NYC Broadway audition, with your best friend hitting you like Celie's babies being alive in The Color Purple. It is unexpected but brought with it such excitement and fear all at once. You grasped onto Amanda's arm. "Amanda Jenivive Brendon, if this is some kind of joke, I don't know if I can forgive you. Please say this is not some kind of joke." The words are a desperate snarl. The hope pressing against your chest mixed with the fear that you jumped to incorrect conclusions was absolutely unbearable.

Amanda lets out a loving laugh before playfully scowling at you. "You really haven't been listening to a single thing I've said to you all day, have you?" The accusation was slightly bitter, but you knew she was laughing on the inside.

You squeeze her arm as your panic escalates. What am I going to do? How am I going to do this? What if they don't accept me just because of how I look? Shit, what am I going to do about a resume? Your vision blurs as you watch your best friend take your hand, leading you into the building past the line of girls and down a hallway to a dance studio styled room. 

She leads you to a table set before the long wall of mirrors where a cute little redhead sits. Taking out a binder and handing her two sets of papers, "Hey Wanda, It's good to see you. Is it standard issue today?" 

With a bright smile, Wanda accepts the papers. "Sure is Amanda, Do you need a copy of the company notes, or do you still know them by heart?" 

 Amanda chuckles before shaking her head, "I don't need a set, but you probably should give one to Y/N here, She could use the distraction of going through all the legal jargon while we wait."

Wanda's eyes grew wide as she turned to face you. "Y/N? As in 'shower singer Y/N'? Oh my Atlanta, Buck is going to lose his shit!" She jumps up and claps her hands. "I gotta go tell them!"  

Amanda's hand snaps out to stop the woman from leaving. "Hey, none of that. I want to see their surprise when they hear her, especially after Tony's last casting rant."  

Wanda immediately calms, her face splitting into a devious smirk. "OOOOooo, you are evil. I love it. Want me to film it for you?"

 "It's like you read my mind," Amanda says, turning to see your expression of confusion. "Y/N, hey, Y/N/N? You in there?" She snaps her fingers lightly in your face. "Come on, girl. Wanda here is the Stage Manager for the SHIELD Theater Company."  

"Wait, what?" Your voice cracks as your heart hammers even harder into your ribs. SHIELD Theater Company was one of the prominent troupes in New York. They were world-famous, they were the equivalent to The Royal Shakespeare Company in America. Were you at an audition for them? I thought you had to be part of a Union to even be considered for an audition with them!  

"Really, Y/N? Still not paying attention? Come on, let's take a seat, stretch a bit. before they put us through our paces." Her eyes are bright with amusement as she sticks your number on the left side of your dress.

"I'm sorry? In my defense, I have had a total of 8 hours of sleep in the last week. So not the point, though!" You follow her to a set of chairs in the room. At her reproachful glare, when your voice breaches into a louder panicked screech, you take a few breaths before continuing in a harried whisper. " I mean, how am I even here? I am not Unionized, I haven't paid my dues for months! I don't have-" Your internal concerns continue to pour out of your mouth as Amanda slams her palm over your mouth. 

 "Hey, take a deep breath for me, Y/N. I need you to stay conscious... maybe I should have gotten you a coffee before we came, but you always complain that it makes your vocals all gummy." You rip her hand off of your mouth, eyes flashing with annoyance.

"Hey, you're the one who woke me from my first decent sleep this week, you can't really blame me for being a little lack-of-sleep drunk. And Coffee does make me phlegmy, but, again, that is not the point. The point is now that I know what you've set up, how can it be possible?" You whisper scream at the aggravatingly calm Amanda.

 She rolled her eyes, "Well, I told you I was going to make our dreams come true, and I have had enough of your lame excuses about how you don't want to get back on the horse. But I saw you today. You WANT to be here. I've seen your secret tears when you go over our old cast photos. I hear you belting in the shower, so I've taken it upon myself to continue paying your dues to the AEA, and cashed in a favor with my agent to sign both of us up for this particular call."

 Before you could make a rebuttal, seven people walked into the room that had slowly filled with fifty or so women while you were distracted. A short brunette plants himself in the center of the mirrored wall as the others take seats next to Wanda behind the white foldable table.

 "Welcome, ladies, It is inspiring to see all of your beautiful faces. Before we start, I wanted to say a few words. First, thank you for taking the time to come and audition with us today.

"As you know, we only hold one set of auditions for the full season and look at that, all of you have made the initial cut for this season. Now it's time for the fine-tuning. Just know that even if you don't make it into our troupe this year, it's nothing personal. We have a specific set of personalities and abilities that we are looking for. If you don't make it this year with us, don't be afraid to come back next season. 

"Now, to kick off this lovely party, let's have you line up, no particular order." The man smirks, and you gasp as you realize who the cocky man is: Tony Stark. You were being lined up for your first NYC cattle call by the eccentric, theatrical genius Tony Stark. You didn't know whether to be honored or terrified. He had a notorious reputation as a type-caster, and the only type he favored was the short, petite woman. FUCK. 

Amanda dragged you into the line as she plastered a knowing smile on her face, "Just remember, sing. if you open your mouth, let that beautiful song sing from your heart." 

"Sure, whatever you say," you reply to her whispered reassurances, holding your head up high as the legendary man started down the line."No, No, Yes, Yes, Yes, Sorry, Sure, Yes. Not this time, sweets. No, Sorry, Yes, Yes, Yes... " And so on until he reached Amanda. "Miss Brandon, nice to see you again. I look forward to hearing your choices today." 

"Same to you, Mr. Stark, and I look forward to showing you my progress from last year."

"Good, good" His eyes crinkled as he smiled at her for another few seconds before skipping over you entirely, "yes, yes, yes, No…"

Well, it looks like you made it through the first cut, Amanda drags you back to where you left your purse and Amanda's backpack. She shares a conspiratory glance with Wanda, who just rolls her eyes. "Take a deep breath, then they'll start pulling us up in small groups to rotate through our song choices."

