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having-a-hyperfixate · 3 years

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Secret Reports

Gonna just edit this thing and put line breaks as I get more of them.

I’m also working on the rest of the completion, and will probably wander off in the middle of this to do Another Day, which will probably have its own post. I fully expect that to be sheer madness.

#1 So is it just me or is Mr H writing these reports to channel how extremely stressed he is. Cuz like. Mood. *gestures vaguely at blog* *gestures at this post specifically*

I. Hold up. Skeezy McFuckwad and Joshua did what resulting in which now. Excuse me. EXPLAIN!??! Joshua had a sneaky Game running with Skeezy that directly lead to Hazuki ordering Skeezy to destroy Shinjuku??? Is that what I am reading. Or possibly the order was already in the works, and then there was the Game, which ultimately just pushed that forward?? You can’t just say shit like that and not give details ffffffff.

#2 Mr H having about as much contempt for Shinjuku rules as I do I feel seen haha. Bogus indeed. I can’t remember if I said it in one of my other posts, of if it was in a group chat, but I made a comment somewhere how this ruleset doesn’t seem to work with the stated purpose of the whole Reaper’s Game system. Sweet validation.

#3 Not much to say except that if I had read this entire report when I actually got it, I would have been much more alarmed by all of the Replays Rindo has to do after that. I got it partway through week 3 but decided not to read it until I beat the game and then BAM it has this lovely tidbit about potentially being able to destroy the UG and RG.

#4 So, the business that the fandom refers to as the Long Game is known in universe by the higher-ups and Shibuya’s impurification, because it didn’t get ‘purified’ like Shinjuku (I object to that term but ok).

“The hierarchical freeze presumably stems from opposition to the impurification”

Skeezy wasn’t reprimanded when he arrived in Shibuya “possibly because most Higher Plane denizens still oppose Shibuya’s impurification”

ExcUSE ME. I. WHAT. In one of the secret reports for the first game, Mr H says something about the way things turned out be an ‘ideal parallel world’ according to the Angels. I guess he only meant the ones who didn’t want the city destroyed holy shit. That most of them didn’t want Joshua to change his mind and STILL DON’T is so massively fucked up I can’t. Dear Higher Plane, what the actual, ever loving fuck.

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#5 One hundred and four Games under Shiba. That’s… so. many. teams. Holy shit. And the teams we knew had seen at LEAST 30 teams go. And the three teams we saw weren’t small. So many people…

Also, “Minamimoto seems to be plotting something” is the funnies thing I’ve read in ages OF COURSE HE IS that’s what he DOES. XD That was some mood whiplash.

#6 I was so hung up on the lack of entry fee for so long you don’t even know. Like. Those were so important in the first one it was baffling to me that Shinjuku rules didn’t have anything similar. And then eventually I just decided that the whole Game wasn’t being run correctly and Shiba was clearly after something other than driving the improvement that’s supposed to be the point.

I would like more explanation on this ‘Rindo’s stagnation makes him perfect for time travel thing’. I kind of understand how his reactions being consistent would be helpful in being able to control where the timeline goes (also I just realized this further confirms that Angels remember the other timelines glad I wasn’t imagining that the Prime days are a blur), but what does he mean about being able to maintain abnormally high levels of imagination? (It might tell me later so don’t say anything lol)

“I can only hope I’m not overthinking things.” Oh, you aren’t. If I’m understanding everything correctly, Skeezy actually had two proxies. And poor Rindo managed to end up being proxy for both sides at the same time which is. A mess.

#7 Well, finally we know how Coco managed to get her hands on a taboo sigil. Plagiarism. Lmao. That at least makes sense and I can worry less about her being Something Else. I would like a word with whoever didn’t clean that up from Udagawa long enough for her to copy it though. That’s hilarious. Interesting that Mr H thinks it wasn’t a perfect recreation though, that something in him got changed. Once again, please elaborate. Please. *headdesk* What prompted Coco to just. Copy a taboo sigil though. Cuz that seems. Unusual.

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#8 Ok there’s a lot to unpack in this one. Namely, more Shinjuku rules. I would love to know if these are long standing rules or relatively recent. Cuz like. Did Shinjuku’s Game ever run in a way that would drive the kind of improvement that’s supposed to be the overall goal? Or has it always, or at least for a while now, been basically a meat grinder? The players that don’t clear that minimum bar probably just get erased outright, I would think. Actually, I’m confused. If normally, one team would get to leave and one team would be erased, wouldn’t that normally keep the average pretty level, so the Game would basically go on forever? Otherwise what do you do with all the other teams that are between first and last? I’m confused. It can’t be normal for teams to keep asking for more rounds. And what if the winning team says ‘everyone gets to go home’?

“The Conductor has yet to contact the Composer” and “it is possible he is unaware of the Higher Plane’s purification protocol.” I don’t know why, but I get the feeling these are important.

