#: narrator chara strikes again :

[littlebittykittycommittee]

Y'know, one aspect of the new Chara lore that just dropped that strikes me (besides uhhh, all of it lol) is that what we know about Chara for sure just really reinforces over and over again, how they really were a little kid. I know people headcanon them different ages because it makes sense to them or it seems to match their behavior or w/e, but really, 9 is their favorite number?? .... they even have a favorite number that they've discussed (apparently at length)???

Like, look at their sprite (and Frisk's) and then look at Kris'. Literal babies. And so much stuff little idiosyncrasies about them doubles down on them having these very childish likes and habits, like them overfilling their glass ("for efficiency!!!") and proudly toting it around, spilling it everywhere. (And the narrator theory, how excited they get over the toy chest in Home: "Look at all these cool toys!" Honestly, how much they talk/narrate in general?? Kiddo's here to A) chatter about everything they see and B) make fun of you. They're doing the Simpsons' HA HA point and laugh, you just can't hear it.)

Seriously, imagine them standing at the front of a classroom and introducing themself with the little things we know about them: "My name is Chara. I really like reading and drawing and golden flowers, my favorite food is chocolate, and my favorite number is 9."

I think that gets lost sometimes, with how Asriel is very clearly a little kid because of how he acts in the VHS tapes and how serious and eloquent Chara is when we see them at the end of the Murder Fun Times route, it seems like sometimes people think of Chara as much older and more serious than Asriel. I know their in-game lore is dark as shit, but there's so many little things that keep underlining that they're really a little kid who got in way over their head. Like, I seriously doubt they're even in middle school.

[diodellet]

So many good options for the art appreciation asks but let's go with 3, 4, 13, 14 and 27.

hi hi ner! thanks forda qs!! these are all prettie incharestinge!! (<-girlie who didn't know she'd be Yapping-Yapping)

3. and 4.) Go to [fandom] tag and reblog some art you like that has under 100 notes ++ Go to the art tag (or similar) and reblog some art you like that has under 100 notes

noted, i will undertake this mission with great care 🫡🫡

13. What are your go-to Ao3 filters?

ok i have a confession, i used to be a sort by word count++completed works only++exclude crossovers-kinda person 🤧🤧ANYWAY that was changed, now i only really exclude chat fics (ahaha,,,,theyre not really my go-to genre, like sure they're amusing but i read a really good one once* and it ruined every other chatfic for me)

*this one's for u haikyuu-natics, esp team captain stannies

hm.... i'm not super-duper picky so most of the time i can just scroll through each work's summary and tags.

but if a fandom is popular (or if i dont have the spoons for sifting through works), i stick to just reader inserts HAHAHA, maybe oc x canon if there haven't been any new x reader fics and if there's rlly nothing oough ig i have to write her myself 😭😭 sometimes doe, the curiosity strikes and i'll try looking if there are any fanfics in filipino... i really find it interesting to see how a chara's dialogue reads if theyre speaking in tagalog (tbh i think one would have more luck finding filo socmed aus on twt? but i only know about haikyuu socmed aus)

14. Best fanfic tropes ever?

oH...there are too many... u can't make me choose the best out of all my faves that's unfair 🥺jk lol

i read* this jamikali fic (i like my ships with a bit [read: a LOT] of tragedy/disaster-ness to them. it's so so so compelling to read!) and i just love the "Dubiously Unrequited Love" tag. bcs yes, the feelings are technically mutual, but there is a whole slew of other factors keeping the relationship from being a thing, which it could be a thing, but there's also that awareness that it won't last, sometimes a couple doesn't have to be endgame for the love to mean something, ykw?

this entire oneshot series....has me in a chokehold... my introduction to "Non-Sexual Intimacy" (and "Non-Sexual Nudity" i guess?) like??? holy shit??? the tension?? the way op just encapsulates the poignancy of being in such a vulnerable position without teetering too much into the cliche of roëmænce it has me On My Knees!! (like i love my smut and romance cliches, but some days i jus want a liiiitle bit more spice and variety)

Shoutout to the "Unreliable Narrator"++"Ambiguous Ending" combi that reaaaaally makes you work for understanding the plot, idk how to word it but being able to leave Just Enough Breadcrumbs and having enough trust in your readers to Get what ur implying, also forcing me to reread the fic immediately is so foul (in a good way). like there's an enjoyment in a good satisfying read, and then there's the Itch of never being sure in your interpretation, the feeling that u just need to go over it another time, spot another detail u missed, get wrecked all over again, rinse and repeat. idk i love fic.

27. If someone wanted to make you a creative gift, what's the thing that would make you the happiest?

oh anything featuring my fave charas is sure to make me happy! i mean i'm just not super picky abt gifts. well, maybe a creative gift has to be smth that can last a long while? (a strong hoard-ability kaya idk im senti??)

as long as the thought and intent was there, i'm already happy enough🥰💕💕 but i guess in the context of getting fic gifted to you, probably what matters most to me is that the writer enjoyed the process of making it as well. (i'm kinda drawing off of my experience writing this fic for one of m'oomfies and the vdays drabbles*** so i could be just rambling who knows?**)

(art appreciation ask questions, please bug me to rb some underrated art and fic)

[randomsloredrops]

Random's Lore Drops - Thee Who Munches Thy Chocolate

wow i'm writing this at 11:41 pm and NOT three in the fucking morning REAALALLLLAllALaL?!/1/ anyways yeah so basically this is the last MAJOR character, and i'll explain why I always refer to them as 'The First Fallen Human' instead of the name that's basically become canon at this point. yup, that's right, we're talking about a canon character whose name starts with C and has so much importance yet so little at the same time due to not being in the story for basically all of the neutral, until the end of Geno, and only in recordings in true lab in paci.

oh damn this image is a lot bigger than i thought it was. oh well idgaf. anyways this is uhhhh according to the wiki 'Chara', or according to the tarot cards, 'Fallen' but like REALLY distorted. anyways cue cut off

aw yeah this is happening. anyways, since i'm more awake, had a hot chocolate, and am now blaring a megalo strike back remix into my ears (and occasionally the recently released MOTI's lyrical cover of A Mother's Love just cause it's a banger). anyways, this is the first fallen. YES I WILL KEEP REFERRING TO THEM AS THE FALLEN HUMAN, THE FALLEN, OR THE FIRST FALLEN STFU I HAVE A REASON YOU'LL FIND OUT. anyways, i'm sure that yall know this one kid. if you only know them as the evil something something, uh... Cowabummer! Anyways, time to use proper capitalization. The Fallen Human is the human we see in the introduction sequence, who runs up the mountain and falls in. As it's probably known, they get adopted by King Asgore, Queen Toriel, and Asriel (it doesn't fit to call him Prince Asriel for me for some reason), and become the first human to ever fall into the underground. If you didn't play Undertale and you're reading this, uh... get spoiled lmao you came here you get this. The Fallen has a super similar style to the 'eighth fallen', Frisk, who ACTUALLY HAS A CANON NAME. Their SOUL is IDENTICAL to the player's, or rather, Frisk's, and their coffin (yes THEIR coffin, not Frisk's) is empty, seeing as the body was taken elsewhere (despite being taken back into the Underground by Asriel, leaving only one person to do so). The Fallen is, 'not exactly the greatest person', a misanthrope, my source being that Asriel literally confirms that they HATE humanity, canonically capable of making scary face, and, uhhhhh lemme see... right i have to make another paragraph, too many words. Anyways, apparently really secretive, and persuasive (wiki's words, not mines), never stating their plans on camera. There's SOME evidence that proves that the Fallen does occasionally narrate the story, but aren't always red (technically hinting to the narrachara (or rather, narrafallen) hypothesis (i dont say theory just yet)). I'm sure you know, but (uhhh tw ig??) the Fallen had poisoned themselves to die so that Asriel could take the SOUL, cross the barrier, and... well... kill a bunch of humans. Apparently control is split between the SOUL and the Monster (i assume the human has more control than the Monster when SOUL absorbed) and uhh Asriel went and nuh uh-ed Chara, leading to the double kill of Chara's SOUL and asri dremr. Now, before we continue, just to let you know, the Fallen only got the name Chara because of the fact that, all the files for the character sprites (including unused) are called Chara, with the Fallen's being called TrueChara, and the pick-a-name saying that Chara is the true name (as a supposed-to-be reference to the sprite names), and is also the replacement name when the files have the player name erased (once again proving it was just a placeholder name/name to the sprites, not the fallen's name) now then onto geno In Genocide, we actually get to MEET the Fallen in person, who takes the name that you typed in at the beginning of the game. They reveal that Frisk's SOUL and Determination are what brought them back from the dead (yes Frisk's SOUL not ours). They state that they are the 'embodiment' of the feeling gained when LV (read STATS) increases, before saying to just erase the world and move onto the next. You get the chance to say Yah or Nah, but either way, it leads to Chara going byebye to the world and you and decking you in the schnoz with a knife. Fun fact! There's code in the game that actually reveals that Toby Fox intended to make the application erase itself once the geno route finished, but it never worked, leading to just the application closing. Afterwards, opening the game and waiting TEN FUCKING MINUTES. TEN. GODDAMN. MINUTES. will lead to the Fallen getting the confusion and choosing to make a deal. Frisk's SOUL, for the world back. ya say nah? they dip. literally. you have to OPEN the game again and wait another 10 minutes. ya say yah? well, the world gets restored, but paci route changes.

