Most people always assumed that Chara wasn't doing jack while Frisk was saving Asriel, and that the fight with Asriel didn't do anything for them. And then during the final fight, TOBY GODDAMN FOX drops their name when it's time to save Asriel.
Think about it! Why would he make the DELIBERATE CHOICE TO TYPE THEIR NAME in the text-to-speech at the very moment when it's time to save Asriel? He could have chosen to not mention Chara's name after saying "Now there is one last person to save," BUT HE DID!
So that means either one of two things happened. Either A) this boss fight is as much about saving Chara as well as Asriel, AND/OR that Chara was actively participating in the fight with Asriel and trying to save him!
What more can I say? It's a great day to be a Chara fan!
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I feel like the deal with Gaster's door in the 10th Anniversary Livestream isn't a "COPIES ARE MONOCHROME" moment where Toby's copy is the "original" world, its instead "BUT YOU COLORED EACH OF US IN WITH CARE," our love for the fun event and us trying to figure who the "mystery man"/Gaster is is why the door is colored in. It's a reflection of how much the fandom was able to turn this one little secret into something grand.
A lot of Deltarune… isn’t quite a refutation or counterargument to Undertale’s themes as much as it is going, like, “I mean, you’re not wrong… but it’s a bit more complicated than that sometimes”. Or, like, elaborating on nuances that were present in Undertale but weren’t given as much focus as Deltarune, as a much longer and more complex game building on Undertale’s themes, can give them.
And it happens most often with Ralsei. Ralsei’s worldview often seems to be an oversimplified and corrupted reflection of Undertale’s themes. Exaggerating them and stripping them of their nuances so that the other characters (mostly Susie) can respond to them and re-introduce nuances and complications back into them.
Most obviously this is done in Chapter 1 with his ultra-Pacifistic and ultra-nice attitude to conflict. His views at the start were a lot more simplified than Undertale, as even a True Pacifist Playthrough requires one to defeat Asgore and Flowey through violence at least once. Plus a bunch of times where Sparing an enemy required an acknowledgment that they can’t be appeased or convinced to back down from a fight. There was sometimes a bit of trickery involved, rather than just 'being nice'.
But these nuances weren’t really Undertale’s narrative focus, the focus was on selling the Player on the value of Pacifism in the first place. So Ralsei’s oversimplification of the idea is a good basis for Deltarune to start putting these nuances to the forefront of the story and really focusing on them, now that Undertale has already established the baseline of “even Random Encounters can be real people with feelings and you should always strive to non-violence.”
And I think a similar thing is kinda happening with his whole…
Which feels to me very reminiscent of…
Like, okay, it is very thematically important that Asriel can’t be ‘saved’ in Undertale. The Royal Siblings Tragedy is a traumatic shadow looming over so many characters in the game, and it’s not something that can be perfectly fixed by being nice or even with Unkillable Time God Powers. Toriel and Asgore and, yes, Flowey/Asriel himself all have character arcs centered around moving on from the tragedy and accepting the present, and would be weakened if a Player could just… magically fix things.
But that doesn’t mean that doesn’t hurt to hear Asriel be so resigned to his fate. Susie Deltarune’s reaction to hearing Ralsei speak so plainly about the idea that he’s just an illusion and that she should prioritize her ‘Real Friends’ very much echoes the emotional reactions of most Undertale Players seeing Asriel ask them to not worry about him and focus on their real friends because he’s already doomed. And in both cases it’s extremely understandable.
The fact that even with Unkillable Time God Powers, the past is the past and there is a value in acceptance and moving on is itself an important nuance in Undertale’s central theme of Determination. With enough Willpower and Defiance, the Player can defy the concept of a kill-or-be-killed world, and free the Monsters from their seemingly hopeless prison, and resist the laws of death and time… it’s a power that comes from a refusal to accept the inevitable. But if you deny everything that goes against your personal will, you’re gonna end up like Flowey, utterly consumed by grief and denial over Chara’s death.
Flowey has to accept that the game between him and the Player is going to end, Asriel has to accept Chara is dead, Asgore has to accept his family will never truly return to what it was before, the Player also has to accept the game is over and that replaying it will just tear away the characters from their happy ending, and that the Asriel they saw at the True Pacifist Ending is gone.
