#menagerie archive

[kami-kun1003]

twst as presentable liberty letters

i just realized that none of their eyes are open— i swear this was unintentional lmao

[rrodgers]

Old sticker designs from a year ago!! I want to make these real so bad

[barelypresentablearchive]

Just finished watching a retrospective on Wertpol and the Menagerie series and man. I saw Mark’s playthrough of Presentable Liberty when I was… 15? And I was really starting to struggle with my depression for the first time in my life. Presentable Liberty gave me a weird sort of catharsis to sort through the feelings I was having in a safe way. I know I tend to focus on the wackier and more lighthearted parts of the games (yes, these lighthearted parts exist!), but I hope that doesn’t come across as being disrespectful of Robert’s legacy. I respect him immensely as both a creator and a person. To be more frank, I miss him, as I’m sure many others do as well, not just for what he made, but for who he was.

[shiningsagittarius]

As a warning: This fic will get progressively darker and include themes of depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as a minor character death. The fic is also for a psychological horror game that includes many of these same themes. Please proceed with caution.

Holy Moly this fic is a lot for me. It’s my first ever multi chapter fic, and my first real experience delving into psychological horror! I’m really so excited to be sharing this with you all. Presentable Liberty is a game that has been near and dear to my heart for many years. 

Right now, this is only the first chapter of six planned chapters. The next update will be. Eventually! As I am going back to school tomorrow!

Everyone say thank you to @rrodgers for motivating me to write this, as well as giving the Smiley girls actual personalities to work off of O7

If you would like to be tagged when I update this, let me know in the comments or send me a DM!

[boogeyalltheway]

guys. i think we should talk about the Presentable Liberty and Expotable Money character lore.

SPOILERS!!!

Theres two endings to Presentable Liberty: one where you leave your room to find out your prison cell was the elevator the whole time (Mr Money moneysaving tactics tm), and one where you don't. the leave ending is obviously sadder, but the stay ending give you so much more info? Like, Mr Money explains his whole plan to you (classic villain, very chefs kiss). of course, I think it can be said both games are about loneliness? yes?

PRESENTABLE LIBERTY:

Prisoner was trapped there because they're one of the few who's IMMUNE TO THE VIRUS, that's why Mr Money says "you're worth every penny". He fed them and a few others one of the only working versions of the antidote, which means there's more ppl like them (potential to explore aftermath of the game). I feel like ppl dont know about this? and he was all planning on harvesting their organs and all that for money, which he does, but yknow. we can pretend. one can explore whether or not all the prisoners were in the same building, whether you meet prisoners on the outside, or you could talk about the fact that a lot of the Happy Buddies were being fired because the prisoners were killing themselves and all that. Trapped lonely.

Salvadore's cool, the Prisoner and him were friends before, that seems like an obvious place to arrive. Loneliness of freedom? Room to explore backstory for him and the Prisoner. I got a headcannon: he picked his name for himself because he wanted to sound cooler. Seems par for the course for him, and that would be a cool little detail. I'd love to explore his relationship with the prisoner, and if any of you watched Sanders Sides, he gives BIG Roman energy.

Charlotte has "pick your poison" type loneliness. It somehow seems like both of them are very good at loneliness, however you wanna interpret that. She also gives "person who loves the colour purple".

Mr Smiley's my favourite, but that's only because there's so much about him. He was hired to be the prisoner's happy buddy, Mr Money was holding his two daughters hostage to keep him working, turns out they died ages ago, you wonder what his life and work day was like, and with all the lore, you wonder what kind of person he was. The fact that his name is Mr Smiley is just salt in the wound.

LETS TALK ABT EXPOTABLE MONEY.

prequel to Presentabe Liberty.

Youre Mr Money's organ supplier. so. immediately, added layer of depth. you, Mr Money, and Madame Sinclaire, whos a baddie, we love her. I like how it explores the opposite side of the fight, the moneys side. I believe its about one's obsession with earning money, and in fact about how when you're anxious about money, no amount seems enough and you use everything you can to try to get more. the "I need to keep earning more money or it'll all disappear if I look away" mentality. (If you haven't read the short story Johnny Mnemonic, it feels like that is what this game is based off of, or maybe theyre just coincidentally thematically similar in which case read it anyways,)

I feel Madame Sinclaire was one possible future for Mr Supplier where she also used to be hyperfixated on money but was able to turn away from that, while Mr Money is the opposite possible future. you earn money even when you don't click, and i'm not sure but can someone comfirm whether or not the clicking is slowing down your money production? THAT would be a great element of the game to further represent the money-obsession theme I theorize. its also your choice whether or not to send your cat on more trips, and in the end, one can argue its Mr Supplier's fault his cat got killed. One could also argue Madame Sinclaire somehow knew the cat was theirs and killed it to prove a point.

Also just a side note, it seems that the organ failure was an accident that Mr Money didn't expect, but he managed to make it work in his favour still. somehow. perhaps he wasnt concerned because of his secret weapon, the Prisoner.

I do think I will need to watch or play Menagerie: Archive if this obsession continues, I hear theyre in the same universe.

