#scrawlers chats with a mystic messenger

[sage-nebula]

In Mystic Messenger, it feel like all MCs from Good Ends are meant to be what the route owners want and need, their ideal MCs in a way. Like I could figure out the characters' preferences from their routes, but that's not the case with Saeyoung. He even said outright that his route MC (naive and obnoxious???) fit 707 the mask better than the real him. Sure, what he likes might not be what is right for him, but then that wouldn't be ideal. What do you think is Saeyoung's ideal MC?

While I agree with you that the minimal characterization MC has in Mystic Messenger varies depending on whose route you choose (in that MC has to behave a certain way to get the Good End for whatever character the player decides to pursue), I don’t really like using the word “ideal,” because I think that it makes MC less of a person and more of a fantasy. Which, I mean, don’t get me wrong, MC as she is in the game isn’t a character. She’s a placeholder, a blank slate; her purpose is for the player to project onto her, which is why she doesn’t have a stated canonical history, or any real personality to speak of. It’s also, as much as the fandom likes to meme about it, why she doesn’t have any eyes. “Eyes are the windows to the soul,” as the cliché goes, and by not giving her eyes Cheritz is showing us that MC doesn’t have a “soul” of her own, so to speak. Her soul is supposed to be our soul. She is supposed to be us.

With that said, as you probably know I grew extremely frustrated with MC during Saeyoung’s Route. I don’t feel that MC, as Cheritz writes her, is a good fit for him. I don’t think she’s what he needs, and in honesty I don’t even think she’s what he wants; she’s what he’s made to want because Cheritz had to make the relationship romantic by the end of the eleven days, and having him reject MC when she was being intrusive, pushy, and clingy would have made players upset. Rather than write an MC who would actually be good for Saeyoung (and thus be someone that he would naturally want to be with), they instead warped Saeyoung to force him to give into her, even if not the Manic Pixie Dream Girl™ version of her. And that, as you could imagine, was pretty disagreeable to me.

So when I say that I ship Saeyoung/MC, what I actually mean is that I ship Saeyoung and the MC that I created. I ship them as I write them, and I ship them based on the version of their story as I rewrite it (which deviates from canon during the apartment days, albeit not by too much, because honestly, it’s not that hard to fix). I’m happy to describe her, but I feel to get the full picture, you’re going to need some backstory. Well, that, and a picture; for reference, my MC (and the one that I imagine being with Saeyoung) is MC 4. This girl:

So with that said, let’s begin.

First, the backstory. How I have it, MC’s name actually is MC … as far as she knows, anyway. You see, sad backstories are par for the course in Mystic Messenger, and MC is no exception. When she was little (say, around nine or so), she was in an accident. It was a pretty major one; details are hazy, but as the story goes she was on a train with her parents, traveling somewhere, and the train derailed and crashed. MC was thrown clear of the train car; she somehow (quite miraculously!) survived without serious injuries, but she woke up on the ground, completely alone, with no memory of how she got there or where she was. It was quite frightening; she called out for help, but no one came. As a result of that, and since she could still walk, she picked herself up off the ground and, well … walked. When she located the train tracks, she followed them until she managed to make it back to a station. There, some adults found her, and they asked her where her parents were. She said, truthfully, that she didn’t know. They asked her what her name was. And she said, again truthfully, that she didn’t know … but then she said, “MC.” It was all she could remember. She didn’t think it was really right (it was sort of right, she thought, it felt right, just not … complete), but it was all she could think of, it was all she could remember. And the adults, in lieu of anything else to call her, went with it.

(In reality, her parents had named her Mi-Cha. Her father did a lot of business overseas, and so he had taught her how to write her name in English as well as Korean. She had thought the English letters looked funny, so she had a lot of fun writing them out … and since the M and C were capitals, those were the ones she remembered. Mi-Cha, MC. Head injuries can be funny like that, I suppose.)

Of course the adults at the station knew about the accident, but of the few survivors of the wreck, none of them laid claim to MC. MC didn’t recognize any of them, either. And so without any other options, particularly since MC couldn’t remember if she had any other family, the adults at the station turned her over to the police, who put her into foster care.

The foster families that MC had weren’t … bad, per se. She moved homes a lot, especially in the beginning as the system tried to put her front and center to see if they could find a family to adopt her. The thing is, they couldn’t; MC was already older than most children who get adopted by the time she entered the system, her name struck potential parents as odd and she wasn’t willing to change it, and the fact that she was not exactly the cute and sweet type didn’t help matters, either. So she changed homes a lot, until finally she found one that stuck. The home was … again, it wasn’t necessarily bad, but it … this particular foster home had a lot of kids. And as a result of having so many kids, the foster parents were … very strict. It was almost run like military barracks; there were always chores to do (a lot of them), and the foster mother in particular was rarely satisfied with the job that was done. As MC grew, the fact that she was very independent and mouthy really didn’t earn her favors with the foster parents. It also didn’t earn her favors with potential adoptive parents. And though it could likely be guessed, it didn’t earn her favors with her foster siblings, either. MC spent about two years in that home before she decided she had enough, and decided to take matters into her own hands. In this case, “matters” meant robbing a little safe that was in the study one night while everyone was sleeping, and—with all the cash she could carry and a backpack of clothes on her back—running away.

MC was fourteen.

She was fourteen, but even at fourteen she knew that it wouldn’t be wise to stay in the same city, so she used some of the money she stole to get a train to skip town. (The second she boarded the train, she felt like she was going to suffocate. It was anxiety—she was having a panic attack. But she couldn’t remember the accident that had killed her parents and left her an orphan, so she told herself this reaction was stupid and forced herself to suck it up.) She rode the train a couple towns over, and then decided that it would be best to lay low for a while, to make sure no cops were going to come look for her. Unfortunately, she was a fourteen-year-old with only a wad of cash, no diploma (since she was now a … she might not have even finished middle school), and no way of getting a job. This meant that she was now homeless. But MC figured, well, in a way she had been homeless ever since her parents died, since the foster homes never really felt like home to her. She had always known that they were going to be temporary. So she could do this. She could. She would do this.

It wasn’t easy.

MC had, at least, the foresight to run away in the spring, so it wasn’t too cold out. But she had a lot of nights curled up on porches so she could avoid the rain. She was able to buy food, at least, with what money she had, but because she had a limited amount of money she sometimes resorted to stealing fruit from market stalls, and she really wasn’t very good at it at first. After a time she managed to find a church, and the people there helped her. They gave her food, at least, because they felt bad, but any time they started to ask questions about her family life, she always made sure to beat a hasty retreat. She was still afraid the cops would arrest her if they found out that she had stolen the money from the foster home and booked it, after all. In her mind, she was a fugitive. She didn’t want to push her luck.

But the church was warm (enough), and safe, so she stayed there a lot, even though she technically wasn’t supposed to. It wasn’t hard; she would hide in a bathroom stall until the church was locked up for a night, and then sleep on one of the pews. The church had a communal bathroom, with a shower and everything, so that helped her keep clean. And so long as she made sure to duck out of the way and retreat back to the bathroom whenever she heard the church doors open in the morning, she could avoid being caught. It was a foolproof plan. MC was pretty sure it wasn’t a problem that she had dropped out of school. Clearly, she was smart enough without it. 

This continued on for about two, maybe three, years. And then, when she was about seventeen, she met Byungho.

Byungho was a businessman about five years her senior (so, around twenty-two) who came to the church every so often. MC didn’t talk to him at first; she made it a practice of not talking very much with others, because again, when she talked to people, they tended to ask questions, and that was something she wanted to avoid. But he took notice of her anyway, given that she was frequently in the church, and so one day, he struck up conversation with her. It was light, innocent; he asked her what her name was, commented that “MC” was a rather odd name to have. He tried to make small talk, and she made an excuse to get out of it. But the next time she saw him, he tried talking to her again. And the time after that, and the time after that. And on the fifth time, he invited her to go get lunch with him—his treat. 

MC felt that it was probably a bad idea. But she was hungry, and he seemed nice enough all the times she talked with him, so … what the heck. She went.

As it turns out, Byungho seemed quite nice. He seemed that way. They went to a restaurant and had lunch, and he confessed that he thought she was quite pretty. MC, as a seventeen-year-old homeless girl, was caught pretty off-guard by this. Had he … was he blind? Her clothes were shabby and ill-fitting, since by now they were donations from people at the church. Her hair was unkempt, and cut unevenly since she had cut it herself. She had acne. She never got enough to eat, so she was underweight. Like, honestly … had he seen her? But he insisted that she was pretty, and that he liked her, and that he wanted to spend more time with her. And she, well … she couldn’t remember the last time she had heard such kindness. It was flattering, and it made her feel good, so she accepted the compliments. And when he said he would drive her home, she confessed that she was staying at the church, because she had nowhere else to go.

And that was when he invited her to come stay with him.

The good news is that it wasn’t hard for MC to move into his apartment, because all she had was her backpack of worldly possessions. The bad news is that Byungho was not nearly so nice as he seemed. Sure, he seemed nice at first; he treated her kindly at first. But you know … that’s how they get you. And that’s how he got her. It didn’t take very long for things to get bad. At first it was little things, like he was irritated that she hadn’t prepared dinner for him by the time he came home from work, as he felt a good girlfriend should (particularly one that was staying with him for free). But then it escalated. His annoyance turned to anger, turned to violence. And his expectations from her, as his girlfriend, kept mounting.

MC tried to stick it out at first. This was better than being homeless, she told herself. His apartment was nice. He wasn’t home all the time. He had to work during the day. And maybe this was what girlfriends did. She didn’t know, she had never been anyone’s girlfriend before. And who else would want her? He had wanted her when she was just a grungy, scrawny homeless girl. No one else would have wanted her. This was … this was as good as she was going to get, so she should suck it up, and maybe she could learn to like it.

Of course, she never did. It would be impossible for anyone to like that.

She stayed there for about a year and a half before she hit her breaking point. Really, in honesty, she had hit her breaking point before that; while Byungho was at work, she would spend her time on the internet, trying to learn whatever skills she could so that she could get a job. Most places required some kind of degree, but call centers (and particularly international call centers) didn’t seem to (and even if they did, MC felt maybe she could forge one). International call centers did require some kind of English competency, though, so she did her best to try to learn at least basic English on the internet. And when she finally hit the last straw, well … she did what she does best.

She waited until he was at work, and until he had been there for a couple hours and thus wouldn’t double back. Then she robbed the safe he had in the apartment, stuffed all that cash and her worldly possessions into her backpack, and got the hell out of dodge.

Once again, she hopped a train (panic attack or no panic attack, it wasn’t worse than the Hell she was escaping) and skipped town, this time because she was terrified he would find her if she didn’t. This is how she ended up in the city where Mystic Messenger takes place. By this time she was eighteen or nineteen, so although she was homeless once again, she decided that she wasn’t just going to be homeless this time. Instead, she purchased herself a pay-as-you-go cell phone, and used a local library’s public computer to put in applications at whatever places in the area were hiring, as well as applying at various businesses around. Fortune was on her side; she got hired at a tech support call center (international; she spoke just enough English to secure the position), and after a month of working there, she was able to use her first paycheck and the money she still had after robbing Byungho to buy a small, modest apartment.

