Idea I like…
Simon reading old school pulp romance novels.
It started as just, an impulsive “I need something different to get me out of my own head.” Like when you do something out of left field to help with certain anxieties.
He didn’t expect there to be smut.
He also didn’t expect to like it…?
There’s a focus on emotion, there’s trust, it’s frankly quite soft. It helps, and he didn’t expected to, with reclaiming his sexuality a bit.
He has a small collection, because romance quality is all over the place and he needs a few guaranteed ‘good ones’, and they’re all beat up pretty bad because he got them for like 50p at the thrift store.
They’re all also older, (50 shades decimated the romance genre and it has yet to recover) and he sneers at the bad photoshop covers of the more modern covers. (I have opinions™️ and I think Simon deserves to have some for silly things too)
Y'know, I'm 100% with you on this one. (Especially him sneering at the new photoshop covers. Where's the ART!? Where's the meticulously hand-painted vaguely blurry shirtless male protag!?)
He definitely has a few favorites that he goes back to when he's got some downtime and just wants a good story. I think he's VERY picky about the smut that's included, so when he finds sort of a holy grail where the smut isn't awful and it actually has a good story with it, he holds on to it. The rest he just re-donates.
Also you are completely correct that he does not read anything published later than like, maybe 1999. He has never read 50 shades and he does not want to. He's heard enough through the grapevine. He sticks to his older pulp novels, and he has 0 shame about it too. Go on, ask him about the plot of the book he's reading. He'll tell you. In detail.
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this game gave me all the illness
Hundreds of thoughts abt the last two chapters of yakuza 0 over here you've been warned I'm going full essay post bc I just can't fit everything only in 30 tags:
I've just wanted to stress just how good I think this game is, genuinely. There are few things that irked me in the end but they are so irrelevant I can't mind all that much. The dialogue in this game is just wonderful, script goes out there a lot but the serious/emotional scenes just felt all so real to me. I feel like it's so hard doing real dialogue without it sounding predictable but they did it. Maybe it's because the story itself isn't all that predictable but just UGH WONDERFUL. so good. Anyway to story bits.
just to start where I left I have to say. proof of love? the damn chapter of all time. if you told me we would be here
when I first started play this game I would be very skeptical but I really loved the directiong they took with him. and specially with her. I just loved makoto at first sight and I hoped so bad she would continue to be a plot point from there on and to have her face all of dojima clan head on and survive is just. so damn cool. she is my most special girl.
and it makes her so realistic too to that final scene before credits. the way she stands up to those guys and everything about her development is just really perfect and insanely well done for like a side character, specially when we have so many of them in this game. she is wonderful. I adore her to bits.
plus as a side-story for majima slowly breaking away from that cold facade from the beginning is just REALLY nice. he starts this chapter makind expressions he has never once done before and ends like
CAN YOU HEAR ME? they are my everything. going from makoto saying "I'm sorry, I can't do anything for myself" right when majima had that talk with seda about not doing things by himself. I love this plot point of him and kiryu being so damn powerful but how shaping them for something greater they needed others. not in a way that they lack something but in such there-are-thing-not-even-you-can-scape kind of way. this brings me to THIS:
BECAUSE THEY MAKE ME SO UNWELL. I feel sick. every time I have favorites I expect the worst to happen to them (because it always happens lol) but having nishiki and makoto being pillars for kiryu's and majima's resolve until the very end is SUCH a treat.
one moment you think they are all dying and the other you get this:
and it changes you for life I guess.
I should also add how much I love lao gui as majima's last boss for this game vs kiryu and shibusawa. they really delivered perfectly the whole "this is what you can become if you follow through with it" and it just makes. sense. and makes me stupid ig. I like them a normal amount and also I like how nishiki and makoto (even not there) are the ones that remind them of who they want to become. it's different from where they are now but it's different from the person lying under them as well and I just feel SO NORMAL about that.
for the ending I gotta say, majima's left a bad taste in my mouth at first, maybe because I just hated sagawa so bad lmao but I think I'm coming around it a lot more the more I think of it. and welp ig sagawa is dead so I that's a good way as any to convince me.
after makoto was gone I kind expected him to never talk with her again, but just to add, it feels better than I overall was hoping. I thought she would either die or move away from japan and they would never see it other again. Don't get me wrong I have no expectations for her to show up again, but just by her being there, I feel like it gives him a lot of peace of mind tbh. dojima clan won't follow here anymore and he can make sure of that. sounds good to me. bUT DID YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME THIS?
