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yeah kris’ castletown room is blue and pink because trans and noelle’s room is blue and pink because trans but have you thought… kris’s room in castletown is blue and pink to resemble noelle’s room, because something about that room was dream-like in and of itself?

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also unrelated to everything but i know in my heart of hearts that dess holiday is not an edgy punk grrl, she is, like the rest of her family, an earnest loser. she is cool in the way any chill older sibling is cool, everyone forgetting that she's not just an alt-punk goth girl, she is a JOCK. like where do you think kris learnt how to be nonbinary from. but i'm also saying this because I saw this art and imprinted on it immediately. like that's canon dess holiday to me. she's a normal guy who listens to punk rock music and likes horror movies and wears plaid and starts a band in her garage and she's lowkey nonbinary but she's too busy getting kidnapped by the narrative to really think about it rn...

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mancountry

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i really don't know if i articulated this well, but it feels really (?) tone-deaf? blind? hypocritical? to be able to read so much into the player's relationship to the character/soul, and to have so many conversations about how tenna can be a representation of kris' nostalgia and how the dark world is about escapism, and not see how blatantly that reflects onto our relationship with this game and associated properties. especially with so many posts theorising about how it all leads back to or connects with undertale like, he put in a whole section about that! he said, i guess in optional content but still in the game!, that it might not relate, or it won't relate in ways people will like, that these are two separate properties that share similarities but you have to respect it for what it is.... i don't know I really felt like ch3 and ch4 were so reflective and so about [player relation to Game] and [character relation to their world] and not so concerned with the player interacts with the game world/characters, even though most of the discourse seems to be about that. IDK.

I really think before anyone blindly goes for the 'toby fox wouldn't punish you for playing a game' belief re:the soul isn't/can't/wouldn't be a negative force on kris, you have to think about how deltarune approaches themes of attachment to [media/fiction/playscape] and how it takes the premise of 'you love playing with these things so much that they become Real to you' because we often consider the 4th wall-breaking metanarrative of deltarune, this idea of the player itself being a part of the cast in a way that's different from embodying a character in a world, but miss what it actually says about fanculture and how we treat fiction. c3, which has gotten some flak for 'lack of narrative/thematic importance' is entirely about >What if you like a thing so much and never want it to end, even when there's nothing to do! it's, in many ways, a reflection of undertale fandom and how it still spawns content even though the game is over, and has been for a long long time, and it's about how in the years between dr chapter releases, you were reaching for and creating anything you could to keep the game and it's magic alive. there's no doubt that toby fox is very grateful to the people who play and love his games, but so much of the message that comes through these chapters and the overarching escapism, is that there is some soft limit, there is a point where it's not enough, and there is a time where things should come to rest, or passed on to be loved by another person. when gerson talks about who owns a story or how it changes or how it should change, and whether it ever ends or should go on forever, and susie, in her all teenage naivete, goes 'it should never end' ... well, we know how the chapter ends, we hear her say 'it's not fun anymore', we see the way she reacts to a version of gerson that's been transformed. like even as she wants to believe that, she gets reminded that it can stop being enjoyable even before it ends. I don't think toby fox is ever a pessimist, but complex story-telling requires there to be an emotional impact that isn't just 'feel-good'. undertale itself has it's characters ask you to let it end. the same vein, deltarune asks you to tether to your connections to these characters in some way. the metanarrative lesson with kris and the soul, is both that you can have empathy for this character and treat them as real, but also ultimately, you are playing god in some ways, and this is the vessel you act you and experience the story, and that is what makes them unreal, fictional, and that is what allows you to play the game. I really think gerson's lines and tenna's segment are both there to touch upon our relationship as players, to the game, the property, and the characters. the same way kris and susie can make lancer real, we too do so with them. and this is never a bad thing, not at all by toby fox's book, but all the same, lancer is only a card, and deltarune is only a game.

