#they're basically the same game? just with different characters

[justdeltarunethings]

Carol's Eleven

(Or, well, Carol's Three to Fiveish.)

Part 4

First | Previous | Next

Firstly, for anyone who's just gotten here, I'd like to direct you to the first post in this series in particular before starting this one. This is where that thought process, and that interpretation of the overall theme of Deltarune, hits its fullest stride.

tl;dr though, the key point is this:

Deltarune is not a game about a prophecy playing out. Deltarune is a game about a prophecy with gaps, about blank pages to be filled, and about the people who are trying to fill those pages with their own words.

Likewise, Part 3 of the theory is all about establishing one major, important point. Carol is not the Knight, but she IS working WITH The Knight, and may in fact be the shot-caller in The Knight's machinations.

So in order to understand what's really going on in Deltarune, we need to know what's going on with The Knight. Because as much as Carol may be head of the pack, The Knight is the most active member of, as one commenter called it, The Roaring Squad.

So first I'd like to lay out some things that I am going to consider Facts about The Knight. These are things that only take a bit of deduction, or things that characters directly say about its actions that, if we choose to ignore, harm our ability to trust any words that appear on screen. And while that can allow a whole lot more diverse theories, it's also (in my opinion) a very boring approach.

Basically, if I want to say that a character is outright lying or wrong, I want to come up with a compelling reason as to why they're lying or wrong. And in most cases, that reason simply either doesn't exist, or is only "Toby Fox is just trying to trick us." And I'll never accept that as a good enough reason.

If you wanna skip this part and hop to where I lay out what I think The Knight is doing, you can scroll down to the next BIG text, or ctrl-f and search the phrase "The Plan". I won't mind!

Bullet point time!

The Knight is a Lightner

Starting off pretty easy, The Knight can operate in both the Light and the Dark worlds. The only kink in this one is a Twitter Theory I saw recently that places The Knight as some reflection of Dess made entirely from the material of the Black Shard. There's really cool art, too.

Frankly this is the first real Dess Knight explanation that seems to have any grounding to me. I still don't buy it, but I REALLY like it and it's REALLY cool and if you're on Twitter you should go check it out and support that artist. He's also on Bluesky. But I couldn't see this theory posted there.

And honestly, even DessKnight theories like this one still place The Knight as a Lightner. Just a REALLY weird one.

The Knight created the Dark Fountains in the Abandoned Classroom and the Library Computer Room.

This is the litmus test for the aforementioned 'Toby Isn't Directly Lying To Us' bit. If we don't accept these two lines as factually accurate, then it makes it hard to know anything at all, since the only reason for either of these people to be referring to anyone other than the Roaring Knight we fight in chapter 3 is if the creators of the game are explicitly lying, on a meta level.

To double down on this, there's another example where a boss character talks about the Knight's actions in regards to their Dark World.

This is the same speech both King and Queen give, but there's a notable difference. Both previous bosses explicitly state that The Knight created their Dark Worlds. Tenna is actively choosing not to say that here, which signals to me that both King (and by extension Jevil) and Queen know the truth and are telling it.

The only other hiccup would be that the thing we see isn't ACTUALLY The Roaring Knight and the battle textbox is lying to us, either Kris purposely lying to protect the true Knight or the text box posting the party's assumption rather than the fact. But as with before, this feels like a dead end. There's room to work that into a different theory, particularly given the next point, but not one of mine.

Kris and The Knight are working together.

This one's not even really contentious from what I've seen. The evidence is overwhelming. Kris created the Dark World in chapter 3 after giving Tenna instructions, probably to buy time and listen to The Knight. Kris and The Knight hold back against each other in their fight, with Kris doing half damage to it until one of their friends goes down and The Knight not swooning Kris and de-prioritizing them (only targeting them when the other two are down) with the sword corridor attack, and then the shelter door opening after Susie leaves.

Then in Chapter 4, if the player manages to reach The Knight at the beginning, Kris just stands still until they get blown back. They hide The Knight's identity when we try to 'Think About The Knight' and The Knight's helmet almost comes off, and they refuse to open a door that it's likely hiding behind after closing the last Dark Fountain.

Not to mention preventing us from getting the shelter code in Dess's room, and calling Carol and the Knight (see Part 3) to rat us out about it.

So that places The Roaring Squad as, at the very least, Carol, The Knight, and Kris.

The Roaring Knight's primary goal is NOT to start The Roaring

Okay this one might be reaching a little bit to be considered a "fact", but multiple people have said this is it's underpinning goal and that just...isn't true. Lookin' at you, Game Theory. The only actual evidence for this is its summoning of a second dark fountain in the church's dark world (which I admit would be convincing if not for other evidence), and Ralsei's 'Talk' action in the Knight fight where he says "If the Roaring happens, then... then..."

Let's be clear about something. The Roaring, as Ralsei describes it to us, is not hard to make happen. If The Knight wanted to start a Roaring, it'd just do it. It wouldn't pose dramatically and wait for us to show up for a reveal. It'd have made the second fountain immediately. Or if you think it needs a cooldown, it woulda made one in Kris's house since it absolutely didn't make the first one. Or it would have just made one in the shelter at any time.

Whatever The Knight's doing, The Roaring is a tool in its kit, not its ultimate end goal.

Whoof that's a lot! I think that's a good enough basis for non-trivial facts for now. Finally, with this stuff established, we can start to figure out...

THE PLAN...

If you read part 1 of this theory, or even the key point I quoted at the beginning of this post, you can probably guess the general shape of this plan. Carol is attempting to mold the direction of the prophecy to her own ends, and she has recruited both Kris and The Knight into this effort.

Carol is organizing the creation of the dark worlds, taking active efforts to keep the prophecy on track. Even some of her stranger actions are guiding people into specific roles.

For example: Asgore. A lot of theories I've seen posit that Asgore is in on this entire plot, and is working with Carol, but I'd like to suggest an alternative. Carol is using Asgore. What do we know about their relationship?

Carol is bankrolling Asgore's flower shop in exchange for him working as her gardener. Asgore does like being a gardener, but he never wanted to sell flowers. It doesn't feel right to him. Asgore has some knowledge of the Dark World, but based on the conspiracy boards he's created he doesn't have a lot. One of those conspiracy boards is literally inside Carol's bedroom. Furthermore, no one believes Asgore about this, and yet Carol is apparently encouraging his obsession.

