#looking at you. A lightner. A human. something so different from him

[shelly-vision]

I wanna talk about Catti and Jockington since nobody else is

Alright so like, we all assumed Catti and Jockington would be in the Chapter 4 Dark World, right? It clearly felt like each Chapter would have different Lightners with us, and with this image, we all thought this was their time to shine.

But of course, nobody can truly predict Tricky Tony and we got hit with “all of your theories are wrong goodbye”. Because of this, a lot of people have now kinda ignored Catti and Jockington and assumed they’ll be inconsequential Light World characters. But I really don’t think that’s right. For one, they don’t really *have* a story right now. Most of the other Light World characters have had a subplot that are partway through, but it still feels like Catti and Jockington are only just beginning having any sort of plot. So because of that, I still really do think they’ll get to be actually relevant characters. Lemme explain why.

I’ll start with Jockington since I have a bit less to say about him. He hasn’t had much of any relevance so far, he’s just hyped up as the greatest man alive (he clearly is) and other than that he’s just been chilling with Catti. But, he’s had exactly three Dark World mentions so far. One in Chapter 2, where he had a room in Queen’s Mansion, and twice in Chapter 4. Once where if instead of having Kris think about Susie, you have them think about the Knight. This prompts them to immediately pivot their thoughts from the Knight’s identity to thinking about Jockington instead. And of course, the legendary “Jockington grows the beard” prophecy. Most people think this is just gonna be buildup to a joke where Jockington just randomly has a beard later, but here’s something to think about: every single Dark World prophecy that describes someone doing something is something in the Dark World. “The Pointy-Headed will say ‘Toothpaste’ and then ‘Boy.’” “The Queen’s Chariot cannot be stopped.” “The Lord of Screens, cleaved red by blade.” Considering everything else, this implies that this is also probably something related to the Dark World. This is considered important enough to be part of the Prophecy. Not to mention, he’s the one and only person mentioned by name in the prophecy and not just described. The Girl, the Cage of Human Parts, the Prince from the Dark, the Pointy-Headed, the Queen (instead of just “Queen”), the Lord of Screens, the Flower Man, and then just… Jockington. I swear, there’s gotta be *some* relevance here. Only problem is that I have no damn clue what his story will even be. Anyway I’ll talk about Catti now.

So, let’s talk about Chapter 5. Thanks to these images, we’re pretty certain that Chapter 5’s Dark World will be in Flower King.

Makes sense all around, Asgore is clearly plot relevant, there’s a double door inside Flower King, and the jealously can pretty clearly tie back to good ol’ Sans Undertale considering the ending of Chapter 4. What does this have to do with Catti? Let’s look at her dialogue.

So like, alongside her Chapter 2 dialogue, and the rain blog post in the Spamton Sweepstakes website, it’s pretty damn clear Catti has a crush on Noelle, right? Like, almost all of her dialogue is about her. She also has dialogue about hating Susie for seemingly no reason. Genuinely, I think the entire reason she hates Susie is because she’s jealous that Noelle has a crush on Susie and not her. Like Catti has some similarities to Susie and probably wonders what Noelle likes about Susie and not her, right? What if Chapter Five’s jealousy theming is about both Asgore and Catti’s jealousy? I mean, some might say like “oh why would Catti be in Flower King”, well, the Festival is starting in Chapter 5. Is it that much of a stretch to say Catti might want to buy flowers and attempt to ask out Noelle? Also, Gerson says the field in Chapter 5 is pink and gold, and Catti has a pink and gold color scheme. That might be a connection.

…but hey, y’know what other cat has a pink and gold color scheme?

…it’s gotta be a conscious choice, right? Why else would there be two cat characters with a pink and gold color scheme if it’s not meant to be a parallel? I mean, Spamton parallels Berdly, Gerson parallels Susie, and the Knight likely had parallels to both Kris and Noelle, so like… Friend is supposed to parallel Catti, right?

Am I just coping because I wanted Catti and Jockington to have a role in the plot? I dunno, maybe. But I really feel like they *have* to exist for a reason, right? …I just want them to do something.

As a side note, I found this dialogue kinda funny.

Like, Catti declaring Kris an enemy clan because she thinks they’ll cause some kind of harm to Noelle is funny because Kris obviously doesn’t want to do that.

…but, the player might. If they’re doing the Weird Route, they’re causing her an obscene amount of harm. I mean, by Chapter 4’s end, Noelle is in a trance and obsessed with “Kris”. Surely, someone a close friend of Noelle like Catti would notice something’s up, right? …maybe in one route of the game, Catti declaring Kris an enemy clan will be warranted.

[crescentmoonsandroses]

Deltarune's themes of escapism and why they hit me hard

I was going to do some Deltarune art based around this and then just have the definition of escapism under it, but I can't think of what to draw, so I'm just going to ramble about it instead.

Deltarune, as I'm sure many many other people have pointed out before, has strong themes of escapism in addition to its themes of control, freedom, the narrative, etc. The Dark Worlds transform objects into people, rooms into environments, high school students into heroes. They seem to bring to life the sorts of games you played as a kid, with your toys and your friends, making up a story that played out in your mind, enhanced by your imagination. It's theatre of the mind, helped along by the toys and props and whatnot - like when you're playing D&D, too. This sort of thing is mainly in Chapter One, with the game pieces and cards and toys. I remember playing make-believe with practically everything as a kid - I made up stories with chess pieces a few times, that was fun. Castle Town and Card Kingdom are both reminiscent of a very traditional form of escapism: fantasy.

The Cyber World is a little different, but it still holds the same sort of idea - hell, we're all here on Tumblr, we know what it's like to bury ourselves in the internet, in videos and memes and posts, and forget the world for a little while. This is emphasised by Queen's commentary - I can't find the exact quote, but it's something about being worried that the Lightners will become depressed without the 'bliss' of the internet, which isn't currently working in Hometown. We also know that Chapter 3 will take place in Toriel's lounge room and seems to be specifically based around the TV (and, this is off topic, but I literally just realised Mike could be, like, mic, as in microphone, and Tenna could be short for antenna), which can also be a form of escapism for people. I know that my mum, for one, watches TV most nights.

There's also the specific characters who fall into the Dark Worlds - Kris, Susie, Noelle, Berdly.

Kris seems to be considered weird by most of Hometown, where they are the only human and don't seem to have many - or, well, any - real friends apart from their brother, who was the town's golden boy, who everyone keeps talking about and seems to hold in high regard, whose side of the bedroom holds trophies and pictures and colour while Kris' is bare and grey (they also have Susie now, but she only became their friend during the first Dark World). In the Dark World, however, Kris gets to be a hero, sword and shield raised, saving the world with their friends. Everyone in Castle Town loves them. The room Ralsei built for them has trophies aplenty. And then there's the matter of Ralsei, who looks so much like Toriel and Asgore and Asriel, who is so nice and so supportive of Kris, who has pink horns like maybe a certain red headband faded (yes I headcanon that Ralsei is Kris' old horn headband and will continue to do so until proven wrong).

Susie, who drinks milk from back alleys and threatens to eat people's faces, who didn't actually call home when she had a sleepover with Kris, who gets uncomfortable around the block of flats in Hometown, who doesn't seem to know how to react when shown kindness or friendship, who considers herself the 'bad guy'. Well, she gets to be that bad guy, strong and powerful and scary, with a big axe and sharp teeth and enemies to defeat. And then she gets to have friends, she gets to have food, she gets to be the hero and maybe that's not so bad after all if she does it alongside people she cares about, people who care about her. We can see how much happier she is in the Dark Worlds.

Berdly, who tries so hard to be perceived as smart, who loves videogames. I don't have as much to say about him, honestly, but his Dark World design is quite distinctively Cyber World when compared to the other Lightner's more fantasy-inspired designs, and being in the Dark World gives him the chance to be a hero, even if he's not great at that for most of Chapter 2.

And Noelle. Noelle, whose sister seems to be missing or dead, whose dad is in hospital, whose mum is the town's mayor and works a lot and has an icy personality. Noelle who searches for bugs and secrets in the games she seems to love. Noelle who wishes she had magic to heal her dad. Noelle who seems to feel powerless to help someone she loves, who doesn't stand up to Berdly or her mum. Once she's in the Dark World, she can heal people. She stands up to Queen, who is a sort of mother figure. She gets to spend time with Susie. She gets to see the city lights that Dess promised her.

All this to say that Deltarune in general and the Dark Worlds specifically have some not-so-subtle themes of escapism.

Now, the 'why it hits me hard' bit. Escapism has always been one of my main coping strategies, and even beyond that, I love fantasy, I love stories, I love burying myself in another world. It's much easier to be in a world where there's magic and quests and maybe there's struggles and strife and people still get hurt and mess up and go through bad things, but eventually there's a happy ending because that's how stories work, they don't have the constant uncertainty of real life. And, you know, if I could go to a Dark World, I would. I can understand why Susie likes the Dark Worlds so much, why Noelle and Berdly wanted to make another. Escapism is something that I can understand, especially after having struggled with my mental health for a few years (I'm a lot better now though). The world can be messy and complicated and hard, and wouldn't it be nice to be in a different world for a bit, one where you can be who you want to be and you don't feel lost anymore?

So, uh... yeah lol.

[lynxgriffin]

How can Paper Trail end, when Kris didn't even enter the seventh Dark World? The justification you gave for ending it there is that "what happens next is... not for the player to know". But the SOUL wasn't destroyed, only severed, so what's stopping them from continuing to observe? You didn't need to give a justification at all. (ask continued)

(continuation) Isn't the timing of the SOUL gaining control of Kris awfully convenient? Why does Gaster think he knows when the story will end? After all, its actual ending was premature, from his point of view. Why didn't you give a transcript for Lemon Ralsei's prophecy? And how did he get those scars? One more Paper Trail ask: do the soul traits of each prince have any relation to the content of their diary entry? Because if they do, I can't spot it. I lied, heres another PT ask: is there any real reason why the princes can travel between dark worlds and combine, or is it just some bullshit power they get from being connected to Kris?

Geez okay so that's a whole lot of PT and DOFP critical asks. I'm just going to do all of those at once because I don't want to spread that out over six asks. Maybe uh...next time try and consolidate those?

The whole idea is that the player can't observe the world of Deltarune without that connection to Kris. If that connection is severed, then so is the ability to observe and interact with that world.

Gaster thinks that he understands the player well enough to believe that they will not let go of Kris until they know what happens. The player choosing to let go of Kris without knowing what happens is unexpected for him, so yes, from his point of view, it is premature.

If you mean when Gaster got his scars, he just got them over the course of his work. He's clearly not working safely!

I can't remember, but I think I did give a transcript? If not, people were able to work out what Lairse's legend was, anyway.

The soul traits for the princes relate to the feelings/behavior that Asriel expresses through the diary entries, and specifically link up to how the souls move. For example, for Eslira, his worries over what Kris is doing -> Eslira's fear of a human lightner -> he tends to isolate himself and stay in one place -> teal soul is "don't move, and you won't get hurt."

And all of the princes can do that by the end when enough connections have been established between them, and because they're special compared to how other Darkners work. It probably would not have worked early on in the adventure, even if they did know how to do it.

DOFP ask - Why does Greatest Dog's save file date back to just before they joined the guard? At the time, GD wouldn't have DT, so my assumption is that the save file updates on its own, but you need DT in order to LOAD. But why is that the last time it updated? What does Greater Dog mean when they the first subject's "face was different"? Did they have a blaster... GRAFTED onto their face? Why?

Greatest Dog mentions this in the story: this was the day he was supposed to get his special armor, and he wanted to remember this day forever. Even if he has no direct control over his save file, that's still something that would stick as "important! save here!"

You see in a flashback that the monster is wearing a mask akin to the machinery that looks like a Gaster blaster. This gives the idea that the mask/machinery altered their face, although this wasn't intentional on Gaster's part.

