Sezia likes stuff

as time goes on, qifrey learns more about olly's time in ghodrey and he's often left a little confused. "your dad didn't praise your magic?" qifrey's thinking about how encouraging beldy is even when he messes up. olly laughs and brushes it off like it's no big deal, but from then on qifrey makes a point to always praise olly's magic. especially the magic that makes olly happy. the magic that doesn't serve any purpose other then to make olly smile. that's qifrey's favorite kind of olruggio magic. not the fire that keeps people alive, but the deer made of light that puts that soft look on olly's face. the look that gives qifrey butterflies in his stomach. you fast forward to adult olruggio and compliments from qifrey are the only ones he can react to without sputtering.

i can imagine a world where olruggio thinks his only value comes from what he's able to do with his magic to help others. qifrey is the first person who values olruggio the person before olruggio the witch. qifrey would love olly even if he wasn't olruggio of the torch. it's qifrey who gives him the nickname "olly" in the first place and olly's never had a nickname before. it's so humanizing to olly in a way qifrey is left baffled by, but it's olly getting to be like every other kid for once. he gets a fun nickname and he feels like maybe he won't be traded away this time. qifrey values him. not what he can do.

qifrey often feels a little lost in the world because his memory was wiped and he had his perspective on basic family and friendship dynamics ripped from him, but he learns how to take care of olly. it helps ground him. he learns how to make olly feel better when a spell doesn't work and olly's beating himself up about it. he learns how to bully olly into getting food with him in the cafeteria when olly forgets to eat. he learns to scooch over in bed when olly shows up in the middle of the night in tears bc he had a nightmare about noz again. olly doesn't wanna talk about it, he just wants to feel safe so he finds qifrey.

By the Pact of Witches, all spells conducted on the human body or mind are considered forbidden. Memory wipe spells are considered an exception, but not a general exception. It's an extreme one and only to be used on non-witches when they have discovered the secret of spell-casting, and on criminals as a form of punishment. The exception does not allow "Whoopsie my spouse found out I'm cheating on them, I can just wipe their memories of it real quick". Even Luluci's master wouldn't take it upon himself to wipe her memories and instead tried to depend on the Knights Moralis to do so - and we're talking about a man who tried to excuse sexual abuse. Even a guy like that had the principles so deeply ingrained into him that he wouldn't use a memory wipe spell for his own convenience. It's a rule as fundamental in witch society as the rule to keep spell-casting a secret.

inchresting characterization moment. she does seem pretty okay with checking bunches of things with Kris

Because it is whiplash after whiplash after whiplash and all of a sudden, I now love this man.

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Chapters 1-30

We are simply seeing Olruggio, like...exist. Watchful eye duty so forgotten that Qifrey might as well have 3 blind eyes.

And ohh- some hints of potential shipping content with Qifrey and him being a tsundere for the girls. He's just...there. But he's funny and unfortunately too relatable so I'll allow it.

Chapters 30-40

Okay. Olruggio jumpscare I guess, because he suddenly just got more screen time.

We're now seeing why they call him Master Olly, because they're now showing more of him bonding, caring, and teaching the girls in his own way. And it's adorable.

He's giving begrudging son-in-law vibes with Beldaruit, He's now being emphasized as someone truly significant to Qifrey's past and-

Ohh, he now just remembered that he's not that watchless of an eye and is now actively suspecting his best friend of many years that he's a potential danger to Coco (which he's not wrong) and fears that he's selfishly utilizing her in his pursuit of the brimmed caps (which he is ALSO not wrong) and-

Olruggio, I know you just cleared up that suspicion in like, Chapters 37-38, but why tf are you still friends with this shady ass man-

Chapter 40-89

Ohh. This scrungly, grumpy sleep-deprived mess of a man is a beloved CELEBRITY. OHH, this man is canonically every mother's dream SON-IN-LAW.

OHHH..This grumpy man is somehow the SUNSHINE of the two.

You now see how Olly and Qifrey genuinely compliment and cover each other's weakness as teachers/caregivers to the girls. He's seen scolding, reprimanding, encouraging, and bantering with each of the girls and it's a lovely time.