But even with all of that… that doesn’t lessen the emotional pain of watching a little goat boy asking you very kindly and very genuinely to abandon him. It doesn’t make it any less valid for one’s reaction to be “Well, who said I have to leave and forget you? I’m sure that with the pure strength of my heart and the Power of Friendship(TM) I could save you too!!”. It doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking, even frustrating, that this is the thing the game ask you to give up on.
Undertale already added some nuance to the situation, first things first, Asriel does honestly appreciate it if you go all the way back to the start of the game and talk with him. Although he still feels that he's doomed, at least he accepted that Frisk is going to remember him.
Secondly, with Flowey’s Post-Pacifist Dialogue
And especially that Winter Alarm Clock Dialogue…
…both showing that while there was nothing that could be done to stop Asriel from turning back into Flowey, that does not necessarily mean Flowey is doomed. Despite his claims both in his Flowey form and as Original Flavor Goatboy Asriel, Flowey does still show hints that he cares for other people, that he has been truly affected by the events of the True Pacifist Playthrough, that the heart he had as Asriel isn’t actually truly gone…
We’re still dealing with the fact that we can’t undo the trauma of the Royal Siblings Tragedy but… Just because Flowey can’t be magically turned back into the person he was before his Trauma, doesn’t mean he is doomed. What happened happened, but he is still capable of healing and self-improvement. And although he’s still kind of in the margins of the Post Pacifist Friend Group, it doesn’t seem like he’s just been abandoned or forgotten for the sake of the people who are more ‘real’.
So just like with Ralsei’s Pacifism, I think his fatalism and absolute lack of self-worth is an exaggerated and simplified reflection of Asriel's situation. It's kind of a Very Different Thing between Ralsei believing he's ontologically doomed to matter less than Lightners and Asriel believing he's ontologically doomed to be an asshole, but...
It still creates a basic foundation to add nuances and subversions to the point about the importance of moving on and acceptance. Not rejecting it outright, but demonstrating how seemingly clear-cut situations of acceptance can become more complicated.
Because in Susie we now have an actual character to voice the frustrations many players felt about being unable to 'save' Asriel and argue in favor of the desire to never abandon a friend, no matter how doomed or unimportant or lesser he claims he is.
Because now we can better demonstrate the more toxic and unhealthy manifestations of the idea of ‘moving on’. How it can be just as bad as clinging to the past relentlessly.
And allow more time on-screen to explore the nuanced alternatives that aren't either unhealthily clinging to the past or quietly accepting your own lousy fate.
And now we can create more situations where Susie’s instincts to reject acceptance and reject leaving anyone behind and reject ‘moving on’ are actually the unambiguously correct answers.
Not necessarily always, I do think she’ll have to accept that Gerson is dead. And obviously with this being DivorceRune the Divorce Game, the theme of needing to move on from clinging to a past that will never be restored just as you remember it is still very important.
But she has a point, and just like with Pacifism, I think she actually has an important lesson to teach Ralsei specifically.
the thought process that went behind this skelebros comic of mine...
though it was merely a joke two pages and four panels long, i considered a bunch of tiny details while i was making it, and i thought sharing that would be fun for those interested in knowing.
this doubles as a character analysis for sans, papyrus, and their dynamic as well!
and so, here it is, in approx. [1,200 words]:
Colors
this is the most obvious one, but i used colors to reflect the mood and the subsequent shift in it. bright and lively colors for the first three panels, which then turn into something darker and less saturated in the last one.
i picked purple for the tablecloth because it's a neutral color that looked good in all the backgrounds, but also because red + blue = purple. heh.
my color choice was not only based on that, however. some have already pointed it out to me, but i like to choose bright colors for my pieces in general, sometimes bordering on an eye-bleeding degree (i've really had people tell me those words in the past, especially for some of my older artwork). the reasoning behind it isn't as intentional, but: it's because i find it hard to work otherwise. my eyes have difficulty adjusting to dark, low-contrast colors, which affected my art while i was developing my style throughout the years, haha. it's interesting how something like that works.
Dialogue
Speech Bubbles
the dialogue boxes, too, change according to the mood. i used round and/or curved shapes for the first page, then switched to simple rectangles in the second.
originally, i had them all be rectangles to be most accurate to the undertale style, but found it too stiff.
Text
when speaking in the game, papyrus usually uses 1-5 words for each line of his dialogue box, depending on the length of the sentence. i like to try and make it so that reading each speech bubble is like reading actual dialogue from the game. so, it has those same choppy sentences.
