thinking about how the extra area added on to a pacifist run of undertale, the true lab, is about alphys's past mistakes. how it ends with the story reaffirming that, despite the pain she's caused, the thing that matters is that she has now made the choice to do the right thing. she's still worthy of her friends' love.
thinking about how undertale doesn't expect the player to get a pacifist ending for the first time. how it's more likely than not that the player will kill toriel the first time they battle her, how lots of players don't initially figure out how to end undyne's fight without killing her, etc. what it expects — not even expects, really, but hopes — is that the player, if they care enough, will use their canonically acknowledged power over time to make up for those mistakes.
no matter how many neutral runs a player has done before committing to the pacifist run, the thing that matters to the characters, to the story, is that you've chosen, now, to do the right thing.
compared to alphys, the player honestly gets off lightly, in that you're the only one (other than flowey) who really remembers any harm you might have caused. and any direct guilting the game could have done about it is long past at this point.
instead, as undertale often does, it makes its point via parallels: alphys caused harm, and she knows it. she has committed to being better. in doing so, she has unlocked for herself a better ending to her story. and she deserves it. she's forgiven.
those structural narrative parallels are all over undertale, if you know where to look. and that's one of the things that makes it so fuckin' good.
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"What the fuck did you do?"
Eddie wasn't expecting hostility when he answered Jeff's phone call, his best friend's usual calm demeanor replaced with open annoyance. And yeah, okay, the annoyance itself wasn’t new, but Eddie doesn’t think he’s actually done anything recently to earn it.
"Well-"
"Actually, no. I'll tell you what you did. You retweeted photos of Steve Harrington - internationally beloved heartthrob actor Steve Harrington - along with the caption 'not to sound like a subby slut but GOD I would be his puppy baby boy in a heartbeat'. So I guess the better question is, what the fuck were you thinking, Eddie?"
Eddie's jaw clicks shut because- yeah, he had done that. Had seen those photos of Steve smoking circling the internet and spent god knows how long just staring at them, had curbed the desire to shove his hand down his pants by posting a single thirst tweet about it.
“I was thinking, Jeff, that I'm allowed to post whatever I want to my private fucking twitter, man. I mean it's a free country, isn't a guy allowed to make a horny tweet about a sexy man every now and then?”
“You are, when you actually post it to your private account and not our award winning band's main account.”
No. Oh no. There's no way Eddie actually-
He rips his phone away from his face to open twitter, and realizes two things simultaneously. One, Jeff is right, he had posted it to the band's account. Not on his private, locked, personal account, but on the account that's actually open and free for literally anyone on earth to look at.
The second thing he realizes is that their notifications are currently flooded with responses to Eddie's tweet, somehow racking up into the thousands in the few hours it's been since.
Jesus Christ.
“Eddie?”
The metalhead jerks back into the moment and put Jeff on speaker so he can scroll through the horde of replies, says “Fuck, I fucked up. Are we gonna have to do damage control on this?”
In the mess is a reply from Gareth's own personal account: @ corrodededdie stop tweeting from the band account challenge 🙄🙄🙄
”Maybe. There hasn't been any type of response from Harrington or his people, but they might ask us to take it down if it blows up too much.“
Eddie hums, thinking they might be too little, too late about it blowing up too much, and flips over to his main account so he can reply to Gareth's little jab appropriately. He isn't surprised to see that he has a couple of new messages, probably from other people wondering just what the fuck Eddie was thinking, but when he goes to check them-
He's never been happier that he turned on messages from followers only, because then he would have missed this, missed Steve Harrington's little profile picture beaming up at him from the screen of his phone, along with a new message request.
”Jeff, I gotta go,” he says, not even realizing he's cut the other man off.
“Eddie, what-
”Harrington messaged me. I'll call you back.“
Eddie doesn't wait for a response as he hangs up on Jeff, and his hands definitely aren't shaking as he opens the message from Steve. And listen- Eddie is a fan of the guy, that much should be obvious.
Steve had grown in popularity around the same time Corroded Coffin had; he’d gotten some part in a drama film that had skyrocketed him into stardom, and Eddie fell in love the moment he saw that gorgeous face on the silver screen for the first time. He's never had a chance to interact with the guy, has been in the same place a few times but always missed him, like ships passing in the night, but Eddie's been fine with pining from afar, just like every other person on the planet that's even remotely attracted to men.
Besides, even with how popular Corroded Coffin has gotten over the years - a couple of Grammy’s here, a dozen chart topping metal songs there - Eddie doesn’t expect Steve to just. Know who Eddie is.