MC managed to keep this up for about four years, and in honesty, it was the happiest she had ever been in her life. Oh sure, she had to forge a couple documents in order to make it work, given that she didn’t have a state issued ID and was terrified of being on any sort of radar that Byungho might find if he looked hard enough (plus she was technically still a minor at eighteen, so she lied about her age and said she was twenty so that her employers or landlord wouldn’t think to alert the foster care system), but that was nothing that a library computer and dedicated research couldn’t help her do. Plus, the call center she worked at wasn’t exactly prestigious, and neither was her apartment. Her employers were just happy to have someone else on the phones. Her landlord was happy to have a quiet tenant. It was fine—great, even. She was able to have a nice little flat, she was able to be regularly fed, there was no one there to abuse her, she had steady income. Everything was great.

… until about six months before Mystic Messenger took place.

As I said, MC maintained this lifestyle for four years. She did so off the grid (i.e. no social media; Saeyoung lies through his teeth when he says he found her Facebook, because she doesn’t have a Facebook, because she’s not giving Byungho any way to find her), but she still did it. But six months before Mystic Messenger takes place, her call center went under. There was no explanation for it that MC could see; one day she had a job, and the next it was out of business. She was unemployed. Completely jobless, and definitely in trouble.

For two months, she tried finding a new job, but the job market was … not good. It was a wonder she got hired so quickly the last time; this time, it was like nowhere was hiring. She had money saved up, so for two months she was fine … but she could see that her savings were going to dwindle fast. MC felt she had two options: she could stay there until she was evicted with nothing, or she could leave when her lease ended and wait until she got a new job to get a new apartment.

She took option two, figuring it was safest.

She sold off her furniture for extra money and, hating everything, hit the streets once again. Fortunately, she wasn’t on the streets for very long; there was an apartment building she knew of on the other side of town that, well … it wasn’t in the greatest condition, honestly. Practically no one lived there. But the plus side of this was that no one would notice if someone was squatting, at least if the squatter was careful. So MC took advantage of this. Specifically, she took advantage of an unused, unlockable storage closet up on one of the higher floors. It was a walk-in storage closet, with threadbare carpeting and a bare bulb, but it was enough. It was enough, especially since there was a rec center with public bathrooms (+showers) right behind the apartment building. It was temporary, anyway, MC told herself. She would use her pay-as-you-go phone and find herself a new job. Once she had a new job, she would get a new apartment. She wouldn’t be homeless for long. She did it once before, and she could do it again. She would do it again.

But as the months—four of them, to be specific—wore on, it became more and more difficult to remain upbeat and optimistic.

She had been homeless before, so she could do it again. And she did. She told herself that her storage closet was a studio apartment. She told herself that she would get herself someplace nice. But the job market was just not good, and since her old place of employment was just gone it wasn’t even like she had a reference despite working solidly for four years. In honesty, MC felt like she was at an all-time low, even as she told herself (over, and over, and over again) that she had to stay optimistic, because if she let herself get depressed (or rather, if she acknowledged that she was depressed), then it would just make the whole situation worse. She she tried to combat her sense of hopelessness and depression with aggressive optimism. She tried very, very hard.

And that … that was when she met Unknown.

More specifically: In lieu of any callbacks about jobs, MC browsed the app store on her cheap phone, looking for something to amuse herself with. She came across a free app called “Mystic Messenger” with a blank icon. It caught her eye, and honestly … she couldn’t say why it did. But it did. So, figuring that maybe it was a dating app or something else she could waste time with, she figured “what the heck” and downloaded it. Sitting there in her little “studio apartment,” she downloaded it, because she was depressed and bored and had nothing else better to do since no one was calling her back about a job.

And that was how she met Unknown.

Make no mistake, she gave him hell. She interrogated him about his name. She interrogated him about why he was so obsessed with returning a phone to its owner. She called him on his vague non-answers. And oh, you better believe she trolled the hell out of him. It got to the point where he ended up getting rather irate and snappy with her during their exchange, his patience clearly lost as he tried to get her to agree to go to some stranger’s apartment, and honestly … she strongly considered just saying “no u” and deleting the app. She did. But it was only 6pm. She had nowhere to be, and nothing to do. And while she was now a far cry from the naive teenager who had taken a man at his word—while she was now a much smarter twenty-two or twenty-three-year-old—she figured … well. She had nothing else better to do. She had nothing worth stealing save the sparse clothes, money, and other basic toiletries in her backpack. And even if he was going to be lying in wait, waiting to rape and murder her, well, she could fight back. And even if she couldn’t, it’s not like she had anyone who would miss her, anyway.

So she figured, what the heck, and she went.

As it turns out, Unknown didn’t try to rape and murder her (although, as she pretended not to see the door lock, and he once again grew terse through the texts, she had the strangest feeling that he was … but that was stupid, he couldn’t be watching her. But all the same, she stopped trolling after a bit), but he did want her to go into the apartment. And MC, against her better judgment (because this was a stranger’s house, what if the cops were called on her?) … well, again. Nothing better to do, and a creepy feeling of eyes on the back of her neck. So she did. She entered the apartment.

And that was when she met the RFA.

Now, you have to understand: MC was more than a little bemused as she joined this group chat. She was more than a little aggravated how they kept referring to her as an “it.” And she thought that it was kind of hilarious how a party was treated like Super Serious Business™ (she laughed out loud when 707 bolded and increased the font size as he exclaimed Hosting parties???). But when they said that they wanted her to be the party coordinator, and that being the party coordinator meant staying at the apartment … 

Listen.

It’s not that MC had a secret passion for hosting parties. It’s not that she felt sympathy for these people who were, apparently, sad over the death of some woman named Rika, and wanted to carry on the parties in her name or whatever. It’s not that she thought that any of the guys were hot (although, to be fair, everyone in the chat was strangely attractive, Jaehee included), and that she wanted a boyfriend. No, this had nothing to do with any of that.

Instead, it was … listen. Not thirty minutes ago, MC had been living in a storage closet that she tried to insist to herself was just a shitty studio apartment. Now she was seated in the living room of an apartment with very nice furniture, and nice walls, and a bathroom with a toilet and a really nice shower. There was a kitchen where she could make food, and a fridge and cabinets where she could store it. It was just down the street from a convenience mart. And while it was clear that being the RFA party coordinator was not a paying gig, in MC’s mind, the equation went as thus:

Do a good job as temporary party coordinator and impress RFA

RFA wants to keep her on for more parties because they are impressed

At that point, she mentions need a paying gig on top of this

One of the now impressed members of the RFA with a career (e.g. Jumin, V, Jaehee, etc) offers her a job with them

SUCCESS AND PROFIT

It was as good a plan as any in MC’s mind, and in any case, Rika’s apartment was a HUGE step-up from where she had been staying before. So she readily agreed, and didn’t even call 707 out on his bs when he said that he looked up her social media (social media which didn’t exist, and anyway, he only had “MC” to go on, like … she scoffed at the idea that he could dig up anything on her). Instead, she played along with him. He made her laugh. He genuinely made her laugh. And it had been … well, it felt like it had been years since she had laughed or smiled that much. She really liked talking to him. He was a funny guy.

She thought that, the perks of having a nice place to stay and the potential for a future job aside, she rather liked this situation she found herself in. She still wanted to know who tf Unknown was (and she forwarded the text messages and chat log to Seven), but all the same, she still had to say (to herself and not through text) …

Thanks, Unknown.

So, with all of that foundation laid, what do we know about MC? Well, succinctly:

MC is smart. She’s not a technical genius by any stretch (though she does, thanks to her call center job, have some background knowledge on computers to an extent—she can troubleshoot, at least), but she is street smart. She has spent a good chunk of her life living on the streets, and she knows how to get by, even if it’s scraping by due to how hard homeless life is. She’s not naive; her circumstances have forced her to grow up ahead of her time, and in honesty, being treated as naive is pretty grating for her. She knows how to take care of herself, because she’s had to learn the hard way, and she really doesn’t take well to that being dismissed.

On that note, she’s independent, and extremely so. Again, she’s spent pretty much her whole life looking after herself. She didn’t always do a great job of it, but she did her best, and she’s still doing her best, and this is something she takes pride in. She’s not helpless; even if she’s in a bad situation, MC doesn’t see herself as even remotely helpless. She’s not a damsel who ever needs to be rescued. She can protect and rescue herself. She always has, after all, every time. Any time she was in a bad situation, the only person who ever got her out of it was her. So again, MC chafes if she’s treated like a helpless damsel, just as she chafes at being treated as naive, and she doesn’t do well with having her independence compromised. She’s rather headstrong like that.

She’s gutsy. Daring, brave, bold—you name it, she’s it. It takes guts to rob your foster family and then run away like she did. It takes guts to do the same to your abusive boyfriend. And more than that, it takes resilience to be able to survive the way she has. MC, despite everything, doesn’t break. No matter how bad a situation gets, no matter how badly she’s hurt, she always manages to push herself up and keep going. Even if it takes every last ounce of willpower she’s got, she does it. And she doesn’t back down, either; no matter how intimidating someone may seem, if she has to fight, she’ll do it. Sure, she might be afraid, but she’ll still do it. She’s incredibly brave and incredibly determined. It’s how she has survived for this long. But she’s also …

… paranoid. MC is secretive to the point of paranoia about her personal information and identity. She doesn’t use social media because she’s afraid of being found. She forges official documents as best she can to obscure her identity (not thinking, of course, about the national registry; if her call center job hadn’t been shady, they wouldn’t have hired her). She relentlessly grills Unknown and is honestly even a little savage with him in the prologue chat because the fact that he won’t reveal his real name sets off warning bells for her, because what ulterior motives could he have for keeping his name secret? And she doesn’t tell the RFA much about herself, either. She shares her name (MC), but she doesn’t bother to tell them that the picture she had in the chat was a selfie. Better to let them believe she looks like something else. She doesn’t tell them her age, and she lets them believe that she had a place to stay before Rika’s apartment (well, a nice place to stay). Even when Seven asks about her, she dodges around her questions no differently than he dodges hers. It’s not that she doesn’t trust him; it’s that she doesn’t (easily) trust anyone.(Plus, wouldn’t they judge her if they knew she was a jobless hobo before this? Better safe than sorry in that respect, too.)

She has … ZERO tolerance for abuse. Given her own life—her time in the foster home, and especially her time with Byungho—she has no tolerance for abuse or abusers. None. Zero. She refuses to “let” herself ever be in that situation again, and if she ever sees anyone else in that situation, she gets real mad, real fast. Her attitude toward Rika is pretty much summed up as “bring the bitch to me so she can CATCH THESE HANDS” and nothing short of it. But that said, she also wouldn’t tolerate, say, Saeran abusing Saeyoung, if it ever came to that. She’ll feel for Saeran. She’s been abused herself. But being abused is no excuse to abuse others. She’s not about to have it. No tolerance for that. None whatsoever. None, nada, zip, zilch, zero.

