Undertale and Deltarune

[ripe harbor]

I think only a week, right?

or even just a few days before the game start

[strange cloud]

Carol gave Rudy cancer to get him out of the house theory

[strange cloud]

I don’t know

[ripe harbor]

turns out all those electronic battery powered Santas were hugely carcinogenic

[ripe harbor]

maybe not then, idk. That might be just the vibes I got from him explaining to Kris why he's even in there in chapter 1.

[strange cloud]

Dess died of cancer theory

[ripe harbor]

its not something he's been in long enough that you'd know why he's hospitalized

[ripe harbor]

and now she looks like Jack Noir from Homestuck because he is the Tumor..... it all adds up.....

[strange cloud]

Jack Noir is a tumor?

[ripe harbor]

ya. Homestuck spoilers I guess lmao.

[strange cloud]

I don’t care lol

[ripe harbor]

He's described by the Trolls (who helped bring the universe the humans are from into existence) as being an error

and since homestuck uses genetics for a lot of it's background stuff, that means he's a cancer

I honestly only ever skimmed this part of Homestuck so idk the specifics

I think it's part of the astrology pun too, with the kid responsible for causing the error being the cancer one too

[strange cloud]

I see

[ripe harbor]

I forget the exact chain that connects everything, but Jack Noir wasn't 'supposed' to exist. He does because someone fucked up somewhere.

but also he had to exist because thats homestuck time travel rules

(biased, but I like DRs more)

https://tenor.com/view/red-miles-homestuck-jack-noir-gif-6159530063631219903

^ seen here doing his signature "Cancer Blast"

Dess gave Rudy cancer theory

[strange cloud]

Why?

[rain lotus]

it'd be a meh reveal but i'd get sad anyway

[ripe harbor]

I like 'time manipulation through uncertainty' more than ironclad rigid time travel rules, I guess

Homestuck still gets weird with it, for sure, but I enjoy fate as something that happens regardless more than it already happening, if that makes sense?

having had-happened? already?

Part of it's the hinting at further possibilities than could show on screen. I'd rather have that sense of there being more than everything fitting neatly into place.

Part of it's just vibes.

Cult Sim's 'Secret Histories' fits in the same space. Here is a version of the past, and here is a half-dozen more, and all of them could be sorta-true, sometimes, even and especially when they contradict.

Here are the elements that change each time the story is retold, and here's the stuff that almost never does. Unless..?

This is assuming that the way Dark Worlds work & the way Saves work is the same thing, but that seems like a pretty safe bet. You can make time and history uncertain too.

[ripe harbor]

I like whatevers going on here:

It happened- it had never happened. It unhappened, you remember it still. Did it happen?

maybe a good way to say it shortly would be that I like messing with time as shuffling contexts, more than progressing from A->B->C

[strange cloud]

Yah I see what you mean

It’s more mystical and weird

[ripe harbor]

also its easier to run in ttrpgs lol

If I'm running Mage or something I won't play through the entire time-rewind unless there would be an interesting narrative reason to

Much easier to treat it as "What do you do differently?" and then just flash forward to what changed, or just treat actions done in the past as mechanically identical to actions done in the present.

"I shoot that guy" & "I'm going to go back and shoot this guy" both end up as "Ok, make a Shoot-That-Guy roll" and then the consequences

I am not resetting the whole scene and then walking step-by-step and second-by-second back to the present. Not again....

plus its probably just genuinely hard to run hardline predestined events in a ttrpg, given player choice is a big deal for most of them.

[strange cloud]

That is kinda what you have to do tbh

Trying to properly retcon everything is a pain in the ass at the best of times

[rain lotus]

https://youtu.be/PrwxBfVZUYA

[ripe harbor]

type of shit Noelle would hear playing in club penguin on a busted laptop at 2 AM

[lusty cypress]

His best friend and crush

Also the woman who has a crush on him has horrible dysphoria and stays at home

[ripe harbor]

Mad Masgore is endgame, trust

[ripe harbor]

also

Alphys parallels

[rain lotus]

i like how the timbre(?) of the piano gives it like

a melancholic vibe the original achieves with a simple like, square wave

[astral quiver]

royal scientists gotta be an amount of fucked up to be royal scientists

[rain lotus]

i'm still all in on "gaster anime fan"

like only 3/4ths unironically, i think we can get a glimpse at who he was in deltarune

and i'm hedging on him being, like, shockingly engageable-with? i guess?

at least if all the things people think is gaster are actually gasterite anyway, like, you know, the art therapy stuff

PLEASE i need answers i can't hold onto the gaster brainworm the rest of my life

[desert raven]

Does anyone else find it really weird that Temmie’s partner egg in chapter 1 is specifically said to be black-and-white?

[ripe harbor]

hmm

never something I noticed, but not shocking imo

its 'monochromatic'

and eggs are (seemingly, imo) used as a stand in for 'Errors'

or at least as an error handler for something that is otherwise unable to be represented

so I guess the idea of non-monochrome '''Eggs''' is something I'd accept as a thing

[sour mesa]

easter eggs, then

[ripe harbor]

I'm still at least a little on Noelle getting strung up in a crucifix pose on a friday in story

and the festival being on Sunday

like its right there, right?

[lusty cypress]

THe egg plays orzhov decks

[ripe harbor]

Estrogen could save her (archetype choices)

[desert raven]

I feel like there’s some connection here.
Jockington with his hundreds of photocopies of a single basketball? Soccer ball? I don’t remember but it was definitely a ball, the “close your eyes and think of the Knight” scene having Jockington and Temmie having soccer ball eggs.
As well as the Dess/baseball connections and, I don’t know what this means but it feels important somehow

I feel like I am going insane

[ripe harbor]

He is best friends with the cat

[lusty cypress]

The egg is ralsei

[ripe harbor]

and the dark does some serpent-things

so there might be something

[desert raven]

And the Friend/circles connections through Cat Petters

[ripe harbor]

I think theres a pretty strong connection between the secret bosses / friend and the idea of 'Fun'

sports are fun? I guess?

is that anything

they're games?

[desert raven]

Fun value
But also, maybe?

I guess?

[ripe harbor]

not just the Fun value stuff, though that's part of it

they just all talk about Fun, too

[lusty cypress]

CIrcles, hm

[ripe harbor]

I think it might end up as one of those capital nouns, like Love, later

[lusty cypress]

Is the value of Pi anywhere in deltarune code?

[ripe harbor]

afaik no

though circles are what the Dark is portrayed as in general

[desert raven]

Eye balls? Is that a thing?
With the Titans and such?

I’m going mad here

[ripe harbor]

'value' might be one of those other nouns, if it goes further with the computing metaphor.

a circle is a ring?

[desert raven]

Toby please we need chapter 5

It is, yeah

We know Toby likes wordplay

[lusty cypress]

Hey

[ripe harbor]

truthfully I never even saw the circle stuff as cat-specific, but I always read the Cat Petterz posts as being about Darkners in general

[lusty cypress]

remember that notorious in pop culture

horror story about haunted media

called the Ring

How deep does this go!?

[desert raven]

Actually, yeah. The mathematical definition of a circle is “the set of all points equidistant to a center point”, so a circle is DEFINITIONALLY a ring

There’s so much in previous chapters I am now getting extremely suspicious about

[desert raven]

Clover’s room in Card Castle has the wall broken up by conspicuous pine trees and baseballs

[ripe harbor]

its also used in cybersecurity, telecommunications, sudden disruptions to wave-forms...

tough to tell which way DR means it primarily

[desert raven]

The whole Triple Trucies thing

[ripe harbor]

loops, the noise that a bell makes...

[desert raven]

Church bells?

