#More implied but it’s also the intended audience I guess | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

funhouse-mirror-barbie · 4 months

Text

Nuanced and Multifaceted Conflict vs. “Good v. Evil” in fiction

So. This is another thing I’ve wanted to talk about for a while. I promise I won’t always be focusing on Helluva Boss in my critiques, and I actually have quite a few other series I want to talk about.

There’s a big chance that I’ll be saying everything other people have already said, but I can’t help but WANT to talk about this specific character in regard to the story’s conflict. I think that it’s important to recognize when a character is written to be a complex person, and when a character is written to be an enemy to be defeated, and how not following through with your set-up can affect your story.

And HB does that A LOT in my opinion.

So. Let’s get into it. This time I’ll be talking about complex conflict between characters vs. black and white conflict, and I’ll also be touching on story set-ups and audience expectations.

I want to talk about a character who could have really made some of the internal character conflicts have so much more depth and intrigue. I want to talk about Stella Goetia

*as a side note this post is MUCH longer than I intended but I really wanted to get into a lot of the background and reasons for how Stella’s character development has actually completely changed what HB’d story conflict could have looked like. I’ll try and sum up everything in the end in a TLDR for y’all

So. Most of the reviews of her character I see talk about how she’s been “ruined” by the writing team revealing that she’s always been very abusive towards Stolas

I have to start off by saying I actually don’t think that Stella or her portrayal was “ruined” by the writing direction her character has been taken in.

In fact, this critique bothers me, because it doesn’t really get to what I think the actual root of why people are disappointed in Stella’s characterization, and the type of conflict that now exists between her and Stolas.

The main reason I believe people are unsatisfied with Stella is because they believed that her character was being set up for a complex and nuanced conflict between her and Stolas, and then that turned out not to be the case.

A quick disclaimer- I do think it’s possible to subvert audience expectations about story and characters in a satisfying way. But it has to be done in a way that respects the audiences intelligence and willingness to think about the story.

If your plot-twist, unreliable narrator, subversion, or what-have-you is done well, the audience should be able to either figure out what’s going based on the little information you’ve given them, and if they don’t, the change or subversion should still make sense and CLICK in hindsight.

Otherwise, your subversion will end up feeling cheap or confusing. Or worse, like a lie.

And this is one of the MAIN issues I think people have with Stella.

As the audience, we were NOT given enough information on her or her character before it’s revealed that she’s just “evil” and always has been, apparently since she was a literal child.

Again, I don’t think it’s an inherently bad decision to have a flat or pure evil villain. I’m fine with Stella being one, even if it’s less interesting to me personally.

But it’s definitely very different from what was initially implied and set-up, and the audience can pick up on that.

Before S2E1 “The Circus” we see Stella a total of 3 times in person, with one time being a flashback.

I’m going to go over those times to analyze if anything set-up in Stella’s appearances points towards her being. Well, totally and irredeemably awful and abusive I guess.

The very first time we see Stella is in the same bed with Stolas—Octavia calls for her parents, both Stolas AND Stella. Stella grumbles and refuses to get up and tells Stolas to go. This doesn’t immediately strike me as a sign of her being a terrible person. That exact scenario is present in a lot of family comedies, kids’ movies, and sitcoms.

Nothing about this screams that Stella is a terrible parent or an abusive partner to me. It just tells me she’s tired and doesn’t want to get up, which again, is not uncommon.

The next time we see her, she’s yelling at Stolas, and she throws a servant at him in anger.

Now, there’s no excuse for this, her behavior here is not okay, regardless of her feelings. But we understand why she’s acting the way she is--she’s furious with Stolas for cheating on her. At this point with the information we have, it’s also very reasonable to believe her feelings have been hurt.

Later Octavia talks about how her parents didn’t used to hate each other, and the way Stolas’ tries to explain their failing marriage to her comes across like his relationship with Stella is one that’s always had difficulties that they have tried and failed to overcome.

None of this information is enough to really convey or hint that Stella is and has always been abusive or evil. It shows that Stella and Stolas have a very rough relationship, and that Stella most likely has anger management difficulties, but you have to do lot of extra work to come to the conclusion that Stella is completely at fault here.

The next time we see her though, things have clearly escalated, because it’s revealed that she’s one that hired Striker to assassinate Stolas.

Now. Usually. Yeah. That would be a HUGE red flag. And I mean. It still obviously is.

But, and I never thought I’d use this uno reverse card, this is one of the few times where the explanation of “But it’s hell, what did you expect???” actually makes sense to me.

Because yeah, it is hell. It’s the end of episode 5 when we learn this, and our protagonists have killed and assassinated multiple people. Taking a hit out on people really doesn’t seem to be that uncommon of a thing in hell.

Even the next scene after the reveal that Stella is the one who hired Striker makes light of how serious this is, by showing that Stella was basically yelling her assassination plot right to Stolas’ face.

This is played for laughs! I genuinely am not sure if the writers intended for this to be foreshadowing of Stella’s abuse or not because if so, they turned her attempting to kill her husband into a joke!

If you cannot keep your themes or tone consistent, how is the audience supposed to follow your story?

There is subtle storytelling, and then there’s tacking information and character points later on in your writing. And this can have two causes.

Either your audience has to do the work of story-telling for you and make up their own reasons for what’s happening to make the story coherent OR they will be disappointed and dissatisfied by the final product.

I think that’s the main reason why S2E1 of Helluva Boss felt so jarring story-wise, and why Stella, to me at least, suddenly felt like a brand new character.

Like I haven’t been this confused by a character being suddenly evil since Hans from Frozen.

(like seriously why the hell did they put this scene in if not to just trick the audience. This isn’t giving us any plot info it’s only giving us contradictory info on his character. Like I talked about before, Hans’ heel-face-turn doesn’t feel like a twist. It feels like a lie.)

Okay so, how does any of this actually affect anything? Who cares if Stella is evil, that doesn’t automatically make the story bad!

Well. Yeah, of course not. Ironically, having the main conflict your story being a battle between “Good v. Bad” characters is neither good nor bad. It’s just a story decision. And ultimately at the end of the day, the writers of Helluva Boss can choose to tell their story however they’d like.

But, depending on how this is executed, good v evil stories can be a lot less interesting than morally grey or complicated conflicts and characters.

I am more interested in the version of the story where Stella and Stolas are imperfect and messy people. I am more interested in the story where Stolas has an affair to escape being in an arranged marriage, and Stella overreacts by arranging a hit on her husband (unless calling out a hit is normal in hell, but we can’t know b/c there is no baseline for what is considered normal in hell)

I am so much more interested in the story where Stolas and Stella are both depicted as being in the wrong, as being incredibly hurt by each other’s actions, and as not knowing how to repair their broken relationship for the sake of their daughter.

That story feels very real to me. It’s one I want to engage and invest in.

I want to see if these characters can grow to accept their mistakes and learn and change for the sake of Octavia and having to co-exist with each other, or if they’ll slip back into mutual destruction and toxicity.

But that’s not the story we’ll get to see, because it seems like the writers are more interested in keeping Stolas from having to grow as a character. And because of that, Stella has been turned into an evil obstacle that must be defeated, instead of a nuanced and real person.

I also feel like I have to say. I know I would be MUCH less frustrated by this if I hadn’t seen an HB crew member talking about how their show is similar to Bojack Horseman.

Because. It’s just not. I’m sorry, I’m not saying that to be mean, or condescending, or rude, but the way characters are written in Helluva Boss is almost completely black and white at this point.

Regardless of the writer’s intent, the vast majority of the choices they have made in Season 2 come off as explanations to excuse the protagonist’s mistakes, and give them a “get out of being potentially in the wrong” free card.

Compared to the writing decisions in Bojack, which almost always has characters confront their wrongdoings, for better or worse, HB honestly feels like it’s the Anti-Bojack.

It would take a TON of character development and time to make HB’s characters as interesting, fleshed-out, and as real as Bojack’s are, and at this point that’s I don’t think it will ever happen.

Again. Having black and white conflict is FINE. It is a choice in story telling that can be done very effectively. But if you are making a black and white story where one side is always terrible and evil, and one side can do no wrong, you can’t act like you’ve written something that is deeper and more emotionally complex and grey than that.

And the first time the writers gave Stella more than 3 sentences to string together, they made it very clear that any chance of her being a more complex and engaging character was being tossed out the window.

————

TLDR:

The main reason people are upset about Stella being shown as abusive in S2E1 of HB is probably because the initial depictions of her didn’t give us enough information on her character to tell that she was just evil/a terrible person.

The way the story was written in S1 to set up the possibility of a very interesting and complex conflict between Stella and Stolas, and when it was revealed that she’s just. The worst. There were people that were disappointed by this, because they expected more.

Audiences actually aren’t idiots, and when you subtly foreshadow something and then completely change things, that can be frustrating.

It’s MORE than okay to write a straightforward good v evil story, but it depending on the way it’s written and executed, it may not be as interesting to mature audiences as a more morally grey story would be.

If you can’t write characters confronting their flaws and being in the wrong, please don’t compare your writing to Bojack, I mean. C’mon.

#helluva boss critical #helluva boss critique #character critique #stella goetia #hb stella #helluva boss stella #media conversation #media critique #media criticism #writing female characters #writing critique #writing #funhouse convo

148 notes · View notes

krysanthii · 5 months

Note

I think olrox told mizrak that he didn't love him because he was internally recoiling when mizrak calls him out about turning his previous lover into a vampire. He probably feels guilty and hurt when mizrak sounds grossed about the idea and assumes that olrox didn't ask the lover for permission, implying that he finds olrox to be somewhat selfish and hedonistic. So he claps back with the "i don' love you comment" it probably means "how dare you look down on me, guess what you don't deserve my love." And ofc he also got defensive and told him he wanted to be with that lover forever, that just validates all of mizrak's stereotypes of vampires.

I have a completely different take if this. In the dialogue I felt something was missing because how the heck did Mizrak jump to THAT conclusion? Olrox was talking about how his dead lover was a proud Mohican man wanting freedom for his people and worked with a revolutionaries and was killed by Julia Belmont. From that I and the audience would never assumed he was a vampire to or that Olrox turned him into one. I would’ve thought the Mohican lover was an accomplice of Olrox and got killed in the cross hairs.

Some dialogue was missing for Mizrak to say that Olrox turned his lover into a vampire because it seems kinda jarring Mizrak would even come up with that because Olrox NEVER SAID ANYTHING LIKE THAT. Just that his lover was a proud Mohican man, fought with revolutionaries and Julia Belmont killed him. Never onces Olrox said he turned him into a vampire! It’s really really weird and it doesn’t make sense Mizrak to say that with his full chest.

Right after Olrox said that “and Julia Belmont killed him.” Right off the bat Mizrak says,”Because he was a vampire and you did that to him!”

WHERE IS THAT EVEN COMING FROM???

I think it’s just missing piece of a dialogue because the whole conversation doesn’t make any sense!

But back to where Mizrak asked if Olrox intends to turn him into a vampire because if that’s what Olrox does his lovers or that’s the end goal to whatever because if this is a causal thing or not. Or because in the château vampires turn other humans into vampires and it’s actually a common thing with vampire villagers are walking about so I guess that’s a normal thing now? The Abbey is letting so many shit slide it’s not even funny!

Mizrak has seen what vampires have been doing because where do all the Night Creatures come from? By vampires terrorizing humans and dumping their bodies to the abbey to create more Night Creatures. So he’s seen at first hand what vampires do to humans by using them as a food source, sex or just torments them. So Mizrak wonders if Olrox sees him like some sort of pet, or if this is a casual thing or if he wants more from Mizrak.

Olrox chuckles and pulls back and says he doesn’t love Mizrak and only turns people he loves to be vampires so he can be with that person forever. As in saying “you’re so naive, I don’t love you” because it’s a casual thing between them but also stopping himself from preventing any more heart ache in the future.

#thanks for the ask!#happy thanks giving #castlevania olrox #olrox/mizrak #olrox #mizrak #olrak #mizrok

30 notes · View notes

sotwk · 1 year

Text

The Broken Shield (Thorin & Frerin brotherhood fic)

Written for the TSF 2023 Event by @thorinsspringforge

Event Partner Artist: @cycas

Story also features Thranduil Oropherion and the Elvenqueen Maereth (SotWK OC)

Summary: Thorin and Frerin, the young Princes of Erebor, rise above the grudges and prejudices of their forefathers to forge an alliance with the Elves of Mirkwood during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. But the tenuous bonds of friendship are shattered when tragic losses suffered by both sides lead to grievances, misunderstandings, and an even greater divide between the two races.

Word count: 9.5 k

Content: Brotherly bonds, war, angst, family drama, Dwarf-Elf relations, Line of Durin history, Mirkwood and Thranduil history, Thranduil's family, pre-BotFA, pre-Oakenshield

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Major character deaths

To Read on AOC: Link

Artist credit: @cycas

The Broken Shield

Third Age 2791, Dunland

With a furious scrape of chair legs against the floor, he was out the tavern's door faster than Thorin could have anticipated.

"Where are you going?!" Thorin scrambled after him, nearly colliding with a hapless barmaid and her fully laden tray in his haste. "Frerin, stop! Wait!!"

But his brother did not listen; he did not even slow his angry pace. This had become a disturbing pattern with Frerin of late. The steady, reliable young dwarf who used to never question anything his elders told him, was mutating into a stubborn goat who seemed to challenge half the orders he was given. Whether the change was due to Frerin's recent achievement of reaching the age of maturity, or because of the lady that had inflamed his passions to reckless heights, Thorin could only guess. He only wished his little brother could have picked a better time to lose his heart and head to a dwarrowdam.

But he probably should have kept this opinion behind sealed lips.

"I said stop!" Thorin finally came close enough to seize the retreating dwarf's shoulder. "If you would only listen--!"

“And what would listening get me?!” Frerin flung out his arm to wrench Thorin’s grip off him. “More reasons why I shouldn’t pursue my own happiness? If I wanted those, I would have gone to Father or even Dis instead of confiding in you.”

His words reeked of a hurt that lashed at Thorin. In happier times he might have beamed with pride to hear himself being compared to King Thrain. Now he flinched at it, knowing it was intended as an insult, especially coming from Frerin.

“My counsel on the matter is for your own good." Mahal! The words stumbled out of his lips before he could stop himself from proving his brother right. That was exactly the condescending line their father would say.

"Why do you all insist on knowing what is best for me?!" Frerin exclaimed. “I love Ezri, and she has always loved me, and I am blessed to be chosen as her One. Do not dare imply that you can offer a greater life than the one I can share with her."

"Frerin, you are a Prince of Erebor," Thorin stated calmly, even though he actually wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake sense into him. "When we reclaim our home from the Dragon, it shall rise back to its place as the greatest kingdom on Middle-earth. Your proper place is home, where it has always been, Under the Mountain. Not…here!"

He threw his arms out at their village surroundings, unconsciously revealing his disdain with a sneer. "You have a higher purpose beyond staying in Dunland, eking out a living as a common blacksmith, peddling your craft to Men for a pittance."

"You know I care not about my crown or title," Frerin declared. "I have said it many times, emphatically, for years now. But you all turn a deaf ear because you refuse to accept my choice."

Thorin guffawed and clutched at his hair with both hands, as though it would help him hold on to his dwindling patience. "You are mad if you genuinely believe Father would ever accept you renouncing your birthright."

"Which is why I came to you!" Frerin shot back. "I thought if anyone still might understand and care about my wishes, it would be my brother. Or is it asking too much for you to take my side on the matter?"

“Frerin,” Thorin sighed. “You have not thought hard enough about this. This cannot truly be what you want in life.”

“Not all of us seek heroic glory in battle, or legendary fame from great deeds, or gold and jewels one could do nothing with but pile and hoard,” Frerin said. “Some of us desire nothing better than a cozy home to return to at the end of an honest day’s work, where a hearty dinner and a wife’s kisses await, and the songs and laughter of little ones.”

Thorin finally softened as he regarded the earnest conviction on his brother’s face. “So is that it?” He shook his head. “You would stay behind and leave us to deal with Azog and his armies, and all the challenges that still lie in the long road ahead?”

“That is not what I said.” Frerin moved close to grip Thorin’s forearms. “It was my grandfather too whom they murdered, and make no mistake, the same fire burns in my belly to seek vengeance. I will go to war against Azog with you, and only after we have won shall I return to make a bride out of my betrothed.”

His grave face cracked into a smile. “I know you need me to watch your back, your Highness . I will not make you beg for my axe.”

Thorin chuckled weakly and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, however can I repay such magnanimity?”

“By returning the favor. By helping me to return home safely so I can make good on my promise to Ezri.”

By my life, I shall. Thorin vowed silently. But before he could open his mouth to tell his brother so, they were interrupted by a shout from further down the dimly lit street.

“Thorin! Frerin!” When the figure in the shadows came up to meet them, Thorin recognized their kinsman, Balin, slightly out of breath. “Finally--I have been searching everywhere! You must come to your father’s house immediately. The King has called for a council and everyone awaits you.”

Thorin’s eyebrows rose. “A council at this hour? What could be so urgent?”

“An elf has turned up requesting an audience with Thrain.” Balin’s voice dropped to a tense whisper as he looked meaningfully at Thorin.

