Hakuoki: Iba's bad endings
Aug. 24th, 2018 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Time for Iba's bad ends!
Yeah, I said I wasn't going to, but I kept having vague plot bunnies which involved Iba and feeling bad not knowing how dark his path got, so I decided to rip the bandaid off.
And you know what? It was VERY DARK and pretty disturbing but I still feel better having done it, and it seems likely that none of the other bad endings will be anywhere near as nasty which will make playing them less stressful without this waiting for me. And yeah, nobody's making me play any of them but I want to know.
** Content note: sexualised violence, suicide, and implicit rape **
So!
The two questions I wanted to know the answers to:
1) Did Iba rape Chizuru, or otherwise do anything worse than on his good end?
2) Did Takeda rape Chizuru?
And the answers were "no, he doesn't even go a little bit dark" and "yes, but it was very implicit and off screen". Which is about what I was expecting, but better than I was worried about, and makes me feel much better about Iba as a character (and no worse about Takeda).
Kyoto Winds:
Hey! Seeing Takeda is no longer triggering in and of itself! Hooray!
Bad Ending:
This is very short: during the fight at the end with Takeda and Stabdad. Takeda stabs Chizuru and just as she's blacking out she hears Iba get stabbed and feels his body fall on top of hers.
THE END
Unrequited Love Ending:
I found this a little confusing, but everyone tells Chizuru to run away, so she does, but she gets turned around and ends up back where she started...with everyone gone (implied dead?) She decides to lie down and wait for them and rest, and blood pools beneath her (I guess she got stabbed?).
THE END
...weirdly enough that did make me feel less anxious? My brain is odd.
URRGGHHH now on to Edo Blossoms, where Takeda and Iba start with the Evil Demon Hand inspired rape threats hoooray. To avoid being being too immersed what I did was fast forward until the game hit new content, save, then skim through the new content only half reading it and scrolling back through the text if anything was confusing. Which worked pretty well!
Game Overs (choosing "make him endure it" for bloodlust episodes)
Chapter 1:
Not a game over he's just very sad.
Chapter 2:
Oh nooo time to pick "Trust Takeda". Oh god, I forgot that what she's "trusting" him on is the offer to spare Iba's life if she agrees to have sex with him D:
Did I mention I looked up the real Takeda and he appears to be the only member of the Shinsengumi who is generally agreed to have been gay? I was offended that they made him a slimy villain for the two sentences more of his wikipedia page it took me to realise he was exactly as much of a cowardly backstabbing creep as the fictional character, except he was sexually creepy to young boys instead of young women. Sometimes erasing canon queer rep really is the better choice! (Of course it's possible people made this up during the homophobic era when stories of the Shinsengumi became popular, but these reports are all the writers of Hakuoki have to go on)
ANYWAY (fictional, definitely not gay) Takeda is all "I'll spare him but first I'll cut off his Demon Hand for myself" which Chizuru is not down with. He is VERY CREEPY to Chizuru and sends his vampires to eat Iba. This is described in more detail than I feel was entirely necessary. Realising how awful life with Takeda would be, and distraught about Iba, Chizuru kills herself.
THE END
At this point I had turned the sound off because Cam came in to chat to me and the sound of Iba being eaten alive was rather distracting. I have decided to leave it off.
Chapter 3:
Haaaa Iba is expressing some worry about the dangers of the Evil Demon Hand and instead of the "correct" option "I don't care if you hurt me", I am picking "You can't hurt me".
Ah, nothing too bad happens, he just says she overestimates him. And then they get together and he says the evil demon hand no longer controls him so I am hopefully safe from any rapist Iba scenes HOORAY. Still not safe from rapist Takeda scenes though :(
Chizuru gets a VERY OBVIOUSLY DODGY letter from Sen saying to meet and lo and behold it's a trap. Takeda and Stabdad forced Sen to write it.
Stabdad and Takeda are awful! Sen is all OMG YOUR OWN DAUGHTER?? and Takeda slaps her >:(
Chizuru tries to escape so Takeda captures her and coldly BREAKS HER ARM.
"AND THEN I WAS FORCED TO SERVE AS TAKEDA'S SLAVE FOR THE REST OF MY DAYS"
THE END
Jesus Christ, game.
Bad Ending:
Hooray depressing funtimes on doomed democracy island.
Takeda and Iba are fighting. Takeda pins Chizuru to the ground, slashes her throat and drinks her blood D: It's actually creepier than it sounds oh my god this PATH.
Anyway as she begins to black out Chizuru hears Iba say "Wait for me Chizuru, as soon as I handle him I'll be right there beside you." But she can't reply because she's CHOKING ON HER OWN BLOOD.
THE END
Unrequited Love Ending:
(Originally typoed as the Unrequited Blood Ending lol)
Takeda stabs her non fatally in the chest and says some VERY CREEPY THINGS about the taste of her blood and how much Iba must enjoy drinking it.
Takeda is injured and Iba takes the opportunity to check on Chizuru. She thinks she might actually die but tells him she'll be fine. He says he'll take her to medical care but she insists he kill Takeda while they have the chance.
He strokes her hair and promises he'll come back to her. She falls unconscious...
And doesn't die! Instead she wakes the next morning, alone, and picks her way back to base across a corpse strewn battle field. The battle is over and the Shogunate have surrendered and there has been no sign of Iba.
But there are rumours of people seeing two white haired warriors battling until dawn. Chizuru is filled with regret, and wonders if she will ever see Iba again. "Yes," she decides, "He is just waiting for the right time to come back". So she stays, and waits.
THE END
Well that was almost happy and fluffy! I'M SURE HE'LL BE FINE.
