#(or something like that idk our stories are intentionally interpretable)

[44-mr-midnight-44]

Soul being a cat to start your day 😌

[howlsofbloodhounds]

might be a controversial/unpopular opinion but i headcanon that any classic variant of sans has some sort of superiority complex going on. maybe not exactly that, but they're some flavor of self-righteous, i guess?

OKAY LISTEN. i'm not saying sans is a bad guy or anything (i love him very much i swear). canon sans is written really well in the sense that he's intentionally very vague and mysterious so we can speculate a lot on his past and intentions throughout the story. idk, maybe my reading is completely off but sans appears to me as a lovable asshole, especially to someone who is a child (frisk). he likes playing around with frisk - yeah it's harmless but still his advice tends to be vague, especially when it comes to battle tips lmao. just imagine in-universe how terrible his advice comes off to a child.

and like, the restaurant scene. sans is intentionally acting all blithe about letting a child die on his watch, under a promise - like i know it's supposed to be a funny off-hand comment to the player, but in-universe again he addresses this to a child. it's just- lmao this guy has some problems for sure.

i think being self-righteous is just tied to his role as a judge as well. he's always 'right' in his judgement, because that's what he is. i think it's just interesting to explore that particular aspect of sans' personality, that he acts in what he thinks is right, and he's always right, isn't he? maybe that's why i tend to enjoy undertale stories where sans somewhat assumes the role of the antagonist - it creates some fantastic dynamic with people around him who it seems like he never really connects well.

~ crowshipping anon

Crow!! Yayy!!

And I honestly kinda vibe with this interpretation honestly. I haven’t completely finished playing all the Undertale games myself (curse my lack of motivation 😭), but I watched a few playthroughs here and there, and it seems like something that could make sense.

Especially when he’s given such an important position like a being a Judge, his opinions and judgements are likely taken seriously by Asgore.

And the thing is, you can also make an argument for this with our most popular classic variants; the Murder Time Trio. Murder justifies what he does as being better that he does it instead of the human, justifies it with that he will eventually stop the human.

Really, he may even argue that his current actions don’t really even go against his job as the Judge; he has judged that the human must be stopped, and he has to do it because he’s the only one who can. I’ve even seen some ideas going around that maybe he views himself as the Angel from the Prophecy, having judged that the Underground will be free by death.

Horror is the entire reason his Underground started eating humans, and he is also the reason that the Core is damaged beyond repair. He didn’t want to sacrifice himself for the Underground, and he survived the event that took his eye, yet he still judged that Undyne and Alphys had to pay for their betrayal—and in doing so he decided that the rest of the Underground would be doomed to starvation or eating people.

He decided to trick Horror Papyrus into eating human meat even though Papyrus very clearly did not want to, and Horror doesn’t seem all too guilty about it—even as Papyrus goes out of his way to prevent Horror from eating humans at his own request.

I’ve even seen around by bigger Horror/Horrortale fans than me that Horror’s reasons for starving himself may not even be entirely selfless—such as for a moral reason or wanting others to have more food than him. But rather because he views it as beneath him and he won’t go “that low.” How canon that is, im not sure, but it’s interesting.

Then meanwhile there’s Killer. He sneers at Swap and threatens to kill him if he ever attempts to compare himself to Killer again, he holds the beliefs and mindsets of his human that were taught to him very closely and looks down on anyone who views things differently with contempt—especially if they attempt to “force” him to view things differently.

Things like mercy or kindness or hesitation are seen as weakness and things to take advantage of in his mind. Even himself is not free from this nihilistic, fatalistic, violence and apathetic driven worldview—-looking down on himself in Stage 1.

He will go out of his way to prove himself and his views right, even if that means doing exactly what Chara did and coercing/provoking someone into killing, attacking, hurting, etc, either themselves, others, or even him.

This is exactly what he was supposed to be, and it’s pointless to try and change or hope for anything more than what he or anyone else deserves. He probably finds Murder’s attempts to justify his genocides absolutely ridiculous. And Horror to be absolutely hypocritical. (Which is why Color’s specific way of approaching Stage 2, wanting to show him a better life—something new—rather than trying to change or fix him, worked so well.)

[comikadraws]

Hello. I really like your analysis of the political stuff in naruto, and I just read your latest one in regard to Hashirama's odd neutrality towards 'the curse of hatred™'. But I kind of want to know now: could you say the same about Kishimoto himself? Does he agree with the 'curse' in a simular vein as H.? Or is H. a deliberately flawed character rather than something that the narrative primarily sides with? (because that's the impression I've got but it's been a while, so idk, I didn't really get the nuance of the plot in the way that you explore when I first watched it)

Authorial Intent and the Curse of Hatred

Okay, so I've got like ten other Naruto asks in my inbox but I will prioritize this one real quick because it is actually very central to a lot of my posts. I already went a little bit into this mess when I analyzed the "Curse of Hatred", but I feel like this topic deserves a post of its own.

This particular part of the discussion leaves the confines of Naruto as a fictional universe entirely and instead delves into the realms of authorial intent analysis and criticism.

My TL;DR is Kishimoto very much intended for the "Curse of Hatred" to be real and the narrative sides with Hashirama and Tobirama (and that is problematic). In the longer version, I am particularly focusing on Tobirama as he is the founder of the Uchiha Clan Genetic Theories™.

I also apologize in advance because pointing out Kishimoto's shortsighted writing is something I have gotten harassed over in the past. Hence I believe some theoretic knowledge is needed.

<Analysis under the cut>

Note: As always, blue links are external links or other people's posts. Red links are my own posts that add context to my thought process.

The problem with Kishimoto's intent is that the guy almost never explains the intention of his writing. This is why discussions like "Was Itachi retconned" or "Does Kishimoto hate Sakura" persist to this day. The only thing we are left with is to instead infer the meaning from other sources (such as the manga itself or minor remarks from interviews).

My conclusion is influenced mainly by four things: The social and political context behind Naruto, Kishimoto's usual treatment of sensitive topics, the narrative of the manga itself, and fantasy genre conventions.

But before all that, here's a little info dump.

Death of the Author

In opposition to the idea that the "Curse of Hatred" is real in canon stands the idea that it was just Tobirama's racist propaganda piece - and this is actually a fairly widespread thought. Not necessarily a misconception, however, as it depends on your school of thought when it comes to engaging with fictional text - Extreme intentionalism (full submission to the author's intent), Anti-intentionalism (complete disregard of the author's intent), or anything in between. While extreme intentionalism can probably be considered the "truest to canon" (as opposed to anti-intentionalism, which is more like a subjective interpretation or "headcanon") it is also incredibly limiting to our fandom experience.

Before I continue this, I need people to understand that both approaches are valid. Especially in instances in which the author's intent translates very poorly into our contemporary understanding of the world, as is the case with the "Curse of Hatred". Both authorial intent and the audience's interpretation are vital puzzle pieces when engaging with a piece of media critically.

To clarify, I do not support Kishimoto's writing decisions in this. I am not pushing an anti-Uchiha clan agenda. What I am going for is analyzing Kishimoto's intended canon. As I have already pointed out, it is a canon that is problematic and nobody should be forced to submit to.

With that out of the way, back to the main topic.

Social and Political Context of Naruto

Personally, I believe it is possible that Kishimoto intended to portray themes of prejudice in his story. Mostly in the sense in which people get defined for their worst character traits (as we can see when comparing Tobirama's and Hashirama's characterization of the Uchiha Clan) or for their affiliations (as is also the case with Jinchuriki). I do not believe, however, that he was aiming for racism specifically - and definitely not for scientific racism, let alone eugenic ideologies. And this has a lot to do with Japan's lack of sensitivity when it comes to racism.

For starters, Japan has a very ethnically homogenous society with about 98% of its population being ethnically Japanese and therefore having one of the lowest diversity scores in the world. On top of that, Japan has no national human rights institutions or laws against racial discrimination. The Japanese population is rather unsensitized to themes of racism.

To not turn this into a fallacy of composition, a different user pointed out that Naruto (as a story) was possibly influenced by Japan's reactionary right-wing movement (possibly revealing Kishimoto's own political standing). The movement responded to an increase in anti-Japanese sentiment across Asia. Said sentiment was sparked by a controversy in which Japan omitted its war crimes (which is a well-known pattern in Japanese politics).

At the very least, it is correct that Naruto is very pro-state in its way of protecting the state's reputation by hiding its crimes from the public consciousness. Kishimoto himself demonstrates an incomplete understanding of Japan's war history by unintentionally paralleling WW2 crimes in his story or claiming that the war was the result of mere grudges when, in reality, it was racism and imperialist ideologies.

While this is just my hypothesis, Kishimoto's lack of political and social awareness could easily influence his perception of social injustices, such as racism. Insensitivity, meanwhile, might reduce any motivation to engage with such themes.

Inadequate Realization of Sensitive Storylines

So about insensitivity... This might actually be less of a hypothesis when we look at Kishimoto's repeated failure to address sensitive topics in his writing with dignity and/or a critical lens. I've also ranted about this in an older post.

We are talking about child soldiers and death matches between children (Chunin Exams), slavery (Hyuga Clan), human experimentation (Orochimaru), human trafficking (Kushina and maybe Mito) genocide (Uchiha Massacre), and the invasion of neutral territory (Amegakure). In all of these cases, crimes are not further acknowledged than a brief admittance of "damage was done" before the plot forgets about them entirely.

Chunin exams? Never talked about again.

Slavery? Naruto promised to change the Hyuga clan but never mentions it again.

Human experimentation? Orochimaru is welcomed back after his exile.

Human trafficking? The Jinchurikis got stockholmed, so everything's good!

Genocide? Addressing that might tarnish the Uchiha Clan's reputation. So we don't.

Invasion of neutral territory? We never see Amegakure again after Konan's passing.

It is a larger pattern in which social injustice is primarily introduced to add flavor in the form of "tragic backstories" but not actually to resolve it. We are supposed to condemn those tragedies, to feel sympathetic - but we are not supposed to criticize Konoha as a main perpetrator, enabler, or apologist.

To me, it doesn't seem like Kishimoto ever truly cared about those social issues. He knows they are bad, yes, but they were never the focus of the story and Kishimoto barely even stops to consider the implications.

The Manga's Narrative

The story does not engage critically with itself. And frankly, it also does not demand such critical thinking from its readers either.

In the manga, we are often presented with incorrect or incomplete exposition from unreliable narrators. Obito lies all the time, Madara gets the wrong story from Zetsu, Itachi gets the wrong story from who-knows-where, and Sasuke doesn't know what's going on half the time. The interesting part is how the truth behind those lies is usually uncovered.

Usually, we do not know that any of them are perpetuating a lie until said lie gets corrected by another character. Said character is usually a "source" in the sense that they have personally experienced the (until then) falsified events.

It is very rare that the audience gets to pick up on little clues to realize that a character is lying. One such instance is when Obito directly contradicts Itachi in his rendition of the story. But even then, the conflict between their two renditions gets resolved by a "source" character in the form of Kushina retelling the events from sixteen years ago.

Now, let's compare this to the "Curse of Hatred".

I have already mentioned this in another post (where I analyzed the curse and its contents), but the "Curse of Hatred" is first officially introduced by Obito. He focuses on the Uchiha's war-torn history and how that influenced its members. Tobirama more or less builds on that, adding his hypothesis about the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan and its effect on the user. Then Hagoromo adds some things about the reincarnation cycle that might play into this. In the end, Zetsu wraps it all up by revealing that he manipulated the Uchiha Clan for centuries.

The problem is that not one of these puzzle pieces directly contradicts the other and instead, they appear to complement each other. Therefore, no lie gets officially "disproven" in the story itself. Tobirama's Theories are treated as though they were perfectly fine fact that does not require revision.

We can further infer Tobirama's credibility on the matter by judging the present characters' reactions.

Hashirama, as explained in my previous post, tolerates if not accepts Tobirama's ideas. Orochimaru shows himself hostile toward Tobirama but does not take the chance to contradict him. Sasuke, who is an Uchiha and has personal experience with the Sharingan, shows no signs of protest. Skepticism, yes, but it slowly fades away until he seemingly accepts Tobirama's words as truth. He does not even attempt to argue against it.

Add to that that Tobirama is generally presented as a truthful character, described as "rational" and "principled" in the databook. He regularly criticizes or insults other characters without the bat of an eye, seemingly having no problem with tarnishing his own reputation, unconcerned with keeping up false appearances. He is not the type of character to lie.

Yes, Tobirama comes off as a bigot regardless, but that's because he's essentially an asshole and not because he is actually intended to be racist. Even in the event that what he says is non-factual, he fully believes it is. But also, the possibility that Tobirama is talking nonsense is not even hinted at (again, he is described as "rational" and no character seems to disapprove of the Uchiha Clan Genetic Theory TM).

Fantasy Fiction Conventions

In fantasy writing, none of what Tobirama says is actually uncommon. In fact, if anything, his theories concerning the Sharingan resemble popular fantasy tropes.

In Anime, many powers are awakened through trauma. This is called "Traumatic Superpower Awakening". The Sharingan is just one of many offenders, even in the story of Naruto. This reflects Tobirama's idea that the Sharingan is triggered through great emotional pain.

It is also a common trope that characters who gain too much power eventually go insane. This is called the "With Great Power Comes Great Insanity" trope and reflects the Uchihas' to essentially take away psychic damage alongside each newly awakened Sharingan power. Kishimoto just specifically linked that insanity or pain to the Sharingan (which represents the power of the Uchiha).

Yet another trope is the "Personality Powers" trope. This one can be seen in the Uchiha Clan's tendency to feel deep love and hate - at least one of which is essential for the awakening of a Mangekyo Sharingan (and, depending on the circumstances, a regular Sharingan). Hence Tobirama calls it "the eyes that reflect the heart". In other words, the personality facilitates the power.

Last but not least, we've got the fantasy races trope. The author invents a race and then assigns it distinct characteristics (both physiology and behavior-wise).

In its most extreme cases, this can be used to create an "enemy race" (such as orcs, vampires, demons, etc.) for the good guys to fight. It usually removes complexity from the story by dumbing down the enemy to simply just being "born evil".

