#welp. now we have Totally not already used this information to make a AU and just remembered abt it nope not at all lol

[eel-divad]

(Thats right! black dahlias do mean betrayal/sadness!)

Hhmmh.. here, just take the basket and choose one yourself! :]

You were handed a basket, full to the brim with multiple flowercrowns.

Mm..

[Dave looked at the basket for a whole his hand picking up one with Black dahlias]

This one if that's quite alright.

[joyfulhopelox]

"Right now i don’t know if i want to kiss you or shove you off this building" End

A/N: welp i delayed it as much as possible because life happened and i had no time to do this, but i have managed to finish it whilst procrastinating at work (i advise against that to be honest), part 2 (or the end of this library saga) was meant to be out earlier :( i am pretty sure i wrote most of this high on sleep deprivation but i still hope it is enjoyable to read <3

Picture not mine but i cannot find the owner to credit ><

Part 1 | Part 2(end)

genre: fluff (x100) a tiny bit of angst if you use a binocular, University! au/ College!au

Copyrights @joyfulhopelox do NOT repost

Pairing: J-Hope x reader (College!AU/ University!AU can also call it idiots2lovers au?)

Word count: 4.3k words

Warnings: there one bad word towards the end, if you find libraries to give you a panic attack (i know i did when i was in the midst of exams) be warned and i’m still bad at writing fluff but here we go

-

“I’m Y/N by the way” you looked up in time to see him smile.

“I know”

Ever since that night, you and Hoseok have developed a pattern, you would meet in that spot at odd times in the night and work quietly.

That pattern went on for the last few weeks of your exam period, day after day, or should you say night after night you would rush to the library, albeit telling yourself it was not for the sake of the handsome man with sunshine in his smile and stars in his eyes.

You had to study, and the space that he had revealed to you was convenient and quiet, tucked away from the rest of the prying eyes. Just you and him on that windowsill under the night time sky. As much as you wanted to berate yourself for becoming so mushy, you knew that from the moment he grabbed your hand and took you to that spot trying to carry a conversation with you but immediately going quiet under your glare that your heart had given in. Bit by bit, even if sitting in silence quietly doing your own work your heart had warmed up under his blinding smile. The warmth of his eyes as they would catch your wandering ones did nothing but make your breath catch in your throat and your heart beat at a thousand miles per hour.

You knew you had it bad.

How could you not? After the first few minutes of him having taken you to that spot your annoyance had disappeared into the night below you, leaving room for the feelings of companionship and comfort that Hoseok’s presence brought with him. A week later, as you had started sharing information between the two of you, hushed and secretive as if anyone would be able to hear it, those feelings were replaced by something warmer and softer than companionship and comfort, something akin to safety and friendship. Now as the calendar marks the monthly mark of having met him you realise as you stare at the empty space near the window that it has bloomed into a full fledged....crush.

With feelings of panic raging inside of you, unsure whether they sparked because of your discovery or because the man in question was missing from his usual spot again. The first time even though you had felt the small stab of disappointment you did not think much of it. After all he was not tied to being there every night, maybe he had places to be, other people to spend time with. For a second you allowed a slither of jealousy to pass through your heart thinking that someone else was getting that warm smile for the night, and in the next second you told yourself you are stupid and shrugged it off. That feeling of jealousy never returned, instead it was morphing more and more into worry. The second night he did not appear you wracked your brain for any information that he may have given you that you may have missed about him not being able to come anymore but you could not find anything. In fact, you could not even recall if he has told you what he does outside of your impromptu study sessions. Worry starts gnawing at your stomach after the third and fourth day that he doesn’t come. Even worse is the desperation that takes over when you not only realise you knew very little about Hoseok, but you did not even have a way of contacting him. Briefly chatting about likes, dislikes, dreams and wishes is nothing tangible, nothing that could give you any information on how you could reach out to him and check he is alright.

The fifth and sixth night you start giving up and assume that he has finished his exams and he does not need to study anymore. With a heavy heart you tell yourself he did not owe you anything, he more than made up for stealing your seat that one time. The time you two spent together in silence studying or the times you would secretly bring your heads closer together so that you could whisper random things and share jokes with one another in the silence of the night.

This created an intimacy which you couldn’t lie to yourself, it made you feel fuzzy inside. That elatedness of being so close to this person however, once they had removed themselves from you switched to an empty feeling as if you’ve lost something that you held dear. And maybe you did hold him dear. No, you definitely did.

But he did not arrive, by day seven you had steeled yourself against the tumultuous feelings inside your chest. He was not coming and your exams were not going to pass themselves. The seat by the window did not seem as magical or appealing anymore and thus you also removed yourself from it. Being the end of exam period, multiple departments had already finished theirs and so you found copious amounts of spaces that you did not hesitate to occupy. Trying to get your mind off of the now lonely seat by the window upstairs you threw yourself into your work but once in a while you could not stop yourself from wondering if he ever came back to check whether you were still there or not.

And so, another week has passed and with that it added to another two weeks you had not seen Jung Hoseok. But that was ok.

Until that one fateful day where you had finished your exams and were preparing to finish writing your last assignment which was due in the late afternoon. It was not a night time study session but instead a daytime one. Today would also be the last day you set foot inside the library for the foreseeable future. After today you would have another few days until your break and you had been planning to head home to visit friends and family. Next term you would switch accommodation as well on a different campus which housed its own library. So all in all, today marked the last day of you being in this library for the next year. It also marked the last day you may possibly ever have the chance to see Hoseok again. That thought made you pause in your step and your heart clench for a second. That just did not seem right. It doesn’t matter, you told yourself and kept walking towards the back of the second floor.

Just as you’d finished that thought, as if life had been trying to prove to you that it did matter, or maybe it had been your heart that had conjured him in front of you, there stood Hoseok. Talking with another guy with similar striking features, and yet the total opposite. Whereas Hoseok had dark hair and sharp features this guy had ash blonde hair, was a bit shorter and had a soft look about him. And yet he seemed broodier than Hoseok who seemed to be smiling and laughing at something. You wanted to be angry, and you were, but seeing him smiling so freely released the fist that seemed to have been holding your lungs and it felt like you could breathe easier. He was fine at least, nothing’s happened to him. That did not mean that you would acknowledge his presence. After all, he’s decided that your friendship and companionship was not something he was interested in anymore so you would not force it on him. Steeling your nerves for when you would pass by him, you tried to keep your gaze ahead of you as much as you could, but luck would not have it and his friend’s chuckle made you pause in your step and your brain to react. And so your eyes turned involuntarily towards the two.

You knew that when you had asked him to sit with you on the first day that you had met, you would either make the best decision of your life or the worst. As soon as your eyes locked onto his widened ones, you had decided- it had been the worst mistake of your life.

The clench in your chest is a reminder of the feelings you developed for this person. With his cheerful personality a great contrast of the seriousness with which he treated heavy issues and listened to your problems, it did not take long for your heart to warm up to him.

Eyes locked onto each other it felt like an eternity when in reality it had just been a couple of seconds, before you got pulled out of your thoughts by Hoseok’s friend calling for his attention. Quickly looking away from him as to not rouse suspicion in your own group of friends you missed the furrowed brows and pained look he gave you before his smile took over as he turned towards his companion.

“Is everything ok?” you heard his friend ask. You wish you had not been as close to them as you had been, you had no intention of hearing Hoseok’s reply, but it rang loud and clear in your head.

“Yeah, i just remembered something important.”

That had been a couple of hours ago, and yet his words still rang in your head. You could not understand what he had meant by that. Did he mean you? Did he suddenly remember something else and he did not recognise you? As impossible as you knew that to be, your confused heart kept yelling that the latter was the case. Sighing for the hundredth time you tried to pull your attention back to the last piece of work that kept you away from freedom but it proved to be impossible.

‘I am going to look for a book’ you told your friend who shooed you away, if only for her own piece of mind and quietness. You had been sighing so loudly that you had annoyed everyone around you.

Walking through the shelves perusing for a book- any book, reminded you of that night from weeks ago. Right now that night seemed quite distant and the elated feeling you used to get whilst browsing the shelves was no longer there anymore. Now you were lost in thought, your eyes not focusing on anything really. Randomly grabbing a book without even glancing at the title you prepared to move along and return back to your friends.

You were so lost in thought you almost missed the low whisper of someone calling your name. Your daze now broken and assuming it was one of your friends who’d decided you had been missing for too long, you turned around. Only to discover that it had not been one of your friends- well he was, but you did not know if you had the right to call him that anymore. Most importantly you did not know whether or not your heart had the courage to call him that anymore. Wishing you’d ignored him but now being too late you hummed in acknowledgement praying that you sounded disinterested instead of hurt.

“Hey” he whispered.

“Hello”

After the awkward greeting he did not carry on talking to you and you made no move to carry on with pleasantries. Instead he stood on the spot, his ebony eyes scanning your defensive form. You tried to reciprocate his stare if only to make up for the fact that your shoulders involuntarily hunched and your chin started to slightly quiver. You thought you could act in a civil manner and yet, your body language was saying something completely different. Unable to hold his inquisitive gaze any longer you lower your head and sigh. You were not in the mood to try to chat to someone who clearly has no interest in your person, and pretending would only cause more harm. And yet, when a low indiscernible sound made its way out of his mouth, your eyes snapped back onto him as quickly as they could, hoping and praying that this was it. He would finally say something to you.

He smiled at you uncertainly. ‘Here we are again’ he cleared his throat. You did not know if it was the tone of his voice which read nothing or if it was the way he kept gazing at you. Gentle and sympathetic, as if you would break if anything short of a breeze would touch you. Maybe you would break, if the anger that took over your system was any indication of your haphazard feelings. Looking at Hoseok incredulously you tried to reign your anger in.

“What?”

“You- uhm you stole my book” he motioned to the book you had been carelessly swinging around in an attempt to protect yourself from any attempt of his approaching you. His change in attitude and uncertain tone almost made you miss the reference he was trying to make.

Instead of coming back with a witty reply, as he’d been expecting, your brain frazzled. You did the only thing you could do in this situation. You sputtered an i’m sorry and immediately handed the book to him preparing to leave his immediate vicinity.

Sensing your hesitancy and seeing your distraught face made his heart drop. Had he done something wrong? As hurt as he was for you ignoring him, he cared so he worried about you more than he did about his feelings.

“Hey, you ok?” he inquired and your body froze on the spot. You could have very easily chosen to ignore him and his question, keep walking, out of the library, out of his life. And yet, something stopped you. You needed an explanation, it was killing you on the inside. You would have tried to carry on without thinking about him for months before you’d manage to go back to some semblance of normalcy. But why waste those months wallowing in what ifs. Why not hear it straight from him.

“Where were you?” not one for pleasantries still you turned around and grimaced at his confused expression.

“What do you mean where was i? I told you where i would be” he responded, his brows furrowing. “No you didn’t” you insisted crossing your arms in front of you as if in an attempt to cover your weakness. “I haven’t got a clue what you are talking about, i haven’t seen you here in weeks” trying to tone down the desperation in your voice you blurted out the first words that came to mind, only to regret that decision a moment later.

“That is because i have not been in here in weeks” he had the nerve to look sheepish.

“And you have the nerve to tell me i would know where you were?” he opened his mouth to reply but you carried on, not trusting yourself to be able to get your thoughts and feelings out in the open at a later date. “ I waited to talk to you, i wanted to talk to you….no, i needed to talk to you. And because of that my past few weeks of exams have been spent thinking about whether or not i should go look for you or if i should just give up and leave a….”

Note!

Realisation dawned on you, he had tried to reach out to you. In the only way he could, considering that you had not shared any personal contacts with each other. He had left a note, just as you have done. And just as before, the note had probably fallen down in a place where you had completely missed it. Not responding to him, you grabbed his hand trying to ignore the feeling of coming home that it gave you and headed for the lifts. Pushing the button towards your tower you shushed him as soon as he tried to say your name.

“Where exactly are we going?” you would have laughed at the repetitiveness of the situation if not for the slight anger at your own stupidity and embarrassment at the fact that you had not let go of his hand and you did not intend to. It seemed like neither was he.

Reaching the tower, you headed straight for the window you had called yours and Hoseok’s up until a few months ago. Coming to an abrupt stop, causing Hoseok to bump into your back you turned around and finally addressed him. “We’re both idiots” you chuckled to yourself.

He observed you for a few seconds, his dark eyes taking in every little detail of your features as if committing them to memory before finally coming to settle onto your own eyes. Staring at each other you couldn’t take his gaze anymore so you turned around, figuring that you may just as well look for the note that had been left for you to miss apparently.

Scouring the area and only turning around once you found the crumpled piece of paper in between the foot of the desk you had been using and the wall. “What are you doing?” he tried again taking steps closer to you until he was a step away from bumping into your form. Looking around he motioned behind him, “I thought you said you’d never come back here” then he looked back at you pleadingly, “or talk to me again” he whispered the last part as if it was the biggest of his fears. And maybe it was, for you it definitely was. You did not need to tell him you’d made a huge mistake in anger when you’d said that.

Waving the note around you smiled at him. “We’re idiots” you motioned to the note and finally opened it. As your eyes skimmed through you could feel the smile slipping off your face and the sting of the gathering tears. “Idiot” you whispered to yourself.

“Ah” he was so close to you now, if you tried hard enough you could feel the heat emanating from him. As he talked, his breath fanned the hair that had fallen onto your face. He was close enough that you were sure he could hear the pumping of your heart, your breath hitched. Not daring to look at him, you stared at the note, your hands starting to tremble.

‘Dear Y/N,

I have tried my best to write the best confession I could, but i am afraid i am not able to express myself in the ways i wish i could. These past few weeks have been a struggle for me to not blurt out something that could have prematurely ended what friendship we have formed over a stolen study space. I do not have the courage to say this to your face so i will write it down here in hopes that by the time i meet you again the embarrassment would have passed.

I told you i cannot express myself properly, as i am writing this my hands are sweating and my mind is in chaos. I find it very difficult to not act like an idiot when i think about you, let alone when i see you or speak to you. To be able to convey my feelings in person seems impossible so here i go….

I like you. I like you a lot.

There it is, but please give it a few days. I will stop coming here for now so that i can gather myself for your response and lets meet again in the cafe next to the library in 3 days.

Yours,

Jung Hoseok’

“So you did not find it in the end” he mused not moving away from you. “ That is understandable considering that we seem to have been in this situation before” he softly chuckled. You would have stopped to consider how lovely that sound was if not for the fact that you were still frozen on the spot, your brain calculating how long it’s been since that note had been left there. A sense of excitement then washed over you. He liked you! He shared your feelings. But that was to be washed soon by the sense of dread, it’s been weeks. And you had not fulfilled his request of meeting him, has everything changed now? Would things be different? Would he resent you for not meeting him there in the first place?

“Hey- look at me” he softly tried to coax you, noticing the slow trickle of tears running down your face. Refusing to do so, you shook your head trying to get yourself together. You would face this with your head up, not crying and taking responsibility for missing his note.

“Look at me, please” a gentle finger lifted your head up by the chin. Your stubbornness prevailed, your refusal to look at him still strong. You closed your eyes tightly, willing your tears to subside. A soft touch underneath your eyelids made you gasp softly, the warmth of his fingertips trailing over the tracks your tears have made. The fleeting touch coaxed your eyes to finally open, your blurry vision taking in the affectionate look on his face.

“There you go” he smiled fondly, never in a million years had he thought he’d get the chance to be so close to you in such an intimate manner. The late nights you had shared together, whereas you were sitting closely together you were always divided by a desk. He tried his hardest throughout that period of time to not blurt out his feelings for you, if only to not make it awkward. Unfortunately, as nights went by and you two got closer and closer together, it became too much for him. He knew he had to say something before he imploded and blurted out how cute you looked when you were struggling to not bite the end of your pen in concentration. He tried to be brave and do it in person for a couple of nights in a row, only to chicken out every time you would share a smile with him or laugh at one of his jokes. So he decided he’s not going to tell you in person, he is going to write you a letter and leave it on the desk, in the memory of the first time you’d met.

He should have known though, the first time you’d met was because of a note disappearance disaster. And whereas that had worked in his favour, this time it had not. He’d written- if you could call that blurb writing, the note and waited for a couple of days to prepare himself for your response. He knew it would not be a positive one. And when he ended up waiting in the cafe the whole day with no word from you, he became even more uncertain. Sadness came first, then panic. Not once had he considered that maybe, maybe you haven't seen the note. Really stupid of him.

He could not go back to the library after your refusal to meet him in the cafe, or what he thought was your refusal. That decision seemed to further the misunderstandings between the two of you. You thought he was avoiding you and he thought you did not want to see him at all after finding out about his feelings. Right now though, staring at your tear ridden face he knew your answer, there was no doubt about it.

