Moonchild.
You’ve got the power to be his friend!
There’s a new rock by the water.
please let frlg.ips catch on mondo style!!! fan hacks of games are an ARTFORM and would be so welcome in a post undertale/deltarune weird route world!!! make that game fucked up dawg!!!
Been playing through FRLG.ips, and it's making me think we should have more ROM hacks of videogames that do nothing except adding a Deltarune-style Weird Route that you can only access with a highly specific series of steps, with the implication that this was always just a feature of the game that no one noticed until now. I think it's funny to imagine that most games actually just have a super fucked up evil route because all videogames are secretly Alive and the right circumstances can disrupt the progression of the story enough for the NPCs to Notice.
[ID: art of the wide Floradinn with half-lidded eyes from Deltarune, holding a stick of butter as a sword and saying: "And I've been liiiiicking it." End ID.]
The Gotham List
People of Reddit, you have finally convinced me to post my list to Tumblr.
I have been making a list of reasons that Gotham is the most cursed city (merging canons across soft resets, video games, movies, and more) that so far includes:
multiple gangs (there are over 100 different gangs or crime families in Gotham according to an unnamed Gotham PD officer. Real life Chicago has 55 distinct gangs or crime families for comparison.),
Extremely high crime rate (Gotham is the third for mundane crime. Hub City and Bludhaven are numbers 1 and 2),
barely legal tax haven laws,
massive government corruption,
a smog problem so bad that the Flash can't run at full speed without wheezing,
Multiple slums (Bowery, Narrows, Dockside, Rookery, the Bottoms, the Lows, Riverside, East End, Crime Alley, Hob's Bay, Toxic Acres, etc),
Gotham Bridge has collapsed at least three different times (mainly due to corruption and fraud when building a new one or repairing it),
Gotham subway and rail system are cursed to be unreliable and never on time (this may be a joke, but given that it involves Gotham, I have doubts),
Gotham has a high suicide rate compared to the real world,
Gotham has a major drug abuse problem,
Gotham has a major homelessness problem,
Between 20% and 50% of Gotham is built on reclaimed swamp ground and below sea level (for comparison, 50% of New Orleans is below sea level in real life),
Gotham has a series of dams, levees, and sea walls that are barely maintained and in generally poor condition,
the vast majority of smuggling on the Atlantic Coast comes through Gotham (which is part of the reason there is so many drugs and guns in Gotham),
Gotham has a very tough and kind of cruel college that creates super villains (a lot of the Batman rogues gallery got their diplomas there, taught there, or are otherwise linked to there),
Gotham General Hospital is corrupt, has used patients for illegal medical research, and was involved in an insurance fraud scandal (this doesn't even factor in the sheer number of times it has been burnt down, blown up, or taken over by organized crime),
Gotham is slightly radioactive due to a poorly maintained nuclear power plant (Gotham is still within habitable limits, so Gotham City Counsel is ignoring the issue),
most of the city is slightly radioactive due to a failed nuclear power plant also (Gotham is still within habitable limits. Note that this is a different power plant from the still active but poorly maintained nuclear power plant),
multiple mad scientist labs legally there (Gotham intentionally has very few laws mandating ethics or limits of research),
for an unknown reason, Benedict Arnold is important to Gotham and has his own monument (this isn't really all that bad, but it is still slightly bad that a traitor is important to the people of Gotham),
Gotham holds the record for most continuous days of criminal violence (54 years) and Batman cried when the ongoing record ended (to put it simply, there was a 54 year stretch where there was at least one violent crime each day),
first in DC US for police brutality (it was once joked that Harvey Bullock is responsible for most of the claims. The only reason he hasn't been fired is due to the mortality rate for Gotham Police),
Has the most corrupt or second most corrupt (depending on the run, either Gotham is the most corrupt with Bludhaven second most corrupt or Bludhaven is the most corrupt with Gotham the second most corrupt) police department in the DC US (one canon even goes so far as to have only one honest cop in the Gotham PD),
4 different coroners in Gotham have been drug addicts, 1 coroner was selling bodies illegally, and 2 coroners were serial killers, (no necrophilia that I know of so far)
