#~Jaehee's Route - Bad Ending One

[killjoy-prince]

Spaceship thoughts

[awbublie]

wait my mc lore just dropped 🙀🙀

mc lore is here >.< fret not!!

they are a glorified self-insert i am shameless and will insert myself into my favorite media!!!

though she isn't a complete rip-off of me, maybe like 60% me

though i do love napco figurines

(edit: im so stupid and thought mx stood for mexican😭😭😓)

relationship charts!!!

caught mc on a good day!:

essentially means mc got a higher score than 60 on a test and just got a sweet treat.

feeling like contributing to society, she helps this rando return a phone.

seven:

both work with computers, he's just levels ahead of them.

inferiority complex kicks in til he starts helping her with assignments and omg im in love with this man.

likes his jokes and his robots are sooooo cool, "you think you can make one look like this? :3" insert image

calls him so he can practice his english and she can practice her korean.

the flirty banter really kicks up and they get their hopes up

gets butthurt day 8 when he turns them down.

jaehee:

desperate for female friends mc is overly-sweet and clingy.

jaehee is overwhelmed and explains in order for them to be proper friends time is needed.

they are now bonding over coffee beans and how mc brought some from her last Mexico trip

i WANT THEM TO LIVE TOGETHER SO BAD

yoosung:

misses her siblings so he's the closest to a little brother.

finds out guys don't typically like that when you tell them that, especially if they are older.

they make up and bond over their no-life life

trains in LOLOL for the next couple days bc DANG IT SHE WILL PLAY IN HIS LOBBYS!!!!

share shoujo recs

zen:

when he flirts at first, her heart flutters.

till jaehee gives her the warning, and atp jaehees word is bible

finds him silly but like in a older man kind of way

finds his costumes interesting and asks about the type of fabrics they use

during 707 route, she leans into the whole big sister zen and LOVES IT

jumin:

not too big with rich people and was quick to form an opinion

finds out ab Elizabeth and everything that they had thought gets thrown out the window WHAT A NICE MAN!

til shes asking about the area and he says something along the lines of "why move to a country you know nothing about? You are simply asking to fail. "

YEAH HES RIGHT BUT HE DIDNT HAVE TO SAY THATTT 😭😭😭

is bitter for the next 2 days before she gets over it

caught mc on a bad day!:

felt with the daddy issues (we cannot control our fathers we have nothing to do with our father's errors they do not define what we do or who we become we can disagree with them and still love them)

the professor was moving too quickly during class, her computer was working, she fell behind and her brain is fried. it feels like it's been happening more and more....honestly it feels easier just to rot in bed sleeping.

getting a random message just worsens her mood. "i cant even help myself and im supposed to help you?" rolling over to try to make sense of the class notes.

saeran:

got kidnapped and had their laptop open

"you follow me on github?"

mc BEGS for him to teach them everything he knows

ends up becoming an intern and moving their classes online

but wait...this guy is lwk kinda cute....

and he's taking the time to teach me??? >.<

blind to their situation mc follows instructions and fufills small tasks

saeran gives her badge "ID:10T"

cleaning his code to filling up the office waterbottle, all in payment for bootcamp-saeran™

V:

reminds her of a teacher she had once, ick

finds him to be kind of a doormat, but so is she

doesn't enjoy seeing how others might view her

(707 route bc i forgot to mention him there) can't help but feel sorry for him, she may not trust him but i mean cmon they can't help but feel bad dude lost his fiance and now seems like he can't keep his life together

rika:

again, desperate for female friends, but this one IS SO DIFFERENT

this is like when you make eye contact with someone of a similar group and you kinda expect automatic friendship but they are cold to you

mc is either ignorant of mint eyes operations or is slowly being indoctrinated, they don't meet rika very often.

they form a kind of bitterness towards her, rooted in her insecurities

"how can someone be so loved?" "how can someone just 'create' a world of their own" "whats so special about her, i'd be able to do something like that too"

by only hearing of her through saeran they feel so insignificant to her influence, it weakens them

[nicotachi]

my clumsy review aka my unorganized thoughts on Hit New Yuri Game "Love Curse: Find Your Soulmate"! you can buy it on steam here

cyn and i spent the past week or so playing through all 10 endings and i just wanted a place to write down all my thoughts. i feel like i have a Lot to say and barely anyone else to tell so i'm going to attempt to rein it in

under the cut is nothing but spoilers so tread at your own risk! also: i do not hate any ship, but if you are averse to ship hate you may not want to read any of my criticisms!

PLOT SUMMARY

you play as a 20 year-old lesbian (named selene yan by default) navigating her transition from college into the workforce. however, you are suddenly informed of a curse that will kill you in one year's time—the only way to lift this curse is to find your true soulmate (yay a girl) before then.

there are currently 4 romanceable options: your cute childhood-friend-turned-girl-next-door, your classmate's mysterious twin sister, your reliable upperclassman, and your intimidating boss at your internship. who will you choose??? 😳

OVERALL

wow. what a game!!! i have limited experience with visual novels as most of them have been linear. all the otome games i've played were written for straight female audiences (with the exception of kang jaehee of mystic messenger) and designed for mobile. this was my first foray into an honest to goodness Sit In Front Of Computer And Pick Your Girlfriend game, and this time for actual lesbians! and i liked it a lot! what stuck out to me with this game—and keep in mind my limited experience here—is that ALL the endings felt like legitimate endings, even the bad ones. for some characters, the bad endings even felt preferable! this made me feel respected as a reader/player, and gave me a sense of agency in that i was able to choose whatever ending i liked without feeling like other endings were more 'correct'. and boy, did i enjoy some endings much more than others.

there are two curious things about the game.

the first one is a unique mechanic. each character has two meters: an affection meter, and a ??? meter. i thought the affection meter seemed pretty straightforward: get the affection up and get the happy ending. however, this was not so simple for 3 out of the 4 romanceable characters with the second meter in question. if the ??? value reaches a certain number, this may trigger the bad ending for that character. while the ??? value is never outright explained, it seems to represent something different for each character.

the second thing that stuck out to me was that half of the characters' routes directly relate to the lore behind the curse. honestly, it took me a while to even remember the title of the game because the 'curse' part seemed irrelevant to me with my preferred route. while two of the romanceable characters' routes explain the origins of the curse and why you have it, the other two are completely independent stories that could live in a vacuum.

this is likely not the first time this has happened as this was a feature in mystic messenger as well; zen/jaehee/yoosung were labeled 'casual story' while jumin and 707 were labeled 'deep story'. however, it's still an interesting choice as i believe overarching plot relevance influenced the characters which influenced how much i liked each character and/or their route.

which brings me to the main reason i even started this review: RANKINGS. yes, i wanted to rank each ending, explain why i liked them, why i disliked them, and what i think they could have done differently. this is where my opinions will become Opinions so dread carefully (not a typo).

very conveniently, i saw this post which brought me this chart, which i will use to grade each ending:

and now...the rankings!!!

first, i will start with ranking much i liked each character. this is based on writing/design/overall vibes and enjoyment:

iris (by a fuckin MILE omg)

nyx

victoria

eleanor

next, here is the order in which i played so you can have some more context with each route's review:

Iris BE

Iris HE

Victoria HE

Victoria BE

Nyx BE

Nyx HE

Eleanor BE

Eleanor HE

True End

now, here is how i rank each route. this is mainly based on writing and enjoyment:

9. Eleanor HE

Score: ⭐

i'm so sorry eleanor fans. personally i think eleanor was done dirty. tragically, her pre-awakening chemistry with selene is very cute. she's the closest to a classmate that selene has out of all of her love interests, and therefore the closest in maturity level. their banter reminds me of like idk. rory and jess from gilmore girls. basically two people who feel comfortable riffing off of the other. and this is no coincidence; they mention several times how they feel they have known each other for years.

which is a shame, because the route starts going downhill after eleanor's memories are reawakened, which is pretty early on. her personality shifts and it no longer becomes selene x eleanor, but selene x someone who thinks she's jianghe. everything we know about eleanor is thrown out the window in favor of her becoming 'jianghe', whom we barely know anything about.

and i think that's one of the major issues: we never do learn much about jianghe. not in her HE, BE, or even the true end. we don't even get a sprite! how are we supposed to care about jianghe if we barely know her relationship with fuguang? was jianghe also a confident perfectionist like eleanor? was she just as playful? why do we so easily accept that jianghe = eleanor, when in other routes we make it a point that chimei =/= nyx and fuguang =/= selene?

sure, there are hints that eleanor has been controlling since before her memories awakened, but that's still related to jianghe as it's a result of the spirits she pissed off. maybe it would have felt better if being controlling were a core part of her personality, the way iris and nyx's flaws feel more baked into their characters (which is why i thought iris' house arrest was way more interesting but anyways).

what would i do differently? i honestly would have emphasized an internal struggle in which eleanor doesn't know if she wants to continue being jianghe—someone paralyzed by paranoia, fear, and regret—and instead live as eleanor, who respects selene as a fellow intellectual. the house arrest arc dragged on for wayyyy too long. it honestly made me root for nyx to come break us free. instead, what happens is we get a rather bland fairytale ending of us overcoming nyx and living happily ever after.

also, i find it a little unsettling that we never find out eleanor has been tracking us, especially since i read someone on twitter suggest she has been tracking us THROUGH THE SMART WATCH SHE GAVE US IN THE COMMON ROUTE!!! which honestly is a crazy cool detail

8. Victoria HE

Score: ⭐

(WARNING: i do not hate this ship but i can see how you might interpret this as ship hate, so beware)

i like selene and i think i like victoria (even though i wasn't a fan of her routes), but i think selene and victoria have negative chemistry. not a single unit of rizz together. 1+1=0. watching their mutual attraction unfold felt like watching one of those slow trash compactor videos. two cars backing into each other in a parking lot. just something very unpleasant that i didn't want to keep seeing, yet kept reading in hopes of being swayed—and it never happened.

