[eesbegovic]

Did You Know?

Every time Toby Fox does this to his translators, they beat him with dubs

[eesbegovic]

Status: Smiling

I'm fine! Can't you see how I'm smiling? Would someone who isn't fine be smiling like this? Of course not.

[autumnoakes]

replayed chapter 2 today and thinking lots about the main themes in each chapter because of some dialogue by queen and various other characters

chapter 1 - loneliness and isolation. all of the mains are introduced to us as loners. kris is introduced as a shut down kid who doesn't talk much and clings to their mother (with the implication of having severe mental health issues including unaddressed trauma). susie is introduced as the violent mean kid who doesn't care about anything or anyone and no one likes, so everyone avoids her. ralsei is quite literally introduced as "the lonely prince", and is the only one living in the castle town dark world when you meet him. lancer only really knows his father and his father's servants. he ralsei, and susie are all sheltered kids who don't know what it's like to have people who truly care about them. you find jevil locked in a cell that needs a key broken into three pieces to open, hidden deep in the castle dungeons where no one goes. card kingdom is designed to be mostly black with white details, or forests where no one really lives (there are enemies, but i believe all of them are servants for the king).

chapter 2 - fantasy and escapism. there are quite literally video games within a video game. queen's main goal is to create an ideal world, and susie, noelle, and berdly all have their own versions of an ideal world that become front and centre as you and kris spend time with them. unknowingly, they're all willing to potentially destroy multiple worlds to see their ideal world, and none of them see any issue with it. spamton's whole thing is that he's a puppet with no real freedom, which circles around to kris. they and ralsei are the only ones who don't view this world as an escape and can see some of the horrors that come with this world's existance. susie convinces noelle and berdly that their experiences in the dark world were nothing more than a dream. if you take the weird route, noelle spends a lot of time back in the light world convincing herself that everything that happened was a nightmare, but she can't quite make herself believe that.

chapter 3 - nostalgia and dysfunctional family. the entire chapter is a game show. tenna makes multiple references to families sitting around the tv, spending quality time together while watching a show. he grieves what he used to have in the dreemurr household before the family fell apart and he was unplugged, and he gets mad at kris specifically because their family fell apart and they don't watch tv anymore. both the rounds in tenna's gameshow and the sword route are heavily inspired by the original legend of zelda game and other classic rpgs, playing into a specific kind of nostalgia that some players might have for a past that felt simpler. once again, kris kinda sees something a little different, as the sword route seems to play more into their fears and trauma. it creates this contrast where tenna is angry about what he lost and wishes for a better time, where the same thoughts scare kris because of what they've experienced and what went on behind the scenes that tenna never knew about.

chapter 4 - writing your own story. this chapter is literally called "prophecy" in the chapter select menu, and focuses on the prophecy that ralsei gave a sparknotes version of back in chapter 1. ralsei is beholden to this prophecy. he believes in it without a doubt, and the idea of kris or susie knowing their endings terrifies him. in contrast, susie is very much someone who creates her own path. she goes against convention and expectation at every turn. she's a healer and magic user, while also being the tank with the highest hp, strongest weapons, and damage output. she's described in the prophecy itself as having hope crossed on her heart, and gerson tells her that she has the ability to rewrite the story if she wants to. susie doesn't believe in endings the same way ralsei does. there are implications that the weird route is supposed to happen in some capacity, with respect to noelle getting stronger and having a major role in the prophecy, reflected by us forcing the thornring onto her ("noelle will get stronger").

chapter 5 - love and hatred. this comes in all forms. there's a sort of love triangle happening between susie, noelle, and kris, where susie and noelle are getting closer and start officially dating, while kris has their own feelings for susie (and noelle in a VERY different sense) that they can't actually say. the relationships between the flowers are all different as well. aqua and seth very much have a familial sibling love. blue and yellow are of course romantic love. orange and green are platonic love. flowery is more toxic in how he sort of lovebombs asgore (reflecting how asgore showers toriel with love and affection that she doesn't want), and all of the flowers (minus flowery) have a love for asgore that feels almost like the love a child has for a parent (because he raised them the same way he raised asriel and kris). asgore lets his hatred blind him to that. he starts threatening violence against the person who made that old dark world, thinking they're the same person who made this one. he lets his hatred blind him so much that he never realized just what flowery was doing until kris got hurt. this is also reflected in ralsei as well. susie literally describes him as a "hater", and he's uncharactaristically mean to a few of the flowers (mostly orange and flowery). pink is a battleground for both love and hate. her body wants to love someone and be loved, but her ghost is so angry about that. she hates her body, and her body has her own desires separate from her ghost. it feels like a metaphor for how body dysphoria can feel, and how one can hate their own body and in turn themselves, and can eventually risk destroying themselves because of it. the weird route, to me, feels a lot like a codependent relationship with a bad ending. noelle refuses to take no for an answer if you choose "stop" instead of "proceed". it feels like a suicide pact to me in how noelle and kris slowly walk into the lake.