The end result of all of this is that Asgore can remain here in town, owns a flower shop he doesn't want, and his constant fixation on proving the Dark Worlds are real is keeping him and Toriel apart.

We know that the next part of the prophecy involves a "Flower Man", and that Gerson's adaptation of that part involves a "vast garden" that is "charred in an inferno of jealousy." The aspect of the jealousy in relation to a garden is likely within the prophecy itself.

People have had very strong guesses that the next chapter is likely going to be inside the Flower Shop, and I fully agree. But that's not going to be the case just because the prophecy says so. It says nothing about a flower shop. No, it's going to happen because Carol has set up every bit of the scenario to cast Asgore in her version of the prophecy.

She's likely even encouraging Asgore in his awkward efforts to get back with Toriel without fixing the fundamental issue. And she probably leaked that Black Shard to him recently herself, so that he'll ramp up his efforts at proving himself right...just on cue to take the stage.

And we already know she's cast Kris as The Cage. It's even possible that she set up Ralsei to be The Prince. Or, worse, Ralsei might be aware of Carol's plan, or at least a part of it. And of course, to round out her cast of heroes, she did everything she could to manipulate the scenario to cast The Girl...Noel—

...Wait a second.

...And How It's Going Wrong

Every single aspect of the Dark Worlds we've seen appear hand crafted to push Noelle into the role of The Girl. Not by fate. By Carol.

Chapter 1: Alphys mysteriously runs out of chalk overnight. Who would be the most likely person to volunteer to go get more? Noelle, of course. She did exactly that. And Kris would volunteer to buddy system with her, or just walk out because Alphys is a pushover.

Chapter 2: the Dark Fountain is basically created directly on Noelle's face. She just ends up coming out the other side thinking it was a dream because of Susie's interference.

Chapter 3: at the end of Chapter 1, Noelle was locked out of her house, again. She decides to go to Catti's, and likely does so again in Chapter 2, but if she went on Dark World adventures with Kris, she'd probably go to THEIR house instead...right where the next Dark Fountain was made. And yet, when they make the fountain anyway (Gotta keep the prophecy rolling, and the Lord of Screens was cast to be Tenna) it's Tenna's job to keep the party busy...and out of the way, while keeping Toriel unaware of the Dark Worlds.

Chapter 4: Susie is deeply concerned because the Church's Dark World could have trapped Toriel inside. ...Because Toriel would have been at choir practice. And so would NOELLE.

Chapter 5: That's right, Chapter 5, roll with me on this one we're getting a little meta. The quotes that playable characters have for equipping and using items on them in the overworld include Noelle quotes for pretty much every item from chapters 3 and 4. Originally, chapters 3, 4, and 5 were going to come out in one chunk. This suggests to me that we're getting Noelle back in the party in Chapter 5. But if Chapter 5 is going to be set in the flower shop, what's Noelle doing there? Carol is going to send her there.

Carol and The Knight have been trying their damndest to make sure Noelle becomes The Girl in the prophecy. But two unpredictable events have muddled that effort so far: the rain cancelling choir practice, and Alphys growing a spine out of absolutely nowhere.

The Roaring Squad was attempting to carry out their version of the prophecy, likely in an effort to make Noelle stronger as part of their ultimate goal. And this is why I think Ralsei is at least partially aware of the circumstances surrounding this plan. At least, that the casting call was for Noelle.

We know what it means to "Become Stronger" in the Tobyverse. It means separating yourself from your humanity, at least a little bit. It means caring less for the people around you. And we know for sure that Noelle is very susceptible to suggestion and manipulation.

In Chapters 1 and 2, Ralsei distracts us, the SOUL, by having us think about Susie. If we go along with it, when Susie rejoins the gang, Ralsei is saying something along the lines of "So that's why, Kris..." He was having a conversation with Kris. Explaining why he was doing something.

I would like to put forward the idea that he was explaining why he was propping Susie up as the hero. He knows the plan is for Noelle, but he also sees that plan as cruel towards her. Manipulative. And when Susie enters the Dark World, Ralsei takes the opportunity to save Noelle and play it off like they have no choice in the matter.

He has to justify it again in Chapter 2 because Noelle is literally right there. Across chapters 1 and 2, Kris seems upset at Ralsei. But by Chapter 3, Kris is treating Ralsei like an important friend, and by the end of Chapter 4 Kris is taking the prompt to tell Ralsei that it's okay not to smile as an opportunity to genuinely comfort him. We don't tell them to hug him, they do that themself.

Perhaps Ralsei's explanations stuck, or perhaps Kris is thankful that Ralsei has helped them grow close to Susie. Or maybe they're just moved by someone else who believes they're trapped in a situation they have no control over.

Either way, this is the wrench in Carol's plan. Even if they don't know it, even if Ralsei still thinks Noelle is eventually fated to become The Girl, even if Susie doesn't know all of the rules of the game she's playing, even if Kris is conflicted about what they're supposed to do, The Fun Gang has stumbled into an opposing role.

Carol may be trying to shape the prophecy to her own will, but in doing so she's created a group of people who are going to be doing the exact same thing. They're going to be putting every bit of themselves into changing this prophecy however they can. And THAT is the story of Deltarune.

Kris Hates The Plan

Before we wrap up for this part, we have to talk about Snowgrave.

If Deltarune is the uneven struggle between The Fun Gang and The Roaring Squad, then our two routes are where we get to make our choice. In the normal, Pacifist route, we are siding with Susie and Ralsei. And in the Snowgrave route, we're siding with Carol and The Knight.

If the major rift between the two sides starts with forcing Noelle into a 'strong' role, it's easy to see this distinction. Ralsei may have made a judgement call to try to avoid dragging Noelle into it, but through Snowgrave we, the SOUL, take the opportunity we can to make her "strong".

Noelle is getting truly stronger even in the normal route in a more subtle way, but we can make her stronger in a measurable way, so that she can still fulfill her role in the prophecy the way Carol intends.

Kris may be in on this plan, but it's clear they're divided on it. On the one hand, whatever promise Carol has over Kris is a powerful motivator. It's something they truly want, and so when we act against it they try to stop us. See the closet scene.

On the other, they genuinely and deeply care about Noelle, and following that plan would hurt her. And the Snowgrave route and Kris's reaction to it, and efforts to undo it once it starts, show which way they're truly leaning. But even then, even when they hate everything that they're being forced to do, either by Carol or by the SOUL, or both, they will still do it.

