I like to imagine these two Deltarune stickers foreshadowed chapter 2 a little:
This one could show Noelle and Susie's first interaction, when Susie was new in school and Noelle gave her the candy cane looking pencil. She is not giving a big smile, like Susie said she did in their conversation, but maybe it was a moment before she did that. Here she looks a little worried, maybe she first saw Susie's concerned expression and she realized how lonely the new girl was and wanted to check on her? The smile could be just after she offered to give Susie a pencil.
... But this one, with Noelle being seriously scared and on her knees, looks like it could be from the Weird Route/Snowgrave Route. She seems frightened of something or someone, and the line "that's not like you" indicates it could be Kris controlled by the player facing her. Also all the dark shadows and her covered eye make this sticker stand out in an uncanny way.
I THINK ABOUT THIS LINE IN SNOWGRAVE. I THINK KRIS IS TRYING TO GIVE NOELLE A SAD APOLOGETIC LOOK. TRYING TO IN SOME WAY LET HER KNOW THEY DONT WANT THIS TO BE HAPPENING. BUT BC OF THEYRE CREEPY AUTISM AND HOW WEIRD THEYVE BEEN ACTING. NOELLE IS JUST OFFPUT.
i think the thing that really gets me about pre-canon durge is their absolute sense of duty, and their utter isolation outside of the cult of bhaal.
most of the cultists seem eager to see durge upon their return, and one even says they were the first to feed him flesh. gortash tells them of an exhibition of a bhaalspawn's corpse and another bhaalspawn's creations and durge immediately plans to attack the hall of wonder to recover them. they then apparently entrust said bhaalspawn's corpse to sceleritas fel to "restore" through taxidermy. they deride orin for her artistry with corpses explicitly because "bhaal will never care" and because orin "[does] not understand lord bhaal".
even their infamous prayer for forgiveness is framed around their absolute submission to bhaal's plans, and the crime that requires forgiveness? admiring his rival's chosen. that's one line, and the next three paragraphs are swearing to carry out his plan exactly as they've been told to, all for his forgiveness.
hell, even their room reinforces this. orin has barely touched the place aside from installing her mother's corpse and her manifesto - and that is some of the only decoration. what was it before orin, an empty room with skulls, a bed, a desk, some chests and a wardrobe?
the durge didn't have any semblance of a life outside of bhaal, aside from gortash. and is it any surprise? the only other hint they ever had a life outside of the cult is the flashback of kid durge murdering their adopted family, all thanks to their father's urging.
bhaal even tries to force them back into isolation after they've been tadpoled by forcing them to kill alfira, and then trying to force a durge who resists him to kill their lover. if they continue resisting, bhaal kills them. bhaal will not allow them to have a life outside of him and, if it weren't for jergal, he would've succeeded.
This is not cannon, as the weird route is finished and it will not be added upon. But.......I often find myself wanting to draw for it. So here you are...
The weird route ends abruptly and without art for a reason. I wanted to make it painfully obvious that as YOU continue the route/story YOU stop getting anything out of it. You're only hurting the characters, and by the end, there's nothing left to do except start over.
I had thought of Asriel discovering Chara...well, dead. But I think that would have been too much for the scene. I didn't want to get any more depressing than it already was.
tbh I only hope that I can make an ending even half as good as this one. I still think about it often and I'm proud of the amount of work I put into it.