And she’s not nearly so cheerful as she seems. MC has had a hard life. That hard life has left her with quite a lot of emotional scars. And while she tried to tell herself, over and over and over again, that things would be okay and she couldn’t let herself be depressed, that doesn’t change the fact that she was depressed enough to follow some stranger’s instructions to some strange apartment even though she was fully aware that she was at risk of being raped and/or murdered when she got there. (Or having her backpack of worldly possessions, which she can’t leave in the storage closet since it has no lock, stolen from her.) Again, she’s not actually naive or innocent. She plays along with jokes because she loves to laugh (and oh, she does—she loves laughing and joking and playing around!), but that’s all it is—playing. When play time is over, she can and does get serious. She still tries to not feel depressed, but … well. It’s harder than it seems, even if she still pushes through it and keeps going for the sake of it.

She is, should she find someone she can truly connect (safely and happily) with, quite devoted. MC’s never really had someone to truly love, who truly loved her in return. This isn’t to say that she has no idea how relationships work, because she does. She was friends (casually) with her coworkers at her call center job, for instance, and after Byungho you at least better believe she knows what not to do or settle for in relationships. But she’s never had a really loving relationship of her own. No family to speak of, no best friends, and Byungho was certainly not a loving boyfriend. MC has been pretty isolated in this way for pretty much her entire life. Casual work friends are nice, but … it’s not the same. So as a result, should she find someone that she truly cares for—even if they don’t love her in return, if she loves and cares about them, she’s devoted to them. She’ll stand by them through anything. She’s steadfast and loyal. She’s protective and caring. And she doesn’t really need anything in return, because for her, it’s enough to have this chance to help someone that she cares about, and to do something good—to do what’s right.

On that note, she’s got a strong sense of justice. Or at least … she has a good sense of right and wrong, and she also does have vested interest in helping the less fortunate (obviously, look how many years she has spent homeless). The charity party actually sounds like a great idea to her (even if internally she’s like “can I bet on the donation side and can you people donate a job to me because tbh …”) because she knows better than most how absolutely awful it is to have literally nothing. She wants to help those that are “less fortunate,” she wants to host the party not just because she wants to impress the RFA (but mainly that), but also because it’s a legitimately good cause in her mind. It’s something she cares about. Though, on that note …

Strong sense of justice or not, she’s resourceful, and is not afraid to lie or steal to get what she needs to live, i.e., she can be ruthless if she has to be. I mean, again … look at how much stealing she has done, look at how she might lie and deceive to protect herself. She has a good sense of right and wrong, but she’s not above doing what she has to in order to survive, even if it’s illegal. MC figures her continued survival is a good enough cause to justify that sort of thing.

So with all of that listed out, what does that say for the story? And more specifically, her relationship with Saeyoung?

I see the story playing out mostly as it does until the apartment days are reached. Once Saeyoung arrives at the apartment, and makes it clear he doesn’t want to pursue a relationship with her—that’s fine. It hurts, sure, to have him be so cold when before this he was honestly the closest to a best she ever had (and she knows that’s ridiculous given they’ve only known each other a handful of days, but still), but it’s fine. If he doesn’t want to date her, that’s fine. It’s not like romance is the most important thing in the world, and he has other problems. He has way more important problems. Hell, the entire RFA has way more important problems. Whoever knew a charity organization could be full of this much drama? Jfc.

But that said, there are still … other difficulties.

When they get into arguments, their arguments are because she wants him to eat something, and he refuses (and you know, she respects his boundaries, but he needs to eat, he doesn’t get to harp on her for not eating if he won’t). Their arguments are because she wants to go to the convenience mart, and he’s paranoid about her leaving the apartment. (They compromise by being on the phone the whole time, even if they’re not speaking.) Their arguments are because he, unintentionally or otherwise, treats her like she’s naive and/or helpless, and she gets pissed off, because he has no right to judge her like that when he knows nothing about her. When he tries to warn her that there are dangerous men out there, she laughs, bitterly and without humor, because yeah, trust her, she knows. When she makes an offhand comment about how, even with the bomb, Rika’s apartment is still way better than where she was before, and he shrewdly asks her where she was before, she dodges the question. And when, ultimately, they get in their last big fight and he demands to know why she likes him, she lists off all the reasons why she does, because unlike Canon MC, this MC knows. She likes him because he’s smart, brave, selfless. Yeah, he made her laugh, and that’s a plus, too, considering laughter is a rarity in her life, but the jokes aside, she loves him—likes him, she amends, way more for his cleverness, his bravery, his selflessness. He risked everything with the agency to come protect her. He does everything for the RFA despite being so busy with his own work. No matter how stressed or bogged down he is, he’s determined enough to push through. He cares enough to go the extra mile for others, not expecting anything in return. She likes him because underneath the jokey, pranky 707 exterior, he’s a genuinely good person who tries his best even if he doesn’t always manage to succeed. There’s sincerty in how much he cares even if he tries to deny it. And that … she can relate to some of that, and admire even more of it. She started out liking the 707 in the chat room, yeah, because he was fun to talk to. But now? Now she genuinely cares about the Seven that’s right in front of her.

He’s at a loss. She just went on some huge speech about everything she likes about him—and at some point, yes, she included how serious and dedicated he is, she likes him being serious, even if she adds she’d also like it if he would take breaks to sleep and eat—and he’s … at a loss. He admits he doesn’t know what to do. So she says:

“Just think about accepting help. That’s all I want. I just—it doesn’t have to be me. If you don’t want me helping you, fine. But let someone help you, Seven. Let Jumin help you, or Jaehee. Maybe even Zen. Just—I want to help you. I’m here to help you however you need. I want to help you find and rescue Saeran, I want to help you get through this. But if it’s not me, just let it be someone. You don’t have to be alone, Seven. You don’t have to do this all by yourself. I … I know how hard it—I know what it’s like doing everything by yourself even when it’s something far less risky than all this. I know how it is doing just basic level hard stuff all by yourself. But what you’re dealing with is extra. It’s a lot, even for several people, but especially for one. So just … please think about accepting some help. Think about accepting your friends. That can include me, or it can not … and if it does, then you can still tell me to get lost when all is said and done, that’ll be fine. I’ll respect that. But just take some time, and think about accepting some help from someone. That’s all I ask.”

And after a moment … that is what he’d quietly agree to.

He and MC would not become a couple at this point, but he would accept help from her. He’d start to tell her more about Saeran. He’d explain what he’s doing. She’d help him prepare for the trip to Magenta, and she’d go there with him. And she wouldn’t go there just so that she could get in the car when he tells her to when V shows up, or so that she could hide behind him. This MC, as you can tell from all of the above, is proactive. She’s brave, and she’s a fighter. This MC is not someone that Saeyoung stands before like a shield; she is someone who stands by his side, who gives him a hand to hold without any expectation of a relationship (despite their mutual crushes; it’s just not the time). Sure, he still tells her to stand behind him, but her attitude is “no u” before she moves to stand by his side. Will he protect her? Sure. But she’ll protect him right back, or go down swinging at the very least. Saeyoung, much like MC, has spent his entire life taking care of himself. He’s spent his entire life having the burden entirely on his shoulders. So it’s about damn time he had someone to share it with, just as it’s about damn time MC had some help, too, however much she (like him, tbh—they’re both so stubborn about it) thinks she has everything under control. Saeyoung has more technical knowledge that she does, given that he is a canonical, literal genius, but outside of that, they’re equals. She’s not a damsel for him to protect, rescue, and pamper. She’s a partner who stands by his side and gives him the support he needs to make it through, just as he does the same for her.

So as you can imagine, she’s a lot more proactive in my version of the Secret Endings as well. She floors the getaway car when it’s time. She learns from Vanderwood how to do first aid treatment for Saeyoung’s injury. When Rika says that she’s going to brainwash Saeyoung, MC says, “Over my dead body,” and moves to stand in front of him. At which point, of course, we get this from Rika:

“That would be a waste, because I believe everyone has a place here at Mint Eye. But if that’s truly what you want … that can be arranged.”

At that point, Believers enter the cell to drag MC off, and Vanderwood has to hold Saeyoung back as he starts flipping out, but Saeran intervenes since Rika promised him that he could have the toy that he personally sent to her old apartment …

As you can see, things really start to deviate.

(Note that once they’re away from the cells, Saeran tells MC that he has zero interest in her. He only said what he did to mess with Saeyoung. MC’s pretty unimpressed and lets him know it. He’s irritated by how unimpressed she is, and she’s petty and satisfied.)

Unlike canon, where they’re engaged promptly once Saeran is rescued, MC and Saeyoung don’t even officially start dating until after Saeran is rescued and has started the healing process. Note that, also unlike canon, MC can’t really stay at Rika’s apartment anymore, because RFA isn’t having that, what with there being a bomb and all. But she also never told them that she was a homeless squatter, so … #awkward. She ends up having Vanderwood take her back to the storage closet, and when he sees that it is, in fact, a storage closet—

“I like to think of it as—it’s not a storage closet. It’s a studio apartment,” MC says.

“It’s a storage closet,” Vanderwood says. “Oh, for fucksake—”

MC and Saeyoung aren’t officially dating yet, but Vanderwood still thinks Saeyoung would flip if he knew his not-girlfriend was staying in a storage closet. Aside from which, over the course of the Secret Endings, Saeyoung, MC, and Vanderwood became The Secret End Squad™, and that’s a bond not easily broken. So Vanderwood says, “Get your backpack and let’s go” and takes her back to his place. Yeah, that’s right: post-Secret Endings, MC is (at least for a time) roomies with Vanderwood.

#RoomieAdventures (and also #JobSearchAdventures because at this point they’re both unemployed lololol)

(Saeyoung’s reaction when he learns this is priceless, I’m sure.)

So yeah, all in all, the MC that I imagine for Saeyoung is someone who stands beside him, as his equal. Someone who respects his boundaries and does not push a relationship, but also someone who does push the notion that he should let someone help him, because she genuinely cares about and wants to help. She’s had a hard life, but that hard life has made it so that she can stand at his equal. Just as his hardships developed him, hers have developed her. She’s someone who can support him, as much as he supports her. She’s someone who wants to.

And ultimately, arrogant though it may sound, I think that an MC like this … is much better suited for him than the MC that Cheritz vaguely defined. But that’s just my opinion; everyone else’s mileage may vary.

[sage-nebula]

For those curious, I’m not playing Saeran's Route. I read a bunch of the spoilers and they upset me for far too many reasons for me to give it the time of day. Waste of $10, imo. I’m disowning Another Story wholesale as a terrible AU that is better off forgotten. (Which is exactly what it is, but you know.)

All I’ll say, spoiler-wise, is:

I was right. (Not about the exact details, true, but about the end result. I was right.)

I'm not happy about it, but I was right.

Everyone who said "omg they would never do that in the GOOD Ending you're pulling that out of nowhere for drama!!!" (and ESPECIALLY those who said that a read that he was going to die came from a place of feeling "threatened" by the brotherly bond, what the fuck) can get fucked, because I was right.

