#reason being 1) i used to look like this 2) i love undertale 3) frisk gender neutral game mc icon tbh

[drowsystarlight]

Quick and messy sketch but here is my Runner Five :333

Sheet belongs to @crownleys!!

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Wednesday, December 14th and Thursday, December 15th

The doorbell rings. Buffy and her mom exchange an inquiring look, wondering whom it could be. Buffy goes to the door and opens it. FAITH: (uncertainly) Hey. BUFFY: Hi! FAITH: Uh, looked like that whole party thing was gonna be kind of a drag. (drops her eyes for an instant) I didn't really have anything... You know. BUFFY: (sincerely) I'm glad you came. FAITH: (smiles) Uh... Here. (hands Buffy gifts)

~~Amends~~

The Sunnydale Herald is looking for at least one new editor. Contributing to the Herald is a great way to get your Buffy on! Find out more here.

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Moving Forward by badly_knitted (Willow, Tara, PG)

In Memoriam by apachefirecat (Buffy/Spike, G)

One Reason, Scented for the Holiday, His Reason [3 More Spuffy drabbles] by apachefirecat (Buffy/Spike, PG)

Don't Go by apachefirecat (Buffy/Spike, PG)

Again by MillennialCryBaby (Buffy/Spike, G)

Winter Wonderland by calenlily (Buffy/Angel, G)

It Never Rains in Southern California by NAOA (Wesley, T)

Sir Xander by Baldur (Xander, Cordelia, T)

That Was the Spell by EllieRose101 (Buffy/Spike, T)

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes by cawthraven (Buffy/Spike, E)

Take Me to the Church by SarielLunar (Xander, Supernatural xover, T)

Best Laid Plans: Christmas in the Cascades by Gabriel_Is_My_Guardian_Angel89 (Angel/Spike (Will/Liam), E)

That Was the Spell by EllieRose101 (Buffy/Spike, PG)

House Call by SarielLunar (Xander, Hannibal xover, FR18)

Take Me to the Church by SarielLunar (Xander, Supernatural xover, FR13)

Of Malls and Mistletoe by bookishy (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

You Weren't There by myrabeth (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) complete

The Uses of Mistletoe by Slaymesoftly (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Nights Like This - Ch. 6 by ashcrashed (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) complete

[Chaptered Fiction]

the young king sings a song for the lover, the leaver, the lonely alike... - Ch. 1 by pumpkin_berry (Buffy/Faith, T)

Xandertale - Ch. 1 by Xander_dreemurr (Xander, Willow, Buffy, T)

She came back wrong - Ch. 4 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Vacation with a vampire (Sequel to The Sphere) - Part 2 - Ch. 16 by Coraline (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

A Road So Rough - Ch. 5 by cawthraven (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Learning To Be Love's Bitch - Ch. 21 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, R)

Unfavorable Odds - Ch. 11 by bookishy (Buffy/Spike, R)

Off My Rocker - Ch. 8 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, R)

A New Forever - Ch. 1 by Buffyworldbuilder (Buffy, The Originals xover, FR13)

Accidental Dark Lords and Ladies of Sunnydale - Ch. 4 by AnimeRonin (Willow, Xander, multi-xover, FR21)

Xandertale by Frisk (Xander, Undertale xover, FR18)

Dark Days (Mini-Fics) - Ch. 3 by BlueZeroZeroOne (Buffy, Giles, FR18)

Whispers In Pegasus - Ch. 6 by calikocat (Xander, Stargate xover, FR15)

The Nymph's Kiss - Ch. 6 by KyliaQuilor (Non-crossover, Amy Madison/Various women (multi), FR21)

What do you mean I'm Magical Nobility? - Ch. 16 by KnightofTempest (Xander, Harry Potter xover, FR18)

Unfavorable Odds - Ch. 11 by bookishy (Buffy/Spike, R)

The Thing About Being on the Road - Ch. 15 by scratchmeout (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Baby Love - Ch. 27 by Niamh (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

The Paper Incursion 4: Unsent by myrabeth (Buffy/Spike, T)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Artwork: say hello to spike & dru by vhallasgf (Dru/Spike, worksafe)

Artwork: [Santa hat] by httpsitsraine (Spike, worksafe)

Artwork: Faith in commission by Dani Strips posted by buffythecomicslayer (Faith, worksafe)

Artwork: guess who's been watching buffy by str4berry-goblin (Spike, mildly NSFW)

Gifset: [just trying to keep you safe, I expect] by spaceslayer (Dawn, Spike, worksafe)

Gifset: Bangel + Text by andremichaux (Buffy/Angel, worksafe)

Memes: Blorbo memes pt 5 by shewhosleepsalotincemetaries (Faith, worksafe)

Video: Lego Buffy - You Made A Bear! by tmcarlee (Spike, others, worksafe)

Artwork: Costume Party by ClowniestLivEver (Buffy/Spike, worksafe)

[Reviews & Recaps]

BTVS Season 2 Retrospective by The Cheshire Kiwi

Publication: BTVS Season 3: Choosing Your Future by Andrew Heard

PODCAST: Cloche But No Cigar - Angel S03E18 by Pop Culture Role Call

PODCAST: 5.05 Life of the Party by Angel on Top

[Recs & In Search Of]

In search of video edit: Who can I pay to make a "Light of the Seven" Buffy/Angelverse edit and when can you take my money?? requested by BuffyBoltonVampFlayr

[Community Announcements]

Buffy rp community [RPG on IG] by Willowsbooks

[Fandom Discussions]

Reasons why Faith Lehane would make a good cowboy. by 5bi5

ask answered: Giles/Anya ship by we-pay-for-everything

[discussion of Buffy's lack of planning for the future because she thinks she will die young] by corvidyus and three-blogs-in-a-trenchcoat

You know how money was such a big issue in S6 that... by thegirlfromthedwarf

[Dawn being "allowed" to fight in S7] by petpluto

[First time watcher thoughts, plus Xander] by juegodedioses and majingojira

Willow uses her witch powers as the Halloween ghost sheet of protection... by spaceshiplewis and girl4music

buffy summers really is the most character ever... by fallingtowers

omg every day i wonder how buffy got into northwestern... by faith-thee-slayer

i think that if faith had to end up with a guy from the buffyverse, i could see her with riley... by faith-thee-slayer

okay alternate universe... [Buffy working as a construction worker] by voices-not-echoes

[btvs time travel fics and drusilla] by sspoike

[selfless love and having a soul and spike and what is real love] by messedupdoilies

why did the Mayor die so easily? [answers] by i-sell-nightmares

[Angel thoughts - him on BTVS vs ATS] by hero-adjacent

Honestly don't get people who don't like Dawn... by disco-tea

The Gentlemen [hush episode] by destinystarlight33

[S4] I really wish... Buffy - Adam - Riley triptych as a theme... by corvidyus

something about young buffy flashbacks... looking so different...[and cordelia] by clockwards

Do you know [who] definitely exists beyond the gender binary? Glory. by beatriceeverytuesday

Why didn't any of the Scoobies warn Cordelia that Harmony was a vampire? by Joshua and others

Take Out The Trio, Insert **** [discussion of the Trio] by Tome and others

[discussion of Spuffy or Bangel? with 3x05 Fredless ATS clip about Bangel] by Tome

[discussion of Oz's return to college Willow] by various

Oz and Riley [what if they were around longer / more?] by Tome and others

Out of buffys boyfriends, Riley is the most hated, but does he actually deserve the hate by various

Jenny Calendar deserved better? by ProphecyGay

If Spike had been killed off would you have kept watching ? by various

How you fix the Cordelia possession? by various

Anya the anti-feminist by Tome

SMG Talks Toxic Buffy Set by BAF

Over the Rainbow [2x20 ATS discussion] by various

Which villains do you think deserve the most sympathy? by george123890yang

Any one have a favorite potential? by vetworker24

Buffy is one of the best characters ever, but what are her worst or most frustrating moments to you? by Blasberry80

My unexpected affinity with Buffy the Vampire Slayer by hakshamalah

What Are Your Overall Thoughts On Tara Maclay? by Antwuan89

The new Angel comic is really good [posted on Buffy] by Ilovemusclegirls3

Question about Once More With Feeling by cutestcatlady

Dawn [how early did writers plan her?] by bellabissatt

Sarah Michelle Gellar calls Buffy an ' Extremely toxic male set' by madmaximus17

season 7 [discussion of Caleb and Kennedy as characters] by NoelleSan191

Why Was Mercedes McNab Called Back? by Moon_Logic

One of my favorite lines from Buffy...in different languages! by DannyHufflepuff1998x

Favorite Amy Madison moment? by YogurtclosetOk3886

Bangel by Khalesssi_Slayer1

Most Badass Buffy Moment / Episode? by Responsible-Let-4643

The Knights of Byzantium is one of the weirdest, most useless plot devices in the show. by PocketGachnar

Amends Rewatch by echopsocky

Xander gatekeeping Buffy's love life by CellSation

[POLL] Which emotional performance is your favorite in 'The Body'? by Opening_Knowledge868

did we always know Joyce's fate in season 5 or was the ending of "I Was Made To Love You" a surprise? by jdpm1991

[ATS] I’m watching for the first time and I’m on “Provider”. It just feels like Angel’s whole characterization has gone out the window since Darla showed up pregnant?? by full_onrainstorm

Just Watching S5 E5 and I Was Wondering... [ATS] by autistic_ghostgirl

Did Peace Out (4x21) change your opinion of Connor at all? by Defvac2

The new Angel comic is actually really good [posted on ATS] by Ilovemusclegirls3

Season 4 [ATS is over hated] by BreakTacticF0

I know you all talk about how awful Cordelia’s hair gets, but nobody warned me about Lilah’s! by full_onrainstorm

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

PUBLICATION: Sarah Michelle Gellar Breaks Silence on Joss Whedon’s BTVS Set: ‘Extremely Toxic’ by The Wrap

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[laly-481]

J'ai publié 129 fois en 2022

85 billets créés (66%)

44 billets reblogués (34%)

Les blogs que j'ai le plus reblogués :

@laly-481

@tundra115

@nightwingsaregoths

@just-one-more-utmv-fan

@aesusen

J'ai étiqueté 68 billets en 2022

Seulement 47% de mes billets ne comportaient pas de tag

#wings of fire - 23 billets

#wof - 21 billets

#my art - 18 billets

#my oc - 11 billets

#undertale - 9 billets

#utmv - 9 billets

#undertale frisk - 6 billets

#frisk - 6 billets

#laly - 6 billets

#wings of fire oc - 5 billets

Tag le plus long : 95 caractères

#also there was a whole story of sunny and undyne exchanging bodies because they acted super ooc

Mes billets vedette en 2022 :

n°5

Wings of Fire - My AU

This post is like, writing all the facts about my AU. I'll reblog it every once a while when I have something to add. This contain spoilers. Also TW trauma and mentions of suicide ? And other thing like that ?

- Glory wasn't named by the guardians. They only ever called her "the Rainwing" (or insults) so the DoD decided to give her a name. Because them naming her glory made no sense-

- Sunny is single. Honestly Tui will have to make a REALLY REALLY great ship to make me change my mind about that.

- Riptide is an aquatic teacher in the Jade Mountain. He teach to any dragon who wants to how to understand the language and can give special lessons to Seawings who don't speak it for some reasons.

- Quinterwatcher.

- Fatespeaker has the same powers as Whiteout. So kind of empathy and weak seer ability. Also she totally know that Starflight love her because she act lile Sunny and it kind of break her.

- Turtle enchanted himself to not love Kinkajou anymore because of Anemone's spell. Sad :') I'm doing it for the angst- (and because it litteraly had no consequences ?!)

- Winter was suicidal back in the Ice Kingdom, especially after Hailstorm was captured, because he was his main reason to keep living. His parents sent him to the Jade Mountain hoping it would help because it's frowned upon to have a kid that kill themself (and let me pretend they cared-). But he's better now :)

- This 🛐(also it traumatized her way more than shown in the book. Because I legit forgot at some point it happened to her. Like it traumatized her so when she got locked up with Turtle by Darkstalker she had a panick attack because she thought she was back on the island where they experimented on her) Credit to @wof-as-humans on this post for this hc and the inspo for the one before

- Scarlet is... Scarlet because she was very young when she had to kill her mother (and become queen). It kind of drove her crazy.

- She also did cared about Peril, and ended up considering her as her daughter. It was an accident thought, she just wanted to use her at first, she just got too attached.

- The colors Rainwing usually have (like for example Jambu is usually pink, he can change it and it change with his emotions but he mostly take the color pink) actually represent their usual mood. Like Gloria's green because she's stressed (with some orange which is irritation, blue so sadness because she's left out due to being the intruder in the DoD prophecy and red/pink but idk so let's go with pink for the love for the other DoD). Kinkajou is yellow for excitement/amusement and pink for love and happiness. Jambu is very pink because he's very happy.

- When Clearsight enchanted Darkstalker so he sleep, they were adults. Because I prefer it that way so does everyone I know in the fandom-

67 notes - publié le 23 février 2022

n°4

Wdym they aren't called the sandwich sisters

69 notes - publié le 16 mai 2022

n°3

I've connected the two dots I've connected them !

115 notes - publié le 1 mai 2022

n°2

Imagine some rainwings, who grew up living only with other rainwings, sometime just forget other dragons don't change colors with their emotions.

Like they'll see a Skywing and spend half an hour wondering what they did to make them angry, only to realise that's just how they look and it has nothing to do with their emotions.

162 notes - publié le 13 juin 2022

Mon billet n°1 en 2022

But what if Darkstalker looked a little more like an Icewing before, but he enchanted himself to be more like a Nightwing.

What if he had purple blood and frostbreath, but he hated it so much he used his power to get rid of it.

What if he used to have a lot more of white scales scattered on his body.

Maybe that hc is like- totally unoriginal, but shut

262 notes - publié le 29 mai 2022

Obtenez votre année 2022 en revue sur Tumblr →

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

The Inky Tears Of Chara Who Hides Pain Behind A Smile

----------------------- 

Credit for Undertale goes to Toby Fox & His Team

-------------------------------------

I think I will wait until tomorrow or next month to write the Part 2, that has to do with the whole doctors misdiagnosis of those who go through energy based seizures, because of well....you know energy empath.

I know some might disagree that perhaps, in Undertale....

the True Timeline & Route, might be the Geno Route...

