#papy rambles

On a more serious note, it's so unfair how Noelle is being treated as a "hu-hu-hu why is kris making me do this DX" victim when the only excuse she has is the ThornRing she was wearing once to freeze Berdly.

No no Noelle is TOTALLY just a psycho

Lmao

Jokes aside the best answer I can give to this is that Noelle’s facade just works too damn well

Toby Fox is, for all intents and purposes, a good writer

And in my opinion, Noelle is a Twist antagonist, she will be the Angel in the End on both Routes

What changes is the nitty-gritty of her apotheosis; whether she's brought to it by tragedy (Susie turns her down, Dad dies, homophobia (lol), or some combo of factors) or if she's brought to it by her own pursuit of power

What that means then is that Toby cannot give the game away yet

The plot is too big, too important, for the finale to be blatantly apparent before we're all butting against the coming End

A good writer then choses not to make the end explicit, but the Ending still has to make sense

It Has To Be Built On The Story As It Is.

So!

What does that mean in the case of our favorite Doe? Let's look at her Character

Firstly we have a few confirmed events pre-canon

Furtherest back (best we can tell) and most important was Dess's Disappearance: This is Noelle’s primary motivator, every action including her crush on Susie is motivated by the hole that this loss has put in Noelle

The other canon event that provides her other, secondary motivation, was Kris slowly falling away from her, in the modern day she longs for a time when things were normal between herself and Kris

With Dess as well this gives Noelle hyper-Rose-Tinted-Glasses Syndrome, where everything that represents what has been Noelle gravitates towards heavily

So in that case would be Dess, and her childhood in general, especially with Kris

So then what traits did Dess have?

She's a Rebel, or a rebelling teen at the time, she smokes weed, and, rather notable, she had a violent streak

Items in her room are dented and Kris gets a pseudo headache looking at her old wiffle bat again; and if you believe in Dess Knight (such as I do) it's clear that she has no qualms whatsoever of beating the heroes within an inch of their life (as long as the Knight is fully cognizant and morally aware, which Id say is rather likely)

Dess was a violent person to her core, or at least she used it as an outlet regularly against Kris or her items at home, be it more playfully in the Kris case or as a genuine way to get her emotions out in the items case

Noelle was, and likely still is, aware of this

And given Noelle’s rose-tinted view a reasonable hypothesis would be that Noelle would not be as opposed to violence and Violent Acts as she should be; as a rational person in her position would be (and at 16+ you're a rational person, dont use that dumb excuse against me)

And would you believe me if I told you that hypothesis is correct?

The last Pre-Canon information I want to draw attention to is the Blog Post Newest Girl Girl, from the Sweepstakes where, surprising to no one, Noelle witnesses a violent act and Does Not react to it like a rational actor

Susie assaults Kris in a way that makes Noelle feel sick to her stomach

And she takes home from that interaction that she should buy the same shampoo that Kris uses to get Susie’s attention

To have that violence of Susie directed onto her instead, because Noelle doesn't have a normal relationship with violence.

Far too few people imo pay attention to lines about Noelle liking "scary things" and being a "Nice kind of scary" red flags galore girl, just as an aside

Regardless now we can see that Noelle has a warped view of violence and we have a pre-canon basis for this in action, aka, this is always how Noelle has been since whatever incident set the plot in motion years before the events of ch 1 (recognizing that Toby has said the normal Sweepstakes content isn't explicitly canon, but I fully believe that what we see in the Blog Posts are events that are fully possible to have happened in canon, no "That was through a ShadowCrystal" bullshit in my reblogs please)

So now we get to Modern Day Noelle, where another thing I would like to note from the Sweepstakes Content is that she has this fear of reprimand, of consequences of any kind

This particularly shows in the case of her mother, but it's relevant to all her character

Because with all of this laid out what we get is a Girl with a broken history with violence but a chronic fear of consequences

The Social Contract keeps her in check, every hour of every day, which she even admits to in ch 2 at the end of the December Walk, "Everyone knows how weird you are."