“A rider from Mirkwood, bearing a message from the Elvenking Thranduil.”

Third Age 2793, The Greylin River

Thorin could not recall ever seeing a full moon so large and bright, a great lantern high above the valley, illuminating the military encampment sprawled out by the riverbank. Dwarves preferred to fight their battles underground, in tunnels and caverns where their skills gave them certain advantages, so something about being out in the open, in clear view of their enemies, made Thorin uneasy. But King Thranduil had sent out keen-eyed scouts who reported no signs of hostile elements nearby, and the roving Elven patrols kept constant watch of the perimeters while the remainder of the army took their rest.

At daybreak, a few short hours away, the entire combined force of nearly six thousand strong will commence their march towards Gundabad, and their people’s great war against the Orcs shall begin.

Thorin massaged the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, his right arm resting heavily against the lyre propped upon his thigh. He had tossed and turned uncomfortably in his cot whilst Frerin snored away on the other side of their shared tent, before he finally gave up on sleep. He took his golden instrument and hiked a distance away from camp, seeking out a secluded spot at the eaves of the forest where he could play in peaceful solitude. Music, especially melodies played by his own hands, was usually effective at soothing his nerves, but even an hour later the anxiety that had taken root in his chest ever since they set out from Dunland still refused to be tamed.

Thorin laid his fingers against the lyre strings to try once more, searching his memory for the tune of a childhood lullaby. However, the very faint rustle of shifting undergrowth caused him to leap up to his feet instead. The lyre fell to the ground with a thud, and his hand closed around the hilt of the knife sheathed at his belt.

The tall, lithesome figure of a lady stood just a few feet away from him, close enough that he had to tilt his head back just to gaze fully upon her face. She appeared unperturbed by the dwarf's aggressive stance, although the four Mirkwood soldiers that stood just behind her noticeably tightened their grips on their spears.

"Prince Thorin." The lady dipped into a graceful curtsy before him, sinking so low that the voluminous skirt of her dress pooled against the patchy grass. "Good evening."

"Queen Maereth," Thorin answered, bowing from the waist in return.

The Queen of Mirkwood affixed her soft gaze and warm smile upon him, and the tight knot in Thorin's chest seemed to finally loosen. Although they were only recently acquainted, Thorin had been in the presence of the Elvenking Thranduil's wife multiple times already over the past few months, for she sat at her husband's side in every single meeting held between the Dwarven and Elven leaders. The Queen's beauty, a pure and natural radiance that surpassed the rarest and finest gemstones ever unearthed in Erebor's mines, did not escape the dwarven host's attention, and enchanted most of those who laid eyes upon her.

At the same time, something about the ethereal presence of Queen Maereth unnerved Thorin's father. At the council gatherings, King Thrain avoided any direct communication with her, muttering to the side that military dealings should only be between one king and another, as was “proper”, although he never dared suggest dismissing Thranduil’s wife from the meetings. And true to his principles, he left all interactions with the Elven host, their supposed allies, to his lieutenants.

Frerin surprised them all with how instantly he developed a camaraderie with the Mirkwood elves. It was only a week ago that the Elven army had arrived to join the Dwarves and set up camp alongside theirs by the Greylin River. By nightfall of the first day, Thorin found his brother at the Elven camp, the lone dwarf sitting around the fire with a group of Mirkwood soldiers, deep in his cups and slurring in speech. As an aghast Thorin dragged him away, Frerin chortled about how he shared a name with his new elf-friend, Feren. Since then, the younger prince continued to spend more time with the Elven soldiers than with his own people, and Thorin decided there was no point in preventing the phenomenon, if even the kings of their separate camps seemed unbothered by it.

Unlike his father and brother and their quick judgements, Thorin remained unsure of his feelings towards their new allies. Cautionary tales passed down by Dwarven elders warned heavily against trusting Elves, and the Sack of Erebor, an event that he himself witnessed, gave damning evidence of Mirkwood’s questionable loyalty. And yet there they were, about to launch perhaps the greatest war effort in the history of their race, and they would be fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with a previously sworn enemy.

Alas, Thorin’s father had not allowed him to attend that first meeting with Thranduil, so the prince still did not know what had led to the sudden alliance, and Thrain stubbornly refused to enlighten even his own sons.

"May I join you?"

Queen Maereth’s words pulled Thorin’s mind back to the present, and as his attention shifted back to her, and he beheld her lovely and tender smile, the answer dawned on him, clear as the sun emerging from the cover of dark clouds.

Her. It was because of her. Of course.

Stunned by his own epiphany, Thorin could only utter a vague grunt, but he nodded in assent, which seemed good enough for the Lady.

She addressed her guards with a few words and, much to Thorin’s surprise, all four promptly bowed, turned about-face, and disappeared into the shadows of the surrounding trees.

He watched in helpless fascination as the Queen settled upon a low flat stone, mindless of the damp dirt on her fine green gown. Perhaps it was the absence of the silver crown she always wore to the councils, or the wildness of their forest surroundings, but there suddenly appeared a pleasant earthiness to the Queen that Thorin had never noticed before. Not an ounce of her Elven beauty was diminished, but it shifted somehow from being a piercing and untouchable flame, to a warm and inviting hearth.

Thorin stepped slowly towards her, their faces now at level with each other. "You did not have to send your guard away on my account."

"I prefer we have our privacy, and they are not needed here,” the Queen responded. “I told them I will be safe in the company of a great warrior."

A bold assumption to make , Thorin thought, although internally her words made him glow with pride. He was a near stranger to her and had done nothing to merit such confidence. But as he gazed upon the fair vision she made sitting there, like a delicate flower freshly bloomed from the earth, Thorin felt a swell of protective instincts from his gut. A fierce conviction that he would spill his own blood before letting any harm come upon someone so pure and trusting.

A long, unbroken silence hung between them as the Elvenqueen stared at Thorin intently, unabashedly. Thorin did not meet her eyes, nor did he shrink away from the attention. He bent over to pick his lyre off the ground and rest it against the base of a tree, but he remained standing, now closer to the Queen than any of his kin had ever come before.

“Forgive me,” Queen Maereth said at last. “I am sure you are wondering why I have sought you out alone like this.”

“Perhaps you have words for me that you wish not for my father to hear?”

“You are as wise as I thought, Prince Thorin.” She smiled and folded her hands across her lap. “But I also thought mayhaps you too have things to say to me away from the ears of others. King Thrain has made clear that he has no interest in anything I have to say, but I sensed it is not the same with you.”

Thorin laughed, but even to his own ears it sounded uneasy. “You presume a great deal about me, my lady.”

“I do not presume; I see .” The Queen’s kind eyes flashed with firm reproach. “And when I look at you Thorin, I see Durin alive once more. The very same fire that once burned in your ancestors shines bright from your whole being."

Her unexpected declaration made Thorin freeze. Part of him wanted to wallow in such profound praises of his character, but a voice in his head decried her honeyed words as suspicious. After all, elves were notorious for employing riddles and fancy speeches for their machinations. Still, curiosity rose above all, and when Thorin regained his voice, he said, "You speak as though you knew him.”

"I knew them ,” said the Queen. “I had the honor of calling several of the great Dwarf Kings my dear friends." A fond reverie swept across her face. "But it was Durin the Third whom I loved best, he who ruled Khazad-dûm at the height of its glory."

"You saw Khazad-dûm…" Thorin whispered, finding himself suddenly breathless. His mind spun at the thought of it, of standing in the presence of one who had walked the halls of his ancestors’ now lost and ruined kingdom. An elf . He had heard the tales of Elves from the ancient ages who had been proclaimed "dwarf-friends", who built bridges between the two races, although those alliances never endured past their lifetimes. Therefore Dwarf historians wrote them off as aberrations, and not accomplishments to seek out or aspire for.

"I lived in Khazad-dûm as Durin's guest for several years," said Queen Maereth. Her eyes closed as she paused for a moment, clasping her hands together over her breast, and she murmured something in her Elvish tongue that Thorin could not hope to guess. "I shall always be grateful for the kindness Durin showed me, and to this day, many centuries passed, I have yet to find a more loyal or generous friend."

It could not be. It was too much. Thorin folded his arms across his chest and finally turned away, forgoing his princely manners. Everything she was telling him conflicted with everything he believed about the Elvenking and his family. Faithless, manipulative frauds who cared only for themselves. The Queen's accounts had to be lies…or else the stories told by Thorin's father and grandfather were.

"The White Gems, Thorin."

Thorin whirled around suddenly. "What of them?" He spoke more sharply than intended, but she could not have broached a more sensitive topic. The cause of Thranduil's ire against Erebor, the reason why he allowed the Dragon to besiege the Mountain without lifting a finger to lend aid. Those accursed White Gems that now lay buried in Smaug's hoard along with the rest of Erebor's treasures.

"What reason did your grandfather give for refusing to return them to us?"

Thorin's brow furrowed. He had been present at that fateful exchange, and had witnessed the cold, silent fury of the Elvenking when King Thror refused to relinquish the necklace he had commissioned for his wife.

"He said the gems belonged to Durin's House by birthights," Thorin said slowly. "Because they came out of the mines of Khazad-dûm…" He stared at the Queen, eyes suddenly wide as though he had been struck.

Queen Maereth smiled sadly. "I cannot blame your grandfather for coveting them. It must have pained him to see treasures from his ancestral home in the hands of Elves. But we did not steal the White Gems, or purchase them from raiders. They were a gift from Durin the Fourth himself, who wished to honor us on our wedding day on behalf of his late father."

"Did he know of this?" Thorin demanded, even as he dreaded the obvious answer. "Was my grandfather aware of this history all along?"

Now the Elvenqueen was the one to turn her face away, the voluminous waves of her dark hair momentarily blocking the sorrow that graced her features. "Truth inevitably grows distorted the longer stories are passed on, and prejudices creep into interpretations." She shook her head. "Thror made decisions on what to believe, and those are the versions he presented to your father and to you as truth."

"So this is why Thranduil despises us,” Thorin said bitterly. “Why he withheld his army and merely stood by to let Smaug drive us out of our home."

The Queen’s hand suddenly came to rest upon Thorin’s arm, her touch warm and gentle as a mother’s caress. "My husband does not hate you or your people, dear Prince,” she told him. “His inaction that day is a mistake he has come to regret, even though he would never admit it. He is a proud king, and your grandfather inflicted one too many wounds upon that pride. But my lord did not withdraw from the field that day out of revenge or spite."

“I suppose you have another grand tale to explain his motivations, then.” Thorin could not help the rush of hot anger that flared within him at the memory, and he stepped back, away from the Queen’s reach. “If you can offer a good explanation as to how your husband managed to do nothing but watch the Dragon raze not just Erebor, but the entire town of Dale…" He clenched his fists against the assault of the horrifying images the repressed memory roused in his mind. “...how he could turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to thousands being incinerated right in front of him… I would like to hear it.”

“Had I been at Thranduil’s side that day instead of across the Mountains visiting my kin, things might have been different.” The grief that descended upon the Elvenqueen’s fair face almost made Thorin regret his harsh speech. “We could not take back what had already been done, but in the aftermath, we aided survivors in every way we could.”

“If aid had come sooner, there would have been more survivors instead of dead!” Thorin growled. “If aid had come sooner, we would have stood a chance at defending and keeping our home.”

“Erebor would have been taken, even if our army had marched out to fight. That is for certain," the Queen countered. “And we would have lost so many more lives. Perhaps even the lives of the last two sons that remain to us.”

Another silence dropped between them as Thorin fumbled with her words. It was the first he had ever heard of the Elvenking having a child or heir, and he had not considered that there might be several of them. What sons? No Elven princes had arrived with the army and no mention was ever made of them at the councils.

“He already lost one son to dragons, and he refused to risk another,” said the Queen, her voice now barely above a whisper. “That is the thought that ruled my King’s decision to turn his army back.”

“I do not understand.” Thorin muttered, pangs of shame now surfacing above his cooling rage. “You have lost a son to dragons? Has your family encountered Smaug before?”

The Queen raised her eyes from the ground, and in holding her gaze, Thorin saw for the first time the truth of her age, hidden beneath her unfaded youth. The wisdom in her eyes, borne from countless years of immortal existence, made him realize the indescribable burdens she must carry upon her shoulders.

He never thought he would ever feel pity for an elf until that moment.

“I have shared enough for one evening,” she said with a faint smile. “It was not my intention to shake your faith in the things you have been taught. I only wish for you to understand better my King’s mind, and to know that our family has always valued our friendship with Aulë’s Children. My people are marching into battle side-by-side with yours tomorrow. I would have you trust that the Elves of Greenwood will protect you as our own.”

“But would they, oh Queen?” Thorin raised his eyebrows. “It remains unclear to me why Mirkwood should now do such a thing for us, when the crime committed by Azog was against our house alone.” He wondered if she suspected his father’s private theory, that Thranduil’s sole motive was to force Durin’s House indebtedness, and the Elves' so-called friendship was merely an expensive service that would have to be paid for later. King Thrain had accepted the Elves into their ranks as mercenaries, not friends.

“That is where you are wholly mistaken, Thorin.” This time the Queen frowned, and the soft lines of her face grew taut. “My family has endured unspeakable losses at the hands of the same Enemy that murdered Thror. This war belongs to us all, and so we shall take our stand together to put an end to these monsters that have taken far too much from us.”

“And what of the sons you spoke of? Might not Thranduil abandon the cause again out of fear of losing them?”

If the Queen took offense at his brazen sarcasm, she did not show it, which only deepened Thorin’s guilt. “Our sons stayed behind in Mirkwood, charged with ruling in their father’s absence.” She tilted her head to the side, pinning the dwarf with a searching gaze. “You are still too young to have children of your own, so it may be difficult to understand the fierce instinct to protect the ones you brought into this world.”

“I have no wife or children,” Thorin responded. “But I still understand the willingness to give my life if necessary to protect someone I love. I have a younger brother, Frerin, whom you have already met, but you may not remember…”

“Oh, I remember Prince Frerin indeed.” Queen Maereth’s sudden laughter was the sweetest, most musical sound that dissolved whatever bitterness lingered in Thorin’s heart. “It has certainly not escaped our attention how much your brother has enjoyed visiting our camp. My King is convinced he is mad, but it amuses him nonetheless, and I for one have not been delighted by a dwarf's charming manners in far too long."

"Just this morning he approached me, very boldly but ever so courteously, and asked me for a favor to carry with him throughout this war." The Queen gestured at her waist, where the intricately embroidered bodice of her green dress joined with the flowing skirt. "I gave him the sash off my gown and told him I would be honored for him to bear it."

Thorin felt his jaw drop, utterly flabbergasted, but when no words could pass his lips, a bark of laughter rang out. "That is the sort of thing Frerin would do," he admitted. "Particularly if he had been goaded by your soldiers, which I suspect is what happened. It was kind of you to indulge him."

"By that favor shall my blessing accompany your dear brother into battle," Queen Maereth said softly. "I shall pray it always leads him to a safe return."

“He left behind the woman he loves to come here," Thorin said abruptly. "His betrothed. I would see to it that he returns to her in Dunland to make good on his promise to marry her and have the future he desires."

"Then may it happen as you say." The Queen nodded. “But what of you, Crown Prince? What awaits your return after this war?”

Thorin shook his head. “There is no future for me in Dunland," he said flatly. “Only in Erebor. As my father’s heir, our people look to me to secure their own futures. I can seek no happiness of my own until I help reclaim our home."

There was a pause as the Queen regarded him even more intently. "You will lead your people back to the Mountain.” She spoke as though stating a fact, as certain as one would be of the sun rising to usher in a new day. “It shall be achieved by you, in time. So long as you learn to heed the counsel of the wise, of those you might regard as outsiders. Resist the flaws of your fathers, and do not be so hasty to regard the world with suspicion. The greatest victories are won with help coming from the most unexpected of places, so you must keep yourself open to receive it."

"Is that not what we are doing now, my lady?" Thorin swept his arm in the direction of the camp in the far distance. “Who could have foreseen that Dwarves and Elves would ever come together under one banner this way?”

“It is an auspicious start,” the Queen agreed. “I feel hope is renewed strong with this alliance, and that we shall prevail so long as it remains unbroken.”

“It will not fail from our end,” Thorin declared stoutly. “As a dwarf-friend, you would know that we honor our word once it is given.”

"I do believe that, Thorin, Son of Durin." She reached out to offer him her hand. Thorin grasped it, lightly at first, but was surprised by the strength he felt from those slender fingers pressed into his palm. He moved his other hand in to completely encase hers, and they sealed the gesture with an exchange of smiles.

“With all the power in me, I shall see to it that the Elves reciprocate your loyalty. Only hours from now, you shall see for yourself." Deep pride glowed on the Queen's face. "You will see the difference it makes to have the greatest warrior in Middle-earth fighting on your side."

Artist credit: @cycas

Third Age 2793, Mount Gundabad

Thorin pressed his clenched fists over his eyes and pulled in a slow, deep breath that shuddered through his lungs. After the emergency war council ended and all the Dwarven officers in assembly followed King Thrain back out of the tent, the prince sat alone in the dead silence, for a long time motionless as a carven statue upon his chair. His hollow stare bore straight into the canvas flap through which they had all exited, walking off to proceed with business as though absolutely nothing of significance had occurred.