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I really think before anyone blindly goes for the 'toby fox wouldn't punish you for playing a game' belief re:the soul isn't/can't/wouldn't be a negative force on kris, you have to think about how deltarune approaches themes of attachment to [media/fiction/playscape] and how it takes the premise of 'you love playing with these things so much that they become Real to you' because we often consider the 4th wall-breaking metanarrative of deltarune, this idea of the player itself being a part of the cast in a way that's different from embodying a character in a world, but miss what it actually says about fanculture and how we treat fiction. c3, which has gotten some flak for 'lack of narrative/thematic importance' is entirely about >What if you like a thing so much and never want it to end, even when there's nothing to do! it's, in many ways, a reflection of undertale fandom and how it still spawns content even though the game is over, and has been for a long long time, and it's about how in the years between dr chapter releases, you were reaching for and creating anything you could to keep the game and it's magic alive. there's no doubt that toby fox is very grateful to the people who play and love his games, but so much of the message that comes through these chapters and the overarching escapism, is that there is some soft limit, there is a point where it's not enough, and there is a time where things should come to rest, or passed on to be loved by another person. when gerson talks about who owns a story or how it changes or how it should change, and whether it ever ends or should go on forever, and susie, in her all teenage naivete, goes 'it should never end' ... well, we know how the chapter ends, we hear her say 'it's not fun anymore', we see the way she reacts to a version of gerson that's been transformed. like even as she wants to believe that, she gets reminded that it can stop being enjoyable even before it ends. I don't think toby fox is ever a pessimist, but complex story-telling requires there to be an emotional impact that isn't just 'feel-good'. undertale itself has it's characters ask you to let it end. the same vein, deltarune asks you to tether to your connections to these characters in some way. the metanarrative lesson with kris and the soul, is both that you can have empathy for this character and treat them as real, but also ultimately, you are playing god in some ways, and this is the vessel you act you and experience the story, and that is what makes them unreal, fictional, and that is what allows you to play the game. I really think gerson's lines and tenna's segment are both there to touch upon our relationship as players, to the game, the property, and the characters. the same way kris and susie can make lancer real, we too do so with them. and this is never a bad thing, not at all by toby fox's book, but all the same, lancer is only a card, and deltarune is only a game.

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don’t know how to feel about the new animation… feeling like v1 really was so good and v3 is not really giving ‘you were used up’ so much as ... normal jumpscare? there’s an aspect that really feels like a lens shattering, which really speaks to maybe the voyeuristic nature of snowgrave; there’s an affect to it that finally an action going this far will cause blowback. there’s also something something vessel shattering? boundary shattering? noelle’s mental hold on what was dream and what is actually reality? if we’re assuming dess’s body/soul had to be broken to be reconstituted to come back Like That… well that kind of makes it look like what happened to noelle was step1 of the process… 🥹🥹🥹🥹…i kind of feel like it’s more muddled than it was, which may not be a bad thing, but we’ll see… i’ll sit on it

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dump!!!

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sleepovers at ur middle class friends house used to be so scary

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i love kris deltarune they’re such The Character to me. they were a bad friend to noelle when they were kids and have been distant since her sister disappeared, but were still shocked and seemingly upset when overhearing her telling susie that they aren’t really close, not really friends like that. they play pranks and goof off in the back of church, they never sleep enough at night because they sneak out. they noteably and frequently sleep in class. they’re amazing at playing the piano. they’d rather self harm by biting the meat of their hand till it nearly bleeds then let the player make them say they’ll never play again. they cried for spamton. their feelings got aired out over and over in front of ralsei and susie by tenna in his way of “helping” or “refreshing their memory”. they carry a knife on them, they blush when susie brings it up. they’re good at flirting. they eavesdrop when they hear susie and noelle say their name despite the much more important task at hand of keeping the player at bay. at the first chance of getting control of their body at noelle’s house they make and slam back a glass of chocolate milk. they don’t know the end of the prophesy. they hate us.

