Which TM relationship is the most toxic?

[OnesFleetingGlory]

There's a good reason Akiha is afraid to tell Tohno the truth. Imagine being told that your whole identity is a lie, and you're only just told after years isolated from the main family, living a normal and peaceful life, only to be called back for their conveniences rather than for your own sake. At least I'd be bitter were I in his shoes.

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

I mean, better tell it before everything goes to shit as opposed to as it's happening.

[Ideofago]

I mean, if all of someone's options are failure and catastrophic failure, I hardly consider the person in question capable of being sensible.

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

Yeah, you got me there.

[Comun]

Not to mention honest communication is Akiha's weakest suit.

[pinetree]

Akiha sacrificed her honesty so she could get a cool villanous CG by the window every time Shiki finds something out. It was worth it.

[madarra]

and Nasu apparently regretted making Akiha so "soft" in the original, which makes it seem to me that Red Garden, and Akiha specifically, is going to be next level fucked up.

Where is that one from? Nasu's OG Tsuki play by play just said he doesn't want Akiha to use her "sad" sprite before her own route iirc.

[Altima of the Gates]

I don’t know if you’re referring to these comments, warellis, but this is what I found on page 17 of the English translation of the HF 1 booklet concerning Archer and Sakura:



By the way, Altima. My memory of the quote is fuzzy, but I believe Nasu said something about Archer in Extraverse and Archer in FSN being the same existence, but different people. IIRC, he made this comment because people complained about Archer being out of character in Extraverse. If my memory of the quote isn’t too far off from what Nasu actually said, and if I’m understanding his meaning correctly, I’m not sure how much of Extraverse Archer’s behavior and values can be used to explain or predict FSN Archer’s behavior and values.

As for Shirou’s blackouts and memory gaps in HF, I’m with SirGau and Rafflesiac. I don’t remember there being any evidence that Archer took over Shirou in those moments. With how Shirou’s mind falls apart in that route, I think it’s more reasonable to conclude his blackouts and memory gaps are related to that. All the same, if you’re still interested in talking about this topic, would you mind expanding on your points to help me better understand where you’re coming from?

EMIYA isn't unique in being ambiguous for what a Servant remembers between incarnations, just the reasoning seems flimsy, didn't Nasu try to give some new term about the moment EMIYA as Shirou meeting Saber was a something Phantasm and sounded kinda cheesy?
My problem is its hard to parse where its shoutouts and callous for fanservice or what he does and doesn't remember. Just doesn't fly with me.

As for my theory about Archer taking over Shirou, there was that one scene when they recreate the Jewel Sword where Rin comes in and Shirou clutches Rin's pendant, where it clicked for her in HF who EMIYA was. Where Shirou says that he has to keep the pendant with him always, but notes him voicing that are not his words. Also bits of Sparks Liner High, with Shirou's elation at fighting Saber, I do remember a couple lines that looked like he was getting more into it with being "bonded" in a way with EMIYA. That was what made me question those memory lapses in HF as more than just "Shirou blacks out but is strangely doing things like cooking coherently". Though I have heard stories of people cooking while sleepwalking, so there is that.

[ItsaRandomUsername]

WhaT aN iTOxiCATingLy ToOoxXxiiicCCc rELAtiOnsHiP

What a battered wife, that Shiki is.

[Rafflesiac]

I can't believe he had to carry her bags.

[aldeayeah]

Could be the reason why Makihisa adopted Shiki in the first place. When onis don't want to invert and go around hurting strangers, it's very convenient to have a born assassin conditioned to attack anything supernatural on sight. At least on paper.

A huge thing to consider is that by the starting point of Tsukihime, Akiha is already planning to die from whatever Kohaku was going to throw at her. Calling Shiki back doubles as spending her last days with someone she loved and giving Kohaku an ideal tool to kill Akiha with.

Back in the day I always thought the main reason was keeping Shiki safe because SHIKI was on the loose.

dunno if there's any actual textual evidence for that though

[kohaku]

I think it counts as a relationship because I think for a long time Sakura considered it semi-consensual. Her resistance to and ultimate murder of Shinji in HF has to do with the fact that she has found something that is hers or that she wants more than that, rather than indicating that she had always had a problem with it. So see?

Shinji mentioned it in his last scene:

Yes, the sequence is always the same.
This man is the absolute master.
The girl loses her will.
The only resistance came during the first time.
The secret affairs after that were the same.
The girl made no attempt to fight back, never showing even a sign of emotion.
She did like she was told to.

