Somarium App
Apr. 1st, 2012 01:26 am[Age] 20
[Personal Journal]
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butcherpete [Other characters currently played] Morty / Pokemon /
bellchimetrail [Character name] Madotsuki
[Age] 17
[Canon] Yume Nikki
[Point in time taken from canon] Just before the game's end; she's taking one more stroll through her dreams before killing herself.
[Background]
Much of Yume Nikki is up to speculation since there's no clear-cut plot and no dialog, but exploring the world a little will let you gather evidence of Madotsuki's life and past traumas. This is just my fan theory, based on what canon evidence is there.
Yume Nikki likely takes place sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Madotsuki herself wears an oversized sweatshirt (which I believe were in fashion during the time), and the TV in her room looks like a rather old model. She also owns a Famicom, and one of the locations in her dreamworld is heavily based on Mother (known in the US as Earthbound Zero and originally released in 1989.)
Anyway. Madotsuki was always a bit of a shy kid, and while she was the subject of bullying quite a bit she was at least content with her life. This is evidenced in visiting Poniko's Room in her dreamworld-the room has a similar layout to her own bedroom, and Poniko, likely a representation of Madotsuki herself before shit hit the fan, resides in the cutest, Candyland-esque level in the game.
But turn off the lights, and there's a little chance that the embodiment of her despair will come and take her away.
If we want an event that can sort of pinpoint Madotsuki's trauma on to, we can look no further than the traffic accident that took the life of two of her classmates--the only friends her age she had. One day, while in a carpool with two of her friends, they got into a collision at a stoplight. One of her friends was so badly mangled before dying that the image was burned into Madotsuki's subconscious forever. The other was pulverized completely.
All in all, Madotsuki was the only one who survived the incident.
She was broken and scared, but she tried to cope. Just about her only social interaction during those days was with her piano teacher and close confidant, Masada-sensei. Had she continued taking lessons from him, it's possible that she could have opened up a bit more and started living an ordinary life again, but Masada was a habitual drug user. Madotsuki knew about this but mostly turned a blind eye, until Masada-sensei died of an overdose some months after the accident.
That was it. Madotsuki withdrew from the world almost entirely after Masada's death, having given up on her education and ceasing communication with her parents except where she absolutely had to speak with them--and she never spoke with them for long. She stayed in her room almost all day from then on, leaving only for meals or bathroom breaks, which were fleeting, often secret affairs where she made exceptional efforts to avoid talking to anyone. And just what was she doing in her room all day? She wasn't really able to do anything but play video games, sit on the balcony, read, and sleep.
And sleep. And sleep. And sleep.
The moments of lucidity in her dreams were fleeting at first, but they grew bigger and stronger with every dream Madotsuki had. Eventually, after being able to maintain some level of control, she decided to keep a diary of her dreams. This is about the point Yume Nikki proper begins.
After Madotsuki was able to explore her dreamworld while fully lucid, she tried delving deeper and deeper. She was able to access the entry points to various parts of her subconscious through a room full of doors called the Nexus. From each of the rooms she could enter, she was able to go deeper and deeper into the catacombs of her mind. This was pretty cool at first, and it's something that Madotsuki always held dear, even as she sunk deeper into her depression.
But as she ventured deeper, she was forced to confront her trauma in the form of the monsters that plagued her nightmares. Her days in the waking world grew sadder and emptier, and her naps became more horrible and sickening. Eventually, her despair only worsened and she saw herself as having no way out.
If we allowed her to go on in her canon universe, she would have left all her effects and dream artifacts at the Nexus, woken up, and killed herself by throwing herself off her apartment balcony. Fortunately, she decided to take one final stroll before committing suicide. When she went to sleep and opened her door to the Nexus, she got Somarium instead.
And much to her shock and horror, there was no going back.
