#with this I say goodbye to the fandom

[secondbeatsongs]

going through some old logs, and I need you to understand just how truly unhinged early 2010s RP omegle was.

genuinely you could stay on there for hours with just one person, hashing out complex traumatic backstories, drawn-out love confessions, detailed action scenes...collaboratively describing graphic violence, past abuse, comfort, hurt/comfort, hurt/no comfort, any number of sex acts...and then one of you would be like, "oh haha it's 2AM! I have to sleep :(" and the other person would say, "omg saaaame. :( gnight!!!" and then you'd exit the chat and never speak to each other again, and this was. fine.

you could just spend an entire evening shoving your wretched, bleeding soul into a chat log with someone you'd never meet or learn the name of, achieve some form of emotional catharsis, and then go about your day or night like this was an average way to spend your time.

I'm really normal about this, actually

[leupagus]

Ted Lasso, the character, is one of the only representations of 'sometimes getting better with your mental health issues means that you are less visibly happy, and that is okay, because you are not required to be happy in order to be loved' out there and I am really discouraged that so much of the audience is angry at that.

[the-holy-ghosted]

congrats 2 henry peglar for being the only bitch confirmed as to be Fucking That Old Man

[choices-and-voices]

Quotes from Kieran that straight-up sound like Shakespearean love poetry: a comprehensive list

‘None may touch me. None but you.’

‘What is left of my heart belongs to you. When you leave, it will shatter anew.’

‘Tell me I did not hurt you.’

‘How am I expected to pass another century without the taste of you on my tongue?’

‘After so many decades spent hating each sunset, knowing nightfall would take my freedom from me... I began to yearn for the moonrise instead of cursing it. Because dreams of you might be waiting on the other side.’

‘I would rather be cursed to roam the wilds as a beast every night than live endless lifetimes without you.’

‘Wherever it is that souls may go, you will find mine waiting for you at the end of all things.’

‘You shall pay dearly for every spilled drop of her blood.’

‘I was not lying. Were you?’

‘Just this once, beloved... I wish you could not lie.’

‘You hold all of my heart, beloved. Now, and always.’

‘I would make and unmake the world for you, beloved.’

‘Believe me when I say I want every part of you. Every version. Now and future.’

‘Look, beloved. Your skin is a canvas covered in stars.’

‘If I were you, I would begin by thanking her and throw yourself on her continued mercy. Because you’ll get none from me.’

‘What would be the point of immortality without you?’

‘No magic. Like an everyday mortal.’

‘Insult her again, and I will carve my refusal into your flesh, so that you may never forget it.’

‘I don’t care what your title is. Every breath, every beat of my heart belongs to you. You are mine for life.’

‘Thank you… for sharing the sky with me.’

‘If you lay a single hand on her, there will be nothing left of this place but a hole in the ground.’

‘Let us live in this moment long enough that I may love you the way you deserve.’

‘I will let nothing separate us… I shall always find you. Your heart calls to mine in a language beyond words.’

‘For you I would set worlds aflame, tear the sun and moon from the sky. I did not live before I met you.’

‘Perhaps you are the most courageous of all, for choosing to live among us. A mortal among gods.’

‘Welcome home, beloved.’

‘You helped me find peace in my grief. I will always help you find peace in yours.’

‘You sacrifice too much for me, beloved.’

‘I cannot give you my heart. It already belongs to someone else.’

‘There will always be tasks vying for our attention. But you are more important to me than any of them.’

‘I like being in here. I always want you to have the freedom of a place to call your own… and it means everything, that you welcome me in.’

(And finally, BONUS: Quotes from *other* characters in The Cursed Heart that straight-up sound like Shakespearean poetry, because the writers of this book just do. not. rest.)

‘I know you. I’m not afraid.’

‘I love him so terribly, it hurts.’

‘You are so much stronger than you know. And a love as strong as this is worth fighting for.’

‘Even if you kill me, I’m glad I met you. Because you deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. And I will love you until my very last breath.’

‘The world is rarely gentle to those who are so kind. It is you who must be the strongest of all.’

‘What do you want with that cursed thing?’ / ‘To cut the Sun and the Moon from the sky.’

‘Anything here that wishes to eat me had best prepare to choke.’

