#im usually really passive about this stuff since i dont like conflict

[kendrixtermina]

I've been thinking about it time & again, turning & turning it around in my head - like, even going back to some thoughts I'd had before this particular case, to make sure I'm not bending my morals here & being the worst kind of asshole. It's actually been nagging at the back of my mind since these ideas first became mainstream in the early 2010s.

But I just can't square it with my conscience to treat a miscommunication the same as, like... I've read many stories with with violence, threats or coersion.

Or even emotional manipulation, entitlement or pushyness.

I was thinking about this with the Melanie Martinez case, and that one's worse cause she was pushy & other people who consensually slept with her confirm that she could be pushy & insistent. But that's also a situation where she walked away with the belief that the other girl was simply convinced & agreed.

And in the story with Flake there wasn't even convincing.

It's so easy to say "if you really cared you'd notice". Lots of people are just really passive in bed. Some men hate it, some ask you to lie still - people might misread signs while drunk & that's why you (as in, the initiator, not the girl) should be careful with how much you drink.

But it just isn't the same. I can't call it the same word.

Threats, violence or even entitled demanding require a huge level of disregard of another person's autonomy & personhood.

A misunderstanding like this, however, or the person having conflicting feelings... It seems like it could just happen to anyone!

Could it happen to me? I hope not, of course. I do all the stuff you're supposed to to avoid it. But I'm not perfect. Hetero women may think they'd never be the one misreading stuff unless they actually mean to assault someone since in present society men usually do the initiating, but as one of those pesky bisexuals, and just someone who believes the best way to avoid becoming blinded, sanctimonious or entitles is to be aware of your own capacity for mistake or evil, I don't want to assume that I'd always get everything right because "im one of the good ones".

No one wants anyone to have an experience like this girl did, or at least i dont, & stuff like education on communication & consent & when-in-doubt-check-in-and-err-on-the-sage-side and centering mutual pleasure instead of the lock/key bullshit is so important. I'm FOR that. I WANT that. I don't consider this okay, or no big deal, or made up. I want a world where that doesn't happen insofar as the imperfect instrument that is human judgement can prevent it.

But how do we make it the standards, how do we promote it? I don't think declaring it rape, thereby putting it on the same level as Cosby, Weinstein or Trump stuff is the way.

I have never believed in "deterrent by harsh punishment to protect people" or "if you don't wanna be punished just don't misbehave" to dismiss fears of unjust or capricious punishment in any other context. I don't believe it when it comes to government spying. I don't believe it when it comes to death penalty. It's authoritarian. Not everyone who professes to be scared of false punishment or how anyone could just make up whatever about what their inner feelings were is just looking to excuse rape; there's insecure young men who are just afraid of messing up. (or heck, queer people, with how their attraction is often portrayed as predatory)

I 100% agree with the goal of minimizing "i felt I had to go along"/"just let it happen" type experiences as much as possible, but the question is how?

like crimes don't exist objectively; they are defined by people with the goal of creating good social incentives. We define and re-define crimes through history, and I'm no longer sure these recent pushs for redefinition have been a constructve ones.

With someone who would deliberately disregard the will of others, that's someone who probably won't engage in good faith & rarely changes their way; In that case, ostracism hammer is merited - they can't be convinced so they must be cut off from victims.

But communication fail isn't like that; those may be people who generally care & are willing to adjust behavior and the threat of the full punishment/ostracism hammer at the slightest misjudgement is more likely to drive them into the arms of extremists or grow resentful & isn't conducive to a working society.

You can't have safety guidelines too clunky to actually use or they will get ignored. It's like abstinence education or red tape. Drunk fucking (not unconscious but responsive/awake) will always happen; nonverbal initiation of sex will always happen. Most times all participants are happywith it.  And we saw in some of the Till stories that even a consistent habit of always asking "should we do this, should we stop, are you sure etc" all the stuff you're rightfully supposed to do to make the chance of it as low as possible, doesn't prevent some people having conflicted feelings or "going along".

I mean, I'm not doubting the girl's experience at all or dismissing the reality of her pain. but it's possible to feel shitty about an experience or find it traumatic without anyone having done a crime to you. What ppl find traumatic can be so subjective, and being dissappointed in how you reacted doesn't mean the other person automatically gets all the blame cause they cant read your mind. They did not "make you" be silent or give indication that they wouldn't listen, so how are they completely to blame?!

Like I realize this cannot be up to the perps, lots of indisputable rapists will say shit like how she "secretly wanted it". - if a girl says she said no, I believe her unless there is a track record of her making random shit up in the past. But if she explicitly says that she didn't say no or give any sign of distress, I see no reason to doubt that either & assume that her inner state "must" have been obvious.

The girl can't help having flawed messy human reactions either but like, will burning some guy on a stake make the trauma go away?

I just - I don't believe in fair world hypothesis and "if you do everything right no one ever feels hurt". I don't believe that doing your best will just automatically be good enough.

