#i LOVE long asks DONT WORRY

[charadoodle]

I just saw a post that was like. You should always follow your instinct!! Your friends do hate you!!! And like. No?? Do not do this. To yourself or to your friends. Especially with super close friends. Your friends love you. It's why we are friends.

If you're really worried about it. Ask. And I get it. I'm autistic too. It's hard and you notice little changes and you overthink it but. I get busy. Things happen in my life. And I always have to tell myself life happens to everyone. Even if it's hard to see outside your lense.

Tldr. If you're worried. Ask them or talk to them. If you're right. I'm sorry. That sucks but you don't want to be friends with someone who isn't compatible/ mean to you anyways. You'll make new friends. You'll make better ones. I did.

And. Trust your friends.

[saetiate]

hi cora!! if you have any thoughts to add to karasu taking a liking to you wearing loafers, i would be most glad to hear them… 🫣 otherwise please feel free to ignore this ask!! wishing you a pleasant day, friend! 💖💖

context

hi lovely!! i just think karasu fits with a bit of a good girl reader sooo well (he can fit w other types of ppl too but that’s for another post)

i do think he has a little bit of a corruption situation too but not in the same way as oliver at all also he genuinely feels bad about it

like you’re ordering a drink from a cafe and the barista says something that makes you giggle and he’s like awh you’re so cute. and at the same time he’s also like god i wanna have her over the counter. and then he catches himself thinking it and he’s like what the fuck internally to himself LMAOO you’re just being you and his mind is spinning bc he wants to treat u right but also everything else

he’d treat you so right tho like i imagine your first time w him is like. he’s always checking your reactions the whole time. asking if you’re okay. making sure you’re not hurt and it’s not too much like he’s so considerate and careful because he wants this to be good for you i think bc of this it also takes a bit of getting to know each other before he starts to show how much of a freak he really is LMAO LIKE he’s a little afraid to show you. like he's tryna hide so bad that he wants to make you come over and over again in succession with just his mouth. not just because it might be intense for you but also because you'll see how insane it gets him when you look at him and how badly he needs it like he does not think he'll be able to hide how he feels once it's happening.

takes a little coaxing. like a session that’s more intense than usual and he’s apologizing and you have to tell him it’s okay and that he can keep going. or bringing it up to him upright that u wanna try something. then you start getting into like real kink sex with him with overstimulation and denial and bondage. he is KING of aftercare though like always making sure you’re okay, if you need anything, preparing water and food and creams to ease any pain or abrasions and helping you in the shower/bath

yeah veryyyy considerate man with his good girl just tryna do right by you

[juniemunie]

Happy birthday error you doofus

Im throwing all the errors at you because all of you deserve some love too heheh

[nibbelraz]

I thought about something the other day which I nearly wrote but I don't have the patience for- what if Mobei had a sudden epithany while snooping qinghua's house? cause obv hes gonna snoop. sqh is mad sus, and mobei has trust issues with his trust issues. but it suddenly occurs to him that the bed that he constantly steals from his little human is very much rather. luxurious. The mattress is thick and expensive, and sqh rotates and flips it frequently so it doesnt get lumpy. it has a topper(1)

(2) with cooling talismans all over it to make it a good temp for mobei any time he decides to sleep in it. the sheets are silk, soft, and light. they're in his colours. his shades. it's a huge bed- long enough for mobei to lay down fully stretched out and still have room. theres countless pillows made of whatever is best for mobei's hair. they're piled up and spread out in a decadance fit for royalty. its always clean. it always smells like him. hes never seen qinghua in it once.

(3) and surely, he must use it, right? it's still his bed, no matter how mobei frames it. But he knows what sqh smells like, and that scent has never been anywhere but in the fleeting touch of someone who changed the sheets. there's never been a lingering warmth from his humans body on the mattress. its the most luxurious, extravagant, expensive thing sqh owns. its not his. looking around the bedroom- is this his either? can he see anything that he might say with confidence is the cultivators?

(4) the answer is no. There's peak lord things in here, yes, but by the nature of being a spy, that's mobeis as well. So he looks- where does sqh sleep, if not a bed that (should? could?) be his own. The answer appears to be a cheap, small little daybed. It's uncomfortable. Mobei knows how big his human is, and this wouldn't fit him well. It's made well enough, but next to the actual bed in the room? It's a grade up from the floor. If Mobei laid on it he'd be off of it by his hips.

