#this is unreadable

[pineappleliar]

so I’m a little confident that Chapter 5 will take place when Asgore, at the behest of Carol, makes a Dark Fountain in his shop in order to prove… something… to the rest of Hometown. It may even be so severe as to be townwide, as part of the festival.

here’s what we know:

Asgore was a pillar of the community back in the day, before *something* happened (lbr Dess’s disappearance) that caused him to lose is position in the force, and eventually get divorced from Toriel (interesting aside in the Chapter 3 flashback Dess disappears first, obviously, but Carol is the second to stop coming over, then Asgore, then Noelle, then Rudy. Its an interesting sort of order of operations, at least).

We also know Asgore is deeply financially dependent on Carol. He is leasing his store from her (and not actually paying rent), he works for her as a housekeeper, AND he’s likely got a commission running through her for the town’s festival, which he’ll need to pay that aforementioned rent. Needless to say, if Carol asks Asgore to do something, he’s going to feel obligated to do it on account of the massive amounts of debt.

Thing the third: Asgore is deeply not over Dess’s disappearance. This is more conjecture than the other two points, but I believe Dess going missing haunts Asgore in a very ‘miserable detective’ sorta way. He cares a lot about Rudy and Carol, and has a corkboard in his shop with the classic detective red string setup. As well people in town disparage Asgore for having a ‘weird thing’ he does, which I think trying to solve the cold case everyone else has already laid to rest could account for. The main point of evidence for this though is the Chapter 4 ‘black shard’ scene, where he mentions finally being able to get Toriel to ‘see what really happened’.

of course all we have in terms of ‘what really happened’ are a handful of usual suspects and a shelter, so figuring out the specifics ourselves before Chapter 5 will be tricky, but lets try at least.

The shelter is a big bundle of mystery, to be sure, but we do know it has ties to the Holiday Family (Pine tree), the Dreemur Family (Badge), and the Boom Family (Deltarune). Most of what we’ve learned about it’s intended use comes from people who are new to town, and probably only know the surface level story for its purpose as a place to go in case of danger (Alphys). Those who do know something about it discourage any further investigation into the Shelter (Alvin), and it’s probably locked up with a passcode that’s straight up ‘December Holiday’ (1225). Lastly, we know there’s a Dark Fountain located within the Shelter, and its been there for who knows how long.

The one thing we can say with some confidence is that Dess ended up locked within that Shelter, and ended up the Knight; that much has pretty strong existing evidence for it. We know Kris may have been in proximity to whatever happened at the Shelter, too, given their fear of it, knowledge of the Knight, and the Chapter 4 art therapy segment. Asgore feels a great deal of guilt about whatever happened, and was kicked off the police force shortly thereafter. To me there are two ways to read this: first is that he was negligent in some way that allowed the tragedy to happen, second is that he was complicit in enacting a tragedy, and became a liability after the fact.

with Chapters 3 and 4 I feel like Asgore playing some active role in Dess’s fate feels more likely. Not only does it parallel Undertale in the child murder to divorce pipeline, but it also further explains his need to explain what ‘really’ happened to everyone. He wants to explain an active decision he made at the time, which doesn’t gel that well if he just wasn’t paying attention.

now if we want to enter the fanfic zone then in my mind Kris, Dess, and maybe Ralsei were the heroes of a story before the game started, but I don’t have much proof for that besides ‘it feels right’. Putting that aside for now, I can’t shake the feeling that the Shelter is giving strong ‘Omelas Child Torment Zone’ vibes. Well, maybe not that severe, but the surface idyllic state of hometown, and the ‘absolutely do no touch’ energy adults have about the Shelter, and the fact that Dess being missing is fully buried and she doesn’t even have a gravestone all point to a ‘we had to sacrifice a child for the greater good’ situation.

Oh god I've fully lost the plot. So yeah some world ending event would’ve happened if Dess hadn’t been locked in the Torment Nexus, Carol went full Count of Monte Cristo and gained comical amounts of power over the town in order to exact her revenge for the loss of her daughter. Kris, Dess’s childhood friend, helps her because they hate what happened to Dess and want her back. Asgore, perhaps as some form of vengeance for her daughter’s fate, ends up entirely wrapped around Carol’s finger, willing to do anything she says in the hopes it’ll fix the family bonds that were broken with that cursed act.

(Also if I had to guess Gerson is important to the Carol superplan somehow because why else would Alvin dig up his father’s body? Is Alvin in on Carol’s Very Cool Blow Up Hometown Plan?)

[achingly-shy]

WHEJ HE WAS AROUKD INKNEW EHOBI WS 😭😭

[atlasrayz]

I FFUFCJING FORGOT MY WATCERBOTRLE IN MY LAST CLASS NOIOOOOII

[letsstartafamilywellinvitewelove]

when ppl write textbooks they should be forced to cut down the book by a third at the end without losing any information. force them to learn how to use bullet points

[mordimor]

sometimes i think maybe i make bad design decisions

[jellitchi]

hotguy.

[astyrra]

joker's 6th part-time job is cat videos

[meltedmush]

Another dump of my weekly illustrations!

[milliexxreads]

[spicymancer]

more Ollie plz (only saw the one LEGO image under the tag)

Okay I went and tagged all the tumblr ones I think I could find.

Cheetos

ADHD (Also about cheese)

Job Market

Lego

There's a few Ollie doodles from bsky and twitter that I don't think necessarily made it to Tumblr so here they are:

There's some more on Patreon but those are uh... too spicy for this platform.

[hotgirlgarak]

"You're both oblivious idiots" <- if one more fic writer makes a woman say that about two adult men I'm going to make them break up and have sex with a faceless blurrywife. like for real I will inkspell them into sentient beings and then keep them from ever experiencing the epic high of yaoi. all because you made a woman utter the tragic low of infantilizing men in the most annoying and overly done way possible

[kensatou]

j… jesus oppa ;____;

[caemidraws]

Symbolism info 4/?

[turntechradiohead]

great now I’ll have to have my translator out for every encounter

[ebogosian]

ASSAD ZAMAN as ARMAND in Interview with the Vampire ↳ 2.05 | Don't Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape

[rainyinautumn]

Etho's behavior in session 5 was frankly unhinged. he killed Bdubs' horse IN FRONT OF HIM and managed to get away scot-free in the chaos of the situation. AND THEN he stole the chicken farm hopper while HALF THE TEAM was in their base without them noticing, tried to trade it BACK to them, and finally returned it after GAINING THEIR ALLIANCE? what even. good for him.