[ripe harbor]

yeah

that ones even in second sanctuary- all it's Darkners are 'ringing' related

[desert raven]

Also, the “fountain calling” in the Third Sanctuary sounds like a church bell

[ripe harbor]

A bell, a circle with wings that spins around, philosophers who pick up echoing sounds through their pipes

[desert raven]

Heck, even the Knight’s hand things are circles

[ripe harbor]

which might bring us back to 'eggs'

[desert raven]

It feels like chapters 3&4 made all the separate mysteries a tangled, connected web.
Everything loops back into everything else

[ripe harbor]

* An emptiness filled your hands.```
```* (But, their hand, smudged with graphite...)
* (... was still moving, as if to trace some unseen shape.)

* (An Egg was picked up from a nearby easel.)```

[desert raven]

Where’s the first line from?

[ripe harbor]

* It was a small, dark, triangle.

* You tried to take it...
* But, it slipped through your hand
* And you couldn't find it anymore.

* You couldn't find
  
your hand.```

[ripe harbor]

both are unused error handlers

same type as "Is that a cut on your face, or part of your eye" and the like

'An emptiness filled your hands' is, imo, why the knight has those

and the titans too

[desert raven]

Interesting. This is all very gaster-y feeling

I really don’t know what to make of it all

Hopefully chapter 5 helps

[ripe harbor]

* Tickets and cards, drawn in gray, a trace - repeated, repeated! - it's all so clear!
* ... though, it would be a lie if I said I understood it!

you & me both

There are a few other interesting error handlers- one's actually directly from San's workshop in UT

some of them sound really similar to text that ultimately made it into the Knight's fight

[ripe harbor]

it's used for sign placeholder text lol

but also the books in chapter 4 are similarly described as being written in 'unreadable symbols'

• sans also has pretty clear ties to Gaster

[desert raven]

I just don’t know where to go with all of this
I feel like Toby has given us half the puzzle but hasn’t given us many pieces that actually fit together

[ripe harbor]

some of these were also just in UT, but I can't remember the specifics. I don't think the poem was, or the heartbeat ones.

[desert raven]

It’s all vague feelings and almost-connected things

[ripe harbor]

I'm personally very big on Element 6, and the idea of... idk, derivatives? as the bit that fully ties it all together?

[desert raven]

WAIT SPAMTON ELEMENT IS NUMBER 6?!?!

[ripe harbor]

Copies, reflections, shadows, echoes- bits of information that stay behind, or are repurposed into something new?

yeah

it's one of the things that got me low-level crazy for years and higher-level crazy after 3+4 lol

because

right

it should be related to Gaster

[desert raven]

sorry for yelling
It’s just…
Gaster had so many ties to “6”

Yeah

[ripe harbor]

I don't think it's called [Puppet/Cat], I think it's actually Copy/Cat

[desert raven]

6 is just an upside down 9.
Clearly this means Gaster is Chara doing a headstand

[ripe harbor]

Gaster, if you think he's the one in the menus and start, has huuuuge ties to copies & copying

even more if you think he's the guy giving you the eggs

[desert raven]

Copies are monochrome, after all

[ripe harbor]

what color is spamton?

without the glasses

what color is his shop, after he leaves?

[desert raven]

Funny enough, no-glasses Spamton actually has red in his design

[ripe harbor]

The first use of 'monochromatic' in Deltarune's text is Swatch, describing Spamton's appearance

[desert raven]

Ah.
That’s… certainly something

[ripe harbor]

his main attacks - in both fights! - is throwing smaller versions of himself at you

copies

his main speech quirk is taking words from elsewhere, and reproducing them

copies!

[desert raven]

And his songs are all mostly stolen leitmotifs

Copies again!

[ripe harbor]

absolutely

I go further, I think all the secret bosses are effectively copies (or at least focused on the idea of being derivative(?))

Jevil's speech quirk is to repeat himself, and his attacks are attacks that include all card suits - most of which you actually fought earlier in the chapter

[desert raven]

Feels like a bit of a stretch but I can see it

[ripe harbor]

the Sword Route is the 'original' version of the tenna game

in that case, its maybe more about re-use?

which might fit more than derivatives

[desert raven]

Hm.
I don’t know what to think about Gerson here though

[ripe harbor]

even Spamton wants to repurpose the art that is the Neo machine

his book series is an interpretation of an existing work

[desert raven]

I guess?

[ripe harbor]

(and also this Gerson is sorta an echo of the real one)

[desert raven]

Maybe?

Yeah

[ripe harbor]

He never actually says he's gerson

ever

[desert raven]

And the game doesn’t refer to him as Gerson either

[ripe harbor]

whenever he talks about Gerson he does it in third person

[desert raven]

He’s just “the Old Man”
Or “the Hammer of Justice”

[ripe harbor]

Its not "This reminds me of the book series I wrote", it's "Have you heard that old story" or "It reminds me of a story I heard once"

[desert raven]

Maybe he’s called Gerson in the Titan Fight

[ripe harbor]

It's "Your father would be proud of you", not "I would be proud of you"

none of that's hardline evidence, but I think its intentional that there is a sort of a question with him

is he Gerson? Do you think he's Gerson?

[desert raven]

Even his lack of a dialogue sprite plays into this

[ripe harbor]

He's textually a Darkner, and one Ralsei says is patterned on a loved one- does that make him the loved one outright?

so I think he fits into this interpretation copy space

[ripe harbor]

he even laughs a little different from the UT one

just slightly

[desert raven]

Gyah ha ha
Not Wah ha ha

[ripe harbor]

but I also think the book counts enough

he's also got a massive church bell in the background, and in his song. More ringing.

[desert raven]

Yeah.
It all loops around and around and around
This is all very confusing.
Thanks though. This has been enlightening

[ripe harbor]

track for the Second Sanctuary Dark-Gerson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHR_z-hldgY

'oscillation of a signal, particularly in response to a sudden change in input'

I could see this as inspiration, yeah. Every time a Dark Fountain is opened, the stars in the back actually make a little waveform.

[desert raven]

Mhmh
And the fact that ripples make circles on water
And that the sound-step-things in CH4 make circles

[ripe harbor]

and it usually literally spikes as they raise the knife

[desert raven]

I don’t know what’s deliberate anymore

[ripe harbor]

I guess you could say its all got you feeling

a little uncertain?

[desert raven]

Very uncertain

Confused

Lost
where the forest would grow

[ripe harbor]

I think having been inflicted with Horrible Spamton Curse Disease for years actually helped me out here

I was like "ougghghh all these elements, probably not even all intentional.... ougha.... all these motifs...."

and then, no, it actually turns out that they were main plot relevant too

[desert raven]

Ah. Yeah I can see how that would help
I came in after CH3&4 released
So this is all new

[ripe harbor]

and Spamton was written because they had been settled on by chapter 2

[desert raven]

Thanks!

[ripe harbor]

like Kris has a manipulative phone presence

and its 100% clear thats gotta be why Spamton had one too- to at least create a parallel

which is kinda funny

[ripe harbor]

like what you said here- absolutely

"Is it possible to re-invent and create something meaningfully 'new' using stuff that's pre-existing?"

well, idk

but 'Legend of Tenna' and 'Lord of Hammer' turned that from just a Spamton thing into a larger element

What does it mean to be original?

The egg rooms and Susie's Dark World bringing in this idea of things being 'mixed up', Susie's characterization more outright having her self-describe as feeling 'like trash' or being 'unwanted', the increasing presence of both Cats & Roots - both of which Spamton had ties to with Element 6 and his main leitmotif,

he's a good Rosetta Stone, lmao

thats why he's #StillTHEBEST

[lusty cypress]

Rosetta puppet

[ripe harbor]

he seemingly doesn't have a single leitmotif he didn't get from somewhere else. And I love that for him.

[lusty cypress]

He is the string connecting all

[ripe harbor]

||he hates it. But that's why I gotta hype it up.||

[lusty cypress]

House of Spiders-ass guy

[ripe harbor]

it even explains how he showed up so seemingly late in Ch2's development, but seemed tied to deeper stuff,

and honestly maybe even a little bit of why he got so much ARG stuff, lmao

can't introduce <- whatever this is, yet, so put the guy with similar eyes up front and then just write a bunch of cryptic riddles too

it'll make more sense later

oh, @desert raven, one of my favorite 'Gaster-6' details in the game? Tenna's channel changing crashout at the end of his fight flickers faster & faster,
static taking up more and more of the screen in between frames,

until it suddenly all cuts out

at channel 66

the first two locks in TV World, before you reach the cold place? 4 spaces long.

The last one, the undefined code, which is made of only 0's (Null characters, circles?)

it's 6 spaces

Gerson says the LotH never was finished, describes 5 chapters, says there was another one and then no more- it reached 6. And then it stopped.

Chapter 5 will probably be peak, but I am 👀 for the sixth.

[lusty scarab]

https://youtu.be/ClNxfx0NNlY?si=TXw5aohHUtiA2gdy

[rain lotus]

https://youtu.be/t_yOVFKxDh8

i love this channel

i like that their tuning either intentionally or unintentionally sounds like the version you hear in the gachapon easter egg

[strange cloud]

GOD

DAMMIT

[ripe harbor]

* Your words just now, 's got a peculiar ring to 'em.
* I can tell... you're havin' some relationship trouble, ain't ya.

* I've seen it all, y'know. At your age...
* If things go cold, you might think your whole world's endin'.
* But y'know, things go on. You'll grow up...

* Just keep livin'. Everything will be all right, sooner or later...```

WR exclusive

I like this set of lines for also including "got a peculiar ring to 'em". very penumbra.

[strange cloud]

Gerson Imma keep it real with you

There’s 0 chance Kris’s life gets better in the weird route

Shits gonna be fucked

[minor merlin]

what do you mean? everything will go back to how it should be. :)

[ripe harbor]

uhhhh maybe- uhhhhhhhhhh.....

nah hard to spin it

the non-WR exclusive one is also fun foreshadowing

* I'm sure you'll get there eventually...
* So what's the rush?```

[strange cloud]

That’s actually so true

There’s no need for world after Dess disappeared

Wouldn’t it be better if everything just

Went back?

[ripe harbor]

also A Cold Place fans we are so back

[strange cloud]

To exactly how it was before that day?

[ripe harbor]

Why would things ever need to change?

If its perfect, shouldn't it just

be frozen

forever?

[strange cloud]

You’ll never be hurt again so long as everything is a numbing cold

[ripe harbor]

nothing needs to be 'new'

nothing needs to be different, or novel

everything in its rightful place. perfect statues.

[strange cloud]

Just play your games luv

Have a great time

[clear frost]

snow seems to end up congregating in brighter dark worlds, doesnt it?

[strange cloud]

Hard to say since only 1 has it so far

Unless I forgot in chapter 4

[clear frost]

no no no

think about it

where does the weird route take place?

