*shaking, covered in blood and dirt, dark circles under my wide and crazed eyes* i can be normal about the media i like

Ferris Wheel

the thing is, Susie feels the exact same. She just wont say it out loud.

Crashout of the century

*I wike you too, Suwsie!

DELTARUNE: A Masochistic Reading of Noelle Holiday and Trends of Masochistic Invalidation

(MASSIVE SPOILERS for all of Deltarune!)

To preface beforehand… everything I’m about to discuss is purely from my own reading, observations, research, and knowledge from friends within alternative communities (S&M and kink) while having very little personal experience with those communities myself.

If this makes everything I’m about to discuss feel fraudulent, you are valid for assuming so.

Frankly, I’ve been musing over whether I should even be the person writing this analysis. But as a fan of the Deltarune community and especially this character, I felt as if this topic has been disappointingly under-discussed, and I wanted to put any of my pennies into this bucket in hopes of finding those voices.

If anyone with real knowledge and lives within these communities happens to read this and finds any of my observations off-base, please inform me in this post’s replies or tumblr asks. I yearn for more analysis on this topic and this character from your voices instead.

Art: @slugg-it-out

Last week... uh, wait 2 weeks ago (shit), I asked this kinda out of nowhere:

“Is Noelle Holiday a masochist?”

My answer? Yes!

… but I want to rephrase the question slightly. Noelle is a minor, so linking her to masochism, even when specifically talking about S&M relationship dynamics and not the physical act of S&M is pretty touchy. 

Instead, let me rephrase it this way:

“What observations can we gather from Noelle’s arc under a masochistic reading?”

I don’t think I have to elaborate that Noelle, at the very least, has masochistic tendencies. All of her wiki pages say it, fan communities make constant jokes about it, and thanks to the voters last week, I know a decent majority also agree.

thanks everybody!

So why the heck am I talking about this like some big deal if this is mostly agreed upon?

I’ve combed across tons of Noelle analysis from psychological profiles, her metatextual relevance to Deltarune, the shipping wars, etc. I’ve scoured quite a bit ever since Ch 2… yes, for that long.

And to speak frankly… I think a lot of fans aren’t willing to take Noelle’s masochism seriously.

Not just in the “oh isn’t it funny that she wants to be stepped on” kinda way (though those memes are still very funny), but sometimes in a “Noelle’s masochism is a character-flaw” sort of way. 

And I have some concerns that I’ll get into later...

(btw, I’m only linking comments that are genuinely in good faith in this post, I’d rather not draw attention to the malicious ones.)

Here’s my piece: I don’t think Noelle is down bad just for the fun of making thirst jokes, I strongly believe that Noelle was explicitly written to be a repressed adolescent exploring her masochistic tendencies. 

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No, actually, I think you have a point there. I mean, these traits are very subtle but very clear and specific at the same time. I think Toby wanted to draw attention to the main story itself and wanted the fans to work to know more, just like everything else in the game. If you just wanna play it and not care about her emotional depth and all, fine, but if you want to, read her dialogue and it's there. It's a subtle (very important) detail about >her character< and not the main story. It's a minor detail, sometimes almost irrelevant to the whole thing itself, but if the player want to know more about Noelle's character, they have this. If you really want to understand her, read her. I find it very brave to put that stuff in the game, because the whole subject is there, but it's not explicitly said, you have to go after it — and it's a subject that often causes controversy! So this move was really smart.

I wouldn't affirm 100% that she is indeed a masochist, maybe she's just into some freaky stuff and she's still discovering herself. It's early to say. But this analysis is really relevant to read her. I love how you emphasized the consent part and how Noelle said that if she knew that after the fear she would be cared for, and know that she's okay and everything's under control, she would be fine. I find this really cute. It speaks a lot about her dynamic with Susie, supposedly, or better saying, her crush on her. Noelle knows that Susie isn't mean, she was the first person to say this in the game during the first chapter, she knows that even though Susie is apparently scary she is actually very kind and will care for her. So so so cute. I love both of them.

Today I saw a person on Tiktok posting a video saying "Noelle is one of the most complex characters in Deltarune but y'all are not ready for this conversation", and they weren't, of course. The comments were just mocking her or bringing up other characters. Noelle is not shallow at all, I think she's at level with the main characters and Berdly as well.

gaapbubu

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i dont care if mondays rife,tuesday qednesday full of strife, thursday fuck my baka life, its friday im in sucks