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So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. -1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV)Again, Melissa felt the need to defend herself on behalf of Ambrosia. “It’s not magic,” she said, “or, um, it wasn’t magic on my world, I don’t know what it is here, though it looks the same. If it is the same, the oven and stove are gas-powered, I think? I probably won’t be able to explain it that well -- when I was picking my room with Masaru I was doing a pretty bad job of explaining these watches, so…” She held up her wrist to indicate what she was talking about, but couldn’t keep it up for too long, the butter was starting to melt in the pan and she still had a bit more prep to do with her bread. Like, it was pretty simple, she just had to cut slightly-larger-than-communion-cup-sized holes in the middle of each slice (her father said “shot glass” but of course she chose something else), but it still required her focus for a moment, and that meant that when she heard a different voice than the Fen’s she’d been expecting, she yelped, dropped her (thankfully, butter) knife, and probably jumped a foot and a half. “Sorry, um. Sorry, I think… I was…” She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for, but she did feel like she had to be apologizing for something. Fortunately, she did have the presence of mind to get the bread, including the nubs she’d punched out, into the pan before she turned around. “Oh, it’s, uh, Morgan, right?” Melissa liked to think she was pretty good at names, but even besides that, it was difficult to imagine forgetting someone with Morgan’s… complexion? That was probably a weird word, and she made a note to ask about something better later, but the point was, despite having only heard her name while fleeing to a restroom, she did remember it. “My name is Melissa,” she said. “Make yourself at home. You know what everything is here?” A stupid question in hindsight; Morgan had been living here for who knew how much longer than they had, so of course she was going to recognize something (also going zero for two on sentences regarding her didn’t feel great), and Morgan answered even more definitively by going confidently over to the toaster and popping in a few more slices of bread. “The toaster makes bread better. Hotter, and a little crispy. Be careful not to burn your bread,” she said. “Oh, I’m toasting bread too, actually,” Melissa said, turning back to her pan. “I’m just, uh, this is a little more involved.” Only a little, of course. She cracked the two eggs, one into each bread-hole, and dropped the heat down to low. “This way, if I’ve done this right, the bread should help contain the yolk, and the butter to keep the egg from sticking should also soak in a little.” She spent a minute or two digging around for a spatula and waited a bit longer than that to make sure she could flip everything without it all falling apart -- that was the bit “even if I mess it up” issue she’d experienced in the past -- and let the two bread/egg combinations cook a few seconds longer before transferring them over to a plate. It looked pretty good actually, though the eggs were probably closer to over medium than over easy. Melissa presented the plate to Morgan and Fen for their approval. “The pan’s still hot, did you want some too? It’s probably not as good as anything you’ve made recently, Fen, but…”

Was finally able to end my 2016, and I can now move on with everything. Thanks for the chat, Chat.

It wasn't long at all after Lord Hades returned to his domain that Timo felt something. Something in her hair. Before she had the chance to investigate though, much to her surprise, a bird of all things flew out! How long had it been since she saw one of those? Maybe if she measured it in deaths... no, it was far too many to count. She'd have to just settle for "too long." And then, as if the tournament, her participation, and even the trip to Olympus was all one giant prank by Hades, the bird burst into flames and disappeared on the spot, not moments before Timo was able to acknowledge that yes, this was a bird. In its place was a boy. With wings. The bird's true form, perhaps. ”Thanks, Timo of Tartarus. I am Icarus. Son of the inventor Daedalus, appointed by the Titan Prometheus. I am here to represent Humanity.” Icarus. Icarus...? Never had Timo heard of an Icarus before. But Daedalus was a different story. She knew his legend well, and even had a rare few chances to meet the man in person. They never talked of course, and it wasn't like they were particularly exciting moments - she knew that because otherwise, how would she remember them? - but the fact of the matter was she knew this guy's father. And of course, he built the (prototype) multi-arm Timo was bringing to this tournament. And then Prometheus, of course. She only remembered bits and pieces of his story, but she knew full well what a Titan was. The enemies of the gods. How strange then, that a human was here, representing one. Although, come to think of it... "I am Urato Sen, representing Susanoo. Thank you for allowing me to take part in this Ragnarok. Although I am merely human, I hope that you'll look upon my battles as something legendary." Susanoo was a foreign name to her. A god from afar, then. That meant this Urato person was under the jurisdiction of Susanoo and his fellows. Not Hades and the Olympians. He couldn't possibly be her target. More contestants followed in a similar fashion. Jaya Randhawa, representing Kali. What was with all those arms? The way Timo remembered it, if you still had just the