Deltarune’s final tragedy is an incredibly inscrutable piece of the story at the moment, obviously intentionally so, although kenomacreature has done a good job listing things we can guarantee are true about it, like that it’s incredibly bad, it’s absurd, it’s immediately understandable to a reader, etc, etc. None of this tells us two fairly important things about it though, what it is obviously, but also when it happens.
This seems like it has a pretty basic answer though, "Obviously the last tragedy happens in Chapter 7, at the end of the story.", is probably your first thought upon reading that.
But that's... not really true isn't it, the Final Prophecy is the conclusion to whatever part of the story is about the Roaring. The tragedy must occur during the Roaring.
As an extension you might argue Chapter 7 is the Roaring, but again, is it really?
The book that was never written, the 7th one, was written after the story became so grand, so overwhelming that it swallowed the author whole. The face-value interpretation of this text is that Toby is utilizing Gerson's tangent about the story becoming too grand and overwhelming to obscure what Lord of the Hammer's 6th book was about, but if you do think about it, is it not possible, no, incredibly likely that the story becoming grand and overwhelming is a primary aspect of that 6th book?
Imagine for a moment you have a book series, where each book is a new sorta self-contained story where heroes go on adventures in a new land. Alongside these adventures are a running throughline of a background conflict that comes closer and closer to the forefront as the story goes on, coming to a head in the climax. When that climax happens and the stakes go from small-scale contained adventures to one that puts the entire world in jeopardy would one not describe that as the story becoming grander? Overwhelming even?
Is this not what Deltarune is? Small-scale sorta self-contained adventures in new Dark Worlds with a continuous running throughline of a background conflict that grows with each chapter, the Roaring, and how does Ralsei describe the Roaring?
When the LIGHT is subsumed by SHADOW
When the FOUNTAINS fill the sky
All will fall into CHAOS.
The TITANS will take form from the FOUNTAINS
And envelop the land in devastation.
The surviving Darkners, crushed by the darkness
Will slowly, one by one, turn into statues…
Leaving the Lightners to fend for themselves
Lost eternally in an endless night…
Is that your idea of paradise?
Not even getting into any of the "Ark" imagery Deltarune has started to use just look at what Ralsei says: "subsumed", "fill the sky", "enveloped", "crushed", "endless night", this is not just any type of apocalypse, these are specifically motifs evocative of a flood. Pressure that crushes, an endless night created by fountains filling the sky with darkness that Deltarune constantly compares to water:
"A sharp shadow moves like water in the hand." - Shadow Crystal
"Shadows slip off like water." - Shadow Mantle
The Roaring is a Flood, a grand flood that threatens to swallow the entire world whole. The stakes will go from small-scale fountain sealing to saving the worlds when it happens. The story will become grand, overwhelming even to its heroes. Funnily enough, Gerson also specifically mentions a flood is coming to wash over fate's story:
"Miss, hold on dearly to that though."
"For the tides of fate are drawing close."
"And soon, an ocean of ink shall wash through the pages."
By all accounts, the Roaring is soon, it's approaching, it's an ocean that shall wash over and consume everything, swallowing even its author whole. With Deltarune's structure we can assume the Roaring must take place over at least an entire chapter so we can further extrapolate that the Roaring will be the cliffhanger at the end of Chapter 5, the climax's beginning.
To be clear, there's an obvious issue here to talk about:
Why can't The Roaring just take place over two chapters?
It's a fair question really, there's no narrative reason to believe otherwise other than what I would consider stupid semantic arguments about something like how each chapter only has one major dark world and the Roaring being a big dark world means it's going to get one chapter etc etc- none of that really matters. I have to ask you a more simple question:
Was Lord of the Hammer actually unfinished?
No but like, genuinely, was it really unfinished? Did the tragedy never occur within it? Did Gerson not finish his work of making a story based on the prophecy? Does Gerson expect the burden of completion to be on the youth?
Gerson himself certainly doesn't seem to think that. Gerson talks about that next book never being written not from a place of sorrow over his magnum opus not being completed. No, he's sad that the youth never picked up the pen he left for them.
The "next page" isn't how you'd describe wanting the youth to "finish what you started", it's... the next page. The next stage of life. A new story. The next page is what comes after the ending!
No one else really seems to imply otherwise as well. You'd think something as monumental as Lord of the Hammer's original story arc being unfinished would be mentioned by anyone, ever. But it's not. It's about Gerson's legacy, about how Alvin is terrified of tarnishing it.
* Thank you, Kris. Ha ha. Although I did see that it put you to sleep.
* I know. I do not exactly have a "flair" for entertainment.
* That's why I don't write my own sermons. Or... anything, anymore.
* I don't think my father could rest well knowing I was... tarnishing his legacy.
