#scrawlers chats with a mystic messenger

[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]

Major MysMes spoilers beneath the cut:

Look, Cheritz, when we said we wanted a legit gay option, we were talking about JAEHEE (a.k.a. Baehee), not this fucking snake-ass bitch!!

[sage-nebula]

RIKA: "Are you on my side? Or are you on V's side?"

ME: "I'm on SEVEN'S side, so honestly, you can go get fucked, and unless V starts being real honest about Saeran real quick, he can, too."

[sage-nebula]

On a 1st playthrough: “Oh this is so cute and quirky! Lol Seven is so much fun!”

On all subsequent playthroughs after learning Seven’s backstory:

[sage-nebula]

I am the best at parties.

[sage-nebula]

Mystic Messenger - Entry 10

After a brief hiatus, here we are once again with my Mystic Messenger playthrough. Of course, by this point I have finished the game (and then some), but since people seemed to be enjoying these liveblogs, I figured I’d go ahead and continue posting them anyway. Entry Nine is here, and as a quick recap---

Previously on Mystic Messenger:

Everyone is aware that the special security system in Rika’s apartment is a bomb, installed there by Seven on V’s and Rika’s orders.

We had a flashback sequence to the day Rika had Seven install the bomb, which included a lot of emotional abuse and manipulation on her part.

Seven is still ignoring me, and was doing a good job of it until MC decided to look at a book he had brought with him, which contained a floppy disc that he did not want MC to see. This led to an argument (at least in my rewrite of that scene), and so far, relations have not improved.

So with that little recap out of the way . . .

If you’ll remember, everyone is trying to get in touch with V at the moment, because V’s actions and motivations have become highly suspicious ever since the hacker broke into the apartment, the bomb was discovered, and Seven revealed that he installed the bomb on V’s and Rika’s orders. V, if you’ll recall, is off gallivanting who-knows-where, last we heard. Seven has left him messages, Jumin has left him messages, and now Jaehee is waiting for V’s phone call on Jumin’s orders, despite the late hour. As much as it sucks for Jaehee to have to wait for V’s phone call like this, I will say that the amount of trust and faith that Jumin places in her is sweet. He’s being sweet in his own way.

Although, at least she isn’t alone.

Poor Jaehee. Also poor sales department intern, because I’m sure that falling for Han Jumin can’t be easy due to the fact that he is ace af and doesn’t seem to develop romantic feelings for others very easily (if at all). 

Anyway, Jumin obviously turned down Jaehee’s offer, because she’s the only one he trusts to take V’s call. It makes sense, honestly, since none of the other C&R employees are members of the RFA, as Jaehee is. Either way, Elizabeth the 3rd was there with him, much to Jaehee’s dismay since Elizabeth was shedding everywhere, and---

Jumin is a fucking furry, pt. 3.

V did finally end up calling at the end of this VNM segment, much to Jaehee’s relief. And after he finished talking with Jaehee and Jumin, V . . .

. . . decided to enter the chat at long last. Also, I found it funny how he added an exclamation mark after “you’re here” like he was super excited to see me. Like, are you, V? We’ve spoken a grand total of one (1) time. Are you really that excited to see me?

Someone else is just as eager to see V (and he seems excited to see Seven as well, but . . .), but . . . not quite in the happy way. I also love how Seven was so “!!” about V being in the chat that he typo’d at first. I like to think that he was over in his corner, doing his work and pretending like he wasn’t paying attention to MC (when he totally was), when he noticed her bolt upright on the couch, staring at her phone with wide-eyes as she quickly typed a response. Seeing as her reaction was strange (why would she react that strongly?), Seven decided to log into the chat to see what was going on . . . and then had a similar near heart attack when he saw that V was in the chat. That’s what I like to think happened, anyway.

This cracked me up, honestly. All of this shit is going down, Saeran keeps hacking the RFA chat and broke into the apartment, there is a bomb in the apartment, etc etc, and V just:

V: [walks in 15mins late with Starbucks] “Sorry, I was in the mountains taking photographs. What’d I miss?”

Iconic.

V said that he heard from Jumin that the special security system was hacked, and that he was glad that Seven was able to make it to the apartment on time. Seven was surprised that V heard about this from Jumin, and then got angry that V called Jumin first, demanding to know why V didn’t call him. V explained that---okay, I don’t remember if I mentioned this before, so apologies if I didn’t, but in a conversation that took place before V left on his mysterious trip, Seven talked about how he gave V a new phone that had a bug detector in it. Supposedly, if the call was being tapped, a red light would come on the phone. When Seven demanded to know why V didn’t call him, V explained that the red light kept coming on every single time he tried to call Seven, hence why he chose to contact him via the messenger instead. Seven was mollified . . . though only just.

Anyway, the conversation shifted then. V made it clear that he knew that Seven was staying in the apartment, and warned Seven not to open the drawer to the desk. At that point, Seven got High Key Offended™, demanding to know why V would bring that up out of the blue, if V didn’t trust him. V said that no, that wasn’t the case---the issue was not that he didn’t trust Seven, but rather that he just felt like it should be said. Apparently, according to V, the drawer holds love letters that he had once written to Rika. Hmmm.

Seven’s not having any of that bullshit, either.

I mean, I’m literally fine. I’m not in any more danger than you are, Seven. We’re in the same boat, here. The sooner you realize that, the easier this will be for all of us.

Mmmhm. Mmhm. See, V, that sounds a lot like the backtracking of someone who realizes he fucked up and is now trying to sloppily cover it up. Unfortunately, it won’t work . . .

. . . for me. MC is another story.

This was a part where I got hella frustrated, because I was following the guide to make sure I’d get the Good End, and honestly, it’s a good thing I did, because if I chose the answer choices that I wanted to during this segment, I would have ruined my file hardcore. I wanted to accuse V of being suspicious, and to point out the fact that his backtracking was sloppy. However, that would have led to a Bad End according to the guide I was following. Instead, I had to scold Seven and tell him to listen to V, which I just . . . why? Why is siding with V the correct answer here? WHY DOES THIS GAME MAKE NO SENSE SOMETIMES?!

Anyway, so I had to act like an idiot and side with V throughout this conversation. It’s fine. Whatever.

That aside, Seven was not about to give up. V kept trying to say that Seven was misunderstanding the situation and that he would explain when he returned, but Seven . . . Seven was not about to have that. If you’ll remember, the hacker turned out to be Saeran, who is Seven’s twin brother. Seven was stricken to see Saeran like that, insisting that Rika had said that he was fine, but Saeran views Seven as a traitor. And that . . . that led to this:

(I had to pick that dumbass option for the Good Ending, don’t judge me.)

As you can see, Seven just about has a total meltdown as he demands answers from V about Saeran, and V fakes having bad service so that he can duck out of the conversation. (I mean, he might genuinely have bad service, but let’s be real. He was totally faking it to get out of the confrontation.) I think the most powerful part of this to me was the bit where Seven said, “The filthy hacking jobs that I do, why is that boy, Why is that boy, why is he doing it,” because the repetition really makes it seem as if Seven is nearing hysterics. You can practically hear his hands shaking. People repeat themselves like that when they’re getting hysterical IRL, and while that’s harder to replicate in a chat room, the fact that Cheritz had Seven do it here really emphasized the fact that he is not calm about this, he is losing his shit, this is a very serious situation to him, and V is dodging his questions and making everything worse. 

There was another VNM after that chat in which it’s revealed that, in addition to the robot puppy, Seven also made a robot cat, just as Jumin had suggested before. (Of course this is the one he brought with him. When will the cat bias end? I mean, it’s sweet, but . . .) Whereas the robot puppy was meant for security and breathed fire in order to ward off foes, the robot cat seems to have been made for companionship, and . . .

. . . senses depression.

Of course, Seven is not in the mood to be cheered up by Meowy (which, as it turns out, is the robot cat’s name), so he tells it to shut up and go sit in a corner repeatedly. Meowy refuses to give up, though, until I tell it to be quiet, at which point:

It shut down because Seven programmed it to “absolutely obey” my voice. I’m guessing he must have recorded at least one of our phone conversations to make that happen. It’s kind of sweet. I’m touched.

Anyway, once Meowy quieted itself and goes to sit in the corner as requested, Seven said that he knew it was weird to say this after he told me to ignore him, but that I should absolutely not trust V under any circumstances. Like a decent person I asked if there was anything I could do to help, and he just

Tbh, Seven, I’m never going to stop worrying about you, and it’s clearly not “nothing”, so you really should just cut the nonsense, js.

Seven went on to say that he didn’t even know why he was blabbering, and that he feels “like [he] should shut down instead of that robot.” Seven, you’re a human, not a machine; don’t talk about yourself that way. He told me not to worry about the drawer, and because I was forced to in order to get the Good Ending, I had to say that I really think there might be love letters in there, even though the contents of that drawer are very clearly not love letters, but rather are materials that no doubt prove that Rika has been the Big Bad this entire time, just as I’ve known she is. Saying that the drawer was suspicious, though, leads to a Bad End, so . . . I was forced to act like an idiot. I was forced to be a dumbass. I hate this. I hate it so much.

I especially hate it because Seven responded by calling me “innocent and naive.” Specifically:

SEVEN: “Scrawlers, you’re very innocent and naive. In this situation, I only think that you’ll be very easy for others to manipulate and exploit.”

mfw:

I may be a lot of things, but “innocent and naive” and “easily manipulated and exploited” are not labels that apply. I mean, I know it seems that way because I was forced to pick the dumbass ditz answer choice for MC to get the Good Ending, but . . . asdghdsaghdsgdsdas. I can’t help but feel that the reason why you have to pick the dumbass answer is because Generic Shoujo Heroines are supposed to be naive and innocent, because that is moe~ and cute~, but god damn, do I hate it with a passion.

And unfortunately, things didn’t get better from there. Seven went on to say that MC should forget about the RFA and everything associated with it, including The Party™.

At that point, I was given two choices:

On the plus side, that terrible first choice led to a Bad End, so I didn’t have to pick it. But in all honesty, the second choice isn’t that much better. Seven did not order MC to leave the RFA; he asked her to. He asked her to please leave as soon as the situation was stabilized, and yes, look---he used the word please. He even emphasizes that this is a choice in the next set of dialogue, albeit in a mildly insulting way at the start:

I say “mildly insulting” because while “I know much more than you” is insulting, at the same time it’s kind of true in this situation. Seven does know more about Rika and V than MC does at this point. He has known them since he was a child, and has been used and manipulated by them for just as long (though he’s only just now starting to realize that). He has also been involved with the RFA since its creation. MC, by comparison, has only been involved for a couple of days. She doesn’t have nearly the same scope of information that he does. So he’s right---he does know more than she does---but he’s still being a bit insulting with how he says that, particularly since he’s not actually giving her the chance to learn what he knows, and thus make a more informed decision on her own.

But the rest of what he says isn’t out of line. Though he is a bit insulting at first, he goes on to say that of course he can’t make decisions for her, that it’s her choice whether she wants to stay or not. However, if she chooses to stay because she wants a relationship with him, that’s off the table. That is in his power to decide, and he has decided “no.” He is giving her a hard no. He still feels that what he does is too dangerous for MC to be involved in. And you know what? That is his choice to make. He’s not doing anything wrong here. He’s giving her advice on what he thinks she should do, he’s acknowledging that he can’t make her choices for her, but he’s also saying that he does not want a relationship with her, will not consent to one, that they’ll talk through the messenger from now on and that he wants to return to his work undisturbed. Yeah, it hurts to be rejected yet again, but he’s within his rights to say no. He has every right to say no. No one is obligated to give themselves to someone else. No one is entitled to another person’s time or company.

Unfortunately . . .

LITERALLY WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE ANSWER CHOICES?!

