dubwhal

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art only; used in my cover of "piano that may not be played that well"

hey all, here's a cover of "piano that may not be played that well" from deltarune chapter 4

yes, i rushed on the art. but i think it's fine... enough........ maybe............ don't judge me :(

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piano that might not be played well

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Siffrin dancing to anything and everything

(Song recommendations would be cool to have him dance too 🤩((then I can also discover music while drawing my content)))

Asks and requests are open!

AND GOOD NIGHT 🥰

[dubwhal]

deltarune is a narrative

so, i don't like being an active participant in online things much, but i feel the deltarune community is forgetting some things and becoming a little too trigger happy with their theories.

now, i'm in no way trying to be hostile or aggressive in tone. if it feels like i'm attacking people or something, i'm not, im just bad at tone ;-; and if you find me pretentious... then find me pretentious! i think i am a little, feel free to humble me :D

// SPOILERS FOR DELTARUNE AND UNDERTALE AHEAD //

i love the wild wacky theories of this community, i love my "PILES OF ASRIEL'S DUST" brain rot, but when so many aspects are treated the exact same with this over analyzation of every detail and hyper inspection, it gets... weird (route).

the most important thing i think that a lot of people have forgotten... is that deltarune is a narrative, it's a story being told by a storyteller, who's human. it's a story with THEMES. the most clear example of this is "your choices don't matter," and the "and only one ending...?" in the game description. freedom has been established to be a thematic topic; look at the secret bosses. chapter 4, prophecy, has now convinced me that deltarune's main and core theme will take from "your choices don't matter."

"your choices don't matter" is most likely a thematic point the game wishes to prove or disprove, and remember, DISPROVE. a lot of people are convinced that because it was the first thing said, that's how it'll be the rest of the game. no, this isn't right; "your choices don't matter" is the equivalent of "it's kill or be killed" in undertale. it's a flawed perspective of the world, and throughout the development of the story, it'll probably be disproven. it's how ralsei enters the picture with the flawed prespective that friendship is all fluff and kindness and smiles, before susie comes along to prove it is something far, far greater than he imagine (susie's role in the narrative is also fascinating).

this next paragraph will be a purely speculative one, operating under the assumption that gaster will be an important character to the narrative. there is the likelihood that the one in the survey sequence at the start of chapter 1, the one who says "...will now be discarded. no-one can choose who they are in this world" is NOT our good friend wing gaster the royal scientist. the speech style is different, and in the japanese localization the style matches chara's/the first fallen human's (but i don't think it's chara). then, that means we have a character, gaster, offering us choice and freedom of expression through the survey and through the creation of our own vessel, and a separate unknown character ERASING our vessel, and delivering the thematic statement of the game. they represent the clashing ideologies.

back to my own rants, we have the philosophy that your choices matter, clashing against the philosophy that your choices don't. the theme of deltarune? whichever philosophy wins in the end. this is made more evident through chapter 4's "last prophecy." which... let me go on a tangent; this is my rant i choose where it goes.

i'm not sure how to describe it, but there's a certain way people have been treating this chapters, that's not necessarily been treated as "the events of a story." chapter 1 is an introduction. chapter 2 and most of chapter 3 lets us get a little more familiar with the concepts and whatnot, but we are fed the clues to something larger (ralsei being mysterious like and all the info he gives us, kris opening a dark fountain). the end of chapter 3 hits us with the main conflict of the story, which involves everyone's favorite Rouxls Kaa- i mean, Roaring Knight, and afterwards expains on this conflict through kris and carol and the voice on the phone - it's factions, factions with conflicting ideologies. the knight is the antagonist because it clashes against the notion that we DON'T want the roaring to occur, while the character literally with "THE ROARING" in its name wants it.

