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aliceslantern · 5 years ago

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Retribution, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 6

Newly a person again, Ienzo is weighed down by guilt and his humanity. He's prepared to do whatever it takes to atone... only to find unexpected solace in a familiar face. With more insight into the bonds between people than ever before, Ienzo reaches for a dangerous element from the past to help Kairi and Riku in their search for Sora. What is his life if it means saving another, brighter light?

Chapter summary: Ienzo grows closer to Demyx, but that closeness quickly becomes a confounding variable.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

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He tried to let himself grow . He spent those few hours in the lab, with Even and Ansem and Kairi. Dutifully, he continued to feed himself and sleep the requisite eight hours. He practiced normal black magic, unrelated to his power. Occasionally, considering they were now “friends,” he spent time with Demyx.

Ienzo wasn’t sure if he were simply unused to casual conversation, or if Demyx were truly eccentric. He did have quite a lot of amusing stories about his customers, as well as Scrooge, who was by all accounts quite the character. So slowly, Ienzo began to stop seeing their relationship as it used to be, and began seeing it as it was. After all, Demyx was one of the only people he knew roughly his age.

They walked, got lunch and endless cups of coffee. Ienzo found himself… looking forward to it, whenever Demyx asked him to meet up, rather than dreading those texts. A handful of times he accompanied Demyx on deliveries, and found to his surprise that he was indeed competent at his job. Scrooge tried to rope Ienzo into porting as well, in his own jovial, oddly-accented way, and he had to evade out of the conversation quickly.

But beneath these pieces… something else began to emerge, something Ienzo initially confused for companionship, or kinship. A warmth, a start of the heart. He no longer minded when Demyx touched him casually in conversation--a hand on the shoulder, a playful punch, a “hey come on” take of the hand when going somewhere. The touch… evoked something in him, vague and weirdly insidious.

Ienzo began to notice things.

The subtle way his hair blended, brown to blonde, the way he seemed to be so slowly growing it into something different. The precise color green his eyes turned when light hit them just right. How easily he moved through space, how comfortable he was in his own body. The way his lips moved when he spoke, the rhythm of his speech.

Why was it Ienzo was focusing on these things? What did it mean?

On the verge of sleep, weighed down by one of his pills, it came to him.

Oh. Oh no.

In his brief hours in the lab he was distracted, terrified. He thought he’d understood this as a Nobody, but it was clear he’d had no idea.

His humanity was waking up. So were… other things.

Demyx had mentioned a desire for a partner of some sort. Unlikely at the time he’d meant Ienzo. Ienzo had written all of that off as too difficult to compute. He figured he may be asexual and was fine with that. He’d no need for anything physical. Messy. Complicated.

He… was not asexual.

Ienzo began to feel something almost like a pull, between them. A desire for that innocent touch, a squeeze of the hand. Was it possible he felt this way because, again, Demyx was the only person he knew his age? It seemed natural that, with the awakening of these feelings, he’d latch onto whoever was closest.

It made him feel pathetic, and not quite in control of himself, not that he changed his outward interactions. If emotions were difficult to reign, hormones were completely impossible. He started having vague dreams of longing--arguably worse than the nightmares--and woke up frustrated in a wholly new way. Difficult, and embarrassing, to be finishing puberty at this age. He said nothing about it to anyone. Those few times he woke to find stains on his sheets and clothing, he took care of it and pretended nothing happened.

Why did this have to be happening now ? Of all the confounding variables?

Ienzo needed to ride out this attraction until its inevitable end. To even entertain the idea of anything more substantial than quickly-quashed daydreams was insane. So, sweetly he asked Even if, considering he’s feeling so much better , he may add a few more hours to his day, and thank you so much for the medicine . Ego stroked and paternity soothed, Even agreed. With his remaining hours, he began so tentatively to work on his power.

He could still manipulate the lexicon with relative ease, so that had been gained. Finding the illusion was going to be so much harder. He spent hours trying to recall how that felt, to create things where there was nothing, then trying to draw simple objects from memory. And they were drawings, barely-perceptible flickerings in the air, but the exertion still made him gasp for breath. Though it was progress. At least Ienzo had something to tell Kairi and Riku when he saw them face to face, or over the phone. At least he could give them hope.

But Demyx wasn’t that easy to brush off. “Zo, are you ignoring me?” he asked. His tone was joking, but Ienzo felt vaguely caught. (And vaguely angry that “Zo” was growing on him.)

“I’ve been taking a few more hours since I’ve been doing better,” he said.

“You’re not… pushing it too hard, are you?” he asked.

“I’m trying not to.” And he was; with magic use, he needed to be doubly careful how he treated his body.

Was it the light, or did he blush? “I miss our hangouts.”

Just the right thing to trip Ienzo up, to make his heart flutter-- it’s merely hormones, control yourself. “As do I.”

“I mean, I know this is like, important, big-picture stuff. But…” He hesitated. “Do you… have time, later? Just to talk?”

The sensible thing to do would be to nicely brush him off. “Maybe a few moments,” he said instead. How strange, to be at odds with his mind. A first.

He smiled. It was a wide, uncontained grin, one that changed his face, made it seem softer. “The greenhouse?”

Ienzo nodded once. “I’ll see you then.”

Only once he had returned to scouring data did he realize that getting both of them together in an enclosed, private space was one of the stupider moves he could’ve made. Demyx had blushed. Demyx had smiled. Was it possible that this… whatever it was… was mutual? Or was Demyx also merely feeling the backlog of hormonal impulses blunted by Nobody biology?

(And did it matter? Would it be so terrible to explore these feelings?)

(Yes, it would. Should it go south--the likely conclusion--they still lived together. He didn’t need more tension in his life.)

Ienzo should’ve made up an excuse that night and stayed in. He didn’t. He was so unused to managing impulses that he simply didn’t . Or at least, that’s what he told himself.

The summer evening was cool, and he could hear the soft chirp of crickets. The air felt nice on his skin, freed at last from that infernal white coat and ascot at the throat. There was already a warm light emanating from the greenhouse, meaning Demyx was already there.

Not too late to turn back.

He took a deep breath. Took two.

The music he heard was soft, meandering, inviting. He’d never really listened to Demyx before when he played sitar, stubbornly tuning it out. Ienzo realized he was rather good , technically and aurally; it sounded light, effortless, the notes graceful and leaping like water. The boy’s power made sense, now. It all flowed.

Demyx wasn’t a scientist, but he was a student in his own ways. Ienzo felt the blood rush to his face. His hands trembled. His own internal protests were quickly waning. He opened the door. “Are you early, or am I late?”

Demyx looked up. The melody didn’t quite cease. “Believe it or not, I can actually be on time.”

“...Sorry about that.”

“I wanted to work on this anyway.”

Ienzo sat on one of the cushions. The space smelled vaguely like incense, a heady but oddly clean scent. “That’s something of your own creation?”

“Yessir.”

“I suppose you were always… composing, creating. Is it very much different, now that you’ve a heart?”

Demyx snorted. “It’s harder.”

Ienzo cocked his head. “Really?”

“It’s easy to… approximate emotion,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “You know, this sounds like love, or anger, or whatever. To really feel those things, and then, say, to try and work on something with a completely different theme, is like wading through concrete.”

Hearing him speak so technically made Ienzo’s blush worsen. He wanted to reach out and take one of his hands. He gripped his ankle in an attempt to stop himself. “Have you been at this long?”

Demyx chuckled. “At least five years. Probably before that, I would guess, but… there’s nothing.” His expression changed, became wistful.

“Still? After all this time?”

He let the sitar vanish. The silence was particularly notable. “Yeah. I…” A laugh. “I had Even look at me. Neurologically, I think it’s called? There’s nothing… physical about the memory loss. So it must’ve been… whatever brought me here, from the past.”

“Forgive me… I quite forgot that’s the truth of your life.” Even had told him as such, scowlingly, in disbelief.

Demyx shrugged. “You’ve got a lot on your mind. Sometimes I forget.”

“Do you want your memories?”

He leaned back on his hands. “I go back and forth,” he said. “On the one hand, not knowing about the trauma that’s, uh, for sure there is awesome. On the other… it’s like… who am I really, you know?”

“I remember everything, and I feel much the same,” Ienzo said softly.

His smile was sad now. He reached into a crate and pulled out two bottles.

“Beer?”

“Nah. I hate beer. Cider. It’s sweet. Want it?”

Ienzo doubted one drink would kill him. “...Why not.”

He popped the top for him. “Ha. That’s the spirit. I mean. You are legal.”

He scoffed a little. The drink was fizzy, sweet and also metallic. It was a taste of summer, he thought. “I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you this is my first real drink.”

“Really?”

“...I was too young. Then, I never wanted to… cloud my mind.” Ienzo sighed. “I wouldn’t mind taking the edge off things.”

Demyx laughed a little. “Hate to break it to you, but I only have the two and I doubt you’ll get turnt off that.”

“...You’re probably right.”

“Maybe you and me could go to the bar some time. Try it out.”

He looked into the mouth of the brown bottle. “Not sure nightlife is for me.”

“You never know until you try something.”

“I… suppose I should never say never.” After all, he’d never thought he’d like sitting here with Demyx, their knees almost touching. “Maybe. Yes, that might be nice.”

For a few moments they finished their drinks in silence. He definitely wasn’t drunk, or even tipsy, but he did feel a little warm. The lantern cast softened the room, almost pinkish. Perhaps it was the memories of calm here, perhaps it was the ambiance or simply not being alone, but Ienzo found himself… relaxing. The sudden lack of tension in his muscles felt strange. “I remember why I used to love this place. It’s very calming.”

“On a good day you can see the stars,” Demyx said. “Look. Here.” He reached over and snuffed out the lantern. “Lay back.”

The cushions were odd, lumpy. It wasn’t totally dark; there was enough moonlight for the silhouettes to be clear. Ienzo looked up through the crystal ceiling. “Been a while since I looked up,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“The feeling of insignificance. But it’s surprisingly reassuring.”

“You think?”

“Well, the world is bigger than just us, don’t you think?”

“I do,” he said softly.

Ienzo could feel Demyx looking at him. A nervousness, a fizz, spread throughout his body, completely different than anxiety. Arguably, the opposite of it. He should fight this. Should get up and leave right now. Instead, he shifted, just slightly, onto his side so they were locking eyes. With a shaking hand, Demyx touched his cheek, a touch that made him shiver.

“...I…” Demyx’s voice cracked. “Have you also been… feeling this?”

So it was mutual. Oh. Oh, no. He tried to keep it together. He had to fight this. Didn’t want to. “Yes,” he admitted.

“Oh,” he said, very softly, with the same sort of fear Ienzo felt.

“I know.”

“I tried to stop.” He almost sounded as though he might cry.

“Me too.”

“What do we--do?”

“Well…” That touch did feel so nice. “As I see it… there are two options. We both walk out of here and forget this ever happened.”

“Or?”

He took a trembling breath. “We see it through.”

“What do you want?”

“I think…” He was trembling all over. “I think I would like to stop thinking.”

There was a moment when they both very clearly knew what was about to happen, but did nothing. Demyx inched closer to him, so they were almost touching; Ienzo could smell him again, the salt and ginger. He rested his hand on Demyx’s waist, and feeling the warmth of him under clothing was purely too much.

They both met in the middle, awkward, not quite meeting one another’s lips the first time. Ienzo shifted up a little and tried again. Demyx’s lips were so soft against his own. It became clear very quickly that neither of them had done this before; they weren’t sure what to do. For some reason Ienzo figured Demyx had some experience. After a moment they pulled apart.

“I suppose,” he began softly, still reeling more from the fact that he’d kissed more than the kiss itself, “It’s rather obvious I’ve never done this.”

He laughed a little. “I don’t think I have either--if I did, I don’t remember.”

“A learning curve, then.” He’d figured it’d have been natural, instant. He thought of the feel of Demyx’s lips. “Let’s try again.”

“Okay.”

It took a moment or so of fumbling and discomfort before they seemed to get it. This was more what Ienzo thought it would feel like, a fragile give and take. It was all so gentle . They were both shaking. He hadn’t realized how exhausting fighting this attraction had been. Giving into it made him feel more awake than he had in days.

He wanted to go further. Couldn’t. Already a dangerous frazzle of overstimulation was breaking over him. He wasn’t used to platonic touch, much less this; he was overloading his own wires.

“I like this. I do,” Ienzo said. He felt his eyes watering, an anxiety of too much too much threatening his tenuous moment of joy. “But I’m so… it’s so much. I have to…” He sat up and pulled away, shivering as if he were cold.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m afraid as a human… I get very overwhelmed by stimuli,” he forced out. “I used to as a child.”

“Oh,” he said softly. “Can I… how can I help?”

“I need space. Calm, quiet.”

“Should I go?”

He considered. Despite it all… the last thing he wanted to be was alone. “No, stay.”

#retribution #ienzo #demyx #zemyx

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commentaryvorg · 5 years ago

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Bonus 3.1 - Dangan Salmon Team (Kaito Edition)

This is postgame content, so people shouldn’t be reading this without having already finished the main game anyway. But just to be safe: while this is non-canon character stuff, I will sometimes be mentioning events that happened in the main story, so there will be spoilers for the main game.

First of all, can we talk about the ridiculous title of this game mode? “Love Across the Universe: Dangan Salmon Team”. Or, in Japanese, “Year-round Space Variety Love Show: Dangan Red Salmon Gang”. The salmon part is just your average Danganronpa weirdness, but on the other hand I do like the inexplicable space theme they’ve also got going. I like to think this is less because of the fake story about them being on a spaceship, since they don’t try and push that angle at all in this AU, and more just because Kaito, did you know Kaito is the most important character.

The title screen of this mode really leans into that space theme, too. It’s even got a rocket! And most importantly the rocket has a window, remember how Very Important it is for all rockets to have windows.

(In other Inexplicable Space Theming for this game, there’s a BGM piece used during trials that’s called “Class Trial Space Edition”. SPACE. Space is important in this game, you guys.)

For clarification, since the title does not remotely explain the point of this, this is the social interaction side mode in which you can get the FTEs of everyone you didn’t do during the main story (not that that’s what I’m here for) and then also some extra bonus interactions. Those bonus bits are what I’m here for, specifically with Kaito, because it’s me, and Kaito is the only character I like to such an extent that I even want to cover this bonus fluff for him. The title is about space, so clearly spending even more time with Kaito in particular is the entire point of this game mode, right?