And the thing is that she resents it, but won't act on it without fear of reprimand, so she just stews in it, smiles, and keeps going, with the mask slipping occasionally (Like attacking Berdly in ch 2 and admitting to wanting to choke him in ch 4)

Which finally now brings us to Snowgrave, you and anyone else reading this far are fully aware of the events of Snowgrave so I won't belabor the point

What I will do instead is to ask you to keep everything Ive said up to now in mind and critically consider the Route again

Was Noelle really being manipulated throughout the Route? She admits on a Main Route that Kris is one of the few people she can say no to, why doesn't she here?

If she had there's no way for us to force our will onto her like we can for Kris, for example, and it's clear considering how we can abort the Route that at any time Noelle will just return to baseline, no Berd No Foul or however the saying goes

Then look at the language used throughout the Route, it's never "Noelle kill that guy" or "Noelle steal that Ring" or "Hey don't you love murder?"

It's all non-sense words that say nothing, simple concepts, simple actions, simple commands with a Million Different ways to fulfill them

"Proceed."

"Get it."

"It's natural."

Our most explicit commands are "Use Iceshock" and "Snowgrave"

And even THEN we see in ch 4 that even violent spells can be used for ACTS, like Ralsei using his fire magic

At no point did Noelle have to kill

At no point was she doing something she didn't have the power to stop

And the main thing we do up until Berdly is to encourage her that it's okay (Or "It's Horrible" but she doesn't hear it one way or the other in that case I dont think)

So as long as she's allowed to think it's okay, she LIKES to get stronger

Noelle likes doing things for herself, by herself

She attributes it all to Kris (us) but it all comes from her ultimately

So where does that leave us at the end of this mega post, well, that I hope you can agree with me, or question me further the inbox is and will remain open

And as for the Noelle question it's frustrating! All this information is out there to show that she's far more complex, that she has all this baggage to show that she's fully capable of murder, basically on her own.

Even on the Main Route Noelle has the Capacity to do these actions, it just takes the correct influence

It's just that Noelle is able to use her meekness and the mask she puts on to get by every day to blindside the average player, and the plot refuses to put the camera on her quite yet as the next time it does I promise you most of these traits Ive mentioned will get their spotlight and it will surprise everyone but me

Apologies this took me so long to get to

But I wanted a good answer that was concise but could still convey what I mean

Firstly you're aware of the tenets I believe in regarding Deltarune's Endgame, to recap for others though:

1. I fully Believe in Angel Noelle

2. I Believe in December Knight, and

3. I don't believe in Sus/elle working out in canon

All of these factors and theories then temper how I think Ralsei feels about Noelle, and how they would interact going into ch 5, where I find it almost impossible to believe that they won't interact at least some

Now to start, on the face of it you would think the two would get along, I mean, they're both soft-spoken, meek, outwardly kind and selfless, and feminine

Two peas in a pod that can do nails and makeup and talk about boys (as a joke, both Noelle and Ralsei have only shown interest in women/Kris as of writing)

However, Ralsei is very aware of Noelle, while Noelle has no knowledge of him, as the Tea Dialogue in ch 2 proves and the later "Thinking about Noelle" scenes prove

On the whole, Noelle is in the Prophecy by name somewhere

NOW

Before this gets out of hand

I AM NOT CLAIMING NOELLE IS "THE GIRL"

Ahem

"The Girl" as we see in ch 4, the Hero currently most associated with Susie, is represented almost exclusively with symbols that Belong to Susie, including and most obviously the "Rude Buster" symbol

Unless you want to argue Noelle is going to cast Rude Buster in ch 7 or something, in which case I would like some of the Crack you're smoking please

Furthermore in both The Lord of the Hammer and DragonBlazers there exists a, well, Dragon character

One that has stayed important enough to remain through both pieces of derivative media, and one that The Old Man, Gerson Boom in the Dark Flesh, associates with Susie directly

We are explicitly told that Susie is the Dragon, and I hold to it then that makes Susie The Girl as well

With that in mind we see that the Girl is presented with Love, a Love will find the Girl then [REDACTED]

We don't know what happens there

We know that the object of the Love exists

But who it is, that's left ambiguous

In my opinion then, the Love is most obviously Noelle

"But Pap03!" You incessantly cry, "I thought you said you don't believe in Sus/elle!"

