Lily

[tiredandjaded]

Noelle was there, at the center of it all, so she only heard what it was like for everyone else in the days that followed. The smell of dust in the air. The way the shadows, cast by no light, started to squirm. The wave of nausea that rolled through the town, old wounds aching and scars unsealing themselves. Then, the sound of the bunker door slamming shut. She's certain they hated her. Maybe they still do. It was Noelle's dark world that Susie never came back from, after all. * * * Noelle, Kris, and what's left after the end.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[holidaygirlelly]

Noelle looks upon Kris’ pranks fondly. For her, someone willing to just, treat her as herself and not hold back at all, is all she really desires from everyone else. Kris is the only one who saw who she truly was, and she views them as the comfort of the past she longs for.

[reverssentiment]

Deltarune is interested, like Undertale is interested, in genre tropes as a tool of establishing mood – in particular, nostalgia. UT's "presumptive audience" is one that's played a JRPG before and knows what you're supposed to do with slimes, skeletons and other random encounters. In particular, Deltarune wants to evoke nostalgia – I'd argue that as Flowey is a diegetic player stand-in in UT, Noelle serves as one in DR for the game's presumptive audience: a gamer whose present painful circumstances drive her to retreat into stories she finds comforting, with all the horror safely confined to Routes and Secrets she can explore at her leisure.

The problem for Deltarune is that it can't just rehash those genre conventions raw to evoke the nostalgia it wants, because its presumptive (and actual!) audience consists overwhelmingly of a) people who have bought into Toby Fox's (unearned, imo) reputation as "Tricky Tony" who fucks with your head for no reason, and who are therefore on the lookout for metanarrative and DDLC-style haunted video games, and b) people whose nostalgic JRPG is Undertale, a fact that makes me feel so, so old.

This is why it puts in so much effort to first evoke, and then trouble, the familiarity of Undertale in Chapter 1 – reminding us of familiar characters, then running us through Card Kingdom as a sort of conscious pastiche of the Underground that deliberately doesn't give itself the time or effort to establish its emotional stakes (Ralsei pushing pacifism and the threat of a bad outcome if we neglect it, only to find that being violent doesn't really change anything; King as an image of Asgore with near-zero complexity; the utterly unearned Sentimental Victory Lap sequence at the end where we talk to all the Darkners). It's all almost cozy. It puts us in our comfort zone. Choose dialogue options; win through MERCY; do everything right and guarantee your happy ending.

Then the Light World walkaround sequence is what pushes you out of that established comfort zone: it's comforting and homey and peaceful, but none of these people are the same as they were. Stripped of their higher, dramatic circumstances, these adults are kind of... ordinary and unhelpful, teachers and cops who don't do anything for you and parents who don't really understand you, and the touchstones that reflected their efforts to be better than their worst selves (cf Alphyne, Mettaton, Asgore's acceptance of grief and culpability, etc.) are undone.

DR makes an argument for the emotional power of nostalgia that's left Noelle limited in her ability to engage with the painful present moment – this is something I respect a lot about it, that it refuses to dismiss her maladaptive coping mechanism without trying to explain why it works in terms that I can understand and sympathize with – but it troubles that comfort when you prod at it.

[dont-touch-the-flower-child]

Carol isn't the Caller

Many people, myself included, has thought that this person on the phone with Kris is Carol Holiday.

However, I no longer believe so.

Let's break down the reasons, one by one.

"But, she was home early! After Kris called about Susie getting the guitar!"

This is one of the most common arguments for Carol Caller. Indeed, it all seems to line up: Carol wasn't going to be home for hours, until the call from Kris sent her rushing back. And her first priority upon entering was to take the guitar away from Susie.

But, is it really that simple?

What if Carol came back for something else entirely, and it had nothing to do with Kris?

Exhibit A: the same segment in Weird Route

On Weird Route, Kris never made the call. And yet, Carol still came home early, asking everyone to leave. Why would she had come if Kris didn't call her?