TO BE CLEAR!!! this is NOT because i hate either character and not because of their age gap or boss/employee dynamic. my number one ship rn is gan/qing for god's sake which is both of those. and i think it's BECAUSE i love gan/qing and office romance that i was so put off by their development.

victoria is presented as this cold and intimidating boss who scares selene during her internship interview. and she just...becomes very soft and caring after that? she just starts hanging out with selene like she's on her level and texting her like a friend? to me, it felt like the writers wanted to ignore their power imbalance until they couldn't ignore it anymore, which felt worse imho. what's the point in even making them boss and employee if you can't lean into the forbidden love territory!!!

not to mention, the conflict in both routes is just...i feel like it doesn't do her character justice? victoria is this cold woman who has her own young subsidiary under the qi group, treats rosalie like an annoying cousin, but is powerless to go against them at the same time?

and when she does finally go against them, it feels...idk, too easy. selene barely even does anything honestly, victoria solves it herself. and she just sells all her shares for a cute intern she just met??? even her affection for us feels too 'easy'. i wanted it to come with more strings i think...the writing and reasoning just felt way too disjointed for me.

what would i do differently? for one, i think i would lean into the 'problematic' aspect more. this is the toxic yuri game for a reason!!

i would have preferred if victoria were engaged from DAY ONE. chapter 0 baby. it would have made her 'innocent' flirting with us all the more scandalous in hindsight and made us rethink her green flag status.

i also would have amped up their boss/employee dynamic with them both knowing it's a line they shouldn't cross (and do). for example, more subtle gestures from victoria under the guise of Work. hands brushing over paperwork, a hesitant pat on the shoulder, idk ANYTHING!!! GIVE ME SOME PRIDE & PREJUDICE!!! IN FACT JUST REBRAND GAN/QING AND HAND IT TO ME ON A SILVER PLATTER. it was a mistake to have so much of their flirting over text because it feels both out of character and kinda just? ick? idek. it would have been funnier if victoria were a super dry texter but gave mixed signals in person.

7. Eleanor BE

Score: ⭐

i gave this one more points because eleanor actually dies. NOT because i hate eleanor, but because actions have consequences and her death is the consequence of her and phoenix keeping selene in the dark and not respecting her agency.

however, it still has the flaw of the incredibly long house arrest arc, as well as something that bothered me: this eleanor feels incredibly vindicated by her actions, even in death. first it was the flower pot incident, then it was tracking selene and being able to die for her in the forest.

what would i do differently? well for one, i think eleanor should have had regrets in her dying moments. it would have been better if she had that final realization that hey, maybe controlling every aspect of selene's life, memorizing her schedule, and viewing her movements 24/7 IS bad and the reason she's dead. unfortunately, she's still too stuck on fulfilling jianghe's wishes and basically dies as jianghe.

6. Victoria BE

Score: ⭐⭐

i share the same gripes with her HE. however, i rate her BE higher because the ending is actually very interesting to me. i liked the line about selene realizing victoria and rosalie are still cut from the same cloth, that at the end of the day victoria will lean on materialism and privilege to keep selene at her side. the symbolism of selene kissing the ring instead of victoria herself is RAW AF. especially when contrasted with her HE cg (kissing the ring that belongs to another woman vs holding the hand wearing selene's ring, the drawn curtains vs open window, etc). really cool of the writers and artists to do that.

what would i do differently? same as her HE criticisms, but especially the bit where i think victoria should have been cheating from the start. i don't think it's unfair as there is evidence to support eleanor has been tracking us since the common route. i do appreciate that all the characters' flaws do show up in the common route/happy endings

5. Nyx BE

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

before this route: oh nyx is just that childhood friend who is a littleeee bit clingy and unsettling but i'm sure she means no harm. i saw her kissing cg in the trailer it's very romantic she's just doing her best

during this route: holy shit she's an evil demon from our past and the reason why we're even cursed to die to begin with?

no real notes. banger story that gave me my first peek into the lore, more music tracks that were great and stellar voice acting from nyx. the backstory reveal and how they met bell was sooo cute. the final scene was raw af with selene being like "no. i'm not going to die with you because i don't want to 💃💃💃" and wanting to bid her ACTUAL LOVED ONES a proper goodbye. metal affff

also, the common cg with chimei lying with fuguang is gorgeous af chimei is literally channeling hu tao there

what would i do differently? well this one's a bit shallow but.....can they redraw fuguang and chimei's sprites please. the cg is so good just make it match

4. Iris HE

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

i LOVE iris but i felt like the outcome of this route felt less deserved when compared to her BE. iris is such a compelling character whose cruel breakup with us was the result of her strong feelings of resentment (and let's be real depression). i NEEDED her to GET INTO her resentment!!! but what happens is that she is literally about to tell us wtf is her problem with her family when she gets interrupted by a phone call. and disappears from work. and we don't see her until a few days later by coincidence. and she begs for us to take her back and we do.

to be honest, i had played her HE second and initially rated it way lower than it is here, but i recently replayed it after the true end and enjoyed it a lot more than i did the first time. while their reconciliation was a little ? to me (see: next entry), their redo date was super cute. i love a good breakup and grovel and reconciliation, and iris giving the date her best was really nice to watch. she had spent all that time in the common route/beginning of her route flirting with us meaninglessly, so it was nice to see her doing it with the actual intent to charm us.

while i had initially disliked the scene in which she spills her feelings and asks us to to take her back when compared with the cafe scene in the BE (peak), i do like it for what it is, and i especially like the part where she politely asks us to not reject her as she doesn't think she can take it at the moment. 😭

the final section with the business trip was kinda meh (victoria, why are you asking iris who is supposedly on a different team and also a newbie to substitute for selene's senior coworker lmao), i do love the implied sex the night before. WE LOVE YOU FADE TO BLACK WE LOVE YOU DISCRETIONARY SHOTS!!! iris said it may take her a while to become intimate with someone (maybe someone who knows chinese can tell me what exactly she meant by 'intimate') but girl it only took you several months to eat her cookie huh?

what would i do differently? see the next entry mostly. but honestly, i would have revealed more about her family and resentment and hate here rather than leaving it up to the BE.

3. Iris BE

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Spicy🌶️🌶️🌶️🥵)

if you haven't guessed by now, iris is my favorite character in the whole damn game. her bad ending was actually my first route as i totally fell into the xuejie trap and did everything i could to please her. consequently and to my surprise, i overindulged her and activated her dormant yandere state.

i had some suspicions about her as selene continued to rebuff her attempts to get back together, but i too was caught off-guard when iris decides to ROOFIE AND CHLOROFORM US. OMG. they even get into the weeds with the details of the kidnapping to show how scary the situation is e.g. iris feeding us literal crumbs and water in the dark. girl when can we pee?

but oh my god. that cg. that iconic cg that apparently made the rounds on twitter that i had thankfully avoided getting spoiled by but you know what? if i saw that cg first i'd have bought the game too. the game seems to sell at least part of itself on the idea that everyone has a dark side, but iris' ending takes it up a notch with "everyone has a dark side, and sometimes their dark sides are also sexy." because goddamn iris!!! her whole schtick is being miss perfect who is tired of being perceived as perfect and wants to bare her ugly side too, but sorry xuejie your ugly side is kind of sexy too soooo idk...

this is becoming a hornypost for iris i'm sorry. anyways um what would i do differently? my main gripe is while i commend selene for being much stronger than me, her reasons for continuing to deny iris in the BE vs her reasons for accepting iris in her HE make no sense to me.

the divergence in iris' route happens after the bathroom scene, in which you can either choose to walk in on her phone conversation/cry session (increasing her ??? meter) or try to give her some privacy (increasing her affection meter). interestingly, if you walk in, she will lie and claim she was trying to create a situation in which you two would bump into each other.

in the bad ending, you take her to the cafe where you had your first date and where she also dumped you and she pours her heart out about her family, her insecurities, why she broke up with you.

and you still decide to treat her coldly after that.

i can see how this would make sense, sure. selene is incredibly hurt. iris doesn't get to just hit the undo button because she's feeling regretful one month later. but this also doesn't make sense, because in the happy ending where you DO take her back such a conversation doesn't happen!

what happens in the HE after the divergence is: she stalks you at your social gathering (ironically she doesn't kidnap you in this one), is interrupted by a phone call before she can tell you more about her family, you find out about her family by very nicely asking victoria (simp) to disclose confidential info from iris' personal file, and you randomly bump into iris at school (iris has long since graduated), where she cries and asks you to take her back.

what??

not to mention iris' sudden slip into crazy. hotness aside, when and why does she decide to kidnap us? does she go out and buy some chloroform after eavesdropping on our resignation convo? i'm not opposed to the yandere thing at all, i just needed a little more believable buildup. she goes from completely cold and resentful of being needed to "i want to make you need only me" in the blink of an eye. maybe the writers could have connected it a bit more—maybe her doubling down into the dependable breadwinner role is her rejecting her most honest and imperfect self, realizing her true feelings were what pushed selene, her only love, away.

but anyways. still good tho.

2. Nyx HE

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

being a 'deep route', nyx's route does a good job of being a satisfyingly complete story that fleshes out her character while delving into the lore. the payoff feels good, and i like that the writers don't try to downplay nyx's red flags even after they officially get together. nyx being jealous of their cat that SHE originally took in herself is just as amusing as it is a concern.

what would i do differently? well, my main thing with selene/nyx is that while i do find them cute (as well as fuguang/chimei), i sort of get the sense that selene is partly with nyx because she sees her as her responsibility, much like the way fuguang saw chimei. while i was very impressed by selene's development from being the least interested in nyx (IMHO) in the common route to seeing her as a lover, i think part of me isn't fully convinced that she fully reciprocates nyx's intense feelings. their final cg is soooo romantic though it invokes the shoujo doki doki fr

1. True End

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

holy shit. no notes. the true end appropriately ties everything together. i loved the extra insight into fuguang's personality, the extent of nyx's crimes, as well as more tragic bell moments.

there is NO WAY the writers weren't teasing a lil selene selfcest, because holy shit that cg? with the cheek touch? and selene admiring fuguang's calloused hands which were so unlike her own? and becoming hyperaware of the fact that they are different people who happen to share a soul? there is nooooo fuckin way that she didn't feel a lil something for fuguang. my god.

the idea that selene travels into the past to save her own soul and ends up staying behind to save FUGUANG'S soul is heart-wrenchingly beautiful. and she becomes this wandering traveler who makes sure to protect herself/fuguang's reincarnation for eternity WHILE legitimizing every single route is just. wow!!!

if her curse weren't already broken by the paradox, it would have been broken by her true soulmate literally being the one person who shares her soul. time travel ALWAYS equals yuri. so so good. perhaps an unintentional aesop about loving yourself lmao

what would i do differently? i know the moments after fuguang passes away are supposed to blur, but some actual onscreen interaction with jianghe would have been nice. we literally know the bare minimum about her!!

ok let's wrap it up

you know what it's way past my bedtime so i should just end it here. in closing love curse was such a fun read/play and i enjoyed all the ways in which it wrinkled my brain and made me think about what i liked and what i wanted. i highly recommend you go buy it and support the devs so we can show how much the world wants yuri!!!!!

