#will they ever come back to us as a playable line outside of the one single shift a million years ago

[tiger-balm]

pretty boy line walk ins | leafs @ panthers | april 16th 2024

[put-me-out-of-my-destiny]

Proposing V for the ask game, if you're still doing it?

My favorite thing about V:

On a narrative level, he represents the best quality of DMC5, it's fleshing out of Vergil. I love that deep down, underneath the fear-driven quest for power, Vergil is a soft goth boy who loves a particular poet so much he makes it his whole personality. Plus, I love the interpretation that he looks so young because Vergil lost so much of his life to being Nelo Angelo.

On a gameplay level, I love how you can make V constantly taunt while making his minions fight.

My least favorite thing about V:

On a narrative level, as much as I love his voice and design, it would have been so cool if he was a woman instead. Besides the Implications, it would be a neat way of nodding to his human mother. Also, I've been told that the literary character that Urizen is named after is a part of a dyad, the other half of which is a female deity. And DMC5 sorely fumbles it's female representation anyway, having a playable female character might have won it some points (though realistically, there's a good chance they would have fucked up her design, and the hate toward her playstyle would be so much more vitriolic).

Speaking of playstyle, on a gameplay level, I do enjoy playing as V, but the moveset definitely needs more development. I don't like that V's evasive actions require his familiars because you have to interrupt their combat (and even Griffon's attack charging) in order to use them, even though the whole point of V seems to be multitasking. Plus, the hidden range limit for the minions can really screw you, especially considering that Shadow's attacks can easily take it outside of that limit, causing it to teleport back to V's side and interrupt your attack strings. And what's sad is that due to unpopularity, there's a real chance that we won't get to see a new iteration of this playstyle.

(There's even a series in my pinned post all about a certain character ending up in this position, just saying).

My favorite line by V:

It's hard to say, since he has one of the best if not the best vocal performances in the game. I do like that he says "it's my turn to play with the Devil Sword" at one point.

My "brOTP" for V:

I love his friendship with Griffon. It's a shame it got no closure whatsoever because the writers decided they wanted to magically wipe away Vergil's trauma via DMC1 callback boss fight.

My "OTP" for V:

I don't generally like ships for Vergil, but one that I would entertain is one with Lucia. I see the humor in her meeting a man who's just as handsome as Dante but with none of the charm, and realizing she's actually fine with that. Plus, Vergil is far more comfortable with his demon side than his human side, and I think that would extend to Lucia. He would think her devil form is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and he'd be right. Lucia deserves a handsome loser boyfriend who loves the demon in her so much that she learns to love it too, especially since he also comes with a giant stoic tree man with sharp teeth and tentacles, and of course our favorite poetry-lover.

My "nOTP" for V:

Nero x V is sadly popular, even though they're literally father and son. And even when talking about just V, not Urizen or Vergil as a whole, I don't care for shipping him with Lady. She doesn't even fucking like him, nor should she.

A random headcanon about V:

I think his cane is tied to Rebellion in some way. Perhaps it simply contains some of the same materials, which is why it's good at conducting demonic power, and why it allowed him to reunite with Urizen.

An unpopular opinion about V:

While I am firmly in the "V and Vergil are the same character and that isn't a bad thing" camp, I am sympathetic to the wish that V was his own character. I cannot fault someone for loving V but not finding Vergil interesting, and I don't think it's worth getting mad at them over.

A song I associate with V:

Besides Crimson Cloud? There's a "combo mad" sort of video from time to time titled Void Violin, it features some good music.

My favorite picture of V:

That gif of him tripping and dropping his free taco.

[kairithemang0]

The "Kairi Problem"

Hey guys it's Kairi day I'm gonna go on a long rant about how sad I am that she kinda sucks as a character.

To start I want to say that I absolutely adore Kairi, and that this isn't meant to be me hating on her, because I do really love her as a character (I literally stole her name for heavens sake). I just believe that there are a lot of problems with her character I need to get out of my system.

Ok, let us begin! First off, and the main issue with her for me is her pure reliance on Sora, and how much that really has damaged her character. Kairi is best when she's not around Sora. For instance, her conversations with Lea in KH3 are some of my favorite parts of that game. Their dynamic is so fun, and I wish they had more screentime together because they have the potential to have this sibling relationship that would be so wholesome. Along with her other interactions with characters, she could have such a great friendship with Aqua, seeing as Aqua will be teaching her how to better herself with the keyblade, it would be great to see more of their interactions.

HOWEVER! These are the only 2 meaningful relationships Kairi has outside of Sora. And even then, Sora makes up 80% of her interactions. Not even her and Riku talk much after KH1. They hardly even talk in Melody of Memory, a "Kairi game" where she is hardly playable. Not only that, at the end of that game Riku basically told her that she needs to stay home and let him to do work to find Sora. This to me is a big misstep in the writing for her character.

Kairi has self-confidence issues, one of her battle lines in Re:Mind is literally "please work". She has no faith in her abilities, but so much can be done with that. She can have an arc about believing in yourself and coming into her own and learn to stand beside Sora and Riku, not just letting them protect her.

This is partially due to her lack of screentime. She's never really been the focus of anything, she's just Kairi. The prize. That's really what she is, she's like the princess in another castle. Just "the girl". And that's a terrible thing to do with her character because unlike Peach, the princess in another castle, Kairi doesn't get the chance to rise above that label. In 21 years you'd think she'd be given something, anything really. I think that's why her kicking a heartless in the KH TV show pilot made me, and probably others, so excited. She did something! And it was cool, that's what we needed. Something cool.

So why am I talking about all this? The fandom has made jokes about Kairi being a plank of wood for years, it's no secret to anyone she's been given very little in terms of character. I guess my question is why? Why is Nomura giving this character with an interesting backstory and an interesting set of powers with seeds of a character if you squint such little time? Not only has she been around since the very beginning, but even characters who we know much less about than her are far more fascinating. I like to compare her to Yozora, who is a character we really know nothing about however we know he's powerful, and we know he has a goal. And I can assume he will deliver on both of those things even when we know more about him. Kairi on the other hand has had very few cool moments, has no goal, and just MIGHT be powerful. I mean you'd think having a princess of heart, a topic that has been covered in multiple games and will likely continue to be touched upon, as a main character would be amazing, right? Well, she's hardly ever mentioned to be a princess of heart and all we know about her powers is that she can bring back a heartless Sora in Kingdom Hearts 1. And that's it, that's all we know.

And I haven't even gotten into the whole thing about the Destiny Trio, the main trio in this series made up of 3 very important characters, feels more like 2 duos. It's either Sora and Riku or Sora and Kairi, not "Destiny Trio". And we know Nomura can write good trios, even while having 2 of the characters have moments together. So why can't the Destiny Trio have this? The 3 of them hardly interact without one of them overshadowing the other. For instance, the Riku and Sora KH2 reunion.

Sora is confused on how Riku can be here when he looks like Ansem. Kairi shows Sora that it is in fact Riku, and Sora and Riku have a moment. Then Kairi does nothing for the rest of the scene. In every case, that is a Riku and Sora scene where Kairi is just there. And this happens time and time again, where Riku or Kairi is put to the side so they both can have their moment with Sora.

And now it's time to talk about the scene where Xemnas kidnaps her. This scene is just... GAH I HATE IT!!! Xemnas just snatches her and then somehow, she's just passed out and gets killed. Not only that, but the reactions from other characters are also so lackluster. Sora does his "Kairi!" thing, and if anyone else were to have reacted I would say it should be Riku and Lea. Of course, Lea was dealing with his own troubles during that scene, seeing his best friends again was definitely something that would be more important to him, however he and Kairi spent time together growing a bond and training together, you'd think he'd at least go after her a little more? He does nothing! The only person that reacts to it is Sora, which is so sad since you'd think even Roxas would care a bit, since he and Kairi had that brief moment in KH2 where Roxas and Kairi's minds connect. You'd think any of them would have more of a reaction than they did. And she herself just sits there and struggles a bit. She's got another hand she could use to summon her keyblade again and swipe at him or do anything else that isn't absolutely nothing.

This whole scene would have been better if they had waited longer for Kairi to get taken, maybe she goes into battle with Sora, Riku, and Mickey when they fight the norts, but Xehanort swopes down and stabs her with his keyblade or something. If that happens, we could get more of a reaction from Riku. Really anything that isn't what we got would be better.

Throughout this whole series Kairi has been pushed to the side time and time again, and I highly doubt that'll end any time soon. With a new saga coming and more focus being placed on the Foretellers and what came before, Kairi will likely be once again pushed to the side lines while other more interesting characters take the front lines. It's a very sad fate for a character that has so much potential she'll never live up to due to a lack of interest from the writer.

[miloscat]

[Review] Wario Land: The Shake Dimension (Wii)

Wario Land 4 2, for better and worse.

Wario's wilderness years continue with this, released the year after Master of Disguise. Many Wario Land games come in pairs it seems, where a second entry refines the concept of a previous change-up. Wario Land 1 had its VBWL, WL2 had its 3, and now Wario Land 4 has Shake It, the first non-shovelware title released by Good-Feel. They went on to make the decent Kirby's Epic Yarn and Yoshi's Woolly World.

I wasn't really a fan of Wario Land 4, so was iffy on the prospect of following it up. The levels here are usually a more linear series of rooms which works better in the format (a bit puzzley followed by a frantic timed run back to the level entrance), but they have more of a problem with missable pickups. TSD does bring back unique treasures, and even has funny descriptions for them like MoD, but there are too many times when you have one chance to get something, and if you fail you have to replay the whole level again (or as I call it, Kirby level design).

Forced repetition is a big factor here. Each level has optional challenges just for bragging rights, as well as secret maps to new levels which are only hinted at after you've beaten the game. Also, the role of money in this game is mainly to pay for maps to new worlds, which in the latter half of the game pretty much require grinding for cash unless you're playing flawlessly and finding all the extra dosh.

Let me take a step back though. This is a stereotypical early-mid Wii game and the central gimmick is in the title. Played with a Wiimote on its side (one of the least comfortable control methods ever devised), Wario and the player alike do a lot of shaking. Shake to ground pound, shake to escape some traps, shake to... shake. Coins will fly out of money bags, and enemies can be shaken for health or to remove their armour, for example. As a conceit this is... fine, but other uses of motion control such as tilting to aim your throws, or the obligatory vehicle sections (also seen in the Kirby and Yoshi games) are more egregious. Apart from this, the controls feel pretty good (this is the developer's mission statement, after all). Butt-stomps do require a finicky downwards input in the air on the lacklustre Wiimote D-pad, but the limitations of the chosen controller mean there's no unnecessary dash button.

Let's take another step back, because anyone's first impression of the game should be to be wowed by the graphics. Lovingly hand-drawn sprites cavort over painted backgrounds to give the impression of a playable cartoon, like WayForward's latter Shantae games or A Boy and His Blob. The 480p resolution blown up on a modern TV doesn't do it any favours but this is still a gorgeous game, and I wish we had more like this. Which makes the baffling choice to lock gameplay into a 4:3 resolution all the more galling. By mid-2008 not supporting widescreen seems anachronistic and it would especially help on a platformer where you routinely get shot into high-speed running sequences. Instead there's huge borders on the sides showing how many missions you're failing. Yuck!

One more step back now to examine the game's story, such as it is, because it opens with a fully-animated cutscene (with subtitled dialogue and no voices whatsoever). The setting is once again a pocket dimension for no reason, with a whole new cast of baddies, a charisma-free antagonist, and a damsel in distress who exists only for one gag in the ending. It's everything I dislike about Wario Land plots. Bringing back Captain Syrup, Wario's rakish two-time pirate nemesis, is a great idea, only she's relegated to shopkeeper with two lines of dialogue outside of the intro and ending. What a waste! And coming off the banter-filled Master of Disguise, saddling Wario with a silent protagonist role was immensely disappointing when the first-time prospect of verbal sparring with Syrup was right there on the table. Charles Martinet has his vocal quips but even the manual is all but stripped of Wario-style snide asides.

A final step back for the big picture (although may I quickly mention the slow, frustrating boss fights and the further reduced role of status conditions like "on fire" or "frozen" to the point that they're barely there?). I did wonder if the Wario Land series was losing its way with WL4, and sadly it seems so. For me the series peaked with 3, but there's more to the character and his series. Each game has its shining lights and its dull spots, but the identity of the series has morphed over time. It's taken ideas from Mario, Metroid, Kirby, and made them its own. But playing this I felt how Good-Feel had segued from this to Epic Yarn and Woolly World, and in doing so perhaps demonstrated the irrelevance of Wario platformers under Nintendo's overcrowded umbrella. Without a dedicated development team (RIP R&D1), with other puzzle-platformers heavy on environmental interaction jostling for position, and with a successful minigame-based subseries to fall back on, Wario Land just doesn't seem to have a place anymore. The Shake Dimension is now 15 years old and there hasn't been another non-Ware game since. Well, it had a good run. Cheers, big guy.

[yoonpobs]

10 years | ksj

pairing: kim seokjin x oc (ft. brother!jimin)

genre: brother's best friend, angst, forgiveness?, teeny tiny fluff (it's barely there lol)

words: 7, 294

summary: 10 years change people but you still remember

"Why are you freaking out?" Isabelle is attempting to get you to stay in one position, but it's fruitless when all you do is pace back and forth in the space of the changing rooms when you hear people barking orders from the outside.

"Why aren't you freaking out?" You exasperate.

Isabelle glares at you, nimble hands reaching to tighten the lace corset around your waist in one swift motion; turning your body to face her as she does her job of primping you up.

"You're being dramatic." She rolls her eyes.

You huff.

You loved Isabelle, probably because she's been working for your family for years and that she was the mother figure in your life that you never could have gotten from your own biological one—but also because she was the only person that knew her way around that thorny mind of yours.

"What would you do if you haven't seen someone in over ten years and the last memory you have with them is bitter?" You say in a hushed whisper.

Isabelle's eyes soften, hands reaching out to rest on your shoulders as your head droops, anxiety blooming in your chest even if you weren't the one getting married today.

"What can you do but say hello?" She says, "Time doesn't stop for anyone, _____."

You sigh, fiddling with your fingers when you hear the rustles of the curtains, causing both of your heads to turn towards the source of the noise.

"_____, your brother is asking for you." Lea, your brother's wedding planner, peeks her head through the curtains to call you.

Your heart betrays your seemingly calm stature as you begin to perspire, terrified of being face to face with the person that you should've been most excited to see.

"Time's up, ______. You can't run forever." Isabelle says, eyes solemn.

"You'd think being an adult would mean you grow out of old habits ..." Jimin mutters, glaring at you when you finally make your appearance at the rehearsal dinner.

You stick your tongue out at him petulantly, unable to forget the fact that he was no longer the older brother that you hero-worshipped because he excelled in everything that he did, nor was he the kid that stole your figurines to spite you. He was a man, older and more mature—with a wedding to celebrate the beginning of a new life with his partner.

He looks nervous, you can tell because you know Jimin better than most—a position you begrudgingly gave up in replacement of his wife, Risa—so you offer him a squeeze of his shoulder, and a look to tell him that you were here, and he was okay.

Jimin accepts it with a small smile of gratitude, moving aside so you could take your seat on the VIP table where most of his important guests sat, meaning your parents, Risa's parents, the best man and the maid of honour.

From the moment you stepped foot into the hall, you spot the person that should have been unfamiliar to you, but all you can remember is what was the best years of your life that was taken away from you. It should've been hard to spot him through the pastels and people, but you've always had eyes for him—the foolish lens of a girl that didn't want to grow up.

Even as you seat at the table, mingling with your future sister-in-law, and the maid of honour, along with Risa's parents, you can't bring yourself to acknowledge him just yet, and he has yet to make it known that he acknowledges you too.

Perhaps it was the pettiness from both ends. The fact that neither of you wanted to step down just yet, the last known interaction between the both of you only causing your heart to constrict further. You wonder if he remembers you the way you have with him.

"______," Risa calls your name, leaning in to whisper into your ear as you snap your focus on her.

"Hey, sorry." You mumble, scratching your neck, "Was a little distracted."

Risa offers you an understanding smile and you're grateful to the heaven's above that Jimin managed to make a woman like her fall in love with him. It was a far better alternative and change from the demons he used to go for as a high schooler, and you fondly (but not really) remember fighting off crazy exes when your brother decided that they weren't his long-term.

"Is this about ..." You can tell Risa hesitates to say his name, knowing the matter was still a fresh wound for you even if you had a decade to heal.

You sigh, reaching for her hand to give it a squeeze, mustering a strong front so she wouldn't worry anymore.

"Don't worry about me. It's your special day." You remind her with a soft smile.

She scoffs.

"Not yet. This is to ensure nothing goes to shit and no one gets left at the altar on a real day." She mutters.

You giggle, and even Jimin picks up on his soon-to-be wife's comment and pinches her hip, giving her a glare that lacked any real malice. You observe the way Jimin leans into his fiancee's touch when she reaches for his hand, a gesture so simple but carried the weight of lovers that wholly trusted each other.

Sometimes you envied Jimin. Throughout your adolescent years, you were always pinned against him for reasons that you still cannot justify.

The two of you were fundamentally different in nature. Jimin was a quiet kid, but his actions were the ones that spoke for him instead. For what he couldn't say in words, he made up for through the results of his actions. As a younger sibling, watching Jimin excel in every activity that he sets his mind to make you worship him, wanting to be as talented and ambitious as he was.

If he did kendo, you'd sign up so you could carry on the legacy of his talent. When he ran for class president, so did you in your own grades. Everything was always stemmed around Jimin and what he did.

Even if he was quiet, he naturally took the lead in doing things. Where you were the polar opposite. A louder than life personality should have made you the proactive one, but deep down you were meek, timid and terrified of doing things out of your comfort zone.

It did hit a sore spot for you and Jimin's relationship when he grew up enough to no longer facilitate his baby sister's incessant whines and tugs to join him in his activities. You remember the day clearly when he told you that you were nothing but an extension of him.

When you look back, you can think of it as a fond memory of two teenagers that were horrible at speaking about their feelings, but you remember the hurt you felt; only wanting to be a part of Jimin's life when he wanted to be on his own.

It took a few years to repair the relationship that was fragile, to begin with, and it wasn't just the effort of you or Jimin, but—

"Hyung, do you need to run the video through IT to check if it's playable?"

You're brought back to the present when Jimin's voice breaks you out of your thoughts, and you instantly know who he's referring to.

The only person that he could comfortably refer to as 'hyung' was the only person that you have yet to greet, or acknowledge.

"I see what you're doing, Park. You're not seeing this video until the 13th."

The rest of the people at the table laugh at the banter between best friend's, but you remain uncharacteristically silent. No one picks up on it—or if they did, they know well enough not to point it out for the sake of maintaining normalcy at the table.

You listen attentively to the briefing run down by Lea, and you smile fondly at the fire that the young wedding planner carried in herself. She was meticulous, and you only had Risa to thank for managing to get the most dedicated wedding planner that you were sure was out there.

Eventually, you had to practice the walk-in from the runway, up until the altar behind where the bride and groom were to be situated. That meant you have shuffled around under Lea's commands, and that you caught more of his appearance than you would have liked.

Of course, he grew up beautifully. He had always been exceptionally good-looking even from when you were in high school up to your early college years. The birth lottery definitely favoured some people, and he was on the top of the list.

But he no longer had the same youthful charm that he did when you last saw him at 23. He looked rougher around the edges, lines on his face that come with time and experience, the stroke of a paintbrush that you weren't there to witness. Age did him well—and you couldn't deny the fact that as he grew, he also grew more attractive. The assuredness that comes with age, and the physique that you can only appreciate from afar.

The suit he's wearing is ever so flattering on his broad shoulders. He followed the theme well, a black blazer, with a deep-maroon sash draped over his shoulders. You applaud the designer that had done the fitting for him because it looked perfect, quite literally like it was made for him.

You feel mediocre immediately. The dress you were wearing was stunning—in the most objective sense—and you had a matching coloured sash that was draped around your hips instead, the corset accentuating your figure. But you were still far from comparison from him. You always have been.

"_____, could you please stand next to Jin?" Lea's voice calls out an order from the front of the altar, waving her notebook at you to step aside.

Your eyes widen as you feel the blood in your face drain, hearing your new position for the photo session.

You don't want to throw anyone off, or make Jimin's special day about you—so you suck it up, take a deep breath and shuffle into position next to Jin.

His presence is overwhelming. It's like he's there but he isn't. He doesn't feel like he's there, probably because of how long the two of you haven't spoken to each other, basically strangers. You don't acknowledge him even when your shoulder accidentally brushes against his arm, and you definitely don't acknowledge him when Lea smiles at the two of you and says perfect.

You see Risa's concerned stare on the two of you, but you give her a tight smile and mouth to her to focus on what Lea's saying instead. She narrows her eyes at you but finally relents when you nod your head to tell her that it was fine.

You were older. You weren't going to let some ... you didn't even know what to call it. But you weren't going to let the past make you feel uncomfortable when the future hasn't been told just yet.

"Jin—could you loosen up a little? It looks like you're constipated and your face isn't going to make up for that on camera," Lea deadpans, shooting a blunt comment straight at Jin.

He flushes beside you, but you don't look at him to know that because you hypothesised that he still has the same habit of his ear's turning red if all attention is on him.

"You and I know my face would've been the highlight of the picture if it weren't for the lovebirds." He quips back.

You can't find it in yourself to laugh yet when others do, but you look down at your feet to pretend like you were distracted.

Even his voice sounds more like himself. He had always been Jin, but it's like he grew out of the mould he forced himself into when you last saw him; a more relaxed yet determined version of the past that no longer exists.

"Jin!" Lea calls out.

"That seems to be your favourite word today ..." Jin mutters, which causes Jimin to snort at his best friend's antics.

Risa slaps your brother on his shoulder and narrows her eyes at him, and it's comical how fast she managed to get him to neutralise his expression.

"For a very good reason," Lea retorts, "Could you hold _____ by the waist? The space between the two of you looks too awkward."

If only she knew.

This was possibly the situation that you wanted to avoid the most, not even acknowledging him yourself, or his name to say hello—but he had to hold you close like you were something to him.

"Shouldn't he be holding the maid of honour—?" You helplessly try to reason, but the words get stuck in your throat when Lea glares at you.

For someone younger than you, and smaller than you in height too—she was terrified when she had to be.

"It's ... fine," Jin says after a beat of silence.

Then, his hand snakes around your waist so snug as he pulls you slightly closer to him that you almost lose your footing.

You gulp, unable to ignore the heat of his grasp or the way that it feels so natural as he rests his palm loosely on your hips, fingers drumming against the bone absentmindedly as Lea directs the photographer with angles that she best believe captures the moment.

When the photographer begins the countdown, you force a smile as genuine as you can, while Jin squeezes your hips as the shutter goes off.

"You two looked comfy." Jimin slides into the seat next to you after the rehearsal, rubbing on his eye with a cotton pad to remove the makeup that was applied on him.

You scowl, swatting his hand away to berate him for causing wrinkles so early on as he huffs at your adamancy.

"Don't ignore me," He pokes your side as you sigh.

"Then don't overthink it, okay? It was for the picture." You grumble, eyes focused on the bits and bobs of makeup tools at the vanity inside the changing rooms.

You can feel Jimin's stare on you, as well as how hard he thinks. Call it a sibling intuition, but you knew exactly when he was overanalysing situations, and you felt that at this exact moment.

"You know you have to speak to him eventually, right?" Jimin says after a while.

You freeze, fingers pausing as you tap against the table. Your eyes meet Jimin's through the mirror and you know he's serious, his expression says it all. But he wasn't there when it happened, and he wasn't you to feel how it felt.

"I went for ten years without talking to him. Another ten won't be hard." You clip.

Jimin sighs, turning his body to face you as you keep your shoulders towards him. It feels very much like when you were younger when Jimin sat you down to lecture you about your behaviour, or reprimanding you for doing certain things to keep you safe.

But it's vastly different. You're twenty-eight now, and you no longer took Jimin's words as the word of God, and he knew that.

"I don't know what exactly what went down between the two of you but according to Jin—"

"And you don't need to. It's been ages, Jimin. I've moved on." You snap.

Jimin purses his lips, seeing the way you're beginning to draw up all your walls against him again. It makes his heart clench because there was a time where you would have told him everything, where you would have confided him when you were having troubles. But he knew he ruined that relationship himself, and even if it's been over a decade since that fight the two of you had, the scar of the experience would always be there to haunt you both.

He knew you didn't hold it against him anymore, but he also recognised the way you'd subtly pull away sometimes, the reason why you never visited as often as you said you would in your infrequent phone calls.

"I'm just ..." He mumbles, looking at you earnestly but you don't return the stare, "I'm worried, ______."

You scoff.

"You don't need to. I won't cause a scene at your wedding, okay? I—I'm not like that ..." You start off strong, but finish in a soft whisper.

Jimin's eyes soften when he reaches a hand to rest against your shoulder.

"That's not what I meant." He sighs.

"Whatever it is that you meant just ... forget it, okay? I'm a grown-up now. I'm not your baby sister anymore." You tell him.

He flinches at the bluntness of your words but knows that you don't mean any harm to them. It was the truth that he had a hard time accepting, especially when he could've been there for you more during the years of university and the beginning of your work-life.

"I ..." Jimin trails off.

You sigh, turning around to finally face him.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that," You wince, "It's just that ... you don't need to worry about my battles anymore, Jimin. I've learnt how to deal with them on my own and you have your own set of things to worry about. I'll always be your sister, and nothing will change that—but I'm just not the same, impressionable girl I was a decade ago."