To be 100% clear: I don't blame the girl for feeling overwhelmed, but I also can't bring myself to blame the guy for misreading communication if she gives no indication of disliking what's happening. Or, like, both have nonzero responsibility (he should have verbally checked in and neither should have drank so much booze, for starters. ) but neither has full control of all the factors or can be exempted from human fallibility. Sometimes ppl mess up and it can't be 100% avoided & no one is the villain. People can only be judged based on the information they have, they can't be made 100% responsible for the inner state of others that they can't access if those others don't give indications of it. From today's perspective I can say he should have checked in verbally but I could not say that if I had not read about/been educated about why that can be so important/ how its common for ppl to not say anything etc. I might as well say "use a smartphone" to a person from the 90s.

I just can't bring myself to think that for this moment of misjudging her reaction, he's now the same as someone who would threaten another with a knife to get his way - it just seems too cruel to me.

It's unfair that she had a shitty experience, too. But I don't think shitty experiences could be 100% prevented even if no one on earth ever took the slightest lick of risk ever again, that's just outcome bias/ just world fallacy.

[catsbrew-blogs]

went over to my uncles house for a belated thanksgiving cause they were busy that day and i decided to bring my cards against humanity deck cause why not we’re all adults and as we settle in i show my uncle the game and hes all like

“hell yeah lets play” 

so we get a round going with me, my dad, Tami, and my uncle 

Its fun and we’re all havin a blast and we decide to get my aunt in on this cause the foods all done and she looked like she needed a break 

she agrees aslong as we invite her brother Johnny to the game as well and if you knew the guy like we did you would have groaned like i did 

this man is the clear cut definition of the racist fuck you see at family reunions 

so reluctantly we did and ooohhh boy if i would have know a card game would unleash a kamehameha of bullshit I would have kept my mouth shut  

before we knew it we were in a 30 minute long tangent about how HE would NEVER play that game since HE has MORALS

“I would NEVER play a game created by people trying to stop Trump from building his wall. How DARE they think they can stop Trump by buying property and saying he cant build there!”

So essentially it was this phrase for 30 minutes. Our game was put on halt for this mans shitty agenda and the only reason it was stopped cause he was hell bent on continuing (in an attempt to convert us?)

In the middle of a sentence I slam my hands on the table prompting him to shut his mouth. Carefully set my cards down and open the front door and point to it. And as calmly as I could muster (which is odd for me Im a wreck)

I said

“If you would kindly take yourself and your garbage opinions to the curb I’m sure the garbage truck coming on Tuesday would love to pick you up and take you to the dump where you belong.”

This tiny little garbage man gets soo pissed that he tries to pull the 

“You cant talk to me like that im an elder and you have to respect your elders” bull shit

and I freaking laughed. So hard in fact, it shocked him. My reply (still cool an collect, go me)

“I don’t have to respect shit. You have displayed nothing worth respecting with your tangent and because of it you have only cemented the fact you will never be worthy of respect. You are a sad little man living in your sisters house because no one else will pity you or feel for your agenda. Or feed into you bullshit ideals. Now if you excuse us all, we have a game we would like to finish”

Yeah so he huffed and left the house lol.

Anyway the game was fun but my aunt kicked all our asses. 

[hpzen1805]

So, it's been a crazy ride these last few weeks.

Work was geting bad again, my supervisor (who has made a point to tell me that she's my colleague, not my supervisor, despite the fact that she runs the attorney's entire practice and requires that all work product be reviewed by her) started being horrible to me again. And it took this crazy thing and talking it over with my partner to realize that she's been gaslighting me this whole time.

Fun.

Things were getting bad and I was super stressed and not doing well at all (things were like when I started high school; I would wake up feeling sick to my stomach and almost vomit every morning because that's how my body deals with stress. Fun, right?)

But I had this class for work that was out of the office with my old senior paralegal, and it turned out to be just what I needed. She kind of knew what was going on already because she and I keep in contact, but we were able to actually talk about what was going on with both of us. I told her about the craziness at work and she told me how amazing her new office is. She also made a point to tell me that they were hiring and that she had talked me up so well that they wanted to see my resume. I didn't think it was going to go anywhere, but I needed some hope, so I agreed to send it to her.

At the class, I realized just how little these people who supposedly "wanted to teach me" about my field had really been keeping from me. The class went over things that I had been told were too advanced for me so simply that I found out that there was a whole exemption that we were utilizing that I had never been told about and which made the calculations that I had been struggling with make so much more sense. Of course, when I had done those calculations, I had been given a wkrd processing sheet to work with, and no explanation of why each part did what it did or what was supposed to be used to accomplish it. When I was told I did it wrong, the explanation was that "[I] couldn't know that because it comes with experience".

No. It comes from someone actually explaining shit. Just saying.

Anyway, my friend got me an interview, and it went really well. I had an offer within the week, and with how stressed my coworkers' behavior was making me, I was more than happy to accept. However, I still felt like I owed that place some modicum of loyalty (hey, I'd been there for a year and - as ive found out is like all gaslighters - things didn't always seem horrible; sometimes they were nice to me and let me hear them shit-talk others so that I knew what they did behind my back) I felt like I should give a months notice to do right by them.

So I signed my offer letter, gave a months notice, and started working with my non-supervisor to organize the tasks that I had and figure out what I could accomplish before I left.

Weird thing, though: when I gave notice, the attorney wasn't there, and my non-supervisor had always said to tell her first if we were leaving so she could "make things easier with [the boss]", so I did. She was very nice about it and said they would support my decision.

