#direct parallels to eachother

[uhhbeans]

ok shit im thinking about ladder again. tag rant incoming <3

[twinvictim]

People who claim there was nothing in ol2 that was compelling or interesting baffle and vex me bc this is a Fandom that makes the likes of Jeremy blaire their sexyman like damn I guess there really is no accounting for taste huh

[pridewhatpride]

Asmodeus Alice is gay (and clearly in love with Iruma) and the anime honestly supports a trans reading, too.

Here is my proof, considering that no, I have not fully caught up with the manga yet.

The manga really doesn’t shy away from having Asmodeus publicly praise Iruma and showing that he is far more reserved when he is not involved. It’s not necessarily a good thing, but it does read as very cute. There is a lot of love and trust between the two and it grows stronger and becomes more and more mutual as the series goes on. That is sort of the base level. We know Asmodeus admires Iruma to death for apparently the wrong reasons, but actually he clearly grows to love the human Iruma, demon powers or not, because of his personality and how he affects the others around him in positive ways, he himself included. He is the first to scold himself for not giving Iruma full credit for his worth, initally.

But that just makes him a friend who is just very attached to the one he admires.

Right.

So we have the blushing and sparkles any time Iruma does anything, and I mean ANYTHING, even when it isn’t directed at him. In the panel I’m showcasing the situation is more serious and heartfelt, but Asmodeus does still react exactly like any other love interest would to this impromptu hug.

Then we have the fact that Clara is explicitly in love with Iruma, but her and Asmodeus have the exact same thoughts about him- by which I mean they share thought bubbles on how cool and awesome and dependable Iruma is and how much they trust him. They fight over him because no, actually, I’m Iruma’s friend number 1, I was here first. Parallel n°1.

Parallel n°2 is Eiko, because she and Asmodeus are buddies who share candid pictures of Iruma with eachother- again Eiko has an explicit crush on Iruma (and on Ameri- but that’s besides the point).

Finally, best girl herself, Azazel Ameri. She’s Parallel n°3, but really only because of this one really funny chapter in which she and Asmodeus are at a high-society party, where we see that Azz is really smooth and comes off as cool when talking to girls because he’s not attracted to them even if they are all over him, that he’s good at ballroom dancing (I wanted to mention it) and, finally, that he and Ameri agree on the effect of Iruma’s company. They are both lovestruck.

Then, as further proof we just have the absolute pinnacle of romance that is the fact that Asmodeus was supposed to be hot shit and the best student, but met Iruma and decided that his powers would find better use as Iruma’s right hand (before the word friend was introduced he straight up called himself his servant). You know. Why be king if you can aide your beloved friend on the path to becoming the undisputed monarch of hell.

His objective is not to gain power or to become stronger- those things are intrumental to his one and only ambition: to stand proudly by Iruma’s side.

That is, in my opinion, at least a little bit gay.

There would be a lot more to talk about because it’s just so evident and in literally every dialogue and interaction, but I just wanted to gush about it a little. That’s all.

Now, for a sequence of panels that speak for themselves (premise being that Asmodeus is rampaging):

[anglerflsh]

Hey Wing wdym they kill eachother at one point -

Listen. Listen. They're direct parallels to the people they're cloned from in different situations which means after the au version of Hollow Mind when Hunter runs away the other one is sent after him as an assassin because something something "he betrayed us both".

He doesn't actually kill him then, but he sure does try to. The actual killing happens in reverse form because that is good parallels

[realcleverissues]

“Thank god Squid Game is just a series and not real life.”

I’ve been hearing this a lot from people and it kind of boggles my mind. The analogies to society, and specifically its hyper-capitalist nature, are rife throughout the series. The parallels are so stark and real that the above sentiment almost makes no sense to me - even though I know people mean that we don’t generally have to directly make such life and death decisions. But it seems that they don’t realize that even if it’s not as direct, the system is real. The effects are real. It is life or death.

For instance, healthcare. One of the main reasons that the main character is in the game is to pay for his mom’s healthcare. In the US, thousands of people die young each year because they cannot afford healthcare. In addition, thousands become entirely broke, declaring bankruptcy, due to healthcare bills. This is real life. Every politician and voter who votes against a nationalized health insurance program is playing the squid game. They are choosing an option which they believe will make them slightly better off, even if it will condemn thousands upon thousands of people to suffer and die.

Same thing with housing. For instance, one of the easiest ways to address our housing crisis would be to change city zoning laws. For instance, in Seattle, something like 90% of the residential areas are only zoned for single family homes. That makes it harder to build the multi-family homes needed to address seattle’s growing population. As a result, there’s both a shortage of housing, and incredibly high housing costs since people must compete with eachother for homes, driving up costs. Multifamily zoning helps relieve those issues by providing more homes, and thereby reducing the auction-like nature of the free market. However, most homeowners vote against this change, because they fear it might impact their property values or marginally decrease their quality of life. Some people even complain that it will just ‘mess with the vibe and aesthetic of the neighborhood.’ To them, those issues are of equal importance to people without homes, or struggling to survive, struggling to pay their bills and buy food bc they’re overburdened by housing prices. This system is another squid game, and homeowners consistently vote in what they perceive to be their own favor.

