Inktober Days 12 - 22

**SPOILERS FOR REMEMBER THE FLOWERS CHPT 9**

There's a lotta hard hitting scenes in this VN and these are just snippits from a couple of big ones that I really wanted to get on paper. I wanna omage some of the other VNs I've enjoyed, but not spend like a whole month on a single comic, so i'd like to gradually improve on sketchier mini comics like these.

Cyrus's one hell of a boyfriend for being a scrawny nerd who was willing to go on 6am winter jogs with his jock boyfriend cause he wants him to be happy.

Looks like someone didn’t remember the flowers

I’ve made that exact same joke so many times.

Remember the Flowers (Sci-Fi Visual Novel)

So most visual novels I've talked about on this blog have been from Echo Project, a development studio that is famous in the furry visual novel scene for making some of the most acclaimed VNs in the furry fandom and for actually completing some of them. Remember the Flowers isn't made by them though. Its creator, primary writer, and artist are all Jericho. The only connection it has to Echo Project is that its music is done by Anthemics, who's a regular OST composer for Echo Project games like Arches, Khemia, Interea, and a few tracks on the Smoke Room. Because of that, the soundtrack to this VN is really stellar, as most of Anthemics' work is.

Now I will warn you that it is really hard to not spoil this game as the story contains two really major twists that precede some of the best parts of the entire game. I will try though. With that out of the way, the game starts with the protagonist having a nightmare before waking up in the middle of class. He's a college student who's sort of coasting by on his journey to become a doctor. After correcting his teacher on his lesson after he was caught napping in class, he soon gets dismissed and makes some plans for a date with his boyfriend before taking a nap in his dorm room. When he wakes up, he's in the middle of a dark alley with long white hair, a bloody headwound, medical scrubs, and the inability to remember basic details about himself. Fortunately, he's found by Cooper, whose job it is to find humans like the protagonist and take them to a safe haven called Resoom where he can get help once he's safe. It's only now that you find out this world the protagonist is waking up in is a futuristic scifi dystopian world, unlike the more or less regular modern setting the story started in, but with some characters who are anthropomorphic characters, because furry.

Now before I threaten to spoil the game, let's go over some positives. The biggest one I have is the serialization. One problem a lot of unfinished visual novels have is that they have a hard time finding a place to pause the story before the next update. Arches does this pretty well while 9:22 does this really poorly. Remember the Flowers, thankfully, not only has chapters that begin and end in pretty good places but it also has groups of chapters called "Arcs". Each Arc could be a visual novel in its own right and it makes RtF feel like a compilation of a VN series rather than one long VN. This is especially good because the creator is not working on this game as their main job, so they can't afford to do frequent releases. However, the structure makes it so you can just read to the end of the last completed arc and be satisfied with waiting until the next arc is completed. Each arc is bookended by a major twist or a major character revelation that sets the new status quo of the next arc. The first arc is definitely the weakest one, as the only major character besides the protagonist is Cooper and it provides a lot more mysteries than answers. However, the second one is my favorite, but the third and so far last completed one is really a great contender if not for the fact there's not a lot to do except hang out, but the character exploration is really fantastically done.

Now for other positives, the protagonist, Cyrus, is probably the most well-written human protagonist in a furry VN. Human protagonists have a very terrible reputation in furry VNs for being extremely bland player-insert characters whose self-identity is so non-existent that you usually get to pick their names. It's such a negative stereotype in fact that Furry VN databases usually include "Human Protagonist" as a tag to filter out. Even Adastra falls into this trap to an extent. But Cyrus is not a bland character. For a few things, he's asexual and has a pre-established boyfriend, childhood friends, and his own career path and interests. Although he still has about as much personality as Marco in Adastra at the beginning of the game, as the plot progresses and he finds out more about himself and the world around him, he slowly has more and more personality and development to his character and the fact he sorta fills the role of a player-insert early on makes the dramatic beats hit that much harder, because then the progression to what he's like later on makes so much more sense, because you can't help but imagine that if you were in his place, you would probably end up the exact same way. This is exemplified in the text. In the first arc, he's just wide-eyed and curious. In the second, he's maintaining a much more critical outlook, trying to assess everyone he meets and every piece of information he gets carefully. In the third, he's robotic and describes everything very matter-of-factly. He feels like he's talking in the third-person for how bluntly he describes everything. But he does start to get back in touch with his humanity as the arc goes on. However, in the fourth arc, while he's almost back to his old self, there's a distinct lack of self-regard or care for his own well-being. And each step from the beginning of the game to the last update feels natural.

