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living isn’t supposed to be like this

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wanderhome joke! : a bear, a goat, and a little baby walk into a bar

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???

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Can we get a smooch 👉👈 pretty pls

!!!

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little shit award goes to

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I decided to hop on the trend of wacky Susie and Kris images

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i caught a cold so kris has to go through it too. whatevs

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FLASHING WARNING

i know im the billionth person to do something like this but whatever!!! whatever !!!!

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A lot of Deltarune… isn’t quite a refutation or counterargument to Undertale’s themes as much as it is going, like, “I mean, you’re not wrong… but it’s a bit more complicated than that sometimes”. Or, like, elaborating on nuances that were present in Undertale but weren’t given as much focus as Deltarune, as a much longer and more complex game building on Undertale’s themes, can give them.

And it happens most often with Ralsei. Ralsei’s worldview often seems to be an oversimplified and corrupted reflection of Undertale’s themes. Exaggerating them and stripping them of their nuances so that the other characters (mostly Susie) can respond to them and re-introduce nuances and complications back into them.

Most obviously this is done in Chapter 1 with his ultra-Pacifistic and ultra-nice attitude to conflict. His views at the start were a lot more simplified than Undertale, as even a True Pacifist Playthrough requires one to defeat Asgore and Flowey through violence at least once. Plus a bunch of times where Sparing an enemy required an acknowledgment that they can’t be appeased or convinced to back down from a fight. There was sometimes a bit of trickery involved, rather than just 'being nice'.

But these nuances weren’t really Undertale’s narrative focus, the focus was on selling the Player on the value of Pacifism in the first place. So Ralsei’s oversimplification of the idea is a good basis for Deltarune to start putting these nuances to the forefront of the story and really focusing on them, now that Undertale has already established the baseline of “even Random Encounters can be real people with feelings and you should always strive to non-violence.”

And I think a similar thing is kinda happening with his whole…

Which feels to me very reminiscent of…

Like, okay, it is very thematically important that Asriel can’t be ‘saved’ in Undertale. The Royal Siblings Tragedy is a traumatic shadow looming over so many characters in the game, and it’s not something that can be perfectly fixed by being nice or even with Unkillable Time God Powers. Toriel and Asgore and, yes, Flowey/Asriel himself all have character arcs centered around moving on from the tragedy and accepting the present, and would be weakened if a Player could just… magically fix things.

But that doesn’t mean that doesn’t hurt to hear Asriel be so resigned to his fate. Susie Deltarune’s reaction to hearing Ralsei speak so plainly about the idea that he’s just an illusion and that she should prioritize her ‘Real Friends’ very much echoes the emotional reactions of most Undertale Players seeing Asriel ask them to not worry about him and focus on their real friends because he’s already doomed. And in both cases it’s extremely understandable.

The fact that even with Unkillable Time God Powers, the past is the past and there is a value in acceptance and moving on is itself an important nuance in Undertale’s central theme of Determination. With enough Willpower and Defiance, the Player can defy the concept of a kill-or-be-killed world, and free the Monsters from their seemingly hopeless prison, and resist the laws of death and time… it’s a power that comes from a refusal to accept the inevitable. But if you deny everything that goes against your personal will, you’re gonna end up like Flowey, utterly consumed by grief and denial over Chara’s death.

Flowey has to accept that the game between him and the Player is going to end, Asriel has to accept Chara is dead, Asgore has to accept his family will never truly return to what it was before, the Player also has to accept the game is over and that replaying it will just tear away the characters from their happy ending, and that the Asriel they saw at the True Pacifist Ending is gone.

But even with all of that… that doesn’t lessen the emotional pain of watching a little goat boy asking you very kindly and very genuinely to abandon him. It doesn’t make it any less valid for one’s reaction to be “Well, who said I have to leave and forget you? I’m sure that with the pure strength of my heart and the Power of Friendship(TM) I could save you too!!”. It doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking, even frustrating, that this is the thing the game ask you to give up on.

Undertale already added some nuance to the situation, first things first, Asriel does honestly appreciate it if you go all the way back to the start of the game and talk with him. Although he still feels that he's doomed, at least he accepted that Frisk is going to remember him.

Secondly, with Flowey’s Post-Pacifist Dialogue

And especially that Winter Alarm Clock Dialogue…

…both showing that while there was nothing that could be done to stop Asriel from turning back into Flowey, that does not necessarily mean Flowey is doomed. Despite his claims both in his Flowey form and as Original Flavor Goatboy Asriel, Flowey does still show hints that he cares for other people, that he has been truly affected by the events of the True Pacifist Playthrough, that the heart he had as Asriel isn’t actually truly gone…

We’re still dealing with the fact that we can’t undo the trauma of the Royal Siblings Tragedy but… Just because Flowey can’t be magically turned back into the person he was before his Trauma, doesn’t mean he is doomed. What happened happened, but he is still capable of healing and self-improvement. And although he’s still kind of in the margins of the Post Pacifist Friend Group, it doesn’t seem like he’s just been abandoned or forgotten for the sake of the people who are more ‘real’.

So just like with Ralsei’s Pacifism, I think his fatalism and absolute lack of self-worth is an exaggerated and simplified reflection of Asriel's situation. It's kind of a Very Different Thing between Ralsei believing he's ontologically doomed to matter less than Lightners and Asriel believing he's ontologically doomed to be an asshole, but...

It still creates a basic foundation to add nuances and subversions to the point about the importance of moving on and acceptance. Not rejecting it outright, but demonstrating how seemingly clear-cut situations of acceptance can become more complicated.

Because in Susie we now have an actual character to voice the frustrations many players felt about being unable to 'save' Asriel and argue in favor of the desire to never abandon a friend, no matter how doomed or unimportant or lesser he claims he is.

Because now we can better demonstrate the more toxic and unhealthy manifestations of the idea of ‘moving on’. How it can be just as bad as clinging to the past relentlessly.

And allow more time on-screen to explore the nuanced alternatives that aren't either unhealthily clinging to the past or quietly accepting your own lousy fate.

And now we can create more situations where Susie’s instincts to reject acceptance and reject leaving anyone behind and reject ‘moving on’ are actually the unambiguously correct answers.

Not necessarily always, I do think she’ll have to accept that Gerson is dead. And obviously with this being DivorceRune the Divorce Game, the theme of needing to move on from clinging to a past that will never be restored just as you remember it is still very important.

But she has a point, and just like with Pacifism, I think she actually has an important lesson to teach Ralsei specifically.

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Could yall stop shooting each other outside my window im trying to masturbate

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Movies seem so cool. It would be awesome to watch one someday...

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toby fox when i catch you

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elevator of tomorrow

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(please) shop at Big Eyes! 💎🛍

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commission :3

wss dni or i will hurt u