Same thing with our commodities in general. Just look at all the terribly exploitative (and often much worse) conditions that are used to produce chocolate, diamonds, shoes, cotton clothing, and all our groceries. Look at our carbon emissions and plastic waste that’s polluting mountaintops and the ocean depths, as well as our own bodies. These are the decisions that *we* are all making.

For most of us, we are making the decisions we do because we have no alternatives. Most of us literally cannot afford to buy fair-trade products, and so we don’t. We deserve some blame here, but we’re also victims. This is because our system sends money to the top and leaves everyone else scrambling to survive on scraps. Most of us *are* in this squid game, actively playing. We could all get out, if we simply voted to.

But it won’t happen, because most people ignore what’s going on, and when they see art with social commentary, like squid games, hunger games, etc., they just think, “that’s cute, but glad I don’t live in a society like that!”

[symposiumxiv]

Sora as the Morning Star

By chance I was browsing the official art hosted at Khinsider and something really caught my eye. There is a piece in the Chain of Memories section titled "Crossroads - Morning Star":

And of course, "Crossroads - Dawn":

Both of them together, "Crossroads":

These pieces have been around for a long time, but I've never seen (what I assume) are their official names. I think this must be a new revelation from the recent Ultimania but I haven't confirmed any of this.

Most of us already know Riku's association with the Dawn, but let's look at this idea of Sora being associated with the Morning Star.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer:

In Roman folklore, Lucifer ("light-bringer" in Latin) was the name of the planet Venus, though it was often personified as a male figure bearing a torch. The Greek name for this planet was variously Phosphoros (also meaning "light-bringer") or Heosphoros (meaning "dawn-bringer"). Lucifer was said to be "the fabled son of Aurora and Cephalus, and father of Ceyx". He was often presented in poetry as heralding the dawn.

As a name for the planet in its morning aspect, "Lucifer" (Light-Bringer) is a proper noun and is capitalized in English. In Greco-Roman civilization, it was often personified and considered a god and in some versions considered a son of Aurora (the Dawn). A similar name used by the Roman poet Catullus for the planet in its evening aspect is "Noctifer" (Night-Bringer).

The Latin poet Ovid, in his first-century epic Metamorphoses, describes Lucifer as ordering the heavens:

"Aurora, watchful in the reddening dawn, threw wide her crimson doors and rose-filled halls; the Stellae took flight, in marshaled order set by Lucifer who left his station last."

The redness of dawn gives way to the blue daylight sky, which then becomes red again as the sun sets, which leads into the blue night. Sora and Riku are always handing off to eachother.

Goddess Inanna/Ishtar

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_culture:

The Sumerians associated the planet with the goddess Inanna, who was known as Ishtar by the later Akkadians and Babylonians. She had a dual role as a goddess of both love and war, thereby representing a deity that presided over birth and death.

The discontinuous movements of Venus relate to both Inanna's mythology as well as her dual nature. Inanna's actions in several of her myths, including Inanna and Shukaletuda and Inanna's Descent into the Underworld appear to parallel the motion of the planet Venus as it progresses through its synodic cycle. For example, in Inanna's Descent to the Underworld, Inanna is able to descend into the netherworld, where she is killed, and then resurrected three days later to return to the heavens. An interpretation of this myth by Clyde Hostetter holds that it is an allegory for the movements of the planet Venus, beginning with the spring equinox and concluding with a meteor shower near the end of one synodic period of Venus.

(I couldn't find more on this meteor shower so it's probably a hopeful coincidence lol).

[Innana] was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star.

In the Old Babylonian period, the planet Venus was known as Ninsi'anna, and later as Dilbat. " Ninsi'anna" translates to "divine lady, illumination of heaven", which refers to Venus as the brightest visible "star". Earlier spellings of the name were written with the cuneiform sign si4 (= SU, meaning "to be red"), and the original meaning may have been "divine lady of the redness of heaven", in reference to the color of the morning and evening sky.

Some more tidbits from the same page:

In Vietnamese folklore, the planet was regarded as two separate bodies: the morning star (sao Mai) and the evening star (sao Hôm). Due to the position of these supposedly distinct bodies in the sky, they went down in folk poetry as a metaphor for separation, especially that between lovers.

When it was in the opposite direction of the Moon, the planet was also known as sao Vượt (the climbing/passing star, also spelled as sao Vược due to different Quốc ngữ interpretations of one Nôm character). Such an opposition, much like that between the morning star and the evening star, has also been likened in folk poetry to the separation of ill-fated lovers, as evidenced by this lục bát couplet:

"Mình đi có nhớ ta chăng? Ta như sao Vượt chờ trăng giữa trời." (When you go, do you miss me? I am the climbing star waiting for the moon in the sky.)

