I believe the “instance of the house where Kris was never adopted” part of the sequence with the GonerPiece is a reference to the theory that the ShadowCrystal shows the user a world where they don’t exist. (Kris sees through their hand, Susie was never convinced to be nicer and is glaring, the fountains were never opened). Just my two cents.
When it comes to the empty Dreemurr household, which you struggled to explain, when I first watched the series, it reminded me of Gonerkid from Undertale. In Undertale, Gonerkid describes that they fear the idea of a world in which they never existed. This empty Dreemurr household is just that for Kris, a world where they never existed, leaving Asriel an only child with a stack of boxes where Kris’s bed would have gone. Somehow, the Goner Pieces were able to manifest a world without Kris, which is likely why Gaster needed to mend the game: Kris was probably “shattering” into a Goner
Delayed Real Comment with Real Thoughts: The most interesting aspect of this webseries to me- probably coming as a surprise to nobody- is what you refer to as "The abyss [of unused content] staring back". Or in more blunt terms, cut content yearning to be un-cut. The version of Deltarune that Staggering Winds is spitballing seems to center around a particular bit of Undertale fanon that I've always liked: conflating the Gonner Kid dialogue with Gaster and his followers. There's nothing in UT to explicitly link them, but there's enough common ground between "a world where you don't exist but everything works perfectly" and Gaster's whole deal that I've always felt pretty comfy calling Gaster a commentary on cut content. He's presumably an important figure in UT's history but nobody references him, the real-world idea of Gaster likely comes from unfinished projects predating Undertale but he didn't make it into the game itself, yada yada... in my mind there's a lot for potential for metanarrative there. Undertale doesn't do much to tackle the idea of unused content itself, but the themes it _does_ deal with are all approached from a similar angle: "what if this thing we do to fake people in stories had weight as if they were real? How would characters realistically react? Would it maybe be really fucked up???". What this logic applied to cut content might look like is hinted at by Gonner Kid, and is very clearly what Staggering Winds is trying to elaborate on. "How would it feel to be retconned from your own story? What perspective would you have on the new narrative assembled around your absence? What would it look like if some of these redacted beings refused to _stay_ redacted?". Even Undertale being roped in, which you (understandably) call kind of absurd, feels right in some sense. Deltarune in its original form predates Undertale, and simply by virtue of being a complete "here's the current contents of my brain" kinda project in the wake of a scrapped one, a huge quantity of ideas from proto-DR were likely sorted through, rejiggered and recontexualized as elements of Undertale. For every idea cannibalized this way, though, there were probably two that didn't make the cut. They had to be scrapped- as far as Toby knew at the time, permanently. Now, though, via the miraculous circumstances of Undertale's success, Deltarune is literally back from the dead. It, along with all its unused plot, ideas, and characters, have been fished back out of their own Gaster void and given a second chance at narrative relevance, but now mixed in with all the other old ideas that were mutated and re-used in Undertale, as well as a bunch of Undertale's original content. Even the _fanon_ perspectives that have built up in the years since Undertale's launch have doubtless leeched into the Deltarune slurry to some extent, as we can see with datamining now being a potentially necessary to understanding certain aspects of the game like the Unused text. Something-something "It is when we're monitored we get a strong sense of connection". I'm pretty sure I speak for both of us when I say this is the kind of thing I'm _hoping_ will get more emphasis in Deltarune itself, but in the case where's it's a smaller piece of the puzzle than I thought, I agree that it's valuable to have these fan interpretations to show just how far these ideas could have gone if Toby wasn't particularly worried about subtlety. Very good video Molly.
I mean. That's soul crushing. One da waking up and realizing that lige has carried on without you even being born. Retconning every choice you even made and people you met. Family you mightve had. And they all seem fine without you...or worse, even better. It's bad enough getting retconned, but having to see it play out...😢
The coolest part of this to me is that all the new text for stuff like the monochrome Dreemurr house and Susie's dialogue really feels like Toby wrote it. The author really paid meticulous detail to make sure they nailed Toby's writing style, and as a writer that tries to recreate other people's writing styles, including Toby himself, that's something I always respect. "There's an odd absence of a floral scent" actually made me chuckle, it's almost a depressing, Gallows Humor punchline to that gag.
