#to ''where the fuck are your emotions''

[love-me-love-my-weirdness]

Me being fine after talking about traumatising stuff:

Therapist: oh cool! It seems talking things out works for you

Me being fine after rediscovering trauma:

Therapist: okay this is a bit weird

Me continuing to be fine during every therapy session since the beginning with no large shifts in mood:

Therapist: goddammit you're dissociating aren't you

[egophiliac]

starting off with an amuse-bouche of some of my initial favorite bits! y'all, this update was WILD.

[aeolianasio]

reads like warning text in cultist simulator/book of hours that i would simply ignore

[lord-squiggletits]

One of my favorite parts of phase 2 (and indeed one of the few moments I resonated with IDW Prowl) was when the neutrals were coming back to Cybertron and Prowl said that he refused to let Autobots be pushed aside and overruled after they were the ones who fought for freedom for 4 million years (the exact wording escapes me atm).

And I mean, that resentment still holds true even once the colonists come on bc like. As much as it's true that Cybertron's culture is fucked up, and as funny as it can be to paint Cybertronians as a bunch of weirdos who consider trying to kill someone as a common greeting not important enough to hold a grudge over.... The colonists POV kind of pissed me off a lot of times, as did the narrative tone/implications that Cybertronians are forever warlike and doomed to die by their own hands bc it just strikes me as an extremely judgemental and unsympathetic way to deal with a huge group of people with massive war PTSD and political/social tensions that were rampant even before the war?

Like, imagine living in a society rife with bigotry and discrimination where you get locked into certain occupations and social strata based on how you were born. The political tension is so bad there's a string of assassinations of politicians and leaders. The whole planet erupts into an outright war that leads (even unintentionally) to famine and chemical/biological warfare that destroys your planet. Both sides of the war are so entrenched in their pre-war sides and resentment for each other that this war lasts 4 million years and you don't even have a home planet any more. Then your home planet gets restored and a bunch of sheltered fucks come home and go "ewww why are you so violent?? You're a bunch of freaks just go live in the wilderness so that our home can belong to The Pure People Who Weren't Stupid And Evil Enough To Be Trapped In War" and then a bunch of colonists from places that know nothing about your history go "lol you people are so weird?? 🤣🤣 I don't get why y'all are fighting can't you just like, stop??? Oh okay you people are just fucked up and evil and stupid then" ((their planets are based on colonialism where their Primes wiped out the native populations btw whereas the Autobots and OP in particular fought to save organics. But that never gets brought up as a point in their favor)) as if the damage of a lifetime of war and a society that was broken even before the war can just magically go away now that the war is over.

Prowl fucking sucks but he was basically the only person that pointed out the injustice of that.

And then from then on out most of the characters from other colonies like Caminus and wherever else are going "i fucking hate you and your conflicts" w/ people like literal-nobody Slide and various Camiens getting to just sit there lecturing Optimus about how Cybertronians are too violent for their own good and how their conflicts are stupid, with only brief sympathetic moments where the Cybertronians get to be recognized as their own ppl who deserve sympathy before going right back to being lambasted.

Like I literally struggled to enjoy the story at multiple points because there was only so much I could take of the characters I knew and loved being raked over coals constantly while barely getting to defend themselves or be defended by the narrative so like. It was just fucking depressing and a little infuriating to read exRID/OP

[fluideli123]

Sonadow Fic Rec

Okay, before you jump down to the masterpieces listed below, I just wanted to state this:

These authors have given this phenomenal content for free, baked with time and effort. I have never once ignored this, hence why I try and comment on each and every one of these fics. However, my energy and ability to be verbose differs day to day. Some of these fics I have not given proper comments for, despite this, I will be on it the moment I can be. In the time being, (once I am able to find my comments on each of these fics) I will be sharing my adoration for them further in other posts (and most likely link back to this one).

With that being said, please, PLEASE take your time to check each of these fics out. If they're not your cup of tea? Valid! But hands down I have never dedicated myself to making a fic rec like this until now. But I MUST share and spread these works, they are much too dear to me not to, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

(All fics are listed by order saved in my bookmarks, not in the order read)

tangled threads and bite-marked shoulders by @rubyiiiusions

Words: 32,287 | Series | Complete

Shadow hissed in pain. The laser had just grazed him, but it still stung, and he instinctively gripped the wound it left on his arm. “You dare-” He stopped. The laser hadn’t hit him. In fact, it had struck Sonic, right on his lower left arm. So why did his forearm feel like it just got shot? He whipped around, fear climbing up his throat, and he suddenly became hyper-aware of something new. It was like a sixth sense, feeling the confusion that emitted from Sonic’s fur in waves as if it was his own. “What did you do?!” Shadow snarled. or, eggman accidentally soulbinds shadow and sonic, and no one has any idea how to undo it.

