If the system ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess! Accounting may not be the oldest profession, but someone had to keep the books for them.
I mean, in theory I know that Excel is based on the structure of earlier accounting technology that's been around for hundreds of years -- what do we think we did to track commerce before computers? -- but it still kind of blows my mind to, for example, look at my ancestor's journal from a whaling voyage in 1770 and see spreadsheets in the back.
do you ever find something that is so funny and you want to share it with everyone but it also requires 18 layers of context spanning things like. 90s anime. aviation history. europop. canada. in order to even remotely understand why it is so funny
“i have to listen to my body’s needs” secret boss fight written by person who has chronic and disabling wrist pain which has fundamentally changed his relationship to his hobbies and his job <- i care it as someone who has also had chronic pain in my wrist/hand for 5 years
another thing i tend to think about with this. i also just think in chapter 5 there's a theme of care and dependency. the flowers have extreme guilt over being taken care of by asgore. flowery conceptualizes himself as weak and useless. in the dark world, his fantasy, he tries to return the care given to him to asgore to "make up for" asgore taking care of him when he should've died decades ago. it's an extreme example, but i also resonate with his feeling.
when your body or mind puts you in a situation where your reliance on other people becomes really explicit, you're trained by the world to see that as shameful or to see yourself as deficient. your efforts to ignore your needs just to avoid "being a burden," will leave you worse off. you punish yourself because of deeply internalized ableism.
regardless, even by virtue of being a living thing on this planet, you are already designed to need others. you have to listen to your body's needs even against a society that teaches you you shouldn't. you have to be okay with the fact that you have needs. sometimes your needs are different or are greater than the person next to you, and all you can do is listen to your body and turn to others when you need them. you're still a person when you need people.
when toby says this:
it's interesting to me how much he uses the language of deltarune to express this feeling. your hopes and dreams slipping away, and bitterness growing is literally the explanation we get for shadow crystals (and so wept the fallen star, making rivers with its tears. then, slowly, from the bitter water, something grew. it looked like glass). this is also the crushing feeling when you lose a sense of control when you're in pain, when you can't do things the way you want, the way you used to. but when you find yourself still able to fly, you do so because you've adapted. you've listened to your body. you've learned that listening to your body means changing the pace, letting yourself be cared for, letting yourself be helped.
as far as toby's said it, having to expand his team has made deltarune a better game. chapter 5 is so expansive because so many people helped to make it. Pink's fight has sprite work from guest artists, music with Camellia, bullets programmed by Toby's team. She is, to me, a love letter to Deltarune's development process as a whole and how it has shaped Toby, and a reflection of the kinds of thoughts Toby has shared with us about developing Deltarune alongside pain. I also think it's a beautiful follow-up to Gerson's themes of storytelling and authorship (letting go of "perfection" + accepting the contributions of others = both about rescinding control and embracing perseverance). Pink is also so much more than this, but I've been thinking about this a lot.
I originally didn't really like Pink that much. She was neat, but not what I was hoping for out of this chapter's shadow boss. But with recent revelations, I have come to realize that there is a line. There is a line to true peak fiction, and I must talk about it.
Please, listen to my tale... I may yet convince you, even if you're someone who already thinks Pink is peak fiction... I think she can be so much MORE.
PART 1: THE FIGHT
I want to start by making it very clear that while I have some thoughts on the fight and story in context of the larger crystal stuff, I think in a vacuum, the fight itself is very good.
I am a SOUL Mode Enjoyer. We finally got Purple, and it was peak. A lot of the attacks are really creative, and I enjoyed especially the 3d Tunnel attacks.
Cutie Mew Mew Magic is maybe not my thing but it's at least very cool and unique.
And, I really like how the fight isn't even remotely subtle with it's Kris/Player relation... Maybe I was closer to the truth than I thought with what I did in SOULBlazers, but I digress. She certainly proves that cooperation is possible, and I hope it's a sign for what's to come.
PART 2: MY CRITIQUE
See, Pink kinda didn't click with me. The way the game treats the lead in to the fight really made it feel like a joke:
And while this is set-up for the misdirect with Orange it still kind of , at least to me, really set the tone that this whole thing was kinda a joke.
It was to the point that I didn't even realize she was the SB until the very moment she gave me the Shadow Crystal...
And, analyzing Pink herself, while her story and themes absolutely connect pretty strongly to Kris (and The Player), she herself doesn't really know anything about that. She's kinda just... doing her own thing.
More damningly, she doesn't really play into the prophecy/fate/freedom/destiny storyline the other crystals play into at all. Every prior Crystal Boss had been pretty defined by this aspect, and it was the one true throughline they all had. Jevil and Spamton and Gerson are all pretty strongly defined by their takes on the Prophecy and other such lore truths, and The Knight, while we don't exactly know how they feel, stands as a representative of the very fate we're fighting against.