Then she asked where I was going, which I had purposely not said because another former employee worked there and I didn't want to make things weird or give them an opening to try and bad-mouth me (I don't trust people who smile and make polite chit-chat with someone and immediately start talking shit about them the second they leave the room, sorry not sorry). I told her that I didn't want to say because I wanted to avoid any awkward situations. This was her response:

"Why? It'll be more awkward if you're not upfront with us. We need to know in case there's a conflict. If there's a conflict [the boss] will only want you to stay two weeks, but if there isn't, she'll take the whole month. "

I - like a dumbass - was startled into telling her because it sounded legit. Come to find out from my friend at the new place that it was total bullshit, and they were just being nosy. Apparently, when the last girl from our firm left for my new firm, they called to talk to the hiring attorney about her (idk what they said, but my friend basically told me that the attorney knew better than to listen to them).

Anyway, I was ready to stick out the month and blow through my task list as fast as I could. I mean, I was super into it! I wanted to do the best I could because im a firm believer in kill 'em with kindness. Seriously, my motto is "I am a ray of goddamn sunshine and everyone Will Fucking Know It". So when I went in on Tuesday, I was ready to get down to business (to defeat... the tasks? Idk, it's late, and I'm loopy). And my supervisor had seemed like she was really supportive on monday when I told her, so I thought things would go relatively smoothly.

I was so wrong.

I went into our planning meeting, and it was like I was transported back three weeks; every little thing I did or said was scrutinized and found wrong, she was annoyed by all the tasks I had that she had told me to push back, and she decided she wanted to finalize 7 of my tasks that day. Since 5 had been reviewed BY HER before, I was hoping it wouldn't be too bad.

It was.

I had made all the updates that she asked, but she found further fault with the product that she had previously overlooked, and of course, it was my fault. So I tried to fix things and get them done, but by this time, her passive-aggressive attitude and constant sighing to express her "boredom" (something she's explained before as a reaction to "people not doing things the way she wants them done quickly enough"; that's a story for another day) was really fucking with my stress levels. There was also a thing with some documents that I didn't have, which I had asked her about weeks before, and she had said that the client had kept them and we had just kept scans after the meeting; that day, she wanted to know why I didn't have them, and I reminded her of that conversation; she got mad and said that I should have them and started asking when I had last had them (I never had them) and then went to check her office. Lo and behold! They were in her office! Who woulda thunk?! Then she proceeded to tell me that it was my fault for not getting them from her and that she never told me the client kept them becuase they would never keep them (which I had pointed out was weird when we talked about it and she assured me it was a rushed decision and out kf the norm).

Basically, the whole day was a shit-show in a hell-hole with my own personal torturer who specializes in emotional fuckery.

So I went in on Wednesday after almost puking when I woke up. After crying out of frustration to my partner the night before. After talking to my partner and my parents and being told by all of them that I could, in fact, just leave if I wanted to, and that the stuff my supervisor was doing was super shady (forcing me to tell her where I was going to work, and telling me not to tell hr because the boss would want to do it "on her own terms" because of the bad relationship between her practice and the main branch of the firm).

And after all of that, I came in to a rude response to my check-out email (which was in response to a rude reminder that I had to send one "EVERYDAY before I leave") and a passive aggressive note written in all caps on a post it that a new task was an ASAP and that I needed to see her IMMEDIATELY when I finished it.

And I snapped.

I sent an email to hr giving my notice and saying that I didn't want to upset my boss, so if she hadn't sent it over Please dont tell her I did. I got a very concerned response, and an offer to talk if I needed it. I went to themorning meeting with our practice grouo and made polite small talk with my supervisor, who was using the same voice on me that she uses on the associate attorneys that she thinks are stupid and doesn't like, but has to be nice to. And at that point, I was Done.

I went back to the office and finished the ASAP. I finished my admin stuff that had been lingering. I cleaned up my desk and updated my task list. I checked that my shelves were organized. I gathered up any research that I had done that didn't have client names on it, any notes I had without client names, and any personal items I had. And I left.

Well, first I gave her the asap and said I almost threw up (which I had in the midst of organizing) and that I needed to go home. (The response was: "Leave what you have in my box and hand flap to suggest leaving". Because, since she works while sick or giving birth, everyone else is expected to as well, and if you don't, you're weak and beneath her)

Then, I went to hr and explained what had been going on. I was so stressed that I cried again (luckily, not much, cuz I hate crying in front of anyone, but especially in a professional setting), but she was super nice about it and asked what I would like to do. I said that I wanted to cut my notice to the usual two weeks, and use my sick and vacation time to cover that week and a half that I had left. I just couldn't do it anymore, and my partner's voice was in the back of my head "You gave your notice. They can't fire you, and you don't have to take their crap.", along with my mom's voice telling me "The only one stopping you, is you." And the hr lady said I could!

So I left.

And I feel SO MUCH BETTER.

Am I still worried that they'll bad mouth me to my new firm and ruin my reputation with the attorneys at their firm? Yes.

Am I super nervous about starting a new job? Fuck yes, I am.

But I am out of that toxic place, and I have a new opportunity to do the best I can with my life.

