I'm gonna need some time to digest that Afterstory, but ooh. That was a nice surprise.
Gonna collect my first reaction After Story thoughts below the cut, so fair warning.
Luke to Rosa: "Hello, and you are...?"
Artem to Rosa: "No, this is... Never mind. Do you know me?"
Vyn to Rosa: "Vyn? Are we that acquainted with each other, Agent?"
Marius to Rosa: "I don't know you. Isn't this our first time meeting?"
NO WAY. NO WAY.
This is such a fun idea.
While it can debated if this Afterstory is actually canon to the Omni-Spirits Bureau event AU as a whole, this idea is so fun to think about. With this backstory where Rosa technically meets each of the NXX suitors for the first time after knowing everything that happens in their routes (a la retroactive precognition), I think it would explain why the suitors trust her with so much so early.
The game technically drops us (the players) into Rosa's story after she's done with her internship. And considering what happens about Marius says about Rosa being there for her "official assessment" and Rosa's own thoughts, I think that their "first meeting" explains why they've looked out for her all this time and found her intriguing.
NXX?! All Four Of them?! Together?!
I also really like the unspoken implication that Vyn points out. It sounds like, technically, there seems to be another reason that they were all convinced to gather for the meeting with Director Zhou.
( **cough cough Rosa cough cough**)
----
I'm torn about this Afterstory though, because it's a really fun idea to have all of them altogether. I like thinking about the fact that the Afterstory could be seen as the main story to each suitor's romance routes in this event. I also really like that you can see a bit of the early relationship tropes for each suitor peeking out in the Afterstory too.
I'm also a bit sad because this Afterstory seems to suggest additional future world building especially when it comes to putting them altogether to solve future cases, but it doesn't seem to have materialized that way (as of now and what I can see on CN). I feel like they could expand here with the world in previous events, but I don't quite see that happening. Not anytime soon at least.
I might take some time to digest this Afterstory more before doing a bit of a reflection on the event. I'm still not sure if I want to do a bit of an overall ramble for each of the suitor event stories now that I've finished the entire event, but maybe I'll do some unstructured discussion-esque posts on my thoughts.
okay another headcanon i have (but one that i know isn't "true"* but it just amuses me too much) is that the law firm coffee that rosa and artem are obsessed with is... bad. they just have the same brand of workaholic stockholm syndrome that makes them love it. i think they bring it to an nxx meeting one time and the others are a little excited to try this thing that rosa raves about, but once they take a sip, they look at each other wondering if they've gone crazy because it's so terrible. vyn and marius could've gotten away with noncommittal reaction but she sees right through luke's reaction (he can't lie to her). and from then on, nxx switches to afternoon tea instead.
*i don't think celestine would let the office have such terrible coffee. OR, consider: she keeps separate, shittier coffee/coffee machine in the break room so artem and rosa can keep making goo-goo eyes at each other over it while the rest of the office can still get their caffeine fix.
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