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alias_sqbrMasterlist and guide
EVERYONE'S MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES :D
The game refers to them as ayakashi which from Wikipedia are a particular form of youkai. Anyway, my big complaint about samurai dating sims (except Hakuoki) is the lack of supernatural ridiculousness, so I have been having a lot of fun.
The final route, Ieyasu, gets dubconny.
Snow spirit Masamune:
Is he a male yuki onna? Based on that ever reliable guide to mythology, "Interviews with Monster Girls", those are usually women with tragic stories where they melt and/or the dude they're with gets frozen.
Lookit these cute little pom poms:
Anyway. There is a cute sequence where he does something nice for MC, so MC seeks him out to say thanks and give him food, but he's all awkward and avoidant...but still does another nice thing for her, etc. It turns out he's afraid his cold will hurt people, and so deliberately drives them away. MC spends time with him anyway, and one day, as they draw close, he puts his hand on his heart in shock and runs away.
It turns out he was a human, abandoned by his mother for having differently coloured eyes (This explains why I've seen CGs of Masamune with two visible eyes: his eye patch is just to hide heterochromia. That's weak-sauce, game) He was taken in by a mountain spirit who froze his heart so humans would never hurt him again. But being around MC is melting the ice. The spirit tells Masamune to avoid MC, to stay safe from pain, and tries to kill her when she refuses to stay away. The spirit asks if she would be willing to die to melt Masamune's heart, and she says yes. Masamune has to run away with her to save her from the spirit's wrath.
MC wants to touch Masamune, though even light touches make her fingers burn with cold, sure that her touch will melt his heart. She says she loves him and asks him how he feels, I forget exactly what she said but something about being happy to have one moment of connection with him even if it's her last, if it lets him be free. He carefully reaches for her, and when she encourages him, kisses her with all the love in his heart. Afterwards, he sees her happy eyes looking out at him from her frozen body.
MC wakes up in bed, with tears in her eyes. And there is Masamune beside her, also crying- they had the same dream. He says it was sad, but she's happy because he expressed his feelings.
Aww.
I'm paying for the epilogue because I'm not going to leave dream!MC frozen! I'd normally be annoyed at Masamune for kissing her but it makes sense in fairytale dream logic.
Masamune cries and holds her frozen body against him, and his warm tears melt the ice and bring her consciousness back from the abyss. His heart is free. They swear to spend the rest of their lives together.
But though they keep spending time together, she notices him avoiding touching her when she would really like some more kissing etc. At first he says nothing's wrong but eventually he explains that he hadn't realised how hot humans get, and when he touches her he feels like he'll melt. MC finds this incredibly endearing, and knowing that he's very new to touching says they can take things slowly.
So they start with hand holding but they're both really into it and end up having sex against a tree haha.
Kojuro the crow tengu:
He also has cute lil pom poms! They look more dignified on him though.
We see Kojuro using his fan to wipe the memory of some customers MC told about having bumped into him in the forest. But when he tries to wipe her memory it fails, so he carries her back to his village until he can make the memory wipe stick.
He's polite and decent, in a detached, coolly pragmatic way, but utterly implacable, telling her he can read her thoughts so she shouldn't even think of trying to escape.
After some cute poking through his messy piles of books, and a sexy sniff of her neck, he realises MC just got some youkai essence on her and will be back to normal when that wears off. But then some other crow tengu come in all "DO I SMELL A HUMAN WE GOTTA KILL FOR SEEING US??" and she realises he's been protecting her and the other humans whose memories he's wiped.
His angsty backstory is that he befriended a human boy as a child, but the boy had differently coloured eyes and his mother turned against both the boy and the tengu village, nearly getting them all killed. Kojuro had to wipe all the humans' memories and never saw the boy again. AW. He's in your forest, Kojuro, and now he's a youkai too!
It's kind of funny knowing Kojuro hears every time MC suddenly notices how hot he is, though the game hasn't done anything with that yet. He also hears all her kind thoughts wanting to save him from his pain and is charmed.
The next morning MC wakes up next to him, the two of them having fallen asleep while talking. He sniffs her neck and says the scent is gone. He can wipe her memories and send her home. She's happy to be able to go home, but sad at the thought of leaving Kojuro.
But then the other Tengu come in: they have smelled a human and demand blood. Kojuro tries to save her but the village just gets angry, asking how often he'll risk their safety for humans. So he takes MC and flees.
He says they don't have much time and goes to wipe her memories. She cries and throws herself against his chest.
MC: Do you have to? I don't understand why, but I don't want to forget you.
Kojuro: It's better you don't understand, for you...and for me.
MC: Is there nothing I can give you? You're always sacrificing yourself, for humans and your village.
Kojuro kisses her and then says "With this I can live happily for eternity."