I mean if what I had calculated of the LV of the Bosses in the game are true, like if you only go for them and not like Snowy or the others...

but Papyrus having a LV of 5 might of been something that happen in his past, which could be connected to the Bad Memory that comes from the Memoryhead.

because part of the Memoryhead, looks like a younger version of Papyrus, like maybe looking to be around Monster Kid, Chara, Frisk and Original Prince Asriel’s age.  

if you haven’t killed Toriel, and just stayed at LV 1 and didn’t harm anyone else....but took out Papyrus, your HP would go from LV 1 to LV 6.

which I figured out by theory, it has to do with the Monster’s LV.

like Papyrus’s LV being 5, Undyne’s being LV 3, Mettaton’s being LV 2,

Muffet’s being around LV 1, meaning she is basically not full of such a high Level Of Violence, plus the spiders she uses in her food, like doughnuts, cider and other baked goods, may have died of natural causes.

Toriel’s LV is possibly around LV 4, because when I did decide to show no mercy to her and stayed around LV 1, once I did beat her,

my LV 1 jump to LV 5. 

I’m not sure about Sans, I would maybe have to watch the fight on a video, since I think it be some time before I get past Undyne in a Geno Run...

but if the LV only goes up by one number, it means that Sans’s is around LV 1.

but knowing his job, it might not be around that LV....and could be higher.

it is not known at the moment what LV the King of Monsters is...

but it’s possible we don’t get LV from him at all, because his heart was hardly into the fight, plus if I had to guess, his LV might be the same as Muffet’s.

even before we come into that world, and control the playable character...

the monsters in that world, weren’t exactly innocent, and you know how karma is at times.....it was gonna bite them at some point, one way or another.

plus it is possible the monsters in the ruins, were sent after Frisk (and us the Players...) to kill and take the soul, and Whimsun may of regret past actions of taking a human’s life, perhaps The Human Of Patience.

but for all we know, Whimsun could of not of made the final blow and it might of been Mama Goat...as sweet and motherly that she is, it is possible she hides dark secrets, and the reasons why she asks if we are allergic to anything, might of had a meaning behind it, or it might of not.

but maybe Toriel didn’t take a human life on purpose, but if she did, her LV grew from the normal LV 1 to LV 4...but who’s to say she hasn’t harmed other Monsters, which could of caused her LV to grow as well...

we know that her Deltarune counterpart can be a bit judgmental and even suspect the worse from Kris, because of their past behaviors, like throwing bath-bombs in the toilets.

but despite that, and her similar situation with her own ex-husband as well...

that version of Toriel is still a loving Mother, and cares deeply for her children.

even if she might be a bit clueless on how Kris might feel at times.

but Undertale-Toriel, might of not been herself when she took the life of a human, and it might have to do with her being taken over by some of the determination that was on Chara’s body, like it has a way to get into someone’s head and make them do things they wouldn’t normally do.

or Papyrus could be right about her being a clone, and it could turn out the Toriel from Deltarune was originally from Undertale and the Original Queen, and King Asgore in his loneliness, had the Royal Scientist clone his MIA wife.

even if Chara in this drawing, seems happy, but it could turn out they are not, and what hides behind the smile is pain and sadness.

maybe I should talk more about how the Geno Route in Undertale, could be the True Timeline, and how it is not just the Player who is punishing them, but also The Soul Of Prince Asriel, because of the whole plot twist theory, that the Player’s Red Soul (Proxy-Soul) is in fact the Original Prince Asriel’s Soul,

but because of Chara’s determination and possibly some small part of their soul staying merged with his Soul, it ended up making a new fusion of Chara & Asriel’s Soul, and would possibly later become Kris’s New Soul when going from the Undertale World to the Deltarune World.

even if Frisk is a different person, who isn’t Chara’s Body Resurrected...

we end up sharing control with them, like how Asriel and Chara shared some control of their own shared body.

the Soul splitting into two different colors when fighting Mad Mew Mew (or fan nickname Maddie.) is because it might hint that it is Frisk and the Player are part of each side of the soul that is split between two colors.

the light blue or turquoise soul half, might be Frisk

while the red soul half, might be the Player.

but the Soul would still have originally been Prince Asriel’s before he possibly became soulless, not talking about Flowey, but about the possibility that Chara’s determination letting Prince Asriel’s dust reform his body without a soul and without the missing part of his dusts that become a part of Flowey.

 I can talk a little more about that theory and the dark secrets of the true lab in another post....but anyway, hope some like this drawing of Chara.                             

[starlightshore]

barring the no mercy route being an influence in this case, how would you describe chara's personality? I cannot describe them well at all despite them being my favorite character. they're too complex lol. all of the meta i can find at this time as them described at both extremes of innocent & evil but i don't think that's accurate

TW: discussions of canon dark topics such as abuse , death and suicide

i love talking about chara, i've talked about them at length before lmao. thank u for giving me a chance to talk about my beloved child.

you can actually read a character exploration i'm doing in a mini-arc for Askfallenroyalty. actually, if you want one condensed post, this comic sums up chara's motives

My interpretation:

chara is an abused kid and suicidal kid*(1) who ran to mount ebott to die.*(2) upon learning that monsters are made of love and humans aren't*(3), chara began to hate humanity. the deltarune prophecy*(4) makes them to be The Angel despite being a human. Feeling undeserving of this title and obligated to fulfill it, Chara wanted to be a good kid more than anything.

But then the buttercup pie incident happened. They've accidentally*(5) poisoned asgore and came up with a plan to ensure the prophecy could be fulfilled and take a hit against humanity. Two birds with one stone -who cares if it's also a personal win too? then obviously the plan goes up in flames and they and asriel are murdered. then asgore wants to kill of all humanity.

your influence*(6) gets Chara onto a path of redemption or a path of destruction, mirroring the deltarune prophecy's two main interpretations.*(7)

in summery: chara is a scared kid trying to fit into a world that demands violence by the past actions of the previous generations. The war massacred monsters and locked them up with a kill-solution -ensuring that further violence would be needed to be free, thus continuing the cycle of violence.

chara is just a kid. they knit, they make macaroni art, they loved their family and had a best friend forever.* (8) but they're also vengeful, they cared so deeply for monsterkind they were ready to die and had no idea they'd be awake as a soul, they were prepared for death. they're complicated, you can't have one side without the other. while i’ve never wanted to murder anyone, i can still relate deeply to chara and see myself in them a lot. the tragedy of them -the fact they never really got a “happy ending” like everyone else just haunts me and it’s why I spend so much time making AFR. I just... love this character so much, i want this kid to be happy. (not that it could ever be easy to get there, happy endings aren’t free.)

And frankly, seeing this hurt kid get demonized just rubs me the wrong way, and it feels completely against the morals Undertale tries to tell with it’s story. I see it as a cautionary tale against violence and dehumanizing others for the sake of hate and violence. how kids can be influenced by the violence -or kindness around them. you don’t need to forgive the ones who hurt you, but killing them is not always the solution -though sometimes necessary as framed in the Undyne the Undying fight.

People get both Undertale’s themes and chara wrong the most, and for the game that’s meant the world to me it bothers me more than it should lol. It’s a Good Story, and I don’t mean to frame my interpretation of the character or themes as 100% canon and I know Mr.Fox’s brain to confirm it kinda deal, but with all the time I’ve spent analyzing and thinking it over I do think it’s not off in the general direction of it lol. And besides the author’s intent isn’t really the end-all-to-be-all. It’s what you get out of the story and the themes that matter and stick with you. No one can take that away from you.

Sources and evidence:

"* If you're cuter, monsters won't hit you as hard." -faded ribbion flavor text * "The ends of the tools have been filed down to make them safer." -gardening tools in New Home (and iirc Toriel's home as well, too lazy to double check rn) * Where are the knives. -no mercy chara (this and paired with the previous imply there are no sharp objects in reach of chara's home because chara can't be trusted with sharp objects out of self harm. This doesn't necessarily mean abuse but paired with them hating humanity so deeply, being suicidal and a child it paints a picture of abuse.

"* I know why (chara) climbed the mountain.* It wasn't for a very happy reason." -asriel post pacifist epilogue dialogue

"* Love, hope, compassion... * This is what people say monster SOULs are made of. * But the absolute nature of "SOUL" is unknown. * After all, humans have proven their SOULs don't need these things to exist." -Library book on monster souls)

* Legend has it, an 'angel' who has seen the surface will descend from above and bring us freedom. - gerson

"* It takes at least a human soul... * And a monster soul. * ...* If you want to go home... * You'll have to take his soul. * You'll have to kill ASGORE." -Alphys. Because boss monster souls are the exception and can persist after death for a short period of time, Chara could of killed any of the family members to escape the underground. this implies escaping wasn't the goal -it was to die (considering they already attempted suicide to fall underground the first time, this is explicitly suicide.) the plaque doesn't mention or speak like monster/human fusion's consumed soul would be aware. chara had no way of knowing they'd be awake. also the whole thing with the pie is a prank. cups of butter. -> buttercups. putting flowers in a pie is a joke to do, we see Chara is similar to Toriel (they mimic her speech in the no mercy monologue, they say “greetings” as she does like how Asriel says “howdy” like Flowey does. Chara makes puns and jokes in the flavor text all the time.

https://imgur.com/a/zP18P -dog food bag at different LV. "When the protagonist first encounters Mad Dummy, they are given the option to beat it up. Choosing to beat it up prompts one of three responses depending on the protagonist's LOVE." (source: undertale wiki)

If the protagonist’s LV is 1, the response becomes "(You tap the dummy with your fist.) (You feel bad.)"

If the protagonist's LV is between 2 and 4, the response becomes "(You hit the dummy lightly.) (You don't feel like you learned anything.)"

If the protagonist’s LV is between 5 and 7, the response becomes "(You sock the dummy.) (Who cares?)"

If the protagonist’s LV is 8 or higher, the response becomes "(You punch the dummy at full force.) (Feels good.)"" This implies Chara (who is the narrator) will feel different about the dog food -which references the classic phrase of "glass half empty/full" showing your out look in life. Then hitting the dummy show's Frisk's out look on violence depending on LV. Note that by the end of it, it's no longer "you feel..." but "feels good" This is Chara.

      7. “* Lately, the people have been  taking a bleaker outlook...* Callin' that winged circle the  'Angel of Death.' “ -gerson “* Only the fearless may proceed. * Brave ones, foolish ones. * Both walk not the middle road. “ -the first plaque in the first puzzle room with Toriel. The idea is to walk on both the left and right sides -you can’t go half way in the middle. this mirrors the “true” endings are only accomplished if you stick to no mercy or pacifist only.

     8. literally their home in New Home is a treasure trove of pre-game chara characterization.

[kaissauce]

okay, phucker, do it

ok let's do this @rolli-zolli @ninikins

Horrortale: technically an alternate timeline instead of au. after a neutral run where undyne's queen the core malfunctions and food becomes scarce and people resort to eating humans because sans suggested it. Aliza is the protag. latest thing that happened in the ongoing comic was Aliza agreeing to go with Papyrus to solve his last puzzle. as for the appearance of sans he has a HUGE hole on his head and a red eye. he got the hole from undyne when she got his magic eye which was going to be used to power the core. sans didnt die tho and killed the guards holding him down and just took whatever eye was on the ground and used it as a replacement for his magic eye that's powering the core. i quote first words he said after putting the eye in his socket "who the fuck took my phone?". then the magic eye went apeshit and broke the core again. oh and also he made alphys braindead by quite literally scrambling her brain. yeah this au is rough sans hasn't really eaten anything since the core was destroyed since he decided not to eat any humans.

Dusttale: i think this was originally a korean au? basic rundown: too many genocide runs sans goes apeshit and tries to get his Lv up by killing monsters himself man went fuckin insane kills his brother blah blah blah edgy angsty au the ghost of papyrus haunts him n stuff. sans literally just looks the same except he has his hood on and sometimes artists draw him with papyrus's scarf. the cool artists draw him with his hood on and has the hood completely cover his face so u can only see his glowing pupils. although people call him dust sans he's actually named murder sans

Killer: so frickin similar to dusttale except sans goes apeshit because of the human being like "join me lmao". three different outcomes come from this. i think it was 1 sans joins human 2 sans joins human kills human later on 3 kills human or something. friends with color sans who is basically his impulse control. pretty sure his soul's fucked up and Color sans tries to make his soul un-fucked but Nightmare comes in and fucks up the progress. he has white shorts, his eye sockets are constantly pitch black and leaking tar or something also has a weird target thingy on his chest. OH YEAH ALSO HE HAS BEEF WITH UNDERSWAP SANS ALMOST FORGOT. basically swap sans tried to make killer good and then they had a fight, swap sans lost and was on the verge of dying thankfully swap papyrus was able to save him in time i think

Dreamtale: Dream isn't in the drawing but his brother, Nightmare is. Sooo he used to not look all goooy and have tentacles n stuff but then he ate a couple hundred apples and yeah. he's six years old apparently. Nightmare and Dream are supposed to be guardians of a tree that has 500 golden apples and 500 black n goopy apples. the golden aples are positive and the goop ones are negative. you're not supposed to eat either of them cus bad shit happens. Dream and Nightmare live in a village and for whatever reason they're all dicks to Nightmare because ooughh he's the guardian of negativity that's not baller. he also goes apeshit (do u see a pattern here) and eats a goopy apple n then becomes the goop man he is today. he fuckin eats 999 apples jesus christ. and the last one is eaten by Dream because if u eat all 1000 apples u become unstoppable and immortal. so that would be a bad thing if nightmare got the last one. wop wop wop these dude aren't sanses they only have the body of one if that makes sanse.

Error: manlet. he's literally an error and that's why he's like that. also he's technically not a sans now, the redesign for him was so that he could be in the creator's webcomic named Lucidia. Error sans, aka the destroyer of aus, finds aus to be mistakes so he tries to get rid of them. his process of doing this is simple: get the human soul to the void so that they can't reset, destroy the au. he primarily attacks using his strings which can wrap around one's soul and control them. he like some aus like outertale because of how open and empty it is. he likes to be alone and has haphephobia. if u touch him he'll glitch out and possibly crash. he crashes whenever gets overwhelmed. said crashing causes him to shut down and reboot and he's powerless while doing so. he's actually pretty easy to beat if you know how to push his buttons the right way. in the og ask error blog made by his creator Loverofpiggies he kidnaps Swap sans who tries to help Error become a better person. this ends horribly as error leaves Swap sans in the void who then becomes an error aswell due to being alone in the void too long. Error actually regrets doing that to swap sans

Aftertale: OK FUN FACT THE SANS OF THIS AU, WHO'S NICKNAMED "Geno" IS ERROR. aftertale is a comic made by LoverofPiggies it's been SOOOO long since i last read it so i cant really give a good summary. but anyways Geno is trapped in the loading screen with the human and will die if he leaves the loading screen. eventually from being in the loading screen for too long after the events of aftertale he becomes Error.