[hazardace2]

The blood argument in deltarune is so silly. I feel like it's 100% established that monsters cannot bleed, yet humans do. Darkners can also bleed, and most lightners can't. (Most lightners in hometown being monsters) The only things that people use as evidence to contradict this is different mentions of blood. The warrior inside of ice-e's uses a lot of phrases like "I can feel it boiling in my blood" but... this doesn't actually mean they bleed??? There's books and movies with titles like "Bloodcrushers" and we know the warrior likes video games. + Susie also confirms that media for both humans and monsters exists, so humans would absolutely still use blood for their phrases and media. Another thing I've seen against the blood thing is this rabbit kid in the apartments. Who says "Are you the human who lives at the top of the town? My mommy told me about you. Does it hurt to be made out of blood?" If their mom told them about Kris, AND presumably how humans are different from monsters, why would she tell her kid that humans have blood and monsters don't??? + In the dark world before Susie and Lancer's fight with the trash machine starts, Susie says she'll "crush whoever gets in our way into dust" which confirms that monsters very much still dust??? She's also the character who uses the most amount of blood phrases, aside from Lancer, who is a darkner. Darkners bleed 100% btw. There's a hidden death animation that was originally in chapter 1, nobody found it until chapter 2. When darkners die they turn red and then disappear, the red color has to be blood since Lancer says they bleed several times over the course of chapter 1.

Lancer was told "not to make a mess" after defeating the lightners because he would've gotten blood everywhere. Ralsei doesn't correct him, which he's done before, so I'd safely assume darkners definitely CAN bleed. The only other thing that throws a wrench into this explanation is this sprite

I still do NOT understand what this is supposed to mean. I know it went unused but still, I have to wonder why it was left in, and why it was so well animated when it was ultimately wrong? I've seen some people say they could've changed the red to gray to make it look like dust and the sprite could've easily been fixed and therefore used, but ??? clearly this is supposed to mean something!! :) what does it mean??? I have no clue!!!!!!!

[sweatertheman]

there's something about kris that makes ralsei treat them so... weird. you know, bending over backwards to never go against them, to never object to anything they do, make them feel special and important to the detriment of himself and others. maybe its because they're the player character? i dont wanna say he doesn't care about kris at all, but ralsei (much like how noelle does to susie) doesn't seem to treat them like a real person with their own thoughts and feelings. where noelle treats susie like an object for her to claim, ralsei treats kris as a master to serve. he can't see them on equal footing as himself. kris is flawless, kris has complete and total control over him. its not just an any lightner thing either. susie, who, for the record, ralsei is also still incredibly lenient with, is someone he IS able to see as an equal. he isn't a sycophant with her, he's willing to challenge her and tell her when he doesn't approve of her behavior, and willing to enforce boundaries with her. tiny ones, but boundaries nonetheless.

point is, what ralsei has is not a crush. its a complete and total obsession. for whatever reason, everything kris does is beyond judgement to him. he's happy for them to even look at him, happy for them to beat him, poison him, throw away everything he makes for them as long as it pleases them. his need to feel validated, to fulfill his "purpose" is something which outweighs all his other needs, likely because he's been brainwashed to believe those other needs don't matter, that all he is and all he ever can be is a plaything.

the question here is twofold. why kris, and why not susie? kris would logically get preferrential treatment because they are basically jesus, the human vessel which brings the word of god and performs miracles with the power of that god, so that's solved, but susie is still a lightner, still more real than he is. why is he not as desperate for her to use him as he is for kris to use him?

well, aside from UNKNOWABLE LORE REASONS, i feel like the answer is just. susie breaks his worldview. she refuses to be idolized by him, refuses to adhere to his concept of a hero or a god, refuses to accept that darkners could be as he believes they are, empty-hearted slaves bound to serve or suffer a hollow, meaningless existence. she won't let him treat her that way. so, he has no choice but to treat her differently. susie, to ralsei, exists in a bubble seperate from the rest of his worldview. susie isn't a god, susie is fallible, but susie is good and kind, and treats him like an equal. with susie, the rules are different, and he can act freely, express his own thoughts and beliefs, to some extent anyway. so far, he's managed to do a good job compartmentalizing this, keeping these two worlds seperate, able to simultaneously believe that he is a non-person bound forever to serve lightners no matter what, and believe that a specific lightner is fallible, and that he has the right to question her, get upset with her, and not do as she asks. though, i dont expect him to be able to hold off this cognitive dissonance for long. that is, assuming that his treatment of kris is the same as how he'd treat every other lightner besides susie, and not the other way around, where kris is the exception to do UNKNOWABLE LORE REASONS and he'd treat pretty much everyone like susie.

all this to say, yeah. he totally would, except it's not really much of a crush, because his only end goal is to be used. the way in which he is used does not matter, because he doesn't believe he is a person with thoughts and feelings.

so sorry for subjecting you to one of my unhinged screenfillers, stranger 🥲

Go For It, Ralsei!

[nightqueen1221]

could you write something for Deltarune about a Lightner being turned into a darkner?

I wasn't told wanted you wanted or what you wanted so I did headcannons for the main three.

Kris Dreemur

-Of course their shocked.

-But they don't really show expression.

-So it's more or less up to you if you think their shocked or not.

-Might start to think it might happen to them.

-But Kris is a Lightener from The Legend so it's most likely not going to happen, that is unless your also from the Legend or have some sort of play in it.

-This is most likely going to raise conflicts like, "How do we bring you back to the light world?" "How did this even happen?" "Is this permanent?"

-Kris is still going to treat you as a friend, or if their soul decided be a jerk to you, they'll still think of you as a friend and try and make it up to you some how.

-If nobody knows how it happened, Kris is on the case.

-They'll spend a good amount of time, even if it's just thinking, attempting to grasp what happened.

-If you were a human originally and there for didn't know how to use magic...

-They'll just kinda, push you towards Ralsei to teach you how to use that stuff.

-There was an attempt ✨ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ✨

Susie

-Confused AF

-Kinda just like, "Uhhhhh, that's not supposed to happen, right?"

-She freaks out on the inside but acts a bit more calm on the outside.

-(and by a bit more calm on the outside I mean she asked you who did this while she's thinking about the different ways she and slaughter them on the inside.)

-Once it becomes a bit more a normal things she doesn't really think much of it.

-If you were a human before she'll just run up to Kris like,

-"Kris, what do I do? Your a human, you should know this stuff."

-If you turn into something fluffy like Ralsei, she'll want to hug you more and she'll also fall asleep if you cuddle with her.

-(not saying if you were a monster with fur before she wouldn't hug you)

-Trust me, she's very dedicated to finding a way to make you a Lightener again.

-If your upset don't worry she'll cheer you up by saying things like...

-"Hey! Don't be upset about it. You can spend time with Lancer and Ralsei!"

Ralsei

-The most concerned out of anyone here.

-Is going to be looking and searching for any possible reason as to why this happened.

-"Does this have something to do with the Dark Fountains?" "Why did it start at this moment?" "Does that mean a Darkener can become a Lightener?" "Is this a danger to other people?"

-If it turns out something not big at all, he'll calm down but you can still see him asking questions to himself.

-By all means, he's happy to have another friend down their with him other than just Lancer.

-He'll make you cakes or something else if you don't want that.

-Something he's really excited for is you getting to stay in your room.

-If you want, he'll cuddle with you. (AND HE IS SO WARM OH MY LORD-)

-You also probably one of the few or maybe first to see past locked and boarded up rooms.

-He is also very happy to teach you what role you'll play in this world as a Darkner.

[3wisellamas]

Deltarune Halloween Prompts Day 30: Treats

---

Sure, Halloween was for treats, but this year K_K wanted to do something extra-special. It'd been a lot of work, visiting everyone in town, learning their preferences, and putting together so many wildly different combinations of ingredients and flavors, but the months' worth of effort had finally paid off!

Stepping back, they admired their cupcake creations. For Seam, their favorite shopkeeper, purple-iced dark chocolate sprinkled with shards of sugar, and dusted with powdered cinnamon. The cinnamon had gone to great use in Malius' as well, with cinnamon glaze over red cake and a cinnamon cream center.

For Swatch, a two-tone vanilla and chocolate cupcake, with even the icing split down the middle, and for Clover a three-way split with bonus raspberry flavor, a culinary achievement K_K was especially proud of!

Queen's preferences were...peculiar, something every citizen of Cyber World knew well, and so for her he'd gotten a little creative, with green-dyed yellow cake and spicy corn chip crumbles mixed into the icing. Lancer also proved to have similar tastes to his "girldad," and so K_K instead made him a blueberry muffin with a pit of salsa hidden inside, as well as a second for himself to see if that combination was actually as horrible as it sounded. Thankfully his father proved to be a little more reasonable, and for him K_K prepared just a plain white cake made with almond flour, with cashew bits sprinkled over the icing.

For Prince Ralsei, a vanilla-iced chocolate cupcake, fitting his strangely upside-down nature, with extra sprinkles. And K_K hadn't forgotten the Lightners either, with a cherry-filled cupcake for Susie that even had blood-red icing, and chocolate-iced chocolate cake with chocolate cream in the middle, chocolate sprinkles on top, and dusted with chocolate cookie bits for Kris. Shockingly, Rouxls seemed to like chocolate almost as much as the human, which K_K got to have a little fun with, making the icing resemble dirt for a few sour gummy worms to reside in.

Finally, there were a couple more that Kris requested for friends of theirs that K_K had never met, but they could get a sense from how they spoke about them: one devil's food with more sprinkles than they'd ever used on a single cupcake before, the other a simple lemon cake with a couple of coins stuck into the icing, for some reason.

But the most special of all were the two K_K made for Sweet and Cap'n. Sweet got a warm vanilla cake with pumpkin spice icing and a little caramel drizzled on top, while Cap'n's was chocolate and strawberry icing, with a little of the fruit baked inside and one slice they'd saved to adorn the very top. Those two stood out among all the rest that K_K had prepared for Castle Town as masterpieces, ones that they couldn't wait to show off!

"You READ MY FUCKING POETRY??!" Oh, there they were already! Smiling, K_K turned to see Sweet running into the kitchen, ready to show them their cupcake at last, but they seemed to be in quite a hurry for some reason.

To K_K's horror, in his rush Sweet suddenly tripped over his own feet, going flying face-first right into the counter...and into the two cupcakes K_K had made for him and Cap'n.

"SWEET COME BACK HERE--Oh. Oh no." Cap'n stopped in his tracks, taking in the scene, with Sweet wiping off the caramel and icing and strawberries from his speaker, dazed, and K_K standing there, silent, tears in their eyes. "Hey, uh...those weren't nothin' important, right? It looks like you got plenty of others!"

K_K just ran from the room, wailing, and Cap'n's soul sunk.

[smells-like-mettaton]

42, shopkeepers?

Rating: G Word Count: 905 Prompt: "crunching ice at the bottom of the glass" (yes this is from the old ask game im still finishing those shhhh) Read on AO3: here Notes: ended up doing Seam deltarune for this one. sorry if you havent played deltarune chapter 2, I couldn't get this to work for anyone else (and I did try and scrap a couple other ideas)

---

Meowing came from every other table in the Castle Cafe. That was weird, but Seam barely batted a button eye. Probably a prank from the Lightner heroes who had visited earlier today. It would be like them to invite no one but Tasques to the Cafe on the day Seam regularly came for lunch.

Other than the feline company, nothing was out of the ordinary until Seam finished eating the Spaghetti Code and ordered a glass of Butler Juice as a treat.

“Here you go, Seam!” The prince himself placed one dark glass on a coaster, then sat down opposite Seam with a glass of his own.

“Thought you were a prince, not a butler.” Seam sipped the Butler Juice—or “ButJuice” as the human Lightner and their pink friend had called it—and smiled.

Butler or not, the little prince had a knack for the culinary arts. And possibly the arts in general; the juice shifted from colder to warmer shades as its ice melted, creating a mesmerizing pattern. Currently it was a dark purple with swirls of cerulean blue.

“The uniform was cute.” Ralsei shrugged, blushing a little. His ButJuice turned from regal blue to a bright minty green. “And, um, it’s kind of fun working with Swatch. They and the Swatchlings are really nice!”

