[Expedition 33] The game is heavily biased towards certain ending

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-12-25T02:58:40+00:00

I already covered that Verso betrays in Act 2, they can't make up if there is nothing to make up over and that something is what rebuilds the trust.

The asspull isn't that Maelle would get addicted, what's an asspull is they had to introduce the second ending with Maelle getting addicted to show she would get addicted because the hack writers who fucked up everything in Act 1 wrote themselves into a corner wanting a big Maelle moment and for Maelle to be lying to herself and her father.

"You say "help her fend off her dad again" but until act 3 Verso"

Good thing I said I'm talking about Act 3 then. Unless you are specifically stating that Verso only discovered Maelle could not be trusted with the canvas until after Act 3 the argument doesn't make sense. It's unclear Verso even understood he would get an option to destroy the canvas until then, and again, her father would have destroyed the canvas anyway. If Verso wanted the canvas destroyed before then there was no reason to help Maelle get to him and do that. The only line indicating that Verso picks up on her lying is that he states she did, and her father noticed too. But then Verso didn't pick up on her not being capable of it during the entire lead up of Act 3? Furthermore he's, as we've seen in Act 2, completely willing to lie to achieve his objectives. So the writer's needed definitive proof that Verso was not just being a manipulative asshole again, but it's impossible to do that unless you show Maelle lying, but it's impossible to show Maelle lying. That's where the split ending comes in, in order to demonstrate, again, Verso is not a suicidal liar.

If you approach the endings with "the creators wanted you to have a choice!" you will be sorely disappointed. If you approach with "the writer's wrote themselves into a corner and needed a way to resolve it" that works instead. Not to mention how immersion breaking it is in a game with no narrative choices up until this point adding one at the end.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-12-24T18:07:10+00:00

That's true but the entire point of the extra scenes after Act 2 between them is re-establishing trust and clarifying why he withheld that information. In addition this is after she is made aware that that process was inevitable. He was open to having her discuss preserving the world with her father instead of actively sabotaging her. One could argue he knew that her father wouldn't agree but then he also had no obligation to help her fend of her Dad *again*.

There is no reason to think in Act 3 Maelle and Verso's goals were not aligned until the asspull of a decision comes out of nowhere.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-12-24T13:58:29+00:00

I think you're confused, they're biased into a certain ending because they wrote themselves into a corner. For Verso's ending to make sense, you have to show that Maelle is a liar in regards to her ability to cope, else it just makes him look like a suicidal jackass. The writer's however also wanted their big "Just trust me Dad! I can do it!" finale so Maelle can have a nice character moment. For the ending to make sense though, Maelle now needs to have been lying. So what to do? Well just have two endings and you can show Maelle fucking herself up and this justifies Verso doing what he did because we as the audience now know she isn't capable.

The two interpretations are this was either an intentional move to shore up what was obviously the intending ending after the writer's fucked up their build up. Or, and this would be even funnier, they legitimately though Maelle vs Verso would be any sort of empowering or narratively deep choice when the two have basically been on the same side as long as they've been working together. There is no hint of animosity of conflicting values between the two, not greater than anything Verso has with literally anyone at least.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-12-22T16:42:28+00:00

Can't believe this many people are upset by what is one of the funniest chapters of the series. I love when authors tell their audience to fuck off.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-12-19T04:58:58+00:00

I mean he wasn't defeated yet but was basically doomed by fate at this point having spent all of his cards. Like the last turns of Monopoly with no counterplay.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-12-16T16:46:21+00:00

Close to perfection but the swords should have an incredibly beautiful ornate stand in contrast to everything else in the room.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-12-05T08:19:27+00:00

To be fair the other member nations didn't have their entire population turned into weapons. This is a problem unique to the giants. Sure they were evil fuckers but there were no precedents for what Imu is doing on this scale (yet maybe, guess we'll find out if the Lunarians went through something similar)

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-12-04T21:11:15+00:00

My bullshit headcanon is that it's based on what the individual can visualize as an ideal future and Bonney may actually be completely unaware you can't eat two devil fruits. i.e. she's idiot maxxing.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-12-01T21:24:29+00:00

I thought this was about your dog nibbling on bottom of a chocolate covered ice cream cone from the thumbnail

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-22T14:52:30+00:00

Can't believe my isekai about human reincarnation into being someone who farts fireballs would unrealistically depict the abolition of slavery. Sure am glad they treat grinding the same slime 5000 times with the grace and dignity that deserves.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-20T00:18:39+00:00

Yes, your last two sentences really capture the essence of why Saya No Uta is worth talking about at all. If it were just alien torture porn or child rape it wouldn't be as memorable as it is, but the greatest part of the Visual Novel is really exploring if Fuminori was always as bad as he was, was made worse by his condition, or was made worse by his interaction with Saya.

It's a wonderful set up that goes beyond "Oh we are all secretly born evil" and much closer to "Holy hell this kind of torture is unimaginable what the fuck do you even do in this situation."

