#he actually almost did in his very own side chapter but the protag was able to keep him alive

[ninjagirlstar5]

Protag Teruya AU - [Act 1] The Price of a Forged Bond - Day 1 Part 2

No TWs apply to this post.

AO3 Version

Act I Cover

Act 1 Prologue Day 1: Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Chapters Prologue [The Lost of You in a Strange Place]

Disclaimer: While Sannotori is problematic, it’s a thing in this AU/fic and the dynamic is not the same as it is in canon.

The Protag Teruya AU was inspired by @/anotherprofessional’s post! Beware of Void spoilers though!

It was only a few hours into the morning when he suddenly got visitors. Teruya had long since finished his food and was simply lazing around in his chair when he heard the door open. He jolted in his seat, immediately straightening his posture so it looked like he was completely aware of his surroundings. He was definitely not dozing off. Definitely.

“Who is it?” Teruya calls out just when the idea hits him that it could be someone plotting to murder them. After all, Mikado was definitely vulnerable in his current state. And if they wanted to sneak up on them, then they definitely wouldn’t answer back. But, wait, he heard the door open so casually. No one would just boldly walk up to him and try to attack him after that…right?

“It’s us, of course!” The person in question was Hibiki, who quickly strides into view. Just seeing her walk in without a single weapon in sight made Teruya relax. Of course, he was just overthinking it. But…it didn’t hurt to have his guard up either. He mentally chides himself for almost drifting off.

“Oh, so he is here!” Iroha also appears by her side, quickly followed by Kanade who just never seems to separate herself from her sister. Well, to be fair, since they’re twins, they’d be the only two people who are even familiar with each other in a sea of strangers. “Hi, Teruya!”

“Hi, Iroha. Kanade, Hibiki.” Teruya smiles at the three of them. He was still a little nervous as he’s sure they wouldn’t be visiting him without a good reason. “...Did you need something from me?”

“Ehh…something like that.” Hibiki said, seemingly losing her usual bravado. She hesitates but continues to speak. “We’ve…been trying to come up with a raft design.”

“A raft?” Teruya raised an eyebrow. Iroha immediately opens up her sketchbook and hands it over to him. He takes it and starts flipping through the pages. There were designs that were clearly drawn by Iroha but a few of them were crossed out with a light pink pencil. Which kinda made sense the more he thought about it. While those designs looked very nice, they didn’t seem to be very feasible to construct on their own. One of them even looked like an actual boat that seemed to be far too big if the little stick figure next to it was any indication. Thankfully, there were other designs that are pretty simple to construct, but also seem much smaller. Teruya frowned as he realized that even if they were to go with the raft idea, they may not have enough space for fifteen people just for one raft. And that wasn’t even getting into the amount of supplies they’ll need to even attempt traveling across the sea. “...I, uh, see you guys took up Setsuka’s suggestion.”

“Well, yeah. I figured since we’re trying to escape, we could do the obvious solution and craft our own raft. Driving the Monocruise itself turned out to be a bust since we couldn’t even find where the steering wheel was.” Hibiki admits with a groan and clutches her shoulder. “Buuut we’re having trouble figuring out how to make it.”

“W-Well, the first thing to do is find some planks, at least…” Iroha starts, sweating as she smiles awkwardly. “But, uh, we couldn’t find any.”

“Uh…” Teruya pauses to think, racking his brain for any ideas to help the raft plan work. “...Have you considered cutting down some trees? We won’t be able to make planks, nor would it be very flexible…but maybe the logs on their own would be good enough to make the raft.”

“Does any of us look like we can lift a log?” Hibiki dryly asks. Teruya stares at the three girls before him, tiny, thin and clearly lacking any kind of muscle. When he shakes his head, the vocalist puts her hands on her hips. “Yeah, I figured. But, we did try to ask one of the guys.”

“And how did it go?” Teruya raised an eyebrow. While not everyone would have the muscles to carry any of the heavy stuff, if they worked together, they could probably put together a raft in just a few days. Hell, Shinji and Hajime alone could probably carry two logs at once if their strength and stamina allowed it.

“W-We tried asking Hajime when he passed by us while jogging. Uh, he said he wanted to see how long it’d take to get around the island so we can have an idea on how big it is.” Iroha explained, and then clenched her fists, raising them to her chest. “But then Monocrow showed up out of nowhere and said that it wasn’t allowed!”

“What?!” Teruya couldn’t hide the surprise on his face. He hasn’t seen Monocrow since last night, so he wondered if he was too busy to notice what they were doing. Unfortunately, that hope was quickly snuffed out.

“Y-Y-Yeah…Monocrow said that ‘vandalism’ isn’t allowed, and a-apparently that included cutting down the trees.” Kanade said, finally speaking up to put in her own two cents. She then narrows her eyebrows and presses her hand against her chest. “But that’s also besides the point. E-Even if we can find materials to make a raft, how would we even navigate the sea?”

“That’s…a good point, actually.” Teruya frowns and starts scratching the back of his head. “If we had even a compass and a map, it would at least be something. But has anyone found anything like that…?” He makes eye contact with the girls one by one. They all shake their heads with clear disappointment. Teruya sighs. “Then…it might be too risky to go out on sea. At least by raft.”

“Ehh, really?!” Iroha gapes, holding onto her hairbow. “Are you telling me that I made these raft designs for nothing??”

“I-I wouldn’t go as far as to say that.” Teruya was quick to try and placate her, raising his hand in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. “It’s just…We can’t just go out into the sea without some kind of preparation. Getting lost out there is just as bad as being stuck here in the killing game. And if we get lost, there’s no telling what will happen, especially if we run out of supplies while out at sea.” He pauses and then closes the sketchbook. “I’m sorry, but we’ll have to shelve this idea until we have all we need to make it feasible.”

“I…” Iroha slumps, as if she was resigning herself to his words. “...I-I guess you have a point. Just the thought of going out to sea is scary alone…”

“And yet, Ji-Ji was already swimming away from shore despite Yuyu’s pleas.” Hibiki said, flattening her gaze. It took a moment to realize who she was referring to and Teruya drops his jaw.

“Shinji’s doing what?!” Please tell him that he heard that incorrectly. Kanade flattens her own gaze, putting her arms behind her back.

“Remember when Yuri suggested that they swim? I guess he still had that idea stuck in his head…” Kanade rolls her eyes. When she notices the thinly veiled horror on his face, though, she quickly lowers her head. “B-But when I last saw him, it looked like he was coming back. He probably r-realized it was a bad idea and came back while he still could…”

“O-Oh…Good.” Teruya slumped in his chair and pressed his hand against his face. He could tell that Shinji was confident in his athletic abilities, which were at least second to Hajime’s, but he didn’t think he’d be so reckless!

…Actually, no, he can see it. Didn’t Shinji try to challenge Monocrow to a fight last night??

“So…the raft plan is a bust?” Hibiki asked, probably to double check that it was a no go. Teruya thinks it over and then nods his head. She clicks her tongue. “Great. I guess we’ll have to do something else then.”

“It’s alright, you guys. It’s just one plan. I’m sure we’ll find another way out of this killing game.” At least, he hopes so. No, hope isn’t made by waiting around. It’s to be created. They need to stay optimistic and find clues to their situation so they can escape. As a leader, he needs to set a good example of this. “...Thanks for dropping by, you guys. If you need anything else, I’m always here to bounce ideas off of.”

“...Thanks, Ruya.” Hibiki was surprisingly soft with her words. But before he could comment on it, she huffs and points at her sister. “C’mon, Kanade! Everyone else is working hard, so let’s not fall behind!”

“R-Right!” Kanade agrees and raises her fists, her eyes having a determined glint in them. They both leave the infirmary quickly. Iroha gapes at them before snatching the sketchbook from his hands.

“W-Wait for meee!” Iroha cried out and followed after the twins. Teruya watches her go, still processing the speed she had grabbed her sketchbook from him when he hears the door slam shut. Once he did, he let his hand fall onto his lap.

Well, he hopes everyone else is doing better. Or at least, making some kind of progress.

[temperateskies]

⛈~

Meme | Accepting

⛈ Find my muse after some kind of trauma

He was pale with exhaustion as drowsiness settled over him in a thick blanket of respite. Overcome by his loss of spiritual power he’s been force to remain in the forest, unable to move let alone defend himself until he can gather enough strength to leave. But he fears he may have overexerted himself. 

He’d been this way for days, depleted of his resources and wobbled off somewhere among a thicket of trees. Ichimokuren knew it was unwise. His body and energy was already debilitated by the time he decided to confront another deity but despite the risks of fading away for good, it needed to be done. He needed to protect the forest and the young youkai who call it home. 

If only he arrived sooner then maybe that poor tengu spirit might’ve made it out alive. His heart is heavy with grief and he swears he feels phantom tears leak from his empty eye socket. 

“Please… leave me be. Your efforts are wasted.” The one eyed deity found it increasingly difficult to maintain his human form and surly, he thought, this marked the end of his existence. “Death will soon overtake me and I–” A cough begets a tremble that shook his fragile frame. “..do not wish to burden you any further.”