two, and could fight properly and as part of a team if need be, no battle would be unwinnable. Lin Ju, who supported the monkey king Sun Wukong. Aside from his comment about a crater, he was... wholly unremarkable. Jessie Lovecraft, chosen champion of Cthulhu. What was a Cthulhu? Timo didn't know, but she didn't like the way it rolled off the tongue. I wonder what his policy on Cthonic deities that unfairly torture souls for eternity is. Speaking of unfair, the next one in line was Sigurd, the champion of Thor. While it was true that not everyone was under the Greek pantheon's jurisdiction, Timo had very much heard of this man before. Word gets around in a place like Tartarus, after all. This was hardly any different from if Hades really had picked someone like Achilles or Theseus, like people thought he was going to at first. And then came "nobody" who represeted Lucifer Morningstar. Fancy name, she had. Her nameless champion, however... Timo knew his type. To call him easy pickings would be an understatement, in a stark contrast to the legendary warrior standing right next to him. And then there was a god named Sobek. Not a champion of Sobek, but Sobek himself, for his champion was too large to fit in the building. Whatever is fighting for him, I probably don't want to fight it. I'm no hero, and certainly not cut from the same cloth as someone like Heracles or Theseus who were renowned monster-killers. Last and not least for introductions was a third Greek. There was also another Nordic champion, but not entirely unlike Timo, it seemed she'd opted to skip out of introductions. "Um...hi there. I-I'm Flint Martel, representative of Hephaestus and the Greek Pantheon..." Flint Martel. Never heard a name like that before. While his god certainly was, this boy couldn't possibly be Greek. That was all save for a couple champions introduced, and Zeus thought it best to get some mingling in. As if this were less of a tournament to decide the faith of humanity, and instead was just some sort of party. She knew that the capriciousness of the gods was quite literally the stuff of legends, but she didn't expect incredible tonedeafness on top of it. And speaking of gods... "Oh you dreadful thing... What has become of you, Timo of Tartarus?" "Mm?" Timo turned to face the figure addressing her. Tall woman, clad in brilliant armor, that narrowed down the list of names she could remember real fast. It had to be... "I am Athena...although I'm sure you probably must've known that...or...have your memories been corroded away? I just know he has something to do with this...even as the goddess of wisdom, I make folly when it comes to the others and their ill intent. Timo of Tartarus...I am sure that this isn't the last time we will converse this Ragnarok. Next time I will pry more. For now, I mustn't garner too much attention...lest he be watching." Him... Of all the gods, even including Hades, Timo remembered "him" most of all. Although she'd much prefer if they weren't, the memories surrounding him were ones that no amount of death or memory wiping could ever erase. If given the choice between seeing his face again and being met with Charon who believed she'd stolen his coinpurse, Timo would take her chances with Charon any day. If Athena was planning to hand that wretched creature his just desserts, Timo was all too happy to assist. She wasn't particularly concerned about the other champions, bar Sigurd, but now that Athena had gotten her attention, thoughts about that man just wouldn't leave her alone. He wasn't here. What atrocity was he committing this time? Who would know? Of course. As the two Nordic champions and their deities had their little spat, Timo walked past the lot, directly toward Zeus himself. "Lord Zeus," Timo nodded, by way of greeting. "Some of your children are missing. Strange, given this tournament seems right up their alley. What horrible acts is he committing now?"

idk what you're talking about gosh don't have to lie ahahaha...

It's too cold for any of this today. What the fuck, meteorologists. Tagforce 1 #18: Faty You can find this person hanging out at the Ra Yellow dorm in the mornings. You know, because he's Ra Yellow and that's where they tend to be. In the afternoon he spends his time at the base of the Cliff, completely alone except for the short time that Bastion joins him. There are a few duelists in this game who insist that they're manly to an almost comical extent, and this is perhaps the first of the ones I'll be going over. All women do is not this, steal, eat hot chip, cheat, and lie. Another thing that he does is talk about his role model, and he thinks you should meet said role model. Who is his role model, you ask? Well, uh, he doesn't say. It's most likely either Zane or Bastion, but it could also be Jaden. Personally, I think it's Pharaoh the Cat. If I had a role model, it would be Pharaoh the Cat. And then there's his line where he rejects your sandwich. The next time someone offers me a sandwich, I should also make karate noises at them. Maybe it will go well. Maybe I will instantly die. I suppose I should also address the elephant in the room. That elephant being, WHAT IN THE MOTHER OF FUCK IS THIS DUDE'S NAME? In the Japanese version he's Toshihisa Furusawa, and I guess that they just translated it into a random name. As it turns out, Faty is an actual name, but it's not a very common name. I'd be fine with that if the name wasn't Faty. It sounds like we're fat-shaming someone over here. Overall, this is a serviceable character. I wish we knew who his role model is, and that his name was... not that. But he has a few