the brightest dark world we've seen

perhaps snow and cold is a form of pure light

[strange cloud]

Oh yah Snow and ice is very light coded in this game

Snowgrave was described as blinding

Carol, the most ice character to ever ice, effectively rules the light world

[lusty cypress]

Ice is very static

[strange cloud]

Ralsei is the team’s darkner and has fire magic

[strange cloud]

Yah

It’s numbing and preservative

It keeps the world the same

[lusty cypress]

Contrary to the fire like spark whenever a dark fountain is created

[strange cloud]

Yah, darkness also literally produces smoke

Ice is light, fire is darkness, and water is inbetween………… man

[lusty cypress]

There's primordial water vibes

[clear frost]

when the world is shining bright
and the shadows flee in fright
and the stories of the night
are just fantasy
theres a shadow in your soul
that can burn away the cold
with your hope
the stories brought to life
don't forget
there's more to life than light

[lusty cypress]

The dark fountains sprout from below
The titans and their spawn having a primordial theme

I await angelspawn

[clear frost]

saw an interpretation that made the light equivalent to titanspawn be called cherubs

[ripe harbor]

It's seemingly got some relationship to static as well

which makes me want to lean away from it as necessarily more light coded... just because a lot of the other Dark stuff uses it, too

[ripe harbor]

I do think this might be part of the pun though, lol

Ice Palace ARG is found in the TV Static, uses the static-version of 'ocean.ogg', Glaceir plays while the screen has a bunch of choppy sea waves on screen after you sail through the 'ocean' to reach the dungeon,

TV static is literally called snow

but then the spawn and the Titan and the knight also have some static

and the Titan's appearance is anything but static. Its static as 'endless churning noise where nothing can be made out', not static as in motionless.

there's something with the ice. but idk if I got a handle on if there is a difference between the purple cliffs areas & the cold place areas & the Titan just covering everything in Darkness,

or what the difference would be

maybe the best I'd offer is that the ice stuff seems the worst, overall? It's not just something you don't think about (like dusty things left under the couch), but something painful to think about?

Grief, a hollow empty feeling. Not just a place that's lulled into a sort of sleep, but a place where things did happen and left it barren, and unable to ever grow into something else again.

[ripe harbor]

I do also think the 'Doom Board' being just entirely lit up with fire is a little slept on, lol

it fits the light demon motifs Tenna's got, and general destruction vibes, but doom feels very specific as a word to use when fate and prophecy are so heavily involved. As if its a vision not of generic doom, but the specific one that's coming.

[low surge]

How it feels to be an Asgore fan

[low surge]

Trust the plan patriots

Kris meet your step mom she’s a cringe streamer with anger issues

Why do so many people want that fat boy

Alphys Maddie Rudy Toriel back in the day

[white basalt]

i'm stealing that gif

[low surge]

Please do

[ripe harbor]

cleans around the house
gentle spirit
hugger
loves giving gifts
green thumb
the Dreemurr Dumpy

he's literally a package deal

plus idk. He's got the pathetic divorcee boost? Worked for the TV.

Ch5 roles around I 100% expect the fans to want him too

he's gonna get like 2+ flashbacks, more dialogue than he did in UTs neutral route, and implicating details as devastating as his empty New House.

I think they'll really dive into his perception of Kris / Asriel and their relationship to him. That seems juicy.

'Yeah, heres the mind-version of you that your father has implicitly condemning him as a bad dad' can you imagine

Here's the brother you think you live in the shadow of, and then here's the magically exaggerated Golden-Child vision your dad has of him, which you do absolutely live in the shadow of for contrast.

And the Darkners wouldn't be having fun either. I imagine the flowers would be his 'children' but still jealous of his 'real' children, who he'd seem to care much more for. They wouldn't feel good enough for Asgore, which would actually probably put them in the same narrative space as Kris? 'Feeling your family would be happier if you weren't around to hold them down.'
I expect Asgore to neglect his ties to the Darkner's he'll bring forth in the exact same way he's been growing distant from his family, focused on solving The Case.

and!
Susie will even be there!

It'll be great

plus this will probably happen

[low surge]

Genuinely would be devastating

Asgore having perfected idealized versions of his family and they just exist to haunt him

The Toriel Haunting the Asgore

[lusty cypress]

"Asgore I remember your genocides"

[low surge]

Either madly in love with him or despises him to a degree real Toriel couldn’t ever come close to even in Undertale

Possibly both

[lusty cypress]

So titania from wonderlab
Oberon is her nemesis, her obsession, her beloved

[low surge]

Asgore the type of guy to mentally flay himself alive every day for every single mistake he’s ever made and then just go “onkey donky : )” when they mess up his sandwich order for the 4th time

[lusty cypress]

Kris fighting their clone

Ralsei living the high life with the flowers in asgore's palace

[ripe harbor]

I think Mind-Toriel would be the most twisted from the real. Asgore would be having some Disco Elysium stuff going on there imo.

I think she would be doing both

and it would play into the theme of nostalgia and obsession distorting your view of reality. He's too wrapped up in Toriel and 'solving' his marriage and silver-bullets to see her accurately.

the Darker representation would be magnified beyond recognition

"She doesn't want me back so she must hate me."

wouldn't even need to be conscious of those thoughts to still have a massive influence on the DW he creates. He's gonna bring his own torments forth it'll be great.

[ripe harbor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx_jW6KCXH4

[sour mesa]

https://bsky.app/profile/bunsidhe.bsky.social/post/3mj2pozxw2k2b

bunny (@bunsidhe.bsky.social)

dress up deer
#deltarune #deltaruneart #noelleholiday

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Bluesky · Apr 9, 2026, 11:35 AM

[low surge]

My beautiful chud daughter

[amber jolt]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/473062374400589828/1047787068367052850/worm_default_dance_1.webm?ex=69daab00&is=69d95980&hm=7b5eaab5fffa80cc469753fc42aaa1a15a0cf04f6f06bf9018e9355a9b6da298&

[astral quiver]

christmas is right around the corner

[timber widget]

It appeared so quickly

Yippee

[lusty cypress]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk3ZQWfavKM

[astral quiver]

there are no trains in The Underground

[strange cloud]

I don’t wanna be anti homestuck, but sometimes homestuck fans will describe something that’s a common trope in a lot of fantasy or sci-fi literature and claim that you have to have read homestuck to understand the concept

“If you don’t read homestuck you’ll never understand the weird route because it’s a doomed timeline”

Morrowind was clearly inspired by homestuck then

[rain lotus]

morrowind is utdr because it has things to say about prophecy and what being prophesied means

:v

clearly

when moon and star says chey're not the nerevarine it's undertale

[strange cloud]

That’s true!

[astral quiver]

i havent read homestuck, and i reeaaly dont think its necessary either lmao. I really dont think an esoteric web comic Toby is kind of associated with is in any way a required reading for understanding a narrative.
its not like homestuck invented whatever hometsuck fans believe is said needed understanding.
its not like DR fans cant just infer it from first principals

[strange cloud]

Yah that’s kinda what I was thinking

The things homestuck fans posit as reasons reading homestuck is necessary for understanding Deltarune are just, story ideas

[astral quiver]

i dont think videogame and media references are an essential part of understanding the story.

[strange cloud]

And homestuck did not come fully formed out of Hussie’s head via divine revelation

They, like all artists are, were influenced by all the art they’ve experienced before making it

[rain lotus]

both these games are like my top 10s together and i've never even looked at the comic

my partner loves homestuck though

so i've got like... quaternary knowledge

for april fools they colored their OC like a troll

[astral quiver]

various internet algorithms conspire to make me get into Homsetuckk

but ive evaded them all over the course of 15 years

[rain lotus]

unfortunately i can't read

so i don't read it

i've had opportunities to

arguably now would be a better time than ever in the past like what five years if i wanted to according to my partner

[strange cloud]

The site is functional again

[rain lotus]

yeah they were jazzed

[sour mesa]

wait what's it supposed to add

what does this lens theoretically bring to the table

[strange cloud]

What’s what supposed to add?

[sour mesa]

the claim is that understanding HS doomed timelines adds to the understanding of DR weird route

What additional understanding is it supposed to impart?

[rain barn]

from what I gather, using the term "doomed timeline" to describe it
very important, you see

[strange cloud]

Ah, from what I saw of people talking about it is that the weird route changing so much and yet the game still only having one ending is because it’s homestuck concept of a doomed timeline

[sour mesa]

(i have read Homestuck so this is extra confusing to me)

[sour mesa]

okay well that's silly

[strange cloud]

A timeline which is going to “end” with nothingness to my understanding

Basically the apocalypse because the world can’t be remade

But like, this isn’t a new concept in time travel stories

It’s sorta the stock time travel story

Someone time travels and in doing that, messes something up

Now the timeline is doomed and needs to be fixed via more time travel

[astral quiver]

is weird route even a doomed timeline???
its not like deltarune has "time travel" in the traditional sense

[strange cloud]

Not really tbh

[sour mesa]

HS doomed timelines are "doomed" because they can't contribute to the cycle of cosmic reproduction. The camera stops following them because they're not going to reach the end of the "game"

[strange cloud]

It’s just another interpretation of the prophecy so far

[sour mesa]

they're not even necessarily the product of time travel

[strange cloud]

Like how the prophecy of Deltarune in undertale meant a monster free underground because they all left, or a monster free underground because they all died

[sour mesa]

so like

[strange cloud]

The prophecy is fulfilled either way

[sour mesa]

I'm really unsure what the parallel is supposed to be lol

[rain barn]

what if the "only one ending" is the weird route, and in the normal route

[strange cloud]

Hmm, I’m not sure

Obviously I can’t know yet but, idk I don’t think Susie is just, gonna be right

[rain barn]

just thinking of ways for one of the two to not "technically" be an ending

[strange cloud]

At the end of the day she is naive in what she’s saying

[rain lotus]

no credits or anything it just restarts from the beginning

[strange cloud]

Is she genuinely hopefully, or can she just say that because unlike Ralsei and Kris she doesn’t actually know the full extent of the world?

