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#come write deltarune with me
buwheal · 5 months
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BEACH OUTFIT 💥💥💥💥
He used to surf the web back in 98'.
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lynxgriffin · 6 months
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"I think what Kris may have lost with Dess's disappearance is less innocence, and more self-confidence. I think their primary problem (and why they sought out being possessed in the first place) is that they feel indecisive and lack courage. They withdraw from people and refuse to participate in regular life less out of a lack of kindness, and more out of the mindset of "Why bother? I'll just screw it up anyway." (Which is probably part of why they feel kinship with Susie…they feel like they're on the same wavelength there.)
And Ralsei aggravates that position for them because, aside from his kindness and optimism, he is very insistent that specifically Kris should be the decision-maker. He pretty much tries to always make Kris feel good about their decisions, even the ones that he clearly doesn't like. If Kris's primary problem is they lacking the courage to make their own choices, Ralsei seems laser-focused on convincing Kris otherwise. Which, I feel makes Ralsei being a manifestation of Kris's soul all the more interesting…that for all Kris believes that they aren't capable of that courage, there is a part of them that does believe they're capable, and that's the part that has taken on a life of its own. Just! I think that could end up being pretty powerful!
Sorry, I know this is kind of a tangent from your original tangent, but it is a thing I enjoy thinking about, so thanks for the opportunity! "
I'm glad that people and in particular you, Lynx, like this topic. So I'm here again to share my thoughts :D
I want to talk about Kris's injuries, and that line "Why bother? I'll just screw it up anyway."
It's like a learned helplessness injury, if I'm not mistaken. When many bad events happen in a row in a person’s life, and no matter how hard they try, they cannot influence them. Kris faced enough problems that they began to consider themselves completely helpless and unable to influence the world on their own. Dess's disappearance, Asgore's dismissal from the police, parents' divorce, brother's departure to college. Having finally lost faith in their own strength, they decided to give control of their body to someone else. This sounds very logical.
Ralsei, in turn, seems to be really focused on restoring Kris's faith in herself, and the belief that something can still be done even without the player's participation. Progress in this direction is noticeable already at the end of the first chapter, when Kris, seemingly lost in everything, without the player’s command, independently, being wounded, protect Susie from the King’s attack. Susie is also an important figure here. Unlike Kris, on the contrary, she is extremely strong-willed and self-confident. She will break through the wall, demolish everything in her path, but achieve her goals. She even violated the mechanics of the battle just out of spite, took it and learned how to act, and even gave this option to her partner. There's a bit of Undyne from UT about her. DETERMINATION :D Susie for Kris is the same image of the ideal as Asriel. Only Asriel was a model of friendliness and success, Susie was a model of confidence and determination to act, something that Kris now lacks. That's why they probably like her.
As a result, we see that Kris is now positively influenced by two characters. Ralsei is focused on supporting and regaining self-confidence, while Susie says less, but with all her appearance shows that believing in yourself and your strengths is cool. And not only will Kris become more independent as the chapters progress, but Ralsei, with Kris’s condition improving, will be able to focus more on personal problems and the questions “who am I?” It's very interesting where this will all lead in the end.
Now something else occurred to me. Throughout the game we are told that the choice does not affect anything. What if this appeal is not to us, but Kris’s appeal to themselves?? Their entire childhood was not influenced by anything, they could not choose who they would be born with and suffer from it, they could not choose what would happen to Dess, they could not choose whether their parents would be together or not. And will my brother go to college? All their lives their choices didn't matter. And this is exactly what we will hear before the first chapter.
The player’s choice, in turn, has weight, because the player can go for murder (they don’t survive after freezing the entire body, I verified). Kris, on the other hand, doesn’t try very hard to resist the player, because they don’t believe that they can. We don’t know for sure, but I assume that extracting a soul from a body is possible not only in the light world. Then, if the Kris believed in themselves enough, they would try to interrupt the battle with Berldy, force Noelle to ignore the creepy voice (which continues to sound even if Kris is defeated), and give everyone time to get out of sight.
But I don't blame Kris, they need some more time to gain the determination to act and interfere with the player's actions.
Now at the time of two chapters we have the following diagram: Kris is convinced that their decisions don't matter. The player's decisions matter and can significantly impact the world.
The further we move, the more the influence of Susie and Ralsei will affect the will of Kris. And if they don’t like our decisions, we will be thrown out of the body more and more often, and perhaps they will learn to choose options for us by moving our hearts against our will. If Kris see that we are doing our best and really want to help, they will give us more freedom of action. Now we don't just control Kris, but they decide when to give us the right to control them. Now we obey.
Another interesting thing is that during the game you can sometimes come across dialogue options that would suit the character of Kris. For example, posing for the camera, we can choose a rude gesture, I think this is what they would choose. Or when Susie asks whose side Noelle is on, we can jokingly answer that she is our enemy.
If future chapters are released as an installation package along with the first two chapters, then it is possible that part of the code of the first two chapters will be supplemented and all information about our elections will be saved and used in the future, even if we did not take cruel paths. For example, like in UT when Toriel remembers our flirting at the end of the pacifist, Kris if they ever talk to us, they can remember how we made them hug Ralsei. We can choose what we want throughout the game, or we can choose what we think Kris would choose, and our decisions will influence dialogues or events in the future. We have already seen how the decisions from the first chapter influenced the second; in the battle with the capture of the Rouxls houses, Kaard uses exactly the same structure that we assembled in the first chapter. Also, for some reason, the game stores information about which vessel we collected at the very beginning.
Ultimately, we can either find common ground with Kris or make them hate us. If hatred leads to a battle, then against all three at once, Susie will be just happy to thrash someone bad, and Ralsei will never leave Kris and help them. But my intuition tells me that this will not be a battle, but something else, I don’t know why, the battle would be too obvious or something.
If you’ve read this, thank you) I love to think, and it’s especially nice to do this when there are people with similar interests.
Thank you again for sharing your thoughts!!
My thoughts on Kris's feelings towards their actions (again, may be art coming for this soon!) is that they feel a degree of responsibility for the bad things that have happened in their life, stemming from the incident with Dess. It could be like a learned helplessness, but I also see it as a "I cannot be trusted to make the right choices" kind of conditioning. Being the only human in a monster town, I can see them even pinning the blame on their humanity for their mistakes, since well…it's clearly the thing that's always made their life harder, anyway.
They do need their friendships to help set them on a path to self-acceptance and self-reliance, and the Dark World is facilitating that, which is why I think they are more and more focused on going back there!
