#reflect!gaster

[n4rval]

BUT YES.

family history.

[sysig]

A very normal scientist doing very normal gene splicing experiments (Patreon)

[gasterofficial]

hi guys i think roleplaying as gaster from hit indie game undertale on tumblr dot com has made me realize i am nonbinary . do we NEED any more proof of gaster's nonbinary slay

[purplebehittindifferent]

I currently have so much inspiration but my hands refuse to work- I squeezed a single panel out of my SOUL for my DR comic.

So yes- here is a little sneak peek into the future if it will tie you over until the next release-

[sin-multiverse]

If Gen is scared of themselves, how would they react if they see themselves in the mirror?

Great question! Well canonly she would attack the mirror if she feels confident enough, if not she would.. lets say its like a phobia for now, she isnt used to her being that and she has gone thro more then one genocide route, she knows that smile pretty well thats also a reason she is afraid, she would probably fall on the floor and get away from it basicly :>!!

[lynxgriffin]

Some Self Reflection

A short follow-up to the previous Deal With The Devil comic. Basically, while I was working on that one, I got to thinking…

“Okay, so Kris gives Gaster their soul in exchange for being possessed by the player. What would Gaster even do with it?”

“.....”

“OHHHHH shhhhiiiiii–”

Extra bonus ending: Susie drops back in and completely ruins the mood.

[zarla-s]

Hi. Wanted to ask you about"you will never leave here not in the way that matters" thing. Is it purely in the physical sence (like that ink blob will find Gaster everywhere)?

It's primarily in an emotional sense! It works on several levels actually.

The goopmonster has been inflicting torture on Gaster that he feels like he deserves and thus doesn't try to escape for the most part - this is also why it says "and you thought I was what was keeping you here?" in a mocking way. Gaster willingly tries to go back to it, which the goopmonster also mocks him about by going "if you insist" to him. In essence, he'll never escape his self-loathing, or the feeling that he deserves to be tortured for everything that he's done (or didn't do), or the trauma of the entire experience of being erased and tortured eternally/instantly. He can't escape the damage he's endured and inflicted - in some way he will always carry it with him, much like how the black void drips out of his scars on the surface.

But, this and the monster are a reflection of Gaster's pessimistic worldview and his general lack of hope. Trauma, how people react to it and how people overcome and learn to live with it, is the major theme of Handplates. People can't "leave" their trauma entirely behind, so to speak, but they can grow, live, love, be happy, and hope, even while bearing its scars. It's not the be-all end-all of their lives, and it doesn't have to be all of Gaster's life. That was part of why Papyrus was so insistent that Gaster try to leave - try to move on - from what he'd done and what he'd been through to try and build a better life.

It comes up again later, when Gaster is on the surface, where he says that it's hard for him to believe that they're free and that it won't be taken away from him again, residual fear from what he went through during the War. Essentially, PTSD. It's then that he gets some perspective on what the goopmonster said to him - you'll never leave here, not in a way that matters. Even if he leaves the void, his damage will come with him. Even when he has everything he wanted, he can't feel safe. He can't feel peace. He can't escape it.

But of course, right after that, Asgore suggests ways he can deal with it, ways he can learn how to handle it and live with it, and he goes with him to do so. He gets books about how to live and deal with trauma and PTSD, he reads them and works on it. He tries, like he promised Papyrus he would. He can't erase what happened, he can't "leave" it, but he can still work to make a better life for himself and work to be a better person for the people around him. Those scars are part of him and his world, but they're only part of it.

It does also work on a more literal level - Gaster can never entirely leave there because he's not entirely put together. Pieces of him are still missing and still scattered across the void, parts of him he can't get back or understand or possibly even recognize as himself anymore (part of the makeup of the goopmonster itself? perhaps :3).

It also applies on a meta level with Gaster being the panel borders, which disappear when they're in the void. That blackness will always be there just by its nature, defining time and space by the panels and gutters (well... lack of gutters...). So Gaster can never leave the void because he is the void, to an extent, and he can never escape his fall into it or even his way out of it because his being encompasses the panels that define the entire function of time for the comic's reality. He's in a perpetual state of eternity and instantaneous, present for every moment of the comic from beginning to end but unable to change it or understand what it is he's doing or even is. Panels define time and space for a comic, but that time is an illusion, under the control and imagination of the reader.

