I draw sometimes... | She/They/He (Ella/Elle/Él) | English (Bad grammar)/Español | [Drawings under the SEARCH "my stuff"] | Multifandom (aka I change fandoms a lot), Doll Collector, Furry | Safe for work only (except for light/moderate gore and swears) | Main and only blog | Trigger Warning tags start with "tw" or "tw:"
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(I would also like to mention that I try to tag flashing warnings as "flash warning" and/or tw/cw tags, but some of them might've slip through in my reblogs. Just in case, don't play the videos in this blog if you are photosensitive, epileptic, etc.)
Multishipping/Poly Extended Fun Gang (minus Lancer) shitpost because I can't get myself to finish a serious drawing. (Audio by @/umbywinters on tiktok, prolly going to crosspost it there too).
Why there's no way Berdly's parents aren't (at least somewhat) neglectful (and why emergency contacts prove it)
(I'll start by saying that most of the main Deltarune parents are neglectful in some capacity, but their neglect is complicated, and this is Berdly specific anyways).
Almost every time the "Berdly is neglected by his parents" discussion comes back there's one or two people saying that they might actually not be neglectful at all; either because there's no "explicit" sign of it, as they are not shown interacting with him, or because the traits associated with neglect he presents can also be present in people with supportive families.
And while I do think the first argument is kind of silly because of how highly ironic it is, I would agree with the second argument... if he hadn't been actively neglected in front of the player's eyes in the Weird Route (yikes). So I'm going to list (and counterargument) all of the possibilities that could excuse Berdly's parents from the (at least somewhat) neglectful veredict:
Who's to say they didn't visit the hospital? They might not be there because they left before we entered.
-There's absolutely no sign whatsoever of Berdly's parents being in his hospital room at any given point. You could argue Toby didn't want to waste time on including sprites for them to appear, but that seems like a very flimsy excuse given how much he loves to include obscure stuff that most people might not even see; why wouldn't he put the time to include Berdly's parents in the room if he wanted to avoid any misunderstanding? Not only that, but he also didn't include any stuff in the room that might've been brought in by them, and the receptionist doesn't mention them coming earlier, either. Hell, the heating bottle over his head is room-temperature! So not even small context clues suggest their presence.
Berdly's parent(s) might be busy/on a work trip, maybe they couldn't get to the hospital in time even if they wanted.
-This is the moment when I introduce the golden phrase: they could've assigned him an emergency contact. It's still bad enough by itself if they are so busy that they can't get to the hospital on time for their son's first day of being comatose... But let's assume the best of intentions here, he's a grown teenager after all! He's still in high school though, and even adults get emergency contacts, so where's his?
Berdly's parent(s) might be ill/disabled/bedridden/etc., maybe that's why they couldn't get there.
-While I don't personally believe in this theory, I could admit it makes sense, but, again... they could've assigned him an emergency contact! Maybe they can't go to the hospital and be there with him physically, but that doesn't mean someone else they trust can't.
Berdly's parents might be dead/he's an orphan, maybe that's why no one visits him and why he doesn't talk about his parents.
-I'm gonna be a little more biased than normal on this one and say that this theory is lowkey non-sense and I can't even take it seriously. First of all, there's not a single gravestone that could be Berdly's parents'. Second of all, wouldn't that be implied somewhere, even by someone else than Berdly, at the very least? And third of all, why would Toby repeat the dead bird parent thing with Berdly when he has already done it with Snowy of all people??? Even if we ignore all of that and say he has their remains in his house or something, excusing them of any responsability about his issues because they are literally dead... he would be experiencing neglect by the other town folk instead! They could've assigned him an emergency contact, and yet, they didn't.
Maybe they aren't that strict and think he is with friends.
-I haven't seen anyone say this, but I'm covering all of the possibilities I can think of here, so whatever. Even if they are less strict, that doesn't mean it's okay for them to not realize their child hasn't come home at the time he always does, or to not call him to make sure he's okay. This is quite literally one of the main reasons why Susie's (also absent) parents read as neglectful too in chapter 2. They most likely would've been called by the hospital too.
