FUCK dude it feels so good to see scar complaining and angry about everyone being mean to him, ive wanted this for SO LONG. every season since last life its felt like theres been this rage just growing in him just below the surface, and him becoming a villain in secret life and winning was a big moment for that but seeing it continue here is even better.
gone is the guy who sat lonely at the top of a snowy mountain, gone is the guy who stayed with a man he knew was cheating on him, only acknowledging it through a passive aggressive remark here and there. the rage has been let loose and i dont think he's ever going back to the more complacent person he used to be. hes not taking shit from anyone anymore and im SO HAPPY ABOUT IT
hilarious that this is my first spoiler post i know. but genuinely the amount of spotlight stobotnik, and just stone in general, got in this movie is INSANE. like in the first movie stone was just there to be eggman's lackey. second movie we had the bits of stone making the latte art and the maid outfit and shit, but he was still primarily eggman's lackey.
BUT HERE? they deadass made stone's love for this man a prominent plot point that was taken like 100% seriously. like you aren't really meant to laugh at stone in this movie, you are supposed to feel REALLY FUCKING BAD FOR HIM. AND I DID!!!!!!! I WAS DESPONDENT!!!!!
and like, THEY KILLED OFF EGGMAN IN THIS MOVIE, and almost the entirety of his final monologue, his SENDOFF in these films, WAS HIM TALKING TO STONE AND ACKNOWLEDGING THEIR BOND LIKE????????? do you understand how crazy that is.
like obviously it's meant to pass the torch to stone so he can be the big bad in the next film, but even outside of that, them making eggman's arc and character overall CULMINATE in him sending a farewell message to stone and stone crying over it and shit???? like the evolution of stone's character and their dynamic in general from the first film to now is CRAZY and im actually so insane about it.
we're finally getting main villain stone, with a tragic backstory of losing robotnik to boot, and i could NOT BE HAPPIER
all the jax outfits/versions in order: (with my analysis/interpretations)
blank body
prison uniform (i assume this is meant to represent her thinking she should be in jail for possibly killing her mom)
default outfit
irl self w/ green hoodie (see next one for analysis)
irl self w/ keyhole shirt (i previously interpreted the keyhole as representing how her true self is locked away inside. also note the shorter hair from the previous look - they're clearly from different points in time. unclear which came first, but imo this one feels younger. plus her hair getting longer as she gets older would match up with her hair being long in the present)
maid outfit (the amount of times this damn thing appears in the finale really hammers home just how significant of a moment that was for jax imo. what seemed like just a silly bit seems to have had a real effect on her)
puffer jacket (this is just a guess, but this might be the kind of thing she was wearing while out on the street)
swim trunks (notable considering jax notably did NOT use the changing booth during the beach ep, so we've never seen this before. my interpretation is its appearance here is showing us why she avoided using it)
military uniform (VERY notable considering nothing about the military is ever mentioned. maybe she had been planning on enlisting before the incident with her mom? it didn't seem like she was going to college, so i can definitely see that. it could also be what she worried would happen. either way it's another symbol of masculinity)
and finally after all the different versions cycle through 3 times, we see her silhouette in static.
(crossposted from the Deltarune Unofficial Message Boards - if you wanna see this post but with fun deltarune emojis then view there)
Hello gamers. I wanted to talk about aro Berdly because it's very important to me and... well I want to hear what other people think but mostly I just want to ramble lmao. (Also for context, I myself am aromantic and asexual - though I'll only really be discussing aromanticism here since that's what's relevant.)
I honestly have no idea how popular this headcanon is overall, I've definitely seen a good number of other people think this but I also know people love Kerdly a lot (I also enjoy Kerdly to be clear just in more of a queerplatonic way lol) so I don't really know. That's part of why I wanted to talk about this! Both to see if others agree with me, and also to explain why I think this to those who may not understand where the headcanon comes from.
So with all that being said - let's talk about this little guy and why he reads as very aromantic to me! (full post under the cut)
First of all, let's get one big thing out of the way - Berdly does NOT have romantic feelings for Noelle. I feel like if you're a dedicated Deltarune fan then you know this, but I think a lot of people still misunderstand this plot point because of the way it unfolds and goes against what most players initially read the situation as.
