straightforwardly | 116 | in which I finish Jaehee's route in Mystic Messenger, & also start watching Critical Role

► I was going do a Mystic Messenger update at Day Nine, but by the time I found time to write up my thoughts, it was already pretty late, so I headed to bed instead. Then I figured that if I was updating on Day 10, I might as well wait for Day 11 to hit and write up all my ending thoughts at once… so here I am.

I was really touched by Zen’s changing his profile picture to the lemonade that Jaehee made for him! And the mutual gift-giving was also really sweet, though I maintain that what Jaehee gave Zen was a tea set, not a coffee set, despite what the characters said. That was clearly a teapot in that image! I really liked their relationship, though I don’t ship it. (Though I am cautiously intrigued by the idea of Zen/Jaehee/MC, because of all the ot3 vibes I got from this route.) (Zen got so blushy when he realized that the MC was the MC at the party. And there was that whole, “So we three are the same… Let’s support each other” thing in one of his phone calls with her…)

The conversation between Jaehee and Jumin after she gave that presentation made me so uncomfortable. I just wanted to sink into the ground. But their reconciliation was excellent. I love how worried Jaehee was about him after the car accident, and I was also very pleased by how upset Jumin was about her quitting. I have a huge soft spot for characters with Does Not Compute reactions to emotion expressing said emotions in non-standard ways. (Like stealing Seven’s car.

Which, I have to say, when Jumin mentioned that driving actually helped relieve his stress, my reaction was basically along the lines of SERIOUSLY YOU COULDN’T HAVE FIGURED THAT OUT SOONER BEFORE you nearly killed Jaehee with the stress from your cat projects???)

Also, his first mention of the possibility of the MC becoming his assistant was completely out of nowhere, haha. ALSO, I had to laugh when he arrived at the party and Zen asked if he had to run there (because he was sweaty), because I invited his driver to the party. I mean I know that that’s an outside variable and so can’t actually be the in-game reason why, but still. It was a beautiful mental image.

I was really struck by Yoosung popping up with that picture of him when he was younger with Rika’s puppy. I hadn’t expected that when Seven came up with his prank— I thought it was going to be like the coffee/fainting thing all over again, but instead it turned out to be weirdly poignant.

Speaking of Seven… that final phone call with him was interesting. There was that bit where he mentioned that he doesn’t call too often because he’s worried about getting too close to her— first, that was kind of shippy, and second, it makes me really wonder about what’s going on with him behind the scenes. I’m pretty sure there’s going to be secret!angst all over the place, what with the whole “I’d like to be someone else’s light too, but it’s not that easy” thing, and also because in my experience, the lighthearted jokesters in VNs tend to be the most depressing ones. Agh, why did I decide to save his route for last. Why. (Answer: Because I know that I’m probably going to really like it, and I like to end on a high note when I play VNs.)

Second… well, after my last post, pretty much every character made a comment about “not playing the game too late” (though I think one of them did make it a comment about not playing cellphone games in general too late), so I figured that I’d drop that line of thought. But then in that phone call Seven got really weird??? (And also really reminded me of the conversation with V at the end of Zen’s route, though that was much less strange than this one with Seven). He said, “I had no idea you’d take Jaehee’s route~ Wow… I mean… Jaehee’s route… just refers to a game in my imaginations. According to my imagination, you reaching this point means it’s gonna be a happy ending! You have no idea how glad I am! V wants to thank you too.”

As for the VN portion between V and Jumin… well, let me show you all the notes I took while playing it:

LIVER CANCER??? WTF V WHY DO YOU KEEP SPRINGING SURPRISES ON ALL OF US oh it’s a lie

Oh god jumin super emotional I’M NOT USED TO THIS

“Going to Rika” ...shit is she alive, maybe? And behind the religious organization attacking the RFA????

SO yeah. It gave me Jumin feelings, and also some more food for thought in regards to what the hell is going on behind the scenes.

Before the hacker struck again, I actually thought that V had decided to basically sacrifice himself to the organization after the part of the conversation we saw between him and them, and that was why he told them he was sick and couldn’t go to the party. Which. I still think the sacrifice thing is likely, considering the aforementioned VN portion, but it doesn’t explain why the hackers initially laid off, before trying again.

As for Rika… well, I can’t help but noticed that the VN portion at the end of Day 4 has her musing about religious themes. That plus V saying he was going to her made me wonder. I mean, yes, it could just be a metaphor for dying, but… well. We’ll see.

I also found Zen’s dream at the end (about Rika and V going somewhere, and only being able to see their backs) super interesting, considering what he said about his dreams in his route! But he laughed off the idea of that dream being a kind of precognition this time around.

Finally, I want to talk about Jaehee and her relationship with the main character! I knew going in that this was a friendship route, but… well, let me put it this way: at one point I wrote in my notes, “Jaehee in denial about her crush, hee. (at least, I’m choosing to interpret it that way, because wtf.)”

In a phone call:

Jaehee: ...Yes, I should tell you. I like you, a lot.
Me (Internally): OMG YES
Jaehee: It’s not a romantic feeling, but we are aware of each other and respect each other… It’s a polite kind of liking but I really like you...
Me (Internally): GODDAMNIT

And then she got my hopes up AGAIN. Observe (again, all of these lines are from phone calls):

“I think I’m getting greedy now… I want you to like me more. Ugh, this isn’t the time to say that… Stupid.”

THIS NEXT ONE MOST OF ALL:

“And… there’s something else I want to say, but I won’t just yet. Women have to be much more careful in approaching other women…”
“I’ll advance one step at a time… I hope someday I can analyze this feeling I have towards you.”
“I hope when I figure it out… you feel the same way too.”