Good god, they’re BOTH horrible!! The second is the most obviously awful, for the most obvious reasons---seriously, what the fuck? What the actual---cheating is never acceptable, never. Granted, it wouldn’t really be cheating in this case given that Seven has said that we are not in a relationship, therefore it isn’t possible to cheat on him---but still. But still. Cheating is never, ever okay. If you want to be with someone else while you’re in a relationship, then break up with the person you’re with. End the relationship, but don’t ever cheat. The fact that “can I cheat on you” was even an answer choice is downright revolting.

But that said, the other answer choice isn’t much better. It’s whiny, entitled, and selfish. “What do I do about my feelings for you” --- bitch, that’s your own goddamn problem, not his! It’s not Seven’s fault if you have feelings for him, any more than it would be your fault if he had feelings for you that you didn’t reciprocate! And yes, Seven does reciprocate the feelings---but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because to him, the cons outweigh the pros when it comes to pursuing a relationship at this point in time. Trying to guilt trip him into changing his mind, accusing him of being “too one-sided” as if he’s obligated to be in a relationship just because you want it, is downright wrong. If someone says “I don’t want to be in a relationship with you”, they are not being “too one-sided.” They are doing what is best for their own comfort and feelings. It doesn’t matter how much the other person wants to be with them; both people have to equally consent to be in a relationship. Only one person needs to decide to end (or not begin) it. Acting as if Seven doesn’t have that right, or as if he’s in the wrong for saying “no” just because he’s a boy / the love interest, is fucking disgusting. I was so disgusted at this that I almost threw my phone.

Unfortunately, MC has to be a selfish bint here either way, and the “what about my feelings for you” is the one that leads to the Good End (I mean, I would hope to god that “can I cheat on you” doesn’t lead anywhere good, but this is honestly a “lesser of two evils” situation), and as such, MC got the chewing out that she tbh rightly deserved:

mfw:

I’ve seen a lot of people come down on Seven for this, saying how much it hurts to have him say “I don’t care about your feelings”, among other things. And yeah, that’s harsh. However, I maintain that Seven was not in the wrong here. He was perfectly polite with MC up to this point. He told her how he felt, he reiterated for the umpteenth time that he does not want a relationship, said he was going back to work and that he didn’t want to be bothered. And what did MC do? She bothered him. Specifically, she tried to guilt him into being in a relationship with her, at which point he snapped. And that’s a justified snap. If you can see that someone doesn’t want to talk to you, and you continue to push them---and, moreover, you push them with a guilt trip, then you deserve it when they snap at you. MC brought this on herself. She was the one who tried to guilt him into being in a relationship with her. This is on her and I am on his side.

(I understand I’m not having the intended reaction here. I don’t care.)

I’ve also seen people call Seven “tsundere” for this, but I disagree with that as well. He’s not being tsuntsun, he’s being genuinely upset that MC won’t respect his boundaries and listen to him when he tells her that he doesn’t want a relationship with her. That’s not tsun, that’s normal and justified.

Of course, it doesn’t end there:

mfw:

Again, I was forced to pick that for the Good End. I don’t remember what the other answer choice was, but I can only assume it wasn’t much better.

I mean, the first half is fine. Seven is very obviously worried and freaking out at the mere idea of something happening to MC, and calling him on it isn’t wrong. But “so don’t avoid me, please?” is just so goddamn whiny, and it isn’t being considerate of his feelings at all. He’s high-key stressed, he’s worried about MC and about his twin brother who is very clearly in a bad place, he’s not sleeping, he’s barely eating . . . Seven is going through a lot right now, and all MC can do is whine about how she feels lonely and sad that he’s not being nice to her. =( What a fucking joke, honestly. It’s disgusting. I’m disgusted by this behavior. I would never treat him like that, not ever. I may not be the best person in the world, but at least I’m considerate enough to see things from the perspective of someone I care about when they’re going through a hard time instead of making it all about Me, Me, Me.

Seven, understandably, doesn’t agree to stop avoiding her.

You deserve everything in the entire world, actually. You especially deserve to be with someone who isn’t an oblivious, selfish bint, but what can we do.

Of course, MC just continues to be Sad™ because he’s insisting that they’ll never see each other again after this, and while it’s totally fair for her to feel put out by that, I find it hard to sympathize given how horribly she’s handled this entire situation. And as you could expect, the conversation doesn’t end on a happy note . . .

. . . but instead ends with Seven leaving the apartment altogether because he can’t take being around MC like this anymore. (Presumably because MC is being sad and he’s feeling guilty about it, particularly because he does have feelings, he’s just repressing them because he feels like he has to.) 

Re-writing this scene so that it’s a bit more in-line with how I imagine MC (and contains less of the “wahhh pay attention to meeee” nonsense) was a bit difficult, but I did manage it, so . . . (reminder: My MC is MC 4, so---short hair, gold eyes, et cetera.)

MC let the hand holding her phone fall to her lap. The empty chat room (empty except for her, anyway) stared up at her, and despite how quiet and still it was, it felt like it echoed. V had---he had fled. Ran away. Avoided all accusations, but in so doing basically admitted to his own guilt. She couldn’t say she was surprised, really, except---except she was. It made sense---if Rika was suspicious, if she had been up to shady things, then it made sense that her boyfriend, V, had been, too. But the one time MC had spoken to V, back when she was first pulled into this whole mess, he had seemed so nice. Appearances could be deceiving, she guessed, especially in an online chat room, but she had just gotten this feeling---

“God Seven! God Seven! I sense you are depressed, meow.”

MC blinked, and pushed herself up on her knees so that she could see over the back of the couch. Seven was still in his corner, his elbows on his knees and his face in hands, his cell phone on the floor beside him. Standing next to the phone on four shiny, white paws was a little cat, whose tail waved slowly back and forth with a faint whirr noise on each wag.

It was a cat, she realized. A little robot cat.

“I automatically turn on when I sense that you are depressed, meow,” the cat went on. Its voice was high despite the obvious computerized tone, and far more emotive than MC would have expected from a robot. Then again, MC supposed she didn’t know very much about them. “The source of God Seven’s depression is bad service, meow. I analyzed, meow.”

Well, MC thought wryly, that’s close enough.

“Shut up,” Seven said. His voice was muffled by the hands he still had over his face. His glasses were pushed up to his hairline so that he could smash his palms into his eyes.

The robot cat was not deterred. “Cheer up, meow! I, Meowy, do not lose service, meow!”

“Be quiet,” Seven said, and he lifted his face at last to turn to the robot cat---Meowy---who gave a whirring purr in response. Seven picked it up with one hand and looked on its underside, scowling as Meowy waved its paws in response to being lifted up from the floor. “How do I turn this off? Damn . . .”

“Need explaining, meow?” Meowy asked.

“I said shut up!” Seven snapped, and dropped Meowy unceremoniously back on the floor.

True to the species it was designed on, Meowy landed on its feet, undeterred by the rough treatment. “Meowy wants to hear master, meow!”

Seven groaned and put his face in his hands again, and MC stood up from the couch. She had a feeling that Seven still wouldn’t want to talk to her (especially now, given what had happened with V), but it wasn’t as if she could be any more aggravating than Meowy was apparently being at the moment. She locked her phone and slipped it into her pocket as she looped around the couch, and when she was near enough, said, “That robot . . . you made it, then.”

Seven took a deep breath---slow inhale, slow exhale. He then dropped his hands back into his lap, his glasses slightly askew on the bridge of his nose, and said quietly, “Don’t worry about it.” He opened his eyes to glare at Meowy, who was still staring at him expectantly. “Hey, robot cat. Go away. I don’t want to talk to you, so just go to a corner.”

Meowy didn’t budge. “I can’t leave once I sense depression, meow! Cheer up, meow!”

Seven gritted his teeth, his hands balling into fists on his lap, and MC---sensing danger---bent down and scooped Meowy up off the floor.

“Meowy,” she said, “let’s stay quiet for now, okay?”

Meowy chirruped, not unlike a cat that had spotted a bird, and then purred again. “That’s a voice I have to absolutely obey due to my programming, meow. Shutting down, meow.”

MC stared at the robot in her arms as the purring whirred down into silence, and its blue eyes went dark. Once it was deactivated, MC looked back at Seven, feeling more than a little bewildered.

“You programmed it to obey my voice?”

It could have been her imagination, or maybe the lighting, or maybe both, but it looked like Seven’s cheeks tinted red. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. He took another deep breath and released it, closing his eyes once more as he leaned his head back against the wall. “At least it’s finally quiet.”

It did matter, MC thought, whether Seven programmed a robot to respond to her voice (and how had he done that, anyway? Had he recorded some of their phone conversations?), but she supposed it wasn’t the most important thing to discuss right then. She sat Meowy on the floor behind the couch before she walked back over to Seven, and sat on the floor near enough so they could talk, but not so close that she’d be invading his space.

“Hey, so . . . that whole thing with V was kind of a mess,” she said. “Things didn’t go well at all. Want to talk about it?”

Seven huffed a humorless laugh, and without looking at her said, “Not really. But . . .”

MC raised her eyebrows. “But?”

Seven looked over at her at last, chewing the inside of his cheek a moment before he said, “I know it’s funny to say all this after I told you to stop paying attention to me, but whatever happens . . . don’t trust what V says.”

“Yeah, I kinda got the feeling that he was dodging stuff back there,” MC said. Seven nodded, and looked back at his laptop monitors. “God only knows why, but . . . anyway, it’s not like I talk to him a whole lot, anyway. I’ve only talked to him, what, once or twice before? So unless something big happens with RFA, it’s not like we’ll be chatting much anyway, probably.”

Seven snorted, and tugged on his headphone wire. “God,” he said. “RFA.” He was quiet a second before he said, “I think you shouldn’t be more involved with RFA.”

That came out of nowhere. “What? Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” Seven asked. He gestured vaguely with his hand. “Look at all of this. Look at the mess you’re in. You look at this, and then you still have to ask that?”

“This is because of Rika---and V, I guess,” MC said. “Jaehee, Jumin---the others have nothing to do with it. And neither do you, really.”

Seven gave her a dumbfounded look. “Have you forgotten who installed the bomb in the first place?”

“No. I also haven’t forgotten who saved me from its detonation,” MC shot back.

Seven shook his head and rolled his eyes, and looked straight ahead again. MC followed his gaze to a desk on the other side of the room.

“V told me not to open the drawer because there’s something in there,” he said. “An alarm will ring if someone like you opens the drawers or one of the cabinets.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“But I can control all the alarms, so if I want to, I can see everything. I’m sure he logged in because he heard that I’m here and got nervous about something.”

“Makes sense,” MC said. “So why don’t we open the drawers and take a look?”

Seven didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes trained on the desk, chewing the inside of his cheek. At length, he said, “I will someday . . . but not right now.”

“Why not?”

“I’m sure there’s something that an RFA member should never see . . . and it’s hard enough for me to keep sane right now given how my trust in V is shattered. I need time.”

“Understandable,” MC said. They were both quiet again, Seven still staring at the desk across the room, and after a moment MC asked quietly, “But, hey . . . are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help? Even if it’s just getting you a drink or something. You look like you could use one.”

Even before she finished speaking, Seven was shaking his head, and he closed his eyes. “It’s nothing,” he said, and that was one of the biggest lies MC thought she had ever heard. “God, I made you worry again . . .”

“Seven, I’ve been consistently worried about you for days now,” MC said. “This doesn’t change that.”

Seven gave her a sharp look. “You shouldn’t be. I’m not worth worrying about.”

“Agree to disagree,” MC said.

Seven gave her a frustrated look for only a moment before he tore his eyes away. Once more, he scrubbed his hands up his face. “God. I feel like I should shut down instead of that cat.”