Laughing in relief he cupped your face. “We have indeed both been idiots, should have known history would repeat itself”

You knew it was now or never. “Is it too late?” Your meek voice reached his ears and he tried his best not to laugh and present you with the most serious face he could muster. Whilst still cupping your face he rubbed the remnant tears that were threatening to leave salt marks on your cheek. Your focus now solely on him and on his expression, you gulped. He was going to say…

“Yes” you closed your eyes again, suddenly feeling a cold shiver gripping your whole body. You had feared that would be the answer, but hearing it from his mouth whilst his eyes were giving nothing away but a mirror of your own pained eyes. You told yourself you would be brave and take the responsibility. But being faced with the decision of having to let him go for good you could not stand it. “I’m sorry” you whispered, lowering your head in shame. “Is there nothing I can do?”

A last desperate attempt but you had to try.

Feeling him move a step away from you, your heart clenched in panic.

“Yes, we lost too much time. You could give me an answer now?” He tried, this time confident in your response.

A myriad of feelings cursing through you at the same time. Shock, relief, happiness; and all from his words. “Idiot, right now I don’t know if I want to kiss you or shove you of this building” you gave out a short laugh.

Hoseok was slowly closing the distance between the two of you once again. A shit eating grin plastered all over his face he cupped your face once again and lowered his head to yours until all you could see were his soft lips and all you could feel was his warm breath on your face. Slowly descending onto yours, lips finally meeting in a brief kiss only making you crave more. But as you went to respond he pulled away, the grin still present.

“How about I make that decision for you?”

You laughed and grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket pulling him to you once again this time in a longer kiss.

A/N: I am not going to lie i think i struggled at the end but thank you for reading this if you have reached this point :) when work stops killing me i will try to post the moodboard i created for this and for future fics that i will be writing, i'm treating my journal as my moodboard for writing inspo instead of actual journalling and i find it more fun and enjoyable that way

Main Masterlist

[musings-from-mars]

Welp, part 5 is a must now

Freelance Love Triangle AU - Part 5

Blake wasn’t sure why she’d been so curious about hard seltzer when she already knew she hated sparkling water. But here she was drinking what vaguely suggested that it might be cherry flavored, yet Ruby seemed to like hers, and Blake had already said she liked it. Gotta finish it now…

Cinder was right about it being quaint. Blake usually shied away from late night trips to the bar because the ones she’d been to were the “loud music, pick up chicks” types. This, however, was more easy going, softer music and people here to chat with friends more than anything else. And since it was a weekday evening, it wasn’t very busy (also a rare treat for a city like Vale).

The three of them sat at the bar, the bow tie and vest wearing barman leisurely drying a glass with a fiber cloth as he handed Cinder her cheap glass of red wine. Blake wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, maybe that Cinder would order something from higher in the big wooden cabinet behind the bar, perhaps to show off her sophisticated tastes. But no, it was just a glass from an already opened bottle of something dark and astringent. At least she was being seemingly authentic.

Blake needed the occasional reminders that Cinder wasn’t the highbrow, high class villainess she made her out to be in her head. She was Blake’s coworker and made no more than she did. Maybe Blake just had a complex, imagining her as an opponent. And Ruby was the prize she felt like they were warring over.

I’m a fucking piece of shit. And dumb. She took another sip of alcohol soda water, accepting it as her punishment.

“Want a taste?” Cinder asked Ruby, sliding her glass to her.

The photographer eyed the dark red liquid skeptically, but she grabbed the stem of the glass anyway. “I’ll try.” She took the smallest of sips, then came away with an expression like she had just bitten into a lemon. “Heghhh…”

Cinder giggled, seeming to be genuinely amused. “It’s an acquired taste.”

Blake reached over, but looked to Cinder for permission to try. Cinder noticed, and for half a second seemed surprised, but then she smiled and nodded. Blake took a sip, and yep, it felt like all the moisture had been zapped from her mouth the moment the wine passed her tongue. She slid the glass back to Cinder. “I don’t think I’ll acquire it.”

Cinder rolled her eye, but continued to smile. Blake took a drink of her seltzer. At least now she knew it could be worse.

“So, uhm…” Ruby began, pausing to sip her drink. “When did you two, like…how’d you become writers.”

Blake looked across to Cinder, and Cinder went first. “It wasn’t my plan initially, but I eventually figured out that I wanted to write for a living. But I didn’t figure that out until I was a third year physics student at my university. Had an identity crisis, had a financial crisis, had a crisis crisis, I’m a journalist now.” She punctuated that with a sip of wine, and both Ruby and Blake laughed. “Blake had a slightly less stressful go at it, if I remember correctly.”

Blake blushed at that, but nodded in agreement. “College was the easy part. It was the after college part that was hard. Urban Valean is, like, the fifth publication I’ve written for in the past two years and it’s the first one I’ve actually enjoyed.”

“I can agree with that,” Cinder added.

“Huh.” Ruby bowed her head a bit. “So I kinda got lucky, huh?”

“Got lucky because of the magazine you’re working for? Or lucky because you’re working with us?” Cinder asked. Blake felt her face warm, both because of Cinder’s obvious flirting, but also because of her use of the word “us.”

Ruby chuckled bashfully and shrugged. Cute. “Both, I guess. You two are really cool, and…nowhere near as mean as I was worried you would be.”

“You thought we’d be mean?” Blake asked, concerned.

Ruby’s back straightened and she shook her head. “I mean, uhh…not you two specifically! I just mean, like, I always imagined I’d get teased, or like, not taken seriously at my first gig. But I liked you both pretty much right away. I’m really enjoying working on this project.” She smiled genuinely, and it made Blake’s heart soar.

“Yeah, you are pretty lucky to be working with us,” Cinder assured her with a chuckle. “And that’s not me being an ass, I mean that. There are a lot of high-strung jerks out there.”

“Yeah,” Blake agreed, then felt her breath catch in her throat. Was she talking about her?

“Blake and I are the types who…you know, we enjoy what we do, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. At least, most of the time.” And then she winked at Blake. It was a little hard to tell at first because, well, one eye, but that was definitely a wink. She tipped her head in her direction and everything.

At least Blake wasn’t one of those high-strung jerks, then.

“Thank you both, seriously,” Ruby told them, then took the last sip of her drink. “I was so scared when I graduated, because I didn’t know what to do, but…now I feel like I’m on a good track, of some sort. I…” She paused and flinched a bit, then she pulled out her phone, and she went a bit paler. “Oh, shit! I totally forgot!”

“What?” Blake asked.

“Did you leave your other laptop in the oven?” Cinder joked.

“No no, it’s my sister. She invited me over tonight and I completely forgot. I…” She suddenly got to her feet and started fumbling around in her pockets. She finally pulled out her wallet and left a few Lien on the bar. “I am so sorry that I’m leaving so quick, I really would love to stay, but…”

“Don’t worry about it, Ruby. This won’t be our last time hanging out,” Cinder assured her. “We’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

Ruby sighed and nodded. “Thanks.” She turned towards Blake and grinned as she began to leave. “Bye! Thanks again!”

Blake and Cinder both watched her leave, and then a relative silence fell over them, with an awkward empty seat now separating the two.

Blake heard Cinder take in a deep breath, then hopped into the seat Ruby had just vacated. “Blake, can I ask you something?”

Blake’s heart was suddenly hammering in her chest, both due to the open-ended question, and the sudden reduction in distance between them. “Uhh…you just did.”

Cinder huffed the faintest laugh. “Blake, I feel like we should probably talk about this like a couple of adults.”

“Talk about what?” Blake asked, apparently deciding to play dumb.

“About Ruby,” Cinder deadpanned. “About how obviously we both seem to like her. Unless I’m misreading things horribly.”

Blake sighed and shook her head. “No, you’re just about spot on,” she admitted.

“I figured. I can’t help but feel like you view this as us both competing for her affections, but as much as I’d normally appreciate drama like that, when I’m involved, I’d prefer we handle it like real people rather than like rom-com characters.”

Cinder’s eloquence got on Blake’s nerves as usual, only now she was beginning to examine why. Cinder was so irritatingly attractive, and yet she was exactly right about the whole competing thing. Why did Blake have to view her as an opponent all the time, when they had just told Ruby how they were both just a couple of stressed out freelance writers? She took another sip of hard seltzer, realized her glass was empty, and despite her disdain for the taste, signaled the bartender for a refill.

“I am most concerned about Ruby herself,” Cinder continued. “Whether she’s even interested in either of us in that way, or if she is interested in such a relationship at all. So I believe that’s our most important concern right now. Let’s be upfront with her as well, right?”

“You want us to tell her that we both fancy her,” Blake asked, as a statement rather than as a question. The bartender slid another pint glass of fresh-from-the-can hard seltzer. “I can’t imagine that going well.” Nor could she imagine her blood pressure handling such a situation well.

“But at least then we’d know early on whether our feelings are misplaced or not,” Cinder pointed out, and finished off her glass. She signaled for another, probably mirroring Blake’s failure to adhere to her “only one drink” declaration from earlier. “It would save us the anxiety.”

“For you, maybe,” Blake said with a dry laugh. “I can’t imagine telling her something like that, especially since we’re supposed to be keeping things professional. Imagine if she freaks out and tells Robyn? She’d be in the right if she did.”

“I doubt she would, I have a good feeling, if I’m being honest,” Cinder admitted as the bartender finished refilling her glass.

“I don’t!” Blake said, an incredulous smile on her face.

“It’s up to you, Blake,” Cinder assured her and took a sip of her wine. Blake noticed a faint red tint to her cheeks. “I won’t make a move without your…input?”

“What, like, some sort of bro code?” Blake asked, raising an eyebrow at her. She took a few hasty sips from her drink, as if that would calm her down at all. “We’re not frat boys.”

“As I said, I want us to handle this like adults,” Cinder reiterated, eying Blake’s glass with faint concern. “And I think going behind your back, undercutting you…” She let that linger.

Blake sighed, her shoulders slumping a bit. “Would be shitty, yeah, I got that.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Blake.”

Blake held her breath and looked at her, studying her face as she drank more wine. That came out of nowhere. “What do you mean?”

“You compare yourself to others, or most notably, to me all too often,” Cinder told her, setting her glass back down. “You are a woman of merit, and you shouldn’t hamper yourself with the expectations that other people already deal with. You are just one person. You need to do what you can, and less of what you feel like I can. You’ll stress yourself out far less once you do.”

Blake tried to take in all of that, but at this point, her head was a little too foggy to accept new information for archiving. This hard seltzer wash was more potent than she expected. Or maybe she was more of a lightweight than she thought. “Easy for you to say. You get cover so often…”

“I’ve also been doing this longer than you have,” Cinder pointed out. “You’re putting the expectations I deal with on top of your own by comparing yourself to me. I used to do that all the time, hence the crisis crisis I mentioned earlier? Once I stopped giving two fucks about everyone else, life got easier.”

Blake shook her head. She knew Cinder had a point, but she just couldn’t fathom the full breadth of her testimony. “Well, I guess I’ll start working on giving fewer fucks moving forward.” She finished her second glass all too soon. She shook her head when the bartender asked if she wanted another as he took her glass.

Cinder laughed, which weirdly made Blake feel a little better. “Everyone starts somewhere.”

“Yeah.” It certainly sounded nice, no longer caring what other people thought, or even ignoring her own head and just doing what felt right. But how did that relate to the Ruby situation? The thing that would feel right would be to go find wherever she was right now and proclaim her affections, but even that felt like too much right now. The alcohol wasn’t helping.

Cinder seemed to recognize that and took a few more sips of wine before sliding the almost-empty glass away and pushed herself off of the barstool. “Just put it on my tab, thanks.”

“Are we leaving?” Blake asked, not noticing Cinder had gotten up until she’d gently taken her by the wrist.

“You are, anyway. You need to get home.” Cinder told her as she helped her off her stool. “Lightweight.”

Blake would have argued if standing didn’t make her even woozier. She was in that odd in-betweenness of buzzed and drunk. She felt completely aware of her surroundings but felt like she was controlling all of her body’s movements manually, as if letting something go unnoticed would result in her falling over. Thankfully, Cinder kept ahold of her, though the feeling of her faintly cold hand on Blake’s wrist proved to be a distraction all on its own.

They started down the street. Blake walked as normally as she could, save for the occasional sway that Cinder would correct for her. She felt so stupid for having more than one drink despite what she said before. At least Cinder was being nice. “Wait…”

“Hm?” Cinder asked.

“My laptop,” Blake said. “I left my laptop at the office.”

“It’ll be there where you get there in the morning.”

“No, I need it tonight. I gotta take down my notes and do some preliminary searching for contact information for the artists.”

“It can wait, hun,” Cinder assured her.

“It’s on the way,” Blake half-lied. It wasn’t tremendously out of the way, but going straight home would be quicker and easier, not that Cinder knew that.

Cinder sighed and shook her head. “Fine, dumbass, let’s go to the office.”

Blake might have taken offense, but felt too victorious at successfully convincing her.

Cinder buzzed them both in with her ID card, and sure enough, Blake’s laptop bag was still on her chair. They were the only ones at the office at this late an hour. It felt eerily quiet, considering how noisy it could be during the day. In Blake’s slightly intoxicated state, it was especially surreal.

“Do you…do you need to sit down for a moment?” Cinder asked, her voice lulling.

Blake hadn’t put her bag over her shoulder yet, instead holding the shoulder strap as it rested on the floor. She considered Cinder’s suggestion, then shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Just tired.” Then she swayed a little too far in one direction, overcorrected in the other, and began to stumble. “Huh-!”

Cinder stepped forward quickly and caught her, wrapping her arms securely around Blake’s shoulders in an awkward embrace. “Careful!”

Blake groaned in annoyance, then held her breath when she fully recognized her position, held tightly in Cinder’s arms, face-to-face with her. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I just lost my balance for a bit, I’m fine.”

Cinder shook her head at her. She licked her lips before speaking, as if it was difficult to find the words. “No, you need to sit down.”

“Why?” Blake asked, finding herself unable to look away from Cinder’s lips.

“You’re not fit to walk home yet,” Cinder told her, her voice quieter than before, almost a whisper. She began to slowly lead Blake to her desk chair without letting go of her. “Just sit until you feel better.”

“But…no,” Blake said, almost a mumble.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want you to let go of me yet.”

Blake didn’t realize what she said until noticing the look on Cinder’s face, her eye wide and her mouth hanging open slightly. Blake’s face got so hot she thought she might break out into a sweat.

“You want me to keep holding you?” Cinder asked quietly.

Blake couldn’t meet her face, instead staring at the collar of Cinder’s jacket. At first she wanted to double back and correct herself, but then again…

She let her head drift forward until her forehead rested on Cinder’s shoulder, and she did her best to wrap her arms around her despite Cinder pinning them to her sides. Cinder felt tense, but Blake let herself relax within her embrace, letting out a slow sigh.

“Blake?” Cinder whispered to her, but didn’t continue.

“Just hold me,” Blake said back, voice muffled by Cinder’s jacket.

“Do you like it when I hold you?” Cinder asked.

“Yeah.”

Cinder let out a shaky breath, then chuckled softly. She shook her head as she allowed Blake to sink further into the embrace. “Yeah. I like it too.”

[evonymus]

Deadly Premonition 2

Everything I write here is just my opinion. I don't try to represent someone else's  thoughts and feelings. I fully understand that tastes differ and things I dislike may be enjoyed by others and vice versa. By writing this I don't try to attack anyone who has different opinion about the game. This text will have spoilers, so don’t read it if you haven’t beaten the game yet. It’s a lot of rambling that is not really structurized or anything, just a big collection of thoughts. Strong language is used.

