>>96318617
"OW, OW, OW, STOP HITTING ME YOU FUCKS, I NEED THAT SUGAR DADDY TO KNOW HIS FUCKING PLACE OW, OW FUCK YOU" the obvious midboss character was yelling under a fully levelled Phantom Thief crew beat up. "What's the point?" mumbled Toshiro, who my long experience with the strong anthropic principle pinpointed as the crux of this so-called kingdom, "I'm pushed around by someone like this in real life, I really wanna just like, rebel and stuff but it's useless..."

"And what would that accomplish?" I asked, sensing the equivalent of a Mass Effect dialogue interrupt moment.

"What?"

"Why are you drawing a binary between rebellion and attaining what you want in life? If the problem is that you're being oppressed by external forces, isn't the logical solution to accumulate enough power and independence to obtain leverage over them?"

"But I just want to be free"

"And power is freedom. Say you, I don't know, turn in your abusive father for political corruption. What then? Do you really think you'll get away scott free? Do you really think a man that powerful wouldn't get revenge on you for ruining him? Being, and I'm just being hypothetical here, some kind of catspaw in a political game can be frustrating. But it's also an opportunity to take action against those controlling yours. Trust me. True freedom is getting enough dirt on everyone who wronged you so they can never take yours"

These statements made Toshiro think hard about his life, just as planned. While Elodie was chatting up what was clearly a personification of his childhood hopes and dreams, I was doing actively productive things like demolishing the other tulpas controlling this reality. We fought a green Buddha (who was actually a red asura), refused to fall for an obvious bluff and ended up facing a Shadow Toshiro.

"Your attempts to do good will only bring harm to others!" declared Shadow Toshiro.

"You're right. And that's GREAT" said Toshiro.

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