#and all of those npc really only talk about asriel or have like. surface-level conversations with kris

[blueskittlesart]

I see you refer to Kris and Noelle as besties a lot. I haven't played the weird routes yet and I certainly don't know the normal route dialogue like the back of my hand, but I thought that Noelle and Kris were estranged family friends, not super close anymore, before the events of chapter 1. That view is specifically because of Noelle's private blog post about Kris from Spamton Sweepstakes (https://deltarune.com/kris_dreemurr_kris/). Noelle wrote, "Even then, with my eyes open, there were times when I wasn't even sure if we were friends." What do you think about this blog post?

well ok first of all when I called kris and noelle 'best friends' in my noelle post which im assuming is what this is about it was after about 3 paragraphs about how significantly they had drifted apart after dess's disappearance. I'd certainly not call them besties as things currently stand, but i think that BEFORE dess's disappearance and the player's takeover of kris they were at minimum the most consistent friend in each other's lives. the real point of that post was that i think they were probably significantly closer than noelle leads the player to believe based on her dialog alone, and that she is an unreliable narrator when it comes to she and kris's relationship. If I listed out every piece of evidence I can think of off the top of my head that she and kris were close this post would get insanely long, but literally just walking around her room in chapter 4 will paint you a pretty clear picture. she had a cactus named after them. and when she mentions that berdly renamed it kris gets pissed off about it in the flavor text afterwards.

as for that blog post, I kind of think taking that one line out of context does a disservice to the picture that is actually being painted here, because honestly I'd argue that the full text supports my point even more. full text of the post for context:

It's funny... there was a time when they were coming over almost every day. We'd play, and we'd play... then after a while, they would suddenly get very still, like they were remembering something. They'd go into the dining room to "get a snack," then after a few moments, I'd hear the piano. The first few times, I went into watch them play, but when they realized I was looking, they'd always shut the piano and come back. So over time, I just started staying on the couch in the living room. I'd lie there, listening to them play, sometimes for hours, sometimes even until I fell asleep. Even then, what were they thinking about me? Maybe they weren't thinking about me at all. They didn't have a piano at their house, so they probably just came over to use mine. Even then, with my eyes open, there were times when I wasn't even sure if we were friends. But when I closed my eyes, it felt like a concert just for me.

Yes, there's a level of removal going on here. Noelle doesn't quite understand kris's motivations and is struggling to contextualize their actions because of this. But I think it's important to remember that this blog post is recounting the memories of a young child, and written from the perspective of a teenager, so it would probably be a miracle if nothing got lost in translation. This is Noelle reflecting on a relationship which has very clearly changed drastically in recent years, and if there's one thing we know about noelle it's that she's avoidant as shit. It's nowhere near above her to recontextualize memories in her own head in order to make her previous relationship to kris feel less personal, so she won't have to feel as sad about losing a close friend. We literally watch her do this in real time in snowgrave--painting over and/or blocking out memories that scare and upset her in order to avoid reckoning with those feelings. I think she likely finds this easier to do with kris because kris seems to have been pretty introverted and kind of. weird in the ways they expressed affection towards her as a child (particularly the pranks she so often mentions) which makes it easier for her to spin their relationship as something obligational rather than true closeness. But because Kris was such a big part of her life for so long, her altered memories are still imperfect. In the same post where she says kris probably wasn't thinking about her at all she also mentions that kris was at her house every day and that she felt an intense personal connection to their music. And for what it's worth, there are at least two other pianos in town that kris easily could have used if all they wanted was to practice--one in the church's choir room and one in the hospital. They weren't at the holiday house purely to use that piano. more likely than not they really were playing for her.