Dort_Owl [they/them, any]
GamesImagine expecting the guy who wrote an mpreg Homestuck song to have writing that's 100% serious all the time when his games have never been that.
I know it's probably because I'm older than the average vocal Deltarune fan, but it's so funny how opposite I feel about Deltarune when I see takes like this.
I actually prefer the lighthearted parts over the darker parts. I am so, so burnt out on the barrage of self-serious writing flooding the media landscape at the moment. Not everything has to be some deep humorless mysterybox about trauma 100% of the time. I mean, yeah, the game obviously has some pretty serious story elements but if it was only that it would be god awful. The humor balances it out.
If anything, the world needs this 2010s tumblr ass silliness at the moment and I find it to be a breath of fresh air against how performatively mature and dark a lot of writing for stuff is at the moment.
I know it's probably because I'm older than the average vocal Deltarune fan, but it's so funny how opposite I feel about Deltarune when I see takes like this.
Yeah honestly same, this is a weird take for me too, I'm near the end of Chapter 5, probably in what is the last fight where I'm getting my ass handed to me yet again, but so far I loved it, specially how queer it is, it feels like a genuine celebration of queerness to have this released on Pride Month.
So far I found myself laughing or chuckling a lot during the chapter, loved the characters, the setting, the music, everything so far.
I think no matter how good the story is for any game, if you're smashing it out the day it releases in a massive 10 hour gaming session you're not going to appreciate any of it. I have no doubt these people will be backtracking on their opinions once its been a few weeks and all the new theories and fan art and whatever else is coming out
There is a massive rift in the Deltarune player base, between people who liked Undertale, find Deltarune fun and play a new chapter when it comes out, and those who obsess over the lore and theories. I'm in the second camp, I think about Deltarune all the time, but I see a lot of people so far divorced from the actual main story of the game. Like, people were disappointed because chapter 5 was about Asgore, which was already foreshadowed in chapter 4, instead of the obscure lore, like ROOTS, Friend and Gaster. It's a bit like fnaf in my opinion, the gap in knowledge and interest between the average player and the fans is so massive that the fans dont actually make sense to the average plager.
If chapter 5 was about Dess trying to bring about the prophecy because she got killed by the Tale of Hell, AKA Friend, the average person would have no fucking clue what's going on, because the game up till now has been another Kris, Susie and Ralsei.
the festival was very underwhelming
they should just be honest and say they hate lesbians
People don't understand that if the stories they love didn't have the levity that they do, the stories would be grimdark edgy boring garbage and would be completely forgettable.
Deltarune is a perfect example of a metamodernist game. The defining feature is its oscillation between serious and silly, or light and dark. I think this might be my favorite chapter gameplay-wise, and the amount of inside jokes was unbelievable. It almost feels like a letter back to the fans mirroring all of the theories and dumb memes that were created between chapters 3-4. It also included the darkest thing I’ve ever experienced in any media, so idk what the grim dark people are complaining about.
I think this might be my favorite chapter gameplay-wise
After finding the hidden boss, i fully agree.
It also included the darkest thing I’ve ever experienced in any media,
What do you mean with that?
I’ll start off with, I am a huge lore-head. My very favorite games are games like Myst, Disco Elysium, Elden Ring, etc. Games in which in order to understand the deeper story they require you to dig into every corner of the world. Using the Bartle taxonomy I would be an “Explorer”.
::: spoiler Spoilers for weird route / Chapters 2-5 theories Content warning: themes of death, self-harm, grooming?
Ok so… I’ll start with I’m glad I finished the whole of Chapter 5 before I did the weird route, or as it should be called now “Side-B”.
This is a game, it’s fiction, that being said one of the themes in Undertale and Deltarune is the suspension of disbelief (in my view) being a diegetic component to the game world. The very first thing you see when you first boot up the game is “Are we connected?” That connection is the suspension of disbelief but in a kind of joke/meta way.
It starts out fairly innocent, I mean, the whole snow grave thing Berdly was terrible but in a more fantasy/game like way. sure some darkeners got frozen, but maybe that actually a way to preserve them in case the roaring happens? It’s only until you get back to the light world that you learn the truth. But it’s not like he’s dead, right? You can kind of help by putting a hot water bottle on him and turning the heat up to make some small amends.
