#and that Chara was the exception like how the player is the exception for Ralsei

[sage-nebula]

Also, now that I have played Deltarune's first two chapters 5.5 times in a single month, here are my current theories / thoughts / predictions, in no particular order.

— There is not just one Knight in play, but rather at least two: Kris, and whoever opened the unused classroom Fountain, since Kris' behavior makes it obvious that that one wasn't on them. Whether it was Kris or the first Knight that opened the library Fountain is unclear (though I lean toward Kris personally), though we do know that Kris opens the living room fountain themself.

— Ralsei is not identical to Asriel, either in looks or personality. As far as looks go, Noelle says that he "looks kind of like . . ." rather than outright saying he looks like Asriel, which would make the most sense for her to say if he was identical. As far as personality goes, Ralsei is a lot more assertive than Undertale!Asriel at least, demonstrated by how Ralsei refused to make Susie a cake until she stopped making fun of him, and how he repeatedly shut down Noelle and Berdly when they wanted to expand the library Fountain. Undertale!Asriel, who agreed with Chara calling him a crybaby for crying when his father almost died and who also acquiesced to the suicide-by-buttercups plan even when he didn't like it, did not have nearly the backbone that Ralsei does. Ralsei is similar to Asriel, but not identical.

— Everyone is down bad for Susie. Noelle and Berdly outright state their crushes, but Susie's Tea is the only one that heals 120 HP for Kris, indicating that they, too, have the strongest positive feelings for her. Ralsei is arguable, but I think by the end of chapter 2 it's easy enough to read him that way, too.

— The bunker is where Kris originally came from. The lack of other humans in Hometown is suspicious, and we know that something happened to Kris there that gives Monster Teen trepidation and makes Snowy call Kris a "weenie." I think Kris was found in front of the bunker, door shut, probably crying badly, and was adopted by the Dreemurr family after that. No one knows why Kris was crying, so they just assume that "something scary" is in the bunker.

— I also think that it is perhaps not a bunker at all, but an entrance to an underground, and that perhaps Deltarune is a world where monsters won that war, rather than humans.

— If a Fountain is opened, then closed, and then later opened again in the same location, the dark world picks up where it left off almost as if no time passed at all. This is an explanation for how a Lightner could have been in the cyber world beforehand (to create the robot that Spamton uses) when there is no way the library Fountain was open for longer than day 2.

— Dess is either the original Knight, and / or she suffered a fate similar to Snowgrave Berdly, where she was incapacitated in a dark world, and thus can't resume life in the normal world as a result. (This goes along with the theory that "Don't Forget" is from Dess' POV.)

— We will have to boss fight Susie at some point on a Snowgrave file, once Susie finds out what we did to Noelle.

— Kris' hesitance toward Ralsei isn't because they dislike him, per se, but rather because, even though he is not identical to Asriel, he still does bear resemblance, and so Kris feels uncomfortable / guilty getting close to Ralsei, in a sort of "this feels like I'm replacing Asriel" kind of way. This has no real evidence in game, but it just makes the most sense to me since I don't see what Ralsei has done wrong otherwise lol.

— Ralsei is lowkey jealous of Noelle. Noelle is the only person that Ralsei doesn't bother to introduce himself to, despite being friendly enough to introduce himself to just about everyone else (e.g. Lancer, Jevil). Particularly since the others were people who quickly left, and Noelle was someone who was sticking around, this stands out! This, coupled with the fact that Noelle Tea only heals him by 50 HP, makes me think he has a quiet beef with her. And I think that beef is that she showed up with Kris, and was also already familiar with Susie, and since Kris and Susie are Ralsei's very first friends, it made him feel jealous enough to choose to ignore her presence in the party altogether, rather than trying to befriend her like he did everyone else.

— Noelle, similarly, might have felt a little jealous over Ralsei spending time alone with Susie, buuut I personally think she was just too enraptured with Susie being right there to think much about him lol.

Aaaaand I think that's it for now. Bring on chapters three and four!

[ap-sadistics]

im just gonna ramble about something in order to sort out my thoughts. its only sorta a theory. its not definitive... and its not even conclusive i think that we and kris are both charas and frisks counterparts.... but weve... inverted somehow...? but its not as simple as a simple swap

its honestly really hard to articulate. but theres just some things that i see about kris that seems to correspond to chara.... but theyre definitely different characters?

ugh okay this i need to talk this out for myself. so in charas backstory, theres seem to be a few of overlaps with kriss character? theres a major difference between the two, chara is incredibly misanthropic, malicious, and sociopathic and kris is deffos not that. we see it in their moments of agency, kris cares about their friends. but kris is definitely in the role that chara was in undertale. theyre both adopted children of the dreemurr family. theyre both mischievous (to different degrees of uh. harm.). they both got a knife like fucking normal adjusted children. and they both... shown suicidal tendencies (kris in the weird route at least). theyre also both close to their respective asriels....

theres that. but kris isnt the "soul". kris isnt "chara" as in kris isnt [our name]. in undertale, chara is the "player" by name and influence, and us doing bad things leads to "our"/charas presence eclipsing over who frisk is. because in undertale, frisk was still the audience surrogate. frisks soul was, for all intents and purposes, "us". frisk changes bc we made decisions that impact the story

but the story of deltarune is different. allegedly "choices dont matter" even though it seems choices do in fact to matter and impact the story drastically... but anyway that theme about choice is subverted from undertale. instead its more about the agency of the characters themselves. susie is oddly beyond our control. noelle cant seem to resist us at all. kris is in the middle ground, resisting our control whenever they wish/need too. ralsei is an odd case because he tries to influence us but he cant force us to do anything in the end and so far is a passive presence over us

in any case kris is typically acts as the audience surrogate... like how frisk does except... i dont think they actually are. i think we, the soul, are our own audience surrogate. or more like that we have our own independent character within the narrative. we, as the player, are our own independent entity distinct from the character(s?) that we control. kris is simply our means to process and interact with the world...

but this doesnt really answer who we are. the player. [player name]. the soul....... but hm... actually... maybe im thinking about it all wrong. maybe its beyond a roleswap. i think our distinct presence in the narrative is the inversion itself. we are representative of the themes of control and agency of deltarune that parallel undertales own themes of choice.

but augh the fact that kris parallels chara is so interesting though... kris is NOT chara but huh... the little connections... and also fact that kris is one letter and scramble from frisk too..... kris ultimately is in the roles of both frisk and chara by being the protagonist huh... hmm............

i hope there is an answer to the mystery to who we, the soul, are. because from how noelle reacts to kris in ch 4 snowgrave route it really seems.... kriss "normal" default self is when they dont have a soul inside them. either kris lost their soul, never had a soul, or never kept their soul inside themselves for reasons unknown tho... i have a tangential theory if its the latter

if ripping out their soul is something theyve always done. perhaps they tore out their soul to be more like a monster like their family. to fit in more with their community. kris wore the horns for the same reason it seems... they were dysphoric about not being a monster like everyone else and didnt like the parts of them that made them human. like their soul. this is assuming the worldbuilding about souls and humans and monsters are consistent between deltarune and undertale at least.... dust is a thing... but also susie bleeds. theres a lot we do not know... but anyways. kris dislikes us. or at the very least. i dont think they dont like us having us within them.

i hope to find out why

[doge-w-a-bloge]

IMO the creepiest factor from Kris is not their personality, it's the way their hometown sprite color scheme looks too much like Frisk yet their personality is a huge callback to Chara (being chocoholic and knife enthusiast?) Like what is the game trying to tell us? ik Kris is their own person but I really don't think all the similarities are just a red herring, it just have to mean something...

(sip’s beverage)

It is... curious, isn’t it. That they’re designed to look like Frisk wearing Chara’s clothes, essentially, but otherwise seem to be an “expy” of Chara first and foremost. Though...

how much do we know about what it means to be “Frisk-like,” compared to what it means to be “Chara-like”? We know about Chara from their own words, from the memory of their family members, and from the home they lived in.

Frisk was a stranger in the underground, and had no prior history. We can gather some information about their personality via the options available during play, and how they act out those options when selected... like with Kris. Except Kris, like Chara, also has the benefit of having prior history in the world that we can compare Kris-as-player-character to. Much more explicit information than we got from Chara’s family about Chara, at that.

Much like “what is the deal with Ralsei,” I think we just... don’t have enough information yet. We can theorize, but with just 2/7 chapters, we’re kind of shooting in the dark.

[cellydawn]

Sans is a Darkner Theory (MASTERPOST)

I know that this theory has been touched on before, but I’d like to compile all the evidence from the original post with some additional stuff I found relevant into a single comprehensive post. To preface this, I would like to remind everyone that the merchandise based on Sans isn’t canon and that though Deltarune isn’t a direct sequel to Undertale, the Deltarune FAQ confirms that connections between the two are not precluded.

I’m going to divide this theory into three parts because I want to cover all my bases and there is an extensive amount of evidence, so without further ado, let me introduce you to my completely self-indulgent crazed ramblings!

WARNING: This is very long. Also, a bunch of speculation here so read at your own discretion.

1. Sans has connections to the Deltarune universe

Let’s list off what we know for sure:

Sans instantly recognizes the Player as a human and has knowledge of the Surface.

In the conversation at MTT Restaurant, Sans confesses that he knows the feeling of wanting to go home.

According to the Snowdin Shopkeeper, Sans and Papyrus showed up one day and “asserted themselves”.

In his lost soul dialogue, Sans says that “you’ll never see ‘em again”.

During his battle, Sans reveals that he “gave up trying to go back a long time ago” and that “getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore, either.”

After being defeated, Sans says that he’s “going to grillbys”. In Deltarune, the first place we see Sans is at Grillby’s. Sans’s house and the restaurant in Deltarune are the same as in Undertale (except for slight alterations like the lack of snow and...’sans)

Undertale!Sans and Deltarune!Sans have identical sprites.

After talking with the Clam Girl and learning of Suzy, you can go to Sans’s workshop and find a card sticking out from the back flap of the binder, described as a poorly drawn picture of three smiling people with the words "don't forget" written in lowercase. Deltarune’s credits song is titled “Don’t Forget”.

We can safely assume that Sans came from another place that is not the underground nor the surface; Sans misses his home and his friends there (presumably the people in the picture); Susie and Suzy are related somehow. Additionally, we can speculate that Sans and Papyrus may have arrived from another dimension. It might very well be the case that Sans originated from the Deltarune universe: Sans is completely resigned to the fact that he can’t alter the past no matter how hard he tries. Deltarune’s prophecy is all about inevitability. Sans’s defeatist attitude might stem from this.

