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28 minutes ago, Mobotium said:
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The syndrome is just a representation of the message itself, it's not meant to be the message. The concept at its core is that all people view reality differently based on their experiences, thoughts, senses, etc and so that, ultimately, reality is in the eye of the beholder. Also, the idea of skipping to get to routes is so common in the VN medium in general that I can't understand your point.

 

Spoiler

The syndrome doesn't represent the message though. What it basically says is "people suffering from a psychosis (or whatever you want to call it) see the world differently from others". If they hadn't been sick, they would have seen everything more or less the same way Mio and Takeshi did. And when you take away the characters suffering from the syndrome, there isn't that much left in the VN to convey the message.

My point about the time spent on side routes is that the VN takes more than 10 hours of your time to tell you close to nothing. The heroines had different delusions from the protagonist. So what?

 

1 hour ago, Mobotium said:
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There are indications. Takuru wished for her to help him do what he wants, and she was created out of that wish. Saying that him wanting his parents to go away meant not having to deal with them is obvious, but how else would a recently created entity that embodies his desires fulfill that wish? If killing his parents ultimately led to his happiness, as it did, it seems like a perfectly reasonable action to take.

 

He does not take delight in other's suffering. What he does take delight in is in feeling superior to others. And at the peak of this desire are the murders that preceded the earthquake. He idolized the person who turned the case on its head proving he was not the killer as everyone, even the police, tought. His desire is ultimately for recognition. He wants to be known as superior to those around him. And that case symbolizes the ultimate expression of that desire.

 

So he does not have to enjoy the murders themselves and neither does Serika, the manifestation of his desire. In fact, she makes it clear even in the common route that she found the killings themselves disgusting and sick, but was willing to go through them because the case had to be absurd enough to draw as much attention to itself as possible. All that mattered was that Takuru was interested in the case, that he felt the excitement of it slowly closing in on him, the despair of being marked as the perpetrator and the ultimate feeling of superiority as he proved to all those wrong-siders that he was the only one who had reached the truth.

 

Spoiler

If this isn't incredibly convoluted for a motive, I don't know what is. If you go this route, you can turn almost everone's deepest wishes into a reason for mass murder. Imagine Takuru was a peace activist and his hero was Mahatma Gandhi. Serika probably would have founded a colonial power and conquered Japan just so Takuru could become the leader of peaceful protests and free his people.

 

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The syndrome doesn't represent the message though. What it basically says is "people suffering from a psychosis (or whatever you want to call it) see the world differently from others". If they hadn't been sick, they would have seen everything more or less the same way Mio and Takeshi did. And when you take away the characters suffering from the syndrome, there isn't that much left in the VN to convey the message.

My point about the time spent on side routes is that the VN takes more than 10 hours of your time to tell you close to nothing. The heroines had different delusions from the protagonist. So what?

Spoiler

Well, let me go through the some things in the novel that work to convey this message:

 

The whole idea of gigalomania is to make delusions reality, to take the world you believe to be true and make others see it as real.

 

The concept of a wrong-sider is someone who is content with low quality information. In the novel they are the average net user, making stupid comments and theories about things they don't understand. In other words, they make the wrong conclusions based on their limited worldview. It ties in directly with the message, and is present is numerous situations in the story.

 

Itou being confused at his classmates not caring about the murders happening so close to them.

 

Takuru's classmates sneering at him, but later changing the way they treated him due to their perspective of him also changing and, thus, changing his perspective of them.

 

Takuru's reaction when he was lied to about his parent's death.

 

The reaction Takuru had to threads about his sister's death, or when his family's information was posted online, compared to the reactions of the people commenting on those threads.

 

The whole thing about psychopaths at the end of the common route, how they simply see the world differently.

 

The entire true route is Serika interpreting what she learns based on what she knows and it shows a big contrast between her worldview and the one the other characters, and the reader, have based on the information they have access to.

 

Many of these and other possible examples are simple and, perhaps, minor. But they all show how different minds interpret the same thing in different ways based on their own ideas and experiences.

 

The heroine routes all work to convey this as well:

 

In Arimura's route the value of truth is put into question. In her world, lies are the greatest sin, and truth is what she desires. She cannot comprehend the value of a white lie, and that ultimately leads to what remained of her family breaking apart. You could argue that she would never have know it was a lie without her powers, but the fact stands that in her mind she would never have accepted it.

 

Hana's route is a whole other perspective on the world. A fantastical story with monsters, heroes and a final boss to defeat, much like the games and movies she immerses herself in. That is the world she knows best, and the world she retreats to in loneliness and guilt.

