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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 8 months

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Blind Offer 2

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon, manipulation, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: After a leak causes you to evacuate your apartment, your landlord offers a vacant unit that’s too good to be true. (short!plus!reader)

Character: Steve Rogers, additional characters to come

Note: This is one of my Corrupt-A-Wish requests but I won’t reveal which one right away because it’ll be part of the plot!

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me <3

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)

Love you like I love turning intended one shots into series. Take care. 💖

You come out of work exhausted. The back to school crowd is still in full effect and infringing on your stocking time. Rather than pop your earbud in and lose yourself in barcodes and inventory counts, you more often found yourself searching out a salesman or running to the back to grab a device yourself.

You yawn into the crook of your elbow, feet carrying you out of routine rather than any coherent thought. There’s a flash of headlights as you pass a car idling along the pick up area and you slow down as you squint at the tinted windshield. The interior bulb flicks on and Steve leans forward, giving you a look through the glass as if you should be expecting him.

You slow down and approach the driver’s side as he rolls down the window. You lean in and give a sheepish smile, “uh, I…”

“Didn’t text?” He finishes your sentence, “I figured you were busy.”

“Oh, well, you didn’t–”

“Have to come get you. Yeah, I figured you’d say that again. Really, it’s kind of selfish on my part. Thinking of you waiting in the dark alone, it’s kind of my fault you even have to so I can at least give you a lift.”

“That’s… nice of you but tomorrow, I can catch a bus.”

“If you insist,” he shrugs, “I won’t twist your arm with my kindness.”

You laugh softly, unsure of his humour. It’s more akin to passive aggression. As if even thinking of passing up his offer is an insult. Wouldn’t it be worse to use him for free rides? You’re already getting to stay in a property well above your lease value.

“You gonna get in?” He prompts.

“Yeah, sure, sorry, I–”

“Hey, thanks for the help on that Lenovo,” Remo calls as he walks out the front doors, shooting you a three finger wave, “not bad for a warehouse jockey.”

“No problem. Have a good night,” you wave back.

You skirt around the hood of the car and grab the door handle. It snaps back and you wait until the locks clack back loudly. You get in and gently shut the door. You unreel the seat belt as Steve adjusts his rearview.

“You got a lot of friends at work?” He asks as he shifts gear, resting his toe lightly on the gas.

“Eh, I guess,” you lean your arm on the door, “busy day. Did a lot of running around.”

“Huh, yeah, maybe I should stop in tomorrow. Need some stuff for a few units. Got a security cam I need to replace and– you got appliances, don’t you?” He rambles over the steering wheel.

“Yeah, uh, I think. Mostly to order,” you rest your cheek against your knuckles and watch how you pass in and out of the yellow cones cast by streetlights. “I guess you’re still looking for a new washer then?”

“Well, they don’t make the same model anymore. Space is pretty compact which means I need something with the same dimensions. I’m shopping around,” He taps his fingers on the wheel, “I’ll figure it out.”

You nod and give a hum. No use worrying too much about it. You only rent the place, it’s really not your problem to think about the washer. He did say it already had issues before you.

“So, how do you like the place?” He asks abruptly.

“Huh, oh, yeah, it’s very nice. Big,” you answer nervously.

“Yeah, that one’ll go for a lot. A few showings but no bites yet. Probably won’t get anything until I can get you back to your place, heh,” he says the last part casually as if it isn’t directly aimed at you.

“Mmm, um, then I hope you find a washer soon,” you pull your arm away from the door and sit back in the seat. “I hate to be in the way.”

“In the way? I’m the landlord, I knew what I was getting into,” he assures you lightly, though it does little to assuage your doubts. “Oh, and since you didn’t really get a chance, I got a few groceries and left them at the place. Just to get you by.”

“You– Oh, gosh, how much do I owe you?”

“Consider us even. You’ve been pretty cooperative with all this back and forth, I’m the one who owes you.”

“Well, I don’t mind paying for my food–”

“Really, sweetheart, do you always react so adversely to kindness?”

“What? I’m not– no.”

“I’m being nice. I can tell you, there’s not a lot of landlords out there like me. I actually enjoy helping my tenants…” he turns onto a dark street and you shiver. You’ve never been down this way but you don’t live on this side of town. “I always said, whatever you need, just ask.”

“Sure, um, thanks,” you murmur.

He turns back onto a lit avenue as a glint of light flickers over him and draws your eyes. You catch him peeking at you, his blue eye reflecting the flash before he can look back at the road ahead. You shiver and cross your arms. It didn’t seem like he was looking at your face.

“Fresh sheets on the bed too. Hope you don’t mind, I did a once over when you were gone. Just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Quick vacuum and all that.”

“It’s your place,” you say, “I’ll be sure to leave it how I found it.”

He inhales, deep enough for you to hear, “I know. You’re not a troublemaker, are you?”

You swallow and furrow your brow at the dashboard. Again, it’s not just his words but his vague tone. You don’t understand the question.

“Good girl like you always pays her rent on time,” he praises, “I can tell you, that’s not always the case.”

You let out a breath, “oh, aha, yeah, well, scheduled payments… technology, right?”

“Mhmm,” he sucks his teeth and lets his arm rest on the console between the seats, ”it’s so easy to be lazy these days.”

🖤

Steve walks you up to the front door. Just in case you can’t get the code right, he claims. You get it on the first try and thank him. Again. He lingers, as if reluctant to leave you, as if he’s expecting to come inside with you. Almost as if you should invite him in.

You say good night and lock the door behind you. You take your time untying your black sneakers and hang your hoodie on the coat rack. When you dare to peek out the window, he’s only just striding down the path back to his car.

It’s slightly creepy but then you feel guilty, thinking maybe you were being rude not asking him in for a tea or something. You don’t know. This whole situation is awkward as hell.

You wander into the kitchen, your stomach growling from the measly microwave dinner you ate on your break. Steve’s ‘small shop’ is much more generous than you expect. Overdoing it seems to be a trait of his.

You read the side of the organic milk in the curved bottle. You know that it costs three times as much as your usual carton of skim. And the greek yogurt, definitely expensive. All brand names, none of the generic discount bin goodies you thrive on.

You let the fridge close as you take out the boxed butternut squash soup. Fancy, you think as you peruse the label. Gourmet, so it claims. You put some in a small pot and heat it up on the gas burner. As you do, you thumb through your phone, pacing around between stirring the thick orange puree.

You eat rich soup with a brioche bun from the market bag. You’re thankful now Steve didn’t ask for compensation, you’re not sure you could foot that bill. And to think, after him praising your timely payments, you would default on a grocery receipt.

You shut off the lights downstairs and flip on the sconce above the staircase and follow it up to the second floor. You come down the hall with a yawn, the bedroom door open and waiting for you. Your duffel is on the dresser where you left it.

You sift around for a loose tee shirt to sleep in and pull out your toiletry bag. You go into the bathroom and change before unzipping the pouch. You take out your cleanser and wash your face over the sink. You pause as you drop the bottle through the open mouth of the blush coloured bag, a fuchsia shape poking out from under your mouthwash.

You reach in and retrieve your bullet vibrator. What the hell? You definitely don’t remember packing that in your hasty evacuation. Besides, why would you put it in there? You shake your head and drop it back to the bottom.

You pat your face dry and take out your tweezers, cleaning up your brows and a few vagrant hairs along your chin. You put them away then ply on your night cream, making a face at yourself as you brush your teeth. You flip the switch off and use the light on your phone to find your way to bed.

You lay awake for almost an hour. You’ve never been good at sleeping in strange places. The house feels so empty it’s eerie. Your ears are pricked for any noise but there isn’t much. The walls are so thick, you don’t even hear the rustling of the tree that casts a shadow through the window or the chirp of crickets. Despite its luxury, the house is desolate.

Your eyelids start to itch and you feel your muscles ease. You start to drift down, a slow swirling descent that tingles in your sockets. That shell starts to encase you, little by little, paralysing you as it drags you down.

BANG!

It isn’t loud but sudden. The dull noise jars you up, chasing away the advance of your fatigue. You look around, heart beating wildly, searching for the source. It sounded close but you can’t be sure. It could’ve been all in your mind as you tiptoed the threshold of your unconscious.

You bounce to the edge of the bed and stand, wobbling through the dark until you find the switch by the door. The light shines out around you as you stop in the doorway, glancing trepidatiously towards the stairs. You near the top and turn on the next light, a cautious progress through the spacious house.

You go down each step, one at a time, and when you get to the bottom, you illuminate the entryway too, the front room, and finally the kitchen. There’s nothing there. You didn’t really expect to find anything. The noise felt much closer to the bedroom.

You return to the second floor, shutting off the lights along the way, and you peer down the hallway. You didn’t check up here. You pad along the soft runner rug and peek into the bathroom before you approach the closed door of the study.

You touch the handle and a zing of fear courses through you. You should just go back to bed. You don’t need to know.

You turn it and inch inside, snaking your other hand in to flick on the lights. The same. Nothing there. You shut the door and proceed to the second bedroom, the door is slightly ajar so you kick it open with your foot and let the light in the hallway pour in. Empty.

You’re imagining things. It’s being in this strange house. Whenever you stayed the night at your grandmother’s it was the same thing. If you weren’t awake, waiting for the creaks of the house to prove something sinister, you were trapped in shallow night terrors that felt too real.

You return to the bedroom. You don’t turn off the light right away. You grab your charger and plug in your phone, opening up the white noise app you never used. You scroll through the choices with their dreamy names; serenity, fantasy, rejuvenation…

Your thumb hovers over the start button as you hear something else. Muffled and hollow. You frown, you can’t tell if it’s real or your mind playing tricks. There’s such a surreal distant effect to the scream that you can’t be sure it’s not some stray cat yowling in the street. The silence that ensues feeds your doubt. You’re looking for peculiarities, that’s all.

You press play on the soothing wishing noises and set your phone on the night table. You get up to shut off the lights and quickly nestle into bed, pulling a pillow over your head to block out the room. You just need to make it through the first night.

🖤

The next day, you leave earlier than usual. The change in your bus route and prospect of a narrow transfer from one bus to the next, has you anxious. Before you leave, you double check that you have your bus pass and some spare change just in case. You hook your bag around your shoulder, the security system announcing your exit; ‘front door open’.

You pull the door shut and hit the lock icon on the pad. You test the handle to make sure it’s closed and for a moment, you’re disoriented as you hear the door unlock but it doesn’t budge. You frown and look up as a shadow emerges from the unit next to yours. It wasn’t your door.

A man with long brown hair poking out from under a ball cap turns to punch in his code before locking it. The pad flashes red confirming the door is secured. He scowls at the handle as he drops his arm straight, his hand balling to a fist as he mutters.

“Morning,” you greet, the typical squeaky greeting you give to your neighbours.

He winces and turns as he looks up at you. You must’ve surprised him. You give an apologetic wave and tight-lipped smile. His blue eyes shock you, bold but bright in his chiseled face. He tilts his head slightly before he spins without response and stalks away. You watch his broad shoulders as he marches across the street without looking.

Not the friendliest of neighbours but the first one you’ve encountered. It’s a little less offputting knowing you’re not the only one around. You let out a long breath and make your way down the paved pathway to the sidewalk. You peek back at the unit next door. The curtains are drawn and the place looks dark even at the peak of day.

You shrug it off. You should only be there for a couple more days. That’s it. That’s all you have to get through.

#steve rogers #dark steve rogers #dark!steve rogers #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #au #series #multifandom #blind offer #mcu #marvel #captain america #avengers

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gremoria411 · 2 months

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How to get into Gundam

Because fuck it, I was gonna do one of these sooner or later anyway.

So you want to know what this Gundam thing’s about, maybe you like the mecha design, maybe you caught part of an episode one time and want to catch up, or maybe you saw a nice piece of Chamuro fanart and want to go to the source.

But there’s so many shows and timelines that it can be quite daunting on first look, so this guide is intended to give a rough overview.

I would however like to stress two four things beforehand however:

This guide is not intended as “The One True Way” or anything. There’s no harm it coming into it a different way, and these are only my own opinions.

There’s nothing stopping you from just watching one show and leaving it there. You don’t have to watch every single show going, even I’ve only seen most of these, not all. Gundam typically has variations on similar themes - it’s very nice watching multiple shows because they complement one another, but it’s not necessarily required.

I am very much an insider looking out here, so let me know if there’s any details I’ve missed.

I’m not gonna recommend these on a “if you like X, then watch Y basis”, mostly because I don’t personally find genre recommendations helpful, so I’d recommend picking based on promotional material (vibes, if you will).

I’ll be using this chart, supplied by the excellent@l-crimson-l, to illustrate everything.

Gundam as a whole can principally be divided into three sections: Universal Century (or UC), the Alternate Universes (AU’s) and the Build Series.

The AU’s are below the light blue line, near the bottom of the Chart, the Build Series is within the bright green line at the top-right corner of the chart and UC is the big line in the middle. We’ll talk about each of them individually.

The AU’s

The Alternate Universes were conceived as a way to get away from the continuity-heavy nature of Universal Century and provide an easy jumping-on point for new fans. The AU’s are standalone and require no prior knowledge, and are thus an excellent place to start. Honestly, I’d recommend quickly searching some promotional materials (like posters) and just going with the one you find most appealing based on that. They are (in production order):

Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994)

New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (1995)

After War Gundam X (1996)

Turn A Gundam (1999)

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (2002)

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (2007)

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE (2011)

Gundam: Reconguista in G (2014)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans (2015)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (2022)

There’s side series and movies and other things besides, but these are the mainline shows, if you will. I have specific notes on a few of them:

Witch From Mercury - It’s of a shorter length than is usual for mainline shows, so consequently it’s a much smaller time investment than the others.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam - While undeniably rad as hell, I would recommend watching another AU first. G Gundam differs from its stablemates in a few key areas, and I find it helps to have a contrast to fully appreciate those differences.

Gundam AGE - is probably the only one I wouldn’t recommend. I didn’t like the art style and the technical explanations just got on my nerves, so I stopped watching.

Turn A and G-Reconguista are technically part of UC as well, but it’s not really crucial information so don’t feel like you have to watch UC first (I’m only including this detail for completionism).

