#so i DESERVE a treat - imo

[otamotone-dnp]

I’ve seen some people call others online “parasocial” for being sad about/grieving liam payne’s death. and I’m just thinking…there’s nothing inherently wrong with being parasocial. there’s nothing inherently wrong about caring about people you haven’t met. there’s nothing morally or ethically wrong with feeling connected to a celebrity. in fact, I think it shows how much we as humans are capable of connection and empathy, and how we as a species are meant to be social and to love each other, that people feel this connected and sad over someone they didn’t know personally. it’s never wrong to care about people. people using the “parasocial” thing to shame others for their feelings regarding a tragic and shocking death are inconsiderate

[don1t1red]

I know that this is a very unpopular opinion but hear me out!

I think not enough people consider Corvo as an unreliable narrator. We see the story from his point of view and all we know about Jessamine Kaldwin comes from his perspective. So, to think on that, do we really know how good Jessamine was as the Empress? 

I know that she is usually portrayed as a good person if not a saint but what if it wasn't that way? A lot of people in the streets are indifferent towards her image, if not hostile; the situation with Delilah; how both Geoff Curnow and Corvo are treated because of their nationality; two hatters recalling how greatly Corvo dealt with workers uprising under her command  – a lot of things are a tell-tale signs that something is not quite right. 

And at this point I have to clarify that I'm not saying things like "boo no I hate Jessamine". No, it's actually quite the opposite, I love her character. But the way it is usually portrayed seems to be so dull and static. Let her not be a saint. 

Let her be manipulative. Let her tell Corvo that "he is not like other serkonans, he is sooo special and that's why he is where he is and not somewhere deep in the silver mine", while being (just as any nobility in Gristol) not very welcome to any outlanders. 

Let her be power-hungry and afraid to lose this power. Remember a bonecharm in her hidden room in the Tower? Who knows how it ended up here! Maybe she knew (or felt) that Delilah was coming, capable of overpowering and taking everything from her. Maybe Jessamine was so afraid to lose her posh life that she was ready to use some kind of a black magic! 

Let her be disloyal. Obviously, she and Corvo developed some kind of codependency. But along with that, she was the Empress so who could stop her from having an affair or two? And Corvo was just the safest option, with a way less unnecessary risks and questions. 

Let her be an imperfect person. 

Obviously, Jessamine could be easily born a perfect ruler and a perfect loving woman for her chosen one and her daughter. But maybe she had to learn it the hard way. 

Maybe she changed along with Corvo. Maybe the plague was a critical point for her character, maybe those months without Corvo made her rethink a lot of things. 

And isn't it tragic, finally understanding and becoming the Empress everyone wants to see in you, just to be killed the other day, because all those changes have been seen as a weakness? Have nothing but faith in your closest one, faith that these people will be more wise than she was? 

Give her some development, give her some motion! She could easily  be a saint, static point.  But in my opinion, she deserves to be not perfect but in constant motion. Trying and learning, understanding and making mistakes. She was too young when she became the Empress, she was a part of gristolian nobility, not so kind to anyone but themselves, she literally had no prerequisites to become a good person. And yet somehow she did. 

It's always so easy to be a "saint" from the very beginning. And it's always so hard to learn how to become one.

[mudstoneabyss]

actually. the specific phrasing that boy Kevin wants to kill older Kevin with "I must disassemble him, piece by piece, so that everything inside of the Old Kevin comes out. Only then can the New Kevin truly begin." is so incredibly the idea that to heal from trauma and "improve" you have to destroy every "wrong" part of yourself, that everything "tainted" by it has to somehow be replaced by something untouched (which isn't possible)

[mischiefprincess]

I've been thinking a lot about Loki and Frigga these days, I don't think she's an evil, manipulative monster like some people but I do think she's a very flawed mother, from what we see in the movies she's very quick to justify and sugarcoat Odin's actions, Yes there's a deleted scene where she confronts him about Thor's banishment but it was deleted for a reason, in the movie itself we see her telling Loki that "there's always a purpose to everything your father does", she's always defending him, never her sons and that tells us a lot about the kind of mother she is, idk if it's bc she puts her position as queen above her position as a mother but she always stand by Odin's side no matter what.