When he thought enough strength might have returned to his legs, Thorin staggered to his feet. But something in the act of just moving returned his mind to the realities of the present, to the memories of the last twenty-four hours, and the tenuous stranglehold he kept on his emotions shattered.

And finally, Thorin wept.

The Elvenqueen was dead. He might never have believed it possible, but he was one of the few witnesses to lay eyes on her broken body being carried out of the pits of Gundabad, a most wretched sight that would surely haunt him to his last day.

Immediately upon returning to camp with his company, Thorin stood before the Dwarven council to deliver his account of the battle. His report was hopelessly garbled and raised many questions he could not answer, but those present managed to cobble it together with the fragments of news and hearsays picked up from the Elven ranks and form a coherent story.

The news of Queen Maereth’s abduction had reached their camp in the cold darkness of a moonless winter night, and the chaos that had erupted from the Mirkwood host was unholy. The Dwarves were woken from their sleep by the noise of over a thousand Elves scrambling to form ranks as the word spread like literal fire setting their tents ablaze, and there arose a terrible cacophony of enraged shouts and anguished wails, spoken in a tongue they could not understand.

It was not until much later that the Dwarves discovered Thranduil had ridden out all by himself, immediately, without delaying even a moment to rally his guard, or to strategize, or to brief his confused and panicked soldiers. Without warning he simply vanished, leaving his officers uncertain of what they were to do next in such an unprecedented crisis.

Yet somehow, orders came from the absent king. The Queen had been located. At morning's light the Elven army finally set off in great haste, and after many rejected attempts to communicate with the Mirkwood lieutenants Thorin managed to force an answer out of them as to where they were marching off to, so he could lead the Dwarves to join them in the rescue.

Back to the depths of Gundabad, the orc captors had taken her, barely more than a league away. The Dwarves and Elves had spent the last three months laying a relentless siege upon the ancient stronghold, waging battle after battle, and winning decisively each time. Their armies cut through Gundabad's defenses with overwhelming ease, slaughtering the orc legions until only dredges of their filth remained, withdrawing to the deepest caverns, clinging to their nests like stubborn roaches. The Mountain should have been one final purge away from being utterly won.

Instead, their enemy had lashed out with their most devastating blow yet.

“There was nothing left for us to do,” Thorin told the commanders of the Seven Houses. "By the time our forces arrived, a thorough razing had already been accomplished. We chased down a few survivors attempting to escape, but the Elves had exterminated the rest." He paused and closed his eyes briefly, as a vivid memory flashed in his mind, and he corrected himself. "Or from what I could tell, Thranduil had carried out most of it."

"I heard he was half dead when they found him," one of the officers grunted. “And entirely mad.”

“That preening peacock has always been mad. Charging into Gundabad on his own without waiting for even a single soldier to cover him.”

"Foolish bastard."

"He was injured," Thorin broke back into the exchange, grimacing as the nightmarish image of the blood-drenched Elvenking once again crossed his thoughts. "Far more seriously than he has ever been. But he walked out of Gundabad unaided, even carrying the Queen himself. I did not get a chance to speak with him, and have not seen him since."

"He has not shown himself at all since this whole disaster started," Thrain burst out, pounding a fist on the arm of his throne. "What kind of king sends a messenger to deliver notice of his retreat? Or perhaps I should just be thankful they didn’t simply fade into the night without a word of warning!”

"Their queen is dead , Father." Frerin's tone was sharp when at last he broke his silence. Only Thorin caught the slight tremor in his brother's voice and he gratefully realized he was not the only one with grief swelling in his chest. "It is only right that they go home and lay her to rest."

"Pulling out the entire army in the middle of a campaign?!" scoffed a Firebeard chieftain. "It stinks of typical Elf weakness."

Frerin stood abruptly from his chair. "There are rumblings from the Mirkwood camp about a betrayal," he said loudly. "Committed by our people. It is being said that it was one of our escorts sent with Queen Maereth that betrayed her to the enemy, and assisted in her abduction."

A chorus of indignant shouts immediately rose in the tent, but Thorin remained silent. Frerin's friendship with the Elves still gave him reliable sources of information, and this accusation did not surprise Thorin at all. The same suspicion had dawned on him when he pondered how the ambush on the Queen's convoy could have occurred. Meticulous plans had been made to take her by a safe route home over the Grey Mountains, through passes known only to Longbeards who had long dwelt in those lands.

The Longbeards King Thrain had offered up as guides were people Thorin had never met before. They were distant relatives who came forward to answer the call to arms, claiming descent from the Gloin who once ruled over the Grey Mountains. But Thorin knew little else of these so-called relations, and he doubted his father had the time to get any much better acquainted.

“The orcs slew the entire escort to capture her! Dwarves and elves alike, indiscriminately!” bellowed another officer. “How dare they accuse us of treason, when lives of our kin were also sacrificed to shield their Queen!”

“I should have been the one to do it,” Frerin said bitterly. “I volunteered and you forbade it, but I should have insisted upon it. I should have gone to ensure Queen Maereth’s safe passage.”

Thrain stared at his son incredulously. “You are a Prince of Erebor, not some Queen's maid!” he exclaimed. “We were not remiss in our obligation. We gave her a strong and proper escort, but the mission was compromised. Our enemy outsmarted us. It was an unfortunate incident, but one we could not have predicted or prevented.”

“Unfortunate?!” Anger blazed in Frerin’s bright blue eyes. “Is that what you would call it? Bad weather is unfortunate. A spilled barrel of ale is unfortunate! The Queen of Mirkwood was murdered, when she was supposed to be under our protection! How can you be so dismissive about such a failure, that is now a stain on our honor?!"

For once, silence dropped like a stone upon the assembly. Father and son glared at each other for a tense moment, until King Thrain growled, "Leave my sight, Frerin. Do not return until you have rid your head of nonsense and cleansed your mouth of insolence."

Thorin watched his brother storm out of the tent and almost wished he could join him, but he stayed behind to hear the continued grumblings of the Dwarven leaders.

"We brought this upon ourselves, joining with elves, who have time and again proven fickle and faithless."

"We have gotten some use out of them, at least. Gundabad was quickly won, and at barely any cost to our ranks.”

“Hah! Let them be cowards and run back home! We shall advance without them and show them the true meaning of grit.”

“Aye! I never liked the thought of that woodland fairy sharing in our glory anyhow!”

"Thranduil has fought fiercely for our side from the onset of this campaign, and his valor has played no small role in our victories.” Thorin was barely aware that he was shouting, not to be heard above their jabbering, but to release the frustrations that would otherwise cause him to implode. “But this war, which was never truly his to fight, has cost him his wife, his companion for thousands of years, a bond none of us can possibly comprehend. Now you mock him in his grief, calling him a coward for his need to mourn?!”

Just as with Frerin, Thrain glowered at his elder son long and hard, and Thorin thought for certain he too would be ejected from the council. Instead, the King rose from his throne, gave the prince a tight, patronizing smile, and launched into a speech that robbed Thorin of the desire to say anything else.

"I understand you and your brother had been ensnared by the charms of the Elvenqueen. Lovely and fair she was indeed, and I will not deny that her presence gave strength to our hosts. But in the end she is still just a single soul lost, one casualty in this war. And I will not allow the blame for her killing to fall on our people!” The blue gemstone of his great ancestral ring flashed as Thrain waved his hand in stern proclamation. “Thranduil was the one who risked her life by bringing her here, keeping her so close to danger. Perhaps if these Elves treasured and safeguarded their women in the ways we do, this senseless tragedy would not have occurred."

As Thorin wept quietly in the tent at the conclusion of that sickening assembly, he knew that his tears were not merely of sorrow at the fate of the Elvenqueen. He did not think he had ever been angrier with this father in all his life, or more ashamed of his kinsmen, or more disappointed in himself for his inability to tell them all exactly this.

Frerin found him slumped low in his chair when he returned to the tent. The younger prince raised his eyebrows at the pathetic sight but said nothing about Thorin’s watery eyes, flushed cheeks, and damp, disheveled beard.

“Come Thorin,” he said urgently. “The elves have begun their march. They are leaving, right now. You must come!”

“And do what?” Thorin asked dully.

“Let us go speak to them, learn of their plans! Perhaps we can get some idea as to when they will be rejoining us.”

“They are not coming back, Frerin,” Thorin said tersely. "The alliance has been declared broken by both sides. Father and his generals have accepted the Elves' departure. I have certainly heard enough crowing of how we will now triumph in the rest of this war without having to share the glory.”

"Shall we heed the words of those puffed-up wind sacks?” Frerin scoffed. “We have taken very few casualties with the Elves fighting by our side! Is pride really worth more than all the lives we can save by asking Mirkwood to stay with us?!”

When Thorin still refused to budge from his chair, Frerin gave a frustrated growl and grabbed both his arms, yanking his brother to his feet.

"We should speak directly with King Thranduil," he said, pulling Thorin towards the tent exit. "He has as much cause as we do now to want Azog’s head. Surely he craves revenge and will not find rest until the task is done."

“It is not that simple.” Thorin rubbed his temple, where a pounding headache seems to have formed. “Maereth is gone. Can you not see why our enemies targeted her? Much of the Elves’ goodwill towards us rested on her, on the love her husband and their people bore for her. We cannot replace her influence on them, the zeal she inspired in their hearts. Nothing can.”

“I think our relationship with the Elves has grown beyond that, now that we have spilled blood together. The least we can do is try,” Frerin insisted. “Or shall we stand quiet and let her death be for nothing? Because I think she would want us to bring our case to Thranduil, and make him see reason if need be--”

“Just stop, Frerin!” Thorin cried, finally snapping under the weight of grief and exhaustion. “Enough! There is nothing left to be done, and we have to accept that. It is over .”

Frerin did stop talking, for a second, to give Thorin a scathing, disgusted scowl. “Never mind, then.” He released his grip on Thorin’s arm, giving him a hard push away. “Sulk in your corner. I will do it myself.” He disappeared behind the flap of the tent exit.

“Frerin, wait!” As tired as he was, Thorin rushed after him into the evening twilight.

He did not have to venture far to find what Frerin had wanted him to come and see. The Mirkwood soldiers had departed from their now empty campsite and formed a long, wide column that snaked eastward, marching back towards the Greylin, and from there to their woodland home. Many dwarves had come out of their tents to watch the Elven army leaving in the distance, but none were curious enough to approach the giant procession.

Thorin walked quickly to catch up, keeping an eye out for the vibrant blue color and fur collar of Frerin’s winter coat.

The marching Elves paid no heed to the dwarf-prince that came up to walk alongside their lines. Thorin noticed that despite the bitterness of the winter chill, they had all removed their cloaks, leaving their fine golden armor looking oddly incomplete. Instead, long strips of jagged fabric ripped apart by bare hands were tied around the tips of their spears and bows. Thousands and thousands of crimson ribbons fluttered high in the wind, and made the slow-moving column of soldiers appear from afar like a river of running blood.

Looking ahead towards the front of the procession, Thorin finally spotted Frerin, easily noticed next to the line of towering Elves. As he surged forward to reach his brother, Thorin realized they had come alongside the most important section of the cavalcade.

On a large litter borne by the shoulders of a half-dozen Elves, the Queen’s body lay, covered almost entirely by a thick, richly embroidered coverlet, and draped over that was a shimmering silver cloak that Thorin recognized as the Elvenking’s own. Sheer white silk veiled her face, still beautiful and unscathed, but whose pale lifelessness was too saddening to look upon.

Thorin came up to Frerin, who had finally stopped moving, and was just staring helplessly at the Elvenqueen’s body as it passed by. Thorin saw the fear and despair on his brother’s face and reached out to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

The princes remained that way for a while, suddenly transported back to a time during their childhood in Erebor, when two little dwarves stood by the funeral bed of another deceased queen, scared and confused and unable to grasp what a motherless future held for them.

“We should go,” Thorin finally said.

"No," Frerin said brusquely. Determination renewed, he continued walking up the line, his boots crunching against the packed snow. "He is right there ."

The Elvenking rode at the very front of the column, separated from his soldiers by a good distance. Astride his great bull elk, he towered above the marching elves, but even higher above the dwarf that boldly approached him.

Thranduil's war steed was a violent, ill-tempered creature. Thorin had watched it mow down orcs on the battlefield, and once saw it nearly bite the shoulder off a Ironfoot spearman just for coming too close. The beast had to be part monster, a lethal hazard that could only be controlled by its similarly dispositioned master.

Sure enough, when Frerin strode up within scope of the elk's sight, it immediately halted in its tracks. It did not buck or make any sudden movements out of respect for its rider, but its nostrils flared as it snorted angrily and dipped its head low to challenge the intruder with its massive antlers.

Behind Thranduil, the entire procession also came to an immediate halt, and a profound silence allowed the dwarf-prince’s voice to be heard loud and clear.

"Lord Thranduil," Frerin called, stopping a safe distance before the elk beast, out of reach from being skewered or bitten. Thorin watched, aghast, as his brother sank down on one knee in a manner of greeting. "Forgive my impertinence and allow me to deliver a message on behalf of my King and our people."

Thorin froze when he realized trying to interrupt his brother, or discredit him by denying the validity of his words, would only rouse the Elvenking's notorious temper. And so he held his breath and stood aside, watching as Frerin pulled out a golden silk sash from the folds of his coat, and raised it above his bowed head.

“We mourn your loss with you," Frerin declared. "Queen Maereth was the kindest and fairest soul many of us had ever seen in our lifetime. We beseech our Great Father, Mahal, to intercede for her during her sojourn in the Halls, and to honor her as the dwarf-friend she was."

Then he rose and braved a few steps forward to offer the sash up to Thranduil, who still had not uttered a sound or moved in his saddle.

"Peace be on your journey as you bring her home to rest," he said as he waited for the Elvenking to accept his offering.

“We will await your return, when we shall rise together in arms once more to avenge her.”

At long last, Thranduil bent down to reach for the golden sash. He gripped it tightly in his fist, but still said nothing as the bitter silence droned on unbearably.

Unwilling to continue letting his brother stand there alone, Thorin finally walked over to Frerin's side. His arrival seemed to jar the Elvenking from his trance and he turned his piercing gaze towards the elder prince.

It was a sight both shocking and chilling to behold up close, the tears that streamed down the cut and bruised cheeks of Thranduil's cold, inflexible face. He inclined his head in a small, vague nod.

The elk lurched forward without warning, forcing the brothers to scramble hastily out of its path. As quickly as that, the Mirkwood army marched on, once again leaving the dwarves at the sidelines to witness their exodus.

"They will be back," Frerin whispered, an unquenchable conviction burning in his eyes. "I saw it on his face."

Thorin did not know how much he shared in this optimism, but his heart swelled with admiration and pride in the bravery his little brother had demonstrated. He just never learned how to express it in words.

"You should have kept the Queen's favor. It was her gift to you."

Frerin shrugged. "And I used it as I believe she would have wanted me to," he responded. "Whenever Thranduil looks at it, he will remember my words and the cause she gave up her life for. He will not let it be for nothing."

He touched his fist over his heart as the Elvenqueen's body was carried past them once more. "For now, we will hold the line until they return."

Third Age 2799, The Valley of Azanulbizar

The uproar of bellowing dwarves and the piercing blare of war horns echoing throughout the sunless valley signaled victory. Had they really won? After six long years of underground battles that culminated in a final descent into hell, was the impossible war finally over?

Thorin reached up to swipe aside the hair plastered by sweat across his face, and only succeeded in smearing more black grime into his eyes. He gasped and clutched his left arm, feeling a shock of breathtaking pain run up from his wrist to shoulder. The bones had to be broken in multiple places, with the damage worsened by his fighting on after it had been injured. It would never regain the same strength it once had even after healing.

As close as he had come and as close as his bodily pain still felt to death, somehow he was alive and standing. The battlefield surrounding him revealed a much grimmer fate for most of the eight thousand dwarves that had marched into Dimrill Dale.

The truth of the death toll had been impossible to notice while the bloodshed continued, but after the last axe-stroke had fallen, it became clear that victory for Durin’s Folk was a questionable claim.

A deep, throbbing ache clawed up Thorin’s leg with each step he took, as he limped across the barren plain, struggling to get his bearings in the black darkness of the cloudy night. Several times, he stumbled over what at first appeared to be a boulder or felled tree, but the clink of chainmail or steel armor announced a corpse.

A handful of torches moved in the distance, as Dwarven soldiers began the task of combing through the field, seeking any wounded left lying among the dead that might still be saved. Only then did it finally sink in for Thorin that he needed to find his brother, and that immediately drove out all awareness of his own pain and exhaustion.

He staggered towards the nearest torch-bearer as quickly as he could. “Frerin. Have you seen Prince Frerin anywhere?!” The blood-stained, swollen-faced soldier merely blinked at him with confused, unrecognizing eyes. Thorin moved on to ask the next dwarf, and then another one, and so on with the same results. Finally he ripped the torch off one of the roaming rescuers’ hands and started searching the field of corpses himself, screaming his brother’s name until his voice ran hoarse.