 "Amanda, I'm pretty sure you voodooed Stark into overlooking me." Amanda just laughs.

"Sure, whatever you wanna tell yourself. I think it was just you being here, it's fate." Now it's your turn to roll your eyes at your friend's everlasting optimism.

Once Stark finishes going down the line, he takes his place back front and center. "Okay, ladies, now it's time for the fun bit. I'm sure you were all smart cookies and gave Wanda your music cuts along with your resumes, so now it's time to put those voices to work. We'll call you up in trios. Wanda will read out your name and call number, Thor will wait for you to count out a tempo before playing for you. Wanda?" Stark calls out the woman before taking his seat behind the table. 

Wanda smiles brightly, calling out the first three people as the Hulking blond man stands from the table and makes his way to the piano. Wow, I hope I don't mess this up. It's not just my ass on the line anymore. You are brought back out of your thoughts by a gentle tug on your arm. 

"Stop overthinking things, you'll do fine, Your resume is prime, your song choice is brilliant, and like they couldn't choose someone more theatre conscious if they had hired Idina Menzel." 

You shudder at the actress's name, "I would hope so, she's terrible."

"Yet she had been a mainstay in theater for years." 

"So what, just goes to show people don't necessarily want talent. They want beautiful mutants who can screech out songs without killing their vocal cords."

"Y/N, Shut the fuck up. You can do the same things, you may not sing in a scream like she can, but you know how to sing, you can dance- don't give me that look I caught you practicing your fouettes last week- and more importantly, you can connect. You connect in everything, you have so much to offer, and I know that once these people hear you, they will hire you. I know it."

You sigh, you weren't sure that everything she was saying was true, but you knew that she believed the words with all of her heart and didn't want to be the reason her hope died. So you just sighed in resignation before turning to the group that was in the midst of their auditions. They were outstanding, and the longer you went on, the more self-conscious of your own lack of preparation. Subconsciously you reached out to grab Amanda's hand and ended up clutching onto her dress front.  

"Amanda, Amanda, I don't deserve to be here." Your hushed whisper, dragging harsh against your throat. Your chest tightening, your panic acting as a hangman's noose. "Amanda, I don't know what I'm singing. Amanda, what is it from? What is the song's name? How will I slate if I don't even know the name of the song? Wait, what is MY name? " Your breath started to tear through your lungs, your sinuses stung with oncoming tears. 

"Y/N, take a breath, let go before you give everyone an unexpected flash." Amanda's whispered reply was almost biting in its directness. Even if you consciously didn't hear the words, her tone cut the noose from your neck. Your lungs immediately expanded with much-needed air, your fingers loosening their grip to let her replace the fabric with her own firm grip. "Good girl, now, Y/N, what is your name?"

"Uhhhhhh…" Even if you were calming down, your brain was still coming back to grips.

"The next three are as follows: Y/N Y/L/N, Amanda Brendon, and Savannah Moffat." Wanda's lyric call cut through the silence that had filled the studio while you were trying to remember your name. 

You stood automatically, all your years of auditioning kicked you into performance autopilot. Your shoulders take their place slightly back, head high, chest on display, the skirt of your dress flowing around your thighs as if they were the mist rolling over the valley at dawn. Your face hid the horror that was filling your mind, it didn't matter that you didn't remember the name of your song, you were Y/N Y/L/N. You could fake it till you make it to perfection. Amanda was right, all you have to do is sing, and they will see you. It doesn't matter if you don't look like you used to, you are still capable, and even if you don't make it, you can't say that you didn't try. Just remember what Doctor Ellis said, 'every audition is a performance, even if they don't choose you, you were able to perform.' You can do this. After all, you sang it this morning, you could see the sheet music just behind your eyelids when you close your eyes. Just keep breathing.

Amanda gave your hand a final squeeze as she recognized the look of horrified determination in your eyes. Smiling to herself as she saw the bored looks on the panelists' faces. She met eyes with Wanda, who gave her a smirk nudging the blond man sandwiched between her and Tony. Turning his attention to your regal appearance before Tony also decided to look up from whatever was so important on his phone. 

You opened your mouth to introduce yourself, and Tony's voice filled the space clearly, saying the words that had shattered your own will to find your auditions.

"I'm sorry I must have missed you before. There is no need for you to sing today, collect your things."

Your face fell into an imitation of a polite smile as your brain processed the rejection. Guess Amanda really did save me from being culled. Before you can say or do anything, though, the blond man sitting next to Tony spoke.

"Tony, you had your chance. Now it's my turn to decide whether or not she is cast. Now sit down." 

"No, it isn't too late, Steve. I bankroll this group I get to have a say. And I won't have someone who looks like her representing my Acting Company."

"You already had your say. Now sit down and let the girl sing."

"No," Stark turns from the blond man and back to you. "No fucks given, Next, please."

 CHAPTER TWO

[loreweaver-universe]

And that’s the episode.

That was really good.  Easily the best episode of the show thus far.  We really got to dig in to Adora and Catra’s relationship, really got to see what makes Catra tick, and we got to see her really come into her own confidence and, on the surface of things, finally leave Adora behind.

The promise is fully broken now, from both sides.  I don’t know that there will be any more saving each other, any more going easy on each other.  They’ve chosen their sides completely now.  Well, Catra has, I’m not sure how Adora’s going to react to this from here on.

Promise comes in at my new #1 for the series, displacing In the Shadows of Mystacor easily.  That was really good.  I wonder how soon it will be topped?  There’s two episodes left in the season, and we’re coming to a climax, so...we’ll see if it happens immediately.

Up next for the liveblog, I’ll be resuming Steven Universe Future on Monday, and will be doing the final four episodes all in a row.  We’re almost done with Steven Universe--for good, this time.  Wow.