Then you force Kris to put the ring back on Noelle, you get a melodramatic spooky song play along with the thorns sprite. Like yes it’s dark but it’s not like you did anything too wrong, right? You have fun interaction where Susie asks what the both of you were talking about and it glitches the game because the device layer tried prompting both Kris and Noelle at the same time.
You broke Kris, he uses the last bit of strength to stay in bed but you just keep pushing the controller and he starts walking like usual, or does it? If you try to prompt anything you get a single dot in response, for everything. He is essentially the vessel at this point.
Shenanigans happen with Susie/Sans and you can only progress by going to the lake.
She stands on the edge of the lake her hair is reminiscent of the “Birth of Venus” by Sandro Botticelli. Noelle says that she feels like her life was happening around her instead of her living it. But it’s not Noelle, not anymore, I broke Noelle, taking someone who you learn in the other route was already in a dark/suicidal place, and used the characters just to sate your own curiosity? I tried to back out but it was too late, the prompts that say “No” do nothing. the music swells, it’s the same song that played whenever Ralsei gives a speech about the nature of their world but overlaid with the effect they used when he was crying in chapter 4 along with the drums from the Berdly fight all those years ago. And you are gripped and can’t let go, it’s almost like whatever you did is coming back to be forced back on you the player, you feel the loss of control via being locked in. And slowly you get dragged into the lake, and it only gets faster, you’re pressing the prompts at a breakneck pace hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe if you’re fast enough they won’t drown? It’s possible they are in “nowhere” now, but as we were told “… it's not a good idea to go nowhere with somebody else... Alone is better.” :::
I deleted all of my weird route saves shortly after. I’m glad I was able to get these thoughts out of my head. Maybe Gerson is right in a way: “Y’know, I’ve got a mighty hunch this ain’t the right way. ... Though, I do like goin’ the wrong way. You get better ideas that way. “ but are the ideas worth it?
Maybe the weird route thing where
::: spoiler spoiler It's implied Kris and Noelle painfully drown in the lake :::
Hm, fair, that was terrifying and fucked up.
The only thing im mad about is missing miss mizzle somehow and then hubert tells me im an evil doodoo head and i cant be fucked to replay chapter 4 for it.
Anyway I am the best 4th wheel in the lesbian and kris polycule
Justice for Berdly
I think the game actually goes to easy on the ex cop stalking his ex wive. People underestimate how threatening Asgore is because he is shown as a pathetic nice guy. I do not think that's bad, in fact there are a lot of stalkers like him out there. How he's designed and written captures well what happens when somebody can't let go, thinks he owns his ex and becomes more and more obsessive and encroaching. Actually a fairly spot-on take on a stalker who wasn't a domestic abuser before he lost it. I've been stalked by an ex as well and the way she would creep out of the woodwork on my way to work or leave unwanted gifts to me was exactly how Asgore acts towards Toriel. Well, except the part were Asgore weaponizes Kris and makes them deliver the flowers, that's just fucked up. Can't help but wonder what that will make them feel when they realize a few years down the line what their dad dragged them into there.
Now, here's the thing. My ex wasn't built like Asgore. Guy does landscaping, he is built like a lumberjack. Just look at those arms. Yes, DR characters aren't UT characters, Asgore Deltarune is not the boss that smashes the Mercy button with his trident, i get it. But still, he's a big, strong guy that Toriel (who cannot use magic in this setting to defend herself as in UT!) would be mostly powerless against if he decided that flowers don't cut it anymore and that he needs to be more hands-on. The whole situation must be horrifying for her.
And we do not get to see that to anywhere near the same amount we get to see Asgore's self justifications and self pity. We get one sentence of Asgore realizing he was wrong and one sentence that it's ok if she does not want to see him anymore, but we never hear from Toriel about this, it is all just implied and subtext whereas Asgore gets several sequences where Kris can watch him from the shadows monologing about his feelings. Toriel's side in this does not get enough spotlight and that informs how people react to the divorce arc. It's hardly surprising half of the fandom starts turning on Sans of all people because he dares to bone Asgore's ex.
I was talking on a more abstract level with regards to the way the berdley and asgore characters are treated, not that they do not do bad things. A lot of characters do bad things, berdley kidnaps a child, and susie is an attempted murderer.
