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deltaruminations · 6 months

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i think it’s interesting to interpret the “gaster followers”/“goners” as like. gaster’s failed attempts at creating things within the universe. like he was trying to see if he could create new characters from whole cloth and insert them into the world but all he could really put together were these pale, palette-swapped facsimiles of existing characters. he can create bodies that look like monsters but he can’t create SOULs for them. he can’t give them Determination or Will. they can’t thrive, so they just end up as discarded assets. the vessel may have been the first one that had potential to succeed — he actually had a SOUL for it this time — but something else intervened. a specific character? The Narrative or the universe itself, enforcing an order that he tried to disrupt?

this is partly why i favor ROMhacking as a metaphor in particular to describe gaster’s powers in relation to the utdr universes. it doesn’t seem like he created the universes himself — the dog did. gaster is just trying to iterate on an architecture that already exists, one that was never supposed to be broken open and changed in this way. ROMs are fragile and have clearly defined and limited boundaries as to how much they can be changed without catastrophically destabilizing the program. toby fox couldn’t just put varik into the halloween hack. he had to overwrite ness to do it.

maybe gaster’s UI wrappings work because they’re technically on a layer above the universe. maybe ralsei works because he already existed in the universe — gaster simply affected his “programming” by giving him the Prophecies and molding him into a guide. and maybe the vessel didn’t work because it was something truly new in the fabric of the world. there isn’t room in the universe’s memory for that — something has to be overwritten or erased for it. he tried to create something without offering a sacrifice for it.

something something Originally A Darkner i dunno. who knows. there’s just something kind of weirdly sad and poignant about the idea that gaster simply can’t Create things, at least on his own. he wants to be able to create but it just isn’t an option for him. maybe he technically has the power but doesn’t have the Will. he doesn’t have the experience. he’s darkness without light, an AI trying to make art for Real People without the touch of a Real Person’s lived experience. it’s real to him but it isn’t real outside him. i don’t know how to explain this lol. castle town is a ‘pure’ fountain, possibly suggesting it was created without a Will to shape it — do objects and concepts have SOULs? does a darkner have Will? what happens when fantasy acquires the ability to create fantasies of its own?

#from the drafts(tm)#headcanon zone

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fandompridehcs · 21 days

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Kyubey from Puella Magi Madoka Magica is agender!

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manyothermusingsofmine · 2 years

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I was thinking about the thing I see often thats like "why did Apollo's lie detector not react to Kristoph?" and my personal belief is that it can't detect lies that the teller genuinely believes

"But Athena in Dual Destinies-"

Yeah that threw a wrench in that thought as well until my brain went "I said /genuinely believes/ in their own lies. She didn't. She was deeply confused at best and in deep turmoil at worst with gaps in her memory."

Like Kristoph is the only one with a personality that I can see circumventing Apollo's bracelet because I can see him justifying stuff to himself to the point where he genuinely believes he's right / didn't do anything wrong / etc and then its no longer a "lie" its his personal truth

#kristoph gavin #headcanon zone

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zoneofsmites · 5 months

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Im of the full (possibly delusional) belief that Durge is not the species that they physically appear to be.

You’re telling me this being crafted from nothing but bhaal’s flesh and his blood - this demigod - is actually a dragonborn/tiefling/human/elf/etc.

No. This thing is bhaal’s flesh and it just happens to look like that. They’re an imitation of a species, they’re not truly a (full)mortal being, they have no heritage aside from bhaal.

As a result I’m sure there’s some…oddities.

For example, a demigod child, not fully mortal. I doubt they adhere to the lifespan of whatever species they look like. Looking younger than they should. (less so perhaps with long lived races like elfs and half-elves where that is par for the course).

A dragonborn durge that by all accounts looks like a blue dragonborn but their breathweapon is acid. A tiefling durge that seems to be a Mephistopheles tiefling but they cannot cast mage hand, instead smiting like a zariel bloodline tiefling.

An elf or tiefling durge that doesn’t read as fey or infernal trough identification spells. Because they aren’t either of those things. Perhaps they could read as divine but not quite.

