#tempestmothtalk

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i wanna redraw this pic with the club but the problem is i cant decide which part is assigned to which because they are all of them at once so have this

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crazy how the sanshee plush is one of the few actual direct confirmations on what a non-act 2 Natsuki’s home life is like because of how cagey she is on literally everything. Like this isn’t anything surprising or something you wouldn’t be able to extrapolate from the games but unlike everything else we know about her the implications are right there on the tin.

They literally did the character bio trope where where all the likes are normal but the dislikes are about their very specific trauma it’s just so funny they did that on the plushie card

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so how does that work

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Anyways here’s a long thingy about character motivations and how it influences actions and the epiphany. It’s been sitting in my drafts for months because I have no idea how to conclude it satisfyingly so here you go.

I yapped a lot in this post but basically Monika’s actions were in my eyes driven by the fact that 1. Nothing in her reality matters 2. You are the only thing that does exist and can matter, and 3. She wants more than anything to have value in life and to have a connection with someone real, and if she has no value she’s better off dead.

While base game is in caused by external factors like the epiphany, it’s also caused a lot by Monika’s own character traits that get turned into flaws when applied here. A lot of the things that drive her to do what she did was already there in the side stories. It’s one of those tragedies driven by character traits that in any other plot would have been inconsequential. Monika’s perfectionism and need to feel of value lead to her abandoning everything when her world couldn’t provide those things, seeking out you because as the only real person you are the only person she can be of service to meaningfully.

It makes me think about the rest of the club and how their big character motivations would influence them. To sum up my own ideas:

Monika is drive by a need to be useful. She may seem to be the perfect golden child who has everything she could ever want, but deep down she feels the need to prove herself for these things. She needs to be perfect, to be the best for others. Whether it be her role as club leader, model student, model citizen, or good friend, she focused on doing the best she can and proving her worth. She can’t put her own responsibilities onto others, it’s her own burden that she needs to carry for others. She knows her existence takes up thousands of resources at the cost of thousands of people, and with how privileged she knows she is, she wants to pay it back somehow, even if she knows it’s impossible. She can’t let anyone down, especially herself, she needs to prove that she’s deserving of all the things she has. She doesn’t want to be a burden to others. If she can’t pay back all the things she’s gotten from other, she’d be better off dead

Sayori is driven by the desire to make everyone happy. She says so herself so it’s pretty obvious. Surroundings herself with friends, she wants nothing more than to be there for them. She’s great with interpersonal relationships and emotions shown throughout both the main game and side stories, with her being the people person to defuse fights, boost morale, lift people up, and understand people in ways they don’t even understand themselves. it’s how she shows how much she cares, it’s one of the only things she feels she’s good at. She needs to make herself worth it for her friends, but the problem is that no amount of work she does for them will make her feel less of a burden, like she doesn’t deserve her life. But she can’t tell anyone else about these thoughts, it wouldn’t help them, it wouldn’t make them happy. Her own self hatred only grows and gets worse the more she hides it, but letting it out will only prove her self hatred right. If she can’t be useful to her friends in some way, if she ends up as a burden to everyone around her, they’d all be better off if she were dead

Yuri is driven by the want to be understood. She’s lived her life being an outsider, the weird one with interests and behaviours no one understands. She struggles with expressing herself and her feelings, only really knowing how to connect with others via her niche interests, meaning she only connects to a small amount of people. People had dismissed and made assumptions about her for so long that she just accepted that she’d always be an outsider, that she’s weird and that no one would understand the true her. So she puts up a mask, caring about her image and how she’s seen, trying her best to seem mature and wise if she can’t be loved as she is, to hide her weirder interests so she doesn’t put people off. The real her would scare off others, make people think she’s weird or gross, anything people can misconstrue as bad. People push away what they can’t understand, but on some level she might have learned to agree with these judgements. Why would people put up with someone who deserved these assumptions anyways. Maybe she could hide away parts of herself to be loved, but at some point she can’t change who she is, they’ll see something in her they don’t like and they’ll hate her. They’ll misinterpret what they don’t understand, and she’ll become something lesser in their eyes. She couldn’t stand the idea of being misunderstood and othered, so maybe she could just accept being alone instead.

Natsuki is driven to find a sense of belonging. More than anything she’s scared of being alone, left behind because she couldn’t put up with the cost of relationships. Pretty much all of her behaviour in the side stories is just her trying to open up, find new friends, but also desperately cling to old ones despite how harmful they are. She doesn’t really have good relationships with anyone outside the club. Her family life is ambiguous, but she can’t exactly leave whatever is going on with her dad. Whether or not she wants to, she’d have no other home to go back to if she leaves him, so she has to endure whatever degrading there is. No matter how she may fear her father’s judgment, she can’t survive on her own. Similarly, her friends also put her down. They judge and misinterpret her for who she is, make fun of her constantly, make her feel like she’s less, and overall make her feel worse about herself. They might not realize it, but they don’t actually like her for who she is. Yet Natsuki can’t let go because what else is there for her. She can endure the judgement because the alternative would be that she’s alone and abandoned. They might not like her for her, but at least she belongs somewhere. She worries so much about leaving them because she can’t guarantee another friendship besides them, she can’t imagine another regroup that would ever accept her. She couldn’t stand being alone like that, so instead she’ll endure being misunderstood and judged if if means she isn’t left behind.