Well, why would I?

This isn't evidence for Sus/elle, per say, but rather that there's to be an action that happens between the Girl and the Love that, when it occurs, will lead into the Final Prophecy, which at this time reads like a Sacrifice of either the Dark Worlds as a whole, or Ralsei in specific

Note: Susie's reaction after punching the glass isn't conducive to either the death of herself (she's suicidal she'd gladly sacrifice herself) or Kris (she would be blunt with them and less focused on Ralsei specifically)

Whatever this action is between the Girl and the Love is, imo, it's directly tied to the Angel's Apotheosis, and therefore the prerequisite for the Final Prophecy

In different words; Susie and Noelle are due to have a falling out that will be capitalized upon by the members of the Conspiracy (Kris, Carol, and the Knight) to cause the Roaring, leading to Ralsei/the Dark as a Whole needing to sacrifice himself/themselves in the Act of stopping the Roaring/Noelle

So how does this all relate to your question, Im sure you're chopping at the bits

In effect Ralsei is aware that Noelle is going to be the direct cause of, well, everything that's about to go wrong, and she's the most obvious lynchpin to save everything too

Something that has actually bothered me for a while that this reality explains to me is why both Ralsei and Kris are encouraging Noelle and Susie to get closer together, despite Kris being a betrayer, and working with/for the Knight

And it's that both of them need them together, if for different reasons

Kris needs it because it's the prerequisite for Noelle’s Godhood

And Ralsei needs it because Sus/elle working out is his best chance, without drastically changing Prophecized events of circumventing the worst of it

Making sure that the worst weight he's had to bear, the Final Prophecy, doesn't fall to anyone but him, and can become a memory

So when they finally get to talk and interact in ch 5, beyond him attempting to scare her straight in ch 2, there's going to be a lot of pretext of "I need Susie and Noelle to Kiss to Save The World" going on, but also some need for him to show her that plunging the world into fantasy, no matter how nice the fantasy is a BAD thing

Then there's Noelle herself, she is, as of yet, has been and will continue to ignore Ralsei

Of course he looks like Asriel, but once it's confirmed that he isn't Asriel, her focus will return to Susie

And it'll return to how Susie gives him equal time, or come out/clear that Ralsei was the "Boy" that Susie wanted to bring to the Festival first and so on and so on

Noelle isn't outwardly Envious, at least towards Kris

But the thing is, Kris has never shown any romantic/romantic-adjacent interest for Susie in front of Noelle, despite the Krusie evidence Noelle wasn't in attendance

Berdly is the only example of someone being romantic for Susie, and Noelle wanted to wring out his neck, and admits to it being the neck in ch 4

In effect, I dont think Noelle would take to Ralsei very kindly

Even if he's dedicating his time to setting up her and Susie, Susie, herself, is doing everything possible to make Ralsei feel included, and Real, and part of the Team, and something that cant be Sacrificed

All this on Noelle’s special Day, the day when Noelle was supposed to get Susie Alone for the Festival and she's spending so much of this time focusing on Ralsei, the Boy, her direct competition, even if Ralsei doesn't see himself that way

And another thing is that Ralsei and Noelle are completely opposed

Ralsei is all about Reality, focusing on Fantasy as brief escapes, but that you should always do your Homework and the like

And Noelle is all about Fantasy, breaking from Reality to do everything you can to try and make it to tomorrow with your sanity all in check, even if it isn't necessarily true. You can chase after Dragon Tail even if she's uncomfortable with you looking there, or imagine Kris isn't worrying about you constantly, or what have you just to get through the Day

So the way I see them interacting in the coming chapters is to make it clear that they do not get along at all in their current states

Animosity will build as Ralsei tries to play World-saving matchmaker and will still watch as everything falls apart and whatever pain that has to come to pass, will come to pass, by Noelle’s hands

Ask me about Kris or Noelle!