Gameplay-wise the game seemed pretty meh. I fully realize it may feel very different if you actually play it instead of watching, the feeling of completion, getting stuff done and all that sorta thing. Still, the majority of game seems like a shit-ton of donkey work. Side missions are a very mixed bag. Sometimes they feel like the ones in the 1st game when you need to talk to someone or get an item for them, those ones are ok. However, there's a lot of grinding which you'd expect from an mmorpg, nor a murder mystery. As for the main missions, this is where one of my biggest problems with the game comes in. The first game was all about investigation. Go to the case-related place and investigate it, examine the corpse, talk to witnesses, follow your new lead and so on. It felt like a real investigation. Sure, York did rely on supernatural to solve it, but it was like twice in the entire game (fishing the docs from the waterfall thanks to the cup and going to Harry because the newspaper told him to. I don't count FK in the coffee since it's not much of a clue, just foreshadowing). He only used it because with Nick getting arrested he had no other clues what to do next. It sure felt a bit weird but...understandable? In the 2nd game, however, there's no real investigation going on. All York does is just blindly following oracles and hope that something good will come out of it and there will be progress. And there is because MAGIC! We used to be a competent FBI agent, now it turns out we're only successful because MAGIC! Zach even blatantly admits he has left FBI because he doesn’t get MAGIC HINTS anymore. For me it's a massive let-down. Also, since there's little logical reasoning behind many main missions, they feel super-meh as well. Oh, hey, it's an important person, can't wait to meet and question them! Waaaait-wait-wait-wait, you've got a collectathon in front of you that makes no sense in general but still will move your investigation forward because MAGIC! (Yes, I'm stil bitter and angry as fuck at those stupid drums that do nothing). The thing is, I totally understand why the developers felt it was perfectly normal to make the game this way. The reason behind it is called LOL WACKY. DP gained fame as being a bizarre and wacky game, which to my mind is pretty unfair. It had its moments, sure, but that's what's made it special - just the right balance of "sane" and "insane". Unfortunately, due to its reputation the developers got the wrong message and stopped bothering to make things coherent. "Who cares if something doesn't make sense, it's WACKY and that's exactly what fans want!" Big fat nope. I don't mind a bit of silliness in games, however this game goes far beyond "a bit". The same goes for the characters. Sorry, LOL ZANY characters, another DP1 (not really) staple. DP2 doesn't have as many really quirky people as the 1st game does but man they felt forced and annoying, from their overall shticks to speech patterns. There are characters from DP1 I dislike, but I dislike them for being dicks in general. DP2 characters though I hate from the bottom of my heart for how goddamn irritating they are. I'm sorry, maybe I got old or something, but I really don't think that a concept of a guy refusing to wear clothes is funny. He feels forced as fuck. Just as the guy who has adopted several personas just for lulz (I might be wrong on David, perhaps it is stated in the game that he really has split personality. It won't change anything much though). People in DP1 felt like real people, someone you could meet in real life. Sure, you can meet a guy wearing nothing but his boots, briefs and a hat irl as well, but somehow I doubt it'll be a pleasant acquaintance or, at least, won’t make you question his mental state. Also, don't even get me started on Simon. I literally hated every second of him on the screen. Cartoonish characters were my biggest concern after D4 and boy I was right to worry about that. Also, you don't get to really know people, especially the important ones, so when stuff happens, it barely has any effect on you. Remember how DP1 made you stick with all the main cast for pretty much the entirety of the game, so they felt like family and the end-game literally torn your soul apart? DP2 doesn't even try to get close to that, except for Patricia, but the emotional impact of the ending is nowhere near. The way people talk in the game is atrocious. It often feels like an amateur play written by someone overestimating their writing abilities way too often (talk with Lena in the bar is a good example of what I mean here). Which is a darn shame since there's nothing like that in the 1st game where pretty much all the dialogues were coherent. When thoughts like "That sounds dumb", "That makes no sense" and “That’s not how people talk” are swirling in your mind almost non-stop, that's not a good sign. The directing also seemed to degrade a bit. While there were some scenes in the original, that raised eyebrows and concerns, this game feels more like something of Spy Fiction era. Someone please inform Swery that making someone to look at the rotating screen for too long doesn't make them think "Oh, that's neat!", it makes them wanna puke. There are two little parts that I remember really well: 1) the shot of Patti's mouth when she's tempted to touch a red tree that goes for like 15 seconds while she's making strange noises; 2) That moment when Zach is dreaming about Kaysen, specifically, when he starts screaming and shooting. That frame starts with Zach already screaming and honestly it made me giggle with how silly it looks. Certainly that was not the intended player's reaction. This whole part might seem like nit-picking, but it really rubbed me the wrong way.

As for the plot, Le Carre part felt so-so and rushed with main missions mostly being a flop and major characters dropping like flies. Rest in peace, *character_name, we hardly knew ye. (Also, what the fucking FUCK was that part with an alligator tearing off Danny's hand? If that was a red herring, that was the dumbest fucking red herring I've seen in my entire goddamn life).  Also, as a side-note, let me make a little confession here: I'm fucking dumb. I'm dumb as a rock. I can never guess anything, being oblivious to obvious things. Still, I suspected Avery from the very beginning due to his heights and as soon as Lena said the drug changes people's physical properties I was convinced he had been involved. Welp, guess what. Sadly, solving this little riddle has brought me no joy. The ending though... Honestly, I don't even want to give any sort of analysis to it. Just thinking about it makes me mad. All I can say is that it was one of the dumbest, most melodramatic, crappy anime-esque endings I've ever seen. And trust me, I've seen some shit, I've beaten MGS4. I could never expect that someone who has wrote DP1 could write something as ridiculous as that. It was so dumb it wasn’t even funny. "Everything was very bad but then FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC happened and everyone lived happily ever after BECAUSE MAGIC!" That's how fanfiction is written. That’s some AU shit a desperate fan could cobble together. I am fully aware there's a lot of people who are really into this exact sort of stuff. As for me, it makes my skin crawl so fucking much it has probably reached Spain by now.  All in all, DP2 is a terrible disappointment. The only real up-side of it is that it has reminded me how good the first game was.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Bonus 2 - Demo

This is a commentary of the demo of DRV3 from the perspective of someone who is coming back to it after seeing the entire main game. There will be significant spoilers for the main story.

Welp, turns out that covering the demo is going to be more of a pain than I anticipated, because I didn’t already have it, and it’s no longer available in the UK store. So I’m going to have to use a Youtube video of it, which is a lot more annoying than you might think, because you have no idea how useful the game’s backlog function has been for this commentary.

I suppose I should preface this by mentioning that I did see the demo of this game before experiencing the game proper, but it was a fan translation of the Japanese demo something like a year or two earlier, so my memory of it by the time I saw the main game was pretty fuzzy. I only remembered a few things: that Kaede was the protagonist and the Ultimate Pianist, thinking it neat that we had a protagonist who was female, and who had a talent rather than being ordinary. I vaguely remembered Tenko, Himiko and Ryoma’s character quirks – I suppose thse were the ones that stuck in my mind. I remembered Kokichi being kind of a dick who kept trying to make the trial about himself and was therefore clearly this game’s answer to Nagito, because of course Kokichi had to try and be the centre of attention even in the demo and so that stuck in my mind.

And I remembered an astronaut dude who at least superficially seemed to have the kind of personality I generally like in a character – but I very firmly told myself not to get too excited about this, because this is Danganronpa and there is every chance that the narrative won’t give a fuck about how likeable he is and he’ll just get randomly, gratuitously killed off and I would regret ever getting attached to him. This, uh, may have partly influenced my belief during the main game that the narrative considered Kaito expendable and was totally going to kill him off at the slightest provocation, even after he started being very clearly important to the story.

It also very obviously did not stop me getting attached to him as the actual story progressed. I remember desperately trying to rein myself in throughout the first half of chapter 2 as Kaito became more and more adorable and good and Exactly My Kind of Character in his support of Shuichi. Then I got to the part during the investigation in which Kaito gave his speech about believing in people just because he wants to while acknowledging that there’s a risk to it that he’s simply choosing not to worry about so that he can believe wholeheartedly. This was so perfectly applicable to what had been going on in my own head with regards to getting attached to Kaito himself – I so desperately wanted to believe in him and care about him and get invested in his story, yet I was so afraid of what might happen if I did. But thanks to Kaito’s own words, I decided right then and there to not let that fear hold me back any more.

…That’s a first-time-me story that I really should have told at the time during chapter 2 but didn’t, so you’re getting it here instead. Anyway! The demo.

“Daily Life”

Kaede:  (My last name roughly means “passionate red maple tree”. It doesn’t really fit me, but… I still like my last name.)

Kaede starts us off with an introduction of herself, probably trying to make this reminiscent of the DR1 opening. They can’t exactly do that in this game’s real opening, what with the whole pregame-and-reset thing. It’s pretty awkward here that she’s telling us about her last name when nobody’s going to be calling her that in English, so it’s probably for the best that didn’t stay. I think “passionate red maple tree” suits her at least a little, though – she is very passionate!

Kaede:  (Huh? Wait, who am I even talking to?)

That’s a good question! There’s going to be quite a bit of sort-of fourth wall breaking in this demo. But… this is Danganronpa V3, in which a lot of what seemed like fourth wall breaking wasn’t really doing that at all. So maybe this is actually Kaede just being pushed into being all self-introductory in her inner monologue by the Flashback Light that created her, and here she’s having a brief moment of realising that makes no sense.

She finds herself waking up at a desk – again, like the original DR1 opening and less like the actual DRV3 opening. There’s no falling out of a locker and no Shuichi (not here, anyway).

“Makoto”:  “Oh, are you awake? Good morning, Kaede.”

Instead, there’s… Makoto.

So here’s the thing about this demo. Makoto, and later Hajime, are randomly in it. Going into the demo with the assumption that DRV3 is in a different universe from the Hope’s Peak story makes this just seem like a silly fourth-wall-breaking thing. It also wouldn’t work to imagine this is set in the Hope’s Peak universe, because then Makoto and Hajime should both be much older than high school age, not to mention whatever shenanigans should be going on with Hajime. So it’s easiest to assume that, oh, this is just some silly uncanonical nonsense because it’s a demo and it doesn’t need to make sense.

But! Having finished DRV3 and gone back to this demo knowing the truth of the V3 story, this actually can make some kind of sense within the V3 universe. Because this is a universe where Makoto and Hajime exist as fictional characters. This whole demo could in fact be some show set up by Team Danganronpa to build hype for their new series before it properly starts, including pandering to those genwunners and twoers in the audience by featuring Makoto and Hajime – which is to say, people cosplaying as them. Hence me using inverted commas for his name in the quotes here like I did for everyone Tsumugi cosplayed in trial 6. It’s not really Makoto Naegi at all.

(This still doesn’t totally work in the canon DRV3 universe, because, given the reset and the fact that they were accidentally their pregame selves at first, it seems unlikely that Team Danganronpa would really have done this “demo” in between the reset at all. This isn’t quite something that actually happened in canon before the story we saw began – it’s more just an AU scenario that could have hypothetically happened before the main killing game started, if things had gone a little differently.)

Makoto introduces himself as the Ultimate Lucky Student and even gets a proper Ultimate title card for it.

Kaede:  “Only one student in the entire country!? That’s amazing! You must be really lucky!”

No, Kaede, it doesn’t mean he’s always really lucky; that is not how luck works. He just got incredibly lucky this one time but is otherwise entirely ordinary. Luck as an actual goddamn superpower like it supposedly was for Nagito still grates on me (and there’s no convincing proof to me that Makoto also had that superpower).

Makoto mysteriously already knows Kaede’s name and talent. He explains that it’s because information about the students here is on public record – that is how the real Makoto learned about everyone in DR1, after all – but that’s probably not really the truth here, is it.

There’s a very genuinely-fourth-wall-breaky letter on the desk telling Kaede that to progress the story she just needs to come to the gym, but she can wander around and have the other students introduce themselves to her first if she wants. Obviously anyone doing this demo for the first time would want to do that – the whole point is getting to know the characters!

The layout of the school has been changed a bit in the demo to make things simpler and keep some locations a surprise. Kaede was in not Classroom B on the second floor, but Classroom A, aka the lookout classroom. Or what would function as a lookout classroom if only there was a basement, but the stairs to the basement have instead been replaced by a big red door that will lead to the trialgrounds. The stairs to the second floor are completely blocked off with an opaque shutter, so that all you can access is the first floor, and they moved the gym closer than usual to cut out the part of the corridor containing the locked things leading to Himiko and Kaito’s labs. Apparently they didn’t want to give any kind of tantalising promise of further areas that you’ll get to fully explore in the main game. Meanwhile, the front door that would lead out into the courtyard instead connects directly to the dorms, so that the demo never even shows us that they’re trapped inside a dome.

Everyone’s introductions are more or less the same as they will be in the main game, with Makoto filling in the part in the conversation that Shuichi would have played, if need be. Certain parts are left out if they were less about the character and more specifically about the main story in a way that isn’t relevant in the demo.

Rantaro is the first person we meet. Makoto says he doesn’t know Rantaro’s talent because it wasn’t on public record, but is still insistent that he definitely has a talent. This is totally because he’s just being good old hopeful Makoto and definitely not that he knows exactly what Rantaro’s talent is and why it’s being kept a secret right now, right.

Hajime is also hanging around in the corridors as if he’s a regular student. He gets “Ultimate ???” as well in his title card, even though he goes on to admit that he doesn’t have a talent. He doesn’t mention the Reserve Course, though. I guess the Ultimate Academy isn’t supposed to have one of those.

“Makoto”:  “Well, Hajime, we have seniority, but… She’s the protagonist this time around.”

Ahaha, here we go. One of the things the demo very gleefully does is make a big deal of how Kaede is the protagonist. Did you know Kaede is the protagonist of this game, guys? Because she is very definitely the protagonist of this game.

This would also sort of work with the whole fiction thing, except not so much, because the in-universe protagonist is supposed to be Keebo. So this is a thing that really is just out-universely here for the sake of the demo and doesn’t quite make sense in-universe with what Team Danganronpa are doing here.

Kaede:  (And also… what did they mean by ‘protagonist’?)

At least, for her part, Kaede is very confused by all this.

Shuichi is also just hanging around in the corridor like a totally regular student and not the actual protagonist of this game. I didn’t remember him from the demo at all until seeing him in the main game jogged my memory, because without him being Kaede’s investigation partner, he kinda just blends into the background like the introvert he is.

Shuichi:  “I don’t even remember enrolling in this academy. But it seems I did…”

Bonus dialogue you get from talking to him again after his main introduction shows that he’s very much thinking about the important questions, though. In the main game, while nobody remembered being kidnapped, everyone’s general assumption was that they were brought here against their will and forgot how. However, in the demo, it seems most people are assuming they somehow got enrolled in this academy and are just having a slightly odd version of a school introduction. Only a few people are questioning this idea.

(Kaede actually mentioned at the very beginning that she remembered being kidnapped, but then the writing apparently forgets about that, because she never mentions it to anybody else. Nor does anyone else mention remembering something similar.)

Since there’s no outside in the demo and therefore no wall to be thinking about trying to get over, Kaito is just in the dining hall here. Everyone whose introduction in the main game is in a location that doesn’t exist in the demo just gets put somewhere random instead. Kaito’s lines about getting over the wall are therefore also removed from his introduction, which means that we sadly don’t get as much of a sense of his unshakeable determination and philosophy about not complaining when you could be trying to make things better.

Kaito:  “But now that I’m thinking about it, why am I at this academy? I wanna blast off into space ASAP! Weird situations like this are only gonna slow me down…”

Kaito is also asking the important questions. Why is he doing this thing that isn’t working towards going to space? That doesn’t make any sense as something that he’d choose to do! He should be in astronaut training, not enrolling in some weird academy!

Maki immediately introduces herself and her cover-story talent rather than not wanting to do so at first. She also doesn’t have any of her lines about how she doubts they’ll be able to escape this and they shouldn’t be working together with strangers, so a lot of the hints towards her interestingness are gone from the demo, boo.

Maki:  “I don’t even remember enrolling in this academy, but… Do you know what’s going on?”

At least she’s asking the important questions, too! I wonder if that “but” is a hint at her thinking “but at least this isn’t as bad as having to kill people”. Or so she thinks.

As Kaede finishes meeting everyone and is about to head into the gym…

“Makoto”:  “Sorry, but this is where we part ways. I can’t go past this point. …Because you’re the protagonist now, Kaede.”

Kaede:  “What?”

“Makoto”:  “From here on, you’re the one who’s going to learn about this situation we’re in. You might feel despair… but I don’t want you to throw away hope!”

Oh man, the buzzwords. I’m pretty sure that even post-DR1-ending, despite literally being declared the Ultimate Hope, Makoto did not throw around these buzzwords as meaninglessly as this. This really is just someone desperately trying to sound like him, isn’t it.

It’s also very strange that apparently Makoto can’t be with her for the explanation of the killing game. You’d think, even if he already knew what was happening (which, fair enough, Makoto has done this before), he’d want to be there with Kaede to reassure her through the bad news. But he has to leave for no particular reason.

(Also, reminder, Kaede is the protagonist, you guys.)

Kaede:  (Protagonist? Hope? Despair? What does any of that mean?)

Heh, I like how she’s also bewildered by the sudden buzzwords and not just the protagonist part.

For some reason it’s only Kaede and not all the other students here getting this announcement about the killing game. I guess, since this is not remotely how it happens in canon, writing sixteen characters having new reactions to this would be too much of a pain for what’s only here to justify the demo having a trial.

It does also mean that most people – including Kaede herself, since Monokuma alone doesn’t count as a witness – don’t have alibis for the “murder” that’s about to happen.

Monokuma:  “While you live together, you’re all responsible for maintaining the harmony of the academy. But if someone was to disrupt that harmony…”

Geez, is this the game scrambling to justify the Killing Harmony subtitle again? I wonder what this was in Japanese. (But I’m not quite curious enough to actually check, because this is only the demo.)

Kaede:  “D-Don’t mess around with us! I would never… murder anyone!”

Hee, that’s also there even though this is the demo.