[zeravmeta]

its so important to me that kazuichi is the one person who actually manages to acknowledge and understand nagito. within the plot of danganronpa s, the 3 classes have been with eachother for 3 years by now and are about to graduate, but nagitos various conversation events reveal that even after all that time, while he is friendly with many people and they do also consider him their friends, no one still actually understands him, and its kazuichi who manages to pick up on it. nagito means everything he says about loving his classmates, but kazuichi calls it perfectly: they aren't people to him, but "hope" to be admired, and while we do see this properly taken to its extreme in sdr2, in drs we see that nagito still does harbor the same kind of feelings, only dampened due to the positive relationships he managed to build. he's genuine when he calls the others his friends, but it's still second to seeing himself as their stepping stool for their hope, and kazuichi is the one person who sees that.

people have some contentious opinions on kazuichi but honestly he's one of the best written sdr2 (and generally drs cast as a whole) characters because of all the layers that come with his character and examining the dynamics that surround him, especially his parallels within these narratives: kazuichi is a character who at his core is someone who just wants to be liked. he goes out of his way multiple times in sdr2 to try and get along with others despite the fact that they're on the murder island, and actually tries to do something about stopping the murders throughout the game. he overhauled his entire look to be someone flashy and wildly enough his fte's reveal that it worked maybe even a little too well (he talks about how girls actually came onto him with his new appearance and that it scared him). kazuichi is also someone who idolizes others and gets overly attatched to them (namely sonia but i would actually argue hajime does fit in here) because he wants to feel like he belongs, like he has a place with them, like he's useful. i know that kodaka wasn't the one who wrote the scenarios for this game or even directing it (that credit goes to shun sasaki, who worked on sdr2 and udg), but honestly that's probably for the better since kodaka likes to relegate kazuichi to his Joke and instead we get this more matured version of kazuichi, one who had friends for years and isn't afraid to be open with them the way he was in sdr2. the finale of his island mode has nanami talking and being proud of him in how he's managed to become so popular and reliable, and that everyone depends on him because they can trust him to come through for them.

nagito does have a particular fixation on kazuichi in sdr2 as well, as seen in ch2 when he corners him at the beginning of the chapter and then later on in ch4 when he singles him out with the idea that hinatas the traitor, and even in the sdr2.5 special where he sees kazuichi as his best friend, and it's implied that the reason bad luck happens to kazuichi whenever nagito is around is because nagito actually does want to be friends with kazuichi.

it's just very heartening to see that kazuichi is someone who actually understands nagito because He's Been There about it already, and he would just want nagito to try and be friends with them like normal

[wooteena]

HI WILBUR AND QUACKITY ARE NOT ONLY NARRATIVE PARALLELS IN THE DSMP WORLD BUT THEIR STORYTELLING WORK IN DIRECT OPPOSITES

c!wilbur is known for following the narrative principle chekhovs gun - to the point where hes broken the forth wall by naming a crossbow after it, showing that hes aware of a 'story'. chekhovs gun is a dramatic that states that any and all details in a story will contribute to the overall narrative - no detail or plot element should exist unless it will be important later. think of the button room, the constant idea in his head that now it was created, the button had to be pressed.

quackity, while having not stated his signature narative princible, its very obvious that hes very akin to the red herring fallacy. a red herring is a plot point that ends up being entirely irrelevant to the overall story. think of him eating schlatts heart and his sudden shift in mindset, a red herring giving us the idea that he may have been possessed by schlatt, only for the plot point to never come to fruition in the future.

chekhovs gun exists as a means to destroy the very existence of red herrings - not only are they both aware of a story, they are actively trying to oppose eachother within it. c!wilbur and c!quackity are both opposite in character drives and in the very narrative principles they follow.

[mmmmalo]

(Translation is creation and I think I’ve made something nice, pls indulge me.)

So Mawaru Penguindrum: "mawaru" means "spinning" or "revolving", but fans never seem to translate that part except as explanation, they leave it in Japanese. An official translation might have changed this (perhaps leaning upon the "revolving" angle to market the story's connection to Utena's revolutions?), but the official English license dropped the first word altogether, opting to simply entitle the show Penguindrum. I can't presume to know why this happened (and I didn't have any luck searching) but I can point out one challenge of proper translation: there's some wordplay to match.

Ordinarily mawaru would be rendered as 回る, the first two syllables attached to the kanji for revolution/spin. But the title replaces 回 with 輪 (meaning "ring") while maintaining the former's pronunciation. There isn't a direct parallel to this sort of superposition in English writing; the closest I can think of would be highlighting a word already embedded within a longer phoneme (eg jurASSic). There might very well be synonyms of spin or ring that contain the other? but I have different idea.

The lyrics to Penguindrum’s second opening begin by asking boys and girls to form a ring, reaching for eachother's hands. I see this image permeate the story in the form of characters trying desperately to construct a ring-as-family, and/or to hold together the one they've got, and/or to retrieve the one they've lost. Another part of me sees the ring of clasped hands as a prayer. But the call to gather is also playful: it sounds like a game of Ring Around the Rosie, which matches the show nicely. A cheery song and dance against the background of terminal disease, the pocket of posies like so many shoujo rose petals in the air, the ashes of countless broiled bodies... we all fall down. So I think we could verbify this parallel and the image of clasped hands it’s built on into a translation befitting the original play between rings and rotation:

Ringarounding Penguindrum!

