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theamberfang · 4 years

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NitW: Day 10 [part 1]

Preface

I meant to work on this yesterday, but my anxious-perfectionism struck again and had me making a huge deal about moving into totally fresh content, especially when I’m still getting back into the swing of things after NaNoWriMo.

It also doesn’t help that I’ve recently been using Typing Club to correct some of my bad touch-typing habits. (For example, moving my whole right hand over, off the home row, pressing shift with my right pinky and using my right middle/ring fingers to type a colon or quotation mark; I have a lot of these sorts of habits that lead to all kinds of errors.) It’s not super relevant: just another thing for me to worry about being perfect over.

I managed to get over my anxiety by allowing myself to just play the game without committing to writing about it. It felt really good once I was back into it though and that left me feeling up to actually writing, so that’s nice.

Oh, and one more thing is that I’m changing the tag for these posts to “nitw playthrough.” I might get around to changing the tags of older posts soon; I think there’s a feature for that somewhere. I’d also still like to transpose everything into a separate document as well, but that would probably take significantly more effort.

Rough Morning

After having an existential crisis for a dream, I figured that Mae wasn’t feeling too well this “morning”—she hasn’t felt great after all of her dreams really, but I figure this one is more so. It’s a bit unfortunate that the aesthetic style doesn’t lend to portraying that kind of thing (unless it totally does and there are small details I’ve been missing.)

Much as I do myself, the first thing Mae does after waking is check her computer. The news turnip says something about a big tech company wanting to buy the postal service; I feel like that’s something that Amazon would totally be up for, and I don’t like the thought.

Bea and Gregg left messages letting Mae know that they’ll be at their respective jobs. Bea notices how silly it is to write “if you’ll be at the town center” because Mae heads there literally every day. Gregg wants Mae to help with his boredom, so I predict some light bulb smashing; I’ll try my best to avoid it when Gregg throws stuff at Mae.

I also checked out the guitar to try practicing something. I selected “Pumpkin Head Guy” because I recalled it being the newest one, so I’ve probably played it the least out of all of them. It was a mistake. It’s way too hard when I’ve been away from the game for so long. At this point, I remembered that I did really poorly before when I had a bit of practice with the rhythm minigame; I did way worse today. I didn’t even bother to finish and hit Esc to get out of it. Let’s just say I was roleplaying how poorly Mae would do in her current state. Yeah, that’s it.

Heading down, Mae didn’t have anything to say regarding the family portrait or the grandfather clock. I did decide to check out the crawlspace, and there was nothing there either. I also decide to flip through Mae’s journal since it’s been awhile since I actually played through much of the story. I appreciate how simple it is; it makes journaling seem very approachable—fun even!

Mae does have something to say to the bird though. She says that she can now relate to being trapped. I recall making this sort of comparison before: something about Mae feeling trapped and constrained by society’s expectations for her. She even considers letting the bird free, but decides against it. That’s fair, since the bird isn’t her pet alone—if she even considers it to be her pet at all. Also, it probably wouldn’t last in the wild if it had lived it’s whole life as a pet, but I suppose letting it out into the house wouldn’t be the worst; again, still not something she should do on a whim though.

Down in the kitchen, Mom notices that Mae isn’t looking too well. Mae explains that every morning has been like this, and Mom jumps to the conclusion that Mae might be pregnant. It would explain why Mae dropped out of school and why she hasn’t wanted to talk about it. Mae tries to say that that isn’t it, but her mom is really excited by the idea and makes sure that Mae understands that she can definitely talk about it. She’s practically hoping that Mae is pregnant.

Coming right after Mae saying she relates to their bird being trapped in a cage, I wonder if this juxtaposition is meaningful. This does seem to be the sort of social expectation that Mae could feel caged in by—along with things like needing to get a degree, then a job, and being a “proper” adult.

Thus far, Mae has only expressed displeasure over a past relationship with a guy. She really doesn’t seem interested in that sort of thing right now, let alone pregnancy. Considering the negative association thus far with a heterosexual relationship—and the positive one for a homosexual one through Gregg and Angus—I kind of wonder if Mae would also fall somewhere under the LGBTQA+ umbrella.

After a bit of talk about babies and names, Mae makes her way out of the house.

A Time of Quiet

If I recall correctly, yesterday was the first day that the rightward construction had finished, allowing access to the edge of town. I recall missing a line or two regarding the city-limits sign. I don’t expect to get those lines back, but I figure I can see if anything new ever shows up out here.

It turns out that Mae doesn’t have anything to say, but I do spend a minute or two just sitting on the bridge, appreciating the quiet moment. I have a small hope that something might happen if I sit long enough, but I also appreciate that the game just lets you do something like this: just sitting. A reward of some kind would probably just spoil the moment.

There’s something to getting into the mindset of someone sitting on the railing of a bridge, alone, away from the hustle-and-bustle, just... being there. The way the camera zooms out a bit reminds me of how much open space there is outside of Possum Springs. It’s a big world, and we’re only seeing this tiny slice of it, from the perspective of a single young woman.