Maybe they had an accident?? That prevented them from getting??? There????
-No one has said this ever and I don't think anyone believes this– but, again, I'm trying to cover everything and this is the only thing I can think of that could remotely excuse their silence. It's not like the answer is that different from the others, tho. You guys get the deal 😭
Maybe they don't like to be around him because he's obnoxious and an asshole.
-stfu
My humble conclusion: there's not really a conclusion, becuz even now most things are kinda vague. Everything I'm saying here makes it sound like Berdly's parents are the worst parents alive, but knowing Toby's way of writing parents, I'm 95% sure they actually care about him for the most part, and are just misdirected. It's just kinda strange to see some people talk like the Weird Route in chapter 4 didn't basically confirm what others have been figuring out based on context clues already.
Were most of the "Berdly is neglected" suppositions in the chapter 2 era based on the Universal Mother Theory and (seemingly) arbitrary characteristics of his attitude? Absolutely, but now there's no doubt about some deegree of emotional neglect being involved, with chapter 4 giving us very obvious proof.
I'm making this post NOT because I think the coma situation is the only actual proof of him getting neglected at home, but because I don't think enough people take it as face-value as they should tbh. At the end of the day, I do believe he's intentionally written with emotional neglect in mind and that his character is directly influenced by it on purpose (especially regarding his attitude around adult figures). I'm not trying to police people's headcanons about Berdly's parents, I'm just pointing out what the canon is giving us and why it all points out to this certain conflict in Berdly's life. You can think whatever you want about his parents (or caretakers idk), but there should be no denial to their parenting skills not being ideal– yes, even if they do appear later on and even if they are all lovely-dovey with him, because they were irresponsible enough to not assign an alternate number for emergencies like hospitalization even then. The time passed is also not an excuse when he basically went missing since the night before. You can say whatever you want about the parenting skills of Carol, Asgore and Toriel, but I'm a 100% sure they would at least show up the first day of their kid's coma, or assign someone else to do it in their place until they can arrive.
And no, this is not a denial of Berdly's responsability in his own behavior. He can be emotionally neglected AND be an asshole all by himself and his own merit. One doesn't erase the other.
I’ve been going over a bunch of speculation posts regarding character involvement in future chapters, and there was one specific take I remember seeing round about the release of the recent chapters.
It was that Berdly would either get redeemed by doing the entire group project himself, or that he would end up doing some other sort of heroic sacrifice to culminate his character arc as someone who’s slightly less unimportant than the other npc characters.
And I’m going to be a little mean here - I really don’t like this take.
Why is this? It seems so fitting for him, right? The character who’s been obnoxious and self-serving finally does something for someone else, cementing his role in story?
Here’s the funny thing about that - acting in the name of what he thinks others want him to be is exactly what Berdly has been doing this entire time.
He wins the spelling bee by dumb luck and now he’s expected to be the hashtag smartguy, so he goes out of his way to vocally be Class Smart Kid, even though Noelle may want to answer but doesn’t speak up. (And need I remind you that the “superiority of being smart” all came from winning a single middle-grade spelling bee. Surely, that doesn’t have any deeper implications about what Berdly considers praise and acknowledgement…)
Noelle helps him with schoolwork out of the kindness of her heart but he can’t interpret someone doing this unless they have a crush on him, so he performatively acts as a knight in shining armour for her, while she never shuts him down even though she desperately wants to tell him no.
Queen threatens to roboticise Noelle if he doesn’t work for her, so he becomes her obnoxiously devoted follower that performs grand gestures of loyalty, yet Queen deliberately tries avoiding him whenever he’s on scene. It’s understandable since he’s kinda annoying, but she was the one who convinced him he needed to follow her in the first place.
Sure, he’s doing these things because he wants people to like him, but like… it’s still primarily going out of his way to do things for others. Even his librarby work and shift with Ms Boom are shown to be volunteer work, i.e., Charity.
