I found my post. I wrote:

maybe mono ri could be a statuette that has a gem that's imbued by both shinwa and maleria. Instead of trying to neutralize the magic from the two goddesses mono ri can be an offering to either goddess, or a visual demonstration of unity amidst contention so that it doesn't implicate whichever one is 'good' or 'bad'

would be much more interesting than what's in the subetapedia, imo. perhaps subetans past tried to steal/destroy/whatever the gem and for the safety of the gem itself (since it encompasses day and night) it was imbedded into a statuette/something so that respects can be evenly displayed

could still keep the background lore of goddess fights but not bring a human conduit into it? i'm just thinking from a DM perspective.

as someone with DID, a name change for the split personalities achievement would be much appreciated c: there are plenty of ways to portray two beings in one body without it nodding to or being DID, and i think mono ri has a very good foundation to being that! id rather see their separation be played up in every aspect than attach an outdated and commonly derogatory term to them (split personalities). i don’t know much about mono ri lore but i do hope for the future if they’re delved into it’s proofread by sensitivity readers— i’m sure many people would appreciate the thought and effort put into staying appropriate and inoffensive!

(which is a big reason i love subeta- i know many outdated terms have been used a bunch, and i’m glad to see staff and keith taking feedback from effected groups and displaying learning and growth! with how extensive the site is i know it would be nearly impossible to keep everything up to modern vocab standards, so again i’m glad staff takes stuff like this seriously ;u; )

How about Darkness, Darkness for Mori's quest achievement? and something like Oh Sunny Day or Here Comes The Sun for Nori?

i don't have DID, so i'll simply say i support the opinions of those with it in favor of the change. it definitely needs to be fixed, and pretty much all the suggestions for alternate achievement titles are really good.

for lore-related things, i really like the suggestion of Mori and Nori being more like spirits or natural embodiments of day and night that favor one goddess over the other. their lore as it stands has always seemed a little unnecessarily convoluted to me, and their ties to Shinwa and Maleria in their lore entries are implied to be strong... but only on their end.

i don't think any of Maleria's items reference that she has ( or even wanted ) a daughter, and Shinwa is apparently too busy losing her bracelet to do anything else about them, given it's implied Nori didn't have any friends before Emma, not even the goddess that supposedly is helping her keep Mori at bay. i know there's only so much you can do between quest NPCs, but it feels like the goddesses that are supposed to be invested in this important struggle don't care at all. ( it's also strange some of Mori's items imply she has never been to / doesn't know Darkside is a real place even though they have native Darkside flora growing in their garden and are stated to travel to other lands together? )

taking out the cursed human baby aspect would probably be a fantastic way to shore up some of the oddities in their lore and move away from insensitive implications. something like what suggested would be very cool imo. maybe they're two spirits sharing a gem or something instead of two people sharing the same body, and since one favors Maleria and the other favors Shinwa, a neutral statue or shrine ( a monolith? ) is housing it to keep either side from getting upset about unfair treatment or portrayal. naturally the day spirit is stronger during the day and can manifest herself then for quests/offerings to benefit Shinwa, and likewise for Maleria and the night spirit. just looking at their quest shop items in a vacuum already makes them seem like this sort of character, since there's a ton of emphasis on day/night and nature.

yes!!! this is exactly what i was trying to articulate, plus damn the wordsmith on MoNolith is gorgeous. a place with an open air roof, to let in both deities respected elements ( day and night) a neutral ground that could harken back to the shinwa/maleria feud but is more now used as a grounds for equal respect! plus yeah cursed baby is not ... not good.

My suggestions for the achievement title from the last thread were:

"Light or Darkness" "Sister sister" "Day or Night"

But depending on how the lore changes, something that fits the new lore might work better!

I definitely agree with removing the "cursed human baby" aspect, Saarebas brought up some very interesting points about how it doesn't even really fit into the lore with the other goddesses. I think that leaning into the day/night aspect rather than a good vs evil thing could be fun... the conflict between Mori and Nori has interesting possibilities but that would be rooted in one has to triumph over the other and thats not really how the world works, even if its good and evil, things are never just black and white like that.

Maybe something like the goddesses of Darkness and Light share a temple, and each can only appear during their respective hours. They used to be at odds, each trying to sabotage the other to get more time, but over time realized that they were both needed, and eventually began to understand each other and find the value in each other. This could also make for fun lore if there's stuff like an eclipse where they both get to be at the temple and can actually meet face to face or something.

No sure if that would completely change the tone of the quests/npcs but i thought it sounded more interesting/layered to me than good vs bad eternal conflict

Supporting changes for this!

If we ever get the achievement back for doing both quest types, I'd love to see maybe another title for that too:

"____ is a Light in the Darkness."

