#voltage mc

haha okay who’s ready for my Controversial(tm) opinions about voltage heroines...

i actually want so badly for hlitf mc to be the mc of rmd because... she’s so much cuter? and has... dimension... like you want someone who’s spunky and dorky and relatable but still very humble and hardworking and sweet and cute and empathetic? detective mc is YOUR GIRL. honestly, i can seriously believe every single EICU doctor falling head over heels for how sincere and genuinely kind she is, even when she’s being naive or idealistic. also when she talks back, it’s actually enjoyable and doesn’t come across as arrogant. 

on the flipside, if rmd mc was in the public safety academy, i feel like she would basically just be naruko? and just end up in a friendly and non-romantic instructor/student dynamic with all the instructors (putting aside my personal desire for naruko to end up with chiba... or subaru for some reason?) except she would not just be naruko, but also that one really bitter ex-student from ishigami’s route. 

the masukisu mc is actually like... perfectly suited for being an actual public safety working detective, but we never get to see her actual development/training so if she was as she is now in the academy, it would be super boring bc she never makes mistakes lol and hasn’t yet been pushed into a position where she has to learn and change. plus literally none of the public safety guys are at their best romantically unless they’re dealing with someone as sincere and wholesome as hlitf mc (except like... tsugaru/mk mc banter would be fun maybe? tbh not to be Controversial but i think they could all outsmart her except for goto bc he’s too pure and ishigami bc he just doesn’t have time for that kind of nonsense). personally i’d love to see the kbtbb mc in masukisu bc she’s literally the exact opposite of mk mc so i presume that none of the men would fall for her bc she can’t hold up to that level of like... playing games/trickery (since the premise of each LI’s route only holds up bc mk mc can flirt her way out of a box). but equally, as demonstrated in the eisuke/kazuomi crossover route, mk mc is useless in kbtbb and no one from that game (or from hlitf) likes her. 

i also have a conspiracy theory that destind mc is just mlfk mc from a different timeline, with the difference being that in her (destind mc’s) timeline, she never had a group of childhood friends. but everything else about them is basically the same (except that destind mc is 20x more high maintenance). 

all the “normal mcs thrown into suddenly dramatic situations” are interchangeable (kbtbb, scm, msb, eitm, bmp) bc they’re essentially the same person and i love every single one of them, but i would love for the ‘historical’ mcs from akd and pil and such to be thrown into a modern day title tho and just be absolutely baffled. can you imagine akd mc in like... modern day tokyo? (yes, bc she’s literally the exact same as msb mc but can you imagine her waking up one day in modern japan when the night before she was princess of rapier?) 

anyway i would LOVE for the celebrity darling mc to get some pep talks from hlitf!mc bc our poor sweet girl desperately needs some more confidence. not to be hyperbolic bc obviously i never exaggerate but if she made a cameo in scandal as a popular idol who really made it, i could LITERALLY die a happy camper right then and there. 

irresistible mistakes mc is flawless and would literally be perfect in every single title do NOT @ me on this unless you agree.

i get that the player/reader is supposed to be the mc, but i feel like they’ve started giving their mcs distinct enough personalities that i would love to see them actually interact. i have a longstanding dream of hlitf mc being on security detail for msb mc, and another one where she has a love/hate frenemy relationship with llftx mc. i mean basically maybe i’m biased but i just want a thousand hlitf crossovers where we get to see detective mc interact with men from other games bc honestly the way she treated kyohei and eisuke like.... sends me 

yeah i know what you mean! honestly sometimes she does stuff and i’m like OMG STOPPPPPPPP like kaga’s sequel had me S C R E A M I N G esp when i read his pov and realised that she interrupted the interrogation at a prime moment just as they were about to crack the guy. actually she frustrates me in almost every ms1 since in every route she has to make the mistake of losing sight of the main objective and getting distracted by minor crimes in order to start learning what it is that public safety actually does (including in jin’s route you know when she was supposed to be tailing someone). the only time she’s not a terrible public safety detective in season 1 is in soma’s routes haha which is why i love reading his routes for relief whenever i’m frustrated about her being a noob. although the reason that she doesn’t get criticised as much or make as many mistakes in soma’s routes is usually bc soma is usually: (1) being sarcastic; (2) being gentle; (3) basically preventing her from failure by orchestrating things on his own; (4) telling her to mind her own business about how he manages his informants; (5) there to back her up when she does make errors like running into a warehouse all on her own against a whole bunch of thugs (and then in fact becomes attracted to her bc of it lmaoooo). but she’s great throughout all his routes and gets praised by the other instructors and rarely makes those big stupid decisions like she does in kaga’s early routes for example lol. 

