#glasstext

[glasscoral]

Before Hundred Line comes out I'd just like to remind everyone about how it was described very early on.

[glasscoral]

If you're curious, here's the full incident.

People have been passing around 'fan questions' that Kodaka had supposedly answered in Weibo DMs. Which was kind of suspicious in and of itself because all his previous fan q&as had been public responses (on twitter + bluesky) that everyone could see and verify on their own.

A lot of these responses were single-word answers, and a lot of these questions were very vague.

It was also impossible to verify whether it was the actual account, because...it was in DMs.

The one that had been floating around that got interpreted as 'Kodaka was commenting on Takumi top/bottom' was this.

The question this person asked (in chinese, notably) was 'in the/a blcg, is Takumi a 1 or an 0?'

[the first response is just the 'play hundred line' autoresponse]

Kodaka responds with '1', no further context.

The thing here is: This question could be read as 'in the cg that exists in the game, is Takumi a top or a bottom',( <- this is the way I read it at first)in which case Kodaka is just flat-out lying, because. Come on. We've all seen that cg. Takumi is not topping in it.

However, it could ALSO be read as 'Does a BL CG of Takumi exist in the game' (if you read the 0/1 as 'doesn't/does exist'), in which case answering 1 would be...just the correct answer.

Afterwards, he didn't apologize for saying Takumi tops, he just said he doesn't understand Chinese slang all that well and told people to stop asking questions in DMs.

In not even a month, we went from Kodaka answering fan-questions about The Hundred Line (even the weird ones) >> Kodaka confirms Eito had romantic feelings for Takumi by the end of the 2nd scenario >> Kodaka said Takumi tops but no one can tell if it’s a troll >> Kodaka apologises for saying Takumi tops. I see Eitaku as vers, but if I was Kodaka I’d tweet that anything remotely sexual makes Eito projectile vomit just to make everyone mad. Except for the perverts (complimentary) willing to indulge in Kodaka’s obvious thing for emeto. The perverts win.

[gavlakgallery]

Happy birthday @wynne_rob 🪞✨⁣ “The title of Wynne’s gallery activation alludes to the ephemeral nature of images. Featuring sixteen works—seemingly floating within the American Art galleries and placed in direct dialogue with selected works from the collection—the installation invites a creatively disruptive aesthetic experience. Wynne’s mirrored glass pieces explore, and slightly skew, how we experience works of art—creating reflective pauses and jolts of surprise that reveal the collection anew.” — Jennifer Y. Chi, Chief Curator, and Margarita Karasoulas, Assistant Curator, American Art, Brooklyn Museum (@brooklynmuseum). ⁣ Rob Wynne⁣ 𝘌𝘟𝘛𝘙𝘈 𝘓𝘐𝘍𝘌, 2018⁣ Poured and mirrored glass⁣ 160 x 300 inches⁣ (406.4 x 762 cm)⁣ ⁣ 𝘙𝘖𝘉 𝘞𝘠𝘕𝘕𝘌: 𝘍𝘓𝘖𝘈𝘛⁣ Installation view, Brooklyn Museum, 2019⁣ Images courtesy of the artist and GAVLAK Los Angeles / Palm Beach. Photo: Jonathan Dorado.⁣ ___⁣ #robwynne #float #extralife #brooklynmuseum #museumacquisition #museuminstallation #permanentinstallation #brooklynmuseumofart #glassinstallation #artinstallation #juxtaposition #mirroredglass #collectibledesign #designdaily #luxuryinteriors #glasstext #pouredglass #installationart #palmbeach #collectart #livewithart #abstractglass #abstractartwork #glassArt #glassartist #mirrorart #abstractartists #museumart #pouredglass ⁣ (at Brooklyn Museum) https://www.instagram.com/p/CIJS9yMlbAK/?igshid=kmdki03nsezn

[glasscoral]

[prerelease speculation which could mean nothing, one more time]

I've seen these lines from Ima's intro posted quite a bit, but...

Ima's introduction kind of feels like his overblown reactions are intended as a joke (rather than necessarily serious commentary on their relationship) so I'm not quite sure how much character analysis I can get from this intro--but it makes him come off like a blindly devoted boy who would be willing to do anything and sacrifice anything for his sister.

But, when push comes to shove and it comes time to fight...

He doesn't.

If he genuinely prioritized protecting her above everything else, it would make the most sense for him to fight in order to keep her safe, rather than to leave it to these people they don't even know.

Instead, he refuses--he says he has to take care of his own safety 'so that he can be by her side', and while that may be part of it, he later mentions the fact that he's scared of having to fight and get hurt, even though he knows it's 'safe'. So it comes off more like he's using her as an excuse.

Which makes me wonder if he's either self-aware and playing up the obsession with her in order to use it as an excuse, (to some degree, I don't think he's lying about caring for her or anything), or using her as an excuse without realizing that's what he's doing (and his feelings for her are more complicated--and more negative--than they might appear at first glance.)

[glasscoral]

I initially avoided that one Ima and Kako clip because...to be honest, other people's reactions to the clip made it sound like...more siscon jokes, which seemed boring.

And then I watched it, and Ima's saying stuff like "Disobedient children need to be raised right. And that means they need to be punished." and then trying to drag Kako off to 'have a talk' with her.

This sounds...more like he's repeating something he's heard before (or something that's happened to him) than anything else, which is....

[glasscoral]

Finished my third ending cluster (?) in Hundred Line, the V'exhness ends. 043 and 044.

My thoughts (spoilers under the cut)

It felt pretty solid!

I feel like I would've liked it less if it hadn't come directly on the heels of the Takumi Overlord Ending--vex is interested in him because she sees the seeds of similar behavior in him!

"We're actually the same deep down" hits a lot harder when you see the fact that he does act the same way in certain situations! "You couldn't beat me because you couldn't become me" hits a lot harder when you see him beating her because he becomes her!

It was also a nice way to wash the taste of Cult of Takumi out of my mouth--after a route of Takumi being the only one with agency, it was nice to have him basically be...powerless the entire route with someone else as the main 'heroine' of it.

Speaking of main heroines...this was such a short route but Tsubasa stood out so much. The way she calls Takumi out for shallowly saying "you shouldn't have been forced to do it" while being the one who forced her to do it.

He chose her to sacrifice herself, even when she said no, even when she was obviously terrified--and in the end, she finally manages to save herself, to not run away.

And she makes the same decision for him that he did for her.

it's good ok

Yaoi Rating: N/A

[no guys talk to each other at length in this route]

Yuri Rating: N/A

[no girls talk to each other at length in this route]

Het Rating: 6/10

Tsubasa and Addamaque have....something going on there idk what, Vex and Takumi also have a little something more going on and have some tension, but there's no real love confessions and they don't end up 'together' in the end exactly. (Well...)