These things pretty heavily influenced how they actually both in base game and side stories. The latter is obvious, but I think the roles they play in base game are also cool. Because Monika’s role is meant to be the helpful guide tutorial npc, fit for a person who’s desperate to be useful. Sayori is the whole trope of the heart of the team holding everyone together emotionally, breaking up fights, creating the games jokes, and even being the inciting incident. With her the game is happier and cheerful, while in act 2 her loss signals the tonal shift. Yuri is the maiden of mystery, with the first act being the part where we learn about her and her interests and understand her. In act 2 her character is misconstrued as her actions and entire being is flipped and misinterpreted into something shallow and scary just as she feared she was. Natsuki is the tsundere with the first act focusing on her opening up and finding the club as a place to be accepted and belong after pushing the others away from so long. Meanwhile act 2 has her slowly pushed away from the focus as the entire club begins to ignore and neglect her (basically that one Natsuki analysis I made once). As much as I restate my points I do it because I feel like the way character motivations here inform how they behave is so interesting and cool from a meta perspective. And I also think they’re really interesting because despite their distinctions they’re also very similar and often overlap

Sayori and Monika are about making their lives valuable and mean something by supporting others. While Monika leans to the more practical perfect golden child, Sayori acts as the heart of the team and shoulder to lean on. One’s way of proving themselves is focused on their smarts and skills while the other is all about interpersonal relationships. This is why they act as club president and vice president as they act as the guides to the other members, including the player. Part of it is them selflessly wanting to pay back to the people they care about, but part of it is also the desire for them to be needed. The problem with that framework is that being “needed” enough is both near impossible and super draining. They need to serve others, but for all their work it will never been enough for them. It’s no wonder they have self esteem issues. At least Monika still feels like she could achieve perfection (at least until act 4), Sayori has already given up and accepted that she’s a failure in her eyes. Because they need to be the best for others, they don’t like to talk about their feelings because they don’t want to be a burden on others. Talking about their own problems doesn’t help anyone, but it also doesn’t fix their problems either, so it just gets worse. Self fulfilling prophecy I guess

Yuri and Natsuki are all about finding people to trust, though their exact aims are opposites. They don’t really have actual connections, having been hurt by others in the past, and while they can be fiercely loyal once they find someone safe, they otherwise have a hard time opening up. They yearn for connections deep down, but they way of searching for it means they can’t really form stable ones. Yuri wants to be understood, but the second she feels off another person’s wavelength, she retreats, never committing to actually understanding each other better in fear that they’d hate what they’ve learned. She’s resigned herself to being alone, a fate that Natsuki spends the whole game running away from. Natsuki already has relationships, but they’re really unhealthy, with the people around her not respecting or understand her for who she is. Yet she still endures being misunderstood because the alternative is leaving them behind. She doesn’t trust she could find another place to belong anyways. They embrace each other’s worst fear in an attempt to reach their own desires, but neither approach is complete enough to get them what they need. They’re too afraid to step outside their comfort zone so they constantly accept that their loneliness and lack of acceptance is the default. Having been hurt in the past, they’re really just afraid of talking about their feelings, ironically being the one thing that can actually fulfill their needs. But they think their framework for relationships is how things have to be. They don’t realize one framework requires the other to truly work and be healthy. Self fulfilling prophecy again I think.

So yeah to boil down why the games love to pair up Monika/Sayori and Yuri/Natsuki this would probably be one of the big reasons. They all parallel each other in a million different ways, but for these specific pairings it’s the difference between being the best for your friends vs finding friendship in the first place. It’s just that both of these motivations also make them allergic to opening up about their problems in the game about hidden depths. Oops. Sure hope these things become part of a positive character arc about acceptance and relationships and not a painfully ironic downfall of a tragedy.

The thing uniting them all is that they all yearn for bonds and companionship at the end of the day, whether it’s maintaining these bonds or finding them. The problem is that they feel they aren’t good enough to deserve it, either trying desperately to disprove it by either helping others or putting up a person of confidence that they’re better.

Despite how important it is for relationships, their desire for relationships ironically lead to them having their own unique difficulties in opening up to people. It sounds contradictory, but relationships are complicated like that and it feels honest about how weird insecurity can be. But what prevents them from falling apart from miscommunication and isolation is the fact that they’re willing to try. Throughout the side stories they’re willing to be vulnerable, to open up and risk it all so that their bonds could become the best it can. Through the events of the side stories, their wish for connections can be fulfilled.

Notably due to events in base game none of these things are resolved , and if anyone ever reached the epiphany like Monika, they’d realize their wants aren’t possible in the first place (at least from the perspective of Monika’s epiphany)

Monika can never be truly meaningful if she’s just pngs and lines of text in a visual novel. Her existence can never influence the real world that matters, and with none of her friends being real, she can’t mean something to them either.

