Janaina Medeiros
Sade Olutola
we're not kids anymore.
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sheepfilms
dirt enthusiast
tumblr dot com
AnasAbdin
Andulka
d e v o n
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Product Placement
YOU ARE THE REASON
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occasionally subtle
Peter Solarz
PR's Tumblrdome
trying on a metaphor
Three Goblin Art
KIROKAZE
seen from Indonesia
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@dualprocesstheory
guess we'll never find out what happens to Jax when she holds her breath, huh?
I MISS HER. I'M UNWELL.
We actually do! Zooble and Pomni both choke out Jax in episodes 1 and 6 respectively. When she can't breathe, her face turns 2D in a paper cutout-style.
deltarune theorists pissing me off lately
theoryslop. you only believe in it because it has evidence supported by and relating to the narrative and themes of the work
are you gonna watch this weird ass movie with me or not
happy Mother’s Day to these two queens
tadc episode 9 leak
the stitchwraith is so funny andrew and william are constantly like "kill kill die die pain agony death violence pain" and then jake will go "i think i am going to pick flowers and make friendship bracelets today!" and andrew and william can't do anything about it but watch bc jake is controlling the thing. and i think that's wonderful
Man. The "unalive" type of self-censorship may mostly be just perpetuating folklore? People are talking inanely just based on vibes on the great mighty algorithm?? Mannnn
ME WHEN THE NEW VERSION OF THE MIMIC GRAPHIC NOVEL HAS ONSCREEN GORE
We still don't know how ralsei is moving between dark worlds, so until proven otherwise i am choosing to believe that he is kris' knife
Hey coming back in after writing out this whole repsonce, this was meant to be a discussion on Ralsei and Headbeand and/or Knife Theories, but it ended up going into Roots and I may have discovered something I haven't seen a Roots theorist discuss, so I'm going to let it start where I originally started and let it devolve into what I found out while writing:
i've suggested this before as the knife somehow isn't listed in the light world inventory and also doesn't show up in the dark worlds despite kris carrying it everywhere
on one hand this could open the door for kris carrying OTHER stuff that we don't get access too, (and their sword is a pencil, and the phone remains the same) say the Ralsei as the headband theory. the appeal of headband theory is that we've heard of it and seen it in a flashback, and it's a solid object representation of Kris' issues, but we haven't seen it. We were in their goddamn house and the cactus upstairs got a person but the headband didn't.
what both headband and knife theory have on common is the idea that then Ralsei "belongs" in all of the dark worlds. Clearly the rules aren't as solid as proposed in chapter 2, as shown in chapter 3 when Tenna's employees don't feel like they belong anymore they turn to stone. (potentially linked to being an inanimate object used by humans, once they feel like they don't belong and feel like the inanimate object that they are / abandoned whatever, they turn back to being inanimate) This expands on how Ralsei and the closet world can hold everyone:
1. the closet world is a Storage Closet meaning quite literally everyone belongs there, and can organize homes despite being so different. 2. this means Ralsei belongs in every world. There are multiple ways this could be true:
A. Most likely: he belongs with the fun gang over belonging in a world. All that matters is Lightner's perception yk. If true this could mean if there's a team crashout around the end Ralsei could be in danger of finally turning to stone, which would be dramatic and heartrenching asf B. As the prince of a storage closet he naturally belongs in every world as an envoy C. He is a general enough object to belong in every world. this could go with the previous two. physical playing cards don't belong in a digital world, and when cable tv is trying to stay relevant many classic things are being phased out. The same feeling can be felt in a home where children are growing up. However there are things like clothing items and tools that haven't gone "out of fashion" and always belong. Say, a piece of headwear or a dagger dating back to at least the 10th century indonesia and malaysia.
While all of the dark world's denizens are based around an area of Lightner entertainment (play room, internet, tv, religious service) basic tools can be used anywhere and aren't used to for entertainment, either to create entertainment or for everyday life. Think of a hammer, or a big hat. Hence the storage closet and it's prince, a place used for basic necessity and a prince that is also used for basic necessity. (While I'm aware there are darkners like the water sprites, cups, and tasque that are for basic necessity, they are based around and within a world that manages entertainment. While the water could be fine as that's everywhere, Tasque would be "useless" in a physical space)
All of this would also explain Ralsei's outlook on being a Darkner. Entertainment likes to think it's more than a basic need, and while it is and can be, it in all technicality is a basic need, either for escapism, deep mental exploration, or the simplest "keeping the mind active". Meanwhile Ralsei, who could be a more functional, generation spanning tool, would have a deeper understanding of being a tool.