silly lines and his deck is interesting enough. This is a vanilla fusion deck. The goal is to get Heart of the Underdog to draw up a bunch of monsters, then use Fusion Gate to put them all together. In theory, this sounds pretty good, but most of the time he just pulls fusion materials that don't end up going together, and his biggest threat tends to be his 1600 Blue-Winged Crown. And even when things go well for him, his Fusions aren't that strong either. Finally, if things do go well, he can either boost his monsters with Fusion Weapon or immunize them from Spells with Non-Spellcasting Area. But he can't do both, since Fusion Weapon is a Spell. He also cannot Fusion Summon Mavelus as he only has one of the Fusion Materials for it. While it is pretty neat to make a deck with all of the Winged Beast Fusions in the game, there aren't any gameplay advantages to doing so. He doesn't run Icarus Attack or anything else that supports this monster type. He could take out the Tyhones for an Icarus Attack, and that would also reduce his deck size to 40 cards. He could also switch out the Curses of Anubis for copies 2 and 3, because like I said with Deloge earlier, if this card was good then you would see more people running Windstorm of Etaqua instead. He could even run Return from the Different Dimension pr the incredibly broken Dimension Fusion to get his Fusion materials back to remake some Fusions. Maybe even King of the Swamp so he gets a lot of flexibility in his Fusion summons, or Terraforming since he needs Fusion Gate in order for his deck to function at all. I have a few Fusion decks made, but they all fit the other Fusion duelists in this game more than they do with this guy. The problem is that Winged Beasts don't really do anything yet. They got Icarus Attack, Sacred Crane, and that's pretty much it. There's also Harpies but they're still in the stage where they get screwed over by their monsters all having the same name all the time. The next character will be someone whose decklist I haven't actually acquired yet in game. It may be possible for me to duel this guy 10 times to get it, but I can only duel him once a day (and it took me a while to find him) so I may end up doing the next post without a decklist image.

i get it now 7/10 OP Suggestion: As I mentioned in a status already, a new Godspeed You! Black Emperor album dropped today called "G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END" so I might as well put a song from the album here (though technically it's only part of a song; they split up their 20-minute compositions for streaming platforms). I'm still reeling from my first few full-album listens, but looking at some reactions online, I feel like paraphrasing a conversation between Joseph Heller and an interviewer: It may be true that GY!BE hasn't made anything as quite good as "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven", but, then again, who has? 9/10

Civilization Old Man Jones adjusted his grip on his cane and grunted. “Alright, since you asked so nicely. Bree, go grab another chair for our guest,” he said. To Kitt, he added, “I won’t be able to tell you everything, simply because I don’t know everything, but sure, I can share what I do.” After everything had been set up, Jones began to speak in earnest. “Corpus was an island even before the world ended,” he said. “According to the legends, a young woman was fleeing a loveless marriage, she prayed to any god that would listen that she might escape her fate. It was Dia that took the most sympathy, and directed her to swim out to sea, where Dia might better protect her from her pursuers. When she was far enough from the shore, Corpus erupted out of the ocean and carried her away. We do not all trace our roots to her -- merchants and settlers of course came later -- but we do draw on that spirit, that will to determine our own fate. You’ve seen that, I’m sure, even in your short time here. “In the same way, then, is why I do not entertain Flynt’s thoughts of fleeing. He is still an outsider in my eyes. He does not understand, perhaps refuses to understand this island’s way of thinking. For the same reasons, I would not expect to be able to convince him of it, nor you, unless you are truly as separated from him as you claim, which I must admit I find unlikely. “Just in case, though, I will tell you this:” Jones said, turning to face Kitt. “We will survive. Unless the entire island crumbles to dust, collapses into the void below, we will continue to survive.” He continued, “Our recent struggles, too, such as a failing harvest, these have-” but before he could enlighten Kitt further, he was interrupted by a ruckus from downstairs. “Jones! Jones! Oh, Kitt! Pardon me, miss, watchdog business.” It was the other dog, the one who Jones had seen at the altar just before Kitt had come in demanding an audience. He pulled Kitt aside and Jones couldn’t hear what was said after that. To be fair, he didn’t really want to. OOC:

"Twas a pleasure to meet you, Morgan." Morgan gave the man and his sentient book (how did that even work?) a friendly wave as they made off elsewhere, and the crowd started generally dispersing, leaving just the two Hunters. To think that of all these people, her and Aduain were the only ones that used Nen! How did something that unlikely even happen? "Yeah for sure! I always love another hunter's perspective on stuff I'm looking into. People hear stuff you couldn't believe sometimes. Oh yeah I should go see about my room or something. Water first though. Didn't realize how much I'd dried up out there." The story exchange would have to come later then. Looking at her new fishy friend as he took off, Morgan realized she should probably claim a room for herself. She'd already looked around the place and kicked back in one of the rooms for a bit before everyone showed up, but the zombie girl would be lying if she said she had outright claimed one for herself. Now that everyone was here, it was probably a good idea to get dibs on one she liked. But there were more rooms than people, it seemed. Surely she could adapt if the perfect room - not that she believed there was any significant difference between one or the other - got taken from under her nose. She learned that staying at a bunch of different places across Lemuria. In an establishment - as opposed to a regular civilian house - there was generally little to no difference between different bedrooms. It was what you did with the place that made it unique! So she would just pick one and then really make it hers! But first, it was good to get to know your teammates. That was also something she learned over the course of her travels. You could meet all sorts of interesting people, and getting to know them better also meant working together better! She was already hitting it off with Aduain, so getting to know the others was probably a good idea. And after a bit of roaming about, Morgan decided she'd start with... Those two girls in the kitchen! Morgan gave the pair a friendly wave as she entered, looking over the many devices in the kitchen for something she'd recognize. Quite a few of them, believe it or not! To give this nice-looking lady a bit of a pointer with the various devices she seemed confused about, Morgan did an important part of her morning routine. After locating the bread, Morgan pulled two slices out from the loaf, making sure to close the bag properly afterward to avoid it going stale, and brought them to the counter. And put them inside a small metal box with two slots. "The toaster makes bread better. Hotter, and a little crispy. Be careful not to burn your bread." Bread in place, Morgan pulled down on the slidey tab-y thing, watching the inside light up as delicious waves of hot were beamed straight into her toast-to-be. Much of Morgan's routine was adjustable, but a day with no toast in the morning was bound to be a miserable one. And while it wasn't necessarily morning right now, "I just got transported to a new world" was close enough, right?

Rather than send lights out to get the residents of the floor angry at them, Lana had offered herself as tribute. Estelle couldn't argue the results but still would have rather her friend not immediately be in harm's way. Chris was faster to respond to the prolonged um calling back to the party as he usually was. The mage recognized the creatures as sahaugin from a book she'd read once about a human woman falling in love with one. That had not been her most productive weekend but the occasional fantasy reading never hurt. Regardless there was no time to be kissing any fish even if they wanted to and the mage took stock of the two sahaugin in the room. With the exchanges thus far that seemed simple enough but it was difficult to say what else could be hiding in the water. It was time to multitask Estelle decided. She readied magic and soon four orbs of light flew into the room overhead forming a diamond with each of her friends at one of the corners with the other corners straddling the central bridge they all stood on. These served to light up the room before they began pulsating two spheres each would soon fire blasts of magic at the two sahaugin, diminishing their own brightness in the process. Letting the spell aim also made for some less than perfect aiming but each orb would have a few shots left. Surely the quantity would make up for it. Estelle was already on to the next spell, preparing for situations she hoped would never happen. "How does one walk on water again? Solidify water beneath your feet, have a soul lighter than air, just believe, no no no..." she mumbled to herself while wracking her brain for the theory behind the intended water walking enchantment for the group's shoes.

•┈┈┈••✦ ✦••┈┈┈• With a quick feint with her left hand, she caught the monster's attention briefly as it attempted to intercept fist with a block... Only for her to slide to the right, her right fist slamming in against the creature's head with a flash of bright light. She grinned as it connected, sending the monster sliding backwards as it steadied itself with a low hiss in her direction all over again. She brought her hands back up, giving a few, taunting punches in the specter's direction as she grinned. "Weren't expecting that, were you? Good to know even spirits fall for the classics!" She laughed as the monster ran towards her suddenly, the head reeling backwards as it prepared to headbutt her properly. She grabbed at the creature as it slammed itself towards her, her hands catching the metal of it's head as they started to glow once again... She cried out in pain as she held the creature in place... A point blank burst of energy formed in her hands and she blasted it right in the ugly mug. She grinned as she sent the creature sprawling to the ground in front of her, a low groan escaping her as she brought her foot down onto and stomped down onto it, before sliding backwards as it started to rise up and hit her in return. She winced in pain, shaking her head gently as she saw her pointer finger on the right hand slightly... Dislodged. It looked bad, it definitely didn't feel good, but the blast that the creature got was worth it. She would have to worry about settling her finger later, right