Kris, Noelle, Kriselle, or general Deltarune Analysis

I haven't no

But from name alone I think Id like it

There was something that I think the all mighty JaruJaru brought up back in the day, and its that whenever a game breaks the 4th wall, it also kills any and all illusion of stakes related to anything other than the Player

In other words, you often have to kill the narrative and the stories within a world to drag in something from outside of it

There are games that do this well (One Shot, which I still need to play, does this well in allowing they Player to be kinda "brought down* to the stakes of Niko and their world) and there are games that do it poorly (As much as I love Doki Doki Literature Club, it's easy to forget about all the girls other than Monica because of the Meta fuckery)

See and the thing is with Deltarune, and often when I say this people dont get what I mean, but in many ways I don't want to be a character in Deltarune

Because if the game is focused on me it's less focused on Noelle’s damaged psyche, or Kris's depression, or Susie and Ralsei snogging/j

A lot of that narrative tension is broken, because the story has to focus on the one person Undertale acknowledges has no Power in This World, "Since when were YOU the one in control"

The Demon in UT is the only time that the Player is acknowledged directly ever

There's a second case when Flowey pleas for you not to reset at the end of Pacifist, but at this point I think he's talking to the Demon, not to us, as he chooses to use our chosen name in quotes

In any case those final speeches in Genocide explain that our role in Undertale is purely symbiotic

There is this God, within the world of UT, that is connected to us, and acts on our will, via influencing Frisk, but isn't Us directly and as soon as it chooses to stop listening to Us then we have no more power in the World of Undertale anymore

And, the thing is, I do not see why this is any different in Deltarune

Im sure that we're still "here" in the Cosmic sense, but that there has to be something else interpreting and interacting on Our Will

Would hate to say it's the Demon again, because that's just insane at a Fandom level

Could you imagine if at the End of Deltarune we discover it really was Chara that did it?

Insane

Jokes aside it also HAS to be something other than us, because all of us have different, and possibly incomplete, knowledge of Undertale, something that the Narrator and the Soul have seemingly total knowledge of

That's only possible if there's a diagetic force that knows of the events of Undertale, from Genocide to Pacifist

As, again, we dont have to know everything

I mean, we could, but we all know of someone who refuses to play Genocide, and we know from Spamton NEO alone that Genocide is a Canon Event of sorts, something that happens before the events of Deltarune to the Soul

Regardless I think Im in favor of an idea like this, and would like to see how it develops in the Fandom thought space

Or maybe I'm wrong about what you meant? Feel free to clarify

Anyone need anything specific? (Asks are open)

hmm Noelles familly, Toriel, and Ralsei?

Rare and highly anticipated Kriselle ask

And this is something I haven't most considered, but I think I'll start with the most positive folks and work towards the most negative, with all my preconceptions about where I think Deltarune's plot's going in full force

If there's any aspect you want clarification on, feel free to send another ask

Kris - Landed the girl, couldn't be happier, will prank and now apologizes with Kisses. Considering that their life for an untold amount of time before meeting Ralsei or going to Castle Town revolved around doing everything they could to fix things between themself and her this was an inevitable conclusion, but they couldn't be happier, sometimes even showing off how happy they are in public, very, very rarely. Still, they spat in the face of two gods and helped who is now their girlfriend ascend into a third, if just for a short time, so spitting in the face of the divine in exchange for some soft Doe to return to every night is more than worth it

