#i like noelle's dark world color scheme a lot i like that her hair is green | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

agentravensong · 1 year

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it's the day before christmas... you know what that means?

it's dess deltarune day!!!

presenting, at long last, the dess holiday that lives in my head:

more drawings plus detailed design notes below the cut!! please click on the images for better quality viewing (they also all have alt text)

dess design notes:

- her fur and hair colors are picked from rudy's sprite, though i toned her fur color down slightly (and then even more so for her ??? form).

- her freckles, like how i draw noelle's, form triangles as a not-so-subtle reference to the delta rune. that being said, i draw noelle's freckles as oriented the other way, one of a few small ways in which i have their designs mirror but differ from each other (the others being: both having bangs but swept in opposite directions; and dess having buck teeth like noelle but rectangular instead of rounded)

- i didn't give dess antlers because of that line from sans in ut where he refers to "the antlered girl and her big sis" rather than "the antlered girls/sisters". instead, i gave her those hair tufts that are meant to look like horns, as both a parallel to kris's horn headband that they wear to try and fit in with their family, and as a bit of devil symbolism to contrast noelle's whole angel thing.

- i messed around with dess's light world outfit color pallet for a while. for example, i had her jacket be green for a bit so that between that and the skirt we'd get the main christmas colors. i eventually went with having her jacket be red too to make the design as a whole more cohesive. i wanted her to be wearing mainly warm, firey colors cause that feels like it matches her personality from what little we know about her so far.

- the jacket was conceptualized as a hand-me-down from rudy, but in the coloring process i had the idea that it would be neat if azzy had a matching green one (recycling that discarded element of dess's design). perhaps his could be a hand-me-down from asgore?

- the jacket turns that dark purple color in her ??? form because... look, there's a few things i could say, like how it would probably make more sense gonerfication-wise for it to have turned pure black but then that wouldn't stand out as much in dark environments, or how purple is red+blue with the blue coming from water/ocean theory (don't ask (or do)), or how the general use of purple is a callback to the ??? dark world... but in truth, it's because i like purple and i thought it looked cool. the main intended meaning is that she's in a cold, dark place now, so the warmth has, mostly, left her pallet. oh, also, because susie's purple, and it def feels like there are gonna be parallels between dess and susie. jevil too, by extension.

- i gave dess's shirt five stripes, even though by the age she is here she's probably outgrown striped shirts (not that that's stopped kris), as a visual reference to a music staff! cause, ya know, she seems to be a musician. the reference is a lot more obvious in her ??? form with the black and white shirt, as that's where it originated.

- i gave her the skirt with the shorts underneath them because i already had in mind that in her ??? form she'd wear that half-skirt half-shorts piece. the idea is that when she falls into the code or whatever, that element of her design gets mistranslated and the two clothing items are scrambled together. i also already knew from an older version of her design that i wanted it to have a chessboard-like pattern cause of chess's potential as a motif in dr - and also cause black white and grey as a color scheme is associated with gaster and the goners - so having the light world version of it be flannel/plaid just, fit.

- on a similar note, the darker and grey patches in dess's fur in her ??? form are meant to both contribute to a somewhat glitchy aesthetic and hint towards her ongoing gonerfication. i then had the idea as i was messing around with them that there should be grey specifically around her facial features to mimic skull face paint!

- the whites of her eyes going dark in this form ties into the idea that "only eyes blinded by darkness can see the way", as well as referencing jevil specifically, and her pupils are shaped like save points because they're the light that breaks through the dark. it unintentionally works pretty well as a metaphor for where dess is at: being trapped in the dark for so long has caused her to lose a lot of her hope and fire, but there's still a speck of light that she holds on to. eyes really are the window to the soul ;)

- back to dess's outfit(s), cause i skipped over the scarf. in my older version of her design, i had her wearing an unraveled bowtie or ribbon around her neck, a clothing item that had been part of her mom-approved formal attire. i switched it out with the scarf because a) winter vibes, and, b) more importantly, because i could have it do this in her ??? form:

that's right, wings! only under Certain Conditions, but, wings! cause, uh, angel stuff, and, i mean, come on. wings!!!

the split diamond pattern is again, though less obviously, derived from the triangles featured in the delta rune. the added dots in her ??? form are meant to make the diamonds look like eyes, especially if you turn them on their side. just to add another touch of spookiness. and the scarf is purple in both her designs mostly as an extra justification for where the purple in her ??? form comes from, like it's the one color she got to keep, and to strengthen the continuity between the two versions of her.

- while we're here, it took me a while to figure out what symbol should go on the back of dess's jacket. what i eventually decided on is a slightly modified version of the black symbol to the right in that drawing, which is apparently used in sheet music for piano to denote when the player should release the sustain pedal. i chose it less for its specific meaning and more so just because it's a music thing that kind of looks like a snowflake (or, perhaps, a star).