This mode has the most half-assed introduction explaining its premise which I’m not going to go into in detail because it doesn’t deserve it. The gist is that things begin as they do in canon, except then Monokuma abruptly decides to cancel the killing game and have a reality dating show instead because apparently that’s what the outside world would prefer. The couples who end up together get to leave!! which is gross and manipulative and amatonormative and unfortunately very believable as something a shallow audience like this one might want to see. And, sure, it is an improvement on them being made to kill each other, but this is definitely still some level of fucked up. If any romances did form during this, how could the people involved be sure their partners’ feelings were really real and not just faked so that the two of them could escape? How could they even be completely sure about that for their own feelings? This would result in the most unhealthy of relationships.

Kaito: “Hey, what the hell are you talking about!? Telling us to fall in love or whatever? What do you want us to do!?”

Okay I said I wouldn’t do this in detail but I do like that it’s Kaito in particular who objects to this specific idea. If people are being forced to fall in love, then it’s not people acting on their own feelings at all! Kaito doesn’t have any specific opinions about romance that we’ve ever heard, but this is from his principles about being true to yourself.

So… that’s the thing about this mode. While it makes sense with the overarching V3 twist that this is just to entertain a shallow TV audience, it leaves things with this uncomfortable patina of being all about romance. Even though the free time events are exactly as they are in the main story, and most of what the game calls “dates” aren’t explicitly romantic either, that’s still apparently supposed to be the goal. And while I just talked about how messed-up this setup is for forming romances, which could at least be potentially interesting to explore if they acknowledged that, the narrative plays it completely straight because of course it fucking does. It’s not only the in-universe audience that’s being amatonormative here.

Kaede’s FTEs in particular, since they only exist in this Amatonormativity Mode, really lay on the romance more heavily than I think they would in any other context, which makes me not want to cover them even though I otherwise might like to because Kaede’s one of my favourite characters. (As far as I remember, they’re not bad or anything, it’s just Not My Jam.) And it seems that some of the characters’ ending scenes for this mode also embrace this annoying idea and shoehorn more romance in them than they really should have. For example Maki’s ending scene is mostly fine until it suddenly insists that she and Shuichi are romantically into each other, which is provably not in line with canon because Maki becomes equally close to Shuichi in the main story and there are no romantic feelings on either end there so why should this be any different. And it’s not just her ending scene: a small handful of Maki’s dates and other dialogue specific to this mode try and make her all stereotypically tsundere towards Shuichi in what I can only assume is a very tiresome attempt to hint at romance between them, and ugh no get it away leave Maki the fuck alone she does not deserve this.

However, this game is also reasonably heteronormative, and while heteronormativity is of course objectively terrible and needs to go away, it does mean that when things are also being amatonormative (another thing that is equally terrible and equally needs to go away), there’s only 50% as much amatonormativity as there could be. So, since Shuichi and Kaito both happen to be guys, all of Kaito’s scenes in this mode remain completely platonic. While Monokuma didn’t mention this and everything in the flavouring of this mode is trying to pretend this is totally all about romance, apparently any people who become epic inseparable platonic friends also get to leave? Which I am very happy about, because I would not want to cover this otherwise. I don’t like it when my adorable friendships are diminished with romance, dammit.

So now to complain about the other awkward thing about this mode, which is how horrendously artificial and inorganic it feels to actually play. For one thing, we’re playing as Shuichi, but he’s already removed his hat and is apparently also already Kaito’s sidekick as we’ll be seeing, even though literally none of the character development and interactions that were required for Shuichi to make that progress has happened. And that shouldn’t have had time to happen offscreen either, since Monokuma declared that there’ll be a 10-day time limit for people to partner up, and then you get dropped into the game on Day 1. It’s just really hard to buy this AU as a properly justified and backed-up story.

Then there’s the fact that all the other characters you can hang out with just stand in a fixed spot in the courtyard – always the same spot every day – apparently just waiting for Shuichi to come and talk to them. If you do an FTE and not a “date”, they will then stay in this exact spot (apart from rare exceptions in which the FTE itself involves going somewhere in particular) for the whole event, despite that this might be awkwardly in earshot of another student who’s busy standing unmoving in their own spot nearby. There’s no sense of this being a story and not just a game – no hints of any kind of other friendships or community forming or any of these characters acting like people beyond just existing for Shuichi to get close to.

Which, okay, is pretty understandable since this is just a hasty bonus mode mostly slapped in here to make getting everyone’s FTEs easier than replaying chapters of the main story. But even so, there’s Kaede’s and Rantaro’s FTEs and then all of the “date” scenes and graduation scenes which are all scenes that only exist in this AU – that’s precisely why I’m here covering Kaito’s ones in this commentary – and so it would be really nice if they’d actually put, like, any effort at all into making this AU feel like a real story to give these scenes a more robust context. As it is, these scenes mostly just feel like context-less snippets of character insight, and if anything really needs more context then you have to use your imagination and come up with it all yourself.

But anyway, I’m here to talk about practically everything Kaito ever says and does, and I’m damn well going to do it regardless of how little context I get for it.

First, actually, while wandering around the courtyard I learned that you can talk to the two Exisals that are at work there, one of which is the good old red Exisal, and Monotaro actually has something kind of interesting to say. (Shocking, I know.)

Monotaro: “I’m the red Monokub! That means I’m a main character, so I don’t tell lies! …Hm? But then, why do they call them ‘bright red lies’? Are lies red? Does that mean I’m a liar?”

Obviously I always figured that Kaito got the red Exisal because it’s the main character’s one and therefore the most fitting for a hero like Kaito (plus there wasn’t a purple option). But this is an interesting potential extra reason why they chose that colour! I can only assume this is a Japanese saying because I’ve never heard it before, but that’s neat if it’s really a thing.

Kaito’s designated Unmoving Courtyard Spot is sadly not the training spot. Instead, it is worryingly close to the gates to the casino. Kaito, no.

Dates Hangouts

So the main bulk of content unique to this mode is a series of mini-scenes you can get with each character after having maxed out their FTEs. The game refers to these as “dates”, but screw that, I’m going to refer to them as “hangouts” despite what the game calls them because the romantic connotations of the word “date” annoy me. Let’s hang out with Kaito! In a… slightly different sense of hanging out than what happens for his FTEs.

You get to choose one of five locations to hang out in, and then the game gives you a set of three options to pick for that place, which will vary in how much your hangout partner enjoys it. If you then later hang out with that person in the same place, it’ll give you a second set of three options, and then a third set the next time. Once you’ve had all three sets for a given location, it won’t give you any more options and you’ll just get a generic “we hung out for a while” textbox. So within one playthrough of this mode, for each character, you can only see three out of the nine mini-scenes for each place, or only fifteen out of the forty-five in total. Which is fine if you’re just trying to max someone out and get their ending, because that takes a minimum of five scenes if you get the best outcomes. But if you’re trying to see all the scenes, it’s a bit inconvenient.

What I’m saying is that I’m going to have to do three separate playthroughs of this mode to get all of these for Kaito. I do not envy whichever wiki writer went and compiled these for literally every character, but I am definitely thankful to them for removing the need for anyone else to do this, and for allowing me to see all these scenes beforehand without doing this myself. (I’m doing it myself here anyway because it feels more natural to me to transcribe the lines from my Vita after doing it for the whole game, but at least I wouldn’t have had to if I didn’t want to.)

Some of these are just going to be me fairly superficially going “hee look at Kaito being a dork”, and some will be me discussing how Good Kaito’s principles and outlook are some more. But the biggest reason I wanted to do this is that some of them go deeper than that and are relevant to his issues in some interesting way. They’re pretty delightfully subtle about it, as Kaito’s issues usually are because he refuses to talk about them, but they’re very present even in this context of just hanging out with Shuichi, since Kaito’s issues revolve heavily around his relationship with his sidekick.

For the sake of not having this be a completely disjointed read, I’ve grouped these hangouts not by the arbitrary categories of which location they take place in, but rather by some of the general ideas relating to Kaito’s character or outlook that I end up discussing with them.

First, though, just a couple of odd ones out that didn’t quite fit into any of the upcoming categories.

[A/V Room]

- Watch a horror movie

Kaito: “L-Like I’d watch something so uncool. What’s so fun about watching fake g-g-ghosts? Don’t get me wrong! I’m not s-scared or anything!”

Yep, this was of course a bad idea. The purpose of Kaito being written with his phobia is irrelevant in this non-killing-game AU, but since the writers changed their minds about doing the killing game after creating the characters, he still has it anyway.

While a player would choose this knowing full well it’s the wrong option, at least this isn’t Shuichi deliberately being a dick, because in this AU he wouldn’t know about Kaito’s phobia. He probably innocently thought Kaito might enjoy the thrill or something.

(Observe how “Kaito has a phobia of ghosts” is something that doesn’t fit into any of the categories I’ll be having here, which all have some kind of connection to meaningful parts of his character. Tsumugi, you’re a bad writer.)

[Library]

- “Let’s make a tower of books”

There’s only one thing of note about this one, which is this:

Kaito: “Let’s make a tower of books that’ll pierce the heavens!”

This is a delightfully blatant Gurren Lagann reference and I love it. They knew. They knew exactly what they were doing with Kaito’s character, and then some.

Astronauts and space

Obviously a necessary category for Kaito. Let’s talk about SPACE and his astronaut training!

[A/V Room]

- Watch a documentary on athletes

Kaito: “Seeing this makes me remember my astronaut training. Astronaut training involves just as much exercise as athletes do.”

It’s neat that he enjoys this because it reminds him of his own training. Kaito really would not normally slack off with exercise; the only reason it seemed like he was doing that in the main storyline is because he was sick!

Kaito: “I wonder how all those guys who trained with me are doing…”

Yeah, uh, about that…

Kaito: “Alright! Thinking about that made me super motivated! We’re definitely gonna get out of this place, you got it!?”

Oh dear, Kaito now especially wants to get out of here so he can see his friends from astronaut training again. They… don’t exist. Neither do his grandparents. When everyone escapes in this AU, they are all going to very abruptly learn that they’re “fictional” and none of their loved ones are waiting for them at all. That is not going to be fun for them. (And they’re going to learn that off-camera, in a way that is no longer part of this “story”, so the audience isn’t going to see how fucked-up this is and nothing is going to change.)

Since they’ll still have memories of their loved ones that feel real to them, and yet they can’t ever actually see them again, it’s basically going to be feel equivalent to if their loved ones had all died while they were in here. They’re going to be grieving for people they know in their heads never even existed. That did also apply to Shuichi, Maki and Himiko in the canon ending, but it’d have been a lot less significant next to all their grief for the real people whose deaths they actually experienced. In this AU, though, it’d be a much bigger thing.

(On the other hand, their pasts being fictional is still a good thing for Maki at least (whose best friend was already dead in her memories). And Kaito would still definitely take that opportunity to be happy for her even as he’s reeling from his own loss.)

[A/V Room]

- Watch a documentary on aliens

You’d think this’d be the one Kaito would enjoy the most of the three options it’s part of, but it really, really isn’t.

Kaito: “I totally get why you’d be interested in this documentary.”

Of course. Everyone should be interested in aliens, right?

But, alas, he goes on to say that he found out some time after having watched it himself that it was all fake.

Kaito: “The day I found that out… I’ve never felt despair like I did that day… How dare they mess with my adventurous heart…”

Turns out, the only way to make Kaito feel despair is to give him false hope that aliens exist, and then take it away. That’s adorable.

(Obviously he doesn’t mean real, proper despair, though. Kaito is literally incapable of feeling that; it’s like his superpower – remember when he convinced himself the destroyed outside world maybe wasn’t the truth with no evidence purely for the sake of not giving up? But still, it’s amusing that he uses that word.)

I wonder how convincing the documentary even was in the first place. Wouldn’t surprise me if it emphatically wasn’t and Kaito only believed it out of childlike optimism when he really should have been able to tell it was fake already, because he’s a dork like that.

[A/V Room]

- Watch a documentary on bugs

Kaito: “I remember a while back there was some theory that bugs came from space. All life came from the ocean and as far as I know, there aren’t any bugs there.”

Kaito, no, that is not how evolution works. Apparently whatever science credentials he has do not extend into biology. There being almost no bugs in the ocean any more doesn’t change the fact that they evolved from ocean-dwelling organisms just like all life did. There are no humans who live in the ocean either, but that doesn’t make humans aliens.

Kaito should sit down with Gonta sometime and learn about the evolutionary biology of bugs. He’d find it interesting (even if it does mean no bug-aliens), because he finds everything interesting! And it’d mean Gonta would have someone he could actually talk to about bugs who’s genuinely interested and not secretly squirming from revulsion.

Kaito: “That theory got shot down, but I always get so pumped up by stuff like that!”

I should hope it got shot down, because it didn’t make any goddamn sense. It can’t have even been a proper scientific theory in the first place. But of course Kaito just liked to be able to imagine there’s already aliens on Earth. Nothing’s stopping him from still pretending bugs could be secret aliens just to amuse himself! Fictions are exciting even though you know they’re not true!

[Dining Hall]

- Drinking green tea after a meal

Kaito: “Yeah! Green tea’s great! A piping hot cup of fresh brewed tea is seriously the best.”

While I’m emphatically not an expert on these things because I don’t drink either beverage, I would have pegged Kaito as more of a coffee person than a tea person. Maybe it’s just because tea is a lot more of a thing in Japan than coffee. Or he gets it from his grandparents.

Kaito: “But now that I think about it, you can’t drink fresh tea out in space, huh? It’s so obvious, I never even considered it… Well then! I’ll just enjoy it as much as I can on Earth!”

Oh no, what do you mean that going to space might be kind of harsh and empty of luxuries and not the best thing ever in every conceivable way!? He really has not wanted to consider any of the downsides of it at all. But at least he keeps a positive outlook about it now that he’s realised it, because he’s Kaito.

(Maybe Kaito likes tea so much that making himself a nice cuppa is one of the first things he does when he gets back to Earth… and then he promptly drops and breaks the cup because what is gravity.)

[Library]

- “Let’s study”

Kaito: “Yeah! In order to become an astronaut, you gotta study hard!”

Reminder: Kaito is not an idiot, and despite being kind of oblivious about certain things, is actually very book-smart!

Kaito: “Let’s start by studying language! And don’t let me hear you say you don’t need it.”

And it’s so him that this is the thing he wants to encourage Shuichi to study. Communication is vital in all walks of life, not just in being an astronaut!

Kaito: “There’s nothing unnecessary in this world!”

I still love this philosophy of his. Kaito is so good.

[Library]

- “Let’s look through photographs”

Kaito: “Photographs of the planets, huh?”

Yes, Kaito, Shuichi definitely meant this, he couldn’t possibly have been interested in any other kinds of photographs except those of SPACE.