Sayori’s stuck in a horror game where everything bad happens to her friends, they all have to suffer for the epiphany. Monika directly says that no joy can be found in the literature club. If everyone is real, every is doomed to suffer with the reality that their lives are stuck in a game. If no one is real, their happiness is artificially, nobody is actually happy, happiness can only exist for someone real. Happiness can’t exist anywhere else in this world

Yuri’s whole deal in act 2 centres around her becoming mischaracterized into an unlikable person. Who she is is misinterpreted and twisted and flanderized into something she doesn’t want to be. Her worst fears are what she is now. Her problems and intentions are misunderstood to the point that she’s just a crazy yandere to everyone now, and now her image is tainted to both her friends and the player. Not that it matters, if she knew that her friends weren’t real, that they could never truly understand or comprehend who she is, that they only pretend to know how she feels, that they have no sentience and are merely lines of code, their understanding and care for her would mean nothing.

Natsuki is more alone than ever. Her one safe space becomes just as abusive as every other person in her life. They all distance from her, ignore her thoughts and needs, make her feel as if she doesn’t belong, put down her very existence in the club, and make her feel like she’s nothing. Nobody cares about her yet she has nothing else to rely on. And there’s no one else in her reality other than a club that hates her. Even then, they aren’t real. Fictional characters can only cure loneliness for so long. She’s still alone in the world with nothing real to care about her back. Shes truly alone

I think because of everyone’s need for connection being similar, they honestly would react similar to Monika if they were ever in her shoes. As the only “real” person in their world, you are the only answer to their problems left. I mean they wouldn’t reenact base game play by play or anything. I feel like some of them would be more direct in influencing the game to their needs or avoid actively affecting the other member’s mental states because it’d be a waste of time. And they’d probably be more attached to the club too (idk there’s also something about how Monika’s views on fiction also influencing her actions and how she kinda looks down on tropes and the type of stuff Yuri and Natsuki likes in base game. Overall I feel like base game would probably be slightly less murdery and manipulative but idk. if I psychoanalyzed everyone maybe I’d get a clearer idea but this is long.).

But like if the player is their only hope for real human connection, I feel like they would do anything to reach that. It might not be the same path as Monika, but if their options are either “be alone forever” or “try reaching out to the player” they’d probably make some questionable decisions at the cost of their own meaningless reality.

Act 4 Sayori had the benefit of hindsight on how best to reach the player, but if everyone started the same as Monika did, I do wonder how they would go about trying to reach the player. Maybe they’d be more similar than they’d think. Maybe that’s why they fit together so well. Maybe that’s why Monika wants to spare them from their fates. Maybe it’s part of why their isolation and dehumanization from each other becomes so painfully ironic. Ironically, they are the same deep down.

[tempestmothstorm]

I’ve noticed it for a while now that despite the side stories being all about the characters opening up and getting a spotlight on their feelings, Monika never gets her moment where she lets everything out.

Like Sayori has the whole scene in trust, Yuri in understanding, Natsuki in self-love, and a bunch of other moments where they have their moments of vulnerability, but Monika never gets that breakdown moment for herself.

She never gets to cry or unload all her insecurities and fears like the rest, which is pretty odd considering how the very first side story focuses on Monika trying to find ways to express herself and write about her feelings without her perfectionist mindset. She has to be the strong, reliable, responsible leader to the club without letting her feelings get in the way of her friend’s struggles. Her three main side stories focus on her becoming a better leader and helping the others with their feelings, but she never has her own feelings on the forefront. As the “responsible one” she needs to either overcome or hide her weaknesses, and when she does admit her own faults or feelings, it’s for the sake of others (like in respect, where she does admit to her thoughts and feelings about how she treated natsuki, a lot of stuff that would require vulnerability, but was focused on helping natsuki instead of monika)(also realized sayori does a similar thing to natsuki in reflection when she admits to having depression to help comfort her)

I’m thinking about that scene in trust again because there’s this line that stood out to me for awhile because I think it sums up her whole deal:

“As soon as Sayori loses her composure, Monika becomes determined to keep her own. She only wants to be what Sayori needs right now. So, she won’t let any sadness show.”

This line kinda read as her trying not to cry herself, but acting as a literal shoulder to cry on, she holds it back to focus on Sayori. It’s the right move, but she never has another chance to revisit those feelings, being too focused on the new club members to focus on herself, still holding herself back for the sake of her friends. It kinda parallels Sayori in a way, but unlike her she never has her moment where she herself gets to be comforted back.

This all leads to equals, where the story bookends with Monika trying to write a poem for the first time since trust. I always thought that moment was weird, as it shows her in the exact same spot as the first time she tried to write a poem. She gets it eventually, but it’s clear that while everyone else has their poems figured out, Monika still hasn’t fully gotten over her own issues. Of course she was never going to get over it overnight, none of them do, but throughout the whole story, she never gets her moment to fully address it. While helping everyone else in their stories did help her grow into a better caring person, I don’t know if she’s entirely addressed her own issues with talking about her feelings.