Ofc we know she asks Odin not to kill Loki in tdw but that's just the bare minimum she could do, she always does everything thinking about pleasing Odin above all, she goes visiting Loki as a illusion, in secret to not anger her husband, when Loki is going through the trauma of finding out the truth about his adoption she never acknowledges any responsability for what she and Odin did, she justifies his lies agian by saying he lied to protect Loki

She doesn't acknowledge Loki's pain or his right to be angry at them, she tells him he's their son as if that's enough to heal his wounds, she doesn't ask for forgiveness and doesn't offer Loki any comfort bc her husband was taking a nap and she had to stay by his side at all seconds, it doesn't matter that her son had his whole sense of identity stripped away from him, holding Odin's hand was way more important than giving Loki a hug or anything else

I think at some moment Loki realized that she cared more about being Odin's queen than being their mother bc she'd never stand up for her sons and defend them from the abuses Odin put them through, she just kept justifying it bc she wouldn't dare going against her king, it must've hurt for Loki, realizing that he was truly all by himself in Asgard, he couldn't count on his own mother to publicly defend him from the humiliations he undoubtedly suffered, she would just sneak into his chambers and whisper some words of encouragement privately but when in public he was entirely on his own and he knew it

That's why I care more about Loki reuniting with his friends/found family than him going to New Asgard or to Asgard in the past, I have no doubts that he loves his family with his whole heart and he wants to see them again but I love the new family he built for himself in the show, he has Mobius who will defend him with everything he has and will be his emotional support, validating his feelings and genuinely listening to him, he NEVER felt like he belonged in Asgard but in the show he finally found his place, he found the people he belonged to (as stated by the crew) and he fought to save them for hundreds of years so there's no way I'd want him to leave his new home for him to go back to the place where he was mistreated, belittled and mocked just for being who he was, I want him to stay in the place where feels free to be his true self thank you very much

(Ofc that doesn't mean I don't want him and Thor to reunite again, I just think it's best for him to stay with the people he chose to be his family)

[mangora]

On one hand Trevek is canon which is infuriating and terrible because Trevor deserves better and Derek is a nothing character with no likable or sympathetic traits beyond occasionally having funny lines and Emily is literally right there. On the other hand Trevek is canon which is awesome because Noahh’s character had to kiss a man

[dashiellqvverty]

insane that “be a goldfish” became an iconic and beloved ted lasso thing like i have literally hated it since i watched the pilot like it’s introduced in the most awful context possible. and in some contexts it’s fine if it’s like talking about moving on from losing a game or whatever but my god they really just had ted tell a teenager experiencing racist and xenophobic harassment that the best thing to do is forget about it and get back up :)

[unproduciblesmackdown]

like hearing an autistic person talking abt realizing like "oh so friendships for some ppl don't involve always having to maintain a performance" and going damn right yeah and now "oh so friendships for some ppl involve their getting to expect that the other ppl will be interested in them and provide support" like huh go figure. more surprising like oh right i guess i always felt like interactions require maintaining a performance that can only go wrong (generally true; like there's no "well you're ruining things by keeping ppl from being the Real You so just Be Yourself" like a] masking isn't Real or done by Yourself or b] like if you unmask people like you now & ableism is over, b/c it was your fault for reacting to it in the first place) & thus also that i should be interested & provide support but not expect that in turn / the sense as well that you are/can only come up short and have things to make up for anyways while lucky whoever's even providing the time of day

then it's always an Exercise to go "oh right well beyond going [my god autistic character] the whole time, what Things re: winston billions was i still not quite seeing as as unusual / Not Good as they are. even for billions" like sure noticing he's holding on to the hopes of some kind of positive / actual relationship w/rian for like year 950 & this manifesting with the Determined Friendliness but zooming in like oh i guess that adamant amicability sure involves winston suppressing a negative reaction to negative treatment and yet still hoping for an improvement, which like, was always Possible but a) hinged on rian simply choosing to change how she regards/treats him (or someone intervening to change the situation) & b) apparently is not going to happen. thinking like yeah that's very Friendly of him. and knowing like man winston's sure still trying to keep this friendliness offer open for like two years. but also now more specifically going like Yeah and pretty fucked then that his baseline expectations don't include that Mutual Interest & Support (though someone being abusive is definitely interested just not in any good ways. and certainly not (actually) supportive)

