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stainedglassthreads · 6 months

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I feel like the four leads of Deltarune--Kris, Susie, Ralsei, and Noelle-are just. Somehow two different levels of queer-coded.

(Edit: Just to be clear: not saying any of this to disparage or insult shippers of Kralsei, Suselle, or Kriselle, I've just seen a lot of cool analysis about tropes, romance, and lack of choice in Deltarune and wanted to chime in with some of my own thoughts. If you ship any of those ships in Deltarune--fantastic! May you find a lot of content precisely to your taste.)

Like. On the one hand, if you're looking at tropes, they are very neatly set up into two romantic partnerships. Noelle is very blatantly interested in Susie, and Ralsei's feelings for Kris are often portrayed similarly. On a surface level, both pairings appear very clear. Noelle is a girl in love with another girl, while Ralsei is a very effeminate boy in love with a teen who doesn't appear to use pronouns. And a big deal isn't made of either pairing, there's nothing really in the way of Suselle or Kralsei on a societal level we've encountered so far. At least in terms of gender and sexuality. But if you look a little closer, it's kind of...'these are a very straight idea of queer ships', y'know?

Noelle and Susie are both girls, but one is very effeminately coded, anxious, uses magic, and is more traditionally cute, while they other is crass, crude, intimidating, and physically strong. Ralsei and Kris are gender-noncomforming, but Ralsei is a sweet pacifistic healer who bakes cakes while Kris uses a sword, and keeps being mistaken for a boy by much of Youtube and Reddit. The active one and the passive one, the fighter and the mage, the one with cute hobbies and the one who eats moss, the one in pants and the one in a dress.

And here, I start thinking of some posts I've seen analyzing how, in Deltarune, romance is used to explore how Kris doesn't really get choices. Kris has been cast as the leader and knight, and Ralsei has been cast as the healer and Princess, even if he is a boy. The leader often ends up with the healer. The knight often gets the princess as a happy ending. But Kris doesn't seem to like this! Their reactions to Ralsei are constantly lukewarm at best, and that's not getting into how Ralsei seems to be in love with his idea of Kris, while being very. Asriel-coded, who the game describes often as Kris' brother, in sharp contrast to how ambiguous Chara and Frisk's relationships with the Dreemurrs were.

If we and Kris reject Ralsei as a love interest, we can a different romantic partner in Noelle...but this choice has a bodycount, traumatizes Noelle, doesn't seem to leave Kris any happier, and it's still a kind of straight-coded ship. Now it's the knight being paired up with the apocalypse maiden, for the doomed codepedent toxic tragedy lovers out there. But it kinda makes sense too, right? If Kralsei is the expected RPG romance, then Kriselle would be the expected romance if there were no Dark World and Ralsei weren't an option. They're childhood friends and neighbors in a small town, their families used to be very close, Rudy is still very fond of Kris. They're even extremely angel/devil coded.

But the most interesting part is. It's implied that there IS someone that Kris is very interested in, either platonically or romantically. It's Susie. Kris never seems frightened by Susie when they're bullied by her, and rejects Noelle's offers to switch seats. They seek comfort from Susie rather than Ralsei after the Spamton fight, they call her their friend when Toriel calls, they share moss with her, they refuse to think about her during Snowgrave when Ralsei prompts them, they make it clear that out of all the people they COULD go to the Carnival with, Susie is the one they'd ACTUALLY want to choose.

And this is the part that drives me crazy. Because while Kris is so tightly controlled by genre and narrative, and those things would usually push them towards Ralsei or Noelle, and Ralsei keeps encouraging Kris to stick to the narrative. Susie is the one who refuses to be bound to the narrative. Susie is the character of Deltarune who is most unapologetically herself--and isn't that a very queer thing, refusing to be anyone but yourself despite everything? She says no thanks to the prophecy, until she comes around to it on her own terms! She makes herself and Ralsei learn to take their own actions, and drags Ralsei off to have fun with him instead of letting Kris choose who to with! She doesn't stay in her box of the damage-dealing fighter, she insists on learning Healing magic, even if she's not particularly skilled at it at first! Even Ralsei is forced to admit that it's wonderful that Susie is Susie, and not anyone else!

I think Kris likes Susie a lot. And part of it may be admiration. That while Kris is controlled by the player and the narrative and the prophecy and humanity and divorce and a dozen things outside their control, Susie refuses to ever be bound by anything. And Kris and Susie together happen to be the two more masculinely-coded party members, the two melee fighters, the two troublemakers. It honestly makes me wonder a little if Susie and Kris might be able to make their own ending beyond the bounds of gender expectations and romance expectations together? It would be cool. And I think it would make Kris very happy to break free like that.

