#I hate that I even care at all about any of this stupid shit

[humiliatemeplesse]

When the faggot told it's Dom boyfriend that it had a fetish for sniffing guy's sweaty smelly socked feet, it hoped that He would understand since it believed He loved it and that He would help it satiate it's need. However, its boyfriend laughed at it and told it that it was pathetic to have such a lowly, stupid fetish. But, He said, if that's what you need, I'll give it to you since you're such a good boy otherwise. The fag filled with excitement and thanked its boyfriend over and over. The next night, when it's boyfriend came home from work and the gym, both places where He wore the same pair of socks in His work boots and workout shoes, He told the fag to lay on the floor at the foot of the couch where He was sitting. He put both sweaty, smelly, stinking socked feet on the faggots face and used it as His footstool all night long. He told the faggot it was not to speak or get up to do anything, to not even move. The only thing it could do was raise its hand if it had to use the toilet. That was it. So the faggot smothered under it's bf's stinking socked feet for hours and hours, their heavy weight on its face. The next day, the same thing happened. And the next day. And the next day. At first the fag was thrilled with this treatment, but eventually it felt like it was too much, that it'd like to have some "nights off" or maybe do it only three days a week. It got up the nerve to ask its bf one morning when it was making breakfast for them before work. it's bf looked it straight in the eye and said in a very serious time of authority, you asked for this, I think it's ridiculous and frankly embarrassing for you. If I had known this about you I wouldn't have even dated you nevermind moved in with you. But, you've been such a good boy otherwise and do everything I tell you to do that I decided to give you this one thing. This one pathetic, embarrassing thing. You asked for it, I've given it to you. So now you're going to accept my incredible gift and shut the fuck up and not complain about it or you can pack your shit and leave. Now I'd hate that, but it's up to you. I'm giving you a gift, take it or not. But this is going to be every night, and on weekends too. This is what you want and as they say, be careful what you ask for. The fag apologized and begged for forgiveness and got in the floor and kissed it's bf's boots. It was never discussed again and the fag ended up hating having it's bf's sweaty socked feet on its face every single day but there was nothing it could do about it. So it suffered in His sock stink every single day for the rest of its life. it's bf got a hard-on while this happened every day due to the sadistic nature of how He handled it, with complete, unquestioned control of His little slave sub bf. He'd often make it suck Him off right after but the fag never associated the act with any sadism on its bf's part.

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

VERY LONG SUBMISSION SORRY I HAVE A LOT TO SAY

SELF DIAGNOSED "I'M SO NICE" NPD CULTURE IS. LITERALLY ALWAYS KNOWING YOU HAD SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU. BUT SOCIETY HAS SPOONFED YOU THE PROPAGANDISTIC IDEALS OF NARC DEMONISATION SINCE THE DAY YOU WERE FRESH OUT THE WOMB, SO EVEN THOUGH YOU PERSONALLY BELIEVED YOU DIDN'T DEMONISE NPD, YOU NEVER ONCE CONSIDERED HAVING IT BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS TOLD YOURSELF "I DEFINITELY DON'T HAVE NPD, I'M WAY TOO NICE FOR THAT!"

BUT YOU STILL KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING SERIOUSLY FUCKING WRONG WITH YOU. CLUSTER B PERSONALITY DISORDER SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT.

"HEY WAIT, I SEEM TO RELATE TO BPD EXPERIENCES!!! THIS IS WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME!"

IT WAS NOT BPD. THE THINGS I FOUND RELATABLE WERE JUST GENERAL CLUSTER B SYMPTOMS OR EXPLAINABLE BY SOMETHING ELSE.

SEVERE IDENTITY ISSUES? JUST NPD.

HAVING A FP AND PLACING YOUR SELF WORTH AND EMOTIONAL STATE IN THEM? ANY PERSONALITY DISORDER CAN HAVE A FP.