[sour mesa]

comparing deltarune to kill six billion demons is gonna go crazy

[ripe harbor]

KSBD is like Deltarune, because the prophecy did not account for this girl to be chosen, this time.

[ripe harbor]

also yeah, and it is something I've noticed Homestuck fans specifically doing.

for anything even tangentially related, lol

[ripe harbor]

Oh, I know a game to recommend to Homestuck fans actually, if you wanted to impress this on them,

they could try "Deltarune"

[astral quiver]

do you have any idea how little that narrows it down

[ripe harbor]

Its a little un-certain. But the infinite potential can be shaped much closer to your vision, as long as you have a blade.

usually the first one is the darker bit, and the second stark-white.

also KSBD and Deltarune both have prominent demons (Ralsei, Cio) who are inexplicably british...

Moral: England = Hell

[astral quiver]

storytelling demon..

[ripe harbor]

I tried reading homestuck when I was pretty young and just did not latch on at all. One of the few comics I ended up literally skimming and just looking at art.

for a while I felt like I quit right in Act 2 & then kept getting surprised that I had vague memories of panels that happened way later.

ironically the part I feel in DR might actually be the closest to Homestuck is the bit that I'm

1. Not entirely sure on for DR
   and
2. Never really seen it mentioned by Homestuck fans

Homestucks reality is very computer-like

Ton of computer and game stuff built into the metaphysics

The world(s) of Homestuck are basically programs

[sour mesa]

The programming jokes fall off after the first couple acts but it stays very game-y throughout

partially on account of being within the game

but not entirely! you see it before they enter too

[strange cloud]

You joke but unironically if you really want to impress this onto homestuck fans you just gotta show them a shit ton of old pulp sci-fi short stories

I don’t even think those are Hussie’s direct inspirations

But they’re the seeds for his later inspirations

[sour mesa]

(for the later chapters the pseudo-RPG fantasy element "gameiness" attract more attention than the programming jokes "gameiness")

[ripe harbor]

Skaia always gave me computer-y vibes, partially because it is used for the loading of pages

and ofc I don't think that if Deltarune goes further into that as a meta element it means its directly from Homestuck or anything.

It's just that the guy who worked a ton on Homestuck projects likes poking at the same stuff- shocker, lmao

[ripe harbor]

pulp was absolutely huge for problem sleuth, and CAPITAL NOUN style jokes imo

[strange cloud]

Yah

[low surge]

We talkin bout Morrowind 👀

[ripe harbor]

I haven't watched any of this video but the thumbnail reminded me of the gnosticism-posting lol

just skimming, this video is going places I have never heard before

Kris is.... ||sus? 😱 ||

||made me choke. Just a really funny image out of context.||

I think one of their end point here is going to be "The real Kris turned into the Shadow Mantle Speaker / Eram / 'The Demon' after they were swapped with a vessel"?

I probably agree with most of those vibes but not the specific conclusions tbh

I think the SMS is supposed to be a Kris-Parallel, just not in that way

actually same with the ending bit here (and only this very last line),

feels like Susie being the 'girl-with-the-least-worth' in town might actually be an important part of whatever plot is going on

she's the 'most expendable', eugh

[ripe harbor]

oh, they put this forward as a solution to still argue for Kris Knight?

I respect the boldness actually. Maybe the first time I've ever seen "Kris is giving out the Shadow Crystals", too.

I never understood why Dess (assumedly) being 'in the code' or UNUSED is brought up to argue against her being in the Dark. That's the same place.

or at least UNUSED is definitely in the Dark, and there may be a meta element going on as well, but the first is 100%. It's what the text describes, outright.

"Dess couldn't be the Knight because she's already Unused" why would I assume the hidden foreshadow-y text about being trapped in darkness isn't from the Knight's perspective?

Weird leap for how common it is, seen it all over the place

[lusty cypress]

Knight literally has antlers

[timber widget]

Knight also has wings tbf

But yeah Unused doesn't have to be or not be anyone, particularly

(maybe except, like, Regular Accounted-for Lightners, barring some kind of body double scheme)

[astral quiver]

red herring, anyone can have antlers, its like the red horned headband (jk jk jk)

some kind of red horned herring

always bet on Papyrus knight

[astral quiver]

oh my god it was Kris Knight all along

[ripe harbor]

& yeah it also would work as just mood setter to underline an important ongoing theme, even if it wasn't a specific character

I do think it's Dess though. Fits.

... except for the noise.
The scratching noise I sometimes hear...

This sounds crazy, but even though no one can hear me,
When I hear that noise, I feel like someone's listening.```

ah, yeah. the noise in the Unused & deeper dark. The trashed noise.

because No-One can hear you 🙂‍↕️

When you don't got anyone else, you'll always have No-One. & when you don't belong anywhere, that means you'd always belong Nowhere.

good(?) news for Ramb...

[low surge]

I have a screenshot that is fucking frying me but idk if I’m allowed to post it

[strange cloud]

Send it to me

[strange cloud]

Legitimately I do kinda think this is meant to be an actual thematic idea the game is gonna play with, just like, as showcase for how cruel and uncaring the prophecy is lol

Basically choosing 2 outcasts of society to send to their deaths

[strange cloud]

Also like, it’s dialogue in the code of the game. It can take place literally anywhere in the timeline and still make sense to be there

[desert raven]

I’ve even seen a mildly convincing argument that UNUSED could be Asriel, of all people

[ripe harbor]

I don't have proof but honestly if Carol is doing this part knowingly re: Susie's involvement I think she might surpass 'worse than UT Asgore' for me

High-wealth and high-power Mayor deciding the lonely freak with no friends is the best sacrifice if someone has to be sacrificed. Especially if it gets her daughter back, or keeps her other daughter safe.

I can see the shape a reveal like that would be and that already has me a lil' incensed

[ripe harbor]

that part honestly I thought went without mentioning, but I have seen people think the updates it gets are 'real time'

[ripe harbor]

people who could disappear, "and everything would just go on without them."
People who only leave empty rooms, with no trophies, behind.

fucked up. that would be fucked up.

[desert raven]

Honestly, I think Carol knowing about the SOUL makes her close to UT Asgore for me
She seems to hold no remorse over using Kris as a tool to keep us restrained, even at the cost of their agency

[ripe harbor]

mhm

[desert raven]

But her knowingly sending Susie to her death would absolutely push her over the line for me

[ripe harbor]

there are more sympathetic angles though, like how much she knows about the prophecies ending & what it is

but it is implied the tragic ending is known in the faith, Catti just forgor ( 💀 ) it

[desert raven]

It could be one of the pieces that was lost to time

Wait, didn’t read fully

[ripe harbor]

but I suspect she knows enough to be doing some hugely wrong things

[desert raven]

Where was it implied that the ending tragedy is known?

Carol definitely knows more than most

[ripe harbor]

Catty says something to the effect of

"And, yeah, the prophecy of the heroes isn't all good, there's some bad stuff in there too..."

[desert raven]

I thought that was referring to the Roaring, but I can see that also referring to the end

[ripe harbor]

yeah I see the read for the Roaring too

though, the final prophecy seems like it'd be why they're heroes at all at the end tbh

its what "Saves the World(s)"

[strange cloud]

I still can’t believe Toby cucked is out of hearing the full hometown versions of the prophecy because CATTI was the one telling it

[ripe harbor]

enough has to survive to outline that the calamity is averted, probably

[strange cloud]

Honestly I do doubt this because I feel like Carol’s role in this story is that she has way less control then she thinks she does

[ripe harbor]

ehrm... ackshully it's catty who was telling it

Catti is

perhaps elsewhere

[strange cloud]

She thinks she’s pulling the strings to get her daughter back but I just don’t see a world where she’s really in control of anything

[strange cloud]

FUCK

[desert raven]

Carol absolutely feels like she’s in the same narrative role as the Zelda villains that summon Ganon. She thinks she’s the one pulling the strings but she’s just fumbling blindly

[ripe harbor]

see the cat girls are named Catty & Catti, a slight deviation from an otherwise identical copy, for inexplicable and unseen reasons....

[strange cloud]

https://tenor.com/view/higuruma-hiromi-higuruma-jujutsu-kaisen-jujutsu-kaisen-meme-jjk-memes-gif-10370496866020481076

[desert raven]

I mean…
It’s very suspicious that the only colors on Catti are Pink and Yellow
Everything else is black and white

[ripe harbor]

you know Catty is outright called a 'Copycat' by Bratty literally 3 times over 3 visits to hometown, lmao

and Bratty says she copies her without that direct phrasing a few other times too

which could mean nothing....

[ripe harbor]

Yeah, I get the vibe her knowledge is still more firsthand from the Light World side of things

she might know stuff about the Dark World, not sure she's ever been in one

[desert raven]

At best she’s had a meeting in the Shelter

[ripe harbor]

oh true. I assume that's more of a stronghold for the conspiracy than a place to go on an adventure.

basically I don't think I can see Carol engaged in DW hi-jinks lmao

[lusty cypress]

You know

Carol wanting susie to stay away might be less classism, and her knowing susie is doomed

so she wants to save noelle the grief

[ripe harbor]

I think they overlap, but yeah

or doesn't want Noelle to get connected to Susie, either because it might put her in danger

or maybe derail the plan? somehow?

[desert raven]

I could see it? Maybe? But I don’t think it’s super likely. Considering what she’s doing to Kris

[ripe harbor]

I'm thinking of the Noelle blog about 'punishing' pets who grow too close, and Spamton/Tenna subplot with the phone

there's an as-of-yet weird snag with certain bonds being formed and getting too strong

[desert raven]

Something something “The bonds you break will make you stronger”

[ripe harbor]

Maybe Carol knows about that, and wants to keep some space between them?

[desert raven]

Maybe

[ripe harbor]

be careful about breaking every bond you have, though

you might need those to stay held up

[desert raven]

You know, potential recruits that you defeat with violence become “Lost”. Which feels like a very suspicious wording

“Lost Girl” and all that jazz

[ripe harbor]

not just that,

in the Japanese translation iirc it keeps LOST for the recruits you don't get

it keeps an english translation for the recruits you do get too

FRIEND

[desert raven]

Like “LOST” in english?

[ripe harbor]

iirc, it might be slightly off

mhm

I think?

[desert raven]

What. Okay. I will check this out

If this is true this seems very big

[ripe harbor]

Yes, the recruit one at least is real

[lusty cypress]

Carol: Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves

[ripe harbor]

I'd need to find a violent playthrough for the other

[desert raven]

Give me a minute, I can just fight someone

Terrible quality but got it

[ripe harbor]

symbolically, I suspect this might be tied into the "Light and Dark and Love and Hate", and the burning eyes stuff too

broken bonds, or maybe the idea that a strong hatred is as strong a bond as a positive emotion

[low surge]

Tobias please

[ripe harbor]

as long as you care

[ripe harbor]

it makes me go joker

[desert raven]

The Ribbick’s “Lost and Lost and Lost girl” dialog isn’t translated in Japanese, either

[lusty cypress]

In the name of love and hate ego gear from lobotomy corporation
Wonder who'd rock the magical girl fit
Ah, ralsei

[ripe harbor]

strangely, neither was 'Chaos' in the Roaring Cutscene. Or at least it was transliterated instead of translated to a japanese word for chaos, like a keyword.

which makes me suspect it is one, and probably means the cosmological idea.

[desert raven]

“CHAOS, CHAOS”

Jevil, Wtf

Also! Jevil’s eyes seem kind of like Titan eyes

[ripe harbor]

absolutely, 100%

[desert raven]

And his prison uses Castle Town lights and aesthetics instead of Card Kingdom

[ripe harbor]

I actually think his big fancy final attack is also a reference to how fountains are made. He throws a bunch of 'knives' downward to summon pillars of light.

he's also a devil with a tail?

who's really concerned with playing games and having fun (even when that hurts people)?

I've definitely got a pin in that after the Shadow Mantle Holder

[desert raven]

And his neck is made of circles
I can’t help but feel like Jevil will be important soon

[ripe harbor]

to open Jevil's prison, you need to collect 3 key fragments

3 pieces of a key- of a code. And then you can open the door to 'Outside', to the Chaos, to the Abyss. Also it's deep below the earth.

and a smiling tailed demon will be there.

Sounds about right.

||its the Shelter, imo. The consistent thing with Keys in DR form a parallel to whatevers going to happen with the Shelter codes||

that Jevils is specifically shattered into 3 pieces... hmm....

[desert raven]

KEYGEN, Spamton NEO, the DIGITAL ROOTS

There’s so much that’s just right there

[ripe harbor]

in the Junk Data- where everything is mixed up. The 'chaos'.

in the sense of chaos as big mixed together mass. Like a chapter 1 secret boss who uses every suit of cards against you, including attacks other characters already used.

[desert raven]

I feel like people overlook CH1
Like, did you know that Clover’s room has baseballs and pine trees that block the path to outside the room?

[ripe harbor]

Chaos in the sense of 'unformed primordial matter, which can be given form to create the world'

[desert raven]

And a song that seems to be handcrafted to make people hallucinate Gaster’s Theme

[ripe harbor]

Spamton also serves as a pink-and-yellowed character who lives under a big mound with a door on it,

who makes a specific deal with Kris to do things, while telling nobody else.

Also, a phone and it's commands are involved.

[desert raven]

Clover’s room

[ripe harbor]

I never noticed those pine trees before, huh

[desert raven]

Spamton also lives in the Trash Area

[ripe harbor]

or seen anyone ever talk about them

[ripe harbor]

and Chapter 3 has you play the 'original' game in the DUMP

its where information ends up stored, buried

heaps and heaps and stacks and stacks of Memory

[desert raven]

Kris describes the LW version of the DW inventory as a “ball of junk”

Which could be important

[desert raven]

They’re really really weird

[ripe harbor]

yeah theres a lot of trash, recycling, junk, and discarding going on

even in plot beats, the Vessel, the Thrash Machine, Tenna's version of the Mantle game, The Lord of the Hammer being a re-telling of the prophecy (and the general idea that you can take stories and re-tell them to make them your own)

'Thrash Machine' is actually the first time 'Lost Girl' plays as a motif in the game

which is pretty funny

[desert raven]

The Thrash Machine seems weirdly similar to the Vessel. If you look at it a bit askew.
Made of 3 pieces, discarded shortly after creation

[ripe harbor]

^

pieces you pick and re-combine

your creation, but made from existing parts that have been re-mixed

I think the prophecy itself might be the same

[desert raven]

Maybe. Maybe the Prophecy isn’t even original
…
That’s probably a bit of a reach

But yeah. There’s about a thousand running motifs going around and they all seem connected somehow

[ripe harbor]

I kinda agree- I don't even know if 'original' applies to it, tbh

the characters who are in it have read stories based on the faith based on the prophecy of the events the characters are in-

the causality is all messed up

what would an 'original' prophecy mean? Is there a real version, or just a bunch of different versions?

Is there a version of <DELTARUNE> that isnt a re-telling?

[desert raven]

Maybe Starwalker was super-important this whole time

After all, the birds are suspiciously reminiscent of Titans

[ripe harbor]

part of this is the vibes of how Gaster's panels are written, imo, like observations

they feel like prophetic visions more than commands

[desert raven]

Wings, four-pointed stars, Dark/Star connection

[ripe harbor]

but if he's just writing down what he's seeing- where does the story come from? Why is this the song that's echoing from the deep?

[desert raven]

Maybe he read ahead in the script and wrote it down?

[ripe harbor]

unironically you could do a read about things that are 'original' versus things that are 'new'

or Neo, or divergent from the standard

[desert raven]

Suilver Sam being “original”

[ripe harbor]

the grey one

[desert raven]

And how Starwalker is found in the room right next to the Forgotten Man

[lusty cypress]

Deltarune is actually a story about environmentalism

[ripe harbor]

or maybe copies aren't original? this part I feel like I'd be a little looser on.

but like reflections, copies, and 'new' versions of things

all of that plays into originality

[lusty cypress]

Recycle, stop pollution
Or the world ends

[ripe harbor]

When did you start being yourself?

Are you authentic?

[desert raven]

Maybe
Reuse, reduce, recycle

[ripe harbor]

thats why Gaster is Green... of course.....

I think part of DR's commentary on art and creation is that no work is 'original'

its all building off other things

[ripe harbor]

& its worth noting here that Spamton's questline is both about personal re-invention, and about recycling of discarded art. That's what the Neo machine is.

and a few other places where Identity and Creations / Fiction have a connection drawn

[lusty cypress]

So, a late Japanese writer
Akutagawa
Believed all new stories were old stories rewritten
An infinite rebirth
He used Christian and Buddhist motifs and stories as inspiration

He is famous for rashomon and hell screen

[ripe harbor]

to exist as yourself is a creative act, maybe? Its generative, even if you are shaped by larger forces that made you what you are?

[lusty cypress]

The movie rashomon is actually based on his story In a Grove
Which is about perspective
A lot of witnesses see the crime differently, even the ghost of the victim

[rain lotus]

i forgot the duck i remember was the thrash machine

[minor merlin]

LIMBUS COMPANYYYYYY

[ripe harbor]

also while pulling out that catti dialogue I saw this

which I assume is an error code or something

but

https://tenor.com/view/james-doakes-james-doakes-doakes-meme-doakes-suspicious-gif-7434634924845802139

me jumping through a dozen hoops trying to build an argument that some of the ways 'execute' and 'execution' is used in this game are named that for 'execution-of-a-program' reasons

when this is just right in there in the handlers, replacing 'act' with 'execution of arbitrary code'

It can't be considered magic.```

[desert raven]

Susie has been able to do weird semi-meta things before.
She force-closes our choicer boxes and is the one to prompt the strange, red, blank one on the Weird Route

[ripe harbor]

Her doing that actually is more ominous than inspiring for me, ever since I started to read a stronger connection between her and the Secret Boss / Trash things

technically, Susie forcing your choice box closed is critical for the Weird Route being able to happen at all

It's brought up three times that she's bad at playing the right music notes in order, and in the mini-game she spends nearly the entire time with a big error X over her side

I don't think those are two separate ideas, tbh, so much as one

She's a little out-of-order. She's a little noise-coded.

Ralsei hits every note perfectly

Susie doesn't

which is awesome and we love that for her, but I think there's an implication that something behind the scenes & associated with junk / errors is trying to manipulate something. Which makes some of these elements on Susie read different.

then again, one of the few things the SpoOoOoOoky unknown phone caller in chapter 4 says to Kris is that Susie cannot get the guitar (which she does). So idk.

I'm just worried about her, your honor

[low surge]

Could there be another…

[ripe harbor]

Ralsei walks through this and it doesn't go off

[low surge]

Apparently Lancer references the pasta Easter egg in chapter if you do it in chapter 2

Which means Darkners who are stone remember things even if inanimate

Which means he heard everything…

[sage needle]

Unironically this is what it was like every time Ralsei talked before chapter 4

[timber widget]

Source?

[ripe harbor]

the because... um... is so in character it's crazy, and it's not even an edited part of the dialogue

[ripe harbor]

and with that,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uVJVOsMAgU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD25ctysjeE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrVRfv9CMGM

Geotone's side-project continued Silvagunner KFAD spamton bit

is done

good album

[lusty cypress]

All tell a different story

[low surge]

https://preview.redd.it/its-real-v0-uoemqvbss18g1.jpeg?width=554&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a712db81e4aedfb6f07912c61d42ef3235fb1ab6

[lusty cypress]

Hell screen is told by a servant who keeps glazing his evil lord, and demonizing yoshihide, a rude painter who wants to free his daughter from the lord. And descends into cruelty and insanity to create a painting of hell, on the lord's orders

Spider's thread is a story of an evil thief offered escape from hell by buddha, as he'd once spared a spider
However, trying to deny other sinners access to the thread to escape hell, out of fear of it snapping, itself splits the thread, plunging him back to hell

[ripe harbor]

oh, I think I've read this last one

[lusty cypress]

It inspired a lot of things

Zelda has a dungeon based on it

Ancient cistern, in skywars sword

[ripe harbor]

just read through a translation of In a Grove, and then re-read it. Very interesting.

Pretty strong character voice, even translated

more than the big divergences in their stories, I like how each speaker have little quirks that point towards how they see the world

Which elements they focus on, minor bits of phrasing, not just the events but the order they flow through them at

[ripe harbor]

wtf they literally tell you so much 😭

honestly its more like the opposite

they don't know shit but will tell you everything

But I don't know where to find an acorn.
Or even what one is in the first place.```
```We must find a way.
We must find a way to use alchemy to make this acorn.```

