Think this is agree to disagree territory.

My thinking is that Rubeus has always been there, always had a face, and always was like this. The game, which was from the protagonist's point of view, never saw him as important because he never had to step into the spotlight, and it did not have an omniscient view of events. He had his prince abducted as a child to get him to cease unseemly behaviours and get back on the 'right' track.

The 'turning Diana into a villain' bit is more of the same, in response to changes caused by the office lady mucking things up in his point of view.

Basically, I see it as Rubeus trying to railroad Gran, and incidentally the game's plot. Where you see it as the 'story' inventing Rubeus to railroad the plot, and incidentally Gran.

I still disagree there's a magical plot railroading force at play here like in PBMMV where it's a central plot point, because I've yet to see anything driving the plot toward its original path besides the characters themselves. Lapis is (increasingly falteringly) committed to her path, and Rubeus having a face and personality doesn't strike me as a glaring red flag of anything but the original game having inherent limitations in its presentation that actually inhabiting the world is going to lack.

I hate to be that guy to say 'it's magic, obviously', but if a witch of Patchouli's temperament is fine with her books being in that level of proximity to the water, there's likely measures taken to ensure it isn't an issue. Probably the magic that condenses it for the 'beach' in the first place also keeps the humidity in the air cycling back to the vicinity of the water rather than diffusing out into the library as a whole.

Sounds like they need an anime-girlification of Mithridates to turn this into a triangle.

To be completely fair, the only part that runs any risk is likely the third clause of b); and that's not because of any personal choice on a)'s part, but rather her mystical/spiritual obligations as part of her job. So I feel like calling it toxic is kinda excessive.

Image is funny though.

Best friend, future roommate. Why those two gal pals will even buy a house and adopt a child together. Such great friends they are.

I always thought the distinction was not unlike the common usages of 'cult' versus 'religion'. Once it becomes common or mainstream enough, it stops getting called a 'fetish' because it's been normalized, regardless of how universal it actually is.

On one hand, shame she had to lose her mother. On the other hand, that her mom's husband had to not even bother to hide what he was up to before she would take a stand... Ah well, a happier ending for our two girls in any case.

Given how Meguru looked like she was about to start spiraling in chapter 2 until Remu threw a plush at her https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/our_love_is_disgusting_ch02#22 from the mention of a love triangle in a commercial on tv, I think calling Remu better adjusted is fair.

The way Niji responds to this chain of revelations, the precise tack she takes to 'fix' the great many discrepancies she perceives in Remu's character, is really going to set the tone going forward. I eagerly await that shoe dropping.

The arc I'm fully expecting to happen at some point, though of course it is baseless speculation on my part, is Arare finding out about Itsumi and Rin and deciding to break them up by dosing Rin and making her engage in acts with someone else (given the Toudou sisters luck, might backfire on Arare herself). If that did end up happening, I could see two possible outcomes:

A: Rin is tremendously broken up about it because of how it goes against her self-image and tearfully admits it to Itsumi, who... kinda just goes 'Yeah, that sort of thing happens' and admits some of her own history in that vein which might or might not open Rin up to the idea of poly since she's apparently also like that.

B: Rin holds herself together and calls Itsumi up to say 'Tell me where you are, so I can find you and we can ____' Which the latter probably goes along with since she likes attention and loves when Rin becomes aggressive.

She just can't help herself when it comes to precious things.

Byleth having the Edel-bear wave at the Flame Emperor was pretty adorable. I also like how Lysithea ain't even mad. She's just "Oh, that actually explains a lot."

"Inaba, come with me. I need your support with Mokou."

"Alright. Combat support? Emotional?"

"Structural, actually."

"?"

"It's going to be great. I'll explain on the way"

I feel like saying that it proves the drug is a placebo is kinda overselling things. Previous chapters have very notable changes in behaviour when it was taken, and most of those were situations where the one affected had no reason to think it was involved at all.

It's fair to say that Saya had trouble telling the difference because she was intending to act like that either way, but I don't think that Ookado or Kamisada's hard swerves were something they would have done otherwise. To a lesser extent the same could be said of class prez, but she's got that side to her innately so I wouldn't completely count it out.

Riiiight. I forgot about that somehow, with all of the things she could affect that living was something she could not do. My bad.

Yeah, that sister is quite awful. Bad enough that even assassin lady had to yell at her a bit. Because yes, they're all immoral people acting in their own self interest to detriment of others. But there's a difference between what you do as part of your profession, and what you do to the people you claim to care about out of pure selfishness. Konoha wouldn't balk at doing a wide swath of awful things, but I don't think you'd see her doing any of them to who she regards as her family.