OOF WOWIE THERE'S SO MUCH TO GO

Underfresh: he's not even a sans either. "Fresh" is a parasite inhabiting a skeleton. his birthday is on 4/20 which is ironic cus he doesn't like drugs. he censors swears. he speaks 90's lingo and dresses like a neon sign. for some reason he has eyebrows and a gold tooth. the glasses he has can change text but normally defaults to "YOLO". he can't feel anything since he has no soul of his own and just latches onto the host's. instead he learns how to act from the people around him. not being able to feel actually bothers him a LOT

Echotale: Aka Gaster sans. uhhh this one was also a comic if i remember correctly. basically Frisk and G!Sans are the only ones in the au and they're trying to find the core to fix the fucked up timeline that they're in but the core keeps changing positions so that sucks.

Swapfell: originally made by Khhoppang who left social media. Started out as an Alphys x Undyne au so only those two were designed but Kh was planning to design more of the characters. before they could people had a field day with the idea of mashing two aus together and SO many people came up with their own designs for sans and papyrus. Khhoppang left social media because they got overwhelmed with all the art reposters and stuff, pretty sad. the appearance of the sans in that au is the purple one with a scythe (i dont think he has a scythe in the og design).

Swapfell Red: so basically this is the swapfell made by people that isn't Khhoppang. community made per se. Sans's appearance changes constantly because as said before many people made many different designs. typically he just looks like Swap sans but with red high heel boots and his color scheme fits underfell

Fellswap (gold): Au made by blackggggum. so swapfell is underswap turned fell, fell swap is underfell swapped it takes a bit to understand that. his appearance is somewhat similar to Swapfell red. He's kind to his friends but if ur his enemy he'll fucking deck you. he's blind in his left eye, the leader of the royal guard, and secretly into dressmaking. fun fact in this au Papyrus has autism

Xtale: uuuuhhhh so Cross is a complicated one. he's part of the royal guard along with papyrus. has beef with xgaster. responsible for the downfall of his au and then Underverse happens and Ink is all "oh cool someone to mess with" and they became friends for a bit then shit hit the fan

Underfell: OOOOO YES UNIRONICALLY ONE OF MY FAVORITES. So Underfell sans is actually a very powerful mf and constantly has his magic eye activated because he has so much magic. This au is also technically an alternate timeline where monsters "lost their humanity" as the creator put it. so basically trust in the underground is scarce. Sans and papyrus, contrary to many interpretations i fucking hate, are actually on good terms (and no sans doesn't call papyrus "boss" the creator said if he does he'd do it ironically and papyrus would hate it). Fun facts he pays Grillby in socks (grillby accepts the socks as payment and wears them), if u make grillby laugh he gives u a jacket that looks like his and it's heavily implied that sans made him laugh because their jackets are similar

Underswap: ah yes another classic that i love as well. originally made by PopcornPr1nce who fled social media because they hated how the majority fandom treated Underswap (Blueberry and Carrot were popular names for the fanon swap papyrus and sans). Swap sans is constantly infantilized by the community which sucks and i hate it so i draw my own very super cool version of him whom i kin because i am also very super cool.

Outertale: mainly an aesthetic au pretty sure there's no comic of it. basically, instead of underground they in space. outer sans dies in underverse after like minutes of screentime lmao

Epictale: a comic made by Yugogeer. the og comic was retconned and the creator loathes the original version and made a reboot that's much better. Sans actually dies very early in it because Yugo hates how Sans is almost always focused on in aus. also the creator hates how meme-y their sans has become (like him saying bruh every single sentence, using a rubber chicken as a weapon, cookies, etc.) he's friends with Cross but not in canon. He has a purple magic eye that makes him immortal and i think only epic gaster could remove it which is how sans was able to be killed when he fought gaster.

Temmietale: it's undertale but everyone is temmie, don't question it

Trainertale: it's undertale but it's Pokemon, don't question it

Dancetale: it's undertale but you dance instead of fight, don't

Mobtale/Mafiatale: im unsure if mobtale and mafiatale are separate or not but they are very similar. basically undertale but mafia it's self explanatory

Undertale: no clue which au is this one, nope not at all/j

Bittytale or whatever idk: so take sans, make him small. boom. never understood this au

THAT BASTARD INK: HOOO BOY SAVED THE WORST FOR LAST. FUCK THIS GUY/j. THIS DUDE. IS THE REASON IM STILL INTO UNDERTALE AUS. I LOVE EM SO MUCH. also technically not a sans. He comes from an unfinished au and ripped his own soul to escape said au and became an outcode. for so long he was just a soulless husk until someone drew him and he got splashed with paint which let him feel. soon he learned to keep the paint in vials so that he can be able to feel 24/7. And then he learned how to create things with a paintbrush and the paint and spent time alone drawing up his own world until a portal appeared and took him to the multiverse. now he encourages artists to keep creating aus. he's the protector of aus in the sense that he keeps other outcodes from disrupting the script of the au, so if it's pacifist and an outcode tries to kill people he'd stop them, if it's genocide and an outcode tried to help them he'd stop them. no matter what he wants the au to stay on script. fun fact the creator of ink and the creator of error never had them interact with each other in canon, that was all the fandom's doing. Contrary to popular belief he's not really considered "good" his alignment is officially "Chaotic neutral". I personally interpret him a lot more chaotic than in canon because it's fun but he's a pretty chill guy actually. he can just be a bit of an ass sometimes. According to the creator of Ink (who is Comyet) his interpretation in Underverse is not canon compliant. one of the biggest canon things that underverse contradicts is Ink deliberately not taking his vials. if he were to do that in canon he'd become a husk again which is the equivalent of him "dying". he was described as a walking corpse by Comyet, without the vials he can't function anymore. Like Error he's pretty easy to beat if you know his weaknesses. also he has fears of empty spaces and being alone

off topic kinda but i very much love how Error and Ink are opposites yet parallel even though they were completely written without the other in mind. Error believes getting rid of aus is getting rid of anomalies. Ink believes people interfering with aus are anomalies. Error loves emptiness, Ink hates emptiness. list goes on it's funky fresh.

also uhhh sanses missing from that drawing that i can name from the top of my head

Seraphim sans, Insans, Dusttrust, He who shall not be named because he's from an 18+ au, Swapswap (yes. that exists), Storyshift, Inverted Fate (very good au i suggest checking it out), Negatale, Oceantale, Template, Pale, Mafiafell, Farmtale

my phone is at 9% y'all are spared from me going on

[undertale-in-writing]

Undertale In Writing: Page 2

You feel as though years have passed while you stood there, staring at the flowers. Though it's only been one heavy moment.

You take a deep breath and kneel down to pluck a flower from the ground. You tuck it behind your ear. You stand and turn to gaze into the darkness. Something warm fills your chest, not entirely unlike when Flowey revealed your SOUL. Just to be sure, you look down. There's no glowing, only calm... fullness. Stubbornness. DETERMINATION.

You felt something like this when you woke up before, but it was uncertain, confused. Now, it's fully taken root. You turn and begin to follow the path you took previously. Not like there was any other path.

Flowey appears again in a blink of light. You take note this time. He seems to be glowing. It's magic. All magic has a slight glow, and all monsters have magic. I can't think of any flowers down here that glow like a monster, though; echo flowers glow, but those are bioluminescent. And he doesn't smell like a normal flower.

The familiar face is still for a moment, then he breaks into a grin. “Howdy! I'm Flowey! Flowey the flower! Hee hee hee...” He tilts his head slightly, humor in his voice now. “Why'd you make me introduce myself? It's rude to act like you don't know who I am. Someone ought to teach you proper manners.”

You frown, because you're still not sure what happened. He killed you, didn't he? Was he the reason you were placed back at the start? I feel like it's more than that, but how come he remembers you?

No time to dwell on it. The golden flower begins following the same script as before. He opens the battle stage, refers to your heart. “That's your SOUL,” he says, as if you hadn't heard this before. He introduces LOVE, and he pulls out his bullets. “Down here, LOVE is shared through... little white... 'friendliness pellets.'”

You frown. Why is he telling you all this again? You know it, and he knows that you know it, and he should see from your expression that you know he knows you know it. Your lips purse. You want to say something, but you can't bring yourself to speak in this moment. The energy required is currently being used to prepare for what comes next.

“Catch as many as you can!”

You jump the side. The bullets dart by you and dissipate in the air a few feet back.

Flowey's expression changes. He holds onto the smile, but now it's challenging. Almost taunting. “Hey, buddy, you missed them. Let's try again, okay?”

You ready yourself, mind racing over how you might get out of this. Maybe you can outlast him?

The bullets shoot into you, and this time you can hardly react. They make contact. Your heart pulses, your feet slide back an inch, there are holes in your sweater and blood and bruises and it hurts.

But you're not in pieces. The wounds are shallow. You try to stand tall in defiance, but there's a pain in your shoulder that makes you wince, and you realize that you're very weak.

Flowey laughs. His face contorts into an evil smile that frankly does not belong in 3D space. “You idiot,” he cackles.

Your mouth opens in protest; a sound comes out—a soft, “I'm not—!” but you have to clamp it shut. Your face reddens.

Flowey continues. His voice is different. Somehow, he's made it sound like he's speaking through a crackly intercom. He says, “In this world, it's kill or BE killed. Why would ANYONE pass up an opportunity like this?”

A chill runs down your spine. This flower... isn't a monster. Monsters aren't like this. Monsters aren't evil.

“DIE!”

A ring of bullets form around you and come flying at your tiny torso. All you can do is yelp and curl into yourself. You're going to die again. You're going to hurt again. He's going to tear you apart.

There's a crackling sound, and a fwoosh. You glance up. A ball of white-hot fire hits the flower in the back of the head, and his roots are torn from the ground as he flies off into the darkness with a small “eep.”

Suddenly, you're alone. It's dark. You're confused. Disoriented.

Annoyance floods your brain. You'll probably be nonverbal all day now.

You push yourself to your feet, flinching when a shallow cut on your stomach pulls sideways. The battle stage is still there, but you can't feel Flowey's presence anymore. Something else looms from where the flame originated. Fiery red eyes bore into you from the darkness. A shape emerges, tall and fuzzy. A pair of small, sharp horns curl up from the top of a long-eared head. A snout exhales with annoyance.

You see the monster's dull claws at eye-height. The sleeves of a strangely familiar robe fall over one paw as it's drawn to the monster's hip.

“What a terrible creature,” she scolds, “torturing such a poor, innocent youth.”

Her voice is gentle. Familiar. Comforting. Motherly. You tilt your head again to look into her eyes, and she bends down to bring herself on your level. Now that you see her face head on, she doesn't look scary anymore. Her ears are soft and floppy, her horns small, her smile friendly, her eyes kind. She looks like a concerned goat mom, if goats were... What's the word..? Anthromorphic?

“Do not be afraid, my child,” she says softly. “I am Toriel, caretaker of The Ruins. I pass through this place every day to see if anyone has fallen down.” She pauses, and you realize that the battle stage is gone. There's color in the world again, and your heart is in your chest where it belongs.

Toriel smiles and stands suddenly. “You are the first human to come here in a long time.” Her robe flows loosely as she reaches down with one paw. “Come! I will guide you through the catacombs.”

You don't take her paw. Toriel isn't fazed by this. She turns ninety degrees and gestures into the darkness. “This way.”

Page 1 — Page 3

 [End page]

We made this blog almost two years ago and never followed up, so here’s page 2. We’ll try to continue it indefinitely, even if it takes a while. It’s still very much something we’re interested in.

Rules:

This is an interactive Undertale adaptation, not an AU. All actions taken must fit into the game. Obviously I’m taking little liberties with the reset system, but nothing is changing. If you want your response to be included, it shouldn’t change the plot. It’s about informing a player character’s decisions and, to an extent, Frisk’s personality.

You don’t need to follow some kind of format or command system. Your response can be in a comment, a reblog, a reblog of another’s reblog, a comment continuing another’s comment… It can short or long. It can be a suggestion or a narration.

The readers, together, are the player character.

Some time will pass, and we will take all responses as a vote. Common actions will become “canon,” and the story will continue. Influential commenters will be tagged, and anything we directly quote will have credit immediately after the section.

Commenters last round: @thesuperduckling24​, @finallycrawledoutfromundermyrock​, @thepotatoreader, and @arireblogthat​

If threads form of various players writing out their own alternate timeline, that’s fine too! There are no restrictions in how you respond. No need to limit yourself to what you think I’ll write down.

Headcanons that we’re using to include as much flavor from the game as possible:

We’re running with the Chara as narrator interpretation, because the tone of the narration is a major part of the experience. It may come out more in the future, but we’ll never name them. We will also adhere to the canon that their personality going forward is influenced by the player character’s decisions.

The one thing we’ve decided about Frisk up front is that they are semi-verbal autistic. Nothing extra will be inserted; it’s just a framework we’re using because it’s a consistent guide to explain some very video-gamey behavior -- like the sparse implied dialogue, the fixation on smells, and apparent disregard for low HP. (We’re autistic ourselves and will be pulling from our experiences.)

I’m adding these under each page so that you can use these narrative frames if you want. Happy writing.

[afterthelastreset]

Kris’s Soul Theories

Ok. So I was talking with my pal @makiswak about these and thought I’d share them here. These are just possible theories I came up with while rewatching the playthroughs of Deltarune and that scene of Kris ripping their soul out. So I thought of these to help maybe explain it. Hope you all like it.

Theory 1: KRIS IS POSESSED BY SOMETHING

The red soul is something else and something is posessing Kris. Before you all go out and point at Chara, Chara wasn’t ever really a bad person (watch the theories about it on youtube) so Chara wouldn’t posess someone. Plus we’ve never seen Chara posess someone cannically so- Plus there’s no WAY it could be Chara for 2 specific reasons.  

