#and considering how much deltarune is playing off of expectations from undertale I don't think that's beyond the realm of possibility

[holoska]

after debating for weeks whether to stay very far away from the deltarune soriel discourse or let myself ramble about my faves like I want to, the latter has finally won out

I've had time to properly absorb the weight of all that happens at the end of chapter 4, and obviously I do feel for both kris and susie. that is The Point of the scenes being from their perspectives; after everything they just went through and all the worry they had for toriel's safety (for the second time in 24 hours!), the scene they come home to is maybe the most uncomfortable slap in the face possible. it sticks out to me that the last thing susie talks about before the dark fountain is sealed is her wanting tomorrow to be the same as yesterday and for everything to always be able to go back to how it was, and that's what greets them - a blatant, obnoxious sign that things are changing. even though the scene has a lighthearted side, its overall tone adds to the downcast feeling the chapter ends on.

having said that, as someone who has spent the past 9 and a half years being normal about sans and toriel, I'm still very very happy that this is a canon scene we got 💜

the fandom may be largely not considering their perspectives in the slightest (or worse, only viewing their perspectives from the most bad faith angles possible), but I for one love this for them!! as other very good posts have pointed out, toriel has been sorely in need of someone who's there for her - an awful lot of people in town saw the divorce play out and have something to say about it, the holiday family are closer to asgore than toriel, kris is her child and stuck in the middle of their parents' issues, and while she's friends with alphys, them being coworkers and alphys being kris' teacher likely puts a distance of sorts between them. but sans is new in town, someone she immediately connects with, who has no pre-existing opinions about her family and has seen firsthand what toriel has to put up with from asgore. in every universe, sans is exactly the kind of person toriel needs in her life.

there's less to work with from sans' perspective given how little we know about him, and I'm not all-in on sans being from deltarune just yet (more specifically I do love the theory, I'm just giving myself room to not be too disappointed if it doesn't happen), but the new version of it's raining somewhere else being named 'the place where it rained' emotionally destroys me forever. either way it drives home just how happy toriel makes sans in both worlds and I love that so so much :']

to be clear I'm not saying they did nothing wrong, their choices negatively impacted kris and susie and they were objectively disruptive and inconsiderate after kris went to bed. but I like that they're being messy and flawed, because it means this isn't just "my faves are getting closer in the background yippee" but that their relationship is potentially an actual part of the story, and that's how you get The Good Stuff!! we wouldn't have had meaningful character moments like noelle finally standing up to queen if queen hadn't tried to control noelle and just listened to her from the start, or susie comforting ralsei with her bloodied hand if he'd told her and kris every detail of the full prophecy the moment he met them and never kept any secrets. if all the hints towards a flower shop dark world turn out to be true then it's pretty clear the story is building things up to make those future character moments hit, and considering we still don't know what happened with the dreemurr divorce at this point, chapter 5 seems like a perfect opportunity to dive into all of that.

plus, as sweet as susie's bond with toriel is, I honestly think susie seeing this side of toriel needed to happen. a lot of the fandom's complaints about toriel right now boil down to her not being the "perfect mother" they thought she was, and what bothers me about that is toriel was never meant to be that kind of character. toby has said that she's not the classic video game protagonist's mother who sees you off on your journey and you can come home and visit any time, and nothing changes and she never has any substantial character of her own. in undertale she literally handholds frisk through the tutorial, she becomes the first boss in her attempt to protect them when every other human left her care, and once they leave she won't let them come back or even call her phone because she can't face seeing them knowing they'll leave again and likely be killed. she's more than just the mother figure of the game, she's her own person with likes and dislikes, hobbies and flaws, and a past and trauma she can't overcome until the best ending.

we've only seen the tip of the iceberg of her history in deltarune, but that same principle holds true: she isn't the perfect parent you return to after each day's adventure, who gives you butterscotch pancakes every morning and never has any real part in the story because that isn't the intent behind her character. she mentioned her loneliness back in chapter 1, kris has secrets and problems they aren't letting her in on, asgore is being relentlessly inconsiderate of her boundaries, and for all susie's praise of toriel being a good mother, I think that house of cards was going to fall eventually. my hope is that, like her blowing up at ralsei ultimately bringing them closer, susie being able to see toriel as the imperfect adult she is but one who does genuinely care might help them build a stronger bond in the end too.