He tries to describe this a few times to others but it's very difficult since he doesn't understand that what he's in is a comic, he can't comprehend that perspective or that that's what he's seeing. Being in a game seems like the more logical conclusion, even if that still has holes. But anyway.

[deltaruminations]

i think one of the most telling examples of how we’ve been influenced to think about gaster is that if we say no to him after he asks if we want to continue after a chapter 1 game over, we’ll proceed to hear the absolute gentlest most heartbroken fucking unaccompanied piano arrangement of gaster’s motif any of us has ever heard and we’ll still be like "huh wonder why THAT’S there."

it’s because he’s sad!!! he’s fucking sad!!! this is the sound of an incorporeal man holding back metaphysical tears!!! WHY would the game have us linger here at a black screen instead of immediately going back to the menu like a normal RPG would? because it wants us to have this quiet moment in the dark with him, to finally catch him in a moment that’s raw and deeply vulnerable and unmarred by either cryptic mythologizing or his own mask of confident, neutral professionalism, just a black screen and a tender, melancholic song. and then he closes the fucking game himself.

it’s like, after narrating our ending, he just can’t think of anything else to say. he doesn’t want to tell us to go away because he probably doesn’t want us to, we’re both his last hope for success and the only person he’s been able to "connect" with in a very long time. he just sits there awkwardly with us while he quietly processes the situation, before he finally accepts that this is the world’s (and his) fate and he can’t force us to stay there with him any longer.

again im not trying to woobify him, what im saying is that we’re so used to seeking out spooky, vaguely sinister lore for an extraplanar entity that even when we finally meet him, it doesn’t occur to us that he could just be another character, one who’s VERY different from the other characters but a character nonetheless.

gaster is fundamentally cryptic and ambiguous, possibly in part because he intends to be hard to read. i think he hides himself between layers and behind clinical speech and trees because he’s uncomfortable with being seen, but he isn’t a perfect rational being, he’s just a guy, and he can’t connect with us without risking "pieces" of himself seeping through. just as undertale challenged us to hunt through it for pieces of gaster’s lore, deltarune is now going out of its way to give us insight into his character, but just as with his lore, we have to seek it out and consider it carefully in order to learn anything. like do you understand why im suddenly so obsessed with this guy!!! not to mention all the ways he parallels kris and chara and alphys and serves as a reflection of the player and. god. i love these fucking video james so much

[dimeadozencows]

-SPOILERS FOR SLAY THE PRINCESS-

-GO PLAY IT / WATCH A PLAYTHROUGH. ITS SO GOOD-

@mr---person

I did misinterpret what you meant! :’)) I looked at it way too literally lol. Now that you mention it, their circumstances are super similar- you put it way better than i can, but through my watches of the different routes i collected moments that made me think of gaster; (i didn't know where to put them in my last post)

The princess saying that the narrator used to be a person, but now he’s more of an echo immediately made me think of gaster- not alive, but not quite dead. actions reflecting on the walls of reality, mildly affecting it, after the person who performed them is long gone.

And also this line from the narrator himself:

The tragic isolation and the dejected care and hope, gosh i love characters like them so much skdhfks,,,

I imagine their conversations would be a bit more serious and somber than the typical silliness of the other “omnipresent friends” comics i made, but Gaster would try to comfort The Narrator about the unfortunate place in reality they share, maybe even get him to see it the way he does. As a sort of blessing in disguise.

Also wingdings,,, wing,,, bird,,,,, crow,,,, i think giving me a keyboard and a brain was a mistake

Gosh now that you bring up how gaster seems to be sort of uncaring towards Darkners- idk if he truly doesn't care for them (since there’s still a chance that he took away our ability to kill in the dark world) but he’s certainly on the side of light- and now i'm wondering about his stance on what truly is alive in the world of Deltarune- aaaaaaaa

Anyway, these two solitary gods of their own making are now friends. Gaster tries to give the narrator an egg as a gift but the narrator can just lay his own

[n4rval]

your gaster looks very friendly. i would pat him on the head but im too short

i know what you want anon dnw i got u

[elizakai]

When it comes to the bad sanses, there’s so many things to be explored, but I want to point out something I never see addressed

SOULS.

