somethin somethin somethin i forgot now

What does Flowery and his friends get? They get discarded by Asgore as stepping stones to his reconciliation with his “actual” victims. It’s such an ugly mirror to Ralsei that he hates but he doesn’t want to admit it and even takes it out on Flowery to a certain extent.

Even after everything Flowery still dies trying to save Asgore; It helps that he was dead either way and had accepted it. But he doesn’t save Asgore and his death, while it leads to the case being broken and Susie accessing the shelter code, still comes across as senseless in its tragedy to Ralsei. This is what’s gonna happen to you. This is all you’ll about to if you keep going like this. This is what you told Tenna to be happy with.

And I bet that Flowery’s endearing obnoxious Gary Stu qualities motivated him on some level to die like this in front of Ralsei so “he” could realize he doesn’t want to live and die like this. And even his reverse psychology way of encouraging Ralsei has a sacrificial lamb quality to it, where Flowery subjects himself to being an object of hate for the betterment of someone else.

I might be getting the Toby Fox and Homestuck lore mixed up.

But the dream compelled Toby so much that he needed to make it into a real video game.

In 2011, when I was away at school, I got very sick. I ended up having a terrible fever and couldn’t get any medicine for it, and while I was sleeping I had a vivid dream about the ending to a game. Since then… I felt like I had to make the game with that ending. I attempted to make that game in 2012 using character designs by an artist I really like called Kanotynes. However, I stopped making it even before I made a single room of the game.

That game… I ended up repurposing a few of the songs from it for UNDERTALE. For example, “Heartache” was originally called “Joker Battle” and “Bonetrousle” was originally the main battle theme. Then I decided around when I did the Kickstarter to UNDERTALE (2013) that if I ever completed UNDERTALE, my next game would be a mix of UNDERTALE and that concept.

I have to make what I saw in my dream. I don’t even know if it’s particularly good, but I have to do it…

As an aside, an untreated fever of over 104 degrees farenheit (I do think the farenheit scale is slightly more useful medically in this instance, because of the finer gradations) can kill a person and or cause brain damage, so like. I don't think we know the details and specifics of the fever or his illness, but I do think, to me, as a biologist, what's striking to me is that it's entirely possible that Deltarune literally almost killed him.

But anyway. For me, the question of Deltarune's ending is, do we think Toby Fox would have dreamed about it while he was dying in Andrew Hussie's basement in 2011 or 2012, and, relatedly, would it have been so unique and compelling that he would have felt the need to make it real, and been so driven to bring it about 15 years later.

Because, like, there have been other video games that end with it all being a dream or simulation. The question with Deltarune's ending, until we see it, is, what was so special about this that Toby felt he had to make it a real game?

...Of course, that's actually.

What's also interesting is, there are lots of things that can happen in Deltarune that aren't necessarily part of the "ending", and.

For me, one question is, what does "ending" mean? Like, is it the final boss? The ending cutscene? Is it actually the "ending", or just the climax?

Even if Deltarune ends up being a simulation, is that going to be the game's ending, or is that just going to be a side detail revealed somewhere else?

I do think that. It being a simulation could be that it's. Literally a video game. Maybe Toby's dream involved the video game literally talking to him, and so he needed a video game that talks to its players, and that's part of the reason for the whole, vessel and creator, gonermaker thing.

...I also do think that. Supposedly, Deltarune is a mix of the dream and Undertale, and the original version was going to be a Kanotynes fan game, and the final version is going to be a Temmie Chang fangame.

Which of those would we consider the "ending" of the thing?

...I mean, in the Lord of the Rings comparison, the point of The Scouring of the Shire is, what if Tolkien's friends all survived ww1 and got to go home. There's a thematic purpose to it. And also a wish fulfillment fantasy

Maybe, Rudy!Knight is because Rudy is sick, like Toby was sick when he had the dream.

(Spoilers for Off obv but)

The game has, on a technical level, 3 final bosses. The first against the supposed big bad that's been hyped up throughout the whole game, the second against another character, whose backstory we've spent the last part of the game learning, who doesn't fight back and is weak to everything, and the third either against the reoccurring ally / tutorial character or the protagonist, with us playing as said ally character.

And in Off there are two endings, but they're not achieved through any actions made beforehand, just a spur of the moment decision in the very last moments before the credits, one of which isn't even "official".

Except there IS a third ending, but it's a joke one, that you get for getting the secret item in every zone, literally mocking the player for tearing through the game and exposing all of its mysteries, something which Undertale also does, to some extent.

Off also made me wonder what the "ending" to something really is. Is it the climactic finish? The tragic consequences of your actions facing you? The final blow? The final spoken word? The darkness right before the credits? When you stop playing?

This comic is animated. You can read a still version here <-

Mew mew comic about self-love and self love

The show you like is telling a slightly different story than what you want? Friction is the same as pain so it is hurting me, AAAA!!! Your expectation of what was going to happen to that character you liked didn't pan out? Friction! Friction hurts! You're hurting me!!

But where the Disney Corporation can run a fucking angle grinder across the rash and barely provoke an "ow," indie creators (especially if they are not men), can get nearly run off the internet for things like factually answering a direct question or stating that the story they are writing has main characters.

There's a lot of misogyny in that, obviously, and in many awful flavors, but I think there's also mixed in there a very peculiar kind of consumer-brained entitlement. We expect that the big corporations will fuck us over every two seconds, and we expect to be utterly powerless to do anything about it because all they give a shit about is Line Go Up, but indie creators (especially if they are not men) are expected to be the balm to that infected rash. Where everything else in the world is painful and mean and uncomfortable, independent queer creators are expected to produce the comfortable swaddling bandage that dulls the pain and soothes the sensitivity. This is supposed to be our happy place, our safe place. It's supposed to be ours and belong to us and serve us.

And so they moment they produce friction, any friction, literally the tiniest amount of friction imaginable, well that's a failure! You are failing to live up to your purpose, and that's not just a creative failure but a moral and personal and spiritual failure too. It's a sin, in fact, it is a kind of evil. Friction hurts, and that means you are hurting me!