SUDDEN MOOD SWINGS? IT'S PROBABLY NPD WHEN I'M MET WITH DIRECT CRITICISM / RUDENESS / AND I FEEL INSANELY OFFENDED OR ATTACKED AND INSTINCTIVELY AND UNCONTROLLABLY GET SUPER DEFENSIVE AND COMBATIVE AND GRASP AT ANYTHING I CAN TO "GET BACK" AT THEM TO COPE WITH FEELING LIKE I JUST GOT FUCKING STABBED IN THE CHEST

FEAR OF ABANDONMENT? CHILDHOOD UPBRINGING + TRAUMA LOL ALSO IT CRUSHES MY EGO BADLY THAT PEOPLE FIND ME SO INSUFFERABLE THAT THEY NEVER WANT TO TALK TO ME AGAIN SO LOWKEY NPD TOO

SUICIDAL THREATS? UMM OK SO THIS IS AN ENTIRE STORYTIME FOR ANOTHER SUBMISSION SO JUST. GO FIND IT FROM MY ANON SIGNOFF TAG IF YOU'RE CURIOUS. TLDR I WAS 10 AND PLAYING ROYALE HIGH 💀

BLACK AND WHITE THINKING? AUTISM. OR POSSIBLY NPD

"WOW, I FEEL LIKE I RELATE A LOT TO HPD SYMPTOMS!!!! I MUST HAVE BOTH BPD AND HPD!"

HPD IS BARELY TALKED ABOUT EVEN IN PD SPACES, THE DSM CRITERIA FOR IT IS VAGUE AND UNSPECIFIC AND WACKY MAKING IT DIFFICULT TO ACCURATELY SELF DIAGNOSE IT (OR EVEN ACCURATELY DIAGNOSE IT IN GENERAL), AND ALL OF MY HPD SYMPTOMS CAN BE EXPLAINED BY SOMETHING ELSE.

UNSTABLE EMOTIONS? LITERALLY JUST CLUSTER B AND AUTISM.

ATTENTION SEEKING + TWEAKING WHEN NO ATTENTION? MOSTLY JUST NPD, BUT COULD ALSO BE SOMEWHAT CATALYSTED BY MY INSANELY EXTROVERTED, OUTGOING AND SOCIALLY DEPENDENT PERSONALITY.

DRAMATIC BEHAVIOUR? I HAVE MANY OUTBURSTS OR EPISODES OF LOSING MY SHIT BECAUSE OF A COMBINATION OF TRAUMA, AUTISM, AND JUST BEING CLUSTER B.

EXAGGERATED AND OVER-THE-TOP PERSONA? THAT IS LITERALLY JUST THE ARTIFICIAL PERSONA I MOLDED MYSELF INTO BECAUSE MY NPD THOUGHT IT'D MAKE EVERYONE LOVE ME BUT MY NPD SWEARS THIS IS THE REAL ME EVEN THOUGH I'M JUST FABRICATING MY PERSONALITY TO BE CLOSER TO THE IDEALISED ME I HAVE IN MY HEAD.

HAVING "STRONG OPINIONS" THAT ARE MALLEABLE AND DEPENDENT ON THOSE AROUND ME? PROBABLY A COMBINATION OF BEING AN FE DOMINANT IN TYPOLOGY (THIS MEANS MY MORALS AND DECISIONS ARE BASED ON HOW SOMETHING AFFECTS OTHERS) AND BEING LOW EMPATHY + COMPASSION (SOMETIMES I CAN'T UNDERSTAND OR CARE FOR HOW SOMETHING WILL AFFECT OTHERS, BUT I TRY AND GUESS / ASSUME WHAT THE RIGHT THING TO DO IS ANYWAYS BECAUSE I'M A GOOD PERSON) *SORRY FOR THE TYPOLOGY MENTION IN A PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTEXT I THINK MANY PEOPLE FUCKING HATE THAT IN PSYCHOLOGY/MENTAL HEALTH SPACES I DON'T TREAT IT LIKE ASTROLOGY OKAY? 😭 I JUST THINK IT'S A GREAT TOOL TO EXPLAIN AND CATEGORISE THE ASPECTS OF YOUR PERSONALITY UNRELATED TO MENTAL ILLNESS OR TRAUMA SINCE EVERY TYPOLOGY SYSTEM IS UNIQUE