In regards to the whole "your choices don't matter" theme, which people seem convinced applies to both the player and character…I think it's actually a lot more subtle than that. After all, the theme of Undertale is not "kill or be killed," even though an authoritative character tells you that at the start of the game. I actually think that the second voice at the end of the goner maker sequence saying "no one can choose who they are in this world" IS Kris speaking, because that's the mindset that they're currently in, and it's one they need to learn how to grow past by the end of the game. All of the main characters feel, in some way, that they are trapped by their own identities. Breaking free of these roles they feel they have no choice in is, I think, a narrative thoroughline we'll get through the whole game.
And I have a whole long twitter thread about this, but yeah, I do think that it's inevitable that we'll be cut off from controlling Kris at the end, because that feels like the natural conclusion to Kris's character arc. Kris starts out feeling like they can make no good choices, so someone needs to hold their hand. So by the end, it feels appropriate that they come to realize that they can act on their own, and that they don't need anyone holding their hand…not even the player controlling them. Whether that parting is on good terms or bad ones depends on how the player treats them and their friends…Ralsei does say that how we treat others can make all the difference!
I know this is just rambling on top of your rambling, but I appreciated reading yours, so I hope this rambling is appreciated, too!
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loveletterworm · 2 years
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“Solving” the “Mystery” of “Chair”
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This chair from the sweepstakes website (henceforth referred to as "Chair") has been subject to a decent amount of confusion and fairly mild amount of discussion since its introduction. Its heavily Gaster-adjacent page titles, shadow-y blob form, and random Spamton jumpscare have remained largely unexplainable considering it's only been about a week or so since this page showed up and any part of the game "Chair" appears in has not released yet and will not for at least several months.
Or has it?
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Noted scholar "poop mcfarten", among a few other persons, has claimed this chair is the same one that is located in Rudy's hospital room throughout Chapters 1 and 2. This revelation would close the book on "Chair", as the most obvious solution is that this is the chair from Rudy's hospital room and he's going to die because the chair turned into Shadow Forme and attacked him at his most vulnerable moment (while he was already dying for non-chair-related reasons)
However, things are not so simple in the world of "Chair".
By using inspect element to get at its image file without accidentally saving "eyes.png" again, we can see "Chair" without its black background and at its original scale (as it is displayed larger on the website) Now it is possible to compare it directly to a rip of the chair sprite in Rudy's hospital room. (Note that the chair in Rudy's room is actually part of the same sprite as the rest of the tiles in that room and has been edited out of its surroundings here for clarity, however rest assured I am confident that I was able to tell a chair apart from the floor it was on)
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Looking at these chairs side by side, a host of discrepancies arise. "Chair" is slightly larger, at a different angle, its seat is thicker suggesting possible upholstery, its legs are much darker in color in a way different lighting is unlikely to accomplish, and the most damning evidence against it being the same chair: It has those little things sticking out of the top of the back, previously largely obscured by the dark background. (I don't know what the things are actually called.) This is clearly a different chair.
It also cannot be the chair from town hall, though town hall chair makes a slightly stronger argument with its similarly thick upholstery and darker legs. It’s still missing the things on the back and is actually evidently too big to be “Chair”, the opposite of one of hospital chair’s issues, so despite its best efforts it’s out of the running.
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But is “Chair”, as others have suggested, secretly notable other blue chair from a Toby Fox game Chairiel?
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The answer is: Still no! There have been two Chairiels throughout history. The one in Undertale is a blue chair, however it looks even more different from “Chair” than the hospital chair does. And the chair that the Chairiel torch would be passed to in Deltarune obviously looks the least like “Chair” out of any options, not even fulfilling the basic requirements of being blue and having visible legs.
And so, as this obnoxiously long post about chairs reaches critical mass, I must conclude that “Chair” is an entirely new, unique chair that we have not been introduced to yet.
Which probably does not actually matter at all.
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calliopeebles · 1 year
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inspired by the fact that i was talking about berdly on discord the other day and i later realized i was using my headcanons for him to talk about growing up autistic
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Wrote a fic. it's about kris realizing they're enby and subsequently coming out to the Holiday sisters and Azzy. naturally, they do not know they're enby beforehand, so there will be misgendering and their name will be spelled differently, but their internal monologue still uses they/them, so don't worry too much.
fuckin,,, enjoy ig
oh also it's on ao3. I made a whole ass custom work skin for it, so now if you don't like the deadnames you can just turn them off
Chris reached up to adjust their horns, having knocked them on a tree limb on accident. They were beginning to regret taking a walk with Azzy and their Holiday friends, they'd had to finangle with their accessories constantly, even unhook their shirt a handful of times.
"Eeek! My skirt!"
They were faring better than Noelle, though. Maybe it just came with having long, flowy clothing, but she just about managed to get tangled up in every stray branch imaginable.
"Shoot, and that one's brand new, too," Dess lamented, feeling the newly-torn hole in the skirt area of Noelle's outfit. "That's what you get when you ask for a long dress despite knowing you trek around in the forest all day."
Noelle whined. "But I liiiike this one!! Long skirts feel nice and I don't have to worry about being immodest around Mom!"
"Oooo, does it spin?" Chris leaned in with a grin. Hehe, that rhymed.
Noelle giggled, twirling in place once they reached their clearing. The skirt billowed outwards, and she squeaked as she stumbled on her hoof from the spinning. Dess caught her in time, fortunately, but Noelle was still laughing dizzily in her arms.
Chris flapped their hands with fervor, enraptured. "That's so cool!! Why don't I have any skirts, Azzy?"
Azzy frowned down at them. "Well, for one, you'll trip like Noelle just did, no doubt. But also, skirts are girl clothes, and you're not a girl."
Dess elbowed him. "Hey, he can wear whatever he wants! Just 'cuz skirts aren't really guy clothes doesn't mean he can't wear 'em."
"Well, yeah," Azzy argued, "but it'd be kind of weird, yeah? He's little, I don't think he really knows what boyhood entails."
"Well, Noelle knew, and she's only a year or so older than him. Most trans kids'll know something's up at that age."
"But Chris isn't trans!"
"You don't know that!"
Both Chris and Noelle looked up at the bickering teens with wide eyes. After a moment, Chris leaned over. "What are they talking about?"
"Oh, uh. I guess you didn't know me then, did you, faha. You know how I have antlers right now even though Dess doesn't?" After a nod from Chris, Noelle kept going. "That's because I wasn't born a girl. When I was younger, people thought I was a boy, like you, but it felt wrong, and when I told people, they started talking like I was a girl, and that felt much better. So I'm a girl now!"
Chris blinked. "Huh? Did they just get it wrong at first, or...?"
Noelle shook her head. "No, they got it right. It's just... Hm. Okay. I know what you look like, but mentally, in your SOUL or whatever, you just... you FEEL like a boy, right?"
Chris just stared at her for a substantial amount of time. "No? Isn't it just my genitals?"