EDIT: cyn had to remind me of the actual order in which i played the routes so i edited it accordingly LOL. i think it’s actually because i disliked victoria’s happy ending so much that i started playing the bad endings first again

also, i mention 10 endings but only rank 9. this is because the 10th ending is the one in which you die due to not establishing a meaningful soulmate connection in time. currently, we’ve only read through iris and victoria’s versions of it. i do like iris’ a lot (shocker) because she sees you as a blip in her radar, something that could have been. i’m ngl i laughed out loud at victoria’s because why is my boss situationship organizing my funeral and not my own PARENTS LMAO

[haine-kleine]

ngl replaying Another Story after 283639 years is making me regret they focused on romance so hard? V feels ooc in both routes but RAE's cartoonishly evil V originating from the same common route that hasubando VAE V did makes it borderline comical.

and as a Saeran stan since the beginning this is almost a surreal experience because?? they clearly realized just how unhealthy his fixation on mc was and??? went with it anyway???

any attempt to make him take care of himself instead of obsessing over mc is met with rebuttal and trying to establish even reasonably healthy (compared to other routes' rejection options) boundaries sends this bpd bitch into a textbook rejection dysphoria.

what's really buggering me is that his route proceeds to successfully establish both Rika = Saeran/Saeyoung = V and the twins' mother = Saeran/Prime Minister = Saeyoung parallels. this makes it very easy to draw comparison between Rika's early relationship with V and Ray's budding romance with mc where both kept lovebombing their romantic interest before switching to their 'dark' personality that will manipulate and harass said partner. V going bonkers in RAE makes this equation positively insane which perhaps is evenly reflected in Ray's route requiring insane mental gymnastics of the player to get to the good ending (at least compared to mysmes' usual 'say i love you/spit on him and call him a little bitch' options).

like... realistically? at least speaking on mysme's otome game world's scope of realism, Saeran and mc's relationship would inevitably turn toxic. bc of his mom and Rika's brainwashing the concept of self worth is entirely foreign which pretty much makes therapy mandatory before it's possible for him to enter a healthy relationship. because mc is the first foreign person to get to know him and express interest in staying by his side he starts basing his entire sense of worth off the status of their relationship but his history with Saeyoung and V and Rika's influence turn this into a tightrope walking experience for mc. on the one hand, preferring Ray's gentle behaviour to Saeran's literal abuse inevitably leads to a bad ending but on the other hand the concept of accepting his 'inner darkness' or however else they decided to put untreated mental illness and years of CPTSD is on the same plane of existence that V/Rika's 'going blind and becoming suicidal as expression of eternal devotion and 'love'' toxic relationship is.

I'm aware what an otome game is and what soap opera/wife=therapist mysme specific brand of otome is, but my point is about Saeran's route being different from all the other ones.

the main routes were an introductory experience to the game and the characters, so the point of each route was exploring each of the characters fully and in practice allowed the player to help the characters resolve their specific issue by supporting and loving them. you won't really get Zen, Yoosung or Jaehee's flashbacks outside of their routes.

Jumin and Saeyoung are very different, and Jumin's route formula leans closer to the main ones with the bonus of giving V a happier ending which is exclusive among the initial 5 routes.

Saeyoung is like a neon sign, drawing your attention with his enigmatic presence the entire time, and his own route truly feels like the fullest experience of the story. he is designed to be intriguing, with the red herrings thrown around in every other route and 707 himself spending a good chunk of his own route fighting off mc's involvement in his life. what I'm saying is his route is designed less like a romance novel boyfriend and more like a mystery detective. the 707 romance experience is very close to being better outside of his own route, theorizing about the error 707 reset and him holding romantic feelings for mc in every single route. while the skeleton of the route structure remains the same, the experience itself falls short. you don't really get to steadily develop your relationship with him, have him express his doubts and insecurities as you reassure him and help him become a better person thanks to finally having unconditional support on his side. Saeyoung himself literally gets in the way of this formula and fights you with every step you have to forcibly take to get to know him better. and why is that?

because of Saeran, of course. literally everything he does is motivated by his belief in Saeran's safety being the exchange for his sacrifices. Jaehee, Zen and Yoosung don't really have a person whose presence in their lives motivates them so strongly, and mc walking into their lives gives them this exact motivation that drives them to finally unfuck their lives and learn to love themselves. Jumin is different from them because of V, who is his healthiest relationship as his childhood friend, and Elizabeth the third whom he wildly overcompensates V's withdrawal from his life with. as a result he has a much healthier recognition of his needs than everyone in RFA and because of this his route orchestrates very specific circumstances that put Jumin on the brink of psychotic breakdown, which might make the beginning of his relationship with mc appear as something unhealthy but once the time specific stress factors are gone he is able to enter a healthy purely romantic relationship with her without the need for mc to play his life coach and personal therapist.

what Jumin and the common route trio have in common is mc filling in the void in their lives. for Saeyoung this void has already been filled by Saeran. even after breaking through his aggressive tsundere period Saeyoung's personal brand of boyfriend is very strongly influenced by the dynamic he had with Saeran in childhood: he is a control freak, decisive, protective, the responsible one. the other half of this is clearly depicted in Ray's route: he is submissive, meek, fragile, the one who demands attention and care. okay maybe i find twisted humour in the fact that romancing either twin requires copying the attitude of his brother, did cheritz think about the flavour of brocon they were cooking with this.

this brings me to Another story and on this scope of comparison V has the benefit of his past being largely unknown outside of his relationship with Rika. even if you don't personally enjoy V, there's something you can get exclusively from his route: more details on his toxic past relationship, his backstory, a happier narrative conclusion to his friendship with Jumin.

this unfortunately puts Saeran into a losing position because he had already gotten a dlc dedicated fully to his backstory and recovery in secret endings. the route formula established above that consists of character backstory+romance+overcoming personal issues via unconditional support can't work for Saeran because it wasn't meant to work for Saeyoung. Saeyoung's route was intended as the 'true' route that uncovers all the mystery plots presented in main story. Saeran's primary role throughout the process of main route's conception was to serve as a mystery, unknown, the intriguing character baiting the players to buy deep route and be inevitably led to 707's one.

considering the many times Saeran killed himself, his brother or someone else throughout all the original release's endings they took the reasonable step to give him his own hopeful ending in the dlc containing all the details of the twins' childhood. mc is barely present throughout the secret endings because neither of the twins can dedicate himself to a healthy relationship without healing their own relationship first. it's extremely conditional and more defining for their perception of self than anything else. Saeyoung is a giver and a protector, this makes him into a control freak that later views personal distance as a safety measure without realizing how imbalanced this makes his friendship with RFA.

putting this exchange as the best example of this because it's preceded by 707 giving Yoosung an extremely long lecture on 'life is pain and suffering, pursuing your dreams is a hopeless waste of time, the point of existence is making money in the least miserable way you can negotiate with yourself' and pointing out the discrepancies in his preaching and procrastination habits makes him literally run away. he is absolutely not used to having his point of view challenged, this guy is allergic to it. because he had to cobble his belief system in the middle of the hellscape their childhood was and because the healthiest authority/father figure in his life was Jihyun 'i know better than everyone else and i am taking these secrets to my grave in the most dramatic and least productive way possible' Kim, it's easy to see how his self image grew attached to his percieved sense of responsibility (authority) over his close ones. but the fact he wasn't able to save Saeran and their separation puts an error into his belief system that spirals into this guy changing his name to 'Satan'.

Saeran on the other hand has a chronic attention whore syndrome. in Another Story this causes a lot of martyr behaviour from him: when Rika makes him work like a dog after V's detection he keeps coming to mc for validation. this point isn't meant to disregard the objectively horrific circumstances he is forced into, but the only other mysme chara who keeps complaining about their circumstances is Jaehee, who starts doing it more once she notices mc acknowledges her abusive work conditions. both Saeran and Jaehee are orphans with no support system and both of them throw themselves on the first person who shows them positive attention. but while Jaehee is notoriously cautious in her interpersonal relationships, Saeran depends with a reckless abandon. mc's rejection leads to him blowing himself up in V's route, this isn't meant to be healthy!

what is very important to understand about Saeran is the fact that he isn't actually Ray. despite all the traits that can be attributed to his Ray persona fitting every Saeyoung's description of little Saeran, the game itself makes a point about Ray being a false image, or rather a construct.

what little kid Saeran and Ray have in common is that both were identity constructs created by Saeran for the purpose of getting positive attention from his favourite person: Saeyoung and Rika. the concept of Ray really stresses just how conditional love is in Saeran's understanding. misery is a required step for acceptance. his mother's abuse was always followed by Saeyoung taking care of him, nursing his wounds and promising a better future. when Rika did what Saeyoung couldn't (or wouldn't, in Saeran's POV) do and freed him she had also implanted her very flawed conceptions about love which several years later turned Saeran into pretty much her personal slave. Rika was vulnerable the way Saeyoung wouldn't be with Saeran. Rika would have her highs and lows: going from mania to depression, demanding obedience and respect and then support and acceptance. being in relationship with Rika broke V, who was at least nearly an adult. of course, taking Saeran from inhumanely abusive environment straight under her wings was a disaster waiting to happen. Ray is pretty much a custom made identity designed by her to satisfy her needs: he is extremely submissive and can't function without validation.

the facet of Saeran that exists beyond both Saeyoung and Rika's scopes of acceptance or understanding is the Saeran that was left alone with his mother.

in this flashback we learn that the woman made a habit of projecting on him and comparing the older twin to their father. Saeyoung and Mr Choi were stronger, more capable and resourceful than herself and Saeran. the younger twin became an outlet for her frustration and true to the narrative thread of this game, internalized the unhealthy beliefs of his caretaker.

lo and behold, Unknown/Suit Saeran/Dark Saeran/Yandere Ultimate

I won't go into details how this guy uses mc (Ray route), mc and RFA (main+deep story) or Saeyoung (secret endings) as his emotional outlets, what i want to focus on is his importance in his own route.

scrapping him would have been easy: Ray for all intents and purposes shares all the requirement characteristics for the role of Saeran-as-love-interest, down to persisting hatred of Saeyoung. Ray is much easier to write in this role than the edgy counterpart: one provides textbook romance and the other literally tortures you, physically and psychologically. evil!Saeran's entire persona begs to invite himself to all the bad endings, so what is he even doing in the middle of unskippable part of the route?

i think this can be interpreted as Cheritz pretty much acknowledging the impossibility of the task they've set themselves with. you can't really heal Saeran by romancing him and healing him is not as easy as bringing him back the brother he was separated against his will from many years ago. the analogy with Rika and V is inevitable, so there's no avoiding the label of toxic relationship even if you change his name and give him a whole new identity.

