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Welcome! Here’s why we think Penumbra Phantasm is decently likely to be featured in Deltarune. This post is long! Use the sidebar on the left to navigate.
...or at least, I think so.
Penumbra Phantasm was an unreleased song Toby made for Homestuck. Though its leitmotif was used in several HS tracks, the standalone song never got released. We do sorta know how it sounds like because some beta versions of it got leaked.
For context: in Homestuck, the leitmotif first appeared as a countermelody to Doctor in Savior of the Waking World. After its introduction, the leitmotif appears decently often. You'll hear it in [S] Cascade and [S] Collide, which were two of the biggest flashes in Homestuck, as well as the song for the final act, Act 7. So it was a pretty big deal, and HS fans wondered why Toby didn’t release the full song.
Toby is no stranger to reusing songs from his past works, for example Fallen Down and Megalovania.
In 2011, when Toby was asked about Penumbra on Tumblr, he cryptically responded with this: "A T " S H A D O W ' S E D G E , " S H A T T E R T H E T W I L I G H T R E V E R I E ." (Source). Which definitely sounds like some kind foreshadowing...
Twilight = the period between day and night.Reverie = a daydream, fantasy, vision.
“Shatter the Twilight Reverie” could be like a fancy way to say “wake up from the dream”.
What’s more is that, Toby’s very first tweet on Twitter reads: “The edge of the shadow, where reality and dream meet”. On its own that sounds pretty Deltarune-esque, but when you remember the tumblr post...they seem connected, don’t they?
Edge of the shadow = SHADOW’S EDGE. Reality and dream → the tumblr post also mentions a reverie. “Dreams vs Reality” is already a pretty big theme of Deltarune, with the Light World representing Reality and the Dark World representing Dreams. Both of these posts could’ve been foreshadowing for Toby’s “Dream Game” (literally).
Look at the definition of Penumbra. According to Google, it’s “the partially shaded outer region of the shadow”, which is literally a shadow’s edge!
Remember how Ralsei’s prophecy mentions “Worlds’ Edge”? He says Worlds’ with the apostrophe at the end, so he is talking about two worlds. The two worlds we know about in Deltarune are Light and Dark. The edge of light and dark.
And if you pay attention to Don’t Forget’s lyrics, it’s getting at the same idea: a clash between light and dark, and of reality and dreams:
When the light is running low
And the shadows start to grow
And the places that you know
Seem like fantasy
Even down to the mention of fantasy (synonym for reverie / dream) (similar etymology to Phantasm).
Also, one of the leaked versions for Penumbra was titled “Awakeningcrap2.mid”. Awakening. The act of waking up means you’re going from the dream to reality, you’re traversing the edge between the two.
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To recap, here are all the versions we have so far:
And here is a timeline of the song made by Psychopomp413 from the ACDS. Thanks!
If you saw, one of the versions of Penumbra features ocean sounds at the start. Edit (8/12/23): this is not really the case. This ocean sound effect is supposed to be this whale sound effect from Secret of Mana.
We know this because there’s a Demo Reel version of Penumbra, done by Toby, which is a more completed version (30 second snippet). This demo reel implements the whale sound correctly:
The video I initially linked of the midi used the ocean sound as a stand-in, but it’s really supposed to be the whale sound. (If you look at the file in a midi editor, the channel for this sound effect is named “Secret of Mana (Midi)”. So this is probably intended.)
Kinda confusing, but yeah. That makes it a bit harder to connect to “the sea” specifically. I guess a whale lives in the sea, but it’s not as direct as initially thought.
If Toby already imagined Darkness being connected to the sea back then, then maybe the water sounds do have a deeper meaning for the song, but not for a Homestuck context. Penumbra could be the song from the sea that Onionsan talks about in Deltarune, and the Riverperson talks about in Undertale. They both agree that it’s an “old” song for whatever reason, which, yeah I guess. It was first drafted in 2010 .
You could also sort of connect PP to the song from the sea because, when Onion talks about it, they say they can’t remember. Dang it Onion, you had one job...don’t forget.
Seems like not-forgetting is a theme. I imagine the name for that song “Don’t Forget” came about when Toby woke up from his Deltarune fever dream. You can easily forget a dream after it comes up → repeatedly tell yourself “don’t forget”.
Sans in UT has to not-forget a picture. Noelle in the Weird Route “has to forget” what happened, according to Susie. It’s a thing.
At its core, Don’t Forget is a message telling the listener what to do when the Roaring occurs. When the Light and Dark clash, when the Penumbra says “it’s phantasming time” and phantasms all over those guys. So the two themes are kinda connected. I think the DR timeloop theory could have some relevance somehow.
...where was I going with this?
Where can we expect to see it in Deltarune?
Oh right. It’ll be the final boss theme.
What? Why?
Why else might we believe it’s a final boss theme?