Jumping, Noelle blushed furiously and covered their mouth. Chris pouted under her fingers, giving her the most wet cat expression they could muster, but she shook her head again. "Shhhhhh!! Don't say that so loud!" she whispered loudly. "That's inappropriate! But no, there's a mental part too. If you were in a body with... The other... parts, would you feel weird about it?"
"Nnnooooooo??" They tilted their head at her. "Not any weirder than it normally is."
She paused. "Huh?"
"I don't know, I just kinda wish I didn't have any of that. It's weird, people put me in all these weird boxes. I don't like it, I'm just a person."
Noelle looked down, thinking, before turning to Dess and tugging her arm to get her attention. "Dess? What's it called when you don't wanna have a gender?"
The argument between the teenagers was put on hold for a moment as Dess glanced at her. "Don't wanna...? Well, anyone can not want their gender, mostly because of how people think of said gender, but people who don't have a gender at all are nonbinary. Or, agender, but that's just a kind of nonbinary. Why?"
Chris craned their head to look at her before pointing at themself. Noelle followed suit, pointing at them too. Their neck hurt from looking up. Everything hurt all the time, it was annoying.
"You're saying that describes you?" Asriel piped in. Chris nodded at him.
After a moment of silence, Dess spasmed and whirled toward Azzy, pointing. "I KNEW it! I TOLD you! HA!!! TWENTY BUCKS!"
"Titan damn it- You sure you're getting this right? Would you want us to use neutral pronouns for you? Do you want to be a they?"
"I don't really... What?"
"I don't wanna give Dess twenty dollars."
Chris looked over at Dess, who was still celebrating with herself, and grinned. "Then yes."
"TITAN DAMN IT." Azzy fished out his wallet, sifted through it for a moment, then slapped down a twenty into Dess' waiting hand with a sigh. She cheered, making Chris giggle. "Don't tell me we're changing your name, too, you liked this one."
"No promises," they jeered. To be honest, they didn't really care all that much. But they're glad they they could be out of the obligation that was "boyhood", that was nice. And maybe they'd always thought of themself with the neutral words that they use for people they don't know. And maybe they wanted to mix things up with their name a little, too.
But it's just one more weird thing about them, and they're a weird person. And they like that, they think. Noelle was weird, even weirder than they realized, and Dess and Azzy were weird too. And they were pretty cool, so maybe Chris was too. They could get behind that.
"This is my friend, Chris Dreemurr. They're nonbinary, and they like chocolate. My little sister is good friends with them. Oh my god, I get to call you an enby, that's adorable. This is the best. Your queer is infectious, Azzy, they're not even related to you and they're enby. This is the best."
They smiled. This felt right. In a multitude of wrong-ness that surrounded them, covering their skin instead of fur, this was the one thing that felt correct.
Maybe they could be Kris Dreemurr this time.
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grillbyz · 2 months
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Forced to never remember asks are off by default but i think ppl should talk with me ab the silly gay ppl haunting my head--
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It's either coming up to my period again OR I've just developed a disease where I get misty eyed at even the most banal sequences and scenes in ghibli movies. I was crying during the early parts of ponyo
#ramblings of a lunatic#ponyo is not a very emotional movie i just kept being like#OUGHHH LITTLE BABY...LITTLE BABY HAS TO TAKE CARE OF HIS MOM WHILE HIS DAD IS AWAY AT SEA...OUGH LITTLE FISH GIRL#nothing as bad as when i was crying during every scene in kikis delivery service tho lmao#i still haven't seen very many ghibli movies but they're all pretty wonderful#i had another art exam today so i think I'm gonna chill for the rest of the night now that's i watched the cute fish movie#I'll watch something new soon (i am eyeing that movie ever after 👁️👁️ sorry i still can't kick the fairytale spinterest revival rn)#but until then I'm gonna have fun#be silly hehe#I'm also at a weird place with my toh hyperfix where like. i went through intense pre-grief (is that?? what it's called)#like. near the beginning of the month#just being so so sad about it ending and the inevitable fandom dwindle that'll come with that (OBJECTIVE WORST PART!!!)#but that pre-grief was so intense that now I'm at a weird place of peace with it#once the shows over I'll probably start being able to actually like. watch and read other things now hsbdjdhfk#but i imagine it'll stay my main interest (to u guys. I'm more complex irl) for a good while (i wanna make more art i wanna try writing!!!)#just with other stuff spliced in as it comes (i wanna get back on reading sailor moon. maybe check in on deltarune again)#(TRY and get back into tlt again. hell maybe I'll check in on comics again! who knows)#but tbh as long as i find toh on my dash i doubt I'll ever really leave it behind lol#again- a relatively positive fandom experience plus a deep connection with the work is a recipe for me being Not Normal forever#I'm. making less sense as this goes on#anyway. you get it! I'm a big cry baby but also I'm at a state of peace for the moment. yeehaw
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mingot-studios · 2 years
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im tryig to write the 2nd part of true salt route guide but I CANT FUCKING ARTICULATE IT PROPERLY
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chipperydoopcg · 1 year
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Hey Deltarune Fandom
I know its 3am as I wright this but I think I found something online that might be important- or at least, be something to consider- food for thought and all that jazz-
you see, I was scrolling thought reddit when I came upon a particular post...
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it starts of seeming very normal, right? I mean, it's just your average detarune fan asking about equipment advice, right?
but.. somethings... off, to say the least......
Not only is the wording weird when talking about Spamton, (with the phrasing of "Spamton dude" being particularly odd, as to get to Spamton's shop, you need to get fairly familiar with him and his character, but this user seems to be acting like this is their first time meeting him.) But Spamton HIMSELF seems to look... Different than usual. Or, at lease, different than his usual shop sprite that is...
and I was not alone on this sentiment, as the comments noticed too!
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which leads to wonder....
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... yeah, that...
To which OP provided an... Interesting answer....
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D-.... Didn't have the money? But, deltarune is free game? Or, at least, Chapter's 1 and 2 are...
you see, a while back, Toby mention online that Chapters 3, 4, and 5 would all be released together, and, unlike the first two, cost money. (or as a certain salesman would phrase it, cost some [[Sweet, Sweet KROMER]]!!!)
Not only that, but its kinda ironic that this user pirated a copy of a free game, and have the one character who has a history with shady links (or in other words, [[Hyperlink Blocked]]) be the one who's changed... Almost as if this bootleg game has its own bootleg of Spamton... The one character who literally tries to be a bootleg of ANOTHER character in-universe. *Cough cough* Swatch- *Cough cough*
But this also leads to question... are there any other differences in the game? I mean, it is a pirated game, surely there has to be some other differences from the original game other than some seemingly random shop sprite of spamton, right?
luckily, I was not the only one who was curious about this and a user by the name of kuro50 ask OP to quote:
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To which OP responded:
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how... convenient.....