#9 These secret reports are really driving at the whole ‘Rindo just goes with it’ thing, aren’t they. Like, that was his thing, right? He has trouble making definitive decisions? So his arc culminates in that moment in Udagawa where he tells Hazuki that he’s going to take the risk and go back one more time, where he’s making that decision purely for his own sake. And here Mr H seems to be saying that prodding Rindo down the road to character growth is going to be a lot harder than it was with Neku back in the day. Which makes sense, I think. Confronting someone with the concept that other people have value is a lot less complicated than trying to get them to not only make a firm decision, but to choose something that is purely because it’s what they want and need, not because someone else thinks they should.

It’s a little alarming that this report implies that if the pin wasn’t absorbing the Dissonance caused by the Replays, the UG and RG would already be having a bad time. Yikes. This is the report for day 2 of the second week. We haven’t even gotten into the crazy time travel yet.

Aaaaand #10 is for completing the social network, so I have to actually go do Another Day. I want to read these in order; it is much less confusing that way.

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#10 I really shouldn’t read these late at night with a possible migraine coming on, they’re already confusing enough. The bits that made sense: Uzuki was acting Conductor damn girl. (Did she have to deal with Joshua and was he in Dignified Mode or Being a Shit Mode because that’s possibly an oof.) I had assumed Shiba was Shinjuku’s Conductor and then just kinda took over after they moved in but apparently not? And RIP the actual Conductor, apparently. Weird that so many Reapers made it but the Conductor, who by all rights should have, didn’t.

I am slightly concerned by the fact that there’s standard procedure for obliterating a district. That’s. Alarming.

I don’t think page 4 is continuing the thought on page 3. Fucking. Stop that. Don’t just say a thing and then start talking about something else I would like EXPLANATIONS. UGH. “Almost” he says. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that almost is a big deal, so why don’t you tell me about it.

Four cases where a district got into trouble before a final decision on whether to reset or not was made. And one was the last game. I wonder if that means whatever was wrong that made Joshua want to destroy it, or if the ‘imbalance’ was all the madness that happened after he agreed to one final Game with Kitaniji and the left the UG. Cuz in one of the first set of secret reports, it says that with the Composer absent, the UG is starting to fall apart as the rules are no longer valid, or something like that. I would definitely call that an imbalance.

#11 All I care about in this report is that Mr H wants to have a digital art bonding party with Kaie and that is so random why are you writing this down you absolute goober. The first page of this report is like ‘everyone is getting depressed’ and then just a wild left turn into dork-town. Lmao what.

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#12 I don’t think Mr H knows at this point (you get this report for W2D5’s Boss Noise) that the Ruinbringers are all Reapers. He’s gonna be mad. He does know what Shoka is up to though. He’s worried. Aw.

#13 It didn’t occur to me until this report hit me in the face with it, but they’ve set up a fantastic contrast between the two people Rindo knows from online. One is. not great, let’s say, because I did not take the reveal of Motoi’s true self well. The other is Shoka, and she’s a real friend. I now see what you did there. One relationship that’s a farce and one that really, really isn’t.

#14 Me, out loud, at 1:30 in the damn a.m.: WAIT. HOLD THE FUCK UP.

If getting Tsugumi out of Mr Mew required an Angel, how in the hell did Shiki manage to…? What. I’m very confused.

Also damn, saving Tsugumi was so important that Shinjuku’s Conductor died for it. Did he know what she could do, the whole visions thing? Or maybe that something was wrong with Shiba and it would take someone like her to potentially stop him in the future?

I still would like to now how the hell Tsugumi got her hands on Mr Mew. Especially since its apparently the ORIGINAL Mr Mew and she seems to have had him during the inversion? What.

#15 So… Inversions don’t always happen when a region is purified. I’m trying to wrap my brain around what a ‘complete loss of character’ in and area that’s had an Inversion could mean. Like… I think I get it, but my brain won’t make words, let alone sentences. Like when you go into a hotel room, and it doesn’t feel like a home, as opposed to when you go to a friend or family’s house, and it does? Kinda like that but it’s the whole district that’s just… blank? That’s kinda creepy.

If there are so many who think a ‘regular purification’ isn’t enough, the a) what does that even look like, b) is that what Joshua was going to do to Shibuya and c) is there an intermediate step between ‘normal’ and Inversion? I have been staring at this report for literally 15 minutes now.

#16 “I wonder how [Shiba] will feel about all this after he is allowed to return to his former self.” Yuuuuuup. I still Do Not Like him, but dude was borderline mind controlled so like. Yeah. And I did get to kill him once, so. As long as he minds his business and isn’t a total dick from here on, whatever. It all just sucks.