[glasscoral]

I finished my eighth ending cluster. Rebellion end, endings 04, 05, and 06.

Spoilers [for 2nd scenario, because I discuss it too in this] and my thoughts under the cut. I think this route is actually kind of interesting as commentary on 2nd scenario, but taken on its own feels unsatisfying.

I think Rebellion route is good as a response to 2nd scenario and player reactions to it, like the reset end.

Much like the Reset end felt like Kodaka saying no, you don't get to just kill all these NPCs and get a happy end, this ending being short and pretty underdeveloped feels like it's addressing the player for wanting 'an ending where everything is fixed and everything is peaceful'.

On the surface, it seems like the exact "peaceful" ending a lot of players are looking for--they realize what they're doing is wrong, they turn their back on humanity (instead of continuing to close their eyes until they literally no longer can), and they make peace with the Futurans.

It feels like a 'fix-it' for the way 2nd scenario ended, in every way.

Eito and Takumi have their relationship suddenly fixed--the two of them get back together very quickly, Eito is accepted by the group and by Takumi, and even talks about his dreams for the future- he doesn't have to go to the lengths of pulling out his eyes that he does there. The two of them seem happy, like they finally understand each other, unlike 2nd scenario, where Eito can only confess that he also loved Takumi before he dies.

Shion's intercept system that killed the whole cast in 2nd scenario was dealt with easily, with just Takumi and Eito this time, as the close partners they are.

Unlike 2nd scenario, where Nozomi is forced to broker peace all on her own as the only human and a high school student who is not a diplomat and trying to survive on her own, a new rebel faction (that haven't been mentioned before) as well as their leader, a character who was vaguely mentioned but not by name and not as a leader, appear to give the students support and a promise of a happier life afterwards if they work together (And she's both sincere about it and able to do it with no catches, since she's actually a good leader!)

I even think Nozomi dying for peace in the 'good' end is commentary on her being the only one that survives in 2nd scenario, since it's the exact opposite of what happens there! That gets 'fixed' too! Why should everyone die for her?

But the thing is...while Rebellion 'fixes' a lot of the things in 2nd scenario, it does so by dramatically changing the tone of the story.

There's a way to fix this without everyone else dying. Everyone's forgiven. We can do this. We're family. We love each other.

This is a story about love and friendship now.

I think that the late branching point only contributes to the way it feels like a timeline that takes 2nd scenario plot points and 'fixes' them, but doesn't have its own identity outside of 'fixing' a 'bad' end.

We don't have that much time to spend with Kamyuhn! We turn our backs on humanity relatively late in the game!

-i love how the artificial satellite comes barreling down towards earth and it looks like it's going to crash into them and then there's a huge explosion. but its not them. its just vexhness randomly exploding. this is a character trait of hers to me now. i love that it cuts to 15 years later when takumi looks the exact same. i hope more people randomly explode in future routes instead of just dying

-i do think this route being short helps it be a lot more tolerable because it doesn't have time to drag. it gets in it 'fixes' 2nd scenario it gets out and i can't fault it for that. like i do get that it exists to give a 'better' timeline for the cast.

-it's still funny though

Without further ado: yaoi ranking yuri ranking het ranking

Yaoi Ranking: 6/10

Somehow, Eito and Takumi are at it again. I'd put it higher but it really was just one conversation. But what a conversation it is.

Yuri Ranking: N/A

Girls don't talk to each other in this one.

Het Ranking: 4/10

Nozomi explodes

[glasscoral]

Finished my fourth (huge) ending cluster in Hundred Line. Slasher Route. 069, 070, 071, 072, 073, 074, 075, 076.

Here are my thoughts on it. I think this is the route so far I've felt the most negatively about, so be wary of that if you're super fond of it.

I'll be completely honest. The first ending I got was 069 and it really made me think that whoever wrote this needed to be immediately taken out back and shot for wasting my time with 10 hours straight of

The thing that really disappointed me about this route was that earlier on it seemed like we were going to get character bonding moments that we hadn't seen elsewhere--it seemed like Takumi and Yugamu were going to get some interactions with each other, or characters who seem like they might get along interestingly like Yugamu and Hiruko were going to talk.

Instead, we got a whole route of nothing. Takumi is obviously suspicious very early on in the route, and while Hiruko is clearly suspicious of him in a way that makes it obvious that she knows something about him and doesn't want to tell him...And then we don't hear anything about it.

To be clear, 'Takumi ignores something obviously suspicious and fucks around' isn't something exclusive to this route--it happens quite a bit in the prologue, but what saves the prologue is that the prologue is full of fun character interactions, so I never felt like I was just being forced to sit through Free Time.

There are a couple of reveals later on in the plot that would be interesting if they were not locked behind Two Straight Months Of Free Time

As an aside, 074 feels a bit better pacing-wise because everyone's trying to avoid the zombies and doesn't have time to fuck around doing free time for 2 months straight--I do think that if I'd played 074 first I would've been a little more willing to give the 069 side of it more grace (and it makes the Hiruko reveal at the end about the aliens actually make sense rather than feeling like More Random Bullshit), given that 074 (the 074 side) has a little bit of interesting character interaction between Kurara and Takumi. Kurara was also very cool in 073 ending. Good for her!

I don't think that would've made me think this was a 'good' route, but maybe a little better.

[Yugamu fucking around and being the 'fake' killer would've been interesting if it'd been revealed earlier, but with that + the Hiruko time travel reveal being so late in the route, they just feel like a waste of time more than anything.]

The thing is that I'm sure other routes will recontextualize this, but right now, coming into this as my first route on the kill eito side, I feel like I didn't really learn anything that interesting except for the fact that Hiruko was a time traveler.

However, this route focuses on that very little, and it just seems like an excuse for why she kisses Takumi at the end/why she isn't killing him despite suspecting that it's him just as early as we the player do, so in this route it just feels like she's hopelessly in love with Takumi for no reason and that doesn't really give me a ton of hope for their relationship.

As I've stated a few times before, I think this route was padded a lot with free time and doesn't stand on its own all that well.

So now it's time for my personal yaoi/yuri/het rating for the route as I have been doing in my past route review writeups.

Yaoi Rating: 3/10

Guys talk to each other in this route but feel like they have less chemistry than the previous route where no male characters talked to each other at length at all.

Yuri Rating: 4/10

Girls talk to each other in this route but feel like they have less chemistry than the previous route where no female characters talk to each other at length at all. Bumping it up to 4/10 because Kyoshika holds Kurara in her arms as she dies so I guess that deserves one extra point.