The actions of a lot of people if examined objectively are wrong and worthy of condemnation, but they are all worthy of love... except Berdley, because he's the kind of nerd Toby Foc has a problem with. I think that's him dealing with some stuff, and I don't actually like it.
Berdley is not a major character though. Queen says in chapter 2 that theres nothing wrong with berdley besides being annoying and I think thats fine for his characterization.
He's immature and self centered because he's just a kid who craves constant external validation and will grow out of it. There doesnt need to be time spent on transforming his character because he isnt a source of conflict for the cast.
Also in ::: spoiler weird route The weird route he clearly sees something wrong with Noelle and tries to stop Kris/soul. :::
Also where does berdley kidnap a child? He (and Noelle) was told that everything in chapter 2 is a dream so it's strange to condemn him for choosing to larp as queens right hand man when he doesnt think there are real world consequences.
Also where is Susie an attempted murderer? If youre talking about the chapter 1 scene in the school then I disagree that Susie was ever seriously considering maiming Kris or any of her classmates.
Berdley makes repeated attempts to prevent the freeing of Nicole, and therefore is denying her her freedom as I recall it. Am I wrong there? am I remembering that wrong? It's been a while.
Susie tries to kill Kris with an axe in chapter 1 as I recall it.
Berdley is roleplaying in what he perceives as a dream world and then get come uppance for it by being controlled by Queen and you have to save him. Queen is pretty much always in control of Noelle after she gets captured.
Berdley also creates the mecha used to fight giga queen, so he is also key in saving Noelle as much as aiding in her capture.
The Susie and lancer fight against Kris and ralsei in chapter 1 can be lost and doesnt result in a game over. Susie attacking lancer is her realizing how her violence affects others and herself.
Given that he's a fucking creep who is constantly violating Noelle's boundaries while exploiting her work and taking all the credit for it, i think Berdley should just put up with being made fun of by girls. He would honestly deserve it if Susie would dropkick him in his smug redditor beak. But she doesn't do that, because by chapter 2 her lesson that she can't fix everything by ultraviolent crashouts is already sinking in. I'd say she shows a pretty decent amount of restraint towards the guy who treats her crush like absolute shit.
Women do not owe men love. We just don't. That already goes for better men than Berdley who aren't hitting on a bunch of super obvious lesbians in the most uncomfortable way possible.
Also, literally any other kid with significant screentime undergoes more character growth than him:
-
Susie learning to open up, be vulnerable and trust people
-
Noelle overcoming her phobia, learning to set boundaries and realizing she has agency
-
Ralsei learning to not be a textbook people pleaser who constantly puts others first and slowly coming to the breaking point where she understands that she is actually a girl
-
Kris ... ok well Kris will need a bit of time and central plot reveals about what the deal with their soul is until we get to them not being used as a stabby puppet anymore, any time we get a glimpse of what's going on behind that emo fringe it's obviously a setup for the main twist in the story. But that setup is there for reasons. It's a given it will pay off.
We can say in general that personal growth is front and center for kids in Deltarune. And Berdley gets the chance to grow like that as well, the gang talks to him about this and tries to make him see where he went wrong and he completely fails to learn anything worthwhile from it. He will probably realize he fucked up in a later chapter, but it's totally appropriate not to make it too easy for someone like that. Abusive men get let off lightly all the time. We do not owe them pity, we already do enough when we give them a chance to rehabilitate themselves and most of them fail as hard at that as Berdley. He represents a type of guy that actually exists in concerningly large numbers. It's no coincidence he is literally the old twitter icon. That he isn't some terminally online groyper already shows how sympathetic and kind his portrayal actually is, that genre of dude is usually much worse irl and Toby Fox is being really generous towards them with how Berdley is written. A guy like that does not deserve pity, i will spare that for the countless women every one of these jerks has wronged.
If Berdley can be a stand in for every nerd misogynist, can Susie be a stand in for every violent bully? Susie has traumatised people, and iirc she as of chapter 4 at least has made no efforts to make amends to anyone she has hurt (Except Kris) . Why is this okay but Berdley is not? We are even shown that these people are still hurt by Susie's actions.
All of these characters hurt people, and all of them learn that there are other ways to form connections... except Berdley. And as you say that is because Berdley represents someone with whom Toby Fox has personal beef, which is my exact complaint.