In Chapter 2, after the ferris wheel scene, Berdly admits to Noelle that he never actually liked her romantically, and was only pretending to have a crush on her. Why? Because he thought she had a crush on him, and wanted to try and reciprocate those feelings to make her happy.
Now obviously Noelle does not have a crush on Berdly (and is also heavily implied to be a lesbian). She doesn't ever really act like she does either. So why does Berdly think this? Well, apparently it's because Noelle was always helping him and being nice to him. That's... not really good evidence of a crush. 😅 The fact that Berdly thinks that someone would only be nice to him because they're romantically interested in him is... slightly worrying. It certainly doesn't sound like something someone with good self esteem would say. But that's not really my main focus for the purposes of this post.
It also betrays Berdly's fundamental lack of understanding surrounding romance, something which is shown time and time again and which I'll be talking a lot about in this post. In this instance specifically, he misinterprets basic friendliness as being an indication of romantic interest. And it's likely not out of egotism either - Berdly doesn't like her back, and in fact goes out of his way to try and force himself to. It seems like he just genuinely can't really tell when someone is or isn't interested in him romantically.
But on that topic - this situation with Noelle is the main reason why I see him as aromantic. For whatever reason, he misunderstands her feelings and believes she has a crush on him. And his response to this is not to tell her he doesn't like her back, but instead to try and force himself to... because he really values her as a friend, and didn't want to lose that or make her unhappy.
This is quite a familiar situation for a lot of aromantic people. Because romance is considered more important than platonic bonds in society, when aro people find out a friend is interested in them, many may try to force themself to reciprocate those feelings out of fear of losing that friend if they reject them. This is of course not an experience limited to just aromantic people, but it definitely resonates. It also ties into the loneliness that a lot of aro people feel - society treats it as normal for people to prioritize their romantic relationships above their friendships, and as a result as an aro person, it can often feel like you're being left behind when the people around you start getting in relationships.
Do I think this is all something Berdly is consciously thinking about? No, definitely not. I don't think that Berdly KNOWS he's aromantic - which is also a very common aro experience lol. Many of us take a very long time to understand our identity because it's just not really treated as an option... and even a lot of queer spaces still treat romance as a given thing that everyone experiences. -_-
And to address Berdly's behavior in Chapter 4 - it's clear that he's "backslid" in terms of his development overall, which is likely due to him still believing that Chapter 2 was a dream. He made a lot of progress in the Dark World, but once he wakes up it doesn't all quite "stick," since he didn't think it was real. It's clear that it has still affected him though of course, judging from his desperation to talk to Kris and Susie in the library, and his lingering interest in Susie. (Which we will talk about later lol.)
But this applies to his relationship with Noelle as well. He's still acting interested in her, asking her to the festival, despite the fact that we know he doesn't actually like her. A lot of people were harsh on Berdly for this scene, but let's not forget that Berdly still thinks Noelle likes him! From his perspective, he'd BE who she wanted to go with and asking her would make her happy. Yes, it comes across as cringe and a bit forceful - which is why Susie reacts the way she does - but Berdly isn't trying to force Noelle to be with him. He's forcing HIMSELF to be with HER because he thinks that's what she wants. He literally says that he's doing it as an "act of charity." It's not malicious, it's just stupidity with good intentions. 😔
(We also see in this scene that Noelle's backslid a bit too! She learned to stand up for herself more in Chapter 2, but just like Berdly, those lessons are harder to apply to their real lives than it may seem at first. Susie basically directly points this out, saying "Some people aren't gonna get it 'til you scream "NO". ...did you forget that or something?" They're both struggling to apply what they learned in Chapter 2 to their everyday lives, it just comes across worse on Berdly's part due to the nature of his issues.)
Basically to summarize this part: Berdly valuing the platonic bond he has with Noelle so much that he forces himself to view her romantically, even when he doesn't feel that way, is very reminiscent of aromantic people's experiences.
But now, let's go back to that fundamental lack of understanding of romance I said that Berdly displays. This appears quite a bit. Like I already discussed, he misinterprets Noelle's behavior as her having a crush on him, even when it doesn't really resemble that at all lol. But this is also spotlighted - much to my delight! - in Chapter 4 if his wing got fried back in Chapter 2. If you interact with the flowers next to his hospital bed, he explains that Noelle gave them to him and says this:
* That flower? Noelle "SAID" it was a "get well soon" gift for me.
