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(Please note. Not all posts here are finished. Posts that are in progress are marked by "(WIP)" at the beggining of their title. Papers may also have extra sections added on AFTER they are finished, so check back often!)

Deltarune as a sequel to Undertale, and its plausibility.

(Written 10/23/2024)

Now, before you begin reading this. Yes, I know Deltarune is not a direct sequel to Undertale, and that Toby himself has said that it is a different story with returning characters from Undertale. I am aware of how this is the case, however, this article is more my personal interpretation of how Deltarune could be a direct sequel to Undertale, and breaking down how, if it were a direct sequel to Undertale, how it might confirm what route is canon, alongside other fan theories of mine.

To begin, a quick recap of what we know from Deltarune, as it relates to Undertale. Characters havent spoken much about their past within Deltarune, although Sans will make some comments towards the player occasionally that seem to break the fourth wall, so it is entirely plausible he is aware of his past. However, all we know is that Toriel, Undyne, Sans, and alot of other characters return, retaining some of their personalities. However, for whatever reason, Alphys and Undyne are not confirmed to be together, as the ending to Undertale's "True Pacifist" route implies. I have a theory as for why this is, which i'll relay quickly.

In the scene where the 2 officially "confess" neither of the 2 (Alphys or Undyne) actually get together. Its implied they do later on in the post-credits scene of Undertales true pacifist route, so it could simply be Deltarune takes place in a time before the 2 of them officially get together. That truly is our only loose end with the Undertale canon, as no other characters do / say anything that could directly break the Undertale Storyline. Well, other than the fact Toriel and Asgore are implied to have been in a relationship on the surface, but with no lines to directly support they'd been broken up from before, its safe to assume that maybe Toriel gave Asgore another chance after, say, an emotional moment in her life. But we'll get back to that.

So! The burning question arises: what Undertale path could be canon then, with all of this info laid out? Well, I can tell you which one is NOT, that being Genocide. I mean, lets be honest, that should have been obvious from the get-go. However. I can also feasibly rule out Neutral. Simply by the fact of Asriel exisitng within the storyline. "Now hold on Zombie. Dosent Asriel turn back into Flowey at the end of Pacifist?" Yes, but you have to understand the fact that its very likely "Asriel" and "Flowey" share memories of sorts, with Flowey remembering who Chara, Asgore, and Toriel were to him in his previous life. I'd have to say, its very likely that Flowey was changed by this interaction with Frisk.

So then, how does Flowey return to being Asriel? Well, I can think of 1 of 2 ways that he might have done so. Way number 1 is the far simplier way, that being Flowey (with his fucked up sense of morals) took to the streets of the human world, claiming a human soul (or however many he needed) in order to change back. I'd like to imagine Flowey would target people who reminded him of himself, evil and corrupt among the world and spreading the hatred he only used to propogate out of boredom. I could imagine a whole fan AU of him coming to terms with what he did as Asriel, but that would make this article 10x longer.

Way number 2 is where things get a little more lengthy, but are probably more in-character for Flowey. I imagine, upon being released into the Human world, Flowey would be fucking esctatic to get his hands on 7 BILLION+ human souls (assuming Undertale has the same human population as Earth), and probably went mad with power, attempting to destroy the entire world with the power of the souls. Frisk, (living with Toriel at the time), would go to stop Flowey, and even with the sheer power of Determination, would end up dying in the process, or being absorbed by Flowey in order to help Asriel retain his form, leading to their death and abscense within Deltarune.

With the first way that Flowey could return to Asriel, it'd probably be far more likely that Frisk simply dies of old age, leading to their abscense in Deltarune. Considering that monsters live FAR longer than humans, the timescale for Asriel to be of "College" age in the human world would probably be a incredibly long time. Who knows! Maybe Asriel dosent go to college for 50+ years, and Frisk ends up dying of old age, leading to a vulnerable moment in Toriels life I mentioned earlier, as obviously all the characters of Undertale would be incredibly close with Frisk, being that they were the savior of the Underground.

And of course, that leads into the end of this little theory. Toriel then has a vulnerable moment in her life, and wants to seek the kind of family she had previously, before the war, akin to Asriel and Chara. With Asriel likely already under her care, it'd be no suprise she'd let Asgore back into their lives. Then maybe, just maybe, they adopt a human who reminds them of Frisk. They remind them of Frisk so much, the only difference in name is a letter missing, and flipped around. That human being Kris. Of course, the 2 have various other differences, including the "Soul" possessing Kris and what not, but thats subject for Deltarune to cover as its own game, not as a Sequel to Undertale.