The idea of tarnishing his legacy is weird right, I'm not implying there is zero ambiguity in whether the way people talk about Gerson's legacy is referring to an unfinished book series, but like, does it being unfinished really make sense? How many in-universe games in Deltarune are iterative of Lord of the Hammer like it's finished? Is Dragon Blazers really based on a book series that never even finished?
Would Gerson really be handing off an unfinished story to the next generation? He was just pseudo-adapting the prophecy after all, why would he want to just hand that off to the next generation, it seems against his whole philosophy that the burden of finishing the story's rendition of the prophecy would be intentionally left to the kids to decide. It's certainly not what he wants Alvin to do:
* Your old man was proud of you.
* The reason he didnt come to church alot
* is beacause he wanted you to follow your dream.
* Hes sorry he never said that right.
* So write your own story's.
* Its okay if even if there not perfect.
No, I think it's quite obvious when Gerson refers to "next pages" and "own story's" he's referring to what comes after that tragedy, after the path of predetermination ends. When the flood of ink washes over the pages and gives the characters the freedom to draw what they want on top of it.
Chapter 7 of Deltarune is about the Aftermath of the Tragedy.
I believe Deltarune ending with any esoteric black screen where you imagine what comes next is, to be perfectly blunt, Hogwash. The value of Susie and Kris having that white pen of hope to write what comes next after the sea of ink washes over is lessened if we don't see it anyway. Up to my interpretation? I thought Deltarune was supposed to be up to their interpretations, imposing my interpretation of these character's stories is what the Weird Route seems to be going for, not the main route that asks us to engage with them on their level.
What is even meant to be said about a story that just ends with an unavoidable tragedy and a black screen that says "now imagine how they live with that". Is that not how every story ends? Even ones that avert a prophecy just end that way. Is Dreemur Reborn not simply imagining the happiest possible future for Asriel after the ending of Undertale? Does Mother 1 and 2s' happy endings not just ask you to imagine what the rest of Ness and Ninten's lives are like when it ends?
If Deltarune ends with a black screen that basically says "now imagine how Kris and Susie pick themselves back up after that failure!" it has failed at showing me the value of their ideals. It's not even what Undertale did, as True Pacifist's ending showed snippets of the aftermath of the barrier's being broken while still allowing room for you to interpret what's in between.
Would a wonderful elaboration on this idea not be integrating that aftermath into the story to be experienced on a level equal to that of the rest of the story? I mean after all, what has Toby always said about Deltarune's ending?
"There's something more important than reaching the end."
Obviously this is commonly read by people as referring to the memories and choices you make alongside the journey being what matters... But is that really all there is to it? Is it not just as, if not more important than the choices you make along the way, to see what comes after? What you do after fate inexplicably socks you in the jaw with tragedy and strife? How do you recover from it? Gerson certainly believes that Susie's naive idealism is important to that.
Failure to avert the Tragedy is all but guaranteed at this point, the prophecy panes always reappear and every single pane has been fulfilled up to this point, so why would Gerson tell Susie to hold fast to her ideals if nothing can be changed? Obviously because the person who held steadfast to their ideals instead of bending the knee to fate is the kind of person who Susie should be when the tragedy occurs. The person who will try to fix things when it goes wrong.
At every moment Susie's assumptions about the world have been proven wrong, but she presses forward with her ideals unshaken in spite of that, and the world is improved because of it. Does someone who bends the knee to leaving fate as it is repair Tenna? No, they simply accept the Lord of Screens was cleaved and leave him broken. The aftermath is what matters, the person who sticks to their idealism, their kindness, and working for a better future in spite of sometimes stumbling and failing to achieve it at times is the kind of person Deltarune says their heroes should be.
And that's why Deltarune's tragedy will occur in Chapter 6, with Chapter 7 showing the kids picking up the pieces left after the flood of ink, the Roaring, washes fate and prophecy away. Chapter 7 will be the aftermath because that's the next page that Gerson believes Susie will write, because showing that matters, and it's what Deltarune is leading towards by repeatedly showing characters make the best of failure in spite of how preordained that failure was.
It's been just over a year since Deltarune chapters 3 & 4 released! I did the 3D work, which mostly means Tenna 📺 I figured it's been long enough to share some "behind the scenes" stuff, starting with a look at the Maya file for his static poses...
I'd individually render the poses to get that early 3D shine ✨ Here's some of them at their original resolutions! I would work from text descriptions from Toby, and sometimes there'd be a Paint sketch to help out. Gigi drew the concept that I modeled from and some poses too!
I had a lot of fun pushing myself to match the dynamic poses Toby had in mind for Tenna - making him so crazy and expressive was something I couldn't have done without his prompts. He'd draw the faces on afterward too, which really brought Tenna to life!
(lots more after the Read More cut...!)
Here are some of the Paint sketches Toby drew to help me with specific Tenna poses! I love seeing his drawings LOL, genuinely really good and evocative 👍
There was a time when I was struggling to capture what he wanted for these specific Tenna poses… Until Toby acted them out himself, and I thought, "Ah, it's like that. I understand." and then I was able to make them just how he pictured them.