She’s also someone struggling with some sort of mental health issues; it’s been vague thus far, but there are some anger problems, some depression, and some anxiety. It would be somewhat concerning to see someone like Mae precariously hanging off the edge of a bridge—in a way, the edge between life and death. Though, Mae seems perfectly capable of landing from great heights, so maybe it actually isn’t scary at all for her. Still, putting myself in her shoes, in that moment, it’s what I would be thinking about.

Back to Town

Heading back leftwards, Mae quickly makes it through her neighborhood—none of her immediate neighbors have been around to talk to lately. Not that I think there’s anything significant about that right now—just an observation.

On the next block, Selmers notices that Mae is looking a bit down. She even cheers Mae up with a couple of uplifting poems, and I loved it. Selmers is a great friend, and I love her.

Selmers also reminds Mae that Mr. Chazokov is up on the roof. Mae asks if he’s ever dropped his telescope, and Selmers says that he would be devastated if that happened; he loves that thing more than his own kid. Mae is surprised to hear that Mr. Chazokov has a kid, and Selmers describes him as a hot professor. Mae’s shipping radar turns on, but Selmers says that he wouldn’t be interested in someone like her. Mae seems about ready to say otherwise, but stops short—perhaps not wanting to be nosy. Maybe it’ll come up again and Mae can help bring up Selmers’s confidence.

Oh, and Selmers mentioned something about Millers, the bar that has the pair of Smelters fans out front, has karaoke a couple nights a week. I wonder if that’ll be a thing soon—maybe after these adventures with each of Mae’s friends.

Other than Mr. Chazokov on the roof, the only other person to talk to on the block is the porch guy. Again, he doesn’t try to shoo Mae away. Instead, he says that he can feel some bad weather coming. Ominous. If I recall correctly, it was a storm that messed up the stairs leading up to the church. I wonder if something big might happen.

Dusk Stars

After a bit of Mae’s usual hardcore parkour, she meets up with Mr. Chazokov up on the roof. Like Selmers, he quickly notices that Mae doesn’t look too well—maybe it really just is obvious today. I imagine her friends will pick up on it too.

Anyway, Mae and Mr. Chazokov quickly get to looking for dusk stars. From the transition, it seems like Mae forgot about the filter again, burning her eyes. Neither of the two say anything about it though, so I guess they’ve just accepted that this is how they do things. Mae excitedly looks into the telescope, burning her eyes, and Mr. Chazokov quickly gets the filter on.

The first one Mae spots is Kol. Apparently he came from a flat land, like the American Midwest, but not necessarily in America—and everywhere probably has a Midwest, the pair agree. Coming from such a flat land, Kol dreamed of climbing mountains. Mr. Chazokov says it’s because everyone desires things that can only be found away from home, and asks if Mae agrees.

I actually thought about my answer, and decided to agree. Mae reflected on how people tend to move into the city, where there’s stuff to do that isn’t in Possum Springs. I’m reminded of how Gregg and Angus want to move away to Bright Harbor. There’s also all of the people that occasionally come to visit home, after having moved elsewhere.

Mr. Chazokov goes on to explain how after climbing so high, the sky and stars weighed heavily on Kol. I’ll be honest and say I didn’t understand—or didn’t pay close enough attention—to Mr. Chazokov’s explanation of this part, nor much of the pairs conversation regarding it. I may have still been too caught up in the previous section when I moved on.

I do recall the pair talking about how Mr. Chazokov is happy about having come to Possum Springs though. And that how someone who has moved to a place and find value there that the people who have lived their lives there might be blind to. Somehow, he’s simultaneously advocating for someone to travel and see what’s out there in the world, but also to look at home with fresh eyes and to be grateful for things one may have taken for granted.

(Okay, I’m petering out now, but I’m almost caught up to where I had ended, so I’ll try to keep going.)

The second dusk star today was Adina Astra, one that Mae recognized. I feel like I’m forgetting part of her story, but she ended up heading deep underground, never to be seen again. If I’m not forgetting anything, I guess many of her adventures of skipped over because Mae is familiar with them already—she does indicate that she was into Adina’s many stories when she was younger.

When Mr. Chazokov describes the end of Adina Astra’s story as being sad, Mae seems to be dismissive of the notion, saying, “Whatever.” To that, Mr. Chazokov asks if she thinks it is sad. Again, I thought quite a bit about this answer. One was to agree that it is sad because Adina probably died down in the earth, and the other disagrees, saying that dying and disappearing aren’t the same thing. I chose the latter, and Mae explained that Adina probably went on having more adventures: just because we stop hearing about someone doesn’t mean that they stop living. I quite liked Mae’s take, and I’m happy at having picked it; it was the one that sounded like it would have the more interesting answer.

That’s where I ended things for now. I think I did pretty well, despite all of my perfectionist worries.

#nitw playthrough #nitw

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