Jimin bites his lip as he mulls over your words, a fact hard for him to accept but nevertheless, he must. He always had the tendency to be overprotective and possessive, whether it be of his relationships, activities or belongings—it was an ugly trait that got the best of him from time to time.

He knew deep down, that he played a part in why you and Jin are so sour with each other, and he can't easily get rid of that guilt.

"I know, I know," He exhales, "If that's the case then ..."

You raise an eyebrow, willing him to continue.

"Then?"

"Don't let me be the reason why you can't fight your battles," He tells you softly.

Your expression remains stoic, but you internally agree with what he says. You'd never blame Jimin, and you knew it was irrational to do so—but the ugly feeling of needing someone to blame that wasn't yourself or Jin was dominant in your conscious.

"I promise." You smile at him extending your pinky finger out, and he grins at the old ritual the two of you would do as kids.

"Good." He ruffles your hair, and you glare at him when he messes up your up-do that Isabelle spent a long time on.

"Dude!" You whine, but he snickers at your reaction.

"Ah, can't believe that I'm getting married in a week." He adds as he stares at the ceiling.

You smile to yourself and nod your head in agreement.

"Remember when you told me you were going to marry Hana?" You snort.

He grimaces, the memories of his college self resurfacing at the reminder of his ex-girlfriend's name.

"Thank God you snapped me out of it," He whistles lowly, "She was fucking insane."

You chuckle at that because Jimin sure had a type, and it was the insane girls with daddy issues. Even Risa was a little crazy but she had a good heart to make up for it.

"It seems to be a trend with you." You shrug your shoulders.

He narrows his eyes at you and flicks you on the forehead before he glances down at his watch to curse under his breath.

"Fuck. I have a meeting at the office," He groans.

Your lips tilt upwards at his distraught as you pat him on the shoulder, gesturing him to leave.

"Don't worry. I'll find my way home."

"Are you sure—"

"Yes, Jimin—I'm sure. Now leave before they find a new CEO." You quip teasingly.

He thanks you, and presses a kiss onto your forehead before he scampers off, grabbing at his coat before he's out the door.

Once he's out of the room, you sigh to yourself; suddenly oddly nostalgic at your childhood, up to teenage memories as you and Jimin were speaking about it.

You purse your lips, unable to get Jin out of your head even when you look back to all the fun times you had as a teenager because he's always been there ... until he wasn't.

You wince, remembering the day it happened so clearly.

The smell of burnt something pricks the air and you only have yourself to blame.

You curse when you see clouds of black smoke escaping the small vents of your oven, the shady proof of how horrible you were at baking even if it was for a cause that resonated deeply in your heart.

You were thankful that your mom wasn’t home to witness your blunder because she surely would have yapped your ear off for trusting your clumsy self in the kitchen, let alone baking a recipe that was far out of your skill range.

“Why does it smell like—_____, really?” Jimin’s voice enters your thoughts as he ascends down the stairs of your home to spot you hastily fanning the smoke away with your mittens.

“Can you shut up and help me?” You hiss.

He laughs, loud and clear as he clutches his stomach to control his body.

“Dude—why?” He wheezes.

You chuck one of the mittens at him when he finally enters the kitchen, body moving at its own accord to get the trash bin along with the mitten that you threw at him while he pushes your body aside.

“Jin’s leaving tomorrow so I thought I would make some of his favourite shortbreads …” You mutter.

Jimin gracefully plucks out the burnt batch of shortbread and chucks it into the waste bin as you pout at your efforts being thrown away.

“And you didn’t bother asking for help when you know he gets his shortbread’s from a bakery?” He deadpans.

You roll your eyes and wipe your hands on your apron as you sigh.

“Look—I wasn’t thinking and now I don’t have anything to give him before he leaves!” You pout.

Jimin eyes you suspiciously and raises an eyebrow as he leans against the counter to observe your sullen expression.

“So? It’s not like he’d care.”

You glare at him.

“Well—I care.” You retort.

Jimin is silent for a moment before his eyes widen, his body inching closer to yours as if he found out something that he needed to tell you.

“Do you … do you like Jin?” Jimin gasps.

Your eyes widen, cheeks reddening simultaneously as you quickly shake your head to deny the fact—even though your heart and face betray you.

“W-What?” You squeak, “Of course not! It’s just a nice gesture to send him off.”

Jimin scoffs and narrows his eyes at you accusingly.

“Then why did you go out of your way to bake him something he likes when you know you’re hopeless in the kitchen?”

You roll your eyes, hoping your nonchalance plays off well enough to distract Jimin from the way your handshakes at the prospect of being caught.

“He’s my friend, Jimin. I do nice things for my friends sometimes.”

Jimin looks like he doesn’t believe you, and you wish that for one moment he wouldn’t use his brain to overthink your words or the sibling telepathy he claims to have to unravel your heart’s true intentions.

“He’s my best friend. Aren’t I supposed to be the one doing all of …” He gestures to the mess of the kitchen you left it in, “… this?”

“Well you don’t own him and you definitely don’t pick who Jin’s friends with. So fuck off will you?” You snap.

Jimin narrows his eyes at you.

“He’s five years older than you.” He reminds you slowly.

You sigh, busying yourself with cleaning up the kitchen counter.

“And? You’re two years older than me but you don’t see me condemning our sibling-ship.” You retort.

“That’s not what I meant,” He groans, “He doesn’t need a kid having a crush on him, okay? He’s off to university.”

The way Jimin uses the word ‘kid’ doesn’t sit well with you, as if to tell you that you were inferior to him and Jin because you were younger than him. But you weren’t far off, and heck, you’d argue that you were far more mature than your brother or any of his friends.

“I’m graduating high school this year.” You sneer.

“And Jin is off to university!” He exasperates.

“I don’t know what your problem is because I—don’t—have—a—crush—on—him!” You emphasise with a shove of your finger to his chest with every word.

“You better not because that’ll be weird. I don’t need my sister crushing on my best friend.” He scrunches his nose when he says that.

The drop of your heart is inevitable, but you’ve long decided that you don’t live your life to please Jimin anymore, and what you wanted what was what mattered.

“Yeah, yeah,” You wave him off, chucking the last bit of your dishes into the sink before you glance over at the clock.

“Tell mom I’ll be out!” You say, throwing off your apron as you quickly check your appearance when you grab for your car keys.

“Where are you going?” Jimin asks.

You glare at him, slipping on your shoes as quickly as you possibly can before you call out to him, halfway out the door:

“Jin’s!”

“Oh, hey _____.” Jin is surprised when you turn up on his doorstep.

“Hey yourself,” You smile, stepping in after you’ve slipped your shoes off.

“What … what are you doing here?” He asks when the two of you make your way up to his room, after offering a greeting to his parents and brother in the kitchen.

You flop on to the beanbag at the corner of his room and give him a knowing stare.

“You’re leaving tomorrow.” You say.

He nods his head, understanding as he glances around his barren room, most of his belongings packed away in his luggage.

“Are you here to say goodbye?” He teases.

You scoff.

“I suppose.” You shrug, “There was supposed to be shortbread too but …”

He laughs, a sound that you’ve come to adore, even as a young girl you always thought Jin was the funniest person ever. When Jimin would argue that he was funnier, you’d always jump to defend Jin’s ability to make you laugh instead.

“I appreciate the sentiment,” He says to you, plopping down to sit across from you.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving.” You sigh, resting your head against the plushness of the beanbag.

Jin snorts.

“Why does it sound like I’m never coming back?” He jokes.

“Well, for starters, you’re going to be in a completely different time-zone. Two, flight tickets get super expensive during the holiday season’s so I doubt you’d be back. And three—you’d probably make cool university friends keep you company so that you wouldn’t wanna’ come back anyways.”

Jin looks at you, lips twitching upwards as you complain.

“You … you thought that through, huh?”

You roll your eyes, chucking a figurine in his direction.

“Just, promise to call?” You whisper.

He smiles softly at you and nods.

“Course’. I’ll ring Jimin up and we can all talk.”

You blink at his choice of words, afraid he’s misunderstood your point.

“I mean … you can call me …” You mutter.

Jin pauses for a moment, before catching himself and chuckling softly under his breath.

“Wouldn’t that be kind of weird …?”

His choice of words only reminds you of Jimin’s tone when he warned you against your apparent (but very present) crush on Jin.

“Why would it be weird?” You tilt your head to the side.

He snorts at your question and you frown because you don’t understand what aspect of it was funny at all.

“Come on, you’re Jimin’s baby sister. If I called you it would seem predatorial, won’t it? I’m literally five years older than you.”

You don’t think he means to sound condescending, but the tone of his words definitely come across that way. You bite your tongue to not say anything rash just yet, as you take a deep breath before you respond.

“We’re friends … and I turn eighteen in June.” You remind him about your birthday coming in two months.

He shrugs.

“Yes but it’s still weird. It would just seem like we’re together, you know?”

His words make you freeze, eyes widening at his implication.

“Would that be such a bad thing …?” You whisper, and the words leave your mouth before you can think twice.

Jin hears you loud and clear, and his eyes widen. You see his body tense and the way he shifts away from you ever-so-slightly that it makes your heart drop.

“_____ … I don’t …” He tries to navigate the topic, but your eyes are bored straight on his face and it flusters him.

“You’re a kid, _____. I don’t date kids.” He snaps, deciding to opt for a defensive approach.

The demeaning term sets you off as you feel anger bubble through your system in bursts of hotness.

“I’m not a fucking kid!” You snap, and his eyes widen at your tone.

“Woah, calm down—”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” You lash out, “I’m not some dumb or naive child that doesn’t know what’s right or wrong, okay? I’m turning eighteen this year—and I—I thought you were better than this. How could you be so shallow?”

Jin scoffs.

“Shallow? _____,” He deadpans, “You’re just turning eighteen and I’m twenty-three. That’s a whole five-year difference. I don’t think you’re dumb but the thought of dating you right after you turn eighteen is just …” He shudders.

You still.

You didn’t know Jin could hurt you so much with just words, but he did just that. He didn’t need to say much, but you felt every sting that came with his intentions.

“Who said anything about dating?” You ask hoarsely, “I just said to call me.”

Jin softens a little, turning to face you as he sighs.

“_____ … I know you have a crush on me and—”

You’re absolutely mortified when he exposes you out in the open like that, the truth left out for both of you to mull over; but even worse for you as you were the one that was on the plank.

“Why does everyone keep saying that!” You snap, embarrassment crawling up your neck as you avoid his gaze, attempting to deflect.

“—I don’t need you waiting for me when I’m off to university. I’ll be fucking around a lot and you don’t deserve that.”

You gape at him, stunned at his audacity.

“Do you think I’m that pathetic?” You laugh, but there’s no humour in it.

“What? No—”

“Oh, you so do, Kim Seokjin,” You snarl, “Do you think I would wait for you? To live out some stupid fairytale? Yes—I have a crush on you but that’s all there is to it—a fucking crush!” You yell.

His eyes widen, attempting to reach out for you to calm you down, but you shift away.

“I’m not asking for your hand in marriage but just for a fucking phone call. I’m not even asking you to like me back!” You throw your hands into the air.

“But you’re implying it! Why else would I call some girl that I’m only friends with cause' of her brother if I didn’t like her?”

That’s all it takes for silence to overtake the both of you, your mouth stunned shut as your eyes widen at his words.

“What?” You choke.

It’s like Jin is blinded by the need to defend himself, a carnal desire to protect his own heart to make him feel less like a weirdo about the way his best friend’s little sister makes him feel. An odd feeling he never wanted to acknowledge until he acknowledged you.

“I mean exactly what I said, ____,” He spits so vehemently that he doesn’t recognise himself, “All you do is follow us around like some helpless puppy because of what—your crush on me? Get over it because I’ll never like you.”

You freeze, and your heart does too.

“Do you think I willingly talk to you? It’s because of Jimin! You’re his baby sister. What else could I do? Tell you to fuck off?” He snaps.

Your lip trembles but you will yourself not to cry in front of him. Not this boy who thinks of you that way, as someone’s baby sister rather than who you were.

“You don’t need to tell me anything,” You say, oddly calm, but your glassy eyes are what snaps Jin out of it.

“Wait … ____,” He sighs.

“I’ll fuck off myself, all right?” You grit, pushing yourself off the beanbag before you’re storming out of his room.

Jin doesn’t bother chasing after you because he’s mulling over his words, absolutely disgusted with what he said. His parents and brother miss you when you’re out the door crying.

Jimin doesn’t even ask how you were.

“Oh—”

It’s like he’s always there at your most vulnerable moments.

Jin is hovering by the entrance of the changing room awkwardly, his limbs too long for the tight space.

He startles you out of your reminiscent state as you clutch the robe to your chest, acutely aware of the fact that you were in nothing but your bra and underwear underneath it.

You flush, avoiding his eyes, afraid that if you looked at them; all you would remember is what he said to you.

“It’s fine,” You parrot the words he said to you earlier, and quickly pack your belongings, and casual clothes into a bag to make your way out back into your hotel room.

As you brush past him, he stops you with his voice.

“______.”

You freeze, hands still tightly gripping your robe as you feel his eyes rake over your body. You feel both exposed and safe, because once upon a time—Jin was the person that could comfort you the most.

“Yes?” You say in a clipped tone.

You hear him sigh, and you’re about to leave until he interrupts you again.

“How are you?”

You nearly scoff at the mediocre question he poses when the situation between the two of you is anything but. The question seems so out of place when the room is so tense, the ghost of his words here to haunt you both.

“Good.” Is all you respond with before you try to leave.

He grabs you by the elbow, gently, but enough for you to fall against his chest, his arms reaching around to grab you before you fall.

The opening to your robe falls a bit, and his eyes dart away out of respect as you quickly shove it closed with reddened ears.

“What do you want?” You snap.

He winces at your hostility but doesn’t blame you for it.

“I just wanted to catch up with you,” He shrugs.

Now, you scoff. It’s because Jin is still so irrevocably him, that in any other circumstance you’d smile in fondness at his ability to make any situation simple as if there wasn’t history between the two of you.

“Do you now?” You say blandly, “What do you want to know? I’m still Jimin’s baby sister if you were wondering.” You say bitterly.

Jin freezes and sighs when you bring it up; alluding to what he said to you that night years ago.

“Actually … I wanted to apologise,” He confesses.

At that, you still.

Apologise?

Did you need an apology? Wasn’t that what usually fixed conflict?

But no, an apology wasn’t going to fix the years of insecurity that you were left with when he was gone, always nitpicking at your flaws and your identity; wondering if it were really only an extension of your older brother.

Even though you were older, and somewhat more rational—there was still a part of you that wanted to blame Jin for your insecurities, even though you knew that was a war between you and yourself.

“For what? Calling me an extension of my brother or that our friendship was to please Jimin?” You snarl.

He winces and releases the hold he has on your elbow as he rubs his hand across his face.

“I was young and—”

You scoff.

“Young? I thought you were too old back then? Where was this energy ten years ago?”

His eyes narrow at you, and he noticed that you definitely grew a backbone—and a mouth. It was inappropriate still, to think of you any other way right now when he was attempting to apologise to you.

But your beauty was dangerous, and you’ve always been a pretty thing; even when you were growing up. The truth he uttered a decade ago was somewhat the truth still, he felt way too … old to be with you, even if his heart begged for him to keep you close.

“I don’t know why I said the things I did, _____.” He sighs.

You turn around, face contorted with every emotion you’ve been withholding since that fateful night.

“Let me tell you then,” You shove a finger into his chest.

“You’re pathetic,” You spit, hoping to hurt him as much as he’s hurt you.

His eyes widen when you lean in closer.

“You liked me too and you had no fucking clue what to do about it, so you pushed me away the one night I asked for a small favour. You wanted to protect yourself because you’re too in your head thinking that your feelings matter more than anyone else’s, am I right Jin?”

“_______ …”

“Shut up,” You snap.

He does, and he sees the fire in your eyes burn brighter.

“You thought you were the only one that was struggling with their emotions but guesses what—you weren’t,” You whisper, “I was too. And I pushed it aside every moment I spent with you because I knew that it wasn’t my position to decide for you if you liked me or not.”

His hand reaches out to cup your face, something instinctual inside of him told him to do so—wanting to hold you close. To his surprise, you don’t pull away. Your features soften, but you haven’t done your piece just yet.

“But you … you decided for me.” You say softly, “You showed me how much of a piece of shit you were that night.”

Jin’s eyes widen, and the words hurt—but nothing compared to how he felt when you blocked him everywhere, even to go as far to tell Jimin to never mention your name to him.

It sucked for the first two years, but eventually as you went to college and university, you unblocked him. Was it out of spite to let him see how well you were doing? Or the boyfriend that you had?

Maybe.

“_____, I’m sorry.”

Here he was, at thirty-four years old, apologising to you much like a man would—and you can’t help but admire his face when you lean in, heart willing yourself to act rather than your rationale.

“I forgave you a long time ago,” You say.

It seems that you shock him more and more with each second that passes. You weren’t the same girl you were a decade ago, but yet traces of you still lingered in your features, your smile, your voice and your words. It was just you, but older.

“It was for me.” You tell him softly and he nods his head in understanding, cupping your jaw.

“You have no idea how much I regret that night, ______.” He whispers.

You purse your lips.

“What will regret bring you, Jin? A do-over?”

This time he goes silent to observe your face. It’s no longer the same cold stare you’ve been giving him the entire day or the fact that you’ve been ignoring his presence until he found you tucked away in the changing room—a tip-off from Jimin.

“No but … you’re right,” He tells you, “I wanted to protect myself and it was selfish. I can’t change what I said or did but I’m here now and—my heart is still the same.”

“Ten years change people, Jin. I’ve changed and so did you. Maybe you liked the girl I was when I was eighteen but I’m nowhere near in the same mind-space I was back then.” You tell him.

Even though your own heart betrays you by beating rapidly against your chests the closer the holds you, you knew that acting out of your rationale would only end up with you being hurt yet again. You forgave Jin … sure you did. But ten years was far too long to accept the fact he may feel the same.

“I know but I couldn’t forget you, not when I was in university and not when I started working.” He confesses, eyes burning into your own.

You purse your lips and stand your ground. A hand reaches to clasp his, slowly pushing it away from your face as you sigh. You notice the crestfallen expression on his face, but you don’t comment on it.

“I forgave you but that doesn’t mean I forgot what you said to me that night …” You tell him, “I know I was young and that you aren’t responsible for my insecurities but you told me every single thing that I was terrified of.”

His eyes soften but ensuring he kept his distance when you slightly pull away.

“_____—” He sighs.

“No, Jin,” You tell him firmly, “You were the person that mended Jimin and I’s relationship so you knew how much it ruined me to believe that I was nothing but a product of his aspirations. That I had nothing for myself but who my brother was. I struggled so much to find my footing as a teenager and I didn’t even know what I liked and didn’t like it because the lines were so blurred between my own interests and Jimin’s.”

Suddenly, he sees a little glimpse of the girl when you were eighteen peakings through your exterior. You still sounded a little unsure of yourself, words shaking ever so slightly.

“And for the person to tell me that I was more than just Park Jimin’s sister to … to …” You swallow, the words stuck in your throat because as much as forgiving Jin was for him as it was to you, the words still haunt your mind.

“To say that I was just an extension of my brother?” You whisper, “I didn’t know who I was then but I lost who I tried to be when you said that.”

Jin bites his lip, feeling awful. But he knew that he had no right to feel like he was the one that was hurt when his words plagued your mind for years.

“Whatever your feelings are at this moment …” You trail off, clutching your belongings to your chest, ready to leave without another glance, “They’re just your guilt telling you to hold on to something you didn’t get closure with.”

You look over at him once more, a solemn expression on your face.

“This is your closure, Jin.”

You leave without sparing him another glance, and the man stands in the empty changing room feeling a lot different. He thought he’d amended things, but when you leave, it feels as bad as it had been ten years ago.

[anemo-writes]

hello travelers! again, thank you for putting up with my inactivity, it’s been hard to write lately haha. anyways, i thought this would be something fun to post and for everyone to enjoy, whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day or not :) (note: this will probably be more fanon than canon so please bear with me, i’ll make it as canon as it can be :’) i also kept this pretty short, so hopefully that’s okay too,, and sorry for this being late haha—i wrote this very late at night so don’t mind any typos you find please)

much love,

~ anemo-chan <3

(The Playable) Genshin Impact Characters on Valentine’s Day (Romantically)

super romantic; gifts you a bouquet of flowers and takes you out to eat at a fancy restaurant/cooks for you.

Diluc

He is nervous. He’s never paid close attention to the countless amount of people who have lined outside the tavern to ask him to be their Valentine, only to be rejected. There was absolutely no way that he would turn to Kaeya for advice, so unfortunately this was something he would have to figure out for himself. He figures that it wouldn’t hurt to go traditional, so that’s what he does; he buys a large bouquet of roses (which he had to get from Donna, seeing that at the hours that he ended work were very late and Flora’s shop was not open at the time—yeah, that was not fun) and presents himself outside your doorway, to which he invites you to join him for a late dinner—which he makes!

Lisa

She leaves a letter on top of your nightstand, paired along with a singular rose. The letter states for you to meet her outside of Good Hunter, where you find her sitting at a table with a candle dimly-lighting up the surroundings. She greets you with a warm smile, gesturing for you to sit down—the two of you enjoy a candle-lit dinner as well as bolognese she specially requested for Sara to make for the two of you to enjoy together why does this remind me so much of Lady and the Tramp,,

Tartaglia

Oh boy. It’s always a fun time spending a holiday with him, seeing that it could go two ways; one, he would be too busy to celebrate it with you on the day of, and he would take you out the day after, or two—have a store’s entire line of merchandise presented to you outside your doorstep, in which a very, very smiley Tartaglia hidden within the pile (after all, he was the best present!) After you’re done moving all of the gifts into your house (it took up the space of your entire living room), he tells you to cover your eyes and follow him. He takes you to one of the most well-known restaurants in Liyue (which currently doesn’t have a name because it is very late here!), and insists that you order whatever you want, and however much you want.

Zhongli

Over the years, he’s witnessed many, many couples celebrate this holiday and every year he’s wished to do the same. He finds the perfect opportunity to do so when Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and boy does he plan it out for the two of you. He’s even made sure to have his wallet on him at all times—it would be extremely rude for you to have to pay if he happened to forget his wallet. He makes sure to stop by to pick up a bouquet of flowers, as well as a bottle of perfume (not in a bad way, just to clarify) from Ying’er’s shop that he recalled you liked. He makes sure to pick you up early from your work place to make sure you made it to your appointment on time; after all, being late to an appointment was similar to breaking a contract, no?

surprises you with homemade sweets.

Fischl

Oh, she is so nervous—of course, she doesn’t show this. The entire week, she spent researching recipes to create a special batch of chocolate-dipped strawberries just for you—she even sent Oz to the nearby farms to “borrow” the freshest strawberries for the treat (the farmers were too scared to confront the talking bird who “borrowed” their strawberries, so luckily they got away with it). She dips them in a purple-colored chocolate (because what other color would she use, really?) and drizzles on a dark-chocolate syrup to top it off. She’s too shy to actually give it to you herself though, so she has Oz drop it off for her.

Ganyu

Even though she’s quite busy, she’s somehow found time to whip up a special batch of chocolate just for you! She shapes them into Glaze Lilies (which she found quite hard, which is why there are so few of them) and presents them to you in a neatly-sealed box. She’s quite modest when your eyes widen and tell her it’s the best chocolate you have ever eaten, claiming that she only followed a recipe, when she really made it from scratch.

Keqing

Like Ganyu, you have no idea how she finds time to create a perfect array of chocolates, which she made herself! However, with her tightly-packed schedule, she has to drop it off at your house in advance, to which you accept happily. She tried to decorate them with designs of cartoon-versions of your faces, but they’re a bit...messy. Nonetheless, they’re tasty, and to her relief, you enjoy them.

Mona

Somehow, she’s managed to scrape up enough mora to buy you a necklace; yes, a necklace, and a real one at that—none of that fake, costume jewelry stuff! She even added a pendant shaped like star, just so you could be reminded of her whenever you fiddled with it or even glanced at it. She’s quite flustered when she gives it to you, ignoring the way you ask how she managed to save this much mora to be able to buy something like this, changing the subject on how you should never-ever take it off (because it looks great on you.)

Noelle

One word: pancakes. (Have you seen the ones she makes for her special dishes? They’re frigging amazing) As a dutiful maid should, she wakes up especially early to prepare a homemade breakfast just for you, to which she serves to you just as your wake up in bed. The fluffy stack of pancakes are decorated with fruits cut up in heart-shapes, as well the words, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Y/N”, written neatly with chocolate syrup—it’s quite a sight to see, to be honest, and utterly delicious. Lucky you!

Xiangling

The day before, she tells you to meet her at the restaurant around noon. When you arrive, the restaurant is adorned with Valentine decorations, as well as a terrifying amount of food; she insists that she only made it for you, so you better eat up! Before she can show you the other dishes, the restaurant is suddenly filled with a strong, bitter smell—something burning. With a yelp, she runs into the kitchen, coming out a few minutes later with a tray of half-scorched cupcakes, their Gouba-shapes adorned with...a lot of burn marks. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, doesn’t it?

buys/makes a present for you.

Albedo

Without your knowledge, Albedo has been creating a collection of artworks throughout all the time you had spent together. The pieces include portraits of you, portraits of you and him (sucrose helped with this), as well as just random sketches of the little things that remind him of you, such as the bare, snowy-white terrain where the two of you first met, as well as its flora and fauna. If you request it, he’ll even make the painting come alive (literally), and the two of you run to Sucrose’s dwelling, who is very shocked to see the pair of you running from a Frosted Lawachurl when she peered out her window to see if she could pinpoint the sounds of distant screaming.

