Mother 2 is at this point considered one of the best video games ever made. I am of the opinion that Mother 3 is better, but I want to be clear that I do not disagree with the statement that Mother 2 is one of the best ever made. It is.
I personally have very fond memories of both games, which I played past their time via various emulation softwares as I took Greyhound trips from my college dorm to home and back, as I studied abroad, as I spent long, isolated, paranoid hours alone in the grip of PTSD, equally challenged and soothed by Mother's radical message of love and acceptance for the stranger and even the enemy.
I do not have to make a website about the Mother series. Starmen.net has been giving the people all they need for... wait, twenty—twenty what years? Holy shit.
I never wrote much fanfiction for the Mother series, because it's too good. I don't feel like adding anything to it. I certainly don't think I could improve it. I did start but not finish a oneshot about an adult Jeff getting engaged to Tony, which I wish I would have finished at the time, because it's very sweet. Here it is anyway!
“I would normally be worried to say this but…”
Jeff did seem worried. He had his hands badly folded around his mug of coffee. He folded them, unfolded them, tapped fingers to dry knuckles. Paula wanted to sympathetically hold his hand, but she knew it wouldn’t help him. She held Ness’ hand instead, wrapping her fingers around the side which wasn’t on his own mug. He looked out of the corner of his eye and smiled at her.
He was focused on Jeff. She was too! They hadn’t seen their best friend in a while, now that his doctorate project (which she was so proud of him for) took him into the Dunes Desert so often. They could find him any time, but she knew he wanted to focus on his work sometimes.
“...I know I can trust both of you,” he finished his hanging sentence with a sudden, dimpled smile. Suddenly gone, too; Jeff’s affection, while as constant as the clouds, manifested like flashing summer storms. Paula treasured the demonstration, but didn’t need it.
“Mmm-hmm, Mmm-hmm!” she confirmed cheerfully.
“Well…” Jeff said, and paused again.
Paula knew this was going to be momentous. She felt just as she felt before opening a gift when she just knew it was going to have something really good in it, like a steaming and nori-scented cup of lifenoodles, or a shining new baseball bat, or a caramel-filled cake to soothe the psychic pangs in her brain.
“Tony and I are getting married,” he finished.
Paula smacked down both her hands on the cafe table. She felt the other patrons at the Fair Wind Cafe (Summer’s newest and cutest attraction, lit with soft pink and blue neon lights all day and featuring a mostly-sweets menu stuffed with salted toffee and cotton candy) look her way as her wedding ring clacked on the resin-covered table (the resin was covering flower petals and seashells!!). She smacked the tabletop again because she couldn’t help it. And then she smacked it a lot of times because she really couldn’t help it, going faster and faster, as a little whine of air slowly increased in volume from an “hhhh” to an “eeeee” to an “Eeee!” to an “EEEEEEEE!!!”
Ness put his face in his hand, but he was grinning from ear to ear. Paula jumped up (because she was making a lot of noise) and ran to Jeff’s side of the little round table to hug him around the shoulders, tight enough that his cute little cafe chair danced underneath him. “CONGRATULATIONS!!”
“Thank you,” he said under her arm. She could feel him smiling.
“Paula, you’re…” said Ness through his laughter.
“It’s okay. I expected this. She did it when I got into grad school too,” Jeff reminded him.
“This is even better, though!” She gave Jeff’s head one more squeeze before letting him go, his glasses askew and his hair very mussed. He had a smile on his face, though.
Paula backed off so that she could jump in a circle behind Jeff. Around her she saw smiling faces; no one was bothered.
“Congratulations,” Ness said warmly, once Jeff had a second to breathe. “Knew you would.”
Jeff chuckled shyly. “Thanks. Yeah. I guess it was about time.”
“You guess??” Paula shrieked gleefully. She stood to the side of the table, unable to sit back down, vibrating.
“That’s what Tony said too,” Jeff noted. “I did want to wait a little while, though…”
“You wanted to be sure!” Ness agreed. He picked up his cup but held it in front of his face, not drinking. Paula gazed lovingly at him.
“Well, I have been sure, but…” Jeff shrugged away his exact reasons for hesitation. Neither of them pried. “If everything goes well, I’ll have my degree next year… I just wanted Tony to know for sure I was going to be there after that, you know.”
“Oooh, that is so sweet,” Paula sighed. She slumped back down into her chair like jelly, resting goopily onto her husband. (Ness skillfully adjusted his shoulder to accommodate her.) “And that’s why you proposed!”
“Well,” said Jeff, “He proposed to me, actually.”
“What!” Paula sat up.
“It made it a little awkward to go get the ring that I was going to give him out of my bag.”
Ness laughed at him. Paula stared, and Jeff clearly didn’t understand what she was trying to convey. “Then you really kept him waiting too long! I can’t see Tony doing it himself until he was worried.”
“You do not know Tony like I do,” said Jeff automatically, matter-of-fact. It was a matter of fact, after all. “He’s kind, but…” he looked away, thinking about how to phrase his words. “He’ll jump to an opportunity.”
“Did you let him get all the way through the proposal? What did he say? What did you say??”
“Yes–the usual things? Then he made me do it too,” Jeff admitted, looking down.
“He what?”
“Well, he said, ‘if you got a ring, too, you should propose too,’ so, he made me propose also.”