Theres probably lots im leaving out with this theory, niche story topics that im not too familiar with, or some other loose ends I couldnt find when I intially thought about this, but as I said at the start of this article, this is only the musings of me and my little UT/DR brain. It was something interesting I thought about and wanted to get out there, and not something I super hyper researched into, haha.

Jojos Bizzare Adventure and why intelligence based battles are far more interesting

(Written 10/9/2024 - 10/10/2024)

Anime has often been known for a certain.. trope. "Shonens" typically follow a main character who goes through a heroes journey, and becomes far more powerful than the other characters and villians, and this is what allows for them to beat them. Dragon Ball Z is a great example, with Goku gaining more and more transformations throughout the years, with each villian being stronger than the last. For example, Super Sayian, (the first form) was enough to destroy Frieza originally, but Goku would require Super Sayian God Super Sayian (SSGSS) in order to defeat Golden Frieza far further down the line. For complete clarity, I hate this trope. I believe it leads to uninteresting stories, ones of simple power growth, and fights tend to focus on looking "flashy" and "cool", without the fighters ever really having to think about what they are doing, mindlessly launching energy blasts and throwing punches. Jojos Bizzare Adventure dosent do this.

Jojos Bizzare Adventure's "Power" system they use is that of Stands. As a short explination for those unaware, Stands are special creatures which are manifestations of a Stand "user"s fighting spirit. Stands can have many abilities, such as being a basic "Punching Stand" (akin to Star Platinum) or something as advanced as being able to manipulate life itself, changing objects into things such as frogs, or growing trees from the ground at will (Golden Experience). Dont get me wrong, however, there is instances of characters winning fights through straight "Power-Ups", but there are a grand total of 2 instances of this, which would be spoiler territory. However, more often than not, intelligence and ingeniuety are the deciding factors in a fight.

As an example to how a fight is intelligence based, lets take a fight from the series which is spoiler-free, Jolyne Joestar vs Marilyn Manson. Joleyene has a stand whoms ability allows her to take control over a string that composes her entire body, which can manifest as a collection of string which forms her stand, Stone Free. Marilyn Manson is a stand whom relies on the user making a wager with the intended target. When the victim loses, if the loser cannot pay the wager outright, Marilyn Manson, an invincible Stand, will attack them and steal their organs until the debt is repaid.

Sounds like a recipie for a direct power increase, right? An "invincible" Stand that cant be attacked directly. The way the fight begins is Miraschon (Marilyn Mansons user) betting that Jolyne and Ermes (one of Jolynes friends) can throw a ball to each other 100 times. She says the bet is for 500 dollars. Ermes uses her Stand to catch the ball once, and her cheating immediatlly forfeits the wager, causing her to "lose". Marilyn Manson attacks, stealing Ermes liver in order to repay the debt. Miraschon begins to walk away, but not before Jolyne makes a counter bet to make 1000 catches between her and another of her friends, F.F. Miraschon attempts to make them fail through several ways, such as causing them to have to sneak around the prison in order to throw the ball, turning the lights off in the room they are attempting to do the catches, and more. Jolyne, knowing the bet will be impossible beacause of this, instead catches up to Miraschon, beating her down and throwing the baseball at her during her punches, satisfying the bets condition while also beating Miraschon.

Compare this to what you might see in a typical shonen, like Dragon Ball Z as I stated earlier. Instead of having Jolyne, say, get a new ability, a direct power increase, or something along those lines, she instead uses her ability to its potential. I didnt discuss it in the summary, but one thing Jolyne does is unravel the ball, and wrap her own Stands string around the cork, technically still making it a "baseball" in order to throw to carry it around the prison (the place the part takes place in) and to eventually beat down Miraschon with it. Jojos Bizzare adventure is FULL of fights like these, where characters have to use their abilities as intelligently as they can in order to overcome opponents, which makes Stands such a unique power system, as there is no "useless stands".

The series even brings this up in a conversation between 2 villians. One of them asks the other "whats the weakest stand you've ever come across?" and the other villian describes a stand that had the ability to spread across the floor, and send electrical signals up into the brains of its targets, causing the to attack each other with intense rage. This stand was named Survivor, and on paper, does seem like an incredibly weak Stand. However, in another fight against multiple Stand Users, it is used in order to trigger confusion and anger, by causing all people in the fighting area to become enraged, and attack each other without abandon. Like previously stated, there are no useless Stands in Jojos Bizzare Adventure, and all of their abilities, with the right knowledge, can be incredibly valueable and useable.

