Fandom: Boyfriend Dungeon Media: Video Games Genre: Dating Sim and Roguelike/Dungeon Crawler hybrid
Premise/summary: You have come to Verona Beach, California so that your cousin Jesse can set you up on the very first date - well, dates - of your life. Along the way, you can meet up with local weapon-people (humans who can turn into weapons) and delve into the local dungeon (dunj in the local parlance) to both become closer with them and to face your fears - maybe even make a little money! You can solve the mystery of why weapon-people are missing, fall in love, and otherwise have a great time in Verona Beach.
Trigger warnings: The game features unwanted advances, stalking and emotional manipulation. The stalking and emotional manipulation are central to the plot and so you can't do anything sensible like blocking the stalker's number. The stalker character also shows up in several cutscenes. And unfortunately, you do have to answer the stalker character in order to complete the plot and see the ending scene.
There is the option to get texts from "Mom". The characterization of "Mom" in the game is a loving, supportive, anxious person, but if you are not in a state to get such texts turn the option off. Unlike the above, these are purely for flavor and do not impact the plot in any way.
Review: This is a surprisingly decent game. The combo of Roguelike and Dating Sim works pretty darn well. A lot of the relationship leveling up is done via dungeon crawls with a little bit of actual dating - you can give gifts, but it's rarely necessary unless you want to advance a character's storyline without having them as your partner in the dungeons (though you will have to do some crawling in order to get to some of those gift-giving moments).
Dungeon crawling can be a little repetitive (location and enemy-wise) but I found I enjoyed said repetition when I just needed to go hit something (where I couldn't in RL). You get to meet and work with a good variety of weapon-people so you can figure out who your fighting style works with best. There is no penalty for dying and you can level up to level 50. There are two dungeons and a bonus (added in a DLC). There are also opportunities in the dungeons to learn a bit more about your partner in various safe rooms throughout.
The dating sim sections are fairly short but you gain new abilities with your partners as you gain relationships with them. This shortness is both an advantage and a disadvantage - they don't get in the way of your dungeon-crawling, but these people seem to trust you and like you awfully darn fast. Also end up in your bed very quickly if you don't suggest anything other than a platonic friendship! You can also trigger some scenes where two of the dating characters interact for more relationship points.
This game is fairly queer-friendly. You can customize your name, gender, and appearance at any point in the game using the mirror at your apartment. Nobody cares about what gender you are, and you can easily end up dating a bunch of people (or have a Summer of Totally Platonic Friend Hangouts, if you're me). Of the group, five are male, three are female (one uses she/they), and two are non-binary. One of the characters you can develop a relationship but cannot date, and one character you can develop a relationship but cannot wield. There are no explicit transgender characters and the developers unfortunately have conflated asexuals and aromantics together.
Fandom: My Time at Sandrock Media: Video Games Genre: Cozy game - generally in the same genre as Stardew Valley
Premise/summary: You have answered the call to be a Builder for the slowly dying town of Sandrock! In this game, set in the same post-apocalyptic universe as its predecessor My Time at Portia, Sandrock is a desert town, hurting for both water and hope. But you as a builder grow in a never-ending set of challenges - from building a crane so that the local salvagers can do their trade, to rooting out an unexpected conspiracy and finally finding a way to bring Sandrock back to its former glory.
Trigger warnings: The game does warn for flashing lights; one of the side quests currently involves bullying an individual with mental health issues "for his own good" (the devs have promised to change this in final release).
Review/Promo: My Time at Sandrock is a game that is a bit flawed (right now it's a bit buggy, to put it politely, especially in late game as the devs are trying to optimize it), but I love very much. I bought it as soon as it was available in early access, just like I bought its predecessor in very early access, and I have yet to regret that choice.
This game has a simple, yet addictive cycle. You have a main series of quests that you follow that give you access to more areas and resources but you also need to build more complex machines and tools to compensate. There are also sidequests that give you access to more things, as well as gaining friendship with the locals - which might also lead to a romance. You can also take on commissions from the townsfolk, which will also build up friendships as well as make you money.