[low surge]

i love this

[desert raven]

Okay. So. Acorns. They are small round hard things that give birth to trees.
You could, somewhat accurately, call them tree eggs

[ripe harbor]

perhaps....

meet Potential Tree

The acorn bit in Chapter 4 (||is first of all funny. "We must find a way to use alchemy to make this acorn." gets me every time||), is referencing Aristotle's Teleology

which isn't not relevant to what's going on in Chapter 4, with all the focus on prophecy and whatever. It's not not-relevant to what's going on with the "Nobody chooses who they are in this world" thing.

So idk maybe that applies to 'eggs' too, or the circles-of-dark that make up Dark Worlds and things?

Something about something's purpose already being inside it, before it even takes form? Or literally shaping it's form- purpose comes first? Maybe..... perhaps....

idk if that's even the general intended takeaway. it'd definitely be more of an oblique shout than Am I a butterfly, Am I a man?, for the "Organikk references philosophy that is also thematically relevant" lines.

[lusty cypress]

I wonder if Akutagawa will get straight up referenced

THe thing with sanctuary 1 and 2 being different dreams by different people of the same place

[ripe harbor]

If it was something being angled for, I could see Spider's Thread getting a shout when 'Hell' is actually on screen

the waves-of-hands imagery seem like they could work

[ripe harbor]

these bits?

DR does have 'Hell' made up of a huge mass of writhing hands

and I could see the story going in a direction where they drag people / things down to hell with them, but in a sympathetically presented way. Nobody wants to be forgotten.