‘I know you. And I love you. Both your darkness and your light.’

‘You are everything I want. Just you. Just like this.’

‘If love could forestall death, we would all be immortal.’

‘All stories end. Even ours. That’s what makes them beautiful.’

‘I don’t care where I sleep, so long as it’s beside you.’

[afterlife-2004]

[fire-in-my-woods]

So often in media, when abuse is talked about, the little boys in the household are shown to be combative - the "protector" of the family (an utterly depraved and insane idea). What makes Simon's younger self portrayal so special to me is that he's none of these things as a child. He was scared, timid, because he was just a kid in a horrifying situation. Being a male should not strip you of the right to involuntary responses that come with being abused.

This is not to say that the former example does not exist in the real world, because it very much does - it's just usually the only example of a young boy in an abusive household. Though the themes itself are not pleasant, I am incredibly happy to see representation of the quote-on-quote "softer" side of men who faced abuse growing up.

[reikurusu]

I can't believe it's been a year since Buddy Daddies ended!! T_T I still love this anime and this adorable little family with all my heart and I'm so grateful that there are still so many people making art/fics/posts/... about them!! :')

[oneroomjestershow]

inspired by these memes about next year (im still on 2024 help) i want to show this AU i have been thinking since month ago in the sidelines

[the-way-astray]

hi, hello, yes, if you ever use the word "deserve" with regards to romantic relationships between fictional characters (and real people, honestly) then i kindly invite you to go fuck yourself

[purgatorygrl]

Arthur had to face the reality of his mortality. With each passing day he knew that his life was coming to an end, with no possibility of a better tomorrow.

The dreams and plans he once had became impossible knowing that he would not be able to experience a future. The fact of not being able to think about anything but the present, without the possibility of planning for tomorrow, is something that surely filled him with deep loneliness and terror.

The uncertainty of whether he would wake up the next day or not, and having to live with the constant pain, both physical and emotional, is an unimaginable pain.

The fear of the unknown, of what would come after death, is something he probably struggled with in his final days, in addition to the sadness of the emotional weight of knowing that his death would affect those he loved, leaving a void and causing pain

[compacflt]

AFTERSHOCKS

with the uranium mission completed, Ice & Mav try to put the pieces of their lives together & find “normal” again… but normal looks very different with retirement; two weddings; and many, many parties fast approaching on the horizon.

[pinacoladamatata]

I could really use distraction right now, can y'all drop your favorite fluffy fics so I can read them?

[warrenwaskilledbyadeer]

Can we talk about how the heart and soul of the original Ace Attorney trilogy centers around how Phoenix loves his sister Maya so much he will do literally anything for her but all the fandom wants to talk about is Wrightworth

(HAD TO EDIT THE POST BECAUSE PLEASE DO NOT TAG SHIP)

[fanfoolishness]

*lays on the floor like a slug* nooo… I can feel the Bad Batch hyperfixation trying to leave my brain… I don’t want it to go 😭

do y’all have fannish patterns? I’ve come to realize I can sustain extreme, insane levels of fannishness for about 6 months, and then it inevitably fades no matter how hard I try. Sometimes I can get a second wind a few months later but not always. It annoys me how predictable it is for me 😣

Send help. Or ideas to help recharge my brain 😩 Rewatching the series is one option, but I’m just not feeling it 😥

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A digital drawing of Minos Prime from Ultrakill, who's wearing a strapless slit dress and sandals of the same deep purple. He faces towards and slightly to the right of the camera, his head is tilted further right. With one hand he gestures in a vague pointing motion, his arm folded and held close to his body. There is nothing in the background, but bracing himself on one arm, Minos is implied to be leaning against something about the height of a countertop. The background is a blank purplish black, save for three diagonal stripes in the colors of the bisexual flag. End ID]

Shading study that quite literally came to me in a dream two weeks ago, after this post apparently beamed itself into my mind

(also a few edits below the cut! they're very slight but whatever :])

[Start ID. Three different versions of the previous drawing. The first changes the tone of the lighting from blue to pink, and similarly the shading from pink to blue. The second replaces the faint black border with pink, purple and blue, syncing with the stripes in the background. The third combines both these changes. End ID]

[inbarfink]

Okay, so like, I love Undertale to bits, but it does often rub me the wrong way when people use it in comparison to games like OFF, which condemn the Player’s violent actions without actually offering the option for a Pacifist resolution, like “well, Undertale is Objectively Better because there’s an actual choice to be nonviolent so it can actually condemn the player in a meaningful way”.