(I think it has a nice ring to it)

[smilesbag]

would just like to say how wonderful it is that red white and royal blue had henry and alex quoting historically queer letters at each other and THEN they hit eachother with THIS

which in my brain is a direct parallel to this quote from orestes

i know im behind the trend but i finished the book last night and want to express how fucking beautiful casey's writing is. this book means so much to me.

[bluewinnerangel]

Perfect Now lyric breakdown: a 1D fanpiece with a hint of Falling

So @sryluvidrc​ and I recently took another look at Louis Tomlinson’s album Walls thinking our Louis obsessions couldn’t possibly have left room to discover anything new... boy were we wrong.

In summary the lyrics of Perfect Now, every. single. line. of it, parallel either What Makes You Beautiful, Little Things, Through The Dark, Louis’ or Harry’s tattoos (and in the turn the songs they reference), Harry’s Falling, or just simply describe Harry:

And a full breakdown under the cut:

Of course I cannot emphasize enough that this is just an interpretation. Wouldn’t we all like to know tf is going on in that man’s brain. Just simply trying to collect and show what we are seeing.

Also this other Perfect Now analysis raises a lot of important points. As they state “because of the Queen line, the song best fits someone with an effeminate or non-binary gay male identity.”, that is, the “you” in the song. I absolutely agree and believe this is indeed what this song is alluding to and I don’t think the following breakdown invalidates that. Instead, it might just be that Through the Dark, released in 2013(!) already did the same.

Anyways onto the breakdown:

Perfect Now x Little Things

These songs both include parallels that are clear as day as well as the parallel that takes the most explaining:

You say to me your jeans don’t fit -Perfect Now

quite unmistakably parallels

You still have to sqeeze into your jeans -Little Things

Then the second line

You don’t feel pretty and it’s hard to miss -Perfect Now

“you don’t feel pretty” matches what Little Things describes in general. In the picture I just color-matched the bit in the verse right before the jeans line.

The case of the misfits: Also, the first two verses in Perfect Now end with “fit” and “miss” which together create a misfit (a person who is different from other people and who does not seem to belong in a particular group or situation, thanks merriam-webster). This sure seems like a reach but darling just hold on because it’ll come back later. Note that this again hints at the song not just being about someone who is insecure because of their body size or shape but that this person differs from others, from the standard.

Then obviously “you’re perfect now” parallels the end of Harry’s verse: “But you’re perfect to me”

Now for the last bit, colored in blue/purple, Louis’ verse in Little Things paints a picture of the “you” being in bed and the Louis knowing their sleeping habits, mentioning conversations and secrets, but those conversations and secrets don’t quite make sense to Louis. Perfect Now share these themes by stating, again the “you” and Louis are lyin’ together (implying in bed, although don’t you just love the truth<>lying right next to eachother, chefs kiss), where the “you” doesn’t ask Louis, but Louis would tell the truth if asked (or: he’s keeping the conversation and the secret, because he’s not asked to tell the truth)

Perfect Now x WMYB

I think with What Makes You Beautiful, the picture speaks for itself. Just a whole bunch of direct parallels, even both dropping the word “insecure”:

As for the “like a neon sign, as bright as day”, we could drag in “you light up my world like nobody else”, but among all displays of neon signs in music videos/social media or the countless mentions of a shining brightness of lights/the sun, or as a polar opposite of Through the Dark, the dark/light theme is so prevalent I’m not sure I want to favor that parallel here.

Perfect Now x Falling

Falling captures a core feeling that can be applied to a lot of things, and I believe it’s meant in that way (I mean, like most music). Perfect Now in some regards could be seen as a response to that feeling, with some more direct lines such as

“what am I now?” well “you’re perfect now”, “don’t ever change”

“we’ve run out of things we can say” but “you’re the only one when it’s said and done”

“what if I’m someone you won’t talk about / don’t want around” well I’m “someone staring back at you” and although you get the feeling that I’ll never need you again, “you make me feel like being someone good to you.” 

and you wouldn’t need to wonder about all these things if you would just ask me to, but you never do, but just sayin’ then you’d know what you were to me, you know?

and although that all fits nicely, in the end, one song is about someone not feeling great and the other is reassuring someone that isn’t feeling great so naturally that’s gonna fit. On the surface they’re both (I love them with all my heart but) quite generic. What’s however not generic is the following:

What if I’m down?  What if I’m out? 

-Falling

vs

On friday night when we’re all out,  I turn to you and you’re looking down.

-Perfect Now

I mean come on, it doesn’t even rhyme. So here Louis applies the same trick as Harry, with the same damn words: together the lines make down-and-out, which means a variety of things including a lacking of something needed or desirable, being reduced to poverty, weak, fragile, the opposite of strong. And this is also where the “misfit” reach stops being a reach since it’s the exact same trick, and in a pattern we trust. Can we kiss his brain? Please?