You can connect Pink to "Freedom"... but only in the same sorts of ways you can connect most characters to freedom- She can connect pretty strongly in, say, a queer identity self-expression sense... but not really in the larger "fate of the universe" sense. This, to me, kind of left her feeling like an outlier, like she was kind of just tacked on, to the point where I kind of suspected (and still do now) that she might have been a somewhat later idea compared to the others... (For instance, why isn't the Mew Mew doll in Chapter 1? Asgore says it's the "mascot of the store", and yet we haven't heard about it until now?)
In general, it felt to me like all 4 previous Secret Bosses were REALLY united by this cote theme:
Jevil believes that the Truth is Awesome, actually, and means he can do anything he wants because he cannot be punished.
Spamton believes that the Truth is Awful, and he must do anything and everything in his power to escape it and overcome it.
The Roaring Knight is fate itself, the truth staring right back at us, a "forced loss" encounter in which failing is "FATE", in Gaster's own words. A test of our strength and resolve.
Gerson believes that The Truth is "True" but that you shouldn't get so worked up over it. Stories can be changed, they can be retold- and so can the prophecy, if you read between the lines.
In combination, the Secret Bosses, to me, also generally feel like back to back aurafarming gods of generally increasing severity.
The Strongest Darkner of Today.
The Strongest Dream of Yesterday.
The Roaring Knight.
The Toughest Monster who Ever Lived.
And then, after those back to back bangers... it's just Mew Mew, from Undertale, an optional miniboss we've already faced.
This is where I feared my thoughts on Pink would end. A fun fight, and an interesting narrative, but kind of underwhelming in the context of the crystal narrative. Perhaps a later idea, perhaps a deliberate reprieve from seriousness, but, regardless, a bit underwhelming, and the one secret boss I didn't really feel any particular connection to or feel particularly obsessed with.
This felt a little sad to me, because, truthfully, the other Secret Bosses all felt so close in coolness factor to me. I cannot really rank them against each other, they all have insanely interesting aspects to me and I truly cannot pick a favorite... and then Mew Mew is over here, and all I really know is that she's definitely not up there.
And then, it happened.
PART 3: What the Fuck
Hey, so, like, Toby???
The fuck are you doing.
You can't just. add. possibly the biggest Lore Nuke in the entire chapter in a patch.
For the uninitiated, a patch released added this dialog to Pink's shop, if you beat her, got the egg, and saw FRIEND:
In the scene, the Body suddenly grabs Kris' hand and explains a lot of lore, presumably relating to FRIEND, that is... extremely interesting, but not actually relevant to what I'm talking about here.
What is important... is that for the first time... Pink actually knows something.
And this, and things others were pointing out, got me thinking.
Is it not...
Is it not at least a little interesting that it's specifically the body who wanted to give us the Crystal? Maddie doesn't even really seem to get what it is, and seems annoyed that they're doing this at all.
And this has given me hope.
I think... I think there's a line. I think there's a line where Pink is like, significantly more interesting, at least to me, than she currently is, to the point where I could truly see her rivaling the other Secret Bosses in my mind.
I do not know if this is where Toby is actually going. But the idea just won't leave my head. So here goes.
PART 4: But what if?
Here goes:
What if Mew Mew- the Body- the Darkner- is straight up just as Freedom Pilled as Jevil, Spamton, and Gerson are.
Like, straight up, what if the Mew Mew Body Darkner knows about the prophecy, knows about fate, is very aware of her status as a darkner, is very aware of even the Shadow Crystals, of FRIEND, of all of this deep lore important stuff...
...and she just doesn't care.
You may say that this is close to Gerson. And it is, but I think there's a fine difference.
See, Gerson actively urges us to do something about it. He believes that people who follow the prophecy too closely are missing the point and are blinded by the light. He believes that Susie has the power to write over the dark pages of fate, and he believes that the story can be retold. He believes in trying to change it, and he urges us to do the same, to have hope. He "doesn't care" about the truth, but, he kinda does. He just thinks people should have a better perspective of it. Gerson sees the prophecy and the truth as intriguing, as a challenge to tackle, a test of character, that sort of deal. He is still fascinated by it.
I am proposing that Mew Mew straight up, like, does not care about this at all. It doesn't affect her.
Mew Mew, as characterized by the Fight... she's a bit ditzy? She wants to date, she loves us, she wants a new hat, she wants Stinky Fish, she wants to go to Planetarium, she wants Yogurt Mushroom. She's pretty single minded.
I am proposing that her response to the truth- the same truth that made Jevil and Spamton go mad, the same truth that Gerson feels he needs to mentor us about, the same truth that the Knight represents and maybe has thoughts on... is that she just doesn't care. It does not affect her.
Oh, there's a prophecy that's defining the fate of the universe and nothing I do matters? I'm a darkner? Okay, cool... can I still eat sand on the beach? Yes? Okay, so why do I care?
She is straight up unbothered. She just lives on, as if nothing is different, because as far as she's concerned, none of this matters to her, and her priorities are in order. She is going to go back to school, and she is going to eat Long Knife.
This, then, is why she never really talks about freedom, or the prophecy, or any of that in her fight. Because the philosophy she is representing is that she simply truly does not care, and if she were to ever bring it up... wouldn't that kind of imply she does care?