Side note: At the start of the chapter the ninja sisters say that 'her jutsu is useless against an opponent who fights bare handed'. Which makes little sense to me, since that seems like it'd make it easier to make contact and turn someone into leaves rather than harder. I guess they might mean that a skilled close combat specialist would be able to prevent her from ever making the contact she'd need to land the jutsu?

Good catch. That does look very much like Garth. The exact outfit and hairstyle he was first introduced with, even.
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/please_bully_me_miss_villainess_ch30#2

According to Wikipedia:
"Religious syncretism is the blending of two or more religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation into a religious tradition of beliefs from unrelated traditions. This can occur for many reasons, and the latter scenario happens quite commonly in areas where multiple religious traditions exist in proximity and function actively in a culture, or when a culture is conquered, and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them, but do not succeed in entirely eradicating the old beliefs or (especially) practices."

So to sum up, it's when religious beliefs of disparate origins are blended together; often in the form of one god worshipped by a traveling people joining the pantheon of deities known in the lands they travel through, or in the instance of two separate figures of worship being conflated together into a single being. The latter is what we're discussing here

If I was to give an example of such a thing myself, this could happen in the real world if two adjacent cultures came into contact and both have say a trickster deity in their cultural zeitgeist. Some people might decide that hey, maybe they're actually the same god and start to spread that idea. Years down the road you have trouble disentangling two or more original lines of folklore that were gradually sanded down to make them being the same entity make more sense. For example if Trickster Deity A has a habit of turning into a pig in the course of his mischief, while Trickster Deity B had an affinity for birds; the later Trickster Deity AB might be depicted as a winged boar.

The difference is that in the real world these are just stories, bits of mostly oral tradition that are passed down over generations, changing as they are told over and over again. In a setting where the gods in question have their own thoughts, memories, and personhood, I feel like the notion of intentionally attempting to shape the religious canon (which will in time reshape the god itself to match) takes on more of a sinister tilt.

Consequently, that actually makes sense to me as the sort of scheme that the ever-ambitious Kanako might come up with to deal with a stubborn native deity who has made herself indispensable to the continued prosperity of her lands. Best case scenario for her: either she or the mentioned husband incorporate the legends of taming the Mishaguji into their own folklore while the god of Moriya is forgotten. Evidently, that is not how that gambit played out.

All that being said even in Risui's version (of Zun's version) of events the only thing pointing to any of what I just said being even kinda relevant is that offhand "Get Syncretizin'" in one panel of a chapter that wasn't focusing on them. But it piques the curiosity nonetheless.

I'm gonna go the longer odds here and place my wager on: Risa did something to reveal her zombieness off-screen and then she and they panicked and she killed them in something close to self defense.

Ah. Reimu helping a maiden in love by... throwing her off a roof. Very on brand. What's less on brand is having a Parsee ship where someone is insecure about their partner or partner-to-be's relationship with someone else, and that someone isn't her. But hey, I'm not about to object to versions of the character who aren't so steeped in jealousy based anguish that they can actually be happy.

Of course, I only ship couples that are 100% canon compliant. Shipping two people who aren't or can't be together in canon? Heresy. For example, I'd never ship two canonically straight girls together.

I was not trying to tell anyone who or how to ship, but I can see it might have come across as that rather than sharing my own thoughts. I apologize.

Yeah, I noted that. Barely older than Koharu, while the other two are censored, and I think Chiyo's few flashbacks have looked like Taishou era or something.

I couldn't help but notice that the word 'years' between 'age at death' and 'cupid age' lines up for everybody except Chiyo, where it looks to be offset a single place. As though, redacted or not, her cupid age were three digits.

Anybody got a guess as to the significance of the one page with the sequence of eye close-ups? Looks like living Koharu, Cupid Koharu, Cupid Koharu (charm), and Cupid that's probably Koharu again, but we get just a hint of green eyes rather than the natural red (for cupids, anyway).

Me? Of course I ship Chiyo and Ena, look how deliciously violent their relationship would be.

I'm still not shipping any of the cupids, personally. I mean, the fact that they explicitly are incapable of falling in romantic love with anyone until their period of service to the goddess of love concludes seems like a helluva obstacle.

That aside, energetic trouble making short girl x stern taller girl who gripes but can (at least mostly) keep up with her is an enjoyable dynamic.

The opening bit with Sanae explaining which of her moms tops the other is amusing (seems they switch, good for them), but the theological implications of Kanako intentionally syncretizing a pre-existing husband with Suwako are actually intriguing, considering how gods in-setting are shaped by belief.

They had a DMCA take a substantial swath of their stuff. I first heard about it from the translator's notes on Ninja and Assassin under one roof, which seems to have arrived here as a case of jumping ship. Quick browse of Mangadex forums says... they lost more than a quarter of their stuff.