I love Ivy x Harley. But I’m not sure where we’d find a red haired plant lady.
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We have to keep looking. We already met a kitsune, can’t be that difficult to find a lovely redhaired plant lady, too. 
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WALL OF TEXT AHEAD
Agreed with your comments about Momoko. I hope that either the story has a reason why we’re so hyper focus on her…physical features, or drop the emphasis all together. It really doesn’t do anything for the story other than push a seemingly canon LI towards the player.
On a writing level however, at least IMO, when writing about physical attraction, smaller details like let’s say her smile say a lot more in terms of attraction than describing her breasts and how well she can fill out for her kimono for the nth time in a row. Like I get MC being called into attention of how attractive she is for the first time, but at this point it’s like “YES WE GET IT SHE’S HOT NOW DO WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT HER BODY AGAIN? THERE’S A LOT MORE PLOT STUFF THAT’S WAY MORE INTERESTING THAN HER CLEAVAGE”
This is not to be rude but idk how to phrase it either, but there are some dialogue lines where you can feel “She boobily boobed her boobs as she titted down the stairs.” Like can we not :))
Which for me is rather sad since Momoko actually is a compelling character on paper: a doctor, who is actually (at least partially) responsible for an opium outbreak, and feels the need to correct that mistake. She’s also someone suffering from massive guilt and is probably depressed with a very low self esteem.
Like I would love to see and read more about that struggle than reduce her to just eye candy – which is doubly ironic since a lot of her personal baggage within the story also deals with the fact that no one takes her seriously because she’s too pretty to be a doctor. Hopefully her departure from the team helps her in that department (give me all the agency for the characters) – Momoko making decisions for her self and earning some of that self-esteem back ;A:
Now on the Jun/ko relationship. Oh boy. I got a lot of feels for that too. But not the good kind. [quote=“Sammysam, post:344, topic:20494”]
No you don’t love them, MC, you just fall back in the same co-dependent maladaptive patterns you used to have with them before, that’s not “love”
[/quote]
THIS HONESTLY.
As a reader though, I really want to see how the MC handles Jun/ko though. There’s a lot of delicious and probably angsty drama that I wanna get into because of that. And I really want it to culminate in MC telling Jun/ko off like “you have no hold over me, not anymore”
And since I have high hopes for the author’s writing abilities, if this happens, it’s equally parts tragic, disturbing, and triumphant.
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This probably the first time I’m not actively searching for a love interest. While it’s essential to me in a story but it’s a nice add on. With this i don’t really like the options. Well, maybe except the kid, though I see it as a sibling thing. Like a little brother bothering a older sister, very cute.
So yeah I’m mostly here for the story. It’s very engaging. 
This, so much. Seriously guys, describe her smile, her hair and stuff but put a little bit more work into it than just “lol tits”.
I mean don’t misunderstood me, I like breasts, but it really is not the thing that decides if I feel attracted to a woman or not.
It doesn’t even feel like the focus on her body is to show that she is “attractive” (because I got nothing out of that description besides “fanservice”), it felt more like a running gag, or to show that she is attractive specifically in that fanservice kind of way that normally only panders to what straight guys are supposed to be attracted to…thus me describing it as “straight male gaze”-y. But yeah, really doesn’t feed into my taste and felt more forced…also yes to the boobely boobed part. I hate it when writers do that -_-
It’s sad because it ruined a character for me I otherwise may would have hugely enjoed.
Yes, please. And then let me stab them
But on the other hand I anticipated and fear the pain the MC will probably have to endure before they reach that stage 
I just will repeat “they will be okay” to myself like a mantra.
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It’s damn nice to see this thread alive again. Especially knowing that it’s been almost a year since Book 2 came out. Does this mean Book 3 is not too far away? I want to believe.
I honestly would love to see some sort of redemption arc for Jun. Jigoku fucks a person up, and the scene where his eyes turn back to normal for a second shows that he may not be entirely lost to the corruption. It doesn’t have to be a romance thing too, with the MC helping him and telling him that there is no way their old relationship could be reinstated. That Jun needs to live his own life. Knowing the author’s love for tropes, though, the possibility of this scenario is practically nonexistent.
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Hey @MultipleChoice. If you dont mind me asking, are you gonna create another game after youre finished with SoH.
There it is! That’s the main problem I have with Momoko’s romance path. Considering how hurtful it’s been for her to constantly have her intellectual abilities be overlooked because of how she looks, it’s annoying to read the thoughts of an MC that is so fixated on, well, how she looks above all else. Especially since they know of this and how it’s affected her. I know there’s a part where the MC says they’re attracted to her because of her ambitious nature, but you only get there by making a certain choice, while the male gaze-y physical descriptions appear way more often. Makes me feel she deserves better, tbh.
And I loved Momoko in Book 1. It was impressive that she was able to free herself of Shiroyama’s influence on her own (something not even the MC manages), and how brave she was when she went back to the hellhole she’d just escaped from, when she pulled the knife while surrounded by yakuza and proved just how clever she can be, when she talked back to Shiroyama… And that’s off the top of my head. There’s so much to admire about her, not only her (kinda gravity-defying) boobs. And I wish the story acknowledged that more.