Now, notice how the Uchiha Clan's Hatred could be considered a personification of Kishimoto's idea that wars are caused by grudges? Furthermore, Kishimoto makes that comment at a point in time (February 2012) when all three main antagonists of the story are Uchihas (Madara is revived in chapter 559, which was released October 2011), and then releases Tobirama's theory a year later (February 2013).

This one, unlike the other three, is particularly controversial as fantasy races often get conflated with real-life ethnicities. This is not always the intention of the author, however, as they often never intended to portray racial stereotypes. For two particularly popular examples, take a look at Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" or Itagaki's "Beastars".

On one hand of this debate, you have that fantasy races are unlike human ethnicities and do not necessarily reflect reality, simply because the author decides what is real in canon or not and because fantasy is always a lie from a real-world perspective. Hence the Curse of Hatred, or rather, Tobirama's Theory is canon.

On the other, fiction does not exist in a vacuum and it is impossible not to apply our contemporary understanding of racism and ignore what are otherwise screaming red flags of racist ideology. Hence we recognize Tobirama's explanation as racism and wish to reject the Curse of Hatred as a concept.

But these two ideas can coexist.

The problem is just that Kishimoto likely only accounted for one thing and not the other. His intention translated very poorly into our contemporary understanding of the world, making Tobirama (and therefore, Hashirama as well) the victims of short-sighted writing.

Who cares anyway?

In the beginning, I explained that regardless of what Kishimoto intended for his story, any interpretation is valid. So why should we care about what the author thinks?

In my analyses (which are separate from my headcanons), I will usually take an "Extreme Intentionalism" approach in which I prioritize the author's intent over the reader's interpretation. Not because I am opposed to the idea that the reader's interpretation is relevant to the meaning of a text but because readers' interpretations are unique to the individual. Focusing on such an individual interpretation can easily alienate those who don't share it. Hence I like to focus on something that is more informative, almost objective in nature, such as the author's likely intended canon - which people can then mould into whatever suits their headcanon best.

I have also noticed that, sometimes, anti-intentionalist takes will devolve into full-blown lies (sometimes with the purposeful intention of omitting canon). This lie can then be upheld in an attempt to condemn or rather bully those with intentionalist interpretations. This unwittingly protects the writer (as well as problematic writing conventions) from criticism.

This is why I think even Anti-Intentionalists should inform themselves of an author's intention. This is, more or less, an aspect of media literacy as it allows us to identify biased or manipulative narratives and take purposeful action. In our case, this involves questioning and criticizing Kishimoto as an individual, raising awareness about his writing's shortcomings, and learning from his mistakes.

[butchsophiewalten]

im kinda worried about how jophie is gonna progress in the series, martin already has a habit of forgetting things about his charactes like their heights but i would also not be surprised if he forgot like actually important scenes with his characters like that one jophie dialogue on findjackwalten. im worried he's like completely lost the plot on how jenny and sophie should be

I never want to be needlessly mean, because I don't think it's ever very appropriate or helpful, but I can't lie this is honestly an insane thing to say. To me. Like idk. I don't think forgetting or misremembering something as innocuous as a character's height is indicative of a person being able to forget entire major elements of their story and thus completely mischaracterizing the main characters of their series.

Also, I guess you wouldn't know this, because I think it's only been brought up in spaces once or twice, but Martin does have character docs. He absolutely has means of keeping track of important info. Maybe not every minute detail is on them, and that's why slip ups happen, or maybe he just isn't constantly consulting his Character Bible when having off-the-cuff conversations with his friends about his OCs. Like. Its Ok. I'm sure when he gets to the actual in-series character writing he's going to be a little more thoughtful and attentive with regards to getting things right.

Also this 'mean and defensive' aspect of Sophie's character has absolutely been a part of her the entire time. I can't really back this up with Receipts or anything, but I really do think the way Martin's talked about her, like, historically, has evidenced this. Still, I think it's true that those more rough-around-the-edges aspects of Sophie have evolved over the years to become much larger parts of her character than they maybe were in the past. I'm sure that relative 'shyness' was something intended for her as well, but I think it's definitely transformed into something more firmly 'staunchly antisocial' than like, 'softhearted shygirl', y'know?

I just also think it's true that Martin personally finds it very funny when people misunderstand his characters, like old fanon characterization of Jack, and old fanon characterization of Sophie, and intentionally does not correct people, because he likes to imagine their surprise at seeing how the character actually behaves in the series. Which is like, fine. I agree with him, that's really fun and funny.

Also, like, this feels like a silly thing to point out, but specifically with regards to the Findjackwalten dialogue, it's like. I don't know. That dialogue doesn't dictate the character's personalities, the characters personalities dictated that dialogue, y'know? It's not like how, for the fandom, we learn more about how those characters behave from that piece of writing and our interpretation of them is changed by it. Like, even in a scenario where Martin forgets the specifics of what he had them say and how he had them interact in those scenes, or even if he manages to forget about those scenes' existence entirely, I don't think that's going to meaningfully change Sophie & Jenny as characters, because it was his understanding of them and their relationship that caused those scenes to be what they are, not the other way around.

[hungergameshyperfixation]

I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS I don’t know where to begin.

Spoilers below the Read More sign!!!

Okay so we were all right about the purple. That made perfect sense. Idk if I posted this somewhere, if it’s in a draft/document somewhere, or what but I strongly subscribe to the color symbolism theories. In MY opinion I think there are a lot of ways the color purple can be interpreted here; I remember when I was younger, I was taught that “purple represented royalty,” which I kind of later internalized to mean something else but regardless. I’m not going to google/look too into it right now, but to my best memory purple represents/can represent wealth, high society ideals, arguably the bourgeoisie…? (ty autocorrect) But it also is, in our conventional knowledge, the “mix” of red and blue; I think the wealth association and the whole dichotomy that’s associated with purple is REALLY fitting here. I’ll get to this later, but the entire cover in my opinion represents dichotomy.

Also I do not mean I literally subscribe to color symbolism actually playing a large role in IRL things—I don’t care about it that much LMAO; I just meant that in fiction, I can really get into the ideas of over analyzing the color and their meanings (So “yes, the curtain really was just blue, but also I’d love to read an essay about how it’s a metaphor for sadness” that kinda thing).

Another thing about the cover color wise is of course the gold, which I figured would be present. It is a near constant on the cover, with the exception of Mockingjay I think. Plus, as I kinda hope to get into, it’s following in the footsteps of TBOSAS (both in the timeline of the narrative, and from our timeline perspective.

Regarding my point about the circles—as much as i hate to admit it, I don’t think that a lot of the cover design is like intentionally crafted with the goal of perfectly aligning EVERY little element with the story. But, as I might’ve shared before, I do fully believe that doesn’t stop people from interpreting/drawing connections to things (even if they weren’t intentional? Does that make sense? I’m literally writing this entirely off the cuff, just straight up typing). BUT back to the circles: YALL IT’S NOT EVEN A CIRCLE IT’S LIKE A HALF CIRCLE. It almost looks like it’s taking the shape of a…sunrise.

Also not to say that I kinda ate up my very rushed cover post last night, but I was right about a couple things—at least I’d say I was. I definitely am not the only one though, I think a lot of people thought what I thought and probably have made MUCH better cover analysis pieces. TBH a lot of the cover was easy to “guess,” only in the sense that this is the fifth installment of a book series that has generally consistent book covers (except for one specific part on this one…spoiler alert: the centerpiece)

I will say, there are multiple ways to interpret the elements on the cover, which I REALLY like.

NOW, onto arguably one of the more interesting is the mockingjay and the snake. I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY. Maybe I’ll save that for a follow up post because I wanna get this one off my chest.

[deltaruminations]

The Man in the Motif: A Character Analysis of W.D. Gaster via Music

“Sing us a song, you’re the mystery man… sing us a song if you please… ‘cause we’re all in the mood for a broken chord, and you’ve got us feeling unease…”

here’s the Big Dumb Music Post lmao

A couple things:

Most of what comes after the cut is written like an actual essay and not a shitpost i promise

This is more Synthesis and Subjective Reading of Extant Material than speculative theorycraft

I mostly wrote this for fun & because I’d never seen anyone lay out an analysis for our boy G like this before. I don’t think it’s like Revolutionary it’s mostly just me talking a lot about a special interest lol

I get the sense that a lot of people may have already picked up on a lot of this stuff and it might just be my alexithymic ass that needs heady analysis like this to understand subtle emotional cues. That’s to say: IDK how much New Stuff is being presented here for any given reader but it might still add value to that existing understanding I Guess

I’m not trying to assert that Toby Fox consciously intended to convey everything that I’m pulling out of this stuff lol

OK HERE WE GO!!!!!

Contents

To quickly access a given section, just search for it by its leading flag ([#XXX])

[#001] mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme)

[#002] ANOTHER HIM

[#002-A] A Brief Tangent on Giygas

[#003] File Select & Game Over ambience

[#004] Darkness Falls

[#005] man.ogg (Tree Room)

[#005-A] A Brief Tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei

[#006] Takeaways

Undertale and Deltarune use leitmotif to a wide variety of ends in shaping players’ experience of their stories. Because music is understood emotionally and interpretively, a single song can function to convey several simultaneous ideas about characters, places, and/or themes, and may be understood to have multiple layers of meaning.

Gaster’s leitmotif in particular is notorious for its tendency to be heard by fans everywhere in Undertale and Deltarune’s soundtracks, regardless of the actual intentionality of its use. Due to the brief and generic nature of the sequence, there’s a distinct possibility that this ambiguity was engineered into it, possibly as a way to influence players’ perceptions by implying that he’s secretly ever-present and ever-watching, and/or to convey something about Gaster himself, such as dispersion of his consciousness or memories.

Aside from the previous point, there are a few instances in Deltarune’s soundtrack in which its use is either explicit or, at the very least, somewhat less ambiguous. This discussion will focus on the former cases, specifically tracks that play in the scenes in which we interact with the man himself. I’ll cover this in roughly the order that I believe a typical player would experience them for the first time.

Most of these sections will be Very Roughly divided into:

Informal analysis (I Do Not Know Music Theory I Am Just A Guy With Abled Ears) of choices made in the song itself

Subjective analysis of what emotions or associations the song might be evoking

Interpretation of what any of that could mean about Gaster Our Good Friend Gaster

Discussion of in-game context wherever I think it's interesting lol

Because my formal knowledge on music composition is very limited, and also because I’m no longer hearing these songs fresh and untainted by Lore Obsession Disease, I had my partner (a musician who knows nothing about UTDR or this character) give his opinions on these songs as well. While I don’t think a formal background is a prerequisite for this kind of subjective analysis (as these soundtracks are designed to communicate with a broad audience, not just with musicians), it of course allows for further insight. I’ll refer to him from here on as my “research assistant” because I think it’s funny.

I first had him listen to the tracks listed here out-of-context and give me his thoughts on what they communicated to him about the character or scene. I then gave him some context for each song, the story, and the character, and we discussed whether that context brought further interpretation. It turned out his basic interpretations closely aligned with mine, with the addition of some really cool observations that would’ve never occurred to me on my own. This discussion will reflect his opinions & observations as well. Huge thanks to him!

With that in mind, I’m going to use the word “melody” and other such Music Words pretty loosely throughout this sorry. I tried my best to respect the Terminology but im just a fucking dude ok

[#001] mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme)

We must, of course, begin with mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme), which establishes his leitmotif (or at least, the only confirmed part of it; whether or not there’s a B part to the leitmotif is currently unknown, though I‘ve seen some interesting speculation about that). Assuming that Deltarune players experienced Undertale first (as Toby Fox seems to have intended), this will have been the first instance of Gaster’s leitmotif ever encountered, and it’s the front line for evaluating his character.

Found only through a Fun event, in Undertale’s “Sound Test” room, this is presented as less of a song and more of a demo or reference sequence. As we move on to other tracks, I’ll consider this track the platonic ideal and use it as a point of comparison.

One brief note is that the filename itself does not explicitly assign this track to Gaster, but rather to “him.” It’s the Sound Test UI that puts his name on it. Whether or not there’s significance to this is currently unclear.

(I think there may be something in common between the friendly “voice” that thanks us for our feedback in the Sound Test room and Deltarune’s out-of-universe UI text after closing the fountain in Deltarune chapter 1, but I don’t have any idea what, if anything, that means right now.)

Precedents established

Since this is the base motif, I think it’s worthwhile to mention how the song is structured on paper. Since I’m no Theory Guy, I’ll refer you to Tumblr user notesanddreams’s technical analysis of what he calls the “Gaster Sequence,” which is a name I like a lot and am going to use moving forward.

To quote him:

It’s a pretty simple four bar loop. The melody, which everyone I know has taken to calling “the Gaster motif,” is a four note sequence that goes “starting note -> up a minor second (half step) -> up a perfect fifth -> back down a perfect fifth.” This is played four times before modulating down a half step and looping….

There’s simply not enough musical information in the track to discern a tonal center, and therefore any attempts to give it a key signature are futile. This gives the sequence a very mysterious and unsettling nature, but its vagueness allows it to be applied to certain tracks in the Deltarune OST very subtly at times.

While it’s distorted, this song seems to be played on an unaccompanied piano. This establishes an association between Gaster and that instrumentation (as we’ll see reinforced later), as well as with sounds of distortion & modulation, dissonance, and “noise.”

These two factors combined may be things to consider alongside the leitmotif when determining whether a song or part of a song should be considered to offer direct descriptions of Gaster (as opposed to containing a more abstract reference to him, or instead being referential to or descriptive of another character associated with piano, such as Kris).

Emotional perspective

Gaster’s Theme is anxiety-inducing. It builds up endlessly but never resolves. It is not musical; it lacks anything recognizable as motion or melody, which in turn causes it to lack anything immediately recognizable as personality, or emotion, or backstory. It’s a song that betrays no motivations or values, leaving us to fill in the blanks on our own.

The minor key and dissonance could easily be experienced as sinister, playing on our fear and mistrust of the unknown. If the truth is out there, it doesn’t seem to be pleasant. If we continue to seek it out, who knows what could become of us, or what we could unleash upon the world?

The Sound Test UI itself is bizarre and mysterious. Why does it thank us for our “feedback” after hearing Gaster’s Theme? What input or feedback did we provide?

Characterization perspective

We could take this theme on its own to suggest that Gaster is characterized by duality, tension, and emotional detachment and/or reservation.

