Zoe, 25, she/her really just what I find interesting, most of it biology; Grad student studying birds! Also will be posting my art (fan and otherwise) sporadically. Profile picture by me :) header picture also by me! Hope you enjoy?? Bad Memory Gang (33rd percentile working memory baby!)
The fact that it goes into to photos is crazy, i have a ton of unposted saved art in there. AI is a big company issued virus and you can't convince me otherwise
hey it's me black mold. thanks for running your window air conditioner all summer. whatever you do, do not regularly clean the removable filter. that's not necessary
you should also never ever unplug the air conditioner and stick a flashlight in the vent that blows air to see if we're in there. it's very bad, that place should not be checked
and whatever you do, if you've already made the mistake of unplugging it, don't remove it from the window for cleaning if possible. and whether it's possible to remove the unit or not, don't carefully disassemble the front panel, document where the screws go and plastic bits go, and open up the vent more to be able to get into it easily
as black mold, i'm an expert on this. you should heed my warnings: now, if you've somehow made the mistake of doing all of the above, you should not use warm water and dish soap to CLEAN the inside of the vent thoroughly. DON'T ever use a bottle brush to get into the hard to reach places. and certainly don't rinse and dry the cleaned area before carefully putting it back together
there's nothing wrong with us, black mold. we don't cause or exacerbate breathing conditions like asthma or other illnesses. it's cool, we're cool
furthermore, if you're capable of removing the window unit, DONT take a hose with the same soapy water and wash the portion of the window unit that sits outside the window and is therefore weatherproofed.
whatever you do, don't allow the air conditioner to dry before plugging it back in and turning it on again
and if you have a central air conditioner, you will definitely never ever consult a manual or sources online to perform a similar cleaning procedure on the cooling unit outside.
lastly, if you're physically unable to do the things we (the black mold) warned you not to do above, you should never ever ask someone to help you or hire a service to do it.
Also even if you do not have the time, space or ability to do some of the the things in the OP, definitely do not clean the coils (the awful sharp flat stacks of metal) with foaming coil cleaner. That removes the beneficial black mold (us) holding the unit together. It will be completely unsatisfying to watch the foam clean out the Super Beneficial Black Mold, Mildew, Hair, Lint & Dust Combo™ (that is not only a health hazard but making the unit less efficient at cooling necessary for air conditioner function) and leave the metal shiny.
It is a lot of elbow grease and definitely not just spraying a can and waiting. Especially do not use the ones that are self rinsing via the natural condensation of water around the coils where all you have to do is let the foam settle a couple hours before turning the unit back on. These foaming cleaners are also terrible to use on the removable air intake vent covers. You definitely do not just have to spray the opposite side of all the trapped shit on the plastic mesh and let the foam push it off. Also that stuff on the cover is great for you and your air conditioner.
Trust us. We, the mold, know much more about air conditioners than the people who make aerosol cans you can pick up for like $8 at home depot. Definitely do not do this a couple times a season.
My Crazy "Do-over" Theory, plus Eggs and Ralsei Identity
Olay, I need to get this out of my head before it puts down roots and I become a hermit in the woods. I... think I might be on to something about Deltarune's narrative?? At least some parts?? Maybe?? and uh, buckle in... this is gonna be a looong one (really it's quite a bit...). SPOILERs for basically all Deltarune below!
I'm gonna call this the "Rerun" or the "Do-over" theory, I've had this idea for a while (As have others that I've seen) but with revelations from Chapter 5, some things about it now carry more weight/evidence, and I've also come to some new conclusions. This might be a bit all over the place, so fair warning...
This theory hinges on mainly one idea:
This is NOT the first time the Prophecy has been attempted
Now, before Chapter 5 this was more of a vague impression that I was getting with the narrative, with how mysterious December Holiday's whole presence was, how Asriel was weirdly missing, and other Character's allusions to previous "Adventures" and the like. But now with the events within Asgore's castle and the information written on Asgore's notes this idea is becoming increasingly likely. But what would this have looked like? What does that mean for our current "heroes" who seemingly know nothing?
I want to preface this that the notes Ralsei found say the following:
"It [Black Shard] was left... at the original scene...
and matched with.... the computer lab?"
Ralsei is then confused, because the Black Knight is supposed to only appear with the heroes, implying that the Knight was present "back then", but I don't think it's that simple. With how the Black Shard was "matched" and Ralsei's (who usually knows everything prophecy related) confusion, I think instead that the Black Knight wasn't the "Black Knight" that we know today, and was likely someone else USING the same tool. In essence the same PERSON but not exactly the same presentation.
Now, to put the conclusion before the explanation:
This First Attempt was Wrong (I don't even think it was a REAL attempt, not like now) and BECAUSE it was wrong, it failed to banish it's angel, a BAD angel too, and THAT's what the current Black Knight is. It was kids having fun and they got it wrong...
This first attempt had Asriel as the Prince, December Holiday as the Monster, and A Human soul in the Bird cage. Kris was actually the "Knight" of this attempt, making dark world's with their knife. It was all a game, kids playing pretend, but I don't think they knew the rules, and stuff got out of hand quick. They probably followed someone's advice, a darkner (Maybe Jevil?) (Following the "pointed" Jevil Tail, and the "Tail of hell" Jevil->Devil) but treated their dark worlds like an RPG, "killing" the enemies, acting out "dragon blazers", unknowingly acting out the prophecy and all it entails.
How'd they get the human soul? They summoned it, just like we were. (I'll get to us in a bit) And the prophecy NEVER directly says an actual live human is needed for the first hero.