[vulpiximisa]

here is a post of Why I Like Nanamaru Sanbatsu which may or may not also be a Reasons Why You Should Watch Nanamaru Sanbatsu but it’s not made with the intent of persuasion and more of me just gushing over things because this isn’t spoiler friendly

1) Niche Sport

I’m not a stranger to “Sport but it doesn’t involve Ball or Sweat”. That’s a lie, the players sweat a lot in Chihayafuru. The fact that Sasaijma (and then another character in the later chapters in the manga) refer to Karuta is a reason enough to pick up the series. Hikaru no Go was one of my earlier sports anime as well. It’s not like I was a fan of Go or Karuta either but the way the characters wholeheartedly loved what they were doing (and competitively), it made me love it as well. The same definitely goes for Quiz Bowl. While the two I listed were something I completely had no clue how the rules go, Quiz Bowl is a bit more obvious so it’s easier to get into.

(kinda hate these promo pics because there looks like so many fcking charas but really you just need to remember like 5 of them)

2) Nerdy Protag in a Sports anime

Actually coming from YowaPeda, Crunchyroll recommended this amongst other things. YowaPeda did the trope a lot better, given that you’d never associate an Otaku with Biking while a Bookworm being associated with Quiz Bowl does not seem unheard of. But the idea of a nerdy protagonist in a competitive sport was still an allure. 

And oops, I think Koshiyama is a cutie so there’s a huge bias towards that. The fact that Horie Shun who voices Enta Jinnai from Sarazanmai voices Koshiyama Shiki gave me a laugh and he actually fits his role very well. Further emphasizes his cuteness without Enta’s weird gay crush lol

3) Ishikawa Kaito

I’m not above watching anime for seiyuu reasons alone but I actually went in blind with this series and to my surprise one of my favs was in it. I’d known Kaito mostly for Kageyama Tobio first, but he’s gone through so many other roles that I enjoy (Kaki from Pokemon SM, Iida from BokuHero, Mimura Subaru from 2.43) and I’ve watched a lot of seiyuu events/radios with him so I’m just a big fan of him in general. Dunno if I should have just merged this point with the next but-

4) Mikuriya Chisato

Kaito has The Range and can do whatever role he wants (I’m most impressed by his role as Alan from BNA) but I think I have a weakness for when he’s slightly an asshole. Mikuriya gave off the generic rival trope, which he kind of is. I got some Subaru vibes from him as well. I don’t know if he’s canonically handsome, but yes I think he’s very good looking for an anime character. Plus the fact that he’s The Cool Guy but is participating in such a sport as Quiz Bowl. AND the moe gap that is his feminine sounding first name and the possibility that he might also actually be an otaku is 👌👌👌👌

My friend had tagged something with him as “Chazz Princeton with a haircut” and while Not Entirely, he is the “We are not friends, we are rivals but I interact and help you enough that we are practically friends but i will continue to deny it” and I love that trope. The way he’s so not interested in Gorls or Nonsense reminds me of Manga Manjoume, though nowhere as serious because he is not above nonsense himself.

5) Fukami Mari

The moment she was introduced, I had very low expectations for her. Of course she is the one that drags Koshiyama into the Quiz Bowl world BUT she doesn’t fall into the trope of “Female is very good at The Thing, BUT Newbie Male MC does it better than her almost immediately”. I’m so glad for that because as you go on with the series, she is very much an entire character and not just a female support cast. 

She loves Quiz Bowl but she’s not the best or even very good at it. Her childhood friend from another school (which I was 75% betting that it was going to be a male and a potential love interest) turned out to be a female friend. Instead of “cat fight”, they are still very amicable towards each other and support each other but also acknowledge each other as rivals. The fact that Yuki had only started Quiz Bowl because of Mari but liked it enough to continue on by herself, I think that’s really great. 

The anime doesn’t get to it, but she confronts her brother about why he quit Quiz Bowl and challenges him. She has her own goals and ambitions and you see her working on it. She also has her strengths and weaknesses and is a vital addition to the Buzou Quiz Team. Fukami Mari is A Good Girl and I won’t tolerate any slander towards her. The way the beginning of the series sexuallizes her via putting her and Koshiyama into generic anime situations is so uncomfortable but I’m glad they move past that later.

Also since their group isn’t technically a Club (?) Mari isn’t just Female Manager. A plus to Quiz Bowl being Co-Ed sport.

6) Quiz Questions

I like trivia. It’s a little harder to guess the questions along with the anime because you’d have to pause all the time and half the time the contestants are going to buzz in early before you hear the entire question. Unfortunately, unless you actually are a fan of random knowledge or a huge nerd, the questions might actually be hard as well. I literally only knew about 3 questions asked in the entire series and its the anime/manga related ones lol. Still, I enjoyed seeing the characters draw their conclusions and to know what each character’s strong and weak points were. (Mikuriya using Math to calculate the Day of the Week from the past was 😚👌)

7) Side Characters

The first one I’m thinking is obviously Sonohara Akira. The moment of his first appearance, I had a hunch that it wasn’t exactly as it looked. He’s a little schemer but he has his own code of ethics, so he’s not all that bad. (Also hes A Gamer, so Relatable.) The fact that he’s related to Sonohara of Asagaoka makes it all the more interesting because they're’ so different. The way everyone reacts to him is so interesting because he doesn’t take it seriously while everyone else does. My favorite interactions with him aside from the Akiba Squad are the ones with Ookura. (I actually prefer to ship them over Niina/Akira lol)

Sasajima, mysterious Quiz Master with a past related to Fukami’s brother, who used to go to the Prestigious Quiz King School. Character wise, he doesn’t seem interesting but I love his idea of what a Quiz Bowl should be. My favorite parts of a series is when they love the thing they do, and that having fun is what is the most important. Of course you have to be fairly good at the thing first to be able to enjoy yourself freely but he never brags and is a supportive senpai.

Jinko. She’s cute. That’s good enough for me lol. I guess her Electronics Thing is also pretty cool. I like seeing the Sasajimas interact.

8) Ship

Okay, well, its obvious where I fall here. I don’t remember the last time I’ve watched such a generic sport series with a one on one protag vs rival. I’m not above shipping the “obvious/main” ship, as SasuNaru and Edgewright are some of my ships. However I didn’t ship Akira/Hikaru and I don’t ship KageHina but I do ship something like Manjoume/Judai and if asked MakoHaru vs RinHaru, I’d pick the latter, so it might just be a matter of tastes and I won’t fall immediately into every “rival” ship.

So why would I ship Mikuriya/Koshiyama? Because I love it when the Cool Guy falls for the Nerd and EXTRA POINTS if the Cool Guy is also secretly a nerd too. When I mean secretly a nerd, I don’t mean Mikuriya being on quiz bowl but that he might be a closet Otaku. (ImaSaka is everything about this trope.) 

Anyway, they are the main two rivals in the series, so of course they acknowledge each other. Koshiyama took it so dramatically but in the past, nobody cared about his presence, let alone think that he’s a Threat. Mikuriya is a Hot Shot and thinks he’s better than everyone but this newb with potential beat him one time (unofficially) so he’s automatically curious. 

Even though it is Hot Blooded Competition, Mikuriya always seems to encourage and cheer Koshiyama on (in his own rival-y way of course) whenever he feels down about not being strong enough to compete with him. (When they were lining up for the Third round at Asagaoka) Even when Koshiyama lost, after Mikuriya had a huge handicap, Mikuriya tells him he’ll take him on anytime. The fact that he wants to do Quiz Bowl with (against) him, is practically Sports Anime confession. “I won’t wait for you, Git Gud” “Okay I will Git Gud so we can fight again” *Fist Bump* What are you guys doing.

It might just be the art style but there is a copious amount of blushing happening every time the two interact. Also that height difference!! Mikuriya is 172 while Koshiyama is 153, I fucking love it. 

Uhhhh that’s about it. I would like to gush more but there’s only a few chapters of the manga that’s been fan translated and it’s not even half of what’s actually out there. (I think the manga is complete by now?) There’s only one anime season of the series, and I doubt there’s going to be more so RIP me.

[littlestartopaz]

Loz au notes for the ask game?

(Ask me about my wips: https://littlestartopaz.tumblr.com/post/640597930782457856/rules-post-the-name-of-all-the-files-in-your-wip )

So this au was based off of a tumblr post that i forgot to save a link to (rip me) that ended with if you insert Link in just about any shounen protag role, he'd probably just roll with it and be alright. And they mentioned mha and that OfA would be the Triforce of Courage. And a few other things, but that's really what inspired this au.

My twist on it is that some characters in the mha verse are reincarnations of other characters from across the LoZ games. So technically, there could be multiple Links since there are multiple Links a-la something like LU. They have their memories from the game(s) their past life was in, but they don't necessarily have quirks or related quirks.

