thatreliableguy

[thatreliableguy]

Obsessed with these Ralsei sprites because it's so obvious that underneath the carefully maintained veneer of plot-critical-support-NPC neutrality he is extremely full of passion about his interests and a general zest for life. He is not beating the rich inner world allegations.

[thatreliableguy]

I love tenna so much

[thatreliableguy]

hm. dont usually put my own two cents for theories but somethings been kind of annoying me recently so yeah. ralsei thoughts.

i really dont like the idea that ralsei is a specific object. especially not with newer stuff from chapters 3 and 4.

For starters, most people that try to figure out what ralsei is in the real world are basing it off of this appearance

however, I feel like there's plenty of evidence to point to this not being his real form, right? People have already pointed out that his original shadowed form isn't fully consistent. It's possibly the most obvious when you compare his singing animations in both forms. His hat form makes what was later 'revealed' to be his ears look more like hair?,

Ears don't really split the same way that hair does, and theres other examples of hatsei having this kind of spikyness to his 'ears' that hatless ralsei doesnt have.

even the fangamer plush makes his ears spiky!!

its a pretty major part of how hatsei looks, and its certainly been talked about before. And then comes chapter 3+4. And we have plenty of evidence that ralsei is a shapeshifter, and I have seen literally nobody talk about it????? huh?????

Oh, and the hat casting a shadow on him makes no fucking sense because he goes onto wear SEVERAL hats in chapter 3 and he's normal????

also I know its like. A funny bit, but HE TURNS INTO A HORSE

WHY THE FUCK WOULD KRIS'S HEADBAND TURN INTO A HORSE???? WHY WOULD A GREEN CRAYON TURN INTO A HORSE???? WHY CAN HE DO THIS????? THIS ISNT A COSTUME THATS NOT HOW THEY WORK????? WHERE WOULD HIS BODY GO.

not to mention that changing shapes was literally his ability in the legend of tenna game???? he plays it off like 'oh every character has abilities i can turn into a box' but he can also turn into a dog? since ralsei was the only one who read the manual it very well could be an ability given to him since the real Ralsei is also a shapeshifter.

It would also explain why ralsei draws himself in his hat form

thats closer to what his natural form is. Dont have any screenshots on hand right now, but he's got two lines in chapter four (if you leave him lying on the ground for too long, and right before they find the first fountain) about how much longer he can 'keep this body for' that make it very obvious that he's only using a form that looks cuter to appeal to us. Him being a shapeshifter would also explain things like

His face being a deliberately made abstraction would also make this interaction make a lot more sense. Pre chapter three, I assumed Ralsei based his face on Asriel to either try appealing to Kris or as fanservice for the player/red soul, however, now that we've slowly started learning more about Ralsei, it's beginning to seem more like Ralsei just wants to have a face and more distinct appearance, like the lightners do. However, because of how dark worlds work, he can only base it off of what already exists, with that already existing 'model' being Asriel, although with modifications to make himself cuter— pink horns and eyes, and his usual glasses. It's why Kris is always quick to point out differences between them, and why Ralsei is embarrassed at being told that they look similar, he didn't have a choice other than be based off something that already exists.

Alright, so Ralsei is a shapeshifter. He still has to have some equivalent in the Light World though, since that's how Dark Worlds work. He was literally about to tell Susie what he was before getting interrupted, and Toby Fox is deliberately dancing around the topic.

However, I think the answer is actually pretty obvious. Ralsei is a being of 'pure darkness', which is why he can exist in any Dark World, unlike Lancer and Rouxls, who need to be objects that 'belong' in their respective worlds. His form is made up by the original dark fountain, and he describes himself as a 'Prince of the Dark'. Characters in the Dark World know about what happens to and around their real world equivalents, but Ralsei in particular seems to be especially aware of all of Susie and Kris's actions and movements. He doesn't need to be brought in by Kris like Lancer and Rouxls do, and he always appears in the Dark World a few moments after Susie and Kris do, while somehow almost always having pretty intimate knowledge of how the world came to be. Ralsei is also the most adamant on being depended on by Lightners, even more than people like Tenna. He talks about how a Darkners role is to be used by Lightners and to make them happy, and his character development in Chapter 3 especially goes into how he wants to be needed and how he's afraid he's slowly developing his own personality, and why he believes darkners shouldn't do that.

So, taking all of that into account, I feel like the most obvious answer for what Ralsei is is a shadow.

He's a literal prince of the dark. It explains why he can shapeshift, since shadows can be made to look like anything— I'm specifically thinking of things like shadow puppets, and why when he gets knocked out he seems to literally disappear, returning to the shadows. A shadow is also the most dependant on light, shadows literally cannot exist without light, or they'll just be darkness. It even explains his empty room.

His insistence that his only role is to help the Lightners, the way that people can never find anything notable about him (asking swatch for specials his suggestion for Ralsei is based purely on how he dresses and Queen literally forgets to get him a cage), and his ability to be in any dark world (since there's literally nowhere without shadows) all seem to point towards Ralsei being a shadow.

Ralsei being a shadow also means he's literally with you in the dark, could probably straight up not exist if the world was plunged into darkness, and also makes him a weaker version of a titan (explaining the 'prince' title. not quite king, but noble nontheless).

[thatreliableguy]

I've been taking the "Kris played with the power strip as a kid" thing at face value, but talking to a friend they pointed out that the most common way kids "play" with electrical sockets is by sticking things like forks onto them.

They also pointed out that Ramb's "hair" resembles two bent forks + his chin resembles a fork as well:

I'm surprised I didn't think about it before, because it would explain quite a few things about Ramb. Starting with the fact that he insists he knows Kris very well, but his idea of what Kris considers to be "fun" involves violence and hurting people.