You start as a humble workshop owner with nothing but a pair of building areas and a tiny shack to sleep in, and by the time the story ends, the whole known world will know your name. Or, if you wish, you can play the multiplayer version with up to 3 of your friends where you build up the town of Sandrock to what it should be. You can build, you can garden (not quite at the start, but you can pick up gardening quite early in the storyline), there's plenty of combat if that's your thing. There are rarely time limits and you can pretty much do what you want. It's easy to sink hours and hours into this game - my last playthrough with a complete game ended at 200+ hours!
Sandrock's ecological plotline appeals to me as well, and it might appeal to you too - unlike its predecessor, you are encouraged to recycle from scrap, and cutting down trees (at least in the main area) is very much discouraged. You must have water as well as fuel to run your workshop, and you can't draw water from the oasis willy-nilly - you have to either craft your own or buy it.
(If you have played My Time at Portia, you will find that this game has several UI improvements, mostly relating to your assembly, cooking station, and quest turn-ins - you no longer have to have an item for the assembly station on your quickbar, the cooking station now works like the rest of the machines, and you can draw quest items from your chests as well as from your carried items. (You still have to have items on you if you're gifting someone, and there are a couple of other exceptions, like the food donation table in early game.) Turning in data discs for new diagrams is the same as Portia, but now you can select what to research instead of hoping that Petra and Merlin choose to research the diagram you want!)
Fandom: Final Fantasy II Media: Video Games Genre: Turn-based JRPG
Premise/summary: Four young people - Firion, Maria, Guy, and Leon - flee their destroyed home. On the way, they are nearly killed by the forces of the evil Emperor. Being granted a chance to live, three of them pledge themselves to the Rebel alliance formed to defeat the Emperor and his forces - and perhaps to find out what happened to their fourth member. Along the way, they become stronger, gain allies, and otherwise try to save the world.
Trigger/content warnings: Because this is such an old game, people forget that it's extremely dark. Several villages are destroyed in the course of the game, and the entirety of humanity in the world is threatened with extinction. In addition, there is an island full of people who speak in a "you no take candle" style of dialogue that is cringe-inducing.
Review/promo: Final Fantasy II is unfairly disliked, I think, due to the old "bash each other with swords to get stronger" thing that wasn't true except in very early releases of the game. It was the game that introduced me to the Final Fantasy series, so that makes me a bit biased, but I genuinely love this game and have it on... well... pretty much everything it runs on that I own. I've played it dozens of times and have yet to grow tired of it.
One of the reasons I love it so much is that you are not restricted by character classes. You can make the party any way you like - I almost always make Guy my primary healer, for example, because he's so tanky that he's sometimes the only character who's alive to administer healing/resurrection spells. Anybody can take up any weapon, any spell, be anything they want to be - so much like real life where you are not a 1st level Barista/15th level Computer Programmer! If I need to readjust a character to make them more of a fighter or a ranger or a healer, I can.
Re the Pixel Remasters, which are the current version of the game: I like and dislike them - I really like Firion not looking like someone took a knife to his neck in his sprite, I love auto-battle, I like the sprite redos in general, and I love the music. I don't like the loss of the Dawn of Souls material, however.
Edited (oh yeah, I should specify about the Pixel Remasters) 2023-10-19 18:06 (UTC)
Mini-promo/review for Fatal Frame III: The Tormented
Fandom: Fatal Frame III: The Tormented Media: Video Games Genre: Survival Horror
Premise/summary: You are Rei Kurosawa, who recently lost her fiance Yuu. One day, you are taking photos of a random house when you see your fiancee standing nearby. Chasing him, you are drawn temporarily into a strange mansion and chased by a ghostly priest who wants to kill you... and then you wake up, now adorned with a strange tattoo. You find yourself drawn into this strange world night after night, not knowing if you will wake up the next morning. And as you investigate in order to solve the mystery, you find others suffering too - including your assistant Miku and your fiancee's friend Kei. Now you must save yourself, your friends, and everybody by breaking the curse.
Trigger/Content warnings: This is a very Japanese Survival Horror game, which means strange rituals, a fair amount of blood, people killing each other, and people killing themselves. Also, because this is Fatal Frame, lots and lots of creepy ghosts. There is also mention of child abandonment/deliberate exposure.
Review/promo: This is (as one can guess from the title) the third game in the Fatal Frame (aka Project Zero if you're in Europe or Australia) series of games. Four games in the series are nominated for Yuletide - the second, third, fourth, and fifth - and they're all worth playing. However, I'm centering on Fatal Frame III, because I like the way that it (mostly) ties up the storylines of the first two games, plus the Manor is delightfully creepy and I love the fact that since it's a dream mansion, players of the first two games get to see bits of the games they loved in this one.