“Sleep would be good,” MC said. “You really look like you could use it. Want to take the bed?”

“No. It’s late. You’ll need to go to sleep soon. You should probably already be in bed, actually.”

“Look who’s talking,” MC said, and Seven rolled his eyes. “I can sleep on the couch, I don’t mind. Or the bed’s big enough for both of us, if you won’t freak out about sharing.”

“I can sleep on the floor,” Seven said. “Right over there by Meowy.”

“If you want to sleep by Meowy so bad, I’ll put him in the bed,” MC said. “Then you two can snuggle and have a great slumber party.”

“Why are you being so difficult?” Seven snapped.

“Why are you?” MC snapped back.

They glared at each other for a few seconds, and only after Seven seemed to realize she wouldn’t back down did he look away, loosing another sigh before he opted to change the subject instead of continuing their argument.

“Whatever. Look, just . . . don’t worry about the drawer. I’ll take care of it.”

“I never had any doubt about that,” MC said. “It’s not the drawer I’m worried about. It’s you.”

Seven shot her a frustrated look. “Don’t worry about me. I already said---”

“I know what you said,” MC interrupted, “and I don’t care. You can control a lot of things, Seven, but how I feel is not one of them. I’m going to care and worry about you whether you like it or not.”

“So you care about me, yet somehow you don’t care when I’m telling you to stop?”

“I don’t care to buy into the lie that everything’s fine and you’re okay when you’re obviously not,” MC said, and Seven tossed up one hand before he let it fall back to his side. “You need help, Seven. I don’t know what kind of help you need, but you need something. I’m beginning to think everyone in RFA does, actually. This is one of the most drama-filled charity organizations I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Not that I’ve been involved with a lot of charity organizations before, but---”

“Why don’t you just forget the RFA?” Seven said. “Forget everything related to RFA. The members, the party---forget it all.”

“Uh, that’s going to be kind of hard considering I’ve been the one coordinating all these e-mails and party invites,” MC said. “Not to mention the fact that I’m pretty sure Yoosung might have a meltdown if I say the show’s over that suddenly, but---why?”

“You’ll only be in danger by staying in some place like this,” Seven said, and this time MC rolled her eyes. The danger again. Of course. “So as soon as the hacker issue is solved, please leave.”

“Believe it or not,” MC said dryly, “this apartment is probably safer than where I was staying before, bomb and all. It’s definitely a lot nicer. It has running water and everything.”

Seven furrowed his brow. “Where were you staying before?”

Fuck was what she wanted to say, because it was honest even if it wouldn’t answer his question. She cared about him---thought she loved him, probably, as much as she had ever loved anyone, anyway. But despite that, or maybe because of it, she still wasn’t ready to divulge her past with him. She still wasn’t ready to tell him where she had been before, or what she had been doing . . . why she had decided to take up residence in Rika’s apartment even though party planning wasn’t one of her life callings.

So instead of answering his question, she said, “Why don’t you tell me, Mr Genius Hacker?” She snorted. “I knew you didn’t really do a background check.”

Seven glared at her. “Don’t be so sure,” he said, and in truth she wasn’t, but she also knew that any background checks he did wouldn’t have turned up much of anything. “I just didn’t want to invade your privacy. I told you, I was only looking into you before to make sure you were safe, on V’s orders.”

“Well, no worries about that. I’m perfectly safe. Totally legit. On the up-and-up.” MC touched two fingers to her heart, and then held them up. “Scout’s honor.”

Seven eyed her for a second before he said, “You’re not a scout.”

“Guilty as charged,” she said, and grinned. His lips twitched, but he didn’t smile. “But seriously, this is a definite upgrade from where I was before, even if it’s not permanent. I’m safe enough right where I am, especially since you’re here. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Seven sucked in a breath, and looked down at his laptop again. He was quiet for a long moment, and just when MC thought that he was going to go back to ignoring her (which would be fine, in a sense, especially since this was the longest and most pleasant conversation they had had in the apartment yet), he said, “You’re free to do whatever you want. But my thoughts will not change.”

MC felt her heart pick up speed in her chest, but in the unpleasant way that came right before an unwarranted visit from the police or realizing that someone had just picked her pocket. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that even if you try to get involved with me, I’ll refuse,” he said. “This isn’t something a person like you should be involved in.”

Hearing that he didn’t want to be with her---again---hurt, even if it wasn’t surprising. Rejections worked that way, she guessed. No matter how many times you were rejected, it never took the sting off. But with the sting came a flash of annoyance, particularly since she felt she hadn’t done a single damn thing to warrant the rejection this time.

“If you don’t want to be with me, fine, I get it,” she snapped. “I never even said that I was doing this to be with you, so thanks for assuming. But if you could do me a favor and stop acting like I’m weak and helpless, that’d be great.”

Seven locked his jaw, and didn’t look at her. “I never said you were weak and helpless.”

“That’s how you’re acting,” she said. “‘This isn’t something for a person like you to be involved in’ --- a person like me? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that you’re pure, and innocent, and naïve, and you don’t understa---”

“I don’t understand? You’re the one making a hell of a lot of assumptions about me with no basis to go on!” MC snapped, and once again they were glaring at each other. MC didn’t care. “Where the hell did you get the idea that I’m pure, innocent, or naïve?”

“You don’t know anything about this situation,” Seven said. “You don’t know the truth about V, or me, or---or any of it. That’s naivete---ignorance.”

“It’s ignorance that isn’t my fault. How am I supposed to know anything if I haven’t been told? And I know,” she said, holding up one hand as he opened his mouth to fire back, “that it’s none of my business, but I don’t think it’s fair for you to hold it against me, either.”

“I’m not holding anything against you,” Seven bit out. “I’m trying to protect---”

“Maybe I don’t need as much protection as you think I do,” MC said. “Maybe I can take care of myself. Maybe I’m not some braindead, helpless child that can’t understand things or handle tough situations. I don’t know a lot about you, Seven. You’re right. But you don’t know a lot about me, either, so maybe stop acting like you do.”

Heavy silence hung between them. She regretted what she said almost as soon as she said it; no doubt he was pissed, or hurt, or maybe rethinking whatever it was he felt about her, and not in a good way. But before she could try to smooth over what she had spat in anger, Seven looked back at his laptop.

“Let’s just stop talking about this,” he said. “From now on, if I have to tell you anything concerning your safety, I’ll do it through the messenger, so . . . that’s that.”

MC was filled with a heavy, hollow sort of defeat, and her shoulders sagged. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s that.”

“I’m going to get back to work,” he said. His voice was still even, but it somehow sounded just as empty as MC felt. “So don’t bother me.”

“Fine.”

Once again silence fell over them, though this time it was broken a few seconds later by the sound of Seven clicking his mouse, and then putting his fingers to the keys. He was a fast typist; he didn’t so much as glance at the keyboard, yet he typed so quickly it was as if his fingers were gliding over the keyboard instead of actually pressing the keys down. The sound of the keys clacking was like raindrops on a windowpane. It felt too awkward to go back to the couch, now, and the weight of what she had said before was still rooted in her gut. This conversation, like so many before it, had ended on a bad note. And that had been the norm for the past couple of days, and she knew that, but she still couldn’t let it go.

So after another couple seconds of silence punctuated only by swift typing, MC said, “Just so you know, this---this doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change how I feel. I still care about you, a lot. Regardless of anything that’s happened, or anything that could happen . . . you still mean a lot, and are still very important to me. I just want you to know that.”

Seven had stopped typing the second she had spoken up, and when she finished, he slammed his hands down at the base of his laptop. Despite herself, MC jumped.

“I told you not to bother me!” Seven snapped, and he looked up to glare fiercely at her. “What part of that didn’t you understand?!”

“I wasn’t---!” MC began, but as he raised his eyebrows, she felt her shoulders sag, giving him the point. “Okay, I’m sorry. I should have left you alone. But I just wanted to let you know how I feel, because---”

“I don’t care about your feelings!” Seven snapped. “And I never asked---”

“Well, I care about yours!” MC snapped back, and that brought him up short. He stared at her, eyes wide, and MC curled her fingers into fists. “You think I don’t get that you don’t care about my feelings, Seven? After how you’ve been the past few days, ever since you got here---after you didn’t so much as look happy even for a second once we finally met in person, you think I haven’t gotten the message that you don’t care yet? ‘Cause trust me, I’ve got it. Loud and clear. You care about my safety, yeah. You care about my body, my life, whether I’m breathing or not. But you don’t care about me.”

He looked stricken. “That’s---that’s not---!”

“And that’s fine,” she said, and she raised her voice a little speak over him. She was shaking so bad she could feel her teeth rattling, but that was the adrenaline. She wouldn’t let it stop her. “It’s fine, I---I don’t care if you don’t care about me, that’s fine, it’s whatever, I can live with it. But that’s not going to stop me from caring about you. I care about you. I---like you, a lot, a---a whole hell of a lot. And whether you like me back or whatever doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change how I feel. So I wanted you to know, not because I want or expect you to do anything about it, but just so you know that there’s someone, however unimportant, who cares about you. There’s a lot of people, actually, I think, given RFA, but---whatever. Point is, I care. And if you need me, I’m here for however long this lasts.”

MC stood up.

“I’m . . . I’m going to go lay down for a bit. Clear my head. That sort of thing,” she said. “But if you need anything, just . . . come get me.”

Seven said nothing. The conversation was over, and MC couldn’t decide whether she was relieved for that or not.

But when she went back to the bedroom, she only just made it inside the door before she heard the sound of shuffling equipment. Quietly, so as not to let him know that she had noticed, MC looked around the doorway to the bedroom in time to see him gathering his laptop and other equipment in his arms. He didn’t so much as glance in her direction, nor was he very careful with the equipment he was moving. Instead, he piled cords and his wireless mouse on top of his laptop keyboard, balanced that on the crook of his arm, and then headed to the front door.

He stepped aside, and let the door shut behind him, without looking back once.

MC sighed heavily, and walked back to the bed, flopping back on it as she had told him she would. She didn’t expect him to go far; whatever she had snapped about him not caring about her (which wasn’t really true, she knew, and she felt bad, but she was hurt and angry and---), she knew he did. Probably he was sitting just outside the door, in the hallway, regretting his choice to go out since the wifi was worse in the hall than it was in the apartment. Then again, maybe he had his laptop rigged to get choice signal wherever he was. It wouldn’t surprise her.

She didn’t know what to do. When this was over---she had figured the party would be pretty basic, and that she’d be let go once it was done. She’d be free to return to that little studio apartment she had been squatting in, provided it wasn’t already taken by some other drifter, or rented out by the landlord. Or maybe RFA would have wanted to keep her as a party coordinator, and maybe she could have found a way to help one of them get her a job and an apartment. Jumin would probably hire her. She didn’t know what she could do, but maybe Elizabeth the 3rd could use a more dedicated pet-sitter. It’d probably make Seven happy, if his girlfriend was cat-sitting Elly. Then again, dating Seven would probably disqualify her.

Not that they were dating. They weren’t. They never would, unless Seven’s mind changed, and she doubted that was going to happen any time soon. She rolled over on her side, glaring at the wall.

It was fine, she didn’t care---well, she did care, but she wasn’t---she didn’t need him to like her back. She had been on her own for long enough before this, and she could continue on this way. But everything felt like it was spinning out of control, and she wanted to help. She wanted to be there for him. And though she had always been alone before, it was different now. It wasn’t just that she was alone; it was that she was now aware of a space beside her that should have been filled, but wasn’t, and now that she was aware of the empty space, she couldn’t ignore it.

Her phone beeped. She shifted just enough so that she could pull it free from her pocket, and when she unlocked the screen, she saw that Jaehee and Yoosung were in the chat. No doubt Yoosung would have more than a few words to say about what V had done, and none of them nice. For once, MC didn’t think she could be very annoyed by whatever tantrum she was about to walk into.