I was listening to the description of the part with the monochrome dreemur house and I kept thinking “this is something Toby Fox would do” Good touch on the part of the author
24:54 I actually wouldn’t stress too hard about that detail specifically. Winds probably used the Kristal engine in creation of this video, as that doll is replaced with that version of it in the Kristal build of Seam’s shop. Winds likely just didn’t realize that in terms of things behind the scenes.
whoever made this ARG has a very good idea on the kind of story toby is trying to tell with nostalgia, the feelings of longing for something that doesn't exist, and yet is very important to you.
Question: if the modified Deltarune suddenly had Chris not being Asreiel’s sibling, are we sure that second Winds still has a sibling? Or could the “stepping away” become a change to the reality of Wind’s themselves?
One thing I noticed in the second video uploaded is that the player equips the mannequin to noelle which is impossible to do normally so even in those something is still off.
I actually had an experience with this series really early, in such a weird way that I fully thought I'd been put into a creepypasta. So, I was opening YT and my PC was moving slow, so I started clicking wildly trying to make it load faster (yes I know that doesn't do anything.) Then I ended up clicking, without even seeing it, a video with no title, of Kris walking into a room, empty except for Susie, and all the shit that entailed I was pretty spooked. (I suppose this is fitting since this series is giving major BEN Drowned vibes lol)
Just for future reference, if your PC is running slow, wildly clicking on things does actually do something: it queues up commands, potentially making things take even longer to respond.
The weird text glitches (especially the "q spam" at 15:20) kind of reminds me of an earthbound glitch that would happen if you interact with the corner of the threed tent, Probably just a coincidence though.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Goner kid's dialogue considering how much relevance it has to Kris' situation--being transported to a world where they never existed yet everything functioning perfectly without them! I have a feeling it's important to the plot--maybe explaining the confusion between which Winds is recording? Him getting replaced with somebody else who eventually forgets they had a brother? Then again, I just think that's a cool and possible parallel between Kris and Asriel rather than a plausible story direction as opposed to my other theories. 1. The titles show the poster's emotional state The first 4 videos are in lowercase because OW (Original Winds) was making casual documentations, while SW (Sibling Winds) knew since they were uploading an unseen Deltarune demo it'd be important to the community. Their findings in the blank video were so surprising/upsetting they couldn't manage anything but a brief, lowercase description, the feelings are waring off but continuing at "shopkeeper visit," then they're used to it and regular titles and descriptions resume. They have capitalized, complete sentences in the description of the currently most recent video until the edit, where they switch to one sentence in lowercase without punctuation, meaning we have proof of whoever is in charge of at least this video changing their typing style based on their emotions. 2. There is interference It's been confirmed also in the most recent video that the Goners are aware they're being recorded. OW _did_ type in lowercase and fragmented sentences while SW typed with proper capitalization and had complete sentences, but there used to be a title for the untitled video that was [REDACTED]. Whether "shopkeeper visit" is an unreleased OW video, recent SW recording, or another entity is unknown. This also relies on the evidence of the uploader adding to the otherwise regular description "edit: what does it all mean," implying they didn't know it wasn't a regular Undertale playthrough until they watched it again. We don't know Gaster's/the Goners power level in the series, but I don't think it'd be unreasonable to assume he/they can glitch videos, although I won't embrace these theories until more information is revealed. It's important to note Kris may not have been apprehensive because there's another human in the Undertale playthrough, but because they sense the player's SOUL inside them. Looking at the dialogue, Susie doesn't ask Kris in any way "Hey, are you werided out by another human?" She assumes they are, which is understandable given that while she's becoming more cognizant of everything that's