I’ve found all the AU’s I’ve seen to be pretty good, so I’d say that which one you start with really just comes down to personal taste.

The Build Series

Is just kind of doing its own thing. The Build series is basically Buy Our Toys: the series. It’s got a far lighter tone, and I’ve had cause to compare it to pokemon prior. It’s also chock full of references and in-jokes to the other series.

Build Fighters and Build Fighters Try are the ones I’d recommend - they’ve got actual stakes and the fight scenes are really good.

Build Divers and Build Divers Re:rise I can’t recommend - I just find Build Divers aggressively boring. Build Divers Re:Rise is just okay - neither standout good or particularly bad. Its main flaw is that it’s a sequel to Build Divers.

The OVA’s are pretty much bad across the board - I’d particularly recommend avoiding Gundam Build Metaverse.

Universal Century

Universal Century is the big main timeline of Gundam, and is the timeline the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979 takes place in. There’s a tendency among certain fans to place UC as the one-above-all of Gundam, but I wouldn’t really go that far. It’s all pretty good, but I wouldnt really say one timeline is better than another (save personal preference, anyway).

Because UC is so big, it can be subdivided a couple times. The primary division is “Mainline” UC versus everything else. Basically there’s four-five shows in Universal Century from which everything else flows. As long as you know roughly what happens in these shows, then you can watch basically anything else in UC and have a good idea of what’s going on. These are (in order):

Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) - sometimes called Mobile Suit Gundam 0079.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985)

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (1986)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988)

With Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (2010) as a nominal fifth (honestly I feel like you could argue either way).

The rest of the shows are:

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989 Three-Episode OVA)

Mobile Suit Gundam F91 (1991 Movie)

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1991 Thirteen-episode OVA)

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (1993)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1999 Twelve-episode OVA)

G-Saviour (2000 Live Action Movie) - nobody ever talks about or acknowledges this one, it’s just here for completionism.

Mobile Suit Gundam MS Igloo (2004-2009 Three OVA’s with three Episodes each)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (2015 Six-Episode OVA, adapted from the Manga of the same name)

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (2015 Eight-Episode Series, adapted from the Manga of the same name)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis (2017 episode, adapted from a light novel of the same name. Later rereleased as Gundam Twilight Axis Red Trace, with additional footage)

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (2018 sequel movie to Gundam Unicorn)

Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway (2021 ongoing movie series, very much adapted from the novel Hathaway’s Flash)

Most of the other series relate to events in the aforementioned “mainline” shows in some way, but a lot of the sidestories set during the One Year War require very little introduction (Thunderbolt, 0080 and 08th MS Team). Similarly, works set in “Late UC” (F91 and Victory Gundam) carry on from the other series thematically but don’t have any plot connections, so they can all be watched without any background knowledge of the rest of the Universal Century.

Compilation Movies

Just a quick note here - many of the Gundam series have compilation movies, where either a whole series or part of one are compressed down into a movie. While each movie compares differently, they usually boil down to this: Compilation Movies usually have worse pacing, but really nice animation.

One of the great things about Gundam is that different shows offer variations on themes, so seeing how different characters react to similar situations, or how different settings change their approaches can make it incredibly rewarding.

I haven’t seen enough of SD Gundam to make any sort of recommendations there, and Manga is something I might touch on another day.

EDIT: Oh hey also: You can watch a good chunk of these on YouTube, for free, officially. The Official Gundam.Info YouTube channel rotates the series shown on its channel periodically. I think it’s got F91 and SEED on there currently? But it’s had Wing, 00 and Witch From Mercury before. Also all of the Build Fighters series are there.

So yeah, that’s a thing.

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amazingmsme · 6 months

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Not sure if you’re open to the idea but since I ADORE the idea of tickle monsters and tickle magic just imagine what it’d be like if the Lords in Black would be lers in their own respective ways. 👀👀

I have some THOUGHTS about the lers in black, lemme tell you! Gonna go in order of the summoning

Putting this under the cut ‘cause it got LONG

Pokotho

He will dramatically laugh along with his victim lee

He’s such a verbal tease! Uses all the classics like kitchy kitchy coo & repeatedly saying The Word & uses a singsong voice to taunt you

LOVES the sound of laughter, literal music to his ears

Loves to build anticipation before actually striking

One of the “nicer” lords & has pity on you after the fact & will cuddle the lee once he’s done & shower them with compliments about how pretty their laugh is

Uses slow light tickles to drag things out even longer, slowly increasing the intensity the longer he tickles you & lowkey his attacks can be broken down into a “three act structure” (slow build up, REAL tickling, & the finale)

Usually teams up with Wiggly or Blinky to wreck his siblings if he’s in a particularly playful mood. If one of his usual partners in crime is his intended target, then Tinky is his next choice on account of his unhinged chaotic energy

Bliklotep

The Watcher with a Thousand Eyes… of course they can see your tickle spots! You’re fucking stupid if you think otherwise not really tho

Before tickling you, he hovers his hands over the lee, wiggling fingers just inches over their skin just to watch & gauge their reactions so he knows what gets the best reaction (entirely unnecessary since they can legit just see where you’re most ticklish, but they wanna see which spots make the lee the most nervous when almost tickled & strike based on that)

Watches & takes note of every single reaction the lee makes & comments on it

He will absolutely notice if the lee likes it & hasn’t really asked for it to stop or try to get away. He’s very observant so he can just pick up on that sort of thing

When a tickle fight happens to break out amongst the lords in black, Blinky prefers to watch from the sidelines, staying quiet & enjoying the show. Eventually one of the others will notice & target him

T’Noy Karaxis

He’s such a chaotic & fun ler y’all have no idea

He wastes NO time & cuts right to the chase, making his lee burst into laughter as soon as he gets his hands on you

Likes to jump around from spot to spot to keep the lee guessing & on their toes

While Pokey will laugh along with his lee, Tinky will full on cackle alongside his victim. His laugh is loud & unhinged & very infectious, so it makes the lee laugh even more

Has more fun than the lee even if they’re having a blast, I promise you, he’s having more fun

He uses his goat horns to tickle the lee & it’s a similar feeling to a pencil or pen scraping over your skin

He likes to tease the lee about all the cute sounds they’re making & threatens to keep them in his time box so he can “do this forever”

Nibblenephim

This dude is SOOO babygirl I freaked tf out when I saw his human in The Summoning & I WILL be cosplaying him at some point but that is besides the point I just had to gush for a second

Nibbly loves to make the lee nervous because he says their anticipation & fear is “tasty”

Has long sharp claws nails & knows how to use them😈

For the most part tho, he likes to use mouth tickles because they have a brand to uphold. So expect lots of tickly kisses, nibbles & raspberries. & if he’s feeling particularly playful or ruthless, he’ll start licking

His teases mainly consist of a lot of nomming & gnoshing sounds & telling you how sweet you taste. It’s surprisingly flustering & very effective

Wiggog Y’Wrath

Mr. Tickle Me Wiggly himself, you’d think he’d be mostly lee but noooo he’s a full on switch maybe lee leaning but idk it might be a trap to lure you in

Despite being the most ticklish of the lib, he’s also the most ruthless ler so his siblings are cautious if they plan on targeting him

He’s one of the meanest teases you’ll ever meet ok? His main goal is to humiliate you, he is in it for the embarrassment & helplessness of these pathetic mortals because he’s just got so much power over them & he’s making them crumble without even using a fraction of his power. Look how helpless you are & he doesn’t even have to hurt you

Sorry I have THOUGHTS about him can you tell?

He’s slenderman in the onceler’s clothing (please I swear I have a point) he’s got tentacles & his over the top evil persona just gives me slenderman vibes. I just know he’d use his eldritch powers to his advantage in a tickle fight

Uses his dumb fuckin’ uwu speech to tease his lee & it flusters them as much as it pisses them off he’s just an obnoxious mf

His favorite spot to tickle is of course the belly well! (it’s so squishy!)

Ok I gotta stop myself before I start foaming at the mouth, this ask made me very Not Normal about these rainbow abominations

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kanmom51 · 10 months

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JK Seven MV making sketch BTB

Yay, the subs are back on. And I got to watch it and even understand what he was saying, lol.

Loved it.

I was just sitting here for the 12 minutes with a huge smile on my face.

Because JK is just so adorable. So genuine. So real.

He had the time of his life, and seeing that just made me happy.

Now let's talk about a few thing I took from the BTB, why don't we?

I think I'll start from the fun and make my way to the more serious.

Not too much went on really. It's mostly him enjoying himself.

Being his own chaotic loveable self.

Trying to keep his eye open with the water pouring down on him, lol.

Can you imagine just how much fun this all was for him, our daredevil?

Funny, just thought about it, but they didn't even talk to Hun Sohee. Not a word. She might as well not have been there. Now I understand that JK is the focus, it's his song, BTBs are about the members, but at the same time, she's a well known and loved Korean actress acting in his MV and not only don't we get to hear from her even once, we also don't really get to see interactions between him and her in the BTB. In a way it feels like they are trying to keep this distance - this is JK, he's singing Seven, he's shooting a MV, but he's disconnected from it. I'm not sure I'm being clear enough here.

Ok, so for example JK explains what the scenes are and says the word girlfriend, god forbid. We know y/ns went into a frenzy over this stupidity. JK explaining the concept of the scene in which he's fighting with his gf, cause that's what the MV is about, and she's his gf in the bloody MV.

But maybe, knowing this fandom, they wanted to keep the delusion to a minimum, not to mention keep Sohee away from the crazy ass fans that are already harassing her by just keeping her off camera as much as possible. Idk, just found it interesting.

JK tells us a little about his acting, lol.

To all those that are still riding the scripted fanservice bandwagon, time to fucking get off it.

Omg, the way he disses Yoongi, he just LOVES to do that with Yoongi. Now I can kind of understand the "even at 60 years old jeon jungkook will be freaking annoying".🤣🤣

JK is wearing THE brand again. I'm telling you folks, JM made a huge online order for the two of them!!

He's just so precious, with this thing he has of checking out his hands, every single time it feels like it's the first time he's seen them, lol. The fascination he had from his water wrinkled fingers. So endearing.

Looks at them in amazement, shows everyone, then back to looking at them again all fascinated.

You'd think the man has never in his lifetime taken a long shower or had a bath or been in the damn swimming pool. Nah, lol. It's just one of those cute loveable oddities of his.

Did we notice the ASSets?

And I thought JM was in charge of that body part in the family.

Well, apparently the competition is on.

Has JK surpASSed JM?

Should we progrASS? Oopsy...progress?

And now I will take a moment to breathe.

I went looking for more pics from the BTB and came across this:

I don't know enough about the movie but do we know of any kind of connection to Jikook? Or this could be the directors tribute to the movie too. In any case it's a fun tribute.

Now for the heavy stuff, or not so heavy just a little more on the serious side.

I wrote a long ass brain fart of a post yesterday. And some of it is very relevant here too.

JK clearly sees the song as a love song. Period.

He did the explicit version for the fun of it (well and also probably because the America market loves a song with profanities in it). But for him it's the fun of not being restricted by the Kpop rules of engagement, the "don't swear because the song will be censored" and "don't swear because it's too adult" or whatever other reasons for it. He's having fun feeling more freedom, and that he's all grown up and can say fucking multiple times out loud.

But when it comes down to it, when asked about it directly, his answer was that he prefers the clean version. Because to him Seven is a love song, not one about the physical act alone. Yes, of course sex is part of it (the song lyrics are kind of loud), but sex is not even half of what loving someone is all about.

We saw JK talking about the love of his life while explaining about the song.

Him in the BTB about the death scene:

And at the end of the BTB explaining more:

And we also have what he said in the interview aired earlier today on Z100 radio.

The more we get of JK talking about the song the clearer and louder it becomes. I just wish people would only be listening to him.

Anyway, the man is beautiful.

Love him.

Not as much as the love of his life does though.

No competition there!!

#Jungkook #JK #JK Seven #JK Seven MV #JK Seven MV BTB

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sparrow-winged · 14 days

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I've been thinking a lot recently about stuff that could have been explored a lot more in Total Drama, specifically the antagonists of each season. I know that some of them did get additional depth and reasons as to why they are the way they are, but I think it could be really cool to see how much deeper it goes, particularly with "background antagonists" that cause their behavior. So enjoy my rambling about each villain/antag!

Chris - I'm not sure what happened there...I've always figured it was just the fame and stress of the show getting to him that caused possible underlying mental health issues to resurface. And because getting help could cause a scandal and ruin his reputation, Chris was kinda just allowed to spiral?

Heather - If I'm remembering correctly, her parents actually don't like her very much (like with the electroshock therapy and celebrating her not being at home). Although this is expanded on canonically, with Heather stating that her meanness is a form of protection, it'd be fascinating to see how far down that trauma goes.

Justin - I honestly think that one was also due to so much fame, and the idea that he could get away with stuff because he's attractive (although obviously, that failed later on). I personally think it's due to a massive ego fueled by his modeling and turning it into a form of narcissism.

Courtney - I'm mostly putting Courtney here because I feel like she definitely had a semi-antagonistic role in Action and All-Stars. I actually don't know much about her, except for working very hard, like with the CIT and student president stuff. I've heard that she had an abusive childhood, but I'm not sure? I haven't seen anything to back it up, but it would still be interesting to see why she got so aggressive outside of the love triangle.

Alejandro - I know there was some detail to his issues (that being José constantly belittling him and causing a strong inferiority complex). But I would be very interested in seeing just how badly José actually treated him as children, even as teenagers, to cause the manipulation in order to protect himself. Especially because presumably, his family didn't do anything about it. Although it's true that he doesn't necessarily have issues with most of his family (like how he mentioned Carlos and his uncle, without mentioning José during World Tour for the most part), it'd be very fascinating to see why they enabled this bullying and possibly abusive behavior to continue.

Scott - In all honesty, I never really finished Revenge of the Island, so I don't have much to say for him, except maybe exploring his background that caused him to sabotage the challenges and get into people's heads.