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A deer in headlights

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I am not the same as when you met me/

I have changed because you forced me to

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so uh nows that Weird Route going?

alt ver under cut

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susie... undoubtedly the main girl of my heart of all time and the main character of deltarune (LIKE WE ARE REALLY LEADING UP TO SUSIE MAIN HERO AND HEART OF THE STORY) being sidelined and unthought of for now because of one 7 minute scene making me so physically ill that I have to think about it until i die basically. yeah this is exactly how i thought i would feel about these chapters. but seriously i loved and enjoyed the susie highlightization and backstory and character development and ARC so much and she is always such a constant highlight and high point of these games... man!!!

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made some old deviantart styled stamps for deltarune

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probably also interesting to mention re/weird route bedroom scene, is the way consent works in that conversation, and the boundaries you violate. this is just a really rough point-form list of things...

>noelle asks kris to meet her in her room alone, if they don't mind. it's clear that they follow her in after tossing us in the gift box (lol, the 'unwanted' present of it all...) >noelle moves closer and closer to kris trying to set her understanding straight, when she questions the reality v. dream (light v dark, real life v fiction, etc) divide, this is where you, the player, get to break the set boundaries of cyber space in the game to leave the vents and come into the room with them >noelle tries to assure kris it's okay that they're talking about this, even though they explicitly asked her not to and this is when they start to move away from her and try to stop her by covering her mouth, but noelle continues on >at this point, kris becomes terrified, both because you the player are either already in the room or back in their body, and when you answer and say 'Me' to her question, she becomes terrified. because you have now broken her boundaries, understanding of privacy, metafictional weirdness. you are now speaking through kris, and this is the very thing she clocks. that this is not their voice, that she is no longer with the kris she trusts >again, when you break this reality v dream divide, answering it wasn't a dream, she now begins to move away, she's fucking terrified! you're also breaking another intense privacy boundary by being in her head! she's not even alone with her thoughts! >at some point in the conversation, you stop even following her options, she asks you 'say it didn't happen or say it didn't snow' and you can only choose between 'it snowed' or 'it happened' like, you've stripped her of all control over this interaction, bit by bit >but now, the game itself strips you the player of any control or choice, all the options now become the same, you can't choose either what you do at this point, because all your dialogue leads to the same end. you're going to make her wear the ring. I think there was some discussion about there being no warning about this route/what it implies or depicts, and while I agree the ring itself and the route is a lot about power and control, I do think the amount of times the game implicitly asks you, do you want to continue? are you going to click this option? are you going to see this awful thing through? is like, within the game-text itself, the warning. if nothing else, you as the player, are consenting to do something awful to these characters. your choices mean nothing but your choices have consequences. the way this scene plays out and the way it makes you feel is the punishment for choosing this. I also think it's worth examining the abort options for this scene. >like if you don't inhabit kris' body, (1) it's clear they're terrified (and noelle's eyes are still closed, whatever that means whether she's unable to see or unwilling to see or wants to hold on to the Good memory and not acknowledge anything that could be bad), (2) kris literally grabs her and runs out of the room. they make the choice to leave! >she laughs when you say it's not a prank! and kris must sound convincing (because they want her to believe it) or she must want to believe it herself, because this is the easiest out from this scene. >and if you answer 'me' and then 'it's just a prank', she hits kris! she physically lashes out! in a way she's entertained doing before, but doesn't. you're still making her cross one of her boundaries of fantasy/reality by making her hit kris, because noelle is not a violent person despite having violent fantasies. I think this is also an awful way for this scene to play out because you're trying to take it back, you're trying to convince her what you did/are doing isn't that bad. you are gaslighting her, this is not at a point where she can just believe it's a prank anymore.

anyway, I think this is my favourite scene from deltarune so far, despite all of it's awfulness because it's so richly layered. as i've said before I think the question of autonomy and power are linked to consent/boundaries, and i think all of that does lead deeper into the where does the fiction end/where does the reality begin that deltarune is really trying to explore.