Here’s some evidence that is more debatable:

River Person warns the Player to “Beware of the man who came from the other world”. It’s possible that the man in question is Sans.

I’ve noticed this isn’t brought up as much, but Sans’s word search is from ICE-E’s, which is a brand we only see in Deltarune. As far as we know, there is no trace of this brand in the Undertale universe. It definitely doesn’t appear to be one from a newspaper—it’s a distraction given to kids at restaurants.

BONUS: There’s a wacky inflatable mascot that resembles the ICE-E’s mascot in the dog shrine found in the skelebros’ house (console version)

During Shyren’s encounter, if the Player hums twice, the flavor text describes Sans selling tickets made of toilet paper. Now, we know that all the food in the Underground is made out of magic. Magic nourishes monsters, but it doesn’t pass through their bodies as waste. Why does Sans have toilet paper? 

Alphys seems to be in-the-know about Sans’s time-space shenanigans. In the epilogue of the pacifist ending, there’s some dialogue that suggests Alphys and Sans are quite familiar with each other. Both of them want to keep this a secret for whatever reason. In a neutral ending in which Alphys becomes the ruler, she is mournful of the deaths of Undyne, Alphys, and Asgore, but is glad that “at least Sans is here”. In the MTT quiz, if you pick “Don’t Know” to the question about her crush, Alphys reveals that she has done research on alternate universes and knows they exist. Both Sans and Alphys have connections to Gaster, who is quite prevalent in Deltarune. She, along with Sans (and coincidentally, the ICE-E word-search) are affected by Fun values and have their own Fun events. It seems a little random, but what if all the Fun events are Gaster-related? Are Alphys and Sans the two people mentioned in Entry 17?

So I think all of these pieces are sufficient in establishing Sans’s connection to Deltarune, though it is still unclear whether Sans came from Deltarune into Undertale or vice versa, OR Sans showed up from yet ANOTHER universe. That’s a theory for another time, though. On to the next part!

2. Sans has abilities/properties exclusive to Darkners

Some of the basics:

Sans can teleport, that is, use “shortcuts”, as evidenced by appearing both in front and behind the character in Snowdin, going to Grillbys, chasing after Papyrus in the wrong direction during the Pacifist ending scene, etc. Though Rouxls Kaard is shown to teleport, Lancer’s style of teleporting most closely resembles Sans’s. There are multiple instances in which Lancer stays ahead despite the Player passing him (for example, Lancer sneaking a sign past the party despite there only being one way to the door).

The door to Sans’s room greatly resembles the fast-travel doors that only Darkners are able to create. If you get the key to his room, the pitch-black and seemingly-endless walkway is not dissimilar to that of the supply closet. Papyrus also happens to liken Sans’s room to “another world”. All of the weird junk could be representative of various landmarks in the dark world.

Sans can manipulate shadows as seen through his first appearance (I also like to think that this is the reason why his “eye-lights” can disappear). This is most prevalent with Ralsei, Lancer, and the King obscuring parts of their body with shadows.

Darkners have colored portraits. At first glance, you would assume Sans doesn’t have one, but his head is already—conveniently—black and white.

If that wasn’t enough, let’s take a look at Sans’s battle in the Genocide Route. The most distinguishing feature of this fight is Sans’s ability to dodge your attacks, an ability that was thought to be unique to him. As it turns out, Darkners are also able to dodge (provided that they are warned). In order to actually beat Sans, you need to tire him out, and once you have dealt the final blow, he runs away. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

I believe that Sans actually survives the encounter as well. I’ve seen people claim that when he goes off-screen, the “dusting” sound effect signifies that he dies. This is wrong. That sound effect plays at the end of every battle, regardless of whether you spared or killed an enemy. I’d like to point out that the EXP you gain from the battle does not confirm Sans’s death. If you pick on Loox, you can get 5 extra EXP stacking up to 3 times. This means that killing an enemy is not required for you to gain EXP. I’ll also include that the kill counter doesn’t go up once Sans’s battle is over. It’s believed that this is the case because of Chara’s interference, though I don’t personally agree.

Let me also present this tidbit that I see no one else talking about: unlike literally any monster in the underground (besides Flowey, but he doesn’t count), Sans HAS NO HP BAR. When he gets hit, the damage numbers are present, but the HP bar that should have appeared above him is absent. Darkners don’t have a visible HP bar when struck.

Here’s some stuff that’s a little bit more controversial/speculative:

Lancer more or less implies that Darkners bleed, though we haven’t seen any examples of this yet. Ralsei doesn’t correct him, however. We know that the monsters in the light world don’t bleed (“Does it hurt to be made out of blood?”), and Susie’s comment (“Everybody bleeds, right?”) could be read as her trying to look cool for Lancer. Then, does Sans bleed?

It has been confirmed by @nochocolate​ that the red coming out of Sans is the exact same red as his ketchup bottle. This is a deliberate choice, but it doesn’t completely deconfirm that it may be blood because we don’t have other instances of blood to compare it to. Additionally, there is a mention of both blood and ketchup from Noelle: "This isn't another trick, is it, Kris? Like when you put ketchup on your arms and told me it was blood?" This might just be Toby Fox poking fun at the fandom or intentionally misdirecting us—really, it could go either way.

Sans’s mouth doesn’t move at all while he talks. It turns out that there may be an explanation for this! In Undertale, you can see the mouths of face sprites move while words are being spoken.

However, in Deltarune, both Lightners and Darkners don’t feature moving mouths in their textboxes! In instances wherein the full-body sprites are shown (Papyrus date, Alphys date, literally all the battles), the mouths don’t move either. So while his expression rarely changes, it might turn out that Sans DOES actually move his mouth while speaking, we just can’t see it. I’m a bit iffy on this theory since it varies from monster to monster in the Light World. Moreover, in Undertale, while Mettaton’s mouth doesn’t move at all (I’m going to disregard this since he is a robot) it’s very peculiar that the same can be said for Alphys.

Seriously, why doesn’t Alphys’s mouth move at all?? This HAS to be intentional, all of the other characters with a face sprite have moving mouths. Deltarune!Alphys doesn’t have one either. This brings up more questions than answers: Are certain monsters Lightners and others not? Is Alphys a Lightner? Did her “research” on alternate universes involve her actually traversing the multiverse? Am I overthinking this? In any case, it’s more stuff linking her to Sans...

If it turns out that not all monsters are Lightners, then it makes sense that Sans is so devoted to Papyrus, assuming that Papyrus is, in fact, a Lightner. No other person’s death makes as much of a difference as Papyrus’s concerning Sans’s behavior towards you. Alternatively, if Papyrus is not a Lightner, then it stands to reason why Sans is so depressed—he has no way of fulfilling his purpose. “Sans”, after all, means “without”.

The Light World has virtually no indications of monsters being able to use magic. In Undertale, it’s stated that magic is a method of self-expression for monsters, yet the only magic we see in Deltarune is from within the Dark World. If we compare Deltarune!Toriel’s stovetop to Undertale!Toriel’s, we see that the flavor text has omitted her use of fire magic. Susie is able to send out magic ax attacks, but this is likely due to the nature of the Dark World. I need to clarify that she is not the one that casts the Pacify spell at the end of a “neutral” run; she realizes that the King is tired, and waits for Ralsei to finish the job. Her remembering Pacify is exactly what it means, and Ralsei comments on it because he is expressing surprise that she cared to remember the spell she made fun of him for. I’ll also point out that the lack of magic would be the reason why the monster-human war ended differently/didn’t even happen, therefore allowing monsters to reside on the surface. If Sans did hail from this world, he wouldn’t have magic or would have very limited magical capabilities if he isn’t a Darkner.

Here is a piece of dialogue from Sans about the Underground. Interestingly, he differentiates himself from monsters, though this could just be because he doesn’t want to lump in Papyrus with them. The King has a similar line (“Show my son the monster you REALLY are!”). Monsters are possibly complicit in Darkners’ imprisonment. Is it possible that Sans is also resentful? Do Darkners exist in Undertale?

I feel like this interaction is worth mentioning. It’s entirely possible that Darkners were sealed so long ago in the Undertale universe that nobody even remembers their existence. 

Going back to Papyrus, if Sans is a Darkner, then it’s important to mention that Papyrus is not. We see Papyrus turn to dust when he is killed. For that reason, it seems that Sans and Papyrus are not biological brothers. I think this actually makes a lot of sense given how different they look. Yes, it’s true that Sans and Papyrus both have a skeleton motif, but they don’t look remotely similar. The face shape, the jaw, the build, the height, the eyes, the nasal cavity—nothing matches! Each monster species look the same, hell, even boss monsters like Toriel and Asgore resemble each other. Compared to Papyrus, Sans seems a lot more solid (his gut) AND he’s almost completely covered up save for his face (what are you hiding under there?).

Their bone attacks are distinct as well: Papyrus’s have a more angular aesthetic compared to Sans’s rounded edges.

In comparison, Toriel, Asgore, and Asriel have the same exact fire attack.

So, if Sans is a skeleton-themed Darkner, what type would he be?

3. Sans is the Ace of Spades

This part of the theory is a bit more conjectural, but I think there is enough evidence to put this in here.

Let’s start with how Sans, Lancer, and the King are similar:

Their sprites have the same color scheme: black, blue, white, and grey.

They sport uneven and toothy grins, are round and chubby (“if you eat too many hot dogs…you’ll probably get huge like me”), and have a hood.

The spades seem to have a smile motif. The grinning “mouth” of the Card Castle has the same number of “teeth” as Sans. Additionally, you can see portraits of spade people inside the castle. They’re all smiling.

These three are the only characters that can freely shift between being completely submerged in the shadows and becoming visible. The ability to cloak their body with shadows is a trait thought to be shared by all Darkners; Ralsei, after all, exhibits this all throughout our journey. What’s interesting is that there are clear parallels to Sans, Lancer, and the Kings’ shadows: they conceal their entire form and reveal it during their first appearances.

Sans and Lancer are shown to be able to teleport. I’m bringing this up again because it seems that not all Darkners can teleport without the use of a door as indicated by Ralsei’s confusion. If Ralsei has extensive knowledge of Darkner powers, and he is unaware that Lancer can teleport, then teleportation must be an ability unique to the spades, or, at the very least, card-themed Darkners.

