yeah

People say that she's flawed, but I dont see any flaw that's like, comparable to every other parent in the game. Her flaws are just that she's a normal divorced woman which isn't one to me. I guess her flaw is that she tries to move away from the past to not be hurt by it (at the opposite of Carol), 'cause she doesn’t seem to think Kris and Noelle were really friends? But even that's debatable, because you could argue that she's doing for Kris (aka the traumatized child that should not be thinking of the Holidays right now).

Idk, I guess Chapter 6 could highlight her psyche a little more (not trying to bring her down btw, I love Tori, I'm just giving my thoughts on how her character's been treated thus far)

every time i think "i need this undertale character to be expounded upon more/show up more" in deltarune, i think about how not many lightners from undertale are heavily highlighted like that. even chapter 5 featuring asgore, he comes to his conclusions on his own the second he sees kris hurt, and the scene itself is pretty short. (and where da hell was alphys) i did really love showing his behavior around the family/how he views them via the flowers tho... i'm open to being pleasantly surprised to see her do or say more, i'm just not counting on it

Like, everyone is agreeing that what Kris (and the anti-fun gang, so Carol probably and the Knight) isn't good, but at the same time everybody in the fandom wants Dess to be found.

And since I don't think anybody likes Deus ex machina, nor do I think Susie will be able to fix everything about that specific problem, I can't picture in my head any other solution that what they got going on. That or no Dess (and for Carol that's inacceptable)

i don't think it's pessimistic, it's not out of the question to say deltarune will have a bittersweet ending. i can only think about mother 3 when it comes to the end of dess! i know there's other influences but also man... masked man if you will... but then you think about gerson talking about stories being re interpreted, who knows what will happen.

-How specific is Dess' predicament for her mother to think that throwing everybody under the bus is the only way (By that I mean Kris, Asgore, Undyne, etc...)? I think it is the only way, since this game is much less "naive" in terms of positivity than Undertale imo (and even Asriel couldn't be saved in that game).

Like, I doubt she cares about Undyne (that "random" woman is less important than her daughter in her eyes), and for what we saw in Chapter 5, Asgore mainly cares about finding the culprit and proving his innocence, rather than helping Dess, so she wouldn't really think twice. But what about Kris? Would she go that far? To someone she saw grow up? Or are we just wrong and Kris also gets saved in the end? (Yes I'm coping)

-And also she probably thinks (again, thinks) that she's alone in this. That Rudy would rather focus on Noelle who's still here while Dess is missing and maybe in danger, that Toriel would rather forget everything and pretend it never happened, that Asgore is only focused on himself. Basically, aside from Kris, she feels everyone is trying to forget Dess to move on (especially after Susie came in), but Kris can't forget what happened, and so she asked them to help, and is manipulating them without even wanting/trying to (probably) instead of helping them because she's so focused she can't see what's happening around her, and because she doesn’t want to heal, she wants to find her daughter and bring her home. Because that's what she has to do as a mother.

Sorry for this very, too long rambling btw! (I love grieving parents they are so interesting. Also I want to see Toriel and Carol argue, with Carol saying Toriel can't understand while Toriel replies some deep stuff about hurt and healing not being a coward's feeling)

i'm coping too lol i want everyone to be okay and alive even with undertale's bittersweet ending but who knows. i don't think dess will ever be the same again that's one thing i'm certain of

i have to think it's an "end justifies the means" situation. she still does care about the dreemurrs i feel, her urging asgore to just sell his flowers instead of giving them away makes me think that, as she clearly can easily financially support him, it's a behavior of asgore's that's overcompensating for his own guilt over dess, that isn't even helping anyone. just punishing himself more for the sake of being sorry. ofc also, their family's history. so many family albums and childhood memories... and still, asgore's kidnapping/whatever the fuck police sacrifice means is alarming like woah (fwiw i don't believe carol was that phone call but if she's doing shelter shit then it's not impossible that she knows, undyne's also been around the shelter lately). so clearly dess's return & safety is worth more than these people she raised her kids alongside, and their kid too

re: helping via manipulating kris, another person who's wracked with guilt, i agree sm. if dess is found, all this pain will have a point in carol's eyes. but the collateral damage of how far everyone's going to solve this problem is stacking up to be too high. kris is doing all this with the air of someone who isn't going to stick around (the seeds) which. god idk this better be a misdirect or i'm missing something but they're clearly so distressed with how far all of this is going.

it does hurt </3 esp. with how already strained their relationship is currently, where toriel doesn't even want to refer to carol by name, i still think that's crazy. crazy interesting... okay this got long so i stuck it under a cut