No More Eros

[Bropocalypse]

This is so adorable I might die

[98714123340]

> Present the best panda shaped cookies that have ever had the pleasure of dancing on taste buds.

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

> Present the best panda shaped cookies that have ever had the pleasure of dancing on taste buds.

I'm going to direct this at Kiyoshi, or at least insinuate that he made them. I don't know how he learned to make them better than his mother, but everyone in the family takes it to mean that he loves pandas more than anyone. It's the flavor of love!

THE FLAVOR OF PANDA LOVE.

Which is exactly what you want your mom telling guests about your cookies.

[DairunCates]

Mom: Oh. Don't worry, dear. My husband already explained everything.
Yuko: He did?
Mom: Yep.
Yuko: What did he tell you?
Mom: Just the truth. Now, how about those cookies?
Yuko: Uhhh... Sure?
Mom: Well, you heard her, son. Get in the kitchen.
Kiyoshi: Mom. I thought you were going to make them. I'm not sure I-
Mom: Don't be so modest. You make the best cookies. She's sure to be impressed.
Yuko: Kiyoshi. You cook?
Mom: Well, not much. His recipe is better than my own though. He's always had a knack for those kinds of things. He's just a bit embarrassed. That's all.
Kiyoshi: I... Can we do this some other time?


>Kiyoshi: Present the best panda shaped cookies that have ever had the pleasure of dancing on taste buds.

Mom: No excuses, young man. You want to be a good host for your lady friend, don't you?
Kiyoshi: Yuko. Help me out here.
Yuko: Actually, I'd love to try your cooking.
Mom: You heard the girl, son. Into the kitchen with you.




Yuko: What in the world is going on here?

>Meanwhile...

Alice: Any leads on what's going on here yet, Master?
Mirai: Well, no more leads on our anomaly's whereabouts, but I looked into Kiyoshi's little theory.
Alice: And?
Mirai: Well, there's certainly SOMETHING weird going on here. If someone's controlling it with some kind of game program though, it's not any computer we have on record.
Alice: Are we still stuck?
Mirai: Unfortunately. Whatever interference we've been getting is as strong as ever.
Alice: So what do we do?
Mirai: Actually...


Mirai: I was hoping that YOU would answer that.
Alice: Me? Master, I don't think I'm-
Mirai: You've been with me on several missions. You know just as much about how to handle this as I do.
Alice: Still, I don't think I'm nearly as qualified as you.
Mirai: Even if it was about qualification, you give yourself too little credit, sister. It's not about that though. I'm still positive that either Kiyoshi or Takeshi is relevant to our mission. I'll do the best I can, I can with my devices, but I may not be able to get the best readings with the interference we've been getting. There's something going on here outside my area of expertise. You seem to have some strong opinions on Kiyoshi and our current situation. I need your alternate point of view on this. So, I'm asking you, as my big sister, how do you think we should proceed from here?


Mirai: What do YOU want to do?

[98714123340]

> Go on TV Tropes

[Professor zobot]

>Alice: KILL ALL HUMA- ahhahahhahahahahahannnnnno. Seriously though, you should probably test Kiyoshi's theory through objective research. Plant a camera on or around Takeshi and on some of the other girls you know hang around him and observe if their behavior changes when he's introduced to close proximity around them.

[Bropocalypse]

>If all else fails, consider neutering everyone involved.

[Dalmationer]

>Wonder if the interferance could possibly be coming from not one but many places. Perhaps this many decide what happens, then it is executed in an expeditious manner? Almost like some kind of forum running this whole ordeal like an adventure of sorts?

>Naah that's crazy talk.

[Sparrowsmith]

>Ask empirical questions regarding the nature of relevant characters. Discuss whether attributes about them exist for physical, logical reasons, or whether they exist for the purpose of creating an interesting and more dangerous cast. Test where possible.

[Professor zobot]

>Yuko: Panda-Sleuth Kiyoshi's room to determine what the fuck is up with him.

[Xander]

TVtropes.

[Bloddyredcommie]

Take a step back, review your basic mission objectives and the information you've gathered so far.

Also, see if the Time Police, or whatever you are, have any other records of similar phenomena.

[Kiroth6]

Alice: Go over what you know of Kiyoshi and Takeshi and compare.
Takeshi: Try to take stock of your convoluted situation

[hero122]

TVtropes.

So crazy it just will get us all killed. With walls of text.
DO IT.

[Razorhead]

Really? No one comments on the very obviously located book called "Panda Panic: Strike Two" ?

...Fine.

>Mirai: What's the Panda book about?

[TheBoyd]

re-caught up. This adventure is still awesome.
Just so you know.

[DairunCates]

show spoiler

hide spoiler

>Mirai: What's the Panda book about?

Couldn't fit it in the conversation, but it's effectively a manga she's reading. She like "old school" stuff from between the later 1900's to about the late 2200's. There's a bit of a dry spell after that until the late 2300's.

>Alice: Advise.