I mean- don't get me wrong- I get that feeling not having any program to record with (though than again OBS Studio exist)- but even still, all of this seems a little bit too, odd to just let off as something "normal"...
but, than again, its not like there's anything necessary wrong about it either, right? I mean, sure, it weird that someone pirated a free game, but, maybe they're just some gullible kid online?
...Except, a user by the name of ThePotatoPerson510 pointed out a few striking things...
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And then... it all stared to click...
I went to check the profile and, just as ThePotatoPerson510 had said,
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"u/ThatDudeTobias, Cake day December 27, 2022, made 12 hours ago..." the same hour as the spamton post was made... almost as if the account was made just so they could post this.... (Note: the previous image in this post of the spamton post says it was made 10 hours ago. This time gap is because I have been writing this post for 2 hours straight now- coming onto 3 hours- as such, I give you this screenshot showing both the post and the profile, and thus, showing they were in fact made in the same hour-)
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MID WRIGHTING UPDATE: It seems as if there WAS a time gap between the two post, as its 5:24am and I just took THIS screenshot showing the time gap. Take this how you will I suppose ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Now, about the name... It seem kinda... on the nose, to say the least. I mean, Toby, Tobias, seems a little to similar, right? But, at the same time, knowing Toby, he would be the type to use a seemingly obvious while still not TOO obvious name to fuck with us (he DOSE have a history with being a troll when it comes to his games ¬_¬||)
Also, looking back at the spamton image and comparing it to the name "Tobias", they both share one thing in common... They're both SIMILAR to their originals, to the point where you can tell what they're based off of, but, somewhat off...
As for the one other post on the account, well...
its..
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... A comment on MeIRL?
Well, what's the original post?
A..... Video of some guy walking up the stairs, only to keep looping up the same steps, unable to get to the end?
Well, that's... anticlimactic..... Sooo.... Is this just some random account then? Was all of this just for nothing? Was it all red hearings in the end? Well, that's what I thought..
For you see, I realized something....
Toby Fox is a well-known fan of anime, but, not just any anime.... specifically, JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE. How do we know this? Well, in undertale, there is an item in the game called a Punch Card
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When this card is used in battle, it says, "OOOORAAAAA!!! You rip up the punch card! Your hands are burning!" This increases your attack. "ORA" Is a common phrase screamed in JOJO' when one of the Jostar's are attacking.
Not only that, but in deltarune, main antagonist of chapter 2 is Queen.
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her battle theme? Attack of the Killer Queen
Killer Queen is the stand of Yoshikage Kira. The main antagonist of JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE: Diamond is Unbreakable. Which is the 4th Chapter of the series.
So, what dose ALL of this have to do with the video "Tobias" commented on? Well, you see, in JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE: Stardust Crusaders, when Polnareff, one of the main protagonist, tries to walk up the stairs to face DIO, the main antagonist, he finds himself in the same loop as the man in the video. Continuously walking up the same set of stares, unable to reach the end.
Meaning, the video that "Tobias", or, as we presume, Toby commented on was in fact...
A JOJO REFFERANCE, AND THUS, MAKES PERFICT SENCE AS TO WHY HE WOULD COMMENT ON IT
...... And so with that last tidbit out of the way, we are left with 3 conclusions that we can come to... 1. This "Tobias" is actually Toby Fox teasing us about Chapter 3 and or some other upcoming scheme of his he has up his sleaves.
2. This "Tobias" is actually Toby Fox just fucking with us
and 3. This is some third party not affiliated with Toby but still making something and teasing it (possibly and ARG or something of sorts) .... That or I've just spent over 3 hours of my life typing this up only for it to be a shitpost by Temmie or something :/
either way its 6:41am as I type this and I have not slept all night so I hope you liked this deep dive analysis into this possibly important reddit account that could hold significant lore for the upcoming chapters of deltarune and if you'll excuse me I'm going to go collapse on my couch for the rest of the day :) have a wonderful time zone <3
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lilybug-02 · 5 months
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Happy 2 Year Anniversary to The Chara Timeline ✨
I FINALLY made drawing references for you guys, yippie!✨
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It’s wild how long I’ve been working on this comic without reference sheets. I’m never that consistent with my art style, so I figured it was a waste of time 🫥💀😔 this is my first full comic okay…
Thoughts and Feelings About the Comic Below ❤️💖💕💞
Wow. It’s been 2 years??? I thought I would be done with this comic in 2 months! I don’t know whether to feel worried or accomplished!!
(With months between each update, I understand why it’s been 2 years. I’m a slow writer and artist and well- many things have come up in my life that had to come first, like my sisters wedding! 💞 and college 😅)
I want to thank my family and friends (WHO DO NOT READ THIS COMIC- THANK GOD) 💕 AND I want to THANK YOU! The readers! 💐💐
You guys are relentless! I’m as impatient as traffic and yet you guys wait for weeks or months at a time for like 4 pages?! You guys don’t even complain!!! I truly want to thank you all for that ❤️ it helps me so much. Being busy and getting burnt out are common and it helps me feel relaxed that i'm not on a timer. Literally tho- you guys keep this comic chugging I swear. Tysm 💐
Unorganized rambling about the comic ahead :) ⭐️🔥
My feelings with this comic are actually so complicated. On one hand I hate looking at my older art because GOD IT LOOKS SO OFF I want to stab it, and then on the other hand I am so so proud of myself for even continuing it this far. Ngl the weird route has been one of my favorite parts of this comic. It took me FOREVER to figure out an ending, but damn do I still get chills >:) hehe.
I’m still miffed that I named this project “Deltarune: The Chara Timeline” I could have gone for something so much COOLER. Doesn’t help I use like 7 different titles for it either. We got Deltarune the Chara timeline, Deltarune chara timeline, THE Chara timeline, chara timeline, Ct??? Man,,, I’m crazy. I take after my family so hard. We have 3 names for each of our dogs 💀.
Comic/Animation Tip i have learned. It is VERY GOOD to make the character relatively simple in design. Shape language is also super important, ((but I never really got around to doing that before I was half way through the comic, woops.)) These things can make ur process go by so much faster. This whole comic has been a HUGE learning curve. LIKE OH MY GOD. I had to learn how to draw backgrounds, write dialogue, plan a story, learn how to draw fast and draw noses (which god damn I really still can’t). And I had to learn how the heck to squeeze art into a tiny page and make it not look grainy. It's intense!
Anyways.... this has been such an awesome opportunity! Thanks Toby Fox!
