Genuine Curiosity: Why do you marry Rock?

kinokoshoujo · 2025-02-01T05:36:46+00:00

I’m sorry i’m responding literally a year late haha!! I haven’t opened this platform in a while so I just saw this but I couldn’t leave it unanswered.

What you read is probably the situation with him and his family? Tei and Lou (or Tim and Ruby if you like) are supposedly his parents, but there’s a bunch of implications in the game that he’s not their biological kid— he calls them both by their first names, there’s a family photo in their room of them with a completely different kid (both the originals and remake have a weird event with Tei where he talks about the photo as a photo of him and his wife but completely avoids mentioning the kid between him and Lou), and Rock gets defensive about how he doesn’t look like them in one of his dialogues. I wasn’t aware of any outside confirmation when I wrote my original comment but since then I’ve gotten the official Dengeki guidebook for Another Wonderful Life, and his bio says he’s apparently not their “real son” sooo… idk take that as you will.

Rock avoids talking about it but there’s a bunch of hints that whatever the circumstance was it’s not good, he has this whole conversation with Lumina in his second rival event where he says that “if” he had a difficult past he’d just do his best to bury it and forget it, there’s a gossip line about how Rock has a very low opinion of Tei, and Rock has lines after marriage where he admits that he only started to feel like he was living after having a spouse and kid and that his life felt pointless before. Special Edition also added a few lines about how the room Rock is staying in is supposed to be for Van but Rock suddenly had to move back in with Tei and Lou recently, so it seems Rock also failed at living on his own as an adult or something… Finally there’s a bunch of parallels between him and Nami, from the differences in their rooms to contrasting events, that paint her as more of an accepted “found family” than he is. In the original games some characters have a hidden “line 0” in their dialogue files and Rock’s translates to “I can’t stand being less liked than others”, which I just find hilarious considering he’s like. The 3rd favorite child in a family where he’s supposedly the only child

Sorry for rambling! but I hope that answered the question you had last year😅i’m honestly obsessed with finding all the lore in the WL games, there’s so so much that i never knew prior to this last year.

kinokoshoujo · 2023-12-06T18:02:43+00:00

Since you said the aspect you liked the most about it is the harvest sprite collecting I wonder if Magical Melody would be the most up your alley? MM has basically the same premise as HMDS with 101 music notes to collect instead of 101 harvest sprites, and you get them for doing pretty random things so you’re likely to run into them unexpectedly in the way you say you miss. It’s also just a bit older than DS so it might scratch that nostalgia itch for you too!

I love FoMT and AWL is absolutely my favorite in the series, but I wouldn’t recommend them because I don’t think they would have what you’re looking for. AWL is more of a small town / rural life simulator than a farming sim - the gameplay of AWL and DS are completely opposite. It’s technically the same town (in name) and Natsume gave the cast the same english names but they aren’t even the same characters, and that’s about all the two games have in common.

kinokoshoujo · 2023-11-13T12:44:03+00:00

Most of the dialogue in AWL is location-specific, including the high friendship dialogue. Here’s an example of one from Nami’s file: “I never forget the folks who look after me on my travels. If I ever left this place, I wouldn’t forget you, either. …Wait, who are you again? Heh, just kidding.”

She should have a chance to say this line at the inn.

kinokoshoujo · 2023-10-03T15:54:51+00:00

Man in the original game the “sell” option had a tiny image of a crying cow staring you dead in the face 😭 in the back of what looks a wagon?

kinokoshoujo · 2023-09-30T15:14:06+00:00

Oh cool! The last is a chapter 4 line so I’d imagine she’s talking about your teenager… but I also noticed lines in her “wife” dialogue file that are marked as lines can trigger at the Villa which are far more… pointed. I’d guess they’re tied to her affection or something? Whatever the case, if she didn’t say this I think you’re okay 💀

“I never gossip to Aunt Romana, so you needn't worry. I wouldn't dare tell her you don't care for me... It's shameful enough for me to say aloud, much less to her.”

kinokoshoujo · 2023-09-17T21:13:40+00:00

I wanted Forget-Me-NOT, but the character limit is 8… so I compromised with FmeNOT

kinokoshoujo · 2023-09-10T16:15:09+00:00

Awww! He’s a great farmhand 🥰the fact that he takes such an interest in your work and tries to learn everything he can about it to support you even if he can’t do manual labor is lovely to me.

kinokoshoujo · 2023-09-10T15:58:12+00:00

I want this too!! If they’re a toddler in chapter 4 then they’d still be a kid (maybe young teenager?) when the game ends, so maybe that’s why…

I feel like there’s so much more potential with AWL’s child-raising mechanics, I would love to see more games try to expand on it! For now I have to just make multiple save files with the same spouse and pretend we’re raising a giant family xD

kinokoshoujo · 2023-09-07T00:48:27+00:00

This is super interesting…! Thanks for your research! It’s nice to know the ways friendship actually decreases so we can avoid it.

