#like whenever we get to see meiling again. it gives me all the feels for some reason

[oveliagirlhaditright]

The Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card arc (anime, not manga) also ends on a cliffhanger? Are you kidding me?!

At least it's been confirmed that it will get another season to finish the story, at least, but gah!

[lesbianlibrariansinfrillyhats]

Okay so if I don't post something here I'm going to give up in despair. So here's the start of my lightly lewd KoakumaXPatchouli fic, because why not add another onto the pile? Also please Ao3, get back to me. I don't want to burden Tumblr with this. But I also like the idea of writing the early days of Patchouli and Koa.

The Journal of a Sleepy Magician

Day 1:

People get so upset when you mention summoning demons, it’s really tiresome. People forget that demons can be helpful if you know what you’re doing and set proper boundaries with them, especially if you’re a powerful mage. I don’t get the taboo, but I understand the risks involved. It’s just such a bother to try and keep a library clean all by yourself though, and even though Sakuya tells me I don’t have to, I hate having to put books back on shelves. It messes with my workflow. Same thing with having to eat. Sakuya says she can handle that too, but she works hard and I want her to take it easy. So I decided to “hire” some outside help.

The thing every power drunk mage forgets is that you don’t want to summon a major demon. They’re just too much hassle and they’ll break through any bindings you put in place after a while. Plus they always want to make deals and change the original terms of your summoning contract. Minor demons though, most of them are just happy for a break from getting bullied by other demons, I’ve summoned some of the smaller imps to help clean on occasion. But today, today is different, which is why I am making this journal. Today I am going to attempt to bind a minor demon to me, so I can keep the library clean. Also to help with workflow. Also also, to keep Marissa from stealing so many of my tomes. 

I feel the journal is required, more for observation purposes than anything. Also in case the worst happens and Remi needs to find out what went wrong. It would be unfair to make my friends clean up my mess, since I’m summoning a demon to prevent that from ever happening again. The demon I have chosen to summon’s name is Koakuma. They’re something of a mystery though, I had assumed I was going to bind an imp to my service, but instead I summoned a...very pretty girl. Her hair is red, and her face is delightfully delicate, her high cheekbones made soft by full rosy cheeks. It’s...heart shaped? Her eyes are a stereotypical red, and he has...4 sets of wings? I think. Two are small and are on either side of her head, and the other two are more natural and are on her back. She also has a tail, which she enthusiastically wags whenever she is happy or excited. It’s quite disarming, which makes me wonder if this might be a part of some ploy to make me underestimate her. I can’t know for sure, especially not after one day of observation. I hope she can make good tea.

Day 2:

I wish there was more to report, but as it stands Koakuma seems to do her job well enough. She’s klutzy and has a tendency to trip while carrying large stacks of books, but apart from that she seems to be the perfect assistant. She’s already taken to calling me Patchy rather than Patchouli, but I don’t mind it that much. It might be overly familiar, but she isn’t saying my full name all the time, which is always a warning sign. Demons can be known to steal someone’s name simply by repeating it enough, often enslaving the person whose name they steal. 

Koakuma seems happiest when I praise her for something, which I try to do whenever she accomplishes something difficult like cross-referencing multiple texts for me or when she makes tea. I was hoping she’d make decent tea, and while it’s still not as good as when Sakuya makes it, Koakuma always gets the water temperature just right, which is impressive even for a demon. When I asked her about where she learned how to boil water so efficiently, she just said her “Uncle Asag” taught her. When pressed, she giggles about how “my good natured beauty encourages the water to stay warm enough to boil the leaves without spoiling them” and will not elaborate further. Which makes me suspicious. She is...pretty, and I wonder if that’s not on purpose. Maybe she’s a succubus, but so far the only thing she’s seduced me to do was to take a shower. 

She made cute faces and pleaded with me, saying: “It’s no good to sit in your pajamas all day, getting sweaty and smelly! You need to keep clean, Ms. Patchy, oils from your skin might damage the books you love so dearly!”