And I am so grateful for that. I am so grateful for the people I have in my life. And I'm even grateful for what those people did, because I can learn from it, and I can grow as a person so that I am NEVER LIKE THEM.

So, if you've made it this far, I'm sorry for the rant, but also: Please don't give up. It may seem like you're in a horrible situation, but you CAN find a way out. Talk to people, don't be afraid that you're bothering them. Or do it anyway, because guess what? You Deserve Better. Even if someone (including yourself) is telling you that you don't. You Deserve Better. And if you feel like no one believes in you, or you can't do it? I believe in you. And I know you can do it. If I can, anyone can.

Please, don't give up.

[vidoxi]

just finished mystic messenger and i just wanna write down my thoughts. major spoiler warning + i-might-talk-shit-about-your-fav warning. if you want to discuss with me any of the points i bring up here, go for it.

Jaehee “No Homo” Kang

so when i first heard that her route was just a friendship route i was hella disappointed and thought that sounded like a total bullshit cop out, but after playing it i feel a little differently. i think it makes sense for jaehee’s character and narrative that she would value a friend over a relationship at that point in her life, but also its pretty clearly said that she does have romantic feelings for you but she needs time to process them, which is especially understandable since you can infer that before she met you she thought she was straight and also she’s catholic. her after ending was the perfect time for her to confess or for there to be the implication that you two are in a relationship, but instead it’s the only after ending where we DONT get to see interaction between you and your partner, which is a bullshit cop out. i do like that in the christmas DLC things got a little more romantic but i’m still wanting more. jaehee and the fans deserve what the male characters get, a CG of a kiss on the lips and a confession of romantic love. i hope that if more DLC gets released, cheritz will push the envelope a little a lot more. but i have heard that korea is still really conservative and for all i know making it more explicit could be illegal so i might be being unnecessarily harsh there lol;;

about her actual route though... it was good. nothing really exciting happened. it was definitely the chillest route i thought, but it was really sweet and she’s absolutely adorable and it warmed me to her a lot. her bad ending 1 (the one where you end up with zen) is so depressing, fucking hell. it feels like you betray her. it’s so ugly. ;_; i never want to do that ending and i’m glad there isnt a unique CG to tempt me into it either. her bad ending 2 (where you push her to work so hard that she ends up in the hospital) is pretty terrible too. after ending was hella cute though, i love the thought of mc and jaehee having their little coffee shop together and jaehee getting to actually work on something she’s interested in and being with her “best friend” all the time. oh and yoosung becoming jumin’s new assistant was interesting and i need me some fics, u feel?

something i also feel a little robbed about is that jaehee never blew up at jumin. she drags yoosung like theres no tomorrow and you just know she could say some venomous shit about jumin so i was hoping there’d be a big confrontation between them where she gets a dramatic The Reason You Suck-type speech but there wasnt really a moment like that.

however, seeing jumin all bitter about it at the end was a little gratifying (sorry jumin)

i love their emojis and you cant stop me from using them

also on this route where 707 has yoosung hunting for the LOLOL expansion pack (how is this boy so naive? im worried) and he finds a buried picture of rika’s dog sally instead, i at first thought that he had dug up sally’s corpse and i was like “wtf the fuck seven”

also wtf @ v saying he has terminal cancer. this is presumably a lie, right? before reading the secret endings i thought he was going to commit suicide but now im thinking that (seriously if you havent played the whole game you need to stop reading this rn) maybe he knew that rika was going to dispose of him soon and he didnt want jumin to investigate his disappearance? iirc yoosung’s good ending is the only one that he’s present in, so is it meant to be assumed that he’s killed off camera in every route possibly?

everyone else under the cut

Zen

the worst tbh. i dont like saying it but there it is. possibly this depends on who you are as a person but to me it didnt really feel like MC and zen had much chemistry except during that scene where youre on his roof together. most of your interactions are just you praising him and fellating his already huge ego. and jaehee was exceptionally annoying with all her “muh zens reputation” shit and feeling like i was taking zen from her was really awkward and unpleasant because it does seem like she has repressed feelings for him. fuck and the whole story with echo girl was super predictable and generic and feels like something i’ve seen 100 times before and probably have. my overall feeling about this route can be summed up by this emoji.

i feel like it could have been improved by either removing the echo girl stuff or at least putting an interesting spin on it. i think they should have made zens’ childhood abuse and family problems and maybe his past as a gang member as well an actual conflict instead of it just being a thing of happenstance. it’s an interesting backstory that as far as i can recall didnt end up having an impact on the current day situation. it would have been interesting if he had some sort of emotional issue you had to help him through like jumin, like secret crippling insecurities due to his family telling him for years that he’s ugly and inadequate, and thats why he tries so hard to be perfect so that people will give him the love his parents didnt. also his elementary school teacher was implied to be a pedophile(??? i dont remember what was actually said in the conversation i just remember the pedo-vibes) so they could have made him a CSA survivor but maybe thats too dark even for mysme lol.

also his bad ending 1 confuses me. the first time i saw it it felt really rapey but rewatching it now, MC does seem to consent but its after being cold and refuting his advances so it seems really weird. MC seemed genuinely disinterested, but i guess she was just playing games, testing him to see what he’d do? since theyre in a relationship a year later. and his bad ending 3 (the one where youre both kidnapped by saeran) is pretty bizarre lol.

so yeah this is the weakest route imo. maybe its different for people who are zen fangirls but i personally felt like i was being super fake the whole route, which was especially jarring coming off of yoosung’s route where the dialogue choices felt very organic to me. also his responses to mean things arent even interesting lol so thats frustrating too. and this route felt weirdly short. all the others felt like 11 days but this one felt more like 5? and when i missed chats on this route i just let it go most of the time instead of spending hourglasses. i wasnt feeling it, mr krabs. by far the best part of his route for me was the relationship development between zen and jumin.

now that ive spent 4 paragraphs just complaining you probably think that i dont like zen but actually i think he’s is a fantastic supporting character and i do like him a lot. that picture of him sneezing was my phone wallpaper for quite a while lol.