With all of this in mind, Eddie is expecting some kind of semi-casual request to take the tweet down, that it's not a good look for his image-
Anything other than what Steve actually sent.
'If you're puppy baby boy, does that make me Master? Or Daddy?'
And Eddie-
Eddie slides down, sinks into his couch cushion as all of the blood in his body suddenly shifts, rushing to fill his dick like it's a fucking race. The phone almost slips out of his hand and he fumbles it briefly before taking a deep breath.
Is Steve serious? He wouldn't send that if he wasn't serious, right?
This could be it, could be Eddie's one chance to impress Steve, to get his foot in the door of Steve's interest. He bites his lip and types out a reply, something quick that he sends before he can change his mind.
‘I’m open to either, actually. Do you have a preference, sir?’
He doesn’t expect the typing indicator to come up immediately, and just knowing that Steve is somewhere right now, typing out a response to Eddie, is enough to have him nearly vibrating in his seat.
‘I’m partial to Daddy, myself.’
Fuck fuck fuck.
Eddie takes a breath, tries to think of a response that isn’t just ‘Please, Daddy, can I sit on your massive dick that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since that one indie film you did that just had all of your junk out in the open?’
Steve saves him by sending another message.
‘But maybe we could start with Steve, and possibly dinner? Though I’d be happy to see where things go after that.’
He- What-
Eddie must have stopped breathing, because the next time he takes a breath his lungs burn, his mid races because there’s no way Eddie’s long term celebrity crush just asked him on a date. He sits there long enough that the screen goes dark and he scrambles to turn it back on, sees the message still there, real and unchanged.
There’s no way he can say no to this, to Steve, and his hands shake as he types out a response.
‘Dinner would be great. Just name the time and place, Daddy.’
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Help a family of disabled trans folks get some groceries?
*Long-suffering sigh.* I've been putting off making this post as long as humanly possible, but we are once again out of money and nearly out of food.
The free food distribution events in town don't always have things that meet my family's dietary needs (we have sensitivities, allergies, and one of us keeps kosher). We aren't able to get food stamps (yes, we try regularly). We have some shelf-stable basics (and by that I mean sacks of rice, because it's the only food people ever seem to want to buy for poor people), but we don't have any of our frozen safe-foods, any dairy, any meat, any fruits or veggies, any of the stuff that requires refrigeration. We also still have to worry about things like medications, pet food, putting gas in the car, and various other life expenses.
I say all of this because every time I have to make a begging post, people try to give advice instead of aid. I promise y'all, we've exhausted our options. Yes, I know about the subreddits, yes I know about free food groups, yes I have made Amazon grocery lists in the past for shelf-stable needs, yes I know about federal aid options. I have explored them. My wife works full-time and all four of us have side-hustles, and it's not enough. We still need cash.
If you've read this far and are able/willing to help out, here are my family's pay links. If you can't help, even a reblog does a lot. <3
PayPal: paypal.me/chaosqueer
Venmo: @ chaosqueer
CashApp: $chaosqueer
Household Amazon Wishlist
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YOU!! I DONT KNOW IF PEOPLE SEND ASKS ABOUT HEARTLESS ANYMORE BUT I RECENTLY RESURFACED BACK TO IT AND I JUST *EXPLOSION SOUNDS* /pos
BRO I cannot express to you how much I think about Doppel and Glass and their character concepts and their dynamic and just generally the story. Man, I don't know what it is about those two, but like...AJHSJHD!!
I really like thinking about angst and ways that you can make both of them complex and stuff, you know, separating from just "haha silly comic relief guys!" I like thinking about them and how their not the same, and how they're both technically separate beings kinda? And how they're different and stuff and AA-
ALSO I love they're character design man? Like, it looks...crunchy. that's probably a bad way to put it, but they feel like those sensory videos where people take wax and slime and crush it all up and its really satisfying and crunchy.
AUGH they're all so awesome and I love love LOVE thinking about Heartless as a story and how it would play out and stuff. Keep up the good work and stuff, sorry for word bombing you I just suddenly got a lot of feelings and had to get it out somewhere
sgssgfjsgh thank u so much for taking the time to send this ask dude!
Seeing any love for the Heartless gang always sparks more joy than I can convey, no matter when -- but ur timing is uncanny haha, these two have been on my mind a lot lately too! (Especially since the new Madds Buckley song dropped 'cause it's just sO--- 👀😩🤌)
I'm not very articulate rn but pls take this doodle as a big thank u for the encouragement and for sharing ur thoughts about 'em! 🪞💜
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