She realises she's in love with him. She opens her mouth to tell him, but he raises his hand to wipe her memory, dusting her cheeks with his feathered fan as she tries to tell him to stop.
MC wakes, crying, much to the concern of the human Kojuro sleeping beside her. He calmly cheers her up, and they both get oddly blushy about her complimenting him, I think there was some gender/politeness stuff going over my head. She thinks about how it still feels like he can read her mind to figure out what she wants- in this case, makeouts.
Looks like they saved "MC feels self conscious that Kojuro can hear her sexy thoughts about him" for the epilogue haha.
Epilogue: (I played this later)
So I wanted to see how they'd fix the amnesia thing but we start with MC at home waiting for him to show up with no signs of memory loss?? Ok they 'agreed to find a way to live together without wiping her memory' but they were about to be overtaken by an angry mob??
They have a cute date and there's some slight playing with Kojuro being able to read the thoughts she's too shy to say, but HOW ARE THEY IN HIS HUT WITHOUT BEING MURDERED. I was more convinced when Kenshin and Masamune's routes brought people back from the dead. Hmmph.
Ieyasu the Tanuki:
MC's restaurant is attacked by ruffians! ...who turn out to be an illusion created by Ieyasu, who looks like a literal cub scout:
MC: Are you a shapeshifting tanuki?
Ieyasu: I'm an illusory tanuki and if you call me a shape shifter again I'll end you >:(
MC is struck by the contrast between his nasty words and the happy swishing of his adorable fluffy tail.
...the first thing that came up when I googled "tanuki tail" was a butt plug. It was very fluffy.
Also I vaguely recall that there's mythology about their testicles? I am not looking that up, my search history is clearly already giving google Ideas.
MC: Would you like something to eat?
Ieyasu: Don't get ahead of yourself, human wench. The only reason I have anything to do with humans is because I want to kill every last one of you.
Ah, Ieyasu, charming as always.
When she realises he's angry because the local humans have been killing the mountain tanuki, she bursts into empathetic tears, and he lets her make him some sweets. After that he keeps coming buy to eat her cooking and enjoy her reactions to illusory snakes etc.
Customer: hee, are you MC's sweetheart?
MC: (Oh, that...would be nice...)
Ieyasu: I'LL KILL YOU >:(
Customer: D:
He drags her to a back room and then...it gets very dubconny, but in an interesting way.
He says he could never be close to a human as he embraces her. He talks about how mistreated any half-tanuki child of theirs would be as he undoes her clothes. He tells her to shut up, that if they're doing this there'll be no emotion, but his hands are gentle and treat her like something precious (also he's using some sort of sexy invisible telekinesis dubconny bondage)
She is very into it, but his eyes are sad, and so she stops him by grabbing his tail.
MC: If this is what it takes for you to feel better, I'd be willing. But it breaks my heart to do this when you look so distressed. You seemed to be truly enjoying yourself far more playing tricks on me.
He tells her to shut up and runs off. And then he stops coming around at all.
Customer: You've seemed down lately, MC. How about cheering up with some nice tanuki stew? The hunters have caught a bunch lately!
MC: D:
She runs to the mountain, and rushes to stop some hunters who've caught a tanuki, crying his name. So she...recognised him as a cute lil raccoon dog? Or just assumed?
Anyway! He appears in human form in a puff of smoke, and complains that she ruined his plan to trick and murder these hunters. She complains that his cute lil ears and tail are missing, and he realises he's gained the ability to turn entirely human. He says he'll be coming to visit her restaurant again, and "is willing to eat her food".
And suddenly MC is waking up, choking and unable to breath. Because human!Ieyasu is holding her nose while she sleeps! Ah, such a sweetie. She fell asleep at her desk reading some fairytales, and he tells her to come to bed. She snuggles up to him feeling comforted because she's into jerks, I guess, but a little part of her is sad he doesn't have a tail.
(scytale and waterscroll said they think she had a tail kink and...yeah)
Looks like the epilogue is him figuring out that being around her lets him be entirely human, which he likes cos it makes tricking real humans easier, but she prefers the furry version lol.
EVERYONE'S MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES :D
The game refers to them as ayakashi which from Wikipedia are a particular form of youkai. Anyway, my big complaint about samurai dating sims (except Hakuoki) is the lack of supernatural ridiculousness, so I have been having a lot of fun.
The final route, Ieyasu, gets dubconny.
Snow spirit Masamune:
Is he a male yuki onna? Based on that ever reliable guide to mythology, "Interviews with Monster Girls", those are usually women with tragic stories where they melt and/or the dude they're with gets frozen.
Lookit these cute little pom poms:
Anyway. There is a cute sequence where he does something nice for MC, so MC seeks him out to say thanks and give him food, but he's all awkward and avoidant...but still does another nice thing for her, etc. It turns out he's afraid his cold will hurt people, and so deliberately drives them away. MC spends time with him anyway, and one day, as they draw close, he puts his hand on his heart in shock and runs away.
