whathappenedtodess - Tumblr blog

[whathappenedtodess]

they responded! i'm now back @whathappenedtodecember, and this account will remain as an archive. please feel free to unfollow/follow as you like 😊

temporary sideblog until tumblr support responds to my email.

[whathappenedtodess]

!!! thank you for the tag 💕

in no particular order:

1) chara (undertale)

2) flowey/asriel (undertale)

3) kris (deltarune)

4) dess (deltarune)

5) sunny (omori)

6) the world machine/the entity (oneshot)

7) george (oneshot)

8) akechi (p5)

9) naoto (p4)

10) mary (ib)

tagging everyone who sees this (only if you want to do it!) and tagging staff for leaving me on read

Share ten different favourite characters from ten different pieces of media, in no particular order, then tag/send to ten people (anon or not).

Tagged by: @trekkiehood

August Walker (Walker)

Sam Winchester (Supernatural)

Malcolm Bright (Prodigal Son)

Ianto Jones (Torchwood)

Martha Jones (Doctor Who)

Ben Florian (Descendants)

Lela (Teen Beach Movie)

 Veronica Sawyer (Heathers)

Anya (Spy x Family)

Will Turner (Pirates of the Carribean)

Tagging: @laf-outloud, @hitchell-mope, @jack-of-ash, @frostysfrenzy, @small-scale-majestic, @walker-290, @chronicleofthingssupernatural, @dv-samgirl, and anyone else who wants to play!

[whathappenedtodess]

Various sunnies

[whathappenedtodess]

anyway with noelle's section in chapter 2 being as big a deal as it was, i cannot wait to see the other classmates/major characters' arc in future chapters (catti, jockington, etc). if kris and noelle's divorced childhood best friends arc is that insane then i cannot wait to see what toby has in store for their other friends. even the teenagers aren't safe from the Hometown Divorce Web (TM)

[whathappenedtodess]

Asriel and Him?

HIM.. SPAMTON PALETTE.. I love that catty and catti’s dad calls asriel a Big Shot. this is creepy but so silly

[whathappenedtodess]

[whathappenedtodess]

how long are you gonna ghost my emails @staff

[whathappenedtodess]

Black Short-Sleeved T-Shirt

[whathappenedtodess]

@whathappenedtodecember ‘s icon have mad inspiration for some reason so have this

ID in alt text

[whathappenedtodess]

@febo-asoma first of all thank you!! when i was putting in the nanjo goof i was thinking '...this has a single-digit audience' BUT IM GLAD MY POST FOUND IT LMAO

(putting this under a read more because i ended up talking a looot LOL)

it was a few months ago now from when i drew it so i might not remember everything, but here's a few things i had in mind while making them!

like how persona 4 persona's are traditional japanese mythology, persona 5 has legendary antiheros, i wanted the deltarune 'theme' be classic stories and folklore. (susie is focused on old monster horror & kaiju films!)

i really wanted kris' persona to be more mechanical and toy-like than most. the missing leg is inspired by 'the brave tin soldier', a story about a toy soldier who was cast with one leg. the original version is a pretty sad story about trying to persevere past unavoidable, random twists of fate, and it ends with the soldier being melted into a tin heart. another inspiration- especially with the joints- was the tinman from the wizard of oz! the tin man that wants a heart of his own... the heart/broken heart motifs definitely come from both of these!

its easier to see here than in the other drawing, but their mask is intended to be beak-like, sorta like a heart-shaped barn owl face! to kind of play into the bird theme kris kinda has going on- their birdcage, berdly calling them a 'fellow bluebird', birds general association with freedom and independence...

and of course, it's very 'knight in shining armor', just like their dark world outfit! (...also because toby apparently based kris' little ACT point on phoenix wright their 'hair' gets to be hedgehog-chic lmao)

and as for persona 1......

when i was thinking about deltarune+persona connections i had totally forgotten about snow queen route, which is such a good point oh my god

noelle already has a bunch of fairytale motifs, and even references a few directly!

a story with fairytale themes, collecting pieces of glass/cursed fragments of a mirror, about a person's once childhood best friend being controlled by a malevolent force... 🤔much to think about...........