(5) honestly its not even good as a chair. It's uneven and kinda lumpy. There's a vague pillow- flat and showing signs of being folded often. A blanket that looks more like a repurposed curtain. It it bad so sqh doesn't lose it to mobei's wants? or worse, is it what he feels like he deserves? He already knew qinghua wasn't one to spend on himself but, he didn't think it was a possible fear of having it stolen from him. Does he have anything of his own worth having at all? Mobei doesn't know.

(6) anyway this obv leads into a comedy of errors where mobei is like. "qinghua. get into bed." and the man positively bluescreens because ??? literally how is he supposed to take that. and when he sorta makes a movement to just lay down on the day bed mobei is like. do you even fucking have any night clothes or do you just sleep like that. get night clothes. get into my bed. you're being cringe. my king with all respect due; crack? is it crack that you smoke? ))

-------------------------------------------------------

He wants QINGHUA TO BE COMFY AND SLEEP GOOD IN A PROPER BED WITH PROPER CLOTHES AND WARM BLANKETS

Knowing them both it really would take Mobei an extremely long time to figure out that wait a minute, Qinghua doesn't sleep here at all?? Especially realizing the bed doesnt even smell like him, but the thought of him trying to fix that is so cute

I can also see him just picking Qinghua up throwing him into bed, Wrapping him up in furs and blankets and then tugging him to his chest

Yes he's comfortable now

ALSO QINGHUA BEING SO CONFUSED BECAUSE HE JUST UP AND DOES THIS WITHOUT ANY WARNING NOT EVEN SAYING ANYTHING

Ah I love how Mobei shows his love by trying to take care of his scared sweaty human

[quigzahhutt]

🤎 + sargebon for the ask game PLEASE i miss them so bad i will love you forever if you write them...

for the kisses ask game💋

🤎 multiple kisses / kisses all over / kiss after kiss

OHHHHH OKAY OKAY. anon I hope u don't mind me altering your prompt juuuuust a little bit, because i will be making this a part of my Lily/Alex/Logan universe. it will still be sargebon, but it will also include Lily in the fun as well :)

The airport is incredibly crowded.

Logan is glad they're meeting up in a less populated part of California, but he has to remind himself that it's still in California, during the holidays.

He's been recognized more times than he can count, which isn't really a bother, but Logan has just come off of an 11 hour flight and is currently in his airport clothes, feeling particularly crusty like he's been brushed with butter and left in the oven to bake.

London to California was a bad idea; an awful, awkward timezone change that he's especially unaccustomed to now that he isn't travelling to a new country every other week.

It's worth the misery, though, he reminds himself; Alex and Lily are waiting for him, and he'll get to hug them, and see them in person, and then take a nice, long nap in the car.

Speaking of; he spots Lily not too far from the exit, and he can't help the smile that breaks out across his face, toothy and uncoordinated as he approaches her.

"Hi," is the first thing she says, joy evident in her voice, before standing on her toes to give Logan a hug.

It's a bit awkward considering one of his hands is being taken up by his bag and suitcase, but he tries to wrap his other arm around her the best he can; his hand feels huge where it's splayed out across her upper back.

"Was the flight okay?" Lily asks as they pull away, and her voice is so soft it's almost inaudible, like she's afraid someone might be listening in. "I know you were texting us through the whole thing, but you look, like, dead tired. Are you okay?" Her tone is humorous, but it's intertwined with an unnecessary level of concern.

Logan can't help but huff, a little hysterical. "Yeah, I'm good, just... Not as used to long flights like that anymore, I guess," He runs his fingers through his hair as he says it, trying valiantly to keep his tone lighthearted, to ensure that she knows that he's okay just so she'll stop looking at him like that, uneasy and worried, tying knots in Logan's sternum.

Lily just hums after that, thoughtful as she stares up at him. "Okay. Alex is pulling around, so we can get going, he'll get cranky if we keep him waiting,"

Logan scoffs, "As if he isn't always late to literally everything," he rolls his eyes as he says it, and his stomach tightens as the realization of seeing Alex in person again finally sets in.