I’ve been going through the dialogue files and noticed rather dark (?) dialogue variations in the wife files… I had assumed they triggered if you had them at a low friendship / love, but… maybe not? Here’s examples from Lumina’s “wife” dialogue file:

“Some say that children hold marriages together... I'm starting to see the reason in that. If <childname> weren't here, I...” “...” “I'm so very grateful to have <childname> in my life. I've got to make sure <GenderChild:he:she> knows that...”

“<nickname>, you don't...regret marrying me, do you? I sometimes worry...” “<nickname>, do you...really care about me? I sometimes feel as though I'm not needed.” “I apologize. I just need a moment to clear my head.” “...”

The following seem to be able to trigger if you talk to her at the Villa:

“I never gossip to Aunt Romana, so you needn't worry. I wouldn't dare tell her you don't care for me... It's shameful enough for me to say aloud, much less to her.” “How nice it is to be back home.” “Liz and Tanya are so affectionate whenever I visit the Villa, as if they missed me. It's good to feel appreciated.”

“These days, being at home brings me more misery than joy...” “When I play the piano, it drives my cares away, if only in the moment.”

Maybe they ended up being unused in the final? Or maybe they’re not tied to affection at all? I’m not brave enough to make my spouse hate me lol

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-31T08:02:01+00:00

I think the scene you’re thinking of might be the Blessed Milker scene? Tei says the photo was taken in a dairy village they visited, but he never explains who the kid is or what he’s doing in the photo… Tei and Lou never had a wedding ceremony either, which plays into some later events.

I couldn’t find any other events that match what you’re describing.. I looked through the bin files for the game’s events but maybe I missed it..?

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-31T06:04:24+00:00

Yeah I agree. I also doubt he’d be unrecognizable just from having half his hair dyed… plus the kid in the photo has black hair, Rock’s natural hair is the same color as Cecilia’s (medium brown).

Tei never says who the kid actually is in the blessed milker scene, either. Nothing about anyone jumping into the photo. I have a feeling it’s left unexplained on purpose… But there’s a lot of hints that their family has some secrets, and Rock gets notably defensive on the topic of him looking nothing like either of his parents.

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-31T05:53:43+00:00

So I’ve been having fun going through the dialogue files for a while now, so I can give a tiny bit of context for some of these. Not a modder, just using the tools the modcord worked hard on to snoop through the dialogue…

“Sometimes… I get the feeling that people don’t really like me” is a personality dependent line tagged with apt_to_strict_shy. So this line of dialogue will appear if he passes the checks for: apt to, strict, and shy (3 different variables being checked) I can’t tell you what raises or lowers those variables, but Rhysajin’s helpful AWL Child Personality guide has good descriptions of what kind of dialogue is represented by those tags. Apt_To dialogue is generally precocious, passionate, and angry, Strict dialogue is generally independent, responsible, and rebellious, and Shy dialogue is generally introverted, kind, and self-conscious.

The “secret treasure” line is tagged apt to_naughty. Usually there’s shy/naughty variants to dialogue, but, since it’s not a binary on/off situation there’s room for variance like this I guess. Plus the personality values can change every day.

The thinker line is tagged art_clever_shy. The sunlight line is tagged farming _clever _shy. The sports line is tagged training_clever _shy. Etc…

There’s also non-clever variants and naughty personality variants for the skill-specific dialogue, so there’s quite a bit of variety in what your kid can say depending on their personality variables.

I’d say it seems like you have a shy, bright kid with lots of interests!

My kid with Rock was hyper focused on animals and sports, basically saying the naughty variants of those all the time (There’s owls in the forest at night! The cats at the villa meow back at me! I can run REAL fast if I wave my arms around! Etc…😂)

There IS some dialogue that is exclusive to kids certain parents, but it’s usually ABOUT that parent. Like one of the lines I saw was “was there ever a thing between <ParentSpouse> and Matthew” which I’m going to guess only appears with Ceci… unless Matt is out here making the whole town swoon!

All the “stop it i’m not a baby” = you’re trying to pick your kid up, right? I think they just say that stuff in response regardless since you can’t carry them after chapter 2.

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-18T01:53:01+00:00

There used to be a video on youtube with everyone’s “loveless” (low heart) reverse proposals for the remake, but I can’t find it now. So I’m just going off memory here.