I LOVE that idea for a title; maybe even something like "Shining Light" or "Covered in Darkness" could work too - possibilities are endless

haha, i'm glad you liked it! i was worried abt just repeating what you said but man i love your idea so much. ( and once i thought of that joke i had to post it lmao )

this is also such a cool idea!!! like what i wouldn't give for a Mori and Nori revamp with a little eclipse mini-plot like this that introduces you to both of them while introducing them to each other for the first time in like a hundred years ( or possibly for the first time ever?? )

i agree too that the whole good vs evil thing is a pretty tired trope that lacks a lot of nuance, and it really holds them both back as characters so much. i had like a whole paragraph written up about this but i'm trying so hard not to go ham in this thread lmao. it would wind up taking a lot more work on them for changes like this, but honestly i think they could really use a full rework. they really do have so much potential if we can take the focus off the whole good and evil thing and build them each up as their own unique characters.

Taking a step back from the specific case of Mori/Nori and looking through a wider lens, am I the only one who sees it as merely performative to update an NPC 'for sensitivity' on a site where we can feed feces and rotting body parts to animals, zap them into mutants, and then make them go into battle?

i don't find it performative at all, because none of those things are comparable. feeding your neon green swamp monster on Subeta a poop burger or earwax candy generally doesn't impact how other people see or think about you, because it's a petsite for one, this kind of thing is usually expected, and two, you have a choice to also not do any of those things you listed here. they're entirely avoidable actions, all grounded entirely in fantasy. in reality we can't hop over to the local mad scientist's lab and zap our dog with a laser beam to change their species, then make them fight a giant mechanical dragon.

like we could discuss the morality of doing this to our fictional pets ( and i think that has happened on here before, especially with the gross foods ), but at the end of the day, it's cartoon level antics with no real world impact or application. the use of demonstrably harmful language is a different matter entirely, and this wouldn't be the first time Subeta changed something based on feedback relating to sensitivity of an issue. if we have room to make something better and less grounded in outdated language or harmful stereotypes, it feels like a change worth making. and considering people have said they'd like to have something fixed, opening up room to discuss a change isn't performative, it's listening to people impacted by an issue and taking their experiences into consideration.

sure are! it’s not performative to grow and learn!

if subeta can change drills from saying the word pansy, then i don't think getting rid of something thats derogatory for disocciative disorders is performative. it's called stepping forward and being aware that past actions are now no longer as widely accepted.

I get the split personality thing, but the cursed baby part I'm still unclear on why it's bad.

I thought it might've been inspired by Sleeping Beauty, who was cursed as a baby in the fairy tale.

And honestly, while a revamp is a good idea, I think what people are suggesting currently might conflict with continuity too much. The most change Liara got was a species change; she still kept her bitterness against Shinwa that her pre-revamp self had.

Either have Mori stop being an evil character while still having fondness for the night, or start brainstorming how the opposing goddesses are dealing with Mono Ri's situation.

The story goes that none other than the dark goddess, Maleria, brought Mono's parents together for a purpose. Desiring a daughter of her own, Maleria cursed a human couple into bearing a child on her behalf, the ultimate consequence of which was their death and destruction when the child had manifested her power and rejoined her true mother.

I dunno about you, but divine ill will on a child and parents is weird.

Also, why don't you give some of your ideas, then? I don't mean that in an angry/mean/dismissive way, I'm just wondering why you pinged me when you could be brainstorming yourself.

I look forward to your ideas!

honestly, what we have now conflicts continuity imo. the core aspects of Mori and Nori are fine ( two NPCs on opposing sides of a conflict between Shinwa and Maleria, wanting to further their own goals, forced to share a specific space and compete with each other, opposing day / night theming ), but the way they're tied to the goddesses by lore doesn't make a lot of sense.

this is all my opinion though!! i realize i just wrote an entire essay but i promise i'm just very interested in the Mono Ri lore lmao. i think they have so much untapped potential and if we have an opportunity to explore it, i definitely want to.

Oh yeah, that part is messed up.

My best guess? Mori defying Maleria's wishes despite supposedly being created as the perfect evil daughter. Sure Mori likes to be mischievous from time to time, but she's found fulfillment in other things now.

Maybe Maleria just...likes the challenge of creating an evil being from scratch? Since darkmatter pets can technically turn good again if their color is changed. And many people own darkmatter pets/ darkmatter itself and have generally avoided disaster.

Edit: MAYBE retcon the parents not knowing and maybe they tried to be away from Mono on her 18th birthday. But Maleria somehow guided Mono to where the parents were and kill them. Or Maleria FIBBED about the parents dying; they were moved to an unknown location when Mono turned 18.

I feel, if there has to be a human element to the Mori/Nori situation, that it might be best handles with making Mono Ri a sorceress/priestess deliberately channeling both deities to appease them. Basically, a living 'get-along-shirt' who isn't for or against anything and is simply a conduit for both to feel heard/seen.

One who has lived with it for a while since, i don't know why, but the idea of a younger child struggling with a pretty intense deity fight makes me uncomfortable, since brains haven't matured and it's an odd form of torture essentially for her doing basically nothing but living?