"The first hero, the cage, with human soul and parts!"
Now that's probably what it's implying but as far as I know, the prophecy outside of the Church dark world is given orally, and if I was a kid I would take that quite literally, hence the bird cage and cart/wagon that's "seen a few crashes" it was probably taking damage in the dark world, caging the human soul that was summoned, it MIGHT have even been a darkner itself who knows. Now, what they summoned was both a human soul AND the angel, same as how WE are the current angel, the circumstances of our arrival are the same. As in Undertale and Chapter 4, it's shown that a human soul can exist outside of a body for a long time, with the maximum time being unknown. So I don't think the first human soul ever possessed anyone (initially) like we do currently with Kris (Which is for another reason).
Now December being the Monster Girl with hope crossed on her heart (The second hero) is reasonable, given that if like Noelle, she can also wield Swords even if her preferred weapon would likely be a bat.
But... Ralsei being the Prince, the Third Hero, is a little more suspect. But again, the prophecy never DIRECTLY says that this character has to be a darkner.
"The third Hero, the prince, alone in deepest dark."
With how much emphasis is often placed on interpretation, given Gerson's whole fight and dialogue, this could be interpreted as simply, a Prince in a Dark World, and Asriel's parents are:
A Queen and a King WITHIN the dark world. Again, it's all about interpretation, not exactly direct factual truth.
"Kris, you and little Prince Asriel are royalty too!"
It can then be deduced that Asriel would likely be a prince in a Dark World too, if his parents are (The implications about Kris will be talked about later👀)
So, we now have the three heroes, the Prince, the Monster, and the Cage. Kris as the Knight (Being Knighted by the current Roaring Knight adds symbolism and credence to this too), opening Dark Fountains and subsequent worlds for them to play in, because again they just wanted to have fun, they're not taking it seriously. But, with the angel (human soul) trapped in an actual cage, they can't close them, and they don't know that they need to. Things get.... out of hand.
HOW MUCH it gets out of hand, I'm not sure, it could be that all the dark worlds are within the Shelter so it was at least localized in a way, but stuff goes south quick. But their just having fun, and the angel doesn't get banished, and doesn't meet with it's...
desire
This is an important word, Tricky Tobias Vulpes Vulpes has made it a point (Even more so with Chapter 5) to place particular emphasis on WORDPLAY, in particular Heteronyms/Homographs, which are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings and pronunciations, and Homonyms, words that have the same spelling and pronunciations, but different meanings. He also likes to play around with Synonyms and good ole' Similes. I thought it might be important with the Bibliox enemies and some... certain book dialogue I'll talk about later, but with Chapter 5 it pretty much slaps us in the face.
The secret boss of chapter 5 has a section wherein you'll have to choose phrases that have the same spelling, but MEAN different things. And looking back, so many things are important like this that it made me go crazy and type all this up. First up ->
"And so wept the fallen star, making rivers with its tears. Then, slowly, from the bitter water, something grew. It looked like glass"
This entry from the Chapter 4 hidden Roots room. This is largely assumed to be about the Roaring Knight, what with the
crying and known star-based attacks it uses during the fight. In this recent chapter, Asgore calls the Dark Fountain a "River" rising out of the ground. Bitter water is interestingly associated with rain as per the BitterTear item description and character dialogue, but bitter can be taste or resentment (which ties into the next point). Followed by something that looked like glass. Now whenever glass is mentioned in Deltarune it usually refers to the shadowcrystals, which we know as of Chapter 5 are remnants of a failed/broken dream. Which means this COULD also be read as
"And so wept the fallen star (Roaring Knight), making rivers (Dark Fountains) with its tears (tears as in cutting/rending/cleaving). Then, slowly, from the bitter (resentful) water (darkness) something grew. It looked like glass (shadowcrystals)"
Now this means that the Roaring Knight is associated with not only being a star, but a FALLEN one in particular. Where are stars falling from? Space. The sky. Which is also a synonym for the
Heavens... where angels live
In this I posit that the Roaring Knight is a fallen angel, the soul used in the first attempt at the prophecy. Its DESIRE, which is also a synonym for a DREAM, was broken, shattered and that's the source of the shadowcrystals. I don't know why it was broken, or what it was, but I also think.... bear with me.... that it's possessed December, like we are attempting to do in the weird route with Noelle, but not as partner-y?. In the weird route, we the soul are still possessing Kris who is, in essence, directing Noelle. In the first attempt though, December is Kris in essence, being controlled by a fallen angel with a broken dream. Making the Roaring Knight.
Alright, here's your water break for making it this far, um, so far. Stay hydrated everyone!
Okay, now this is where things start to get frisky but I ALSO don't think the current attempt is the second attempt, or the third, or the fourth, or even the fifth. This current iteration, with the red soul, Kris, Ralsei, and Susie is the goddang SIXTH attempt at banishing the original angel possessing Dess (beating the knight, I don't think they knew it was Dess in these attempts), at changing the prophecy. Now I don't know the timeline of each attempt, if its a yearly thing around the festival, or maybe bi-yearly, idk. Asgore says that the "original scene" was seemingly a long time ago, so MAYBE yearly, starting when Asriel and Dess were 13-14, and Kris was 10-11, or maybe for about 2-3 years, since Asriel was 16 (Presumably Kris's age now). But how? you ask, this is only Susie's first Dark World experience, and Ralsei's first meeting with the "Heroes", with Susie in particular as he seems to be intimately familiar with Kris (WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THIS LATER).