Het Rating: 8/10

It's higher than the nozomi love confession in coming of age partly because it's a kiss partly because of the lack of other relationships in this route. So it goes.

I didn't exactly feel like anyone was written super annoyingly in this route, but, as I mentioned earlier, this really gave me...doubts about Hiruko.

Anyway, this was the first route where I've felt like it genuinely wasted my time playing. Let's see if future routes change this, either by giving me a better retrospective impression of it or, hopefully not, by making something SO bad it makes me miss this.

^This is the choice that horribly murdered literally everyone in the cast

(not a joke)

[glasscoral]

I finished my sixth ending cluster. Multiple Eitos route, endings 009, 010, 011, and 012. Thoughts under the cut.

Everyone who called CoT the 'yaoi route' please know I'm coming for you for false advertising.

More seriously, there are a few things in this route that are really interesting to compare to Eito's behavior in other routes and especially his behavior in CoT.

When I saw that scene with Eito and the fireworks in Coming of Age, it read way more as eito being genuinely upset that Takumi thought of him as completely controlled by his mental illness and unable to have his own will (and then trying to cover it up immediately after). In other words, that Takumi saw him as worthy of pity rather than trying to actually understand him.

In CoT, Eito thanks Takumi for 'curing' him so he can perceive things normally, and seems genuinely in love with him. At the time, something about it seemed 'off' but I didn't really have enough information about how he acted in other routes to really pinpoint why.

This, I think, gave me what I needed.

There are a few things that stick out about Eito's behavior in CoT--he's 'fixed' and obsessive over Takumi. What he feels in that route is just love, but he doesn't particularly care if Takumi feels the same way. He's also perfectly fine with suggesting more and more sexual 'rewards' to other members of the cast--he doesn't care about being exclusive with Takumi, just that he can continue to be with him forever.

Multiple Eitos is interesting in that he doesn't seem to be under the influence, and he's basically the opposite of how he acts in CoT. He doesn't feel just love (and honestly he isn't even acknowledging that part of what he feels towards Takumi is positive) but he wants Takumi to understand him. He wants Takumi to feel the same way he does, and to be one with him (and the "you and i are one now, like a clear empty field lit by a pale blue moon" is a reference to both of their last names (the 'aotsuki' is the blue moon and the 'sumino' is the field) He says he wants Takumi to surrender to him and give him his body, but when Takumi is willing to give up and let him do what he wants, he says he didn't want to see Takumi like this, that's not what he wanted. He also seems to want to be exclusive with Takumi in this route--'you'll be surrounded by ME, i'll be the one who's killing you'/'if you get a romantic partner i'll be there making commentary on every disgusting thing you do'. (and i'm still not sure if Takumi sees everyone as eito in that end so if he did anything wouldn't he. still be doing it with eito???? ALSO NO ONE ELSE BROUGHT UP ROMANTIC PARTNERS WHY DID EITO'S MIND IMMEDIATELY GO THERE)

It's a lot.

Also, all of that aside..

I kept seeing people post this and joke about it being in reference to either Eito being gay or eito's cognitive disorder so it was such a shock to see that in-game this is what kicks off a whole route that's kind of about both, where Takumi sees the world (somewhat) through the same eyes as Eito does and has to avoid getting found out, just like Eito.

Oh, Takumi, you think he has to die because he's not normal? Well, I have great news for you about yourself.

Without further ado, here is my yaoi ranking, yuri ranking, and het ranking.

Yaoi Ranking: 9/10

YES

Yuri Ranking: N/A

Two girls do not talk to each other at length this route.

Het Ranking: N/A

A guy and a girl do not talk to each other at length this route. Or they might, but it's all Eito so I can't tell.

i'm sorry this was just about yaoi i think it might be terminal on my end

[glasscoral]

Finished my second ending cluster in Hundred Line. Route 041 and 042, Cult of Takumi. That's 6/100 endings done now.

Spoilers under the cut. Here are my thoughts/my commentary on the route.

There's a lot I want to say about this route, so I guess I'll just go in order. (Not in order. Vague thoughts.)

-A friend advised me to not play this as the first route and I'd say I have to agree. It's not JUST that everyone's very purposely and intentionally ooc because They Are Being Drugged it's that Takumi is also at his worst here.

-The choice that kicks this route off calls out sacrificing Takemaru (who is a guy who just Happens To Be There) rather than Kyoshika (who wants to make that sacrifice) as a misogynistic choice because you're disregarding Kyoshika's agency and not letting her sacrifice herself because she is a GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and we cant let a GIRL die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-So it puts you on the harem route where you disregard the agency of your whole class and especially one girl.

-I think I had an idea that it'd be a lot closer to Takumi actively choosing to make a nasty decision from the beginning, since that's what the player is getting called out for, but that's not quite it

-I DO think it's interesting that part of the whole slowburn horror of this route is takumi bottoming (meaning that despite him being the only person in the situation who is able to revoke consent, a lot of the stuff early on happens TO him so it's easy to write it off as him being 'as much of a victim of the situation as everyone else' when if he were more active in the situation everyone would immediately go, oh, takumi is taking advantage of this to do nasty things to his classmates)

-but the thing is that this starts to hold less and less water as simply takumi being stupid or "accepting something he really shouldn't" as the route goes on when multiple people call him out on the fact that he could literally tell them to stop at any point and he doesn't (yugamu stops drugging him early on because he asked!!! he could literally stop!! he's the only one with the power to stop it!!)

-so if he's doing it on purpose, then why? i think it's a few things. his desire not to lose anyone is genuine, but he's also trying to ignore a reality that he finds impossible to deal with on his own (the deaths of takemaru and darumi) by surrounding himself with...people who are madly in love with him for no real reason and willing to do everything for him and act like yes-men

-he gets mad at people who call this out as a selfish action and suggest he returns to reality, implying that this is because they don't understand his pain

-nozomi is someone who is not madly in love with him for no real reason and he resents her for this

-he's also happy to leave everything to his yes-men even if he doesn't necessarily 'want' what they're asking from him (part of it i feel like is because actually saying no, like seriously putting your foot down and saying i don't want to do this, stop it, requires acknowledging that your inaction up to now was a choice TOO)

-notably, even in the ending when he tells them to stop, he still leaves it to them rather than actually trying to understand them or convince them--just takes it for granted that everything will be back to normal.