[eesbegovic]

so kris likes pretending to be a dog, right, and you beat the catgirl secret boss by flirting with her

is there a post here

can we do something with this

[eesbegovic]

by all accounts it looks like we do in fact have a post here

[eesbegovic]

What do you mean "nothing bad happened to them"? Sue got creeped on by Alejandro too before getting KO'd, Paulo got held down and had his trauma button around barking mashed, and Daisy nearly saw her best friends get killed.

I hate the whole narrative that Lucy's friends "failed" by not stepping up to fight, because they did. They stepped up sooner and more bravely than Lucy did! Lucy only did anything after Sue and Mike had already gotten KO'd, does that not count as "failing" her friends? Maybe if she'd intervened earlier and backed up Sue and Paulo, rather than just standing there watching until Mike was in danger, they could have won without anyone getting hurt.

So the reblog anon is referencing is mostly about Lucy's perspective, and I'll admit that as a result it was too dismissive of what Sue and Paulo went through, which was a lot. And of their efforts before Lucy dropped Toby and got Alejandro's undivided attention.

As I put it in the tags on the reblog itself:

More explicitly:

We're talking about thirteen-year-olds in the middle of a stressful, fast-moving situation.

I'd rather not blame them for anything they did or didn't do (hence the the "thanks, I hate it" and such in the reblog) and I think it's tragic Lucy, probably subconsciously, has made Confrontation a cornerstone of her psyche in ways the other four haven't.

There is a logic to what Lucy's going through, one I wrote an entire post about, but it's not a fair logic.

("Logic", I wrote, as if we aren't talking PTSD and literal dreams. Hopefully her waking self doesn't endorse these feelings. But the things that happen in Lucy's nightmares have to be coming from somewhere deep within her.)

Anyway.

What do you mean "nothing bad happened to them"? Sue got creeped on by Alejandro too before getting KO'd, Paulo got held down and had his trauma button around barking mashed, and Daisy nearly saw her best friends get killed.

Fair, and if the others were affected by Confrontation as badly as Lucy was they'd probably see things the way OP describes. But in the immediate aftermath, Sue, Paulo, Daisy and Mike were all dismissive of how serious the incident was, and since then they all seem to have moved on.

Not unrelatedly, there's a narrative of what happened where:

Thirteen-year-old-Sue totally missed the subtext of Alejandro's interaction with her.

Paulo got beat up, but he's a Manly Man so that's Not A Big Deal. You Shoulda Seen The Other Guy!

Daisy had to witness something horrendous nearly happen to her friends, but then the power or friendship kicked in and the good guys won.

These are all rather dismissive ways to describe what happened, and I don't endorse them. But they're probably closer to how Sue, Paulo, and Daisy remember Confrontation than anon's (accurate!) description.

"So I totally beat up some thugs" -Paulo

I hate the whole narrative that Lucy's friends "failed" by not stepping up to fight, because they did. They stepped up sooner and more bravely than Lucy did!

Fair. I've been repeating this narrative because it's fundamental to how Lucy sees things.. and rather I wish it wasn't.

I wish she hadn't woven the events of Confrontation into all of her other insecurities and traumas.

But she did.

[eesbegovic]

so kris likes pretending to be a dog, right, and you beat the catgirl secret boss by flirting with her

is there a post here

can we do something with this

[eesbegovic]

If Seam's dialogue is any indication, Pink is the last of the secret bosses:

And famously, the Weird Route skips chapter 6.

While if you find the Forgotten Man again after obtaining the four previous eggs, you get narration saying things like:

...so all the big secret sidequests are interrupted or ended in Chapter 6? What is happening next chapter?

[eesbegovic]

The Bear, It Haunts Me

Those eyes.

Those god forsaken eyes.

So cute. So innocent.

So deceitful.

They haunt me.

What thoughts lie behind those beady acrylic pearls?

What malevolent force directs its gaze at all times towards the Selkirk-Ragamuffin that owns it?

why is it checking out Rachael's ass

How did it earn a spot on the 20th anniversary poster when it itself is a mere thing of fabric and polyester?

...and are we really sure it is just a plush toy?

I see it in my dreams, you know.

No matter where I am... no matter where I go... I see those eyes. Motionless, lifeless, yet still following me.

Always.

Staring at me.

Directly into my very soul.

