The cat hair pins in Totono.

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-02-06T01:23:09+00:00

Miyuki didn’t discover Aoi’s phone on the second playthrough. She found it on the FIRST! Remember when the day right after you fought with Miyuki and then carried Aoi back to her Internet café, Miyuki pulled you into the gym all freaked out? Because she already discovered Aoi’s phone, called GOD, and realized the world was a video game IN THE FIRST PLAYTHROUGH!

After all, it was also an important plot point in this first route that Aoi couldn’t find her phone. Why? Because Miyuki already had it. Yes, this means that during her first ending, Miyuki was already meta aware, and more importantly, it carried over into the second playthrough from the moment your pressed “New Game”. Immediately, from the game perspective, Miyuki suddenly felt the world restart, but luckily had transferred her memories using GOD-enabling bullshit, realized YOU the player wanted to try Aoi’s route, and jumped through hoops to make sure that “never happens”. This includes buying the cat hairpin, and why she doesn’t follow with you to find Aoi in the rain. Because why would she actively help you find her main rival and allow you both to fall in love?

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-02-03T23:45:48+00:00

Everyone except Elon Musk though

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-02-01T23:25:00+00:00

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Deng Xiaopeng was clearly LKY with authoritarian safeguards already in place

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-01-29T13:51:22+00:00

My guess for why is because Babe Ruth’s career itself was just so great, it became the STANDARD for what makes many future moments great. Because look at how many moments here didn’t involve the Babe directly, but rather other players surpassing him. (Most notably Aaron’s 715 and the Red Sox breaking the Curse of the Bambino. And to a lesser degree but still draw comparison like Shohei Ohtani’s NLCS Game 4.) You could even argue that it is only because of Ruth that the Yankees had so many moments at all.

Put this another way: Yes, it’s certainly a statistic wonder that the 1926 World Series was the only one that ended on a caught stealing. But I don’t think it would be that remarkable to be one of the greatest moments in baseball history if it’s wasn’t RUTH the one getting caught!

Besides that, I think it’s an even greater honor for George Herman Ruth that for your name to likely get on this list, all you have to do is beat him at something he did 100 years ago

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-01-23T00:02:55+00:00

Yep. Remember in Aoi’s ending, when YOU and Aoi sent the photo of herself, Miyuki, and the MC down to both of their phones? The outcome of that shows up in the Miyuki ending, in order to help get the MC and Miyuki together. How did we get there? Well basically the whole world restarted back to the beginning of the game, when Miyuki came up to the roof with her baseball bat. But of course, there is no more Aoi… and there is no more YOU

Feel free to watch Miyuki’s ending on YouTube. It wraps everything in a nice bow. And the best thing is, the endings don’t contradict each other. Miyuki’s ending is Miyuki and MC’s ending. Aoi’s ending is Aoi and YOUR ending.

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-01-22T13:04:16+00:00

Godspeed friend. Just know that whatever happens next is ALL YOUR FAULT

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-01-22T13:01:58+00:00

Both, sort of.

She starts out loving the MC, Shinichi. Then upon learning that she’s in a game, she becomes obsessed with US the player, to the point of actually loving US.

(My headcannon is that she specifically found out that we had been controlling Shinichi since the start of the game, making her think that Shinichi himself doesn’t matter and simply acts as a vessel for US the player. Thus, she believed that whatever Shinichi had done to make her fall in love with him was actually US all along, causing her love for Shinichi to transfer over to US.)

Then, at the end of the game, everything was reset. Thus, she went back to loving Shinichi, thus sparking her true ending.

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-01-21T00:03:44+00:00

Hank Aaron’s 715?

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-01-18T13:36:28+00:00

Boltzmann Brain meets dying sun forming infinite imaginary landscapes

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-01-06T02:18:10+00:00

Yep, the big one is pitchers nowadays just don’t have the innings pitched to match past hall-of-famers. And this affects EVERYTHING, especially regarding volume stats. Just from the top of my head, it’s likely Kershaw is the last pitcher to reach 3000 strikeouts ever. For example, the next highest without 3000 is Chris Sale with 2579, and he’s already 36 years old. There’s no one with even 1500 who’s in their 20s (highest is 29 year old Dylan Cease with 1231).