 

Uki lives for others. Her world is filled with kind people who would do no wrong to her or others. It is how she sees others, or rather, how she chooses to see them.

 

Nono is filled with self-deprecation and doubt. In her mind, Kawahara has always hated the real her, loved the fake her, and in general represents her self hatred. Towards Serika she is jealous, as she treasures her ties with her adopted brother and is jealous of his reliance on Serika. Her idea of Serika is a selfish girl who lives not for Takuru as she claims, but for herself. Which obviously contrasts with her real personality.

 

All of these routes show us the worlds the heroines desire, and give us a glimpse into the way they see others and how they interpret situations and the world around them. The syndrome is merely a more forced representation of the same idea. Especially when you consider that it is something the patients wished for, wherever knowingly or not.

 

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If this isn't incredibly convoluted for a motive, I don't know what is. If you go this route, you can turn almost everone's deepest wishes into a reason for mass murder. Imagine Takuru was a peace activist and his hero was Mahatma Gandhi. Serika probably would have founded a colonial power and conquered Japan just so Takuru could become the leader of peaceful protests and free his people.

Spoiler

I think it's pretty clear cut to be honest. He desired to be special, to stand above others. And what he considered the ultimate resolution of that wish was the plot Serika followed. In a alternate universe where the thing he most desired was to stand up to a oppressive regime, Serika might very well have worked to create a oppressive regime if none existed in the first place. That was her purpose after all.

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10 minutes ago, Mobotium said:

 

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The syndrome doesn't represent the message though. What it basically says is "people suffering from a psychosis (or whatever you want to call it) see the world differently from others". If they hadn't been sick, they would have seen everything more or less the same way Mio and Takeshi did. And when you take away the characters suffering from the syndrome, there isn't that much left in the VN to convey the message.

My point about the time spent on side routes is that the VN takes more than 10 hours of your time to tell you close to nothing. The heroines had different delusions from the protagonist. So what?

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All of these routes show us the worlds the heroines desire, and give us a glimpse into the way they see others and how they interpret situations and the world around them. The syndrome is merely a more forced representation of the same idea. Especially when you consider that it is something the patients wished for, wherever knowingly or not.

 

Spoiler

Most of what you're describing are either character motivations or people reacting to new or incomplete information. If C;C didn't contain these things, the twist undermining the themes of the VN would be its least problem. And the rest basically comes down to "people are ignorant".

I'll admit that Hinae's power and Nono's route actually have interesting ideas. The "different perspectives" theme doesn't hold up though when there never is any ambiguity in the story. In the reality of the narrative there's always a right and a wrong side. The premise of people being able to change reality through the way the view the world is an extremely interesting one. But C;C neither properly explores this premise nor works as a straightforward thriller and instead goes for the message "people are different".

Another (probably unintended) aesop I took from C;C is "never have an egoistical thought, even as a child, or people will die." Young Takuru wants to be admired -> everyone he loves gets killed. Hinae wants her mother to not lie to her -> mother turns crazy six years later and goes on a killing spree. Takuru doesn't want to get killed and asks Hana for help -> Huge mosters appear and kill passengers. Senri wants to be someone more popular -> she gets taken in by a psychopathic killer. Not to speak of all the victims of chaos child syndrome who sometimes got killed and - even worse - turned into elderly people.

 

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11 hours ago, alpacaman said:
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Most of what you're describing are either character motivations or people reacting to new or incomplete information. If C;C didn't contain these things, the twist undermining the themes of the VN would be its least problem. And the rest basically comes down to "people are ignorant".

I'll admit that Hinae's power and Nono's route actually have interesting ideas. The "different perspectives" theme doesn't hold up though when there never is any ambiguity in the story. In the reality of the narrative there's always a right and a wrong side. The premise of people being able to change reality through the way the view the world is an extremely interesting one. But C;C neither properly explores this premise nor works as a straightforward thriller and instead goes for the message "people are different".

Another (probably unintended) aesop I took from C;C is "never have an egoistical thought, even as a child, or people will die." Young Takuru wants to be admired -> everyone he loves gets killed. Hinae wants her mother to not lie to her -> mother turns crazy six years later and goes on a killing spree. Takuru doesn't want to get killed and asks Hana for help -> Huge mosters appear and kill passengers. Senri wants to be someone more popular -> she gets taken in by a psychopathic killer. Not to speak of all the victims of chaos child syndrome who sometimes got killed and - even worse - turned into elderly people.

