Cats, hands, protein and glass: there's a limit to the things you can to today
i normally can't be bothered weighing in on image friend stuff because I've always found most conversation about them to be pretty annoying and making way too many leaps, but with the new stuff heavily implying they're some kind of pack/mob enemy like I've been assuming since chapter 3 anyway i think i wanna share my current thoughts:
after talking it through recently with @bigshotsodas I'm starting to feel pretty heavily like the 'friend' cats might not be specifically tied to the main story at all, but rather a side effect of trying to do everything possible all at once in the game, and be more connected to the ides of completionism/seeing everything a game has to offer. i think this exact same thing may also be happening with the whole 'kris losing a hand' speculation, too.
all but one time depictions of the assets known as IMAGE_FRIEND and sometimes DEVICE_ FRIEND show up are things that can be easily missed if you're just playing casually and not seeking out everything, and the one time that's mandatory (chapter 3 darker than dark scene) can easily be written off by casual players as a representation of creepy things in the dark i think (and even nicely ties in with going further than you're meant to imo if you're a bit deeper in this - what if it could get even darker? what if you could find even more? do even more? and what would happen if you did?)
let's look at all the times they show up excluding this now, as well as a few other non-friend things that may be relevant.
(ofc all my speculation here could be wrong too, but i wanna throw a new angle into the ring and i hope at least some of you will find it interesting!)
this is probably gonna get long so I'm putting it under a readmore:
Where do the friend cats appear?
the first encounter you have with imagery of these cats is in chapter 2 by the teacup guarding the barrier switch that stops you getting to the neo body - already tying it to a secret and obtaining a shadow crystal - but just going to the teacups isn't enough. you have to backtrack to the exit of the room, then once the exit vanishes you have to hurry back to where the teacup will appear, catching a glimpse of a cat smile just before the teacup rises. Very specific.
next are the sweepstakes appearances, which i guess I'll quickly discuss just so all my bases are covered (though unused ones like the chapter 2 rollercoaster one are too much of a push to talk about i think). you see the eyes by rapidly clicking the chair with a chance to every time - again, a secret that you'd only find by hearing about it from someone else, rapidly clicking just to see if something happens, or in this case, lucky rng. it's a very similar scenario in rarecats AND the chapter 4 appearance in the battat minigame.
chapter 3's appearances are part of the sword route specifically which is VERY interesting to me - you have to either s-rank both boards (or at least just board 1 for the first appearance) or locate the pippins that can give you a fake s and have enough points to buy it - something many people will miss out on in a first playthrough. the first cat encounter requires you to reach max level in the first sword route board and return to the desert area, then instead of immediately breaking out into the mystery zone, follow the path back up to towards the top and cut yourself a path to the pyramids to the left and right and then... wait. this one is INSANELY obscure. the second is less so ofc - being that you just need to get to the mantle fight - but again, this is something very easily missed in a first playthrough and is fully optional (there's another couple things i wanna say about it, but I'll talk about that later).
chapter 4 has a couple of appearances - one of which I'd totally forgotten was even a thing until i checked the wiki to verify my claims for this post! a friend cat can be seen in the dark room that contains a waferguard, hiding behind a wall and vanishing as soon as it's seen, and can ONLY be seen when soundwaves are triggered as it's fully coloured black and blends in with the darkness. this is INSANELY obscure. its appearance in the battat minigame also requires getting a cat to at least level 40 before letting it collide with a meteor and even then, it's only a chance, with that chance increasing the higher level it is. look i love that stupid green die but that's a LOT of time and effort to be putting into that game, you'd have to be playing it pretty hardcore to get that.
chapter 5's is yet again, insanely obscure, and also results in the opportunity to get the first genuine mention of it discussed in the game courtesy of pink, but the conditions for that are even MORE obscure, so congrats to everyone getting it first try. I'm just gonna let the wiki explain how to get this cat because d a m n.
In the platforming vines section preceding the Cliffs, climbing the vines to the top and jumping to the right activates a transition into the room on the right. If ACT is selected as soon as the room is entered, the SOUL can be dragged to a spot near the top right to interact with a red diamond-shaped indicator. Unlike other ACTs, there is no listed description for this interaction. Doing so causes a red FRIEND image to appear,
- deltarune wiki, chapter 5 section of friend page
once again, very obscure, and in order to get pink's dialogue about it, you have to do the following:
encounter friend this way
beat the secret boss, obtaining the shadow crystal for this chapter
get the egg for this chapter
this is where i think it gets interesting - the egg as well? come to think of it, there's a good few appearences/references to these cats while on the path to get shadow crystals, huh...