* But good grief, is she laying it on thick. ZETTAmeters thick!
* FLOWERS? As a HOSPITAL gift? Like that's EVER platonic!
When Susie points out that Asgore brings flowers to Rudy, Berdly says that that's "a bro thing" and "it's different!" Which... putting aside whatever Asgore and Rudy possibly have going on LMAO - I think this scene does a great job at showing what I'm talking about here. Berdly does NOT understand the distinction between romantic and platonic, and abides by these very arbitrary ideas regarding that distinction that feel very uninformed.
This too is a very common aromantic experience, and it's another reason why a lot of aro people take a while to realize they're aro. I've never felt romantic attraction, so despite hearing so much about it from other people, it's still VERY difficult for me to fully understand what it's like for other people and how they distinguish romantic feelings from platonic ones. (After all, it's quite difficult to fully understand something that you've personally never experienced, especially when it comes to stuff like Feelings.)
A lot of my preconceived notions about romance (prior to this realization at least) came from media. For me personally, I always thought basically every single depiction of romance was an exaggeration or simplification, and was INCREDIBLY shocked when I realized that those are things people actually feel. (For example, I was floored when I realized that songs about romance are like... actually about real feelings that person has experienced, and not just a fun completely made-up story. Like I obviously knew that on a surface level, but I did genuinely subconsciously think for most of my life that it was all made up.)
But I also know that there's a lot of aromantic people who had the opposite experience - they fully bought into those ideas of romance from media, and because they were the only exposure to the concept they had, that was how they thought it genuinely worked in reality. (I also very much experienced this when it came to shipping LOL.) From media, we have an idea in our minds about how a person in love is "supposed" to act, which - especially in media for younger audiences - is often very flat and simplified. Thus, this can lead to some aro people imitating that behavior.
That might've been worded a bit confusingly, so for example: in media, characters often are shown doing stuff like doodling them and their crush together with a bunch of hearts or something like that. So a person who is aromantic but not aware of it and has convinced themself they have a crush on someone may also do that - not because they actually "want" to or get any kind of gratification from it, but because that's what they think someone is "supposed" to do when they have a crush. (It's a very similar concept to comphet, just applied to romance in general.)
So going back to Berdly - not only does he not understand romance, but the way he goes about it is also very "flat" and seems to be taken from media. This of course stems from Berdly being a total nerd LOL, but it also reeks of someone who has never actually experienced romance or romantic attraction, and thus is just imitating what he's seen in media.
This ties in nicely with the next and final major topic I want to cover, which is his "crush" on Susie. (There's a reason I put it in quotation marks.) While this is obviously more up to interpretation, I really don't think that Berdly is genuinely romantically interested in Susie. There's multiple reasons why I think this.
First off - it happens SO fast. Berdly initially dislikes Susie, but then he gets some helpful advice from her and suddenly now he's in love with her. It feels strikingly similar to his "crush" on Noelle, does it not? Susie was nice to him once and now he has a crush on her. I think this is once again Berdly misinterpreting things, though this time it's his own feelings.
Over the course of Chapter 2, Berdly comes to respect Susie and view her much more positively than he did before. By the end of the chapter, I think he's developed a strong admiration for her. And because again, he struggles to distinguish romantic and platonic feelings, he misidentifies what he's feeling as being romantically interested in her. ("I admire her and she was nice to me, so surely I must have a crush on HER instead!" ☝️🤓)
It's not just the speed and frankly, surface-level nature of his feelings though. But there's also indication that Berdly doesn't really want to actually date Susie. First off, he says all the "only a kiss from a beautiful gamer girl can save me" stuff at the end of Chapter 2, but when Susie leans in and asks him for clarification about what he said, he suddenly backs down. And when you talk to him later, he repeats himself cheerily but is apparently saying it quiet enough that Susie can't hear him. Like... why?
To me, it reads like Berdly is fine just saying it, but gets apprehensive at the idea of it actually happening. Like, he's talking about Susie kissing him because that's what someone who's in love with her would do, but he doesn't really want to actually kiss her. That part is moreso just personal interpretation though.
