#i don't have anything concrete to tie it all together‚ but i think aspects about her/regarding her under this lens would be fun to consider

[espurr-roba]

kairi as an ephemer descendant. is this anything.

[marshmallowprotection]

In Yoosung's route, Unknown tells Saeyoung that he finished off his mother, so I understand he was trying to say that he was the one who killed her?

It's confusing and contradictory now knowing that we are shown how Rika kills Mother Choi in self-defense. If it wasn't an incongruity in the story.... Could we say that Unknown wanted to scare his brother? I mean, so that he wouldn't think he was the weak child of the past, he wanted to make him think he was strong enough to kill the people who hurt him (including his brother as part of his revenge).

What do you think?

There is no concrete answer I can give you because Cheritz has definitely retconned information or put things into the game that contradict and collide in comparison to other things we're told. The logical answer here is Casual and Deep Story were written well before Another Story was conceptualized and that means plenty of information could've changed as they were adjusting and adapting the story to fit together. There's a real reason why certain aspects of the story might sound confusing and that's just got to do with that.

The stories here are written in different places and possibly have different folks on the writing staff for each. If you don't have people that worked on both in the same room, it's obvious that someone might gloss over certain things.

Or, it's possible they decided to change the way they were angling the story after the fact and work the new context into the game. We'll never know for sure what's going on with that in the context of many points that were written for this game, not just this specific one-off line. Although, that's a boring answer, even though it's the most reasonable.

The real answer is often very lackluster.

The reality is that somebody might have put this plot point in there because they thought it sounded interesting at the time because there were no plans to further explore Saeran Choi beyond what they were doing. That all changed when they decided to make romanceable routes. There's no way to know for sure if there was an implication they wanted to imply that he killed his own mother. This is such a one-off statement that it's hard to say for sure what it's supposed to mean. They don't go beyond this. This is the only mention of this specific comment by Unknown.

If you wanted to ask me how I would tie this together with the information that we have in Another Story to make it make sense? I think the way that I would rationalize would go along the lines of Unknown having no idea for sure what he has and hasn't done.

He has been manipulated for years at this point.

He suffers from disassociation, derealization, and disconnection from his sense of self. On top of this fact, he is also taking a powerful hallucinogenic drug that we don't even completely know the side effects of. We only know a few of the ingredients inside of it. So when you combine all of those elements together, it's hard to take anything that he says seriously knowing he isn't even sure of all the things he's saying.

His sense of reality is very destructive and lost. The only thing he knows is that he needs to get revenge and that's that. His mind is one track at this point and that's how it is. The only thing he knows is that he needs to get his job done for the Savior and then he wants to get rid of his brother and himself. That is the only thing on his mind. Everything else could mean less. So, in terms of what he thinks about his mother, it makes interesting questions to consider.

Does he genuinely think he got rid of his mother? Is it something he was convinced of at some point? It isn't something we can know for sure. It's definitely something we can speculate about. Because, with the context of what we know about how he was brought to Mint Eye in the first place... Well.

Even if he did get rid of his mother, somebody would have had to have helped him clean that up. What would have pushed him to that point in the first place? Is it possible someone was in his ear? Did someone push him to do it? Was he pressured into doing that or was it something where he had to in the name of self-defense to stay alive? In the end, it's hard to say how it would have happened. But, knowing the context of how that might have happened could do a lot to explain how Rika got him to be her hacker.

If we humor this one off comments, and we suggest that he had to do it in self-defense, it's possible to suggest Rika could have played on his vulnerability at that moment and manipulated him from that point onward to be able to control him from fear. If you add the torture and the elixir on top of that, it wouldn't take long before he would forget what his own reflection looked like as well as his perception of his reality. If it were the opposite and Rika was the one to pressure him into doing this... the theory works the same but it leaves a sour taste in your mouth no matter what you think about this.

Do I think he got rid of his mother? No. I don't think he could have ever been capable of that as a child in any sense of the word. But I do feel like he could have been convinced that he did do that in the name of manipulation and coercion by Rika. She was able to convince him countless things about V and Saeyoung, so it's not really a stretch to say that she could have easily swayed him to believe that something like that happened and he was the one who committed it.

If anything, I think it's possibly a power play on his part. He's looking for any kind of information that he could use to freak out his brother. Saeyoung is already in a stupor in this situation. He isn't able to think clearly and his actions are messy as hell. In fact, Yoosung has to do a lot to protect the two of them in that specific instance because Saeyoung is unable to handle everything that's happening. His world has just been shattered and given everything we know about Unknown... I wouldn't put it past him to say anything in the heat of the moment to try and utterly destroy Saeyoung. It's enough for him to reveal that he's been the one targeting the RFA, it's another for him to say his innocence was shattered because Saeyoung left.

What better way to break him than to say that the innocent child he left behind was forced to do something unspeakable to survive? What's more unspeakable than killing your own mother? I can't think of anything. So yeah, there's many ways to look at this information at face value. I don't think there's a wrong way to imagine the answer because even Cheritz won't be able to tell you their original intention with this one-off comment. So, imagine it however you want. There's really no wrong answer because there can't be a right answer. None of us were in the writer's room so we'll never know.