Appealing to my love of books was the right call, and I wonder how she got that information. It could have been from simple observation, since we talked about books at length while I did light researching. I’ve kept my activities very basic for the time being, until I get a better picture of what this demon is capable of. Which means not being able to indulge in most of my magic activities, but I don’t want to be using anything that might tire me out around a demon I barely know. Her entire demeanor has been very “disarming”, and just putting those words to paper makes me wonder if that’s not her first goal. She seems like a little demon, but that could lead to big problems if not kept in check.

Day 4:

I stayed up for 2 whole days, almost on accident, but mostly on purpose to see how Koakuma would react. She was placidly supportive for the first day, and helped me with a fair amount of astrological research. We spent hours upon hours pouring over star charts looking for the ideal day to cast a cleansing spell on the library. Ko said the place was too stuffy, and I remembered that there were a couple of half-eaten plates of food lost in the mess of the library. Which is becoming clean relatively quickly, thanks almost entirely to Ko. I’ve taken to shortening her name, just so I don’t have to spend so much time saying it, which flusters and upsets her all at once. Which is cute, but also a good sign. When I rile her up, the most she’ll do is hit me with a small stack of paper. 

This can mean one of two things: either she is too weak to physically harm even someone as sickly as me, or her long con somehow involves hiding her power level to a ridiculous amount. My “Ko is secretly an Arch-Fiend pretending to be a cute and klutzy demon” theory is slowly disproving itself, which is a welcome relief. I like being proven wrong when it means I can relax, but I plan to keep a healthy air of suspicion for at least another week or so. But bleh, I haven’t written down...words are hard to keep track of. Ko bullied me into bed, but she doesn’t know that I keep my journal next to my bedside. I might try and stay up for 3 days at some point, just to see what she’d do. 

Day 5: Ko witnessed an asthma attack today when I went to go and reference one of the older spellbooks Remi owned back in her life before becoming a vampire. I almost want to get mad at Sakuya for not dusting properly, but I did ask her to let me have control of what happens in this library. Ko quickly figured out what was wrong and got my inhaler, but then I was subjected to a lecture about my health. “You have to be more careful, Ms. Patchouli! What if I wasn’t here? You would have choked! We’re going to have to make a project of cleaning up all the dust here. It’s not safe for you otherwise!”

Words I’ve heard before, but never delivered with such urgency and passion. Sakuya always brings it up in a much more measured tone, and Meiling will just sneeze loudly and ask “How d’ya not choke ev’ry time ya open a book?” as is her way. I could brush both of them off with a simple “yeah yeah” and a promise to do better that I’d soon forget; but Ko is tenacious in getting me to take care of myself, which is troublesome. But this “project” of her’s is as good a time as any to practice smaller-scale spells. I’m thinking of casting two spells to help keep the library free of dust, a Fire and Moon spell to try and move the dust and a Water and Metal spell to purify as much of the dust as possible without opening a window and inviting all kinds of pollen in. Ko is at least amenable to the idea, but she balks at the idea of “an ignition source in the library”. 

I’m debating telling her how my particular brand of magic works, but she’s a Western demon, and I’m not sure how well she can grasp the principles behind Wu Xing; or if I’m even fine with a demon knowing how I do my magic. Staying up for so long seems to have affected my writing some, I notice I’ve been writing in fragments. I also should try to keep my journal on hand so I can write observations of Ko’s behavior as it happens. I think having time to rationalize her behavior is coloring my opinion. She’s so cute, there has to be something I’m missing. Hopefully reporting on her actions in the moment will disabuse myself of this notion. She’s a demon, demons are dangerous, not cute.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Spring 2018 Anime Overview: Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc (Episodes 14-22)

I enjoyed Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card quite a bit. I would by no means call it a bad experience. But it’s impossible to deny it’s the weakest anime I watched this season. The series is underwhelming and flawed, even if parts of it warmed my heart and fed into my love of these characters. The plodding pacing, lack of payoff and disappointing elements were mostly worth it to me for the good parts, but this show really deserved to be so much better than it was. A lot of the problems I mentioned in my review of the first half not only remained, but worsened. There were definitely plenty of adorable moments, which you can see in my liveblog, but I can’t deny the show could have done so much more.