And later, there was also this, though it does also make a lot of sense in context of her wanting to run a cafe together with the MC, so I can forgive it more easily:

“And I… have something to say.. I-I mean, never mind.”
“If I say too much… the impact won’t be as strong later on, so I’ll wait.”

And then the party came, and there was this beautiful moment where Jaehee goes EXCUSE YOU SHE’S MINE to Jumin (well, okay, not really, but she does call him out for hogging the MC’s attention before pulling her away to talk with her), and comments about how oddly excited she is about meeting her— and then proceeds to go “FRIEND FRIEND FRIEND JUST A FRIEND NOPE NOTHING ROMANTIC HERE” for a long interval, and I just. Stared.

Jaehee, you are so in denial about your crush.

What makes this even more amusing is that I started this route perfectly content with the idea of their relationship being platonic? I only started shipping Jaehee/MC later on, but now, ugh, I shipp itttt.

I loved them becoming business partners, though. Especially the way Jaehee phrased it—- “Won’t you create a space of our own with me?” I can’t help but feel like that might be a reference to A Room of One’s Own (which, speaking of which, I really need to read. I should look if my library has it.)

Finally, there was the After Story. Which… was a weird mix of great and disappointing? I loved the chat, especially with what with Yoosung of all people becoming Jumin’s new assistant (at least partially against his will). Depending on how right/wrong I am about Jumin, it was also a good bit of character detail that he would keep/want the (relatively incompetent) Yoosung as his assistant when he’s usually such a stickler for perfection. I think it says something about how he deals with

I was also pleased to see that I was right about the cafe! My two theories about how Jaehee’s route would end was that she would either renegotiate her working relationship with Jumin, or that she would open up her own coffeeshop (though I didn’t see the MC’s role in it coming). But other than that… there was literally no Jaehee & MC content outside of the one CG of them working together in the cafe? So I felt rather disappointed in that regards.

Other than that, though, I was pretty happy with Jaehee’s route! And, I think that unlike with Zen, I’ll be able to handle doing her bad endings right away. For the most part, the “bad” answers weren’t too bad (except for maybe those leading up the Bad Ending 3), so I think I’ll be able to do it without it feeling like a chore.

Yoosung’s route is the one up next after I finish that up, because his is the route that I’m the least interested in, and I always put those routes in the middle of my playing order if I can.

► I’ve been poking around with crochet again. Specifically, I’ve been working on this baby blanket, as a surprise gift for a friend. I’m using different colors, though— I went with white, mint, black, and gold, since a bit of snooping around on her Pinterest suggested that that’s the color combination she’s wanting. It’s going pretty well so far!

► I’ve also started watching Critical Role. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long while now, since I’ve always been fascinated by D&D, and I already know from listening to Dragon Friends that I love seeing other people’s campaigns, but didn’t get around to it until now. I’m trying to listen to about an episode per day (though sometimes I only manage about half of one, since they’re so damn long), and right now I’ve just finished up episode 14.

Overall, I really like it! I almost didn’t get this far, though, because the first episode was pretty dull for me. There were a few shining moments (I think that was the one where Vax suggested that he and Vex pose as a married couple, and Vex shot that down ♥), but overall I found it difficult to finish the episode. That almost killed my attempt to watch the show then and there, considering how long each damn episode is… but then I remembered how much I love listening to D&D campaigns (Dragon Friends ♥) and considered how much fic is out there for Critical Role, and decided to give it at least one more episode. And by the end of that episode, I was sold.

I like all of the characters at least a little bit, but I think my favorites are Vax, Vex, and Percy (in no particular order). Pike’s pretty close to making the list, but for all I like watching her play, I don’t feel like I have a strong grasp on her character yet, so I’m reserving judgement. The thing with her talisman (or whatever it was) cracking does intrigue me, though.

I’m enjoying a lot of the character dynamics, and am intrigued by a few possible ships, but I didn’t have any actually shippy feelings for anyone until episode 13 whacked me over the head with that beautiful Percy/Vax moment, when Vax jumped onto the flying carpet and gave Percy a kiss on the cheek before telling him to go. Ahhhhh. ♥ ♥ ♥ It was only made better by Percy’s player jokingly asking if he could get an inspiration dice for that (since Scanlan got one when Pike kissed him on the cheek), and the DM said no, but maybe in the future if it develops into something more. I don’t know if they’ll actually go in that direction but WANT WANT WANT.

I’m cautiously intrigued by Percy/Vex, mostly because of the “he makes things for her dynamic”. I don’t know, I just find it cute that he spends all that time crafting special arrows for her, and I like how excited she gets when he gives her something. I’m also pretty sold on Vax and Vex’s relationship in any shape or form, and have been since Vax’s “they soon learned that the only person they could depend on… was each other” in their character backstories. I’m pretty charmed by the way they look out for each other, and also those moments where they act like normal siblings. ♥

I’m also pretty surprised by how interested I am in Percy, considering that I usually like the Single Human character pretty boring, and normally don’t have that much of an interest in guns in a swords & magic setting. But I really like how he fights, and his backstory is fascinating— seriously, it’s the one that I’m the most intrigued by. I have such high hopes for the moment when they finally delve into that and he faces his past. ♥ ♥ ♥

I started watching before I started the above crochet project, but I’ve found that I really like watching it when I crochet. I’m not very good at focusing on audio-only* things (one of the reasons I’ve never gotten very passionate about music, and also why I never listened to podcasts before it occurred to me that I could listen to them while doing chores), so it helps me focus on the show, but it also gives me a set amount of crocheting time so that I don’t procrastinate. Win/win!

*Yes, I know it's not really audio-only, but there are long stretches of time when it's not really necessary to watch the screen, imo, so it's basically the same thing for me.

116 | in which I finish Jaehee's route in Mystic Messenger, & also start watching Critical Role

no subject