Up next for streaming, I’m going to stream some more DOOM Eternal today!  I think I’m coming up on the ending, but we’ll see.  If I finish that today, I’ll be continuing Nier next; if not, there’s at least one more DOOM stream coming.  You can check out my Twitch channel to watch me live by clicking here, or if you’d like to see all the DOOM streams I’ve done, click here.

I’ll see you guys for whatever you decide to check out for next!  Thank you for tuning in!

IN OTHER NEWS:

I recently completed my playthrough of the second story campaign in Fire Emblem: Three Houses!   You can view all the streams of the Golden Deer and Black Eagles routes I have done by clicking here!

I recently completed a blind playthrough of Hollow Knight on Twitch!  You can watch all the Hollow Knight streams I’ve uploaded to Youtube by clicking here!

If you’d like to help me pay my rent, buy me some food, or help with my bills and medicine, please use my direct donation link!  If you’d like to support me per liveblog completed every month, please pledge to my Patreon! Becoming a patron not only allows you to vote on what shows I do whenever I choose a new one, but also grants access to the community Minecraft server to $5 patrons or higher!

You should also go pledge to Gio’s Patreon–our Discord server maintenance tech, creator of Rubybot, and community Minecraft server overlord deserves far more than I can afford to pledge to him by myself.

If you’d like more of me and my content:

My Episode Lists master page, where you can find every show and liveblog I’ve done!

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It’s your kindness and support that lets me do this stuff, and I wouldn’t be where I am without all of you to do it for.  Thank you all so much for your support, and for tuning in every episode!

OTHER PEOPLE YOU MAY ENJOY:

I may have been one of the earlier Steven Universe liveblogs, but a whole community of livebloggers has sprung up over the last five years!   I linked to a bunch individually for a few wrap-ups, but honestly, this end-slate is already eight billion miles long, so I’m just gonna link to my links page.  Click here if you want recommendations of other livebloggers, or other neat people, or webcomics and podcasts that I recommend.

[blackjackkent]

Gonna do a bit more of my Baldur's Gate 2 playthrough liveblog. :D As always, feel free to block "#bjk plays baldur's gate 2" if desired!

We left off having, I THINK, finally completed the last of our sidequests (even though the game keeps tossing more at us) so it's time to see if we can get all the way to Gaelan Bayle to resume the main quest before the game finds something else for Caden to get sidetracked with. :P

[keclan]

resumed my playthrough of kotor 2, finally made it to the restored content mod droid planet, which i’ve never played before bc the last few times i played my mods were broken and i said “well i’ll fix it next time” finally fixed it this time

[halberdierminister]

oh boy oh boy is it the end of august already here we effin' goooooooo

1. Write 250 Words Each Day I did not do this. But I did write a lot. I wrote at least weekly. And each time I wrote I wrote a SIGNIFICANT amount of text. So I wrote MORE than the equivalent of 250 words each day. So maybe that's all right. I did a bunch of work on a couple fics, lots of free writing, and some other stuff too. Plus like… the cover letters and shit I worked on. So!! A hefty stack of writing, if not a daily habit. I can do better, but I don't feel too bad, you know? 2. Read 55 Books This Year So this month I read 20 books. Two of those were re-reads of books that I already read this year, so they do not count toward my final total. So what is my current total at for the year? ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN!!!!!! I have read over 100 books this year and I do not think I will stop there!! This friggin RULES, man!! This is like… my ultimate goal from five years ago finally realized! After this year, I can stop setting numbers to reach and just relax from here on out and just read whatever! I do, of course, still intend to read a lot. And I will still make lists and count them. But my goals will no longer be sheer quantity. After all, I beat this year's goal AND 2015's goal. That's pretty damn good if I do say so myself, which I do, because I'm saying it right now.

3. Get A Full Time Job I applied to 27 jobs this month. I had one interview. I did not get that job. I got an email from one job saying that they are considering my resume past the first round, so that is good news. But the REAL good news is that I just got an email today. Like not long ago, a few hours ago, that's what I mean. It seems that the bookstore I worked at before getting laid off due to the plague has an opening again and they wondered if I wanted it. It's only 11 an hour, and it's still retail, blah blah blah you heard all these hesitations before when they hired me the first time. But I'm working part time at 12 dollars an hour for a very inconsistent number of hours. And this WILL have benefits. And I will be able to save up, AND I will still keep job hunting for something better. But to be honest? This counts. It's not official yet, but I might just have a full time job. Again.

4. Move Out Well, I did not. And I probably won't be out of here by the time I'm thirty (19 days??? Is that right? 19 or 20. Counting days is specifically a challenge for me). But I will have a full time job. Be saving up. Which I have already started saving up a fair amount now that I finally have gotten paid the unemployment that I applied for over the last four months. So. I guess I'm working on it. If I get a different full time job, I will be able to work on it even more. But a full time job of any kind is an important first step and hey I'm taking that step again.

5. Drink Less Soda Yep. 6. Get Something Published No new publications this month, but I applied for another fanzine and I feel pretty confident that I'll get in. Also I found a place that accepts unsolicited manuscripts, so I am working on a collection of my poetry. We will see how that goes!

7. Finish Writing A Legitimate Businessman Finished in April! 8. Write More The Revelation of Takaya According to Jin Finished in February!

MINOR GOALS 9. Finish Playthroughs -The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild: Finished in January! -Persona 1 Main Quest Good Ending: Didn't do anything! -Pokemon Sword Post Game Plot: Finished in March! -Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Finished in February and March!

-Persona Q 2: Finished it this month! It sure would be a good game if it wasn't rated M. If it were rated appropriate for teenagers, then I could forgive the easier puzzles and the hamfisted moral and the complete lack of any horror or moral controversy. But nope, still rated M. Meh. I bet it'll be better whenever I decide to do New Game Plus and actually do all the side quests.