The issue is, this is groundwork for both headband and knife theory, and doesn't really discount either. While Kris has "grown out" of the headband, it still has it's use and connection. It takes Kris back to a childhood, innocent version of themselves, and carries nostalgia and complex feelings. People think the pink horns could be the cheap red headband fading over time, and since Toriel is a teacher there it's not impossible that it ended up in the school storage closet when Kris "outgrew it". It IS of note that Ralsei has the horns as the Asriel we see in Undertale is too young to have them grow in yet, but he does seem a bit older in appearance even if slightly.
What's strange about Ralsei over the inventory characters and items is that Ralsei never leaves or joins with the party, he stays and waves goodbye and then appears where needed. This goes into a deeper theory involving the doors to other darkworlds within darkworlds. The storage closet had one to the adjacent room because they're physically connected, same thing for the church. However, there is the big center room potentially going to the dark fountain that we still have no access too. We don't know the full purpose of the bunker but people who hold political power have access, or partial access, to it, and all we know is that it's a bunker. Roots (highly implied to be a map / version of hometown) ends up taking you to the bunker. We've never gotten to actually see the real world version of the storage closet or the bunker, and with multiple closets that 'a tall person could fit inside" that Kris won't let us in,
Either this means Ralsei has general access to every storage closet in Hometown once a dark world opens, or, the crazy theorist option, that they are physically connected via a system of tunnels under Hometown. Hence: "Roots", functioning like a "Roots" system that is no longer used or allowed to be used, but people in power who would need to know about it do know, say, the mayor, the police, and either the church or the hospital (or the school :eyes:). This could also refer to specific families instead but either way they're in positions of power.
Kris won't let us even open the one in the church, and the tech closet in the librarby is already incredibly dark. If the next world is hometown itself, it could actually be "roots" and we gain access to the roots system of hometown, which has been turned into a dark world. Shit, the flower wall Asgore is watering in his shop could be a secret fucking door, as he stands in front of it almost protectively.
also just remembered the Spamton Sweepstakes page [https://deltarune.com/secret/] Where you click on various closets to find various secrets. One is Ralsei Plush, one is Pipis, one is the Gumball Machine, one is the Chair in Susie's Room, one is this:
And I just found this reddit post linking Bitroots to Digital Roots:
Various tunnels, ey? past the lake? interesting.
People have said dark worlds connect to undertale areas, and if true "roots" could be our "true lab" Roots could also be literal as if the bunker roots system is no longer in use (potentially due to problems or Dess and the other kids finding it) than it could get overgrown over time.
This doesn't show the roots, just implies they're there. It instead shows a house surrounded by trees, indicating hometown, potentially that the trees have roots, and the houses do too.
And holy shit it just hit me,
"Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail."
Where the forest would grow is such a weird line without context. "would" as in it's not there yet? it's supposed to be there and isn't? it's a video game and not loaded in yet?
If. If hometown is "the forest" the children could've gone into the bunker and. and gotten lost in "Roots", the underground tunnels, even linking to buildings not built yet. As far as I remember, roots form before the trees do.
that and people have well connected FRIEND to Roots, as he likes to appear there, and if Friend is the pointed tail...
I need a pause because this became a whole new theory, that I think could explain a LOT about "Roots"
getting back to Ralsei's transport:
This could explain both Ralsei and the Knight's form of transportation. Kris doesn't want us to discover Roots as either Dark World or Physically the Knight is using it to get around. If only physical it would be odd for Ralsei to be able to get there, but that could be why it takes Ralsei a second, as he has to navigate from one storage closet to the other through the miasma of reality, but they are connected which allows him to get there.
I implied earlier that chapter 5 could just be roots, however if it was hometown as a whole it could also end up giving us access to roots through the dark world where we couldn't before. I do like the idea of Roots being a dark world and using it in Chapter 5 and/or in other chapters afterwards to get places in hometown via darkworld routes, like the nether lol. Or physically, again the Knight is a Lightner meaning they/she could use the tunnels as transport.
I keep saying this because all of the closets Kris won't let us in connect directly too a Darkworld, being Chapter 2 and 4, meaning the Knight could use that, enter through the closet, and then open a darkworld immediately, eventually connected to adjacent rooms like the Church, maybe even the storage closet to classroom. (the place we spawn in in the first world is one of those weird dark spaces that eventually shows up in chapter 3 as well, and with the directions where we spawned in could connect to the other spare classroom we don't have access to yet, which even that could have an opening to roots, or the storage closet itself does. It's a good way to remain low-key while in the Light World, they only seemed to take Undyne through Above-Ground Hometown out of desperation. It's also likely the Knight is trying to remove everyone that knows about the roots system, which would include Toriel, and Undyne at that moment was easier to grab as she, as the Police Chief, would also know about it, even if more recently. With Kris and the phone callers desperation to keep the code away from Susie, they may not just be protecting the Bunker's dark world, but the route the Knight and Ralsei uses. Because if discovered they could not only get to hidden places in hometown, but prevent various parties from using them, and maybe even find the Knight or it's/her hideout in the light world.
