Curate of Curiosities

Previously on Longstory, a 10-year-old boy made a joke about sperm. You know, because this visual novel is aimed at children! Oh, and also there's this kid who got bullied out of school, or something.

This episode begins with a flashback to Em, the kid in question, being confronted by the resident bullies. So, now we know for sure that they're responsible for her disappearance, right?

But never mind that, Mom has caught wind of our butting heads with the head of the anti-bullying club, and she's not too pleased about that. Especially now that we're scheduled for a meeting with the principal about it. When did this happen? I know that they made this vague threat towards us last episode, but I didn't expect them to actually follow through on it!

Huh, this is the first time we've seen one of them on her own. There's probably nothing to it. I mean, there's just no way those three are together all the time, right?

Oh, that's a relief. This should buy us more time to make our case against your so-called anti-bullying club. You're still really creepy, though.

Okay, finally we can get back to the relationship-building. This is your last chance to guess which route I'm going on.

Yeah, it's the meme choice. May as well get my money's worth.

It literally takes less than a minute for them to ask us out. So we are dating. That took no time at all.

In our next class, we meet Marcel again, hooray. And even better, the principal leads this chant regarding this school's commitment to non-violence! Wait, that's not better at all! Why?

Hmm? Hanna again?

As I expected, there's a reason that her comrades aren't with her today. The three of them suffered some sort of falling out, and now she's been pushed out of their little posse.

And while we're here, everyone in this game has really messed up facial expressions, and they don't always match up with the dialogue.

As much as I really, really don't want to help her, you don't really have a choice in the matter. I guess that's one lesson for the kids: no matter what you want, you're going to get pulled into things you would much rather not do.

We have a plan too; talk to one of the others, since neither of them are particularly angry with us, even though they just reported us for harassment, and for that Hanna gives us her notebook to write down what they have to say. And again, this is right after they reported him to the principal, and that's a surefire way to earn someone's trust.

Yeah, let's rip this band-aid right off.

One, Jennifer has a crush on Colin. Certainly not a pairing that I would expect. Second, Hanna planned on putting a "present" in Em's locker. Whatever it was, there was clearly no sign of it when Sasse first showed up...unless the plan was to plant a fake love letter to make her look bad, and I frankly wouldn't put it past them to do something like that.

On to lunch.

Abby, Colin, and Marcel are talking about two of them used to date last year and--blah blah blah blah blah, I don't care about your drama! Let's talk about something else, like Hanna flying solo all of a sudden.

Yeah, that's something that tracks with what we already know. So, after we deal with Hanna's little problem, we'll make sure to give her a little talk about her role in Em's rather sudden departure.

Colin, of all people, asks us not to make assumptions about Hanna or her role in chasing off Em, even though he should already know that Hanna was a bully, or at least, a member of the bullying triumvirate.

Next, we have to choose which of Hanna's friends to talk to. I'm not sure if it really matters, so I go with Jennifer.

All of this was started over some boy band merchandise that one of them sold on eBay.

Sure, we now have the opportunity to tell Jennifer that we know about her crush on Colin, but I feel it's in Sasse's best interest to keep this particular powder keg defused.

But Sasse is just one guy, and I strongly doubt that he can keep things under control on his own.

Somehow I end up scheduling a date with Nora for the next day. Well, so much for my master plan of romancing the school mascot.

The next day we spend playing some MMO with Nora. In other words, we spend it in front of the computer.

So after that, let's see how our little mediation has fared.

Yep, that's the middle school experience in a nutshell.

The bad news is that our reprieve period is over, and now we have to make our case before the school principal.

If memory serves, we only talked about them to Abby and Colin, and while they were definitely in the cafeteria at that time, there's nothing to indicate that they were listening in. Somehow, I get the feeling that I'm the one being put to task for trying to play this visual novel.

Time to go in for the kill.

I see two ways this could go: either we get the girls in trouble for being bigoted, or we get in trouble for false accusation.

And guess what? Our accusation is dead wrong!

And just then, we go back to the flashback at the beginning of the episode...

Surpriiiise, they were trying to comfort Em after she apparently got bullied! Side note, this game definitely needs a spell-checker. You'd think that this sort of thing would be caught in the process of porting it to desktop.

So it seems like there is a bully after all, just not who we thought it would be. So much for all that talk about non-violence and mantras, right?

The tip they give us: talk to Colin. It's always the ones you least suspect, isn't it? Maybe there's a reason that he's the one telling us not to make assumptions...