Amber

Is there anything better than a matching set of wind gliders? Not only that—they were homemade! She spent the last couple of weeks putting together a pair of gliders for the two of you, customizing them to your tastes (which she nailed!) She quite literally drags you to the nearest hill to test them out, and the two of you end up challenging each other on who can get back to the Knights of Farvonius Headquarters the fastest—spoiler alert: she did.

Barbara

Oh, she would make the cutest card for you—the envelope is decorated with cute stickers (some of them even had her face on it; there’s nothing like promoting merchandise, am i right? jkjks) She also pairs it off with a box of chocolates that she bought from Sara—however, what she didn’t know was that in the box was a special-edition spicy chocolate truffle. With your luck, that was the first one you chose—and boy, were you met a surprise (it was so bad that you were begging Barbara to use her Vision on you, which she refused of course). Fun times.

Chongyun

He’s real sweet. After his expeditions and commissions, he opens the freezer (yes he keeps them in there, don’t judge him) to an array of ice sculptures, shapes varying from flowers, hearts, and such—although it’s quite the simple gift, he’s put a lot of effort into them, even putting in the extra effort to cast a spell to make sure they would not melt; it’s all worth though, when he sees the absolutely giddy expression on your face, and the look of pure awe as you pick one up and study it closely, admiring all of the details and work that’s he put in.

Ningguang

She sends out informants to find out what you like, whether it be something that your gaze settled on for too long or something you’ve mentioned while talking to her—on the day of, you open your door to a mountain of gifts, with Ningguang herself peering out from behind it with a calm smile and a wave (which was the opposite of your reaction, because who has that much mora to purchase all of these gifts?!?)

Razor

He doesn’t have a clue on what the holiday until Lisa asks him if he’s planned something for the two of you during one of his lessons. When he shakes his head no, Lisa suggests that he make you something, to which he sets out on an adventure to do, looking for flowers and flower stems to weave into a pair of matching bracelets—they’re not the prettiest, but he is pretty proud of it; after all, it was his first time making something like that. He’s quite nervous to present it to you, afraid that you might not like it, but all feelings of worry melt away when you slide it on with a huge smile on your face, insisting that he wears his too.

Sucrose

At first, she considers gifting you a present that she created herself; of course, with her work being alchemy, she isn’t sure if that would be the safest option, despite being talented herself. And so, she resorts to buying a present for you—she is very picky with the present though, insisting that it should be perfect since she could not make one herself. She even consults Albedo when selecting some of the presents (he doesn’t help her unfortunately; he believes that she should figure it out herself haha). Like Razor, she’s quite nervous to give it to you, but lets out a huge sigh of relief as you thank her happily for the gift, wiping a bead of sweat from across her forehead (sucrose bby anything you give us would be perfect,,)

whisks you away somewhere sentimental, where the two of you can enjoy a special date.

Beidou

It’s ungodly early in the morning when Beidou presents herself in front of your doorstep, announcing that you’ll be joining her and the crew on a special ride. She tugs you along beside her until you reach the harbor, where you are met with the sight of her ship adorned with streamers and banners, varying between shades of pink and red. Onboard, there is a table filled with goodies the crew collected and made, and boy do they look delicious. The group sets out to sea, and you take your place next to the captain, who even lets you steer the boat (momentarily, at least.)

Bennett

He takes you to meet his dads; yes, yes—he knows that it’s not the most romantic thing to do on a day dedicated to lovers, but he figures it’s just as important. Besides, they’ve been asking about you for quite a while—they even set up a small party within the Adventurer’s Guild, with the help of Bennett, of course. You spend the day listening to their old adventuring stories, as well as bits from Bennett’s childhood (poor boy is flustered from all the information his dads are spilling, but he’s still happy either way; after all, he’s with the most important people to him.)

Kaeya

He quite literally kidnaps you; one second you’re walking in the streets of Mondstadt on your way to work when suddenly someone grabs you by the waist and pulls you into an alley way (that sounds so creepy but i swear he means it in a good way). He only chuckles and shields himself with his arms as you punch him lightly, retorting that he scared you. He doesn’t care that the two of you have an overwhelming amount of work to do—after all, Valentine’s Day only comes once a year, right? Surprisingly, he doesn’t take you the tavern, but instead...Dawn Winery! Diluc received quite the surprise when he is met with the two of you standing outside his gates, with Kaeya requesting a wine/grape juice taste-testing. Yeah...you guys didn’t get any of that, but you did manage to snag a couple of grapes on your way out! Good for you!

Venti

You wake up in your bed, opening your eyes to see a very-smiley Venti laying beside you, chin propped up against his hand as he watches you yawn sleepily as you force yourself out of bed. You’re then presented with a handpicked-bouquet of Ceceilias, the freshest of the bunch, if he may add. You barely have time to thank him before he hoists you up in his arms and out of your dwelling, gliding over the city of Mondstadt as he whisks you away to Starsnatch Cliff, where he’s prepared a special performance just for you (and no, you don’t need to pay.)

Xingqiu

While he’s not the most romantic, he does have a clue on what people look for on Valentine’s Day; after all, that’s what cheesy-romance novels were for, right? Unbeknownst to you, he takes you on a date very similar to the one the main characters in his favorite novels partook in—and you don’t find out until you catch him peeking into the pages while you weren’t (you were) looking. Again, it’s the thought that counts—

doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Jean

Sadly, she probably forgets about the holiday. She’s too busy holed-up in her office to notice the couples gathered up in the courtyard, sharing moments with their lover. It’s not until she walks out to take a breather that she notices the commotion—she immediately calls you over, apologizing frantically. Of course, to this you respond that’s it’s okay, but that you would much rather her take the rest of the day off to spend time together, to which she reluctantly agrees.

Xiao

“I do not have time to celebrate silly human traditions like that.” He would say as you bound up to him, exclaiming that it’s Valentine’s Day, the day where you can give sweets to your loved ones, and asking if he had someone special in mind to spend it with. He’s irked when your gaze falters and the grip on the object you’re hiding behind your back tightens—he only grows more irked as you mutter to yourself how you’ll give the chocolates you made to someone else. He scoffs loudly, avoiding your gaze as he lays out his hand in front of you to accept the chocolates (just because he doesn’t celebrate the holiday doesn’t mean he can’t get jealous!)

[shihalyfie]

Shiramine Nokia, and her role in Cyber Sleuth’s narrative

This one’s on request! Cyber Sleuth is quite the interesting game and a rather landmark entry in the franchise, mainly for being a love letter to the franchise and its long history itself, and for being the franchise’s very first work exclusively aimed at adults, meaning that it can explore different topics that wouldn’t normally be Sunday morning timeslot material, while also being a little more willing to assume that the people playing this are familiar with a lot of older parts of the franchise (not that it’s advisable to have complete lockout, but the game benefits greatly by not needing to assume lockout by default).

One of the ways Cyber Sleuth exhibits its “franchise love letter” status is by starting off the game all the way back at the franchise’s roots, before Digimon Adventure changed the game and everyone’s perception of Digimon and Digimon partnership, when the V-Pet lore was intertwined with Digimon as elements of hard sci-fi. As the game proceeds, the atmosphere slowly starts to resemble the more fantasy-like version of the franchise established by Digimon Adventure and its follower entries -- and that change is represented in none other than Nokia herself.

Before we begin: As anyone who follows my meta work has probably noticed, I generally prefer to have my analyses use tons of references and screenshots so that it’s easy to follow and the evidence is concrete, but Cyber Sleuth is a game, and it’s much harder to get those things without replaying the entire game, so I hope this won’t be too hard to follow despite being mostly text.

Nokia’s background and personality

If we want to apply the producer’s statements on Twitter, Nokia is 17 years old at the time of Cyber Sleuth, and has a backstory of having originally been a shy, bullied child who broke out of her shell thanks to the influence of her cousin (who, of all people, happens to be none other than Date Makiko). The flashback we get with Nokia in chapter 18, however, portrays her as just a fairly cheerful, go-getter child, but (although we only get to see her hair) she’s not quite as “flashy” or in-your-face as the description entails.

A possible hypothesis for rationalizing this all together comes from a what we learn about the process of memory wiping in Cyber Sleuth chapter 14: even if memories are extracted from the person, there’s some kind of residual memory left behind (the producer’s above statement also states that the same thing had even happened to Suedou). In Hacker’s Memory chapter 16, Arata confesses to Ryuji that the first Under Zero incident and Jude's loss to the Knightmon had re-triggered his trauma from having lost Yuugo years prior -- “not the memory, but the feeling.” So in other words, there was some feeling of loss that came after the loss of Yuugo that impacted those involved -- and it’s very possible that this deeply impacted and traumatized Nokia as well.

Assuming we’re still following this line of thought (since, again, this background point wasn’t actually in the game proper), Nokia eventually decided to break out of her shell thanks to Makiko’s influence, and become eccentric and assertive, and thus, the game begins.

While we’re here, I also want to point out that Nokia is also voiced by Han Megumi, possibly the Digimon franchise’s most notorious “promoted fangirl” who freaked out after getting to meet her childhood characters’ voice actors while cast as Airu in the Xros Wars crossover and ended up casted in a handful of major Digimon roles thereafter as a result. Which is not to say that her voice performance wasn’t also absolutely perfect for the bright and aggressive Nokia, but, you know...considering the below analysis, food for thought.

Nokia as a representative of “the conventional franchise”

Cyber Sleuth opens on a world where Digimon are largely seen as hacker programs, and even the hackers themselves only see them as non-sentient programs; there are ones like Chitose who treat them with empathy, but his attitude seems to be kindness towards them in a way not entirely unlike a family would treat a Roomba. Although he doesn’t admit to it at first, Arata himself also comes from this “world” of hackers, and we later learn that Yuuko herself is as well (via her “Yuugo” persona), meaning that, other than the playable protagonist, Nokia is the only “outside-context” person -- a completely ordinary civilian who’s gotten dragged into all of this.

Much like, say, the protagonists of Digimon Adventure.

With this background behind her, once she’s thrown into the world of hackers, she immediately has a “fateful encounter” with Agumon and Gabumon, instantly recognizable as two of the franchise’s most prominent Digimon (and complete with their Adventure voice actors, too). And I do especially bring up Adventure specifically, because while Nokia’s position in the game does end up taking in certain elements that roughly came around that era and possibly slightly predated it (mostly Digimon World and V-Tamer), Agumon and Gabumon weren’t particular mascots of the franchise until Adventure basically blew everything to pieces.

Right off the bat, Nokia does not have a single shred of doubt that Agumon and Gabumon are living beings and should be treated as such (again, much like the protagonists of Digimon Adventure; even Taichi in his “is this a game?” mode never doubted this). And they open up their meeting with this conversation:

Agumon: Umm, who are you? Nokia: It... It can talk?! It's so... so... so adoooooorable! M-M-M-M-My name's Nokia. What're your names? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

And on top of that, Agumon refers to Nokia as having a “familiar” scent. Remember this for later.

Nokia’s second encounter with Agumon and Gabumon in Cyber Sleuth chapter 3 involves her properly partnering herself with Agumon and Gabumon, and learning about the existence of the “Digital World”. Note that, for all intents and purposes, EDEN had been treated like the functional equivalent of the Digital World in this narrative up until this point -- cyberspace with hackers, coming from the network, it’s basically a “digital world” from top to bottom, and yet here Agumon and Gabumon are introducing the concept of a more fantasy-esque incarnation of a digital world. (And, in fact, despite EDEN being right there, many long-time Digimon fans playing this game often complained about how little you get to see the “Digital World” in this game, because of how associated that term is with something more fantasy-like.) So, again: here we have Nokia, who’s forming a partnership with Agumon and Gabumon as equals instead of recruiting them as hacker tools (even the protagonist wasn’t immune to this method), and being indirectly responsible for introducing the more fantasy-like concept of the Digital World that the modern franchise is currently associated with.

Nokia embarks on the conventional shounen anime character arc of starting off cowardly, but eventually learning to have her own inner strength, with her Digimon evolving in accordance to her emotions. And, eventually, in Cyber Sleuth chapter 8, she decides to form her own hacker team, called the “Rebels”. She ostensibly bases it off the old creed of Jude, having heard that they were a team that never caused trouble for others, but we later learn via Arata turning out to have been its former leader, and the even later portrayal in Hacker’s Memory of its spiritual successor Hudie, that this is an extremely rose-colored image of them -- Jude (and Hudie) was not a well-intentioned team by any means, but rather a sort of mercenary group meant to enforce the “freedom” of EDEN, often taking on shady jobs and “punishing” entities they considered to be causing chaos. But in this case, Nokia forms her team under the idea of legitimately fighting for justice and good will -- again, much like a Digimon Adventure protagonist.

In case the metaphor weren’t clear enough, Nokia decides that the members of her group will not be called “hackers”, but “Tamers” -- the same lingo used by the franchise to refer to a human who partners alongside a Digimon to help them get stronger -- and that she wants to promote the idea of humans and Digimon working in tandem (complete with emotional bonding exercises). For this, everyone looks at her weird, and yet her methodology, initially naive as it seems, keeps working, because Nokia’s natural charisma starts bringing people from different places together and making quite the formidable team. Everyone is perplexed by this, but perhaps it’s only natural, because Nokia has just independently invented the modern concept of Digimon partnership in a world where it did not exist. And this is eventually solidified by the Under Zero invasion in Cyber Sleuth chapter 10, in which Omegamon is finally formed (from sheer guts on her part).

Omegamon is yet another symbol of the modern franchise, but it’s important to remember that he hasn’t always been so; even his appearance in V-Tamer was as more of a tactical piece than any kind of game-breaker, but the impact of Our War Game! has led him to constantly make a resurgence in major franchise roles (maybe a little too much these days). However, on top of Nokia basically embodying the modern franchise itself by doing this, Nokia and Arata’s positions are an obvious reference to Our War Game! in particular, being Omegamon and Diablomon Tamers -- but they’re not seen directly fighting each other. In fact, Arata’s partner only ever reaches Diablomon when he’s at the highest point of his morality, so the reference is more ideological; Nokia represents the more idealistic and heroic side of Digimon, whereas Arata represents the more dirty-playing and cynical hard sci-fi side of it (remember that Diablomon himself was rather detached from the fantasy conflict of Adventure, being a mysterious entity that sprouted out of nowhere on the Internet and wreaked havoc). Moreover, Nokia’s usage of Omegamon embodies a theme that’s central to both Our War Game! and Cyber Sleuth itself as a whole -- while most people associate Omegamon with Taichi and Yamato these days, the original method of formation back in Our War Game! came from “bringing people from different places together”. Nokia managed to bring together a formidable army in a place where everyone else in the hacker world was trying to promote a dog-eat-dog philosophy, and the sense of cooperation is arguably making her stronger than anyone else.

(I should also point out that Nokia’s name is, obviously, a reference to the Finnish telephone communications company, and this has a lot of relevance to the game’s theme of connection, along with her phone Digivice...and, also, the method used to bring everyone’s powers together in Our War Game!’s spiritual successor, Diablomon Strikes Back. Feels a bit too on-the-nose here.)

In the second half of the game, when the world starts falling apart due to the Digital World portal opening, Nokia becomes one of most important people holding everything together as Arata goes off the deep end and Yuuko starts fixating on her own personal problems and revenge -- because she’s the one most in tune with treating Digimon as the living beings they are, she’s most active in advocating for them and helping them bond with humans, and and she’s the one making the chaos be a little less chaotic. The second half is basically the more fantasy-esque version of Digimon leaking into the sci-fi, with the sidequests progressively resembling your average Digimon anime monster-of-the-week episode, and holding that all together is Nokia, who becomes a vital figure in maintaining that fellowship by being in tune with the modern franchise’s philosophy.

Through all of this, Nokia ends up taking a role rather similar to a Digimon protagonist, which is highlighted very strongly in Cyber Sleuth chapter 18 when she ends up literally becoming the player character while the main protagonist is out of commission. During that time, Yuuko and Nokia learn the truth of what happened during the EDEN incident eight years prior -- and we also learn that the five children involved had an extremely conventional “first meeting in the Digital World” experience that could have been pulled right out of the first episode of a Digimon anime, with them having a lovely adventure meeting new creatures. And at the center of that “first contact” was none other than Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon themselves:

Agumon: Um... who are you? Nokia: Ahem! I am Nokia! And just who are you? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon’s meeting at the beginning of the game had been an (accidental) reenactment of their first meeting in the Digital World eight years prior -- and, in the flashback, Nokia invites them to go on an “adventure” with them. So in other words, Nokia getting involved in the hacker conflict at the beginning of the game was, unknown to all of them, her attempting to restore that beauty and idealism of the Digimon Adventure-esque philosophy and fun in a world where the Eaters had torn it away and EDEN had turned into a haven of cynicism and hacker battle royale.

In the end, the game’s conflict is only resolved by bringing everyone together; Arata has to be retrieved from the deep end, and Yuuko has to settle her deep-seated personal grievances. Everyone makes a promise to return together, in the sense of making things right and repairing the connections between them that had been cut in that incident. The final battle (momentarily) causes the playable protagonist to literally fall apart, and the one reaching out to them and sending her message to them at the end of the game is none other than Nokia herself -- again, in the absence of the game’s protagonist, Nokia is the one with the closest role, because in the face of the new world going forward, she was the one who contributed most to restoring its idealism.

Ultimately, all of this is especially because Cyber Sleuth works under one of the most terrifying imaginable premises for a fan of a kids’ franchise: “we made an entry for this, but for adults.” Many of us can testify that this kind of premise can go very well, or very badly -- the latter especially in the case of things that decide “taking the opportunity to do things that you can’t do on a Sunday morning kids’ timeslot” means “going out of your way to put edgy violence and sexy things and cynicism just because you can”, or, in other words, looking down condescendingly on its kids’ franchise roots with malice and deciding that something for adults means “more suffering” and not “issues that require more life experience to understand”. The reason the game ended up getting as much acclaim among longtime Digimon fans as it did was that despite being the franchise’s first venture into this territory, it did end up setting itself up as something that took that opportunity to do something new and unique that would have never made it into any of the prior entries (holy hell the doll quest) and yet never gave up on the idealism and themes of connection that make up the franchise at its core, and paid respect to everything that had contributed to all of that while it was at it.

And at the center of that is Shiramine Nokia, who is effectively the spirit of Digimon Adventure, condensed into a single character.

[becomewings]

The Most Beautiful Moment in Life <I’M FINE>

   BTS Universe Story Highlights, pt. 3 / 4

« pt. 2  |  » pt. 4

Introduction

The following sections for JiMin’s and HoSeok’s arcs are 4.5k and 4k, respectively. As with pt.2 of the series, I have included “tl;dr commentary” at the bottom of the post after a section of additional thoughts. This commentary summarizes the parenthetical asides I made throughout the summaries and may be of interest as standalone reading to those who have already played the game yet would like to review its connections to the BU texts and MVs.

Content warning: contains references to death, suicide, suicidal ideation, child abuse, domestic violence, blood, homicide, depression, trauma, PTSD

This guide contains major spoilers and includes references to other BU media

Do not repost, copy, or quote without permission

Stopped Time

SeokJin’s primary goal in JiMin’s story is to free him from the hospital psychiatric ward to which his parents have him committed before he gives up on life. Much like his sudden, unexplained absence in The Notes 1, JiMin is not even present in the first two episodes except for an introductory cutscene. In a hospital hallway on an unspecified date, he plays on the colored tiles and stops when he reaches “the line” by the exit door. (This line marks the end of the psychiatric ward and is first described in his 11 May Year 22 entry in The Notes 1.) Everything goes black except for JiMin and the door. A nurse taps him on the shoulder, bringing him back to reality, and hands him pills.

The playable story begins on 22 April Year 22 with SeokJin attending a meeting organized by the patrons of the Songho Foundation. Seo HyunJung, the city’s Deputy Mayor, suggested it to SeokJin’s father, Kim ChangJun, at the inauguration ceremony. (SeokJin attends the inauguration ceremony on 11 April in many loops; it plays out in episode 2 of JungKook’s arc.) SeokJin scans over the crowd, reflecting that while the pretext of the meeting is to discuss community development, in reality it is a social gathering to advance individual careers. These sessions make him uncomfortable, but this time he is attending of his own accord with the intention of meeting someone.

This someone is a woman who actually approaches him first, introducing herself as Sim SeonMi. SeokJin knows that she is JiMin’s mother. He has met her in previous loops but needs to pretend that this is their first time meeting. His goal is to bring up JiMin naturally and persuade her to discharge him from the hospital. Before he can broach the subject, the high school principal, Jo JinMyung, joins them. SeokJin uses his arrival as an opportunity to bring up school and guide the conversation toward JiMin by first asking if they know each other. “We’ve met a few times at gatherings. I was told her child used to be a student at our school,” answers Jo JinMyung. “Ah, really? I attended Jeil High too,” says SeokJin. Sim SeonMi looks taken aback, and he asks for her child’s name. She tries to avoid the question by saying that they probably won’t know each other due to their age gap, but when pressed again she relents. “His name is Park JiMin.” “I know JiMin! We were close. Is JiMin doing okay?” SeokJin responds brightly, wondering if she will provide an empty lie. Instead, she excuses herself with the claim that she needs to greet someone else.

SeokJin quickly wraps up with the principal and begins to casually approach her again. He stops when he overhears two women mention her name. “There’s no gathering she doesn’t attend these days. Looks like her husband’s star is on the rise, thanks to her efforts…” The player has the choice to listen quietly or butt in. If SeokJin stands by, they speculate that she was invited because her husband’s company is one of the patrons. If he interrupts, they caution him to stay away from her. In both routes, SeokJin learns that Sim SeonMi doesn’t have the best reputation and that rumors of her hospitalized son are spreading. Their blame on her helps explain what underlay her hysteric responses in previous loops.

Though it’s uncomfortable, SeokJin reapproaches her when she is alone. She greets him a little coldly. “You don’t have to be so formal to me. I’m JiMin’s friend,” he assures. “Is that so? How friendly you are.” Sim SeonMi smiles awkwardly and keeps looking elsewhere as though for an escape. “It would’ve been nice if JiMin’s father was here… He’ll join me another time, so you can say hello to him then.” “Yes. I’ll make sure to bring my father along then,” SeokJin replies, hoping to snag her attention. Her eyes change at the mention of his father. “Shall we do that, then? It’ll be even better with the Assemblyman.” SeokJin brings up JiMin again by either asking if he still attends Jeil High or how he’s doing. Her uneasy answers are “These days? Yes… Of course” or “...He’s fine,” respectively. SeokJin requests JiMin’s phone number, rendering her silent for a long moment. “That’s a bit difficult. I’m not sure I can give out JiMin’s contact information without his approval.” SeokJin attempts to convince her by stating that they were close friends in school yet lost contact when he studied abroad. But all he gets from her is, “Then I’ll ask JiMin, and make sure to contact you if he says it’s okay.” Sim SeonMi taps him on the shoulder and quickly walks away.

By 25 April, SeokJin still hasn’t heard from JiMin’s mother, so he decides to visit her and reveal that he knows JiMin was admitted to an inpatient psychiatric ward. Uncle JunHo, his father’s secretary, intercepts him before he leaves the house and asks where he’s going. SeokJin either answers that he is heading to school or meeting a friend to work on assignments. He declines a ride from JunHo in the first path but can’t conjure an excuse to not accept in the second. In both, JunHo comments that it’s not easy being the family of a public official and that he noticed SeokJin engaged in a long conversation with Sim SeonMi at the meeting. SeokJin explains that she is his friend’s mother, and JunHo advises him not to get too friendly with her because she doesn’t have a great reputation. In the second path, he also adds information about JiMin’s father that catches SeokJin’s attention because he has not heard anything about the man. Apparently Park JinWook is one of the foundation’s board members. ‘He’s pretty remarkable. He entered as a researcher and became a board member… The one thing that people like him want most is connections,” JunHo muses. He cautions SeokJin to “be wary of any advances [he] can see the intent of.”

The scene cuts to the exterior of an apartment building after SeokJin has either driven himself or been dropped off nearby by JunHo. He considers the public assessment of JiMin’s mother: she works hard to elevate her husband’s status but ignores her own son in favor of the family’s reputation. Sim SeonMi happens to step outside before SeokJin enters the building. She looks wary when he says, “I haven’t heard from you, so I decided to come see you myself.” In an effort to persuade her, SeokJin begins with either “I want to see JiMin” or “I came to see you because I know everything.” In the first path, she lies about not getting in touch with JiMin yet because he is studying abroad in the U.S. SeokJin is stunned by this egregious falsehood. “From what I’ve heard… JiMin’s locked up in a hospital. He’s at the Gyeong Il Hospital, isn’t he?” A similar reaction occurs in the second path from the point of SeokJin mentioning the hospital. Sim SeonMi hardens and objects to the phrase “locked up,” stating that JiMin is an inpatient because he is sick. “SeokJin, I appreciate that you’re worried about JiMin… But I’m his mother, and that means I know what’s best for him.” The paths converge as she tries to leave, claiming they have nothing left to discuss. Persuading her to release JiMin from the hospital seems impossible. “I’ll look into it on my own. I’m going to see JiMin, no matter how hard you try to stop me,” SeokJin warns. Sim SeonMi glares at him, voice low and cold. “‘SeokJin. If I can give you a word of advice… Adults have reasons for everything they do. You should forget about this.”