Perfect Now x Through the Dark

These again don’t need much explaining, but I encourage you to revisit Through the Dark in the context of someone experiencing gender identity issues and hiding that part of them.

Perfect Now x Harry/Louis and their Tattoos

There are some lines in Perfect Now that I personally feel simply directly describe Harry:

I guess some queens don’t need a crown

Even at your worst, you steal the scene and it’s unrehearsed

I mean. What is there to say here. Just. Yep.

Then for the chance/dance part, I realise it’s an easy thing to rhyme, so don’t take me too seriously on this, and I’m about to drag in a whole lotta links that are going overboard, but:

Harry’s tattoo reads Never gonna dance again, a line from George Michael’s Careless Whisper:

And waste the chance that I'd been given So I'm never gonna dance again The way I danced with you

While Louis’ tattoo reads Given a chance, a line from Kings Of Leon’s Be Somebody:

Given a chance, I'm gonna be somebody If for one dance, I'm gonna be somebody

To grasp in thin air even more, Louis’ Far Away tattoo, the song from Nickelback, which I believe was their song at the time (thanks Chad Kroeger for spilling that one), includes the line

One last chance for one last dance

But then, in TPWK, we’re starting to dance again

Giving second chances I don't need all the answers Feeling good in my skin I just keep on dancin'

And ofcourse the (not) dancing in the Walls and TPWK music videos. They just really really fancy a chance to go ballroom dancing.

Soooo, that’s that. Sorry for the brainpayne. And thanks again @sryluvidrc​ for spiraling with me.

For more like this: Love You Goodbye - a Sunflower vol 6 rabbit hole

[dancy-nrew]

idk if you read maddie's fic where es and duvall have a little talk about change and time (and chine & lyke), but i've been imagining what a parallel with chine and lyke discussing es and duvall might look like

i don't think either of them would directly acknowledge being insecure about es&duvall, but it might be like... one or the other comments something like 'isn't x a little too delicate for someone as rough as you?' and then they exchange stories/facts about their respective partners that prove otherwise?

which is a very long way of saying: "Lyke and Chine brag to eachother about how cool their partners are"

The deck of the ship is mostly empty as its occupants head inside for dinner, which suits Chine just fine. The baby is restless, and they'd hated the looks people had given It when they'd let it run around the dining hall last time. He’d only stayed long enough to stuff some food into his pockets for the two of them before coming back into the cool night air.

“Here you go, buddy,” they murmur, tossing a scrap into the air. It jumps for it in delight, claws click-clacking on the smooth wood as it scrambles for the prize. Chine tosses scraps higher and further and higher and further, until It doesn’t return from around the corner even when he calls. He frowns and moves to look. When they round the corner they frown harder. The baby is laying on its back as Lye Lychen laughs and scratches its belly with his foot, leaning against the wall with a cigarette held loosely in his hand.

“Hey!” Chine whistles and It rolls over and trots to his side. “What are you doing?”

Lyke gestures with the cigarette. “Rude to be inside.”

“I meant with It.”

“Oh. We were hanging out. Scratches.” He wiggles his foot in the air as if to demonstrate. “I think It was having a good time, weren’t you kid?” The baby wiggles in a way Chine has to admit is happy and Lyke looks unbearably smug.

“Ugh. Why does Es even like you?” Chine grumbles as he pets It’s head.

“What?!” Lyke yelps, eyebrows practically up in the air. “Why- Es likes me just fine!”

“I know,” Chine rumbles, “But why.”

It hadn’t really been a question but Lyke answers anyway. “We have- a- history,” he says, punctuating the words with hand gestures Chine doesn’t know how to interpret, ash falling and smoke hazily drifting upwards.

“A history of what?”

“Hm.” Lyke tilts his head. “Well. Theft, frequently.”

Chine nods, conceding that that could be a romantic activity. “She seems too fancy for you.”

Lyke snorts, but smiles. "She's very fancy. All the time she's fancy! We were in this gross- one time we went to this gross cave, it was like… wet all over, impossible to avoid, and she walked right through no problem, skirt gathered tastefully like at a- like a picnic or something. We're like that!"

Chine makes a face. "You're a gross cave?"

"No! Well. Yes, in this metaphor. I just mean she doesn't mind I'm not, fancy." He squints and points in Chine's direction. "Also Duvall is even fancier than Es!"

Chine bristles. "What does Duvall have to do with anything?"

"You're- you know." Lyke wiggles his eyebrows all over the place. “You’re…” Lyke does such an exaggerated wink Chine almost laughs. Lyke notices and grins which is enough to make Chine frown again. “You don’t have to admit it, I guess.”

Chine crosses his arms as It waddles back over to twine between Lyke’s legs. He doesn’t have to share anything with this man, but as annoying as he is there’s something about him that draws you in to talking. “Duvall goes into caves just fine.” Lyke cackles, eyebrows dancing again, and Chine throws a scrap of food at him that It quickly lunges after. “Shut up! Why is it a sex thing when I said it and not when you said it!” He laughs along, though, and moves to lean against the wall beside him. “Duvall doesn’t need to be fancy all the time. He…”

“Is a swarm of insects, sometimes,” Lyke nods.