^ it's a little difficult to balance this, because undertale characters don't actually say much; i've noticed that their characterizations are neatly compressed in as little words as possible, so each line always has to count, or else it would feel a little drawn out.
the first panel has papyrus' text all skewed to capture his energy! contrasted with sans' lack of it.
Speech Quirk
part of the humor was, of course, meant to be tied to the fact that papyrus completely drops his speech quirk mid-sentence in a, "yes, the spaghetti was THAT bad," way. along with that, i was thinking about the theory that characters who fully capitalize their speech are "acting," or otherwise putting on a persona in front of other people. (if anyone wants my thoughts on that, i could perhaps make a separate post finding proof and either agreeing or debunking it. either way, it's a fun idea.) if this were true, that would mean that normally capitalized sentences would be the "default," or at least a more genuine way of speaking. this would fit papyrus' character nicely, with the way he never shows his true self, going so far as to repeatedly lie to even sans and undyne. so for him to drop it for something as silly as this, even if its in front of sans only, to me, really sells the idea of, "YES. the spaghetti was THAT BAD," which i find really funny.
Characterization
Papyrus
there seems to be a misconception that papyrus is oblivious to his "flaws," when he actually shows the opposite. when writing dialogue for undertale characters, i try to find instances where they're already using similar phrasing. for this, i nicked the word "awful" straight from papyrus' dialogue about his own puzzles.
I HAVE FRIENDS!!!
AND WHO KNEW THAT ALL I NEEDED TO MAKE THEM...
WAS TO GIVE PEOPLE AWFUL PUZZLES AND THEN FIGHT THEM??
note that, from what i've found, the only other thing he refers to as "awful" in the game is hotland. three separate times, all during his phone calls. papyrus HATES hotland. so, it's safe to say that he's not using "awful" in a lighthearted way, or any other context, he genuinely thinks his puzzles are awful.
next, as mentioned in the qna, he doesn't even eat his own food. he supposedly cooks spaghetti because "EVERYBODY ELSE LOVES IT!!!" so his level of "delusion" regarding his own self-image is still to be argued, assuming he's not just... messing with people for his amusement, as he tends to do (not maliciously, obviously! he's not some secret mastermind, it's just that i rarely see people mention/consider the other aspects of his personality, like his sarcasm and (at times) rather dry humor). considering he admitted his puzzles were awful, papyrus likely wouldn't keep pretending his food is good after having eaten it, plainly expressing it afterwards.
of course, there's a chance he might be purposefully avoiding eating it, or is just playing it up so that others don't look too deeply, but that's kind of tinfoil hat territory. again, i don't consider canon papyrus as some kind of secret mastermind, even if he does hide a lot of things and is weirdly overlooked in general... almost as if he's meant to be.
as for the swearing, well, it's papyrus swearing. that always subverts expectations. no doubt, it stemmed from the early fandom developing idea that papyrus is innocent, which is silly. i think that, while he might consider swearing to be "above him," he'd do it on occasion. instances like these deserve a bit of swearing.
Sans
time and time again, sans has shown that he is willing to deceive, threaten (others), and blatantly lie to papyrus to protect his feelings. now, i don't mention this to hate on him or his character, but to emphasize that sans wouldn't ever want papyrus to feel negative emotions. even if sans is placed into a situation where he's forced to eat inedible food, that mouth is staying zipped and grinning. he isn't going to tell papyrus "it's bad" to his face if he thinks it'll crush him. in fact, he'd probably try to convince him that it's good, or (more likely) find some way to avoid the conversation or situation entirely. so, keeping this in mind, he'd only (reluctantly) agree after papyrus already voiced his own thoughts about it. it's not like he can lie about it now, so "...yeah" is as good a response as he's gonna give.
adding onto it, it's also worth noting that sans isn't actually eating the spaghetti. so, was he just pretending to react? stalling? it's sans, who really knows. he'd be able to get away with something like that. (papyrus would notice, but sans wouldn't notice he noticed.)
