The World's Strongest Poster

so it all works up to the empathy boss - a bush era edgelord millenial trans girl who thinks she's Max from Sam & Max and is inherently unworthy of love

i got this idea from the tag @racke7 left on this post. basically, the idea tori and rin have always been the same soul is some sort of very deeply fucked up reincarnation cycle

"rin!tori" ONLY APPLIES to this AU. please do not ask me about it for other AUs/plasticity proper.

on the day of graduation, each of our idiot protagonists suddenly remember their previous life. so they do have full, in-tact memories of their new life leading up to that moment.

i do like kakashi graduating stupid early so maybe he gets his memories earlier? doesn't super matter. if yes, he's an avoidant person who doesn't, like, attempt to do anything but silently stalk rin and obito. might be a good excuse for minor timeline changes if i want them? if no, he just gets random memories on an otherwise normal day for him

to streamline things, let's say for now tori ALSO figures out pretty quickly she's just always been rin. i think this would lead to a mild identity crisis on her part but also her life is so fucked up she might just get over it. like i think she'd be more annoyed than having a breakdown over it

both kakashi and obito HATE this!

i think for maximum shenanigans, both kakashi and obito figure out tori is a reincarnation but not each other and she just. doesn't tell them. kakashi doesn't full grasp "obito reincarnated too" as an option because he thinks obito dies in like a year, and obito is too self-centered and insane about kakashi to think about WHY kakashi is acting kind of weird.

minato is 22 and has been handed the most insane team dynamic imaginable. kakashi acts insane around him because he desperately wants his old team back. obito acts insane because he resents minato but subconsciously craves his validation. tori has realized that minato is a baby adult and actually has NO idea what he's doing and she's here to take advantage of that

the end result is tori actually comes off the most normal despite being the more most likely to intentionally inflict psychic damage or convince minato to do something deeply stupid and also IN SPITE OF multiple attempts to murder obito

obito: you CAN'T be rin though. rin is sweet and kind. she's an ordinary girl who was a victim of a corrupt system tori: have you considered i was an ordinary girl before i met YOU???? obito: (momentary and very painful break from reality) obito: (after dodging tori attempting to stab him and coming back down to earth) i refuse to believe that. you're not rin. you've always been some sort of devious horrible woman tori: well maybe rin was a devious horrible girl and you just put her on a pedestal she inevitably fell from!!!!!

insane kakashi-tori dynamic where he thinks she's a civilian but also she keeps going "sensei teach me a seal!!!!" and then he thinks this is her first attempt at a storage seal and what. what is happening here

more precisely, the plot of a harem story may be essentially a 'coming of age' story where the 'boy' protagonist must eventually 'become a man' and 'choose a woman'. but, interestingly, the genre recognizes the 'lie' in this. that the story 'ends' and the 'fun' ends when the 'boy' 'becomes a man'. and thus, for the story to continue, the 'boy' must never 'become a man'.

but, perhaps, in what ways is a 'boy' unlike a 'man'? in what ways can a 'boy' fail to become a 'man'? can it become chronic? what does that look like? what does it mean? what is a 'boy', if not a 'man-to-be'?

and what if that 'boy' performs the essential act of 'choosing a woman' but still does not 'become a man'? what if the path is blocked? what if it is wrong and incorrect? what if failure is inevitable?