#deltarune #deltarune meta #deltarune analysis #deltarune theory #kris dreemurr #susie #noelle holiday #ralsei #kralsei #kriselle #krusie

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ariadnesweb · 10 months

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Unabashedly love how Deltarune's main cast (Kris, Susie, Noelle, Ralsei) all seem to be based off types of horror monsters, combining very antagonistic/ off-putting personas with the average experience of being an awkward teenager.

There's Kris, the human, who's compared to a shambling corpse, a type of zombie lacking life for itself, bound to the most basic impulses for life, or perhaps a phantom knight, a ghost chasing after a otherwordly, personal liege to die for.

There's Susie, the bully, the gangster, the wild barbaric beast, the 'dark' one in the group, who played her role straight in chapter one, attacking anything in her path for daring to be weaker than her, and even once on the side of good, can't shake her doubts that she stands as a barely contained anti-hero compared to her friends.

Noelle, of course, is the witch & the ghost - both roles brought to the front throughout the course of the Weird Route. The Witch - she is the holder for some of the most destructive magic seen so far, a Knight capable of opening a Dark Fountain. And as the Ghost, Noelle is bound by history's tragedies to repeat them blindly, seeking a sense of closure for her family as it still cannot be found.

Ralsei, as he stands, seems to be some fae-type creature - a darkner that operates on a set of foreign, arbitrary rules - for whom friendship is paid with by acquiescence to said rules. How solid is his friendship? To who is loyalty owed to? We don't know. Neither does Ralsei - he's a shapeshifter, self variable and changing. If there is a price to pay, it will be paid dearly: Ralsei stands as the Prince of Darkners, and his CastleTown is both a hub for our friends, and the prison for our enemies.

There is something sweet about such a ragtag group of weirdoes finding community with each other, a chance to grow-up with friends and allies.

#deltarune #deltarune meta #meta #deltarune analysis #deltarune theory #soilai's labyrinth

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huecycles · 1 year

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jevil & noelle friendship post

hi, i want to talk about how noelle and jevil would definitely get along well or even be friends! also how their characters contrast nicely with each other and could possibly have a dynamic as interesting and engaging as spamton does with kris. this is quite a long post, so yeah grab a seat lol. first off, take a look at noelle’s reaction to both of jevil’s items:

noelle likes horror movies, and jevil definitely fits that scary clown trope. the description for jevilstail is “a j-shaped tail that gives you devilenergy”, and it can be equipped on noelle. considering her comment, and how she compliments susie’s tail later, this could mean she thinks tails in general are cute (perhaps longer ones? susie is often headcanoned to have a lizard-esque tail while jevil has his j-shaped devil one. noelle has a deer tail which is pretty small lmao, kinda unrelated but i’m sure it could be for a silly reason like that, and in susie’s case, highlighted by her crush on her).

the fact noelle can equip jevilstail and say she likes an item that gives her “devilenergy” is very interesting too, and kinda goes along with what she said in the ferris wheel cutscene, how she wishes she could break the rules and be more like susie who isn’t afraid to do that. compare that to ralsei’s “i’m a good devil, ok?” and susie’s “figured i’d grow one someday” and you’ll see how noelle likes the idea of being “devilish” but is pretty shy about it as she mutters it.

now let’s talk about devilsknife. devilsknife is a susie weapon, it is pretty powerful and the name itself is already scary sounding. of course, noelle can’t equip it since her weapon type is supposed to be rings, but she doesn’t seem that scared when presented with the item, unlike ralsei who says it feels “too evil”. this is what she has to say:

devilsknife, as in jevil, smiles at her. now, how could she be seeing that? most people interpret this smile as the blade deforming itself to resemble jevil’s face, or his own smile being reflected in the blade. however, there’s a detail a lot of people have missed (as well as this little moment altogether which is one of few the indicators of jevil’s actual and current presence in chapter 2).

this is devilsknife’s description:

there’s a skull symbol emblazoned in the blade (which is a hybrid between a scythe and an ax, aka what lets susie equip it due to her weapons all being axes).

now, according to my own headcanons due to certain wording jevil uses in his fight, like “EVEN DEVILSKNIFE IS SMILING!” and “LET’S MAKE THE DEVILSKNIFE.”, plus how tasque manager has the exact same reaction to both of jevil’s items, meaning she knows it’s him/knows of his presence there - contradicting the common idea that jevil is not the jevilstail and thus not in the inventory due to his wording in chapter 1 - but still regarding the devilsknife with some strange familiarity which could imply she knows it is a weapon and has possibly not only met jevil but fought him before: “silly tail” vs “silly Devilsknife”, capitalized...