Mal - For me, it's not so much why he acts the way he does as an "evil" alter. It's actually why Mal exists at all. What could Mike have gone through to have formed an alter like that, especially considering his multiple attempted murders in All-Stars. (Same could be said for all the alters, honestly. What happened for them to exist?

Scarlett/Amy/Sugar - I actually haven't really watched this season. I guess I just didn't find it very interesting, especially with the idea that technically, I think there's three villains (Amy towards Sammy, Scarlett for the bomb threat, and Sugar...I dunno why, but I've heard she's supposed to be a villain).

Jacques and Josee - I still have yet to watch Ridonculous Race, although I intend to. But as I haven't seen it yet, I don't have a big opinion or anything to analyze, although I wonder if the fame got to the Ice Dancers, or if they're just assholes.

That's everyone (except for Bowie and Julia, because I have no access to the reboot and therefore cannot form an opinion, even based off clips), so if you somehow read this entire damn thing, good for you.

#total drama #chris mclean #td heather #td justin #td courtney #td alejandro #td scott #td mal #rambles

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feyre-darling92 · 2 years

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As it was

Sith!Obi-Wan x female reader.

A/N: I couldn’t help myself writing this, in my opinion sith obi-wan is an interesting alternative to both read and write for. Let me know your thoughts on this.

T/W: Swearing, mentions of death, force choking, bad writing, let me know if I missed anything.

Word Count: 1,2k

One year.

One year before they had told you he had died on Mustafar.

One year ago you had lost a part of yourself.

You were working at a cantina, a not very well-payed job but you could keep a low profile without causing too many suspicions.

You hadn’t heard of anyone, the only thing that you’d learned was that Anakin had become Darth Vader.

You, Anakin, Obi-Wa, Ashoka and Padme were a family.

First, you lost Ashoka. Leaving the Jedi Order and watching your sister walking away from you not intending to come back was the first hit.

Learning that Anakin had killed all these younglings and had turned to the dark side was the second one.

Seeing Padme giving birth to the twins and sensing her force signature becoming weaker and weaker before she died was the third one.

And learning that Obi-Wan who was sent to fight Anakin and stop him hadn’t returned from Mustafar was the final and strongest hit.

Everything after this is a blur.

All you know was that now you were here, trying to rebuild your life while trying to stay hidden as Anakin was searching for you.

You stayed on Tatooine mostly to take care of the boy but also because it was easier to hide.

----------------

You woke up, early as always, and got ready to go to work. Before you left you took off the ring Obi-Wan had given you, the best you could do as marriage was against the code, and locked it in the drawer.

You wanted to wear it all the time, have this part of him with you but you couldn’t risk being recognized or robbed.

You opened the cantina, and the day went just as every day was.

There were a couple of fights, you always had to engage in one of them, you served drinks to creatures who flirted with you and got angry or disappointed when they didn’t get a response from you and had to help some drunk customers find the way out because they were obviously too drunk to go on their own.

You returned home exhausted both mentally and physically. It wasn’t unusual, so you did the same thing you did every time.

You sat on the small couch you had, the best you could buy, and started reading. It was your favorite activity and you loved it even more when you did it with Obi-Wan.

You shallowed at the memory and slowly picked up the book from the coffee table. “The beauty and the beast”. It was your favorite, loving it as a kid and loving it even more when you grew up and finally understood the meaning behind this tale.

A couple of hours had passed and you walked to the kitchen to take a glass of water, still reading when you heard a voice you thought you wouldn’t hear again.

“I see you still love this book”

You froze, slowly looking up from the book, afraid to face the hard truth.

“Obi-Wan?” a whisper came out of you after a few seconds.

“It’s me darling” he smiled softly at you and you tried to speak but you couldn’t.

He took a step forward from the counter where he was leaning in and you instinctively stepped back, avoiding closing the distance between you.

“Are you alive?” you said a tear streaming down your face.

“Of course I am, why would you think that I-”

“I was told you died on Mustafar,” you said.

“I would never leave you without saying goodbye, love”

For a moment you thought that things were the same as before. That you’d lie together and wake up the next morning in each other’s arms.

But no. Things were never going to be as they were. Your relationship was never going to be as it was.

“What happened?” your expression suddenly changed and you sounded colder than you’d like but you didn’t care. You couldn’t care.

Because the man who was standing in front of you, the man you’d love was not in him anymore. And his blue eyes you had so much fallen in love with were now replaced with the color of the sith.

A color you’d learn to hate.

“Y/N, you don’t know how much I missed you I-”

“I asked what happened,” you said calmly although on the inside you felt anything but calm.

His face changed, an expression you hadn’t seen in him before. Coldness and darkness were reflected.

He looked at you for a few seconds before he answered you. You knew exactly what he was thinking.

You had changed as well. And it was true.

Being mentally exhausted you allowed no emotions, at least no happy ones.

“I joined the Sith” he simply said not looking you in the eyes as he did back in the days.

“What have you done?” you muttered and backed away, your actions hurting him even more.

He thought that you’d at least be happy to see him.

“I did what I should have done years ago!” he yelled making you flinch. “I saw through the lies of the Jedi. Please listen to me” he lowered his voice seeing your reaction.

You had a shocked expression. “Listen to what exactly? You were fully dedicated to the Jedi. You- you were sent to stop Anakin. They told me that you died!”

“I know, darling but if you listen to me-”

“No!” you couldn’t hold your emotions back any longer.

“Because for one year, one fucking year, I mourned for you, I cried for you. I dropped everything because of the Sith, I lost everything because of the Sith and you come here today as if nothing happened and casually mention that you’re one of them! Where were you, Obi-Wan? Where were you when I needed you the most? You didn’t even care! When you gave me this ring you gave a damn promise and you-” you were cut off by the force choking you.

He was choking you.

“Obi-Wan” you tried to breathe but it was impossible.

He finally let you and you dropped to the ground, air finally filling your lungs.

“Listen to me” he said and you didn’t look up, not wanting to face him anymore.

“I joined them because I could become stronger than ever. I could finally gain power, power the Jedi didn’t allow me to have. I don’t have the Jedi order to forbid me to feel and love. Don’t you see it? I am free now”

“You really believe what are you saying?”

“I do”

“Then the man I loved is truly dead” it came out more like a whisper but he heard it.

He kneeled in front of you and grabbed your chin, forcing you to face him.

He didn’t say anything, he just looked into your eyes, an unreadable expression forming on his face.

“I am not dead, darling. I am reborn. And one day you will see that I am right. Come with me. We can make things as they were. We can live as we did before” he left your chin and caressed your cheek but you immediately pulled away from his touch.

“No, Obi-Wan. We can’t”

Seeing this he got up. “You will join me”

“I will not. And you can’t force me. Because deep down I know that you still love me”

“Come with me. Please”

“You heard me. I am not coming with you”

“This is your last chance, Y/N. Join me or we’ll have to do this the hard way”

At the sound of these words, you got up, ready to fight if you had to.

“I love you, Obi-Wan. I still do. But I will not join you. Not this time”

“I love you too. That’s why you’re coming with me” he said and before you could realize what was happening he waved a hand over your head and everything turned black.

Part 2

#obi wan kenobi #obi wan fanfiction #obi wan x reader #obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan imagine #sith obi wan x reader #sith obi wan #sith!obi wan #star wars x reader #star wars fanfiction #feyre-darling92 #feyre darling92 #fanfic #fanfiction

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rykeiwrites · 1 year

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Adventures in Babysitting

🪷 Character: Darlin, OC wolf pups, Sam, and David

🪷 Genre: comedy

🪷 T/W: nothing I can think of.

🪷 Word count: 773

🪷 Notes: Nothing can convince me Tank doesn’t become third in charge based solely on the fact that they’re good with kids and all the wolf pups are obsessed with them.

✧ Tank was more surprised that the kids wouldn’t leave them alone more than anything. When asked by David if they could help the pack out by watching the younger kids they reluctantly agreed, unsure if the kids would even enjoy their company. They felt duty bound though as the gamma, and decided to pull their weight in the pack and help out. Now they have been sitting on the couch, answering every question about the scars and tattoos and piercings they had.

“This one looks like it hurt.” Joshy, an eight year old boy, said, pointing to the scar Tank has on their face, the one that goes right through their lips. Two memories were associated with it now, the night they got it, and the night Sam had kissed them and complemented their scars. He was soft with them, and while they still cringed when they saw themselves naked and all the scars, it was getting better each day with Sam.

“Sure it did, but it healed up just fine.” they said. The kids nodded.

“Did it hurt to get the piercing done on it?” Jane, the oldest of the pups at thirteen, asked, referring to their lip piercing. They shrugged, not wanting to get into why the scar was so bad because they had the piercing there when Quinn had given them the scar. They repierced it in Washington, as soon as the skin was healed enough. Some of their family had been shocked by it, surprised they would want the same piercing once again. They wanted something to return to normal though.

“What’s this tattoo?” Regan asked, they pointed to one of their first tattoo’s. It was done by a friend, drunk at a party. It was so blotched out Tank wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be, maybe a skull?

“A friend did it, I never asked what she did.”

“What’s this one supposed to be?” Marly asked, only a ten year old girl who was close to her changing. She pointed to one of Tank’s newer tattoos. It rests on their left forearm, over some of the scars they received in fights, it was a simple magnolia flower. They got it for Sam, after he talked about his grandmother’s house and how she had tended to magnolia tree’s in his youth. It was one of the few good memories he told them about his family, and how it was his favorite flower because of her.

“It’s a flower that’s important to me.” They replied, and the kids giggled when they spoke more softly than they intended. Coughing they shrugged it off. “Either way it’s almost lunch. What do ya’ll want?” trying to not cringe when the word slips out, a word they picked up from their cowboy. The kids had decided on pizza, which Tank was more than glad to order, telling the kids to pick a movie to watch. They sent a text to Sam, letting him know everything was fine. Mostly for their own benefit. Sam and David both said they would be fine, but they were still nervous around the kids.

The kids argued for a bit, and pulled Tank in to decide between the two movies they were stuck on. Picking the title with a large green- orc maybe? - on it they put it in and settled on the chair, while the kids piled on the couch and floor. Sam had texted back telling them he didn’t doubt they were doing a great job. Smiling they put their phone away and settled into the chair, paying more attention to the pups then the movie. When the pizza arrived Tank made sure to try and keep them in order and not cause a disaster.

After they were fed, and the movie over, was when David and the parent’s returned. Back from the security detail, tired, and ready to get the kids and themselves into bed. When they departed, and before Tank left David pulled them to the side.

“Thanks again for watching them.”

“No problem, besides after you made me Gamma, I had to step up and do my duties didn’t I?” They shrugged on their leather jacket. David hummed, and nodded.

“Still, you’re doing a great job. I’m glad you got you back into the pack.” David patted their shoulder.

“Is this emotion David?” Tank teased, and he scoffed.

“Get your ass on the road Tank, and tell Sam I said hello.” Tank laughed, and taking their helmet they got on their motorcycle. Texting Sam they’d be home soon, they started the bike and took off. They were still smiling under the helmet.

#redacted asmr #david shaw #sam collins #redacted Tank #redacted Darlin #i had more planned but it's been a struggle to write #so here it is #hope ya'll enjoy

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deltaruminations · 1 year

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The Man in the Motif: A Character Analysis of W.D. Gaster via Music

“Sing us a song, you’re the mystery man… sing us a song if you please… ‘cause we’re all in the mood for a broken chord, and you’ve got us feeling unease…”

here’s the Big Dumb Music Post lmao

A couple things:

Most of what comes after the cut is written like an actual essay and not a shitpost i promise

This is more Synthesis and Subjective Reading of Extant Material than speculative theorycraft

I mostly wrote this for fun & because I’d never seen anyone lay out an analysis for our boy G like this before. I don’t think it’s like Revolutionary it’s mostly just me talking a lot about a special interest lol

I get the sense that a lot of people may have already picked up on a lot of this stuff and it might just be my alexithymic ass that needs heady analysis like this to understand subtle emotional cues. That’s to say: IDK how much New Stuff is being presented here for any given reader but it might still add value to that existing understanding I Guess

I’m not trying to assert that Toby Fox consciously intended to convey everything that I’m pulling out of this stuff lol

OK HERE WE GO!!!!!

Contents

To quickly access a given section, just search for it by its leading flag ([#XXX])

[#001] mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme)

[#002] ANOTHER HIM

[#002-A] A Brief Tangent on Giygas

[#003] File Select & Game Over ambience

[#004] Darkness Falls

[#005] man.ogg (Tree Room)

[#005-A] A Brief Tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei

[#006] Takeaways

Undertale and Deltarune use leitmotif to a wide variety of ends in shaping players’ experience of their stories. Because music is understood emotionally and interpretively, a single song can function to convey several simultaneous ideas about characters, places, and/or themes, and may be understood to have multiple layers of meaning.

Gaster’s leitmotif in particular is notorious for its tendency to be heard by fans everywhere in Undertale and Deltarune’s soundtracks, regardless of the actual intentionality of its use. Due to the brief and generic nature of the sequence, there’s a distinct possibility that this ambiguity was engineered into it, possibly as a way to influence players’ perceptions by implying that he’s secretly ever-present and ever-watching, and/or to convey something about Gaster himself, such as dispersion of his consciousness or memories.

Aside from the previous point, there are a few instances in Deltarune’s soundtrack in which its use is either explicit or, at the very least, somewhat less ambiguous. This discussion will focus on the former cases, specifically tracks that play in the scenes in which we interact with the man himself. I’ll cover this in roughly the order that I believe a typical player would experience them for the first time.

Most of these sections will be Very Roughly divided into:

Informal analysis (I Do Not Know Music Theory I Am Just A Guy With Abled Ears) of choices made in the song itself

Subjective analysis of what emotions or associations the song might be evoking

Interpretation of what any of that could mean about Gaster Our Good Friend Gaster

Discussion of in-game context wherever I think it's interesting lol

Because my formal knowledge on music composition is very limited, and also because I’m no longer hearing these songs fresh and untainted by Lore Obsession Disease, I had my partner (a musician who knows nothing about UTDR or this character) give his opinions on these songs as well. While I don’t think a formal background is a prerequisite for this kind of subjective analysis (as these soundtracks are designed to communicate with a broad audience, not just with musicians), it of course allows for further insight. I’ll refer to him from here on as my “research assistant” because I think it’s funny.