The series tends to play into this in the opposite way, showing that even powerful Stands can be less powerful in the wrong hands. Okuyasu, a character from Part 4, has one of the STRONGEST Stands in the series, The Hand. Its ability allows it to essentially erase things from existense with a swipe of its hand. As insanely strong as it is, its drawback is that of its user, Okuyasu, who isnt the brightest or most resourceful, but when he does use his Stand, its often incredibly deadly and can be a deciding factor in fights.

My point is, Jojos Bizzare Adventure shows us a different way of fight-writing. Rather than being strength based, Jojos Bizzare adventure shows a way of intelligence based fighting, where characters have to outsmart each other in order to win. It offers a watching experience far more interesting than the standard "I am getting stronger, heres my cool moment where I do that" formula most Shonens fall into, and is likely why the series has had such a cultural impact in recent years, as it, in my opinion, far suprasses much of its competition, managing to captivate audiences with its characters outsmarting, rather than outpunching each other.

Sources

Sources used:
Me - I fucking watched parts 1-6, and read part 6 before watching it. I have rewatched Parts 1-6 multiple times. I also sourced my own opinions for this article.

Wiki, C. to J. B. (n.d.). S.O chapter 34. JoJo’s Bizarre Wiki. https://jojo.fandom.com/wiki/SO_Chapter_34

The Modding Community, and its free labour phenomenon

(Written 9/15/2024)

Video games have been around for almost a hundred years. That, im sure your aware of at this point. However, something thats become far more well-known with video games in the modern era, is modding. Games that give the ability for fans to create change the aspects of a game, change the way it works on a fundamental level, or to even add completely new content to the game being modded. However, what some may not fully grasp is that it takes real people alot of time, effort, and thinking into the creation of these mods. Most modders mod games completely for free. This essay will explore why it might be that modders do what they do completely for free, almost never asking for money, and providing a littany of content completely for free.

To get to the bottom of why this might be, lets look at the gaming community as a whole. Minecraft is certainly a game that comes to mind with its modding scene, boasting hundreds of thousands of mods across its entire history. Curseforge reports a grand total of 182,194 mods (Mods - minecraft - curseforge) currentlly across their platform, and with many other modloaders such as Technic, this modcount is likely a fraction of what totally makes up all mods... but why does this happen? Why do groups of users spend so much time making mods such as JEI, Journeymap or much bigger mods. such as The Twilight Forest? One answer, could be hate.

Minecraft is well known for its various controversies, specifically sorrounding the mob vote. When it was announced that the mob vote was being cancelled (See this tweet) many players rejoiced, having found the practice to be useless and a cause of much divide in the community (See this tweet). In my personal opinion, I found the mob vote to be a simple marketing tactic founded off of this divide in the community, but thats besides the point.

So, what happens when a community falls in love with a game, but angry at the desicions from the developers? Well... the answer strangely isnt always modding. In fact, Minecraft has had a modding scene all the way back in the year of 2011, with the mod JourneyMap as we previously mentioned having come out on November 26th of that year. This was far before any mob vote controversies, divide in the community, or anger over Mojangs lack of sizeable / desireable updates to the game. So... if the answer isnt a distaste for the game, then what is it? People spend real life time and effort to make things such as this, for absolutely 0$ guarenteed for their work... so, thats back to our original question. Why?

To solve this, I asked a prominent modder within a game im very involved with, that being Rimworld (Side tangent: play this game. Its moddability is incredible but so is the game itself, ive spent endless hours building colonies, losing them to raids, and otherwise. Highly reccomend it.), specifically, I went and asked modder Andres Pardeike, also known as Brrainz, what motivates him to mod the game.

I asked Andres firstly about what motivates him to mod, just in general. To which he said: "The challenge. I am a senior software developer so this is basically my gym before the marathon. People like me are not that dependent on income so creating value for everyone (as in doing open source software) is what drives me.". To overcome challenges is to be fufilled, and Andres put it very succintly. Its a warmup for him, keeping his skills in check and allowing him to perform well at his job. However, the big question remains: if this is not making him money... why do it? Sure, its good practice for his job, if he cannot be guarenteed any monetary gain or fame for all this extra work, why do what he does for the Rimworld modding community? When asked this, Andres stated:

"I do hate that someone else makes money out of my work but at the same time I can boost my ego when I see people getting joy from it. The money aspect is mitigated a bit by me realising that I can only do that because someone else took the effort and risk to build a platform. Still a bad deal unless you take donations like I do and get at least some minor compensation via that." Andres puts it simply: he feels good when other people enjoy the work he puts out for free, which is a commendable reason to mod, but Andre also understands, as he puts it, that he wouldnt be able to mod lest someone else had built a platform for him to mod. If Tynan Slyvester hadnt made Rimworld, Andres wouldnt have a game to mod that he enjoys so much. This, for him, mitigates the fact he makes no money, and likely helps him abide by the fact his work may make no money (although, he does make money on the side through donations.). However, in saying this, Andres himself dosent realize that he's helping to lift other people up and create a platform for them to begin modding!