...make me believe devilsknife and jevil are not one in the same, and are only “fused” (metamorphosis?) in the inventory. while i know certain details are hard to portray in a tiny sprite, you can see there’s no skull symbol anywhere in the devilsknife’s blade which has more empty space, and given how it’s “emblazoned” it would mean it’s a printed/engraved symbol somewhere.

so my small tangent here is that the skull only appears once jevil and devilsknife are fused together and in your inventory. considering how scythes are often seen as a grim reaper's weapon and associated with death, having jevil become the actual devilsknife and clearly maintain his conscience would nicely translate into a skull symbol appearing. the “THIS BODY CANNOT BE KILLED!” line also gives this some more depth. given how jevil’s "mind" is chained to his "body", as he gives a lot of emphasis to his body (”THEY CRAVED TO IMPRISON MY BODY”) and the association of how his mind is “free” while his body stays locked up paints a grim picture on how he was deemed insane, yet found a loophole in that, and thus “freedom”.

scythes are also famous for beheadings. jevil has no neck, his head separated from his body. and bringing all that back to noelle, THIS is how he smiles at her. pretty morbid, right? cool as fuck too :o)

of course, these are noelle’s only direct interactions with jevil through his items, but i’d also like to bring attention to how her themes and symbolism go along so well with jevil’s, just like spamton’s go with kris’s.

kris is often likened to demonic imagery, aka their creepy red eyes, the use of the horns headband, how they have an interest in summoning demons due to their search history, and finally: king calling them "lightbringer" which is just what “lucifer” means in latin + that word itself is generally associated with lucifer, satan, what have you. noelle has obvious ties with angels: being called one by both spamton and pink addison while on a snowgrave route, her comment about growing big angel wings in the ferris wheel cutscene, the angel doll her and dess made which rudy keeps around as a good luck charm, and so on. spamton and jevil, respectively, are the opposites in that regard when compared to kris and noelle, so the contrast here is really damn fun to think about and explore.

another thing is how both noelle and jevil are incredibly powerful and involved in violent acts (though you know how snowgrave goes, of course), and how kris and spamton are in a very similar predicament as puppets who try to fight back. i believe just like how spamton and kris both managed to relate to each other’s despair and tried to help each other out (albeit in a very warped way in spamton’s case), i think noelle and jevil would have a similar thing.

lemme talk about something interesting in the snowgrave route. there is a pattern going on with noelle that is slightly overlooked, which is this:

1) a order is given by the player through kris, often “proceed”. 2) the screen goes black, the iceshock sound is heard. 3) noelle is completely confused about what just happened.

in the weird route, there are several times where noelle zones out, and while the moment people focus on is when she’s using snowgrave on berdly, the iceshock on the puzzles + the pink addison to get the freeze ring are very important. she comments later on how the battles are blurring together and how she cant remember a lot of details, she just followed "kris's" command and acted accordingly. a similar thing might have happened when she iceshocked spamton neo too, as the screen goes black again.

considering how she says “there was so much snow, i couldn’t see anything” after berdly is in the ice, i believe whenever she uses her power while aided by the player (and later, her own, as seen in the last puzzle where she does it by herself, leading to when she encounters berdly where she was just about to freeze him, completely on “automatic mode”, seemingly just waiting for the actual order) her mind goes blank, and she just acts as instructed. noelle might even look like this while the screen is black, which is a bit haunting to me:

going back to jevil, and knowing how prone to violence/chaos he is, i believe he would be able to sense her affinity for power and maybe even help her control it, likely for his own gain as he is hypocritical (strips the player of choice once you arrive with the key and refuse to open his cell), though similarly to spamton and kris, jevil could feel some kind of connection with noelle’s power and how dangerous it can be.

i believe jevil could help noelle get a hold of herself when using her magic and not just follow someone else’s commands, as well as keeping a clear head through it all. he’s pretty damn powerful himself, so he would instead help her come up with her own strategies and willpower, even if his teachings might fall flat due to his own insistence on having her cause chaos. i believe that can overruled by noelle's kindness and gentleness, and due to jevil's own influence on her (to be more bold and assertive, as she expresses she wishes she could be more like susie and break the rules like i said before), whatever "plan" he may have on turning her into this powerful killing machine backfires simply because she says no to him. lol his own strong personality boosts her shy and scared one so that itself is his own failure, i think that’s hilarious and a great character study for the both of them!

i headcanon jevil calls her "headlights" as a reference to how she's easily scared + a cruel nod to the “deer in the headlights” thing, which fits with his character who has probably a morbid sense of humor. noelle would definitely be intimidated by him at first, but i think she’d warm up to him due to her own interests in “scary” people, firstly her crush on susie and secondly her strange friend jevil who looks like a killer clown in the flesh. an easygoing, kind kid in jevil's life would also brighten it up :) he could definitely use a gentle presence in my opinion, i mean. guy’s said to be a loner, even if he had seam.