 

Spoiler

Ignorance, motivations, misunderstandings and miscommunications all have a part in this. The fact that such things are expected parts of the average story does not invalidate that they take a bigger role in this particular one. The idea that people see things differently is heavily related to the flow of information in this novel, as exemplified by the concept of wrong-siders and right-siders.

 

The syndrome, at its core, forces a change in perspective in those affected by it and leads them to see and understand reality differently. The same is true of the heroine routes, where their own perspectives change how they see and comprehend reality. Both of these are plot devices to put that same concept into perspective. Ultimately, I agree you can summarize the idea as "people are different". It is a simple and, perhaps, obvious concept, but one that is worth understanding nonetheless especially considering how relevant it is in modern society. The novel then constructs various social criticism based on this idea, combined with concepts like the flow of information, the enlightened generation, the internet in general and mob mentality. To me, this construction is done in a good and meaningful way.

 

As for your aesop (had to look that up), the idea seems so removed from the rest of the novel that I can only assume it's unintended.

 

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Midori no umi

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Fuck this vn is retarded. Its quite awesome in the beginning and middle stages, but everyone starts acting like retards in the last routes. Innocent people gets murdered since the beginning (even mc gets murdered by the main girl when she tricks him into thinking she would help him to get away), and towards the end the people figure out who's the killers, but they dobt seem to care. They still talk to them as usual and respect at least one of them. Im getting a headache from this idiocy.

 

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On the latter part of Sorceress Alive. Definitely no regrets playing this. If I didn't have exams tomorrow, I would probably binge this until I finish it. It's an ambitious game that tries too be a lot of things. It tries to be at the same scale of Muv-luv Alternative but seriously it lacks the production values MLA had, so it dampened the enjoyment a bit. After I finish this game I'll try to post on the blog again

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So I read Aviary Attorney, and basically it's Ace Attorney with BoJack Horseman's sense of humor and a pretty unique art style set in France in 1848. The gameplay mainly focuses on the investigations and not the actual trials. Aviary Attorney's shortness is its main flaw (Ace A has cases that are longer than all of Aviary A), leaving little time for character development and even most major characters are pretty flat. Still, it's a fun way to spend a few hours, especially if you're suffering from Ace Attorney withdrawal or would like to see a more mature take on the lawyer game genre.

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Katawa Shoujo: completed all of Hanako's route, finished with the bad end. Honestly, her outburst at the end really resonated with me. As someone who has dealt with social inadequacy similar to hers (as well as several underlying mental illnesses), I really hate it when people treat me like a weak child that needs to be protected. So many people have treated me like I'm some kind of alien or exotic animal whenever they heard about my mental illnesses. It's like I wasn't even a person beyond my social anxiety. I'll admit that I was at first wary of how the Hanako route would go since I've seen so many other stories where the token shy character is coddled and patronized. Seeing that the good ending requires you to view Hanako as her own person beyond her trauma and having the bad end rub that in your face felt incredibly cathartic to me. I also completed the Shizune and Lilly routes before this, and I'm surprised how fast it's all going by. Even though I'm not a big fan of romance, it's a pretty great VN so far.

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Finished all the routes I could stand in Brass Restoration: the only ones left was the childhood friend character and a girl who referred to herself in the third person..so fuck that noise!

It was decent enough for an indie vn made in 2004, the writing could be quite good at times, surprisingly enough.

I also finished playing Void and I thought it was quite good even though it had one of the worst editing jobs I've ever seen(They claimed to have fixed it but since I didn't want to pay for that gamble, the world may never know)

Now I'm going to play Sound of Drop: Fall Into Poison, and I hate that it's not called Sound of the Drop since it's proper grammar and just sounds better.

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Majikoi.. cant say im overly fond of it. Some things are hysterical, some things are pretty funny, but the amount of miss humor is big as well. I also feel like the vn goes through some anime checklist of including as many harem type plot cliches as possible. 

I do like most of the characters though. Chris is the exception. The vn would be better without her. She adds nothing and actually ruined a fun group dynamic.

Im not overly fond of all the the yuri fanservice either. And another thing is that none seem into Yamato at all(except the obvious exception), and might rather at times look like they're fond of other guys instead. I wonder how they're going to convince me with the routes. Some one sided realization and spontaneous love confession certainly would not.

 

And yes,

Spoiler

Who decided to make a bubble headed invalid into the main/true heroine? I haven't reached that part yet obviously, but Koyuki is... Well... Not in any way at all interesting or appealing, and that's being very gentle about it.

 

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14 hours ago, Stormwolf said:
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Who decided to make a bubble headed invalid into the main/true heroine? I haven't reached that part yet obviously, but Koyuki is... Well... Not in any way at all interesting or appealing, and that's being very gentle about it.