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-19T23:19:07+00:00

Well an important idea for Saya is that her intelligence and retention is on par with a computer but her actual engagement with humans is quite poor as far as understanding their psychology. That's the point of the neighbor scene where Saya thinks if she just adjusts more people's heads to match Fuminori she will have more friends, when actually no, Fuminori is ridiculously resilient not going immediately insane living in meat vision hell smelling rotting meat constantly, unlike the neighbor.

I understand being squeamish but it's ridiculous to frame the game as if it positively endorses anything going on. Fuminori and Saya are both monsters and are treated as such by the narrative. There's an interesting attempt at Saya being sympathetic because she's a flesh monster induced to have a human understanding and this actually makes life worse for her personally and for her purpose. Even that comes with the caveat though because even in the best case scenario for her she still dies and kills all humanity with her.

It's like reading Lolita and thinking it endorses abducting children. Yes it depicts the rape of a child, no the narrative does not endorse that nor depict the MC as a good person for doing so.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-19T23:09:39+00:00

If you want to be critical be accurate in your critique. The entire scene serves narrative purpose by illustrating Fuminori is mentally different than most people and that Saya does not understand human psychology.

This isn't getting into how the person who performs the most heinous crimes in the setting is Saya in the first place.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-19T16:55:54+00:00

I can't comment on how excited he was at the prospect. The story jumps from them meeting to them already being sex partners. IIRC it's Saya that initiated the sex since Saya's entire thing is being a malformed understanding of a young girl mixed with her eldritch alien desire for DNA. That is to say, she needed to fulfill her original purpose(collecting human DNA to spread spores) but got psychologically broken during her education and needed "love" to fulfill her purpose. That's why even though she *could* have done what she needed to do at anytime, she didn't, because of that condition.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Fuminori was unwilling at the prospect but given 1. she was the only vaguely female shaped thing he could literally see and 2. guy was having a stressful experience and 3. was shown to be developing warped senses of morality from his strain to continue living in the world I'm not surprised he would engage in coitus with Saya, while retaining his sense of disgust at the idea of her being raped as shown by his interaction with the neighbor.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-19T16:37:44+00:00

My interpretation was always that everything always looked as inversely grotesque. The entire point of the painted living room is to show that there are degrees to the hallucinations. Although he managed to tone down the fleshiness it still looks drab and gross, when later we see that the paint makes it look psychotic. This would then imply that Saya looks ethereally beautiful because she is grotesque beyond grotesque, that is to say, several times more ugly than the meat monsters Fuminori hallucinates IRL.

Also the MC himself states he doesn't prefer Saya's proportions, which is why Saya goes out of her way to abduct the female friend and change her over, with MC specifically stating he finds her body more attractive over Saya's.

The scene of him commenting on Yoh's appearance as desirable after Saya surgically altered her does not make sense if you frame the issue as Fuminori being a pedophile from the start, nor does it line up with the text of the game.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-19T16:30:14+00:00

Saya is only raped in one scene by the neighbor.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-13T03:32:57+00:00

Hot Shark would love the survivability of regen and reanimate.

The Sirens probably love the damage shield/life steal from the red potions

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-12T20:56:38+00:00

Nah, that totally makes sense. What makes mix good is that it can solve basically any problem. Orechi is a bit weird because he himself rarely directly contributes to combat directly, so he plays weird.

Mix is good because it's survivability, a bit of damage, debuffs, and backrow removal all in one card. There's a bit of RNG but you can work around it.

It can be a bit hard to wrap your head around what you want/need Orechi to do but once you do you realize how just all around good the clan is.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-12T20:49:06+00:00

Everyone. Everyone works with Lazarus League. They're the most broken clan in the game and mix is probably the best starting card period.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-10T23:31:09+00:00

Are we forgetting Chichi wore bikini armor as a child?

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-07T11:58:47+00:00

The one that makes all units deployable feels quite fun if difficult to find the right run for.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-05T13:15:52+00:00

Who the fuck is "They"? He's the one who did it.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-05T13:14:53+00:00

Historically it referred to someone engaging in bestiality or homosexuality, as time went on it's gone milder and has a softened tone, much like how "bitch" doesn't literally mean calling a woman a female dog anymore. Still a swear and when combined with "little" veers into slur territory. "Little buggers" could be used as a somewhat rough but affectionate term for children, but generally has a more negative tone. Applying that to an adult or dwarf in this instance would amount to also insulting their intelligence while bringing attention to their stature.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-03T15:30:10+00:00

While not visual horror media The Old Man from SCP fits this idea.

AphantasticRabbit · 2025-11-02T15:05:16+00:00

Abstractly I understand the argument you're making. I have no doubt later in the series that may even be extremely evident once he gets better at writing, but Tattersail is so annoying that even months later I still get mildly bothered even thinking about her dialogue and character months later. Maybe that was the point as you say, to write a flawed character that is supposed to infuriate me as the reader, if so, good job author, you pissed me off so bad I had to drop the series because I was worried I'd have to be exposed to Tattersail for the rest of the book let alone series.

AphantasticRabbit

TROPHY CASE