now, metalhead was stirring again. She lunged towards before it got up entirely, her left hand slamming palm down into it's back, shoving the creature against the floor again as that familiar burst of energy shot straight into it's back, a low hiss escaping her, "Damn, just how tanky of a bastard are you? I'm not the one who's supposed to be slowed down here!" She slammed her fist against the specter's face suddenly, before opening up her palm to grab onto it. With a low huff, the soulblast energy formed around her hand, popping right against her foe... And she jumped back off him, landing on her feet as she watched the creature smoke from her assault. It twitched on the ground as it started to rise up once again, a little groan escaping her as she steadied herself, taking a deep breath as the monster started to run towards her once it was back to its feet. She panted a tiny bit, she had used a fair bit of energy on that burst of punches and it seemed like the creature wasn't ready to give up just yet. Her hand was aching from the struggle here, and she let out a little tch. For such a low PPL, this thing was sure putting a fight to not keel over like she wanted it to... As it approached her, it went for another headbutt towards her midsection, her body twisting to the left to avoid being hit head on. She watched it as it caught itself from the charge, the creature stumbling for a moment as it twisted itself around to her once again. "There we go..." •┈┈┈••✦ ✦••┈┈┈•

As Fen went on her own path, separate from the others who were going to the room, she started to look around at what else the floor they were on had to offer. The first thing she noticed was something a humming noise coming from nearby. Specifically the room that seemed to be in the center of the floor. Walking over to it, the girl looked at the wall and was immediately intrigued by what was there, trying to figure out how to get inside. Sadly, though, there didn't seem any of an opening for her to get through and she didn't feel like making a big deal of it. Instead she walked further northward, which again she was met with a wall. Quite like the other room as well, there seemed to be a rectangular portion of the wall that seemed a bit different as well, only as Fen approached it something happened this time. "Eep!" The girl let out a surprised yelp as that portion of the wall had suddenly seemed to open on its own, taking a step back at the same time. As she did, she saw that there was indeed a room beyond the wall, but didn't take a step closer towards it, instead being content to simply look into it. However, she didn't get to look for long as the wall slid back, barring her from the entrance once again. Taking yet another step forward the wall, what she assumed now was a door, slid open once again. With trepidation, the girl stepped into the room before her, unsure of what to make of all of it. Immediately visible was something that she could make sense of. A round table with a few chairs and a floating glowing light above it. Done. Made sense to her. Next there was what appeared to be a large metallic box that she assumed was for storage, a large assortment of cabinets, drawers, a few other boxes that she didn't know the purpose of including two that appeared to be built into the counters themselves. One part of the counter seemed to have been dug out for this metal box to be place in it, with two knobs next to a large, curved metal tube that towered over the box. The second one seemed to be more an extension of the counter. Curious about it, the girl walked over, seeing what was also a series of metallic cylinders each barred off by a grate on top of it and series of nobs as well. The girl was curious, looking at each of them and seeing what appeared to be a symbol for fire, and the words "high" and "low" on the area around the knobs. She wasn't sure that messing with things in this room was the best course of action, but she couldn't help but feel innately curious too. And so, looking to either side as if she were about to commit some grievous crime, the girl grabbed the knob and turned it. A brief ticking noise was heard before one of the cylinders spewed out a sudden jet of fire. Fen, shocked once more, yet out another surprised yelp and backed away from the flame. The flame itself didn't seem to be dying down at all prompting the girl to put a curious hand to her chin. Walking back over to it, the girl continued to turn the nob, the flame increasing and decreasing in size depending on which was she turned it, before she finally turned it back to its original position and the flame died completely. Nodding to herself, she reasoned that this device was some strange fire magic generator of sort, definitely handy to have around. Looking down, seeing that the inside of the metal box was mostly hollow, she wondered if it also produced the flames inwardly, setting whatever that was inside on fire. "How horrifying." Looking around the rest of the room, the girl opened up a drawer only to see inside were utensils. Eating utensils more specifically. Blinking at the familiar looking object, the girl cocked her head to the side as she continued to open up more drawers and cabinets. Plates, bowls, glasses, mugs, pans, trays, pots, knives, spatulas, other utensils she had never seen before. The girl's eyes went wide, only for her to hurridley go over to a large door to what she presumed was a closet. It was stocked with food and ingredients. Lots of them too. It was at that moment the girl had finally put together all the pieces and knew where she was. Excited, the girl shouted, "it's a kitchen!"