-in a sense, i think it's kind of fitting that your choices in the end are either to keep going on the path you've chosen, and completely willingly, unrepentently, and ambiguously cross that final horrific line and take away someone's agency to make them just a piece in your own fantasy or to half-heartedly try to put things 'back to normal' without really taking responsibility for what you've done to people--just assuming that it'll all work out and leaving the rest in everyone else's hands just like you've been doing this whole time...and as a result losing all your agency as you become a piece in someone else's fantasy

-there are no good ends because no one takes responsibility. there are no 'consensual' ends in this route the only thing that changes is who it's happening to

-also the way eito's speech to takumi kind of echoes takumi's speech to nozomi (they're not violent things to say! in fact they both come off as really romantic taken out of the context of being said to someone who at this point has no ability to meaningfully consent, which makes it absolutely stomach-turning)

-i'm nooooooooooot sure how to take "that was just the spark that started the blaze, i fell in love with takumi willingly" re: eito's feelings

there are a few things i'm kind of thinking about. one is that 'these feelings were already latently there (i.e eito loved him in other timelines, which i do think is supported by some of the other routes i've seen) but were only pushed into the foreground in this way because of the drugs [i also think this + some other eito statements apply to takumi in that his feelings for nozomi/karua were also latently there but were only pushed into the foreground In This Way because of the situation]

but also like. how do i put this.

because of the context of both the routes being sexual i can also read "i'm so happy to want you like this, thank you for giving me the chance to feel these feelings" as those feelings being forced to the foreground in a way they weren't before or didn't feel possible for him before, which makes the 'i did this willingly' feel a bit more questionable [especially since in episode 0, while takumi says he does find karua attractive, that's not the main point of their relationship]

-no seriously it's bugging me that what takumi says to nozomi and what eito says to takumi are really similar but one of them is under the influence and the other is less under the influence. you can say it's the drug changing takumi as well but it feels like so much less of a drastic change, i'm really not sure

-i don't think either of them would do that normally and i don't agree with the take that this is what their REGULAR behavior is or would be or that this is representative of what they would do if given a chance (i can elaborate on this if needed but this post is too damn long) but they're unambiguously doing it here and i don't think it's fair to pretend they're not so. i don't know

-i really prefer the way eito clearly wants to hang out with takumi and takumi is attracted to him in other routes rather than the way it's just constant over the top everything that feels so FAKE in a way that isn't even eito being eito

-where was i even going with this post

-i think the route was fine but i'd like to see more of nozomi, while she was nice in route 0 and while this route was Clearly Bad i would've liked her to say a bit more to takumi and i'm a bit worried it's just going to be takumi learns a lesson about feminism in future routes and she's going to be There

-route is portrayed as bad route is effective horror i do feel like it dragged a bit on purpose i don't know if future developments in takumi and nozomi's relationship will make some part of it make a bit more sense

-FORGOT TO PUT THIS BIT if the drv3 explanation that got dropped on us halfway through the route was legitimate it would explain everyone from the complex not knowing each other, but--i was about to say 'if takumi's entire backstory is fake that can't be true because near the end of route 0 she talks like she knows karua/is her so why would they both have the same backstory' and then i remembered kako and ima both also have 'the same backstory' and ima is ALSO controlling of his sister and needs to grow out of it. i don't know what to do with that because it'd mean that ima and kako aren't actually twins

-if v3 explanation is true, then part of the explanation as to why takumi's [and ima's] behavior is so extreme much like how eito's behavior is MORE extreme than usual in this route is that they were also literally brainwashed in a sense and they need to learn to see the people they 'care' about as they actually are rather than as motivations to fight?

-my real end thoughts on this is that this is either referencing another ending that i haven't gotten and will make a lot more sense in the context OF THAT ENDING or it's not and the whole point is wow wasnt that fucked up to do to nozomi which. Yeah i guess

No yaoi rating or yuri rating or het rating because nothing here was particularly consensual but i guess there was het sex and gay sex.

Really this just left me with a lot more questions than I started with which is great to have happen coming off the omegaverse route.

[glasscoral]

I noticed something in the Eden's Garden Killing Game rules regarding multiple blackened. There's something it seems to explicitly allow (or maybe even encourage???) that the wording of every other mainline game seems to specifically prohibit.

(This is just a theory of mine, but...)

Here's dr1's rules:

Rule #6: Anyone who kills a fellow student and becomes "blackened" will graduate, unless they are discovered.

Rule #10: If the guilty party is not exposed, they alone will graduate, and all remaining students will be executed.

Here's dr2's rules:

Rule #7: If the blackened is not exposed, the remaining students will be executed.

Rule #8: As a reward, the surviving blackened will be forgiven of their crime and allowed to leave the island.

And here's v3's rules:

Rule #4: If the blackened is not exposed, all remaining students will be executed.

Rule #5: If the blackened survives the class trial, they will graduate and re-enter the outside world.

Here's Eden's Garden's rules, for comparison.

Any student who is responsible for another Student's death is considered "Blackened". All other students are considered "Spotless".

If the majority votes goes towards a Blackened Student, then they alone will be executed, and the Killing Game will continue for all remaining Students.

If the majority votes goes towards a Spotless Student, then all Spotless Students will be executed, and the remaining Blackened will be granted release.

In all the other mainline games, it specifies that all students except the blackened will be executed. In Eden's Garden, it specifies that only spotless students will be executed. It also doesn't specify that they must "kill" a student to be considered blackened like in the dr1 rules.

I've seen people mention the 'any student responsible for another student's death and the 'they alone will be executed' in the context of "if there are multiple culprits, you can choose to execute any of them and it'll be a valid answer" and I agree with this.

But what I haven't seen anyone else mention is that…the rules seem to explicitly say that in the case of multiple culprits they all go free ("the remaining blackened" does NOT sound like one person) -as well as the fact that the wording is "responsible for a student's death" NOT "anyone who kills a fellow student" like other danganronpa games.

So…doesn't this imply that there's no upper limit on how many blackened there could be, as long as you have at least one uninvolved "spotless" person to act as a sacrificial lamb for everyone else?

Actually, I was wondering about this because Tozu's already exploited the 'granted release'/'let you go' wording to mean 'let you go OUTSIDE' not 'let you go from the killing game', so I was suspicious that even if someone successfully pulled off a murder, they might not be let go…but I felt like it'd be hard to pull off another fakeout with a very small amount of characters left. If the cast, intentionally or unintentionally, gets involved in a murder, executes the wrong person, gets off because THEY were the murderers…and then gets "released"…into a new area (that might have some history about what happened to Cara, etc)….well, that seems a lot more reasonable time to pull a "Tozu's not actually going to let them go" twist than at the very end of the game.

[glasscoral]

I've seen a lot of people confused about Hatsutori's motivations after playing his dlc record, and after a lot of thought I've decided to put my personal read of why he did what he did into a post two posts. Here's the second part.

Spoilers for the DLC, obviously. I'm using caps from the youtube translation in here, so if you'd like to watch it yourself feel free to read this later.