HOWEVER with that being said, i actually kinda like that she makes all these mistakes bc it really shows her growth, like seeing the difference in her actions between the season 1 prologue and season 3 prologue just FILLS me with pride. they place her in the same situation to show the ways in which she has grown as a detective to learn to see beyond one-off crimes and i LOVE the parallel! i love that she gets to have her ideas about justice challenged and learns how to see the bigger picture of public safety’s goals and why they need to learn how to focus on the primary objective of preventing crime (rather than taking action after the crime has happened). hlitf is one of those games where the development of the mc in both work and love is so clear and well written, and i like that we get to see her fail (a LOT) but also succeed in her training at the academy. and then when she finally graduates and we see her as a full fledged detective in season 3, we really get to see the results of her training and we get to see her shine. that’s one of the reasons why i love s3 so much bc we get to see her put her training to use and we really get to see how much she’s grown, even from the s2 adversaries days. actually, even in soma’s graduation epilogue, she’s already kicking ass and taking names, and her skills make soma basically horny for her (when is he not, though). 

BASICALLY this is just my v longwinded way of saying that i agree that sometimes her errors are sooo frustrating but i also think that (1) there’s something adorable about her strong sense of justice and (2) her early failures only serve to make her shine MORE in season 2 and beyond~ 

EDIT: i also don’t mind that in the first season and a half she gets helped out by the instructors ‘cause that’s what they’re there to do and also it helps to showcase their individual style :D 

in s3, there’s one moment in goto’s battlefield where she’s investigating with tsugaru and momose and some thugs attack them, and even tho tsugaru doesn’t give specific instructions, momo and detective mc take out a whole bunch of thugs and she works with momo’s cue to knock someone out even tho he just yells her name (to indicate that there’s a guy about to attack from her blind spot). momo is even impressed, saying that he didn’t expect that from her. she even gets praised by ishigami for the way that she’s managed to fit into the tsugaru-momo dynamic, since they’re notorious for being able to communicate without words. 

 season 3 plot spoilers ahead:

i think she definitely used to be, with her overly righteous sense of justice. that’s why she was always running off to help civilians with minor criminals like purse snatchers and stuff during missions without thinking about the bigger picture (hence always failing tailing missions lol). she does learn to think a little more and have a little more control over her emotions though, and i think the different ‘regional variations’ (lol) of her are a little different. for example, i think ayumu’s mc is the most prone to anger and she’s the most expressive about her emotions. but overall, i think her years training at the academy (and all the field experience she gained) kind of helped her learn to think before she acts, so even when she’s angry about something, she’ll usually know to keep a calm head (even if she’ll be trembling with rage on the inside) and think of how best to deal with the situation. 

something i really enjoyed about soma’s s3 is seeing vengeful mc for the first time. she’s the only voltage mc that i can think of who has ever had to avenge someone like this. without spoiling too much, i love that we get to see how his mc reacts to possibly the most painful situation she could ever be put through and basically go numb but still pull through with her public safety training (and also thanks to momo for being the best senpai and basically backing her on her revenge plot). she’s cool, calculating, independent and the perfect public safety detective. soma is seriously underrated as a character but one of the best things about his routes is that his mc is probably the actual best consistently performing detective out of all of them. interestingly, her grief, anger and drive for vengeance in soma’s s3 is what leads to her taking the lead on the investigation, making a huge arrest and getting praised by everyone (even TSUGARU!!) 😭😭😭 i love my detective mc so much

haha okay so i touched on this a bit in my reviews of takado and hosho but let me try to summarise:

basically, i love mcs i can relate to but also find inspiring? like i like mcs who i can see parts of myself in, enough that i look at them and think “if i try really hard to be a good person, i can be like them”. that’s why even with the masukisu mc, i like her well enough, but i like her the most when she fails and makes mistakes bc perfect characters are so boring. 

anyway with otoge, i know a lot of people are like waaa mcs are too emotional and weak and insecure about everything but (and maybe it’s just because i’m Peak Insecure) i love that? i like it when they’re emotionally vulnerable and feel things and get hurt cause it helps me (1) be able to relate based on my own relationship/love/hurt/failure at work experience and (2) feel more invested in their character and relationship and development bc it’s clear through their emotional responses that they’re falling in love (or overcoming a problem in their relationship or at work/school/etc.). and if you’re like me and read with a semi self-insert intention, then it’s easier for me to fall in love with not just the LI/MC as a couple but also the actual thought of being in mutual love with the love interest. 

so for me the problem with the rmd mc is that she is all surface sass with no emotional substance. i found it very incongruous that she’s supposed to be all meta and love this one (v generic) otome game character but have no interest in real men, because ALL OF RMD’S CHARACTERS ARE VERY CLEARLY OTOME GAME CHARACTER ARCHETYPES. her dialogue with them often reads as like they put 100 points in “snark” and 0 points in any other personality trait. she’s really full of herself (she’s literally in a university/training hospital and somehow thinks she knows better than these elite specialists just bc she’s read a lot of journals??). she’s eccentric in a way that i don’t find particularly cute bc it comes off more as arrogant than passionate to me (maybe bc the writing style for her dialogue is so clinical?)