They had begun the battle literally side-by-side in King Thrain’s mounted vanguard, charging at the advancing hordes of orcs that flowed down the mountain slopes above the East-gate. Their cavalry rams were quickly shot down, forcing them to plunge into the chaos on foot. In the initial onslaught of the orcs, the company led by the princes succeeded in driving their opponents back, and the brothers managed to stay within reach of each other. But then innumerable creatures, including trolls and wargs, began to pour out of Moria’s gate, and the tide of battle turned swiftly ill. Thorin lost track of his men as they fell at a rapid pace, and he was swept away from the sight of his brother as night’s terrible shadows cloaked the accursed valley.

It felt like an eternity before someone finally responded to Thorin’s relentless cries. He was found on the field by his cousin Dwalin, a dwarf who should have been counted too young to join their ranks but was so robust and strong for his age that his own father volunteered him along with his brother Balin.

“Praise Mahal!” Thorin hugged tightly the cousin he had practically helped raise, glad to finally lay eyes on a surviving relation. But when he pulled back and took a closer look at Dwalin’s expression, he found no shared joy or relief, but a face crumpled with sorrowful anguish. The cold dread swept back into Thorin’s chest.

“What is it?”

“Frerin,” Dwalin choked out, cementing Thorin’s fears. “Hurry--you must come.”

They had set him down underneath a tree by the banks of the Kheled-zâram, far enough from the main battlefield so that the stench of death and decay did not overcome the lakeside air. Frerin’s eyes were closed, and he lay so still tucked between two giant roots that Thorin collapsed to his knees with a wail, fearing he was too late.

But his brother’s eyes fluttered open at his voice, and his lips parted in a blood-stained smile. “What took so long, nadad ?” he croaked. “The Halls await.”

“No Frerin,” Thorin shook his head vigorously, clutching his brother’s limp hand in a grip that would have crushed stone. “You cannot go. Your place is still here with me.”

“I cannot obey, Highness.” His chest heaved visibly in dire gasps for continued breath. “I had nearly slipped away. But had to see with my…eyes that you live and will not follow… where you should not yet be.”

“Frerin…”

“Not yet , Thorin.” Strength seemed to return briefly to the dying dwarf’s hand, and he squeezed Thorin’s fingers. “Not for a very long time still.”

“There has to be something I can do,” Thorin said desperately.

“Take my braid…” His words fell to wheezing, as the final dregs of strength he had clung to swiftly faded. “Back to Ezri. I love her. As much as…love… you.”

Thorin did not leave his brother’s side for hours after Frerin breathed his last. He succumbed to a deathlike sleep with his head upon the younger prince’s chest, and wept once more when he eventually awoke to find that it had been no nightmare.

By morning’s light, the dwarves commenced gathering the corpses and stripping all their soldiers of armor and weapons, reclaiming every single piece so that none would fall into orc possession. Balin and Dwalin helped Thorin carry Frerin a long distance to the Longbeard camp set up outside the valley, where the prince’s body could receive care befitting his station.

King Thrain’s angry curses and anguished sobs filled the tent when he finally arrived, hobbled by his own near-fatal injuries, to grieve his lost son. Only then did Thorin finally leave to give his father privacy, and to seek out his cousin so he could make one more request of him.

“It would be my honor,” Balin said gravely. They sat by a campfire together as they made plans, nursing bowls of hot barley stew. It was the only food Thorin had consumed in almost three days, but it tasted like ash in his mouth as he forced it down for sustenance. “I shall start gathering materials immediately. It seems the plan for most of the fallen is to build great pyres, so while the supply of lumber might run short, there will be enough stone to work with.”

“I will scout for a suitable location.” Thorin set aside his half-eaten stew and reached into a pocket in his tunic, drawing out the braid of Frerin’s copper-brown hair that bore a betrothal bead marked with runes. He turned the small silver bead over with his fingers thoughtfully. “Somewhere on a hill with lots of sunshine. He was an odd enough dwarf to enjoy something like that.”

“Then I will build him the finest hilltop tomb I can manage,” the master stonemason promised. “But are you certain you would not rather carry him back home to his sweetheart?”

“Dunland is not home ,” Thorin said darkly. “One may argue that this orc-infested mountain is more our proper home than that place.”

Balin’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Then do you have plans to return elsewhere when we are done here?”

“I do not know,” Thorin muttered. “It does not even seem to matter at the moment. Right now, I just feel nothing will ever matter again.”

He staggered to his feet, cradling his bandaged arm across his chest, and excused himself before walking off. He cut straight through the Longbeard camp, willing himself to ignore the growing pile of corpses he passed on his way out. But just outside of the campsite boundaries, another great pile caught and held his gaze--the collection of salvaged Dwarven armor and weaponry.

One item in particular ensnared his attention, for it seemed to have magically appeared in front of him at the right moment, when it might have been abandoned by the Great Gate with the orc carcasses.

He remembered the day Frerin presented the intricately wrought shield to him, the product of a whole month’s labor in the forge. There had been no special occasion; just a proud young smith wishing to prove once and for all to his older brother that he had surpassed him in at least one skill. And truly, Thorin had never borne a finer shield into battle, and he knew he never would again.

He picked up the black-and-silver shield by its edges and stared at the burnished surface that barely yielded a scratch. Only the leather strap was actually damaged, ripped apart by the sheer force of many powerful blows that had broken Thorin’s arm before it even managed to break the mighty shield. It could easily be repaired if he wished.

Instead Thorin laid his shield to rest with Frerin, and had it molded into the stone that covered the top of his tomb. Your death will not be in vain, brother, was Thorin’s last promise before he bid farewell to the hilltop grave. I will not forget the vengeance you are owed, and I will never forgive the betrayers of your trust.

Thank you for reading and your support!

Tagged by request: @aduialel @fizzyxcustard @laneynoir @auttumnsayshi @achromaticerebus @friendofthefellowshipsnerdblog @blueberryrock @scyllas-revenge @glassgulls @ladyweaslette @heilith @absentmindeduniverse @lathalea @guardianofrivendell @undeniableadrenaline @albionscastle @quickslvxr

Tagging because I'm totally guessing you might be interested (if I'm wrong, please forgive me! XD): @ladyk8tie @the-fragile-heart-of-a-lady @sleepyamygdala @jezzibee @firelightinferno @coopsgirl @emmyspov

For more of my stories, please see My Masterlist.

If you would like to be added to my tag list, please sign up here:Tag List Sign-Up.

#TSF23 #thorin #thorin oakenshield #thorin fanfiction #frerin #frerin fanfiction #the line of durin #the hobbit #the hobbit fanfiction #thranduil #thranduil fanfiction #thranduil x oc #the elvenqueen #mirkwood elves

72 notes · View notes

gingerylangylang1979 · 10 months

Text

Season 3, 4, 5 and story structure: Where are we currently?

The WGA and SAG strike are definitely putting any further seasons in jeopardy. Given this is currently the top FX show I do think they will pick up production again at some point... I hope and pray.

This season was titled The Bear Part 2. But we have no idea how many parts are intended or even if the number of parts are already planned. But I thought it was pretty bold to assign a part. Storer has said last season was kind of an intro/setup so I feel the story is just getting started more than we are now at the middle. Why? This season seems to still be building towards a climax, more than the actual climax.

Three act story structure includes Setup, Confrontation, Resolution. Four act story structure includes Setup, Rising Action, Conflict, Resolution. Five act story structure includes Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution. These are very simplified breakdowns because there are elements within the elements, but you get the idea for pacing. This could easily be plotted out with each season aligning with each element of structure or some could be combined. But let’s just assume each season is one element. What does season one and two imply about future seasons and where exactly do you think we are in the story? What do you think THE CONFLICT will be?

I just don’t think Carmy’s conflict this season is enough to be THE big conflict of the series. I think the bigger central conflict will build off of his lack of balance and prioritization, but I don’t think opening the restaurant on a tight deadline, getting stuck in the freezer, and ruining the relationship with Claire is THE THING. If they only do three seasons I guess they could fit a bigger conflict and resolution into one season but I still feel like we don’t know everyone well enough to wrap everything up in a satisfying way in three seasons, especially with 10 episodes.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being greedy and want five seasons. I don’t want more than that but I do think there is enough material to fully utilize three more seasons and tell a complete, rich, epic story without it dragging.

I think the key is to figure out what is the central conflict. Have we seen it already or is it yet to come?

This is another reason I’m so irritated with production with streaming. Rarely are show runners allowed the space to fully flesh out the best story structure. Number of seasons and episodes per season are so condensed and there is no security. Previously, even if ratings declined, if a show was a big enough hit in the first and second season, there was usually some kind of security of it being around five seasons because it would likely still generate enough revenue to be considered a cash cow. The fear before was a show going on too long and getting stale. Now shows barely have a chance at that, which is partly positive, but I feel some shows are rushed because they only get two to three seasons. Yet, they wonder why audiences are fickle? It’s partly because you don’t let us fully engage with a good story. Also, there are just too many damn shows. I would much rather have fewer better shows with bigger audiences.

I really hope whatever Storer has in mind, he is allowed to complete it with the time he needs.

#the bear fx #carmy berzatto #chris storer #story structure #wga strike #sag strike

39 notes · View notes

moghedien · 1 year

Text

honestly tho one thing you can say about CRJ is that she is someone who understands the audience she has and just leaned into it

like there are artists who want to be gay icons so bad (no I'm not talking about just that one person you're thinking of, but I'm probably talking about them a little. this is multiple people) and it just feels so try-hard and corporate. like it feels like your bank putting up a pride flag in June, but musically

but like with Carly, she just feels like she's leaning into it more and more with each album without really trying to, to the point where it feels like a natural thing, because it probably is just her natural progression. She's reacting to people that are reacting to her, rather than trying to provoke a reaction from those people

like Beach House is a very straight song lyrically (even though there is an implied threesome with some guy's wife I guess lmao) but like, look at the music video and its clear that the intended audience there is gay men. like its just campy with shirtless guys dancing and flexing and its not straight target audience there with all that

then like the Loneliest Time music video is just camp, and while it is literally a m/f duet, Rufus Wainwright is gay and that's not really masked in the music video. and like it just turns into a bunch of gay people on the moon and its just like "yeah this is the natural progression of this video obviously" and it just makes me happy because it just feels like such a queer video without feeling like the artist is constantly pointing at me and being like "there's gay people in this"

like while other artists are making like stale attempts at marketing queerness they (probably) aren't included in that just feel so much like they're trying to rainbow wash themselves for like one or two songs, CRJ's music isn't queer at all and its not trying to be, but it also just feels like she understands her queer audience and effortlessly embraces that so much better than most of the people that are trying to do the same

#you can tell she's just effortlessly evolving more and more into gay icon status because she gets more disco with each album #carly rae jepsen

144 notes · View notes

deltaruminations · 1 year

Text

The Man in the Motif: A Character Analysis of W.D. Gaster via Music

“Sing us a song, you’re the mystery man… sing us a song if you please… ‘cause we’re all in the mood for a broken chord, and you’ve got us feeling unease…”

here’s the Big Dumb Music Post lmao

A couple things:

Most of what comes after the cut is written like an actual essay and not a shitpost i promise

This is more Synthesis and Subjective Reading of Extant Material than speculative theorycraft

I mostly wrote this for fun & because I’d never seen anyone lay out an analysis for our boy G like this before. I don’t think it’s like Revolutionary it’s mostly just me talking a lot about a special interest lol

I get the sense that a lot of people may have already picked up on a lot of this stuff and it might just be my alexithymic ass that needs heady analysis like this to understand subtle emotional cues. That’s to say: IDK how much New Stuff is being presented here for any given reader but it might still add value to that existing understanding I Guess

I’m not trying to assert that Toby Fox consciously intended to convey everything that I’m pulling out of this stuff lol

OK HERE WE GO!!!!!

Contents

To quickly access a given section, just search for it by its leading flag ([#XXX])

[#001] mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme)

[#002] ANOTHER HIM

[#002-A] A Brief Tangent on Giygas

[#003] File Select & Game Over ambience

[#004] Darkness Falls

[#005] man.ogg (Tree Room)

[#005-A] A Brief Tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei

[#006] Takeaways

Undertale and Deltarune use leitmotif to a wide variety of ends in shaping players’ experience of their stories. Because music is understood emotionally and interpretively, a single song can function to convey several simultaneous ideas about characters, places, and/or themes, and may be understood to have multiple layers of meaning.

Gaster’s leitmotif in particular is notorious for its tendency to be heard by fans everywhere in Undertale and Deltarune’s soundtracks, regardless of the actual intentionality of its use. Due to the brief and generic nature of the sequence, there’s a distinct possibility that this ambiguity was engineered into it, possibly as a way to influence players’ perceptions by implying that he’s secretly ever-present and ever-watching, and/or to convey something about Gaster himself, such as dispersion of his consciousness or memories.

Aside from the previous point, there are a few instances in Deltarune’s soundtrack in which its use is either explicit or, at the very least, somewhat less ambiguous. This discussion will focus on the former cases, specifically tracks that play in the scenes in which we interact with the man himself. I’ll cover this in roughly the order that I believe a typical player would experience them for the first time.

Most of these sections will be Very Roughly divided into:

Informal analysis (I Do Not Know Music Theory I Am Just A Guy With Abled Ears) of choices made in the song itself

Subjective analysis of what emotions or associations the song might be evoking

Interpretation of what any of that could mean about Gaster Our Good Friend Gaster

Discussion of in-game context wherever I think it's interesting lol

Because my formal knowledge on music composition is very limited, and also because I’m no longer hearing these songs fresh and untainted by Lore Obsession Disease, I had my partner (a musician who knows nothing about UTDR or this character) give his opinions on these songs as well. While I don’t think a formal background is a prerequisite for this kind of subjective analysis (as these soundtracks are designed to communicate with a broad audience, not just with musicians), it of course allows for further insight. I’ll refer to him from here on as my “research assistant” because I think it’s funny.

I first had him listen to the tracks listed here out-of-context and give me his thoughts on what they communicated to him about the character or scene. I then gave him some context for each song, the story, and the character, and we discussed whether that context brought further interpretation. It turned out his basic interpretations closely aligned with mine, with the addition of some really cool observations that would’ve never occurred to me on my own. This discussion will reflect his opinions & observations as well. Huge thanks to him!

With that in mind, I’m going to use the word “melody” and other such Music Words pretty loosely throughout this sorry. I tried my best to respect the Terminology but im just a fucking dude ok

[#001] mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme)

We must, of course, begin with mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme), which establishes his leitmotif (or at least, the only confirmed part of it; whether or not there’s a B part to the leitmotif is currently unknown, though I‘ve seen some interesting speculation about that). Assuming that Deltarune players experienced Undertale first (as Toby Fox seems to have intended), this will have been the first instance of Gaster’s leitmotif ever encountered, and it’s the front line for evaluating his character.

Found only through a Fun event, in Undertale’s “Sound Test” room, this is presented as less of a song and more of a demo or reference sequence. As we move on to other tracks, I’ll consider this track the platonic ideal and use it as a point of comparison.

One brief note is that the filename itself does not explicitly assign this track to Gaster, but rather to “him.” It’s the Sound Test UI that puts his name on it. Whether or not there’s significance to this is currently unclear.

(I think there may be something in common between the friendly “voice” that thanks us for our feedback in the Sound Test room and Deltarune’s out-of-universe UI text after closing the fountain in Deltarune chapter 1, but I don’t have any idea what, if anything, that means right now.)

Precedents established

Since this is the base motif, I think it’s worthwhile to mention how the song is structured on paper. Since I’m no Theory Guy, I’ll refer you to Tumblr user notesanddreams’s technical analysis of what he calls the “Gaster Sequence,” which is a name I like a lot and am going to use moving forward.

To quote him:

It’s a pretty simple four bar loop. The melody, which everyone I know has taken to calling “the Gaster motif,” is a four note sequence that goes “starting note -> up a minor second (half step) -> up a perfect fifth -> back down a perfect fifth.” This is played four times before modulating down a half step and looping….

There’s simply not enough musical information in the track to discern a tonal center, and therefore any attempts to give it a key signature are futile. This gives the sequence a very mysterious and unsettling nature, but its vagueness allows it to be applied to certain tracks in the Deltarune OST very subtly at times.

While it’s distorted, this song seems to be played on an unaccompanied piano. This establishes an association between Gaster and that instrumentation (as we’ll see reinforced later), as well as with sounds of distortion & modulation, dissonance, and “noise.”

These two factors combined may be things to consider alongside the leitmotif when determining whether a song or part of a song should be considered to offer direct descriptions of Gaster (as opposed to containing a more abstract reference to him, or instead being referential to or descriptive of another character associated with piano, such as Kris).

Emotional perspective

Gaster’s Theme is anxiety-inducing. It builds up endlessly but never resolves. It is not musical; it lacks anything recognizable as motion or melody, which in turn causes it to lack anything immediately recognizable as personality, or emotion, or backstory. It’s a song that betrays no motivations or values, leaving us to fill in the blanks on our own.

The minor key and dissonance could easily be experienced as sinister, playing on our fear and mistrust of the unknown. If the truth is out there, it doesn’t seem to be pleasant. If we continue to seek it out, who knows what could become of us, or what we could unleash upon the world?

The Sound Test UI itself is bizarre and mysterious. Why does it thank us for our “feedback” after hearing Gaster’s Theme? What input or feedback did we provide?