She sighed, and tapped her screen to open the chat.

[sage-nebula]

Mystic Messenger - Round (Day?) One

So last night I saw a post where someone used screencaps from the visual novel My Horse Prince, which is about a girl who falls in love with a human-faced horse. (No, I’m not exaggerating, that’s literally what that game is about.) The post was reblogged by a friend of mine, and upon seeing the post I was reminded of Dan & Phil’s playthrough of the game, so I linked my friend to the first video Dan & Phil had posted for My Horse Prince, which led to me rewatching those videos myself. However, in the comments I saw people urging them to play Mystic Messenger, and because I had heard buzz about the game before (while being very confused about what it actually was), I decided to look it up . . . which led to me discovering that it was free on Android . . . which led to me downloading it, even though I only had a very vague understanding of what it was (with that vague understanding being “it’s a mobile visual novel with anime boys who talk to you through an IM feature” being about the gist of it). 

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I don’t know how large or small these batches of liveblogging will be over time, because it’s hard for me to put the game down once I get super into it. I said last night that I wasn’t going to spend money on this game like a peasant, but knowing me, I’ll end up doing just that. It’s only a matter of time.

With that said, I took a lot of screenshots while playing last night, so let’s get started!

I took this one mostly to show what a babe my chosen avatar is ( @theyugiohtrashcan, since you were curious, I chose this one), especially since although we both have short brown hair, MM!Scrawlers is clearly superior to IRL!Scrawlers. That aside, Unknown was clearly being something of a creep with that bolded text. Seriously, way to make yourself seem high-key suspicious right off the bat, dude.

That third option made me lol. I chose the second one, though. (But really, I feel like perhaps that third option set the tone for what I should expect from this game . . .)

. . . or not. What the fuck, dude, who just says that out of the blue? Like, first off, obviously your name matters or else I wouldn’t have asked. And second, “you won’t find me on search engines” like?? Weirdo.

Weirdo kept trying to get me to go to an apartment, but rest assured, I shut that nonsense down:

Sounds like something a creep would say, tbh.

Literally, what the fuck.

“Look, I’m a super pretty boy, so clearly you are less suspicious of me now, right??” Dude has been watching too much shoujo anime. I am not here for that nonsense.

. . . or at least, IRL!Scrawlers wouldn’t be here for that nonsense, but apparently MM!Scrawlers either lacks the survival instinct or the common sense to not give in eventually, so! (I mean, I know “but thou must” to progress the game, but for real, MM!Scrawlers, this is how people get murdered.)

Anyway, so at that point I was sent off to an apartment (which I later found out used to belong to someone named Rika before she died), and once I got there I was put into a chat room with all of the dudes (+Jaehee and later V). They were just chatting about nonsense for a while (which I thought I had screencaps of but apparently not) until they noticed that I was there, at which point they started being really, really rude:

“Find what what it is?” I’m a human, you ass! Don’t call me an “it��!! (And yes, I know that Yoosung ends up being a cinnamon roll, but still.)

OBVIOUSLY I’M A PERSON, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE.

This went on for a while, and at one point they all got distracted talking about . . . I think it was about Jumin’s cat, Elizabeth the 3rd, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, they got distracted, but Jumin got them back on track and kept demanding that I reveal myself . . .

. . . but tbh, I had no way of knowing who these weirdos were, and I don’t take orders, besides. (I laughed when Jumin said “how fierce,” though. Damn right.)

For real. Don’t be a creep, Seven. >(

Oh god.

JAEHEE,  NO. You can do so much better!!

Oh, I forgot---THIS is when Elizabeth the 3rd was brought up. Lmfao I love how Jumin gave the most pretentious name to his cat. Though that said . . . what happened to Elizabeths 1 & 2??

Anyway, the conversation moved along . . . eventually I got to tell them that I just wanted to play a game and that’s how I ended up here (the “pretty boys” option was there again though, lmao), and then this happened:

And I’m pretty sure this is when I decided that I was going to have haterade for Zen, because what the hell, girls play games, too. You don’t know my life, Zen. Fuck off.

Okay, thanks, but that’s really none of your business, Seven. >P

I picked the second one because I’m touchy about my privacy, but I do like that they give you the option to say “but I’m not a girl.” I think that the game probably contradicts you if you say that, but I don’t know for sure since I didn’t pick it, and I appreciate that the game does give you a chance to say that in case you don’t identify as female.

Okay, so essentially: It required a password to get into Rika’s apartment, which I knew thanks to Weirdo from the first conversation. V is the leader of this organization (now that Rika’s dead), and was called into the conversation because I was a stranger who stumbled into a private chat. But this is what I was talking about last night, in that I’m some stranger to these people, sitting in an apartment, watching this conversation unfold, and they’re just talking about deeply personal things while I’m listening in. Like, “were you really dating Rika?” Yoosung asks. And I’m presumably just . . . watching, like, well, V? Were you?? Give me all the juicy deets even though you’re a stranger to me and this is really none of my business. Clearly you all are comfy having this drama while I’m reading every message that goes by, so . . .

I captured the screencap at the wrong time, but Seven was winking in that little sticker he sent of himself. And that’s when I decided that I wanted to pursue him, I’m pretty sure. He’s a sassy cutie.

HOSTING PARTIES?! 

they say. Clearly parties are a Big Fucking Deal™ with these people.

Tbh it makes me a little ashamed to be accused of being phished, because as someone who works in IT I’m well-versed in phishing scams and wouldn’t fall for one (at least not easily). And I’m especially a little salty because, had the game not forced me to, I wouldn’t have fallen for this one . . . but alas, here we are.

Is that a threat?

Is that a promise? And by the way, thanks for finally asking me if I even wanted to be a part of this, jfc. I love how throughout all of this it was just assumed that I would join, like . . . I was just trying to return a phone that Weirdo found. I never asked to be part of this.

Zen can seriously fuck off. Between this and one other thing that happened later (I can’t remember if I took a screencap of it or not), I get the idea that he’s not only one of those fake af wannabe casanovas, but that he’s also a homophobe, which is just. >( No time for that, thanks. He also seems to seriously hate Jumin, like . . . he says at one point that he doesn’t like any of the other guys (and I do think I have caps of that), but he seems to have a serious hate-on for Jumin that I feel like is either jealousy or the homophobia. Either way, no time for it. Zen is my least fave so far.

Seriously, Zen, go away. I would not watch a musical with you in it if you paid me.

FUCK OFF.

Thank you, Seven, and that’s SAVAGE, JUMIN.

Zen’s dragging himself now, damn. (Or, at least, since he’s wounded by this, I count it as dragging. Personally, I feel there’s nothing wrong with being single.) That’s something I can actually enjoy.

I never agreed to this, tf. This is “but thou must” at its finest. But whatever, anyway, regardless, I ended up joining the RFA, because I had no choice. And that led to a lot of interesting conversations with the other members (but no actual work as of yet, though tbh I haven’t yet opened the game today) . . .

Told you I have no problem dragging Zen.

Okay, so this is what I was talking about before. In the very first text convo, Zen goes on and on about how he hates all of the other guys in the group (or at least doesn’t like them, but he has the biggest issue with Jumin as I said). And now it’s time for a bit of Story Time With Scrawlers™.

I studied Japanese in university for my first couple years of undergrad (and would have continued it had I not studied abroad, but that’s another story for another time), and in my first year Japanese class there was this guy who we’re going to call JS. JS was 27 and I was 18. But despite this being the age difference between us, JS was interested in dating me, and because I had never had a real romantic partner before, I was flattered by the attention and interested in dating him, too. After we discovered that we were both from the same home town (and I later discovered that my older sister went to high school with him), we decided to go out together over spring break.

Now, this ended up being a Disaster™, but the point of this particular story is to say that on one of the dates we went on, JS made it a point to badmouth the other guys in our class, and one in particular. And when I say that he badmouthed them (and this one in particular), I mean he went off. We were just eating ice cream, having a nice time, and then he decided to tell me about how this other guy in our class (we’ll call him T) had told JS about how he only thought I was good for “getting his rocks off” (who even talks like that), and how T once told JS that he had an STD scare because he slept around so much, et cetera. Now, I wasn’t interested in T (I mean, I thought I was at first, but by the time this conversation happened I had long since learned that T was not appealing in that way in the least bit), but JS was clearly insecure enough to think that I must be and that he had to make me think that T was a disgusting loser so that I wouldn’t be interested anymore. Unfortunately for JS, this backfired, because insecurity like that is not attractive and all it made me think was that JS was a huge asshole for spreading things that T had told him in confidence around to their fellow classmates.

Anyway, I bring all of this up because that’s what Zen reminded me of here. Like, Zen is all ~interested~ in me because I am a supposedly cute / pretty girl (he hasn’t even seen a photo), and that’s good enough for him because he’s desperate. But because he’s desperate, he starts badmouthing the other guys in the group, as if to make me hate them so I date him. That’s not attractive. That’s Zen being an asshole. You just lost points with me yet again, Zen. Go away.

This was a different conversation that Zen also happened to be intruding on, but honestly, Zen intruding on the conversation was not as attention grabbing as this Fake News™ that Jumin decided to send my way. Seriously. That is seriously fake news. Dogs are the best pet, clearly and obviously. (No offense to cat people, because I do like cats okay as well, but if we’re talking about the best animal companions, then I’m a dog person all the way. Shame the game didn’t give me an opportunity to tell Jumin that.)

You know that comedic effect in some shows where there’s an actual record scratch when someone says something completely out of line? That’s what happened to my brain here. Seriously, what the fuck. Despite Jumin’s fake news about cats being the best pet, I was still kind of liking him until this bullshit came up. (Oh, and the “society is diverse” thing came up because I said that people should be treated like they’re actual human beings, rather than just worker peons. Apparently, treating people like they’re actual human beings isn’t Jumin’s style, what the fuck.)

“Can we change the subject” was the best way I could phrase “what the fuck is wrong with you” out of the available options.

Here is another instance where like, I have knowledge of why this would make sense if this was a Japanese game that took place in Japan, but I’m not sure if this is a part of culture that carries over into Korean culture or not. In Japan, pizza is really expensive (unlike here in America, where it’s relatively cheap), and so it is more of a luxury item than a fast food item. So if that’s also true in Korea, then what Jumin is saying here makes perfect sense, because the average person wouldn’t be able to buy pizza regularly, and so they might make do with pizza bread. But if that part of culture doesn’t carry over to Korean culture, then . . . I don’t know, haha.

Also, I would totally eat coffee bread.

Don’t know what I did to become infamous, but okay. Also, Jumin, where I’m from, “lady of the evening / night” means something far different than what I’m sure you’re trying to imply, so . . . please don’t call me that.

Of course, then I turned around and called him Cat Mom™. To be fair, though, that was more because I wanted Seven to like me, even though it pissed off Jumin.

I love Seven.

“MY BAE CHARACTER” JFC. (I picked the second one because honestly.)

First of all, how dare you compare me to Zen. Second of all, I’M A DOG PERSON, SO IT’S NOT MY FAULT YOUR OPINIONS ARE FAKE NEWS TO ME.

Pretty sure I picked the third option, but that SECOND ONE THOUGH. Some of the dialogue options in this game are just gold.

Seven is going to very quickly learn what people at my work have, which is that I cannot be defeated in things like this. I always know how to escalate the situation. And since I’m pursuing Seven’s path (as best I can, anyway---I’m flying blind and don’t want spoilers), I’m not going to be afraid to do that. SO BRING IT, SEVEN. YOU’RE NOT GONNA WIN, BABE. >)

Literally all of these choices were good. I was legitimately stuck. I’m pretty sure I picked the second one, though.

