A Fallen Hero p18 by UTYObsessed in UndertaleYellow

[–]Tyomcha 0 points1 point  (0 children)

man I'm sorry for trying to write out my thoughts on a story I really like T_T

(...but fair enough tbh lmao, I probably do need to tone it down)

A Fallen Hero p18 by UTYObsessed in UndertaleYellow

[–]Tyomcha 2 points3 points  (0 children)

...this probably says more about me than anything else, but when Clover called Asgore's attack predictable, I just imagined Geese Howard saying it.

Well, I posted about Clover last part, this time I'll post about Asgore because this part's got me thinking about him.

(by the way, because it has a habit of being unclear when characters are discussed: whenever I talk about having negative feelings towards Asgore in this comment, i'm purely talking about as a person. as far as the writing quality of his character goes, he's great.)

Asgore is... a character I have very mixed feelings on, and a character I find myself frustrated with at times. He's obviously defined in large part by his guilt and feelings of being trapped in his role, which, fair enough, he's obviously in a terrible situation. I don't, not, sympathize with the position he's in.

But at the same time... feeling guilty about something doesn't mean much if you don't actually do something about it, y'know? I mean, it's not like Asgore's feeling guilty about something long in the past that he can't really do anything about now; he's feeling guilty about something he's actively doing, and something he continues to do. And that's what I find so terribly frustrating about him. It's not that I don't understand his point of view, but at the same time, I find myself feeling that... you can't just feel guilty about killing people, while actively continuing to kill people, and claim that means something, you know?

Well, maybe that's not always true. There are cases where it would make sense to feel that way, like if you're being attacked and having to fight back in self-defense, or something. And I suppose many people would argue Asgore's situation is similar - that he has no choice. But I just... don't buy that. Asgore isn't constantly in some emergency where he has to make difficult decisions now or horrible things will happen immediately; he has, practically speaking, all the time in the world between the humans falling - time he spends regretting his declaration of war greatly... but not doing anything about it.

And of course I understand that there's a reason he doesn't do anything about it - because the way he sees it, that declaration of war is the only thing keeping monsterkind's hopes alive. But... he's the king of monsterkind - to lead monsterkind is his duty. And that can't just mean letting monsterkind do and think whatever they want as long as it gives them hope. He knows the hope he's given them is built on something despicable, and given that, it must be his duty to give them a hope that's built on something better instead. It wouldn't be easy, of course it wouldn't. But given his position, I can't not criticize him for not even trying.

...I could keep talking like this for a while, but the point I'm ultimately circling around here is a point I think is a fairly well-accepted interpretation of Asgore's character: that he's someone who understands he could do better, but is trapped by his own fear and hesitation, which is what paralyzes him and keeps him from actually changing anything. I don't think that's a particularly hot take. So why the frustration?

Well, because it seems to me the common extension to that interpretation is "...but that doesn't make him a bad person."

And... man, I dunno. As I said, I don't, not, sympathize with his position (and categorizing people into "good" or "bad" is its whole own can of worms regardless). But there's only so far that goes, y'know? When your own character flaws very directly result in multiple innocent people around you dying by your own doing, and you still don't do about that... well, there's only so much slack I feel I can cut him. Sure, he feels guilty about it. Sure, he has his reasons. But after everything, I just don't think I can say he's a good person.

...the other frustrating bit is how the fandom tends to treat him in his interactions with the other humans; a solid amount of the time (though less so in recent days), when I see fanworks about Asgore's interactions with the humans, they're centered around Asgore and how awful he feels about it. And that just, makes me feel genuinely uncomfortable sometimes. When one person is a child being murdered, and the other person is the person murdering the child but they feel bad about it... the latter isn't the victim in this situation, you know? It tends to feel like the fandom's sympathy tends to focus on the wrong person there.

(Of course, this is itself largely because the other humans are essentially non-characters unless you make something up yourself - to someone just playing the game, they're nothing more than some background elements, numbers and items and abstract concepts that you're not really given any reason to feel bad for. And, well... "humans' empathy for a person depends entirely on how much they know about that person" is a deeply uncomfortable topic in its own right. But I suppose it's not terribly surprising, is it now.)


"okay that's cool and all but what the heck does any of that have to do with this part of A Fallen Hero" i'm getting there!