The beginning of episode 3 visits JiMin’s perspective on 27 April. He has relocated temporarily to the surgical ward due to an injured wrist. After treatment, he returns to his hospital room to find his mother arranging some items she brought. JiMin approaches nervously, wondering if she thinks he has caused a problem again. “It doesn’t look too bad, thankfully,” she remarks, glancing at his wrist. Her concern is unfamiliar yet welcome. “Do you know a Kim SeokJin? He said he attended Jeil High.” The mention of SeokJin surprises JiMin, but he tries to answer passively because of her angry tone. “Yes, but why are you suddenly ask—” “Did you contact him?” Sim SeonMi interrupts, halting her organizing to stare at him. “Why are you so immature? Do you ever think of anyone outside of here?” Injury throbbing, JiMin doesn’t know how to respond. “If you want to leave, tell me why you’re doing this. Tell me instead of embarrassing me by contacting some random person! Is that why you hurt your wrist? To rebel?” she demands. JiMin tries to explain this isn’t true, but she doesn’t listen. “I’m really tired, too. How many years has it been? How long do I have to suffer because of you?” Sim SeonMi leaves, the rant having done little to expend her anger. JiMin knows that her worries are pointed at herself, not at him; he is someone who makes life harder for her. He decides not to talk about anything else because he doesn’t want to make things even more difficult for her.

The story cuts to SeokJin loitering outside Gyeong Il Hospital, mulling over what action to take since JiMin is moving out of the surgical ward that day. (The date is unspecified in the game, but in The Notes 1, he is scheduled to return to the psychiatric ward on 16 May.) SeokJin knows that he will be the first suspect if JiMin disappears now and that he must act carefully since he was unable to persuade JiMin’s mother. As the day grows dark, he spots Sim SeonMi rushing into the hospital on her second visit. SeokJin hurries after her, worried that something happened to JiMin. The panicked voices of a medical team emerge from JiMin’s room. Doctors crowd around someone laying on the bed. “No, JiMin!” SeokJin hears Sim SeonMi scream followed by the sound of shattering glass.

The loop resets, and the game rejoins SeokJin on 10 May standing at a road and reflecting on the last failure. “If JiMin isn’t saved while he’s in the surgical ward, he makes his choice days after he returns to the closed ward. But it happened too quickly this time. What pushed him?” he wonders. He recalls Sim SeonMi’s final words before the loop ended. “No, JiMin! I’m sorry. I was wrong! You can see your friends; you can do anything you want… So please, open your eyes!” SeokJin realizes that he may have caused Sim SeonMi to act out of the ordinary, which in turn affected JiMin’s choice. It’s his fault, and he made JiMin suffer more. He thinks, “Even though I’ve experienced losing my friends before… No matter how many times it repeats… It never gets any easier.” SeokJin decides to abandon persuading JiMin’s mother to avoid provoking her and reverts his plan to sneaking JiMin out like in earlier loops. But first, he must focus on a more pressing issue—rescuing HoSeok after he collapses on the bridge that day.

After a cut, HoSeok awakens in SeokJin’s car and is shocked to see him. “Wow, is it really you? How long has it been?” “Lean on me for a bit longer. You didn’t hurt yourself when you fell?” SeokJin checks. HoSeok assures him that he’s all right and asks how SeokJin saw him. When SeokJin says he was just passing by, HoSeok remarks, “Wow! That’s so weird. Thanks for saving me.” It’s the first time SeokJin has heard something like this. He remembers JiMin in a previous loop telling him, “This is where I should be.” Does JiMin really want to leave the hospital? SeokJin believed that he did, but now he’s less confident. “HoSeok. If you had someone in front of you who wanted to die because living was too difficult… What would you do?” he asks. HoSeok answers without hesitation, “Well, I would help them.” “Even if that person doesn’t want my help?” says SeokJin. “ Isn’t helping them the right thing to do? Even if you don’t know why they want to die… They need to keep living for something to change,” HoSeok muses.

SeokJin drops HoSeok off at Two Star Burger before returning to the hospital alone, his friend’s words sticking with him. Even though JiMin isn’t guaranteed to be happy when he leaves the hospital, he needs to stay alive to have even the opportunity for happiness. Still uncertain how to proceed, SeokJin heads to the hospital lounge to organize his thoughts before visiting JiMin. Through an open door, he spots JiMin trudging down a hallway. SeokJin either calls out to him or watches him, but the latter is the result regardless because JiMin doesn’t hear him in the first path. JiMin stares at the door as people come and go and eventually returns to his room.

On 7 May, JiMin roams the hallways of the 5th floor surgical ward. He was moved there about ten days earlier after he ran into someone and fell. The surgical ward is not too different from the psychiatric one: the hallway is a little longer, and it has a lounge in the middle. But the freedom to move around in this space brings him joy that he doesn’t have in the psychiatric ward. He even wanders around at night when no one is around and dances in the lounge. Despite this newfound freedom, his body stops at the same point in the hallway—where the psychiatric ward ends four floors above him. After reaching his line again, JiMin returns to his room. He assumes a student occupied the bed before him because he finds a forgotten workbook in the nearby drawers. Remembering that he used this workbook in school, he flips through and reads the notes scribbled in the margins. “I want to go to a PC cafe, too…” he murmurs, spotting the note “wanna go to the PC cafe later?” JiMin finds a haphazardly folded paper tucked into the pages and unfolds it curiously. “Career… plan?”

The story cuts to 10 May with SeokJin, from a hidden vantage point, watching JiMin sit in the hospital lounge and read a book. It reminds him of their days in the classroom hideout. “He seems okay right now.” SeokJin receives a call from Uncle JunHo about the scheduling of a Songho Foundation seminar. During their conversation, a loudspeaker announcement summons JiMin to the 2nd floor physical therapy room. He drops the book and runs out of the lounge. Once finished with the call, SeokJin tries to find the book JiMin was reading. He doesn’t see it among those scattered around the lounge and thinks that JiMin must’ve had a reason to hide it. Hoping it will provide him a clue to understanding his friend, SeokJin hunts around either the window or trash can with no luck before turning to the vending machine. After scooting a bookcase out of the way, he is finally able to rescue the item. SeokJin deduces that the workbook doesn’t belong to JiMin because it’s Year 2 material and JiMin was admitted to the hospital in his first year. He finds the detached sheet with two different types of handwriting and determines which belongs to JiMin. The game provides a quick flashback shot of JiMin filling out the paper. “Aspiring Career Path: Will I be able to go to university too? Scholastic Activities: What should I learn in Year 2… Extracurricular Activities: Join the dance club HoSeok started.” SeokJin wonders what JiMin felt as he wrote in the answers. He considers how JiMin people-watched from the hallway and looked happy reading the workbook. “You want to leave, don’t you?” SeokJin thinks. “Let’s get out of here. So you can be the one to decide what kind of life you want to live.” He resolves to break JiMin free.

On 11 May, JiMin stops at the invisible line in the hallway again. He stares at the door before turning around and bumping into someone. He is shocked speechless when he realizes that it’s SeokJin. The next episode continues from this moment but switches to SeokJin’s perspective. He calms JiMin down before bringing him to the lounge, giving the excuse that he was in the hospital to visit someone else. JiMin’s cheeks are hollowed, his hands skinnier than normal. SeokJin wonders if he can inspire JiMin to act if he tells him that he’ll be able to do all of the things he wrote on the career plan once he leaves the hospital. He either asks, “JiMin, are you injured?” or “How long have you been in the hospital?” In both paths, JiMin refers to his wrist injury and the time he’s been in the surgical ward rather than the psychiatric one. He looks grim when he can’t give a proper answer to either “When do you get discharged?” or “Are you sick?” “I think I have to go now. It’s almost time for treatment, too…” JiMin stands to leave, avoiding his gaze. SeokJin rushes after him and blocks his path, knowing this might be their last chance to speak if they say goodbye already. “JiMin, I’m here because I know everything. You want to leave this place, don’t you? You’ve been here for two years.” JiMin steps back but doesn’t run away. “I just happened to hear… how your mother locked you in the psychiatric ward,” SeokJin explains. JiMin shakes his head with a frightened expression. “No. I’m here because I’m sick.” His eyes falter when SeokJin presses, “JiMin, I can help you. Let’s get out of here together.”

Short flashbacks play from JiMin’s perspective alongside his thoughts: “At first, I wanted to leave. I called my mom and cried until my voice went hoarse, asking her to take me home. That I didn’t want to stay here. But she didn’t listen. Because this is where I should be…” Aloud, JiMin speaks in a voice that sounds like he has given up on everything. “Even if I leave, I’ll eventually come back.” SeokJin shakes his head. “What’s important is how you feel. JiMin, you really want to stay here? That’s okay with you?” Depending on the players’ choice, he either continues, “Do you really not have anything you want to do?” or “‘You really want to stay here in the hospital?” In the first path, SeokJin tries to remind him of something he must want to do like studying or dancing. “I don’t… have anything like that,” JiMin lies. In the second path, JiMin says it’s better for him in the hospital because outside people treat him like a freak. SeokJin remembers the women whispering about Sim SeonMi and her hospitalized son at the Songho Foundation meeting. In both paths, JiMin is pale and shaky. SeokJin decides to ask one more time. “You don’t want to go outside and see your friends?” JiMin seems to perk up at the mention of “friends,” but he does not respond or lift his gaze. SeokJin’s parting words are, “Think about it, JiMin… I’ll come back to visit again.”

The next day (12 May), SeokJin reflects on his failure to persuade both JiMin and his mother. “What can I do to help JiMin get over his fear and gain courage?” he wonders. The career plan comes to mind again with JiMin’s notes of college, studying, and dancing—the things he wants to do outside of the hospital. This prompts SeokJin to remember a day in the classroom hideout when he filmed HoSeok dancing. On the sidelines, TaeHyung complimented HoSeok’s moves and asked if JiMin could dance like that. Gaze full of envy and longing, JiMin answered, “No. How could I do that?” “HoSeok! JiMin says he wants to try!” TaeHyung called. Flustered, JiMin tried to stop him, but HoSeok looked over. “Do you want to try?” JiMin insisted that he couldn’t, but TaeHyung pushed him forward and HoSeok gladly demonstrated the routine. JiMin hesitated at first to attempt it alone but began to move at their encouragement. In the present, SeokJin believes that he has found an answer in this memory. “TaeHyung, who pushed him forward… and HoSeok, who believed that he could do it. Maybe one of those two will help JiMin muster up the courage.”

SeokJin picks TaeHyung to help him persuade JiMin, considering that he was the first person to notice how JiMin was feeling when they watched HoSeok dance and helped JiMin take action when he hesitated. (We know from The Notes 1 that SeokJin’s later, successful choice ends up being HoSeok instead.) On 13 May, SeokJin visits TaeHyung’s convenience store to explain JiMin’s situation, and TaeHyung immediately agrees to help. Late that night and with little planned, they sneak into JiMin’s hospital room. Sensing their presence, JiMin turns on the light and is especially surprised to see TaeHyung. “We’re here to get you out of here, JiMin,” he says. “Did you think about it?” SeokJin asks. When JiMin hesitates, TaeHyung presses him to answer honestly. “Park JiMin, do you like being here? Staying here is awful! Let’s leave. You can think when we’re outside.” TaeHyung forces JiMin to his feet even as he hesitates and protests about the impending night rounds, although he does not push TaeHyung’s hand away. SeokJin knows this is hasty but decides to trust TaeHyung. Out in the hallway, he reflects that if even he spoke the same words, JiMin would not agree. SeokJin has encountered moments like this before where his friends solve problems that he cannot fix alone. “TaeHyung seems to be JiMin’s answer, just like YoonGi needed JungKook,” SeokJin thinks. (JungKook saving YoonGi is not a solution that played out in YoonGi’s story, but this is a familiar theme from Notes 1 and forward.)

The elevator arrives as they turn the corner, its doors opening to reveal Sim SeonMi. SeokJin warns, “Hide. It’s JiMin’s mom.” She walks past without noticing them. SeokJin quickly presses the elevator button, but it has already left. “JiMin, quick!” TaeHyung calls. “TaeHyung, I just…” “You can’t look back,” TaeHyung says firmly. He and SeokJin pull JiMin towards the stairwell, but JiMin stops walking. “What’s wrong?” asks TaeHyung. JiMin’s expression is on the verge of crying yet also angry. “I can’t,” he whispers. “Park JiMin, we don’t have time for this—” TaeHyung is interrupted by Sim SeonMi’s distant voice. “Where’d he go? The bathroom?” SeokJin tugs JiMin’s arm, but he looks afraid again. “SeokJin, I… I can’t do this. I don’t think I can.” SeokJin either soothes JiMin himself or has TaeHyung talk to him. In the first path, he takes JiMin’s trembling hand. “It’s safe for me here.” JiMin shakes his head. “No, JiMin. Something bad will happen if you stay here,” SeokJin cautions. “No, I have to stay here. That’s what’s right. I want to stay here,” JiMin insists. In the second path, SeokJin shoots TaeHyung a look, and TaeHyung in turn scans over JiMin. The tapping sound of shoes rings through the silent hallway. TaeHyung begins, “JiMin, if you stop here…” The paths rejoin when Sim SeonMi spots them and calls to JiMin, face livid as she approaches. “Oh… Mom.” The color drains from JiMin’s face. “Please… Please! Can’t you just stay put?” she demands sharply.

TaeHyung attempts to intervene, introducing himself as JiMin’s friend. Sim SeonMi does not look at him even when he explains that JiMin didn’t expect their visit and they were just taking him outside so as not to disturb the sleeping patients. SeokJin chimes in too, hoping their flimsy excuse will work, but Sim SeonMi orders JiMin back to his room. Looking defeated, JiMin trudges out of sight. Sim SeonMi finally turns her gaze on SeokJin, regarding him with the same expression as she utters the same words from the last loop. “I didn't know you were JiMin’s friend.” She warns them not to visit him again like this because he is very sick and it will interfere with his treatment. Before coldly turning to leave, she touches TaeHyung’s shoulder for a moment. (This same gesture was given to HoSeok in the hospital after JiMin’s seizure at the bus stop on 15 September Year 20 in Notes 1.) Her presence is like a wall separating them from JiMin. (SeokJin’s observation echoes HoSeok’s feeling that she was drawing an uncrossable line between them that September.) TaeHyung yells after her, “What’s wrong with him?! You can’t even spare the time to talk to us?!” SeokJin cautions him to stop. “Let me go! JiMin! Park JiMin!” TaeHyung’s voice rings loudly in the hallway, but no one answers. As they leave the hospital, he asks, “Do you think JiMin will be okay?” SeokJin cannot respond because he knows the truth: when JiMin returns to the psychiatric ward, he always makes the same awful choice.

The story cuts to JiMin sitting on his hospital bed and staring at his feet, unable to face his mother. He regrets following SeokJin and TaeHyung. “It was a lie, wasn’t it?” Sim SeonMi asks. “What those kids said earlier. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” JiMin apologizes, throat catching. “What were you going to do? What could you possibly do outside of this place?” she demands. JiMin remembers all the things he thought about alone in the lounge: going to school, making friends, and learning dance from HoSeok again. “I want to live a regular life. It’s nothing that special. Why is it that I’m not allowed to dream?” he thinks. “JiMin, let’s focus on getting better first. When you’re all better… I’ll let you do whatever you want once you’re discharged. But you know that now isn’t the time. Let’s do it when you’re back to normal,” Sim SeonMi advises with a power in her voice that he can’t fight. Questions pile up in his head: what is getting better, and what is normal? But he holds it in and nods, not wanting to make things any more difficult for her. “Okay, Mom. I will…” As he speaks, it dawns on him that he’ll never get to leave the hospital.

JiMin moves back to the psychiatric ward after SeokJin and TaeHyung’s visit. The place is still the same: a man mutters that he’s not crazy; a child stays glued to the window, waiting for their mom. “And then there’s me, unable to progress because I’m locked in the past. If nothing changes even as time flows, how is it any different than time standing still?” On 19 May, JiMin stands in the bathroom with the water running. He sees and hears the falling drops as rain and smells a sharp stickiness. Reflected in the water in the sink, he sees a vision of himself on “that day.” (This is referring to 6 April Year 11 and the events of the arboretum, first introduced in that dated entry in The Notes 1 and revealed in full on 12 August Year 22 of The Notes 2.) “...I hate it.” JiMin covers his eyes. “I want to forget everything. I want to rest.” The glass shatters, concluding his arc.

Someone Left Behind

HoSeok’s story opens on 11 May Year 22 with SeokJin providing some chronological context. So far, he has not made it to June once in the loops because HoSeok collapses from his narcolepsy and JiMin is still trapped in the hospital. SeokJin can encounter JiMin naturally if he admits HoSeok to the hospital after his collapse on 10 May, but HoSeok has an accident in the hospital stairwell and falls into despair over his leg injury. (10 May is the date HoSeok collapses and wakes up in the hospital in The Notes 1, and this is likely the moment referenced by his bridge scene in the I Need U MV.) Even if SeokJin prevents that accident or helps HoSeok avoid admittance to the hospital entirely, his narcolepsy grows worse over time after 10 May. SeokJin determines that he needs to control HoSeok’s narcolepsy in order to save him, and he heads to Two Star Burger where HoSeok works to begin earnestly investigating.

A cutscene plays out at the restaurant: HoSeok, wearing a manager’s tag, watches two friends eating at a table while someone places their order with him. His expression is distant and briefly sad until he catches himself and smiles brightly at the customer. When the door chimes, he greets the new visitor and realizes it’s SeokJin. This is apparently their first time meeting in this loop because HoSeok heard from the other guys that Seokjin returned. SeokJin asks how he’s doing, and HoSeok replies, “Me? Same as usual.” SeokJin knows that “same as usual” means HoSeok’s life has a set, monotonous routine: working his part-time job, going to dance practice, and occasionally visiting the children’s home. Sometimes, he also comes to the bridge over the river and watches the scenery. The scene transitions to this location later at night as SeokJin narrates this. He stands at a distance so HoSeok doesn’t see him. HoSeok’s out-of-character, melancholy expression worries SeokJin. He hasn’t observed any changes to his friend’s daily routine, and HoSeok hasn’t collapsed recently—so why does he keep collapsing on 10 May?

The narrative cuts to 3 May. (I double-checked the dates and can only assume that this is a new loop, although a reset is not specifically mentioned—or else the opening date was a typo.) SeokJin mulls the situation over alone for a while but ends up going to NamJoon out of frustration. NamJoon and HoSeok share similarities, and they’re both responsible for other people. Believing that NamJoon knows HoSeok best, SeokJin visits his container. NamJoon greets him warmly. JungKook is already there, killing time after school. SeokJin mentions that he saw HoSeok a few days earlier at Two Star Burger but couldn’t really talk to him because he was busy. NamJoon suggests inviting him to join them after work and bring some hamburgers too since JungKook is hungry. SeokJin either calls HoSeok himself or lets JungKook call. In the first path, HoSeok says he’ll come as soon as SeokJin mentions that a few of them are together. In the second path, while JungKook is on the phone, SeokJin asks NamJoon how HoSeok is and learns that he practices dance at the cultural center every day. SeokJin wonders if HoSeok is pushing himself too hard. The paths rejoin: before HoSeok arrives, SeokJin inquires about his narcolepsy too. NamJoon doesn’t know much except that he’s still taking medication for it and seems to be doing okay. It seems that no one dares to bring it up since HoSeok doesn’t speak about it openly. The conversation trails off while they wait, although it’s not awkward—it reminds SeokJin of old times together.

HoSeok arrives with a cheerful greeting, wafting in the smell of fresh hamburgers. “These hamburgers were hand-made by the employee of the month!” He rustles through the bags and produces a kid’s meal boxed toy, giving it to JungKook. “Here’s your Children’s Day gift!” JungKook pouts that he’s not a kid but seems pleased to receive a gift even though it’s a couple days early. HoSeok explains that he has to be at the children’s home on 5 May. NamJoon asks if they’re hosting an event that day. “It’s not really an event… I’m going to see the families,” says HoSeok. He plans to bring hamburgers and play with the kids rather than bring gifts. SeokJin is surprised to hear that almost twenty children, ranging from young kids to high schoolers, live at the home. “‘That’s more than I expected. It must be fun when everyone plays together.” HoSeok invites him to come along to take photos of everyone, and SeokJin agrees with a high-five. NamJoon declines because he’s too busy, and JungKook hesitates. HoSeok assures him not to feel pressured, causing SeokJin to reflect on how he has always been the “mood-maker” whose cheerful personality eases awkward situations and defuses disagreements. While lost in thought, he notices HoSeok taking out his medication. “How are you these days? Do you feel better?” NamJoon checks. “Hmm. I don’t have any symptoms, but I shouldn’t be skipping these.” A grim expression flashes across HoSeok’s face. SeokJin thinks, “It doesn’t mean he’s alright just because he smiles in front of people.” He guesses that HoSeok must feel scared of his condition, not knowing when he’ll collapse next. It’s not enough for SeokJin to prevent the accidents he can see or to stop HoSeok from getting injured—he must save him from the fear that isn’t visible. SeokJin resolves to find out what makes him collapse. Even if the condition isn’t curable, discovering the cause might help HoSeok get better.

On 5 May, SeokJin meets up with HoSeok at the children’s home, which is located near Yangji Stream. HoSeo looks happy and explains that visiting there is like coming home. They bring their respective gifts of hamburgers and snacks inside, and all the kids rush to HoSeok in excitement. One of the home’s staff greets them. HoSeok introduces her as Kim JungHee. He calls her “auntie” and regards her as someone who has been like a mother to him. As SeokJin helps her set the table with food, he thinks that the children’s home feels like an ordinary family home and HoSeok looks like the dependable older brother among all the kids. After taking all the requested pictures later, SeokJin joins HoSeok to watch the children play outside. “You’re on good terms with the kids,” he observes. “I’ve only been out of the children’s home about three months now, so I know them all,” HoSeok explains. (He moved into his rooftop room on 25 Feb Year 22 according to that date’s Note accompanying the Persona album.) SeokJin either comments, “Auntie seems like a great person. She treated me well and we’ve only just met,” or asks, “How old were you when you first came here?” In both paths, HoSeok speaks with visible adoration for Kim JungHee. In the first path, he mentions that although she’s scary when mad, she never gets angry without a reason. “Auntie JungHee is just… like a mom. She’s mom.” In the second path, HoSeok answers that he was seven when he moved into the children’s home. He describes how Auntie would sing him songs that his mother listened to instead of a lullaby when he had trouble falling asleep, and that was the first time he cried after coming to the home. SeokJin begins, “Then, HoSeok, when you were little…” But a boy’s cries interrupt him before he can ask if HoSeok experienced narcolepsy when he was younger. “What’s wrong, JiHun?” HoSeok asks in concern. The sobbing boy shows him a broken toy rocket. “My mom… gave this to me.” HoSeok is at a loss because it looks impossible to fix. “I’ll bring you a new one next time. Don’t cry, JiHun. Okay?” The boy keeps crying despite HoSeok’s attempts at consolation. Before SeokJin can think of another tactic, HoSeok speaks up, drying JiHun’s tears. “JiHun, do you want to go with me to see a real rocket?”

At HoSeok’s request, SeokJin drives them both to Yeongsan Bridge, one of the bridges that crosses Yangji Stream and that HoSeok frequents. SeokJin is perplexed about what could count as a “real rocket” as they head to HoSeok’s usual spot on the bridge, and JiHun appears suspicious but excited. “Look over there!” HoSeok points to the train departing Songju Station in the distance, picking up speed on the tracks. “Wow!” JiHun exclaims. “What do you think? That rocket looks cool, huh?” asks HoSeok. “Rocket? That’s a train,” says the boy. “Look closely! It’s a rocket.” HoSeok beams. JiHun asks HoSeok why he calls it a rocket. HoSeok explains that the front end of the train is pointy like a rocket and that it takes people somewhere far away. (He also refers to the trains as rockets in his 4 July Year 22 entry from The Notes 2.) SeokJin realizes that from his vantage point on the bridge, HoSeko has been watching the train that leaves Songju. “JiHun, you can wish on the rocket, too!” HoSeok describes how the rocket can carry dreams because the people who ride on it have dreams. JiHun wishes to become famous so his mom can find him. HoSeok falls silent for a moment before resuming his chatty demeanor. Together they wish on the rocket for JiHun to see his mom again. JiHun asks HoSeok what he wishes for so they can wish it on the next rocket. HoSeok whispers in his ear. “Wow, you too?!” JiHun exclaims. HoSeok shushes him, so SeokJin does not learn HoSeok’s answer.

After dropping JiHun off at the children’s home, SeokJin and HoSeok relax at a bar. HoSeok thanks him for his help that day. SeokJin asks if HoSeok visits Yeongsan Bridge frequently to look at the trains. HoSeok smiles bashfully over his drink and explains that he liked visiting it when he lived in the children’s home. “Is that when you came up with the rocket story?” SeokJin asks. HoSeok replies, ‘Yeah. The people getting on the train look so cheerful and happy. It almost makes me want to get on there with them, too.” He stops abruptly and calls out to a customer on his way out. The young man is introduced as DongJin, a friend who also grew up in the children’s home. SeokJin invites him to sit with them, hoping that he knows more about HoSeok, but DongJin declines since he’s with other company. Before departing, he mentions that he will stop by Two Star Burger to see HoSeok soon. After his friend leaves, HoSeok tells SeokJin more about his childhood. SeokJin understands why he considers the people at the children’s home his family.