⬇️ little soul analysis under the cut!!!⬇️

They all have COMPLETELY different SOULs;

Nightmare: Nightmare is a being that is a lot different from other monsters. He is basically a god, with a SOUL that holds great importance in relation to the multiverse they all live in, it’s an embodiment of negativity and corruption. Not to mention, Nightmare originally HAD no SOUL (same as Dream, as their entire body was magic, more so than normal, thus essentially being their SOUL) and this is a result of absorbing/ becoming the multiverse’s negativity.

Killer: Killer’s SOUL has been mutilated and twisted out of shape, it visibly and by nature is a “corrupted” SOUL. His very being was brutally and forcefully shifted, starting with his mind and ending with his very core, his SOUL. It being out in the open and, well, a literal target, makes me assume this is a weak point. I am under the assumption that SOULs are a very touchy topic for this man.

Cross: Cross had a SOUL that could be assumed normal, but he is also a creation of X!gaster. (I didn’t represent his actual SOUL oops) he has been shown to be out of the norm in terms of his existence/SOUL. To take it a step further, when he is fused with the soul of Chara,human and DETERMINATION, he only posses half of a monster SOUL. Either way his essence is very much different then that of “natural” monsters, I think it’s pretty self explanatory

Horror: this one can go two ways. A lot of horrortale fans interpret horrors eye, his source of magic, a representation of his SOUL. It makes a lot of sense within the comic and story. Thus we could obviously see that an eye and a SOUL are very different. However it could be argued that “source of magic” and “essence of being” aren’t the same. A lot of the fandom also interprets horrors SOUL separately, and a fair assumption is made that his SOUL is either shrunken or sickly in appearance in this case. This makes sense due to horrors lack of/small amount of magic, his body learning to regulate itself without proper nutrients to keep his magic going.

Dust: Dust has the most natural monster SOUL of the group. We can assume that monsters who have attained high LV, such as Dust, also have altered SOULs, especially when we consider how violence is out of a monsters default nature. That said, monsters are ABLE to gain LV, so it isn’t some anomaly. One could also consider Dust attaining “new traits” to affect his soul. What I mean is it can be interpreted that, Dust having lost JUSTICE and gained DETERMINATION, along with the usual PATIENCE (supposed to be cyan lol) , his soul would probably also reflect these changes. We can call into question how much DETERMINATION Dust actually possess? Is it dangerous? Again, it still doesn’t alter his actual MONSTER SOUL much

(I’d also like to point out, I think it’s cool that red (DT) and blue (patience) make purple (perseverance) which is the color of dust’s magic…I think it’s interesting 🤷🏽‍♀️)

They probably wouldn’t know what to make of the others SOULs, as they are all so drastically different. If something were to happen to one of them…would they even know what to do?

(yeah I’m forcing my story ideas down your throats because headcanons)

All that to say, I’m interested to hear other people’s thoughts or headcanons on this, and I want to see more of this explored!!!

SHARE ANY THOUGHTS YOU HAVE ALRIGHT THAT’S ALL

[jimekas]

Wrong reflection

An idea I had yesterday but didn't have the energy to do until today XD Papyrus and Mystery Man(/Gaster?) both have a smaller-sized eye but not on the same side, like a reflection of each other (which gave me the idea)

Maybe I'll do a cleaner version of it someday, for now have this ^^

[purplebehittindifferent]

Can you tell us a bedtime story?

Alright get all tucked in I’m gonna tell you where Vivi is rn-

—————————

She sat with a few seconds of peace, as the dark void above the towering walls of the labrynth shifted in and out of focus.

“I can’t believe we forgot about the princes pacify”

“We’ve spent YEARS planning this how could we have let them get away!!!!??”

“Whose idea was it to be so near to the soul?! We gave them all the TP they needed!”

“It was everyone’s idea!”

“Stupid!”

She sat up, groaning as she shifted her hair out of her face

“We will have a chance to retry”

“IF they perish! We have no idea if they will!”