Members of a race that durge is supposed to be looking at them and sometimes when making eye contact they read as wrong. And some kind of uncanny effect triggers in their brain.

Give me more freaky durge who isn’t really what they appear to be at all. Just a little murder demigod crafted from dead god flesh to be the shape of something else.

#bg3 #durge #the dark urge #bg3 durge #bg3 the dark urge #bg3 dark urge #dark urge #bg3 headcanons #hall of wonders #zone of truth #this post is brought to you by me making my mephi-tiefling Durge mechanically a zariel tiefling to make them mechanically ‘wrong’#and also by my thoughts of a durge who ages eerily slow for their species #(wdym this mid 30’s /pushing 40’s guy looks not a day past his 20’s???)#(how much would that fuck with gortash. when your partner who’s race is of a similar lifespan to humans hasn’t aged in the decade you’ve #that you’ve know them)#(personally. i would die a little)

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lassieposting · 5 months

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Been thinkin about Astarion + vampire biology so have some headcanons and the bits of game lore they're based on

Dialogue establishes that Cazador has been successfully passing himself off as a regular noble for centuries, and Astarion confirms that while he's considered a bit reclusive, he does mingle with the upper class of Baldur's Gate and has a property specifically for hosting fancy events.

Vampires are camouflage predators, whose primary hunting strategy is to blend in with their prey until the perfect time to strike. Their ecological niche is not a particularly safe or stable one - they live hidden in plain sight, usually in sizeable cities, for easy access to prey, but they know that if they are discovered they will be rooted out and killed or driven away. They are rarely able to get away with attacking in public, where city guards might rush to the aid of a screaming victim - they have to isolate their target before killing it. The ability to blend in, to be overlooked by their target, until it is too late is essential.

Cazador is, as far as we know, the only true vampire in Baldur's Gate

This is because true vampires are aggressively territorial. Like most apex predators, they eat a lot, and need substantial territories to support them - even moreso if they have a partner or spawns. Ascendant!Astarion would need to hold onto the entire city, as Cazador did, to be able to feed himself and Tav without raising suspicion.

True vampires are relatively rare, but there are more of them than there are cities, so it's not uncommon for one to set up in an occupied city and try to oust the sitting resident. The challenger usually believes himself to be as strong or stronger than the current tenant: these territorial disputes usually end in at least one death, so they're not to be entered into lightly.

Astarion is very obviously a vampire: his fangs are visible, as are his bite scars; he's so pale multiple people comment on it; his eyes are red, etc.

Astarion is not a healthy vampire.

This is a man who has been kept on the knife's edge of starvation and tortured regularly for 200 years, and to another vampire, that would be clear from the state of him: Astarion is a camouflage predator who is so malnourished he is no longer able to blend in.

Tav will get an up-close look at his transformation over the course of the game and during the years afterwards: the more healthy and well-fed Astarion becomes, as his body catches up on its immense energy deficit and begins to recover, the better he will be able to mimic a living elf. His skin will be able to bleed, or blush, or bruise, none of which he's capable of while actively starving. Hia fangs will retract until he needs them, not invisible but less obvious - having them out all the time is a response to severe deprivation; he's so hungry his body can't risk losing prey to the split second it takes Cazador to snatch a rat back, so he's permanently in bite mode, hyperaware, ready to strike. Some body functions will come online that he didn't even know he had, the ones that are supposed to help him blend in - his eyes will start producing pigment to look darker, less scarlet and more burgundy, to be more easily mistaken for brown; his lungs will make him breathe automatically even though he doesn't need it, he'll start being able to eat normal food without getting sick again, though he still won't get any nourishment from it; he'll heal faster. He'll even be able to get drunk, though he'll burn through it very quickly. As it stands, all those extra systems have been shut down by his starving body - they're useful, but nonessential, and he needs every single bit of energy funnelled into just keeping him alive and functional.

There is probably an intentional bit of psychological warfare against the spawns on Cazador's part here - him starving them strips them of their natural defences, and every time he makes them leave the mansion to hunt, they have to do so knowing that they're poorly hidden and vulnerable. But it's established that true vampires treating their spawn poorly or outright abusing them is A Thing, so it's not the only reason - he sees them as property rather than people, he keeps them weak so they won't plot against him, he's acting out his own trauma from Vellioth on them, he just wants to - but it does feed into it.

