2021-09-16 11:13:06 ¶ ● ⬈

lime-bloods:

> replayed the first chapter of deltarune. something i must have missed the first time around was all the references to “ACTing” as a verb, alluding to the make-pretendness of everything that goes on in the world of darkness…

presumably this has something to do with the game’s self proclaimed theme that your choices don’t matter; it doesn’t matter whether you defeat an enemy through violence or through ACTing, because when you “act” you’re only “pretending” to make a difference. but supposedly this implies that violence is the only “true” choice? (something about violence being an expression of the “flesh” versus the world of ideas and stories and make-believe)

with this in mind, deltarune has a recurring bit about how humans have blood and monsters don’t; this was a thing in undertale of course, with monsters being made of magically animated dust rather than organic tissue, but i don’t recall the topic of blood, specifically, being brought up nearly as much, if at all… meanwhile kris is said to have pulled pranks in the past where they pretend ketchup is their blood, and a monster in the epilogue asks if it “hurts to be made of blood”… and when kris, with appropriately bloody imagery, tears the soul, presumably representing the Player’s influence? from their body in the final scene, violent tendencies seem to immediately emerge within their “true” self… again implying that the “truth” is violence, and that “acting” or “pretending” only serves to suppress this violent truth?