Skelebros
i've mentioned lying and deception a lot in this, which isn't wrong, because the characters of the game do lie to each other a surprising amount, but i don't want to make it seem like i think the skelebros' relationship is fake. bit strained, maybe? they clearly have some unspoken things between them that they both love to ignore, and that can't be healthy, so i wouldn't be surprised. their lack of communication may or may not contribute to things like undyne and papyrus' unresolved plot point (because no way sans doesn't know undyne is leading him on about joining the royal guard, right?). but, regardless, they love each other a ton. when sans calls papyrus "cool," he means it. when papyrus makes him spaghetti, it's with love and 100% of his effort. in the end, they're just goofy people.
Inspiration
this whole thing came to be because of this comic by PacketOfStaples. it never left my mind, so i came back to it and did something about it. my only regret is that it's not june.
Conclusion
good company makes for slightly less awful spaghetti
Have we finally learned who the three figures drawn on the card in Sans's lab are?
Noelle, Susie and Kris
OR
Kris, Susie and Ralsei
"Don't forget" as in, don't forget [to give these three a discount]
Even if the reason why Sans has this card turns out to be incredibly simple, doesn't this also confirm that Sans Undertale = Sans Deltarune?
At first, this discovery felt incredibly ironic, since for years we tried to find a much deeper meaning behind who these three figures were and why Sans kept this card in the first place. We thought about Gaster, timelines, parallel worlds, and with the release of Deltarune, we even considered both of the possibilities above
And in the end, the reason why THIS SPECIFIC MESSAGE exists on a card with THIS SPECIFIC TRIO was something as simple as a reminder to offer a discount
On the other hand, the fact that Sans still keeps it with him could be his way of refusing to forget the people, the place... and of not letting the world he once saw as his home disappear
After all, Deltarune keeps returning to the same theme in almost every chapter. Someone trying to make things go back to the way they used to be, unable to let go of the past. Only to eventually learn that some things can't be restored, and that the best thing you can do is simply let go
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The everyman first appeared in most disturbing and violent scene in all of undertale, where his head gets swarmed by butterflies, and then he seems to be controlled by the butterflies, the butterflies very obviously infliciting great pain on the everyman.
of course the everyman is a reoccuring symbol in deltarune, their undertale appareance is a perfect thematic parellel for kris, being controlled by the soul is kind of like being tortured and controlled by butterflies, more specifically: the everyman scene in undertale is a visceral symbolic depiction of Kris's expierence being controlled by the soul.
Susie's parallels to the purple soul in Undertale and their implications are incredibly fascinating to me. As we know from the Ball Game in Undertale, the purple soul is meant to symbolize Perseverance. This soul persists and continues to write in spite of being "trapped" (which will be taken into account later).
In chapter 4 of Deltarune, when Susie fights and wins against Gerson after two or more attempts, Gerson emphasizes the quality of perseverance he sees in her. He encouraged her to never give up in regards to her magic earlier in the chapter, and he most notably expresses that same sentiment in this scene. Susie's resonance with Gerson's words exemplifies her perseverance, the core trait the purple soul in Undertale possesses.
Gerson's dialogue also draws attention to the fact that like Gerson, not only does Susie embody the trait of perseverance, but she also is a fervent storyteller. Gerson takes note of Susie's burning passion when she narrates her adventures at the tea session, and he later encourages her to "overwrite the dark" with "a white pen, known as hope".
And you know who else harbored a passion for writing? The purple soul from Undertale. Their weapon of choice, the "Torn Notebook", resides in Gerson's shop in the Underground, hinting at a possible connection to Gerson as well as a love of writing.
The purple soul's ties to writing are further indicated in the fight with Omega Flowey; their attacks are displayed as negatively connotated words such as "destroy", "terror", "trapped", "sadness", and "despair" (among others). These words emerge from the two columns of notebooks the player is trapped between.
When the player reaches the ACT Button, upon influence from the green soul, the representation of kindness, the language changes to be much more positively connotated. Words such as "kindness", "success", "freedom", "mercy", and "dreamer" appear, and they can be used to heal the player.
This transformation in language serves as a mirror to Susie's character development. Before she befriended Kris and Ralsei, Susie was always cast out from her peers, labeled as a scary misfit, as someone who didn't look like she belonged playing a piano in public. Such notions led Susie to believe herself capable of only destruction and harm to others, to believe she was merely "a broken toy" no one wanted to play with. As we see in Deltarune, her respective friendships with Lightners and Darkners alike help her move past that mentality, showing her that she is so much more than that through their kind actions and words.