[skrunksthatwunk]

hey real quick bc i haven't seen anyone really talk about it; fuck Hoarders. what a disgusting fucking show. like i know a lotta content boils down to "let's gawk at mentally ill or poor or whatever ppl" but this one specifically really peels my paint. it's sickening. let's spend an hour walking around someone's house and going "wow!! look how fucked this is!!! i can't believe you live like this (despite having done like 13 seasons of this)!!!! you really need to get your act together, buster!" and then interviewing the family to get sound bites demonstrating how much of an Unreasonable Burden the subject is and (without actually helping any of the mental health issues that may lead someone to hoard) roll their eyes at them when they are upset at someone taking and trashing/destroying their precious belongings (or are made to do it themselves). and then half the time in the where are they now segment it's like "yeah they relapsed lol idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" like??? no shit dumbass.

i don't care how strange their homes or habits are. these people are deserving of compassion and real, honest help. they don't need people to marvel at how Kooky Wacky Bonkers™ they are, and they don't need people to hurt them just because they don't understand what they see in their possessions or are embarrassed by knowing them or whatever.

we don't need another voyeuristic savior-complex charade where the condition for The Most Half-Assed Help You've Ever Seen is being publicly humiliated and having to destroy things that mean a lot to you. what the fuck.

[lilac-melody]

Not to be mean but can people not send me asks, asking if they can "liph//yo beam" me?

[starbuck]

as someone who is prone to having capital F Freak-outs over life things not happening fast enough or the way i want them to, the ability to learn has really kept me in check. i had been in a HORRENDOUS mood all morning, but i got home, had a proper meal, sent a couple emails i was procrastinating on, did some language learning, started reading a new book, and messed around on the guitar for a bit and now i’m completely calm.

[favroitecrime]

just finished 12 season of bob’s burgers and i’m not ready for the movie not season 13

[autism-corner]

fucked up that shark are fish. wth.

[bulkheadbignaturals]

GOODRA ART POST GOODRA ART POST EVERYBODY REJOICE AND CHEER

The brainrot has spread so much i am now making my own Transformers AU

Here's my designs for the main Autobot cast! (for now...... Also i can't design cars for SHIT)

[avelera]

I adore Silco and think he’s one of the most fascinating complex characters in the whole show, but let’s not flatten the complexity of Zaun vs. Piltover plotline by pretending he was a saint or doing anything to help the common people of Zaun while he was alive.

Silco’s goal for Zaun was self-governance, independence, which is a laudable goal. Especially once Piltover stopped caring about the Undercity entirely because of the Hexgates, it was frankly criminal to consider them subjects and to neglect them as much as Piltover did, an injustice that Jayce recognized and IMO was the tipping point for him accepting Silco’s terms.

But Silco flooded the Lanes with Shimmer, which was developed directly by him, as part of his operation. He used it to personally enrich himself, to give himself power, and to win loyal followers to his cause specifically using substance addiction. His actions are monstrous. He tore apart families, the poverty has skyrocketed while he was in power, people like Huck were abandoned and left to rot unless they were of use to Silco then he gave them more Shimmer and pointed them at his battles to die for him.

A real argument can be made that Jayce should have turned down Silco’s proposal for the Undercity’s sake. Handing it over completely to Silco and his oligarchy of Chem Barons is a dubious decision at best, made only marginally the lesser of the two evils because of Piltover’s abuse and neglect. Yes, Zaun deserves to self govern, but does it deserve to be governed by Silco, and Renni, and Finn, and Smeech without any other recourse?

Piltover and Zaun are not democracies. They are two oligarchies run by the wealthy of their respective cities. Silco wasn’t proposing a democratic paradise for Zaun, he was proposing a second mirroring oligarchy for it, a personal fiefdom with himself in charge on the nominal argument that he’d treat it better than Piltover did, when we’ve seen what he did with most of that power already, which is flood the place with drugs to morph it into his own personal army and screw anyone small or powerless enough to not be able to fight on his behalf.