"How do we know if Kris didn't call offscreen?"

Because on Weird Route, Kris didn't know Susie got to the guitar until later, when they were both outside.

And from Susie's account, we can gleam that Susie went from Dess' room—found guitar—went to living room with guitar, and was held up by Asgore until Carol's arrival.

Meanwhile, we see Kris went from Noelle's room—bathroom, and had a massive crashout upon entering. Said crashout was also interrupted soon after by the news that Carol came home.

If the call did somehow happen, it would leave an extremely small window of time for Carol to come home. She would probably need literal wings for that.

And that's without considering how dissonant and improbable it would be for Kris to notice Susie with the guitar and make a call for it in enormous emotional anguish and rage.

Therefore, I think it's unreasonable to assume that Kris still made the call on Weird Route.

"What if Carol was summoned by Kris on Normal Route, but by someone else on Weird Route?"

That's essentially acknowledging that someone else could have called Carol home. What stops them from also doing so on Normal Route?

So if Kris didn't call Carol home, who did?

Asgore did.

He was, after all, the one who revealed that Carol was coming home early.

We also know that he'd been working with Carol to find out what happened to Dess.

And, on that day, he also happened to have an reason to call Carol.

To show her his latest discovery. A black shard.

Exhibit B: the call from actual Carol at the end of Weird Route Ch.4

And as you can see, her speech was completely normal. Not like the Mysterious Caller's voice at all.

These calls happened at around the same hour in late night. Carol would be in the same place, calling with the same device. If the Caller were Carol, it makes no sense for her voice to be different.

"What if she changed her voice to sound dark and ominous?"

Okay, but why would Carol need to do that? Kris had her contact. They knew who she was either way.

"To obscure her identity from the SOUL? The Caller even knows about Kris' SOUL situation!"

The Caller never framed the SOUL as a threat, though. They even said that Kris cannot enter the dark world without it. And truthfully, the SOUL does not have the sentience to be dangerous on its own; the Player does. And nothing suggests that the Caller knows about the Player.

And, while we're on the topic...

The Caller knew about dark fountains and dark worlds. I highly doubt that Carol knew those things, because if she did, then she was already extremely close to finding her daughter (on the premise that Dess is the Knight). Asgore and her wouldn't need evidence boards like they were still crafting theories, they could just make their own fountains.

So no, I don't think Carol could be the Caller. Which, would also mean that she hadn't been manipulating Kris and holding them to a promise.

"Then, what's with her 'you are always welcome here' to Kris? Kris was even uncomfortable, too!"

I have speculated that Kris saw Dess last.

To Carol, this meant that Kris Dreemurr remained the only person who could provide reliable clues to finding Dess. She was hoping Kris would one day open up, and being nice to them means it'd be more likely to happen.

Kris wasn't comfortable, of course, because the Dessappearance was a deeply traumatizing event that they still feel guilty for. They weren't ready to disclose anything yet.

But, we know that they aren't being harmed by the biggest authority figure in town.

[lily2929]

ALSO: the call at the end of normal route says:

Kris.. don't forget... you promised..

Which sounds very similar to:

When the light is running low and the shadows start to grow

And the places that you know seem like fantasy

There's a light inside your soul

That's still shining in the cold with the truth

*The promise in our Hearts*

*don't forget, I'm with you in the dark*

We don't know who sung dont forget but the lyrics are very similar to a certain section in raise up your bat a song that was written by dess(Noelle even put it in her bog!)

COME FOLLOW ME INTO THE DARK (COME FOLLOW ME INTO THE DARK)

WITH YOUR HEART AS THE ARK (WITH YOUR HEART AS THE ARK)

WHICH SHALL SHINE YOU THE WAY (WHICH SHALL SHINE YOU THE WAY)

BECAUSE I'M WITH YOU IN THE DARK (BECAUSE I'M WITH YOU IN THE DARK)

WITH YOUR HEART AS MY MARK (WITH YOUR HEART AS MY MARK)

WHICH SHALL GUIDE YOU THE WAY, (WHICH SHALL GUIDE YOU THE WAY,)

THROUGH THE WAVES (THROUGH THE WAVES)

So it is safe that it is implied that dess is the one who wrote the lyrics of don't forget talking about a *promise* and to not *forget* that promise and that she is till with them in the dark (roaring knight is associated with darkness)

[dont-touch-the-flower-child]

Carol isn't the Caller

Many people, myself included, has thought that this person on the phone with Kris is Carol Holiday.