Dear reader, this is Asriel's FRESHMEN year of college, its the first year he hasn't been in town. According to the ORAL telling of the prophecy, the one at the beginning, they need a "human", a monster, and a "prince" in the dark. Well, Asriel is a Prince in the Dark World AND a monster, so he could satisfy either of those qualifications. But, what about the girl part? You say, well the Oral "sermon" that Catty gives, and the introduction in chapter 1 both imply a gender neutral monster. With Catty saying that:
"The thing is, they could be like, any one of us, you know?"
And in introduction in chapter 1 being just, "a Monster", with zero gendered terms. In the subsequent attempts, I can see a couple things that could have happened, either Asriel satisfies the Monster/Prince part simultaneously, and Kris satisfies the Human part. Or He satisfies just the Monster part, Kris satisfies the Prince (As they are "royalty" same as Asriel per Asgore previously noted)(I know Kris is canonically Nonbinary, but just like Ralsei is seemingly "Playing the part of a prince", I think Kris could also play the part too). Either way they need a human soul to become the angel/within the cage. They promised to find Dess to Carol when she disappeared, and she KNOWS about the angels, WE are what's getting sacrificed, in an attempt to banish the fallen angel possessing Dess, to somehow save her without damning the world (It's likely that she would die with the angels banishment so yaknow, trying to avoid that).
Another point to our current crew not being the first attempt at the prophecy is what Carol says to us (not Kris), when we leave the Holiday residence.
"As you know, YOU are welcome here anytime."
This is pretty much universally assumed by the community to be Carol talking directly to US inside Kris, but something I haven't seen talked about is that Carol is talking to Kris in the beginning, the first "you" in "As you know" and then us in the second. This "As you know" being directed at KRIS instead of us implies prior experience, as Kris knows the Angel (Of whichever iteration) is welcome in her home anytime.
Now how do I know this is the sixth attempt at beating the knight? The eggs... it's the eggs. Each egg the forgotten man gives us is essentially a human soul, an "embryo", an "egg", that will never hatch. The forgotten man is Gaster, but not that Gaster, THIS world's Gaster, who was a teacher. Kris's teacher before Alphys. Because she hasn't been here that long, so... who did she replace? Undertale and Deltarune aren't the same, but they DO rhyme, so of course the person Alphys replaces is Gaster, just like in Undertale. There's a locked classroom in the School, that's remained that way since Chapter 1, we know that Toriel teaches primary school students (as the tuTORIEL of course), and Alphys teaches the highschoolers, but... who taught the middleschoolers? Who might have taught December and Asriel when she disappeared? Someone is missing, someone's been forgotten, their classroom locked up and forgotten about. It's implied that Alphys replaces Gerson once he died, but I couldn't find any direct evidence to that, just that Toriel got her hired, in either situation, SOMEONE is missing. Its why the eggs show up at the school, they were going to be students.... "good eggs", but they were each sacrificed in an attempt to FIND/SAVE December Holiday, that's why they're also evidence.
There's a total of 5 eggs, all whole, not including us (as we haven't been sacrificed yet) 5 human souls sacrificed.
Its then 6 failed "attempts" at the prophecy (including the first original), and 6 zeros for Tenna's parental lock.
It's six flowers in the Chapter 5 egg room, with space for a seventh.
It's seven colored flowers in Asgore's (The father of a human child) shop, 7 humans in Asgore's Dark World, with one sharing depictions of a... hanged man tarot (Stuck, unmoving). With one (Aqua) sharing both tools and mannerisms of Kris, STEALING a green handkerchief, and dyeing it red.
And again, rhyming with Undertale, it's 8 human souls total, including the 5 past attempts, the 1st original summoning, the current player (red), and Kris' own soul. 8 total.
It's the 7 flying aces, copies colored in, with one missing. Because if Kris could count they wouldn't need to CHEAT at the prophecy, if they had just gotten it right the first time, they wouldn't have to LIE.
Well what about the first summoning, why doesn't that one have an egg, wouldn't that make 5 attempts? The first one broke, shattered. It isn't a "good egg" anymore, not an angel anymore, it's fallen down, cracked and broken.
From here stuff gets weird again, (like it hasn't already), but after Asriel left for college, we are now short a hero and don't have all the parts needed to make another attempt at beating the knight. I believe (like some others do) that the original plan with the current player, was to have Noelle play the role of the monster in Asriel's absence (but was superseded by Susie), but neither of them can play the part of the "Prince in the dark" so we had to do something drastic... Kris can play the part of the human and the prince, but can't play both simultaneously as they are without the cage for the angel, there can't be 4 total heroes, that's not what the prophecy says. So... how can we absolve this? Simple! Kris becomes the cage. Rips out their own soul, who then becomes the Prince, two birds one stone. A cage has to be empty after all.
That's right folks, Ralsei is a darkner fashioned out of Kris' soul's dream. That's why he looks like Asriel. Kris has no qualms about taking out their soul (what makes them human) and wore fake horns to imitate their monster family, so I think their dream, their ideal self, would be a monster similar to their family, and who do they have as reference for a child of Asgore and Toriel, who is also a prince of the dark? That's right, their brother who they also look up to. (Uh, this is also why Ralsei is called Eggboy, he's an Egg (Human-soul) boy (prince).)
Now with Chapter 5, I've got a couple pieces of evidence to support this idea, but first some evidence from previous chapters.
Ralsei in an earlier chapter says that Kris and Susie have been gone for a long time, but have in actuality have only been gone for a day. You could argue that time moves differently in Dark Worlds, but it seems to actually be pretty one-to-one with time in the real world. BUT if Ralsei were incredibly young, a day WOULD seem like his whole lifetime. Such as if Ralsei was only created say a day before the events of the current game.