A little tipsy now, HoSeok brings up another memory. The whole family at the children’s home goes to Yangji Stream on August 30th for the yearly fireworks, but when he was about nine, he had to be admitted to the hospital for a check-up. SeokJin either asks, “Did you miss the fireworks that year?” or “Were you sick?” In the first path, HoSeok describes how he snuck out of his hospital room and up to the rooftop to watch the fireworks. Along the way, he found a little kid crying in the stairwell who was looking for his mom and wanted to leave, and he brought the boy to the roof so they could view the fireworks together. He doesn’t know who the kid was or remember his face. (See the Additional Thoughts section at the end for who I hope this kid really was!) In the second path, HoSeok answers that he was falling asleep without explanation but the doctor said there was nothing particularly abnormal. SeokJin tries to ask a leading question to get him to reveal more, but HoSeok’s expression is grim. The paths rejoin with HoSeok asking SeokJin if he has attended the fireworks festival too. He looks wistful when SeokJin replies that he went with his family when he was younger. HoSeok brings up DongJin again. “He’s a really lucky guy. Even though it was pretty late, he got in touch with his parents and moved out to go live with them.” His eyes reflect bitterness. “DongJin and I… both dreamed of going to the fireworks festival with our parents. I guess he’ll achieve his dream for the first time this year.” SeokJin recalls HoSeok’s rocket story and asks if that’s the dream he told JiHun about earlier. HoSeok dismisses this: his dream now is to become famous for dancing. SeokJin remembers him mentioning this in high school. “Right, you said you wanted to become famous as a dancer so it would help you find your mom… Are you still dancing because of that?” HoSeok says that was why he first started but he grew to really love dance. “You don’t have any plans to go find your mom, then?” SeokJin asks. “Why would I go anywhere? My home, work, and friends are all here.” HoSeok laughs, but it seems like he is just holding on rather than truly feeling happy. “I just… like where I am.”

Episode four begins on 8 May, Parents’ Day, in HoSeok’s perspective. As promised, DongJin visits him at Two Star Burger and asks if he can get a job there because he needs money. HoSeok is taken aback since DongJin supposedly has moved out of Songju to live with his father after reconnecting with his family. “What happened to your self-reliance support fund?” DongJin confesses that he gave it all to his father, who said that he needed it to buy them a house but hasn’t contacted him since receiving the money. “I think my expectations were too high. They abandoned me once. Why wouldn’t they abandon me a second time? I wish I hadn’t met them…” DongJin’s voice wavers. HoSeok assures him that his father must be busy looking for houses. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll contact you soon. I’ll look into a job for you.” DongJin thanks him multiple times before leaving. After work, HoSeok returns to the bridge and leans on the railing. He often does this even when there are no passing trains—watching the flow of the river empties his mind and puts him at ease. But the calm water cannot still his thoughts today. He thinks about the many children at the home who want to be reunited with their parents, including JiHun, DongJin, and himself. HoSeok is honest about his feelings, acknowledging that he envies DongJin for being able to contact a parent, even one who let him down. He closes his eyes and remembers the day his mom abandoned him at the carousel. In the memory, she hands him a chocolate bar and instructs him to count to ten before opening his eyes. The screen goes black after “three,” and at “nine,” the player hears the sound of someone falling. (The carousel memory is also depicted in the Highlight Reel.)

The story cuts to the next day, 9 May, outside Two Star Burger. SeokJin is uneasy knowing that HoSeok collapsed yesterday, two days earlier than he normally does in the loops, and hovers nearby to keep an eye on him. HoSeok announces that he’s heading out for a delivery and heads outside to the delivery scooter. A passing woman reminds her daughter to count before crossing the street. “One, two, three…” HoSeok watches them cross the street and collapses again. “HoSeok!” SeokJin cries. He gets permission from the restaurant manager to take a still-unconscious HoSeok home to his room that overlooks all of Songju City. SeokJin helps HoSeok onto his bed before looking around his room. The player has a choice to look at the items on the desk or a familiar planter on the dresser. In the first path, SeokJin clicks past the screensaver on HoSeok’s laptop and sees that the web browser is open to an audition information video for a famous international dance team. (This may be the same dance team that one of his friends from the children’s home successfully auditions for, referenced in HoSeok’s 4 July Year 22 entry accompanying the Tear album and 7 July Year 22 entry in The Notes 1.) He remembers HoSeok mentioning that he’s happiest when dancing and knows that he still runs Just Dance, the dance club he started in high school. “I’m sure he’d do well if he applies,” SeokJin muses. In the second path, SeokJin recognizes the plant as the one HoSeok tended every day in their classroom hideout. He wonders what HoSeok was thinking when he brought the plant home and how he feels caring for it. The paths rejoin with HoSeok stirring on the bed, mumbling “Mmm… Mom… Don’t go…” SeokJin recalls that HoSeok called for his mother when he fell asleep in high school. “Is the memory of losing his mom related to his narcolepsy?” he thinks. “Are you okay, HoSeok?” SeokJin asks when HoSeok opens his eyes. HoSeok is confused to find himself at home. SeokJin explains that he happened to see him collapse as he was passing by and assures him that he spoke to his manager. “HoSeok, you know how you keep collapsing… The hospital doesn’t know why yet? You don’t have any idea what makes you collapse, either?” he presses. But HoSeok shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

On 10 May, HoSeok receives a call from one of the younger kids from the children’s home while getting ready for work in his apartment. The kid informs him that Auntie JungHee isn’t working at the home anymore because she has been diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer. She is scheduled to have surgery, but the chances of success are low. HoSeok’s mind goes blank, and he hangs up. When he rushes outside, he runs into SeokJin. “I stopped by because I was worried. Are you headed out?” asks SeokJin. Consumed with the thought of getting to Auntie, HoSeok says he needs to visit JungHee and doesn’t have time to ask why SeokJin is there. SeokJin follows, offering him a ride. The player chooses to have HoSeok either get in the car or refuse the ride. In the first path, HoSeok pretends to be calm when explaining the situation to SeokJin, but his voice noticeably trembles. In the second path, he declines because he’s afraid that speaking about it will make it come true, and then he runs to the bus stop.

The story cuts to HoSeok standing on the bridge, unable to remember how he made it to Auntie’s house after saying goodbye to SeokJin. He can only recall the face he saw through one of the open windows of Auntie’s house: JungHee laughing as she chatted with someone. The news of her illness and the low success rate of the surgery seems like a lie. She was the first person he could rely on after HoSeok lost his mom. He can’t shake off the vision of himself standing in front of the carousel “like an idiot.” Head spinning, he thinks, “I just wanted them to stay by my side. Is that too much to ask? What kind of terrible thing have I ever done?” The perspective switches to SeokJin as he watches HoSeok walk precariously across the bridge, looking both shocked and deeply sad. He reflects on his failed attempts to prevent HoSeok from collapsing here. Even if he stays with HoSeok like he did with JungKook or intervenes like he did with YoonGi, HoSeok always runs to JungHee’s home and then collapses on this bridge on his way back. SeokJin is aware that JungHee has cancer (so the first path of the branching choices has happened at least once, or he found out in earlier loops). The extra collapses of this loop weigh on SeokJin’s mind too. Something changed after HoSeok met DongJin, and SeokJin regrets taking him to the bar on 5 May. He looks on as HoSeok inevitably staggers and falls in the same spot.

SeokJin calls 119 and has HoSeok admitted to the hospital. As before, HoSeok is placed in the same hospital room of the surgery ward as JiMin. SeokJin decides not to visit him because he is afraid of running into JiMin and unsure of what will play out if he does. Now that HoSeok is in the hospital, there is no way to avoid the future accident in the stairwell. A few days later, SeokJin scopes out the scene. He mulls over the repeating scenario of HoSeok chasing down the stairs after a woman he mistakes for his mother. SeokJin connects the dots between HoSeok calling for his mother in his sleep and the way he cried in front of his Auntie’s house. “Everything has to do with ‘mom.’ If HoSeok’s narcolepsy is because of ‘mom,’ does that mean this accident is connected to the idea of mom, too?” In other loops in which SeokJin successfully prevented the stairwell accident, HoSeok continued to collapse more frequently until he eventually did so in the street. SeokJin contemplates how his condition apparently worsens after he sees a woman that reminds him of his mother.

The day after HoSeok is admitted to the hospital, 11 May, SeokJin invites NamJoon to meet him at a cart bar after his work shift. NamJoon brings up HoSeok first. Unable to say that he was the one to call for help, SeokJin pretends to be surprised that HoSeok is in the hospital. NamJoon reports that HoSeok had a minor concussion and is staying there for a couple days so the doctors can run additional tests. SeokJin wonders if HoSeok dreamt of his mother again and feels a pang at the image of him haunted by nightmares. He proceeds to tell NamJoon about their visit to the children’s home, meeting DongJin, and learning about the auntie’s illness. Cautiously, SeokJin proposes that HoSeok’s collapsing may be related to his mother. NamJoon mulls it over before agreeing. “I guess it could. Thinking about his auntie might have led him to think about his mom.” “I’m sure he feels like he’s losing his mother a second time,” SeokJin adds. NamJoon asks if he knows HoSeok’s wish to become a famous dancer in order to find his mom, although his dancing grew into a genuine source of joy. “So I thought… Dance had become Jung HoSeok’s cure. Something that helps him hold on. The thing that helps him bear something he can’t otherwise. That’s what dance is to HoSeok. Don’t you have something like that, SeokJin?” NamJoon regards him silently after this, leaving SeokJin much to contemplate. They promise to visit HoSeok together at the hospital. SeokJin hopes that if NamJoon knows just how much dancing means to HoSeok, he may figure out something from HoSeok’s reaction in the stairwell that SeokJin has missed. He just needs to figure out a natural way to get NamJoon into the stairwell at the right time.

On 12 May, SeokJin and NamJoon meet at the hospital. SeokJin suggests that they take the stairs since the elevators are crowded and lies about HoSeok being on the 3rd floor to strengthen his excuse. When they arrive on the 2nd floor landing, they hear footsteps and voices from above. The woman descending the stairs with a child is the one whom HoSeok keeps mistaking for his mother. SeokJin needs to stall until HoSeok comes down too, so he either suggests that they buy some snacks to bring or mentions that he may have got the wrong floor number and checks his phone. Moments later, they hear pounding footsteps and HoSeok shouting, “Mom!” NamJoon locks eyes with HoSeok and, unaware of what is about to happen, turns to follow the woman. “Ma’am! Excuse me!” Caught off guard, SeokJin is too late to grab HoSeok, who falls and screams. As he rolls on the floor clutching his leg, sealing the injury that will prevent him from dancing, the glass shatters.

SeokJin involves NamJoon in several more loops after that, but his attempts to save HoSeok end in failure. He wonders again if he should admit HoSeok to the hospital at all, but decides that if the incident is connected to HoSeok’s trauma, it needs to be solved rather than avoided. On a new 12 May, SeokJin stands near the hospital stairwell, prepared to intervene himself and ask HoSeok about his mother afterward. He spots JiMin emerging from the 2nd floor physical therapy room and pressing the elevator button. Hiding out of sight in the stairwell, SeokJin mulls over his options. If he prevents HoSeok’s accident, he still needs to get JiMin out of the hospital too—an effort that has been unsuccessful so far due to JiMin stopping at the exit or later having a seizure when they pass the arboretum. “Maybe the answer to HoSeok is… JiMin? What if… this incident is the variable between HoSeok and JiMin?” Heart pounding, SeokJin begins to hope that they can save each other. He doesn’t have enough time before HoSeok comes down the stairs to figure out what to say to JiMin and decides that he will just have to make the reason for his presence in the hospital believable. “JiMin!” he calls. “SeokJin? How are you here—” Looking shocked, JiMin steps back like he’s about to run away. SeokJin realizes that they haven’t met in this loop yet, and JiMin strongly dislikes people knowing that he’s in the hospital. With no time to explain, SeokJin leaves him behind and rushes into the stairwell. But he’s too late to catch HoSeok’s fall, and the story concludes with the glass shattering once again. (Based on The Notes 1, we know that the “successful” decision SeokJin makes in later loops is to stay out of sight when he calls JiMin. JiMin is puzzled by the silhouette he sees in the doorway and enters the stairwell just in time to catch HoSeok.)

Additional Thoughts

JiMin’s mother, Sim SeonMi, becomes one of the most fleshed-out adult characters in the BU narrative so far thanks to his story. We already knew the most about SeokJin’s father, Kim ChangJun, due to his role in The Notes 2. I’ve had an inkling of a suspicion that JiMin’s parents were connected in some way to SeokJin’s father, so I was satisfied to see this confirmed in the game. I’m curious about JiMin’s father and the lack of details surrounding him. He has only been depicted once in The Notes 1, when JiMin returned home days after sneaking out of the hospital with his friends.

Though it’s never explicitly stated in the texts, the Wings Short Film #6 MAMA depicts that HoSeok is diagnosed with Munchausen’s syndrome, a psychological disorder in which the individual pretends to be ill or deliberately produces symptoms of the illness. His prescription pills are actually placebos. On 16 May Year 22 in The Notes 1, HoSeok confesses to JiMin that his narcolepsy is fake, although he doesn’t feign symptoms on purpose.

I was personally a little disappointed with the lack of new information in HoSeok’s story. While his relationships with the auntie and other children from the home are explored in greater detail, the most significant plot points if his arc have already been covered as of The Notes 2.

I have no proof for this, but I want the unidentified crying boy who young HoSeok met in the hospital stairwell and brought to the rooftop to see the fireworks to be JiMin. If HoSeok was 9 at the time, then JiMin was 7. He has been in and out of the hospital since the arboretum incident (earlier that same year), so it is plausible that he had an overlapping stay with HoSeok in the summer of Year 11.

As mentioned above, the following “tl;dr” commentary summarizes the parenthetical notes I provided in the summaries in case you want to review them on their own.

Stopped Time — tl;dr commentary

In the opening cutscene, JiMin plays on the colored tiles in a hospital hallway and stops when he reaches “the line” by the exit door. This line marks the end of the psychiatric ward and is first described in his 11 May Year 22 entry in The Notes 1.

The Songho Foundation patron meeting that SeokJin attends on 22 April Year 22 was suggested by the city’s Deputy Mayor at the inauguration ceremony on 11 April. That earlier ceremony played out in JungKook’s arc.

Before the loop reset, SeokJin waits outside the Gyeong Il Hospital as he plans his next move since JiMin is moving out of the surgical ward that day. The date is unspecified in the game, but in The Notes 1, he is scheduled to return to the psychiatric ward on 16 May.

In this story, SeokJin picks TaeHyung to help him free JiMin from the hospital. He hopes that TaeHyung will be JiMin’s “answer,” just like YoonGi needed JungKook. JungKook saving YoonGi is not a solution that played out in YoonGi’s story, but this is a familiar theme from Notes 1 and forward. However, SeokJin and TaeHyung are caught by JiMin’s mother while trying to leave the hospital with him. We know from The Notes 1 that SeokJin’s later, successful choice ends up being HoSeok instead.

Before coldly leaving SeokJin and TaeHyung to rejoin her son, Sim SeonMi touches TaeHyung’s shoulder for a moment. This same gesture was given to HoSeok in the hospital after JiMin’s seizure at the bus stop on 15 September Year 20 in Notes 1. To SeokJin, her presence is like a wall separating them from JiMin. This echoes HoSeok’s feeling that she was drawing an uncrossable line between them that September.

At the end of the story, the vision JiMin sees reflected in the sink water of “that day” is referring to 6 April Year 11 and the events of the arboretum, first introduced in that dated entry in The Notes 1 and revealed in full on 12 August Year 22 of The Notes 2.

Someone Left Behind — tl;dr commentary

In the story’s opening, SeokJin refers to HoSeok’s collapse on 10 May. This is the date that HoSeok collapses and wakes up in the hospital in The Notes 1, and it is likely the moment referenced by his bridge scene in the I Need U MV.

When SeokJin observes that HoSeok is on good terms with the kids from the children’s home, HoSeok explains that he’s only been out of the home for about three months. He moved into his rooftop room on 25 Feb Year 22 according to that date’s Note accompanying the Persona album.

As he does in the game, HoSeok refers to the trains as “rockets” in his 4 July Year 22 entry from The Notes 2.

HoSeok’s memory of being abandoned at the carousel is also depicted in the Highlight Reel.

When searching HoSeok’s apartment, SeokJin notices the laptop’s web browser is open to an audition information video for a famous international dance team. This may be the same dance team that one of his friends from the children’s home successfully auditions for, referenced in HoSeok’s 4 July Year 22 entry accompanying the Tear album and 7 July Year 22 entry in The Notes 1.

At the end of the story, SeokJin hopes to gain JiMin’s help to save HoSeok but ends up spooking him because they haven’t met in that loop yet. Based on The Notes 1, we know that the “successful” decision SeokJin makes in later loops is to stay out of sight when he calls JiMin. JiMin is puzzled by the silhouette he sees in the doorway and enters the stairwell just in time to catch HoSeok.

Did you learn anything new from these stories that I did not specifically mention? Let me know in the replies or tags! Please stay tuned for part 4, featuring TaeHyung and the Epilogue.

[laur-rants]

Schrodinger’s Game Theory: The Fate of Daud

Ever come up with a theory, and then halfway through creating it, the evidence changes and so you’re stuck with a lot of well-put-together ideas but nowhere to go with it?

Anyway, I did that with Daud. Lol.

I just rediscovered a whole ass rant in my drafts (which is now in the link above for private viewing and judgement PLS read it, if you’re missing some context to this post) that I clearly spent a lot of time and energy on, where I came to the conclusion that Daud in Death of the Outsider is actually a imposter/doppelganger, and it was because of the writing from the book contrasted the writing in DotO so poorly, that I came to believe this. I was like, VERY convinced prior to Billie’s book coming out that this was, in fact, a viable game theory. !00%. There was a chance that out there, somewhere, Daud was still stuck in his mind, and needed someone to come rescue him. Stranger things have happened to explain characters coming back from the dead in a video game, okay?

Somewhere along the line, though, it stopped being game theory and was more like, a fan idea. I had collected enough evidence to come to the conclusion that my theory wasn’t sound. That, and Billie’s book released, and there’s no way I could argue that. Instead, imposter!Daud moved to Fan Theory, something I could fictionally, write about, put into an AU.

But... Just because it’s probably not true in the scheme of the game doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, from wanting to talk and share those ideas with others. Even if, at the end of the day, they hold no water and it wouldn't matter because, well. If Billie’s book is to be considered post-DotO canon, then there’s no reason to believe my theory would hold weight. It wouldnt matter, because Daud well, he was left for dead either way. Nobody was coming to rescue him. I’m sure there’s plenty of questions people have in response to this, the most chief one being

“If its not Daud how is he in the Void talking to the Outsider and Billie at the end of DotO??”

And my usual response is: the end of Return of Daud saw Daud becoming trapped within his own mind, through a trap laid by witches from the very beginning of the book. That meant, even if his physical body was still, well, physical, he was trapped inside his mind.

I proposed that out of survival, well, a sliver of his mind would hole itself up in the Void, maybe even be stuck there (this is not so uncommon as it appears; think of what happened to Jessamine in the Heart). Once the spell on his mind and the Outsider were gone, the sliver could return back to his mind. And he’d still be alive.

From a gamer perspective, looking at the mechanics of the game, and everything else, it makes sense. I’m sure some people would say this theory would ‘cheapen Daud’s death’ and I would refute that by simply saying ‘all of DotO cheapened Daud’s death, and despite being a playable character in the franchise he dies unceremoniously off screen and we just take Billie’s word for his death to heart.’ Nothing cheapens a death faster in my head than ‘time to renege on this character’s entire past arch and have him die off-screen.’ His death was ruined far before they went into the Void. If anything, this would give Daud a change to explain himself. 

But I digress. I actually did do a stupid amount of research on this. And what it all really boils down to is that there was bad writing involved in DotO when it came to timeline consistency and quality checkers not checking for that, + the book having been rewritten like, twice, to keep up with what Arkane was changing in DotO in real time.

That’s post marked 9/25/18. I’ve had this theory sitting around for a long time. I enjoyed it. I find it compelling. But ultimately, it was me trying to save Daud, in my mind. Would it be cool for the witches to have stolen Daud, replaced him with a dummy body Eyeless/Envisioned, given that dummy body his memories, and then, when it had outlived it’s usefulness of sending Billie astray, the magic broke and it perished? Hell yeah it would have been cool. and honestly, according to the books, it was a viable option! They could do all those things. You can’t tell me that

Billie can steal faces,

Emily can create copies and

They witches had access to a gemstone that can make prisoners of their own mind/see the thoughts of others,

and NOT immediately think that they’d try and replicate one of the strongest Marked to ever live. The one that TRAPPED DELILAH, no less. And because the witches messed with Daud’s dreams at the beginning of the book (it’s subtle, but its there, its like, you see it on the reread sort of thing), that’s the whole reason he thinks the Outsider is supposed to die, so of course the double would fervently believe the singular obsession that brought Daud into a trap in the first place...

I’m digressing again. Anyway.

What does this mean for Dear old Daud?

It means Daud canonically died, and it was shitty and poorly written and I’ll be salty about that until the day I die because some schmuck on twitter wrote one singular essay and Harvey Smith decided ‘you. you’re the one who needs to write this story’ and then we got Corvosider fanfic in a Dishonored game and I wanted to die. It doesn’t help that this writer was notoriously pretentious and shit-stirring in the fandom at-large BEFORE their hiring-- anyway, this isn’t a salt piece on that. I AM SALTY ABOUT IT, but I’m not the person to discuss it at length. Just know that that’s why some of the narrative decisions in DotO are so out of fucking whack, and we all have to deal with it.

MOVING ON....

There is still... a very slim chance. To save Daud.

Realistically speaking, this chance will never occur. It’s clear and obvious that Arkane has no plans on returning to the Dishonored universe, so despite all these loose ends that Arkane left and all these pieces that need to be picked up and all this lore that’s been reneged on, there’s really not much of a chance that we’ll see, say, Billie, return in a game that is specifically designed to save the timelines. Which, honestly, would be fucking baller. I want a game where I play as Billie, where the shattered timespace of Dunwall is saved by her capable hand, and Emily is free to rule for decades without having to fear that the Isles will fall into the Void like it’s Deimos falling into Hell in DOOM. We KNOW the timelines are saved because we KNOW that Emily has a long and Just (or unjust, if you went high chaos lol) Rule over the kingdom. That can’t happen if, just three years down the line, Billy is running all over the place trying to make sure time doesn’t break at the seams.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Because of how Daud meets Billie in RoD, we know that a Billie three years into the future (’YOUR future,’ she tells him) is trying to save his life. There are other timelines she’s saved already, for sure. Including saving Daud in the past, saving Corvo and Emily in the past, saving Granny Rags in the past -- basically, saving all the Marked from coming to an untimely end. And then, after all that, she goes back in time and tries to save Daud, tries to save him from being poisoned by witch magic and falling into a trap that is triggered when he touches her Future version of the Twin-bladed Knife. She goes through a sort of Groundhog Day scenario, where she confesses that she’s tried hundreds of times to save him, and she couldn’t save that Daud.

But why show us Billie failing to save Daud, if she was destined for failure? Because, eventually, she must succeed.

And therein lies Daud’s (potential) salvation. Is it realizing the other Daud is an imposter? Well... let’s think of it this way. Is the Billie who regained her arm and eye an ‘imposter’ where the ‘real’ Billie is in a timeline where she lost those body parts? Is the Aramis Stilton who went mad in the basement of his mansion the imposter? Or is it the one that Emily saved and was able to keep lucid? These people aren’t ‘imposters’ to their timelines, but they kind of are to the timelines that are saved. Which means DotO could be an entirely separate ‘timeline’, one that we manage to play through and see the ending of. But the ‘true timeline’ may never be known. But at least, we know it happens, and we have Billie to thank for that.

FIN.

[beryligator]

So that new Sonic Game.

This is all just hopeful thinking based on the concept and what I personally would like to see. Nothing really concrete.

I want every "main" sonic character to not only have an important role in the story, but also be utilized in gameplay.

Here's my idea.

You mainly play as Sonic.

However to traverse the world and enter new levels or missions you use a buddy to help you. Think SA3 mixed with the changing partner in Shadow the Hedgehog sprinkled with a bit of the Heroes gameplay.

Also I'm gonna say the enemies, even the small ones put up a fight. (Bringing back the enemy health bar baby!) So having ways to avoid confrontation would be beneficial

Tails, Cream, Charmy can let you fly like usual, but Cream and Tails would have Cheese/ an invention to reach special switches, distract enemies, and even collect items. (Charmy could last the longest flying considering he is the only one who should fly)

Espio and Rouge would allow Sonic to know where enemies are at all times. For Espio turn you invisible so you can sneak past threats , and for Rouge having a treasure detector with the enemy detector.

Knuckles, and Amy can launch sonic (Throwing/Baseball bat style with a hammer) and would hit harder in a fight. (Knuckles can control the trajectory, but Amy's would launch him farther)

Vector can swim. Freely. That's is main schtick. However, It's fast and he can even do a "death roll" to attack underwater. On land they hit harder than even Amy and Knuckles (To make up for the fact that he's otherwise useless outside of water based areas)

Now you might have noticed I have yet to mention Silver, Shadow, and Blaze. (Also Omega/Big but truth be told, I don't know what to do with him bounce of me some ideas we can have fun)

I think they deserve there own story lines. I think we deserve another story structure in the style of SA, SA2, SH, and 06. Where these different stories lead up to one big picture.

The reason why is. I think they deserve it.

Now personally, I'm not sure how there gameplay would differ, but I think they could us the partner system too.

Now for the fun part.

After you beat the main story.

I'm giving this game some fun replay and post story value.

