mochi

thanks so much, i think about them a lot lol and absolutely! in my head, shuake in general are on each other's (freak) wavelengths about 80% of the time, and it's that other semi-rare 20% where complications arise,

hence them taking like several months to officially get together after they start traveling alone!

@codeayla I'm glad you enjoyed all the endings! And don't worry, it's not about right or wrong. The choices were meant to be difficult on purpose, as they are all things Goro would say. The start menu changes are one of my favorite details too, I go into it in the BTS but I was actually unsure about adding it at first. The subway was something that I just felt a sudden itch to add, very late at night, and I'm so glad to have to.

So sorry for the Lavenza track trauma-- I had to use it beause I got fed up with AI music and decided to look into the real classics instead. I even thought it was a rather obscure one as I don't usually hear this Chopin melody on things.

AND THANK YOUU!!! There are indeed many many details in this. Some are not even something you can see in game aha.

@rarrrr74 Glad you loved it, and hope you enjoy the replay!

There is a lot about the endings in the behind-the-scenes, but the short answer is no: Maruki isn't doing it because he can't help it. He is, as the final battle says, doing it 'because Goro himself wishes to be hurt.' Goro would just never agree to such a truth, even in his own thoughts, but there are some signs of it. Maruki doesn't even like going that far.

(The no choice also amuses me a lot. I had to.)

@blueetwo This is such a sweet comment. Thank you so much for taking so long to go through all the effort to compile everything you loved it ;; It makes me happy I went the extra mile on all the details. It's good to know they were appreciated and seen. I am very amused at how you ended up finding the Star end, in some way that is the best way to even find it, but I am aware I made the choices a bit hard to guess, so I had to include a guide. It means a lot to me you had so much fun choosing all options that you stumbled upong it <3 I could go on about how much I love everything you also pointed out, but there wouldn't be much to say other than: thank you!!

the song is let him speak, it's part of 'Essential Game Music Pack' by Bell Kalengar, the person whose tracks i used the most in the entire game if you check the 'about' within the game.

They are indeed! And yeap they are chosen on purpose as well :) This is the ending where Goro is officially 'gone' for good.

Thank you!! That was the goal ehe. I spent a while studying the official transition before making my own.

@stilesverse The reason I was able to do this in such a short time is to not be taken as an example... I was quite open about it on Tumblr, but I did really sacrifice a lot of my mental health and stamina for this. With 10 hour script rewriting, no breaks, sessions... Still, I am proud of myself for having gotten it done, and I am even happier that it was worth it and appreciated <333 It's overwhelming to know such a sacrifice didn't go to waste. Thank you so much for following this journey as I'm pretty sure I've seen you around on the tags :] <333

@madamekudo So glad you are having a banger week! And thank you for your wish to support me. I honestly don't think I could have brought myself to charge for it, but it really would mean the world to me if people buy the behind the scenes read read through it and its extra content and details :) And!! The epilogue <3 I

@ankhkheperure Star end first try!!! I'm so happy to learn its basically 50-50 on whether someone managed to get it first try or not, because that means its difficult but not unreasonable. I hope you enjoy/take a look at the other endings too. And thank you so much !!! <333

Amazon made their service worse, to force people to pay for Prime.

Nowadays, if you order from Amazon, there is a week long delay before your package is shipped. (on purpose)

I remember when orders would ship out the same day. (I remember - it was real)

YouTube didn't used to have ads. Now, ads play in the middle of videos. (it's worse than TV ever was)

The best can opener I have owned is over 40 years old. Modern ones just don't hold up as well. (The ones I bought new broke ages ago)

The bread machine my mom got for her wedding lasted 30 years. It's been replaced twice in the last 5 years. (How can you fuck this up?)

The cardboard tubes in the middle of toilet paper rolls have gotten larger. (This too?) Companies increasing the price of the product while selling you less. (REALLY?)

It sounds crazy. (it's the truth) When you talk about it, YOU sound crazy. (it's true)

Even when people believe you (do they really), all they can say is "it sucks". (it's too big) Because the problem is so big, so pervasive, what can we even DO about it???

To get the necessary laws written and passed, we need politicians, to get the politicians elected we need information campaigns, to fund campaigns we need money, and all the money is being hoarded by the people profiting from enshittification. (it sounds so fake)

Enshittification isn't planned obsolescence, which is just making things shitter by putting a time limit on how long they function. It's a feature that serves the seller and the stock holders, not the customer. Enshittification is a process, not a feature.

The beginning part of enshittification is deliberately making a better product than the nearest competitors, and giving it to people for free.

An essential part of enshittification is not merely drawing you in with something good, but making you depend on it as a key underpinning of your life. The only way you communicate with many of your friends and family (Facebook). The only way to order most items you need, when you need them (Amazon). The only way to process online payments (PayPal). The only way to get up-to-the-minute news and send out emergency messages (Twitter).

The first version of the platform (and it is specifically a platform thing - a platform being something you use to accomplish your other projects) has to be so good that virtually no one goes anywhere else anymore.

That step is like the old Starbucks thing of opening a million locations, offering a quality product, undercutting the local competition until they go out of business and you can't go anywhere else, at which point the prices rise and the quality goes down. The standard monopoly playbook.

But enshittification is more insidious than that. It's about creating a (virtual) place that you need to use not simply to get one product, but to accomplish the important things in your life.

People don't stay on Facebook because it's the only way to socially interact online - it's not! People are trapped using Facebook even though they hate it because their elderly parents and high school friends use it and won't use anything else.

People don't leave Amazon because when you rely on deliveries (eg you are disabled, you live somewhere rural, you need a package your next day or your boss will kill you), with a Prime account, it's the only way to accomplish what you need. AND it's the only way to watch a lot of your favourite TV shows, or access Kindle Unlimited books etc. When I choose between, say, Disney+ and Prime, I reflect that both companies suck, but Prime gets me free and fast deliveries that include everything from groceries to medicines to compost. I am disabled. When I can I order from somewhere else. But relatively frequently I can't. So right now I have Prime and not Disney+.

Enshittification isn't just about eliminating the competition, it's about *trapping* you into using something that gets worse and worse while being the only way for you to get things that are genuinely important. They make you live your life through them by taking indirect ownership of intangible things, like vital pathways to maintain your friendships, and then once they have you, they count on the combination of inertia and the value you place on those intangible things to keep you there no matter how bad it gets.

So I, who have never liked Facebook, even right at the start when I had to sign up to accept a party invitation, am still there, despite everything, because a whole bunch of my friends, my publishing network contacts, and my family, will not go anywhere else. They just won't leave. So leaving Facebook, for me, means severing contact with hundreds of people, some of whom are extremely important to me.

That's enshittification. It's the process by which they make sure you don't leave when it gets shit.

And yeah, the only way to tackle this is to regulate the fucking tech companies. Tell your MP.