Sans and the King’s fights are eerily similar. You need to fight/tire them out and listen to them monologue in order to progress. A major theme of both fights is how you can’t truly spare them. Appearing worn out from the battle, they appeal for mercy. Should the Player fall for it, they launch an unavoidable attack that deals catastrophic damage. Additionally, before his fight, the King employs the use of silent text, just like Sans during his judgments and his intimidating moments. Also worth noting: in both fights, the battle box is manipulated deliberately to suit the needs of the Player (for our last attack against Sans) and the King (his weird stomach tongue latching onto the box). Sans is also capable of stretching the box as seen with the attack before his special attack.

Lancer and Sans, in particular, parallel each other quite nicely. They are both playful jokers, they both own bikes, and both of these characters have a strange relationship with food (particularly with red condiments).

The two just so happen to have stands to sell questionable foodstuffs.

Sans is evidently constantly eating:

Undyne: “And his brother kept making 100’s of midnight snacks.”

Papyrus: “GRILLBY’S… IT’S DARK AND FULL OF GREASE. PURGATORY OF FRIES… HAMBURGER ABYSS… ANYWAY, MY BROTHER PRACTICALLY LIVES HERE.”

Big-Mouth: “Sans is interesting. He has told me about all kinds of incredible foods. But, despite his knowledge, he always orders the worst burger off the menu.”

And we know that Lancer barely eats at all. He doesn’t think that having three glasses of milk as his dinner is unusual, he’s not allowed to eat the Dark Candy, he pretends to eat the salsa in the stump, and he has to get fed worms by Rouxls because his father forgot to feed him. Sans and Lancer both have terrible eating habits. I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean, but you know, food for thought.

Why the Ace of Spades:

The designs of both Lancer and the King originated from @kanotynes​ who created an entire deck of cards. The Ace of Spades does not have a distinct design.

French manufacturers standardized the four playing card suits. “Sans” and “Lancer” are both French words.

It symbolizes uncleanliness and depression (Sans’s socks and his room, the latter is pretty self-explanatory), omens (River Person’s warning, Flowey alerting us to not reveal our abilities to him, “you’re going to have a bad time”), and death (the reason for his skeletal nature).

In Blackjack, Aces have a numeric value of 1 (matching his stats) or 11 (the same number of unique pre-battle dialogue from Sans, though this may just be a lucky coincidence). The Eleventh Hour is an idiom meaning nearly too late. Sans’s fight is your last possible chance at quitting before the world ends and your game gets corrupted.

Remember that bit where Sans has toilet paper? In the Card Castle, you can see that a bathroom, the Royal Flush, is occupied. Darkners have to digest their food. On a related note, the royal flush is a poker term for an A(14), K(13), Q(12), J(11), and 10 hand. Interestingly, in the sequence before his “special attack”, we see Sans disappear and reappear at the edges of the screen 14 times (again, probably just a neat coincidence).

The ace is paradoxically the least and most valuable card (in Blackjack, Poker, etc.), paralleling Sans being the weakest and strongest enemy.

Ace of Spades also represents “an end”, and Sans is there at the end of our journey, judging us before Asgore’s fight. He is also responsible for initiating the phone calls at the end of every neutral route.

Okay, this one is a little bit of a joke. In this deleted tweet, Toby said that Sans would be too lazy for sex, causing fans to speculate that he is “ace” lol.

BONUS: Sans was originally intended to run a casino. This one’s a bit self-explanatory. Also explains his poker face.

The most important piece of evidence, however, is this: the French expression fagoté comme l'as de pique means "(badly) dressed like the ace of spades." Checks out.

On Gaster Blasters:

Gaster Blasters might have a spade motif. If you connect the natural curves of the eyes and the top of the nose ridge, you get a spade shape. The GB's crests resemble King Spade's crown and possibly the neck/shoulder part of his cape.

A GB's nose resembles King Spade's when he isn't snarling at you; this might also apply to Sans if he stopped smiling (mouth shape affects the shape of their noses). 

Also on the topic of noses, Sans, Lancer, and King Spade's noses translate to the same shape in their overworld sprites.

The fog from Snowdin, which has been theorized to be either a front-facing GB or Sans' face (and honestly I lean more towards it being Sans's face because of the eye shape) has a hidden line underneath and above the nose. Perhaps Sans resembles the Gaster Blasters and the Spades more than we anticipated?

HMMMMMMMMMMMMM.....

[ripples-in-the-river]

I feel like Deltarune's thing is uh.

I think monsters dont have magic. Think about it. Suzie fights with an axe. Only Lancer and the Darkners show any sort of powers. The houses have technology, and cars. People go to school.

This feels like maybe this is a universe where either monster souls and human souls have opposite powers. Maybe this is a reverse-Undertale situation where monsters beat humans and placed them "underground", except something happened and when humans are sealed, they become Darkners.

Or maybe... This is actually what happens after the people of Undertale are brought up. it just feels like the Deltarune world is very... Humanlike. There used to be lots of differences and talk, and I mean, seriously, monsters serve human food to Kris and Undyne is a freaking police officer. There's no talk about "hey, look, the human kid came back, crap, do we still have that human cocoa?" I mean, Kris says the hot cocoa burns, but by definition, monster food CAN'T hurt, and I think it never does in-game in Undertale.

(did they actually say that though? Can't remember)

It feels like maybe someone ripped the monsters of their magic. From what we know about Undertale, magic is what makes monsters who they are. It's part of their identity: MK talks about bullet-patterned birthday cards, they talk about turning to dust, there's the core, Toriel's kitchen that works with fire magic. But here... If you see the graves, you'll notice how Gerson, Snowflake, and Shyren's sister are all dead. Napstablook and Mettaton are nowhere to be seen either. Alphys didn't get her scientist job because she never did the hoax of Mettaton being an artificial soul, since there was no soul science at all.

I mean seriously in the underground, everyone knows about souls, but in Deltarune, Ralsei has to explain it to Kris. Why would a kid who grew up with monsters (and also around Undyne of all people) not know that?

Unless this is a world where nobody can do magic at all. There's a CHURCH, meaning magic is something ethereal and not something everyone does. People go to hospitals, which are actually not shown in the underground, or talked about much. And without magic, determination science, or the capacity to dust and be reformed, Alphys wouldn't be able to save any of the fallen down monsters, hence the graves.

Heck, maybe there was no war between humans and monsters without magic, which humans feared. Or maybe humans just sort of combined.

Also, honestly? It's hinted that Kris rips off their soul often, as they always slam it into their rolly bag thing, and this bag is earlier referred to as something that has seen a few crashes. So Kris should know about souls already.

Honestly? My theory is something else. Maybe this is the world of Undertale BEFORE magic appeared, and when it did, stuff changed. Maybe humans came back? Maybe that creepy backdoor next to the church is actually the "Underground" humans live in. Heck, maybe this is Undertale except someone blew up the roof and now they have the sky, but can't get out anyways, so they're more stable. Maybe this is just a long, long time after Undertale. Maybe Kris changed their name

Maybe what we see is Kris messing up with the resets by ripping their soul off. Maybe we're seeing Kris killing off humans, or destroying magic, or messing the timeline so weird holes appear, and pocket dimensions come out of nowhere. Maybe this is just a long time after Undertale and Kris messed up the resets so badly that now nobody met, they have no magic, and they live on the surface. Maybe everyone is just alive becaue this is limbo, in a run where everyone was killed, and Kris is Chara and Frisk mixed together. Maybe this is the place where the character go between resets. Heck, maybe they'll acknowledge that this is a movie.

Or maybe what we see is like, some sort of meta thing. Toby Fox knew players loved Undertale. He's made the meta already with "you have no choice". And in Undertale, "no choice" refers to the killer run, wirh Chara moving your character. So maybe this is what the game will be about. And maybe whar we saw was somewhere, limbo, where Chara destroyed everything, but then Frisk, the player, whatever is a kind lifeforce, came back, and they hate being controlled and they want our.

Maybe the first game was also about choice, but in a different way. Maybe determination is directly linked to buttercups. Seriously, it's not soul power. Flowey has no soul. But both of them first respawned on BUTTERCUPS. Asriel died and came back as a buttercup. Maybe Frisk died, but then they fell onto a buttercup, too. Hence the respawn.

And Frisk has... Bandages. BANDAGES. Why from where??? Maybe Frisk IS Chara, but wirh a different body. We knew with the plot-twist at the end that WE, as the chosen name we gave Chara, weren't the actual character. Chara, or the name we gave them, was someone who was DEAD. And???? Well, maybe... Its dumb but maybe Chara died, and wjen Toriel carried them to the buttercups, they respawned. And just like Asriel, they gave themself a new name. They called themself Frisk. And jhsr like Flowey, they didn't recognize each other at all since neither of them really was anything like who they were before.

So maybe the second game is us taking control of Chara again, except this Chara is still alive, and they hate us for controlling them, so they're ripping themselves out.

[stainedglassthreads]

Deltarune and UndertaleToybox Connection

Been a while since I made a Deltarune theory. 

Anyways, plenty of people have pointed out that everyone in the Deltarune World seems to be based off of toys found in the classroom Kris and Susie wake up in (Except Ralsei, who I’m coming around to the idea he’s not a Darkner, but I haven’t quite crystallized my thoughts on him yet. I will say i don’t think he’s deliberately malevolent, though. Perhaps instead being used as a vessel or pawn.) 

At any rate, we can agree that things seem to be as follows-- Various characters as a deck of cards: Spades King, Lancer, the other Kings, Roulxs Kaard, Jevil, and other enemies encountered. We can agree C. Round’s a checker piece, there are those jigsaw puzzle guys, we see a guy who’s a spinning top, and of course we see Seam as a plushy in the room. 

I’ve also already seen other theories before this speculating that this was all a dream, and one joking one that Deltarune was Susie and Kris larping for hours. 

I’d like to point out a few connections I picked up on as well, though. I’m certain I’m not the first to realize some of these, and as I said, I only picked up on some of these because I saw aspects of them mentioned elsewhere. 

The first everyone already knows, and I already mentioned. Deltarune is quite obviously a game. The Darkners are quite obviously toys and pieces of other games. But does that make them any less real? 

Whether Deltarune is a sequel or prequel to Undertale, we know now that they’re absolutely connected not just in characters, not just in the juxtaposition of ‘Responsibility to use your power to create the best outcome’ and ‘Your choices don’t matter’, or ‘Live and let live’ and ‘Violence is sometimes necessary’, but potentially in yet another theme. 