[whathappenedtodess]

old persona au stuff

[whathappenedtodess]

also snowgrave is better than no mercy on a storytelling level because like. toby just applied constructive criticism from that run and applied it here.

i see a lotta ppl say they like the run bc it doesn't try to guilt them and things like that and. i totally get it, but at the same time, i think that both no mercy runs fit both games respectively. if anything, i think toby saw ppl protray frisk as being commanded by chara during no mercy when that WASN'T the intention and made a shorter/simpler no mercy run for deltarune that showed what he was REALLY trying to say. he had hinted through chara that the player was the true driving force behind it, and when ppl ignored it, he made snowgrave give outright explicit evidence that this is beyond noelle and kris's control.

also the idea that the run is better because it "doesn't guilt trip" is something i already discussed in another post, and is also pretty ignorant to the heavy themes of the run about lack of control, trauma, and otherworldly forces. the idea that kris would willingly--no matter how low they felt, no matter what traumas they went through--force noelle to go through with this is disproved many times throughout the entire thing.

i think no mercy run works for undertale, and snowgrave works for deltarune. they both were trying to say the same thing in different elements given the nature of their games. that's all.

[whathappenedtodess]

she did not have to go at them like that

[whathappenedtodess]

Kris calling Toriel, telling her they're "normal", and then attempting to hand the phone to Alphys when she asks what they mean by that is so so funny. This kid only gets the chance to do a bit every once in a while and they always kill it. It's like they get the command "call mom" and they're like "okay yeah that's funny I can work with that. Check this out"

[whathappenedtodess]

There will BE no friendship. (And yes I'm still not dead and still have intents on coming back here)

[whathappenedtodess]

Also it seems surprisingly viable to just beat stuff until you can put it to sleep. I’m so used to ACTing in this game that I never considered that a viable option. It kinda makes it feel like more of a traditional RPG, and kind of Pokemon-y since you have to be aware of how much you are damaging an opponent A few battles, such as Berdly’s one on the rollercoaster, legitimately have no downside for a fully violent path either. Though, those are rare. Noelle’s SleepMist is also really, really good if you play as a “violent pacifist” like that. I never really saw how viable the Ragger or Puppetscarf are… I should!

[whathappenedtodess]

reading the new noelle blog entry about susie and kris. messy teenagers, susie's origins, and barely canon-adhering speculations ahead

And you know what's weird? Literally ONLY Kris seems oblivious to this. Or, no. Are they oblivious? They're literally getting bullied! Do they just… not care? Then again, who knows what Kris is thinking. I just don't get why they don't tell their mom.

OR, BETTER, switch seats with me, like I keep saying lol. I guess they just don't want to be at the front of the class? But… She doesn't EVER bully me, EVEN when there'd be a HUGE opportunity to, so… Come on, switch seats, everyone would be safer that way X)

potential proof for both the "susie is new in town, specifically moved in from human-dominated town/a community that puts humankind as default (as opposed to monsterkind)" theory and the "kris isn't on their first reset" theory. these two theories aren't even contradictory, so they may still both be true.

it's kind of obvious susie is often, if not always, projecting when she "bullies" someone. she's always overcompensating for something. first half of chapter one was blatant about this: fighting and whack-a-mole'ing her way through the dark world because that's the only way she knows how to survive, immediately seizing to threatening lancer when she feels even the potential of a threat because she has to get the first word in or else someone's just going to get her first. (which is then disproved when lancer shows that he's not willing to hurt her)

anyway, her projection in the blog entry.

"Keep smelling like apples... you might end up like this."

Kris didn't react.

"Bitten..." she pointed to the apple. "In HALF."

There was like, the MOST awkward silence... and then...

Snickering.

But it wasn't Susie...

No, it was Kris, just barely stifling some laugh.

surely i'm not the only one who finds her line super corny in this. i love susie so much. she genuinely is all bark and no bite. can't even blame kris for laughing

of course, after that susie feels threatened and lobs an apple at kris, who just keeps escalating the situation because they're a little shit like that, and then we get into noelle "my response to a fight or flight situation is to freeze, always" holiday.

She ran over and grabbed Kris by the hair, staring into their face. REALLY close. I froze. I knew that if I didn't do anything, Kris would get hurt, or worse, but something inside me just... froze! I just stood there, holding my breath. And Susie kept talking.

"One day, your mom's gonna get sick of you, you little freak. And as soon as that happens..."

Susie laughed. I felt genuinely sick.

"Someone might make you disappear. And she'll finally realize how happy she was without you."

i'm not trying to start shit or invalidate other people's feelings about this scene (which can be really personal, i understand), but it's not like noelle isn't trying to do anything. she opened this entry wishing kris would just swap seats with her already. she even told kris about that (because kris is the only person other than her dad that noelle feels she can say no to), but they didn't want to move. she also wished they would just tell toriel already. she ended the entry saying she'd get some apple shampoo to distract susie from kris. which, yeah, obviously it isn't without her own selfish interest, but it's not like she was doing it *just* to get susie to notice her instead.

noelle just always freezes in stressful situations. that's why snowgrave was horrifying.

with that being said, on what susie's saying to kris: in line with what she said at the beginning of chapter 1, "such a shame to make her bury her child" etc. my personal reading on this - might not be coherent, thematically, but i don't think susie necessarily knows enough about toriel to know whether she'd be sick of kris if they stayed around for too long. susie, who didn't even know kris has a brother prior to chapter 2. of course, not discounting the possibility that there might be aspects of the dreemurr family dynamic that susie is privy to and other aspects that she isn't aware of, but.. it genuinely just feels like she's projecting again. especially with how kris is responding:

But after all that,

Kris didn't say anything at all.