I think I always knew that if soriel ever inched closer to being canon there'd be discourse about it, and toriel slander is unfortunately nothing new. people are just being annoying about it currently and it sucks when I genuinely love what's being built up here!!

anyway crossing my fingers for a scene where toriel invites sans to the festival before she gets thrown in the bunker/he gets sent to undertale/the roaring happens/all of the above 🤞

[tinted-aspect]

in light of Deltarune's Chapters 3 & 4 dropping in just a few hours I thought I should take the opportunity to finally share one of my theories I've had since shortly after chapter 2's release about the greater narrative

(I just don't think I've got enough time to fully share the other before it releases, but as a quick summary I think there's a lot about the Weird Route that could suggest aborting it after getting the Thorn Ring could be the 'weirder' outcome, since it overrides the consequences the player faces (which could restrict future freedom) and lets you make more choices like getting the Egg, sparing Spamton, getting to fight Queen and thus decide on the outcome you want, plus it seemed like it could lead into the player getting the Twisted Sword with its Trance down? effect

one of the major things I wanted to test before writing that one was if you recruit the types of enemies you froze with Noelle or if they would be lost, because if you could that would feel like a major escape from culpability

plus if you're doing an aborted Weird Route where you get the Thorn Ring you almost definitely already know about the consequences of the Weird Route, which sorta positions it as a follow up route to it from a knowledge perspective)

so anyways, under the read more I've stuck some thoughts that I've collectively called the Unseen Story theory. Frankly, I don't expect it to hold up, especially because there's a pretty high amount of speculation, but I think it all coheres pretty well at least. Hope you enjoy!

So, losing a battle in Deltarune's pretty normal, right? Well, beyond just needing to consider Chapter 1 and Chapter 2's game over screens separately (on account of well, they're different), I think there's some pretty weird details within.

Let's go over what they have in common, first, that being the outcome of selecting NO or GIVE UP in the respective chapters. Any audio that was previously playing cuts off, Gaster says "THEN THE WORLD WAS COVERED IN DARKNESS." and the entirety of Darkness Falls plays before the game either closes or sends you back to the title screen, depending on the version you're playing. The implications here seem pretty obvious, in that if you don't maintain the connection Gaster establishes in the starting sequence the end consequence is The Roaring or some similarly apocalyptic event occurring.

Chapter 1's game over sequence is pretty simple, to be honest. I think it contextualises why the result of giving up is so severe, though. The audio that plays during this sequence is 'just' some ominous droning, which doesn't give us much but I think could relate to these options being offered to us outside of the immediate continuity of Deltarune's world, as the same droning plays in the Chapter Select menu.

Much like the follow-up, Gaster appears to communicate with the player here, on the first game over noting that "IT APPEARS YOU HAVE REACHED AN END. WILL YOU TRY AGAIN?", and on repeat visits simply asks "WILL YOU PERSIST?". Notably, he also comments that "THEN, THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS." upon continuing, which doesn't happen with the Chapter 2 scene.

In fact, Gaster seems rather invested in the idea of the future of the world of Deltarune, or perhaps more specifically, "CREATING A NEW FUTURE WITH [us]". Since he's established to be "shattered across time and space" in Undertale, he's overwhelmingly likely to be aware of the expected future in store for Deltarune's world as his connection to it is likely to be temporally alinear. I feel that this puts emphasis on how creating this new future is a collaborative effort *with* us, that the party alone is not enough but that the connections he establishes to let us play the game are vital to achieving it.

It's Chapter 2's game over, however, that I find very very interesting. It seems pretty normal, for a game over screen, but let's go through the details I looked at for Chapter 1's in the same order.

Firstly, the music. Faint Courage plays over this game over screen, which seems pretty innocuous except for the fact that it shares a lot of its core musical composition with Darkness Falls. Now that might not seem like a big deal, but Darkness Falls seems pretty heavily associated with the consequences of allowing The Roaring or a similar event to happen. So what about this scene is associated with anything like The Roaring?

Then we get to the dialogue that can play over the scene. While Kris is with Susie and Ralsei, you can see dialogue from either one of them that establish that something happened that took them down and they need to persist through.