Jumin

me at the beginning: i fucking hate jumin han. fuck him. fuck his cat. i hate this type of asshole love interest.

me after zens route: i guess he has some hidden depths... i’m curious...

me after jumins route: *loves jumin han so much i cant breathe*

this guy... this cat man...... where to start? i’ve had a while to think about this route and i’m still not totally sure how i feel. “i feel complicated” is a term i’m going to start using because its just too handy for situations like this.

i guess i dont like that to get the good end you had to be passive and compliant and act like you were walking on eggshells. your relationship with him is undeniably a little scary and abusive. i think jumin needs more in his life than just you. but mysme is an otome game so of course youre the one that “fixes” him but thinking about it more realistically its worrying and jumin should be in therapy cuz the dude undeniably has some issues.

winning his heart by being understanding and with gradual, slow-growing trust was pretty touching. something i really appreciate was him opening up and his true self actually being hard to accept sometimes, instead of whats expected which is “oh youre secretly a perfect, beautiful soul”.

i do really wish they would have opened him up further though. there isnt ever a point where he completely loses control of his emotions. not to be gross but i’d do anything to see him crying, honestly.

i hope people are joking when they say that his bad end (you know the one i mean) is a good end. just because its hot doesnt mean that its good lol. its actually really tragic and shows the deterioration of his mental state and how he’s just accepted that he’s a fucked up/defective person.

“I was worried that the loneliness inside me would pile up and explode some day.” FUCK. dont do this to me jumin. ;_; this line is heart breaking.

something thats kind of interesting and worth noting maybe is that even though the other rfa members arent privy to the VNMs and you can give them little indication that he’s acting so worryingly theyre all still alarmed and concerned and thinks that jumin is going to hold you hostage/abuse you, which makes me wonder if youre meant to infer from that that theyve noticed red flags in his personality that he’s potentially kinda crazy.

and man, zen is always complaining about how jumin seems to have no emotions, but jumin finally opens up about his feelings and zen calls you laughing hysterically about how pathetic he is for being emotional. i was kinda hurt on jumin’s behalf during that call lol. he is so supportive to zen on zen’s route. just... shut the fuck up you albino freak. dont make me whip out yoosung’s “hyung, what’s wrong with you?” emoji. i wont hesitate, bitch.

there. you asked for it. feel those judging purple oblongs pierce your soul.

man, just reading the dialogue options that treat him like a psycho make me cringe. usually i’m tempted by mean dialogue options but not this time. i want to protect jumin han. ;_; i want to untangle his threads. i dont want him to feel like a mutant ever again. i want to love and accept him. i am now the president of the jumin han protection squad. jumin han did nothing wrong. shameless jumin apologist. that’s me. no but seriously he did a lot wrong and is pretty morally grey but thats one of the reasons that i love him. if you love jumin for pure reasons (that arent just “daddy~”) then youre automatically my friend and i love and appreciate you.

just to love on him for a minute: he is so damn funny, for real. he’s such a sass master, its great. him being terrible with technology is funny. his social awkwardness is funny. his shitty jokes are funny because theyre not funny. he should be the poster child for gap moe cuz goddamn. he’s such a ham. an absolute goofball dressed as a billionaire CEO, and i dont think he even knows it.

also every time elizabeth meows i fucking lol. its literally just a woman saying “meow”. every time jumin says “elizabeth is just a cat, she’s not human” i’m like “ARE YOU SURE?”

Yoosung

this is the first route i got and i assumed that i had already peaked at the beginning and no one was ever going to top yoosung for me, and that assumption was correct. i love this boy. do you hear me? i love him. “perfect” has seven letters in it. “yoosung” has seven letters in it. coincidence? i dont think so. i have feeeeeeelings over this character. he is so darling. i just adore him. i’ve opened the app many times just to look at his album. his voice is like a choir of angels. i have so many screenshots of conversations with him on my phone. he is so selfless and caring and adorable and kinky and pure and i want him to be real so i can marry him irl.

i’m not even sure how to give a critique on his route because i feel so emotionally close to the situation lol. i was very, very invested. ah. gosh. this boy. his good ending is absolutely beautiful. you know youre playing a weird otome game when the good ending has your boyfriend tortured and disfigured. he really earned his happy ending, not quite as much as seven but its up there.

i really love how for better or worse, this boy is like putty in your hands to be molded and what you say to him effects him so deeply in a way that doesnt quite get as extreme as with the other characters. obviously your words majorly influence the other characters but i feel never to the extent where theyre hanging on to every little thing youre saying like yoosung does. which makes sense because he’s young and impressionable and doesnt know what to do with himself and he says he wants to be controlled lol.

