Shira Oka: Second Chances - Let's Play an American game that thinks it's Japanese

We were all thinking that.

Münchausen syndrome by proxy?

YES. THIS. I didn't know how to put it into words BUT YES YES YES. It feels like she's purposefully trying to keep him behind with the whole skipping thing. Though, I don't think the reason why is for positive attention towards her over her being a "good caretaker", since she really isn't getting that sort of attention. I'm not sure what it is, but I was leaning more towards the fact that keeping him in a "sick role" is in an of itself the goal, but beyond that, it's vague. And, probably, I'm wrong, but I have a bad feeling about that.

I had to go back and reread the whole thread because it's all kinds of amazing. And I've realized that Shira Oka is The Third Policeman: The Game. Also, Penguin has the same birthday as me. :D

And Elyscape, here's a gif for you to use when you need to fist pump:

...Sailor Moon cosplay! Yay!

That's not cosplay, that's from the official series. ;) It's from the live action version of Sailor Moon, also known as Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. It's awesome and you should watch it.

I AM FAMILIAR WITH ALL THE CANONS.

For the love of god.

NEVER FUCKING QUESTION NEKO ON HER SAILOR MOON.

You will lose.

Having just read through the entire thread (though interrupted by an Opera), I have a thing to say (beyond the usual ITS GREAT, very entertaining, etc.):

I'm sure the effect is even more pronounced when actually playing the game, but even when reading this the events start to blur together. In the second run your memory is fresh from the first, and you remember identical events clearly. But then it goes on, and on, and on, until you reach a point where you are no longer sure if you've seen this variation before.

It makes me think; how many loops will Penguin go through before he no longer remembers a beginning anymore?

Who says he hasn't already?

"To make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."

Unless you're Penguin, then to make an end is to try and save Yui and get struck by Bus-chan. Or veering too much from Satsuko's plan.

And Penguin still doesn't have it as bad as Homura. Or Phil Connors.

Nope. Just repeat one day in a podunk town he hates for so long that he actually memorized everything about every person in that town and everything that would happen in the course of that day down to the second. Dude got Stockholme Syndrome for a town.

Isn't that what Penguin's doing? Plus two dudes?

Correction: it's what Penguin's TRYING to do.

:P

Well, I'm not sure with Homura actually. Sure, what she experiences each cycle is definitely worse, but she chooses to go back and redo it. Penguin has no such choice; indeed, even when he tries to kill himself (well, I guess he hasn't really done that so far, but it'd most likely be the same as for Bus-chan) he gets sent back - in effect granting him unwanted and involuntary immortality. Now that's scary.

Also, the scale of Penguin's loop is different from most cases due to the fact he's doing 2-3 years of straight time each cycle.

That is an insane amount of time to live through the same events, even given the odd, inexplicable variations that crop up. Indeed, those variations would likely just make it even worse by removing the sense of familiarity and stopping you from doing the "I've already lived this so often I know exactly what to do" thing most long-term loopers employ.

Given that, at minimum, I believe he needs 11 repetitions, and only one of those will be cut short in the ideal cycle (I might be wrong, though), that's thirty years. Assuming the player does perfectly on every cycle.

There are worse loop cycles, to be sure (Yuki Nagato's subjective 600 years during the endless eight and the Phantom Stranger's potential two to ten thousand years if you accept that origin story come to mind), but this one is particularly nasty.

I would argue that Homura's choice actually makes it worse for her. If Penguin doesn't like the way things are going, well he didn't ask for this now did he? He can curse Satsuko, find some kind of zen state of I-don't-give-a-fuck, rise up to Satsuko's standards, or after enough "failed" attempts maybe talk her around into stopping. There's really no way for anything he does to wind him in a worse situation than he started from and plenty of ways for it to get better (not to mention plenty of ways to fulfill Satsuko's vague requirements of bettering his life). But Homura? She's arguably making things worse every time she goes back. Every time she fails is a direct blow against her sanity and self-esteem. "Why can't I save her? Am I not trying hard enough? I must be a terrible friend/person." That hope that maybe this time I'll get it right just makes it all the more difficult for her to stop, especially as Homura's only options are "Save Madoka" or "Give Up" wherein giving up means admitting the person who (by this point) is her reason for living is doomed to a painful, miserable death and selling her soul was a wasted effort.

What you are saying makes sense, and given the choice I'd definitely go for Penguin's situation - but I still feel that there is something very horrible in the thought of a situation from which you may potentially never escape, ever. (To go with speculation beyond the game; what if Satsuko, as discussed earlier, is a demon and will never let Penguin stop the cycle?)

True enough. I suppose it's difficult for me to really take it seriously as a terrible situation when the most terrible thing that's happened (that didn't come completely out of nowhere like the demonic possession) is Penguin's inability to stop Kasumi's suicide, something that he wasn't even aware of the first time around. And because it's Penguin, who is just kind of passively annoyed at everything at worst and at best is taking looping as a proper opportunity to improve.

Wait. What?

As long as we're on the subject, I remember reading somewhere once that the amount of time the main character groundhog day was supposedly something along the line of thousands of years...? Let me see if I can find it...

*searches internets*

Ah! Here we go!

Begin the filk!
This is the day that never ends.
It keeps repeating my friends.
He is not sure how it started.
But he'll keep repeating the day.
Why this torture? Just because.
This is the day that never ends.

Because Penguin's experience changes every cycle, he can't memorize exactly what's going to happen and become a God of Time, or at least manage to have sex with someone.

Well, I think it's more that he's an idiot. He never stops the bus incident.

He seems to get his brains scrambled slightly on reloop, or you think his grades would go up faster...

^THIS THIS MOTHERFUCKING THIS AAARRGH *twitch* *froth*

So much more like Quantum Leap rather than Groundhog Day.

This is something I've been wondering about for a WHILE now. You'd think he'd at least memorize the order of the answers bubbles, but apparently not!

I liked the way they handled the time loop idea on Day Break, where only the main character was conscious of being in the loop but everyone else had sort of a strange feeling that something was different, so he could change the loop by just trying to alter an event over and over until another person just woke up that morning and did something different.

Now that I think about it, that could get creepy real fast in a dating game because it'd translate to "this loop, everyone loves you without knowing why."

You mean, like how the girls are suddenly much more interested in him and do not wonder how he, apparently overnight, suddenly became much better at studying, more charming, and seems to know some events before they happen?

And how he has all their phone numbers.

Well, that part could just be plain old stalking.

Ha. Well, knowing things before they happen is the normal time loop thing. I was thinking more along the lines of permanent changes to everyone's heart meters. Unless I completely missed something and Penguin doesn't start that from scratch.

Getting back on topic only cuckoolander thinks it normal Penguin-kun has phone number.

You saying that in addition to your profile picture makes everything hilarious.

To a certain extent, mind, Penguin's inability to memorize the tests is due to simple human limitations. He's got three years worth of events to remember, and even with the Eidetic Memory Perk, he can only remember so much. At the same time, the experience spent raising his stats could be assumed to represent, at least in part, his getting better at remembering the information and re-learning thanks to his already having the fundamentals.

On the other hand, the inability to ever remember that the Beach Party will be canceled due to lack of interest or that the stores will be closed on New Year's is aggravating.