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ironunderstands · 7 months ago

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Would be waiting for acheron brainrot ramble here

Is it time for Acheron brainrot ramble? It’s time for Acheron brainrot ramble. Prepare for the most stream of consciousness post ever, I had so much fun writing this she has taken over my consciousness and puppeted me for my own ends, and commanded me to demonstrate how peak she really is. So enjoy, hopefully I can get others to love Acheron just as much as I do.

I think there are three reasons why I like Acheron 1) she’s really fucking cool 2) I love characters who guide/mentor others 3) She’s charming as hell.

Hoyo you aren’t allowed to make characters this good.

The music in her trailer, her aesthetic, the amount of fire fucking one liners. THE COLOR RED (I’ll get into it)

“Find me, your end, my origin.” Who cooked here who wrote this who’s the chef please where’s the restaurant I’m eating this up

“On the still waters of oblivion, I guide the wandering souls” GRAHAJDJWJKSSW YES YOU DO OH MY GOD I CANT PUT INTO WORDS HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS LINE SHUT UP EVERYONE SHUT UP. Like she literally is at the edge of existence fighting to help others find their future, I just. RAAAA

SHE CUTS A BLACK HOLE IN HALF?? HUHH AUGHH a black hole that’s the manifestation of meaninglessness in the universe, and she goes “nah” and fucking obliterates it?!!?

“I weep for the departed” Those who have died are gone, and slowly losing themselves even further. For decades, centuries, millennia, even, Acheron has witnessed this, and still cries for them, still guides them to the other side, even if the task itself is meaningless, because someone should do it, someone has to do it, and that someone is HER.

She saves Aventurine, she saves the Trailblazer, she saves the entirity of Penacony. Someone blessed by the manifestation of nonexistent dedicates her life to giving others a reason to live.

Aventurine asks her why people should bother living, if the dice are always weighted in a certain outcome, then why should we keep going? Aventurine asks her why people should bother living if the universe is meaningless?

He fully expects her to say people shouldn’t.

But Acheron doesn’t do that. The dice are weighted against us. Not just in game, but in reality itself. We will all die, you will die, the people you care about will die, I might die, it remains to be seen. However, before that inevitable ending, before the curtain finally closes, we have so many choices to make. If the ending is the same for everyone, it doesn’t matter, and Acheron tells Aventurine this.

Because the Nihility envelops everyone equally, the universe is equally meaningless for everyone, nobody is the special someone destined to have a destiny. Therefore, it doesn’t matter. Aventurine has no reason to live. And Aventurine has no reason not to live. She tells him his time hasn’t come, because it hasn’t. Until that dice roll, until his final breath, Aventurine can still make choices and he can still choose to live for himself, and that’s the answer Acheron gives him.

But she knows that’s not enough. Aventurine will still struggle to live for himself, after all he’s been through, after the mountain of expectations and hopes and dreams piled onto him. So she tells him his friend has already given him the answer. Aventurine pulls out the note written by Dr. Ratio. It doesn’t give him a plan, doesn’t inform him of what expectations he has for him, doesn’t list every single reason why Aventurine should keep going. Ratio tells Aventurine to stay alive and keep on living, because he doesn’t need anything more than that, there isn’t anything more than that. Her caring about Aventurine, Ratio caring about Aventurine, that’s enough to keep him going, because other peoples love is enough of a reason to exist, universe be damned.

existing. The Existence. AKSJAKKSNDKKWEN.

Like you don’t understand, you don’t understand. ACHERON IS ENVELOPED IN THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF THE UNIVERSE BEFORE SHE FINDS ITS EXISTENCE, ITS VALUE, ITS MEANING. Even if it can never be achieved, Acheron is willing to destroy herself completely as she walks farther and farther into the Nihility trying to find the Existence, even if it takes every from her she will find it. Only by giving up her existence can Acheron find the Existence and kill the Nihility. Only by sacrificing her own life and giving up her own meaning can she give it to others.

Red. She tells the trailblazer that when they can no longer see the world in anything but black and white, there will be a brief flash of Red for them.

Red is the Existence. Red is the color of her blade that allowed her to cut that black hole in half. Red is the only color left when she unsheathes her sword. Red is the color of the tears she cries. Red is the color of the words she speaks to us that truly matter.

Red is the color she cuts into reality. In a world of black and white, in which all the light has been swallowed by IX, and the path ahead is blurry, Acheron illuminates the universe’s future in bright red, creating color, creating life, creating Existence in a world devoid of it.