THE HPD SELF DIAGNOSIS WAS ON A WHIM BTW I WAS REALLY STUPID ABOUT THAT .. ☹️ I HEARD "PDS ARE VERY COMMONLY COMORBID" AND I TOOK THAT AND JUST DIAGNOSED MYSELF WITH WHATEVER I FOUND SLIGHTLY RELATABLE. I SAW A VID OF SOMEONE WITH HPD TALKING ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE + THEY MENTIONED SOMETHING LIKE "WE HAVE A GOD COMPLEX BUT WE HATE OURSELVES AT THE SAME TIME" WHICH HELPED ME COME TO TERMS WITH MY EGO AND GRANDIOSITY (WHILE STILL THINKING IT WAS BPD AND HPD), SO I SELF DIAGNOSED MYSELF WITH NPD TOO . WHILE ONLY DOING THE BARE MINIMUM OF RESEARCH 😟 LIKE OBVIOUSLY I DIDN'T THINK NPD WAS Symptoms: Kills people, eats babies, manipulates everyone, takes over the world, is ONLY CAPABLE of feeling EVIL and can NEVER be kind EVER, CAUSE I WAS CONSCIOUSLY ACCEPTING OF PWNPD EVEN THOUGH I HAD SOME DEMONISATION STILL SUBCONSCIOUSLY INTERNALISED BECAUSE OF WHAT SOCIETY SPOONFEEDS US + ABSOLUTELY NOBODY IS 100% FREE OF AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT OF SUBCONSCIOUS INTERNALISED BIGOTRY BUT I BASICALLY HAD JUST JUMPED THE GUN

AFTER A WHILE I LOWKEY REALISED THAT BPD AND HPD DID NOT SEEM TO FIT ME . AND I UNDIAGNOSED MYSELF WITH NPD TOO CAUSE THE TWO MISDIAGNOSES MADE ME ASSUME I DIDN'T HAVE A PD AT ALL. SO I HAD A SHORT PERIOD OF "DAMN I GUESS I DON'T HAVE ANY DISORDERS THAT EXPLAIN WHY I'M SO FUCKED UP AND INSANE AND MENTALLY UNWELL"

BEFORE I FOUND OUT MY FP HAD NPD. AND I WAS LIKE "WAIT, REALLY? BUT THEY'RE SO NICE TO ME... HONESTLY, IT MAKES SENSE". AND THAT MOTIVATED ME TO ACTUALLY DO RESEARCH ON NPD BECAUSE THIS TOLD ME I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND IT ENOUGH. I WANTED TO UNDERSTAND THEM.

THAT WAS BASICALLY HOW I STARTED TO REALISE I HAD NPD. I TRIED DENYING A LOT OF CORRELATIONS . AND I NEVER SUSPECTED I HAD NPD FOR YEARS BECAUSE THE COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS HAD NORMALISED SO MANY THINGS TO ME + I QUITE UNSUCCESSFULLY TRIED BOTTLING UP THINGS I THOUGHT WERE MEAN (WHICH BASICALLY MADE ME BELIEVE I'M SECRETLY AN AWFUL PERSON AND NOBODY KNOWS IT) . I THOUGHT MY GRANDIOSE FANTASIES WERE NORMAL UNTIL I WAS LIKE 15. I THOUGHT NEVER BEING ABLE TO COMPREHEND YOU'RE IN THE WRONG BUT PRETENDING YOU DO AND APOLOGISING TO "DO THE RIGHT THING" WAS NORMAL. I THOUGHT MY LEVEL OF EMPATHY WAS NORMAL. I THOUGHT MY JEALOUSY AND ENVY WERE NNORMAL. I NEVER WORDED MY THOUGHTS OF CONTEMPT AND SUPERIORITY TO OTHERS IN A WAY THAT WAS LIKE "HEH... YOU'RE SO PATHETIC.... I'M SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU" IT WAS MORE LIKE "LOL I'M _ AND THEY'RE NOT" SO IT WASN'T OBVIOUS TO ME THAT THIS WASN'T NORMAL . BUT WHEN I DID WORD IT THAT WAY, I DIDN'T THINK I WAS A NARC I JUST THOUGHT I WAS SECRETLY AN ASSHOLE 😭 I SERIOUSLY NEVER THOUGHT MY KINDNESS HAD SELFISH INTENTIONS I THOUGHT IT WAS NORMAL TO ONLY BE NICE FOR PEOPLE TO LIKE YOU ┛◠ ┛ ANYWAYS IT'S 2025 AND I AM NO LONGER BLINDED BY BIAS OR DELUSION COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS AND I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT MY PROBLEM IS NPD!!!!!!!!! AND LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE I THINK . I AM 16 AND GONNA "TRY TO GET DIAGNOSED" SOON (NOT GOING TO EVER SAY "I THINK I HAVE NPD". I'M GONNA SPECIFICALLY MENTION ALL MY NARC TRAITS TO MY THERAPIST AND WORD THEM IN A VERY TEXTBOOK NPD WAY WITHOUT EVER LYING I'M JUST GOING OUT OF MY WAY TO TELL THE TRUTH AND WORDING IT IN A STEREOTYPICAL NPD WAY)

THX 4 READING I LOAV U (^з^)-☆Chu!!