They've been calling and FaceTiming an awful lot, yeah, but Logan hasn't actually seen Alex in person since August, all the way back during Zandvoort, back when everything was kind of awful. Just thinking about it makes Logan's throat feel tight.

But as they stroll up to the car, a sleek, slate-grey Mercedes GLS, all of those worries disappear as Alex's window rolls down to slowly reveal his face, sunglasses tipped on his nose and his mouth cracked into a huge smile as the pair of them slowly approach.

"Need a lift?" Alex hardly gets the sentence out, his grin acting more as a hazard than anything, impairing his speech and making him sound absolutely off the rails.

Logan actually feels weakened by it, by seeing Alex, by seeing Lily, the truth that all three of them are finally together after what feels like years of waiting.

"Hi, Alex," is all that Logan can manage, because the feelings brewing in his chest are growing to a dangerous frequency; he's a little nervous he might just lean in through the window and kiss Alex until they're both breathless, which would be very bad for their whole secrecy thing.

So, Logan instead occupies himself by tossing his stuff into the back seat before climbing in after it, and he's sure he looks deranged, moving with an urgency that is entirely unnecessary, like he's running away from an invisible threat.

"You're riding in the back?" Lily asks, and when Logan looks up, she's standing outside of his door with an almost wounded expression on her face; when he glances over, Alex is dutifully watching him from the rearview mirror with an equally odd look in his eyes.

Shit. Fuck. Was this some sort of arranged thing he was totally unaware of?

"Uhm, I'm really tired, so the back will probably be more comfortable for sleeping. Is that okay?" He says the last part slowly, suddenly terrified that he's just done something horribly wrong.

Thankfully, Lily's face softens with relief. "Okay," she says, before bracing a hand on Logan's thigh and leaning in to give him a quick peck on the cheek, so quick that it's basically nothing, and yet Logan's heart leaps in his chest.

She makes quick work of closing his door for him and making her way to the passenger side, and when Logan glances up, Alex is still watching him through the mirror, although this time with a significantly more relaxed expression on his face.

When Alex realizes he's been staring, he quickly ducks his head, and Logan can see how the tips of his ears turn pink. He's sure they both look insane, hiding their faces and smiling down at their hands like stupid, lovesick fools, even though that's exactly what they are.

--- --- ---

Logan falls asleep quicker than he expected, and by the time he wakes up, the car is coming to a gentle stop in the driveway of a quaint little cabin, nestled somewhere deep and cozy in the mountains, dusted in a fluffy layer of snow.

He's still waking up, and he's barely getting unbuckled when suddenly his door is opening and letting in a healthy waft of winter chill that bites his exposed skin; he is definitely not dressed for this kind of weather. Oh well.

Alex seems to be the perpetrator, judging by the ridiculously large grin crowding Logan's vision. He squints at it, like Alex's smile is actually blinding, and Logan very quickly wakes up when Alex begins leaning in, peppering kisses all along his cheeks before finally making it to his mouth.

The kiss is similar to how Alex was smothering Logan just a second ago; soft pecks in quick succession, and it's a little bit uncomfortable, honestly, with just how much their teeth are trying to invade.

Logan can't even find it in himself to be bothered by it, because he actually feels like he's going to burst from joy, from finally being able to touch and kiss Alex after so many months of waiting.

But, they were going to have to separate eventually, and Logan is getting increasingly colder as the seconds tick by, so he reluctantly pulls away so he doesn't accidentally catch Alex's lip with his chattering teeth.

"Jesus, Loges, you're so pale. Does your nose always get red like that in the cold?" Alex asks, a bit hysterical, and his voice is filled with far too much glee at the prospect of Logan's flushed face.

At the same time that Logan says, "Yeah, so get out of the way so I can go inside and warm up," Lily also pipes up and says, "Yeah, Alex, so get out of his way so we can go inside!" It makes them all laugh a little, and none of it feels real; Logan can't believe that he's actually here right now.

--- --- ---

The house is unbelievably warm; Logan and Lily have no qualms in abandoning Alex to carry all their stuff inside so they can try and start a fire in the cute, rustic little fireplace in the center of the living room.