If you like creepy stuff, you may well love this one. It's different from most of the Survival Horror sphere because your weapon is a camera with often limited film that you have to ration as you'll be using it to get pictures of non-hostile ghosts (you'll get points for these shots, though, which will allow you to upgrade your camera) and relevant areas. Each different ghost has a different way of attacking and the camera limits your width of view, so you have to make sure you're not inadvertently giving a ghost a chance to blindside you.
While you will get more out of this if you've played the first two games in the series, it stands alone. Rei keeps a notebook that will update during the game, and that notebook gives you the relevant details for the first two games.
Also... did I mention the cat? Yes, there's a cat. The cat's name is Ruri. You can pet her. Yes, there is a control for that!
My only gripe - a gripe that many players share - is that there is so much backtracking through a very large mansion. You will be very sick of it - I know I was!
Edited (I missed the fact that Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black water - the fifth game - was also in the tagset. Also, fixed consistency with other stuff) 2023-10-19 18:06 (UTC)
So if you got me for Boyfriend Dungeon (or want to treat me for this game) but need a bit of help in the worldbuilding department:
* Jesse introduces the whole idea of people turning into weapons and the idea of dungeons/dunj in the first part of the game. He lays it out as if a dunj is a local phenomenon, but some of the later dialogue contradicts that. * Isaac mentions in one section that his father is a saber and his mother was the only one who could wield him. He also mentions his father doesn't turn into his weapon form (much) anymore. * Isaac also mentions after you initial meeting with Sunder that weapon-forms heal quickly, as they're more spiritual than physical. * Also in Isaac's storyline is an app called Slicr, which is a dating app for weapon-people. * Sunder's storyline doesn't have anything specific regarding weapons/dunj(es), but it also reveals things about the world that the other characters may not know. * There's a bit in your birthday where Jesse mentions it's traditional to use a weapon-friend to cut your cake. * Seven's storyline mentions that his agent doesn't want it getting out that he's a weapon-person because he's his band's maknae (youngest member, therefore cutest - I'd think a kpop singer who could turn into a lasersaber would be cool PR but I'm not the agent) and also you watch a show with him that has at least one weapon-person character in it. You can also watch a horror movie with him called "The Dunj". (You can also watch another movie with him and others that prominently features weapon-people.) * Jonah's entire storyline is about how he fights for acceptance as a big, burly man who turns into an axe - this includes how he got fired for showing a kid his weapon form, and how he got disrespected in a kitchen. * Neither Jonah nor Tank (Pocket's person) seem aware that it's possible for a cat to turn into a weapon until you tell Tank over text about Pocket. (The world you go into at the end of his path is also kind of strange and interesting, tbh.) * Sawyer mentions having a blacksmith as well as a doctor. They also mention what seem to be a different set of constellations during one of the pause/gift areas in the La Rosa dunj. * It's a bit unclear, but Rowan may actually be able to do some magic and/or may be rather old - they seem to be a bit detached from the mundane world and barely know what a smartphone is. * Samantha's weapon form proves that there are non-edged weapons out there, and she mentions the possibility of changing the form that a weapon-person can turn into. Her (ex-)boss Dr. Holmes can turn into a whip, so it's clear that while swords and other blades are most common, any weapon is possible - even a stick! * Supplmental material indicates the shopkeeper in the hidden dunj shops can turn into a staff, though he never does so in canon.
Edited (Missed a worldbuilding reference or two in my initial notes.) 2023-10-19 14:29 (UTC)
I wanted to split these out because they're more IF-y prompts than regular prompts.
My Time at Sandrock
Every day is an adventure, whether you're a Builder or the Minister of the local Church of the Light. Take either the Builder or Matilda and give them a day full of things happening, from mundane to fantastic. What happens during the day? What makes it different from any other day in the town?
Final Fantasy II
Maybe an interactive fic that tells a story in letters to and from Minwu's family and friends in Mysidia while he's in Fynn's court. If not, maybe an AU where he lives and now he has choices on what to do with his life.
Fatal Frame III: The Tormented
Ruri gets sick, Miku has to keep track of her, but this cat gets everywhere. Or Miku has a mystery to solve - fortunately, Miku likes to research.