Completionism and Kris' hand
Let's look at pink's body's new dialogue for a sec (image has alt text)
from this we can conclude a few things: FRIEND is not a singular character and seems to be a representation of a BUNCH of smaller creatures, all owned by somebody, though i won't be speculating on who their handler is here. getting the eggs may POSSIBLY increase the danger of being caught by these cats, AND, possibly most interestingly, we see the return of the running theme we've been getting of. kris maybe losing their hand.
...I think there's a LOT more than just friend to discuss here. it's time to talk about kris' hand again.
there's been a lot of talk since chapter 3 of the idea that we're seeing foreshadowing for kris losing a hand. this may or may not culminate in something, but the pink dialogue finally made something click for me: all of the references to THIS are just as obscure as the cats.
Chapter 1*:
Using the glass (light world shadowcrystal) causes the following flavour text:
You looked through the glass. For some strange reason, for just a brief moment... You thought you saw through your hand.'
* the wiki lists this dialogue as default, so i assume it can show up in other scenarios too, when the conditions for other dialogue in the other chapters aren't met. you can also see it using the crystal in chapter 2 when Susie isn't with you.
once again, a secret tied to getting shadow crystals.
Chapter 3
1225 gumball machine secret ('You couldn't find your hand')
Susie dialogue against the knight ('As long as Kris has got a hand to lift me up with...')
both of these are again, things you're unlikely to get on your first run - the 1225 secret requiring you to enter a very specific amount of points into the gumball machine (and the fact that the room it takes you into also defies boundaries is also very interesting). it's also worth noting that with one of the later 3-4 patches, doing the 1225 secret also allows you access to the tripticket required to get the egg if you've already completed the sword route and can no longer use the consoles. the susie dialogue is reliant on getting far enough in the knight fight - either through very skilled mantle-less gameplay, or by doing the sword route to get the mantle - and chances are you're after the shadowcrystal at this point.
chapter 4
suselle dialogue - the severed hand
kris biting their hand in the weird route
This first one is interesting because it's less out of the way than the others, and some of the dialogue to do with this is mandatory (on main route ofc) - though you do still need to listen to and read their dialogue while in the basement to get context for it - though i think it's also possible the hand here is more of an allegory/foreshadowing for something completely different - possibly more towards kris and the soul? not gonna get into it here but it's interesting.
the weird route one requires both being on the weird route AND selecting 'I'll never play again' when prompted, once again being out of the way.
Finally... Chapter 5. Don't need to really re-hash this one since we discussed the pink dialogue already, but it DOES seem to tie two ideas together: the cats and danger to Kris' hand.
So let's summarise.
The majority of scenarios for allusions to both of these are hidden out of the way and obscure
Both of them seem to have at least SOME ties to shadow crystals at different points, and arguably getting the eggs too
the new pink dialogue seems to also tie both concepts together while requiring the shadow crystal and egg for chapter 5 at the very least
Pink warns that carrying around protein (the eggs, presumably, as you have to have one to get this dialogue) is a risk and that it must be kept hidden at all times. this isn't the first time we've had a hint that getting the eggs might... be an issue.
Trying to do TOO much..?
... The playstation achievements do this too, with the chapter completion achievements not being granted if you obtain the egg, implying the egg is the 'issue' here. the mantle holder (who utilises friendcats) calls out you looking for the shadow crystals, which are required for plenty of these secrets, and your shadow crystals are tracked on the main menu and stay even when you delete your saves unless you fully wipe your files...
I feel like... Maybe there's something looming up ahead of us to do with completionism, and trying too hard to see everything all at once? Maybe getting all the eggs and shadow crystals (and maybe other conditions we aren't yet aware of) all at once is gonna lead to something specific on the side, and THIS is where the cats and their handler come into things. maybe it'll lead into some exclusive scene and/or encounter with them towards the end of the game if you've pushed the boundary of doing everything you can? a reward, a warning, a boss fight, a punishment? maybe whoever has the cats will step in if you do too much strive too hard for completion. maybe the friend cats and their handler aren't a core plot point (and having every single piece of info on them be hidden away would make having them be plot relevant, especially as a major antagonist, be... Very anticlimactic and strange for the average player who isn't entrenched in secrets and lore i think), but always remaining a secret to be found if you meet very specific, very special requirements. maybe this will tie in to a commentary on completionism and how it can often ruin the experience when trying to play games for fun (hell, trying to set up 'perfect' saves each chapter is stressful and annoying, and i definitely regret some of my choices in my last batch before 5 released). maybe THIS is where kris risks losing a hand.
