Absolute Posty @cactussacrifice - Tumblr Blog

What’s up!

Heya, I’m cactussacrifice (or, by the main, @centertheatre), but feel free to call me whatever. Welcome to this previously Forsaken-dedicated, and now, general roblox-dedicated sideblog — For I’ve got to put up what my head makes of these character concepts! Self-explanatory, I’ll be drawing and talking about things on here.

Expect things surrounding the Hangout Game series and Forsaken (although not as actively) when it comes to specific games. I go by she/they, to note. Have fun, and feel free to ask me whatever via the ask box! I also have a strawpage.

(Note that I do not support Roblox as a corporation, I solely take interest in the fiction that stems from the platform :’)!)

#blog intro #pinned post #blog introduction #side blog #yahoo!#extra extra reminder not to support forsaken (centrally in regard to monetary support - but anything substantial counts)!

So, the Crossroads Redux castings (and thus, although indirectly confirmed, characters that’ll end up appearing)? Hello?

#COLOUR ME A WHOLE LOT MORE EXCITED FOR THE CROSSROADS REDUX!#i’ve been so curious about amelia’s integration considering her introduction not being as relevant in anhg..#i’m so excited to see when her time to shine arrives - and especially so if it comes up in crossroads!#i also just adore that they’re giving us more character interpretations considering how worldbuilding-driven crossroads is #the hangout series has always been a ‘Big Lore’-adjacent game with its story - and still is - of course #but i loved how they pulled off the more personal and character-driven angle they took during points in anhg #and i am evidently looking forward to seeing what they do with these lot and how they’re going to tie the characterisation into the ‘lore’#aspect of the game!#rambles

underground-hangout-headcanons

Consider. He/she pronouns for the Postman (once she’s given ample time and situ to contemplate identity and presentation..)

- anon’s exploding gun

yes

#awh yeah #(reblogging this one here for evident reasons)#postman a nostalgic hangout #reblog

Thinking about what the Postman’s taste in games would look like in a departure hypothetical. Initially it’d likely be aligned with games that centre things like action, horror, things that revolve around the player picking up a new style of gameplay and/or general niche skill in a fast-paced manner. New in the sense of chucking you at things without giving you time to ease into them.. Y’know?

Social games would take time to get used to. He has a lot of development due in regard to interacting with others and getting in touch with the intrinsic want to (remember, his familiar talking style and general welcoming nature with the Player is primarily driven by external motivation, being programmed to go about things like this and fearing breaking the game and/or deletion due to divergence, and it has been this way with every external presence for practically all his existence! Being free to socialise is evidently going to take him time to be accustomed to, as will being free to develop taste and identity).

Of course though, eventually, when the heavy lifting in regard to development is gotten through, I think she’d like sandbox games. I don’t think she’ll let go of her initial love for fast-paced games, of course, she’d like to pick one up from time-to-time and give it a go every now and then, but I think the unique aspect of customisation in the average sandbox game would be something she’d like a lot.

#i should dedicate a tag to considering postman leaving anhg to be honest #especially considering my headcanon overlap..#whatever the case!#i feel like she experiments a lot with building..#massive pattern enjoyer when it comes to constructions. the walls and floors are always lined or checkered or designed in some sense #come to think of it. roleplay games also play into the creative aspect.#beginning very hesitant with them - of course - due to not even having pondered the way he views and understands himself #let alone another identity to adopt for fun’s sake #but after this stage?#he may just come around. potentially.#a nostalgic hangout game #postman a nostalgic hangout #rambles

I’m sorry, I know SMILE’s wiki page is mostly siphoned from that of the original myth’s, but I find his listed hobbies really funny.

#it’s so comedically evil - i’m honestly a big fan #sits in a room with 30 minutes on me. do i: plot the demise of the metaverse based in the internet i exist in - or kill a man #(<- read as ‘plotting to destroy the internet’ and ‘terminating accounts’)#a nostalgic hangout game #smile a nostalgic hangout #rambles

I’m going to be honest, I’m very mixed about the rule 14 content regulation statement. On the former, yes, I very much get why Seeker objects to suggestive content, considering he’s just recently changed the trilogy’s titles to make the game more accessible (as in, getting rid of the 13+ age rating), but on the latter, shipping?