They looked at the fountain

“Don’t even hope. There’s no way Gaster will ever let them fall into this mess again”

“They have one chance. We blew ours.”

They sighed

“Do you think, maybe when this is all over, they’ll come back for us?”

“Ha!”

“PFFF no way in hell.”

“Why not? They took everyone from the last world’s home!”

“They SPARED everyone else, they just ran from us…”

“… I would have run too.”

“I hate you all” she spat, stumbling to her feet

“Trust me it’s mutual”

“Yeah fuck you-“

“Even if they did come back for us there’s no way to be free”

“…”

“…pfft- HA! AHAHAHAHAAHAAhahaah- I CANT BELIEVE WE EVEN HAD HOPE”

“better than the salesman how pathetic”

“We should go after them- they can’t have gone far”

“Just give up already, it’s over.”

“It- it can’t be over!”

“SHUT UP- we knew this was coming!”

“We don’t even deserve a happy ending”

“At the rate the players going, I don’t think anybody will.”

“They might be able to find Kris’ soul- we know the doctor has it”

“Yeah but where’d he put it? He hardly ever leaves something of such use to waste away in some corner-“

Vivi leaned on the doorframe of her shop, the fountain reflecting brightly in her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter now…”

“…so… so what do we do?”

“What we always have.” She took her seat behind the table adjusting the counters items.

“We wait.”

[hollyrogerbay]

man i am so conflicted on the "Gaster-Maybe-Not-Gaster-Maybe-IMAGE_FRIEND" valentine's letter. the whole thing just really doesn't feel anything like the kind of speech patterns gaster has exhibited before At All it's so out of place

but this fuckin line. i almost feel like this line in particular does line up with gaster's character. i feel like he wouldn't just say that so plainly and easily. it's still bizarre how informally this is written. but like. this shit lines up with how he seems to view deltarune's universe and shit. it feels like it lines up with gaster being somewhat of an analog for toby creating the game and shit yknow. like it's reflecting a sentiment that very much seems like one toby shares. idfk

[thebad-lydrawn-sanses]

May... may we get info on the super au? 👉👈

"Monsters", in local dialect, can refer to any being that wields magic and/or is made of magic

SOULs are a culmination of magic, not self

tw/cw (trigger warnings/content warnings)

long post

medical system neglect/trauma

eating disorder (kind of)

food difficulties

knives

violence/murder/death (all implied/mentioned)

body horror, sort of

Killer

first to join the gang

hand arthritis because you're not allowed to enjoy your remaining arm (but you get an arthritis glove so)

mask

transhumeral (above elbow)

knee disarticulation

only character who gets a prosthetic

weird soul shape is the power

very stable

very unstable

Cross

second to join the gang

hood

mask

hasn't lost any limbs (yet)

knife summoning

"scarf"

saw Dream ACCIDENTALLY crush a metal beam with one hand and now screams at the top of his lungs anytime Dream gets close to grabbing him

Dust

third to join the gang

motorcycle-esc helmet

and they were roommates

literally

the economy is in shambles

Doctor: well actually we can't give you prosthetics unless we do a procedure to ensure you're actually missing your arms

Dust: ...but i was born without arms

Doctor: the procedure costs over a thousand dollars and i don't have the authority to diagnose you if you don't do the procedure

Dust: what

Doctor: im sorry

when the medical system is useless you have to improvise

bad for teeth probably

adjustable length grabber tool

whoopee cushion probably

villain outfit

scarf

ankle length

got blue to cut off the arms of a morphsuit and sew the holes up

GASTER BLASTER

Random Civilian: WTF

glowy eye

has a lot of magic to burn

Horror

fourth to join the gang

villain outfit fits him when he grows to a specific height

hasn't lost any limbs

motorcycle-esc helmet

least scared of Dream (because he can run away fast enough)

sharp teefers

Dream

was originally meant to be a manipulative government-working hero who's fake personality reflected canon Dream's while the real personality reflected canon Nightmare's

psychologically broken from spending 500 years in a statue

the constant hunger pains don't help

huge lidless eyes and permasmile tend to disconcert people (uncanny valley)

head is always slightly tilted to alleviate neck pain (making it worse in the long run)

little-no fine motor control

anything in his hands will be held with every ounce of strength he has (which is a lot)

Swap

was sweet and relatively innocent when he started working as a hero (and was a bit squeamish about even hitting villains a bit too hard)

naturally black hair, dyes it constantly to match outfit

prone to trembling violently when angry

blurred for violence

Karen: <- interrupting Blue while he's trying to do his job

originally tried to replace screams with laughter to trick his brain into not panicking during high-stress moments and now ends up laughing hysterically when startled/scared

Villain 42: boo

Past Blue: hahaa! you missed!

