#like imagine you find a cursed amulet in game and i fucking GIVE IT TO YOU IRL

[beevean]

Imagine if CoD had two endings:

One where Julia doesn't show up at the end and so Hector dies as the castle crumbles

And the good ending available only if you find every chair in the game, with no immediate logical connection, leading us to believe that she really loves a man who knows his chairs

You know what? You're right! Why didn't IGA go the SotN and HoD route and imply all women in CV are really really horny for men into exploration?? Call that the juiciest of lores!

In all seriousness, multiple endings for CoD would have been great, although I understand the game didn't have the proper budget/time for it. But imagine an ending where Hector kills Isaac during his rageboner moment because he didn't remember Julia's words in time, and boom, he gets corrupted and Death uses him to resurrect Dracula - this could have even been like Julius Mode in DoS and unlocked Trevor Mode, who now has to stop Dracula again. Maybe you could get the good ending if you speak to Julia in the shop multiple times, so that the grip of the Curse relents on Hector (since clearly Julia's presence calms him down)?

An ending where Hector dies in the castle would be too sad, though :( I'm not even sure how much you have to fuck up for that to happen :( although now that I think about it, it also reminds me a bit of DoS where Mina's amulet allows Soma to delay his corruption enough for Arikado to intervene, so uhmmm... maybe if you take too much time fighting Dracula, Julia doesn't show up? Or Hector lets himself die faster if you have missed something that would give him a reason to resist? Argh, now I'm thinking too much.

anyway julia should have absolutely smooched hector in the chair room. bro literally sat on a toilet that was previously under a lake for the sake of his collection. i think he deserves a little treat

[teddystrap]

[神なる君と] Osananajimi Duo - Yakumo

Second route of the game. #mfw ==== (ง•̀_•́)ง‼

*

-Takekiyo Yakumo-

Niiiiisssssaaaannnnnnn!!!

Yakumo is the other osananajimi of the trio. He is one year older than Sakuya and Narumi, and acts as the protective big brother - when they were young, some older kids took Sakuya’s *precious amulet*, and Yakumo went to get it back from them and got beaten up really badly. 

Sakuya later tells him that at that time he seemed like a ‘hero’ and she had always looked up to him. So I guess there’s like a love triangle (...love flowchart??) that goes: Narumi --> Sakuya --> Yakumo since the very beginning.

Also early on in the story, Yakumo tells Sakuya in a ‘simulation event’ that, even if he loved her, he would never confess and they can never be together, because it would end in tragedy. Pfffft whatever nii-san, that just means I will have to make the first move *evil laugh*. 

My feelings during his route went from hilarious, to sad, to finally disconcerting. He’s kind of a poor bastard and MIA in half of his own route. When I finally got the the two endings I wanted to throw my game console out of the window... (╯°□°)╯︵ ԀSԀ

Yes, exactly.

Aaanyway, there are two big revelations here:

1. Aki’s backstory: Kibi Aki is the 16-year-old spirit medium sent by the Ministry to spy on monitor Kunihoshi Shrine, because Mikoto forgot to send in his report (#justMikotothings). After Sakuya accidentally fucks up one of her assignments, it’s revealed that she actually comes from a renowned onmyouji family, and left home to train under the ministry at a young age in order to prove herself.

2. Kunugi’s backstory: Kunugi is the shape-shifting demon who stole the *magical seal* that protects the town, and Aki’s target of investigation. I didn’t expect to like him at first, but his tragic romance is pretty kewl I have to admit:

Kunugi was a douchebag since birth and terrorised the village so all the villagers hated him. One day, a girl named Yuki wandered into his territory. She was a grade A-level village idiot idiot, and after 3 days of trying and failing to find her way out, he gave her some food and water so she wouldn't die on his grounds. She was very grateful and started to get close to him. She also begged him to stop terrorising the village. Eventually she annoyed him enough that he agreed.

Then gradually, he began to help the villagers here and there, and even became friends with them. One day they wanted to thank him for his help. They gave him a small wooden box, and told him it was some kind of national treasure. Just then Yuki intercepted, and the box emitted some light beam that went into her body.

After that Yuki got progressively sicker and on the brink of death. Out of anger and confusion, he tried to destroy the box, but it's more sturdy/fireproof than an LV tote bag. Eventually she told him that the box contains a cursed rock (i.e. the remains of the Great Demon), and once every two hundred years the village has to offer a human sacrifice to prevent the curse from escaping and causing disaster. This time the villagers chose him, so she gave her life to save his...