[lorelune]

hi lore im in your inbox again ✌️ bc i just like saying random stuff to you and reading everything you want to write about (your thoughts are as chewy as your writing, YUMMY) ✌️ i hope your migraine doesnt get worse over the week, i have smth similar that causes both headaches and jaw pain, chronic pain rlly testing my will to live sometimes ✌️ ✌️ ✌️

just wanted to take the time to ask about your writing process and some stuff about you!! if you tend to work consistently on fics or if youre the type to get inspired at 2am and binge write whenever it happens...if you prefer writing long fics or if you like short moments or drabbles...your fav tropes and your least fav? the genre of books,movies,shows,media you like!! the type of charas your eyes are drawn to...what can a chara do to make you immediately go "this man (neutral) right here" and add him to your collection...what kind of things do you like writing about the most, angst or fluff or stream of consciousness or unreliable narrator or-

those are a bunch of rando and specific questions, you dont need to answer all or any of them!! i just think its fun spamming questions bc im curious about what the lore is behind the writer :D (see what i did there)

i hope you have a fantastic rest of the week with no ailments or disturbances to your inner peace, and that you see your favs in your dreams!!

HELLO SLEEPY!!! THANK YOU FOR THE MESSAGE!!!

thank you for the kind wishes and questions!!!! my migraine has luckily been stopped for now :'^) it's been a rough few weeks but i'm hoping it turns around!!! the chronic head pain is no joke :(( truly wretched

and SLEEPY i did see what you did there :3c!!! here is some answers... some... lore :3c if you will :3ccc

as for writing, i tend to work best on fics in a fervor sometime after midnight :'^) it is my preferred time to write!! my creative time if you will. i prefer to write lengthier one shots, two shots, or three shots, though i LOOOVE a long fic and will strike a drabble down when i am Seized by A Thought. favorite trope...hurt/comfort or injury recovery, i looove to read and write both of them. the catharsis is so fun and sexy of it. least favorite is probably pregnancy it is simply not my thing!!!

the genre of media i gravitate toward is defs sci-fi or fantasy, depending on the day!!! my original writing is mostly fantasy!! my favorite flavor by FAR is beloved beloved kaiju films.

sleepy im staring at ur question about knowing kind of character i'm drawn too-- i do not KNOW. maybe stable men. women i would okay with calling mother. who is to say!!!!!

HMMM... i definitely love to write hurt/comfort. but like. truly anything indulgent. sometimes it is sticky gutrotting yan and other times that is tender wound care. or both!!!! honestly as long as i am following my lil whims i'm happy as a CLAM

[random-autie-fangirl]

I like making special tags for characters and dynamics so…

Characters:

Flowey/Asriel Dreemurr: little prince (…Saying this right now so I don't have to keep saying Flowey/Asriel all the time, whenever I say Azzy, it includes Flowey!)

The Narrator/Chara Dreemurr: what a strange child…

Frisk: Determined kiddo!

Kris Dreemurr: our unwilling protagonist

Red soul/Player: Just a floating heart? (Again, this one will just be referred to as Red going forward)

Ralsei: The power of fluffy boys

Susie: The power of mean girls

Noelle Holiday: dearest snow angel

Dynamics:

Chara and Asriel: brotp: angels or demons?

Chara and Frisk: brotp: hero and the narrator

Frisk and Asriel: brotp: not letting go

Chara and Gaster: brotp: void buddies

Frisk and Papyrus: brotp: Frisk the skeleton

Suselle: otp: I like scary things

Kris and Noelle: brotp: we're something else

Red and Noelle: I am your knight…and I will save you

Red and Ralsei: skies have been forever blue

Red and Kris: brotp: stuck in a get-along body

Kris and Susie: brotp: course you're coming with me

Kris and Ralsei: brotp: I want to know you

Susie and Ralsei: brotp: adventures of loverboy and hatergirl

Frisk, Chara and Asriel: hopes and dreams trio

Frisk, Chara and Kris: kfc squad

Kris, Susie and Ralsei: The fuck ass shit squad

Kris, Susie and Noelle: Lightner trio

Dess and Asriel, Dess and Noelle, Dess and Kris, Kris and Noelle, Asriel and Noelle: Holiday siblings

Dess and Asriel, Kris and Asriel, Dess and Kris, Kris and Noelle, Asriel and Noelle, Kris and Chara, Asriel and Chara: Dreemurr siblings

Dess, Asriel, Kris and Noelle OR Dess, Asriel, Chara and Noelle: two families in one

Dreemurr family: A perfect family

Parallels: Asriel and Ralsei: Different yet similar

Ralsei and Chara: Your humble servant (something Chara said that fits Ralsei's whole thing)

(Both of these are also tagged with Royal Advisors)

Bonus: The best of Chara takes- Chara fanmedia or meta which strikes me as particularly in character, in fitting with my headcanons or just plain good (which can be three different things)

Narrachara evidence- exactly what it says on the tin. Debunks of debunks, serious or not, others analysis or my own - you name it, it's there

[vsa-pieldepapel]

(Chara&frisk anon) my personal favorite is both the narrator!chara theory and the theory that they share a body, largely because Shenanigans.

But anyways just…the idea of, here we are in your body. I’m wiggling my fingers. Your fingers. But they’re ours now, huh? This isn’t my body and when I look in the mirror, it’s you! But I’m here. It’s not me, but it’s us.

And the idea of two lonely kids never having to be lonely again, frisk in charge of dodging and Chara in charge of striking, sometimes reaching a point that they are One, but often being very solidly two.

Maybe Steven universe and fusion fucked me up lol

There’s also the angst potential of Chara being there but nobody actually knows it! They reach the surface with all their friends and here is Frisk calling Toriel “Mom”. Meanwhile Asgore and Toriel are constantly reminded of Chara in Frisk’s mannerisms, and feel guilty for it. Sans knowing something is weird but not quite understanding how. God, so much potential.

Took forever to get to this one but bluh blah im here now

I also think they share a body. It’s what makes it all so complicated and any potential actual relationship impossible. Frisk feels chara as a ghost of sorts and can see them floating around and making funny comments but if they’re objective about it, chara is inside/in the soul, and they’re in the same body, even though frisk can perceive chara separately. Kinda like an imaginary friend but well, frisk didn’t make chara up

Kek I was a Steven universe fan too and the fusion parallel is actually a decent analogy. Interesting you see them as eventually “merging” time to time because their thoughts are so in line with each other since I imagine they can read each other perfectly, as one’s thoughts resounds in the other. I can see them having mental conversations all the time, as an inner monologue of sorts. Frisk learns to disguise their reactions to it pretty well with time— and I do think they settle on frisk not outing chara’s presence because it would give toriel so much distress for example, and so it remains a little unspoken secret that frisk feels very clever for keeping

Once, eons ago I had this idea of an older frisk making arrangements for alphys to somehow separate the chara aspect of the soul and place it in an artificial SOUL put into a container robot body, a la Mettaton. So basically charabot. It was nothing serious and actually rather fun

[cinnamonster-bun]

You know what I just thought about?

In the fight with Flowey, we don't have the normal controls or buttons yet. Not even whatever name we chose for Chara shows up, implying that they aren't there yet.

However, in the very next fight, those buttons and that name are there, implying Chara is now with us – which is backed up by dialogue within the game that implies Chara is the one narrating, such as "No chocolate," and "It's you!" ("You" in this case tells us that our narrator is not Frisk/the player.)

And you know what's strange about that timing?

When Flowey attacks you by surrounding your soul with bullets, just as they're about to hit your soul... Those bullets disappear. Flowey looks confused, and then Toriel appears – with a fireball that knocks Flowey away from us. At no point again does Toriel show this apparent power to make others' attacks disappear; when she steps in to protect you frog a Froggit, she glares at it instead of magicking its attacks away. It doesn't even seem likely that Toriel would have this power, considering all the focus on her fire magic.

My theory? This moment is what Chara refers to when they say at the end of the genocide run that you called for them. When Flowey was about to kill you, you had no one, and everything looked hopeless – you called for help.

And Chara – someone able to step outside of normal battle rules as shown when they strike a second attack against Sans at the end of his battle (you pressed the button to Fight once, not twice, here) – someone who called out for help a long time ago when they themselves were new to the Underground – they answered your call.

You called for help.

And just like in the past, the cries of a fallen child were heard.

[doge-w-a-bloge]

So you know about the time when we examine the scented markers in chapter 1 and select Yes, Kris will huff the marshmallow one, while choosing No gives you the line "The chocolate one smells too fake anyways" ? I might be reading a bit too much here, but these lines make it sound like there's two characters with differing taste here, like one of them (this "you" the narrator refers to) goes straight for the marshmallow one, while the narrator would go for the choco one.

the hot chocolate QC also gives you has marshmallows shaped like bunnies floating in it. It's notable how they're juxtaposed next to chocolate —the latter in a much more obvious way, It all strikes me as a very deliberate choice, especially since other mentions of food are otherwise one-offs (Such as the apple-scented shampoo that it's implied Kris uses)

If the frisk=red soul (& chara, once again is the narrator) is true this might add some credibility to it. I don't think there's any NPC in the hometown that explicitly comments about Kris liking marshmallow like they do with choco, it strikes me as weird they would choose the marshmallow one over the chocolate one. As for the narrator, I think it could be either Kris themself or Chara, but I'm leaning towards the latter considering narrator often refer to Kris and their posessions as You/Your

@dogcasino pointed out two other instances of Marshmallow Flavor being brought up in Deltarune, for what it’s worth:

It’s what Dark Candy tastes like (and the Ball of Junk smells like marshmallow scratch-n-sniff stickers if Dark Candy was in your Dark World inventory)

It’s what Ralsei Tea tastes like to Susie

 Anyways, @determinators, this seems relevant to your line of speculation.  👀

[tsskyx]

Unmeta

You know what’s ridiculous? This post was originally supposed to be an essay, an entire thesis backed with unshakable logic that I wanted to become my magnum opus. But as it turns out, I’m pretty terrible at doing that sort of thing. The first day I’m full of enthusiasm, while the next day I reread what I wrote and I delete it all again. It’s terrible.