She does write something down, but she still has that old hesitation she had in the beginning, in contrast to the others who start writing almost immediately. They aren’t notorious for being great at vulnerability either, but they learn to open up throughout the side stories, something Monika doesn’t get that much of.

I will acknowledge that scene is probably just there for bookends and to highlight Monika’s development going from being unable to write anything to starting to write her own poem (something that would be less obvious if she started writing immediately with no fanfare). But still, I think the fact that she still struggles kinda highlights how she still never got that moment to cry. She might work through it someday, but at the moment she’s not ready, and I think thats fascinating

I might be mistaken here, but I think Monika might actually be the only Doki not to cry at all between the Side Stories and the Main Game.

She doesn't have a crying sprite (which is why it's a relatively common fan sprite to make), and she doesn't cry in any of the CGs afaik.

That says something about her character, I think.

This is relevant because I'm considering something for an ask that's been sitting around a while, and so I've been looking over all of the Side Stories for material, and it just stuck out to me.

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Girl had her name introduced twice and she still forgot

She is so silly

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ok ok so I was just going to draw long haired Sayori but then I came up with a bunch of elementaryish aged designs and now I came up with a bunch of headcanons and more sketches so woohoo lots or text under cut open for more headcanons (also idk why tumblr made the image change quality that is not the same colour or quality I had it in)

Yknow for some reason I just can’t imagine Natsuki being like a happy kid in the past like at all. I think it’s like a “kid who obviously has a bad home life and acts out because of it but nobody’s gonna to actually try to do anything about it so they just put her in detention” kinda vibe. I don’t think anyone outright hates her since she probably would have brought it up in base game/side stories, but she isn’t exactly a beloved member of the school either

In the side stories she talks about being very different in the past and specifically going through a really edgy ‘I hate everyone phase��� in middle school. This isn’t a middle school headcanon but I feel like her being kinda bitter before the total edgy phase makes sense.

I think in contrast to her having a super defined sense of self present day, Natsuki here was a lot more identityless and unsure about what she wants. She gets really into cutesy stuff in the future but here she leans a lot more into the angry side of her because she doesn’t really understand a lot of what she’s feeling. It’s why I didn’t really give her a unique hairstyle, if she had something she’d actually like I don’t think she would have changed it to the pigtails

Also her clothes are kinda bad and has a hole in her sleeve since she doesn’t really get a lot of clothes due to obligatory ~home life angst~ but this post isn’t about that so

She gets into manga pretty early but just kinda enjoys it casually on a surface level thing. She drops it for a bit before picking it back up, and suddenly understanding what plot and themes are lead to her going insane about it until present day.

She’s into skating because I said so

It also makes a great explanation for why she gets a broken arm and why she always has a bunch of bandaids :))))))))

Ok I might also just like giving character designs bandaids

Tbh I forgot if they said Natsuki’s friends met in middle school or not but I think it still applies since they probably knew her through every cringe phase she had (including the fanfics). But either way they were probably one of the few people to actually give Natsuki a chance which is part of why she puts up with their bullying so much. Throughout every phase she might have had they made fun of her every step of the way, to the point she’s just kinda used to it now. Doesn’t help that she thinks her old self was cringe, so by present day she just assumes she deserves whatever bullying she gets from them. Girl needs to have compassion for her past self. And present self tbh

While Natsuki was cringe in the ‘I hate everything’ way, Yuri was cringe in the ‘I am a massive nerd for cringe pieces of media and am going to make everyone aware of that fact’. At least that’s how they see themselves now

She’s a lot more open to talking about her interests. She can and will yap to random people with little to no prompting because she hasn’t really learned yet that people would be put off by it

She’s not overly social but more willing to chat with others with a polite and friendly attitude. She hasn’t been hurt yet so she is filled with joy and whimsy and is overall more cheerful compared to present day

She has her hair like that so I could give the vibe of ‘cheerfully annoying and/or adorable☝️🤓’ nerd archetype instead of ‘would rather become a speck of dust than talk to a person’ nerd archetype. Her hair is generally more dishevelled to show she’s more naive and less elitist I guess. She also isn’t as good at taking care of her hair yet so it looks kinda bad in a charming way(her school would not agree)

Her bangs being up with the headband shows her being more open and willing to be vulnerable to others in a way that’s lost in present day, where her long bangs hide a lot of her face in that one sprite. Her forehead is a metaphor 😭

I don’t really have parent headcanons but the cardigan is from her mom. I just think it’s cute

Random headcanons idrk where else to put but since that one act 2 sprite just borrows the teeth from Natsuki I like to think her teeth is also weirdly sharp it just doesn’t stick out as much. People think her teeth are creepy though so she tries not to smile with her teeth. She doesn’t care to smile like that anyways since she doesn’t really know how to in pictures (me projecting) and her natural smiles are a lot more subtle/don’t show teeth so it’s all fine.