Saeran's road of healing always without failure leads to Saeyoung. and in my opinion the absence of the brothers' actual relationship really takes away from Saeran's route. Saeyoung's route only dangles the possibility of reunion because at that point we barely knew who the fuck Saeran actually was, and RGE actually downgrades this by fully taking Saeyoung out of the picture.

which leads to RAE being a highly questionable experience, even as a big Choi twins enjoyer. Saeyoung's role in it is exclusively angst porn. we already knew how desperate he can get when it comes to protecting his twin, the grand sacrifices and the pain of their consequences is already perfectly conveyed by his guilt trips that prevent him from genuinity with RFA, all for the sake of Saeran-ah. like, it doesn't get any bigger than actively and without stop sacrificing your authentic identity???

and the twins' mutually sacrificing themselves for each other's sake rather than turning up the drama to it's peak feels like this meme

is it nice to have Saeran actively protect Saeyoung? sure is. but his overall extreme passivity and victimhood in this route are too over the top. the end checkpoint of each individual route including Saeyoung's was teaching the character their self worth and watching Saesae throw himself at every inconvenience feels like we did a fairly bad job at this. (this is not realistically healthy but) using the trend that Ray's route established of his feelings for mc overpowering his harmful beliefs and self harming habits and making him actually take care of himself, this downright reads like a failure on our part? i dunno, watching an actively suicidal character who had tried to kill himself in front of us in two of the good endings already, after the point of his own good ending leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

all for the sake of what? Rika abandoning her cult and seeking validation in express makeshift family? Prime Minister's character arc?????

after analyzing this critically, i really feel like Saeran's route would have benefited a lot from putting the focus of his character on RFA rather than focusing RFA on the outer drama. the message of found family being as important as blood family and in some cases even more has already been conveyed so beautifully in Jaehee, Zen and Jumin's routes, it would have put this message full circle if they used it on the one romanceable character outside of RFA. what makes this especially upsetting to me is that Zen and Saeran's platonic relationship is almost designed to be perfect:

- Zen is estranged from his blood family by choice from a very young age, making it easier for him to validate Saeran's feelings on topic of family

- throughout the routes Zen is pretty much the only character who is consistently willing to discuss the emotional problem the others are going through. pretty much every other character is too busy drowning themselves in escapism while Zen gently nudges them towards bringing up the issue they are running from (with the exception of Jumin because he triggers traumatic memories about his brother's abandonment and you know who else was abandoned by their elder brother?!). what is Zen's own issue? he constantly requires attention and validation. you know who else does?..

- despite Zen sharing Saeran's attention whore medal, he is outwardly unambiguously supportive of the other RFA members. 707 even dubs him a nag because of how aggressive he can come off in his desire to emotionally support RFA.

- Saeran is a very impressionable person. both of the twins consider their only worthy attribute their hacking skills, and because of how sheltered Saeran's whole life he has very little personal life experience. as an example, in that short window of time after being rescued from his mother and before Rika snatched him to her cult he was taking care of the church's garden and that was enough for him to develop a lifelong obsession with flowers. considering how genuinely talented Zen is, i think it would take Saeran no time to be deeply impressed by his passion and his performances. i can see Zen becoming a similar symbol of freedom and tenacity to Saeran that he did to Jaehee.

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

ROUND 3 MATCH 32

Mammon propaganda:

“He was done dirty in the first round, I hope he wins this time because he deserves it 

First of all, he hates you at the start but then he starts to like you but he exclaimed his hate too much at the start so he can't admit it 

Everyone knows that he likes MC, even his little D (who are demons familiars) thinks that they should date 

He is a classic tsundere but doesn't actually hurt you like other tsunderes but he is so bad at hiding his feelings that everyone is just ignores it 

He is the avatar of greed, meaning he is clingy which may be a turn away for some people but he cares for you so so much 

He has never turned into his demon form to hurt you (Asmo hasn't but he has tried to seduce you with his power)

Don't get me started on his story cards, he literally is so cute

He wants to be a mentor to Luke, like Lucifer was to him, he is only mean to Luke because he wants Luke to learn about how life isn't all sunshine and rainbows

He is also so hot, he is a bisexual panic 

He is bullied by his brothers but he cares for them so so much despite their bullying

I am so in love with him and have written so many fics about him 

Anyway, I'm going to stop here because otherwise I'll be here all day”

“First friend, first pact, practically the MC's first everything, he is a major Tsundere, he holds my heart hostage, I just want to smooch him, he and MC share a room, he is such a cute little bab, he does bully Luke (a child) but it's revealed that he just wants to show Luke that the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows and want help him figure things out

He is the cutest little guy, he cares for his brother 

His sin is greed so he does steal things from people but since lesson 1 he hasn't stolen anything from MC 

He wrote a song to propose 

Sure he is clingy but in a good way

He is so cute 

He adopted a child, which he had to leave in the care of witches and willingly let's the witches extort him 

There is so much that I can say about him but 1. Spoilers and 2. I don't think you want to read that much”

“OKAY SO. OH MY GOD. 

First person we're able to properly romance in game. AND FOR GOOD REASON. He's had MCs back from the beginning, hes the one real one in the game. He's always trying to protect us and its so nice. Puppy boy. He's so me as well??? Like he's such a doting boyfriend it's literally so cute. When MC had to go back up to Earth, he kept breaking the rotating schedule in order to call us more. He always gets MC gifts (avatar of greed love language being gift giving im gonna collapse) and he just drops the most romantic lines out of nowhere??? Like sir are you trying to give me a heart attack. He's the secretly traumatized comic relief. He has ADHD. He's canonically queer (MC doesnt have a set gender). He even likes Head pats. Vote Mammon.”

“HE'S SO PATHETIC AND CRINGEFAIL. I LOVE HIM”

Jaehee propaganda:

“only female love interest in MM, not included in the first round for SOME REASON, you literally go off and live your coffee shop au with her at the end of her route.”

“My lesbian wife. Open a bakery with her after convincing her that she doesn't have to give up her happiness to make money. She can pursue her passions. Also her backstory is so sad and I just wanna hug and kiss her and throw hands at her "family" for making her feel like she does. Also the Valentine's dlc, you get locked in the back of the bakery with her and... Yeah that's my wife. I love her dearly. Also can we just acknowledge that she's like the only path that involves almost none of the dramatic death defying nonsense. You're just gay and in love and it's beautiful”

[annbourbon]

Mystic Messenger Timeline (Explained)

I'll be obviously skipping a lot of stuff in between, but this is just to make things clear. It's not the way you're supposed to play, just the timeline.

⚠️ Contains Spoilers ⚠️

⚠️⚠️ Spoilers ahead ⚠️⚠️

⚠️⚠️ You've been warned ⚠️⚠️

First Rika Behind the Story (DLC)

Then I'll start counting as Year 1, the events that lead to the RFA and Mint Eye foundation.

Year 1:

V and Rika know each other

They meet Saeyoung

Saeyoung leaves

Rika kills the Twins's mom

Rika gets engaged to V

Mika and Rika (Mina) create 1st draft of Mint Eye

V buys the department

*on that note, seems that there are 4 cameras but Saeyoung only knows of one*

**This also implies that Saeran was abused as soon as V and Saeyoung took their eyes off of him since Rika used Saeran as model to defeat Saeyoung's skills as a hacker.

***What happens because neither Saeyoung nor V know anything about Saeran whenever they reunite for RFA parties and their engagement? Why no one asked anything?

Year 2:

Rika meets Jumin

RFA begins (yes, it was Mint Eye first, and the reason why the name was Magenta first. Mika?) June's Route in The Ssum, First Season. According to Jumin.

The Ssum Timeline

3. RFA 1st party is held

4 Jaehee joins RFA

5. Rika kills Sally

5. RFA 2nd party is held

6. According to V and Saeyoung this is where the hacker starts attacking the RFA (first time)

7. Jumin said he lost contact with V and Rika after the 2nd party.

There's a point where Jumin admits barely seeing Rika after the 2nd party. Meeting with her and V for the last time 3 months before her death. Yoosung Route. Day 9. Chat room 7AM called V's eyes.

According to several chats during Yoosung route, they barely paid attention to V being blinded. This of course included Zen, Yoosung, and Jumin (who is worried and suspects something but doesn't intervene despite V having severe corneal damage from external trauma)

8. Rika must have blind V at some point during these three months.

9. Saeyoung installed the Special System. AKA: The Bomb

10. "Rika commits suicide"

Plot holes: Where's Mika? Why they don't notice there's another person living there? It's not that easy to hide your presence 💀

But according to V, he knew about Mika. It's at least implied.

*At the same time, there's a line, I forgot where exactly, that says that both, Rika and V called off their engagement at some point. They don't say anything about coming back together after that. wtf!?*

Another Story

1 month after her death, prologue.

Five months later

*means 4 months after they break up their engagement? Assuming they did not break up before but because of Rika behavior blinding him. Which kind of solves the plot holes from Year 1 setting Mika on the apartment and V not fully knowing but suspecting, although it would be impossible or almost impossible without his eyes do something about it. Especially since his blindness is recent. If you need to understand a bit more about blindness watch my post on Rika killing Sally. It may be a dog, unlike V lol but it's still enough information to set up the rest of the story.

Anyways, let's go back to our timeline no?

Bad ending prologue #1 (Casual & Deep) and #2 (Another) are part of the same story and unlikely that it is set into an *alternative route* like some people like to say. Bad ending prologues even from Another Story seem to fit almost too perfectly when you think about it, but only if you agree to go with Unknown after rejecting him several times.

Because it would fit into the idea that the MC's were captured by the cult and discarded after a while (or put to work under Mint Eye. But also because according to the opening on the Casual and Deep, it would mean that Saeran's been watching you, so does Saeyoung.)

As I said before, the other MC's are either dead or anything but MIA (whatever that means for Mint Eye?) and this one, the brunette, is selected and it's the only one who survives and passed the whole trial. Not at first but it doesn't matter. This MC is not dead. The others are. You think "The others" are just the player with different image? I've got news for you, each one of this has a number~ check this post ^^

Either you become the assistant of Unknown with that bad ending which is an option available for every prologue or you enter Day 1 to Day 4 of Another Story and play throughout to reach:

Day 6 and Day 10 from Ray/Saeran Route which are part of the same ending. They're not a different ending. Both however lead to the Casual Route, Day 1 (after the prologue)

Which means, if you get the bad ending in the prologue of Casual/Deep you'll be going back to Mint Eye. Yes. It's not supposed to be your first rodeo there. And if you have a Bad Ending on Mint Eye, you're brainwashed andd set on Casual/Deep (You're supposed to be an spy, but who do you work for? Are you a victim or a villainess? that's another story 😜)

My theory?

