I’m gonna reblog this here because I reblog a lot of art and sometimes I hesitate because I’m not sure if it’s a repost. But if you guys see me reblogging something that was reposted instead of the actual source, PLEASE LET ME KNOW so I can take it down.
You’ve heard of “the player is possessing the main character of the game” Now get ready for “the game/the main character is possessing the player”. Yes as in the real human being playing the game.
You are doing terrible things in game, even though it makes you feel guilty, because you have to complete the game. You won’t just not complete it. You feel the need to see how it happens. And that’s hours it controls you
Part autopsy of Susie's utter character assassination from 5, part crackpot theory, part ralsusie (who do you think i am not to do that), and definitely cope for Toby being functionally braindead
Spoilers for both routes of chapter 5
So, susie was weird. Actually saying susie was weird is being charitable, because what I actually want to say is that a skinwalker took over susie and puppeted her pixeled flesh over 7 hours of gameplay. This post analyses what the fuck happened to Susie, under the presumption that the Suswalker is intentional, and not toby writing shitty yuri with one hand under the table-- taking from a very particular outcome in the 5 Weird Route.
(and by the way... wasn't Ral also a little weird...?)
you know it's bad when even people who like suselle found the confession abrupt. Obviously, i am not that, so to me it was especially jarring, considering how even at the very beginning of 5, when the skinwalker is already in effect, Susie still makes a note to kris that if things go well, they'll get another chance to get the bunker code, only to become as obsessive of noelle later as noelle was of her in the earlier chapters (the most grating part of her character).
But not only does that happen, but there's several instances of weirdness that I continue to be indecisive as to whether they're intentional or not. This post lays out the argument about them being intentional; what they are and why they could be there.
Anti-Susie
upon seeing Susie wearing a ribbon i capped the sprite and sent it to a friend captioned: ABSOLUTELY NOT. While under the assumption Toby is just stupid I am deeply disappointed, the truth of the matter is in my file, Ralsei immediately pointed out that he thought Susie not to like ribbons. He points this out even *after* Susie has already requested to wear a ribbon, which is, in itself, a red flag.
Susie's opposition to ribbons was a core symbol of her as the prophecy-breaker; the person who enacted her will regardless of "fate". I believe if the skinwalker is present there intentionally, this abrupt, one-night turnaround is meant to bring attention to how out of character she is. This is the reason Ralsei, too, brings attention to it in-universe. And it is but one instance of Susie doing a heel-face turn on several aspects of her character.
Susie has not really demonstrated any specific attraction to any one character. By the end of chapter 4, despite the sequence in Noelle's house, she still isn't doting over her in any way that stands out from how she does with everyone else. Then in one night she's suddenly flustered and excited and nervous-- despite Noelle not being her first choice to the festival, which she points out to Noelle herself, while at her house. In the span of morning to dusk of one day, she calls her day with Noelle "one of the best days ever", says that it keeps getting better, and insists that she really, REALLY likes her back.
And yet
-During the date, Susie still brings up how it was special to be alone with Kris at the diner.
-Upon consuming the tree cake in the DW, which in its description is said to taste like joyful memories, Ralsei and Susie think of each other. If dating Noelle truly was one of the best days ever, why did she not think of the ice cream they shared, and instead thinks of the cakes Ral makes?
-Susie's "idea of love" is naive and confused at best; and she emphasises that it requires that someone like you first, implying a substantial aspect of her infatuation is Noelle being infatuated with her,
-Susie says she can't stop thinking about Noelle's... heartbeat. Not anything particular about Noelle's appearance, or personality. Just her heartbeat upon holding her. Weird.
But there's more. Despite Susie's emphasis on rejecting traditional femininity, the minute Kris (and the player) enter castle town immediate focus is placed on Susie's appearance -- especially on her failure to conform to femininity-- and her nervousness and excitement about dating noelle. This ties directly into the ribbon. Susie has always been depicted in suits and other "boyish" clothing. She has strong, assertive, loud demeanor.
Why is everyone in the dark world being so emphatic of Susie gushing over Noelle, Noelle's name being in her every breath?
When Ralsei first makes rooms for Kris and Susie, Susie's door is shaped like a crown. The crowns always stood out. Jokingly I said Ralsei was calling her his princess. Now it turns out Flowery repeatedly addresses her as a princess, and you can dress her as a princess. She never opposes this, nor is she particularly visibly upset about it.
Despite questioning Kris' red heart, she accepts exposition about UI elements without flinching.