Astarion can, at one point, identify old blood as belonging to the player character. He also gets excited at another point if an enemy character runs away, stating, "Now it's a hunt."

He says that "even stale, [he'd] recognise that bouquet anywhere." This confirms a few things for us:

He has a vastly superior sense of smell capable of identifying individuals by scent and - since he can tell who the blood belongs to even after some time has passed - following scent trails.

This confirms that although city-dwelling vampires may primarily hunt via luring a victim to a secondary location before killing it, they still have the "stalk down and chase" predator instinct. Since Astarion can't lure wildlife anywhere, this is almost certainly how he's been hunting to supplement his diet when he's not using the player as his personal caprisun.

The fact that he can scent out prey before killing it means he has this ability all the time - he can smell blood while it's still safely inside the owner's body.

So scent is probably relevant to how vampires process the world. The more time each companion spends with him, the more he gets used to their scent, starts associating it more with safety and camaraderie than with a potential meal, and so he becomes more relaxed around them. As he learns to link the player's scent with love and comfort and trust, the more likely he is to retreat to their tent over his own when he's injured or afraid or having a trauma moment. When he's fond of someone, something of theirs will go conveniently missing - he's moving their scent into his little safe space, it's comforting for him. He can tell when his lover is hurt or aroused or frightened - though not which of the three applies - from a distance, because his sense of smell can pick up the spike of adrenaline rushing into their bloodstream.

But that also means that he can never feel like he's got any distance from Cazador while he's living in the mansion - even if the man isn't in the same room, the entire place reeks of him, and it makes Astarion feel like Cazador is breathing down his neck all the same. Ascendant Astarion would have a really, really hard time sticking it out in that mansion with stale Eau de Cazador all over the place. It means that he's put instantly on edge by the faint scent of one of his siblings as he walks through the lower city - when seven vicious, territorial apex predators are confined to a single small dormitory, several hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, fights are going to be nasty and frequent, and although Cazador wouldn't allow them to kill each other, considering how many of his siblings refer to him as weak or a runt, Astarion probably didn't win them very often. So. Having a highkey advanced sense of smell is a mixed bag.

#bg3 #bg3 headcanons #astarion ancunin #astarion #cazador szarr #idk if this conflicts with existing dnd lore and idc welcome to the silly zone

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infernal-lamb · 7 months

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the lamb: yall mind if i explode into tentacles

havin a little fun with the lamb and potential tentacle body horror because i think sometimes they should be gross. why SHOULDN'T these God creatures be an affront to the nature of creation

#cult of the lamb #cult of the lamb fanart #cotl lamb #cotl narinder #cotl oc #cotl fanart #i was just like what if the lamb was like a gross resident evil enemy #*gasps softly* las plagas cultist.......#also i headcanon that narinder can still do that gross face thing but he can't do much else. so he just bothers everyone with it #everyone eventually gets used to it and narinder is like FINE i guess no one appreciates theatrics anymore. fuck off.#the lamb as disgusting and monstrous as ever: hey stop scaring her she's very sensitive :(#neves: *isn't paying attention to the sermon* why is there goo everywhere i hate it here #every sermon has a splash zone. pray u are not in it #U can tell how I got progressively lazier drawing. Sorry.#*continues to shove my oc in your faces*#my art

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crashbangprophet · 2 months

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@ ALL CRASHQUEENS AND KILLJOYS!

i've been in this fandom since 2016, so i've seen headcanons and zone culture and terminology of all kinds.

with that said , i'd like to present the official (unofficial) danger days dictionary. includes everything from zone culture, slang, battery city locations, phoenix witch, even down to bad luck beads and the dust bowl.

for the nitpickers out there, the comics are mainly discarded in this— due to how overwhelming it would be to throw in even MORE overlapping terms and such. some comic characters have been slipped into the regular timeline / universe, just for funsies and a honorary mention. don't come at me, thanks!

REBLOGS RECOMMENDED.