The rising tones in each bar evoke thought and ideation, approaching a point before dropping down to approach another. The endless, moderately-paced loop of shifting, yet internally consistent, sets resembles a careful dialectic that never reaches resolution.

We could interpret this as the sound of an analytical mind aware of many options and possibilities, but never ultimately delineating the truth between them (my research assistant specifically described this track as being “locked into itself”). We could also take it less literally to signify a reversal of opinion or understanding in general – not necessarily that decisions are never made, but they’re reached through heady deliberation and obsessively re-examined after they’re made.

While the motif betrays internal tension, it’s also highly ordered and consistent, lacking any spontaneity. This can be taken to mean that Gaster is cautious, deliberate, and reserved. For all the neurosis it conveys, it still comes off as fairly confident, as though Gaster is simply used to this and doesn’t tend to question it.

We could also possibly infer that other characters experienced Gaster in much the same way as we do – they may have found him unsettling and hard to read. 

As mentioned before, it’s unknown whether other parts to this motif exist or are planned to exist. If they do exist, then the fact that only the A(?) part has been presented as “Gaster’s Theme” would underscore the one-sidedness of his presentation in Undertale, as well as a possible tendency of Gaster’s to hide parts of himself.

(EXTREMELY speculative, so please don’t take this too seriously, but: I’ve seen at least a handful of fans raise the possibility that at least some part of the Secret Boss (“Freedom”) motif may be a B/C part of Gaster’s motif. If Gaster is trying to obfuscate any involvement with Secret Boss characters, using his metaphysical resources to hide obvious musical associations with them (i.e., by labeling only this part of the motif as his “theme” in the Sound Test) would certainly be a clever way to do so.)

[#002] ANOTHER HIM

The first true application of the Gaster Sequence a player will experience is also the very first song heard in Deltarune: ANOTHER HIM, which plays during the Introduction (also known as the Survey or “GONERMAKER”).

This is another instance of Gaster being referred to as “him” in the metadata rather than by name. The specific phrasing of “ANOTHER HIM” seems referential to Undertale Players’ knowledge of him, and could be taken to suggest that this is a separate instance or at least “piece” of the character described in that game. Alternatively, this could indicate the same character being presented from another perspective, and/or the same continuity of that character who’s no longer recognizable as the same person for one reason or another.

Musical analysis

This track is, of course, a direct quote of the entire Gaster Sequence isolated from any other motifs. Its main developments are a slight modification to the rhythm of the Sequence and the addition of other instruments and background ambience – this is actually the only song in the scope of this document in which the motif itself is heard accompanied (while Darkness Falls also contains other instrumentation, it occurs during an instance of a different motif). We again hear the Sequence played on piano.

When my research assistant first heard this song without context he paused it after about 5 seconds and proceeded to tell me all about Paul stretching and how it can be used to create the type of ethereal ambience heard in this track. One thing he noted is that this algorithm allows for stretching a sample while keeping it in-key, without adding dissonance. I should be clear that I have no idea if this exact technique was used here, only that it seems to have achieved a very similar effect.

So, what is the sample being stretched (in some way or another) to create that ambient noise? When we reversed the stretch, we found it to be none other than one of Giygas’s instruments from EarthBound. This has been identified by other fans as a sample of the track Giygas’s Intimidation.

[#001-A] A Brief Tangent on Giygas

I want to be careful about suggesting too much from musical samples & references, since UTDR are known to make extensive use of samples and soundfonts from other works, especially from EarthBound (as well as reworked versions of Toby Fox’s own music from other projects). Like, I don’t think Toby was trying to Say Anything in particular when he used the “WOW!” from Earthbound’s intro sequence in Spamton’s battle themes except “EarthBound is very special to me and that sound design choice they made was really memorable and I think it sounds really fun here.”

That in mind, UTDR fans have been intuitively connecting Gaster and Giygas for years based on superficial similarities and the known influence of EarthBound alone. Given Gaster’s unique existence in metanarrative, the specificity and consistency of the references associated with him, as well as the potential thematic relevance of this reference (and the one to follow in section [#005-A]), I do think it may be fair game to consider them in these cases. I’m going to throw out a couple of things:

The use of samples from Earthbound, specifically ones related to Giygas, draws yet another thematic connection between Gaster and Undertale’s True Lab and possible parallels to Alphys, suggesting this connection is relevant to Deltarune. Memoryhead itself bears resemblance to Giygas. (also wait what there’s parallel harmony in Amalgam?? holy shit???)

Giygas is a character who, when encountered in Earthbound, has been driven to a state of eldritch, cosmic horror by trauma & grief. His backstory as Giegue, told in the previous game Mother, includes themes of pursuing knowledge despite knowing of the dangers, of betrayal, and of guilt over well-intentioned harm, specifically harm done while under some form of external influence. The Giygas of EarthBound, in his madness, exerts violent influence over animals and people, including Porky, a troubled child who Giygas compels to serve him.

Throughout the fight, Giygas expresses his internal conflict, lashing out seemingly not due to malice but rather uncontrolled emotion. Defeating Giygas requires first that the character Paula “Pray,” or call out for strength from the party’s families and the people they’ve helped along their journey, until there are no more characters left to reach; Paula’s “call” becomes unheard, “absorbed by the darkness.” Then, finally, she begs the player themself to “PRAY” for the party – the “kids” they’ve never met before – dealing the final necessary blows in the process.

Gaster & Giygas are both unpleasant sounding two-syllable G names LOL this is stupid sorry

Obviously, I don’t anticipate a 1:1 resemblance between Gaster’s and Giygas’s stories, but there could be thematic parallels worth considering. There is one thing, however, that I find interesting in the context of this song in particular: in inviting us to this “Survey,” Gaster seems to have called out to us in the same way that Paula did, praying to us for help – perhaps, more specifically, to help the kids of Deltarune who we have yet (at this point in the game) to meet.

Emotional perspective

ANOTHER HIM opens with a distorted ambience, evocative of murmuring, choral voice, rolling thunder, and perhaps the crackling whips of a Tesla coil. This ambience ebbs and flows in intensity, occasionally seeming to thrash and writhe. Just before the Sequence itself starts, and then throughout it, we hear what seem to be longing strings, and underlying the piano is a steady, understated percussion.

In contrast to the distorted fuzz of mus_st_him.ogg, the piano used here is crisp, with only a limited echo applied to it. While not unaccompanied, this piano still feels exposed and small, especially against the faint instrumentation and ambience churning below it. The high, bell-like keys feel bright and hopeful. At the same time, the slow, halting tempo suggests trepidation.

Where the base Sequence marches steadily through its dialectic without deviation or hesitation, ANOTHER HIM’s arrangement pauses at the height of each thought, as if considering it more carefully, before dropping back down to the next. After the first two sets switch off normally, the melody then proceeds to rise steadily, as though finally grasping at a revelation; after reaching an apex, it then pauses, collecting itself, before looping over again. Isolated from the ambience, this arrangement sounds contemplative and searching, in contrast to the neurotic dialogue of the base Sequence.

The backing ambience sounds ethereal and spacey, but not noticeably dissonant. It doesn’t necessarily lend the same eeriness of mus_st_him.ogg’s distortion, but the low, slow murmuring and even occasional lashing of the “voices” in the background still betray an undercurrent of unease & tension.

When my research assistant heard the songs mus_st_him.ogg, ANOTHER HIM, and Darkness Falls without context, in the order presented here, he read them as a developing narrative. He felt that this piece, compared to the base theme, added “motion” in the form of a steady rise and fall. He then said, “What I would want next, if this were one piece, is melody. I’m still waiting for that next part.” While it takes more time to breathe, ANOTHER HIM still never approaches resolution.

He also likened the emotional experience of this song to Gregorian or hymnal chanting – less so the literal style of music, but rather the use of reverberation in that musical form to create a full, choral sound from only a few individual voices.

Characterization perspective

The overwhelming sense I get from ANOTHER HIM is one of vulnerability, introspection, and dishevelment, as well as cautious deliberation. It also conveys a certain amount of hope and possibly curiosity, though these are muted in comparison to the hesitance and turmoil.

Compared to what we “see” of him in mus_st_him.ogg, Gaster seems to be far less self-assured in his dialectical thinking. He’s breaking from his traditional pattern of rumination and attempting to reach for some form of personal truth. The cautiousness could also be taken to convey unease or skepticism about the situation at hand, about the probability of success in achieving the “NEW FUTURE,” or even about the Player themself.

As far as the background ambience, its most obvious function is to convey the ethereality of incorporeal, out-of-universe existence, its ebbing and twisting reflecting the shapelessness of a disembodied consciousness. It could even be considered diegetic – as if it is the sound of his state of being, or of this strange, extraplanar space beyond the event horizon.

The ambience could also be taken to convey emotional information, though its separation from the “conscious thought” of the motif could imply many things (as we’ll discuss later in [#004], we have an example within the same chapter of the motif conveying quite a bit of emotionality in itself).

If we take this angle, then it could suggest that Gaster is not integrating emotionality with rational thought, but is at least possibly acknowledging that emotionality — or it’s built up to a point where it can no longer be fully contained or ignored. We could interpret the pauses in the motif as Gaster listening to or meditating on these “voices” – or becoming momentarily overwhelmed by them.

From this perspective, it’s clear that this emotional state is confusing and volatile; the dialogue happening on this level is not nearly as orderly or civil as that heard in the motif. The “lashing�� sounds could be taken as flashes of pain; their violence could suggest bad memories, self-criticism, shame, or regret, among other possibilities.

I also think the choice of a percussive “heartbeat” is quite interesting. While not rapid, it could possibly suggest anxiety, as though his heart is pounding. It also suggests intimacy, which in turn requires a certain level of trust – he has allowed us close enough to hear that heartbeat at all, whether or not it’s comfortable for him, or he feels confident that it’s a good idea for him to do so.

Despite this piling on of confusion and unease, the relative clarity and brightness of the motif’s piano seems to twinkle faintly in the dark. This sense of hope gives us something to latch onto amidst the tumult, and that may be true of the character as well. We could read this as a hope that is worth enduring the doubt, the humbling, and the possibility of pain.

The song in context

ANOTHER HIM’s hesitation and vulnerability strikes an interesting contrast with Gaster’s dialogue throughout the Survey sequence. Aside from a very small number of seemingly spontaneous reactions, Gaster in his dialogue – in his intended self-presentation – comes off as unfailingly polite, professional, confident, and generally neutral.

While we needn’t assume that this self-presentation, or the opinions he does express, are insincere, we can still infer that whatever the reality is of his internal state, Gaster is making a concerted effort to keep that information hidden from us. There are obvious practical reasons for this: to maintain the integrity of his study, he needs to minimize his biasing of our behavior.

That said, we could certainly read personal factors into this as well. From Gaster’s POV, the Player possesses a tremendous amount of metaphysical knowledge and ability. Whether or not he has difficulties with trust in general, Gaster certainly has reasons to be very wary of us, something I’ll discuss further in the next section.

The content of the sequence itself (text, background, etc.) warrants its own analysis. I’ll probably do one at like, idk some point probably

[#003] File Select (& Game Over) ambience

While it doesn’t really constitute a “song,” I think it’s worthwhile to look briefly at the sound design in the File Select and Game Over UIs, since they’re still among the very few instances of “face-to-face” interaction we have with the man of the hour. Note that this doesn’t include Darkness Falls, which plays after a certain choice is made at a game over – the next section will discuss that. Because this section covers sound design choices moreso than musical ones, I’ll eschew the format of the other sections and simply analyze these choices in-context.

This is the one section of audio I didn’t review with my research assistant, so you’re just getting my unmoderated opinions here, unfortunately.

For the better part of the game (so far), the File Select screen generally looks and feels the way a Player would expect from an RPG UI, with illustrations, friendly help text, and narrative music:

Post-completion Chapter 1 File Select (Before the Story)

Chapter 2 File Select (Faint Glow)

Similarly, the chapter 2 (or, rather, the post-ch1-completion) Game Over screen displays a genre-appropriate graphic, includes a message of encouragement (or, perhaps more accurately, a plea for Kris to survive) from Kris’s party members, and plays the song Faint Courage.

These File Select & Game Over screens are potentially extremely lore-rich in and of themselves (some of this will come up in the next section), but with regard to this particular discussion, I’m mostly interested in the stark contrast they present when compared to the pre-completion Chapter 1 screens.

Before chapter 1’s completion, when Gaster is strongly implied to be narrating (and possibly facilitating) the Player’s SAVE data manipulation and game over choices, the soundtrack for both screens is profoundly barren.

There’s no “song,” no melody, only an identical low, looping drone for both screens. We know that there can be music here, even very emotional music, and we feel like there probably should be. And yet, there isn’t. This makes these screens feel empty, ominous, and cold, underscoring their dark, ascetic visuals.

I think the fact that so little is being said here is in itself very, very interesting. We know that we aren’t actually alone on these screens; our friendly facilitator is here with us. We also know from the other examples in this document that Deltarune’s Gaster is not inherently associated with a lack of music, nor (as we’ll see in the next song) a lack of emotion in melody. Why is it only in this particular context – when the Player approaches these existential crossroads – that the music disappears entirely?

The File Select screen on its own doesn’t give us a whole lot to work with. While the dialogue here is certainly unsettling (even compared to Gaster’s clinical speech in other scenes) and warrants its own discussion, it still isn’t entirely clear why file manipulation should sound like this.

In the Game Over screen, however, we can start to make inferences. Game Overs are when Gaster’s plans are at the most risk – they’re when a Player is most likely to opt out of the study and never return, leaving Deltarune’s future as-is and any hope of a “NEW FUTURE” unfulfilled.

With that in mind, I think this drone conveys emotional shutdown. Gaster is still there – the drone is his presence, as though he’s trying to keep his breathing slow and measured as he speaks with us – but whatever is happening with him internally, he’s either working hard enough to succeed in hiding it from us, or it’s so overwhelming that he himself can’t even acknowledge it.

What that internal experience could be is anyone’s guess. Personally, I think he’s deeply afraid.

When Gaster seems to panic upon seeing his own name in the Survey, he can simply exit the situation and prevent the Player from making that choice. He can’t, however, prevent us from exiting the game – whether or not he had the power to do so (and he of course doesn’t), doing so would be meddling in the experiment, it’d be a breach of participant consent, and it’d potentially undermine whatever uneasy trust the Player has developed with him. In these moments, he’s entirely at the Player’s mercy.