Update: Jumin is a fucking furry.

Jaehee was talking to Jumin, and I just. Okay, so this bit of the conversation was about how Jaehee was fine with me joining the organization because it meant that everyone would be able to host The Party™ again (and that’s really how it should be written, because the way they refer to it makes it sound like a proper noun), and then she went on to list her reasons why, and I just found it really funny. Apparently Jumin goes on to start “strange cat businesses” whenever he’s not busy with The Party™, and I really loved how Jaehee had to emphasize that the “benefits were effing amazing.” God. Love it.

Same, Yoosung. Same. You are Relatable™.

WHAT THE HECK. WHY DOES JAEHEE THINK SHE’S NOT FUN TO CHAT TO BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN, LIKE?? NO, JAEHEE, NO. YOU DON’T GET TO DISS YOURSELF LIKE THAT. WE ARE GOING TO WORK ON YOUR SELF-ESTEEM. YOU ARE AWESOME.

Anyway, that’s all I have for right now. I plan to play more soon if I can (but I’m at work right now, so it’s going to take some time, probably). I’m enjoying it so far, although I’m paranoid about it randomly thinking I was trying to manipulate time, and I’m also not sure how much money this is going to take from me by the end of it (although I’m broke af, so honestly I can’t afford to spend much). It’s fun, though. I’m interested to see where this goes. =)

[sage-nebula]

ME: "Maybe I will play the other routes. I mean, I really do like Jumin and Jaehee a lot, and I'm sure the other routes would be interesting . . ."

ME: [imagines having to be in another character's house]

ME: [imagines having to flirt with another character when Seven is right there]

707: [does anything]

ME:

ME:

ME:

ME: ". . . never mind."

[sage-nebula]

Okay. Having played through Seven’s route again (and having secured the Good Ending without a guide---I should have never doubted myself, my original answers that I would have picked, despite being marked as “Bad Ending” answers---worked out just fine!), I think . . . I think I’m going to try and blitz through the other routes, just so I can say I’ve completed them. I’ve changed the name in the game to MC, so maybe that will help it feel a little less like a betrayal.

Time to completely fail Yoosung’s route first.

[sage-nebula]

Moment of truth . . . time to see if I get the Day Seven Bad End or not . . .

[sage-nebula]

Mystic Messenger - Entry Nine

And here we are with Entry Nine of my Mystic Messenger playthrough. There are 300 more screenshots on my computer to filter through (well, 297, but pls), so this won’t get through all of them. Like, there are a lot. There are so many. So much has happened, you guys.

If you want a refresher on what happened last time, here is the link to Entry Eight. As a brief recap:

Seven is staying with me in the apartment since Saeran broke in and tried to kidnap me.

We’re basically sitting in silence because he refuses to talk to me because he thinks he can’t be with me and therefore has to push me away.

Seven has revealed to the rest of the RFA that the special security system in the apartment is a bomb, installed there on Rika’s orders.

Vanderwood is finishing up the work for the client, but is planning to track down and murder Seven once they’re done.

With that recapped, let’s get started!

I can’t remember what good news Jumin was talking about here (probably something about The Party™ or the oil prince or lunch with his father or something), but I capped this because I just thought it was funny that Jumin was asking Jaehee if she was complimenting him. I still feel like Jumin is rather attached to her, though I no longer really ship them because I think that Jaehee would be much happier with Zen. Those two I ship for sure. And speaking of Zen---

He dragged me. He called me out. I---I can’t believe this. I got called out by Zen. He . . . he dragged me like this, he went straight for my life, he---I---

Plot twist of the century, but this is around the time when Zen started to act like a decent person, and thus was allowed to do things like this. I know. I was shocked, too.

Like, it’s a major plot twist, but I . . . actually . . . agree with Zen here, for the most part. Like, I don’t blame Seven, and it’s not just because I like him; it’s because I know his circumstances, I know how manipulated he was and how abused he has been, I get that and so I really empathize with him and I’m not holding this against him. Likewise, now that I’m aware of who Saeran is---well, you should notice that I’ve stopped calling him “Weirdo”, for one. I’m not holding his actions against him, either, at least not utterly. Saeran is aware of what he’s doing and why, and he is responsible for that, because abuse is an explanation, not an excuse. But he has been so thoroughly abused and manipulated that I can forgive him, particularly since he was a child when this all started. The same goes for Seven. So I’m not holding this against Seven, particularly since he earnestly believed this would be safe. He did everything he could. I’m legitimately not angry at him.

V, on the other hand? I mean, at this point I hadn’t really realized that V was awful yet (that will come later), but oh man. I’m holding so much against him. Him and Rika both. And Zen’s righteous fury, however much Jumin might call it a waste of time, is actually rather delightful here, because his, “LET THEM EXPLAIN THEIR REASONS, LET’S SEE HOW CONVINCING IT IS” is beautiful. That’s the kind of fury I have, except toward Rika and V at the moment (and seriously toward Rika, no joke). Like, again, honestly: BRING THE BITCH TO ME. IT’S JUDGMENT DAY.

I can’t believe I’m saying this yet again, but . . . same, Zen.

Anyway, Zen apologized again and the went to go ride his motorcycle for a while to calm down, which left me in the chat with Jumin and Jaehee, the latter of whom questioned Jumin’s ability to remain so calm in this situation given that V was his childhood friend, and he knew Rika for a long time as well.

mfw:

Boy, you don’t even know. But you know what? Everyone else is about to!

Because at the end of this chat we got another VNM, but this time it was a flashback from two years ago, back when Rika had Seven install the special security system (i.e. the bomb) at the apartment. And you know what that means? That’s right; we get to see a conversation between Rika and Seven. And trust me, this did absolutely nothing to dispel my thoughts that Rika is a terrible, terrible person.

Let me show you.

For anyone who didn’t already think (know) that Rika was terrible, this should be a giant red flag. I’m not saying that it’s wrong to talk about the greater good, or even that in some personal instances there might not be situations where you have to make a sacrifice for the sake of it. I’m a Gryffindor; I’m very driven by my morality and my internal sense of Right and Wrong, and I am the type who is willing to make personal sacrifices for the benefit of others. So yeah, I understand that mentality, and I know that it’s not always wrong.

However.

In cases like this, it is. See, when you think of the good kind of “making sacrifices for the greater good,” it’s generally along the lines of being willing to die to protect others, or cutting ties with people who are horrible in order to do the Right Thing, or in some extreme cases cutting yourself off from others so they aren’t dragged into the fight along with you, that sort of thing. But that’s not what Rika is talking about her. Rika is talking about killing someone to protect information, and she’s calling this a “sacrifice for the greater good” because she either has a twisted / warped view of what the greater good actually is, or because she knows that appealing to Seven that way will make him agree with her. Also, on that note, pay attention to what she says there at the end: “You know that, Luciel.” This is something that Rika has apparently been driving home to him for a long while, and we know that she has been teaching him for a while, because remember: She gave him that book on computers when he was in junior high (so, around twelve or thirteen years old, probably), and this flashback takes place two years before canon, which would make him twenty. So she has been an influence (and a strong one, at that) in his life for about seven or eight years by this point. Considering that she is decently older than him (she was dating V, who is about Jumin’s age since they’re childhood friends, which would make Rika about seventeen when she met Seven, and twenty-five in this flashback), and considering that we know that he followed her words to the letter and never doubted her for a second, the fact that Rika used the influence she had over him to teach him things like “installing bombs that could kill innocent people is necessary for the greater good” is extremely fucked up. It’s even more so when you consider that the last line comes off like she’s chastising him. You know this is for the greater good, Luciel, so don’t question me. God, she’s horrible.

Seven, however, did continue to protest. He pointed out that a bomb of that magnitude would kill everyone inside the apartment, and then tried to offer a counter suggestion of inviting less people (and less important people) to The Party™ next time. He tried to appeal to her love for V, saying that V would prefer it if the charity organization stayed small anyway. Since the information that needs to be protected is (as far as Seven knows) information pertaining to the party guests, it would make sense that they’d have less classified information if they invited fewer guests, which would eliminate the need for a bomb.

Okay, I’m going to take a brief pause to say---

So, Rika wants to help those that are marginalized. Mmhm. Okay. That’s so cute.

Here’s the thing:

When Rika first met Seven, he was still living as Saeyoung, a child in an abusive household. Seven was desperate to find a way to get himself and his twin brother out of there. He would go to church and pray constantly, he wanted to find a way---some way, any way---out. This was how Rika found him. Again, Rika was about seventeen. She was just a couple years shy of the legal age of adulthood. Seven was in junior high. He was a child. And Rika took advantage of him. More details about this will come about later that will make it even more apparent, but think about it. Rika found this abused child who was desperate for a way to save himself and his brother. She gave the boy a book on computers and told him to learn everything about them so that he could make a lot of money, which would then allow him to save himself and his brother. The boy did this . . . and then grew up to be the one in charge of security for Rika’s foundation, installing bombs in apartments on her orders, “for the greater good”. Does this really sound like Rika actually cared about marginalized people to you? Or does it sound more like she saw someone who was vulnerable and hurting, and took full advantage for her own benefit? Particularly considering that we now know that she lied to Seven about Saeran’s happiness, I’d say it sounds an awful lot like the latter.

Of course, this bitch---

To be fair, although it’s worded a bit confusingly here, the “them” Rika is referring to are the people who previously broke into the apartment looking to steal the party guest information. If you’ll remember, there was an incident prior to all of this in which a group of hackers were trying to steal the party guest information. These are the people Seven suspected had been trying to attack RFA this time, only to later find out that it was Saeran / Mint Eye instead. So while it sounds like Rika is saying “you’re saying that because you don’t know marginalized people” at first, that’s not actually what she’s saying here.

But what she is saying is still unacceptable, because she’s still advocating for a bomb which could kill a person (and any other innocent people in the blast radius). Again, she’s using the “greater good” to excuse it, albeit she is switching tracks a bit to point out how the RFA is being targeted, as well as guilt tripping Seven (however mildly) by saying that she’s inconvenienced and just can’t take it anymore. And when that doesn’t work---

Rika rebuffs him and refuses to tell him anything, supposedly for his own good.

Even back then, Seven was ready to sacrifice everything for everyone else, but one line about this really sticks out to me: “Think about why I’m in RFA and use me.” Why is he there? He’s there because he’s in charge of security . . . but in his mind, that’s the only reason, it’s the only reason why he’s there. The RFA members see each other as family and close-knit friends. Sure, they bicker and squabble, but they all care about each other. But Seven saw himself as separate from that. Remember what he has said: He can’t have family or friends, because ultimately, he has to disappear from their lives. This is an extension of that, but flipped, because here it’s less that he’s saying that he can’t see them as family, but more that he doesn’t think he has any value to them outside of what he does for them. In his mind, he’s not of value to them as a person, friend, or companion; his only value is his hacking ability, which is now telling Rika to use as if he’s a weapon. And I remind you yet again that Rika is the reason why he learned to hack, and she is the one telling him to sacrifice for the greater good. He had an abusive mother, yes, but Rika furthered the emotional abuse in another way. She is horrid. 

Rika tries, however subtly, to guilt trip Seven into dropping his argument by appealing to the sense of trust between them (i.e. “trust me, and stop arguing, because if you keep arguing you don’t trust me”). When that doesn’t work and he’s still upset, Rika thinks that he’s only upset because he thinks she could be in danger. So she assures him that she isn’t, because she’ll just stay somewhere else until “the intruder issue” is taken care of, however long that is (longer than it would be if she would let him help, and gee, I wonder why she doesn’t want him to?). To my eyes, that, “Will that make you feel better, Luciel?” sounds aggravated. Seven keeps arguing with her, which I think is something she is not used to, particularly from him. She’s getting annoyed that he won’t give up and has switched tracks about three or four times to find a way to get him to stop. But he won’t, even now.