I first had him listen to the tracks listed here out-of-context and give me his thoughts on what they communicated to him about the character or scene. I then gave him some context for each song, the story, and the character, and we discussed whether that context brought further interpretation. It turned out his basic interpretations closely aligned with mine, with the addition of some really cool observations that would’ve never occurred to me on my own. This discussion will reflect his opinions & observations as well. Huge thanks to him!

With that in mind, I’m going to use the word “melody” and other such Music Words pretty loosely throughout this sorry. I tried my best to respect the Terminology but im just a fucking dude ok

[#001] mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme)

We must, of course, begin with mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme), which establishes his leitmotif (or at least, the only confirmed part of it; whether or not there’s a B part to the leitmotif is currently unknown, though I‘ve seen some interesting speculation about that). Assuming that Deltarune players experienced Undertale first (as Toby Fox seems to have intended), this will have been the first instance of Gaster’s leitmotif ever encountered, and it’s the front line for evaluating his character.

Found only through a Fun event, in Undertale’s “Sound Test” room, this is presented as less of a song and more of a demo or reference sequence. As we move on to other tracks, I’ll consider this track the platonic ideal and use it as a point of comparison.

One brief note is that the filename itself does not explicitly assign this track to Gaster, but rather to “him.” It’s the Sound Test UI that puts his name on it. Whether or not there’s significance to this is currently unclear.

(I think there may be something in common between the friendly “voice” that thanks us for our feedback in the Sound Test room and Deltarune’s out-of-universe UI text after closing the fountain in Deltarune chapter 1, but I don’t have any idea what, if anything, that means right now.)

Precedents established

Since this is the base motif, I think it’s worthwhile to mention how the song is structured on paper. Since I’m no Theory Guy, I’ll refer you to Tumblr user notesanddreams’s technical analysis of what he calls the “Gaster Sequence,” which is a name I like a lot and am going to use moving forward.

To quote him:

It’s a pretty simple four bar loop. The melody, which everyone I know has taken to calling “the Gaster motif,” is a four note sequence that goes “starting note -> up a minor second (half step) -> up a perfect fifth -> back down a perfect fifth.” This is played four times before modulating down a half step and looping….

There’s simply not enough musical information in the track to discern a tonal center, and therefore any attempts to give it a key signature are futile. This gives the sequence a very mysterious and unsettling nature, but its vagueness allows it to be applied to certain tracks in the Deltarune OST very subtly at times.

While it’s distorted, this song seems to be played on an unaccompanied piano. This establishes an association between Gaster and that instrumentation (as we’ll see reinforced later), as well as with sounds of distortion & modulation, dissonance, and “noise.”

These two factors combined may be things to consider alongside the leitmotif when determining whether a song or part of a song should be considered to offer direct descriptions of Gaster (as opposed to containing a more abstract reference to him, or instead being referential to or descriptive of another character associated with piano, such as Kris).

Emotional perspective

Gaster’s Theme is anxiety-inducing. It builds up endlessly but never resolves. It is not musical; it lacks anything recognizable as motion or melody, which in turn causes it to lack anything immediately recognizable as personality, or emotion, or backstory. It’s a song that betrays no motivations or values, leaving us to fill in the blanks on our own.

The minor key and dissonance could easily be experienced as sinister, playing on our fear and mistrust of the unknown. If the truth is out there, it doesn’t seem to be pleasant. If we continue to seek it out, who knows what could become of us, or what we could unleash upon the world?

The Sound Test UI itself is bizarre and mysterious. Why does it thank us for our “feedback” after hearing Gaster’s Theme? What input or feedback did we provide?

Characterization perspective

We could take this theme on its own to suggest that Gaster is characterized by duality, tension, and emotional detachment and/or reservation.

The rising tones in each bar evoke thought and ideation, approaching a point before dropping down to approach another. The endless, moderately-paced loop of shifting, yet internally consistent, sets resembles a careful dialectic that never reaches resolution.

We could interpret this as the sound of an analytical mind aware of many options and possibilities, but never ultimately delineating the truth between them (my research assistant specifically described this track as being “locked into itself”). We could also take it less literally to signify a reversal of opinion or understanding in general – not necessarily that decisions are never made, but they’re reached through heady deliberation and obsessively re-examined after they’re made.

While the motif betrays internal tension, it’s also highly ordered and consistent, lacking any spontaneity. This can be taken to mean that Gaster is cautious, deliberate, and reserved. For all the neurosis it conveys, it still comes off as fairly confident, as though Gaster is simply used to this and doesn’t tend to question it.

We could also possibly infer that other characters experienced Gaster in much the same way as we do – they may have found him unsettling and hard to read.

As mentioned before, it’s unknown whether other parts to this motif exist or are planned to exist. If they do exist, then the fact that only the A(?) part has been presented as “Gaster’s Theme” would underscore the one-sidedness of his presentation in Undertale, as well as a possible tendency of Gaster’s to hide parts of himself.

(EXTREMELY speculative, so please don’t take this too seriously, but: I’ve seen at least a handful of fans raise the possibility that at least some part of the Secret Boss (“Freedom”) motif may be a B/C part of Gaster’s motif. If Gaster is trying to obfuscate any involvement with Secret Boss characters, using his metaphysical resources to hide obvious musical associations with them (i.e., by labeling only this part of the motif as his “theme” in the Sound Test) would certainly be a clever way to do so.)

[#002] ANOTHER HIM

The first true application of the Gaster Sequence a player will experience is also the very first song heard in Deltarune: ANOTHER HIM, which plays during the Introduction (also known as the Survey or “GONERMAKER”).

This is another instance of Gaster being referred to as “him” in the metadata rather than by name. The specific phrasing of “ANOTHER HIM” seems referential to Undertale Players’ knowledge of him, and could be taken to suggest that this is a separate instance or at least “piece” of the character described in that game. Alternatively, this could indicate the same character being presented from another perspective, and/or the same continuity of that character who’s no longer recognizable as the same person for one reason or another.

Musical analysis

This track is, of course, a direct quote of the entire Gaster Sequence isolated from any other motifs. Its main developments are a slight modification to the rhythm of the Sequence and the addition of other instruments and background ambience – this is actually the only song in the scope of this document in which the motif itself is heard accompanied (while Darkness Falls also contains other instrumentation, it occurs during an instance of a different motif). We again hear the Sequence played on piano.

When my research assistant first heard this song without context he paused it after about 5 seconds and proceeded to tell me all about Paul stretching and how it can be used to create the type of ethereal ambience heard in this track. One thing he noted is that this algorithm allows for stretching a sample while keeping it in-key, without adding dissonance. I should be clear that I have no idea if this exact technique was used here, only that it seems to have achieved a very similar effect.

So, what is the sample being stretched (in some way or another) to create that ambient noise? When we reversed the stretch, we found it to be none other than one of Giygas’s instruments from EarthBound. This has been identified by other fans as a sample of the track Giygas’s Intimidation.

[#001-A] A Brief Tangent on Giygas

I want to be careful about suggesting too much from musical samples & references, since UTDR are known to make extensive use of samples and soundfonts from other works, especially from EarthBound (as well as reworked versions of Toby Fox’s own music from other projects). Like, I don’t think Toby was trying to Say Anything in particular when he used the “WOW!” from Earthbound’s intro sequence in Spamton’s battle themes except “EarthBound is very special to me and that sound design choice they made was really memorable and I think it sounds really fun here.”

That in mind, UTDR fans have been intuitively connecting Gaster and Giygas for years based on superficial similarities and the known influence of EarthBound alone. Given Gaster’s unique existence in metanarrative, the specificity and consistency of the references associated with him, as well as the potential thematic relevance of this reference (and the one to follow in section [#005-A]), I do think it may be fair game to consider them in these cases. I’m going to throw out a couple of things:

The use of samples from Earthbound, specifically ones related to Giygas, draws yet another thematic connection between Gaster and Undertale’s True Lab and possible parallels to Alphys, suggesting this connection is relevant to Deltarune. Memoryhead itself bears resemblance to Giygas. (also wait what there’s parallel harmony in Amalgam?? holy shit???)

Giygas is a character who, when encountered in Earthbound, has been driven to a state of eldritch, cosmic horror by trauma & grief. His backstory as Giegue, told in the previous game Mother, includes themes of pursuing knowledge despite knowing of the dangers, of betrayal, and of guilt over well-intentioned harm, specifically harm done while under some form of external influence. The Giygas of EarthBound, in his madness, exerts violent influence over animals and people, including Porky, a troubled child who Giygas compels to serve him.

Throughout the fight, Giygas expresses his internal conflict, lashing out seemingly not due to malice but rather uncontrolled emotion. Defeating Giygas requires first that the character Paula “Pray,” or call out for strength from the party’s families and the people they’ve helped along their journey, until there are no more characters left to reach; Paula’s “call” becomes unheard, “absorbed by the darkness.” Then, finally, she begs the player themself to “PRAY” for the party – the “kids” they’ve never met before – dealing the final necessary blows in the process.

Gaster & Giygas are both unpleasant sounding two-syllable G names LOL this is stupid sorry

Obviously, I don’t anticipate a 1:1 resemblance between Gaster’s and Giygas’s stories, but there could be thematic parallels worth considering. There is one thing, however, that I find interesting in the context of this song in particular: in inviting us to this “Survey,” Gaster seems to have called out to us in the same way that Paula did, praying to us for help – perhaps, more specifically, to help the kids of Deltarune who we have yet (at this point in the game) to meet.

Emotional perspective

ANOTHER HIM opens with a distorted ambience, evocative of murmuring, choral voice, rolling thunder, and perhaps the crackling whips of a Tesla coil. This ambience ebbs and flows in intensity, occasionally seeming to thrash and writhe. Just before the Sequence itself starts, and then throughout it, we hear what seem to be longing strings, and underlying the piano is a steady, understated percussion.

In contrast to the distorted fuzz of mus_st_him.ogg, the piano used here is crisp, with only a limited echo applied to it. While not unaccompanied, this piano still feels exposed and small, especially against the faint instrumentation and ambience churning below it. The high, bell-like keys feel bright and hopeful. At the same time, the slow, halting tempo suggests trepidation.

Where the base Sequence marches steadily through its dialectic without deviation or hesitation, ANOTHER HIM’s arrangement pauses at the height of each thought, as if considering it more carefully, before dropping back down to the next. After the first two sets switch off normally, the melody then proceeds to rise steadily, as though finally grasping at a revelation; after reaching an apex, it then pauses, collecting itself, before looping over again. Isolated from the ambience, this arrangement sounds contemplative and searching, in contrast to the neurotic dialogue of the base Sequence.

The backing ambience sounds ethereal and spacey, but not noticeably dissonant. It doesn’t necessarily lend the same eeriness of mus_st_him.ogg’s distortion, but the low, slow murmuring and even occasional lashing of the “voices” in the background still betray an undercurrent of unease & tension.

When my research assistant heard the songs mus_st_him.ogg, ANOTHER HIM, and Darkness Falls without context, in the order presented here, he read them as a developing narrative. He felt that this piece, compared to the base theme, added “motion” in the form of a steady rise and fall. He then said, “What I would want next, if this were one piece, is melody. I’m still waiting for that next part.” While it takes more time to breathe, ANOTHER HIM still never approaches resolution.

He also likened the emotional experience of this song to Gregorian or hymnal chanting – less so the literal style of music, but rather the use of reverberation in that musical form to create a full, choral sound from only a few individual voices.

Characterization perspective

The overwhelming sense I get from ANOTHER HIM is one of vulnerability, introspection, and dishevelment, as well as cautious deliberation. It also conveys a certain amount of hope and possibly curiosity, though these are muted in comparison to the hesitance and turmoil.

Compared to what we “see” of him in mus_st_him.ogg, Gaster seems to be far less self-assured in his dialectical thinking. He’s breaking from his traditional pattern of rumination and attempting to reach for some form of personal truth. The cautiousness could also be taken to convey unease or skepticism about the situation at hand, about the probability of success in achieving the “NEW FUTURE,” or even about the Player themself.

As far as the background ambience, its most obvious function is to convey the ethereality of incorporeal, out-of-universe existence, its ebbing and twisting reflecting the shapelessness of a disembodied consciousness. It could even be considered diegetic – as if it is the sound of his state of being, or of this strange, extraplanar space beyond the event horizon.

The ambience could also be taken to convey emotional information, though its separation from the “conscious thought” of the motif could imply many things (as we’ll discuss later in [#004], we have an example within the same chapter of the motif conveying quite a bit of emotionality in itself).

If we take this angle, then it could suggest that Gaster is not integrating emotionality with rational thought, but is at least possibly acknowledging that emotionality — or it’s built up to a point where it can no longer be fully contained or ignored. We could interpret the pauses in the motif as Gaster listening to or meditating on these “voices” – or becoming momentarily overwhelmed by them.

From this perspective, it’s clear that this emotional state is confusing and volatile; the dialogue happening on this level is not nearly as orderly or civil as that heard in the motif. The “lashing” sounds could be taken as flashes of pain; their violence could suggest bad memories, self-criticism, shame, or regret, among other possibilities.

I also think the choice of a percussive “heartbeat” is quite interesting. While not rapid, it could possibly suggest anxiety, as though his heart is pounding. It also suggests intimacy, which in turn requires a certain level of trust – he has allowed us close enough to hear that heartbeat at all, whether or not it’s comfortable for him, or he feels confident that it’s a good idea for him to do so.

Despite this piling on of confusion and unease, the relative clarity and brightness of the motif’s piano seems to twinkle faintly in the dark. This sense of hope gives us something to latch onto amidst the tumult, and that may be true of the character as well. We could read this as a hope that is worth enduring the doubt, the humbling, and the possibility of pain.

The song in context

ANOTHER HIM’s hesitation and vulnerability strikes an interesting contrast with Gaster’s dialogue throughout the Survey sequence. Aside from a very small number of seemingly spontaneous reactions, Gaster in his dialogue – in his intended self-presentation – comes off as unfailingly polite, professional, confident, and generally neutral.