[Personality]
There is overwhelming evidence in the game that Madotsuki is just a gargantuan pile of self-loathing. One of the game's effects literally turns her into a pile of shit, and a few of the other effects, such as the ones turning her into a witch or a demon, don't exactly speak well of her self-esteem. Most telling, however, is the fact that in the game, you can find a ghost sprite of Madotsuki. Where is this sprite found? In Hell. Put it all together, and the game's heartbreaking end of her killing herself suddenly isn't so jarring. She might also have a bit of survivor guilt regarding her friends' and Masada's deaths: Maybe she caused a distraction that caused the driver to get into a crash, or feels guilty about turning a blind eye to Masada's drug habit.
What's more, as a teen girl, what does Madotsuki have? BODY IMAGE ISSUES! Several of the effects turn her into some sort of grotesque being (Medamaude comes to mind) or otherwise change her appearance. There's also a "fat" effect that turns her chubby, which reveals some self-consciousness about her weight.
Madotsuki doesn't trust others easily, and she's prone to lashing out at them when things don't go quite as planned. In her dreams, she normally doesn't think twice about stabbing people to death if they frustrate her. While she's unlikely to do this to a real person, she can still get a bit snappish. She doesn't believe anyone could possibly genuinely like her, so any positive attention she gets will be interpreted as someone pitying or making fun of her. Unfortunately, this mistrust of people only serves to drive them further away.
She's scared of confronting her problems, and scared of admitting that she might be a little messed up, even if deep down she sort of knows it. Instead of going to her parents or a counselor/therapist for help dealing with her trauma, she shut herself off from the rest of the world, Her unwillingness to let other people help her, even a little, was what ultimately contributed to her death. But after the death of most of the people she held dear, she realized just how hopelessly socially awkward she was, and that the only friends she would likely have in her life were gone forever.
Despite being curious and a bit enamored with the idea of sex and human anatomy, she's simultaneously repulsed by it. Part of the former is that she's a teenager, so she's naturally going to have these hormones coursing through her. But she still dislikes other people, and while the idea of sex itself doesn't faze her, the idea of getting up close and personal with another human being does. These two conflicting feelings mean that sex shows up in her dreams in horrible, morbid ways: uteruses with eyes all over the walls, sperm everywhere on the floors, and cutesy phallic pillars that get excited when they rub up on stair rails. Ew.
So. Not exactly a people person. What makes her playable?
She loves the strange and morbid in the world, and has a natural affinity for everything that is very obviously outside of the norm. This means that in Somarium she'd be very drawn to any obvious non-humans (for example: the My Little Pony cast, or Homestuck trolls/carapaces), even going to far as to risk social interaction to get a closer look. Apart from that, Madotsuki is curious and adventurous to the extreme, always eager to explore. The many locations of Somarium will give her more than enough for that.
Despite her introversion, prickly attitude, poor self-esteem and bundle of issues, Madotsuki does have a bit of a fun side to her. Apart from her prowess at video games, she also has dreams of becoming a musician. Her best friend before shit hit the fan was her piano teacher, she plays the flute, and whenever she can get her hands on one, she likes to dick around on the kalimba, even if she hasn't exactly mastered it yet. She also loves Aztec-inspired design motifs, having the Rave Monkeys turn up everywhere in her dreams and a lovely patterned rug in her room. It's possible that if she didn't kill herself and got help, she would have grown up to be some sort of artist.
[Abilities]
Madotsuki doesn't have any sort of exceptional ability in her usual life. She is, however, very gifted in terms of lucid dreaming--she maintains full consciousness in her dreams, can explore at her own will, and can to some extent determine what actions she takes.There are also a number of effects Madotsuki makes use of while in her dreamworld. Many of these are completely useless unless she wants to change her appearance, but a few stand out:
- Medamaude: Apart from her trademark knife, this is probably the one ability Madotsuki calls upon the most. Her head becomes a giant hand with a single eye in its palm, and she can use this to teleport herself to the starting location of a dream if she gets stuck.
- Cat: Madotsuki becomes a catgirl, with ears and a tail. She can try to use her cute new form to lure people closer to her.
- Stoplight: Madotsuki's body becomes a traffic light. She can use this to temporarily immobilize people.
- Yuki-Onna: Madotsuki becomes Yuki-Onna. She can use her ability to make it snow.