Noelle - only lower because she's better at masking her utter elation, she's always smiling so smiling more near Kris is just a small change in degree. Meanwhile Kris looks slightly like a psycho with subconscious grins o' death. She's been to the depths of Hell, of course, the years haven't been the kindest to her, and only now are things starting to look any better with College on the horizon and her partner well in tow. After the rejection and her Apotheosis she really thought all that was left for her in this world was whatever she could make for herself while sealing off the rest of the World, let it all die if that's what it took. It was "The Angel's Heaven", how fitting then it was a devil, one that used to wear horns and chase her, to come and bring her back down to Earth. Of course, the romance wasn't immediate, there was reprimand and rebuilding and things with everyone was rough for a time, everyone but Kris. With them as her rock and her drive to improve as sharp as iron, it really was inevitable sparks would fly, and fly they really did.

Ralsei - Legitimately glad to have Noelle reigned in, despite all his efforts before the Roaring, and trying to swing for Susie and Noelle to get together, his attempted rebellion from the Prophecy. In a way if it was up to him they wouldn't be together, but in another he couldn't be happier to see Kris so happy and any future threats from the Girl That Tried To Kill Everyone forever quelled. Plus he's got his own girl (Susie) out of the ordeal, so maybe this is just the best outcome. He knows it could have been far worse.

Rudy - Elated, maybe annoyed that the Prankster landed his daughter, but he was right in the End. There really is so many times you can listen to your daughter on your shoulder lamenting about their old childhood friend before you start putting two and two together. This is despite all the obvious pining for Susie. Now, for him, he's been all around the block with both sexes before settling down with his wife, he's been beaten, bruised, abused, and all sorts of abandoned by his loves, giving him such high standards for his daughter, it all fuels his "Kick their ass" first mentality. Yet he could tell from the first time that Susie met him in the Hospital that she wasn't exactly aware of how his daughter felt for her, and quickly after talking to her could tell that her eyes were wandering far away from just Noelle, it was a setup for tragedy, yet Rudy couldn't bring himself to act, maybe he should have stood up and said something, but that's very hard to do when you can't stand up in general, and he certainly can't deny that that crush on Susie was keeping his girl happy. If he could have helped it, he would have prevented the heartbreak, but now he knows that Noelle is happy and will stay that way going forward for a long time, which is a massive mental weight off his chest.

Toriel - In a way she's conflicted, on the one hand it's premarital kissing, on the other it's like she always knew this was going to happen. Back when they were kids there was this feeling among all the parents that Kris and Noelle were inseperarable, and in a few conversations of meaningless speculation she would talk to Rudy or Carol about how incomprehensible it would be (before either Kris or Noelle had come out as Lesbian/NB) to see them get married and move off somewhere. After Dess had disappeared and the Divorce Kris moving away was now just this inevitability, just as Asriel had now for school, and considering Kris and Noelle hardly ever interact anymore, at that time, now it was clear that they were gone. Now, though, that feeling of the coming empty nest is delayed, and she knows that the pair is certain to stick around.

Carol - Oh what a Mother's lament! Her daughter with the cage! Like Toriel she saw the signs on the wall for years, yet she was particularly good at looking at the floor with that grindstone in her face. She knows that she lost too much time to her Work. She knows she put Politics above her daughter for too long but she did try to fix it, she tried to fix her daughter, she tried in her grief to save the other one. But she failed, and Kris is, in a way, a constant reminder of that. She and them worked together for Noelle’s, and she'd discover far later, Dess's sake, but also she put all of her life's work on the line for it, and couldn't even do anything to try and fix it in the end. Instead the human did it, this kid that's been making her pull out her hair for almost two decades now, was doting on her daughter. The only saving grace is that Noelle is so damn happy, and no matter what she still cares for Kris, it's just a hard pill, but, as you can ask Rudy, she knows how to bare and swallow it