[normfromcheers]

Tfw when you’re trying to bust some guy you just met out of prison and he has to bring his twink boy best friend who can’t drive a car

[the-furies]

just remembered presentable liberty existed like last night . time 2 fall down a rabbit hole lets5 go

[k1r0sl1mb0]

Dr. Money's search history, a thread.

[Reblog thingie!! Reblog this with what you imagine Dr. Money would look up on Google :D]

"Tin can of beans."

[kaelidascope]

Butch Yang Week Day 1: Sunflowers

WEEEEE Excited to participate! I'll be using my AU Yang design from my fic Midnight Menagerie, which can be found below! Quality butch Yang representation at it's finest

[kami-kun1003]

just realized i should probably share my doctor money playlist with PL tumblr if ya’ll are even still alive

[rrodgers]

Dear fellow traveller!

[barelypresentablearchive]

❗️ dailyquests Follow

Resolve the East-West Conflict

[shiningsagittarius]

Oh God, oh no, I made a side blog!

It’s @barelypresentablearchive for all of your Menagerie Series needs!!

Don’t look at me this blog is a work in progress I’ve never made a blog like this before

[sapsolace]

yang from @kaelidascope 's bumbleby au, midnight menagerie!!!

read it here :] now 🔫

[pengold]

The Menagerie!

[ryunumber]

Spooky from Spookys House Of Jumpscares/Spookys Jumpscare Mansion

Spooky has a Ryu Number of 5/4/does not have a Ryu Number.

(explanation below)

Look, it's complicated. Things will be more concrete when Cross Impact hits Early Access.

Fair warning: this explanation is a bit more involved than normal, because the research hole this sent me down had me sincerely doubting my own base competence.

So, from the top: Spooky's only eligible appearance is in her own game, Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion née House of Jump Scares, as her only other appearance, period, seems to be as a trophy in Indie Pogo.

Naturally, this makes SJSM's specimens as the only connecting points. I've identified three that could work:

Unknown Specimen 1 is just White Face from IMSCARED.

This seems to be a dead end, as White Face's only other eligible appearance seems to be in the Nightmare Mode of Cooking Companions, as part of a menagerie of other horror game characters, including SJSM's own Specimen 6. But all of those also seem to be dead ends, and Specimen 6 just gets back to where we started, so that's probably no good.

How about Unknown Specimen 5?

Named Lisa. Sure looks quite a bit like Lisa from P.T. and once-prospective Silent Hills. Let's say it's that Lisa. What else has Lisa been in?

Apparently just P.T., which wouldn't be altogether unsurprising given, you know, all that happened with Silent Hills. Even the Lisa decoys for Metal Gear Solid V showcased in the Tokyo Game Show 2014 trailer didn't make it to the final game.

But there are still other P.T. references that did make it. Namely, that pleasant radio transmission, interruptions and all, can be heard from some radios in MGSV.

Now, given that audio-only appearances are broadly eligible, you could make a case that whoever's reading in this transmission is a character themself, which would in turn connect Lisa to The Phantom Pain, at which point calculating the Ryu Number is just a matter of hashing out who exactly is and is not in MGSV. The only issue I have with making this connection is that the audio is basically reused wholesale from P.T., which arguably makes it more in line with an archival recording, which is not eligible, than bespoke radio chatter, which is eligible, but hey, whatever, I've peddled dodgier. Why the hell not.

So in the search of a route with less caveats, let's consider what I've identified as the last possible eligible connection, Specimen 8. This cervine bundle of fun can be seen in Lost in Vivo as part of Lost Tape 3.

It turns out there's another character in Lost in Vivo who's been in something else: Sotiris. It also turns out that the "something else" in question is, uh,

the EEK3 2020 Virtual Show Floor. Which, to the best of my knowledge, is never referred to as a game, so if that matters to you, then we're done, and Spooky either has the aforementioned route through Lisa or nothing.

If you're willing to say that the virtual show floor is a game, which does not seem to be an unpopular opinion, then good news! There's a clear path to Ryu. You just have to go through Skully, who cameos in Toree 3D,

to the titular Toree, who's a guest character in Lunistice,

to Kit, the main character of Lunistice, who cameos in CrossCode,

to Lea, whose Ryu Number of 2 is already established, which gives Spooky a final Ryu Number of I'm sorry, I'm being handed a note.

Oh. Well fuck me, then, for not considering that the realities of game development could lead to a scenario wherein a character from an in-progress game could make cameo appearances in other games, only to be scrapped entirely before their would-be source game is released. Clearly, this is what the kids refer to as a "skill issue".

And the best part? This chain is so long that I'm genuinely expecting to have overlooked something really obvious that gives a shorter number, because the documentation I found on indie-ass indie horror game crossovers is spotty. So if you have any information that could shorten this more substantial than "White Face is graffiti in the full release of FAITH", send it my way. I'd rather be definitely wrong than dubiously correct.

Anyway, Toree's set to be playable in Cross Impact, so when that's released to the wider public most of this nonsense I just spewed at you will actually come into play. Until then, make of all of this what you will. If you'll excuse me, I need to go fucking distort.