Ralsei's knowledge of the prophecy and it's enemies (the titans), are suspicious at best, and imply a previous iteration at the least, mainly with the following: "It's spawning already?", this line in conjunction with Ralsei being able to identify a Titan on sight (with confidence, no "I think its a Titan" or "It must be a Titan" which would imply prior knowledge but not experience) implies that Ralsei knows how long a Titan would take to spawn, has enough experience with them to know how long it takes to hatch normally to know that it's hatching too fast. Now it could be argued that Ralsei's information comes from details within the prophecy, but that information has never been depicted to us at least, and even then, the collection of such information also implies that it HAS happened before, kinda have to encounter an animal to take a detailed account.
Now, for some details from Chapter 5, the two I want to draw attention to are the following:
--"Do you want to tell them what's wrong with that? [Pretending to be something you're not]" --This line from Flowery is a point to the fact that, as many have picked up, Ralsei is NOT being truthful as to WHAT exactly he is. And whatever he is, is something that is different to what he's pretending to be. Now, this could be implying that Ralsei isn't a Prince, which with other.. ahem... text, both sub-textual and otherwise, I can see it meaning that. But, I also think that's too simple, there's MORE to what's being implied here outside of that, mainly because of the next point.
--"[If I let myself go like you] I could burn you down in an instant!" and "[No one can do the impossible] Says the impossibility himself" --both of these lines are keystones to my theory, because they imply two things: 1) Ralsei is stronger than Flowery, and any other Darkner by that merit and 2) Whatever he is, it's impossible, or very unlikely to occur. This second point is incredibly interesting coming from FLOWERY who is a FLOWER'S DREAM, which is already neither a Lightner nor a Darkner. Calling Ralsei an impossibility also, I think, rules out being a Darkner created from Monster Dust, because as we've seen with Gerson, and as implied that this isn't necessarily too uncommon, that isn't something impossible either. But because a flower can dream, and the result is something neither lightner nor darkner, then what about a human soul? It isn't necessarily ALIVE by itself, it would need a body to communicate, speak, feel, so what if it was placed into a box, tied with a pink ribbon, and placed into a dark world by itself. Would it dream like a flower would?
If Ralsei is the ideal dream, conjured by Kris's soul. Then it would make sense why Kris (Body) would seemingly DISLIKE him as intensely as they do, with the amount restored by the Ralsei Tea being the lowest of all the characters, and some of the... um.... dialogue choices being particularly vindictive. It would be constant confirmation that Kris (Body) is not the body that Kris (Soul) wants, their ideal self is Ralsei. This also adds further layers to the inevitable choices at the end of the story, because if WE are banished, and Kris (Body) can't survive longer than seemingly a day without a soul, then can you stomach having to essentially end the soul's dream, effectively killing Ralsei, for Kris to survive in some form outside of a Dark World? It would add more weight behind the penultimate decision, which otherwise could be argued that Castle Town needn't be closed as it's survived by itself without the causing the Roaring for a long time. It adds a lot more layers to the fantastical escapism of Deltarune, which is already heavily present in Susie, but less so in Ralsei and Kris.
This could also be why Asgore has such a hard time telling if Ralsei is even a Monster at all, because if he is a Human Soul's dream of a Monster, that would be two degrees of separation from an actual Monster (Asriel who was used as the basis) so kinda like Telephone twice, the Soul didn't get the details quite right. Also why Kris (Body) is adamant about pointing out the differences between Asriel and Ralsei, because it's almost embarrassed to admit how much they both (Soul and Body) idolized him, to the point that the ideal dream self, is THAT similar to him. It's also why Ralsei can find Kris so easily in the Darkness, two magnets pretty much, like a homing beacon in a way.
As for why Kris (body) is "helping" the Knight? Which I believe to be a possessed-by-a-fallen-evil-player/angel Dess? Whatever happened to Dess to become possessed: either dying in a dark world, or seeing the end of the prophecy and, like Noelle in the weird route, finding everything pointless, or being unable to extract herself from the fantasy of the Dark Worlds that she becomes lost, etc. Whatever THAT was is what's behind the tree. Kris is repressing it, and therefore Kris (soul) does not know that the Roaring Knight of today is the Dess of yesterday. But the body? The body remembers what the mind, the soul, refuses to confront. This is why the Chapter 4 egg room, where Kris paints the tree over whatever they saw, is done in pitch black, the body had nothing to do with this process, so it's not even present during that portion of the game.
Now, what the goal is, what Kris (body) is trying to accomplish I still don't know. I don't know if they are actually in, well, league with the Knight, or if they are somehow luring the Knight to various Dark Worlds to ensure it doesn't disappear into the ocean of black forever, bringing Dess with it.
I also don't know how much Carol is involved with this process, if she maybe only helps to supply the "heroes" of each iteration with the summoned soul (maybe this summoning is why Rudy is getting weaker). But the souls having been essentially stolen from heaven in an attempt to cheat the prophecy is why Image-Friend-Face-Cat thing is hunting down those with protein (eggs) as they are evidence of this crime, and whatever god is operating this world (Gaster?idk) is mad that someone is taking their goddang souls. Maybe this is why we don't see hide nor hair of Carol outside of her own home, she might be hiding from the cats that are hunting down people associated with the summoning/stealing of souls. The first summoning is probably where Catty abandoned Kris to complete by themselves, but by leaving (and maybe by being a cat herself) she's safe/unassociated. Spamton probably is also associated with the summoning as well, likely by being/sending/emailing the link to the site in which instructions for the ritual for summoning souls from heaven can be found (Hyperlink Blocked), and thus had to change his shape and name and go into hiding, the Pipis are probably his failed attempts at summoning a soul for himself. (Eggs, but not right/wrong).