Because the plan does have a goal, and that's what we'll cover next time (After a short aside). The prophecy is a means to an end, and that end is written into the title of what will be one of the most iconic pieces of music in this series.

findher.ogg

Find her.

Find. Dess.

[kumakuma-circus]

one of my favorite persona things i've learned is that like. the "present" point in the timeline for p3d and p5d is at somepoint during p5. so elizabeth has to go back in time to grab sees. which, given shinjiro not being there (outside of dlc), means she specifically chose to go to a point in time before the p3 mc's death but after shinjiro's. extremely hilarious to me honestly-

[vaguely-concerned]

as I am replaying origins -- a game which, to be clear, I love very VERY much -- I can't help but feel that people do don the rose coloured glasses on it a bit specifically when it comes to the range of dialogue options you're actually given to work with at any given time (something I've seen my fair share of silent vs. voiced protagonist discourse about over the years *smokes tired cigarette in survivor of a decade of DA tumblr*). like... there are a couple of situations where you're given a decent range of responses, but the vast majority of the time you have about three dialogue options, and often they're presented sort of like 'polite/bland/unprovoked near-cartoonish levels of assholery'. arranged like, y'know:

I am [BLANK]. It's an honor to make your acquaintance.

You can call me [BLANK].

How dare you speak to me. Fuck you and your family back five generations. I'm going to rob your mother's grave before your eyes.

(sometimes if you're real lucky you get the secret extra 'Something else/I'm bald/but I'm a dwarf!' option)

I'm not at all saying it's worse in that aspect than the other games (Dalish Inquisitor 'Who's Mythal' just entered the chat), but I do think it's worth considering that this might be a bit of a franchise original sin that has been present since the beginning, as indeed it is in most rpgs because making rpgs is real hard, and you notice it more with the dialogue wheel format than when the responses and questions you can ask are all laid out in a list together

[ex-vespidae]

i would love to make kirby charts for my headcanons and theories

[bigtiddygothhusband]

so it turns out twine is not ideal for playing a ttrpg by yourself. The multiple pathways for the different characters is good, but the custom variables thing is made to be accessed in an actual playthrough of a completed game and i'm using the game builder part as a format for a game. It's still the best method i've come up with, but i can't actually all the changing stats and stuff without popping open a preview and running through the whole thing up to where i am. which right now is not that far but yeah.

[dalishward]

Just a photo list of characters i've made throughout different games:

BG3 - Elora(High half elf), Ivy (Drow), and Vera (Tiefling) [Haven't touched this game in months so i had to remember what kind of elf Elora was lmaooo]

Cyberpunk 2077 - Vanessa, Ivan, and Avery

Dragon age Inquisition [bc i don't have any good photos of my hawke in DA2 or my warden in DAO :'( ] - Valoris (Dalish) and Herah (Qunari)

[anneapocalypse]

The fundamental difference between Zenos and The Warrior of Light as Written--something that exists regardless of any particular WoL's disposition or motivations, all things subject to personal headcanon--is that the TWoLaW engages deeply with the world around them, and Zenos does not. The fundamental quality of Azem the Traveler, and the quality that is suggested to have been inherited by TWoLaW (and by Ardbert), is that they are deeply engaged with the world, and with its people.

Is it true that TWoLaW is disposed toward violence, sure, absolutely, for reasons of video game mechanics if nothing else. But I fundamentally disagree that violence is the core of TWoLaW regardless of how we roleplay them. At the core of TWoLaW is their engagement with the world. Yes, as a result of that, TWoLaW is willing to go kill people and things because they were asked to. You know what else they're willing to do because someone asked them to? Talk to people. Fetch things for them. Gather resources. Make things. Deliver gifts. Facilitate trade. Learn skills. Build community. Cross the seas to help a new friend. Explore. Uncover ancient mysteries. GO TO SPACE! And if you see Zenos as a foil for the player rather than the character, all this still very much applies.

You can roleplay the most curmudgeonly, antisocial, misanthropic WoL possible, you can even reject all side content and stick solely to MSQ, and you will still find yourself inhabiting a character who, as written, is fundamentally engaged with the world. They don't have to be happy. They don't have to be nice. They don't have to do any of what they're doing out of altruism. They're still making the choice to connect with other people, to invest themselves in the struggles and passions of others, to have a personal stake in shaping the world around them, because that is what the character is written to do.

Zenos's tragic flaw is his inability--and yes, perhaps, on some level, unwillingness--to connect with the world and the people around him. He finds no meaningful engagement with the world except to enact violence upon it. He has no personal investment in the Garlean Empire except as it allows him to enact violence, and by this disengagement he basically singlehandedly allows the entire empire to collapse because he doesn't care about it, only about fulfilling his own desires. The funny thing about Zenos as a foil for the protagonist is that he would make a terrible RPG protagonist. The archetypal RPG protagonist is so defined by their willingness to say yes to menial tasks that are only meaningful to some minor NPC that most modern RPGs end up lampshading that fact in some way, and it's endlessly memed upon. I struggle to imagine Zenos making it through the Company of Heroes fetch quests in ARR without getting bored and stabbing someone.

So all-encompassing is this worldview for him that even upon calling the WoL his only friend, he can find no meaningful engagement with them beyond "let us enact violence upon one another." Even the one person in the world he finds interesting enough to engage with, he is seemingly incapable of understanding on any other level. (And if you play a WoL with a desire to connect with Zenos on any other level, I think there's potential for a really interesting tragedy there! Because he either won't or can't.)

And we don't ever really get to challenge him on how narrow and stifling and miserable his engagement with the world truly is. Maybe there's a flicker of it at the very end, an acknowledgement that his life was fundamentally unfulfilling. Perhaps Zenos even sees, on some level, what the WoL has that he does not; maybe unconsciously in pursuing them, he seeks to figure out what that thing is. But then he dies, in his chosen manner, after getting the same one thing he's been pursuing as long as we've known him. That's what's sad about Zenos on a narrative level. Not that he dies, but that he dies unchanged and unchallenged.

And this is why I just can never quite get behind the idea that the core of the WoL is the same as the core of Zenos--no matter how many people the Warrior of Light has killed. I just don't believe that. When I look at TWoLaW, I see a character deeply engaged with the world. When I look at Zenos I see a character who never truly connects with anyone or anything outside himself.

[flufftober]

🍂 🍃 Hello and welcome to our fourth annual Flufftober 🍂 🍃

We’re so excited to be back and have you here once again!