- then there's the other major addition with dess's ??? form: the halo! it's meant to be another music staff reference, with constantly changing notes traveling along it, but contorted into a guitar-like shape. i'm not 100% set on the colors i used for it tbh, i might change those in future drawings of her. here's the fun part: when dess wants to make music, she's learned how to take her halo and temporarily turn it into, essentially, a hologram version of her guitar that she can actually play songs on! good thing she has a couple of picks in her coat pockets. i wonder what else is in there...?

lastly, for comparison's sake, i drew dess with kris and noelle, back when they were all together... and where they're at now.

(reminder that kris uses they/them pronouns!)

that should be everything covered! if you enjoyed my dess thoughts, may i also take this opportunity to recommend: my playlist for her! it's a little shy of four hours long, featuring 69 songs in a long-deliberated order meant to go through the story of her life - including how i hope her story resolves.

happy dess day everyone! no matter what holiday you celebrate :)

#deltarune #deltacember #december holiday #dess holiday #i have put so much thought into my version of dess both visually and otherwise. if you love her half as much as i do pls let me know #for the record all the drawings featured here were made (at least digitally) in the past week #but the oldest elements of her design that carried through to now are from doodles i did during class back in september #for knight!dess fans: you know how i mentioned she carries guitar picks on her?#well if queen's pin had a sharp enough point to be used as a blade for making dark fountains... why not those?#(if i fully subscribed to knight!dess then i would've drawn an alt to her ??? design that's more... knighty and hides her true identity #but. just throwing that out there.)

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anewfreind · 5 years

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Hey so, you played DeltaRune right? What was your first impression on the main cast? i.e. raslei, lancer, Susie, Kris.

Oh fucketh yes thou kindeth basterd, let thine doith this.

Alright, so imma talk about the game and new characters, and if you would like, send asks on the undertale cast, and how they changed, because i would love to talk about that! I would also love to talk about theories for both Deltarune and Undertale! Do send asks! Now lets begin:

*ahem*

I was NOT expecting it to be this long for what I thought was a free demo

I loved ALL the characters this time. I didn't think I'd like Susie and Lancer much, but they grew to be my favourite characters of the story this time.

Also, I knew Deltarune was an anagram of Undertale, but I went through the entire goddamn game without realizing that Ralsei was an anagram for Asriel. Yes, I'm stupid.

I really like the new party battle mechanics! I didn't use the fight option, but still.

I wasn't able to find part B of the key that would unlock that mysterious cell in the prison. Did anyone else find it?

This was a very easy game to get a Pacifist run in, and I got the good ending straightaway! Seemingly.

SEEMINGLY.

WHAT WAS THAT ENDING?!?

Still here? Cool lets go

So, some interesting points and thoughts I had about the game and characters, and other things and tropes I noticed:

Ascended Meme: Toriel mentions that Kris and Asriel enjoy playing Super Smashing Fighters, a clear Shout-Out to the Super Smash Bros. franchise. At the time of the release of Deltarune Chapter 1, a popular meme was that Sans would be confirmed as a character for the then-upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Anti-Frustration Features: Should you make at least three unsuccessful attempts to clear either timed-tile puzzle, Ralsei will offer a hint on how to solve them

Attack! Attack! Attack!: Susie's main method of fighting: She'll keep attacking enemies and won't listen to Kris. Fortunately, she gets better during the final dungeon. Perhaps this is how she was raised?

Awesome, but Impractical: The Top Cake heals your entire party for 160 HP, but your entire party only has 90, 110 and 70 HP anyway and can't be increased at all. Furthermore, giving the Top Cake back to the Top Chef makes him give you the Spin Cake, which, while only restoring 80 HP, is unlimited and any encounter that isn't a Boss fight will probably not shave off your entire HP.

One thing that annoys me with the game is that Lv can’t increase, but we will get back to that later

Bait-and-Switch: A lot of the plot details are set up in a similar fashion to the previous game, only to subvert expectations.

Susie threatens Kris early on and is a berserker who attacks monsters on sight and doesn't care about the quest she's nominally on, much like a No Mercy run from the previous game, but she refrains from killing anyone and ultimately makes a Heel–Face Turn.

Lancer is similar in both a recurring antagonist role and has a skeletal appearance with a blue color scheme, which might lead players to believe he has a connection with Sans and Papyrus from the previous game; he and his father turn out to just be Darkners who resemble skeletons and have no apparent connection with Sans and Papyrus at all.

A mysterious doorframe appears early on and savvy players (or fandom nerds) might expect them to tie into Gaster as they did in the previous game. They end up being a fast travel system (which is lame).

Lastly, there's Lancer's dad, the King, who might look like a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Asgore, right down to one of the people close to him trying to persuade both you and him not to fight (Undyne for Asgore, Lancer for the King). However, when you actually encounter the King, not only does he threaten to throw Lancer off a roof if the Lighteners don't kneel before him, he also tricks Ralsei into bringing him to full health so he has them at their mercy again. He ends up being defeated by Ralsei putting him to sleep while Kris and Susie escape, or captured by Lancer when he turns his own troops on him.

Big Door: There's a large bunker-style door built into the landscape in the forest to the south of town. Locked, unfortunately.

One of the encounters can be resolved peacefully by getting Ralsei to sing a lullaby, which also puts Susie to sleep. This later turns out to be the key to peacefully resolving the fight with Susie and Lancer. It comes up again in the "bad" ending to the King fight, where Susie notes that while she can't take the King down, Ralsei can. Susie: “I'd never forget something I made fun of you for.”