While we needn’t assume that this self-presentation, or the opinions he does express, are insincere, we can still infer that whatever the reality is of his internal state, Gaster is making a concerted effort to keep that information hidden from us. There are obvious practical reasons for this: to maintain the integrity of his study, he needs to minimize his biasing of our behavior.

That said, we could certainly read personal factors into this as well. From Gaster’s POV, the Player possesses a tremendous amount of metaphysical knowledge and ability. Whether or not he has difficulties with trust in general, Gaster certainly has reasons to be very wary of us, something I’ll discuss further in the next section.

The content of the sequence itself (text, background, etc.) warrants its own analysis. I’ll probably do one at like, idk some point probably

[#003] File Select (& Game Over) ambience

While it doesn’t really constitute a “song,” I think it’s worthwhile to look briefly at the sound design in the File Select and Game Over UIs, since they’re still among the very few instances of “face-to-face” interaction we have with the man of the hour. Note that this doesn’t include Darkness Falls, which plays after a certain choice is made at a game over – the next section will discuss that. Because this section covers sound design choices moreso than musical ones, I’ll eschew the format of the other sections and simply analyze these choices in-context.

This is the one section of audio I didn’t review with my research assistant, so you’re just getting my unmoderated opinions here, unfortunately.

For the better part of the game (so far), the File Select screen generally looks and feels the way a Player would expect from an RPG UI, with illustrations, friendly help text, and narrative music:

Post-completion Chapter 1 File Select (Before the Story)

Chapter 2 File Select (Faint Glow)

Similarly, the chapter 2 (or, rather, the post-ch1-completion) Game Over screen displays a genre-appropriate graphic, includes a message of encouragement (or, perhaps more accurately, a plea for Kris to survive) from Kris’s party members, and plays the song Faint Courage.

These File Select & Game Over screens are potentially extremely lore-rich in and of themselves (some of this will come up in the next section), but with regard to this particular discussion, I’m mostly interested in the stark contrast they present when compared to the pre-completion Chapter 1 screens.

Before chapter 1’s completion, when Gaster is strongly implied to be narrating (and possibly facilitating) the Player’s SAVE data manipulation and game over choices, the soundtrack for both screens is profoundly barren.

There’s no “song,” no melody, only an identical low, looping drone for both screens. We know that there can be music here, even very emotional music, and we feel like there probably should be. And yet, there isn’t. This makes these screens feel empty, ominous, and cold, underscoring their dark, ascetic visuals.

I think the fact that so little is being said here is in itself very, very interesting. We know that we aren’t actually alone on these screens; our friendly facilitator is here with us. We also know from the other examples in this document that Deltarune’s Gaster is not inherently associated with a lack of music, nor (as we’ll see in the next song) a lack of emotion in melody. Why is it only in this particular context – when the Player approaches these existential crossroads – that the music disappears entirely?

The File Select screen on its own doesn’t give us a whole lot to work with. While the dialogue here is certainly unsettling (even compared to Gaster’s clinical speech in other scenes) and warrants its own discussion, it still isn’t entirely clear why file manipulation should sound like this.

In the Game Over screen, however, we can start to make inferences. Game Overs are when Gaster’s plans are at the most risk – they’re when a Player is most likely to opt out of the study and never return, leaving Deltarune’s future as-is and any hope of a “NEW FUTURE” unfulfilled.

With that in mind, I think this drone conveys emotional shutdown. Gaster is still there – the drone is his presence, as though he’s trying to keep his breathing slow and measured as he speaks with us – but whatever is happening with him internally, he’s either working hard enough to succeed in hiding it from us, or it’s so overwhelming that he himself can’t even acknowledge it.

What that internal experience could be is anyone’s guess. Personally, I think he’s deeply afraid.

When Gaster seems to panic upon seeing his own name in the Survey, he can simply exit the situation and prevent the Player from making that choice. He can’t, however, prevent us from exiting the game – whether or not he had the power to do so (and he of course doesn’t), doing so would be meddling in the experiment, it’d be a breach of participant consent, and it’d potentially undermine whatever uneasy trust the Player has developed with him. In these moments, he’s entirely at the Player’s mercy.

(Note: this last video shows the game exiting after the creator is named “GASTER.” As of Chapter 2’s release, naming either vessel or creator “GASTER” causes the game to return to the chapter select, rather than exiting.)

Since the same drone plays on the File Select screen, we can infer he’s shut down there as well. It still isn’t as clear what about SAVE manipulation would cause such a strong response, and there are many ways this could be interpreted. It’s worth noting that we don’t currently know whether Gaster is the one executing those actions, or if he’s simply giving us guidance and warnings as we execute them ourselves. More broadly, we don’t know whether Gaster is capable of executing these actions at all.

For right now, my best guess – and I want to be clear that I don’t feel confident this is correct – is that SAVE manipulation is the first obvious indication to both us and to Gaster that he’s willing to accept some amount of “necessary evil” in pursuit of his plans. Based on the seemingly unprecedented gravity of his tone and diction on this screen (especially around erasing SAVEs), this may be when Gaster first recognizes, fully, just how much power he’s entrusted to a Player, how irresponsible it may have been for him to do so, and he is again deeply afraid – this time, not just of us, but of himself.

[#004] Darkness Falls

(This is the song I wrote that post about, that a lot of people seemed to like, which was very cool! But also it was meant more as a throwaway vent post than an actual analysis and was worded kind of strongly/reductively in part because I didn’t expect anyone to actually see it lol. anyway this will reiterate a lot of those thoughts but with A LOT more detail and nuance, possibly more than is necessary lol)

(Quick kudos again to the user who pointed out details about Faint Courage and its relationship to Kris on the Post People Liked. I hadn’t even begun to think through that part of the song when I made the post. It helped a lot with this!)

(Wait one more note: I’d previously thought this sequence only happened in pre-completion Chapter 1, when Gaster was actively present in the UI, but apparently this still happens as of Chapter 2?? The guy just crawls out of the woodwork specifically to narrate our ending and see us off I Guess. I do not have any particularly strong opinions at the moment about what this could Mean because I don’t generally have strong opinions about why he disappeared in the first place except IDK We Got The Hang Of The Game So He Switched On The Normal UI And Now He’s Just Observing Quietly And Taking Notes And Also Waving From Cars And Egg I GUess but anyway I thought I’d point it out because I got it wrong before)

(Oh btw if God kills you it just bypasses the normal screens entirely and returns you to a checkpoint. this detail doesnt mean anything it was obviously implemented for mechanical/joke reasons I just think it’s funny. like even Gaster is just sitting there like ?????? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. sorry moving on now)

Darkness Falls is only heard after saying “No” at a Game Over. As previously discussed, Game Overs in chapter 1 (pre-completion) feature the Emotional Shutdown Drone™, while post-ch1-completion Game Overs feature the song Faint Courage. Upon refusing to continue, whatever audio is present cuts out entirely, leaving complete silence as Gaster narrates our ending. Immediately after that text cuts out, Darkness Falls begins to play.

While a Player could encounter this before the File Select or after seeing the Tree Room, it felt most logical to me to order it like this for Reasons. Based on both my own experience and that of some other people who responded to the Post People Liked, it seems like a lot of Players, even ones who know about the Tree Rooms, just end up never saying “No” and seeing it at all.

This is the only track in this document’s scope in which the Gaster Sequence occurs alongside another leitmotif: the one found in Faint Courage, the song played in the aforementioned post-ch1-completion Game Over screen (I’ll simply refer to this second motif as Faint Courage from here on).

For the sake of this analysis, I’m only considering the Gaster Sequence part of the song (roughly 0:00 - 0:33) to be directly descriptive of the man himself, as we have good reasons to believe the second motif is specifically saying something about Kris. That’s to say: any character traits being suggested by Faint Courage will be assumed to describe Kris, not Gaster.

However, I’ll still discuss the song as a whole where it makes sense to do so, including consideration of what it could be saying about Gaster’s perspective on Kris, on the moment in which it’s found, or on the broader narrative.

Musical analysis

In an unusual break from precedent, the Gaster Sequence isn’t hidden by or within the other leitmotif featured in this track. Instead, we hear an unaccompanied piano arrangement of the Sequence that then leads into Faint Courage, played on the same piano but now accompanied, and with more instruments gradually added. Each motif takes up roughly half the song’s length, though the latter is slightly longer.

Much like the piano heard in ANOTHER HIM, the keys played during the Sequence have a moderate reverberation applied to them, but are otherwise fairly clear & crisp. Notably, this reverberation still continues after the shift into Faint Courage, as if the previous motif has shifted into a background, supporting role for the next one.

The arrangement of the Gaster Sequence heard here deviates the most by far from the original mold, to the degree that it’d be easy to miss it as an instance of that theme at all. Viewed side by side, the difference is stark. Someone who actually Knows Theory could probably describe it more eloquently than I can, but I’ll do my best to fumble through this with my untrained ear and the input of my research assistant.

This arrangement of the Sequence doesn’t do away with the back-and-forth of the base theme, but the dialogue heard here begs, grasps, and searches, seeming to have no pretense of self-assuredness or strict, rational confidence. It seems more grounded in the fact that this internal conversation really has only one, contiguous “speaker,” as each even-numbered set of bars picks up directly from the set before it, rather than there being a sharp drop between them.

The “speaker’s” opening comment, which begins on a chord, rises like a choking cry or plea, before they seem to attempt rationalization. Unable to answer in kind, searching for something to say but having nothing to meaningfully offer, they volley back on a higher note, as though presenting themself another question. The “speaker” then repeats the same sorrowful, confused entreaty from before – but this time, they continue from that cry to reach toward something, pause as though approaching rest, and then decide there’s something more to say – something entirely different.

Referring back to the “narrative development” reading proposed by my research assistant (first brought up in section [#002]): when my assistant first heard this song without context, he almost immediately stopped the track and said “that, right there, is melody!” He described the addition of a tonal center as making the difference between “color” and “meaning” – ANOTHER HIM adds interest to the base Sequence, but it’s still difficult to find an emotional foothold in it. It’s difficult to parse. Darkness Falls, on the other hand, has obvious musicality. It’s immediately relatable. It’s generally pleasant.

He spent some time discussing the chords found in this arrangement of the Sequence, describing the very deliberate placement of these chords as being its own melodic line of sorts, “going through its own motion, its own process.” He described the pattern as being roughly “harmony, then dissonance, then a stretch of time, then dissonance.” He noted that the one tonic he could identify in this Sequence was just before the turn into Faint Courage.

With this in mind, we could say that the instance of the Sequence heard in Darkness Falls, in contrast to that heard in every other song covered in this document, reaches its own internal resolution. That tonic, leading into the turn, could be read as a choice finally being made.

My research assistant also pulled out a “hero’s journey” narrative from this song. The first half, the Gaster Sequence, continues its push and pull of dialogue and tension, establishing the sense of a problem needing to be solved; while the second half, Faint Courage, approaches that problem with playful curiosity, possibility, and hope, before developing into a heroism heralded by nostalgic, Zelda-like synths, and ending on a literal high note. He noted that this type of narrative is common in ending themes for games, serving as a reflection of the story just completed.

Emotional perspective

The immediate motivator for me to write the Post People Liked was because I’d pulled up Darkness Falls on YouTube (for this analysis lol) and among the video’s top comments was someone saying, more or less, “Boy! It sure is weird that Gaster’s Theme shows up so obviously in this beautiful, moving song!” This was one among many, many comments I’d seen over time across various platforms expressing the same thought.

This confusion is perfectly understandable. As I’ve expressed in several ways in this document and elsewhere, the idea of the Gaster Sequence being arranged in a way that is, in itself, obviously moving – immediately, viscerally moving without any need for the kind of reaching overanalysis I’m doing here – is wholly unprecedented in either Undertale or Deltarune. As I mentioned in the Post People Liked, we’ve been conditioned to view Gaster as anything but another character, and that may be its own form of characterization. And, like I said before, the degree of deviation heard here is so great that many players will likely miss it entirely if they aren’t paying attention or don’t know what to listen for.

That said, it’s very obvious that this arrangement of the motif sounds distinctly loose and emotional. The first half is sorrowful, but its internal development also conveys curiosity and open-heartedness. The heroism of the second half conveys a distinct sense of hope, or at least, satisfaction.

I think it’s worth noting here that, when I initially showed my research assistant the scene in which this song is found, after he’d previously heard the song out of context, his immediate impression was that it felt ironic and mocking, as though the game – maybe even Gaster himself – was deriding the Player for not persisting further. I think this impression makes sense. It’s one that I’ve experienced myself, and based on comments I’ve seen, it certainly seems to be the impression many Players walk away from the first two chapters with.

After a little more discussion, specifically after I presented the idea of Deltarune’s One Ending, and the idea that this ending is likely the “default” ending – the one Gaster knows will happen and seems to be hoping to change – my research assistant felt the song conveyed sincere acceptance. In his words: “whatever ending the player gets, it was heroic that they even tried.”

Characterization perspective

In reference to the idea of this ending theme being ironic or cynical, I think there’s something to be said for the possibility that Gaster’s habitual masking and/or intrinsic propensity for interpersonal oddness leads to others disregarding his sincerity or misinterpreting it as malice. We could argue that this is a trait indicated in a number of other ways beyond this song.

The reverberation of the keys during the Sequence of course recalls the ethereality of Gaster’s extraplanar existence. The fact that the reverberation continues into Faint Courage, combined with the placement of the tonic just before the shift, could be taken to represent a decision by Gaster to take a background role in Kris’s narrative.