“Is that so?” Seam chuckled as one of said Swatchlings came by their table to whisper something to Ralsei.

Seam’s ear twitched. Sounded something like they were asking when Ralsei would return to the kitchen.

“You are a butler,” Seam murmured, slightly confused. The mage had worked for Kings and Queens—usually of the card variety—but no royals Seam knew had ever doubled as cooks.

“It’s important for a Prince to serve his subjects, right?” Ralsei smiled. “Now that I, um, actually have subjects.”

Seam shrugged. “It makes no difference to me.”

The young prince could do nearly anything and still be a better ruler than the Spade King, just by nature of the hope he radiated. Such a strange quality for a once-abandoned Darkner. Was it just the nature of youth? Or something more…?

Well, no use would come from wondering about that.

“That’s why I came to sit with you, actually.” Ralsei looked away, and the drink in his hands suddenly changed to a vibrant yellow. “I’ve seen you in here, day after day. Always by yourself.”

Seam snorted. It was easy to guess where this was leading.

“Oh dear. And here I thought princes and butlers both had more important business than spying on an old fluff.”

“Not spying!” Ralsei’s face (and juice) went red. “Just a friendly observation!”

“Alright.” Seam shifted, settling more comfortably into the wooden chair, and went for another sip of ButJuice.

Unfortunately, Seam had somehow managed to drain the tangy drink already. Pity. The mage settled for crunching the ice in the bottom of the glass, which was difficult with teeth made of cotton.

“Well…” Ralsei continued awkwardly. “I was just thinking… there’s so many new people in town, and maybe… you would like to meet some of them?”

“I have my seap. I meet whoever comes in. And I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“But you never… um, talk to anyone?” Ralsei leaned forward. The cafe lights shone off his glasses, making Seam squint. No Darkner should be that bright.

Seam sighed. “Who exactly do you want me to talk to?”

Suddenly an Oh ho hooo~! came from the back of the cafe, and the kitchen door loudly exploded.

“Seam Sweetie Gravy Darling I Thought You Would Never Ask”

The mage sighed a deeper, preemptively exhausted sigh. Seam should have expected this from the moment Ralsei opened his mouth. He may be a prince, but Queen was still Queen. If she’d forced him into a butler uniform, manipulating him into reuniting old “friends” must have been easier than a running stitch.

“Swatch Do You Know Seam My Friend Seam”

Swatch set an ornate blue chair at the table for Queen, which seemed excessive, considering the chair could already float, and Queen was already sitting in it.

“Yes. Seam comes to the cafe every Tuesday and orders a rose-flavored Spaghetti Code,” Swatch said, their wings folded casually behind their back.

“And Swatch is always buying useless junk at my seap.” Seam fixed a button stare on Queen. “Wonder why that is, hmm?”

“Oh Seam Your Junk Is Like Only Eighty-Eight Percent Useless (Lying)”

Seam wondered if she thought the seap’s junk was more or less than eighty-eighty percent useless. Not that it mattered.

“Fluffy Boy Bring Us Some More ButJuice While I Win At: Friending”

“You don’t have to—” Seam tried to stop him, but Ralsei was already saluting as primly as any Swatchling.

“For friendship!”

Since he wasn’t going to be any help, Seam tried a silent appeal to Swatch. Maybe they could sabotage Queen’s chair, or distract her with something shiny, or anything that would get them all out of this exhausting social interaction.

Swatch gave a barely perceptible shrug. So much for honor among shopkeepers.

“Alright Seam Give Me The Deets” Queen’s visor flashed with red exclamation points. “Where Is Your Little Clown Friend / Kingy Wingy Didn’t Execute Him Did He / Because That Would Be A Shame / He Always Made The Best Explosions (explosion.mp3)”

Seam gave the ultimate, resigned-to-a-terrible-fate sigh.

It was going to take more than one glass of ButJuice to get through this story.

[jossambird]

ILL RUN IT BY YOU SOON IF YOUD LIKE, I CANT SPOIL A STORY LIKE THIS 👀

@jossambird​

[swapder]

Spam Aficionado

Chapter 5/20: Ring Ring

Total Story Word Count: 20,269

Total Chapter Word Count: 5,134

Story Summary:

Finally, Spamton had completed his end of his deal. He had acquired a human lightner SOUL. There was so much he could do now, so many things… And Yet… There was only one thing he wanted to do. He needed to stop himself from the worst mistake he had ever made. And if it meant restarting from 1997? That was alright with him. Lightner SOULs were very, very powerful. Especially this particular human SOUL.

References

(Title is link to story! Under cut for those who don’t want to read on A03)

[Mike] was calling him. It was the first thing he thought while waking up. A familiar trill danced in his head. It sparked his nerves awake, his mind slipping down a waterfall of nonsensical thought. His phone was ringing.

He needed to get up to answer the phone answer the phone answer the phone make it stop ANSWER THE PHONE— He fell off the bed. Something caught in the comforter, yanking it down onto him. For a brief moment, far too long, he flailed about to throw it off. It was a fair bit difficult given his circumstances. He just about gave up to fall back to sweet sleep when he managed to chuck it off himself. There were more important things to do than sleep. Like the phone. It was ringing. He needed to answer it. He had to answer it, he had to, he must, he needed it he needed—

To summon a few little spamlings to help himself. His concerns twisted to a different problem stopping him from answering. He knew where the phone was, below in the study. But he couldn’t exactly reach it just yet. No matter how much his heart jumped in his throat and his thoughts screamed. After all, it’s a fair bit difficult to walk downstairs when you can't walk. Or easily hold things. He couldn’t exactly sleep with his prosthetics. Well, he could but this was a semi-safe place. He didn’t need to worry about being woken to fight or flee. It was already a bit of a risk accidentally falling asleep with them on earlier.

The phone was still ringing throughout the house.

He summoned a couple spamlings to help get his limbs on. Whatever benevolent angel in the universe let him have such magic was a blessing. Rising to his legs and stumbling his way out the bedroom, the little spams trailed at his heel until they poofed when no longer needed. He nearly made his way down a single step when he heard something else slip past the blaring ringing. The words slipped in and out his inner ears, lost to him. Not looking behind him he perfectly mimicked the ringing and rushed down the stairs. He couldn’t afford such a distraction when [Mike] was calling.

There was the hall. Down the right, the first door. The study. He had been the one to decorate it after so much pestering of his older siblings. It was filled with pale furniture and a cluttered shelf. The table supported a mess of disorganised items and a desktop computer, so unlike after he made his first breakthrough. But the most important thing sat to the computer’s right. The telephone. The telephone. The unmoving telephone he heard ringing so clearly it might as well have been in hand already. It was. It was in his hand, already held to his head in a familiar manner.

“HELLO?”

There was silence. He twirled the cord in between a finger, far less fluid than when [Mike] used to call. He didn’t have the same dexterity.

“HELLO, [Mike]?? I’M AT [Phone] NOW. PICK IT UP [Pick] IT [[Up]]. I’M [All Alone On A Late Night] [Please] [Please] [[Please]] [[Pick up the phone]]”

Nothing. Not even the fuzz of garbage noise. He plopped down in the table’s chair, glitching out with the force. There was a pause. Then a decision. His fingers glided across the dial, spinning it with such practice that even lost muscles couldn’t scrub it from his hands. He ignored the voice in the back of his head screaming at him stop, stop, what are you doing?! This is exactly what you came to prevent!

“We're sorry; we are unable to complete your call as dialed. Please check the number and dial again, or call your operator to help you.”

That’s right. Both relief and disappointment zipped through him. Of course. It wasn’t a real number. It never was one, was it? Not until… He rang it again. The same answer parroted back to him. Then he did it again, a third time, a fourth, fifth. It was the sixth time when he noticed it. With how close he was to the table, he shouldn’t have been able to feel the back of the chair. His breath left fog on the black shine of the phone. He twisted the cord in hand, turning his head around. His heart stuttered at the sight.

Feathers. Sunset coloured feathers. His mind rather unhelpfully pointed out that they were, in fact, wings. The same wings NEO had. However, in a much better condition than he had seen last. Like how they had been when he first found it. No longer wing-esque masses of metal that couldn’t even dare hold his weight, but rather proper angelic wings. Idle wonder crossed his thought, of it being because of the lightner’s SOUL, or if it was NEO itself. 

He dropped the phone and found himself falling off the chair. A bit-crushed shriek filled the room.

“[[No nO NO No]]”

Imagine if anyone else saw them. The amount of trouble, the difference of him with and without. He just arrived! His feet pushed him back against the wall. No one would believe him and Spam the same with them. Could he get in trouble for stealing something that would still be there? He didn’t want to end up back in a goddamn garbage can because of wings of all things!! He doubted he could even fly with them like this. They were most likely useless. Would they find more things for him to lose? He squeezed his eyes closed and yanked at his hair. He prayed. He was only imagining things. They couldn’t be here. They shouldn’t be here. It didn't matter to him that he could feel them and everything they touched.

“Spamton?”

He curled in on himself, hoping he stayed hidden in the small spot between the table and the room’s corner. It’s not like it would help. His throat was filled with a constant stream of 'no.' He didn't need to be seen to be noticed.

A phone clicked back in its receiver. The dial tone permeating the air cut off. There was nothing but his voice and static.

“Spamton?” Whoever it was got closer, the volume of his name reaching through the ringing. He dared to open an eye. Binx hovered above him. Looking down at him as if he were a feral dog that may snap at any moment. He shifted his jaw and clenched his teeth. What an awful look, he decided.

“[Blue Cheese]! IT’5 [[NOT!!! LET ME SAY—]] WH47 1t [[Looks Like Car Troubles]]!!” Spamton waved his arms about. As if that would be more convincing. The panic crawling through him caused him to glitch erratically, twitching his head this way and that. He ignored the sharp stabbing pain caused by the sudden movements.

“…I… What? It looks to me that you were on the phone and then hid in the corner. I do not need to know why.” Binx shook his head. He took Spamton's hands in his and helped him off the ground. Spamton didn’t protest. “You look like you need a distraction. Why don’t you… Go get dressed and wake up Spam, yes?”

Dressed? He glanced down. Ah. In his haste to reach the phone, he hadn’t thrown on his sweater or jacket. Not even his shoes or glasses. He was only wearing his pants. Whoops. Not exactly a ‘Big Shot’ look. It was beyond him how he hadn’t noticed his blurry vision until now. He must have been out of it.

“…okay...” He nodded shakily, pulling his hands back. His feet carried him around Binx, tripping only once. A quick glance behind him at the phone, followed by a check of his back… Nothing. Just dirty, white fur. Not a single feather nor even a hint. It… Must have been a hallucination again. Yes. That’s exactly what it was. Nothing else. A hallucination. He returned to the stairs, pulling himself up them. Every few steps he looked back, as if the wings would sprout once more. He gave up expecting them to reappear once he had on the rest of his clothes. 

Right, okay. He shifted his inner tasks, trying to focus on what Binx asked. Wake up Spam. That would be easy. He certainly had the lungs and volume for it.

Spamton made his way past the upstairs furniture to the white door. After a few knocks, he opened the door with a loud, “[[Good Morning Cyber City! Today’s Weather Forecast Includes]] WAKING THE [[$!?!]] UP!!.!”

An ‘ugh’ response resounded in the darkness. Spamton made his way in the room, a hand to the wall. Luckily a lamp wasn’t far from the door. He fumbled before twisting it on, blinking at the brightness.

“Nooo…” Were Spam’s thoughts about that. The addison in question shoved his head under his pillow. Spamton walked over to his old desk—or rather, the not-so-old not-his-anymore desk— and turned on that lamp as well. Together the two lamps lit up the room quite well. Dark, star themed wallpaper was more visible, and purple carpet kept it from being too bright. The off-white furniture stood out. Not awfully, but quite a bit of contrast.