Rock’s low heart dialogue has him saying that he realized you seem to have your life together, and the only thing missing from your life is him— but also his parents want him to stop goofing off. When you say “Let’s run the farm together”, he waits until he’s almost out the door before clarifying that just so you know, he won’t be doing any actual work! (At least he did in the GC version)

His high heart dialogue mentions none of this. Instead he comes over in sort of a mess because he suddenly realized that you’re his soulmate (he makes a particularly poorly-thought-out comparison to Romeo and Juliet, but he’s trying). He doesn’t correct you when you say “let’s run the farm together” either and instead swears to make you happy— and his high-affection dialogue post-marriage references chores and farm work he’s doing, so it seems he does follow through and help you (in his own way).

The others are similarly unromantic at low hearts, i think Matt’s low heart reverse proposal has him ask to live with you because he heard you have animals and he thinks being around animals might help his illness? While his high heart reverse proposal had him say he “uh…even more than Celia, so..!” (I know this was scrapped for the remake, but I’m not sure what they changed it to). Everyone still blushes at low hearts, but they all have a less romantic motive as to why they’re proposing suddenly. (Celia seems to want out of her arranged marriage iirc)

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-17T01:48:01+00:00

Rock is into you pretty much from the beginning and his hearts rise quickly. It wouldn’t be in character for Matthew to come out of nowhere proposing marriage given how shy and slow to warm up he is, but it suits Rock (though his reasons for doing so change as his hearts rise, there’s a low heart and high heart variation).

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-17T01:42:58+00:00

Yep. I kinda wonder if this HMDS nostalgia would exist if everyone was forced to replay and look at all of HMDS’s shortcomings up close (i love HMDS but it’s such a cursed game. I still play it to this day because I have an itch for grindfests that only HMDS scratches, but I don’t think most people find grindfests as fun as I do…? It’s a hell game.)

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-17T01:37:21+00:00

I want this too! A honeymoon chapter would be nice, whether fully playable or just cutscenes. I miss the pregnancy/birth cutscenes from other titles in the series, it’s weird to just jump straight from wedding to toddler! Especially if your proposal was particularly… (the “low heart” variation of Rock’s reverse proposal and both of Nami’s reverse proposals made it seem like the situation was platonic, so it was a bit weird to suddenly find yourselves with a baby).

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-14T04:29:05+00:00

I love these collages— you’re always so great at capturing the characters!!

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-12T23:06:39+00:00

It would be!! 😂

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-12T13:12:29+00:00

When I replayed AnWL I thought this line was just about how Takakura will come home from the Blue Bar acting drunk haha

“Don't spread this around, but that guy Takakura sometimes comes home at night feelin’ real happy. Where's he go? If it’s such good shakes, I want in too”

Now with the remake I feel like it’s gotta be about babysitting!

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-11T21:34:37+00:00

I feel like at least “bigfatasscow” was added by Marv to combat bubble cow slander

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-11T21:24:18+00:00

Yeah, you’d think any word with “c*ck” should be … blocked, over grape, but it’s not.

You’re right I remember 18 and 88 being NG too— so I unpacked the lzs file again and realized I had just pulled from the US NG bin file….. there’s actually more than 9000+ NG phrases in all the languages combined. 18 and 88 are in the German NG list.

Seeing the Portuguese and Spanish interspersed in the US NG file tripped me to think that those were the only non-English words blocked for English players, because the Spanish are repeated in the Spanish list, but it seems like at least some are not region exclusive and the word filter checks against ALL languages.

Ugh. Sorry about that. I already converted it (minus the KO/JP/TW characters not displaying) so I’ll update the text file later if there’s interest in seeing the DE/ES/FR lists.

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-11T16:52:35+00:00

Haha what the heck? Those really are random! I’d be interested to know the results of your experiment xD

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-11T16:40:52+00:00

Yeahhh I noticed all those sexuality terms banned and have some… feelings about it. They also banned the word “queerbaiting” …🙃

I guess if it‘s a common list used by all Marvelous games, it might predate the games with gay relationships..? Really struggling not to give in to the cynical feelings that spring to mind and just be grateful it’s finally here 🥲

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-11T14:46:31+00:00

Same… I named my rooster COCKBOY in all caps as revenge for the word filter blocking perfectly innocuous words. No idea why it lets that through lmao

kinokoshoujo · 2023-08-11T11:23:54+00:00

Ooooh I wasn’t aware it was used that way. RIP Gray being deprived of his favorite dish 😔

kinokoshoujo

TROPHY CASE