Does being a fiction or a toy make it any less real than the ones who play with it? 

The Lightners are those in a ‘real’ world while the Darkners are toys. Two Darkners seem most aware of their true role, both informed by the mysterious Knight-- Spades King, who has the strongest feelings on the Lightners for supposedly abandoning Darkners and is the impetus behind ever other Darkner who attacks you(in a Pacifist ending, the Darkners are willing to consider you their friends. It’s only if you’ve been too violent that they continue to be violent towards you after Lancer overthrows Spades King.) And of course, Jevil, who we already know the story of. 

In Deltarune, it’s the Lightners who are the ones who make their own own decisions, and who carry out the will of the story, though they have less control and fewer choices in how the tale ends. 

But this is reflected in Undertale too. Only here, the Lightners are Frisk, Chara, and Flowey, and the Darkners are all other monsters in the Underground. 

Here, the three most often claimed to be the antagonists of the game are the ‘Lightners’, the ones who play with the ones they see as ‘toys’. Flowey, who shows what a Player could be to the characters at their absolute worst. Frisk, who enacts a Player’s will upon the world. And Chara, who shows us in the end what we have become, and who will remember who we are even if the ‘toys’ don’t. 

The ‘Lightners’ of Undertale are not the only ones aware of the reality of the game. One toy is also seemingly aware and uses that in his fight. And fittingly, it’s the one who might be used to being a toy already. 

Is it possible to learn the truth of the world without losing your sanity? Is it possible to escape a reality where higher beings toy with you, to the point where you’re so easily mistaken for one of those higher beings? I don’t have enough this story to tell quite where it’s going but I really hope that this avenue is explored, also what Papyrus is if so. 

There’s something else to note here, though. 

There are two to three entities who seemingly are not Lightners, heroes, or Players, who may not even fit within the games of Undertale and Deltarune themselves, but who seem to hold as much, or perhaps more, knowledge and influence as any Players. 

We know very, very little about these entities, and we know significantly less of one than the other. But we do know their titles for certain. 

The Knight and the Queen. 

The Knight is only mentioned by Seam, Spades King, and Jevil. Seam refers to him as a ‘strange someone’ and ‘strange Knight’, who caused Jevil’s fall into madness by telling him everything was a game. The Knight also seems responsible for Spades King’s actions, the king repeatedly referring to them as ‘My Knight’ during his battle, saying the Knight has given him ‘fresh purpose’. 

A popular theory is that the Knight is Gaster, having been shattered throughout time and space and apparently now granted incredible knowledge and power as a result, including the power to spread his knowledge, and influence at least one pawn, in at least one other world. 

There is one strange and convoluted piece of evidence that makes me suspect the Knight is Gaster, and that’s the literal easter egg. There’s a secret room in Deltarune, and a man behind a tree there who gives you an egg. The egg is described as ‘Not too important, not too unimportant’, similar to what Seam says about things Jevil said after speaking with the Knight-- “He started saying bizarre things that didn't completely make sense -But didn't completely not make sense, either.” 

When Kris returns to the Light World from the Dark World, the egg is the only thing they can keep that doesn’t turn into something else, and if you try to drop the egg or put it in Asgore’s fridge, text just reads ‘What egg?’ 

And perhaps most bizarre and convincing-- translating ‘egg’ into Wingdings, which Gaster is suspected to speak, gives a hand pointing to the left, and two hands pointing up. One of the moves a Knight in chess could make. 

It also seems to be implied that Gaster was the one guiding us through creating our first vessel in the beginning. So it would be a simple guess that he has the knowledge and power sufficient to create his own vessel, he knows the nature of this game, he knows of us. 

We know even less about the Queen. The only tidbit on her we have is from defeating Jevil through violent means. 

“HA HA HA. WHAT FUN!!! YOU'RE FAST, FAST, STRONG, STRONG. BUT THERE ARE YET FASTER, YET STRONGER. THE HAND OF THE KNIGHT IS DRIFTING FORWARD. SOON, THE "QUEEN" RETURNS, AND HELL'S ROAR BUBBLES FROM THE DEPTHS... LIGHTNERS, CAN YOU STOP IT? UEE HEE HEE! EITHER WAY, A MISCHIEF-MISCHIEF, A CHAOS-CHAOS...! LIGHTNERS! FROM INSIDE YOUR LITTLE CELL!! TAKE ME AND DO YOUR STRONGEST---!” 

...Yeah I don’t have a satisfying way to wrap all this up, but I do hope you enjoyed my rambling and speculations, thank you for reading all the way to the end. ^^ 

[agentravensong]

Why Frisk, Chara, & Kris Being Non-Binary Is More Than Just a Headcanon

An UnderTale/DeltaRune Analysis

Since DeltaRune came out, I’ve been sucked right back into the Undertale fandom. Unfortunately, while I’ve seen tons of great fanart and interesting theories relating to the game, it seems the introduction of a third playable human character who isn’t explicitly male or female has also somewhat re-sparked the debate about whether the genders of Frisk, Chara, and now Kris are up to the player’s interpretation. 

On one side, you have people saying to just respect everyone’s headcanons about these characters, down to deciding their pronouns. On the other, you have people saying the three characters being non-binary is part of their thematic purpose in the games, on top of being positive canon representation for a rarely recognized group.

I fall into the latter camp, and this post will explain why. (WARNING: long and text-heavy post)

NOTE: This post was written in late 2018. Since then, I have made an updated version with additional points in Google Docs, which I then used as the script for a YouTube video. As such, this post should be considered an incomplete, though still sound, version of my argument. If you have the time, rather than continuing to read this post, please click the above link(s) to read the Google Doc and/or watch the video for a full understanding of the topic.

If you find yourself repeatedly coming back to this post for whatever reason, remember that my ask box is always open! I’d be more than happy to clarify my position :D

A quick definition to start us off: if a person is “non-binary”, it means that a person doesn’t see their gender as being exclusively male or female. Many non-binary people prefer to be referred to by the pronouns “they/them/theirs” instead of “he/him/his” or “she/her/hers”, since “they” is already a gender neutral pronoun.

 Also, just in case someone doesn’t understand this, a person’s gender identity is not necessarily related to who they are romantically or sexually interested in.

This post will be split into six sections of unequal length, with the focus progressing from literally interpreting the text to Toby’s intentions and the outside impact of having these characters be non-binary.

1. The basics: All 3 characters are referred to exclusively by gender-neutral pronouns in the games.

Let’s go character by character, shall we?

FRISK

It’s admittedly hard to find examples for this, since most of the time people are talking about Frisk in-game, they’ll be talking directly to them in second person. However, while looking through screenshots provided by the UnderTale Text Project, I found these:

Thank you, Alphys!

EDIT: Hey look, a more obvious example I somehow forgot about!

CHARA

All of the following quotes come from the character Chara was supposedly closest to in the entire Underground, Asriel. As you read, think about this: if Chara’s preferred pronouns were anything other than they/them, why would Asriel not use their correct pronouns here?

“Chara hated humanity. Why they did, they never talked about it. But they felt very strongly about that.”

“When Chara and I combined our souls together, the control over our body was actually split between us. They were the one who picked up their own empty body. And then, when we got to the village, they were the one who wanted... to use our full power.”

I’ve seen some people take Flowey’s mentions of Toriel in his New Home Genocide monologue to be confirmation that Chara goes by “she/her”, since he doesn’t refer to Toriel by name... even though Chara wouldn’t have been awake at that time, and when Flowey DOES talk about Chara in this monologue, it’s in second person, since he believes YOU are his old best friend. This misconception isn’t common, especially these days, but I figured it was worth addressing.

KRIS

Out of the three humans, I think Kris is the one who people are most likely to associate with a specific gender based on their name. But despite the theory videos and such you may have seen where people referred to Kris as “he”, this is not reflected anywhere in-game.

(Got these screenshots of DeltaRune’s code from this tumblr post) 

The lines in the first photo are what Susie says when she’s trying to break Kris and Ralsei out of prison, and you have the option to suggest to her which way to go. The second example. according to Kris’ page on the DeltaRune fandom wiki, is said by Ralsei earlier in the game, if you do not run to complete the clock puzzle to open the door right after reuniting with Susie. Unlike the first example, it is clear in this case that Kris is the only one being referred to. 

I remember seeing someone somewhere argue that Susie and Ralsei don’t know Kris well enough to know their “proper” pronouns. When it comes to Ralsei, I can see that argument... but did you notice that he knows both Kris and Susie’s names without asking? It seems he knows more than he lets on... and while Susie certainly wasn’t friends with Kris before this, the fact that they’re in the same class is enough for me to think she would have heard Kris be referred to by their preferred pronouns at least in passing by this point.

And that’s it. Frisk, Chara, and Kris are never referred to by other pronouns... with, admittedly, one exception:

Why does Chara use “it” for themself here? If I had to guess, it’s likely a combination of them being a ghost of their former self without a soul of their own (Flowey’s shown us how much your personality and sense of self is tied to having a SOUL) and the corruption from the Genocide run (remember that gaining LOVE affects a person’s mentality). They see themself as a demon, no longer a person. Whether that’s literally true to any extent or just how they feel after everything they’ve been through doesn’t really matter, I just wanted to cover this point before anyone else could bring it up. It’s not like it makes them not non-binary or anything.

To be clear, not all non-binary people go exclusively by they/them pronouns. Some prefer to go by masculine or feminine pronouns for their own reasons; some go by “neo-pronouns”, ones invented specifically for those who identify as non-binary; and some people go by more than one set of pronouns. However, in the case of Frisk, Chara, and Kris specifically, the fact that they only go by they/them pronouns makes them non-binary, and using any other pronouns for them would be incorrect (even if you have them go by they/them AND he/him or she/her).

Really, that should be enough to prove that the three humans being non-binary is canon. After all, you never have any of the other major characters in Undertale or DeltaRune explicitly state “I’m a girl” or “I’m a boy”. We know their genders because of the pronouns everyone refers to them by. Sure you’ll see gender-bends of those characters, but no one ever claims that those are on the same level of validity when it comes to canon as the actual canon.

But I know that isn’t enough for the people who came into this post disagreeing with the premise, so let’s actually get to countering some of their arguments, shall we? The main argument, of course, is that the humans’ are all meant for the Player to at least partially craft identifies for, including deciding which pronouns they use. But first...