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I agree with this. It would have been great if we have different sets of reaction depending on what we have shape the MC to be. I know it’s a lot more work for the author though. 
Anyway, I am hoping that when Momoko returned, she would change for the better.
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I agree with you to an extent but my first interpretation of Momoko’s “booby moments” is that it was entirely in-character for someone like the MC. Regardless of personality traits, all MCs haven’t been confirmed to have had any meaningful relationship outside of Jun/ko. From what we’ve seen it’s safe to assume that their relationship was largely based upon sex and shared suffering at the hands of Sensei. Along with the other traumas in their childhood, this has likely emotionally stunted our MCs to some extent. When I played the game, I saw that as the reason why they focused so much on Momoko as a sexual creature despite there being instances of them emphasizing with her situation and even respecting certain qualities beyond her appearance. Still, I do hope that our characters move past this as they deal with their broader relationship issues, romantic and platonic.
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Redeeming Junko could be an interesting avenue to explore, even heartfelt if successful, indicating the MC too can save themselves from this self-destructive technique, although given what he/she has put the MC through recently I would find it more cathartic to kill them and reclaim Sensei’s sword. I don’t even have a desire to be friends with them, hurting Masami has put them on my permanent hate list.
Would be awkward though if the two were in a position where they had to work together.
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Somehow I doubt we’re going to get a junko redemption ark, I mean there’s already the MC redemption ark and Momoko’s redemption ark.
Those talking about trauma have good intuition: there are some very dark paths and spirals that tragedy can lead, that go far beyond a jealous yandere. MC will have to face these trials just as real-life people do, and I know I couldn’t do it justice if it was comfortable and easy.
@VeeGees
No Batman inspiration that I know of, but there will definitely be some heavy, psychological aspects between Junko/Jun and MC.
@Beaterxys
Great question! Ask me again in a few years!
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See while I agree with MC being emotionally stunted and is learning how to deal with a possibly healthier relationship (attraction included) my MC is not interested in women. At all. And the consistency of ogling or seeing possible RO’s as such is very specifically towards Momoko and not anyone else.
Which begs the question why and to what function does seeing her as a walking boob serve – given that we have a choice in choosing what sex the MC is attracted to as well as the RO in question
So for the implication that the MC would’ve seen the Momoko as a “sexual creature” – as you have pointed out – is a little far fetched because by the same logic MC would see all possible love interests as such. And the MC doesn’t.
I mean, if this were the case MC’s who are attracted to men would’ve continuously comment on Toshio’s handsomeness (and to what I know, this is only if you pick the perverted options). But the fact that the MC’s comments on Toshio are relatively mundane – I know they comment more frequently on his eyes or hands rather than his abs or ass – imply that they are capable of that distinction and seeing the person as a person (and not as just someone to sleep with)
I mean the scenes with Momoko where she’s not gainaxing are great and I would like to see more of that in the next title
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What I meant by sexual creature isn’t that the MC is necessarily sexually attracted to Momoko. I’m not sure how to explain this. Best I can say is that we, as relatively average human beings, can note when someone is sexually attractive by our culture and species’s general standards without being attracted to them ourselves. I imagine it’s like that for an MC not attracted to Momoko. Though I may be stretching it a bit. Only around a fourth of my saves weren’t able to feel attracted to Momoko so I may be somewhat biased here.
And I completely agree that Momoko’s best scenes were when her sexuality wasn’t the focus. Honestly, she’d probably be one of the better ROs if that happened more often and I hope we get more of that in later books.
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I take that as a no but idk if you mean to say youre gonna keep SoH running for that long.
It’s been some time since I last played the game so I don’t remember the details all that well, but I’m pretty sure I had the impression Momoko has the habbit of purposefully flaunting her body and sensuality with her behaviour, clothing and more. More than just her natural self, like the MC, she also had it rough and was in with the wrong crowd, so such things fit well with her character I believe, and MC might be just reacting to that in a near instinctual manner based on previous relationships and interactions of social circles MC’s been part of.
I agree here. We can note someone’s attractiveness but the way the text presents itself is suggrestive of MC being attracted to Momoko – at least sexually given their first thoughts are usually about how hot she is to an almost distracting degree. Like there’s a difference in “oh wow they’re good looking” and “shit they’re sexy goddamn”
MC falls into the latter, hence why it’s jarring to read as someone who has no interest in Momoko.
Though even then, as a personal preference, there are other ways to express desire than talking about her curves. Like lingering looks/touches when Momoko is patching MC up, or MC noting things more…intimately I guess like flushed cheeks or if Momoko bites her lip etc.
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I guess he’s an okay guy. Not my personal favorite, but he’s cool. He’s like, the most sensible person for the MC to end up with. And not just because he’s the voice of reason in the group.
I mean, between a tsundere “kid”, an airhead with an unrequited love for the resident eyecandy doctor, the resident eyecandy doctor, and the yandere ex, Tosh seems…normal. Sure he has issues of his own (that sanity slippage at the island,poor guy…), but like I said, he seems normal. And sane-ish.
Still hoping for a harem ending though, even if it’s a joke of some sort. And too out-there.
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Oh, man, that’d be hilarious.
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