When looking through the renders and choosing what to share, I laughed at these two… Remember when Tenna had a gun? Remember when he bent over in a very specific way that might remind you of another, different image? No? Maybe you don't…? Well. Don't worry about it.
These ones are cute… Tenna is pretty cute sometimes! Has anyone ever thought this? Actually, before people knew he was going to be a strange 3D sprite the Whole Time, I was worried people wouldn't like the style and it'd sour people's views on him. I'm glad that didn't happen.
Toby thought it would be funny to have Tenna do some really smooth, mocapped animations sometimes - specifically free to use ones that often pop up in other things. An extra funny part to me is how many frames these take up in the game, and how his tails are stuck to his legs…
Speaking of mocap, Toby wanted Tenna to use custom mocap animations as far back as 2016 - Ten(na) years ago! I got an Xbox Kinect at the time and learnt how to set this up, but then never used it. Here's a look at messing with mocaped stuff again in 2022. So Normal.
Don't bother trying to help him here, he's just being dramatic 🙄
I particularly like these poses - I think I improvised most of these just based off the context they get used in… I always liked posing his tie and coat tails as if they were also parts of his body he could move. Which I guess they are?
After I rendered out the individual poses in high quality, I'd force the color palette to be limited to just a few shades and then I'd shrink the result down to pixel sized sprites. Like these! I'd tidy them up a little, but they'd really get improved on at the pixel scale by Clairvoire.
As well as Tenna's sprites, I also worked on his intro "movie"…! Seeing people be completely overloaded by this on first playthroughs would always make me laugh. In game, there's a ton of extra editing done by Everdraed, but my unedited cut looks like this ⬇️
This was the entire storyboard I had to work from, and I'm realizing now that there's the note "put him in car etc" that I never did and actually don't know what it would mean exactly. Working on this had me listen to the accompanying audio many times, but it's good so it's okay.
Here are a bunch of random clips of the Maya project for Tenna's intro movie. This is how movies get made, I think!! Yeah… Just like this.
Say it with him, folks!!
For the 3D Ralsei clip from the intro, Toby really wanted it to look a certain way, and drew more sketches for guiding me with this part than any other. They genuinely helped.
Remember how Toby's original storyboard has the note "covered in slime and shrinks"? That meant I had to learn how to make 3D slime. You can see my tech advancing here.
I'm really happy with how the final Tenna animation at the end of the intro movie turned out! It wouldn't look as good if it wasn't for some 2D animation to reference from SmallBuStudio, so thank you to them for the help! Tenna is cute… Huh, I already said that…?
Phew!! That's a lot of Tenna. I hope it was fun to look through my posts! Oh, one more thing - the Fangamer Mr. Tenna Figurine just straight up uses the 3D model I made, which I think is really funny and cool and nice. Check it out if you want! Thanks for reading!
You listen to music regularly? Why? Have you even tried quitting? Could you quit? You get music stuck in your head? Wow. You're so ruined and music brained. I bet you make your partners listen to music with you when you have sex. Music addiction has really ruined a whole generation. You know it's not realistic to expect reverb in real life, right? You're probably so desensitized that you don't even feel anything anymore when you hear a bird singing that it wants some fuck.
So to you whats the difference between realistic and grounded in terms of rpgs and fictional worlds? Ive only ever hesrd them used as synonyms
grounded: serious thought is given to how the evil wizard's army is managing the logistics of feeding a dragon, even if that doesn't come up directly on the page
realistic: dragons cant fly because of the square cube law
hello!! i am looking for some aid making it through the month once again, im a disabled trans artist who works limited part time hours due to my inability to stand for long, im doing all i can to make ends meet, but i need a little help for june with my portion of our mortgage payment as well as help with my medication expenses. im thankfully able to cover my car payment and our phone and internet expenses but our utilities and other things are going to be difficult. im trying to take on more hours at work by covering shifts when i can, but theres only so much im capable of without harming my body.
commissions will be opening again soon, but as of right now, things are looking very tight and anything would be greatly appreciated. please share, thank you for the support
I'm so tired. I have about 8,000 more words to post, 4 more topics. I'll do the rest tomorrow. I'll end with this. I am currently replaying 'Earthbound', I love it. I need to play a lot more RPGs, the only one I haven't liked is 'Pokemon'. Before replaying 'Earthbound' I played 'Mother 1' for the first time. It was great. Everyone is a fucking moron.
Yes, Video Games got better in the 90s. Yes, 80s games were more cryptic and had a higher level of BS. But I just think people are bad at Video Games. 'Zelda 2' is one of the best games, top 20. I swear, if 'Metroid' and the original 'Final Fantasy's and 'Dragon Quest's are great games, I will go on a rampage.
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