However, I no longer believe so.

Let's break down the reasons, one by one.

"But, she was home early! After Kris called about Susie getting the guitar!"

This is one of the most common arguments for Carol Caller. Indeed, it all seems to line up: Carol wasn't going to be home for hours, until the call from Kris sent her rushing back. And her first priority upon entering was to take the guitar away from Susie.

But, is it really that simple?

What if Carol came back for something else entirely, and it had nothing to do with Kris?

Exhibit A: the same segment in Weird Route

On Weird Route, Kris never made the call. And yet, Carol still came home early, asking everyone to leave. Why would she had come if Kris didn't call her?

"How do we know if Kris didn't call offscreen?"

Because on Weird Route, Kris didn't know Susie got to the guitar until later, when they were both outside.

And from Susie's account, we can gleam that Susie went from Dess' room—found guitar—went to living room with guitar, and was held up by Asgore until Carol's arrival.

Meanwhile, we see Kris went from Noelle's room—bathroom, and had a massive crashout upon entering. Said crashout was also interrupted soon after by the news that Carol came home.

If the call did somehow happen, it would leave an extremely small window of time for Carol to come home. She would probably need literal wings for that.

And that's without considering how dissonant and improbable it would be for Kris to notice Susie with the guitar and make a call for it in enormous emotional anguish and rage.

Therefore, I think it's unreasonable to assume that Kris still made the call on Weird Route.

"What if Carol was summoned by Kris on Normal Route, but by someone else on Weird Route?"

That's essentially acknowledging that someone else could have called Carol home. What stops them from also doing so on Normal Route?

So if Kris didn't call Carol home, who did?

Asgore did.

He was, after all, the one who revealed that Carol was coming home early.

We also know that he'd been working with Carol to find out what happened to Dess.

And, on that day, he also happened to have an reason to call Carol.

To show her his latest discovery. A black shard.

Exhibit B: the call from actual Carol at the end of Weird Route Ch.4

And as you can see, her speech was completely normal. Not like the Mysterious Caller's voice at all.

These calls happened at around the same hour in late night. Carol would be in the same place, calling with the same device. If the Caller were Carol, it makes no sense for her voice to be different.

"What if she changed her voice to sound dark and ominous?"

Okay, but why would Carol need to do that? Kris had her contact. They knew who she was either way.

"To obscure her identity from the SOUL? The Caller even knows about Kris' SOUL situation!"

The Caller never framed the SOUL as a threat, though. They even said that Kris cannot enter the dark world without it. And truthfully, the SOUL does not have the sentience to be dangerous on its own; the Player does. And nothing suggests that the Caller knows about the Player.

And, while we're on the topic...

The Caller knew about dark fountains and dark worlds. I highly doubt that Carol knew those things, because if she did, then she was already extremely close to finding her daughter (on the premise that Dess is the Knight). Asgore and her wouldn't need evidence boards like they were still crafting theories, they could just make their own fountains.

So no, I don't think Carol could be the Caller. Which, would also mean that she hadn't been manipulating Kris and holding them to a promise.

"Then, what's with her 'you are always welcome here' to Kris? Kris was even uncomfortable, too!"

I have speculated that Kris saw Dess last.

To Carol, this meant that Kris Dreemurr remained the only person who could provide reliable clues to finding Dess. She was hoping Kris would one day open up, and being nice to them means it'd be more likely to happen.