MAN, speaking of that, i love his bad ending 3 so much. it’s so twisted that he’s technically getting what he wants in a lot of ways. he’s a masochist that loves the idea of being kept as a pet and controlled, and he gets all that and more with saeran. that ending is so fucking hot, slkdfljsf. i might write a fic. i have a couple ideas.

oh shit, using that seven gif just reminded me. there’s a chat thats on the first few days of common route that ive always participated in before, but when you dont participate in it and yoosung has time to ramble, it gets really kinky. he says “i wonder what it would feel like to be locked up? just a bit.... curious lolol” which i think is what he says when youre in the chat too BUT THEN HE STARTS GETTING OFF ON THE IDEA OF SEVEN BEING LOCKED UP TOO. “Imagine the super smart Seven all flustered. and not knowing what to do.” AND I’M JUST LIKE BOIIII;;; HOW YOU GONNA JUST TALK ABOUT THAT IN FRONT OF ZEN AND JAEHEE LIKE ITS NOTHING? if he would take the obvious hints that seven hits on him he’d probably be willing to roleplay that scenario. 707 strikes me as a fetish friendly person lolol.

ummm... well, to get back back on track, ahem.... him confusing you with rika was creepy and interesting and they didnt take it far enough. even on the yandere bad ending he’s still fully aware that you arent rika. it seemed like it was building towards him having some kind of psychosis where if you feed into his desire for you to be rika he’ll really think youre rika but that doesnt happen so theres no real pay off, and he doesnt have time to do anything yandere-y to you before the bomb goes off so i found that ending to be pretty disappointing and unsatisfying. it felt like someone waving a delicious cake in front of my face but only giving me a crumb of it in the end, do you know what i mean? aaa. maybe i can find a fic that runs with the ideas set up here. when youre desperate, turn to fanfiction lol.

speaking of disappointments, i’m not over the last line of his good ending being “youre not rika, are you?” like... at this point we’re past this arent we omg stoppp. this line is a blight on my happiness. fuck rika and fuck whoever thought that was a good last line.

i noticed that yoosung is the only rfa member including v and rika that doesnt have childhood trauma. his trauma all happened recently. i think that lends to him being the most fragile and child-like character. the other rfa members are so strong because their pasts molded them that way, but yoosung has no such constitution and rika’s death is undoubtedly the worst thing thats ever happened to him.

something thats been on my mind concerning bad ending 3: does rika know that saeran is torturing yoosung? saeran must know that yoosung is his savior’s cousin because he’s hacked the chat and presumably has read messages where yoosung mentions being her cousin, correct? therefor wouldnt that make him hesitant to harm him? i think rika must have consented to yoosung being tortured then. maybe his ultimate fate at the end of bad end 3 is that he’ll be brainwashed and become part of mint eye.

man he’s such a bad judge of character lol. he hero worships rika, loves echo girl, thinks that jumin isnt potentially dangerous, and even you can fall into this category if you choose to play it that way. the one person he really dislikes is v, and v has nothing but the rfa’s best interests at heart lol.

something i love about him is how quick he is to call everyone out on their shit. like, his finger is always on the “whats wrong with you? :>” emoji, just waiting for someone to say something he doesnt approve of lolol. he’s so empathetic and naive but he still has such a strong sense of right and wrong and isnt afraid of standing up to his older friends and i think thats great.

ahh. this boy. he might be ranked #2 on LOLOL but he’s ranked #1 in my heart.

707

before playing his route i thought seven was an obnoxious tryhard and that jumin was way funnier, and after playing his route i still think that he’s an obnoxious tryhard and that jumin is way funnier.

HOWEVER.

however. i can definitely see why he’s the most popular character. that hot and cold drama, i-cant-be-with-you-because-it’d-put-you-in-danger, dark childhood backstory, sad clown type shit is a recipe for a lot of fans to be in love with you. he personally doesnt make my kokoro go doki doki like i kind of expected because of the fan response but i do really like him as a character.

he’s similar to zen in the beginning in that you have to constantly stroke his ego and i was like uuuuggghhghghghghg nooooo. “god seven” kill me lol. at least that only lasts for the first few days though.

i liked his bad end 2 where youre really sexually forward with him and he keeps snubbing you until you just snap and push him down lol. (“why arent you pushing me away?” “...i dont know. the floor is comfy.”) seeing him finally just give in and be hedonistic and decide to run away with you was nice. god i want fanfics based on like every bad end, theyre just so interesting

the chat where he tells yoosung that their friendship doesnt matter was paaaainful. also that part on day 10 when youre leaving mint eye and he says horrible shit to v. what was it, “if this is what youre really like i can see why rika blinded you”? like... goddamn, dude. i would never want seven mad at me lol.

one of the moments on this route that got me the most was in the flashback when saeran is being brainwashed and is speaking of or thinking about seven and says something like “please come back. we dont even have to be happy. just as long as we’re together i can endure anything” and then he’s crying about how he misses him and.... augh... *clutches at chest like the heart attack guy meme* i want to give saeran 52 hugs and a box of cupcakes and a puppy. i want to adopt him even though he’s older than me and be his mom. saeran.... saeran...... ;_;

