What has been… was an Alternate Reality Game series created by 9a13 d514 based on the Touhou Project series that had the players try to solve a series of puzzles relating to the ever infamous unused character, Rin Satsuki. The game ran for two seasons, one in 2018 and one in 2022. A playlist of the main story of the videos can be found here
and an overview of the ARG itself can be found here for season 1 and here for season 2.
Not to be confused with the trivia trope, What Could Have Been.
What has been… features instances of:
- Adaptation Species Change: Rin, who is often depicted as being a kirin in other fanworks, is a human until she suddenly becomes a Youkai during a raid on a medical camp during the Vampire Incident.
- And I Must Scream: Rin's fate of being forgotten in order to permanently kill her is already bad enough, but with Marisa being the only person in Gensokyo with the knowledge of her existence, this kept her alive and awake in a state of stasis until she was able to break out of the seal.
- Bilingual Bonus: A lot of the episode titles are in Latin.
- Canon Foreigner: Rene Latency, an orphan whose mother is from Gensokyo and antagonist or the second season, falls into this category.
- Demoted to Extra: Reimu, despite being the main protagonist of Touhou, being mentioned every now and again, and being decently important to Rin's backstory, never actually plays a major part in the series.
- Entry Point: Several Touhou Project-related Youtube videos have some strange comments posted on their boxes by the user 9a13 d514. They are made of dots and lines and look like utter gibberish... that is, until you realize they are Morse code.
- Eye Scream: Rene shoots out Marisa’s eye during the second season due to the players not informing Marisa that he was present with a firearm at Rin's seal in the outside world.
- Unperson: Rin, as per usual. This due to Yukari having Reimu and Marisa seal Rin away, and Yukari, in turn, erased the memory of Rin’s existence from the world as well as destroying all documents of her existence. It is the only way to truly kill a Youkai after all.
- The Power of Friendship: In the finale of season 1, Marisa is able to defeat and seal away Rin again thanks to the players siding with her.
- Prophetic Dreams: Marisa has nightmares and hallucinations early into season 1 foretelling of Rin's return.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Rin was simply a nurse who wanted to help people who was incredibly close to Reimu and Marisa, unfortunately her becoming a Youkai during the Vampire Incident drove her mad with power, leading to her needing to be sealed away. Luckily Rin's calmed down significantly when she reappears in season 2.
- We Used to Be Friends: Rin and Marisa, though they do reconcile by the end of season 2.