Monokuma:  “Don’t you see, Kaede? This is how your story begins.”

Kaede:  “‘My story’? What does that even mean?”

They really are dropping hints to the whole fiction thing even in the demo. Although, again, this doesn’t work so well in an in-universe sense because Keebo is the in-universe protagonist (and because Tsumugi was definitely planning to have Kaede get herself killed in the first chapter, probably largely for the sake of Shuichi’s story.)

Monokuma then tells Kaede to go and check out her room in the dormitory. It seems he already knows that she’s going to find someone dead in there.

Kaede’s door awkwardly has Makoto and Hajime’s portraits slapped onto it as well. Monokuma shows up to explain to her that this is the “Protagonists’ Room”, for all three of them! (Did you know Kaede is the protagonist.)

Once she goes inside, everything’s a mess, with slash marks all over the furniture and walls, kind of like in the first case in DR1.

And Yasuhiro Hagakure is dead in the shower with a kitchen knife in his stomach.

“Deadly Life”

Monokuma:  “Geez, this is like the second time he’s died already… Eh, you guys can just ignore that.”

As Monokuma cheekily alludes to here, this is an amusing little nod to the original demo of DR1. Apparently, to keep Sayaka’s death a surprise for the main game, they instead made Hiro the victim there. Looks like they decided to make him the victim again here!

Given the reality of the situation, this cannot really be Hiro, because he doesn’t exist. Which means that most likely, nobody is actually dead at all – this is just a Hiro cosplayer doing their best impression of a corpse.

Hajime is here to help investigate the dorm room. Kaito, Miu, Kirumi and Ryoma also show up in the room to investigate. (But apparently nobody else thought that confirming if a murder has really taken place and trying to figure out the culprit so they don’t get punished was important? Not even Shuichi?)

It’s also relevant to note that nobody looks very closely at Hiro’s “corpse” to confirm whether he’s actually dead.

Kaito:  “So does this mean someone believed that the only way to get out of here… was by killing someone?”

Ryoma:  “Hmph… The dead body is proof of that. There’s no way a body would end up quite like this by accident.”

Kaito:  “Damn it… why’d they kill him? Why didn’t they just talk things over with us?”

Kaede:  “Yeah, we haven’t searched the whole school yet. There could still be a way out of here.”

Kaito:  “Yeah, that’s exactly right! And they resorted to this, right off the bat… When we find the culprit, I’m gonna punch some sense back into them!”

I love how Kaito this is. He can’t get his head around the fact that anyone would give up so quickly. He realises that they most likely just did it because they were scared and wanted to escape and therefore it’s somewhat understandable, but even then, he can’t see why they would resort to it so soon without having tried every other possible option first, including talking to everyone else and trying to co-operate. He’s not angry at the culprit for being a cold-blooded killer, but rather for being so weak, in the sense that they didn’t even want to try and get stronger, and so they did something this awful out of cowardice.

And also look at him and Kaede clearly being on the same wavelength about working together to escape and not giving up!

Kaito doesn’t contribute any Truth Bullets to this investigation, but I’m delighted that he’s here in this room anyway so we could have this little insight into the way he thinks about things like this. This is nuanced enough that people playing this demo before the main game just to get a basic sense of the characters probably aren’t really going to think much of it – but it’s here anyway, because Kaito is this nuanced and complex of a character and he would react like this in this situation, regardless of how unnecessary him doing so is to the purpose of this demo. I love Kaito so much.

Ryoma:  “Going straight to an investigation? That’s pretty forward-thinking of you. Even if you’re used to seeing dead bodies, it’d be stupid not to feel anything.”

Meanwhile, Ryoma is already being perceptive and making observations about Kaede’s character, which is a very him thing to be doing.

Kaede:  “But we have to do this. I don’t want everyone else to die…”

Ryoma:  “Hmph… You’re rather motivated to stay alive. I wish I had… No, never mind.”

There’s also a little hint at Ryoma’s lack of motivation to live and desire to find one, which is neat!

(It’s a shame that, even though Kaito is also here and presumably overhearing this, he doesn’t comment. I’d have liked that a lot.)

The lack of any hair in the room was a clue in this case in DR1, but this time, there’s a single short brown hair here, about the colour and length of Makoto or Hajime’s. This is despite the fact that Hajime claims he’s never been in the room before now and that Kirumi cleaned all of the dorms shortly before the murder was discovered. Kaede also notes during this conversation that it’s odd she hasn’t seen Makoto since she went into the gym. Hmmm.

Just as Makoto finally shows up and is about to help Kaede investigate everywhere else, the Monokubs appear. They have not been in the demo until now. Why did they need to be in the demo at all. It would be a more favourable advertisement of the game to pretend they don’t exist, you know, demo writers! They literally do not contribute anything of value to the narrative by showing up here.

Kaito:  “Buncha cowards… Trying to interrupt my investigation with their stupid crap.”

Oh, Kaito. This is basically chapter 1 Kaito, who has no sidekicks yet and is instead desperately trying to feel like he can make a difference by doing something. Hence him making a point that this is his investigation. He leans towards this kind of attitude a couple of times in the main story, too, particularly in chapter 1 when he has no sidekicks, and in chapter 4 when he’s feeling like his support of his sidekicks isn’t enough and wants to be more of an action-oriented hero. This is bound to be the reason he’s here in this room at all despite not contributing anything to the player’s investigation – because he’s trying to do something about this, even though he doesn’t really know how!

Kaito:  “Whatever… If I get serious, I can solve this case in no time flat!”

I don’t like this, though. It implies that he’s currently not being serious and would ever willingly slack off from something this important. That’s not in character. Kaito is always trying his hardest and always wants people to know he’s trying his hardest; he’d never use “oh but I just wasn’t really trying” as an excuse for the gap between how much he wants to make a difference and how much he actually can. It reads like some writer is superficially trying to get across the fact that Kaito talks big without backing it up, without truly understanding why he’s that way and keeping it in line with that. It’s odd, since the conversation just earlier showed quite a nuanced understanding of Kaito’s character, as opposed to this.

(If I were playing this demo myself, I would immediately talk to Kaito again after this to see if he has anything else to say on this matter, but because I’m forced to use Youtube, I can’t see if he does. There are words that Kaito said that could have been interesting that I’m unaware of dammit this is why I’m mad I had to use Youtube for this. Admittedly it’s most likely just him repeating those lines, or continuing to be written badly… but what if it isn’t.)

Kaede asks Makoto where he went off to, and he claims he was wandering around the school trying to find a way out or at least a map to help Kaede out. That does not properly explain why he insisted he couldn’t come into the gym with her in the first place, but okay.

Hajime stays behind to guard the crime scene while Makoto accompanies Kaede out of the dorm to investigate elsewhere. Makoto is getting a lot more screentime than Hajime in this demo. Still more genwunners than twoers in this audience, apparently.

Maki:  “The crime occurred in the Protagonists’ Room. Stupid name aside, that’s your room, isn’t it?”

Aha, good old Maki, always Done™ with everyone’s nonsense.

Maki:  “I don’t intend to just go with the easiest answer… But at the same time… I have no reason to trust you guys either.”

This is very Maki, not wanting to trust people without a good reason but also not being so stupid and hasty as to jump to any conclusions just because she doesn’t trust anyone.

Himiko:  “Kaede, is it true? Did a murder really happen?”

Apparently some of these people really didn’t actually go and check out the body for themselves. You’d think they’d want to confirm it… but to be fair, it is very believable that Himiko in particular wouldn’t.

Kokichi:  “Why’d ya kill him, Kaede? Did you really wanna escape that badly?”

Of course this is Kokichi’s immediate greeting to Kaede upon seeing her during the investigation. Of course.

Kaede:  “N-No! I didn’t do anything!”

Kokichi:  “So you’re saying the culprit has to be either Makoto or Hajime… Because if you didn’t do it, then that’s what you’re getting at, right?”

And of course he’d also think that she’d happily turn on the two people apparently closest to her and throw them under the bus to protect herself.

He really does (most likely, not that you can ever be sure with him) seem to believe it’s one of the three of them simply because it was their room. Look who is jumping to conclusions because he doesn’t trust anyone.

(I should point out that the room was unlocked the entire time and so there is literally no concrete reason to suspect the room’s owners above anybody else.)

“Makoto”:  “Did you see Hiro?”

Tsumugi:  “No, I didn’t. I think I’d definitely remember seeing hair like his.”

If the students who aren’t in the room right now didn’t see the body, how does Tsumugi know what Hiro’s hair looks like? This might be a very subtle clue as to the mastermind’s identity, because of course Tsumugi would know what Hiro’s hair looks like anyway.

(I’d say that actually she could have seen him from the Monokuma File, but based on Himiko’s comment earlier, I’m not sure if everyone necessarily has a Monokuma File to even know for sure that someone’s dead?)

Shuichi:  “One of us killed Hiro… That’s what Monokuma said… But… I don’t think that’s the only possibility.”

Indeed it isn’t. There’s also the possibility that nobody killed anyone.

…I still don’t know why Shuichi isn’t in the dorm room to actually confirm whether or not Hiro is dead and do a proper investigation himself. Then again, if he did, we’d immediately know this class trial is bogus, so.

Kaede:  “Shuichi, do you suspect me, too?”

Shuichi:  “Ah, you don’t seem like the kind of person who would kill somebody… But… until I find evidence that proves you innocent…”

Kaede:  “That’s true…”

Shuichi:  “S-Sorry, it’s not that I *want* to suspect you, I just…”

Kaede:  “No, it’s fine… That’s what the Ultimate Detective is supposed to do…”

Aww, Shuichi. He’s caught between the part of him that hates suspecting and accusing people (even when he has no particularly strong reason to trust Kaede in this universe) and the detective side of him that knows it’s the right way to deal with this situation. I complained about him not investigating, but maybe it’s simply because he’s afraid to thanks to his issues, and without the bond with Kaede that he has in canon, he can’t overcome that fear and manage to investigate anyway. Shuichi really does only manage to be a hero with others’ help.

Kaede:  “Don’t worry about me, just do your best to investigate. That’s what’s going to save us.”

Shuichi:  “… …Okay.”

Kaede:  (Huh? That was a dull response… What happened?)

Kaede is noticing that he doesn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea of investigating to save them! A tiny, tiny little hint at his issues, since for the most part this demo really doesn’t want to focus on Shuichi at all. (Kaede is the protagonist, after all.)

During a conversation with Kiyo, he notices something about the way Makoto is talking about the investigation and trial.

Kiyo:  “…You speak as if you are familiar with the process, yes?

“Makoto”:  “That’s… also something that we can talk about later.”

…

Kaede:  (Does Makoto know something…? I can trust him… can’t I?)

Of course, this reads perfectly innocently to anyone who knows Makoto is the protagonist from a previous Danganronpa game, but it genuinely must look pretty suspicious to Kaede. It’s a big testament to her general optimism and belief in people that she does still trust him even after all this.

One of the knives in the kitchen went missing while Tenko and Himiko were having tea in the dining hall. This is still really brazenly ripping off the first case of the first game.

And that’s the whole investigation, so everyone abruptly assembles in the trialgrounds which are right behind the red door, no elevator or Shrine of Judgement or anything.

“Hajime”:  “Monokuma… I don’t know what you’re scheming, but… I won’t let you do whatever you want!”

Monokuma:  “You’re an upperclassman protagonist… I think you can come up with a better line than that.”

“Makoto”:  “Hajime’s right! You can’t just do whatever you want with their lives!”

Monokuma:  “Geez, that’s basically what Hajime just said! You two need punch-up writers or something! Whether this demo is exciting or not depends entirely on you!”

Bahaha, this is such a deliberate attempt at pandering on the parts of Makoto and Hajime’s cosplayers, and is also so blatantly Monokuma calling them out for being kind of bad at this.

They have an awkward situation with this trial, given that there’s eighteen students here and only sixteen podiums. Obviously the game devs didn’t want to remodel the trialgrounds to have two extra podiums just for the demo.

Monosuke:  “I know! Let’s just pick two people at random and rip ‘em apart with the Exisals!”

The Exisals have not been shown or otherwise mentioned in this demo. This line must rather confuse people seeing this before the main game.

Obviously there is no actual Exisal-murdering and two people simply have to sit out. Kokichi decides out of nowhere that Keebo should sit out because of course he does, lol Keebo’s not a person or anything, and then it conveniently turns out that Rantaro was with Keebo the whole time so they can vouch for each other not being the blackened and both safely not take part. Rantaro not being part of the demo trial is probably because he’s not a part of any trials in the main game either. Keebo sitting out is… just because Kokichi is a robophobic dick, apparently. (In an in-universe sense, you’d think Monokuma would have more of an issue with this, because isn’t Keebo supposed to be the audience’s camera? More indication that he really isn’t the only camera they have, then.)

Rantaro demands that at least he and Keebo are each allowed to ask one question at the end if they don’t agree with everybody else on who the blackened is, and that in doing so they could potentially restart the discussion. This doesn’t ever matter because the demo’s going to end before the trial reaches a conclusion, but it does show that Rantaro is a very smart and cautious person.

Kaito:  “I’ll be carrying your lives, too! I’ll definitely do something about all this!”

But don’t worry, Rantaro and Keebo, Kaito is going to do something about this! You know, about this whole trial. Of course he is. Definitely. Even though it’s just the demo and it doesn’t really matter, his tendency to insist this out of his desperation to be able to make a difference is still here and it’s great. I also love the way he says he’ll be carrying their lives. Like he’s bearing that burden for them.

Kaito:  “And don’t worry! We’ve got the Ultimate Detective on our side!”

Also this!!! Kaito doesn’t seem to have interacted with Shuichi at all this whole demo, but that’s not going to stop him from believing in him, because with a talent like that he’s bound to be awesome, right? It is very delightfully reminiscent of the main story that Kaito says this immediately after his own bold declarations. Despite his big words and how much he genuinely intends to do his best to fulfil them (because Kaito is always trying), he knows that Shuichi’s really the one most able to save them in this situation. Kaito’s relying on and believing in Shuichi’s ability to be the real hero here. I love this tiny tiny nod to their delightful friendship dynamic in canon.

Shuichi:  “Huh?”

Shuichi is not used to people believing in his detective skills. Kaito really does mean it even though he’s only just met you, Shuichi!

Class Trial

In the trial, Makoto has Rantaro’s podium and Hajime has Keebo’s. I’m quite surprised that they didn’t do it the other way around – Keebo is after all basically meant to be Robot Makoto, and that would have been one reasonable excuse for leaving him in particular out.

Things start with people throwing out some baseless ideas. Tenko of course decides someone male must have done it.

Shuichi:  “We can’t rule out suspects that way… We need to look at all the possibilities.”

Shuichi, at least, is being rational about this. He doesn’t say much in this demo, but what he does say is always quite sensible.

Tenko:  “Kiyo looks creepy! That’s suspicious enough for me!”

Aaaaagh coming from Tenko in particular that’s just painful. Demo why would you do this.

By the way, fun fact: the English voicework for this demo was almost certainly recorded after that for the main game. How do I know? Because of Kaito’s voice. For the earlier trials in the main game, Kaito’s voice sounds a lot rougher and growlier, which becomes less of a thing as the game goes on. It’s gradual enough that you don’t notice it while it’s happening, but going from trial 4 Kaito back to trial 1 Kaito gives quite a noticeable difference. I assume this is because his voice actor started out consciously trying to emulate his Japanese voice, which is indeed quite gruff, but then as things went along he got more into the character and developed his own instinctive feel for Kaito’s voice, one which wasn’t as growly as it started out. And here in the demo, Kaito’s voice isn’t growly at all; it sounds like his lines from trial 4, not trial 1.

(The voice actor getting more into the role has to be the only reason for the gradual shift, because really, in-universe, Kaito’s voice should have been subtly getting more rough and growly as time went by, thanks to his illness getting worse. It’d have been really fun if that had been a thing. Alas.)

Kaito:  “He didn’t even have a chance to resist!”

Like in the main game, Kaito is the first person to be refuted. In trials where Shuichi is his sidekick, Kaito doesn’t tend to make any arguments at all and just sits back and lets Shuichi handle it (with the exception of trial 4, for chapter 4 reasons). But in trial 1 he didn’t have a sidekick and was instead trying to feel useful by actually contributing to the discussion despite knowing he might be wrong, kind of like in trial 4.

In the actual trial 1 in the main commentary, I explained why Kaito wasn’t being stupid even though he was wrong, but in this instance, he has simply been very rudely handed the idiot ball. Kaito was one of the people who investigated the dorm room! He saw the signs of a struggle!

Obviously, this argument is also mirroring the very first argument you refute in this case in DR1. But then they should have given this line to someone who actually wasn’t in the room and didn’t see the state of it, of which there are plenty of options. In DR1, the person who makes this argument is Chihiro, who didn’t investigate the room out of fear – and in fact, him making this assumption despite not knowing the facts was likely a sign of his issues about feeling weak, because of course he’d have been afraid of being killed by someone stronger without even being able to fight back, so he projected that onto Sayaka.