“[Wake Up] TO [The Smooth Taste Of] D4Y” He looked over the desk. Was it always so crowded? There were pens and pencils, papers with doodles, scribbles, and even a labelled page with math for how much a car should cost. A candle and a clock were pushed to the far corner, not as used as the rest. Above the desk was a cork board that was equally disorganized. Glasses sat in the only empty spot nearest the bed. Spamton turned away. 

“…Go away...” Spam’s muffled voice said. “Wait…”

He pulled his head out of the pillow, squinted up at Spamton. He blinked. The two started at one another, Spam’s mouth flapping with a loss of words.

“…IT’S tiME TO W4KE UP.” Spamton jankily pointed a thumb to the clock.

“That wasn’t a dream.”

“[[No]].”

Spam sat up with his eyes on Spamton. “You’re me.”

“ARE YOU [Real Estate Interest] THIS?” He furrowed his eyebrows, “BINX SAID [Wake Up Call] Y0U. [Alarm Noise.mp3]”

“Hooo… Shit.” Spam rubbed his eyes and buried his face in his hands. He glanced back to Spamton, then to his hands. This was a bit ridiculous, and he really didn't want to wait for every response. So Spamton headed to leave with copied earlier words, “[Go Get Dressed]”

“Right. Right…”

He closed the door behind him. And deflated with a static huff. He wasn’t running away from an awkward situation, no. Everything was fine. There was nothing to run away from. Now.

Now what?

He didn’t know.

Perhaps he would try seeing what he could gather up to sell other darkners, while he planned for Heaven. Not too unusual for his normal activities. Perhaps easier. None would recognise him and his tactics. There were many ways he knew to trap someone alone in an isolated area. Or he’d just get lucky again like with Kris. He had no idea what he was going to sell. He didn’t have his most signature items with him, nor really anything of note. That he would willingly part with, anyway. Just what was on hand.

It’s not like he carried hundreds of items in his pockets that logically shouldn’t fit, such as swords or whole cakes. Sword of a lot. That would be odd, though he wished he did. Could he even make enough kromer to get by? Or get some sort of home? Would he be stuck in garbage forever? Stuck seeing how long he could put up with the charity from his past? He’s not really able to get a normal 9-5er. Fine motor skills were not his strong suit anymore. If he went to an interview, no one would take him seriously for long. Longer than in his proper time with a lack of social standing. But not long enough.

He’d tried. Multiple times. He hadn’t had it worked out before.

Oh. He was standing below at the base of the stairs. The room was a fair bit brighter than earlier. The lights illuminated the soft golden colours of the walls and carpet. His eyes snapped across the room. The grayscale kitchen, free of any mess or disaster. Deals could wait a bit. Might as well abuse this situation as much as he could. Before the worst comes to the worst. His quick strides brought him to the fridge, just about to open it—

“There is cereal in the cabinet above the oven.”

—Someone speaking up caused him to jump. Spamton turned to see Binx eating a sugary bowl of cereal in the dining room. Ah, that would work just fine. It’s far easier to accept what’s offered instead of agonising over the options. “DELICIS [Deals]”

He found himself staring at an empty bowl and a cereal. A sense of vertigo swam his head. The kitchen step stool was untouched, still leaning against a counter. His memory blanked out, and he couldn't recall getting anything down. Confusion fluttered through him. He shook off the oddity. The little extra height he gained was apparently enough to finally reach the cabinets. That was new.

He filled the bowl all the way up. The thought of just swallowing the whole box did cross his mind. Sadly for that brilliant idea, he preferred to keep his food down. Throwing up happened way too often for his comfort. That didn’t stop him from treating the cereal as if it were soup, tipping it down to eat it.

“‘Scuse me.”

Spamton choked and coughed, glitching out the path of an unexpected Spam. Heaven was it annoying to be spooked twice in five minutes. Keeping an eye on Spam, he continued to step off to the side. Spam practically danced around in the kitchen, grabbing miscellaneous items for reasons Spamton didn't know. He finished the little bit left of his cereal. It wasn’t stale for once. Or soggy. It used to be surprising how much soaked cereal others threw away.

“Do you two want any scrambled eggs?”

“No, thank you.” Binx shook his head in the corner of Spamton’s eye.

What a terrible idea. Both cereal and eggs? That much food in such a short time… It could make him sick. “[[Request Accepted]]!!!!1!” 

So of course he would have eggs. His glasses lens flipped colours at the exciting thought. There’s nothing wrong with having a nice splurge every once in a while, is there? Of course not. He could consider it a… A ‘success’ feast or something. Split up feast since the sandwich was before he slept. Whatever’d get his thoughts to stop whispering he didn’t deserve anything.

He considered licking the leftover sugar out of the bowl before deciding against it. He set the bowl down behind him.

“HEY!! LET ME SAY [[Thanks]] 4 THIS [Great Deals And More] [Offer] YOU GAVE.” Spamton jittered with a tapping foot, looking between the two other addisons. “CANNN’T SAY     I’VE HAD BREAKFA5T IN [For The Longest Time~]”

“Ah.”

“Well, ehaha…”

Neither knew a good response, nor did Spamton know what he would have wanted to hear. He didn’t need one anyway.

“I DO NEED, [Terms And Conditions Apply] IF [Please let me stay! Don’t leave me alone!]. MONEY NO. I HAVE [For A Limited Time Only!] KROMER”

“You know… You don’t really need to do anything to stay here for a while, right?” Binx said.

He blinked and his hands held a little plate with scrambled eggs. In front of him, Spam nodded along to Binx’s words. “It’s not like you’re renting. Maybe just help with chores if you can?”

With a few choice words, a lightbulb went off in Spamton’s head. Help? “I CAN DO THAT! WHAT YOU NEED [Press F1 For] IS BECOMING A [[BIG SHOT!!!!!]].!”

“…What?” 

“A BIG SHOT.” With a quick spritz of magic, he dropped his scrambled eggs— and the plate— down his throat, not pausing to chew. Ignoring the horrified look, he gestured his hands as if to paint the air with ideas, “I AM   I AM  A SALESMAN , AND WITH [3 Easy Payments of $9.99!] [[You Too Can]] BE A BIG SHOT LIKE ME!. JUST [[Don’t Touch That Dial]]!!”

“That doesn’t really—”

“YOU’rE TRYING TO SELL A [[Cungadero]], [[Right]] [[Right]]?”

“A what?”

“WELL HAVE I GOT [[Exactly Everything That You Need]]!! [[Insert Text Here]].”

“Huh?”

“[[Hyperlink Blocked]]”

A pause.

“…EAHEAHEAH! I MEAN I. C4N HELP. YOU. I WAS [Number 1 Salesman] FOR REASON!”

“Hey… Wait…” A blue hand pushed Spamton away from his younger counterpart. Separating the distance that close without him realising. He’d shoved himself in Spam’s face without noticing. With teeth grinding, his attention turned to Binx.

“Don’t you think you’re taking things a little far, just to offer some sort of help?”

The familiarity of the words sent an uncomfortable shiver down his back. “WHAT? OF COURSE NOT! [No Money Back Guaranteed] [Mik—] I’M AN [[HonestMan]]! IT’S JUST A LIL BUSINESS. THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH— There’s NOTHING WRONG.”

“I’m not saying there is.” The expression on his face told Spamton that Binx hadn’t even considered it. Water plinked down from the faucet next to him. Hesitation left an air of uncertainty. It was deafening to his head. “Look, Spamton… You have been a fair bit more extreme than necessary. It’s rather—”

Spam cut Binx off. “How could you help?”

“What?” “HUH?”

“I— Well— Eh— It’s my decision right? Since he asked me!” Spam fumbled his fingers through his ponytail. He shrugged and turned around as if he couldn’t face them. Or maybe he was just interested in his own scrambled eggs. “I’m not sure how it’d make me be a ‘big shot’ but. Well. Advice couldn’t hurt.”

Spamton gave a manic laugh, his head jerking downward and up with teeth clattering. He excitedly flapped his arms about, “THAT’s [What I’m Talking About]!!! YOU GOTTA GRAB [The Game Of Life™] BY THE [[Silly Strings]]! MAKE YOUR OWN [Deals] CALL YOUR OWN [Shots]!!1!”

Binx's glancing between the two Spams was obvious even with his eyes closed. Yet despite the frown and uncertainty that was so obvious, he didn’t try to convince either little addison to stop. Well, really he didn’t try a second time to get Spamton to settle. Spamton had begun to pacing with exclamations that even he couldn’t keep track of. Just spitting nonsense, not sure of what he was trying to say. While he waited for Spam to finish his breakfast, he pointlessly filled the stiff and silent air. He was certain of only one thought.

Anything he told Spam was still better than [Mike]’s sickening, raw honey words.

The moment food was all eaten, he jumped over to shove Spam out the door. The faster they were, the better chances of tired early risers who wouldn’t read fine print. Spam only protested briefly, but there was no refusal. Spam had to lead the rest of the way not long into the walk. It had been so long since he had attempted to sell on the street rather than in a back alley.

“YOU HAVE [Details Included In Our Paperwork] RIGHT?” He almost forgot the most important part of any ‘proper’ deal. Legality wasn’t exactly something he dealt with anytime recently. But he had plenty of experience. Mostly. …As a Big Shot, he’d been quick to hire someone else for that tedious loophole work. Laws never were his strong suit.

“Wha— Yes.” Spam searched through his pockets before pulling out some loose half folded papers. He straightened them out and gave them over, “Here.”

Spamton took them, reading them over for a refresher. A 1991 junked car he found in the trash zone. It was probably the correct amount of papers, he couldn’t remember. Laws change over 25 years. It had been a side project. Just something to fix up in his spare time. He had done a damn fine job of it, too. Mechanics were always a favourite pastime of his. Up until all that hands-on work was no longer his part in maintaining Big Shot Autos. Then he was only the owner and main advertiser, not really working on anything in years. And after… Well.

Oftentimes he wondered if it was a coincidence the car finally worked a few weeks before he got that call.

He tuned back into the current reality to hear Spam rambling about the car. Something about how red was such a good car colour that made it feel faster. Spamton nodded along, his thoughts scattered elsewhere. Not that he would disagree.

Eventually they stopped in a crowded part of the city. Significantly less urban than where the family home was. More of where he watched the lightners travel along, in the original future. Aside from them, there was only one other Addison. All three were unconcerned about the other party. There was no competition, so each party ignored the other.

“…Okay! So!” Spam’s head swivelled to watch the passing darkners. Spamton stayed quiet to listen. He couldn’t at all remember how he used to pitch, before [Mike]. Spam was clearly trying not to fidget or move around like he did at home. A frown briefly graced Spam’s face before he twisted it to a slightly crooked, typical addison smile. “I— Okay. …Twelfth time’s the charm…”

There was a pause as if he forgot his lines, before he cleared his throat and spoke back up. 

“Hey! Car sale, I— We’re selling a great, used car for cheap prices! At half the price than you’d find originally. Only 10 thousand dark dollars!”

It certainly was a pitch. But the words were spoken at a normal conversational volume, not a ‘professional car salesman’ level. Or with the same zeal as Spamton. Even his words to Kris had fulfilled the basics of any sales pitch. Even though Kris was terrified, it still worked.

“WOW. THAT’S [[Dirt Poor Quality]] DEALS!”

Not all of his glitching words were totally involuntary. Just mostly. Besides. There was no reason to hide how dumb Spamton thought it was. Spam blinked in response. 

“Wh— It was perfectly fine.”

“YOU NEED, TO BE LOUDER! AND [Adobe Flash]IER!” Spamton declared, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He patted Spam’s shoulder and gave a computer fan hum. The younger’s smile fell. “Is that why you yell?” Doubt was obvious in the younger’s expression. Spamton wasn’t sure why.

“OF COURSE! THAT AND MY vOICEB0X IS… [Stuck In Traffic].” He didn’t want to dwell on that. He tried to think of how to continue on the previous topic. His smile twitched, “WATCH AND LEARN, [Little Sponge]!”