Maybe they'll fix it in the After Ending, but considering Saeyoung's After Ending, I have doubts.

Even if they reveal that he's alive in the After Ending---even if they happily reunite the brothers there---it doesn't change the fact that, according to Cheritz, ALL SAERAN NEEDED was MC, as evidenced by his Normal Ending. (Compare how happy Saeran looks in his Normal Ending CG, compared to how solemn Saeyoung looks in his.)

I'm furious about it, but I. Was. Right. About so many things I didn't want to be right about.

Also: poor, poor V.

[sage-nebula]

This is the highlight of Casual Story. Casual Story peaks here, nothing that comes after could ever surpass it.

[sage-nebula]

I’m going for Saeyoung’s normal end on this playthrough, which requires that I get less than ten guests for the party. So far, I have no guests for the party, but the only ones that I’m really focusing on getting are the cat rescue group, Longcat, and of course, Hackers Chasing Hackers. It’s going to be the worst party ever and I’m going to be fired as the RFA’s party coordinator, but oh well, sometimes these sacrifices have to be made.

On another note, every now and then I remember how I once saw someone claim that Saeyoung never apologizes for things in his route, which is completely beyond fucking ridiculous, and it makes me irritated every time I remember it. So I’m taking advantage of this playthrough to collect all the receipts of all the times he apologizes. So far I have six receipts, and I’m only on Day 6 (which is before the apartment segment, as well as before he drops the 707 act completely---like, he just had a very serious chat, but I know that the next one he’s in is going to be one where he’s pretending that ~everything is fine~ and ~he was just being sentimental~, so). I know for a fact that there’s a phone call where he just keeps apologizing over and over during the apartment segment, so. The receipts post is going to be extensive.

So anyway, that’s a thing I’m doing.

[sage-nebula]

I played the Christmas DLC back when I first played through Mystic Messenger, but now that it is actually Christmas Eve I’m doing it again. If nothing else, perhaps God Seven, protector and ruler of the seven kingdoms, can help get me through this holiday.

[sage-nebula]

This is why I wish Cheritz would be legit and would let us skip the Common Route, as we could with the others, because I'm never going to get Saeran's Route when he pisses me off like this.

[sage-nebula]

They put an actual trigger warning on Saeran's Route in bright red text, holy shit. As someone whose history made the abusive mother flashbacks in Saeyoung's Route very hard to get through, I am . . . apprehensive.

[sage-nebula]

I’m going through the special Christmas greetings for Mystic Messenger, and so far I’ve gotten (not counting repeats):

Yoosung: Three times

Zen: I think twice, maybe three times

Jaehee: Three times

Jumin: Twice

Saeran: Once

V: Once

Rika: Once

Saeyoung: ZERO

And again, this is not counting repeats. I’ve repeated all of these (sans Rika) multiple times. These are just the individual special greeting chats I’ve seen, and I just

I FEEL LIKE I’M BEING TORTURED

WHERE IS MY BOY

WHY IS HE THE ONLY ONE WHO ELUDES ME

ESPECIALLY WHEN HE PROBABLY HAS MULTIPLE ONES LIKE THE OTHERS . . .

WHYYYYYYYY

[sage-nebula]

SEVEN: [makes a suicidal comment in RFA chat]

RFA: [doesn’t give a fuck at best, acts annoyed at worst]

SEVEN: [makes suicidal comment in front of Vanderwood]

VANDERWOOD: “What?? The fuck??? Is this???? I was joking, I wouldn’t do that if I could help it, tf 707, the actual fuck, I can’t believe you would actually even say that to me right now, standing here, in your house, which I have cleaned for you because we are friends and you’re sitting here talking about how you want to die, tf . . .”

[sage-nebula]

MysMes Another Story - Review

I figure I’ll go ahead and jot down my current thoughts on Mystic Messenger’s “Another Story” route, because I have a lot of them, and screaming about them to a friend in tumblr messenger, while fun, doesn’t exactly save them in a place where they can be reviewed later, haha. As a few notes right off the bat:

So far I’ve just started Day Four. Thus, any opinions or feelings I currently have could still change as the story progresses, and I don’t want any spoilers for anything beyond the first Seven chats (“What’s Wrong?” and the visual novel mode segment that follows), thanks.

I’m specifying that it’s “Another Story” rather than “V’s Route” because it has come to my attention (and I’ll explain this in a moment) that this isn’t just V’s Route as we were initially led to believe. V is also sharing it with another character, although I’m pretty sure that if you pursue this other character, you’ll Bad End, hence why Cheritz didn’t advertise that. (Like, you’re not supposed to pursue this other character, even though you can, just as you can do things in other routes that net you Bad Ends.) But as I said, more on that in a second.

That said . . .

Introduction:

So, just in case anyone is unclear about how Mystic Messenger is set up, or the basic premise of Another Story, I’m going to go ahead and give a quick explanation.

Mystic Messenger is, as many of you know, a visual novel / dating simulator. The basic premise is that you play from the perspective of a girl who, through a small series of events, ends up logged into a private messenger for an organization known as Rika’s Fundraising Association, or RFA for short. RFA plans charity parties in order to help those in need, and after another small series of events (more like a prologue conversation) it’s decided that you’re going to be the new party coordinator so that they can host one of the charity parties again, something they haven’t done since the original founder, Rika, committed suicide. From there, you manage party guests through in-app e-mails, as well as converse with the members of the RFA to decide which one you want to pursue romantically (because remember, it is a dating sim). There’s much more to the story, of course, and there are various changes to the story depending on whose route you go down, but that’s the basic set-up.

Originally, the story of Mystic Messenger was told through two modes: Casual Story and Deep Story. Casual Story allowed you to pursue Yoosung, Zen, or Jaehee. Deep Story allowed you to pursue Jumin or Seven. Additionally, Seven’s Route is the one that continues into the Secret Endings, which actually wrap up the plot and deliver a satisfying conclusion to mysteries that were still left unsolved at the end of other routes (including Seven’s own, but since the Secret Endings continue on from Seven’s Good Ending, it can be assumed that the Secret Endings are truly part of his route, particularly since one of them focuses on his twin brother). Because of this, it was often said that you should wait to play Seven’s Route last, since that’s the route that wraps up the story and solves all the mysteries contained within the plot.

Now, as you may have noticed, there is a character that’s not available to be romanced in either Casual Story or Deep Story. Despite being the head of RFA and a very important character in the plot, V is wholly unavailable in both Casual Story and Deep Story, something that upset many fans. In response to fan demand, Cheritz created Another Story, which is (as the title suggests) a route separate from the others that allows you to romance V. Fans have speculated for some time what Another Story could possibly be like. Some wondered if it would be just like Casual Story or Deep Story, only with V added (though they also wondered, in that case, why V wasn’t just added to Deep Story), and others (such as myself) thought that it might be an AU.

It turns out that those who speculated that Another Story would be an AU were correct . . . with a twist.

Another Story is an alternate universe story which ostensibly takes place two years prior to Casual Story and Deep Story. Specifically, Another Story takes place six months after Rika’s apparent suicide, but still two years prior to when Casual Story and Deep Story pick up. There are noticeable changes therefore, given that all of the members of the RFA were at different places in their lives prior to Casual Story and Deep Story beginning. Jaehee had only just started working at C&R; Yoosung hadn’t yet discovered LOLOL; Zen was still a relatively unknown musical actor, and so on and so forth. However, it is incorrect to assume that Another Story is an AU in which “everything is the same, but MC finds RFA two years later.” Not only does MC’s appearance in the RFA’s lives drastically alter what the RFA themselves are like, but the story itself is significantly changed in order to put MC in the story to begin with, as well as changed just for the hell of it in other areas (some of which I personally dislike, but more on that in a bit). In other words, Another Story is not only an AU because the setting (time-wise) of the story is changed, but it’s also an AU in which many of the plot elements themselves are significantly altered, making this a markedly different universe from the one we know in Casual Story and Deep Story (and therefore the Secret Endings) wholesale.

Another Story Premise / Changes:

For those who are familiar with the plot of Casual Story / Deep Story, yet haven’t played Another Story and don’t mind spoilers, here’s the set-up:

In Casual Story / Deep Story, MC downloads the messenger app on her phone, is contacted by Unknown, and is sent to Rika’s old apartment, where she then joins the RFA. She doesn’t meet Unknown until he breaks into the apartment, and he hardly contacts her at all after the first contact. Thus, not only is romancing Unknown (a.k.a. Saeran) not an option, it’s basically impossible.

This . . . is not the case at all in Another Story.

In Another Story, MC discovers the messenger app on her phone despite the fact that she never consciously downloaded it. Unknown / Saeran still contacts her, but he ends up moving the conversation to a phone call. He explains that he has developed a new game that he wishes MC to test for him, but that in order for her to do that, she has to come stay with him. MC agrees (because if you don’t agree you Bad End), and so she ends up allowing herself to be blindfolded before she gets in a car to be driven to his location. Upon arriving, Saeran---who goes by the name Ray in this route---introduces himself to MC, and describes everything about the RFA messenger and planning parties, with the caveat that he insists that all of the members are AIs that he created. MC has a whole floor to herself, instead of just one apartment, though she’s not allowed to leave the floor. It’s strongly implied (and confirmed later on) that MC is at Magenta, which you’ll remember from Deep Story / the Secret Endings is Mint Eye’s headquarters. 

On top of now being able to speak with V regularly, MC is now also able to chat with Saeran regularly. In fact, she has no choice. Saeran calls MC, often hacks the messenger to have chats just between the two of them, and regularly visits her in her room. On top of getting teal hearts for V, you can also get magenta hearts for Saeran. It’s clear that this isn’t just V’s Route, but is also Cheritz’s answer for a Saeran Route, something which was also heavily begged for by fans. However, while this Saeran is still, well, Saeran, he also has faced significant alterations to make this possible, and I’m talking about more ways than just his outfit.

With that said . . .

The Good:

As you can tell, the story is signiificantly altered. While I take issues with no few changes that were made (more on those in the bad section), I have to hand it to Cheritz for making this a completely original route. I feel like this was partially done to be practical, given that V dies in the Secret Endings and there’s no real way to make that a Good End for him. However, at the same time, making it an AU also keeps it interesting. This isn’t like playing the same story while pursuing another character; they’ve given us an entirely brand new story, which is refreshing even for those who played all the other routes fifty thousand times over. I’m definitely counting that as a strength of Another Story on the whole.

I made a comment that this is making me ship Jumin and V even harder than I did before, and it’s true. While there were of course brief moments in other routes (particularly Jumin’s) that shed light on their relationship and allowed them to interact, V’s very minimal participation in Casual Story and Deep Story meant that we never got to see that fully explored. Here, however, we do. There have already been two full conversations where the two were allowed to banter with one another, and the fact that they’re immensely important to one another, trust each other more than anyone else, and feel incredibly comfortable and secure around one another has been brought up time and again. It’s funny, because I know that you have to hook up with V in order to get the Good End (or at least, I’m assuming---this is a dating sim, after all), but at the same time all I really want is for Jumin and V to realize the true love they already have with each other especially since that would allow me to be engaged to Seven again I’m js. Either way, their relationship is precious, and it allows us to see more sides of both of them that we never got to see previously, so that’s definitely a good thing as well.