But Kaito making this argument here? Doesn’t make any sense or have any good reason for it. They’re apparently trying to have Kaito be the first person to be refuted like he is in the main game (and perhaps for similar reasons), while also having the first refuted argument in this case be the same as it was in the DR1 case. Either callback (or call-forward) alone would be fine, but doing both of them at once does not work and ends up very uncharitable towards Kaito.

Kaito:  “Okay, so that room wasn’t such a mess to begin with, then.”

They try and justify this by having it so that apparently Kaito thought the room was always that messy, but no, that doesn’t justify anything. Sure, I can potentially imagine Kaito as someone with a messy room himself (though if so it’s probably the “organised chaos” type in which he knows where everything is even if nobody else would have a clue), but this was more than just a messy room here. There were slash marks everywhere! Things were outright broken! Kaito is not stupid, and it is very rude of the demo to twist him out of character in order to give people a first impression of him that makes him seem like he is.

Kaede:  (The two people who fought in that room were…)

-      Kaede and Shuichi

It’s ridiculous that the demo is making us do a multiple choice to figure out that Hiro fought with the culprit, what the hell, that’s a Psyche Taxi level of stupidly obvious question there… but it’s interesting that this is one of the obviously-wrong answers. There’s been absolutely no indication of any kind of connection between Kaede and Shuichi in the demo, except for this.

Kaede:  “Of course, it was Hiro and the culprit.”

Kaito:  “Huh!? Really!?”

No! Stop it! Stop making Kaito seem like an idiot! He is not stupid! This one doesn’t even have any kind of excuse of trying to be a call-forward to the main game! There is no reason for this!

Kaito, I am so sorry you got handed this idiot ball, please just throw it away and pretend you never saw it, you don’t deserve this.

Miu: “Who else would it be, dumbass!?”

If that was supposed to be setup to give someone an excuse to call Kaito an idiot for the further bad writing that’s about to ensue, then, this is still uncalled for. When people call Kaito an idiot, they are not meant to be actually literally right about it!

Kaito:  “Who you callin’ a dumbass!? I’m Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars!”

…

Kokichi:  “Hey, you two idiots over there… Stop chit-chatting and keep this discussion moving.”

Miu:  “Hey! Don’t lump me in with that idiot! You’re talkin’ to the gorgeous girl genius, Miu Iruma!”

Kokichi:  “Yup, you two should be lumped together. Your statements are on the same level.”

No, they really, really shouldn’t be, and this is still doing a horrible disservice to Kaito. Kaito usually reacts strongly to being called an idiot, sure, but he does not do so by talking himself up, because he is not actually insecure enough to need to “prove” he isn’t one (unlike Miu, whose boasts always reek of insecurity). Comparing him to Miu like this is making it look like Kaito only talks himself up to save face for himself and protect his own ego when it’s being battered, like she does, and that he actually is just a useless idiot beneath these empty words, especially when he really just was one thanks to that undeserved idiot ball. That is so incredibly not even remotely the point of Kaito’s character, oh my god. Please stop, demo. How can you get some of the Kaito parts so right but others so horrendously wrong.

(It makes me feel better to imagine that Kaito’s actual main writers, the ones who created a very carefully-crafted character arc full of all of his delightful issues and principles and complexities, were just, I dunno, on lunch break or something, and some clueless intern with only a very superficial knowledge of Kaito as “an idiot who talks big” got to write some of his lines here while they were out. That clueless intern is probably also the one responsible for the tiny handful of Misogyny Bullets that hit Kaito and briefly forced him out of character for one line each throughout the main story, right?)

Moving on, Kokichi begins making a big point of how he suspects everyone whom the room belonged to, because of course he does. (Look at him acting all high and mighty and more intelligent than the two supposed “idiots” and then immediately turning around and jumping to unfounded conclusions. Clearly the smartest way to handle a class trial there.)

“Makoto”:  “The discussion won’t move forward if we all just point fingers. Like Shuichi said, we need to talk about all the possibilities.”

He may just be an actor pretending to be Makoto, but he’s got a goddamn point. Kokichi’s accusation flinging is never actually helpful.

Kaito:  “Yeah, what he said! No way Kaede’s the culprit!”

Welcome back, Kaito, it’s good to see you again! This is a very Kaito thing for him to do. He’s barely spoken to Kaede or seen much of her in the demo, but he did have that conversation with her at the crime scene where she agreed that the culprit should have tried to work together to escape before giving up and resorting to murder. His instincts are telling him that she really meant that and really is this kind of person! He has a hunch, and he’s right, because his hunches always are!

Kokichi:  “Kaito! This trial won’t go anywhere if you don’t suspect anyone!”

And this is a character dynamic involving Kaito that’s actually correct and relevant in the main game such that it makes sense to hint at it in the demo, thank you.

Shuichi:  “What we have to determine now… is the murder weapon.”

And of course Shuichi is the one who’s focusing on the actual logic and getting the trial back on track instead of arguing. This was a very trial 4 exchange we just had here.

Despite Shuichi’s attempt at being sensible, everyone else then starts arguing over whether certain people could have killed him with their bare hands, because it seems that nobody who saw the body feels the need to tell them it was a goddamn knife and also apparently no-one read the Monokuma File. I guess at least Kaito smashed his idiot ball into several smaller pieces and shared it around the group.

Shuichi:  “There was no indication the body was punched. I don’t believe fists were the murder weapon.”

Shuichi I know you’re hesitant about doing this detective thing and you maybe didn’t go to the scene but you clearly read the Monokuma File just tell them it was a knife please.

Ryoma:  “Then our murder weapon is… the knife stabbed into his gut?”

THANK YOU RYOMA I don’t know why you didn’t say this sooner but.

Kaede:  (I wonder… Was the murder weapon lodged in Hiro’s abdomen really a knife?)

Yes, Kaede, it was a fucking knife! But apparently the game wants us to be more specific about the fact that it was a kitchen knife. I don’t know if this works better in Japanese in that the word for kitchen knife doesn’t include the word “knife”, but even if so, it is still a type of knife! This is something else that was an argument made in the original DR1 case – someone says the culprit used “some random knife they had on them”, and Makoto counters that it was a kitchen knife because the more relevant point is where it came from. So really, to make this be even remotely sensible here, that should also be the question Kaede is asking herself. Not was it even a knife. What the hell.

This is specifically an excuse to demonstrate the Mind Mine minigame, which is a pretty bad example of it because the other two images that are options in it aren’t even knives. Not that Mind Mine is ever really a super justified minigame that doesn’t point out something rather obvious, but.

Another thing I remember about the fan translation of this demo that I originally watched was that this part apparently made the translator flip tables, because they broke immersion to have Kaede’s line announcing her answer also include something to the effect of “oh my god Kaede I can’t believe you had to do a whole minigame just to figure out it was a kitchen knife what the hell”. Same, though, random fan translator from years ago. Same.

Kaito:  “Yeah, I caught a glimpse of it too… That was definitely a kitchen knife.”

Oh hey, look who’s capable of observing and understanding basic facts! Yes, hello, we would like to apologise for our previous misinformation and inform everyone that Kaito is, in fact, not stupid, please disregard everything you may have heard in the past few minutes implying that he is, thank you.

Shuichi:  “A knife… I do remember seeing a knife in the kitchen. That could be it.”

Angie:  “I see, I see… An excellent deduction from the Ultimate Detective. Well done.”

Yes, clearly, Shuichi is the only person in this room capable of realising that kitchen knives come from the kitchen. I know I said Kaito isn’t stupid, but he still obviously pales in comparison to this detective genius right here.

Shuichi:  “Ah, it’s not because I’m a detective… I’m still in training…”

Shuichi is also apparently the only person sensible enough to realise that it wasn’t even a clever deduction. This is supposed to be a hint at his insecurity, but also he’s just making a very valid point.

Maki:  “You really don’t need to be a detective to know that the knife came from the kitchen.”

Thank you, Maki, for being one of the only other sensible people here. God, Maki is always such a breath of fresh air.

Kokichi:  “Geez, who cares about the murder weapon?”

Kaito:  “What do you mean, ‘who cares’!?”

Kokichi:  “We can already guess who the culprit is. There’s a super-duper huge hint already.”

Yeah, who cares about actual concrete evidence when we can randomly sling accusations around based on completely circumstantial stuff! This is so very Kokichi. I also appreciate that Kaito’s the one to question him.

After some discussion in which the three protagonists insist it wasn’t them, led largely by Maki, who of course has no qualms about suspecting them even though she’s not going to conclude it definitely was them yet…

Kokichi:  “Ugh, I already told you it’s not Kaede. Suspecting her right off the bat is so mean!”

Of course, the demo’s got to also have some of Kokichi’s transparent two-faced insincerity in an attempt to make everyone else’s belief in and defense of each other sound hollow and empty. Wouldn’t be Kokichi without that.

Kaito:  “Hey! You’re the one who brought it up!”

And Kaito’s the one to call him out on that, because of course he should be!

“Makoto”:  “We need to talk this over more to uncover the truth. This is a test.”

Kaede:  “Huh?” (This is a test…?)

The way it lingers on that comment makes it seem relevant. Maybe this is just another nod to this being a demo, which is meant to “test” players’ skills in preparation for the main game. Which could also potentially be the idea in-universe, if this is indeed being done as a test-run before they wipe everyone’s memories of this and put them in the real killing game (though as I said before, this still can’t have been quite what happened in real canon given the whole pregame reset thing).

Gonta:  “Gonta not good at tough subjects… but Gonta will work hard for everyone’s sake!”

Kaede:  “That’s right! We need to work together so we can overcome this class trial!”

Yaaaay, Gonta. He hasn’t really done much of note in this demo but he’s still here and doing his best! And also here’s some Kaede being very herself.

“Makoto”:  “Everything’s gone smoothly so far, but…”

Kaede:  “Huh? Did you say something, Makoto?”

“Makoto”:  “No… it’s nothing.”

Hah, Makoto really is acting quite suspiciously now, isn’t he.

Ryoma:  “Either way, we’ve got three main suspects now…”

No, we haven’t, we only ended up on this topic because of Kokichi’s random accusation slinging, can we get back to talking about the knife, please. Ryoma, you are meant to be smarter than this.

Kaito:  “It’s not any of them! I believe in these guys!”

Oh, Kaito. I’m a little more surprised that his intuition is giving him a fully positive read on “Makoto” and “Hajime”, but he hasn’t interacted with them that much either and their acting has been fine so far and made them seem superficially heroic, so, eh, fair enough.

Shuichi:  “If we can determine who took the murder weapon from the kitchen… that would clear Kaede of suspicion.”

Yes, thank you, let’s talk about the evidence. Shuichi’s is always the most sensible voice in the room. I also like how he’s thinking of it as clearing Kaede of suspicion – he really doesn’t want to think she did it.

Kirumi:  “First, we should listen to Kaede and the others’ testimonies.”

This whole thing of awkwardly veering the topic onto these three suspects in particular (thanks to our convenient Kokichi in the room just wanting to be overly suspicious of everyone) is actually an excuse to demonstrate a Mass Panic Debate. Which is a horrendously bad example of one of these. They’re supposed to happen when people get so riled up at being suspected that they all talk over each other, but Kaede, Makoto and Hajime have been quite calm and level-headed about this, and each happily agree to Kirumi’s suggestion to let them testify. So they shouldn’t need to talk over each other!

And then, to make things even more confusing and distract even more from what’s supposed to be the point of a Mass Panic Debate, Monokuma and his cubs awkwardly interrupt to declare that Kaede can’t participate and they’re arbitrarily going to make someone else testify about their alibi instead of her. This is of course because Kaede is the protagonist and so can’t participate in a playable debate, and it’s also because the person they’re having testify instead is someone who actually has testimony about who took the knife and is therefore the relevant thing to shoot at. But my god, does this end up giving a completely unclear and misleading impression of what a Mass Panic Debate is even supposed to be for. When I first saw this demo, I remember being confused as hell and thinking it was pointlessly gimmicky to have three Nonstop Debates at once for no apparent reason. It completely fails to communicate the idea that these are supposed to be less about the gameplay and more about narrative tension (even if only one of the Mass Panic Debates in the main game really pulls that off to its full potential).

The third testimony in question is from Himiko, who was having tea with Tenko when somebody took the knife. Specifically, she was lecturing Tenko about the difference between real magic and a magic trick, because of course she was. It’s cute that Tenko was happy to listen to her.

Tenko doesn’t know who it was who came in, because it was a dude, and so, being Tenko, she didn’t pay him any attention beyond that. This jogs Himiko’s memory, though…

Himiko:  “Nyeh… now that I think about it, someone was in the kitchen. Someone who’s no longer with us…”

…and then she decides to tell us all who it was in the vaguest possible way instead of just saying “it was Hiro” or “it was the victim”. Which is in fact a very transparent way to shoehorn in, drumroll please, the actual stupidest Psyche Taxi segment in the game, for real this time! At least if you count the demo as part of this game.

Credit to them, they actually did put Kaede in the car and not Shuichi. I think  her car might be a little different, too? The idea of driving through Vegas to pick up sex workers is… basically just as out-of-character for Kaede as it was for Shuichi, given that she’s a huge piano nerd without many friends, not that that part of her character has been illustrated at all in the demo. (She’s still picking up women, but then there are a few comments Kaede makes that strongly hint she’s bi, so hey.)

The two (at least it’s only two; even they couldn’t stretch this out into three or four) questions asked here are: “Who is not here?” [Victim/Culprit] and then “Who is the victim of this case?” [Hajime/Hiro/Makoto]. Yup, they actually thought those were questions that anyone ever would have to think about at all.

…I mean, they probably didn’t really. And to be fair, this is pretty similar to how stupid actual Psyche Taxis are, so, uhh, representative demo gameplay???

Kaede:  “Are you saying Hiro’s the one who went into the kitchen?”

Because obviously Kaede had to drive a taxi through her mind to figure this out, and nobody else in the room figured it out in less time than it took her to do that. And she also couldn’t possibly have just asked Himiko to clarify who she meant in the first place.

But hey, the one who took the knife from the kitchen was in fact the victim. More references to the DR1 case! I wonder if we’re supposed to think that Hiro was secretly planning murder and not just taking it for self-defence. Honestly I wouldn’t entirely put that past him; if anyone would be the kind of coward looking for an easy way out that Kaito was denouncing back in the investigation, he seems a reasonable candidate for it.

Having realised that the one who took the knife isn’t the culprit after all, suspicion falls back on the three protagonists, particularly Kaede as she discovered the body.

“Makoto”:  “No, that’s wrong!”

“Hajime”:  “Yeah! You’ve got that wrong!”

Monokuma:  “Oh? The two leads just said their catchphrases! Finally, this is getting exciting!”

Man, this is apparently some genwunner-audience-shallowness worthy of trial 6 if they’re supposed to think that a couple of people just yelling “no, that’s wrong!” somehow makes things the height of entertainment. Admittedly the rest of the trial has not exactly been riveting, but still.

“Makoto”:  “Kaede… don’t give up hope. Keep going and you’ll be able to reach the truth!”

He can’t just tell her to not give up – he has to throw in that buzzword and make sure everyone knows that this is about hope. Look, guys, he’s totally Makoto.

Kaede:  “But, how do I prove my innocence?”

“Hajime”:  “That’s…”

…But neither of them actually know how to do this and are just spouting meaningless protagonisty lines.

Kokichi:  “Fine! I guess my decisive testimony will help us find our culprit!”

Oh boy, it’s Kokichi Making Everything About Himself time.

Gonta:  “You know who culprit is? That means everyone not have to get punished!”

Aww, Gonta. Look at him naively believing everything Kokichi says, this is totally not foreshadowing for anything important and tragic in the main game, not at all.

A couple of the other slower characters also go welp, great, this means the trial can be over soon.

Shuichi:  “Kokichi… if you had information like that, why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

Kokichi:  “Well, if I said something that important right away, that wouldn’t be much fun.”

But at least Shuichi is still being the most sensible and realising exactly what is so fishy about this. (This is also the question he has to worry about himself with regards to his own lies that he tells in canon.)

Kokichi’s response is “lol, for fun”, though, because of course it is, and that is exactly what he would do if this testimony he’s about to give weren’t a lie. Especially considering that that’s the usual reason why he really does frequently withhold important information from everyone else in canon.

Kokichi:  “Anyway… the culprit is Makoto.”

From just the text alone, this could seem like it’s deliberately being reminiscent of Kokichi’s “Well, then… the culprit is Gonta” line in canon. But alas, the delivery is completely different – which I guess is fair enough, since here he’s just lying.

Kaede:  “Huh? Wh-What are you saying?”

“Makoto”:  “…”

Interestingly, Makoto doesn’t immediately try to deny this.