Stating the obvious here but she was totally outcasted by like most of her school. Most people thought she was weird and her enthusiasm off-putting so they’d try avoiding her. She doesn’t really know why they think she’s off-putting though, people just start avoiding her for no reason. A few would go out of their way to bully her too, which ont added fuel to the iscolation fire, which ended up give her massive vulnerability and self esteem issues. Shocker ik. It takes a while to fully break her down from here to her high school self but it does mess her up a lot even then. At this specific point in time though she stills has her innocence so dw it’s fineeeeeee

Her anxiety issues are also there but she still has enough of a positive attitude to go ‘hey this sucks but maybe this time talking about my interests will work and they’ll actually like me!’ even if it didn’t work the last time. She doesn’t really know how else to talk to people so she keeps trying the same thing hoping maybe this time it’ll work out.

Uh.

things get worse. you probably know that

Sayori still the sillyyyyy

But tbh she probably changes the least compared to present day. I mean she gets more mature and less starry eyed but her mask is basically the same as her kid self. I don’t have as much to say on that specifically cause compared to the rest she doesn’t change that much

Yeah Understanding said she used to have long hair but cut it since she couldn’t really take care of it. I feel like even before the depression got worse she sucked at taking care of it because she has the self proclaimed attention span of a donut. Her hair is really scruffy and if you tried to comb it would probably hurt a lot. So she doesn’t ever

Her and mc are still the the goofy-goober and straight man dynamic they have in base game. Sayori drags mc into some shenanigans and mc tries to help her get out of trouble. He also has less of an ‘I don’t want to be seen with this cringe’ attitude he has a bit of in the base game since he isn’t as concerned with reputation because he’s like 7, so he’s more open with being directly nice to her. He acts a lot more genuinely with their friendship overall compared present day where he finds it a lot harder to earnestly share his appreciation of Sayori as a cool sigma male

A lot of their banter is light hearted, but Sayori doesn’t start interpreting his teasing for actual criticism of her character until a little later into their relationship. His jokes probably hurt more in hindsight when they do end up drifting apart because his lighthearted jokes stated feeling more real.

It’s sorta implied in side stories that there was a point where everyone found out about her depression and was worried constantly about her. It probably was from an old friend group considering nobody else seems to know about it, but I feel like mc drifted apart before that considering he doesn’t know. I think they became friends again by sides stories, but considering he doesn’t act like he’s as concerned for her well-being as he is by the end of act one, he probably wasn’t there when everyone else found out and therefore doesn’t know about the depression here either. Idk though side stories have different continuity apparently so who knows maybe that never happened or maybe he’s just stupid

Yeah of course she still has depression here. It probably got worse over time though since I feel like her constant silly oblivious persona would have came from somewhere. She is naturally pretty upbeat, it’s just that she had to lie more over time in order to keep that idea going. Now she feels like that old her is basically dead, with her just masquerading as someone who isn’t there anymore.

She’s like the only one here who has a positive opinion of her past self, to the point where she actively wants to go back and be that person. In a way she still is that little kid, but at the same time things can never go back to how they were. Uh yeah but she still hates herself so I guess no one gets to reap the rewards of caring for their past self.

She also trips constantly. I don’t think it’s that surprising

Since Monika has the least specific info on her past I got to be a bit silly about it and make up as much as I wanted.

She is like completely different from her present self. Similar to Natsuki she’s also sorta identityless but in a weird quiet gifted kid sorta way instead of an angry lost child sorta way.

She’s pretty quiet and doesn’t talk much. With a pretty expressionless face and more deadpan voice she kinda gives creepy horror movie child vibes but the type of child that appears before the horror actually starts (which is to say not actually scary but just kinda weird) (I just realized a lot of this is just me projecting what I was like as a kid but with less prep energy)

Yeah she’s extroverted but at this point she doesn’t really seek out people until she starts actively trying to boost her image

She doesn’t really have many hobbies outside of being a teacher pet and if it weren’t for her stellar grades she totally would of been bullied, but she’s nice enough to help people study so she’s safe

She isn’t really the most popular in school until high school. She does start out as the token prodigy gifted kid so everyone expected her to excel in everything so on a whim she’s like ‘ok guess I’m doing everything now’ and it’s totally not going to alter the course of her life forever

She likes the validation and wants to live up to the expectations so she starts leaning super hard into the perfect image. She gradually starts joining clubs, getting cool achievements, studying for those straight A+ grades, talking to people and networking, and overall changing her image from quiet kid to strong confidence friendly student who’s going to go far. Awesome

She kinda had to train herself to not be weird creepy child and would practice smiling, facial expressions, being more sociable, talking less deadpan, etc. She has a lot of “fake it till you make it” vibes in the side stories to the point I don’t think she even realizes she’s doing it. I imagine her going from weird little kid to most popular high schooler around was like wearing the mask until it became the real thing.