with someone like hlitf mc, she is righteous to a fault and often will try to like butt in where she’s not needed and be like “noooo i can’t compromise my MoRaLs” but she also has respect for her instructors and is humble enough to know that she does need to listen to their advice, and we often see her fail when she just does it her way without taking their expertise into consideration. because of this, we get to see her self-doubt from the beginning develop into confidence and applicable skill as a working detective. we also get to see snippets where she has to compromise on those morals and overcome adversity to do her job. so we actually get to see her realise her own flaws and learn and grow from them.

however, with rmd mc, we basically never see her have to face any adversity and thus we don’t get to see her develop. she hardly has any inner weaknesses to develop or overcome because she has no personality substance beneath that sassy and nerdy exterior. that’s why she’s only ever interesting when she has the entire crew of doctors in that room off which to bounce dialogue but is so bland when it comes to actual relationship development. her inner monologue as she’s supposed to be falling in love is so insincere because she is written in a way that is very... unemotional? so she goes from “i don’t care about men i only care about READING” to like “what????? i love him????/”  and like if your own first person perspective character doesn’t know or believe she’s in love, then how am i as a reader supposed to suddenly believe it. that’s why i find rmd quite disappointing overall because the LIs actually have good backstories and it would be rewarding to see them gradually open up and fall in love but unfortunately that story is wasted on someone who in my opinion doesn’t allow us to see the full emotional potential of that development. 

for example, there are elements of hosho’s route and rei kamiki’s route (from irresistible mistakes) that i find very comparable, in that hosho and dr mc end up cuddling to sleep a lot and rei and the im mc end up basically sharing a bed to sleep together as well iirc? in both cases, we are confronted with having to deal with growing one-sided feelings in a relationship where there is physical closeness but it’s only platonic. and yet somehow, even tho hosho’s back story is way more traumatic than rei’s, the emotional ride of falling in love, having that conflict and then ending up together is so much more convincing and rewarding in rei’s route because of his mc (i.e. the perspective that we read in the MS). 

also tbh i think i just like softness? i think it’s really clear by my posts that my favourite moments are when LIs who are normally more stoic/mean are all soft and gooey for the person they love. but rmd mc has no softness under her prickliness lmao. anyway i said i would summarise but i ended up ranting again so my apologies if you like this mc but i personally think the only time she reads as interesting is if you literally only see like 5 slide screenshot posts on tumblr bc you can enjoy her being sassy without having to suffer through her lack of emotional substance 

EDIT: i do wanna disclaim that in some more recent hlitf stories/chapters (although can’t remember which ones gave me this impression off the top of my head), i have seen dialogue that sometimes gives me rmd mc vibes. i’m not sure if it’s the same translator/translation team or this is just a trend that voltage is heading towards, but i do remember getting that feeling a couple times and then getting a bit anxious lmao that one of my favourite genuine mcs might be getting corrupted. i haven’t yet been able to pinpoint what exactly it is, but i think it’s that the tone can sometimes come across as blasé or is expressed in a more meme-y turn of phrase where i feel it should be more genuine/sincere? but either way, the writing in hlitf is amazing and we’ve already been given so much wonderful development so i’m not overly worried 

EDIT 2: i also wanna add that i know a lot of people like her nerdiness and sassiness i respect that but let’s not pretend that she’s the first nerdy or sassy voltage mc ever lol. hlitf mc forces ayumu to watch freaking era of samurai code of love and nerds out over old school detective dramas (amongst many other things... mizuki fujisaki.....). im mc is a workaholic and a cat lady who could literally talk for 5 hours about tachibana’s ads. bmp mc is CONSTANTLY sassing all of them, esp prince keith lol. mlfk mc is such a dork. scm mc knows every single Greek myth about the stars. msb mc is a theatre nerd. eitm mc does not ever let miyabi or kyoga get away with their shit. however, they are all still VERY CUTE MCs.

anyway i could keep going on and on but all i’m saying is that in so many voltage games, the mc is CLEARLY the only one with a braincell out of the entire cohort of men and the fact that she is the only person with common sense (while also having her own hobbies and interests) while all these men around her are ridiculous is a great selling point so personally i don’t think voltage needed to overcompensate the way they did and delete her emotional capacity function. 

like honestly the number of times i try to change something up bc i feel like “maybe he likes X/Y/Z type more?” or feel like i’m not pretty or hot or sexy and then my bf doesn’t react in the way i want him to (i.e. fuckstruck) and i’m like it’s ME. it’s because i’m just not someone who can be all pretty and mature and seductive and i’ll never be able to be like those super attractive women, or i’ll lament over the fact that i’m not that clever or talented. but he’s just like ??? i love you as you are naturally and i think you’re cute all the time? (like even when i’m sick in bed with bad skin, glasses, no makeup and a school t-shirt)