I think that all of Hatsutori's actions can be explained two ways--either trying to stop Seodore from using him, or trying to keep his promise with Utsugi. However, I also think that these two things do not overlap until the 1999 incident, at which point he combines these two together to formulate his final plan. The 2015 incident is that plan coming to fruition. This post focuses on the 'stopping Seodore from using him' aspect of it, the second post will focus on keeping his promise with Utsugi. They're intended to be read together, Tumblr's image limit is just getting to me.

In the second flashback in the DLC, we see Hatsutori already feeling suspicious of Seodore and like he's being used.

This is one of the first things he says when he meets Utsugi. While there's also an emotional aspect to why the murder happened (He's lashing out in the moment based on what he believes to be the truth, and it's influenced by his negative feelings about how they treated him, rather than based on solid evidence. This is something you'll see pop up again.) --That doesn't mean there's no evidence, or that he's solely working off emotion.

Given what he says here, there definitely seems to be some big plan they (and Seodore, specifically,) needed him for, that they absolutely refused to tell him anything about--which, naturally, would raise his suspicion.

Despite the ~6 years between these flashbacks and the fact that he's still working with Seodore, that suspicion hasn't lessened. In fact, he trusts Seodore so little that he'd dig this deep into Minoru Harada after one reaction on Seodore's part--which would seem to imply that Seodore either didn't do very much to allay Hatsutori's suspicion after the lab incident, or simply ignored what happened there completely.

Shortly after, he confronts Seodore about what he's found. Seodore is generally dismissive of him the whole time. While we don't know if that was the tone of any previous conversations they've had, a history of Seodore being dismissive and suspicious would explain why Hatsutori seems to read some of the statements he makes during their conversation very specific ways.

First, "I'm using you."--When Hatsutori asks Seodore about his motives, he's brushed off. Seodore answers his question in a way that sounds like "Would it matter, even if I am?". And given that Hatsutori was already suspicious of Seodore's aims, given that Hatsutori suspects that a lot of stuff in his life overall was orchestrated by Seodore...You can understand how Hatsutori would focus on the "I am" part above all else. Second, "My goal is to die." I think this one's kind of self explanatory because Seodore says it directly, so I'm not including a cap, but I thought it was relevant to mention because Seodore himself brings it up first--Hatsutori knows Seodore wants to die, and that this is probably part of why Seodore is using him. However, Seodore is very vague about what is preventing him from doing so, and doesn't really let too much slip about how it fits into his overall plans. Whatever he's doing, he won't let Hatsutori work with him on it.

Third, "You can't do anything about it." Later on in the series, we see that Seodore calls himself human--and that, in fact, someone calling him human was a positive thing for him. This comment seems more like sincere advice--maybe the most sincere thing he's said in the conversation-- than anything else.

However, because it comes after a long conversation of Seodore making digs at and just generally provoking Hatsutori, Hatsutori seems to take this negatively, as a statement on his own inability, rather than advice or reassurance that it's alright to be human.

This is a trait both Seodore and Utsugi (which I touch on later on) share--they tell Hatsutori that he can be human, and seem fully sincere when they say so. But the way in which they do so only serves to push Hatsutori further away from humanity (even when he starts to want to be human). And while he seems to look at Minoru calling him human a lot more positively...

He doesn't fully want to be human--there's also a part of him that wants to be a star, as well.

So, back to Hatsutori and Seodore. With everything Hatsutori knows, it seems like there's one simple solution that would give Seodore what he wants, prove that Hatsutori could save him (prove that Hatsutori was right), and prevent Hatsutori from being used by him any further---to kill Seodore.

And that, in fact, is what Hatsutori does.

But how does Hatsutori go from killing Seodore to trying to kill everyone at Path to Empireo, and himself, solely because he saw Seodore with Minoru?

I think it wasn't just because he saw Seodore again. In the conversation with Misumi when Hatsutori asks Misumi to look into Minoru, Misumi brings up the possibility that Minoru knew about some of this beforehand.

Now, while at the time Hatsutori doesn't seem to be suspicious of Minoru or Minoru working with Seodore (or being part of Seodore's plans)...he's now presented with proof that not only is Minoru part of Seodore's plans, he's probably been part of Seodore's plans for a while. And if he's been part of Seodore's plans for a while...how much of the other parts of Hatsutori's life have been?

Is Seodore not only planning to use Hatsutori, but his friends and everyone at Path to Empireo as well?

He also realizes that killing Seodore to stop him didn't work.

So if killing Seodore to stop him doesn't work, and Hatsutori thinks that he needs to stop him from using his friends and family (and himself) at all costs...there's one final thing he can do.

Destroy what (he thinks) Seodore plans to use, in order to ruin his plans.

While this doesn't seem like an act solely motivated out of desperation, paranoia, and fear--there seems to be a good amount of spite towards Seodore included--

It does seem like Hatsutori will do anything to stop being used by Seodore (and defy him), even if he has to use the most desperate and violent methods possible. Even if those methods lead to him losing everything.

[A sidenote: While Hatsutori doesn't seem to know about Mutei's factor theory in depth, and doesn't seem to bring it up in the same words, his reaction seems somewhat similar to how Chie reacts when hearing something similar about Kazaru and Mutei's theory. This isn't necessarily a very strong parallel, but I did find it interesting how both of them were willing to go scorched earth in order to stop 'being toyed with'...whether or not they were actually being toyed with in the first place.]

As a result, half of Hatsutori's body is gone, and he's almost killed by Seodore.

In the process of Utsugi driving Seodore away, Hatsutori recognizes the Lapis fragment in Utsugi. It seems like he's aware that the Lapis fragments are part of Seodore's plan, so he (incorrectly) draws the conclusion that Utsugi is also part of Seodore's plan--that Seodore also intends to use him.

As a result, this is when Hatsutori seems to decide in earnest that he's going to take Utsugi with him. That they're both going to die together--that way, the two of them can be together, and he'll have foiled Seodore's plans.

While Hatsutori going to absurd and self-destructive lengths to foil Seodore's plans (and the reason for that) has been established, there's also a reason why he wants to take Utsugi with him specifically.

It has to do with what's motivating a lot of his behavior during his time at Path to Empireo, and even before that--since their first meeting.

He's trying to keep the promise he made with Utsugi. [continued in part 2 because tumblr said I was adding too many images]

[glasscoral]

I finished my eleventh ending cluster! Eva route, endings 07 and 08. Thoughts under the cut. I think I have a new contender for the worst route in the game, and this is a post explaining why.

First of all, I did know this route was considered bad going in.

I didn't know the specific flavor of bad. I didn't like Slasher, but that's mainly because of the pacing (+ the route not standing on its own well)

This is bad because it is the dr1 bad ending. You know the one.