Characterization perspective

We could take this theme on its own to suggest that Gaster is characterized by duality, tension, and emotional detachment and/or reservation.

The rising tones in each bar evoke thought and ideation, approaching a point before dropping down to approach another. The endless, moderately-paced loop of shifting, yet internally consistent, sets resembles a careful dialectic that never reaches resolution.

We could interpret this as the sound of an analytical mind aware of many options and possibilities, but never ultimately delineating the truth between them (my research assistant specifically described this track as being “locked into itself”). We could also take it less literally to signify a reversal of opinion or understanding in general – not necessarily that decisions are never made, but they’re reached through heady deliberation and obsessively re-examined after they’re made.

While the motif betrays internal tension, it’s also highly ordered and consistent, lacking any spontaneity. This can be taken to mean that Gaster is cautious, deliberate, and reserved. For all the neurosis it conveys, it still comes off as fairly confident, as though Gaster is simply used to this and doesn’t tend to question it.

We could also possibly infer that other characters experienced Gaster in much the same way as we do – they may have found him unsettling and hard to read.

As mentioned before, it’s unknown whether other parts to this motif exist or are planned to exist. If they do exist, then the fact that only the A(?) part has been presented as “Gaster’s Theme” would underscore the one-sidedness of his presentation in Undertale, as well as a possible tendency of Gaster’s to hide parts of himself.

(EXTREMELY speculative, so please don’t take this too seriously, but: I’ve seen at least a handful of fans raise the possibility that at least some part of the Secret Boss (“Freedom”) motif may be a B/C part of Gaster’s motif. If Gaster is trying to obfuscate any involvement with Secret Boss characters, using his metaphysical resources to hide obvious musical associations with them (i.e., by labeling only this part of the motif as his “theme” in the Sound Test) would certainly be a clever way to do so.)

[#002] ANOTHER HIM

The first true application of the Gaster Sequence a player will experience is also the very first song heard in Deltarune: ANOTHER HIM, which plays during the Introduction (also known as the Survey or “GONERMAKER”).

This is another instance of Gaster being referred to as “him” in the metadata rather than by name. The specific phrasing of “ANOTHER HIM” seems referential to Undertale Players’ knowledge of him, and could be taken to suggest that this is a separate instance or at least “piece” of the character described in that game. Alternatively, this could indicate the same character being presented from another perspective, and/or the same continuity of that character who’s no longer recognizable as the same person for one reason or another.

Musical analysis

This track is, of course, a direct quote of the entire Gaster Sequence isolated from any other motifs. Its main developments are a slight modification to the rhythm of the Sequence and the addition of other instruments and background ambience – this is actually the only song in the scope of this document in which the motif itself is heard accompanied (while Darkness Falls also contains other instrumentation, it occurs during an instance of a different motif). We again hear the Sequence played on piano.

When my research assistant first heard this song without context he paused it after about 5 seconds and proceeded to tell me all about Paul stretching and how it can be used to create the type of ethereal ambience heard in this track. One thing he noted is that this algorithm allows for stretching a sample while keeping it in-key, without adding dissonance. I should be clear that I have no idea if this exact technique was used here, only that it seems to have achieved a very similar effect.

So, what is the sample being stretched (in some way or another) to create that ambient noise? When we reversed the stretch, we found it to be none other than one of Giygas’s instruments from EarthBound. This has been identified by other fans as a sample of the track Giygas’s Intimidation.

[#001-A] A Brief Tangent on Giygas

I want to be careful about suggesting too much from musical samples & references, since UTDR are known to make extensive use of samples and soundfonts from other works, especially from EarthBound (as well as reworked versions of Toby Fox’s own music from other projects). Like, I don’t think Toby was trying to Say Anything in particular when he used the “WOW!” from Earthbound’s intro sequence in Spamton’s battle themes except “EarthBound is very special to me and that sound design choice they made was really memorable and I think it sounds really fun here.”

That in mind, UTDR fans have been intuitively connecting Gaster and Giygas for years based on superficial similarities and the known influence of EarthBound alone. Given Gaster’s unique existence in metanarrative, the specificity and consistency of the references associated with him, as well as the potential thematic relevance of this reference (and the one to follow in section [#005-A]), I do think it may be fair game to consider them in these cases. I’m going to throw out a couple of things:

The use of samples from Earthbound, specifically ones related to Giygas, draws yet another thematic connection between Gaster and Undertale’s True Lab and possible parallels to Alphys, suggesting this connection is relevant to Deltarune. Memoryhead itself bears resemblance to Giygas. (also wait what there’s parallel harmony in Amalgam?? holy shit???)

Giygas is a character who, when encountered in Earthbound, has been driven to a state of eldritch, cosmic horror by trauma & grief. His backstory as Giegue, told in the previous game Mother, includes themes of pursuing knowledge despite knowing of the dangers, of betrayal, and of guilt over well-intentioned harm, specifically harm done while under some form of external influence. The Giygas of EarthBound, in his madness, exerts violent influence over animals and people, including Porky, a troubled child who Giygas compels to serve him.

Throughout the fight, Giygas expresses his internal conflict, lashing out seemingly not due to malice but rather uncontrolled emotion. Defeating Giygas requires first that the character Paula “Pray,” or call out for strength from the party’s families and the people they’ve helped along their journey, until there are no more characters left to reach; Paula’s “call” becomes unheard, “absorbed by the darkness.” Then, finally, she begs the player themself to “PRAY” for the party – the “kids” they’ve never met before – dealing the final necessary blows in the process.

Gaster & Giygas are both unpleasant sounding two-syllable G names LOL this is stupid sorry

Obviously, I don’t anticipate a 1:1 resemblance between Gaster’s and Giygas’s stories, but there could be thematic parallels worth considering. There is one thing, however, that I find interesting in the context of this song in particular: in inviting us to this “Survey,” Gaster seems to have called out to us in the same way that Paula did, praying to us for help – perhaps, more specifically, to help the kids of Deltarune who we have yet (at this point in the game) to meet.

Emotional perspective

ANOTHER HIM opens with a distorted ambience, evocative of murmuring, choral voice, rolling thunder, and perhaps the crackling whips of a Tesla coil. This ambience ebbs and flows in intensity, occasionally seeming to thrash and writhe. Just before the Sequence itself starts, and then throughout it, we hear what seem to be longing strings, and underlying the piano is a steady, understated percussion.

In contrast to the distorted fuzz of mus_st_him.ogg, the piano used here is crisp, with only a limited echo applied to it. While not unaccompanied, this piano still feels exposed and small, especially against the faint instrumentation and ambience churning below it. The high, bell-like keys feel bright and hopeful. At the same time, the slow, halting tempo suggests trepidation.

Where the base Sequence marches steadily through its dialectic without deviation or hesitation, ANOTHER HIM’s arrangement pauses at the height of each thought, as if considering it more carefully, before dropping back down to the next. After the first two sets switch off normally, the melody then proceeds to rise steadily, as though finally grasping at a revelation; after reaching an apex, it then pauses, collecting itself, before looping over again. Isolated from the ambience, this arrangement sounds contemplative and searching, in contrast to the neurotic dialogue of the base Sequence.

The backing ambience sounds ethereal and spacey, but not noticeably dissonant. It doesn’t necessarily lend the same eeriness of mus_st_him.ogg’s distortion, but the low, slow murmuring and even occasional lashing of the “voices” in the background still betray an undercurrent of unease & tension.

When my research assistant heard the songs mus_st_him.ogg, ANOTHER HIM, and Darkness Falls without context, in the order presented here, he read them as a developing narrative. He felt that this piece, compared to the base theme, added “motion” in the form of a steady rise and fall. He then said, “What I would want next, if this were one piece, is melody. I’m still waiting for that next part.” While it takes more time to breathe, ANOTHER HIM still never approaches resolution.

He also likened the emotional experience of this song to Gregorian or hymnal chanting – less so the literal style of music, but rather the use of reverberation in that musical form to create a full, choral sound from only a few individual voices.

Characterization perspective

The overwhelming sense I get from ANOTHER HIM is one of vulnerability, introspection, and dishevelment, as well as cautious deliberation. It also conveys a certain amount of hope and possibly curiosity, though these are muted in comparison to the hesitance and turmoil.

Compared to what we “see” of him in mus_st_him.ogg, Gaster seems to be far less self-assured in his dialectical thinking. He’s breaking from his traditional pattern of rumination and attempting to reach for some form of personal truth. The cautiousness could also be taken to convey unease or skepticism about the situation at hand, about the probability of success in achieving the “NEW FUTURE,” or even about the Player themself.

As far as the background ambience, its most obvious function is to convey the ethereality of incorporeal, out-of-universe existence, its ebbing and twisting reflecting the shapelessness of a disembodied consciousness. It could even be considered diegetic – as if it is the sound of his state of being, or of this strange, extraplanar space beyond the event horizon.

The ambience could also be taken to convey emotional information, though its separation from the “conscious thought” of the motif could imply many things (as we’ll discuss later in [#004], we have an example within the same chapter of the motif conveying quite a bit of emotionality in itself).

If we take this angle, then it could suggest that Gaster is not integrating emotionality with rational thought, but is at least possibly acknowledging that emotionality — or it’s built up to a point where it can no longer be fully contained or ignored. We could interpret the pauses in the motif as Gaster listening to or meditating on these “voices” – or becoming momentarily overwhelmed by them.

From this perspective, it’s clear that this emotional state is confusing and volatile; the dialogue happening on this level is not nearly as orderly or civil as that heard in the motif. The “lashing” sounds could be taken as flashes of pain; their violence could suggest bad memories, self-criticism, shame, or regret, among other possibilities.

I also think the choice of a percussive “heartbeat” is quite interesting. While not rapid, it could possibly suggest anxiety, as though his heart is pounding. It also suggests intimacy, which in turn requires a certain level of trust – he has allowed us close enough to hear that heartbeat at all, whether or not it’s comfortable for him, or he feels confident that it’s a good idea for him to do so.

Despite this piling on of confusion and unease, the relative clarity and brightness of the motif’s piano seems to twinkle faintly in the dark. This sense of hope gives us something to latch onto amidst the tumult, and that may be true of the character as well. We could read this as a hope that is worth enduring the doubt, the humbling, and the possibility of pain.

The song in context

ANOTHER HIM’s hesitation and vulnerability strikes an interesting contrast with Gaster’s dialogue throughout the Survey sequence. Aside from a very small number of seemingly spontaneous reactions, Gaster in his dialogue – in his intended self-presentation – comes off as unfailingly polite, professional, confident, and generally neutral.

While we needn’t assume that this self-presentation, or the opinions he does express, are insincere, we can still infer that whatever the reality is of his internal state, Gaster is making a concerted effort to keep that information hidden from us. There are obvious practical reasons for this: to maintain the integrity of his study, he needs to minimize his biasing of our behavior.

That said, we could certainly read personal factors into this as well. From Gaster’s POV, the Player possesses a tremendous amount of metaphysical knowledge and ability. Whether or not he has difficulties with trust in general, Gaster certainly has reasons to be very wary of us, something I’ll discuss further in the next section.

The content of the sequence itself (text, background, etc.) warrants its own analysis. I’ll probably do one at like, idk some point probably

[#003] File Select (& Game Over) ambience

While it doesn’t really constitute a “song,” I think it’s worthwhile to look briefly at the sound design in the File Select and Game Over UIs, since they’re still among the very few instances of “face-to-face” interaction we have with the man of the hour. Note that this doesn’t include Darkness Falls, which plays after a certain choice is made at a game over – the next section will discuss that. Because this section covers sound design choices moreso than musical ones, I’ll eschew the format of the other sections and simply analyze these choices in-context.

This is the one section of audio I didn’t review with my research assistant, so you’re just getting my unmoderated opinions here, unfortunately.

For the better part of the game (so far), the File Select screen generally looks and feels the way a Player would expect from an RPG UI, with illustrations, friendly help text, and narrative music:

Post-completion Chapter 1 File Select (Before the Story)

Chapter 2 File Select (Faint Glow)

Similarly, the chapter 2 (or, rather, the post-ch1-completion) Game Over screen displays a genre-appropriate graphic, includes a message of encouragement (or, perhaps more accurately, a plea for Kris to survive) from Kris’s party members, and plays the song Faint Courage.

These File Select & Game Over screens are potentially extremely lore-rich in and of themselves (some of this will come up in the next section), but with regard to this particular discussion, I’m mostly interested in the stark contrast they present when compared to the pre-completion Chapter 1 screens.

Before chapter 1’s completion, when Gaster is strongly implied to be narrating (and possibly facilitating) the Player’s SAVE data manipulation and game over choices, the soundtrack for both screens is profoundly barren.

There’s no “song,” no melody, only an identical low, looping drone for both screens. We know that there can be music here, even very emotional music, and we feel like there probably should be. And yet, there isn’t. This makes these screens feel empty, ominous, and cold, underscoring their dark, ascetic visuals.

I think the fact that so little is being said here is in itself very, very interesting. We know that we aren’t actually alone on these screens; our friendly facilitator is here with us. We also know from the other examples in this document that Deltarune’s Gaster is not inherently associated with a lack of music, nor (as we’ll see in the next song) a lack of emotion in melody. Why is it only in this particular context – when the Player approaches these existential crossroads – that the music disappears entirely?

The File Select screen on its own doesn’t give us a whole lot to work with. While the dialogue here is certainly unsettling (even compared to Gaster’s clinical speech in other scenes) and warrants its own discussion, it still isn’t entirely clear why file manipulation should sound like this.

In the Game Over screen, however, we can start to make inferences. Game Overs are when Gaster’s plans are at the most risk – they’re when a Player is most likely to opt out of the study and never return, leaving Deltarune’s future as-is and any hope of a “NEW FUTURE” unfulfilled.

With that in mind, I think this drone conveys emotional shutdown. Gaster is still there – the drone is his presence, as though he’s trying to keep his breathing slow and measured as he speaks with us – but whatever is happening with him internally, he’s either working hard enough to succeed in hiding it from us, or it’s so overwhelming that he himself can’t even acknowledge it.

What that internal experience could be is anyone’s guess. Personally, I think he’s deeply afraid.

When Gaster seems to panic upon seeing his own name in the Survey, he can simply exit the situation and prevent the Player from making that choice. He can’t, however, prevent us from exiting the game – whether or not he had the power to do so (and he of course doesn’t), doing so would be meddling in the experiment, it’d be a breach of participant consent, and it’d potentially undermine whatever uneasy trust the Player has developed with him. In these moments, he’s entirely at the Player’s mercy.

(Note: this last video shows the game exiting after the creator is named “GASTER.” As of Chapter 2’s release, naming either vessel or creator “GASTER” causes the game to return to the chapter select, rather than exiting.)

Since the same drone plays on the File Select screen, we can infer he’s shut down there as well. It still isn’t as clear what about SAVE manipulation would cause such a strong response, and there are many ways this could be interpreted. It’s worth noting that we don’t currently know whether Gaster is the one executing those actions, or if he’s simply giving us guidance and warnings as we execute them ourselves. More broadly, we don’t know whether Gaster is capable of executing these actions at all.

For right now, my best guess – and I want to be clear that I don’t feel confident this is correct – is that SAVE manipulation is the first obvious indication to both us and to Gaster that he’s willing to accept some amount of “necessary evil” in pursuit of his plans. Based on the seemingly unprecedented gravity of his tone and diction on this screen (especially around erasing SAVEs), this may be when Gaster first recognizes, fully, just how much power he’s entrusted to a Player, how irresponsible it may have been for him to do so, and he is again deeply afraid – this time, not just of us, but of himself.

[#004] Darkness Falls

(This is the song I wrote that post about, that a lot of people seemed to like, which was very cool! But also it was meant more as a throwaway vent post than an actual analysis and was worded kind of strongly/reductively in part because I didn’t expect anyone to actually see it lol. anyway this will reiterate a lot of those thoughts but with A LOT more detail and nuance, possibly more than is necessary lol)

(Quick kudos again to the user who pointed out details about Faint Courage and its relationship to Kris on the Post People Liked. I hadn’t even begun to think through that part of the song when I made the post. It helped a lot with this!)

(Wait one more note: I’d previously thought this sequence only happened in pre-completion Chapter 1, when Gaster was actively present in the UI, but apparently this still happens as of Chapter 2?? The guy just crawls out of the woodwork specifically to narrate our ending and see us off I Guess. I do not have any particularly strong opinions at the moment about what this could Mean because I don’t generally have strong opinions about why he disappeared in the first place except IDK We Got The Hang Of The Game So He Switched On The Normal UI And Now He’s Just Observing Quietly And Taking Notes And Also Waving From Cars And Egg I GUess but anyway I thought I’d point it out because I got it wrong before)

(Oh btw if God kills you it just bypasses the normal screens entirely and returns you to a checkpoint. this detail doesnt mean anything it was obviously implemented for mechanical/joke reasons I just think it’s funny. like even Gaster is just sitting there like ?????? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. sorry moving on now)

Darkness Falls is only heard after saying “No” at a Game Over. As previously discussed, Game Overs in chapter 1 (pre-completion) feature the Emotional Shutdown Drone™, while post-ch1-completion Game Overs feature the song Faint Courage. Upon refusing to continue, whatever audio is present cuts out entirely, leaving complete silence as Gaster narrates our ending. Immediately after that text cuts out, Darkness Falls begins to play.