Tbh this whole design started because I really like the headcanon design of her bangs covering her eyes. And then I gave her a stripped shirt because it felt generic but also not boring but it ended up making her look like one of the seven human souls lol

Honestly if I could describe her vibe here in one sentence it would be utdr protagonist but like in prep school

ok that’s it idrk how to end this but thanks for watching hit the like and subscribe and

[tempestmothstorm]

actually can we talk about this what do you mean you hear the voices of your dead friends

you cant just stop it there wtf are they saying to you

[tempestmothstorm]

Man I love act 2 Natsuki so so much we gotta talk about her more aaugghhhh

I swear it was said somewhere that Natsuki was changed the least because out of all the club members Monika could make her unlikeable simply by proxy of Yuri being messed up too, someone who Monika saw as more competition compared to her. Similar to act 2 Yuri being a slap in the face to her self doubt about secretly being an overly pushy creep, changing Natsuki the least feels like a slap in the face to her whole side stories arc about feeling like an awful person nobody likes. Monika probably knows about all her self doubts too and is still basically like “you’re right :) you are so unlikable that I don’t even have to change you that much to make someone think you’re just as repulsive as a freaky yandere”

Because of this Monika was mostly focused on Yuri this whole time, slowly neglecting Natsuki until the narrative started doing it too. Between Yuri and Monika forcing themselves on the player, Natsuki who is notably less pushy gets instead pushed away and sidelined by them. Considering her whole backstory and arc in the side stories, it’s kinda ironic that the one safe space she has ended up neglecting her needs too.

It’s kinda depressing though man her old friends make her ignore her feelings and put up with their abuse. Her home life is ambiguous most of the time but at best her dad neglects her feelings and needs and by act 2 he’s abusive to the point of life threatening child abuse. And then her last and only safe space changes to become distant and rude, where they dismiss all her wants and concerns while putting down her interests and very existence in the club, all for a boy who just got here. This club was supposed to be a safe space full of welcoming people who would let her be who she is. It was supposed to be the one place she wouldn’t get yelled or sneered at for voicing her opinion. It was supposed to be the place where she could ~write the way into her heart~ or whatever. But now it’s just become another source of abuse in her life

She has to conform to everyone else’s needs instead, and no matter how much she may want to she has no power in her life. She has to watch as every person in her life abuses and neglects her. She never gets to be vice president. She never gets to be in the loop and find out why everyone is acting strange. She never gets to know why the club is tearing itself apart. The world is breaking and she can never learn why, she can only sit by in silence and suffer in the background as everyone else takes hold in the narrative. She tries reaching out but nobody actually respects her enough to let her do anything, and the only thing keeping her from giving up and leaving is the fact that she has nothing else, and maybe this time things will get better. But they don’t. She doesn’t belong anywhere. She has no power here. She can’t change things no matter what she does

Yet despite this she ironically ends up becoming the most normal person ever in the club. The girl with literally zero healthy relationships in her life. The tsundere. Is the voice of reason.

Monika you suck at your job

Everyone around her is going insane. Yuri is becoming obsessive to the point of uncharacteristic aggression, Sayori just doesn’t exist, Monika is ignoring it all and acting like everything’s normal, and mc as the closest thing to normal this club is gonna get is also becoming more and more of a blank slate. She’s alone in this.

And yet despite all of that she still cares about her friends. Even if Monika tries to get her to ignore it, she still cares about Yuri and is worried about her more than anything. Despite Monika’s attempts to dehumanized the club, Natsuki never yields to her control. She’s the one to call everyone out on how weird everything is, cutting through Monika’s facade and realizing that something is wrong. She desperately wants things to be okay again, for Yuri to be okay even after seeing the way she acts, for you to listen to her since you’re the only other person who could do something.

She tries reaching out with her last note, pleading for you to do something. Even if Monika takes that moment away because she still wants to act like nothing is wrong, the player remembers. You remember that Monika tried to get you to leave you club members to suffer, and you remember that Natsuki is still a real human being reacting to these things, not just a set of scripts. And the player recognizes that Natsuki cares, even if they can’t do anything about it.

Despite Monika trying to reinforce her being a bad person, Natsuki’s character ended up shining way more than it would have had it just been act 1. Even through all of Monika’s attempts, Natsuki still makes it apparent that she can be a good person and that she really deeply cares about the people around her, even if it takes a lot to show it. While a stubborn tsundere is hatable, her stubbornness here to just be herself ironically ended up as a strength. The anime trope ended up as a boon. Suck it Monika 😎

Throughout the constant dehumanizations as cliche lines of code, Natsuki retains her humanity until the very end. While Sayori and Yuri’s last moments are them succumbing to Monika’s control, her final moments let her retain her humanity.

By puking in the floor yeah. But with all of Monika’s efforts to get her to act like nothing’s wrong, her having a normal human reaction to a three day old corpse compared to complete nonchalance makes her seem more human than Monika ironically enough. She probably would have wanted Natsuki to ignore it too, but no matter what she did she couldn’t stop her from being herself. Her desire for perfection compared to Natsuki seeing the world how it is a bit of a rebellion to everything Monika stands for, and in the end, Natsuki gets to have the win in some little way.