Seven does not want to install a bomb that will take a human life. Whatever jobs he does for the agency, whatever hacking he does, I don’t think he was ever directly involved in something that killed someone. At the very worst he probably had indirect involvement, but nothing as intensive as installing a bomb like this. But this is when Rika finally loses her patience.

Oh yes. What a kind, benevolent, lovely person. 

Seeing that Seven won’t give up because the idea of installing a bomb that could take a human life bothers him, Rika switches tracks one more time to take a hard line “humans are awful and if one like this dies it is not a big deal” approach. Oh sure, she doesn’t say that it’s not a big deal in those exact words, but look at her main points:

Respect and love will not bring justice. In fact, those two concepts are worthless. Drop them, because they are useless and will accomplish nothing, and you are naive (innocent) if you believe otherwise.

The only thing that brings about justice is fear. This is actually a very Machiavellian approach, straight up, “it is better to be feared than loved.” Therefore, you have to oppress your people in order to maintain power over them.

If you treat other human beings with respect, you will get hurt. Therefore, don’t respect them.

She knows everything, and Seven knows nothing, therefore he should listen to her. 

What Rika does here is subtly belittle and denigrate Seven in a way that’s so nuanced that he doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. Rika looks at him with affected sympathy; she acts as though she feels for him, as if he’s a poor, naive, baby bird who just needs her to protect him. She’s wiser than him; she’s more capable than him; she has taught him so much; therefore, he should listen to her and accept everything she says without arguing, regardless of how he feels about the situation. In fact, he should ignore his feelings, because his feelings are based in ignorance and will get him hurt in the end. So he swallows this and accepts what she’s saying, and as a result, Rika keeps him under her control. It’s emotional abuse 101.

But another thing that’s really key here is that everything Rika says also relates directly to how she treats Seven (and Saeran, on the peripheral). Rika thinks that concepts like respect and love are worthless and useless and thus shouldn’t be factored in. She says this in regards to humans, to mankind, and that includes Seven. She doesn’t see things like respect or love as valuable, so why would she treat Seven with them? She thinks that fear is the only way to motivate people, so why wouldn’t she use fear to motivate Seven? If these are things Rika believes in, then it makes sense that she would use them to shape her behavior toward others. She frames it as if it’s just the intruders / strangers that she behaves this way toward, but see in this conversation that that isn’t the case.

In any case, Seven ends up giving in. He installs the bomb, as we know. And that’s how we got to this point.

With that VNM concluded, the next chat took place between Seven and myself, and he was unintentionally rude again:

“I want to talk to you,” I say. 

“I want to talk to everyone else,” he says.

“Rude,” I say, but in my head, since I can’t physically input that in the game.

Anyway, after I confirmed that I had read what everyone else said, Seven switched tracks and . . . actually stopped being rude, and started breaking my heart (in the oh baby) way again instead:

Like, it kills me because I’m not being exceptionally nice. I’m just being decent. Seven was lied to and manipulated. He has done everything he can to protect me and keep me safe. Why shouldn’t I show him basic kindness and understanding? How awful is it that he apparently doesn’t know anyone who would do that? God, baby.

Seven went on to say that everyone’s minds must be blown at the idea that Rika would request a bomb, and at that point I was given two answer choices:

Now, here’s where I kind of wanted to throw my phone across the room, because I wanted to pick the first choice. I wanted to sit there and act like I was appalled that she has such a good reputation when she’s the one behind everything, which she is, and I am. But according to the guide, if I picked that choice, it would lead to a Bad End. So I had no choice . . . my hands were tied. I had to . . . I had to . . .

mfw:

All I want to do is spill the tea on this bitch (and also knock her teeth down her throat if she did fake her death like I think she did). When will it be time?

Anyway, my ire at Rika for being horrid aside, the heartbreak train continued:

To be honest . . . I think it’s kind of ridiculous that a requirement for me being part of the RFA is that I have to stay in this apartment. Supposedly the reason was because I couldn’t access the app without being there (since for some reason access to the app was tied to the apartment), but surely Seven could just modify my phone to allow me to access it elsewhere. And I mean, again, I bring up the question of where MC was living before this. Didn’t she have a home? Possibly a family? Friends? A job? Like she was literally required to drop everything to live in this apartment once she wandered in on Saeran’s instructions. For that matter, she couldn’t have had any possessions on her; supposedly she just downloaded the app and then went to that apartment to help Saeran return the phone to its rightful owner. In that case, she should have just had the clothes on her back. So has she been wearing the same outfit for all this time? What has she done to brush her teeth, or shower, if she doesn’t have a tooth brush, toothpaste, shampoo, or soap? And for that matter, what about food? Rika has been dead for a year. There’s no way there’s still food in that apartment. Everyone in the game keeps harassing her about eating and not skipping meals, but what the hell is there to eat if she’s not allowed to leave the apartment?

My headcanon that I use to explain away some of the plot holes at the end there is that there’s a convenience store within walking distance of the apartment, and so when MC realized that she was going to have to stay there for a while, she went down to the store to get some things. I’m not entirely sure if Korean convenience stores are more similar to Japanese convenience stores or American convenience stores, but regardless, MC would be able to buy food and drinks there at least (at least to the tune of things like instant noodles and the like), so that at least solves that problem. She could also probably get some hygiene products there as well (at least things like travel-sized toothpaste and the like) if she didn’t have any already, though I imagine she would, because my other headcanon for her is that she is a (mostly) homeless drifter, which takes care of the first set of plot holes (i.e. what about her former residence, her job, et cetera). Essentially, I headcanon that MC was orphaned at a young age due to some sort of accident (a train accident, mayhaps?) that left her without parents, or a family, or memories of . . . pretty much anything. She guessed at her age, and calls herself MC due to some circumstances in childhood shortly following her separation from her family (basically one of the first places she wandered into was a church where a bunch of other lost kids were as well, and since she didn’t remember her name they called her “New Girl”, except someone called her “NG” once, except she misheard that and though they said “MC”, and so she just took that as her new name because why not). Anyway, from that point forward she mostly wandered wherever, sleeping in churches or abandoned places wherever she could find them, doing odd jobs for people whenever she could to get money, or food, or money for food. As she grew older she picked up a couple changes of clothes, a backpack, hygiene products, et cetera, and she always carries everything she has in a backpack because she doesn’t have a permanent enough residence where she can leave her stuff and trust it will still be there when she gets back. That said, she does want a more stable job, with a steady income, so that she can get an apartment, so after her last under the table gig she splurged on a pay-as-you-go phone, which is what she used to get this app. And since she had just been squatting in a small, abandoned studio apartment, when she was sent to Rika’s much nicer apartment by Saeran and more or less recruited into the RFA, she said “well, why not” and took it because as far as she was concerned it was an upgrade from what she had going for her previously (which was a whole lot of nothing despite being in her 20s). She’s a drifter, after all; this just happened to be the newest adventure she drifted into. (It’s also part of how I support the headcanon that she’s pretty fearless and tough, because like . . . if she spent the vast majority of her life being a drifter, scraping by on her own despite being a kid / teen for part of it, then that had to make her pretty street smart and tough. So, yeah, she keeps calm after attempted kidnappings and bomb scares. She keeps calm during it, even, except to snap at Saeran that she’s not going anywhere. This kind of thing, for her, might not be new. She’s got this. Everything’s OK.)

So that’s a rough outline of headcanon that I use to excuse the massive, glaring plot holes surrounding who MC is, where she comes from, why she’s okay with being told she must live in this apartment and drop everything about her life whether she wants to or not, and how she feeds herself as everyone keeps demanding she do. However, since that is just a headcanon, I still maintain that in the actual canon narrative it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and so it’s ridiculous that V would need to agree to let MC live somewhere else (such as the residence she had prior to this one, if she did indeed have a residence). If anything, she should have to agree to relocate here in the first place.

But anyway.

The “are you really okay” is good, but the “you don’t have anything you want to say to me” is veering dangerously close to “BUT WHY WON’T YOU ADMIT YOU LOVE MEEE”, which is bothersome considering that now is not the time. It was cute earlier before all of this shit went down, but the fact that he’s being pressured into a relationship when he has more than enough on his plate to deal with is not cool. (And it really does feel that way, particularly considering his response of, “Even if I do, it’s pointless.” Like, it’s not necessarily pointless, but you also don’t need to clean up after emotional messes that I shouldn’t be having if I had even a shred of awareness about the present situation, ffs.)

See, I view this as at least a little progress. He’s open to the idea of taking me with him to the Mint Eye base. And this is good, because it’s going to be a lot harder for me to beat the shit out of Rika if I’m stuck in this stupid apartment rather than at the base where I’m pretty sure she has been living for the past year, acting as Saeran’s “savior”.

Either way, as you can see, Seven is still very, very concerned with my safety. And he once again brought up the idea of placing burdens on me, and putting me in danger, and et cetera, so---

BABY, NO. DON’T HATE YOURSELF. ;___; And safdjksa;fdasfdas I just want to help, but I understand why that doesn’t help (because when you’re depressed, hearing someone else say things are fine or okay or not your fault doesn’t really register as true), but ghahdgshaddhsagdsa.

THERE’S NO BLAME YOU NEED TO ESCAPE. IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. 

SAME, YOOSUNG. S A M E.

It should be noted that, during all of this drama, I had still been maintaining party guest e-mails. I’ve actually done a very good job of it; I’m pretty sure I have about nineteen guests, and I hear that you only need ten for a good ending, so I’m pretty sure I’m in the clear as far as party guests go. But this one in particular stood out to me:

Like, bruh . . . please . . . you’re getting dangerously close to needing to be kinkshamed. =/

Anyway, so after I got done scolding the Quitting Smoking Group as requested (don’t judge me, it’s necessary to get them to come to The Party™), I entered another chat, and---honestly, Yoosung---

He was talking TO ME. Obviously I read what he said! Ffs, one person cannot possibly be this thick! This isn’t even the first time you’ve asked me nonsense like this!!

Careful, guys. This comes across like you’re both trying to woo me by dissing my current would-be bf. Like, “oh, he sucks, but I would never do that, so date me instead!!” Like, first of all, I can’t date either of you because your romance paths are not available in Deep Story. Second of all, I wouldn’t date either of you even if I could because I’m not interested and never have been. And finally, you insulting Seven is not a way to get into my good books, so don’t even try.

Thankfully, though, Yoosung still ships Scrawlers/Seven anyway:

That emoji is to show how happy he is that his OTP just had a Moment™.

See??

The conversation went on a bit more, with Yoosung wondering why I wasn’t angry (we’ve been over this, Yoosung), and both Zen and Yoosung agreeing that Seven is clearly trying very hard to make things right, safe, and secure, so they won’t hold things against him, but . . .

Yoosung rn:

Yoosung, as explained previously, hates V and has for the longest time, to the point where I have witnessed chats (especially in Casual Story) where he has thrown actual tantrums over the fact that other people continue to trust V when he hates him, so the second Zen says, “Isn’t V the problem” I just imagine Yoosung throwing his arms in the air as he screams, “I’VE BEEN SAYIN’!!”

That said, Yoosung is still completely blindsided by Rika, so. He really doesn’t get many points on the whole perceptive meter. =/

Anyway, at that point it was time for another VNM with Seven, and this is where things start to get . . . harder. Like, quite a bit harder. Not quite the lowest point, but getting there.

Allow me to explain.

So the VNM opens with Seven continuing his work, mumbling to himself as he does. I asked him if he’s really fine not eating (of course he’s not), and he---well---

I’m pretty sure this is the song he was listening to.