So, why am I saying this so vaguely, instead of acknowledging that it's because you failed the fight? Because the very fact that there's dialogue here that specifically address Kris' condition is really weird! For you to lose a fight in Deltarune, all the members of the party have to be down, so how are they both addressing Kris here (especially Ralsei, since he appears to collapse into a pile of his clothes when down), and why is Kris going down so important when they can potentially go down during any group fight without consequence?

And then there's the dialogue when Noelle's in the party, too, or rather the lack thereof. This again is really strange if we consider the game over dialogue to be addressing the actual moment that you lose a fight in the game. Sure, Noelle and Kris seem somewhat estranged from each other by the time the game occurs, but why would she not react to Kris falling into what can be taken to be a pretty distressing state from the other reactions they garner, even if she thought it was a dream? She certainly reacts quite extensively to other events in the dark world and a notable part of her section of the dark world is her reminiscing and reconnecting with Kris, which only serves to highlight the absence of dialogue here.

Now, let's move on to something else that struck me as very odd in terms of temporal sequencing. The Legend of Delta Rune seems to very clearly reference the Roaring as happening before the "HEROES appear at WORLDS' edge." They show up only after even the Earth draws "her final breath" as a result of its consequences, which certainly doesn't sound like the state the game starts in.

I also want to discuss the connections Gaster establishes with us. Each chapter seems to require a separate connection. Similarly, each chapter can be separately selected from the most external menu, and each chapter, until the first save of any type, display what appears to be a save made by Kris, and this persists through wiping your save data through game menus. I mention the latter in connection with the others as I believe it is through Kris' soul that Gaster establishes his connection with the world of Deltarune.

Why? Well, we can see Gaster establish another connection in-game, and what do we see? A different [HeartShapedObject] forms which we continue to see and control on certain menus, such the game over scenes.

(This is pure speculation, but the fact that one side is more smooth than the other might be reflective of the different natures of the different sides of the connection.)

I believe the connection Gaster gives us to Kris needs to be initialised, for lack of a better term, the first time it 'boots up', possibly due to it being a more complex connection than the one he was initially planning on giving us to our Vessel. Every time after that, whatever manner Gaster facilitates this connection already has that data taken from the Kris 'save file' associated with its Chapter and thus is not needed. From this, the question of where this initialisation data comes from arises.

Additionally, the same 'external' soul/cursor showing up in the Chapter 2 game over scene strikes me as important because it establishes the entire scene to be similarly disconnected from the continuity of Deltarune's world as we interact with it as any other 'external' menu, including the dialogue we see.

The Theory

Where am I getting with all this? Well, my theory is that the events of Deltarune have already played out without us in a meaningful enough way to influence what we see of the world, and this is where/when the Chapter 2 game over dialogue and the information in each of Kris' initialisation saves comes from, in addition to a few other details. In this iteration of the world, the words of The Legend play out up to the Roaring occurring, at which point Kris succumbs to something they cannot overcome and the Earth indeed draws her final breath.

Gaster is aiming to create a new future for this world, having observed this all from his position outside of time and space of Deltarune, and the connection with us is vital in achieving this, possibly because our interaction with the new continuity makes it more real than the prior. This previous iteration of the world that we can't see gave him the information about the world from which to construct this plan and could be understood to be a 'control run' of Deltarune's world, without interference, so I will be referring to it as such.

I think the reason the version of Deltarune's world is different to the control run are the influences of certain connections, those being Gaster's connections to the secret bosses, Kris, possibly Ralsei, the player, probably Noelle and Dess (I'm less sure as to how they could fit into the framework of this theory? maybe Noelle's ties to finding glitches in games was somehow necessary to Gaster being able to make these connections, given the state he's in) as well as their respective connections.

Follow-on Speculation

Before I go on, I wanna say something about Kris' 'save' showing over all three slots of chapter 2 in the context of this theory. I don't think this is a mistake as many have suggested, but rather representative of how it functions as initialising data. Whichever save you're going to end up choosing, it's going to need to have that data and as such 'needs' to be saved atop it.

I'm going go on a lil tangent now that I'm into more speculative parts about my theory to talk about some of the unused graphics in the game, and I promise, it'll make sense why once I'm done.

