I must say I am highly suspicious of anyone who ascribes too much semiotic significance to the fact that some objects sort of superficially resemble human genitals if u squint. Like I really don't think the fact that bags kinda-sorta look like highly abstracted vaginas and spears kinda-sorta look like highly abstracted penises means or says or symbolizes much at all. It sounds like something you'd see in a table of occult correspondences.
It's one thing if you have some purely decorative or ceremonial object, then yeah sure you can talk about imagery if you really want. But when you're talking about shapes resulting from the natural required properties of an object? Do we really need to do this?
turning over ideas for a imsim rpg in my head and realizing i should absolutely let you transition, because thats awesome, and that doing so should give you a stat buff to represent you better understanding and asserting yourself but mostly so powergamers have to be transgender to play a truly optimized build
the protagonist is initially presented as a generic nameless faceless voiceless void for the player to insert themselves onto, but as you go through the game and learn more about them and let them transition they talk more and express a more and more distinct identity. turns out they were just repressed as hell and you can let them live their best life while the main plot is also happening I guess
i've praised americans before for their sensible mental categorisation of 'lemonade', how it doesn't include sprite and how we are being very stupid for calling sprite and sprite-like things 'lemonade' when those two things should absolutely not be thought of as belonging to the same group.
for balance's sake i will now scorn the americans: 'red liquorice' is not a thing. 'oh i don't like black liquorice i only like red liquorice' is an insane statement, you're following up one thing with a complete non-sequitur that only makes sense because of a gerrymandered category boundary.
we call them strawberry laces here, or usually just whatever their brand name is. 'red liquorice' contains no liquorice and should not be thought of as belonging to the same category as liquorice, or 'black liquorice'
I do enjoy a good visual gag, and an old favorite of mine is “there is Math on a Board in the background that contextually makes no sense.” This broadly comes in 3 flavors I enjoy:
• the board is in front of a classroom, and the Math is waaay too advanced for whatever level of pupil these kids are supposed to be; like having the calculus integral in front of kindergartners, or relativistic physics in front of high schoolers.
• the board is in front of Criminals, who are Planning Something, and by all rights there ought to be no Math there to begin with. Like. You’re planning a Heist why do you have the Full Lagrangian on there. Are we taking a rocket to the bank.
• the characters are super-genius science fiction people. The Math is “Pi≈3.24” with an unlabeled pie chart.
my piece for @krisellezine, probably my favorite kriselle art ive ever done, please go support the zine!! im so honored to have been a guest artist for it :)
disturbed by how little ppl acknowledge the secondary health risks of vampire bites. if your vampire lover is drinking your blood you MUST be up to date on your tetanus shot. puncture wounds are at especially high risk for tetanus infections. just because your partner was born in 1312 doesn’t mean you have to die like it.
moreover they should be prepping the bite point with an alcohol wipe.
and while I’m at it, I’ve noticed a blithe disregard for health & safety when it comes to blood pacts. can’t believe I have to say this but you should absolutely NOT be cutting your palm open with the pocket knife from your belt holster (??????)
if you’re expecting to be in a blood pact/oath situation please just pick up some sterile finger lancets from the pharmacy. cannot stress this all enough.
Please y’all!! tetanus is NOT caused by rusty metal. It’s a bacteria found damn near everywhere, and wounds infected with saliva are especially high risk for tetanus infections.
it’s also a common misconception that vampire saliva is antiseptic. Vampires spread that myth on purpose. They also CAN cross running water. Make them bathe and brush their teeth!!!!
all the vampires in the tags saying they won’t do this bc the alcohol will make the skin taste bad are just telling on themselves. talk about a red flag.
comparing your human lover’s body to an inanimate utensil & misreading this as a PSA for the vampire’s safety rather than the human’s. smh vampires continue to be so toxic 🤦🏼♀️
I think there's an absolutely massive Chekhov's Gun in DELTARUNE that we're all neglected. I'm not sure exactly how important it'll be, but I'm confident it's more important than everyone seems to think.
Let's talk about Pacify. No, I'm not kidding.