On the other hand, all three parts of the Triforce act a bit like OfA, in that they have an ability that can be passed along from one holder to the next. I'm still a bit stuck on if i want All Might to have the Triforce of Power or Courage. Power arguably suits what OfA is better, but Courage suits All Might better imo.

Anyway, Izuku is Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass Link reincarnated and for the longest time doesn't know anyone else who is like him. He and Bakugo actually have a bit of a healthy rivalry/friendship in this au, 1) because I'm a sucker for it, 2) because they both believe Izuku's memories are a quirk. When Izuku is 10, he finally meets someone else like him and they become friends. It's the fic's only main OC at the moment, and it's because i wanted to give him a specific quirk. Anyway, OC is Ravio from A Link Between Worlds and ends up at UA in the business department. His quirk is he can animate and basically give a very simple AI to any small figure made of cloth, and his dad makes plushies, so he has that stupid bird thing Ravio had as a companion in the game but it's a plushy. He's constantly lamenting to Izuku about how unmarketable breaking your own bones is can you PLEASE take care of yourself.

Other LoZ characters show up sporadically, both main and side characters, and All Might actually isn't one of them, but there is only one other Link that shows up. It's Hero of Time Link and who that is is something I'm keeping to myself for fun reveals if i every get this thing published.

Anyway, i was digging through my graveyard folder for scrapped scenes or chapters for this au and found an almost fully written chapter among the other versions in there and idk why i scrapped it because it's actually good but uhhh.... here's a bit of that one because i think imma unscrap it:

For as long as he has been able to think, Izuku has remembered another world. Adventures play in his dreams, people and creatures dance in his imagination. Tales of lost sisters and pirates, of talking boats and seeing stones. A vast ocean and the kingdom lost beneath its uncaring waves, a princess in hiding, a simple boy who forges Courage and forces the goddesses to acknowledge him.

For as long as he has been able to think, Izuku has remembered how to be a hero.

To young Katsuki, Izuku's tales of adventure were the coolest thing. They play with sticks instead of swords and reenact Izuku's fights so they can both be heroes.

Katsuki's quirk sparks in when he's five, and when nothing changes in Izuku he proclaims Izuku had his quirk the whole time. And for them, that's the end of that. Katsuki has his explosions and Izuku has his memories. They'll both be number 1 and no one will stop them, not even All Might.

But it wasn't enough for some. The teachers in their school go to Inko, concerned. They tell her the children are already six and Izuku has shown no changes, the last in his class. She should really consider taking Izuku to a quirk doctor, for Izuku's sake. Afterall, if he is quirkless, there are support programs so he doesn't fall behind.

Katsuki finds Izuku crying in an alcove near their usual fighting grounds. He overheard Aunty Inko freaking at his mom that Izuku went missing after his appointment. Burning with curiosity (and perhaps a little concern), Katsuki had set out to find him. And he did.

And now Katsuki doesn't know what to do.

Sympathy had always been more of Izuku's thing. When kids cried on the playground, Izuku was the one to give them a hug and find their parents, not Katsuki. When someone was confused, Izuku was the one to stop and explain things until they understood, not Katsuki. When teasing their friends, Katsuki always took it too far and Izuku always forced him to back down.

But now it's Izuku crying and Katsuki who needs to do the comforting. Aunty Inko isn't here, Katsuki's parents aren't here. It's up to him.

Katsuki clenches his fists and tries to be kind.

“What the hell are you doing?” Katsuki hides his own cringe as Izuku curls in on himself more.

“Go 'way Kacchan.” Izuku croaks out.

“No. Now move over.” Katsuki pushes his way into Izuku's alcove. When Izuku doesn't push him back out, he takes it as permission to stay. They sit in silence broken only by Izuku's sniffles. Katsuki doesn't know what to say and Izuku isn't talking.

[clockworkfrenzy]

I’m going to talk about NDRV3 for a minute

This is going to be long, so I’m adding a cut

First off, the characters were really well written, until they were actually implemented into the story. Lets start with the first most obvious one: Kaede.

Kaede was a very interesting choice for a protagonist. She had an actual talent that wasnt just the SHSL Lucky Student, and she was the first female protagonist in the main three games (I know that UDG had both Komaru and Toko). I entered this game excited for a change in fundamental characteristics of a protag who had actual deep characterization. Then she died. She “killed” Rantaro and got executed. On the plus side, her execution was my second favorite in the game. 

Next, lets talk about Ryoma, my favorite side character in the game. His motive was literal suicide baiting. Imagine you lost everything important to you. You are on your last sliver of hope and reassurance when you find out about the motive videos. You think you can finally find a reason to live. Ryoma starts the video, and it’s Monokuma cheerily saying that he has absolutely no reason to continue on living, and if he died, no one would care. Reaffirming what he already knew, he let Kirumi kill him without a second thought.

Third, Korekiyo. Overall, he was a really interesting and intriguing character. He had a decent talent that influenced his character, but he also wasn’t just limited to being an anthropologist. Korekiyo was reaching the top of my favorite character list. Until chapter three’s trial. His sister wasn’t necessary to the plot, and he had so much potential to be a great character and a fan favorite. In my own personal opinion, there is way too much incest in this series. All I can say is at least they didn’t romanticize his sister or that relationship.

Motive three was somewhat of a throwaway motive. The only point of this motive was to give Angie an excuse to be spending so much time alone in her Ultimate Lab, and an easy out for her murder.

Skipping to chapter five, Kokichi is next. Kokichi was a very interesting character that paralleled Nagito in many ways. For example, Nagito started the game willing to help people, but then his motivations were twisted around and corrupted after the Final Dead Room. Kokichi, on the other hand, was unhinged from the very beginning. He lied constantly and was never a reliable source of information. However, after chapter five, it was revealed that his last big plan was to end the killing game and let everyone else escape, unlike Nagito, whose intentions were to kill everyone except the traitor. Kokichi’s death seemed out of character. He had so much potential to come up with a better plan, yet he just didn’t. Especially considering that he has been proven to be incredibly smart and able to predict and manipulate others’ actions.

Last, but not least, Tsumugi. As a mastermind, it was certainly an interesting choice. The painfully boring and plain girl being the one behind the killing game was a brilliant idea, but they didn’t execute it properly. Every other line is about how plain/boring Tsumugi is, drawing attention and suspicion to her immediately. In every other game, the most boring characters were killed off rather early, with Sayaka and Leon being killed off in chapter one, and Mahiru in chapter two of her respective game. Naturally, It was pretty suspicious when, at the beginning of the sixth trial, she was still alive. Not to mention, the cospox thing was absolute bullshit. I’ll explain that later.

The entire game’s theme is about truth and lies Keep this in mind for later.

Now, on to the behind-the-scenes stuff. I didn’t hate the television show idea at first. The concept of an online television show based off of the first two games was a clever idea. However, they botched it by creating the notion that the first two games were fictional in-universe. Tsumugi claims that each person participating in the fifty-third killing game was a fabricated personality created by her and the producers to make the game more interesting. That everyone in the current killing game auditioned to be there. This opens up the cospox inconsistency. Tsumugi can cosplay live-action characters without a problem, so when does it cross the line from fictional people to real people?. In chapter one, when Tsumugi attempts to cosplay Kaede, she breaks out in a rash across her entire body that she claims is cospox. But, if Kaede Akamatsu is just a character created for the purpose of the show, than Tsumugi should have been able to cosplay as her with no problem, exactly like how she switches between characters from the first two games so effortlessly. This begs the question, “What is Tsumugi telling the truth about versus lying to the players?” The most logical conclusion is that the entire cospox thing is a lie to confuse us. 

This is a game all about lies and deception. NDRV3 is about interpreting the last trial for yourself. I’m going to do just that. What follows is the version that makes the most sense to me.

NDRV3 is a television show on the dark web that kidnaps teenagers with extreme talents and forces them to compete in a mass killing game after erasing their memories. The Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles is in a pirated version of the Neo-World Program. This is how motives such as the Necronomicon were made possible. The first two killing games did happen, and are what inspired the show in the rebuilt world after the tragedy. Tsumugi has a set of controls that lets her switch between predesigned avatars, such as her “cospox Kaede” and all the characters she cosplays in the final trial. This is how all of the cosplays have the V3 eye designs and how she was able to switch between all of them with little to no effort. The Ultimate Hunt was a partially, if not fully, true event that led to the cast being captured and being put into the game. Most of the characters’ backgrounds are indeed real, with some minor tweaks here and there. This can be backed up because of the first scenes in the game, when Shuichi and Kaede can remember being kidnapped off of the street. The Neo-World program in chapter four was put there as a diversion, but it’s clearly not the same program as Goodbye Despair. This current killing game probably occurred five to six years after Goodbye Despair ended, if we assume each season took about a month to create. Not every execution was planned, yet if needed, they could program one at the last minute. This helps explain away Kirumi’s execution by giving her no way to escape her impending execution in a similar way Chiaki and Monomi tried to escape their execution. At the end of a season, all participants get released and can reenter the world as a famous participant of the killing game franchise. Occasionally, contestants are invited back to participate in another season, like Rantaro did. (Kaito also had his illness before the game started, and it was a chronic illness that could have prevented him from achieving his dream of going to space. That’s why he forged all the paperwork to apply to be an astronaut. He also seemed to know exactly when his limit was reached and how long he had left in the chapter bridge scenes).