And if we are to speak of personal trauma. I suppose no, no one owes twitter misogynist forgiveness. But no one owes violent bullies that either. No one owes the kid who threatens social outcasts forgiveness either, and yet the narrative has endless patience for Susie. Which I think is good, I just don't like that that is selective.
can Susie be a stand in for every violent bully?
No, the unhoused black-coded butch lesbian who bullies people as a defense mechanism against everybody treating her like absolute dirt cannot be a standin for every violent bully. Most violent bullies are not hypermarginalized in the same way she is. Look at her material conditions and which forms of marginalization she faces that Berdley doesn't. If she is not scary and always ready to fight, if she shows weakness, odds are good that people will just do horrible things to her. Do you know what happens to unhoused queer girls? She's the way she is to literally survive and not be sex trafficked. You can't hold her and Berdley to the same standard because the world at large treats them in vastly different ways.
And to reiterate, we see a ton of personal growth from her. She changes her behavior, Berdley does not. She talks to Kris and Noelle about how she fucked up, Berdley does not. He instead doubles and tripples down on being a creep. And it's not as if everybody suddenly loves Susie. She gets treated with open hatred by every kid who has an opinion on her besides Kris (who she has made amends to), Noelle (who she has never bullied in the first place and who, in turn, always treated her with kindness), Ralsei and Lancer, who she has quickly formed close friendhsips with in spite of being off to a rocky start with both of them, and Berdley who immediately wants to date her as soon as he learns she is a gamer.
For real every single character does questionable things, usually for understandable reasons though.
Exactly. Susie and Berdley both hurt people as a way to cope with loneliness and form human connections, Ralsei is insecure and worried about being judged so is planning... something, the townspeople react to Susie's actions by ostracising her, Every darkner villain is also shown at their core to be sympathetic, but they are also very clearly hurting people.
To be fair I've hated Sans since Undertale because I've always found him to be a bit of a passive aggressive jerk.
Papyrus was the cooler bro
I actually agree. My point was that Toriel and him always got along well, that he makes her laugh, that he treats her ok, that she deserves a break from being a financially struggling single mother of two troubled kids.
TBC, i also do sympathize with Susie in that situation. By the end of ch5, it's confirmed that she was at least homeless, maybe outright unhoused and struggling with massive food insecurity before she moved into Castle Town and that was hinted at before. It's entirely possible that walking in on her surrogate mother figure and seeing her wasted brought back some extremely painful memories. But as somebody who was raised by a single mother, i also see the pressure Toriel is under and i get why she needs to blow off some steam.
Small correction: Shes not explicitly unhoused since you can take her to the apartments and she tells you thats not what she meant by taking her home. I think its important to note since it wouldn't drag down carol for having homeless kids in her town (Carol is a neglectful classist workaholic but she isn't at that level).
Shes most likely a foster kid since we get zero indication of any parents and I doubt they would be written into the game by now. Theres also theories that shes also part human (due to the bleeding) and that plays into her marginalization. The room in chapter 3s ralsei explainer is highly implied to be her room since its shabby and has a Godzilla poster that ties into "Susiezella" later in TV world.
No one in hometown is explicitly unhoused, though I think theres no community mediation and people are left to fend for themselves emotionally and financially if theres ever an issue in their family.
Toriel feeling safe to be drunk around Sans who just moved in is also evident that sans is not in competition with asgore he just is a better person.
The room in chapter 3s ralsei explainer is highly implied to be her room since its shabby and has a Godzilla poster that ties into "Susiezella" later in TV world.
Possible. I mean, it is also mentioned that she's moved around a lot. Maybe she is unsafe at home, or ran away to escape a violent environment, it is also implied she may not have a room of her own or a bed at the appartments. What we can say with fairly high certainty is that she is suffering from severe food insecurity. She literally laps up milk that Alphys leaves out for the cats, her idea of food includes toaster crumbs and pinecones, there's a reason she absolutely wolfs down anything that is put in front of her. Which may also contribute to her crashouts, she's literally hangry all the time.
Either way, she's as impoverished as a person in hometown can be.
Tobias fox when he says in a newsletter that he wants this chapter to come off as more upbeat and energetic before the grand climax (before the sun comes down both literally and narratively).
People just complain because they marathoned this chapter in a day or less just so they can participate in fandom circlejerk (I did too but I see that as something that as something that colors my experience rather than objectifies it)
GLUE!