*This is where I'm still stuck, so I'll be fixing major plots here and there and editing this same post over and over until I get it right. Please bear with me 😭*

Rika DLC > 1st party > Rika gets engaged > Saeyoung leaves > Rika kills Sally > Rika kills Saeran's mom > Rika starts torturing Saeran > Mint Eye begins > 2nd party > Hacker attack > Bomb is installed > Rika blinds V > Rika dies > Another Story (prologue) > Another Story (Day 1 to 4) > Another Story (Day 6 & 10, bad relationship both of them) obviously with what causes these bad endings > Casual Route (with bad endings included) > Deep Story (with bad endings included) > Secret Endings (except for V dying, we'll get there) > Another Story again but V route happens first (no happy or normal ending) and then something weird happens:

And this part if I'm being honest, I have no idea but I'm fixing it cause my theory is that

V and Saeran's route become so intertwined that is almost impossible to know what happened.

The bomb on Mint Eye? Saeran? Although it is suggesting in the bad endings that he died, we never saw that to happen.

V dying in the secret endings?

Saeran burn?

Seven does mention a couple of numbers, associated with the other MCs, somewhere in the game. Unfortunately I can't remember if it's on a call or a chat so I'm going back all over again because I was so shocked at the time I was unable to take a screenshot.

Truth to be said I can't fully find the order rn but! I will, I definitely will. I need time. I mean, more time. I've been working on this for 6 to 7 years now, I'm posting this because it's so big I can't keep it to myself and I'm freaking out here. So I'll be editing this in the future. As many of my other posts. Sorry lol

Ironically, Saeran's AE would be indeed the Final Ending.

Additional Note: Because of time travel, Mystic Messenger is a non linear story, which means you need to pick upon clues here and there to understand where the timeline goes. The other games have a similar issue but not as pronounced as this.

[idiasmentalhealth]

i am incredibly desperate to play some more wlw visual novels... or any sapphic dating sims rlly

i recently bought little goody two shoes (not just for the sapphic content, i also rlly like the psychological horror and ik most of the endings are bad lol) and i do plan on playing bg3 eventually (mostly for karlach) but other than those two, the only visual novels i've played with either pick-your-own-pronouns or a fem mc with at least one woman or enby LI are:

- the arcana

- life after magic

- our life now & forever (just a demo rn, and i am patiently waiting for 2025 🙏)

- mystic messenger????? (except this one hardly COUNTS cuz JAEHEE IS IN DENIAL. CHERITZ GIVE HER A ROMANTIC ROUTE WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO FRIENDZONE US 💔)

- touchstarved (there's mhin who's nb, and sen but we won't be seeing anything of her in the demo since she's gonna be a dlc romaceable character 😭)

(there's also obey me but i lost my account years ago and i don't wanna start over from scratch just to get to thirteen im sorry)

pleeeaasseee if anyone knows of any other visual novels with wlw content i would love to know 😭 preferably free cuz im broke and jobless 💀

[pixlezz]

mystic messenger in 2024 pt 2

full disclosure i finished yoosungz route a while ago. like the last last Sunday lmao but thiz took forever because I've been really busy with art fight lmao

i liked zenz route a little bit more than yoosungz route but it was really fun to play through thiz one .] i kinda wished he still played video game through the route but i get why he didn't do so, as for the ending twist. i kinda got that spoiled so it wasn't much of a surprise but he was really sweet and i liked to play though that route

also in case this post makes itz way back to two of the people who reblogged i'd like to say thiz in particular

to the person who reblogged saying the importance of sleep schedule i fear i have fucked it up already. not to the extent of waking up at three am (i truly could not do that) but i woke up at like 6/7 am for like three whole weekz (or however long zenz + yoosungz route combined was) and i have never been more exhausted since i was also staying up to catch the last chatz of the night 😭 i will admit though, i kinda slacked off with yoosungz route and woke up late and missed a shit ton of chatz for him dot dot dot. but yeah ! me starting to wake up late fucked up my opportunity for jaehees route (more on that later)

and to the person who reblogged saying to play cheritz other game !! i perhapz will !! i want to at least finish jaehees route, sevens route and juminz route. i probably will skip V's route and unknownz route simply because i will likely never get 500 hourglasses and i only have 190 lmao

and finally my failed jaehee route. when i finished yoosungz route, i decided to jump in to do jaehees route. itwas going good but on day six. erm. i fucked up because i missed quite a few chatz and unknown came and went "nah bro, you ain't give a shit? thatz wild you don't get to play." and i got the bad ending.

absolute skill issue i was devistated. let me kiss girlz guyz... plz i just wanted to kiss jaehee ☹️ (also i know jaehees route isn't romantic don't burst my bubble and let me be delusional)

[fictionfixations]

i do this thing where in games where you can choose your name i choose a character from my most recent fixation

that stonehearts trailer came out and oh mygod and i just so i here i am

with aven. hes so pretty. ehfuidgh

also im going through deep story rn (i dont know what im supposed to do to get good ending so haha i might get aven blown up oops. on sevens route)

Aventurine: ...haha.

Aventurine: congrats

Aventurine: I think cat businesses will be really fun to work on

Aventurine: How short they last...?

Aventurine: Don't you think it will be fun?

Aventurine: It's good for Jumin to have fun at work. He just has to pay his workers properly.

Aventurine: I think that's a good idea. More and more people are allergic these days. Tell him to contact me.

Aventurine: Good luck today!

Aventurine: lolol Save one for me too~

Aventurine: I want one too +_+

Aventurine: I think it's okay. The cat's cute.

Aventurine: That's a good way to think~ Good luck!

Aventurine: I don't feel so good about it.

Aventurine: Yup. Let's not be depressed and try to have a positive outlook on solving this.

Aventurine: That's not enough.

Aventurine: I'll be waiting for you☆

Aventurine: Mental recovery abracadabra!

Aventurine: I knew it! I felt as if you were looking at me every 2.35 seconds!!!

Aventurine: I love genius people!

Aventurine: Mr. Luciel is always open to financial cooperation.

Aventurine: Hello~

Aventurine: You can't joke about things like that T_T

Aventurine: Then come see me~!

Aventurine: To be honest... I want one ^^

Aventurine: Romantic... That sounds nice! I want to experience what that's like~★

Aventurine: Right you are~!

Whoopp~~ Best, Aventurine

Jaehee: He is too worried about securing Aventurine's safety. Usually, he would have taken care of it by now... Aventurine: I'm sorry that I'm so attractive...T_T Zen: lololol Yeah... But are you really sorry? lol

ill prob make a post if i get a bad ending

[marshmallowprotection]

Now you made me very curious, what would be Ray's role in Lila's route? Would he be an antagonist or something more?

I can't see him as an antagonist.

Sure, you could say, "Well, he... brought her to Mint Eye in the first place and made her think this place is a dream, doesn't that make him the villain of her route?" I don't think so. One of the things about Ray and Lila is that they've shared similar pain. That particular pain has allowed them to relate to one another, and it's helped them feel less alone in the grand scheme of things.

Their older siblings did something to them that wasn't remedied for one reason or another... and they had no choice but to fill in the gaps alone. For Lila, her sister hasn't come running like she normally would to correct a mistake she made, and for Ray... he has no idea that his brother left him with the thought that he was doing so for the greater good. For Ray and Lila, having someone in their corner who gets it is crucial to their healing process. Ray's more willing to open up about his pain when she's there, and Lila's more willing to reflect on the situation than continue to run away when he's there.

I'd have to imagine that Lila and Ray's routes run concurrently. Even if you're not super interested in a V-shaped romance where Lila has two hands, I can't imagine she would ever leave Ray behind in Mint Eye. She made him a promise to be there for him, and she will keep it. I'd imagine that one of her Bad Endings would be her choosing him over the player because they tried to tell her to abandon him.

Telling her to break her promise will not bode well.

She's not like V at his lowest, she knows when to break a promise, but Ray isn't a monster and she knows the real villain behind all of this pain and suffering is the Savior. She'll hold Ray accountable for wrongdoing but she's not going to let him rot to save herself. That's wrong in her mind.

Think of it like how Jaehee's route has a lot of Zen content. Jaehee and Zen aren't romantically involved, but they are friends and they want to lift each other up! So, yeah, Ray's Lila's best friend, and his freedom from Mint Eye is non-negotiable.

[juminies]

Don't know if you've ever talked on this subject or not, but what's your interpretation on Jumin's relationship with Jaehee after her good ending? Really love how mindfully you explain Jumin's feelings and actions, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter! Especially bc her route kinda leaves many people feeling like he's an antagonist of sorts 😬 But I kinda always felt like he'd respect her a lot, especially once he sees how much passion she puts into her dream? And Jaehee shows her genuine care for Jumin, too, moreso after his infamous crash. I'm kinda babbling here, but yeah! Really curious to read up on your interpretation <3

I haven't talked about this before actually—I think there's a lotttt of nuance to it and I didn't want to be haphazard with it in case it comes across as me being over lenient with corporate heirs or whatever hahah. I promise I'm not! I just love Jumin. Also sorry this took me a while to answer, I had actually just started a game the day you sent it with the intention of doing Jaehee's route so I decided I would play before responding to ensure it was fresh in my mind. I hadn't played her route in so long, and I wanted to get the Jumin outgoing calls too!

To get into how I think he would treat her after some time passes I first want to discuss their dynamic in her route a bit, because I honestly think people are unnecessarily harsh on him because of it sometimes. I personally don't feel as if they pushed him too far into an antagonistic role, but perhaps since Cheritz weren't bringing in an outsider (à la Echo Girl or Sarah Choi) to act as the driving force it seemed that way to some people? It was inevitable given the nature of Jaehee's struggles that Jumin would be viewed as the bad guy in a sense, but I feel like it's often sort of blown out of proportion due to a misunderstanding of both Jumin's intentions and his character as a whole. He is admittedly at his worst in Jaehee's route, but people tend to brush his actions during it off as completely out of line and absurd and then go on to use it to totally mischaracterise him as someone who doesn't value his employees whatsoever or is an abusive boss. In reality though, the way he acts as a superior in general as well as given the specific circumstances is very... Jumin? in that it's logical and efficient and goal-driven. Jaehee's route is such a push and pull in the sense that the two of them clash repeatedly in a scenario where neither person is willing to compromise—for what, to each of them personally, is good reason! Jaehee is a victim of a wider system, of capitalism itself, less so than of Jumin as an individual.