More seriously, this started off bringing up some interesting concepts (that are elaborated on other places in the series)--Takumi isn't letting Eva go, he's just talking to a brainwashed girl to ease his guilt for being complicit in something horrible.

This, as a start to the route, is actually interesting writing that's in line with some of the themes expressed elsewhere in the story. If this route had been Takumi doing something kind of selfish to a brainwashed girl to ease his guilt and that escalating that'd be kind of terrible but it'd be coherent as a route.

Instead...

Eva magically breaks out of the brainwashing.

Eito and Nozomi deus ex machina them out to escape.

However, they almost die in the desert...and then Kamyuhn randomly shows up to save them.

There's a ~2 week timeskip, and then...

We're greeted with THIS dialogue.

You were spending time together????????? During that two week timeskip I was not there for? And now you're in love with her?

WHEN IN THE LITERAL LAST ROUTE I PLAYED, THE ROMANCE ROUTE, YOU HUNG OUT WITH MULTIPLE OF YOUR CLASSMATES FOR LIKE A MONTH STRAIGHT AND DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IF YOU /LIKED/ THEM?????????

IN THE LITERAL LAST ROUTE I PLAYED SOMEONE /ASKED/ YOU ABOUT KIDS AND YOU WERE LIKE I GUESS I'D LIKE TO HAVE KIDS SOMEDAY BUT IDK and then in this one you're like it's been two weeks i'd be happy to be the father of eva's child

like it's not even 'this is ooc' it's like genuinely was there a gas leak here????????? did someone slip the omegaverse drugs into your food????????????????????????? hello??????

Anyway one of the endings is 'eva's pregnant with my kid now :)'

fuck kamyuhn btw idk if she's alive but that doesn't matter.

And the OTHER one (i do think this is the 'more canon' one bc eva gets to have her big moment...defeating vex with the power of love...for a guy she's known for two weeks...and then suddenly dying tragically because of course)

It has this in it. Like, everything else aside, doesn't this way of looking at things ("we're all the same underneath, this was just chosen for us, we can fix it with the power of love") seem like it contradicts multiple other routes? (rebellion, 2nd scenario, reset, etc)

Doesn't 'we didn't choose this, it was chosen for us' seem to directly contradict WHAT TAKUMI SAYS IN THIS ROUTE ITSELF about him lying to himself to make himself feel better about his complicity?

And, the thing is--the route would make a lot more sense if Eva was still brainwashed--if all of it really was a lie, but I'm not really sure the route itself supports that reading.

It genuinely makes me wonder what happened here--why does the first part of the route feel at odds with the second?

What was the point of this route?

This is the first route where I genuinely haven't been sure.

(if it was 'Takumi ignores the plot in favor of a happy delusion' that's been done better, and with more intent, in multiple other routes.)

I know Kodaka helped write it, but it actually feels mild for his work.

Also, I've generally liked Takumi's relationships with all of the female characters and they haven't felt forced, so I'm also not sure why he's falling in love with her after 2 weeks offscreen????

Other routes say kamyuhn is the daughter of her brother's wife, so she's her aunt--and then in eva route eva...just does not mention that at all and calls them 'kamyuhn's birth parents' like they're not at all related???????? hello?????

Anyway I've been ranking these routes on how yaoi/yuri/het they are and this is a 10/10 on het ranking because there's nothing more heterosexual than ending up a pregnant tradwife.

At least the route wasn't that long.

(seriously, why was the vex route weirdly solid and then this was...this)

N/A on yaoi and N/A on yuri because two guys and two girls don't really talk all that much.

Yes. It is

This video is Eva route to me.

[glasscoral]

I finished my seventh ending cluster (?) (I'm aware they're categorized as separate routes in game, but they're both branches of the same choice, so...) Ending 01, 2nd Scenario, and Ending 02, Reset.

Thoughts under the cut (and huge spoilers, please don't read until you're done with 2nd Scenario), as always. [kind of develops into a general thoughts dump halfway through]

I'm genuinely shocked that the first "half" of the game (the prologue) and the second "half" of the game (2nd Scenario) were as solid as they were.

I feel like there's no way to phrase this without sounding like 'oh, i expected the Danganronpa guy to make dogshit' but that's really not it.

The two 'halves' of the game were both very different tonally (the first half felt like experiencing the highs and lows of high school football (in the most positive way), and the second half was...a story about war asking the question of what the 'right' thing to do would be for people created as weapons, against their will--in a situation where it's either kill or be killed, but to live & continue with their mission and keep fighting is to keep committing atrocities and eventually wipe out a planet in pursuit of their own 'happy ending'.

It would be really easy to have it feel like tonal whiplash so bad it's hard to take seriously, but it's not--all the little things you ignored first go-around (because you were too busy just building up bonds with your friends and just trying to complete your mission- that'll fix everything, right? enjoy your high school life!) build up more and more in the second playthrough until it's impossible to ignore the horrible reality of what you're doing.

The game even asks you--do you want to do something horrible to this woman you have tortured onscreen until her mind breaks? tThe only thing she can do is beg you not to kill her, but you have to in order to know the truth. Do you really, really want to know the full truth about what you're doing, no matter how awful it is?

And then you say yes, and you get the full truth.

And you have to decide whether you're going to keep fighting, knowing that.

If it's worth killing millions of people JUST to have a chance to colonize this new planet. Humanity needs a new place to live, and it's not like the people you're fighting against will just let the war end, so surely it'll be 'okay' to do this?

^this is what a lot of video games about war end up saying.

One of the first things that shocked me about 2nd scenario was how much it really hammered in the point that what they were doing was horrific, but that Takumi and friends were doing it for their own happy ending, and were prepared to live with the guilt and blood on their hands.

So at that point I thought--well, I guess they're going for an 'unsatisfying' happy ending where everyone has to live with the guilt of a genocide on their hands but is going to get through it together?

(at that point i was like, eh, that's fine, i've seen a lot more questionable war narratives i've played xiv so this seems like a step up tbh)

-& then hundred line smacked it out of their hands and went oh you THOUGHT you'd get to nuke the planet and walk away scot free? great news, if you're going to use that as your strategy that means your enemies can too :) what now

-no just genuinely i think it's crazy (positively) that there is NO option that lets you just nuke everyone and get off scot-free as war heroes

-you can choose to not die for people you don't know. to not lose anyone else. and let the nukes go off and give them free reign of the destroyed planet but this is not a satisfying conclusion for the player. the characters as you know them have their memories completely erased and rewritten and are no longer who you know them as! their relationships are completely gone! the implication there is that they'll be expected to repopulate the planet, but oops, this is also the route where you learn that due to the process used to create them as clones they're all very close genetically. this might not matter otherwise as they don't really consider themselves siblings, but if you're trying to repopulate a planet.......this might be an issue!