Villain 42: boo

Current Blue: AHAHAHA

Villain 42: hey man wtf

Current Blue: i don't know why i did that

Villain 42: it's ok

sledgehammer

mental stability is stretched thin from constantly supervising a murderous human-eating being with the psychological state of a severely traumatised child and a paint-eating psychopath with severe memory issues

Ink

travels the aus where he's human and technically doesn't actually belong to the super au

dislikes water (makes him start dissolving)

likes this au because he doesn't have to hide his supernatural abilities

Ink: wh.. where are my vials

keeps mixing up the definitions of hero and vigilante because it's different from au to au

supposed to have a tragic backstory but he's always forgetting it

legally diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and ASPD despite never taking the tests

[sketchingstars03]

aghfdsfd sry about the infodumping but i havr to get tgis out of my head hc that ink has a kind of a fixation on naming?? him naming his brush ,the doodlesphere and giving people nicknames kinda?? something something about his abandoned AU not havign a name... something about his last words being not watnting to b forgotten. wanting to be someone.. somethin about names n identity sjhjgf also uhm i just learned that it's actually like. confirmed that he's the one who put all those buckets in the doodlesphere. and also ink doesn't consider himself a Sans bc of his lack of a universe. uh mirror room. apparently its implied that the reason he doesnt liek that room is bc. Ink couldnt tell that they're the original or just one of the many reflections/imposters. since he's the only Ink who doesnt have a soul and doesnt remember jack shit ab his past.(kinda outdated but makes sense. that room was made official around that time where the fact that ink not having a soul is considered vry niche info iirc? somewhere around early 2017)

no Anon you’re onto something with the naming thing.

I think it’s fascinating that Ink, should this be true (which it seems very plausible to me), extends this need to be someone, to have an identity, to others. In a similar way to how they might subconsciously extend that feeling of no universe deserving to be left behind, in that both stem from themself, yet he can’t help but fulfil that desire through other people. Really shines a light on the side of Ink that “isn’t completely selfish”, to put it in words I remember from one post by Comyet.

I always had a feeling, like a headcanon, that Ink would feel separated from his Sans identity, or, well it would probably be more like a role or title to him, rather than a name or someone he is. They left “Sans” behind with _____tale (something he doesn’t even remember). Though, it’s interesting that he still carries over some sans-like traits, like puns/pranks (though more frequent and intense pranks than a regular Sans would pull), and the creation of their own personal Gaster Blaster companion and forming bones out of ink. And there was the sans-like sweater in their old design (something I like to think they still hold on to, even if he doesn’t wear it anymore)

I should check Comyet’s blog to see that lmao guess it probably wasn’t purely just a hc after all.

THE PART ABOUT THE MIRROR ROOM IS FASCINATING THOUGH! Now that you mention it I think I remember a post like that, again looks like I need another trip through the Inkechos tag 😅. But still!! I wonder how Ink would feel about the mirror room now, if his dislike was based around how all the other “hims” had souls and he didn’t, now that that’s changed and it’s actually the Inks with souls who are the outliers (shout out to FTFO!Ink). Would they take joy in the fact that they’re not alone? Or would it still feel, weird and uncomfortable somehow? Perhaps serving as another reminder of his emptiness deep down, and so they still avoid it even though the circumstances in the fandom have changed. I know that whenever I RP my version of Ink meeting other variants, he’s always very interested to see new versions of himself, so maybe it would just be like that! Who knows! Well, Comyet does, but I’m not her 😅.

Either way thank you so much for this thought-provoking ask, Anon! I’m always happy to discuss my favourite chaotic-neutral-artist-skeleton guy like this!