Digital roots in chapter 2 also houses the Spamton Body and Friend which. You know. Would also explain FREIND's form of transport as well.
All of this could very much imply that Ralsei Isn't in Kris' inventory, like the knife, but also that the Knight isn't either, making Knight Knife theory also worse off. Because if Ralsei or the Knight were in our inventory then they'd spawn in with us like Lancer and Roulxes do. That being said Lancer, Rouxles and others are able to get to other dark worlds on their own, meaning they can probably use the same route Ralsei is, that being roots. Which, i wouldn't also put it past Toby to use "routes and roots" as a pun. because you know how he is. Two of the characters are named rouxls kaard, tasque and maus.
This could connect to various things about Undertale, which although it doesn't have a roots system it IS literally called the Underground. It's also not impossible the Roots system goes underwater, leading to the old familiar song coming from "under the water",
Onion goes to investigate and hasn't come back yet.
[the audio attached]
Out of everything, you know what this made me think of? The Ice Key.
As a preface I lead to you to this page, "Damn You Tenna"
click on the TV. The page is full of static and has this info:
The text about "you're not supposed to be here" is physically on the page.
The static is referred to as Ice and Snow. Once you find the one "static" image that scrolls with the page, labelled ocean, when you click on it it takes you to a purely blue page, playing Ocean Waves sounds, and:
In Chapter 3 when playing The Legend of Tenna, Tenna desperately doesn't want you to sail across the ocean to the Ice area, as soon as you see Ice, he shuts down the game and creates a barrier. In the Sword route you can now access this area, eventually leading to the Ice Palace. the Ice Palace is a dark place, consisting of a strange map. eventually you find the White Cloak and follow her seemingly base intuition to reach this door:
It leads to pure darkness, and then the next game, which is the Cyber world and then the manhole cover which leads to bitroots (pointing again to the idea that the library tech closet is physically linked to the ROOTS tunnel system) which leads to the bunker with eram
Everyone already knows this connection, even to the point that the music playing is also called Glaceir.
The Cyberworld directly reminds Noelle of Exploring in the Woods with the other three, where she comments she "mostly remembers crying", but for some reasons feels nostalgic thinking about it. As from what I can see the woods behind the graveyard leads to the area blocked off with police tape.
If so referring to the bitroots map from earlier, you enter it from where the police tape is. AKA from behind the graveyard.
It's hard to say right now without it all layed out like a conspiracy board how it all connects, but it DEFINITELY is.
The idea is, potentially with Noelle's intuition, they found an entrance to Roots, probably the one behind the police tape, leading the kids into the bunker and probably a dark world. This "Roots" system is how the Knight travels between the light and dark world unseen, and probably Ralsei and others as well. This Roots system is incredibly important, and is hinted at in every chapter past one, with Digital Roots, Bit Roots, and then the Prophecy Roots.
Kris refuses to remember whats behind the tree, as they try to paint it, fail, it makes a mess, and they paint the tree over it. Noelle can't remember finding anything behind the graveyard. I return your attention to "AREN'T YOU FORGETTING SOMETHING?" when finding the ocean through the Ice and Snow Static. I bet one of the entrances was behind a tree, shit maybe the one Asgore used to jumpscare his eggs wife. They found something traumatizing under there, potentially in the tunnels that lead under the ocean where Spamton's body is in Digital Roots, something that at least Kris went to therapy to to forget, people have brought up the Forgotten Man being Kris' therapist and piano teacher, having taught them piano for therapeutic reasons. That connecting to the "Art therapy" location where Kris blocks out what's behind the tree, things are adding up even if the equation isn't 100% solved yet.
This both devolved and evolved. Roots Tunnel System Theory unlocked ig. @ballgame I want to hear your thoughts, especially since this could completely discount Knife theory and lean towards Headband theory.
