Mimi's "Obsession" Diagnosis
Mimi is debatably one of the playable characters we learn the most about in the game through her challenge and events. We know she's a med student with an interest in the occult but most striking about her is the repeated depiction of her acting in ways that range from inappropriate for the situation to self destructive in nature. The gave refers to it simply as her "obsession" giving a permanent debuff to reason and with what we learn of how this manifests I'm wondering if we have enough symptoms to figure out it's nature.
The most obvious symptom is self destructive behaviour is pursuit of medical knowledge. The challenge "Mimi’s Little Project" reveals the project in question as a series of experiments that usually involve serious mutilation of her body, while this can be written off as a non-canon what-if situation her Anatomy Book in the base game spells out the exact same behaviour
"Slicing your body open, you learn new things about anatomy..."
Interestingly there's no implication that these acts of self harm are motivated by anything other than curiosity and the perk "Fast Learner" allows her to similarly learn about her anatomy by taking damage in battle. This seeming detachment from her own physical health and pain also manifests in how she views others and the world around her most notably in the "Summertime" event where she gets so distracted by surfing she forgets the world is ending and her internal narration comes across as particularly nonplussed about the situation as a whole.
Are you forgetting something? Oh! Right, duh. The whole world ending thing. Isn't it funny how easily that slips your mind sometimes? But hey, it was super nice to get in some "you time".
The phrasing of her internal monologue in her events shows an interesting view of how her mind works, in "Life Or Limb" she can react to failing to perform an impromptu surgery with a simple "Well, that didn't work" and yet in "Medical Trial" her thoughts become much more lucid about what she's doing if she fails her check to "excise the growth" make note that succeeding removes 2 reason while failing and getting the following result gives 2 reason.
'As you struggle to decide which method to use, you notice the patient staring at you with an agonized expression-- Goddammit, girl, you're doing it again! You smack yourself in the head a few times, ashamedly skulking out of the ward. You really ought to book a psychologist. You can't take care of anybody like this.'
She seems aware that something is wrong but clearly whatever it is remains undiagnosed. These moments of lucidity don't seem like a baseline however as it appears to be the only time she reflects on her mental state. It also directly calls into question where Mimi's desire to help people ends and where her curiosity begins, if you succeed at excising the growth (which leads to a reason loss) you get the text
You pocket a sample of the tissue with breathless glee. This research could do the medical community some incredible good. And god isn't it just so fascinating?
It's important to note she isn't supposed to be treating this patient for various reasons not least of which that she snuck into the area pretending to be one of the nurses with justification that "You wouldn't be much of a nurse if you ignored them, right?". However her "experiments" are never conducted on others and in Life or Limb she seems genuinely happy if she can help the man so her motives don't appear entirely self serving.
With all of this in mind i cant help but feel we know a lot about her condition and yet simultaneously not enough, i was wondering if anyone had any theories on exactly this "obsession" is or what can be further extrapolated from what we do know.
Posted Jul 11, 2026, 1:31 PM UTC