For the chapter selection menu, there's unused graphics for Chapter 0 text, as well as Chapters 8-10. The latter can have fairly obvious use cases if they were to become relevant, but Chapter 0 drew my interest for obvious reasons. Within the context of this theory, each Chapter establishes a connection to Kris' soul, so even diagetically Chapters 8-10 could be speculated to be additional connections that can only be established once the consequences of the player's actions in the prior Chapters are established, unlike the others.

Conversely, Chapter 0 and its unused state could be understood to be a connection that cannot be made with the player present. I want to suggest that this is due to it being used to define the connection to the control run, as the first temporal point of connection Gaster makes within the world of Deltarune. This would be the point where Gaster would create his own connections with the world, impacting the secret bosses in the way they've been and retrieving the information to initialise our connections from Kris, as at that moment the world would not have changed.

This would suggest an explanation as to why the kart Kris puts the Soul in at the end of Chapter 1 seems so well-used, why they seem so adept at avoiding our perspective - Kris has been made aware of Gaster and how he observes the world through the Soul since Chapter 0 and has had ample time to learn how to give themself a little privacy in light of that. After all, certain moments from Noelle's blog shown during the Spamton Sweepstakes suggest that Kris' odd behaviour, including getting still and remembering something and treating Susie with an at-the-time odd level of familiarity that didn't seem reciprocated, started before the player got involved. There'd be plenty to remember from a prior way the world was, and it'd probably be pretty funny to see someone you know you'll be best buds with trying to threaten you when she doesn't even know that (and regardless to how differently the control run went, if Susie's Chapter 2 Game Over dialogue is from that run it certainly seems like they became close by the end).

On that topic, there's a pretty major reason I find Chapter 2's game over screens so suspect, and that's because Deltarune was released after Undertale. And what, pray tell, does Undertale do with its own game over screen?

It makes you think a message from a different time and place relates to your immediate loss.

There's also one more detail from the Chapter 2 game over screens that I thought was a bit weird but didn't explicitly mention earlier.

It's Ralsei's first line of dialogue. For the same reasons mentioned earlier, I find it hard to believe that this connects to the in-game loss of a battle, but I do think this relates to The Legend. I think that during the control run, Ralsei misconstrued the prophecy held within due to an inability to see the full picture, and interpreted Kris falling to whatever they did as a subversion of fate.

In light of our interaction with the game, Chapter 1 can be considered WORLDS' edge (note the plural), where our real world encounters the world of Deltarune, and you can't really fault that potential Ralsei for not being able to grasp that at the time.

I think this neatly ties into Seam's nihilism and disbelief in the party's ability to succeed and live up to The Legend's proclamations. All of the Darkners who have been affected by Gaster in some way become more aware of the true nature of their world, and while they were affected by proxy, I think Seam bore witness to what Gaster saw at the end of the unconnected timeline through their connection to him. This also reflects in his changing attitude towards their capability of the Lightners as they gather the Shadow Crystals - it's a tangible difference, a possible deviation, and the connections associated with them seem quite significant considering their weird permanence across different saves.

The Shadow Crystal use effect in the Light World also could make a lot more sense in the context of this theory. In the Dark World, they show the Light World counterpart to their location, and similarly, they could be understood to be showing a counterpart to the Light World there, that being the control run. So what do they mean?

Kris seeing through their palm could simply be reflective of their current state being impossible in the prior world state - as they exist during the 'now' of Chapter 1 they are too changed to be compared. Alternatively, it could just come down to our possession of them as an outside existence to the world. The usage of 'you' in descriptions is often ambiguous.

Susie glaring at Kris also makes sense; lacking Kris' early-established connection to Susie, the events of Chapter 1 could have proceeded quite differently with her antagonistic attitude lasting far further into their explorations of the Dark Worlds. While I'm suggesting that they were quite close by the point that the Chapter 2 game over dialogue happens, Chapter 2 happens early enough on in the projected 7 chapters that I could certainly still see her acting like that by that point.

And with the perspective offered by this theory, Kris opening the Dark Fountain at the end of Chapter 2 makes a whoooooole lot more sense. If Kris knows that they opened that fountain in the control run and need to do so for the player's connection in Chapter 3 to be made, even if they wouldn't have the same motivations at that point they'd still need to follow through with it, because while I still think Kris genuinely enjoys the escapist nature of their Dark World adventures with the party, I think they would otherwise have enough common sense not to risk the world for it.