Boyfriend Dungeon
You're a random weapon-person in Verona Beach. People like you are disappearing, then reappearing - now, what do you do?
Edited (I duplicated two of the plots in my letter.) 2023-10-13 05:51 (UTC)
Mini review/promo for Boyfriend Dungeon
Media: Video Games
Genre: Dating Sim and Roguelike/Dungeon Crawler hybrid
Premise/summary: You have come to Verona Beach, California so that your cousin Jesse can set you up on the very first date - well, dates - of your life. Along the way, you can meet up with local weapon-people (humans who can turn into weapons) and delve into the local dungeon (dunj in the local parlance) to both become closer with them and to face your fears - maybe even make a little money! You can solve the mystery of why weapon-people are missing, fall in love, and otherwise have a great time in Verona Beach.
Trigger warnings: The game features unwanted advances, stalking and emotional manipulation. The stalking and emotional manipulation are central to the plot and so you can't do anything sensible like blocking the stalker's number. The stalker character also shows up in several cutscenes. And unfortunately, you do have to answer the stalker character in order to complete the plot and see the ending scene.
There is the option to get texts from "Mom". The characterization of "Mom" in the game is a loving, supportive, anxious person, but if you are not in a state to get such texts turn the option off. Unlike the above, these are purely for flavor and do not impact the plot in any way.
Review: This is a surprisingly decent game. The combo of Roguelike and Dating Sim works pretty darn well. A lot of the relationship leveling up is done via dungeon crawls with a little bit of actual dating - you can give gifts, but it's rarely necessary unless you want to advance a character's storyline without having them as your partner in the dungeons (though you will have to do some crawling in order to get to some of those gift-giving moments).
Dungeon crawling can be a little repetitive (location and enemy-wise) but I found I enjoyed said repetition when I just needed to go hit something (where I couldn't in RL). You get to meet and work with a good variety of weapon-people so you can figure out who your fighting style works with best. There is no penalty for dying and you can level up to level 50. There are two dungeons and a bonus (added in a DLC). There are also opportunities in the dungeons to learn a bit more about your partner in various safe rooms throughout.
The dating sim sections are fairly short but you gain new abilities with your partners as you gain relationships with them. This shortness is both an advantage and a disadvantage - they don't get in the way of your dungeon-crawling, but these people seem to trust you and like you awfully darn fast. Also end up in your bed very quickly if you don't suggest anything other than a platonic friendship! You can also trigger some scenes where two of the dating characters interact for more relationship points.
This game is fairly queer-friendly. You can customize your name, gender, and appearance at any point in the game using the mirror at your apartment. Nobody cares about what gender you are, and you can easily end up dating a bunch of people (or have a Summer of Totally Platonic Friend Hangouts, if you're me). Of the group, five are male, three are female (one uses she/they), and two are non-binary. One of the characters you can develop a relationship but cannot date, and one character you can develop a relationship but cannot wield. There are no explicit transgender characters and the developers unfortunately have conflated asexuals and aromantics together.
My Time at Sandrock Mini-Promo/Review
Media: Video Games
Genre: Cozy game - generally in the same genre as Stardew Valley
Premise/summary: You have answered the call to be a Builder for the slowly dying town of Sandrock! In this game, set in the same post-apocalyptic universe as its predecessor My Time at Portia, Sandrock is a desert town, hurting for both water and hope. But you as a builder grow in a never-ending set of challenges - from building a crane so that the local salvagers can do their trade, to rooting out an unexpected conspiracy and finally finding a way to bring Sandrock back to its former glory.
Trigger warnings: The game does warn for flashing lights; one of the side quests currently involves bullying an individual with mental health issues "for his own good" (the devs have promised to change this in final release).
Review/Promo: My Time at Sandrock is a game that is a bit flawed (right now it's a bit buggy, to put it politely, especially in late game as the devs are trying to optimize it), but I love very much. I bought it as soon as it was available in early access, just like I bought its predecessor in very early access, and I have yet to regret that choice.
This game has a simple, yet addictive cycle. You have a main series of quests that you follow that give you access to more areas and resources but you also need to build more complex machines and tools to compensate. There are also sidequests that give you access to more things, as well as gaining friendship with the locals - which might also lead to a romance. You can also take on commissions from the townsfolk, which will also build up friendships as well as make you money.