We will encounter the Nihility along our journey, just as we would encounter every other aeon. The world will seem meaningless, and it will be devoid of color, but when the Trailblazer needs it the most, there will be Red. A reason to keep going, a reason to exist, a reason to keep on Trailblazing, because the path of the Trailblaze’s end is also at the Existence, and we will meet Acheron there again. Whether that color will come from us or her remains to be seen, but it will be there for us when we need it.

However, I think we/the Trailblazer will be alone. As that flash of red isn’t the only thing Acheron tells the Trailblazer.

Only when left alone can people pick themselves up. Only when help is absent can people truly fight for themselves. Only when you are alone, can you truly understand your existence.

That doesn’t mean other people don’t matter, that you have to walk the world alone, that you can only exist devoid of others. Quite the opposite actually, other people can be your reason to exist, something to help keep you going. Acheron knows this, which is why she directs Aventurine to Ratio’s note. That’s the meaning he can find in a meaningless universe.

Moreover, people help each other, they provide the tools other people need to exist, the anchors that ground people in reality, the reason why you might want to wake up in the morning, they create the things and ideas that you need and enjoy. It’s when you are ripped of these comforts, stripped of the things that make you want to keep going, is when people fight for their existence. As in a world devoid of everything, can you truly appreciate the things you have, and acknowledge that since there is now nothing, you are the only something. When there is no one there to save them, fools pick themselves up, and that is Existence.

I love Acheron. I love her silly amnesiac tendencies, I love her beautiful design, I love that she’s a Mei counterpart, but most of all, I love what she stands for.

Acheron is the indomitable human spirit personified, she quite literally chooses to exist in the face of absolute nothing. When the world loses all color, does she paint reality in a bright red with her sword, writing her own destiny with each and every slash.

And for that, I will always adore her.

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dykedvonte · 2 months ago

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I know you've had to have already touched on it but you ask for Mouthwashing asks and your last post finally made me think of something to say: the one (1) time in the game when Jimmy gets the closest to asking Anya why she's keeping Curly alive. Buddy!! Why are YOU!!! Curly wasn't your Captain anymore the moment he started talking about moving on and leaving you behind; after the crash you realized he was just your little Redemption Barbie now. The first time we open the med cabinet I thought we were going to be able to kill Curly by pouring the disinfectant down his mouth instead of the painkillers. But no, Jimmy goes out of his way to keep him alive. His "why are you keeping him alive" (paraphrasing) felt so accusatory because it *is* an accusation. Everything he does is a self-report. He keeps Curly alive so he can force Curly to be whatever he wanted him to be-- his savior, his junior, his punching bag, his best friend, his mistake, his enemy. Anya escapes from Jimmy the only way she can in the end but by then he didn't give a shit about her anyway because Curly was the easier target.

Him asking that question to Anya could even potentially be a parallel to the pause before he tells Curly he's going to "take care of it" (or "handle it", idr). Curly had the opportunity to rob him of his power-- to stop him from crashing the ship, to assert his authority and step up-- but he didn't. Jimmy asking Anya why she's keeping Curly alive is in a way taunting her with a similar kind of opportunity: she hypothetically has the ability to rob Jimmy of his power over Curly, to use her authority as the medical officer to end Curly's care, but she can't. And Jimmy knows she can't, and she won't stop him from keeping Curly alive to use him, just like he knew Curly wouldn't stop him from crashing the ship. He only gives the chance when he already knows the answer.

I think this is a misconception, Jimmy is the one who brings it up. Anya doesn't even acknowledge the idea verbally outside of saying she feels nauseous, likely due to the pregnancy and the idea of eating him.

He mentions they all agreed to keep him alive and implies the first reason is a back up food source, though, that's likely his first reason and the others just couldn't bring themselves to kill a guy or thought he deserved it to some extent. I like to think of it less as him taunting her power and more him trying to supplement his ideas into her head the same way he would with Curly. It's very reminiscent of the last conversation he had with Curly of doing something dire and not getting any push back, not by way of her agreeing with him but a non answer.

The relationships between Anya, Curly and Jimmy heavily reflect each other specially when it comes to being victimized by him and how he gets in their head. Anya is way more aware than Curly but lacks the position/power to stop it while Curly is less aware/resigned due to how long it has likely been going on despite having the power to shut Jimmy down. Jimmy is dependent on the two to actually solve his problems and do most of the leg work but becomes hostile the moment he feels it undermines his perception of them or himself in relation.