Kaito: “When I think about actually being there and seeing them… I get the chills!”

THE ROCKET HAVING A WINDOW WAS VERY IMPORTANT

(not that he saw planets through it, but just being there and seeing it himself was so so worth it for any part of space)

Kaito: “Just you wait, planets! I, Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars, am gonna see you with my own two eyes!”

He’s such an optimistic dork. Just like with his bold claims to Kaede about how he’s going to meet aliens, this is probably not a thing that’ll happen within his lifetime. Maybe Mars, but not, like, multiple planets. But hey, let him dream!

[Courtyard]

- “Let’s relax in the sun”

Kaito: “It’s been a while since I was able to get some sun. Ever since I was a kid, I’d think about the universe while sunbathing.”

Oh, Kaito. He would turn sunbathing into an excuse to think about space, even though he can’t see the stars when the sun’s out.

Kaito: “But these days, I’ve been so busy with training, I haven’t had time to relax. Thanks to you, I remembered how important it is to relax sometimes!”

Yes, Kaito, it is important to rest sometimes and to not push yourself too hard. Of course that’s something he’d only think about when somebody else reminds him of it.

[Library]

- “I’m getting sleepy”

Kaito: “Yeah, it’s pretty quiet in here. But the silence of a library is nothing compared to the universe, y’know?”

Somehow, Kaito finds an excuse to make this about space, too. What a dork.

Kaito: “After all, the universe is just one big silent room. If you went up there, you’d probably be sleepy all the time.”

You’re… not doing a great job of making space sound inviting, Kaito. What happened to all the passion and adventure there’s supposed to be out there?

[A/V Room]

- Play dominoes with the movie boxes

Kaito: “I may not seem like it, but I’m pretty good at setting up dominoes! During astronaut training, we had to do dexterity exercises.”

More fun little tibits about the kind of skills astronauts have to learn!

Kaito: “I, Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars, will make a domino setup that will shock even you!”

But even so, it’s not the “Ultimate Astronaut” but rather the Luminary of the Stars who’s good at this, because he still much prefers the latter title for himself.

Also, the “even you” is interesting. Why would Shuichi in particular not usually be shocked by an epic domino setup? Does Kaito’s secret idolisation of Shuichi even extend to thinking he’d be inexplicably good at this? (Kaito’s secret idolisation of Shuichi shouldn’t even be nearly as much of a thing in this trial-less AU, though.)

[Dining Hall]

- “Let’s go in the freezer”

This is one of those very odd, why-would-Shuichi-ever-actually-suggest-this options. But it works on Kaito!

Kaito: “Did you know… In astronaut training, you have to be able to survive in subzero temperatures! If it’s a competition to see who can hold out the longest, I won’t lose!”

More astronaut training things! And of course Kaito would turn it into a competition. Though it is a bit much of him to think that Shuichi should do this even though he has no need to train in this particular dangerous way, but Shuichi did inexplicably suggest it, so, uh.

Kaito: “The loser has to say how many girls he’s had a crush on!”

…I don’t know about this line, though. While I don’t headcanon Kaito very strongly this way because there isn’t any actual evidence relevant to it like there is for Maki, I like to believe it could at least be possible for Kaito to be aromantic. This might just be me wanting to project onto him, admittedly, but the way he puts so much investment into his platonic relationships, including having an especially committed type of them in the hero-and-sidekick thing, is very enjoyably non-amatonormative of him. It just doesn’t feel right to me that Kaito would care that much about crushes – and, in particular, even less so that he would care about someone else’s crushes, which are really none of his business unless they choose to tell him about them. Peer pressuring Shuichi into admitting to anything of that nature when he might not be comfortable doing so really, really doesn’t seem to me like the kind of thing Kaito would do.

I don’t really have any actual evidence with which to argue that this is definitely out of character for Kaito, so this could just be me here – but it seems quite possible that this is an example of a line that kinda belongs in this next section.

The clueless intern

Remember that clueless intern last post who somehow ended up writing a handful of Kaito’s lines in the demo despite having only a very shallow grasp of his character that misses everything important about him? (That’s totally why those out-of-character parts in the demo happened, shush.) Well, apparently they were also given a few of his hangouts to write, as well. I feel it’s important to point out which few of these involve things that Kaito shouldn’t actually be saying.

[Gym]

- “Let’s play basketball”

Kaito: “You got guts to challenge me at basketball! Didn’t I tell you? My basketball skills are universe-tier.”

So why wasn’t Kaito in the basketball club in middle school? Because Ryoma needed to die, of course. (I suggested soccer as his alternate favourite sport in my Kaito-isn’t-into-tennis AU, but basketball, as another team sport, would make just as much sense.)

Kaito: “World-class athletes try to be my apprentice just to steal my skills.”

It’s potentially interesting to see him use the word “apprentice” here, when really that word would be a much more accurate and representative word for what he calls a “sidekick”. I guess in Kaito’s head, an apprentice is something totally different and only there to learn tangible skills such as this, without any kind of emotional support being involved? …Orrr the writer for this hangout just doesn’t know what they’re doing at all; that’s also possible.

Kaito: “But… my muscles are cramping, so I can’t really play basketball right now.”

See, I don’t like this. This whole thing was Kaito boasting about something he knows is not true with no intention of ever even trying to back it up, and making an excuse that is blatantly nothing but a lie. That is not remotely what Kaito is like, despite that he might seem that way at a glance. He may talk big, but the intent behind his words is always genuine, and for every instance in canon of him making what seems like an excuse to get out of backing up his words, it’s actually because he is literally sick and doesn’t want his sidekicks to know that. Meanwhile, this here seems like it was written by someone who knew almost nothing about Kaito’s character, briefly saw the part where he talks big, and interpreted it in the most superficial and typical way possible rather than actually understanding him at all.

[Dining Hall]

- “Let’s bake something”

Kaito: “Sorry, I’m not really in the mood for sweets. I need something… more manly. Something that’s gonna fill me up.”

This is the only actual time in the whole game, aside from the very first Misogyny Bullet that was also provably out of character, where Kaito talks about manliness in a way that seemingly is about stereotypically masculine things, if sweets apparently aren’t. This really isn’t his usual definition of the concept, and as such it also reads as out of character that he’d use that word here.

Kaito: “If you eat too many sweets, you’ll become a spoiled person.”

Still, at least he also has a more meaningful reason for not liking sweets much. Plus, you’d think that as an astronaut, he’d want to eat healthier stuff that’d keep his strength up.

(All this said, though, based on his gift preferences, Kaito does at least like ice cream.)

[Gym]

- “Ah, maybe we should take off our clothes?”

Another one that, what the hell, writers, Shuichi would be way too shy and awkward to actually suggest this even if he did secretly want to, this is blatantly just in there for some eyerolly shipbait. I would ignore this one entirely, but… we kinda need to talk about this.

Kaito: “Huh!? What are you talking about!? Save that stuff for the girls! Or wait, did you come out or something and not tell me!?”

Okay, so originally my plan for talking about this line was to say that I have no idea where the hell some people get the idea that Kaito is homophobic. This is the only line of his in the entire game that actually addresses the topic of homosexuality at all, and it’s apparently him being upset at the idea that Shuichi would have come out and not told him. His sidekick’s supposed to be able to tell him anything! He’d want Shuichi to trust him enough to be the first person he tells about something like this! Of course he’d be supportive about who Shuichi is!

…But the expression Kaito’s actually making for these lines is a kind-of-horrified face which definitely does not allow for that reading of it, and no, fuck off, fuck you, game, Kaito is better than this, he would be supportive of his sidekick, and of everyone, no matter what. This is Danganronpa’s occasionally-shitty writing temporarily affecting Kaito in a way that is not in character for him and I will hear nothing else.

See, okay, maybe I can accept Kaito having passively picked up bigotry like this through cultural osmosis as he was growing up (perhaps through his grandparents’ old-fashioned views, although people use his grandparents to justify Kaito’s supposed bigotry way too much when they should just be pointing out that it’s not actually in character for him to think that way at all as I’m about to do here and have done previously on the topic of misogyny). But that’s only a view Kaito would ever have in the background without really thinking about it. Kaito’s principles (his concept of manliness, even!) put a lot of focus on thinking for yourself and not just mindlessly going along with what other people think without deciding on your own if you agree with it. So as soon as a situation came along in which he actually consciously noticed his passive bigotry, Kaito would question why he even thinks that way and realise it’s wrong.

Remember, Kaito believes more strongly than anything that everyone is important and amazing and deserves to be the hero of their own story. He puts so much value in communication and co-operation between all different walks of life (he speaks English and Russian fluently and learned the cultures along with the languages), and even hopes for communication between humans and aliens if they exist out there. The moment Kaito were to consciously catch himself feeling inclined to think that some people apparently don’t deserve respect just because of something arbitrary about them that isn’t hurting anyone else, he would immediately stop, go “what the hell is wrong with me, that’s bullshit”, and work on training his brain to stop thinking that way at all. Kaito’s not perfect, but he’s always trying to be the best he can be, and this would be no exception. Anyone who thinks Kaito wouldn’t do this doesn’t properly appreciate his character, and that includes the writers of this game when they’re being like this.

[Library]

- “Let’s read a dirty book”

Another one that Shuichi shouldn’t actually have any in-character reason to pick, because he is evidently not this kind of person, remember when that was literally a vital plot point?

Kaito: “Hehe! Of course! It’s weird for guys to not look for those kinds of books in a library!”

The way Kaito phrases this… kind of almost suggests that he’s not actually doing this because he wants to, but just because peer pressure and society has made him think he’s supposed to want to. I’d like to say this is something the writers are deliberately trying to hint at, but that makes very little sense for Kaito in particular, because that’s not thinking for himself.

And if Kaito is supposed to genuinely believe that obviously all guys should be like this… then that’s also kind of gross and another thing I refuse to accept is actually in-character for Kaito to think. Shitty Danganronpa writing, leave Kaito alone.

Mentions of manliness

But anyway, let’s move on from those brief instances of out-universe bad writing and see some more examples of what Kaito’s concept of manliness actually means. He brings it up in a few of these hangouts, and all but that earlier one have a perfectly good understanding of it.

[Courtyard]

- “Let’s get some fresh air”

Kaito: “Yeah, it’s a hundred times better than the stale air inside. A man’s gotta be in a wide-open space, y’know? Staying indoors for too long will turn you into a narrow-minded person.”

Oh, look, Kaito explicitly does not want to be a narrow-minded person. Cough cough like not a sexist or a homophobe, cough! He even connects being open-minded to his concept of manliness, because of course this is along similar lines to that! Be true to yourself – and to do that, think for yourself!

Kaito: “That’s why I’m gonna go to the universe and be a universe-minded guy!”

Also, SPACE. But this actually makes a lot more sense than you might think – some astronauts have described something called the Overview Effect. It’s an overwhelming feeling they get when first seeing the Earth from space: the sense that all of the fights and prejudices and differences between humans down there are so insignificant in the grand scheme of how beautiful our planet is and how small we are in the vastness of space, and that we need to work together to protect our precious tiny blue dot. Did you know that astronauts are good? It’s not just Kaito; all astronauts are good.

[A/V Room]

- “We should focus on reality, not movies”

Kaito: “Right on! That’s my sidekick! A man should chase real passions, not sit around watching fake stuff!”

Since Kaito’s idea of being a man is all about being true to yourself, it follows that he’d also think a man should focus more on things that are real! At least, I guess, in terms of “chasing passions”, aka the things he wants to do with his life. We already know plenty about how much Kaito enjoys believing in fictional things like magic and kids’ games just because they’re fun.

Kaito: “Hell yeah! I’m fired up like crazy now! I’ll teach you all about the universe as I imagine it!”

Kaito. Buddy. The universe as you imagine it is not reality either. You dork.

[Courtyard]

- “Let’s go back inside”

Kaito: “Huh? Why’d you pick this place if you were just gonna go back? It’s not manly to keep changing your mind like that!”

Be sure of yourself! Only decide on something if you know you’re going to stick to it, and if you do change your mind after that, it should be for a good reason!

[Dining Hall]

- Sleeping after a meal

Kaito: “Yeah, you get it! As expected from my sidekick! They say sleeping after eating makes you fat, but you can’t fight instinct!”

Oh, dear. According to Ryoma’s comments on this same option (and you’d think he’d know better than Kaito), sleeping after eating is indeed unhealthy. But Kaito tells himself it’s a good thing to do anyway because it’s what he feels like he wants to do. And he’s happy that Shuichi agrees with him on this, even though it’s not actually a good thing to agree with him on.

Kaito: “And now that I said that… I’m feeling sleepy myself… Alright! I’m gonna listen to my instincts and sleep like a man!”

Sounds ridiculous, but actually a correct use of Kaito’s concept of manliness! He’s listening to what his body wants him to do, which totally means he’s being true to himself, right? …Even though in this instance he apparently shouldn’t be.

Exercise and training

This being Kaito, the options suggesting some kind of exercise are some of his favourites. Well… usually.

[Dining Hall]

- Exercising after a meal

Kaito: “I know that’s best, but don’t you get sleepy after you eat?”

Apparently Kaito is perfectly aware that it’s a bad habit of his to sleep after meals. Come on, Kaito, if you know it’s bad, you should be trying to break that habit, instead of justifying it to yourself because it can technically be argued to be manliness!

This hangout is one of the bad-outcome ones, and maybe the reason why is just that Kaito apparently really wanted to be validated by not being the only one with this bad habit.

Kaito: “I guess even though you’re my sidekick, we’re pretty different sometimes…”

But… it seems like it might just be the more general thought that he’s different from Shuichi that’s bothering Kaito here, as if he’s worried Shuichi might be less inclined to be his friend if he felt Kaito was too different from him. (Hold this thought – there’ll be more along these lines in the next post.) Being different doesn’t stop you from being friends, though, Kaito! He and Shuichi are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but that’s what makes them such a good team, because they complement each others’ weaknesses so well.

[Gym]

- “Let’s warm up a bit”

Kaito: “Yeah, it’d suck if I got injured and had to give up on being an astronaut. Let’s work on our warm ups, then. Oh, hold on. Is it possible to get injured doing warm ups? If that’s the case, then we better do some pre-warm up warm ups.”

Kaito… does not seem to be all that knowledgeable about how physical training actually works. (See also: his totally very “systematic method” for his sidekicks’ training.) Maybe he really should watch that documentary about athletes. Or sit down with Ryoma and learn a thing or two from him… except, ha ha, that’s not going to happen very easily now is it.