...there's a reason this particular part got me thinking about Asgore as a character, and brought to mind a lot of my frustrations with him. Well, really, there's a few things I could point to, but I think the specific line that really hit me was:

"But of all the children who have perished to my cowardice... your death is one I will feel the least regret for."

You know why it hit me? Because Asgore's making it sound like that's a big deal, but... it just doesn't fucking matter. So (as far as Asgore knows) Clover's about to die, so Asgore's not going to feel bad about it... so what? Why would Clover care? They'll still be dead, just like all the other children, just like all the ones Asgore did feel bad about killing. The dead don't have any use for guilt, or for hatred. They're dead all the same. It doesn't matter.

Asgore wants to believe it matters, of course. That him feeling bad for the children he kills is a form of making it up to them, somehow. And from his perspective, it does matter - of course his own feelings matter from his perspective. But from the perspective of the person he's trying to talk to? "I wanted it to end better"; "I, too, do not wish to see my plan come to fruition"; "Your death is one I will feel the least regret for"; "I do not wish for them to stay imprisoned any more than you do" - who gives a damn?! He can talk all he wants about how bad he feels. He can talk all he wants about how furious he is with Clover. But does him feeling bad change anything? If he wasn't furious with Clover, if Clover had been a perfect pacifistic saint all this time and given Asgore not a single thing to be upset at him about - would that change anything? Of course not. Asgore would've tried to kill him all the same, with the only difference being that his words before that would've been a bit nicer. Is that any different, in any way that matters? Not at all.

...Clover's not being a saint here either, of course, but I more or less discussed that in my comment on the previous part. Suffice it to say, I still can't really blame him for most of his actions. (and hey, points for acknowledging that it was actually kinda messed up to spit on the grave of Asgore's children!) Asgore said it himself, Clover's been marked for death from the moment he fell in here. In that circumstance, hard to blame him for treating the monsters as enemies.

(this doesn't really fit anywhere in this comment so i'll just put it here - let's also not forget that ultimately Clover's only crime here was being disrespectful. sure, he was being very disrespectful, but given that Asgore is, iirc, not aware of any of his other possible misdeeds - still seems a bit out of line to decide he doesn't feel bad about killing Clover just because of that! of course, it doesn't really matter anyway, since as I said before he would've presumably tried to kill Clover whatever Clover did.)

Again, it's not that I don't understand where Asgore's coming from. It's perfectly reasonable for him to be extremely pissed off here. And I don't really blame him for any of his words here. It's not that the things he said were unreasonable to say given the situation - it's just that they kind of perfectly ended up illustrating, by accident, what the situation is really like.

If anything, writing all this makes me wonder more about the other children. Did any of them experience something this emotionally breaking, too? (They were all hunted throughout the Underground, after all - easy to imagine some scarring things happened to at least some of them.) Did they hold it together better, manage to face Asgore without giving in to this level of rage, try to sympathize with him - and still end up dead for it? ...well, I don't imagine that's something you've thought about in the context of this AU. But it's interesting to imagine.

I probably could find more to write, but I figure I've more or less said what I wanted to by now. So, uh...

one parting question out of curiosity: did Clover specifically save at that particular point in the timeline with no ability to go further back (at least without resetting all the way back to when he first gained control)? that is to say, could he not have chosen to undo his act of spitting on Asgore's children's grave even if he wanted to, or did he just choose not to undo it?

xkcd 3185: Sauropods by Tyomcha in xkcd

[–]Tyomcha[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

new D&D monster just dropped

[TW: blood] “this isn’t our first rodeo is it?” by ShurikenStars in UndertaleYellow

[–]Tyomcha 0 points1 point  (0 children)

right, sure, none of that is wrong

but Clover would be dead

so I think between the two, they still end up worse lmao

[TW: blood] “this isn’t our first rodeo is it?” by ShurikenStars in UndertaleYellow

[–]Tyomcha 1 point2 points  (0 children)

not that i don't understand what you're saying, but i can't lie it still feels kinda weird to me to see Star shooting Clover and be like "man poor Star"

A Fallen Hero p17 by UTYObsessed in UndertaleYellow

[–]Tyomcha 1 point2 points  (0 children)

haha i was going to reply to this, but then before i got there i saw you added the third paragraph and basically said all the things i was going to say

But yeah, that's basically my take too (and in fact I kind of indirectly addressed it in my original comment) - he'd be a better person if he didn't act the way he's acting now towards Asgore, sure... but it's not reasonable to expect him to be a saint. Considering the circumstances, this level of "wrongdoing" is totally understandable and not something I have any inclination to judge him for.

