helloijustreadyourpost

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Since it's almost Midsummer...

p.s. I also have a book coming out: www.tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2

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how i imagine kris' dms look

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Thirty years ago a bunch of console RPGs included pianos that play a little pre-recorded jingle when you walk up to them and press the "interact" button purely as a technical flex about how richly realised their environments are, thereby inadvertently implying that their protagonists can all play the piano, and now three decades later, not only is "all indie RPG protagonists can play the piano" a genre cliché, at least half the time it's a thematically significant plot point. It kind of makes me wonder what sort of semiotic fuckery the medium is going to get up to once it finally stops obsessing over the Super Nintendo era; what utterly insignificant stylistic quirk of the PS2 era is going to be imbued with Deep Significance™ ten years from now?

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Probably not the Cybersmith though.

uhh... guys?

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Choices when talking to Ralsei in Deltarune feel like this

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I like the idea of a Vulcan character who constantly does very reckless things so her human crewmates think she's strange but then she always has a logical explanation she delivers with absolute confidence.

"No, it was perfectly logical for me to jump out of the shuttle at that time. I had a breathing apparatus, and I was certain I could seal the subspace rift by hand before the Romulans opened fire. This was the only solution that would result in zero casualties. I might have died, but giving up is illogical."

She's known as one of the most fearless members of the crew.

Other Vulcans try not to acknowledge her.

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I've been thinking of the "Can Granny Weatherwax beat Bugs Bunny" question and this is my full take for Discworld characters:

Vimes - Cares too much, too easy to piss off. Has the innate chase instinct that makes characters run into walls with realistic tunnels painted on them. Might get to arrest Bugs Bunny but the beast will just slip out of the handcuffs to help him lock them, then walk out of the jail cell to have a union mandated coffee break.

Ridcully - Classic hunting season scenario, but has enough charisma to probably still get a few good shots off before the inevitable.

Rest of the wizards - No survivors, only Bugs.

Carrot - The intense near-magical narrative aura of well meaning innocence should make him immune, Bugs will likely be forced to be the villain of the episode.

Lord Vetinari - Flattened by a comically large anvil in the first few minutes of the episode, unclear if it was all a part of his long term strategy or not.

Moist - Has the 'lovable trickster getting away with it' energy, but nowhere near Bugs level. Already fell for the "old lady who swallowed a fly" scenario with the stamp slugs once, won't fare any better here.

Death - Definitely one of those "character is trying to avoid death" episodes, would go back and forth. Might actually get to end Bugs but his spirit will reappear in Death's domain and ruin his garden.

Nanny Ogg - The ultimate in anti-Bugs technology, a gleefully annoying old lady who doesn't give a fuck and definitely won't be the first to instigate the plot bearing conflict. This is a full sweep, he's the episode antagonist.

Granny Weatherwax - Too win-motivated to not lose. Would have to break the story to have any chance. Might do it.

Magrat - Will have sappy ideas about helping the poor animal which honestly has the 50:50 chance of either getting slapsticked or Bugs ending in a ye olde stroller&pacifier gag.

Colon&Nobby - Designed in a lab to be totaled by Bugs Bunny.

Tiffany Aching - A child that also has a large pan that is the perfect thing to hit someone over the head with and make a BOIOIOINGGG sound, so great odds.

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Hi I was today years old when I realized some people truly don’t have to think about every single thing they do. They don’t have to have an imaginary set of rules (I’m not allowed to put on my bra until I’ve brushed my teeth) to function.

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little goobers

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Love the idea that Kris might just be pretending to be in Zombie Mode.

Also semi-serious, but Kris seriously hauls ass at the end of chapter 2 in the weird route. The conversation they missed seems to have only lasted a couple minutes, definitely not more than ten minutes even if we assume time compression for the audience's sake. In that time they went to Noelle's house, had a meaningful conversation with her, went all the way back to the library, dragged Berdly all the way from there to the hospital, were seen by someone at the hospital, returned home, and they still had time to slash Toriel's tires like in the normal route. All that, and they make it back just as Toriel and Susie are starting to get impatient.

It's hard to reconcile all of that with them slowly shambling around.