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Episode Seven -- “Juri!!! on Ice” Before we actually start hunting for endings, we should probably spend a little time dissecting just what went wrong. There were actually quite a few problems, some more obvious than others. The most obvious, of course, was despite going vaguely in the direction of Juri’s ending, we did split our focus a bit, taking a bit of roleplay into account which obviously hurt our chances. Even worse, though, was how many opportunities for points we just missed by taking a bad option. I mentioned, for example, what happens when you give the cake to Utena, how you can either ask for her to make a cake herself or sing a song for you and how the former is worth one more nobility point than the latter. Well, it turns out that I missed just about every opportunity besides that one, including another opportunity to curb Chigusa’s influence. Here’s our ending nobility, to show what I mean: Not too bad. I mean, you have to get a character’s nobility to 100% to get their ending, but hey, that’s not the biggest deal, right? Well, here’s where we were at the beginning of day two: Honestly, the walkthrough I have is going to be more helpful in finding these extra dialog points, given how most other options are either literally “pick the person” or “if you know anything about the show, you know they’re in this club.” It turns out the game gives you a hint as to where they are in the city, too, and I just completely glossed over that last time. Here’s Juri’s: This is supposed to point to the “game center” option. Juri, it turns out, is a gamer girl. But we’ll get to that when we get to that. In the meantime, there are a few other options to explore. Our choices on Day One were optimized for each of the duelist endings, so let’s warp back in time to the start of Day Two, and continue on from there. We already told Wakaba that we like Utena and Juri, and we’ve already minimized the threat of Chigusa’s first point slash, but there’s one more opportunity to make things even safer. You’ll recall we skipped over the Literature Club in favor of going to find out more regarding the Fencing Hall. Well, look who we run into while looking for the club: Literally ran into her. Chigusa Isn't in the club either, but she is checking out some pretty old books from the library. One of them is Ohtori Academy’s Student Directory from the years 1981-83, which technically dates this game by setting it in 1998 (“What’s Chigusa doing checking out a student directory from fifteen years ago?” Mary thinks (obviously we know the answer to that question now, don’t we!)). Of course, time is a bit wibbly-wobbly in Ohtori, so who knows, but the game did come out that year, so I’ll accept it. Anyway, it turns out the literature club really is too busy writing poetry and breaking the fourth wall to meet up and accept new members, so besides taking away a Chigusa point, that’s really all there is to the interaction. The only other point of note is the final line of the scene, which is a prompt for another opportunity to weaken Chigusa. A helpful segue, because it turns out this is where we’re headed next. After Fencing Club and showering with Juri, remember, Mary and Chigusa go to the sports store to get gym clothes, and it’s there that we get the opportunity to ask. “Chigusa, if it’s not intruding too much, what illness did you have?” It’s not shown, but she’s pointing to her heart, which is second only to A Study In Scarlet’s aortic aneurysm in terms of really on-the-nose metaphors (spoilers for a story published in 1887, I guess). In fairness, Chigusa herself is being metaphorical here, since she actually died by her own arsonous hand. Also, she says this The walkthrough also recommends talking with Chigusa longer as another opportunity to just completely wreck her plans. Mary and Chigusa end up walking through a park, and Chigusa remarks that it’s a popular date spot. “Chigusa, have you had dates here?” Mary asks. We, with our knowledge of the future, know what she means by this. Chigusa is going to meet up with Kozue while we’re walking back from town. But of course, the way it’s phrased here gets Mary a little flustered, which gives Chigusa control of the conversation. I suppose now would be a good time to talk about all these Chigusa options we’ve gotten in these first few days. There’s a pattern to the beneficial answers: “rejecting becoming the fairytale notion of a princess damages the fairytale’s evil queen,” a theme parallel to Revolutionary Girl Utena’s in a general sense. There are some outliers, though -- remember the “which parent named you?” question? In terms of this particular interaction, Mary denying that she could possibly fall in love with someone after two days is the correct choice but put a pin in that, we’re going to revisit it later. Anyway, now we know where Juri is in the city, so let’s go get our game on! Juri’s really into fighting games, it turns out, having beaten forty-nine people in a row by the time we come in. She even has a little thing going where she ends each match by looking at her opponent and announcing, “You’re finished!” which I’m sure has tilted at least a third of those forty-nine opponents. On a similar tack to the masquerade ball, we don’t even need to choose anything to get the maximum amount of Juri nobility for the scene. Mary accepts Juri’s challenge without any input from us. Unfortunately, we don’t actually move from this screen, so we don’t actually get to see the fight between Juri’s golden-haired woman and Mary’s ninja, but Mary provides some color commentary. ...which turns out to be within the diegesis of the scene, meaning Juri could hear everything coming. Yeah, we got trounced, becoming Juri’s fiftieth victory. At least we got two nobility from it, though. That’s not nothing. Can’t believe I just got told to git gud. The final scene of day two is the first dinner scene, and honestly, the options here feel a bit more obvious. When musing