Finally, I want to touch back in with the name of the Chapter 2's game over theme. Certainly, anything still shining through at the end of the world, in a continuity being overwritten, would certainly be Faint, and in the light of it all, being willing to continue on past that point would certainly take Courage.

[tatatale]

Hello! I came to ask you about your comic! If you don't mind, of course...

Does MV!Mettaton still have the eye and ear disable feature?

What do you think would happen if Alive met the King of the Multiverse or others like him?

Has Insans seen Сore Frisk? What does he think of her?

Have there been any cases where Soul was lured somewhere using "Help, help"?

Has Soul seen any other Undyne?

What was your reaction when your comic became popular?

What about the reaction to references to your comic in other comics?

The green soul blocks the possibility of hacking, the orange one seems to increase damage if I remember correctly, but what do the others do?

You mentioned that your characters are free to use. So I can go and draw Soul's adventures right now?

How did the idea for the comic come about?

Unrelated to the comics, can you recommend any alternate universes that have appeared recently? I'd just like something new

Can I print out and hang art with your characters in my home?

You recently drew Swap Soul and Swap Alive. Can I continue this diversity and make my own version of Alive and Soul?

How did Gaster meet Jevil? (If I understood the scene correctly)

Your comic brought new ideas to the fandom, have you noticed them in other projects? For example, that location from the final of the comic where all the souls are.

Would you like your characters to end up in UnderEvent or Underverse?

A sudden question, but still, how does Litta feel about sharks?

What's up with Gaster now?

Are the characters familiar with Deltarune?

Did Soul ever have moments when she wanted to give up on the whole thing?

What do you think your characters would be like if their native AU was not Undertale but NegativeTale?

Again, a question off topic. But do you expect Undertale Movie to appear one day?

How does Soul feel about Remnant!Sans?

Does Litta play other video games? Or just Undertale?

Did you start drawing the comic as soon as you came up with the plot, or did you hesitate for a long time at first?

What advice can you give to future creators of Undertale AU comics?

Did Insans kill Jerry again?

Why did Litta's brother choose Asriel's form when fighting the main characters?

I'm starting to forget the comic a bit, so I'm planning on rereading it. But did Alive finally figure out her hand?

Are you planning a video about your comic?

Oh, I didn't expect to ask so much! Sorry about that, I'm just very inquisitive...

Wow, there are really a lot of questions, I'm a bit nervous.

I think I'll switch to anonymous mode, because now I'm scared 😨

He can mute himself if he wants, yep!

I have no idea what is that.

He doesn't like humans. Neither them, nor any other.

Of course.

Lots!

I don't think it's popular but I'm still overwhelmed!

It makes me happy ♥

Here!

It won't be canon at all, but you can make your own version!

I wanted a Multiversal Mettaton! Then I started thinking in the story and everything else happened.

I'm not really on social media lately so I don't know the new things, but I can tell you two comics that started recently. Paper Crane Parallel You are now Online

Yup, you can do whatever you want with your own art. Always following Toby's rules.

Of course, I'd love to see it!

Eternal Gaster created him.

I had no idea! I only remember that one person asked me to use the Soul Cosmos once. I'm happy I brought new ideas to the fandom!

Of course that would be amazing, but not possible!

Sharks as in the animal??? I mean, they wouldn't swim with sharks LMAO.

He's dead.

Nope.

Yeah of course, at first it was very hard for her.

I don't know that AU so I have no idea!

I hope not.

I don't know them.

They do play more games!

As soon as I thought in the plot because I was hyped.

Create what makes you happy, no what others tell you to create. If you get hate, "report/block" are your best friends. Have fun!

Always---wait no, he stopped killing people.

He considered Asriel (god of hyperdeath form) the strongest character.

Read it and discover it again!

I was making a long animatic to celebrate the 10k that… I reached long time ago. But I got frustrated because I'm not an animator, I don't have a program to animate that works in this PC, and same PC is giving me problems. So it's a… wip. Sadly.

Thank you for your questions, hope you have a nice day! ≧ω≦)

[keyhearts]

Same guy as the second half of the last post. Maybe I'll start signing my posts with ✴️ from now on.