 1. This is a separate au from Undertale and the two games are two separate cannons as stated by Toby Fox  

2. Asriel ain't dead so Chara is probably alive and well somewhere too, college aged since in Undertale they were the same age, and it seems everyone is their cannon age here

But ghosts ARE a real thing in undertale like Napstablook and we see a house similar to his house in town so maybe Kris Is being posessed by a evil ghost monster. And before someone suggest Frisk it couldn’t be either. Frisk was WAY younger than Chara or Asriel might’ve been and the only way Asriel was the same age as them in Undertale was because he was dead and an ageless flower for so long, and when he was brought back he reverted back to the age he was when he died. Everyone seems to be the same age they are as they were in Undertale. So Cannoncally if we’re calculating the numbers right, Frisk would be alive and younger than Asriel possibly even younger than Kris. So they’re not an option either, and Frisk was never shown with red eyes or a knife in game.

Theory 2: THE SOUL IS THE PLAYER

 The soul is the player is probably the most obvious and likely but I’ll  include it too just to be fair. So this one’s pretty basic. What is it’s US that’s possesing Kris and Kris is just rejecting the player’s control over them? It wouldn’t be the first time we got a fourth wall break. Remember in Undertale when Sans winked at us when he made the joke when Papyrus first appeared? And it didn’t seem like Kris was ever a cruel or dangerous person? Sure he scared Noelle by hiding under her bed but that sounds like something kids typically do. Scare their friends as pranks whether by hiding under the bed or jumping from around a corner. What if Kris only has the knife to defend himself? Because like everyone says in the game, Kris is a quiet kid but he never hurt anyone. Even in the 'genocide' run of the game no one dies. So what if Kris is holding back from the player's commands and shows us a his scary face as a warning? Because he doesn't want to hurt anyone.

Theory 3: THE WHOLE THING IS JUST A METAPHOR

Yep! What if Kris ISNT really ripping out their soul and what we see is just Toby Fox animating out what Kris is eternally feeling inside? It isn’t that too far of a stretch. This is Toby Fox who made Undertale, a game where a skeleton broke the fourth wall once, a ghost who possesses a robot, and talking goat’s who want to adopt you. And in undertale Toby included two meanings of ‘Love’. The love you gain in the pacifist route and L.O.V(Level of violence) for the genocide. And Sans uses all kinds of metaphors, jokes, and puns to refer to things. Why would it be too far a stretch that what we see isn’t actually happening and just symbolism to how Kris is feeling inside? 

What if the soul IS Kris's soul, but he’s not ACTUALLY pulling it out and it’s what he’s feeling? You know what a soul looks like? YEP!! A HEART!! His ‘soul’ could be representing his heart. There’s things call heartache and heartbreak. And this kid has a LOT to be heartbroken over. He was adopted so he’s probably already feeling lost not knowing what his real family’s like, he’s the only human in a town of monsters, his adopted parents are divorced, his brother's not home anymore, and he has no friends outside maybe Noelle except when he meets Susie and the dark world gang. 

What if Kris pulling out his soul out of his chest symbolizes his escape from all the hurtful emotions he's feeling? What if he's not REALLY ripping out his soul and what we see is just what Kris FEELS like is happening? He feels his 'heart being ripped from his chest'(which is already a real metaphor) and the red eyes and knife could just be metaphors too. Like the red eyes could just mean he's angry and the knife could just mean he feels like he has to defend himself from everyone because of what he's going through. Well what about his crazy smile and his trapped soul in the cage? Well his smile could symbolize him always smiling away the pain he’s feeling, and the cage could symbolize all the hope and love he wants to feel is buried deep down trapped in this cage he feels himself trapped in.

And if you point out the cage and the wagon is always in the game, it could be just a symbol throughout the game. Like maybe Kris feels constantly trapped by his emotions and doesn’t know how to stop carrying it around with him hence the wagon. Because he might feel like he’s dragging his caged weight with him everywhere. And the other thing’s that happen in the animation. Kris looking like he’s being throw outta bed and being forced to throw his soul out like a puppet. Perhaps it symbolizes that Kris feels he has to force himself to do this, to force himself against his better judgement to cage these emotions so avoid anymore pain?

Maybe Im looking to far into this but with Toby Fox anything is possible.

Theory 4: IT’S ALL JUST A NIGHTMARE

Kinda an extension of my third theory but hey, like I said with Toby Fox anything is possible here so us seeing Kris’s nightmare isn’t too far a stretch too.

So here me out. The animation with the soul shows us nighttime with Kris in bed before the soul ripping out thing even happens so what if Kris is having a night mare and in this nightmare, he’s reliving through all the emotions and trauma he’s experiencing? Just some more possible symbolism here, but the part where Kris falls out of bed could possible symbolize that this dream has happened before since’s he’s eerily silent. Maybe he’s had this dream so many times to be barely affected anymore. If so then poor Kris. Again this one doesn’t hold up as much as the other three do but it’s one regardless.

Theory 5: THIS IS JUST A PREVEIW

The whole game’s not done so maybe the end of the first chapter is just a small preview of what WILL happen but HASN’T yet. After all in some games like Bendy And The Ink Machine after every chapter it showed a small preview of what’s to come for the next one. Perhaps Toby was just showing us what was to happen in later chapters to come? 

Well these are my five theories of what’s actually going on in that one scene. Tell me what you guys think of all this?

[kytea]

The True Nature of Deltarune

Deltarune Chapter 1 has been out for over a year now, and being the big UT/DR fan that I am, I’ve been slowly mulling over both games, reading many fan theories and putting together my own interpretation of what I believe the nature and goal of Deltarune will be. This will be a long one so grab some popcorn, put on your matpat hats and click to keep reading!

So what is Deltarune? Is it a sequel to Undertale? Is it a prequel? Is it an alternate universe? Is it the coming of age story of a bunch of teens? Is it a complex meta-narrative on the nature of video games?

The answer is yes to all of the above. And to begin delving into this we must first understand the creator of this game: Toby Fox.

I won’t toot Toby’s Fox’s horn too much, we all know how talented and hardworking he is, but he’s also very emotionally perceptive and empathic. His general disposition is reminiscent of avant-garde artists that push the boundaries of artistic creation in a medium.

Toby loves mysteries, and in the early version of Undertale there was an included file that disparaged hackers and went on to say that it’s difficult to add mysteries in games these days due to data miners and such.

Thankfully, this did not stop Toby from lovingly adding quite a few big mysteries to Undertale that have yet to be resolved. Knowing Toby and his strong desire to share his story, a story that according to him, kept him awake at night:

“For the past 3 years I've been waking up in the middle of the night unable to go back to sleep because I've been thinking about the scenes that happen in the game. Even though so many details are still hazy, I really want to show you the things I've been thinking about.That's really my only reason for making this game. If I don't show you what I'm thinking, I'll lose my mind.“

I don’t believe Toby will let these mysteries go unanswered, and it is here that we can begin to understand what Deltarune is about.

The Mystery of W.D. Gaster

Truly, the biggest mystery of Undertale is that of W.D. Gaster: former royal scientist, creator of the CORE and the Determination Extraction machine.

A player can go through the entirety of Undertale multiple times and never even hear word of Gaster’s existence. This is because all the events that pertain to him are hidden behind a value in the game’s files known as the “FUN value”. Outside of actually manipulating this file manually yourself, it is, to the average player, random. The FUN value can trigger multiple different events throughout the game, some of which include running into “Followers of Gaster” or even Gaster himself.

While the latter has nothing to say before he “boings” out of existence, the former Followers all tell an eerie tale of a scientist who fell into his own creation and was scattered across time and space.

But hold on. Time and space? Why does that sound familiar?

Ah yes, during the Sans battle he speaks about an “massive anomaly in the timespace continuum”.

And during this battle Sans says a lot of other cryptic things without context, for example, he laments not being able to “go back” somewhere. But where or when is he referring to?

He mentions how he and others were monitoring time-lines and their readings showed them stopping and starting, jumping left and right, and eventually ending. Who was he monitoring these readings with? This all seems incredibly scientific and sci-fi, I thought Sans was just a silly skeleton, is he some kind of time cop? (he does have a “badge” in his workshop) He also uses skeletal weapons known as “Gaster Blasters”.

What…? Gaster Blaster?

Okay, now we KNOW Sans DEFINITELY has some connection to this mysterious scientist W.D. Gaster, but what? Well, for starters W.D. Gaster is short for Wing Dings Gaster, a type of font that he also speaks in.

Who else is named after and speaks in specific font types? Sans and Papyrus of course!

Furthermore, in the concept sketches for Papyrus, Toby wrote and redacted parts of a message that says: “has a brother named comic sans and a [BLANK] named [BLANK]”.

Who is this mysterious redacted person and what is their relationship to Sans and Papyrus? The easy money is on a family member, and for sake of argument lets use the prediction most of the fandom has already concluded and accepted: that Sans and Papyrus have a father named Gaster.

So Sans and Papyrus have a long lost father that was a scientist. This explanation would begin to explain why Sans has a weapon named after him, and why he wanted to “go back” to some place or time, perhaps in an effort to save him from his fate.

There’s a hidden event in Undertale where if you reset after listening to Sans speak about LOVE and EXP in a pacifist route, and initiate the conversion a couple of times in a row, he’ll catch on by the expression your face that you’ve heard it before and will surmise that you’re a time traveller and give you secret code words to tell his past self.

This will lead to him giving you the key to his room which ends up just being a prank at first.

But then you find a key to the secret workshop/basement hidden behind his house.

Once you enter the workshop, you’ll find some blueprints written in symbols you can’t read (wing dings?) and a curtain covering a machine that doesn’t seem to be working, among other things.

Toby Fox tweeted a message regarding this machine a few days after Undertale’s release around the time people were figuring out FUN values and the secrets surrounding Sans and Gaster.

“You’ve all seen the happiest outcome. Neither of them could fix the machine, no matter how hard they tried. No one can.”

This tweet seems to imply that if the machine could be fixed that Undertale could have a happier outcome.

And this my friends, is the gateway to the nature of Deltarune.

Deltarune, according to Toby Fox, is a game for players that have completed Undertale. But what does it mean to complete Undertale, and I mean, TRULY complete it? Toby often expressed that he wasn’t happy with how people told others how to play the game, that it is best played completely blind. Having played Undertale blind myself, and having watched others do the same, the natural way the game is meant to progress is that first players will experience the Neutral Ending, followed by the Pacifist Ending, and Finally the Genocide ending. This is because the game cruelly plays against your expectations of how an RPG should work and this almost guarantees that you will kill at least one monster your first play through. As if the fact that the fight button is always the default position in battle isn’t enough, in the early parts of the game you are told that you may need to weaken a monster before you can spare them. This naturally brings to mind the systems of Pokémon, where you have the best chance to catch a Pokémon if it’s at low health. Well, if you try this during the Toriel fight, as most do, you’ll find that as soon as you get close to critical health, you’ll instantly kill her.

Poor goat mama..

Difficulty-wise, the neutral route is the most easy, because you can level up a little and gain more HP. The Pacifist route is a bit harder because your HP is lower, but with the experience you gain from the previous route, it should prove no problem. Finally the Genocide route is the most difficult because it takes a concerted effort that implies knowledge of the previous routes to kill every single monster.

So an ideal Deltarune player has knowledge of all three main routes of Undertale, and may have experienced or heard of Gaster.

Is this player you? If so, ask yourself, what would a “happier outcome” look like to you? And be honest. Many fans in the Undertale community have already answered this question in the form of fanworks. Some of the most common elements among them are as follows:



1) Frisk and all the monsters are free from the Underground and living on the surface with humans.

2) Asriel is revived.

3) Gaster is revived.

4 )Chara is revived.

The revival of Asriel, Chara, and Gaster are the undisputed holy grails in terms of happiest endings that the UT community dreams of and creates endless fan works to explore the possibilities. Toby knows this well.

Using a speech pattern attributed to Gaster, Toby teased the release of Deltarune Chapter 1

“I LOOK FORWARD TO CREATING A NEW FUTURE WITH YOU.” stands out quite a bit to me as the prospect of a “happier outcome” is already tied to Gaster and Sans, now a “new future” is connected.

And when Deltarune released, and fans had a chance to play it, they found:

1) All the monsters are free and living on the surface.

2) Asriel is alive and well and living his best life.

3) A voice with the same speech pattern as Gaster (based on Japanese text) brought you to this world and attempted to give your own vessel before…

4)…a voice with the same speech pattern as Chara (also based on Japanese text) discarded it.

Right off the bat Toby seems to have given fans what they wanted, a perfect future ending. But as you continue to play, you begin to realize that this may not be the world you dreamed of.

First, while all the monsters are living on the surface, they aren’t the same people from Undertale, for example: Undyne has never met Alphys, and the amalgamates that went to live with their families at the end of Undertale are deceased in this world. And while Asriel is alive, it’s not THE Asriel we were so determined to save in Undertale.

Gaster’s presence permeates Deltarune so thoroughly it would take awhile to point out every example, but it seems clear that he’s present in some form.

And Chara? You only need to see the ending cutscene of chapter 1 to know that they are around in a similar fashion as when they possess Frisk in the True Pacifist after a Genocide ending.

But their presence is also present in subtle ways. For example, if you attempt to play the piano in the hospital in Hometown and then speak to the receptionist, she comments that Kris’ playing isn’t the same as usual (Likely due to our control), but it seems that Chara may be good at piano. Interestingly, on the cover artwork for the official Undertale Piano Collection 2 book, Frisk can be seen holding a knife playing a key on a piano in the judgement hall filled with bones.

So for better or worse, what appears to be the original Chara and Gaster from Undertale are present in Deltarune, in some meta form or another. And maybe that’s the key: “Meta-characters”. After all, you yourself as a player are a “Meta-character”. You can ask the inhabitants of this new world questions that only someone with knowledge of a True Pacifist route would have, such as being able to ask Undyne about Alphys. Asking her this only makes sense if you yourself completed a True Pacifist route before playing Deltarune.

Ralsei, the lonely prince.

Toby being the trickster dog he is, he didn’t just give us 1 Asriel and call it a day, no he gave us 2.

Ralsei is quite clearly meant to be a version of Asriel because not only do they have similar or identical dialogues, but he was also was meant to look more like him before Toby decided to give him his Black Mage look.