On one hand, Jaehee having to give up a project she was finally actually enjoying working on would be incredibly frustrating, even without having something she actively dislikes stacked on top of it. I get why she went against Jumin's wishes of doing a bad job (why would she choose now of all times to put in half of her effort when it's something she's actually having fun with?) and I get why she used Seven's cat hotel proposal. Life can be messy like that. Sometimes you have to make a decision that has a shitty outcome for someone else for your own sake or vice versa. She should be doing something that makes her happy, and had she not gotten the encouragement to find something she loves she would have continued to feel unfulfilled for god knows how long. Plus, in regard to the coffee report she is still technically doing her job and doing it well, even if going against her boss' personal wishes in doing so. She also does use her own time to revise it in the end so Jumin can have his way (and maybe a little bit so she can use her ideas for her own place) so, to me, that says she understands where he's coming from and doesn't particularly resent him. It's a complex situation for sure, and objectively Jumin does have the upper hand even if he doesn't quite realise the extent of it. I absolutely support Jaehee in her endeavours; I love her so much and she absolutely deserves better than eternal C&R bullshit.

At the same time, Jumin's perspective does make sense if you try to understand his worldview a bit more. Jaehee is the only person at C&R he feels he can genuinely rely on, and when he's already been thrown through a loop with his father prior to her disobedience it's entirely logical that he would feel as if everyone who should be working with him is suddenly against him. Jumin has been shown before to not quite have a grasp on the social standing he holds over Jaehee, for example in this chat from deep story day 2 where he doesn't understand why she can't tell him, as he told her, that she doesn't like seeing him in chatrooms.

And I think it's genuine obliviousness as opposed to purposeful ignorance; he overlooks bigger structures at play because he legitimately values hearing the honest opinions of the people around him and expects them to have a mutual respect for him. As far as Jumin is concerned his employees should be able to come to him with honest feedback, but of course that typically isn't the case and so Jaehee can't express how she really feels to him lest she face consequences. Jumin's thought process when it comes to employment is shown to be, to put it simply, people work for money -> more work is more money -> more work is good, and it hasn't been explained to him why this isn't the case for a lot of people. Jaehee's actions register to Jumin as is simply a betrayal of his trust and respect, because he doesn't quite see the level at which he and Jaehee are on unequal footing in the first place. On top of that he is rigid in that he needs everything to be done as he expects it; he does not like sudden change and (as demonstrated in his own route) can be incredibly rattled by it if he is already otherwise stressed or overworked. Just because he stands strong for his friends does not mean he is entirely invulnerable to being overwhelmed and acting out, and while I completely agree he was on some level being selfish in regards to the cat project, at the point where Jaehee quits she has already left him with what (to Jumin) is a mess to handle essentially on his own. He is overworked too, something Jaehee admits herself, and he wanted to transfer the coffee project to another department both to make less work for the two of them and in order to not succumb to his father's lack of consideration for anyone or anything but his current partner.

Again I do not blame Jaehee for anything she did whatsoever—I think it was a good idea for her to quit and she absolutely deserves the happiness she finds in MC and their café!—but Jaehee is incredibly competent and Jumin knows that. Consequently he knows she has big boots to fill and it can't be done on a whim. I'm sure you can see why he would be incredibly frustrated. As a whole it's just a very messy situation where the two of them can't really fathom the other's perspective. Their lives and outlooks on the world are so intrinsically different at this turning point in Jaehee's life, and that's fine. Neither of them have bad intentions towards the other whatsoever.

Now to actually answer your question! Firstly I want to put out there that he says this on days nine and ten respectively:

Then I want to add that I do not think Jumin is the type to hold a grudge. He is shown frequently to take on a sort of each to their own/whatever will be will be attitude, and though this situation is something that impacts him directly I can't imagine him taking it any more personally in the long term than he would anything else. Sure he's a little hostile in her AE, but to be completely honest with you I do not think he would have gone to visit the café at all if he was completely furious and had lost all respect for Jaehee (and/or MC) after her endeavours. Again he knows that Jaehee is highly capable, hardworking, and generally a very good person, and I can't imagine that one rocky dilemma between the two of them is something that would make him bad tempered around her forever. He still clearly held her highly and has a lot of respect for her despite their differences, and she doesn't seem to have any ill will towards him either. Ultimately, as you say, he would grow to respect her passion and would hear her out on why she took the course of action she did in the end. While Jumin may not be great at putting himself in others shoes he can identify patterns well, and it lets him draw parallels between his own experiences and other people's. Once he finds the common ground (he knows how fulfilling passion projects can be, he knows how frustrating it can be to work yourself to the bone for others' sake without any real incentive, and he values real friendship an awful amount) I think he would accept it.

I actually feel like hypothetically in the long term not working together would be good for their relationship in terms of RFA too—Jaehee was only made part of the group originally because of Jumin and it meant that all of their interactions even amongst their mutual friends were that of a work relationship. We know they both dislike being in chatrooms together and dislike hearing each other talk outside of work, which was bound to have put a strain (even if very minor) on their association with RFA as an organisation. Jaehee even says herself it's like an extension of C&R for her! Dropping the working boundary between them means less tiptoeing around each other and more openness among friends, especially for Jaehee.

As for Yoosung becoming Jumin's intern/assistant, I don't think it would carry the same tone into RFA as it did with Jaehee since they are already well associated without the business relationship prior to Yoosung being hired. Sure things might be a little weird at times, but no discomfort or frustration to the same extent. It's already shown to be kind of unserious and silly, and I honestly don't think Yoosung would last long as Jumin's assistant anyway, lol.

[nonmurdery]

A THOUSAND KISSES DEEP

reader x yoosung | part one

summary: reader escapes rika’s apartment before the bomb goes off in yoosung’s bad ending 1. this uses his dialogue from the game.

author’s note: why am i obsessed with bad endings? i’ll never know! the mc’s personality is derived from how they were in that route. had this in my drafts for a minute, i don't know who'll be her end game, just take this as some angst!!

ps. chatroom formatting probably looks cuter on mobile devices

trigger warnings: major character death

word count: 1,444

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

You technically met Yoosung Kim last week.

The same could be said for the entire RFA. Jumin Han, V, 707, Jaehee Kang, and Zen. You've learned that the RFA is short for Rika’s Fundraising Association. You started texting them after receiving mysterious messages from an Unknown contact to go to the apartment you'd start living in. Yet you haven't met any of them in person.

Being separated by a phone screen didn't stop you from pursuing Yoosung. He's a cute SKY University student around your age. His inexperience kindled the spark between you two. You couldn't have been expected to pass up the opportunity! Not when he was clearly desperate for a partner. As were you. Your self esteem was in the gutters and the loneliness within you had become so voluminous as of late. The RFA has helped out with that.

Chatting with the RFA throughout your day wasn't difficult. Although planning their next party had its challenges. They helped you with whatever they could. Mostly with recommending guests while you picked the theme and most everything else. The best part? You were getting paid for your services.

In short: plenty of unexpected things happened to you this week. Most of them being new beginnings for yourself and the RFA. Yoosung showing up to the apartment by himself proved itself to be the most unexpected.

Intruder found. Special security system attack mode initiated.

“Did you hear that?” Your eyes wandered the room.

The bomb. You remembered it, well, you didn't forget about it either. It terrified you and made it difficult for you to get a full night's worth of sleep. No RFA member was supposed to enter this apartment—707 was still working to deactivate it. Your throat suddenly felt tight. Instead of feeling excitement upon meeting Yoosung, terror swamped your senses instead. Every fiber in your body yelled that you run. There's still time to get out of here.

Yoosung paid no attention to your words nor the alarm. “Reader … But you’re not blond like Rika … ?”

Sensing location of intruder … adjusting target …

“You cannot be serious! I was kidding about that.” You yelled, your eyes saucer-wide.

Is this his truly greatest concern? Your hair wasn't made up of the same lion's mane of loose curls as Rika’s was. Regardless, the ticking bomb that's about to go off was of more importance, to you, it seemed.

He stared at you with his large violet eyes, a cloud of confusion passing over his face. He looked exactly like the photographs he’s shared in the messenger. Short blond hair that pointed in every direction, a lithe build, and baby-faced. Your heart thrashed against your ribcage, thumping at a terrible pace. If you didn't start moving, you'd faint. Or worse, you'd die.

“And you don’t have her eye color … Your hands and face look different too … Is it really you, Reader?”

You answered with a shaky nod. “Yes! It’s me! I’m not some doppelgänger or any other look-alike. None of that matters, we need to get out of here, Yoosung.”

This changed from what you said in the messenger earlier. You spoke about how you'd need to become like Rika in order to be someone special to him. It shocked you to know he processed all of those texts you sent. For some reason, that made you like him even more than you did before.

Orders to destroy all information for the sake of protection. Activating system destruction.

“Oh … I’m sorry. I guess I just thought that you’d look exactly like Rika. But you don’t.”

You were beside yourself with frustration. “I still own you. That means we'll do what I say, let's go.” You slipped your arm through his elbow and yanked him toward the door.

It was mostly your fault for why he’d come to such assumptions. You told him that you'd be his Rika and replace her. Still, they made you a little queasy. Physically being here with him felt different than typing letters on a screen. You felt a connection to him.

“We’re not going anywhere! I ran over here because no one in the RFA helped Rika when she took her life away.” He wrenched himself out of your tight hold.

15 seconds left … 14 seconds …

Stand here and listen to his spiel, or run now and have a chance at living? You told him that you'd take care of him. That he'd be your pet and that's what you wanted. In the face of life and death, you knew what to do. You weren’t going to die for someone who looked at you with disdain for not matching their cousin in appearance. Someone who barely knew or liked you. Two days ago, you would have done anything to be accepted by him and be in charge of his life. The truth is, you barely knew Yoosung beyond the color green, LOLOL, and Rika.

Dying wasn't worth it. Not here, your life has just started.

“Yoosung, come with me. Running here won't matter if you don't run now! We’ll talk about everything after.” He looked unphased by your words, as if they held no weight to him.

Throwing one final glance at Yoosung, you darted out of Rika’s apartment as quick as a shooting star. You could only hope that he's shortly behind. Your heartbeat thrummed in your ears while the sounds of your footsteps pounded with them. Or they might've been his footsteps, listening to what you had to say after all.

Taking the elevator would've been a foolish decision. You ran down the hallways, knowing that 707 watched them through the CCTV. That explained the notification that made your phone buzz in the back pocket of your pants. It had to wait. You made it to a large stairwell that descended to the lower floors. Did V really have to purchase an apartment on the 14th?

Sucking in a breath, you headed down the staircase. You ran down the stairs faster than you knew that you could. The seconds counted down in your mind until a loud bang issued from behind you, startling you enough to fall. You hit the ground hard. Even with your eyes squeezed closed, you saw the light of fire beyond your eyelids.

None of this would've happened if he listened to you. You held your consciousness and managed to get to the 1st floor. When you got down there, firemen were making their way up, up, up. Sirens and screams glided to your ears as you fled the building.