Similarly, Susie attacks automatically during the first battle with Lancer (who can't be killed), which is an early hint to the player that Susie attacks on her own and you'll have to prevent her from doing damage if you want a pacifist run.

Cliffhanger: The chapter ends with Kris (most likely being controlled) pulling out their/the player's SOUL, shoving it in a cage, and drawing a knife, at which point Kris's eyes glow red like Frisk's do if Chara's permanently corrupted your save after a genocide playthrough back in Undertale. This ending felt like a punch to the gut, and gave me so many questions to ask. Also, in the final scene, you can control the SOUL while it's in the birdcage. It won't change the outcome.

Lancer appears to be this for most of the initially-bad guy cast of Undertale, possessing a Sans-like color scheme, Papyrus's kid-brother nature and general enthusiasm for "evil," and Alphys's emotional attachment to the Big Bad.

Kris seems to be a hybridization of Frisk and Chara: their face, skin color and silent nature lean more towards the former, while their clothes and relation to the Dreemurr family (especially Asriel) scream of the later. Of course, after what happens in the ending, who knows how the three are connected? But here is something people have forgotten about, since I haven’t seen anything on it, but Kris looks exactly like the unused Frisk sprite, besides the sweater

Even if you go out of your way to beat encounters by force, enemies just get knocked off-screen. Contrast with Undertale and its infamous Genocide/No Mercy route.

After you beat the game and it closes itself, restarting shows Ralsei's legend as the intro and provides a new background for the file select screen.

Susie's hair is wild and covers her eyes, symbolizing her wild and violent outcast vibe. After the fight with the King, it's cut to reveal her eyes, and she becomes a lot more expressive and open with her emotions from them on.

All main characters are this, or have a Face Framed in Shadow. Them revealing their faces is usually a big deal.

Kris and Susie's outfits change when they fall into the dark world. Kris also becomes more blue in appearance, while Susie becomes more pink.

On the walk home, talking to numerous characters heavily hints that something is up with Kris. Numerous people refer to them as "creepy", or "quiet", and Noelle notes that they're usually quite distant from others. The game implies that Kris was being possessed by the player ala the first game

Ralsei makes direct reference to interface elements and controls as part of his tutorial-giver role. This leads to an amusing moment in the first block puzzle, as this trope doesn't apply to Susie.

Susie: (Who the hell is "[Z]"?)

Susie's solo fight against Lancer parallels the first game's fight against Toriel in a number of ways. In both cases, the foe is a family member of the king that guards the protagonist's way back home, and they're trying to prevent the protagonist from meeting the king in order to avoid bloodshed. Once the fight goes on for long enough, the foe starts attacking exclusively by dropping projectiles from above that are guaranteed to miss, showing their reluctance to fight someone they'd started growing close to.

This chapter has a lighter tone than all of Undertale. The game mechanics are more focused on solving puzzles and befriending enemies than fighting, and no one can die, even if you DO decide to attack all your enemies.

After returning from the World of Darkness, talking to several of the NPCs imply that Kris isn't acting like themselves. Noelle comments on how Kris is really talkative compared to normal, Noelle's dad implies Kris has forgotten things that they should know, the hospital clerk comments on how Kris isn't normally so bad at playing piano, and Kris in general seems a lot less "creepy" to the townspeople.

After arriving at the fountain, Kris and Susie find themselves back at the school, in a room with a chess board, playing cards, and some toys that look like the characters they encountered. But both of them remember what happened, and it's left ambiguous as to whether it really was just a dream or not.

If you have the Spooky Sword equipped, your "weapon" upon leaving the dark world will be the Halloween Pencil, leading to more questions.

If you follow the Jevil sidequest plot to its conclusion, mentions of The Queen are made, as well as Seam describing the event that drove Jevil insane as "Dark yet Darker" adding even heavier implications to Gaster's presence in the future story.

If one talks to Rouxls Kaard after starting his first puzzle, he will verbatim quote I. M. Meen. (Also Rouxls Kaard, thou art must marrith me)

When Burgerpants talks about his fellow pizzeria employees, he mentions a "Purple Guy" and wonders if he even works there.

Ralsei removing his hat and hood at the end, revealing that he looks exactly like Asriel. Judging by Susie's reaction, this is one both in and out of universe.

Right at the end of Chapter 1. Kris is tossing and turning in the middle of the night, when they jump out of bed and start walking around very slowly. They then stop in the middle of the room and pull their own soul out of their body, before throwing it into the birdcage from earlier. They then turn their head around slowly, revealing Chara's trademark smile and glowing red eye, before materializing a knife out of nowhere. Anyone who's played Undertale (so most of people playing this game, as it was recommended to those who already played Undertale) should have some very horrific guesses about what this mean

The King grabs Lancer's throat when he finds out that they let the heroes get away

#undertale #deltarune #ask #long post #like #really long post #deltarune theory #what did i think about the game #lancer #susie #susie deltarune #kris #rouxls kaard

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