Sleepwalking by Tirainy

Words: 22,117 | Complete

'There is a strong arm curled around his torso, the appendage keeping him close to its owner, whose warm breath is ghosting over the back of his neck. Sonic is sure he went to bed alone the previous night, but he isn't worried about the intruder. After all, this isn't the first time this has happened…'

Secret Admirer by @trenchcoat-gecko

Words: 24,313 | Complete

Sonic understood well what it meant to be loved. He was a world-famous hero, after all; his presence never went unnoticed. For the most part, he lavished in that attention, he soaked it in and encouraged it. But not romantic attention. So, when the blue blur found himself falling in love? Well, the prospect was rather daunting, no matter how easy Amy had made it out to be. So maybe, just maybe, he should just take the easy way out...

Rose Drops Series by @magicstormfrostfire

Words: 122,489 | Series | Complete

Love, Intuition, and a little bit of magic ensues as Amy sends Sonic and Shadow on an unforgettable adventure.

Wolfboy by @trenchcoat-gecko

Words: 73,856 | Complete

World-famous monster hunter Shadow the Hedgehog has a job to do. It doesn't take long for the one-shot wonder to realize that this job won't be as simple as he'd expected: a small town, rumors of a lone werewolf, and a handsome, green-eyed, chronically-injured casanova who manages to worm his way into Shadow's heart... What starts off as a simple job turns out to be something much more life-changing.

Blizzard Bedfellows by @magicstormfrostfire

Words: 21,294 | Complete

When a rare blizzard takes over the island, Sonic is on the run to make sure a certain angry loner is safe and sound. Y-you know, because...uh that's what heroes do.

We never met but can we have a cup of coffee or something? by @whitejungle

Words: 3,630 | Complete

It's been almost two months since Sonic lost someone he didn't even know, but he can't stop thinking about it.

Clean Slate by nottheweirdest

Words: 155,880 | Complete | Note: Squeal pending and I am cheering you on author!! Whatever you decide I am excited to support you!!

Shadow has lost himself before. He knows what it's like to straddle the line between reality and false memories, but this time, it’s Sonic whose memory has vanished. A premeditated set of circumstances and an accidental injury leave Sonic with no memory of who he is, his life, or more importantly, his painful history with Shadow. It’s up to Shadow to remind the hero who he is in the midst of a global outbreak. It’s a chance for redemption. It’s a chance to right the wrongs of the past. It’s a clean slate.

say i reckon (i love you, for a millisecond) by @redamancering

Words: 30,205 | Complete

There’s a hand on his shoulder, barely making contact. A red gauntlet glows around the wrist. Sonic blinks, the pain having evaporated so fast he feels almost weightless. “Shadow?” Shadow’s breathing heavily. “Problem.” The retrieval of the ancient tech Shadow (and Sonic, in tow) has been sent to uncover takes a turn for the worst. In this case, the “worst” means… becoming physically and inextricably linked to each other. For the foreseeable future. OR: Metaphysical handcuffs, and general gay buffoonery.

Judge my sins, not my feelings by yellothebeeloved

Words: 228,479 | Complete | Note: Possible one-shots pending from the author for the series, I am here to support you author!! What ever you decide I'm here for it!

Maybe he's not meant to touch. It's the newest excuse he thought of in hopes that he could prolong the game a little more; a careful ruse to enjoy the bittersweet torture of seeing the days pass them by, while he pretends he doesn't seek azure blue whenever he's restless. At first, all he wanted to do was watch: but now the desire to touch, to have, to affect is at a point where he's not sure whether reaching for Sonic would truly be fruitless. He wonders that especially when Sonic's eyes light up upon seeing him. When he corners Shadow, when he invades his space and he touches and takes and then excuses it by calling it a fight. Shadow truly wonders then: if only he was brave enough to reach out, what would his grip find? Loose stars or a battle-worn body? Standing up, he glances at Sonic again, whose eyes have now met his own. There's something heavy in the eye contact, something Shadow doesn't dare name. Neither of them say anything, and yet Sonic's eyes move away from him again, like they did. Shadow warps away, hiding from the stars once more.