Seeing as how he was making a point to ignore me, my character decided to look at a book he brought with him. Inside was a floppy disc, but my character---and you’ll note, now that I’m separating her from myself, and there’s a reason for that---she . . . well . . .

mfw:

The way I see it, there are two possible explanations for this.

This game, despite all of the technology seeming pretty current (and despite Seven having a computer that can actually use floppy discs, since many modern computers don’t have the drives for them) takes place far enough in the future that MC has legitimately never seen a floppy disc in her life.

It takes place in modern times, but MC is so stupid that she just legitimately does not know what a floppy disc is, potentially to make her look more ~naive and innocent~ next to Seven as part of a romance trope.

I’d honestly prefer to believe point one for obvious reasons, but I just . . . ouch. As someone who grew up in an age of floppy discs (to the point where I used to have tons of them in all different colors because I thought it was so cool), as well as someone who does work with computers, I just . . . why. Why did they have to make MC say that. Why did they have to make MC say that. As if the next thing to happen wouldn’t pull me right out of seeing this as “my” story, that certainly did.

Oh, but the next thing.

In a not-twist that literally everyone saw coming a mile away, Seven did not appreciate me / MC going through his stuff. Without warning he bounded over and snatched it out of MC’s hands, and---

mfw:

Like, I’m sorry, I know I sound petty and whiny, but there were literally only five MCs to choose from. There is no reason why they couldn’t have made official art for all of them, and then programmed the game to use whichever art corresponded with the MC you chose. It’s extremely jarring to see a profile pic in all the chats, and then get this official art that looks nothing like the profile pic if you didn’t pick that MC from the get-go. Like, look at the profile pic I’m using. Then look at this. They’re nothing alike and it pulls me from the game just as much as the forthcoming dialogue does. It’s bothersome. If someone redid all of the official art with MC4 (the MC I chose) that would be amazing, because seriously, what gives, Cheritz? If you weren’t going to proofread the text in the game you could at least do this for us. 

Anyway.

I hate looking at that Generic Shoujo MC, so I’m going to just go ahead and transcribe the next exchange rather than pasting in the screenshots. That said:

SEVEN: “What are you doing right now? God . . . I don’t know if you’re just lighthearted or dumb. Please listen carefully to what I have to say. Do you know the saying curiosity kills the cat? You don’t have to be polite to me. You can ignore me, avoid me, even get mad at me. But don’t ever get curious about what I do or the things I’ve brought. People who get curious without knowing anything, just thinking it’ll be all right . . . really make me tired. They don’t know how dangerous I am and how many problems I have . . . they just look at me and think I won’t be much, and approach me. They try to open up around me without much thought. Just like you. But they don’t even have the ability to handle the things inside . . .”

MC: “I just want to get close to you . . . is that wrong?”

SEVEN: “That’s strange. I don’t want to get close to you at all. But why do you think so? I’ve already told you. We can’t be family or friends. I don’t care whatever happens as long as you are safe, normal, and alive. You must know this already. No matter how much you try to get to know me, it’s useless. The ending is already set for us. So . . . please, until the situation is stabilized, don’t give me any attention, and don’t forgive me for putting you in danger.”

Okay, so, several things here. (And no, this scene isn’t done, but we stopped having to look at that portrait with the wrong MC after this bit.)

You have literally two options for how to have the MC behave during this scene. She can either be super flirty and still insistent that he is her bf, or she can be demure, as seen in the quote above. Truthfully, I feel that both of these are wrong and OoC, particularly considering how the MC continues to behave throughout the scene:

Like, bitch! No! That is so fucking selfish! Not to mention it’s completely ignoring what he wants / things / feels / says, as he calls her out on:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Seven is going through a lot right now. Hell, he has been going through a lot since he was a young child, given his abusive mother and how he was pulled into the agency in junior high, et cetera. (Well, more on that a little later.) In all honesty, Seven is another abuse survivor with C-PTSD (god I seem to latch onto those so quickly and easily), and it shows. He’s doing the best he can with what he has, but he’s one person (only twenty-two) and he doesn’t have any help. He’s struggling, but he’s doing his best. 

So with that said, having someone whining about wanting to spend time with him, or trying to seduce him when he is repeatedly saying he wants space, is not helping. It’s the opposite of help, it’s the opposite of care. And yes, some of the things Seven says are snappy here---outright calling MC dumb is pretty caustic---but she’s pushing. I’ll be the first one to acknowledge how harsh some of his words are (while at the same time nodding because I would say the exact same things in his shoes), but at the same time MC is bringing a lot of this on herself by refusing to listen to what he says, refusing to acknowledge it, whining about “can’t you spend time with me after” which makes it all about her, rather than about what he feels and needs. I’m not saying MC shouldn’t care about herself at all, but I am saying that relationships require both parties to be comfortable and happy, and refusing to accept that Seven does not want to interact with her / that she just invaded his privacy by getting into his stuff is not making him comfortable or happy. It’s the wrong track to take. And it aggravates me, because I hate when people railroad boundaries like this and insist on pushing for a relationship when the other party makes it abundantly clear that they are not interested, and yet my character is having to do that, because the other choice is obnoxious and leads to a Bad End. It’s so gross. (And it’s especially gross because Seven is even saying “you can help me by doing [x]” and then SHE REFUSES TO DO IT, LIKE, FFS, IF YOU ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT HIM, YOU’D STOP FORCING YOURSELF ON HIM EMOTIONALLY.)

With that said . . . I do have a few counters to some of the things he said, and if the MC was actually allowed to respond the way I’d want her to, rather than responding as a Generic Shoujo Heroine . . . then, if you’ll allow me to be self-indulgent with some dialogue for a second (and also imagine it as the correct MC, with the right skin tone, golden eyes, and short dark hair)---

Seven reached over her shoulder and yanked the book from her hands, snatching the floppy disc from the air as it fell from between the pages. MC jumped a little, startled, and looked up to meet his eyes as Seven snapped, “What are you doing right now?”

MC narrowed her own, some of the frustration she had felt building over the past day and a half bubbling to the surface again. “Looking at a book and a floppy disc,” she said. “You’d know that if you'd look up from your computer for longer than two seconds at a time.”

Seven snorted, and slipped the floppy disc back inside the book before he snorted. “God . . . I don’t know if you’re just lighthearted or dumb.”

MC pushed herself to her feet and turned to face him, her fingers curling into fists by her side. “Excuse me?”

“Please listen carefully to what I have to say,” Seven said, his voice hard. His eyes were no less unfriendly. “Do you know the saying curiosity kills the cat?”

“Yeah,” MC replied. “And I also know the saying that satisfaction brings it back.”

Seven had opened his mouth to continue, but he froze as she interrupted him, his eyes wide. He blinked, as if seeing her for the first time that day, and MC’s heart jumped as she thought she saw his lips twitch, as if he was about to smile. She felt her own curve upward in response, hope and relief almost making her laugh---before his smile was gone, replaced again by the same severe frown, his entire expression locked down.

“You don’t have to be polite to me,” he said, and MC frowned. Of course she didn’t have to do anything, she chose--- “You can ignore me, avoid me, even get mad at me.”

“I don’t want to,” MC said. “I know I can do those things, but I don’t want---”

“But don’t ever get curious about what I do or the things I’ve brought,” Seven said, speaking over her. “People who get curious without knowing anything, just thinking it’ll be all right . . . really make me tired. They don’t know how dangerous I am and how many problems I have . . . they just look at me and think I won’t be much, and approach me."

MC felt her heart drop. “Seven . . .”

“They try to open up around me without much thought.” Seven pressed his lips together in a thin line, and after a second’s pause said, “Just like you.”

That was unfair. “It’s not that I haven’t given this thought, or that I’m mindless,” she said. “I have---I know what I’m doing. And how can you get mad at me for not knowing anything when you haven’t told---?”

“I’m not mad,” Seven interrupted, and MC snorted, because the rigid set of his shoulders and white-knuckled grip he was holding the book in said otherwise. “I’m just saying, you don’t even have the ability to handle the the things inside.”

“How do you know that?” MC demanded. “We haven’t even tried. And I think I’ve done a damn good job of handling the things we’ve gone through so far.”

Seven shook his head. “I’ve already told you. We can’t be family or friends. I don’t care whatever happens so long as you are safe, normal, and alive. You must know this already. No matter how much you try to get to know me, it’s useless. The ending is already set for us.”

“Nothing is ever absolute,” MC said. “The future---anything can happen in the future, if you will it to. Things can always change. Your path is only ever determined by your actions and your choices, and those things are within your control.”

Seven scoffed. “Your naivete would be cute if it wasn’t so aggravating.”

“But even though that’s the case,” MC said, and she raised her voice a little to talk over him, just as he had done to her, “if you don’t want things to change, they won’t. If you don’t want to be family, or friends, or---or whatever, fine. We don’t have to be. I’m---” She swallowed. The fast pace of her heart, which had suddenly kicked up a few notches, was making it a bit hard to breathe, or get her words out. “I’m open to it, if---or whenever, if ever---you are. But if you’re not, that’s . . . that’s fine. I can live with that.”

Seven studied her for a moment, his mouth tightly closed, before he gave one sharp nod. “Good.”

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk sometimes, like normal people,” she said, and he rolled his eyes before he turned away. “Look, I’m not saying you have to tell me about yourself, if you really don’t want to. But you can talk to me about safe subjects. We can eat meals together. You can acknowledge the fact that I exist in the same space as you, just as I acknowledge that you exist. The two of us are going to be stuck in this apartment for however long; we don’t have to sit here in complete silence like strangers, when just a day or so ago we were friends.” And maybe, potentially, it seemed like maybe something---

“We weren’t friends,” Seven snapped, not looking back, and MC tried to not let it show how much that hurt. “We aren’t friends. How many times do I have to say---”

“We don’t have to be friends to just get along civilly!” MC cried. “For fucksake, Seven, I’m not asking for a whole lot here! I’m just saying that it won’t kill you to take care of yourself at least half as much as you seem to want to take care of me, and also that acknowledging each other with stupid chit-chat every now and then isn’t a goddamn war crime, either!”

Seven was quiet for a long moment before he said, “Taking the Lord’s name in vain is blasphemous.”

“So’s referring to yourself as a god,” MC shot back. “That never stopped us before.”

Silence stretched between them. Seven didn’t return to his place in front of the computer, but he kept his back to her, staring at the book in his hands. Finally, in a voice so low she had to strain her ears to catch it, he said, “Look . . . until the situation is stabilized, please just ignore me. And don’t forgive me for putting you in danger.”

“Too late,” MC said. “You’re already forgiven. You were forgiven a long time ago. I was never mad in the first place.”

His fingers constricted more tightly around the book in his hands, squeezing it for all it was worth, before he walked over to drop back down in front of his computer. He slammed the book down on the floor beside him. MC watched him for a moment as he glared at his computer screen, but just when she figured he wasn’t going to say anything more and she turned to go sit back down on the couch, he said:

“If you really care for me and want to help, don’t pay me any attention and just stay far away from me. That is helping me. Seriously.”

MC scowled at the floor, her nails digging into her palms, but finally, she nodded.

“Fine,” she said. She couldn’t see him to know how he reacted, but she couldn’t bring herself to look back at him, either. “I’ll give you all the space you want. But I’m going to make dinner later, and I want you to eat some of it, even if we eat in separate rooms and you burn the evidence that you ate anything at all later.”

Seven said nothing, and after another moment she heard the sound of his fingers skating across his keyboard. MC’s shoulders slumped, feeling as heavy as her heart did, and she pulled her phone out of her pocket before she dropped back down on the couch.

