OK so I saw a post somewhere about crossing over your newest and oldest fandoms. And for me those would be Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and Dragon Age. Which has led me to the thought of my very favorite character, magical tome/former destroyer of worlds Reinforce Eins somehow running into the Kirkwall group. Mostly because it would be a complete delight to see Fenris and Reinforce interact, I think, because while Reinforce is as magic as it's possible to be (given that she is literally the will and consciousness of a magical tome with the purpose to seek out knowledge,) she has also had massive loss of agency issues.
i haven't actually played undertale ever, but thinking about what i know from my dash and kintsugi about, like, the pacifist and genocide runs of it, the moral significance that seems to get attached to each and how real it sometimes feels like people treat as it is, even knowing that's fictional: Ender Wiggin Plays Undertale as in, ender as a player of the game, not a replacement for frisk. and yeah, this resulted 'cause i was thinking about how deciding to do a genocide run of undertale just... like, i understand having feels about it, i guess, but not the idea that doing one gets you locked out of cinnamon roll heaven. it's not as though the characters are actually real or anyone really thinks they are (then again, well, tumblr). and that got me onto "but if they were?" and from that onto ender's game. Spoiler: major ender's game spoiler (and yeah, i probs just revealed here that if i was in ender's exact position, i would have gone real brutal on the buggers. which, yeah, wouldn't be that great but... the default, healthy assumption regarding games is that they're not actually real, yeah?) (also you may've noticed me being willing to choose the asshole options in the kintsugi dragon age playthroughs.)
Spoiler: Major major spoilers for Undertale and Ender's Game Peter couldn't quite be a Chara because Valentine and Ender were both able to keep up with his bullshit far better than Asriel would... But if Ender played a Undertale, and it was like the computer game in the book, using the game to mask psychological analysis, then Asriel would have Valentine's voice, and Chara would have Peter's, and Flowey would have Ender's own. the better to decide whether killing is necessary, depending on which route you take.
Spoiler: response i was thinking more like than a straight playthrough, with no extra bits, 'cause the normal game, based on what i've read seems extreme enough, but yeah, that sounds like it'd be interesting. and well, if you introduced ender to undertale and the fan reactions to that game after he killed the buggers. would it be really weird psychologically for him, playing a game that people imbue with so much moral significance, in which people's choices are seen as about as major as their real life choices are? and ultimately, this is a thing i end up thinking about 'cause i just don't entirely get some of the reactions i see to undertale. like, something about them seems off and with the general environment of tumblr, makes me a bit uncomfortable, honestly. 'cause, well, tumblr is the type of place where people are like, "you can't draw this thing 'cause it's problematic and will corrupt people" and the attitude towards undertale genocide runs sometimes reminds me of that.
I jokingly said I was going to make all the Homestucks Mandos. But think about it. The Huntress and the other Leijons would be lovely Mandos. If she's married to the Sufferer than that potentially means Mando Maryam-Vantas children. Now imagine darmanda Kankri. Imagine Porrim sticking up for her stupid shithead darmanda brother. Yes, he is a soulless and annoying piece of shit but he's her brother and like hell you'll get away with fucking with him. Imagine people wanting to get custom paint jobs done on their beskar'gam but being too shit at it so they commission the Maryam girls to get the job done. Yes, we'd rather be tailors but oooooh painting armor. You'll be the most fashionable merc on the street when the Maryams are done. Also Aranea is a jedi. Imagine how fucking terrifying that is. She is bad enough with her mind control in the comic, but imagine her as part of the yes jedi mind tricks are cool cult. Imagine her in charge of an army. oh no Mindfang meanwhile is totes someone who was expelled from the Order and is now some sort of horrible space pirate.
Thsi is very very interesting! eta: the ender's game/undertale thing i meant i should refresh pages i leave open for over an hour...
:D awesome! i'm really glad you find it interesting, especially since it's basically the result of my personal reaction to stuff i've heard secondhand about undertale. like, that it's not a crossover idea conceived with much actual knowledge of the game, the way most are, but instead the result of me looking at the reactions to it and being puzzled, of me liking sans and papyrus and the other characters i've seen but thinking i wouldn't feel guilty if i killed them when playing the game, and trying to reconcile it all.
Alllllright collected thoughts somewhat organized below i might ramble. Spoiler: undertale & ender's game So I think why tumblr is so pitchfork-y about the genocide route of undertale and people who play it is that undertale's morality feels like it has actual weight to it. Most games give only a semblance of moral reaction to the player, but the game remains fundamentally the same. The story stays similar no matter whether you are a dick to the characters or not. In this way Undertale is actually the opposite of the game ender plays. The point is Ender doesn't ever think his game is real. But Undertale hammers empathy buttons, confronts you with harsh reactions to your actions, especially considering how most other rpgs react to the player level grinding by decimating populations of monsters/demons/bandits/whatever (the reaction being no reaction in most cases.) Ender's game is real but tries to look like a simulation. Undertale is just a game but it feels real to people with overactive empathy. They are more mirrors of eachother than equivalents. I think it's the oversaturation of 'your choices don't actually matter all that much' games on the market that makes Undertale feel so real, like its moral judgement of your actions has actual weight. Because it's a new thing for a game to allow you to not be that kind of hero, the kind that wins through mowing down wave after wave of enemies. So anyone with ethics would take that choice, right? Why would you want to hurt an arrangement of innocent pixels? It must be because you're a bad person, just like the game says! *cue pitchforks* The point is if you play Undertale as a 100 percent completionist, if you try to make your character the strongest thing around, you can't be the hero anymore. It won't pet your head and go 'There, there, you could't help it. Here, we're still giving you the story the normal way, othing actually happened.' and that is what's new. It's easy to look at a conventional game with normal combat mechanics judging the player for killing and going 'WELL I HAD NO CHOICE'. You are still the hero, albeit misguided. You were forced to do bad things. Undertale is vocal about giving you a choice to not be that kind of person. If Ender's game had been Undertale I'm not sure he would've killed anyone. The obliteration route villifies your character implicitly and explicitly, every step of the way. But it's feels harsher, more deserved because it comes in direct vicinity to the feel-good-saturday-morning-cartoon-tone of the pacifist route (and the neutral route to a degree).