Child of Prophecy by @trenchcoat-gecko

Words: 139,321 | Completed

On the night the Mobius Castle was ransacked, the Queen received a prophecy. “One of three will not cry; send him down the river, for you can only save your kingdom if he does not grow up royal.”

Coming Home by nottheweirdest

Words: 55,740 | Completed

Shadow's life has been full of mistakes, some worse than others, but admitting his unrequited feelings to Sonic tops the list. He's spent the better part of a decade ruminating on his regret and hiding from feelings he couldn't bear to face. He never thought he'd see Sonic again, and he told himself that was for the best. Until now. At the bequest of his former rival, and in an attempt to finally get closure, Shadow has returned to Central City. The reason? Sonic the Hedgehog is marrying Amy Rose. And Shadow is invited.

[quietwingsinthesky]

people are saying he « led her on » because he did. the fact that he kissed her in the first episode set the tone for the rest of the season and if you can’t perceive the flirting I’m sorry but how?? he didn’t make anything clear he sent the craziest mixed signals in the world. there’s nothing revolutionary about claiming that Martha was being pushy toward someone who was clearly not interested it’s 1) weird to claim in what it suggests about her 2) factually not true.

I wasn’t gonna respond to this at first because the top half of this ask is pretty much just individual interpretation and I don’t really care about it. Like, no, to me, the Doctor doesn’t seem especially flirty towards Martha. He’s just sort of Like That. That’s his damage, you know, Mr. I need to traumadump on anyone who tolerates being around me for more than five minutes. Mr. If I don’t develop an intensely codependent emotional bond with the companion I have currently I’ll die. It doesn’t read to me as him trying to lead her on because that bit’s honest, and he does it with damn near every companion he’s ever had.

And if nothing else, because we do see Ten when he tries to flirt intentionally and he’s a fuckin dork about it. Kind of guy who looked up romance in the dictionary and took notes. Kinda guy who draws diagrams to maximize kissing potential. It would have been obvious even to me (<- romance-blind as all fuck) if he was flirting with Martha on purpose because he’s not smooth at all; he flirts like he’s gotten lines in a play and he’s super excited to be the main star.

But anyway, as I was saying, that’s just how I see it. And if you see it different, no skin off my back, I just disagree.

But I take umbrage with you putting words in my mouth. I never said Martha was pushy towards him. Because yeah, she’s not. If I implied that she was, then it was a result of poor phrasing on my part. Martha’s not at fault for what she feels, for wanting there to come something of it. No more at fault than the Doctor is for not returning those feelings. It’s a bit weird that you’re assuming that I think one of them has to be the bad guy here when that was the opposite of what I was saying. My point was: When it comes to their romantic subtext of their relationship, it’s weird to pretend like either of them are to blame for them not being in a relationship at the end of s3, and even weirder to assert that as part of why Martha supposedly wouldn’t like the Doctor afterwards when they’re. friends. they continue to be friends into s4.

Martha’s not pushy. She has a crush on her friend. It happens. He doesn’t return it. This also happens. Both of these facts are pushed to the extreme because he’s a time-traveling alien with poor emotional skills and she’s put herself in the position of needing to help him from minute one of meeting each other. That’s why it’s fun to watch, because the Doctor is both so open and so unavailable in turns, because Martha’s feelings for him grow and change as she knows more about her Doctor until she decides to step back.

I don’t know, man. You seem to be coming at this as if one of them has to be The Problem™️. I don’t think either of them is, not so definitively. I think boiling their relationship down to that is reductive and an insult to the way they both grow over s3, to Martha’s choice to continue to be his friend while also establishing her own boundaries, to the fact that the Doctor is able to let her go without immediately trying to kill himself afterwards when she’s not there to catch him.

[videogamelover99]

You know what's wild? Chuuya understands Dazai more than frickin Dazai understands Dazai. There are so many instances where Dazai feels emotions and cannot comprehend where they are coming from. Chuuya took one look at him and his whole nihilism thing and was like "Bitch that's me. Thanks I hate it."

