#he probably thought he'd get to be king someday too bc he was with a princess

[nonemourn]

actively watching shrek the musical and when the magic mirror asks if he wishes to invite his father (who, by the way, is Grumpy. of snow white fame. you can tell.) to his wedding to fiona, :

F: “My what?” M: “Well your - your father, my liege.” F: “You mean that horrible little man who tried to keep me down my whole life? That mal-tempered monster, that vile grunt who abandoned me in the woods as a child?” M: “Well, he did have his reasons -” F: “Mirror, please. My father simply couldn’t accept that I wanted nothing to do with the family business. That lowly, dirty family business.”

and goes on into a whole song about his daddy issues. full of jokes of course, the farquaad and his father stuff is all largely played for laughs. but you can really tell how much that affected him growing up and how that kind of thing can manifest in negative ways into your adulthood when you can't properly process it or work through it. especially when, like the mirror, people outside of it often want to try and turn the blame on the neglected child and not the neglectful adult. what reason does a father have for abandoning his child? for being distant? especially after the death of his mother? a vulnerable child who needs extra support to work through a difficult time, completely shut out and ignored by someone who is meant to care for them? he's left to fend for himself mostly, he's left to process the loss of a parent alone. he's then left to process the loss of the other as well - a father who barely muttered a single word to him aside from 'heigh ho' before going off to work. of course he has trouble with his emotions and he's got all this rage that boils within him - which is only supported by his father being a constantly angry grump, that only adds fuel to the fire. and while he does feel a grand sense of pride that he's managed to grow up and out of the squalor he was raised in - he's the lord of duloc, his father is still sleeping seven to a bed and working day in and out in the mines - it also still feels like his entire sense of self was built on wanting to prove a point to his father rather than true self fulfillment. does he even really know what he desires? he's just driven by wanting to be bigger than his father and doing whatever is necessary to get there. he's lord of duloc - whats next? being king, i guess. but then what comes after that? whats the end goal? he struggles finding a true identity outside of doing it all for spite. he was still going to marry fiona after the reveal that she's one of those 'horrid fairytale creatures' just to become king and then lock her away! in his ambition to get to the top and send the ultimate 'fuck you' message to his father, he kind of winds up becoming just as bad, if not worse than him. because locking your wife away is just as bad as accidentally being the reason the princess you were married to dies and then internalizing your guilt and shutting your son out. anyways idk where this ramble was going but like farquaad has layers brother, just like ogres and onions do, and maybe things would be different if his mom had lived or even if his father had been anyone but grumpy.

[1-800-scaryphone]

also on the note of crossovers i have more thought on the d.esu one i mentioned the other day (im so sorry skhfjdh)

i'm gonna go over both games bc the first one has some vibes to it too but here we go!

ok so the gist of BOTH games is that the world is in the midst of an apocalypse (both of which are caused by demons), and the only hope of salvation for humanity is to kinda "reboot" the world. in devil s.urvivor 1, it's very heavy on religious themes, and not only can you become godly and save the world THAT way, but you can defy god and literally become a demon king. it's a good game.

in the second game, you literally reboot the world however you see fit, which - in-game - separates your party into several "alignments," because none of them can agree on how they want the new world to be.

so! i kinda wanna talk abt where d.ialtown characters would fall on these alignments, since i just think it's Inchresting. i really wish there was a quiz or something for this. maybe i'll make one someday

D.ESU1

the first game has several alignments, divided into the holy, unholy, and three OTHER solutions to save the world that don't involve the protagonist literally becoming a saint or demon.

Kingdom of Saints

just like it sounds, this is the "holy" ending, where you use the power you've accrued throughout the game to become a saint/godly figure who can control the demons and send em back from whence they came.

i feel like it goes without saying that norm would encourage this route. i also think it'd be really funny if this was a "d.ietown" scenario, so gingi going through all these steps while assuming god is dead only to literally BECOME a godly figure (and probably meet god and have him be like "what the FUCK happened") is really funny. also, obviously, were callum in gingi's position, this would be the route he'd go for. that god complex i s2g

karen might also be part of this one just bc she is SUCH a warlord against demons in d.ietown

King of Demons

the "unholy" ending, in which you use the power you've accrued to rule over the demons...as a fellow demon.

the protagonist in d.esu1 has his cousin encourage him to go this route, but i think gingi could fully go this way on their own, considering that they're literally a demon in d.ietown. i also like to think that stabby and shooty would be part of this route, since, yknow, demons. they'd probably try to get gingi to make them their demonic underlings so they could be super powerful.

Desperate Escape

in this ending, you literally just escape the city (which has been barricaded so that no demons escape) and put the whole world in jeopardy iirc.

selfish as they are, this is definitely something gingi would do. depending on the scenario, i think randy might be the one to encourage this ending too, since he is just cowardly enough to do it.

Silent Revolution

in this ending, the protagonist is able to pacify the demons by using their accrued power, and the world as a whole uses demons and their power to advance modern society. in order to do all of that, they also need to "hack the planet," etc etc.

i can say, without a doubt, this would be oliver's route of choice. a way to solve the problem without changing yourself, and a way that uses his technical know-how, at that.

Song of Hope

in this ending, the protagonist is able to drive off the demons by using music (in a complicated way i won't get into rn).

hilariously enough, i think this would probably be a route that you get into with nathan h.anover, because "music"...

D.ESU 2

the original alignments i wanted to make this post about. god this is so fun to think about.

Meritocracy

a world in which the strong eat the weak, basically. you have to work to prove yourself to the powers that be, and if you aren't strong enough, you fuckin DIE. the world is ruled by those who are stronger, better, etc, and the people who "deserve it" thrive.

imo, this sounds like EXACTLY the sort of society mingus would try to build.

Egalitarian

an "equal" society; everyone is treated equally, given an equal share, has equal talents. peaceful to its core.

despite all the shit i give callum, this would be the society he would back. remember: the dial-up was supposed to HELP. he was so passionate about it because he wanted to help society thrive, to help those who had been disabled, just like him. despite all the "bad" that came out of it, he had GOOD intentions.

Restoration

bring the world back to the way it was before, before the apocalypse ever happened...though there is no guarantee it won't happen AGAIN.

with this also sort of being the "coward's way out" (i'm so sorry d.aichi i love you), reverting to a time that might inevitably doom the world all over again, i feel like this would be a randy route.

Liberation

free humanity as a whole from the looming threat of the septentriones (the entities/aliens/what have you that are currently attacking the world and throwing it into an apocalypse), and from the possibility that the "end" will come again. humanity is free, albeit at the cost of how FUCKED the world became during the apocalypse.

a norm route to its core. fight for your freedom and prove humanity's worth. i could also see oliver backing him on this one (boys gettin on!)

A Brand New World

hey, so what if we said "fuck the septentriones" and ALSO gave ourselves a whole new world to work with? humanity gets to be free, and it also gets to thrive on an earth that isn't completely dead. sounds nice.

this is a sort of "unlockable" route in-game, but i can completely see all of the dateables supporting it, so yay! i think it'd be really fucking funny if by some sort of irony, god was the one to propose the idea too. just "fuck it, i'll give you a new planet if you can pull this off"

there's also endings for record breaker but no i won't get into them, i've talked too long akjfkshfs. thank you for coming to my ted talk