Kris wasn't comfortable, of course, because the Dessappearance was a deeply traumatizing event that they still feel guilty for. They weren't ready to disclose anything yet.

But, we know that they aren't being harmed by the biggest authority figure in town.

[dont-touch-the-flower-child]

your analysis post about dess are so amazing and well written

I do wonder what are your thoughts about the whole black dreemur like in the board game which Kris later attacks which at surface level doesn't have anything to do with dess but the interesting thing is that this sprite replaces the sprite of a black deer (which is fully functional)

Apparently in the code there is a variable called "Toriel" which its default value is true and disabling it allows you to see the deer

Also the ice mage thing in the board game its placeholder is a brown deer

Thank you :D

The creature that mirrors Kris' movements in sword route reminds me of a monster type from the Binding of Isaac called a Dople. It's basically a doppelganger of the player character that mimics your movement and fires bullets as you do, and certain rooms are designed so that you're meant to kill a Dople by steering it into a trap in the room. The segment in sword route is a lot like that. I'm not sure if it was directly inspired by Doples, but it's quite interesting to consider.

Also, the creature in sword route shows up as a black/gray goat monster by default. Y'know, the type of monsters the Dreemurrs are. Considering how Kris used to think they would grow horns just like one and fit in with the rest of their family, maybe you could interpret the goat creature as a dark twin of sorts? Which I think is a neat name. Dark Twin. Going with it now.

And then, you disable the default Toriel variable and the creature reveals itself to be a black deer. Since the White Cloak ice mage's placeholder is a brown deer and her reference to Noelle is indisputable, Dark Twin appears to be making a reference to Dess. And certainly we already see Kris mirroring DessKnight's poses in several places. Pointing forward when they act, crossing their arms and turning away to look cool...

So, my very unpolished theory is that Dark Twin might be what Kris aspired to be, and that image is heavily based off Dess. Alternatively Dark Twin is just Dess XD idk. feels like it's fair to call either without further knowledge of anything. the fact there's an unbridgeable gap between Kris and Dark Twin, and they could only wait until Dark Twin comes over to them to kill it and progress, is really cryptic. idk what to make of any of those yet.

As for the Toriel variable... I'm sure it's significant in some way. I don't think Toriel was responsible for Dess' disappearance in any way, but I'm sure she's important because a. she's in a place to know all three codes to the shelter, b. she was the Knight original target for some reason, and c. her attitude on the whole thing with Dess is kinda strange. Presumably Toriel divorced Asgore because he let a child went missing on his watch, but she also...no longer wants him to investigate the case. Which, Could be because Asgore was mainly doing so to get back with her, or he was disturbing Kris' peace of mind with uncomfortable questions, but uhh. Is it really fair to just leave it as a cold case? We'll just have to see what her role in this is i suppose

[dreamdiscovery]

thinks about how in berdly's backstory he only won the spelling bee because noelle saw her sister's name and couldn't even speak

thinks about how with kris's help, whilst she reminisces about the good times they shared, noelle manages to gradually spell out d-e-c-e-m-b-e-r

[lily2929]

it is cold

[reverssentiment]

I don’t think we’re an uncomplicatedly good force in Deltarune’s universe, or here to help in an un-fraught way. I also don’t think we’re an unconscionable invader who seized Kris’s life by force without recourse.

After all, Kris has taken steps to obscure themself from our perspective. The objects that go into making a Dark World reveal the character of those they interact with; Kris cleared out their room prior to canon and so Ralsei’s ideal room for them is mostly half-baked guesses and imitations of Asriel, with a few personal touches like the moss and manual trash can. No scary pranks; no occultism. They’ve got a cage for us, too, and Ch. 2 closes with a premeditated plan for another Dark World — yet they never tell anyone we’re here!

At the risk of wild, unfounded speculation — I think the Dark Worlds are a kind of bait. Someone (sometimes Kris) opens them; lured by the prospect of adventure and valuable moral lessons, we venture in and close them. Notably, we appear to absorb or enter each Fountain to seal it, and the party levels after each one. If you’re like me, Kris’s deliberately-obscured nature and motives are a prime motivator here, too, and they certainly do their best to drip-feed that out. And, well, they do put us back after extracting us.