THE ZEN AND YOOSUNG DRUNK PHONE CALL AT THE END OF DAY 10 IS THE BEST FUCKING PHONE CALL IN THE GAME. i called yoosung again after they hang up and he answers and its so great too. i need fanfiction R I G H T N O W about that night. nsfw or sfw, i just need more drunk yoosung antics and zen trying to handle him. oh and if you also call seven at this time he picks up and its really sweet and i think it should have been an incoming call so more people would hear it. the fact that the first time he tells you he loves you is in an optional phone call kinda sucks.

oh fuck his fucking after ending. at first where mc and saeyoung are in bed and talking about going to rescue saeran i was like “GDI CHERTIZ” thinking they were going to leave it open ended, and then in the chat where saeran joins in i fucking s c re a med i was so happy and relieved omfg. seeing the rfa being so inclusive and nice to him warmed my fucking heart. and when they asked him if he has the same taste as saeyoung and he says “ive never been interested in women” and zen is like “oh? where is jumin lololol” i fucking died. i can see now why ive been seeing yoosung/saeran shipping stuff and its romantic and not the abusive stuff based off of yoosung’s bad end 3 like i was expecting. but of course it turns out to be a fucking dream and ruins everything. the second that creepy music box music started playing i was like “fuck you cheritz”.

707′s voice actor in the free talk part is great. saying all these cheesy romantic lines makes him want to “rub sandpaper all over my skin” lmao. and he hopes that it becomes a series with new titles like “Strange Messenger and Thankful Messenger”? fuck yes mate, fuck yes.

does seven not actually open a toy store? :c i kind of want this to be an actual thing. its a good fit for him. maybe the fact that he dreamt about it means that it’s something he’d been thinking about.

oh and BI THE WAY, SEVEN IS BISEXUAL. this makes me so happy. bi visibility is so important to me and the fact that he’s the face of the game, the fan favorite, the canon route, etc, is so delicious. thank you cheritz.

on the subject of the secret endings.... man. i knew it was going to be crazy but i still wasnt prepared. these were a trip and a half and genuinely had me feeling shook up emotionally. if there’s ever a time in my life when i’m too happy i’ll just think about v. definitely the most tragic character in the story. he’s not an angel and he’s pretty much culpable for his own suffering but he did not deserve that.

something of note is that jumin was in love with rika but after learning what she did to v, he has such a grudge against her that he wants her arrested even when she’s completely lost her mind and he even thinks about chasing her down to alaska. he loves v so, so much, augh. it hurts. i’m in pain.

it’s pretty fucked up that jumin (and yoosung and zen and the rest of the world) are still being lied to about v’s “suicide”. jumin spent a lot of money and went to a lot of trouble to get help for saeran, who is his best friend’s murderer and he just doesnt know it.

the fact that yoosung in particular never knows the truth about the cult and drugs and brainwashing and everything is a good thing though. just seeing his hero come back from the dead and be reduced to someone so mentally ill that she cant communicate and needs 24/7 care would be extremely distressing and i imagine would worsen his depression. knowing the truth would be too much i think.

i think this game fucked up v and rika’s VA’s too because both of their free talks quickly derail into too-serious territory. v is like “i once hurt my wife so badly and the guilt was unbearable” and rika is like “im going to die some day and i have no idea when...” and im sitting there like “i need a fucking hug, oh my god”

it’s amazing how quickly the secret endings shot saeran up to being one of my favorite characters. he’s so good. ;_;

okay but what was mint eye’s plan? i know they wanted to end the world’s suffering but like, how exactly? through brainwashing + drugs? rika could clearly see that saeran was miserable though, couldnt she? also some of the things saeran said made me feel like they were going to do some sort of ritual group suicide or something. maybe thats how everyone is going to be happy. and the doctor says that saeran was on peyote, shrooms, AND meth? god damn, what a cocktail lmao rika doesnt fuck around.

i love rika. she’s thoroughly disturbing and a sickening person and i can see why she’s so hated now in the fandom but even she is deserving of sympathy (abused adopted child with severe mental illness) and also has good qualities (high emotional and social intelligence, genuinely sweet, and extremely empathetic). one of my favorite villains from anything in recent memory. she’s terrifying and i absolutely love her.

we never learn her real name, which i thought was intriguing. i get the feeling that she’s meant to be mysterious and unknowable, even with all her power stripped from her as it is at the end.

im so happy that the game ended on a hopeful note, with saeran seeming like he's starting to recover and he's either grown out his hair or dyed it back. he still has literal mint eyes though, which makes me wonder if theyre not contacts like i was thinking and are actually some permanent body mod he had done. he got a tattoo of the mint eye logo, so i wouldnt be surprised if that was the case.

stray thoughts (this part is super disjointed and im just saying things as i think of them)

with the exception of 707 (if you count the secret endings as being part of his route), sometimes i get the feeling of these characters being like big fish in a small pond. mysme is already head and shoulders above what i thought a mobile game could ever be, but that doesnt change that i still feel hungry for something more. i want to see this cast in more situations, under different circumstances. they all feel like fleshed out characters full of potential that are just waiting for something more and bigger to do, like maybe something thats not restricted by being a mobile otome game. but maybe thats one for the fic writers, i dont know. maybe cheritz could work them into another project somehow since mysme got so popular.