speaking of the knight, i think the community hype up the "mystery" aspect of things too much, especially the mystery of the roaring knight. in hindsight it should've been rather clear that the roaring knight, someone who's been built up as an antagonist, would be introduced in the FIRST HALF of deltarune; the primary antagonist tends to be introduced in the first half of the story... otherwise what are you doing with the story??? the community is now focused on "who person if knight is deer antlers?" or something, and honestly i don't feel like speculating on this or trying to disprove or prove anything. because quite plainly, we don't have enough information, it's too early in the story (and the right time will likely be close to the climax). is it dess? well, maybe! is it carol? well, maybe! is it rudy? well, maybe! is it nubert? well- actually, it's 100% definitely nubert...... but even though i think the mystery was hyped up too much, people should still remember it's... a mystery. we're wondering, "who is this knight exactly?" and that's likely what toby is trying to invoke. remember that red herrings exist. evidence can support one person... until we get MORE information that points to someone else... because of how little we really know about the knight, there's not a lot we can definitively say. which is why we should be civil!! you might believe strongly in one person being the knight; entertain that idea! and if someone else says another person could be the knight, entertain THAT idea! or if someone says "the knight could just be... the knight as its own entity," entertain that idea!!! but don't be convinced on trying to find a definitive answer. it's cool if you get a theory right! a theory is sort of like making a prediction while reading a book, getting it right is cool. but you might not get it right, and that's cool too. we're not trying to SOLVE deltarune. just remember red herrings can exist, and something that might be of note would be, how narratively satisfying would it be if that person was the knight?

anyway, back to the notion regarding the chapter structures of deltarune - chapter 4 is a kind of turning point, and personally i think chapter 4 is where we get more of our conflict with the knight, as well as the introduction to our philosophical conflict. our protagonists are faced with the truth that the prophecy has correctly predicted EVERYTHING, and now they see it with ONE ending. our protagonists are now trying to make their own endings, their own stories, and defy fate. so, the prophecy's original ending may come true. or it might not. we'll see!!!

but, see, there's another thing to think about... defying the ending can be one way to prove "your choices don't matter" incorrect. but... you could still have ONE ending, and achieve the same result, can't you? technically almost everything in the world ends in death. there's definitely been a lot of people who have found themselves overwhelmed with the realization that they don't matter to the grand scheme of things, because it all just leads to emptiness in the end...

now, does this discount the choices you made?

deltarune could end in us defying fate. but fate might not be defied after all. yet it could still prove the theme that your choices DO matter. there's one ending, but what about everything that came before it? your decision to hug ralsei for the picture in chapter 2, your decision to comfort ralsei when he says "look, i'm smiling!" in chapter 4 - sure, maybe the prophecy doesn't care about that, but... ralsei cares about that, and the player cares about that.

there's a whole other level to deltarune with its metaness and whatnot. i don't have the brain power for that. and honestly, i might not even have the brain power for a regular narrative and could just be spewing dumb nonsense. but this is what i like to believe.

undertale explored the good that can come of your choices. i think deltarune is exploring the nature of your choices.

and here's another thing about choices... noelle holiday and when things get weird (route). the thing that makes you feel like you're breaking the game, doing things you're not supposed to... similar to the feeling that something was immensely wrong while playing genocide in undertale.

now, in theory, the prophecy can still account for the weird route. prophecies are funny little things, in that they can use their wording in such a way to account for several things. take undertale's prophecy. "the angel, the one who has seen the surface, will return, and the underground will go empty." in true pacifist, this accounts for asriel. asriel has seen the surface. asriel RETURNS after absorbing a buncha souls like me chomping on food at 3 am. and everyone leaves the underground.

the angel also accounts for the dubious nature of chara/the first fallen human. now, i'm going to be straight with you, i don't think chara is evil (i'll have a paragraph about "x character is EVIL" later). but here's what i think: toriel says something like, "i wasn't protect you... but THEM." flowey is all "its YOU isn't it its YOU!!!" like shayy exclaiming "YOU!!" to the smile guy in ralsei's dark world explanation. and of course there's chara at the end. now, look. this doesn't mean chara is the evil being who killed everyone. no, YOU, YOU THE PLAYER, are the evil being who kills everyone in undertale. to me it feels like you invoked chara and some corruption happened, i dunno man, someone smarter than me figure it out. but chara is the one who has seen the surface and RETURNED in no mercy - frisk or the player feel like they could be candidates but it doesn't account for the world "RETURN."

so, the weird route can happen and still lead to the same ending of the prophecy. the weird route can ALSO lead to something else - a breaking of the prophecy. already it feels like things are crumbling with the weird route - it's... well, weird. so, doing the weird route COULD in theory hail another result.