Natsuki being the least altered is interesting cause on one hand it says some about a person when Ms. Access doesn’t bother hitting you with the asshole beam to make you look like an asshole, but on the other hand she does still try to make Natsuki look bad, and its interesting to think about how that ended up failing. She’s still whole compared to the others who are altered beyond belief, and who she is isn’t all that hatable compared to what Monika wants you to think. Her best qualities still shine through, and despite all she perseveres until the end where Monika can only delete her to get rid of her.

Despite all of Monika’s attempts to twist the club apart, despite everyone else in the club becoming hostile and unfamiliar, despite everyone in her life treating her like she’s worthless, Natsuki is still herself. She’s stubbornly herself until the bitter end. And honestly who she is is pretty great. That’s all. Natsuki cool

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I didn’t see the inspiration initially but looking at some of the ways people draw siffrin he really does kinda look like komaeda somehow

[tempestmothstorm]

I’m thinking about the whole "you are not your feelings" theme the side stories have and how that contrasts with the main game

Like the two talks in reflection where Sayori and Monika tell the others about how their emotions don’t have to define who they are and don’t make them bad people. This theme of singular traits not defining who you are/not controlling who you want to be is backed up by the rest of the side stories, which exist to show how the characters are multifaceted and human. They aren’t tropes or defined solely by their thoughts or actions. They aren’t perfect nor pure evil, only people trying their best. They’re real, complex people, and the ‘you are not your feelings’ phrase is proof of that.

The side stories’ goal of presenting these characters as human go directly against a ~certain someone’s~ goal of flattening and dehumanizing them in the main game. Its clear Monika here doesn’t really learn the ‘you are not your feelings’ thing in this world, something that happens with a lot of the lessons learned in the side stories (i.e. the ones in each title). Due to the whole disillusionment with reality thing, her attitude to the rest of the club is pretty dismissive, seeing them as one-dimensional characters tropes, making whatever flaws they have as their defining trait.

I'm going to focus on the CANYOUHEREME.txt though cause it pretty easily sums up her feelings so I'm just gonna put it here

Beneath their manufactured perception - their artificial reality - is a writhing, twisted mess of dread. Loathing. Judgment. Elitism. Self-doubt. All thrashing to escape the feeble hold of their host, seeping through every little crevice they can find. Into their willpower, starving them of all motivation and desire. Into their stomach, forcing them to drown their guilt in comfort food. Or into a newly-opened gash in their skin, hidden only by the sleeves of a cute new shirt. Such a deplorable, tangled mass is already present in every single one of them. That's why I choose not to blame myself for their actions.

All I did was untie the knot.

This poem is interesting because it does make them out to be more human compared to the anime tropes Monika says they are in the act 3 talks, but replaces the empathy found in the side stories with disgust, painting the club as gross, immoral, and everything the girls fear themselves to be. Monika sees the stuff they hide, all the complex feelings and less savory traits, and sees it as their truth, their whole being. Their feelings define them, what they think is their worst is all they've ever been, and that these things make them awful people. When Monika forcibly brings these things to the forefront, it's their fault alone when act out, because their darkest thoughts are all they'll ever be.

She knows they’re more than that, but she’s actively in denial about how much she actually cares, and the epiphany absolutely destroyed her ability to see her friends as actually complex people beyond their programing.

I think that's part of why comparing her to side stories Monika messes me up so much because she's like!! So nice!!! Mature!!!! And understanding!!!!! And she sees her friends faults and all!!!!!! And she loves them anyways and understands their goodness!!!!!!!!!! But main game strips that away from her and makes her cynical!!!!!!!!!!!! And she can't see the goodness in her friends anymore because they aren't real and they're scripts made to appeal to a dumb dating sim and she!!!!!!!!!!! Can't see them as people anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So their flaws turn into THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

. . . And that concludes today's Monika analysis.

[tempestmothstorm]

Ok so I mention my fantasy au for ddlc a couple times but I’ve been busy for months because of life stuff and also more brain rot for different stuff. So like. I haven’t gotten to it for months. Oops

Anyways I’ll just put the basic lore I have here because I do have a lot of ideas for this au and I am shaking the bars for my enclosure cus I really wanna talk about it

This is basically if ddlc and its concepts were put into a stereotypical rpg instead of dating sim and the club is now a cool rpg party who spend the hypothetical game encountering and bonding with each other like in the side stories. The plot would be simple and about finding the cure for a fantasy plague/curse that has been slowly ravaging the land (spooky glitch effects) only for it to slowly unravel into the wider lore and how it connects to base game ddlc

