hunsa-jars

[hunsa-jars]

Heard this cover by Ranipla ("Raise Up Your Bat") and needed to make an animatic

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Some practice doodles of chapter 3 guys for a thing I'm drawin :3

Since the other outlets look more like cats I'm guessing Ramb is supposed to look like a dog, I made him fluffy too :3

Still like Elnina more than Lanino but he didn't turn out too bad in my style I think

[hunsa-jars]

we need to talk about ramb [analysis/theory]

MASSIVE shoutout to my friend mycringefactory for ripping his sprites

ramb! he's the power strip darkner in chapter 3 that runs the stand in the green room and introduces you to the set of games that leads to the chapter's unusual secret boss.

weird attention to detail with his sprites, telling kris that he knows they want, dismissing their concerns that something might be up, having a page of the sweepstakes ARG named after him instead of the location it's showing, directly introducing kris to a rendition of the weird route and saying that it's "REAL fun".

seems like if it were some other character, these would be ringing more alarm bells. but i knew, i Knew there was something up with him. he is the secret boss, it's just not in a way we're used to. strap in, cause this is long as fuck <- not an exaggeration i've been writing this for the past three days.

ramb is the shadow mantle enemy.

ramb wants kris to have fun and enjoy the games he's provided! no he really wants kris to have fun and enjoy the games. he mentions it a lot, and keeps saying that he knows kris and what they want. in the context of a game about the weird route no less.

and all this is much like the shadow mantle enemy. it says outright that it thinks a part of kris isn't getting the shadow crystals because it'll get what they want, instead it's that they're just enjoying this, like ramb keeps saying is the case for them.

it wasn't there to stop kris: what it wanted was to see kris play, said plain as day. i believe the flickering red comment is about kris' eyes, that it wanted to see them really get into playing the game.

it's hard to believe that this is all just a parallel when it lines up So Closely. i feel like you don't just have two characters speak almost exactly the same and with such an emphasis on the same things, with the only difference being an accent in one of them. not to mention that there's an NPC tells you who ramb parallels.

can't find footage, but m-chromatic says this is from a pippins NPC

the shadow mantle enemy also further emphasizes its interest in kris having fun with a secret room in one of the games:

"Having fun?"

it feels like such a personalized message to them, and whether kris is having fun is something that ramb is very concerned with.

something particularly notable is what happens the first time you get proper dialogue from the mantle enemy. after the board is cleared, kris asks ramb about someone being backstage, and he denies it and says he's been there on security the whole time.

also i find it odd that the first line is one of the few times that expression of his shows up. in the second line he turns his head away in a smile

another thing:

and this bit might be a stretch but it's worth mentioning: the little creature that the mantle enemy turns into does happen to have floppy ears like ramb does.

once again shoutout to mycringefactory for ripping these sprites

alright, so ramb may have control of this game, probably from the wide variety of controllers in the backstage (though i have a personal theory that he can go into the game himself). but why do i think he has anything to do with the game itself? well, this ties into a sub-theory:

MANTLE/MANHOLE is a dragon blazers romhack made by ramb, and is what tenna unknowingly built his game off of.

in case you're wondering why i'm giving it two names. i personally think it's manhole cause it ties into other things

tenna's game vs the original game. "some big ol' blasted line from A to B" vs "the ORIGINAL game where YOU decide what to do". the parallel of regular route vs weird route is a lil on the nose. in this game, you're made to do a re-imagining of the weird route in chapter two and something beyond that. but the game wasn't always that.

the spamton sweepstakes is how we know this. the d_a_m_n_y_o_u_t_e_n_n_a page and noelle's icepalace_glaceir blog teases MANTLE/MANHOLE and ties it back to ramb. clicking the TV will change the screen to be static-filled (like the game cuts to when the controller isn't plugged in), and the lowest point of the page contains static squares, one leading to a neon blue screen and the other leading to ramb's page.

the neon blue screen (similar to the title screen of MANTLE/MANHOLE) can be scrolled up to show what looks like a representation of the ice area in the old game where you use the ice key. the door on the page leads to noelle's icepalace_glaceir blog, where she describes an oddity in dragon blazers that lines up perfectly with an area in the old game.

this cross area in the old game is accompanied by a track named GLACEIR. on noelle's blog, she writes that she's currently listening to a song from dragon blazers of the same name. it would make sense that if she's writing about that area and feeling nostalgic about it, she'd be listening to the song from it as well.

the choice of word for what her mood is.. i can't help but think of how that one weird ass expression of ramb's is called "nostalgic"

with all that in mind, i feel like it's pretty clear that that "old thing" tenna says he based his game on was intended to be dragon blazers. except that "original game" was clearly tampered with. it's not a coincidence that this game has a rendition of the weird route's beginning, it was put in there by someone. tenna is bothered by MANTLE/MANHOLE's contents as well:

another clue on the game being modified by ramb is, despite it being dragon blazers, the third board isn't a non-specific RPG location and is instead based on cyber world, specifically cyber city and queen's mansion's basement.