[dead-core]

craving validation from exactly the wrong person. slay

[boypussydilf]

*wakes you up in the middle of the night at the sleepover again* yeah but like, even though she can’t really fully relate, marceline is kind of the best person to be actually effectively emotionally supportive to simon, right? she’s had absurdly fucked up things happened to her and had to learn how to live with it too. like largely the idea of stakes is “marceline had this super traumatic thing happen to her and she has to accept it as part of her and learn how to live with it in a way that’s healthy for her”. they’re in pretty different boats but simon still probably has more similar life experiences to her than to anyone else. and marcy always wanted to help him. however unfortunately he can’t stop seeing her as someone he has to protect and keep happy. he doesn’t want to “freak her out”.

[zivaninja]

the thing that hit me the hardest on ted lasso this week is colin's reaction from when isaac walks in at half-time to when he stands up and says isaac isn't gay.

the shifty eyes, the breathing, not saying anything when Sam asks if he knows whats up because he can't speak. Billy Harris fucking nailed it

[pumpkinrootbeer]

just so you know I'll never recover from the ending of magi like yeah in general it left me devistated but Jafar's final appearance being him back in the sindria robes still with this just steadfast never ending belief in a man who he devoted his life to and who then in return betrayed him on such a fundamental level. like im gutted.

[sea-buns]

Holy fuck, man. What a trip Fearne has been on, huh?

You tell her how grateful you are to have her in your life, you flatter her, you tell her you need her, that you have to do this together. You have her make a promise that has this woman, born of chaos and fey, agreeing through shaking hands and a trembling voice.

You make her deceive your friends; you make her follow where they cannot know; you make her help you into this contraption; you make her feed this thing into you despite the fact that you both have been warned extensively of the risks. You make her watch you crumble and splinter and shatter and fracture and burst and implode. You make her watch you die, over and over and over and over, for a minute in agonizing bullet time.

You make her do all these things, because when she tries to back out, when she tries to not be the one who let you do this—how could you do this—

you tell her, "YOU PROMISED."

Because if there's one thing you know, it's that the fey do not break a promise.

[ilivelikeimtrying]

I have this thing where when something traumatic or hurtful happens I laugh it off and make a joke, or even just smile and shrug and say "Ya, bida" (Well, life), and honestly I'm gonna project that onto Ambrosius because in no way does that boy have a healthy outlet with how much anxiety he has.

And Ballister is all too aware of this, and has come to learn what each smile and laugh from his boyfriend means. The ones that are genuine, the ones that are just for the camera, and the ones that mean that something just happened/someone just said something but if he stops smiling right now he's going to have a panic attack/break down and nobody wants that. Often he laughs off the things that seemed would have caused anyone else to explode or cry, and shrugging off a lot of things that should not be shrugged off. (However, of course, when it comes to Ballister, Ambrosius will literally throw hands with anyone who tries to mess with his precious bf).

Ballister learned how to help him with this, as he knew Ambrosius was a big help to him in his own brooding time, and wanted to pay it forward to his friend, and then later, his lover.

It's harder after the wall falls though, because Ambrosius doesn't believe he himself deserves any kind of help or sympathy after everything he's done, and Ballister hasn't fully healed yet, emotionally, mentally, or physically if we're being honest, to be ready to have those conversations just yet.

What's worse is that Ambrosius is wearing a new kind of smile, one that Ballister doesn't recognize or know what it means, but he knows well enough that it's not anything positive or good.

[rxttenfish]

Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

[lord-squiggletits]

Y'know the thing about writing feral/unhinged versions of Orion/Optimus, is that you can't go too far into the feral/unhinged direction to a point where OP's core character traits are lost or become too diminished. After all, in a multiple-continuity franchise like TF, part of what makes the stories make sense is that even if details change (sometimes major details), the characters are still recognizably themselves to one degree or another. (Although this isn't always the case due to executive meddling or some characters being such blank slates from their initial G1 appearances that there's basically nothing to model them off of, but I digress.)

It's pretty much another reason why I love IDW1 Optimus, bc he literally is a canonical feral/unhinged Optimus who's unhinged as a direct consequence of who he is as a person and what he's been through. Like, he still has those fundamental character traits of trying his best to be moral and make good choices, trying to be a role model, etc, except after 4 million years of war and untreated depression he's basically holding onto his sense of self by his fingertips. So when he "goes feral" e.g. losing his temper and beating up/killing people or saying hurtful things, he's feral in a way that's directly tied to his normal personality and not just as a random quirk he has.