YOUR DADS MUH BEST FRIEND
SORRY TO KEEP YOU WAITING
I love how UT/DR balance the serious stuff with the silly stuff. Chapter 4 has some of the darkest moments, the most epic character moments, and it ends on one of the silliest palette cleansers possible.
I haven't played it yet, but Toby CAN make less-funi sections, like Waterfall or everything past Hotland in UT.
Thing is, Deltarune suffers from being split into chapters instead of being a tight 7 hour adventure, which fucks with pacing, such as Chapter 3 feeling like filler. Understandable as a section taking only 1/7th of the game, before real shit goes down, but not so much when you waited a whole year.
In the context of the final "game" we just had a fairly serious chapter in 4, and going endgame mode halfway seems early. But some people can forget the larger scale after a break.
Chapter 3 was filler, but it was also incredibly funny and has some of the best fleshing out of what Darkners are and their motivations. Susie's loneliness and Ralseis lack of self worth are also set up nicely. I think if we just went from 2 to 4 the story would have been worse off for it.
ᴬˡˢᵒ ᴵ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ᵀᵉⁿⁿᵃ ˢᵒ ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ᵗᵃᵏᵉ ᶜʰᵃᵖᵗᵉʳ ³ ᵃʷᵃʸ ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵐᵉ
That's the point, it's a great bridge between chapters 2 and 4. But it wasn't a bridge between 2 and 4 at launch, it was the prelude to chapter 4. (It would have been way worse if we got JUST Ch3 on its own, though)
It's like if you took a year long break after The Ruins in Undertale, and come back to the bros' clowning in Snowdin
Oh I get what you mean now. I agree.
I will never not find it funny when someone goes on a hate-bender about how the thing they're a fan of personally betrayed them because it wasn't quite what they expected.
Flashbacks to the My Little Pony fandom and how some people would write entire novels complaining about how this or that episode permanently ruined the show's core / the worldbuilding / their favorite character.
It's wild but that's nerd culture for you. It's pretty funny that people seem to think the story should cater to their exact desires as if they're ordering a cheeseburger when the writer has been pretty clear from the start that the whole thing is story he's had in his head for a over a decade and is pretty much just doing what he wants because he can
Not everything has to be some deep humorless mysterybox about trauma 100% of the time.
No everything has to be serious at all times and we cannot find any humor in the absurdity of hell world.
The last time I smiled was on August 19th, 1991.
I wear a dirty ushanka at all times, do not shave, and only take cold sponge baths because hot running water is bourgeoisie decadence.
Every day at exactly noon I have the same meal of an expired Maoist MRE I store in a pit covered in old issues of a revolutionary newspaper.
I sleep in a bed made of flags from every failed revolution so that they are never forgotten.
In the evenings I stare at a picture of vodka by candlelight, but I do not allow myself to drink because there is nothing to celebrate.
Every local org has banned me after I attempted to split it by assassinating the leadership.
There is no plumbing in my house I shit in a brass bucket with a picture of Gonzalo and Deng french kissing in the bottom of it.
My house is actually an overturned T34 in an abandoned junkyard in Wisconsin.
I have a single friend in this world and it is a tapeworm named Bordiga that I met after ingesting spoiled borscht on 9/11 in the ruins of building 7 (I blew it up after finding that a nominally leftist NGO inside of it wasn’t sufficiently anti-imperialist, the attacks on the world trade center were a perfect revolutionary moment for me to enact direct praxis against liberalism).
My source of income is various MLM schemes in the former soviet bloc that have been running for so long no one remembers who I am, they just keep sending money.
I have not paid taxes since McGovern lost the Democratic nomination for president and my faith in electoralism died more brutally than my childhood dog after it got into an entire jar of tylenol.
I own 29 fully automatic rusted kalashnikovs and three crates of ammunition entirely incompatible with them or any other firearms I own.
My double PHD in marxist economics and 18th century Swiss philosophy (required to understand Engels) sits over the fireplace of my home, my fireplace is a salvaged drum from a 1950s washing machine that was recalled for locking children inside of it.
I chose that washing machine model on purpose because I am anti-natalist.
During the latest BLM protests I firebombed a Nikes outlet in the middle of a peaceful candlelit vigil.
