personal vendetta aganst anime school uniforms

— Ruth Hubbard, “The Political Nature of ‘Human Nature’“ (via gothhabiba)

I’m not the first person to talk about how rouxls shares some weird traits with the secret bosses but something I haven’t seen anyone mention is that while he doesn’t have his own unique beep speech (technically he does but it’s unused) in his chapter 2 theme you can hear him say “hey” at the end, making him the only non-secret-boss to (kind of) have a voice. and there’s other weird fourth-wall-breaky stuff surrounding him too. he can teleport, something sans is implied to do in undertale when he takes us through “shortcuts”, clip through ceilings and walls, and when you check on him while he’s in your inventory he’s aware that the textbox is cutting him off

[ID: Rouxls’s check dialogue when he’s in your inventory. He is saying “Thou gazeth upon a man most handsometh. This daringest genius, adoreth beyond all hey”. End ID] and of course this stuff is all there to be funny rouxls is a comedic character but just something to think about

oh yeah yknow what else is weird? he’s like the only guy who isn’t content being in castle town?? and he has this desire to be important but specifically he wants to be second in command to the bad guy??? why???

This is one of Kris’s actions that’s outside our control: they always kneel to protect him during this scene, even in the face of King’s bullets.

They also haul ass to find Ralsei to heal Lancer as soon as Susie suggests it (the running is, again, outside our control)

And if you try to throw away the Lancer/Rouxls cards, Kris will always fumble and catch them instead.

They don’t do this with the Ball of Junk, even though they desperately want to keep it to the point of their hand shaking when dropping it. But they’ll never let you discard the cards.

Bonus:

shoutout to krerdly shippers for inventing objectively the funniest ship in the extended toby fox cinematic universe, Kris having a fail boyfriend that they love So, So Much is absolutely perfect

bonus Kris rewatching their new favorite video for the 87th time within the hour:

i've talked about how he has two jobs and the immense amount of stress he has to be under, and i mentioned that his home life probably isn't great. i didn't really expand on it because frankly, the fact that he feels the need to hold two jobs at his age says plenty. but to look at it a bit more...

he says everyone always forgot him when he was younger. no one remembered his name. so um... who was taking care of him? obviously you could say "well he was clearly just talking about other kids his age" and write this off pretty quickly, but ... no, he wasn't. i say this because for one, he's very well-spoken; he speaks clearly and firmly, and never leaves room for confusion or that sort of ambiguity. he said what he said. no one remembered his name.

second, that spelling bee was the first time in his life that he was noticed and praised, nooooot by other kids his age, but by adults. the audience of a spelling bee is going to primarily be composed of parents and faculty, not so much other children. besides, what kind of child audience would respond to the winner of a spelling bee Like That akfjdngldj? anyway. this dumb little spelling bee was the turning point in berdly's life. i don't think being noticed by other kids his age was the issue. i think he was sincerely neglected. that was the point of the bluebird of misfortune sequence.

i don't like making conclusions like this about characters so young unless that's just. what's on the table. i'd looooove to say "no he just struggled with making friends but he definitely had parents/caretakers who remembered he existed" and leave it at that but i can't and it's because of queen actually.

i'm not the first person to point this out, but if queen parallels noelle's mother, who's to say she doesn't parallel Something for berdly too? ralsei keeps telling us that darkners only exist to assist lightners, and from what we've seen so far, the dark worlds really do mold themselves around the lightners who step inside... (i dont like this and i think ralsei's Wrong but in a cosmic-universe-story sort of sense. he's probably right.) since they were the first ones there, i think berdly and noelle (mostly noelle) are really important to how cyber world has currently arranged itself. and queen is likely the first darkner either of them met, so it only makes sense that she represents something major for both of them.

queen is unequivocally a mother figure. that's just a core part of her personality. she's a mom. sooooo we have this parental figure who, when it comes to berdly.......

cannot remember his name.

who avoids him and ignores him when she cannot reasonably avoid him.

isn't that interesting? and *gestures at her wine glass of battery acid* i don't think she's shown Drinking and drinking a lot for simple comedic reasons. that could be another parallel to noelle's mother but i kind of doubt it. just considering what we know about her so far. i think it says something more about berdly's um, parents? than noelle's.

despite aaaaaaalllllll this. berdly kinda insta-clings to queen. he desperately seeks her approval and just... attention. but he's not stupid. in the alley when he and kris first form trucies, he knows queen is avoiding him - we can see this from his overworld sprites and facial expressions. he's just not going to admit it out loud, especially not in front of kris. he knows that noelle is the important one here, that once again, he really doesn't matter. he'll always just be a forgettable little bluebird.

but wouldn't it be nice? if he could do something really spectacular? maybe then queen will pay attention to him. he might learn what it's like to have an adoring parent.