now, "evil characters." undertale fans. deltarune fans. there's something called "nuance" that exists. sure, kris is working with some mysterious phone voice and stuff, and kris is doing strange shenanigans behind our back, but is kris evil? not necessarily. this is where the nuance comes in. because kris might be doing these things, yet kris is also CLEARLY a troubled child. and also, look at us controlling kris. tricky tony is setting something up with the distinction between kris and player, something i don't have the brain power to figure out, and maybe it's not meant to be figured out yet. but anyway, kris has nuance. kris playing the piano in the holiday house and in the dark sanctuary i think is MEANT to throw a wrench into anyone thinking "wow kris is evil" because it extends BEYOND just that. we're able to understand that SUSIE isn't evil because she develops in chapter 1, and also because many understand the delinquent archetype, it feels like one of those things that inherently makes you think, "i wonder why they're like that?" and of course kris can still swing a little bit more toward being "bad", we'll just have to wait until more is revealed on kris as a character to judge their actions, since you can have your reasons, but you also can't really just pretend someone never did something because of that; responsibility still needs to be taken. the only character who is truly 100% evil in deltarune is nubert the roaring knight.

also, fandom expectations... people tend to get really hung up in the fandom and it might lead to absurd expectations. remember guys, toby fox is still a guy. still human. toby makes mistakes, all writers make mistakes in their stories. toby probably didn't account for EVERY SINGLE detail and EVERY SINGLE possible outcome. but it ends up being VERY clear when he DOES account for the details, such as kris calling for noelle's name vs YOU calling for her name in the weird route. toby fox isn't perfect. and i'm not trying to be mean in this, because literally it's impossible to be perfect. he's a MAGNIFICENT storyteller, as evident by the feelings he managed to invoke with ONE chord in "the place where it rained," but it feels like some people have put him a little TOO high on a pedestal. he's a masterful and highly highly highly creative person, he's insanely respectable creator, but he's not perfect in everything, since he's still human just like us.

anyway, those are my thoughts, this is probably being lost to the thousands of posts but who cares, if it's lost then it's lost... girl. lost girl. but anyway. sorry to get on my high horse and be "erm, actually, deltarune is a narrative." but it really is. it's still a story. sorry if i came across as pretentious in this post; i encourage non hostile (we love being civil) and constructive criticism. i'm also sorry if it felt like i was aggressive or mean, im not trying to be, and im sorry if i was a bit of a downer at any point. sorry this post isn't really cohesive, it's just me sort of typing without organization. and i probably messed up several times in wording and grammar and whatnot and didn't properly convey something. but yeah. i'm gonna stop with the literary stuff, and get back to posting art.

[dubwhal]

* T I T A N O M A C H Y

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hey all, here's a cover of "piano that may not be played that well" from deltarune chapter 4

yes, i rushed on the art. but i think it's fine... enough........ maybe............ don't judge me :(

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I did some In Stars and Time doodles! They could definitely use some work, especially Loop and Mira, but I'm happy enough with them.

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Hey, Cozy Gang! I am working on a few traditional illustrations for Heroes Con and decided to start off with Siffrin since I have been playing "In Stars and Time" on Wednesdays. I love the art style of the game and wanted to draw some of the characters. I may end up drawing the rest later. Store | Ko-Fi | Twitch

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siffrin!! sitrin... citrin.. citric... citric acid...? siffrin is a lemon confirmed

still loving @mewsmeme's artstyle with the fluffs and whatnot its awesome >∇<

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mewsmeme's art style with the tuffs for fuzzy textures is INSANELY fun

(also their art is so good >∇<)

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Siffrin doodle from Animation Camp :3

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ITS SO GOOD

apparently i write a lot of poetry that can be isat-coded. here’s a condensed one. (txt below cut).

txt:

Stuck in a sun/moon cycle of infinite digestion,

the singing of the stomach on an endless loop

(i.e. swallowing itself like an autophagous animal).

Ouroboros rat snakes

with two-thirds of their bodies

in their bellies:

circling, circadian—

—what happens when a dog finally

catches his own tail?

Will he treat it like any other prey?

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This was from February 2024. It took me over a year to convince the Sif cosplayer to let me post this.

Siffrin is Cash3w_k1d, and they made the cloak, painted the hat and shoes. The dagger was also modeled, printed and finished by them. The eyepatch was also made out of leather. Wig was made by me (Darkblitzart). This is version one of this cosplay.

We both agree the dagger would be very impractical. Shout out to the one person who knew about the game and talked to us about odile.

The drawing was something we got to remember the event and is by InkDropKittens.

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help my friend @lychurii got me hyperfixated on isat T-T

anyways l drew siffrin :]

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in stars and time

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*Proceed.

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