I don’t know how this became Berdly Is An Entitled Niceguy Simp Who Won’t Take No For An Answer And Only Thinks About Himself when it’s the exact opposite - no one’s told him how they feel and expect him to telepathically read the room, yet he can only tell they feel uncomfortable or distressed for reasons he doesn’t quite get and goes out of his way to do things for the sake of helping them aka The Very Thing That Drives Them Away In The First Place Because They Don’t Tell Him This Isn’t What They Want.
Also known as the very worst kind of people pleasing for everyone involved.
The savior mentality has done nothing but make Berdly’s life unnecessarily difficult, and having that be the thing to "redeem" him just rubs me the wrong way considering the actual motivation behind the very actions that make people see him as self-serving. Berdly isn’t a selfish character who has to learn to do things for others for once in his life, in fact he’s been nothing but unwanted assistance the entire time.
As for the things he needs to atone for… acting like an obnoxious annoying nerd after indirectly being told he's only worth something if he shows he's smart, being kind of insensitive to Noelle’s feelings which she doesn’t explicitly express, almost causing the roaring after everyone else except Ralsei agreed on it and before Ralsei spilled the beans on why it’s a bad idea, being rude to Susie yet also acknowledging her as more than just mean girl even after dismissing the events of cyber city as a dream because Noelle thought it was yet all the other classmates are just bad as if not worse when it comes to how they see Susie, allegedly taking the credit from Noelle and making her do all the hard work even though they just study together which I guess is actually cheating because we get this account from a source with the narrative reliability of an Utena flashback...
And if the most logical progression of Berdly “redeeming” himself involves selflessly sacrificing himself in the name of everyone else… then what’s the point of showing the countless times he’s done this throughout chapters 2 and 4 where it’s lead to nothing but further isolation and failure? Must he just sacrifice himself but in The Right Way this time? Pluck off his feathers and share them with the class like it’s the goddamn Rainbow Fish or the Giving Tree? Is that where we’re going with this?
Good to know his best outcome involves him being just important enough to be a tool for somebody who actually matters.
Now it's not that he’s completely off scott-free or that he's done nothing wrong whatsoever, far from it. But there’s just something that hits a little too close to home about working yourself to the bone for things people just straight up never acknowledge, only for it to turn out that You in fact were the selfish one for things no one ever told you about, and in fact were the things you went out of your way to try not to be.
I love him in a auntcle and bird-who-throws-own-baby-birds-from-nest way. I also wanna blend him with a blender and study his counterintuitive anatomy and bad coping mechanisms, as a t(h)reat/j
Susie and Berdly being friends with each other is sooo important to me okay. They both have developmental/cognitive disabilities and the fact that Susie was willing to reassure him that he doesn’t NEED to be smart to have value even after he projected all that shit onto her is so nice. No wonder he immediately absolutely adored her. But also he was so excited to have someone actually be NICE to him and share his interests that he immediately “got a crush” on her oh my god he needs friends!!! Both Susie and Berdly are former bullies in different ways. Berdly also idolizing Susie as a cool gamer girl that he definitelyyy has a crush on is trans girl gender envy behavior I’m sorry. THEY NEED TO HANG OUT AND HAVE FUN TOGETHER!!! Bonks them together like dolls but instead of kissing they do a cool fist bump!!!
Also it’s kind of painful to me that Berdly and Susie are the main two hometowners that don’t have last names. We haven’t seen a single feather or scale of either of their parents and it seems like they’re both trying to be home as little as possible. Their self worth is in the gutter and whether they make their entire identity around being the Good Kid or the Bad Kid, it’s clearly causing them to both be mean to others and be harsh on themselves.
I knowww I said the last one was the last one but THEY KEEP BEING SO CANON.
Kris and Susie are STILL a thing, so girly has been in love with two people in a relationship while it's actively happening 💔
I don't have space to put it here, but I made Kris interact with Susie while she was talking with Ralsei, and they got jealous and fought. Berdly calmed Kris and Kris apologised tho.