- Umbrella: Madotsuki carries around a red umbrella. She can use this ability to make it rain.
- Triangle Kerchief: Madotsuki wears a triangle kerchief, a symbol of death in Japanese culture. This makes her invisible to anyone else in her dreams, unless she interacts with them directly.
- Midget: Madotsuki becomes tiny. She can use her newfound smallness to explore small places, or duplicate herself up to seven times.
- Bicycle: Madotsuki rides a bicycle!
- Knife: Her signature ability/weapon. Madotsuki wields a kitchen knife, which she uses to stab. EVERYONE.
- Lamp: Madotsuki's head becomes a lamp. She can use this to light dark areas.
[Other important stuff] I'm nerfing her! As to the above abilities: I realize the potential for powerplaying here, so Madotsuki's effects work only in dream posts and logs. Regular posts and logs will have her just be a normal person.
If there is a bicycle or a knife available for her in the "waking" world, however, she'll still be able to use them. But not conjure them out of nowhere or anything. Also, her knife-wielding skills in the real world vs. the dream world are quite different. Whereas in the dream world she is a lean, mean, stabbing machine, in the real world she just kind of flails around indiscriminately and ends up looking like a tool.
She is still good at video games in the waking world.
One ability Madotsuki had in canon that she is losing COMPLETELY for the sake of this game is the ability to pinch herself awake while dreaming. This would have enabled her to cut off dream posts and logs whenever she ICly wanted, as well as just leave Somarium entirely (which she is going to want to do at first). So I figured that instead of dealing with the potential game-breaking complications, I'd just take it away.
[Sample post]
[First Person]
[See a teenage, slightly chubby girl with dark pigtails on the screen. See her pinching her cheek over and over again, obviously trying to see if something happens.]
Okay, I'll bite. They told me I could talk to you guys through this thing. I'm not about to ask any questions in this shithole, so I think I'm stuck.
[She reaches for her cheek again, pinching it once more before giving up.]
Anyone know why I had to turn up here, of all places? I'm still pretty convinced that you're all fake, but hey. Guess talking into this thing they gave me couldn't hurt. Hell, maybe I might even be able to find a way out of here, if this place wants to give me a challenge.
So let's try this: Has anyone seen a door?
[Third Person]
God damn it, she was going to the house with the blood in the window, no questions about it. The hotel and the nicer houses looked too recent, too populated. Would she want to deal with the thought of someone else staring at her as she broke in? Would she want their eyes meeting hers, as they opened their mouth and dared, of all thinks, to actually speak to her?
No. No she did not.
Breaking the door open to the abandoned house was easy enough, but she kept her knife at the ready just in case. If her rounds with going to new places in her dreams were any indication, she'd probably need it.
Or perhaps...what if one of the bird-girls had elected to show up, instead? Stabbing one of them wouldn't work, especially if she didn't want to get trapped again. She put the knife away, instead opting for her trusty kerchief and wrapping it straightway around her forehead.
Well, here goes nothing...
Nothing. No bird girls, no humans, not even a shitty light she could flip on and off to see if she could find her despair. Madotsuki was beginning to get a little disappointed. What the hell kind of dreamworld was she in that not even her usual monsters bothered to show up? Why couldn't she get back to the Nexus from this Somarium shithole? There were questions that were still unanswered, and that didn't sit well with her.
A frown on her face, she brought her knife back out and stabbed a nearby piece of wall. It bled.
[Why do you want to play this character in Somarium?] Somarium is a world of dreams. In Yume Nikki, the entire point of the game is to go to sleep, then get Madotsuki to explore the various parts of her dream world. It would be really difficult to play Madotsuki in most other places since she has a problem being social and interacting with real people (and thus would be impossible to get CR ICly), but a setting like Somarium is a good fit for her since it's in somewhat familiar territory.
[Which rule was your favorite and why?] Once again, no pregnancies, only because I find them bothersome to play and overused as a plot device.
[Where did you hear about Somarium?] Some people on my Plurklist were in the game.
[Do you need a promo code?] Nope!
[Any questions?] There's no freaky bird girls in Somarium are there?