Regardless, Kaede decides she’s going to believe in Makoto, and so she’s going to lie for him. Finally, a mechanic introduced in this demo that, A, is an actually interesting new mechanic and not a pointless minigame, and, B, is represented properly!

(There’s no Debate Scrum in this demo, sadly. I’d say it’s because they couldn’t come up with a proper excuse for one, but honestly they could probably have scraped together a short one about whether or not Makoto did it, similar to the one about Shuichi in canon.)

Kokichi:  “I saw Makoto leave that room by himself! I swear!”

Wow, that totally doesn’t sound like a lie at all.

“Makoto”:  “I didn’t go into that room even once… so Kokichi must be mistaken.”

“Kokichi is lying.”

There’s eight different white noise lines for this last statement, most of which are quite easily identifiable. Even though this one is less obviously so, I bet it’s Maki. It sounds like her.

So Kaede lies that she was with Makoto the entire time until the body discovery.

Kokichi:  “Hmmm… Kaede, you’d rather choose a lie than the truth, just to protect Makoto?”

Kaede:  “Do you have any proof to show that I’m lying, Kokichi?”

Kokichi:  “Nope, none at all. I lied about seeing Makoto.”

Welp, that didn’t last long at all.

Kaito:  “Why you…? Don’t mess with us!”

Again I love that Kaito is the one to call him out on this! He hates that someone would be this insincere and selfishly mess with their lives just for his own petty entertainment.

Kokichi:  “I just wanted Makoto to talk, so I simply tricked him into speaking.”

Kaito:  “Why beat around the bush like that?”

This is so Kaito – he’s not using the word here, but this is his concept of manliness! Don’t beat around the bush, just come straight out and tell people what you want from them! If he wanted Makoto to testify, he should have just asked him instead of being insincere and indirect and manipulating him into it.

Kokichi:  “Cuz it’s still not clear where Makoto was before and after the indicent, right? Aw maaaan… I totally thought Makoto would talk if we started accusing him.”

And your lie didn’t help us clear anything up any more than just asking him directly would have done, so good fucking job, as usual. It almost seems like Kokichi’s actually acknowledging here that his lie didn’t work, but really he’s probably telling himself it totally would have worked if Kaede hadn’t jumped in with her own lie, because Kokichi can never be wrong about anything.

Some of the others point out that Kaede is also lying because she was on her own shortly after the body discovery and it’s weird that she and Makoto would split up after finding a body. Since Kaede’s lie is so provably false, it’s surprising to me that Kokichi backed down so soon on his own lie rather than just trying to disprove Kaede’s. Maybe his actual intent was that he thought Kaede was the culprit and expected her to throw Makoto under the bus to protect herself, and then when she didn’t, he realised she’s probably innocent and backed off? Maybe? But then again, Kokichi expects people to throw others under the bus to protect themselves even when they are innocent, like he was trying to get Kaito to do to Maki in trial 2, so, eh, I kinda doubt he’d see anyone not doing that as actual proof of anything. There’s too much selflessness and trust involved in that idea.

Gonta:  “Huh? Kaede… tell lie?”

Aww, Gonta.

Kaede:  (I need to be more convincing if I want them to believe me. I’ll remember that next time I need to lie… Of course, I hope that time never comes.)

Heh, that sure is a rather transparently this-is-just-a-demo thing for her to be thinking.

Kaito:  “We just got dragged around by Kokichi’s lies… We didn’t clear a single thing up!”

Exactly! God I love like 80% of the Kaito in this demo. All of the bits that aren’t horrendously out of character are so wonderfully him.

Everyone awkwardly laments that they still don’t have any more of a clue who did it other than maybe the three owners of the room and maybe in particular Kaede for no good reason. (Come on, guys, the rooms weren’t locked, literally anybody could have seen Hiro wandering into that room and taken their chance to kill someone.)

“Makoto”:  “It can’t end like this. No one wants an ending like that.”

Wow, that is so hilariously trial 6 of him. I am very sure the demo writers are doing this on purpose at this point.

Hajime decides he can prove it wasn’t Kaede, so he starts talking in very vague terms about “it” that was on the floor in the dorm, and something off about the crime scene. I’m not sure what the latter thing he’s supposed to be referring to is – Kaede’s comments in the investigation suggested there was supposedly something suspicious about the blood on the knife handle, so it might be that, but I couldn’t tell myself what was off about it. (There might not even be anything off about it, because this is about to go precisely nowhere. Then again, maybe it was the fact that it’s actually a prop knife because “Hiro” wasn’t really dead? Although “Hajime” probably wouldn’t want that to be known, would he.) The former thing is clearly the short brown hair found on the floor after Kirumi had cleaned, which suggests it is not Kaede but is instead either Makoto or Hajime.

But before Kaede can actually properly mention either of these things Hajime is vaguely alluding to, Monokuma interrupts and declares that the demo is over, and the trial abruptly ends.

So we never actually find out who supposedly killed Hiro – but I think the clues make it pretty clear that it was supposed to be Makoto.

On my first time seeing the demo, I was certain it couldn’t be Makoto because I already implicitly trusted that he’d never kill anyone. But that’s only if it was the real Makoto. Since this is just a cosplayer, and this is just a show being put on by Team Danganronpa for some very superficial demo entertainment, anything goes. I can totally see them pulling out the shocking twist that Makoto murdered someone, just for the hell of it.

All the clues point to Makoto – the hair that’s either his or Hajime’s, his extremely unexplained disappearance, plus a couple of moments in which he acted quite suspiciously, such as the way he didn’t immediately fervently plead his innocence when Kokichi claimed he had proof. And even if it had actually been a real murder, none of the people here who are real people and not cosplayers just acting would snap and give up that quickly on getting out of here without resorting to such drastic measures, just like Kaito said.

Then, right at the end of the demo, over a blank screen, there’s this.

“Makoto”:  “Hey, how was… our acting?”

Monokuma:  “Puhuhu, it wasn’t too shabby! I especially liked how convincingly you wasted everyone’s time!”

“Hajime”:  “I was a little worried about the end there… Hope it was exciting enough. Welp, since we got through it smoothly, that’s it for today!”

Monokuma:  “Smell ya later!”

“Makoto”:  “Good job, everyone!”

“Hajime”:  “Good job! See ya!”

��………

“Hiro”:  “Heeey! Wait for meee!”

This sure is a thing. I’d actually forgotten this bit was here while coming up with my theory that the Makoto, Hajime and Hiro we see in this demo are just cosplayers and nobody died – and this basically completely proves that this idea really was what the out-universe writers were going for here.

On a first viewing of this demo without having seen the main game, Makoto asking about their acting would potentially just seem like him referring to how he and Hajime hid the fact that they’d already been in another killing game – and, perhaps, the fact that they knew Hiro wasn’t really dead and this was all staged. But even then, it’s kind of odd that they’re asking this to Monokuma, like they’re in league with him, which doesn’t seem right for them at all.

But it makes every single bit of sense after finishing the main game if you assume that they really were cosplayers just putting on this demo as a teaser for the in-universe audience. When “Makoto” asks about their acting, he’s asking if they were convincing enough as Makoto and Hajime in the first place. They work for Team Danganronpa, so of course they’re in league with Monokuma and having a casual conversation with him. And everything about the way they’re talking comes across like actors or directors being all “welp, that’s a wrap, good job out there on set today, guys, we sure made an entertaining show!”

This bit didn’t need to be in the demo at all, but it’s really fun that they put it here anyway. It’s a very subtle, cheeky little hint to the real truth of everything that nobody’s going to be able to piece together without already knowing the truth and is just going to assume is meaningless demo shenanigans until then.

Also, while obviously nobody actually died, Team Danganronpa was still presenting a fiction in which Hiro totally did die, and within that fiction they apparently still totally had it in mind that Makoto killed him. They didn’t really have to hint towards anyone having done it at all, but they still had Makoto’s actor go out of his way to put in deliberate hints that it was him. I wonder how many of the audience picked up on the hints, and how shocked they were if they did. Gasp, their precious Makoto did a murder!! How could he fall to despair like this!?

[a-weird-blog-in-general]

ITH Mafia Au

Yep. I’m releasing this thing into the world. It’s been aging quite finely, and with some help from @pika-ace, this has been fleshed out to the best of our combined abilities.

And, as a little something extra, we’ve mixed in some Do No Harm stuff in there too.

Boy this is probably going to be long. Welp, here we go.

There are the three families, led by Vanessa, Daniela, and the Rosarios. I like to imagine Abuela Claudia as the Boss of All Bosses (the head Godfather), who can be a member or not, but everyone listens to her on her block.

Vanessa's family is the most "calm" of the three; they deal more diplomatic and trade affairs (stuff like blackmail and bribing political figures, along with moving products). Usnavi and Sonny both fall under Vanessa, Usnavi being an actual member (most likely a Capo) and Sonny is not officially one yet; he's going through initiation.  In Vanessa's family, of course you got some issues with Sonny being accepted into the family. Usnavi is not 100% on board with it, but it allows Sonny to have protection under the family without conflict and doesn't interfere with Usnavi's loyalty to the family. Not that's much of a problem because Sonny, member or not, is always going to be protected by the families but Usnavi doesn't see that yet. That also gives Ian the excuse to take Sonny because technically the other families shouldn't care about some kid, but oh he got shit wrong. There's also the issue with Sonny hanging around Pete all the time. Pete, belonging to another family, has taken the oath to be loyal to them above all else. Usnavi doesn't want Sonny to form this relationship he knows (or more like he thinks) that Sonny won't be more important to Pete than the family is.

Daniela's family has Carla and Pete, Carla being an Consigliere (basically Daniela's right-hand woman) and Pete is a soldier (the 2nd lowest level of the hierarchy). They are the more "violent" of the families, dealing with the dirty work (hits and stuff like that). They have the strongest mafia army, so if you ever need a war, you want this family on your side. But it's more like they'll do the violence if they have to, not that they're just violent in general. With Daniela, the issue is she's the one who's always harassed for being a female boss and having a female Underboss. Other small groups and gangs not associated with the families don't like that for some reason, but they learn very quickly not to mess with the strongest family with two powerful ladies leading it. But like it's an issue that's always there, so they always have to be a little bit better and stronger than everyone else because of it. And you also got that issue going on with Pete and Sonny in the back.

The Rosario's are the more traditional ones and don't have the greatest public presence. They're the ones pulling all the strings behind the scenes; you need some product moved, they'll do it. Need to sneak into this uber secret place? They got you fam. With Mr. Rosario as the boss, Lincoln is the Underboss (basically being groomed to be the next boss if necessary). Though Camila is really the boss (she's got Kevin on her leash), it's Kevin who is the face of the family. Nina isn't in the mafia hierarchy, which kind of makes her upset. Kevin keeps her out because he wants to keep her safe, but I mean she already runs some risk with being your daughter man. Benny serves as a bodyguard for the Rosario family,  which gives him plenty of time close to Nina, and romance blooms. And Kevin wouldn't like that no no. In the Rosarios, Lincoln doesn't want to be the next boss. He wants to go and do his own thing, but Kevin's like no you gotta be the next boss if something happens to me. Now Nina's like what about me? I'm here and I'm willing to do this let me. Kevin doesn't want to expose Nina to that kind of life, but Camila just takes Nina off to the side and lets her in on how everything works. Benny, being a bodyguard to the family and is one of the closest to the family, gets to spend a lot of time with Nina. Now Kevin don't like that. He's put his trust in Benny to watch over his family, he doesn't need Benny falling in love with his daughter. And in general, if it gets let out that the family's bodyguard is getting all close to the daughter of the boss, that's gonna cause problems.

So that’s the basics of the families. I’m not the best versed in these sorts of things so feel free to change/add/correct inconistencies.

So, here’s where the DNH element comes in.

Let’s say that Ian’s got connections (that wouldn’t be so far fetched when taking into account the shit he does), and he’s got his own little orgainization up his sleeves. He does some digging and decides that he’s going to use Usnavi to obtain money and information from the families.

It's gutsy for Ian threaten Usnavi, who's a Capo. But then again, this is Usnavi we're talking about so that's probably why he chose him to exploit. Usnavi, despite being a Capo, isn't exactly the best material for the job. Yes, he gets the job done but he doesn't have the best authority skills. People respect him because if they don't they gotta answer to Vanessa and that wouldn't be very good, for them that is. And it's Ian I think he just wouldn't care. And it's because of Usnavi's position and his lack of authoritarian skills that makes him a good target.And knowing Ian he'd keep an eye on him and know just the right pressure points for him. In Usnavi's case, his family; threatening him is one thing, but threatening to hurt Sonny is a low blow. He could also threaten to wage war on Vanessa's family, resulting in a whole lotta death for everyone, which is the LAST thing Usnavi wants on his hands. Innocent people get caught the crossfire of those things.

Ian would be pegging Usnavi for inside info. Like to let him know if anything big is happening within the family; I think that'd be a LOT harder for Usnavi cause money from his own pocket is one thing, but outright betrayal? That'd REALLY get to him. It challenges the oath and Usnavi takes that very seriously. It would wreck him.

Aaaaand Sonny would find out about it and he'd be pissed at Ian more than Usnavi cause he knows what lengths Usnavi will go for his loved ones and he'd just be like 'this asshole is basically taking advantage of my cousin to do all this shit, this guy is a monster! No one fucks with Usnavi but me!' Aaaand knowing Sonny he'd go out and try to confront the problem himself and get himself and Usnavi into even more trouble.

Now Sonny knows what’s going on, Ian has to use his biggest trump card; kidnap Sonny to use him as leverage against Usnavi.. He'd probably keep Sonny locked up or close to him constantly like 'You do the thing, or your baby cousin is dead, get it.'

And there’s an initial confrontation.  the confrontation would be like. Like, Ian calls Usnavi into wherever the hell they meet, and at first everything's fine, Ian acts like everything's totally normal while Usnavi's just confused and a little scared, until finally, Ian just snaps his fingers and two guys bring Sonny out (probably tied up; the kid's a fighter) and Usnavi just turns white and things just go downhill from there. 'Let him go, please! He's just a kid!' 'Alright, I'll tell you what? Finish the job, and I'll tell where to pick him up. And finish it quick; I'm terrible at being patient.'

So Usnavi finally decides to get help.  maybe Ian calls Usnavi to make sure he's still doing his thing and Vanessa overhears and confronts Usnavi about it, and Usnavi just breaks down, tells her everything and begs her for help. And Vanessa just hugs him like 'You dumbass why are you so afraid of asking for help?' Then she rounds up the rest of the families like 'Code Red people; emergency meeting now. Sonny's in danger.' Oh yes. And they don't even have to argue this with head honcho Claudia. You put the words "Sonny" and "danger" in any sentence together you have her full permission to fuck shit up.Like, Claudia doesn't even have to look up if she's doing something. She just says 'Take whatever you need, be back by dinner, and bring Sonny back safely, por favor.'

Usnavi tries to do the outsmart Ian thing when he goes to meet Ian again, but Ian thinks he’s got the uper hand but nope looks who’s knocking at the door it’s all three mafia families and their army. Adn they violently exterminate Ian.

I could see them kinda casually hinting at what they did while everyone's taking Sonny home like. 'Man I didn't know you could bend someone's arm that far!' 'The tooth fairy's got her work cut out for her.' 'How many times did he fall out that window?' 'Lost count.' And Sonny's just staring at the with stars in his eyes like 'I have the best neighborhood in the universe.' I could totally see there just being a somber moment in general, especially between Usnavi and Sonny. Like while they're walking home, Usnavi has his arm around Sonny the whole way like he's afraid he'll disappear. And then maybe they have a talk. 'Mijo you should have just stayed out of this. What were you thinking? I almost lost you.' 'I couldn't just sit around and let that asshole use you.'

Sonny probably would feel pretty freaking humiliated (let's be honest, being the hostage in the situation is the WORST) he's going to be initiated in a few years if he's ready, and he went and got himself freaking kidnapped and made Usnavi just about have a conniption from worry; there's NO WAY they'll let him be an official part of the family now! And maybe after the rest of the family give him a little pep-talk even Usnavi admits that Sonny could still be a part of the family if he wanted to. 'You stood up to a Boss to try and help me, Sonny; not just anyone can do that, even if it didn't work.'I could just see Usnavi hugging Sonny tightly and saying 'Alright you can join eventually, but  ONLY if you promise to NEVER scare me like that again.'

And that’s that. Now onto Ruben.

Ruben was previously an employee of some sorts for Ian, and now that Ian's gone some of his lackeys decide they want to strike back at the families and they use Ruben to do it.

So like the bad guys' spy on the families for a bit and realize that the person named Usnavi looks A LOT like Ruben, almost identical. So they decide to pull a switch to have Ruben pass off as Usnavi. It works out for the bad guys cause they blame him for teh fiasco that happened to their boss: if Usnavi had just gone along with Ian's plans, they'd still have a boss.