A cold breeze lanced into you. From your peripheral vision, you saw ambulances, more fire trucks, and police cars coming down the streets. Nighttime stretched over the sky, littering it with glittering stars and fluffy see-through clouds. When you lifted your eyes up to Rika's apartment, there were fat tendrils of smoke rising into the air from the building's roof, like a soul ascending from their body.

“Yoosung! Yoosung, you idiot!” Your scream got gobbled up by the street’s cacophony. Tears pricked your eyes and you let them slide down your face. His death is on your shoulders. That's if he died. But you couldn't see a way that he could've survived.

You held yourself, squeezing your upper arms. Interviewers raced to the scene with their cameras and microphones. Your neighbors sprinted outside with some of their belongings, their mouths gaping. That's when it hit you that you only brought one thing.

“Do you know what's going on, Reader?” A woman with watery eyes asked. You bumped into her once in the lobby and talked about the weather.

You watched the flames. “I …” You wet your dry lips. “I need to go.”

Walking to the nearest alleyway, you whipped out your phone. The app was bursting with messages, most of the RFA members are active.

READER has entered the chatroom.

Jumin Han

Did everyone see the news? I'm watching it live now.

Jaehee Kang

? Mr.Han

ZEN

What news?

Jumin Han

There was an explosion at [ADDRESS] on the fourteenth floor.

Jaehee Kang

Goodness…

Jumin Han

The occupants are currently evacuating the building.

READER

HELP! I think Yoosung got cahgt in the fire!

707 has entered the chatroom.

ZEN

Yoosung?! Oh no...

Zen

Reader are you alright?!!! Tell me you're alright.

707

…

707

..

707

.

707

On my way.

READER

On your way here?

707 has left the chatroom.

ZEN

stay where you are, Reader!

ZEN

I'm sure that he has a plan…

Jaehee Kang

I agree with Zen.

Jaehee Kang

What happened to Yoosung, Reader?

Jumin Han

I can only hope for the best.

READER has left the chatroom.

[kagiura-akira]

well okay ofc I have to go ask abt debugging shirahama. one time when I was trying to 100% the mysme routes I was like “oh let me set up 707’s entry route so I can start at his branch and get the bad endings” and then I romanced him so hard in the initial days that it was literally impossible for me to get one of the bad ends

Lmaoo YES because I would LOVE TO TALK ABOUT DEBUGGING SHIRAHAMA. Also worth noting I COMPLETELY skipped through the suggested playthrough order the first time I played mysme and went straight for 707's happy ending 😂 last I was working on was Jaehee and I had just gotten her first bad ending (you skip off to be in love with Zen instead lmao) and that was 3 years ago SO I'm a little Rusty™ at the game descriptions, hence the need for refresher courses.

The first thing he noticed was that the game wasted absolutely no time in throwing him right into his objective: collecting those colored little hearts and hourglasses—though he couldn't say he fully understood what the latter was for. When he'd asked the first time he incidentally got one, the system was silent.

“System, do you have a tutorial mode?”

...

“You could at least acknowledge me,” he grumbled. He tried for at least a good 10 minutes to get the thing to answer him until it dawned on him.

“The system will now respond to ‘Jesus.’"

It really wasn't kidding, was it? Suddenly he felt a strong urge to bash his face into the apartment's granite kitchen counters.

“J... Jesus,” he muttered reluctantly.

“Assistant menu open. Please choose from the following options:

1. Open story summary

2. Check hearts/hour glass balance

3. Open CG progress menu

4. Set character profile”

“Uh, ‘open story summary’ I guess.”

The story certainly was an odd premise, albeit novel for its time. The disembodied voice explained the death of the owner of the apartment and the gist of the whole “RFA” chat, with brief descriptions of its characters. It was kind enough to offer a suggested playthrough order, but he wasn't in a state of mind to start with the male love interests, so Jaehee it was. After fumbling around with the user settings to update his name (Kyouko, for the sake of making it less jarring) and picking a preset profile picture, it was well into the afternoon when he finally opened the app. The group was active—he must have counted at least ten existing chats from earlier in the day.

Shirahama had always been cool and casual when it came to DMs or texts. Despite his otaku nature, he wasn't as “chronically online” as some of his classmates, especially Miyano or Tashiro. His plan was to introduce himself to the chat slowly for a few days—get to know them better and such so his sudden presence didn't seem like he was looming over their chat too much. They were always chatting every few hours, so it would be weird if he was suddenly online all day every day. It was already weird enough that he was using a dead person's phone. His non-pressuring strategy usually worked well enough to win over most NPCs, so he kept his strategy to play it cool, and it got him moderately positive responses. Everything was working just fine.

That is, until Day 5.

After four full days of carefully inserting himself into this group of friends, with seven more to go until the end of the route, Shirahama found himself unexpectedly in the worst case scenario.

[jaeheeism]

masterlist

orange: personal favorites.

NOTE: Unless stateD otherwise, the MC in all fics is a CMC called Min Chaeyoung. I'm so sorry I simply cannot write with regular MC.

nonfiction:

jaehee playlist character analysis

fiction:

ongoing multi-chapter:

The Many Faces of Venus:

Rating: M

Continuation of Jaehee's route that connects it with some plots in Seven and V's after endings.

"Slow burn," defining youself and your sexuality and stuff, healing, etc.

mcjaehee (but the MC is an OC) and juminv.

Trigger warnings for everything in the game, basically.

anchored, adrift

Rating: Teen and up

Based on Jaehee's second bad ending where she ends up leaving RFA.

After traveling the world and working freelance for a few years, Jaehee Kang winds up in Amsterdam. There she meets Gwen, a museum worker looking for a career change. They bond over their shared heritage and become fast friends, a relationship that quickly blooms into something more, and defines their uncertain futures in the process.

Friends to lovers, RFA is irrelevant, nonbinary mc, also i took Freedoms with the characterization bc look at the concept.

No warnings.

finished multi-chapter:

two slow dancers

Rating: 18+

mcjaehee realization of feelings but her route never happened, basically.

Friends to lovers, realization of feelings, first time.

No warnings.

one-shots:

BY AU:

kpop au:

Is it love?: where Min Chaeyoung (MC) realizes she's in love with her groupmate Jaehee.

i cannot deny myself any longer: continuation of the previous one, with more plot.

would you wash my back this once?: mcjaehee hurt/comfort. tw: gore

silence, darling: mcjaehee groupmate secret relationship smut. d/s undertones.

genshin au:

bento box storytime: Jaehee and 707, members of a spy organization of the Liye Qixing, bond over the difficulties of their work.

tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us: after Jaehee comes back from a dangerous mission, she argues with Chaeyoung about the strain her work puts on their relationship.

role swap au:

loveless: Jaehee, an actress, and Jumin, a professor, talk about love and being loved.

BY CHARACTER:

Jumin:

01. intoxicating: mcjumin fluff (CMC: Chaeyoung)

take a chance on me: juminv fluff pining

Saeran:

bloom: Post SE choi twin fluff

Jaehee:

liefje: Chaeyoung (MC), who is part dutch, introduces dutch terms of endearment to Jaehee

sweet reprieve: mcjaehee birthday fluff

you know, more confidently: mcjaehee mistletoe kiss moment <3

your voice: mcjaehee phone conversations during her route

a picnic in the end of the world: mcjaehee having a picnic during SE plotline

strawberries: mcjaehee teahouse date in london

sacramental: at Saeyoung's wedding, Jaehee ponders about her faith in relation to who she is.

may: Jaehee remembering her mothers' death and grieving

all i've ver wanted is here: Chaeyoung (MC) inner monologue of how much she loves Jaehee, basically.

to speak of love and other painful things: mcjaehee tell both sides of their love story.

twelfth house: mcjaehee secret relationship !

how you like me now: Jaehee realizes she has feelings for Kang Hana.

MC (Min Chaeyoung)

the phone: AKA prologue story.

+18:

that sweet feeling of release mankind now dreams of: mcjaehee first time.

this saccharine feeling: tooth-rotting fluffy mcjaehee smut. mdlg, praise kink, edging, overstimulation, orgasm delay.

patience, my dear: mcjaehee chastity belt action. dom!mc and sub!jaehee. semi-public sex, nipple play, situational humiliation, cunnilingus.

the "m" word: brat jaehee?? what the hell, sure. mdlg, face-sitting, cunnilingus, spanking, fingering, praise kink.

a soft place to break in: mcjaehee mirror sex. mdlg, fingering, humiliation, spanking, gentle dom mc

vanilla buttercream: mcjaehee sex ft. buttercream, as God intended. top!jaehee, nipple licking, cunnilingus.

fantasy: MC (Chaeyoung) jerks off while thinking of Jaehee. d/s elements, butt plugs, praise kink, fingering, strap-ons

six: NASTY mcjaehee overstimulation. edging, orgasm denial, dom/sub, praise.

dress: Chaeyoung (MC) is wearing a dress at the party that is riling Jaehee up. Porn with plot, cunnilingus, fingering.

this strange bliss: sub!jaehee inner monologue. mdlg, strap-ons, spanking

[cheritzssebba]

Cheritz Appreciation Week 2025

Day Six. Prompt: Thank You

I'm almost at the end of my college course, so with the amount of new time on my hands, I'm replaying Mystic Messenger. Gonna 100% get all the endings n stuff, super epic

Yeah I didn't rly plan a particular submission for this prompt so I'm just this started as a ramble, but I guess it just turned into a really long winded letter to Cheritz that they're never gonna read <3 thanks for reading, if anyone does at all. It's very long.

Thank you, Cheritz!! Mystic Messenger is how I found you. Silly thing. My friend introduced me to it, I played it, didn't understand that I had to choose just one character, got the bad ending where everything goes insane. Very cool. I'm not a person who likes dating sims because I wanna fall in love - it wouldn't take me that long to realise I was aroace soon after playing - and then I got the good endings as well as I think only one more bad ending and enjoyed the rest of the game thoroughly. I love a good mystery, perhaps MM was my introduction to my love of mystery? And a fantastic story as well, the characters have always been amazing and so well-fleshed out

Then I finished MM and bought Nameless cuz I wanted to see what else the creators of MM had made and it was absolutely beautiful. At present, I have over 760 hours in Nameless from replaying it. I remember playing the demo multiple times over, trying to get a different ending, not understanding that I had to buy the full game for that. I was like 14 fr....

