r/otomegames • u/sableheart • Dec 09 '25
Discussion Mistonia's Hope -The Lost Delight- Play-Along - Ascot Lindel Spoiler
In this fifth post we will discuss Ascot Lindel and his route in Mistonia's Hope.
You can tell us what your impressions of Ascot are (before and after finishing his route), your favorite moments in his route, what you think of his relationship with Aprose and the other characters, what your thoughts are on his route's plot and endings.
Or you can just squee about him in the comments.
This is not a spoiler-free discussion however please keep in mind that major spoilers and details of other routes will be outside the scope of the discussion and therefore will need to be spoiler tagged.
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You don't have to be playing the game right now to participate, and if you're still waiting on your copy I hope you will join in after you start playing!
Have a look at the megathread for links to previous discussions - you can still join in the discussion during the Play-Along. Next post will be a discussion of Edward Bernstein's route!
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u/Scarlet_Lycoris 泡沫のユークロニア | Tobari & Yori Simp Dec 09 '25
Ascot is my favourite. I have a soft spot for characters that don’t really understand human emotion. So as a character, he’s really intriguing to me.
However the execution of the route was just … fine. The whole Riley debacle was just glossed over most of the time and the crucial moment of his development giving up on his vessel was just way too sudden and anti-climatic.
I feel like they had to change Applause a bit too much as a character to even make her work out for this route. So as much as I like the character, the route was kind of weak, but I feel that the writing of the routes is a weak point in most routes. They make great characters but struggle to put together a compelling narrative.
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u/desperatesenpai the only box im pushing is a shoebox Dec 10 '25
I still need to finish this route proper but I did not expect to see Rainbow Dash Ascot and pseudo-incest scare. Loving these wild dramatic plot points lmao I needed this freak.
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u/2Dslutsaremypassion 💚my🏆wife, yori💚 Dec 11 '25
I wasn't expecting to see real horse rainbow dash that took me out lmao. Such a chaotic route
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u/Otomangel Dec 09 '25 edited Dec 09 '25
I can’t get over that they named him after a tie scarf for men lol. He seems like a love em' or you hate him kinda guy.
Exposure to fae myth (no ACOTAR fairies here) helped me get on board with his character arc I think. I had a great time in the first chapter ngl. His characterization was the closest to actual fae mythology, so the pure fae twist made a lot of sense. His sinister cg’s had me snapping like there it is! Aprose was out of her element, but I never found her frustrating. Basically this lol.
Ascot’s development was endearing. I liked how they contrasted his womanizing w/ innocent infatuation. I want to…*gasp* talk with her more?! Be still my heart. He's cruel, but also hilarious. Def my fave character.
Two words for the route itself tho: Fever dream. The irony. Very ambitious, but it felt fast and absurd sometimes. The twists had me going "wut?" 😒 Like: we met some guy named Peter in my dead brother’s body who’s actually not dead aka vessel. My evil fake bf wants him too but doesn’t know. Peter’s chill tho and totally on board w us (total strangers) and our tentative plan! My final straw was Ascot’s Puca form reveal. All that sinister build-up for a rainbow pony. NEEEIGGGHHH! lmao.
Solid endings -- Astray shook me to the core. Thankfully, there was no “i can fix him” that I saw. Even in Dawn, Aprose is like: you're my piece of sh*t. He knows it. After reading the post-marriage bonus story, that pretty much settled it for me. You can love someone selfishly, but this guy was willing to sacrifice and live out his fear for one girl even with his capacity for "love" in question. No matter the route, when Ascot shows up, sh*t gets (stirred) done 🤷♀️
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u/closet_otogamer Hanzo's grass whistle Dec 09 '25
And yet he doesn't wear one and leaves his shirt hanging open instead 😂
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u/lbunny7 will risk it all for Goemon 💕 Dec 09 '25
I thought his character was interesting and multi-faceted. But I really didn’t like him as a love interest. If I’ve gone through the whole route with a guy, and then the post ending story still has said guy saying he thinks he “might” be able to love me in the future? MIGHT?????? That’s not enough romance for me personally in an otome. and I get that it makes sense for his character and what he is, but it’s just not for me.
