#no mpn is god

[can-we-die-now]

AK: does anyone have a cuboidal object?

bee: *points at eagle*

[doink-boink]

For the two Phobos/Sheriff asks I've gotten <3

[amunisence]

Nevada isn't Big Enough for the Two of Us

Rogue Player AU: Prologue Part 1

Madness: Project Nexus Self Aware AU belongs to saltymongoose

I was also inspired by Purgatory Mode - New Player AU by dallyfae who further inspired me and encouraged me to post my fanfic

Check them both out they're phenomenal! Story is on an indefinite hiatus.

CW: Violence, obsessive behavior(?)/toxicity(?), slight language, Player is all around not a good person here tbh-

This originated on the idea of the Player being a "bad guy". After all, the Player is a powerful being. The Player could easily develop a Phobos-esque God complex from the endless adoration from the vessels. Also I'm just doing this for fun, so I don't mean to step on anyone's toes whatsoever. I also haven't finished Arena Mode yet, so my AU may not be 100% lore accurate forgive me. I'm so nervous to post this, but I had a lot of fun writing it so enjoy!

Next>>

No one knows how it began. Sure, there was a lead-up to it. Hank, Sanford, Deimos, and the others could sense the Player's new craving for violence and power, but they didn't know where these new desires manifested. Despite some of the group's apprehension, they did not confront their concerning behavior until it was too late. Their beloved Player turned rogue and abandoned them. It is now up to the forsaken vessels to put aside their differences and stop the Player's rampage before Nevada resides further into disaster.

In an attempt to corner them, the vessels agree to use Sheriff as bait...

Sheriff, on the other hand, absolutely loathes this decision. They want him to act as bait for the Player? Someone, he not only respects but is rather intimidated by? It's not like he could say no—not with Hank there.

According to Christoff, the Player seems to be targeting any grunt in a position of power. That's why Sheriff, who's in charge of MERC, is the only one at short notice who could draw them in. Christoff warned him that his defenses would need major reinforcements against the Player. The goal was to distract them long enough to give Christoff and the others a window of opportunity to act.

After a long night of deliberation, Sheriff constructs a fort of defenses that he hopes is dense enough to delay their wrath. Christoff predicts MERC will be targeted today for a myriad of reasons, but the main gist Sheriff got was that he's "next in line".

Like Christoff predicted, the Player did indeed arrive at MERC, but... they’re different from how Sheriff remembers them. The Player's strings, now dull ebony, are tangled tightly around their being (and it honestly looks uncomfortable). Your soft tender smile is now stoic and sour. What happened? 

"AUUGH!" a cry from one of his men jolts Sheriff back to reality. The Player slams the recruit to the ground while their strings grasp another.

"Where's the Sheriff?" with no response, the recruit is haphazardly flung over their shoulder. This display puts a deep pit in Sheriff's stomach. They really are out for his head. It won't be long before they breach his first line of defense, so he retreats further into the building for his own sake.

---

"Christoff, where the hell are you?" Sheriff plants himself around the corner from the Player. He's sweating enough bullets for an army.

The Player, on the other hand, is irritated by everyone's lack of cooperation. Is it that hard to tell them where the Sheriff is? Their strings catch a wrench inches from their skull. The Player snaps their head back and locks eyes with the laborer trying to strike them. Amidst his pleas for mercy, their strings spin around his neck and drag him closer. They get a hold of the wrench and raise it threateningly.

"You have three seconds to tell me where-"

Klang! The wrench propelled out of their grasp. Someone shot at them. The Player’s eyes snap to the anxious cowboy pointing his revolver in their direction. Merely tossing the laborer aside, the Player homes in on the fleeing Sheriff.

"Christoff, get yer ass here now!" He rounds another corner but collides with another grunt. "Hey! Get! Get outta my-" Sheriff now sees the bright red orbs of the grunt in front of him and recoils with a yelp. He then spots Christoff not far behind. "Well, ‘bout time you showed up."

"I trust that you were well equipped to preoccupy the Player until our arrival," Christoff says with crossed arms. Before Sheriff responds, the Player approaches from around the corner.