10. Record More Ukulele Videos I did not. 11. Record Let's Plays I did not. I might, however, do so if I visit my friend in Johnson Creek. We shall see. 12. Duolingo? It's going okay. I'm in the amethyst league now but I'm not making a lot of progress progress. 234 streak and 236 crowns. That's pretty okay.

This wasn't even 900 words. I will have to write more tonight but come on I'm just pretty tired. It's fine.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.6

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time as trial 6 began (and no, this trial is not getting any exclamation marks), we retried Rantaro’s murder, Rantaro’s Survivor Perk note was not a video, Kaede still did meaningfully bear responsibility for his death but her execution was not justified even by the game’s rules, Kaede’s twin was a ridiculous and very telling red herring, Himiko continued to be a little bit Kaito (though only on a surface level) in her desperation to keep believing in Tsumugi, Shuichi still hated accusing his friends of murder but managed it anyway, and Junko Enoshima waaaas…

Tsumugi:  “Junko… Enoshima is…”

“Junko”:  “Right the fuck here!”

…Not actually even remotely here at all, of course.

“Junko”:  “Even if nobody was waiting, even if it makes you go, ‘What, again?’… The diva of despair takes the stage once more! Junko Enoshima the 53rd!”

So… are we seriously to believe that in every single in-universe Danganronpa series up until this point, they’ve always found some excuse for it to be Junko each time? That this really is literally the 53rd time she’s appeared? Damn, no wonder she’s lampshading the repetitiveness and how bored everyone must be of that.

That’s difficult enough to believe that I’d rather assume she’s only saying 53rd to give them a hint, and really Junko has appeared more than enough times for people to be tired of it but still not nearly every time.

(This also reads like a dig by the out-universe writers at themselves for this, even though she only returned once and that was pretty believable because of the situation they were in. Unless she also somehow returned from the dead in the anime or UDG. Geez, I hope not.)

Monokuma:  “Bwah-hahahaha! There you have it! Once again, the mastermind is Junko Enoshima!”

Monokuma has apparently just become like a sports commentator, now that the mastermind herself can play the role he usually has. This is after all the first time Monokuma’s still been around once the mastermind takes the stage, because he’s not a literal puppet this time.

Himiko:  “Tsumugi… wh-what’s the matter? Aren’t you… Tsumugi Shirogane? Our friend who survived with us?”

“Junko”:  “Hahaha, sorry about that. You can go ahead and forget about Tsumugi Shirogane.”

Tsumugi:  “Cuz I’m just a character! Y’know, a lie!”

This is, in a certain sense, not wrong. The Tsumugi they thought they knew and were friends with never existed – it was just an act being put on by the real Tsumugi who was cruelly making this fiction for entertainment and enjoying every second of it. It may have been somewhat based in reality in that Tsumugi based that lie off herself and just did what would come naturally to her if she wasn’t a fucking terrible person, but it was still ultimately not a person who really exists. “Tsumugi” was the only one of the students here who really truly was just fictional.

“Junko”:  “Sorry to all her fans out there. If any of you even exist, that is.”

And now joining Monokuma in the Not Remotely Subtle club: Tsumugi! Not that she probably cares because she’s intending for Shuichi to figure out the real truth soon enough.

“Junko”:  “Tsumugi Shirogane was nothing more than a cover for me, the mastermind.”

However, here she’s trying to imply that there never even was anyone called Tsumugi Shirogane in the first place and she was just Junko in disguise the whole time. And for some reason, the students seem to kind of buy this (as did several of the blind LPers I’ve watched), when nobody should? Tsumugi is a cosplayer. It is still perfectly possible that this is just Tsumugi cosplaying Junko rather than the other way around, and especially since Junko is supposed to be super super dead, that should be what everyone immediately jumps to rather than believing this.

“Junko”:  “As you can see, I am a perfect reproduction of Junko Enoshima.”

Maki:  “So… you’re just a freak pretending to be Junko Enoshima, huh!?”

“Junko”:  “No, a perfect reproduction!”

Tsumugi:  “Perfect reproductions are exactly the same as the original.”

She’s clearly talking about cosplay here, guys! At least Maki seems to get it, but nobody quite zeroes in on the fact that beneath the mask she still is Tsumugi the Ultimate Cosplayer and it’s just that the Tsumugi we thought we knew was mostly an act.

Maki:  “So if we kill you, then that’ll be the end, correct?”

Maki Roll, no! Didn’t you decide back in the investigation that you weren’t actually going to kill the mastermind?

Shuichi:  “You killed Kaede, and Monokuma covered it up with a false narrative!”

Hah, I like how he calls it a narrative. Way more appropriate than he realises.

“Junko”:  “I knew of Hope’s Peak Academy’s Gofer Project, and my inner Junko told me…”

…

Tsumugi:  “And then I took the name ‘Tsumugi Shirogane’ and sneaked in among them.”

She can’t even keep her own narrative straight! “Junko” is implying she’s not really Junko and just wanted to be, and Tsumugi is saying she’s not really Tsumugi! Which one is she even trying to go with here!? Apparently she’s just trying to confuse everyone as much as possible.

Maki:  “Did… Kokichi know about this? Wasn’t he a Remnant of Despair?”

Maki, you were with Shuichi when he saw Kokichi’s motive video, you should know now that he wasn’t! It seems she was so fixated on her belief that he’s a Remnant (for reasons we will get into soon) that she told herself the motive video must have been some kind of hoax.

Himiko:  “Who’s this killing game being shown to!? Where are the survivors of humanity!?”

Tsumugi:  “There’s nobody watching.”

You literally just talked about your “fans” like five minutes ago, Tsumugi, I don’t know why you expect this to work on anyone.