While a Player could encounter this before the File Select or after seeing the Tree Room, it felt most logical to me to order it like this for Reasons. Based on both my own experience and that of some other people who responded to the Post People Liked, it seems like a lot of Players, even ones who know about the Tree Rooms, just end up never saying “No” and seeing it at all.

This is the only track in this document’s scope in which the Gaster Sequence occurs alongside another leitmotif: the one found in Faint Courage, the song played in the aforementioned post-ch1-completion Game Over screen (I’ll simply refer to this second motif as Faint Courage from here on).

For the sake of this analysis, I’m only considering the Gaster Sequence part of the song (roughly 0:00 - 0:33) to be directly descriptive of the man himself, as we have good reasons to believe the second motif is specifically saying something about Kris. That’s to say: any character traits being suggested by Faint Courage will be assumed to describe Kris, not Gaster.

However, I’ll still discuss the song as a whole where it makes sense to do so, including consideration of what it could be saying about Gaster’s perspective on Kris, on the moment in which it’s found, or on the broader narrative.

Musical analysis

In an unusual break from precedent, the Gaster Sequence isn’t hidden by or within the other leitmotif featured in this track. Instead, we hear an unaccompanied piano arrangement of the Sequence that then leads into Faint Courage, played on the same piano but now accompanied, and with more instruments gradually added. Each motif takes up roughly half the song’s length, though the latter is slightly longer.

Much like the piano heard in ANOTHER HIM, the keys played during the Sequence have a moderate reverberation applied to them, but are otherwise fairly clear & crisp. Notably, this reverberation still continues after the shift into Faint Courage, as if the previous motif has shifted into a background, supporting role for the next one.

The arrangement of the Gaster Sequence heard here deviates the most by far from the original mold, to the degree that it’d be easy to miss it as an instance of that theme at all. Viewed side by side, the difference is stark. Someone who actually Knows Theory could probably describe it more eloquently than I can, but I’ll do my best to fumble through this with my untrained ear and the input of my research assistant.

This arrangement of the Sequence doesn’t do away with the back-and-forth of the base theme, but the dialogue heard here begs, grasps, and searches, seeming to have no pretense of self-assuredness or strict, rational confidence. It seems more grounded in the fact that this internal conversation really has only one, contiguous “speaker,” as each even-numbered set of bars picks up directly from the set before it, rather than there being a sharp drop between them.

The “speaker’s” opening comment, which begins on a chord, rises like a choking cry or plea, before they seem to attempt rationalization. Unable to answer in kind, searching for something to say but having nothing to meaningfully offer, they volley back on a higher note, as though presenting themself another question. The “speaker” then repeats the same sorrowful, confused entreaty from before – but this time, they continue from that cry to reach toward something, pause as though approaching rest, and then decide there’s something more to say – something entirely different.

Referring back to the “narrative development” reading proposed by my research assistant (first brought up in section [#002]): when my assistant first heard this song without context, he almost immediately stopped the track and said “that, right there, is melody!” He described the addition of a tonal center as making the difference between “color” and “meaning” – ANOTHER HIM adds interest to the base Sequence, but it’s still difficult to find an emotional foothold in it. It’s difficult to parse. Darkness Falls, on the other hand, has obvious musicality. It’s immediately relatable. It’s generally pleasant.

He spent some time discussing the chords found in this arrangement of the Sequence, describing the very deliberate placement of these chords as being its own melodic line of sorts, “going through its own motion, its own process.” He described the pattern as being roughly “harmony, then dissonance, then a stretch of time, then dissonance.” He noted that the one tonic he could identify in this Sequence was just before the turn into Faint Courage.

With this in mind, we could say that the instance of the Sequence heard in Darkness Falls, in contrast to that heard in every other song covered in this document, reaches its own internal resolution. That tonic, leading into the turn, could be read as a choice finally being made.

My research assistant also pulled out a “hero’s journey” narrative from this song. The first half, the Gaster Sequence, continues its push and pull of dialogue and tension, establishing the sense of a problem needing to be solved; while the second half, Faint Courage, approaches that problem with playful curiosity, possibility, and hope, before developing into a heroism heralded by nostalgic, Zelda-like synths, and ending on a literal high note. He noted that this type of narrative is common in ending themes for games, serving as a reflection of the story just completed.

Emotional perspective

The immediate motivator for me to write the Post People Liked was because I’d pulled up Darkness Falls on YouTube (for this analysis lol) and among the video’s top comments was someone saying, more or less, “Boy! It sure is weird that Gaster’s Theme shows up so obviously in this beautiful, moving song!” This was one among many, many comments I’d seen over time across various platforms expressing the same thought.

This confusion is perfectly understandable. As I’ve expressed in several ways in this document and elsewhere, the idea of the Gaster Sequence being arranged in a way that is, in itself, obviously moving – immediately, viscerally moving without any need for the kind of reaching overanalysis I’m doing here – is wholly unprecedented in either Undertale or Deltarune. As I mentioned in the Post People Liked, we’ve been conditioned to view Gaster as anything but another character, and that may be its own form of characterization. And, like I said before, the degree of deviation heard here is so great that many players will likely miss it entirely if they aren’t paying attention or don’t know what to listen for.

That said, it’s very obvious that this arrangement of the motif sounds distinctly loose and emotional. The first half is sorrowful, but its internal development also conveys curiosity and open-heartedness. The heroism of the second half conveys a distinct sense of hope, or at least, satisfaction.

I think it’s worth noting here that, when I initially showed my research assistant the scene in which this song is found, after he’d previously heard the song out of context, his immediate impression was that it felt ironic and mocking, as though the game – maybe even Gaster himself – was deriding the Player for not persisting further. I think this impression makes sense. It’s one that I’ve experienced myself, and based on comments I’ve seen, it certainly seems to be the impression many Players walk away from the first two chapters with.

After a little more discussion, specifically after I presented the idea of Deltarune’s One Ending, and the idea that this ending is likely the “default” ending – the one Gaster knows will happen and seems to be hoping to change – my research assistant felt the song conveyed sincere acceptance. In his words: “whatever ending the player gets, it was heroic that they even tried.”

Characterization perspective

In reference to the idea of this ending theme being ironic or cynical, I think there’s something to be said for the possibility that Gaster’s habitual masking and/or intrinsic propensity for interpersonal oddness leads to others disregarding his sincerity or misinterpreting it as malice. We could argue that this is a trait indicated in a number of other ways beyond this song.

The reverberation of the keys during the Sequence of course recalls the ethereality of Gaster’s extraplanar existence. The fact that the reverberation continues into Faint Courage, combined with the placement of the tonic just before the shift, could be taken to represent a decision by Gaster to take a background role in Kris’s narrative.

Something interesting to consider from that: if the choice was made to take a background role, then what other options were being weighed in the previous dialectics? Does this imply that Gaster has considered more active roles in the past? (Could it be the case that he’s previously taken them, and the outcomes of those past decisions have influenced this latest choice? Is passivity really the best choice he could make here, or is he actually just transferring responsibility? Does he simply not trust himself to do the right thing if given the chance? Sorry this is getting really speculative LOL moving on)

As a number of users mentioned, the inclusion of Faint Courage could be an indication that Gaster is not only mourning the potential loss of the Player and with them, the “NEW FUTURE,” but the potential permanence of Kris’s death in particular. This reading suggests that Gaster feels a great deal of tenderness toward Kris themself; given what we’ve seen of Gaster thus far in this document, it wouldn’t be hard to infer reasons for why he might be especially fond of a misfit kid with self-esteem issues and interpersonal difficulties. (Assuming, of course, that these troubles aren’t directly related to their situation with the Player. Personally, I like to think that the more troubled aspects of Kris’s character are, for the most part, just as true to their real personality as their more “acceptable” or likable aspects are – attributing too much of their struggle to outside influences feels like an undermining of their agency. But I do feel it’s still worthwhile to acknowledge other possibilities, or at least the potential nuance they offer.)

The relationship between Gaster and Kris is absolutely something that warrants further examination as the story continues. While this song (and to a certain degree, the next one) seem to suggest a fair amount of good intent and even tenderness on the part of Gaster toward Kris, there’s certainly still room for complexity and tension on Kris’s part.

The song in context

In a typical game, we’d expect to be returned to a title screen or menu right after choosing not to continue. Deltarune instead gives us Gaster’s narration, then leaves us on a black screen for the roughly one-minute duration of Darkness Falls, before it closes the game window on its own. That begs the question of why the game lingers here on this song in the way it does.

In a metanarrative sense, I think there’s validity to the idea that this choice was made to reinforce that we reached “an end” – not just a game over, but the “default” ending or One Ending to the game, in which the world is covered in darkness. As mentioned before, Darkness Falls sounds to a degree like an end credits song. The game closes because that’s what typically happens after the end – we leave the game.

As far as narrative or character interpretation goes, we do know that (pre-ch1-completion, at least) Gaster is our facilitator out-of-universe in Deltarune from its start to its finish. We have reason to believe that he has control over the screens we’re on (given that he can exit us back to title). We can infer that he would be the one to redirect us to the menu.

We have no reason to think that, just because Gaster’s narration has left the screen, he’s suddenly ceased to be present when Darkness Falls plays. The fact that it starts with his Sequence seems to imply his continued presence. We can infer that he’s the one keeping us here through the song, and the one who finally closes the game.

Maybe he keeps us here because he feels he owes us our ending song – and maybe this song is an expression of what he’s thinking and feeling in that moment.

To reiterate my reading from the Post People Liked: Gaster describes our ending, and then he has nothing left to say. We said “no,” and he can’t violate our consent as participants, but he can’t bear to let us go just yet. His “NEW FUTURE” is in the balance, Kris’s life is in the balance, and on top of that, we can’t deny that the man is probably just lonely.

So, we’re left alone in the dark with him, and for the first time, we “see” him entirely exposed – no confident, clinical dialogue, no choices to make, no spr_mysteryman, no True Lab fog or trees for him to hide behind. We sit there with him as he works quietly through the situation – perhaps even entreating us to come back and try again later – and when Darkness Falls ends, when he finally reaches some form of acceptance, he decides he can’t keep us there any longer, and closes the game.

[#005] man.ogg (Tree Room)

man.ogg is the track that plays in the secret Tree Room, and is notably not found on the original Deltarune OSTs thus far. While a first-time player could technically experience this track before the previous two discussed, most players going in blind won’t learn about the secret room until after their first playthrough, or potentially until chapter 2.

I know there’s some debate in the fanbase over whether or not Gaster is the unseen (at least to the Player) man encountered in the Tree Room and elsewhere. Aside from the arguable use of his motif in this song, which I’ll get to in a moment, I think there are other context clues indicating that he’s intended to be representative of Gaster in some way:

Gaster, in particular, seems to never be referred to by name except when being referred to by the “followers” or the Sound Test UI. The reasons for this could be metanarrative (to maintain the mystery around him) or narrative (to indicate that Gaster has distanced himself from his name, for whatever reason).

Precedent from Undertale associates Gaster with the word “man,” specifically unmodified instances.

Aside from spr_mysteryman and the possible relevance of Memoryhead and its attacks, UTDR never represent Gaster as a sprite visible to players. After all, as far as we’re aware, he no longer has a physical form for us to see. The fact that Deltarune’s Man is always hidden from our view feels like a clear nod to this.

Musical analysis

man.ogg is a brief, unaccompanied piano piece, seemingly a waltz (fan-arranged sheet music for reference – I’m a big fan of the tone descriptor “surreptitious yet jocular”).

While it’s subtle, it can arguably be read as a variation of the Gaster Sequence. Gaster Theme Everywhere Skeptic Matthew Sandstrom describes this variation as a “Garbled Gaster”:

The melody and rhythm are somewhat garbled, but the right notes are there, even if the order is wrong.

He identifies two other tracks in chapter 1 that seem to use this same Garbled Gaster motif: April 2012 and, VERY, VERY INTERESTINGLY, THE HOLY. I won’t be getting into those tracks here, but I think it’s worth pointing out that a distinct “Man” motif might be an ongoing thing to look out for.

For what it’s worth, my research assistant also felt that man.ogg was likely an intentional variation on the Gaster Sequence. His justification included the thought that the motif could largely be boiled down to the “top two notes.” Make of that what you will.

I won’t worry too much about comparing this directly to mus_st_him.ogg as I have with other tracks in this document, since it seems to be almost a new motif in itself. The fact that “the right notes are there” but the “order is wrong” is worth considering, though – it’s the same Sequence in an almost unrecognizable form. It’s no longer a dialectic, but a partnered dance. Keeping with precedent, there’s also a very subtle, almost imperceptible echo applied to it.

As a final note, man.ogg is actually not an entirely new track – it’s been identified as a rework of a fan song (“Waltz of Seccom Masada”) made by Toby Fox for the game Yume Nikki (“Dream Diary”). Specifically, it’s a theme he wrote for the character known to Yume Nikki fans as Seccom Masada-sensei.

[#005-A] A Brief Tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei

As I mentioned in the previous tangent ([#001-A]), I want to be careful about suggesting too much from reworked tracks that were meant for or made in reference to other projects. After all, MEGALOVANIA isn’t meant to suggest that Sans is ascending to God Tier or likes saying swears. (It’s worth noting that the aforementioned April 2012, which seems to use the Man motif, is also a rework of an unreleased Homestuck track.)

However, much like with Giygas, the connections between Gaster and Uboa have been intuitively obvious since the first Fun event investigations on Starmen.net. (Toby Fox literally used a slightly edited Uboa for Dr. Andonuts’s final boss overworld sprite. The dude likes Uboa, OK?)

So, again, I don’t think it’s unreasonable in this case to take a closer look at a very pointed reference to Yume Nikki as we gather information.

Masada-sensei’s appearance in Yume Nikki is very brief; demonstrations of the segment may be found on YouTube. While the connections between spr_mysteryman’s design and Uboa are well-known, the idea that Masada-sensei and Gaster may also be comparable in some ways is far more obscure, but worth considering.

Some things of possible note from the segment itself:

Reaching Masada-sensei’s spaceship requires descending a long flight of stairs into what appears to be some type of basement. At one point, Madotsuki must equip the Umbrella Effect (which causes her to hold an umbrella while rain falls) in order to extinguish a fire blocking her way.

Masada-sensei’s sprite is in black-and-white – white face, black clothes and hair. His only discernible facial feature is a set of googly eyes that make him look a little neurotic. He also has a non-standard reaction to the Knife Effect – approaching him with it equipped will cause him to back away in fright.

When first encountered, he turns in place steadily and fairly slowly in front of some kind of piano or organ, as though playing the instrument and/or operating it as a type of control panel. Interacting with him causes him to beep at us.

The next room to the right contains a bed. If the player has Madotsuki sleep in the bed, she will wake up later to the sound of the ship’s alarm system. At this point, Masada-sensei can be seen turning rapidly and erratically, as though panicked.

The spaceship will then be seen to crash onto a planet. It is raining when they land. Masada-sensei stands still, looking out the window.

Masada-sensei and Madotsuki seem to be alone on the planet, which stretches for several screens, desolate, until it culminates in a hole in the ground, atop a mound, leading to another long flight of stairs that descend into darkness and an even stranger, more inscrutable setpiece.

Possible character parallels worth noting:

Masada-sensei’s location in a spaceship suggests associations with scientific activity.

Yume Nikki fans commonly interpret Masada-sensei as a music teacher, hence the honorific. As Royal Scientist, Dr. Gaster would have been an authority in his field. We also know that at least one of Undertale’s Royal Scientists (Alphys) is a schoolteacher in Deltarune.

Masada-sensei certainly bears some physical resemblance to the widely accepted image of Gaster; and similarly to Gaster, the small amount of subtle characterization he was given made him a very popular object of fans’ affections and speculations. It’s worth noting, however, that Masada-sensei seems to be pretty universally understood as a sympathetic and very “human” figure – something that can’t necessarily be said for Gaster among the fanbase historically and at large.

I won’t extrapolate on this information too much here, but for this section, the “teacher” thing is worth keeping in mind.

Emotional perspective

I would certainly say “surreptitious yet jocular” feels like an accurate description of this song. To me it feels playful, but out-of-step. It seems like it should be a more cheerful piece, but there’s an underlying sadness or confusion leaking through.

What stands out to me most about this track is how rough it sounds, like the piano player is new to the instrument. For being such a simple piece, there’s a clumsiness to it, a lack of confidence – it sounds like it’s being played just a little too slowly, like the piano player is practicing the muscle memory needed to play it at full speed, and the rhythm stutters momentarily between bars, as if they’ve tripped over their own fingers. A few of the notes sound dissonant, like they were played wrong.

To me, this conveys a sense of imperfect but earnest effort. The piano player is not particularly good at this yet, they don’t feel confident about it, but they’re continuing to play. While the song isn’t exactly succeeding at evoking cheer or comfort, it still conveys sincere curiosity.

Characterization perspective

The way this song deviates from the base Sequence, combined with its rough, unrefined sound, could suggest that Gaster is breaking form in these scenes, perhaps stepping out of a comfort zone and attempting a new form of learning.

