#utdr thoughts

[thornrings]

pluey is a minigame where you drag "chosen ones" (cats) to "the ARK" to help them escape the pouring rain:

and, in deltarune.com/rain/, noelle describes a day on which catti walked to her house while it rained hard outside:

the use of the word "ARK" in the description of pluey invokes noah's ark, the purpose of which was to preserve life after a flood covered the world... and if you take /rain/ and pluey as direct parallels of each other, noelle's house would be the ark in question. this is verrry interesting to me when considering carol's obsession with preserving all that she finds important (having noelle's snowflakes bronzed, for example) and keeping it within her house. also on /rain/, we learn that carol will go so far as to call off school because she specifically does not want noelle outside during heavy rain. much to consider!

[nilihim-him]

the funny thing about kerdly to me the idea of reverse noelle scene with kris.

that scene where berdly confess he pretends to have feelings with her bc he thinks she has a crush on him.

that but. him, with kris confessing that he knew that kris flirting is a bit, for laughs, bulling him (did not watched that berdly ch analysis bout his low self esteem that turned him into my blorbo no nononon he's not i swear that he's not my blorbo)

he like the bit, finds it funny and confess that he would like to be their actual friends fr fr. (bc genuienly why would hang out him? when ppl only go to him if they need help, he thinks.)

except kris did have feelings for him after hangin out for a while.

[clownowo]

can't wait to see who epic wins the Berdly's affection at the festival

[amvipod]

subway surfers as a love language

they are so silly to me (panel rows under the cut!)

[bearloonz]

Love wins

[twilightofthesandwiches]

The funny thing is that despite the many surface-level similarities between Mettaton Undertale and Tenna Deltarune; both being rectangular, charismatic TV Hosts who subject the Player Characters to many TV-Themed Minigames and a ‘score’ based Sparing Mechanic

And they even have a very similar taste is suits!

On a deeper character/thematic level, they’re actually total opposites.

Mettaton is the Underground’s only celebrity and main source of entertainment, he’s highly watched and highly popular (Well, within the standards of the Underground, it's implied they are just not that many Monsters around). Meanwhile Tenna’s whole thing is that he’s been abandoned and ignored by the whole Dreemurr family. Outcompeted and overshadowed by the many other sources of entertainment in the modern Light World.

And while Tenna is motivated by an obsessive desire to not be abandoned ever again, to keep Toriel and the Fun Gang on his shows forever… One of Mettaton’s biggest flaws is his tendency to abandon those he’s close to. He pretty much cut ties with Shyren and Napstablook when he became a star.

And he’s been growing distant from Alphys as well.

And, actually his whole darn motivation is to abandon the Underground in search of even greater fame on the surface.

His Pacifist Ending is all about him confronting that flaw in himself, understanding how important he is to the Monsters of the Underground and deciding that he should stay so he can keep bringing his brand of entertainment, joy and glamour to the people who needs it.

While Tenna’s Happy Ending is about helping him to get over his obsessive neediness to entertain specifically the Dreemurr family, and realizing he can move on to someone else, to someplace else, who will actually watch him.

On a deeper thematic level... I think you can also talk about how Mettaton is driven by his Dreams, while Tenna seeks Hope.

And also, I always saw Mettaton as representing modernity for the Underground.

Due to his human-fanboyism and fascination with the Surface, Mettaton has ended up creating and/or promoting a lot of aspects of modern human culture in the Underground. Mass media entertainment, merchandise, trademarks, fast-food, minimum-wage retail jobs, unions…

All of these things seem to exist in the Underground primarily or entirely due to Mettaton’s influence.

Every other Boss/Main Character has some kind of ‘official position’ in the Kingdom's traditional power-structure; Sentry, Royal Guard Captain, Royal Scientist, King, Queen, Prince… Mettaton is a creation of the Royal Scientist, but on his own he’s just a rich and famous celebrity. That's kind of a modern concept in it and of itself, since it kinda requires the existence of a mass media culture....

Or hell, just the fact that he’s the one Monster in the game who seems to have no real respect/loyalty for the Monarchy, and is actually working against him…

Both out of his individual sense of morality (he cares for the Humans) but also for the sake of the very modern goal of mass fame.

And of course on the most obvious level he’s a technologically-advanced robot whose ‘zone’ is the most tech-themed part in the game. (Zones? if you wanna count Hotland and the CORE as separate areas. Either way it's true of both when compared to the rest of the Underground.)

And Tenna is obviously the exact opposite of this. He and his Dark World are still kinda tech-themed in the sense that he is a Darkner based on a household electronic device, but he’s still clearly supposed to stand as a vast contrast to the much-more advanced techy-themed Darkners of Cyber City. He’s specifically meant to be themed after outdated and old-fashioned technology

And the concept of Nostalgia.