What supports this more is his treatment of Susie in Chapter 4. Of course, he's back to his original treatment of her since he thinks Chapter 2 was just a dream. BUT as mentioned before, he still retains some of the "crush on Susie" stuff, showing that it still affected him. What's interesting is that... he doesn't show any initiative about it? He doesn't act like he has a crush on her, even secretly. Instead, he acts like Susie is the one with a crush on him. "She's gone yandere for me" and all that lol. Aside from saying that she'll be one of the "suitors" fighting over him at the festival, he doesn't really say anything to imply that he himself is interested in her. In fact, he actually seems kind of put off by the idea?
* Oh sweet rotisserie Santa! The nightmare IS become real.
* Susie, hurting Noelle just to stop me from going with her...
* She's...
* She's gone yandere for me.
* Oh, heavens to yikes! Where's my Dragon Blazers barf bag!?
Right after this though, his face becomes more serious, and he talks about how Susie must be very lonely. While he still frames it as her being "a poor girl with no one to show her tips and tricks," it does show a genuine concern for Susie, and to me it also comes across as Berdly projecting a bit. We know that he himself is incredibly lonely, so I think he empathizes with Susie in that regard :(
But anyways, this is also where I want to go more in-depth with what I was saying before about Berdly's romantic behavior being imitated from media. He talks in anime and video game tropes - calling Susie "yandere," saying that he's "already chosen her route in the VN of life," etc. He proposes that everyone fight over him at the festival and that he'll choose whoever impresses him most - completely ignoring the fact that y'know... if he was actually interested in any of them he would just go with the one he liked. (From what I'm told, love is an "Emotion" that you "Feel" towards someone LOL... it's not something you can just arbitrarily decide.)
This is further backed up by his valentines from one of the newsletters. (While these aren't really canon, they still support that this is part of his characterization.)
Once again, he views romance as some kind of competition a person can win that he can then logically choose to be the target of his affections. Again, that's literally not how romance works... Berdly doesn't understand that a potential partner would be someone he actually feels things for, not just whoever he arbitrarily chooses based on Facts And Logic 🔥
While you can see all this as just stemming from him being romantically inexperienced, it really resonates with me as an aromantic person who absolutely used to randomly choose someone to have a crush on in elementary school, because you were expected to have one. The fact that it was meant to actually Mean anything completely went over my head, and continued to do so for many years afterward. ToT
To me, this behavior of Berdly's doesn't just stem from a lack of experience, but specifically because he himself has never actually experienced romantic attraction towards anyone before, and thus is just blindly stumbling through what he thinks it's supposed to look like based on the media he's consumed. Again - a very common aro experience LOL.
EDIT: Additional section about how amatonormativity plays into Berdly's relationship with Noelle because I actually do want to talk about it:
Berdly heavily relies on Noelle, both as seemingly his only friend and as the person who helps him study. (Which side note but Berdly likely is still fairly smart and only views himself as being a complete idiot who's entirely reliant on Noelle's help to get good grades because of again, low self-esteem - shout out to Stuffed Alpaca's very good Berdly analysis for pointing this out!)
He's incredibly worried about what will happen once he goes somewhere without her, thinking that his "lack of smarts" will become apparent. (And though he doesn't say this part out loud, he'd probably also be completely friendless.)
I think this is part of why Berdly tries so hard to reciprocate Noelle's "feelings" - considering she's likely his only real friend and he views her as the sole reason he's getting good grades, he likely thinks the best thing for him is to try and stay with Noelle as long as possible. And if that means he has to pretend to like her romantically, then that's just what he has to do.
To me, it all feels very reminiscent of amatonormativity, without that necessarily being literally what's going on. (If you're unfamiliar with the term, it basically just means how romance is treated as normal/the default in society.) Because of outside factors, Berdly thinks that forcing himself into a romantic relationship with Noelle is what he needs to do, even though he doesn't like her that way and it would ultimately probably be a very miserable experience for both of them.
Like it's not really LITERALLY amatonormativity (or at least, that's not the sole reason) but like you see what I mean about it kind of feeling that way? It's similar to how Hometown manages to FEEL like a stifling homophobic small town without there actually being any homophobia. It just gives me that Vibe y'know.