"Player, you go no further," says Christoff"Yes, not without that," the Player hums, stretching an arm towards Christoff, "Ť̵̬h̵͎͆ȅ̸̦ ̵͓̓k̷͚̉ḛ̵̓y̸͈͑s̵̞̃t̷̥̆ò̸̤ń̵̙e̸̤͠ ̵̤͌f̵̞̕r̶͈͝à̵̤g̷͙͠m̶͇̋ẻ̶͖n̵̙̆t̴̢͆.̸͖̎"

Edited A/N: I cannot believe I didn't fact check myself when I said "artifact" instead of "keystone fragment". I wasn't entirely wrong, but I meant keystone fragment f- so I fixed it.

Next>>

[madnessself-indulgence]

low intelligence specimen

[caracello]

thought about madcom for .2 seconds curse. i have to shoot him with a rocket launcher.

[1-bleep-bloop-1]

smmoooochie!!!

ummm me and who?

[poryphoria]

having an interesting realization rn. if my memory serves me right, and it should, that whole level towards the end of mpn that takes you on a tour of everything the Great Minds At Nexus are busy innovating never even once mentions the Enmeshment Program.

like, it even goes out of its way to mention the clone life insurance program, but like- not a single whiff of anything about jailbreaking the mortality loop or any exciting stuff like that you'd REALLY THINK a company like them would want to flaunt, right??

you can interpret this as you will, but what it means for my personal take on things is that it solidifies 2 ideas to me-

a) that crackpot's work was never finished, and An Army Of Mindless Zombies was never hys actual goal. hy wanted immortality, not... whatever zeds ended up as, which are VERY EASILY dispatched!! why would anyone looking for immortality settle for rotting bodies and declining cognitive function?? i think hy still talks hymnself up about how great and cool hys work was because hy has Literally nothing else to show for hys entire career & hy's angry and embarrassed about it so hy can't really just admit that hys entire career was a flunk, yannow? but i definitely don't think it was what hy was going for, and i don't think hy's ever been truly happy with the results. (i actually think hy has a horrifically guilty conscience about the state of zeds but that's for another ramble). and like, plus, why WOULD phobos advertise something that was unfinished to his investors?? like, it's not READY, and it looks TERRIBLE in the state it's in!!!

b) despite being Literal Insane People Talk and very clearly a bad idea, the enmeshment program was greenlit by phobos bc it made FANTASTIC busywork to keep crackpot out of his way. see, i don't think crackpot was apathetic to phobos's Project Gestalt related tomfoolery-- i think hy was genuinely too clueless and naïve to think His God Emperor Phobos could really pull something so horrifically evil out of his ass. i mean, the nexus charter was made to save the world, why would he wanna DESTROY it??? and with crackpot so worried abt hys own program- it would keep hymn very preoccupied, which means hy would have far less brain space to worry about asking questions or noticing weird little things that might potentially lead to hymn growing suspicious about phobos's real intentions. i do think phobos truly loves hymn, yes- but i also think phobos plays people like it's an Olympic sport, and is excellent at using blind loyalty to his advantage, and Crackpot is like, by far the most blindly loyal person at Nexus.

(also to be clear, i do think project kobold, the sleepwalker program and the seeking asylum were all similar tools to keep the head scientists busy and out of Phobos's way-- in tandem with the fact that he was able to get information out of them for his own work. jeb was the only one that didn't really fall for it LOL)

so like, tldr: enmeshment program was never actually advertised and to me this is because it was a dummy program to keep crackpot busy & out of phobos's hair, and also because it was never actually finished, and zeds were never supposed to be the end result, crackpot just acts like they were bc hy's angry and embarrassed about everything

[madness-combat-confessions]

Can someone explain to me the madness combat lore

Sure thing!

I introduce:

Madness combat lore explained by a dumbass who doesn't actually know the lore!!

Who also doesn't know how to explain shit!