happening, she should have NO idea that the player was controlling Kris and I don't see why Kris would say it off screen considering how hard it'd be to prove that happened. I believe they'd know they were possessed, even in another timeline, because when Susie asks them if it feels like these events happened before in the Alternate Cliff Route and the player answers yes, she doesn't point out them sounding confused, meaning they'd remember when they weren't in control even if they always were in one timeline. After the Spamton NEO fight, if you make Kris lie about being okay, Susie notes it's strained, and if you allow them to honestly answer no, they scream. With how authentic the writing style is to Deltarune, I doubt if they didn't remember anything their tone wouldn't be commented on. Deltarune resets may be different from Undertale's because of them being different universes and the game going to great lengths to seperate itself from its predecessor (namely, power vs. determination), and we don't know how Susie's (aka probably basically everybody else's) deja vu works in full as she remembers prevous events and how way the world is meant to be constructed, but not that her and Lancer were friends (or she was surprised he knew her name already and Lancer was misinterpreting, but that sounds like a contrived red herring) Please let me know if there's inconsistencies in my logic or details I missed! Thanks for helping this series get its due attention Molly
Mini theory for this ARG: What if the abandoned house with the phone call is trying to show us that Kris is a Goner? In Undertale the Goner Kid talks about "A world in which you never existed" possibly referring to themself. As such that could mean that Goners are basically people who have been erased from existence. And from that phonecall about Asriel, it seems as if we're seeing a world in which Kris never existed. As such that sequence could be showing that Kris is a Goner Also the doggo in the end IRL video was incredibly cute
I know this is a very small detail, but the fact that this project actually has correct grammar and a massive attention to detiail when it comes to how characters speak just makes me so damn happy. You don't see something like this every day.
this reminds me *heavily* of an old Undertale fan-work where every Undertale character had the souls of all the reset's versions fuse into one body, and Frisk needed to use a special soul locket to free said souls from each monster
Yeah, that's help_tale. Its a pretty awesome concept despite never being finished. I believe the concept is: "What would happen if all the aus got fused together?"
i think thats the au that they said in the video that they might make a video on (they said it in some part near the beginning but i'm not gonna look for it now)
I think the “persevering with patience line” is a reference to Kris and Susie since Patience and Kris are light blue and perseverance and Susie are purple
"Well the dark world color pallets might have more meaning when compared to the light world. Kris' blue color when inverted is a pure Red, simmilar to the soul, and Susie's when inverted becomes a simmilar green to Ralsei
I legit thought this was some kind of 4D chess hidden teaser that Toby Fox was doing. I feel like that speaks to the quality of Winds’s videos! That or my gullibility
In the words of Toby's twitter It's cold. It's as if everything had been enveloped in a black wind... You didn't realize it yet, but... it seems that there's someone who wants to talk to you.
Id like to note that the out of bounds sequence of the grey dreemurr house is likely referencing a goner in undertale talking about being in a world where you no longer exist. Perhaps this could be a side effect of simply being in this out of bounds space.
Tbh, uploading random uncommentated gameplay snippets from his own game to a zero-subscriber youtube channel for no fucking reason before forgetting the password does emit high concentrations of Toby Fox sigma radiation. OG Winds = Toby sounds more viable by the minute.
VIDEO 9's exploration of UT/DR cross-compatibility is my absolute dream of what toby might do with the later stages of Deltarune. Imagine UT silently updating within a week of a chapter drop for DR, or DR giving you a beta access code for UT's steam release that allows players access to a wholly different version of the game. It'd be somewhat fitting, seeing how the original PC release is the only version of the game with 0 exclusive content left, and not entirely unheard of, either - toby used the Switch version exclusively to foreshadow DR's imminent release, after all.
