sideblogs suck and I wanted to be able to send in character asks so this is my workaround. this blog's just here for ooc asks and discussions with me (admin.) follow @officialralsei for the actual in character content
well @memoryheadundefined's mod is helping me and tvmod get the rp archived onto a neocities page. we're still planning to finish out the rp on this site, but as soon as we get the archive running, I'll post a link to the site and be sure to crosspost all our new posts onto it as we write them. you can then set up an rss feed to be notified of new posts on there.
sorry if this is disappointing to any askers who are planning on leaving the site and wanted to participate in the last of this story! im not too keen on setting up a cohost so the best solution re: asks really is to keep the story going on this site. maybe I'll set up a curiouscat or something so you can send stuff in as the plot unfolds, if you really don't want to be using tumblr anymore.
trans rights are human rights. fuck this websites moderation team for making it unsafe for the communities we've built here.
link to reread the narratively significant parts of the rp! (desktop only unfortunately...) it's been a while lol. im trying to figure out how to archive the whole thing but that seems to be a bit of a coding project, considering that i would want to set it up such that a user could see posts from all of the relevant blogs at once in the order we posted them in, sort of like a chronological tumblr feed just for our particular blogs.
funniest thing in the world to me is spamton deciding he needs to crib swatch's style. hey there's this sort of cunty cafe owner down the block who listens to you (in an obligatory retail worker way) when you talk about how cool/upset you are. you've just got to steal their look. and develop an obsession with that weird thing in the basement they don't want to show anyone also
I've never posted it online before, actually, but here it is!
(design commissioned from @tvlandofficial!)
*This old Darkner's speech is strangely limited. It claims to be a "storyteller," but seems to prefer prompting others to tell their own stories. It will continue its prompting indefinitely if it feels the story is not to its satisfaction. Occasionally, it will attempt to create its own additions to another's tale, but those additions are frequently nonsensical.
*The limited nature of its speech makes speaking its own name impossible. Despite that, it is very keen on making sure others know it.
more under the cut!
predictably, I'm a fan of metanarrative stuff, and I like dealing with characters who are more "robotic" than "humanoid" in their self-expression. so I made a darkner who is literally an unfinished manuscript on storytelling and who cannot speak words that do not exist in its manuscript! it also has some difficulty comprehending concepts that don't exist in its manuscript - that'll come up later.
more info on the manuscript! inscrypt's object in the light world is a manuscript gerson was working on at the time of his death. the work was going to be a book intended to teach children how to create their own stories. however, gerson died before the manuscript was even close to complete. it was moved to the church's attic by alvin and subsequently forgotten about entirely.
this has some implications for inscrypt's purpose. like both other canon secret bosses, it's essentially got a paradoxical nature. jevil is a joker card, which gets left out of most card games, and spamton is a spam email, which exists to sell things but is ignored because it's junk. likewise, inscrypt is a manuscript that can never be completed. even if there was anyone to read it, they wouldn't be able to get much from it.
unlike other secret bosses, inscrypt's also got something else unusual going for it - it was once very special to a lightner. joker cards and spam emails are junk, but this manuscript was a project gerson was quite passionate about. this actually positions inscrypt much closer to the secret boss- adjacent shopkeeper characters of deltarune. seam appears to have been a beloved plushie, and swatch was the conduit for mettaton's ideal body. this "specialness" for both characters appears to be a factor in how they have a bit of the Weird Info that secret bosses possess, but not enough info to make them feel compelled to act outside their given roles.*
(*for now, at least. there's a strong case to be made that seam will be the last secret boss of deltarune.)
and a final weird thing about inscrypt: it's the last passion project of a deceased lightner. in a lot of ways, its object could be seen as a monument to gerson's memory.
so all of this taken together - what is inscrypt actually like as a darkner?
my idea is that inscrypt doesn't actually know very much of whatever knowledge made jevil and spamton go off the rails. it's not capable of comprehending it fully. (arguably, neither are jevil or spamton, but at the very least, inscrypt comprehends less than they do.) like both swatch and seam, it doesn't see much point in going too far outside its appointed role. BUT. even if it can't comprehend certain things, it knows other darkners might be able to.
in trying to get others to tell their own stories, inscrypt is also attempting to get others to come to whatever cosmic revelation it can't reach. it believes that perhaps then, that other person might have the capacity to make it whole.