Overall, this is just my own interpretation of the last game in the series. It gives many less plot holes and can explain almost everything that didn’t make sense in my play-through.

[osmw1]

Crowbar Nurse   Chapter 7 — An Unstoppable Hellish Army (of up to 10 People) Pops up out of Nowhere

“—Sera, hold on. There’s something weird.”

Our silly conversation ended abruptly when Kiryū raised his palm up, halting me in my tracks.

“The hell is going on there?” “Ah, that’s…”

I squinted into the distance. Ahead of us in the street was a crowd of people.

A crowd of people? Or was it a crowd of zombies?

There was a middle-aged man waiting around three zombies that were standing up straight with very good posture. It’s seemingly as if the man was just waiting to be attacked.

The only real movement was his breathing. Other than that, the man didn’t look like he is even trying to get away from the zombies. That’s a very curious situation.

“Hmm… it’s shocking how they are all just standing up so stiffly… maybe the three zombies are scripted to attack the NPC and correspondingly, the NPC is scripted to be attacked by them?” “Say what?” “In this game, there are often times where you can save people who are being attacked by zombies… they call them ‘survivors’.”

I pointed over to the four of them.

“The middle-aged man should be one of the survivors. He’s always scripted to be attacked around there… but I’ve never seen them just standing up straight like that. Maybe it’s a bug.” “Or maybe we just haven’t triggered them yet.”

“You know how we’re backtracking through the stage? Well, I’d wager that the zombies are scripted to attack when the protagonist gets close enough when going the correct way.” “Oh, I see, that makes sense.” “I’m not 100% on it, but it sounds reasonable, right?” “No, I’m confident you’re right.”

I had the feeling that Kiryū is someone who speaks almost too carefully as I shouldered my rifle.

“… well, that works to our advantage. Let’s do it.” “Hey, don’t go killing every zombie you see.” “But I’d like to save him.”

My bullets quickly found their way to the zombies and we walk up to the middle-aged man.

“… I’m guessing he’s thanking us in English.” “That’s right, as the official language of Confi City is English. This is exactly how they say thanks in the game as well… he’s a bona fide survivor.”

I ran around the NPC and then walked away from him with a satisfied smile on my face. The middle-aged man maintained a small distance as he followed me around. He would sometimes roll his neck or look around frightened at his surroundings with fright, but otherwise, he was generally emotionless.

… just like how they are in the game.

The man kept a blank face as he followed us around. When I picked up a broken off chunk of concrete off the street and handed it to him, he looked a bit more stern and brave as he wielded it a weapon.

“—Alright, we’re in business! That’s step one to raising an unstoppable army from hell!” “Wha—?!”

Kiryū was bewildered by what I had said.

“This regular everyday normal geezer… is our unstoppable army from hell…?” “…” “…”

We stood there in mutual silence.

“… sh-shut up! I told you it’s step one!”

I scrambled to quip back before falling back into silence.

“When you rescue NPCs in this game, they’ll follow the protagonist around. Give them a weapon and they’ll help you fight too!” We’ll rescue more and more of these survivors to build ourselves an unstoppable army. It’s all part of the plan!” “Man, you sure about this? The dude looks like he’s never even gotten in a fistfight before.”

Kiryū spoke as he pointed at the man. He’s right in that the middle-aged man is scrawny and doesn’t look like he’d be good in combat.

“The more we fight, the more we’ll level up. We’ll be fine. You get only a maximum of five followers in the game, but we’ll be so much stronger even with just five extra people… we’ll be an unstoppable hellish army….”

I pondered on my plan to raise an unstoppable hellish army to which Kiryū had nothing he could say but to simply mutually make eye contact with the old man. —but eventually, Kiryū’s eyes opened wide as he snapped his fingers.

“… I’ve got it.” “Huh?” “We can the soldiers in our ‘unstoppable hellish army’ as item boxes.” “What do you mean?”

I blankly blinked at Kiryū and he flashes a grin at me.

“I’ve got pockets of my own, but… look at them—they’ve got side and rear pockets too. We can stuff their pockets with herbs too and use them as walking inventory space, right?” “Oh, no…”

In other words, his plan is to pack items in the survivors’ pockets much like how Kiryū’s doing it right now. It looks so lame, I couldn’t stop myself from voicing my displeasure. However, Kiryū didn’t seem to care for my opinion and was already cramming herbs in the NPC’s pockets already, dirt and all.

“No matter how you slice it, that’s just too cruel…” “The end justifies the means, right? … besides, how much longer do you want to hold your phone in your hand?”

He points at the NPC with recently-filled pockets.

“You’ve got no pocket, right? Just stick it in any of his.” “What if he dies and disappears? I don’t want to put my phone on his body.”

I gripped my phone tightly as I shook my head at which Kiryū shrugged his shoulders.

“Alright, then pass me your phone; I’ve got an empty pocket.” “Thank you. If anything happens, could you please toss it back to me?” “Of course.”

We walked and talked at the same time and found yet more NPCs just standing around waiting to be triggered. There was a sickly pale white lady, a bad-tempered middle-aged white man, a lanky nerdy-looking white man… most of the characters in this game are white.

“… they get killed off pretty quickly, but let’s name our devils so we can tell who’s who. Let’s see… from the left, we have Bezos, Gates, Jobs, Buffett, and Zuckerberg.” “You’re really hoping for ‘eat the rich’ to happen literally, huh?”

Only a little ways more until we reach the Vital Watch. There weren’t any periods of awkward silence… or more accurately, we made sure to keep making small talk. Not that it was a bad thing though. This way, it was easier to distract ourselves from the fact that we’re inside a horror world… we were doing quite well in that regard.

—That’s right. We were merely distracting ourselves. Even in this bizarro world, it was important we stayed human and grounded.

On the way, we saved quite a few more people standing still. We gave them metal pipes, hammers, and other objects found on the ground so that we could fight and gain more experience. Everything was going smoothly.

“It looks like we can’t have more than 10 people in our squad…”

The NPC gave their thanks before continuing to stand up straight. I couldn’t help but feel a little disheartened.

“Probably because you and I are both considered as player characters and each of us can have five followers.” “Speaking of which, where’s the actual protagonist to this game?”

I scanned my surroundings as I asked my question to no one in particular.

“I wonder if we’ll meet at the starting point…”

We kept moving and came across a strange watch laying conspicuously on the ground.

“Oh, there’s our Vital Watch.” “Why’s it just sitting there in the middle of the road?” “Good question. It’s always just lying here in the game, but I’ve never really wondered why.”

I bent over to pick up it up.

“We don’t have much time to play with it, so let’s just keep it safe for now. We should hurry onwards.”

I strapped the Vital Watch to my forearm, just before the elbow.

“… why are you putting it on such a weird place?” “Huh? Because it’s more hygienic? Otherwise, it’ll get so dirty.” “Huh?” “Huh?!”

… though health professionals and engineers may disagree on where to wear a timepiece, at least we were successful in retrieving the Vital Watch.

    It was no easy task, but we’ve finally made it to the beginning of the game. We were at a parking lot with spots for eight cars. Concrete walls surrounded us with burning cars and toppled trucks. There were also two zombies which were supposed to attack the protagonist… but maybe because they haven’t been triggered yet, they stood rigidly upright as well. Then I found something big. There was someone else standing upright… or it’d be more accurate to say he was standing in an odd pose—it was the protagonist of this game.

“Gah, look! It’s Nick! That’s Nick over there!”

I screamed out loud as I rushed over to the middle of the parking lot. Every one of the devils in our unstoppable army from hell clobbered the zombies with their weapons.

“Oh, I’ve seen Nick at the game show. So, he’s the protag, eh?” “What’s wrong with him…? He’s standing there like his character just got dropped into a level editor.” “You’re right… he’s just A-posing there.”

Kiryū corrected me with a more technical, detailed term.

“What… what should we do? We’ve got to get Nick out of here.”

Pushing and pulling did nothing to awaken him.

“Come with me if you want to live.”

Kiryū said with a smug look on his face.

“Wow, okay…” “You know, like Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator? Hey, those were great movies.” “I mean, sure, but it sure dates you.”

Nick didn’t react at all to Kiryū’s one-liner, for better or for worse. I tried dragging him by the arm again. It was an odd sensation, so smooth and weightless. Nick didn’t seem like a human being… but rather an object.

“Well, we can just leave him here, can’t we? It might be safer if he stayed put so he won’t trigger any event flags.”

Kiryū shrugged as he spoke.

“Umm, would that mean that we won’t have to fight any bosses? That sounds too nice to be true…” “Iunno. Since we were able to get these survivors to follow us around, that would make us the protagonists… it might be possible that we’ll trigger the flags and we’ll have to fight the bosses like in the actual game.”