(Note: this last video shows the game exiting after the creator is named “GASTER.” As of Chapter 2’s release, naming either vessel or creator “GASTER” causes the game to return to the chapter select, rather than exiting.)

Since the same drone plays on the File Select screen, we can infer he’s shut down there as well. It still isn’t as clear what about SAVE manipulation would cause such a strong response, and there are many ways this could be interpreted. It’s worth noting that we don’t currently know whether Gaster is the one executing those actions, or if he’s simply giving us guidance and warnings as we execute them ourselves. More broadly, we don’t know whether Gaster is capable of executing these actions at all.

For right now, my best guess – and I want to be clear that I don’t feel confident this is correct – is that SAVE manipulation is the first obvious indication to both us and to Gaster that he’s willing to accept some amount of “necessary evil” in pursuit of his plans. Based on the seemingly unprecedented gravity of his tone and diction on this screen (especially around erasing SAVEs), this may be when Gaster first recognizes, fully, just how much power he’s entrusted to a Player, how irresponsible it may have been for him to do so, and he is again deeply afraid – this time, not just of us, but of himself.

[#004] Darkness Falls

(This is the song I wrote that post about, that a lot of people seemed to like, which was very cool! But also it was meant more as a throwaway vent post than an actual analysis and was worded kind of strongly/reductively in part because I didn’t expect anyone to actually see it lol. anyway this will reiterate a lot of those thoughts but with A LOT more detail and nuance, possibly more than is necessary lol)

(Quick kudos again to the user who pointed out details about Faint Courage and its relationship to Kris on the Post People Liked. I hadn’t even begun to think through that part of the song when I made the post. It helped a lot with this!)

(Wait one more note: I’d previously thought this sequence only happened in pre-completion Chapter 1, when Gaster was actively present in the UI, but apparently this still happens as of Chapter 2?? The guy just crawls out of the woodwork specifically to narrate our ending and see us off I Guess. I do not have any particularly strong opinions at the moment about what this could Mean because I don’t generally have strong opinions about why he disappeared in the first place except IDK We Got The Hang Of The Game So He Switched On The Normal UI And Now He’s Just Observing Quietly And Taking Notes And Also Waving From Cars And Egg I GUess but anyway I thought I’d point it out because I got it wrong before)

(Oh btw if God kills you it just bypasses the normal screens entirely and returns you to a checkpoint. this detail doesnt mean anything it was obviously implemented for mechanical/joke reasons I just think it’s funny. like even Gaster is just sitting there like ?????? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. sorry moving on now)

Darkness Falls is only heard after saying “No” at a Game Over. As previously discussed, Game Overs in chapter 1 (pre-completion) feature the Emotional Shutdown Drone™, while post-ch1-completion Game Overs feature the song Faint Courage. Upon refusing to continue, whatever audio is present cuts out entirely, leaving complete silence as Gaster narrates our ending. Immediately after that text cuts out, Darkness Falls begins to play.

While a Player could encounter this before the File Select or after seeing the Tree Room, it felt most logical to me to order it like this for Reasons. Based on both my own experience and that of some other people who responded to the Post People Liked, it seems like a lot of Players, even ones who know about the Tree Rooms, just end up never saying “No” and seeing it at all.

This is the only track in this document’s scope in which the Gaster Sequence occurs alongside another leitmotif: the one found in Faint Courage, the song played in the aforementioned post-ch1-completion Game Over screen (I’ll simply refer to this second motif as Faint Courage from here on).

For the sake of this analysis, I’m only considering the Gaster Sequence part of the song (roughly 0:00 - 0:33) to be directly descriptive of the man himself, as we have good reasons to believe the second motif is specifically saying something about Kris. That’s to say: any character traits being suggested by Faint Courage will be assumed to describe Kris, not Gaster.

However, I’ll still discuss the song as a whole where it makes sense to do so, including consideration of what it could be saying about Gaster’s perspective on Kris, on the moment in which it’s found, or on the broader narrative.

Musical analysis

In an unusual break from precedent, the Gaster Sequence isn’t hidden by or within the other leitmotif featured in this track. Instead, we hear an unaccompanied piano arrangement of the Sequence that then leads into Faint Courage, played on the same piano but now accompanied, and with more instruments gradually added. Each motif takes up roughly half the song’s length, though the latter is slightly longer.

Much like the piano heard in ANOTHER HIM, the keys played during the Sequence have a moderate reverberation applied to them, but are otherwise fairly clear & crisp. Notably, this reverberation still continues after the shift into Faint Courage, as if the previous motif has shifted into a background, supporting role for the next one.

The arrangement of the Gaster Sequence heard here deviates the most by far from the original mold, to the degree that it’d be easy to miss it as an instance of that theme at all. Viewed side by side, the difference is stark. Someone who actually Knows Theory could probably describe it more eloquently than I can, but I’ll do my best to fumble through this with my untrained ear and the input of my research assistant.

This arrangement of the Sequence doesn’t do away with the back-and-forth of the base theme, but the dialogue heard here begs, grasps, and searches, seeming to have no pretense of self-assuredness or strict, rational confidence. It seems more grounded in the fact that this internal conversation really has only one, contiguous “speaker,” as each even-numbered set of bars picks up directly from the set before it, rather than there being a sharp drop between them.

The “speaker’s” opening comment, which begins on a chord, rises like a choking cry or plea, before they seem to attempt rationalization. Unable to answer in kind, searching for something to say but having nothing to meaningfully offer, they volley back on a higher note, as though presenting themself another question. The “speaker” then repeats the same sorrowful, confused entreaty from before – but this time, they continue from that cry to reach toward something, pause as though approaching rest, and then decide there’s something more to say – something entirely different.

Referring back to the “narrative development” reading proposed by my research assistant (first brought up in section [#002]): when my assistant first heard this song without context, he almost immediately stopped the track and said “that, right there, is melody!” He described the addition of a tonal center as making the difference between “color” and “meaning” – ANOTHER HIM adds interest to the base Sequence, but it’s still difficult to find an emotional foothold in it. It’s difficult to parse. Darkness Falls, on the other hand, has obvious musicality. It’s immediately relatable. It’s generally pleasant.

He spent some time discussing the chords found in this arrangement of the Sequence, describing the very deliberate placement of these chords as being its own melodic line of sorts, “going through its own motion, its own process.” He described the pattern as being roughly “harmony, then dissonance, then a stretch of time, then dissonance.” He noted that the one tonic he could identify in this Sequence was just before the turn into Faint Courage.

With this in mind, we could say that the instance of the Sequence heard in Darkness Falls, in contrast to that heard in every other song covered in this document, reaches its own internal resolution. That tonic, leading into the turn, could be read as a choice finally being made.

My research assistant also pulled out a “hero’s journey” narrative from this song. The first half, the Gaster Sequence, continues its push and pull of dialogue and tension, establishing the sense of a problem needing to be solved; while the second half, Faint Courage, approaches that problem with playful curiosity, possibility, and hope, before developing into a heroism heralded by nostalgic, Zelda-like synths, and ending on a literal high note. He noted that this type of narrative is common in ending themes for games, serving as a reflection of the story just completed.

Emotional perspective

The immediate motivator for me to write the Post People Liked was because I’d pulled up Darkness Falls on YouTube (for this analysis lol) and among the video’s top comments was someone saying, more or less, “Boy! It sure is weird that Gaster’s Theme shows up so obviously in this beautiful, moving song!” This was one among many, many comments I’d seen over time across various platforms expressing the same thought.

This confusion is perfectly understandable. As I’ve expressed in several ways in this document and elsewhere, the idea of the Gaster Sequence being arranged in a way that is, in itself, obviously moving – immediately, viscerally moving without any need for the kind of reaching overanalysis I’m doing here – is wholly unprecedented in either Undertale or Deltarune. As I mentioned in the Post People Liked, we’ve been conditioned to view Gaster as anything but another character, and that may be its own form of characterization. And, like I said before, the degree of deviation heard here is so great that many players will likely miss it entirely if they aren’t paying attention or don’t know what to listen for.

That said, it’s very obvious that this arrangement of the motif sounds distinctly loose and emotional. The first half is sorrowful, but its internal development also conveys curiosity and open-heartedness. The heroism of the second half conveys a distinct sense of hope, or at least, satisfaction.

I think it’s worth noting here that, when I initially showed my research assistant the scene in which this song is found, after he’d previously heard the song out of context, his immediate impression was that it felt ironic and mocking, as though the game – maybe even Gaster himself – was deriding the Player for not persisting further. I think this impression makes sense. It’s one that I’ve experienced myself, and based on comments I’ve seen, it certainly seems to be the impression many Players walk away from the first two chapters with.

After a little more discussion, specifically after I presented the idea of Deltarune’s One Ending, and the idea that this ending is likely the “default” ending – the one Gaster knows will happen and seems to be hoping to change – my research assistant felt the song conveyed sincere acceptance. In his words: “whatever ending the player gets, it was heroic that they even tried.”

Characterization perspective

In reference to the idea of this ending theme being ironic or cynical, I think there’s something to be said for the possibility that Gaster’s habitual masking and/or intrinsic propensity for interpersonal oddness leads to others disregarding his sincerity or misinterpreting it as malice. We could argue that this is a trait indicated in a number of other ways beyond this song.

The reverberation of the keys during the Sequence of course recalls the ethereality of Gaster’s extraplanar existence. The fact that the reverberation continues into Faint Courage, combined with the placement of the tonic just before the shift, could be taken to represent a decision by Gaster to take a background role in Kris’s narrative.

Something interesting to consider from that: if the choice was made to take a background role, then what other options were being weighed in the previous dialectics? Does this imply that Gaster has considered more active roles in the past? (Could it be the case that he’s previously taken them, and the outcomes of those past decisions have influenced this latest choice? Is passivity really the best choice he could make here, or is he actually just transferring responsibility? Does he simply not trust himself to do the right thing if given the chance? Sorry this is getting really speculative LOL moving on)

As a number of users mentioned, the inclusion of Faint Courage could be an indication that Gaster is not only mourning the potential loss of the Player and with them, the “NEW FUTURE,” but the potential permanence of Kris’s death in particular. This reading suggests that Gaster feels a great deal of tenderness toward Kris themself; given what we’ve seen of Gaster thus far in this document, it wouldn’t be hard to infer reasons for why he might be especially fond of a misfit kid with self-esteem issues and interpersonal difficulties. (Assuming, of course, that these troubles aren’t directly related to their situation with the Player. Personally, I like to think that the more troubled aspects of Kris’s character are, for the most part, just as true to their real personality as their more “acceptable” or likable aspects are – attributing too much of their struggle to outside influences feels like an undermining of their agency. But I do feel it’s still worthwhile to acknowledge other possibilities, or at least the potential nuance they offer.)

The relationship between Gaster and Kris is absolutely something that warrants further examination as the story continues. While this song (and to a certain degree, the next one) seem to suggest a fair amount of good intent and even tenderness on the part of Gaster toward Kris, there’s certainly still room for complexity and tension on Kris’s part.

The song in context

In a typical game, we’d expect to be returned to a title screen or menu right after choosing not to continue. Deltarune instead gives us Gaster’s narration, then leaves us on a black screen for the roughly one-minute duration of Darkness Falls, before it closes the game window on its own. That begs the question of why the game lingers here on this song in the way it does.

In a metanarrative sense, I think there’s validity to the idea that this choice was made to reinforce that we reached “an end” – not just a game over, but the “default” ending or One Ending to the game, in which the world is covered in darkness. As mentioned before, Darkness Falls sounds to a degree like an end credits song. The game closes because that’s what typically happens after the end – we leave the game.

As far as narrative or character interpretation goes, we do know that (pre-ch1-completion, at least) Gaster is our facilitator out-of-universe in Deltarune from its start to its finish. We have reason to believe that he has control over the screens we’re on (given that he can exit us back to title). We can infer that he would be the one to redirect us to the menu.

We have no reason to think that, just because Gaster’s narration has left the screen, he’s suddenly ceased to be present when Darkness Falls plays. The fact that it starts with his Sequence seems to imply his continued presence. We can infer that he’s the one keeping us here through the song, and the one who finally closes the game.

Maybe he keeps us here because he feels he owes us our ending song – and maybe this song is an expression of what he’s thinking and feeling in that moment.

To reiterate my reading from the Post People Liked: Gaster describes our ending, and then he has nothing left to say. We said “no,” and he can’t violate our consent as participants, but he can’t bear to let us go just yet. His “NEW FUTURE” is in the balance, Kris’s life is in the balance, and on top of that, we can’t deny that the man is probably just lonely.

So, we’re left alone in the dark with him, and for the first time, we “see” him entirely exposed – no confident, clinical dialogue, no choices to make, no spr_mysteryman, no True Lab fog or trees for him to hide behind. We sit there with him as he works quietly through the situation – perhaps even entreating us to come back and try again later – and when Darkness Falls ends, when he finally reaches some form of acceptance, he decides he can’t keep us there any longer, and closes the game.

[#005] man.ogg (Tree Room)

man.ogg is the track that plays in the secret Tree Room, and is notably not found on the original Deltarune OSTs thus far. While a first-time player could technically experience this track before the previous two discussed, most players going in blind won’t learn about the secret room until after their first playthrough, or potentially until chapter 2.

I know there’s some debate in the fanbase over whether or not Gaster is the unseen (at least to the Player) man encountered in the Tree Room and elsewhere. Aside from the arguable use of his motif in this song, which I’ll get to in a moment, I think there are other context clues indicating that he’s intended to be representative of Gaster in some way:

Gaster, in particular, seems to never be referred to by name except when being referred to by the “followers” or the Sound Test UI. The reasons for this could be metanarrative (to maintain the mystery around him) or narrative (to indicate that Gaster has distanced himself from his name, for whatever reason).

Precedent from Undertale associates Gaster with the word “man,” specifically unmodified instances.

Aside from spr_mysteryman and the possible relevance of Memoryhead and its attacks, UTDR never represent Gaster as a sprite visible to players. After all, as far as we’re aware, he no longer has a physical form for us to see. The fact that Deltarune’s Man is always hidden from our view feels like a clear nod to this.