He threw his arms up and dropped his jaw. Letting out strange music from his throat, his fur and hair started to shift through rainbow colours. The area around them lit up similarly to the brightness of it. Eyes that had previously ignored them were drawn to the strange and mildly obnoxious sight. Perfect. He glanced over to Spam, then to the street. 

Picking a random stranger, he walked up and swung an arm at them to force their attention on him. The legal papers in his hand crinkled loudly. “HeY HEY HEY!!!” He cut off his song and rainbow. Luckily this situation had the simplest requirement. He just had to reuse the exact words from the original time he sold this car. He waved his hands and approached closer after each sentence. 

“[[Are you tired of walking place to place in this city? In need of a cheap solution that really works? Our lightly used and EXCELLENTLY maintained car is just what you need!!]]”

He paused to sort what to say next, gauging how they reacted. Oh. Hm, that was not a good look. Could he recover from that glare and electric zap of annoyance? He probably should have paid attention more to who he singled out. A werewire didn’t need a car. This one clearly didn’t like the audacity of the suggestion.

“OR OR OR OR— FOR! ONLY [13k Retail Value]!” Might as well stick to his guns.

They let out a loud bzzt before he could continue. White spheres of electricity shot past his head as sparks audibly ignited in the air around them. It was more of a threat than an actual attack, but it was effective enough to get the intent past. He didn’t back off, doubling down with a stuttery laugh. 

“HA HA HA! [[Best Deals This Side Of]] [[$!?!]]!!!”

He hardly blinked when the world darkened to black, faint purple lines surrounding them both. Oh, if only he could only grin wider. With how his business usually went, this was a very familiar sight. One he knew how to work around quite well.

So a Fight the werewire wanted? He could give them that. It was a poor mistake on their side. He already was a great Fighter. NEO just made him even stronger. Maybe a few dollar sign bullets or even lasers and this would be over quickly. 

Wait…

Why couldn’t he move?

His body twitched and he glitched, his head turning to his right. Spam stood next to him, wide eyed and grimaced. He hadn’t even noticed Spam got pulled into the Fight as his battle partner. Something else did, though. Like a janky marionette controlled by an inexperienced puppeteer, his arm pointed at the werewire’s connected cord. Words less his than usual left his mouth, “SP-SPAMTON!! [[helpme]] THR0W [50% Off] BULLETS AT THAT WIr3!”

“What?” Spam looked at him with furrowed eyebrows, “How is that supposed to help?”

Spamton felt his eyes squint and smile drop, as if affected by an irritation that he couldn’t feel. It made him slightly woozy. “[[Trust]] [[My]]”

“I— Er— Alright?”

He briefly watched Spam summon up word bullets, uncertainty painted on his face. The puppet turned away. Familiar fuzz of magic crept up his throat. He coughed before it could manifest, as if the feeling were foreign to him. In between the hacking, ‘his’ pointing grew more insistent and words spilled from his lungs. “[Take The Deal] AND SHOOT [For The Sky] SPAMTON!!! NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW AS [[Much Ado About Nothing]] AS Y0U C4N”

Dollar signs and various ad-related words zipped faster than he could blink, hitting at the werewire’s cord. It shifted, maybe looser but otherwise nothing happened. He didn’t really see the point of such an action, though his returning smile indicated otherwise for you.

“HELL YeS [DIY]!”

Then came the werewire’s turn. Reminding him why a Fight wasn't such a good idea, not that he had any choice. The SOUL. The brilliantly glowing SOUL that gave him what he believed to be Freedom. It floated out of him very much like it had from the Lightner. Normally, he wouldn't be too bothered about it. Excited more than anything. His impossible prize, proudly displayed for all to see— well, only two others. He had the impression that the SOUL was unconcerned as well.

It was their reactions that got him.

A sharp buzz and gasping. Circles flying quick with a ‘what’ said near. And then. Pain. Lightning flashing down his spine. His awe of rose glory halted by the harsh reminder that no matter what Heaven’s Angels have gifted to you, reality’s blade dug deeper. It didn’t burn as much as usual.

In retaliation, You managed to choke out ad bullets at the wire, shaking it up more. A few numbers join after from Spam, greatly loosening but just not enough.

“[Defend Your House From Those Pesky Bugs] SPAMTON” His glitched voice commanded the past. 

“I don’t—” Spam held his arms up in a kind of pitiful shielding manner. There was a pause before he finished his words. “I don’t really know how?”

“[[Congr4tulations You W1n!]]”

Strikes of electricity whipped past both of them. A swarm, then just a couple spheres— Only some hitting the pair. It hurt Spamton more than Spam. That was alright. You had a plan.

“AG4IN. PR0CEED.”

Raised arms and just in time. Despite how the magic hurt and made you nauseous, it was fine. Everything was fine. Nothing was wrong. You had a lot of HP to keep up with your clumsiness. It’s so difficult to re-coordinate on such short notice.

You decided to use the extra TP to finish this. Your partner did not have as much experience to keep himself safe. 

“PROC3ED. DEFEND.”

As soon as Spam’s arms were up, you reached for that familiar and new feeling. It was painful for only a brief moment. You were barely on your feet when the ache in your chest flew out as a toothy, cracked heart. It swung and snapped at the wire, ripping it off the werewire. Your mouth filled with the taste of rubber. The werewire shrank into a little plugboy and thumped on the ground as the heart dropped the wire.

The heart disappeared, your clothes thankfully not that much worse for wear. Spamton blinked his eyes and felt his head swim. A pounding headache hit him.

The battle magic sustaining their little pocket dimension finally faded, leaving the three on the city street. The little plugboy wasted no time in running off with a curt ‘sorry’, weaving between darkners until neither Spamton future nor past could see them anymore.

“Let’s not do that again, alright!” Spam yipped, shaking his head and hopscotching his feet up and down. It was not a question. “Maybe we should head back home. I haven’t used that much magic in a while…”

His nausea reared itself up to the back of his throat. Spamton gagged and threw up ceramic plate shards and breakfast on the sidewalk. He heaved for a good minute, faintly noticing someone pulling his hair away from his head.

“…Right, we’re heading back home.”

Once there was nothing left to throw up, Spam led him off. He didn’t pay much attention to anything around him. His head was full of cotton, his semi-permanent smile anything but a smile. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Expected for Spamton and his luck at this point…

They walked up the porch and inside, where they split off. Spam said something about a sink, he didn’t really listen.

Spamton caught a glimpse of Spam and Binx talking out of the corner of his eye. He wasn't sure what it was about, so he opted not to care. He felt far too emotionally and mentally drained. He stumbled his way upstairs after voicing an odd combination of ads. Hopefully that sounded like what he was trying to say. He could get away with sleeping the rest of the day, yeah?

[pyreo]

deltarune megapost

I wanted to make a Deltarune post about the lore and the things that aren’t  obvious. And once I do that I wanna focus on why Mettaton is incredibly important to this setting

And also why he poses a problem

Why did Toriel and Asgore get divorced?

Without the setting of Undertale, Asgore and Toriel’s marriage still broke up after they had Asriel. There needs to be a reason though. In UT it was Asgore’s ‘worst of both worlds’ decision regarding killing anybody that fell from the human world, including children. We saw how close they were before this happened. Only something deep and serious caused that rift. In Deltarune, what on earth did Asgore do?

What happened to Dess?

Mentioned a handful of times by Noelle, Dess was her older sister and is mentioned In Undertale.... in that Xbox exclusing casino thing. The way Noelle talks about her, the conspicuous way Noelle gets locked out of her big house - it implies Dess is gone or deceased. Berdly recalls a spelling bee when he and Noelle were younger where she, despite being smarter than him, misspelled ‘December’, allowing him to win.

In the two-player spelling puzzle, it also spells out ‘December’ as Noelle recalls the past and her silhouette regresses to a child while she does so. Being distracted by her sister’s disappearance, rather than pure shyness, could account for her misspelling her name on stage, and it clearly left a big psychological mark for her to have this visual regression in the Dark World.

However, there’s a graveyard in Hometown with no Dess. I heard another theory that she has been missing for years, because where each character’s personal room is made by Queen to reflect their tastes via their search results, Noelle has a calendar where every day is December 25th. This could imply that Noelle continually searches the internet for ‘December Holiday’, her sister’s name, to see if there are clues to her disappearance, but of course the only result you would get is the date of Christmas.

Who is the Knight?

It’s now implied to be Kris, who has been forcibly removing the player’s influence to act on their own. By all accounts the Knight is the game’s main antagonist. Spade King and Queen both mention the Knight as someone who influenced their position - they brought Spade King to absolute power, and showed Queen that creation of new worlds was possible.

We’re led to believe that Kris was doing this, because they’ve been acting outside of the player’s control. Eating the entire pie between chapter 1 and 2 might have been a red herring to cover that they also went to the library and used that knife to slash open a dark fountain there.

However. This has issues. How would they even manage to shuffle slowly all the way to the library and get in the computer lab? The Knight is also the one creating the hidden bosses. They talked to Jevil until he realised he was in a game and he lost his mind; they ruined Spamton’s life by elevating him to success and then crushing him. Whatever the Knight is doing seems to be deliberately planned with key players in mind.

Kris opening the fountain at home at the end of ch.2 can be explained in that you just figured out in Cyber World that anyone determined enough can do this, and so, Kris decided to. So a better question might even be...

What does Kris want?

We have no idea. They are capable of removing the SOUL, ‘us’, temporarily, and putting things in motion we cannot influence. But they also keep putting us back in control afterward. This is hinted at right when ch.2 starts, where if you inspect the cage in Kris’s bedroom they threw us into, the description says it’s inescapable. Meaning Kris came back and took us out, willingly.

They allow us to pilot them through the game. Why? Because they cannot live without the SOUL for long for some reason? Because they’re bad at bullet hell? Why did they slash Toriel’s tyres before opening the fountain, making sure nobody could drive away?? Why did they specifically open the door?

You can find out details about Kris through the creepy way you interact with the townsfolk, who think you are Kris. They play the piano at the hospital waiting room - better than you. They used to go to church just to get the special church juice. It’s all normal, relatable things, not like someone who’s trying to plunge the world into darkness. Judging by their search history portrayed in their Queen’s castle room, they really want to see their brother again. However the castle has a room based on Asriel’s search history too, and Kris (not you) closes their eyes and won’t look at it.

What is Ralsei?

His name is an anagram of Asriel. Is he an extension of Asriel? The slightly flirtier dialogue in ch.2 would point to no. Is he an extension of Kris themselves, given the link between Kris’s childhood habit of wearing a headband with red horns on it, to pretend to be a monster like their family?

Ralsei knows exactly where the Dark World in the school is located, and unlike regular Darkners, knows the world is folded up inside the ‘real world’. There’s a certain whiplash to Ralsei telling you to hop out of his reality into yours and go down the hallway to retrieve all the board game items.

How does he jump from one Dark World to another, without assistance? How does he not get petrified like Lancer and Rouxls? Is this a power level thing because he’s a prince or something else? We definitely do not know enough about Ralsei.

He also says this incredibly suspicious thing after you spare Spamton NEO. Susie was also curious but accepts that maybe it ‘didn’t mean anything’, which is a sure tell that these optional bosses do mean something.

Someone is orchestrating what’s happening, opening fountains, manipulating the rulers, and influencing NPCs to become the optional bosses. Why? I suspect Ralsei for both knowing too much, and pretending something doesn’t matter when it clearly does. Until Asriel actually comes home from college I’m going to suspect he’s involved in this too.

How much does Seam know?

Seam on the other hand knows a lot about what’s going on but is openly withholding information while helping you. He’s nihilistic. He says things like:

One day soon... You too, will begin to realize the futility of your actions. Ha ha ha... At that time, feel free to come back here. I'll make you tea... And we can toast... to the end of the world!