Have you ever thought about Pacify? Really thought about Pacify? Why is this spell even here. In UNDERTALE, Monsters became sparable when low on HP. In DELTARUNE, this extremely niche mechanic almost nobody uses was elaborated into what we might call a Whole Thing, with the Tired mechanic.
As we all know, TIRED enemies can be spared with Ralsei's magic, Pacify. Enemies become tiredwhen they're on low HP, or when certain ACTs are used against them.
When Chapter 1 of Deltarune released, I thought this spell was extremely interesting, because it effectively gave us a way to spare people who didn't want to listen to reason.
It made sense to me that making a story where everyone can be befriended is, perhaps, limiting, and so this spell was here to open a bit of narrative freedom and have characters who cannot, while still letting us show mercy regardless. In Chapter 1, this is how Pacify is used- It is the only method we can use to spare Jevil, and in a non-pacifist run, it's the way we beat king.
But then it kind of just... stopped being used in this way. Starting in Chapter 2, ACTs that enable Tired, or enemies that are already Tired, began appearing, and Pacify kind of fades away into being a mechanic first and foremost rather than a narrative device.
But... I don't think that's the truth. Pacify is still strangely relevant narratively, and after my Rude Buster analysis, I'm inclined to read more into the spell's existence and its potential importance to the larger narrative.
For starters, in Chapter 1, Ralsei explains the existence of this spell to Susie:
Which is framed mostly as a joke and a warning to use the Warn action against enemies.
But... it's not a joke. In what is, personally, my favorite little piece of Susie characterization in the entire game, if you didn't spare everyone in Chapter 1, then the King fight ends differently. There is no crowd of people to sweep King away- instead, Susie distracts him, and Ralsei casts Pacify, leading to this exchange:
This exchange always stuck in my head, because it demonstrates that Susie pays more attention than we might think, and remembered the earlier conversation about Pacify. At the time, I thought this might be it, that this was just a neat way of Toby showing that Susie listens.
But the fact that Susie remembers this spell comes up again, in Chapter 4. Against the Sound of Justice.
This is, of course, does not end up happening- Ralsei comes in, and defeats the Sound of Justice, which was just a statue and not the actual Old Man.
But this instance really got me thinking. Maybe I'm just thinking about things too much, but it strikes me as important that, yet again, the fact that we can use Pacify to spare foes who are unwilling to listen to reason is a thing.
And so, I get back to my ultimate point: Why is this spell even in this game?
So far, we've yet to truly be in a situation that feels like it absolutely REQUIRES Pacify to work narratively, and in general it rarely comes up. Even in regular combat, it seems most players forget about this spell. Evidently enough, the game feels the need to remind you that this spell exists in chapter 4??
(Seriously, Toby. Were the playtesters that bad?? We know what Pacify does...)
Evidently, Pacify is pretty niche as a mechanic. It does add mechanical nuance to sparing enemies, and I really appreciate it, but... I find it hard to believe that its mechanical implications are the reason it's here.
So far, there have only been 2 characters who we need to Pacify in certain contexts. And really, only one of those is "real" to me, because I fully think there could've been some other way King was defeated. And even with Jevil, that could've been an ACT.
So... I think there's something else. I think the fact that we have the ability to Spare people who Don't Want To Listen is important. It's brought up as an option in Chapter 4, it's emphasized in Chapter 1.
My personal bet right now is that Pacify is going to be used on someone later in the story. Someone we don't want to hurt, but who will not listen to reason. Like how Susie didn't want to hurt who she thought was the Old Man but clearly he was unwilling to talk.
My bet? I think we're Pacifying The Knight at some point later in the story. The Knight is explicitly someone we cannot ACT against, but given who the Knight most likely is... we kinda don't want to actually hurt it. At least Kris wouldn't want to.
Also, it's fitting for Ralsei to be the one to finish the fight, because that gives him more agency in our quest against fate. It feels fitting to me, at least...
It's also maybe possible it's someone like Asgore, I guess, or maybe a SOUL-Shined Pacify could put a Titan to sleep or something, I'm not 100% all in on it being The Knight, but that makes the most sense to me.
Regardless, I'm confident this spell is important. Time will tell if I'm right, I guess...
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