Musical analysis

man.ogg is a brief, unaccompanied piano piece, seemingly a waltz (fan-arranged sheet music for reference – I’m a big fan of the tone descriptor “surreptitious yet jocular”).

While it’s subtle, it can arguably be read as a variation of the Gaster Sequence. Gaster Theme Everywhere Skeptic Matthew Sandstrom describes this variation as a “Garbled Gaster”:

The melody and rhythm are somewhat garbled, but the right notes are there, even if the order is wrong.

He identifies two other tracks in chapter 1 that seem to use this same Garbled Gaster motif: April 2012 and, VERY, VERY INTERESTINGLY, THE HOLY. I won’t be getting into those tracks here, but I think it’s worth pointing out that a distinct “Man” motif might be an ongoing thing to look out for.

For what it’s worth, my research assistant also felt that man.ogg was likely an intentional variation on the Gaster Sequence. His justification included the thought that the motif could largely be boiled down to the “top two notes.” Make of that what you will.

I won’t worry too much about comparing this directly to mus_st_him.ogg as I have with other tracks in this document, since it seems to be almost a new motif in itself. The fact that “the right notes are there” but the “order is wrong” is worth considering, though – it’s the same Sequence in an almost unrecognizable form. It’s no longer a dialectic, but a partnered dance. Keeping with precedent, there’s also a very subtle, almost imperceptible echo applied to it.

As a final note, man.ogg is actually not an entirely new track – it’s been identified as a rework of a fan song (“Waltz of Seccom Masada”) made by Toby Fox for the game Yume Nikki (“Dream Diary”). Specifically, it’s a theme he wrote for the character known to Yume Nikki fans as Seccom Masada-sensei.

[#005-A] A Brief Tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei

As I mentioned in the previous tangent ([#001-A]), I want to be careful about suggesting too much from reworked tracks that were meant for or made in reference to other projects. After all, MEGALOVANIA isn’t meant to suggest that Sans is ascending to God Tier or likes saying swears. (It’s worth noting that the aforementioned April 2012, which seems to use the Man motif, is also a rework of an unreleased Homestuck track.)

However, much like with Giygas, the connections between Gaster and Uboa have been intuitively obvious since the first Fun event investigations on Starmen.net. (Toby Fox literally used a slightly edited Uboa for Dr. Andonuts’s final boss overworld sprite. The dude likes Uboa, OK?)

So, again, I don’t think it’s unreasonable in this case to take a closer look at a very pointed reference to Yume Nikki as we gather information.

Masada-sensei’s appearance in Yume Nikki is very brief; demonstrations of the segment may be found on YouTube. While the connections between spr_mysteryman’s design and Uboa are well-known, the idea that Masada-sensei and Gaster may also be comparable in some ways is far more obscure, but worth considering.

Some things of possible note from the segment itself:

Reaching Masada-sensei’s spaceship requires descending a long flight of stairs into what appears to be some type of basement. At one point, Madotsuki must equip the Umbrella Effect (which causes her to hold an umbrella while rain falls) in order to extinguish a fire blocking her way.

Masada-sensei’s sprite is in black-and-white – white face, black clothes and hair. His only discernible facial feature is a set of googly eyes that make him look a little neurotic. He also has a non-standard reaction to the Knife Effect – approaching him with it equipped will cause him to back away in fright.

When first encountered, he turns in place steadily and fairly slowly in front of some kind of piano or organ, as though playing the instrument and/or operating it as a type of control panel. Interacting with him causes him to beep at us.

The next room to the right contains a bed. If the player has Madotsuki sleep in the bed, she will wake up later to the sound of the ship’s alarm system. At this point, Masada-sensei can be seen turning rapidly and erratically, as though panicked.

The spaceship will then be seen to crash onto a planet. It is raining when they land. Masada-sensei stands still, looking out the window.

Masada-sensei and Madotsuki seem to be alone on the planet, which stretches for several screens, desolate, until it culminates in a hole in the ground, atop a mound, leading to another long flight of stairs that descend into darkness and an even stranger, more inscrutable setpiece.

Possible character parallels worth noting:

Masada-sensei’s location in a spaceship suggests associations with scientific activity.

Yume Nikki fans commonly interpret Masada-sensei as a music teacher, hence the honorific. As Royal Scientist, Dr. Gaster would have been an authority in his field. We also know that at least one of Undertale’s Royal Scientists (Alphys) is a schoolteacher in Deltarune.

Masada-sensei certainly bears some physical resemblance to the widely accepted image of Gaster; and similarly to Gaster, the small amount of subtle characterization he was given made him a very popular object of fans’ affections and speculations. It’s worth noting, however, that Masada-sensei seems to be pretty universally understood as a sympathetic and very “human” figure – something that can’t necessarily be said for Gaster among the fanbase historically and at large.

I won’t extrapolate on this information too much here, but for this section, the “teacher” thing is worth keeping in mind.

Emotional perspective

I would certainly say “surreptitious yet jocular” feels like an accurate description of this song. To me it feels playful, but out-of-step. It seems like it should be a more cheerful piece, but there’s an underlying sadness or confusion leaking through.

What stands out to me most about this track is how rough it sounds, like the piano player is new to the instrument. For being such a simple piece, there’s a clumsiness to it, a lack of confidence – it sounds like it’s being played just a little too slowly, like the piano player is practicing the muscle memory needed to play it at full speed, and the rhythm stutters momentarily between bars, as if they’ve tripped over their own fingers. A few of the notes sound dissonant, like they were played wrong.

To me, this conveys a sense of imperfect but earnest effort. The piano player is not particularly good at this yet, they don’t feel confident about it, but they’re continuing to play. While the song isn’t exactly succeeding at evoking cheer or comfort, it still conveys sincere curiosity.

Characterization perspective

The way this song deviates from the base Sequence, combined with its rough, unrefined sound, could suggest that Gaster is breaking form in these scenes, perhaps stepping out of a comfort zone and attempting a new form of learning.

Aside from the traffic easter egg in chapter 2 (only seen if he was met in chapter 1), these are the only scenes in which Deltarune’s Gaster manifests in-universe and interacts directly with another character. Given that Gaster seems to prefer staying hidden as much as possible, and is also literally an extraplanar being, it isn’t difficult to see why he might be out of practice for this kind of interaction.

The playfulness suggests a drop in facade, and may reflect an innocent and almost childlike curiosity about the Player and/or Kris. The use of a waltz suggests a desire for connection, as though it’s an invitation to dance.

(Setting aside any specific Gaster relevance, I feel there’s a more general trend developing in Deltarune of waltzes being used to convey themes around connection, such as loneliness, the awkwardness and growing pains of a new relationship, the vulnerability and comfort of trusting a new friend, and the despair of a valued connection unexpectedly severed.)

The evocation of a novice sound could also suggest a more general relationship to teaching or nurturing. Recalling the tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei, we could read this song abstractly as a teacher’s perspective of a student’s development.

While Egg could have any number of worthwhile meanings as a symbol in Deltarune, we shouldn’t disregard the obvious: Egg is a young, fragile life in need of gentle handling and incubation. By giving Kris Egg, Gaster seems to be asking them (and/or the Player) to protect it — the future of Egg is in their (our) hands now.

We also have Lancer telling Kris they “won’t get through [their] teen years without at least one Egg” (itself a reference to EarthBound). With this perspective, we could read the act of giving Egg to be itself a gesture of nurturing on Gaster’s part, if admittedly a very bizarre and confusing one from Kris’s/our POV.

The fact that Players on a Snowgrave route will be locked out of chapter 2’s Tree Room could suggest that this behavior causes Gaster to second guess his trust in the Player and their ability to handle such a fragile responsibility.

[#006] Takeaways

While Gaster’s dialogue projects an air of unwavering, confident professionalism and emotional neutrality, the musical information presented alongside him hints toward a complex emotionality lying beneath his mask. Gaster is far from unfeeling – he’s simply hard to read, and that may be, to some degree, his intent.

In general, Gaster may have difficulty trusting his own judgment, whether as a response to past mistakes, and/or as a natural result of his tendencies toward hyper-analytical rumination and emotional repression.

The Gaster of Deltarune seems to be engaging in a great deal of reflection and introspection. He may be proceeding with this study despite having serious reservations about it. He seems disheveled and, to a certain degree, desperate. Whatever reasons Gaster has for being so interested in the future of Deltarune’s world, these reasons are powerful enough that they are, in many ways, breaking him down.

Despite his spoken eagerness to connect with the Player, close observation may suggest that he’s quietly uneasy with the arrangement and may be more skeptical and/or fearful of us than he lets on. 

For whatever reasons, Gaster also seems to have a particular fondness for and sentimentality toward Kris, who he seems to want to nurture and protect, while also viewing them as a potential savior and source of hope. The association of both characters with piano seems to underscore a connection between them.

OK im tired of writing about this now. THE END !!!Q!

[yukidragon]

Hello, could I get your thoughts on something? As another fic writer for SDJ (love Sunshine in Hell btw), I’m trying to keep lore straight in writing the first meeting between my OC and Jack. Unlike sweet Alice, she is ready to throw hands with this clown out of fear. XD But wouldn’t that count as rejection and make Jack disappear? Idk if the game will later elaborate on if the MC had a specific reaction to first seeing Jack after watching the tape, but I wonder if it’s important that the MC wasn’t so frightened that it counts as rejection of him. (In my fic, I’m currently taking the approach of “holy shit who are you oh wait you must be a hallucination and oh you’re a nice hallucination i guess you can stay” and that it happens so quickly that Jack doesn’t go away.) What are your thoughts?

Ahhh... I’m so glad you like Sunshine in Hell and Alice! Thank you! 💖

I think your MC being more frightened and having a more violent initial rejection of Jack is the more common interpretation of what happened. Heck, I know I certainly would freak out if suddenly a giant muscular stranger appeared in my home without warning.

In the demo, the reaction MC has to waking up to find Jack there is left ambiguous intentionally so that we can fill in the blanks with how we would have our MCs react, I’d wager. We don’t know how MC and Jack bonded, and I suspect that’s going to be a big reveal later in the plot.

My personal interpretation of what happened was that Jack struck a deal with MC, one that exchanged a bit of each other’s souls to free him from hell. What they would get in return is someone who would never betray or abandon them like Ian did, someone who would love them forever. Maybe there were other things offered too, since I have no doubt Jack would do anything to escape that cold, sleepless hell.

Alice agreed to the bargain because she was in a vulnerable state and because she felt bad for this trapped spirit who was suffering so much pain and was so desperate to escape it. She knows what it’s like to be desperate to escape pain, and she’s a very empathetic person. It was absolutely a reckless decision on her part made from a place of emotion rather than cold logic.

Consent is a huge part of Jack’s character. He needs MC to need them, and if they don’t want him there... he starts to disappear. However, even though his grip on reality slips in the “no” route, MC is downright desperate to keep him. MC wants him around even while they question if he’s even real or if they’re just losing their mind.

This is why I think that Jack being bound to MC was something MC agreed to, but no longer remembers due to the trauma of having a piece of their soul taken and exchanged. Jack simply tolerated the experience better because his soul was being tortured for the past 40 years.

Once they were connected, then they could share feelings. Jack, in the “no” route can pour more good feelings into MC. Despite their resistance, they are lonely and vulnerable due to what Ian did to them, and I think that’s the crack in their armor that he can seep into. He can make them feel good, even when they’re trying to put some distance between them. He can offer them friendship, love, servitude, good feelings... whatever they want, he’ll provide it.

Plus, even if MC doesn’t consciously remember, if they created this sort of supernatural bond between them, a part of them would feel a connection to Jack. He would feel close to them because, well, they have a piece of his soul in him and vice-versa. Even if they forgot the deal, feelings would still play a part... after all, it’s their feelings of wanting him there that keeps him around.

But, again, this is my personal headcanon for what happened. We most likely won’t know what actually happened when the two were bound together until the game’s full release. You might want to go with a different headcanon, or avoid touching on that part of the story entirely until the game’s release. It’s really up to you to decide what feels right for you.

I think you’re free to interpret what’s going on in whatever way makes you feel most comfortable. Focusing on the consent aspects of Jack’s nature is what appeals to me the most, so that’s why I have Alice being an active participant in his presence in her life.

I hope this ramble about my thoughts on this part of the game and my version of the story helps at all. Remember, the fanfic you’re writing is your story, and you’re the one making the lore. You can tweak it as you please into something that makes you happy and makes sense to you. I think that’s one of the most beautiful parts of making our own version of the story when we make fanfiction. 💕

Good luck with writing your story. I’m cheering for you!

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore  

[aydascomprehendsubtext]

While I think the general Vibe of glass onion is less class warfare and more a particularly vicious satire of bad rich people I think Helen's final act burning the Mona Lisa is really weird and almost rubs me the wrong way in the opposite direction?

So like to start in a story way she absolutely has to burn it. Like it's the most chekovs gun to ever chekov. It's very well done visually with shots that parallel her and the painting, it's the narrative punch of the thesis about disruption.

But I also don't love it as a political message? Mostly because I'm also not impressed with the idea that the most devastating way to harm capitalism is by destroying... what we colloquially call high art and culture?

Two critiques to deal with first: First of all I've seen people say it's not the real Mona Lisa but honestly I can't stand that interpretation I don't see it in the actual film text I think it ruins the impact of it I do not see it. Secondly! I think that post I just rbed about knives out being movies that love kinda being Good at stuff is absolutely right. Theres a veneration of intelligence and Real creative works and artistry and Knowing stuff in all this. And I think there's a ton of problems with that. On the one hand I'm compelled by the idea that it's a critical first step to dissolve the perception that these tech dudes or politicians or celebrities DO actually know what they're talking about. Like I do think persuasion in this area specifically is a noble goal. But yeah probably more importantly it's a very cringefail liberal John Oliver fantasy to say that's enough to win! And that absolutely extends to high art - the first knives out the punchline about the kids is that they can't do complex creativity, don't appreciate their fathers art because they're nepo babies or whatever. Like wow yeah he's the good millionaire because he's nice and also because he's good at books. Glass Onion really is a new take in this regard because it's saying fuck that! Burn the Mona Lisa even if people love it ESPECIALLY if people love it.