From what I understood:

Project Nexus is given to Phobos by the Employers who are god-like being and "guardians" of Nevada

3 important scientists by the names of Dr Jebediah Christoff , Dr Hofnarr and Dr Crackpot work for him

Crackpot introduces the zed plan (which is basically reviving someone who died by giving a S-3LF, that are madcom version of souls, to a corpse turning them to zombies)

Christoff dislikes the idea so he suggests a different plan the sleepwalker program

Phobos agrees to the idea but doesn't take down the zed plan

PN: Classic arena mode happens where Subject 1v02P 6 is made to go through a time loop of fighting and dying to improve his combat skills which would be later used for the sleepwalker program

During that I think they also discovered the other place (which is basically the afterlife/hell) somehow? I don't remember how bro

Hofnarr was made to investigate the other place and he discovered dissonance energy

Hofnarr and Crackpot smoked dissonance energy like it was weed and that begun to fuck up their sanities, which is important later

Sometime after that Christoff realises how messed up this shit really is so he decides to put end to it. He takes the Keystone Fragment (the halo)

With the help of Hofnarr and Sheriff he takes down Phobos and project nexus daming nexus city in the process

Hofnarr fucking loses it and becomes Tricky some time after that

Then the events of the series begin and Hank becomes a problem

The AAHW either already existed and was changed to the AAHW or was formed after Hank became a problem idk, it is lead by the Auditor who's one of the employers

Eh Sheriff who lead over the AAHW temporary activates the improbability drive and fucking dies lol

Then everything goes to hell, basically

And uh oh turns out some scientists and agents from project nexus had survived and they try to restart the Project

One of them being Crackpot who fled after the city fall and started a clut

And it also turns out Phobos had a backup plan to dying: Project Gestalt which is basically he used Gestalt as a vessel to absorb S-3LFs to reach godhood

So eh Christoff teams up with Hank, Sanford and Deimos to stop Phobos, again.

Oh and it turns out Sheriff was somehow revived and now leads a faction called MERC cool

Anyway the events of the game happen I'm lazy to explain it watch a play through

Yippe they defeat Phobos!! Whoooo! Not so yippe Hank decides to fucking betray them and try to kill San and Dei. It's okay tho they kill them, and Doc probably revived them after

Goddamnit Hank

And then the events of the series continue

I'm not sure when exactly MPN:2 takes place but If I had to guess I'd say sometime between MC:7 and MC:8 because my instinct tells me that

[nevadas-night-time-novelist]

Pleaaaasse do you have any hc for my beautiful wife chopper Dave my sweet little British pilot

(The only British man I love)

Fuck you, I'm British >:( /light hearted

Chopper Dave general headcanons

CW: mentions of alcohol, British

He can and will cause problems on purpose, he finds it funny as hell, and has basically no fear. He's here for a fun time, not a long time.

Buddy buddy with Q-Bert, both bonded over their love for fine whiskey and the fact they're both from over the pond, even if they have petty disputes about whether England or Scotland is better. They have had physical fights over it before, but are still on good terms. Mostly.

Learned to fly just so he could be like his Dad. Plus he totally gets the best views in all of the state. Also the bomber jacket is fly as fuck (pun intended) and he loves sewing neat patches into it.

Has a photo of MPN SQ team that he keeps in his plane, they're his found family and he likes to keep the reminder close to him. He's also got pics of his real family.

Hates American candy, far too artificial in flavour, he deeply misses sweet from his home. You find some imported chocolate and give it to him, he will get misty eyed.

Once asked Chef for fish and chips, got an unbattered fish and crisps and he actually threw up from distress. God what he'd give for a proper pub meal.

Pansexual 100% He's got no preference, if you wanna romance him, he's on board no matter what you identify as, he's just happy for the company and love. Kissing him on the lips makes his knees actually weak, he will fall into your arms.

Starfish sleeper, all sprawled out, covers a mess and pillow has been yeeted to the ground. He snores a bit, but isn't too loud. Doesn't make his bed in the mornings and will probably never learn.

If romantically involved, he likes to have some part of him touching you while you both sleep. A hand on your arm/shoulder, foot on your foot/leg, you using his shoulder as a pillow, just anything to know you're still there with him :)

He's got thick arm hair, and that's about the only body hair he's got. He can't even grow a proper beard or moustache, which is sad coz he wants one of those old fashioned curly pilot ones. Not happening fam.

He's got short brown curls under his hat, which he shaves to a buzzcut now and then when its too long to handle. He has pretty poor self care, but he's happy enough.

Lil bit of chub to him, got that dad-bod vibe going on.

Drinks maybe a little too often, a chain smoker too. We've all got our vices baby, and a pack of cigs will get you all across Nevada with his whirly bird man.

