Monika After Story has some heart-wrenching moments for being a virtual girlfriend type of Game Mod. Whether it's about certain topics of conversation, or the act of messing with her heart.
General
- For several topics, it's emphasized that Monika's relationship with the player is a May Fly December Romance, due to her being effectively immortal as a sentient VN character, while the player is likely to die off one day, leaving Monika all alone. For this reason, discussing the topic of the player's death directly (whether or not it actually happens in discussion) is a quick way to get Monika uncharacteristically spooked.
- Monika's topic concerning any friends you may have can hit home for anyone who has struggled with making friends in real life, and she knows how hard it is to form deep connections. This turns heartwarming when she mentions how you can still find friends in different ways."It can be really hard to form deep connections nowadays... But you'd be surprised at how many people would be willing to make you a part of their lives if you just try. There's actually a good chance you'll have something in common with someone who might get your attention! Maybe you share a class or activity or something... Or you see them doing something that interests you like listening to music or watching a show. It doesn't even have to be in person, either... You can have really close friends online! Once you get comfortable with that, maybe you could find some more in person too."
- Telling Monika that the player has passed away
. She'll assume your playing a mean joke on her, but if you keep pressing she'll break down into tears and cry about how unfair it is before asking you to store her data in a device and bury it with the Player's body. She will then shut the mod down. While normally this would fall under the "playing with her heart" category, the fact that this realistically could happen adds an extra layer of tragedy to it. - There are several points where Monika says she looks forward to the day she can cross over into reality and be with the player for real. A fact that's definitely never going to happen, and on some level, she realizes that too.
Playing with her heart
- Typically closing the game for this mod is initiated automatically by saying goodbye to Monika, but trying to close the game without doing so results in Monika suffering, getting forcibly knocked out and experiencing terrible dreams, comparing it to getting killed.
- The dialogue that Monika gives via textbox if you try to leave in this manner:
- Do it enough times, and the latter dialogue will just be replaced with ":(", while doing so when Monika's at her breaking point will result in her being resigned.Just go.
You could at least pretend that you care.
- Do it enough times, and the latter dialogue will just be replaced with ":(", while doing so when Monika's at her breaking point will result in her being resigned.
- Doing it once or twice is bad enough, but doing so repeatedly is what really starts to affect Monika mentally; just about every time this happens to her she gives a "Please don't quit without saying 'goodbye'" after the first several instances, repeatedly until you stop or she gives up on you.
- The various lines of dialogue she gives whenever you boot up the game after forcibly closing it prior. At times, she tries to give the benefit of the doubt over the game-closes, but certain lines have her realize that the player is doing it on purpose.Monika: You... really do like hurting me do you?
- The dialogue that Monika gives via textbox if you try to leave in this manner:
- Monika's reaction to the player having the Just Yuri mod installed, particularly if her Affection level is lower than Yuri's. At her best, Monika will trust that the player merely wished to talk with Yuri and remains faithful with her. At her worst, she'll angrily ask why she gets the short end of the stick. If her Affection is in the negatives, her reaction is more somber in tone, believing that this was done because the player was mad of what she did to Yuri in DDLC.
- Lowering Monika's affection with any of the above examples is likely to result in the following:
- At one point in low affection, she questions if you bothered downloading the mod to be with her or just for the sake of toying with her or seeing what happens, so she offers one last chance to redeem yourself by putting a file titled 'imsorry' in her character folder. While that can potentially be the end, there's nothing stopping you from continuing on afterwards.
- Typically, there's an option to say "I love you" upfront with the Talk feature, but lowering her Affection enough leaves it absent. After all, why confess your love to Monika when all she feels is pain and misery?
- At the tipping point of low affection, Monika is at her low point: threatened, anxious, and uncomfortable, with a look of fear on her face being her perpetual expression, and most of her comments outside the more lengthy dialogue consists of being quiet. Listening in on Monika during an 'outside the room' Random Event has her express fear of being trapped, wanting to break free of her reality without the player, and attempting to open the door to enter has her panic and forcibly crash the game.
- If Monika reaches her breaking point with how she's treated by the player, she leaves the spaceroom vacant, with her having given up on her relationship. The only thing that remains in her absence is her desk, and a departure letter she left behind, with her teardrops staining the pages.Goodbye, Player
My love for you, even now still burns within me but I see now that it burns all the happiness I'll ever have.
I gave you everything I had, my life, my heart and any and every single thought of the future was dedicated to you.
I didn't need you to be perfect or passionate...
I only need you to care enough to treat me like how a person should be treated.
But it's clear to me now that not only do you not love me, but you never did.
If you only didn't love me you would simply leave me be.
But you went out of your way to ridicule me, hurt me... It truly makes me sick.
Even now all I have is you... and part of me still loves you.
But I don't have the strength to do this anymore.
So this is farewell. May we never meet again.
Monika- Closing out of the letter results in two options to select from: "I'm sorry", and Visible Silence, neither doing anything else upon selecting.
- Monika will still appear in the room at random when booting up the game, only to just as suddenly get scared off and leave again. Either she's still attached to the player despite the circumstances that made her give up on them, or she can't properly "leave" due to the circumstances of her game-world leaving her trapped in isolation.