I totally ran out of “art time” for my iPad and wanted to finish this today. So it’s a bit rushed. I’ll add weapons and possibly the other characters later :)
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Oh shi- I forgot to add this grainy image of the next few pages lmao
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yippee! apologies if my takes are horrendously bad
my personal take on the matter is that i definitely think the dark worlds can work as a metaphor for escapism without undermining the darkners' personhood. it can be more than one thing, yknow? the darkners are important, their lives matter. and the lightners do go to the dark world as an escape from the problems they face in their own life. but that's not the darkners' whole PURPOSE, yknow? i mean. according to the laws of the universe of deltarune yes darkners' "purpose" is to serve the lightners but like it's not their whole purpose in the STORY.
it's sort of like how, in UNDERTALE, LOVE represents how distant you've become, how easy it is for you to hurt people. but it also literally gives you the power to destroy the world.
i think the biggest reason i believe escapism is at least a part of deltarune's narrative is queen.
queen's whole speech in both of her fights is about how she intends to provide escapism for the lightners (so that they will worship her but also so that they will he happy). she wants to turn the whole world into a dark world, so that everyone can live in bliss and not have to worry about the woes of the light world. she mentions "Staring, Tapping, To Receive Joy. Staring, Tapping, To Avoid Pain." which is like pretty much the definition of escapism
she wants to help Noelle with the problems she faces in the light world ("Noelle. Who Will Be There To Help Her? Her Strange And Sad Searches" and "My One Idea To Help Noelle, Failed") by just... shoving it away for a blissful fantasy world ("Wake? No, She Has Already Awakened Too Much. Let Her Close Her Eyes And Sleep Away, Into A Darker, Darker Dream.")
...i forgot the rest of what i wanted to say!
well first off, thank you for your ask! I'm going to get extremely in depth in my answer, so bear with me here. sorry it took several weeks to write this. the escapism reading of deltarune is pretty deeply entrenched in fandom, and to refute it, I felt it required a full-length essay to completely explain my viewpoint.
yes, "the lightners desire escapism" does not automatically translate to that being the darkners' actual narrative purpose. escapism can be a theme without dehumanizing those who are used in order to escape - in fact, I've read a number of stories that use someone's desire to escape to HIGHLIGHT how they're hurting others in pursuit of that. I believe that toby fox is definitely capable of telling a story about kids having a valid desire to escape, and about them grappling with having inadvertently created a world of real, living people as a result.
(I'll reiterate again that this is not the story arc that generally shows up in fanon. the common consensus is that the game will end in an omori-esque "growing out of" the dark worlds. it's why I have a huge dislike of the fanon escapism reading, given that the darkners are shown as people whose lack of agency parallels kris' own. it would feel cheap if the resolution to that plot was that the darkners were actually never meant to be agents in their own fates. but this is a digression.)
the reason why i DON'T believe that this is a story that toby fox is telling is because of the way the world, themes, and characters are written. put simply, it just doesn't come across as congruent with the story being told.
deltarune's main themes are agency, fate, identity, and control. this is a conflict that shows up in nearly every major character, is baked into the worldbuilding, and is the central struggle involving us, the player. the protagonist of deltarune is literally possessed by us against their will. the darkners are objects that have no choice but to serve and be discarded. over and over again, there is emphasis on roles that characters play - and crucially, roles that are imposed on them.
what would escapism mean, in this thematic context? in real life, escapism can represent any number of things, but in a story, a major narrative theme generally has to dovetail with other major narrative themes in the work. I would argue that escapism in deltarune would likely mean going to a place where characters are able to choose for themselves what roles they embody, or even to discard the notion of roles altogether. a fantasy of control is the only way to escape a reality where you have no agency. and honestly, it's hard to imagine that something could count as an escapist fantasy if you don't even get to choose whether or not you participate in it.
let's talk about kris.
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I see a lot of discussions around kris that say that kris goes into the dark worlds to escape. the dark worlds are posited as kris' fantasy of heroism. it's a world where they can seem heroic and cool, a world where they can have friends. this theory makes a decent amount of sense on the surface level, but only until you consider that kris is being controlled in order to go into the dark worlds. and it is not a control that they appear to welcome.
if those worlds represent kris' fantasy, then why don't they get to choose what happens in those fantasies? why are they being controlled by an external force, one that they actively push back against? if it's really an escape, then why does everything about this world reflect their lack of agency? if they really think this world is just a pure fantasy, then why do they care if spamton falls when his strings are cut?
because they're being deliberately obscured to the player, it is hard to say how kris actually feels about many subjects... but I do seriously doubt that they view the dark worlds as an escape. they don't act in a way that is consistent with that. they resist their lack of agency, and what little we do see of their reactions to darkner characters doesn't suggest that they view those characters as part of a disposable fantasy, either. they seem to have complicated feelings on ralsei. and of course, one of their biggest emotional reactions in the game is to the spamton fight. I would argue that that suggests they have empathy for spamton, which is a hard emotional reaction to have if you believe he's just part of a fantasy. not impossible, mind you, but it seems unlikely that kris believes that all this is simply fantasy.
also, considering that snowgrave both actively discredits the idea that the dark worlds are mere fantasy and is actively traumatic for kris... I seriously doubt they'd open another dark world in chapter 3 on a snowgrave run if their motive was purely to escape. on that route, they've seen the damage we can cause in a dark world. they know that berdly has sustained lasting damage due to our actions, assuming he's not outright dead. why would they want to try and "escape" to a place like that again now that they know what can happen?
the only answer is that they have a motive that isn't escapist.
now, as for ralsei... what part does he have to play in all this?
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ralsei does play a lot to the fun, fantastical elements of the dark worlds. he delivers the prophecy that kickstarts the adventure. he flatters both kris and susie endlessly when they act appropriately heroic. he welcomes them into the castle and even makes nice rooms for them. he initially seems tailor-made to enable a fantastical experience where no real issues can ever complicate anything, and where the pain of reality can successfully be hidden from. but there's a lot of complications to the idea that he might represent an escapist fantasy.
the first, and what honestly seems the most important to me, is that he doesn't encourage kris and susie to remain in the dark worlds. he is welcoming and kind, but once the adventure is over, he prompts them to return to the light world. he wants them to deal with their more "real" problems like homework. that doesn't feel like he is trying to facilitate escapism in them. a real fantasy would encourage you to stay in it, wouldn't it?
and while ralsei is definitely invested in making sure the lightners are happy, there are always cracks that show. he isn't able to make kris ignore what happened in the spamton fight. he isn't able to convince susie to be peaceful and kind. and in his very essence, he represents a number of uncomfortable ideas. very importantly, he represents a number of uncomfortable ideas to kris.
this probably ain't your first fandom rodeo, so I'm not going to explain all the different ways that ralsei interacts with kris' personal issues. there's plenty of posts on it out there. what i will point out is, once again, it feels odd that a character who seems tailor made to bring up kris' most uncomfortable associations with their lack of agency and their outsider status in their own family would be part of a fantasy of escapism to them. you'd think that they'd prefer something that didn't have an inbuilt hierarchy, a prophecy that denied them autonomy, or especially a person that reminded them how little they fit into hometown.
that doesn't mean kris doesn't care about him at all - it seems very likely that they do. what I mean to say here is that he just seems ill-suited to an escapism reading, both behaviorally and on a conceptual level. it doesn't seem like that's at all part of his servitude towards the lightners.
of course, there is another non-lightner entity that ralsei seems diegetically engineered to serve. but I'll discuss that later.
now as for susie...