*facepalm* Well at least we got to being suspicious of Replay eventually. Why did it take you this long Mr H. Though I do wonder what Rindo would have been able to do without the interference. He had to have some kind of latent skill for the pin to react to him, right? I’m now going in circles mentally trying to puzzle out if Replay is like, a leveled up version of whatever Rindo would have naturally had, and regardless, where exactly it came from. Because the only time I can think of when anyone had a chance to mess with the pin was when he didn’t catch it in the prologue. And I’m pretty sure it was Joshua who picked it up. Aaagh I’m giving myself a headache.

I find it hard to believe skeezy would just yeet a random time travel pin out into the world. That seems both dumb as fuck and inefficient.

#17 “Some of them who know what I am occasionally try to contact me.” Lol so Kariya DOES know who Mr H is, I take it. Alright.

I’m having some kind of emotion that Wildkat still exists in a way for the Reapers, and that some of them still go there.

I just imagined Uzuki texting him like ‘plz make the Composer fucking do something kthx’ and I’ve got the giggles now oh dear

#18 HA! I was right! Minamimoto WASN’T in control when he attacked us! ‘Distortions within himself’ though, that’s concerning. Does that have to do with how he’s come back from the dead twice now? And how Coco’s copy of the sigil was apparently imperfect?

#19 I was about to say ‘who would target him for his abilities?’ and then my brain turned back on because duh. Shiba and them were looking hard for Neku, to the point that they flooded the RG with Player Pins in the hopes that he would pick one up and get sucked into the Game. A thing that occurred to me last night at 3:30 in the morning because I am a disaster: Mr H says that Minamimoto ‘seems different’. Neku says much the same thing after he comes back. So… Neku’s ability to Scan all the way down to someone’s Soul is potentially close to as sensitive as Mr H’s long distance ability. Which is a little insane. On top of the fact that he can use basically every psych imaginable no problem, survived a pact with a Composer for a full week, while said Composer was using crazy light beams which probably should have melted Neku from the feedback, and then almost singlehandedly defeated the Conductor while somehow inventing four-way fusion attacks. Kid is mad powerful. And he’s just a human. Like, the OG secret reports say that people always become dramatically stronger when they become Reapers. Reaper!Neku would be unstoppable.

“This would be much simpler if I could sit down and talk with him.” Okay, I laughed out loud. Like, loudly.

So… Shinjuku’s Composer… basically had his Conductor assassinated by skeezy. And because skeezy was messing with Shiba’s head, he could prompt Shiba to take the Reapers to Shibuya afterwards, to start doing it there too? Hazuki ordered Shinjuku’s purification so… Oh dear. I might have a few bones to pick with him.

OH NO. OOOOOH. OH NOOOO. SHINJUKU’S CONDUCTOR. HE WAS TSUGUMI’S BROTHER OH MY GOD. That is fucking tragic what the fuck. What the FUCK. Okay several things make sense now but OH MY GOD FUCKING HELL I WAS NOT READY FOR THAT. Shiki fixing Mr Mew allowed Tsugumi to free herself because her brother had already done part of the work, I take it? Along with us getting the Noise out of there? No wonder the Conductor stayed, he had to go get his sister… Shit, man.

…… Did Coco steal Mr Mew and take him to Shinjuku?????

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#21 isn’t very interesting, just a rehash of stuff we already knew.

#22 Okay Haz IS Shinjuku’s Composer. What. Why? I’m. So confused. Why would he intercede on our behalf, and why NOW? He was happy to throw his own city away, but stepped in to stop skeezy in Shibuya? And then tried to put it back together, and when Rindo was miserable he came to try to understand why. And then cajoled Rindo into having a breakthrough in his Character Development to boot.

Mr H says he has an idea why Haz did all this. And then doesn’t fucking say it because OF COURSE. *headdesk* That gets really old really fast, game.

I’m now running through The Last Day’’ to get the final two reports and this entire section with Haz is somehow even more confusing with context. God damn it Nomura.

#23 Even after he said we were on our on this time, he forced the Soul Pulvis to reform as Pheonix Cantus to make it easier for us to fight? Bro. What. Are all Composers just… walking contradictions? Aiya.

Shoutout to emotional support Joshua at the end there lol. I remember half-hysterically thinking ‘what are you just here for moral support?’ but ok. And I mean, it did work, Neku did manage to do the thing, so. *sigh* Speaking of, it is ABSOLUTELY INSANE that Neku manage to sync with the entire city without his brain melting. Remember at the beginning of the first game when he scans for the first time and has a massive sensory overload? Look at my boy, all grown up.

#24 Holy shit world building on how exactly people come back to life without everyone freaking out. I never thought I would see the day.

I still have so many questions but that was always going to be the case. The first game had so many things it left open as well. Agh. Time to start wearing new holes in my brain overthinking things.

#let's liveblog: neo twewy #neo twewy spoilers #secret reports

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