Gotta love how Flowey never gets a break.
UTY (just for comparison):
Pacifist: you die and he decides to wait for the next human (canonically, this is what would have to happen).
Neutral: Flowey kidnaps your SOUL and forces you to die over and over in his nightmare world, but the whole thing is just in his head. Flowey doesn't have the power to take over the whole world, and he eventually gets bored of playing with you and resets.
Genocide: Flowey realizes early on that his SAVE/LOAD ability is the only reason you haven't killed him. He eventually loses that ability and gets slaughtered.
Undertale:
Neutral: The SOULs rebel. In later runs, he decides it's better not to even try.
Genocide: He realizes you've become a genocidal freak and that you will kill him. Of course, this had to be the one time he's actually right.
Pacifist: He finally becomes the god of hyperdeath, reunited with Chara in some way. But Frisk just doesn't give up. And Flowey- now Asriel- starts to feel again. He finds his old self that was lost in a sea of successive SAVEs and resets and turns back into a goat boy- and, eventually, back into a flower.
Flowey never gets what he wants. Or at least not what he thinks he wants. What he wants is to feel again. And if he can't have that, he will tear down the world over and over and over and over, in a futile attempt to stave off the boredom and loneliness that has driven him completely insane.
But what he needs is healing. Isn't it funny how he doesn't feel again until he's able to talk to Chara, to really talk to them? Ok, maybe absorbing all the monster SOULs had something to do with being able to feel. But he didn't lose that ability once he gave them all back. And if SOULs were enough to make him feel true emotions again, you'd think the wide array of emotions from the human SOULs should have been enough. (Ok, arguably, it could simply be how much all the monsters love Frisk that got thru to him- but I was trying to make a point, here.)
Flowey has spent goodness knows how many years living with the guilt of assisting Chara in suicide. He never really says it, but I think he must live (if you can call that "living") with intense guilt over having killed them. And if that wasn't enough, he didn't even go thru with their plan. It seems like Chara may have tried to take control and wanted to kill more than six, and Asriel couldn't do that. So he had to live with the secret of having killed his best friend for NOTHING.
Is it any wonder he went crazy? And on top of that, then he wakes up and finds SIX SOULS have already been taken, when he refused to kill even ONE. What are a few monster or human lives compared to the wasted lives of both himself and Chara?
Flowey never got what he wanted because what he decided he wanted wasn't what he needed, or even what he really wanted. What he wanted was to be able to stop hating himself and everyone else. We give that to him by bringing Chara to him so he can settle everything once and for all.
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you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.
(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)
but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.
(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)
there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.
(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)
you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.
(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)
you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.
in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.
but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.
they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.
it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.
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i believe that to some extent Andre knows he's fucked up and this headcanon is one of the hills I will die on
in the farewell tape, Cal says that “you can’t cure somebody who has nothing wrong with them.”
Andre, on the other hand, admits they might be seen as hypocrites. he's not gonna back out, he still thinks it's the right thing for him to do, but he seems to acknowledge that people will not perceive it the same way. he tries to explain that no matter what it’ll look like, it’s not murder for the sake of murder - not in his eyes at least. there's a (sick and twisted) lesson hidden in this tragedy.
to some extent, Andre is aware of what’s going on with him, what exactly shaped him into who he is now. he sees the cause and effect of being bullied, of feeling rejected and alienated, and not being able to do anything about it because that's just who he is. he can kick and scream and shout but he will never change who he is at his core and this realization is crushing for a 17/18-year-old. this and all the implications of a missing sense of belonging.
he knows he’s messed up. he knows what would fix him and he’s convinced it’s out of his reach. he looks at other students and he thinks: it’ll never be me. and he's angry that they have something he will never have.
his awareness doesn't help though. if anything, it fuels his frustration. what adults know to be a temporary problem (high school) seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, the end of everything.
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Nick's moments of panic under the umbrella in Heartstopper S1E4 before Charlie kisses him really get me. So I wrote a thing in second person to try to appreciate the weight of the emotions that I imagine Nick is experiencing.
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You’re into this boy. So into him. He’s been in your thoughts. . . a lot. You've been talking all the time, you keep wanting to see him, and whenever you do, it’s never enough. You can’t help but smile when you think of him, let alone when you see him.
You want this boy. Romantically. You don’t really know what that looks like, but you know it’s true.
And, it seems, he wants you, too.
Your first kiss was good. Really good. All those tingles and flutters and sparks that you felt from just being close to him were amplified into so much more. It was so much better than you could’ve ever imagined.
And then you panicked. You screwed it up. You ran. You went back, but it was too late. You need him to know that you don’t regret it, that you wanted it, that you want him, that you were (are) just freaking out.
You try to be calm, you try to keep your cool. (No need to embarrass yourself in front of your crush.) Plus things are a little weird, restrained, and understandably so. He's probably really hurt. You need to get this out, you need to explain. You can do it.
And then he begins apologising. It quickly becomes clear that he has this all wrong. That he’s wildly misunderstood, rewritten what has happened. You were there because you wanted to be, because you chose to be. Yes, you were scared — are scared — but he has this all twisted.
Charlie.
Charlie!
Charlie.
He's not getting it. So you kiss him.