So Ruben's forced to be a spy and sabotage the families from the inside while pretending to be Usnavi. And the bad guys have Ruben's family under surveillance and if he messes up they're going to get hurt. The bad guys' plan doesn't really work out, cause no one really buys into it. Well, Sonny doesn't buy it at all; it's like one of those "who are you and what have you done with Usnavi" but serious this time. Everyone else pretty much acknowledges that "Usnavi" is not his usual self, but they don't really question it; that's something they'd leave to Vanessa. But everyone's suspicious.

And it gets even more complicated because the families don't treat Ruben like trash and actually treat him like a human being and even though they treat him as they would Usnavi Ruben's like "wow these people are the most caring people ever why am I doing this?" And the guilt gets to be too much cause it feels just like when Ian just came by his family's home and invaded Ruben's safe bubble but in this case, Ruben's the one invading another's family and boy does that feel shitty. Ruben feels like a horrible human being but he's got to do it anyway cause what can he do? Nothing.

Slowly, Ruben works his way into Usnavi's role (still kind of sucks), but with less suspicion. And little friendship starts between Ruben and Sonny (cause damn I love the friendship too). Ruben's like "wow this kid's pretty chill" and Sonny's like "wow Usnavi's actually chill for once wow."

And one day it get's overwhelming for Ruben and he breaks down and Sonny ends up walking in and doesn't know what to do. Like while it's Ruben, Sonny sees his cousin, the "rational" one and he's curled up alone and crying and Sonny's scared. And all Ruben manages to say when Sonny asks what's wrong is "I have to fix my mistake." And then Ruben suddenly gets up and makes his way to Vanessa and Sonny's still scared and follows, listening though the door. And Vanessa, from the moment Ruben walks in though the door, knows something is wrong and Ruben confesses.

After Ruben confesses, Vanessa, understandably so, is pretty damn pissed and in order to keep Ruben out of the way, again understandbly so, keeps Ruben under watch and under lock and key while she formulates her plan.

Sonny breaks Ruben out and they both go in secret to find Usnavi, who's still locked up... waiting. The bad guys haven't been the nicest of people (make with that what you will), but Sonny and Ruben manage to get there by Ruben pretending to have captured Sonny and have the bad guys come and get them. They manage to get to Usnavi and almost get out but the bad guys stop them.

So now they're all being held at gunpoint (not fun), but something that should be noted is that Ruben tries to shield Usnavi and Sonny as much as possible because he feels so much guilt and if those two don't make it out of this then goddamnit everyone dies I guess. And then Ruben decides to turn himself over to the bad guys as long as they agree to let Sonny and Usnavi go. But wow they don't agree they'd rather just kill everyone and Ruben tries to reason with them and they beat him up for talking back to them (Sonny doesn't like that and tries to fight literally the biggest guy in the room but Usnavi holds him back because no Sonny that's stupid you gonna die). Sonny breaks free anyway and puches the biggest man in the room straight up in the face (he has to jump to even get that high) and some other guy turns to shoot at Sonny but Ruben shields him and gets shot instead (oh no). The other guys get ready to full on murder but wait what's that I hear holy shit it's Vanessa (she noticed Sonny was missing Ruben had "mysteriously" gotten away so she just tracked Sonny's phone to find them; she was right in assuming Sonny had broken Ruben out) and she is PISSED. And yeah she brought a tiny army cause she wanted to literally murder every single one of the kidnappers on her own. And she does; goes in guns blazing and full on badass.

They manage to save everybody.

Ruben's taken care of but he is still not okay and still feels like the worst human being ever even though you took a bullet for Sonny (which kind of automatically puts you on Usnavi's good side). Everyone get's that Ruben did a bad, a very bad thing, but they also understand that he was forced to do it for his family which means the man's got values. And after finding out about Ruben's familial situation, the families agree to watch over and protect Ruben's family while everything settles down and Ruben's so thankfull????? Like I hurt your family and you're willing to protect mine? Well yeah because our family isn't a bunch of bastards. And they're even willing to actually get to know Ruben as Ruben and he can't deal with all these people being nice to him???? And they stay close.

And BOOM there it is

[ladyloveandjustice]

Nev Replays Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations Case 4

Caitlin: I'm on the fourth case now which means Mia vs baby brat edgeworth.

 He's only 20 jesus.

He even did his "the prosecution has been ready for a WHILE" thing in his very first trial. ever. AT LEAST EASE INTO THINGS MILES.

This is not the usual judge but the judge's younger brother. who is a blonde version of regular judge. the only difference is he's apparently canadian.

 but if they're brothers??? maybe it's half brothers. Or he moved to Canada when he was older and then moved back.

also he actually jumps the gun way more than regular judge he's tried to declare our client guilty three times the case has just started

“With his tendency to go off on weird tangents and that accent I wonder if he's Canadian" I did not know Canadians were known for weird tangents.

luci: are they abo'ut maple syrup tho

or hockey

Caitlin: Some of them are about hockey

luci: bahaha

Caitlin: awww Mia did meet Gumshoe. He has a different color coat so you can tell he's younger

When I presented her profile while I was playing as Phoenix Gumshoe mentioned he knew her and it was a TERRIBLE LOSS. You sure didn't act like you knew her during her murder case. 

Then he was all like "WE WENT HEAD TO HEAD IN COURT. TWO GREAT MINDS LOCKED IN BATTLE" and Phoenix was like "...you're not supposed to battle the lawyer as a witness, you know that right"

luci: everyone grieves in their own way

Caitlin: That might explain why he was so enthusiastic to arrest Maya. idk. That was his grief.

GUESS WHO WITHHELD EVIDENCE WHAT A SHOCKER

Gumshoe is so hurt Miles didn't let him know about this evidence. Miles says he didn't think he'd notice everything so he went to the scene himself after the police investigation and collected his own evidence. rude.

Now Maya wants to wring his "smarmy little neck" with the evidence. Ace Attorney AU where Mia murders Miles here. The entire plot of the first game is therefore ruined

luci: hmm i wonder how shed do it

oh right in the courtroom? haha

Caitlin: She could probably do it in front of this judge and confuse him into thinking he didn't see it

"Mr. Edgeworth I don't appreciate you wagging your finger at me like I'm some hoser". Sorry Judge he's not going to stop he was taught this is essential courtroom procedure.

This case would be so much more enjoyable if i didn't have to worst character in all ace attorney as my assistant. i hate him so much

Like he's way worse than all the annoying side characters because I have to put up with him so much more and I'm supposedly supposed to sympathize with him to a degree when he's a horrible misogynist fuckbag.

Playing AA before going back to work. Sometimes Miles uses completely fucking obscure words and I actually have to look them up. 

Mia is asking why a policewoman would turn her back on someone attacking her and Miles is like "well, he's a very large man most people would try to run away. If it was a quaggy woman like you I'm sure she'd have fought". WHAT DOES QUAGGY MEAN.

I  just looked it up and it means "soft, flabby". WOW MILES. GO TO YOUR ROOM YOUNG MAN. U RLLY ARE A LITTLE BRAT. a little brat with a thesaurus.

apparently Mia knew what it meant too because she was offended. who on earth has ever used that word.

Though according to urban dictionary it's supposed to be a "nice" word, like pillowy. 

The judge is informing us he would have run away and jumped in the river in our victim's situation.

"Oh no, He's got that condescending tone in his voice" Mia, it's Miles Edgeworth that's like saying water is wet.

awwww. We found out our victim had previously shot a dude when he kidnapped her little sister. Mia says, "I thought that was extreme when I first heard, but now knowing it was for her little sister, I get that". 

MIA WOULD TOTALLY SHOOT A DUDE IN THE HEAD FOR MAYA. Wouldn't we all.

I'M KICKING MILES' ASS AND IT FEELS SO GOOD.

 "So young, and already so forgetful, Mr. Edgeworth!" Destroy him, Mia

Caitlin: The ending for this trial is really traumatizing. I won't spoil it but Mia makes sure to inform us it deeply traumatized  her. Then she informs us she's pretty sure it traumatized Miles too. Because he didn't already have enough things to be traumatized about, I guess.

Now I feel bad for making fun. His life really is nothing but a series of witnessing horrible things.

[ My addition: Like. Can you imagine Phoenix ever asking Miles about his first trial. I’m just imagining the conversation. 

“The one against me was your second trial, right, Wright? What was your first trial like”

“Oh, I represented Larry. It was pretty nervewracking but I’m proud that I saved him. What was your first trial like?”

“It scarred me for life.”

“Oh. Um, that’s sad. Weird, that’s what Mia also says about her first trial.”

“...”

It is kind of interesting that Miles and Phoenix both had trauma courtesy of Dahlia Hawthorne. I actually guess Phoenix knows now since he was reading the case file.I wonder if he ever bought it up. They’ve probably talked about it at one point. It’d have to be super weird to know the two most major people who impacted your life- and who you were the most devoted too and one worked out and one didn’t- were connected in that way]

Welp, that's over. On to the final case. Which is really long, I'm sure.

[coffeecupandteatime]

Obscure Review #6

It’s time to spork fics and ruin lives.

Ahhhhh, it’s that time of the year again, when the summer air is crisp, and we’re all stuck inside reading reviews on awful fanfics. ʕಠᴥಠʔ My mother always said I had no life.

I haven’t had a life since I found the internet.

Yes we know that Coffee.

None of us have had lives since the internet. Let’s just put that out there now.

You make a compelling point sir. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Now shall we begin the shitstorm?

Shit parade is a better description.

As usual, we will be offensive. Don’t take this personally.

Hey … I'm sorry I haven't updated in forever. I kind of helped my sister have a party at our house and it went really wild.

Suuuuuure you did pal. Ya sure you weren’t just thinking of quitting? Cos I’m sure many people would love that. ʕ° ͟ل͜ ͡°ʔ

My parents came home the next morning and we got grounded for having alcohol at the party. At the party, some stupid kids broke some of my mom's porcelain dolls and the vase that contained my grandmother's ashes was also broken. So not only did my sister get grounded for a year, but I, who wasn't even at the party got grounded as well.

OBJECTION! That’s a contradiction! You just stated “it went really wild”, implying you were there! *slams hands on desk* Isn’t that right?!

What the fuck? Who gets mad over porcelain dolls breaking? Those things are creepy as hell.  Also she HELPED her sister have the party so there’s that too.

Avid collectors get mad and not to mention her grandma’s ashes were spilled all over the floor.  

I’d be a little mad if someone busted the vase with grandma’s ashes.

I understand that part, just not the dolls.

And that's why I haven't updated. No laptop, TV, Ipod, phone, DS, and no Hot Cheetos or Starbucks!

You sound oh so very stereotypically white right now.

“OH NO! Things I can totally live without but depend on!”

Ouch. Right in the entitlements…

I’m sure none of those things wanted to be associated with you.

My mom also signed me up for ballet. So guess what I spent my time doing after school and during the summer.

Come on kid, ballet isn’t bad, it’s fun once you get past the clumsiness.

Anyway, now I have some of my freedom back. Before I quit ballet, I stuck the finger to the evil teacher and walked out of there like a boss! Yeah... no.

That would get you another month of grounding if you were my child.

Much worse would happen to her if that were my spawn.

I’m not having kids if they're always like this brat.

That would be extremely rude.

You say as if you cared.

I’m sure she does Coff.

Yeah, no she doesn’t.

And another reason I haven't updated was because Katherine's story takes place after the whole war with the giants and I didn't know if the camps were going to come together and change the name or something like that.

Oh, good. Then I take back my previous comment. She’s still a special-snowflake (bitch) daughter of Poseidon, but at least she’s not fucking up the prophecy. She’s just gonna fuck everything else up.

The daughter of Poseidemort who ran over a MINOTAUR and uses the knife game to punish her brother.

Special snowflakes galore.

MY MAMA SAYS I’M SPECIAL!

So when the book came out, I read it but I couldn't start writing a chapter. Well, here's the fourth chapter. Oh wait, remember how in the first chapter it say winter? Well I'm changing it to the summer

‘Scuse me? You’re just gonna… change the a fairly major element of the story with an author’s note? Instead of, y’know, editing???

And why not just keep it going and be lazy and call it an ‘AU’? Anyone can do that.

That would be too much effort, that’s why.

I sighed. It had been a week since we left the house. So many of those… things had come after us.

What things? You mean monsters?

What monsters? We never saw anything except the Minotaur which was run over and never heard from again.

Clearly we’re running from he must not be named.

Poseidemort

That old lady that had grown wings,

WHAT OLD LADY? Is there something happening off-screen we don’t know about??

All we ever got about the FURY was a SINGLE screech.

Just gonna dump her in here apparently.

the man/animal that had horns and was unbelievably strong,

Which was never shown, because they flattened it with a car.

Correction, attempted to flatten it with a car. It didn’t die and didn’t try to kill them although they sat on top of it for like 5 minutes.

What man/animal with horns? You know how many monsters fit that description? ʕಠ益ಠʔ

and that weird big hairless dog.

Please stop acting like we actually saw any of this.

I thought hellhounds had fur tho.

They do but she clearly doesn’t know her Greek monsters.

ʕಠ益ಠʔ That makes me angry.

It’s fine! Because we never saw this at all in context with the story.

My mom had names for them. That old lady with the wings was a fury, the man/animal thing with horns was a minotaur And the big dog thing is a hellhound.

A hellhound isn’t hairless you fop.  

This could have been put into the previous sentence but instead you continue to waste my time with your unneeded prose.

That’d be too easy.

My mom had always wanted us to get into the whole Greek and Roman myths about the gods. Never really sparked my interest. But my mom did make me take Latin. I hated it but I put up with it for her.

I’m sorry, WHAT?!? You’re a Greek demi-twit, you should be learning, guess what, GREEK!

Latin is not Greek.

Plot twist: MC isn’t a Demigod, she was adopted and Angel’s the true Demigod.

The only twist I would gladly accept.

So anyway, we have traveled from Beverly Hills to New York in a week in a would have been here earlier but we spent a whole day shopping for clothes.

“We’re being chased by monsters, but that’s okay! We can spend an entire day shopping without incident! Hooray, materialism!”

Lord forbid shopping gets compromised. ʕಠ益ಠʔ

Shoes, pants, a backpack for each of us, lady things, shirts, sweaters and jackets, underwear, tank tops, socks etc.

Yet you wasted time to compile a shortlist of the shit you bought. You could just say you bought the essentials.  

We’re off to a good start…

Lady things, yet you have underwear separately. ʕಠᴥಠʔ╭∩╮cool.

Um, do I have to explain what lady things are Jager?

Well if MC can try to get her brother and friend to basically fuck, ‘lady things’ shouldn’t be that bad. Just saying.

I’m surprised you don’t know already.

We stopped by hotels every morning to shower. That's why we took so long.

In the previous sentence you mentioned wasting an entire day shopping. I’m pretty confident that it contributed.

Tea, the author has no concept of time.

But now we're here. Sitting in a Starbucks. Sipping our frappuccinos as my mom babbles on and on about this camp.

I’m starting to sense a pattern with you....

Is urgency lost on you? Whatever is chasing you, I hope it smashes you into bloody paste leaving Angel alive to arrive at camp so we don’t have to deal with your drivel.

Apparently it is. ʕಠᴥಠʔ

Camp Half-Blood or something.

Good to know you’re paying attention to this crucial information concerning your safety and well-being.

I’m surprised she hasn’t tried getting Emily to hook up with the monsters to distract them.

She probably would if she thought it would let them live.

Gonna get that big ol’ Minotaur horn if ya know what I mean C;

I don’t.

Ahh, innocent Coffee. You’ll figure it out when you’re older.

This is about as old as I’m gonna get.

It's dark as we leave the cozy coffee shop. I instantly miss the smell of caffeine.

How the hell can you smell caffeine?

ʕ.ᴥ.ʔ Welp. The power of being a Sue lets you smell the impossible.

I don’t have enough caffeine in my system to deal with this shit.

That’s like saying I can smell yeast before it ferments.

As we make our way to the car, I notice a huge black cloud in the sky. I can see light flash inside it. Lightning.

Thanks Captain Obvious!

You act like you’ve never seen a storm before. Oh and we are once again copying Percy’s how-I-got-here story.

She probably hasn’t since her life was so ‘perfect’ before.

I open my mouth to-

Spout more idiotic bullshit? Bitch about Angel?

tell them about the cloud when Emily looks up at me. I know she noticed it. She's probably gonna end up clutching my side halfway through our ride to this camp. She's always been afraid of lightning.

Oh no. So scary. Much terrified.

Show that she’s afraid of it, don’t state it to the audience.

All Knowing Sue strikes again.

She feels that it will kill her.

SMITE HER ZEUS!

DAMMIT COFFEE! NOTHING WILL SAVE US! NOT EVEN THE PAN!