There's already some parts of the game where completing more locks you out of certain things - even if you beat the knight without equipping the shadow mantle, you won't get the dialogue from seam acknowledging your achievement if you completed the sword route and got it in the first place, even without using it. getting starwalker locks you out of the full and significantly better dress ralsei scene at the start of chapter 5 as well as a few other fun scene variations, so why not go all out and do something like this? you don't need to do everything all at once, after all. in the words of clamgirl from undertale, there's a limit to the things you can do today. accepting that is healthy.
i wanna add on bc I've seen some really good and thoughtful tags on this post that it'd be a crime to not acknowledge: i do really like the idea that this approach wouldn't have to end in a cynical, miserable way and could still be spun into something hopeful (especially wanna highlight these tags from prev):
we really DO do so much to help out and befriend the shadowbosses, huh. it'd be nice if we could help out whoever supposedly owns these cats in some way, too. maybe they do have punishing intentions or see our efforts as something that needs to be stopped, but maybe we can do something to help them see a better way, to leave their world a little nicer, too. and maybe we get a bit too ambitious in what we try to do and maybe that gets us hurt, but we touched so many lives along the way, made so many lovely friends... we nor kris don't have to do this alone, maybe the friends they made along the way will be here to help, just as our recruits per chapter usually do. just like how toby was able to get together a team and have so many people willing to help once his wrist issues began. could be nice.
I've often heard it said that Susie's feelings for Noelle have advanced to an almost-jarring degree in comparison to where she was in prior chapters, and that if they'd been given just a little bit more time to cook, it would have come across much more naturally to us as players. And, when initially playing through the chapter for myself, I agreed with this assessment at first. It did seem very quick and sudden from my perspective, and I wondered if the game had done enough to "earn" this moment.
But I've thought about it some more, and I've come to realise there's more going on here than we're being shown - indeed, considering the way that Deltarune only permits us to witness certain moments within its narrative while skipping over others, and how our limited perspective is itself tied to Kris, it becomes obvious in retrospect that there have been key moments in the development of Susie's feelings to which we have simply not been privy. For instance, all we see of her in Castle Town is her getting ready for her big date, but we haven't seen the preperation leading up to that moment. We haven't seen her and Ralsei discussing it, as doubtless they did while Kris wasn't there. For all we know, they could have spent the entire night hyping Susie up for this date, and we simply wouldn't be any the wiser.
And yet, even this isn't the full story, because once again our perspective is tied to Kris's, and so in a sense we see what they see. And so, after spending the full day at the festival with Susie and Noelle, and then falling asleep on the bench next to them while they talked for HOURS - hours we did not get to witness, mind you - we are seeing not just what the game only permits us to see, but also we're seeing this development the way that Kris themself is seeing it - as a bewildering escalation of Susie's feelings towards Noelle that have seemingly come out of nowhere, and are now threatening to sweep her entirely out of their reach. We are witnessing Suselle as this all-encompassing event that's seeping into every single aspect of their time in the dark world - see how Susie won't flirt with enemies if instructed to (ignore Pink), and that she'll suddenly wear ribbons after spending four entire chapters refusing to, and how she's constantly being called away in the service of deepening her devotion to Noelle.
And if we witness all of this, coming from the emotional gut-punch that was Chapter 4's conclusion, and feel slightly knocked off-balance by how rapidly this relationship has blossomed... well, wouldn't you say that perhaps we are being invited to consider this development through the eyes of somebody who may well not have wanted it to progress so quickly, so suddenly, so violently? Are we not being invited to perceive this through the eyes of somebody who, despite everything, still isn't quite ready to let go of their friends, and fears above all else being left behind and forgotten about?
If that's how some players are seeing Suselle's development in Chapter 5, then perhaps it's only because it's how Kris sees it, too. And honestly, I feel that's a really clever and subtle narrative device that really enhances my own appreciation of both Suselle and of Kris's own inner turmoil. Well played, Deltarune, well played.
oml I was THINKING a few days ago about how, if the concepts of Deltarune are so old (older than UT, at least), then it’s probable that Flowery came before Flowey, but at the same time how I wasn’t sure I could live with myself if Flowey truly didn’t come first. I can rest easy now…
Magnanimity by Rabbitology for the knight from Hollow Knight (embrace the void ending)
Does it fit?
Yes
Lyrics, but not vibes
Vibes, but not lyrics
No
Voting ended onJul 25
Can you hear her calling?