BUT ALSO I have two kinda fundamental problems with this worldview that views culturally valued art as an inherently bourgeois phenomena. First of all like ok slight tangent but. lmao yeah ofc Ryan Johnson is talking about art that's what he does yknow? Like on some level I think it's a little strange whenever people criticize media for talking too much about Media. Like yeah capture more of the human experience but you probably know more about creating art than me because I don't make films!!!!

Second tho is way more important because fundamentally like. Idk if I agree that trying to make really good art is something to sneer at and I DEFINITELY don't believe sneering at people who intentionally don't engage or care is #praxis. And I'm open to the possibility that my classical liberalism Wes Anderson aesthetic upbringing has infused me w some bad instincts here but I just don't think it's a real life good idea to burn the Mona Lisa! One movie that I saw that I really loved this year was The Menu which was a vicious satire of the idea that people trying to do high art are engaging in it in bad faith. It says "cuisine is a scam a cheeseburger and crinkle cut fries are our only salvation." And like while I enjoyed that movie... I refuse the premise! I don't think art and striving for art that communicates and innovates and yes is frequently silly and self important is mutually exclusive with LOVING trash and when things are bad and the art fails at what it was trying to do but you love it anyway. I love bad art because it teaches me something about good art and vice versa. I think opera is probably a capitalist hellscape and yet we should have more opera singers not fewer. Idk how to synthesize this I love glass onion i think that last post about it is spot on media criticism and I also love the Mona Lisa and don't love a politics that says we should disrupt it.

[mickmundy]

Catching up with Thou Giveth Fever and aughh, dear author you're killing me over here (affectionate)

All this tooth rotting fluff and pinning making me role on the floor- OH WHAT'S THIS?

ANGST COMING IN WITH A STEEL CHAIR-

IM DEAD!! IM DYING !!! And this is only the beginning of the angst!!!!! this series carved out my heart and placed it in a blender and the next chapter you post is gonna blend it in the highest setting istg aaaaaa <3 <3 <3

idk if its too late but i read the author's note for one of the chap's asking what scene we liked and thought "oh theyre realllyyyyyy in love" and honestly the scene where Sniper and Medic were baking a pie in the lab/operating room(?)

It was So. Augh. I can't put it into words akdhqkdbn. How they shared stories about baking pies. How Sniper was flustered but also accepting Medic's flirts. The whole story of Sniper and his repression being equated with his experience as a kid and his dad calling him greedy for wanting pie???? Medic wanting to kiss is SO BADLY but restraining himself bc he doesn't want to make Sniper uncomfortable. But then Medic inciting the chase with the flour??? And Sniper feeling genuinely comfortable and letting himself have this fun??? AUGHHH TABLE SLAMMING this scene made me smile like a goofy, hyperactive child in a candy-store

Just??? The way you make these scenes so natural are Too Good <3 I'm seriously looking forward to the consequences of the failed uber (Medic may have pushed a littleeee too much this time uh oooh and Sniper is sooo gonna beat himself up over being this unprofessional on the battlefield)

I hope your day is going well wherever you are! Thank you for posting this series, its *chef's kiss* I eagerly look forward for what you have in store to torture our hearts as well as Sniper and Medic's <3

OH MY GOD HI HELLO I AM SO SORRY FOR THIS INCREDIBLY DELAYED RESPONSE!!! ;__; PLEASE FORGIVE ME.... but EEEEE i am SO happy you've been enjoying my series my friend, i hope you've liked how tachycardia ended!! ^w^ i am so eager to begin posting the next one.. don't worry, they are going to be in Torture Town for some time yet! HEHHE >:)

AND THANK YOU SO MUCH ;;; it really means a lot to me when people let me know that they like how i write the mercs; i want them to feel Believable and Human and i think with characters that have such a like. "legacy" like the mercs, it's something that makes me really nervous to do!! but i've been having the time of my life prying them out of their Fanon Cages and carving out my own interpretations of them... :') and i'm so overjoyed that readers like you enjoy! ^_^ <33333

i'm actually overjoyed that malus seems to be the most warmly-received of my fics in the series, it makes me really happy that people sympathized and resonated with their baking scene... <3 it was definitely one that i was nervous about sharing!! ;_; we've seen a lot of what's going on in sniper's head, but medic's has been kept Intentionally Ambiguous... until this friday! >:) HUHUHUHU....

thank you again SO very much my friend, your feedback means the ABSOLUTE WORLD to me and i am SO SORRY i haven't replied sooner!!! ;-; i hope you continue to read my stories, you are welcome in my inbox anytime and always!! ^u^ <33333 ILYYYYY

[bizarropurugly]

omg actually let me tell you this story

dame doesn't learn shit because I still WAY too often try and go on the offensive for friends but

one time

back in elementary school

one of my classmates told me some dude was being a shit, or maybe I saw him being a shit?

anyway so when I go walk to her I INTENTIONALLY blast my shoulder into his

like REALLY hard

and he whirls around pissed off and was like "DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM?" or something like that

I don't remember my response just that I had the biggest grin on my face which was hilariously interpreted into being intimidation? shit-eating? a challenge? something hostile but I was actually fucking nervous like oops, didn't think that shit through

sooo anyway we start at each other, I don't remember the details but we had to be pulled apart and sent to the principal's office

this kid didn't have the same experience as me in school. he was a popular, jocky, upper middle class sorta kid even in elementary school.

meanwhile, the principal had some fucked up sort of vendetta against me? she fucking HATED me. she would go out of her way to catch me slipping, even with shit that was NONE of her business (for example, a cousin and I got into a fight OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL and she randomly barged into our classroom one day?? and then saw the scar I gave him on his face AND SHE SUSPENDED ME FOR IT)

so, unfortunately for him, he got caught into the gravity of her hatred for me and got nearly the same dramatic punishment (something like 1 week vs 2 week suspended idk, don't remember)

and as we are walking back he turns to me and says something to the effect of "dude this punishment is way overboard"

and for some reason this has stuck with me for all my life. that moment he turned to me and questioned everything about what I was going through without even knowing it. yeah, the punishment WAS overboard. we didn't even bruise each other, we didn't hurt each other really, at most our egos were cracked from the fight.

it was nice to be treated human, maybe? like, to have confirmation that this was bullshit?

[phoibos-querella]

here's my take as someone who's still part of the tntduo subfandom/tntblr/ a tnt shipper.

1. yeah, there's definitely some takes where people have little to no faith in the characters and think one or both of them are awful and that their relationship is just a toxic cycle that will lead to their downfall or smthn kike that. they usually just don't like the duo and/or don't know the characters that well. it can be that they don't like relationships that start of unhealthy/enemy to lovers, or maybe they intentionally headcanon this bc they like turning dsmp into something more serious and darker. those are both preferences so i can't judge so long as they don't try to force it as canon and- well- dont shove their interpretation in the faces of ppl with obviously opposite takes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2. their canon dynamic is definitely way more complex than the overall fandom would want to assume over a glance. tntduo was a stigmatized dynamic for a long while bc ppl didn't really get it and when it got popular, those who still weren't interested still didnt rlly get it? which is fine, but i feel like they should at least have a conversation with ppl who do like and have a understanding of it before they try forcing their opinions idk.

3. lots of people seem to be really annoyed by the explicitly /r, domestic, fluffy tntduo dynamic, and i just find it kind of funny that some ppl show such. disapproval? for not strictly healthy dynamics in dsmp ships, but then still shame tntduoers for making cute fanart where they aren't "eroticising" a toxic dynamic or whatever. as far as i can tell, we started off with strictly canon fanart, queerbaiting fan content, memes of their homoeroticness etc, but most of us are sympathizers for cwilbur and cquackity and believed they would get to a better place than where they were post revival. so why not believe that their relationship could become healthier and they could come to understand each other too?

it's been yearsss since dsmp ended. and the finales were rushed. everyone made their own personal headcanons of how their fav characters' stories ended, we're mostly making comfort content now. the same goes for tntduo shippers. our takes might not be canon compliant but we want better for our favs, it's that simple.

especially after the shit we went through with a certain cc turning out to be horrible, those of us who remain are just trying to have fun and some ppl feel way too comfortable attacking ppl who enjoy fictional characters and are having way too much fun now openly distorting our morally complex comfort character into an evil caracature that is ableist (and sometimes arguably homophobic) in nature. let's stop that pls 🫶🫶🫶

this is very rambley and probably not very coherent but here goes

i don’t usually pay attention to stuff like this bc i think it’s kinda dumb but i think the like… mini-discourse over whether or not domestic ctntduo is in character & interesting or not is kind of dumb and more or less boils their relationship down to two specific aspects of it (the romantic part bc this is only really applied when discussing it as a /r relationship and the obsessive hatred part), when whether you interpret it as romantic or platonic, is extremely complicated and complex and there’s a lot of different aspects. and i think both the soft domestic interpretation and the opposite are kind of. too simplistic? and often kind of feel like you’re either making them better people than they are in canon and ignoring the bad shit they’ve done or making them worse/more cruel that they are in canon.

idk if this makes sense but basically i don’t think either of these interpretations work that well bc they’re complex characters with a complex relationship and either Soft & Domestic or Always Trying To Eat Each Other With No Room For Fluff is too simple of an interpretation. what if there’s aspects of both

[pumpkinpaix]

Hello! Feel free not to answer this question if it is in any way too much, but I've been wondering about something concerning the "western" mdzs fandom. Lately, i have seen multiple pieces of fanart that use what is clearly Christian symbolism and sometimes downright iconography in depicting the characters. I'm a european fan, but it still makes me vaguely uneasy. I know that these things are rarely easy to judge. I'm definitely not qualified to do so and was wondering if you have an opinion

Hi there! thank you for your patience and for the interesting question! I’ve been thinking about this since i received this ask because it?? idk, it’s difficult to answer, but it also touches on a a few things that I find really interesting.

the short answer: it’s complicated, and I also don’t know what I feel!

the longer answer:

i think that this question is particularly difficult to answer because of how deeply christianity is tied to the western art and literary canon. so much of what is considered great european art is christian art! If you just take a quick glance at wiki’s page on european art, you can see how inextricable christianity is, and how integral christian iconography has been in the history of european art. If you study western art history, you must study christian imagery and christian canon because it’s just impossible to engage with a lot of the work in a meaningful way without it. that’s just the reality of it.

Christianity, of course, also has a strong presence in european colonial and imperialist history and has been used as a tool of oppression against many peoples and nations, including China. I would be lying if I said I had a good relationship with Christianity--I have always faced it with a deep suspicion because I think it did some very, very real damage, not just to chinese people, but to many cultures and peoples around the world, and that’s not a trauma that can be easily brushed aside or reconciled with.

here is what is also true: my maternal grandmother was devoutly christian. my aunt is devoutly christian. my uncle’s family is devoutly christian. my favorite cousin is devoutly christian. when I attended my cousin’s wedding, he had both a traditional chinese ceremony (tea-serving, bride-fetching, ABSURDLY long reception), and also a christian ceremony in a church. christianity is a really important part of his life, just as it’s important to my uncle’s family, and as it was important to my grandmother. I don’t think it’s my right or place to label them as simply victims of a colonialist past--they’re real people with real agency and choice and beliefs. I think it would be disrespectful to act otherwise.

that doesn’t negate the harm that christianity has done--but it does complicate things. is it inherently a bad thing that they’re christian, due to the political history of the religion and their heritage? that’s... not a question I’m really interested in debating. the fact remains that they are christian, that they are chinese, and that they chose their religion.

so! now here we are with mdzs, a chinese piece of media that is clearly Not christian, but is quickly gaining popularity in euroamerican spaces. people are making fanart! people are making A LOT of fanart! and art is, by nature, intertextual. a lot of the most interesting art (imo) makes deliberate use of that! for example (cyan art nerdery time let’s go), Nikolai Ge’s What is Truth?

I love this painting! it’s notable for its unusual depiction of christ: shabby, unkempt, slouched, in shadow. if you look for other paintings of this scene, christ is usually dignified, elegant, beautiful, melancholy -- there’s something very humanizing and humbling about this depiction, specifically because of the way it contrasts the standard. it’s powerful because we as the audience are expected to be familiar with the iconography of this scene, the story behind it, and its place in the christian canon.

you can make similar comments about Gentileschi’s Judith vs Caravaggio’s, or Manet’s Olympia vs Ingres’ Grande Odalisque -- all of these paintings exist in relation to one another and also to the larger canon (i’m simplifying: you can’t just compare one to another directly in isolation etc etc.) Gauguin’s Jacob Wrestling the Angel is also especially interesting because of how its portrayal of its content contrasts to its predecessors!

or! because i’m really In It now, one of my favorite paintings in the world, Joan of Arc by Bastien-Lepage:

I just!!! gosh, idk, what’s most interesting to me in this painting is the way it seems to hover between movements: the hyperrealistic, neoclassical-esque take on the figure, but the impressionistic brushstrokes of the background AAA gosh i love it so much. it’s really beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it in person at the Met. i’m putting this here both because i personally just really like it and also as an example of how intertextuality isn’t just about content, but also about visual elements.

anyways, sorry most of this is 19thc, that was what i studied the most lol.