Especially with OFF, I think. Cause while many people consider it a predecessor to Undertale, their themes and the way they relate to their “What the Hell, Player” moments are very different, I think. And this attitude of judging them purely on whatever they’re effective at making the player ‘feel bad’ about their actions is really reductive for what both games are trying to do with these kinda moments.

Like, in general it’s super frustrating when video game moments discussing morality and player-player character relationships are evaluated purely in the sense of ‘are these games justified in Making Me Feel Like a Bad Person’. That’s usually a super-reductive way to look at video game morality. And I really don’t think it helps the discussion to frame “What the Hell Player” moments as an actual personal attack or attempt to evaluate your IRL morality.

And specifically with OFF, I feel like it’s actually very thematically important that the game only has one ‘Route’ and that it is the ‘bad’ one. Because OFF, in my reading at least, is a game very much about narrative framing. Like, that’s the whole thing with the Batter not actually transforming as his Special Ending Monster Duckie Form.

The Batter didn’t change, our point of view did. When we’re controlling the Batter, it is his POV that we’re seeing the world through - and in his POV he’s just an ordinary guy doing the right thing. But if we take the Judge’s side, we’re also taking on his POV. And the Judge, much like any other victim of the Batter, sees him as some sort of monster.

And that’s like a huge theme in the game. While there’s probably no POV that makes the world of OFF like an actually good place to live, it is important to note we are viewing it through the perspective of someone who has already vowed to destroy it. I know a lot of people look at the difference between the Guardians as they are in the Room’s Chapter 4 and the Guardians as the Batter face them as a matter of a personal change between then and now - I think the matter of different perspectives also plays a part.

In the Room we are viewing Dedan, Japhet and Enoch through the eyes of an innocent child that is desperate for companionship and sees them as friends - in the rest of the game we are viewing them through the eyes of a man who sees them as obstacles in his holy mission and upholders of a world that must be destroyed. Neither of them can give a truly unbiased perspective when it comes to the Guardians.

And despite the game making it explicit that the Batter is as a puppet controlled by the Player - although the Player is the one who give the Player Character power - it is the Batter who manipulates the Player into aiding him on his mission by framing it in a way that is more palatable. Despite all the power the player supposedly holds, the Batter holds the power over the narrative framing, and that’s enough to let him take control.

That’s why there’s really no choice in the game but keep helping the Batter along his ‘Holy’ mission - him being able to influence our framing also means being able to influence the options we can see. It is the Batter who wants us to see a world where his violence and destruction is the only possible solution. And the point of the Judge calling out the Player for continuing along the Batter’s set path (rather than stopping the game and turning it off) isn’t just to Make the Player Feel Bad for doing what they need to do to, like, see the whole of this well-crafted story....

It’s to make the Player self-reflect. When did they first had the inkling that the Batter isn’t on the up-and-up? If (‘if’ bring the keyword here) it was all real, when would the point where continuing to aid the Batter would be morally inexcusable? By the point the Batter is beating a defenseless child to death it’s pretty darn clear that We’re the Baddies, but did the Player process any of the hints beforehand? Just how much sway did the Batter’s framing of the world and the narrative hold over the player? And how this is different and similar to how the Player normally engage with other narratives, especially other RPGs?

There is a reason, after all, why the Judge big speech at the end is also about how felt deceived and tricked by the Batter’s words. His feelings are meant to be a reflection of a Player’s on some level.

And despite ‘calling-out’ the Player, he does make it clear he also sees himself as culpable of aiding the Batter in his henious actions. The Player and the Judge’s situations are somewhat paralleled here. 

And it feels very notable that the Judge starts out explictly addressing to the Player much more than the ‘Puppet’:

And by the ending of the game, although he does call-out the Player to, he’s got a lot more to say to the Batter as well.

I think it’s because he also underestimated the power the Batter had as a ‘Puppet’ of the Player, up until he realized how he managed to manipulate both him and the Player (although he still sees both himself and the Player at fault for falling for it and helping the Batter).