Chine thinks of light refracted on wings and carapaces. Duvall is beautiful, he thinks. “Sometimes.” He stares out at the water. Lyke has such an easy confidence with people, sure of his standing. The motivation of others have always been more of a mystery for the cleaver. “Duvall likes me just fine.” He tries to say it with the certainty that Lyke had, squishing long absences and his new (good, he feels, but perhaps off-putting) physicality into something small and palatable. They imagine holding up doubt like a physical thing and placing it carefully on their tongue and biting down until it’s juices flow down his chin. When he glances over at the uncharacteristically quiet Lyke he finds the man with a calculating look on his face. When they catch eyes he smiles.

“Duvall likes you just fine.” He takes a last drag of the cigarette before putting it out on the wall behind them and placing it back in a crumpled carton which then goes back into one of many pockets. “Have a good night, Chine,” he waves his fingers in a smooth motion, one after another, then pats It on the head and goes back inside.

Chine runs his own hand over It’s smooth skin. He wonders if Duvall is in the dining hall. “Come on,” they say, gesturing with their head to get It to follow them as they head in after Lyke.

[tratserenoyreve]

do you ever get the feeling that deltarune is gonna end up being really recursive (if that's the right word???) like deltarune leading directly to aspects of undertale (particularly with clamgirl and the implications of ut!sans belonging to another world) and undertale leading to deltarune (aka ut gaster being involved and some of the dialogue choices in ch 1's town only making sense to someone who's aware of ut's pacifist ending)?

okay so i’ve been ruminating on this, other people have discussed it a bit and it’s definitely a feeling i’ve had since chapter one was released, which is that the events of deltarune are like. imperfect reflections of undertale, but that is inaccurate. we want to say that because undertale is what we experienced first, but really undertale is the simplified and altered story compared to the one toby originally drafted up that would become deltarune.

it’s more accurate i think to say that undertale is an altered imperfect reflection of deltarune with a more idealistic bend.

characters we know and love from undertale don’t lead the same lives at all in deltarune, like undertale is a fantastical and idealized reality for them. the dreemurr family was royalty, asgore and toriel were king and queen, asriel a prince, but in deltarune they are simple townsfolk, a gardener and a teacher and a college student. even the relationships they had with one another in undertale don’t seem to exist (yet? or at all?) in deltarune, alphys and mettaton aren’t friends and so his dream remains stuck in personal journals, mad dummy doesn’t work for undyne and never gets her body, undyne and alphys are strangers.

hell, look at the skele bros interactions you have in town. in undertale, sans and papyrus are near constant presences once you meet them, immediately friendly and inviting to frisk/the player, you can call papyrus up in just about every single room of the game and sans will pull you aside for conversations on the reg. but in deltarune? sans is skeptical and kind of weirded out by you acting familiar with him, but even if you say it’s nice to meet him for the first time he is just kinda. there? you interact with him, compared to how the brothers interlaced with your journey in undertale, and unlike undertale papyrus is absent from. everything. he isn’t boisterously announcing his presence, which is such a change, the papyrus we knew in undertale would have greeted everyone in town after moving in (the snowdin folk say the brothers simply asserted themselves), but here in deltarune he is shut in the house and going further away.

i don’t think there’s anything like deltarune leading directly into undertale or vice versa, too much of the setup is distinct from eachother, but i think thematically the games are meant to compare and contrast the same ideals and questions we’ve met before. chapter 1 of deltarune parallels the end of a neutral run in undertale, where the player confronts the king and is unable to resolve the matter with just mercy. chapter 2 parallels hotland, where a misguided individual thinks they are helping the situation by making a robot villain to face off against the hero (and a person who dreams of being BIG looks to the audience, prays to the audience…)

it’s like deltarune is living in the shadows of undertale, we see the familiar shapes but it’s not the same and can’t be the same.

as for Gaster, the fact that the Goners exist as regular npcs in the town is SO fascinating, it makes me wonder if, in this world, his project succeeded rather than failed. “dark, darker, yet darker” that is also a connecting thread but given the other works toby has been inspired by i don’t think it will be as direct as prequel/sequel, i think it’s better to treat undertale as a kind of like. setup for concepts we should be thinking and reminded of as we go through deltarune, and i think that’s the trap.

i think deltarune isn’t going to be like undertale at all, in the end, and that’s exciting.

[loudlyunladylike]

you got any c!niki songs?

This ask is hella old so my apologies, but hi hi hello!!! ee!! So ok I'm actually in the process of making a lil playlist rn (very small at the moment because I can't remember all of them oops so I'm taking suggestions 👉👈) so I thought I would just go through my thoughts on each of those at the mo!