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bet-on-me-13 · 3 months

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Culture of the Ghost Zone

SO! This is less of a full on prompt, and more of an opportunity.

I've been in this Fandom for over a year now and over that time I've seen so many little bits or lore and headcanons about the Ghost Zones Culture, but I've never seen a single post put them all together.

So, here I'll try to write down as many as I can think of, and anyone else can add their own Headcanons, or add to whatever I or someone else writes!

...

So! My personal Headcanon is that when a Ghost Passes on, it's a thing to be celebrated.

Ghosts are Immortal Beings, holding onto a desire or unfinished business that tethers them to the Mortal Plane. They live, because they are Unfulfilled, unable to accomplish the task that would allow them to Pass on, and be at peace with themselves.

So when a Ghost manages to fulfill their Obsession, manages to Pass On to the After? It's something to CELEBRATE!

Like when a Viking would die, you don't just mourn their death, you celebrate their Life! A Ghosts Passing On is much the same. When one of them manages it, there are parties across the Zone of people who knew them, or people who didn't but still want to celebrate! It's a Joyous thing when someone you know was able to find peace!

...

Ghosts socialize through Battle.

Ghosts are Immortal, Superpowered, and Stuck together for Centuries. They are going to fight, and they are going to love the thrill of it!

From the freshest of Newborns to the Oldest of Ancients, All Ghosts love the thrill of Battle. It's one of their defining traits! They have Centuries of nothing to do and energy to burn, and they devote it to the art of Combat!

And it's not just Brawls! Some Ghosts prefer to battle with Swords alone, others with their Fists and no Powers, others with their Powers and no Fists, there are entire communities of Ghosts who have specific Rules, or Customs for Combat!

In one part of the Zone, it may be common to Tackle any Ghost you see and instantly start to fight them, but in another? That would be seen as Rude, you need to throw down your glove in front of them to request a Battle!

Or in another section of the Zone you may be forced to battle without Weapons whatsoever, in another it may be Without Powers whatsoever, or with ONLY Powers!

The Fight Culture stretches far and wide, no two parts of the Zone are exactly the Same

...

Art is highly Valued.

Of course not all Ghosts are entirely focused on Battle, and even the ones that are like to focus on something else from time to time. Some of those Ghosts were Artists when they were Alive.

And they continued to make Art in Death. But this Art is Special, with all the Time in the World, a Ghost can spend Decades or even Centuries on their Magnum Opus! It would be their Life's Work, something they dedicated their entire Afterlives to!

So of course, it is respected. Ghosts know better than to ruin or destroy another Ghosts work or Art. Be it a Statue, a Painting, a Song, or a Theater Production.

...

I think that's Good for now, what do you think? Anything to add to the points I written down? Any entirely new points to add?

Go ahead!

#Dpxdc #Dp x dc #Dcxdp #Dc x dp #Danny Phantom #Dc #Dcu #I tagged Dpxdc because it is usually where I find the most interesting Cultural Headcanons #Also cause it's where I'm active the most #Ghost Zone #Ghost Zone Culture #Infinite Realms #Infinite Realms Culture #Ghosts celebrate when a Ghost passes on #Ghosts love to fight #Ghosts fight in different ways with different rules #Ghosts love Art #Ghosts respect eachother #Even if they hate eachother

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shinoposting · 1 year

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A comprehensive guide as to why Aburame Shino is peak Autistic Representation

Very long post under the cut!

( This is poorly organized and doesn't actually include everything, but you know :] )

It starts with the flashback to when Torune was taken and flashbacks to early academy days, during which Shino is about 7.

He showed no interest in playing with other children, or in making friends. He didn't see a point in talking to people who didn't want to discuss his special interest, which he dedicated all his free time to, and he didn't emote when Torune was taken away, even though it impacted him very deeply. Even as a small child he talked "like an adult", monotonous, strange phrasing, over-explaining, and too quietly. When he wasn't being ignored by his classmates, they were trying to use him.

Later on when you see him socialize more, in Pre-Teen and Teenage years, more things become apparent.