 

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Been a while since I played this, but I'm pretty certain she's not a heroine at all (zero H scenes, zero involvement with Yamato). The last route is... different from the others.

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3 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:
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Been a while since I played this, but I'm pretty certain she's not a heroine at all (zero H scenes, zero involvement with Yamato). The last route is... different from the others.

Spoiler

So this is a case of true route gone wrong. That's certainly a downer. I'd totally go for a unappealing heroine than nothing for the true route. Casual sex is not something that makes up for a lack of central heroine. The vn already has a friendship route, why go for two?

 

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1 hour ago, Stormwolf said:
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So this is a case of true route gone wrong. That's certainly a downer. I'd totally go for a unappealing heroine than nothing for the true route. Casual sex is not something that makes up for a lack of central heroine. The vn already has a friendship route, why go for two?

The VN has a lot of endings and routes. I can tell you which exist without being too specific:

Spoiler

There are 5 main routes, 6 sub-routes (3 friendship ones) and 1 hidden route (the one you're referring to), as well as a few other endings. The hidden one is about the Kazama family, instead of focusing on a heroine. That's very much on purpose. You don't need to like that, but there's still routes for everyone else, so it shouldn't be a problem.

 

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5 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

The VN has a lot of endings and routes. I can tell you which exist without being too specific:

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There are 5 main routes, 6 sub-routes (3 friendship ones) and 1 hidden route (the one you're referring to), as well as a few other endings. The hidden one is about the Kazama family, instead of focusing on a heroine. That's very much on purpose. You don't need to like that, but there's still routes for everyone else, so it shouldn't be a problem.

 

Spoiler

Just wish creators stop making true routes in vn's such as this. It is considered the true route if i'm not mistaken. Kind of devalues everything other than that particular route and the whole vn if that route lacks appeal.

 

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1 minute ago, Stormwolf said:
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Just wish creators stop making true routes in vn's such as this. It is considered the true route if i'm not mistaken. Kind of devalues everything other than that particular route and the whole vn if that route lacks appeal.

 

An interesting point of view. Well, no need to worry. You'll never face that problem again with the Majikoi series. The rest of it is kind of bonkers in how it's structured.

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2 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

An interesting point of view. Well, no need to worry. You'll never face that problem again with the Majikoi series. The rest of it is kind of bonkers in how it's structured.

Spoiler

Well, seeing as that is THE end of Majikoi as a story (fandisc routes aside), i don't think i'll ever see it again, thats true :P 

 

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Majikoi again:

Spoiler

It's weird i haven't heard about this before. I'd select Momoyo's route for the last if i knew what would happen at the end. The route was awesome, no doubt about that. I loved almost every part of it. That war was an amazing read. Even though i don't really like the "oneesan" heroines, i could not dislike Momoyo. She's just awesome. What i did not like was that Cap broke a serious brocode of trying to steal a friend (best friend in this case) love interest. It might have been meant as comedic, but in my eyes it was a dirt move which now affects my view on him as a whole.

 

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I dropped Sakura Sakura - it was just too annoying to read. Having a completely useless and indecisive hetare protagonist just isn't fun. Especially in a scenario with lots of bullying.

I kinda liked Kurumi and Sakura though, but Tooru mostly seemed to interact just with Nanako, Akira and Naoki instead. And those three really got on my nerves after a while.

It would have been nice to be able to have Masashi as the protagonist, since he's actually a really cool guy, but you're only allowed to play two dorks instead. *sigh*

Rating: 4/10

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4 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

Majikoi again:

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It's weird i haven't heard about this before. I'd select Momoyo's route for the last if i knew what would happen at the end. The route was awesome, no doubt about that. I loved almost every part of it. That war was an amazing read. Even though i don't really like the "oneesan" heroines, i could not dislike Momoyo. She's just awesome. What i did not like was that Cap broke a serious brocode of trying to steal a friend (best friend in this case) love interest. It might have been meant as comedic, but in my eyes it was a dirt move which now affects my view on him as a whole.

 

Spoiler

How so? Momoyo had already rejected Yamato. Don't see it as any kind of 'dick move' unless you mean that any romantic interest becomes forever forbidden between bros. I'd then comment, however, on the slightly problematic drops of possessiveness (i.e. "she's mine"). Momoyo's choice of Yamato is meaningful because it's that, a choice that she's allowed to make.