1. "Burning House" by Cam

I made a post featuring this one! Gives me Pogtopia Niki and Will vibes, they are both stuck in these separate places filled with pain and hurt but Wilbur can't get Niki out of Manberg because it wouldn't be safe and Niki can't get Wilbur out of Pogtopia as his mental health keeps getting worse and worse ("I had a dream about a burning house, you were stuck inside I couldn't get you out") but alas throughout the whole time they still cared about eachother, they still tried, Wilbur shows up at her birthday party and saves her at the festival, Niki stands alone against the rest of Manberg to stand up for not just herself but also Wilbur and Tommy ("I'll stay here with you until this dream is gone") . To me this song also feels like looking back in hindsight maybe more from the perspective of her alone in her secret city, as her own mental health declines and she locks herself away due to her night terrors ("I've been sleepwalking too close to the fire but it's the only place that I can hold you tight") especially with all the parallels that can be drawn between Niki and Wilbur's declining mental health at that point ("I lay beside you and pulled you close and the two of us went up in smoke")

2. "Pretty Little Things" by The Crane Wives

Ok so I first heard this song in this Niki animatic so I can direct you right over there because god it is good I actually get chills watching it. So I think they demonstrate it quite well in that but to give you a vague idea, it gives me the vibes of Niki around doomsday era; she's still sad about missing Wilbur ("Past loves linger like phantom limbs") but she's also angry and she is done. There's also a depiction of the green festival where Niki's anger at Will starts projecting on to Tommy and she feels like she simply can't trust him and stay at his side ("But trust is now something I make people earn, so I'm not inclined to just give it away to a pair of blue eyes with some nice things to say"). I am also a massive fan of my Niki and hope symbolism so it makes it all just incredibly heartbreaking; she had so much hope and love in L'manberg and Will but alas it seems to have wilted away ("I don't believe the pretty little things that you say, I've heard a lot of little pretty things. Don't buy me flowers it pains me to watch pretty little things wilt away, pretty little things wilt away")

3. "A Burning Hill" by Mitski

See I thought of this as Niki song anyways but someone also made this cool animatic that Niki even commented on so check that out if you like! But yeah this is like that sad atmosphere after doomsday I think, like again we've got that incredibly sad loss of hope from such a hope-filled character ("I think I'm finally worn") along with her reminiscences of Wilbur ("For you have a way of promising things") which could honestly sound angry in another context but here just sounds sad. And then of course where would we be without the fire imagery ("I am the fire and I am the forest and I am the witness watching it") relating to both her repeated actual scenes in relation to fire but also her growing inner fire because it's always been there whether it be hopeful bright sparks or an angry forest fire, the more destruction and "fire" she sees around her the more her inner fire grows. Perfect examples of this being the parallels between the burning of the flag and the burning of the L'mantree; both instances of destruction being all around, the first time she watches her pillar of hope go up in flames, the second time she is the fire itself lighting it but both times she wishes Wilbur was there ("I stand in a valley watching it and you are not there at all"). The song also ends off on a bit of a hopeful but also sad note ("And I'll love the littler things, I'll love some littler things") doomsday is over, L'manberg is gone and she has cut off connections to most of her friends, maybe this a a chance to start anew and love some new things but there is still a sense that maybe she should just love some littler things, maybe she hoped to big last time, loved to big last time and that's heartbreaking.

4. "Graceland Too" by Phoebe Bridgers

This was a recommendation from the lovely @/foxesdontscareme and it is a truly beautiful song, and great for a healing arc Niki! Niki gives up on the nuke Tommy plot and takes Techno up on his syndicate offer ("No longer a danger to herself or others, she made up her mind and laced up her shoes") and thus she begins the process of trying to pull herself out of her own downward spiral before it's too late. She changes her secret city once again, replacing the lava and mismatched bricks with quartz walls and gardens and a bakery that she invites her friends to ("Yelled down the hall but nobody answered so she walked outside without an excuse"). She is still lost without L'manberg and it's community ("Doesn't know what she wants or what she's gonna do, a rebel without a clue") but it is now being approached with a more hopeful tone, she doesn't fully know exactly what she's going to do but she's hopeful about it this time. Recently Niki's mental health hasn't been the best but honestly the goal in my mind is that she one day reaches a more peaceful, healthier point and this will all be the perfect vibe ("Said she knows she lived through it to get to this moment") <33 pls

5. "Learning To Hate You As A Self Defense Mechanism" by Flatsound

Ok sadness again. This is the Niki song that cc!Niki herself tied to c!Niki when she found out Wilbur was alive, I also made a post about this one pfft! But this song is exactly what it says it is so in this case an exploration into Niki's unhealthy mechanisms on "coping" with Wilbur's return. After the nuke plot failed Niki realised that none of what she was blaming Tommy for was really his fault; underneath all the projection she was still upset and annoyed at Wilbur. But Niki and Wilbur were best friends, she obviously loved and cared for him and she still does but in an attempt to preserve her new safe space and the distance she has tried to put between herself and L'manberg she tries to remind herself or simply just tell herself that he hurt her and that she must hate him for that ("So I'll hold on to this feeling, I'll hold on to this hate, for as long as I need for it to help me"). Niki tells herself that Wilbur must have never cared about her or anyone, that she must have just been stupid for believing him ("Was it my fault because I easily confused you for someone who would hold my hand") because it's easier to cut yourself off from someone if you believe nothing was really there in the first place, if the diamonds meant nothing and if she lies to herself that he never checked up or visited her in Manberg ("you would leave when I got sick"). However, underneath it all, no matter how much she lies to herself she cares, and she wishes she could see him and talk to him ("You never called me on my birthday, I want to call you on your birthday")