Either this ‘end of the world’ is a reference to The Roaring, where opening too many dark fountains dooms the Dark World and the real one... or, I can’t get out of my head the idea that Deltarune takes place in a fake, or weird reconstruction of Undertale where things don’t match up, and eventually it will have to disappear. After all, powers of determination and creating and manipulating universes are Undertale’s basic bread and butter. How can we look at an Alternate Universe containing the characters we already know and not suspect that? Seam also uses Gaster’s key words, ‘darker, yet darker’, seemingly to clue us in that he’s not off track here.

Why haven’t we seen Papyrus?

This is a bright neon flashing ‘something’s not right’ sign. It’s not like Papyrus’s voice actor was too busy or anything. His absence is noticable and for a reason. Nice of Sans to promise we could meet him despite being aware we’re piloting a child’s body around, though, even if he didn’t follow through.

What locations in town could be used for dark fountains in the next 4 chapters?

If the sequence continues, we have chapter 1 in the school games room, chapter 2 in a computer lab, and chapter 3 in front of Kris’s television, where the aesthetic of each setting influences the world, characters, and enemies in the Dark World created there. Future possibilities include the church, the hospital, sans’s grocery store, Noelle’s house, and the closed bunker.

What the hell’s in the closed bunker

This one’s too obvious, honestly. I think it’ll open for no reason in chapter 7 and a little white dog will bounce out and steal one of your key items and nothing else happens.

Why does Asgore have these

Unlike the bunker feeling like a joke teaser, I gotta believe this is foreshadowing something weird. For example, what does opening a dark fountain in here with the seven flowers do? Does it just take you into Undertale?

Each chapter will have a hidden boss with a ‘soul mode’ from Undertale

Chapter 1 let you stay red, but I think each subsequent chapter is going to change your soul mode to one of the seven colours and design the encounter around that. Purple, yellow, green and blue were used in Undertale, leaving the light blue and orange modes yet to be revealed.

How does Spamton emulate Mettaton Neo’s name, body, and incorporate his battle theme, and the ‘Dummy!’ theme, with no actual connection between them ingame?

This is a really fun one that’s explained over in this post here. Swatch is the Dark World creation from the paint program on the library computers, so he’s able to explain that a Lightner made the robot body decaying in the castle basement that way.

Mettaton went to the library and drew his ideal form, Mettaton NEO, in MS Paint, and the Dark World formed that into a puppet body which Spamton was able to hijack temporarily. So by doing that Spamton was able to channel Mettaton’s appearance, attacks, music, and SOUL mode for the fight.

This might mean that the future hidden bosses, each with their own SOUL mode, might be based on the associated character for that mode (Muffet, Undyne, and Sans or Papyrus), and the boss will take on some aspect of them from their world to leech their fight mechanics.

The Problem With Mettaton

We don’t exactly know what Deltarune is about. It’s an alternate universe where the characters from Undertale already live on the surface, have completely normal lives, but diverge from the storyline of Undertale and, crucially, have not lived through the changes Frisk brought to their lives.

Remember how Undertale had a dozen different ending routes depending on who you befriended? The constant reinforcement in Undertale was that your choices mattered. Through Frisk, you chose to bring Alphys closure about her mistakes, you chose to befriend papyrus instead of attacking him, you chose to help Alphys and Undyne realise their feelings for each other and it’s only doing that that leads to the golden ending and escape to the surface.

Deltarune is the opposite, your choices do not matter. The only thing you can do to force the route of the game to change is to force Noelle into a No Mercy run, which is indirect, and also, a total desperation to mess with an otherwise set course. This version of the characters have not been helped by Frisk - Undyne and Alphys are not together, Papyrus has no friends, Asgore cannot get over himself, and they’re clearly the worse for it, but potentially, you COULD still do these things. In fact it’s hinted that you already are.

But there’s Mettaton.

He’s still a ghost and does not leave his house. In Frisk’s world, Gaster deleted himself, promoting Alphys to royal scientist by bluffing with Mettaton, and she then build him his ideal body. In Kris’s world... Alphys is a school teacher. There’s no barrier to break, no reason to experiment on souls, no Flowey mistake, and no body for Mettaton.

It was sad in Ch.1, but now with the Spamton NEO fight in ch.2, it’s unmissable. Mettaton wants that body and he cannot get it. Alphys in this universe is not going to leave her teaching job and suddenly be able to build a robot. Mettaton is just... screwed out of his happy ending and cannot get it.

So what resolution could this have? If it wasn’t for Mettaton I might believe in the vaildity of Deltarune and Hometown. But. How can you doom this character? If Undertale was the only way Mettaton could be befriended, then Undertale is Primary Universe A and Seam is right - the world of Deltarune is doomed as some kind of aberration. It all relies on how this gets explained in the future, but the core mystery of Deltarune is how exactly this universe intersects with Undertale and whether one is an offshoot of the other. How the Dark World links into that is another complication. But even as we get more fun characters and neat stuff in the Dark Worlds, let’s not forget we have absolutely no idea why Undertale’s characters are living here with no mention of underground or why there are no other humans beside Kris.

[swordsxsarcasm]

MORE deltarune spoilers because i just finished playing from ch1-2 on a complete save file

ok so first things first:

1. spamton: i thought about it, looked around some more, and yknow how the butler in the queen's mansion cafe (after the fight) talks about how he built that body for a lightner? im pretty sure the lightner in question is mettaton. or, the ghost that Becomes mettaton. with spamtons final form being "spamton neo", the resemblance to mettaton neo in the geno route of undertale, and mettaton still being a ghost in deltarune, im pretty sure that mettaton had wished for a body like that, and the darkner running the cafe answered that wish by making the machine found in the basement.

2. onion-san: after two years, i finally heard onion-san's secret. or, both secrets, actually lol. so apparently onion-san has been hearing part of a song coming from deep under the water, and thinks that they'd heard the entire song before, out deep in the ocean. explicitly says that it's not a new song. they then say theyre going to investigate more and to come back tomorrow (ch3) to hear what else they'd found out. i have two theories about this, one, being that the song that onion-san is hearing is from the humans, and two, that the song is from the darkners.

the human theory is something ive been thinking on since i started replaying deltarune. im pretty sure this world is a timeline where the humans lost the war mentioned in the intro to undertale, and were sealed underground instead of the monsters as a result. the bunker is possibly the entrance to the underground, and kris somehow got out. kris's dialogue about humans seems to imply something dark, with the book about humans on the top floor of the library (accessible in ch2) having "pictures of unfamiliar humans", to which kris immediately slams the book shut. snowy and monsterkid, in ch2, down at the bunker mention that kris knows something about the bunker, and that whatever is in there is scary. this could be another entrance to the dark world (now that we know kris can open them as the knight) but it could also be the underground, where all the humans have been sealed inside of. humans also seem to be relatively unknown and somewhat of mythological creatures, with movies being made about them, and one of the npcs in the apartments asking questions to kris about if their blood hurts/where skeletons come from if humans have them inside of them.

the darkner theory is less thought out on my part, but still possible. the further underwater you go, the darker it gets. its possible that there might be an entrance to the dark world underwater, or maybe the dark world is simply part of the real world, and just unknown/hidden away. this could also tie into the bunker possibly being an entrance to the dark world, and might be the "true" entrance, but its been locked and so the worlds are separated. in ch1, (if i remember correctly) seam and the king mention how the lightners locked them away, and that the dark world wasnt always like this. ralsei also mentions that the lightners and darkners used to live side by side, almost symbiotically, with the lightners giving the darkners purpose and the darkners helping the lightners fulfill their journeys/wishes. if kris knows about it, its possible this isnt kris's first adventure in the dark world, and probably was alone the first time. i can see how that would be terrifying for anyone, let alone a child. kris probably locked the bunker so that no one else would get stuck in there/none of the darkners would come out. it could also possibly be that the "true"/"real" kris wants to release the darkners, but us as the player sealed the bunker somehow, hence why kris keeps removing our control and opening new fountains. there isnt as much to go off of with this theory as the human theory, but i think theyre both possible.

3. ok enough lore talk i have to mention it. THE DUCK. in ch1 when you make the thrash machine you can make a duck, and it sucks, and susie and lancer blow it up. the end. BUT IN CH2, ROUXLS KAARD BRINGS THE THRASH MACHINE BACK AS A BOAT. and if you played through from ch1-2 and got to customize the machine/make it into a duck, theres different text!

AND. to make matters even better, when you fight giga-queen at the end of ch2, and the thrash machine is modified into a mecha for you to fight her in, you ALSO get a special ability if your thrash machine was a duck! i forgot to grab a screenshot, but its similar to the standard laser upgrade in the act menu, except it (supposedly) sucks. i did notice that the duck version, in addition to attacking, also heals you when you activate it? which is great. all in all, i suggest playing from ch1 so that you can get the duck thrash machine. 10/10

4. the saddest news, papyrus: even if you tell sans you'll hang out with his brother tomorrow in ch1, you still cant meet papyrus in ch2. sans says to come back when asriel comes back to town (which is a whole can of worms, because sans shouldnt know asriel yet since hes new in town. unless toriel blabbed about him while fucking befriending him) which will probably be chapter 6/7 :( i miss papyrus so much im very sad about this.

i think thats it, but then again theres so much that hasnt been explored yet. this is just my thoughts/stuff ive encountered in my playthrough. very hyped for ch3 sjkdgfksdhfhj

[madamecricket]

Fourth (and Final) Impressions of Deltarune Chapter 2

Edit: forgot to put a readmore. Forgive me! Spoilers under the cut!

- So I wasn’t even in the palace very long before we got to a series of puzzles that Berdly couldn’t solve, much to his frustration. I figured Berdly was building up to something, either a boss fight or a growth moment, and it was the second one. Turns out when you thrive off of praise, you develop a bit of a dependency... good on him to be self-aware.

- In the flashback sequence with the spelling bee, I noticed the word Noelle got nervous and stuck on - “December”. See, I remember another sequence in the city where we had a character moment with Noelle while pressing a series of switches that spelled out “December.” Clearly the word is significant to her in some way, and probably a negative way considering how it made her freeze up. Either something big happened in December, or something big happened involving a person close to her named December, since I remember her mentioning a “Dess”. I’m looking forward to where this goes.

- The theme in the Queen’s palace slaps, just gotta say that before we go further.

- So backtracking a bit, Lancer has been stone-ified, and Ralsei knows exactly what’s up: the dark fountains create worlds, the dark fountains that was sustaining Lancer’s world is gone, and that’s why Lancer is stone now. He’ll be fine, though, if we can get him back to Ralsei’s castle town and the fountain there. Good of him to offer a solution, except...

- ... hold the fuck up, Ralsei. So you’re telling me that this happened to Lancer because of the loss of his dark fountain - which Ralsei encouraged us to go through - and because of that, the Dark World that Lancer comes from is no more? And what’s more, Lancer now depends on the Castle Town fountain - that is, Ralsei’s fountain - to live. He is now life-bound to your town, Ralsei. He literally cannot leave you and still live, and even if he could, the world he knew is gone. Oh, but it’s ok, because you conveniently have a place for him to live under your roof now. 

- And, hold on, who was it who told us we had to go through the Dark Fountain to get home?? I played through the first chapter just recently, that was you, Ralsei. I definitely remember Ralsei saying we had to do that, he gave us that quest in the first place, and I definitely do not remember him mentioning at any point that this would end with Lancer’s world being destroyed. This is absolutely not fine, Ralsei. Oh, and considering how conveniently us getting isekai’d in the library lines up with Ralsei suddenly insisting we had to go and do homework... Ralsei, are you the one isekai-ing us???

- *deep breath* Okay. I’m calling it now. There’s something Ralsei isn’t telling us. I joked earlier about how he wants to bake us into cakes and eat us, but to be clear, I think whatever’s going on here is more complicated than “Ralsei was the bad guy all along”. I get the feeling that Ralsei’s desire for friendship, especially towards Kris, is very genuine. It’s just... this whole situation is reminding me of Asriel’s deal in Undertale. Fitting considering the whole anagram situation... I wonder how Deltarune!Asriel is going to play into this.

- Okay, back to more current stuff in the game. I met up with Roulsx Kaard (idc how to spell it) again and he’s facing me in... the thrashing machine I made in the first chapter. I’m serious. Same color and everything, holy shit.