(…Not that I know any better myself whether Kaito’s right to be worried here. I may do daily exercise now thanks to Kaito, but I also have a very systematic method for it, which is of course to say that I don’t and have no idea what I’m doing.)

You’d think Kaito should know this stuff, but, well, maybe his in-universe writers were slacking off while giving him memories of the physical part of astronaut training. Which should have been a difficult mistake to make when you consider that Team Danganronpa must have this character-creation thing down to a science by now and that sport-based talents are very common. They should have a standard “general athlete knowledge base” section of Flashback Light data that they put into every sporty character’s Flashback Light, which should have included Kaito; they’re clearly aware that astronauts train just as much as athletes since they gave him knowledge of that fact. But apparently someone was sleeping on the job.

[Courtyard]

- “Let’s dance!”

Kaito: “Huh? Dance with you? Why? It’s not like I don’t want to, but… Well, whatever! If you’re suggesting it, I’m sure you’ve got a good reason!”

Let’s pretend Shuichi was suggesting this as a different kind of exercise, even though Kaito should probably have realised that’s why and have said so and been on board with it for that specific reason. Kaito should enjoy dancing in particular, too, because it’s all about expressing yourself!

(Honestly, the lack of Shuichi having any of his own dialogue in these past the initial options, leaving the hangout partner essentially just talking to thin air, is kind of awkward sometimes.)

[Gym]

- “Let’s do some muscle training”

The obviously correct choice for when you are in a gym with Kaito!

Kaito: “Alright! Let’s do 500 push-ups! We’re gonna go non-stop, so get ready!”

That is a big number. I can maybe imagine reaching 500 with a lot of breaks to rest – like, a lot – but non-stop? Yikes. Especially for Shuichi, who’s still new to this.

Kaito: “Huh? That’s too many? 500 should be a piece of cake for my sidekick! Don’t complain, just do it!”

But of course Kaito pushes Shuichi into at least trying anyway.

Kaito: “The impossible is possible! All you gotta do is make it so!”

Ayyyy! He still wants this to be known even in the bonus mode. If Shuichi believes 500 non-stop push-ups are possible, he’s a lot more likely to be able to do it than if he’s already written it off as impossible, after all!

…I doubt Shuichi managed to get anywhere close to 500. But then, I also doubt that Kaito did either, so after they both inevitably collapsed in exhaustion, they probably agreed to get there more slowly with breaks after all.

(If Maki were here too, though, she could totally do 500 non-stop without breaking a sweat.)

[Courtyard]

- “Let’s go for a run”

Kaito: “Yeah, sounds good! I haven’t been able to do my daily training since we came here.”

Surely he has been doing his daily training since he started training Shuichi under whatever circumstances kicked that off in this AU? Ugggh this AU and its lack of a proper contextual story for any of this.

Kaito: “Let’s run like we’re chasing our pasts!”

Usually when Kaito has a line that appears kind of ridiculous and there-to-sound-cool, there is actually some kind of meaningful substance to it that makes sense in his head. But I’m not sure what he could mean with this one here. Kaito’s generally more about people putting their pasts behind them and looking to the future, after all.

Kaito: “Detectives need stamina too, right?”

Well, they do if they’re going to be having cases that involve things like capturing alligators, apparently. (Man, Shuichi should tell Kaito about that case. He’d enjoy a story like that, no doubt.)

Principles and advice

Some of these hangouts lead to Kaito showing his delightful principles about keeping a positive outlook on things. (This is partly because quite a few of the obvious-bad-hangout-partner options involve Shuichi grumpily complaining for no good reason, which Kaito would obviously take issue with.)

[A/V Room]

- Watch a comedy movie

Kaito: “Movies like this are great for turning your mood around. When you’re down, all you gotta do is let out a laugh and everything’s good!”

It’s interesting that Kaito apparently likes comedy movies not exactly for their own sake, but rather because they’re good for cheering you up. What Kaito has just implied here (definitely without having meant to) is that he can in fact feel down sometimes and has found that things like this work for pulling him out of it.

Kaito: “If you’re down all the time, then your dreams might get away from you!”

After all, you shouldn’t just wallow in your sadness when you could be doing whatever you can to stay positive!

[Gym]

- “Let’s train… our minds…”

Kaito: “Yeah! It’s got nothing to do with exercising, but your mind’s important!”

Of course Kaito thinks this! Although, what does he mean it’s got nothing to do with exercising? The whole point of him getting his sidekicks to exercise is to help with their mental health!

Kaito: “If you can’t visualize your goals, you’ll never be able to achieve them.”

If you can’t believe the impossible is possible, you’ll never be able to make it so!

Kaito: “That’s just what I’d expect from my sidekick! You get what’s important!”

Aww, he’s so happy that his sidekick already understands the type of mindset he likes to advocate.

(Fun irrelevant fact: I had Kaito use the sentence “You get what’s important!” in a piece of extremely silly Kaito content on my main blog just because it sounded like the kind of thing he might say, while not remembering at the time that he says that exact sentence in the actual game. I was quite amused when I saw this line again.)

[A/V Room]

- “I might fall asleep…”

Kaito: “Well, sure. If you grab some boring movie or something. But if you decide that’s gonna happen from the start, then it probably will. If you always expect the worst, then you’ll always get the worst!”

Kaito’s philosophy is just so good. He always encourages people to try and have a positive outlook, not just because it’ll help them feel better, but because it actually matters to what they’ll be able to achieve. You have to believe the impossible is possible before you’ll ever be able to make it so!

[Library]

- “This is boring…”

(This is another one that doesn’t make any sense for Shuichi to say. He likes novels; he would not be bored in a library.)

Kaito: “Really? There are so many books here, there’s gotta be some that interest you. Before you start complaining, try looking around a bit more.”

Don’t just pointlessly complain when there’s something you could be doing to make things better! Don’t give up before you’ve even tried!

[Library]

- “Sure is dusty in here”

Kaito: “Yeah, but instead of complaining, you should do something about it. If you’re gonna be my sidekick, then you gotta know that much.”

I like that this one isn’t just Kaito’s don’t-complain principle, but is also him asserting that any sidekick of his should already know about this principle of his and be trying to follow that advice. People only become Kaito’s sidekicks once they’ve made the choice to try and change themselves and make their situation better, after all. His principles about not complaining when you could be doing something are basically the same idea as that.

[Gym]

- “I’m tired…”

Kaito: “Huh? You haven’t even done anything yet. If you keep talking like that, I won’t hold back, even if you are my sidekick!”

This is presumably more of Kaito’s don’t-complain principle going on here, except this time he’s not even mentioning the principle itself and is just assuming his sidekick should know better and being annoyed that he’s still complaining anyway.

I should note, though, that if Shuichi complained about being tired in a different context, Kaito would definitely take it very differently and see it as a sign that something’s wrong with him and offer help like always. But in this context, in which Shuichi has just invited him to hang out in the gym and then immediately gone “oh but I’m tired” before they’ve even done anything, it does just come across like he’s being lazy and flaky and doesn’t actually want to exercise, in which case why even come here if you’re only going to complain?

Somewhat relevant to this is Kaito’s stock dialogue when a hangout has the worst possible outcome, which the above hangout is one example of.

[Worst outcome]

Kaito: “C’mon, man… Don’t go forgetting a sidekick’s responsibilities. I’m heading back…”

He expected his sidekick to know better than to change his mind and complain for no reason like this! A sidekick doesn’t have nearly as many responsibilities as the hero does, but Kaito does expect them to understand some of the most frequent advice he gives and be making at least an effort to follow it. To be his sidekick, they’ve got to be trying to change.

There are literally only four hangouts that have a “worst” outcome for Kaito, so it’s really not often at all that Kaito gives this response that implies that he’s disappointed in Shuichi like this. One of the others is the one from the manliness section where Shuichi wanted to go back inside as soon as they’d gone to the courtyard, which is a similar thing of changing his mind and complaining about the decision he literally just made – the kind of thing that Kaito already expected his sidekick to know better than to do.

(Another of the worst outcomes was Shuichi suggesting a horror movie – that one’s not at all Shuichi’s fault and has nothing to do with Kaito’s principles, but I can understand Kaito getting upset enough about it that he somewhat forgets himself in his reaction to it. The fourth one is one that’s coming up later.)

Heroes and sidekicks

My favourite category! Time for some hangouts that hint at Kaito’s issues about heroes and sidekicks, either in a general sense or specifically in regards to his relationship with Shuichi.

First, though, Kaito’s response when a hangout has only a bad-but-not-worst outcome is relevant to this topic as well. As I mentioned, the worst outcome is very rare – most of the time, if he doesn’t have a good time, he’ll just say this:

[Bad outcome]

Kaito: “Are you tired or something? If you’re not feeling well, just rest. My sidekick’s fatigue is my fatigue. I’m… gonna head back first.”

Obviously, it’s not that the hangout made Kaito feel bad or anything. It’s just that apparently Shuichi looks tired, and Kaito’s looking out for his sidekick by suggesting he should go back and rest! And then it’s totally just a coincidence that Kaito heads back first.

(“I’ve projected my own fatigue onto you in order to hide the fact that I’m the one feeling tired” sure is one way for the phrase “my sidekick’s fatigue is my fatigue” to technically be true.)

On some level this could be Kaito trying to hide the fact that Shuichi showed him a bad time so as to not make Shuichi feel guilty for being a bad host – after all, it’s only very rarely that he gives the worst-outcome dialogue that makes it seem like Shuichi did anything wrong. I feel like if that was the only issue, though, Kaito would be more open about it and just say something like “I didn’t have a great time, but hey, it’s not your fault, don’t worry about it, I’m still up for hanging out with you again”. But that would still be Kaito all but admitting that something actually made him feel down at all. Which is obviously not a thing that ever happens to Kaito, right?

[A/V Room]

- Watch an action movie

Kaito: “Action movies are fun cuz you don’t have to think too hard to enjoy them.”

…Because they tend to just have the heroes winning by saving the day in cool ways and being uncomplicatedly awesome?

It is such a delightfully relevant detail that Kaito prefers his fiction simple. If he appreciated more nuanced fiction, if his favourite kinds of stories were instead the ones where the hero’s character is more of a focus and you watch him go through hardships and struggle and grow and still manage to be a hero in the end anyway, then things in canon would have been very, very different.

Kaito: “And there’s a bunch of ‘em that use the universe as their stage!”

Of course, this is an even better reason to like action movies: because SPACE.

(The writers could so easily have had this hangout be nothing but Kaito taking the excuse to talk about space movies, and nothing would have seemed amiss. But they put that first comment he made in there too. I love Kaito’s writers so much.)

Kaito: “Alright! I’m gonna tell you all about my favorites! You ready to take notes!?”

And then… they don’t even watch any space action movies, it just turns into Kaito excitedly telling Shuichi all about his favourite ones. What a dork.

(At least, if Shuichi really did take notes, he can use that list when they’re living a normal life on the outside and he suggests a space movie marathon with Kaito on the 31st of October for no particular reason.)

[Library]

- “Let’s read manga

Kaito: “Adventure manga are the best! They’ve got so much passion in them!”

Heh, of course Kaito’s favourite genre of manga would be that.

Kaito: “You should read all the famous adventure manga, Shuichi! Since we’re pals, it’d be great to read through some together.”

And then it’s cute that he wants to bring Shuichi into this thing he’s interested in, too! Shuichi does like novels, so while maybe he doesn’t usually read much manga, he should still be able to enjoy them! It makes me happy to think of them doing regular kinda-nerdy friend things together like this. Kaito even referred to them as “pals” and not “hero and sidekick”, which is very rare for him!

(I’m imagining, as they read through one of Kaito’s favourite manga, that Shuichi with his more nuanced appreciation of fiction comments that the hero isn’t very interesting because he keeps winning too easily without much effort. And Kaito is internally all “???????? He seems like a perfectly good hero to me??? Why does Shuichi think he’s supposed to be struggling?”)

[Dining Hall]

- “Let’s cook something”

Kaito: “Oh? You can cook, Shuichi? That means I can cook too! My sidekick’s skills are my skills, and my skills are my sidekick’s skills!”

Uhhhh Kaito that’s not how this works. “Your X is my X, my X is your X” definitely does not apply to this. Does that also mean that Shuichi can speak fluent English and Russian and pilot a spaceship?

Being happy that your friend can cook because then you can enjoy his food whenever he feels up to making something is one thing, but this is not quite how you express that, you dork.

(Ask him to teach you, Kaito! It’d be a fun thing to learn, just like how to build a crossbow!)

[Dining Hall]

- “Let’s drink something”

Kaito: “H-How did you know I was thirsty? Insight like that is just what I’d expect from the Ultimate Detective.”

Really? Because insight about the way someone’s feeling is really more the kind of thing that one would expect from you, Kaito.

Kaito: “Or maybe… it was your sidekick powers that tipped you off! If that’s the case, then I’m proud to have such a great sidekick!”

What does “sidekick powers” even mean? …Perhaps it’s Kaito-speak for Shuichi being such a great friend that he can pick up on his friend’s needs. But even if that’s what he means, Kaito has to word it in a way that’s about Shuichi being his sidekick, because he very rarely actually refers to Shuichi as his “friend”.

…The third and by far most likely option, of course, is that it’s pure dumb luck and Shuichi just happened to want a drink himself without realising Kaito did too. But Kaito has to go and make this about the sidekick thing and use it as an excuse to shower praise onto Shuichi like the encouraging hero he is. He’s such a dork.

[Gym]

- “I’ll be the referee”

Kaito: “Huh? If you’re the referee, does that mean I’ll just be exercising by myself?”

Saying you’ll be the referee is probably supposed to be interpreted as the lazy way out of having to do any exercise yourself. But somehow Kaito doesn’t take it that way and admonish Shuichi for not wanting to train.

Kaito: “Haha! So the sidekick wants to see the hero’s full potential? Then why didn’t you say so!? I’ll show you everything I got!”

Because he takes it this way instead. Obviously Shuichi wants to see how awesome the hero is! Being the most awesome so that he can set an example and inspire his sidekicks to try and reach his heights is exactly what a hero is supposed to do!

I love the “why didn’t you say so?”, implying that this really is not at all why Shuichi suggested this, yet Kaito is automatically assuming it is because that’s definitely how heroes and sidekicks work.

[Dining Hall]

- “Let’s have some tea”

Kaito: “Yeah, let’s grab some tea and have a heart-to-heart.”

Yes, this is totally going to be a two-directional outpouring of emotions and issues here.

Kaito: “Don’t you keep any secrets from me! Sidekicks and heroes shouldn’t have secrets between them, y’know?”

Oh, Kaito, you wonderful hypocrite.