It turns out he was a human, abandoned by his mother for having differently coloured eyes (This explains why I've seen CGs of Masamune with two visible eyes: his eye patch is just to hide heterochromia. That's weak-sauce, game) He was taken in by a mountain spirit who froze his heart so humans would never hurt him again. But being around MC is melting the ice. The spirit tells Masamune to avoid MC, to stay safe from pain, and tries to kill her when she refuses to stay away. The spirit asks if she would be willing to die to melt Masamune's heart, and she says yes. Masamune has to run away with her to save her from the spirit's wrath.
MC wants to touch Masamune, though even light touches make her fingers burn with cold, sure that her touch will melt his heart. She says she loves him and asks him how he feels, I forget exactly what she said but something about being happy to have one moment of connection with him even if it's her last, if it lets him be free. He carefully reaches for her, and when she encourages him, kisses her with all the love in his heart. Afterwards, he sees her happy eyes looking out at him from her frozen body.
MC wakes up in bed, with tears in her eyes. And there is Masamune beside her, also crying- they had the same dream. He says it was sad, but she's happy because he expressed his feelings.
Aww.
I'm paying for the epilogue because I'm not going to leave dream!MC frozen! I'd normally be annoyed at Masamune for kissing her but it makes sense in fairytale dream logic.
Masamune cries and holds her frozen body against him, and his warm tears melt the ice and bring her consciousness back from the abyss. His heart is free. They swear to spend the rest of their lives together.
But though they keep spending time together, she notices him avoiding touching her when she would really like some more kissing etc. At first he says nothing's wrong but eventually he explains that he hadn't realised how hot humans get, and when he touches her he feels like he'll melt. MC finds this incredibly endearing, and knowing that he's very new to touching says they can take things slowly.
So they start with hand holding but they're both really into it and end up having sex against a tree haha.
Kojuro the crow tengu:
He also has cute lil pom poms! They look more dignified on him though.
We see Kojuro using his fan to wipe the memory of some customers MC told about having bumped into him in the forest. But when he tries to wipe her memory it fails, so he carries her back to his village until he can make the memory wipe stick.
He's polite and decent, in a detached, coolly pragmatic way, but utterly implacable, telling her he can read her thoughts so she shouldn't even think of trying to escape.
After some cute poking through his messy piles of books, and a sexy sniff of her neck, he realises MC just got some youkai essence on her and will be back to normal when that wears off. But then some other crow tengu come in all "DO I SMELL A HUMAN WE GOTTA KILL FOR SEEING US??" and she realises he's been protecting her and the other humans whose memories he's wiped.
His angsty backstory is that he befriended a human boy as a child, but the boy had differently coloured eyes and his mother turned against both the boy and the tengu village, nearly getting them all killed. Kojuro had to wipe all the humans' memories and never saw the boy again. AW. He's in your forest, Kojuro, and now he's a youkai too!
It's kind of funny knowing Kojuro hears every time MC suddenly notices how hot he is, though the game hasn't done anything with that yet. He also hears all her kind thoughts wanting to save him from his pain and is charmed.
The next morning MC wakes up next to him, the two of them having fallen asleep while talking. He sniffs her neck and says the scent is gone. He can wipe her memories and send her home. She's happy to be able to go home, but sad at the thought of leaving Kojuro.
But then the other Tengu come in: they have smelled a human and demand blood. Kojuro tries to save her but the village just gets angry, asking how often he'll risk their safety for humans. So he takes MC and flees.
He says they don't have much time and goes to wipe her memories. She cries and throws herself against his chest.
MC: Do you have to? I don't understand why, but I don't want to forget you.
Kojuro: It's better you don't understand, for you...and for me.
MC: Is there nothing I can give you? You're always sacrificing yourself, for humans and your village.
Kojuro kisses her and then says "With this I can live happily for eternity."
She realises she's in love with him. She opens her mouth to tell him, but he raises his hand to wipe her memory, dusting her cheeks with his feathered fan as she tries to tell him to stop.
MC wakes, crying, much to the concern of the human Kojuro sleeping beside her. He calmly cheers her up, and they both get oddly blushy about her complimenting him, I think there was some gender/politeness stuff going over my head. She thinks about how it still feels like he can read her mind to figure out what she wants- in this case, makeouts.
Looks like they saved "MC feels self conscious that Kojuro can hear her sexy thoughts about him" for the epilogue haha.
Epilogue: (I played this later)
So I wanted to see how they'd fix the amnesia thing but we start with MC at home waiting for him to show up with no signs of memory loss?? Ok they 'agreed to find a way to live together without wiping her memory' but they were about to be overtaken by an angry mob??