-if you choose to not stand for anything and anyone else and only prioritize yourself and the people you care about while ignoring the reality, then you'll have the people you care about taken away and you won't be the same you. you'll lose everything you were trying to 'protect' and live in a 'safe' and happy fiction about nothing at all

-the fact that going against the system that created them is what turns them from immortal soldiers who won't stop coming back to people who WILL die and it's still the right choice

-like they knew they were going to die. they knew it wasn't an easy choice. they say multiple times they're prepared to lose everything

-it's not about living for something the only choice they could make was what to die for and by god they made that choice

-god i am so fucking upset it's not every day that you can kill off an entire cast of people and have the one survivor just among the rubble trying her hardest for peace and have me go yeah. that's a fitting ending.

-if anything this has made me realize just how many pieces of media about wars either both-sides it or act like if the people on the invading side are inconvenienced in any way by trying to stop the war then it's 'justified' for them to not try to do that

-hundred line says that no. to go against the system that created you to fight and try to stop the war yourselves will make you pay the ultimate price. it's not as easy as just saying oh we can just stop war :)

-but you have to do it anyway. that's how you can actually save someone

-i also really like that even though vex is the most amoral of the aliens ("aliens") i say but really it feels like they're just humans [on another planet so we don't get in hot water because if we set this on earth it Will be commentary on a specific conflict whether we want it to be or not] everything she's doing is stuff humans did first and none of it is ever portrayed as retroactively 'justifying' what they did to the planet

-genuinely like i said this is just making me realize HOW low the bar has been

-as much as i liked this route right now i personally feel like it's not really a good idea to do it first (we'll see if my mind changes later) because it does hit harder if you the player have been fucking around and doing other things and learning about characters in their actual routes, since they won't get that screentime here, and getting slowly drip-fed information that won't really get elaborated on there--you the player will go 'hey, what does that mean' and the characters will be dealing with other things and won't have time to dig into it so you'll be wondering what it means the whole time, if it's serious or if it's just another joke

-and then you get here and you go Oh they were serious and they did tell me ahead of time

-i really do feel like this game benefits from giving you a bit before you pop open this box and find the awful truth

-this ending was so solid that it's um. making me worry a bit about the 'ending where all characters survive' because at this point i feel like there's zero chance it doesn't involve timeline bullshit. and normally that'd be fine but because everyone's deaths were so purposeful in this ending a route that 'fixed the timeline' to have everyone survive would have a lot of heavy lifting to do in order to not feel cheap

-like, if i want everyone to survive i have fanfic. if i want most people to survive it seems like earlier branches of that route where you DON'T just go along with humanity might have a more hopeful vibe to them. i'd personally prefer an ending where everyone dies but it means something rather than an ending where everyone is magically alive but there's no real meaning to it

ok time to get to what i've been talking about in all of these

Yaoi Rating: 8/10

LOOK AT THIS CALLBACK

Yuri Rating: 4/10

Rip Darumi (girls talked to each other but didn't really have chemistry this route)

Het Rating: 4/10

I have to say, despite Nozomi asking Takumi out on a date after things are all over 1) it feels like he's TURNING HER DOWN BECAUSE HE'S STILL STUCK ON KARUA 2) also they don't even get to go on that date. He dies.

He dies held in her arms, yes, but he's also still calling her Karua as he goes? I guess you could read 'Karua was right here this whole time as' 'you are Karua' but honestly it just felt like he was hallucinating Nozomi as Karua as he died. (and she was also there during his final attack)

Which is really sad. Girl I think you're losing to a fictional OC version of yourself made up for propaganda purposes to convince him to fight in order to 'protect her'. Not that you'd necessarily want to win but . girl

[glasscoral]

I finished my fifth ending cluster. Retsnom route, endings 049, 050, 051, and 052. My opinions on them below the cut. They're mostly positive, although there's a little bit of ???.

I like how, just like in Slasher, Darumi goes for a group peeing session with someone (slight exaggeration) and brings back something that can kill everyone. Except this time YOU'RE the one going on the group peeing session with her.

Honestly, there were a lot of things I liked about this route (and a couple things i was a little unsatisfied with), so I'll just go in order.

It started off with Takumi lying to Nozomi's face to make decisions for her, and then it blowing up in his face.

-I liked that in some senses it's a story about making up for what you've done to someone--while Takumi and Nozomi mend their relationship, he's not 'let off the hook' for it immediately.

-I also like that part of what caused this route is making decisions for Nozomi, and part of mending their relationship seems to be Takumi slowly getting a stronger relationship with someone else and not making that same mistake with her again.

-While I feel like she didn't necessarily need to apologize to him, I did feel like her trying to carry on the memory of her dead friends made it feel less like 'sorry i was lashing out at you after you lied to me and let my friends die' and more like she's also moving on.

-Darumi and Takumi genuinely have a great dynamic. They're REALLY funny with each other and feel like stupid friends [with undertones]. The "I don't need love because I'm not going bald" conversation was just an amazing bit.

-The conversation about 'fakes' after the Eito revival + the one-off 'you were just made to be weapons of war' dahlxia line + the 'your backstory is fake' from another route really makes me have some questions about what's ACTUALLY going on with the SDU. I feel like we didn't learn all that much this route though, just crumbs that may or may not be true.

-The 'eito's corpse is still in the grave so who tf is this' reveal was great though.

-just thinking about no one ever choosing darumi and her willing to go through hell for someone who didn't even purposely 'choose' her

-thinking about the fact that every other host killed themselves because they realized they were a copy but darumi always wanted to die and from the beginning was fine with sacrificing herself to bring everyone back so she had no problem with it

-TAKUMI SUMINO YOU ARE SO STUPID FOR THINKING THAT THE REASON SHE WAS PUSHING YOU AWAY WAS BECAUSE SHE WAS A FAKE AND NOT BECAUSE SHE WANTED YOU TO HAVE AN EASIER TIME KILLING HER I KNOW YOU REALIZED AT THE END BUT IM SO FUCKING UPSET

-part of this route is about making up for past mistakes and darumi reviving everyone (that was lost because takumi came back and 'saved her') at the cost of her own life feels very fitting in a sense of it's what she'd want/she knows it was 'a mistake'

-AT LEAST GIVE HER A KISS TAKUMI COME ON JUST ONE TELL HER YOU LOVE HER SHE DESERVES ONE!!!

-the fact that he was fully prepared to kill himself WITH her because he thought it was a mistake that she took that burden on herself for him and he shouldn't have been alive but she was determined to be the only one to die and wanted him to live on

-man it would've been so easy for her to just let him die with her or not revive everyone else (because he literally tried to kill her after all that!!) but in the end she was determined to do it for him and she did.

