I love this 'Ralsei being a tree/root system under the hometown' theory. It does make sense a lot to me especially how he "teleported' between Dark Worlds and such.
Yeah, I don’t know how to finish this in a way that I’m happy with.
I still like the idea and the paneling, but instead of torturing myself over it for another month, I might as well just leave it unfinished as it is.
Think of it as a forever work-in-progress, since that’s what Killer is in my eyes (not in a bad or demeaning way, we all are, in a sense, forever WIPs AHSDAHS).
I think Dream and Killer have one of the most interesting dynamics in the fandom. And it is not in fact one where Dream forcibly tries to help Killer, but rather, one where he recognizes he cannot and what that means. You could get away with a much younger Dream not understanding this as well, but an older Dream knows when pushing only makes it worse. Sometimes you have to wait for the other person to be ready to accept your help. (Shout out Underverse, only story that ever did Dream right with this)
not only that, but Killer is still an existential threat to him. He is genuinely everything that unnerves him, someone he shouldn’t have any reason to be kind to and still will be. Someone who will hurt him and hurt him and hurt him and hurt him because Killer does not trust him.
I want Dream to be able to say the exact things Color will later say, and for it to simply not work, because Killer does not trust Dream, not while he’s with Nightmare. Not until a long time afterwards. Dream is everything that unnerves Killer. The ability to read emotions, the cheerful demeanour hiding his real emotions underneath, his role as a protector of positivity making his help seem fake or forced, he will both not accept help because he doesn’t think he deserves it yet and because Dream is the one offering it.
but he does find Dream interesting. He doesn’t really understand Dream. He wants to understand Dream, but he fundamentally misunderstands Dream. That’s why Dream keeps landing hits back on him. He sees Dream as an inverse of Nightmare. See Killer has a very interesting hook to his character and that’s his emotionlessness. If I were to describe to you what I think is the most interesting thing about him, I would say, he is a character that did the unthinkable to escape emotional numbness and experience some form of joy at something new, and the unthinkable was so devastating that the only solution was to return to a complete deprivation of emotion to avoid ever facing what he did. In this sense, from where he stands, both positivity and negativity did him wrong. He cannot go back to feeling, and the only way he ever improves, the only way things get better, is if he does. This is the conflict at the heart of his character. Literally.
however, there is one other option. The ultimate never feeling anything again: death. Which is canonically what Killer was about to do (erase himself) just before Nightmare showed up and took him away. There’s a comic about it hiding out somewhere on Rahaf’s blog, but that is canon in this comic too.
If you’re wondering about Chara, they’re a hallucination. Appeared in the old comics, haven't seen them mentioned much since, so I don't know if Rahaf still uses them, but I like the concept of Killer being berated by his own conscience after he murdered Chara
lastly, if you were curious what universe Dream brought Killer to, I just somewhat made it up: imagine a god of hyperdeath style ending only the player becomes a part of it and that is the only character left. The god of hyperdeath controlled by the player. They’re friendly, don’t worry. But sorry Killer, Dream is in fact right.
Dream had to leave to heal to avoid another Nightmare ambush and get Ink to figure out what to do with Killer, but Nightmare had already found him by the time they returned.
i genuinely cried tears of joy when i saw the post of killer in a trans jacket; even more so when i saw superyoumna's drawings of these two in pride outfits.
when the posts about recognizing the trans allegory with cross were made, i was so estatic for one of the most popular and influential sanses to be at least trans-coded & drawn to show support, if not actually canonly trans. then those posts were deleted, erased after a little while, with no further outward word or support towards the community from jakei. it was a hurtful disappointment that made the support seem insincere.
to see killer confirmed to be trans and with a gay man, without any cowardice or shame — no backpedaling, or hesitation — makes me so happy and seen, as i'm sure many other trans UTMV fans feel too because of this. in a time where hatred and fear towards transgender people is at an a terrifying high, all of us around the world are going through horrible hardships. representation of us in media is becoming less and less common, because it's not "trendy" to support us anymore. so as a trans person, thank you. 💛
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