I've always imagined something like that, too. My idea was something along the lines of once you beat Deltarune, your save data will 'complete' Undertale: Hard Mode, which would be significantly different, stuff like exploring the capitol city and meeting Undertale's Suzy. Maybe finishing Hard Mode could loop back into Deltarune? If the ending of Deltarune isn't a good one, if there really are no choices that can effect the one true ending, maybe you can use Undertale to take Deltarune beyond its ending, maybe your power from that world can give weight to choices in Deltarune? There's a lot of room to play there.
would not be shocked by the siiva gunner thing fun fact: siivaGunner had a video that started with an incredibly good version of a song from petscop. this confused the petscop community, as at the time there was no petscop ost uploads. eveyone assumes its just a good recreation cut to years later, after petscops creator is revealed- turns out they were friends with the siiva gunner creators and gave them a copy of some of the games songs
we gotta look at this from the modding standpoint, y'all. THIS IS AMAZING. so many new rooms, entire PORTS of areas, all of it looking OFFICIAL for the most part???? whoever made staggering winds is amazing.
I have a feeling Original Wind's copy of deltarune takes place in one back when Chapter 2 was supposed to come out longside every other chapter (and was just as they were planning to make ch2 release seperately) The goner peice may have been something you could get in later chapters that would carry over to a new playthrough, that in the build itself was unobtainable as the later chapters arent available yet, the game may expect you to have knowledge from other chapters that none of us (including the uploaders) are aware of (or atleast it was before we got a video about FRICKING undertale xDD) Its also possible that stuff like the dess speech in the code isnt actually dess, especially consideeing that its never been outright stated in the actual game that it IS dess (since thats just a headcanon) so its not smt to focus on
Not only do i love delta rune, not only do i love arg's, but i also love mollystarts videos. this is 3 of some of my favorite things put into 1 and words cannot describe how exited i am.
Heck yeah! New Molly video!! Can I mention how much I love the way you edit videos. It's honestly so entertaining to watch. Also, this types of videos from Staggering Winds bring back so many old memories of mystery videos that explore "secrets" from games and I love that!
22:24 Glad to know Im not the only one who has a neuron activation at the simple mention of the word underscores. Very cool video too, the editing is insanely good !
The siivagunner connection is kinda of strange because there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that *Toby Fox* has worked on some rips for the channel before
@@CreepyboomGamerif you listen to that rip, (hopes and dreams pal version siivagunner) toby fox mixed and mastered that rip. he was 100% involved with that and is very aware of the siivagunner team
@@LookiePookieToby does receive an in video credit for mixing and mastering, but considering most of the credits sequence are jokes, I have to assume this is just referring to the original track, or an attempt at comedy. I feel like Toby would’ve brought it up himself if he made a contribution to siivagunner.
I could be way off the mark but that place in the last few minutes of the video looked like it was somewhere in the New England area. Apparently Toby grew up in that region, which makes sense to me because Hometown has always given those vibes. Little houses and chapels nestled in an autumn forest. Definitely one of the most beautiful regions in the country imo. This comment would be really funny if I was wrong though. Great video as always, btw.
I feel like the Seam moment was a threat, like Gaster warning not to use the goner pieces to have different things play out as they are supposed to prevent it
Honestly I think my favorite part of the series is that so far it feels like something that could actually happen. Like, it does kind of feel like prototyping for a continuation of the weird route and the Gaster plotline. The only super unbelievable part is the recording software glitching, whereas everything else feels very “Deltarune”. Even the acknowledgment of viewers when recording software is used isn’t super uncommon in recent indie games.
Hey Molly, new Winds video! It’s really short but also really cool! Plus, a new addition to the channel banner! If you can’t see it, (spoilers for the new vid) Look off slightly to the left. Susie’s there in the dark, Gone.
i have No Affiliation with the staggering winds channel or the creation of anything on the channel itself JKLDHJKLF besides, if it really were me, i'd have That Box Symbol With The X Going Through It plastered around Somewhere in the channel so that you'd be certain of it
I'm going to be completely honest here. This is the first video of yours I've seen and already I am just BLOWN away by how well this is done! The art is great and the way it's put together is fantastic! can't wait to see more from you!
Congrats on Getting this Far, just One thing I wana mention lol, The first time Where they use the Gonnerpeice and it spells out their name in base64, the qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq is a reference to Earth bound's infamous Tent glitch that happens when interacting with a tile on the edge of the map.
