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theradicalace · 2 years

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here’s some rambling about alex and penny, under the cut (bc it’s long)

i’ve got a lot of thoughts about alex and penny, and their character arcs......

firstly, it’s really interesting to me how different alex and penny’s relationships to alcohol are despite both of them having very rough pasts involving it. both of them have or had an alcoholic parent, with alex’s father being explicitly verbally abusive, while pam seems to be more neglectful than anything, with only brief episodes of verbal abuse.

that’s not to say that either one of them has it “better” or “worse” than the other, not at all. it just makes it fascinating to me that while penny outright hates every alcoholic beverage the game has, alex likes all of them.

as a game mechanic, this can probably be written off as just... an oversight. but in universe, it makes me wonder. what kind of work has alex done to process his past? is it the difference between alex’s experience with alcohol mostly being in the past, while penny’s is ongoing? how long did it take for alex to be okay with alcohol after everything?

i think alex is very easy to write off as “haha dumb shallow jock, himbo energy”, but when you’ve seen his heart events, there’s definitely more to him. almost identically, i think penny is very easy to write off as "quiet housewife, let’s save her from her mom”, but if you stop and examine her, there’s more to her too.

i think alex is very much a testament to the possibility of healing, and the fact that a person’s past doesn’t ever have to define them. like i said earlier, his father was explicitly verbally abusive and alcoholic, which you learn in one of his early heart events. concernedape could have easily written alex as a “cycle of abuse” story and made him just as bad as his father, or sent him down the shane route, but that’s not what happened. despite his past, alex has so much drive in him. sure, he settles once you marry him for game mechanic reasons, but before that, he’s dedicated to going pro, determined to become an expert at what he does, just the same as many of the other characters in the game, it’s just easy to brush it off because it’s sportsball. and like i also mentioned, there’s the fact that he likes all the alcoholic drinks, despite his past with them. his entire character exists in opposition to his past.

on the flipside, i think penny is a testament to the fact that while healing is possible, you can’t do it while you’re still in the environment that traumatized you. penny does her absolute best at all times, of course, but there’s only so much she can do still living at home. she’s kind, she tutors the children, but the bulk of her growth does still happen after she moves out. before you marry her, she has dialogue like “i can’t wait to move out.” and “i wish i could live in a nice house someday”, and she has a LOT of dialogue about taking care of her mother, or just relating to pam in some way or another. after you marry her, though, she only has two lines of dialogue about her mother, and both of them acknowledge that she’s moved on, and she isn’t revolving her life around her mom anymore. she has a few different lines about how she hated the life she had before, and how things are better now. all around, she’s leagues happier after you marry her. while it’s sort of upsetting that the bulk of her growth hinges on the marriage specifically (and i could say that about any of the characters), it does seem like moving out was the catalyst for her healing. once she got away from the environment that was the source of her trauma, she was able to flourish.

it’s very interesting how different their character arcs and relationships to healing are, despite theoretically having very similar backstories. trouble with alcohol, a parent who left, parental abuse/neglect, the bones of their stories definitely have strong parallels, but they ended up on such different paths regardless.

idk, this game and its characters just have a lot of depth to them that i think even the fans don’t always see!!

#this was literally only gonna be the bit about them having alcohol as liked vs hated gifts at first what happened.......#ace rambles #stardew valley

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arodrwho · 5 years

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tfw u have very clear plans for how you’re going to spend your fucking evening, arranged according to your stupid fucking Rules that you have set yourself, and then your siblings come along & smash your plans to bits because tonight for some reason they want to watch some sportsball game in the living room and your stupid fucking rules say that you can’t follow through on your plans unless the living room is empty or at least Quiet, and usually it would be at this time of night but because your siblings decided they wanted to watch a sportsball game the living room is not empty & so u have to Wait & u don’t know how long you’re going to have to wait so it just makes you very very very fucking angry and you keysmash so hard u hurt ur fingers & u probably should regret it but u don’t bc the alternative there was biting your own fucking arm, so, you know. lesser of two fucking evils, there.

and to cap it all your siblings keep on fucKING pausing the tv intermittently so u keep thinking they’re finally fucking DONE bc the sound keeps stopping, but no, it always just goes again & ur stuck Again w/the knowledge that u have to KEEP delaying ur plans for an undetermined amount of time all bc ur siblings can’t just cooperate with Your Dumb Rules That They Don’t Know About, and How Dare They, it’s So Unfair that they want to Watch A Thing That They Enjoy, why can’t they just go back to their room and be Bored & Miserable Instead

#daypost #'Why Am I Like This' i scream at the heavens #'It's The Autism' the heavens shout back

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