ramb originates from cyber world and while tenna may have known things about cyber city due to his connection with spamton, it's highly unlikely that he's seen the mansion basement, so it had to be ramb who modded it. ramb mentions people who live in queen's mansion like he knows them well.

another thing.. think about the names associated with him: his name is ramb. like RAMb. to put it simply, RAM is any data in a computing device that can change or be modified, and it's implied that he modded dragon blazers.

his name is misspelled as ROMb in-game and in the sweepstakes page regarding him and the old game. the track that plays in the S-rank room and thus when you speak to him about the game is called "Dump". to mod a ROM, you'd have to dump it from the hardware first (though i don't think that's necessarily what ramb did since we're in a fantasy world).

the dump thing is interesting to me also cause as mentioned before, the spamton sweepstakes has a page for ramb, but it was first accessed by clicking "[scrap heap]" in one of the prize descriptions. another allusion to him and trash... btw i feel like it's worth stressing: HE'S HAD A PAGE NAMED AFTER HIM THIS WHOLE TIME!!

oh and there's these two lines from him that absolutely implies that he had some kind of hand in the games backstage. the "HIS" would not be emphasized like that if the old game was impersonal to ramb.

so why is ramb like this?

why'd he want kris to play his fucked up snowgrave game so much? what's all this talk about fun? and then after all that, asking them if opening the fountain was that good of an idea... after all, doing so would cause him several darkners to turn to stone.

he's a power strip. like outlets, power strips can have a large variety of things connected to them: fans, chargers, TVs, video game consoles.. the key difference though, is that they can have multiple things connected to them at once and they're portable.

ramb shouldn't turn to stone because, unlike that zapper that turned to stone because its likely to be for catti's TV and isn't compatible with the dreemurr's, he's not bound by that kind of restriction. in fact there's a lot of uses he can have, multiple at once even. he's also directly relevant to TV world as being able to provide power to tenna himself.

but ultimately, in the same vein as tenna, he stopped being used. and getting kris to play these games, when his purpose is "letting you play your games", might've been a way to keep himself alive. "Without play... the knife grows dull." i think this line from him as the shadow mantle is also in reference to how without him being played, he'll turn to stone (grow dull).

i don't think this is just that side of himself being un-petrified because of the light. the light is enveloping him entirely, you can see it go well past him. i think he needed to be as close in proximity to the game as he could since it's tied to his purpose. more on this later.

selfish actions aside, i do think ramb cares about kris. but he was also suffering from being outcasted both socially and by lightners including them, so i think he was preparing for a fountain opening and the opportunity to convince kris into spending time with him again.

he was really done dirty by his fellow darkners man

he projects onto kris so much: he wants to have fun too. he misses those times. an opportunity to meet an old friend in the midst of loneliness and to relive those good memories he holds onto so much? well, he had to do something.

...and the something he did was steal the shadow mantle and create a fucked up game for this kid because he missed seeing them have fun and thought that all that fucked up shit was what they liked. (i think it's implied that kris plays video games in a bit of an aggressive way? unfortunately struggling to find specific scenes about it)

the thing about how he was already stone on the inside makes me wonder if that's a way of saying that he died inside a while ago and the loneliness broke him. part of me thinks he's intended to represent mentally ill people who fall through the cracks cause they don't "seem" like they are. this power strip needs therapy and medication man

the implications of him modifying the game to show the weird route in particular though... is he trying to encourage it? is it a warning? was learning about the weird route the thing that made him spiral and turn to doing this? it's very likely yes, since similar things happened to jevil and spamton.

how does he know about the weird route and what happened to him?

awesome first question: i don't know. it's possible that, because he's meant to parallel tenna, that he too was contacted by the knight, and they told him about it. however, it may not be that one-to-one. since spamton's forbidden knowledge came from someone outside of the in-game universe (we presume gaster), he could've gotten it from that.

and what's up with all the DEVICE_FRIEND appearances in his romhack? ..honestly can't explain it either. but since he depicts queen's mansion in it, i get the feeling that he's been down there and he saw it. maybe it's something that really stuck with him, or he had extended contact with it.

now as for his fate.. after the sword route is complete (meaning all three boards of his game are finished), the rabbick in the S-rank room expresses fear over something that happened with ramb.

so what the hell happened to him to freak this rabbick out so much?

most likely: he parallels tenna, so maybe he was also enlisted by the knight, and his job was to keep the shadow mantle out of kris' hands. because he failed to do so, he got taken or hurt by the knight as punishment.