SEDA COWARDS. I was partially hoping he would keep it but this is better. ye. I just ADORE this so much. It is such pain that she doesn't know his name but also I just feel so relieved when she was just. walking around. being normal. I love her I love her she deserves the entire world I'm so happy at this moment.
now you know what made me insane? going from this
to THIS
and then I went to download the next one and you know what fck you seda I HATE THIS SO MUCH.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN.
I mean I think I know but I REALLY thought I was free from tragic brothers. what about ranking up together..... what of their promise? what about "until death do us apart" was THAT A LIE? I'm gonna be honest with you all. I was excited to continue today but after seeing the opening for kiwami I REALLY don't want to. but. whatever.
from what I'm certain and I know it to be true besides mine own speculation:
I like...... this game. I like how kiryu kept his idea of choosing his path by whether he loved-or-hated it. I love how he steadily grows so much over the game and how you can't really notice until he has to make a choice and you see he's still thinks the same but acts just so more maturely. I like how he let his relationships influence him, how it isn't seem as a bad thing ever, how he is always being rewarded for it.
I like how this reflects on loyalty and brotherhod by everybody that is around him, specially nishiki. damn if I know wtf is happening on the next game but the "95 was a dark year, while kiryu serves time in jail, nishikiyama becomes a changed man" just proves that. I like how they try to be away from one another but when nishiki said they are invincible together, he was right. They don't have to be invincible all the time, but it must feel good to. and them choosing to accept the other changing in that ending scene at serena and nothing changing between them UP UNTIL they are separeted in 95' just feels right.
and, all that being said, I like how it all changed made majima into whatever is that guy by the end of yakuza 0. I somehow felt like he needed one more cutscene, specially bc the next games are really focused on kiryu, but even then, it all just fits well. his acceptance now isn't like the one in chapter 15, when he just comppels in being a pawn for sagawa or whatever. it genuinely speaks to the very first time we see him, how he knows nothing but yakuza, how it's his life, and now WELL IT ISN'T THE PERFECT ENDING but it's such a well-written one for someone such as him. he get's to keep doing what he knows, but being just so much cooler and confident about it. IT JUST FEELS. DAMN COOL.
Just overall. The story is so good, the gameplay is so good. I have a handful of poorly done mechanics/writting to point out but the good outweights the bad so hard that I just doesn't feel like it matter at all. The combat is so fun, the mini-games are intuitive and the side-stories are just gold. Having the switch between the two of them made the game just so fun, there is a bunch of stuff I didn't finish but I also didn't felt bored not even for a second. It's honestly such rewarding gaming experience and I love those a lot.
so yeah, I'll stop rambling now or whatever but just. yeah. yakuza 0 good. play it. pls. and talk to me about it. pls. ty.
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A Timeline of the whole messy Kaho + Maehara + Seo situation
Just trying to make sense of what was shown and hinted in the manga.
Because Class E students typically don’t graduate by the end of the school year, they are officially expelled from Kunugigaoka by the 3rd Trimester (Jan-Mar), which is all about high school exams preparations. The Class E building will then instead be occupied by the future Class E students for accommodation purposes.
The sorting for future Class E students among the 2nd years will likely occur a little after the announcements of their final exam results, which was in December.
Which means that Kaho and Maehara likely dated before December 2013.
Maehara basically ghosted Kaho ever since dropping to Class E.
Maybe until somewhere in May 2014.
And within those 5 months of ghosting, he probably even dated a bunch of girls behind her back. It explains why Nagisa described Maehara as someone who is so popular that the girl he’s seen with constantly changes.
He cheated on her 4 times the whole time they’ve been apart.
And it also explains why nobody was under the impression that he and Kaho have been dating for a long time, even though Maehara is notorious for his extensive dating history.