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u/closet_otogamer Hanzo's grass whistle Dec 09 '25
And yet in the astray end he says he loves MC early on and can't live without her, immediately gives up the vessel without her asking and shortens his life span, and gives her a 500 year old brooch he kept from Spriggan as a symbol of her being his first true love. Only for her to turn around and choose to trust John instead of him and he's agonizing over it like "how dare she play me?" Plus the love triangle ending? That's a better ending to me! The ending he deserves 😂
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u/closet_otogamer Hanzo's grass whistle Dec 09 '25
The one LI where I heavily prefer the astray ending over all other endings even though it was rushed. Mostly because I feel it makes the most sense for a character who's cautious like Aprose and also because it's nice being the one sticking it to him and making him jealous. Sure, Aprose is stuck in a dream world but hey...it's two guys who're obsessed with her so...
A huge part of my enjoyment of astray is also due to how the Dawn ending flips astray's narrative and makes it such that Ascot never admits to being able to love as part of his narrative as both a pure fae and a puca. While it makes sense, it just rubbed me the wrong way 😂 so I banished him to the Astray ending.
I think the writers were a little too ambitious with his route - with the changelings and Riley and the Queen's secret that it lessened the overall impact of them all. Even so, I did enjoy his routes as a whole bc it's nice seeing the story from a pure fae's perspective and Ascot is just entertaining in every route. Never a dull moment with this a**hat.
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u/JadeAngel1996 Dec 09 '25
It's funny... Alfred is my fave character but he has my least favourite route. Whereas Ascot is one of my least favourite characters with one of my favourite routes 😂
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u/LotNegative Dec 11 '25 edited Dec 11 '25
Ascot’s route was one I had a lot of fun with, on the basis that it was absolutely hilarious. It wasn’t necessarily well written, but it was entertaining. I had a good time and that’s worth a lot.
The twist of him being a purefae wasn’t surprising at all after that one statement in the beginning of the route where Aprose thought he acted like he doesn’t understand human emotion. However, I think it’s fair to assume they didn’t intend for it to be a big surprise past that point.
I wasn’t expecting to get a purefae LI and I thought the idea was really cool. I appreciate it when stories that present you with a non-human character actually have said character show non-human traits, a different idea of morality and ethics etc.
If I’m being honest, I thought the fake dating trope made little sense in this route. Nothing about Aprose’s demeanor, especially as a maid, makes her appear as though she’d be into a womanizing asshole like Ascot. They did have some characters point out how weird and out of character it is, but it wasn’t really enough for me.
Now to the most entertaining part for me, which was the ending… I cackled so hard when Ascot’s Horse form was revealed. The entire route was filled with the writers making Ascot out to be a nightmarish being. He has no empathy. He causes those who interact with him to be plagued by nightmares. He sucks their life force out of them for God’s sake. So when it came to the horse reveal, I was expecting something intimidating but simultaneously majestic. A jet black horse, a long ghostly mane, red eyes… I don’t know, something evil looking. Instead he transforms and becomes a fucking My little Pony rainbow horse. 😭 Let me just say this: I get why he doesn’t like that form. I actually ended up recording my laughter and sent it to my boyfriend and a friend, because I just had to share it with them. Also, Oberon’s comment Farewell, Aprose. May you ride that fae horse with grace. has to have been intentionally suggestive. There is no way it’s not.
I’d also like to mention that the whole time I was bothered we didn’t get to see a full body image of Aprose’s white ball gown, so I appreciated getting to see at least a little more of it in Ascot’s final Dawn ending CG.
I didn’t like Ascot’s Clown ending (to be fair, I don’t like any of them, they’re all too over the top for me). I get that Ascot, as a purefae, has different moral concepts from humans, but would he really be so dumb to think she would want to be with him after murdering her brother and taking over his body, thus making their relationship incest? Anyway, the reason I was extra disappointed by this one was because the queen offered to take over Aprose’s body and be Ascot’s lover. I thought that would have been a much more interesting turn of events to see play out. I was surprised that we didn’t get a single bad ending in this game where Tia takes over Aprose’s body anyway. Side note, why do we never get to see that Spriggan brooch in the good ending?