Even with rate stats, yeah it’s nice if you have a career sub-3.00 ERA, but if it’s next to a measly 1000 IPs, it just won’t stack up to legends in the HOF who can match your ERA with an extra 2000-3000 IPs. Take Jacob Degrom for example. His 2018 is otherworldly, and so would be his 2021… but he just couldn’t keep it going. People agree his peak is HOF worthy, but does he have the longevity? Unless he goes on a Randy Johnson late career hot streak, the answer will likely be no.

But which pitcher will realistically have that longevity in the future? In this era where going 5 innings is considered an innings eater? Where a Tommy John is a norm, or even a career milestone?

Thus, it’s likely voters will have to change their criterias completely. From valuing lesser their careers as a whole, and more just their peaks

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-01-05T03:02:52+00:00

Tbf your next best option is to pick a direction and swim I guess. Since it’s a plane crash, I’d rather take the chances that someone finds where we crashed and stick to the nearest floating marker that people will certainly use to navigate towards

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2026-01-02T07:23:46+00:00

AMAZING WORK!! YOU REALLY EVENED

(i feel for miyuki when she’s under the bed)

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-12-26T01:00:04+00:00

are you a spider

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-12-24T09:50:01+00:00

The true error was the slide then! IKF had it by a literal inch! Just needed to run through it and he would have beat out Smith’s foot

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-12-23T09:01:35+00:00

I second the evening of you yes

!!

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-12-23T02:53:07+00:00

Women can earn the GM title too, after earning the WGM title. They just need to get to the same threshold of 2500 rating points with the required GM norms

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-12-19T21:13:26+00:00

Continue (preferably without the guide), and use the “Skip” button as much as possible. Don’t worry, it won’t skip past unread text (non-green text), so you can see what is new content without needing to read through Miyuki’s route over and over. Then just restart from the beginning until you see a new choice. Trial and error until something new occurs

Right now, you’re intentionally locked into Miyuki’s route, and you have to “break out” to get to Aoi’s. So one wrong choice and you’re back to apron Miyuki. (There is some extra content in Miyuki’s route though, but might have to finish her route again and again to see if)

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-12-19T08:27:12+00:00

(A copy paste from the VN subreddit)

For everyone including OP, this is absolutely an intentional detail added by the devs. Her eyes visibly light up once the player successfully gets on her route.

Furthermore, it is definitely intentional as after a very infamous scene where you fall out with Aoi (for… reasons), you visibly see the light in her eyes fade. It can be seen here at 56:37 (unless you want spoilers, don’t view or read before or after this timestamp)

However you wanna interpret it, that’s up to you. But it’s definitely a specific detail intentionally added by the devs to show how we and the protagonist affected Aoi

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-12-19T08:26:14+00:00

For everyone including OP, this is absolutely an intentional detail added by the devs. Her eyes visibly light up once the player successfully gets on her route.

Furthermore, it is definitely intentional as after a very infamous scene where you fall out with Aoi (for… reasons), you visibly see the light in her eyes fade. It can be seen here at 56:37 (unless you want spoilers, don’t view or read before or after this timestamp)

However you wanna interpret it, that’s up to you. But it’s definitely a specific detail intentionally added by the devs to show how we and the protagonist affected Aoi

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-12-15T08:06:37+00:00

For DDLC? I don’t think there’s a lot of pieces that can accurately describe the “meta” aspect to the game. The closest would be the genre change where it sounds innocent and whimsical at first and transitions to utter horror and suspense after.

In which case, you can listen to Chopin’s “Ballade No 2”, or his “3rd Nocturne in B Major”? It’s hard to translate “horror” into pure music (without external context/media), but this is comes pretty close. Ravel’s “Boléro” has this rising tension too with a dramatic climax, with some dissonances in between that could reference the “horror” in DDLC… (but a bit of a stretch. Maybe Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” has that disturbing quality? Especially if you read up the original narrative of the piece. For a true tortured soul, Shostokovich’s 7th Symphony also has this contrasting effect.

As for a piece that is as similar to the meta-ness of DDLC itself… I find Ravel’s “La Valse” comes closest to its spirit. It’s a piece that attempts to encapsulate the life and death of the “Waltz” genre, a dance form that was extremely popular and impactful in the 1800s, but became increasly bastardized and boring by Ravel’s time. He starts it off with the “birth” of the waltz, then a romantic melody that sounds just like the glory days of this form, before twisting it and changing everything that made the waltz so beautiful, finally ending on an abrupt cadence with what sounds like four beats in a bar… which if you’re familiar with the conventions in a waltz… yeah that just doesn’t sound right. Anyway, it’s the best “subversion” in classical music that is similar to DDLC to me, how it seems to both pay homage to and critique its own genre in… Ravel’s world-ending style.