2. Small Fish First: Other characters who are obviously not meant to be self-inserts use gender neutral pronouns.

...I want to cover the easier to counter idea that they/them pronouns are meant to just be, for lack of a better term, “placeholders”; the pronouns you use when you don’t know a person’s gender, rather than being valid permanent pronouns on their own.

If this were true in the case of Undertale and DeltaRune, you’d expect the humans to be the only ones referred to by these pronouns. They’re the ones whose identities are left ambiguous so the Player can project onto them, right?

But that couldn’t be father from the truth. In fact, the majority of the monsters you encounter in both games are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns (they/them and/or it), if any pronouns at all.

Now one might say, “But none of those monsters are really meant to be individual characters.” I get why you’d think that. But you’re forgetting at least one person...

Yup, Napstablook, despite what many fans have assumed from what I’ve seen, does not go by he/him pronouns, but they/them. And it’s not just in the narration either. Undyne does too in certain phone calls with Papyrus. ...Then again, she barely knows Napsta, and we see in DeltaRune that she defaults to they/them when talking about people whose gender she doesn’t know (specifically in that game, Alphys). 

But that isn’t my last example. One of the few people who was ever close to Napsta was Mettaton (before he became a celebrity). And what does Mettaton say after Blooky calls in to his final show?

What this proves is that Toby recognizes they/them pronouns as valid for an individual in his work, which I hope makes buying that he purposefully made all three humans canonically non-binary easier for skeptics to swallow (we’ll get back to whether he DID purposefully do that later).

But I’ll acknowledge that there IS a difference between the three humans and the other characters in the games who use they/them, due to their relationship with you as the Player. So with that tangent out of the way, time to diffuse the “everyone can have their own headcanons about the kids’ genders” argument.

3. Thematic Context: All 3 humans have moments of asserting their agency, and part of the game’s subtext is how they each relate to the Player, rather than them all being blank slates.

Again, we’ll go character by character.

FRISK

This section is, admittedly, the one with the least evidence compared to the rest. But here’s what we have, and it’s pretty obvious:

After this moment, as was shown earlier, the other monsters know Frisk’s name and will refer to Frisk in the third person with they/them pronouns. Now, consider this: If Frisk used other pronouns, wouldn’t they have corrected the monsters here? Sure Frisk don’t talk without being prompting much throughout most of the game, but considering how they just shared their name, something equally as personal as their pronouns, I don’t think it would feel too out of place here.

Alternatively, if Frisk’s gender was up to the Player’s interpretation, the Player could have been given a prompt to correct the other characters with the “proper” pronouns for Frisk. You could argue it would be pointless this late into the game, but couldn’t that logic apply to the reveal of Frisk’s name as well? In this case, the lack of such a moment speaks more to me than having such a moment would.

Now, I totally get why people would project onto Frisk up to this point in the narrative, including assigning them different pronouns. It wouldn’t be a plot twist otherwise. Even their design seems to lend to that, with the unrealistic bright yellow skin Legos and emojis have to make them more race-neutral, and their emotionless, unchanging facial expression (though it’s worth considering that most of the other character’s overworld sprites don’t change expression much either; I’m pretty sure Alphys’ overworld sprite keeps her dopey smile even when she’s talking about the depths of her depression and failure at the end of the True Lab section). And this actually works to UnderTale’s benefit through most of the game, making the connections you forge with the monsters feel more personal.

The significance of this moment is that it asks the Player to be willing to change their perspective. Throughout the True Pacifist run, you help Frisk to change the mindsets of the characters you come across; this is most obvious with Undyne, who has been raised to see all humans as the enemy, but comes to admit that at least “some humans are OK, I guess” after befriending you. Along the way, you learn that there’s more to these monsters than first impressions may suggest (again, Undyne being a great example). Now, the game is asking you to look deeper one more time, and presenting you with the challenge you’ve posed to all the other major characters: are you willing to recognize Frisk’s autonomy; to understand there is more to this person than you first saw?

EDIT: Hey, remember that screenshot from earlier where Flowey asks you to “let Frisk live their life”? He’s literally asking you to let Frisk be free and truly themself, rather than resetting and taking control of them again. So there’s some more food for thought.

CHARA

While you are the one who names Chara (the reason for which will be considered in the fourth section of this post), consider these points:

1. If the purpose of Chara’s entire character was meant to be just a reflection of you as the Player, then why give them a “true name” at all?

2. Chara’s backstory is integral to the setup of UnderTale’s plot, and provides a good amount of hints at their original personality, easily making them less of a “blank slate” for the Player to project onto than Frisk.

3. Chara makes a clear distinction between the Player and themself in their monologues at the end of the Genocide route. In case you forgot, here are some reminders.

First meeting:

“Your power awakened me from death.”

“My ‘human soul’, my ‘Determination’; they were not mine, but YOURS.”

“With your guidance, I realized the purpose of my reincarnation.”

“Together, we eradicated the enemy and became strong.”

If you agree to ERASE the world: “You are a great partner.”

In the abyss:

“Interesting. You want to go back.”

“You want to go back to the world you destroyed.”

“It was you who pushed everything to its edge. It was you who lead the world to its destruction.”

“But you cannot accept that. You think you are above consequences.”

“Perhaps, we can reach a compromise. You still have something I want.”

“Then, it is agreed. You will give me your SOUL.”

Second meeting:

“You and I are not the same, are we?”

“This SOUL resonates with a strange feeling... You are wracked with a perverted sentimentality. ...I cannot understand these feelings any longer.”

“I feel obligated to suggest: should you choose to create this world once more, another path would be better suited.”

To say there is no connection between Chara and the Player would be unfair. I mean, if they hated humans their whole life, why do they end up taking out that rage on the monsters, the ones who were actually kind to them, in the Genocide run? Like Chara says themself, you guide them, teaching them definitively that “in this world, it’s kill or be killed”; and the influence you have on them is much more obvious if you subscribe to the Narrator Chara theory (but that’s a whole other can of worms).

Like with Frisk, Chara presents the Player a challenge, but in a more subtle way: can you recognize that YOU are at fault, rather than blaming your actions on a damaged kid who learns from your example and never got the chance to grow beyond their mistakes? And part of meeting that challenge is recognizing that Chara is, or at least used to be, their own whole person.

KRIS

Now we get to the really fun part. DeltaRune as a whole seems to be delving even deeper and more explicitly into the relationship between the playable character as an unwilling vessel and the actual Player than Undertale did. Outside of the prevalent message that “Your choices don’t matter” (which I’m guessing will end up more like the “kill or be killed” of this game rather than DR’s intended final moral), the main evidence towards this is how the game starts.

1. A red soul appears on screen when the unknown speaker (presumably Gaster) asks you if they’ve successfully connected with you. The soul is what you control throughout this sequence. The implication? The SOUL in this game is a manifestation of you as the Player. In fact, considering some of the Chara quotes I mentioned earlier, this could be true of UnderTale as well.

2. You spend time making a vessel, only for it to be discarded, because “No one can choose who they are in this world.” This lack of choice is actually foreshadowed when you choose which legs you prefer, since all but the last choice are the same. The game is pointing out right away how superficial these choices are.

3. The speakers says “Your name is...” and Toriel seemingly finishes the statement by calling out “KRIS!”

The message of points 2 and 3 combined is pretty obvious to me: we don’t get an empty vessel to put ourself and our ideas into in DeltaRune. Kris is NOT an empty vessel; they have an already established backstory and personality, which we get multiple hints at (mostly when going around town at the end of the demo).

The fact that you have to go through this creation process on every new file, even after beating the game, suggests it’s more than just a framing device, but directly tied to the game’s narrative and/or themes in some way. So, let’s keep this scene in mind as we look at Kris’ defining moment at the end of Chapter 1.

In the middle of the night, Kris is wrestling with themself in bed until they fall out. Their walk is very stilted and jerkish, reminiscent of a zombie, or someone possessed.

Kris opens and closes their hand a few times before digging into their body and pulling out their soul, their eyes blank. (Notice how this doesn’t seem to actually leave a hole in their chest or anything? Almost as if the soul was never a part of them in the first place...)

They go to the wagon and harshly YEET the soul into the cage (the flavor text for which mentions it has already seen a few crashes... has something like this happened to Kris before?).

Kris walks back to the middle of the room, as if to purposefully stand in the center of the DeltaRune symbol on the floor, then pulls out a knife from seemingly nowhere, and turns to the camera with a red glow in their eyes.

Now, I totally get why most people will immediately assume that Kris has been possessed by a post-Genocide Chara here. I’m pretty sure the visual similarities between this scene and the one that plays if you choose to stay with Toriel in a soulless pacifist run in UT are intentional.

But remember how we mentioned the red SOUL, at least in DeltaRune, is a manifestation of the Player? This is actually reinforced in this scene, because you’re able to move the SOUL back and forth within the cage.

We’ve been controlling Kris via that SOUL the whole way through the game, and now? Kris is done with us. THIS is their prime moment of agency in Chapter 1 - reclaiming ownership of their own body - and I doubt that it will be their last.

There’s a ton of other stuff I could mention about Kris, like how:

* they had their own save file, which you overwrite at the first save point

* multiple NPCs in the town will comment on Kris seeming more talkative or looking off today, because YOU’RE making them interact with people

* Kris’ ability to play the piano is worse than normal with you controlling them, according to the hospital receptionist

* the narration says Kris feels bitter if you throw away the one possession in their inventory, the Ball of Junk (”bitter” isn’t the emotion one would feel if they did this of their own free will)

or all the hints at Kris’ true personality as an introverted, codependent prankster. But that could be a post in itself. My point is that, if Frisk and Chara’s individualism from the Player was subtle in UnderTale, this is pretty straightforward, if you know where to look.

And if these three humans are all their own characters, then shouldn’t we consider what seemingly little we DO know for sure about them as canon? We all take their names to be canon, so why not their pronouns?

That’s the bulk of the argument done. But when discussing canon, there is one thing that always has to be considered:

4. Can We Know The Creator (Toby Fox)’s Intentions?

Well, not really.

Some may bring up the one tweet where Toby suggested to name the fallen human (Chara) “your own name” as evidence that you ARE meant to project yourself into these characters. 

However, I think you could just as easily argue that doing this ADDS to the impact of when Frisk, the character you physically control, confirms themself to be their own person with their own name, rather than a mold for you to pour yourself into. 