I think the main point here is to try and make the Player think more critically about the narratives they engage with. In many ways, the Batter is the concept of the RPG protagonist dilluted to its logical extreme. He was literally brought into existence just moments before the story started, and his only purpose in life is to defeat all the bosses, ‘finish’ all of the areas and then just turn the game OFF. That’s also why siding with the Batter is considered the ‘canon’ ending of the game, in this allegory it is the ending that correspond most to Regular Player Behavior.

It’s trying to make you think about how different POVs and narrative framing can be used to change the way we view a story. If the Batter can skew the lens we view the story enough so that it makes us side with him… how other forms of media, and in this case espacially other games can convince us that the protagonist’s actions are justified and heroic? Is there some ignored angle in this and that game, some ignored ‘Judge’ of sort, that would totally reframe the supposed morality of the story?

I think that’s the main thing, or at least one of the main things, one is supposed to get from OFF. Not just a blanket sense of guilt for all the made-up pixels you killed in this game or other games, but an invitation to try and examine the stories you play from more angles, and think more of the narrative tricks that can be used to justify morally dubious actions. For this to work, the game has to work in tandem with the Batter and his POV for the most part.  And because of all of this, I believe OFF’s lack of a ‘moral choice’ system does not take away from its central points and actually helps them. The only choice comes when the Judge barges in and offers a counter-narrative to the Batter. 

Undertale, in contrast, is a lot more about Player Actions and Player Agency. Like, Chara and a Murder-Route Player have essentially a reverse dynamic from the Batter and a Normal Ending Player. With the Player convincing the Player Character (?) into the viewpoint that the world exists just to be drained of Content before turning it Off and moving on to the next one.

Undertale is more about the Player having power, and not just in the Unkillable Time God sense, in the sense of the power to reframe and change the narrative. Both the Undertale Pacifist and Murder Route has an element of going ‘off script’ of what the game story ‘expects’. Like, the Normal Ending is the only one where the the Player just does what was expected of them and engage with the game world in the same way all the other characters do - that’s just why it only exist to try and convince you to go on one of the other routes.

The Pacifist Route is about the Player using their Aforementioned Unkillable Time God Powers to break away from the world’s general resignation to violence as the answer and proving to everyone a peaceful resolution is possible. The Murder Route is about the Player engaging with the world like… an ordinary RPG basically (as long as you’re heavy on the grinding) and in the process twist the entire narrative into something much darker. The narrative isn’t tricking you into it, if anything, the narrative is subtly nudging you to the Pacifist Ending.

If Undertale comes off as a more effective ‘condemnation’ of the Player than OFF, that’s probably because compared to OFF Undertale is more about what the Player does and the Player’s actions. I still don’t think it’s a very productive to paint it as, like, trying to Shame you. It just makes things far too unnecessarily personal in a really weird way, and it also kinda isolates discussion of the game’s mortality to only how justified it is within the game’s own context - without any acknowledgement of what the game’s trying to say in a larger context when it makes the characters so darn lovable and makes it so heartbreaking when they die.

Both in context of how we can try and take the game’s ideals into the real world....

And how it relates to other video games. And I mean, Undertale isn’t just about whatever violence in video game narratives is really necessary - that’s absolutely part of it but also, it’s about how Players engage with video game narratives. And whatever looking at them as just challenges to be one by getting the Big Number....

or challenges you need to 100% complete and drain every single secret from 

can take away from what makes a good story actually work.

There’s a reason why the in-universe ‘morally correct’ to play Undertale is to experience the True Pacifist ending once and never open it again. (I dunno if I’ll say the Message of Undertale is ‘looking up all kinds of different minor options and content mining always ruins the magic of stories’ and if it is it’ll be a very funny case of a game’s fandom disproving its own thesis, but it’s certainly something the game wants you consider.)

Despite the obvious influence OFF had on Undertale and especially on it’s Murder Route, I actually think it might be more useful to compare it to Deltarune, at least once we see more of it and where it’s going. With both of these games exploring a very complicated power dynamic between player and player character and the player being robbed of moral choice and possibly forced to do bad things to advance the narrative - it might be actually a more interesting comparison.