The Line for Pink being truly Peak to me is that in Chapter 6 there is some dialog that basically confirms Mew Mew has in-depth knowledge on, say, the Crystals, and the Prophecy, and all that... but just doesn't really think it matters to her specifically. It's not her problem.
My suspicion is that the dialog that was added in the patch was originally Chapter 6 dialog. I think Toby saw that everyone was upset about there not being much "lore" in Chapter 5, and particularly that everyone was switching up on FRIEND and calling them an IMAGE_FRAUD. I think Toby wanted to do damage control, so he took some Dialog from 6, adjusted it slightly to fit the specific context of 5, and added it there.
If The Line is real, then I think in 6 we will get more instances of this from Pink/Mew Mew, where it is clear that the Body is very aware of things. Maybe the Body interacts with Seam or something. Maybe the Body acknowledges you having all of the crystals. I don't know.
Point is: I think that it would be really interesting if the Mew Mew body is "Freedompilled".
PART 5: WHAT THIS WOULD MEAN / FURTHER CONNECTIONS
Hey, isn't it strange that the Mew Mew body is the one who gives us the crystal? It's because SHE KNOWS WHAT IT IS!!!
Pink tells us about the Cats and stuff with the new dialog, because while she doesn't really care about it herself, she does care about Kris, and so is willing to give us some advice/warning. It's not that she rejects her knowledge outright, it just, doesn't bother her.
Why doesn't Pink get "The Air Crackles with Freedom", but she DOES get the Battat Motif? Is it because the Battat Motif isn't the Freedom Motif? This is the first time we've had the motif in a serious context without the associated text, and the Knight lacked both the text and the Motif...
But if this angle is true, it clicks for me now.
She doesn't get the text because, despite her knowledge, she doesn't care, it's not what she's all about, and so the motif is much more subdued in the background and the battle instead "swirls in rosy chaos". Because that's what she does care about.
From a broader sense, this also creates some nice mirroring:
Jevil: ACCEPTANCE: The Truth is Awesome!
Spamton: DENIAL: The Truth SUCKS!
The Roaring Knight: NEUTRAL: The Truth
Gerson: DENIAL: The Truth ain't what it's cracked up to be. Stay strong.
Mew Mew: ACCEPTANCE: The Truth does not matter.
This sort of mirroring feels likely, especially since the first 2 secret bosses are kind of doomposters (who both fully accept the truth as "real") and the last two secret bosses are kind of hopeposters (who, under this interpretation, either don't accept the truth or don't care about it, and both of them are 'happy' outcomes/endings. Gerson inspires Susie, Pink proves that cooperation is possible wit the SOUL, etc). And then The Knight is in the middle, as true neutral... the truth itself.
And while I still somewhat feel like this is a step down from the really awesome inspiring Gerson storyline I think it also does feel at least somewhat fitting as the conclusion. After four characters defined by this stuff, we get one who is truly free of it, who has simply moved on and cares about other things.
My suspicion/vision is that the plan was to have her be completely subdued in 5- truly just focused on her actual desires, with Maddie, and everything else, and then in 6 we would get hints that she was actually as fucked up as the other ones, but had simply decided it didn't matter. And that one of these hints was moved up into 5 early as a bit of a teaser / to help do damage control.
Look, I really felt like Pink wasn't quite "it" for me. She has a lot of cool stuff going on, but it all felt, kinda separated from the rest of the crystal arc. Like it was just tacked on at the end, like a nonsequitor.
But if this is the vision? If Pink is supposed to represent someone who truly has just moved on, who lives normally, in spite of everything she knows... That's awesome. I love that.
I have hope now. I can see the Line. I don't know if it's the line Toby is taking, but... I can actually see it. I feel like there's a very real chance this happens.
Please.
Please Toby, make it so that Pink's Body is Freedompilled the whole time but just doesn't care.
Give us explicit confirmation that Pink's Body knows about the prophecy, the crystals, etc... but just never brings it up because it truly doesn't matter to her.
My life will be yours.
I have Hope that Pink can rise the ranks and become as awesome in my heart as the other Secret Bosses.
Even if you like Pink as she is... can you see the Vision? Does she not become more compelling if the Body knows all of these things but chooses to focus on New Hat and Long Knife and Eating Sand in spite of it?
this is the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me in my entire life but I can’t even argue with this. what could I possibly say to defend myself in this instance. this was a one hit KO. this was a murder. this was a fucking slaughter and I have only myself to blame
I like to think that in Deltarune, the war between humans and monsters did happen but the humans didn't succeed in sealing the monsters underground and it happened years and years ago so it's taught in class and whenever it's mentioned, everybody turns to look at Kris.
"S-so then the humans attempted to seal us underground-"
By the way, I think this would have crazy angsty fanfic potential. Deltarune becomes aware of Undertale's existence someway somehow and everybody now has to face how miserable they would've been if the humans succeded in trapping them underground and all of the wild differences.
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