You start as a humble workshop owner with nothing but a pair of building areas and a tiny shack to sleep in, and by the time the story ends, the whole known world will know your name. Or, if you wish, you can play the multiplayer version with up to 3 of your friends where you build up the town of Sandrock to what it should be. You can build, you can garden (not quite at the start, but you can pick up gardening quite early in the storyline), there's plenty of combat if that's your thing. There are rarely time limits and you can pretty much do what you want. It's easy to sink hours and hours into this game - my last playthrough with a complete game ended at 200+ hours!
Sandrock's ecological plotline appeals to me as well, and it might appeal to you too - unlike its predecessor, you are encouraged to recycle from scrap, and cutting down trees (at least in the main area) is very much discouraged. You must have water as well as fuel to run your workshop, and you can't draw water from the oasis willy-nilly - you have to either craft your own or buy it.
(If you have played My Time at Portia, you will find that this game has several UI improvements, mostly relating to your assembly, cooking station, and quest turn-ins - you no longer have to have an item for the assembly station on your quickbar, the cooking station now works like the rest of the machines, and you can draw quest items from your chests as well as from your carried items. (You still have to have items on you if you're gifting someone, and there are a couple of other exceptions, like the food donation table in early game.) Turning in data discs for new diagrams is the same as Portia, but now you can select what to research instead of hoping that Petra and Merlin choose to research the diagram you want!)
Mini promo/review for Final Fantasy II
Media: Video Games
Genre: Turn-based JRPG
Premise/summary: Four young people - Firion, Maria, Guy, and Leon - flee their destroyed home. On the way, they are nearly killed by the forces of the evil Emperor. Being granted a chance to live, three of them pledge themselves to the Rebel alliance formed to defeat the Emperor and his forces - and perhaps to find out what happened to their fourth member. Along the way, they become stronger, gain allies, and otherwise try to save the world.
Trigger/content warnings: Because this is such an old game, people forget that it's extremely dark. Several villages are destroyed in the course of the game, and the entirety of humanity in the world is threatened with extinction. In addition, there is an island full of people who speak in a "you no take candle" style of dialogue that is cringe-inducing.
Review/promo: Final Fantasy II is unfairly disliked, I think, due to the old "bash each other with swords to get stronger" thing that wasn't true except in very early releases of the game. It was the game that introduced me to the Final Fantasy series, so that makes me a bit biased, but I genuinely love this game and have it on... well... pretty much everything it runs on that I own. I've played it dozens of times and have yet to grow tired of it.
One of the reasons I love it so much is that you are not restricted by character classes. You can make the party any way you like - I almost always make Guy my primary healer, for example, because he's so tanky that he's sometimes the only character who's alive to administer healing/resurrection spells. Anybody can take up any weapon, any spell, be anything they want to be - so much like real life where you are not a 1st level Barista/15th level Computer Programmer! If I need to readjust a character to make them more of a fighter or a ranger or a healer, I can.
Re the Pixel Remasters, which are the current version of the game: I like and dislike them - I really like Firion not looking like someone took a knife to his neck in his sprite, I love auto-battle, I like the sprite redos in general, and I love the music. I don't like the loss of the Dawn of Souls material, however.
Mini-promo/review for Fatal Frame III: The Tormented
Media: Video Games
Genre: Survival Horror
Premise/summary: You are Rei Kurosawa, who recently lost her fiance Yuu. One day, you are taking photos of a random house when you see your fiancee standing nearby. Chasing him, you are drawn temporarily into a strange mansion and chased by a ghostly priest who wants to kill you... and then you wake up, now adorned with a strange tattoo. You find yourself drawn into this strange world night after night, not knowing if you will wake up the next morning. And as you investigate in order to solve the mystery, you find others suffering too - including your assistant Miku and your fiancee's friend Kei. Now you must save yourself, your friends, and everybody by breaking the curse.
Trigger/Content warnings: This is a very Japanese Survival Horror game, which means strange rituals, a fair amount of blood, people killing each other, and people killing themselves. Also, because this is Fatal Frame, lots and lots of creepy ghosts. There is also mention of child abandonment/deliberate exposure.