aloud about why Juri lost her duel with Utena, we can say, “Sounds like Utena got lucky” which we know Juri will not take well (we’d even know it from that shower scene, if you haven’t watched the show), “Juri’s weak, huh?” which would also probably not be great, or “Guess Utena’s really strong then,” which is the correct choice. After all… Juri has also crossed the 100% nobility threshold by this point in the story, so she even gets a new rose nameplate! Very exciting! You can definitely start to see shades of where this ending is going in this scene too. “I don’t mean anything weird by that!” uh-huh We already saw the nighttime encounter between Mary and Juri, so let’s jump to the next interaction point, which is wayyy after most of the day’s activities. Remember, this is after the soccer game where Chigusa elbowed us in the stomach, Mary’s first encounter with Nanami, and that time Chigusa put a thumbtack in the cake batter. Wakaba has given us a cake, and, following the obvious path at this point, we’re going to give it to Juri. Don’t think this means I like you or anything, baka! I just don’t want it to go to waste. The dialog option is to either boast about our cooking skills or to warn Juri that it might not be as good as she’s expecting. The correct answer is the second one, but I probably would have chosen that one anyway. After all, again, Chigusa probably put some more thumbtacks in there after we left. Thankfully, Juri is more touched by the thought than the cake itself and promises to savor it later. We’re running up against a discrepancy in tone now, though, because now we’re at Day Three’s club scenes, and suddenly Juri is really determined and not laid-back at all. This is where she was fighting off every opponent who dared spar against her. One begins to suspect that she didn’t eat any of that cake, since she’d be super nauseous if she did, I bet. Instead of getting her to stop, though, we’re supposed to train with her. Surprisingly, Mary holds her own. Like, she doesn’t win or anything like that, and if you ask me she’s internalized a certain feeling of inferiority that means she’s not even trying to win, but at least she states that out loud. Her goal is to help Juri. “If by sparring with her, I can help her practice even a bit…” They end up dueling for over an hour, and because they’re both sweaty from that, it leads to another shower scene. The conversation is similar to the last time these two showered together: Mary asks Juri why she wants the power to revolutionize the world. And the answer is similar as well. After all, we’re still in disk one, things can’t branch off too much just yet. But Juri does provide a small nugget of information that separates this scene from the previous one: the use of the pronoun “her”. Mary doesn’t catch it right away, but this is the closest disk one is going to get to whose picture is inside Juri’s locket. Next is the poison apple scene, which is the same in all timelines, and suddenly we’re in the city again. Now, in the past, I’ve given the game some flak for not being able to keep track of what Mary has and hasn’t done. I almost did in just the last paragraph! But it does remember this, and not only does it remember it, but the game also gives us an extra bit of Juri nobility for doing so. Continuity! That being said, remember that difference in tone thing I mentioned? Juri is happy and healthy again, and she’s been busy tearing through another hundred and fifty challengers at the arcade. She’s even gotten a nickname now: “The Legendary Phoenix Sara” and we challenge her to a rematch. Even though we just admitted we probably suck at fighting games and initially only game in to practice, the rematch goes better for us. Much better, even. I bet it’s ‘cause Mary didn’t call her attacks like a dork this time. Juri says that it’s the first time she’s ever lost at fighting games which seems impossible but whatever, not gonna call her on that or anything. Not when we’re about to invite her to dinner a few screens later. The correct answer, it turns out, was to say Mary would totally beat those thieves up because it means she has confidence, and Juri offers to teach her a fencing move that will never be brought up again. It’s weird, though, because I thought it might have given the final scene on the disk: So Mary goes out to the old fencing hall, intent on being there for Chigusa and Juri’s duel for the pendant. When Chigusa arrived first, I naively thought that we might take Juri’s place, and use our flashy new move to beat Chigusa up. That doesn’t happen, though. Instead, we just say “Give it back,” the game thinks for a bit, and then… Chigusa just does. I know, right? It turns out Chigusa’s plan of beating us on the 25th trumps her plan to beat Juri, so once she sees that we’re even willing to fight her for the locket, she just gives it up. That’s all it took, apparently Giving Juri her locket back earns us a whopping five nobility, which cements her as the ending choice even after the inevitable slash going into disk two. There’s a bit more conversation, mostly Juri telling us how stupid we were to get involved, and Mary firing back that it was Juri who was stupid for not talking to anyone about what was going on, but describing it like that makes it seem like an argument. It’s not, really. It’s practically a declaration of love. The last day, being its own disk with enough space to cover most of the branches, is now substantially different. In fact, I didn’t even realize how different this ending would be from the default path we had been following. I mean, I knew Saionji being carted off would be different since we disrupted that earlier by chasing off Chigusa the previous night (and it turns out it’s only Saionji this time -- negating Chigusa like we did means he’s the only one who falls to her), but now Juri is an active participant in Mary’s quest for answers. She doesn’t just point towards the newspaper club, she goes there herself. Utena doesn’t chase Nanami off, Juri