Oooh, he now has hints to his traumatic backstory. Burnt out gifted kids as burnt as a star-

Ohh...he parallels Coco a lot in terms of personality and savior complex...

Oh Olruggio, the man that you are. You are a good characte-

Chapter 90-93

Olruggio what the fuck.

That was HIS IDEA?

Genuinely, Olruggio what the fuck.

That is the reason why he hasn't turned into an angiosperm yet?

Kindest, most radiant star what the fuck.

Pardon? He keeps discovering and forgiving this secret?

Olruggio what the fu-

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In conclusion: Olruggio is one of the sweetest but also most insane characters in the story. If possible, more so than Qifrey-

But I get it now. Loving Olruggio's character is inevitable. He is the man, the mood, the moment.

it used to be a cool achievement but now it’s like

doesn't care about being scolded for sneaking out, sticks his tongue out like a little gremlin

is immediately ready to sneak out again, ready to lie to their faces

ignores what the king wants him to do so he can do shit for free for the townspeople.

doesn't hesitate to stand up to said king

yells at the cops for being mean to his kids, won't let it happen again.

doesn't stay to help when the wise of friendships asks him to.

like the man takes a fucking stick to beldaruit 😭

Toriel was being set up as a caring mother above everything else, someone Kris - and the player - could always count on, so her bringing a strange man home (which could put her own child in danger), getting so drunk she can barely stand, and leaving Kris with no food at home, especially in a moment where kris really needed that support and familiarity, felt like a betrayal, since she was acting completely different from how her character was set up.

What caused the discussion wasn't Toriel acting like a bad mother for one scene - it was her acting completely out of character for one scene, and showing a side we as a community had never seen. Asgore didn't have that, he has always been how he was shown here.

Thats what im criticizing. How toriel makes one mistake chapter 5 immediately clarifies happened because of A and B while the fandom at large hyperfocused on it as proof of her awfulness to the point of ignoring every other character beat she has had but when asgore actually put hands on his child despite it going against the harmless goat dad whos soley a himbo shtick asgores often given by the fandom, its downplayed. I agree, asgore has been set up as an asshole and bad parent who still loves his family, but hes not somewhat neglectful, he was the only parent who actually was. Thats a genuine part of his character!

The only way I'll draw anything close to shipping or romance is if I'm actually drawing something else.

My live reaction: "Oh shit, we are killing ourselves today gamers!" It's hard to write jokes about abusing someone in the Weird Route (for me anyway), but Noelle taking agency(?) and committing double suicide (and murder)? Now there's room for a bit of black comedy. That's killing 3 birds with one lake, baybeee! I am still skipping WR in my comic tho. I just wanted to write this small joke.

I was trying to figure out how I wanted the serious depiction of WR to look, and these came out too cool for what I was going for, but they're still neat.

And to Ralsei’s original naïve ideas of ‘how to be a friend’. Them thinking it’s a simple matter of always ‘being nice’ - paralleling ‘Relationship Mechanics’ in games that are mostly about choosing the friendliest and most placating options, and that's really all you need to 'max out' your relationship with whoever.

Only for them to realize that it’s more complicated than this as they grow closer to Susie, someone who absolutely is not the person who chooses only the ‘nice’ options all the time, and realize that they love her for it. But also at the same time, their sweet and passive demeanor seems to have pretty much failed to endear them to Kris, despite their best efforts.

That relationship only progresses when Ralsei stops trying so hard to be Lovable….

And then also Our Choices Don’t Matter meaning that there’s no Choice a Player can make that can meaningfully change Kris’s most important relationships. These relationships also don’t depend on simply picking ‘positive’ options (because if one likes Kris, that also goes hand-in-hand with liking some amount emotionally detached teasing and pranks). AND the most important moments of relationship development happen of Kris’s own volition, and they will rebel against words that are either too cruel or too sappy to their own taste. Which in previous Chapters was mostly a positive, hopeful thing. No matter our influence, Kris’s friends will always be Kris’s friends first and foremost. We don’t have enough power to ruin their most important relationships or to make their friends love them for something that they’re not.