Shuichi finally brings up with the notion that their memories might not be true. He let Tsumugi ramble on for far longer than he needed to about things he had every reason to think were most likely lies before coming out with this, but.

Shuichi:  “This book contains years of research about Hope’s Peak Academy. Nothing would indicate this book is a prop. I believe this information here is accurate.”

Oh, no, Shuichi, this book is very much a prop and everything written in here is also a lie. I guess he’s saying this because, for the out-universe audience, they already know that everything written in that book is the real truth about the Hope’s Peak story. But it’s still pretty flimsy the way Shuichi just takes this book as the truth at this point in the trial in order to argue that their memories are the part that’s wrong. Especially when he now has plenty of other ways to prove that anyway.

Monokuma:  “Alright! Time to play some Danganronpa trivia!”

…Apparently this is why the narrative is doing this and is about to make us go through three Nonstop Debates just about this: because they really did just want to make us play Danganronpa trivia. Anyone playing this game who hadn’t played or seen the other games can just use the book to be able to do this, but man, surely they’d feel so bored and left out and questioning why they should care about all this.

(Also, the students are probably wondering why the hell Monokuma just started talking about Bullet Rebuttals like that’s supposed to mean anything. …Or maybe they’re not, because Monokuma was always full of non-sequiturs anyway and this is probably just another one, right.)

Maki:  “Wasn’t Junko the Ultimate Despair?”

Keebo:  “…That’s what I recall as well. That label should only apply to her.”

Apparently they don’t think that the Remnants of Despair count as being called the Ultimate Despair in any capacity. In DR2, a certain group of people who were referred to as “Ultimate Despair” were definitely also called “Remnants of Despair” in at least one or two lines. However, that’s the part of the story that everyone’s fake memories seem to be missing out, so I suppose that explains why they see the Remnants of Despair as a totally separate thing.

“Junko”:  “Ugh, does it even matter? I’m bored already.”

Really? Because you don’t seem that bored. This “Junko” we’re seeing here is only really showing one personality, the “base” Junko so to speak, rather than switching between multiple different ones like the real Junko would do because she kept getting bored. Of course Tsumugi isn’t going to get bored like that – how could she ever be bored of being one of her favourite characters?

Keebo:  “…because Junko had prepared countless ways of spreading despair.”

“She did no such thing!”

“Oh, maybe she did…”

Is Tsumugi switching characters mid-debate in order to disagree with herself? Boo, only Kaito was allowed to do that. (Or maybe she’s just arguing with Monokuma.)

“Junko”:  “It just means those documents were written all half-assed. There’s no need to worry about it. Your memories are all correct.”

Shuichi:  “What you’ve been saying isn’t consistent! First you said it was just ‘coincidence’.”

I appreciate Shuichi picking up on how inconsistent her narrative is and calling her out on that. The previous time he’s talking about was her claiming that everyone coincidentally misremembered the same thing, which is the complete opposite of her claim here that the book is wrong and not their memories.

Keebo:  “And with that… recruitment of talented students resumed.”

This is supposed to be Keebo remembering that they all applied to Hope’s Peak when the “truth” is that the school didn’t accept applications and scouted all its students. But the phrasing “recruitment of students” definitely sounds like Keebo is saying that they were scouted. Probably a localisation error, but way to mess that one up, localisers.

Shuichi:  “Me too. I *chose* to come to Hope’s Peak.”

And if you think about it, that really isn’t in character for you, is it, Shuichi? Until you met Kaede and Kaito, you hated your talent and didn’t think you deserved to be called the Ultimate Detective. You were scared of revealing the truth and certainly wouldn’t have decided on your own to apply to make that something you had to do even more of.

On that same note, why in the world would Maki have applied to be recognised as the Ultimate Assassin and have that become well-known?

Shuichi then goes on to mention the other evidence of this all being bullshit, specifically that they have no memory of the killing game Rantaro participated in, and that Kokichi wasn’t a Remnant of Despair. It’s almost like we didn’t need to do all of this business with Shuichi inexplicably insisting the book must definitely be the truth in order to prove this.

Maki:  “He wasn’t… a Remnant of Despair?”

Maki in particular looks very shocked to hear this. If he wasn’t, then it means she had no good justification for trying to kill Kokichi – not only was he not actually the mastermind, but she had no genuine, non-fabricated reason to even assume he was. It means she was just being manipulated into doing what others wanted of her and killing who others wanted her to kill on an even greater level than she was already aware of. She’d thought at the time that it was her own decision and her own desire, but all of it was just manipulation, just someone else using her as a puppet to kill, like always.

Shuichi:  “An organization centered around petty crimes, one that forbids murder.”

Whoops, there’s a remnant (no pun intended) of the original Japanese line in Kokichi’s motive video that mentioned their explicit motto about not killing people. Apparently Shuichi’s localiser is not the same one who localised the video and did not get the memo.

Maki:  “You mean… he wasn’t a Remnant of Despair? That’s… not possible…”

Because if it is possible, if it is true, then why did she try to kill him? Was she really just killing for someone else’s whims yet again? Is she not allowed to have any of her own agency at all?

Shuichi:  “Kokichi didn’t tell us because he wasn’t exposed to that Flashback Light. And… neither was Kaito.”

…

Exisal Kaito:  “… Junko?”

I like that it calls back to this and allows the players to very explicitly realise how utterly fucking confused Kaito must have been during those bits. (Even though it’s technically wrong for the text box be calling him “Exisal Kaito”; sure, we know now it was Kaito, but he was pretending to be Kokichi at the time and that makes him “Exisal Kokichi”. The name “Exisal Kokichi” never referred to the real Kokichi at all.)

Shuichi finally gets to the point and starts talking about how the Flashback Lights were fake. Since he has pretty concrete proof of this, I really don’t know why he couldn’t have brought this up sooner. (Because clearly we all really needed to play some Danganronpa Trivia, I guess.)