This is a minor thing, but it’s so nice to have so many new phone calls! For me this is mostly relegated to Seven; I have his calling card (of course I do), so I call him after every single chat. He doesn’t always pick up, but when he does the phone calls are ones that I of course didn’t experience in either Casual Story or Deep Story, and it’s so nice to have new 707 content. ♥ I’m just waiting for him to genuinely laugh, though. He has the most heartwarming, beautiful, precious laugh . . . I want to hear it once more. Laugh for me, God Seven. Please, let me hear you laugh . . . !

While there are some things that don’t make sense, and others that have been plain retconned (more on that in the next section), there are some changes they’ve made to show that this takes place two years before Casual Story and Deep Story that are nice details. For instance, Yoosung hasn’t yet discovered LOLOL (as mentioned previously), and doesn’t until Seven introduces him to it by virtue of hacking it onto his computer so that he’ll play that instead of lashing out about Rika and V all the time. Jaehee is still new to C&R, so she doesn’t complain as much about her job, and also doesn’t yet seem to be Elizabeth 3rd’s catsitter. Jumin still has quite a few things going on at C&R, especially since V is still around and thus he and his father can participate in C&R, and so he’s not investing himself in cat businesses, and so on and so forth. These little touches, when done correctly, are really nice, because they remind the player in a subtle way that these are not quite the characters they got to know in Casual Story and Deep Story. Like, they are, but they’re the characters two years prior, so there are certain elements of their life that haven’t taken place yet.

V’s relationship with Jumin is precious, but honestly? So is V himself. I always felt that V would be my second choice, after Seven (specifically: Seven ---> V ---> Jumin ---> Jaehee ---> Zen ---> Yoosung; Saeran doesn’t count because what he needs is family and friendship, not romance), and this has only solidified that for me. V is an absolute sweetheart who’s just trying his best, and I love how warm and welcoming he is, even though you see that he has a lot of doubt surrounding, well, just about everything. He earnestly wants to believe the best in everyone, wants to believe that he can bring about the best result and that he’s the only one who should be burdened, and getting to know him has been nice. My only wish is that I could call him more, but I’m not willing to spend the hourglasses when this route is already expensive af.

Also, his emojis are ADORABLE. 

Lastly, THE MUSIC IS INCREDIBLE, but I mean, this is Mystic Messenger, so that’s to be expected. V has a new theme (I think it’s a variation on “I Miss Happy Rika”? But I’m not sure), but in particular, because of Saeran’s changed role in the story, his theme (“My Half is Unknown”) has received a truly gorgeous string arrangement. No one has uploaded it to YouTube yet (understandably; they’d have to rip it from the game, and I’m not sure how possible that is at the moment), so I can’t link it, but trust me when I say that it’s a truly fantastic piece. “My Half is Unknown” was already arguably the most gorgeous piece of music in the original routes, but although this string arrangement is a bit more upbeat (given Saeran’s altered role), this song definitely does it justice. Once again, Mystic Messenger has far better music than any mobile game has any right to.

That said . . .

The Bad:

As you may have gathered, the premise for Another Story is five hundred times less believable than the premise for Casual Story / Deep Story. Although it was always a bit iffy that MC would go to some random apartment because some rando in a messenger app asked her to, you could at least argue the fact that Unknown told her that she could leave if she felt unsafe, could delete the app, et cetera, and therefore MC felt that there was little risk involved. In Another Story, however, not only does Unknown / Saeran make it clear from the start that MC is going to have to stay with him for a decent length of time, but he sends a car to pick her up, and he tells her that she must be blindfolded for the entire trip. I’m not sorry for saying that this is wholly unbelievable. No woman would ever consent to something like this from a stranger. At the very least, Cheritz could have made it so that Saeran was someone that MC had been conversing with for a while; they could have made it so that she had already built up a friendship with him prior to the game starting, so that the player could find it a little more believable that MC might consent to such demands. However, it’s made clear from the get-go that Saeran is someone that MC has never spoken to before, which makes the premise beyond ridiculous. It was difficult to suspend disbelief in Casual Story / Deep Story, but it’s pretty much impossible here. In fact, I triggered a prologue Bad End my first time through because I kept saying no, and to be honest, the only reason why that was a Bad End is because I wasn’t allowed to play the game. Otherwise, I think it ended pretty well (especially since it’s implied that Rika gets sent to prison, yassss).

It’s no secret that Seven is my favorite character and one true love, and as a result, I’m actually legitimately pissed about what has been done to him in Another Story. This is going to take a lot of explaining, so please buckle up. So, as mentioned a thousand times, Another Story is an AU that takes place two years prior to the game beginning. However, I’ve mentioned a few times that in addition to being a time-setting AU, it’s also an AU in other ways, in that some things have been changed that make absolutely no sense for why they’re different. Most of these things I’ve mentioend revolve around Seven, and how his skills have been ridiculously nerfed, and how pieces of his backstory have been completely retconned and changed.  To begin with, the nerfing: In Casual Story / Deep Story, it’s made more than evident that Seven is an actual genius. Aside from being the one who developed the messenger app, as well as aside from being the person who manages all of the confidential / security records for RFA (and therefore the one who installed the bomb and special security system in Rika’s apartment), Seven is an agent for an unspecified governmental intelligence agency despite only being twenty-two years old, and according to the official guidebook (released by Cheritz themselves) is completely fluent in seventeen languages. And that’s not just a fun fact, because Seven routinely drops words in other languages during phone calls and in chats, and also set up his home security system to be a riddle password system in Arabic, the riddle and password for which automatically changes each day at midnight. Seven is ostensibly the best hacker in the world; while his handler / partner, Vanderwood, does have some skills, it’s evident that they’re not as skilled as Seven, which is why Seven is the one relied upon to complete the work assigned by the agency. Additionally, Rika wants Seven in Mint Eye due to his skills as a hacker. She makes it clear in the Secret Endings that she’s aware of the fact that Saeran, while skilled, is not as skilled as Seven, and therefore it’s more important to her that Seven joins (whereas Saeran wants him dead). And again, this is not hearsay; Seven is able to immediately detect when Saeran hacks the RFA server a second time in Deep Story, traces him by the e-mails he sends to the other RFA members (sans MC) in the same route, tracks down Magenta / Mint Eye’s location via following those traces back, and gently chides Saeran beneath his breath when he notices mistakes Saeran made in his code when he hacks Magenta’s security system. We actually see, through story progression, that Seven is a far more experienced and skilled hacker than Saeran, and it makes sense; he has been studying computers for longer, he has been working in the intelligence agency, and Saeran has only learned what he has learned in order to chase after Seven, where’s Seven’s focus has covered more areas. The fact that Seven is more capable is proven, and backed by reasonable logic. In Another Story, however, this is far from the case. In Another Story, for no conceivable reason, Saeran is running rings around Seven. Not only has Seven thus far been completely incapable of tracking Saeran’s initial hacking attempts, he also: - never notices when Saeran has hacked the messenger to have a private chat with MC, despite the fact that Jaehee notices something was up with the messenger at one point (not to diss Jaehee, but it’s just that if anyone should be noticing a bug within the messenger, it should be Seven, since he created the messenger and is supposed to be the resident tech genius); - received an e-mail sent directly to him, courtesy of Saeran, and yet was unable to trace it back, despite easily tracing the e-mails sent to the other members in Deep Story; - is unable to track MC’s location, even though she’s at Magenta, a place he was able to locate easily enough in Deep Story; - had his own personal business server hacked (by Saeran), and yet was unable to trace that hack back to its source, either And so on and so forth. As I said, Saeran is running rings around Seven, to the point where it looks as though Seven’s skills are more of an informed attribute than something he’s actually capable of. And while it could be argued that perhaps two years really made a huge difference, that doesn’t explain Saeran, who is incapable of keeping up with Seven in Casual Story / Deep Story. Don’t misunderstand, Saeran was not a slouch in Casual Story / Deep Story either, and it did take Seven time (and those e-mails) to be able to trace him; however, the point is still that Saeran was not as capable as Seven, and that a small, tiny slip like those e-mails was enough to get him caught. The fact that he can send an e-mail directly to Seven this time and still not get caught really speaks to the fact that not only has Seven been severely nerfed, but Saeran has been severely buffed. This is further evidenced by minor things pertaining to Seven’s skillset. For instance, in Deep Story he makes two robots for MC. One is a puppy robot that breathes fire (which he uses to escape Vanderwood later), and the other is a cat robot designed for companionship. These robots are honestly brilliant, and he puts them together in a manner of hours. But so far, the most he has been able to do is create a weird energy drink (which may not exist) and fairy wings (which also may not exist). He’s still inventing things, but they’re things that may not exist / don’t have much of a useful function / aren’t very impressive. So it’s like they kept the inventor part of his personality, but significantly reduced what it is he actually invents, which again makes him look less capable / impressive.  Building on all of this, they’ve also retconned part of Seven’s backstory, namely as it pertains to Vanderwood. Something that I noticed immediately upon starting Another Story (and calling Seven) is that his voicemail is different. When I’m actually allowed to hear it (since there’s a bug that doesn’t let it play sometimes), it’s a generic “this person is not available” voicemail, rather than his personalized voicemail telling you that he’s doing his job and that you should direct questions to Vanderwood. I kind of shrugged it off, figuring that perhaps he just hadn’t changed his voicemail yet. However, on Day Four, you learn that the reason why his voicemail was generic was because he didn’t know Vanderwood yet. Seven mentions that because he has been slacking on his agency work due to what he’s been doing for RFA (which is another personality discrepency, but more on that in a second), the agency assigned him someone to watch over him to make sure he gets his work done. Enter Vanderwood, who was apparently just assigned to monitor Seven--- Except that’s a direct contradiction to previously established canon. In Deep Story at the very least (and I think the Secret Endings in specific) it’s stated that Vanderwood has been Seven’s minder / partner for four years (i.e. since he was eighteen). Vanderwood was assigned to Seven when Seven was in university in order to keep an eye on him / help him as needed. However, it should be noted that Vanderwood was NOT assigned to Seven because Seven slacked off. Rather, Vanderwood was assigned to Seven because (I believe) Seven was so young. In fact, Vanderwood mentions during Seven’s Route that Seven being so distracted over MC is an anomaly, and Seven himself mentions time and again that it’s truly unlike him to not be able to complete both RFA and agency work simultaneously. A huge part of the reason why Vanderwood is as lenient as they are with Seven during his route is because Seven was always incredibly focused, diligent, and determined before, and Vanderwood doesn’t really understand why he isn’t now, but they want to believe that he can shape up, focus, and go back to being the super serious 707 that they knew before. The fact that Seven being distracted and not working is so strange to Vanderwood is clear enough evidence that Vanderwood was never assigned to Seven to make him behave. Vanderwood was assigned to Seven as more of a helper / minder due to his young age, and that’s because Seven was an eighteen-year-old college student at the time. So the fact that Another Story not only has Vanderwood meeting Seven two years later than they should have, but also has Vanderwood being assigned because Seven is late on his work (even though the reason why it was such a huge deal in Deep Story is because their client was an abnormally dangerous client) is a clear retcon, drastically alters their relationship (because now Vanderwood really is more like a dangerous, unfriendly overseer, versus the vitriolic best bud that visits Seven every day he’s in the hospital in the Secret Endings), and overall is both completely unnecessary and unwelcome. I feel like Cheritz did this so that they can show, “see, this is how they met!” but that doesn’t work when we know damn well that’s not how they met, particularly when (again) it does a disservice to their relationship. Again, Seven offered Vanderwood a way out (via going out of his way to make them an entirely new identity so they could leave the agency) in the Secret Endings, despite having every reason to believe Vanderwood was an enemy at that point. Vanderwood visited Seven every day he was in the hospital, and later asked him for a job. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t care about each other on some level, and they care about each other because they were together for four years as partners before Vanderwood had to start riding his ass to get him to complete their work for their abnormally dangerous client. The fact that Cheritz would throw that completely out of the window is more than a little angering. Lastly, as I mentioned, it’s also a personality discrepency for Seven. Again, it’s made very clear in Seven’s Route that he’s distracted not because he can’t handle both RFA and agency work at the same time, but rather because he has feelings for MC and can’t stop thinking about her. In Another Story, however, he doesn’t have feelings for MC (that we’re aware of---or at least, he doesn’t have feelings for MC that are accessible since it’s not his route), and therefore that distraction should not exist. It especially shouldn’t exist two years prior to the game since, again, Vanderwood says themself that Seven never had problems like this in all the years they’ve known him. So once again it feels not only like a nerfing of Seven’s abilities, but it also feels like a personality mischaracterization on his part that I really don’t appreciate. Anyway, I still love Seven to pieces, obviously, and I always will, but it’s because I love him that I’m well and truly aggravated at what has been done to him in Another Story. There was absolutely no reason for it. They could argue that they had to nerf him so that he wouldn’t bust the story open right away, but in that case all they had to do was not buff Saeran the way they did. They could argue that it’s an AU and thus they had to ruin his relationship with Vanderwood, but that’s not a necessary requirement for an AU. They could argue that they had to nerf him to make it believable that Saeran could kill him later (this is not confirmed, but I’m just speculating it as a possibility right now due to a metaphor regarding plant stalks that Saeran makes at one point that feels an awful lot like ominous foreshadowing), but that’s not necessary because we see in the Secret Endings that Seven will willingly die by Saeran’s hand. Not only is Seven canonically passively suicidal (Casual Story: “I plan to live hard and die fast / no desire to live long lol”), but he doesn’t fight back at all when Saeran tries to strangel him in the Secret Endings. His skills do not need to be nerfed to make it possible for Saeran to murder him. Seven would load the gun and then hand it over, no questions asked, if that’s what Saeran wanted. So all in all, the way they nerfed Seven and ruined his relationship with Vanderwood was completely fucking unnecessary and I’m really, really upset about it. It’s really tarnished Another Story for me, even if I’m still enjoying it to a degree, and that makes me really sad.