In general he seems semi-verbal, most of the time silent, and becomes agitated when forced to repeat himself. Konoha Hiden expands on this, saying that he wishes people just knew what he meant and felt without him having to talk, and that he is bonded to Akamaru because he feels that Akamaru is the only one who he can communicate with in that way. When he's upset he isolates and at one point is even seen hitting his head when he was trying to cool down and was interrupted by unwanted social interaction.

He doesn't understand why people need to see his face, and usually doesn't look in the direction of the person he is addressing. He also doesn't understand jokes, rarely laughs, and angrily dissects puns…but then later puns become his entire sense of humor. He's never dressed for the season, either. Aburames tend to be very covered up by default but besides his Part 1 outfit he is always in multiple layers regardless of the season. (Year round trench coats are a huge autistic stereotype.) He gets along better with people outside of his age group, respected by adults and looked up to by younger kids who think he is cool and knowledgeable. Konoha Hiden also states that during this period he was suffering with comorbid Anxiety and Depression.

There's a lot of black and white thinking on display, for example he is anti-alcohol-- obviously he would have been taught not to drink as an Aburame, but he also doesn't like when others drink. He sees it as universally bad. He's a stickler for the rules and often scolds his peers for not following rules and guidelines. He also seems like a bit of a prude even though it is suggested that he himself has a dirty mind (noticing girls' cup sizes and the implications of Road to Ninja treating his Personal Business as a personality trait) which is a funny hypocrisy I have noticed in a lot of autistic people. He holds a hell of a grudge and ruminates endlessly, which is documented at higher rates in autistic people due to rigid thinking.

He is trying to make friends like Torune wanted, and is now aware that not having friends is a bad thing. He starts feeling the pain of being ostracized not only in general but also by his friend group and isn't even sure if he has friends. He is 17 years old before he understands what allistics consider friend status.

We start to see some of his sensory issues pop up too. He is seen wearing sunglasses even at night and while sleeping. He hates any food that smells strongly and his favorites are pretty bland. He pulls a piece of meat out of his mouth, in public, uncharacteristically violating taboo. He was able to identify the number of people in a distant group only by sound at a time when this would have been above his skill level. (Which makes sense. Team 8 is thus Eyes, Ears, Nose. More on this later.) By Boruto, he has added ear protection and stronger eye protection that he wears when he is expecting to be near fluorescent lights or crowds. Suddenly his overall mood is greatly improved and he can smile openly.

He shows signs of hyperempathy in being overly distressed when losing insects, as he has many millions of them, and having an exaggerated physical response to anticipating Sakura and Naruto's despair.

He has chronic bitchy resting face and is extremely blunt to a a degree of being insulting, which makes people assume he is a mean person. He also comes across as pedantic to his peers, when from his perspective he's just didactic, and even though he over-explains everything his peers still have difficulty understanding what he's saying.

He will also randomly connect the topic of discussion to his special interest and begin infodumping about bugs, and isn't aware that people around him are not interested or worse, repulsed by his special interest until told, at which point he feels personally hurt. Generally his interests are very stereotypical of an autistic person: bugs, comics, ecology, strategy, etc.

He seems level-headed and robotically analytical until he reaches a certain threshold when he suddenly over-emotes in dramatic and awkward ways.

You might notice that when his hands aren't in his pockets, he doesn't seem to know what to do with them; they're always balled into fists, which smells of someone who was taught not to stim. Even so, when he gets really excited in Konoha Hiden and is being himself, he starts spinning around. His speech quirk preceding frequent over-explanations (Why? Because... / The reason is because...) is also considered a type of echolalia.

Mentioning Hiden, in the Blank Period we start to see changes associated with the autistic experience of starting to understand that you are awkward, not knowing how to fix it, and all the anxiety that comes with that. He is stuck riding the lag train and is fully ready to become a hermit in the woods.

He isn't understood in the way that he wants to be understood. He can't let himself get comfortable in other people's homes. He uses his trench coat as a barrier between himself and other people, treating it like a security blanket. He still doesn't understand how his choice of attire affects people's perception of him and becomes agitated when he's told it makes him look suspicious. He doesn't appear to be pursuing any intimate relationships, and displays a lack of boundaries when picking Choji up with his insects when he gets excited.