Everyone is playable and you can mix and match whoever you want. This is where the Red rings and collectables come into play. You'll be awarded for thinking outside of the box or even trying to "break" the game. If there are levels separate from the world than you can use them and their abilities to replay them in a new way. If a combination is overtly powerful? Who cares. This is post game fun. You showed you could beat the game. Now have fun.

(Maybe certain characters from the IDW comics can make an appearance)

Yes, I know that would be quite some work, but really we deserve an epic story that actually has the Sonic cast be important to the story. Be a love letter to the whole fanbase, because I think Sega forgets that yes we all love when the blue blur has amazing classic games where it's just fast action and a simple story. They also forgot that while it is made fun of, there's a reason why there are Sonic OC's and not many Mario OC's. At it it's best. Modern Sonic has such a fun cast and interesting locals and lore that was sadly treated as an embarrassment.

Now that was just gameplay hope, now for the story

I have high hopes because of who the writer is, and I'm not explain what I want the story to be, but just what I think it should strive to best.

I'm gonna say right now. Ian Flynn, and that Zombot arc proved just how amazing the Sonic cast can be, and how dark a story can get without ever feeling "edgy". It also made Sonic the main character, but didn't give him main character syndrome. I will say. Every character either went out in a memorable way trying to save someone or sacrificing themselves or had an epic moment of triumph. (Except one, *sigh*....used to be my favorite (No this wasn't why I dislike them now. It was a long history of what they did to this character that made me dislike them). This arc broke Sonic, and there's a panel that shows the characters that are now "infected" and it hits hard. Because it shows just how much was lost, how much was sacrificed, and how little hope there is left. So when we finally get that glimmer of hope finally pay off. It feels earned. That happy ending really feels amazing.

Yes, I read this knowing that in the end everything would be fine, that they would never leave these characters in a state worse than death. That yes, Sonic would triumph. Unlike Lost World and Forces. Sonic actually had to go trough hardships before things became better.

This story reminded me why I fell in love with this series.

You know what Classic fans. You had your revival in Sonic Mania.

I really want this to be the "Mania" to the Adventure->06 titles. A spark that rekindles a love for the series, that reminds us why we became fans.

Yeah, make fun of Sonic OC's, but there's a reason so many people create them.

Anyways what are you hoping for in this new Sonic game?

[osakasshitpit]

I love Final Fantasy XIV

So I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV, and after playing for around 180 hours, I haven’t even finished A Realm Reborn. Normally, 180 hours is an insane time frame for a game to manage and hold my attention. Persona 5 Royal was 180 hours of game time, and that was slowly outstaying its welcome. FFXIV must be doing something right, because just recently I went to a convention and bought a Y’shtola Keychain in a heartbeat. I haven’t had time to play XIV a lot prior to this, since I was stupidly grinding Praetorium for days and got burned out. I haven’t played much in 2 months, and Y’shtola only really has a minor role during A Realm Reborn’s Storyline. Despite that, I started in Limsa and Y’shtola stuck with me since then. I just had to buy that keychain. My girlfriend asked me about it and despite me staying away from the game after being burned out, I explained to her in great enthusiasm why I loved Y’shtola and why I loved the game so much. I think that’s the first time I really realized how attached I was to this world, these characters, this game.

I came to FFXIV after having played WoW from Vanilla through WotLK, after having barely ever touched a MMO since quitting WoW. Honestly, I was very skeptical of XIV but holy fucking shit did it ever win me over. They are completely different games, mind you, but that is a good thing in my opinion.

So here is the longest tumblr rant post I have written so far, I think.

To be fair, the first 20 levels or so were kinda slow. You get thrown into the deep end and get bombarded with lore and characters, terms and phrases that you don't understand. For fucks sake, the opening cutscene shows Louisoix fighting Bahamut front and center. Its this big, epic moment of sacrifice, but to someone who has not played 1.0 and who doesn't know anything about the lore, this just zips right past you. During the main story of ARR, they keep talking about Louisoix and how important he is, but you haven't even seen the guy because he died before the game even started. I only really realized this today, it took me 180 hours and a look at the wiki to connect the dots. It really is a slow burn, but that slow burn was okay because everything else was so fantastic.

While the world can arguably be more subdued than Azeroth in parts, there is still this distinctive style that I quickly fell in love with. It’s fantastical, but it still feels grounded. Part of that has to do with how the game introduces you to the world, and how the main story quests explain to you the lore bit by bit. I feel like much of the world design of WoW was down to “the rule of cool”. Now, I’m not saying XIV doesn’t have that, but I feel like XIV always goes the extra mile to explain why this cool shit is here. Everything you see out there in the world feels like it has a purpose, a reason to be there and an explanation on how it works. The factions make sense, the political conflicts you get entangled in are believable. I feel like I am kind of biased to be honest. What got me to play FFXIV in the first place was seeing that Viera are a playable race. I’m a sucker for Final Fantasy, not in short part to my memories of Playing Final Fantasy Tactics and XII. XII is still my favorite game in the series, and much of that has to do with the world, Ivalice. Viera were always my favorite race of the ones seen in Ivalice. Seeing as you can play a Viera in XIV, I just had to try. Thinking about it, XII and XIV have a lot in common when it comes to world building.

One of the weirdest things to acclimate for me was how FFXIV handles story. I was used to WoW, where story was basically non-existent and you did what you did to see numbers rise and to unlock now content you could do. You are basically never involved in the story of WoW, you are just kind of there for the ride. In FFXIV, you are the main character. You are involved in what happens at all times, and that is kinda strange coming from WoW. At first I thought I wouldn’t like it, but the game made it work in my opinion. I also didn’t expect there to be so much of story to begin with. Kind of ironically the moment I realized just how much there was to experience was when I went through Ul’dah and saw a blue quest. Now, blue quest markers mean there is some content you can unlock by doing this quest. A lot of these are kinda short, with a bit of dialogue and some bits of lore for you to enjoy and I thought this one would be no difference. After all, the hook is basically just to help this lady mourn for the death of a friend. What I got was a fabulous detective adventure that spanned over the entire continent, where in I had to help the worlds most manly detective uncover the secret behind a mysterious phantom thief. To say the least, this 21 quest long quest line brought be hours upon hours of joy and had me in stitches throughout. And it was completely optional. I don’t think I even remember a single moment from any quest in WoW that made me this excited for it, optional or otherwise.

Ultimately these are very different games that try very different things.

Dungeons and Raids were a different thing. I remember when I rolled a new character for WotLK and wanted to do karazhan because I used to like doing that raid with my guild back in TBC. I could not for the live of me find a group willing to do it, because everyone was way more focused on the new content, so they could get better gear. Regardless, it just wouldn’t have been the same experience anyways I fear, because the new gear from the new Dungeons outclassed the raid gear from TBC, so karazhan would be way easier and a much different experience. In FFXIV, every dungeon is level synced by default, meaning if a higher level character joins, they get basically downgraded to the level the dungeon was designed for. Couple that with the Duty Roulette feature and suddenly, there was always someone to do any given dungeon with. I remember when I had to do the crystal tower raids and thought “why would they tie main story progression to a raid, I will never find a group to do that properly” but low and behold, I found a group within 30 minutes or less and raided through the entire set of raids within a day. Dungeons and Raids are generally a very pick up and play thing in FFXIV. To be fair, dungeons got easier and more pick up and play in WoW too, but Raids were always the endgame thing where you had to gear up and learn to play. In FFXIV, much more lenient. No corpse walking required. I say this, but I have yet to do the Coils of Bahamut or any Savage Raids. I have only heard that there is plenty of hardcore raid content for those who want that.

That’s nothing to say about the actual gameplay. FFXIV is a tab-target MMO, like so many others, but it manages to keep this kind of gameplay fresh by introducing a lot of mechanics that make the game more active than the typical “I stand here and hit my rotation a lot”. For starters, most enemies have special abilities that you can actually dodge by moving out of the way. There will a area marker on the floor and everyone within that area will be hit. It starts out easy, but later dungeons really start kicking your ass with this mechanic. You really need to say on your toes. In addition, every class is extremely different. They all have special mechanics unique to them, special meters and resources they will have to manage during combat and so on. For example, a Red Mage (the class I’m playing currently), has two meters that fill up as you cast spells. They generally have two types of spells, white and black magic. Each type fills its respective bar. Once they are both full enough, you can go in and do a more powerful melee rotation. However, if one bar is fuller than the other, the other bar will fill up slower. Since you need to fill both, you want to balance that out. You get instant casts for spells after performing a damaging spell, and you have some spells with a short cast time and good damage output that you want to cast and then use the instant cast of to cast a more damaging spell that has a long cast time. But these short cast, good damage spells require a you get from casting a spell of the respective type. So, in essence, you want to balance your use of black and white magic, but you also want to use the proc you get from casting your white and black magic, which means you cast more of the type which inherently unbalances your gauges. It becomes this micromanagement game you play with your procs and instant casts, so you can go in and do the big, flashy sword combo. And that’s just the red mage at around 50. Every class has something like this, and it’s all unique to them. Learning a class is not just learning the rotation and spells you have anymore, it’s really learning how to effectively play your class. Also, positioning. Some abilities do more damage from certain positions, so you will have to dance around an enemy to hit all the sweet spots with classes like monks. These complexities get introduced slowly as you level up, so you have plenty of time to learn the mechanics. My favorite feature might be the class system itself, though. In FFXIV, you aren’t limited to one class for the entire duration of your characters career. You can, from a certain point forwards, choose any class you wish and level that up instead. You can freely switch between classes outside of combat, too. If you are dedicated enough, you can level them all up to max, even. This means if you don’t like a class or the direction a class is going in, you can switch. I for my part started as an arcanist, so I unlocked Summoner at 30. I played Summoner up to 50 but I was just not meshing as well with the direction the summorer went in. So, I switched to Red Mage and after some getting used to, Its now my new favorite. Arcanists are special, because you actually unlock two classes at 30, so I also unlocked Scholars. Scholars are healers and that became my main dungeon class, since queue times are way shorter for healers. This would be unthinkable in WoW, and love the fact this is a thing here.

If I had to describe it, WoW is an MMO with RPG Elements, while FFXIV is a JRPG with MMO elements. I didn’t know I needed that, but in retrospect, it makes sense. The thing that really killed my progress in WoW was that I didn’t have anyone to play with anymore. My friends all dropped from the game and while I generally like doing solo content from time to time, I’m pretty introverted, after all... MMORPGs are usually most fun with friends. Final Fantasy XIV is a JRPG first, an MMO second. There is so much to keep your attention as a solo player, its nuts. All my friends who play this game, play on a different data center, so I can’t even visit them. Despite that, I had a lot of fun in my time with the game.

My experience with the game was incredibly positive, and I don’t think it will get worse from here. Everyone keeps telling me how great Heavensward is. I just have to finish 16 more quests and I’ll be able to see for myself what the fuss is about.

Honestly, if I had to say anything negative, it would be how longwinded ARR is. I mean, its not bad by any means, but I can see how someone could be turned off by this huge storyblock. Worst of all is, after you hit 50 and reach the end of ARR’s story line, there are 80 quests before you can even start with Heavensward. Since everyone keeps going on about how great it is, it’s kind of annoying how long you have to work to even get to it. In retrospect, it kinda makes sense though. These quests are meant to be played over months and months throughout a update cycle and bridge the narrative gap between one storyblock and the next, but holy fucking shit why did it have to be THAT long. They even cut like 20 of the quests from this already insanely long quest line. What the fuck. This is supposed to be an epilogue to ARR and it feels like I played a whole fucking JRPG in between ARR and Heavensward. Oh well. Thankfully, they learned from this and made the post-story blocks shorter.

I will just say that I can recommend this game. You should give it a try. Just... try not to drop the game before it gets really, really good.

[doctor-roman]

Hey I don't know if a post had been made about it but I wasn't able to find it if it was. Either way I was just wondering (if you're willing to share) what turned you off of mtg so hard?

In order, it was:

-Avacyn getting killed. No, seriously, Avacyn and Innistrad were a big part of what got me into the game as a whole. It didn’t outright kill my interest in the game at first, but it was definitely the first step on that slope.

-The end of Magic’s in house story team and the passing of that job off to outside authors who tend to know nothing about it.

-War of the Spark, and its back pedaling of Chandra’s bisexuality. I wasn’t even a fan of Gruulfriends to begin with (was more of a Julaar fan myself), but even I can say that that was just scummy.

-War of the Spark: Forsaken and realizing Wizards really just does not give a shit about its own franchise’s lore anymore. A decade of story just thrown in the trash and lit on fire. Every single character came away from that story worse than how they started, and I have no confidence that Wizards will ever re-reach what it had from Khans to Ixalan.

-Brandon Sanderson writing on his own time what was supposed to be a free novella (Children of the Nameless), and Wizards then taking down the free link so they can sell it as an e-book. Even Sanderson was pretty pissed about it last I heard.

-Pumping Simic with so much value that it almost feels stupid to play anything else. Remember; Oko and Uro were supposed to be playable in the same standard environment. Or, in a broader sense, just the sheer amount of power creep that’s taken place these past few years.

-Wizards focus on Arena and letting it dictate how they design cards rather than it being a table top game first and foremost. I remember during Ikoria season a card getting spoiled that gained a keyword counter at random but only keyword counters that it didn’t already have. I remember reading that card and trying to figure out “how does a person even go about figuring that out?” before realizing “oh yeah, the Arena RNG is just supposed to do that for you”.

-Inconsistency with its reprint policy. A few folks at Wizards have gone on record to say they “don’t want to reprint fetchlands because all of that shuffling slows the game down”. And then they print Fabled Passage and Prismatic Vista which do literally that. Like...come on, Wizards. (What’s worse is that I’ve heard rumors that fetch lands are lined up to come out in Zendikar collector boosters. Which, if true, is just...so god damned scummy in its own right.)

-“This isn’t for you”, aka, product fatigue. It started with Secret Lairs. Cats, Serum Visions, Thalia, Godzilla lands. At first, none of them appealed to me, and I just shrugged it off as “well, yeah, that’s just not my thing”. But over time, as Jumpstart came out, then Double Masters, I started to wonder when Wizards would start making something for me. It’s just been product after product and none of it excites me because it’s all fed through the pipeline, one after another, with none of those products getting a chance to stand out. Christ, it seemed like I was finding spoilers for something every day for two months straight on the Magic subreddit, and after a while I just became completely desensitized to it.

And the worst part? This isn’t even everything. There were so many tangents that I was willing to go down as I was writing all this, but forgot because I had so many other things to cover. And it sucks, because I look back on the time that I was more heavily involved with Magic really fondly.

I miss discussing the weekly stories that got published for each new set. I miss coming up with characters and figuring out how they interact with my friend’s characters (some of my current best friendships started out this way!!!). God, there was a time where I was trying to get everyone I knew and their mother into Magic. But now those days feel so long ago.

Flat out, Magic does not care about making a fun, engaging game anymore. It’s devolved into “just make whatever gets us more money”.

[radramblog]

Some vague concern regarding Modern Horizons 2

We’re getting into the thick of the spoilers for Magic’s next Premier, Big Brains Only set, Modern Horizons 2. Which feels almost too cramped, since the set drops in like two weeks, and presumably the full spoiler will be out by the pre-prerelease, which is..a week away or so? I can’t be arsed looking it up.

(love this art tho)

Considering the absolute flood of releases recently, and how dramatic the impact of the first Horizons set was on just about every format in the game, I’m a little concerned about what this set is going to do to the game. The time since last format-warping card is approximately 6 months- and to be fair, that format was pauper, but the window seems to be shortening every time.

I guess what we need to do is start with an examination of Modern Horizons 1.

Released in 2019, the first Modern Horizons was a set built from the ground up to be relevant in eternal formats, have an excellent draft environment, and add loads of value for casual formats like Commander and Cube. And, for the most part, I think it succeeded. While a few cards (Wrenn & Six, Astrolabe, Hogaak) definitely overshot the mark, a huge number have been generally adopted into various competitive strategies in various formats- Ephemerate is a staple roleplayer in flicker decks, Seasoned Pyromancer has kept Red relevant in tempo, Prismatic Vista is the 11th Fetchland no-one knew we needed. The power in the set is extremely well-spread, with the majority of cards radiating power.

The set also had immense appeal for more casual players, as even the commons and uncommons had unique and spicy effects. Drafting it is like a Masters set draft mixed with time spiral, a high-power environment making high-power decks and all sorts of interesting mechanics mixed together. The set truly does feel like Time Spiral 2. The various cards in the set helped bump up fan-favourite tribes such as Slivers, Ninjas, and Bears, as well as the numerous Changelings making them all sorts of shenanigans more viable.

The set just looks gorgeous as well? It was the first to use the Art cards that would later be used in all the Set Boosters, but this was a great opportunity to try it out, with some of the most divine art collections in any set for the past few years. Adding in all the references to older cards and characters, and non-competitive but enfranchised players like myself are going to be hooked.

What makes me love MH1 so much, I think, is that if you just read the cards, it’s clear that the designers were trying to make every card stand out, by just going “what if” for every single one. What if our typical 3/1 for 1W was a Changeling. What if we did Mother of Runes again, but make her playable without being broken? What if our Convoke creature paid you off for convoking it? What if we made Chained to the Rocks actually good? These are all White cards, but that’s just because they’re what show up first on the list.

So where does that leave us with the sequel? I have some pretty mixed feelings so far- on the one hand, the power is clearly there, the art is on point, but some of this feels like either a mistake or at least a misstep. Where MH1 was Time Spiral, I’m getting the feeling that MH2 is Planar Chaos- and I’m not just saying that because Storm is in Green now apparently.

What we’ve seen so far is pretty clearly (to me, at least) an escalation of what MH1 was- where that set seemed largely to be experimenting with what they could do within the rules of the game, this set appears to be trying to find new ways to bend those rules *just a little bit* while still remaining somewhat inbounds. Carth puts the Loyalty Cost icon somewhere outside a Planeswalker for the first time ever, and the wording on his ability is somewhat confusing. Grist, the Hunger Tide, has one of the most interesting and potentially abusable lines of text I’ve seen in a while, and Garth One-Eye- I mean he speaks for himself. The effects on some of these cards feels reminiscent of the MYB Playtest cards- especially Garth- and while some of those were successfully integrated into the game, there’s a limit to how much of that silliness is healthy for the game.

And if Garth reads like a Playtest card, the new showcase cards look like them. I actually really like how these look, but they come attached to one of the sets biggest problems, and one that’s kind of emblematic of MTG design for the past couple years since MH1- Complexity and Collectability Creep.

Modern Horizons 1 has 254 cards in boosters, that you can get either non-foil or foil if you’re lucky. Each pack has 10 commons (or 9 commons and one foil of any rarity), 3 uncommons, one full-art Snow Basic, one rare or mythic, and either a Token or an Art card. There are two cards with special promos- Flusterstorm, the Buy-A-Box, and Astral Drift, the prerelease promo. You can buy it either in a booster packs or in booster boxes. Relatively simple.

For Modern Horizons 2, WoTC needed two separate articles to explain the various packs and promos, and people are still confused (to be fair fuck reading all that). There are 4 different special frames, and it’s incredibly unclear if they’ll be available in foil, or some even in nonfoil, or how you get each one, and apparently Etched foils are back again? What the actual fuck is going on here? Now, this is arguably not that huge a step up considering Strixhaven and its Mystical Archive, but it feels dwarfing compared to the last MH1. I liked the idea of Project Booster Fun at its outset, but at this point I think it’s clear that it’s gone too far.

(that’s gotta be the most ironic card/art pairing in a while...)

And my biggest concern with MH2 is this. It isn’t that the set will be bad (though based on these current spoilers, if you don’t like Squirrels, you’re SOL), because the set designers know what they’re doing, much as magic players love to complain that they don’t. It’s the precedent the sheer complexity of the collection is setting, I guess. I do think it’s too early to tell whether the set is clearly a mistake or it’s going to be great with some rough patches, but don’t get me wrong- I’m pretty sure this is a polarizer.

Fuck me it does have a Frog Samurai in it though, 10/10

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Super Mario Advance Playthrough

Fighter: Princess Peach Toadstool.

Game: Super Mario Advance, Wii U virtual console (GBA). First Released on March 21st 2001.

Fighter Bio.

Princess Peach Toadstool, known as Princess Peach more commonly now is the crown Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom. She is famous and well liked both within her Kingdom and in a lot of locations outside of it. Peach’s role in the Mario series varies with her most common role often being kidnapped by Bowser, but other villains have also captured her before. Based on my estimate, I believe she has been kidnapped roughly 31 times so far in the games including all spin-offs. Sometimes these kidnappings take place before the game starts meaning she only appears in the ending, other times she’ll have a role in the game before it happens and sometimes it will be a short part of the game like for a single chapter in one of the RPGs. Often in that last example it relates to another one of her roles, being a playable character who is either a party member or optional character to play as, with her sometimes becoming playable after being rescued. In the cases where Peach is not kidnapped immediately, she’ll often tell Mario and the others what they need to do when a crisis is taking place, advising them where to head to next or setting them off at the start of the game on their quest. Being captured so often, one skill Peach seems to have picked up over the years is her ability to often stealthily slip around her captors, sometimes simply working out a way to send Mario assistance such as items and advice, and other times managing to spy on her captor’s plans. Often due to the location she’s being held in she is unable to fully escape from her captors however, or in some cases her sense of duty to her also captured people will make her not try to leave without them.

The Mario series doesn’t have a solid timeline, so a lot of this is just my own personal ideas, but unless a game is explicitly taking place in the past with Baby versions of the characters, I tend to just go by the order in which the games are released regarding character’s histories in the franchise, something possibly evidenced by a scene in Super Mario Sunshine where F.L.U.D.D. searches its databank and has data on Mario’s adventures prior to that game as past events. I also personally like to consider the Paper Mario series broadly canon to the Mario series as a whole so I will be including aspects from that here. Peach first met the Mario Bros and Bowser back when they were babies, with her first meeting with them being during the events of Yoshi’s Island DS. In this game Peach was one of the babies who the Yoshis are trying to help get home, with her ability when riding a Yoshi being to use her parasol which allows them to ride on high winds. The next appearance of Baby Princess Peach was during the Shroob invasion where her older self went back in time and was kidnapped by the Shroobs. Baby Bowser planned to kidnap Baby Peach, however he was interrupted first by the Baby Mario Bros and then by the invading Shroobs. Baby Princess Peach actually manages to not be kidnapped throughout the game instead remaining in the future Castle with a young Toadsworth who is her caretaker. Following these two events (excluding spinoffs with Baby Peach where she appears but there’s no story such as Mario Kart) the Mario Bros seemingly left the Mushroom Kingdom possibly for New Donk City. Despite their absence, Bowser didn’t attempt any more kidnapping plots for some time, possibly not until the Mario Bros returned to the Mushroom Kingdom following the events of Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros seems to be the first time Bowser successfully kidnapped Princess Peach taking over her Kingdom entirely until the Mario Bros managed to defeat him and save her. In the backstory to this game, Bowser apparently used magic to transform the people of the Mushroom Kingdom into various objects and then kidnapped the Princess to stop her from turning them back. It’s due to this as well as Peach’s abilities in some games that it seems she is capable of certain forms of magic, often of the healing variety. It is only rarely however Peach is shown to use these abilities.

When it comes to her personality, Peach was probably the earliest character in the series to have dialogue, with her having lines in the very first game and most others after, whereas other characters like Bowser would more often only have dialogue in the instruction book at most. In the very first game it was fairly basic with her simply thanking Mario or Luigi for saving her and offering them the chance to take on a new quest, which was a harder version of the game. Super Mario Bros 3 however had her show a bit more personality, with her making a joke to her saviour at the end of the adventure based on the infamous line Toad would tell the player in the original game, “Thank you Mario but our Princess is in another castle.” Before telling them she was just kidding. Peach’s personality varies a little from game to game, but usually the main aspects of it are that she’s kind, generous and when not captured is good at advising the others what needs to be done. Despite being fairly reliable, she can sometimes be somewhat whimsical, especially in spin-off games with her often enjoying frolicking and singing, and she can when pushed show a fairly strong angry side, with her either aggressively convincing a character such as Luigi to go and save his brother or reacting angrily to those who mock her. Finally, despite her longstanding friendship with Mario, she’s willing to tell him off if he’s getting too carried away, almost abandoning him and Bowser at one point when they start squabbling and she just wants to go home.

Friends: Princess Peach is fairly popular throughout the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond and as such a lot of characters know of her even if they haven’t met her before. Peach’s subjects seem to all adore her a lot with them often being depressed when she’s absent. Of her closer relationships, her closest arguably is with Mario, with him often rescuing her and sometimes her returning the favour. Their relationship tends to be teased sometimes as possibly romantic, but there are times Peach will find Mario a bit too overbearing. What is clear is that they trust each other entirely and when possible will often work together. Peach is close with Luigi also although not to the same degree as Mario, however she will still in some games treat Luigi the same way she does Mario in the ending when Luigi is the character being played as, such as giving him a kiss on the cheek. Later games have shown she extends this to anyone who helps her as a sign of gratitude, including Yoshi, Toad and Toadette. The next closest relationship Peach has is with Toadsworth her elderly steward who has taken care of her since she was a baby. Toadsworth often worries for the Princess’s safety and tries to accompany her whenever he can. Toad is Peach’s attendant and often fulfils Toadsworth’s role in his absence sticking by her side when possible. Toad is fiercely loyal to Peach despite his cowardice and will often try to help her out however he can.