By the time Alex is done hauling all of their luggage in, Logan and Lily are sitting by the fire, leaning into each other and having idle conversation. Alex sneaks up behind the pair of them and places his freezing cold hands on the backs of their necks, snickering with retaliation for leaving him to do all the work.

When they both flinch and begin shouting at him, Alex raises his hands in defeat. "Listen! That's what happens when you leave me behind to do everything in the freezing cold!" He squawks, but the joy on his face betrays any possiblity that he might be upset.

Still, Logan can play along. "It's actually your fault for being the only properly dressed one for the weather," Lily quickly nods along, humming an affirmation in Logan's direction, and leaning further into his side to really hammer it home.

"Ugh, you're both impossible, I can't believe this," Alex resigns, and gracelessly flops back onto the leather loveseat tucked against the wall.

Lily makes a face before suddenly standing up. She moves towards the couch almost like she's going to sit with him, but she surprises both of them by instead placing a hand on Alex's chest and leaning in, looming above him as she leaves a slow, easy kiss on his lips.

"You did this to yourself, babe," Lily pulls away just barely to say it, and even though Logan can't even see it, he's sure that the energy between their eyes is insanely charged.

She smacks another kiss against his mouth, and Logan can imagine the way some of her lipgloss comes off on Alex's lips, slightly pink, sensual and glittery.

Alex then leans over, peering around Lily's body to nail Logan with an expectant look. He nods his head once, as if he's signalling Logan to come over, and when he does it, Lily turns around, still propped up against Alex's chest as she also begins staring at him.

The image of them right now, locked together, perfectly in tandem, is already a lot for Logan to process, so the fact that they're inviting him over, allowing him to interrupt their already perfected rhythm makes him feel a bit woozy.

So he stands up on wobbling feet, because it feels like a sin not to heed their calling. He feels a bit silly being watched like this, like he's something special and not just an intruder.

But when Logan gets there and Alex drags him down into a heavy kiss, full of love and reprieve, and he can feel Lily's hand in his hair, and her lips along his cheek and lining his jaw, Logan finally realizes that maybe they've always wanted him here.

[pjsk-headcanons]

Hi idk if it's allowed but I wanna leave one of my AU's in here.

-Mermaid!AU where there are 3 different types of mermaids: mermaids, sirens and dark mermaids (bear with me idk english or a lot abt folk stories)

Ichika, Saki, Honami, Shizuku, Minori, Kanade, Mafuyu, Tsukasa, Emu, Kohane, Toya, Akito and Ena are all normal humans, the rest od the cast get divided as:

-An, Shiho and Nene are normal mermaids, those that sing, in this universe they're mostly harmless

- Mizuki, Rui and Airi are all "dark mermaids", aka they are the one's who murder people for eating, but they do it alongside the sirens, although they can also just eat animals.

-Haruka is a siren, she attracts male humans for the dark mermaids to eat them.

The main ships i had for this were Ichishiho, Harusaki, Shizuairi, Mizuena, Akian and I'm still unsure between ruikasa and nenekasa

‎

[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.

[lunisoular]

Many thoughts, head filled with incoherent feral biting and screeching. But fr, i swear your au art and ideas make me go a little bit insane

I can't even choose a specific one right now because they're all so amazing! Like your Ace lives au, where he comes back as a child. If it weren’t for you posting about it, I'd never even think of that as an option!

Or your soulmates au, where it has a fairly unique take on feeling a soulmates pain and sharing their scars. Especially with all the suffering so many of the strawhats have gone through (Luffy's fight against Kaido could not have felt anywhere near good for anyone he's soulmates with)

And of course, your ghost asl au, which has made me actually sob over these poor children. They never get to live out their dreams! They never truly get to meet the people who would have changed their lives for the better! But at least they have each other, at least they're together, right?

And an honorable mention to the baby luffy au where he's literally a baby when he first meets Ace and Sabo (forcing them to be responsible for once) because that's straight up adorable <3

Anyways, this ask has gotten long enough, so I just wanna say that I feel the need to show my appreciation for the stuff you make since it inspires me with my own writing and aus too. So thank you.