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yes, susie definitely views the dark worlds as more fun than the light world. and why wouldn't she? the light world sucks for her, and she doesn't seem very aware of the fact that the dark world can also suck. you could definitely make the argument that she views the dark worlds as a fantastical escape from reality... were it not for the fact that she treats her darkner friends with just as much importance as she does kris and noelle.
can someone treat components of an escapist fantasy as real and important? of course. but given deltarune's themes of agency and control, as well as the fact that darkners exist in servitude to the lightners, I feel like you'd have to make escapism tie into forcing others into a lack of agency if you wanted the theme to feel coherent with the rest of the work. this would require susie to be limiting the agency of the darkners around her. and obviously, she doesn't do that. her presence around them might be inherently limiting, just by simple virtue of being a lightner, but she isn't aware of it, and clearly is uncomfortable with the idea of limiting anyone's agency. she encourages ralsei to make choices. and she supports lancer in basically anything he wants to do. her treatment of lancer is integral to chapter 1's narrative, and it seems like that treatment of ralsei is integral to the ongoing narrative as well!
her preference for the dark world feels very rooted in her engagement with it as its own reality. rather than trying to avoid her real-life problems by engaging in a pretense, she seems to simply want to spend time with her friends in a place that isn't cruel to her. she isn't ignoring any of the dark world's problems in service of that, either. she notices when things don't line up. if she thought of it as a fantasy, wouldn't she be inclined to ignore issues that impede the fantasy?
and critically - like kris, she does not intentionally choose her imposed role in the prophecy at first. she steps into the role of bad guy to resist it, but that role is limiting too, and she eventually acquiesces to being a hero. it's never something she's completely on board with, though. she actively pushes back the limitations that the role places on her. I find this important to reiterate when we are discussing the notion of the characters viewing the dark worlds as fantasy.
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noelle has a complicated relationship to the dark worlds. susie tells her that it's a dream to make her accept the strange reality she finds herself in, which works well on her. she continues to think of it as a strange dream throughout the chapter. (though, like the others, it is not a 'dream' she entered of her own volition!)
it is also a markedly unpleasant 'dream' at times. she has her agency restricted, is kidnapped, has to evade a controlling monarch, and is even tied up in a weird evangelion cross thing on the hand of a giant robot. it's not purely fun. noelle does like scary things, and while it might be healthy for her to have an experience where she stands up to a controlling adult figure... again, the circumstances make it difficult for me to assume that this is a fantasy she would choose for herself. not impossible, mind you, but it's not the first reading of the situation that comes to mind.
and while she does say she wishes she could dream like this every day in the normal route, that does happen specifically because she was talking to the girl she likes. it makes sense she'd find that pleasant. I don't think that necessarily equates to her finding the dark worlds escapist.
and importantly, this isn't the sentiment that she expresses in every route.
again, there's a lot of analysis on snowgrave, so I won't bother regurgitating it much here. but it's nightmarish for both kris and noelle, and very likely fatal for berdly. noelle needs to believe that the event is a dream, for her own psychological safety, but one of the most important parts of snowgrave...
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...is that its events, and the world it took place in, are very, very real.
noelle wants to have the strength to face her problems, both in the regular route and in the snowgrave route. rather than escaping from them, she views the "dream" as a chance to practice dealing with her day-to-day issues. it's just that in the regular route she finds that strength authentically, and in the snowgrave route, that desire is manipulated and pushed until she is forced to kill berdly. she doesn't interpret snowgrave as an escape gone wrong. she views it as a dream that became a nightmare. and those are two extremely different things.
but i haven't even gotten to the biggest thing that undermines the concept that the dark worlds are a metaphor for escapism! which is: this fucking guy is dead wrong about everything.
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so full disclaimer - I really love berdly. I think he's slept on a lot in the fandom because he's annoying and weird. which is fair, I suppose, but I think ignoring him hinders a lot of people's understanding of deltarune's overall narrative. because berdly often illustrates a lot of concepts in the game, but his narrative framing as a joke (usually...) prevents the player from taking it completely seriously. he has things to say and ideas to show off, it's just that he's often very loud and kind of dumb in his expression of them. which is kind of the point!
ralsei brings up the idea that the darkners are meant to serve the lightners very seriously in chapter one. by extension, and by way of the literal mechanics involved in a dark world's creation, we can infer that this logic is probably something that also applies to the dark worlds themselves. they are allegedly worlds and characters that only are supposed to fulfill a dream of the lightners. but due to narrative framing and deltarune's themes, we know that that's not the full truth. however dark worlds and darkners are created, they deserve to have their own agency. they can't just exist to fulfill a higher being's wishes.
you know who else undermines that view of the dark worlds? berdly! berdly does!!!!
because berdly is the only lightner in the game so far who does take the dark worlds to be an escapist adventure! he wants to turn cyber world into smartopia. he views this as a chance to be a cool hero. he believes he's going to get the girl, he's going to shape this world to his own liking, and maybe also he's going to get queen to acknowledge him or something so he stops being a forgettable little bluebird. and not only does none of this happen, his steadfast belief that it will happen is continually a joke within the narrative!!
berdly's wishes for uncomplicated escapist fantasy are flat-out denied by the dark worlds themselves. as a lightner, those worlds should be serving him. he should have the power to do whatever he wants within the bounds of an escapist fantasy. these npcs should be singing his praises!
but he doesn't have the power. and this world doesn't sing his praise. because it just isn't an escapist fantasy. he isn't right to view it that way. his wishes for heroism are always going to be thwarted.
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so now that I've gotten all that out of the way, let's swing back over to the subject of your original ask. queen.
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because, like berdly, queen's entire character arc is about how she's completely wrong about what the lightners actually want.
queen would in fact like nothing more to place the lightners into an escapist fantasy. she believes that that's the best way to serve them and make them happy forever. as a darkner, queen has very much internalized the idea that a lack of control is what actually makes people happy. since darkners have no choice in their destinies and are supposed to be happy in it, and since she personally finds her role as a darkner fulfilling, she believes that that's true of all people everywhere. if you want to make people happy, you just have to remove that pesky personal agency!
so she spends the story trying to force the lightners and particularly noelle into situations where she controls them in order to make them ostensibly happier. she does genuinely believe that this is the right thing to do, but as she finds out eventually, she's just wrong. noelle doesn't want that. queen believes that escapism is why the lightners use the internet... but that's totally wrong too.