Aside from the traffic easter egg in chapter 2 (only seen if he was met in chapter 1), these are the only scenes in which Deltarune’s Gaster manifests in-universe and interacts directly with another character. Given that Gaster seems to prefer staying hidden as much as possible, and is also literally an extraplanar being, it isn’t difficult to see why he might be out of practice for this kind of interaction.

The playfulness suggests a drop in facade, and may reflect an innocent and almost childlike curiosity about the Player and/or Kris. The use of a waltz suggests a desire for connection, as though it’s an invitation to dance.

(Setting aside any specific Gaster relevance, I feel there’s a more general trend developing in Deltarune of waltzes being used to convey themes around connection, such as loneliness, the awkwardness and growing pains of a new relationship, the vulnerability and comfort of trusting a new friend, and the despair of a valued connection unexpectedly severed.)

The evocation of a novice sound could also suggest a more general relationship to teaching or nurturing. Recalling the tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei, we could read this song abstractly as a teacher’s perspective of a student’s development.

While Egg could have any number of worthwhile meanings as a symbol in Deltarune, we shouldn’t disregard the obvious: Egg is a young, fragile life in need of gentle handling and incubation. By giving Kris Egg, Gaster seems to be asking them (and/or the Player) to protect it — the future of Egg is in their (our) hands now.

We also have Lancer telling Kris they “won’t get through [their] teen years without at least one Egg” (itself a reference to EarthBound). With this perspective, we could read the act of giving Egg to be itself a gesture of nurturing on Gaster’s part, if admittedly a very bizarre and confusing one from Kris’s/our POV.

The fact that Players on a Snowgrave route will be locked out of chapter 2’s Tree Room could suggest that this behavior causes Gaster to second guess his trust in the Player and their ability to handle such a fragile responsibility.

[#006] Takeaways

While Gaster’s dialogue projects an air of unwavering, confident professionalism and emotional neutrality, the musical information presented alongside him hints toward a complex emotionality lying beneath his mask. Gaster is far from unfeeling – he’s simply hard to read, and that may be, to some degree, his intent.

In general, Gaster may have difficulty trusting his own judgment, whether as a response to past mistakes, and/or as a natural result of his tendencies toward hyper-analytical rumination and emotional repression.

The Gaster of Deltarune seems to be engaging in a great deal of reflection and introspection. He may be proceeding with this study despite having serious reservations about it. He seems disheveled and, to a certain degree, desperate. Whatever reasons Gaster has for being so interested in the future of Deltarune’s world, these reasons are powerful enough that they are, in many ways, breaking him down.

Despite his spoken eagerness to connect with the Player, close observation may suggest that he’s quietly uneasy with the arrangement and may be more skeptical and/or fearful of us than he lets on.

For whatever reasons, Gaster also seems to have a particular fondness for and sentimentality toward Kris, who he seems to want to nurture and protect, while also viewing them as a potential savior and source of hope. The association of both characters with piano seems to underscore a connection between them.

OK im tired of writing about this now. THE END !!!Q!

#deltarune #deltarune theory #wd gaster #$ waltz of a shattered man #$ chadley deltaruminations original lorepost corner #long post

53 notes · View notes

bendy-and-buddies · 1 year

Text

To celebrate the Dark Revival... we uncovered something sitting in the archives for quite some time.

This is a script. One for a special that was apparently slotted to be released in the month of April originally. That was all that could be discerned from the documents, what year in specific is still lost. There are even a select number of characters exclusive to this script who appear nowhere else across the Bendy IP prior to the 1990s.

((short version: Here's an "April Fools special" that's been a low effort WIP script for a long, long, LONG time. Enjoy the crack.))

DUE TO THE OUTLANDISHLY VAST FAN-DEMAND, BENDY AND BUDDIES IS NOW PERMANANTLY CHANGED TO SUIT THE HIGH DEMANDS YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS WANTED! SO PLEASE ENJOY THE NEW, AND IMPROVED, BENDY AND BUDDIES AND THE INK MACHINE ADVENTURES!!!

[Bendy and Buddies and Etc. is filmed in front of a fictional studio audience.]

Angie; “Bendy! I was hoping that the both of us could visit the beach once more, mayhap we can bring the others as well?”

Bendy; “Ah, sure Anj! Sounds like it’d be fu-“

(Alice walk in and puts her arms around Bendy, very deliberately having his head near her breasts. Cue sitcom audience cheers as Alice enters.)

Alice; “Ohhh, but Bendy just promised to take me out for a date! So sorry, maybe he can play little games with you some other time, sweetums~?”

Bendy; “Alice, c’mon! she was inviting all of us! She wasn’t excluding you on purpose or something, right?”

Angie; “Um... yes, of course she may accompany us! I do not see why Alice canno-”

(Alice and Bendy make quick confused noises at Angie’s response before resuming.)

Alice; “Oh, of course! It is just like privileged little you to try and take Bendy all for yourself! Sorry airhead, but Bendy is far too grown up for a childish little girly-girl like you! A handsome devil like this deserves a real woman like me!”

(bouncy sound effects to imply her boobs are flopping around.)

Angie; “But, Lady Alice, I never intended-!”

Bendy; (anxiously, under his breath) “Anj, just grab my arm!”

(Angie tries to reason peacefully until Bendy gestures her to grab hold of one of his arms. Alice has his other arm in the usual love-triangle tug-of-war scenario/trope. Angie looks less “grumpy” and more uncomfortable)

Bendy; “Ladies, ladies! Please, there’s plenty of the Devil Darling to go around!”

Angie; “You are in samples??”

(Bendy’s surprised, laughs a bit and is about to correct her until Alice cuts in again)

Alice; “It’s an expression, nitwit! See Bendy? Why bother with this Dumb Dora, when you can have a Darlin Dame~?”

(Angie is saddened by the persistent bullying from Alice’s end)

Bendy; (angrily to Alice, under his breath again) “You’re not helpi-!”

(cut to Boris nearby with a banjo)

Boris; “Gee wiz Bendy, quite the heartbreaker lately aren’cha?”

Bendy; (dramatically) “it’s my devilish charms, I can’t help it!”

Boris; “One’a these days it’s gonna be yer downfall, attracting so many-“

(Sammy shows up the hell out of nowhere.)

Sammy; “Wonderful Lord Bendy! Let me sniff your holy panties!”

Boris: “Well, if it isn’t that super-wacky Sammy! The head of the Music Department who has no note-worthy character outside of blindly worshiping Bendy! He was never a toon like us, but… um, guess he’s here anyway! Hooray!”

Sammy; “insert anime joke here!”

Bendy; (in pure dread) “Oh no-“

(And now Wally shows up, also the hell out of nowhere.)

Wally; “Regardless of how Bendy’s lovelife goes, if it makes another damn tidal wave of a mess I gotta clean up: I’M OUTTA HERE!”

(stupid laughtracks playing)

Alice; “He said the catchphrase!”

Bendy; “Wally the Janitor is just hilarious in everything he pops up in, right everyone!?”

Boris; “Sponsored by the following companies listed.” (onscreen there’s several of the in-universe businesses in the canon-verse. Maybe throw in a reference to other fictitious companies? Acme is a definite one to add.)

Bendy; “Actually, Alice… I don’t think you really specified where you wanted to have that date anyway, where were you thinking?”

Alice; “Oh, I thought you’d never ask, my Widdle Debil! Infact, I want all of you to come with, please do follow your angel!”

Bendy and Boris; (failing to see how suspicious that was) “Sounds good to me!”

As Bendy, Boris and Sammy obediently follow Alice, Angie is called by someone else off-screen the opposite way.

Angie; “Wait, what was that?”

(murmured gibberish a’la Peanuts is heard)

Angie; “Oh um, alright then.”

(The ‘gang’, sans Angie, arrive at Joey Drew Studios. I’ll prolly just take a photo of whatever animation studio or old building from google and slap the JDS logo on top of it. Laziness!)

Alice; “And here we are!”

Bendy; “Uhh… Alice??”

Boris; “Isn’t this the old studio?... Y’know, as in that place where all of us experienced terrible, traumatic pasts involving human experimentation and brutal ritualistic sacrifices that’ve left us all emotionally and mentally scared forever and other dark, gruesome things like that?”

(Bendy is a little taken aback by Boris’ detailed description.)

Bendy; “… Yeah… I thought we all vowed to never come back here…? Wasn’t finally getting out a highly triumphant moment for us or something?”

Sammy; “Lord Bendy, your buttocks is scrumptious like hamburgers!”

Alice; “Oh, I assure you! I have very good reasons for why I chose to take you all here! I have one… no, TWO very important things I’ve needed to show you all for a long time!”

Bendy; “Only now this has been brought up??”

Alice; “both are a lot to take in, but I need you to trust me… do you doubt your angel~?”

Bendy; “Ahh… fine then.”

Boris; “I’m ready for anything.”

(Alice looks up and calls to someone)

Alice; “Alright deary-pie, you can come out now!”

(stupid dramatic sound effects as the apparent newcomer is revealed)

Geno-Fur; “Hello, everyone!! It’s me, Geno-Fur!!”

Sudden Narrator; “Thaaaat’s right! It’s Geno-Fur the DemonAngel, the most powerful cartoon character in all of Toon Town! The perky, talented daughter of Bendy the Demon and Alice Angel with the help of the Ink Machine, this cute toon angel demon girl has an inner inky darkness unlike any other! She’s oh-so deep, mysterious and meaningful everyone!”

Bendy; (more and more like he’s reading it off a script) “Oh my Satan! Alice, we have a long-lost daughter who is beautiful and an objectively perfect and wonderful blend of who we both are! And will probably easily surpass us in popularity! If I had known we had such a blessing who totally didn’t just fall out of the sky, I would have dropped everything, married you and center my entire life around you both!

Sammy; “Praise be unto the blessed firstborn!”

(Boris is bug-eyed, genuinely dumbfounded by what is happening before him)

Boris; “UM…??”

Geno-Fur; “OMG! Mommy, Daddy, thank you so much! You even brought my husband here to see me!

(Geno-Fur hugs Boris hard enough to pop his spine, he’s in pain. “CAN’T… B-BREATHE-!!” his poor banjo has snapped in two. To Boris’ luck, Geno-Fur releases him.)

Bendy; (zero effort on his part) “Don’t go breakin’ my princess’s heart, Boris…”

Alice; “I love beautiful reunions!”

Sammy; “I shall always be a loyal, faithful Side-Hoe willing to pleasure you, your Queen, and your glorious child, my Lord!”

Boris; “Guys, none of this is in my copy of the script, what’s going on?!?”

Alice; “I’ll gladly answer that! What’s going on is my second reason…”

(Alice wipes the side of her face to reveal the same gross Scarface thing going on with Susie-Alice. Shock Horror, she’s also Susie-Alice.)

Alice: “As it turns out, I’m still not near as perfect as I’d like to be!! AH-HAHAHA!”

(Alice cackles evilly as she grabs Boris and drags him into the building. Yes, exactly like the end of Chapter 3.)

Boris; (As he’s spirited away) “WHAAAAAT THEEEEE HAYSTAAACK!?....”

Bendy; “What!? Oh god, Boris!! Hang on buddy, I’m coming!”

(a panicking Bendy runs in to rescue Boris, Sammy and Geno-Fur follow)

Sammy; “M’Lawd! I will follow you to the ends of the earth!”

Geno-Fur; “Mommy!! Daddy!! Why can’t we settle this like normal people!?”

(Bendy is desperately trudging into the studio, unknowingly he is very slowly melting into his monster-form we are all familiar with as he becomes exhausted)

Bendy; “Boris, please hang on!! I’m coming...!! .. Augh… Maybe… Maybe I should hit the gym? NO!! No, I’m fine!! Goddamned fine!! I just gotta… Gotta keep going… Wait, wait… why is my sweat this… thick and… dark?”

(Bendy’s then surprised upon overhearing something, looking to the side to find Henry somewhere in the distance and humming to himself- probably doing one of the Chapter 3 tasks)

Henry; “Joey Drew he likes big fingers in his ass, Joey Drew he likes big fingers in his ass, fingers in his ass, he likes in his-” (yes. It’s that meme. I have zero shame.)

(Bendy slowly becomes angered)

Bendy; “Henry… Henry!!”

(this gets Henry’s startled attention. As Bendy rants he slowly completes his transformation into Monster-Bendy.)

Bendy; “My old, actual for-real creator, Henry… You left everyone… You left ME! Why didn’t you stay!? Was I just a mistake to you, blaming me for everything Joey did!? Why didn’t you love me, Henry!? Was I never good enough for you!? You LIED to us!! You never stopped Joey from all of the atrocities he committed!! You never came back!! You never played catch with me and called me ‘Sport’!! You never threw me a Birthday!! YOU NEVER BOUGHT ME A HAPPY MEAL!!!”

Henry; “Oh gosh!”

(Henry zooms away as fast as he can, his warped and enraged cartoon-demon son giving chase. Suddenly Geno-Fur to the oh-so convenient rescue.)

Geno-Fur; “Oh my god, daddy!! Izzat you?? Ohmygaww I can see why mommy thot u wer hawt!!”

(Bendy is understandably confused by her appearance and comment.)

Bendy; “huh…what??”

(he looks back to where Henry was initially, however Henry’s already in a miracle station also conveniently nearby)

Bendy; “HE’S GONE!! Where did he-!?”

Geno-Fur; “Ummm like… you know that weird up-and-down door and room thingy with buttons??”

Bendy; (surprised at how goddamn stupid she is) “The… you mean the elevator?”

Geno-Fur; “Yeah!! The escalator! I think Henry’s using it to go down to liiiiike… Level 1000!”

Bendy; “…There is no Level 1000. The building doesn’t tunnel down THAT deep.”

Geno-Fur; “Exactly!! Like, he’s going so deep down he’s trying to get to a level that doesn’t exist! I’m sure that if you go all the way down to the last floor, you’ll find Henry! Good luck daddykins!”

Bendy; (half-assing at this point) “Well, I totally trust my perfect hybrid daughter to never lie to me ever and that alibi is highly convincing. I will go.”

(Bendy exists the scene in his usual spooky way, to which Henry hops back out of the station.)

Geno-Fur; “Hurry Henry!! We gotta save mah Woof Hubby and get out of here!! And bring mommy and daddy back with the power of family love!!”

(Geno-Fur tearfully exists, Henry following her.)

Henry; “This is what I got out of retirement for…”

(Cut to Alice’s super-duper evil lab room with Boris strapped to the operating table Frankenstein style. Alice is still acting in-character, in contrast Boris is basically left to ad-lib and isn’t entirely certain on the mood of the scene. Boris scratches at his neck, but quickly puts his arm back in as soon as he realizes they’re rolling.)

Alice; (some obligatory evil chuckling) “… And after I’ve done away with you, Henry AND Bendy, I can continue my makeover with no trouble or interruptions at all! Then I will have the popularity I was always destined for! Now, any last words before you fulfil your purpose, little wolfie~?”

Boris; “is it too early to make a ‘stole my heart’ joke, even though you got the REAL side-splitters, or...?”

(some muffled laughter off-stage is heard, implied to be Rodney behind the camera. Alice is unamused and gestures at Boris threateningly.)

Alice; “Be quiet or I’ll cut you open faster.”

Boris; “Alright, alright, I’ll shush…”

The “mysterious” voice who may or may not be Rodney; “Bitter hag-”

(because of budgetary, technical, and time-related issues… we already skip over to chapter 4 events because we’re basically haphazardly trying to scrunch in the entire canon-game story, not caring if it makes any sense at all like always)

Henry; “Okay, so it’s only now occurred to me to ask; earlier, we were in the show… but as we kept going, all of a sudden we’re in the-?”

Geno-Fur; “YAWN! You’re boring old-man dinosaur talk is super boring, we’re not gonna rescue Boris fast enough if you don’t let me do all of the mouth-stuff! No wonder mommy and daddy wanna murder-fy you, LOL!”

Henry; “I… I don’t even- what the heck is a ‘LOL’, anyway!? Why are you helping me if you’re their daughter or something!?”

Geno-Fur; “Because I’m sooo nice!! :3”

Henry; “How… how do you even work??”

(The Butcher Gang mooks appear right the hell out of nowhere without Henry even opening any of the doors)

Charley; (in a grunty, zombie-ish way) “Now’s are time to shine, boys… Lets take all of our pent-up frustrations out on Henry!”

Geno-Fur; “OOOOOH MY GOOOOOOOD!!! SOOOO KAWAII! THESE GUYS ARE SOOO MY HUSBANDS!”

(she hugs all three up to her tumour-tits, immediately all their necks snap.)

Henry: (not even caring anymore) “I thought you said Boris was your husband.”

Geno-Fur; “Ummm, DUH? Of course, he is! You’ve clearly not been listening to me with your senile old-ness! Seriously, I thought the guy who drew ME would be super-hot and NOT some old BOOMER! Isn’t that right, husbands!?”

(she only now realises the 3 are dead and lets out a big Darth Vader “NOOOO!!!”, Henry is unfazed.)

(Meanwhile, back at Bendy’s Ink Machine throne room - Bendy was able to hear Geno-Fur’s annoying whine from several of those miles upwards)

Bendy; “the hell…? Ugh… probably my cue… A guy just can’t watch his own show on loop in peace anymore…”

(as Bendy speaks he’s existing his “castle” to return to the higher levels. Sammy abruptly appears again in one of the hallways Bendy passes.)