It is a little surprising that he’s so adamant that Shuichi shouldn’t be keeping anything at all from him, since he advocated during trial 3 that people are always going to have some secrets and that doesn’t mean they’re keeping them out of malice. But I suppose since Shuichi is his sidekick, the whole point is that Shuichi is supposed to trust him with anything and everything, and if there was something Shuichi wasn’t willing to talk to him about, it’d mean Kaito’s not being a good enough hero.

And obviously, as the hero, Kaito definitely also trusts Shuichi with everything that’s going on in his head, right? Definitely.

[Library]

- “I want to scream really loud!”

Kaito: “Huh? That’s not like you, Shuichi. You’re not the type to be rude like that. You don’t gotta force yourself, y’know?”

Pfft, look at Kaito pointing out for us that this is one of the out-of-character options for Shuichi. It’s kind of a shame that he doesn’t take this further like he does for some others that we’re about to see.

[Dining Hall]

- “Let’s try fasting”

Kaito: “What!? If you do that, you’ll die for sure!”

…I feel like this might be an odd translation thing, because fasting is obviously not something that kills people. Kaito is open to other cultures enough that he should perfectly well know this.

Kaito: “Do you have a fever? Don’t push yourself, alright?”

Yeah, if you’re sick, you shouldn’t push yourself, Kaito.

(…It’s not clear whether or not Kaito actually has the virus in this AU, because that would depend on whether Team Danganronpa changed their minds about doing the killing game before or after infecting him with it. But even if he does, his symptoms wouldn’t quite get far enough along for him to realise he’s dying within the ten days this takes place. And since he’s going to get out of here in ten days, that’s plenty of time to get himself to a hospital once he’s outside, so he’d be fine.)

Kaito: “If you’re not feeling well, it’s because of my poor management.”

It is very Kaito that he turns this into assuming something must be wrong if Shuichi is inexplicably suggesting something like this, and so he starts worrying about him. It’s also very painfully Kaito that he’s blaming himself for it – he considers himself thoroughly responsible for his sidekicks’ wellbeing, and so if something’s wrong, it must be his fault somehow for not being a good enough hero, right?

[Gym]

- “Let’s burn this place to the ground”

Another “what the hell, Shuichi?” option. But this one Kaito takes quite seriously.

Kaito: “What? Hey, c’mon, that’s not you, man. What’s wrong?”

Which is to say, he immediately takes it as a sign that something wrong with Shuichi, because Kaito is good and always concerned about his sidekick’s wellbeing. If Shuichi actually did ever suggest this, it probably would be because he’s very upset about something.

Kaito: “If something’s wrong, all you gotta do is talk to me about it. If it’s something you won’t talk to me about, then there’s nothing I can do…”

And I love that this then turns into Kaito being really worried that there might be a problem that Shuichi won’t talk to him about, which would mean he’d be powerless to fix it. He can’t bear the idea of not being able to help, especially not when it’s his sidekick, whom he’s always supposed to be able to help.

(It’s almost like someone not talking about their issues and therefore being impossible to help is precisely the problem with you, Kaito! But of course that’s not an analogous problem, Kaito’s the hero so he’s not supposed to need help, what are you talking about.)

Unfortunately, since this is a “what the hell, Shuichi” option, and since Shuichi gets no further lines in these, there’s not really anything that’s actually wrong with him and so we can’t further explore this idea of Kaito feeling like he’s unable to help his sidekick. It’s just a fun look at how the possibility of being powerless like that is something he’s really scared of.

(The wiki says this option is a worst outcome, which would be an extra sign of just how awful Kaito feels about this… but the wiki is wrong and this is actually only a bad outcome. The worst outcome dialogue, about Shuichi forgetting “a sidekick’s responsibilities”, could sort of work here – one of his sidekick’s responsibilities is to tell him whenever something’s wrong, isn’t it? But on the other hand, this hangout lingers on the note of Kaito feeling helpless to support Shuichi, which is not a state of mind in which he would want to blame Shuichi for anything. Meanwhile, the “you’re totally the one feeling tired, right, and there’s nothing at all wrong with me” bad-outcome dialogue is perfect for this situation. So maybe this is why this is nominally only a “bad” outcome even though it would definitely be making Kaito feel more awful than any of the “worst” ones do. I am totally not overthinking this.)

[Courtyard]

- “I want to get outside as soon as I can”

Kaito: “Well, that’s obvious. What’s really on your mind, man? If there’s something you’re worried about, just talk to me.”

Here’s some more Kaito delightfully deciding that Shuichi must clearly have a different problem to this that’s what he really wants to talk about. Perhaps the reason he decides that is because the problem of getting out of here isn’t something Kaito can actually help with other than being positive about it, so he wants to turn the conversation onto something he can help with.

Kaito: “Your worry is my worry! My worry is your worry!”

Hee. He only says this once in canon, but I love that it’s here again. It is still so delightfully hypocritical.

Kaito: “If I can ease your worries, mine will be eased too!”

This is extremely true and accurate, though. A lot more literally so than it would be for most friends who support each other, because almost all of Kaito’s own worries revolve around whether he’s able to help Shuichi with his. The best way for Kaito to feel better really is for him to know that Shuichi is okay and that he helped Shuichi be okay. The counterpoint to this, of course, is that if Kaito feels like he can’t ease Shuichi’s worries, then his own will only get worse.

In fact, this basically proves that when Kaito says “My worry is your worry,” he really is just thinking of it as another way of wording “Your worry is my worry”. He’s saying that what he worries about the most is how to help with whatever’s bothering Shuichi. That line is not and never was Kaito trying to actually claim that he’d be happy to share if he had problems of his own.

And even when Kaito does have worries entirely of his own, like when he’s dying in canon, the feeling of being able to support Shuichi means so much to him that it at least manages to distract him from his own worries and therefore sort of ease them in a sense. Though what that really ends up doing is making Kaito increasingly convinced that his own worries are insignificant next to Shuichi’s, which is incredibly not healthy and part of the reason he died.

Being stuck here

And finally, to finish off this post, a few of the hangouts actually reference the vague semblance of a “story” we’ve got going on by mentioning the fact that they’re trapped in here.

[Gym]

- “Let’s renovate the place”

Kaito: “What, you wanna make this place more comfortable or something? What if you start liking it here? Weren’t we gonna work together and escape this academy?”

It’s neat how Kaito makes this about escaping and warns Shuichi not to get too attached to this place.

I guess by “work together” to escape, given the context, Kaito’s specifically talking about how they’re working towards escaping by hanging out and becoming close enough friends with each other? (let’s keep pretending Monokuma mentioned platonic relationships at all, shush)

[Courtyard]

- “I’ve gotten used to being here”

Kaito: “Yeah, me too. But that doesn’t change the fact that I wanna escape!”

Despite the previous one that had Kaito asserting it’d be bad for Shuichi to get used to being here, in this one he’s willing to acknowledge that he’s done that too, even though he doesn’t like it.

Kaito: “Life is short! I don’t have time to waste loafing around here.”

did you know Kaito’s parents died

Kaito: “Don’t get complacent! If you start to enjoy a place like this, then you’ll never find new horizons!”

Here’s more of Kaito just having a generally Good outlook on life. People shouldn’t be telling themselves they’re okay with a situation that isn’t what they really want (just like Maki was doing before she met him), because then they’ll get stuck in that rut and never be able to get themselves out of it! And so, even though he is finding himself getting used to this place, Kaito’s determined not to let that stop him from wanting to move on and not look back once they get out of here.

[Courtyard]

- “What a great view…”

Kaito: “Really? I don’t think so. I mean, I’m the guy who’s gonna fly off into the universe. I can’t be content with a view like this. I gotta see bigger and better things!”

I’m going to assume this is meant as basically an extension of the idea that Kaito doesn’t want them to get used to being stuck here and not try to escape; the view from the Academy isn’t anything particularly special, after all. Because it’d be sad if Kaito wasn’t able to let himself enjoy some of the prettier views on Earth just because they’re not space. You can still enjoy a thing even if you know there’s an even better thing out there! Kaito is definitely the kind of person who should be able to understand that. There’s nothing unnecessary in this world!

(but also have I mentioned how very important it is that the rocket had a window)

[Courtyard]

- “Staying here forever wouldn’t be so bad”

Kaito: “Huh!? What the hell are you talking about!? No way we’re staying here forever! Even if you are my sidekick, I won’t let you off the hook for saying that!”

This one reads to me less like Kaito’s trying to encourage Shuichi to be less defeatist and more like Kaito is angry on his own behalf. It’s almost as if Shuichi is trying to tell him to give up on getting out of here. Hey, Kaito, what’s so great about space anyway? Maybe you should just never go there after all.

(This is the last of the rare absolute worst outcomes. Kaito does not approve of having this idea suggested to him, and his sidekick should obviously have known better than to try and make him be okay with giving up like this.)

And while you might think Kaito is so optimistic that the thought of staying here forever would never have even occurred to him, it is a thought that’s been plaguing him, even though he’d never admit it out loud. More on that next time when we reach the main event here.

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #bonus content #salmon team #commentary

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taki118 · 5 years ago

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Manga Rec: Hatarakanai Futari (or The Jobless Siblings)

Hatarakanai Futari ( or The Jobless Siblings) is its about 20 something NEET siblings, their friends, their parents and the daily lives and its just so fucking pure and wholesome just go read it. But if you’d like some context and a few spoilers by all means continue reading.

So the Jobless Siblings are younger sibling Haruko and elder sibling Mamoru they live with their parents and generally just screw around all day.

Haruko starts the series as very Hikikamori like as she seems to have some serious social anxiety and fears even leaving the house since graduating high school. She is also very money conscious though in an odd way she’ll often comment on how much clothing or haircuts cost in comparison to video games and food. While she starts out as a very shy, self conscious and clinging to her brother like a typical younger sister in anime she slowly shows her true colors. That being a dense, easily tricked wanna be prankster with a habit of speaking before thinking but generally means well. As the series goes on Haruko appears to more lazy than cripplingly shy and even goes to places outside the house of her own accord with other people. I know that sounds weird to praise but trust me as you read and see her grown into her own its so heart warming. Even if her growth is makes fart jokes to a person she originally was too afraid to speak to.

Mamoru is not your typical NEET. He has friends, he leaves the house, he talks to strangers he’s kind of a mystery. It’s revealed as the series goes on that he went to college, worked jobs and traveled a lot before becoming a NEET, and it really seems like he could just get a haircut put on a suit and get a job one morning if it suited him. He’s easy going, sarcastic, a joker, but all in all a good guy. When you read the series unlike Haruko who you watch grown you get to get excited as more aspects of Mamoru are revealed and your insight of him grows.

Also I’m pretty sure the author gets a kick out of subverting expectations with the siblings relationship. Yes Haruko looks up to and admires her brother but she’s also willing to toss him under the bus to get out of trouble with their parents or play a joke on him. And yes Mamoru dotes on and shelters his sister but he also pranks her and makes her own up to her mistakes. And anytime you see a trope coming comedy follows such as this. What i’m saying is they feel like actual siblings.

Despite their NEET status the siblings have a semi good relationship with their parents. Their mother is rather strict and yet she also adores pranks. The mom wants her children to start being real adults and is typically annoyed by their antics (most times) but while she appears to have given up on Mamoru she often pushes Haruko to at least learn to be a wife. Their father despite working all the time is more laid back, he’s happy enough with the fact that his children are good people and figures the pair will find their place in their own time.

Now i mentioned friends well these are the reoccurring characters and give so much of series heart warming moments. Let me say this if platonic relationships are your jam this series delivers. But there are two friends who make up the main group.

First we have Maruyama He’s an employed idiot, a bit of a perv but good hearted all the same and originally only Mamoru’s friend. He’s the butt of many a joke and has some douchey nice guy moments but the story always makes sure to dunk on him for it and he learns his lesson. He starts the series slowly getting Haruko to warm up to him, and even seems to have a bit of thing for until they become friends and he sees she has a personality as awful as her brothers it goes away. Regardless he still hangs around them.

Rounding out the group is the siblings neighbor Kuraki she’s your average overworked office lady but since moving in next door to the siblings she finds watching their antics through her window at night relaxing. Slowly she grows a desire to interact and slightly spoil the pair as a thank you of sorts. Eventually she joins them on their antics and as such her mood improves so greatly her coworkers notice. She ends up becoming a sort of mentor/guide to Haruko and is one of the few people who can make her willingly go into a store.

The relationship the 4 share is just so sweet and pure. And becomes the main focus of the series. They do things like play games, go walks, prank each other, and just talk about any random shit that enters their heads. And i do mean shit poop jokes are a recurring thing in the series, but the joke is less poop itself but that they think poop is so funny. But its just so wholesome how much hanging out together means to them all

But outside the main four each have their own little friend groups

Mamoru and Maruyama often hangout with their friend Endou. He’s nice and easygoing and is fairly in sync with Mamoru the pair often teasing the hell out of Maruyama. He has a girlfriend who is a massive troll and i really hope she appears more. Despite the two often picking on him they both acknowledge that Maruyama is a good guy and defend him often. They just want him to be less of a perv and ass.

Then there’s Haruko funnily enough she had friends all through her school life often falling in with people no one else liked. Bringing us to Yuki & Tomoharu

Yuki is a very tall, very strong and very shy girl. She often got into fights in high school cause she was basically made to. While she like Haruko has very high social anxiety, she herself is a college student and does not want to be a NEET basically because her father is one. Yuki often tries to get Haruko to go shopping with her as she wants to appear more fashionable and cute usung food as a bribe but the pair fail to even enter a store.

Then theres Tomoharu. He is described many times but people as being very good looking. He goes to school has a part time job and is over all very normal, so you might wonder why he was friends with Haruko. Well he’s gay, but if you ask him he claims it was just a phase and he’ll totally have a girlfriend next time. Only to get a crush on a male member of the main cast (not gonna say who) Haruko and Yuki were the only people to stand up for him when he was outed in school and the pair still support with Haruko often saying she’ll keep a look out for a good guy for him though he denies wanting one. Either way when all three hang out Haruko and Yuki often rely on him.

They keep expanding the cast little by little but it never feels like too much or odd as they all naturally fall into the story. Such as the father’s coworker who he often tries to set up with Mamoru. She’s a deadpan intelligent type and is also friends with Endo’s girlfriend. But the thing is you aren’t annoyed that this girl is very obviously Mamorus match you actually cant wait or the pair to cross paths. And that’s how you feel with most of these characters. You just want to see how their personalities will mesh together.