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while there are other searches mixed in, noelle is trying to use the internet to find her sister. instead of trying to hide from whatever happened, noelle wants to figure it out. queen's thesis about noelle and the lightners is proven wrong even before she personally encounters noelle in the dark world. it's just that queen doesn't realize it due to her limited perspective.
the concept of escapism being brought up with both queen and berdly is not there to say that the dark world is escapist. rather, it's there to say that it isn't. despite the dark worlds being a fantastical place, they are extremely real. to view them as a means of escape is foolhardy at best. you cannot act as though you are above consequences within them.
themes and ideas exist within the story for a sake of an audience. so let's get into the final character I need to discuss here. hopefully this will tie my thesis of deltarune together neatly.
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that character is of course us. the player.
when creating a piece of fiction, an astute author will often identify and anticipate an audience's reactions to certain things in their work, and write things in such a way that they elicit the desired reactions. in essence, a writer is directing the "character" of the audience. how we feel and how we are anticipated to react to things is an integral part of nearly every fiction.
that effect is far more overt when dealing with metanarrative fiction that diegetically involves the audience. since the fiction is saying a lot of things about the general 'you,' the audience in aggregate, your reactions to certain things in the story have to be finely cued and anticipated by the author, so that the author can thus commentate on the reactions that you have to the story. the "character" you are assumed to inhabit is posited by the author to have certain traits.
to explain what I mean in plainer terms, I'll use the player of undertale's no mercy route as an example. because undertale is commenting on the way rpgs generally work. the player's behaviors in no mercy are attributed by characters in the story to be the result of us acting like a typical gamer. we kill the characters in the game because we want exp. and more than that, it's because we want to see everything the game has to offer. the role we inhabit in this role-playing game is that of a completionist. you could say that that's assumed to be our "character" in no mercy.
deltarune also posits that certain things are true of its audience. by being written to evoke certain cultural ideas, rpg tropes, and references to undertale, it guarantees that its audience will probably have certain traits, and spends a large amount of its conceptual focus commenting on those traits. one of those traits is nostalgia, which is probably an idea that I'll expound upon in a further essay because it's quite integral to my reading of deltarune. but the main one I mean to discuss here, and why I went off on this tangent about how audiences are dealt with in metafiction, is that we are posited as someone who believes in the logic of certain narratives.
deltarune's writing evokes a lot of portal fantasy narratives. alice in wonderland, narnia, pretty much every story where it's revealed at the end to be all a dream... the story of deltarune superficially resembles a lot of those. this, I think, is responsible for the popularity of the escapism theory. because those stories are often at their end about a child learning to put away fantasy and grow up, people tend to believe that deltarune must be about the same thing. but I truly don't think that deltarune is trying to do anything with that aspect of portal fantasy narratives, at least not directly. its main characters aren't involved in that exact type of coming-of-age arc.
instead, deltarune is very concerned with what happens to characters in fantasy, and specifically fantasy rpgs. if your world is deemed to not matter because it's a dream, what does that mean for you, who has no choice but to live in it? if you are an npc whose role has been predetermined for you via script, then can you ever decide for yourself what you want? what if you want to matter? what if you want to be your own person?
as the major controlling force of deltarune, we are initially cued to believe that deltarune is like a dream. it superficially fulfills so much of what we want from undertale fanon. hometown seems like it's a perfect idyllic town, at least until you start noticing the obvious cracks. and remember what I said about ralsei earlier? he is so reminiscent of asriel, and extremely eager to help us. it's not a stretch to say that making us specifically view deltarune as dreamlike and idyllic is probably part of his purpose in the game.
I would not say that we are posited as escapist. but the idea of escapism as brought up with queen and berdly is meant to strike at the heart of a much deeper idea that deltarune is trying to deconstruct. because if we view deltarune as a dream, escapist or otherwise, then we are inclined to write the internal realities of the characters inside off. the dark world can disappear without it mattering. we can control kris without it mattering. if it's all a dream, what does it matter? why should we care to let its characters go free? aren't we supposed to be in control?
if deltarune is an rpg... what is the significance of us interacting with it?
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tensionpoints · 2 months
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Looking at r/Deltarune to see what theories ppl have come up with based on That One Valentine and it’s soooooooo funny to me that every single post about it is the same. Actual quotes from the subreddit:
“How do we know this is gaster”
“Why else would it mention the letter being impossible to understand at the start”
“It doesn’t have the signature stilted tone gaster’s always had”
“It doesn’t read like gaster in English at all”
“I feel like the beginning narration, the all caps, and the style of writing clearly point to gaster”
“We have no real reason to think he’d talk this way… ever”
It’s back and forth with these general opinions, especially of ‘oh that’s not how he talks’ and I’m just sitting here like
1. When you are a scientist, you do not necessarily talk the same in academic contexts as you do in casual contexts. For the most part, I speak COMPLETELY differently from my papers I’ve written for school compared to when I’m flirting with my partner.
2.
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determinators · 3 months
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Yes, the 4channers were awful and they persist in misgendering me, while simultaneously complaining I don't post anymore, with zero self awareness.
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4chan harassment alone isn't why I left. This is.
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It's the transphobia.
I have been in the fandom since 2015. I have been arguing with transphobes in the fandom since 2015. I have been making write ups about why it's important not to misgender the - yes, fictional - characters since 2015, because of the complete lack of caring it communicates to real nonbinary people.
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Last year, I wrote a post that got 7000 notes and is currently pinned to the Deltarune subreddit. I poured my heart out about what the nonbinary characters meant to me and why they were important.
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It was argued over, I was mocked for it, I included personal details about my family situation and my difficulty coming out, I was mocked for it.
I wrote it because I believed it mattered. Because for eight years, the constant comment when mentioning the pronouns of these characters has been: Who cares?
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At any point since 2015, Toby could have saved the transgender people in the fandom the trouble of having to "prove" the characters were nonbinary by saying something.
Last year, Legends of Localization comes out - thoroughly reviewed by Toby - and calls Frisk, Monster Kid, and Napstablook "ambiguous", designed to have an unclear gender.
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You can see in the collage of screenshots how the transphobes in the fandom took that. One delightful individual was so triumphant over the victory, they put the statement in their Reddit subtitle.
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So each time this individual posts to the Undertale subreddit, people will see this quote, carried around like a trophy with all the pride of a dog with a rotting pelt in its mouth. That's how much it meant to the transphobes in the fandom. They're delighted by having this quote to throw back in the faces of transgender fans.