Keebo:  “So the memories we recovered with the Flashback Lights were…”

Shuichi:  “Not real. They were all false memories. They were all lies!”

One thing to note is that nobody remembers the very first Flashback Light at the beginning where they “remembered” their talents – understandably, since it created their entire characters and overwrote everything that came before. So, even though Shuichi now knows that the entire backstory about the Gofer Project was all a lie, he’s not yet able to think this through to its conclusion of just how bad this is.

Monokuma:  “Then everything was a lie! All the suspense and foreshadowing was for nothing! Can you believe it? It’s like everything that happened didn’t matter at all.”

You’re giving yourself and your in-universe writer friends way too much credit, Monokuma. It’s not like the backstory ever actually really mattered. The things that mattered most in this story were the deaths that happened in this killing game and the efforts everyone went to to avoid letting more happen, all of which was very, very real. All this changes is that a few of the murders – Kirumi’s and Gonta’s, and Maki’s attempted one – were done for a reason that was based on a lie. But that doesn’t make it not matter, that just makes it more tragic in hindsight to know that they were manipulated.

Tsumugi:  “Lies are just like snowballs. The more you roll them, the bigger they get. The bigger they are, the more fun and shocking it is when they’re revealed.”

“Junko”:  “That’s why everything up till now has been lies! That’s the truth!”

Not even remotely “everything”. Tsumugi is right to say that a bigger lie being revealed makes for a better plot twist, but doing so to too great an extent does run the risk of making the entire story seem pointless. I think the out-universe writers struck a good balance here, though, because not everything has been lies. Everyone still formed bonds and fought and struggled and died, and all of that has been real. Everything which really mattered still matters. And most of the actual meaningful foreshadowing and suspense we’ve had has been very much on an out-universe level, because the in-universe writers couldn’t have predicted what would happen in future, especially not for cases 4 and 5 which were all “written” for them by Kokichi.

Himiko:  “We’re not students from Hope’s Peak?”

Himiko is the only one who even seems to be particularly upset about this part of the relevation, probably because she’s the only one of them who’s truly proud of her talent and would have been happy to think she’d been part of a huge legacy of talented people.

“Junko”:  “Looking back, it was a mistake to have you remember Hope’s Peak.”

Tsumugi:  “I didn’t originally plan on giving you those memories, but… I was in a rush and overlooked all those inconsistencies, so you figured it all out…”

It wasn’t only a mistake because it let them figure everything out, Tsumugi. It was also just bad writing.

There’s no reason to doubt this claim that she didn’t plan this from the start. Everything about the Hope’s Peak part of the backstory was clearly shoehorned in and not truly connected to everything that had come before it; nothing about it was foreshadowed in the previous memories. That book in Kokichi’s lab was thrown in there in a hurry and had nothing to do with the rest of the room.

(It would have been perfectly possible to foreshadow Hope’s Peak in their memories. They could have all vaguely remembered growing up in a world that was slowly recovering from some apocalyptic event, even if they were unclear on what that event was. Instead of remembering being at ordinary schools and just having their talents recognised by a separate Ultimate Initiative, they could have remembered being at some fairly prestigious kind of school and just forgotten the name of the school and that it was the same one for all of them. And they maybe could have had it so they didn’t remember why they knew of their Ultimate titles, only for it to turn out that that’s because Hope’s Peak bestowed those titles and they forgot the specifics about Hope’s Peak. But nope – none of that was in their memories, because none of this was planned.)

Shuichi:  “So that’s why Kokichi had to die?”

I mean, really, Kokichi was planning on getting himself killed for his grand plan anyway whether the mastermind had any say in it or not.

Shuichi:  “He usurped the mastermind’s role, but in doing so, became a thorn in their side. So to get rid of that hindrance, the mastermind played along with the lie.”

However, the mastermind was probably hoping to get Kokichi killed before he could pull off whatever grand plan was going to be the endpoint of all his scheming and possibly make things even worse for them. Too bad that didn’t work out – all thanks to Kaito jumping in the way of Maki’s arrow, which is emphatically not something that was part of the writers’ script.

Tsumugi:  “At the same time, having everyone remember Hope’s Peak Academy… made you guys target him because you thought he was a Remnant of Despair.”

Yep, she’s straight-up admitting it. It wasn’t just believing he was a Remnant, but also the fact that they believed they themselves were these symbols of hope whose duty was to “defeat” anything associated with “despair”. Hope’s Peak was very much a part of the manipulation.

Maki:  “Then the reason I tried to kill Kokichi was…”

Monokuma:  “You were being controlled by false memories, like putty in the mastermind’s hands.”

I’m afraid so, Maki.

Monokuma also goes on to confirm that the Hope’s Peak memory was also to artificially make them recover from the despair they were in. Really they should have been able to figure this out themselves at the time, but hey.

“Junko”:  “New mysteries and truths turn to motivation. Motivation drives a story. Everything from the Flashback Lights was just motivation to move you forward. But… I guess it was fake motivation.”

Monokuma:  “You idiots kept getting jerked around by meaningless lies!”

I mean, yes, she’s right, they needed motivation to make the story interesting and that was a lot of the point of the Flashback Lights. But it really wasn’t to the extent that she’s claiming. Most of their motivation was just wanting to get the hell out of here and not die, which was entirely the truth and nothing to do with the Flashback Lights. The only fake motivation that actually drove the story was some of the motives for murder – but then everyone’s reactions and further motivations in the wake of those murders were very real.

“Junko”:  “This class trial was like that too, wasn’t it? Why was it you were so motivated to do it? Because you got a memory from one of the Flashback Lights, right?”