Counter-evidence for it being a final boss theme (or relating to Deltarune at all):
Well, I just think it being a final boss theme is likely. If not that, it’s still entirely possible that PP is included as some sort of “Titan Battle Theme”. If the final boss of the game doesn’t take place during the Roaring for some reason.
You can kinda hear the leitmotif at the start of Penumbra (the repeating • . ° . . • melody, start of this video) in Hopes and Dreams at 1:18, but it seems like barely anyone hears it because it plays very quietly, and at the exact same time as Flowey’s “Your Best Friend” leitmotif which is what people focus on.
If you struggle to hear it in the original, here is an isolated version of Hopes & Dreams. Here’s another. Listen to those, then listen to the original Hopes & Dreams—it’s in there.
Now this evidence may just be a coincidence, because...okay. That part of Penumbra is derived from another HS song called Doctor. The melody of that is like
(• . ° . °.)
Whereas Penumbra is like
(• . ° . . •)
Someone pointed out that, if Toby was really trying to sneak in Penumbra into H&D, he probably would’ve used the fully original parts of PP (1:06 and 1:31 that I linked) rather than the part that’s like 90% Doctor.
That’s kinda valid, but also consider:
MSPAR is an abbreviation for “MS Paint Adventures Reader”. In short, this character is kind of like the readers of Homestuck as a self insert. It’s been a while since I read the context though. The video has MSPAR trying to remember the events of Homestuck. It has a mish-mash of a bunch of different homestuck songs, unchanged from how they appeared in the comic (other than one song being reversed). Then at 0:25 to 0:49 is a version of Penumbra that hadn’t been heard before.
Here’s a post that attempts to amplify the Penumbra melody from MSPAR Remember.
The music for this part is credited to James Roach, who isn’t Toby. They are friends though, and have worked together on HS songs in the past. So what makes us think that the Penumbra snippet was composed by Toby? Because the guitar soundfont is the same one he always uses, and the bells & piano he often uses. The piano in particular is the same one as in the piano midi version.
When you use “isolate vocals” in audacity, you can hear a backing piano, calamity bells and what sounds like a choir voice? I think it’s a choir at least. You’d never be able to hear that normally because the song itself is a cacophony of a bunch of tracks, and the guitar that plays during the Penumbra part is so loud.
Basically, the Penumbra part is very detailed. I highly doubt James Roach decided to copy Toby’s instrumentation exactly and make a very-detailed version of Toby’s song to put into Pesterquest. It’s more likely Toby just asked him to put it in there as a sneak peek for Penumbra, whether it’s truly intended for Deltarune or for a Homestuck thing.
The main interesting thing about this is that, Toby hasn’t abandoned the song. At the time of writing this, Pesterquest was just 3 years ago, so it’s pretty recent.
--
Now this is a bit far fetched, but: MSPAR: Remember is kind of reminiscent of Onion’s situation, isn’t it? You, the reader, are trying to remember the events of the comic. The audio has a combination of a bunch of other HS songs, but Penumbra is somehow in there fully realized. That’s weird, isn’t it? You’re trying to remember a song which you’ve previously heard? It’s not new, but you can’t quite remember? Hmm...
That’s literally MSPAR’s situation in Pesterquest! (other than the sea).
It really confused me why Toby would randomly decide to sneak a snippet of the song into the...second Homestuck VN, of all places. A few of his old HS songs were used throughout the VN, so he was definitely contacted for it somewhat, but otherwise he was pretty hands off. But the specific situation it appears in might be why (if penumbra really is intended to be the song from the sea, a song that’s easily forgotten).
Toby could’ve been looking at the development of Pesterquest, saw what was happening at that part of the story, and thought “hmm...maybe I can tease my song here. Yeah the homestuck fans can have a teeny bit more breadcrumbs”.
Penumbra does have an identity of being hidden. We only know how it sounds in full because of unintentionally leaked versions, and because of a livestream recording we have because a single person on tumblr happened to be recording Toby’s livestream at the time. (and that recording only has half of the song). So its inclusion in a flash where someone is trying to not-forget something...
...well. It’s kind of murky though, because us HS fans do remember Penumbra through leitmotif, we just haven’t heard the actual thing. Whereas onion specifically has heard the full thing, but struggles to remember how it sounds. But anyways!
It’s really interesting how Penumbra is basically the Gaster of Homestuck. Its presence is spread throughout, yet we’ve never seen the actual thing...
I already mentioned above the whole “edge of the shadow” connection. But there’s a bit more we can go into.
Counter-evidence time. Some doubt on this theory is cast when you realize, according to Toby, the first draft of Penumbra was completed in February 2010. 2011 is the year Toby had his Deltarune fever dream, which gave him the motivation to create a video game based on it.
So, maybe Penumbra Phantasm’s name isn’t actually related to Deltarune? That kills like half of the theory.
Unless: Penumbra Phantasm wasn’t named until the Fever Dream.