She retcons her reason for bullying kris from the explicit connection to their family and Toriel in all prior chapters and Newest Girl Girl, to being about thinking Kris and Noelle were dating. So not only has her current self changed, but also her retroactive understanding of events.
And this, in fact, seems to intensify across the chapter: At the beginning she still tells Kris she'll search for the bunker code, but near the end all of her interactions alone with the flowers are to have shallow one note expositions about love with Noelle. When you first equip the ribbon on her, she wears it as a bandanna, and is later shown with it on her head.
Just, what?
Sequence Breaking
It is at this point that I bring up that 3-5 were originally meant to be all delivered as a single package. Under the presumption that this was intentional, then, was the intent for us to jump immediately from one to the next, and be put off by the abrupt change in tone and characterisation? Is Ral pointing out all the ways in which she acts off and things are off -- despite being consumed by it himself, on some level, meant to remind you of how things were just yesterday?
And if so, what happened in the interlude between 4 and 5?
In my "Off the Rails" Ralsusie analysis of 3 and 4, I posited that Suselle is the "love finds its way to the girl" event of the prophecy. At the time my hypothesis was that Susie was then going to wield the pen of hope and reject that for herself. That would be Susie of course; not the skinwalker. We also know now that the field of pink and gold being scorched by the flames of jealousy wasn't about Asgore and Noelle as I initially thought, but Ralsei feeling jealousy and apprehension of Flowery-- Interestingly, over Susie's attention...
But wait. The fields weren't scorched by the inferno of jealousy. Ralsei has fire magic, and yet he did not burn everything down. But he was substantially pettier and more bitter than his usual self, almost uncharacteristically so--
Things are Weird
The Weird Route has an alternate outcome. Kris and Noelle can drown in the lake. The screen fades to white, and they are forcefully rolled back to-- The suselle scene at the beach.
While it continues to play out, it is intercut with Noelle's awareness that she could not defy fate. That because the player did not input "Proceed" sufficiently quick, Noelle alone could not change the set outcome. Only the player, whom she understands as Kris, has the agency to oppose it.
She still romances Susie, but the intercut scenes and her prior monologue about observing herself going through the motions imply that in this instance, she is acutely aware that she could be free, and couldn't do so. These thoughts exist, but are not outwardly expressed whatsoever. Instead, she posits to Susie the question as to whether she should run away, sequence break-- and then turns the possibility back and refuses to do so, wanting to stay for Susie's sake.
When you use the Shadow Crystal while the party's all together in 5, you can see "Susie at a window, unkempt and glaring." Noelle describes watching herself as if from behind glass.
Susie's resolve at the end of chapter 4 is to defy fate at whatever cost, so that the final tragedy does not have to occur. She leaves Toriel's house and canonically heads to the Dark World.
And then the following morning, a skinwalker.
Here's the crackpot hypothesis: What allows you to reach SIDE B is your power as the player. Susie does not have this power.
Susie wants to defy fate. Susie tries to defy fate. The next day, who is at the Dark world is The Girl. The girl who wears ribbons. The princess. The girl that love finds its way to.
Susie says Ralsei is "chattier" when Kris is not around. Ralsei stood up to fate by obeying her command to remove his hat. The other thing that everyone is emphatic about in the DW, besides susie being utterly besotted with Noelle, is that Ralsei should be wearing a hat. The hat is forced upon him twice.
Ralsei wanted to believe things should change, just as Susie did. She inspired key steps he took toward his own personhood. She was the one to urge him to make his room his.
Ralsei believed. Ralsei stood up to fate. Ralsei broke the rules. The universe quickly reminded him that he should not do so-- Or Everything Breaks Apart.
Ralsei prays for Kris. Ralsei prays for Susie, and prays, desperate already, for things to change.
They don't. Love finds its way to the girl. The princess with her heart crossed with hope. And her ribbons.
Quick final thoughts
This in itself is an appetizer for a grander theory about the prophecy and the game making sure things stay on track across all media that takes after the prophecy; from Dragon Blazers to Lord of the Hammer to Deltarune itself. The theory's being worked on with two very dear friends, but it's still at the workshop. This post is solely my thoughts, though they definitely were a part of it. Look forward to it being cooked! Needless to say there's lots of interesting stuff with this idea of the game "railroading" everyone by force so that things play out how they're "supposed to"...
or toby's just a huge fucking idiot. but the weird route is almost too good for that to be entirely true
This is such a good theory holy shit. The more you think about the interactions and happenings of this chapter, the more intentional it feels. I had already clocked that the "love finds it's way to the girl" prophecy was coming to pass but everything else?