Susie EXPLODED.

"SAY SOMETHING, YOU IDIOT!!!"

It felt like her voice echoed around the room forever.

Then, when it finally went quiet,

Kris's mouth looked like it moved.

To be honest, moved so slightly, I couldn't even tell if they said something, or what, but whatever it was, Susie's attitude... suddenly completely changed.

She let go of Kris, backing off quickly, then left the room in such a hurry, she easily would have won today's "leaving first" race.

i won't put it past kris to have said something mean (or meaner) in retaliation. for kris, to whom the whole being unwanted by their mother thing is plain weird as far as insults go ("you think my mom won't want me around? my mom, who checked out library books multiple times just to take care of a freak like me? my mom, who drives me to school and holds my hand because my brother who used to do it for me is now away for college? my mom, who lets me get away with eating whole pies and stealing her chocolate every time? are we sure we're talking about my mom and not yours?"), the bullying probably doesn't take because it literally makes no sense. it's not impossible they caught on quickly to the fact that susie's projecting - she's not subtle about this - and turned that on her instead.

i'm not saying that kris is a mean or aggressive person - they aren't - but they are capable of being sarcastic and being a little shit. like mocking berdly for his supreme intelligence during his normal route battle (even though the insults also didn't take because berdly thought kris was being genuine. i think kris knows berdly thinks they're being genuine, lol, which is why they feel safe to continue being a little shit toward him, knowing they won't hurt him).

ANYWAY. now that i'm done with that, time to be nonsensical about lore

i have an old theory, from a few days after chapter 2 was released, that susie is originally from the undertale timeline, transplanted onto hometown through whatever the fuck gaster has going on. or someone else with timeline control, if it's not gaster. basis for this was the goner npc that appeared near chapter 1 release, talking about their neighbor's daughter suzy and how we're gonna get along with her, etc. if susie was removed from undertale after a fight with her parental figure, and then she was placed in a community with vaguely similar people who (in her perspective) had managed to live on the surface after the barrier broke but her parental figure was nowhere to be found, then it makes sense that susie is implied to be homeless and not in contact with her parental figure. assuming prior history of similarly veined fights, it also would make sense for her to assume that her parental figure wanted nothing to do with her as soon as they all gained the freedom of living on the surface, which would make her bitter about humankind. or a human kid being taken care of by a monster parent.

(1a really but tumblr won't let me fix my bullet points) while i did say that i think susie originated from a human-dominated society, i think i want to rectify or clarify that now. i think it's more appropriate to say that she originated from a society that puts humanity as the default. in undertale, as monsterkind was imprisoned underground for literal centuries, their viewpoint was... mostly centered on their relation with humankind. firstly, on achieving freedom for surface access, as promised by asgore, and secondly, their pop culture is extremely influenced by human pop culture. probably mostly because of mettaton and alphys, but i'm sure they're hardly the first people who have dumpster dived in waterfall for secondhand human entertainment. it's not a stretch to believe that being stuck underground has given susie and/or the people around her the dissatisfaction of being a monster. not necessarily in the dysphoric sense that kris is implied to be feeling, but more the fate sense, as in, monsters are fated to be trapped underground. think undyne's initial distrust for humankind, but in the other direction. also, after years of dumpsterdived human-centric entertainment and mtt's human-weaboo (humanboo?) entertainment, it would explain susie's enthusiasm for monster movies being the default, lol

wtf is kris's possession status even. ??? in noelle's previous post, she said that they would go into the dining room to get snack, just to suddenly play the piano, in a kind of abrupt way. this was when kris still visited the holidays' house often, which i should assume was probably before or only shortly after dess disappeared. in this post, noelle said "Kris's mouth looked like it moved. To be honest, moved so slightly, I couldn't even tell if they said something, or what." that's just....... bro, that's eerily reminiscent of snowgrave, no? as if the sound didn't originate from kris's mouth, but from somewhere else - a different voice?

(continuation of number 3) if this is the case, then the theory that kris has been possessed for a considerably long time may be correct.

anyway, just as a closing note - i'm not super attached to the nonsensical lore readings; they're kinda wobbly. but i'm fairly ok with how i'm reading the susie-noelle-kris interaction.