In chapter 4, Gerson continues to push Susie in a positive direction, demonstrated through the encouragement he provides her with when she doubts her healing abilities. He tasks her with writing a letter to Alvin, inspiring her to use her own words. He also breaks a fragment of the prophecy to show Susie a different way to his study, which drives in the fact that Susie doesn't have to be confined by the rules, or by fragile glass panels that tell of a prophecy. She doesn't have to be trapped.
Meanwhile, being "trapped" is the essence of the purple soul mode in Undertale, as the player is confined to move between lines that resemble those on a page of notebook paper. The fight with Muffet is representative of the captivity theme introduced to us in the Ball Game, and it serves as an antecedent for the linear confinement brought upon by the purple soul in the Omega Flowey fight.
But unlike the trapped purple soul from Undertale, Susie is able to break free. She has defied expectations multiple times throughout the course of Deltarune, including the damaging ones from her own childhood. Her hopeful smile has already been shown to "overwrite the darkness". When taking her perseverance into account, who's to say she can't overwrite the prophecy?
Toby Fox has lots of strengths; but he's not good at writing (healthy) romantic relationships. Also, before you read, please keep in mind that I am a lesbian. I want to see well-written wlw ships in media, just as much as you do. However, I also believe that any piece of media should be viewed critically.
Undertale
• Toby's romance weakness affected Alphys' character + her arc in Undertale. Alphys' arc is pretty serious, exploring themes of guilt, accountability, suicide and mistakes you cannot undo. Her arc is best written in the neutral routes, particularly the endings that imply she lost the battle against her guilt without Undyne to support her. However, in the pacifist route, the conclusion to Alphys' arc is mishandled, and taints the community's view of Alphys. Frisk discovers the amalgamates in the true lab, and then the tone of the scene shifts to become overly sweet. Instead of the scene being about accountability and having to face your biggest mistake, Alphys talks about how she needed to 'believe in herself' and love herself like her friends do (and how Undyne loves her). This speech clashes in tone and turns Alphys' arc from 'stop running away' to 'love yourself'. Now, 'love yourself' isn't a bad message, but it doesn't fit the context here. The amalgamates have been living in the dark for years, and instead of the scene focusing on that, Alphys is making the situation about her. This puts the amalgamates and their family into the background and essentially turns them into set pieces for Alphys' monologue.
After the botched monologue, we never hear about the amalgamates again (save for a reference at the very end) and we instead need to set Undyne and Alphys up. Again, nothing wrong with the Alphys/Undyne ship; I think it's better written than Noelle/Susie. But the timing is inappropriate. Alphys has only just started to make amends and look to the future. The fact that Alphys is a nerd and needs to accept herself/her nerdy habits is not really the point here. Alphys didn't fall into depression because she's a nerd and everyone thinks she's lame. She fell into depression because she made a grave error (and Asgore, and the institution) and she struggles to live with the horrific consequences. Pivoting all this to self-love and romance continues the old rom-com fallacy that all someone needs to 'heal' is a romance that will 'save' them. I've never heard anyone make this point yet, but I think Mettaton should've played a bigger part in Alphys' arc. He represents the best parts of Alphys; her kindness, and how she uses her talent to help others achieve their dreams. If anything, Mettaton, not Undyne, was the person best positioned to 'save' Alphys. I'm not sure how you'd rewrite the Undyne/Alphys ship in this context, but I'm sure you could make it work.
EDIT: I misremembered the order of events a bit here. It's actually Alphys + Undyne's date and THEN the True Lab. Nonetheless, I think my points still stand. The pacing of Alphys' arc is still bad, and her date with Undyne doesn't really complement the True Lab scenes very well. With how muddled it got in my head, it only seems to reinforce how it feels like Alphys' arc got split into 2 tonally dissonant stories ('love yourself arc' vs 'you can only forgive yourself when you make amends'). The amalgamates and their families are still an afterthought after the True Lab, and Undyne's romance with Alphys doesn't really interact with those themes. Thinking about it, I wish we got Undyne's reaction to the amalgamates. What would've been really great is it Alphys confessed to Undyne that she 'shouldn't' love her because she 'doesnt know' Alphys or 'what she's done'. Then Undyne's love is tested and they overcome the horror of the amalgamates situation because Undyne is still here. Knowing Alphys at her very worst hasn't scared Undyne away, and she doesn't condemn Alphys. Instead she supports her and Alphys takes initiative and makes amends.