Speaking of: this does not answer why the Knife is inaccessible and not in the dark world.
idk im bored
WE'RE GETTING LUCIA, LUCIA REAL?? LUCIA REAL???????? LUCIA REAL??????? WHAT
petition to replace staff with a bunch of furry t-girl programmers
do it
don't (i like how bigoted they are)
I think I found the meaning of Pomni's Nightmare in Ep8
So, in the... couple hours? Since Episode 8 dropped, I've seen a couple people noting/joking about how when Caine traps everyone in their worst fears, Pomni's is much less personal than the others. She's attacked by Gummigoos, sure, but that's a trauma she obtained inside the circus. Everyone else has VERY personal issues– Zooble and Jax's dysphoria, Ragatha's mommy issues (and implied physical abuse, what with the knife going straight into her missing eye), Gangle's depression and possibly suicidal tendencies. Pomni was just shown a friend she lost all the way back in episode two, it doesn't have anything to do with her life before.
Or does it?
See, this is a theory I've kinda had in the back of my mind for a while, but I didn't want to say it because there was so little evidence and I didn't want to sound crazy. But this nightmare of Pomni's was so specific that I'm just gonna come right out with it.
I think Pomni had an abusive boyfriend in the real world.
And, hell– could've even just been a platonic friend or family member like Ragatha. But at this moment, I think it was specifically a boyfriend, and we'll get to why in a second. But the main gist is I think Pomni, like Ragatha, is an abuse survivor.
First, let's talk about the specific metaphor of Pomni's torment.
Pomni is left alone in the dark, until she sees Gummigoo, someone that she considered a close friend. She loved and trusted him. But he turns around and suddenly he has a monster's face. He disappears, and she doesn't know where he is– and then he surprise attacks her and starts literally ripping her apart.
So boil that down to the essentials: someone Pomni loved suddenly became a monster and attacked her when she wasn't prepared and didn't or couldn't have expected it. That's not just "losing a friend," that's your friend or other loved one turning against you for reasons you can't understand.
Gummigoo is also a very specific choice, when they could've easily been her friends from the Circus– Jax saw the other Circus members during his nightmare. Especially since the scene called for more than one person to be tearing into her, so it could've even been Gummigoo and then the other characters. But it's specifically him.
It could be that Pomni saw herself in Gummigoo. She specifically told him that she didn't want anyone to feel like they were nothing, heavily implying that that's a feeling she knows well. But there's a few other moments that make me think he may have been a proxy for someone else as well.
One, Ragatha specifically refers to Pomni as "flirting" with Gummigoo. This specifically casts the idea of Gummigoo in a potentially romantic light for the audience. Which is interesting because Gummigoo and Pomni's interactions in Ep2 were not at ALL romantic– it was mostly Gummigoo crashing out, Pomni comforting him, and then them just chilling platonically.
Now, there's plenty of other explanations for this. There's the fact that Gummigoo's reappearance affected Pomni heavily. She formed a bond with him and then he acted like he didn't even know her. Because he didn't. Everything she went through with him didn't matter at all, because he just got reset. It would absolutely make her feel like she's nothing. Or this could just be Ragatha's repressed lesbianism bubbling up to the surface. What else is there?
Well. There is the fact that, spiritually, the crocodile is often seen as a metaphor for hidden danger. The animal itself can swim so well underwater that the water itself appears still, so when it appears in stories and myths it is often used as a symbol for something that looks safe but is actually deadly. Which fits with Pomni's nightmare perfectly, to the point where I'm kind of mad I didn't see the idea of Gummigoo's image being corrupted coming.
There's her general people-pleasing personality quirks. How she is very well-acquainted with therapy-speak and trying to get in touch with people's emotions. This can also be seen in an extremely interesting scene, Jax's crashout in Episode 6.
So what happens in this episode? Jax and Pomni end up alone. Jax– while not exactly intentionally... well, let's just say, this episode is him specifically isolating her from the other characters, convincing her to change her worldview to match his, and then encouraging her to act out-of-character. This isn't to say Jax is an evil abuser with no other motivations– far from it, he's clearly also a victim of some kind of abuse or neglect and he's just repeating the cycle. But in this circumstance, that's what Jax is representing in this episode.
First, he spent the last episode dragging Pomni away from Ragatha, her main female influence, supposedly just to piss off the ragdoll. But then in this episode, when Caine allows them to all turn against each other, Pomni is left alone with Jax, a male (at the moment lmao) figure who tells her to stop showing how much she cares about people and act like him. She slips into this idea and proceeds to spend the rest of the episode mirroring his actions.
The two of them, right before the end fight, specifically sing a romantic duet together. "Daisy Bell" is obviously a reference to the first song a computer managed to sing, but it's a marriage proposal song that they had these two characters sing together. During the crashout, Jax refers to them derogatorily as a couple. Like with Gummigoo in episode 4, this is asking the audience to look at this situation in a romantic circumstance.
So. When Pomni won't shoot Jax, the first thing he does is gaslight her. She says they were a team, they were working together and bonding, and he says that she's delusional.