What he meant was that we’ll have to find out ourselves. I nodded along to him… until I remembered something he said.

“That reminds me, Kiryū. I’ve brought you here to the start of the game. What did you mean by breaking out of the game?” “Oh, that’s right. I was watching a video about bug testing and I was just thinking… if we keep our chins up and look for them, I’m sure we’ll come across some.” “Look for them?” “Yeah.”

He walked over to the far end of the parking lot… and before I knew it, he jumped head-first into the wall.

“Ow! That hurts!” “I would imagine so! What are you doing?!”

Kiryū squatted down clutching his head.

“I was hoping to find a buggy spot in the physics engine…” “What do you mean?” “Like clipping through walls and such.”

He might have hurt his head, but he was still able to thoroughly explain what he meant.

“In some buggy spots of a game, you can jump over and over again into the wall and slowly go deeper inside it. Then, eventually…” “You go out of bounds…”

I didn’t know you could do that.

“Now that you mention it, I’ve written about bugs in this game on my personal walkthrough blog… but I don’t want you to hurt yourself trying to find them either…” “…” “Kiryū, I think you’re an incredible person, but perhaps… you’re incredibly dumb.” “… shuddup…”

I let him stew for a moment, but then suddenly, there was a loud scream outside of the parking lot.

“Wha… what was that?!”

We both looked behind us…

Oh, no, no, no, no…!

Our unstoppable hellish army (all 10 of its members) were being attacked by a swarm of special zombies!

■Doom

A retro PC shooter, Doom is considered a classic by most people in their 30s and 40s in the West. For years, Doom was considered to be the game that defined the first-person shooter genre. Players control the protagonist—a brawny man slightly younger than middle age—and his arsenal of guns to single-mindedly blast away hordes of monsters from Hell (sometimes depicted as an army from Hell). Some may find this novel to be grotesque with its merciless depictions of gore, but it was for that exact reason why Doom was an incredible success in its day. The gibs and gore won the hearts of kids and the kids-at-heart. With over 10 million copies sold across every conceivable platform, this game is also famous for being ported to everything from cell phones to calculators. It has even seen theatrical releases and novel adaptations. In its day, Doom was notorious for the amount of gore, as unrealistic as it may be. It was perhaps the first video game to have such a great controversy over its graphic depictions of violence. Still, Doom is a game cherished by many and players continue to modify and add to the game—early versions of which were labeled “Doom clones”. Doom leaves behind a great legacy, both technical and historical.

contents: /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /next/

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[momestuck]

Let’s read Hiveswap Friendsim - volume 14

We’re getting close to the endgame now, enough that the writers have started dropping some hints about What’s Going On. But before we can see where this road leads, there’s a good 11 trolls left to befriend!

This time... ‘Of Cleanliness and Clownliness’. We open with a little bluster about how edgy and grimdark Alternia is.

The narrator then calls themselves out for using Godwin’s law. Yeah, ‘feeling dramatic’ huh.

Our trolls today are...

...on almost the far ends of the hemospectrum! (Curiously, no sea trolls seem to feature in this game at all. Sure, that might be because they all live underwater, or because they are generally violent and cruel, but the latter hasn’t stopped our protagonist and I’m sure they could overcome the former with a little creativity...)

Marsti

Marsti is the last creation of Aysha before the epilogue! She’s got a pretty fun theme with a bass guitar which kicks in immediately on his route.

We find her in the process of trying to clean off some graffiti, arguing with a ‘purpleblood boy’. Curious... judging by the cans of what’s probably spray paint that Karako is carrying, does that mean that these two trolls are encountered together in this episode?

...is that what that purple bit up there is supposed to be?

Anyway our first decision is fairly straightforward...

Let’s quickly go down the ‘mind your own business’ route, which I’m expecting to be short.

...despite our decision, the narrator can’t resist the urge to intervene, by tripping up the clown. Luckily, Marsti saves us by taking us into an alley.

Her quirk seems to just be... the -_- emoticon. And she’s not pleased that we intervened. She tells us that if we keep this up, we’re going to end up dead. “What’s your deal? -_-” she demands.

We ask her if she really needs to retrieve the cleaning bucket she left behind. Ahh, bucket jokes. Never get old.

Presumably this has a different troll name, other than ‘bucket’. Apparently a cleaning bucket is called a ‘scourdray’.

That one seems like kind of a stretch...

We ask if this is like... her job, but then remember that nobody has jobs. Honestly, how the economy of Alternia works is a total mystery to me. They run an imperial economy based on endless expansion and extraction like ancient Rome, but how are resources worked into useful forms? Is it... robots?

Anyway, Marsti seems to be doing this just on a whim.

But a lot of her whims concern cleanliness. She comments on our strange ‘magnetism’, which she is also feeling.

Magnetism or not, she mostly seems to find us very annoying as we ask her random questions like why she likes cleaning so much (she doesn’t, she just does it), and so on. She seems to suggest it has something to do with being a rustblood, and pushes the narrator to think about whether other rustbloods they know have hobbies.

Anyway we end up helping her clean this wall. Thrilling activities here in Hiveswap friendsim. We very smoothly ask Marsti if she’s doing anything later...

We get the choice of ‘uptown’ or ‘downtown’. Since my gf Elaine was next to me and saw the choice and started singing ‘Uptown Girl’, I guess we have to pick ‘uptown’. The narration immediately also makes an uptown girl joke.

We get in our stolen scuttlebuggy and head uptown. Marsti starts cleaning up crumbs in our car.

Apparently Alternia has scanners that read the driver’s blood colour, but Mallek helped us scramble it.

We briefly get the false impression she’s homeless. The narration draws comparisons for the reader with Diemen and Boldir, which the protagonist turns out to have spoken out loud, as is often the case...

It turns out, however, that she just got tired of cleaning the same hive.

We learn where we’re taking Marsti... Zebruh’s hive!? Really, protag? Of all the people?

To put it mildly.

We decide not to go to Zebruh’s hive, thank god. Marsti’s getting a bit fed up of the lack of mess, and we offer to make a bigger one...

Genuinely not sure what Marsti is parodying. The well known “obsessive about cleaning and kind of grumpy” subculture?

Instead we head to Galekh’s hive. We’re greeted by the goat, but no Galekh.

D’aww.

Luckily, Galekh’s messy library is exactly what the doctor ordered. Marsti gets to work. Attempts at conversation don’t go so well...

She doesn’t care what a we think... and calls us a ‘condescending alien with no blood colour to speak of’. Oof!

Anyway, at that point the route abruptly ends, with the goat eating some of Galekh’s writing, and Marsti making a break for it out the window. Welp.

All right, let’s try some other approaches...

Let’s try explicitly opting to intervene against the purpleblood troll. The narrator decides fate must be on their side thanks to their conversation with Boldir, and gets involved.

That is not particular ironic. I think you should have a word with Dave. That’s like... not even ‘like five or six my dude’ levels of irony.

So that leaves... downtown.

Which is to say pretty much where we were standing.

It’s mentioned that the drones mostly clean uptown. The protag ponders Zebruh’s whole ‘getting lowbloods to clean for him’ thing.

There’s a weirdly 4th-wally moment.

Speaking of which, the narrator tries offering some places to clean, and gets surprised Marsti doesn’t like us.

Marsti picks up on the whole ‘been killed’ thing. I guess our character does have explicit memory of all the branches where they died? Though that still doesn’t explain things like... having an umbrella from a non-friendship branch. Or remembering things we did in those branches.

The narration tries to brush over it. Uh-huh.

We end up at an empty lot - one we can recognise as where Boldir died, on a branch that got erased. The narration mentions deja-vu...

But it’s not Boldir here, but someone we haven’t seen in quite a while.

The protag tries to get Folykl’s support in ribbing Marsti for her weird cleaning habit. Instead, Folykl and Marsti have a go at us... and we keep digging.

It just gets worse and worse...

You’re not even a member of this whole caste system, narrator! You’ve picked up the whole ‘space racism’ thing remarkably quickly.

Marsti calls us on it. We start going over the fact that like... most of the lowbloods we know are very constrained in their aspirations and hobbies, etc.

Meanwhile,

OK then??

Apparently Marsti has noticed Folykl’s voidrot. And general dirt.

Apparently like... being dirty makes the energy transfer harder? I guess Marsti knows a thing or two about voidrot.

(Recalling that in Homestuck canon, an army of dead Aradias were flinging planets about from outside the universe...)

Our protag helpfully suggests medicine as a field. I don’t even know what their deal is at this point. Marsti doesn’t seem to either.

If she applied to be a medic, she’d get laughed out of the room of course. And the narrator finally gets the hint.

So we... back off a bit, with some uncharacteristic maturity. After a bit, we head off. The protag actually makes a (fairly) genuine apology!

And... yeah I guess we mostly make up.

I actually kind of appreciate such an ambivalent ending. A nice change from the pattern to meet someone who finds our whole... thing super annoying.

The achievement for this chapter says ‘you cleaned up your own attitude’.