As always, let’s fill the month of October with as much fluff as possible 🥰 for that to happen, you can either use our 31 regular prompts or enjoy a little challenge 😏

Below the cut, you'll find all our rules, posting info, and all the prompts in writing. If you have any more questions, please feel free to send us an ask.

And now, for the challenge...

Prompt Extras

We love to see how many of you get inspired by our prompts every year - be it by the original list or the Prompt Extras. Once again we're offering you that option and you're more than welcome to replace prompts from the original list if they don't work for you for whatever reason - no explanation needed.

As has become tradition, we offer you last year's top five fan favorites (as voted in the end survey). In addition to that, we also offer a little challenge: five angsty prompts for you to turn fluffy!

If you don't want to replace any prompt from the original list but still love the additional ones - or you simply want to challenge yourself even further - you can also mix them all together!

So in whichever way you use these Prompt Extras, have fun with them and go wild 💚

We hope you like these prompts, and now

Happy Creating 🥳

Standard Blog Rules & FAQ

Addendum: We do not allow AI creations of any kind.

(Due to previous asks, we made sure to add more points to this section - while they're not new rules, they're newer to this list, so you'll find them colored green)

No inc*st or p*dophilia - we can’t keep you from writing it or creating art for it but it won’t be reblogged. No inc*st: This rule does not apply to distant cousins and such, as you might find in the LotR fandom (or basically in all of European Monarchy). The line we draw is at direct blood relations (siblings, parents, kids) and/or legal guardianship. No p*dophilia: This rule does not rule out fandoms that feature teenagers such as Harry Potter, Heartstoppers, Hunger Games, etc. It also doesn't mean you can't write about their time together as teenagers! It's aimed at ships in which one is a minor and the other is not - but since even that has grey areas, the rule is this: if you keep it SFW, all is good and allowed, we don't care; if it turns NSFW, be mindful of the legalities of the world/society/times your characters live in.

No hate or ship bashing - we’re all different and we all love different things. As long as it doesn’t go against rule #1, it’s allowed.

Tag correctly! Trigger warnings (including cheating!), ships, ratings, (pure) smut, etc - it’s all fine as long as you tag it.

There’s absolutely no word count restriction, write as little or as much as you like.

In regards to art, anything goes: drawings, paintings, collages, mood boards, gif sets, videos, playlists… the sky’s the limit (though not really…). If you would like to create a podfic, the fic you're using does not have to be new - your creation will be new!

You can mix and mash different mediums however you like, be it within one prompt or on different days.

While we can’t force you to write fluff or create fluffy art, please try to keep in mind that this is a fluff event 😉 that, of course, doesn't mean you can't combine it with angsty/whumpy prompts - hurt/comfort is absolutely welcome!

You can start creating as soon as you see this - but please refrain from posting before the respective day.

If you post early, we will schedule your post for the correct day; if you use multiple prompts in one creation, we will post on the earliest day you used.

You can participate on as many days as you like, even if it’s just one; you can also create multiple entries for the same day.

You can replace as many original prompts as you like with our prompt extras; you can also combine them with the original prompts or create for them in addition, that's completely up to you.

It’s okay to write one story/a series for all the prompts.

You do not have to stick to one character, ship, or even one fandom - switch as often as you like to or even write for multiple ships for one day.

The ship does not have to be a romantic one! Friendship and family feels are more than welcome (but this is not a way to get around rule #1!)

Original works as well as OCs in fandoms are welcome! But please make sure to mark these clearly, either in the tags or the post itself. We're not familiar with all fandoms (though we're definitely learning a lot!), so we're not always sure what might be an OC and what might be such an unknown side character not even Google can find them...

Reader insert fics (for example "character x reader") as well as RPFs are absolutely allowed.

Other languages are also welcome - just make sure to clearly mark the day and fandom so that we can still easily reblog.

This event can be combined with other events as long as the other event allows it.

Late entries are always welcome, even if it is months or years later.

All fandoms and ships are welcome - fanon and canon - as long as they’re of age (in case you want to add smut) and not related.

Posting

Posting to tumblr

Please use the tag #flufftober2024 Please make sure there is NO SPACE between flufftober and 2024! We will NOT be checking the other tag this year!

Since tags are sometimes wonky, make sure to also mention us with @flufftober in your post

We will try to catch them all, but please don't be mad if we miss a post or if it gets reblogged a bit late

If you're absolutely certain a post has slipped past us, feel free to send an ask with the link to your post

To make reblogging easier for us, make sure to add the following tags: #flufftober2024 #day [xy] #[fandom] #[ship and/or main character(s)]

If you're using a prompt extra tag it as #alt [number]

Posting to ao3

You can add your creation to the collection Flufftober 2024 (either as flufftober2024 or as flufftober_2024)

Late entries are always welcome, on tumblr as well as the ao3 collection! Neither will close - but like always, reblogs will become less regular the more months have passed...

Prompts

1. Lost Pet Meet Cute

2. “Left. Other left!”

3. Favorite Scent

4. Market Day

5. Acorn, Chestnut, Pine Cone

6. Mistaken Identity

7. Hoodie Weather

8. Chopping & Piling Wood

9. “Don’t do that!” - “But…”

10. Bet, Game, Contest

11. Ingredients & Spells

12. “This is spooky.” - “Really?”

13. Attic, Cellar, Hidden Room

14. Fantasy AU/Mundane AU

15. “What are you wearing?” - “It’s laundry day!”

16. Yes, No, Maybe

17. Only One Bed

18. Bewitched

19. Yarn

20. Paw

21. Bonfire

22. Heirloom

23. Stormy Night

24. Comfort Food

25. Haunted House

26. “I can’t find it.”

27. Afternoon Stroll

28. Lucky Charm

29. Time Capsule

30. “Forever?”

31. Make a Wish

Prompt Extras

Last Year's Favorites

Alt 1: “I’ve got you”

Alt 2: Rainy Day

Alt 3: “Wait you love me?” - “I always have”

Alt 4: “I hate it” - “No, you don’t”

Alt 5: Porch Swing

Challenge "Make it Fluffy!"