Gotham Academy, the best and most elite boarding school in Gotham, is cursed, haunted, or other wise problematic in so many ways it needs its own small list (so far, a demonic Monk who was head master and killed kids for immortality, three different ghosts, mysterious tunnels, a bloodline demon witch being named Calamity, another curse to bind the families that killed Amity Arkham to the school, a cursed book titled *Book of Old Gotham*, and a church modified to funnel souls to hell). Remember this is the best and most elite school in Gotham,
A dysfunctional legal system (there is no death penalty in most canons, so everyone goes to either Blackgate or Arkham, both of which are prone to escapes),
Gotham Fire Department is so underfunded and/or corrupt that they take bribes to not show up to fires and extort people to pay them before they put out fires,
an old God's corpse (this old god is leaking forbidden knowledge that causes people to lose their humanity slowly and do ever more depraved acts in pursuit of knowledge),
a living old god named Barbatos (special note, some canons have instead made him into an aspect of Darksied dedicated to making Batman suffer and Gotham worse) who is bat themed and has his own underground Gotham city (he spreads a corruption encouraging violence and vengeance),
a twisted eldritch version of Gotham that is buried deep under Gotham that is usually but not always linked to the bat old god,
a summer home for the King in Yellow (this is a rumor from the insane Bat Old God. To my best knowledge, the King in Yellow has never directly appeared),
a door the various old gods came through that is mostly shut (emphasis on mostly, stuff leaks through),
Dracula either moved to Gotham or had his tomb forcibly moved to Gotham,
the blood of the average person in Gotham is so polluted that it is slightly toxic to vampires,
built on the grave/resting of a warlock (Adam Gotham), who is both alive and dead at the same time (cursing the land to be a place of constant misery to fuel his power),
evil floating in from the Jersy Pine Barrens (this evil floating in decreases empathy and encourages devilish behavior. Also, the Jersey Devil may occasionally hunt in Gotham, but this might just be an urban legend in Gotham. As far as I know, the Jersey Devil has not made an appearance and has only been referenced by an unnamed crazy side character)
a literal hell gate (it is mostly sealed, but leaks enough evil to make demons feel at home. It is never stated what effect this evil has on normal people),
Etrigan once compared the smell of Gotham to Hell (Gotham apparently smells of blood, ash, Brimstone [sulfur] and suffering to the Demon Etrigan or he was just exaggerating to make a rhyme),
16 sealed greater demons (a demon lord and their court. They are in most canons buried or imperfectly sealed under Arkham and spread a corruption that encourages the seven deadly sins),
Arkham is cursed by its founder to prey on the minds of people in the building, driving them even more insane so that no one is ever healed (note that some canons link this to the demons while other canons have them as stand alone curses affecting the building at the same time),
according to a prophecy, the apocalypse is probably going to start in Gotham or Metropolis (no one knows which apocalypse will end the world or when it will happen, though),
the location of a crack in the door to the afterlife (this is mostly connected to Deadman. Also, this makes it harder to pass over and makes it easier for the dead to affect the living in Gotham),
the line between death and life is really fuzzy in Gotham (this makes it harder to die),
Gotham is the second most haunted city in DC USA (they kept New Orleans as most haunted)
a strange aura weakens green lantern power constructs in Gotham (this may be related to the StarHeart being sealed in Gotham for a while),
The StarHeart, a relic of willpower related to the Green Lantern Corps was sealed in Gotham for a while, projecting the "evil" side of willpower to influence people (note that the evil side of willpower is just the aspects of willpower the Guardians of Oa did not want in their main rings and was safely used by Alan Scott, so I am not entirely sure what the actual effects of it are),
built on a cursed Indian burial ground (cursed so the dead never find peace and blight the living),
cursed by an ancient shaman (the writers never bother to define what this curse does, so it is just a generic curse),
666 minor demons who just live regular lives with regular jobs while waiting for the apocalypse (Baytor is the most famous and is a bar tender to make ends meet),
Space and time are not quite right in Gotham after the Infinite Crisis Superboy punch (this led to the return of Jason Todd and made it so time moves just a little faster or slower depending on location in Gotham, and a few buildings are not the correct interior dimensions. The variance is supposedly small and mostly unnoticeable),
cursed by Zeus (this curse is why Gotham has, on average, 320 days of rain or overcast skies each year. Everyone is affected by SAD all the time),