i love that the characters have actual flaws. all of them have unattractive qualities that really make them seem human. and all of their relationships with each other are entertaining too. they are all multi-faceted and interesting and i really do adore this cast.

so 707 is the canon route but i hate the thought of any of them being canon because that means the others arent canon. all of them needed you. i want a harem route. give me all of them at the same time.

i feel a spiritual connection with vanderwood. he just constantly looks so done. his gender confused the hell out of me at first. i thought maybe he was a trans woman at first because of the hair and name but then he responds to seven referring to him as a woman with things like “i’m going to taze you”, so i was like “okay, he’s just a dude with a girls name and haircut for some reason” but then seven tripped me up again with the fact that even when the scene is really serious and seven isnt in a joking around mood, he still refers to him with female pronouns. but i guess this could be explained as this is just what seven’s used to. @aouba brought up a really good headcanon that i believe actually is canon because it makes too much sense which is that “mary vanderwood” is just the identity that he’s assuming at the moment, like saeyoung being “707″. its even noted by one of the other RFA members (yoosung?) that the name is weird and sounds fake.

i’m never more thankful to be a pale girl with long brown hair and bangs than when i’m playing this game lol

also i love this game because it feeds into my pathological need to help people without me actually having to do anything lolol

is it just me or do the full portraits of the characters look weird? like when you look at them on the wiki and you can see their legs. i cant tell if it looks bizarre because you just never see their legs in the game or if their legs are drawn weird or both lol.

i love the character designs. 707 in particular is very nicely put together and distinctive. and i love how angelic rika looks. that one taylor swift song thats like “darling i’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream” is totally her theme song.

... okay now that im listening to that song it really does fit rika a lot.

oh and Take Me To Church is def v’s song for rika.

the two guests i was unable to get throughout all the routes is @god and @star. star’s is just so counter-intuitive and god’s seemed like such a crapshoot that with two chances for both i made the same mistake on their first email both times lol.

it surprises me that religion is mentioned so frequently and openly. maybe its not as big of a deal in korea or something? i’m thinking thats the case since two of the VAs mention their religion in their free talk (i forget who but one said they were an atheist and another said they were christian). it just seems like an oddly serious and potentially alienating topic to bring up in a dating sim. also jumin and yoosung are so inconsistent with what they believe. jumin says that he’s christian on one route and then firmly says that there’s no god on another. yoosung says he doesnt believe in god multiple times and that he has no interest in having any religion but he also talks about praying and refers to rika as being “up there” and watching over the rfa. i think zen is actually the only character that doesnt ever say where he aligns.

was anyone else suspecting that rika was the one that blinded the dog, sally? i’m glad that turned out to not be the case.

i love the voice acting so much. i think quality of voice acting is sometimes harder to discern when its not a language you speak, but the quality of the voice acting here shines even to my english-only ears. yoosung’s voice is straight up one of my favorite sounds, 707 has an impressive range and is overall just always entertaining to listen to, i love the way zen’s VA delivers his lines when zen is surprised and his howls lol (which were apparently ad-libbed by his VA), jaehee’s voice sounds so sweet and lovely, and jumin is so very... jumin-y and nice and relaxing to listen to.

zen and the twins were so fucking cute in the flashbacks i want to scream. i know we get to see yoosung as a teenager but im not satisfied and i want to see jumin and jaehee as little children so bad too, augh.

rika and yoosung are the only two characters that get the creepy ass yandere eyes where their eyes get all dull and flat when theyre being crazy.

i never cried but i got pretty close on yoosung’s good end and during the secret endings. i still feel shook from the secret endings lol.

why are there still bad end relationship endings for 707 and zen and jumin that no one has found? its almost february of 2017. its surprising considering the games popularity and how long its been out. is datamining not a thing with mobile games? or does the fandom not have anyone who knows how to datamine, or what?

ships im particularly interested in: jumin/v, jumin/zen, jumin/yoosung, yoosung/seven, yoosung/jaehee, yoosung/zen, yoosung/saeran, seven/saeran because i have no shame, mc/everyone, like literally just every ship tbh because i love every character hnnng

i had no idea that buying the christmas DLC gets you another free talk with the VAs. yoosung’s VA is so cute. “please get your flu shots if you havent already”.

not sure what to do now. i definitely want to replay yoosung. and i want to hunt for all the CGs and phone calls too, but i dont want to spend $20 on the calling cards lol. would buying them even be a better deal than just spending the same money on hourglasses? $26 gets you 1000 hourglasses which is more than you’d ever need, right? it seems like the better deal, unless youre not using a phone call guide for some reason and want to try to just discover them all on your own.

i’m super excited for more DLC. i definitely think there will be more because when you open the DLC folder, the christmas DLC is shoved off to the left, making room for at least one more. also just the nature of it being a DLC folder and not a direct button to the christmas DLC.

... i guess thats all i have to say lol;;; bless cheritz. this game is fantastic and has consumed my life and ruined my sleep for the past almost three months and i had so much fun and i hope they get even more ambitious with their future projects.