These chapters are getting increasingly meta, huh.

Karako

Now for... the second purpleblood in the game! Karaka is the creation of someone only credited as ‘Geezey’, who has not written anything before now.

We get a new, and very pretty backdrop immediately.

That palette! Curiously the narration doesn’t really seem to be acknowledging much of what’s happened so far - that we have a car, for one.

We’re in a relatively sparse area of the city. Unfortunately, the vegetation is not very accommodating for a gentle stroll...

As we pick our way through this, we meet a stranger on the road...

The soundtrack has like... ‘bwmm’ noises with a bunch of reverb, and clown horns. Usual disclaimer that I don’t know shit about music. This track’s title is, impressively, a Unicode drawing of Bowsette.

Surprised by the use of ‘it’ pronouns - usually the narration gets in there quick with gendering.

Anyway, we get a foot sprite. That’s unusual.

We go to help them down from the tree. The narration in this episode is doing the ‘unnecessarily formality’ joke but it’s not really working for me.

They have a nametag, which tells us to call Bronya ‘if lost’. Conveniently, someone we know! The narration supplies an interpretation...

Hmm.

Anyway, this guy’s dialogue consists entirely of the word ‘honk’.

The narrator fills in the conversation - the usual I’m an alien, etc. etc. I guess the joke is that the narrator is really wordy today in contrast with Karako’s one-word lines.

Here’s a sample.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we make some friend overtures along those lines, and then stand about for a bit, until a drone shows up!

The artist is at least making some very expressive drawings in this episode!

We get a choice: help or run. Let’s try to help.

We shield Karako from the drone by leaning on a rock for a bit, and that... makes him happy I guess. He smiles, at any rate. We get back to the whole... weirdly obsessive about establishing Friendship(TM) affect, but then some sea trolls show up.

They laugh at us a bunch, to Karako’s chagrin. Well, it would have to be sea trolls for anyone to be able to laugh at a purpleblood, I guess.

We get some very strained fish puns.

The jabs get a bit much for Karako and he goes for the seadwellers with knives.

This will not end well.

If he wants to throw down... let’s let him. Comfort and support? OK.

We use the dangerous plants to back up Karako’s rampage, impaling some of the violetbloods. But unfortunately for us, they’re pretty much invincible or something.

Curiously there is at least one circumstance where a violetblood has to answer to a purpleblood - the Grand Highblood and Dualscar. But in this case, the hemospectrum seems to rule.

Poor little Karako ends up dead.

And it’s time for the end of this route. But for once, we’re not just getting a death screen!

It’s time for some LORE. Behind the portal is... some kind of carousel?

Well what do you know, the Dark Carnival is real. It’s being ridden by various troll mannequins (or as they spell it here, ‘manikins’... is that a UK/US difference I didn’t know about?)

The mannequins come down and raise Karako into the Carnival.

This religious experience prompts the narrator to get a little introspective about their total insignificance.

We’re sick, we decide, of highblood bullshit. In fact we get quite a lot of philosophising done while bleeding out on the ground here.

The protagonist resolves to do something about this. We get some strained physics metaphors...

We ‘take on the aspect of Clown-sarker’, whatever that means. Taking up some of the soft drinks that Karako was carrying, we... start spraying soft drinks on the sea trolls. The effect of this is... limited. They kill us pretty much immediately. But by dying in battle...

...we seem to have earned our own place in the Dark Carnival!?

Which means... a friendship ending?

Honestly what? Is the next episode gonna start with us in the Dark Carnival?

I certainly didn’t see that coming.

...let’s check out the other branches, I guess.

First, let’s see what happens if we run away from the Drone instead of pretending nonchalance. We make good our escape, more or less, and get a new background:

But Karako is gone.

All right, that was more or less what I expected. Well mostly I thought the drone would kill us, but same difference.

Now, if we try to restrain Karako from fighting the sea trolls...

We try to calm Karako down as we restrain him, but he’s just getting more and more berserk. Given what Gamzee pulled in a state like this... not promising.

He lets off some kind of... rage bomb?

The only thing in canon I can compare with is the Vast Expletive uttered by the Sufferer.

Whatever this is, it nicely does for the sea trolls, and we wake up still with Karako. And... that’s the very quick end to the arc.

OK, that’s a friendship ending too? Huh.

However, this ending does not give an achievement, while the other one did. “You ascended to the Dark Carnival... or did you?” is the achievement text.

What a strange chapter! I’m very curious to see how the next one will begin now.

[minako-arisato-wildfemaleprotag]

Weird Headcanon...

Okay so Ive been thinking a lot. I ship a strange ship not a lot of people ship, FeMc and Jin Shirato.Its my guilty pleasure and I wish that rather than the other hermit they had for p3p they had him in a similar way they did it for the male route. Anyways... my headcanon...... This whole ramble has spoilers for persona 3 as a whole the journey and the answer, about the end and if you are upset by spoilers that are for a game that came out in the early 2000s then please just be careful... also mentioning of Shadows cry, but no spoilers because it isn't relevant to this.

Social Link wish

So My thought as explained above was the Hermit would be him, and in place of the teacher, playing in game and having a similar thing. Just a basic social link with a romance option. the reveal being kinda like to the one here with a link to the fic this is biased on  and leading to his sacrifice. It would be a one off date, and not able to do anything else with him other than the normal fighting, some changed texts of self doubt or something. Just a big angst war inside of him, and FeMc. 

Explanation on how Jin could have lived

So in shadows cry (the novel which has Jin as the main “protag” of sorts) It goes so much into detail about Jin, and shows his more human side, how he jokes around, has a friend outside of strega who he cares about, and even how he is the one to control the temperature for the shower when Chidori uses it. In this we also learn that Jin makes his own grenades and sometimes they come out more like fireworks than explosives.  Something that is bound to happen from time to time when you learned to make your own at home. 

Now here is my thought,  In the end of persona, where Jin sacrifices himself and blows up the shadows at the top of Tartarus, what if he had a malfunctioning grenade? What if it was enough to just burn him a bit, and take the shadows out? What if he got out of Tartarus? What if he made it out just to pass out outside and get carried away to the hospital for his burns?  I would Imagine FeMc looking for him after with no luck.

My thought is he could have lived, because honestly if Chidori lived, (Which she did, if you play persona 3 the answer) when we saw her actually disappear, its possible Jin could be too. Going on to living his life after the whole thing, healed and scarred, left with no one to be around, decides to just live his life as a semi functioning adult. Maybe He gets a job, earns some money, Moves to another town and gets an apartment, and so on. I would imagine him having almost war like flashbacks, things triggering attacks that are hard to calm down from like hearing sonic booms, or something. Just doing what he can to live, after all FeMc fought so save the world, so why put it to waste? 

Now for the less legnthy part, FeMc.

So for FeMC Hamuko/Minako. You see, because she isnt technically Canon, But an alternate dimension version of Makoto/Minato, In The answer MC is the seal to the door, you cant have FeMc as that seal, which is why she isn’t canon, but in the end why does that have to be a bad thing.... maybe she doesn’t have to give her life so much. I’m thinking that maybe rather than her body and soul dying that maybe loosing her memories of everything and everyone would be her sacrifice. Maybe after her passing out on the roof and the coma she eventually wakes up, unlike Makoto/Minato. Maybe she Wakes up with no memory, has to go live with her family again and then continues to go to school and start her life over from that point. Finishing high school, and going to collage. SEES still being friends with her but refusing to bring it all up in fear of hurting her more, as they tried to bring it up to her before, only causing headaches and sadness for not remembering. 

How they meet up again

I’m thinking maybe someday Hamuko/Minako and Jin maybe meet up, Jin instantly knowing who she is and nervous about talking to her but forced to because he works some minimum wage job as IDFK a fucking Ice cream man at a shop, or maybe even more realistically a computer lab at a collage or a guy who fixes computers because why not. Both grown more, Jin becoming a bit less scrawny, and Hamuko/Minako more womanly and full. When Jin asks her how shes been all awkwardly realizes she doesn't know who he is. Through some research finding out she lost her memory and even contacted Mitsuru out of confusion. I think it could be an interesting situation where Jin is stuck wanting to help her get her memory back and falling for her. Helping himself become more at ease with himself as a person having someone to be around because its obvious he is a very co-dependent person biased on his relationship with Takaya. Maybe he helps her get her memories back, or maybe she never does, just believing everyone and learning to accept everything how it is. 

Conclusion

Over all I would have just loved to have a Jin route in P3P, Maybe learned more about him and how he though about things, and why he sacrificed himself to help SEES. Some people got to see how he was in shadows cry, but even the it never came out in English.... fan translations are hard to find, As it is I can only find one chapter right now of shadows cry in English.  https://gekkoukanhigh.livejournal.com/167261.html Right here for those who want it. Im really excited about persona Q 2 and it got me thinking about this whole thing again. I would really love to see more fan art of these two, The happy go lucky  ready to help girl and the used and abused experiment boy. If anyone has any thoughts to put into this or want to voice anything Im here for discussion, Honestly I would love to discuss this! As it is I kinda want to discuss this with my Fiance, but alas... Ive done enough RPs of this ship, too bad I come up with a good idea now, but this would be difficult to RP due to the slow pacing it would have. Anyways thanks for reading I know I'm silly for coming up with this for a ship no one likes but ehh!