unusually vicious mutant rats,
mutant sewer alligators,
mutant fish (the fish are adapted to survive Gotham Bay and River water. Also, the Joker once dumped a chemical that caused fish to grow Joker smiles. Yes, these fish are still eaten),
The Bowery, one of Gotham's many slums, has a vicious feral dog problem (the residents encourage and protect the feral dogs to keep rents low),
mysterious ruins from a lost civilization that the sewers run into and are a part of (the sewer alligators breed there and the ruins are seen as the Gothic and unusually large portions of the sewers),
Tunnels were built to connect every major building in Gotham in case of war (these tunnels are not maintained, destabilize the ground, and allows for convenient escape paths),
blessed/cursed by a nature goddess from New Genesis to keep the toxic stuff in so that Gotham doesn't pollute the world,
cursed by Spectre along with a blood curse from slain Native Americans to be a place of blood and vengeance (this was almost a Old Testament turn everyone to salt style curse, but it was weakened at the last moment),
cursed by a witch to both bind the Wayne family to Gotham and make Gotham suffer,
cursed by Deacon Blackfire (this curse was supposed to drain life from Gotham to give Blackfire complete immortality, but it is incomplete and half broken, so it does something but no one knows what),
a massive active fault line,
a magic well (this well makes regular magic easier to cast and makes Gotham attractive to magicians like Zantanna),
a chaos well (chaos magic is the opposite of regular magic. The well makes chaos magic easier to cast and makes Gotham attractive to chaos users like Witch Boy Klarion),
There is a magic shop that Zantanna frequently buys from in Gotham that has questionable morals and an inhuman shop keeper,
due to a failed Poison Ivy plot, the grass in Gotham may be evil and aware,
Russian mobsters with Russian backing who are trying to make Gotham worse in hopes of conquering Gotham (not sure why they would want it),
a second group of Russians (not related at all to the first group) who are trying to make Gotham worse so the US looks bad and Russia looks better by comparison (I really want to know how bad DC Russia is that Gotham makes it look bad),
a weak dimensional wall allowing influences from the Phantom Zone (the infamous prison sub reality/dimension that has the worse of several aliens species shoved in to it),
a bottomless pit under part of Gotham that leads to the abyss (also, the being in the abyss occasionally like to watch Gotham),
a different bottomless pit established by the Lego Batman movie (yes, this is a joke and true. I did say it was a merged canon list),
Gotham River and Bay water is so polluted that Aquaman can't swim in it,
Scarecrow fear toxins in the water (at low enough levels that it only causes paranoia),
trace amounts of shed Clayface is in the water (this pollutant cause bodies to twist and mutate, or causes cancer depending on the story line),
trace amounts of TITIAN (a mutagenic chemical that transforms users into Bane like monster) in the water,
Trace amounts of Crioxin (a nerve agent made by Ace Chemicals that causes people to feel no pain, go insane, and develop enhanced bodies) in the water of one of the slums,
Joker chemicals in the water (the chemicals cause mania, unstoppable laughter, and death at full concentration, but in the diluted form just causes mania and involuntary smiling),
Gotham has a higher than normal number of Lazarus pits (the pits offer revival, healing, and immortality in exchange for decreased empathy, decreased humanity, and an obsessive desire to continue living at all costs),
Lazarus pit run off in the water,
The Marsh of Madness is up river from Gotham in some canons (this marsh causes delusional homicidal madness and ego mania),
Marsh of Madness runoff in the water,
Slaughterer Swamp is up river from Gotham in some canons, though most canons have either the swamp or marsh but not both (this swamp causes violent undead and preserves life in a twisted mockery of all that is holy and has a very evil zombie named Solomon Grundy),
Slaughter Swamp runoff in the water,
the tap water barely is considered water by Aquaman's hydrokinesis (and Aquaman can manipulate soda, which is 90% to 95% water. Gotham tap water is more or less thin sludge),
pollution due to being in a barely regulated industrial zone (it is legal to dump industrial runoff in Gotham River),
run off from an unnamed well that causes increased physical abilities in exchange for homicidal violent impulses (aborted Bane plot thread from before they decided Bane should just use chemicals in his Venom),
trace amounts of Bane Venom in the water (because the well was cut. Also, the Bane venom causes slightly increased physical abilities and anger issues in the diluted state),