But I've never stopped loving Nameless. I remember at the beginning thinking that Lance was the true route and that Nameless had something to do with Shinbi because their hair colours were similar.....no. Lance was my favourite, then Yeonho, then Red, but rn he's tied pretty solidly with Eri

I cried when my dad said he wouldn't buy Dandelion for me..I see I haven't changed. He bought it for me after I cried..I see he hasn't changed either

I played Jieun's route first but didn't have an issue with understanding the game because of 'spoilers', I just loved it. I never got a bad ending until playing Jisoo's route, where I got stuck and just decided to give up cuz I wasn't as interested in Dandelion as much as I was with MM and Nameless anyway. I think anyone can tell that from the fact I can't remember who would've been my favourite.. I tried to get Seven's route on my first play of MM, but Dandelion? Idk

After that, my fav Cheritz game went back to being MM for a while and I really liked Seven. I shipped Zen with Jaehee, and Seven with Yoosung, and I still do, super cute. But these days my favs from MM are Zen and Jaehee <3

I went back to Nameless being my favourite after that, replayed it after I finished playing it and replayed it again and again and again and frequently rewatched Meli's play throughs of it too

I looked back to the MM wiki to find the chatroom timings I need to 100% the game, and that's where I was shocked to realise that Another Story came out in like 2017 or 2018..that's insane to me, cuz in my memory, it's always felt like it came out a long time after MM but actually it was only about a year or so..huh

I did play V's route when it came out but I didn't really like V and my schedule wasn't really optimal for it etc, so I don't think I ended up playing Ray's route? But from that I ended up liking MM less and less. Mostly for the fandom and how people love MM but won't think to play Nameless or Dandelion, and they'll write you off if you try to bring the previous games up

I hated how Another Story was clearly so different to the original story, and thought it was all because of the fanbase having too much influence on the company. I've honestly ALWAYS hated when people would cry for a V, Ray or VANDERWOOD route cuz I never saw the point in it, and how the routes wouldn't even make sense for the game, etc

So I wrote Another Story off for a long time cuz of that, but now I realise that just because Cheritz made it to please fans, that doesn't mean that it's not completely irrelevant and stuff that's added to the game in post can still be 'canon', relevant and be used to understand the Cheritzverse a lot more

I thought a very similar thing about The Ssum when it came out. I was very excited for its release but became disappointed and bored quickly upon playing it. It didn't have strong mystery, story, character etc for a long time. That's not the kinda story I like... Also, way too long. The format of Mystic Messenger is already so difficult and now they've just made it longer..stupid

But currently, through other people, I've found that it does have mystery, story, some character, relevancy to the Cheritzverse, and even multiple endings. Multiple endings is one of my favourite things....... I still might never 100% Ssum, that's how I like to play games I love these days and so if I can't 100% then, well. Isn't there like over a year of content for it? Ugh. I'll probably have a go at playing it every now and then when I'm finished with getting all the endings of MM, bleh

That's basically the history.... I love Cheritz. I love mystery, I love the relatable and realistic characters, I love the themes even if the newer games can be a bit clumsy with how they handle them. It's all in the intention, cuz I think even if they're using AI, which they shouldn't, I don't think it's cuz they don't care, but cuz they're just struggling. I'm disappointed in them for charging subscriptions for crappy Ssum but the fans have shown that they'll only pay attention to their mobile games and they're free to play, so how else will they get their money?

I have autism.... I'm very autistic about this company and have been for almost a decade now. It's my biggest special interest and I'll never stop loving it - I have 2 tattoos that are both inspired by Cheritz. I've collected all of the Nameless DLC as well as all of @moonlit-sweet-dreams and @oriyume fan merch, and have been slowly collecting some of the merch, and I'm deadset on at least getting my own Nameless Crobi Doll one day, no matter how long it takes, no matter how difficult it is, no matter who I have to find them from. I WILL get a Red, at the very absolute least. That's what I hope..

For MM, I got the RFA Member Package for my birthday either last year or the year before? It couldn't have been that long ago..but I also am currently wearing an offbrand merch of a 707 tshirt my mom got me for Christmas, and own a jacket of based on his design. Both we got from Amazon..

I don't think I own anything Dandelion sadly, but I keep all my Cheritz stuff in a drawer dedicated only to it :3 it will one day fill up. I even keep the packages they were delivered in, included as souvenirs... God, the autism is strong in this one

Cheritz...... You did a thing. And ever since you did a thing, I have been there. I'm just an autistic guy who loves his autistic thing. Thank you.... I've supported you in the past and I'll keep supporting your forever.

I'm sad about you forgetting your old games but only promoting your mobile ones, but I can even forgive that because I understand how hard it can be for a small company with so little time on their hands.. Oh well. That just means it's up to me to fill that void. You won't mention your other games; Melizbeauty, who was a staple of the community, was forced out and can't return; a lot of people who played the first games don't talk about them anymore, and a lot of new fans refuse to listen

I'll be here though. With my tiny little passionate community. With my best friends. You can come and you can go, but I'll always be here if you ever wanna come back.

I worry that maybe I'm why people don't interact with the community. Maybe they just wanna be casual fans and don't wanna see the same bloke talking about Nameless every time, always talkin about crap they don't care about, connections to other games, askin for interaction, whatever

Maybe that's true, maybe that isn't. It probably isn't, it's not something that makes that much sense. Whether people want me to or not, someone has to keep this thing alive, has to keep the old stuff from being forgotten, has to tend to this place like a garden that's dying but still is salvagable, even with its weeds crawling up the cracks everywhere and the sunlight that's never there. Someone has to do this job..and if it ain't anyone else, I ain't complainin if it has to be me, so oh well. You want somethin doin, you do it your bleedin self, that's how I see it

Thank you, Cheritz. I can't speak for everyone, but I think we love you. I do at the very least. I've loved you from the moment I met you. I love you now and always will

It's always that cliche of saying "you've changed/saved my life" and sure, I guess it's not like it saved me from a dark period or anything extreme like that. But it's true I guess I can't imagine my life without Cheritz. Maybe that's only cuz it's something I've dedicated almost a decade of my life towards tho but I'm about to dedicate even more years to something because of it

The special interest of mine that rivals Cheritz is languages and linguistics, my favourite being Spanish. I frequently have visited Spanish speaking countries with my family and have never thrived as much as I ever did when I was learning Spanish in high school, where I achieved an effortless A+

I've missed that feeling so much. I'll say it again only because it's seriously true, but I have never found more joy in anything than when I was in my element, studying Spanish. Since the pandemic, I haven't even really been able to visit the country and nor have I been able to study it in education, so it's been a while and although I do love Spanish still, I have fallen out of love for it, and don't see too many opportunities for me pursuing it, or at least with as much passion as I did

Because Cheritz is a South Korean company, I started learning Korean. I just started doing it for fun, but I didn't know how easy or fun it would be for me. What could be better than combining one's biggest special interests?

I didn't know what I would be doing after college, I had absolutely no clue. But I considered studying Korean at university for a bit. I travelled over two hours by train up north and stayed overnight to attend an open day for a uni that my college advisor had recommended. The place was great, the people were lovely, but...

When I was in that classroom, with the Korean teacher and one of the senior year Korean students, with other people who were also considering the course. When we were in that room, doing a taster session of the course

That's when it was. That's when that feeling came back. That feeling that I felt all the time in high school. And I really am tearing up as I'm writing this goddamn rant cuz I'm so so so so fucking happy for that purest pure joy to come back..

It's been so long since I felt that absolute happiness. On that day, even getting something wrong was fun because I was learning even better for it, talking to other people who were as passionate as me, who were on my wavelength........

I never knew how much I missed that feeling. But I'm so excited for it to come back. I know this is what I want to do and I'm so glad I'm blessed with this opportunity for it to come back. It's going to be so different and it's going to be so hard, new place, new people, new responsibilities, a two hour train ride away from home.

But I just know it's all going to be so worth it.... I'm going to be in my element again. That feeling is going to come back

And it's only because Cheritz introduced me to the language...

Thank you, @cheritzteam from the bottom of my heart. You'll probably never read this, let alone respond. But I would feel so grateful just to know that you know I'm there

I'm sad not many people have submitted posts for this fan event I'm hosting, but that won't stop me from hosting more. I'll continue to do what I do all the time, because of you, Cheritz. You were the first link in that chain.

Thank you.

Love from your long time fan,

Sebba.

[gureshinlover]

Ok Saeran AE good ending dump, here are some random thoughts

The president plot was ended really underwhelmingly, but I'm glad that although Saeran chose to forgive him, the writers are aware this isn't something anyone can do and let saeyoung continue hating him. Honestly, forgiving or not forgiving him aside, I just didn't like the way they made the president go 'ah.. you're right maybe I am a lonely bad guy' LIKE NO WAY THAT ASSHOLE CARES ABOUT THAT, I couldn't take any dialogues seriously

First of all. Why the fuck is jumin han a politician all of a sudden 😭 And like, forget being a politician, he is a candidate for presidency??????? Am I reading it right?? How exactly..???

Anyway I FORGOT ABOUT YOOSUNG AT PATISSIER AWWWW It's so nice to see him find himself even if this is saeran's route! You're doing so good love <3 I was gonna say it doesn't make sense that they made him chase his patissier dream when in his own route he thinks about why he wants to become a vet and decides to go that way, but I realized, since another story is 2 years before the casual one I guess he felt more free about leaving his medical studies 😭 he was able to change his path more easily because he just started school, and also he doesn't have a lover like mc in korea unlike his route so that might also affect his choices. But I think he's happy in either ending so I'm glad <33

They did well with Yoosung but. why didn't Jaehee get the same treatment. I don't get it. They were clever enough to remember other characters' goals and worries and made them happy in this AE, except for Jaehee. I wish they made her leave her position too, since Jumin Han is now involved with politics it could be the perfect excuse for Jaehee to stop being his assistant. I'm guessing that this is also because AS is 2 years earlier, which means Jaehee hasn't suffered in her job enough to leave yet, and she probably doesn't have the money to open a coffee shop anyway (she isn't even into coffee professionally yet although she said she was interested a bit) But idk I wish they left us a clue that Jaehee will also get to find her happiness in the future 😭😭

Another thing I'm confused about is that where the hell does saeran get money from 😭😭 how are we 'lovey dovey at some place romantic'😭 Saeyoung probably has more than enough money so he might have forced Saeran to have it all lol that's the only explanation I can think of. In the alternate ending Saeran has a greenhouse (considering that he said himself to be careful of people raising herbs in the wild I find this funny but well ofc it's the dream job for saeran) but I'm not sure what we're supposed to be doing in this ending lol

Like, apparently we're hippies now?? Feel love and peace~~

Saeran AE has its problems, but I still love it anyway and I'm not sure how they would be able to make a good ending differently, so I'll just take the good stuff and leave out the bad writing lol I remember going crazy about new illusts in 2020,,, can't believe it's been 3 years already. Happy new years btw I guess? 🌱 Idk how to end this post