(a final note: if you want to read about a really interesting painting that sits in the midst of just a Lot of different works, check out the wiki page on Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, specifically under “Interpretation and Legacy”)

this is all a really long-winded way of getting to this point: if you want to make allusory fanart of mdzs with regards to western art canon, you kind of have to go out of your way to avoid christian imagery/iconography, especially when that’s the lens through which a lot of really intensely emotional art was created. many of my favorite paintings are christian: Vrubel’s Demon, Seated, Perov’s Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Ge’s Conscience, Judas, Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc, as shown above. that’s not to say there ISN’T plenty of non-christian art -- but christian art is very prominent and impossible to ignore.

so here are a few pieces of fanwork that I’ve seen that are very clearly making allusions to christian imagery:

1. this beautiful pietà nielan by tinynarwhals on twitter

2. a lovely jiang yanli as our lady of tears by @satuwilhelmiina

3. my second gif in this set here, which I will also show below:

i’m only going to talk about mine in depth because well, i know exactly what i was thinking when I put this gif together while I can’t speak for anyone else.

first: the two lines of the song that I wanted to use for lan xichen were “baby, I’m a fighter//in the robes of a saint” because i felt that they fit him very well. of course, just the word “saint” evokes catholicism, even if it’s become so entwined in the english language that it’s taken on a secular meaning as well.

second: when I saw this scene, my immediate thought was just “PIETÀ!!” because LOOK at that composition! lan xichen’s lap! nie mingjue lying perpendicular to it! the light blue/white/silver of lan xichen in contrast to the darker robes of both nie mingjue and meng yao! not just that, but the very cool triangular structure of the image is intensely striking, and Yes, i Do love that it simultaneously ALSO evokes deposition of christ vibes. (baxia as the cross.... god..... is that not the Tightest Shit) does this make meng yao joseph of arimathea? does it make him john the evangelist? both options are equally interesting, I think when viewed in relation to his roles in the story: as a spy in qishan and as nmj’s deputy. maybe he’s both.

anyways, did I do this intentionally? yes, though a lot of it is happy accident/discovered after the fact since I’m relying on CQL to have provided the image. i wanted to draw attention to all of that by superimposing that line over that image! (to be clear: I didn’t expect it to all come through because like. that’s ridiculous. the layers you’d have to go through to get from “pretty lxc gifset” --> “if we cast nie mingjue as a christ figure, what is the interesting commentary we could do on meng yao by casting him as either joseph of arimathea or john the evangelist” are like. ok ur gonna need to work a little harder than slapping a song lyric over an image to achieve an effect like that.)

the point of this is: yes, it’s intentionally christian, yes I did this, yes I am casting these very much non-christian characters into christian roles for this specific visual work -- is this okay?

I obviously thought it was because I made it. but would I feel the same about a work that was written doing something similar? probably not. I think that would make me quite uncomfortable in most situations. but there’s something about visual art that makes it slightly different that I have trouble articulating -- something about how the visual often seeks to illustrate parallels or ideas, whereas writing characters as a different religion can fundamentally change who those characters are, the world they inhabit, etc. in a more... invasive?? way. that’s still not quite right, but I genuinely am not sure how to explain what i mean! I hope the general idea comes across. ><

something else to think about is like, what are pieces I find acceptable and why?

what makes the pieces above that reference christian imagery different than this stunning nieyao piece by @cyandemise after klimt’s kiss? (warnings for like, dead bodies and vague body horror) like i ADORE this piece (PLEASE click for fullview it’s worth it for the quality). it’s incredibly beautiful and evocative and very obviously references a piece of european art. I have no problem with it. why? because it isn’t explicitly christian? it’s still deeply entrenched in western canon. klimt certainly made other pieces that were explicit christian references.

another piece I’d like to invite you all to consider is this incredible naruto fanart of sakura and ino beheading sasuke after caravaggio’s judith. (warnings for beheading, blood, etc. you know.) i also adore this piece! i think it’s very good both technically and conceptually. the reference that it makes has a real power when viewed in relation to the roles of the characters in their original story -- seeing the women that sasuke fucked over and treated so disrespectfully collaborating in his demise Says Something. this is also!! an explicitly christian reference made with non-christian japanese characters. is this okay? does it evoke the same discomfort as seeing mdzs characters being drawn with christian iconography? why or why not?

the point is, I don’t think there’s a neat answer, but I do think there are a lot of interesting issues surrounding cultural erasure/hegemony that are raised by this question. i don’t think there are easy resolutions to any of them either, but I think that it’s a good opportunity to reexamine our own discomfort and try and see where it comes from. all emotions are valid but not all are justified etc. so I try to ask, is it fair? do i apply my criticisms and standards equally? why or why not? does it do real harm, or do i just not like it? what makes one work okay and another not?

i’ve felt that there’s a real danger with the kind of like, deep moral scrutiny of recent years in quashing interesting work in the name of fear. this morality tends to be expressed in black and white, good and bad dichotomies that i really do think stymies meaningful conversation and progress. you’ll often see angry takes that boil down to things like, “POC good, queer people good, white people bad, christianity bad” etc. without a serious critical examination of the actual issues at hand. I feel that these are extraordinarily harmful simplifications that can lead to an increased insularity that isn’t necessarily good for anyone. there’s a fine line between asking people to stay in their lane and cultural gatekeeping sometimes, and I think that it’s something we should be mindful of when we’re engaging in conversations about cultural erasure, appropriation etc.

PERHAPS IT IS OBVIOUS that I have no idea where that line falls LMAO since after all that rambling I have given you basically nothing. but! I hope that you found it interesting at least, and that it gives you a bit more material to think on while you figure out where you stand ahaha.

was this just an excuse to show off cool (fan)art i like? maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(ko-fi)

[curetapwater]

Hello friend lover of the fairies; Do you really think that PETER PAN is a VERY NEGATIVE influence on our beloved Tinkerbell? I personally believe that YES!! HE IS A BAD INFLUENCE!! Tink would never be able to kill a person, but in Peter Pan Movie she ALMOST KILLS WENDY; It is obvious that Peter unconsciously induced Tink to do that horrible thing, due to his IMMATURE and little awareness of his actions. Tink was only JEALOUS because of him!! Do you agree?

Well, this is a very interesting question! I'll start by saying that in the JM Barrie book, the reason as to why Tink did that to Wendy was because fairies are so small that they can only feel one emotion at a time, and at that time her only emotion was jealousy.

However, the fairies of Pixie Hollow are clearly more emotionally complex than this so I don't think that's the case for this particular Tink. So, I'll talk on one end from the perspective of her as a person in-story, and on the other end from the perspective of why she was written that way.

I will say I'm unfamiliar with her characterization in the Pixie Hollow books because the couple I read didn't focus on her (I'm sure @princessquinnella probably has some very interesting insights regarding that, if you'd like to share, Quinn!), but in the Tinker Bell movies she definitely doesn't have it in her to kill anyone, let alone a child. She can get angry and be impulsive (like when she broke the moon stone in The Lost Treasure, or when she flew out of her hiding place to tell off the dad in The Great Fairy Rescue) but even at her worst she still doesn't want to hurt anyone.

The 1953 movie seems to take place quite a bit later. She lives with the Lost Boys and seems to be the only pixie in the movie. Also, Peter Pan... uh.... let's just say I wouldn't want to hang out with someone who never matures past the age of 12, because that age in particular tends to have a bad intersection of immaturity but thinking you're mature enough to do things you really shouldn't. And Pan has that bad. He's so flippant about traumatizing Hook for one thing. Their enemy relationship is 100% Pan's fault because he chopped off Hook's hand for fun. And now this guy is being driven to the brink by a crocodile that Pan sicced on him so yeah no wonder Hook is Like That. Like normally I think the "Disney hero is bad and villain is good" take is tired in most cases but in this particular case yeah. Peter Pan is a little jerk.

So. Tink seems to have been isolated from her pixie friends and is in this environment full of violence and chaos. I'm sure that did probably change her for the worse, and stoke the flames of her more impulsive side into something with the potential to be dangerous. That doesn't mean she's a completely different person, but it makes me think that after she left Pixie Hollow something in her was... left behind? Idk. I'm not sure if Disney Fairies ever touches on how they met or why she moved in with him. Like I said, because I didn't read the books I don't know where Peter Pan falls in the timeline of Disney Fairies but I do know that the movies are all prequels so that's what I'm going off of. But I think there is a layer of toxicity between Pan and Tink that neither of them are aware of. So that's my Death of the Author interpretation of this situation. But I'm also interested in this from the perspective of why the creators added this shift in her character.

From a writing and marketing perspective, it's important to remember that the "would murder a child" version of Tink came decades before "would never intentionally harm someone" Tink. In the 1953 movie I imagine they just wrote her doing that because, hey, that's what happens in the original story. Also I imagine maybe there was some cultural factor. Like, maybe seeing a sympathetic character try to kill a kid was funny to 50s audiences but now not so much? Idk I mean like a year after this movie came out there was a big-budget movie musical about a bunch of women getting kidnapped that was framed for comedy and it was nominated for Best Picture so maybe they had a really twisted sense of humor back then. (Side note but that kidnapping movie is ranked in the American Film Institute's greatest movies of all time??? Why??????)

Anyway, fast forward to like the year 2000 and Disney is trying to pick out female characters for their new Disney Princess franchise. Tinker Bell seems like a great candidate because she's very popular and she's a fairy which little girls love! But they decide Tink doesn't really fit in the Princess line up, not to mention she has enough star power to have her own franchise. Cue Disney Fairies. But now it's the 2000s and it's unlikely that parents will let their little girls read books and watch movies and play mmorpgs about an attempted child murderer. So they sand off her edges and now she's toned down enough to be the protagonist of Disney Fairies. I don't wanna say they sanitized her or something because she clearly still has her distinctive spunkiness. But her more violent tendencies have been replaced with something easier for little kids to digest. At least, that's what I think. I guess I got a little marketing major-y there at the end haha. It's all the studying I've been doing!

[fastcarsgovroom]

Don’t really know what to make of still it but here goes (the Lando Norris issue) Pt 3

This is about the Lando Norris and Max Fewtrell (and other involved streamers) issue so you don't need to read it if it's not in your best interest to. I don’t know if this thing is supposed to have blown over or anything, but I’m posting because heck this is my blog and I want to post about things I think are in line with my personal philosophy (and maybe in-group).    

The entire rant is in five parts:  

Part 1 is where I describe very basically the entire situation, essentially what I saw happening through posts on the tumblr, twitter, and reddit Lando Norris tags  

Part 2 is me trying to describe why some fans felt what they felt and reacted the way they did  

Part 3 is the videos and what was said of them and how I interpreted them  

Part 4 the ‘misinformation’ idk

Part 5 is like, a rant.

Part 3: What was actually said?

The clips of Lando and Max F saying things that were, for the lack of better words, questionable. Clip urls taken from one of the OPs who brought the issue to our attention (hope it’s all right I didn’t credit).

TW for talks about sex, sexism, and misogyny

If anything, listen to the clips for yourself and ignore the wall of text. Make up your own mind. I’m only writing what I’ve seen, and as a way to make sense of it. 

Under the cut

The relevant videos are (not in chronological order)

1. Star signs

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqblm5bUU51y0rtc3.mp4

How I’d describe it: Max F brings up star signs (like, the zodiac) because his chat was discussing it. Lando reacts by saying that if a girl asks about star signs, ‘you get up and leave’, apparently in reference to his personal experience with a girl in conversation about star signs. Max F comments that the girl has ‘dodged a bullet’ based on how, for the lack of better words, passionate (’salty’) Lando’s reaction was. Lando retorts that Max F ‘wouldn’t have wanted to be with her,’ providing some information (where the girl was sitting), which causes Max F to recognize the girl and react in an amused but equally passionate way. The other streamer quoted “she crazy”, supposedly in relation to the girl.

How people have interpreted it: Others have interpreted is as being a sexual encounter, Lando being dismissive of a female-skewed topic of interest (star signs) and only listening to her in hopes of a sexual encounter (edit: the more ‘obvious’ “listening to women in hopes of a sexual encounter” is clip 4, added below. But I’ve also seen people claiming  ‘dipping’ (said by Max F) and ‘coughing’ (said by Lando) here to be references to sex, along with the ‘you wouldn’t have wanted to be with her’ as, of course, having sex, so I’ll leave this interpretation up. Again, I may be getting this wrong), that Lando and friends were making fun of the girl (’she crazy’, ‘you wouldn’t have wanted to be with her’, how Lando said the topic was ‘so boring’ at the mention of star signs, etc.) 

How I interpreted it: Personally, I don’t think we have enough context as to what really went down. I can see how you could come to the above interpretations, but I also, personally, find relating it necessarily to a sexual encounter a reach. Yeah, it could be the men hanging out and getting to know a young woman (girls) but just not jiving with her, or thinking that the woman’s interests were weird and boring. Personal conversations, essentially, that probably has no place on a public stream, but it comes across as being said carelessly and immaturely rather than with malice.  

2. ‘Stealing’, ‘don’t want to talk about it’, ‘that [descriptor]’ 

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqbm90Esu01y0rtc3.mp4

How I’d describe it: This clip starts with a streamer (honestly I can only identify Max F and Lando, sorry) saying Max is bitter, to which Lando adds that it’s because Max F ‘did not receive love from a girl’. This seems to upset Max F, who retorts that if he should ‘tell a few stories’ about Lando, implied to be embarrassing ones. There was a lot of ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ (Lando and Max F) thrown around about the women. Max F brings up that Lando ‘tried to steal mine (Max F’s)’. Lando refutes this, and Max F looks more upset and says repeatedly that he does not want to ‘have this conversation’ with Lando. Lando continues on, referring to the girls as ‘the [descriptor]’, i.e. “the old one?”; “the top golf one?” and “I did not try to steal that one.” 

The other streamer appears to take issue with this, saying ‘that one?”, and Max F adds “can we stop talking about it like that?” and doubles down and tells Lando to stop the conversation. 

How people have interpreted it: This is the more egregious clip; people took offense at how the women were spoken about (’yours’, ‘mine’), the implications that they can be ‘stolen’, and how Lando referred to them as ‘the [descriptor]’. Some also interpreted Max F’s it as referring to a girl. This all leads into the perception that Lando and Max F were objectifying the women and talking about them in terms of conquests (presumably sexual). 

How I interpreted it: I think Lando and Max F were quite disrespectful in how they were talking about the women, more so Lando because he continued with the conversation (in a public stream) despite Max F telling him to stop. It does sound like ‘locker room banter’ about relationships, which is still, ultimately, misogynistic, immature, disrespectful, and inappropriate, especially in a public stream. 

What I don’t get is how ‘the/that [descriptor]’ was taken as intentional and malicious objectifying, and how the ‘it’ was referring to a woman and not the entire situation. 

3. ‘Cowboy’

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqbq6nhmZR1y0rtc3.mp4

How I’d describe it: The clip starts in the middle off in-game banter, with Lando asking Max F if has any other digs at him, to which Max F replies that he does have ‘plenty off digs’ at Lando. Lando brings up ‘cowboy’ as an apparent dig, to which Max F retorts is ‘not a dig’, but was ‘brilliant’ and ‘very good’ for Lando. The Toy Story reference of ‘there’s a snake in my boot!’ is brought up, to which someone says ‘not the only snake, haha’ in a mock-jokey voice. 