I’ve always seen shipping as a means of appreciating the characters through looking at their qualities within a relationship with another, to both introspect on how their characteristics would bleed into one and relate to or project onto them. It’s an aspect of fandom that really means a lot to me, to look at characters who’ve never interacted and ponder how they’d do as close friends, to look at characters who are close and wonder how they’d fare in a relationship familial, romantic, or otherwise labellable.

This especially goes for Roblox, considering the fanbase are, well, young or inexperienced with fandom, you get shipping treated as some intensely guilty and embarrassing thing to engage in or just see people go wild with it because they’re venturing into the idea of reading into characters outside of the canon for the first time. Shipping is the only context I’ve seen people analyse characters in (when it comes to roblox), after all! It fosters interest in characters through their dynamics. There’s a reason people who enjoy a character tend to pair them up so much, and it’s to analyse and understand them in a context canon doesn’t, get to know them better as a character, have more fun with the concept of them.

And ANHG, a series already scarce in any readings into characters as individuals due to the extensive worldbuilding and all the fuel for theorising on it, will just never have that. And that makes me really disappointed. It’s evident from what I talk about that I love analysing characters on their own, and while I don’t dabble in much shipping in this regard, it’s evident there are people who do, as I’d just described. It’s. I dunno, it’s a tad tragic, but I do understand Seeker here.

#i’m not getting as affected by this considering i’m not much of an active shipper in these parts but #there’s absolutely people more insightful then i am who tend to veer into romance or canon divergence in a dynamic #and they’ll just. never have a platform lest this isn’t enforced #it’s a tad tragic is all #a nostalgic hangout game #rambles

So what if the Player expressed to the Postman that they cared or something. What if they, after this bond got a minute to develop and a subtle nudge or two at Player’s idea of it, brought the ‘I care for you as one would and I imagine you reciprocate that’ upon him.

No, seriously, that’d just shatter his tether to the game from the ‘it’s all I have’ perspective. He’s been told straight-up that he has Player. That Player has him as a friend and as one that can always reciprocate that, for they’re at the ready for him as one as well. They’ve got him, and he’s got them. He has the game as he has Player. If he’s to uproot himself as a plant in the garden that is the game, they can repot him, and they will, because they care, and they have him as he has them.

#hhhhhhh #gosh if only smile let them have this..#a nostalgic hangout game #rambles #could be read as #postcredits #considering this’d apply to them establishing a close reciprocal relationship of any sort #but i do imagine it starts ofd as some odd unlabelled third thing #anything more’d kick in when they start considering and unpacking what the game is to postman #and the ‘what about leaving’ conversation. and (not as major but still integral) postman starting to view them as more of an equal #(when i say ‘anything more’ i am referencing any bond you could use a common label for establishing whether it be platonic or romantic)#(close friends included! i think we should consider friendship something that’s ought to also have development invested into it more)

I am the (debatably) biggest fan of this line. Cements the fact that Postman does not solely yearn for physical liberation from Nostalgic Hangout, he also yearns for mental liberation. He wants to feel things that aren’t limited to and/or extensions of his frustration with being stuck here, what’s inherent to his programming (the want to protect the game), or his very yearning to leave. He wants to experience, and also to be and feel, more, and for that he’s ought to be out of this game.

#freeing this one from my drafts. the stargazing scene has changed my brain chemistry i tell you!!#a nostalgic hangout game #postman a nostalgic hangout #rambles

Postman leaves anhg with player and lives her (newly adopted presentation, with time and space to explore both what the world has to offer and what he is and has beyond and aside from the game (read as: identity)) he/she gender-non-conforming life. that’s the good ending.