Drowning people dragging others down, back to hell, its kinda like The Spider's Thread

[lusty cypress]

hmmm

[ripe harbor]

honestly, even if it's not an intentional reference, that feels like it could be a solid read on why the dark is made of hands in the first place

I've been kinda low-confidence on any answers I'd give

but "They are desperate to make a connection, to reach out"

feels like it could be right

[lusty cypress]

Also thing to note
Yoshihide from Hell Screen did his best to make a painting of hell, even tormenting his apprentices as examples to paint. Because he wanted to save his daughter
He made it so realistic you could smell carnage when seeing it, and he when going to sleep would geet possessed and mutter, including one time where talked as his daughter inviting him to join her in hell, even though she was alive
And in the end ||she is burned by the lord in front of him for the final part of the painting, and yoshihide finishes the Hell Screen and kills himself. He had predicted the future||

[ripe harbor]

||Morbid, knowing how Akutagawa's life ended||

[lusty cypress]

Ominous, for Carol

[ripe harbor]

"Painting of an Autumn Mountain" is sorta similar too

[ripe harbor]

And in one sense matter is said to be of the nature of substratum, in another, shape, and in a third, the compound of these. (By the matter I mean, for instance, the bronze, by the shape the pattern of its form, and by the compound of these the statue, the concrete whole.) Therefore if the form is prior to the matter and more real, it will be prior also to the compound of both, for the same reason.```

like its ||(Aristotle's Metaphysics)|| not not Deltarune

concerned with form and substance, with purpose and causes and being

Fountains are the thing that provides form, the Dark itself an unshaped substance.

"Therefore the ultimate substratum is of itself neither a particular thing nor of a particular quantity nor otherwise positively characterized; nor yet is it the negations of these, for negations also will belong to it only by accident. "

without characteristics- without definition. Without any sort of determination.

[timber widget]

Pardon the language but what the fuck when'd they say that

[ripe harbor]

Its honestly mostly cut content, tbh. But Tenna's fight, the Mike fight (& the 'crowd' sprite used for it), Cut Spamton content of waves of hands (Susie's line about hands remains)

its more like

"Hands are consistently associated with the dark and with 'waves', and make wave patterns"

But since the dark is already water, and sound, and waves, the visual language implies these hands are the same thing?

[timber widget]

Hm, interesting

[ripe harbor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcXGQOEcwvc

heres unused spamton attacks with some hand-waveforms, Tenna has them

[timber widget]

(also fwiw Susie's hand line probably refers to the phone hand attack where he creeps forward from the right?)

[ripe harbor]

https://tenor.com/view/deltarune-chapter-ch-3-ant-gif-17874163868015102972

[timber widget]

Now, at least

[ripe harbor]

at the bottom here

[timber widget]

Shadowguys love raising their arms at us in adoration

[ripe harbor]

yeah, but its put with 'Puppets and Strings' in a way that implies it should be more of an important motif to the fight than it was. Sticks out.

(Also people are a little crazy about hands because of Gaster already)

[ripe harbor]

for me the more interesting thing is that they make waves

[timber widget]

... Fuck, you do make "the wave" with a crowd's hands, don't you

[ripe harbor]

the Mike fight has these

[ripe harbor]

and this first gif is actually an unused sprite

for the same fight

[timber widget]

Didn't the space Mike minigame have some hands too or am I misremembering

[ripe harbor]

implying at one point in development a bunch of those were going to be the thing you'd be flying above

[ripe harbor]

all the mike games have hands, tbh. The Mike Room even gives you a big one.

[timber widget]

Pfft

True

Wonder why they're not mentioned in the prophecy then

[ripe harbor]

the space game (Battat?) actually has two other wave-references

[timber widget]

All they say about the dark is eyes and tails

[ripe harbor]

the song is "Airwaves"

and the sides of the game wiggle and waggle about

[ripe harbor]

hmmmm....

theres a few hand-like things, but yeah, not as much over text

https://tenor.com/view/deltarune-delta-rune-undertale-deltarune-chapter-3-deltarune-chapter-4-gif-9424491860176325025

https://tenor.com/view/deltarune-chapter-ch-3-the-gif-7015232889898664952

both Titans and the Knight got some weird handy-holes too

I don't get the hands lmao. There's enough specific mentions that it seems like some element is represented by them, but I got no clue.

S: Then like, they hear music playing in the basement...
S: And when they go down, it starts attacking them and stuff!!
N: Cheezus, yeah! That was so freaky! Fahaha!
S: Y'know, I never, like, saw the original. Only 2.```
like this bit.

there's enough in the Mike room, and in the dialogue, and in the oblique foreshadow-y references that " is a hand/hands" makes literal textual sense, it has good evidence for it-

but I got no idea what that means!

[ripe harbor]

I like this though. Themes and such.

even the man who 'speaks in hands' has the first words of ARE WE CONNECTED?

Hands connect

ironically this is kinda back to square 0 for me. If you asked me during the wait for Chapter 3 why Element 6 was Spamton's, "Hands = Connections(?)" would've been my best answer

[strange cloud]

Recreating chapter 2 theories from first principles

[ripe harbor]

also the Odd Controller might fit in there

Kris -> Kris' Hands -> (Pink and Yellow) Controller -> Mantle Game

and the Soul travels along that path

[strange cloud]

More Kris will lose their hand symbolism…

[ripe harbor]

and if hands are connection, and ability to shape the world

that's "Kris will feel alone, and powerless". & yeah.

That's

[ripe harbor]

How it felt to be a real #characterizationhead when the majority fan read at the time was "Shadow Crystals make you crazy 🤪 make you go silly 🤪"

||Spamton didn't even get the Shadow Crystal until the end of the quest! He was unwell before!||

Don't worry Seam.... I'll actually read your dialogue....

[strange cloud]

That’s giving him more then anyone in Tv world did

[ripe harbor]

||that one was Ramb 💀|| ||(but yeah him too. Ripping off my shirt to reveal a slightly smaller I <3 Outsiders!! shirt underneath.)||

[strange cloud]

Wait shit lol

I just got the creepy old people confused again

[ripe harbor]

true...

[strange cloud]

Ramb is like, spiritual an old man yah?

[ripe harbor]

I thought Ramb was a Grandma until his pronouns got used

ya

[strange cloud]

Ok yah glad you agree

[ripe harbor]

working the bar aged him 20+ years

[strange cloud]

That’s what happens if you’re a bartender no one likes

[ripe harbor]

Just grin & bear it. Grow stone-hearted.

And then one day...

[timber widget]

A father figure will give you a new one.

[lusty cypress]

@minor merlin muga asura carol

[minor merlin]

Truke

[low surge]

“Records the fate” or whatever

[sour mesa]

ohoho

[ripe harbor]

?

maybe this too? perhaps...?

[ripe harbor]

no-one seems to recognize or remember Ralsei
Darkners encountering the Fun Gang:

[ripe harbor]

also Ralsei is in a storage closet that's right next to Gerson's old classroom

could go even further, Ralsei as the unfinished final manuscript of LotH

since Gerson passed away before the last book was published, and is rumored to have been 'swallowed up by his creation',

implying he was putting in effort to try to continue it even up to his death, even while teaching.

the Gerson secret boss even using the term 'burning' to describe Susie's eyes in the context of having a story to tell. Ralsei's fire magic could continue a connection between ''Determination''-Storytelling-Fire?

[lusty cypress]

Ralsei ate gerson

[ripe harbor]

thats why he's green....

[lusty cypress]

The bite of 87

[ripe harbor]

boiled him in that big cauldron

[ripe harbor]

If Ralsei is a collection of text, this would make him a 'Prints'

I could also see some writing related to whatever the Shelter's about. Research Notes if it was a lab, or something.

he also does give you a book

[rain barn]

it would be funny if he knew everything about the mechanics of darkness just because gerson put that in the book

[ripe harbor]

Bibliox can't keep its pages open.

... But there were no pictures!
... Susie fell asleep!!!```

would also explain the sleep magic

I could see that as related to books, lol

[ripe harbor]

inherited the powerful Reader Attention Misdirection technique from whoever his author was.

how he slides the soul elsewhere for a sec.

I kinda like this theory, its an interesting angle

Writing can also be fluffy

getting called "A pile of fluff" would be devastating if I was a book, tbh

[lusty cypress]

Maybe ralsei is the notes used to write lord of the hammer
Has the prophecy, research notes, snippets gerson did to use later or scrapped

[rain lotus]

this is convincing

that's fucked up i didn't even realize what color gerson is

i have this like, made up orange gerson in my head that i think is an implanted memory from his sprite in undertale

[manic parrot]

you know what, this is the first Ralsei theory i'm taking seriously

[ripe harbor]

so is Gerson his absentee father now, or like does he have two dads in Gerson and Gaster

Two and a half dads even. Gerson & Gaster & The Man who's being the tree sometimes.