The lag train becomes even more apparent in Boruto. He hasn't found a partner, his friends are growing even further away from him, and possibly worst of all he's seen as more childish-- too grown-up as a kid, too immature as an adult.

He is masking extremely heavily for the sake of his career, mirroring Iruka, removing almost all of his personal identity from his appearance including the parts that made him feel safe-- everything has to be professional. This actually hurts his ability to work with kids because he already knew how to talk to them, but he is now trying to emulate the image of a teacher for the sake of professionalism.

In the classroom he struggles with things I have seen real-life autistic teachers talk about: He works well with the younger kids, they love him and his fun facts, but the older ones can tell that there is something different about him and they will ignore or outright bully him. It's very difficult to control them or hold their interest. (He later develops stomach problems due to stress from working with said older kids)

The big problem is that he is not good at masking. In traditional settings with very clearly defined roles and rules of how to act and what to say he gets by just fine, but in organic interactions it's nothing but spaghetti and this causes him severe stress. He is proud of himself for being able to speak to many people in a day now but at what cost? Pattern recognition and rigid thinking of course leads to rumination spirals, and under extreme pressure he starts reverting to childish things. He has only had Kura-maa a short time before he becomes attached and starts personifying it. This may seem childish, but autistic people are more likely to do this and will continue to do so later into life than their allistic peers. (See Object Personification in Autism: This paper will be very sad if you don’t read it)

He has become a real people-pleaser, allowing himself to be imposed upon constantly, and apologizes excessively even for situations that were not his fault, which are both behaviors many autistic people pick up. And, for all his masking, he can't hide that he is still terrible at understanding and constructing metaphors, ie "bad insects" and the yakisoba bun analogy.

He is trying his damnedest to adapt and accommodate himself in a rapidly changing world that wasn't very friendly to him to begin with. He was able to slide under the radar as respectable and somewhat normal when the world was as rigid as he is. Now every day he's facing new challenges that he isn't used to and he's acting a little fucked up and neurotic, overcompensating and making it worse.

So yeah, maybe he's not 'cool' by most standards. Not everyone gets a happy ending where they become the most ideal version of themselves. Not in real life, and not in animes that have hundreds of characters. What's important is that he is exactly on the trajectory set by previous installments to the series and very accurately and thoroughly depicting autistic struggles in every aspect of life. And that's pretty cool to me. :)

#i might be tagging this as a #naruto headcanon #but when a character is going above and beyond meeting DSM-5 criteria onscreen it's not really a 'headcanon' anymore is it?#shinoposting #shino #aburame shino #shino aburame #naruto #autism #autistic #autistic representation #character analysis #neurodivergent #nart #headcanon zone

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demonicpiano · 2 months

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England turns on heavy punk rock not just for himself, but for his magical friends, too. They love rocking out.

#headcanon zone #hetalia #hws #hws England

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mistbix · 10 months

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drama (loser club)

#hagsquad #eda clawthorne #raine whispers #perry porter #darius deamonne #raeda #toh #the owl house #getting in headcanon zone #mi arte

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deltaruminations · 7 months

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here’s a loosely speculative and rambly queer reading of dess that i sort of accidentally wrote just now. enjoy ?? ?

the more i think on it the more i think like. yeah noelle might very well be canonically a transgirl. as a lot of people have speculated, we might get the subtext when the mayor and dess are revealed to be does without antlers — we have the “horned girl and her sister” line, and it does seem a little odd that the story is so far withholding information on the mayor or dess’s appearances. and aside from the confirmation just being dope as hell on its own merits, i also think it might matter in relation to dess’s possible conflicts as a metaphorically queer person in a small town, maybe specifically with her mother

because the thing is, queerphobia literally doesn’t exist in utdr’s universes as far as we can tell. it doesn’t make sense for their mom to be angry with dess for being trans, gay, or GNC, because being those things isn’t considered rebellious or deviant in this world — it’s perfectly within the range of normal. it fits within her mother’s worldview. noelle is a trans lesbian and as far as we can tell it’s perfectly fine; their mom probably wouldn’t be upset either way if dess continued to be her daughter or came out as her son or as her nonbinary child. the mayor herself is gender-nonconforming — a tough, powerful woman in a position of high authority who can punch a man so hard that he blacks out.