Phew! DONE. That sure was some bad endings, huh.
Time for Iba's bad ends!
Yeah, I said I wasn't going to, but I kept having vague plot bunnies which involved Iba and feeling bad not knowing how dark his path got, so I decided to rip the bandaid off.
And you know what? It was VERY DARK and pretty disturbing but I still feel better having done it, and it seems likely that none of the other bad endings will be anywhere near as nasty which will make playing them less stressful without this waiting for me. And yeah, nobody's making me play any of them but I want to know.
** Content note: sexualised violence, suicide, and implicit rape **
So!
The two questions I wanted to know the answers to:
1) Did Iba rape Chizuru, or otherwise do anything worse than on his good end?
2) Did Takeda rape Chizuru?
And the answers were "no, he doesn't even go a little bit dark" and "yes, but it was very implicit and off screen". Which is about what I was expecting, but better than I was worried about, and makes me feel much better about Iba as a character (and no worse about Takeda).
Kyoto Winds:
Hey! Seeing Takeda is no longer triggering in and of itself! Hooray!
Bad Ending:
This is very short: during the fight at the end with Takeda and Stabdad. Takeda stabs Chizuru and just as she's blacking out she hears Iba get stabbed and feels his body fall on top of hers.
THE END
Unrequited Love Ending:
I found this a little confusing, but everyone tells Chizuru to run away, so she does, but she gets turned around and ends up back where she started...with everyone gone (implied dead?) She decides to lie down and wait for them and rest, and blood pools beneath her (I guess she got stabbed?).
THE END
...weirdly enough that did make me feel less anxious? My brain is odd.
URRGGHHH now on to Edo Blossoms, where Takeda and Iba start with the Evil Demon Hand inspired rape threats hoooray. To avoid being being too immersed what I did was fast forward until the game hit new content, save, then skim through the new content only half reading it and scrolling back through the text if anything was confusing. Which worked pretty well!
Game Overs (choosing "make him endure it" for bloodlust episodes)
Chapter 1:
Not a game over he's just very sad.
Chapter 2:
Oh nooo time to pick "Trust Takeda". Oh god, I forgot that what she's "trusting" him on is the offer to spare Iba's life if she agrees to have sex with him D:
Did I mention I looked up the real Takeda and he appears to be the only member of the Shinsengumi who is generally agreed to have been gay? I was offended that they made him a slimy villain for the two sentences more of his wikipedia page it took me to realise he was exactly as much of a cowardly backstabbing creep as the fictional character, except he was sexually creepy to young boys instead of young women. Sometimes erasing canon queer rep really is the better choice! (Of course it's possible people made this up during the homophobic era when stories of the Shinsengumi became popular, but these reports are all the writers of Hakuoki have to go on)
ANYWAY (fictional, definitely not gay) Takeda is all "I'll spare him but first I'll cut off his Demon Hand for myself" which Chizuru is not down with. He is VERY CREEPY to Chizuru and sends his vampires to eat Iba. This is described in more detail than I feel was entirely necessary. Realising how awful life with Takeda would be, and distraught about Iba, Chizuru kills herself.
THE END
At this point I had turned the sound off because Cam came in to chat to me and the sound of Iba being eaten alive was rather distracting. I have decided to leave it off.
Chapter 3:
Haaaa Iba is expressing some worry about the dangers of the Evil Demon Hand and instead of the "correct" option "I don't care if you hurt me", I am picking "You can't hurt me".
Ah, nothing too bad happens, he just says she overestimates him. And then they get together and he says the evil demon hand no longer controls him so I am hopefully safe from any rapist Iba scenes HOORAY. Still not safe from rapist Takeda scenes though :(
Chizuru gets a VERY OBVIOUSLY DODGY letter from Sen saying to meet and lo and behold it's a trap. Takeda and Stabdad forced Sen to write it.
Stabdad and Takeda are awful! Sen is all OMG YOUR OWN DAUGHTER?? and Takeda slaps her >:(
Chizuru tries to escape so Takeda captures her and coldly BREAKS HER ARM.
"AND THEN I WAS FORCED TO SERVE AS TAKEDA'S SLAVE FOR THE REST OF MY DAYS"
THE END
Jesus Christ, game.
Bad Ending:
Hooray depressing funtimes on doomed democracy island.
Takeda and Iba are fighting. Takeda pins Chizuru to the ground, slashes her throat and drinks her blood D: It's actually creepier than it sounds oh my god this PATH.
Anyway as she begins to black out Chizuru hears Iba say "Wait for me Chizuru, as soon as I handle him I'll be right there beside you." But she can't reply because she's CHOKING ON HER OWN BLOOD.
THE END
Unrequited Love Ending:
(Originally typoed as the Unrequited Blood Ending lol)
Takeda stabs her non fatally in the chest and says some VERY CREEPY THINGS about the taste of her blood and how much Iba must enjoy drinking it.
Takeda is injured and Iba takes the opportunity to check on Chizuru. She thinks she might actually die but tells him she'll be fine. He says he'll take her to medical care but she insists he kill Takeda while they have the chance.
He strokes her hair and promises he'll come back to her. She falls unconscious...
And doesn't die! Instead she wakes the next morning, alone, and picks her way back to base across a corpse strewn battle field. The battle is over and the Shogunate have surrendered and there has been no sign of Iba.
But there are rumours of people seeing two white haired warriors battling until dawn. Chizuru is filled with regret, and wonders if she will ever see Iba again. "Yes," she decides, "He is just waiting for the right time to come back". So she stays, and waits.
THE END
Well that was almost happy and fluffy! I'M SURE HE'LL BE FINE.
Phew! DONE. That sure was some bad endings, huh.