Toadette is someone Peach gets along with, however the two don’t interact that often with Toadette often doing other roles to help Mario. Peach has a connection to the Yoshis due to them saving her with the other Star Children when she was a baby, however besides this there is only one instance of her ever riding Yoshi, which is in the ending of Super Mario World where she rides Yoshi on the journey back to his house after Bowser is defeated. Of the rest of the cast Peach seems to get along fairly well with most of them, with possibly her best friend being Princess Daisy who she often partners with in various sports and other games and the two will also act as friendly rivals when in competition with each other.

Enemies/Rivals: The relationship between Bowser and Peach seems to have developed over the years. Initially Bowser seemed to aim to capture Peach simply because she was the princess of the Kingdom he was invading and then because she could undo the magic he used to transform her citizens. Eventually however, Bowser seemed to develop an affinity for Peach, one which she does not reciprocate at all. Due to this, Bowser’s aim is always to kidnap Peach and try to convince her to marry him rather than just destroy her as with his other enemies. Bowser also at one point told his son Bowser Jr that Peach was his Mother, which led to her being shocked when Bowser Jr claimed this. Despite Junior revealing later on he knew Peach wasn’t his real Mother, he still referred to her as Mama and seems to like the idea of it, kidnapping Peach sometimes so she can be with Bowser. Although Peach does not get along with Bowser or his troops, she will work with them when needed, and in cases where Bowser helps against another enemy she is willing to do things such as send him a cake as thanks. Beyond this, Peach has had a few other enemies, often them being villains who kidnap her as part of their plan such as Sir Grodus or Cackletta. Peach has fought against a couple of villains herself including Count Bleck’s minions, Smithy’s Gang and Wart, leader of the 8 bits who invaded Subcon.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: Being from the Mario series, Princess Peach has had a fair few crossovers, although not as many as the Mario Bros themselves. Super Mario RPG had Peach playable as part of the party, and therefore she was also present when Samus made a cameo in the game. Link’s cameo in the game appears before Princess Peach joins the party, however they are still technically in the same game so I feel it’s still worth mentioning. Princess Peach similarly to Mario appears in the crowd for both the Megaton Punch minigame and Kirby’s Battle in the Boxing arena with King Dedede in Kirby Super Star and the remake Super Star Ultra. Princess Peach is a racer in Mario Kart 8, where there was a Mii costume for Captain Falcon, along with the Blue Falcon as a kart and two F-Zero tracks. In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, there is also Link in both his Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild incarnations as well as both default Inklings, two human Animal Crossing Villagers and Isabelle who are playable. Princess Peach is a character in the Game & Watch Gallery games and as such has crossed over with Mr. Game & Watch. In the NES version of Tetris, Pit appeared playing a harp alongside characters such as Princess Peach, Samus, Link and Donkey Kong.  Princess Peach is a character in the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series therefore crossing over with Sonic. Pac-Man has crossed over with Princess Peach in the arcade Mario Kart GP series. Whilst Princess Peach has never directly crossed over with any of the Hero characters from Dragon Quest, many of the Fortune Street games have featured crossovers with the Dragon Quest and Mario series, with many other Dragon Quest characters interacting with her. Finally, and perhaps most notably is a game where Princess Peach has a direct cameo and Mario doesn’t. (There is however a character based on him) In all versions of Link’s Awakening a character named Catherine sends a photo of ‘herself’ to Mr. Write (a character who is a clear reference to Dr. Wright from the SNES SimCity game who is also an assist trophy in Super Smash Bros) with him showing Link the photo which is a picture of Princess Peach. In reality, Catherine is a goat living in Animal Village. Whilst normally I tend to not include pictures or outfits in other games as cameos (Peach’s dress and parasol appear in many other series such as Animal Crossing for example) I felt in this case it was justified as the photo is part of the actual sidequest regarding the character’s identity rather than just being a background cameo.

Why this game?

Princess Peach has been playable in a few games so I had quite a few to choose from, Super Mario 3D World was one contender with Peach playing somewhat similarly to how she does in Super Smash Bros, however she lacked something specific in this game that I went for with my final choice. The other two notable options, Super Paper Mario and Super Princess Peach which was her starring role both had her play in a somewhat more unique way to how she did in Super Smash Bros, with Perry the Parasol being a big part of her moveset in SPP, whilst in SPM Peach only had her Parasol lacking her floating jump. Super Mario Bros 2 was the first time Princess Peach was playable, and most of her moveset in Super Smash Bros originates from the game, with not only her being able to float for a short time when she jumps, but perhaps the most unique aspect from the game being her ability to pull out turnips to throw as weapons, something she only does in SMB2. It was for these reasons I decided to go with Super Mario Bros 2 in this case, especially as those other games will still be covered later down the line on my list. When it comes to the version of the game I chose, I went for the Super Mario Advance incarnation rather than the original NES or Allstars version, however I will detail that more in the next section overall.

My past with this game.

So this game is one of the select few specifically from my childhood. I had Super Mario Allstars on the SNES with this game on it, but also I had the NES version as well. With the NES version the main thing I remember is just having the box with the picture of Mario on the front. Similarly to other games then I never completed this one, however it was probably the Mario game I got the least far playing. I believe I would only ever get to 1-3 before usually not making it past the Phantos to face Mouser. For some time I mostly remembered the game but didn’t really revisit it, it wasn’t exactly in the same class as Super Mario Bros 3 or Super Mario World even if I did have some fond memories of it for being so different. Probably the most confusing thing with the game for me back then was related to the cartoon show. In the cartoon show, Bowser is depicted looking different to the games, with him being mostly green with a crown on his head as opposed to his look in the vast majority of other appearances with orange scales on his body and only his head green as well as lacking a crown. Wart, the antagonist of Super Mario Bros 2 however, was all green with a crown on his head. Due to this, I believed that the King Koopa on the cartoon show was actually Wart (which might not be that outlandish as the first version of the cartoon show was based on Super Mario Bros 2, so it was likely King Koopa was just an amalgamation of Bowser and Wart, although this is DIC so the possibility of them just screwing it up is always the most likely scenario) Another perhaps somewhat unique source of this was my Grandma when I’d visit her as a kid, who would have various games I could play with my Cousins, and one she had was a card game called Super Mario Bros Blockbusting Card Game. Of course, being a big fan of Mario then I would love getting this out, especially as the big cards had artwork of the various enemies, powerups and the Mario Bros. What was interesting was this also had artwork of Wart as well as Bowser, which therefore for me back then looked even more similar, so I just assumed Wart was the King Koopa from the cartoons and Bowser was from the games. What helped with this was there were a fair few of the bosses from Super Mario Bros 2 who were cards in the set.

It was only with magazines I believe that I gradually learnt that Wart was the antagonist of Super Mario Bros 2, and at first I believed this meant he was the villain from the cartoon show till I finally realised the cartoon show wasn’t really relevant to the games at all and King Koopa was meant to be Bowser. I also at this time learnt probably the other most notable aspect of this game, that it wasn’t the original Super Mario Bros 2. Despite having Super Mario Allstars, back then I didn’t exactly look at the Lost Levels as anything else other than a weird version of Super Mario Bros I couldn’t get anywhere on, and it was only later I learnt that that was the game in Japan that was SMB2 and the SMB2 I knew had been another game altogether, Doki Doki Panic. What’s interesting is I believe apparently Miyamoto was more involved in Doki Doki Panic than SMB2 (Lost Levels) overall, so it’s not as if the game becoming a Mario one was completely out of nowhere. It’s also very interesting that so many factors of this game, things like Peach’s movement, Luigi’s distinct character design, Toad being playable and perhaps the biggest one being various enemies such as Bob-ombs and Shy Guys became a huge part of the Super Mario Bros series, with Bob-ombs appearing in the following game SMB3 (Which meant in Japan these enemies somehow went from being in Doki Doki Panic to Super Mario Bros 3.) The reason for this apparently was that they believed the original SMB2 (Lost Levels) was too difficult really to sell outside of Japan, something that tends to be mocked now, but personally I think it makes for a more interesting and unique sequel so I’m kind of glad it happened. It’s also interesting to me that due to this, outside of Japan Super Mario Bros fits a slight pattern I noticed with a couple of franchises on NES, where the second game in the series would be quite different to the first, then the third would end up being more like the first game again but expanded. The Legend of Zelda had Zelda II Adventure of Link which had sidescrolling as a major gameplay element before A Link to the Past brought the series back to how it was in the original game, Castlevania 2 Simon’s Quest was a lot different to the first game, but Castlevania 3 Dracula’s Curse brought it back to the gameplay of the first game, and with SMB2 it was radically different to SMB, but then SMB3 brought it back to the style of the first game.

Another big part of my history with the game, as with a fair few franchises, goes back to my experiences on the early internet, specifically Newgrounds flash animations again. Back then, there was a flash animation at the time called Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom which I really enjoyed. It was bloody and involved Mario dying and Luigi setting out for revenge, fairly tame compared to a lot of stuff on Newgrounds then and with some really nice usage of sprites. It was the second flash movie in this series however that involved Mario setting off to face the real villain behind the events of the first movie (which turned out to have been a dream) Wart that really made me appreciate SMB2 more. At the time I was really getting into messing around with sprites and Games Factory, trying to make my own games, so this flash movie made me look a lot more into SMB2 and all the unique enemies in it, with the various bosses such as Mouser, Tryclyde and of course Birdo and Wart being characters I wanted to see more of. This all led me to finally properly play SMB2 and beat it some time after I had beaten SMB3.

For my final history with the game, it relates mostly to Super Mario Advance, the remake of Super Mario Bros 2 that launched the Game Boy Advance. It was traditional at that point to launch a new Nintendo console with a Mario game, a pattern that would be broken only a few months later with the release of the Gamecube (which instead had Luigi’s Mansion, and the Wii wouldn’t have a Mario series game at all at launch.) This game was the first in the Super Mario Advance series and it’s arguably the version that was changed the most from the original game, with a few changes to the levels such as new giant Shy Guys and a fair bit more voice acting with all the bosses getting lines they’d say when you met them. This is pure speculation I’ve had since then, but I feel like they possibly picked Super Mario Bros 2 as they felt it was the game that they could risk changing most, and also that they changed it the most of the series so as to show off what the GBA was capable of with the voices and sprites. I remember when the GBA was the current console, Super Mario Advance was the game I’d tend to see most often being shown off in stores, even sometime after other games had come out. Despite this, it was probably the last game in the Advance series I got, but I’d say out of the Mario Advance series it’s the game I’d most recommend instead of or alongside the original or Allstars version as it’s the more unique experience. It’s due to this that I chose Super Mario Advance as the version for my playthrough rather than the others.

My Smash Playthrough.

I have actually played through this game fairly recently from start to finish, for a character much further down my list so the game is somewhat fresh in my memory compared to other games I’ve written about so far here. For this playthrough as it was the game I chose for Princess Peach I played through the whole game solely as her. In comparison I’d say she’s one of the characters who I prefer playing as due mostly to her extremely useful floating ability, with her downside (being her power which means she’s unable to pull vegetables or pick up enemies as quickly and a slower running speed) not really feeling too much of a hassle in exchange. I want to focus on Peach mostly, but Mario as always is the all-rounder having no real weaknesses nor gimmicks that make him excel in any area, Luigi has the best jump but is a little slower and less powerful than Mario (this is also the game where he first had his scuttle jump) and finally Toad (the character I played through the game as recently) is the fastest and most powerful but has the lowest jump, often requiring you to charge up a super jump (done by crouching down until the character starts glowing) to reach higher platforms. The plot of the game is that Mario had a dream one night where he went up a staircase and found a mysterious door. Opening the door he saw a vast world before him and heard a voice telling him this land was Subcon and that the evil Wart is causing suffering there. The voice tells Mario that only he can save the land and to remember Wart hates vegetables before Mario wakes up. The next day, Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess Peach go for a picnic, Mario tells them of the dream he had and they all say they had the same dream. During their picnic they see a cave and look inside it, finding a staircase leading up to the same door from the dream. When they open it, they are once again standing before Subcon, with them this time entering which is where the game starts.

Probably the most immediate point for most Mario players to notice when first playing this game is how it is very different when it comes to a lot of the standard Mario mechanics, granted when the game came out this was following only the original Super Mario Bros, so it wasn’t quite as unusual. Some aspects remain the same, such as the characters turning small when they have only one hit left, however unlike in other Mario games their health is restored by finding hearts, with any amount of hearts over one bringing them back to regular size. Mushrooms are in the game still, but this time finding one and picking it up gives the character an extra heart (as well as fully healing them) which means they’re a lot less common than in other Mario games. This game also lacks any sort of power-ups such as the Fire Flower, with the only alternate form being brief invincibility when touching a Star. I quite enjoy the main mechanic used to fight in this game, being picking up objects or enemies and throwing them at other enemies to defeat them, it provides a fun and fairly unique style of gameplay to the other games in the series and creates fairly basic puzzles in some cases where you’re required to build a small tower of mushroom blocks as an example to be able to reach a high platform. Possibly one of the most infamous aspects of this game are the keys that are sometimes required in stages to get through a locked door. You are required to carry the keys similarly to other objects to the door, however when holding the key, the evil Phanto Masks will relentlessly pursue you, and only stop either when you use the key on the door or drop the key. Despite their reputation and giving me some trouble as a kid, nowadays I barely find them a problem as just throwing the key ahead of you usually gets them off your back long enough to travel a fair distance before they pursue you again.

When it comes to difficulties I faced playing the game, it’s a fairly easy game, with only two sections I remember really causing me many problems both recently and back during this playthrough. The first is a stage where you’re travelling across the tops of whales in the ocean. The top of them is a fairly big platform, although the middle of the platform will sometimes have water spout out of their blowhole. Touching this water from the side will hurt you which can be somewhat annoying, however jumping on top of the water that’s spurting out provides a platform. Perhaps the most irritating part to me is when you’re required to use the whales tails as platforms, mostly as they are very small and it can be very easy to slip off of them, leading to an instant death. The second and probably most irritating situation in the game for me are parts featuring you digging through sand. In these parts of the level there are layers of sand that you can dig by pulling them similarly to how you pull vegetables out of the ground. The problem with these parts are the Shy Guys who constantly walk from left to right, and will fall down the layers of Sand you’ve removed. Due to how little room you have to manoeuvre when you get lower in the sand, picking the Shy Guys up and throwing them doesn’t really work, often with them catching on a layer above and instantly walking back into you taking off health. The way I describe this sounds like it’s a design issue but it’s more just hard to describe and really makes sense when playing, it’s not unfair or anything, it’s just these sections are the ones I tend to die most at and find the most tedious, possibly simply due to impatience when it comes down to it.

The stages aren’t really ground-breaking, but when compared to the stages in the original Super Mario Bros I feel they have a fair bit more variety. The themes for them are grassland, vertical waterfall stages, desert stages, underground caves and snow stages, with some of them simply being at night. I still find the stages do some interesting things however with them not seeming just like variations of each other but often having a few unique features to them that makes them stand out, for example the very first stage is a fairly basic grassland, but the end of it has you going into a cave to reach the top of some hills, then climbing into the clouds before facing the boss. The levels are longer than those in the original Super Mario Bros, however there are less of them, with each world only having 3 stages, and the last world, World 7 only having two. The game is somewhat challenging, it was probably the one I got the least far in of the Super Mario Bros games as a kid, but despite a couple of issues I find it fairly simple to play through now, especially with Peach.

The Bosses are probably the more interesting of the first three Super Mario Bros games with there being quite a few variations, although some are repeated a few times. This game was the debut of Birdo who appears in a few variations. The most basic battle with Pink Birdo has her shoot eggs from her mouth at you, which you have to grab from the air and throw back at her. Red Birdo shoots eggs also, but varies it with some fireballs, so you have to be careful which projectile you jump onto and which you just avoid. Green Birdo is the final variation shooting only fireballs, requiring you to grab other objects from around the room to throw instead of eggs to beat her. There is a fourth sort of variation exclusive to Super Mario Advance, being the Robo Birdo. This boss fires eggs also like Birdo, however the eggs are giant and it also has a charging attack which requires you to grab one of the chains hanging from the ceiling to avoid. Birdos are usually the bosses of the regular stages in Super Mario Bros 2, with the third stage of each world having a unique boss to fight, Robo Birdo being one of these unique bosses who replaces a repeated boss in the original versions of the game. There are a couple of unique appearances of Birdo in the game however which I find neat personally, one of which is a Pink Birdo who appears at the very start of stage 4-3. This Birdo will always respawn when defeated when you leave the area through a door and return again. The reason why is that the eggs she fires are actually meant to be used to ride across a large chasm to reach the rest of the level, which is probably one of my favourite little gimmicks in the game.

Mouser is the first main boss in the game, a Mouse with sunglasses who likes to throw bombs everywhere, naturally the way to beat him is to throw his bombs back at him. I remember finding this boss a little annoying mostly as he’s on a platform above you, and only gets effected by the bomb if it goes off where he’s standing. Due to his erratic movements this can be down to luck somewhat as to whether he’ll stand in the right spot when the bomb explodes, although it’s hardly a difficult battle overall. What’s probably most interesting to me about Mouser is that he is probably the boss who varies the most between versions of the game. In the original form of the game, Doki Doki Panic he appeared as a boss three times, with a green eared version in stage 3-3 and a white furred version in 5-3. Super Mario Bros 2 replaced the version in 5-3 with another boss, and then Super Mario Advance replaced the green eared version with Robo Birdo, but actually had a second boss battle with the regular Mouser replace a second boss battle with another character. Tryclyde is the next boss faced all versions of the game, being a three headed snake that shoots fireballs and has to have mushroom blocks thrown at it. Interestingly Tryclyde appears again as a boss in SMB2 but in Super Mario Advance it’s replaced in it’s second battle by Mouser. Another odd factor with Tryclyde is in Super Mario Bros 2 it is red, but in the remake for Mario All-Stars and Super Mario Advance it is instead green with red patterns on it’s back. It’s particularly odd in this case as some enemies, Cobrats who are single headed snakes that appear in the game remain red in all versions. Tryclyde is more of a challenging boss than Mouser and caused me perhaps a death or two but wasn’t that tough overall. The next boss is probably the one I had the most trouble with, Fryguy a living flame. Due to being a flame, touching Fry Guy at all causes damage, so you have to throw mushroom blocks at him. What makes this battle more difficult is that Fryguy moves around a fair bit, and hitting him with the mushroom blocks due to this without being hit yourself can be a lot more tricky. On top of this, when you beat the first phase of the boss fight, Fryguy then splits into four smaller versions that can be just as tricky to hit and all need to be extinguished in order to beat him. Fryguy is probably second only to Wart when it comes to how often I’d die to him, and I think in this playthrough actually killed me more than Wart did. Clawgrip the crab is the final of the standard bosses in the game, throwing boulders at you which have to be picked up and thrown back at him. I remember this battle being a little tricky as landing on the boulders properly could be tough, and approaching from the side at all would cause you damage, but overall he was less tough than Fryguy to me. Clawgrip replaced the white Mouser and was the only boss who wasn’t in Doki Doki Panic (besides Robo Birdo.) Every boss is voiced in this version of the game and I find them fun little voicelines overall that make them more memorable, with lines like Mouser going “Here, have some bombs!” or Birdo’s “This is as far as you go!”

The final two levels are the most difficult overall, not being as irritating to me as the digging through sand or whale sections earlier in the game, but more difficult stages overall than the others, with the first having you travelling across clouds with a lot of enemies and pits to overcome and the second being a big palace which is probably the biggest maze in the game. They are both however, probably my favourite levels in the game overall. I tend to have an affinity for cloud based sky stages and I find the palace a fitting final location. Wart is the final boss of the game and is fought in a room with the Dream Machine which he has been using possibly to create the various monsters that make up his army of bad dreams. The Dream Machine seems to perhaps possess some sort of sentience however, as in the final battle it starts shooting out vegetables which can be grabbed and thrown into Wart’s mouth to defeat him. Wart fights by shooting out bubbles and it is only when he opens his mouth to do so he can be hurt by throwing a vegetable in there, which was why at the start of the game Mario was told about Wart hating them as a hint. I remember having some trouble years ago with timing the vegetables so as to not get hit by the bubbles, but this time it went fairly smoothly and I beat Wart I think first time. With Wart defeated you go through to the next room and free the native inhabitants of Subcon from a jar, who celebrate Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach defeating Wart and saving them before seeming to throw the defeated Wart out of the Palace. With this, the scene then switches to Mario in bed, revealing the whole game was a dream as cast credits for all of the enemies in the game go by, which in the original version of the game had a couple of mistakes such as Ostro, a minor enemy and Birdo’s names being swapped, which is corrected in this version. It’s a nice ending and for those who overanalyse these games like me, somewhat interesting as a few of the enemies who first appeared in this game such as Shy Guys and Snifits actually also appeared in Yoshi’s Island when Mario was a baby, so as this is part of a dream those memories might be related to them appearing in Wart’s army of bad dreams, although I know it’s probably nothing that deep overall. So overall, I enjoyed playing through this game, it’s not overly long or difficult and as a portable game back when it came out and the first example of what the GBA could do, it was very good overall I’d say.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Peach in Smash.

I’ve pretty much gone over the main aspects of Princess Peach in this game when it comes to Super Smash Bros, this game was the origin of Peach’s floating jump ability and her pulling turnips out of the ground to throw at enemies. In Super Smash Bros, very rarely Peach can pull other items out of the ground instead of a turnip, one of which being a Bob-omb, which is possible also in Super Mario Bros 2 where some of the tufts of grass when pulled will turn out to be a Bob-omb which has to be thrown away immediately or else it will explode on you. Other than this however, most of Peach’s other moves come from other games I will cover later, such as her frying pan being from Super Mario RPG, Tennis Racket and Golf Club from their respective sports series and Parasol from various other games. There’s nothing really to customise so that’s pretty much it for Peach’s appearance in this game.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to Super Mario Wiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using Miiverse before it shut down.

[bailsmo]

Touhou Perfect Cherry Blossom (TH7)

Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom. is a vertical-scrolling bullet hell and the seventh official game of the Touhou Project series by Team Shanghai Alice. The full game was first released on August 17, 2003, at Comiket 64.

Initial release date: 17 August 2003

Series: Touhou Project

Designer: ZUN

Developer: Team Shanghai Alice

Publisher: Team Shanghai Alice

Mode: Single-player video game

There are playable characters such as Reimu and Marisa but they also added Sakuya Izayoi from Touhou 6 The Embodiment Of Scarlet Devil as a playable character, also known as the stage 5 boss or second to the last boss of Touhou 6.

Plot:

The heroine follows the trail of cherry blossoms high above Gensokyo, breaking through the greetings of Lily White, eventually reaching a great magical boundary and the poltergeist musicians Prismriver Sisters. ... The heroine defeats Youmu and hurries to Hakugyokurou to get Gensokyo's spring back.

Touhou Bosses:

Letty Whiterock (レティ・ホワイトロック Reti Howaitorokku) is a seasonal youkai who's only seen during winter. She seems fittingly cold towards most of the humans she meets, and is feared by humans as she is known to freeze them. Letty first appeared as the Stage 1 boss in Perfect Cherry Blossom, later she made a brief cameo in Hopeless Masquerade as a background character.

In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, it was written that she was a type of yuki-onna. According to ZUN, if she was to show her full power compared to her strength shown in Perfect Cherry Blossom, it would cause an incident.

Ability

Manipulation of chill

She possesses an ability to manipulate chill. It's not an ability to create blizzards or make snow fall, but rather an ability to strengthen the "winter" that exists in the natural world. According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, since this is equivalent to an ability that manipulates the winter within nature, she possesses tremendous power according to the environment, but she is pretty much powerless outside of winter. In Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, Letty herself said that outside of winter, she hides away in a place where not a ray of sunlight can reach. In Forbidden Scrollery, she is shown spreading snow over Gensokyo.

Chen (橙) is Ran Yakumo's shikigami, who was guarding the village of Mayohiga during the events of Perfect Cherry Blossom. Unfortunately, she could put up little resistance due to being far away from her master.

Chen first appeared as the second stage midboss and boss of Perfect Cherry Blossom, along with being the extra stage midboss and Ran Yakumo's familiar in one of her spell cards. She was also Yukari Yakumo's familiar in Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, and Antinomy of Common Flowers, and was a target on Stage 6 of Shoot the Bullet. Additionally, she made a background appearance in Hopeless Masquerade.

She is a bakeneko youkai that Ran Yakumo uses as shikigami, but since Ran herself is Yukari's shikigami, she is a "shikigami of a shikigami". When possessed as a shikigami, Chen aquires the fearsome power of a kishin, but since her master is also a shikigami, her ability is fairly low. The possession is removed when she is soaked in water, and since she also hates water as a cat, she is in any case weak to water. Her height is "low" and is capable of human speech. She can use impressive black arts, but only possesses the intellect of a human child. Whether she is possessed or not, her personality and appearance don't change.

She ordinarily lives on Youkai Mountain. In Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, she made the village of cats and tried to stand as the leader, but the progress has been unfavorable.

Ability

The way her abilities show up in the game itself is that she runs around the screen so freely in a way that is not expected of a boss of a shooting game, which is characteristic of her (as one would expect of a cat). This could be considered cute if she were an ordinary cat, but it also makes her slightly more tricky to deal with due to her speed and deceptive movement, which can confuse her opponent. Another characteristic of her is how she spins around and around while attacking, somewhat like her master.

Alice Margatroid (アリス・マーガトロイド Arisu Māgatoroido) is a doll-controlling magician who lives in her home in the Forest of Magic near the home of Marisa Kirisame. According to ZUN's comments in the Music Room of Perfect Cherry Blossom, Alice is kind of a special character in the Touhou Project.

