#she would've seen through his bs immediately

[ozziesdisco]

honestly the scene where Ji Ah finds out that Yeon killed her in her past life and her subsequent reactions to it provides so much of an insight into her character and her abandonment issues and her absolute devastation when the first person she opened up to after so long turned out to have been hiding things from her (esp something as big as that)

Like woman lost her parents at the age of nine, nobody believed her when she said that something supernatural sent them away, she was sent to a mental hospital, which she escaped, and then she presumably lived mostly alone with little to no friends and put all her energy in her job and finding her parents again so she wouldn't be alone anymore

and then Yeon turns up and saves her and protects her and cares about her and believes her for the first time- she can't help but open up to him because of all of this because she isn't used to this- she starts out not trusting him, but as time goes along, she slowly starts to get attached

for the first time, she doesn't have to deal with the world on her own- for the first time, she has someone who doesn't invalidate her feelings and is willing to bear the burden of the weight of the world together- someone who has proved multiple times that he will always be there for her, and that she can trust him-

how can she not get attached?

and when she finds out he killed her in her past life... and when he tells her it was all an act-

that's what's happened to her all her life, hasn't it? anyone she cares about just leaves, and she grew to prefer being alone because that's only way you won't get hurt. and her view just gets proved when she sees what Yeon has done to her. Yeon, the man who she gave up so much for, and who gave up so much for her, and it was all an act

of course it was all an act. of course she believed the lie the second she heard it because all her life, she was left alone by everyone. why would it be any different this time?

[askcharaandfriends]

I'm not sure the analogy fully holds up. Not killing someone doesn't mean there are no consequences. If a trial is so important, you can't forget that those end with punishments. AFAC has a history of characters getting off free. Gaster tortured inmates and children and was not punished. Asriel killed people and wasn't punished. Chara did the stuff they did and were not punished. Asgore turned himself in and his allies got the punishment removed. Unless things changed, it should be the same here

Goldy: Ahh, I love philosophical quandaries within Undertale! Brings me back to when I used them to make Grade-A research papers! Mia's given me the honor of responding to these.

WARNING: TEXT WALL AND SPOILERS FOR AFAC/POTENTIALLY FOR ACAF BELOW!

I'm really glad you've brought up the issue of consequences, because that's actually the answer to the questions you're raising about mercy here. Instead of "Why are they not punished," let's ask "Why CAN'T they be punished?"

Let's start with Gaster. Humoring what would happen if he were punished for his crimes, the fact that some of the kids were tortured would be an angle that wasn't brought up when the world's attention was on Asgore over the kids' fate in the Underground. That, on top of the fact that Gaster was Asgore's employee, would've led to people and officials to believe that Asgore knew about it and withheld information. Asgore would be tried for perjury, there'd be no plea deal this time, and the sovereign status of Monster Town would be imperiled, along with Monsters' legal status. Frisk would suffer the most; at the very least, they'd never see their found family again, and at worst, they'd fall back into Susan's clutches.

And I'm glad you brought up the kids too. It IS worth noting that in AFAC, we haven't seen any resolution YET. Which was honestly, IMO, a mistake on TQ's part in regards to proceeding with the story. We really should've focused immediately on the emotional fallout with the kids coming back and the fact that did so many bad things, instead of... proceeding to a wrestling match over a petty conflict that seems insignificant by comparison.

...Plus, there's no real way to punish the kids that doesn't seem too cruel, or doesn't match the magnitude of their crimes. What would work? Disowning them and leaving them out in the cold to die? How would that sit with Frisk, given what they've been through? Or... Imagine Chara and Azzy going up to everyone they hurt and going like "Hi, I murdered you ala-Saw, I'm sorry." At best, it would be treated as crazy BS, and at worst, it could cause them to recall it all like you've pointed out. It's just better to reform them and help them come to terms, trust issues be damned. After all... "restorative justice," right?

Finally, it's worth noting that practically NO ONE in Undertale is completely innocent. Papyrus threatening Frisk with death traps. Toriel doing literally nothing when she could've done SO MUCH to stop the war effort, or even just destroy the Door to Snowdin long before the second kid fell down. Sans doing absolutely nothing to honor his promise to Toriel. MTT exploiting his workers and abandoning his family. Alphys committing fraud and unethical experiments of her own; come to think of it, we forgave Alphys, so why not Gaster?

And finally, the fact is, every single Monster is more than happy to live on the Surface, enjoying a freedom that was bought with six counts of infanticide. Undertale is a metafiction that makes the player question our justice, and when we imagine the aftermath, we realize that not only is it not perfect, but that pursuing it can even lead to unjust ends.

Imagine that for a moment. Justice being a bad thing. Something that would necessitate an "escape clause" to knowingly subvert, pervert, or even avert its course. The ends do not justify the means, they simply outweigh them. Which is why I am inclined to say "So what?" to the myriad crimes we see before us in the story, callous as it may seem.