An argument can be made that Silco’s Zaun, without Vander to check his worst instincts, wouldn’t have been the AU of Ekko’s journey but a horror show and a nightmare. In the end, we don’t know if Silco was telling the truth about winding down Shimmer operations or if he truly intended to become a just and fair ruler of his people once they had independence, but we do have as an example what he has already done with similar power, enough to cast doubt on his honesty and good intentions in that moment.

Silco is a phenomenal character, a complex revolutionary and a villainous crime boss, a loving father who deliberately, methodically turned his beloved child into a weapon against his enemies, the would-be father of a nation and a monster who poisoned and destroyed his own people to achieve it, and I’m so tired of all of that being forgotten in order to simplify that Zaun vs. Piltover discussion into an easy good vs evil story.

[valar-did-me-wrong]

Hey buzzword crowd, here's the simplest, most basic way I could put the core of the problem that imo is happening between you people and most of the fandom..

(won't call you Shippers here because I know some shippers who don't use your language or agree with your opinions )

This is also me trying to convey what I believe is why people have problems with you people's essays & posts (because it is not the ship that most people have problem with, I'll elaborate) maybe this will help prevent future toxicity..

Spoiler it has everything to do with the respect you give other people & their blorbos and nothing to do with everyone except you all being anti-feminist, anti-sex, anti-shipping, anti-biotic, anti-ageing, anti-oxidant, anti-body etc etc etc..

I'll use 3 characters and 5 points, here we go!

(Ditch the namecalling and insults before you interact)

(again this is my opinion & interpretation of the situation)

1. Elrond in Adar's Tent

If you read it as Sauron as Elrond

What it adds to the story: one ship & it's characters' dynamics with each other and othes in that tent

What it takes away from the story: Elrond coming to himself as a leader, his quick thinking, his skill with words and politics, the growth of his character

What it gives Galadriel: a non consenting kiss & more ship dynamics

What it takes away from Galadriel: her friend saying sorry for treating her horribly through out S2

If you read it as Elrond in the tent

What it adds to the story: a young man coming into himself as a future leader, a friend realising his mistake and asking for forgiveness, a half elf being reminded that he has a powerful Maia in his family (he isn't less than any elf lord)

What it takes away from the story: nothing imo because the siege still happens and it doesn't negate Sauron & Galadriel's S1 dynamics so Your ship can still sail

What it gives Galadriel: she gets the apology she deserved and reconciliation with her friend

What it takes away from Galadriel: a non con kiss

You see how your interpretation of this as canon erases a whole character and his arc but the version most Elrond fan's prefer doesn't affect your ship a bit..

Now this interpretation wouldn't have been a problem if you all weren't framing your posts as feminist & show canon & the correct way of interpreting media & then start name calling & insulting anyone and everyone who disagrees.

Just like you guys don't like the show haters on reddit etc trying to disrespect you & the whole Haladriel dynamics, other fan's also don't like to be called assholes, misogynists, conservatives & Haters etc etc for simply liking the show in another way.

2. Celebrimbor and the elven rings

If you read it as Sauron's engagement rings

What it adds to the story: one ship's dynamics

What it takes away from the story: Celebrimbor's part in their creation & his talents as the greatest Elven smith of his time, the show runners statments that Sauron is not there when the rings are being actually forged

What it gives Galadriel: a personalised ring specifically for her from her enemy and all the dynamics of it

What it takes away from Galadriel: her knowledge, her trust in her family member Celebrimbor.. all of which backs her claim that the rings are untouched by Sauron

If you read it as Celebrimbor's elven rings made with Sauron's help

What it adds to the story: Celebrimbor's hardwork, his skills that he has in part learned from his grandfather THE Feanor of Noldor, his ambition, his Feanorian hubris, his partnership of equals with Annatar, call back to his love for Galadriel in a version by Tolkien (for Nenya seeming to choose Galadriel)

What it takes away from the story: a plot hole imo of Sauron having the skill to make rings of power all by himself this early in the story & not using that to make the other rings alone.. still doesn't invalidate any of Galadriel & Halbrand dynamics so Your ship can still sail

What it gives Galadriel: a correct opinion about the nature of the rings that all her people eventually come to agree with

What it takes away from Galadriel: a mistake imo which is either not correctly judging the nature of the rings or knowing and still risking the future of all middle earth by insisting every time that the rings are safe

You see how wanting the rings to Not Be engagment rings doesn't do any harm to your ship and it's dynamics & neither does it reduce Sauron's talents as a Smith.. he is still a Maia who worked under Aulë and helped in Creation Of The World & who will go on to make the One.