William F Buckley and I wrote hatemail to one another for 47 years until my final letter gave him an aneurysm. The only water I drink is from puddles.
George Lucas and I dropped acid together during an MKULTRA southern baptist summer camp and he went on to write the movie Willow about our time together.
The best way to test whether an electrical wire is live is to drool on it and shrimp salad is racist. You can make an IED out of potassium and the instructions are online thanks to Timothy McVey, who was actually a committed antifascist communist slandered by the deep state as part of operation condor.
Every time a liberal files a restraining order against me, I carve a mark into the wall.
I am running out of walls.
When Amerika finally collapses I will be ready to lead the revolution.
I am very smart and people like being around me.
The last time I smiled was on December 25th, 2018
I wear a dirty blue shirt at all times, do not shave, and only take cold sponge baths because hot running water is lightner decadence.
Every day at exactly noon I have the same meal of an expired Darkburger I store in a pit covered in old issues of a missing girl poster.
I sleep in a bed made of darkness from every failed fountain so that they are never forgotten.
In the evenings I stare at a picture of Lancer by candlelight, but I do not allow myself to drink because there is nothing to celebrate.
Every local fountain has banned me after I attempted to split it by DOWNing the leadership.
There is no plumbing in my castle I shit in a stack of cards with a picture of Spamton and Tenna french kissing in the bottom of it.
My castle is actually an overturned barbie castle in an abandoned classroom in a school.
I have a single friend in this world and it is a card named Lancer that I met after ingesting another card on 9/11 in the ruins of the classroom next to me (I blew it up after finding that a white-furred darkner inside of it wasn’t sufficiently anti-lightner, the attacks on Castle Town were a perfect revolutionary moment for me to enact direct praxis against lightners).
My source of income is various MLM schemes in the former Castle Town that have been running for so long no one remembers who I am, they just keep sending money.
I have not paid taxes since Ralsei won the Democratic nomination for president and my faith in killing lightners died more brutally than my childhood dog after it got into an entire jar of tylenol.
I own 29 fully automatic rusted kalashnikovs and three crates of ammunition entirely incompatible with them or any other firearms I own.
My double PHD in Darkner economics and 18th century Swiss philosophy (required to understand Undertale) sits over the fireplace of my home, my fireplace is a wet card from a 1950s washing machine that was recalled for locking lightner children inside of it.
I chose that washing machine model on purpose because I am anti-lightner.
During the latest Darkner protests I stuck a fork in a Lightner classroom outlet in the middle of a peaceful candlelit vigil.
Ralsei and I wrote hatemail to one another for 47 years until my final letter gave him an aneurysm. The only water I drink is from puddles.
Tenna and I dropped acid together during an MKULTRA southern baptist summer camp and he went on to write the movie "Chapter 3" about our time together.
The best way to test whether an electrical wire is live is to drool on it and CD salad is racist. You can make an IED out of potassium and the instructions are online thanks to QU33N, who was actually a committed antifascist communist slandered by the deep state as part of operation lightner-redemption.
Every time a lightner files a restraining order against me, I carve a mark into the wall.
I am running out of walls.
When Amerika finally collapses I will be ready to lead the revolution.
I am very smart and people like being around me.
@Carl@hexbear.net since you couldnt be bothered
10/10
i wanna rewrite this with a bunch of deltarune stuff but i can't be bothered just imagine that i did and it was really funny
I feel the same way you do whenever I read Digital Circus takes online. Half the community completely and totally condemns Jax and I sincerely disagree with them, in fact I think half the people that totally condemn Jax have probably been bigger assholes just when they're feeling grumpy and tired and in a snappy bad mood.
Im sorry but every interaction Jax has with another person is her(? Never watched the movie but I think its revealed she's trans) antagonising or victimising someone. She is a mean bully, and saying "Oh but she has trauma" doesn't negate that she takes joy in other people's suffering.
Jax is a bad character in tbe sense that her presence makes the show worse, as she basically just exists to create conflict for no reason and then do puppy eyes when called on it, but she's also a bad person.
There's nothing there there.
You can't be a mean bully to literal cartoon characters whose eyeballs pop out of their heads when they get surprised. You can't be a mean bully when shooting someone with a literal gun does nothing but create a comedic explosion of cartoon body parts that are immediately find 5 minutes later.