[capribornio]

This is going to be disorganized as fuck, I don't actually have a point, but I just rewatched MPN Story Mode and I'm going crazy, so I'm going to word vomit on this post

Ok so we all know the meeting scene between Jeb, Doc & Hank, right?

Fantastic scene, go watch it if you haven't (and if you did, rewatch it. It's just great). Anyway.

So, one thing from that is that we get this

So, ghoulish huh? A quick search on Merriam Webster tells me:

1: : a legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses

2: one suggestive of a ghoul

especially : one who shows morbid interest in things considered shocking or repulsive

Which... interesting. Of course, we already knew this, didn't we? After all, we had Krinkels' poster:

Bit hard to see, but right under NOT A DOCTOR, where I marked it, says: MORE OF A GHOUL

So that's curious, right? But, well, nothing too out of the ordinary. I mean, ofc Doc would have morbid interests, absolutely nothing surprising in Nevada.

EX - FUCKING - CEPT

You see, usually in the stage before a flashback cutscene, we have something slightly leading up to it. Hofnarr notes before a Hofnarr flashback, meeting Jeb before a Jeb flashback, etc. You get the point.

...But the stage right before this is The Last Leg, a Deimos & Sanford stage. Now, the other stages before this one did have plenty of Christoff's back and forth notes against Dr Crackpot. ...But there's none in this chapter. In fact, the only not-S&D main character is Tricky, who is notably absent from the flashback.

And here's where it gets weird.

Because The Last Leg is only focused on introducing robot enemies. The only note we have is from an employee, complaining about the things turning against them:

They are specifically complaining about insolvents:

(From the Merriam-Webster site again)

1

a: unable to pay debts as they fall due in the usual course of business

b: having liabilities in excess of a reasonable market value of assets held

2

: insufficient to pay all debts

(Bolding mine)

What it is to say, they are more dangerous than they are useful.

Alright, but what does this have to do with the flashback?

Well you see, The Last Leg has a boss fight. Against something, very, very interesting:

VERY interesting design, isn't is? Red eyes, fucked up mouth, a black mohawk...

Ok, ok, but surely I'm reaching. I mean, what could this thing have in connection with Doc at all?

...Oh.

Yep. This enemy shares design, as well as a ghoulish connection to 2BDamned.

In fact, in concepts designs (from the wiki):

Earlier concepts of the Ghoul depict it as a feral Mag zombie, and then later on a quadrupedal Mag unit with cybernetic augmentations. Early concept images assigned him the subclass of "Carrion Eater"[1]. This, combined with how early concept artwork of it depicts it holding a corpse with it's head eaten, implied that it would have eaten corpses in the middle of battle.

And sure enough, it's the first definition of ghoul.

All of this? Means the connection to the flashback wasn't neither Jeb nor Hank. It was Doc.

So. What the fuck does this mean? Well, first of all, fuck me if I know. This is the bare facts, and I hope anyone besides me can gather anything from this, because I'm stumped.

...Sort of.

You see, I have another connection to make. This one, I recognize I might be reaching (but then, maybe I'm not?) (Idk man)

After all, as we come to find out from Arena Mode, Doc is very much meddling in the godly affairs of Nevada.

And, well. Those are Nevada's gods. The Maker, who's Doc benefactor, and...

The Machine.

And now, I'd like to point out your attention to the fact that, while I called the enemies in The Last Leg robots, the only way they're called in game is...

(From the Insolvents log)

And the only other time (as far as I remember, correct me if I'm wrong) we fight waves of robots, and the final boss is a giant robot is...

(also, notice the Grand Steward has a grunt-like face with its faceplates closed off)

...when we meet The Machine itself.

So. Once again, what the fuck does this mean?

Ultimately, I just don't know, really. But I have a very strong feeling there is something very, very important we don't truly know about Doc's connection to the Machine.