There are even strong parallels obviously meant to create an emotional response and connect Ralsei to the feelings people had for Asriel in Undertale by giving the players the option to hug him.

Ralsei is quite the mystery on his own. And while he’s most certainly sweet and lovable, there’s undeniably some disconcerting things about him such as:

-Why does he know Kris and Susie’s names?

-Who did he learn the prophecy from? “Foretold by time and space” isn’t a good answer (or is it?).

-What did he say to Kris when the player SOUL wasn’t present in the prison?

-When he’s KO’d in battle, what does he become? Apparently he can still eat to regain HP when in this shrunken form.

Ralsei seemed to be under the impression that violence wasn’t needed in this world, but upon nearly being defeated by the King after mistakenly healing him, Ralsei says “This isn’t a world where kindness always wins, is it?”

The way he says this seems to imply he knows of other worlds and that they have different rules. Perhaps he comes from a world where someone being kind to everyone they met had great results?

There are definitely things that Ralsei is not telling us, whether this means he’s up to no good will remain to be seen, however, I would like to take this opportunity to make a prediction based on the previous understanding that the original Chara and Gaster are present in this new world in meta forms, and assert that Undertale Asriel, the final piece of the perfect ending puzzle is present in Deltarune in his own meta-character form of Ralsei. Perhaps the form he shrinks into when KO’d is one we know well...

There is that unused Flowey face...

Add glasses and a hat and...

but that’s just a game theory!

And I can't help but wonder about the dark heart on Ralsei's chest and this merchandise in the Deltarune section of fangamer that specifically features a quote from Undertale about the prophecy of Delta Rune (that turns out to be about Asriel in the TP ending, and Chara in the Genocide ending) "There is a prophecy. The Angel... The One Who Has Seen The Surface... They will return. And the underground will go empty."

It's also the Deltarune game logo

Because the merchandise is called Darkheart, it made me immediately think of the dark heart on Ralsei's chest, and having an Undertale quote about Asriel/Chara makes it all the more mysterious...

Regardless, in just the first chapter of Deltarune, the elements of the “happier outcome” connected to Sans’ machine are present. But how do they all connect? Well, let’s look at the other characters in Deltarune, starting with:

Lancer

Oh Baby Santa Claus, how we love you so. It’s hard to overlook how similar Lancer is to Sans. They’re both hilarious in their own way, both ride bikes, have similar color-schemes, both have a love for tomato-based products, and both have some scientific/engineering affinity (Sans and his workshop, Lancer and his “Lancer Industries”).

But that’s not all, the door to Sans’ room is identical to the warp doors found in the Dark World that Lancer hails from, and Sans’ warp ability also makes the same sound effect as these doors as well.

Lancer is a member of the FUN gang (remember the FUN value?), that, as far as we know currently, has 3 other members besides himself: Kris, Ralsei, and Susie (with the possibility of Noelle and others in the future).

Speaking of Susie, her name (or a version of it) popped up in Undertale prior to Deltarune’s release when the game was released on the Switch. By speaking to the Gaster Follower “Clamgirl”, you can learn of a girl named “Suzy”, that you will meet her soon, and that “in life’s grand scheme, she might be why you came here in the first place...”

Upon receiving this dialogue, checking the drawers in Sans workshop will reveal a card with a drawing of 3 people smiling and the words “don’t forget”.

“Don’t Forget” is the vocal theme of Deltarune sung by Laura Shigihara, and the melody from the ending verse,“Don’t forget, I’m with you in the dark.”, is leitmotifed throughout the entire Deltarune chapter 1 OST. The connections between Sans, the FUN gang, Gaster, and by extension Undertale and Deltarune are quite apparent. Perhaps the actions of the FUN gang in the Deltarune world will have an affect on the FUN value in Undertale.

Based on all the evidence we have now, I am going to make a bold prediction:

Lancer is literally a younger Sans.

That’s right, Toby Fox made Baby Sans before Disney and Sega made Baby Yoda and Baby Sonic.

Deltarune’s Dark World is the past from the perspective of Sans and Gaster (or a recreation of it). How Lancer becomes Sans will likely be a very large part of Deltarune’s narrative, and once he becomes Sans, he will exist as a separate meta entity that can traverse different worlds, even if versions of himself already exist in some form there (similar to Ralsei and Asriel).

We’ve seen that if characters are exposed to elements that make it clear they live in a video game world, whether this be Determination for humans and Flowey, a time-space accident for Gaster, or a strange man whispering to Jevil, these characters become something wholly different, more powerful, and begin to become more similar to players with the ability to SAVE, RESET, or use abilities that seem beyond the scope of the game (e.g. Photoshop Flowey, Jevil’s ability to speak, etc). Undertale and Deltarune are video games about video games.

So if it is to be believed that Gaster is Sans’ father, and that Lancer is a younger Sans, then it stands to logical reason that whoever Lancer’s father is, that they must be Gaster.

No, not the King, there is another. A “Lesser-dad”.

Yes, Rouxls Kaard.

“GOD DAMNIT”

Rouxls Kaard, or “Rules Card”, or if you rearrange his name “A Dark Soul Rx”, wait, Rx as in prescription? As in a doctor? Dark Soul as in Mr. Darkness Gaster himself? Too much of a stretch? Maybe. Although you can’t deny they have similar appearances.

If Rouxls Kaard is Gaster, and therefore the father of Sans and Papyrus, then he’s undeniably similar to one of his sons. Rouxls Kaard seems to be quite passionate about puzzles, (despite not having a natural predilection to them). I could see Papyrus gaining an affinity for puzzles by being raised by such an individual, they both have quite flamboyant personalities. And let’s not forget that there are also hints that Rouxls Kaard may be inclined to creating scientific devices such as the “Control Crowne” he uses to control K.Round.

Hmm, controlling other people… sounds familiar to what we the player are doing to Kris… and who was it that was initially going to give us control of a vessel before we lost said control to Chara’s intervention? Control seems to play a big part in Deltarune doesn’t it?

Also, isn’t his manner of speech is reminiscent of a silly ye olde knight. Wait, wasn’t there a Knight causing trouble in the Dark World? Hm.

So something is going to turn Lancer and Rouxls Kaard into Sans and Gaster, respectively.

Now remember the CORE that Gaster built? This one?

It turns geothermal energy into magical electricity via an unknown means with one of the byproducts being ozone, which is corrosive and could potentially make someone very melty. This is what it looks like on the inside.

Lots of blues of varying hues with white accents. Kinda reminds me of Rouxls Kaard and the other “card” people’s color schemes.

What a coincidence! Oh and apparently the layout of the CORE can be re-arranged or something:

"I work at the CORE. The inside is a maze made of swappable parts... That means we can shuffle the layout at will." - Hotland NPC

Almost sounds like a sliding puzzle…

Finally, Gaster is referred to as “The man who speaks in hands”, likely due to his Wing Dings font that contains a lot of hand symbols, however, it isn’t a stretch to also apply that epithet to Rouxls Kaard, after all, the Rules Card speaks in hands as well. Hands of cards.

Susie

Can’t forget Susie. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can say about how her role in all this will play yet. If we are to believe that the “Suzy” that Clamgirl references is Susie, then it’s clear that she’ll be key, perhaps as a catalyst for all the big changes some characters will need to undergo...

I will say that I think it’s interesting that toby specifically has a character in Hometown comment that humans are made of blood (and implying the monsters are not),

and Susie says:

“Everybody bleeds, right?”

From our understanding of monsters in Undertale, monsters don’t bleed, they turn to dust. But, maybe Darkners can bleed. If we believe Sans is a Darkner, it may explain this:

It could be ketchup. It could be a Darkner thing. Lancer does mention blood casually. But if only humans and Darkners bleed, then why would a monster like Susie say “everybody bleeds”?

So what is Deltarune you ask? I think it’s:

1) A story about Sans, Papyrus, and Gaster’s past and future. We get to experience their past in the Dark World, and speak with their future selves in the Light World. But these future versions of Sans and Papyrus may not be as far into the future as the Sans and Papyrus we meet in Undertale. Remember, Sans had an Ice-E’s crossword in Undertale? Ice-E’s-P’E’zza is a restaurant in Hometown. Papyrus may also be younger than he was in Undertale because Sans, an adult who runs a grocery store, thinks a teen like Kris should hang with his little brother, and it would be “weird” if he were there with them.

2) A story about post-Undertale Asriel, Chara, and Gaster. Asriel/Flowey maintains his new form as Ralsei thanks to the power of the Dark Fountain. He now lives in what is/was Sans’ childhood home. Whether he knows this or remembers the events of Undertale is unknown, but it is my belief that he holds a deep connection to the Asriel we all wished to save. Chara resides within Kris in a similar manner as they did at the ending of a UT True Pacifist Ending after surrendering the red SOUL to them in a Genocide ending. Does this mean that Kris’s body or “vessel” is Frisk? This seems to be heavily implied by Kris’ outfit taking on the same color scheme as Frisk’s UT shirt while in the Dark World.

3) A coming of age story for a bunch of teens. Kris, Susie, Ralsei, Noelle, Lancer, and all the friends that may join on their adventures are still people regardless of what grand meta narrative is at play involving the nature of their reality. They still need to go to school, fall in love, and worry about growing up and going to university. Noelle will undoubtedly play a large role with Toby’s tease of her as “Lost Girl”, and considering how attached most of the community has already gotten to these characters, it hurts my heart to think about what may befall them as they try their best to live their lives. Does this mean Deltarune’s world is doomed? I hope not... but those save file screens sure are creepypasta...

“IT WAS AS IF IT WAS NEVER THERE AT ALL.”

4) A story about video games and the control (or lack thereof) we have over them. It’s quite clear that we, the player controlling the red soul, is able to influence this new world based on knowledge from Undertale that should have no barring. For example, we can name “Onionsan” who has forgot their own name. One of the options is “Onion”, but why? Is it because we know their name is Onionsan in Undertale? How do we even know if that is actually what this version of them is really named?

Deltarune is so close to the perfect Undertale ending we wanted, but it’s just a little bit wrong. Would it hurt to force Undyne and Alphys to meet and fall in love? To get Toriel and Asgore back together? To make Bratty and Catty friends? If you were given the option in game to do it, would you do it? What if it made their lives worse…? I believe that the fact we are able to influence inhabitants of Deltarune with our Undertale knowledge may have some unforeseen consequences, and perhaps, be what begins this whole situation in the first place. (Paradoxes are the best time travel stories!)

Toby Fox said that Deltarune was the game he originally wanted to make, but whether it was too ambitious or time consuming, his idea evolved into Undertale. Now that he’s creating the game he always wanted to, I believe that he will connect everything we know about them together and resolve the mysteries, after all, Gaster has been waiting for this chance.

And maybe, with a little luck and determination, we can create a new future with a happier outcome. If I’ve learned anything from Undertale, it’s that you must hold on to your hopes and dreams, because dreams are the goal of “Determination.”

[sandian-sherwood-uhle-blog]

DELTARUNE

So, there are plenty of allusions/paralles to Undertale in Deltarune and some easter eggs. I’ve made a list of the ones that I managed to find/catch. I’m pretty sure there are more of them.

1. There is an easter egg with naming your vessel and yourself. Like in Undertale using names of characters from the game will trigger a special dialogue (and like in Undertale naming your vessel or yourself “Gaster” will close the game).

2. When you look through the window in your room there is reference to Sans’ genocide fight.

3. A reference to Tsundere Cactus from Undertale, but in Deltarune it’s just an average cactus.

4. Recognizing yourself in the mirror.

5. Toriel hugs Kris almost the same way she hugs Frisk.

6. Alphys is still a weeaboo obsessed with Mew Mew ^^

7. Temmie still has the EG, but this time she is a partner not a proud parent.

8. If you try using your phone in the Dark World it will start making “Gaster noises”.

9. Ralsei’s cloak resembels the one that River Person wears (could River Person be a Darkner?)

10. Lancer’s bike might be a reference to Sans’ bike from the True Pacifist credit scene.

11. How Ralsei introduces us to the game mechanics is like a combination of both Flowey’s and Toriel’s tutorials. Telling what a soul is and how the fighting works is “Flowey’s part” and usage of Dummy and sparing being a preferable option is “Toriel’s part”.

12. Possibly a parallel to comforting a goatbro (Ralsei is a Goat/Boss Monster and a prince just like Asriel).

13. The shopkeepr hints a secret battle with Jevil in the early stage of the game.

15. The plush that Seam has on a shelf has is a reference to one of the Temmie Chang’s (she helped Toby create Undertale) characters, but I couldn’t find a picture of it.

16. Seam also gives us hints that Jevil knows Gaster. Here’s a video with a full dialogue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PukI_JTyVg

17.  The crown that K. Round wears might be reference to Super Crown, but the way it works is a ref to the big shroom power up. The sound that K. Round makes while growing up and shrinking is very similar to the sound from Mario games.

18. It is surely a reference to Sans’ room door (the weird glow), but it may also have something to do with Gaster’s grey door.

19. The sequence that Lancer and Susie perform is possibly a reference to Team R’s sequence from Pokemon series.

20. Possibly an Undertale Yellow easter egg? (the main charater is named Clover in UT:Y)

21. Even if you got rid of that tree you can still interact with it and get the dialogie box.

22. Lancer misses his attacks on Susie the same way Toriel does that when Frisk has low HP.

23. The theme that plays on floor ?????? inside the Card Castle uses the leitmotif of Gaster’s Theme. (can’t find a link with the theme)

24. A reference to Patrick from cartoon “Spongebob Squarepants”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNZSXnrbs_k

25. Another Pokemon’s reference.

26. You can interact with these pictures, when you interact with all 3 of them they’ll make a splat noise. I’m not sure if it does anything else.

27. Lancer has the same weird pics in his room, you can interact with them too, but they won’t make splat noise. But on the other hand there are CDs with recorded splat noises (the same that 3 previous pics make).

28. She talks about the cake that Susie ate ealier.

29. A missing pixel lmao

30. The cards and chess are references to the enemies from Dark World. There’s also a plushie of Shopkeer Seam under the board.

31. Kris looks similar to unused Frisk sprite.

32. The word “library” is still misspelled.

33. Temmie still wants to go to colleg. That’s the spirit!

34. Apparently Alphys prefers Mew Mew 2 now.

35. Heats Flamesman reference.

36. Just Toby at work.

37. He’s slacking off however.

38. We finally know after which monster Gaster Follower 3 was modeled.

39. Deltarune is definitely a different universe/timeline, cause Undyne doesn’t know Alphys and she still has both eyes. Also Bratty and Catty not only barely know each other, but they hate each other as well (in Undertale they are best friends).