And she doesn't like airplanes or anything that involves lightning or being above the ground. She's never been on a swing since she doesn't like her feet not touching the ground or something that is touching the ground.

Show not tell, show not tell, shOW NOT TELL.

You’re gonna flip shit when you read who her mom is. Anyway, it’s apparently supposed to “contribute” to her fear of Zeus.

If it’s not Aphrodite I’ll be very disappointed.

Her only exception is the ocean since that's where we feel at home

I get why a child of Poseidon feels safe, but why Emily? We don’t know her. Nor do we care anymore.

I have a bad feeling about her god-parent…

Don’t got many choices.

I’m going to bet that her mother is a goddess who can’t/won’t have mortal children.

, so she feels safe with us. We get in the car and my mom starts driving. I hear thunder and I feel someone clutching my arm really hard.

So much so that she renders flesh from bone.

Coffee. What did I say.

I WILL DO ANYTHING TO SEE HER DIE.

IT WON’T SAVE US! THEN EMILY WILL TAKE OVER!

I MUST TRY! NO MATTER HOW FUTILE!

" Emily, that hurts." I say annoyed.

“Ow, pain. I fractured my ability to emote.”

Please kill her.

She could emote in the first place?

" Sorry." She loosens her grip. My arm can breath again.

I wasn’t aware your arm had breathing capabilities.

Does it have nostrils that we don’t see?

The arm has the most character development in this story.

" Emily, sweetie, nothing is going to happen to you. Besides, your mom will protect you.

“Ah, yes. My mother that I know nothing about and who has practically abandoned me. That’s comforting.”

“Bah you’ll get used to it.”

She would never let anything happen to you. Just like Angel and Kat's father would never let anything happen to I'm here."

If Poseidon never let anything happen to his demi-spawn this entire story would not exist.

Exactly. Thank you Coffee.

Emily just nodded when my looked at her through the rear mirror. Anyone could see that Emily didn't believe her and she was still afraid.

I can’t see anything with your lousy writing.

So much for those classes am I right guys?

" How about some music? That always soothes you." Angel put on the radio.

Why are we suddenly being formal in speech?

You know what would soothe me?

These fuckers dying?

In a fiery car crash.

Noooooooooo, why a fucking song. Why do you have to write out the song!

Cause raisins.

" If I die young, bury me in satin

I’ll bury you all right, but it will sure as hell not be in satin.

Maybe in an inferno.

That might work. Though someone might dig her up.

Lay me down on a bed of roses

If you don’t mind the napalm under it.

A good old fashioned bonfire.

That’d be to easy. Slowly lower her onto a bed of rusty nails.

Sink me in a river at dawn

Hon, even if you didn’t die I’d still drown you in a river.

She can breathe in water though.

FUCK.

AHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA! Can she breath in acid?

Send me away with the words of a love song

With the lyrics describing your imminent demise.

Nobody loves you.

Not even the knives.

Uh oh, uh oh

That’s how I feel about this entire fic.

That’s me everyday of my life.

Lord make me a rainbow,

Lord, please don’t.

I second that.

I'll shine down on my mother

With a death ray.

DEATH FROM ABOVE!

Preparing weapon: 80%.

She'll know I'm safe

Now that you’re no longer a nuisance.

Now a thorn in God’s side.

Poor God.

with you when she stands under my colors,

I bet your colors are about the same as your emotional spectrum.

A dull gray, slightly darker dull grey and and an even darker dull grey.

Don‘t insult grey.

Oh yeah. And purple.

You leave purple out of this.

oh,

“I finally realized this whole story was a mistake.”

Nah, I doubt Author ever thought that.

And life ain't always what you think it ought to be,

Like this story.

Clearly. I thought this was supposed to be a story.

I thought I was sober.

No

Is what I said when I was told we were going to continue reading.

Yeah, I’m never sober.

Ain't even grey,

Oh, look! Your emotional spectrum!

Huzaaaaaah!

but she buries her baby

Finally putting that whiny brat in the ground!

Yaaaaaay!

The sharp knife of a short life,

*hides knife* I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Quick protect Angel!

oh well

That’s what the author said before publishing this trash parade.

That’s what I said while looking at the last bottle.

I've had just enou-"

I’ve had enough of this shit too.

-Promptly swings door open and leaves-

Fuck this shit, I’m out!

Mom turned it off.

SWEET FREEDOM!

“Now that we’re done with those ominous implications…”

" Maybe we should do something else instead of listen to the radio. How about I tell you kids more about Camp Halfblood?"

“Obviously, no one was listening to me about it before.”

“Listen here you little shits! You’re going to camp!”

I feel like the author is now trying really hard to make mom explain things.

" Your father always wanted you to go to this camp since you were babies. He kept visiting me, telling me how it wasn't safe for you anywhere but the camp. I told him off, saying that nothing bad would ever happen to you as long as I was alive.

“Of course, I, a mortal woman, would know more about this sort of thing than a Greek god.”

Totally not Percy’s story.

Percy’s mother was worried and knew she would only be able to protect him so much and Sally knew her limits. She’s making her sound like “I can protect my kids by myself. I won’t get killed with a simple flick of the wrist.”. That’s fucking foolish.

And your father, Emily, he promised your mother he would guard you with his life.

“I can’t imagine why he would do that. It’s not like Greek gods avoid their children.”

“Mom, was dad just a one nighter?”

Her mom just left a note though, how the hell would he promise that? The gods don’t normally tell the mortal partner that they’re a god.

I don't think he ever told you this but one night, when you were about 10, he found your mother standing over your bed, crying quietly. He told me that she told him that all she could think about was you.

And he told you this, but not his daughter..? I see where Katherine’s omniscience comes from.

Damn genetics. Fuckers.

You guys may think that the parent that left you didn't care, but they did.

Except they don’t, because they are gods.

They don’t care cos they can literally have kids with damn near anyone.

Correction, they care for their kids but they normally have VERY limited contact with them. They make a point to stay out of their lives, to not interfere, it would piss off the Fates.

It hurt us as much as it did them. And by 'us' I mean Emily's dad and me."

That’s unusually specific.

Me thinks Moma and Emily’s dad had a fling.

" Mom, who is our dad and Emily's mom?"

My mom smiled softly. It was a sad smile. " Well, that's something you'll have to find out at camp, isn't it?" No one said anything.

“It’s more fun that way. Nothing bad ever comes from withholding this kind of information.”

“Not like this information is important to the plot.”

Get on with the plot please. This suspense shit is getting old fast.

5 minutes later

You don’t need a fucking transition for five fucking minutes!

Calm down Coffee.

PISS OFF

NAH!

DON’T MAKE ME GET THE PAN

" Are we there yet?"

“No, the end of the chapter is about another two pages of nothing happening.”

Guess I can get another case of rum. I have the time.

" Almost. Patience Angel."

Oh, so that’s who’s talking. For a second, I thought it was another hallucination. Wait a minute, who’s talking now? A ghost? It’s a ghost, isn’t it?

I think you need to lay off the shrooms.

" So how long are we going to stay at this camp?"

OH SHIT, A FLOATING HEAD GHOST!

Fuck, what’s the name of that Naruto story we did? Dammit, TEA! HELP!

When Wind meets earth, I believe and yes, that is how the author wrote it.

" For the rest of Winter break."

Didn’t you change it to summer in your author’s note?

.-. I’m greatly confused and annoyed at the same time, what do you call that?

Confoyed? I dunno.

Angel groaned. I groaned. Emily squealed.

And I unloaded a shotgun into everyone mentioned.

-Takes the shotgun back- Hey, this is for emergencies only.

*takes shotgun* With how fast this is going downhill, this counts.

-Takes it back- I’M the one who brought this thing, stop wasting ammo on this shit show, wait for My Inner Life.

This joke is overkill.

" We're gonna have so much fun! We'll meet new people. And there might be some cut boys." She winked at me. " And cute girls for you Angel,"

“And we’re probably going to die!”

I long for the sweet release of death. I refuse to go to AA.

Turns out Angel and Emily just weren't meant to be. She said that she felt no spark when they had a make-out session in her room on the boat. And he said that it felt weird kissing her. Like he was kissing his mom.

That is just gross.

And thus, that entire chapter was a big waste of everyone’s time, because the author decided on a whim to abort that story arc.

What the fuck…? Oooooooh wait till I do my thoughts at the end, ooooh you just wait.

So they've decided to just stay friends. But hey, I'm not complaining.

I am! That chapter never needed to happen if it was going to end like that.

Goddamitgoddamitgoddamit. GODDAMIT!

" Oh. And you'll love your cabins. Maybe Artemis and her hunters will be there. But don't join them. Just 5 more miles."

Why is she talking like she’s been there before? She’s mortal, mortals can’t enter the camp.

Omniscient protagonist powers go!

Rather Katherine joined them or not, she’ll never lose her V-card :^)

My mom kept smiling and shed a few more tears.

“So close to freedom from this awful story!”

“So close to losing these little shits!”

When we were about 3 miles away my mom suddenly stopped the car. " No. That's impossible. We should have had more time." She whispered this to herself. She was looking through the rearview mirror.

This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t spent an entire day shopping!

YOU HAVE NO CONCEPT OF TIME DAMMIT!

We are definitely copying Percy’s story but trying to make it seem original.

" Get out! Everybody get out!" Her voice was panicked. We got out as quickly as we could.

Which was at a snail’s pace, like everything else in this goddamn story.

Yet now we decide we want to live. Why can’t you just die Sue???

Except the second chapter, that happened quicker and I’m glad.

She started rummaging through the trunk. She handed us the luggages filled with our belongings. Then she pulled out a long thin sword. " Now, we're going to run.

Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to run with swords?!

Wanna know what else is long and thin?

The spear of which I’ll impale you with if you continue that joke.

-Leans in closer- ʕ°ᴥ°ʔ My dick.

SCROTAL PUNCH!

TEA GIVE ME THE SHOTGUN!

You had fair warning, there is nothing I can do to help you.

To the top of the hill. The monsters have caught up with us.

I still don’t see any monsters.

It would be nice if you put effort into the scene. For now we see floating blobs.

I see a heaping pile of shit called “How it all began”.

We have a few minutes before they reach us.

Why doesn’t the All-Seeing protagonist see them then?

Cause raisins.

Cos I scooped her eyes out with a grapefruit spoon.

Give me your hands." We all held out a hand.

She proceeded to chop off their hands with the sword.

“My tummy was making the rumblies...that only hands could satisfy.”

“Caaaaaaaaaaaaarl!”

" Give me your pocket knife Angel."

“So I may kill you quicker.”

Quick, castrate him so we don’t more Stus and Sues.

" I don't know what you're talking about." She glared at him. He handed it to her. She grabbed his hand and cut the palm.

Which she really could have done with the sword…

Me too buddy, me too. -Pats Coffee’s back.-

He pulled back his hand but it was too late. The damage was already done.

She rolled a nat 20 and hit him with critical damage. He lost his last 2 HP and had to go recover in the local tavern.

He rolled a nat 1 dexterity roll, he slipped, fell and broke his neck on the way to the tavern.

Jagerbomb rolled a nat 20 and won the last case of rum.

She grabbed a white towel from the hand and pressed his wound to it. The blood stained part of it red.

No shit, it’s a WHITE towel. Blood is red, thus it stains towel.

What are you talking about? Blood is pink. It’s always been that color.

No, blood is blue.

" I'm sorry. THis will throw them off our trail for a bit."

I like to think she was a bit enthusiastic for a second, but then realized the story she was in.

-Takes a sip from a beer can- Eyup.

She did the same to us. It stang but no as much as I thought as it would.

The word is stung, not stang. A stang is a Mustang,  which you can’t drive.

Or ride. Cos Mustangs are too damn majestic for you.

Or as in Roy Mustang, but that’s not a good idea unless you like the idea of female officers in tiny miniskirts…

ʕ◕ᴥ◕ʔ Females? Miniskirts? Where do I sign up?

Down boy.

She threw the blood stained towel in the back car seat. Then we ran.

From what? I still don’t see the threat!

Their running from their emotions, Coffee.

What emotions?

The ones they left behind years ago.

We jumped over fallen trees and prickly bushes ripped our clothes as we brushed past them while running away from the monsters.

You keep saying that, but I still don’t see anything nor is there a threat. Maybe if I believe in it enough the monsters will appear and eat them.

Coffee. We’re not going to be saved, stop it. -Flicks nose-

We heard a roar back where the car was. That made us run faster. We finally believed my mother.

Took you long enough!

Let’s play the guessing game on what monster it is! GODZILLA!

The gods are real. We're demigods. And monsters are after us so they can spill our blood.

She didn’t explain this shit at all to you. Also you’re being overly formal again.

Well, you’ve been doing a bang up job avoiding them so far.

So why fucking worry!?

Then we found it. The entry to this camp.

These sentences. Are. Insanely choppy.

It hurts. My. Brain.

At first I couldn't read what it said, then my dyslexia reformed the words.

This is the first time we’ve seen of you ever having dyslexia.

She’s stating things again, would it kill you to either put it in earlier or better yet show this stuff happening.

She can magically give herself different disabilities.

Camp Half-Blood. We passed under the sign and a barrier appeared as we did. It didn't stop us from going in. It was as if showing that not just anyone could enter.

Wow, so exactly what a barrier does!

If your mother already explained everything to you then you should already know what the barrier does.

:O Holy shit! Something that actually does it’s job!

My mom looked at us longingly. I gestured for her to come with us. She shook her head sadly. I understood.

“Even though I’ve never been here before and I know nothing about the camp.”

All Knowing Sue strikes back!

The barrier sensed her and reminded her that she couldn't enter.

Reminded her? I think you mean stopped her completely.

“Oh sorry ma’am but you can’t come in here.”

" Ms. Adams. Come on."

ARGHH! FLOATING HEAD GHOST!

KILL IT WITH FIR-SHIT IT’S A GHOST!

" Yeah Mom." " She can't. The barrier won't let her. She's human."

I think the author gave up on writing.

I mean, technically, Demigods are human too since they're not, ya know… Gods.

They’re part god, that’s what allows them to get through.

" Kat's right. This is where you guys go ahead without me." A roar startled us. It was close by.

This looks suspiciously familiar.

Yep, we’re definitely copying Percy’s story.

Plus 1 for originality, Suethor.

" I have to go. If I stay any longer, they'll catch me." She blew us a kiss before disappearing into the trees. We watched as the monsters finally reached us and started banging on the barrier.

There they are! A little late on the chase scene there.

Give them a break, they’re Union monsters.

They couldn't get in either. I smirked and stuck out my tongue.

I’d like to see you do that outside the barrier.

“Let me stick my tongue out and be a brat while I watch my mom is probably being chased by monsters.”

We taunted them for a while longer. We had to make sure Mom had enough time to get away.

You’re copying Percy’s story and trying to be original, so if anything mom is probably going to die.

I doubt the monsters give a damn about kids taunting them. Your mother is probably already dead if they are tolerating you.

I mean, that forest is probably crawling with monsters, and not just Greek ones too, probably a damn Wendigo out there too. -Shivers-

When they finally realized they weren't going to get in anytime soon, they angrily left.

*stomps feet* “It’s not fair!”

“I wanted to tear the blondie’s spine out!”

We turned around and walked into this camp. I smiled at the feeling I felt as I walked, looking for an adult in this quiet place. It felt peaceful. Safe. Like home.

“We’ve only been here for twenty seconds.”

“Katherine, wake up, it was all a dream, you’ve been in a coma for two years.” -sighs- I wish...

PLOT TWIST!

CONCLUSION

Well, what can I say? After four chapters of the same shit different day, this isn’t surprising. How is one supposed to rate a chapter where nothing happens?

I can guarantee that it gets so much worse. You’ll have a lot to scream about later.

Well, I sure as fuck can say something! WHY THE FUCK DID YOU HAVE US SIT THROUGH TWO CHAPTERS (1 and 2) ABOUT HOW MUCH ANGEL AND EMILY LOVE EACH OTHER ONLY FOR ANGEL AND EMILY TO STAY FRIENDS!? LIKE SERIOUSLY! CHAPTER TWO WAS LITERALLY JUST KATHARINE TRYING TO GET EMILY TO FUCK HER BROTHER! AND WHAT DO WE GET FOR SITTING THROUGH THAT HELL? NOTHING! JUST THE ‘Let’s be friends’ BULLSHIT! And I have to agree with Coffee, all these chapters are the fucking same! Just unnecessary FILLER! Still no emotions, descriptions, and Katherine is the WORST character in this shit show. Fuck you anD YOUR GOAT!

I heard that yelling your name followed by “I’m fine” actually helps most cases of stress.

I have a bottle of jack and a shotgun. I’m fine. -Casual muscle spasm.-

I was thinking something more like, “I’M COFFEE AND I’M FINE!”

I AM FINE DAMMIT!

There you go~!

-Rapidly pumps shotgun to stay calm-

-Coffee, Tea, and Jagerbomb