Jax says that he wasn't actually getting close to her, he was doing this all to mess with her. And her immediate, immediate response, is: "Did I do something wrong?"
Pomni is upset about how Jax suddenly turned against her. He's been acting normal all day, and then suddenly said they were never friends. Especially after he'd told her so many personal things about himself. She asks, "What about all that stuff you told me?" When he tries to deflect, she says... "No, no, no, no, we're not doing this."
She tries to argue with him, and he again deflects with a joke, as Jax does, and then says "You must be misremembering." That's when she snaps and asks if this is why he didn't show up to Kaufmo's funeral. When he gets mad and almost breaks down, she backtracks hard and immediately apologizes.
She then asks what Jax would do if she abstracted. When he says he would forget about her, adding to her fear of being nothing, she stares off into the distance for a long second, before looking down at the gun. And when Jax makes another quip, she makes a distraught, upset face– one that clearly shows her holding back tears, or maybe a scream– before finally whipping around and throwing the gun at him.
That's when Pomni starts physically attacking Jax. Confused, he asks what she's doing, but she proceeds to hit him with multiple objects, bite him, punch him, all while screaming, "FIGHT BACK!" And considering Pomni's earlier reaction to Jax's screaming at her was to freeze up and apologize, it makes one wonder if she's projecting a little when she asks, "Why didn't you fight back?"
And when Jax claims that he is irredeemable, that he hurts people for fun, that he never cared about Pomni, we get a shot of her wide eyes and trembling mouth as she stares defiantly up at him, and then a long-shot of her, alone, sitting completely still and staring after him.
Now, again, not to say "Jax is an abusive partner." It seems more like they're both reliving their own traumas right now: Jax with whatever happened to him in the past, and Pomni with someone who acted a lot like him.
Would now be a good time to mention that survivors of domestic abuse are more likely to return to their abusers or enter another abusive relationship? Over half of women who leave an abusive relationship will return at least once. In fact, the National Domestic Violence Helpline's data collection shows that it takes, on average, seven attempts to leave this kind of relationship for good. This is because someone who has become entangled in an abusive relationship will start seeing the cycle of abuse as familiar, and that familiarity as comforting. The unfamiliarity of being actually loved and cherished is terrifying, and potentially triggering in itself. The trauma bond within an abusive relationship can also become addicting– you get the harmful behavior, but it's soon followed by lovebombing and promises that it will never happen again, leading into a honeymoon period, somewhat interrupted by the knowledge that it's not going to last. Then the abuse happens again, and then the honeymoon again. Your rise-and-fall of emotions in this time can literally be conditioned into you. The switch-up of adrenaline and dopamine. Psychologically, it becomes an addiction, one that many victims don't understand they're still trying to process.
And you know what it can lead to? Anxiety, a state of constant panic. Or depression, a feeling like you're nothing. Or at the very least nothing without your partner.
And now let's get to the big guns. There's one specific line that's reverberated in my head since I first heard it, and it was in Episode 3.
Episode 3, as we recall, saw Pomni and Kinger literally being dragged to hell. After Pomni gets possessed and unpossessed, she freaks out hard. Not having control over her own body drives her to the point of admitting things aren't okay, and then she says something really interesting.
Scratch that, rewind.
Why the fuck did she say this?
Caine isn't outwardly aggressive yet. He won't be outwardly antagonistic until episode fucking eight. Pomni has no indications that Caine is doing any of this on purpose. The only other "he/him"s in the Circus are Jax (so far) who isn't doing anything in this adventure, and Kinger, who clearly is not in control here and is also the person she is talking to at the moment, so she'd have to be talking about Caine, right? But there's no indications that Caine wants her to suffer. Especially her specifically. And in no other episode, up until #8, does Pomni ever imply she thinks Caine is acting maliciously. In fact, when he does start being a dick in #8, she's really surprised and thrown off. Which would make this line out of place if she was talking about him.
When I first heard this line, this all flashed through my mind, and then made me wonder if she was talking about someone else.
He just wants me to suffer. Did I do something wrong? Gummigoo leaving her behind. "You must be misremembering." Gummigoo turning around and attacking her. Why didn't you fight back? "She's flirting with the gummy guy." I knew it would end up like this. What would you do if I abstracted tomorrow? He just wants me to suffer.
See, that line is where I started this thought process, but it wasn't until Pomni's nightmare in this episode that I was finally able to say I think this might actually be what is going on. And with this episode's implications of Ragatha's physical abuse and Gangle maybe running into the street on purpose, it shows that this show would potentially be willing to "go there."
anyway for no reason here's a link to a global directory of helplines
Why do you hate women?
important information: they did do another one of these