40. On the left - dude who bought Muffet’s donut and regreted that later on, on the right - that weirdo from Napstablook’s snail farm.

41. Police station and Undyne’s house share the same doormat.

42. The big mouth monster that was spending time at Grillby’s, also a possible reference to nurse Joy from Pokemon series.

43. A reference to the absurdly tall sink from skelebros’ house. (also that blue bear might be inspired by 5.0.5 from Villainous)

44. Gerson is dead in Deltarune, also his last name is Boom. The hammer on his tombstone refers to his “nickname from war times” from Undertale - Hammer of Justice.

45. The tombstones of monster who were amalgamates in original Undertale, but since in Deltarune Alphys was never a Royal Scientist, all of this monsters just died. From left to right - Snowdrake’s Mother, the dog (Endogeny), Shyren sister (Lemon Bread).

46. Hand Receptionist from MTT Resort and politics bear from Snowdin.

47. That weird cube-dog-like monster from Sans’ crossword.

48. A reference to Purple Guy from game series FNAF (in Deltarune Burgerpants works at Pizzeria after all, hello?! it must be it xD).

49. A bunny shopkeepr from Snowdin, the guy who works in Core, the Ice Wolf (and he finally has pants as he wanted), Fuku Fire and Skateboard girl (but they already graduated), the lion monster who is a fan of Mettaton and gets a dress from him after his musical, and the dragon dude who couldn’t return to his family cause the elevator at MTT Resort was turned off.

50. Sans’ store is literally Grillby’s bar, but the name “Grillby” was removed and Sans added “ans” to the letter “S”. But he didn’t remove apostrophe. Well done Sans, well done.

51. A reference to Spider-Man, “I’m your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man”. Sans even calls Kris “tiger” which is how MJ calls Peter (I forgot to make a screenshot of it tho).

52. F#ck you Sans xD

53. “trousle of bones” - it obviously refers to Papyrus’ theme Bonetrousle.

54. Little bunny in the window is a child of that bunny monster who runs Snowdin Inn.

55. A monster from Snowdin who loves knocks lives there. And apparently Kris is not as good at knocking as Frisk is.

56. In the alley where you meet Alphys again there is a painting of Everyman (attack of Reaper Bird - one of the amalgamates). You can’t escape from your sins Alphys, even in another universe/timeline.

57. Asgore’s introduction dialogue in Deltarune is literally the same as in Undertale.

58. These flowers are an obvious allusion/parallel to the souls containers. The golden flower in the middle might be representing the empty container for Frisk’s determination soul. If you remember, in Undertale Alphys used a golden flower as a empty vessel to inject determination and that flower became Flowey later on.

59. RG01 and RG02 are still together, and for some reason they are still wearing helmets even tho the Royal Guard is most likely not a thing in Deltarune xD

60. If you wait long enough by the lake Onionsan will appear. He will ask what’s our name and will want to become friends. He also doesn’t remember his own name due to being alone for too long, so we have an option to gave him one.

61. He also might have a dark secret hehe

62. So there is most likely Mettaton, but we have no idea what’s up with Blooky. I’m hoping that in chapter 2 we will find out Mettaton’s canon ghost form and maybe his real name. Also I doubt that in Deltarune Mettaton has machine body, since Alphys never was a Royal Scientist in this universe/timeline.

63. Chara possession much? also a hint to the ending of Deltarune chapter 1

64. After Kris locks his soul in the cage you can still move it, but you can’t escape.

65. The glowing red eyes, Post Genocide Pacifist vibes are strong in this one.

These are all the allusions/parallel and easter eggs I was able to find. I’m sure there are more. Also there are some that I forgot to screenshot such as “characters titles” in party menu change: - Kris has a title of Leader, but if you check all 4 beds in Card Castle he has a title of Bed Inspector - Ralsei title changes after giving him different scarf There’s also at least one Annoying Dog easter egg in the party menu. Not to mention the anagrams: Deltarune - Undertale Ralsei - Asriel So yeah, that’s all folks. Hope you enjoyed, bye!

[argentdandelion]

It’s Okay to Hate Alphys

Or: We All Have Favorite Characters For Different Reasons

In brief: It's impossible for everyone to have the same experiences, preferences and personality. So, when empathy, liking or "relatability" for fictional characters is based on that, it's Okay to Hate Alphys.

Made with the help of interviews from CinnamonAzzy, Cyanidelemonade, Cielenneige, Ihasafandom, The-keeper-of-round-things, Batter-sempai, Flyingwerekitty, Overdoseofdt, Saltedcarrots01, and Strongfish9-1.

Warning: Contains minor angst. The explanation as to why some fans hate Alphys may also be painful to those who identify with Alphys.

Why People Like Alphys

Undyne: "What is like about you is that you're PASSIONATE! You're ANALYTICAL!! It doesn't matter what it is! YOU CARE ABOUT IT!! 100-PERCENT! AT MAXIMUM POWER!"

Many people consider Alphys “likeable” and “relatable”. There’s a lot of overlap between the two, but a character that is “relatable” has similar traits or has been in similar situations to the reader, while being “likeable” can also mean the character embodies traits the reader admires (whether the reader also has those traits or not).

Alphys is not simply shy, but also very anxious. This personality flaw is a big factor on why people think she is "relatable”, as most viewers can recognize anxiety's place in their lives and are closely familiar with it. Her anxiety isn't her only problem: it's heavily implied she has depression and occasionally suicidal thoughts.1 Alphys's flaws are said to make her "realistic", and reflect the viewers themselves if they also have those mental problems. Alphys' general perpetual anxiety contributes to her other traits, too, such as her specific social anxiety, and wanting to please others with her inventions because she otherwise feels useless.

Alphys shares interests with a lot of people on Tumblr; on Tumblr a love of Japanese entertainment is probably more common than, say, stamp-collecting. Indeed, she doesn’t simply like anime, but is absolutely passionate about it; one fan even even calls it a “hyperfixation”. This similarity instantly makes people like her and empathize with her. Adding onto that, she shares particular character flaws with real people.

Meta-textually, one fan enjoyed that she was a woman (read: adult monster that goes by “she”) who was “imperfect” and “allowed to make mistakes”, especially a bi woman with a unique body type (e.g., a hunched-over, chubby dinosaur). The same fan also liked how she was allowed (meta-textually) to be geeky and brilliant, without making her conventionally attractive, and thought how she represented anxiety and depression was really important.

Why People Dislike Alphys

Mettaton CORE Speech: "Alphys has been playing you for a fool the whole time. As she watched you on the screen, she grew attached to your adventure. She desperately wanted to be a part of it. So she decided to insert herself into your story. She reactivated puzzles. She disabled elevators. She enlisted me to torment you. All so she could save you from dangers that didn't exist. All so you would think she's the great person...that she's not."

To other fans of Undertale, the very traits that make Alphys so “relatable” also make it difficult to empathize with her, or even like her.

A big part of Alphys’ character is her persistent high anxiety and low self-esteem. This likely motivates, causes, or contributes to other traits. One fan, despite liking how she gave representation for depression, found it sometimes “difficult to read”, and felt something akin to second-hand embarrassment because of it.

Though Alphys is desperate to have friends, her anxiety and low self-esteem pose big obstacles. (She may very well have imposter syndrome, in fact.) Some find her “clinginess” and desperation to have friends unappealing, or even embarrassing. Alphys was certainly hasty: one fan pointed out she outright took Frisk’s phone and added herself as Frisk’s friend on the Undernet, and the fan disapproved of this. (regardless of what Frisk thought)

To a degree, Alphys is also selfish: she never did anything maliciously and never wanted to hurt anyone, but she did, many times, because she was only thinking about how things would affect her. (e.g., the Amalgamates) One fan even claimed that, for all the good things she did, she didn’t do it out of “the goodness of her heart”. More specifically, she made Mettaton his body, but put off finishing it because she feared Mettaton would leave her when she was done, and though she helped Frisk through Hotland and the CORE, she set up many of the hazards and obstacles herself.

In contrast to Alphys’s apparently anxiety-driven desire to make herself useful to others, some fans find her habit of trying to making herself look better than she really is (despite being a mechanical genius already) unappealing. On a related note, she also lies and deceives, frequently, whether it’s to make herself look like a better, more likable, more competent person or just to avoid facing shame and disapproval. She tried to make herself look better than she really was with a “malfunctioning killer robot” scheme and by bringing up hazards and obstacles for Frisk, just so she could guide them through it and build her friendship with Frisk (as well as just play the hero).2 This was deceptive, as was lying to Asgore about making a robot with a soul and hiding away the Amalgamates from their families.

Though her flaws and passions are said to make her “realistic”, some fans consider her constant anxiety and characteristic anxious stuttering “realistic” in a bad way. Some fans prefer fictional works that omit the bad parts of reality, either because they’re painful reminders or simply because, in the case of stuttering, it’s annoying to have to read out. In fact, there are fans who feel annoyed not because she stutters, but because she stutters unrealistically.

Strangely enough, the very flaws and passions said to make her “realistic” also lead people to deride her for being a walking otaku stereotype. To be specific, she is not merely passionate about anime: she gushes on and on about her favorite anime, covers her room in posters, and collects anime figurines; she is also anxious, practically a shut-in, and eats ramen.3 (Contrast this to Undyne, who also loves anime) One fan, meta-textually, disapproves or dislike Alphys both in-universe and out-of-universe, viewing her as an example of the handsome Toby Fox's misuse of tropes.

Conclusion

Empathy, unlike compassion, requires figuratively “putting oneself in another’s shoes”, and it’s often dependent on whether others have had similar experiences. It could be that some people just have personalities or experiences that are too different from Alphys’ to empathize with her. Indeed, some people who had similar problems to Alphys (e.g., social anxiety, low self-esteem) responded to them differently from Alphys and disapprove of her actions, so even this similarity isn’t enough to identify with her.

Others emphasize with her, but not to the point of identifying with her or finding her "relatable". Some people thought Alphys’s choice of hiding the Amalgamates away was justifiable, or understandable. Other people point out that it wasn’t her fault all the monsters melted together, but still fault her for not disclosing what happened to the monsters’ families sooner.

Alphys is a complex character; her mixture of traits invoke a broad variety of reactions. Some reactions are a simple, “I love Alphys! She’s so relatable!”, or a “I don't really hate Alphys but I don't like her very much” or even a more nuanced “I sympathize with her issues, but she sure executed that poorly”.

Thus, one should remember: while hating a fictional character is harmless, one should always ask why one holds that opinion, and always remember there are consequences to being mean to real "Alphyses" of the world.

If either Mettaton or Undyne are killed in the Neutral endings, she "disappears". In the King Mettaton ending, she's nowhere to be found even though Mettaton certainly looked. If one calls Papyrus near Waterfall's abyss, Undyne will talk about meeting Alphys and haltingly says Alphys stared over the edge while looking “contemplative”. ↩︎

Not that different from Syndrome from The Incredibles making a killer robot just so he can defeat it, actually, though Frisk was never actually in danger. (and other parts of Syndrome's plan aren't like Alphys' at all) ↩︎

Full disclosure: the author of this article also fits some of these parameters, and loves cheap ramen. ↩︎

[secret-time-is-here]

Insomnia Day 3 (Now edited)

Prompt: Together

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3(Here), Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, and Day 7

Constantly being dragged away from each other by their daily lives had started to grow annoying, only able to spend minutes together and the occasional night asleep and cuddling. Relishing in the warmth that would be taken away from them by morning.

After finding out about Dream and Error’s relationship -on accident- Nightmare had gone on a rampage, wrecking several AUs and nearly demolishing everything in his path. Only when Dream got to the scene did he calm down, only to bombard his childhood friend with question after question, growing more understanding of everything as his inquiries were answered.

Since then, Dream had made an effort to make Nightmare included in his life, their team’s rivalry calmly down, but not fully stopping, as they needed to keep the balance in the multiverse in check and all. Destroying a universe here and there, protecting another, leaving the rest alone. Any home bases for either team where to be left alone, they meant OuterTale could be safe- and with that, Error could be too.

Error hadn’t been as preoccupied with Dream, but had been somewhat, adjusting to living like a normal outcode instead of the crazy life he once owned. Dream helping him remember to eat, sleep properly, and just be happy with life. He still did destroy yes, but not as much as he used to, but that didn’t mean Dream had his workload fall, in fact, the opposite happened.

Due to Nightmare’s rampage and the sudden absence of any destroyers, the AUs were in major distress. Dream having to go to help rebuild AUs with Ink and reassure AUs with Blue. Every day was a new wave of distress, and somedays, it made Dream look sick to his core, literally. The positive guardian couldn’t handle all the distress daily and had already fallen ill several times, overworking himself to make everyone happy.

Dream woke up, feeling the symptoms of his body fighting a virus, when the virus was simply negative magic conflicting with his natural positive energy. It was going to be one of those days.

He looked over to his side, seeing Error not in the bed with him. Slowly getting up, he looked around the room and then ventured out, trying to look for his missing lover. He found said love in the kitchen, cooking breakfast.

“Morning,” He called out to Error, startingly the other a bit. The destroyer looked behind him and quickly rushed to Dream, immediately seeing how sick he looked. Without another word, he took Dream back to their bedroom and got him in bed again.

“You shouldn’t be up and moving, Dream.” He spoke, worried to the other’s health, this was written clear across his face as his eyes were lidded, voice soothing -even when glitching- to help Dream fall back asleep.

“The AUs need help-” He countered, trying to back out of bed again, despite his bones and in general body aching. However, before he could even sit up, he was pushed down by Error.

“-and you need help.” He rebutted, moving the hand that had pushed Dream down over to his skull, trying to check Dream’s temperature. It wasn’t hard to guess he had a fever, you could see his magic building upon his forehead, making it look like his blush had gone to the wrong area on his head.

Error sighed and moved his hand once more, moving to start stroking his lover’s cheekbone in a relaxing motion, working to make Dream feel eased. The positive guardian even leaned into the touch, closing his eyes, a “weakness” that he would only ever show to Error. He’s supposed to comfort everyone and take care of them, not the other way around.