But in this Chapter, there’s a new melancholy wrinkle added to it. Through the whole Festival Sequence, you’re presented with a bunch of choices that under standard ‘Game Logic’ might be expected to influence the relationships between Kris, Susie and Noelle - but in true Deltarune fashion, regardless of your choices, Susie and Noelle always start their romance at the end of it. But while this could be a heartwarming story about Cute Teenaged Lesbian Love triumphing over a manipulative Amoral Time God… the whole situation also makes it very clear that even if Kris was able to make choices freely, there’s nothing they could choose that would make Susie love them either. No matter how close they and Susie get, she just doesn’t seem to be attracted to them that way.

You can also add to it the way the Flowery Final Boss plays on the ‘Power of Friendship’ bit that’s generally expected at the end of a Pacifist Run…

Where Flowery has his own Recruits that instead seem to team-up with Flowery and against you, regardless of your choices. Because the cute little ACTs you did to Recruit them were nice and all, but were they really enough to make them truly love you more than they already loved Flowery and the other Flowers? More then they loved their Dark World?

And then there’s Flowery’s whole thing. Like in many other aspects of their characters, he and Ralsei are two sides of the same coin. If Pre-Character-Development Ralsei is like someone who tries to please and befriend everyone in an RPG, Flowery is someone trying to powergame his way through a dating sim. His (and the other Flowers) constant showering of Asgore with admiration, gifts and ideal hang-outs/dates that are all just perfect for him are partly just trying to repay Asgore for the kindness he’s given them and making him happy… and also to try and make Asgore choose Flower Kingdom and his Flower Family over Hometown and his Light World Family.

As much as Flowery teases Ralsei over their jealousy of him, his behavior often reveals that he’s jealous of Kris, for being part of that family that has, from his perspective, have given Asgore nothing but grief, and yet he still seems to love more than the Flowers. Kris is a living demonstration of how his gifts and dedication to Asgore is secretly just as ‘useless’ as his fake made-up overpowered stats. Flowery is also well aware that Kris is the one that opened the Fountain in the first place, and that they seem to have some sort of hidden agenda that’s not beneficial to their dad, and Flowery still feels like Asgore will always choose them over him.

And, well, the resolution to the Flower Kingdom arc is a mixture of that (especially considering how much he was motivated into exploring the Dark Worlds out of a belief that it will magically make his family life ‘go back to normal’…. Literally pushing the Flowers away for the sake of that goal...)

But also, it’s kind of a matter that Asgore does absolutely love the Flowers, just not in the way they wanted to. The Flowers wanted Asgore to love being around them so much, he’d choose their fantasy even if it means their deaths, but Asgore loved the Flowers so much that he wanted them to live.

And in way, that’s also kind of a mirror to Kris’ situation with Susie. She definitely loves Kris, they just feel like she’d never love them the way they’d want her to.

And then, the way Pink interacts with the whole Dating Sim Pastiches adds in some wrinkles of important nuance. She’s the one notable occasion (well, outside of the other even bigger exception we’d get to in a moment) where the Gamification of Relationships is actually useful, both for the Player to progress and beat the Fight and for Pink’s Body and Ghost to solve their relationship issues. In a way, it’s kinda like saying “Well, of course, just because you can’t make anyone love you, that doesn’t mean Choices don’t matter at all in relationships, obviously. Making Choices of consideration and healthy communication is important.”

And even then, part of the resolution is Pink’s Ghost accepting her Body’s needs even if it means she won’t necessarily have her all for herself. She there’s still there’s this undercurrent of accepting that you can’t make people love you the way you want them too.

But, of course, the biggest and obvious exception of the concept of ‘You can’t make someone love you’ is, well, the same as what seems to be the biggest exception to the concept of ‘Your choices don’t matter’, and that’s the Weird Route, of course.

The Weird Route is the one exception to the idea that we and our choices can’t have a meaningful affect on Kris’ relationships, and it very intentionally uses a lot of the Tropes and language of, like, going on a Romance Route with a character in a Video Game, complete with a supposed ‘climax’ when said NPC decides to invite you to the big romantic Festival, and it also uses every storytelling tool in its disposal to showcase how it’s utterly creepy and manipulative and wrong.

It’s adding to the point of ‘you can’t make people love you’ with ‘also, even if you can make people love you, you probably fucking shouldn’t”.

But I suppose, in many ways it is still a case of one not being able to control how people love them…