And that's why I love this game so much. I live for this. In the end, there is no justice. Only endings, and the resolutions we seek.

Hope this answers your question. TLDR: Justice itself would've been the biggest antagonist of all if we hadn't stepped in and swept it all under the rug.

[fandom-hoarder]

rav used the meangirls-y anti bs to raise real concerns, clearly a bad move IF she actually thinks there are real concerns. I was there for the argument that drove z out of rav's server and uhh. rav deleted the logs after lashing out. rav was incredibly condescending and reactionary to z specifically often. I'd be worried to call her level headed or promote her personal beef, from my POV. both sides lack credibility or clarity.

I'm not sure exactly what your premise is in this first sentence, anon. Rav's post didn't use anti language or the meangirl tone of davy's group, and rav's post IS the most level headed post *I have seen* about the situation, because she talked about REAL experiences without slinging around the types of (as far as I've seen, STILL unwarranted) dog whistle accusations davy and them were, and other people I have similar respect for commented about their similar experiences WITHOUT RESORTING TO DAVY'S TACTICS.

Also, just as an aside, it's really funny to me that someone would complain about rav being condescending but not zxro. This is a nonstarter.

I'm not even involved in this. I didn't interact personally enough to know definitively who did what and why. I wasn't in ANY of those servers or DMs! Therefore, I have to rely on my best judgement according to the information I do have, the people I trust to give me good faith information based on past experience, and the small amount of interactions with zxro that left me uncomfy.

I've spoken to people on the sidelines like me, ostensibly on zxro's side if by nothing more than circumstance, and I can't really blame them for still liking zxro or his writing, or wanting to defend him from the very dangerous accusations davy and them were spreading. If they haven't had or seen the negative interactions other people have, they're likely just doing their best to figure out the situation, same as me. Their personal biases towards zxro will inevitably play a part in their perspective, but that is just human nature. I have no beef with anyone in zxro's circle at this point, unless I see similar bullying behavior to what davy's group is doing.

I've spoken to rav briefly about this situation, and read her post about it. I totally understand why it would be difficult to address this issue before; it can be agonizing to parse when something IS a big enough red flag that you should warn people about before something huge happens. Because not everyone's red flags are the same, or at the same levels, and because this fandom is already rife with clashing personalities, and because of thousands of other micro-reasonings we all rely on to get along every fucking day. So, while I think it's unfortunate it didn't come out sooner and in a different way, I also don't blame rav for not making a callout or something.

You're on anon, and I have no fucking clue who you are, so why should I just take your word over rav's?

But I'm not even here to play he said she said. I already said in my original post that I'm not happy with EITHER SIDE, so did you come here to reiterate? I don't want to be involved with either side -- and here I am talking specifically about the people involved in the bullying campaign of zxro, but also zxro! I'm not into any of this drama, and I don't feel a loss at the idea of not seeing zxro OR davy OR angel on the dash, or anyone else that wants to continue dragging this corpse through ANTI BULLSHIT. I am cutting my fandom losses.

I honestly don't know what the best way to address the real issues would've been, but the way davy's closeknit group did it was the WRONG way. Anyone throwing around the terms of pedo and 'cp' immediately discounts anything meaningful they may have to say, because I can't trust that it's in good faith.

Idk how to make you understand that it isn't ok to accuse someone of being a pedophile just because they're dating an adult you think they're too old for!! Idk how to make you understand that calling underage fanfiction 'cp' is harmful both because it's an incorrect, outdated term AND because the premise of the accusation is false. AND because the people that do that KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE DOING. They don't like that content and think it makes you bad, or that the thing they're mad about isn't bad ENOUGH so they have to spice up their bad feelings post with EVIL BUZZWORDS, because that will immediately get their followers attacking the thing they don't like because "*gasp* don't you care about the children?!" Oh, hello U.S. Republicans. When did you join SPN fandom??

Wake up, babe, new fandom factions dropped.

It really doesn't matter if there are truthful accusations about predatory behavior beyond the dog whistles at that point, because the premise of the accusations being spread through tags and replies was just a vengeful dogpile. It just looked like a friend group's petty argument that got nasty, rather than a pattern of behavior to be aware of. And a lot of the people NOT in the know who were concerned about the language being used, and the level of accusation, were told "it's an open secret" -- which it very much WAS NOT, as proven by all the confused DMs I've received. Y'all aren't as famous as you apparently think, jfc. I dont even know what your server is called and it's not the only one for wincest, thank fuck.

I only hope that after this whole thing, people will be both more aware and more mindful of how they're approaching interpersonal problems in fandom. I truly do not want to see new cults form here. The heller cults are enough for one fandom. 🙅‍♀️