But we’ll start with things I enjoyed. I loved seeing Meiling again and her arc left me very satisfied. One thing I really love about magical girl shows is that they often have a far more complex and nuanced handling of the “romantic rival” girl character than other “more mature” media. They treat the girl in question more like an actual person than a catty stereotype and eventually the focus turns away from the guy and more towards girls building a positive relationship. 

And Meiling is a perfect example of that and I adore her. She started out seeming like a one-dimensional annoying clingy romantic rival character, but as the show went on, she gained more depth and formed really adorable relationships with Sakura and Tomoyo. Her pain, her struggles, her insecurities- they all became real to the viewer. The scene where she’s crying over Syaoran but admits that as much as it pisses her off, she can’t take out her pain on Sakura because she likes her too, is one of the most heart-wrenching in the show.

Meiling’s arc in Clear Card was the perfect cap on that. We finally got to see how Meiling and Sakura interact without the tension of Meiling’s crush on Syaoran in the picture. Her former crush on him wasn’t even mentioned once- they are entirely friends on their own terms. It was great to see how the relationship has so completely evolved. And it was also great to see Meiling and Syaoran interact without that baggage and it really bought home how much better the two of them understand each other now. Where Syaoran would unintentionally make Meiling feel like she was a useless burden to him before in the original series, here he goes out of his way to tell her that he appreciates her and that she shouldn’t feel like she contributes less due to her lack of magic.

 Meanwhile, Meiling was worried about him and since she was a family member, she was more aware of his mysterious struggles than anyone else. But she was not overly focused on him and was capable of giving him space. She was also much more confident around him and was able to roll her eyes at what a loser he was and tease him about it, something she really didn’t do before because she was too busy mooning over him, so it was very cathartic to see her do it here.

Seeing Sakura and Meiling have a proper team-up was fantastic too. I’m always down for the power of girls holding hands saving the day, but this was satisfying in other ways too! Meiling always had a lot of confidence issues about her lack of magic in comparison to the others, so seeing her straight up take charge in a fight and protect and guide Sakura was such a great thing for her character. The “twins” episode in the original anime had Meiling learn she was useful as a partner by teaming up with Syaoran, but here she learns she can even be a good leader if it comes down to it by taking charge with Sakura. Meiling’s arc really builds on what came before it in a positive and satisfying way, and was exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for when Clear Card was announced.

Seeing Meiling now being comfortable enough to be on a first name basis with Sakura was icing on the cake (not to mention a very shippy moment, considering it’s explicitly compared to Syaoran and Sakura’s relationship). This was the kind of relationship progression I wanted from Clear Card. And there were a few other moments that delivered that kind of satisfaction! Sakura’s dad’s conversation with Touya near the end, a short moment with Touya and Yue....

But that sadly wasn’t true for the majority of the series. Most of the season felt terribly stagnant and sloppily paced with the characters not progressing at all and a lot of build up with no pay-off. 

To make it clear, I don’t mind a slow burn- the original CCS definitely moved at a relaxed pace and had a heavy slice-of-life vibe. But the problem with Clear Card’s stalling plot was that it was contingent on a bunch of characters not talking with each other or interacting with each other and this was really what gutted the show for me. 

The original CCS definitely relied on “barriers to communication” as a device to pad the show, but not in a way that prevented the characters from getting good scenes. For instance, Touya being interrupted whenever he tried to tell Yukito the truth about himself in the third season of the original series was an overused and somewhat frustrating reoccuring deal, but it didn’t prevent Touya and Yukito from being involved in the plot or having (very gay) scenes together (in fact, it ensured they would). It was also at least a little bit amusing and had some variety- how’s Ruby Moon gonna interrupt them this time! And it made sense for the characters for the most part- Touya’s TRYING to do the logical thing, so we’re not frustrated with HIM, at least. And it made it incredibly satisfying when Touya finally snapped and told Ruby to go away, he’s talking with Yukito NO MATTER WHAT.

