Good Traits Gone Bad

Recently reread the scene where we see Yoo Joonghyuk's interaction with Jang Hayoung for the first time and?? Holy shit?? Like, there's literally no other explanation. This man is jealous Kim Dokja made friends and plans with someone who wasn't him.

Like yes, Jang Hayoung pissed him off with her way of speaking immediately, but there have been ruder people. Why was it on sight for her? Why is he so sour over them just chatting? Kim Dokja is like "Hey look! Isn't this guy super useful (for us)?" and Yoo Joonghyuk is like "I'm better than this jerk." Jesus christ.

I was gonna post this as a reply for this post by @he4d-banger but it got too long so I’m making it a separate post.

I have talked about this before but I’ll talk again because I love talking about Cale’s complex emotional state.

More than pushing them away, Cale completely ignored his grief which has made him completely emotional constipated. This has lead to many side affects which get glossed over most of the time since we read the novel from Cale’s pov.

Some that I can remember from the top of my head right now are: dissociation, selective memory, depression, anxiety, stress and tons of physical problems like eating disorder, etc. which I’ll get into more another time. His self destructive tendencies based on the decisions he makes are all because of his emotional constipation.

Cale’s denial over his own symptoms has become chronic over the years even tho it’s fairly visible from other peoples perspective. Some instances I can remember where we see Cale’s condition from other peoples pov are: moments when Alberu tells him he’ll definitely get his slacker life, everyone’s reaction to him smiling after crying, Choi Han meeting younger Cale, the villains’ reaction when Cale gets angry, everyone telling him he’s too weak and skinny, Ron and Choi Han’s pov during side story 7 after Cale dreamed about CJS and LSH first death anniversary, etc. Everyone can recognize that he’s not well.

And about the venting on destroying stuff, that’s exactly correct. Many times when we see the fight from the other pov of the villain, most of the dialogue is about how angry and terrifying Cale looks. Of course part of that could be due to the effect of Dominating Aura, but they specifically mention Cale’s expression and the look in his eyes a lot. That’s what truly terrifies them. Cale doesn’t recognize this but he’s really expressive, everyone says that he’s very expressive and lets his emotions slip through his face.

Another case when he couldn’t control his emotions anymore was when he cried. An interesting fact is that people who aren’t used to crying and/or hold themselves back from crying, once they do actually cry they can’t stop the flow of tears and are motionless and/or rather calm and quiet. It’s that silent unstoppable crying that Cale displayed. His grief finally exploded after meeting LSH and he couldn’t understand the sadness he was feeling at that moment because the meeting ended with consolidation and relief. All the pain over the deaths of his best friends finally released.

That is a complete contrast to his reaction in side story 7 after the first anniversary of his team’s death. When he arrived home he just collapsed on the floor expressionless. Not once did he cry. But the way he collapsed at that moment said a lot about his state at the time. All the stress accumulated in his body from holding back his emotions all day today affected his physical health to total exhaustion

Actually in my opinion SS7 is one of the best chapters about examining Cale’s emotional state. There are multiple visible of him suppressing his emotions like: keeping a neutral expression all day around, refusing to mention what day it was tomorrow even though everyone knew, not closing his eyes in front of the grave because the memories would resurface, the small panic attack shown by his shortage of breath, background silence and feeling of heaviness, and you can see how burned out emotionally and physically he feels. The only way he wouldn’t feel these things was by working, as it is noted multiple times throughout the story that he never took days off.

And my favorite moment was when we see Cale waking up from the dream and very clearly experiencing signs of ptsd and a panic attack. He was feeling cold despite the entire house being heated with magic, cold sweat running down his face, shortage of breath as soon as he woke up and a distressed expression as shown from Ron and Choi Han’s pov He also felt the need to hear noises and pet the kids to make him feel a sense of attachment with reality since the silence in his memories made him feel suffocated. Tho Cale himself couldn’t recognize these symptoms.

That side story also shows how he has grown emotionally throughout the novel now becoming more emotionally open with others.

I can also go on about his selective memory, anxiety, get more into his self destructive lifestyle and about his obvious signs of depression during his team leader days and early part of the novel while touching on his childhood trauma, but this post is already long enough so I’ll leave those for another day.

I despise Venion so much omg

Something that I don’t think gets a lot of fandom portrayal is how playful Noelle gets with Susie when she gets comfortable:

TBOAH Headcanon

You are an anonymous professional assassin with a perfect reputation. You lead an ordinary life outside of your work. You’ve just been hired to kill yourself.

Oh no! They're gonna die if they keep this up, please stop removing us, Kris! This is for your own good!

Funky whatevee

About Kim Rok Soo’s abilities (spoiler alert for chapters 356+)

Have you guys ever noticed that all of Kim Rok Soo’s abilities that are revealed are related to time?

Record: Allows KRS to have perfect recollection of the past

Instant: Being able to move beyond human limitations in the present

I wonder if his other abilities are also related to time. Maybe he has one that is related to the future.

Editing Part 5: The Structural Pass

Okay, by now you've nailed down how you want your plot, characters, and worldbuilding to be. If you haven't by now, it's a good time to format your document into manuscript format if you plan to move forward to publish in any form.

When it comes to structure, what you're really focusing on is readability. If the format of your book is a slog to get through, if your paragraphs are too long or your sentences are all the same. This will lose readers otherwise in love with your plot.

Dialogue

Dialogue heavy scenes are very fun to write, but pages of dialogue with no action can also be exhausting. Break up your dialogue heavy scenes with actions and descriptions. How does the character's body language reflect their feelings on the discussion? Can you give them a task (picking a lock, chopping onions) that allow you to add to the scene (fumbling when frustrated, dicing harder when angry)?