And though Chara does make it clear that they themself as a character are separate from you, the whole Genocide ending monologue does hit harder when the person reprimanding you for their sins, who describes themself as “the feeling you get when your stats increase”, shares your name.

While putting this post together, I came across this interview Toby did about Undertale back in September 2015, and took particular note of this section:

While this technically doesn’t confirm or deny anything either way, how hard would it have been for Toby to say, “Well the protagonist is meant to have their gender be up to the player’s interpretation”? I doubt he would have gotten more backlash for that then he would have for definitively saying that Frisk is MEANT to be non-binary (though I doubt that would have stopped people from making them male or female anyway).

Then again, the article does start with the interviewer saying this:

“I told Toby Fox to skip questions he didn’t find interesting, and boy did he take me at my word.”

So maybe he just didn’t have anything worthwhile to mention.

I can’t say with certainty that Frisk and Chara’s genders were never meant to be up to the Player’s choice, even after what I mentioned in section 2 (and I doubt Toby would want to make a statement on it at this point). Same with Kris, for now.

However, if the rest of DeltaRune ends up going in the direction I suggested in the previous section, I honestly would not be surprised if there’s a moment where Kris confirms they are nonbinary, as a show of agency and individualism akin to Frisk telling Asriel their real name. I wouldn’t really call it a “theory”, and it’s hard to speculate what the other chapters of the game will at all be like based on what relatively little we have... but I wouldn’t have mentioned it here if I didn’t think it had any validity.

5. Why Does This Matter?

Outside of the previously mentioned stuff relating to the games’ themes/messages about choice, agency, and individualism, there’s one big reason: representation.

How many games can you think of where there are any explicitly non-binary characters? How many where that character is a major one, who doesn’t get treated as particularity different from the others just on the basis of the pronouns they use? And how many of those games are even close to the popularity of Undertale in its hayday? Even expanding these questions to media other than just video games won’t net many more results.

For people who are striving for representation, seeing posts like “Just let people have their headcanons :)” can come across as the OP not understanding how much that representation means. Even worse, coming back to the point I made in section 2 of this post, it could be seen as the OP denying that being non-binary is just as real and concrete as being male or female (a problem which more mainstream representation of non-binary people would help solve!).

But don’t just take it from me. After all, as a binary cis girl myself (”cis” meaning not trans), I can’t speak generally for all the trans and non-binary Undertale and Deltarune fans out there. So allow me to link some posts which provide their perspectives:

This first post is from before DeltaRune was released, and mainly focuses on Frisk, but goes in-depth on the topic (and the OP provided me some feedback on my post, so if they see this, thanks!)

I came across this post just while scrolling through the DeltaRune tag about why this stuff matters to non-binary fans.

This post is specifically about how using they/them pronouns for the kids is preferable whether or not it’s literally canon.

Here’s another post from the same person covering some common counter-arguments.

And if the other posts are too long for you to bother reading after going through mine, this one sums up the point in one sentence.

I know some people flinch at the mere mention of the word “representation”. I know that some will argue you shouldn’t need to see representation of a group you belong to in a piece of media in order to be able to relate to the characters and/or feel validated yourself - because I’ve seen people make this argument. But, I mean, I certainly find it easier to relate to characters that I share traits with; that’s just how humans work. It’s probably the main reason why people assign different genders to Frisk, Chara, and Kris in the first place! Besides, who does it hurt to include more diverse characters?

Oh right, there’s the idea that “forcing” creators to include representation is bad for creativity or whatever. Well good thing that’s not what this is about! As far as I know, no one is telling Toby he has to ADD new characters to fulfill a quota; the characters in question (Frisk, Chara, & Kris) already exist in his work. The point of this post is to show that the three of them were MEANT to be non-binary from the start (assuming I provided enough proof to convince you), so people won’t continue to erase that representation. By making them binary cis boys or girls, you’re only taking away from the original text (and giving people more to “complain” about).

Honestly, what does one even have to gain story-wise from assigning different genders to the human kids? I can’t remember a time I saw where making them strictly boys or girls added anything to their characterization or opened up different story possibilities (I’m sure you could could up with a theoretical example, but compared to the endless fanworks that DON’T do that, they hardly make a dent). Speaking beyond just Frisk, Chara, and Kris, characters being non-binary shouldn't affect how you ship them. You can give such characters more overtly masculine or feminine designs/appearances, but still have them be non-binary and go by they/them pronouns (most people don’t naturally look androgynous after all). In a work with voice acting, casting someone with a more masculine or feminine voice to play a non-binary character shouldn’t stop you from portraying the character as non-binary either - just refer to them with the right pronouns! 

And if people who find your work continuously misgender your non-binary characters or ask what their “real” gender is, don’t let them get to you. You don’t need to respond to every such comment, but when you DO respond, clearly state that these characters are non-binary, politely correct the people who refer to those characters by the wrong pronouns, and, if worst comes to worst, block the people who won’t respect that. Before you (using “you” for the rest of this paragraph to refer specifically to my fellow binary cis peeps) can even think to argue “that sounds like too much work” or “it’s not worth the potential controversy”, remember that non-binary people in real life have to deal with this crap far more often than we do, and for them, it’s personal. If they can handle it, why can’t you?

Yes, Frisk, Chara, and Kris are fictional characters, not real people. But more representation of non-binary people in media helps others learn to understand and respect them, both in fiction and in real life. Honestly, it’s beyond time for people to accept that “they/them” aren’t “placeholder pronouns”, and the genders of people who use them aren’t up for others to judge. It’s just who they are, and really, how hard is that to respect?

If nothing else will convince you, think of it this way: if you’re not in the group being affected by a discussion like this, and you don’t care about the people in that group, keeping yourself out of the conversation saves everyone time and energy, without hurting anyone.

6. Conclusion

So, to briefly summarize this essay-length post’s main points:

1. Frisk, Chara, and Kris all go solely by “they/them” in their respective games, so having them go by any other pronouns is technically diverting from canon to the same extent that gender-bending any other character would be, NOT a valid interpretation of the original text. 

2. There are other individual characters in these two games, such as Napstablook, who are referred to by they/them pronouns, even by those who were close to them.

3. The three humans are all shown to be more than just blank slates for the Player to project themself onto, making the stuff which IS definitively said about them (specifically, their names and pronouns) canon parts of their characterization unless directly proven otherwise.

4. We can’t assume Toby’s intentions, but even if he didn’t initially make Frisk, Chara, and Kris gender neutral for the sake of giving non-binary people representation, many people have taken it as that. Thus, seeing others say that the humans’ genders are up for interpretation is interpreted as those people not respecting non-binary identities as valid on their own.

The one other point I can think people might bring up would be the idea that kids as young as Chara or Frisk wouldn’t identify as non-binary because they wouldn’t understand the concept. To that argument, I’d suggest looking up videos about people who realized they were transgender as kids. In general, if there are concepts in this post you didn’t quite get or agree with, research is your friend!

Speaking of which, as this post I came across in the DeltaRune tag yesterday pointed out, fun fact: “non-binary” is an umbrella term that still leaves some slight room for personal interpretation when it comes to the humans’ genders! To use myself as an example, I personally headcanon Chara as firmly agender, Kris as a a demi-boy (someone who only partially sees themself as male), and Frisk as genderfluid (meaning that their sense of gender regularly changes). However, despite the nuances in their gender identities, I only have them go by they/them pronouns, their canon ones, in my fanworks. Doing otherwise not only goes against canon, but can be considered misgendering, and thus should be avoided.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t make up ANYTHING about what Chara, Frisk, and Kris are like either. People have plenty of headcanons about the backstories and other quirks of characters like Sans, Undyne, Mettaton - basically the whole cast of both games - and there’s nothing stopping you from doing that for the human kids. I certainly have my own ideas of what Chara and Frisk’s lives were like before they fell into the Underground. The difference is that those are speculating on things not outright said in canon. But Frisk, Chara, and Kris going by they/them pronouns IS canon, and should be respected as such.

At the end of the day, neither I nor anyone else (not even Toby) can outright stop people from having their opinions about these fictional characters. But since I had some free time this weekend, I figured I could take a stand for something I care about relating to a fandom I’ve emerged myself in for the past few years. My main hope in making this post is that you’ll understand why certain people disagree with the seemingly righteous stance of “It’s all up to interpretation, just let people do what they want!”. And if you knew nothing about non-binary identities before, hopefully this was educational for you!

If you have any remaining questions or suggestions relating to this post, feel free to reblog with your feedback or send me an ask. Until then, this is Agent Raven, signing off.

[rubberduckyrye]

2 things; choices don’t matter, soul ends up in a literal cage. dont talk about game for 24 hours, today is a smash bros announcement on a Nintendo stream and detlarune made a reference to smash bros. coincidence? I THINK NOT!!!! sans confirmed for smash bros ( i will shit if my friends shitpost becomes real )

SPOILERS FOR DELTARUNE, SCROLL PAST IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS. I'm on mobile rn but I'll tag this in a bit as "Deltarune spoilers"

Honestly like........ On a serious note, sorry that it's not a full 24 hours yet but good damn it Toby I just can't take it anymore

The fact that choice so clearly doesn't matter in Deltarune is really unsettling to me

Because Undertale's main gimmick was CHOICE. That's why people were interested. That's why people got all hyped. That's why it did so well.

Toby deliberately abolishing a very important mechanic to the franchise is super unsettling. It makes me think that the first chapter of Deltarune is going to be like the first Chapter of V3. Like, we're not meant to play as Kris. I think that maybe we play as "the red soul" rather than the actual character. This might very well apply to Undertale as well--we're not controlling Frisk. We're controlling the red soul.

Then that means, "Chara" might not be an actual person. Maybe Chara is a programmed "player." Like us, they can take control over the protagonists. Maybe Deltarune is the story of how we lose control to "Chara" and have to get control back, but at the cost of fracturing the timeline and creating the world of Undertale from the world of Deltarune.

Deltarune and Undertale as it stands cannot be in the same universe. Undyne and Alphys have no idea who the other is. Catty and Bratty are rivals/enemies/don't like each other. Asriel is old enough to be in college. Sans just moved into town and doesn't know anyone except Alphys and Toriel, whom had visited his grocery store. Mettaton doesn't have his robotic body and thinks he's nothing special. Toriel and Asgore broke up for a reason not disclosed.