— 🍋‍🟩🍃

[pt: very long submission sorry i have a lot to say

self diagnosed "i'm so nice" npd culture is. literally always knowing you had something wrong with you. but society has spoonfed you the propagandistic ideals of narc demonisation since the day you were fresh out the womb, so even though you personally believed you didn't demonise npd, you never once considered having it because you always told yourself "i definitely don't have npd, i'm way too nice for that!"

but you still knew there was something seriously fucking wrong with you. cluster b personality disorder sounds about right.

"hey wait, i seem to relate to bpd experiences!!! this is what's wrong with me!"

it was not bpd. the things i found relatable were just general cluster b symptoms or explainable by something else.

severe identity issues? just npd.

having a fp and placing your self worth and emotional state in them? any personality disorder can have a fp.

sudden mood swings? it's probably npd when i'm met with direct criticism / rudeness / and i feel insanely offended or attacked and instinctively and uncontrollably get super defensive and combative and grasp at anything i can to "get back" at them to cope with feeling like i just got fucking stabbed in the chest

fear of abandonment? childhood upbringing + trauma lol also it crushes my ego badly that people find me so insufferable that they never want to talk to me again so lowkey npd too

suicidal threats? umm ok so this is an entire storytime for another submission so just. go find it from my anon signoff tag if you're curious. tldr i was 10 and playing royale high 💀

black and white thinking? autism. or possibly npd

"wow, i feel like i relate a lot to hpd symptoms!!!! i must have both bpd and hpd!"

hpd is barely talked about even in pd spaces, the dsm criteria for it is vague and unspecific and wacky making it difficult to accurately self diagnose it (or even accurately diagnose it in general), and all of my hpd symptoms can be explained by something else.

unstable emotions? literally just cluster b and autism.

attention seeking + tweaking when no attention? mostly just npd, but could also be somewhat catalysted by my insanely extroverted, outgoing and socially dependent personality.

dramatic behaviour? i have many outbursts or episodes of losing my shit because of a combination of trauma, autism, and just being cluster b.

exaggerated and over-the-top persona? that is literally just the artificial persona i molded myself into because my npd thought it'd make everyone love me but my npd swears this is the real me even though i'm just fabricating my personality to be closer to the idealised me i have in my head.

having "strong opinions" that are malleable and dependent on those around me? probably a combination of being an fe dominant in typology (this means my morals and decisions are based on how something affects others) and being low empathy + compassion (sometimes i can't understand or care for how something will affect others, but i try and guess / assume what the right thing to do is anyways because i'm a good person) *sorry for the typology mention in a psychological context i think many people fucking hate that in psychology/mental health spaces i don't treat it like astrology okay? 😭 i just think it's a great tool to explain and categorise the aspects of your personality unrelated to mental illness or trauma since every typology system is unique

the hpd self diagnosis was on a whim btw i was really stupid about that .. ☹️ i heard "pds are very commonly comorbid" and i took that and just diagnosed myself with whatever i found slightly relatable. i saw a vid of someone with hpd talking about their experience + they mentioned something like "we have a god complex but we hate ourselves at the same time" which helped me come to terms with my ego and grandiosity (while still thinking it was bpd and hpd), so i self diagnosed myself with npd too . while only doing the bare minimum of research 😟 like obviously i didn't think npd was symptoms: kills people, eats babies, manipulates everyone, takes over the world, is only capable of feeling evil and can never be kind ever, cause i was consciously accepting of pwnpd even though i had some demonisation still subconsciously internalised because of what society spoonfeeds us + absolutely nobody is 100% free of at least a little bit of subconscious internalised bigotry but i basically had just jumped the gun

after a while i lowkey realised that bpd and hpd did not seem to fit me . and i undiagnosed myself with npd too cause the two misdiagnoses made me assume i didn't have a pd at all. so i had a short period of "damn i guess i don't have any disorders that explain why i'm so fucked up and insane and mentally unwell"

before i found out my fp had npd. and i was like "wait, really? but they're so nice to me… honestly, it makes sense". and that motivated me to actually do research on npd because this told me i didn't understand it enough. i wanted to understand them.