[angeldcgs]

part of the whole treatment was for arlo to learn these skills for himself so he could take what he'd learned home with him, but he certainly wasn't making it easy to simply sit there and watch him, what with that pitiful display. endearing, strangely arousing, but pitiful nonetheless. the temptation to just cross the small distance between them and take over grew stronger with each stunted pass of his palm over his covered cock, both to help speed the process along, and because she knew the added ego boost of being found desirable enough to touch would only enhance the success of their efforts. that was one boundary fern was determined not to cross; it may have seemed arbitrary, but she had to draw the line somewhere. there had to be a limit to what she could and couldn't do, especially since she was going out on a limb and more or less improvising, or else things could quickly spiral out of control. in general, she wouldn't touch him, she wouldn't ever see him outside the office or their scheduled sessions, all aspects of their relationship would remain the same, except for the addition of her specific brand of sex therapy, which seemed simple enough on the surface, but she wasn't naive enough to believe things would stay that simple once they actually began to indulge in his sexuality. despite having rules for herself, fern didn't feel the need to have an extensive conversation with arlo about what was off limits for him, because she didn't foresee him ever stepping out of line, even in the most harmless of ways. if anything, he'd have trouble doing anything at all, so the last thing she wanted to do was bog him down with no's and don't's. the only thing she worried about with him was that his feelings for her would only intensify once she opened the door to sexual exploration, but her hope was that his therapy would be so effective, he'd be able to go out and find a girl his age that he could properly pursue, and he'd put his focus on her instead. so far, he'd been doing everything fern said and nothing more, which was her realistic best case scenario. in a true best case scenario, he'd be enjoying himself more, somehow able to get into it without this initial period of shameful apprehension, but she knew that was a lot to expect of him given what she already knew about his issues with pleasure. even as she urged him to go ahead and shed the last layer keeping him concealed, he didn't put up any resistance, only a moment's pause before he was drawing his gaze away and tugging his briefs down to reveal his cock, stiffened and curious from his previous efforts. fern was glad that he wasn't able to see the way her eyes softened at the sight of him, her breath escaping in a soft sigh before she could clamp her lips together, as if she was in danger of making another uncontrollable erotic utterance. "look at you..." she was allowed to eye him up openly, though she had to resist the urge to squeeze her legs together to do something about the dull throb in her cunt. "you're allowed to touch." before she offered him any concrete assessment of his body, she wanted to get him to tie a physical sensation to the psychological satisfaction of being complimented. "i wish you could see yourself right now, arlo, your cock looks so pretty with your hand wrapped around it," the filth flowed all too easily from her tongue, though she tried not to dwell on how natural it felt. "that's a good boy, you can start slow like that. all the way from the base to the tip, that's perfect..." for now, she'd allow him to keep his gaze averted if that made him less anxious, only able to push him so much before she risked scaring him off altogether, especially as she was going to attempt to push him in other ways. "can you talk to me? i wanna know how you're feeling. what're you thinking right now? be honest."

fern's encouraging coos were the only thing keeping arlo from completely shrinking in on himself out of embarrassment. he struggled enough trying to get himself off when he was alone, to do so in front of the woman whose opinion he cared about more than anything else in the world felt almost comical. what if watching him changed the way she saw him forever? what if she didn't like what she saw? he'd never truly considered everything that came with being intimate with another person, mainly the notion of having to be seen and with no basis to how he looked or whether his body was what other people might have deemed as attractive, a new anxiety got to emerge. still, he tried to do as she wanted and continued to grope himself, awakening his cock with the clumsy friction of his palm. it didn't take much to get him hard, his problem had always come with having to do something about that reaction so within a few minutes a bulge could be seen through the fabric of his jeans, then through his underwear after obediently unbuckling his belt and unzipping himself. if he thought too much about how he must have looked from her perspective, they'd never get anywhere so instead, with her consent, his attention became fully encaptured by her body, especially by her legs now opened enough that he could picture himself between them, his face so close to her- he swallowed back a moan as his thumb caught against the ridge of the head of his cock and squeezed his eyes closed. his face felt warm, probably flushed a bright red from both his embarrassment and newfound arousal. he couldn't expect things to feel better so soon, the shame and guilt were still there, even though fern had encouraged him to do what he needed in order to seek his release, but maybe it would take a while for him to truly believe that she was okay with being seen as the object of his desires. having the barrier of clothing to shield himself from her watchful eyes was helpful in providing him with some power over the situation, just while he got used to the strangeness, but fern's suggestion to expose himself quickly tore away that little bit of control he'd had. was it a compliment in some strange way that she had aided in making him hard, or was it uncomfortable to witness? she could play nice and offer all the encouragement possible, but questioning whether or not she was getting anything out of talking him through his little performance continued to eat away at him, gnawing at the soft, susceptible parts of his brain that wanted nothing more than to be wanted by fern even a third as much as he wanted her. words would fail him and the last thing he wanted was to splutter through some poorly put-together description of the state of him, so instead arlo gave her a couple of shaky nods in reply and reluctantly pulled his hand away from himself. hooking his thumbs around the waistband of his underwear, arlo drew his guilty gaze away from fern and instead across the way onto her desk and pulled the fabric down to reveal himself. his cock bobbed with the sudden exposure, not quite fully hard yet but close enough, just as pink as his bitten lips and throbbing for some real attention. his hand twitched to wrap around himself, an act that most boys knew as second nature, but he resisted, unsure as to whether he was allowed to yet. instead, arlo sat there, underwear pulled down to just beneath his plump balls, hands laying nervously on his thighs, and his eyes still focused on fern's desk, as though that were as close as he felt he could get to her considering how on edge he felt.