You make sure he knows what’s going to happen, and even if he seems very confused, he responds readily enough. You attempt to pour all of your feelings into him, to get across all of your regret and sorrow for hurting him as well as (maybe especially) how much you do want this. And for a moment, he loses himself in the kiss. You understand, you do too. Kissing him is just as good as you remember.
And, well, it’s too late for being cool now. You just kissed all your emotions into him, practically begging him to understand; you’d best explain what those emotions are in the hopes that he properly will. (Besides, this isn’t just “your crush”, this is Charlie.) You can’t leave him standing there so lost and confused. You may be confused, but he deserves to know that that confusion isn't about him.
So you start to explain…and then it all comes out. You’re vulnerable in a way you can’t remember being before. There’s no one in your life you can talk to like this, especially not about this. And it’s really been messing with you. Because not only has this boy's presence in your life already begun to upend everything, but you're so much happier because of it. And what are you supposed to do with that? What even would your life be if it were entirely different? Do you even want it to be different? . . .Maybe. But it’s scary. But you want him. And you want you.
So you tell him this, more or less. Really, you cry into his chest. Is this too much? Is he overwhelmed? So much for keeping it cool, keeping your cool. But you need this. He seems okay, he seems to get it. The friendship you’ve built is there, it can handle difficult things — it already has. He seems to want to be there for you. So you let him, and he lets you, and things are hard but they’re better in this moment. You’re finally seen and understood, and maybe Charlie now understands why you ran away, that it wasn’t about him, about the two of you.
. . .But now what?
You want him, but being with him will indeed upend every single facet of your life if other people know. You’re not ready for that, you can’t face that yet. It's too much. Everything is still so new and confusing. You don’t want to ask, but you want to be with him and you don’t see any other way to do that right now except to…keep this a secret? He finishes the thought for you. "Yeah," you concede, unhappily, but owning that that’s where you’re at.
He agrees, he tries to reassure you; you’re not completely convinced, but you want to believe him, so you let yourself.
And there's that question again: Now what?
There have been a lot of emotions and things are a little weird, even if a lot better, and you want to say something, or to touch him, but this is new and you’re meant to be leaving and…best to just go. The awkwardness will fade eventually. You’ll figure out how to be in this new dynamic. For now, you’re wanting, but you don’t know how to do anything more than that (would he want you to?). So you smile at him through the awkwardness and start to walk home.
. . .
. . .
What. Just. Happened.
This is good, but awkward, but good, and he wants this too, right? You’re together now, right? You’re really getting to be with him, with this boy you want so much, with Charlie. This is happening?
And then you hear it: Charlie calling out to you. Feet slapping on wet pavement.
“Nick!”
You stop, startled, confused, off-balance. What’s happening? He’s smiling, but.. What could possibly be worth running out into the rain in his pyjamas for? Has he changed his mind already? Does he not want this? Is keeping it a secret too much?
The doubts and fear are filling your mind, but you try to rein it in, to not let it show, to not let him see.
And then he looks back at you. And you know, in an instant, that everything that you wanted for your goodbye, he wanted, too.
Right? Please let you be understanding this correctly. You look at his lips, once, twice — you can’t help it. You’re desperately hoping that you’re on the same page, but barely daring to believe it.
And then he kisses you.
And the world stops.
.
.
.
.
And this is it. This is right.
Charlie.
This boy just ran out in the rain to kiss you. He’s soaking wet, he must be freezing, and here he is, kissing you. That’s the only reason he came out after you. To kiss you.
He smiles — that amazing smile of his that lights up your whole world — and then he runs off again.
There’s no more room for thoughts, only feelings. Massive feelings that well up inside you. So much sentiment that it feels like your heart is bursting.
You thought you were off-balance before? Well now you’re practically drunk.
What have you gotten yourself into?
Maybe the best thing ever.
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"Increasingly, it seems, we need the language of darkness and abyss and emptiness; nothing else is strong enough to help us address or respond to the acute and encompassing losses that mark the world in which we are currently living. Still, it is not easy to describe the effects of such darkness upon persons or communities, especially the deepening sense of psychological and spiritual precariousness that seems to be such a crucial part of this experience. Sometimes this takes the form of an inchoate sense of absence or affliction or displacement, an emptying out of meaning and the very possibility of meaning; or a sense of utter bewilderment, an experience Fanny Howe has described as "an enchantment that follows a complete collapse of reference and reconcilability." Timothy Morton speaks of an "elemental anxiety" or an "existential Ganzfeld effect" as becoming increasingly critical elements of contemporary experience. This idea draws upon the "visual experience that comes upon one during a blizzard," and creates an effect that "renders here and there, up and down, foreground and background quite meaningless." There is, Morton suggests, a growing sense that we are drifting, with almost no coherent frame of reference, through a great immensity.
[...]
Where do you end up when all reference and reconcilability has collapsed, when you find yourself dis-languaged, unable to give a voice to your loss? When you suddenly find yourself working at the very edge of language to give voice, haltingly, in fragments, to your experience? Still, it should not be imagined that these deeply personal experiences are or ever can be separated from the larger, collective losses that sweep over us. At the heart of the idea of the common life is an ethical-spiritual commitment to listen to the voices of those whose losses too often escape our attention altogether, and to ask what it will mean to honour those voices and to incorporate them into a vision of the whole."
- "The Insurmountable Darkness of Love" (2022) Douglas E Christie
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