Sammy; “My Lord! I will always be gleeful and willing to perform any request you-!”

(Bendy, not even making eye-contact, clocks Sammy in the head with his “good toon hand” hard enough to put the walking notice-me-senpai-joke out cold, the sound effect a wet and loud POW. Mr Lawrence is unconscious. And maybe missing some teeth.)

Bendy; “Fuckin’ punchline…”

(Cut back to Henry and Geno-Fur at the carnival prototype area. The poor old man is being ranted at by the annoying Mary Sue disaster for killing her 3 other “husbands”. Even though that was her own fault.)

Geno-Fur; “Those valiant gentle-mans meant the world to me and now they’re all gross inky poopy-goop!! This is all YOUR fault, you ugly old murderer-guy, you!! Feel guilty for your evil sins!!”

Henry; “I never even touched them; YOU did that! Please tell me, are you some kinda alien who is trying to mimic what a toon looks and acts like? Because you’re failing miserably.”

Geno-Fur; “I’m young and pretty and you’re a wrinkly old fart!! That means I’m right and you’re wrong!!”

(Henry groans in annoyance, pinching the bridge of his nose)

Henry; “Alright then… Seeing as I’m clearly a hindrance to your ‘noble quest’ or… whatever, how’s about this: you go ahead and complete all of the puzzles needed to unlock the doors, while I search for any clues or another alternate route that could maybe get us into that haunted house faster? I mean, clearly, it’d be my only good contribution to your ‘mission’.”

Geno-Fur; “Pfff, I have a better idea! I’ll go ahead and complete all the puzzles needed to unlock the doors, while YOU search for any clues or another alternate route that could maybe get us into that haunted house faster! I mean, clearly, it’d be your only good contribution to my mission!”

(As Geno-Fur sneers she walks to the puzzle-room that has Norman in it, Henry has an expression that all but states he wants to see this obnoxious girl get hit by a truck.)

Henry; “You…go do that.”

Geno-Fur; “YAS! And I’ma doit like a sexy QUEEN~!!”

(As she enters the door shuts behind her, trapping her there until the task would be completed.)

Henry; “Okay then… Better think of something before she gets back. I can only put up with that rotten attitude for so long…”

(Before Henry knew it, he now hears several sounds indicative of clutter and a chase as he sadly must hear Geno-Fur’s voice once more, although muffled through the walls and corridors… There are gradually more muffled sounds of disaster around him, almost impossibly so as Geno-Fur’s whining can be heard amongst it. Sounds range from explosions, to car horns and all the way to an elephant. Henry is utterly lost.)

Henry; “What the devil is that brat doing!?”

(as soon as the noise dies down finally, all the doors and puzzles have spontaneously been completed. Whatever Geno-Fur caused in there, it finished everything for him.)

Henry; “Wait, already?... Huh, that screechy rat-girl helped with progress for once…”

(Not wasting any time, Henry hops into the attraction and heads towards one of the carts on the track. Extra sound-effects/in-game audio to indicate the ride starts, as Henry is slowly carted through the tunnel-portion the intercom is switched on, it’s Boris and Susie-Alice mid-conversation. Alice sounds angered with a reasonable Boris.)

Boris; “-I’m just saying, you weren’t part of Henry’s initial vision when making this show, and that isn’t a bad thing! I mean, Lola got popular after Space Jam-“

Susie-Alice; “And popular with who, exactly!? A bunch of perverts who don’t care about character! But as soon as I make it to the big top, the world will know I’m appealing in mind AND sexuality! So, what if I was Joey’s add-on!? I was the best thing to happen to you and Bendy’s sad little circus!”

Boris; “Alice, look, there’s no need to get hostile. I’ve been trying to help you and turn it around into something positive. You’re the one choosing to see it as something wrong. You’re not one of Henry’s characters like Bendy and I. That isn’t an insult, it’s what happened!”

Susie-Alice; “Well! You!... You’re just a sad, stupid mongrel who digs up bones! And your friend is a fat, gremlin slob who’ll never have anything near as wonderful as me!! How do you like that, huh!? What do have to say to that!?”

Boris; “I’d say now you’re just yelling like an angry school-kid ‘cuz you don’t have a point.”

(Henry pays no heed to the Halloween-themed pop-ups as he listens in awkwardly)

Henry; “I might’ve jumped in too soon...”

(Susie-Alice and Boris both let out surprised a “huh?”)

Henry; “Oh! Did… did you two hear me? Didn’t think it worked that way.”

Boris; “Howdy Henry! Real quick, was all’a that ruckus earlier from that Jenny-chick? Sounded like a twister full of cats was let loose in here!”

Susie-Alice; “How much did you hear!? Wait, wait!! How do you shut this off!? Can we do this over!? Make the cart stop right now! I was supposed to give a profound and depressing speech--!!”

(the intercom is abruptly cut as Alice panics, likely because she was scrambling on the buttons. Henry’s already at the “house” part of the ride with paintings and such.)

Henry; “… I’ll just tell her I only heard something about bones and gremlins.”

(As Henry is carted across the room, he comments on the environment casually)

Henry; “Wonder who did the paintings in here? I need to ask around when I can. I don’t think the poor fella ever got credit, knowing Joey’s ‘forgetfulness’… Bertrum prolly has the answer, if he’s still nearby.”

(Henry’s about to head into the dark tunnel where Boris *would* be there as a Frankenstein monster to make it stop… but no, he isn’t there. Not to any degree.)

Henry: “Uhh… ‘Oh no! what has she done to you!?’ …”

(He clears his throat, then adds more base to his voice)

Henry: “…’OH NO! what has she done to you!?’ …”

(Although Henry’s deeper into the darker portion of the ride than what was normal, his tired prayer is answered as a pair of hands latch onto the cart and force it to stop. They, however, are not Boris’ mega-hands… But Norman’s, as is indicative by what Henry can see as well as the grunts. He has removed the camera-head mask)

Henry: “… ‘Boris! What has she do-!?’ wait… wait, Nor-?”

(Norman, shrouded in shadows, cuts Henry off with a panicked “SHH!!”, then whispers...)

Norman: “Look, Hen, I’m having as hard a time to follow what’s going on as you are. I’m going to push you back and adjust the cart, so it doesn’t keep moving. This did not happen, and you never saw me!”

Henry: “Of course… Highly terrifying Ink-monster who I did not see here…”

Norman: “There we go.”

(As the not-Projectionist(?) stated, he shoved the cart back and made quick work to turn it in such a way that it wouldn’t continue onward on the track. Henry is awkwardly left alone waiting for the warped-Boris cue.)

Rodney, undoubtedly the cameraman now and in a snarky mood; “… Isn’t something supposed to happen in this clearly suspenseful climax we’ve been building up to?”

(There is a loud “BONK” sound effect as Rod is clocked on the noggin by somebody else, resulting in an annoyed “OW!! Son of a…!!” from him.)

(Susie-Alice enters the room without warning, very blatantly stalling for time with improvisations. Henry hardly reacts.)

Susie-Alice; “We meet again, Henry! You’re trapped in my web, and a little fly like you will have no chance of escape!”

Henry; “Didn’t you already use that spider-web analogy a while ago...?”

Susie-Alice; “Soon! Your face will be an analogy for all the pain and ruin you’ve done unto me which is very clearly your fault as much as Joeys’! But! Unlike your ruined face mine will be fixed and I’ll be the heavenly starlet idol I’ve always deserved to be!”

Henry; “You lost me.”

Susie-Alice; “And I’ll make you lose your head too! Literally, not figuratively!”

(she charges to him dramatically, brandishing a vase prop from the table. Henry leisurely hops out of the cart finally.)

Henry; “a cue to fight and defend myself, alrighty then...”

(Before Henry could spring into this on-the-spot “Boss Battle”, a sudden gent pipe whizzes through the air at a beeline to Susie-Alice’s head. It’s only hard enough to make her stop in her tracks with a surprised shriek and grunt to herself for a little in pain. Standing on top of the cart Henry had exited is “Allison Alice”. She’s posed dramatically and without Tom.)

“Allison”; “Please, don’t give up Henry! You’re our only hope!... Don’t know why I said that here and now, but I did…”

Henry; (fake gasp, he’s clearly getting tired) “Oh My Goodness, another Amy the Angel?”

“Allison”; “Um, it’s ‘Alice’-”

Henry; “-Dearie me, given that there have been dozens of Boris copies, does that mean there are just as many of you?”

“Allison”; “Honestly, you’ll love what I still remember about what happened to Lacie.”

(Susie moans about her brow hurting, “Allison” remembers her other lines.)

“Allison”; “OH! Uhh by the way Henry do not be deceived by this awful, evil witch! Even though I look even less like her, I’m absolutely the real and goody-good Alice Angel!”

(This accusation catches Susie-Alice’s attention, and she angrily glares daggers at her like a snobby teenaged girl who got upstaged at prom.)

Susie-Alice; “You attention-whore hussy! I’m the REAL Alice Angel!”

“Allison”; “No, I’M Alice!”

Susie-Alice; “I’m Alice Angel!”

“Allison”; “I’m Alice Angel!”

Susie-Alice; “I’m Alice Angel!”

“Allison”; “I’m Alice Angel!”

Susie-Alice; “I’m Dirty Dan!”

“Allison”; “I’m Dirty Dan!”

(they both pause)

Susie-Alice; “…Did that really just come out of our mouths-?”

(explosion and clutter noises, everyone is surprised. It’s Geno-Fur having burst into the haunted house room through the wall.)

Geno-Fur; “Shit! I was so lucky daddy saved me from that creepy camera-head guy! He could’ve grabbed my sexy butt and make it all gross with the weird ink corruption!!”

Henry; (under his breath) “Why did neither of them strangle her…”

Geno-Fur; “Mommy! Stop it! I know you’re like so much more than all this darkness and suffering! I totes forgive you for turning my woof hubby all ugly, because I know we can all fix and love him together! You don’t have to stab anything! You nurtured me and made me the proud, talented, and strong woman I am today!”

“Allison”; “… are you talking to her or me??”

Geno-Fur; “Yes!!”

(Monster-Bendy’s signature Ink Aura seeps into the room as he suddenly approaches. Oh, the suspense!)

Henry, actually surprised by this; “Wait a minute, already?? How did he know to come right here!?”

Henry, now grumpily; “... It was that pea-brained banshee, wasn’t it. All of that obnoxious wailing lured him to us!”

Geno-Fur; “Shuttup! I’m legit the reason anything good happened here!!”

Henry, rolling his eyes; “Oh yeah. Sure…”

(Boris… Oh Sorry I mean Franken-Boris, finally enters the scene… however everyone is still talking, and he just stands there in the back awkwardly now that any room for his cue to start the monster act is completely null with the current cast ensemble. Once more, none of what is now transpiring was in his copy of the script. He’d be whistling and twiddling his “thumbs” if they weren’t so massive and heavy now.)

Monster-Bendy, finally; “Well, I for one can’t wait to make... Whatever her name is stay quiet ONCE AND FOR ALL! But first things first, my bloody and graphic vengeance on HENRY!”

Susie-Alice; “HEY! Wait your turn, fatty! I’m having vengeance on him FIRST!”

Monster-Bendy; “THE FUCK YOU JUST CALL ME!? FINE THEN, MY VENGENCE IS ON EVERY PATHETIC SOUL IN THIS ROOM!”

“Allison”; “I was supposed to get Hen out of here by now??”

Geno-Fur; “DADDYYYYYY! NUUUUUUU! LEMME TOK 2 U!!”

Monster-Bendy; “WHAT!?”

Geno-Fur; “Plz, DADDY!

Monster-Bendy; “I heard you the first time-”

Geno-Fur; “If you’re not able to look within your heart and see that this isn’t what you want…

Monster-Bendy; “Sweet Solomon, what am I in for.”

Geno-Fur; “I wrote a song, which was 100% not originally by Christina Aguilera, JUST for you about how killing the people you love is wrong, and that I’m your best daughter ever AND LOVE YOU no matter what! It’s really dope and super cooler than what happened in Goofy Movie and I practiced all of the Fortnight dances and Minecraft stuff for it that I put it to and EVERYTHING! Duncha remember you n mommys wedding?? It was super bomb and I was the best gothic flowergirl in fishnets, leather skirt, midnight black corset and red firey boots EVER! Jus remember all de times we were like the best sexiest fam in da WORLD! And after it’s all done, I can play fnaf games with you! And then later, we’ll have another episode where I’m in highschool and Boris-sempai meets me under the cherry-blossom trees and I made him been-toes n’ stuff, and we’re the best OTP ever and Romeo and Juliet could never hope to compare to how deep we got it! And then in the final season it’ll be revealed yer in love with Uncle Cuphead and mommy is all like-!”

Bendy is slack jawed at this stupidity. He finally snaps.

Bendy; “F-… Fortnight and..? Did I hear that? Stop the cameras. Hit the brakes. Back up the bus. STOP THE GODDAMN MUSIC! Listen, I’ve put up with a LOT of braindead pandering malarkey this episode, but shit like FORTNITE REFERENCES and other media where they don’t belong are where I’m drawing the damn line. That tears it! I’m leaving! I don’t give a shit about getting a check anymore! I have a cat to feed and play with back at home, and I’m not wasting anymore time or energy on this! I’VE HAD IT WITH THIS TRIPE!!”

As Bendy rants, he’s removing his huge monster-self costume. Boris struggles out of the fat-suit and discards the gigantic gloves, whipping one of the X’s off his eyelids. They were makeup.

Boris; “I’m right there with you, Bend. I didn’t spend three years religiously studying musical theatre and drama to be in this piece of cow dung!”

“Allison” removes her wig to reveal it’s been Maria the whole time, because the real Allison wanted no part in this.

Maria; “Personally I’d of taken so many fat ones to stay OUT of the camera.”

Boris; “...’Many fat’ what??”

Maria; “I’ll… say when we’re older!”

Boris; “Mari, all of us are presumed 20-somethings-“

Rodney, finally visible as he’s approaching the set: “Rufford could fart on paper, and that’d be better material than this slop.”

Boris; “Who’s to say he isn’t one of the prime suspects? I mean, if it wasn’t Mr. Drew, or Raph-”

Bendy; “I just remembered, where the Blue Hell’s Angie!? She straight-up VANISHED in the middle of act 1!”

Angie, muffled; “Um, I am in here!”

They all look to a wooden box nearby. Boris pries it open to reveal Angie squeezed within.

Angie; “Hello, my friends!”

Bendy; “Anj!”

Angie; “I was informed that this would be my best contribution to the project...”

Boris; “… Wait, why put Angie into one of the crates I was s’posed to SMASH to bits, according to my script copy?”

(Geno-Fur interrupts like always)

Geno-Fur; “NnnnnOOOO!!! You can’t leave now! It was getting soooo gooooood!! I WANT TO SPREAD THE FEELS OF MY FEELS SPEECH!!”

Bendy; “SHADDAP, you obnoxious personification of preteen fanfiction and anime-base art!! C’mon outta there Angie, Henry promised to take us out for donuts after this.”

Angie, freed from the crate; “Oh, lovely!”

Boris; “I call dibs on the first bear claw.”

Maria; “Oh, I can absolutely go for a cream-filling!”

Bendy; “Maria, just.. don’t..”

Alice, trying to get Maria’s attention but ultimately ignored; “Why did the pipe you throw at me SMELL ‘funny’!?”

Dolly enters, just as frustrated about this dumb performance as everybody else.

Dolly; “Ages and ages on EVERYONE’S makeup, and do I get any mention on the end-credits? When I looked them over, NO.”

Rodney, chiming in; “Damn good for a first shot at horror-film sorta faceups, if ya ask me.”

Dolly; “Aw, you!”

Bendy; “Yeah, you got an artists’ hand Dolly! I remember Boris and I having a double-take at how well you captured Alice’s inner evil.”

Dolly; “Spoiling me, every single one of you”

(distant sound of Alice grunting grumpily and walking away from the group.)

Norman, somewhere in the distance: “Let’s just wrap this up and go home everybody, Joey can get his ears hollered off later!”

Bertrum, further away: “MY SCENES WERE SKIPPED OVER ALTOGETHER! THE NERVE OF WHOEVER PLITHERED OUT THIS PIGS’ EXREMENT…!!”

(Various voices are heard as the entire crew dissipates. Improv whatever.)

Henry returns to the remaining “toon crew”, holding a set of car keys

Henry; “Ima’s offered to tag along and pitch in, donuts are our treat fellas!”

Bendy, Angie, Boris, and company (not counting Alice or Geno-Fur) cheer in delight as they follow Henry out to grab some good old Shipley’s. Although still close by, the metaphorical camera is on the lady-trio. They momentarily face the audience.

Dolly; “Just to clarify, none of that hogwash we trudged through is canon.”

Angie; “We still hope you were entertained, thank you dearly for coming!”

Maria, after blowing a kiss; “Goodnight, everybody!”

END.

#kind of a long read even if lazy so be ready #Happy November Fools #might add other scribly drawings later just so it's not JUST the crappy base edits of (spoiler)

32 notes · View notes