[lucidmagic]

Dude imagine Donna and reader wearing matching couple's necklaces and it's this one:

It makes perfect sense because the Beneviento crest is this symbol and also the story keeps depicting the reader as the sun. I can also imagine Donna saying something along the lines of her being the moon because it's full of craters (a direct parallel to her scar) and that it's only able to reflect the sun's light and is useless on it's own. Which the reader responds with the fact that it isn't the sun that the poets write about but the moon , that the moon has been a symbol for beauty for hundreds of years (to the point that in turkish moon-faced is a compliment and some names literally mean the one who has the face of the moon), that the tides and seasons are thanks to the moon. The reader argues that neither of them really need eachother to exist but the earth needs both of them to be liveable (meaning that if they didn't have eachother they would both survive, but would they really be alive?)

Dhsjjzks sorry I'm rambling and that this ask is too long but I'm a simple gal who really loves Donna

AAAAAAAHHHHHH ABSOLUTELY AMAZING I LOVE IT IT'S PERFECT FOR THEM

It's not a proposal per se, but Donna definitely feels like it is when she presents it to the Reader, even though the latter may not see it that way because Donna's feelings run deep for them and honestly can't picture anyone else to be her complement.

The reader makes sure to wear it every day since they are given it, maybe even combining the flower necklace Donna made all those years ago with the pendant. Two things of Donna's near their heart, always. Donna's chest always grows warm when she sees the two besides one another. Donna does the same. She tends to fiddle with them when she needs to calm down or stim.

Cheesy, but Donna starts calling the Reader "sole mio" along with "amore mio" as her sweet nicknames for the Reader, and the Reader obviously responds with "luna mia" which just melts Donna's heart-- and makes Angie gag.

(Please tell me if my Italian is wrong btw)

[momowho34]

No but the divide between the Dionysus’s maenads Artemis’s hunters is fascinating actually. They both embody different attitudes towards women, womanhood, freedom, and oppression, and they parallel eachother perfectly.

Trigger warning: talking about sex and historical oppression of women.

The idea of the Huntresses of Artemis is to escape the societal expectations for women by never getting married or having sex. Huntresses don’t hate kids, actually Artemis is explicitly the goddess of young girls and sometimes birth, but it’s the constraints that come with marriage/sex/motherhood that they’re trying to avoid. By refusing to adhere to the strict social code and living apart from it, they shed any responsibilities that would be expected. Virginity is a big deal because it’s seen as individuality. Like you don’t have to get far to see the freedom symbolism, deer and wilderness and dogs and night time etc. Huntresses are noble and brave; they’re pure but they’ll fight tooth and nail to preserve that. They are deliberate and graceful; they can’t be jerked around by Aphrodite like men or other women. They don’t have any innate “temptation,” they’re happy to live how they want to without sex and see it as a distraction. Men are boring in comparison, life can be so much more then raising children and being seen as a sexual object. It’s like cutting ties.

But compare that to the philosophy of Dionysus and his maenads. Maenads are just as free from societal constraints as the huntresses; just in the opposite direction. The historical context of Maenads is that Dionysus’s cult specifically appealed to marginalized groups like slaves, foreigners, and especially women. Dionysus’s cult promised liberation: rather then find freedom in refusing to be sexual, they find it in embracing their sexuality. Maenads are often mythologized to have tons of orgies and Do The Sex Which Is Evil Because Women etc etc etc but it’s because they want to do. They play on the double standard of being seen as either a tease or a slut etc depending on how sexually active you are. By saying “fuck you, I am sexually active and that’s okay and it’s for my pleasure and not yours” it gives them the power over their bodies/lives etc. And yes, the Greeks would characterize them as being mind controlled by dionysus or whatever, but you’ve gotta be careful of perspective and historical context here. People didn’t like Dionysus’s cult in the beginning because it preaches equality and craziness and partying and freedom and just generally raging against the machine. So what’s easier, pretending that your wife ran away because The Bad Guy brainwashed her or because she decided to just genuinely leave because she didn’t like you or how she was treated?

It’s also interesting to note what different roles they play before joining their respective groups. Most nymphs and humans that are portrayed as joining the hunters of Artemis are young maidens who don’t want to be owned and want to be strong and don’t see the point of sex/don’t want to be bound by the values society puts on it. They’re drawn to being something more. Maenads get this treatment too, but a lot of the named examples we get are older women who are just... tired. Mothers and wives who are angry at never having their own agency and being demonized for natural impulses, having these endless expectations placed on their shoulders. They don’t want to structure their lives differently, they just wanna he allowed to go batshit.

And both of these are valid attitudes! Seriously! They are both fair things to do and believe in. I’m tired from writing this so much so sorry if I’m not wrapping this up very well but yeah, moral of the story is that they’re both fair and can both apply to different people for different reasons.