[bittersweetcandybowl]

What would Jordan's major in college be? I'm imagining that, given his overall arc, he'd choose a field set to implode right as he graduates in... 2013? (Print journalism?)

Veronica: I don’t think Jordan wants a major in anything! He just wants to play basketball! ;__;

He’d probably pursue something that involves socialising or physical work.. he’d probably get suggestions from his friends if professional basketball isn’t in the cards lol

[eesbegovic]

Man, Deltarune chapter 5 is gonna be so frustrating

I'm gonna want to grab Ralsei by the scarf and demand to know "WHAT KINDS OF DARKNESSES?!? Gerson appeared in the Knight's fountains twice, THIS IS A CLUE!" But Kris isn't going to let me do that, precisely because it's a clue. And then I'm gonna want to grab Susie by the jacket collar...

and tell her "I know you're hyped for the Festival, but we can't go: if we're going to literally defy prophecy and prevent the Roaring we need to focus all our efforts. We can go to the Festival next year, after the Knight's plan is foiled and the world is saved." And Kris isn't going to let me do that either, because they want to enact the Knight's plan.

[eesbegovic]

Oh my god, is this Susie about to... lock in? We're finally going to treat the end of the world with the urgency it demands?

It is! We're done faffing about with dating minigames and keeping secrets! We've got an evil Roaring Knight creating fountains and kidnapping cops, and we're finally gonna rally the troops! Tell the mayor, tell the military, tell the world! We gotta pull out all the stops!

YOU DENSE MOTHERFU-

[bramblepaws]

myyyyyyyy prediction (hope) is that this is going to be the chapter where Lucy finally absolutely loses her shit at all of her friends who were involved in Confrontation. just completely screams at them and tries to burn bridges between them. i think it's been building up for a WHILE that she still carries all of these resentments from back then, even towards Sue, and has never aired it out or gotten over it....... i imagine (hope) that it will compleeeetely blindside everyone.

then i expect (hope) that she runs to Mike, because even though she has a lot to resent him about, this is the one thing he did right!! he was the only one to step in and protect her when she really needed it!! and it's clearly TEARING HER UP that he's suffering right now, even if she thinks it's deserved.

[eesbegovic]

Thanks, I hate it.

I hate it so much.

Because on the one hand: this is a good take. Sue, Daisy, and Paulo cowering while Lucy got assaulted in Confrontation, when they were thirteen and being more-or-less mugged, was a massive failure on their parts. Of course Lucy would hold resentments over that, and of course they all mostly forgot about it: nothing bad happened to them. And of course she'd feel strongly about Mike standing up for her. We're probably overdue for something big coming of it.

But on the other hand:

AAAAAAAAAAARGH WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

It is, at this point, abundantly clear that Mike does not have Lucy's best interests at heart (citation: I could go on all day).

It is equally clear that Sue, Daisy, and Paulo do have Lucy's best interests at heart (citations: "she clearly wants some time alone", impromptu birthday celebration, "say the word").

But sure, yeah, let's have an arc where Lucy tries to torch her relationships with people who actually do right by her and probably reconciles with Mike or something.

Why not, it's only the inexorable result of years of buildup.

[eesbegovic]

Lucy, Alejandro, and Risk

I'm of two minds about what Lucy's going through, and her lingering (re-opened?) trauma from Confrontation.

On the one hand, I think it's extremely likely -- let's say 90%, people will quantify anything these days -- that Alejandro & Toby are never actually going to show up again and, like, do anything. Not anything with any relevance beyond potentially impacting how Lucy, Augustus, and all these cats relate to each other and to to themselves.

I think that for reasons implied by how I worded it:

From a Watsonian perspective, Augustus knew Alej the best and doesn't seem worried; it's been like four in-comic months since Augustus left, but Alejandro and Toby still haven't taken obvious steps like "stake out the school they know Augustus goes to and see if any Siamese kids are coming or going"; Alejandro is a master grudge-holder but he's also incredibly lazy.

From a Doylist perspective... as far as character arcs go, "Lucy's fears around Alejandro are wholly irrational," "Lucy's fears around Alejandro are justified, even if nothing comes of them," and "Lucy is right and Augustus is wrong; he's about to come home with broken kneecaps" are all very different things. From how Lucy's been handled to date, I think something like the former two is more likely than the latter.

But.

On the other hand.

This may be a 90%/10% issue, but taking the ninety percent side on "Alejandro isn't breaking any kneecaps" and being wrong would be extremely bad.

So Lucy's nervous. And so am I.

[eesbegovic]

Deltarune Chapter 5 Review

Look, I have a job and a life and things, I haven't had time to play the new chapter yet. Give me some time, wouldya?