Compare the conflict this season where Touya’s got something going on with a new power but won’t tell Yukito about what it is (EVEN THOUGH HE’S THE ONE WHO BOUGHT IT UP TO HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE) because reasons. This means there’s only a couple scenes with them, they consist of Yukito being like “tell me” and Touya being like “nah”. There is no variety and the scenes make the viewer frustrated with Touya, it means we don’t see Touya and Yukito much because they’re not allowed to be involved in the plot yet and because we’re keeping up some manufactured tension between them for no reason. It had no payoff this season either, and I doubt when/if it DOES pay off we’ll feel satisfied- odds are it’ll just be like “okay so why didn’t you just tell him earlier?”

The way Touya and Yukito were underused here was really frustrating because 1. They’re great characters, 2. they’re one of the most iconic mlm couples in kids anime and 3. their relationship arc wasn’t really properly resolved with a confession scene in the last series, so one of the main reasons I’D do a sequel would be to resolve that, but apparently them not talking is more important.

And that’s not the only plotline of the sort in this season! There’s a similarly bad one with Syaoran. He’s keeping stuff something that involves Sakura secret from her and it does nothing but damage his character and presence in the show. It means he’s not around or talking to her as much, nor is he as expressive since he’s busy brooding about stuff. 

Honestly, the role of “mysterious secret keeper” just doesn’t fit Syaoran- with Touya, at least he’s been shown to be someone who keeps things to himself before. Syaoran, on the other hand, has always been ridiculously straightforward. As much as he tried to act tough, he was always unable to hide every single thought and emotion he had from being stunningly obvious to everyone but Sakura and got flustered CONSTANTLY, which was part of his charm as a character in the original series. It allowed him to be a very active and dynamic character too. Having him suddenly bottle everything up and be all mysterious just kills so much of what made him work. 

Though, to be fair, the show sort of acknowledges he’s unsuited for this role by showing even Sakura has noticed something’s up with him. But that just makes things MORE aggravating- in the last episodes she straight up says to him “I want you to talk to me” which should be the big moment where he realizes how wrong he’s been and tells her everything....but instead he just. doesn’t react. It’s INFURIATING.

And hey, third’s time the charm, we also have our antagonist, Kaito, doing some sketchy bullshit that his charge, Akiho, is completely unaware of (and when she does become aware, he TURNS BACK TIME to make her forget) so he can help her because reasons. Also, Eriol and Kero and Yue now know Sakura’s making cards appear on her own, but won’t tell her, because.

So in this season, here’s a real trend of guys refusing to communicate with and let girls in on things that DIRECTLY AFFECT THEM and denying them agency in regards to their OWN LIVES while insisting it’s “for their own good” and “to protect them” and I’m really! not about it! At this point, I am not confident the show will resolve it in a way that condemns this behavior enough. Why did we have to go here? I’ve seen this plotline SO many times and I am TIRED and I just want to see the characters be together and grow and learn and have fun.

And the lack of that is what makes the “filler” in Clear Card not work while the “filler” in the original show mostly worked for me. There were a variety of scenarios the original series would use to pad out the episode in the old series- a school play! a class trip! Syaoran and Sakura fight over Yukito! A test! Touya’s got a weird new job! They were reoccurring scenarios, but the type that offered variety and many types of character interactions. But with Clear Card the filler is much more limited -”let’s cook a thing and talk about it, let’s eat a thing and talk about it, let’s read an entire storybook that has nothing to do with the episode”. And that feels a lot less worthwhile, to say the least.