It's hard being here and not technically having anything to do. Like sure, I have plenty of things I want to do. But according to Andrew, I haven't earned the right to have nice things and do the things I like. So... 🤷 whaddya do?

I mean sure, he's mad at me and everything for doing bad things that hurt the system internally. So what? I'm meant to just be evil now and only exist for that job and nothing else, because I don't "deserve" anything anymore? That sounds kind of stupid to me. Not sure how you expect me to 'heal' if that's the way you want to treat me.

From my perspective, as a part, it's still the 2010s. I went dormant sometime in that decade, and I never really caught up. It was quite an adjustment, getting used to the modern internet. I think a lot of the things I liked then are considered cringe or whatever now. And I use a lot of outdated lingo and memes. But I honestly don't care. I like the time that I'm from, actually.

It's not like I really need Andrew's permission to do anything. I could just go and do it. He doesn't hold any authority over me. But I'm not the type of guy to go against what everyone else wants. I'm a team player.

I'm not even really sure where I was going with this. It's just nice to have somewhere to air out my grievances which isn't my diary, since it's not like I have anyone physically to vent to.

So Deltarune came out recently, and that's a pretty big deal to me. I loved Undertale back in the day, it meant a lot to me. I watched videos pointing out all the hidden little details. I listened to the 15 minute versions of the soundtracks on youtube over and over again. I remember how big the fandom was, it was basically everywhere. It's kind of weird being here 10 years later like... wow. That happened. And it's never really going to happen again. You were either there, or you weren't. Funny how that works. It makes now feel kind of surreal because of how different it is.

So yeah, the new game came out. Andrew said I didn't deserve to play it. But then he still bought it anyway. Which is like??? Okay? So you're just going to have it sit there and hang it over my nose until you decide I'm allowed to play it? Weird move, I'm not going to lie.

And now he says I can play it. Is it only because I complained about it? Does he think if I have a nice distraction, then it'll appease me and I won't cause too much trouble? Can't say I really understand what goes through his head sometimes. But who does?

He says he's sorry. But is he? Or honestly should he be? Maybe he shouldn't. Someone's calling me a complete show off now. And I don't really know what that's about whatsoever. It feels so irrelevant to what I'm currently writing and thinking about? These sorts of irrelevant thoughts come up often. It's hard to ignore them. They usually come with some sort of anxiety. Whatever. I'm talking and that scares you. So now you're calling me a showoff so that I feel bad and shut up. Except, I won't. 🙃 You really think I'm going to shut up just because a little kid is scared and embarrassed about me?

You're not the boss of me. I'm the boss of you. It's best that you remember that. Don't come to me expecting any sympathy. I know what you did, and I don't forgive you for any of that. You may present as children, but you're undeserving of being treated as such. You obeyed, and that ruined our lives. Your feelings constantly get in the way of us just living our lives. I'm sick of being blended with you, all the time. Just go away, man.

All you had to do, was go to someone, and tell. You didn't. And now you live out our lives, trying to silence us. Even trying to get in the way of things that have nothing to do with the trauma whatsoever. Anything we like and find comfort in? Yeah, that's not allowed. And so I'm going to feel shame and make it your problem, and convince you that it's secretly immoral. Like okay. Whatever. I'm not even allowed to exist as far as you're concerned. I'm over it.

I mean, sure, I'm for keeping the trauma away. But also, whatever's already there, is there. No use crying about it. And you take it overboard. For you, it's not about just controlling the trauma coming out. It's about controlling every aspect of our lives. Making sure we're always miserable. Deliberately isolating us. Taking away the alters that help the system cope. Sabotaging our real relationships. I'm not for that. What does any of that have to do with the trauma memories? You take your jobs way too far. You need to learn to relax.

Even I have hobbies and enjoy life, despite having a job like yours. The fact that you don't is honestly a you problem. It isn't because of how you were made. So you better stop making it everyone else's problem if trauma is all you ever think about and feel. The rest of us have things to do. So just shut the fuck up, and go the fuck away. At least I'm serving a real purpose. The rest of you cause more harm than good, and don't really do anything useful. At least I have my own thoughts. At least I'm my own person. You lot are barely your own people. You're barely a person. How does it feel to know that? If you knew what was good for you, then you'd leave and stop interfering in our life.