/the_n3w3st_g1rl_g1rl/ and why it doesn't make sense whatsoever
/the_n3w3st_g1rl_g1rl/ is a blog post published during the Spamton Sweepstakes, a charity event hosted by the Deltarune team in September 2022. The post is written through Noelle's perspective, likely a couple days after Susie first enrolled in the school in Hometown.
In it, we learn that Kris was one of Susie's targets of bullying, and that Kris is generally unbothered by it. We also learn that Noelle's crush on Susie was very much love on first sight, given how often she expresses a desire to sit next to Susie or get her gifts or protect her in any way she can.
On the surface, it sounds like a standard story. It is a blog post about a villain written from the perspective of someone smitten with her, describing an event that sets the scene for what will happen in Chapter 1. However, I believe there is something more to it, and I believe this because many aspects divined by the story simply do not track with what we know, and several events call into question dialogue that happens in the game later. In this post, I will discuss the events of /the_n3w3st_g1rl_g1rl/, what the story lacks and what it might mean.
Abstract
The story
The story takes place a few days or so after Susie first enrolls in school, as evidenced by Noelle calling her "that new girl". Noelle near-immediately develops a crush on Susie bordering on obsession, and she allows Susie to get away with bad behavior because of this.
Susie has decided to display a tough, bully-like persona, and she makes use of this to build her reputation as someone to be feared by beginning to tease and bully Kris, the notoriously quiet kid and the most obvious outsider in Hometown.
The story is about one particular event after class one day, where Susie attempts to intimidate Kris and assert her fictitious authority. While Kris is still asleep, Susie catches a whiff of their hair, which smells like apples from the shampoo they use.
This provides Susie with an opportunity to try to intimidate them, taking an apple Alphys left on her desk and biting it in half, all the while making remarks on how she perceives Kris to be an idiot and threatening to bite them in half because of their shampoo.
Kris is not phased whatsoever. Their behavior in this scene shows that they do not take Susie's threats seriously, and even finds them amusing. This, naturally, aggrevates Susie, who then throws the half-eaten apple right at Kris.
Kris sees this as an opportunity to challenge Susie's authority - they take their notebook, use it as a shield to deflect the apple, then catches it and takes a bite out of it. Susie becomes furious at this reaction, telling them their mom would be happier without them and that someone might make them disappear one day.
Yet Kris is still not phased. They mutter something quietly, which made Susie leave the classroom and school in fear or panic. The story ends with Kris discovering Noelle saw the scene unravel.
We do not know what Kris said to Susie, nor do we know why Susie decided to exhibit this persona. We can presume that, whatever Kris said, it was enough to shatter the illusion Susie is trying to display, meaning it was likely to be something related to her past that caused her to behave like she does in the story. It is at present unclear if we will ever get clarification on what they said.
The problems
When first reading this, I truly could not understand it. Even after careful analysis and day-long scrutiny, I felt that there was just something wrong with the story that made it difficult to believe it truly transpired just as Noelle claims. Now, after many months, I believe I have isolated the main problems with the story and constructed a theory that can somewhat explain it.
The mischaracterization and flanderization of every character
Possibly the most egregious of plot holes you can include in a story, every character in the blog post is acting either out of character, or they're acting according to only one specific trait they have, disregarding other traits that make them more complicated. Simply put, the characters act as distorted and perverted fascimiles of their worst traits. I will go over each character separately, listing arguments for why they aren't acting as they should and providing evidence for each claim.
Noelle and her crush
Noelle can be considered the narrator of the event, and thus, every single action is passed through her, like a filter only catching the most important events in the sequence.