Alice made her first ever appearance of the fifth PC-98 Touhou Project game Mystic Square as the third stage boss and the Extra stage boss. Afterwards, with her canon completely remodelled, she appeared again as the third stage boss and midboss in the seventh work Perfect Cherry Blossom and as a playable character in Imperishable Night, along with being a playable partner in Subterranean Animism. She was a playable character in Immaterial and Missing Power and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and was the Final boss of Cirno's scenario in Touhou Hisoutensoku. Additionally, she was a target on Stage 3 of Shoot the Bullet and has made a background appearance in Hopeless Masquerade.

She is a pure all-purpose-type magician youkai who lives in a western-style house in the Forest of Magic without strengths and weaknesses in attributes, but she fundamentally fights in style of manipulating her self-made dolls. With a personality that is indifferent to other people, she is attached to magic, and is usually confident but is also timid in one aspect.

In the games on the PC-98, she lived in Makai calling herself "The Magician of Makai" and had a black book that's called the "Grimoire of Alice". Makai was created by Shinki, along with its residents. She was also a magician that can control dolls. She also created her own "Wonderland" in Makai. In the games on Windows, Alice's book in her character portrait in Imperishable Night reveals that the writing possibly spells out "Grimoire". This is some evidence that the book is possibly the same Grimoire which Alice used in the Extra Stage. In Perfect Cherry Blossom, she said, "at last, former friend, we meet again. Have you only brought me your life as a gift?" which can be considered to be something carried over from the PC-98 games, and ZUN himself said that it was the third time that they have fought.

Lily White (リリーホワイト Rirī Howaito) is a fairy who heralds the coming of spring. She first appeared as the 4th stage midboss of Perfect Cherry Blossom, then as a special generic enemy in Phantasmagoria of Flower View and a common midboss in Fairy Wars, each time announcing spring has arrived. She returned as the stage 3 midboss of Hidden Star in Four Seasons.

Ability

Announcing that spring has come

Lily is able to announce that spring has come. Although it's unclear what this ability entails concretely, Gensokyo's residents are made to feel the actual feeling of spring's arrival which makes her very popular with florists. It seems like she is able to provide impetus for flowers and other plants to bloom. In chapter 8 of Strange and Bright Nature Deity, there was a depiction of the place she passed by instantly becoming spring.

She can still attack with said ability, but it's mostly due to excitement about the spring as she's not very aggressive. While it's advised not to stay around when she attacks, she has a good relation with humans. She doesn't seem willing to attack even if they catch her. Likewise, humans don't see her as a threat, but rather as a symbol of good luck.

The Prismriver Sisters (プリズムリバー三姉妹 Purizumuribaa San-shimai) are three characters named Lunasa Prismriver, Merlin Prismriver and Lyrica Prismriver, together appearing as the stage 4 boss of Perfect Cherry Blossom. Lunasa, Merlin, and Lyrica are collectively called the "Prismriver Ensemble" and perform at parties and festivals. At first sight, their instruments (Lunasa with the violin, Merlin with the trumpet, and Lyrica with the keyboard) may seem scattered and disconnected, but they still perform magnificent music. There is also a fourth Prismriver sister, named Layla Prismriver.

These three sisters are poltergeists, made by Layla Prismriver to have the appearances and personalities of her three older sisters from whom she had been separated. Thus, they are technically all the same age since they were presumably created at the same time. They only act out the roles of oldest, middle, and youngest sister based on whichever one they were made to resemble.

It is known, based on their official profiles and from comments by Eiki, that none of the original four sisters are still alive today. However, it's unknown how long ago the events that spawned these three poltergeists occurred.

Ability

Performing on musical instruments without hands or feet

In Perfect Cherry Blossom, this is the main ability that all three sisters have been specified to have. This probably derives from the ability poltergeists have, put to specific use in performing with musical instruments. By manipulating the spirits of instruments, they're able to manipulate the spirits of notes to create sounds. Since they needn't have direct contact with the instruments, they're able to play music impossible to play by hand.

Since the three sisters' musical performance is something that they have learned themselves after Layla's death, their previous abilities were probably along the lines of "moving things without hands or feet" or "making sounds without hands or feet". The former is because poltergeists in general can move things and make them float. The latter is because in the general phenomena of poltergeists, they can be heard from anywhere (a rapping noise, for example).

Youmu Konpaku (魂魄　妖夢 Konpaku Youmu) is a half-human half-phantom who lives at Hakugyokurou in the Netherworld as a gardener and swordplay instructor, who also serves for Yuyuko Saigyouji. She first appeared as the Stage 5 boss of Perfect Cherry Blossom, the seventh installment of the Touhou Project, and has since become a recurring playable character.

In Perfect Cherry Blossom, she gathered all of Gensokyo's spring at Yuyuko's instruction, which was the reason Gensokyo's winter did not end. In Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red and Chapter 13 of Curiosities of Lotus Asia, she took on the responsibility for collecting and returning the phantoms that wandered around Gensokyo as a result of the boundary of the Netherworld being thinned.

She belongs to the subspecies of phantoms called the "half-human half-phantoms" (半人半霊 "hannin hanrei" or "hanjin hanrei"). Half-human half-phantoms are the mixed-race of phantoms and humans (幽霊と人間のハーフ), which have a largish phantom accompanying them and a relativity long life span compared to humans. The phantom that always follows them is called the "half-phantom" (半霊[1]、半幽霊[2] hanrei, hanyuurei), and they are the other half of their body.[3] In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, it was supposed that Youmu's human half manipulates the phantom half consciously. Youmu's human half has a lower body temperature compared to normal humans, and her phantom half's body temperature is not so cold compared to normal phantoms. In the Imperishable Night manual, it was written, "she has two kinds of body: human and phantom," showing Youmu to be "human" and the phantom to be "phantom."

Half-human half-phantoms are long-lived, but in Seasonal Dream Vision, since it has still not been 60 years since the time she was born, in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, she was not very knowledgeable about the "flower incident that occurs once every 60 years."

Personality

As she has a straightforward diligent personality, she is often manipulated by those around her (especially Yuyuko).[2][7] For this reason, she often fails at her task, but that does not mean that she has no real power, and she particularly excels at instantaneous force and concentration power.[8] In Immaterial and Missing Power, as literally stated by the shishou, "truth-slashing is something which you know", so she often performs tsujigiri-like moves, but Suika Ibuki pointed out that she does not think that Youmu understood her shishou's teachings.

She has strong sensitivity, and in the good ending of Imperishable Night, her human half was unable to resist the insanity-inducing effects of the true Moon, causing her to become "half-insane". Ironically enough, considering her species, she is afraid of ghost stories, dares, and darkness, but she is calm around phantoms since she is half phantom herself.  In Imperishable Night's Extra. After defeating Fujiwara no Mokou, Yuyuko pretends there is a ghost under a tree, earning a terrified shriek from Youmu. Much further on in Ten Desires, as a result of being mistaken as a hermit, she temporarily mistook herself as being a hermit. Due to artworks and her sprite in the fighting spin-offs, Youmu may be ambidextrous.

Yuyuko Saigyouji (西行寺　幽々子 Saigyouji Yuyuko) is the main antagonist of Perfect Cherry Blossom. She's the ghost "princess" head of Hakugyokurou in the Netherworld.

She first appeared as the Final Boss of Perfect Cherry Blossom, later becoming a playable character along with Youmu Konpaku (as a duo) in Imperishable Night and showing up as an expansion character in Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, and Touhou Hisoutensoku. She would eventually also appear as the Stage 1 boss in Ten Desires, and as a Day 4 boss in Impossible Spell Card.

Unlike many departed spirits, Yuyuko resembles a living human; a humanoid. She is very cheerful and friendly: Her playful, good-humored personality, otherworldly beauty, and courtesan charm can have a disarming effect. She often makes bizarre and apparently nonsensical remarks and sometimes seems to overlook the obvious, leading to her characterization as an airhead or a ditz. As an instance, in Touhou Bougetsushou, she toyed with Youmu Konpaku as a daily occurrence even with Ran Yakumo present.

However, at other times she will reveal an extremely cunning and perceptive side and will also sometimes display an extraordinary level of knowledge. For instance, in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, she was the quickest character to identify the culprit as Tenshi Hinanawi when the incident was in the omen stage (Yukari Yakumo spoke of the dwindling of phantoms as Komachi Onozuka's negligence, but Yuyuko guessed correctly). Additionally, in Ten Desires, she obliquely informed the playable character about the location of the incident regarding the divine spirits. She is also known for her incredible appetite.

Ability

Manipulating death

This is the ability to, without exception and without permitting any resistance, end the life of any living being, whether it be human or youkai. The only kind of creatures immune from this are Hourai Immortals. Clearly and simply, it is an unusually and dreadfully powerful ability. Although this ability is what drove her to commit suicide and become a ghost, it seems that she hasn't forgotten this ability since then, and it seems that she can use this ability in a carefree manner (though she doesn't act carelessly in the usage of this ability). However, whether she's able to end life only to the extent of fainting, or if she invites one to death gently, is unclear. During her lifetime, the latter was true. Her Last Word "Saigyouji Parinirvana" is said to be the very incarnation of this ability.

Manipulating departed souls

This is the ability that enables her to manipulate ghosts and spirits, an ability she possessed even while she was alive. Although it's unclear what one is exactly able to accomplish with this ability, it seems to place Yuyuko on the role of the manager of the ghosts who stay for a while in the Netherworld. Because of this ability, she is able to let those from Hell stay eternally in the Netherworld.

Secret Bosses:

I can't post anymore images lmao so just search them up

Ran Yakumo (八雲　藍 Yakumo Ran) is the kitsune shikigami of Yukari Yakumo and is in turn the master of the bakeneko shikigami Chen.

Ran first appeared as the extra stage boss of Perfect Cherry Blossom, where she also appeared as the Phantasm stage midboss of that game, so she has the strong image of being a midboss, but even as an extra boss, she also had abilities not to be ashamed of, as she is also a long difficult battle.

She frequently appears as an attack option in the fighting games for Yukari Yakumo and has appeared in Imperishable Night as Yukari's attack.

Ran is described as being a gentle youkai, who won't start a fight unless provoked. Although Ran is a shikigami, she sometimes "forget" her position as a servant and acts of her own volition, like deciding to attack the heroine in Perfect Cherry Blossom to avenge Chen. Because of this, Yukari punishes her to remind her who the master is.

(still can't post another image)

Yukari Yakumo (八雲　紫 Yakumo Yukari) is a legendary youkai who is able to manipulate boundaries. She is the master of Ran Yakumo. She is called the "gap youkai" (すきま妖怪 sukima youkai), although "gap youkai" is not the name of a species, as she is more of a one-of-a-kind type of youkai.  Regardless of her power, Yukari appears to be the most well-informed being in Gensokyo of any kind and usually achieves her goals through manipulating events rather than direct combat.

Yukari first appeared as the phantasm stage boss of Perfect Cherry Blossom with Ran Yakumo serving her as shikigami. Despite being a high-class boss compared to other Extra and Final stage bosses, she's made occasional appearances in later games. She was a playable character in Imperishable Night, partnered with Reimu Hakurei (and supported her in Subterranean Animism), and was playable in the fighting games, but was only a cameo in the background of Hopeless Masquerade. Also, she was also an Extra stage target in Shoot the Bullet and appeared on the Final Day of Impossible Spell Card.

She is one of the oldest youkai in Gensokyo, one of the strongest of youkai, and is praised as one of the wisest of youkai.[3][4]. She was one who proposed the Great Hakurei Barrier, which covers Gensokyo, and is therefore tied to Gensokyo's creation. She is the only known youkai who is able to pass this barrier in order to access the Outside World, although there are a few instances like Mamizou Futatsuiwa who's passed it. She also performs surveillance and safety administration (mainly for Ran Yakumo). She is simply one of the most mysterious youkai living in Gensokyo.

Personality[edit]

Yukari is known for being a very youkai-like youkai who sleeps all day and lives for the enjoyment of life. Though she rarely leaves her house, she's well-connected and is acquainted with most of the most powerful youkai as well as anyone having anything to do with the Great Hakurei Barrier or the outside world, although she rarely attacks humans.[3] She has a tendency to toy with her opponents rather than use her full power from the start. If anyone is suited for the role of "mastermind", it's Yukari. She excels at mathematics and is experienced due to her long life.

She possesses superhuman intellect and especially surpasses in dealing with numbers. In Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, as Ran Yakumo said, this intellect is something that even Ran is not able to understand, to the extent that for example that she is able to determine the depths of the darkness of Avici or determine in an instant how long it would take for Ursa Major to devour the North Star, as it seems. Concretely to what extent this amazing intellect goes is hard to know, but it would be no mistake to think that this intellect far surpasses that of humans.

She often has a great deal of insight and understanding about whatever happens in Gensokyo, and possesses considerable intellectual prowess, as well. Though she seems flaky and unreliable most of the time, when the safety or security of Gensokyo is at stake, she won't hesitate to get involved, even if it means using others to do the work for her. For example, in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, she treats Tenshi Hinanawi with much hostility after finding out the plot of the Heavens. She could easily be either a villain or a heroine, depending on her whims.

Yukari deals with problems by manipulating others to act to resolve things for her. She seems to rarely act directly except in particularly egregious situations. In all cases, she rarely lets anyone know what her true aims or goals are and sometimes these goals are extremely abstract. Yukari has a well-deserved reputation of being fickle, whimsical and lying often and thus many characters in Gensokyo dislike her. For whatever reason, Yukari takes it all in stride and does not seriously deny any of those comments. She seems to actively try to keep her more obviously-altruistic actions a secret, such as her donations to the Hakurei Shrine in Strange and Bright Nature Deity. She possibly cultivates this image to ensure that people continue to fear her as a youkai, as this is what her true goal for a particularly complex gambit is revealed to be at the end of Cage in Lunatic Runagate.

Abilities and strength[edit]

Yukari is with no doubt one of the most powerful youkai in Gensokyo. She has been described as an extremely powerful being more than once,[5][6], with easily enough power to destroy all of Gensokyo if it's needed.[7]. In Silent Sinner in Blue, Yukari claimed Watatsuki no Toyohime was stronger than her and avoided a direct confrontation with her, although at the time she was purposedly letting herself being captured.

Her physical strength is what you'd expect from a youkai. While the extent of an average youkai's strength is never really specified, their bodily ability is typically very high, so her strength is still far from that of a human. There are some examples and statements which show Yukari's physical prowess:

In Curiosities of Lotus Asia Chapter 12, Yukari's hand is able to effortlessly block and brush aside a mallet swung by Rinnosuke Morichika with all his might, leaving him shocked that a small slender feminine hand was able to pull off such a feat. Rinnosuke said that it feels like he hit a pillow.

Hong Meiling, in one of her Touhou Hisoutensoku win quotes, notes that she felt a odd resistance from Yukari's body (presumably after punching and kicking her a lot), to the point where she wondered if Yukari was wearing something else under that presumably delicate dress of hers.

Yukari states in her own win quotes in Immaterial and Missing Power that she has no weaknesses, and even shooting, cutting, stabbing, hitting, or killing her is useless.[8]

By mostly moving around in gaps, one would usually not see her as doing much physical labor at all, and according to Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, since she ends up in blurting out herself such sayings like "to do mountain climbing at such an age", there is the image that she is like an indoors-type youkai, but in the end, she is still a youkai.

Manipulation of boundaries

Yukari's "Danmaku Barrier", as illustrated in The Grimoire of Marisa.

Yukari using a border for transportation in Silent Sinner in Blue.

Yukari's main ability is manipulating any kind of boundaries.[9] This ability has been described as logically being able to affect essentially anything.[10] In her monologue during A Beautiful Flower Blooming Violet Every Sixty Years, she explains that this power allows her to control or remove the boundaries between any and all things, like Gensokyo and the Outside World, the worlds of the living and the dead, humans and youkai and even the day and the night. [11]

The most common and visible application of Yukari's boundary manipulation abilities is opening "gaps" (すきま sukima) which act as portals between two places, where she's able to hold, sit on or emerge from such gaps. By manipulating borders in space and creating a chasm, she is able to link together separate places. Because of this, she's able to show up at any place and can freely travel to places like the Outside World. Within these gaps one can see a lot of eyes, which according to the description of Yukari's Magic Eye "Laplace's Demon" spell card she can also use to see. Although Yukari's gaps can ultimately connect any kind of place, in Silent Sinner in Blue she could create a gap to the "fantastic" version of the Moon only during the full moon, which is the only period of time during which the passage is open. For some unknown reason she is unable to use her powers to bring a living being on the far side of the Moon, which is where the Lunar Capital is located. She is, however, capable of freely travelling between Gensokyo and the Outside World. Yukari can create gaps through which only she can pass, or which anything can pass through.[12] Moreover, while the main use of gaps is travelling to different plances, Yukari also uses them in battle either by virtue of being able to use almost any object (such as tombstones, road signs, and even running trains) as a weapon,[13] by retreating inside them to avoid being hit or land unexpected attacks,[14] sucking in an opponent's attacks to throw them back.[15], or merging different gaps to create harmful spatial distorsions.[16]

In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, manipulating boundaries is described as a terrifying god-like ability with no weak points which there is no defense or countermeasure against, capable of fundamentally undermining reality itself and as one of the most dangerous abilities that youkai are known to possess, while Yukari's manual profile in Imperishable Night says that "the danger and potency of her ability is beyond imagination".[17]

Ultimately, everything is built upon the existence of boundaries; if there were no boundaries everything would effectively exist as a single enormous object. Because of this, the ability to manipulate boundaries is logically an ability of both creation and destruction: by making a new boundary is to create a new existence, and to destroy a boundary is to negate an existence. For example, as said in Perfect Memento, if there was no water surface there could be no lake, if there was no sky line neither mountain nor sky could exist and were it not for the Great Barrier even Gensokyo itself wouldn't exist. Furthermore, it seems that not only are physical boundaries, but also the general idea of boundaries can be manipulated and it seems like she would be able to manipulate the boundary between dreams and reality, which could very well be how she was able to drag the real Sumireko Usami out of the Dream World in Antinomy of Common Flowers. Yukari is also capable of seeing (and seeing through) boundaries that are normally invisible; when the Human Village was displaced from history by Keine Kamishirasawa, Yukari was completely unfazed and still able to see it.[18][19] She also tells Marisa that it would easy for her to manipulate the boundary between Winter and Spring.[20]

It's shown that Yukari can control the boundaries and bend them to her will as seen in Immaterial and Missing Power when she adjusted the sky by manipulating the border between the daylight and moonlight to unite the day and the night.[21] According to Marisa Kirisame, Yukari can even control the boundary between "a danmaku for play and a danmaku for battle".[22]

Yukari is also capable of sensing and repairing damage to the Great Hakurei Barrier, and although in Perfect Cherry Blossom Yuyuko Saigyouji doubts Yukari could make such a strong barrier,[23] she has been refered to as its creator in various occasions.[24][25] To add to all this, Hieda no Akyuu writes that "manipulation of boundaries" is theoretically a godlike power which would allow Yukari to create or destroy anything, but that all the stories about it are impossible to confirm.[3]

Examples of the usage of this ability:

Neutralized Suika Ibuki's ability by forcing the oni, which was spread as mist over the entirety of Gensokyo, into her normal form so that she could be seen and interacted with by others.[26]

Adjusted the sky by manipulating the border between the daylight and moonlight, to unite the day and the night. Possibly, this also allowed Yukari to stop the night in Imperishable Night.

Manipulation of the boundary between the true and illusionary moon, which allowed her to open a gap, that lead from Gensokyo to the Moon, on the lake surface. (Lunar War, Silent Sinner in Blue)

By creating the Boundary of Fantasy and Reality, she estabilished the Outside World as the real world, and Gensokyo as an illusionary one, allowing youkai to disappear from the former and thrive in the latter. (Youkai Expansion Project, over 500 years ago)

She is widely acknowledged as the creator of the Great Hakurei Barrier, which isolates Gensokyo from the Outside World. (The Great Barrier Disturbance)

Upon Yuyuko's request, weakening the Border of Life and Death between the world of the living and the Netherworld, making it possible for denizens of both world to easily cross it. (Perfect Cherry Blossom)

When the Great Hakurei Barrier has loosened, she returned Rinnosuke Morichika to Gensokyo who has been ejected into the outside world (Curiosities of Lotus Asia)

Dragged the real Sumireko Usami out of the Dream World (Antinomy of Common Flowers)

By manipulating the border of master and slave during the Perfect Possession incident, she thwarted Joon and Shion Yorigami's scheme that allowed Joon to win any battle by forcing Shion as the enemy's slave (Antinomy of Common Flowers)

Many of her Spell Cards and attacks allude to various circumstances involving boundary manipulation or creation, such as: Barrier "Balance of Motion and Stillness", Barrier "Mesh of Light and Darkness", "Boundary of Humans and Youkai", Barrier "Charming Quadruple Barrier", between many others. The description of Yukari's "Boundary of Intellect and Feet" states that she would be able to cut anything by using boundaries, a motif also used in her Splitter "Thing That Splits All Into Two" Spell Card.

According to herself, when humans have noctambulism it's because she manipulates the boundary between sleeping and being awake.

Yes this was all mostly from the Touhou Wiki because I can't explain this any better

[limejellysims]

The Thayer House

BABA BAW BABA BAW BA BA BA BAW BA BAW BAWWWWW

that’s in my head. just had to get that out there. anyway--

I’ve been playing my legacy neighbourhood for about... 12 years now? (lmao I need help.) I say playing, I’ve been dipping in and out here and there for quite some time now without much actual consistent play, true of my game atm in general really. I’ve mainly been free building a ton, which has been getting me back into the mood to actually play a lot more, but nearly every time I peek into the main ‘hood... urgh. So many of the houses were built and/or not had an overhaul in... a long time. My tastes have changed and have been changing a LOT since I built or decorated many of these homes. And goddamn, this one was ugly. And far too big. Completely unwieldy even. The layout of the upper floor? looooool actual architectural barf.

So for three days, I worked on a new version, and I’m finally happy with it, and the Thayers got moved in :D

No, this is NOT it. This is the terrible before version (which I hope would be obvious lmao xx)

(decent pic layouts? lol er how do i shot web)

I tried keeping the vibe about the same. It’s meant to be a little rustic-y, little beach house-y (at least outside) that ended somewhat modernised or renovated by the inhabitants. Half the top floor got scrubbed off completely. There was also a ton of wasted space on the flat ‘roof’, and I was inspired by a recent tour of @lurking-lilibeth​‘s Shikibu home, so I added a little ‘garden’ area up there. Fitting because the ‘founding’ spouse of this line was one of the Nature iconic hobbyists from Freetime.

I mean. LOOK AT THE STATE OF THAT. WHAT EVEN IS THAT? WHOSE HALLWAY COULD FIT LIKE. BOTH THEIR CARS AND THEN SOME IN IT? And who needs a nursery that big? And what is this, a nursery for ants Hagrid’s offspring?

And after. A lot stayed the same-ish but it’s a far more... idk, refined? Far less wasted space and there are more nods to the Sims who have lived ‘there’ in the past and defined the home and family line.

yeah. don’t even @ me. go home 20...11(?) me, ur drunk. I absolutely hated this then, I hate it now, and had tried making it work so many times but uh, I guess you can understand why I gave up completely after a while.

hee hee unfinished spare bedroom doot de doo. But, there are two master bedrooms with their own little bathrooms currently in use, and a hobby room up here. The one furnished bedroom at the front housed the three girls of gen six who are currently YAs at uni. The balcony off the hobby room will probably eventually house a telescope once people in the household start rolling the wants for one. I also did not repurchase the household cars for the same reason. It’s still not perfect or anything by any means, but I do like it. And there isn’t a ton of just... pointless room.

I didn’t even bother taking before pictures of the rear exterior because it was just a total wreck and I just wanted to bulldoze the whole fucking lot and move the family into this new place like yesterday, lmao. I’m still pretty hopeless when it comes to back yards and landscaping, but... an attempt was made? And I actually like the rear of the house itself. I could even fool myself into thinking I may have actually had a design in mind or consulted a floor plan or something, and not just lucked into that pretty, symmetrical window placement, hee hee? xx

anyway if you made it this far congratulations and thank you xxx and now, because i feel like it, i am going to blather a little bit about the actual family who live(d) here:

Yup, Thayer as in that Thayer. Meadow married Tobias, one of the 2nd gen spares from the main legacy line. This family has been through about 3 computers at this stage, so sadly this is one of the oldest and only existing pictures of them together.

Their only son, Prince, married Adriana Shaikh; who, as I mentioned, was one of the nature hobby leaders. I believe she was his first ever matchmaker drop when he became an adult, and that was all she wrote.

Of their three kids, eldest daughter Paris stayed behind to continue the Thayer line with her husband, Remington Harris, of Pleasantview Housekeeper Fame:

Their eldest daughter, Diana, has had three girls by that One Hot S4 Downtownie Guy in the Red Hoodie (in this neighbourhood, his name is Kenneth Danaher), whom she has dated for long time, but neither ever made any indications towards commitment so he remains a downtownie, and Diana is still single. He has a good relationship with his daughters though and was even present for their births.

I’m thinking I’ll maybe move him into one of my communal houses and make him playable so he doesn’t stay in ageless townie limbo and outlive his daughters :(

This was taken I think in 2015, and they’re still only in uni D: I’m not yet sure which of the three will take over the household eventually, but here are (l-r) Ella, Jojo and Maya Thayer. Jo is the eldest, and Ella and Maya are twins :D

anyway I am finally blathered out now I think, thanks again for stopping by and congrats if you made it thru all of this, omg xoxo stay safe!