They have a cute date and there's some slight playing with Kojuro being able to read the thoughts she's too shy to say, but HOW ARE THEY IN HIS HUT WITHOUT BEING MURDERED. I was more convinced when Kenshin and Masamune's routes brought people back from the dead. Hmmph.
Ieyasu the Tanuki:
MC's restaurant is attacked by ruffians! ...who turn out to be an illusion created by Ieyasu, who looks like a literal cub scout:
MC: Are you a shapeshifting tanuki?
Ieyasu: I'm an illusory tanuki and if you call me a shape shifter again I'll end you >:(
MC is struck by the contrast between his nasty words and the happy swishing of his adorable fluffy tail.
...the first thing that came up when I googled "tanuki tail" was a butt plug. It was very fluffy.
Also I vaguely recall that there's mythology about their testicles? I am not looking that up, my search history is clearly already giving google Ideas.
MC: Would you like something to eat?
Ieyasu: Don't get ahead of yourself, human wench. The only reason I have anything to do with humans is because I want to kill every last one of you.
Ah, Ieyasu, charming as always.
When she realises he's angry because the local humans have been killing the mountain tanuki, she bursts into empathetic tears, and he lets her make him some sweets. After that he keeps coming buy to eat her cooking and enjoy her reactions to illusory snakes etc.
Customer: hee, are you MC's sweetheart?
MC: (Oh, that...would be nice...)
Ieyasu: I'LL KILL YOU >:(
Customer: D:
He drags her to a back room and then...it gets very dubconny, but in an interesting way.
He says he could never be close to a human as he embraces her. He talks about how mistreated any half-tanuki child of theirs would be as he undoes her clothes. He tells her to shut up, that if they're doing this there'll be no emotion, but his hands are gentle and treat her like something precious (also he's using some sort of sexy invisible telekinesis dubconny bondage)
She is very into it, but his eyes are sad, and so she stops him by grabbing his tail.
MC: If this is what it takes for you to feel better, I'd be willing. But it breaks my heart to do this when you look so distressed. You seemed to be truly enjoying yourself far more playing tricks on me.
He tells her to shut up and runs off. And then he stops coming around at all.
Customer: You've seemed down lately, MC. How about cheering up with some nice tanuki stew? The hunters have caught a bunch lately!
MC: D:
She runs to the mountain, and rushes to stop some hunters who've caught a tanuki, crying his name. So she...recognised him as a cute lil raccoon dog? Or just assumed?
Anyway! He appears in human form in a puff of smoke, and complains that she ruined his plan to trick and murder these hunters. She complains that his cute lil ears and tail are missing, and he realises he's gained the ability to turn entirely human. He says he'll be coming to visit her restaurant again, and "is willing to eat her food".
And suddenly MC is waking up, choking and unable to breath. Because human!Ieyasu is holding her nose while she sleeps! Ah, such a sweetie. She fell asleep at her desk reading some fairytales, and he tells her to come to bed. She snuggles up to him feeling comforted because she's into jerks, I guess, but a little part of her is sad he doesn't have a tail.
(
scytale and waterscroll said they think she had a tail kink and...yeah)Looks like the epilogue is him figuring out that being around her lets him be entirely human, which he likes cos it makes tricking real humans easier, but she prefers the furry version lol.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-22 08:24 pm (UTC)I've now read four of the five stories and all of them have some variety of the MC willing to risk death for someone she says she loves but has just met. It's not my favorite trope but I suppose it makes sense for the mythology. I liked it best in Ieyasu's story, where he's more or less exactly how he normally is except has a better reason for being that way.
In other otomes, I read the seven chapters of the Hijikata route on Love365 and it was pretty decent. The characters didn't seem to be *that* different from their Hakouki versions, Hijikata is still arrogant and ambitious, Okita is still a troll, Saito is still quiet and mysterious. But I also didn't feel like it added that much. Maybe I'd like a different route more. I feel like there is only one kind of story you can really tell about Hijikata or Okita but Saito's story can be told in lots of different ways.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-23 02:05 am (UTC)I didn't mind Kojuro's sad ending so much since I can more easily imagine overcoming amnesia than BEING FROZEN SOLID.
In general the Events often feel a bit compressed, which I guess is kind of inevitable, but yeah with these especially she went from 0 to 60 pretty fast but the fairytale tone helped a bit.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-22 11:55 pm (UTC)I wonder if the similar pompoms are friendship pompoms! Maybe they wear them both to remember each other?
She realises she's in love with him. She opens her mouth to tell him, but he raises his hand to wipe her memory, dusting her cheeks with his feathered fan as she tries to tell him to stop.
Omg. I dig this tragic ending. :D
no subject
Date: 2020-03-23 02:01 am (UTC)FRIENDSHIP POM POMS. Ok, headcanon accepted :D