Kind of hard to imagine how she fell in love with this (ahem *Aki*)... hopefully a few hundred years ago he took on a sexier appearance...

But I digress. Let’s get back to Yakumo XD. So his deal is basically that the Takekiyo bloodline has been chosen as the human sacrifice every 200 years. As a result, Yakumo is inflicted with a curse that puts him to sleep for longer and longer periods, until he eventually goes into a longggg sleep and never wakes up. This also explains his superhuman athletic abilities and sixth sense, because the Force be with him powers of the Great Demon live within him.

Early on in the common route, he occasionally says things like, ‘you must live on happily when I am gone’ and gives Sakuya a #sadface, like someone with a terminal illness. Eventually Sakuya finds out the truth from his parents, after which he couldn’t hide anymore, and starts to reveal all his fears and doubts, as well as his feelings for her.

As it turns out Yuzuru knows a way to break the curse, but it requires putting Yakumo into a coma for years, and there’s a good chance of death. Basically the supernatural equivalent of a high-risk medical operation I guess. He has until the hoshimatsuri to decide whether to take a gamble with this method, or let the curse continue slowly chipping away at his lifespan.

...Of course he chooses the former. You’d be an idiot not to.

1. Good End: It’s been 7 years (!), and he still hasn’t woken up from his coma. According to Yuzuru, 5 years is the ‘safety period’, and after that he’s as good as gone. Sakuya doesn’t give up, and **10 years later** (#tumbleweeds) he finally wakes up on hoshimatsuri night. They go on to have a baby who looks ridiculously like Yakumo ...and will probably be affected by the same curse...? Oh well let’s hope Yuzuru is still alive by then to do his thang.

2. Tragic End: Under Yuzuru’s advice, Sakuya gives up and lets him erase all her memories. Yakumo eventually wakes up after 10 years anyway, and it sucks for him because unlike in Narumi’s end, Yakumo still remembers everything and has to live with it for the rest of his life. Like I said, poor bastard...

Understatement of the year.

*

[Thoughts] Somehow this route felt shorter and less tearful than Narumi’s, maybe because I got used to the general setting and gameplay. Yakumo’s ema events feel like they came out of a shounen manga and had me in stitches the whole time. I can’t recall any other otome game that made me laugh this much (...except maybe 「私のレアルは充実している」).

What I like about this route is the added tension here compared to Narumi’s route: in Narumi’s case it’s pretty obvs that he has a crush on Sakuya. He said it himself that he’s never viewed Sakuya as a sister from the beginning. So on that front there’s no doubt from his side, his whole conflict revolves only around the ‘forbidden love’ aspect.

Whereas with Yakumo, when he shows hints of feelings towards Sakuya, they’re often ambiguous between the actions of an older brother towards a little sister vs. a love interest. That made it all the more exciting.

Also apart from the curse/risk of death and that stuff, Yakumo also had his ‘manly pride’ to reckon with - letting Sakuya see his weak side and realise that he’s not always her ‘hero’. It was pretty damn emotionally satisfying when he finally came clean about his secrets and started letting Sakuya into his world. Although, much of his later dialogue is pretty cliche tbh. I actually found his baka persona more interesting. But eh.

I guess it’s this pride of his that makes it necessary for Sakuya to be an adult here. Whenever his white lies or ‘fake cheerfulness’ made her angry, she had to learn/choose to coax things out of him gently instead of calling him out on it. Conversely I felt that with Narumi she was more direct, and had more leeway for wagamama.  

The Aki/Kunugi story arc was a high point of the route for me. Aki’s background helps to explain her personality in so many ways. I love her character growth and development here, as she eventually learns to accept help from other people, instead of trying do everything by herself. Ahh... her whole story strikes so many chords with me. I also love how she got her own grand love story here.

(Part of me is curious if the Aki-lookalike and Kunugi’s ‘true form’ will make an appearance later on. It’s a long shot, but let’s hope!)

This route also revealed a lot about Yuzuru, whom I’m liking more and more and whose story I’m really looking forward to... I thought I had more to say about him but nahhh. Asshole who’s a secret softie at heart <3.

I’ll sign off this post with the following pun from Genpei which I thought was pretty cheeky -