Hell, I’m sure that people barely even knew that they dated, or that they had already forgotten that they were dating by the time the new school year began.
Enter Seo, the new guy in the situation.
Who is also unaware of Maehara’s relationship with Kaho for some strange reason despite having a whole wide network of people to tell him what’s going on.
Horrible temper, verbally abusive, incredibly rude, and his appearance couldn’t even make it up for his horrible personality - not a single box was checked in Kaho’s criteria for the kind of guys she’s famously into (Ikemen).
So, no fucking way would she date him.
But, here’s the catch: Seo is a virtuoso - his incredibly high social standing in Kunigigaoka’s student hierarchy despite his horrible personality canonically makes everyone uncomfortable.
And Kaho is just another student from the most average class in their year.
But she’s incredibly pretty.
It could be to make himself look good in front of others for having a beautiful girlfriend or whatever. Regardless of what Seo’s reasons are for dating her, the extreme power imbalance between the two of them gives Kaho no choice but to date him at his demand.
This could have happened in April 2014, when the new school year solidifies Seo’s standing as among the virtuosos.
Fast forward.
It was in June 2014 when some of the current Class E students spotted Kaho and Maehara walking together under the rain.
That makes it more than 6-7 months of dating.
And yet, for some strange reason, none of the present Class E students where under the impression that they were dating for a long time. In fact, Kaho was made seem to be a new girlfriend of Maehara’s instead.
Which could mean that Maehara waltzed back into Kaho’s life fairly recently.
I’m just gonna assume it’s somewhere between late May to early June.
The 5th time he cheated on her, was when he scheduled that date with a girl from another school, when they are actively dating.
Because there is no other way he could schedule a new date that quick right after Kaho officially broke up with him, when preparations still had to be made for Class E to execute their revenge plan.
And he looked guilty as fuck.
Kaho and Seo most likely broke up after fighting over who gets to use the bathroom in the convenience store.
As shown in the baseball arc, Kaho openly hates him to the bone.
Since then, she has been actively going after other boys she finds cool.
Then summer came.
According to Gakushuu, if Class A had won the bet against Class E, a truth that Maehara specifically isn’t allowed to lie about when asked was the fact that he had been cheating FIVE TIMES.
(I used a raw scan I have saved in my gallery, because the two available English scanlations online translated that question in such a vague way you wouldn't have caught it - how many times you've "lied/been distracted" - when the first two characters here 浮気 translates to anything that literally means "cheating (in a relationship)").
Meaning, by the time summer came, not even Kaho knew about this.
Note: There's a chance that the amount of times Maehara had cheated in a relationship isn't actually exclusive to just Kaho herself and it might just be in general.
But the way that the people around them were seemingly under the impression that Kaho is a more recent girlfriend of Maehara's, when they've been actually dating for half a year, just solidifies the theory that he had been seeing other girls behind her back all this time.
But whether that theory is correct or not, it doesn't change the solid fact that he still cheated on her at least once, which was when he already had that other date scheduled.
This arc... pisses me off. I know I've said that many times already. And I will still say it.
What initially seemed to be an arc about Maehara's early character development because he was the focus here... ended up blatantly showing how much of a hypocritical trashy guy he instead actually is.
Because how shameless are you to be going around cheating left and right without any regard for your current girlfriend's feelings, but the second you're on the receiving end of a cheating matter, you didn't even hesitate to expose her just so you wouldn't get the blame?
And for that alone, Kaho throwing him under the bus right after was honestly DESERVED.
I would have found this arc less pointless if the deleted Valentine's arc with Okano was instead the follow up, where Koro finally gave Maehara a piece of his mind about this whole non regard for a girl's feelings after realizing that the kid learned absolutely nothing from the situation with Kaho.
None of that whole bullshit about being completely transparent in Maehara's report card just to motivate him to do something. I just want Maehara to set things right with Okano on his own accord. No outside influences or whatsoever. Because that report card threat just made everything seem not genuine and it would really hurt to be Okano in that situation.
I don't mind the retaliation arc being left unchanged if it was instead used as a motivation to set things right in the future.
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