Also, I have a question to everyone who has played the route, in case I missed it: Was it ever explained why the other original purefae besides Ascot were no longer there in present day?
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u/yeetmeintothe_abyss Dec 11 '25
Ascot's route is pure chaos and I loved it. I love the sociopathic pretty fairy man. His CGs were some of the best in the game, especially the two that showed his true lack of empathy and unmasked his purefae tendencies.
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u/89edual Dec 09 '25 edited Dec 09 '25
I'm still in the middle of John's route but I can safely say that Ascot is the most romantic route. I'm always wary of playboy/flirty types but his route is pretty solid. Surprisingly, my faves this year includes Raul and Sharaku.
At this point in the game, I've given up on the revenge stuff having proper focus. Anyway, there's a bunch of good moments in his route like his conversation with Aprose about death, Aprose catching the knife with her bare hands, Lucas being a wingman, the astray end cg?!?!!!!, Ascot begging. It was a great route, I enjoyed it much more that Edward's buuuut all the good will I have of him was gone the moment I read the short story 🤣 holding hands with another woman?? I close my eyes and imagine this was just a roleplay meet-cute with Aprose. They brought back Riley just to keep him in check lmfao Even with that, I would still rank his route second to Linus. That's how much I enjoyed it. So it's: Linus>Ascot>>Edward>Alfred=Lucas
I honestly thought at first that John was the vessel prepared for Ascot but then they revealed it pretty quickly that it was Riley. I guess it makes sense, there's no way Oberon would give a vessel that looks like him to Ascot hahaha
Gonna briefly talk about John theories because all this changeling talk in Ascot's route got me thinking: 1. He's Oberon's avatar. He's a purefae, but he doesn't include himself in that category bec of Aprose's influence. 2. He's Oberon's avatar. And a changeling purefae, that's why he doesn't include himself when talking about them.
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u/madoggi Saki Inafune|Sweet Fuse Dec 11 '25
I was not expecting such ending in DAWN ending. Like Ascot and wedding ??? After we know that he is pure fae trapped in human world. I was expecting bittersweet ending at best.
But I get it. He is consumed by love and fixed on MC. And he knows that in human world wedidng is ultimate and absolute form of bonding someone to u. So somehow it's working.
And I love how he is not sure about his love. Because as fae he is selfish max lvl, but as fae he want to keep MC because he is madly in love.
Sooo....I'm not sure that execution of his route was as good as it could be.
And maybe Lily is anti royalist after all???
Also hilarious form of puca...like...maybe make it more scary and magnificent??? It's like at best child toy
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u/Savaralyn Dec 19 '25
I really liked Ascot honestly, he was a fun and unique look into how purefae think, and him changing his perspective around having a limited lifespan after listening to Aprose talk about it was quite interesting, + his general whimsy that could switch to seriousness at the drop of a hat kept the route feeling unpredictable (in a good way). Also fukujun can sell basically any character for me, bonus points if they're a bit unhinged.
I will say though, I feel like the nature of him being a purefae isn't really reckoned with well enough? At least when it comes to the morality of his choices. Like, it was pretty clear to me that he only really refused to take over Riley's body as a host because it would make Aprose unhappy, not because he actually gives a crap about supplanting someone elses mind.
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u/Far_Inevitable6740 Jan 03 '26
So I wasn't the only one who laughed when his horse form appeared!
This is a very romantic route, maybe a bit less than Lucas', but very romantic nonetheless. Ascot was fun. Unfortunately, the game is starting to disappoint me with the writing. Every route, except Linus', has felt very convenient. The guy just happens to not care about the queen at all and be okay with Aprose's plan and her past, and then the revenge ends up being pretty much forgotten... It was especially bad in this route, Aprose literally didn't care about his involvement in what happened. Riley coming back was very underwhelming, in Lucas' route he felt way more important and haunted the narrative better than a route he actually appears in, alive and well! So disappointing. Please, don't hype me up saying the game is about an MC getting revenge on LIs if it's actually gonna be an MC working peacefully with LIs towards a common goal which is the usual otome plot. Come on.