Gotham tap water is barely purified river water (mainly because if the water treatment plant gets too Gung Ho and purifies the water too much, they get a black liquid that is extremely dangerous and expensive to dispose of. So Gotham City Counsel decided to only have them clean the water until it was probably reasonably safe-ish)
an evil real estate agent who sells failed amusement parks, theaters, and other buildings to criminals,
so many lead pipes or paint that Superman can't see through most Gotham homes and apartments (also note that at one point, the fumes from leaded gasoline blocked Superman, but hopefully that problem has gone away),
a lot of homes and buildings are filled with asbestos (this is according to Firefly, so it might not be fully accurate. The pyromaniac would probably blow the problem out of proportion),
an aura of despair and negative emotions that is slightly grating to psychic individuals,
an Atlantis Leviathan who is fated to flood the world under the docks (there is apparently seven of them and the Atlantic Ocean's is under Gotham's dock),
Gotham, as in the city itself, is aware, intelligent, and has an unhealthy interest in the Bat Family (Tim Drake in particular) and interacts with Gotham through its assorted Voices such as Mayne, The Veil, and a couple others (special note, it is implied but not confirmed that the Joker can sense Gotham as a Voice, but intentionally chooses to abuse Gotham instead of helping like the other Voices) (note: depending on canon this is because of either an improperly sacrificed woman, a demon possessing the city that was warped by Gotham, or just a confluence of everything happening in Gotham),
while not exclusive to Gotham, Kryptonite is used as an underworld currency so a fair bit goes though Gotham,
the dimensional wall (4th wall) is extremely thin, allowing Many Angled Ones (readers) to see into Gotham and occasionally influence Gotham,
Gotham both has an unusually high concentration of new heroes and an unusually high number of hero deaths each year (tragic backstories are really common in Gotham)
Batmite exists, and he intentionally stirs up trouble in Gotham in a misguided attempt to help Batman semi-frequently,
Gotham has a weak dimensional wall in regards to the 5th Dimension (where Batmite is from, also referred to as the imagination dimension) so Gotham can be affected by the imagination of people at a very weak level,
Due to the various villains like Mr Freeze and Poison Ivy's plots, the ground is unstable and the sewers are damaged,
in not just one, but two different canons, the founders of Gotham made a deal with a primordial evil (once a demon and once an eldritch being) for help establishing Gotham (in exchange for all the souls in Gotham at a future point long after the founders were dead and a portal that would let the eldritch being come though fully into Gotham's reality making a new plane that is hostile to all but eldritch beings, respectively),
The DC US government once cut off the city from the rest of the US temporarily (read No Man's Land. This one is hard to explain),
Hugo Strange may have worked with an unknown government agency to improve the genes and bodies of everyone in Gotham to create perfect soldiers (it is not stated if this project was actually successful, but some of the earlier experiments did escape into Gotham),
the various things in Gotham somehow came together to create The Body, a hivemind of evil soil that wanted to take over Gotham (do note it is implied that Batman destroyed them all, but I am including it because if the soil can spontaneously come alive and be evil, it needs to be on this list),
Gotham citizens, while not being meta humans technically, are empowered by everything going on in the city and are no longer baseline humans (standard thugs in Gotham are as strong, fast, and dangerous as soldiers who went though basic training),
The Gotham Rogues and Gotham Knights (Gotham's football and baseball teams) have a horrid track record and are regarded as bad teams (yes, this needed to be after the more than human bit) (also, fun note, Bruce Wayne is a Baseball fan as part of his cover in a couple canons),
Trigon maintains a small force from his cult to watch or he directly keeps an eye on Gotham due to the fact that the end may start there and due to the fact Raven sometimes stays in Gotham,
8 different cults (Satanists, Cult of Baal, Old God Cult [technically speaking there have been at least 9 different eldritch cults, but they are effectively the same in different canons], Cult of Adam Gotham, Cult of Trigon, Cult of Barbatos, Cult of Blackfire, and a generic cult from the Silver Age that never specified what they worshiped),
at least 3 different shadow governments (the line between cult and shadow government is weak in Gotham. I put the Court of Owls, Black Glove and League of Assassins in this group),
and worse of all, it is in New Jersey (try reading a Batman comic and give everyone a Jersey accent).