- behold the majesty

- COMETH FORTH, MY SQUEAKY DUCKY!!!

- ...whut?

- this is excellent. I’m going to die of excellent.

- ohh, now he’s gonna transform... aaaaand...

- oh. ... you know, I wondered when it was gonna catch up to him?

- ice cold, Ralsei. Ice cold.

- “Why don’t we close our eyes and imagine how she’s doing now” Just like last game... is Ralsei actually activating some kind of power when this happens?

- “I wish Dess could see this”? I knew it! I’m on to something!

- taking a moment to acknowledge the shipping energy in the air

- Noelle (paraphrased): “Where are we, anyway?” Me: say “Dark World” Susie: “You’re just having a dream” Again with Susie thwarting player intentions...

- .. a heart-covered Ferris Wheel. Okay, Toby Fox, we’re doing this now!

- Susie has a tail???

- BERDLY WHAT

- And again, we return from a Susie Sequence to Ralsei apparently explaining something to Kris and finishing with a variation of “so that’s why-” before getting cut off by Susie. What are you explaining, Ralsei.

- Checked a calendar in Noelle’s palace room. “Every page is the last month, every day is the 25th”... what??

- another banger of a final battle!! let’s do this!!!

- See, I had a feeling that the Queen didn’t actually want to hurt anybody, but she has a... funny... idea of what constitutes helping. It clicks with her being basically a personified search engine - she literally wants nothing more than to give people what they want and make them happy, but she’s not always great at figuring that out based on what they search. She mentions Noelle’s “sad and lonely searches”... Noelle, honey, are you ok?

- Excuse me, Queen, this Dark World was created *today*? ... And it was created by the Knight... and I already suspect that Ralsei is “isekai-ing” us... Ralsei, are you the knight?

- New important info: “Lightners” are apparently necessary to create Dark Fountains due to their determination, and unlike Undertale, determination isn’t exclusive to humans

- BERDLY!!! BERDLY IS PUTTING THAT REDEMPTION ARC TO GOOD USE!!!

- ...

... this game just became perfect

- Oh hey, White Diamond, what’s up?

- “Oh Damn I Did Not Know That” WELL NOW YOU TELL US, RALSEI!

- Susie doesn’t have a tail? Make up your mind, game!!!

- Phew. Okay. Okay. The actual game part is over. Time to process some thoughts...

- So we’ve seen two Dark Worlds so far, Lancer’s world based on games (cards, checkers, etc) and the Queen’s world based on computers and the internet. The running theme I notice so far is escapism. During her fight, the Queen monologued about a desire to fulfill the desires of people who turn to the internet to dull their pain or look for new distractions. And as for Lancer’s world... well, it’s implied to literally be made of abandoned toys. Both of them things people turn to when they need a little entertainment or escapism to avoid their real-life problems for a bit. And I think it’s been mentioned that Darkners are essentially made to serve Lightners; perhaps helping them cope with the difficulties of life? 

Even putting aside the symbolism here, Susie and Kris literally escaped to this world to blow off their classwork, and Susie in particular seems to think the Dark World is better than anything in the Light World. In the final battle, Susie, Noelle, AND Berdly were all just about to open up a Dark Fountain themselves and make themselves better lives in the Dark World and only stopped when Ralsei very firmly informed them about the Roaring. Is this going to come up again? Are these kids going to struggle with the temptation to abandon their real lives to go play eternally in the Dark World?

And isn’t that just a perfect microcosm of the relationship that people have with video games in general - including this one? The perfect opportunity to just forget about your own life for a bit and temporarily live in a different world altogether, one with battles and magic and adventure?

Just what the fuck is going on here, Ralsei? Was I too quick to accuse him of being a secret villain earlier? Is Ralsei just trying to get us to process our shit in the Dark World, and then destroy it so we move on to the Light World with renewed hope in life? .. or is he just trying to make himself the center of our fantasies?

- HOLY SHIT THE QUEEN IS HERE! THE QUEEN IS HERE AND SHE’S GONNA BE A MOM FOR LANCER!!! (or “girldad” as Lancer puts it)

- ...have the Queen and King met? I mean, it would make sense, but they haven’t been mentioned as having a relationship of any kind or even knowing each other. Is this another Toriel/Asgore kind of situation?

- HOLY SHIT I KNEW IT SHE IS HIS MOM

- So I’m just talking to NPCs around Castle Town, right, and I meet up with Seam again. He just told me to be careful not to stay in there too late and that I don’t want to get caught when the sun goes down... DAFUQ YOU MEAN, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN???

- This is wonderful, I’m now witnessing Toriel and Sans having a joke-off in person.

- (Sees Kris going in to wash their hands) (Hears Toriel say “they do that sometimes”) ...so Kris has like... a condition? The heart-ripping thing has happened before?

- (Sees last thing before credits) ...okay then!!! I think that’s all the things I can get into one post, haha! Forgot to mention some things, but I can only type so much!!! Can’t wait to talk about this later, haha!!! (holy shit)

[rosepetalwings]

Oh I'm More Than Glad To Talk About Deeprune

ok so lets run through the au in sections

DEEPRUNE

Story:

The cast are now all mythological mermaid/siren creatures.

The Light World is the epipelagic zone (and upper half of mesopelagic zone) of the ocean and live in ignorance of the strange creatures that look as they do in the twilight below...

Dark World is mid-mesopelagic and below, full of frightening sea creatures those so blessed to live in sea reef coral homes could never hope to fathom... and should never hope to meet.

One day, one of the 4 kings of the ocean basins drew help from a powerful, unknown force and imprisoned his peers at the bottom of the deep sea trenches... And to this day, he rules his little area, biding his time for the day the Dark can take over the Light.

That is, of course, unless a very human looking siren, a sea crocodile tough girl, a bioluminscent jellyfish(?) fluffy boy, and a villainous... cloaked hybrid thing can fulfill a very familiar prophecy...

Locations:

Light Zone

Hometown - A bright and cheerful coral reef with a good amount of merfolk in the community.

School ‐ Building constructed out of stone and hidden amongst normal marine foliage and coral. Normal congregations of school akin to what the land-dwellers (or terrans, as the merfolk might call them) do for their own children.

Hospital ‐ Made in the same way as the school and serves the same function as its land counterpart. The hospital does have different instruments to serve its marine patients, however.

QC's diner - Hidden under a rock shelf and is more of an open seating arrangement. Fan coral serves as a sort of decorative barrier to keep the seating plan from being too open.

ICEE's p"e"zzeria - Incredibly conspicuous and placed between the brightest coral on the reef for the attention-grabbing colors. High visibility means free advertising, no?

The Graveyard - In a clearing among the kelp forest, there lies a set of engraved stones covered in algae. It's especially quiet there. Peaceful when you focus on the sunlight filtering in through the kelp stalks.

The bunker - Placed just before the continental shelf begins to fall off into complete and utter darkness. The merfolk in town warn their children to never near that area.

Dark Zone

????? - A craggy mess of rocks on the outskirts of the continental shelf. The light begins to grow strange here for whatever reason...

Castle Town - A shipwreck amongst the craggy rocks in the dark where a strangely kind shadowy figure lives.

Field - A seemingly endless stretch of ocean in which a Lightner's vision alone cannot be used to find one's way in the dark, lest they be horribly lost until the end of time. Or lest they stray further down, where it grows darker, yet darker...

The Scarlet Forest - Not really a forest, per se. More a jestful remark over the collection of sea creatures that have evolved to have a red tone to their skin as camouflage in the watery depths. The creatures are so very frightening and strange with their sharp-toothed open maws and flashy photophores. Strange to think how normal this all is down in the depths...

Great Board - The inlets and caves that checker the continental slope and house very many deep sea merfolk. Very many large tunnels dug out to house many of the population and keep them interconnected as a society. Alas, this stationary grouping also makes them vulnerable to the power of kingly apex predators.

The Castle - Hidden within the depths of the Mariana Trench. None of the Board have seen the castle in such grave depths and lived to tell the tale. None but a strange barreleye and his hyper young ward...

Characters:

Lightners

Kris - A mostly human-shaped siren, save for fishy bits, including but not limited to, gills and an iridescent shine to their hair. Always sneaking off to play tricks on unsuspecting beach goers. Kind of a quiet kid but their mischievous grin says it all for them.

Susie - A rude, rough-and-tumble kind of sea crocodile gill girl that does not appreciate nautical wordplay. She will appreciate your lunch money, though.

Noelle - The most nervous kelpie you'll ever meet. Easily provoked but she's very sweet and intelligent and perhaps she's a shade dorky, but it's through that dorkiness she'll find a way to make you smile.

Asriel - Sweet and effortlessly loveable and smart and talented capricorn brother to Kris who's just gone off to do independent study in a different sea basin! He's coming back to town next week; Kris seems a little downcast as of late, though...

Alphys - Marine iguana teacher at the reef's local school. Please don't ask her for her reviews on neat human media she's managed to salvage, we'll be here all week.

Undyne - The undying undine on everyone's minds! ...Because she's likely tried to tackle you for minor offenses like littering or jay-swimming in the humdrum life of this little reef town. She's somewhat of a vigilante, working by her own judicial metrics and warning the reef of any terran sightings or other such troubles. Not much to report on though, these days...

Toriel & Asgore - The capricorn divorcees. Haven't you heard; the news has spread all over the place! What a shame too, they looked just like the perfect reef family...

Sans and Papyrus - The strange brothers that just moved into the reef... Coelacanth merfolk with mottled, skeletal appearances. The shorter brother "runs" the reef market. ...If you can get a fin in the door, anyway. The taller one hasn't made much of a public appearance in town yet; hard to comment on him.

Darkners

Ralsei - The prince of the prophesy, as well as the bringer of Light to the Dark, as symbolized through his charmed hat and cloak, to make him appear as though he is but a jellyfish that sways with the currents. Seems to be as soft in personality as a jellyfish's bell though.

Lancer - A hooded, mischievous figure that's always up to no good. It's kind of hard to tell what he is, with his short, stubby tentacles and furry, webbed paws, but he's kind of too adorable and personable to care much about it. Popular vote's on dumbo octopus though.

Rouxls - A vigilant barreleye with his haunting eyes always to the sky in search of tributes to pay his king or danger from which to protect the child of a royal bloodline he's been entrusted to care for. He's ditzy and kind of an asshole, but deep down, he's got a good SOUL... that glows through his transparent chest.

Seam - Ah? Looking for wares? Seam's will definitely have something to cure what ails you. The old anglerfish sits behind the shop counter, items lit only by the faint light of small jellies and the wisened shopkeep's lantern-like forehead protrusion. Go for the low prices and stay for the enchanting tales.

Jevil - A laugh sounds in the dark before you could ever approach his cell. He's nothing but needle teeth smiles when he explains to you the nature of the game. Numbers game. Must be a couple of sharks to have gotten down there in the first place. And this freed jester wouldn't have it any other way - sharks to goblin shark.

King - He is, by all accounts, imperceivable. He is larger than life and covered in shifting, writhing appendages that do not keep the shape you once thought them to be, no matter how hard you attempt to keep your focus on any point of his form. He is Leviathan, and the fact that you are before him means that you are incredibly fucked.

Knight - [REDACTED]

PREVIOUS DRAWINGS

Rouxls and a mysterious man

Unmasked Lancer

okay... i think that's about it! don't be afraid to ask for more clarification on anything, i know i gave general overview/musing blurb of... kind of everything i could think to describe! hope this is fine!

or ask me to infodump on another of my AUs! ;3c

[cloverlady]

Deltarune- Speculation About Mayor Holiday

Though Deltarune is a parallel of Undertale in many ways, something to note is that the Dreemurrs of Undertale and the Dreemurrs of Deltarune serve different roles in their community.

In Undertale, Asgore is King Asgore of the Underground, and Toriel is, or was, the Queen of the Underground. This made Asriel the prince, and their adopted child Chara was also part of the royal family.