Man.

Anyway, since I've been giving these a yaoi rating/yuri rating/het rating i'm going to keep doing it.

Yaoi Ranking: 4.5/10

Lower than the prologue, but not by a ton. Eito has a couple of yaoi lines towards Takumi (+ implies he's the only one he's interested in), but then falls in 'love' with Darumi after seeing her true form. This route is mainly about Takumi/Darumi, though, so it's not super yaoi. [Still a little confused about the 'true form' bit--she was wandering around before she'd fully transformed, right? So what was he seeing? Also, after he's revived he says something that implies he sees her as a monster and not a human. I'm a bit confused. Maybe it's just that Eito is het if it's funny based on route.]

Yuri Ranking: N/A

I don't thiiiiiiiiink two girls talk to each other at length in this route?

Het Ranking: 6.5/10

Weirdly this one's only a little higher than the Vex route because 1) despite all the jokes Darumi makes they genuinely do feel like friends with tension for most of the route 2) there's no kiss like slasher and while there is a love confession like coming of age...it's on the branch where Darumi eats the world, so it doesn't feel like an unambiguous 'happy' ending

I liked it.

Darumi :(

^summary of the route

[glasscoral]

I've seen a lot of people confused about Hatsutori's motivations after playing his dlc record, and after a lot of thought I've decided to put my personal read of why he did what he did into two posts. This is the section about his promise with Utsugi, and the second half of the post. They're intended to be read together. Here's the first half.

Now--if you've gone through Hatsutori's section of the DLC, you'll probably remember that Utsugi thinks that Hatsutori doesn't remember their promise.

However, I don't think that's the case. I think that Hatsutori remembers, but has a very different idea of what their promise actually was.

I also think that Hatsutori didn't forget or lose sight of what their promise was 'over time'--he had a very different idea of what Utsugi wanted from him from the very beginning.

The first time we see the dialogue from when the two of them make their promise in the DLC is in the base game.

Atou sees it, although he doesn't see the context in which it appears (while Atou sees more context for many lines or the flashbacks they appear in in S, these two lines only appear during the Utsugi boss battle, and only in S, not in the version of the boss battle in A. They're never mentioned again until Utsugi's section of the DLC.)

But because Atou's seeing it, he had to have gotten the memory from Hatsutori.

So, Hatsutori remembers that part of the promise.

Hatsutori's version of the flashback in the DLC cuts off before it gets to that dialogue (we only see it in Utsugi's version).

I do think Hatsutori's version cutting off early isn't just a choice on the part of Fukao to obscure the full dialogue until closer to the end. It shows the part of the flashback that was significant to Hatsutori-- (Utsugi saying he's not a monster)--but I don't think this is intended to imply that Hatsutori only remembers that section of it--if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to pass what he did on to Atou.

I also think that this, in specific, is what Hatsutori thinks the promise is.

And looking at their first meeting, you can understand why. Utsugi says that immediately after Hatsutori starts to take Utsugi's words about "being a star" as encouragement to be a savior. ("I don't understand what you mean, but if you're saying you want to save everyone...")

So, if Hatsutori already thinks their promise is that Utsugi will stay by his side only if he's a savior, a star, not human...it makes this exchange come off a lot differently.

We, as readers, know that when Utsugi says "You can do what you want, as long as you just remember our promise", this is intended to be reassuring, because the promise to Utsugi is "Please live, and if you can, please smile."--so in this case, this would probably mean "I don't mind what you do, as long as you're alive and probably happy doing so. Of course you can be human."

But, if Hatsutori remembers the promise as "I'll stay by your side as long as you're a savior--", then hearing "You can do what you want as long as you remember our promise" sounds a lot more like it means "You can do what you want, but you have to keep being a savior." A rejection of Hatsutori's humanity, in other words.

It seems a lot more like a shackle. Something that Hatsutori has to resign himself to living with for the rest of his life, no matter how unhappy it makes him, if he wants to keep Utsugi with him. Utsugi, like Seodore, has pushed Hatsutori further away from humanity by saying something that was intended as genuine encouragement. But unlike Seodore...Hatsutori wants Utsugi to stay with him.

Utsugi assumes that Hatsutori saying "that's why you're here, that's what we promised" is because he's forgotten the original promise, but that really doesn't seem like the case.

That scene also ends with Utsugi failing to clear up the misunderstanding, and Hatsutori continuing to feel trapped.

So when Hatsutori finds out the "truth" about Seodore using him, and it seems like Utsugi's part of it too…

Well, like I mentioned earlier, Hatsutori is desperate not to be used by Seodore. But he also wants to be a "savior""--partly out of his own pride, partly in order to keep Utsugi with him.

And yet, he's faced with the fact that he doesn't particularly like living as a savior.

So, with the "reveal" that Utsugi is "part" of Seodore's plan--

It seems like there's once again a "simple option"--a way Hatsutori can stay a savior forever without having to live with it. A way Hatsutori can keep Utsugi with him forever, and stop Seodore's plans.

To do what he did in 1999 again--but this time, to make sure he took Utsugi with him.

After all, that's what he's been consistently asking Utsugi to do throughout the entirety of the game.

He wants Utsugi to stay with him, and doesn't seem to understand that Utsugi would do that regardless of whether he did what Utsugi wanted. [The wording of 'I'll follow God's love ->It's right by my side' seems a little odd given that, also.]

But much like Hatsutori doesn't seem to understand that Utsugi would stay with him regardless of what he did...Utsugi doesn't quite seem to understand just how much Hatsutori wants him to stay.

Hatsutori is willing to do anything to get Utsugi to stay with him, but Utsugi doesn't see himself as being anything special to Hatsutori--to the point where he thinks that Hatsutori's already moved on to other friends--that Hatsutori views it as a chain binding him, and that Hatsutori would be fine with sacrificing Utsugi so that he could live.

Hatsutori asks Utsugi to stay with him. To keep their promise, as they're both dying.

The promise Utsugi made was that Hatsutori would live.

The promise Hatsutori (thinks he) made was that Utsugi would stay with him forever.

Who got what they wanted, here?

I'll leave off on this note--when Hatsutori asks Utsugi to remind him of their promise, don't the options seem strange to you?

One of the options is "to become a guiding star". The other is "to save the world". Both of those aren't things he thinks he should've done, or things he needs to be "reminded" of--they're things he's been trying to do, his whole section of the DLC.

Whether he succeeded at those things or not, or even his motivations behind them--those aren't things he's forgotten. They're things he's been trying to do this whole time.

The third option here is "To make you happy."

What does that mean, then?

What were they both trying to do, do you think?

Did it work?