I said in my last review that it felt like the series was coasting on nostalgia and well, that still holds true. SO true there’s literally an episode called “Sakura’s Nostalgic Viewing Party” devoted to talking about the Sealed Card Movie. But as implied above, I don’t know if this show really gets what people loved about the old series totally. It copies things, sure. Like Sakura’s basically capturing the same cards over again! ...But this time the cards seem more like objects without personalities, and Sakura’s lack of concern for the cards she had before totally disappearing- which WERE sentient with personalities- is troubling, considering the original series focused on her being concerned for them and forming friendships with them. That whole issue kinda encapsulates the heart this series is missing compared to the original, and the important things its overlooking.

Which brings me to a big problem- there’s an disappointing lack of queerness in Clear Card. The original series was full of queer stuff and very accepting and positive about it as a narrative and it is beloved among queer viewers to this day for that...but, that was so absent in Clear Card. The closest we got to a direct discussion of Yukito and Touya’s relationship was in the prologue special- Yukito mentioned to Sakura about “when I told you I liked Touya” in the context of romance. So still canon, obviously. But Yukito and Touya are sidelined, as mentioned above, so really nothing else with them. Tomoyo is similarly out of focus, so nothing from her. Sakura and Syoaran are only focused on each other crush wise, so nothing for them either. I don’t think (or maybe I just hope) it was deliberate, but it’s still really disappointing. In 2018 they should be giving us MORE, not less.

And now we have to talk about the finale. What it was and what it...wasn’t. Basically, we find out Akiho is the mysterious person who’s been haunting Sakura’s dreams (something that even a five year old would have guessed by now)and she attacks her, Sakura is faced with this big revelations and is fighting....and then Kaito appears our of nowhere, freezes time, then rewinds everything so Sakura doesn’t remember and the fight never happened.

Yep. That was our final episode of the season. We get this big dramatic scene that FINALLY moves the narrative forward...then it is literally undone and rendered meaningless. It’s SO blatantly disrespectful to the audience it’s almost hilarious. I mean I wasn’t expecting much to be wrapped up, but talk about going above and beyond to flip off your viewers.

I always figured the reason for the poor pacing and anticlimactic ending of Clear Card was because it was spinning its wheels so it didn’t pass the manga (the solution to which would have been wait until the manga’s further along to make an anime, but WHATEVER)...but apparently the finale episode actually diverged pretty heavily from the manga.  (spoilers obvs). CLAMP is likely bringing a confusing Tsubasa crossover in the manga version, and the anime wisely decided to reject that.

But the thing is, if they were going to change such a major thing from the manga...why not just do their own thing with the anime from the beginning? Why drag everything out so the anime ended where the manga currently is if they were just gonna change that ending anyway? Why not just add their own stuff from the beginning? Why not end the season on a more satisfying note?

It’s a mystery for the ages.

Despite my LONG gripe session just now, while I was frustrated toward the end, I mostly found the anime pleasant to watch. There were a lot of nice moments despite all its flaws. And I love these characters so much that you know I’ll be right there if they release a movie or second season or whatever. 

But there’s a lot of wasted potential here and I hope the team behind this gets its shit together if they continue this. Like please. Let Touya and Yukito kiss. Let Tomoyo get a girlfriend. Let Sakura know what’s going on in her own life. If you just do that, I’ll never complain about anything related to CCS ever again. I swear.

[takerfoxx]

“Fires of the Sun, Part 1″ Thoughts

All right, with Fires of the Sun in the bag and Imperfect Metamorphosis now on the shelf, it’s time to look back on this story’s longest mini-arc climax to date! And since it’s multi-chaptered, I’m going to post on response per day over this week. That’ll help cover almost everything as well as give me some time to think of how to wrap up Monsterland in the meantime, as I’ve already hit writer’s block.