But the best part of this series is simply seeing how people live their lives. While yes that’s the point of most slice of life series this one feels very natural. Everything is just sort of aimless and pointless but so is life. People will suddenly reappear in your life and you’ll spend time getting to know them again or you’ll spend a night pondering something pointless or shop for something you know will make a friend happy or try out something dumb you saw on tv.

Its just such a relaxing enjoyable series with characters you want to see more of. So go read it.

#manga #manga rec #manga recommendation #Hatarakanai Futari #jobless siblings

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dimension20fanfiction · 6 years ago

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“I’m Gay”

Title: I’m Gay

Summary: Kristen tells Tracker she’s gay

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Categories: Family, Romance, Humor

Fandoms: Dimension 20: Fantasy High

Characters: Kristen Applebees, Tracker

Relationships: Kristen Applebees/Tracker

Word Count: 772 words

Notes: I wanted to post this before the finale came out, not as a prediction but because it was rattling in my head for awhile. None of the characters or really of the proper nouns are not mine. This is my first original work for Fantasy High. All constructive criticism is welcome, and any feedback is appreciated. Let me know if there are any prompts desired.

AO3 URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17353925

Here she was. Kristen Applebees was at the door of Jawbone’s, and more importantly Tracker’s apartment. It wasn’t her first time at this apartment complex. Strongtower Luxury Apartments was already becoming the hangout spot for their adventuring party, but over the summer, when Adaine moved in with their guidance counselor and Kristen’s finally admitted crush, it was almost an unspoken rule that any time they were together not at school or off in a battle, their down time was spent in one of the three apartments in the complex. It was easy for Kristen, she had been living with Fig and Lunch Lad Gilear, and most of the time they would all gather in that apartment, but when Adaine moved in upstairs, the party was moved as well.

Here she was. Having spent the last hour and a half building up the courage, and almost throwing up from nerves twice, Kristen was here to talk to Tracker. She could do this. It’s normal. Kristen took a deep breath and knocked rapidly three times. The door swung open to reveal Jawbone, still with his glasses, but in some sweatpants and a loose T-shirt instead of his normal cardigan sweater and jeans.

“Hey Kristen,” Jawbone greeted her, “are you here to see Adaine? Or did you want some after school counseling?” He smiled at her kindly.

“Um, actually,” Kristen started, her voice a bit more nervous than she hoped it sounded, “I’m uh...here to see if uh…Tracker is here?”

Jawbone’s smile got wider at Kristen’s inquiry, and nodded before calling over his shoulder into the apartment for his niece. Kristen quickly fidgeting with her hair, trying to smooth it, adjusting her shirt as well. This was it.

Tracker appeared in the doorway with a surprised grin on her face. Her hair was a bit longer than Kristen remembered it, as though it needed to be shaved again. “Hey Kristen. What’s up?”

“Not much.” Kristen instinctively answered.

Tracker nodded slowly, as though with great insight. “Do you want to come inside?”

Kristen shook her head shortly. “No I’m good. This...this isn’t going to take long. Ah-I uh, I just wanted to tell you that,” Kristen barked out a laugh before continuing, “uh, I’m gay.”

Tracker smirked, her eyebrows going to her hairline. “Really?”

Kristen nodded. “Also, I really like you. And not in a platonic, I want to be your friend way. It’s in a I want to kiss you and hold you when we sleep kind of way.” Kristen waited for a response, and after not getting any, turned to leave, not wanting to deal with the rejection of her first real crush in front of said crush.

A hand caught Kristen’s upper arm. “Wait.” Kristen turned back to look at Tracker, wide eyed and grinning with full teeth. “You want to kiss me?”

Kristen nodded. “Yeah I do.” Tracker gave her arm a gentle tug, leading her in the apartment, closing the door so there were only a few inches between them. “I don’t know how to kiss, so do you mind kissing me first?”

Tracker whispered a laugh before leaning in and giving Kristen a gentle kiss. Tracker pulled back to look at Kristen before Kristen raised a hand to the back of Tracker’s head and pulled her back in for more.

They came up for air when they heard applause and cheers from the left of them. In the living room, sitting on the couch was Fig, with Adaine laying her head on a pillow on her lap, Riz and Fabian on the other side of the couch and adjacent chair, all applauding.

Fig whomped her fist in the air at the two girls. “Yay. Finally you two are together.”

Kristen’s cheeks reddened as she realized that her entire friend group just witnessed an intimate moment of her life. “Uh...we just, nothing’s happening here.”

Tracker raised an eyebrow at Kristen. “Nothing, huh?”

“Well-ah-not nothing-you know,” Kristen stammered, not knowing how to salvage the moment. Kristen glances at her friends for help before trying to change the conversation. “Uh, where’s Gorgug?”

Fig shrugged. “He’s out with Zelda.”

Fabian scoffed. “I don’t see how Gorgug is on another date. He can’t flirt.”

“I think that’s why it works. They both are like that.” Adaine added.

Tracker put her other hand on Kristen’s shoulder, guiding her attention back to her. “If you ever need me to show you how to do other things,” she whispered, “I’ll be more than glad to help you out.”

Kristen was sure she would have rose-tinged cheeks for the rest of her life. “I would like that.”

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #fanfic #fanfiction #kristen applebees #tracker #jawbone #riz gukgak #adaine abernant #fabian seacaster #fig faeth #strongtower luxury apartments #gorgug thistlespring #zelda donovan #if john hughes ran a game of tabletop rpg #gaaaaaaay #dimension 20 fanfiction

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lazylowkeyhopelessromantic · 6 years ago

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How you met him

We talked on October 14th of 2018, around 6pm I believe. He messaged me first, and I quote, “I feel a disturbance in the force” and with that, I knew I was going to get along with him just fine, or at least enough for him to keep me entertained. I didn’t mind if all we were going to be was text buddies, after all, I didn’t start there with the idea of dating or actually meeting someone. I was all in it for the random replies and awkward approach of dudes. Is hilarious the way some people would try too hard to be witty so they can be perceived as interesting and genuinely quirky. But not him. Sure, his bio said that he could lick his elbow and that he had a Costco membership, but somehow it simplicity felt nice. Not like others, who would take up all the available space and then some in the characters provided and given. The conversation went how I like them, completely random, unexpectedly humorous with a dash of hidden deepness. He seemed like a guy I could talk about ugly daily thoughts or worst fear and could still be able to laugh at something he might add. First three messages and I could already tell he was an open book but written in a specific language only very few people knew how to read. And I like it. Still, do. It wasn’t until we had talked for a while that I saw his profile and the pictures he had on it. He looked handsome but adding good humor and conversational easiness, he looked more than that. He intrigued me. So I gave him my number. Where we continue to talk smoothly. In October 17th, he basically asked me out. He didn’t say it directly, especially when I asked him if we were going to see each other as a date or friendly hangout and he chose to go by the latter. Only to tell me on our second day of seeing each other, that he considered it a date. Back to the whole seeing in each other in person for the first time. To say I was nervous was an understatement. I was internally sweating, rehearsing the lines I knew were customed to be said, and glancing at the mirror every 7 seconds on the way there. He had arrived earlier than me. Not by too much though. When I finally parked, I was hesitant to get out of my car. I’m always a nervous wreck, and that night was no exception. I entered the coffee shop, texted him that I didn’t see him, and when his “I’m outside at the tables”, I realized I was just one step away from meeting what could be a potential friend or regretful heartbreak. When I walked up to him, he stood from his chair, which made me realize he was actually tall, and more fit than I’ve had imagined. I remember he wore a black shirt and if I recall correctly shorts. Which really complimented his physique. He looked like the kind of eye candy you see running in all his enthusiastic glory on the street or neighborhood. I wasn’t mentally prepared for a kiss on the cheek as a greeting, so when it happened, I think I overtalked the first few minutes, while he quietly and collectively took out his rolled up chessboard and told me the one foam coffee cup was mine. It was the hot chocolate he had told me he’d order while I arrive. I thought the gesture was cute. So we started to play and basically me oversharing unnecessary shit as per usual while he listened. He likes his eye contact. And usually, I’m all for it, but I was still nervous, despite actually feeling comfortable around him. Of course, I had to throw in some sexual weird comments, which he batted like a pro. And I don’t remember who initiated the ex’s talk, but I liked hearing his perspective about it. After all, you can tell a lot about a person when talking about their previous affairs. It gives you a somewhat insight of what’s to come if you two don’t work out. Did I try to quickly red flag him when I heard how he had really loved his last ex and then had spent a few dates comparing her to others? You bet I did. But I really admired how he never badmouthed any of the other girls, not even the one who basically cheated on him. He said every one of them taught him lessons or had a different kind of impression on him. I truly liked that about him. Which is something I have to learn to do. It shows maturity, and it gives you the impression that they were the one who lost an amazing person, not to mention, it also portrays that they healthily moved on. I had fun. I didn’t want to leave. But it was already midnight and I had to work I think. When we said our goodbyes, he didn’t go for a typical cliche kiss on the lips, but instead it was on the cheek. Which not going to lie, made me think for a moment that he was going to be more of a potential friend than a possible lover. But boy was I wrong.

#ThebestofJ's #October14th #LaFracais

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nonsensical-rants · 7 years ago

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Thoughts on Persona 5

The persona series is one of the biggest influences to me and who I am within recent memory. I’ve played every game and anticipate the idea of exploring every nook and cranny the game has to offer, across hundreds of hours. Both three and four were games that I cherish and the same can be said with five. But just like with any game I've played there are some gripes that get to me whenever i think about them for too long. This is my personal opinion but i do like hearing different viewpoints since it will always add insight to a discussion. I am prone to rambling and sometimes getting of topic but i shall do my best. Spoilers ahead for anyone who has yet to beat/see the game in its entirety.

During the “anticipation” for the games release, I didn’t really look up a lot about the game because i wanted everything to be a surprise. Aside from some trailers that hooked me in with an amazing story about Phantom Thieves who steal peoples hearts and jump out of Casinos, everything would be a surprise for me. So when i started up the game and reached Kamoshida’s Palace. I was having a grand time with all the mechanics, the music, and the different characters that were being presented too me. Personally, Morgana is one hell of a upgrade in comparison to Teddy. Both as a character, and as a mascot.

During the game play, I was always looking forward to what would come next and how it would be done. Hanging out with Ryuji and seeing Mishima change as a person were some early game highlights. Of course i went through the dungeon as fast as possible because i wanted to know the characters as much as possible. Ryuji filled a good role as a partner and as comic relief, but I felt towards the later end of the game he could’ve had another spark to get him excited (other than being pissed at corrupt adults). And no. The confrontation between Morgana and Ryuji does not count. I felt like that could have been so much better of a scene, but it was executed poorly with Morgana basically getting away for his constant belittling of “Skull”. Everyone just laughs it off, except for me because its actually just unwarranted and unnecessary rivalry between characters who just started off on the wrong foot. Morgana is a know it-all and Ryuji may need a second explanation sometimes but he has more heart that anyone in the gang.

But, i’m getting ahead of myself. The original four were interesting characters who had good traits to bounce off one another whether it be through bickering or bonding. And as the story progressed, i really found myself hating Kamoshida because of how much of an asshole he truly was behind his public mask (haha). Shiho’s involvement only strengthened that belief. As sudden as her introduction was, it still meant something to me. So taking him down, and seeing him crying while confessing everything was great satisfaction.

But this is where something started occurring to me that would constantly present itself to me throughout the course of the game and it was bothersome. Climbing up the confidant ranks of Ann, and later Makoto made me ask a question to myself over and over again. Why am i not learning more about THESE characters, but instead about Chiho and some random girl from Makoto’s class. I understand that they are being used as catalysts to show traits and ideas about their personality, but i would rather observe those traits for myself while also learning more about them. I found myself to be learning more about these characters during story cut scenes (in-game or otherwise) then i did in the confidants. And that’s a problem in my eyes.

It almost felt like they were flattening themselves like Persona Q did for the casts’ of three and four. Ann is a female model who loves sweets, cares deeply/respects herself and her friends, and can stand up for others but not so much for herself. I could’ve learned this through different scenes in the game like with different encounters of Kamoshida, the Shido cruise, and just how she carries herself. And Makoto is a whole other basket case with how shes supposed to be this “badass” who only reveals herself when she is pushed too far but she is also motherly and wants to protect what is right in her eyes. Those are the only defining traits i can think of when i think of Makoto and they are mostly shown in her Awakening scene. Maybe also when she defies her sister to download the case files and slaps her friend. Other than that, she felt very robotic to me, wanting to help this nameless individual.

We could of had a scene where Sae is worrying about her sister and wants to see one of her friends, and thinking you are the best option. She invites you (the leader of the phantom thieves) to come over. More interaction with Sae, more personal depictions of Makoto, rather than seeing the problems of someone we aren’t invested in. Or hell maybe even Akechi could show up during a confidant session. This is my first pet peeve with Persona 5. In comparison to the previous games, we learn so much more about the characters personality and problems through hangouts. Junpei isn’t a social link/confidant but we learn about his experience with Chidori and feel for him during a later confrontation (He’s a social link in Persona 3 Portable i know but im refering to three and FES). Or Kanji being a “delinquent”. We see others belittling him for his appearance and what they perceive to be his personality, but we know better as his friend. We learn about his mother and his desires through the rank ups. Moving on though.

Yusuke has one of my more favorite social links as he is overflowing with personality and (in my opinion) humor. Even if accidental, all the posing, painting and quirkyness from Yusuke is what i expected from everyone. After Madarame is taken down he goes from being defensively aggressive to shaken up and finally angry at the man he once cherished. We learn more about him both in and out of confidants, like how he doesnt have much money so he rarely gets to eat, and also didnt have a place to stay for a while (even though that was brief. I would’ve loved seeing Daytime scenes with him). He has almost a brother like relationship with Futaba Sakura, who i believe to be a well executed hermit character. For me, her backstory was very developed and believable for someone to shut themselves inside when they dont have all of the answers to a problem/life event that has become essentially the bane of their existence. Her social link developed her bond with Sojiro and shows of traits of herself through another person in a way that didnt completely focus on them instead of the person im hanging out with (*cough* Makoto *cough*)

Seriously though, I think all the characters were written well for the most part with only a few exceptions. Atlas really knows how to write their characters. Haru is actually one of my top picks for a favorite character because of how she was portrayed in having to deal with stress and how we kind of lead to the demise of her father. Though that was completely unavoidable as most things are in a supernatural franchise such as this. One last thing that urked me about the game was Akechi and how blatantly obvious the whole traitor aspect of his character was depicted. Atlas had it right with Adachi, making him one of my favorite characters in general and showing off a hopelessly Nihilistic perspective of the world when we as a player are seeing the world as happy and carefree. He didnt have a social link (until Golden), while Akechi did. The difference is that Akechi’s was progressed through story events while Adachi’s was an optional relationship that led you to learning more of his quirks earlier in the story. He could have been so much more but was thrown aside for a nameless “big bad” who we (as a player. Not the protagonist) have no relation too. I’ve seen discussions saying how Akechi could have been the one to have the River’s in the Desert battle, with a shadow realm showing his perspective of the world as a kingdom with him as the hero who protected everyone. He is the best in his own eyes and could not be defeated.