If anyone knows anything else wrong with Gotham, let me know, and I will update my list.
Also, side note, but if anyone needs my list commented on Reddit, just drop my user name. If anyone needs my list on a site that is not Reddit, please shoot me a link. I like to read the comments that tell me of new and terrible things I have missed about Gotham.
TL;DR: The writers like to find new and exciting ways to make a mentally disturbed orphan suffer.
DELTARUNE THEORY: What is Darker Than Dark – Ranking all Darker Than Dark Entities
PRELUDE:
Darker yet Darker.
Darker than Dark.
Ugh.
Ever since Entry 17 was datamined in Undertale way back, I’ve been obsessed with these words.
For. 9. Agonizing. Years.
Toby’s been screwing us with us for nearly a decade, making us do endless guesses about one of the most childish-sounding concepts ever.
Even knowing that Entry 17 was a teaser for Deltarune as a whole, the concept of “darkness” is still surprisingly ill-defined.
“Darkness” is weird in Deltarune. It doesn’t represent evil like it does in most fantasy stories since Darkners and Dark Heroes are treated as morally neutral. But it’s oddly also associated with some sinister things such as Dark Worlds being a parasite to the Light World that must be vanquished otherwise it will risk coating the world in darkness.
Our best frame of reference as to what “darkness” is, comes from Ralsei’s explanation of Dark Worlds in Ch 3.
A room with the lights off gives you nothing. But if you remove literally all light in a room – making it darker than dark, you can see an alternate world that has always existed but was inaccessible beforehand.
Darkness doesn’t obscure your vision. It instead allows Lightners to see another perspective of their reality.
This perspective is of an alternate world that co-exists with the Light World. One where objects react to and have detailed histories of the same events.
I got a bone to pick with you.
Kris's relationship dynamics with... everyone has to be the biggest mystery box in the entire game now. I just can't narrow it down anymore.
So Kris clearly likes Susie a lot, their interactions and flavor text confirms that they see her as, at least, a platonic soulmate. One that could have romantic connotations but is somewhat ambiguous in the narrative.... until now.
Ok... there's something here. And maybe it's been kind of obvious until now.
Kris only accepts Susie as an answer for who they want to take to the Festival, Kris has weirdly appreciated Susie even before Chapter 1 according to Noelle's blog, and answering Kris + Susie in the Festival ballot has Kris do triple the effort to tease Noelle that they're the better duo. Even writing down "Not Noelle".
Ok, one-sided Krusie confirmed yeah?
.... But then there's this.
Answer Kris + Noelle and they'll intentionally spell Noelle's name to purposefully trigger a romantic flashback from her. It works so well that it actually allows Kris and Noelle to go to the Ferris Wheel... but once they're on Kris doesn't attempt to reciprocate Noelle's desire to have them shake the ride unless you do it.
Not only that but Kris also sees a picture of them as kids on the Ferris Wheel and shuts it instantly for some reason.
Um ok.
Does Kris just like them both? Is the Rouxls throuple foreshadowing? Well no, because they see the triple cup ride and finds it gross?
Jesus, Kris be their wingthem or just say something. Make up your mind!
...And then you get Kris's hotspring scene with Ralsei where you can answer "Your happy ending is with me" without any hesitation whereas answering with a equally vulnerable line to Susie makes them speedrun the dialogue.
the-squeege