_____________________________________
Phew! That was a dozy! But I think that's everything I've had in my head for like..... over a month now. I'd love to hear everyone's theories/ideas/rebuttals if they've made it this far! Hopefully it all makes some sense, the formatting/flow might be all over the place.
My Crazy "Do-over" Theory, plus Eggs and Ralsei Identity
Olay, I need to get this out of my head before it puts down roots and I become a hermit in the woods. I... think I might be on to something about Deltarune's narrative?? At least some parts?? Maybe?? and uh, buckle in... this is gonna be a looong one (really it's quite a bit...). SPOILERs for basically all Deltarune below!
I'm gonna call this the "Rerun" or the "Do-over" theory, I've had this idea for a while (As have others that I've seen) but with revelations from Chapter 5, some things about it now carry more weight/evidence, and I've also come to some new conclusions. This might be a bit all over the place, so fair warning...
This theory hinges on mainly one idea:
This is NOT the first time the Prophecy has been attempted
Now, before Chapter 5 this was more of a vague impression that I was getting with the narrative, with how mysterious December Holiday's whole presence was, how Asriel was weirdly missing, and other Character's allusions to previous "Adventures" and the like. But now with the events within Asgore's castle and the information written on Asgore's notes this idea is becoming increasingly likely. But what would this have looked like? What does that mean for our current "heroes" who seemingly know nothing?
I want to preface this that the notes Ralsei found say the following:
"It [Black Shard] was left... at the original scene...
and matched with.... the computer lab?"
Ralsei is then confused, because the Black Knight is supposed to only appear with the heroes, implying that the Knight was present "back then", but I don't think it's that simple. With how the Black Shard was "matched" and Ralsei's (who usually knows everything prophecy related) confusion, I think instead that the Black Knight wasn't the "Black Knight" that we know today, and was likely someone else USING the same tool. In essence the same PERSON but not exactly the same presentation.
Now, to put the conclusion before the explanation:
This First Attempt was Wrong (I don't even think it was a REAL attempt, not like now) and BECAUSE it was wrong, it failed to banish it's angel, a BAD angel too, and THAT's what the current Black Knight is. It was kids having fun and they got it wrong...
This first attempt had Asriel as the Prince, December Holiday as the Monster, and A Human soul in the Bird cage. Kris was actually the "Knight" of this attempt, making dark world's with their knife. It was all a game, kids playing pretend, but I don't think they knew the rules, and stuff got out of hand quick. They probably followed someone's advice, a darkner (Maybe Jevil?) (Following the "pointed" Jevil Tail, and the "Tail of hell" Jevil->Devil) but treated their dark worlds like an RPG, "killing" the enemies, acting out "dragon blazers", unknowingly acting out the prophecy and all it entails.
How'd they get the human soul? They summoned it, just like we were. (I'll get to us in a bit) And the prophecy NEVER directly says an actual live human is needed for the first hero.
"The first hero, the cage, with human soul and parts!"
Now that's probably what it's implying but as far as I know, the prophecy outside of the Church dark world is given orally, and if I was a kid I would take that quite literally, hence the bird cage and cart/wagon that's "seen a few crashes" it was probably taking damage in the dark world, caging the human soul that was summoned, it MIGHT have even been a darkner itself who knows. Now, what they summoned was both a human soul AND the angel, same as how WE are the current angel, the circumstances of our arrival are the same. As in Undertale and Chapter 4, it's shown that a human soul can exist outside of a body for a long time, with the maximum time being unknown. So I don't think the first human soul ever possessed anyone (initially) like we do currently with Kris (Which is for another reason).
Now December being the Monster Girl with hope crossed on her heart (The second hero) is reasonable, given that if like Noelle, she can also wield Swords even if her preferred weapon would likely be a bat.
But... Ralsei being the Prince, the Third Hero, is a little more suspect. But again, the prophecy never DIRECTLY says that this character has to be a darkner.
"The third Hero, the prince, alone in deepest dark."
With how much emphasis is often placed on interpretation, given Gerson's whole fight and dialogue, this could be interpreted as simply, a Prince in a Dark World, and Asriel's parents are:
A Queen and a King WITHIN the dark world. Again, it's all about interpretation, not exactly direct factual truth.
"Kris, you and little Prince Asriel are royalty too!"
It can then be deduced that Asriel would likely be a prince in a Dark World too, if his parents are (The implications about Kris will be talked about later👀)
So, we now have the three heroes, the Prince, the Monster, and the Cage. Kris as the Knight (Being Knighted by the current Roaring Knight adds symbolism and credence to this too), opening Dark Fountains and subsequent worlds for them to play in, because again they just wanted to have fun, they're not taking it seriously. But, with the angel (human soul) trapped in an actual cage, they can't close them, and they don't know that they need to. Things get.... out of hand.
HOW MUCH it gets out of hand, I'm not sure, it could be that all the dark worlds are within the Shelter so it was at least localized in a way, but stuff goes south quick. But their just having fun, and the angel doesn't get banished, and doesn't meet with it's...
desire
This is an important word, Tricky Tobias Vulpes Vulpes has made it a point (Even more so with Chapter 5) to place particular emphasis on WORDPLAY, in particular Heteronyms/Homographs, which are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings and pronunciations, and Homonyms, words that have the same spelling and pronunciations, but different meanings. He also likes to play around with Synonyms and good ole' Similes. I thought it might be important with the Bibliox enemies and some... certain book dialogue I'll talk about later, but with Chapter 5 it pretty much slaps us in the face.