I don't think Toby is stupid, as you said, the weird route this chapter is proof of that.
Quick thing about hatsei: in the other chapters, even without his hat on, the fireworks, tenna game sprites and other things portray Ralsei with the hat on. Him not having his hat on is a sequence break which is probably why the game was trying so desperately to put it back on him so he can get back in line.
I do agree the romance between Susie and Noelle feels very forced and I think it's meant to. Something is off the chapter, beneath the lively flower dark world and funny interactions is something terrible brewing beneath. All the love stuff was mainly directed at Susie and she just unusually went along with it.
I think this chapter was showcasing the game trying to force the prophecy into fruition, there is some sort of force trying to get the prohecy back on track. But it's so subtle if you're not disecting the interactions more than surface level.
I bet next chapter, most of this theory will be right.
Can we please get the among us fandom so big and large again they HAVE to give us season 2
They literally can do so many’s things with season 2 WE COULD GET THE HENNY STICKMAN AND AMONG US CROSSOVER IF THEY MAKE A SEASON BASED OF THE AIRSHIP MAP
Hi! Have you talked about the Japanese versions of Gaster’s Chapter 3+4 release tweets? In English they come across as very… personal, or even vulnerable, and I was wondering how it was translated into his stiff “keigo” speech?
Gaster's tweets for the Chapters 3 and 4 release remain pretty much the same as his other tweets/dialogue in terms of their formality, as he continues to use keigo quite consistently. Considering that we seem to be working with Gaster as participants in his experiment, it would be unprofessional for him to drop the keigo around us, as using casual speech would imply that we have developed some relationship with him outside of the experiment, which does not currently seem to be the case. As such, it's a bit trickier in Japanese to convey that same level of vulnerability in this context, but there is one line in particular from his latest tweets that I believe does achieve this effect.
At the beginning of Chapter 1, Gaster refers to himself and the player with the we pronoun ワレワレ (wareware), which has a very impersonal and distancing tone that often suggests a person is speaking on behalf of a larger institution rather than themself, making it suitable for speaking to the player in our introduction to Royal Sciences' experiment.
In his tweets for Chapters 3 and 4 however, Gaster instead refers to himself and the player with the we pronoun ワタシタチ (watashitachi), which is much more personal and indicates that he is now truly speaking as himself when he talks about the connection he has with us. The intimacy of this line is also heightened by his word choices, as while in English he describes our connection as "beautiful," in Japanese he describes it as 愛シキ (itoshiki), which means precious, dear, or even beloved.
"we don't know that the opening voice is gaster" oh yeah sure the guy who speaks in his very specific cadence of room_gaster, says "VERY VERY INTERESTING", speaks in the GONER MAKER with the track "ANOTHER HIM" playing, the original version of the program being 0.66, while communicating to us metatextually using 6 black boxes as their name, and speaks as an outside observer - like some king of scientist doing experiment - could be not gaster and be some brand new never-set-up character that's just conspiciously similar. if you've literally never heard of the concept of implication before
people don't think it's gaster because fanon. they think it's gaster because for a character we barely know about practically every thing we do ties into this voice and no one else does. this is why gaster exists. this is what he is for. he was set up for this. "maybe it's a character we don't know yet" like we """""""know""""""" gaster???????????
don't even get me started on mus_smile. shadows cutting deep. the author fell into his creation. I'm gonna lose it
Krissociation Theory truthers, generally. Though they generally think the narrator is just a dream, Snowgrave is just Kris's evil alter making them kill people, and that the Player doesn't exist in Deltarune's narrative, so I don't take anything they say seriously.
Oh, they did. They just think acknowledging the player makes you media illiterate and have a tendency to think their theory is explicitly proven canon, complaining any time someone hints at the player's existence.
"Kris literally says its me in Chapter 4's Snowgrave how could you think they're possessed" is an argument I've genuinely heard. You know, during the forcing Noelle to wear the Thorn Ring scene. As is "The Mantle fight is proof that Kris is bloodthirsty and therefore solely responsible for Snowgrave" Peak confirmation bias blinders.
because i remembered to go back and film it this time - reminder that kris is an absolute dork who when faced with the possibility of us probing their memory for the knight's identity, panicked and decided to do this before remembering they were in control of the flashback
(what you get in chapter 4 when susie goes to collect the music notes on her own, if instead of thinking of susie, you tell kris to think of the knight)