Now I did make it clear that the first arc has some problems. It's unfortunately very slow and not a lot happens. Most of it is used for some broader establishing information, but the actual plot is boringly simple. Cyrus goes home with Cooper and spends a day or two at his house, he then goes with Cooper to get some supplies, and they hop on a train to the pickup spot. Until the arc-ending twist, that's most of what happens. And because Cooper and Cyrus are the only major characters of that arc, there's not a lot of dynamic to play off of and because Cooper is very secretive, there's also not a lot of information to find out. In the second arc, you get introduced to 4 major characters, 3 of which have their own dynamics with each other who are also a lot less stingy with information and a lot more open about their backgrounds and who they are. And any information they do withold, they make sure to explain why they are witholding it and that in itself can give you something to mull over, or it can inform their characters, such as Axel who withholds the absolute minimum information he's been commanded to, Ring who is very stingy with what he reveals and rarely reveals basic information except on accident, and Rose who barely conceals any information if she can manage to remember it. Also, they do reveal most of what they are witholding anyways by the end of the arc. So by contrast, the 2nd and 3rd arcs are very entertaining and well-paced even if it does get a little slice-of-life-ish by the third arc. I wouldn't recommend skipping the first arc though. It still has its moments and there's a lot of important information in it you can't miss.

I'd say Remember the Flowers is definitely a great visual novel even in its unfinished state, especially since it's more like a game series anyways. I highly recommend it and I would do that even for first time players. If you want your first furry visual novel to not feel like a dating sim, then RtF is a really good choice. I would recommend it over Adastra only to people who really don't need visual novels to be completed to like them. With that said, until next time, keep on yiffing

Links

itch.io

Last Train Home

The real reason why Jericho made Cyrus, the asexual main character of his VN Remember the flowers, a human and not an anthro is that he knew that the target audience, aka gay furries, would be disinterested in sexualizing a human compared to hot furry men. Genius play there.

Really bad with social media icons cause they tend to be what I imagine when I think of the person behind each account so agonized over my first one for my return to tumblr. Gonna go with OOT sheik first to test the waters.

Finally continuing my reread of RTF in order to make save files of it for my laptop to replace the ones I had on my phone.

Reading a bit of chapter 4 today and it ended up reinforcing something I noticed rereading the previous three chapters. Spoilers for Remember the Flowers VN.

Cyrus is terrified of incurring Cooper's wrath and finds himself minimizing Cooper's outbursts in order to cope with this fear.

Incident number 1 being when Cyrus benignly asks Cooper about his name and is immediately threatened. Cyrus immediately jumps from being afraid to trying to minimize that fear by thinking that he should be grateful.

Incident 2 (where Cooper wakes Cyrus up and berates him for not telling him about regaining some of his memories) is probably the most overt in it's scariness because it's Cooper's biggest display of rage and Cyrus outright states that he feels unsafe. Cyrus finds himself able to assert himself and fight back somewhat but this is quashed when Cooper switches gears and tricks him into thinking that HE was the unreasonable one. This is all capped off by this scene.

Incident 3 is probably the most minor and wouldn't seem bad in a vacuum but given the prior occurrences and what Cyrus's thought processes have turned to it's quite chilling. After eating a meal at the docks, Cyrus inquires about Cooper's dislike for fish which ends with Cooper angrily reaffirming his distaste for the food and Cyrus immediately drops it. They talk about another subject before heading back but Cooper's anger is still fresh in Cyrus's mind and his behaviour is very much geared to try and avoid stepping on the eggshells.

And Cooper doesn't attempt to put Cyrus at ease here or assure him that he shouldn't feel responsible for his bad mood, but instead berates him for not voicing his thoughts, despite how much of Cooper's behaviour and actions have discouraged Cyrus from doing so.

At this point Cyrus no longer inquires about Cooper's anger even internally and shifts the conversation to move from his discomfort. It ends up with him thinking this about Cooper which would be a good trait in a vacuum but given what I've pointed out before it takes a more sinister light.

And that speaks a lot about Lance "Cooper" Krager. He may seem like the bad boy with a tough exterior who's soft on the inside and on some level that is true. But that also hides the much more prominent and all encompassing aspect of him that is incredibly horrifying and evil. Every trait about him and every action he takes has a dark twist to it once you know who he really is.

Thinking about RTF chapter 14 where Cyrus is making the same mistakes he did 300 years ago by putting his body at tremendous risk in the name of altruism.

A more positive and funnier observation I made during this RTF reread is that Cyrus is such a bitch about fashion, it's hilarious.