The interesting thing is…. from the glimpses of SOUL-less Kris we saw in Chapter 1 + 2, it was notable how…. strangely they seemed to move. We saw them walking with a sort of zombie-like gait that maybe implied they weren’t in full control of their body still, or maybe just that they were in immense pain.

It led to a lot of people speculating that Kris does need a SOUL to some level. Maybe the SOUL is Kris’ but we’re a foreign entity that has taken it over, or that Kris’ original actual SOUL has been removed and replaced with us. If Kris needed the SOUL to live, that would explain their slow, deliberate movements and also why they keep putting us back inside despite clearly hating being under our control.

So now, with Chapter 4 giving us a much better glimpse of SOUL-less Kris doing stuff… it’s notable that they seem… fully capable of moving ‘normally’. Angrily, but normally.

Even when they do the whole Creepy Zombie Walk thing they are notably faster than they seemed to be in Chapters 1 + 2

They can do things that require fine motor skills, focus and swiftness like playing the piano, handling glasses, and beating the shit out of us with a hockey stick and it's all animated as smoothly as most other Deltarune Animations. Not really implying effort or stiffness the way that original Creepy Zombie Walk animation did.

And while Susie only gets a brief moment to interact with SOUL-less Kris in the Normal Route

Noelle has prolonged interactions with them in the Weird Route (both on-screen in Chapter 4 and off-screen in-between Chapters 2 and 3) and... while she does note that they sounded 'weak and shaky' and obviously their behavior seems weird on account of the whole 'traumatized by the Unkillable Evil Time-Demon only they can see" thing

... There's nothing to really indicate that there's anything outright unnatural or 'zombie-like' about the way Kris moves and interacts with her while SOUL-less. Since this is the Weird Route, Noelle even note this is the most natural and Kris-like they've acted in the last few days.... until we take over again.

And now we know they can go without the SOUL for a fairly prolonged period of time. The Ominous Phone Voice of Probably Carol does tells them they need the SOUL, it seems unclear why.

So… what that means for SOUL-less Kris’ behavior before? It’s possible that even if Kris can operate without a SOUL, it still hurts like hell. So right after tearing out the SOUL they are in Maximum Pain and it's hard to ignore, causing them to move in a struggling and slow manner. But the more they go without it, they kinda get used to it and the pain fades into the background - allowing them to do stuff more-or-less normally.

(Basically Kris has Chronic Pain but the only Painkiller that works for them is Demonic Possession)

…Or, knowing Kris, maybe this… was all an act. They were only behaving like This because they knew we were watching. It is pretty notable that they walk around normally in the Holidays' Kitchen while we're eavesdropping on them and only swap to the Creepy Walk Animation once they notice us....

Maybe this is an act, either to make us underestimate the things Kris could do SOUL-less… or because they’re a little teen Edgelord so they just enjoy playing up the whole Soulless Zombie thing when they have a chance.

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The "people don't know what they are" argument falls apart because you frequently get scenes of the characters arguing over whether or not to call them zombies. They know, they just won't admit it.

Among all the genres and subgenres out there, zombie media is top of the charts for being ashamed of what it is.

can u imagine if other pieces of media were as scared of calling their monsters what they are as zombie media is about calling zombies zombies

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(hit the image limit multiple times, check the notes for the full conversation)

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Shout-out to the 0.5 seconds where Ralsei makes direct eye contact with you as if to ask "are you possessing Susie too??"

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one of the most enlightening realizations ive had was finding out that non-24 hour circadian rhythm people were a pretty large group and most of us have oddly similar cycles of usually around 28hr internal "days" and this masquerades as "insomnia" but if allowed to sleep and wake naturally we will just advance forward through time an extra 2-4 hours a day at a relatively stable pace. we can't go to school or jobs or even run errands on normal schedules without massive pharmacological and behavioral intervention. most of the people who have been diagnosed or figured it out themselves will report horrific, life-ruining disruption in their professional lives and terrible health from accrued lack of sleep. this disorder is most common in vision-impaired people which seems to suggest it's related to light cues. anyway just thinking about this as extremely loud yard work woke me up at 8am for the second day in a row

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What you can’t see is me with the controller panicking and yelling