The secret boss of chapter 5 has a section wherein you'll have to choose phrases that have the same spelling, but MEAN different things. And looking back, so many things are important like this that it made me go crazy and type all this up. First up ->
"And so wept the fallen star, making rivers with its tears. Then, slowly, from the bitter water, something grew. It looked like glass"
This entry from the Chapter 4 hidden Roots room. This is largely assumed to be about the Roaring Knight, what with the
crying and known star-based attacks it uses during the fight. In this recent chapter, Asgore calls the Dark Fountain a "River" rising out of the ground. Bitter water is interestingly associated with rain as per the BitterTear item description and character dialogue, but bitter can be taste or resentment (which ties into the next point). Followed by something that looked like glass. Now whenever glass is mentioned in Deltarune it usually refers to the shadowcrystals, which we know as of Chapter 5 are remnants of a failed/broken dream. Which means this COULD also be read as
"And so wept the fallen star (Roaring Knight), making rivers (Dark Fountains) with its tears (tears as in cutting/rending/cleaving). Then, slowly, from the bitter (resentful) water (darkness) something grew. It looked like glass (shadowcrystals)"
Now this means that the Roaring Knight is associated with not only being a star, but a FALLEN one in particular. Where are stars falling from? Space. The sky. Which is also a synonym for the
Heavens... where angels live
In this I posit that the Roaring Knight is a fallen angel, the soul used in the first attempt at the prophecy. Its DESIRE, which is also a synonym for a DREAM, was broken, shattered and that's the source of the shadowcrystals. I don't know why it was broken, or what it was, but I also think.... bear with me.... that it's possessed December, like we are attempting to do in the weird route with Noelle, but not as partner-y?. In the weird route, we the soul are still possessing Kris who is, in essence, directing Noelle. In the first attempt though, December is Kris in essence, being controlled by a fallen angel with a broken dream. Making the Roaring Knight.
Alright, here's your water break for making it this far, um, so far. Stay hydrated everyone!
Okay, now this is where things start to get frisky but I ALSO don't think the current attempt is the second attempt, or the third, or the fourth, or even the fifth. This current iteration, with the red soul, Kris, Ralsei, and Susie is the goddang SIXTH attempt at banishing the original angel possessing Dess (beating the knight, I don't think they knew it was Dess in these attempts), at changing the prophecy. Now I don't know the timeline of each attempt, if its a yearly thing around the festival, or maybe bi-yearly, idk. Asgore says that the "original scene" was seemingly a long time ago, so MAYBE yearly, starting when Asriel and Dess were 13-14, and Kris was 10-11, or maybe for about 2-3 years, since Asriel was 16 (Presumably Kris's age now). But how? you ask, this is only Susie's first Dark World experience, and Ralsei's first meeting with the "Heroes", with Susie in particular as he seems to be intimately familiar with Kris (WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THIS LATER).
Dear reader, this is Asriel's FRESHMEN year of college, its the first year he hasn't been in town. According to the ORAL telling of the prophecy, the one at the beginning, they need a "human", a monster, and a "prince" in the dark. Well, Asriel is a Prince in the Dark World AND a monster, so he could satisfy either of those qualifications. But, what about the girl part? You say, well the Oral "sermon" that Catty gives, and the introduction in chapter 1 both imply a gender neutral monster. With Catty saying that:
"The thing is, they could be like, any one of us, you know?"
And in introduction in chapter 1 being just, "a Monster", with zero gendered terms. In the subsequent attempts, I can see a couple things that could have happened, either Asriel satisfies the Monster/Prince part simultaneously, and Kris satisfies the Human part. Or He satisfies just the Monster part, Kris satisfies the Prince (As they are "royalty" same as Asriel per Asgore previously noted)(I know Kris is canonically Nonbinary, but just like Ralsei is seemingly "Playing the part of a prince", I think Kris could also play the part too). Either way they need a human soul to become the angel/within the cage. They promised to find Dess to Carol when she disappeared, and she KNOWS about the angels, WE are what's getting sacrificed, in an attempt to banish the fallen angel possessing Dess, to somehow save her without damning the world (It's likely that she would die with the angels banishment so yaknow, trying to avoid that).
Another point to our current crew not being the first attempt at the prophecy is what Carol says to us (not Kris), when we leave the Holiday residence.
"As you know, YOU are welcome here anytime."
This is pretty much universally assumed by the community to be Carol talking directly to US inside Kris, but something I haven't seen talked about is that Carol is talking to Kris in the beginning, the first "you" in "As you know" and then us in the second. This "As you know" being directed at KRIS instead of us implies prior experience, as Kris knows the Angel (Of whichever iteration) is welcome in her home anytime.
Now how do I know this is the sixth attempt at beating the knight? The eggs... it's the eggs. Each egg the forgotten man gives us is essentially a human soul, an "embryo", an "egg", that will never hatch. The forgotten man is Gaster, but not that Gaster, THIS world's Gaster, who was a teacher. Kris's teacher before Alphys. Because she hasn't been here that long, so... who did she replace? Undertale and Deltarune aren't the same, but they DO rhyme, so of course the person Alphys replaces is Gaster, just like in Undertale. There's a locked classroom in the School, that's remained that way since Chapter 1, we know that Toriel teaches primary school students (as the tuTORIEL of course), and Alphys teaches the highschoolers, but... who taught the middleschoolers? Who might have taught December and Asriel when she disappeared? Someone is missing, someone's been forgotten, their classroom locked up and forgotten about. It's implied that Alphys replaces Gerson once he died, but I couldn't find any direct evidence to that, just that Toriel got her hired, in either situation, SOMEONE is missing. Its why the eggs show up at the school, they were going to be students.... "good eggs", but they were each sacrificed in an attempt to FIND/SAVE December Holiday, that's why they're also evidence.
