#chapter 4 (optional)

[sans-undertales-pussy]

toby making it so kerdley is now legitimately within the realm of possibility of becoming canon is the most out of left field insane thing he could've implemented. please god i'm routing for them so hard now. please toby you cant go back now make a romance route with berdly possible it would be the funniest thing ever

[semiohazard]

i thought kris was about to freak the fuck out in this scene

[dailykrusie]

hello have you played the new chapters theyre quite good and have a lot of content for you

[metaphoricalmonster]

how can she escape so easily?

[nadnaindecisa]

I think my favorite deltarune dynamic ever is “I love you bestieee❤️❤️❤️” SOUL/player & “FUCKING KILL YOURSELF” Kris

[a-weepin-willow]

”This is not me.”

Don’t we all just love a cute dinner date?

[kazanfamily]

My experience with Kerdly:

Okay that's really weird -> It would be hilarious just to annoy the player -> I love this ship now and by extension Berdly too -> It might become CANON???!?!?!?

[adorablegorilla]

The two flavors of SOUL v. Kris drama (Soul POV):

A - "You constantly go behind your friends' backs. You're working with an enemy who wants to destroy the world. You refuse to cooperate with me even though you'll gladly work with much worse beings. Do you want the world to be destroyed? For your friends to get hurt? Are they that easy for you to discard despite what you've been through with them? Well fine then. If your friends are going to get hurt and used up no matter what, I might as well do it myself to stop you. With enough pain and bloodshed, Noelle will become strong enough that it won't matter what you or that KNIGHT are planning. It brings me no joy to consider such a horrible option. But if you're deadset on this path, then what choice do I have? Make your choice Kris. Work with me to undo the damage, or cast aside your friends and ensure Noelle's suffering."

Or

B - "KRIS I SWEAR TO DOG IF YOU DON'T STOP WORKING WITH SHADY CALLERS AND SHADOWY KNIGHTS BEHIND MY AND YOUR FRIENDS' BACKS I WILL MAKE YOU GO TO THE FESTIVAL WITH BERDLY!"

[soepwashere]

Kris and Susie sillies <3

close ups below the cut!

They make me ill <3

[artstralix]

Mettatenna ref for my Haunted Screen AU. I'd come up with a better name but if it ain't broke...

I was considering making this AU into a comic series but I'm thinking I'll make it a fic instead (with plenty of art and mini-comics on the side)

[solanumflare]

shout out to the best dialogue option in scarlet hollow

[burning-academia-if]

I just finished the demo and was immediately enraptured by Lars and his assholery, even more so after the opportunity to sock him in the eye and subsequently compliment him 🙏 I always appreciate the ability to make MC a little mean (even better, a straight up ass) to the ROs. Looking forward to reading more of this IF and the bickering with Lars!

I love mean MCs (even if in ever IF I have ever played I always choose the nice options because I feel bad faljfaljf)! I do think the dynamic between mean!mc and Lars is very fun for me to write, too.

It still makes me laugh though because the duality of Lars' fans is either "sunshine MC who is going to annoy him to death with kindness" or "I am going to antagonize this man violently until we fall in love" and it's just. Really funny

[crabsnpersimmons]

now i KNOW i have anxiety when i'm playing a horror game and what scares me ISN'T the ghosts or the jumpscares

but the fear of making the wrong choice*

*and there are no wrong choices

[descendant-of-truth]

There are a lot of things to wonder and speculate about with the release of the new chapters, but there's one thing that's really been brought to the forefront of my mind now that we have more things to work off of:

What exactly... are we playing as in this game?

The heart, duh, but like. Is that meant to literally just be us? When I'm floating around the vents and see Kris passed out, and I try several times to join back with them because I'm worried they might die without me, is that the heart's canonical motivation in my playthrough?

Or are we playing as an in-universe entity, a character with their own desires that might not line up with our own?

Obviously we can still shape what those desires are with our choices, but I'd argue that the way we do so is more akin to roleplaying an OC in an RPG than anything else. Like, in an average choice-based RPG, if you choose to be evil, your character's motivation for being evil is not going to be the same as yours. You just think it'd be fun to see what happens, but your character now retroactively has their own personality traits and belief systems that lead them to doing heinous acts.

In the regular routes, it's pretty easy to insert yourself into the avatar of the red heart, but doesn't that kind of fall apart when you consider the Weird Route? As a player, you try out Iceshock experimentally and probably get startled when the enemies are still frozen in the overworld, so naturally you get curious - "what happens if I keep doing this with every enemy?"

You see "Proceed" show up as a dialogue option and you only choose it because it's surprising. You choose "Snowgrave" and keep doing it until something happens because, well, now that the option suddenly presented itself, aren't you wondering what it does?

But. but. All of those things you do, the words you say, the systematic way you manipulate Noelle... it feels VERY premeditated on the soul's part. The consistency with which "we" pursue this possessive, uncomfortably romantic route with our sights set on Noelle exclusively, even trying to kill our supposed "competition" in Berdly (who, keep in mind, the soul would have reason to assume is interested in her at this point if they don't remember other routes) is like. more than enough proof to me that the soul wants something that we don't.

Because really, who's playing the weird route with a clear goal in mind? We all know the steps to getting it to happen, sure, but we aren't trying to get anything in particular out of it other than Something New.

For example, I don't think anyone is personally invested in keeping the Thorn Ring on Noelle - we'd be just as happy to see what happened if she tore it off or something! But in chapter 4, the option to re-equip it to her keeps showing up at a certain point, like that's something the soul really wants to happen for some reason.

But also... there's the very simple fact that the weird route, frequently, makes the player scared when partaking in it. A fear which is never reflected as even an option in the dialogue. Would someone scared of their own actions, continuing only on morbid curiosity, be able to stoically repeat the word "proceed" the way the soul does in-game?

That brings up its own questions though, because if the soul isn't literally us, then. Who Are They. And why can they develop such a weird fixation on Noelle?? They don't even seem to be fueled by shipping anymore, because if you pursue the route in chapter 4, they get very clear with Noelle herself that they are listening in, they can hear her thoughts, thus cueing her into the fact that they are Not Kris. Which means they're not wanting Kris to be with her, they're going full self-insert on this.

And forget who, at this point I really have to ask WHAT this heart-shaped thing even is. I don't think it's the angel - one would have to assume that the thing everyone's worshipping would be powerful enough to not lose their homemade vessel that easily, and shouldn't need any help from Presumably Gaster to connect to the world of Deltarune, either.

There's a lot here I can't figure out, but the one thing I'm getting pretty confident in is that we might not be playing as ourselves. Which has some insane implications

[manofthepipis]

obvs i'm so so so excited about chapter 3 and 4

but i completely forgot snowgrave was a thing

what the hell is gonna happen there

[gamesyoushouldbeplaying]

One of my fave little tidbits in scarlet hollow is how the traits you have are also subject to [REDACTED]s manipulation like. When she manipulates you the traits that so far provide you reliable extra bonus information about the world are like "shes right, you should feel bad for doubting her" like. Insane writing choice that somehow maintains choice in removing player agency i love it