- Death Anon

WHISGAHBSAGGAHS ??!!!!??1??!???1!??1? THANK YOU SO MUCH AH !!!!

i never would’ve thought that posting my silly little doodles of these silly little brothers would lead to this. like i inspire people ?? me ??? thats INSANE because i am so inspired (like whery and taizi likjng my stuff ?!!?1?) and the fact that i give that feeling to other people is kind of incomprehensible

aaah im so happy you like my aus !!!! i remember how my very first babylu post got so much more attention than i thought it would, since i hadn’t thought to make it an actual au instead of just a one off thing until i saw how many people said they liked it. babylu kickstarted this whole thing, which i think is funny but fitting !!! im so attached to these brothers and their bond, nothing like brotherly bonding to get me going

sometimes i get into real bad slumps where i can’t muster the energy to do much of anything. other times im too busy, or overwhelmed, or i just dont have any inspiration. im really grateful for such kind messages like yours because, i think, it reassures me that what i’ve already made is still being seen even though i feel bad about what i haven’t made. sometimes it feels like i have to get up and make something, and i’m forever thankful for my friends reminding me that i really don’t if i feel like i can’t. hearing that i inspire others inspires me to keep going, so thank you so much for the kind words !!!!

also, did i make that ace lives au ? ^^” if i did i completely forgot, but u could’ve mixed me up with another user i’ve seen with that au haha !

but thank u again !!!! <3 sorry i got a little sentimental it’s 7am

[demonlike-judge-of-fire]

This is the hill I will die on: Kim Dokja can cook. He can cook well.

Nowhere. In the novel is it said that he can't cook. People only assume he can't because yjh can and BECAUSE OF THE DAMN SHIP DYNAMICS OF CAN COOK/WILL BURN THE HOUSE DOWN!!!

YOU ALL ARE BETTER THAN THIS!!! YOU CAN START BEING BETTER TODAY I BELIEVE IN YOU!!!!!!

(Tropes are good but... Don't reduce a character to a trope? aksjsjldkdksk)

Anyway here's why Kim Dokja can cook, for real this time

There are three times he has made food in the novel that I can remember: the meat of the dungeon rats, the meat of the plant thing and The Dumplings.

The first two times you can assume that he read how to make it in twsa... And that the recipe was 20 pages long...

The third time 999 is giving him detailed instructions.

DETAILED INSTUCTIONS.

He can cook but only with detailed instructions!! If the recipe says "cook" he needs to know just how high the flame is and exactly how long to cook it for. If it says "add salt" he needs to know how much salt.

(recipes are super vague... also i may just be projecting my neurodivergence...)

Its kinda funny to think about hsy writing the detailed instructions to kinda highlight yjh's meticulousness but unknowingly giving kdj exactly what he needs to survive... Food. (Don't think about how it may have been deliberate if you don't want to be sad)

In conclusion, may I suggest yjh teaching kdj to cook instead? It would work. Hsy is more likely to burn the house down (intentionally) anyway.

(I'm so sorry this got super long... I couldn't resist :') )

UR SO REAL FOR THIS...

Ur right about the ship dynamic. you are SO right

i think it's necessary for kim dokja to be able to cook for his backstory. this man lived alone and in poverty, do not lie. now, whether he's good at it is another story!!!!!!! I like to think his meals were average (<3) and he used descriptions of delicious food in TWSA to trick his senses like with storebought meals

Also. dont worry about projecting your neurodivergence. because kdj is totally neurodivergent.

Han Sooyoung knew KDJ didn't eat well. She saw it when she visited the hospital. I figure that, for a long time, Han Sooyoung couldn't forget his arms and how not a single muscle could be felt! His hands were as small as hers (and during that time, bodily, she was also younger than him) SCREAMS

But yeah, I would like to see yjh guiding kdj in his process. Maybe replicate that recipe 999 taught him :)

[allylikethecat]

Omg, also a TS fan since debut and I massively took a step back from her personally prior to the reputation era because of her antics and victim complex. The music will always mean so so much to me, her lyrics mean so much to me, but her actions as a person and TS™️ as an entity is just weird and greedy. I think she accrued a lot of fans when she disappeared for a while who've completely constructed a narrative in their heads of who she is and they believe it and are eating up this current era, but those who've been here a long time know how PR and image driven it is. Exhausting.

