My thoughts on Festival Day. [Deltarune]

Chapter 5 was genuinely not it. I hesitate to call it bad, but it's bad.

The tone that Chapter 4 ended with isn't something that can just be brushed aside, especially not for a poorly placed and frankly poorly thought out "one last fun ride" that Chapter 5 tries to be. Susie feels lobotomized largely because her tone from Prophecy, "We... aren't gonna let that happen..." is such a strong ending that outright screams "ante is upped!" The fact that we basically circle back to it in the ending of Festival Day with the addition of Susie deciding that Noelle should join is downright sloppy writing.

And the Festival is so goddamn unnecessary. The issue is not the scale, it's the fact that the date, Sans needing the drawing, and Rudy getting sicker are all moments that really feel like they don't need the festival to be the setting point. And frankly it wouldn't be a problem if the chapter wasn't literally named Festival Day and instead something that lines up with the dark world that was featured, like Flower Kingdom or something.

Then there's the main characters for the chapter, the Flowers. Honestly got annoyed by them. They're nice up to the point that it basically becomes the story padding itself out by creating them as detours, pausing the plot for this "final fun ride" that is, again, poorly placed. The real reason why they're so popular is because the promise of seeing the souls from Undertale be indirectly expanded upon was that big since ... you know, Undertale?

They genuinely feel like filler because this is a thing I've noticed with Toby's narrative direction on Deltarune is that there is a set point for the plot, so even if he creates scenes that should result in some meaningful impact, like the church getting wrecked, Undyne going missing, Toriel in a dark world, Asgore's whole damn INCIDENT dialogue, he will actively undercut it or write them out as soon as possible instead of just not structuring it to go there in the first place.

That's not even getting into Pink. The whole memetic nature of her being an anime catgirl with Hatsune Miku doing the damn theme pretty much undercuts her lore relevance. Like moving from Spamton as the supposed Kris foil to an otaku joke is just not really what I'd call "funny" by a positive tone. Everything about her feels like a meme, even her secret depth. And the fact that the lore patch came it later is even more of an eye-roll.

Some people have talked about how this is a character development chapter. I have to genuinely wonder if they actually read other works. Ralsei and Susie's arcs are just teasers. Why is Ralsei an impossibility and why does it give him so much hang-ups over his power and existence and free will? Tune in next time because you don't even get a hint to make a vague idea of anything. And Susie just does what happened in chapter 4.

Asgore himself is the worst offender. He's not all knowing but revealing some context about what happened in the past, even if it's incorrect and blatantly incomplete information, is still something that can progress the plot without being a lore dump. Instead he does the worst goddamn key-jingling dialogue because Toby really needs to hammer home the mystery being important as if we didn't literally have an ARG about bats and everything looking like a ball. People keep talking about "Kris's trauma" except I don't actively give a shit. I am making a writing criticism because Asgore's dialogue could've at least jingled the keys in a more dignified manner. All Asgore does is aura-farm, vaguely allude to him neglecting his family, quickly develop, and then get kidnapped because I am dead sure Toby's gotten some form of How I Met Your Mother syndrome.

What I mean by that is that Toby sticks to his dream, which means that despite the fact that he keeps getting the script to go into places that would disrupt the path to that conclusion, he would rather go there, undercut the whole aftermath and then go back to the track. Since he apparently merged Undertale's concepts into Deltarune, which I do not buy considering GASTER.

And now this is where I get my tinfoil hat. I think he straight up changed the plot after the reception of the Flower scene.

Look, I'm going to be very honest here, but does anyone actually think that after the white gown, the ThornRing, the dialogue with the Addisons, the romantic subtext and general memory reminiscence, Toby would not have known about "deflowering"? That is actively moronic at best. There is nothing wrong with interpreting that scene as rape, I would argue it was most certainly intended to be read in that manner. The commemorative ring is a thorn inserted into her for god's sake.

Frankly? I fucking hate the change. Toby actually went somewhere different, and absolutely backed out. "The family's fighting again" turns into Asgore's neglect which is resolved in a jarring manner is another example.

Toby had changed it because I'm going to be honest, the internet can't even handle the admittance that he theory-baits. He creates ARGs to quiz out on Dess, everything is driven by a vague set of mysteries hanging over the head of the plot which hasn't even been fully clarified, Gaster's whole thing. Sans and the Don't Forget drawing. Toby wrapped Deltarune in a bag and jingled it. It's certainly better than Cawthon, but it's a playbook he's absolutely done.

but what I found more or less annoying is that Toby can't actually handle what he made. He backed out and completely rewrote it. It's like hearing people talk about animation being cinema and all they bring out is fucking all-ages-which is just films for the youth-than stuff like Mad God, Anomalisa, Persepolis. Only way that happens is through anime films like Perfect Blue because the foreign component still plays a part.