Since this was going to be the last bit of Imperfect Metamorphosis, my main goal was to go BIG. I high bar had been set by The Storm, and I wanted to pass it. You be the judge in whether or not I was successful, but this was something I had been looking forward to for years, and had a lot of shit planned. Most made it in, some didn't, some new stuff happened, and some plans changed. There were weaknesses I wish I could go back and fix, while other things turned out even better than I had thought they would.

With Lady Meika's introduction, she was brought in for a couple of different reasons. The first was of course as a callback to Yuuka's occasional fourth-wall breaking roles as the story's hose. She was even given a bit of a Masterpiece Theater flair with the chair, the fireplace, and the piano music. Of course, I was playing around a bit with the frequent teases that this was the Yuuka from the future, with the plants, the sunflower logo, the hair color, and the manner of speaking.

But there were also several hints that she was someone new, such as her eye color, her various magical instruments, and her contemptuous condemnation of Yuuka's previous antics. Plus, you know, Mima's hat on her mantle.

…

Foreshadowing!

Anyways, of course I can't go into too much detail about who she is and what she has to do with the story, but suffice to say it's very important and you ain't gonna find out for a super, duper long time. Because that how it works in TakerFoxx land, apparently!

=ahem=

Moving on to the Dragons, this is one part that I feel I could have done better. I mean, the dudes get built up big time over the course of the entire series, get a big, badass entrance, and…spend the whole thingamajig basically getting knocked around, bitching at Yukari, and eventually accidentally killing a bunch of innocent people before fucking off in a huff. I guess in hindsight it was a priority thing. My main focus was the Yuuka vs. Rin Satsuki fight and making it as crazy over-the-top as possible, whereas the Dragons (and Angels, come to think of it) were admittedly…mostly written on autopilot. Though to be fair, given just how many freaking factions there are in this story, some will end up getting the shaft as I don't exactly have George RR Martin's talent for balancing so many names and making them all feel important. So yeah, something to work on in the future.

Same applies to Mima. It may be just me, but I do kind of feel like I dropped the ball with her. It probably isn't a good idea to point out flaws in my own writing, but hell with it. See, for most of the story, she went on and on about the importance of simple, yet effective, plans rather than big, grandiose showings that have a tendency to blow up in your face. And yet her she is using a plan that has way too many moving parts, leaves too much up to chance, and is way too expensive for relatively little gain. Granted, she did come out ahead in the end, but…I dunno. While it wouldn't have benefited the story much, it would have been more consistent to just have her assassinate Reimu at the earliest opportunity, collapse the Scarlet Devil Mansion and the Palace of Earth Spirits, and then just bugger off before Yukari could find her. So, I'd say I have a few more things to think about for her future characterization.

Okay, moving on from the self-deprecation. Moving over to the Taoists, a lot of people were confused about why exactly Miko would be helping Mima in the first place. That one was easy enough: because there was something that Miko wanted that only Mima could provide. The connections between Miko and Prince Shoutoku were already explicit, with even ZUN saying that they were literally the same person in the Touhou canon. So, explain the gender flip to be some kind of curse, have Mima promise to break that curse, and give her (or him? Pronouns are really confusing in this case), and let Miko's desperation do the rest. Everyone has a price, after all.

That rather nasty Yuuka scene went much better than the previous two, which is sort of funny. Because even as much as I've soured on her character over the years, she is still the easiest one to write for. I personally compare her to an entitled primadonna who drives the director nuts but still shines in every scene she's given, which leaked into many of her postmodern bits. But anyway, that scene was mainly to serve two purposes. The first was to confirm exactly what happened to the shards of Marisa's mordite blade, give Yuuka an understandable reason for having it around, and Chekov's gun it into the mansion for further use. The second was to again destroy any last bit of sympathy she might have had, as she is now outright abusing Elly, the one person she has been treating decently. Hey, if someone's gonna get their ass kicked, then I want to make it as deserving as possible.

The scene with Yukari and the Angels was mostly just to remind everyone of where everything stood, so I'll just skim over it. However, in regards to that little bombshell Shinki dropped at the end…Ah, hell with it. Barely anyone reads these anyway, so why not? SORTA SPOILER WARNING!