[baconpal]

Whats your opinion on the Monogatri series?

fuck man, i was gonna draw tonight, you cant just give me an ask that i could write for hours about

idk how long thisll get but just in case, usual read more time but tl;dr very very good series, absolutely recommend to any seasoned weebs out there

I fucking love the monogatari series for so many reasons. i’ll just shit out bullet points of cool shit

1. gigantic but segmented: it’s one of the longest animes i’ve watched, but if someone wanted to just watch some i’d just tellem “hey just watch bakemono and stop there for now” and they’d still watch some great content and be mostly satisfied as everything wraps up well and doesn’t have any kinda sequel bait or cliff hanger. You can watch as much as you want when you want, even down to the various arcs, even out of order if need be, so it’s incredibly convenient, which means a lot to me (i say as i marathon HxH and Ippo)

2. Fuck the Order: there’s about 3 main orders that people like to preech, novel order (the order the arcs were released according to the light novels), anime release order, and chronological order since the story isn’t told chronologically in either case, and that can get confusing on top of none of the arcs being numbered outside of bakemono and bakemono 2 (which almost nobody recommends you actually watch consecutively) BUT the part I love is ANY order works and is interesting in its own way, the order that events are presented to you can change the impact of various scenes and events, like the ending to koimono is a lot more terrifying if you have no clue that kaiki is a healthy happy boy a year later, and owari becomes a bit more confounding if you know ougi is also doing fine (even if a bit boyish), and when you watch kizumono can drastically change how you feel about araragi and shinobu’s relationship, like when they were super duper tense in nise i always felt kinda whatever, but now that i’ve seen kizu its kinda like “fuck man how arent either of you dead already”

Basically its cool as shit since everything is written without regard for order

3.Character Development (and lack there of): All the characters in the series develop pretty well, and sometimes experience multiple large character shifts that improve them from the absolute pieces of garbage they are in bake (lookin at you Hanekawa, though you were pretty alright in kizu) Senjougahara is also worth note as she’s the primary girl and is thus around a lot despite having very few arcs centered on herself

but one of the most powerful parts of all the characters is they all also never change their true worst traits, and those who don’t really are my favorite characters, and those would be Senjougahara, Hachikuji, and the main man himself, Araragi. Senjou never really is able to drop the autistic girl sitting on the fourth wall deep down within her, Hachikuji continues to constantly fill roles and play parts that don’t belong to her, up through the very end of the series where she becomes a fucking GOD for NO good reason but FUCK it i love you hachikuji, and lastly Araragi, one of the best protaganists ever, who matures quite a lot over the course of his life and all, but from the begining of kizu to the end of owari, he is just completely incapable of letting someone pathetic go without help, even if it means completely sacrificing himself and I love my stupid boy so much

4. Who’s the protag anyway?: So araragi is the protag, duh, but not all the time, and the differences in how the show works when it changes is always very interesting, as it reveals a lot about both araragi and the characters who take his role; namely, Hanekawa, Nadeko, and my fucking BOY Kaiki. Hanekawa interacts with the story much closer to a novel (to the point of analyzing chapters and such), Nadeko sees everyone around her as bubbly colorful nobodies, and Kaiki sees everyone as normal fucking people which is only strange and jarring because when Araragi is the protagonist, anyone who is unimportant to him literally does not exist or physically manifest on screen. Some would call it a lazy choice, and maybe it is, this is shaft, it wasnt the first time they did it and it wasn’t the last either (side note; i like mekakucity actors fight me pussy) but even moments full of “background characters” like Araragis freshmen highschool dilemma, everyone in class other than the 2 cute girls he knows are just depicted as names and random photographic images of shit and its very telling of his character despite never being directly said in the novels or script.

5. FUck man this shit looks good: Art is important shit dude, and monogatari consistently looks good, even if the backgrounds can be incredibly simple at times, they are STYLISH and effective and thats all they need to be, and despite being a show mainly about people talking, the characters will move and be in as many weird cool perspective shots as they need to in order to fill out a scene. Whenever the show ISNT just people talkin, the animation does not slack off. The few fights of the main series are absolutely to my taste, I love Araragi V rainy devil, and thats pretty much the only straight up fight in the show, but the Kizu movies are 3 hours of pure kino holy shit, even araragi buying some porn to beat he meat is animated excessively well and with cartoon abandon. 

I know that stylish substance is still just a shaft thing, but it’s always on point in monogatari, also NO CG CHARACTERS outside of a few random shots in Kizu, which is a definitely worth pointing out considering mekakucity’s original television run exists.

6. FUck man this shit sounds good: The voice acting is impeccable, I love everyones voice so much, but the music is also of very high quality, and guess what it does that thing that i always fucking mention cus it’s awesome and should be used whenever possible anywhere: Motifing. Every character has a theme in some way due to every major character having atleast 1 opening centered on them (there’s an OP for every fucking arc and its insane they’re all fully animated too its bonkers) and theres usually a couple remixes of each persons theme used at some point, especially as like, bittersweet slow classical songs at the climax of an arc being a remix of the OP for that arc. 

Kizu is also noteworthy for motifing the EDs into the other songs, remaking songs from the anime for specific classic interactions (looking at you, sharp and friend or foe) as well as just being super interesting in its use of vocal accompaniment, like the shoowap-doowap kind of stuff they throw in is very fun.

 7.FUck man this shit IS good: I said early that the show is mostly just people talking, but fuck man i love listening to these people talk to each other. Everything they talk about is super entertaining and full of multiple meanings and just so much to take in that any amount of rewatching will always have me finding more to love, but since its a weeb show with references and puns and stuff, I would recommend making sure you’re atleast a decently powerful weeb who can at least UNDERSTAND some Japanese and knows a bit about anime before getting into it, also make sure you can read decently fast. It’s not Tatami Galaxy levels but stuff can move quick. (bit far into a post like this to make a recommendation but hey)

oh no i wrote for an hour about this shit bless the poor souls of any mobile users who still follow me

[oumakokichi]

What do you think Ouma would have been like if he survived to the end of the game? Or what about just outside of the game, like in an au where this game didn't happen? (I'm sorry I just love his character and I want the next game(?) that says no one ever died and they're all living happily)

There’s no need to apologize! Ireally love these particular questions, and it’s not exactly a secret that Oumais my favorite DR character—I would honestly have loved to see him survive,moreso with what an important, vital character he was to the whole game evenafter his death. The fact that even after dying, Ouma was essentially “present”at both the Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 trials (first because of the Exisal planwith Momota, then because of all the clues, hints, and mysteries surroundinghim that led to them finding out so much of the truth) has always struck me asvery, very interesting. And he had so much potential as a survivor, especiallywith his cover blown and his plans against the mastermind made clear.

I’ve actually talked a littlebit about my ideas on this before, in a post here a while back! And some peoplelike @klepotmaniac and @ouma–kokichis have also expanded on the idea and beeninterested in it! I still feel like there was real potential to take the Exisalplan in Chapter 5 and take it in another direction entirely. It was stillincredibly amazing with how well done it was in-game, of course, but I feellike there was definitely a very noticeable opening there where Ouma couldactually have been one of the survivors.

The most interesting thing, ofcourse, is that Ouma would have lived through that event without wanting to. Heclearly was very willing to die in Chapter 5. His death was entirely avoidable,and if he’d wanted to throw Maki and Momota to the wolves and just hole himselfup in the Exisal to be malicious, he easily could have. Instead, he chosewillingly to give the antidote to Momota instead, have Momota be the one tocarry out the plan in the Exisal, and went completely willingly to his deathunder the press, all because he could strike back at the mastermind. And Maki,who did honestly, truly intend to kill him, didn’t have to be executed as aculprit.

I feel like if Momota hadrealized what Ouma was trying to do with the antidote ahead of time and refusedto drink it, things could’ve gotten really interesting. Because Momota wouldn’twant to die from the poison and therefore make Maki into a killer, but he alsorealized that his time was limited no matter what he did. Even without thepoison, his sickness was just about ready to kill him, as is clear from how hedies only midway through his own execution later on.

And Momota is such a shounenprotag at heart: if there’s a way to avoid the biggest number of sacrificespossible, he’ll take it. He wants to fight people, but he doesn’t want them todie. Had he realized exactly what Ouma was trying to pull, and realized thefact that there was no need for Ouma to die, I think it’s entirely possible hewould’ve thrown Ouma’s plans off somewhat by just refusing to drink theantidote. If that were to happen, both of them would die, Maki would beexecuted for a double-murder just like Korekiyo, and nothing about the killinggame would change at all.