But constantly saying that the rings are Sauron's engagement rings erases the whole point of Celebrimbor as a character.. not to mention his talents that Sauron needed to make the other rings and Celebrimbor's input that also helps him in making the One.

And understandaby Celebrimbor fans don't like this interpretation that reduces & erases him. But nobody would have had problems if again you guys weren't framing your headcanon essays as absolute feminist truths & calling other takes Bad Takes.

3. Nenya healing Adar

If you read it as Nenya giving him redemption by fixing his evilness

What it adds to the story: a plot hole with this magic healing ability that can fix everything and everyone who falls to darkness and evil, making way for sauron to find quick redemption

What it takes away from the story: a realistic worldview where individual choices have impact not only on the person themselves but also to everyone around them, an understanding of how healing works irl

What it gives Galadriel: a mistake for not giving away a ring of power to Sauron to heal him

What it takes away from Galadriel: her wisdom that one cannot heal another person out of their evil or mistakes (heal yourself)

If you read it as Adar gets redemption because of choosing to see his mistakes & trying to correct them after being healed by Nenya out of the torture and dark magic that turned him into uruk

What it adds to the story: Adar's commendable ability to see his huge mistakes and accept them infront of his enemy & try to fix them

What it takes away the story: the ability of the rings to heal Sauron

because in this reading it requires acceptance to look your mistakes in the eye & choice to do better that redeems a person which Sauron in show gets many chances to do but doesn't repeatedly. This still doesn't invalidate Sauron & Galadriel's dynamics so Your ship can still sail

What it gives Galadriel: an example that if someone who was under the shadow for so long as Adar can come to the light by choosing to accept their mistakes then she too despite her tryst with darkness can still come to the light by acceptance if she chooses

What it takes away from Galadriel: the burden of healing her abuser

Again reading Adar's redemption as his own achievement doesn't affect your ship at all & neither does it prevent Sauron from ever getting redeemed. It just gives him a truer to life way to get redeemed someday; even makes his future redemption more compelling imo.

But when you make the redemption all about Nenya it takes away the little good this already tragic & tortured character of Adar has. Add that to the usual insensitive framing & you'll get Me in response, an Adar fan fuming.

4. Adar's villian arc

If you read him as solely a villain

What it adds to the story: another villian

What it takes away from the story: Sauron's narrative foil and all the complexity that has been put into his character from his introduction in S1

What it gives Galadriel: a mistake imo it makes Galadriel's pity & understanding of the suffering of Adar & Uruk a mistake if he is only a villain & does everything wrong in all lights.

What it takes away from Galadriel: an example of what becomes of people who accept darkness despite love still existing in their heart and also an example of how good intentions and horrible actions can go hand in hand

If you read him as a morally grey character who had a villain's arc in one light but an anti-hero's arc in another light

What it adds to the story: a complex character that creates an emotional connection with some people who might see flashes of their persecution in the Uruk, a character who grounds the story in real world by having elements of freedom fighters & rebels choosing wrong paths in desperation, a great portrayal of the Cycle of Abuse creating abusers out of some victims

What it takes away from the story: a similar or less complex villian than Sauron but doesn't affect the dynamics of Sauron & Galadriel so Your ship can still sail

Again see how having Adar as not fullly a villain doesn't affect even a bit of your ship. It also doesn't affect Sauron and his existence as a compelling villian with a repentance arc & some good intention behind all the deception. You can still read good in Sauron's actions, Adar doesn't need to be a villain to make Sauron's goodness more visible.

But your insistence that he can only be read as a villain & people who see him as anything else are supporting genocide can irk Adar fans because the scenes showing his good traits exist & were placed conciously & weren't a collective hallucination.