Even when he did let Error take care of him, it was on rarity. Only happening when he knew he wouldn’t last long outside the house. Those few times where it happened, Dream understood what it felt to be loved. Truly loved. Not what everyone felt because of his aura, but because it was a true emotion, not brought on by a magic related reason.

“Let me help you, please?” Error coaxed, still trying to control the glitching in his voice. Dream looked to the side, as if silently saying I don’t know, “I’ll call up Ink and Blue, and tell Nightmare you won’t be able to drop by today. Who knows, they all might come to see you. Besides, how could one day off hurt?”

“But the AUs-”

“-will be fine. If it helps, I’ll see if I can get some passive outcodes to help, get core frisk involved if I can. I’ll be with you all day.” His lover still wasn’t convinced, “It’s okay, Dream, give yourself a break for once- you haven’t taken one since- what? Last year?” He tried to joke, making his partner chuckle. Dream acknowledged his head, showing he was going to trust Error to take care of him.

-----

The end of the day finally came, Dream feeling better but not completely well- but, it was a start. The couple sat on the couch together, Error holding Dream in his arms as they watched Undernovela from the couch. The positive guardian and him laying back, allowing Dream to have a wet rag on his skull, letting the magic there cool down and slowly calm his fever.

They were happy.

They were there for each other.

They were together.

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3(Here), Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, and Day 7

Dream and Nightmare belong to @jokublog

Ink belongs to @comyet

Outertale belongs to @outertale

Error belongs to @loverofpiggies

Blue belongs to the undertale community

@errorxdream for hosting the event :)

[eggoreviews]

Top 10 Lamest Game Protagonists

I’ve already taken a good look at the coolest main characters in games, but now it’s time for the flipside; the most lovably bumbling main characters in game history. Those heroes you can still sympathise with, but it’s difficult to get over just how incurably lame they are. Big note, this isn’t an insult to the characters I list, most of them are perfect little eggs. Hope you agree with these characters I’m about to roast!

Spoilers ahead!

10. Sir Daniel Fortesque (MediEvil series)

To be fair to poor Sir Dan, he spends most of his time trying to make up for how medicore he turned out to be in life. Daniel Fortesque went down in history for leading the charge in the Battle of Gallowmere and felling the evil sorcerer Zarok, when in reality he was hit by the first stray arrow while cowering at the back of the horde. But when Zarok came back and started raising the dead, Sir Dan found himself up and walking also, except now he’s a skeleton and he’s missing an eye and a jaw. He can only talk in muffled noises and has to endure the majority of the characters in the game ripping into him for his prior cowardice. So yeah, unfortunately pretty lame, but his low placement is due to his redemption by the end of his story.

9. Frisk (Undertale)

I know what you might be thinking, ‘But Frisk silent the whole time, it’s all the other monsters that are big ol’ lame eggs’, but no, Frisk is just as much. While they’re silent for most of the game, the very few conversation options you’re given as Frisk tell you just how much of a dork they are as they haplessly befriend everyone they come across in the underground, provided you aren’t doing the genocide route (but why would you?). And while you aren’t given too much detail as to who Frisk is and why they chose to climb Mt. Ebott in the first place, it’s clear from the get go that you aren’t playing the strong, silent protagonist in Undertale. Rather the strong, silent dork type.

8. Pathfinder Ryder (Mass Effect Andromeda)

You may be thinking this is an odd choice, but compared to Commander Shepard from the previous Mass Effect titles, Ryder stands as as a cheesy, bumbling mild idiot of a character. Not to say that he’s particularly badly written, it’s just the fact that he tends to blunder through the majority of his dialogue, and the slightly wonky facial animation present in Andromeda doesn’t help his case too well either. Poor old Ryder, he tried his best, but he just turned out a bit too Flash Gordon.

7. Shulk (Xenoblade Chronicles)

I want to make it clear that I love Shulk with every fiber of my being, and having an over the top JRPG protagonist with a strong English accent was honestly a masterstroke. But who, honestly, can take this man seriously? All you have to do is listen to him scream out the name of the attack he’s performing in unabashed enthusiasm or shouting out random meaningless phrases like ‘I’M REALLY FEELING IT’ to get a good impression of just how much of a total dweeb Shulk really is. But hey, I love him for it, so keep doing you Shulk.

6. Rhys / Fiona (Tales from the Borderlands)

Tying in the sixth spot on my list is the dual vault hunters from Telltale’s spinoff of the Borderlands series. And yeah, they’re both completely lovable losers. On a first glance, it would seem like the hapless, slightly incompetent Rhys is the only lame one, with his terrible flirting and endless supply of awful puns. But no, Fiona is just as lame, it’s just that her lameness is so deeply ingrained in her character she hides it quite well beneath her quips and gunplay. The both of them quibble and argue pretty much constantly throughout the game, but what becomes extremely obvious by the end is that they’re both as bad as each other, and Sasha is the only cool one.

5. Chris (Until Dawn)

The funniest thing about Chris as a whole is how the game tries to establish him as the funny one, but in reality, his jokes are bordering on the terrible and he’s a tiny bit of a laughing stock. To his credit, of the eight teenagers trapped on a snowy mountain being hunted by monsters, Chris is surprisingly one of the most capable survivors, as well as being one of the easiest characters to save. But each time you get round to his parts of the story, you’re reminded of just how noticeably lame he is compared to pretty much everyone else. But you can’t fault him for it, it’s good enough for Ashley! Or, you know, Josh.

4. Pit (Kid Icarus Uprising)

Pit is a big ball of positivity and puts up with quite a lot considering his age and his status as a fledgling angel, but that doesn’t change the facts. Pit is arguably the lamest Nintendo protagonist, even beating out Kirby purely because at least Kirby can wield a cool sword if he succs the right enemy. But Pit is a brash, reckless and tiny angel who can’t fly without Palutena’s help. If there’s ever a Kid Icarus sequel, maybe he’ll finally find his feet and manage to get himself off the ground without his favourite goddess, but until then, he stays pretty firmly on this list. At least until his voice drops.

3. Max Caulfield (Life Is Strange)

I’ll admit right now that the vast majority of photography student Max Caulfield’s lame factor is probably down to the writing. Her careless use of words like ‘bizarro’ and the sentence I never wanted to hear ‘Ready for the mosh pit, shakabrah’ establish fairly quickly that Max is a veritable goldmine of lame. She’s a walking edgy art film stereotype, complete with her ‘quirky’ personality and avant garde interests, topping it all off with a polaroid camera, the edgiest accessory ever conceived. Max has a good heart, using her never properly explained, newfound powers to help people wherever she can, whether that be preventing a suicide or saving the life of her future girlfriend Chloe Price, so Max remains a lovable and brilliant character. But oh boy, is she lame.

2. Sora (Kingdom Hearts)

As the protagonist of a franchise that nobody really knows why it exists, Sora acts as the tenuous bridge between the colourful, family-friendly Disney and the edgy, complicated and wonderful mess that is the Final Fantasy series. But Sora, with his intoxicating positivity, overly-dramatic poses and massive clown shoes, defines lame. God I love him, but there is nothing at all about this character that doesn’t make you sigh a bit inwardly, especially when you consider his constant company of Donald and Goofy. The odd blend of Disney and Final Fantasy in the needlessly epic plot spanning 15 years and many games only serve to accentuate how ridiculous Sora is as a character, so that’s why he’s this high. Plus, he’s far too extra to use a sword, he’s gotta wield a massive key instead. I love this spiky boy.

Before I imprint my face into a desk while talking about my top pick, here’s a few that almost made into the Hall of Lame (haha get it I’m funny):

PaRappa the Rapper (PaRappa the Rapper series)

Kid Dracula (Castlevania series)

Diddy Kong (Donkey Kong series)

Olimar (Pikmin series)

You (Duck Hunt)

1. Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog series)

During his inception in the early 90s, Sonic didn’t start out as incredibly lame as he is these days, but what puts him at the top spot is his steady decline into lame territory, which started right about when they started putting him in 3D. Sonic was designed to appeal to the kids of the 1990s and hasn’t evolved at all since, holding the same overly enthusiastic, outdated persona that people either love or hate, in games of varying quality. Everything from his weird anthropomorphic body, his massive eyes, constant shit-eating grin, his strained voice that sounds a bit like he’s always in pain, it all comes together to make this epitome of lame the character hasn’t been able to escape since Sonic Adventure. And it only looks like it’s set to get worse over the horizon with the announcement of a Sonic movie. Most of my love of Sonic comes out of a place of irony, but it’s love nonetheless. May Sega keep milking him until they run out of totally out of place environments to throw him into.

There’s my list! Just to reiterate, this isn’t a post hating these characters, it’s mostly just pointing out aspects of their personality that for one reason or another, put them on the lame radar. Hope you enjoyed, stay hydrated!

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

Deltarune Chapter 2 Had Out Awesome Undertale

on September 21, 2021 I beat Chapter 2 of Deltarune.

(also possible spoilers in this, so please only read this if you have beaten Chapter 2 of Deltarune.) 

it took me maybe a few days, but I finally got around to beating it. I hope no one take this the wrong way, but I think that Deltarune Chapter 2 has out-awesomed Undertale,

I still love Undertale but Deltarune's Chapter 2 is very....epic. (well I think is, and it's okay that not everyone agrees that it is more epic than Undertale.)

sure I had a little trouble here and there, but it turned out to be really fun and I do plan to play Chapter 2 again.

but starting with Chapter 1 first then working up to Chapter 2.

I'm glad I was able to play it, it seems you have to beat Deltarune-Chapter 1 first before you can play the Deltarune Chapter 1&2.

yes at first because I wasn't able to play the Chapter 2 at first, I decided to watch a walkthrough of it.....which I was only able to watch the next day.

but playing it myself was more fun and it really was awesome, it might take a few years (maybe either two or three.) until Chapter 3 comes out,

but it will be worth the wait.

don't know who Mike is though, unless it's Mike from FNAF lol......

can't be the Mike in the Undertale's Credits....must be a different Mike.  

maybe we will learn more about Mike from Deltarune in the future.

also I can't help but think that Kris might be the Knight, and they have this dark side to them and the one that Susie is truly making friends with

is the Player, who is the new "Kris" and keeping the Old-Kris's dark side in check so they don't do anything too dangerous....maybe?

I believe I know why I am not able to play Undertale Fan Game, Kissy Cutie.

it might have to do with it being how I couldn't play Deltarune Chapter 1&2, until I beat Deltarune Chapter 1 in the original.

it was a new save in the original, so it was good that beat that and then tried to open up the Deltarune Chapter 1&2 again.

and to my surprise the game started to play without that blue pop-up message.

I'm not sure if it is right, that the Kissy Cutie game will start to play normal after you beat the Undertale and get the happy ending.

but I guess I could try to see if that works.

I need to say this about Noelle from Deltarune..........

the whole Yandere-Noelle might be canon.....

just like how the Pie that Kris eats is canon, so must be the Yandere-Noelle.

also I think Catti either loves Noelle as just a friend or she might have a crush on her and sees Susie as a rival.

my headcanon is that Catti has a crush on Noelle and she sees Susie as her rival.

I don't know how many players have scooted Lancer to the table after he got turned to stone....

I do not know if Lancer ate the spaghetti or not, but I know when I did go back to that room (before facing Queen)......

the spaghetti was gone, and the stone Lancer was still at the table too.

there is a reason why I think Yandere-Noelle is canon......but maybe not as deadly.....unless we end up going down a Geno-Route.

I really hope to go down the Weird Route, Weird Route For Life.

Weirdness Is Magic!

I plan to play the Deltarune Chapter 1 & 2 version from the very beginning,

and work my way back to Chapter 2.

also while playing Undertale, I got this theory that pop into my head

that the two figures that Frisk and Alphys see when they are about ready to go face Mettaton.

my theory is that the two shadow figures they first see, aren’t the monsters that Frisk faces....

but it turning out to be Kris and Susie, who’s adventure might be in the Undertale Chapter of Deltarune......I guess that theory might be a bit crazy

and it is not likely to happen.

but I think there could be a possibility of Undertale appearing in Deltarune,

as a future Chapter, and there being a side story within the Undertale Chapter within Deltarune, and in the Undertale Chapter we do not have control of Frisk.

but we still hold some control over Kris, and it could turn out that in the Undertale Chapter, Frisk is on their Geno-Run and this time it isn’t the Player that is making them do it.....because in that Chapter we aren’t in control of Frisk and Chara isn’t either.

I do have a theory that the Red Soul in Frisk, is NOT Chara or even Frisk.

the Red Soul powering the underground that you can find in the True Lab when you are turning on the power on that generator thing.

if you look closely you will see there is a red type heart in the middle,

which might be Chara’s Soul, and if we do a Geno-Run in might be possible that Chara’s Soul will find a way to talk to us by some form of Soul Telepathic Link.

Chara ending up appearing in Frisk’s mind and speaking to us through the dark mind space in Frisk’s mind.

and the Red Soul that is seen in the Undertale game, the one that can be seen in the fights.......was never Frisk’s Soul.

the Red Soul is the Player, this means that the Red Soul in Deltarune

is also the Red Soul from Undertale and they are both the Players.

if this is true that would mean without the players,

Frisk in the canon of Undertale, is Soulless.

if we think about it, Frisk would have their own Soul in the Fanon AU.

it might be possible that Kris, when not having the Red Soul/Player’s Soul in them.

they are not as they appear to be, yes they could come off as a bit mischievous.

like with the whole eating all the pie

but what if there is a more darker side to Kris, and what if it turned out there was another Soul controlling Kris and they are the ones that rip out our Soul out from Kris?

remember what Asriel said before in Undertale,

when both he and Chara shared a body, the control over the body was split between them.   

it’s possible that Kris has more than one soul in them,

one being their own, the second being the one who acts as a villain,

and the third being us the players.

and if we decide to kill any one in the Deltarune Chapters

(or at least try to....)

then that might give the second soul controlling Kris even more control.

or not.....it could be that Kris only has two souls in them,

their soul and the Player’s soul.

I do have a theory that Kris might be the Knight,

well either them or Papyrus or Gaster or Asriel.

anyone of those four could be the Knight.

but the top suspect of being the Knight now, is Kris.

and this is thanks to what I have seen in Chapter 2,

both watching the walkthrough and even playing it myself.

it might be possible when we do take over Kris’s body,

we end up freeing Kris from another soul that might be the Knight.

it be interesting if when the choices pop up,

they come in two different colors to show which ones is what the Player would pick or Kris would pick.

the Player could end up choosing to pick what Kris wants,

or the Player could end up picking the the choice that isn’t the color that shows to be what Kris would want.

the color of the choices would be a Turquoise (Kris)

and Red (Player)

depending on the Player, we could choose to go with just the red color choices

or the turquoise color choices, if we choose the turquoise color choices

it can mean we value Kris’s opinion and want to show that their choices matter.

it be interesting if they add that in a future chapter.