I apologize in advance I have been having way too many feelings about this whole situation and how it relates to my identity as a 28 year old woman and you are about to get an oversharing novel in response lol

Also, I guess CW: this post is about Taylor Swift and if anyone sends me any kind of hate or whatnot related to my own personal opinions and feelings I will be deleting it because I am NOT playing that game.

My Aunt bought me the Debut album CD at a concert after seeing her open for Rascal Flatts. She was like "I thought that you would like her!" and she was RIGHT Taylor Swift became my entire personality. One of my FAVORITE core memories as a child was the day Fearless came out. For some reason we didn't have school, and my Mom and I watched Taylor on the Ellen show, and then we went to Target and bought the physical CD, we then drove around town so we could listen to it together. My mom hasn't been well and that is one of my favorite memories of us together. It's silly but when you're in middle school that kind of thing is important to you. Then in high school I actually got MADE FUN OF for wearing Taylor merch and being excited about Red. BUT I loved her music and felt like she actually stood for something, so I brushed it off and continued to be a HUGE Swiftie. I had the Taylor Swift dolls, I had the perfumes, I had the LOVE LOVE LOVE bracelet, I had the sundresses from WALMART. I saw her on the Fearless and 1989 tours, I had the fucking 1989 haircut. I was supposed to go to Loverfest.

I was still a HUGE Swiftie during the post 1989-pre Reputation eras, then the Reputation era. I'm a few years younger than her, but I felt like I could relate to the kind of manic panic that she was sharing with us (lol turns out I was just unmedicated and we're doing much better now). It felt (in my probably naive mind) like she was experiencing the same insecurities that I was and reacting accordingly. Was she playing the victim at times? Oh 100% BUT I also fully believe that she thought she was one. (Plus... Kim is my least favorite Kardashian lol)

I LOVED the Lover era even as it was shit on at the for the sunshine rainbow hyper colorful aesthetic. Like, I don't know if new fans realize but when Lover was released? It was NOT as beloved as it is now. Then Folklore and Evermore were absolute genius, it felt like Taylor had grown up, and she got all of these new fans, which was great! She was in an "adult" relationship and her music and publicity choices seemed to reflect that. It was so refreshing to see a celebrity keeping their personal life, personal, and sharing what they wanted to share through music. Midnights broke all kinds of records, again, amazing! Even if it wasn't as strong as say Folklore. I fought for my life and got Eras Tour tickets (opening weekend!!) I had the BEST TIME EVER.

Taylor has always been extremely calculated with her public image. She was over exposed during The 1989 era and the public turned on her, so I truly cannot figure out why she is doing it again 100x in this new era of whatever the fuck this is. I don't know her, maybe she is legitimately happy, or maybe this is a cry for help. But I have been so grossed out by her behavior lately, and how in your face everything is with Kelce. It's no secret that I hate Kelce (and people that know me IRL know that it's not a new Taylor related thing lol) and if she actually loves him, fine, that's great for her, BUT we don't need to see it! Yes she was public when she was dating Calvin but ALSO she was what 25-26? She's a 34 year old woman now with the biggest platform of any celebrity ever. She feels too old (and this is not me age shaming her because I would be grossed out if my friends were doing it, and I would be embarrassed if *I* were to ever do it) to be licking a man's face in public like this. This feels like sorority girl in her first college relationship (I was *in* a sorority for a hot second so this isn't hate on sorority girls either!) and not record breaking Grammy award winning artist. ALSO I feel like she used to come across as so articulate and well spoken? Controversial opinion but I thought she sounded like a fucking idiot in that Time Person of the Year piece.

I think that this whole thing is PR for something, but because it just feels too icky to be real, but I don't know what it's PR for, (trying to bury the Matty situation from May? Because if so that just makes me even more sad for him or trying to get back at Joe? Which if that's the case, I feel bad for him too and she's even more immature than I thought) and now, for the first time, AFTER SIXTEEN YEARS I'm embarrassed to be a fan of her, both because of her own actions and also the actions of her fanbase as a whole.