less likely but more interesting to me: let's address the rabbick saying that kris already went past. we saw the pixel kris leave the backstage, so that seems to be what they saw. the pixel kris escaping the game may mean that the game will technically never be turned off, making it so that ramb is always being "used" and thus not fated to turn to stone while the fountain is still open

so the rabbick might've been frightened by a darkner that shouldn't be alive coming to life again (..thoough i have a theory that he might be able to shapeshift and that freaked them out but that's for another post)

either way, if you completed the sword route, ramb is somewhere else now. isn't that fun?

so! now with all of this information about him in mind: do you see why i'm insane about him. there's more evidence for some of my points (like ramb knowing you missed the ice key and having another creepy message for kris in a secret room) and evidence for potential counterpoints, but this post is so fucking long man.

thinking about exploring other things about him like his beef with tenna but we'll see. because this took a lot out of me LOL. anyway:

THANK YOU FOR READING!

oh and by the way, if there's a little man who doesn't fit with the other darkners telling kris to do some weird out-of-the-way shit and telling them that that's what they really want and he's talking about freedom, you should be asking questions

[hunsa-jars]

doodle（It's 4am so I'm going to bed now）

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Whatcha doin`, Tenna? Reading the script for the program, huh?

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Peepaw

[hunsa-jars]

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.

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I think Tenna would stim like this

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Talking to @browniefox about how in this scene Kris seemingly purposefully sends you to Susie’s aid

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* ... You mean Tenna, right..?

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battered and bruised

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"MY DELTARUNE."

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is art i draw am excited for everyone to play deltarune!!

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Piano that may not be played that well

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Okay, so one thought I had rattling in my head for a bit now is that the Dark Sanctuary of Deltarune Chapter 4 really reminds me of Undertale’s Waterfall.

I mean, the Dark Sanctuary doesn’t really have the water theming but… they are both the darkest parts of the game, both in a literal visual sense. With a mostly darker color-scheme and puzzles themed around darkness

and also in the narrative sense, being the most serious, solemn and grim part of the game. While Waterfall has its moments of levity and, y’know, Temmie Village, there’s a lot more focus of scenes of melancholy or fear compared to other parts of the game. While Undyne can be a very silly character, she only shows that side of herself to the Human during her Boss Fight right at the end and she’s otherwise a quiet and no-nonsense antagonist.

Deltarune Chapter 4 is the darkest chapter of Deltarune so far. It also has it's funnier moments but… The Church Dark World concept leads itself to much more serious theming and designs for the backgrounds and the enemies, it has some of the most serious exploration of our main characters' personalities and arcs, and has a lot of emphasize on the fact the stakes have been raised and Shit Just Got Real.

Plus, both Chapters deal heavily in the lore written on the walls of that area

Including a Prophecy

(well, in Deltarune it's exclusively a Prophecy, in Undertale it focuses on History and also includes a Prophecy)

And on a larger scale, both of these writings introduce the idea that the information we/the characters had before on the Lore is not the full picture.

And y'know, Gerson, who is present in both areas but also…

As the Hammer of Justice he also serves as a very heavy parallel to the Boss Fight(s) against Undyne in Undertale, both in visual design and gameplay (the Green Soul Mode).

Also, y'know, Piano Puzzles...

The thing is just… I didn't quite know what to do with this comparison. I mean, speculating on the idea the next Chapter would somehow be a Hotland Counterpart feels incredibly silly considering we already had two Dark Worlds that are very Hotland-like…

Which is when I realized, what if Deltarune Chapters correspond to Undertale areas but in reverse?

The Dark Sanctuary is like Waterfall and before it, TV World is a lot like Hotland, focused on TV-themed minigames controlled by an attention-hungry rectangular Game Show Host.

Cyber World would be the CORE, as the most high-tech themed areas in their respective games

And Queen and Spamton both including elements of Mettaton EX/NEO

Including Spamton NEO having the Yellow Soul Mode.

And Card Castle is the counterpart to New Home. Since these areas are both meant to be, well, a castle and it's surrounding area.

And King obviously being kind of a dark thematic reflection of Asgore.

…That would make Chapter 5 a Snowdin parallel to some degree, then Chapter 6 as a Ruins parallel, leaving Chapter 7 to do something totally off-the-rails and unique and unpredictable… Question is just what would that mean for Chapter 5 to be a "Snowdin Parallel"?

Since the Dark Sanctuary didn't really have water and TV World didn't really have magma-stuff, I don't think that would mean Chapter 5 would necessarily be an ice world, and indeed the only real hint we have to Chapter 5 right now is about a garden.

… It could be a somewhat more light-hearted Chapter after the huge drama-bombs we just had, since Snowdin is probably the most light-hearted and friendly part of Undertale… but there's also plenty of ways for it to be just as lore-heavy and serious and filled with revelations. Since the two things Snowdin was known for is the introduction of the Skeleton Brothers and it's Holiday Theming.

[hunsa-jars]

I NEED to see this but the first image is Susie and the second is Gerson

I don’t care about the quality and I am willing to pay for the good and/or service