Yes, Yukari has (or had) a son.

That son married Hakurei Sonozika over her objections, leading to their estrangement (though they were already on rocky terms to begin with).

Things escalated to the point that Yukari disowned him completely and actually went to the Angels for help in twisting reality enough so that she would forget that he even exists. Part of it was selfishness, part of it was that she knew that she would have to keep working with the Hakurei family from then on and didn't want to be tempted to wipe them off the face of the earth, but ended up setting the tone for her relationship with them anyway. She's repeatedly drawn to them but everything eventually goes wrong every time. And by the way, that's the reason she couldn't seem to remember who Hakurei's husband was during her and Yuyuko's drunken conversation, despite knowing the spouses and lovers of every other Hakurei by name.

No, there was never any price set by the Angels for Gensokyo's creation. No, they're not nearly as bad as Yukari made them out to be. Yes, she is completely deluding herself without even knowing it. The mind is weird like that.

Anyway, I don't think that's too much of a spoiler, since it's been hinted at multiple times and now has been stated pretty explicitly. Suffice to say, it'll play in pretty heavily later on.

See? This is why people should read the author's notes, for all those juicy, behind the scene details!

Anyway, Patchouli's scene was mainly to spend some last few moments with her before she got offed, as well as remind people that that generator thingy was in fact still a thing in case it's needed later. That scene with Koakuma changing her armor was just one of those spur of the moment bits that have come to be my favorite parts of writing, though admittedly the part where she ended up with the Serpentine Marauder armor wasn't a hint that she was a double agent, like some people thought. It was just another thing that happened at the last minute that made sense at the time and was used to increase the drama. As for Meiling's mention of hiring guards to hold down the fort, that was another detail that was used to explain away a logical problem with the plot (Sakuya would never leave the SDM undefended like that. Or, well, at least not under those circumstances) that later ended up working out as it gave us Meiling with a bazooka. More on that later. And of course we had Mima disguised as Yukari already playing the SDM and the PoES crew against each other, because that's what she does.

Speaking of which, during the Palace of Earth Spirits scene, the bit with Jun and Orin was mainly to bring Koishi more in line with her canon portrayal as a subconscious blank, as well as build some character development for Jun. I try to avoid relying on OC's in IM since there's so many canon characters to use, but I felt he needed a little something, considering how much he was going to be used in the chapters to come. Though hey, funny story. I was actually going to fill their team with Undertale characters, such as Asgore, Muffet, and Undyne. The reason I didn't is that I felt it would stand out too much and distract from the important stuff, but I compromised by sticking a billy-goat and a fish youkai in there anyway, and had Mima!Yukari mention being filled with determination. As for Clover, I swear to God I could never keep her damned name straight and kept calling her Cato for some reason.

And then we cut back to poor Elly. I admit, originally I didn't have much for her, and had planned for her to be more of a jealous asshole. But she's grown into a much more sympathetic character than I had expected, and I did end up changing a lot of my plans for her as a result.

Skipping over more Mima and Seiga commentary that I don't have anything to say about, we have our party of hapless dupes, bickering amongst themselves and nearly getting killed while still managing to kick ass, as Mima intended. I admit, I did try to handle the bit about Rin's prison with care. I try to watch my step whenever the subject of religion comes up, so destroying a bunch of religious symbols was something I had to be careful about. Still, the part where Sakuya regrets doing so does feel a little out of character, and probably should have been done by someone like Meiling or Utsuho.

That being said, I really like how Rin's reveal came out. Her primary role in this whole thing was an ass-kicker, and her bursting out of the crystal (which, yes, was made from the remains of Patchouli's box) helped to establish just how dangerous she is, as well as leave things on a nice cliffhanger, with her hanging from the ceiling, Sakuya's neck in her hands, and in a really, really bad mood.

Anyway, that's it for this chapter! Tune in tomorrow for the next!