Wow, your editing is astounding. I love how unique the visual style is compared to other theorists / video essayists. I hadn't heard of SW before watching this - I'll be keeping up with it now. Thank you! You've definitely inspired me to work on a Deltarune-related video project, though probably nothing as all-encompasing as this video, or your Device theory.
idk how I keep missing stuff like this that perfectly aligns with my niche interests lol, thanks for bringing this series to mine and other people's attention! oh and you absolutely deserve the support, can't wait* to see tdt part 3 and whatever else you end up doing 💜 *can, take your time :)
(not that far into the video so it might be addressed later) something i noticed about the face in staggering winds profile is that it resembles the white part of gasters lower body turned upside down. not the original, mind you, but the spooked one when you interact with him.
57:30 Always thought of something weird with that toby fox quote, It does say that your undertale world won’t be effected by your deltarune world, but says nothing about if your undertale world can effect your deltarune one.
Genuinely incredible content. Can’t wait to see what else you put out. You put your information together in an exceptionally coherent manner and present it with a fun and relaxing manner. Everything is so well edited for being hour plus long videos. Truly wonderful content.
Good schtuff. I like your videos because they bring a new fresh vibe to the community that it really needed. Unused content is a massive cornerstone of Deltarune so I'm glad someone decided to make this kind of ARG to really emphasize that 'videogame glitches' and hidden secrets side of the game.
That ending message was really awesome, I have watched Device Theory a lot of times, and I've had my friend watch it to show them how complext Deltarune/Undertale lore can get. I've even gotten them to start watching Underverse now XP. Videos like yours are perfect for work, I stick around because of how well written they are and how interesting you can keep your content throughout 2 hours of talking. Im really excited to see what your future videos are!
Something I just thought of are the parallels between the Dreemurrs and the people behind the Staggering winds channel, given that the Original Winds has left his sibling with the channel like how Asriel left Kris to go to college.
thank you for making such a detailed video about this series!! I found staggering winds randomly from the untitled video, and I just rewatched everything when I saw you were going to be covering it
This shit is wild , very well made , pretty believable, some things are weird, but I'm excited were this will go , thanks for spreading the word molley
1:06:39 "Because apparently that's a thing now" I've been watching videos I've already watched multiple times for years now. Including those Device Theory videos. Hell, I literally just re-watched the Device Theory videos yesterday. Also, I'm glad you acknowledged my favorite Undertale AU. HELP_tale is a fascinating concept (even if it tries a little too hard).
This is so interesting. Have you seen the one by Ash Veil lane? And staggering winds did more since this. I hope you check both of these things. Once your part 3 of your big videos is done.
For some reason, this series really reminds me of RickyG's DONTFORGET. If you don't know, it's a fan game that's been going on basically since Undertale first came out, but it's grown a lot since then. It focuses and expands on the more gastery bits of Undertale. Something about being shown grayed out, unseen parts of familiar places brings back memories of traversing strange forests, making friends in a purple version of Waterfall, being dragged to my doom somewhere within a recreation of Lavender Town, and all the while talking with strangers about the goings-on of the game and listening to music that would keep me awake that night and bring nostalga to my heart years later. Like I said, the version of it that's out now is much different to that one, but it's still very good (and it's still going on!) I never really got to be a part of any args or theorize about creepypastas in the past, but DONTFORGET - as well as the Spamton Sweepstakes, and really Deltarune as a whole - really feel as if a generation who got to experience that kind of stuff wanted me to experience it, too. It's like a big gift to everyone - to themselves, to others like them, and to others that aren't like them. Not yet. So, thank you. Toby, Ricky, Winds, as well as all of the theorists out there, like you. We're all part of a community, and that's something that I cherish to share with all of you.
Your videos analysis are insanely cool! Now that you mentioned it I would love to see your interpretations on petscop in a long format like the device theory!