For this reason, I’ve decided to just start with the opinion part. Instead of laying out the facts and easing the reader into it, I’ll just blurt everything out in one go. Instead of neatly organizing everything, I’ll write my thoughts as they come to me.

(Update for 2/Oct/2021: I no longer remember when I made the first draft of this post. Maybe it was in 2018, maybe even as early as 2017. Who knows. This post existed in my drafts since forever. It is time to finally publish it. It contains very little information, very little evidence for anything or logic or facts, it’s just a one big opinion piece that I began writing years ago out of frustration. Frustration not aimed at the game itself, nor at Toby or anyone else, but at my inability to decouple the “meta” from Undertale and thus causing me to disassociate from the characters that I loved, when I didn’t plan to do so. All I ever wanted is to make sense of the Undertale world, instead of giving its inhabitants a meta-existential dread. In a nutshell, for the Undertale world to be self-contained, the 4th wall must stay intact, and the mechanics of the UT world mustn’t resemble a video game. That’s basically the gist of this post. Proceed with reading.)

You know Undertale meta? All the 4th wall breaking stuff and whatnot? The stuff that makes the game so awesome?

What about it you say?

It’s not real. I don’t think it is. It cannot be.

Tell me, has Undertale personally impacted you? Was it more than just a game to you? I know for a fact that for many people, it was much more than that. So tell me, is it fine by you that despite presenting itself in this way to us, it still sort of cops out of this at the very end? (By which I mean, when we learn that we aren’t Frisk. That we’re just someone controlling them.)

Some say that this cop-out, this act of “disassociation”, is necessary for our psychological journey to end. And I agree. We cannot dwell on this forever, else we lose our minds. But what I meant is something much more... materialistic.

Let’s take Oneshot, a game that’s arguably even more meta than Undertale. Oneshot embraces the 4th wall. It labels us a god. It portrays the game itself as an in-game machine. And yet, it feels real. Despite all this ridiculousness, the story feels real and possible. Kind of like The Matrix. Perhaps think of everyone in Oneshot except for the main character as a Matrix program, while Niko is the only user hooked up to it. It still feels real, because Niko is real, because there exists a real world they can to return to.

But Undertale floats somewhere between being real and being a fairy tale, a mere bedtime story. The reason is its lax handling of the 4th wall. Say, if Undertale were to be considered a “real” possibility, as in, entirely fictional, but still believable, kinda like The Matrix, kinda like any science fiction, or just fiction in general, what would it be like?

I’ll tell you, everything would have to be real, everything would have to look exactly how we see it. There’d need to be turns, there’d need to be save files, there’d need to be so many bizarre things, it probably wouldn’t take long before the NPCs themselves realized their own nonexistence, probably around the time they developed computers and video games. It’d be so similar, they’d have to be either stupid or under some kind of spell to not realize that their entire world is just one giant video game. Especially Flowey. Some say that he has already realized this, as his dialogue hints towards this. Which puts a super unfortunate spin on his condition. Furthermore, the entire game could be described through its Game Maker code. No need for laws of physics, just observe the if-else statements!

It would also mean that Frisk is controlled by a third unknown entity. If we were to take everything we do to Frisk at face value, it must all be them. Except... after a true reset, everything gets reset, even things about Frisk, such as them expecting the whoopee cushion prank. So... Frisk isn’t in control. But Chara isn’t either. Take for example the final fight against Asriel. Chara appeared pretty enthusiastic during it. What if someone were to reset the timeline during the fight? Either it wasn’t them who did so, or they were just pretending to be entertained, or perhaps they aren’t the narrator in the first place even.

No matter what, there will always be an instance where Frisk forgets, and where Chara doesn’t do something when they could have. Once you mess with the game enough, their personalities stop making sense.

This gradual breakdown of the narrative as I keep attacking the logic of it from every direction imaginable is a symptom of something far bigger. The fact that unlike The Matrix or Oneshot, there is no “real world” in this game. The virtual part of it is what the game is trying to make us focus on. It’s all there is. There is not even a hint of “another” world in the game, a world that wouldn’t be governed by these terrible rules. And even if there was one, even if you consider what Sans said to be that world, even if you considered Deltarune to be that world, there is still no guarantee that everything will be okay. What if the characters - your friends, aren’t real in this actual real world, what if they’re all just computer simulations? There’d have to be an entire population hooked up to a virtual reality for everyone to be “safe” as I’m putting it in this hypothetical real world, which sounds not only ridiculous, but like a direct ripoff of The Matrix.

The game has made Frisk the main character. Why, when making Sans the main one, the one who at least has a possibility of coming from a “real” real world, would be far more logical?

Because it lacks logic. Undertale is an experiment. Toby Fox is not a genius. He was just messing around, he didn’t think of literally every tiny little logical detail (contrary to what some individuals would like to think), he just explained enough for most of the story to make sense. But, no matter how you spin it, this fundamental flaw will always be there. The story tries to merge you and the protagonist, before disassociating you from them. Even if you always were disassociated from them, how can the in-game world be real, when other aspects of your reality weren’t disassociated yet? Where’s the disassociation for battles and turns, for save files and time travel, for stats and everything? How can Undertale claim to be complete, when it isn’t? ... Perhaps because it is not claiming to be. It’s an experiment after all. And I don’t mean “incomplete” as in a single update / new game can fix it. I mean the premise itself is already broken from the start. And while there are many fictional worlds which function on a similar level of meta, Undertale is the only one that appears to irk me mad. I don’t know why. Maybe I love the characters. Maybe I love them very much. Maybe I love them so much, that I wanna write a fan fiction about them. And maybe, just maybe, this tiny little issue is making this dream of mine impossible. Undertale is a story conveyed through game mechanics. Choosing any other medium breaks everything down and the author needs to invent their own rules. There’s simply no way around it. Unless someone has the balls to program a fan game of their own, there’s just no way to resolve this without adjusting the canon a little bit, to make it “a little bit more sensible” as some would put it. Just a small nudge, a lil’ nudgie wudgie to the canon mechanics AAAAAND we’re in fanon territory. Excellent, better go all out.

Here’s my head canon, my little “adjustment” of the canon rules. Thanks to it, I can once again think about Undertale as a real world, I no longer need to philosophize over the meta like I did above, I can all put it past me:

Saving, loading, resetting? Regular sci-fi time travel.

The save file? The parameters of the time machine.

LV and EXP? Another set of properties of the machine, though it could be properties of the soul too. I’m undecided on that note. But either works, that’s what’s important.

Chara destroying the world through LV? No, screw that, Chara merely tuned Frisk out. And the black void was the inside of their mind as Chara denied them access to their own body.

The intro? Literally never happened, no one “saw” it. (The past was still real. It’s just the intro that never existed.) The outro? Literally never physically occurred, Frisk wasn’t “stuck” on the ending credits, unable to go further, fuck that.

Flowey? No screw everything meta about Flowey, there exists a perfectly logical explanation to everything he says, and if not, such as in the genocide run with him hinting towards people watching but not acting... he never said that in the first place!

Same with turns, the battles don’t actually look that way, there are no turns, what Sans perceives and abuses as such is just an illusion, the actual battle against Sans is absolutely fluid. And him pausing at the end and not letting us go is him keeping his guard up, until falling asleep and giving us an opportunity to sneak near him and strike. We don’t need turns to explain it. And what he said about turns... just ignore it! Ignore everything that directly proves me wrong! Because resolving that fucking conundrum IS more important than being logically consistent, and you can’t change my mind on that. Screw logic when the foundation of the entire fandom, of every UT-related fiction, is at stake here.

And I shall call this philosophy... the Unmeta. Because it attempts to undo the meta. Hence, “unmeta” for short.

[theotherbackgrounder]

Ever After High OCs.

just decided to share some OCs that I had created (either for fanfics or for the show in general) not everyone was shown, as I haven't gotten around to making those stories, so I will try to tell what exactly they would have been for. If anyone wants to ask any questions, go a head. If anyone wants to borrow them, be my guest.

Name: Destiny

Legacy/Parents: The Author

Magic: Fairy Tale Magic.

Details: Blonde, blue eyes, red and black color scheme.

This is the "Destiny" that the franchise is always talking about. This is the personification. This is the girl that's fucked with Poppy and Holly in "Truth or Hair" and she has created scenarios where characters end up finding or follow their destiny. She is often seen jotting down in her notebook.

It's also revealed that Apple White is actually a "stand-in" for Destiny acting as a meta-context of a self-insert.

