Toby Fox, the madman

first time Posting on tumblr but I loved this scene so Freakinge much probs one of my favourites in the whole game If im being Honest theyre such total Dorks

FLASHING WARNING

TRANSCRIPT:

The dummy was the tutorial fight, but Lancer is the first enemy you fight in Deltarune ever. And boy he makes an… impression. While Ralsei is the first Darkner to introduce himself, Lancer is the first Darkner you meet—albeit, he's cloaked in shadow. But even then, you can still glean a sense of goofiness from his silhouette. He's short and stout, with a pointy head—the little guy's even posed like teacup! But the accompanying music, along with the rain of spades is able to let Lancer have some level of menace before…subverting it.

But yeah, Lancer is an interesting intro to Darkners (Ralsei is a special case, I don't count him) because he showcases a new category of design. In Undertale and Deltarune, Humans are children, Monsters are mostly based off animals, and Darkners are based off objects.

Fun fact: Lancer, and quite a few chapter one enemies were not designed by Toby Fox. Kanotyne's designs for these members of the Card Kingdom actually predate the development of deltarune, and Toby worked with Kanotyne—and got her permission—to use her designs in the game.

So yeah! That's why Lancer looks like something goofy but relatively "new" (for an Undertale audience that only had Chapter 1 to work with back in 2018). Like the fact that Kris can't tell where Lancer's clothes end and his body begins. This kid has action figure energy. Another thing that contributes to said energy is the fact that Lancer doesn't have a walk cycle. Like sure, Toby Fox probably had him like this cuz it looked funny (and it does), but to me I think it works to give Lancer this…intentionally flat, "cardlike" energy. He is based off the Jack of Spades, after all.

And yet, despite these "flat" characteristics, Lancer is also canonically bouncy. Like, really bouncy. It's a contradiction, but an interesting one. I like to think that, to Lightners like Kris and Susie, Lancer looks like he's two-dimensional from every angle, yet he still somehow exists and navigates in three-dimensional space. And yeah, I think stuff like this is yet again another example of how Darkners have shape-shifty properties. Like this. I like to think that Lancer full-on morphing his face in this way for the sake of a bit isn't an exaggeration or a metaphor, it's something that's literally happening within the world.