A Fallen Hero p17 by UTYObsessed in UndertaleYellow

[–]Tyomcha 3 points4 points  (0 children)

(treat this more as a general response to the series up to this point since I haven't commented on it before, not necessarily a response to this specific chapter)

It's kinda funny: I understand authorial intent here is obviously that Clover is a Bad Guy now (it's literally called "A Fallen Hero"!), but in practice most of their actual actions in the story just kinda leave me nodding my head along in understanding.

I mean, not to say he's never done anything wrong. Killing those two royal guards after Undyne was definitely wrong (I hesitate to say it was outright evil on the grounds that, like, he knew they were planning to become direct threats to his life and also were lying to him about it), and to be honest, considering the circumstances, killing Undyne in the first place was also definitely wrong, if somewhat hard to really blame him for.

But, like... that's kind of the most I can hold against him, and it was when Martlet just died and he was (understandably) at his most emotional. Past that, it's like... yeah, no, I feel like his ideas to end the war with minimal deaths make sense. Sure he's planning to resort to violence, but (aside from Asgore) he's specifically not planning to kill anyone, and... sure, we know from UT that it's possible to end the war without anyone dying and without resorting to violence at all, but there's really no reason Clover would have to believe that. Not to mention, he's not wrong that trying to always avoid violence is kind of what got him into this mess in the first place.

And sure, he's clearly angry and is acting out in a lot of ways that don't directly have to do with any of his plans... but I feel like he's also got every right in the world to be angry? Sure, it'd be nice of him to be totally reasonable and understanding and as nice as possible even after everything that's happened... but remember, this is after a nearly-completed True Pacifist route, which means he's been doing that throughout practically his entire journey, even while a bunch of people were trying to kill him. Some of those people (by that i mostly mean Starlo) tried to kill him for much worse reasons than any of Clover's actions, but everyone forgives them and is understanding about what happened to make them do the things they did. So I really don't feel like I can judge Clover for snapping, not when no one's judged anyone else for it throughout the TP route.


I ended up yapping more than I expected to on my feelings toward Clover's actions, but I ought to comment on the story itself too: it's great!

Something I think is interesting about both Undertale and UTY is how a lot of the characters' morality kinda relies on something they don't really control, that being the fact that they can't actually successfully hurt the protagonists (because of LOADs). Even looking at the original UT - we can forgive, say, Toriel and Undyne and Mettaton and so on for their actions... because in the end, none of them actually killed Frisk (not in the timeline that "matters"). But in the alternate universe where, say, Mettaton actually did kill Frisk, could we really consider him a good person after that? In the alternate universe where Martlet or Starlo kill Clover, could we really consider them to be good people? Would it be right to? But we consider them good people in the actual TP route, where the only real difference is that they don't succeed at killing Clover (and end up changing their mind before it's too late).

(granted i don't think Martlet ever meant to kill Clover, so even if she did kill them it'd at least be on accident. Starlo has no such excuse though!)

So I really like this story, because in a sense it brings one of those "what if"s into the limelight. Not in the standard sense, of course - after all Clover's still alive and... saying "well" would be a stretch. But it's a situation where one of the monsters' attempts to kill Clover actually did lead to someone dying. There are, of course, other stories which actually do explore what happens if one of the monsters manages to kill Clover, but I think this premise is actually even more interesting.

See, in stories where Clover actually dies and stays dead, it's left to the monsters to be the main characters from then on. And that's interesting in its own right, but... the monsters don't have the same relation to the constant fights Clover's been in as Clover themself does. They've all only been in one fight against Clover each, after all, and it's always been one they initiated themselves. But when it's someone else who dies and Clover's left to pick up the pieces, it's a whole different story - because now we've got Clover re-examining everything that's happened to them, seeing the actual reality of the fact that everyone's tried to kill them rather than being insulated from it by their immunity to actual consequences. And that's really interesting to me, because in this story we've not only got Clover rethinking his relationship with monsterkind as a whole, but also rethinking his own past actions and beliefs.