that was basically how i started to realise i had npd. i tried denying a lot of correlations . and i never suspected i had npd for years because the cognitive distortions had normalised so many things to me + i quite unsuccessfully tried bottling up things i thought were mean (which basically made me believe i'm secretly an awful person and nobody knows it) . i thought my grandiose fantasies were normal until i was like 15. i thought never being able to comprehend you're in the wrong but pretending you do and apologising to "do the right thing" was normal. i thought my level of empathy was normal. i thought my jealousy and envy were nnormal. i never worded my thoughts of contempt and superiority to others in a way that was like "heh… you're so pathetic…. i'm so much better than you" it was more like "lol i'm _ and they're not" so it wasn't obvious to me that this wasn't normal . but when i did word it that way, i didn't think i was a narc i just thought i was secretly an asshole 😭 i seriously never thought my kindness had selfish intentions i thought it was normal to only be nice for people to like you ┛◠ ┛ anyways it's 2025 and i am no longer blinded by bias or delusion cognitive distortions and i know for a fact that my problem is npd!!!!!!!!! and literally nothing else i think . i am 16 and gonna "try to get diagnosed" soon (not going to ever say "i think i have npd". i'm gonna specifically mention all my narc traits to my therapist and word them in a very textbook npd way without ever lying i'm just going out of my way to tell the truth and wording it in a stereotypical npd way)

thx 4 reading i loav u (^з^)-☆chu!!]

[scheherazades-vigil]

JayVik existing or not in the show was never my concern so much as who cares (and was reflected in me specifically commenting about who cares enough to hate on JayVik, obv), but I said that bc Jayce disability was lipservice and disabled characters always end up doomed AND beholden to the narrative. I barely consider S2 canon, but you do you. It's also ableist bc like 2/3 of the plot involving Viktor/them revolves around FIXING DISABILITIES?! And you're beautiful bc cancer hahahahaha kill me

Jesus let the disabled person have an opinion about disability for once. Have yours, but don't invalidate mine or you deserve yours to be

I don't think you understand queerbait in at least one of its used definitions (language, shockingly, evolves and, in this case, has done so) but gg nitpicking what queerbait is ig :/ imo it is bc the show USES the draw of (often) MLM/bi relationships to increase revenue and ABSOLUTELY intentionally plays fanservice but then swaps out at the end to be like BUT NO HOMO LOL. I may not have thought half these things so deeply if it weren't Linke doing so much bad lifting, though. I am very serious when I say that he hits hella homophobic. That was a LOT of it and thinking this jerk wrote the CaitVi sex scene as anything BUT male gaze... k

If you liked it fine? I hated it

I think sex could've come at almost any time and not been gross. This WAS gross. Don't agree, k, you go fuck your gf in a grimy jail cell like the one you spent 7 years in and call it rep, peeps, idc. I really don't believe in all this LULZMAGICINSTAHEALING power of love s2 stuff like Jinx also gets, but ig you do and that's cool

Oh I never said it wasn't queer btw, what the hell is wrong with you people? Twist my words any more and they'd make it to the Olympics

I'm actually done responding probs tho bc you weirdo ship fuckers are dumb. I say don't hate ships, hate bad writing, and here y'all come with the OMG THEY WANT THE HOT GUYS TO FUCK AND ARE LESBOPHOBIC specifically bc I didn't like a scene or y'all hating a ship

I never said I did or didn't want JayVik canonized by the fucking way, I just called it as I saw it... QB bc chicks'll dig it or whatever, God Internet randos piss me off

I'm not reading all your narrow-minded bullshit, but ftr I'm duh v pro WLW, I may as well call you queerphobic for disagreeing with me (so rancid and vapid). Can you comprehend the stupidity and bias of these baseless accusations yet? Grats on not knowing shit about me or my values tho such that you must invent them. Speaking at I can't be arsed to recall your names so RB #1 mostly ftr.