long post, but yeah! i know the susie and jevil connection is easier to make because of their brief interaction, devilsknife etc, but i feel like noelle and jevil being friends is very unique and more interesting to me personally. if kris has their scammer puppet uncle, noelle has the silly, slightly intimidating clown (also uncle coded) who helps pick out her fits for halloween and do her makeup. she also gets to wear out five hairbrushes on the wavy mess that’s under his hat, then braids his hair during the afternoon and shows him different hairdos, choosing the one jevil’s eyes dilated at. kris takes a picture of him looking handsome under noelle’s care and hits ‘send’ saying “ey uncle spamgton check out ur lover boy” while spamton tells them to “del3te THIS”.

it’s nice it’s cool!! let jevil and noelle be friends!!

#jevil #noelle holiday #kris dreemurr #spamton #tasque manager #susie deltarune #berdly #all characters that were mentioned a lot will be tagged lol #devilsknife #yes even you #weird route #deltarune #snowgrave #deltarune chapter 2 #deltarune analysis #deltarune meta #i guess?#idk how to use these tags #txt

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megaderping · 4 months

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youtube

Gerson Boom is one of the coolest characters in Undertale, despite playing a 'minor' role as a shopkeeper. From his design to his personality to his role in the game's backstory and his guts in the No Mercy run, there's a lot to love about this old timer, and in this video, I break down his character in all three routes as well as explore his lasting legacy on the world of Deltarune.

As a side note, the Undertale Yellow video had to be unlisted due to an audio error I overlooked. I will be reuploading it soon, potentially with added voices for the characters. We shall see!

#undertale #deltarune #gerson #gerson boom #undertale analysis #undertale meta #deltarune analysis #deltarune meta #utdr #video essay #character analysis #Youtube

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prism-forgone · 5 months

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i think about the player overwriting kris's file at the beginning of the game a lot.

even if you start over, the file name no longer says "kris". it's [empty]. kris's file is gone for good after you overwrite it. this is impactful even if kris has never saved before because that save file in slot 1 was still theirs. it had their name on it. it was theirs.

i wonder how it would feel like. to not only have your body hijacked but having something like a save file, something that is for the most part considered your private safety net, something that means power over your own fate, something that you feel uneasy going without... just torn away from you. erased. overhauled. not to be seen again even after time is turned back.

would losing it feel more horrific than losing control of your body?

#analog horror but you're *in* the analog so it loops back around to being existential horror #kris #kris deltarune #kris dreemurr #deltarune #utdr #chatter #my meta #meta #deltarune meta #deltarune theory

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inbarfink · 1 year

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It’s truly hard to overstate just how much Spamton’s mere existence is a nightmare for himself. Like, arguably the life of everyone in the Deltarune universe, and especially the Darkners, is an existential nightmare. Spamton’s just on a whole other level. This is Advanced Existential Nightmare.

Cause yeah, on some level it’s always kinda depressing to think about the idea that all Darkners are bound to the fact that they are created from inanimate objects and the emotions Lightners associate with them. That this forms some sort of irrevocable inner essence and Purpose they can never change, even if they truly wanted to be something else. No one can choose who they are in this world and so on.

But like, at least most of the other Darkners we met can get some sort of contentment from following the role they have been given. Tasque Manager loves managing things (and Tasques), Lancer is a playing card who ultimately just wants to play around and have fun, Queen seems to truly love being a useful computer who can supply Lightners with endless hours of entertainment and knowledge in her own egoist way. Even King’s initial angst was based around no longer being able to fulfill his purpose.

But Spamton… as the living embodiment of Spam Mail, he was created with the desires of your typical spam-mail; advertising and/or scamming people. And he was created to be obsessed with the things that your typical Spam Mail talks about; success, fortune, status and [[BIG SHOT]]. But he was also created to be utterly terrible at accomplishing these things.

He’s Spam Mail, Spam Mail is weird, obviously scammy and generally gets ignored or thrown away. And no matter how much Spamton wants or how hard he tries, by the basic nature of his being, he can never actually be good at this. And he also can’t, like, understand that maybe salesmanship isn’t his thing and take up macramé or something. Because that obsession is also part of his basic nature. Spamton’s basic nature is to be forever frustrated, desperate and miserable.

And that’s exactly why he’s the first Darkner we’ve seen who’s truly set on cutting his puppet-strings. I think that a lot of the ‘Freedom’ he wants is freedom from that utterly miserable lot in life. To longer be bound by the rules of Being Spamton. On some level it’s probably about breaking the Rule of Nature that means he has to be a failure, that he can’t truly become a [[BIG SHOT]] on his own. He wants to overthrow God so he can get the financial success that feels he deserves.