deep down, inscrypt desperately wants to be able to tell its own stories. but it cannot currently figure out how to do that. a book on storytelling only ever tells others how to create a story. even complete, it would have no stories of its own. but since the entire manuscript is about telling stories, that desire is etched into it, as paradoxical as its incomplete nature. it does not understand this as a paradox, however. it truly believes that it will be able to tell stories if someone makes it whole.
so far, it's been unsuccessful with the darkners of its world. but maybe someday, if it meets someone it recognizes as a protagonist, it might try to get that person to listen to it...
other miscellaneous notes:
- i'm kind of toying with inscrypt having a shopkeeper-adjacent job, given everything I've said about it being a seam and swatch parallel. maybe it likes to trade items it finds in exchange for having other people talk to it.
- uses the pen as its spellcasting staff. think wizard.
- its weapon drop when defeated is a scarf called the mantlescript. haven't thought of an armor drop yet though.
-its name has roots from both "inscription" and "crypt" (referencing how it's the last work of a deceased person.) also is a pun on "in script," referencing its adherence to its role.
- its design silhouette is meant to somewhat mimic gerson's, with the large book cover on the back being reminiscent of a turtle shell.
- a lot of inscrypt's initial idea came from me thinking about how darkner-like characters in other stories tend to lack some degree of interiority. obviously, this isn't true when that sort of character is a protagonist, but when a character is classed as This Isn't A Person in a story, such as a robot or a fantasy enemy, a lot of their restricted agency + the potential violence towards them is justified by saying they don't really think or feel as real people do. and even in situations when their agency isn't restricted, those sorts of stories often don't think about their personhood.
darkners, as both a subversion of the rpg enemy and as literal objects, deconstruct that idea. the deconstruction happens in a lot of ways, but the primary method is simply showing darkners as complex people who are hurt from the way their world works. i wanted to make a darkner who comes off a little less like a person and a little more like a robot, in order to further challenge the trope. it doesn't have much personality or many likes or dislikes outside of its assigned role. its only goals are in service of being better at fulfilling its purpose. if inscrypt has limited capacity for growth, change, and even emotion and intellectual understanding, is it still a person? if inscrypt only wants to change so it can do better in its assigned role, rather than changing to express its agency in other ways, is that a good thing? how do we define personhood? how do we define agency?
the argument in fiction that something "not being a person" inherently means that readers don't have to care about its wellbeing has never held weight to me. to me, it actually doesn't matter whether inscrypt is a person or not. (i think it is, but the boundaries of what we consider "a person" are always going to be ill-defined, especially if we're talking about fantasy beings.) i don't think something has to fit any outside definitions of a person in order for it to deserve dignity and agency. a lack of perceived interiority is not an excuse! so i wanted to have a character that illustrates that.
I've never posted it online before, actually, but here it is!
(design commissioned from @tvlandofficial!)
*This old Darkner's speech is strangely limited. It claims to be a "storyteller," but seems to prefer prompting others to tell their own stories. It will continue its prompting indefinitely if it feels the story is not to its satisfaction. Occasionally, it will attempt to create its own additions to another's tale, but those additions are frequently nonsensical.
*The limited nature of its speech makes speaking its own name impossible. Despite that, it is very keen on making sure others know it.
more under the cut!
predictably, I'm a fan of metanarrative stuff, and I like dealing with characters who are more "robotic" than "humanoid" in their self-expression. so I made a darkner who is literally an unfinished manuscript on storytelling and who cannot speak words that do not exist in its manuscript! it also has some difficulty comprehending concepts that don't exist in its manuscript - that'll come up later.
more info on the manuscript! inscrypt's object in the light world is a manuscript gerson was working on at the time of his death. the work was going to be a book intended to teach children how to create their own stories. however, gerson died before the manuscript was even close to complete. it was moved to the church's attic by alvin and subsequently forgotten about entirely.
this has some implications for inscrypt's purpose. like both other canon secret bosses, it's essentially got a paradoxical nature. jevil is a joker card, which gets left out of most card games, and spamton is a spam email, which exists to sell things but is ignored because it's junk. likewise, inscrypt is a manuscript that can never be completed. even if there was anyone to read it, they wouldn't be able to get much from it.