but that doesn’t mean there can’t still be queer-flavored conflicts — perhaps a parent upset with her child for pursuing hobbies and passions that she thinks are inappropriate for her, that aren’t in line with what she understands or respects; for not dressing or behaving or growing up in the ways she thinks her children should. a parent angry with her child for not following rules that, in her mind, are in the child’s best interests to follow — rules that she thinks should protect dess from a world that just Wouldn’t Be Kind To Someone Like Her. a parent feeling personally attacked when her child chooses a new name for herself, rejecting the one she gave to her. a parent feeling hurt and abandoned when the person her child chooses to be in the world isn’t the person she expected or wanted.

to very briefly speculate on specifics: consider the possibility that, while rudy and noelle only ever refer to dess by her chosen name, the mayor may insist on calling her “december.” and, while it does make sense in-universe for someone to suspect the worst from dess’s vanishing, consider the imagery of a parent possibly considering her young adult child “dead” after that person made choices for herself that she found frightening and confusing.

noelle, while arguably just as “queer” as dess (see her quiet fascination with the weird and strange, and her desire to be closer with both susie and kris, both characters who, aside from being literally queer, are also very metaphorically queer in their own rights) might be avoiding this conflict by essentially “closeting” herself around her mom — minimizing herself as a form of self-preservation (for example, stifling her emotional outbursts while playing video games so her mom doesn’t know she’s playing them). this is of course oppressive to her, as well — it’s simply that noelle has traditionally prioritized her safety, while dess may have prioritized her liberty. dess, while perhaps not literally queer like noelle, is metaphorically “out,” and while being out has its own rewards, it may have cost her their mom’s sympathy and respect.

none of this is to preemptively demonize the mayor — we haven’t even met her yet — but to speculate on a possible character flaw that could reasonably have driven dess away, and may be redeemed over the course of the story. the mayor may need to redeem herself before dess can, or is willing to, return.

and i don’t think it’s just her mom. i think her mom, as the town’s mayor, might be in part representative of dess’s relationship to the town itself — a small, insular community that dess feels limits her choices and opportunities, especially as a young adult with big dreams. we know she dreamed of taking noelle to the big city someday.

…something i think about a lot is the line about dess wearing asriel’s jacket — how classically Straight and heteronormative that imagery is. to be clear, that’s not in any way meant as a knock on the legitimacy of dess and asriel’s relationship itself (i have some more nuanced thoughts on dessriel, and the value it has thematically or whatever, that i don’t really think are really relevant here. but i don’t think dessriel is in any way bad LOL), nor does it mean that i think asriel or their relationship is necessarily heteronormative in the literal sense (asriel himself is arguably GNC from the little bit we currently know about him).

it’s more that the framing here seems to emphasize how traditional and exceedingly “normal” the relationship was considered to be, something that may have been at odds with dess’s interests and ambitions as a young, “queer” person. asriel is quite literally the boy next door — sweet, nice, non-threatening. they grew up together; their parents and little siblings are close friends. they’re a boy and a girl in a perfect narrative position to date — hiro and mari — so of course they did. who else would she have dated? pizzapants? meangirl bratty? i could see her feeling boxed in to that option, among so many other options she felt she never had a real say in. asriel may be a great boyfriend, healthy and stable and exceedingly normal, but who’s to say she wanted “normal”? what if she wanted something queer?

if we think about why dess might have run away, why she would have wanted to escape, and why she might have found the fantasy of the dark worlds so captivating that she lost herself to them, i think this could be one way to read into it. dess is — at least metaphorically — a young, queer person, lonely and existentially bored in a small town that cares about her but, from her perspective, doesn’t seem to really understand her, doesn’t give her the option to really be who she wants to be. maybe she just wanted to find another queer person like her. and, who knows — maybe she did.

#does this? count as analysis? idk lol #i’ll just. headcanon zone this to be safe.#headcanon zone

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