Alt 6: Gravestone

Alt 7: Getting Revenge

Alt 8: Written but never sent

Alt 9: Suddenly Severed Communication

Alt 10: Rejected, Betrayed, Exiled, Left Behind

[shitpostingkats]

Zack Fair has a really fascinating relationship with killing where a lot of the rest of the cast doesn't. He fights people as well as monsters and gradually stops being able to differentiate the two. He helps clear out beasties and ghoulies but he also intros the game with a massive attack on a foreign nation just to shore up corporate interests and for a good chunk of the game places those two activities in the same spot in his mind. One of his side projects at work is quashing the last remnants of rebellion in said occupied country and rooting out the spies in their resistance, at which point he hands them over to his bosses to be interrogated and presumably tortured. But if he comes face to face with the same people in a combat scenario, he won't kill them, because he views their desire to see themselves free as an honorable trait. Then he turns around and attacks hordes of people who defected Shinra. He uses the blunt side of his sword, not to spare lives, but because he doesn't want to damage the sharp edge.

Wutai forces and Genesis clones have a different categorization to him, something he can mentally label as "other". But after Nibelhiem, your primary enemy type becomes other Shinra soldiers. Just after Zack has had his realizations that the monsters he was wiping out share a haunting amount of basic building blocks with his coworkers. And with himself.

Actually, let's pause. Zack is the only character we see have any sort of acceptance of being Jenova-ed. Every other character is unwilling and usually not even a conscious being yet, but Zack A) knows what is being done to him, and B) openly states he wants those monstrous traits for himself. "Those wings / I want them too." Up to this point, every other character has equated being Jenova-ed to being baser, to being subhuman, but Zack at the very beginning tried to convince Angeal that it meant freedom. Power to do what you want.

Zack Fair willingly and with open arms embraced being made less than human because he thought it would give him the strength to break out of captivity.

So he busts out, and the first thing he's greeted with it a horde of enemies that he knows are human, has worked and talked with, and are in fact the same shape and type of person as Cloud. Just a couple cutscenes ago, these were his coworkers.

The easiest way to get through them is to set them on fire and blow up the munitions they're carrying on their person.

(It's such a beautiful demystifying of the elemental system. I love it.)

Oh also, you're on a time limit, so you gotta kill all these guys fast, because they're trying to go for the weak spot, Cloud, who can't fight and is getting dragged away.

After that, the next thing Zack does is find a gun and start taking long ranged killshots.

There's a tangible feeling of a lesson being learned.

Zack is (I think?) the only SOLDIER we ever see use a gun. It's worth noting that even the most fallen of SOLDIERs stick to their flashy blades and their weird swordfights. Other characters even comment how bizarre it is, but ffvii also runs on that fantasy world logic where if you just Get Good enough, swords are just as good as guns if not better. Guns are the lower, more primitive weapon, fit for grunts and hitmen but not elite fighters.

(I could also go into detail on how some of the SOLDIERS weapon are sold as bespoke merch in world, and basically another tool in the toolbox of how to sell these flesh and blood men as mythologized products. But we don't have time to unpack all of that.)

For Zack, we know that his sword is even a symbol of honorable combat and a legacy of trying to do the right thing. Zack picking up a gun is basically debasing himself to being just another man in the field. And it's a sniper rifle. The weapon guaranteed to get him as little contact with his opponent as possible and does not even give them a chance to fight back. But it's whatever gets the job done.

Zack starts the game as someone who kills people, but it's hand-waved aside the same way it is for most everyone else, only for him to bite that awareness apple like five minutes before it becomes absolutely vital he survive at all costs. Zack becomes aware that he's on a slippery slope and due to circumstances has to start sprinting. Over the course of the game, we watch as Zack Fair goes from being someone who kills people to a killer.

[twilightofthesandwiches]

Right from the start, Deltarune has established itself as a “Game Where Choices Don’t Matter”. Only having one ending has been core to its narrative and theming since day one. But it’s important to remember that it’s a concept that Deltarune has explored through several different ways, with two broad ‘main’ angles.

First there is the obvious way. That “Your Choices Don’t Matter” feels restrictive, oppressive, foreboding. The railroading that makes everything ‘safe’ in a way that feels just slightly insincere, the idea that making a real change in this world is impossible, the Darkners doomed to their Purpose to 'serve' the Lightners, the Prophecy that cannot be changed.

It's about the feeling of powerlessness, a lack of control. It's kinda creepy even when you're forced into a 'good ending' (like the Card Castle Darkners joining Castle Town even if you've been nothing but an absolute menace to them), but especially so if you're marching towards some inevitable and terrible fate.

But on the other hand of that spectrum, there is the matter of Player Agency versus Character Agency. Sometimes in Deltarune, your Choices Don't Matter not because the Choice was taken away from you by some Great Unseen Force - but because you, the Player, are the Great Unseen Force and the characters are asserting their Agency against you.

The general point here is that the Player's Choice often stands at odds with the narrative agency of the characters. Ralsei is the most accommodating member of the main cast and the one most likely to ask Kris (or rather the Player) what to do, and… he's also unhealthily selfless doormat who literally does not believe he's allowed to have opinions of his own and is the most fatalistic about the Prophecy. The biggest example of actual Player Choice in the game so far is the Weird Route, which requires tearing away the agency of both Noelle and Kris until they are tools for the Player.

Kris themself is also a factor in this. Being Literally Possessed means that they're really the perfect example of lacking in freedom and lacking in choices… And when they are asserting their own Agency, it's usually by taking away a 'Choice' from the Player. They often try and rebel, resist or wise-ass their way out of doing or saying something that they don't truly want to say or do.

And their most important moments are, of course, the ones they do of their own will.

It is all 'railroading' from an out-of-universe perspective because it is just the Game stopping you from doing things that will cause the narrative of the story to diverge too much, but within the fiction that the game created, it is a bold act of free will.

The characters' relationships and arcs are 'set on a path' and unchanging because they are dependent on the characters' personalities and experiences and their choices, and there's very little the Player can do to override that. Like, being discouraging towards Ralsei's character arc in Chapter 4 is a huge dick move on the part of the Player, but I doubt it will actually stop him from his path to growth. Because with Susie's support (and Kris' attempt to also support him despite our Choices)

his development is not in our hands.

Basically the one time the Player can meaningfully affect another character's arc and relationship… is Noelle in the Weird Route. And again, this is portrayed as a very dark act of manipulation that robs her and Kris of their genuine choices and will.

And nowhere is this concept more clear than with Susie. The most rebellious character in the entire cast, the one most likely to chafe against the railroady nature of the world and the inevitability of the Prophecy and also against the Player. A lot of the plot in this game has been the same, regardless of our choices, regardless of the Weird Route… because Susie's will and choices has been such an overwhelming leading force in the narrative, that the Player can do very little to change it.

