Heartache 101 ~Sour into Sweet~

author=Marrend
...one can ignore my ramblings.

I'm always paying attention to you. How else could I expect you to do the same?:) I can see why this is important, so I'll check, okay?

I believe I might have randomly found the post I was thinking of. However, it wasn't saying what I thought it said. Here is the post, and, heck, I even mentioned my misgivings then!

author=triad2
@dozen i really like most of that little tidbit you did of 21 so please do not take this as a judgement against you because i don't know what else you have done to her and of course i maybe reading it wrong or out of context but the original 21 was a rebel who didn't cowtail to peer pressure in fact if you tried you might need to see a dr afterwords

Ah, of course! A rebel would never conform to anything! Oh, wait, no, that's bullshit.

First things first, there are precious few people who don't conform at all, and most of them who don't are. Just. Terrible. You mentioned sociopaths in your post? That's us, without peer pressure being able to affect your personality and actions(I vote for the phycho approach, btw). Take away appearance, and I'll grant you a huge chunk of the modern world's population would stop bathing regularly.

Now, if your definition of a rebel is conforming comparably less(the bare minimum, you could say), then 21 appears to fit. She always did, and I'm not going to change her. I didn't change anything. I just had the player comment on the subtext that was already there. 21 being a 'rebel' is the exact reason peer pressure matters to her. It pisses her off. More to the point, she's in detention for making a fashion statement. Fashion.

"But rebels don't do that!" you say, And that's true! For sure, real outcasts never care. Real ones never. And lo comes the big relevation of in her ending where you find out she isn't actually a rebel. 21 isn't making a big point for freedom of choice, individuality or whatever. Hell, she doesn't even want people to leave her be the way she is. She's just a sad, lost little girl who wants to show everyone and herself she matters, if she matters, because she sure as fuck doesn't know. She's acting the way she is to look edgy and memorable. To let the world know how special Ways can be to get over her orphan girl issues. A confused teen, trying to appeal the masses by predending to fit the rebel archetype in the middle of Japan. 21 doesn't cowtail to peer pressure? She has pure liquid conformism running in her bloodstream, bud. Telling you about her problems with that was the whole point of her story. Swing and a miss on your part.

Is this when somebody *forced cough* talks about the concept of "persona" without referencing any Shin Megami Tensei games?

author=Dozen
Well, you... can? We're groovy with that? I don't like Shin Megami Tensei very much, but I have basic idea about the lore.

It might help triad2's understanding of 21 Ways? I mean, she wears the mask of "21 Ways" in as many situations as she can. I assume this is because she built her career around that persona. She shows few signs of wanting to stop being "21 Ways", or being tired acting out this persona. Compare that with, say, a certain other character I know who has a false persona...

I suppose that's not as big a secret as 21 Ways' true identity, huh?

*Edit: Though, both reveals occur at the "ENDING", if memory serves.

author=Dozen
Now that you remind me. I've played the Uchioniko update. Positive mostly, but one thing. Can we change this line back?

author=Marrend
'Cuz if you won't shut up and try it I'll shove it down yer big mouth and pull it out of your ass!

If you're really, really sure the profanity is too much, we can keep 'butt' instead of 'ass', but changing the sentence structure ruins the joke. Pretty please?:)

On one hand, I would prefer to avoid using the term "ass", if I can help it. This is why I changed it to "butt" in the first place. On the other hand, this is Mayu that's talking. Hrm...

On a total side-note, I randomly looked this game up on TvTropes again, and came across this page. If nothing else, it gave me a bit of pause about Mayu's requirements. Then again, there's Masako's odd requirements, so who knows?

The Masako/Shoko event was certainly interesting to write! Though, I feared I might have hit the gutter with the sequence where Masako was challenged to read <player>'s thoughts. It wasn't too much, was it?

Speaking of Shoko, has anyone looked at, or played through, the date sequence I added for her? If you haven't, and you're curious, it should be STORY 22 and 23.