 

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4 hours ago, Jun Inoue said:
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How so? Momoyo had already rejected Yamato. Don't see it as any kind of 'dick move' unless you mean that any romantic interest becomes forever forbidden between bros. I'd then comment, however, on the slightly problematic drops of possessiveness (i.e. "she's mine"). Momoyo's choice of Yamato is meaningful because it's that, a choice that she's allowed to make.

 

Capt didnt know about romance and everyone knew Yamato and Momoyo had a thing going on. Dont forget that Yamato explained why he was rejected, and that was because he hadnt fulfilled his promise to her, which was what he was doing at the time. Capt just found out he liked her blushing face after she and Yamato were flirting aftrr the war, and went for her without reserve and care. It was a dick move.

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43 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

Capt didnt know about romance and everyone knew Yamato and Momoyo had a thing going on. Dont forget that Yamato explained why he was rejected, and that was because he hadnt fulfilled his promise to her, which was what he was doing at the time. Capt just found out he liked her blushing face after she and Yamato were flirting aftrr the war, and went for her without reserve and care. It was a dick move.

There is no such thing as claiming women, though. It would have been a dick move if Yamato hadn't even confessed or expressed his feelings in any way and Captian just passed all over him cuz "omg I just realized she's super cute". The moment Yamato confessed, and claimed that he'd work to become the man he had promised to be, the choice was on Momoyo's hands. Yamato's feelings were known to her. There can be no unfairness or dick moves because Captain isn't trampling over Yamato, impeding or denying his confession; it has already happened. Hell, Gakuto tends to always try and flirt with Momoyo, and I don't see any complains about how he doesn't "back off". It's only a dick move if you don't consider Momoyo her own person, with her own mind and capacity to make choices. At the end of the day, the only possibility would have been for her to answer yes or no to captain. And if she had said yes, it would have meant that she liked him more than Yamato (who had already expressed his feelings), and it would be Yamato's dick move to try and keep her on a "reserved" status until she said yes to him. Apart from the fact that Captain doesn't rush without reserve, he openly tells Yamato, and he "accepts".

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1 hour ago, Jun Inoue said:

There is no such thing as claiming women, though. It would have been a dick move if Yamato hadn't even confessed or expressed his feelings in any way and Captian just passed all over him cuz "omg I just realized she's super cute". The moment Yamato confessed, and claimed that he'd work to become the man he had promised to be, the choice was on Momoyo's hands. Yamato's feelings were known to her. There can be no unfairness or dick moves because Captain isn't trampling over Yamato, impeding or denying his confession; it has already happened. Hell, Gakuto tends to always try and flirt with Momoyo, and I don't see any complains about how he doesn't "back off". It's only a dick move if you don't consider Momoyo her own person, with her own mind and capacity to make choices. At the end of the day, the only possibility would have been for her to answer yes or no to captain. And if she had said yes, it would have meant that she liked him more than Yamato (who had already expressed his feelings), and it would be Yamato's dick move to try and keep her on a "reserved" status until she said yes to him. Apart from the fact that Captain doesn't rush without reserve, he openly tells Yamato, and he "accepts".

Between friends at that age there is certainly a thing like claiming a woman. Same goes for girls as they do the same. I didnt read everything as i cant read sjw nonsense without getting pissed off. Yeah, go try getting it on with a girl your friend is either trying to date or is dating, but not in a official relationship with and see how long your friendship lasts.  I mean, even if you're a sjw its still allowed to make use of your head.

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10 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

Between friends at that age there is certainly a thing like claiming a woman. Same goes for girls as they do the same. I didnt read everything as i cant read sjw nonsense without getting pissed off. Yeah, go try getting it on with a girl your friend is either trying to date or is dating, but not in a official relationship with and see how long your friendship lasts.  I mean, even if you're a sjw its still allowed to make use of your head.

Well, this certainly derived into a very out of topic discussion. I'll just finish my participation (would have no problem through private messaging) saying that I find it a bit of a sad accusation, to accuse me of being some sort of radical leftist for believing in female autonomy and choice over the "bros before hoes" bro code mentality, and waving away my argument with a disrespectful and insulting "I didn't read everything cuz it's sjw nonsense".

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51 minutes ago, Jun Inoue said:

Well, this certainly derived into a very out of topic discussion. I'll just finish my participation (would have no problem through private messaging) saying that I find it a bit of a sad accusation, to accuse me of being some sort of radical leftist for believing in female autonomy and choice over the "bros before hoes" bro code mentality, and waving away my argument with a disrespectful and insulting "I didn't read everything cuz it's sjw nonsense".

I'll admit that i went a bit far with that comment. Still, however female autonomy has nothing to do with male friendship dynamics and unspoken rules though.

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