There's a total of 5 eggs, all whole, not including us (as we haven't been sacrificed yet) 5 human souls sacrificed.
Its then 6 failed "attempts" at the prophecy (including the first original), and 6 zeros for Tenna's parental lock.
It's six flowers in the Chapter 5 egg room, with space for a seventh.
It's seven colored flowers in Asgore's (The father of a human child) shop, 7 humans in Asgore's Dark World, with one sharing depictions of a... hanged man tarot (Stuck, unmoving). With one (Aqua) sharing both tools and mannerisms of Kris, STEALING a green handkerchief, and dyeing it red.
And again, rhyming with Undertale, it's 8 human souls total, including the 5 past attempts, the 1st original summoning, the current player (red), and Kris' own soul. 8 total.
It's the 7 flying aces, copies colored in, with one missing. Because if Kris could count they wouldn't need to CHEAT at the prophecy, if they had just gotten it right the first time, they wouldn't have to LIE.
Well what about the first summoning, why doesn't that one have an egg, wouldn't that make 5 attempts? The first one broke, shattered. It isn't a "good egg" anymore, not an angel anymore, it's fallen down, cracked and broken.
From here stuff gets weird again, (like it hasn't already), but after Asriel left for college, we are now short a hero and don't have all the parts needed to make another attempt at beating the knight. I believe (like some others do) that the original plan with the current player, was to have Noelle play the role of the monster in Asriel's absence (but was superseded by Susie), but neither of them can play the part of the "Prince in the dark" so we had to do something drastic... Kris can play the part of the human and the prince, but can't play both simultaneously as they are without the cage for the angel, there can't be 4 total heroes, that's not what the prophecy says. So... how can we absolve this? Simple! Kris becomes the cage. Rips out their own soul, who then becomes the Prince, two birds one stone. A cage has to be empty after all.
That's right folks, Ralsei is a darkner fashioned out of Kris' soul's dream. That's why he looks like Asriel. Kris has no qualms about taking out their soul (what makes them human) and wore fake horns to imitate their monster family, so I think their dream, their ideal self, would be a monster similar to their family, and who do they have as reference for a child of Asgore and Toriel, who is also a prince of the dark? That's right, their brother who they also look up to. (Uh, this is also why Ralsei is called Eggboy, he's an Egg (Human-soul) boy (prince).)
Now with Chapter 5, I've got a couple pieces of evidence to support this idea, but first some evidence from previous chapters.
Ralsei in an earlier chapter says that Kris and Susie have been gone for a long time, but have in actuality have only been gone for a day. You could argue that time moves differently in Dark Worlds, but it seems to actually be pretty one-to-one with time in the real world. BUT if Ralsei were incredibly young, a day WOULD seem like his whole lifetime. Such as if Ralsei was only created say a day before the events of the current game.
Ralsei's knowledge of the prophecy and it's enemies (the titans), are suspicious at best, and imply a previous iteration at the least, mainly with the following: "It's spawning already?", this line in conjunction with Ralsei being able to identify a Titan on sight (with confidence, no "I think its a Titan" or "It must be a Titan" which would imply prior knowledge but not experience) implies that Ralsei knows how long a Titan would take to spawn, has enough experience with them to know how long it takes to hatch normally to know that it's hatching too fast. Now it could be argued that Ralsei's information comes from details within the prophecy, but that information has never been depicted to us at least, and even then, the collection of such information also implies that it HAS happened before, kinda have to encounter an animal to take a detailed account.
Now, for some details from Chapter 5, the two I want to draw attention to are the following:
--"Do you want to tell them what's wrong with that? [Pretending to be something you're not]" --This line from Flowery is a point to the fact that, as many have picked up, Ralsei is NOT being truthful as to WHAT exactly he is. And whatever he is, is something that is different to what he's pretending to be. Now, this could be implying that Ralsei isn't a Prince, which with other.. ahem... text, both sub-textual and otherwise, I can see it meaning that. But, I also think that's too simple, there's MORE to what's being implied here outside of that, mainly because of the next point.
--"[If I let myself go like you] I could burn you down in an instant!" and "[No one can do the impossible] Says the impossibility himself" --both of these lines are keystones to my theory, because they imply two things: 1) Ralsei is stronger than Flowery, and any other Darkner by that merit and 2) Whatever he is, it's impossible, or very unlikely to occur. This second point is incredibly interesting coming from FLOWERY who is a FLOWER'S DREAM, which is already neither a Lightner nor a Darkner. Calling Ralsei an impossibility also, I think, rules out being a Darkner created from Monster Dust, because as we've seen with Gerson, and as implied that this isn't necessarily too uncommon, that isn't something impossible either. But because a flower can dream, and the result is something neither lightner nor darkner, then what about a human soul? It isn't necessarily ALIVE by itself, it would need a body to communicate, speak, feel, so what if it was placed into a box, tied with a pink ribbon, and placed into a dark world by itself. Would it dream like a flower would?