He confirmed Sakura always resist him in the beginning, but she usually gives up after that.
Shinji is the guy who fits with the concept of " sadist rapist". He gains his lust by "conquering" his victim.


I even have to find and ask a rape victim about it. She ( she is hard-core anti-Nasu and Sakura) confirms that many rape cases will not be violent as we saw in films, because the victims usually will freeze when it happens to them. Shocking, she says the scene in HF movie 2 is more realistic than in the novel ( HF route, day 14, murder scene - Shinji beats Sakura very cruel). And she hates the way people blame these people like her with logic " if you hate it, why you don't resist to the end?".

By the way, she hates Nasu from the time he writes Shirou to rape Rin and justify him with " if she hates it, why she doesn't push me out?". Rin is freezing, she can't.

[Altima of the Gates]

Well the sticking point is its dodgy to call the situation semi-consensual, because she at one corner of her mind considered that she was at fault for him not being the heir.
A punishment is a punishment, its not consensual in any form or fashion because its acceptance under duress. Even if you consent to a punishment, that isn't what you want to occur.
So its a tenuous situation where she could just kill him, but doesn't want to because she can feel empathy, going to the cops can have any number of issues (she goes to the authorities or a reasonable adult, he gets arrested and his life is ruined AND she has to consider what would happen after he gets out of jail, or Zouken hypnotoads the cops/adults to go away and Sakura has to deal with the fallout of calling the cops on him). Domestic disputes, much less ones with family members are not as cut and dry as "smack em and its all good".
Nasu does say that if she treats him like garbage she'd have a better go of things in CM2, so what I'm guessing its getting at is if she just crushed his figurative balls he'd somehow be more docile. But as we saw in Hollow that whole change in the dynamic of the household only came about because she was free with her Servant at her side, so Nasu might be slightly disingenuous in that take with a "eh, if she went 180 degrees to a dom queen everything would be better".
so slightly where Kohaku was getting at, its edging slightly into the victim blaming territory.

Back in the day I always thought the main reason was keeping Shiki safe because SHIKI was on the loose.

dunno if there's any actual textual evidence for that though

There's nuance to it. Its definitely a situation where bad communication causes more problems than just enduring an honest but sobering talk.
I mean whoo boy. That house of cards was on flames ages ago though, like, why the hell would you give the child you abused a college level education in medicine with a person who knows the particulars of demon hybrids?
It was a matter when things would fall apart, not when.

[Deathhappens]

What are you talking about? Like what actual scene?

I don't know how I ended up never answering this, but I meant this scene.

[Altima of the Gates]

That person's commentary is always golden for these. And hmm, seeing it again, makes me think, who wrote that femdomish Eclipse in Hollow with the Team Purple threesome. If it wasn't Nasu, methinks that being tamed might be a collective kink around their offices.

[Petrikow]

And hmm, seeing it again, makes me think, who wrote that femdomish Eclipse in Hollow with the Team Purple threesome. If it wasn't Nasu, methinks that being tamed might be a collective kink around their offices.

A person known as Aramoto Kei (who is a freelancer) wrote the Hollow Ataraxia H-scenes, though I imagine with supervision from someone at TM.

I will readily admit that I only know this because they're credited as much on vndb, so take that as you will.

[Mattias]

That has to be an awkward job, writing porn for your boss. Imagine walking into a meeting and being told that you need to add extra seafood imagery. Or your boss going too in depth about why the vore is the part that holds everything together.

[warellis]

That has to be an awkward job, writing porn for your boss. Imagine walking into a meeting and being told that you need to add extra seafood imagery. Or your boss going too in depth about why the vore is the part that holds everything together.

But what if you enjoy writing porn? Is it awkward then?

[Mattias]

I guess it depends on how well you can deal with knowing someones fetish. What if you find out they have a thing for NTR and then a few weeks later invite you to dinner with their SO? Or they have one of those fetishes where they like to dress and act like a baby?

[Altima of the Gates]

I have a feeling a lot of people in this business are pretty open about when talking shop with each other.
I'd wager if you're collaborating, its because you have similiar interests or maybe seek each other out as fellow fans. The latter, seems to be the case in many of the collaborators were already longtime readers of TM stuff.
Hell, we could bring back Nasu and Kojima going to the movies, and doesn't Nisio hang with them, or was Nisio just acquaintances with Urobuchi? Ryukishi is an obvious mention too.
I'd imagine there is quite a web to trace back with some of these people's networks.