If there is one thing i hate in story telling, it is wasted potential. And Pancake Boy has a lot of that to spare. From the moment he blackmailed the Phantom Thieves to show them Nijima’s Palace (also with just how GOOD his moveset was), it made it so much more obvious he wouldn’t be a mainstay.

Those are my main comments with Persona 5, but they are mostly nitpicks compared to the grand scheme of things. I invested 200+ hours and two playthroughs into this game. My regular play through and a Fresh Merciless playthrough (with the help of a guide for 100% sake). I love this game to pieces and i wouldn’t be talking about it otherwise. Maybe there will be a P5Crimson Edition that adds more context to Akechi’s character and fixes problems other people have with the game. Maybe not. Who knows.

#Persona 5 #p5 #Persona 5 Spoilers #P5 Spoilers #goro akechi #ren amamiya #akira kusuru #ryuji sakamoto #ann takamaki #futaba sakura #haru okumura #yusuke kitagawa #morgana #atlas #NoksNonsense #Nonsensical-Rants

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krisggordon · 5 years ago

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27 Intriguing SEO Facts Exposed by Google on Webmaster Central & Hangouts

Each and every day that passes, another fact about SEO is revealed, another important tip is told, another story is learnt just by opening our email, twitter account, or our smartphone. We have the information at hand. Lots and lots of news from the internet marketing world go by our ears and our eyes. Make sure to listen to the right one.

And, speaking of important stuff, we’ve searched and scooped through the Webmaster Central Hangouts to reveal the most intriguing facts about SEO Google has ever said.

Google Webmaster Central Hangout is an important source of information you should always keep an eye on. It is available for everyone, you can send questions or address them live directly to experts, and find insights straight from Google.

You can check Google’s working hours directly on their website and listen to all recorded videos, starting with 2012, regarding all kinds of topics, offpage SEO and onpage SEO facts included. Yet, we thought you wouldn’t want to listen to all the recorded hangouts, therefore we’ve made a summary for you as we’ve curated the most interesting of them all and tackled the following:

You Can Get a Site Architecture Penalty

Mobile PageSpeed Is Not Yet a Ranking Factor

Search Console Doesn’t Count Knowledge Graph Clicks

Don’t Canonicalize Blog Pages to the Root of the Blog

Applying Multiple Hreflang Tags to One URL Is Possible

No Limit on the Number of URLs That Google Bot Can Crawl

Now You Can Get ‘Upsetting-Offensive’ Content Flag

Disavowing Is Still Necessary for a Post-Penguin Real-Time Era

URL Removal Tool Affects All Domain Variations

No Specific Limit for Keyword Density in Content

Content Duplication Penalty Doesn’t Exist

Better to Add Structured Data Directly on the Page Than Using Data Highlighter

Have Relevant URL to Rank Your Images Higher in Google

Low-Quality Pages Influence the Whole Domain Authority (DA)

Google Works With Over 150,000 Users and Webmasters Against Webspam

Google Knows Your Work Place and It Isn’t Afraid to Admit It

Personal Assistant Search Optimization (PASO) Might Be the Future of SEO

Google Search Console’s Metrics Get Fully Integrated Into Google Analytics

Object Recognition Works in Combination With Image Optimization for Better Results in Google

Google Site Search and Custom Search Within Site Will Become One

HTTPs Ensures That the Information Users See Is What the Owner of the Site Provides

URLs Should Have Less Than 1,000 Characters

You Can Have Multiple H1 Elements on a Page

New Content Should Be Linked High in the Site Architecture

Google Says It’s Ok to Have Affiliate Links

Google Will Treat Nofollow Link Attribute as a ‘Hint’

The Number of Words on a Page Is Not a Ranking Factor

1. You Can Get a Site Architecture Penalty

Does Panda take site architecture into account when creating a Panda score? was one of the questions answered on a Google Webmaster Central Hangout.

Google Panda is an algorithm that looks out to the overall quality of the website and its content. In a previous blog post, we detailed how this Google update (the Panda algorithm) can affect websites and how it could actually be a topical authority.

From a Google point of view, Google Panda is more of a general quality evaluation and it takes into account everything. The site architecture is included. If somehow it affects the quality of the site overall, you might get a Google Panda penalty for bad site architecture.

Panda penalizes websites for “low-quality sites” or “thin content sites” and aims to return results with higher-quality sites near the top of search results. Let’s say, for example, that your website has issues that affect the quality of the site, such as a bad structure – then you should take some time to improve that.

If you are in the position of making a website redesign, creating a new site from scratch or doing something similar that might affect the architecture of your website, you should take into consideration what John Mueller said.

Follow the full conversation in the next Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout with John from February 24, 2017 at 9:06:

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2. Mobile PageSpeed Is Not Yet a Ranking Factor

Recently, another intriguing question was addressed at a Google Webmaster Central Hangout:

How much emphasis does mobile PageSpeed have as a ranking factor?

John Mueller made a full disclosure about this in the next video from March 2017 (at 46:44), saying that for the moment Google doesn’t use it at all. So you’ve all found the truth, my friends, said directly by Googlers:

Mobile PageSpeed is not an index ranking factor.

As plain and simple as that.

Having a mobile Page Speed improves user experience and it is a critical web redesign consideration, but until now it hasn’t been used as an index ranking factor to generate mobile searches.

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From an SEO point of view, for the moment, Google doesn’t take it into account at all, but keeping count of mobile PageSpeed is an important SEO task you should not overlook. This way you can offer a nice experience to your users. If they are pleased, they might come back and increase your conversion rates. Invest to gain.

3. Search Console Doesn’t Count Knowledge Graph Clicks

Another intriguing fact about SEO revealed on Google Webmaster Central Hangout is that the Search Console doesn’t count Knowledge Graph sidebar clicks or impressions.

John Mueller said that:

If you look for your company’s name and it appears on the sidebar with a link that goes to your website, it isn’t counted. On the other hand, he said that sitelinks should be counted.

You can listen to his full explanation from the Google Webmaster Hangout in the next video from February 2016 at 30:15:

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4. Don’t Canonicalize Blog Pages to the Root of the Blog

Another thrilling fact about SEO revealed in a Google Webmaster Hangout was about blog pages canonicalization to the root of the blog. List to what John says on February 2017 at 16:28:

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Somebody asked if it’s a correct procedure to set up blog subpages with a canonical URL pointed to the blog’s main page as a preferred version since the subpages aren’t a true copy of the blog’s main page.

Setting up blog subpages with a canonical blog pointed to the blog’s main page it isn’t a correct set up because those pages are not an equivalent, from Google’s point of view.

And even if Google sees the canonical tag, it ignores it because it thinks it’s a webmaster’s mistake.

This method has been overly used by lots and lots of websites, but that doesn’t make it a good thing. Small or big companies make mistakes all the time.

5. Applying Multiple Hreflang Tags to One URL Is Possible

Another exciting SEO fact was unveiled after a Googler asked the next question:

Can you assign both x-default and en hreflang to the same page?

John Mueller gave a short and comprehensive explanation to this:

Yes, you can apply x-default, and en hreflang to the same page.

Also, it is possible to say to Google this is English for UK, and it is a default page. The x-default hreflang attribute doesn’t have to be a different page. Another thing you could do is to set multiple hreflang tags going to the page. For example, you can have one for UK English, Australian English, American English, and the UK English is the default one you want to use for a website.

You can take a look at the full disclosure from February 2017, starting with 21:06:

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6. No Limit on the Number of URLs That Google Bot Can Crawl

The idea that Google can crawl only 100 URLs is a myth.

That is one of the most interesting pieces of information among the facts about SEO exposed on Google Webmaster Central Hangout. Somebody asked if there is a limit to the number of URLs that Googlebot can crawl. John Mueller answered that there is no limit. See the video below from April 2017 (47:58):

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Up until now, we knew that Google could crawl a hundred pages from every website. There is no such thing. He also explained that they analyze the crawl budget. This means they try to see what and how much Google can and wants to crawl regarding the website itself.

The crawl budget topic was explained on the Google Webmaster Central Blog along with the factor that impacts this topic:

Faceted navigation and session identifiers

On-site duplicate content

Soft error pages

Hacked pages

Infinite spaces and proxies

Low quality and spam content.

7. Now You Can Get ‘Upsetting-Offensive’ Content Flag

Google’s effort to stop fake news and offer qualitative results never ends. They are rolling an on-going process of improving search value.

Paul Haahr, ranking engineer at Google, even said: “they’re explicitly avoiding the term ‘fake news,’ because it is too vague”.

Google is continuously trying to offer qualitative results and for that, they have worked with over 100,000 people to evaluate search results.

The people involved go under the name of Google search quality raters due to the fact that they conduct real studies and they are actually searching on Google to rate the quality of the pages that appear in SERP, without altering the results directly. These raters use a set of guidelines that have an entire section about the “Upsetting-Offensive” content flag that they can use.

A content could be flagged under the next circumstances:

Has content that promotes hate or violence against a group of people based on criteria including (but not limited to) race or ethnicity, religion, gender, nationality or citizenship, disability, age, sexual orientation, or veteran status.

Contains content with racial slurs or extremely offensive terminology.

Includes graphic violence.

Explicit how-to information about harmful activities (e.g., how-tos on human trafficking or violent assault).

Other types of content which fall under the upsetting or offensive category.

8. Disavowing Is Still Necessary for a Post-Penguin Real-Time Era

Another intriguing fact that Google exposed on Google Webmaster Central Hangout is the confirmation the following:

You should still use the disavow file even though Google Penguin is real time now.

John Mueller explains that if you know your website was using shady unnatural ways to generate backlinks that didn’t respect Google’s guidelines, then you need to disavow those links that could harm your website. You need to evaluate your backlink profile to see where you stand.

The intriguing question somebody asked him was “Now that Penguin runs real time would it be correct to think that if we found a few bad links on our site and disavow them, we might see a ranking improvement relatively quickly? Also, does Penguin now just devalue those low-quality links, as opposed to punish you for them?”

John Mueller declares that Google looks at the web spam on the whole website to see what decision they have to take. If you have damaging links and use the disavow file, Google will find out that you don’t want those links to be associated with you.

Google Penguin is a webspam algorithm and it doesn’t focus only on links. It decreases search rankings for those sites that violate Google’s Webmaster guidelines.

On the final base, disavowing unnatural links helps Google Penguin and it is a recommended practice. One of the facts about SEO backed up by John Mueller and Gary Illyes:

You can follow the discussion from October 2016 on the following Google Webmaster Hangout with John Mueller about this topic at 23:20:

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9. URL Removal Tool Affects All Domain Variations

Take into consideration all variations when you want to use the URL removal tool, including the www/ non-www and http/ https. This is not a fix for canonicalization.

If you’re trying to take out the HTTP version after a site move, then both HTTP and HTTPs version will be removed and it is something you definitely don’t want.

It is recommended to use the URL removal only for urgent issues, not for site maintenance.

For example, if you want to remove a page from your website, you don’t have to use the URL removal tool because over time it will disappear automatically as Google will recrawl and reindex those pages.

Listen to John Mueller’s entire dialogue from December 2016 in a Search Console Google Webmaster Central Hangout at 17:18.

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10. No Specific Limit for Keyword Density in Content

A compelling question has been quite recently asked at a Google Webmaster Hangout about the limit for keyword density in content. John Mueller gave a straightforward answer regarding this topic:

We expect content to be written naturally, so focusing on keyword density is not a good use of your time. Focusing too much on keyword density makes it look like your content is unnatural.

Also, if you stuff your content with keywords, it makes it harder for users to read and understand what your content is about. On top of that, search engines will recognize that instantly and ignore all the keywords on that page.

Instead of concentrating on the limit of keyword density in content, you should aim your attention at making your content easy to read.

Use the next trick, for a change. Try and give somebody a phone call to read the content out loud. If they understand what you said in the first 2 minutes, then you’re safe, your content could pass as natural.

11. Content Duplication Penalty Doesn’t Exist

Content duplication has been a long-debated topic.

Let’s break an SEO myth: duplicate content will bring you a Google penalty. It’s not true. It doesn’t exist. We debated this issue in a previous article as well.

Back in 2013, Matt Cutts, the former head of Google’s Webspam team, said that:

In the worst-case scenario (with spam free content), Google may just ignore duplicate content. I wouldn’t stress about this unless the content that you have duplicated is spammy or keyword stuffing. – Matt Cutts

Google tries to offer relevant results for every search query. That is why, in most cases, the results that appear in SERP are filtered, so the information isn’t shown more than once. It is not helpful for users to see two pieces of the same data on the first page.

In 2014, during a Google Webmaster Central hangout John Mueller said that Google doesn’t have a duplicate content penalty.

We won’t demote a site for having a lot of duplicate content – John Mueller

It was confirmed on June 2016, when Andrey Lipattsev, senior Google search quality strategist, repeated and said content duplication penalty doesn’t exist.

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But you could get a penalty if you manipulate Google’s guidelines and create content in an automated way, content that is scraped from multiple locations and that doesn’t serve another purpose than generating traffic.

12. Better to Add Structured Data Directly on the Page Than Using Data Highlighter

The submitted question on this topic was the following:

Is is better to use the Data Highlighter from Search Console or it is better to add up markup from the web page? What’s the best practice?

John Mueller says it’s a great option to use and try out structured data. There are sites with content that needs to have structured data and Data Highlighter is an easy way to test it out.

Structured data implementation on your page and not through the Data Highlighter is something that needs a lot of attention. Yet, it is the recommended procedure if you think of the long-term perspective. Markup data is available for everyone. You can see if it’s implemented correctly and, more importantly, you don’t have to worry about it.

If you marked your content for each element, then when you change your layout, for example, your data will be shown properly. As for Data Highlighter, it has to learn that change.

You can listen to the whole explanation in the next Google Webmaster Hangout from April 2017 (starting with 46.04):

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13. Have Relevant URL to Rank Your Images Higher in Google

Another important fact we’ve figured out from Google Webmaster Central Hangout is about the impact of the URL of an image in Google. Can it help Google understand better what an image is about?