Monika is a main character and the paladin leader. Orphan from the capital turned famous knight who had become disillusioned and abandoned her high status to become a wandering mercenary to help the people in the curse. She eventually finds her own patron god, You! It’s like Oneshot where you are the narrator observing and guiding Monika, except she doesn’t actually know who you are or that she’s in a game so you have to hide it while also making sure she doesn’t repeat the sins of the past and stuff. She slowly learns to open up and trust her new companions and love her life to the fullest without worrying about perfection or success and stuff. Maybe she doesn’t need to be the legend or the perfect hero. Maybe she can just be with her new family. Maybe she could just let herself belong (the sure hope her arc lasts and isn’t ripped away by her own hands haha)(she gets better)

Sayori is the simple first best friend/second in command/heart of the group. She’s just the happy go lucky bard without that deeper tragic backstory the rest of the cast has. The daughter of a fisherman in a small starting town, Monika first encounters her after defending the town from a monster. Sayori and the town throw a celebration as thanks, letting Monika learn to loosen up and be open. On the flip side Sayori seems to have no relevant plot, only to suddenly reveal her own doubts later in the story. Having always felt useless and aimless, whether in her hometown where she had no place or job or with the party as she had no apparent use, she starts to feel insecure about her place in the group over time. There’s probably be the classic ‘heart of the group get incapacitated and everyone realizes how essential they are as the rest fall apart’ plot beat, and Sayori’s gets to learn just how important she is.

Yuri is the local smart guy wizard of the team, part of some mysterious wizards coven when the party first encounters her. Monika and Sayori are looking for info on the curse’s origins and the coven assigns Yuri to help temporarily guide them through a dungeon. On the way Yuri gets to learn what actual companionship looks like as people who are connected not only through a common goal or interest, but people who genuinely care for her. The coven didn’t really interact or care about her well being, and she was too disconnected from the outside world to learn enough about her field of study, so she decides to leave the coven to travel the world with Monika and Sayori. Over time they also learn about her backstory (because every mysterious rpg character needs a tragic backstory) about her being the daughter of a faraway kingdom’s royal family. Having been born with destructive magic powers, her family had tried everything to suppress it , without regards for their own daughter. They eventually gave up and sent her to the coven for life, basically disowning her. There could probably be a plot point where the party has to meet up with her parents for politics reasons and there could be some heavy drama where Yuri gets to admit that she’s finally found people who accept and understand who she is and how to help her. Yay

Natsuki is that one edgy rogue who starts out as an enemy to the party. Runaway turned thief turned mercenary, she’s doing whatever it takes to survive out in this world. The party finds her as part of some rival mercenary band being hired by some random kingdom they encounter. The kingdom assigns the two groups on the same mission, but Natsuki’s teammates are assholes and push all the work onto Natsuki and the main party (they’re supposed be parallel her other friends). The four of them have to work together and start out antagonistic, but they slowly realize how messed up the situation with Natsuki is and how she really deserves better (for a lot of reasons). Natsuki meanwhile is experiencing an actual feeling of belonging and concern from others and is very conflicted, so when the rival mercenary’s decide to betray the main party and take the credit, she stands up for them and fights back, officially completing the party. She eventually learns to open up and trust people for the first time ever, having a place to call home and people she can feel safe with. She’d also have a ‘confront your past’ moment where they have to travel through her hometown that she ran away from. She feels terrified having to come back and potentially face her past, but not only is the town in way better shape her father had already died years after she left. While it seems like her whole backstory is unresolved, she comes to the conclusion on her own that she doesn’t need to be stuck in the past and no amount of confronting her father would change anything. Because she’d already found a family that loves her without him, and she’s promises she won’t end up like him.

And so the classic rpg party is formed and have their work cut out for them as they attempt to find the origins of the curse and eventually stop it. But it’s slowly revealed that the curse runs deeper in the origins of their world than they’ve thought possible. They can only either succumb to the darkness or deny reality itself to survive their fate. Who knows if they could face the reality of their world and still choose to save it. This world exists to give them a better ending. With all they’ve seen, could that still be possible?

There’s other stuff like more detailed backstory since I kinda skimmed over everything, certain plot points, and overall meta lore and how it connects to base game but that’s the rundown so far

Since it’s funny and technically correct I’m gonna call this the Doki Doki Isekai au

[tempestmothstorm]

Being aroace and liking a character design that everyone simps for is so funny sometimes. You like that guy because you think they’re hot. I like that guy because I think their character design is appealing and conveys their personality well. We are not the same.

[tempestmothstorm]

Man the entire club is so narrative parallel to each other that when paired together as a duo they parallel the opposite duo. It’s not even just sayonika/natsuri it’s like all of them I need to dissect them and their dynamics they are so interconnected it’s fascinating

[tempestmothstorm]

Ok but why is Natsuki the only character to get one pair of casual clothes. Like her Sayori and Yuri get their weekend outfits but those two also get another outfit in extra artwork (the overalls and the black dress) and while Monika gets nothing in game her twitter gives her both her white dress and sweater outfits. So everyone gets like an indoor and outdoor outfit but Natsuki apparently owns nothing else and just wears a shirt skirt combo forever. She is the universe’s least favourite child just give her something please

[tempestmothstorm]

Sayori is the sans of ddlc send post