Something interesting to consider from that: if the choice was made to take a background role, then what other options were being weighed in the previous dialectics? Does this imply that Gaster has considered more active roles in the past? (Could it be the case that he’s previously taken them, and the outcomes of those past decisions have influenced this latest choice? Is passivity really the best choice he could make here, or is he actually just transferring responsibility? Does he simply not trust himself to do the right thing if given the chance? Sorry this is getting really speculative LOL moving on)

As a number of users mentioned, the inclusion of Faint Courage could be an indication that Gaster is not only mourning the potential loss of the Player and with them, the “NEW FUTURE,” but the potential permanence of Kris’s death in particular. This reading suggests that Gaster feels a great deal of tenderness toward Kris themself; given what we’ve seen of Gaster thus far in this document, it wouldn’t be hard to infer reasons for why he might be especially fond of a misfit kid with self-esteem issues and interpersonal difficulties. (Assuming, of course, that these troubles aren’t directly related to their situation with the Player. Personally, I like to think that the more troubled aspects of Kris’s character are, for the most part, just as true to their real personality as their more “acceptable” or likable aspects are – attributing too much of their struggle to outside influences feels like an undermining of their agency. But I do feel it’s still worthwhile to acknowledge other possibilities, or at least the potential nuance they offer.)

The relationship between Gaster and Kris is absolutely something that warrants further examination as the story continues. While this song (and to a certain degree, the next one) seem to suggest a fair amount of good intent and even tenderness on the part of Gaster toward Kris, there’s certainly still room for complexity and tension on Kris’s part.

The song in context

In a typical game, we’d expect to be returned to a title screen or menu right after choosing not to continue. Deltarune instead gives us Gaster’s narration, then leaves us on a black screen for the roughly one-minute duration of Darkness Falls, before it closes the game window on its own. That begs the question of why the game lingers here on this song in the way it does.

In a metanarrative sense, I think there’s validity to the idea that this choice was made to reinforce that we reached “an end” – not just a game over, but the “default” ending or One Ending to the game, in which the world is covered in darkness. As mentioned before, Darkness Falls sounds to a degree like an end credits song. The game closes because that’s what typically happens after the end – we leave the game.

As far as narrative or character interpretation goes, we do know that (pre-ch1-completion, at least) Gaster is our facilitator out-of-universe in Deltarune from its start to its finish. We have reason to believe that he has control over the screens we’re on (given that he can exit us back to title). We can infer that he would be the one to redirect us to the menu.

We have no reason to think that, just because Gaster’s narration has left the screen, he’s suddenly ceased to be present when Darkness Falls plays. The fact that it starts with his Sequence seems to imply his continued presence. We can infer that he’s the one keeping us here through the song, and the one who finally closes the game.

Maybe he keeps us here because he feels he owes us our ending song – and maybe this song is an expression of what he’s thinking and feeling in that moment.

To reiterate my reading from the Post People Liked: Gaster describes our ending, and then he has nothing left to say. We said “no,” and he can’t violate our consent as participants, but he can’t bear to let us go just yet. His “NEW FUTURE” is in the balance, Kris’s life is in the balance, and on top of that, we can’t deny that the man is probably just lonely.

So, we’re left alone in the dark with him, and for the first time, we “see” him entirely exposed – no confident, clinical dialogue, no choices to make, no spr_mysteryman, no True Lab fog or trees for him to hide behind. We sit there with him as he works quietly through the situation – perhaps even entreating us to come back and try again later – and when Darkness Falls ends, when he finally reaches some form of acceptance, he decides he can’t keep us there any longer, and closes the game.

[#005] man.ogg (Tree Room)

man.ogg is the track that plays in the secret Tree Room, and is notably not found on the original Deltarune OSTs thus far. While a first-time player could technically experience this track before the previous two discussed, most players going in blind won’t learn about the secret room until after their first playthrough, or potentially until chapter 2.

I know there’s some debate in the fanbase over whether or not Gaster is the unseen (at least to the Player) man encountered in the Tree Room and elsewhere. Aside from the arguable use of his motif in this song, which I’ll get to in a moment, I think there are other context clues indicating that he’s intended to be representative of Gaster in some way:

Gaster, in particular, seems to never be referred to by name except when being referred to by the “followers” or the Sound Test UI. The reasons for this could be metanarrative (to maintain the mystery around him) or narrative (to indicate that Gaster has distanced himself from his name, for whatever reason).

Precedent from Undertale associates Gaster with the word “man,” specifically unmodified instances.

Aside from spr_mysteryman and the possible relevance of Memoryhead and its attacks, UTDR never represent Gaster as a sprite visible to players. After all, as far as we’re aware, he no longer has a physical form for us to see. The fact that Deltarune’s Man is always hidden from our view feels like a clear nod to this.

Musical analysis

man.ogg is a brief, unaccompanied piano piece, seemingly a waltz (fan-arranged sheet music for reference – I’m a big fan of the tone descriptor “surreptitious yet jocular”).

While it’s subtle, it can arguably be read as a variation of the Gaster Sequence. Gaster Theme Everywhere Skeptic Matthew Sandstrom describes this variation as a “Garbled Gaster”:

The melody and rhythm are somewhat garbled, but the right notes are there, even if the order is wrong.

He identifies two other tracks in chapter 1 that seem to use this same Garbled Gaster motif: April 2012 and, VERY, VERY INTERESTINGLY, THE HOLY. I won’t be getting into those tracks here, but I think it’s worth pointing out that a distinct “Man” motif might be an ongoing thing to look out for.

For what it’s worth, my research assistant also felt that man.ogg was likely an intentional variation on the Gaster Sequence. His justification included the thought that the motif could largely be boiled down to the “top two notes.” Make of that what you will.

I won’t worry too much about comparing this directly to mus_st_him.ogg as I have with other tracks in this document, since it seems to be almost a new motif in itself. The fact that “the right notes are there” but the “order is wrong” is worth considering, though – it’s the same Sequence in an almost unrecognizable form. It’s no longer a dialectic, but a partnered dance. Keeping with precedent, there’s also a very subtle, almost imperceptible echo applied to it.

As a final note, man.ogg is actually not an entirely new track – it’s been identified as a rework of a fan song (“Waltz of Seccom Masada”) made by Toby Fox for the game Yume Nikki (“Dream Diary”). Specifically, it’s a theme he wrote for the character known to Yume Nikki fans as Seccom Masada-sensei.

[#005-A] A Brief Tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei

As I mentioned in the previous tangent ([#001-A]), I want to be careful about suggesting too much from reworked tracks that were meant for or made in reference to other projects. After all, MEGALOVANIA isn’t meant to suggest that Sans is ascending to God Tier or likes saying swears. (It’s worth noting that the aforementioned April 2012, which seems to use the Man motif, is also a rework of an unreleased Homestuck track.)

However, much like with Giygas, the connections between Gaster and Uboa have been intuitively obvious since the first Fun event investigations on Starmen.net. (Toby Fox literally used a slightly edited Uboa for Dr. Andonuts’s final boss overworld sprite. The dude likes Uboa, OK?)

So, again, I don’t think it’s unreasonable in this case to take a closer look at a very pointed reference to Yume Nikki as we gather information.

Masada-sensei’s appearance in Yume Nikki is very brief; demonstrations of the segment may be found on YouTube. While the connections between spr_mysteryman’s design and Uboa are well-known, the idea that Masada-sensei and Gaster may also be comparable in some ways is far more obscure, but worth considering.

Some things of possible note from the segment itself:

Reaching Masada-sensei’s spaceship requires descending a long flight of stairs into what appears to be some type of basement. At one point, Madotsuki must equip the Umbrella Effect (which causes her to hold an umbrella while rain falls) in order to extinguish a fire blocking her way.

Masada-sensei’s sprite is in black-and-white – white face, black clothes and hair. His only discernible facial feature is a set of googly eyes that make him look a little neurotic. He also has a non-standard reaction to the Knife Effect – approaching him with it equipped will cause him to back away in fright.

When first encountered, he turns in place steadily and fairly slowly in front of some kind of piano or organ, as though playing the instrument and/or operating it as a type of control panel. Interacting with him causes him to beep at us.

The next room to the right contains a bed. If the player has Madotsuki sleep in the bed, she will wake up later to the sound of the ship’s alarm system. At this point, Masada-sensei can be seen turning rapidly and erratically, as though panicked.

The spaceship will then be seen to crash onto a planet. It is raining when they land. Masada-sensei stands still, looking out the window.

Masada-sensei and Madotsuki seem to be alone on the planet, which stretches for several screens, desolate, until it culminates in a hole in the ground, atop a mound, leading to another long flight of stairs that descend into darkness and an even stranger, more inscrutable setpiece.

Possible character parallels worth noting:

Masada-sensei’s location in a spaceship suggests associations with scientific activity.

Yume Nikki fans commonly interpret Masada-sensei as a music teacher, hence the honorific. As Royal Scientist, Dr. Gaster would have been an authority in his field. We also know that at least one of Undertale’s Royal Scientists (Alphys) is a schoolteacher in Deltarune.

Masada-sensei certainly bears some physical resemblance to the widely accepted image of Gaster; and similarly to Gaster, the small amount of subtle characterization he was given made him a very popular object of fans’ affections and speculations. It’s worth noting, however, that Masada-sensei seems to be pretty universally understood as a sympathetic and very “human” figure – something that can’t necessarily be said for Gaster among the fanbase historically and at large.

I won’t extrapolate on this information too much here, but for this section, the “teacher” thing is worth keeping in mind.

Emotional perspective

I would certainly say “surreptitious yet jocular” feels like an accurate description of this song. To me it feels playful, but out-of-step. It seems like it should be a more cheerful piece, but there’s an underlying sadness or confusion leaking through.

What stands out to me most about this track is how rough it sounds, like the piano player is new to the instrument. For being such a simple piece, there’s a clumsiness to it, a lack of confidence – it sounds like it’s being played just a little too slowly, like the piano player is practicing the muscle memory needed to play it at full speed, and the rhythm stutters momentarily between bars, as if they’ve tripped over their own fingers. A few of the notes sound dissonant, like they were played wrong.

To me, this conveys a sense of imperfect but earnest effort. The piano player is not particularly good at this yet, they don’t feel confident about it, but they’re continuing to play. While the song isn’t exactly succeeding at evoking cheer or comfort, it still conveys sincere curiosity.

Characterization perspective

The way this song deviates from the base Sequence, combined with its rough, unrefined sound, could suggest that Gaster is breaking form in these scenes, perhaps stepping out of a comfort zone and attempting a new form of learning.

Aside from the traffic easter egg in chapter 2 (only seen if he was met in chapter 1), these are the only scenes in which Deltarune’s Gaster manifests in-universe and interacts directly with another character. Given that Gaster seems to prefer staying hidden as much as possible, and is also literally an extraplanar being, it isn’t difficult to see why he might be out of practice for this kind of interaction.

The playfulness suggests a drop in facade, and may reflect an innocent and almost childlike curiosity about the Player and/or Kris. The use of a waltz suggests a desire for connection, as though it’s an invitation to dance.

(Setting aside any specific Gaster relevance, I feel there’s a more general trend developing in Deltarune of waltzes being used to convey themes around connection, such as loneliness, the awkwardness and growing pains of a new relationship, the vulnerability and comfort of trusting a new friend, and the despair of a valued connection unexpectedly severed.)

The evocation of a novice sound could also suggest a more general relationship to teaching or nurturing. Recalling the tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei, we could read this song abstractly as a teacher’s perspective of a student’s development.

While Egg could have any number of worthwhile meanings as a symbol in Deltarune, we shouldn’t disregard the obvious: Egg is a young, fragile life in need of gentle handling and incubation. By giving Kris Egg, Gaster seems to be asking them (and/or the Player) to protect it — the future of Egg is in their (our) hands now.

We also have Lancer telling Kris they “won’t get through [their] teen years without at least one Egg” (itself a reference to EarthBound). With this perspective, we could read the act of giving Egg to be itself a gesture of nurturing on Gaster’s part, if admittedly a very bizarre and confusing one from Kris’s/our POV.

The fact that Players on a Snowgrave route will be locked out of chapter 2’s Tree Room could suggest that this behavior causes Gaster to second guess his trust in the Player and their ability to handle such a fragile responsibility.

[#006] Takeaways

While Gaster’s dialogue projects an air of unwavering, confident professionalism and emotional neutrality, the musical information presented alongside him hints toward a complex emotionality lying beneath his mask. Gaster is far from unfeeling – he’s simply hard to read, and that may be, to some degree, his intent.

In general, Gaster may have difficulty trusting his own judgment, whether as a response to past mistakes, and/or as a natural result of his tendencies toward hyper-analytical rumination and emotional repression.

The Gaster of Deltarune seems to be engaging in a great deal of reflection and introspection. He may be proceeding with this study despite having serious reservations about it. He seems disheveled and, to a certain degree, desperate. Whatever reasons Gaster has for being so interested in the future of Deltarune’s world, these reasons are powerful enough that they are, in many ways, breaking him down.

Despite his spoken eagerness to connect with the Player, close observation may suggest that he’s quietly uneasy with the arrangement and may be more skeptical and/or fearful of us than he lets on.

For whatever reasons, Gaster also seems to have a particular fondness for and sentimentality toward Kris, who he seems to want to nurture and protect, while also viewing them as a potential savior and source of hope. The association of both characters with piano seems to underscore a connection between them.

OK im tired of writing about this now. THE END !!!Q!

#deltarune #deltarune theory #wd gaster #$ waltz of a shattered man #$ chadley deltaruminations original lorepost corner #long post

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trappedwriter · 2 years

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Chapter 8

Content Warning, this is intended for people that are 18+ and this chapter includes amputation, ddlg vibes and pure fluff.

Authors Note: Hi everyone, thank you for all the love and support, I really do appreciate it. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please leave me a comment.

Jessica’s POV

Today was the worst day! After having my lovely shower, I struggled to get my leg back on. I then couldn’t get any skinny jeans on. So, I had to settle for overalls and a cute graphic tee. My hair dryer decided to blow a fuse and just stop working altogether. Resulting in me plaiting my hair in pigtail braids. It was not the vibe.

I clambered up onto one of my stool chairs and stretched up as high as I could to reach the my cupboards. After all that effort I yanked them open to find completely bare shelves. I really didn’t want to leave the house today, but things needed to get done. I did a load of laundry (including bun-bun , I must've spilled something on her while I was drunk on the night of the accident cause she stank and there were a couple of crusty marks on her) and left to do my morning errands. I still felt uneasy leaving the house and double checked that I locked my doors. “There’s nothing to worry about, you’re going to be okay” I thought and turned quickly. Inhaling all the good and positive thoughts and exhaling all of the negative ones.