However, because Deltarune is set in a more modern world, there is no “royal family” in Hometown. Instead, it seems to run on democracy, with a mayor which the people of Hometown vote into office as the leadership.

Even so, Asgore and Toriel are not part of this political circle. In Deltarune, Asgore instead runs a flower shop, and Toriel teaches small children at the town school.

Instead, the title of mayor of Hometown goes to Mrs. Holiday, Rudy Holiday’s wife and Noelle Holiday’s mother.

This would be a perfectly normal occurrence- many new characters have been introduced into the world of Deltarune next to our beloved friends from Undertale- except that we do not get to see Mayor Holiday. Kris and thus also the player is explicitly blocked from entering her office. She is only mentioned, and never shown.

Of course, this could be for nothing- we are barred from seeing another character in a similar fashion, Papyrus (or at least, Sans’s brother), who is again only mentioned- and it could be that Toby simply didn’t have enough time to finish their sprites before the demo’s release.

However, one can’t deny that this puts an air of mystery around Mayor Holiday. And Toby Fox is a rather adept writer. Therefore, I find it hard to believe he would set up these characters and then not show them unless he wanted to create that air of mystery.

After looking closely at what little clues we have, I have come to a possible theory that explains Mayor Holiday’s significance in the story of Deltarune.

To start, we have to go way, way back, before even the story of Undertale.

In the prologue to the game, it is explained that, long ago, humans and monsters coexisted in peace- until one day, fearing the monster’s power, the humans began a war against them. According to what we know about this ancient war, many monsters died before their eventual defeat. The few that survived moved into the Underground and started a new life under Mt. Ebbot.

Perhaps here lies the possible answer as to why Mayor Holiday is the governing force in Hometown, instead of the Dreemurrs. It could be possible that the Holidays were once the royal family ruling the kingdom of monsters, and died in the war.

After that, the Dreemurrs could have decided to take up the mantle of king and queen for one of a variety of reasons.

In Deltarune, the two families are shown to be close friends- Toriel and Asgore send Rudy a get well card and flowers, respectively, while he is in the hospital, Rudy is mentioned in their wedding photo, and Rudy even recounts how Noelle and Kris used to play together as children.  

This could also be true for Undertale, which could explain why they took the throne, that their friends the Holidays entrusted it to them. Or perhaps the Dreemurrs were simply next in the line of succession for the throne. We may never know, because the Holidays are entirely absent from Undertale.

Going back to the speculation that the Holidays were the previous royal family, I have further speculation.

If the Holidays were the previous royal family, that would have made Mayor Holiday a queen in the universe of Undertale.

This inference is only noteworthy because a “queen” is mentioned only once in Deltarune, by the secret boss Jevil.

He foretells her arrival if you beat him by depleting his entire HP, saying “... SOON, THE "QUEEN" RETURNS, AND HELL'S ROAR BUBBLES FROM THE DEPTHS... LIGHTNERS, CAN YOU STOP IT? …”

Though the “knight” is mentioned several times as an antagonistic force, again, this line is the only one which mentions a “queen”.

Of course, it could be that this queen is Toriel, as she was also a queen in Undertale. However, I doubt this is the case. 

There is one more clue that we must take into account to put these pieces together. In the vessel naming screen, there are three names which prompt the response “YOU ARE ABOUT TO MEET SOMEONE VERY, VERY WONDERFUL.” when they are entered. These names are “Susie”, “Kris”, and “Noelle”.

Susie and Kris are both main characters who are of essential importance to the plot of Deltarune, and if Noelle’s name evokes the same response as their names, we can assume that she holds the same importance as well, plot-wise.

In conclusion, from all of this evidence, I speculate that Noelle’s mother, Mayor Holiday, is in fact the queen which Jevil has foretold the arrival of.

[nighttimepixels]

on deltarune

Okay, holy hell, I can’t start without saying that, quite frankly:

I loved it.

The music, the visuals, the new characters, the evolution of the battle style - it still retained so much of what I loved about Undertale, yet pushed further/evolved to suit this game.

I was nervous, admittedly, at the first battle - honestly, I’ve never liked team management RPGs too much because so often they get tedious. This, though? It was the perfect balance, and with the shifting team dynamic throughout the game, it really enhanced the story and added to it, rather than being a tedious distracting!

I also have to immediately say how much I loved the Dark World. The designs, the music, the uniqueness of the characters - seriously, Toby Fox did an incredible thing. This doesn’t feel like The Underground 2.0 - this feels like a different place, with beings that are different.... yet their attitudes and interactions still have that freaking charm and depth (even in minor NPCs) that I love about his style of storytelling.

Also, Ralsei is fluffiest best boi, I’m weeping.

Okay - I’m going to save the majority of my gushing over the team & team dynamic in the Dark World for another separate post, because given how much everyone is freaking out, i want to jump right into the meat of it:

Thoughts & Theories

First off... Do I think that this is Undertale 2: the Sequel?

No... but, also, kind of.

I do not think that Deltarune is in any way a direct sequel to Undertale. I especially strongly feel that it’s not an accurate take away to say this is ‘erasing the canon of Undertale’ or ‘destroying the characters/messing with what I love about them’.

I absolutely believe that this is, very literally, an alternate universe to the one we know and love in Undertale. The evidence is everywhere, especially once we return from the Dark World. The characters are nearly all there (and then some), and all the familiar ones carry the same personality and traits that make up the core of them, but the relationships, the context they’ve lived is different. This makes them different people in many ways- hell, with how widely accepted AUs became for the fandom, this should be nothing unfamiliar - but I think a lot of people are wildly thrown off by the fact that Toby Goddamn He Sure Did That Fox legitimately made AUs canon with this game.

Hell, the world of Deltarune seems to even give us the detail that The War (between humans and monsters) never happened here! There’s no hints of it - while the town seems to be almost entirely monsters but for Kris (presumably adopted), there’s no mention of some past sealed in the Underground (or the relationships/bond formed from such an experience), and frankly it doesn’t seem like there’s animosity between monsters and humans, either.

So if it’s not a Sequel™, what is it?

Deltarune is exploring a new theme, using familiar characters, a familiar setup, which in my mind makes it all the more powerful-

Namely, I believe Deltarune is taking two main characters/’entities’ from Undertale as it’s core focus-

‘Chara’ and Gaster.

Why do I think ‘Chara’? (and why the quotes?)

This, from the end of a No-Mercy Route:

and once you select ‘Erase’:

(see too, the fact that if you do a full Pacifist ending after a No-Mercy run, the post-credits include ‘you’ waking up in the middle of the night, and the ‘Chara’ face and familiar red glint occurring.)

Deltarune is a natural ‘evolution’, a follow-up to this specific moment, this concept.

Especially, especially, I note the phrasing ‘this pointless’ world’-

because a major theme of Deltarune (Chapter 1) is the idea that your choices have little impact on the world.

This is in direct juxtaposition to Undertale’s them of ‘choices matter’ - hell, in Deltarune, the ending is damn near the same in the Dark World even if you fight every monster - you can’t even kill any of them, because they run away, scared of you.

So, Deltarune’s theme - so far, your choices... don’t matter.

I’m not here to conjecture without proof - the fact is, this is Chapter 1, and we just don’t have all the details, not even close. We don’t know Kris’ origin (adopted, almost certainly, but how/why? from where, when there seems to be no other human in this town? are monsters largely separated from humans, or is this town just a case of a concentration in population?); we don’t know Gaster’s role (I’ll get to him shortly); we don’t know if the Dark World (and Lightners) are something even whispered about in legend in the world we came from.

(That said, I don’t stand by the interpretation of ‘all that being just a dream’ situation, but again, I’d rather have more info from the next Chapter before I try and conjecture there.)

We see in the beginning of the game something that the weight of doesn’t really hit hard until after it all- Kris, when facing the mirror and checking it, gets the flavor text ‘It’s just you.’

Naturally, at first playthrough, this largely just seems like a callback to the mirror text in Undertale, and a minor insight into Kris’ personal self-value - with the ‘just’ seeming a little sadly self-deprecating.

But after you’ve seen the post-credits-

Suddenly, that feels more like tired relief.

I don’t want to say for sure that Kris is ‘haunted’ or anything like that, but Kris is definitely not just Kris. The post-credits confirm that without a doubt. Suddenly, they lurch out of their bed - not moving normally, as if something else is... piloting them, for lack of a better term - they look like a freaking zombie, at best... and then they rip their soul out of their body and slam it into a cage. The next moment, we get the chilling red-glint and distinctive ‘Chara’ like expression.

I say this tentatively, but my guess is that Kris, being adopted (though certainly at a young age, given the text about Kris growing up with Asriel) came from a bad situation. Again, avoiding too much conjecture in this post, but there’s a lot of signs that point towards that - and I mean, the symbolism of ‘separating yourself from your heart/emotions’ after something traumatic...? The emptiness of Kris’ side of the room, the way that Kris doesn’t fight back in the beginning against Susie, the emotional distance... Seeming, based on interactions with others, like Kris has been largely reticent or at least distant from others more and more, with the exception of big bro Asriel? That’s a lot of red flags, in my mind-

But it’s more than just having issues from whatever happened in their past (and presumably to their birth parents...), it’s also that either because of or in relation to that, ‘Chara’ has become a part of them, and, apparently, takes over at times. That red wagon, that cage... that’s not new. It’s rusty, there are stains nearby seemingly from it/what it held-

This is why I keep putting ‘Chara’ in quotes. It’s moreover a name for the entity of hate/no mercy that you face at the end of the game, not so much the actual Fallen Child from Undertale.

We don’t know what’s been happening with that, we don’t know how much or how often ‘Chara’ has control - but they’re there, and Kris knows it.

This is what so strongly ties together that theme of choices don’t matter - because that seems to be what Kris feels.

Additionally, on the note of Gaster:

No, we haven’t ‘seen’ him yet, or received.... direct confirmation. But Toby Fox, despite being the greatest troll with the best payoff to have ever lived, doesn’t do things lightly. Hell, despite the overwhelming popularity of Undertale, he’s only ever done a handful of proper interviews, and rarely gives concrete details about anything - if he doesn’t want to imply or say something, he won’t.

But we know for certain that he never does things lightly, and the tweets leading up to Deltarune’s release were all in the style of the ‘Missing Entry’, the DARKER YET DARKER entry - ie, the Gaster entry. Coming from a background of writing analysis and style analysis, this matches to a T (though seriously, you don’t need any kind of background to notice that...) - and furthermore, matches the ‘character creation’ start of Deltarune.

Gaster, wherever, whatever he is, is likely ‘viewing’ all this from his position smeared across space-time... everywhere and nowhere at once. He’s positioned as the narrator in an overarching since - his seems to be the ‘voice’ speaking to you when you game-over, his is what you see in the beginning... I’d bet we’re going to be seeing a lot more, though almost certainly in unexpected ways, in future chapters.

Wrapping up-

There’s so much up in the air, but I feel certain about that much based on all the evidence so far. The fact that a game of this length came out of the blue when only some of us even dared to hope for a small demo from the Gaster Tweets on Oct. 30th... holy shit.

Some people seem to have mixed feelings, but seriously - Toby Fox released a 3-4 hour game (depending on how you played it, that’s about the fastest I’ve seen on average for first plays without rushing), with no Kickstarter, no whisper of it coming out - and it’s only the first chapter of the story. However you feel about that, seriously - this man is an incredible creator, and I couldn’t be more in awe.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to reblog this/add on! I might come back and do some light edits/add-ons as I’m sure I’ll think of something I forgot to say in hardly ten minutes, but anything major I’ll likely add in a personal reblog.

With that, I’ll leave off with one final note that I think no one’s brought up yet in what little I’ve seen on full thoughts of the game:

Anyone remember the Stretch Goals from the Undertale Kickstarter?

Well, under the last, largest one, Toby Fox wrote this:

The “other” game... I can’t tell you anything about it. Its very nature is shrouded in darkness.

Toby Fox, everyone.

Toby Goddamn Fox.