This is a mechanics issue, but oh my god, there are so many glitches, bugs, and errors. Off the top of my head:

There are numerous places where Jaehee refers to Jumin by his given name, or Jumin does the same for Jaehee. They’re supposed to call each other Mr Han and Assistant Kang, but there are so, so many places in the text where they don’t do that. You could think that maybe it’s an effect of the time-setting change, but not only does that not make sense for their characters, but there’s a phone call with Jumin where you hear him say “Assistant Kang” despite the text reading “Jaehee”. That’s something that QA should have caught, yet didn’t, and it’s pretty annoying.

Similarly, “God Seven” is written as “God7″ now for reasons unknown.

Often times, when I call Seven, I’m booted out from the call without getting to hear his voicemail. And one time, though he picked up, I wasn’t given any answer choices at all throughout the entire call, despite Seven reacting as if I had said things.

One message from the Honey Buddha Chips bag was still in Korean.

Sometimes the speech bubbles in the chat get messed up. Like, characters’ speech bubbles / icons / names get swapped up, so it’ll look like Jaehee said something that Seven did, or that MC said something when I wasn’t given an answer choice, et cetera.

Sometimes a chat will start, then stop, then start again.

In one chat the music stopped completely for no discernible reason.

IIRC, the string arrangement of “My Half is Unknown” played through the entire prologue.

Once I received text messages from Yoosung in which he was throwing a tantrum about Zen, only I didn’t have the context for the tantrum because the chat that spawned the tantrum happened after he sent the texts. And so on and so forth. There are probably more, but you get the idea. Cheritz delayed Another Story by an extra month, supposedly because there were errors they wanted to work out, but honestly? It clearly didn’t work. I understand that this is a “free” game, but at the same time, Another Story costs 300 hourglasses to unlock, which is ten dollars if you don’t have any hourglasses to start with. That’s not counting the costs to unlock chats if you miss them, or want to continue through at a faster rate, et cetera. Considering they held off for an extra month, QA should be better than this, particularly since it does affect gameplay.

Yoosung. I’m sorry, but I have to put him in the negative section, because he is insufferable. Again, I’m only on Day Four (and I’ve only just started Day Four, at that) so my opinion might change, but whereas my grievances surrounding Seven have to do with how he was significantly nerfed and had his backstory retconned for no good goddamn reason, my grievances with Yoosung truly stem from his personality. No offense to anyone who loves him, I’m not trying to rag on your fave, but if you ever thought that his haterade for V and his worship of Rika were bad in Casual Story or Deep Story, then boy, have I got news for you, because that is ramped up to five hundred in Another Story. While it does make sense to a degree (it’s only been six months since Rika died, and he hasn’t yet discovered LOLOL, so he’s still deep in his grief), there are times when he will bring up V out of the blue in order to bitch about him. Worse still, it seems as though V cannot do anything to appease Yoosung. Yoosung complains that V has not been in the messenger often, but then when V does start coming into the messenger often, Yoosung finds reason to complain about how V is suspicious and has secrets and is clearly evil. Furthermore, Yoosung goes so far as to not only accuse V of lying about Rika’s suicide, but then goes on to say that even if he’s not lying, he should have done more to help her and it’s his fault that Rika is gone in the first place. Yoosung skips right over “I’m having a hard time because you’re not here for me” and goes straight into victim blaming, despite the fact that V clearly loved Rika as well. This is despite other characters pointing this out to him, including MC. Yoosung is not just being portrayed as a grief stricken young man, but rather as a selfish child who cannot see things from anyone else’s point of view. (Emphasis on selfish, as well, because there’s a flashback where he was at a community service job that Rika got for him in middle school, and he spends the entire time whining about how he doesn’t want to do it, asks Rika to forge his volunteer form for him, has to be taught to be kind to others, et cetera. But then again, emphasis on child as well, because there’s a part where he gets into a shouting match with his mother over the phone---yes, the same mother that Jumin tattled to in Deep Story, and that Yoosung showed he truly loved and cared about---and says, “Fine! Call me a bad son!!” like . . . well, like a twelve-year-old, to be honest.) The worst part is that this isn’t even necessarily out of character for him, per se; more like, all of his negative qualities that were already present in Casual Story and Deep Story have simply been magnified tenfold, to the point where the other characters call him on it (Zen in particular says “oh, here he goes again” in a chat where Yoosung starts throwing a tantrum because Jumin tried to comfort V about Rika, so like, it’s not just me getting annoyed). Again, things might improve beyond where I’m at right now, but right now Yoosung is pretty insufferable, and is definitely one of the least tolerable members of the cast. I miss the enjoyable Yoosung from Seven’s route, tbh. (And like, again, I get that he’s grieving, but good lord, when all someone does is throw tantrums, it does not make for enjoyable conversation, particularly when victim blaming is a huge part of those tantrums.)

And lastly . . .

The Saeran:

Yeah, Saeran gets a section all his own, because while I’m pretty sure my feelings toward him are mostly negative at this point, at the same time I feel like they’ve done some interesting things with him in the name of making this a fresh take on the story.

In Casual Story / Deep Story, Saeran is very obviously emotionally unstable; he’s prone to flipping out at the slightest provocation, he more than worships the ground Rika walks on (to the point where he routinely refers to her as “the savior”), and while this isn’t as important, he dresses like he picked out his entire wardrobe from the clearance rack in Hot Topic. Furthermore, it’s made evident that although Saeran has a sense of self-importance (because he feels that Rika saved him because she cares about him, even though that isn’t the case), he’s not actually important where Mint Eye is concerned. He’s treated just as the other believers are, even though it’s not something that he watned to accept.

In Another Story, however, all of that has gone out of the window. While it’s clear that he and Seven are still twins, and that the abuse aspect of his backstory is still likely the same, not only has Saeran modified his wardrobe so that it looks like he walked out of Miles Edgeworth’s closet instead (with the exception of those weird gloves he has, as well as the blue rose he stole from Ootori Kyouya), but it’s clear that he’s far more emotionally stable than he was before (though he’s still not completely stable, and “more emotionally stable than he was before” is honestly not saying much anyway), but he has clear status within Mint Eye and has yet to refer to Rika as his savior, instead simply calling her “someone important.” And I really have to emphasize the status here; at one point there’s a story segment where we see that V has infiltrated Magenta, and while he’s talking to an unseen believer, Saeran walks up. The unseen believer addresses Saeran as “Mr Ray”, showing that he’s someone highly respected and important within Mint Eye. This is something that never happened previously, and something which couldn’t have happened with the way Rika easily disregarded him, treated him like a tool (to the point where, in one of Jumin’s Bad Endings, she tricks him into killing himself via the bomb in the apartment because Seven pissed her off and she wanted to punish him by killing his brother with the bomb he installed), and had the rest of her believers try to subdue and reprogram him easily enough. There’s absolutely no way that Saeran ever held any kind of status within Mint Eye whatsoever in Casual Story / Deep Story. The fact that he’s treated as an authority here is actually mind-boggling, especially since we know that it took years, and years, and years of abuse / torture and drugging in order to turn him into the Unknown that we see in Casual Story / Deep Story. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Saeran’s behavior in Casual Story / Deep Story suggests that those years of abuse / torture in Magenta’s basement never happened, despite the hatred he still clearly holds for Seven (to the point wher he still obviously wants him dead, along with other, pettier slights). In the Secret Endings it was revealed that the reason why Saeran hates Seven so much is because he was made to believe that Seven abandoned him during those years of abuse in Mint Eye’s dungeon. Yet, because those years of torture are what made him so unstable in Casual Story / Deep Story, the fact that he’s not as unstable in Another Story suggests that they never happened, which is a discrepency on top of the discrepency of his apparent rank of importance within Mint Eye.