Susie - this low on the list because of how utterly conflicting everything is. Kris was, hell, still is in many respects her best friend, if she wasnt kissing on her damn marshmallow of a boyfriend all the time she'd probably be in the Light World hanging out with them, but she can't just deny that her trust was betrayed by them, twice over. Once was betraying her by not always being in control of their actions, a reality she can definitely see in hindsight, but man does it still hurt. Then there's the second, more malicious one, she doesn't care that in some ultimate sense their actions, and she has confirmed with both Ralsei and Kris themself that these actions were of their own accord, were for the the better good, because she KNOWS she could have helped if she was made aware, she could have done SOMETHING to prevent all the bloodshed and hardship. So many people got hurt, Ralsei was supposed to DIE, and Kris risked it all for some tail. It hurts, she knows it hurts, Hell, she's totally aware that in some ways she's taking what resentment she does feel too far, but she feels it anyways. In her best interest she chooses not to cut them off, despite it all they're siblings in arms, Heroes of Light, and she knows she'll get over it. Then, of course there's Noelle, what an idiot she was in not seeing it. She should have known from Queen's Mansion forward that Noelle had the hots for her, for HER! Maybe she was blind, maybe it was denial, but a definite and most clear reality was that she really, really, didn't know Noelle, not really. Maybe on Festival Night if she knew what would happen maybe she would have played along more, saved people via her own, kinda cringy sacrifice, but nah, she couldn't do it, not without lying to herself. At the time the Prophecy she had seen raged in her mind, she was the Girl, this was the Love that had found her, but she just couldn't accept it, she wasnt ready, and it was clear that Noelle had her own things to work out first, especially with Kris. Of course there was also that there was another, more ethereal answer, in the form of the Prince that fueled her rejection in the other way. On the night after the Cyber World many thoughts ran through her head of two totally equal avenues, one side was the girl she held up on this pedestal of Gold, and the other was the boy that was so patient with her that she could do nothing else but fold under her own weight. It was funny, then, it really was a coin flip in her mind but always known to Fate and that Old Man. Oh well, the past is the past now, and she isn't one to let it consume her anymore. She's happy for them, and is coming along to it.

Asgore - you didn't mention him but I think he's still important, and the lowest. He was last to find out! Golly what is a father to do? Sure his youngest kid was kinda estranged, but that wasn't, totally, his fault. Of course he was still, a bit, culpable, and it chewed him to bits. But he did try to fix it! And he thinks that Kris knows that as well as anyone, well... he hopes so. When Kris and Noelle were growing up he got complacent, and stayed at his work too much, so much of their early life he had to hear secondhand as responsibilities kept him too far away, and now he heard of this, one of the most major developments that could happen, through Rudy. He felt forgotten about, but it really was his own fault. Well, maybe he'll go talk to the skeleton on his next pickle run, maybe he can scrounge up the money for a card for the two of them

But Kris being A.F.A.B is fine as well. i have not seen it really done with them but, when it comes to the O.G's Frisk and Chara. I have seen them depicted either or.

And again youre not alone

So not alone, in fact, you're the least alone "accidental" headcanon in all of UTDR

In general I dont think people think about Kris's AGAB all that often, it's only really important for the most fundamental levels of character analysis, to piece together how they were socialized as a child and how that can affect them now

As such Male as Default takes effect, and people just assume Kris is Male and work with that assumption, and as such you see Kris with the broader shoulders, the Male Q-Angle, No Chest, stuff like that

Of course I disagree, my strongest argument being how Kris constantly Masculinizes, and very rarely goes out of their way to be feminine, most obviously made clear by their two chosen outfits, in the Light World they wear a sweater that can cover up and and all of the traits that could reveal their sex (so if they have a chest or how their shoulders sit, stuff like that) and in the Dark World they have an outfit that should reflect some aspects of themself, and I find it rather notable that the only pieces of armor they wear, other than the gloves and boots, are a breastplate and shoulderguards

It reads to me like someone who wants to protect and hide these aspects of themself, like how Susie's Dark World outfit goes out of the way to keep her tail hidden, if there's a part of your body that you're self-conscious about we already have precedence that your Dark World outfit reflects that

Still, that's just my thoughts about it, ultimately it's headcanon but I like to explore it a bit more seriously for fun