And here is what Google had to say about this:

We do look at the URL for images specifically and we try to use that for ranking, but if the URL is irrelevant for that query and nobody is searching for that term, it doesn’t help Google.

The main point is that Google looks at the URL when ranking images. It is an important step because Google aims to deliver qualitative results. The correlation between the domain name and the query is highly significant. It is an effective SEO tactic you could apply.

SEO Friendly URLs can ultimately lead to higher perceived relevance, leading back to an edge from a SEO perspective. And we know this for a fact, from a study conducted by us on 34k keywords. Here is what John had to say about this on February 2017, at 40:17:

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Let’s say that the title name of a URL is 123 and the image is about flowers. In this situation, the URL won’t disappear because of its irrelevant file name but there might be a problem here on how and for what query that image will show.

Even though Google is becoming smarter and smarter at object recognition, we still need to help it by offering descriptive information about that image (follow the guidelines from point 20 on this matter).

SEO Friendly URLs are a must when we talk about content, images or any other types of information on your website. It is important to offer a higher importance when naming your files; an SEO fact also backed up by Matt Cutts.

14. Low-Quality Pages Influence the Whole Domain Authority (DA)

Another interesting fact about SEO that Google debated on Google Webmaster Central Hangouts was whether low-quality pages influence Domain Authority.

The exact question addressed to Google’s representatives was “Can low-quality pages on the site affect the overall authority?”

In general, when the Google algorithm looks at a website, it also takes into consideration individual pages.

You can find more on this subject in the following Google Webmaster Hangout from March 2017 at 10:05:

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Let’s say you have a small website. If you have bad quality links on a website, then it could affect the domain authority. On the contrary, if you have a large site and only a sprinkle of bad pages, then the damage is not so big. Google understands that, in a bigger picture, those pages aren’t the main issue.

The main pain point is that low-quality pages affect the way Google views the website overall and this is something you should fix either way.

Find a solution for that pages. You could either remove them or try to improve their quality.

15. Google Works With Over 150,000 Users and Webmasters Against Webspam

Among the most interesting facts about SEO that Google exposed on Google Webmaster Hangout is the way Google fought spammers in searches. Webspam is a persistent problem in our days. It fired an alarm signal when they saw the data in the most recent SEO statistics report, published afterward on the blog.

In 2016, there was a 32% increase of hacked sites compared to 2015.

But now, with the help of users, the problem of spam Google search results is being stopped. Last year, Google started working with users, besides webmasters, to improve the quality of SERP, to clean it of spammy websites and to make it a safe web environment.

The Webmaster Central stuff managed to work with over 150,000 website owners, webmasters and digital marketers against webspam. Also, users tackled webspam by helping Googlers.

Approximately 180,000 spam reports were submitted by users around the world, as we spotted on Google Webmaster Central Blog.

Besides making Google Penguin live and improving the algorithm to take actions against webspam, the webmasters from the spam department at Google performed manual reviews on sites’ structured data markup and took manual action on more than 10,000 sites that did not meet the quality guidelines and followed black hat SEO techniques.

16. Google Knows Your Work Place and It Isn’t Afraid to Admit It

Nowadays, we take our smartphone everywhere. It’s like it’s attached to our hand because we have a lot of information on the phone. We are logged into email, we have easily access to our accounts, to our contacts and we can easily find everything we want with a quick search on Google even if we walk or ride.

Google Assistant makes it easier to search and find what we want by offering us the possibility to make voice searches and personalize our content on Android, even when we’re offline.

We’ve debated the voice search topic leisurely on a previous blog post I invite you to browse.

With this feature you can take lots of actions on your phone and on Google search:

Find contacts call, email, send messages on social apps (Facebook, Twitter, etc).

Set different actions on your personal phone (set alarm, turn on NFC, turn on Bluetooth, brightness, take a picture).

Organize your calendar and see future events or schedule a meeting.

Open apps you have on your smartphone.

Listen to songs.

On a more complex level, you could ask the Google Assistant questions such as “what do I have to do today?”, “How long will it take to go from Princeton to New York?”, “Book a table at East Restaurant”.

You can see the personalized touch on your phone if you search in Apps for a person, task, event and so on. You’ll find the results for that specific query from all your installed apps (as you can see in the picture above).

17. Personal Assistant Search Optimization (PASO) Might Be the Future of SEO

PASO comes from Personal Assistant Search Optimization. PASO might be the future of SEO because mobiles undergo a continuous development, now with the Google Assistant and the AMP feature for mobile optimization.

Google is trying to simplify the search process and to make it as easy as possible to get the information you want with fewer taps on your mobile device.

An important aspect why PASO might be the future is due to the fact that it offers personalized information for each user. It is an important aspect to keep in mind for getting improved search engine rankings.

Google Assistant is the quickest and easiest way to get your hands on the information. It doesn’t matter if you ask for a receipt, for explanations/definitions, for directions. See the example below:

You ask and Google Assistant gives you the information in a heartbeat. It is more likely that the personal assistant result has a higher CTR, because it is tailored to your answer and it’s the only one you see comparing with the results from search engines. And besides that, it offers you suggestions related to your previous search.

If you want to get featured on Google Assistant you need to make sure you answer a question and your piece of content is optimized for humans.

You should follow the same steps as optimizing your content for ranking number zero. One way would be to ask the question and then answer it. This way you take a shot to get displayed in the answer box.

18. Google Search Console’s Metrics Get Fully Integrated Into Google Analytics

The Google Search Console helps webmasters manage the way their websites appear in SERP and Google Analytics helps users to integrate services like Webmaster, Adwords, and other tools to see results based on the source (paid search, organic search result).

Along the years, users could link Google Webmaster tools with Analytics, but they could see the results separately, in different sections. The Search Console results appeared in Google Analytics under the Acquisition section, as you can see in the next screenshot (this option is still available):

In the old version, you could only see how users came on the website and not what they did once they got there. Now, with the next improvement, webmasters can see all the metrics in one place and make decisions based on the data combined with those two tools.

You have access to the Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions data in one place. Due to this update, you could have many more possibilities to use the search data, as mentioned on the on Google Webmaster Central Blog:

discover the most engaging landing pages that bring visitors through organic search;

discover the landing pages with the highest engagement but with low attractions of visitors through organic search;

detect the best ranking queries for each landing page;

segment organic performance for each device in the new Device report.

19. Object Recognition Works in Combination with Image Optimization for Better Results in Google

The question that popped out in another Google Webmaster Central Hangout was:

Google is getting better and better at object recognition. Does this means that we no longer need to optimize our images description with descriptive files names, alt tags, title tags, etc.?

Having optimized images is a good indication for getting improved search engine rankings.

At this moment, we still need to optimize our images in order to rank as high as possible.

We won’t have to do that, maybe in the future. For the time being, having a relevant file name, alt description, title tag, caption on the image will help Google understand. Also, the text around the image helps Google understand what that page is about and what it needs to rank for.

Maybe in the future, 5-10 years from now, if things go very well, all that information won’t be necessary, but for now optimizing images helps object recognition to offer better results.

You can listen to the whole conversation on intriguing facts about SEO in the next video from February 2017, at 13:07:

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20. Google Site Search and Custom Search Within Site Will Become One

Do you know if Google Site Search is going to shut down and transfer to Custom Search? What’s the impact?

It’s about that special site search you can set up and search within your website. You can see how it looks like in the example below:

The Custom Search is quite similar as you can see in the next screenshot:

Google Site Search will combine with Custom Search because they do almost similar things. Site Search is used for one website and Custom Search can be used on different sites or just one.

You can also listen to what John Mueller from Google says about this change on February 2017, even though he isn’t directly working on this project (32:32):

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21. HTTPs Ensures That the Information Users See Is What the Owner of the Site Provides

Another interesting SEO fact debated on Google Webmaster Central Hangout was about how relevant HTTPs is as a ranking factor for sites with information only.

The official response from Google is that:

HTTPs is relevant for any types of website. It doesn’t matter if the site has information only; it is still relevant. HTTPs doesn’t apply only for encrypting information like credits cards and passwords, but it also ensures that the information users see is what the owner of the website is providing.

An overly used technique to hack takes place in hotels, airports, cafes or, in general, other public spaces that offer free wi-fi access. They can take a look at the HTTP pages and add a tracking information or ads on those pages because the owner of the website failed to increase the security system. I bet that nobody wants spammy ads on their website, even if it’s informational only.

HTTPs helps users to see the content that was meant to be shown.

More on this matter you can find in the video below (56:30) registered on February 2017:

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22. URLs Should Have Less Than 1,000 Characters

In July 2019, John Mueller recommended keeping URLs under a thousand characters. While you might think that’s not much, consider the fact that sub-folders can greatly expand the length of a URL. Moreover, studies showed that shorter URLs carry lots of SEO advantages. A concise URL can help you have a higher position in the search results hierarchy. Plus, it will come in handy for users that are casual and don’t bother remembering the name.

The URLs should be short enough to be easily recognized.

You can review the full answer in the next recording of the Webmaster Central Hangouts:

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23. You Can Have Multiple H1 Elements on a Page

John Mueller said that you can have as many H1 tags as you want on a single page. If you have ever thought that adding a single h1 tag on a single page is the recommended way to proceed, well you should know that you can heave multiples headings. Don’t worry about that matter.

As many as you want.

— John (@JohnMu) April 12, 2017

If you look at the following video, you can find out the explanation, too.

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With HTML5, it is not a problem to have multiple H1’s. It is common to have them in different parts of the page, in your website’s template, theme or other sections. Whether you have HTML5 or not, it is completely fine to use multiple heading tags of the same type on a page.

On the other side, having no h1 tag on a page is a problem and it should be fixed. That means you have pages without the main heading, and both Google and the user wouldn’t know what it’s about.

Did you know?

The Site Audit from cognitiveSEO automatically classifies the headings and shows you all the related issues .

Add the website to audit and the tool will extract information regarding indexability, content (title, headings, duplicate pages, thin content canonical pages, mixed content, images), architecture, mobile and performance. In the Content section you‘ll get a list with all the headings types and graphs with information from you site.

24. New Content Should Be Linked High in the Site Architecture

A well-structured architecture can change the faith of your website drastically. Web crawlers, like Googlebot, crawl the website architecture. The goal is to index the content and return it in the search results.

Sometimes, crawlers can’t discover your pages and you need to help them. Google admits that sometimes it doesn’t seem to be finding all the pages on your site. It can happen because it can’t crawl them, or it can’t understand them properly to index those pages.

To help Google index and crawl it, make sure you have a sitemap and new content is linked high up in the site architecture. Anything that you want to push a little bit in the search results, it will definitely help Google if you add it higher in the site architecture.

John Mueller recommends that it is the correct way to do it.

What also makes a big difference for us, especially if your Homepage is really important for your website, is that newer content is linked pretty high within the structure of your website, so maybe even on your Homepage. John mueller Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google

You can find the full script below:

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25. Google Says It’s Ok to Have Affiliate Links

The question that popped into one of the latest Google Webmasters Tools discussed the need for affiliate links and the correct way to mark them. Google considers affiliate links to have a commercial background since you’re trying to make some money pointing to a distributor or somebody that you trust.

John Mueller confirms it:

From our point of view, it is perfectly fine to have affiliate links. That’s a way of monetizing your website. We except that these links are marked appropriately so that we understand that those are affiliate links. John Mueller Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google

An option would be to use the rel =”nofollow” or use the newest rel=“sponsored”. The sponsored rel link attribute was introduced a few days ago to mark links that were created as part of advertising, sponsorships or similar agreements.

The additional attributes (rel=“sponsored” and rel=“ugc” – for user-generated content) are meant to help Google understand the nature of links:

Links contain valuable information that can help us improve search, such as how the words within links describe content they point at. Looking at all the links we encounter can also help us better understand unnatural linking patterns. By shifting to a hint model, we no longer lose this important information, while still allowing site owners to indicate that some links shouldn’t be given the weight of a first-party endorsement. Google

Follow the whole explanation from John in the next video:

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26. Google Will Treat Nofollow Link Attribute as a ‘Hint’

As of March 2020, Google will treat all link attributes, be them sponsored, user-generated and nofollow as a hint for ranking purposes. For crawling and indexing purposes all those links will become hints. That means Google might count a link as credit, consider it as part of spam analysis or for other ranking purposes.

The company is making the change to better identify link schemes while still considering the link attribute signals.

For example, if we see that a website is engaging in large scale link selling, then that’s something where we might take manual action, but for the most part, our algorithms just recognize that these are links we don’t want to count then we don’t count them. John mueller Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google

27. The Number of Words on a Page Is Not a Ranking Factor

Somebody from the Google Webmaster Central Office Hours Hangouts said that YouTube should be removed from search results:

Please remove YouTube form Google search results. Let websites compete with websites. It’s not fair when I write a 4,000-word article covering every aspect of a topic and then get over ranked by a 500-word article just because this website has more authority.

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The fact that Google offers different types of content for a search query means diversity. There are different ways of finding relevant content to each individual user. The number of words on a page doesn’t necessarily reflect relevancy for a search query.

John says that the number of words of a page is not a factor they use for ranking. It doesn’t matter if you have 4,000 words on a single webpage and somebody else has 500 words, your page won’t be automatically more relevant than another page. john mueller Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google

Rather than focusing on the number of words, consider the quality of your content. Instead of writing an extra article, make sure that all the content on your site is of the highest quality possible.

Conclusion

Take into account these SEO facts, as they will be helpful in planning your search engine optimization strategy, content marketing strategy or in any decision you take for your business and your website regarding the online marketing area. It’s a win win relationship: you will be updated with the SEO news and (hopefully) you will do things respecting the Google recommendations. And you can stay connected really easy: check the Google webmaster central office hours and see what’s going on.

Of course, keeping track off ALL the hangouts can be a burden. This is why, the previous 21 SEO stats are important for each webmaster and shouldn’t be ignored. On the long run, don’t lose focus on your plan and stick to your goals. These videos can help everyone, both rookies and SEO experts alike. They are quite a juicy resource, from keyword research, content creation, link building to other effective SEO strategies and SEO tactics.

Having organic clicks from organic searches is still an important advantage in the lead generation path. These intriguing facts about SEO can be applied in the social media marketing strategy and in the whole inbound marketing process as well as in any other strategies, as long as you have an online presence.

Furthermore, other domains can positively influence your SEO efforts, if you’ve done your job right. If you follow the previous tips for boosting SEO you could have a good chance to succeed.

The post 27 Intriguing SEO Facts Exposed by Google on Webmaster Central & Hangouts appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

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wjwilliams29 · 5 years ago