It’s possible that, when Toby said “It was finished in February 2010”, he meant that the melody had been finished, not the name of the song. So he could’ve named the song after the dream. (Iffy reasoning.) (But also remember the high amount of scrutiny he places on this song, maybe that’s why things are complicated with it).
So, he could’ve named the song after the dream. I’d narrow it down to the period between March 2011 and August 2011, because Aug 22 2011 is when Toby makes that Tumblr post. (And, Penumbra was listed as a reference by the song Prospit Dreamers, which released that day.) Someone linked me this post from one of the old homestuck forums, and based on the way they said it, it seems like that specific day, Aug 22, was when the name Penumbra Phantasm first appeared online.
Can we narrow things down any way else? Well, look at this post from the OOC Toby Fox account. In March 2011, Toby pointed out all the leitmotifs in [S] Descend, another HS song he made. (It may or may not surprise you, but toby loves using leitmotifs! even before Undertale).
The song at 4:13 is labeled here as ???, but we know nowadays that that is Penumbra Phantasm. Nothing special, we've known that leitmotif was in there for a while. The question is, WHY didn’t he name it in that post? Is he hiding its name? Or…
It’s possible that Toby didn’t name the song until sometime after this post. This would mean the song could exist since 2010, but still have its name tied to Deltarune and the fever dream. For a while I wrote off the possibility because it seemed way too convenient for the theory, but @outofradiation’s post makes it a teeny bit more likely.
Also, if you look at Homestuck Bandcamp links through the wayback machine and Homestuck Bandcamp links, you’ll see that Penumbra isn’t mentioned by name until Cascade, which was Oct 2011. Even though, remember, the leitmotif has been around since 2010 in songs such as Savior of the Waking World (June 2010), Umbral Ultimatum (November 2010), and Heir Conditioning (Feb 2011).
If Penumbra’s name wasn’t widely known at this time, it would’ve only been known as, that part from Savior of the Waking World. It’s only Toby who would know that it was intended to be a separate song.
..except wait. Big counterevidence. I didn’t notice this at first, but even though Umbral Ultimatum was released in a 2011 album, it appeared in-comic as early as November 2010 (ctrl + F that page for “Umbral”). Which is before the fever dream.
This makes it quite a bit less likely that my ramblings are actually correct, because: the name Umbral Ultimatum is obviously related to Penumbra Phantasm. They’re similar sounding and both do alliteration, “Umbra” and “Penumbra” both have to do with shadows, they’re parts of a set. And the song Umbral Ultimatum begins with the Penumbra leitmotif (• . ° . . •) and features it throughout—the songs are very correlated. One must have been based on the other.
But...UU was named Nov 2010. So Penumbra would’ve had to have been named before then. Right??? But that doesn’t work if Penumbra’s name came from a DR fever dream that’s specifically stated to take place in 2011.
So now we have two possibilities. Which name came first? It’s one of these two:
Penumbra Phantasm → Umbral Ultimatum
This means it’s not related to the fever dream & Deltarune
Either that, or:
Umbral Ultimatum → Penumbra Phantasm
This means it could be related to the fever dream & Deltarune.
But I feel like you have to make more logical leaps for the second scenario...
Anyway, let’s consider the (?)’s for both cases.
In the first case, PP → UU, well. We have no evidence that Toby was initially interested in darkness. It could be the case, but there’s no specific reason to assume this.
In the second case, UU → PP: sure, alliteration makes sense if he wanted a song that starts with UU for the reference. But how in the world do you get “Umbral Ultimatum” from just that?
Welp :1 idk where to go from here.
What do you think? I went over this section a bunch of times revising the logic, and I’m still not fully sure it makes sense.
Also, I might as well mention: one possible origin of him using the word "phantasm" could be Touhou 7 (Perfect Cherry Blossom), which features a extra stage / difficulty called Phantasm. Toby's a big fan of Touhou 7 in particular (source: interview with ZUN) and the boss of this mode, Yukari, is his favorite touhou character.
Wanna go even further? Yukari's ability is the power to manipulate boundaries. So, boundaries. Between-ness between two opposing forces...and phantasms...so like. yeah
If this Yukari attack gets referenced by DR's final boss, i will literally drink water
Why thank you for asking.
I do think it’s possible pianpian is a heavily altered version of PP. pian is very repetitive, so it could be the part of PP that I keep putting in parentheses, the (• . ° . . •).
But there’s no evidence for it. I jokingly thought “pian pian starts with p and ends with an → phan phan (tasm) (tasm)” but...no. None of the pianpian recreations i’ve heard online sound anything like Penumbra, even when you pitch shift it, so, eh.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being the case though. No one’s been able to crack pianpian, so it could be anything. Just no specific evidence that points toward it being Penumbra for now.
Conclusion
Remember, I’m just a guy!
Having a long post with formatting and hyperlinks all over the places might make a post seem professional, but i’m really just a guy with a lot of time. There’s a very good chance I’m mistaken about some of the things I’ve put in here, so please feel free to fact check me on stuff if something seems off.