How people have interpreted it: There’s probably more backstory to this in previous streams, as OP mentioned. Some have taken issue with, again, discussing personal situations involving a third party (OP has mentioned that the nickname ‘cowboy’ is in reference to a woman). Some also claimed that the nickname ‘cowboy’ is a sex position, so took offense to how it sounded like Lando and Max F nicknamed a woman they knew after a sex position, then openly talked about her in a public stream. Some said the nickname was from the woman’s social media handle, which had a cowboy emoji. 

How I interpreted it: This one is weird. I have no idea what the context is. I have no idea how people came to the conclusion that ‘cowboy’ was a sex position. Is the ‘snake’ in reference to male genitalia? I don’t know? I have no interpretation of this other than things without context always sound so weird. There’s entire twitter accounts about shows and podcasts lines taken out of context, which just sounds bizarre. 

4. ‘Reward’

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqbfwzG9GC1wg3eue_720.mp4

How I’d describe it: I’m not sure if I can describe it without transcribing the whole thing or putting my own interpretation / narrative here. It’s a public stream, sure, but it sounds as coherent as a bit of disjointed conversation you’ve eavesdropped on (To me, anyway. I’m not being obtuse on purpose maybe I’m just dim).  

Clip starts with Lando and Max F sounding very amused with something, with Lando telling Max F about an encounter(?)/incident(?)with ‘cowboy’, referencing ‘rounds’ (round 2… round 6). There’s more banter, Max F saying he was ‘worried’ that Lando was talking about someone else, that he will whatever Lando is doing is ‘good for [him]’, and is ‘healthy’. 

Lando says it was “bit boring, really”, to which Max F says ‘oh, 100%, yeah waffle. Complete and utter waffle’ and “gotta do you what you gotta do, listen to her sometimes you know what I mean? Sacrifices do bring on great things.”

How people have interpreted it: Essentially, Lando is telling Max F about his hookups with ‘cowboy’ (the rounds being, well, rounds of hookups). Lando is saying that being with ‘cowboy’ is a bit boring, but Max F saying that Lando has to make sacrifices (his time? listening to boring conversation (’waffle’)?) in order to maintain said hookup partner. The takeaway was that Lando and Max F discussed sexual encounters with a woman (’cowboy’) on public stream, called her ‘boring’, and implied that she should only be listened to in context of getting a hookup is disrespectful. Many were disgusted. 

Some, perhaps not having watched the clip, attributed the ‘sacrifices for women’s attention / sexual gratification from women’ comment to Lando. Others are angry and disappointed that Lando did not speak up against the comment, which indicates that he too is complicit with the notion that women should only be listened to for sexual gratification. 

How I interpreted it: There’s a lot of innuendo here and ‘keywords’ that are attributed to sex and hookups (i.e. ‘rounds’ being hookups / rounds of sex; Max F’s implication that the many rounds (6) are ‘healthy’, a common description for sexual activity as being a healthy part of the human experience.) So, yes, I’ll believe that they’re most likely talking about their sex life. Why did I use so many words to come to that conclusion, and not just say ‘they are talking about their sex life’ out of the bag? Because that was my thought process so idk what to tell you other than what I did. Maybe it’ll come across as being apologetic and intentionally obtuse, who knows. 

Without the context, it’s not going to be very obvious.

So if I’m taking it as their conversation about sex, then the “sacrifices do bring on great things,” will very heavily imply that Lando has to have boring conversations with ‘cowboy’ for sex. Let’s be clear, this is a very disrespectful and demeaning take. It’s also unfortunately a very common one that’s thrown around everywhere in media, among immature men (young or old, lets be real). It’s also very normalized, so I get when people say they find it ‘normal’ or ‘typical’. This doesn’t excuse the comments or topic of conversation. 

On the other hand, I can also see a POV that Max F may have said things ironically or sarcastically, since it is a sentiment often used (women are nags) and both Lando and Max F are known to be sarcastic, dramatic, and dry at times. This is a reach to the other end of the ‘harmless banter’ spectrum, but without context, maybe it’s possible.

Still don’t know why ‘cowboy’ is necessarily a nickname derived from a sex position. 

Part 4

[the-crimson]

I’ve considered responding to this post all day since i first read it cuz im pretty sure ur vague blogging about my post XD I don’t think our takes are mutually exclusive at all and I may have just not worded my post well but I didn’t think this scene was a punishment. I hope you don’t mind if I try to explain my take a bit more XD

I approached this scene from a very specific angle and that is as a metaphor for generational trauma and cycles of parenthood - something that is very personal to me. I see a lot of my own family’s trauma in bbh’s story and how my parents and myself have had to make hard choices between things we love to end those cycles.

In this scene, I don’t think God is being intentionally cruel. I think He believes he is being fair and just: giving bbh an opportunity to come home, rewarding him for his growth. Is it still cruel? Absolutely. Forcing bbh to choose between coming home forever or temporary happiness with his children is cruel because Bbh doesn’t know if the gate will still be unlocked the next time he winds up here.

A lot of times, parents believe they are doing the best for their children but in reality, they are only dealing more damage. That is what I see in this scene (or at least it’s one of the many things). Bbh could choose to go home and continue the cycle, to leave his kids to fend for themselves like his father did to him, or he could choose to stay and break the cycle.

The choices are equal to bbh. They both pull on his heart equally. He wants to go home. He wants to stay with his kids. It is an impossible choice and his father put him in this position. He could have one but not the other. Is that not cruel? Even unintentionally? Even in an attempt to be fair and just?

Idk you don’t have to agree. Maybe im just projecting and getting defensive because it appealed to me in such a personal way. My post was in no way trying to say my interpretation was the only way to view it - it was just some thoughts I’d had on how it spoke to me personally and isn’t even how I view this arc as a whole. It was just an interpretation on an allegorical level

Bad's Choice Is His Own

Badboyhalo family guy death pose dot jpeg. Now what?

I've seen a couple posts already talking about how Bad has been cast out of Heaven by a cruel, harsh, judging Father with impossible standards whom Bad is now rejecting because his own love as a Father is greater than that Father's love for him and like I don't want to say anyone else's read is wrong, but it's not what I saw at all.

So, let's talk about what we all saw. First, the scales.

[ID: Towering gold scales, level. Nothing on either side. End ID]

To one side of the scales, the gates. We know from Bad's dialogue these have been chained every other time he has died.

[ID: Towering grey gates, framed in gold with gold handles. End ID]

Then, on the other side of the scales, the way back to Earth.

[ID: Small passageway framed in gold and black with flames at the base. End ID]

The first thing that really struck me about this scene is that the scales were empty and level. With the ankh on Bad's back, the first thing I thought of was Ancient Egyptian religion, where the heart of the dead would be weighed against a feather and only those whose hearts were lighter would be allowed to pass.

This doesn't happen. Nor does anything else touch the scales nor do they ever come off level. There are no other voices besides Bad's in this scene, nor any indication that he is hearing anyone except himself. He is making guesses about what is going based on the environment, but he has nothing but the environment to confirm his guesses.

There is no one else here to sit in judgement against Bad.

So what are the scales for then?

Well, there's one other line that references weighing to me, if not quite directly, it still stuck out to me.

"Why are you cutting my happiness in half?"

In half. Two sides of his happiness, each with equal weight, each set on one side of the scales, which stand equal.

I don't think Bad is being punished by being forced to choose. I think he's in a truly brutal position and being gifted the chance to choose for himself.

How many fallen angels who claw their way back to heaven would hesitate? How many of them want anything besides to fling open the gates back home? How many of them manage to teach themselves to endure the light again for any reason other than true longing and desire for the light itself? For them, there is no need for a choice. The scales weight towards Heaven and they have no reason to even glance behind.

But not Bad. It's not God cutting his happiness in half. It's just the fact that his happiness didn't come from God. It came from his children. Half his heart is on Heaven half is on Earth.

I don't think the gates will be closed to him again unless he really beefs it this time around. He's shown that he loves. He's shown that his love is enough to carry him home. But it's enough to build him a new home too, a home from which it would be cruel to wrench him away. Either choice would have been correct. The scales weigh level.

But, Bad doesn't know this. He only knows that his heart has been split in half but his children need him.

[rainingpouringetc]

Hi! So, I’ve been wondering what the problem with Anna Lightwood is, because my brain saw that she was bending gender norms and hit love. But, now that I’m on tumblr, people are saying that she is problematic?

hi! i’ll try my best to explain, idk if i’ll hit everything but i hope this helps. and i’m sorry it took me a while, i wanted to do it justice so i tried to cover my bases and do my research.

basically, anna has said and done things that came across to many as ignorant, racist, and even misogynistic. 

first, let’s look at “every exquisite thing” from ghosts of the shadowhunter market. 

“If I were to tell my parents the truth about myself, if I were to reveal who I really am, they would despise me. I would be friendless, cast out, alone.”

Anna shook her head.

“They would not,” she said. “They would love you. You are their daughter.”

Ariadne drew her hand back from Anna’s. “I am adopted, Anna. My father is the Inquisitor. I do not have parents who are as understanding as yours must be.”

“But love is what matters,” said Anna.

this is from when ariadne was trying to explain why she would be getting engaged to charles. anna is very lucky: her family loves and accepts her and she’s able to live her life as she wishes, which we see her doing in chain of gold. ariadne, however, is not as lucky, and she has to take into consideration the conditions of her parents’ love. anna apparently struggles to understand this, ignoring ariadne’s valid concerns and telling her that it doesn’t matter because “love is what matters,” as if it makes everything perfect.

this is where anna’s ignorance begins to show through. ariadne is: (a) a woman in the late 1800s/early 1900s (i don’t remember for sure what year this story took place but i’d assume 1900s), (b) indian at a time when india is under british rule, (c) adopted, and (d) a lesbian shadowhunter. we know enough about how intolerant people have been about homosexuality, but shadowhunters are a whole other story. put all of this together and you have someone who is terrified of letting down her family and being shunned by society more than she already has been. in ariadne’s mind, she has no choice but to hide who she is.

 anna ignores this. entirely. she doesn’t take the time to talk to ariadne about her concerns, but rather skirts around them and insists that what she wants is what’s more important. this is highly indicative of her privilege and how she puts herself before others and others’ feelings.

now let’s look at chain of gold. there are two scenes in particular that i want to look at, but there are more.

“I quite like your mother. She reminds me of a queen out of a fairy tale, or a peri from Lalla Rookh. You’re half-Persian, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Cordelia said, a little warily.

“Then why is your brother so blond?” Anna asked. “And you so redheaded--I thought Persians were darker-haired.”

Cordelia set her cup down. “There are all sorts of Persians, and we all look different,” she said. “You wouldn’t expect everyone in England to look alike, would you? Why should it be different for us? My father is British and very fair, and my mother’s hair was red when she was a little girl. Then it darkened, and as for Alastair--he dyes his hair.”

“He does?” Anna’s eyebrows, graceful swooping curves, went up. “Why?”

“Because he hates that his hair and skin and eyes are dark,” said Cordelia. “He always has. We have a country house in Devon, and people used to stare when we went into the village.”

Anna’s eyebrows had ceased swooping and taken on a decidedly menacing look. “People are--” She broke off with a sigh and a word Cordelia didn’t know. “Now I rather feel sympathy toward your brother, and that was the last thing I wanted. Quick, as me a question.”

this scene is from cordelia’s tea with anna. i won’t touch so much on the “peri from lalla rookh” comment so much as i’m afraid i don’t feel well enough qualified or researched to adequately represent people’s concerns about this statement, but i do know that there were several posts going around about people discussing how it rubbed them the wrong way, so i thought i would include it as well.

the rest, though, is a bit more obvious. one of the things about books is that it can be more difficult to interpret someone’s words and their meaning because we don’t have things like tone or facial expressions or any of that unless the author explicitly includes it. however, we can draw on the way other characters react to certain comments. cordelia goes on the defense, answering anna’s question “a little warily,” setting aside her tea and explaining rather bluntly that not all persians look the same. it’s pretty easy to infer from her reaction that she’s uncomfortable from anna’s words. now, is that to say anna was intentionally being racist toward cordelia and her family? absolutely not. this is where microaggressions come into play. we see them with anna and also with matthew and even jessamine (though we see hers in the infernal devices rather than the last hours). microaggressions, while often unintentional, are still a form of racism. given the times these characters have grown up in, it’s not necessarily a surprise, but that certainly doesn’t excuse her behavior.

there is, however, a more intentional party to this scene that really rubbed me the wrong way. it’s her discussion of alastair. cordelia has just explained that alastair dyes his hair to stop people from staring at him when he’s walking down the street, and anna replies that she feels sympathy for him and that is “the last thing” she wanted. i understand that she has her own feelings about alastair, likely from listening to the merry thieves’ depiction of him, but that doesn’t excuse her. she even starts to say something about it, likely drawing on her own experiences of wearing menswear at a time when fashion was much more strictly regulated in society than it is today. but she stops herself and instead goes on to reemphasize her dislike for cordelia’s brother and changes the subject.

She held up a small black-bound memorandum book... “This,” she announced, “will hold answers to all our questions.”

...

Matthew looked up, his eyes fever-bright. “Is this your list of conquests?”

“Of course not,” Anna declared. “It’s a memorandum book... about my conquests. That is an important but meaningful distinction.”

...

Anna flipped through the book. There were many pages, and many names written in a bold, sprawling hand.

“Hmm, let me see. Katherine, Alicia, Virginia--a very promising writer, you should look out for her work, James--Mariane, Virna, Eugenia--”

“Not my sister Eugenia?” Thomas nearly upended his cake.

“Oh, probably not,” Anna said. “Laura, Lily... ah, Hypatia. Well, it was a brief encounter, and I suppose you might say she seduced me...”

i hope i don’t have to explain this one too much. there’s just something... unsettling about the fact that anna is held up as this feminist icon and yet she keeps a book with the names of and her encounters with all the women she’s slept with... and then reads those names aloud to everyone. it’s a bit much, don’t you think? and all of this is even without touching the leak we got about her and ariadne, which i’d rather not speculate on too much but is also quite damning. 

all in all, i’d like to believe anna is really a good person who’s just misguided and confused, much because i love the idea of a genderqueer character, especially one in an era before stonewall, but her actions and behaviors have led me to believe that she has a long road ahead of her. as i said earlier this week:

let me get something clear: i would die for fanon anna but canon anna needs to get her shit together before i’ll willingly breathe in her direction

i really hope this was helpful... i did my best lol. if anyone else has more to add, please feel free.