So very bitterly andreluctantly, I think Ouma would spell out his whole plan about trying to usethe press to discover the cause of death and identity of the victim/culprit,hoping that by making it super clear he could get Momota to go along with it.And the plan is brilliant, of course, but it would still require one of thembeing a victim and the other being a culprit, except for one thing: contrary toOuma’s expectations, it’d be perfectly possible for Momota to kill himselffirst, and then for Ouma to disguise the state of the body, cause of death,etc. using the press afterwards.

In a very Sakura-like twist fromdr1 where Momota is both the culprit and the victim of his own murder, there’dbe two lives saved rather than one.And the whole plan with the Exisal, and confusing Monokuma, would still work.The Exisal would still protect Ouma from Maki trying to kill him (because shewould, undeniably want to kill him, blaming him for Momota’s death).

And no matter how tired he wasand how ready he to die he was after all the shit he’d gone through in thekilling game, I don’t think Ouma would have ultimately been able to convinceMomota out of it. If it were an all-or-nothing situation where they were goingto keep being stubborn, and considering how little time they had before theeffects of the bomb wore off and the cameras came back, I think Ouma would havehad no choice but to compromise. Momota and Ouma lay out a plan for Momota tokill himself in the machinery bay first, Ouma drinks the antidote for real thistime so he’s no longer being slowly poisoned to death, and after the deed isdone, Ouma disguises the truth about the body with the press.

With Ouma in the Exisal insteadof Momota, the whole catbox plan regarding the victim’s identity probably would’vebeen taken even further than before. The things Ouma managed to convey just byhaving Momota act them out with a script he provided, Ouma himself would beable to perform a million times more convincingly—and that’s saying something,since Momota was already a pretty damn convincing actor. Meanwhile, littletip-offs and slip-ups in the trial would’ve caught his notice, probably,including things about the Remnants of Despair, Junko, the whole “hope vs.despair” language the others were now talking in, etc.

But what Momota knew in Chapter5, Ouma clearly knew too, because the hints he left behind were so obvious, andno matter how badly he wanted to strike back at the mastermind, he was neverwilling to bet anyone else’s lives to do it, because lives are so important tohim. They both knew Saihara would ultimately reach the truth of the matter, ifgiven enough time. And so Saihara, having to disregard all his previousmisconceptions, and having to deal with Maki still convinced and unshakable inher belief that Ouma is the culprit, would manage to reach the truth that Oumais the one in the Exisal but didn’t kill Momota at all, and that Momota killedhimself and let his body be crushed after death precisely because the detailswould be closed up into a catbox.

If Ouma had truly wanted toeven in-game, much less in this AU idea I’m discussing, he could’ve made theChapter 5 trial into a real catbox. There was absolutely no reason for him totell Momota to leave the clues he did, including his shirt in the toilet, thecamcorder video of “Momota” being killed under the press, or Momota’s jacketsleeve poking out from under the press—unless he definitely did not want to risk everyone’s lives forreal, and he knew that Saihara wouldreach the truth once he had those clues in hand.

And if he were a survivor, he’dknow it too. If Saihara were able to reach the truth in spite of everything,and particularly in spite of what a convincing villain routine Ouma had beenrunning ever since Chapter 4, I think even Ouma would come out of that Exisal.After a whole trial of a convincing, super dramatic act full of questions like “Whoam I?” and “Who are you guys gonna vote for?”, at the very end I think Ouma woulddecide to “open the catbox.”

And rather than pulling anyfurther acts or facades or routines, I think he’d just be blank. Shaky, from nearly being poisoned to death before, andtired, and further traumatized by Momota having died in front of him. Therewouldn’t be any further need for his usual acts and routines, because Saiharaalready reached the truth of his plans to confront the ringleader, and alreadyknows now that Ouma himself is not the ringleader. And I think while stilllooking very blank and neutral, Ouma would tell them all the entire truth ofwhat happened in the machinery bay.

There would be so muchpotential for his inclusion into the group at this point. I’ve thought about ita lot. While it’s certainly true that Ouma did things, horrible things, inorder to progress with his plans this far, it’s also true that the whole groupwould’ve died without his help in previous cases. And rather than realizingthat he was trying to literally stop the killing game once and for all, it’strue that the entire group reacted against him, and that Maki in particularwent off right into the real ringleader’s plans and tried to torture and killOuma to death despite promising not to try anything of the sort in front ofthem all.

There were definitely mistakeson both sides, and Ouma’s desperation to end the game and disgust at the ideaof killing and murder is precisely the reason he was so willing to try and lethimself die under that press. But since he’s now essentially living on forMomota’s sake, because it’s a sacrifice Momota was willing to make for thewhole group, now he has to stick around, and he hardly even feels like it,because he already had to compromise his morals and dirty his hands.

But the truth Saihara wouldhave reached in this scenario isn’t just that Ouma wasn’t the culprit  of that particular case, or the ringleader—it’sthat despite Ouma’s act, and all his claims, he’s not evil. He’s not irredeemable.

With Ouma on their side, theChapter 6 investigation would have been so much fun. The group would still havebeen reacting to having him actually included as one of their number, ratherthan just a figure to be reviled. Maki, while still probably unable to bringherself to like or trust Ouma entirely, wouldn’t have been able to help feelingsomewhat guilty, I think, considering it’s her own actions, not Ouma’s, thatwound up getting Momota killed—and because she almost got Ouma killed too, eventhough he was never the ringleader or the leader of the Remnants of Despair atall.

The trial with Tsumugi wouldhave been an absolute blast. I’vepointed out that there are some pretty blatant contradictions in some of thelies Tsumugi tells them all, particularly when she starts aiming for thingslike their romantic feelings or emotions, and when she brings up “every singledevelopment being part of her scenario” (because things like Momota’s illnessclearly contradict this).

Even though the rest of thecharacters were far too traumatized and shocked by these realizations to noticewhere it was obvious that she was lying, I feel pretty sure that Ouma wouldhave noticed. And after quite a while of being blank and unsure how exactly toproceed within a group that he had felt isolated from for so long, I think he’dreally find himself slipping back into the role he does best, and some of hismost fun sprites and dramatic routines would’ve come back in the Chapter 6trial.

No matter how much Tsumugiwanted to make things into a real catbox of her own in Chapter 6, with all thecharacters unable to prove or disprove anything about her fictional scenarios,Ouma is very skilled at pinpointing other’s lies, precisely because he deals inlies himself. There would’ve been so much potential for him to really shake herarguments in Chapter 6, and I’m kind of sad that we’ll never get to see itoutside of some potential fanart or fanfictions.

Chapter 6 features so muchabout the characters being led to believe that they were not necessarily thebest people before entering the killing game. It’s impossible for them to knowthe truth about themselves one way or the other: everything, from their memoriesto their backstories to their talents, is called into question, and they haveto live with knowing that it’s incredibly likely that they signed themselves upfor this kind of game. And still, they decide to embrace the identities theyhave within the game. Even if they’re just fiction, even if their identitiesare “lies,” they’re real to them, precisely because of what they’ve been through.

But so much about Ouma is thatby knowing ages before the rest of them that these things are lies, he has nosense of identity. The reason he calls into question things like “common sense”and “reality” within his FTEs, even the very early ones with Kaede, is becauseOuma knows that nothing is trustworthy in this game. Not his talent, not hismemories, and not the people around him. So much about his prison mode ending,too, is about trying to “discover” himself and figure out who he really is ormight become—and I would have loved to see this explored with him as asurvivor.

If most of the rest of the gamehad proceeded the same, and they had all decided to abstain from voting inorder to flip a giant middle finger to the killing game and the audience atlarge, then I could see Ouma winding up as a survivor exactly the same asSaihara, Maki, and Himiko do. And it would have been very rewarding, in a way,to see him get the chance to see the hole in the dome representing the way tothe outside world, and realize that he had in fact accomplished some of what heset out to do.

If there’s a character arc I’ma sucker for, it’s atonement. Even if there are things that a character can’tever be forgiven for, even if they’ve done awful things and can’t forgivethemselves, I honestly enjoy characters who try to atone anyway, precisely becausethey’ll never be forgiven, but they can at least lessen their guilt somewhat.And I think Ouma would fit into this kind of trope quite well as a survivor—andI think that even if he wasn’t sure of “who” he was or what would be on theother side of that dome awaiting them, with the killing game over once and forall, I think he’d honestly, finally be able to start trusting Saihara and theothers as a group.

The end of ndrv3 deals so much “lies”becoming “truths,” and therefore being accepted as reality no matter what otherpeople or the real world might tell you. This motif is the “answer” Saihara andthe others find in canon, in response to Tsumugi’s “unshakable truth” that theyare fiction, and it’s the reason they’re able to reach an answer for themselvesthat had nothing to do with either hope or despair. And it’s Ouma who wassuggesting this kind of answer long before any of the rest of them. I really,truly would love to see the rest of the survivors, and Saihara in particular,kind of realizing that fact about Ouma.

Anyway, this has gotten prettylong so I’ll stop, but it’s an AU idea I love to think about! I’m really gladyou both asked, and I hope I was able to share some of my thoughts on the matter!