Doodles of my favourite unreliable narrator trio AKA the "constantly praising a guy's looks and willing to give up my life for him does not make me gay" truthers
Happy 10th anniversary to Mystic Messenger! I sketched my three babes quickly for the occasion, but I hope to properly render these sketches when I find time.
I feel very emotional right now, I found these drawings from 2017. I think they are the oldest mysmes drawings i have saved and I still find them very cute. Back then Ray route wasn’t even released yet, so I’m not sure where my first drawing of him is.
From what I remember, I first downloaded mysmes in 2016 summer but my english was basically nonexistent back then so I deleted the game after not understanding a thing lol. Then, in 2017 i downloaded it again right after V route was released. I remember the game opening screen being a CG from V route that had young V and child saeran specificially. The account I made in 2017 is the one I still use now. (The achievements are embarassing though haha i still dont have most endings unlocked)
(Under the cut is more of my rambling about my game experiences 😙)
When I first played Casual Story, my first route to go for was Yoosung. I used to LOVE cute boys and honestly yoosung might be the reason I was so obsessed with the idea of marrying a really cutesy man when I’m older and always talking about this dream throughout middle school. Yoosung was literally my type back then and he still is what my type in fictional characters are hehe
I didn’t really like Zen much back then (I do now! Even tho he’s still not my fave :p) so I think my second route was Jaehee. And oh, how should I describe it. She really was my gay awakening even though I still wasnt awakened yet haha When I played Jaehee route, I was completely in love with her. I used to think “well, I don’t like real girls but my feelings for Jaehee really are real! I have romantic feelings for her!” and thinking about Jaehee really gave my heart a squeeze. And it’s really funny thinking about this now cuz turns out i’m the complete opposite lol I’m a lesbian irl but still like both fictional men and women in otomes !!😅
To no one’s surprise, I loved Saeyoung’s route too. I was completely destroyed by the twins story and I still have a picture of little Saeyoung and Saeran making a promise CG that I printed out back then kept safely in my folder. I hated Rika and disliked V after playing the route and secret endings. (Not much to say about Jumin route, I also loved him but he just was never my focus!)
As a whole, mystic messenger literally taught middle school me how to speak english and text with friends online... I even learnt the acronym "lol" from seven. And when I replayed casual story sometime ago I was horrified to realize how much of my texting style was similar to Yoosung 😭 What you consume at 12 really sticks with you huh
Anyways, another story was already released but I never saved up enough hourglasses to play it. That’s why even though Ray route was released in 2018, I didnt get to play it until 2019 summer. Towards the end of the summer an older sister I met on discord gifted me her mysmes account, filled with hourglasses. So finally I got to play Ray route and it made me feel the most intense emotions I felt for a game. There’s a lot of Saeran fans who dislike his route blah blah blah but for me it is what made Saeran who he was and it was such a well written rollercoaster of emotions. I was head over the heels for Saeran and he’s still my fave since then, even though both yoosung and Jaehee are pretty close seconds.
After Saeran route I played V route and unfortunately ended up hating him— I started liking Rika by then but my hatred for V grew more and more as I played V after story 🥲 Until I replayed his route back in 2024 or 2025 I always hated him to the point it became an inside joke between my friends that they would show me V pics to make me annoyed 😭😭 I like him now tho! After my replay with a more mature mind I think i could see his perspective better and I realized how similar are the ideals we have about love and life.
In 2020 Saeran AE finally came out and it was a crazyyy time to be in the fandom. Everything was so new and exciting~~ And after playing the AE, I got my first ever unintentional Bad Ending HAHA I was literally heartbroken and had a hidden thought that maybe I dont deserve Saeran if I can't give him a happy ending? But I quickly found out that getting saeran AE good ending was really hard for everyone so it wasnt my fault (I still cant get the GE if i'm not using a cheatsheet lol)
During 2020-2021 my friend was making a story for our OCs that had yoosung and saeran in it as well, so I frequently drew them but my friend only cared about Saeran so I usually drew him paired with her OC and Yoosung with mine~ But well, even though I was drawing them I stopped playing the game for a while and prob deleted it bcuz of storage issues. When I wanted to play it again sometime in 2021 I realized my -gifted- account was gone and I couldn't recover it no matter what. It was huge deal for me back then and made me not play the game for a few years.
But in nov 2023 I decided to play it again with my older account! And being 17 with a credit card now, I realized I can just buy hourglasses lol And I found out that during that time the prices for Turkish android ver were VERY CHEAP. Apparently, the game didn't make the prices based on USD and instead kept the old prices for every country separately so because of the inflation in Turkey, the prices were so much cheaper compared to the USD version. For example from a screenshot I found; in 2024, 100 hourglasses meant 3 USD, but it was 7.49 turkish liras which was approximately 0.03 USD back then HAHA but they changed the prices and it's the same as USD ver now 🫣
Either way, I was able to unlock Another Story again and some DLCs too so I spent the first half of 2024 drawing mostly mysmes~ It was when I made my own mysmes-sona Elvan as well.
In general, mystic messenger has been part of my life for a long time and it's a game i will always adore. Even if I dont play the game frequently, I'm always listening to its OST, and I keep remembering the characters through small moments in my life. With any fan I talked to, they said the same thing: RFA felt like real people in a chatroom, and they felt like family. It's amazing that what was essentially a visual novel was able to become a real part of people's lives through its innovative game interactions, story telling and beautiful themes. Thank you to all of original Mystic Messenger developers, writers and voice actors 💖
Happy 10th anniversary to Mystic Messenger! I sketched my three babes quickly for the occasion, but I hope to properly render these sketches when I find time.
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