• One of my favourite ships in Undertale (not in Deltarune) is Sans and Toriel. They're the only healthy romantic couple where their dynamic is very natural and well-written. It's not romanticised like the Undyne/Alphys ship. With what we learn from the neutral routes, we know that Sans joins Toriel as Queen not because he cares about politics and the Underground; he does it out of a pure, sentimental sense of love and loyalty. It's very morally grey. When monster-human relations are good, Toriel is a competent leader. But when monster-human relations are bad, Toriel is out of touch with her people, and she's not able to bridge that gap. Toriel and Sans' relationship in this sense is complex. Sometimes, they are more codependent. They enable each other. In some neutral routes, you get the sense that Sans is keeping Toriel in the dark and 'protecting her', which is not ideal. Toriel does not need to be coddled, and Sans' tendency to hide from people only ensures that he remains stagnant and miserable. But in other timelines, Toriel and Sans are very good for each other. Sans helps Toriel to stay in touch with the world because he's able to communicate with her without casting judgement, or making her feel defensive. Likewise, Toriel uplifts Sans and makes him feel seen. While it's good that Sans cares for Papyrus, it's not healthy for him to make Papyrus his entire world.
Deltarune
• My favourite (and only) ship in Deltarune is Spamton and Tenna. I think Tenna got the short end of the stick in terms of his character arc - Chapter 3 is poorly paced and optimised, and we should've learnt a lot more about Tenna, his employees, the 3 Mikes, and the person Tenna was making a 'deal' with. Luckily, there are plenty of Deltarune fans that are able to flesh Tenna + TV World out in fanfiction, although it is a shame that Tenna doesn't get enough spotlight in his own chapter. Regardless, I think the subtext of the Spamton/Tenna ship is well written. When the romantic arc is tragic, Toby Fox has no trouble writing a compelling story. Both Spamton and Tenna come across as flawed, complex people, and they are similar in that their pride led them to trust untrustworthy people. I don't have time to analyse the Spamtenna ship, but I'm sure there's lots of good posts out there explaining why their relationship is compelling.
• I really wanted to like the Susie/Noelle ship, but to me, it just isn't very compelling. They're teenagers - I'll admit, that's a bit of a roadblock for me. I've never been super invested in coming-of-age stories. So when reading, keep my bias in mind. Noelle and Susie come from very different backgrounds - some fans have already pointed out the missed potential here. There should be points of conflict; how much does Noelle really *know* about the world, considering she's rich, sheltered, and has a controlling mother? How does Susie imagine her future, and how does she imagine herself next to Noelle? Does Susie want some kind of career, or is she more of an anarchist? How do they both feel about their current society? What do they agree on, where do they clash?
Unfortunately, we don't really know the answers to any of those questions. Some Suselle fans go into a great amount of detail, but personally, I think they're doing all the hard work of writing and then crediting *their* thoughts to Toby Fox. But Toby hasn't laid any of that groundwork himself. There was a little nugget of intrigue with Noelle's love of horror established in Chapter 2 (the best chapter imo) but that hasn't been expanded on since. Every Susie/Noelle scene after Chapter 2 is roughly the same scene. Noelle gushes about Susie and looks up to her; Susie is bashful and not used to the positive attention. Again, there is *something* there - Noelle likes the 'idea' of Susie and her 'scariness'. Would she be disappointed if Susie wasn't 'scary' anymore? There's more potential for conflict because in the past, Noelle saw Susie bullying her friend Kris and did nothing about it. She even wishes that Susie would bully her. But these shades of grey and threads of conflict are not expanded on. These flaws are forgotten by the larger narrative. There isn't much to say about Susie because her dynamic with Noelle is pretty new. Susie's relationship with Noelle doesn't really bring out any interesting sides to her.
To put it bluntly, I find the Susie/Noelle scenes quite boring and repetitive. It weakens both characters and I have no reason to stay invested. Some people describe Noelle/Susie's scene to be 'highschool romance/YA romance', and I'm inclined to agree. If Noelle/Susie's romance being shallow *is* the point, my original argument still stands.
Toby struggles to write healthy romances with 'happy' endings. The solution is to bring someone on the team who is experienced and adept at writing romance.
Feel free to share your opinions in the comments! Please be respectful.