I do agree that Jimmy is aware Anya won't fight back against him like Swansea does or question him like Daisuke will. He is putting her into the same space as Curly but the key difference is he doesn't see her as a person. He is using her to supplement the active role Curly can't be but doesn't have that loyal friend aspect from her as she just fears and resents him. He's projecting on to her a lot but she never really concedes or acknowledges it in the way Curly did. He hates it and the sort of emotional games he plays with her reaches their peak when she locks herself in medical.

It's very interesting to see how he acts in the post crash without Curly as he is 100% worse but you can see how much of that is because he is aware there is no one to actually cover for his sorry ass now.

#also my bad i did just realized that Anya would be 4 months pregnant by the end of the game but I also still believe it wouldn't have made #it to term either way not gonna get into it but its implied she does start drinking the mouthwash and all the stress mixed with rationed #food likely meant it was not being developed in a healthy environment #i just consider things being fucked over at 2 months cause thats when they found the fucking mouthwash and started chugging like a #good captain wouldve atleast said hey thats a bad idea not start doing listerine shots like bro come the fuck on #but yeah jimmy likes to bring things up that no one mentioned and then act like the other person said something awful or had the idea #its likely so he doesn't have to admit to himself what thoughts are his own and makes projection easier cause he doesn't even ask questions #he asks them but answers himself its like genuinely crazy like just talk to a wall man or ur ugly reflection like he has every mental illne #mouthwashing #mouthwashing game #anya mouthwashing #nurse anya #captain curly #jimmy mouthwashing #curly mouthwashing #ask #lichbarry

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umbraastaff · 19 days ago

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what's pokeymanz? I'm only really familiar with a very simplistic pokemon system made by the GM for the Unexpectables campaign (it ain't bad, but I'm down for something with potentially more to it), also like, kinda surprised kinda not at people trying to contort 5e to fit pokemon, feels like folks try to cram everything into D&D 5e

yeah! so!! pokeymanz is a very cool system which aims (and IMO succeeds) to capture the feel of the pokémon anime in a game system. it's compatible with basically any generation or concept you can think of in pokémon bc it's such an open-ended while still giving plenty of guidelines for how to handle different kinds of things that appear across the games/shows/etc. there's even rules for playing as a pokémon à la PMD or meowth.

you can download the rulebook HERE, and honestly i'd recommend checking it out if you enjoy pokémon even if you have no interest in the game - it's very funny and enjoyable to read lol. it is based on Savage Worlds and GURPS, but I am not very familiar with either system so I can't speak much on that.

also, silliness aside, of course people can do whatever they want wrt game systems - you should be aiming to do what makes you happy first and foremost. but in my personal opinion, D&D 5e has pretty in-depth mechanics that reflect the goals and even the setting they were built for on a pretty deeply fundamental level, and trying to hack a completely different system into that just seems like... such a pain...

I am pretty sure I have also seen crunchier systems for pokémon made wholesale, which imo seems preferable to hacking it into 5e, even if it might require more work. but even then, I feel like... if I wanted a really robust pokémon battle system with specific rules and complicated math for how everything works, i would simply play the video game pokémon.

i know there are other ones - like whatever they're using on "unbeatable: a kanto journey"? i only just started listening to it and i haven't been able to find any info on what system they're using, but it seems kind of similar to kids on bikes (in that stats are represented by a d4 thru d20 and they explode), but it also seems to have more specific sub-skill checks and a lot of specific rules for how moves work...? so i am not sure what's going on there. been fun so far though.

anyway, check out pokeymanz. it's great timing bc it actually just recently had its final content update and is soon to be out of beta! every so often i get really excited about it and have pipe dreams again of running a campaign lol

#ask #Anonymous #a fun fact is before i found it i was being driven mad by the lack of pokemon ttrpgs that felt anything like the anime #and i had gotten a few too many hours into trying to make my own #(i am not a guy who has ever made a tabletop game and i do not know anything about game design. this was a wild endeavor.#it was also pbta based which is wild)#anyway then i found pokeymanz and the relief i felt i wish i could describe in words #to see everything i was trying to capture so perfectly rendered plus so so much more #incredible. anyway. god i want to play more pokeymanz. bye

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waywardstation · 3 months ago

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O had an idea a while back, but I don't remember if you were the one I sent the ask to or not for it about a potential Ingo/Alari reunion. In hindsight pretty sure it was someone else, but my idea was that after reuniting with her family, Akari would remember Ingo had been Unovian and decided to take a trip to Univa in hopes of finding him. Since Castelua City is a port town, she'd lively make landfall there and stay in a pokecenter. One hesdcanon about pokecenters i have that aren't seen in the games is that they have various facilities within them dedicated to pokemon care, which we know, and that includes a place for trainers to freely roam with their pokemon, )ike a fenced-in harden in the back or something that we never get to see, and it's a sort of communal locations for trainers to meet up and talk about the latest gossip, discuss their pokemon, or trade news together. And while in the Castelia Pokecenter's communal area with some of her pokemon, our favorite girl overhears some rumors about a 'Subway Boss who went Missing Being Found' and the Battle Subway's subsequent grand reopening. Since the description matches her Uncle Ingo, you can guess what Akari does next.

