Engineer, is EngiHere!

That's the scary thing though, isn't it? I'm not confident that the game believes in its own themes that it put forward anymore. It stopped right in front of the finish line. It's... a scarier experience, if I'm honest. Before, I was spreading an angle to the game that no one was really approaching, and earnestly trying to help people see a more player-positive way for things to go!

...but now, it feels like walking through sludge. I'm now having to defend what I thought the game had in potent themes that it might not be interested in saying anymore. Not only do I now have to convince people of a player-positive outlook, but I also have to convince people that the narrative that has been shown to us isn't using its meta in a way that is satisfying or meaningful. I have to imply that Deltarune has a flaw, and that is FAR more terrifying in this fandom.

Even though "A World Without You" was created because I disliked a take so much that I wanted to write a story opposing it, there was an inherent love for Deltarune going into my writing. There was a love for its story, the way it reaches out to you, and how hopefully, one day, it'll bridge the gap between you and it just like the gap between Lightners and Darkners is bridged.

Do you know why "A Future Without Them" was made? After the 10th anniversary stream, I truly believed that Toby really was about to make something special. He reached out to the audience and told us that our ideas and choices are wonderful, and to encourage us to keep creating. I wrote a fic a decade ago. It was the first fanfiction I ever posted, and if I did not make it, my life would be so different than it was now. All of the friends I have were because of that one, single choice to write. AFWT remixes a lot of those ideas with the new lens we have for Deltarune. It was a love letter to UTDR and my younger self. I wanted to make him proud. He wrote a bleak ending that concluded that the best possible outcome was to make a world better and then isolate himself forever. This was me doing it over, grabbing that past version of me and showing him how far we've come. 10 years later, and we're trying again. 10 years later, and we're trying to keep hoping. We are deserving of love. We are deserving of being seen.

I think that's what made Chapter 5 hurt the most.

After all of the subversion towards Undertale's themes, after Deltarune treating everything with far more nuance, after feeling more present than ever and your actions being celebrated for just a fraction of a moment, after a 10th anniversary stream where we were all celebrated... the game forgot.

The illusion broke.

Everything about it felt insincere and mocking. One of the first lines of dialogue you get mocks you, but I played it off. The UI is almost explained, a gateway to further presence within the narrative, but it's turned into a joke. The last Shadow Crystal secret boss is approached, and Susie and Ralsei make self-referential jokes about Doing The Thing for the 5th time like the game is getting insecure about the secret bosses. The secret boss gives you hamfisted dialogue about your body being a person too, like we didn't already clock that, like we haven't been wanting to reach out for 8 years, like we weren't the one shoved in a cage 5 million times. There was so much sincerity in Chapter 3 and 4. You got to watch the characters grow. You got to watch them bare their own souls. They loved. They felt. They cried. And, in their most vulnerable moment, your soul shined in the dark and guided them through blow after blow in a hallway of swords. You stood alongside them, powerless in a fate that you don't even know the answer to. Now, the best the game can do is a halfhearted pixel-art soul off the beaten path that rewards you with a red ribbon.

Insincere. Mocking. Insecure.

Did the game think it would be too corny to reach out to the person playing it? Did the game think that we were all too nonchalant to love its world for the small time that we were a part of it? Did the game think that we didn't want to be loved back? That we weren't trying to be loved back? In a narrative that plays with the idea of reality and fiction both meaning something to each other, was that really so much?

This game drags you around. It feeds you the barest of crumbs before making you feel bad for even clinging to them. It is a ritual in self-hatred that tries to make you feel smaller and smaller after welcoming you in with so much earnest love. Deltarune began with a voice contacting us, realizing that we were looking for him, and that HE was looking for us as well. It began by asking us for our opinion, asking us questions, asking us our name... and yet, it tries to make you feel so utterly small.

I want to believe it's part of the whole thing, that the goal is to try to crush your hope and individuality by design because that's what it means to be stuck in the cage. I want to believe it'll allow you to break out eventually, but how can I? How can I look in the direction of our Secret Boss and not see the narrative building up "Working together in symbiosis" when that hasn't been earned? How can I look at Ralsei's dialogue and bend over backwards to justify why a writer would put that in? How can I look at all the times that Weird Route acknowledges you perfectly and cleanly the moment you do wrong, but when you do right, not a single character can do so?

It has gotten harder. It's gotten so much harder to write. It's gotten so much harder to not feel like the pen has been ripped out of my hands and snapped in front of me. It doesn't look like it, but god, it feels that way sometimes.

But, it makes this space matter so much more.

Stories are meant to be retold. Reinterpreted. I still believe that. If I have to find a new pen, a new source of motivation, then it has become through all of you. I really thought when I started this that I'd be shaking my fist into the void.

Instead, there were people who thought like me. There were people as invested as me. There were people who supported me. Countless people have come out to make art and writing for this silly little thing I've created, for this last spark in the dark. Even after Chapter 5 passed, even after so many saw disappointment, you're all still here.

There's something important about this space. Even if Deltarune can't or won't celebrate the people who have entered into its world, there's still people who will come together and celebrate each other. It is an honor to be able to make something that has brought so many people together. It has evolved past its original purpose, even if I really would've liked to see that come to fruition.

One day, I will be able to show you all what AFWT was all building towards. It is not today. It might not even be soon. But, I'm happy that I can be here.

I'll keep at it. I'll explore the things that you all deserve to see explored. I'll ask the difficult questions that the game may one day be too afraid to answer. Hopefully then, if we all end up feeling disappointed by what happens with Deltarune, there will still be one thing left.

Thank you for expressing your thanks. It really does mean the world. If I'm wrong, if I'm incorrect about what I see in the game, then I will drive the sword into the ground knowing that I already did what I needed to.

I don't need a stupid game to make my younger self proud. I don't need a stupid game to make all of you proud. You all have been the best part of this fanbase for the past year I've been writing. You've given me the inspiration to go to lengths with my writing that I never thought possible. And, on the other side of a new chapter release, you're all still here, putting in your all just as much as I put in mine.