We know Deltarune only has one ending, but I don't think that means we are doomed to get whatever terrible fate has been promised in the Prophecy. I think maybe there's only one ending because there's hardly any Choice a Player can make that will slow down Susie's unbreakable, unwavering, unchangeable fate-defying spirit, we will not be able to Choose to hinder her sheer Determination to break the Prophecy and give herself and all of her friends a happy ending. Susie herself is the real inevitability in Deltarune.

At least, that's the best we can hope for.

[ecrivainsolitaire]

A summary of the Chinese AI situation, for the uninitiated.

These are scores on different tests that are designed to see how accurate a Large Language Model is in different areas of knowledge. As you know, OpenAI is partners with Microsoft, so these are the scores for ChatGPT and Copilot. DeepSeek is the Chinese model that got released a week ago. The rest are open source models, which means everyone is free to use them as they please, including the average Tumblr user. You can run them from the servers of the companies that made them for a subscription, or you can download them to install locally on your own computer. However, the computer requirements so far are so high that only a few people currently have the machines at home required to run it.

Yes, this is why AI uses so much electricity. As with any technology, the early models are highly inefficient. Think how a Ford T needed a long chimney to get rid of a ton of black smoke, which was unused petrol. Over the next hundred years combustion engines have become much more efficient, but they still waste a lot of energy, which is why we need to move towards renewable electricity and sustainable battery technology. But that's a topic for another day.

As you can see from the scores, are around the same accuracy. These tests are in constant evolution as well: as soon as they start becoming obsolete, new ones are released to adjust for a more complicated benchmark. The new models are trained using different machine learning techniques, and in theory, the goal is to make them faster and more efficient so they can operate with less power, much like modern cars use way less energy and produce far less pollution than the Ford T.

However, computing power requirements kept scaling up, so you're either tied to the subscription or forced to pay for a latest gen PC, which is why NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and all the other chip companies were investing hard on much more powerful GPUs and NPUs. For now all we need to know about those is that they're expensive, use a lot of electricity, and are required to operate the bots at superhuman speed (literally, all those clickbait posts about how AI was secretly 150 Indian men in a trenchcoat were nonsense).

Because the chip companies have been working hard on making big, bulky, powerful chips with massive fans that are up to the task, their stock value was skyrocketing, and because of that, everyone started to use AI as a marketing trend. See, marketing people are not smart, and they don't understand computers. Furthermore, marketing people think you're stupid, and because of their biased frame of reference, they think you're two snores short of brain-dead. The entire point of their existence is to turn tall tales into capital. So they don't know or care about what AI is or what it's useful for. They just saw Number Go Up for the AI companies and decided "AI is a magic cow we can milk forever". Sometimes it's not even AI, they just use old software and rebrand it, much like convection ovens became air fryers.

Well, now we're up to date. So what did DepSeek release that did a 9/11 on NVIDIA stock prices and popped the AI bubble?

Oh, I would not want to be an OpenAI investor right now either. A token is basically one Unicode character (it's more complicated than that but you can google that on your own time). That cost means you could input the entire works of Stephen King for under a dollar. Yes, including electricity costs. DeepSeek has jumped from a Ford T to a Subaru in terms of pollution and water use.

The issue here is not only input cost, though; all that data needs to be available live, in the RAM; this is why you need powerful, expensive chips in order to-

Holy shit.

I'm not going to detail all the numbers but I'm going to focus on the chip required: an RTX 3090. This is a gaming GPU that came out as the top of the line, the stuff South Korean LoL players buy…

Or they did, in September 2020. We're currently two generations ahead, on the RTX 5090.

What this is telling all those people who just sold their high-end gaming rig to be able to afford a machine that can run the latest ChatGPT locally, is that the person who bought it from them can run something basically just as powerful on their old one.

Which means that all those GPUs and NPUs that are being made, and all those deals Microsoft signed to have control of the AI market, have just lost a lot of their pulling power.

Well, I mean, the ChatGPT subscription is 20 bucks a month, surely the Chinese are charging a fortune for-

Oh. So it's free for everyone and you can use it or modify it however you want, no subscription, no unpayable electric bill, no handing Microsoft all of your private data, you can just run it on a relatively inexpensive PC. You could probably even run it on a phone in a couple years.

Oh, if only China had massive phone manufacturers that have a foot in the market everywhere except the US because the president had a tantrum eight years ago.

So… yeah, China just destabilised the global economy with a torrent file.

[roguerambles]

I understand the disappointment, I really do, but I think people might be blowing the whole world state thing a bit out of proportion. "This is SPITTING IN THE FACE of long-time fans" no it's not Steve, calm down.

The series has always had to compromise when it comes to the state of the world because so many of the choices (especially from the end of Origins) were so wildly different that trying to build a sequel from so many conflicting factors would be more or less impossible. It's why we've never seen the Architect again, because him being alive or dead has HUGE ripple effects that are damn near impossible to write around.

Heck, it was entirely possible for Anders to die at the end of Awakening, but the writers wrote around it by saying "oh no he actually faked his death" even though logically that made very little sense because at that point he'd have absolutely no reason to do that? But Anders was in the sequel so that had to come up with something.

Basically nothing from Dragon Age 2 was important in Inquisition - Hawke siding with Mages or Templars made no difference, Anders being alive or dead made no difference, whether Carver or Bethany were dead or Wardens or whatever made no difference. We got some flavour text and that was literally it, everything else played out exactly the same.

Hell, the Temple of Sacred Ashes gets blown to bits at the beginning of Inquisition, rendering everything to do with that quest from Origins basically moot. And we've never gone back to Orzammar, and everything we have heard from it has been kept super vague, because depending on who the King is and if Branka is still alive things would look WILDLY different. Crafting a new story there would be borderline impossible because the dozen different possible world states make the foundation shaky at best.

It's why I highly doubt we'll be able to side with Solas and help him tear down the Veil because that would result in basically a whole new world being created. Imagine them trying to make Dragon Age 5 and being like "okay 50% sided with Solas and tore the Veil down and 50% kept the Veil intact....wtf now what do we do--?"

Again, I understand the disappointment, but I just hope once the dust has settled and people calm down a bit they'll see that, realistically, very little has changed. Your saves are still there, your experiences and enjoyment of the games and the characters and the story are still there, but they were always gonna have to draw the line SOMEWHERE.

And that's not to say none of our previous choices will come back - if we get another game, or a spin off or something they'll probably do what they're doing with the Inquisitor now. They're just taking what's relevant to the story they are trying to tell, and leaving what they aren’t going to use presently ambiguous.