In regards to my interactive reblog game

Ahh yes! I do have the same idea about pokemon centers, because in the anime, we do see other facilities within them, like designated places for trainers to sleep overnight if their Pokemon are there, and cafeterias to go to, as well as phone booths and different rooms for different injuries a Pokémon has! Your headcanon can certainly expand on this further, too! I love the idea about backyard areas!

And I do really like this idea for the Reblog game! I have a loose visual of how I want a scene like this to go in the comic, and it is close to this, but I’m not developing it too much now so I don’t end up getting too attached to it, just for a winning choice somewhere in the middle to steer it away from it happening that way ^^;

BUT they will find each other again! That is a guarantee for this story. With Ingo having only fragments (but he can regain them throughout these segments, I already had a way set up in case this happened), Akari will probably have to do most of the work finding him. Probably a lot like this scenario you’ve presented!

Thanks for the ask anon!! I appreciate you sharing it with me!! ^^

#wayward’s asks #Get Back Home Reblog Game #I am not sure I will be including Akari’s backstory from my own works’ canon into this #in my works’ canon #she travelled a lot with her mom who was doing coordinating events in different regions #she has been to gear station and she has seen ingo before #but she didn’t remember him as that was so long ago and the interaction was brief #she is comfortable with travel and she has already seen the subway bosses before #and it would make it easier for her to remember #but for this story I’m not sure I will use this #choices might be made that will invalidate this anyways #my number one rule is don’t think too far ahead and set your sights on a specific outcome haha

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blueberry-obsessed · 3 months ago

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Tagged by the sweet @starrwrrld <3

Put your 'On Repeat' playlist on shuffle & let your friends pick their favourite of the first five songs!!

No pressure tags (and apologies if you've been tagged already!) : @marieshyperf1xations @souvenir116 @iamred-iamyellow and anyone else that wants to join! (and I'm very serious when I say that fyi)

#all these asks about music have made me realise how unconfident I am in my own taste jvhghsdk #tag games<3 #starrwrrld<3

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rxttenfish · 7 months ago

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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.

#all the care guide says is 'biomass'#monster prom #asks #vanillabeenflower #this is. so long i am so sorry.#and its still not my entire thoughts because i have so many thoughts #this is an unedited ramble tbh and im very sorry for that #i have more complaints like #how fucking snide and condescending the narration is to its own characters #which it already had but gets even worse in the later games #which is why despite loving aaravi i dont want to play moncamp at all #where a character says they like something or feel something and the narration has to be so. sarcastic about it?#like how i mentioned about how it feels like how its looking down on them as people #instead of whats probably the intended read which is #more jokingly calling them dumb in an affectionate way like how you might do with friends #and ofc theres the whole miranda rant #i hate what theyve done with the merkingdom and i HATE adrien as a concept i wont lie #just. cool. this female character is too stupid to count as a lore character. we obviously need a MALE character to fill in instead #we cant just have miranda talk about this or center any of the other female characters #and how they feel about this and whats going on for them #no we need to make up a new man to talk to instead #im. im still really bitter about it i wont lie.#like i said i could go on and get way more specific about it #i just feel like any and all emotional weight to this has died and the characters are more and more obviously actors on a stage #for your own self gratification rather than their own people living their own lives #this is so bitter and i really shouldnt put this in the main tag #i am so sorry everyone who will see my rant. but my peace must be made.#dont worry im already asking myself if im just making all this shit up myself #what if some of us liked that the characters were so mean to the player and had no qualms about aggressively rejecting us #because it gave some illusion of them being able to make their own choices and decisions in what they wanted

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iguessitsjustme · 2 years ago