5. Gay Adar being forced into ships with women

This one I'll just simply say.. The people who insist that he's gay are also the ones I see that say his relationship with Sauron was only one sided where Adar was in love but Sauron wasn't.

Here are my problems with this reading:

Adar is queercoded.. the showrunners' interview from SDCC mentions LGBTQIA+ & we all assume it was about him right..

Nowhere is it specificed that he's gay.. why can't he be Bisexual? Pansexual? Or something else or just Queer who doesn't want to be labelled by anything?

Why is this one specific way of reading him so important to you by invalidating everyone else's reading when nothing is concrete canon about this anyway?

Why can't all kinds of people from LGBTQIA+ explore their sexuality via Adar just like you all like to explore female sexuality & dark fantasies etc via Galadriel & Sauron? Because it isn't wrong in anyway I agree, I used to ship them too in S1. And most people you call names every day will agree with that too!

All this was the long way of saying, if you'll be mean to people, their reading of the story, their fav characters and their author.. some will retaliate in the same way.

It's not because they hate your ship or women or women's sexuality or villain ships or gays etc etc etc it's just simply about the respect you give out into the world & the ability to differentiate between fans of the show who like other things than you and Haters of the show.

[dimeadozencows]

There are a lot of great tags on this post, and a lot of different and unique takes on gaster which i always love to read :DD but i dont think i managed to evoke what i wanted to with this drawing

We know that gasters aware hes in a video game, but so many characters in undertale are aware of that already. One of the things that make gasters situation different is his ability to look at our world directly. He's aware that we've been looking for him and trying to understand what and who he is, he knows these last few years were dogshit for everyone on earth and mentions it in his pre chapter 2 tweets, he knows our life outside of our tempering with these worlds

And unlike other self aware characters in undertale, he doesn't experience time and the resets. He "lives" outside of what we can control. He truly remembers all that we've done while being unaffected by any of it. So while other self aware characters (im mainly thinking of sans and flowey) know that theres a person behind frisk whos controlling time, they're affected by our choices and (for the most part) can't judge it from an outside perspective

Sans is mostly unaffected by our inputs, and he does manage to judge us in a very impactful way, but he can't be a completely uninvolved judge. He will (understandably) react to us killing his brother and on certain neutral endings, as much as hes trying to hold his unfazed facade together, he's struggling with the thought of how much of his happiness you took away, even if he knows a reset will likely happen and everything will go back to the way it was. Understandably! This game is his world. Even if he knows its just a game that gets reset its still his home and the people he loves are its residents. He can't be unfazed by everything. he is nice to us when we're nice to him, and he hates our guts when we give him reason to. And he will always forget us after a reset and react to our actions only on the current run, not being able to know who we were to him before.

And flowey acts as the embodiment of this games message, he is our mirror and, in his words, he is who we will become if we exhaust this game of all it has. He exists to judge us, but he can do so only from his own point of view. He's judging our actions, our choices in this world as if we we're stuck inside it the way he is, which we aren't. That's not to say his judgement isn't impactful, that would just be. incorrect to say lol. But he can't interpret what he sees us do in a fully unbiased way because he's in a very similar, but not identical, situation to us. While we can enter his world and play the kind way, we do get bored and try new things, like picking the other, more rude dialogue option, or killing a character to see what a person who loves them says. even if we don't fully want to. Just like he said! But while we both went through the same process, there's a difference between us. We can leave. We don't have to grow apathetic and detached from these characters. We don't have to start seeing them less as people and more as repetitive lines of dialogue. If we're bored, we can leave. Play a new game. Come back when we miss them and see those familiar lines of dialogue and feel nostalgia, not dread. And he knows that we're a person that has a life outside of this game. At the end of pacifist he desperately tries to make us stay. But he doesn't see what our life is like, he cant see what we do with our days outside of his world, so he can only see us leave and return and leave and return, and judge us through his (flawed) world view and based on our actions within a world we enter for fun.