does. Because we’re together, we don’t even run into Mikage at all. This does not go unremarked upon. Nanami's accusing her here. One wonders why Juri even tries to hide it, really Juri says it’s just because she wants to return the favor she owes us for returning her locket. Mary’s starting to develop feelings of her own, though… Like last time, Anthy delivers a letter that points us to the old fencing hall, and we discover what has changed since Mary was last in there. More important than that, though, is Juri finally revealing what’s in her pendant. Mary, woke fourteen-year-old that she is, doesn’t think it’s strange at all. She doesn’t think it’s normal just because of that, though. “I’m in lesbians with you” Before Juri can react, though, Chigusa steps in (“Sorry for breaking up your steamy love scene”), and the plot gets railroaded back to where it was last time, with all the same reveals as before. Juri takes a back seat for all this, not speaking at all until Chigusa demands our saber. Unfortunately, even she can’t withstand a sucker punch from a puppeteered Saionji, and we’re both knocked out, tied up, and left behind. Not the reason Mary’d like to be tied up with Juri but she’ll take it. So here’s a weird contrivance, one that especially doesn’t make sense because we weren’t really tied up at all last time, though I suppose it solves the “where did Juri come from?” one when she followed us in, so one step forward, one step back. Somehow, Juri has a razor blade on her (“Didn’t think to check my body, how foolish.”) and gets free that way. The following fight with Saionji takes place in the same manner as last time, though for reasons I can’t explain, Juri loses four roses instead of two in the fight. It doesn’t matter, though, because now there are no more obstacles keeping us from finding a way to help Utena. We rush back up the stairs to the main area, and Juri comes up with an idea. “…allow her to keep existing in this world.” A weird choice not to translate a pretty critical word, but that’s between me and the magic translation program in my very real Sega Saturn, not the game itself. The final choice, then, is a memory check. Where would the game have hinted such a thing might be? I assume if you get thise wrong Utena loses another rose, but I didn’t get it wrong so I wouldn’t know. In fact, we got a couple hints of this. First, of course, was our initial encounter with Chigusa, where she only started badgering us when we got too close to her locker. The second was that conversation with Wakaba: “How do you get someone to fall in love with you?” she said. “You take a nameplate of theirs, tie it with a red string, and put it in your locker.” (I guess a third hint was where my pointer was already selecting but…). Mary and Juri rush to Chigusa’s locker and… Oh, look at that. You know, you’d think soul jars would be stronger, ‘cause it only takes one Mary Sue throwing the tag on the ground for it to snap in half. As soon as it does, though, on the other side of campus… It looks better animated, I promise, even when animated at 10 FPS And that’s it! One final save, and we move on to the epilog. Yeah, well, to weld this into the show’s canon, I have to go away again. It turns out Mary’s dad got really sick (and on his anniversary, too!) so Mary has to go back home to take care of him. Almost every duelist comes to say goodbye, with two notable exceptions. The first is Saionji, which, okay, maybe he’s recovering from losing his nobility still (or the actual stab wound he got). The second, though, is Juri, and Mary obviously takes that pretty bad. She even wonders if she wasn’t supposed to say what she did at all. Overall, it’s pretty boring, honestly. Mary remembers dancing with Touga, which is impressive, but her goodbyes to Miki and Utena are basically “thanks for making me smile” which, okay, when did Miki make you smile? Was it when she was admiring his eyes, I guess? But as we go away still feeling sad about Juri not showing up, look who it is. It made me realize it’s okay to be a lesbian, but I’m still gonna angst about it for, like, twenty episodes once you leave, ‘kay? So yeah, instead of falling in love at first sight, Mary fell in love at, like, fourth sight, which is a little weird thematically (there’s that pin!) but whatever it’s the end of the game. Juri even has a going-away present for us! I mean, that’s also weird thematically and I worry Mary’s now going to obsess over some feminine ideal instead of actually finding a nice girl to settle down with, but I guess she’s also leaving Ohtori Academy, which has its own thematic relevance. Look, obviously you can complain about the ending, but it’s cute, okay? mlem And that’s it! Roll credits! I mean, there’s more stuff after the credits, basically a Marvel movie’s worth of after-credits stingers, but most of them are for stuff we already knew about. Akio shows up to the old fencing hall ruins and comments about how Chigusa was just a trial run for the actual ghost he wants to bring back from the dead, then Mikage shows up announcing his intention to make Mamiya the rose bride, but there’s one final scene of Mary in her new school. “I hear everyone there is a hottie!” someone says. Mary says she didn’t get a boyfriend. “But…” “Aha! I knew you did!” “I didn’t! Really! But…” And that’s it! We got an ending! Wow, that was a lot more work than I thought it would be to get all the missing stuff compiled, but we did get a badge for our troubles. There are eleven slots here, ten of which correspond to an ending, and then one for getting every ending. But I’ll go into those another time. -r Total Drinks: 18 (okay we didn’t technically add one but Mary did declare her love and that’s a “finish your drink” rule in my book) Next time: The real work begins. ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

Cheers, NCM!

No-shave November with a twist. Growing out just the stashe for a local charity. Phone can't seem to upload a pic properly, so enjoy the 90 degree turn-on.