Review/promo: This is (as one can guess from the title) the third game in the Fatal Frame (aka Project Zero if you're in Europe or Australia) series of games. Four games in the series are nominated for Yuletide - the second, third, fourth, and fifth - and they're all worth playing. However, I'm centering on Fatal Frame III, because I like the way that it (mostly) ties up the storylines of the first two games, plus the Manor is delightfully creepy and I love the fact that since it's a dream mansion, players of the first two games get to see bits of the games they loved in this one.
If you like creepy stuff, you may well love this one. It's different from most of the Survival Horror sphere because your weapon is a camera with often limited film that you have to ration as you'll be using it to get pictures of non-hostile ghosts (you'll get points for these shots, though, which will allow you to upgrade your camera) and relevant areas. Each different ghost has a different way of attacking and the camera limits your width of view, so you have to make sure you're not inadvertently giving a ghost a chance to blindside you.
While you will get more out of this if you've played the first two games in the series, it stands alone. Rei keeps a notebook that will update during the game, and that notebook gives you the relevant details for the first two games.
Also... did I mention the cat? Yes, there's a cat. The cat's name is Ruri. You can pet her. Yes, there is a control for that!
My only gripe - a gripe that many players share - is that there is so much backtracking through a very large mansion. You will be very sick of it - I know I was!
Boyfriend Dungeon - Worldbuilding notes.
* Jesse introduces the whole idea of people turning into weapons and the idea of dungeons/dunj in the first part of the game. He lays it out as if a dunj is a local phenomenon, but some of the later dialogue contradicts that.
* Isaac mentions in one section that his father is a saber and his mother was the only one who could wield him. He also mentions his father doesn't turn into his weapon form (much) anymore.
* Isaac also mentions after you initial meeting with Sunder that weapon-forms heal quickly, as they're more spiritual than physical.
* Also in Isaac's storyline is an app called Slicr, which is a dating app for weapon-people.
* Sunder's storyline doesn't have anything specific regarding weapons/dunj(es), but it also reveals things about the world that the other characters may not know.
* There's a bit in your birthday where Jesse mentions it's traditional to use a weapon-friend to cut your cake.
* Seven's storyline mentions that his agent doesn't want it getting out that he's a weapon-person because he's his band's maknae (youngest member, therefore cutest - I'd think a kpop singer who could turn into a lasersaber would be cool PR but I'm not the agent) and also you watch a show with him that has at least one weapon-person character in it. You can also watch a horror movie with him called "The Dunj". (You can also watch another movie with him and others that prominently features weapon-people.)
* Jonah's entire storyline is about how he fights for acceptance as a big, burly man who turns into an axe - this includes how he got fired for showing a kid his weapon form, and how he got disrespected in a kitchen.
* Neither Jonah nor Tank (Pocket's person) seem aware that it's possible for a cat to turn into a weapon until you tell Tank over text about Pocket. (The world you go into at the end of his path is also kind of strange and interesting, tbh.)
* Sawyer mentions having a blacksmith as well as a doctor. They also mention what seem to be a different set of constellations during one of the pause/gift areas in the La Rosa dunj.
* It's a bit unclear, but Rowan may actually be able to do some magic and/or may be rather old - they seem to be a bit detached from the mundane world and barely know what a smartphone is.
* Samantha's weapon form proves that there are non-edged weapons out there, and she mentions the possibility of changing the form that a weapon-person can turn into. Her (ex-)boss Dr. Holmes can turn into a whip, so it's clear that while swords and other blades are most common, any weapon is possible - even a stick!
* Supplmental material indicates the shopkeeper in the hidden dunj shops can turn into a staff, though he never does so in canon.
Possible prompts for an IF author
My Time at Sandrock
Every day is an adventure, whether you're a Builder or the Minister of the local Church of the Light. Take either the Builder or Matilda and give them a day full of things happening, from mundane to fantastic. What happens during the day? What makes it different from any other day in the town?
Final Fantasy II
Maybe an interactive fic that tells a story in letters to and from Minwu's family and friends in Mysidia while he's in Fynn's court. If not, maybe an AU where he lives and now he has choices on what to do with his life.
Fatal Frame III: The Tormented
Ruri gets sick, Miku has to keep track of her, but this cat gets everywhere. Or Miku has a mystery to solve - fortunately, Miku likes to research.
Boyfriend Dungeon
You're a random weapon-person in Verona Beach. People like you are disappearing, then reappearing - now, what do you do?