[sour mesa]

Bookmark scarf feels extremely possible, to the point where i went searching to see if it had already been theorized somewhere

although tbh i was kinda thinking the basement of the castle had a bunch of prophecy panels, which is why we aren't allowed down there

[ripe harbor]

imo, even moreso with the scarfs name as 'RedScarf'

thats pretty much the stock color for them

🔖

And he's got glasses- reading glasses?

[ripe harbor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj3bbSiMpGA

immediately brings up C++ coding language and 'undefined behavior' / Errors
my spirit twin.

oh my god

its beautiful

I think I only would've thrown in OOP & object-classes (and friend classes) as well, but I'm just happy there's other people who are coming to these conclusions too

[astral quiver]

he is green for an amazing reason

[rain lotus]

It sets up a really good contrast too

its one people were already were making but having a material connection enhances it i think

and then there's something like. the book can not know what's Up because it has a front and back already. the book does not know how to reinterpret itself. it just has text

but literalism is for suckers, so how does it get clowned on in the last few chapters

[strange cloud]

From @ atticuzblast

Bum dad Gaster is very important to me

[ripe harbor]

I was thinking the other day that lowkey-transphobic Gaster + Man behind the tree = Gaster form a real funny read together

It takes him over like the green goblin mask

putting out signs like 'Non-Men are A-Ok too!' and then turning to Ralsei like

https://tenor.com/view/cat-gato-scared-asustado-garn47-gif-4540938067992454663

[amber jolt]

ohhhh I really like that take

Gaster being a shithead to Ralsei

[strange cloud]

Gaster when he sees Ralsei begin to think of himself as a person

[amber jolt]

and Susie being all "Leave him the fuck alone"

[ripe harbor]

yeah as every GM knows having 100% ironclad control over ''your'' story is always a good thing & you should always strive for it, or what if it comes out wrong.

[strange cloud]

God I need to actually meet Gaster because the weird push and pull of control he’s showing off is so fascinating

He wants to make a new future with us, he sought us out because of our ability to change things like we did in undertale

[ripe harbor]

He wants you to write your own story. but not like that.

[strange cloud]

But he’s so possessive of Deltarune and it’s world

He wants thing to go as he plans them to

It is his Deltarune

Not ours

[ripe harbor]

Choices in allowed places

I still think of the fourth egg room as really relevant to how Gaster probably sees Deltarune

and why creations swallowed up him + gerson

[strange cloud]

If only there was some kinda character with similar wants to control everything in their life despite also wanting others to flourish but in a way that’s impossible for them to do so long as they remain so controlling….

[ripe harbor]

He's got a vision he's trying to reach, but the trace keeps fucking up. So you have to start over.

[strange cloud]

CAROL IS ANOTHER GASTER PARALLEL

[ripe harbor]

It has to be perfect, it has to be

[ripe harbor]

I wonder what sort of 'perfect vision' she might be tracing, over and over, restarting because it's "not right" until the whole thing is a mess...

https://tenor.com/view/the-roaring-knight-deltarune-dancing-gangnam-style-roaring-knight-gif-3755995978636297230

[strange cloud]

[minor merlin]

https://youtube.com/shorts/hlq9H2Jod24

[ripe harbor]

(And there also might be an angle of Carol not 'really' being able to see her daughter, like she didn't know her genuinely, so she can't call her back through dark worlds)

kinda just saying shit, but I think it fits how identity & perception are brought up

[strange cloud]

Yah

[ripe harbor]

they didn't really know Dess, they just had a preconceived idea of her, and so that idea is all they get back.

Maybe Noelle could do it, idk.

[strange cloud]

I really love the forgotten man as a piece of Gaster he desperately wants to cover up

[ripe harbor]

or even pieces he's forgotten about himself, in his obsession

kindness, humanity, etc.

Caring about people as people, not in a rush at all for Delta Rune. It'll still be waiting, regardless.

vs.

HOW MUCH LONGER...?

[strange cloud]

Gaster won’t be green but the forgotten man is

Yah that’s another thing

Gaster is so goddamn excited

He can barely contain it

He wants this so bad

[strange cloud]

Also side thing, I kinda hate greenster lol

Mostly because of the whole “he’s green because he’s kind” characterization it’s led to

[ripe harbor]

I think its fine but often probably missing the forest for the trees

[strange cloud]

Because Toby has never committed to the soul colors coinciding with character traits besides in the fallen humans

[astral quiver]

its like people cant be categorized based just on colors

or something

[ripe harbor]

It was pretty funny going from a high-schooler who vaguely heard of UT through the 10,000 AUs and stuff actually playing the game post DR and going

'wait, that was all headcanon?'

'they said it so confidently'

[strange cloud]

lol

[ripe harbor]

yeah It definitely feels more like "This specific human was kind" and the colors just help you link them together

but people love taxonomies & power systems

[strange cloud]

Thats why Glitchtale became popular

[ripe harbor]

I do think Gaster was probably..... kind-ish.

Even the SPOOKY VOICE is sort-of polite, sort-of well meaning. It does seem to have some reluctance to delete save files.

[strange cloud]

I think he’s a complicated skeleton

[ripe harbor]

But its probably been twisted

[astral quiver]

he is a scientist so he is well spoken, even if he isnt kind i dont think he is cruel

he wants to see you play deltarune

so he isnt gonna get pissy about you doing the exact thing he wants

[ripe harbor]

well, even in the way the files are spoken about is as valued experiments, I think he does care or even love them. But loving something as a treasure versus loving someone as a person are different.

He likes the idea of them, in the abstract.

and part of that might be that he's been scattered enough that his idea of 'individuals' is a little wobbly

he likes 'Kris-the-shape' more than any of the Kris you can play as, in any file.

he really likes the shape of <DELTARUNE>

[strange cloud]

A human soul and parts

[astral quiver]

the year is 2030, Deltarune is finished
i make an elaborate setup to have my pet rat finish deltarune "ah, but the hero didnt have a human soul" appears on the end screen
mfw

[ripe harbor]

wow @strange cloud this really does make Carol sound like a Gaster parallel lmao

She'd be like "What do you mean? Of course I love my daughter!"

[lusty cypress]

Just reminds me of that joke castle super beast fans made about the freeza mask
"Say the slur, you want to say it. I'll say it with you"

[strange cloud]

The Gaster Carol parallels are real!

Though really I think that’s more just

Parent parallels

I feel like a child’s relationship with their parents is gonna be a big thing

And if Gaster is Ralsei’s dad is true, then that includes him

[ripe harbor]

(and probably too)

[strange cloud]

friend is a stepparent

[ripe harbor]

cool step-creator who buys you beer thorn rings

[ripe harbor]

could be fun for Ralsei to have a lot more of the vocal disagreements with Asgore

and sort of like Noelle&Queen

not really be airing his grievances towards Asgore specifically

just all of the sudden and very strongly have Opinions about parents controlling what their children are allowed to be

[strange cloud]

Except his dad is also like

God

[ripe harbor]

well,

he is the prince of darkness

[strange cloud]

Yah that is a thing I feel like most people overlooked

[ripe harbor]

that one also had daddy issues

[strange cloud]

Him being the prince

Implies there’s a king

Princes, like knights, inherently are in service to someone else

Princes, their fathers, and knights, their lords

[astral quiver]

has anyone thought about how awkward its gonna be in chapter 5 is Ralsei meets Asgore

[strange cloud]

I have

It’s gonna be awesome

[rain lotus]

ragebaiting my chud rat son with pre-ensoulification media

[astral quiver]

its gonna suck so bad (positive)

he is the most divorced man alive, no way is he gonna be normal about this kid who looks maybe a bit similar to his son

since we dont actually know if Ralsei looks like Asriel for real, Kris insists they dont

[strange cloud]

I mean, we know what Asriel as a kid looks like from undertale

And like

They do look similar

Kris is keen to point out differences but that doesn’t mean they don’t look similar

It just means they’re not clones of each other

[ripe harbor]

(Kris is also a huge coper & member of the 'Fake IDGAF-er' club)

Noelle and Susie both say he kinda does

RalseI even says he does, and then Kris laughs at him about it

[strange cloud]

Yah Ralsei isn’t unaware that he looks like Asriel

In fact he’s kinda insecure about it lol

[ripe harbor]

Kris might be even be right tbh but Asgore could definitely see him as asriel

I've known twins irl I could tell apart, partially just in the way they stood or held themselves

[astral quiver]

youd think a parent can tell apart their kids

well...