With all of that said, while the buff to Saeran’s hacking abilities is just as unnecessary as the nerf to Seven’s (and not explained at all, whatsoever), I will say that there is a logical Doylist explanation for why Saeran is not as unstable in Another Story as he is in Casual Story / Deep Story. In Another Story, you’re staying with him at Magenta (even if not in the same room), and he is a character that you can pursue. Every time you speak with him you’re given the opportunity to flatter him, say you want to be with him, encourage his possessive behavior, et cetera. Now, I think it’s obvious that doing so will lead to a Bad End (and more on that in a second), but it’s nonetheless possible, and I don’t believe it would have been possible if Saeran had kept his characterization from Casual Story / Deep Story wholesale. I say this, because even though Saeran kidnaps MC to make her his “assistant” in the prologue Bad End for Casual Story / Deep Story, and although he similarly takes her in a Bad End for the Christmas DLC, in both of those cases it’s less that he’s interested in her, and more that he wants to possess her / weaponize her against Seven. (In fact, in the Bad End to the original prologue he specifically mentions how Seven has an assistant (Vanderwood), and therefore he wants one as well.) It’s not possible to really pursue someone like that, because Saeran isn’t really giving you an option to pursue him in those cases. He’s more just taking you because he wants to and he can. (Also, listen to this. Does that sound like a romance option to you? Yikes™.)  So to that end, from a Doylist perspective, they had to tone down how completely unstable he was, as well as change the fact that he actively pushes others away (as stated in his inner monologues during Secret Ending 2---he purposefully lashes out at others violently and pushes them away because he has such an awful fear of abandonment that he can’t handle the risk of being hurt again), because otherwise it would be completely impossible to pursue him.

With all of that said . . . he still is unstable, he still is continuing a cycle of abuse, and he still is a very obvious Bad End.

I mentioned it before, but part of the premise for Another Story is that Saeran tells MC that none of the RFA members are real. He tells her that they are AIs that he created, and that this is merely a game that she’s testing for him. The thing is . . . while it would be one thing to have this be the premise, Saeran keeps insisting upon this, because he gets very jealous of the RFA, very fast (and in particular, does not like it when MC expresses interest in either Seven or V, as could be expected given that he hates both of them the most). It very, very quickly escalates to the point where Saeran tells MC that he is the only person who is real, her only option. Even if you pick choices where MC says that the RFA members seem real, Saeran merely says that’s a compliment to his programming, but insists once again that they’re not real and that only he is. Do you know what this is, friends? Gaslighting. Saeran is actively gaslighting MC by telling her that her perceptions regarding reality are fake, and that only he is telling her the truth. (He also, at one point, hacks the chat and pretends to be V, and only drops it when called out. Impersonating someone MC was getting to know in order to manipulate her perceptions / break her relationship with that person is also a form of gaslighting / manipulation.) He’s further isolating her from people who could help her and insisting that he’s the only one she can trust, which are both emotional abuse tactics that abusers use to execute greater control over their victims. 

And honestly? That’s not all. Not only has Saeran completely isolated MC, and not only is he continuously gaslighting her, but he also routinely engages in guilt tripping and other forms of emotional manipulation. While Mystic Messenger has always required a suspension of disbelief in the sense that this game takes place over eleven days (and so you have to believe that you and the character of your choice fall in love in eleven days or less), Saeran takes that up to eleven by seemingly falling in love with MC on the first day. Within the very first day he starts going on and on about how thankful he is that MC is there, and how he can’t stand the thought of her leaving, and won’t she stay there forever? And it gets worse, and worse; I’ve only started the fourth day, but so far I’ve already seen Saeran trip over himself saying how attached he is to MC, how he can’t stop thinking about her at every second of the day, how he never, ever wants her to leave, how he’ll do anything he can to make her stay. If I give him negative responses, he apologizes . . . but then two lines later he starts talking about how he wants to hack into her mind so that he can make sure that he’s the only one she’s interested in, he has called her his, he has asked her what she thinks about “the desire to control someone else’s actions.” On the surface, it often seems as if he’s truly trying his best to make MC happy; he brings her flowers, takes her on walks in the garden, says he’ll be whatever kind of person she wants so long as she stays. On the other, however, it’s clear that he’s just doing and saying whatever he has to in order to ensure that MC stays with him. Moreover, there are times when his apologies and crying emojis come across as guilt tripping, a blatant attempt to make MC feel bad and agree to stay there with him like he wants. Particularly given how fast he latched onto MC, it feels far less like he has any sort of real feelings for her, and more like he wants to possess her (as before, but more subtly this time). 

Make no mistake: We’ve had some foreshadowing that, as I said, Saeran’s backstory of abuse and torment still holds up. Even if he wasn’t tortured for years in the Mint Eye dungeon this time (and he still might have been! I’m not sure at this point), he was still horrifically abused by his mother, which has already been alluded to more than once by Saeran himself. Saeran is an abuse victim who dearly needs help. However, that help should not come in the form of a romantic relationship. As if it wasn’t already obvious in Casual Story / Deep Story, Saeran admits that even in Another Story he has never had a friend, never known what friendship is like, and is curious to learn. I think that last bit was more a lie he told to MC in order to appease her, but the rest of it is true. Outside of the times spent with Seven in their childhood, as well as the brief time spent with V before Rika destroyed him, Saeran has never known what it is to have a positive friendship with someone. He certainly has never experienced that in an environment free from abuse. And he does need that, he deserves that, but having MC hook up with him will not give him that. Saeran is not in a place where he can have a healthy romantic relationship with anyone. And I’m not blaming him for this (although the abuse he has suffered does not at all excuse the way he’s abusing MC right now), because it’s not his fault that he was abused, but I am saying that it makes perfect sense why pursuing him leads to a Bad End. There’s no way that a romantic end with him could be good.

(And really, to make it extra clear: Saeran’s behaviors in every route, including the route we see in Another Story, do stem from him being an abuse victim. The fear of abandonment and desperation to please, when sincere, absolutely could stem from his C-PTSD. I’ve talked at length about how Saeran (and Seven and V) exhibit C-PTSD systems before in this post. Feel free to have a read if you’d like. But again, even though his behavior comes from the fact that he has been abused himself, that explains Saeran’s actions, it doesn’t excuse them.)

Either way, those are all my thoughts on this so far. I’m still enjoying it, even if I’m like

every time I get Saeran’s magenta hearts. I’ve only just started Day Four, so I’m curious to see where the story goes from here.

I’ll keep you updated.

[sage-nebula]

I want to try and articulate my thoughts a little bit about why what Cheritz has done with Saeran in “Another Story” upsets me so much, because my feelings on it go beyond just “it’s bad writing” (though it is) and “it unnecessarily nerfs Seven” (which it does). What they’ve done actually, I feel, veers straight into ableism and certainly does nothing kind to their portrayal of survivors of trauma. While their representation of mental illness in the past wasn’t necessarily the best (though I would argue that it hasn’t always been as bad as some claimed before), this is downright awful and, in my opinion, at least borderline inexcusable, if not outright).

That said, I’ve only just started Day 9, so I don’t want any spoilers past that point. Things I see later on might change my opinion on the matter, but I very heavily doubt it. We’ll see.

That said . . .

For those who don’t know, a quick flash of context. Choi Saeran is a character in Mystic Messenger who is known for most of the game as Unknown, a hacker working for Mint Eye who is trying to sabotage RFA / bring everyone to Mint Eye / murder Seven and probably V. Throughout Seven’s route and the Secret Endings of Casual Story / Deep Story, the player learns that Saeran is Seven’s twin brother. The two were the bastard children of a very prominent politician who wanted them killed so they wouldn’t tarnish his image, and a very abusive mother who used them as blackmail bait to get money from said wealthy politician father. Saeran was always frail, health-wise, so Seven took it upon himself to take care of him. However, when the boys were about twelve, Rika and V convinced Seven that the only way to protect Saeran (and himself) from their father was for him to join an intelligence agency, through which he would never be able to see Saeran again. Seven agreed, provided V and Rika kept Saeran safe, which V promised they would. For a time, they did rescue Saeran and keep him safe; however, some time after that, Rika removed Saeran from V’s care, locked him in a dungeon, drugged and tortured him, and therefore turned him into the Unknown that we see in Casual Story / Deep Story.

Another Story keeps most of that, but with a twist. This time, even though Saeran (apparently) went through all of the same abuse that he underwent in the first set of paths, he developed a split personality from it. He has his “nice” / “good” personality that we see for most of the route, known as Ray . . . but then he also has a “mean” / “bad” personality that we see at other times, known as Unknown / Saeran.

And this is where I have a problem.

There are some base issues with how this is presented---shallow problems that, in the grand scheme, aren’t that big of a deal. For instance, for some reason the Ray personality is a brilliant hacker even better than Seven, who runs rings around him for the duration of the plot even though Saeran was never able to do so in Casual Story / Deep Story (in fact, it’s a very important part of the climax of the Secret Endings that Seven is a more skilled hacker than he is---and it makes sense, since Seven has had far more experience in hacking than Saeran ever has). This was no doubt done in an effort to prolong the plot, since having Seven crack things open right away would have killed any sort of suspense Cheritz tried to build. However, it makes no sense. Even if Ray “knew nothing but work”, the same could pretty much be said for Seven, who devoted himself to learning about computers even before he went to the agency so that he could try to get a job with them to make money to save Saeran. After joining the agency, it was previously established canon (that has apparently been retconned) that he was always a diligent worker until the main plot, and we also know that he both managed things for RFA and pranked other hackers in his free time (see: Hackers Chasing Hackers). So even if Ray dedicated himself to learning, Seven did as well, and to have that much of a skill discrepency between them does not make sense, even if Ray is a separate personality from Unknown. In fact, that makes even less sense, because while people with multiple personalities often do experience severe memory loss, that does not seem to be what Cheritz is going for here, given that the Unknown personality knows things that happened while the Ray personality was in control, and vice versa. So that said, Saeran should have all of his hacking knowledge regardless of what personality is at the forefront. Making a huge skill gap like this really does not make sense at all.

But even so, as I said, that’s a shallow problem. It’s one that’s easily moved on from, even if it does make me sigh heavily because it’s bad writing. (Like really, there are other ways to make suspense last than by nerfing one of your characters like that.) The bigger issue surrounds how they handled this “split personality” business in the first place.

To begin with, context is important. Dissociative identity disorder (often called multiple personality disorder) is heavily stigmatized in the real world. They’re often potrayed as jokes at best or villains at worst within media, and this affects how they’re treated in real life. People with DID are often looked upon as being crazy at best, or absolutely dangerous and unhinged at worst. While of course a person with DID has a capability for violence, so does every single human being on this planet, whether mentally ill or not. The fact that people with DID are often used as the butt of jokes or as villains within media is a problem that is not aided by furthering to perpetuate that in new forms of media.