(I know some people are angry at the Mysterious Voice on the Phone for abandoning Spamton, but I do wonder if it wasn’t basically inevitable. That the Mysterious Voice, regardless of what they wanted, could simply not subvert Spamton’s Failure-ness forever)

And that’s kinda tragic cause it’s shows that even when trying to break away, he’s still doing so through the lenses of the existential curse that’s causing him so much suffering. To be free is to get [[BIG]], and the only way to get [[BIG]] is by scamming and tricking and manipulating. Because as long as he’s Spamton, those are really the only things he can do.

But on some level, I think, he might also want to be free of that. Maybe it started as wanting to break away from the ‘script’ that means he’s bound to be a failure - but with time, I think he also grew to want to want different things. It’s clear Spamton is very distressed about losing the friendship of the Addisons and Swatch. He considers his own loneliness as one of the most defining traits of his own existence (he always start projecting on Kris on the basis of both of them being lonely). But he literally can’t put his obsessive quest for success aside and focus on his relationships. He literally can’t.

Outside of, I guess, the Pacifist ending to his NEO fight. That’s the one point where Spamton was able to put his ambitions aside for the sake of friendships.

If only for a moment.

But however brief it was, it still feel like it meant something to Spamton.

#deltarune #spamton #spamton g spamton #spamton deltarune #deltarune meta

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prior-medium · 3 months

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"Your choices do(n't) matter" -> Deltarune to Undertale

I have been wanting to make a post for a long time, but I have a free hour on my hand and a mind full of Deltarune soo allow me to draw my favorite parallels about how Undertale and Deltarune both tackle the concept of choice, and how they are distinct but both still tell a necessary story.

Also, if you are reading this post, I am assuming you have played through Undertale and Deltarune Chapters 1 and 2, because this post will have spoilers for both. Without further ado…

Undertale’s approach when it comes to choice is one that directly targets and addresses the player. Much of the characters’ dialogue with Frisk often address them as “the human”, which, depending on your stance, could be a comment meant to speak to Frisk as a character, or to you, the player, as a human being.

In fact, as much as I adore Frisk as a character all of their own, they aren’t necessarily given any defining personality traits. They are, in the purest of senses, meant to directly be an in-game representation for the whims and desires of the player. “They” act, “they” fight, “they” flee, but it’s always you, the player, making the decisions. This isn’t necessarily a unique concept, but it’s the way that this is applied that makes this particular idea special in Undertale.

Obviously, the most noticeable instance of this is when Sans calls the player out towards the end of the game, explaining that those little levels and numbers that we, as the player, loved seeing go up, were affecting the world that we had just spent the last few hours immersing ourselves in. There is a direct effect of our choices on this universe. It is a pre-established place, and it will continue without us, the player, making an impact. In fact, in the neutral and genocide routes, you are actively making this universe a worse place! It puts the player in the position to act as themselves and make a decision about how they want to impact this virtual world. In essence, the decisions made by Frisk and you, the player, are presented as one in the same. Frisk isn’t necessarily seen as a vessel for your intentions, but rather, as your intentions themselves.

This created a unique meta-narrative when it came to the idea of how we, as players, consume media in universes. It presented the idea that universes made by creators aren’t just things to pick up and put down, but that each game world has their own story that continues onwards, with or without input. You aren’t seen as some great hero, but rather a nuisance at best, a mass murderer at worst. This was the way that Undertale addressed the idea of stories in their universe: you, the player, were seen as synonymous with Frisk, the character.

Deltarune took a different approach to this. Of course, it becomes instantly recognizable to players that “our choices don’t matter”, which is told to us almost immediately in the game. There are some sections of the game where the decisions you make don't directly influence the storyline, which differs from the narrative set by Undertale. It takes this idea of “choice” that we had pre-established going into the Deltarune experience by Toby Fox’s other works and toys with it.

Kris is their own individual. Kris has had a hard time making friends. Kris has a brother at college, and is a known town citizen. Kris is greeted by neighbors, classmates, and teachers. Kris loves chocolate and pies, shows anger at Spamton’s demise, and has a tendency to make some scary jokes (as referenced by Noelle). They are their own person. This is when Undertale and Deltarune start to split on the concept of choice.

Frisk was seen as the culmination of the player themselves, but Kris isn’t the player. This is what makes the ending of Chapter 1 particularly shocking– the idea that Kris could directly address us, the players, and our influence on them, by removing their soul. They don’t want to be the culmination of our actions. They want to be Kris.

This is where the idea of choices is twisted from our prior conceptions. Just like in Undertale, our choices in Deltarune are either praised or criticized depending on how we interact with the world we are given. However, in Undertale, we are judged as players by the characters aware of our influence. In Deltarune, we are judged in a far more intimate setting: directly by the person we are instructing to do our bidding. Because, at the end of the day, our choices do matter in Deltarune. They just matter on a smaller scale. They matter to Kris.

