mus_smile and haunted houses and Noelle's house
hi everyone! i started this post back in 2025 but I realised I could probably finish it now. I'm gonna talk about mus_smile and how Noelle's house is basically a haunted house.
mus_smile is a hidden track found in both Undertale and Deltarune. in Undertale, it's the sound of room_gaster, aka Entry Number Seventeen.
in Deltarune, it's used in three places.
(1) as snd_smile, the sound that plays when you use Kris's cell phone in the Dark World.
[Chapter 1] (You tried to call on the Cell Phone.)
But it doesn't seem to be working.
[Chapter 2 onwards] (You tried to call on the Cell Phone.)
It's nothing but garbage noise.
(2) at 1/6.66 speed as you approach the Shelter.
(3) at 1/6.66 speed in the Holiday Mansion basement, before the breaker's pulled.
what can we tell about mus_smile?
we know that mus_smile is an electrical sound; it comes from phones, it stops when there's no power in Noelle's house.
that it's associated with W.D. Gaster; it plays in room_gaster, it's at 1/6.66 speed near the Shelter and in Noelle's basement.
that it supercedes UTDR's cosmology: as in, it can be heard in both universes, and in both the Light World and the Dark World.
that it had come through Spamton's phone; "When I put the receiver to my ear... There was nothing but garbage noise."
okay, so, i think we can analyse Noelle's House as being a sort of haunted house.
Noelle's house is somewhere between a dollhouse and an elaborate theatre set. it's layout is choreographed so every door and every character will be facing us. it's improbably pristine; there's no signs that anyone's living there.
Noelle goes home from school every day, gets rid of Berdly, and sits alone in her room. she finds secrets in video games and writes fantasies on her blog.
in Chapter 5's Weird Route, Noelle describes herself disassociate, seeing her life the way we see her house.
Since Dess left... All I've been doing has just been... Marching down my path.
Staying quiet. Getting good grades. It feels like... I've just been watching myself through glass. Watching someone else move me through my life.
her house is haunted by Dess. Noelle doesn't find comfort there, she involuntarily inhabits it, "marching down her path", wishing she could run away. Dess's room, kept in eternal stasis, is a sort of grave, a dead weight that can't be moved on from. in the Weird Route, when Noelle can't sleep, she has to go outside.
in the Ice Palace, a sort of surreal depiction of Noelle's house, is soundtracked by GLACEIR, which to me, is a genuinely unnerving song. it constantly marches forwards, going somewhere but never reaching it, echoes forming a maze within it's trance-like-rhythm...
from what Noelle's computer tells us, she spends most of her time at home chasing ghosts.
There's this, um, awesome bug that lets you get... glitchy pets. I have a save file with like, seven headless cats. Faha.
(OK, Favorites... paranormal, crime, paranatural...)
Noelle's house then feels overshadowed by these ghosts - I've discussed in another post about her potential role in creating IMAGE_FRIEND. it makes sense mus_smile is playing because she basically did everything she could to invite it in.
a haunted house is basically a place where the unfamiliar and the familiar can meet. a house is domestic, normal. a haunted house is a transgression against that, letting the spirit world in.
Noelle's house is probably going to be a Dark World
at the start of Chapter 5, Susie tells us she's planning to get into Noelle's house again.
If things go well today, we might have another shot at getting... Into Noelle's house, right?
at the end of Chapter 5, Susie tells us she wants Noelle to be part of their team.
We can't mess up anymore. We have to tell someone. Someone closer to the Shelter codes. Someone who can help us fight. Kris, this can't just be a me and you thing. It needs to be... Noelle's thing, too.
with this all set-up, I think it's pretty likely that we'll be going to Noelle's house again at some point.
Flowery warns us about the approaching darkness underneath Hometown. Noelle's house is a place where this darkness is present, where it's basically been invited in.
Something horrible is stirring underneath the town. A darkness beyond your imagination. Susie... Kris... The road ahead of you is draped in shadow...
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