One mistake (that I've made plenty of times) is to have characters doing things for the sake of doing them. But this is an opportunity to add details that add to your plot (the normally awful cafeteria green beans are delicious, a clue to solving the murder!), character (an alien crewmember is trying to copy human expressions to seem more personable, but his many teeth just freak people out), and world-building and setting (Laura is ranting about her ex, but Tara is distracted by how soulless her rich mother's house seems).

Scene Lengths

Are your scenes running too long? Do they start in the wrong place? (Two paragraphs on making coffee instead of "She was making coffee when George burst in.") Tightening up your scenes will do a great deal to make your book better.

This is easy advice to give and harder to picture doing, I've found. Everything often feels essential to a scene. Try to tackle scenes with the following questions:

What is the point of the scene? (George tells Susan his wife left him for Keanu Reeves.)

Where does the action start? (When George burst through the door without knocking.)

What is the goal of the scene? (Susan starts to suspect George of murdering his wife.)

Where does the action end? (George leaves.)

Where should the scene end? - This answer depends entirely on what you need to happen next. Maybe you have another page and a half of Susan musing about her suspicions right there in the kitchen. But maybe this will be more impactful in the next scene, where Susan is snooping in the garden and happens to find something George's wife would never leave behind.

Varying Paragraphs and Sentences

Pull back and look at your pages. Are all the paragraphs the same length? Do you fall into using the same pattern of sentences over and over? (Guilty) Have you used the same word four times in a single paragraph to describe something? (Double guilty) Break those chunks up, what for those repeat words, and vary your sentences. This is going to help so much with issues you weren't aware of.

Chapters and Word Count

There are many ways to do chapters, but you want to keep an eye out for chapters that are going too long (giving your reader a visual break of a chapter ending can help shift the setting and tone) or too short (have you accomplished everything you need?) This is not a knock on either structure done on purpose - this is to catch something you may have overlooked.

When it comes to word count, industry standards are always a good baseline to go with. Your audience often approaches a genre with certain expectations, and while you can make a doorstopper of a romance, you will find more readers by sticking to the 80-100k range.

I updated my taglist with links to the more noteworthy theories.*

*…that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good. they just got a lot of notes.

Here’s are the links for mobile users:

Undertale:

A CHARActer Analysis (bring snacks)

Don’t GOAT Breaking My Heart

The Soul in the Machine

Where is Frisk Post-Pacifist?

Deltarune:

Meta

Kris, Frisk, and Chara are Nonbinary (and why it matters)

Weak Points

On Susie’s Very Cool Gender

Frisk-Kris Parallels

Ralsei Parallels 

Deltarune’s message isn’t that escapism is a bad thing 

Taking a Closer Look at “Tea Theory”

Deeplore:

A More Compassionate View: The Red Soul is Here to Help

Deltarune’s Timeline May Have Been Reset Before

Two Characters Control the Save/Load Screen

The Red Soul Turned Yellow and Saved Kris on its Own

Who is the Narrator Talking to When They Say “You”?

Things that Support Chara being the Narrator in Deltarune

Super Forbidden Acid Lake Dialogue I Intend to be Annoying About 

How to Hack the Susie Plush Into Your Game (pre-bug fix) 

Why There May Be More Types of Boss Monsters 

Kris Has a Trusting Nature (And May Trust Us) 

Let’s Talk about Papyrus! 

We Don’t Know Where Asriel Is 

Susie May Be from a Human Community

Ralsei’s Astral Projection Habit - It’s Not About Us. It’s About Susie.

Things that indicate Noelle may return to the Dark Worlds

Ralsei’s Prophecy has ties to Gaster

Taking a Meandering Look at the New Green Room

Kris and Susie may have been friends in the past (and had a falling out) 

What age was Kris adopted by the Dreemurrs?

Friendship Propaganda:

Kris and Susie

Kris Grew To Care About Susie (Chapter 1)

Kris Cares About Susie Outside of Our Influence (Chapter 2)

Kris May Have Considered Susie a Friend Before Chapter 1 (Halloween Pencil)

Kris Deliberately Gives Susie Space

Kris wasn’t afraid of Susie even before she joined the team

Kris wants to spend time with Susie

Susie is still a little insecure about her friendship with Kris

Susie might have wanted to be friends with Kris since before Chapter 1

Susie is putting a lot of effort into connecting with Kris

Kris and Susie are both choosing to be friends and there’s nothing we can do about it

Kris and Susie may have been friends in the past (and had a falling out)

Ralsei

Ralsei’s Not Afraid to Get Mad at Susie (which is good)

Susie’s friendship with Ralsei changed over Chapter 2

Kris Considers Ralsei a Friend

Noelle and Kris

Why Noelle values her friendship with Kris

Noelle is an incredible friend and reaches out to Kris constantly

Noelle has been saving Kris (on both routes)

Kris was likely sincere when they said they were friends with Noelle

Noelle and Kris are supportive of each other’s relationship with Susie

Both Kris and Noelle enjoy reconnecting

 Susie and Noelle

Noelle is NOT “Unhealthily Obsessed” with Susie (A Cranky Post)

The Susie and Noelle Friendship Propaganda Post

Noelle is genuinely interested in Susie as a person

Yes, there is evidence Susie has a crush on Noelle

Misc Warm Fuzzies

Alphys Might Be Trying to Look Out for Susie.

Things that indicate Undyne might bond with Susie

The Reason Kris Refuses to Give Spamton the Soul

 Susie Has the Biggest Heart on the Team