What if we’re being baited around to conduct some kind of ritual, or bring the Roaring? Needing something that can seal the Fountains would be a perfectly good reason to summon and bind a demon, after all.

[lily2929]

This is a very interesting view at the empty side of Kris room

At first many thought that toriel isn't interested in Kris as much as asriel but Toby said on the stream that in this game your family loves you so it can't be that and besides it is ooc of toriel to not care about one of her children ( I swear it is real I just for some reason can't find it right now)

Another possibility is that they are depressed or unmotivated but that doesn't explain why their side of the room is empty since we know they have lots of interests (occult,gaming and knifes)So them removing everything from their room so they can obscure themselves is very refreshing view at it

Which reminds me about the weird mystery around kris's knife

The knife is not present in the inventory nor in the weapon but yet Kris somehow pulls the knife out of nowhere in both ch1&ch2

But if they are always carrying the knife wouldn't the knife have turned into a Darkener?But things like Noelle's watch didn't become a Darkener which make me wonder when an object becomes a sentinet Darkener

So the must plausible scenario(so far) is that they have hidden it in the bed somehow and used it at the end of chapter 1

But in ch2

We now know from toriel that Kris has a personal knife and they left it in the tin but despite us following Kris all the time they rip our soul and use their knife to cut toriel's tires AND create a fountain

My best guess is that they somehow picked up the knife after ripping their soul in the bathroom

But with all of those observations the more I think about it the more it seems that Kris is preventing us from using their knife Also about Kris may need us for sealing the fountain it reminds me of a segment from the oblivion theory (link:https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1_yogsDNce60OC8gyfSF8KHCy9bD6atWoXvXi_OgztxY/mobilebasic)

[reverssentiment]

I don’t think we’re an uncomplicatedly good force in Deltarune’s universe, or here to help in an un-fraught way. I also don’t think we’re an unconscionable invader who seized Kris’s life by force without recourse.

After all, Kris has taken steps to obscure themself from our perspective. The objects that go into making a Dark World reveal the character of those they interact with; Kris cleared out their room prior to canon and so Ralsei’s ideal room for them is mostly half-baked guesses and imitations of Asriel, with a few personal touches like the moss and manual trash can. No scary pranks; no occultism. They’ve got a cage for us, too, and Ch. 2 closes with a premeditated plan for another Dark World — yet they never tell anyone we’re here!

At the risk of wild, unfounded speculation — I think the Dark Worlds are a kind of bait. Someone (sometimes Kris) opens them; lured by the prospect of adventure and valuable moral lessons, we venture in and close them. Notably, we appear to absorb or enter each Fountain to seal it, and the party levels after each one. If you’re like me, Kris’s deliberately-obscured nature and motives are a prime motivator here, too, and they certainly do their best to drip-feed that out. And, well, they do put us back after extracting us.

What if we’re being baited around to conduct some kind of ritual, or bring the Roaring? Needing something that can seal the Fountains would be a perfectly good reason to summon and bind a demon, after all.

[syrisun]

my lover is a day I cant forget [snowgrave]

[halfmoonstruck]

see no evil

[lily2929]

The poem from the newsletter..

[linktoo-doodles]

to be so sure, yet unsure about someone you know

[goomyloid]

it's not really you

it never was!

[gorryb]

RED or BLUE

[mo-nee-ta]

The mother in the Red Rose Mansion, the mother in the Les Violettes Pension. 

Lolita isn’t the only novel written by Nabokov whose presence I can feel in Monster. Recently, I reread The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Nabokov’s first novel written in English, and discovered that it’s a big playground of connections.

Sebastian Knight is a famous fictional writer who died, aged 36, of a fictional heart disease called Lehmann’s disease. V., his younger half-brother, attempts to understand all the nuances of his enigmatic life and write his biography.