When Andres was asked "How did you start modding Rimworld?" He said: "I made modding Rimworld easy by inventing Harmony. It was the challenge to begin with as I was facing mods-co-existing problems making my first mod Achtung which was made out of curiosity and some interaction with a twitch streamers needs)." For context, Harmony is a modding library/software which assists in not only modding Rimworld, but several other games, including 7 Days to Die, Stardew Valley, and more! Andres has become a part of the platform in which others can mod games off of, with his work making it far easier to mod games for all.... but this still dosent answer our question. The modding is a byproduct of Andres practice for his job, not something he does passionately. Sure, he enjoys doing it, but he wasnt originally motivated by the joy of creation in order to begin making his mods. What about someone who might not even know all that much about programming, and taking on a far larger undertaking, such as a massive content mod that adds an entire new system to a game?

Well, thats why we asked another Rimworld modder some questions, that being Torran, the creator of the Rimworld of Magic mod, a mod that adds a complete magic system to the game, giving your colonists the ability to learn and use magic. When asked what his motivation to create a Rimworld of Magic, Torran said: "The primary motivation was a personal goal to learn to program. RimWorld being designed in a way to encourage modding, an interest in the game and sci-fi/fantasy genres, and the creative outlet it enabled are other contributing factors that motivated me to create RimWorld of Magic.". Much like Andres, Torran used the modding scene to practice programming, but not just for his job, but to learn how to program in general. His interest in the game and love of fantasy lead for him to create the mod, combining his interest to learn to program with his own passions to motivate them to create the mod. However, im sure you must wonder the same thing I did. When we asked Torran what motivated him beyond financial compensation or fame (seeing as he wasnt guarenteed it) he said:

"What's kept me motivated has been learning and improving my programming skills, in large part due to the amazing community, contributors, and suggestions that I've gotten over the years. Another important aspect is that it provides a creative outlet for me; taking an idea or concept and figuring out how to make within RimWorld has kept me adding to the mod for as long as I have.". We are beggining to see a link here. People mod games beacause they wish to learn, and improve their programming skills, which is in no way a negative thing! But, another thing pops up again: the community and joy in creation. It provided a creative outlet (as Torran puts it) for him, and the limitations of the platform kept him intrigued. But the community and their contributions to the mod furthered his motivation, keeping him creating such an expansive mod. Im sure this makes modding sound easy, with the community keeping you motivated and with the modding scene being used to teach so many fledgling programmers their craft. However, its not the case for those not knowledgeable in programming. When asked how difficult it was to make a Rimworld of Magic, Torran said:

"In some ways, more difficult than I thought because I knew next to nothing about programming and there was a steep learning curve to both learning to make a mod and programming at the same time. In other ways, easier, in large part due to the way the game is designed for modding and the examples, tutorials, and help I've gotten from the community. I could not have made the mod without the platform Tynan provided, and learning the ropes by following in the footsteps of people like Jecrell and Erdelf.". The difficulty of learning to program did not stop Torran, following modders before him in order to create something he wanted within the game, and to enjoy.

So, I think I can say with quite a certainty that their is a common link here. Modders perform this gracious free act for the main reasons of wanting to hone their skills, and for the joy of others using their work to have more fun. A simple answer, to a question that probably lingered in many peoples heads. Sometimes, things in life are just that simple, and you dont need money or fame to motivate everything. Just a willingness to learn, a passion for programming, and a game you love.

Sources

Sources used:
Mods - minecraft - curseforge. (n.d.). https://www.curseforge.com/Minecraft/mc-mods

X.com. X (formerly Twitter). (n.d.). https://x.com/Minecraft/status/1833166714634223779

X.com. X (formerly Twitter). (n.d.). https://x.com/cartoonshi/status/1833191439028613590

People Interviewed:
Andres Pardeike, AKA Brrainz. (Find Harmony here)
Torran (Creator of the mod "A Rimworld of Magic")