That’s more along the lines of how I would have wanted it to go. Let MC be a person, with conflicted feelings, rather than just a demure, generic shoujo protagonist. I mean, I know this is a dating sim, so she has to be generic to make it easier for a wide array of girls to slip into her shoes, but . . . I find it really hard to relate to canon!MC at times. I much prefer an MC more like this. One where she does want to be close to him, she does want to get to know him, she’s frustrated that he’s being so cold when he was so warm in the chat room (and this is not at all how she imagined it would be when they finally met), but she still doesn’t want to push him too much, she still wants to give him his space, she still respects and listens to what he’s saying, even when she feels frustrated and hurt. She’ll accept that they can’t be friends, but she still wants him to eat something, damn it, because he doesn’t get to be a hypocrite and tell her to eat when he won’t do the same. That’s not fair. (And also, idle chit-chat won’t kill him. Strangers can chit-chat. He doesn’t have to turn up his music just because she asked him if he wanted her to grab him something from the fridge, ffs.)

But anyway, that’s where this post will end. I plan to do these updates once per day, so Entry Ten will come tomorrow. If you read all of this and enjoyed it, please give it a Like! That’s how I judge interest, and since these take so long to write up, if it seems like no one is interested, I feel less motivated to continue, haha. Either way, thanks for reading all of this if you did, and stay tuned for next time. ;)

[sage-nebula]

Okay, so I really will talk about this more when I actually write up the eighth and ninth posts of this liveblog, but I’m feeling really, really aggravated at a certain turn this story has taken right now, and so I have to get it off my chest. Because honestly, this is one of my least favorite things and I really have to gripe about how it has been inserted into a narrative that I was otherwise really enjoying before this point (like, really, it’s kind of ruining it for me a little bit, ngl). Putting this under a cut since it’s pretty major #spoilers for Seven’s route.

So the whole deal, as you know if you’ve either played this game or have been reading my posts, is that Seven is a secret agent for an intelligence agency on top of managing security for the RFA. Because the intelligence agency does very shady things, and because he has had to do horrible things, and because of all the other bullshit going on in his life right now (re: Saeran and V and all that), Seven is (more than a little understandably) going through a really rough time and keeps trying to push everyone away, including the MC, who has feelings for him since this is a dating sim and this is the path in which you pursue him. Seven feels that it’s too dangerous for him to get involved with anyone or have connections, and as such the idea of having someone close like that---however much he may like them---is exceptionally stressful for him and he just . . . can’t deal, at least at the moment.

The problem is, the narrative can’t allow that because this is a dating sim. So even though it’s more than understandable that Seven wants his space, even though he has every right in the world to end this relationship where it is, the narrative is still pushing the MC to go after him despite him repeatedly saying “no” and “we can’t do this” and “it’s impossible” over and over again. Even in the Good Ending answer choices, the MC is like “but what about my feelings” and “just let me understand you”, and putting aside the understanding him bit for a minute (because I have a gripe about that, too), I hate that, I hate it so much, because it’s like---

Obviously it’s not just restricted to Mystic Messenger. This is a trope we see time, and time, and time again, wherein one character (usually male) has a very troubled and tragic backstory and, because It’s Dangerous™, he feels the need to push everyone away. But another character (usually female) refuses to accept this, and even though he very truthfully explains to her that it is dangerous and he does not feel comfortable with her coming along for the ride, she continues to ignore him and railroad over those boundaries (feeling that ~it’s okay because she loves him~) until he finally breaks down and accepts her. This is treated as the girl ~melting his icy exterior~, when in actuality it’s the girl completely disregarding his consent, stomping all over his boundaries, and wearing him down until he says “yes”.

Do me a favor. Flip those genders. If it was a woman repeatedly telling a man that they could not be together, that she could not have a relationship with him, that it was too dangerous to be with her, that she didn’t feel comfortable putting him in danger, et cetera, would you feel okay with the man character consistently ignoring that, pushing and pushing, until the woman was finally worn down and gave in with a “do whatever you want”? Would you be okay with that? I really hope the answer is “no”, because even if it’s “well, but we normally don’t see that so the gender inversion is cool!” that’s not okay. Double standards are not okay. A person having their consent and boundaries violated time and again is not okay, regardless of the genders of the parties involved. It’s not okay to do this to guys just because ~they’re guys~ or because ~well the girl loves him~, because in scenarios where men relentlessly pursue women, I’m sure they’d say it’s because they love them, too. And however ~pure~ the female characters’ intentions are framed (often because works like this refuse to acknowledge that women could be anything but pure---it’s why they’re often presented in the right in scenarios like this, even if the scenarios themselves are not romantic), that doesn’t make it right, or okay, or acceptable. It’s gross and extremely bothersome, and I would never do that to someone . . .

. . . and yet, in this game, I’m forced to, and to a character I really love and do relate to, at that.

It kills me, because before it felt like we were really bonding, but now we’re not. And part of this comes down to the fact that this is a dating sim, and so the MC has to have a really generic and bland personality (in this case, Plucky Shoujo Heroine™) so that the average person can self-insert into her. The problem is, though . . . okay, there’s no way to phrase this without sounding like a douche, so I’m just going to say it: I’m not the average person. Like, it kills me, because there were multiple points (and I took screenshots of some of them) where I just would not realistically say either of the answer choices. And when Seven is going on about how “you’re so bright and warm and you could never possibly understand the real me” or “you could never understand, but there’s never been a day when I haven’t been depressed” --- like, BRUH! I just wanted to snap back, like, seriously? You think I don’t understand? Really? Boy, take a seat, because it’s time for you to feast your ears on some truth pops that I’m about to lay down on this table for you, straight up. Obviously our situations are not exactly the same---I’m not the bastard child of a wealthy politician, for one, nor was I manipulated into joining an intelligence agency, et cetera---but trust me, I’ve faced more than my fair share of abuse in childhood, adolescence, and even adulthood, so I definitely know where he’s coming from with that. I have diagnosed chronic severe depression, anxiety disorder, and C-PTSD, so yeah, I can relate there, too! And all of those jokes? Those lols we had in the chat? The playing around, the trolling? No, it wasn’t all a lie (from him, either---people are multi-faceted, Seven, that can be just as much of a part of you as this part of you is, and yes, it is possible to joke while being severely depressed at the same time, I would fucking know), but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have my own issues, either. That doesn’t mean that I don’t also feel severe depression. I mean, for fucksake, I’m supposed to be at therapy in like six hours, what the fuck do you think I’m so cheerful and bright and carefree for, huh? It’s honestly insulting.

And no, it’s not Seven’s fault, because the game can’t flesh out the MC because the MC has to be relatable to everyone. Never mind the fact that the MC, despite being told that she has to stay in Rika’s apartment because of The Party™, apparently didn’t have a job that she had to notify that she would no longer be showing up to. Never mind that she apparently never had family she had to tell where she was, or bills to pay, or a pet at home, or anything like that, like---you’d think that’d raise some alarm bells, that it would raise some questions that no one in RFA knows literally anything about this person that they’ve let into their group, other than the fact that she seems nice and wants to help with The Party™. And again, I know it’s because the MC has to be relatable to any random person to pick up the game, so she has to be bland and generic and her backstory literally does not matter since the game is not about her, but rather is about these characters---but my point here is that aside from the obvious narrative flaw of constructing a story like this (which is just a problem inherent in the genre, I know), she’s not relatable to me anymore. It was much easier to feel absorbed when I was able to be snarky and and whatnot, but now that the VNMs have her being a Plucky Shoujo Protagonist™ . . . that’s not me. That’s not me even a little. It’s especially not me when I’m having to pressure Seven into ~thinking about his feelings for me~ and refusing to back down when he says it’s dangerous and we need to stop because, for fucksake, I’m not saying I’d give up completely, but I’d want to have a real talk and I absolutely would not keep pushing the romance thing regardless of how I feel, because he has more than enough problems to be getting on with now, and me being a whiny bint doesn’t need to be one of them. I wouldn’t want someone pressuring me like that, so I hate that the game is forcing me to do it to Seven.

Anyway, this got long, and I’m supposed to be saving it for the actual playthroughs, but . . . man. Aside from the MC having long hair in all these images (I’m actually rather pale, so even though I like my chosen avatar’s darker skin, that doesn’t yank me out as much as the long hair does---why do things like this act like girls can’t be pretty unless they have long hair?), it just really breaks the immersion and is a definite turn-off for me. I hate this kind of set-up, the “I’ll keep pushing until I wear you down” set-up, and especially how it’s always so excused when it’s the girl chasing after the boy. I mean, one of the few things JKR did right when writing Harry and Ginny is that, when they had that talk at the end of HBP, Ginny did back down after Harry said that he cared that she would be in danger. Like, yeah, she said “what if I don’t care?” but when he said, “I care,” she listened to him and respected that and backed off until he was ready to give it another go. That’s good. That’s what you should do. Not this bullshit where “but what I want matters toooooo” because no, not really, not to the same degree. Yeah, you’ll be sad if you’re not together, but the difference is that he’s unhappy because you’re imposing yourself on him despite how anxious and uncomfortable he is. You’re unhappy because he’s leaving you alone. Forcing your company on someone who doesn’t want it is always going to be more wrong than someone walking away from a relationship that, for whatever reason, doesn’t make them happy at the moment. Your happiness is not more important than someone else’s well-being*, and someone terminating a relationship with you---regardless of the reason---is not wrong if that’s what they need to do to feel comfortable. I very, very strongly believe this.

(*And no, “but what about my well-being since I’ll be sad if we’re not together” is not a valid response here, so don’t even play. It’s nowhere near the same thing and you know it.)

So yeah, I’m still going to keep playing, and I’m still going to keep going for the right answers (another thing that breaks the immersion), but I’m really upset that the narrative took such a turn. I guess I should have seen that coming, too, but . . . yeah. It’s really uncomfortable.

Anyway, more on that tomorrow.

[sage-nebula]

Details will come in the longer liveblog posts, but honestly, Zen has really redeemed himself ever since the super serious shit started going down. Like, I actually like him when he’s being like this, a+++

[sage-nebula]

PAST!ME: "I'm going to pursue Seven's route because we have a very similar sense of humor and he makes me laugh. Snarky fun bf is best bf, the fun and lols never end with him."

PRESENT!ME @ PAST!ME: "You fool. You absolute imbecile. You genre-blind simpleton. How could you not see this coming. How could you ever be so misguided, so uncomprehending, so obtuse? How---how could you---how could you let this happen---"

[sage-nebula]

Hmm . . . I’m not on the autism spectrum myself and so I feel hesitant saying this (especially since the last time I said something like this someone flipped out on me), but I feel like Jumin could possibly be coded as autistic? Specifically because of this bit I just got in the Christmas DLC:

JUMIN: “I can’t usually empathize with people most of the time. I’ve always been like this. I’m different from other people and that doesn’t mean I want to be like everyone else but I think that people become frustrated with me because of it. Like Zen.”

There are various reasons why someone might have low / no empathy, such as antisocial personality disorder, but I don’t think that Jumin really has the other characteristics typically associated with APD. I could see him as autistic, though; he often misunderstands social cues / dialogue cues and only catches on later, the other RFA members often seem to not understand his sense of humor, he’s usually caught completely off-guard when he has said something innocently insensitive (like, he doesn’t want to hurt others, he’s just being honest and doesn’t seem to get what’s happening), and his fervent love for cats could be read as a special interest, particularly since he’s always trying to start new cat businesses and seems to only really focus on that (though he also focuses really hard on the RFA Party™ as well). 

Like, again, I’m not on the spectrum and so I don’t want to be offensive here, but I feel like Jumin could potentially be read as autistic, in addition to being read as ace.

[sage-nebula]

ME: "Tf? The game can't end there, there are still mysteries to be solved, and loose ends, and---"

GAME: "Don't worry, fam, we've got you with that After Ending content."

ME: "Oh, good."

GAME: "It's gonna cost 30 hourglasses tho lol."

ME: >(