unlike other secret bosses, inscrypt's also got something else unusual going for it - it was once very special to a lightner. joker cards and spam emails are junk, but this manuscript was a project gerson was quite passionate about. this actually positions inscrypt much closer to the secret boss- adjacent shopkeeper characters of deltarune. seam appears to have been a beloved plushie, and swatch was the conduit for mettaton's ideal body. this "specialness" for both characters appears to be a factor in how they have a bit of the Weird Info that secret bosses possess, but not enough info to make them feel compelled to act outside their given roles.*
(*for now, at least. there's a strong case to be made that seam will be the last secret boss of deltarune.)
and a final weird thing about inscrypt: it's the last passion project of a deceased lightner. in a lot of ways, its object could be seen as a monument to gerson's memory.
so all of this taken together - what is inscrypt actually like as a darkner?
my idea is that inscrypt doesn't actually know very much of whatever knowledge made jevil and spamton go off the rails. it's not capable of comprehending it fully. (arguably, neither are jevil or spamton, but at the very least, inscrypt comprehends less than they do.) like both swatch and seam, it doesn't see much point in going too far outside its appointed role. BUT. even if it can't comprehend certain things, it knows other darkners might be able to.
in trying to get others to tell their own stories, inscrypt is also attempting to get others to come to whatever cosmic revelation it can't reach. it believes that perhaps then, that other person might have the capacity to make it whole.
deep down, inscrypt desperately wants to be able to tell its own stories. but it cannot currently figure out how to do that. a book on storytelling only ever tells others how to create a story. even complete, it would have no stories of its own. but since the entire manuscript is about telling stories, that desire is etched into it, as paradoxical as its incomplete nature. it does not understand this as a paradox, however. it truly believes that it will be able to tell stories if someone makes it whole.
so far, it's been unsuccessful with the darkners of its world. but maybe someday, if it meets someone it recognizes as a protagonist, it might try to get that person to listen to it...
other miscellaneous notes:
- i'm kind of toying with inscrypt having a shopkeeper-adjacent job, given everything I've said about it being a seam and swatch parallel. maybe it likes to trade items it finds in exchange for having other people talk to it.
- uses the pen as its spellcasting staff. think wizard.
- its weapon drop when defeated is a scarf called the mantlescript. haven't thought of an armor drop yet though.
-its name has roots from both "inscription" and "crypt" (referencing how it's the last work of a deceased person.) also is a pun on "in script," referencing its adherence to its role.
- its design silhouette is meant to somewhat mimic gerson's, with the large book cover on the back being reminiscent of a turtle shell.
- a lot of inscrypt's initial idea came from me thinking about how darkner-like characters in other stories tend to lack some degree of interiority. obviously, this isn't true when that sort of character is a protagonist, but when a character is classed as This Isn't A Person in a story, such as a robot or a fantasy enemy, a lot of their restricted agency + the potential violence towards them is justified by saying they don't really think or feel as real people do. and even in situations when their agency isn't restricted, those sorts of stories often don't think about their personhood.
darkners, as both a subversion of the rpg enemy and as literal objects, deconstruct that idea. the deconstruction happens in a lot of ways, but the primary method is simply showing darkners as complex people who are hurt from the way their world works. i wanted to make a darkner who comes off a little less like a person and a little more like a robot, in order to further challenge the trope. it doesn't have much personality or many likes or dislikes outside of its assigned role. its only goals are in service of being better at fulfilling its purpose. if inscrypt has limited capacity for growth, change, and even emotion and intellectual understanding, is it still a person? if inscrypt only wants to change so it can do better in its assigned role, rather than changing to express its agency in other ways, is that a good thing? how do we define personhood? how do we define agency?
the argument in fiction that something "not being a person" inherently means that readers don't have to care about its wellbeing has never held weight to me. to me, it actually doesn't matter whether inscrypt is a person or not. (i think it is, but the boundaries of what we consider "a person" are always going to be ill-defined, especially if we're talking about fantasy beings.) i don't think something has to fit any outside definitions of a person in order for it to deserve dignity and agency. a lack of perceived interiority is not an excuse! so i wanted to have a character that illustrates that.
OHHHH WAIT. THIS THING ABOUT THE RULES OF THE STORY. THIS IS HOW RALSEI KNOWS HOW TO GET THE CAMERA TO SWITCH TO SUSIE AND TALK TO KRIS IN PRIVATE IN THE GAME. AAAAAUGH
VERY funny to be writing a story about a guy in a video game without a ton of formal knowledge on how game design actually functions. i am out here armed only with 200+ hrs of watching various zelda speedruns and glitch explanations and my autism about metanarratives
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