This isn't a sequel for sure. The Dreemurr family provides too many inconsistencies for it to be a prequel... But it might be a prequel, if this is an idea where the world gets a time fracture or something (maybe Kris, Susie, and Ralsei are erased from existence, thus allowing the dark kingdom to overthrow the light? This in turn causes humans to distrust monsters and start a war?) but Toby's gonna have to explain what the fuck is going on with these inconsistencies.

Though even with that prequel theory, that would still make these two different worlds and timelines.

But also think about this: why does Toby care about people posting Deltarune spoilers? Why does this matter? Why the 24 hours?

I think it's because there's a chance he's going to release the full game very soon. Like, possibly later today soon. I'm not 100% on this but the whole "Tomorrow, tomorrow" thing from yesterday is driving me up a wall. Toby doesn't normally just do that kind of crap for shits and giggles. This man is a mad genius I do not trust him.

[spacialesbian]

Theory: Deltarune is set in a previous universe to Undertale

Okay I'm going to attempt to go through and explain my previous-universe deltarune/undertale theory, in which I give evidence for why the DR universe occurs earlier on the timeline than the UT one (also sometimes referred to as Chara-pocalypse by me exclusively for fun)

Extremely huge shoutout to @rayl1r for basically all Kris-split elements, this post for effectively jumpstarting this whole idea in my brain (I will also be referencing it throughout this) and @hulknaps for listening to my preliminary bullshit

I'm gonna get everything I can out of that post before I move on so. The first thing I want to discuss is the photograph of 3 people with the words "don't forget" on it found in the first shelf of San's laboratory, as well as the blueprint for the "thrashing machine" next to it. Now this combined with the "dontforget.ogg" file found in the "mus" folder of deltarune can be taken to imply (albeit somewhat tenuously by itself alone) that the picture is of Kris, Susie, and Ralsei. However, the photo paired with the blueprint and this Sans fight dialogue heavily implies that the events of DR take place in an alternate universe at some point in time before Sans and Papyrus somehow travel to the UT universe. We know from one of the shopkeepers in UT that the bone brothers "just showed up one day," possibly referring to a sudden jump between universes. Now, we know that by the time Chara in a genocide run reaches Sans he knows all about them and "what they've done" (paraphrasing). Initially everybody assumed he was speaking of Chara's actions in UT, but instead consider the possibility that what he was referencing to "what they've done" was really something in the DR reality, namely Chara bringing calamity and the apocalypse to the entire world (this seems brought out of nowhere but there's evidence to support it I promise). somehow and at some time during the storyline of DR, I theorize Sans will join the organization that he references in his Genocide run fight with Chara here, giving him the means to escape the Chara-pocalypse (see) and even appropriating the teleport door technology we see in DR. 

Okay, that's essentially the core of this theory: DR takes place in a previous universe to UT, in which Chara brings the calamity to fruition in DR and Sans figures out a way to escape to UT with Papyrus, vowing to himself "don't forget" as he leaves the fun gang behind.

Now, the first branch of this I'm gonna analyze is Gaster's "role" in all of this. we learn from his followers in UT that 1. Gaster created the core of the underground 2. something went wrong and he fell in, being splintered through space and time and becoming omniscient to some degree (shoutout to this video for the screenshots of the Gaster follower dialogue). Now, I’m adopting the theory that Gaster is the one speaking to you at the beginning of DR during the "character creator” that I lay out the evidence for in this post that you can read if you don’t already subscribe to this idea. Now Gaster, through his displacement in time, has seen the Chara-pocalypse coming and knows there is nothing that can be done to prevent it. This would also explain his nihilistic disposition when interacting with the player and discarding their vessel, as well as providing a possible explanation for why Gaster’s followers are referred to as goners. Gaster has seen the apocalypse coming and know there’s nothing that can be done about it. Everybody is DR is fucked as their choices don’t matter. Now, what do you call someone who is screwed no matter what they do? A goner.

Departing from Gaster, it's now time to talk about the "Kris-split" theory I mentioned earlier provided entirely by @rayl1r. Now, multiple theories and speculation have arisen about Kris being some kind of amalgamation between Chara and Frisk. However, these all assume that DR takes place “after” UT, as opposed to before like the theory I’ve been defending for 600+ words states. “Knowing" that UT takes place takes after DR, we can instead come to the conclusion that Frisk and Chara are a physical split of Kris into two distinct entities. As a sort of disclaimer, we don't know exactly how this split would take place but as with all theories some things we just can't answer. Moving on, we can further attribute this split to what we actually see at the very end of DR Chapter 1. Kris' body and soul literally split into two entities, which, coinciding with this theory, foreshadows the embodiment of Kris' separated soul as Frisk and their body personified as Chara, a ""soulless"" being. We see in this tumblr post that after Kris' soul is torn out we can still control it, yet have lost control over the body. This is an effective mirror of the mechanics in UT, as we control Frisk throughout the entire game except in parts of a Genocide run where Chara wholly "takes over" Frisk and the player loses control entirely. The similarities between Kris' body in the final scene of DR and Chara also don't end there. Recall that the only human to ever open their eyes throughout UT was Chara. Kris' eyes are closed the entirety of DR except for when the soul (Frisk/The Player) is removed from their body, the opening of the eyes symbolizing Chara's new domain over the body or “vessel.” Dialogue from the Sans fight again supports that even though Frisk is being controlled by Chara, he recognizes them as they once were; as Kris. In the same situation as before, we as a fanbase assumed this line was a reference to Sans being aware of Pacifist timelines where Frisk was his friend and generally didn’t murder the whole underground. However, I believe this is a reference to the piece of Kris still somewhere inside Chara (as Chara came from Kara, some part of Kris must still remain inside of Chara). 

The last directly in-game content I want to reference for this theory actually revolves around Seam and Jevil. First, take a look at the dialogue Seam has with Kris after you defeat Jevil and return to him.  This heavily foreshadows a calamity based end of the world scenario, quite possibly the Chara-pocalypse I have alluded to. How much stake we can put into a brain-addled old shopkeeper is relative, but as it is Toby Fox I won't discount a single thing.  Beating Jevil using violence (FIGHTing to lower his health bar rather than tiring him out and pacifying) reveals much of the same information in this dialogue, but also introduces new things that I find incredibly interesting. He references both the unnamed Knight as well as a "Queen" who will bring "hell's roar from the depths." Apart from this being incredibly freaky in general I believe he is referencing Chara as the Queen who will bring hell onto the universe, enacting the Chara-pocalypse. Again, this only a bit of foreshadowing but nothing in these games is small enough to really discredit so I felt safe in adding it here.

To put the cherry on top of all this, Toby released his "thought on chapter 1" tweet as I was planning all of this giving me even more evidence, particularly for the previous-universe theory. In this writing he clearly and openly states "there will be only one ending." the way I see it, this is a reference to the fact that the events of DR are already set in stone, as it takes place in the past (It also reinforces the idea that you actions through DR don’t actually matter). This talk of the characters of UT being the same as you left them also supports the theory, as a set in stone recollection of the past in DR could not possibly change the outcome of UT due to just how time works in general. 

Now, Toby of course couldn't just leave it at that. He ends his TwitLonger with the same exact line Sans writes to himself on the picture of the fun gang he cherishes but had to leave behind:

“don’t forget.”

[majorasnightmare]

deltarune theories including spoilers

on mobile so i cant put a readmore but just scroll past

-first, i dont think kris is a seperate human from frisk and chara. given the timelime of events in deltarune and how it appears to be a seperate universe, kris's "creepy face", mischeovous habits, morbid sense of humor, overwhelming love of chocolate, a tendency to gravitate towards bladed weapons, and THAT ending, im fairly sure kris is just chara grown older. its fairly possible that there was a name change involved somewhere (ie they made up a new name for themselves in undertale when they fell down, calling themselves chara and since that hasnt happened theyre "stuck" with their old name kris in deltarune)

-second, we have no evidence how kris feels about ralsei. its entirely possible kris doesnt care about ralsei at all. kris only reacts independently towards susie. kris reacts with a ! when the party (including susie) is attacked, kris defends susie from the King, kris calls susie their friend to toriel, and kris gets annoyed when monster kid badmouths her. as far as im aware, kris doesnt react to ralsei at all unless you the player make them.

-third, with that in mind, its possible the events of the dark world isnt kris' first "adventure". the cage has seen plenty of use before, and the end where you reach the fountain has nowhere near the same gravitas or narrarive importance as, say, the breaking of the barrier in undertale, despite being visually similar. in a "game" where your choices dont matter (except in the real world where your behavior draws looks and concern), does the "game" itself matter to the protagonist? its possible that kris has gone through many adventures in the past as they were possessed by players, all of them featuring a quirky but lovable cast and strong overtures of friendship, until the player is satisfied and leaves kris alone. they might have seen the events of deltarune play out time and time again, and at this point cant even be bothered to care. lancer even points this out when choosing a team name, that kris looks like they really couldnt care less. kris didnt even tell lancer their name, and lancer goes the whole game without knowing who kris is. in fact, kris has such a non-presence in the events of the dark world, that ralsei and susie prefer to talk to each other instead of kris. if you open the white ribbon chest with susie in your party, and then equip to ralsei, he asks susie if hes cute instead of kris. regardless of whether or not theyve "played" the "game" before, its likely that kris views deltarune as a show for the player controlling them, and interacts with the setting with that view in mind. they dont even react when ralsei looks like theyre brother, someone in the "real world" who they view highly and love deeply. the reveal is only a shock for susie (whos never "played" in one of these "games" before), and the player, who didnt expect to see asriel again after undertale. kris doesnt care. which makes sense if theyve been forced to go through this set up before, and if they dont really care about the dark world at all, because at the end of the day, deltarune isnt for kris. its for you, the player. what kris wants, or feels, their choices? they dont matter at all.

[synthient]

Oh no, undertale on main sideblog

Is anyone talking about the fact that two completely different points in the timeline have been collapsed together? Like, the weirdest thing about this universe isn't that Asriel's alive, it's that he's existing as a teenager/twentysomething at the same time as all the characters from Frisk's era

Susie is one of the best parts of this game and I love her but why is her name spelled differently than Clam Girl's Suzy. Whats going on with that

I also love Lancer A Whole Lot. He's the main reason I hope the Dark World is actually real, even though it probably makes more sense if it's not

I know everyone loves ""Ralsei,"" so I'm sorry, but...I don't trust that fellow. Something's off about that kid. What's Asriel up to

One of the characters called Kris and party "guys or girls" at one point and it made my heart go :(

(I mean "guys or girls" is an awkward enough wording that it might be some kind of intentional...thing, but until it's explicitly canonically stated, I'm ever nervous about the possibility that Toby just stumbled into nb rep by accident)

Who is Kris. Appearance-wise and personality-wise (they're a little creepy, Toriel has to hide the chocolate from them, etc) most signs point to Chara. But then there's the fact that they seem to have been adopted by the Dreemurrs young enough that they didn't realize they were a human at first, while Chara's life was defined by their awareness of their humanity and what it meant for the Underground. Guess they could still be a version of Chara from a radically different universe though.