Kris keeps playing Ramb's game despite getting hurt by it, just like playing with the electrical socket.

This is also why Ramb is associated with swords, death and "freedom"/agency imagery... While also being just a random meaningless electric socket, just a passive character wanting Kris's attention again.

It's possible that Kris only "played" with the electrical socket once and this became a traumatic memory for them... But the fact that Ramb prides himself on being Kris's favorite and believes that Kris won't be interested in Tenna's more traditional games makes me feel that Kris "played" with the electric socket multiple times after losing interest in traditional games and TV. Kris was self-harming. The sword route makes them reenact that.

[thatreliableguy]

I wanted to make a post compiling all the examples of something @krispdreemurr was talking about on their blog yesterday:

1. Hometown's internet has been down for the past few days

2. Tenna hasn't been receiving broadcasts of any new stuff for "a little while"

3. Though Gerson has been dead for a few years, the Booms only stopped receiving condolences for his passing "just recently"

What these together suggest: Hometown is, as of recently, not receiving any information from the outside world. It's not just that the town's Internet and TV/radio infrastructure is bad — taking the third point into account, it's not just those signals that aren't coming in, but also, presumably, physical letters. There's something weirder going on here. But why? Why now?

Well. You know what else has changed "recently"?

To put it plainly, Hometown losing its connections to the outside world coincides with the plot getting kicked into motion. It in fact is half the spark for Queen's villain era, and plays a part in Tenna's desperation as well; it is arguably a requirement for the prophecy playing out as it does. But where in the Chapter 2 days some made the argument that the Knight deliberately cut the Internet as part of their plans, what Tenna and (in retrospect) Alvin's lines imply is something bigger than they likely could have done themself. Which suggests one of two things:

A) Some higher power (Gaster) cut off this instance (or rather, taking the three save files with their small hardwired differences into account, these three instances) of Hometown from the rest of the world as part of the setup for making the current states of things, our interacting with it as a video game, possible

B) There was never a world outside Hometown; it's always been, diegetically, a simulation, with the town's borders as its limits. And now that it's time for The Game, The Story of DeltaRune, to begin, the energy being used to keep up the illusion for its inhabitants that there's more out there has been redirected to more pertinent purposes.

[thatreliableguy]

yeah.

[thatreliableguy]

i don't think we talk about the hallway leading up to the mike fight enough. do you think the mikes try on all those silly little hats in between their mike duties. maybe stack them on battat when he sleeps and see how many they can pile on before he wakes up or they topple over

[thatreliableguy]

spamton as a phenomenon was really funny. he shows up in chapter 2 and is just the most fucked up thing ever. i want to play a game looking motherfucker. crawls out of a dumpster and starts having a breakdown in front of you and then tries to kill you and then later tries to kill you again. within a year there's a million 20k word selfship fanfics about just forcibly washing him

[thatreliableguy]

more of this guy!!!!!

(the first one was inspired by my friend constantly referring ta him as matpat. i then see a version of that meme with matpat in it on pinterest. i Knew What I Had To Do.)

[thatreliableguy]

Coolest kid to ever exist

I saw a kid w LED light shoes running around and i said “hmm….Damian” and so here it is lol. Idc if this is OOC but hes just a kid after all lmfao

[thatreliableguy]

he really needed that hug ( ཀ͝ ∧ ཀ͝ )

Inspired by this wholesome video from

@ lifeisgoodco (on instagram)

[thatreliableguy]

comic I posted in 2021 that has only become more relevant since chapter 4

[thatreliableguy]

So I was looking through Chapter 3 again and this line’s typically pretty unremarkable. Tube yogurt is like Go-Gurt or something and it’s a fun way to eat yogurt that Tenna’s probably sure kids would like. Pretty sweet!

And then I looked at the Japanese version and the line is slightly different.

Tenna literally saying “EXCITI〜NG!” out loud and calling Mike 「マイクく〜ん！」 aside real quick (though those are cute), this isn’t the word for tube yogurt because that’s literally チューブヨーグルト. It’s also specifically in quotes. So what is it?

From what I can find this appears to be a play on 「チャオちゅ〜る」 which is denoted in quotes since it’s a brand product ! ニャ (Nya) and ニャオ (Nyao) are onomatopoeias for cats, and even the 〜 (this elongated tilde is called the wave dash in Japanese btw!) used is similar to this product while being different from the typical chōonpu they use to elongate sounds (ー).

(The wave dash is used when Tenna calls Mike’s name as well but this is specifically because he's adding a bit of a trill to his voice.)

If you can read what I wrote or looked it up, you’ll find that this is Ciao Churu. Does Churu sound familiar?

THEY’RE CAT TUBE TREATS.

This isn’t odd for the Mikes to have on hand because they have 7293792 cats and Pluey. But this also means

1) Tenna knows they have Churus on hand instead of regular snacks and just accepts it

2) Tenna asks Mike to give Susie a cat treat thinking this is a normal thing for a kid to eat and they will like it

3) Susie devours that whole thing and nobody comments on it

Anyway that’s a really funny Chapter 3 tidbit so have fun with this info!

[thatreliableguy]

Found this in antarctica

[thatreliableguy]

Rouxls Kaard is hands down the funniest Deltarune character. Every time he shows up he’s always up to the new dumbest fucking thing you’ve ever heard of and is somehow consistently inventing new ways to lose at literally everything. Incredible.

[thatreliableguy]

twitter liked this one

[thatreliableguy]

the swag sisters