[can-we-die-now]

(leau dropping bee home on her scooty) (red car slows down next to us)

bee: "oh fuck oh fuck fuck is it my mother *sees a beard* oh thank fuck it's not my mother." leau: "...THAT WAS MPN"

"... W H A T"

and that was the story of how we died

[voltrixz]

Auditor for the ask thing

YAYAYYA, ok SOOOO

-How I feel about this character: #normal trust. (least believable thing I have ever said.) BUT AGRHRHHR LOVE AUDITOR FOREVER AND EVER. My beautiful wife who is so awesome yet so terrible and also kind of a loser. Probably one of my fave characters of all time. God character with such a complex and thinks they're the greatest but actually sucks so bad at their one job? Incredible what is wrong with him

-All the people I ship romantically with this character: I wonder who. (PHOBOS!!!!!!!) They're the worst and best for each other, what a couple. Oh and Sun x Auditor is really cute (and has good angst potiental. Meanwhile Auditor x Tricky is really funny to me, its fun. AND OF COURSEE BIG FAN OF Auditor x Phobos x Sun, great dynamic potiental and a lot of angst to be cooked here.. (and of course shoutout to my moot sammie for getting me into these guys)

-My non-romantic OTP for this character: JEB AND AUDITOR, what if the worst people on earth had the worst beef with each other waht then. Very interesting how the 2 contrast each other.

-My unpopular opinion about this character: Dunno I feel most people kinda treat Auditor as a joke or dont really pay much attention to him, which mannnn. Idk i wish more people would look into this weird guy more (in the wider scope of the fandom), there is somethign wrong with her...

-One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

OH brother. A LOT OF THINGS!!!!!!!!!!! I wish Auditor appeared more in MPN. HE BARELY GOT ANY SCREENTIME. Showed up at the end for like a minute and was mentioned a coiple times here and there. And thats it. AND AGRHRHR I WANT TO SEE THEM MORE!!!!!!! Just in general. ALSO RLLY RLLY want to see more of the partnership between the Agency and Nexus Core, REALLY INTERESTING STUFF COULD BE EXPLORED THERE. ARHHRHH I REALLY WISH AUDITOR GOT MORE FOCUS!!!

[zy-murge]

Talk abt ,,,,,,sandfoot pls <3

sorry for late reply i fell aseep.

SANFORD i feel ssooo bad for him he's probably the most underdeveloped of the characters which is SAYING something. glad MC12 and MPN are changing that though, but i feel swain & krinkels dont actually know what to do with him. He's the brute & the straight man, and he really likes shitty one liners. That sounds like a solid character but again they havent really done much with it? and to be completely fair they don't really HAVE to, none of the characters actually have a focus on their personalities. It's not a soap opera for god's sake. however smth i'm VERY interested in is the fact he's the explosives expert, a demolitionist and that requires an insane amount of skill to pull off without dying (and we know he hasn't) i fucking LLOOOVE it. he's a chemist, tinkerer, engineer, AND he blows things up !? one of my friends HC's he's a (ex?)bandit and it really lines up perfectly with his character, probably my fav hc ever

[gravedigest]

SCRAMBLES THROUGH BREAKS THROUGH

HEY SO YOU KNOW THAT ONE DS NONCANON DEIMOS DEATH? IF SOMEHOW VICTOR FOUND OUT (I’m not sure if he would, Dei doesn’t want to stress Victor out, directly asking for protection for him) WHAT WOULD HE DO?

If its not too spoilery anyways!

Aside from that I love the roommates idea so much, that’s big brain stuff there. And it’s very effective at the “so you know how Dei dies in the end? So let’s make his life and interactions nice for bigger impact :)” thing you’ve said before and OUGHHHH. It also stirs up terrible terrible curiosity in me, and single-handedly made me like Victor

OOOOOOOOH GOD I NEVER CONSIDERED IT.

I would go into an entire tangent but.

At the very least. Victor isn’t gone forever from the story, and his reaction would probably be very, very, very strong.

God I love him so much. I have plans. Evil little plans.

His character in MPN has just enough little morsels to play around with in Incredibly Fun Ways.

My little burger boy. <3

I would absolutely do a followup to that once I get my horrible little machinations out, because it’d be fun.

Intricacies aside,

Concept of seeing a weird chunk of machinery on some guys desk. You have no idea why it looks familiar, you’re just talking to your landlord but you can’t stop looking at it.

What do you do when it clicks that you’re looking at the back of your friend’s head?

[savetheghost]

god the mpn trailer costumes are sick as fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

[madnessself-indulgence]

oh my god i can finally play mpn at 60 fps