[eesbegovic]

Oh wow, I was the first ask? Cool! Anyways, my lack of trust that Paulo has stopped being a sexist bully comes down to the fact that, like you said, he's apologized to Mike and Abbey (though I maintain that he never has adequately apologized to Abbey for mocking his grief for his dead mother, that was way over the line), but he's still rude and dismissive towards Sue. Similarly, during his latest argument with Lucy he went for the low blow of accusing her of "going all the way" with Augustus.

Yes, you were!

...assuming you're the same anon who submitted the other ask. I have no way of verifying this.

I suppose we will have to agree to disagree on the other stuff.

[itsaboutcats]

We first saw Lucy's nightmares introduced in "Escape Route", but because the entirety of the flashback was in greyscale, Lucy's dream appearing in greyscale wasn't distinct. It's only earlier in "Seeing Stars" when we see Lucy's dreams in greyscale again that this becomes a distinct motif.

In her dreams, she runs through brick alleyways, trying to evade her pursuer. But Lucy is trying to hide her nightmares from the people in her life:

This setup makes the artistry of the moment when Augustus asks her about her nightmares really clever:

Augustus is guessing something that Lucy wants to hide: the return of her nightmares. And in this moment, the background changes to greyscale. Lucy's back is against a grey brick wall just like those in her nightmares. While Lucy wasn't caught in her dreams, she's caught by Augustus here. The greyscale brick evokes both the nightmares themselves and this underlying feeling/idea of being caught and trapped.

[itsaboutcats]

I'm interested in seeing how Augustus will interact with the dynamic of the seniors and alcohol. Matt, Jess, and Rachel at least are social drinkers; Jess drinks at 21+ clubs. They had beers at Rachel's house for her birthday before Paulo brought more alcohol.

We don't see them drinking at junior prom, but it's the intuitive reason why they would ask Paulo to drive Matt's car instead of Matt just driving, or planning on Rachel, who Matt knows better and is a more experienced driver. They joke about drinking pretty openly. They don't always drink at their parties, but drinking is clearly part of their social culture.

Augustus's experiences with alcohol are very much not that. His mother is severely alcoholic. His parent's substance abuse defined his childhood.

He's around alcohol a lot, between his parents and the implication that Alejandro and Toby drink, but we've never seen Augustus drinking. Given his desire to escape his circumstances and live a life different from his parents, combined with the hereditary component of alcoholism, I suspect he doesn't drink at all and has strong negative feelings about it (that he compartmentalizes).

Because of this gulf in experiences, I'm interested to see how Augustus would actually respond to the seniors' social drinking. For their part, the other seniors have some awareness that he had a difficult childhood, but it's unclear if they know about his parents' alcoholism. Even if they do know, teens can be thoughtless and they might not consider how Augustus might feel about it. Augustus is hanging out with them outside of school more, and eventually they will probably break out the alcohol. I think it's most likely that he'd tacitly weather it or remove himself from the situation, but this likely would be a bitter disappointment for him.

[eesbegovic]

On Discourse Around Augustus

I notice there have been a few asks on Taeshi's blog about Augustus recently.

I have some Thoughts about him and the discourse around him, helpfully organized into bullet points.

In canon, we never got any real reckoning for his manipulation & attempted-forced-kiss from Love Again. It's been subtext to all his interactions with the entire main cast, but it was never the topic of any chapter or scene.

We almost got a reckoning in Total Recall, but it was three unsatisfying pages of Augustus talking around things.

So the scenes in canon that most directly addressed the attempted-forced-kiss have been all those times Lucy has used "you tried to assault Daisy" as a cheap shot against, let's face it, her closest friend and confidante. It acts as an edgy in-joke at times. (she got him a Daisy cupcake for his birthday?!?)

Oh, and also High Expectations, when Paulo blew up at Lucy over it.

So people yearn for content with Augustus Suffering.

People yearn for this content even though, in canon, he HAS suffered

But Augustus's suffering to date has all been offscreen: we can infer that he's been Suffering as the son of alcoholics who live on the wrong side of the tracks...

And we can infer that he's Suffered under the thumb of Alejandro and Toby… and we can infer that there's a Daisy-shaped hole in his heart too.

But it's all implicit. It's never the focus of any scene.

In other words, there's been no publicly-available chapter where Augustus's mistakes catch up with him, the way Paulo's did in Behind Closed Doors or Lucy's did in December or Mike's did in Line in the Sand.

I said there's no publicly-available chapter with Augustus Suffering because there is Augustus Suffering content in the paywalled BCIs.

But... they're paywalled BCIs. Most Augustus haters haven't read them and don't know they exist.