Haha, no, stop giving yourself credit you don’t deserve. She goes on to talk about all of the flashbacks they had during the investigation and how that supposedly filled them with the hope to fight back, but no, that had nothing to do with why Shuichi and his friends were determined to do this. This trial would still be happening exactly like it is now if they’d never had those flashbacks. Shuichi is doing this because of his determination to end the killing game, thanks to the promises he made to Kaede and Kaito and everyone else, because he doesn’t want their deaths to be in vain. All of that is completely real and had nothing to do with the pointless flashbacks that were entirely irrelevant to anything that’s actually been happening here.

“Junko”:  “Remembering the weight of that hope should’ve made you feel stronger.”

Eh, that depends. That could also have just put too much pressure on them and made them hesitant to act for fear of messing up and letting down everyone who’d supposedly been relying on them – especially for someone like Shuichi.

Tsumugi:  “Even though Kaito and Kokichi were gone, and Keebo started to go berserk… You guys didn’t give up hope.”

Oh, you can fuck right off with your implication that now that Kaito’s gone he has absolutely nothing to do with them holding onto hope. Kaito’s death is precisely why Shuichi is so determined now! And if you didn’t think that was going to happen when Kaito died, why in the everliving hell did you even *kill him*!? Am I seriously going to have to accept here that Tsumugi didn’t have any kind of meaningful narrative in mind for Kaito’s death? That she killed him not even for the sake of at least Shuichi’s arc in her story, but purely for the hell of it?

I can try and tell myself that she doesn’t quite mean this and is only saying it in a pathetic attempt to sell the importance of her pointless backstory and even more pointless flashbacks, but geez.

It also sounds awkwardly like she could be saying that Kokichi ever inspired anyone with hope, but I presume what she means there is that he was providing an obvious enemy whom they could be inspired to fight against.

Maki:  “You were controlling our emotions? Even our resolve to defeat the mastermind?”

Maki’s voice sounds very distressed here. She is not at all happy to realise that she’s still just being controlled and used by a higher power that doesn’t care about her, even now after she’d begun to feel like she’d started to make her own decisions and break free of that. Her desires matter? No, actually, her desires were never really hers in the first place.

I really enjoy how, even though it’s never explained why Maki’s so distressed over this and over learning that Kokichi wasn’t a Remnant of Despair earlier, it’s still very much there in her voice. This is hitting her right in the issues in a way that’s going to continue to be very relevant as this trial continues.

Himiko:  “A-All the memories… were fake? Then… what was everything till now?”

Still real, Himiko! Angie and Tenko still really died, you know! This doesn’t change that much!

Himiko:  “If they were all fake memories, then… Where… are we? Why are we in this killing game?”

She’s acting like the memories of the Gofer Project and everything somehow justified that they were being put through this killing game, but… they really didn’t. The killing game part of that was unrelated to the actual backstory and was supposedly because one single evil asshole suddenly decided “hey wouldn’t it be fun if the survivors of humanity all killed each other”. Which is the only reason a game like this would ever happen: because some asshole thought it would be fun. The wider context of it really isn’t that relevant – it only served to make it more tragic that they were killing each other despite how important their lives were to humanity – so it really doesn’t matter now that it’s all been revealed as fake.

Shuichi:  “But we have nothing to do with Hope’s Peak, so you can’t be Junko. So who the hell are you!?”

I… don’t know why this is only just occurring to you now, Shuichi. It should have been obvious from the start that she’s not really Junko. Why is it so hard for you to think that she could just be Tsumugi, albeit a different “Tsumugi” to the one you thought you were friends with?

“Hajime”:  “I’m me. No one else.”

Shuichi:  (…What?)

Keebo:  “What… is this?”

Tsumugi:  “Huh? You know him, don’t you? He was in the Jabberwock Island killing game.”

The general public in the Hope’s Peak universe didn’t watch that killing game, though. Shuichi and friends shouldn’t have fake memories of Hajime or anyone else from DR2. At most, they should vaguely remember a list of names and faces of the people who were involved in that conflict that the general public maybe learned about afterwards, but they shouldn’t be familiar with them.

Tsumugi:  “What am I doing? I’m just cosplaying.”

Shuichi:  “Cosplaying?”

I would say “come on, Shuichi, this isn’t hard to grasp”, but, to be fair… at this point, it becomes less cosplay and more shapeshifting. I can just about stretch my disbelief to buy that she can change clothes ridiculously fast – sure, whatever, this is an anime-style universe, let’s go with that. But now, she’s not only cosplaying Junko, she’s cosplaying several characters who have completely different body types to her. To some extent cosplayers can copy body types by using binding or padding, but not to this degree! Some of these characters are significantly shorter than her, and there’s no way you can do that!

So, everyone else’s talents are faked, but Tsumugi is so talented at cosplay that she can just do what has to be literal shapeshifting. Sure, sure, I guess we’ve just got to go with that. Tsumugi is a shapeshifter, okay then.

“Kazuichi”:  “Check it out! Even my voice sounds exactly the same!”

(Haha, hi, Kaito’s voice actor. The English dub had all of the V3 characters voiced by someone who did one of the DR1 or 2 cast in order to spend less money on this. Apparently the Japanese dub didn’t and yet still managed to get all the old VAs back anyway.)

We’re also supposed to believe that Tsumugi can just perfectly mimic all the voices, even the deepest male ones. I guess the Ultimate Imposter could do that kind of thing (even though they couldn’t change their body type), so sure, whatever, even though this is not supposed to be a universe where some people are born with talents that are practically superpowers, I guess Tsumugi can do that too.

I suppose her being able to do this does make it slightly more justifiable why the Exisals randomly have a voice changer that can perfectly mimic anyone’s voice, right? That’s a plus to this, isn’t it??

This is the moment at which Tsumugi’s magical cosplay aura is meant to appear… but there’s a well-known glitch where if you save and quit and then resume at any point before this while “Junko” is here, the aura will show up before it should and somewhat spoil the reveal. I write this commentary in sessions that don’t necessarily correlate with the post breaks, so this happened to me too this time. Whoooops, game devs.