It's very obvious within a single day of meeting Jax that there behaviour is a front for coping, and that it's fine because cartoon world is completely ridiculous and shouldn't be taken seriously anyway. Most of the things Jax does are no less serious than when a player intentionally kills their coop partner in Portal 2.
The shit that actually goes down to cause a real negative outcome with Ribbit always gets Jax villified as ::: spoiler spoiler "Jax killed her" but on paper Jax didn't even do anything that was strictly bad. One, throwing a ribbon on the floor. Two, calling them manipulative the next day to create distance. Three, no longer talking to them. These are pretty minor things that, unfortunately, lead to a very negative outcome because Ribbit ends up alone, but it's hardly correct to say Jax should hold responsibility for it when that's all they do on paper, cutting ties and creating distance with someone as a defence mechanism is not some huge "they bullied them into suicide" take like the internet makes it out to be, it's literally not what actually happened. :::
The takes about the show online are always something like "a show about how one nice person can make everyone's lives better" when Pomni's actions objectively get 2 people killed, accidentally yes but saying that Pomni caused it is actually significantly more accurate than saying Jax caused Ribbit's death. Jax didn't cause Ribbit's death, loneliness caused Ribbit's death and Jax simply wasn't capable of being emotionally available. That isn't Jax's fault.
Hard disagree with the internet on Jax. With what they know it's ridiculous to take the circus seriously.
Hard disagree with you there. Social ostracisation and bullying are still bad things, and within the show they are still presented as harming the feelings and being traumatising to the people who experience it.
Systematically sabotaging someone's self esteem and then going "But i'm funny" is bully shit, and it doesn't stop being that because the person has a funny face
Edit: And comparing it to team killing is odd both because this is explicitly what these people's lives are now, and also because cyberbullying is real bullying. Taking every available opportunity to denigrate someone and ruining whatever moment of happiness or pride they could have is still shitty even if you're doing it online.
Social ostracisation
::: spoiler spoiler
She isn't ostracising Ribbit. She distances herself from Ribbit, he does not go out of his way to try and make everyone else distanced from Ribbit, she ends up doing that to herself because she wants to be close to Jax.
I think there's much more to this Gangle stuff too because they've engaged with it intentionally, for 20 years they've been choosing to be Jax's partner in adventures so I don't know how much is really genuinely serious bullying and how much is a layered interaction of 20 years of bond. I think it should also be counted that there is back and forth there, the fast food adventure for example has complete role reversal with Gangle dominating Jax and doing the forced "training" hypno session. Not to mention that the end of the fast food episode shows Gangle being genuinely happier when she removes the fake mask and becomes free from the corporate masking, she's sincerely smiling while wearing the drama face, at least up until being unceremoniously hit by the truck. Then there's also the maid costume, which again is Gangle behaving in a back and forth way with Jax. It's hard to fully judge the depth of the "bullying" between two characters without accepting that they've been adventure partners for twenty years. I "bully" certain people I know all the time, that doesn't mean there's real bullying occurring though, there's a dynamic in the relationship that goes beyond a surface level "this is bullying" take. My phrasing is probably a mess here but my point is that in the 9 days of insight we get into these character's lives we see back and forth between them rather than anything completely one sided, with 20 years of interaction between them that exists and things being ok (Gangle not abstracting) I'm not really willing to say that it's just outright bullying rather than a unique dynamic they both fall into. :::
She is not distancing herself, she constantly pushes a person who shows her nothing but love, support and understanding away and that super visibly fucks that person up. This is part of a recurring pattern that she also shows towards Ragatha, Kaufmo, Gangle and Pomni, just to a lesser extend because these do not know she is trans. Yes, they are cartoon characters who survive whatever they are put through unless they are completely broken in the way that she completely breaks Ribbit and arguably Kaufmo, that does not change the fact that Jax openly revels in acts of pyhsical violence against them while the others do not.
You can argue that the absuse that Jax shows towards everybody in the Circus is a result of her internalized transmisogyny and that she only does that to keep repressing, but here's the catch: IRL Jax takes a completely different trajectory. She is in her boymoder phase and constantly hangs out at Zooble's queer bar. She will almost certainly come out in about a year or so whereas the Jax in the Circus just breaks after having hurt everybody around her over and over again.