If Ralsei is the ideal dream, conjured by Kris's soul. Then it would make sense why Kris (Body) would seemingly DISLIKE him as intensely as they do, with the amount restored by the Ralsei Tea being the lowest of all the characters, and some of the... um.... dialogue choices being particularly vindictive. It would be constant confirmation that Kris (Body) is not the body that Kris (Soul) wants, their ideal self is Ralsei. This also adds further layers to the inevitable choices at the end of the story, because if WE are banished, and Kris (Body) can't survive longer than seemingly a day without a soul, then can you stomach having to essentially end the soul's dream, effectively killing Ralsei, for Kris to survive in some form outside of a Dark World? It would add more weight behind the penultimate decision, which otherwise could be argued that Castle Town needn't be closed as it's survived by itself without the causing the Roaring for a long time. It adds a lot more layers to the fantastical escapism of Deltarune, which is already heavily present in Susie, but less so in Ralsei and Kris.
This could also be why Asgore has such a hard time telling if Ralsei is even a Monster at all, because if he is a Human Soul's dream of a Monster, that would be two degrees of separation from an actual Monster (Asriel who was used as the basis) so kinda like Telephone twice, the Soul didn't get the details quite right. Also why Kris (Body) is adamant about pointing out the differences between Asriel and Ralsei, because it's almost embarrassed to admit how much they both (Soul and Body) idolized him, to the point that the ideal dream self, is THAT similar to him. It's also why Ralsei can find Kris so easily in the Darkness, two magnets pretty much, like a homing beacon in a way.
As for why Kris (body) is "helping" the Knight? Which I believe to be a possessed-by-a-fallen-evil-player/angel Dess? Whatever happened to Dess to become possessed: either dying in a dark world, or seeing the end of the prophecy and, like Noelle in the weird route, finding everything pointless, or being unable to extract herself from the fantasy of the Dark Worlds that she becomes lost, etc. Whatever THAT was is what's behind the tree. Kris is repressing it, and therefore Kris (soul) does not know that the Roaring Knight of today is the Dess of yesterday. But the body? The body remembers what the mind, the soul, refuses to confront. This is why the Chapter 4 egg room, where Kris paints the tree over whatever they saw, is done in pitch black, the body had nothing to do with this process, so it's not even present during that portion of the game.
Now, what the goal is, what Kris (body) is trying to accomplish I still don't know. I don't know if they are actually in, well, league with the Knight, or if they are somehow luring the Knight to various Dark Worlds to ensure it doesn't disappear into the ocean of black forever, bringing Dess with it.
I also don't know how much Carol is involved with this process, if she maybe only helps to supply the "heroes" of each iteration with the summoned soul (maybe this summoning is why Rudy is getting weaker). But the souls having been essentially stolen from heaven in an attempt to cheat the prophecy is why Image-Friend-Face-Cat thing is hunting down those with protein (eggs) as they are evidence of this crime, and whatever god is operating this world (Gaster?idk) is mad that someone is taking their goddang souls. Maybe this is why we don't see hide nor hair of Carol outside of her own home, she might be hiding from the cats that are hunting down people associated with the summoning/stealing of souls. The first summoning is probably where Catty abandoned Kris to complete by themselves, but by leaving (and maybe by being a cat herself) she's safe/unassociated. Spamton probably is also associated with the summoning as well, likely by being/sending/emailing the link to the site in which instructions for the ritual for summoning souls from heaven can be found (Hyperlink Blocked), and thus had to change his shape and name and go into hiding, the Pipis are probably his failed attempts at summoning a soul for himself. (Eggs, but not right/wrong).
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Phew! That was a dozy! But I think that's everything I've had in my head for like..... over a month now. I'd love to hear everyone's theories/ideas/rebuttals if they've made it this far! Hopefully it all makes some sense, the formatting/flow might be all over the place.
so these flowers are called "spr_dw_susieflowers_0". would any flower nerds care to identify them so we can all google their symbolism and then apply our pre-biases to interpret that symbolism how we want
Not necessarily a flower nerd, but I know enough to hazard a guess on some of them? (All of these will be best guesses because making a solid ID from pixels is quite hard)
1st one looks to be a pink hydrangea to me, hydrangeas can change color depending on the acidity of the soil, pink being more basic and blue being more acidic
2nd one is all of like 10 pixels, I couldn't make a good guess if I tried, but it looks to be about 4 petals, which isn't common, so maybe like a dogwood (If she's practicing on Kris, this would fit in a funny way), evening primrose, desert rose, or maaybe pink wood sorrel (The last two have 5 actually but the color and free-standing flower fit?)
3rd is probably a buttercup, it's almost exactly the same sprite as the lightworld flowers in Asgore's shop, which are pretty much all buttercups.
4th looks like some kind of white anemone to me, especially with the darker center.
5th is really hard to parse, but best guess would be a daisy or another white aster
The final one looks like either a snowdrop OR Lilly-of-the-valley, I think those are drooping bell-shaped flowers which would make those the most likely? (idk about the pink bits, those might be other white flowers shaded in the background??)
Something like this would be so colossally helpful. I'm sick and tired of trying to research specific clothing from any given culture and being met with either racist stereotypical costumes worn by yt people or ai generated garbage nonsense, and trying to be hyper specific with searches yields fuck all. Like I generally just cannot trust the legitimacy of most search results at this point. It's extremely frustrating. If there are good resources for this then they're buried deep under all the other bullshit, and idk where to start looking.
another addition as far as physical media goes there is the encyclopedia of national dress (that i still need to buy myself bc this kind of thing is super important to my sort of fantasy designing) but yes i do agree i wish there was EVEN MORE documentation on this
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