With my cute canvas tote in hand and my backpack slung over my shoulder, I started to make my way into town. Grateful that I didn’t live too far away and was only about a ten minute walk, well it used to be, I guessed it would take me a bit longer now, but I needed to get used to walking again

I popped into the local pharmacy to pick up more of my prescription. I was total blown away by the price, $247 for 2 months’ worth of painkillers and muscle relaxers. Thankfully I had insurance and that covered my medication and brought the price down to $14. After picking up some unnecessary skincare and makeup, I went to supermarket and grabbed some food for a couple of days. I finished up my morning (now afternoon) by grabbing some brunch. There’s this cute little café in town that makes the best French toast. I go in and immediately feel like everyone is watching me. Eyes follow me and whispers start to form. It’s been like this all morning. Sure, I love the attention, but so much of it was starting to make me uncomfortable.

Thankfully the lady at the counter shouted “next” and I placed my order. I sat down at a window seat and scrolled through Instagram whilst I waited. A couple of minutes go by, and I’m pulled away by a plate put in front of me and a strawberry lemonade.

“Here you go sweetie,” said the waitress.

“Thanks”

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but it seems you’ve had a bit of an accident?”

The room went silent, and the music was turned down slightly. Not subtle at all.

“Oh yeah, well. I was moving furniture about, and one thing led to another, and my leg got crushed. There was nothing they could do so they had to chop it off. Doctors said I have weak bones due to cancer. I’ll be starting treatment soon” The words all tumbled out in a rush and I could see her flinch back a bit as they crashed into her.

“Oh sweetie, that’s terrible and you’re so young” She said after a moments pause to take it all in. Her eyebrows dropped and her shocked face morphed into one of concern

“Yeah.” I sagged a bit suddenly tired after expressing so much to someone in person, it wasn't the same as telling everyone online. Rather than the excitement and desire to keep going I normally had I mostly just wanted the conversation to end.

“Well, I’ll let you get stuck into your food and you let me know if you need anything ok?" She squeezed my shoulder as she said this and I mumbled back a noncommittally reply while trying to subtly shrink out of her grip”.

I snapped a quick pic and ate quickly not wanting to be under everyone’s stares. Before leaving I ordered another lemonade to go. As soon as I left the café my phone started going off. I had thousands of notifications from Instagram. I tried to ignore them and started to walk home. Unfortunately, my curiosity got the better of me and I opened the app. I continued walking periodically looking up making sure I didn’t bump into anything. But a message from asos saying that they wanted to work with me, it made me lose complete focus and then THUD!

I bumped into a huge figure, my lemonade went everywhere. My clothes and tote bag were completely drenched. Thankfully my phone was spared from the sticky liquid.

“What the fuck?!” I said, pissed as hell

“Oh my gosh, I’m so so sorry. Are you okay?”

I looked up at the figure and completely melted. He was absolutely gorgeous. He had dark brown hair and steel blue eyes. His facial expression was soft and concerned. All my anger vanished in an instant.

“Oh…I’m okay” I say, my cheeks blushing bright red.

He crouched down to my height. Eyes wandering all over me.

“That’s good. I’m sorry, I should have been watching where I was going. But I’m glad you’re okay, wouldn’t want you to be upset. I’m Sebastian”. He said with a soft smile.

“I’m Jessica” I say shyly. I don’t know why I’m so shy. Maybe it his soft looks, his smile, or the fact that he seemed so genuinely concerned.

“That’s a pretty name. Are your parents picking you up? I could wait with you and explain what happened.”

“Thank you. No, they don’t live here. I was just walking home”. My stomach dropped and my face would have gone red with shame if it wasn't red already. I felt so stupid for wearing my pigtails and overalls of course he thought I was a kid.

“Wait what, you’re walking home by yourself? I know the town is small but is it safe for a little girl like you to be walking home.” He said, once again concerned written all over his face.

“Oh yeah. It is, I’ve lived here my whole life, also I know I look small. And well I am but I’m actually 19. I just have bad genetics”.

“Well, you definitely fooled me. But you’re still as cute as a button.” He said and then booped my nose. I flinched back, but couldn't suppress a giggle even though I was sure it made me look even more like a little girl.

“Hey, what would you say if I asked you out for dinner. Seeing as I ruined your clothes and your day?” He smiled at me again and I felt a pool of drool forming at the corner of my mouth. My heart pounded so hard that I was sure he would be able to hear it and my face was so hot I was worried it would burn.

“You didn’t ruin my day, you actually made it better. I would love to.”

His soft smile turned into a big contagious one. His face lit up when I said yes and he slightly blushed.

“How about the cute little 50’s diner, say about 8 o’clock?”

“Sounds like a plan. Oh! Put your number into my phone, just in case I’m a little late.”

I hand over my phone and he proceeded to put in his number and hand it back to me. I sent him a text, I know he just gave me it but I needed some confirmation otherwise I would think this was all a dream by the time I got home.

Hi, it’s Jessica ☺️

His phone pinged and he smiled when he saw the notification.

“Okay, I’ll see you at 8. Are you sure you’re ok walking home by yourself?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ll see you at 8”.

I waved goodbye and rushed home with the biggest smile on my face.

Chapter 9

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thebanterboys · 9 months

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I watched Karl's new YouTube video (I was too busy yesterday to post about it until now)

Alright so he is using Minecraft content again in order to stress test all these different computers that he spent a range of $1 to $100,000 on. Also George makes an appearance in the video, yay!

The concept is definitely Mr. Beast inspired but at least it isn't just another Mr. Beast Gaming video lol I've seen so many other YouTubers use the same concept of reviewing the same things but with wildly different price tags in order to pit them against each other. This concept is so popular because I think people just like being able to see the most expensive and fancy stuff cause not many people would have access to say a billion dollar yacht like Mr. Beast does. But, for example, someone reviewing a $1 curling iron versus a $1,000 curling iron would be much more useful to the average viewer cause that is something people might actually be able to afford and be interested in buying but want to know whether any extra money is worth the price. This is one of the first thumbnails that I saw when I searched "$1 v" on YouTube btw (after all the Mr. Beast results lmao) and it already has a million views after just two days.

Update on Karl's thumbnail: He used a new picture of himself so I guess reusing the old one didn't work as planned or he only intended to use it again for that one video.

I wish we could have gotten more footage of when he played Minecraft on the $25,000 movie theater screen cause that one was the most interesting to me but I had a hard time getting a sense of the scale of it with what we got in the final video.

Anyway, I think Karl will stick with mostly Minecraft content on his channel but he'll do some other games like GTA as well.

#Banter boys be bantering #Karl Jacobs video review

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reallygrossstuff · 1 year

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Not big enough to justify a cross-site upload, but I finished this short piece yesterday and wanted to share it. It may end up on FA and AO3 once I have enough bits for a WG collection, but until then it’s exclusive to you guys!

Featuring Dante (Alpha Dave) encouraging Bro to try out a new restaurant a little outside of Bro’s usual tastes, with significant results.

Bro didn’t bother looking around in too much detail as he entered the restaurant. Dante had already told him what to expect from the food, and the aesthetic matched those expectations perfectly. Sweating leather booths? Check. Tacky wood flooring? Check. Menu boards crammed with chalked-in specials? Check, check, and check on every surface.

“I dunno why you were even so hyped to get me here,” Bro commented as Dante entered behind him, herding him further from the door. “This gimmick ain’t my thing at all.”

“Can’t you just trust your big bro on this, B?” Dante looped an arm around Bro’s neck, ignoring Bro’s long-suffering murmur of “we’re twins”. “I know you’re Bro Strider of the eternal fuckin’ sweet tooth, but I swear, this place could sell pure grease and pack all the booths. They’ve got some special ingredient in it, nobody walks outta here unsatisfied. Packs pounds on you like hell though, apparently.”

Bro scoffed, shaking his head even as Dante badgered him forwards towards their reserved booth. “If it’s in the grease, then I’ll be fine. You’d have to be a slob to like that shit, doubt I’ll get through the first course here.”

“We’ll see about that, man.” Dante pushed Bro to sit in the booth first, sliding in close afterwards. “Yo, waiter! First course over here, please.”

Watching a waiter respond to this vague request, Bro frowned. “Don’t you have to actually order? You didn’t tell the guy what we’re gettin’.”

“Don’t worry,” Dante assured him, lips curling up slightly. “They know exactly what to get ya.”

---

“Hff... hff... grrp...”

Loud, deep panting filled the restaurant, a steady background hum when it wasn’t overpowered by the loud grrrrning and glrrrrping that accompanied it. The whole room felt warmer, much more full now than it was that afternoon - though nobody new had entered, and in fact a few had left.

Dante set another tray down on the table, but picked it up quickly when it began to slide down its now-slanted surface. Taking a moment to decide where to put it instead, he eventually settled on balancing it atop Bro’s stomach; there was plenty of room.

In a word, Bro had exploded since entering the restaurant. The booth, likely intended to seat four or five, pressed tightly against his every inch, cradling him like a leathery egg cup. His stomach was mashed against both sides of the space, forcing it to push outwards until it bent the table in front of him; even as firmly-packed as it now was, it still had enough give for half of the table to have disappeared into the divot between his two most prominent belly rolls.

His clothes were a complete lost cause. Of the outfit he’d been wearing when he entered, only half each of his tank top and jeans could be said to meaningfully remain. While the shirt hung more like an apron now, having torn at both sides as his upper body ballooned with fat, it was still mostly in place over his moobs due solely to how little Bro had moved, leaving it to serve as a makeshift napkin. What remained of his jeans only preserved his modesty between his ankles and knees - after his waist had grown too wide for the belt to withstand, his rapidly thickening thighs had sent rips spiderwebbing halfway down his legs until the denim there fell off in flakes. This left his thighs bare, visibly clammy where they smushed against each other, and looking further down it was obvious that Bro’s shoes and socks hadn’t lasted either (even if only the barest glimpses of his feet were visible as they receded into his flabby legs).

Perhaps naturally his backside might have settled in a rounder, less obvious shape, but pressed against the back of the booth, it seemed to loom high and wide. Every huff of breath or twitched finger rippled back into slow waves across the two pale moons, a single larger trickle of sweat drawing every eye helplessly to the deep crevasse between the cheeks. It quivered as it hung the barest amount over into the neighbouring booths, fitting so tightly against the cheap leather that it was easy to doubt anyone’s ability to extract him.

Having had plenty of time to eye each feature up as they’d grown, Dante found himself once more paying the most attention to Bro’s face. His cheeks would have been round if they sagged slightly less, but as it was they pressed heavily into his doughy shoulders, obscuring any view of what exactly had happened to his neck. His hair dripped with sweat, the man likely feeling twenty degrees warmer than anyone else in the room, and his eyes were unfocused and glazed in some mix of exhaustion, overstimulation and reluctant pleasure.

“So,” Dante drew out the word, “how’s that grease treatin’ you, man?” Leaning on one hand against Bro’s exposed middle (heedless of the only half-swallowed burp it caused), he lowered his shades to let Bro see all the blatant ogling he was doing; Bro’s own shades, without a hope of fitting around his fat face, were hanging safely from Dante’s own collar. “You full yet?”

“Hff... fuck... you... haaah...” Every word took visible effort, Bro’s lips shining wetly as he exercised them through each syllable. “Won’t... eat... anymooooooouuuurrrrppp...!”

“Ha, well, sounds like you just made some more room.” With his other hand, Dante gave Bro’s gut a firm smack, digging each of his fingers into it to jiggle the densely-packed mass until the fatass was forced into helpless belching. “And some more right now. And I know you fucking love this shit now, so why don’t I help a bro out and get you started on twelfths?”

Bro’s eyes widened as much as his heavy, drooping brow would allow, his face wobbling with his best attempt at shaking his head. “N-no way. I’m not... eating any more... of that.”

“You don’t gotta lie to me, I know you’re drooling over it.” Picking up a burger that oozed pure glop over his fingers, Dante shoved the whole thing into Bro’s half-closed mouth and squeezed his lips together.

“M-mmph!!!”

“Yeah, yeah, take it all in...” With one hand sealing Bro’s lips shut, Dante used his other to move Bro’s jaw, forcing him to chew up the burger and lathering its tastes across his tongue. He watched as Bro fought against the simple fact that the food clearly tasted good, his brow furrowing even as his eyes hazed over even more. Within a few forced chews, Dante could take his hand back and watch Bro go through the minutes-long labour of mashing the burger up enough to slide down his throat.

“Gotta say, I’m surprised you took to this greasy shit so fast,” Dante hummed, leaning against Bro’s front to watch him stuff himself further. “I mean, only slobs eat at places like this.”

#really gross stuff #bro strider #dave strider #(technically alpha dave but i dont have a tag for that yet)#dante strider #(there we go)#fatstuck #stuffing #slob

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dreams-of-cerulean · 2 years

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Out-of-Order Sign Testing :: Object: A yellow sign with the words Out-of-Order in white letters. A chain is attached to the out-of-order sign, though it seems to weakly stick to objects from its back side.

Test 1: Ground Action: Sign left on ground for twenty minutes. Result: No apparent effect. Test 2: Television, off Action: Sign placed on back of television. Result: Television will no longer turn on. After sign is taken off, television can be turned on again. Test 3: Television, on Action: Sign placed on back of television. Result: Television immediately turns off. It no longer turns on. After sign is removed and television’s switch is kept in the on position, the television turns back on.

Test 4: Inventory Action: Sign stored in the Inventory after removal of all things from it. Result: No apparent effect. Test 5: Inventory with several MREs still stored in it and a watch stored in it. Action: Temperature of cooked MREs measured at 95 degrees Fahrenheit / 36 degrees centigrade. Watch is at the time 6:25 pm. Sign placed into inventory and waited three hours before removal. Result: Temperature of cooked MREs are still maintained at pre-Sign temperature. The clock now reads 9:25 pm. No, I still don’t get why that happens, but Inventory still functions as it does. No apparent effect.