The interesting point is not how to judge the actions of Circus Jax vs IRL Jax, it is obvious that one is "a huge piece of shit" (Gooseworx' literal assessment of Circus Jax' character in the tweet where she shows how Circus Jax could have looked post transition) and the other is troubled, but on the right track. What is interesting here is what makes the difference between these two instances of the same person.
She is not distancing herself, she constantly pushes a person who shows her nothing but love, support and understanding away and that super visibly fucks that person up.
No? She just puts up a wall between them. There's no "constantly pushing". All that occurs is Ribbit trying to reach out to Jax and Jax responding with the emotional wall, rejecting the attempt to reach out. There's no "constantly pushing", just a big emotional defence barrier placed between them from that point onwards.
Have you ever distanced yourself from anyone in your life then? Have you ever lashed out at someone when emotional?
If you do those two things and then someone later commits suicide do you think that it would be right for the internet to blame you for that person's death?
I don't. I'm not close to a lot of people that I used to be close to, some of them extremely close. Moving on from them in my life doesn't make me responsible for them dying after I do that. We do not have a moral responsibility to stop everyone we've ever met in our lives from being lonely after we decide that our connection with them is unhealthy. Especially in Jax's case where the entire emotional freakout they have with being trans could have caused them to abstract. Going into their shell was a defence mechanism, not an act of evil. It has a horrible outcome because Ribbit eventually snaps from being alone and wanting that connection, but that outcome isn't on Jax and I wouldn't put it on you if it happened to anyone in your past that you've ever distanced yourself from either.
I'm not even sure if Jax was an asshole before this happens because we don't really see much of anything before the Ribbit history. Jax becoming really mean and jaded seems to have occurred because of the trauma of this event with Ribbit and the self-blame and guilt that occurs. This makes me even more empathetic about it as a tragedy rather than something they should be blamed for.
I am not talking about ribbit. I have not watched the movie. I am talking about her interactions with Gangle, Kinger, Zooble, Ragatha and Pomni
Then I don't know what you're talking about because I don't see any specific ostracisation occur with any of those people. Can you be more specific?
I mean I don't know what to tell you. Her treatment of Gangle is such obvious bullying that she is repeatedly called out on it by Zooble. Like that's the focal point of Zooble's arc.
She doesn't have a single interaction with Gangle that isn't Jax bullying Gangle of which I can think. Except like when Gangle is made middle manager of the fast food place??
Oh god don't get me started on TADC. The show who's message is about being empathetic towards mental issues and all its fans can do is argue over which characters are totally unforgivable when the ugly side of dealing with those issues is shown
This is definitely part of what I mean. Anyone should immediately recognise Jax is mostly just coping with the situation. It's pretty easy to let the cartoon behaviour wash off when there are literally no physical consequences for cartoon antics. If you can't die from being shot with a gun or having an anvil or piano dropped on your head (literal cartoon rules) then none of anything physical actually matters and that's all just taking part in a cartoon as methods of relieving stress and coping with the situation.
There are some real events that lead to bad things with Ribbit but on paper Jax doesn't actually do anything that bad. ::: spoiler spoiler Throwing a ribbon, calling someone manipulative and then creating distance between the two of them are not hugely horrible things on paper. In fact, most people have distanced themselves from other people at some point in their lives over rifts in a relationship (or self sabotage like Jax), it's an incredibly common thing to do. It leads to horrible outcomes because she ends up lonely. But distancing yourself from someone is not a huge crime.
Also this take is pretty hot but Pomni gets 2 people killed because she never takes seriously the fact that fucking with the world itself that everyone has lived in for 20-30 years could be dangerous and affect the whole balance of things that works. This isn't even inaccurate, Pomni's insistence on meddling with the world causes 2 people to die. Without the meddling, 2 people would definitely be alive. I'm not saying that she intended that because she didn't, but the only deaths in the show that can genuinely be attributed to someone's actions are Caine and Jax, accidental they are but they definitely are caused by her. :::
ANYWAY great show, terrible internet community. Disagree with them very often.
You should check our The Locked Tomb and Project Hail Mary. Feel like both of them deal with heavy subjects with that type of humor. Hell to my under standing The locked tomb spun off from that stuff.
I have been meaning to check those out actually. Thanks
Def check out the audio books for the tomb series. The person is basically a voice actor and is honestly one of the best audio readings I've heard.