[1322daysofdoey]

Spreading my orange Kevin agenda... Read my ramblings... This is going to be stupidly long as I try to explain everything here so I apologize in advance.

To try to break this down, basically the main reason I think Kevin is orange and not red is because of the arrangement of the heads in his monster form, which are arranged in a similar "triangle" fashion to the colors on Doey himself (one on his top-right, one on his top-left, one on the bottom-center). Not only that, but this color arrangement is ALSO present in his logo (two "tall" yellow and orange letters - d and h, and one "low-hanging" red letter between them - g), so I get the impression that this was done on purpose rather than a coincidence. So, looking at his monster form, Kevin is easily identifiable by his angry expression, and with this arrangement in mind he corresponds to the orange color placement.

So, then, between the last two heads, how did I determine which one is Matthew and which one is Jack? The answer is going back to the logo and looking at the hands. Each one is posed differently, and I feel that this is reflective of each boy's personality. The orange hand is a fist, which further supports that color representing Kevin due to his aggression. The red hand is pointing, which I feel is a good representation of Matthew's leadership and charisma. So then Jack is yellow, the open hand, by process of elimination. You could counterargue that a pointing finger could be accusatory, and that a fist in the air could represent leadership. But because of the previous point about the consistent arrangement of the colors/faces, I'm pretty confident about Kevin being orange, so that really just leaves me with the other interpretation.

I also think that these colors make more sense when thinking about the actual body parts that the colors are applied to. Orange is one of Doey's arms, which I think fits much better for Kevin than the legs would. Meanwhile, I think the legs work well for Matthew because he's the "support" and stability of the trio. It also makes the "three boys in a trench coat" jokes work better this way lol, you make Matthew the "legs" of the disguise because he's the oldest and tallest to carry the other two but then don't even make him the color of the legs? smh

Then my last two points are a bit more minor, but I wanted to mention anyway:

Firstly, the emotional association of the colors. I feel like the red Kevin fanon is specifically because red is seen as "the angry color" or "the bad color" (Kevin is NOT bad or evil FYI but you know how some people are about this sort of thing...), but then they're forgetting that red is also the color of love. (I mean hello, we're talking about the same game where Bobby BearHug exists?) Matthew has so much love for friends and family, I think it suits him well. And then orange is still a "fiery" color that can fit for Kevin's intense emotions, yeah?

Then secondly, the official "order" of the boys. Their experiment numbers are given a letter at the end to differentiate the three, with Jack being 1322A, Kevin being 1322B, and Matthew being 1322C. Youngest to oldest. And, if Kevin is orange instead of red, it would also make them ordered by color hue. A, B, C. Yellow, orange, red. It just makes sense, it feels right. It feels like something that would be done on purpose. Especially when combined with everything else I've already pointed out in this post.

Gonna finish this off with addressing another potential counterargument, though:

"But Doey's own character designer drew art where they color-coded the boys as yellow Jack, orange Matthew, and red Kevin! So doesn't that make those colors official?" Bro they literally say in their post that it "isn't canon" and is just fan art. You can already tell that it's not canon just based on Jack being a literal infant baby that looks nothing like the canon kid we see in the video lol. Furthermore, while Max is Doey's character designer, that doesn't mean they were responsible for any of the symbolism, foreshadowing, etc. regarding his backstory. They designed the character, but that doesn't mean they designed the logo for example. And, interestingly, in their concept art for monster Doey, you know what's noticeably different from the final version? The three heads inside Doey's mouth. They all share the same expression, so we can't tell which one is Kevin in this version. We don't know who was responsible for minor adjustments between this concept art and the final in-game design, so it's possible that someone on the team other than Max wanted that detail to be included. So in other words, I think that if each boy is indeed meant to correspond to a specific color on Doey, I don't think it was Max who chose which kid is which color, nor would they necessarily even know the "correct" color-coding since the possible hints about it that I talk about in this post are easy to miss if you're not hopelessly brainrotted like I am, and aren't important to understanding the lore. So they may have just fallen into the same "red = angry" logic that most of the fandom did.

But yeah whatever, man. I just wanted to get this out there.

[0alix0]

i just want to point out what a stupid decision it was to ignore DA tradition of returning one of the previous companions and adding them to your current crew. it was so fun! it was so interesting seeing the same character perceive different situations and people. double it if they're changing between the games (anders) but no, the closest thing we've got is varric, and hoooo boyyyy do i have a problem with that

First of all Varric shouldn't be there. We all know that. Trespasser went above and beyond to put a fan favorite character in a good enough place so he still felt important yet had a finished arc. He returned to rebuild his city, settled down after everything he went through for the last decade and took deserved rest. But then we go to Veilguard, and guess what? Nope! He's hunting the guy he knew for a year (not even to save his actual soulmate-bff from the Fade) but just to shout at him without even bothering to understand his intentions, pull a gun on him not even 2 minutes in the dialogue and got stabbed.

Second, Varric has already been in two games. And not just as a small cameo, no, as a non skippable companion! Even if veilguard's writers intentions were pure (which they weren't) it's still waaay too much screentime for a one character to have no matter how loved. At best it shows them as unprofessional so they are blinded by their favoritism (which is never good), at worst as incompetent hacks who have to abuse character's popularity to cover their lack of writing skills.

Third, it's not even real Varric! It's your imaginary friend spitting the most basic-ass pseudo-motivational bullshit you can even imagine

And forth-- IT SHOULD'VE BEEN DORIAN YOU FUCKERS!!! YOU LITERALLY HINTED AT IT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE IN TRESPASSER. YOU MADE DORIAN UNKILLABLE AND UNSKIPPABLE. YOU LITERALLY BINGED YOUR NEXT GAME AS BEING SET IN TEVINTER AND WHO'S THE MOST LIKELY PERSON TO BE IN TEVINTER???? DO-RI-AAA--

[autistichalsin]

Okay I know I've made like three posts about this one specific thing but I gotta say, anyone who calls Halsin a typical boring Druid either doesn't understand Halsin or doesn't understand Druids, because Halsin is very much an atypical Druid.

Just a few ways Halsin is different than other Druids:

He can't control his wildshape. He transforms involuntarily when under stress, which is not a thing other Druids experience, and he can't control himself fully in wildshape either. He retains traits, such as an enhanced sense of smell, out of his wildshape form, and has the ability to remain as a bear borderline indefinitely, instead of Druids usually only being able to maintain the same form for a couple hours at most.