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Ask Game - Name a character

1. Who you want to go on a walk with

2. Who you want to go to karaoke with

3. Whose cooking you want to try

4. Whose style is similar to your own

5. Who you want to work with

6. Who you would be best friends with

7. Who you relate to

8. Who you want to go out dancing with

9. Who you would take to a Ren Faire

10. Who you want to grab by the shoulders and shake

11. Who would be fun to go to a museum with

12. Who you could beat at bowling

13. To throw you a birthday party

14. To arrange you a large bouquet of flowers

15. To go out to drinks with

16. To tuck into bed. They need a nap

17. Who would be fun to go on a road trip with

18. Who you think of when you hear your favorite song

19. To go sailing with

20. To play board games with

21. To sing you a song

22. To give a puppy

23. To stranded on a desert island with

24. To get arrested with (bonus points for what crime it is that gets you arrested)

25. To stay up all night with

#ask game #started this yesterday while going through it at work #and now I’m running late to work #so perfect time to post this I think #just waiting for the light to change (I walk to work I’m not on my phone and driving I’m not that reckless)#I’m also positive I’ve seen something like this before but it was easier to just create my own #anyway have fun everybody I made it to work #gonna be a weird day so many managers are out

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little-de-vil · 1 month ago

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Saying Your Stones

The concept of religion is nonexistent in Panem, so much so that when Katniss sees cherubs in the frescoed walls of District 11, she calls them “fat children with wings.” Religious Christian imagery that Katniss notices is seen as only decoration because religion of any sort is so against the norm. Only cultural, district related traditions.

"Designs of fruit and flowers are carved into the molding and small, fat children with wings look down at us from every angle." (CF, 64)

The concept of prayer is reduced to hope or telepathic wishes of safety, like Finnick when Annie is in The Capitol. No gods of any kind, but not pure hopelessness. There is community without religion in Panem; with the struggle of survival and the knowledge of the district trade. The need to live for others betterment rather than individualistic whims.

Enter an old tradition of the Cutters. As old as their district, and just as tangible as their older traditions. It’s not a prayer in the actual sense of asking some higher power to intervene in for the betterment of one or another’s life, but a symbolic journey of growth tied to their birthstones.

Each stone has some sort of symbolic significance tied to that persons birth month, and is believed to be how they act or who they will become. Say someone’s birthstone is travertine, a stone that signifies confidence, stability and durability. If that person is generally shy and unsure in their way of life, others around them will say that they will slowly become like their stone.

Birthstones are defined as markers of character for the community, but not stereotypes because they know that stones have the propensity for change depending on the force given to it. Too little and nothing changes, much and they crumble to dust. But there’s always an opportunity for change, to become one’s true self.

The tradition itself is — in our eyes — like a late night prayer. Each night, the birthstone is taken in their hands and the symbolic meaning of the stone is murmured in continuum for however long the person wishes, with a certain meaning repeated more than the others as a wish for what they hope to become.

This tradition has shifted from being done in private at one’s own time to a family evening ritual where the whole family gathers and says their words over and over, regardless of the other people and their “conflicting” stones. This change was made shortly after the war in an effort to not only continue the traditions, but to make it a ritual within the family and tie it to their community.

Every night, the oldest Sophro child takes his travertine stone that lives on his nightstand and murmurs “confidence” until his voice nearly gives out. The middle Sophro child has only recently returned to the tradition after her Games, realizing how much she has become like her own stone, carnelian. The youngest Sophro child has a faint idea of the tradition, but has very rarely done it herself since her family hasn’t openly practiced it in years. Nonetheless, she still takes her stone, a shinning topaz like her Home Name and wishes not for who she will become, but for what she would like to impart onto her family.

Hawk Sophro has not practiced Saying his Stone since his daughter won her Games. He still keeps his marble stone on his nightstand, spinning it in his palm and asking for the strength of his stone.

I also wanted to continue this idea of the culture becoming weaker with each new generation becoming more and more assimilated to Capitol Culture. Madon has continually been doing that tradition, Harlow has recently returned to it after a traumatic event like The Games (in a sort of “She found religion” kind of thing) & Topaz has had very little interaction with it, so much so that when she goes back to it, she misunderstands the purpose and asks for the best for others, not herself.

#I know the opening looks familiar to my religion in Panem post...#that's because it is!#With me FINALLY putting Snowfall in fic form I've decided to do some housekeeping #& post my lore on their own to make it easier to find/link as I'll be linking each piece of lore in the AN to read before the chapter #Because if there's one thing I'm gonna do is give ya'll homework before the reading #And because the idea of explaining it all IN THE CHAPTER is going to piss the fuck out of me. Idk why‚ but it will!#I was gonna edit this to answer some of Grace's questions to an ask #but I'll hold onto that bc that's more of an explanation as to WHY I made XYZ decision v how the ppl interact with the “religion” itself #me #my post #thg #the hunger games #District 2 #D2 lore #Silly OC Thoughts #Snowfall Upon Sophroniscus

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