Name: Art

Legacy: The Illustrator

Magic: Worth a Thousand Words

depicted as a much elder gentleman, Art is The Author to his Illustrator. She write and he draws. his magic is with his paintbrush where he can contort/reshape/reimagine the world around him with a simple stroke. Gets defeated by Madeline and The Jabberwocky after Maddie finally forgives the monster of Wonderland.

Name: Ramona Cheshire

Parents: Cerise Hood and Kitty Cheshire.

Following my Ramona Theory, Ramona disappears from this world after Cerise finally accepts the truth that she is in fact "The Big Bad Wolf" and that she couldn't continue living in the story she was hiding from. After Cerise and Kitty get together and Cerise becomes pregnant it was Kitty that suggests the name "Ramona" for their daughter.

Name: Madow

Legacy: Evil (Mother)

Magic: Darkness

Like Authors/Narrators/Illustrators/etc, Madow belongs to a family set of "Concepts" rather than characters. Madow is a young man that after living his entire life in complete darkness saw for the first time a bright shining light (from when Raven broke the Storybook of Legends in Way Too Wonderland) and decided to go to ever after high to seek out that bright light and wants to change his destiny. He seeks out that light and the change of destiny to an dangerous obsessive level.

Madow is blind, as light won't reach his eyes, and unless he wears his gloves he can't touch anything without tainting the color or take away the light of life if he isn't careful. if a character has an evil magic affinity (Ex: Faybelle) they feel neutral around him, but those with a Light affinity (Farrah) would feel extremely uncomfortable despite his kind hearted attitude (Madow's cousin, the Daughter of Light, has the reverse effect.)

Gets into a relationship with Cedar, though tragedy strikes when Madow and his cousin has to complete their destiny of "Good vs Evil."

Name: Brock Gounder

Parents: Nam (Father) Lass (Mother) Chara (sister)

"Oh Curses": "Forget me not..."

Brock Gounder is an average character, nothing really impactful about him. Does not stand out in a crowd. Will not do anything special with his life. he is a literal nameless background characters. his "curses" will leave people that meet him to completely forget his name.

In the fanfic (not finished) that he is used in he meets an injured Cerise (who got injured when camping by herself before Ever After High started) and tries to help her. Afraid of whether or not that Brock found out her secret she tries to play aloof with her caretaker. The story comes to ahead as Cerise accidently kills Brock in attempt to keep him quiet about her secret. She buries him afterwards and where she placed him is a small man-made tombstone with no name written on it. He is soon forgotten by even his family that he existed.

In another fanfic, a Silent Hill x Ever After High crossover (Silent Ever After), Brock Gounder appears to Cerise as a zombie with his eyes and toungue torn out. he moves without making noise or disturbing the snow where the story takes place in. it's like he isn't there. Corpse Brock represents the guilt Cerise has for taking an innocent life in the name of her keeping her secret. At the end of "Silent Ever After") she visits the nameless grave where he is buried, accepting the part where she can't make her past mistakes right.

Name: Steppinson

Legacy: The Step son in "The Juniper Tree"

Steppinson is an old friend to Ginger Breadhouse (Back when she still went by the name of "Ginger Witch") but one day, when she went to visit, his Stepmom said he went far away and she never saw him again until in the present day story. Faybelle is seen worried about Steppinson (as Faybelle and Ginger played together when they were kids, so she knew of him as their moms were friends.) and she knows his story.

The story is most of Steppinson and Ginger catching up with one another after so long apart. Steppinson even gives ginger an odd look when mentioning about her dream to cook, but is still supportive. Ginger asks him if he is going to come to Ever After High but he says he can't, as he already completed his story when they were kids so he technically wouldn't fit the conditions of the school. Before Steppinson leaves he gives Ginger some gifts like a stone necklace and as she chases after him, he disappears again. The last thing seen is a white dove watching over ginger.

The story ends with a flashback to the day when Steppinson's step mom tells Ginger that he was no longer there. his Stepmom was making a stew and invites her in for a bowl. Ginger agrees and finds the stew to be the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. It essentially is what inspires her dream to cook, to make something as good as what she had that day.

If you don't know. in "The Juniper Tree" the step-mom kills the step-son (Steppinson here) and cooks him into a stew and feeds her husband the stew (which she let Ginger have some) and why Steppinson (who is a spirit here) gets embarrassed about Ginger's dream because technically he inspired her because of how good he tasted. The gifts he gives her are the same gifts he gives his family in the story and the dove is a form he takes.

[avatar-index]

Statement 11271023-GENOCIDE

Frisk is an Avatar of the Web, marked by the End.

“Our reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. Timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting...Until suddenly, everything ends.”- Sans the Skeleton

The Delta Rune; the symbol of a prophecy that either provides comfort or strikes dread onto the hearts of monsterkind. It tells of an angel who had seen the surface, and, upon arrival, shall purge all the Underground clean until nothing is left. Some claim that this was a promise for their freedom - motivation to keep holding on to their hopes and dreams -, while others will just see it as another doomsday red herring; another reminder that humans will continue to flourish above them and that they’ll forever be trapped in this sunken world, until the reaper reigns down on monsterkind, finishing its job.

...And you’ve decided to go with executing the later interpretation; you just had to, didn’t ya? Was it worth it? Bringing forth an entire civilization to its end, with the whole game with? Was Megalovania too good a song that you believed that the souls of those who perished around you was good enough cost?

From its name, this one in particular has you actively hunting down for the entire population of monsters there are in your area; wandering around until all was rendered barren. As you venture deeper into this route, you become more desensitized to the characters you came to love in the last routes you played through. It is after Undyne’s final battle - you thwarting the attempts of the heroine who vowed to save all life on this Earth from your venomous grasp - that you have been numbed to the continuous killings, as you venture on to the Hotlands, and, eventually, the Judgement Hall.

Your mind reduces the monsters you encounter into sprites on the screen, then to numbers, then to a set of commands, and then to nothing more than dusty punching bags left there for you to chop up. However, the fear among the surviving few is present: this is their end, and all of civilization as they knew it will fall. Their friends, family, and even the strangers they glanced eyes with on the street- nothing will be spared from the fallen child’s uncaring dagger and wicked grin.

Which leads us to....

Chara is an Avatar of the Extinction.

“Let us erase this pointless world, and move on to the next.”

Oh, golly! Someone with the power of bringing back our game with a “gone wrong” twist and already hated mankind so much they wished for their eradication even before dying is an Avatar of the Extinction! Who would have guessed?!

Pointless sarcasm aside, I was honestly pitching for them to be on the same boat as Frisk in some way, with both being aligned with the End. Then again- “move on to the next”, huh? I wonder what they meant by that. Did they predict us feeling guilty over time and desiring to return to the game even after killing everyone we ever came in contact with? Or were they actually referring to the second installment of the series, Deltarune?

Much like Frisk, their background is left ambiguous to us; we do know that they were friendly to Asriel, their adoptive family, and the rest of Monsterkind, to the extent that they were ready to lay their own life and soul for their freedom. We are also aware of their hatred towards their own kind, which was probably caused by whatever that has happened to them that affected them so much that they had decided that it was best to disappear forever by climbing Mt. Ebott; desire for the eradication of an entire species, +1 Extinction points!

Their personality, on the other hand, is given to us through the game’s monologue if you were to believe in the “Narrator!Chara theory”. In every other route but this one, they are sassy, snarky, and even tends to crack a couple of jokes and pop culture references every now and then- but you can feel a pang of guilt in their words in certain dialogues, especially when you face off against the Amalgamates.

In this route, however, as you take out every monster you laid your eyes on, you start to scar them with every attack inflicted on those who they had cherished with all their life, until, over time, you lead them to believe that this was their destiny- that they are a ‘demon’ whose task was to bring this game to its conclusion. You may argue that, through their dialogue as the narrator, that this is the route where Chara takes control, but hear me out: who was it that made the decision of going down this path? Was it not us, the anomaly, as we puppeteered with Frisk’s body and powers over life and death, just to satisfy whatever curiousity or thirst for excitement we had? What did Chara ever had to do with all this until the very end?

No, no- they just sat there and watched, staring at the eyes of the monsters they knew personally as life faded away from them as fast as their bodies did. Chara was the ultimate victim here, and that ending was them finalizing your decision- either you go through with this together with the promise of a new world to bring to its end, or they’ll have to do it themselves.

There is also their ability to restore the game... with a few alterations made- the side effects of completing the Genocide Route. Here, no matter what choice you have made if you were to go through the True Pacifist route with hopes of patching things up, the message remains clear: Chara will forever haunt you, and your crimes will be immortalized on your computer, unless you, yourself, get the determination to fix it all by going through the game’s internal files and removing the evidence of your crimes.

Irreversible changes made to the world and its systems? Another Extinction point.