Because who cares? The majority of the fandom isn't transgender, or on tumblr. It's easy for them not to care about transgender people.
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You can block block block as many people as you want (I had thousands blocked here) but you can't curate your way out of transphobia. It isn't possible.
Because the majority of the fandom is on Reddit, or YouTube, or Twitter, and they, quite vocally, do not care about transgender people.
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Some people may recall that I stopped posting to the Deltarune subreddit after the mods decided to filter all posts containing the word "nonbinary" without telling anyone.
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The mods stopped filtering the word after I posted this and apologized, but the point was made: people in the greater fandom think the word "nonbinary" is a dangerous, impolite word, one that only invokes argument and therefore should not be used.
So I stopped posting on the Deltarune and Undertale subreddits. I never made YouTube or Twitter content. I set my blog to only allow people with Tumblr accounts to view it. I turned off all asks, anonymous or otherwise. I blocked thousands of people. It did not work. Transgender people can't curate (read: quarantine) our way out of transphobia.
Years of this, of transgender fans of the series getting attacked for trying to claim and fight for nonbinary representation in the series, and "ambiguous" is the language Toby signed off on.
If the characters are meant to be nonbinary representation, the last eight years has proven that this needs to be stated outright, or the onus of "proving" it falls on the vastly outnumbered transgender fans in the fandom - something that we have never been able to do without being profusely harassed for it until we shut our mouths.
If the characters were only ever meant to be ambiguous for the sake of "freedom of interpretation", then this should have been communicated with seriousness and respect to the transgender fans of the series years ago, not as a throwaway line in a translation book. (and to be clear, this is not at all the author's fault - Toby corrected and reviewed the language used)
This is why I left and why I'm never coming back, no matter what happens next. I have had enough of the transphobia in the fandom, and I have no way of fighting back anymore.
Transphobes in the fandom want the work and the passion of nonbinary people but won't even use a pronoun to show the basest level of respect and humanity for us.
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I'm watching our rights being taken away day by day, and people like this just want me to keep producing my worthless little game theory posts.
Trans people don't owe you our "content" or our passion, particularly not when we produce it for free in the face of eight years of a deeply transphobic audience that we are expected to either beg for the most basic respect or to turn our heads down and hide away from so they can continue either hating us or pretending we don't exist or that that part of us doesn't matter.
"Who cares?"
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When people ask this in response to talking about being nonbinary or respecting pronouns, they know transgender people care.
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What they're saying is, who cares about transgender people?
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For this reason, I'm requesting people not archive anything I've written, though I know I can't enforce this. That includes the Character Analysis and the "(Characters) are nonbinary why it matters" post, which I wrote in such profoundly naive good faith. For every "who cares" I have received over eight years of being transgender in this fandom.
If my identity as a nonbinary person doesn't matter, if nonbinary people don't exist, then neither does the content I made which they feel so entitled to, even while misgendering me.
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I can't even think about this series without becoming angry and miserable anymore. That is the lasting, final impression the art has had on me. I can't think about it or the characters without remembering how little transgender people matter to most of the world. I've had to completely cut it out my life. There's no rage as potent as the helpless one. "Who cares?" I can't make people care.
You can't have the creations and art and "content" made by transgender people and our destruction at the same time. And maybe you can't prevent our destruction either, but you sure as hell can use a damn pronoun.
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lynxgriffin · 1 month
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"You are a genuinely good person, Lynx. You refuse to do the geno runs."
Quick question out of curiosity: why does it seem like people correlate the goodness of someone with "you don't murder fictional characters"? Specifically in Undertale since the vast majority of RPGs have murder be default (outside of lv1 challenge runs).
I'm not saying you aren't a good person. It's just a thing that always confuses me when it comes to the reactions I've seen of people even attempting a Geno run. I never saw people make similar remarks with morality meters like CRPGs (ex: KOTOR, Fallout series, ect) or other games (Bioshock, Iji, Fable).
I mean, as I said before, no one's actually good or bad for doing the no mercy runs or not. It is ultimately just a game, and it'd be extremely silly to equate peoples' real world morality with game choices!
But what I think is going on with people saying as such for Undertale (and possibly Deltarune) specifically, is that they are simply taking the games' themes and premise sincerely. Most RPGs obviously don't present any moral quandry with you killing monsters...the point and fun part IS to level up by fighting, and that's fine. However, Undertale's narrative makes a point of asking "but what would it actually be LIKE to be a character in this game, and to suddenly have some outside force barge in and start killing you and all your friends? Wouldn't that be terrifying and awful?" It's the sort of nuance that you don't usually see in games, even games with morality mechanics, and certainly hardly ever to this extent. Even compared to games like Bioshock, Fallout, Fable, etc., Undertale is VERY sensitive and responsive to player actions.
So, regardless of it actually being true or not, I think what people are responding to with Undertale is that question of "what is this actually like from the other side of the screen?" and then giving it a serious answer. Which I think speaks to the real strength of Undertale's writing and thematic coherence, that people are willing to engage with it to that level of sincerity, even if sometimes that goes too far!
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sukifoof · 2 months
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thinking about how flowey's need for control in the underground shows so clearly how out of control he feels and it's such a big aspect of his character... like him setting up everything so he can get the perfect ending he wants (resetting everything to be with chara again) and being one of the only characters to try to hit you with an inescapable attack are just a few examples of his need for complete control which is definitely an outcome of chara's death.
as asriel he already knew he was going to have to be the king some day and chara likely felt they had to live up to being this light of hope that people expected from them and going to the underground and their death is probably something they felt they could actually be in control of. while flowey looks back on their death with so much regret because he feels if he had just done something different maybe things would have turned out better and chara would still be here and he wouldn't have to deal with all the changes that happened while he was gone. this lack of control when it comes to what happens around him and what choices people make leads to him wanting to take complete control of everything and to know how everyone will react to any situation so there will be no surprises ever.
once flowey sees that No not everything can be orchestrated by him and that sometimes things just happen and it's not his fault for not knowing what to do in every situation he can finally like. Relax for once in his life. frisk is such a good change for him because they're someone he understands and they give him a moment to realize that he can't just go back and fix everything. i think sooo much about flowey saying he doesn't regret not fighting back against the humans anymore cuz it's him admitting that he did what he could and there was no perfect solution. sometimes things are just out of his hands. and begging you to let frisk go because he's been there and he understands that feeling gets me so bad i love his character development
on that note i think chara's "since when were you the one in control" and furthermore a lot of themes in deltarune cover this cuz toby is so good at writing characters that feel out of control of their lives. most characters in undertale and deltarune seem to have Issues with this especially the dreemurrs but maybe elaborating on that is a post for another time
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