So to that end, since DID is often so poorly represented, the fact that we have a poor representation of it here, again, is a problem. While it’s true that as the narrative goes on you’re supposed to see Ray as more and more of a victim, that’s just it: You’re supposed to see the Ray personality as a victim, while Unknown is supposed to be seen as dangerous. Despite the fact that DID is actually better called identity fragmentation than an actual split personality (which is sort of what I feel like they’re going for here, in the sense that both Ray and Unknown have experienced the same things and are aware of this, but they missed the mark a bit), here you’re clearly supposed to see them as a Good Personality and Bad Personality. This is a problem with how survivors of trauma are depicted in media to begin with, but even setting that aside for the time being, it’s particularly a problem with how DID is portrayed in media because it’s a very common (and pretty harmful) portrayal. It essentially subtly pushes both that “this person is dangerous because they have this disorder,” as well as, “well, but if we can save this nice personality, or avoid bringing out the bad personality, we’ll be okay.” Rather than wanting to treat and help the person suffering from DID so that they can unite their various personalities into one and heal the fragmentation, it’s instead demonizing an entire part of their personality---which is constructed from trauma!---and treating them as dangerous and threatening because of it. Of course, Ray does some pretty fucked up things over the course of the plot as well, so it’s not as if he has been treated as an angel. However, once Unknown makes his presence . . . well, known, it’s made pretty clear that Ray is supposed to be viewed as pure / harmless / frightened, and that Unknown is supposed to be viewed as psychotic and dangerous. It’s made clear that we’re supposed to understand that Ray is the part of Saeran that was scared and innocent, whereas Unknown---a manifestation of his rage, his hatred, his betrayal and his pain---is supposed to be seen as violent and dangerous. This feeds into harmful stereotypes about DID, furthering the perception (subconscious or otherwise) that these individuals are dangerous, unstable, and unhinged, and it puts a very bad taste in my mouth.

(And again, maybe he’ll get help with this later on, just as Saeran gets help in the Secret Endings. I don’t know, I’m just on Day 9. But right now, this is how it comes across to me.)

On top of that, however, drawing a fierce dichotomy between two personalities like this also feeds into the Good Victim vs. Bad Victim mentality that I’ve seen repeated again, and again, and again within various media. I talk about it a lot in this post, but a basic gist is that we’re often shown a stark contrast between “Good Victims” and “Bad Victims” in the media (and in fandom reaction to abuse victims within media), in the sense that we’re shown characters who are sweet, kind, loving, and pure despite the abuse they’ve gone through, and the narrative (and fandom) treats them as being sweet, pure, and Too Good for This World, but when we’re shown characters who are mistrustful, stand-offish, or perhaps even angry as a result of what they’ve gone through---when we’re shown characters who aren’t sunshine and smiles and kind, gentle words despite their traumas---the narrative (and the fandom) treats them as being unreasonable, unjust, and distasteful, irredeemable bullies / trash (or “emo edgelords” at the very best, as far as the fandom goes, but that’s still distasteful as well, imo). There is no one way to react to trauma; every person is different, and therefore the way each person reacts to trauma is going to be different. To that end, there is no “right way” to be a victim. But that’s exactly why Good Victim and Bad Victim portrayals and attitudes within media and fandom are so harmful. It’s harmful to tell someone that their anger, their mistrust, their hurt and how they react to it, is Bad, Unjust, Whiny, or Emo. It’s harmful to tell someone that in order for them to receive sympathy, that in order for them to receive love and care, that they must bottle all of those negative feelings, that they have to stuff it down their throat and suffer in silence, that they have to be sweet, kind, and forgiving. I’m not saying that survivors should never forgive their abusers (if they want to and that helps them, that’s their choice), but I am saying that survivors should never be under any obligation to do so. Survivors should not have to be sweet, kind, or loving to receive understanding or sympathy because of the abuse they’ve undergone. And note as well that I am NOT saying that abuse survivors should have a free pass to be abusers themselves. Saeran does some legitimately harmful things in every single route, regardless of whether he has DID or not, that are not excusable. The fact that he was abused does not excuse the abuse he doles out on others. However, he still does need help, and context matters in the sense that he was not always as aware of the terrible things he was doing (or the fact that they were terrible) as others in the plot were. That has to be taken into consideration.

However, that’s another discussion for another time. The point I’m trying to make here is that the Good Victim / Bad Victim dichotomy that is so often perpetuated in the media (and, again, all fandoms) is legitimately harmful to survivors of abuse, because it dictates what “appropriate” responses to abuse and trauma are. Mystic Messenger had, until this point, avoided doing that. Although Rika’s actions are unquestionably awful despite whatever bullying or ostracization she received in childhood (and despite her own mental illness) because she knew exactly what she was doing and caused irreparable harm to so many others, I don’t feel that her character fed into this dichotomy because of the other abuse survivors in the cast. Both Choi twins demonstrate C-PTSD as a result of abuse, and both of them do things that would ordinarily be seen as “Bad Victim” traits as a result of their very believable C-PTSD. Seven is mistrustful, self-isolating, and has difficulties with emotional regulation that result in him snapping and lashing out at those around him, even when they’re trying to reach out to help. Saeran has even more problems with emotional regulation, and has such difficulties forming relationships with others that he has full on breakdowns when he thinks the few ties he has are falling apart. The way both twins lash out at those around them as a result of their C-PTSD (among other things) would normally have them painted as Bad Victims. However, not only are both twins beloved by the fandom, but the narrative presents Seven as an absolute hero (perhaps the hero of the narrative, honestly), and Saeran is presented in a very sympathetic light, both in Seven’s route and the Secret Endings (Secret Ending 2 especially), in which he is given a hopeful ending after all is said and done. Although Rika is portrayed very negatively, I would argue that she is portrayed negatively despite her mental illness, not because of it. Her actions are her own, and as we see with characters like Seven, it is perfectly capable to find mentally ill characters in Mystic Messenger who are not only not portrayed negatively, but who are actually portrayed heroically. Yes, they still need help, but they get that help, and they aren’t treated as villains. Not all mentally ill characters in this narrative are demonized, and that’s what makes what was done with Rika arguably fine.

However, the way Cheritz decided to portray Saeran in Another Story shatters that, in my opinion. Yes, Seven is still mentally ill, and yes, you are encouraged to start caring about Ray once it’s clear that Rika is back in action . . . however, that’s the problem. You’re encouraged to care about Ray. Where I’m at in the story at the moment, Ray is being portrayed as the Good / Innocent / NIce one, wereas Unknown is the Bad / Dangerous / Violent one. We’re supposed to care about, worry over, and want to save Ray; we’re supposed to see Unknown as someone to be avoided, and potentially destroyed. And that’s immensely harmful, because if we go this route and give Saeran DID as a result of the trauma he has suffered, then Unknown is a manifestation of the very understandable and justified rage and betrayal he feels as a result of all he has gone through. His father wanted him dead, his mother severely abused him, he believes his brother abandoned him, the woman who claimed she was saving him had him locked up in a dungeon, drugged, and tortured for months, and so on and so forth. It’s more than understandable and justified that Saeran would feel rage over this. I’m not saying it’s justified for him to actually hurt innocent people as a result, but those feelings of anger? Those feelings of betrayal? Those are understandable! Those are justified! It makes total sense and is more than okay for Saeran to be absolutely furious at the hand this world dealt him, for him to be infuriated at the fact that he has never had a single period in his entire life where he wasn’t being used, abused, manipulated, and controlled (or at least not one that lasted for very long; we don’t know how long he was with V). The fact that Saeran feels such a fierce rage over this is normal and acceptable. He should be allowed to have these feelings without being demonized for them, particularly since we know (thanks to the Secret Endings) that part of his lashing out is a direct result of his fear of abandonment. He purposefully drives people away (and describe it as putting up a spiky shield) because he feels that they will leave him anyway, and therefore it’s better for him to cut that tie first. That’s a way for him to regain some semblance of control over his life (another realistic portrayal of C-PTSD / abuse survival), and while it’s not healthy and he needs help with that, it’s also not something he should be demonized for. It’s understandable. It’s believable. His feelings are more than valid.

But by splitting him into “Ray” and “Unknown” and portraying Ray as good / sweet / pure and Unknown as bad / dangerous / toxic, that’s precisely what Cheritz is doing. They’re demonizing and condemning Saeran’s negative reactions to his trauma, saying that the only time we should feel sorry for or sympathize with him is when he’s being kind to us. Again, for great justice, I’m NOT saying that survivors of abuse get a free pass to abuse others. But what I am saying is that, in terms of direct action, Unknown hasn’t done anything more harmful than Ray has in Another Story, and yet Ray is still treated as being the “good” one because he’s docile, apologetic, and seemingly kind to MC, whereas Unknown is treated as the “bad” one because he’s angry, brash, and willing to fight. It’s a direct portrayal of the Good Victim / Bad Victim dichotomy and, as a survivor of abuse with C-PTSD myself, it’s one that I find extremely distasteful and upsetting, particularly since I liked the realistic potrayal of Saeran’s C-PTSD from Seven’s route / the Secret Endings.

So all in all, I take severe issue with what has been done here, at least so far. Again, my feelings may change when I play more, since I’m only on Day 9 right now---but right now, I really hate this. I’m going to replay Seven’s route / the Secret Endings again once I’m through here so that I can go back to a time when Saeran wasn’t portrayed and treated so atrociously, but until then I’m going to try and suck it up and get through this. I really wish they hadn’t gone this route, though; while I understand that having Saeran be sweet to MC at all would be nigh impossible if they kept his characterization consistent, giving him a horrible potrayal of DID was still unnecessary, in my opinion, and severely hurt the overall quality of their narrative (which is already hurting due to all the bugs and errors, but whatever).

For shame, Cheritz. For shame. 

[sage-nebula]

“Hearing your voice makes me want to take you to the space station.”

tfw Seven says The Thing™. ♥

(You can’t tell from the screencaps, but he laughed awkwardly where those ellipses are. It was so cute. ♥)

[sage-nebula]

RFA: [still grieving a member who reportedly killed herself]

ALSO RFA: [doesn’t give a fuck when a remaining member sounds suicidal]

[sage-nebula]

Okay, but the problem, Rika, is that believing that:

Emotionally abusing your significant other;

Blinding your significant other;

Purposefully abusing (emotionally and physically) a child in your care to the point where he develops DID (as well as worsens pre-existing C-PTSD) and bragging about how you're cruel to him on purpose so you can "save" him again later and thus control him;

Starting a religious cult where all of the Believers (including the boy mentioned above) are addicted to narcotics you force into them under the pretense of "salvation";

Forcing people into the cult via abductions and torture because "they don't know they need to be saved";

Stabbing your ex-significant other because he tried to end your relationship

is all okay (on top of many other things not listed here) is no longer in the realm of "opinions we can agree to disagree on." Nothing you do or stand for is respectable. We can't just let this go. That's not how this works.

(And yes, Saeran is 20 in Another Story and 22 in the main story. However, he was a child when Rika got a hold of him, and has only just barely hit legal adulthood in Another Story. Rika herself seems to still see "Ray" as a child, so it counts.)

[sage-nebula]

[lies down] [tries not to cry] [cries a lot]

[sage-nebula]

tfw it takes an AU for someone other than MC to notice Seven is (severely) depressed.