My old body that you buried
With the mud and the timber
Tried to snuff the rabid light within her
She wants to wash you from me
This new body that you rattled
Till it was quiet, dry-eyed and mature
Despite your shouts making me so little
She knows that I'm tired
Of turning teary cheeks
You say it's best to forgive
Let go, maintain the peace
But I writhe in my grave
And you've never lost sleep
Begging the moon to have you leave me be
Or give me a
Spine stretching taller than pines
Fingers as long as the space between stars
Tongue rough as bloodsucking tides
Teeth that can grind down entire mountainsides
And all that's been coming for you
(Ooh)
(Every spit, every seethe, let them wash over me)
(Every sob held in, let it glow 'gainst my ribs)
(Every holler I swallowed, every pain left un-wallowed)
(Every cheek turned, tearstained, wax this new skin again)
Her resting grounds are a dark lake
In a little girl's shape
Murky waters churning black
Every sob, all the snot, every tear held back
My ribs crack in half from one small sip
So I leap into it
By the time I raise from my bathing
I send great waves a-breakin' with my
Spine stretching taller than pines
Fingers as long as the space between stars
Tongue rough as bloodsucking tides
Teeth that can grind down entire mountainsides
And I'll cry for forty nights and days
My lake of tears will flood you drowned
(Eyes glowing wilder than night)
When I splay my shoulder blades like tectonic plates
I'll quake the ground
(Footprints blazing down like meteorites)
Shining over horizons
My eye's a flame that never snuffs out
(Blood spilling rivers of wine)
(Heart beating louder than lightning strikes)
And I'll howl so loud I'll thunder the clouds
Say, "Who's the bigger man now?"
Who's the bigger man now?
Who's the bigger man now?
Who's the bigger man now?
(Who's the big man now?)
If all you old men were hares on the mountain
How many young girls would take guns and go huntin'?
If all you old men were hares on the mountain
How many young girls would take guns and go huntin'?
I'll wolf down suns in one whole swallow
So you'll freeze beneath my shoulder's shadow
As cold as my old body you choked
As above, so below
Mercy is not a word that I know
Shed none for me all those moons ago
How dare you beg for maturity
When you have thirty-one years on me
(Every spit, every seethe, let them wash over me)
(Every sob I held in, let it glow 'gainst my ribs)
(Every holler I swallowed, every pain left un-wallowed)
(Every cheek turned, tearstained, wax this new skin again)
(Let my veins shake with weight of a little girl's anger)
(As she wraps shaking arms 'round the waist of her eater)
(Let these lungs rattle dread, every strung curse unsaid)
(I'll never exhale it all, it never ends)
Spine stretching taller than pines
Fingers as long as the space between stars
Tongue rough as bloodsucking tides
Teeth that can grind down entire mountainsides
And I glow with an eternal rage
My bellowing lungs will smoke you out
(Eyes glowing wilder than night)
My middle finger digs your grave
While the other hand will hunt you down
(Footprints blazing down like meteorites)
Bones dangling from the mouth
On a head that hangs beneath a blackthorn crown
(Blood spilling rivers of wine)
Her little laugh behind every shout
Beg, "Who's the bigger man now?"
(Heart beating louder than lightning strikes)
Who's the bigger man now?
Who's the bigger man now?
Who's the bigger man now?
I think one lore thing I’d like to learn but probably won’t in the final chapters of Deltarune is the history of the Dark World—as in, like, was there a first person to ever make a fountain (debatable; it isn’t exactly intuitive to stab the ground with a sharp object while thinking “boy it would be cool if I could suck all the light, even the light that wasn’t there, out of this enclosed space, until I reached another side of reality”), or did one just always exist? Was it Castle Town? If so, what’s its history? What did it look like in its early days? What kind of Darkners lived there, and where did they go? How did it end up in a school supply closet? I can only assume that whoever built the school knew about it, but who were they? If it wasn’t Castle Town, what was it, and how did Castle Town come to be? Who were the first people to know about the Dark World, and how did they react? How common is/was the knowledge of Dark Worlds across the world (there are a lot of sub-questions you can fit in this one that I’m just gonna leave it here, but know that I have more)? Or, maybe they’re a more recent thing (“more recent” being “they came in after the invention of society”)? If so, what’s up with that?? I have SO MANY questions!
this is gonna sound corny but bear with me, i hope toby fox makes it so whatever evil we’re preparing for in the last chapter all the recruits we make all pitch in to help us, because it think that would make me bawl my eyes out. like even the smallest nod to each enemy yk. “you hear all of castle town cheering you on” you wouldn’t hear from me for DAYS. ugly sobbing. i love castle town bro.