Shuichi:  “How can she cosplay as students of Hope’s Peak Academy!? Because Tsumugi told us…”

Shuichi, that stupid cospox claim should not be taken as any kind of evidence for anything! You have no proof she was even telling the truth about that!

Tsumugi:  “Ah, you remembered! Yes, that’s exactly right.”

“Makoto”:  “So then… what does this mean?”

The cospox nonsense is supposedly used to “prove” that the characters she’s cosplaying are all actually fictional. But that really is not necessary, because Tsumugi is clearly ready to have Shuichi figure that out and would have therefore been quite happy to just tell him if he couldn’t figure it out himself. This entire stupid cospox plot point was just 1000% Not Needed. Even if they wanted Shuichi to be the one to figure this out to give the players a game to play, they could have just used the fact that Tsumugi always very strongly argued that it was wrong to cosplay real people and seems to still be agreeing with that philosophy even as Shuichi brings it up now.

(I mean, I suppose since Tsumugi is a literal shapeshifter maybe I shouldn’t be considering it such a ridiculous leap compared to that that her superpowers come with the caveat of only being able to do it with fictional people. But still. (And when she “demonstrated” it to Kaede, she did not attempt to shapeshift into her, just put on her clothes, so.))

Shuichi:  (Hope’s Peak Academy is…) “It’s fictional… It’s all fictional!?”

Shuichi looks incredibly shellshocked at this realisation… but I’m not sure why it’s getting to him so much now. As soon as he realised that their memories from the Hope’s Peak Flashback Light were all fake, it follows that not only were they not Hope’s Peak students, but also that the school and all the backstory surrounding it may well have never existed in the first place.

Shuichi:  “Dangan… ronpa…?”

I love how bewildered Shuichi sounds at hearing this name for the world he thought he was a part of. Okay, sure, maybe rebuttals are kind of relevant to these class trials, but what do bullets have to do with anything???

Himiko:  “S-So… this was all fake? Everything was made up? And the whole time… we thought it was real?”

What do you even mean, the whole time? You guys started thinking Hope’s Peak was real literally only two days ago! Again, this should not be the point at which everyone’s being the most shocked about this – that should have happened simply when they realised their memories from the Flashback Lights were all fake. I think the out-universe writers are slipping a bit too much into having them react like the audience would to such a revelation, because obviously Hope’s Peak is totally the most important thing, right? Not to these characters, it shouldn’t be. The last time they reacted more like a fan than they should have done regarding Hope’s Peak revelations, that was probably in-universely deliberate brainwashing from that Flashback Light, making them super excited for the sake of artificial “hope”. But this time there’s not that excuse.

I’ve also seen one or two blind LPers get kind of upset at this revelation that DR1 and 2 were “all fictional”, as if it callously retconned things so that nothing in those games ever mattered – but this is completely misunderstanding how fiction works. Of course Danganronpa 1 and 2 were fictional. We ourselves consumed them as works of fiction. But within that fictional universe, it all really happened and really mattered. All this is saying here is that Danganronpa V3 does not take place within that universe after all – instead, it takes place in a universe similar to our own where DR1 and 2 were works of fiction. That does not make the events of the Hope’s Peak storyline any less meaningful to itself – it just means that those events aren’t a part of this story like we’d been led to believe.

(And like I mentioned back in chapter 5, this is a good thing, because it means that those surviving characters we cared about in the Hope’s Peak universe weren’t randomly, meaninglessly killed off by meteorites! They did still live somewhat-happily ever after!)

While Himiko’s saying this, we also get a bunch of flashback images from both DR1 and 2… and again, she shouldn’t be remembering any of the specifics of Danganronpa 2, because the general public didn’t watch that killing game.

Tsumugi:  “Did you think the Ultimate Cosplayer’s talent was only limited to characters?”

“Junko”:  “It’d be kinda lame if that was all the big bad mastermind could do…”

I guess that’s our reason for why she’s a straight-up shapeshifter. Because she’s the big bad mastermind, so she’s got to be able to do something over-the-top like that. Sure.

Tsumugi:  “I can do far more than that… I can cosplay the world itself!”

…No, not really? Shoving memories of that world into people’s heads and making them think it’s the truth isn’t “cosplaying” it and has nothing to do with your superpower and everything to do with Flashback Lights.

Shuichi:  “B-But… why? Why would you do this? Why make us think it’s real—”

“Hina”:  “Well, duh! It’s so you’d all play the killing game!”

That’s really not why. They were all playing the killing game just fine long before they thought any of the previous Danganronpas were real. You don’t need to know about the previous ones to be forced to do what the bear tells you to. The only reason she made them think it was real was to pander to the in-universe audience when they were mad at her after Kokichi had made things temporarily boring.

“Nekomaru”:  “In other words, it’s Ultimate Real Fiction!!!”

In other words, you’re still killing real people for this killing game, regardless of how fictional the backstory is.

Maki:  “But… if it’s fiction… If everything… isn’t real… Then… the world being in ruins is also fiction, right? The world outside… is fine, right?”

It would be a little surprising that it took so long for someone to mention this part, the thing that would be good news about all this… but I suppose they didn’t only get the “truth” about the outside world from the Flashback Light. It’d be harder to find a reason to doubt what they also saw with their own eyes until reaching this point.

Unless, of course, you’re Kokichi and are already certain there’s an audience and using that as your base premise, resulting in a thought process of, “there’s definitely an audience, so what do you mean the world’s been destroyed?”. But since everyone else only learned there was probably an audience after seeing the outside world, they had the destroyed outside world as their base premise instead, and so they were faced with a mystery of, “the world’s been destroyed, so I’m not sure how there can be an audience even though the evidence suggests there is one”.

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