He doesn't hate undead; he views them the same as living creatures, worthy of life. He cares for Astarion deeply, and is furious if the player allows the 7,000 spawn to die. (He's a little nicer if they do it for a mercy kill instead of the ritual, but is clearly only happy when they are released into the Underdark, the exact thing a Druid is supposed to want to avoid.)

He dislikes the city because it displaces nature, yes, but he VERY rarely says that. Instead, almost every time he laments the conditions of Baldur's Gate, what distresses him is how capitalistic systems harm sentient beings- especially children. He is more upset at the human(oid) suffering he encounters in the city than he is at how it displaces nature.

Halsin is on an obviously morally good alignment. While Druids are no longer required to be neutral, most still are anyway, especially those from the Emerald Enclave, which the Emerald Grove is part of.

Emerald Enclave Druids are encouraged to sabotage society; they breed aggressive animals and place them near settlements to deter development, secretly sponsor brigands to attack new settlements, and simultaneously interact with local populations by providing sweet drinks and teas to boost their public image, so that new developments are curtailed while nearby people think the Druids are kind and harmless. Halsin very notably never even thinks about doing such things, even though it would be trivial for him to do so.

While Halsin's explanation for wanting to stop the Absolute is initially far more in line with Druidic thinking (they're unnatural, obviously), he later grows to want it finished because he wants you, the player, and your friends to be safe.

Halsin has zero desire to ladder-climb in the ranks of the Druids, nor to grow more powerful; he was perfectly happy as he was before the Shadow Curse, and is quite upset he had to waste 100 years of his life "dealing with others' problems and personalities." BUT the fact that he was happy to just that as alderman of his commune suggests the problem was with being forced into the position and being relied on as the sole authority, instead of one trusted elder of many.

Halsin wants children desperately, but was kept from having them by his leadership role. This is yet another example of how, despite his deeply held beliefs, being a Druid ultimately made him less happy.

Halsin isn't very good at leading the Druids, to the point that many of his Druids resent him, many are swayed to a cult the instant he leaves, and he himself decides the best thing he could possibly do for the Grove is leave it and have a better leader come in and take over.

Nearly every struggle Halsin has in the game arises from a conflict with his Druidic beliefs- whether it's his need to cleanse the Shadow Curse causing him to be an ineffective leader of the Grove, his desire for a family being held back by his leadership role, or his love of humanity battling against his hatred for cities as unnatural blots on nature.

Basically, nearly every character beat Halsin has comes from him not being a typical Druid at all, and in some cases, from him being rather bad at being the things Druids are supposed to be.

[hauntedsavefile]

my take on the strangetown premades!

base temp by @/mageofpanic

this took a lot longer than expected + some of these guys look a little more rough than desired but I'm pretty happy anyways!

keep in mind that these are *my* interpretations of the characters that i've curated over the many years ive been fixated on this game :,-)

some design notes below the cut since i put an ungodly amount of effort into the thought procress (its a lot of text, warning you now) ⬇️

- following the ts3 + ts2 genetics, my curious-smith family are darker skinned with less racially ambiguous features, fuller lips, larger noses, etc. (although not every person of that ethnicity is the same of course! these were purely observational looking at their family line). they are afro mestizo in my headcanon, with glarn being afro latino & kitty being mestizo.

- vidcund still has his mullet thing going on but it is a loc mullet!

- my curiouses are generally chubby. i don't have any exact reason for this. i know a lot of people headcanon pascal as being chubby but i think it could be cool if they all were. it also adds visual interest with different body types.

- erin & loki are scandinavian (like me!) so they're already very pale but i wanted to excaberbate that even further by making them albino. this isn't an accurate depiction of albinism as in real life, people with that condition often have health issues alongside that. (if i were to give that any thought, i like to think that loki initially became interested in inventing to benefit his own health issues but then his ambition took him down a darker, more mad sciencetist path). for erin as well, i just think it's cute considering her whole psychic thing, lookin a bit fairy-like + contrasts nicely with her pink colour scheme.

- nervous is darker skinned, exactly the same as his ma since grim doesn't have dna really. (some people have their own school of thought regarding why nerv being super pale, but this is my own). he has burn scars as electrocution causes scarring on skin + organ tissue, which he has gone through, a lot. he has various stitches, scars, and vitiligo marks across his face and body. the vitiligo on his face looks like a skull. this was originally going to be on the left side of his face, where theres no burns, but i figured it made symbolic sense + was a lot less cluttered if the burns covered up the skull vitiligo markings on his face.

- johnny, ripp, tank all have acne / acne scars - typical of teenagers.

- chloe + lola are of different skintones for storytelling purposes. in my little world, chloe and lola are very deeply close but also very affected by the abscence of their dad (him abandoning them), and being the only aliens they really knew of - basically being raised in isolation for most of their life. This is your typical cain & abel tale. Lola always felt inferior compared to Chloe, who had personality and charisma. She was always jealous of that, feeling like she’s always the awkward one + always will be in her sister’s shadow because of this. She tries her best to compensate for this through pouring herself into her work, in hopes that when she gets money, she’ll finally be accepted. This extends into their assimilation to humanness as well. Chloe is able to assimilate better whereas Lola feels like she cannot.

- Ripp is very different to canon.. I don't have a lot of an explanation for this but I just wanted to give him scene hair (also longer hair because I headcanon her as being a trans girl, but a very closeted one so she's in that awkward phase of growing out her hair but pretending like it's just shaggy + pulls it back into a low ponytail). The cleft lip is a bit of projection on my part, as I had a cleft palate when I was younger. Characters that I like will recieve some kind of disability that I have, for Nervous it's deafness + debilitating leg pain, for Ripp its this. I think it's also interesting narrative wise to compare how Buzz & the Beakers both handle disability. Buzz is a very 'tough it out' & 'you're just being sensitive' type whereas the Beakers uhh caused it, with their experimentation.

- I'm gonna be real, I hate Jill's design. It tells me nothing about her personality wise + I'm bummed out how human she looks. We need more weird little girl designs! Tried to find a middle ground.

- Buck has brown eyes like the corrupted version of Lyla. I chose to make him look like a carbon copy of Lyla (relatively speaking) for irony purposes. He has the least memories of her and yet looks exactly like her.

- Kristen is intended to look more like a typical masc lesbian because I am soo indulgent towards making the singles household just like a crazy lesbian situationship household (minus the curious sisters with eachother - of course).