[quantumfeat72]

Hey, sorry to break this to you, but that post about Asriel hugging Chara is wrong. In game it's got Asriels voice chirps instead of the normal narrator blips. I think the game removes portraits sometimes if Frisk can't actually see their face

(the post in question)

ok idk why you feel the need to start discourse with me by picking apart an argument i didn’t even write but i’m just irritable enough rn to respond so

“In game it’s got Asriels voice chirps instead of the normal narrator blips.”

this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen someone change their voice blips to someone else’s - i’d like to present as evidence the sans date at mtt resort

i for one don’t find it hard to believe chara actively changes their voice as the narrator so they dont sound like a kid OR changes their voice here because they don’t want frisk (or you, the player) to notice that they’re speaking

note we don’t hear any voice blips for chara pre-death or post-murder run so like, we wouldn’t know if that’s closer to how they actually sounded than the blips they use as the narrator

honestly the more i think about it the more i headcanon chara as mute, so it could be that they’re actively or subconsciously mimicking asriel’s voice via narration-powers (maybe because they see themself as “acting like him” when they say it)

“I think the game removes portraits sometimes if Frisk can’t actually see their face”

i’m not gonna go through the whole game but if you can find an actual example of this i’m all ears.  i looked through the undertale text project’s bit on the sans date since i remembered sans’ face being obscured for part of it and:

granted, he’s not facing away from frisk, but they probably can’t see his face too well from that angle so it certainly doesn’t confirm your theory.  again i could be proven wrong on this

“The “narrorator star” also doesn’t mean anything, in this context anyway. Every character in the game that isn’t Papyrus has it”

that’s true, but it’s hardly definitive proof against the theory

and i’m just gonna throw a couple extra thoughts at ya that weren’t in the original post

“Ha… ha…”

chara’s established as dealing with stressful situations by laughing. asriel, not so much

he does actually laugh one other time in this scene, after his line about how everyone really loves you despite hardly knowing you - this strikes me as more of a “this is actually kind of funny and i’m tired of being depressed” thing than an “i’m upset and using laughter to cope” thing

chara on the other hand - i think we all know about the “I should’ve laughed it off, like you did” line, and there’s a couple of places where the narrator shows a similar tendency to distance themself from stress using laughter.  i’m not gonna get too deep into that here bc other people have said it better than i could.  (not gonna hunt down the posts tonight but i can later)

i’m not saying this makes it definitive, but that line definitely feels more like the way chara uses laughter than asriel

i looked it up and asriel is the first to let go

idk about you, but when i hug someone and say i don’t wanna let go, they usually let go first so i don’t have to initiate it

and like, i dont think someone would say that and then let go less than a second afterward.  i think asriel doesn’t say or hear that line, and just lets go on his own

in conclusion, i reblogged that post because it’s a theory that gives me feelings and makes me want to hug someone and that’s all i want out of this dang fandom half the time anyway so like, i’m not sure i even care if it’s canon? (i say after defending it for 500 words… i’ll take any excuse to infodump, don’t judge me)

but i mean, any theory is gonna have counter-theories that are also canon-compliant as long as we’re not talking about stuff that’s directly implied by the text of the game  (like, uh… frisk and chara’s pronouns… but that’s unrelated.  i digress)

so yeah i didn’t reblog that with the intention of defending it as a Totally Canon Thing but if you wanna argue about undertale with me you’re gonna need some better arguments my dude

[sage-nebula]

Deltarune’s Ending - Kris or Chara?

One of the most commonly debated topics in the fandom right now is whether the person who rips out Kris’ SOUL at the end of the game is Kris themself or Chara. Personally, I’m of two minds about it; my first instinct when I played the game is that it was Chara, but after playing through the ending a couple more times (and getting to know Kris a bit better), I’m starting to lean toward the fact that it may well be Kris, and that there are few different potential motivations for why they might have ripped their SOUL out and tossed it in the rusted birdcage. I'm making this post so I can have my thoughts all laid out in one place. Note that I’m not trying to “prove” or “disprove” either one of these theories, before anyone gets heated; I’m just trying to lay things out as I see them at the moment.

So with that said, let’s go beneath the cut.

Theory One: Chara

The first theory is that Chara took over Kris’ body at the end, ripped out their SOUL, and chucked it in the birdcage. There are quite a few reasons why so many of us jumped to this conclusion, I think, particularly since the ending was so shocking that our screams were heard around the globe. In no particular order:

1.) Kris’ design is very reminiscent of Chara.

While Kris’ hair color and skin color are actually the exact same colors used for Frisk, overall the brown hair + green and yellow striped shirt is very reminiscent of Chara for most of us, even though the green and yellow used in Kris’ shirt is not the same green and yellow used in Chara’s. (But then, the blue and purple used for Dark Kris’ pallet isn’t the same as Frisk’s shirt, either!) Though the exact same shades aren’t used, the colors are still relatively close enough that a player who doesn’t have Chara fresh in their mind won’t notice the difference. I didn’t, at least, and this is probably extra hilarious because I actually spent the entire day cosplaying Chara the day this came out (since it was our Halloween party at work, and I went as Chara since I got the locket with my collector’s edition---and yes, I’d planned this before I ever knew Deltarune was a thing, it was just very lucky timing). While there are definitely visual similarities to Frisk as well (again, the hair and skin color), the sweater color is likely what most players will zero in on, and the yellow and green is very reminiscent of Chara, moreso than Frisk.

2.) Kris has a sweet tooth, as does Chara.

Chara’s sweet tooth is a bit harder to spot, given that they don’t have as much of a public presence in Undertale as Kris does in Deltarune, but not only do they make it a point to gripe about how there isn’t any chocolate in Asgore’s fridge in the genocide run, but if you subscribe to the NarraChara theory, they also provide Frisk with a joke to tell Snowdrake about a kid who ate a pie with their bare hands. Considering that the other jokes that Frisk is provided with by the narrator also relate to Chara’s and Asriel’s childhood, it could stand to reason that the kid who ate the pie with their bare hands . . . was Chara.

And that . . . is a very Kris thing to do.

While I regretfully didn’t grab screenshots of this because I clicked through the dialogue options too quickly (and didn’t wish to play through the entire ending again), when Kris first returns home at the end of the day, Toriel tells them that she baked a pie---and then very sternly tells them to not eat the entire thing again, implying that Kris has done so before. Toriel also, if Kris talks to them about the pie, says that a pie is a perfect cure for loneliness . . . provided she actually gets to eat some. Which, again, implies that Kris has a history of eating entire pies by themself. (And let’s be honest, Kris is a naughty gremlin, evidence of which I’ll provide later in this post. They would totally forgo a fork and knife to just scoop the pie out with their fingers, you know they would.)

Sans, who met Toriel the night before, also has this to say:

Kris not only eats entire pies by themself, but they also break into Toriel’s room to eat all her chocolate. Pie and chocolate are two favorite foods that Chara and Kris seem to have in common.

3.) They both have “a SICK sense of humor!”

In Undertale, we’re told that Chara has a “SICK sense of humor” by Flowey, after Flowey begins to realize that Chara is going to turn on him and kill him, too. Flowey, who is in actuality Asriel and thus knows exactly who Chara is, is accusing Chara of joking about killing him, partially out of hope that Chara is joking, but also because it wouldn’t necessarily be out of character for Chara to do so. After all, we know thanks to the True Lab tapes that Chara laughed when they accidentally poisoned Asgore with buttercups, and he almost died. We know that, on a route where all the dogs have been killed (or perhaps it’s just genocide, but I think it also works on routes where all the Snowdin dogs were killed) that Chara thinks such an act is funny, because when you examine the bag of dog food in Alphys’ lab after the dogs have been killed, the narration notes that “you remember something funny.” We know, if you subscribe to the NarraChara theory, that Chara thinks that the fate of Snowdrake’s mother is hysterical (to the point of “tears rolling down your face”), and is baffled when Frisk doesn’t feel the same way. And during a genocide run, when you’re in the battle with RG 01 and RG 02, after Chara runs the quote about “two lovers [. . .] whose love will end in Hell,” they end it with, “I can’t stop laughing.” Chara has a canonically cruel sense of humor. They find others’ pain and misery to be funny. And while Kris’ sense of humor isn’t exactly the same . . . 

. . . it’s similar.

I’ll get more into this later, but Kris is known by their neighbors for being creepy, and we know that they in particular had a fondness for tormenting their classmate and neighbor, Noelle. Noelle is a timid girl who can’t stand up for herself, but numerous dialogue branches tell us that Kris did things like hide under her bed to scare her, put ketchup on their arm and told her it was blood to scare her, told her the pizza restaurant mascot ate children to scare her, and so on. Kris took delight in frightening Noelle, and at least on one occasion had to be beaten with a wiffle ball bat before they’d stop lying. This type of thing feels like the same sort of thing Chara would do. It’s not on the same scale as laughing about people being murdered, no, but it’s a prank at the expense of someone else’s feeling of safety and comfort. It falls in line with someone who has “a SICK sense of humor.”

4.) The way Kris moves at the end of the game is reminiscent of how Chara walks during the genocide run, as told by Papyrus.

While we don’t get to see very much direct movement from Chara during Undertale given that we control them most of the time (most), their gait is described by Papyrus right before that battle:

Having one’s walk described as a “shamble about” paints a very striking image. Chara, while controlling Frisk, is not walking normally; their walk is a slow, awkward shuffle. While I don’t have a gif of this on hand, a “shamble” is the best way I can think of to describe the way Kris walks after they pick themselves up off the floor at the end of the game, even before they’ve ripped out their slow. It’s a very slow, awkward walk; they can’t even hold their body up straight. While we never got to actually see Chara “shamble about from place to place” in Undertale, we were told that’s how they moved, and we did get to see that in Deltarune with Kris there at the end. (It’s notable, too, that this is a striking difference from the only other time we saw Kris move on their own, which was when they dove to protect Susie from the king.)

5.) They flashed a slasher smile, and raised a knife.