Sebastian is depicted through fragmented memories, a narrative technique that finds its echo in Monster. In this note, I want to focus on Johan Liebert, whose image is also shaped by other’s recollections.

Sebastian and Johan share many similarities; both are of double parentage (English and Russian for Sebastian, Czech and German for Johan), both were abandoned by their mothers—under tragic circumstances—when they were little boys, both travel constantly searching for their identity, and both remain enigmas to those seeking them (V. for Sebastian, Nina and Tenma for Johan). 

Both embark on a search for traces of their mothers as young men: Johan in the Red Rose Mansion in Czechia, Sebastian in Les Violettes in France. 

Sebastian describes the quest in one of his novels with great detail:

One day I went for a long walk and found a place called Roquebrune. It was at Roquebrune that my mother had died thirteen years before. I well remember the day my father told me of her death and the name of the pension where it occurred. The name was ‘Les Violettes.’ (...) I sat down on a blue bench under a great eucalyptus, its bark half stripped away, as seems to be always the case with this sort of tree. Then I tried to see the pink house and the tree and the whole complexion of the place as my mother had seen it. I regretted not knowing the exact window of her room. (...) Gradually I worked myself into such a state that for a moment the pink and green seemed to shimmer and oat as if seen through a veil of mist. My mother, a dim slight gure in a large hat, went slowly up the steps which seemed to dissolve into water.

The hat is a crucial element, carrying great emotional depth. Virginia wore one when Sebastian saw her for the last time, a year before her death. 

V. presents the meeting as follows:

She arrived by the Nord Express on a winter day, without the slightest warning, and sent a curt note asking to see her son. My father was away in the country on a bear-hunt; so my mother quietly took Sebastian to the Hotel d’Europe where Virginia had put up for a single afternoon. There, in the hall, she saw her husband’s first wife, a slim, slightly angular woman, with a small quivering face under a huge black hat. She had raised her veil above her lips to kiss the boy, and no sooner had she touched him than she burst into tears, as if Sebastian’s warm tender temple was the very source and satiety of her sorrow.

Later, Sebastian finds out that his mother died in the other Roquebrune, which only emphasizes the fictional nature of this encounter:

Some months later in London I happened to meet a cousin of hers. A turn of the conversation led me to mention that I had visited the place where she had died. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘but it was the other Roquebrune, the one in the Var.

In Monster, Johan’s encounter with his mother’s image follows a similar pattern: he sees the painting in a place that was supposed to be the place of her death (I’m talking here about the cover-up discussed in Another Monster), but is not; the real Věra is in Southern France (yes, both Roquebrunes are also in Southern France, what a coincidence!).

The figure in the painting is, like Sebastian’s imagination of Virginia, only a ghost. A tragic reminder that, just as Sebastian could never fully trace his mother, Johan will also never find her by following the clues.

Both Sebastian and Johan see their mothers as inseparable parts of themselves. Sebastian uses his mother’s last name as his pen name, has her restlessness, and even dies of the same heart disease.

She was an inveterate traveller, always on the move and alike at home in any small pension or expensive hotel, home only meaning to her the comfort of constant change; from her, Sebastian inherited that strange, almost romantic, passion for sleeping-cars and Great European Express Trains.

*

I suddenly realised that my name conveyed nothing to him. Sebastian had made his mother’s name his own very completely

Johan says: She is me, and I am her. You are me, and I am you.

These words remind me of V.’s last words in the novel:

Sebastian’s mask clings to my face, the likeness will not be washed off. I am Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we both are someone whom neither of us knows.

Easter egg time! There’s a wink to Shakespeare’s Hamlet: 

Third story: Sebastian speaking of his very first novel (unpublished and destroyed) explained that it was about a fat young student who travels home to find his mother married to his uncle; this uncle, an ear-specialist, had murdered the student’s father.

You know what this reminds me of, right? 

[sratatata666]

man i re-fell in love with this novel 😭 tragic half-brothers ftw