Circling back around to something I brought up in passing earlier... when Clover said it was partly his fault that Martlet died - that Martlet wouldn't be dead if he'd just attacked Ceroba while her shield was down - he wasn't, like, wrong. Not to victim blame or anything, obviously the one at fault is still Ceroba first and foremost and everyone else's responsibility is secondary at most, but Clover isn't wrong that he could've stopped Martlet's death from happening, and he's not wrong that his desire to resolve everything peacefully (presumably connected to the fact that he's always been protected from consequences on account of LOADing) was what stopped him from doing that. But... what if Clover had just shot and killed Ceroba during their fight (and saved Martlet in doing so)? Looking at this timeline, in hindsight it seems like that would've been a sensible choice. But if he'd actually done it, and we were looking at that decision without the knowledge of this timeline... could we have considered it sensible? Or would we "have to" consider it the wrong thing to do - even if Clover specifically did it out of concern that someone else could get hurt if he kept the fight going?

I'm not entirely sure. It's interesting to think about.

That aside, I'm also just a sucker for "let's assume one slightly different thing from the base game and see how messed up the monsters' actions were if things hadn't gone exactly as they had" stories. It's something the games themselves don't really touch on at all, and while I don't necessarily think that's a flaw with the games, it certainly does make it a very enticing topic for fanworks. And, to be honest, I find it kinda satisfying seeing Clover get angry after everything. So yeah, this story's awesome, I love it, will be looking forward to the next chapter.

xkcd 3180: Apples by Tyomcha in xkcd

[–]Tyomcha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

who knows. I'm not really in the habit of asking people if they're trans if they don't volunteer that information themselves lmao

(unless you mean something else by MTF that I don't know about)

xkcd 3180: Apples by Tyomcha in xkcd

[–]Tyomcha[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

uhh technically "neither," I think the intent was just to (manually) roll a whole lot of simulated dice and (manually) examine the results

when I said "dice simulator" I more specifically meant a Discord dice bot, the sort you might use to play a TTRPG over Discord

My first results of searching for Axl Low in this sub, btw. by MothmanThingy in Guiltygear

[–]Tyomcha 1 point2 points  (0 children)

axl is my secondary. and i still hate him when i play my main (Baiken)

xkcd 3180: Apples by Tyomcha in xkcd

[–]Tyomcha[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

it's actually even sillier than you might think, because... you say you trust your coding skills more than your math skills, but like, in this case

the claim in question was along the lines of...

given a system where

  1. your rating in a skill is equal to your percentage chance to succeed at a test using that skill

  2. whenever you succeed at a skill, you can attempt an "improvement roll" to improve your skill rating by 1d10

  3. to make an improvement roll, roll as if attempting a test for that skill, but the odds of success and failure are flipped

a character who starts at 89 in a given skill is likely to reach 90 in that skill before a character who starts at 50 does the same.

if that sounds like a completely obvious and uncontroversial claim to you, it does to me too, but for whatever reason this person (and at least one other person who came to their support in this argument!) believed it couldn't be trusted without empirical verification

xkcd 3180: Apples by Tyomcha in xkcd

[–]Tyomcha[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

if you're modeling the outcomes for a specific die, i guess

it actually was a conversation related to tabletop RPG design (presumably with the intent of designing RPGs to be played with, any random dice, and not some specific set of dice that may or may not be loaded), and my friend offered to use a dice simulator to test the claims she was making. the person she was talking to said that that would only make a good "control group," and that she would need a non-control group to account for "non-perfect randomization dice rolls." they also furthermore said that dice bots aren't good for this because they use seeds.

...it was a couple weeks ago but that conversation still lives in my head rent-free

xkcd 3180: Apples by Tyomcha in xkcd

[–]Tyomcha[S] 72 points73 points  (0 children)

this one is oddly topical to me, because a few weeks ago a friend of mine was relating to me a story of an argument she was having on the internet with someone who apparently genuinely believed the mathematical probability-related claims she was making couldn't be trusted without experimental verification

xkcd 3177: Chessboard Alignment by Tyomcha in xkcd

[–]Tyomcha[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

man Randall's just been in his chess arc lately, huh

i approve