Chara was very fond of knives. At the beginning of a genocide route, while looking through Toriel’s kitchen, they ask in red text, “Where are the knives.” At the end of a genocide route, when they find the Real Knife in their former bedroom, the flavor text reads, “Here we are!” While knives are arguably also Kris’ signature weapon due to the fact that they used a sword in the dark kingdom (and that “kris” is a type of dagger), the association that Chara has with knives can’t be overlooked.

Additionally, there’s the slasher smile. In Undertale, whenever a monster encounter begins on a genocide route, the “!” that normally appears above Frisk’s head is replaced with “=)” as the battle begins. While that’s not necessarily a slasher smile per se, we know that Chara is also prone to doing a “creepy face.” We’re told this the first time during the True Lab video tape movie marathon, wherein Asriel (in the past) urges Chara to “do [their] creepy face” for the camera. Near the end of the genocide route, meanwhile, Chara makes a “creepy face” at Flowey, which causes him distress and panic. We don’t know for sure that this is a smile, but given how happy Chara is to kill and how the smiley appears above them every time a new encounter starts, I’d wager that a slasher smile is definitely the kind of “creepy face” Toby had in mind when writing those lines and designing this character. (Additionally, I believe that Flowey tells Chara to stop looking at him with that “creepy face” at about the same time he accuses Chara of having a “SICK sense of humor,” so it would make sense if Chara was smiling there, rather than wearing any other kind of expression.)

(Note: I’m not including the red eyes here because although it’s popular fanon to give Chara red eyes, I don’t think we ever truly see their eyes turn red in the game. Their eyes are hidden in the flashbacks by their bangs---another visual similarity with Kris!---and at the end of a genocide route, their eyes look dark. I don’t think they turn red; while they do change, it’s turn into completely black voids that dark goo bleeds out of. They might flash red when Chara does their jump scare, but the entire screen does, so that doesn’t necessarily make their eyes special. 

EDIT: It has come to my attention that I was being very forgetful last night / early this morning when I wrote this post, because Chara does have red eyes in the soulless pacifist endings. Therefore, the similarities between Chara and Kris jump up even higher, with Kris’ red eyes mirroring Chara’s in those endings. Carry on!)

All of this said, while this does explain why so many of us jumped to thinking that Chara had taken over Kris somehow, this evidence fails to answer the crucial question: How? Deltarune is an alternate universe from Undertale; the two stories have overlapping characters, and perhaps exist in the same multiverse, but our Undertale playthroughs have no effect on this game. Thus, Chara’s line about “let’s move onto the next” from the end of the genocide route has no bearing on this one, particularly since not all of us completed genocide runs (and thus it would be rather punishing to players who did their best to leave the Undertale characters in peace to unleash Chara on this new cast anyway). Chara can’t have made it to Kris because of us, because not all of us made that deal with Chara in the first place.

And then there’s the deal itself. After successfully completing a genocide run, Chara agrees to allow you to remake the world if, and only if, you give them your (or rather, Frisk’s) SOUL. If you refuse, Chara tells you to die then, and leaves you in the void for a long while. When they connect with you again, they again demand your SOUL. From that point forward, every pacifist run you do will be a “soulless” pacifist run.

So here’s the second question: If Chara wanted a SOUL so badly, why would they rip Kris’ SOUL out of their body and throw it in the birdcage?

The SOUL is what Chara wanted, because the SOUL gives them the ability to move freely. If they had a SOUL here, it makes no sense that they’d discard it. And no, they can’t have two SOULs in the same body, because we learned from Undertale that humans cannot absorb human SOULs. They’ve got the one SOUL, and that’s it. Chara wanted a SOUL, so their actions there at the end (aside from the knife and slasher smile) don’t make a whole lot of sense given their original motivations.

And, again, we still don’t know how they would have gotten there in the first place, unless the fountain had something to do with it. We do know that Kris’ SOUL behaved strangely when they approached the fountain, but we have no further context for what that meant at this time.

Anyway, that’s the Chara theory. Moving on to . . .

Theory Two: Kris

The second theory is that this was an act from Kris themself.

First and foremost, let’s get this out of the way: Kris is a strange child. They are a naughty little gremlin and I love them for it. Note that I use the word “child” loosely here; we don’t have an exact age for Kris, but Toriel notes that they’ll be joining Asriel in university “soon,” and their classroom is noticeably more grown-up than the one Toriel teaches in (which Susie calls the classroom for babies). Given that Kris is noted to be heading off to university soon, that their classmates are old enough to work, that Monster Kid was aged up to Monster Teen to join the class (and that they’re in class with characters like Snowdrake, who were teens in the original game), I think it’s safe to say that Kris is actually a strange teenager, rather than a strange child. Nevertheless, I am an adult, and so teenagers are children to me, so strange child they shall remain.

Regardless.

Our first clue that something is not quite right with Kris comes from the very first scene of the game, where we get a look at the bedroom Kris shares with Asriel:

Asriel’s side of the room is bright and beautiful. He has a nice computer, tons of trophies, a bedspread with a nice pattern, star stickers, a flower portrait, an alarm clock . . . it’s clear that Asriel was a well-loved child who took good care of his things. By contrast, Kris’ side of the room is downright depressing. Their bedspread is a drab grey, as is their lamp. They have nothing on their shelves or on their dresser. And at the foot of their bed . . .

There’s a questionable stain on the floor, and then the birdcage and the wagon, one of which (and we’d assume it’s the wagon, but given what happens at the end . . .) has “seen a few crashes.” If you knew nothing about Toriel or Asgore, you would assume that Kris was the unloved child, while Asriel was doted upon and spoiled rotten. We know this isn’t true; we see evidence in-game that both Toriel and Asgore love Kris very much, and want to make sure that’s known. Given how loving both Toriel and Asgore are (and how loving we know Asriel was to Kris, given that we’re told that Asriel used to do things like take Kris to the diner to get hot chocolate after their parents divorced, or how he used to carry them to school), we know that Kris wasn’t neglected or abused. Their side of the room is this barren, depressing, and creepy out of their own choice. And this is further cemented by their . . . other behaviors (a.k.a. here come the naughty gremlin receipts):

These aren’t even all the receipts I could have used; they’re just a small sample. Kris is the type of person who:

Eats entire pies by themself

Breaks into their mother’s room to eat all her chocolate

Drops bath bombs in toilets

Torments shy and timid neighbors (hiding under Noelle’s bed to scare her, telling her the pizza restaurant mascot was alive and ate children to scare her, putting ketchup on their arm and telling her it was blood to scare her . . .)

Spends church services trying to steal “sick fruit juice” instead of paying attention

Routinely forgets their pencils at home and bums pencils off their classmates (and let’s be honest, Kris isn’t the type to return those pencils, either)

Sleeps in class

Doesn’t wake up on time to the point where their big brother had to carry them to school on a regular basis

Is poorly behaved enough to be known as “creepy” by a neighbor, to the point where he tells them this to their face

I could go on. As much as Susie has been ostracized for being thought of as scary and intimidating, it seems that Kris has suffered much the same fate, with Asriel as their only friend, pretty much. It’s implied that Kris, like Susie, didn’t necessarily always want this to be the case; there’s a story told by Bratty (I think---might’ve been Catty, but I’m pretty sure it was Bratty) where they pulled the same trick on Kris that they did on Burgerpants in the original, telling Kris that they could be friends if Kris got them burgers---and then Kris did. (I think it’s also implied Kris stole the burgers, so again---naughty gremlin.) Kris wouldn’t have gone to those lengths if they didn’t want to be friends. But somewhere along the line, it seems Kris stopped caring, because Noelle comments on how odd it is that Kris is being so talkative, and we also see that no one wants to be their partner in class (and that, according to Berdy, Toriel is usually their partner). Kris’ bizarre behavior no doubt contributed to the reason why they don’t have many (if any) friends around town.

So with that being said, the idea that Kris is simply a creepy gremlin who likes to rip their SOUL out and throw it in a birdcage is not altogether that farfetched. After all, if Chara could do creepy things like poison themselves with buttercups so that they could fuse with Asriel and go on a killing spree, who’s to say that Kris couldn’t do creepy things like shove their hand into their own chest to rip their SOUL out and toss it in a birdcage? Chara and Kris do have a lot of similarities, after all, right down to their “SICK sense of humor,” so it’s not out of the question to think that maybe Kris is just the type of person to rip their own SOUL out and throw it in a birdcage at night. Maybe they’re just like that sometimes.

(Also, I won’t lie: The jokes about Asriel sighing and shoving the SOUL back in every morning are hilarious mental images for me.)

But apart from Kris just being like that sometimes, another idea struck me for why Kris might feel compelled to do such a thing . . . well, two other ideas, actually.

The first, and most basic, is that Kris was trying to reassert control. This is a theory that a few people have picked up on, I think. We know that we control the SOUL, and throughout the game we controlled Kris. We were told at the beginning that our choices don’t matter, but Kris’ choices ended up not mattering time and again throughout the game. And this has a noticeable effect; numerous people comment on the fact that Kris seems to be behaving oddly. The nurse comments that Kris can’t play the piano well even though they were always able to before. Noelle comments that it’s unusual for Kris to socialize. A few characters remark that Kris looks ill. They all shrug it off, but it’s clear that while we’re in control of Kris, they’re not in control of themselves, and so ripping the SOUL out at the end might be their way of taking control back (and perhaps the knife and slasher smile are meant to intimidate us rather than serve as a warning for what Kris is about to do to everyone else). That we can still control the SOUL while it’s in the birdcage is indicative of this as well.