In this way, both games address the way our choices are impactful; they just happen to do so in two, unique settings. I think this is what makes both Undertale and Deltarune so interesting– they have a similar concept, but they completely flip the script on what that concept means, and how it applies to universes.

#this is basically a love letter to toby fox's way of #adding themes to his games #deltarune #undertale #frisk undertale #kris dreemurr #kris deltarune #frisk deltarune #undertale theory #deltarune theory #utdr #undertale meta #deltarune meta #undertale analysis #deltarune analysis

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topersevereassentiment · 3 months

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What are the salient features of Asriel, post-canon, that keep us from "saving" him from life alone in the Underground?

He's soulless (a practical problem),

he'll soon return to being a flower (a practical problem) and would prefer that you think of him like this rather than Flowey (a personal and interpersonal problem), and

he's decided to stay and tend the grave of the fallen child (and this is not really a problem at all; rather, a decision, which the boundary conditions of Undertale require us to respect).

There is a lot of UT post-canon fic out there which treats all these as practical problems. Frisk can just get a soul from somewhere, throw Alphys technobabble or soul arcanobabble at the body issue; get Flowey in therapy; and... also get Flowey in therapy for that last one, because his decision isn't really legitimate, in save-the-goat stories. It's self-harm. Which, personally, is both understandable and missing the point of one of the game's core themes: no matter how many times you restart the story, there are things you can't do; you are not getting a 100% Complete Perfect Pacifist where even Asriel is saved, and it's okay to be wistful about it, but you still need to put down the controller eventually. Getting him to the surface happens a lot in fic, because we all want the goldenest ending, but it could never happen in canon and we just have to live with it. It's thematically potent and I'd lose a lot of respect for Undertale's commitment to its story if you could circumvent it.

(Incidentally, this feels to me like it stems from the same ideas as making "* I have places to be" the wrong answer, a giving-in to Frisk's self-sacrificing, self-disregarding nature which must be corrected. Sometimes, you have to let people live and make their own decisions, outside the boundaries of the story's frame. Your perspective only goes so far.)

...now, fluffier, more sympathetically-traumatized Asriel, on the other hand...!

Ralsei's woes in Deltarune are very visibly the same kind of isolation as what Asriel's dealing with at the end of Undertale, but a) it's worse (a whole lifetime of waiting in a very deliberately empty, lifeless, three-screen-long kingdom) and b) he's stuck there for purely practical reasons. Darkners can't enter the Light World without becoming objects. He never made a decision to be here.

It's not something we can technobabble our way out of right now, but we're only in Chapter 2, right? We can save him, in a way we can't save Asriel: the deadlock we can't resolve has been removed; we don't really have to think about his preferences any more, because the preferences that kept us from helping him and left him stuck in the Underground I mean Dark World are just gone.

His issues are also much more obvious from the get-go, and seem designed to be something we talk him out of – not Asriel's decision to stay by his lost friend's grave, with a weight of meaning and feeling behind it, but hero worship, subservience, religious dedication to the Prophecy and self-image issues, all clear and visible dysfunctions. Giving Asriel therapy has left the realm of fanfiction and wish fulfillment and become part of canon... and the real disagreements we had with UT!Asriel over what he was and meant and deserved have become simple roadblocks for DR!Asriel whoops I mean Ralsei, things we have to help him through. Practical problems where the solution is friendship speech + therapy.

To make a slightly heavy-handed comparison, Ralsei saying we exist to serve Lightners and gratefully referring to himself as Kris's lackey is Anthy saying I'm the Rose Bride because I like it. It's the kind of reason we're inclined to reflexively overrule without working to deal with it at its root. Ralsei is Asriel, minus the irreconcilable and bittersweet parts, someone whose objections to being helped have either been removed or simplified down until we can feel good about disabusing him of them. He's our wish fulfillment in the way that candy on trees might be Susie's and a city of shining lights might be Noelle's and Giant Arcade Consoles might be Berdly's: an Asriel you can help, who you can make go to therapy and deal with the problems that keep him from caring for himself; who'll shut up, comply and let himself be saved.

...so the fact that Kris – whose personal issues are opaque, complex, and frustrating; who appears to be actively hiding parts of their life and motives from us; who clearly doesn't want our help or an improved social life at the expense of their agency – finds him so distasteful might not just be because he's a parody of their brother or Secretly Evil or whatever. If Ralsei is "the kid they're supposed to be" it's not just his fluff and horns!