It feels really weird, and I know I'm being parasocial about it, but when the times got bad I always had her music to fall back on and now I just, I don't know it feels cheapened somehow because the current image that's being crafted doesn't match the one that we originally fell for. And you know what, people change, she's a celebrity, I don't know her, what she does DOES NOT affect me any way, and how I feel does not AFFECT HER in the slightest, and I know it's being parasocial but I feel like a big part of me is in mourning about it. Less because of her changing her image so drastically, and more so because I feel like I'm mourning the loss of childhood and joy that used to be associated with her music for me and I think that's what's making me the most sad.

I have Eras tour tickets for one of the London dates this summer. I'm probably going to still go, because I paid for them, and I also have tickets to see Noah Kahan that same week in London (... and also the Longines tour has ALSO decided that the London stop is that week...) But I don't consider myself a "big fan" anymore. Maybe I will be one day again, but this current image that she's putting out just isn't it for me.

Sorry for the longest Taylor related novel in existence, I have had a lot of bottled up feelings about this that feel ridiculous typing out and sharing out loud BUT I know I will feel better sending them into the interwebs and your ask was the perfect catalyst.

Thank you so much for sending this in and for your continued support! I hope you continue to enjoy my fics and my secret sports hot takes 😂

❤️Ally

[rikomoriyama01]

Raven king/Fox queen

Being on opposite teams means Riko and Kevin can date without sabotaging their actions professionally ... Wait smh does not add up here

[jessicas-pi]

Some people kill their darlings. Me, personally? I mortify my blorbos. sounds like a very interesting fic that would probably vaporize me with secondhand embarrassment easily, so im very curious about it

YEEEHAAA

Okay okay so this scene, which I have temporarily dubbed In Which Tristan Steals Half A Letter And Mandalorian Sibling Rivalries Get A Little Violent, is from the very beginning of Paint Bombs, Pixie Cuts, And Elopement, and it is only the first of MANY increasingly mortifying situations!!

---

Sabine had been so distracted, she hadn’t realized she was no longer the only person in her library.

Tristan had breezed in, settled down in her abandoned spot on the lounge, and picked up the letter from Ezra.

“Hey! That’s personal!” she snapped, jumping up and snatching it from him.

Her brother looked up at her and raised an eyebrow.

“What does that mean?”

Sabine stomped back over to her desk and sat down, pulling out a second sheet of paper. “It means that it’s my business, not yours.”

“As your older brother, I think it is my business. After all, you’ve been sending a concerning amount of letters to him, and you won’t let anyone else see his replies.”

“Because it’s personal,” she repeated, not bothering to explain that out of the last six letters she’d sent, he only bothered to reply to the last one, and not very nicely, either.

“Which is exactly why we’re all worried.” She hunched her shoulders and focused on writing.

She was a few paragraphs in when he spoke again. “And it looks like I was right to be worried, because this, little sister, is a pretty compromising letter.”

Sabine blinked, bewildered. “Compromising?” She turned around in her seat and let out a furious cry. That letter—it had had two pages, and Tristan must have let her only snatch the first page without her noticing, because he had the second one in his hand now. “Tristan!”

“Oh, yes, very compromising. I quote—” He held up the letter and read aloud. “It was so nice of you to use all those tender words in your last message to me—have you been writing love notes?”

What she had been writing was a horribly rude letter where she called Ezra every name she could think of, and he’d got sarcastic over it in his reply, which Tristan had to know because the next sentence of that letter was a few of those phrases quoted, but he was apparently being a very selective reader now.

So, Sabine didn’t explain, and just stood, clenching her jaw. “Give me that, and get out of my library.”

He just reclined on the lounge, grinning and kicking his feet up. “You know, I’ve had a few… ah… romantic escapades, in my time. I can be trusted with a secret. So confide in me. Exactly what sweet nothings have you been writing to your adoring Prince?”

“Give it to me and get out, Tristan!”

“Should I make some guesses?” Tristan asked, jumping to his feet to avoid the sofa pillow she hurled at him. Sabine followed him, advancing slowly, fists clenched. “I bet he sends you long letters about his earnest and eternal love, and you send him back coquettish garbage acting like you don’t understand anything he says, so he’ll say it to you again.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped, snatching at the sheet of paper that he held away from her.