That's basically it! I hope this explains why I view Berdly as aro to people who may not have fully understood the headcanon before. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts and opinions on this!
kris and spamton's dynamic is so fucked up and insane like it's actually crazy. kris is being possessed by an eldritch entity with little control over their own actions and then they meet spamton who is fucked up and shitty and a bit frightening. but he's like them.
and kris is a bit scared of him, scared of this reflection of what they could become, but they're also drawn to him because. he's like them. he's the only one who can really understand what they're going through. and vice versa. kris wants to help him, and he might be the only one who can help them in return.
and the thing is spamton cares about kris too! yeah he's shady and not telling them everything and sort of using them for his own gain but at the same time he considers kris his friend! i really believe he was being genuine about that. i also love how in his regular fight he constantly emphasizes that he won't force kris to do anything, showing how much he values their freedom alongside his own.
it's only once he becomes spamton neo and realizes that even that wasn't enough to grant him freedom that his desperation gets the better of him and he attacks them. and even with THAT, he says stuff like "WE'LL see past the dark", implying that he wants kris to join him in this endeavor (assumedly via him absorbing their soul and fusing with them)
and then you cut spamton's strings, he's overjoyed at the thought of finally being granted his freedom, and then that final string is cut and he just... breaks. he wasn't able to achieve freedom. he was never able to become more than what he was, because of his very nature.
and this TERRIFIES kris. they have goosebumps, they YELL, they show a level of emotion and distress that we don't see from them in ANY other part of the game. and fucking of course they do!! they had found someone who was like them, who might've been able to help them attain their own freedom. and when he was freed of the strings controlling him, he DIED! he couldn't function outside of them!!
spamton's fate basically flat-out told kris that if they ever break free of our control, they will die. they cannot survive without us. their two options are either continue to be controlled, or just die. like no fucking wonder they're traumatized afterwards HELLO? world's most fucked up not-friendship born of shared misery and understanding it actually drives me crazy
things get better before they get worse (a chp 4 weird route analysis/ramble)
(AKA how toby somehow managed to make the weird route even more awful and upsetting than it already was)
the weird route's continuation in chapter 4 is genuinely so much more sickening than i was expecting, but the thing that really hurts me is how the events of snowgrave have been recontextualized, and how all of us ended up being wrong about what the "point of no return" is for this route.
obviously, massive spoilers for deltarune chapter 3&4 weird route below.
to really explain the main point i want to focus on in this post, let's first briefly go over where the weird route left off at the end of chapter 2 and how the fandom generally expected things to go from there.
after returning to the light world, noelle assumes (or at tries to convince herself) that it was just a dream. and even if you make kris wear her watch, it's vague enough that noelle could still reasonably try to convince herself that they just somehow swiped it off her when she wasnt looking.
however one of the main things was that noelle vows to figure out why kris has been acting so differently recently.
thus myself and many others assumed that when we next saw noelle, she would be trying to investigate kris's behavior. maybe trying not to act uncomfortable around them, or maybe even making excuses to hang around them (despite the trauma she endured) to try and figure out what's going on with them.
we all also seemed to kinda assume that kris is just kind of stuck as our puppet here. they can't do anything about any of this, they're forced to just stand by in horror as we force them to do these things to her. a captive in their own body.
so when i started chapter 4 on my weird route save file and noelle took initiative to be the one to invite kris and susie over, that's immediately what i assumed was going on. i assumed she was trying to act somewhat normal and was bringing kris over in order to analyze their behavior in her quest to figure out what's going on.
i WAS a bit caught off guard by how really none of her dialogue around holiday manor changed, and i started to almost get a bit nervous that the effects of snowgrave on her mental state werent really being shown like i thought they would.
then she says she wants to speak to kris in private and i thought oh god, ok. this is where it's gonna kick in. she's putting on a happy face in public but when they're alone together she's gonna crumble and start asking why they did what they did and everything.
and this is when the cruelest part of the route hits.
because when we eavesdrop on their conversation, we find out some devastating information.