The second thought that occurred to me, though . . . is that maybe Kris is trying to make themselves less human, and more monster.

Think about it:

Monster SOULs are not like human SOULs. For one thing, monster SOULs cannot persist after death. Boss monster SOULs can, for a short time, but even they disintegrate after a few moments. Human SOULs also carry incredible power; it would take many monster SOULs to equal even one human SOUL. Combine this with the fact that human SOULs come in multiple colors, and have multiple abilities, and there is a lot that separates human SOULs---and therefore humans---from monsters.

Kris, as far as we know, is the only human in town, and they seem to be rather isolated and ostracized. Again, I don’t think this is a fault on the Dreemurrs’ part, or even the neighbors’ part; as we’ve established, Kris is a creepy gremlin, so we can’t really blame the neighbors for not wanting to spend much time around them. However, Kris’ isolation is still notable. Their side of the room is barren, in stark contrast to Asriel’s. The game console under Asriel’s bed has one standard controller, and one knockoff controller. These are little cues that point to the fact that Kris may feel as though they don’t fit in, despite the love they’ve received from their adopted family. And in fact, just like the story we have wherein Kris tried to befriend Bratty, we also get a story that strongly implies that Kris does wish they were a monster like everyone else:

When Kris was a little one, they asked when their horns would grow in---when they’d look more like their adoptive family. To placate them, Asgore and Toriel bought Kris a pair of fake horns, and Kris---wanting so much to be a monster just like their family---wore them for months. Eventually, Kris gave up; they clearly knew the horns were fake and gave up thinking they could ever be a monster like their family, something which may have caused the depression that led to them leaving their room so barren. (Because I’m sorry, but I can’t look at a room like that, and behavior like this, and not think that Kris has some major emotional issues going on.) We don’t have concrete proof that Kris still wants to be a monster today, but it’s possible (and perhaps even probable) that longing never went away---and now that they’ve taken a trip to the dark kingdom, and knows what their SOUL looks like and how to access it . . . maybe they figured out a way to get one step closer to being a monster just like they’ve always dreamed.

(Or so they think, but remember what Gaster that voice said at the beginning: no one can choose what they are in this world.)

I think that if it truly is Kris at the end, then Kris doing what they did because they want to be a monster and are willing to do anything they can to be a monster rather than a human makes them a more interesting (and sympathetic) character than if they did it just because they’re a creepy weirdo (as Chara was before them according to Papyrus). But that said, all of this is speculation, and we won’t know for sure what’s going on until the full game comes out . . . whenever that is. (And even then we still might not know for sure, because Toby likes to leave ambiguity in his games, and to be honest, I think that makes everything more fun.)

Either way, these are my thoughts on this for now. Goodnight.

[smellslikejustice-archive]

revivescere-flore replied to your post: Someone stop me from writing a rant pls

Speak your words of wisdom

theirmercy replied to your post: “Someone stop me from writing a rant pls”

DO IT DO IT DO IT

tendervoiced replied to your post:Someone stop me from writing a rant pls

GIVE IN TO THE SALT

asnjkshashaakjsm OKAY

Genocide salt under dis here cut bc I’m a madwoman right now.

There are two very clearly points of “control” established in Undertale:

Player Action, and Non-Player Action. Acts done through pressing buttons, and acts done without input.

When deciding who is “responsible” for genocide, you need to make a stance over which is done by Frisk and which is done by Chara.

If we wanna make the blunt statement that “Churro did the genocides”, that would establish that Player Action = Chara action... which, alongside not at all fitting with the dialogue at the end of genocide, would also require you to concede that Chara did EVERYTHING. 

They did pacifist, they did TRUE pacifist, they ate the pie in front of goatdad and brought the snowman piece to the surface- they found the QUICHE. Because, under this interpretation the player IS Chara. 

Which, honestly? Is a pretty interesting take as it would imply that Chara is undergoing the same process Flowey went through- helping everyone, SAVING everyone, but ultimately resetting because they weren’t satisfied.

But again, that is pretty clearly disproved by Chara’s genocide dialogue, and the fact that it would imply Frisk is the one doing things without input in genocide... which wouldn’t really make any sense at all.

So, no, I go with the opposite theory; Player Action is an action of Frisk’s (or, if you assert that the player is a character in the story, YOU- this leaves Frisk with absolutely zero character of their own though). In any case, YOU are the one that’s pressing buttons; anything done through YOUR input is your fault and yours alone. Ain’t got no one else to blame.

This, by extension, means that Non-Player Actions are actions of Chara. Which most people seem to accept, as they only come out in genocide- Frisk walking through Papyrus’s puzzles mid-dialogue, forcing you into a fight with Monster Kid, and killing Sans for you with the second strike.

And yeah, that’s all pretty bad; but they don’t start doing those things until YOU have established that purging the monster species is what you wanna do. Chara doesn’t do zilch until after you’ve killed their mother, outside of edgier narration.

And even then, throughout the ENTIRE ROUTE, all Chara does until the very end is speed things along. They skip puzzles that you wouldn’t have had any interest in doing anyway, they force you into fights that you would’ve started regardless, and they kill enemies you had full intentions of killing but couldn’t.

Now, personally, I make the assumption that Chara is just going with the flow that you’ve presented to them because they’re soulless and impressionable (like, if you spare ONE monster, they immediately cease this creepy shit), but even assuming this is what Chara wanted all along...

YOU’RE STILL THE ONE THAT GAVE THEM THE CHANCE.

No one was making you do anything, your keyboard is YOUR keyboard. You were not possessed by the imaginary ghost of the imaginary dead child to do the bad thing. You just DID IT, because you could. You could, so, you had to.

You are the one that covered the timeline with gasoline, despite MANY warnings over how much of a fire hazard it was. All Chara did was light the match.

So own up to the fact that YOU(/Frisk) did the terribad. Don’t go try using the dead kid with very little power throughout the whole route as a scapegoat for your crimes just because they made a scary face at the end of the game :/

[leonhaxor]

Hello, yes, welcome to a Deltarune Theory

So, we all know how Gaster was the royal scientist for King Dreemurr. Built his greatest creation, the CORE - which we know that is a massive power source - and that Gaster famously "fell into his creation." Most interpreters thin it's the CORE he fell into, but it's not exactly elaborated upon. We also know what whatever he fell into, he basically became a glitch in the system of UNDERTALE's reality.

Do we really know HOW his CORE works, though?

The CORE was Gaster's greatest creation. Which, as far as we ever knew, was an absolutely MASSIVE energy reactor that provided power to all of the Underground. These are the facts here. Judging by all the lava, it'd be safe to say the power source was geothermal in origin.

The thing is, as far as 'greatest creations' go, this seems a little bit... too mundane. Yes, it's massive. Yes, it looks like Shadow Moses and Hollow Bastion had a lovechild (the castle in KH1, not the variant with an actual town around it). Yes, the overworld theme there is a banger. But at the end of the day it's still a glorified power plant. To his credit, it's unknown how long it actually took him to make it, as well as the implied time period they were sealed away being at least around Medieval Times, if not further back.

But even then... what about the CORE could shatter Gaster's existence across time and space (assuming it was the creation at all)?

Monsters can die to a lot of the same things any other living being can die to. There might be certain allowances, based on what kind of monster they were. If the CORE was geothermal in nature, if a fire elemental was to fall into its workings... well, barring the "drop of water in an ocean" possibility, it's highly likely they'd survive intimate contact with such high levels of heat. A monster that may or may not be a skeleton, like Gaster is widely believed to be? Probably has a melting point.

With the heavy implications that his fall into the CORE spread his essence across time and space, and the specific attention to getting those details across... would a fall into a mere geothermal reactor, no matter how large, actually spread one's being across existence in such an anomalous manner? What would set it apart from dying in literally any other part of the Underground, where monsters turn to dust instead?

As we have seen in both UNDERTALE and deltarune, a Fall is an *incredibly important thing*. Chara/The First Human fell into the underground, arguably fucking up everyone as badly (if not more so) than the human wizards of old who trapped monsters in the Underground. The six human children that came after did the exact same thing, leaving only their SOULs and their gear behind for Asgore and Frisk, respectively, to use. Frisk... well, they too fell into the Underground, and gave us the means to interact with that world.

What do monsters call dying of old age in their culture? Falling down. You know who also did this by the time we're in Chapter 1 of deltarune? Gerson. There’s a book in the  The one person alive who knew what the delta rune was, and who has been getting an awful lot of mention for a dead turtle, but I'll get to that later. Note that there was a distinct difference in the way that it was described for Gaster - he “fell into his own creation,” but he did not “fall down.” Humpty Dumpty might have been pushed.

But the point is, Gaster's own fall is fascinating because like in the context of the human children's falls, his Fall marked a beginning of a story (most obviously, Alphys', but I'm not sure that's where it ends), and the context of an end (such as Gerson's fall in deltarune, and his posthumous reverence by the community that he was from, much like the Followers do).

...so, what exactly might be the cause for Gaster's non-existence, regarding the CORE itself? How exactly did any of that end up being relevant?

Let's talk about deltarune's story for a second.