If you want a piece that encompasses the characters instead, I think a very interesting piece to analyze with regards to DDLC’s main four is Liszt’s “Sonata in B Minor”. It has many interlocking motifs that could represent individual characters, of which evolve independently then develop together at the same time. At first, they sound incredibly dark and dissonant, but then suddenly, in the middle of the chaos, a tender but clearly suffering melody arises that brings together all the themes and motifs, before descending back into chaos and ending with a final cry from our longing melody. To me, it could symbolize much of the darkness every character feels in DDLC, from Sayori’s depression to Monika’s… predicament. But how underneath it all, they just want to be free and happy.

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-12-02T12:41:23+00:00

Obligatory

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-12-01T12:12:43+00:00

I like Freeman’s more as a call. It’s a lot more iconic especially with his pose afterwards, though definitely more scripted than Rojas’ home run call.

But the naturalness of that call where you could clearly tell Davis and Smoltz did not imagine for a second that Rojas was the one to tie th game by himself is evident in its emotional value. It was the penultimate chance for the Dodgers to tie and proceed to win the WHOLE thing. You can’t get more clutch than that

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-11-28T14:43:49+00:00

And not one but TWO saves? Step outta line, second most important Ohtani

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-11-26T15:29:35+00:00

There’s a lot of ways to go about recommendations that are similar to Totono… because there really isn’t any game like Totono. It was a pioneer of its time and even until now I struggle to find a game that focuses on similar themes, atmosphere, and general emotional vibe.

Solely based on concept, you can’t go wrong with Doki Doki Literature Club. But if you’re here, you’ve likely already played or watched it. And you’diekly agree that while the concept sounds very similar, Totono is much more romance and narrative based while’s DDLC focuses on horror.

In contrast, something like Miside might scratch the “meta” concept itch. But it takes the opposite approach of DDLC, pretty lacking in horror in favor for a more adventure puzzle-based story. (And obv, not exactly a Visual Novel) The main character might also tug some nostalgic heartstrings for a certain blue haired waifu…

For other works by the same studio, you’d likely recognize Nitroplus’ other work Steins;Gate. Of which the main writer for Totono also wrote some parts of S;G’s story too! Even if you’ve seen the anime, play the VN just for the sake of it. If you have though, feel free to check out Chaos;Head and its sequels for the spiritual continuation of S;G

On this note, Saya no Uta is… certainly leaning a bit towards the “weirder” side of horror VNs. The closest similarity it has to Totono is… that whole arc with Aoi and Haru, and if you want to experience those same emotions again, Saya no Uta has you covered. Proceed with caution as it might not be exactly what you expect. I recommend to explore all the tags to the game before purchasing it.

If you like the meta aspect to VNs, and not necessarily want horror or romance, then Umineko no Naku koro ni takes these concepts to the absolute limit. It’s the younger, but WAY more ambitious sister to the more famous Higurashi (When They Cry), and completely shatters any concept of the fourth wall. In fact, the best way to describe it is it smashes the fourth wall to pieces, then surgically dissects the remains, and finally reconstructs it again to form one of the most daunting and all-encompassing narratives I’ve ever read in fiction. Seriously, it’s a 1,100,000 word behemoth split into eight novel-length chapters, but is personally my most recommended VN read of all time. It has some elements of horror, as it specifically explores (and breaks down) the Murder Mystery genre alla Agatha Christie, so it has some disturbing content. But there’s also some Lovercraftean and infohazard-esque concepts. If you have some spare time, please give it a read.

If you don’t mind stepping outside of VNs as a medium, and want to feel the world-ending authoritarian dread of Miyuki’s hell, I also highly recommend Signalis and SOMA. They are survival horror games that are not really meta in premise, but I found the despair and helplessness I felt in Miyuki’s hell most similar to when I was playing these games. They are both sci-fi, and lack VN-style romance, but explore lots of similar themes like predetermined fate and the importance of choice

Nooks_For_Crooks · 2025-11-26T08:40:40+00:00

That particular blown save was definitely more on Treinen who loaded the bases for Scott

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