#deltarune #undertale #deltarune meta #undertale meta #ralsei #asriel #kris dreemurr

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drowninnoodles · 4 months

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ULTIMATE (not really) GASTER CONNECTIONS LIST THING

Finally, I wrote down everything that came to my mind, most of them were theories. So if I missed something, please let me know. Plus, I'll probably update this when I find something new.

Devil connections:

- His stats are with numbers 666

- He fell (into his creation)

- his font has the word Wing in its name

-the first version of deltarune was 0.666

-religious connections of characters in Deltarune

- Possibility that he is an Angel

-Dark, Darker, Yet Darker

- Speaks through the Device - Ouija board reference?

- Shadow Crystals as pieces of him

- is associated with the most hell-like place in the Underground

Enemies in Undertale are similar to the Main Boss of the area-

Characters in the core:

- Final Froggit: Searching for Life Meaning/ Giving life its own meaning. Threaten/Mystify

-Whimsalot: "There's still hope", "I've made my choice", "No regrets", Prayers, Butterflies,

-Madjick: Clear Mind, Magican, Emits Cross-shaped bullets

-Knight Knight: Sleeping, Good Morningstar, Knight

Following this lead, Mettaton should not be a Core Boss -> there is no connection. This is Gaster's place

Uncategorized things:

-The core we see is redesigned by Mettaton, we do not know its previous layout

-Into voice's typer text value is the same as Gaster's

-Everything related to him in the files is written in caps

-His theme plays in Bunker

-He is described as always listening

-Like the corrupted characters he has voice lines (the word Deltarune spoken in the intro, laugh in Undertale files and BIG SHOT)

- can break the fourth wall ( takes over Twitter account)

- Deltarune crashes after typing "Gaster"

-"Man.ogg" is Yume Nikki Fansong

- talks to us in Vessel maker

- is in the Void

-Ms.Zarves and Ray as Inspiration for Gaster

-Possibly a Skeleton

- is the creator of Deltarune

- speaks in hands (probably WingDings font)

- He knows Chara personally (they work together)

- Deltarune is owned by ROYAL SCIENCES, LLC

-is scientist

-He worked for Asgore

-Dark Totems in Core - Dark Fountains first version?

-Memoryhead emits Gaster-like bullets

-Memoryhead says “Lorem Ipsum Docet” -> It means something like "Pain teaches”

-Memoryhead can give you a piece of themself

-Piece is called “Bad Memory”, Follower 3 is recalling Bad Memory connected to Gaster

-Noelle’s Blog page is reference to MysteryMan’s appearance in Undertale

-The entirety of Deltarune is an experiment

-Freezing is both reference to Freezing computer and Dante’s Inferno

-is connected to phones - Part of Memoryhead looks like phone

-”Another Him” uses Giygas soundfont

-Gaster seems to be heavily inspired by Uboa from Yume Nikki and Giygas from Earthboud

-Giygas and Gaster have a machines tied to them. Both are strongly associated with the theme of the devil and prayers.

HIS CREATION = BLACK HOLE:

-“A jump into a black hole is a one-way trip. Black holes are regions of space where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape them, not even light. Even before you reach the event horizon – the point of no return – you would be “spaghettified” by the black hole's tidal forces.” -Supernova

-You fall into a Black Hole

-“Of course, no matter what type of black hole you plunge into, you're ultimately going to get torn apart by its extreme gravity and die a horrible death. No material that falls inside a black hole could survive intact.” - Spacendbeyondthebox

-is everywhere at the same time - after being torn apart

-“Negative Photons reading”

-He was scattered across time and space

-theory made by Reddit user Garble365:

“in Interstellar (the sci-fi movie), Cooper falls into a blackhole, and he gets access to every place in the universe, in this infinitely small blackhole. Basically he is everywhere, at the same time. He can look at his daughter and hear her. But he cannot speak to her with his voice, the sound doesn't reach her due to some reason. So he resolves to knocking a few books in a bookshelf in his daughter's bedroom. Her daughter thought it was a ghost, being small. When she grew up, she realizes it was morse code in the form of books being knocked over. It was her father. He was speaking with his hand”

VIRUS CONNECTIONS:

- causes the files to become corrupted - the characters go insane after the meeting

-“The virus starts propagating, which is multiplying and replicating itself. The virus places a copy of itself into other programs” - Wikipedia

EGG CONNECTIONS:

- mysteryman head shape

- Scientists/intellectual people are called Eggheads

- Humpty Dumpty Reference

- Eggs given by the Man - possible Gaster pieces?