Recall that the Knight has been referred to by Spade King in crimson text... which, if you recall, is rather similar in color to that of the human SOUL in Kris.

But what kind of creature could this Knight be, to fight the Spade King and instill such profound loyalty within this monarch? When he is so powerful, so cunning, so ruthless, as we see him in his boss battle (as well as indirectly, though his effect on the Darkners' Kingdom)? What if I told you... 

Ahem.

Jokes aside, we do have to consider what kind of monster this Knight would have to be, one with the power to create the Holy Fountains. One that we haven't actually seen onscreen, and have heard even less of than King. Except... we might actually have seen someone, or rather something, that DOES have ties with the Knight, or at least his ability to manipulate the Fountains.

Kris.

Or rather, their SOUL.

Or even more specifically... a SOUL that we simply control.

Let's walk back a bit from the stinger, and work our way from there.

Here's a picture from the final scene we have so far in the Dark World, specifically of the “fountain” that we encounter. 

If you are viewing this in-game, the pattern is constantly scrolling diagonally, along the same line but in different directions. If you pay attention to it, you'll see this strange symbol that looks like a chinese fingertrap with spades on the ends.

Now take a look at this picture from the vessel creation screen. It’s been taken from just before the other menu items appear, for maximum clarity. 

Note how, while there is a constant rippling effect from the center, not unlike water in a pool, we can clearly see that there is a shape being distorted.

One that bears a striking resemblance to that of the fountain itself.

Both times we see this pattern, texture, whatever you prefer calling it... there is a brief interval where we see it, before a *Red SOUL* is seen in the center of it. And, directly afterwards, we are shown a white light that encompasses the entire screen, before we are brought into the World of Light.

Curiously, in the earlier variant, the screen turns white from the center x-axis and outwards, where the second one turns white from the center y-axis and outwards. Not entirely sure of the significance of the differing choice in axis, but I think it has something to do with the context of each entry. The first is our entry into the game, or rather the prologue, while the latter is our entry into the epilogue.

I believe that the former is representative of the SOUL's entry into the CORE, while the latter is representative of it returning from the depths of the Dark World.

Yes, you read that right.

I believe that the entirety of this game take place inside the CORE.

Between the curious reactions to entering his name into either of the inputs, along with all of the references to sounds and words associated with him, most people think Gaster is the narrator in the opening sequence. Or Chara, according to @Squigglydigg's initial theories playing the game. But while that'd be interesting to explore, I'll have to go a third route for the moment, as I believe there is more evidence to back this idea up.

I might as well address the name input easter eggs before I go farther. Neither "Frisk" nor "Chara" happen to elicit any sort of unique response from the narrator whatsoever. If you name Gaster as the Vessel, the program soft resets. But if you name him as the Creator... it shuts down immediately, before you can truly enter the "R."

I believe that this narrator we are introduced to is actually a program designed by Gaster himself, made to oversee the CORE's operations.

If Gaster is named as the creator of this vessel, the program crashes. Note that this name is also used as that of the SAVE file's profile. As far as we know so far, the vessel's name is inconsequential. It's been hypothesized that this vessel will become relevant in later chapters, but it is unclear if and how it would actually be used.

My current thoughts as to what the creator has to do with this program... is that whoever is actually using the program is in some form of VR simulation. One that, as suggested by the cage at the end of the chapter, is meant to trap the player. I’ll get more into how it tries to do so in the next part of my hypothesis.

I haven’t forgotten about the "Chara" figure at the end of the chapter. I think this is actually a clue to the true identity of the Knight, or at least the World of Light's equivalent. Recall that the one in the Dark World is never seen, but is able to summon the Holy Fountains of Darkness. King, in his fight, has an odd hatred for Kris specifically, calling them the specific name of "Lightbringer" for the first and only time so far in the game. Picture the act of what the Knight *does*, bringing forth a fountain of shadows from the Earth. When Kris stands before that castle fountain, it erupts into light (and is presumably destroyed, but then again, we don’t actually see the aftermath of this action).

The Knight is implied to be obscenely powerful, in both conventional combat and enough to create dark fountains, enough to make King into a willing and eager servant. If we look back at UNDERTALE's genocide route, we see Flowey (who in terms of power and personality greatly resembles King) eagerly supporting "Chara" in their slaughtering of the Underground. And, by the time we have defeated Sans, we've made them into a truly unstoppable killing machine. Note how the Knight's colortext has a unique red and black gradient effect, representing their ties to the darkness while also bringing to mind the infamous red text that accompanied our player-made killer's thoughts. Thoughts laid out in simpler text rendering, but noticably brighter hue than that associated with the Knight.

Also recall the words of Seam the Shopkeeper, should you defeat Jevil. He heavily implies that Jevil is only a taste of what is to come, that later enemies will be even more powerful than that reality warping madman. In the world of UNDERTALE, what has proven more powerful than a human with high LV?

Apart from human error... not much comes to mind, honestly.

In the next part of my Game Theory(TM), I’ll be going over what I think Ralsei’s part to play in all of this really is, as well as what the CORE actually *does* to generate power for the Underground.

[nochocolate]

The Bosses in the Genocide Route

(undertale spoilers)

In the genocide route, Chara takes control as early as in the Ruins, specifically after killing 20 monsters. From that point onwards, it is Chara’s intent and feelings that affect the course of battles against the boss of each area. Here is a breakdown of possible reasons why Chara delivers outrageously deadly blows to each boss.

Toriel

Long ago, Toriel and Asgore took Chara into their home. Nothing implies that Toriel was ever a bad guardian for Chara, yet Chara seems to hold hatred towards her. 

Recall that LOVE does not corrupt Chara. If it did, the narrator should display the same amount of hostility in neutral routes with high amounts of LOVE. It’s when the player cooperates with Chara in the genocide route that they take control. However, this hatred towards Toriel may not be unfounded. Chara may feel that Toriel replaced them.

While Flowey is the one who states these words, it’s possible that Chara shares the same feelings. After all, Toriel never mentions Chara, and she is very quick to call Frisk “my child.”

» read more:  *...

Papyrus

When Papyrus faces Chara, he actually has no intention to fight or capture them. Not wanting to fight, his defense is lowered. 

Yet this doesn’t account for the high damage number. Unlike the other bosses, Papyrus chooses to show mercy towards a clearly dangerous foe -- just like Asriel did. Perhaps it’s this similarity to Asriel that prompts Chara to attack Papyrus with overkill damage. After all, with his defense lowered, it didn’t require a high attack damage to kill.

Undyne

What is scary about the killing blow on Undyne is that it wasn’t meant for her. The attack was aimed at Monster Kid. Despite the fact that Monster Kid helped Chara climb up a ledge, Chara does not have kind feelings toward Monster Kid. In fact, the fight with Monster Kid is the first time Chara initiates a battle on their own. 

Monster Kid may have said, “You're gonna have to get through me, first,” but they were stalling when the battle starts and they are spareable right from the start, similar to Papyrus. In the Check, Chara comments that Monster kid “looks like free EXP.” Luckily, Undyne arrives in time to save Monster Kid.

Following that fatal blow, Undyne is reformed by her own determination and is stronger than before. Because she is fighting with everything she has, Undyne does not go down again with just a single hit. It’s also possible Chara does not hold any resentment toward Undyne and may even respect her as a hero of monsters.

» read more: chara’s moment of silence for undyne

Mettaton Neo

Upon being hit with the fatal attack, Mettaton remarks that Alphys "SHOULD HAVE WORKED MORE ON THE DEFENSES...” However, that doesn’t take into account why Chara would have such a high damage.

@source-powered-archineer proposed that Chara’s hatred for humanity plays a role in the damage. After all, Mettaton is a monster that loves humans, imitating their physical appearance (in his Ex and Neo forms) and wishing to perform for them. That love for humanity is the complete opposite of Chara’s feelings.

Sans

The last boss to actually fight Chara, Sans has extremely low stats and is “the easiest enemy.” Despite this, the damage number against Sans is greater than the last.

Given that Sans’ battle is extremely difficult, with a surprise attack from the get-go, it’s no wonder Chara does not like Sans. With each loss, Sans pokes fun at Chara, frustrating them more with each death. When Chara finally kills Sans, they have an expression that Sans “won’t grace with a description.” It’s certainly not a look of remorse or frustration, given that Sans drops his cheeky wink for a blank stare. It gets even worse when Chara kills Sans again.

» read more: chara likes to kill for fun, too

Asgore

Similar to Toriel, there is no evidence that Asgore was a bad guardian. While it’s possible that Chara was pressured by Asgore to be the hope for monsters and humans, there is not enough evidence to say this with certainty. Regardless, Chara attacks Asgore before the fight properly starts, with an even greater attack damage.

It is possible this may have something to do with the fact that Asgore never mentions Chara as his child in the game. Furthermore, Asgore bestows upon Frisk the role that once belonged to Chara: the new hope of the underground.

Flowey / Asriel

When it comes to their best friend, Chara has one good reason to be angry with Flowey -- betrayal. Had Asriel not taken back control and stopped Chara from killing the villagers, Chara and Asriel would have had the souls needed to free the monsters and eradicate humanity. Instead, Asriel’s actions caused both of them to die and Chara’s plan to fail.

This would explain why Chara strikes Flowey multiple times, despite only needing one hit to kill him in the neutral route.

» read more: the real reason chara kills flowey

» read more: chara kills flowey without your permission