“Oh, no, it happens all the time. I’ve fallen for it myself. I still have the letters I got from my old sweetheart when I was your age, if you need proof. Or reference materials for the next time you write—I’m sure the little minx wouldn’t mind you borrowing a few of her shameless hints for your own flirtation.”

“It’s not a flirtation!”

“My bad,” Tristan sang, dodging around a chair so it was between the two of them, and moving side to side in time with her to keep it that way. “But in my defense, I had no idea you and he were serious.”

“We’re not!”

“When did you two first get an understanding?”

“We don’t have one!”

“Now that I look back—this all started last summer, when we were in Jedha, didn’t it? He must have been trying to win your heart then, and I can only assume you strung him along for weeks like the sadistic little witch you are, before you gave in.”

She cursed at him, no longer cold from the drafty walls but so warm she felt like she was crawling out of her own skin. She didn’t know if it was from the excitement of finally getting the letter, the heat of the fire, or the flustered burning in her face, and she didn’t really care.

“I may regret asking this,” Tristan said without a trace of regret, whatsoever, at all, in a million years. “But how did ol’ Prince Di’kut manage to woo you? Did he act gallant and noble and play at courting you? Or was this a…” Tristan wiggled his eyebrows and leaned in to whisper, momentarily dropping his guard. “A passionate-midnight-meetings sort of affai—”

Sabine’s fist connected with his nose.

[navramanan]

So tired of continuesly feeling this way I keep trying and failing time and time and time again

[frankiebirds]

started binging criminal minds, i was gutted when elle left & now watching the next couple of s2 episodes i really felt her absence. especially in 'the last word' when a women has to pretend to be dead so they can catch one of the serial killers (they so needed to have a frank convo about making elle relieve her trauma + this couldve been a great intro to that). i read your post, i agree it did make sense why elle left considering her background as a sexual offence specialist & what she says to reid but i found the writing lacking. her exit felt rushed + not final bc she only really shared scenes with hotch. also she also seems the type to not wanna give up the bau bc that would mean the fisher king wins + is a determined person so it would've been better to see her slow realisation she cant do the job she desperately wanted in s1. also the fact her relationships with the rest of the team + their reactions weren't fully explored is annoying since she was quite friendly with everyone particularly close to morgan, reid even gideon. especially since gideon inadvertently caused her get shot as he didnt want to follow the rules then said elle would understand?? so a confrontation w gideon similar to the one w hotchner wouldve been nice. i miss morgan's fun bantery friendship with elle in the later eps when she wasn't there to partner up with him (idk they seemed to be a go to partnership to me) & the elle/morgan/reid trio is sorely missed. ive largely enjoyed everything so far (just finished 2x09) but i wish they'd more deeply explore the characters' history. like the inclusion of reids mom was interesting & really liked how garcia respected reids privacy to keep her illness a secret. it was a missed opportunity i felt not to see elle & morgan not bonding over losing their cop dads or hotch and gideon talking about fatherhood when hotch is missing out on his babys key milestones (ik there was that bit in s1 when hotch tells gideon to get in touch w his son but more of those moments wouldve been nice). whilst i feel the team all like each other and there's some interesting/fun friendships (reid&gideon , garcia&morgan etc) id be nice to have some downtime scenes showcasing them as a makeshift found family (sorry i love that trope & c'mon they spend more time with each other than with their acc families). anyway sorry for the long rant this show is eating at my brain lord my brain mass will be equivalent to a pea by the time i finish this show. <3

thats fair and i get what you mean! there are definitely moments when i felt elle's absence and there are definitely things about her leaving that i would change if i had the power—i absolutely agree that the reactions from the rest of the team to her leaving and the actions leading up to it were sorely lacking, and a slower realisation that she cant do the job anymore would have been very cool to see, although i think the latter was less due to writing problems and more to the fact that elle left the show because lola glaudini chose to leave (ie they couldn't write a fully fleshed out leaving arc for elle because it was driven by out-of-show events and therefore not planned/they had limited time to execute it). the lack of reaction from the team is a writing problem though, so again i very much agree with that!

i hope you enjoy the rest of the show and get some of your wishes, and if you dont, you can find some good fics to fulfill them <3

[something-familiar-lost]

why is intercting with people so hard . Why is life so hard in general.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...