… In a way, despite Undertale being a very 2010’s game and despite the Underground being established to have 2010's technology such as Social Media… Mettaton's being primarily a TV Star with TV Show theming in most of his encounters is a very 20th century sort of concept. To use the Television as a shorthand for the concept of modernity.

Obviously that works within Undertale because that is a very familiar cultural shorthand and also it does make sense within the Very Particular Technological and Cultural Framework of the Underground… But with Deltarune being both a much newer game and taking place in a world much closer to our own, I guess it makes sense to instead use the TV to symbolize the past, outdated technology and nostalgic yearning.

[the-irreverend]

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH watching Kris flee out of the room when they find out we're with them KILLS ME every damn time, and perhaps the detail that hurts the most is how their expression changes and how that adds a new understanding to how Kris sees us.

The moment they realize they and Noelle are in terrible danger, the netrual, reserved expression we're so used to seeing from them changes into one of ABSOLUTE TERROR as they flee out of the room; terror which I firmly believe is rooted in the psychological, emotional, and physical trauma we have caused them and Noelle.

The things we made them do in the Snowgrave/Weird Route made them realize just how much harm we're capable of causing them and the people they care about, and how great our capacity for evil truly is. They already resent us for depriving them of their agency, and now that they've endured us abusing said agency in the worst possible way, their hatred and fear of us has increased a thousandfold.

Deltarune isn't some cute little otherworldly adventure; it's a goddam cosmic horror story, except the twist is we're the eldritch being that brings ruin and madness wherever we go.

[paintedcrows]

Nooo little Stanley watch out! Your striped shirt, bandage, and sad backstory are too Fallen Human Coded!! The Undertale narrative is going to get you!!!

[1alchemistart]

this is based entirely off of the fact that the "complete without issue" chapter completion trophies are cancelled if you get the eggs, making the eggs the issue LKDSLKF

i just think it would be so funny if we had two mysterious forgotten guys and they hated each other

[artsy-1diot]

i like the funny tv guy

[nanosanity]

Day 11 of waiting for Deltarune tomorrow (and celebrating via drawings) guys it’s so close I can feel it. Enjoy my little meow meows. They swapped shirts.

[thornrings]

imagine, if you will, a chapter of deltarune that takes place in ICE-E's P"E"ZZA. the dark fountain and such is there, burgerpants may or may not be the knight, whatever it doesn't matter. kris and susie and noelle were going to meet and get pizza, perhaps to explain dark worlds to her. this is a plan they had before the fountain appeared. kris and susie were, of course, late, because they were fucking around in hometown and susie was nervous and whatnot. they get there and noelle was early and they're late and the fountain is there. they go in. they go in and it's FNAF.

it's FNAF dark world. confirming their suspicions, they can hear noelle screaming!! there's no time to wait for ralsei, they cannot AFFORD to delay, at least in susie's mind. they have to save noelle as SOON AS POSSIBLE. they spawn in at parts & service, and since at this point they've gleaned that there is Animatronic Fuckery about, they come to the conclusion that their best course of action is to play dress up and sneak around. susie gets an ambiguous legally distinct purple dinosaur costume, and kris gets the legally distinct--but still recognizable--marionette. unfortunately, the animatronics aren't their only obstacle. the doors keep closing in front of them for some reason! weird!

eventually, once they start closing in on noelle's location, they hear a music box, and... kris climbs into a box, much to susie's dismay! "KRIS," she scream whispers, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" they do not answer, and exit the box after some time has passed.

they spend the next six hours or so roleplaying five nights at freddy's i mean five nights at ice-e's with noelle, and eventually kris gets in and jumpscares her and it's over. the point is, noelle is like REALLY good at fnaf. if it wasn't for kris and susie's unique high-jinks she probably would have never lost. she really did not need saving in this situation.

they proceed to the fountain and ralsei appears behind them, unseen prior to this point. he explains that two animatronics (the ones kris and susie relieved of their duty) had essentially kidnapped him, at which point he used his signature MERCY on them, they accepted him as one of their own, and they had a fun party where ralsei made them cake and sang songs and was generally a nice boy. he got out as soon as he could, he swears!! they go and seal the fountain and it's all in good fun. what a nice dark world adventure.

then three other lightners and burgerpants show up and they start making fountains all over the place and kris turns to the camera and says

"wow... this really was, five knights at ICE-E'S..."

[thewitchofart]

His last purpose

// weird route, tragic

In a different world, I could have called you friend…

[frigidfries]

happy birthday deltarune. happy late birthday undertale. here's a comic!

cheers to best friends forever & ever & ever & ever & ev

[akanemnon]

Yeah, that checks out.

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[miruoxxi]

live up to your image