IDW OP's feral moments arise from the gaps between "Optimus' attempts to be who he thinks he needs to be" and "the reality of the world that he can't fix/seems to only make worse" that cause him to lose hope, or become cynical, or lose his temper. But in this case, the unhinged-ness makes perfect sense because it arises out of Optimus trying and failing to be the best person or to make the most morally good choices he's trying to make. Basically, the "feral/unhinged" label is just another way of me trying to say that he's not just unhinged because he's weird or because he's a bad person, but because it's an emotional reaction (more like an emotional explosion due to pent-up emotions) to the context he exists in.

I'd also say that IDW OP's personality being generally reserved/stoic and (trying to be) noble works in tandem with those moments he has of going feral because it makes him more realistic. His psyche is treated in a way where the writers are like, "Hey what if the pressure of having to be everyone's idol and be the best person in the galaxy at all times actually broke Optimus down mentally and emotionally?" It makes IDW OP far more relatable. Instead of naturally being a perfect Christ-like figure who never wavers in his morals or convictions and is just naturally a nice person who always has the wisest and best answer, being a good person is something that IDW OP has to consciously strive to be. Even when he feels like it's useless, or the cycle of violence will never stop, or any attempts he makes to help only ends up with things becoming worse.

And I feel like this does a service not only to IDW Optimus as a character, but also as a sort of moral/philosophical perspective for the reader to ponder upon? I feel like culture at large (or at least my experience of it) tends to believe that "goodness" in a person is simply an innate feature that people are born/not born with, and that being "good" means that you must be good at all times, both in your actions as well as the way you feel emotionally about yourself and the world. Like, there's a tendency for our vision of "a good person" to be good in every aspect at all times without having to try to be a good person. So I think IDW Optimus' character stands as a good example of how someone can be good at heart but still struggle to maintain those feelings of optimism and hope and justice. It's a good idea to have such a paragon of a character (in-universe and out-of-universe) be so conflicted and to even be mistaken, misguided, or make things worse because it shows that goodness is as much about "trying to behave/act in a way that is good" and not just "existing as an innately good person."

It's way more realistic for a person to want to be good, try to be good, and sometimes/often fail than it is for them to just be a good person. I enjoy the fact that IDW Optimus is both a good person at heart, but also has to strive to be a good person and live up to other people's expectations of what they see in him. I like how he wants to be a good person and change society for the better, but he also spends a good amount of time either feeling hopeless and alone or being angry at/detached from other people because of how frustrated they make him. He's realistically portrayed as someone who wants to be good and hopeful and change things for the better, but is also mentally and emotionally broken by that burden because of how impossible it is for him to Fix Everything and be the Perfect Prime/Leader/Autobot that people see him as. It's this fascinating mixture of "yes, this is who he is as a person" but also "there are things he desires to be that he could never possibly become or live up to."

This got really far off based from feral/unhinged Optimus sdklfjaslkdlfkas. The TLDR is that if people want unhinged OP, I feel like they should give IDW OP a chance because he IS unhinged but he's unhinged in a way that's a realistic/thematic representation of how being an Absolute Good is impossible. And how being a good person isn't just about Existing And You Are A Good Person, but rather goodness is a constant state of flux in which you adjust, you make mistakes, you lose your temper and feel hopeless, but then you pick yourself up and try again.

Also IDW OP really likes climbing in dangerous wilderness and jumping out of flying vehicles which I think is very feral and sexy of him to do.

[ivoryratdoggerythethird]

reading dazai, chuuya, age fifteen for the finally and now i'm just mad i didn't read it earlier like

first of all why does this have the best first chapter of all time ever like this french waiter lookin ass nameless grunt looks like he smakes cigars and shotguns with hiroutsu tell me i'm wrong you can't

and chuuya chuuya chuuya chuuya chUUYA OH MY BELOVED i am suddenly personally connected with dazai on a spiritual level because i too would become obsessed with this dude if he stomped on my face. i'm already obsessed without him stomping on my face.

ALSO WHY DOES NO ONE TALK ABOUT THIS WHY IS THE ENTIRE FANDOM SLEEPING ON THESE PANELS

"what's wrong? i'm just on my tippy toes" chuuya sweetie i am going to go fucking FERAL

ballerina chuuya agenda real

also

everyone else go home like i'm sorry i really am. kunikida babe i love you with a gun dazai you look good with one too tachihara you're my baby but like none of you ever use bullets again please your fully grown asses are embarrassing once i've met fifteen year old chuuya catching bullets in his mouth and blowing back a literal kiss of death back at you like look at his hand at the end there, i'm losing my mind