Alice: Well, protocol would dictate reviewing our mission briefing for any pertinent information to the task at hand.
Mirai: Right. I've got it memorized already, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to review. And our mission is?
Alice: A local time anomaly of unprecedented proportions is causing drastic temporal rifts and other oddities in the future, our time. We've been sent to investigate and stop it.
Mirai: Right. And was there anything else relevant in the report.
Alice: Unfortunately, no information has been able to be gathered other than the general locations and rumors that some strange activities occurred revolving around local high school students.
Mirai: However, based on the size of the anomaly, and the fact that we are getting an interference that has made our time machine and most of our tools inoperable, we can probably narrow down the root causes. This isn't a matter of someone using time travel to get extra money. Whatever this is, it's a major temporal event, but we can't seem to find any records beyond hints and rumors. Any ideas on why that may be?
Alice: Whoever is responsible might not be aware of their capability and may be manifesting some kind of special latent power.
Mirai: A likely enough theory. However, I think there's a problem with it.
Alice: And that is?
Mirai: People don't just manifest "powers" out of no where typically. So there's likely another source for it. A hidden puppetmaster, if you will. Someone giving a power to an unknowing patsy to carry out a surgical strike. Which means that it's also someone that likely knows how to get around our detection means. So, whoever is responsible is familiar to time travel and it's laws.
Alice: So this is an inside job?
Mirai: Not necessarily, but we can't remove the possibility, can we?
Alice: What about Kiyoshi's game?
Mirai: What about it?
Alice: Well, even if it doesn't have a basis in science, it has the earmarks of our anomaly. A high school student, oblivious to secret powers, the hint of a puppetmaster setting it up. It's highly possible that what Kiyoshi is seeing as a game is someone directly altering the timeline.
Mirai: Exactly what I had in mind. I've been looking into it myself. We have a lot of different ways to approach it though, and very little time without our tools to pursue it.
Alice: Well, if what Kiyoshi has mentioned, there are several phenomena occurring that could be described as magical. From the viewpoint of this being a game, it would seem like a way to make the cast more diverse and interesting. From a logical standpoint, if something seems magical, it is probably someone covering for something they need hidden. Covering a lie with a more outrageous lie. Basic time manipulation tactic, right? After all, that's how several legends of crypto-zoological figures, UFOs, and other unexplained phenomena started.
Mirai: Right. So tracking down people that haven't just been mentally effected, but have been imbued with extra levels of superhuman or magical talent could provide us a link back to the source.
Alice: Kiyoshi mentioned a witch.
Mirai: That he did. If we could get her in to get a reading, we might be able to find out more. Although, this may prove tricky to do with a certain rule about not telling anyone about our mission. We'll need to be more covert about how we get a reading.
Alice: If Kiyoshi is also right, and Takeshi is the "protagonist" of this "game", we could also try to keep extra security on Takeshi and try to find any girls that have shown interest in him or have spent significant time with him. We can also test if said girls act differently around him in any way. If the anomaly is more localized around him, we should see a noticeable change in not just attitude, but several chrono-science readings. If our criminal responsible is also using a dating game as a framework, we could also look up relevant information on genre archetypes and...
Mirai: Yeah. Don't worry. I already read the entirety of TVTropes.
Alice: Either way, Kiyoshi and Takeshi are our strongest leads right now.
Mirai: ...And apart from our short time spent with both of them and their public records, we know very little about Takeshi, and most of the information about Kiyoshi is about that world-renowned father of his. So, finding out more about them should be a top priority.
Alice: Do you think we'll be able to fix things in Time without our own Time Manipulation abilities?
Mirai: All we can do is try.
Alice: Well, in theory we could just kill all the meat-bag high school students, or if that is too extreme, we could just neuter them. Although, if they can't think about human procreation as much, their grades might actually increase and cause a bigger anomaly in the form of a generation of geniuses.






Mirai: Alice Galatea Baker. Did you just make a joke?
Alice: I guess so. Is that okay? Was it too offensive?
Mirai: No. You just caught me off-guard. That's all.
Alice: Uhh... Could I ask one more question? It's a favor really.
Mirai: Shoot.
Alice: Since we're likely going to have to split up a bit to cover our information gathering on Kiyoshi and Takeshi... Could I... If you don't mind... Could I take care of the Kiyoshi investigation?
Mirai: You'd be in charge of getting more information on the witch too. It's a big task. Are you sure you're ready for that?
Alice: I know the mission is important, but I'd like to try.
Mirai: Well...

[98714123340]

> Giant Pink Elephant Crash into the room.

[Bropocalypse]

>Cutaway to scientist chick

[Beatrice_the_Golden]

Kiyoshi's Dad: Be famous for something completely unrelated to pandas.

[Bloddyredcommie]

As a trained Time Detective, this is a textbook case of an agent's personal emotions influencing their work. Protocol would be to nix it to avoid further complicatoins.

However, as a Roboticist, you're witnessing a fascinating deviation from expected behavior in a self-aware AI, and you're very tempted to see how this develops. You could write a paper on emotional development of Humanlike AI's, win a big award, then rub it in the face of the entire Ares Tech Neurorobotics department.
Especially Professor Lester.

[Grug]

Galatea. Nice reference.

> Muraso-san: Be a world-renowned author of prose and fiction.

After a series of profitable novels, he hit the big time with "Never Ever Over", a crime novel. He has begun work on his Opus, "One Hundred Thousand Stars", an attempt to write a romance, but he is struggling.

[Armok]

((ooh, this is interesting!))

[Pharmacy]

>Mirai: SAY YES YOU DAMN FOOL

[Sparrowsmith]

Allow it, it is absolutely vital that The Panda, The Witch, and The Robot becomes a thing.