I've also heard a theory that they're Frisk and Kris was their deadname, so that'd be sad :( Don't really want to believe that the Dreemurrs would insist on deadnaming them though, even in the Bad Timeline.

And this is clearly the Bad Timeline. In this hellish world, Alphys thinks Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 is better than Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 1.

(Which is actually really interesting, and not just in a Your Faves Are Not As You Know Them way. Alphys originally hated Mew Mew 2 because it dropped the hope and kindness and optimism of the original in favor of being 2 Edgy 4 You, but Bad Timeline Alphys loves it because she thinks it's a ~dark adult masterpiece~. So it's potentially commentary on Deltarune as a sequel and its sense of Wrongness and maybe even commentary on the original Halloween Hack)

I was initially really weirded out by the whole Toriel Has Become Catholic thing, but now I think it's another way of cuing us to the Off-ness of this world. In Undertale the monsters had never heard of human religions and holidays, but here the Dreemurrs have been practicing Christians for years (meanwhile Kris just wants the Sick Fruit Juice. Whoever they are I love them)

Speaking of Deltarune as a topsy-turvy opposite-world version of Undertale, it's really interesting that Undertale had multiple endings, but it only gave you one save file, adding to the whole theme of how a meaningful experience can become meaningless if you treat it like it's repeatable and disposable. But Deltarune lets you have 3 save files, and even copy your save file, even though there's only one ending and Your Choices Don't Matter TM

Not only does pacifism being the only option make it less meaningful, but by focusing exclusively on the Fighting Bad angle, the game sidesteps any other ethical issues. It's genuinely fucked up that the Lightners abandoned and imprisoned the Darkners and yet the Darkners can only find fulfillment by helping them, but the heroes don't make any effort to free the Darkners, and the final conflict gets reduced to "the king just needs to stop being mean to the poor Lightners"

That's also one of the reasons I'm lowkey suspicious of ""Ralsei."" He's the one pushing us along on the One Set Path, and then when the Spade King's like "We shouldn't have to worship and obey the Lightners! We should be allowed to find our own purpose!" Ralsei's just like "No!!" and. that's that.

Anyone else concerned that Susie’s like “so sealing this fountain isn’t going to destroy your kingdom or anything, right?” and Lancer’s like “I have no idea! :P” and then we never find out what happened

(Guess it's less of an issue if the Darkners are really just toys in a dark empty storage room, mad that the "Lightners" outside stopped playing with them)

Odd that Susie never goes "huh, this is weirdly similar to the situation in the Underground that we monsters just escaped." Given that, the Toriel Is Now Catholic thing, and Kris being adopted at a young age...is this a universe where the monsters were never sealed underground?

If the Dark World really is real, did the Darkners take the monsters' place?

A lot of the Opposite World differences seem to be directly rooted in the fact that Alphys never became the Royal Scientist (possibly hinting at the ooooo Gaster~ thing)

I love the part where Kris licks the book, but is Toby jossing flavor text theory? Is he winking conspiratorially at it? What does it meannn

"Simple shapes...circle...square...dodecahedron" Chara? Is that you???

I don't actually think this is building to the Most Boring Chara Interpretation (aka: They're an evil serial killer. They've been evil since the tender age of Birth. They were trying to forcibly possess Frisk's body and make them go through with the no mercy run from the very beginning player what player. This suicidal 10-year-old is the one irredeemable Undertale character and the sole exception to Undertale's "everyone has hidden sympathetic depths" rule.) But that ending was stil,,,Bad. Unless it was supposed to feel like cheap dumb creepypasta shock value, in which case it did its job excellently.

"You just have to trust the dog" I'm trying

[a-deep-dreemurr]

A guess this is a canon call!

This is my first one so I’m a little bit nervous. Here’s some of the basic details of my canon. I remember Deltarune things better than Undertale. I was Asriel, Flowey, and Ralsei, and I’m mostly looking for my Chara/Kris!

I was Undertale Asriel first, the events of canon happened basically as normal

A lot of time passed between when I died and when I was resurrected. With the exception of mom, dad, and Gerson, basically no one I knew in my lifetime was still around.

I thought I couldn’t feel happiness as Flowey because I didn’t have a soul, but in reality I was just super depressed due to losing my sibling and my body and going through the traumatic experience of dying. I could feel negative feelings like fear just fine, it was just positive emotions I struggled with.

As Flowey, I had a ridiculous amount of resets and did just about everything there was to do in the underground. I was really bored.

I genuinely liked Papyrus? He was great and cool.

I kinda hated sans but he was really fun to mess with. He seemed to be the only one who could remember resets. I was more of a dick to him than anyone else, and in turn, he killed me and ruined my runs more times than anyone else.

After Frisk beat me and I stayed behind, I used the last of the power from the souls to make a pocket dimension with a false reality where I could just pretend that everything was good and happy, and I suppressed my memories.

Chara got inside my pocket dimension and became Kris.

The dark dimension was required to keep the world intact. I split myself in half and put part of me there to keep it stable (Ralsei). That part was made fully formed and didn’t really grow. The door to the rest of the dark dimension was locked until the Lighteners got there. I was alone in the dark for a really long time.

The prophecy was just a reason to go on a fun adventure with my sibling. I have no excuse for that.

Susie came from an abusive and/or very poor family. Everyone always wrote her off as a bad kid so she decided to just embrace it. I’m pretty sure the Fun Gang were the first people to really give her a chance. She had to skip meals a lot because there wasn’t a lot of food in the house.

Kris and I were around the same age, although I was a little bit older.

Mom and dad adopted Kris when they were around 5.

Kris and Chara’s bio families were awful in both lifetimes.

Kris was selectively mute. Chara was not.

Chara was nonbinary and nobody treated then being nonbinary as a big deal because it was fairly common with monsters in the Underground.

Kris was amab and nonbinary and dad accepted them but mom was pretty transphobic (all in the name of “what was best for us”), and their differing opinions of how to react to this were one of the main reasons they got divorced.

I was aro/ace.

Mom got a lot more strict after dad left. She unplugged the tv because she said it was “a bad influence”. Kris really started to struggle in school and got held back, so we didn’t get to go to college together like we always planed.

Both Kris and I had bad nightmares.

Gaster brought the player to control Kris because he wanted to see what would happen. He made everything fall apart.

I have more small memories that probably aren’t important enough to mention here.

Also I am shy, so sorry if you message me and I don’t reply immediately!

[anxietypopcorn]

So I’m gonna talk ab my theory, and even the short version is pretty long so I’m putting it under the cut

Basically the short version is that if we assume the player soul is connected to Frisk/Chara through determination, then why would the soul be connected to Kris specifically in Deltarune? The easy answer is “well because humans have more determination than monsters do, since monsters aren’t able to handle it because they don’t have physical bodies,” but I wanted to go deeper than just that

What we know about determination is that it’s “the power to keep living,” or the power to keep going, the power to save and load. In Undertale, the power of determination comes up time and time again, and it’s explicitly stated that it’s something humans possess, but monsters can’t handle it because they don’t have physical bodies. Their bodies are made of magic, and having too much determination makes them melt (as seen through the determination experiments by Alphys and with Undyne the Undying).

But then we get to Deltarune, and Queen says that determination is a power “that all lighteners possess,” and we know that that includes monsters. So how are monsters able to possess the power of determination in Deltarune, but in Undertale it’s shown time and time again that they physically can’t?

We go back to Undertale, the very beginning, with the story at the beginning about the Humans and Monsters war. In that, humans are shown to be able to use magic, (“They sealed the monsters underground with a magic spell”) something that it’s stated they can’t do in the rest of the game. If humans used to be able to use magic and can’t anymore, and now their power comes more from determination than magic, then in the world of Deltarune, where monsters have lived on the surface the whole time and never got sealed underground, then it means that monsters now pull more power from determination than from magic, just like humans in Undertale.

Going back to the player soul then, if all lighteners possess determination, then why is the soul connected to Kris specifically? Why not any other monster? This can easily be explained through the plaques in Waterfall, that explain how human souls persist after death but monster souls do not (with the exception of boss monsters, who’s souls persist for a few seconds after death). The fear of monsters absorbing human souls is what caused the war in the first place. Souls persisting after death, and the nature of souls in general, is pretty explicitly tied to determination. So even back when humans were able to use magic, I’m just assuming that humans in general have more determination than monsters do.

This explains why the player would be connected to Kris, because humans have more determination than monsters do, even if, in DR, they both have it.

However! This can explain why the player can control the whole party in battle! If determination is the power that connects the player to a “host”/“vessel” then it makes sense that if in DR, monsters/lighteners have determination, the player is able to control your party to some extent. Like in the weird route, during the Berdly fight, if Kris is downed, Noelle expresses how she can “still hear their voice.” Another example, the Susie sequences from both chapters. Where the player soul is able to latch onto her, even with Kris not being present at all. It through their determination.

This doesn’t explain how the soul can control Ralsei in battle, though. Since Ralsei is a darkener and doesn’t have determination. (BTW, NOT EVEN GOING TO ENTERTAIN THE THEORY THAT RALSEI IS A LIGHTENER/IS ASRIEL, I THINK THATS LIKE 100% WRONG FOR MULTIPLE REASONS).

I have a little mini theory for the reason Ralsei can be controlled in battle though, and it’s because he knows the player is controlling Kris. Granted, I didn’t come up with this theory on my own, I’ve seen it floating around the fandom, but all the evidence that I have for it is gathered by me. If you wanna hear about that one as well (it’s significantly shorter than this) then I’d be happy to explain that one too

But yea that’s that whole thing, and keep in mind that this is the short version so there’s a lot more to it with a lot more evidence, but yea!

I just need to talk ab my ut/dr theory with someone about the nature of the player soul and determination and magic but my bestie isn’t answering my texts and there’s no one else who will listen to me