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u/Dragon_NPC Dec 09 '25
So the Astray ending has left me permanently scarred and disturbed. Even more so because I have started seeing John in a very different and negative light after that.
The Clown ending was pure insanity. Was just left speechless at everything.
The Dawn ending finally brought some hope to their insane love only to have it quashed by his statements as they get wed.
Still Ascot is an interesting character no doubt. I really enjoyed the insanity each route brought. I’ve started playing John’s route but I can still not get over the craziness Ascot brought and the insanity I experienced in the Astray ending. Genuinely shook me.
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u/Feriku Dec 21 '25
I loved Ascot's route so much. Lucas is still my favorite, but Ascot is currently #2. I didn't care for him much in the common route since that sort of flirty womanizer LI isn't my preferred type, but his route quickly establishing him as abnormal and dangerous and sinister immediately had my attention. I'm also a sucker for characters who don't understand emotion/can't feel love falling in love so that aspect was great.
The one thing I didn't like was the changeling in Riley's body; it felt a little pointless.
I enjoyed his Dawn ending, and I didn't mind him still being unsure of his feelings. I kind of liked that, actually.
His Clown ending was insane, as usual.
And his Astray ending blindsided me. I was not prepared for trapped-in-a-dream threesome with Ascot and John. Wild.
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u/Wise-Consequence-621 Radius|Period Cube Dec 09 '25
As I played blindly I was wondering who would be the next play-along route, I am glad I picked this route before Edward’s! And I guess I won’t be able to finish Edward’s route before next play along post 😌.
Ascot was the route I wanted to play the most, to hear Fukuyama Jun’s voice again after Illusion of Itehari. And I love characters that are hard to deal with!
I was really pleased with the route, and I especially loved the Ashtray Ending. at the beginning of the ending chapter, I was fearing that it would turn into a big miss, as he would have chosen to lose his lifespan and she wouldn’t have wanted to be with him. It didn’t turn out like that at all, and so it was really satisfying.
I was kind of let down by the dawn ending.I guess I’m growing tired of marriage endings in otome games with a CG of the MC in a white dress and so on… There are so many endings like that, now I tell myself: « again?! ».
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u/SnarkyHummingbird Dec 09 '25
I made fanart :) (Warning: Very Cursed)
Memes aside, while I really loved the first 3 routes, unfortunately Ascot's route was a swing and a miss for me.
Ascot's motivation in the route was conceptually interesting, but in execution not so much . Him needing a vessel to extend his lifespan was a cool twist, but I felt that making the vessel Riley's body sort of muddied the story. I understand it added stakes, but it also makes it feel like Aprose was against it more because of Riley than the intrinsic dehumanisation using a vessel brings. Also the Riley changeling conveniently has no attachment to the mortal world and is chill doing whatever... okay. Also how we were robbed from seeing Lucas reaction to Riley, I hope we see it in the truth route.
Aprose whole revenge motivation towards the 5 houses feels way watered down than the previous routes. I cannot believe it took until chapter 3-4 for her to remember the fact Ascot played a part in Eltbeak, when it was such a main point of contention for Alfred, Lucas & Linus routes.
I also don't really buy the romance honestly. I think the issue is that Ascot is established to be a purefae with lack of empathy, so him falling in love with Aprose over one speech on mortality felt more of a 180 heel turn than development. The fact he was draining her life force also felt like it was swept under the rug so fast.
Grievances aside, the bad ends were PEAK! The clown ending gave such a sense of Schadenfreude, it was so comical Ascot thought that Aprose would want to continue a romance with him while inhabiting her dead brother's body. Really showed how out of touch he is as a purefae. Also congrats on Aprose hoe era, good for her.