...kris apologized to noelle after snowgrave.
when they pulled the soul out at the end of chapter 2, they went to noelle's house and apologized for everything. they gave her her watch back (if you took it). they pulled the thorn (that becomes the thorn ring) out of her finger. they desperately tried to salvage their relationship with her after we ruined it.
but the thing that hurts the most about this, is that it WORKS.
noelle believes them. she accepts their apology. she's just so, so devastatingly happy that kris is back to being themself.
and we can see that without our involvement, at least for the time being, this is how it stays. if you just select either of the regular options, the aborted route jingle plays and things go back to normal.
i dont think ANYONE really expected that things would be salvageable after snowgrave. freezing berdly was treated as the "point of no return," where things would never be the same and kris and noelle's relationship would be forever tarnished. it was tragic, but it was expected.
but this makes it SO MUCH WORSE. because now we know that WASN'T the point of no return. by some miracle, kris successfully managed to clean up after us and mend things. there is a world where snowgrave happens and things still manage to mostly go back to normal.
which is why it hurts SO much more when we're able to ruin things again - for good this time.
this has to be one of the most devastating lines of the whole thing to me. think of how terrified and confused noelle is. kris had told her that everything would be fine and they were sorry. that they would protect her. and now from her perspective, its like all that was just a lie to get her guard down. it's awful.
this is the real point of no return. because there's literally no coming back from this, even aside from the noelle trance stuff. the first time she was able to trust them, but we've broken that trust forever now. if kris tries to do the same thing they did before, to apologize and fix things, she'll never believe them.
and that's of course not even discussing the presentation of this scene. the way the colors drastically shift and the screen darkens the second you say "me", the way everything sounds, how utterly horrified noelle looks the entire time, the way kris moves towards her and grabs her arm all zombie-like. and of course, when they actually stab her with the thorn... it's genuinely sickening.
the fact that it all happens in her room too just makes it feel so much more awful. this is her private space, where she should feel the safest, and yet...
but i think one of the other major reasons why this chapter's portion of the weird route was so upsetting is that we're finally getting to REALLY see kris's reaction to everything.
in chapter 2, we had the few bits of dialogue like susie's comment about kris looking off and the abort dialogues, and just the general understanding of kris as a character, to be able to determine that kris did NOT want to do snowgrave. they were suffering too, and it really adds to the horror of the route that kris is a victim as well.
but just like a lot of stuff with kris before these new chapters, it was pretty vague. if you paid attention you could get an understanding of what they were probably feeling, but it was very much in the background and sort of just implied.
but here? we finally get to REALLY see how our actions in snowgrave affected kris. and we get to see firsthand just how upset they are and how much they hate us for what we've done.
learning that kris tried desperately to salvage their relationship with noelle afterwards and specifically told her to not mention that they did in order to protect her from us is... i mean it's not surprising, it's what i've assumed they'd want to do all this time, but seeing it actually happen in the game after so long of just speculating... it's really really upsetting. they were trying so hard to keep us away from her.
and then, god. the scene afterwards of them kicking us in the bathroom. i was genuinely so shocked, i had my hand over my mouth when i saw it for the first time. seeing firsthand just HOW furious and upset they were, how loud the noises were every time they kicked the trash can, how hard they hit the soul and how long it went on for... it made me feel so bad that i legitimately whispered "im sorry" at the screen without even thinking about it.
and the fact that even after that scene, we get more moments of kris clearly not being ok. them starting to hyperventilate when theyre made to think of noelle, them getting so angry at us trying to make them "pray for noelle" that they smash the hope candles... literally no one can try to say that kris wanted to do snowgrave EVER again. toby's made it abundantly and heartbreakingly clear just how much they hate what we've done.
there's obviously more i could talk about when it comes to the new parts of the route, but these were the main points i wanted to focus on as i really think these two things (the reveal that snowgrave wasn't the point of no return, and kris's reactions being much more overt) are what make it so upsetting.
and from what we've seen, it's only going to get worse from here.
scar making a mountain base in last life after wanting to team with grian again and being rejected,
scar being paired with grian again in double life and having a monopoly together + the desert patch with the cactus + the poppies and lilacs etc etc,
scar and grian walking thru a desert together on a camel in secret life, the poppies and lilacs on his red fit, and pearl doing scar's whole "you may slay me" thing from 3L back at him,
and now scar making another mountain base, quoting "everything the light touches is ours", and making a reputation board in wild life. anyone else here clinically insane
that really is what separates 'hikaru' from other aroace non-human characters imo because it's not your usual "only a monster or robot or alien or whatever could not experience attraction" thing, the entire work is centered around the idea that 'hikaru' not being human and being different from "normal humans" shouldn't affect his personhood and that he should be able to exist as himself without having to fit within human standards. 'hikaru' is treated with so much care and respect and sympathy from the narrative that it never feels like his aroaceness is meant to emphasize his monstrousness, it's merely a fact about him as a person