Test 6: The fence outside my house. Action: Sign placed on fence. Result: Animals can cross boundary by practically jumping over the fence, even animals that shouldn’t have that physical capability. Climbing the fence myself, I found some sort of upwards force that made it effortless for me to go over the fence. Addend: The sign seems to affect not just electronic devices but objects that serve a certain function. Test 7: Opened / closed door Action: Sign placed on door. Result: Before testing, door is able to be opened and closed with minimal effort. If the sign is on the door after it’s been opened, it cannot be closed. Same thing for the opposite. Passage through an open door occurs as intended. Test 8: Doorframe Action: Sign placed on open doorframe Result: Can still pass through the doorframe as intended.

Test 9: Mirror Action: Sign placed on the back of mirror. Result: Mirror turns completely black, like the darkest thing I’ve ever seen. I think I remember something about this in science class - we see colors and stuff because of light reflecting off them, so I guess when the mirror stopped reflecting anything, it is “visibly” black. Test 10: Door Lock Action: Sign placed on the door lock. Result: The lock no longer functions as attempts to put a key inside the lock fail. If the door is closed, the door will also not move. Test 11: House safe Action: Sign placed over the safe lock Result: The safe is opened without regard to lock combination after sign is placed on it. That’s...a very interesting result. So somehow for a door, the combination of door and lock together prevents passage through it, but if placed on something to keep something protected, it will allow me to empty the contents of the safe. Good to know. Test 12: House of Asshole Social Studies Teacher Action: Sign placed underneath a board. Result: Test is assisted by Sasha and Lils - Sasha is needed because she can tell when devices fail due to her electronic powers. Lils mostly kept lookout. Subject is a 27 year old guy with no redeeming qualities. Confirmed device breakdowns: Refrigerator stopped working for a couple hours at a time, unnoticed by subject. Central heating broke for 2 hours, causing subject to curse. Computer refused to turn on for two hours, leading to more cursing. Screaming from presumed main bedroom - when I checked through a window, teacher had fallen away from his home mirror pointing. Television refused to turn on, leading to more subject complaints. Testing stopped after subject ran from his house in a towel, screaming above how his house is haunted. Addend: So it seems that when placed on a dwelling or building, the malfunctions become random and temporary. I would like to test this at the School, but I actually like our custodian.

Test 13: Lils Action: Lils was wearing the Out-of-Order sign around her neck after Test 12 ended and refused to give it back. Result: Doesn’t seem to affect Lils at all. Testing completed after sign was hung around my neck after being sat on.

#online::Levant #testing

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motelpearl · 4 months

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star trek: picard spoilers /

I'm gonna keep updating this with my thoughts (making threads is one thing I kinda miss about twitter so this will have to do)

somehow troi & riker having a weird horse girl daughter makes perfect sense like she does so much of the stuff I did at that age (making up fake countries & languages, drawing really well for her age, running around in the bush with an archery toy)

when riker showed up at the end of season one LORD JESUS I COULDVE KISSED THE SCREEN

also elnor is my son I love him. AND FUCK Q

omfg I know the modern day is near-dystopian but seeing 2024 earth not only referenced but actually depicted so starkly in comparison to the near-utopian future in star trek is so fucking bleak like UGH CAN THE FUCKING VULCANS COME TEACH US SPACE COMMUNISM ALREADY. WHERE THE REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY AT

the rick & Morty reference DID NOT AGE WELL IN MANY WAYS UGH IM GENERALLY ENJOYING THIS SHOW BUT SOME OF THE WRITING IS SO REDDIT

I hate to say it but agnes & the borg queen are the most toxic yuri in the known universe

speaking of toxic yuri I knew nothing about seven of nine going into this cause I havent watched ds9 but I fucking love her like if she & raffi ever need a third......tsahaha

ALSO WHY IS CHRIS SO DUMB IN THE 2ND SEASON. YOU WILL NEVER FUCK.

THE WAY THE 2ND SEASON RETCONS TIMES ARROW FROM TNG & THAT EPISODE IN TNG WHERE PICARD SEES A VISION OF HIS MOM & SHES OLD AS FUCK & HAS GREY HAIR & A FRENCH ACCENT BOTHERS ME GREATLY. NOT TO BE THAT KIND OF NERD OR ANYTHING.

ok nevermind him having visions of her as an old lady is explained.....except the french accent

was data the only soong who wasnt a total dickhead

"sweet picard, your guilt must've saved planets by now, countless lives in trade for the one you couldn't" SCREAMS OF AGONY

romulan with red bloodshot eyes....RED?

QCARD DIVORCE ANNULMENT 🥳🥳

ok I guess chris DID fuck sorry I wasnt familiar with his game

wow I can't believe I watched the entirety if season 2 in one night tbh everything I've heard about this show from people whose opinions i generally trust has been that its (and I quote) "laughably bad" & like ruined all of TNG for them & I was honestly scared it would ruin it for me too cause tbh I became a trekkie when i was 9/10 & a lot of bad things were going on in my life at that point & star trek was one thing that always gave me happiness & then later I got into it again during like the deep quarantine where no one was leaving their houses at all & just about everyone around me got radicalized into racist far-right fearmongering qanon shit but the idea that someday humans will be able & intelligent enough not only to put aside our own differences but to be able to befriend alien species & those aliens being willing to help humanity at one of its lowest points & someday even if it doesnt happen in my own lifetime, that people can exist who genuinely care about the needs of many & actively work to better the lives of people throughout the universe instead of just giving in to individualism & cynicism & irony poisoning which is such an easy trap to fall into gave me so much hope for humanity like yall I'm literally getting choked up typing this & I never cry & I was kind of worried that this show would stomp on everything i loved about star trek but thankfully it hasnt so far (though to be fair I like a lot of objectively bad things I mean my favourite decade of fashion is the 70s so maybe this is just jingling the metaphorical keys at me)

CRUSHERRRRRR SEASON 3 COMING OUT THE GATES SWINGING (no pun intended but im not changing it now)

ENOUGH NEEDLE DROPS I HATE TO SAY IT BUT ITS GIVING STRANGER THINGS/THE MARIO MOVIE (THOUGH IN A SLIGHTLY LESS CRINGY NOSTALGIA BAIT WAY LIKE AT LEAST THIS ISN'T USING TOP 40 SHIT FROM THE 80S) & at least it's mostly non-diegetic bc I feel like diegetic music has more of a chance of being used tastelessly

british accent is stored in the balls

its gotta be worf or at least some klingon giving raffi orders right....who else would call someone a warrior

NOOOOO THE DE-AGING CGI OR WHATEVER IN S3 E3 ITS SO UNCANNY VALLEY it was surprisingly pretty good on data in s1 & q in s2 though......where did the budget go

why is old man worf kinda *starts coughing*

amanda plummer is so terrifying in every role I've seen her in like even in catching fire when she was a protagonist

also why do so many people victim blame picard for being assimilated by the borg it's not like he wanted to get assimilated & become the face of a massacre. the whole motto of the borg is "resistance is futile" like there was literally nothing he couldve done to prevent it

jack better prove himself QUICKLY cause other than his parentage I don't see anything that would inspire me to fight for his life

& then cthulu was born

goddamn the changelings make the borg look like a bunch of peace & love flower children. on that note on that note if picard assimilated beverly's reproductive system with some fucked up latent borg sperm i will be disappointed but not surprised cause what is up with jack's crazyass visions

BLESS RO BLESS WORF BLESS RAFFI

if I weren't worried I might miss something important I'd skip all the scenes where jack monologues about benign shit for no reason BOOOO GET OFF THE STAGE

JUMPIN JIMINY

WHY IS THIS LITERALLY A HORROR MOVIE honestly the concept of beings that can make themselves look & sound human has always been one of the things that scare me the most which is weird because all my life I've been compared to robots & aliens WHICH IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY I LIKED STAR TREK SO MUCH IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE I RELATED SO MUCH TO DATA so in theory I shouldnt be afraid of that because I'm in the same predicament & I can relate in many ways but I mean idk I guess theres a difference between feeling excluded & wanting to be the ones who exclude. my fear probably comes more from the idea of unwillingly walking into a trap thinking someone you trust was going to help you & then having to wonder "what happened to the real person?"

what I meant by that long ramble is: the tuvok scene........*shudders*

would it be for for best if the borg carried out one last forceful assimilation of the changelings......could they be trusted with that capability......*strokes chin pensively*

THEYRE DOING/WILL DO THE PICARD MANEUVER IM CALLING IT NOW ok wait heres my theory they do the picard maneuver -> it looks like theres another ship but it's just like a warp imprint or whatever -> vadic tries to beam aboard the fake ship & actually beams herself into space -> the main crew beam aboard the shrike & save riker & troi & possibly take the portal weapon -> beam back to the real ship & blow the shrike up while all the crew panic cause they just watched vadic explode in space

well.

BIG DADDY WORF COME TO LAY THE SMACK DOWN GOD BLESS GOD FUCKING BLESS BRUH IMAGINE YOUR FRIEND COMES TO BREAK YOU OUT OF DEATH ROW & IMMEDIATELY STARTS FLIRTING WITH YOUR WIFE IM FUCKING DEAD

GET DATA ON THE PHONE CAN THEY NOT DELETE LORE'S WHOLE FILES LIKE WHAT CAN HE POSSIBLY CONTRIBUTE TO ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY

nooooo data don't misgender spot

OOOOOOOH THEY ALMOST HAD ME THERE

THEY DID BLAST THEM INTO SPACE I WAS PARTIALLY RIGHT YEEEEEEHAW

wait. are the red door & the red lady the same thing

BORG PENIS I CALLED IT

what happened to the borg using their power for good....get agnes on the phone....

hooh I knew it was coming but....enterprise d my beloved

last episode prediction: picard will have to become locutus one last time to defeat the borg & whoever else

yknow right now would be a real great time for some q or some travellers/watchers to show up & do their thing. also imagine the insane drama of wesley crusher coming to talk his long lost brother out of becoming a fascist alien king

on that note i cant decide whether assimilation is a metaphor for fascism, addiction, sexual assault, stds, something else I haven't considered, or is just a wild crazy non-allegorical concept of the kinds of things that might exist in space

JUPITER IS NOT CLASS M

one thing that keeps catching me off guard & then making me laugh is how patrick stewart's high rp shakespearean accent has slightly waned over the years so I'll sometimes be like "why did picard sound like paul mccartney there" & then I remember that patrick stewart is actually northern (yes yes i know yorkshire & liverpool are two different places but the uk is so minuscule by canadian standards that they might as well be the same and no one outside the uk can tell the difference between the accents so dont lecture me) <- yes unfortunately I'm the laziest kind of linguistics nerd as well I'm honestly just exposing myself as annoying in this post

let me guess jack is the beacon & they have to kill him

did they clone locutus

GOD I FUCKING LOVE DATA

I love troi too like when the writing gives her a chance to be shes literally so smart & so aware & in tune with everything like she's such an asset to the crew but it's rare we get to see that in action

I'm getting too good at predicting things

well now that I've finished it I can say I really dont know why I saw so much hate for it like maybe I've just operated in weird spaces of the internet but I mean I really dont see what there is to outright hate about it (I mean early on some of the characters felt very stilted like agnes in the first season was just yapping & was giving millenial cringe to the highest degree but I think by the 2nd season she redeemed herself but then was that even canon considering the 3rd season? idk I definitely have criticisms but I wouldn't call it "laughably bad" & it definitely hasnt forever ruined my view of star trek thank god)

sigh I just love these characters yall. if that's key jingling then put my ass in the crib

also I'm just going through all the seasons of tng & watching my favorite episodes & some random ones & it makes me laugh so hard when they show picard wearing anything other than his uniform cause he's always just in the sluttiest outfits ever 😭 they had patrick stewart running around in a v-neck & booty shorts

gah the best of both worlds part 1 & 2 + family work so well as like a trilogy but they're also such heartbreaking episodes like borg assimilation is one of those things that just becomes increasingly unrelentingly more & more horrifying the more you think about it & the scenario of those episodes would literally be so terrifying for anyone involved like beverly seeing the guy she's sort of in love with become the face of this genocidal fascist species but then her son is on board the enterprise & just watched his mom be sent on an away team where it was possible she might not come back or worse & also wesley having to see picard be the face of the borg & probably feeling like he just lost another father figure & like it would literally have no good outcomes for anyone cause even the borg don't want to be borg but it was forced upon them

on that note I kind of have a headcanon that the borg would have originated from like, a super technologically advanced planet's military putting cybernetic implants in all their soldiers for efficiency so they could have a hive mind & think as one & coordinate seamlessly & always be up to date on what other sectors of the military were doing & then deciding that instead of killing their enemies, they would forcibly conscript them into the military by assimilating them & by doing this they eventually took over whichever planet they originated on. eventually this wasn't enough for them so they started traveling the universe & assimilating whole planets & that's how it came to the point we see in tng & beyond

sigh they really wrote the episode hero worship for all us little weird kids who connected to data didnt they

if they really wanted to give geordi a romance with someone they couldve tried to put him with ro laren bc their dynamic in the next phase was so cute like his outgoing-ness + her aloofness & how he sort of brought her out of her shell in that episode UGH walk with me. or they couldve just made him gay which they were apparently considering but decided against? idk but I mean the man literally orders an ice coffee in the same episode where he falls in love with a girl just by watching her vlogs. how did they preemptively stereotype him before the stereotype of gay people loving ice coffee even existed (I jest) but like ugh ANYTHING EXCEPT THE PARASOCIAL INCEL SHIT THEY ALWAYS PUT HIM INTO & THEN IN THE VERY LAST EPISODE THEY SAY HE'S MARRIED TO LEAH BRAHMS LIKE NO. PLEASE. JUSTICE FOR GEORDI. END THE CHARACTER ASSASSINATION. but the future in that episode isnt even canon & thankfully in picard they never outright say who he had kids with so like in my mind they are not the product of reply-guy-ification but a normal relationship (also justice for leah brahms & whoever she was married to.) idk why i even feel so strongly about this. I guess maybe because geordi is otherwise such a good character & the very concept of him is so ahead of its time & obviously characters need to have flaws but did it have to be Those kinds of flaws specifically </3

also cardassians should not have hair idc I know people think bald aliens are too cliche but what business do reptilians have with hair how would that even evolve

#motelpearl #long post /#star trek

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