  I'm thinking of changing my tumblr name again, even if it hasn't been that long since I had changed my first tumblr username...

but I still want to put down my original tumblr name on any new drawings I post on tumblr, just to be safe and so there will be no misunderstandings.

I still want my Tumblr to be about a Deltarune-Flowey The Flower,

so even if I do change my tumblr username to something that isn't "Flowey"

I still want to be Flowey The Flower type.....as well as a Crossover.

and if I do decided to change my tumblr username for the second time.

going from floweytheflower-of-deltarune to [redacted]

I will have to edit the last drawing post I had put up that had floweytheflower-of-deltarune on it.

I will keep thinking about it.

but anyway the Chapter 2 of Deltarune was really REALLY awesome.

and it does seem to be a bit more epic than Undertale.

which once again I still love Undertale, but Chapter 2 has out did it.

for some reason Queen reminds me of White Diamond.

I do have a theory about Susie,

that either one she is a orphan or two she comes from a abusive home

and one or both of her parents might treat her badly.

and she let’s out her anger by bullying others

and the reason why she eats chalk and the other stuff she shouldn’t.

is because she isn’t getting enough to eat at home and might be malnourished.

Susie might also not be only child, she might be a older sister or younger sister.

and her bond with Lancer, taking up the Big Sister Role to him.

might show she has a Protective Big Sister side to her.

it might be possible that she gives half of her food to her younger sibling

and Susie doesn’t eat much at home because of how her parents treat both her and her little sibling.

if it is true that Susie has a younger sibling, it might be possible that Susie’s younger sibling is in Toriel’s class.

and given some info in the Chapter 2,

we might know the bio-gender of Susie’s sibling.

which if you read what I wrote on top about not reading this unless you beaten Chapter 2....

I can say now, that it is possible that Susie might have a little sister.

and the little sister might be in Toriel’s class.

I did do a drawing of what I think Susie’s little sister might look like.

as well as what Susie’s Mom might look like too.

but I don’t want to post them just yet.

it be cute if Susie’s little sister appeared in a future chapter

and once meeting Noelle, Berdly and Kris.

the little sister tells them “you can’t have my big sis! big sis is mine!”

of course Noelle might find this really precious, maybe it will remind her how much she loved her older sister when she was Susie’s little sister’s age.

speaking of Noelle’s sister, I did draw up a ship drawing between her and Deltarune’s Asriel.

if both the Holiday and Dreemurr families are both Boss Monsters

then I hope they reveal that in a future chapter.

it might be possible that both the Dreemurr and Holiday families

come from a Royal heritage,

if this is true that would make Noelle technically a Princess.  

I’m calling Fan Headcanon on that theory.

also it is pretty obvious that Yandere Noelle is canon.

because of what we see in Chapter 2.

it might be possible that Kris has three souls in them,

one being theirs, the other being the Player and the other being possibly the Knight.

Kris’s true soul might be Turquoise blue type color.

what trait a Turquoise Soul is, well maybe it will be hinted in the game.

I really love Chapter 2 of Deltarune, and I know that Chapter 3 will be worth the wait.

and if Sans was hinting in Chapter 2 about Chapter 3, we might see it in a few years....then again I could be wrong about Sans hinting.

sadly we didn’t get to meet Papyrus in Chapter 2,

but we just have to be patient.   

I think that besides the Players choices mattering in the game,

I think Kris’s choices should matter too.

so when the choices do pop up, they should come in Red for the Player

and Turquoise for Kris.

if we choose the turquoise color choices, it is still gonna be Kris’s choice

as it shows we are picking what Kris wants.

it be interesting if that happens.

also I would still like to know who Mike is that is mention in Chapter 2.

it might not be the one that is in the credits, so it has to be a different Mike all together, but who they are is unknown.

I hope some of you agree that the choices of the Player and Kris,

should be in Red and Turquoise.

we might be the Red Soul in both Undertale and Deltarune,

but we should try to look at it being in a symbiotic relationship.

where we make sure to keep Kris and their friends safe,

and try to fight off the other soul that had control of them before we came into their lives in Chapter 1.

also it might be possible that while both Undertale and Deltarune are two different timelines and AUs of each other.

it could be possible that before the start of those two games,

one could travel between if he machine that allowed it was turned on.

the Sans from Deltarune, might of came from a non-stop Geno Route Timeline

and had no other choice but to take both himself, his brother and other survivors to the Deltarune Timeline where they would be safe from Frisk.

I and a lot of other fans might believe this to be canon, and it would make sense given the evidence of the former Grilby’s turned into convenience store.

like what if in a future Chapter that is called “Undertale: Geno-Route”

it shows the world that Sans and his brother came from

and Sans ends up telling Kris, Susie and the others that he had to leave because it was becoming too dangerous and he didn’t want to watch his brother die again by the hands of the human named Frisk.

the Frisk that we the Players make to be more innocent and being full of love.

might be different from the Frisk that is in the canon of the game

and who knows how Frisk was before we the Player’s taken control of them.

but we do know that the Red Soul in Deltarune, could be the same one in Undertale, which would mean that we the Players are the Red Soul.

and while Kris could of had their own Turquoise Soul before we came into the picture.

and Chara could have the same color Red Soul as the Player,

which is being used to power the underground.

it could turn out that Frisk in the canon of Undertale,

is Soulless and is only given a Soul that belongs to the Player....

so Flowey might be right about Frisk’s Soul not being theirs.

I am glad I finally figured out why I couldn’t seem to play Deltarune Chapter 1&2 at first, it had to do with not beating the new save I had that had to do with the first Deltarune Chapter 1 before the version that had Chapters 1 and 2 came out.

if you beat the first version, then when you click on the new Deltarune Chapters 1&2, the blue popup message wont show up and the game will run normally.

so it’s best to keep the original Deltarune download.

[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.

[infjarts]

The Ninjagotale comic has been discontinued

This is not early April Fools. It is unfortunately the reality of the situation right now. Let me explain (synopsis of the story also under the cut).

There are several reasons that I am discontinuing the comic.

1. I can't get myself to do the next page. I just... can’t. Its not that I don’t want to get it out. I just lack the motivation once I open the file on my computer.

2. I feel like it’s not original enough. I can't call it my own. I got the idea from someone else (with their permission), and I know there are at least 3 more interpretations out there.

3. I want to dedicate the spare time I have to Insanity Brothers. Its a story that didn’t exist before, there's only one. And I’m far more excited about it.

4. Ninjagotale doesn't need to have anything to do with Ninjago anymore. That’s not what its about anymore. Its about the struggle between Yellow and the Chara of the world. The fact that the characters are all from Ninjago doesn't impact the story at all. Their personalities are the same as in Undertale, the rules are pretty much the same, it’s not that different. It can just be an Undertale AT with the regular characters and an entity that is chasing Yellow around, trying to get rid of them.

5. I am going through an extremely hard time right now. My brother has become emotionally and verbally abusive to the entire family and I need to get something off of my plate to deal with all of the stress of that.

I think I need to rethink the world and turn it into its own Undertale AU where it’s the same characters of Undertale except for Yellow. Yellow is very much their own thing. I also think what I’ll do is make it a concept/story that I continue to make content for, just not an actual comic. So I’ll release the story synopsis, everything, and I might make new designs and an illustration or joke comic or two, but not an official comic or fic.

Alright. Here’s the story that was going to happen.

Yellow has an actual name: Rhynn. Rhynn is the “Reindeer” child mentioned in the discord.

They were a kid from another AU whose creator was going to destroy it. Their parents were scientists post-pacifist route who worked with Sans on the surface studying the anomaly, and they discovered their world was about to be destroyed. So they sent Rhynn into the multiverse to settle in an empty world so that their world would build back up around them. But something went wrong, and their code broke apart and rearranged itself into a virus that can use anyone as a vessel as long as they have their soul. This virus then traveled between Universes, feeding off of the destruction they left in their place. Here is a little thing I made practicing gender neutral hairstyles that actually is concept art of Rhynn’s past vessels. It gives you an idea of what their stage one form is:

Rhynn’s stage 2 form is when they have a vessel but aren’t concealing themselves. It varies according to just how much they want to reveal. It can be anything between this:

and this:

The creature behind Frisk!Rhynn here is their true form:

The Overlord is not a virus, but a super powerful antivirus software trying to destroy the Rhynn virus.

Fast forward a thousand years of destroying things to Ninjagotale. The Frisk of the AU is about to fall into the Underground for the first time, but Rhynn intervenes and kills them, taking over their soul and body before they gain the ability to save and load. They then play Undertale normally, intending to reach the surface and spread destruction there. 

However, the Overlord antivirus finds the Rhynn virus when Rhynn tells Lloyd/Asriel their true name. To throw the Overlord off, Rhynn swaps the AU and resets to “refresh” and activate the new code. 

Hence we now have Ninjagoswap. Rhynn and Morro travel through the Underground, only to discover there is already a Morro/swap!Chara going through the Underground, doing a genocide route because he and much of the underground have been affected by the Overlord’s presence. 

Morro, now the “fallen child” with a ghost Rhynn following them, hurries to Kai/swap!Papyrus to warn him about the murderous human. Kai joins them in hurrying to prevent Cole/swap!Sans from being killed, and they arrive, only to find swap!Morro already there. Instead of killing Cole, however, he uses his knife to corrupt him as well. Hence this illustration:

Kai knows he can’t win, so the good guys retreat. Swap!Morro and Cole then move through the Underground, corrupting everything. When they reach Jay/swap!Alphys, Cole easily overpowers him and corrupts him as well.

Meanwhile, Kai and Morro head to Nya/swap!Undyne’s lab to find her crying over Jay, having seen everything on the cameras. Nya agrees to help them, and builds the technoblades. They will have to enter the digiverse/void and use them to destroy the Overlord. Remember, they still don’t know that Rhynn is the true villain, so they’re all just going by what Morro relays to them from Rhynn.

Suddenly Jay, Cole, and swap!Morro all barge in and attack. Nya and the amalgamates hold them back while Rhynn creates a new save file, and this time they turn it into a fell world. They escape just before the corruption is too much and the world collapses. But unbeknownst to everyone else, the Overlord saves Cole just in time and brings him to the digiverse. 

The Overlord tells Cole the truth and makes him his right hand. Cole asks if they have to kill his brother, because he still cares about Kai. The Overlord says if he manages to bring Kai to their side, he can be spared. Cole makes a vow to save his brother.

Meanwhile in Ninjagofell, Morro and Rhynn have switched places again since they’re not in a swap world anymore. Kai goes off to mourn for his brother by himself, so while he’s gone, Rhynn takes the opportunity to think about what to do next. They figure once they’re in the digiverse, they will be able to break rules enough to make Morro physical. So they have three people, but four technoblades. So they decide that they need Lloyd/Asriel because a god-like being would be a nice thing to have. But in order to do that you’d need seven human souls, and there are only six here, Morro points out. But Rhynn disagrees. Because Frisk has fallen down at this point. 

Morro realizes what they are about to do, and they try to argue against it, but as a ghost, they can’t do much else. He watches helplessly as Rhynn steals the six captured souls and goes to find Frisk. They encounter them and Lolley as they are leaving the ruins and entering snowdin forest.

They access the code and rob Frisk of their control of the save file. Without having to worry about Frisk respawning, they kill them and take their soul. They then tell Lolley that they have seven souls now, and they need him to turn into Asriel to help them save the world. Lolley is too scared, so Rhynn changes the code again so that everyone forgets Frisk existed, and Lolley then complies.

Lloyd, Kai, Morro and Rhynn then head to fell!Cole to get him to help them enter the digiverse. They do, and upon entering, they turn Morro corporeal. Kai decides he’s had enough of following this suspicious child around and demands answers. Instead of telling him everything, Rhynn corrupts Kai and makes him a pawn of their own. Unlike the overlord’s corruption, the influence is less suggestion and more force by inflicting pain on the victim to get them to comply.

With the other three in tow, Rhynn makes their way through the digiverse, which is basically the Underground but looks like the digiverse from Rebooted. They arrive at Judgement hall, the Overlord’s lair, and try to use the technoblades to wipe him out, but it only forces him out of the code and he becomes a giant dragon. Cole suddenly appears and corrupts Lloyd. Three fights break out at once, Kai vs. Cole, Morro vs. Lloyd, and Rhynn vs. the Overlord.

Kai is eventually knocked to the ground by Cole, and Cole starts to reason with him. We have this scene:

Cole corrupts Kai. Realizing they are losing, Rhynn turns into their stage two form. This allows them enough power to defeat the Overlord, releasing all those under his influence. They then say that they no longer need the others and can now dispose of them. Morro then engages Rhynn in a fight. Hence we have the private version of this illustration, where you can see Rhynn in Morro’s blade:

The fight then goes into a stage 3 in a separate dimension when Rhynn turns into their true form. Eventually Morro beats them, and suddenly... pre-virus!Rhynn appears, cleansed of the virus. They then thank Morro and tell him that they will fix the code and send them all back to the original Ninjagotale timeline. This scene then happens:

...They give Morro their stolen soul from Frisk. Now Morro can stay corporeal without the need for a host. With a final goodbye, Rhynn fixes the code and sends Morro and the others back. Without a soul or a vessel, they then disappear and finally gain the peace they were robbed of so long ago.

The story ends with Lloyd using his seven human souls to break the barrier in Ninjagotale. The monsters are then freed without the presence of a Frisk. swap!Kai and Cole go to live with classic!Kai and Cole (swap!Kai may or may not be introduced to Skylor/Grillby by classic!Cole) and Morro and Lloyd go to live with Misako. 

And that’s the end of it. I may release more about the reconstruction of it later, like redesigns and little content snippets like blurb comics and illustrations, and explanations of other ending ideas, but that’s about it. I’m sorry for disappointing you all. I hope you all can understand about the circumstances, and I hope you stick around for more Insanity Brothers. It’ll be an animatic series, so I’m real excited for it! 

Love, Piper