#life if the postman wasn’t doomed from the start..#(the ‘bad ending’ is the canon by default)#postman a nostalgic hangout #rambles #i’m sorry guys i haven’t moved on from the she/he postman headcanon #again it’s such a given he’d lean gnc in a ‘leaving anhg’ hypothetical considering the way she goes about her being as an npc #and identity aside it’s. agh. she’d get to do so much in the case of being able to leave #explore games and explore herself and how she goes about identity and presentation and independence in general #and relationships that aren’t limited or sacrificed for the sake of the priority that is the game #and she gets to play games and develop tastes of her own and love and hate and feel warmth and the cold and break and let herself be mended #ACK #WHAT COULD’VE BEEN..

I am so on-board the idea of Player genuinely wanting to bring the Postman with them in their escape plan. I am extra on-board with the idea of his presence being an aspect of ANHG that plays into their devotion to SMILE and their idea of a ‘saviour’. It’s centrally because, well, they drew him with SMILE’s expression and trademark strings on their wall. I know that can be easily chalked off as bait for the audience to believe that the postman has some tie to smile or is secretly ‘evil’, but I find what comes with the implications of him being as integral to their ideas of freedom and surrounding being saved as SMILE is very interesting.

#a nostalgic hangout game #player a nostalgic hangout #i love reading into player’s actions and how people talk about them in general #they have virtually no characterisation and are probably supposed to be read as a self-insert #but them as an individual character is so interesting and adds a lot to their deals with smile and the postman #for me - of course!#rambles

“There’s just one feeling in my mind / One that I reckon every time” — Know what, considering this song has been confirmed to be from the Postman’s point of view through the visualiser (as well as what its lyrics are), I’ll just put out my interpretation of what he’s referring to here. He’s talking about yearning.

Yearning for freedom, for being able to leave this game and experience more (‘Trapped in the limelight of a sign’, ‘Counting the stars like you and I’, ‘Why give me eyes and keep me blind? Why give me hands if I can’t climb?’). Yearning for the possibility of having more than the game and thus not having to give up things like the ability to act out of his innate care for the player (‘Cautiously waiting stood in line / Wish we could simply chat and dine’, ‘How many days until we’re fine?’).

#i’m not okay about this. ack. why must things be this way.#a nostalgic hangout game #postman a nostalgic hangout #rambles

cactussacrifice

OH MY GOODNESS THE POSTMAN DOES A LITTLE JIG TO THE MUSIC IN-GAME.

cactussacrifice

#HEAD IN HANDS. MY GOSH #i rushed to make a gif of this when i noticed it #postman a nostalgic hangout

OH MY GOODNESS THE POSTMAN DOES A LITTLE JIG TO THE MUSIC IN-GAME.

#rambles

Actually, the more I think about it, the more fitting Hostess’ “We’re all just plants in someone else’s garden” line gets. That is straight-up the reason why the Postman suffers so much.

The Player trusts him because they believe him to be someone that cares for them and is willing to help them out (or, as it from their perspective, save them), but Postman is not that. Well, he is the caring part, but at the end of the day, he is a plant in someone else’s garden. He’s a plant that sprouts fruit and that fruit is for the Player to eat, as he was programmed to provide.

He provides for the sake of the money the fruit makes (read as: keeping the game alive), and is thus limited, thus cannot afford to make a move that isn’t providing for the sake of sustaining the garden. Yeah, he cares, but he’s limited to caring, the most he can do out of care is his job (likely why he phrases it all as ‘saving’ them and trying to protect them when he can). He’d love to help, he feels very evident guilt for giving doing so up, but he is, at the end of the day, A Plant In Someone Else’s Garden. He is not uprooting himself. He cannot uproot himself. It is all he has as a plant. In someone else’s garden.

#i wouldn’t want the game to break for you. i can’t risk my own game. this game is all i have. or something like that.#a nostalgic hangout game #postman a nostalgic hangout #rambles

Wheeling in a bunch of Postman sketches from the past few days..