I don't know how anyone could like the ships as they are represented in the show? Genuinely? How can, I repeat, you like bad writing? Like CaitVi got dragged through the mud making Cait some war crime dictator classist rich dick in a mansion sugga momma (istg if you disagree on the first part bc she has a nice ass or Runeterra doesn't have a Geneva Convention or something...), Maddie got a rando character assassination as a twist and was only there as a junior officer CaitVi obstacle anyway, which is tragic but I digress, Jayce killed Viktor on what I assume is Red Bull and himbo energy bc what kinda takeaway was that from hexcorized AU-land? Meljay disappears out of nowhere for some reason, no resolution. Timebomb is only (shown as) canon in a waste of time AU episode you couldn't even get away with in English 101, like, are y'all fr?

Fighting me so hard for legit no reason isn't the hot take you think it is but go off or whatever, see I, too, can be a cool kid

But fr can't we just unite in our disappointment in S2 instead of whatever the fuck this is. Y'all are why we can't have nice writing

At least I'm caring less about you as time passes but. The writing, bro...

Wait, why are people saying JayVik is this evil giant fanservice thing? If anything it was stupid queerbait! I like the ship but I felt like the whole thing was a big stupid mush of poor writing, outright ableism, and altogether just slop that made no sense. I didn't care about the alleged shipping, like who the hell would even NOTICE or care at that point? Like the writing belongs in the trash so I couldn't care less, and I'll just go to AO3, thanks.

The mage should've been Ryze. Or anything else.

Conversely, Vi going down on her abuser (and murderer of her people)... I literally don't know what to think and have decided for my sanity not to care. I assume it's male gaze fetishism, which is why there's no gay or bi ships. Men can't take that. Too yucky for them.

Meh sorry. I got grossed out by the weird accusations. Like who cares how many ships there are or who ships them? Are ship wars literally more important to you than the show?

[insanechayne]

~ ~ ~

[fujii-draws]

OKAY! Chatot rant in tags below! Read at your own discretion.

[rxttenfish]

Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

[eggsistential-basket]

thinking about the person i could have been if i tried a little harder to find my own way

[daincrediblegg]

Honestly it's really kind of funny and important and fitting that Folie a Deux is a critical flop because it really proves the point that franchise fans are not the cash cow that the studios can really bank on for permanent and never-ending media profit because 1) they are not intellectual to put it mildly, and they make the rest of the media landscape look like shit for the rest of us because they keep putting their money into the exact thing that they're destined to hate eventually because none of the creatives involved in these things really want to fucking do this, and 2) that originality and nuance cannot exist in franchise films and when you introduce anything of the sort to a property that people have specific franchise expectations for it will not go well even if it puts a mirror to the fans and says "hey. this is you. yta. and you did NOT understand the first time because you're so entrenched in franchise films you won't even be able to conceive of anything else that goes off those rails even though it is perfectly within reason for the canon we established the first time" but if you give these babies even a LITTLE taste of their own medicine they'll throw a tantrum

[britneyshakespeare]

i love bratz as dolls but i fuckin hate mga as a brand. fuckin idiots

[gaylittleguys]

knowing how awful the worldbuilding (and everything else) in divergent is like. A sleeper haterism in me.

[seventh-district]

sighs and collapses and disintegrates into the wind

[selfinflictedgunshotwound]

it sucks to have no one to talk about the big emotions to because they're either too close to you or too far away... i simply don't know how to cope with real life and i don't know how people do

[thebigqueer]

its not even just seeing her that im worired about . im so dreading going back cuz everyones gonna be like 'so have you seen your pookie yet!!' and im gonna have to sit there and look embarrasing and stupid as fuck saying 'oh we broke up. yeah sorry i know i ranted to you guys all the tiem about how much i liked her and made you all listen to everything we did on some reandom date only for us to break up almost out of nowhere. sorry for letting you down and wasting your time' like fuckkkk . im gonna look so fucking stupid saying all this cuz they all knew how much we liked each other. theyre all gonna look at me in so much fucking pity and i dont want to deal with all that

[chiistarri]

what if instead of messaging me in the middle of the night about your stupid fucking girlfriend and your stupid fucking problems with her you actually act like my fucking friend and message me like how you message everyone else in our group

[widevibratobitch]

.

[classicstupid-tom]

literally what the fuck is even going on with fnaf lore at this point <3