#they say shit like 'she's controlling and domineering' or 'she should've gone with them'

[everysongineverykey]

some guy commented on my narrator + toriel fic saying "well the narrator's done some questionable stuff once or twice but he's not the one who let SIX children DIE just to SPITE her ex-husband" lmaoooo bro did you even play undertale? you can just say you have no reading comprehension it's okay

#like. of all the toriel slander i've seen this is by far the most ridiculous bc like #even on the most basic of levels it is so clearly wrong. toriel did not let the children go WITH THE INTENTION OF THEM DYING lmao #like her entire thing is not wanting kids to die and being overprotective because of it. that is a basic tenet of her character #and most toriel slander i've seen at least. knows this basic fact #they say shit like 'she's controlling and domineering' or 'she should've gone with them' #but this guy? no. they seem to believe that she. wanted them to die. to 'spite asgore'? how exactly would this spite him? #if i recall correctly (sarcasm. of course i recall correctly) #asgore was the one who WANTED the fallen humans to die. #or he didn't really want them to die deep down inside #but still he saw to it that they did. they would not be dead if it were not for him #and the anti-human laws he put in place #and his attempt to raise the kingdom's spirits by declaring war on humans. #i try to be as neutral as possible on any given character but you can't deny that that's an objective fact. #if toriel let them die she would be helping asgore's purposes. #her entire goal by living in the ruins is to take in fallen humans and protect them #so asgore DOESN'T kill them. so she can thwart his plans THAT way. #also i love the wording of 'the narrator's done some questionable stuff' #he exploded stanley. he erased all of stanley's friends and coworkers. he has made stanley's existence a living hell for god knows how long #i mean yeah yeah it's not really him who's in control they're both slaves to the narrative and all that #but he holds a lot of power over stanley and he uses it. and abuses it. #to act like wilful sadistic murder is on the same level as a distraught bereaved mother #trying to save other children from the fate her own suffered and becoming overprotective in the process #is just ridiculous. lol #anyways i deleted the comment :] no toriel slander under toriel-sympathetic fics pleeeaaase

[fishcemetery]

Very interested in your takes on Dominic Newlow. Would you like to elaborate on what do you think should have happened after the PSP finale? Do you think the other characters (involved in his wrongdoings / mind control) should have had some lines in regards to the stuff he did? Or anything else?

*anon makes me start thinking at 6.20 am*

As a preamble, it feels a bit awkward to muse about “they should've done this, they shoudn't've done that” long after the game was developed, published, played through and nearly forgotten. I lean more towards the approach of “what’s done is done, even if it’s disappointing in certain aspects; take your observations and make them into a decent AU material”.

That aside, I like your suggestion just because of how simple, yet satisfying it is. The devs could've at least made the characters properly acknowledge Doctor's disappearance and the impact he'd had on them. Oscar was mind-controlled and lost his entire workplace, yet his reaction is basically “Yeah, he’s gone, cool, great car by the way”. The Beakers definitely should've made some angry remarks. Hell, all major characters should've made some angry remarks. Sure, Strangetown is a strange town indeed, shit transpires here all the time and everyone’s used to it. But throughout the entire game we’re steadily prepared for the final battle against the villain, the plot’s peak point, and the fact that people barely give a damn afterwards straight up ruins the importance of everything we’ve done. It’s genuinely anticlimactic. So, I take it that Newlow wasn't of that much importance after all?

And now to the metalevel crap that I love so much. I’ve come to perceive this game as “Doctor desperately struggles against you, the Player”.

He rages against you. He says explicitly that you’ve traumatized him. Everything he does in the course of the game, his entire “evil plan” is, in fact, an attempt to avenge himself and, quite possibly, others. He actually makes it clear that he wants to save your character by pulling them from under your control.

(now that I think of it, it would’ve been amazing if this entire “Doctor Dominion” thing was a deliberate charade to make the Player think they’re doing some cliché heroics against a standard power-hungry evil guy, and get the character to where Doctor needs them without alerting the Player too soon. i’ll mark this as a decent AU material)

And in this light, when Doctor inevitably fails, it just seems natural and reasonable to let the Player have a bigger role in deciding his fate. Dangle the Plumbob over his head, break the crumbling fourth wall for good, have a face-to-face talk while your character is lying unconscious. Doctor’s accusing you of being a careless and selfish dictator – well then, let’s do something about it. Why don’t you prove him right? “Oh, I certainly am. And you certainly know what happens to a failed opposition under a dictatorship :33”. Whoosh – Doctor is gone, the helmet is hanging in the air, the character wakes up, the rest goes as scripted (of course, Circe still should get to call Newlow various censored words). On the other hand, why don’t you prove him wrong? “Am I, though? I was actually intending to make up for the wrongdoings that you consider to be mine and let you walk out of this situation. Here, I’ll get rid of this helmet, pick up this protagonist and Roberta’s head, we’ll go home, and you’ll go deal with your potential felonies. How you’re going to do it without mind control is up to your own free will :33”.

There’s a range of further developments I can think of. First of all, it feels odd that you never get to complete your initial goal – get your vehicle and leave this place. What’s the problem with having Oscar fix your masterpiece of a car, signing the Estate over to Emily (I mean, she’s literally attached to it) and going, like, home home? Whatever happens to Strangetown (and Newlow, if he lives) from that point on is really none of your business. End credits.

Or we can assume that the protagonist starts to like it in Strangetown and decides to stay here for an undetermined while. I don’t think there’s much of a necessity to differentiate between Doctor vanishes / Doctor lives outcomes if we want to keep things fairly simple and within the game framework. Leave Penelope Kline to housesit for Doctor, but give her some lines about him possibly being away “for a re-a-a-ally long time, ‘cause I think he’s facing jail or something.”

So, yeah, it all comes down to adding a little bit of extra dialogue. The denouement just seems rushed.

The outcome that I personally would like to explore the most is Doctor ending up under the protagonist’s supervision and having to personally face people he’s hurt, fix his mistakes and come to terms with himself, his scripted past, the Player, the Developers (hi, Isaac Rossum) and so on. However, this not only creates a brand new plotline and exceeds the game limits in general, but is also fueled by my very subjective interest in the character, that's why I’m marking it as another decent AU material and keep on making fan art.

Hope this was elaborate enough (･ω･)

(it’s interesting how just last night I was committing alcohol consumption on the city’s main embankment and monologuing on the exact same topic to my friend, who'd been blissfully unaware of TS2 PSP a mere hour before that)

#dominic newlow #the sims #the sims 2 #the sims 2 psp