Before I begin, just wanna say I got the best ad timing. "And it's pretty fucking bizarre AT DOMINOS OUR PIZZA-" That said, I'm not personally sure what to think about Scattering Winds yet, at least as a series, but the way the goner piece warps the game and how Gaster is trying to collect them reminds me a lot of the OLD_DATA in Inscryption. This strange thing hidden inside the game that completely alters anything it comes into contact with and grants some kind of pseudo sentience to the game's cast. I wouldn't be shocked if that was the inspiration, even. Though I do notice the major difference is that gonerpieces are freely given to and collected by Winds, compared to the OLD_DATA which is kept out of our hands unless we perform a long series of esoteric command line shenanigans. Though thats probably just due to the shift in medium the ARG is delivered in. Though as an ARG, its clearly in the very early stages. Unless there's something we've missed, its not like the watcher has been prompted for anything yet. Just that we've been acknowledged. Though it could very well be that we're being given a cipher first, and the riddle comes later. Though I do wonder where the fuck Kris went in that UT video. Or what the wider implication that there are three Krises -- "player" Kris, "UT" Kris, and "Enemy" Kris -- actually is. There's also the name of the channel and in game item itself: Staggering Winds. "Winds" is for sure the player name, regardless of why, and to "stagger" something is to force it off balance. Perhaps a double entendre about how at least one of the two Winds is "staggered" in some way, as well as using the item Staggering Winds offset the game(s) into its current state?
Another banger video as always, Molly! Your editing and writing skills are by far the most impressive and in depth I’ve ever seen in regards to theory crafting and meta narrative analysis, and I can’t wait to see what more you have in store for the channel, no matter what it is! One quick question though, are you going to keep doing the chill streams of ‘going over comments’ for TDT: Part 2? Of course, I totally understand if you’re super busy or don’t have the time in your schedule with everything you’ve got going on. Just curious! 🤠👍
thank you so much waa!!! i'm really glad people have been enjoying the video so far, it genuinely means a ton to see this be interesting to people as for streams, i do plan to get back to them pretty soon! i do wanna continue part 2's comments because there's still A Lot of them and i'd like at least get through most of them. hell, i may even read through some of the SW comments, but i'm not quite sure yet, it definitely is something i wanna get back to though now that this video is fully out there lol
Love watching your vids! You can see so much work was put into them. Also they are very good break from reality and this road into such complex yet fun and engaging to uncover topics.
Honestly your vids are a joy to watch! Its awesome and informative and tbh just, relaxing and fun, im relatively new to your channel but im glad i found you, and im glad to be subbing!
Hey molly, hopefully you see this. Im really really happy i found your channel because your content is the exact content i look for, you're extremely good at just calmly explaining things and speaking in a very understandable way since english isn't my first language. I can just put you on my second monitor and listen to your videos over and over again, you're just too good at being soothing. Hope this encourages you to do more videos so i can have more sleeping/chilling content. Thank you dearly.
Wildest thing about this ARG is the fact that the videos are literally CHANGING. I went to go watch the series first, and to see you talk about the “short clip” video and be like.. “wait, that’s not what i watched” is wild.
the way you described a silva gunner video sounds similar to how the series has played out so far, a video that makes you think it's completely normal at first, only to reveal it's weirdness at it goes on.
my god your vhs effects look so good, like little detail and distortions are literally on point, i dont think i ever saw any one do them as good without using real cassettes
Lovely video as always. As for the ideas with the 10k; the only thing that would come to mind is something along the lines of "how did we get here?", i.e. how did you end up encountering deltarune, the theory, making your style for videos etc. On the one hand, that can entail a lot of interesting things, and on the other, limitless scope creep so do beware :^)
Hey Molly, new Winds video if you didn’t see it. Over two hours long too. No gameplay though, just 5 codes and a lot of static. I have the codes saved if you want them, or you can watch it for yourself. Don’t recommend it however, I’d say just skip it. I wasted my time, you don’t need to. Codes are below: 1. DON’T TRUST THE PRINCE 2. DARKER YET DARKER 3. LOOK BEYOND THE CONFINES 4. SHE VANISHED IN A PLACE FROZEN IN TIME 5. TWO ENTITIES TWO WORLDS ONE ESSENCE Only other things that happened were at the start, the end, and one point near the middle where the code jingle played without a code attached to it