Spoiler: response hmmm... that makes sense, i can see that. and while i didn't exactly think they were equivalents, looking at ender's game, i did kinda feel as though those two things had stuff to say about each other, that they were talking about the same fundamental concept. in different ways but still, yeah, like they were approaching the same thing. and it's weird that i sorta feel repulsed by undertale as a result of the attitude that's strung up around it, even though the characters and stuff are likeable. sometimes i wonder if that's what the people on gamefaqs might've been getting at when they say it's a "sjw game" and that it cares too much about peace and stuff. like, they mightn't be phrasing it the most articulately but there is something about how tumblr being pitchforky about the game that is uncomfortable. and just, the idea that there is a certain attitude you're supposed to have towards the game, that if you aren't a pacifist undertale player you're "defective" or something. like, i just hate that people would judge my moral worth by what i do with fiction. 'cause, like, while undertale does get people's empathy working, there is no way for it actually to be real at the level of tech we have right now. killing papyrus doesn't make a real person die, it just does a thing to a game.
Yep. it's an uncalled for reaction but it might be a result of the fourth wall leaning and breaking. Spoiler: undertale spoipers I personally think the Obliteration route wouldn't be so excellently written and carefully escalated if it wasn't meant to be played and appreciated. Yes it can really fuck you up emotionally. That's the point. All the murder scenes of major characters hurt. But it's not new for people to put their heart through a grinder for entertainment purposes. Toby Fox isn't the type of guy to put stuff in a game that aren't meant to be found. Heck he even put in a playing ground for the data miners on purpose, it's more reasonable to argue that people weren't supposed to try and solve the W. D. Gaster mystery, than it is to argue that people aren't supposed to play genocide. That is at least decently hidden and nothing in game encourages you to go down that route. It's an easter egg. Toby Wouldn't ahve put Gaster in the game if he wasn't supposed to be found eventually, and he definitly wouldn't have made the genocide route the way it is if it wasn't meant to be played and explored. Heck if he had made Sans' bossfight ad his most iconic song not genocide-route-exclusive content of the game there would be less of an incentive to play it on a meta level. But he put them in and he made the fight the awesomest and hardest fight in the entire game. Of course people will want to play that.
Spoiler: response i'm really relieved to see that logic. like, it's really intuitive once it is spelt out, and just... yeah, it's amazing that the tumblr mentality could mess me up so bad that, well, i'd genuinely end up feeling as though being willing to kill or watch people kill video games characters makes me defective. 'cause i should know it doesn't. but, well, tumblr...
(saw this post [which i think might be spoily] and while it is not directly related to the undertale/ender's game crossover idea, it does remind me of it. i still haven't played undertale yet but i felt like i had to leave that here before i forgot.)
(The enemy's gate is friendship.) Spoiler: But yeah, uh. How does it get put in Ender's game? He understands his enemies, and then destroys them? Ender wants to be a Frisk, but he's deliberately molded into something that can be pointed at the Floweys.
Spoiler: good point though i'd also say that once ender truly understood why the buggers attacked and why humans couldn't communicate with them, he supposed that he shouldn't have destroyed them and tried to make sure he didn't make that mistake again with the next aliens he met.
Spoiler: Yep! When it's not the super fun pressure manipulation bs, he doesn't. He didn't even let himself know he'd killed those kids, after all. That isn't who he wants to be. Just who he chooses to be, to protect himself from other things.
Spoiler: basically in a way, it really comes down to circumstances, that kinda stuff. not completely, but yeah. if he could reset things and/or get away from the pressure, he might've been able to do a pacifist run with the buggers. or at least give it more thought before he killed them.
Spoiler: Heh, there's a thought If he seemed resistant to the molding the teachers put him through, they might put someone else in charge of the plan. It would take him a few runs to figure that out. Maybe if he started communicating with the buggers through the game, and convinced them to get their queens off the planet. Let them see his memories. All while tryng to act.as.they expected hm to.
Spoiler: yeah that was basically one of their issues with bean, the refusal to be molded and to let them figure him out. which is funny 'cause bean was perfectly fine with it when he discovered by himself that the game was actually real. if the teachers realized that bean was motivated in a seebsian way by trying to do the logical and smart and best thing most of the time, which sometimes meant whatever was most advantageous for him and sometimes what was most advantageous for the world in general, they'd probably have had less trouble with him. if they knew that, well, he wasn't about to deliberately mess with saving the earth from the buggers. and true. it would be a tricky thing to figure out.
and in another episode of Gillian Thinks About Crossovers With Games She Hasn't Even Played* (though i've at least read the kintsugi plays dragon age threads, haha), norm the genie in thedas, as, like, a mage or a slave like fenris was. like, i dunno how all the other fairly oddparents characters would crossover in a dragon age/fop fusion but something about what i've seen of da so far really makes me interested in what norm would be like if he was a dragon age character. even though i honestly don't know much about dragon age yet. *i really hope this doesn't become a theme, haha. like, come on, what next, steven universe/assassin's creed? ringworld/five nights at freddy's? gravity falls/OFF?