-The eggs stick together into one piece

-eggs break the game's fourth wall and move between save files

-When you drop an egg it says "what egg?" as if it doesn't exist

GERSON AND GASTER CONNECTIONS

-They were both replaced by Alphys after they left

-They are both highly respected by the people

-Religion references - Gerson’s son is priest

-Gaster in tarot card deck was replaced by Gerson

-GERSON is an anagram of the word GONERS

-Gerson in Undertale has knowledge that other monsters do not have

GASTER’S THEME:

-Gaster Blaster looks like Turtle skull

DRAGON CONNECTIONS

-Noelle is playing dragon blazer's 3. She is currently at the snow drake.

- Gaster blaster resembles a dragon's skull and the "beams" could easily be snow, similar to the snow grave spell

- "knight knight" who has a strange reoccurring motifs of day, nights, and dreams. Her sprite is labeled as a dragon

-susie's axe, which is said to be made of a dragon's mane. Implying that susie herself is a dragon

“must.Him.Ogg”

Another Him

Darkness Falls

Scarlet Forest

Card Castle

Rouxls Kaard

Chaos King

The Circus

The World Revolving

The Holy

Friendship

Man

Girl Next Door

Queen

Welcome to the City

A cyber’s world?

Giga Size

BIG SHOT

Spamton

Dialtone

#Noodle you will need this #deltarune #undertale #undertale theory #Deltarune theory #deltarune meta #Undertale meta #utdr #gaster #wd gaster #wd gaster undertale #deltarune gaster

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springbloggy · 27 days

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New crack theory dropped

#deltarune #deltarune theory #deltarune meta #deltarune analysis #deltarune crack theory #deltarune secret boss theory #deltarune secret boss #gaster #willy wonka #willy wonka and the chocolate factory #charlie and the chocolate factory #wonka

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midnightfox450 · 6 months

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Thinking about the general state of Mettaton in deltarune. Like he doesn't "haunt the narrative" but he is definitely narratively A Ghost. You can't see him and probably never will and what little we have of him is unrecognizable at first glance. But his general impression is still there, the history of him. Your internet habits are all that are left of you when you're a perpetual shut-in, after all.

He's spoken about in vague hushed whispers by shopkeepers and no one else. He is a ghost story. He still has unfinished business. But the vessel he's supposed to be haunting is already occupied. The stage lights are shattered (NEO is known for its high defense [What even is NEO?]).

We went to a computer world and in next chapter we'll literally be going to a TV one. And he wont be there. Toriel and Undyne and maybe even Napstablook will probably be there but he won't.

#this was originally a rant to my friend but i thought it would post it if only so i dont lose it myself #rip mettaton you would have loved computer world. youre not even dead just too dysphoric #mettaton #mtt #deltarune #utdr #dr #deltarune mettaton #mettaton deltarune #trans mettaton #deltarune meta #mettaton meta #(haha)#utdr meta

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stainedglassthreads · 11 months

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Realization. I’ve noticed before that Asriel and Ralsei’s demeanors and impacts seem almost inverse of each other: even when Asriel’s been gone for months, Hometown can’t stop talking about how much they miss him, and how each resident had some unique and memorable bond with him, while a lot of Darkners, and even Noelle and Berdly, just don’t even register that Ralsei is there.

But it’s not just their confidence, affability, and memorability that’s reversed. It’s how memorable they are compared to Kris.

In Hometown, Kris isn’t exactly neglected, but they do seem to come second or have difficulties in a lot of ways. There was everyone in class partnering up before they arrived in Chapter 1, Snowdrake and MK talking behind their back in Chapter 2, Berdly calling Kris the third-smartest person in the class, Noelle and Kris being friends but drifting apart, the way everyone in Hometown won’t stop reminiscing about Asriel when talking to Kris, talking about their personal bonds with Asriel, or what Kris and Asriel used to do.

But in the Dark World, that’s completely reversed. No longer is it Kris standing in Asriel’s shadow, now it’s Ralsei standing in Kris’ shadow. Now everyone focuses on and addresses Kris, while ignoring and forgetting Ralsei, or treating him as a tag-along.

I’m wondering if this is meant to symbolize something. Or if it does, I’m wondering what, exactly, it does. Is Ralsei reflective of Kris themself, as some believe? Is Ralsei a reflection of how Kris sees themself, always content to support the cooler and more likeable Asriel, always awkward and blending into the background? Does their theorized discomfort with Ralsei imply self-loathing? Or do they want to be the cooler and more likeable sibling instead of Asriel, and have him be the supportive tagalong for a change? Is Ralsei created by their desire to be someone’s ‘number 1’ instead of being everyone’s ‘number 2’?

Either way, I hope it gets explored and explained in future chapters. Especially if Asriel comes home before the final chapter. I want to see Ralsei develop more into his own person, but I’d also love to see Kris and Ralsei’s interactions prompt Kris to have a serious talk with Asriel if he comes home.

#utdr #deltarune #deltarune meta #deltarune analysis #ralsei #kris #kris dreemurr

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