#post-pacifist run

[agentravensong]

thinking about how the extra area added on to a pacifist run of undertale, the true lab, is about alphys's past mistakes. how it ends with the story reaffirming that, despite the pain she's caused, the thing that matters is that she has now made the choice to do the right thing. she's still worthy of her friends' love.

thinking about how undertale doesn't expect the player to get a pacifist ending for the first time. how it's more likely than not that the player will kill toriel the first time they battle her, how lots of players don't initially figure out how to end undyne's fight without killing her, etc. what it expects — not even expects, really, but hopes — is that the player, if they care enough, will use their canonically acknowledged power over time to make up for those mistakes.

no matter how many neutral runs a player has done before committing to the pacifist run, the thing that matters to the characters, to the story, is that you've chosen, now, to do the right thing.

compared to alphys, the player honestly gets off lightly, in that you're the only one (other than flowey) who really remembers any harm you might have caused. and any direct guilting the game could have done about it is long past at this point. instead, as undertale often does, it makes its point via parallels: alphys caused harm, and she knows it. she has committed to being better. in doing so, she has unlocked for herself a better ending to her story. and she deserves it. she's forgiven.

those structural narrative parallels are all over undertale, if you know where to look. and that's one of the things that makes it so fuckin' good.

[ochablooms]

don't cry

[rustedleopard]

I know that it's common fanon belief to see Starlo as the younger sibling between him and Orion, but I actually like the idea of Starlo being the older brother and what it means for his family dynamic. Generally, the older sibling is expected to be the more responsible and mature sibling in the family. There's this expectation that the older sibling sets an example for the younger sibling(s) and that they'll look after the family/business once the parents get too old to do so themselves. So, what does it mean when the older sibling sorta betrays those familial expectations by behaving immaturely and ditching the family to do their own thing?

I'm trying to figure out how to put this into words in a clear and concise way, but I feel like if it's a case of Starlo being the younger brother, then there's this sorta "Ah, that's just the younger brother acting like a kid, y'know how it is. He'll grow out of it" dynamic, whereas if Starlo is the older brother, then it's more of a "Okay, he should've grown out of this by now, why's he still acting like this? Even Orion is more mature than him; what is going on?" sorta deal. (This frustration would be especially felt by Orion, who has to pick up Starlo's slack in his stead because his older brother isn't mature enough to work like he's supposed to!!!)

These are just personal musings, don't take my word as gospel! You can still do tons of interesting things with the Sunnyside family while having Starlo be the younger brother and Orion the older one. I just find myself gravitating more towards seeing Starlo as the older sibling.

[carlyraejepsans]

hibiscia!!! Sorry if youve explained before but is there something specific about reset-remember fics that you hate? I don't really like them either but for me it's just because I feel like a lot of authors type sans in very ooc ways

They're completely antithetical to Sans' character arc for the sake of cheap and easy angst. The nature of his brand of cosmic horror isn't in reliving his life again and again, that's Flowey's. Sans knows OF the anomaly, knows that it's manipulating time and knows it's a threat to the entire universe, but he doesn't know how or why, because he doesn't remember.

And that's crucial! him being mostly in the dark in spite of the MANY warning signs about us... because it's in that doubt that he remains hopeful. YES we could potentially end the world... but what if we don't? yes we have unimaginable power over everyone else and we can bring back time, but what if we're just.... sad? he needs that gap in his knowledge so he can take a leap of faith across it, it's his entire character arc in the pacifist run. sans THINKS he's given up, he wants to have given up, he chose to do it because there's a comfort in that. in contenting yourself with good food and bad laughs. there's peace. but he hasn't given up, not really. on himself? maybe. but not in us.

there's no way to have that arc if he remembers resets.

[desertsanctuary-blog]

True Pacifist be like:

[ingihasextra]

toby fox and co youve done it again

[wooflyyuzen]

Jokes on you I searched a new word beforehand!!

Sybaritic.

[raiseupyourbat]

at the asriel fight in lv0 ps!outertale. chara. chara why are you shocked asriel is alive. asriel LITERALLY talked two seconds ago about that time a couple resets ago where he regained his asriel form and we killed everyone lmao

[bartholomew-junior]

woe six (five actually) human souls designs be upon you. very fresh designs that will probably be more fleshed out in the future once i’m less busy

[immoral-crusader]

OOC:

Anyway. Sorry for being grumpy earlier. Got heated 100%-ing P2 achievements.

[werewire-petrichor]

i CANNOT get past the final boss in chapter 4 and i refuse to engage with posts abt d-ltarune for fear of like. story spoilers. ive read a couple reddit threads on strategies i just SUCK at bullet hells and I'm gonna lose it

[maddestmewmew]

sometimes there will be a character who is wearing so many masks they themself think they are only wearing like one mask and as a viewer it is really fun to analyze them, because the line between their genuine and faked emotions are so paper thin its genuinely diffiicult to figure out what is what sometimes.

wnd then you go into their fandom tag and everyone is for some reaosn 10000% certain that actually they are completely surface level characters.

[alienhunteranonymous]

YOU LIKE DELTARUNE!?!?!?!?!

LET'S FUCKING GO!!!

I-I mean.

You're. wrong.

for. uh.

uhm...

..torturing kids is unethical???

-Hater anon

If Kris Deltarune Dreemurr didn't want to be tortured by my Weird Route agenda then they should've gained sentience, come out of the screen and killed me when they had the chance

[kakusu-shipping]

You know when I said I was redesigning my Self Inserts and going in Age Order? Yeah I lied.

Here's a bunch more Redesigned Self Inserts, no longer in any particular order, just who I had the ideas for at the time.

[karmaspidr]

[frozenfischer]

Training Start!

@theriverperson

It took about a week for Alex to actually get back in touch with River, and when she does it's via text.

Alex Hey there. This is Alex. Sorry it took me so long to get back in touch with you. Took a bit to comb through my schedule and find a few days here and there that I should be good to at least get started.

What followed were a list of dates for the next couple of months, showing a few sets of days where she has a couple days off from both classes and teaching back to back.

Alex These should give me time to recover afterwards if needed, at least until the end of the summer semester. Let me know if any of these days work for you, and we can try and work around your schedule too.