Thats not to say they're not written well? They're the fucking coolest flowey and sans rule.(i think the info dump proves my stance on them) I'm just saying that even if they know about us they cant fully judge the situation from a neutral point of view because they have a limited world view and they're affected by our choices, which gaster (as of now) isn't

And we don't know a lot about him. But we do know that he knows hes in a video game, that he knows we control his world and its linear time, that he lives outside of that linear time and is unaffected by our inputs, that he used to experience time linearly before shattering, that he had people he cared about in undertale, that he saw everything all of us did when playing undertale, that he is kind to us in the current deltarune chapters, that he knows of our lives and what we go through, and most importantly in my opinion, he knows that we (fans of utdr) use fiction as escapism

We've had characters judge us and berate us for our misdeeds, who are fully justified in doing so since we did hurt them directly. But they also cannot see the situation from an outside perspective. No character in undertale sees us separated from their world, as a person who lives a life outside of tempering with undertale, to them we are just a god who takes control of their reality, all they see is a cruel person who entered a world just to destroy it, or give everyone freedom and then just take it away in a second, they don't see how small their world is in comparison to ours, they'll never be able to understand that our actions in their world are (for the most part) inconsequential to us. they cant see us beyond the red soul.

so imagine with me for a second, a character within the game who is not only aware of the fact that he's in a game and that there's a player who controls time, but who also has the ability to SEE the players' lives through the internet. A character who has the ability to see the horrors of everyday real life and how much people struggle with it, and see that some deal with those struggles using fiction. And not just any fiction, the fiction that the character itself lives in. A character who knows that these great beings, much bigger than him, use the thought of him and his world to get through the trials and tribulations of their lives, hardships that are horrific in completely different ways than his world ever had. A character who knows that they find comfort indulging in his world and finding everything it has to offer, because whatever his world has is much more pleasant than theirs.

He knows that to us his world is just a video game, one that remembers and we're not above consequences in, but still a video game. One of the most common complaints i hear about UT is that it is preachy in its message, and players shouldn't be berated by it for playing certain routes or making certain choices (but one of the points of the game was that there is an alternative way to complete it so why choose violence BUT that is a whole conversation in it of itself and this is long enough already)

So what if the game understood? What if the character who created this game, this world, knew that it is just a game and didn't judge the player? What if the character accepted that he is only fiction and saw the beauty and purpose within it, and how he can use his position in this situation to connect with us and allow us to escape our hurt for just a little while? What if he saw the hardships we've endured and empathised with us? What if he understood that we don't view his world as real like he does and we just use it for our fun, to escape, the way a child happily plays with a toy? What if he felt for us, and encouraged it?

Deltarune (initially) not having a way to really hurt and kill people makes me think that while gaster wanted us in this world for whatever his larger goal is, and wanted us to indulge in it, he didn't want us to hurt anyone. But he saw what we did with the previous world and knows that warnings, consequences and the visible and audible hurt of the characters won't stop us (in fact, it will encourage us), which is something he accepts and understands. it's said that his own curiosity brought him far in his endeavours so perhaps he even understands our curiosity and why we just have to see what would happen, as morbid as it is in universe

But i love that we (without the help of noelle, a game breaking pro) cannot kill anyone. He didn't even give us that option. He isn't completely detached from these worlds since he used to live within them. He still views the fictional characters in the game as real while also knowing us, our lives, and the way we interact with the characters. And he loves and cares for both.

Letting us escape into a nicer world while keeping the residents of it safe from us.

And that is of course assuming he isn't tricking us into a false sense of security to teach us a lesson, and isn't lying to our faces every time he talks to us kindly and thanks us. but i think that after an entire game and a whole cast of characters who taught us lessons and took control away from us and showed us what an asshole we are for playing the game in an unkind way.. i think it'll be a really nice thing and a breath of fresh air to have a character who knows what they and their world are to us on a realistic scale, see why we sometimes act so detached from its ways, and understand that yeah, it is just a game. And we do the things we do as a means to escape. And that it isn't necessarily a bad thing to interact with games in this way (to me that sounds like the most self aware character ever written). But also see the characters within it as real (since he used to be amongst them) and protect them from our worst.

Truly and wholeheartedly loving and caring for both his family and the person who barely hesitates to strip them of all their joy before murdering them too.

Kissing the hands of the man who killed his son

I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before

I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son