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Discovered this comment earlier when looking through the Undertale Demo's code. Frisk's stick might have been a butter knife earlier in development? This is apparently on the wiki, but I've never seen anyone discuss it.

It could also just be a weird nickname for the stick from Toby Fox, but it's still pretty interesting.

The Toy Knife's comment is "Soul Knife," which is probably a neat reference to it being another human's weapon.

This next one is in the final game, too, but it seems like the stick may have had a serious mode name at some point as well? Could possibly be connected to the whole "butter knife" thing, and that it was part of the original joke name for the item. It's unfortunate that it's been lost to time, I suppose.

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Chara undertale how I hate you (affectionate). The fandom has endless arguments about your nature and purpose to the story of undertale. I am going to regurgitate information I have stewing in my mind and put down my theory/interpretation.

You are Chara, or rather Chara is the actual player character of Undertale.

I'll start with simply listing out information that points to this:

Chara's fall date is marked as 201X, with the X being a stand-in for the game's release year of 2015 (alternatively, the demo's release year of 2013).

The player names them, and most players will name them after themselves for the first playthrough, this seems to be intended and expected. The demo's manual describes this as naming "your character."

"CHARA" is the default name, and using it or in the naming screen results in the response "The True Name." The term "True Name" has various definitions that could apply to this situation, but the one that seems the most accurate is "the name of a thing or being that expresses, or is somehow identical with, its true nature." Chara is short for "Character," which would mean Chara's true nature is that of a character of some kind. The variable "Truename" is also used to control when Flowey refers to Frisk as Chara in aborted genocide routes and subsequent neutrals. In Deltarune, the "truename" variable also stores the player name.

Similar to Gaster for Deltarune, when Undertale came out, messages from Flowey were posted by the official Undertale Twitter account. They're directed at "you," which in this case appears to be Chara. Here's the transcription: "Hee hee hee...I've been waiting for you to get here. How long has it been...? How many years...? ... It doesn't matter. I KNEW you would come back. ... So. What do you say? Won't you play with me again? =)"

Chara's name appears on Frisk's stats/save menu and the battle screen. In Deltarune, we see something similar, but it only occurs on Kris' save file with the player name.

Throughout the game, you will occasionally see some of Chara's memories. This occurs in the intro and when Frisk dies, falls asleep under specific circumstances in Toriel's home in the ruins, or falls into the garbage dump. Something similar happens in Asriel's boss fight, but we know that comes from Asriel himself due to the name of the code and Temmie's FAQ describing it as Asriel regaining his memories.

Here's some quotes from Flowey/Asriel describing his motivations:

"If you leave the underground satisfied, you'll "win" the game. If you "win," you won't want to "play" with me anymore. [...] But this game between us will NEVER end."

"I just want to reset everything. All your progress... Everyone's memories. I'll bring them all back to zero! Then we can do everything ALL over again."

"Do you know why I'm doing this...? Why I keep fighting to keep you around...? I'm doing this... Because you're special, [Name]. You're the only one that understands me. You're the only one who's any fun to play with anymore. I'm not ready for this to end. I'm not ready for you to leave. I'm not ready to say goodbye to someone like you again..."

Asriel's motivations are very odd to read from an in-universe perspective. If he broke the barrier, he could still play with Frisk (who he thinks is Chara), but instead, he seems to think that if they leave the Underground satisfied (if the game is won), he'll have to say goodbye to them again. To stop "the game" from ending, he wants to reset it and force you to do it again.

Toby seems to see and portray the relationship between the player character and the player as the two being mostly one and the same entity. This goes all the way back to his Earthbound Halloween Hack days, and you can see it in his statements all of the time, such as here when he refers to Kris' room and family using second person pronouns. But I think you can see it most clearly in Skies Forever Blue's lyrics (which were written by Toby), in which the singer conflates the player character "Two friends started just as neighbors" and the player "When you made my name the same just as the one you love, then I knew. Maybe to your view, I'm just a faintly colored hue, that's alright," and falls in love with them.

Flowey's post pacifist monologue reveals a lot. It is directed at the one being with control of the Save/Load system, which means he became aware of them and their presence at some point. He begs the being in question to not reset and describes it as "the power you were fighting to stop [...] The power that I wanted to use," referring to his plan as Asriel to keep the game going. He begs this being to let Frisk and the monsters live out their lives, separating this being and Frisk. The speech places extra emphasis on the word "you" twice by fully capitalizing it. Flowey addresses the being he's talking to as the name you gave Chara. An extra note to add here is after this scene and before true resetting, the menu theme is replaced with an extremely slowed down version of the regular menu theme (extremely slowed down music is associated with Chara by the genocide route).

Why does Chara share a name with the player? Because they are our character.

Now, to restate the theory: You are Chara, or rather Chara is the actual player character of Undertale. This leads to a nesting doll situation with Frisk.

Why did Chara fall down in a year that is a stand-in date for the game's release? Because that's the first year the player could have played Undertale.

Why is Chara's name on Frisk's save file? Because Chara/you are the being who is actually in control of it.

Why is Chara's name in Frisk's stats? Because you're not directly playing as Frisk, you're playing as Chara, who is then playing as/controlling Frisk. This may also be the real reason we see their memories constantly, it's a POV flashback. We're not even entirely sure Frisk sees these memories. The True Lab phone call could imply they don't, as the Asriel voice used for that also appears in the Waterfall fall down flashback scene.

Why does Asriel not want the barrier to be broken/not want the game to be beaten? Because if the game ends in a satisfying way, you will stop playing it, and so Asriel will have to say goodbye to you (Chara) as you can't exist in Undertale's world when the game is over.

Just from the evidence in neutral/pacifist, this seems to be what Toby was trying to portray. While the genocide route does complicate this, I think it also reinforces it a lot too.

Chara's enhanced presence in the genocide route is first made known when the kill counter in the ruins is exhausted. Dialogue/narration from them then appears in Toriel's house. "Where are the knives?" in the kitchen and "It's me, [Name]" in the mirror.

As a pre-emptive note, I do not believe in NarraChara and think it is not intentional. As such I do not take it into account. To me, there is a general narrator that Chara occasionally speaks over in the genocide route. Chara consistently speaks in a very contrasting tone with regular narration and always in first person. The closest to normal narration they speak is the "Strongly felt [x] left. Shouldn't proceed yet" waterfall geno-abort prevention dialogue, which dodges any pronouns and is still likely Chara describing their own emotions in first person perspective. The genocide route takes many ques from classic video game creepypasta tropes. The player character speaking directly to the player is one of them, and it is purposefully portrayed in contrast to be eerie.

The second line, in particular, begins a running trend throughout the route, Chara claiming ownership of Frisk's body/actions and speaking as if they ARE Frisk. The second case of this is actually during Glad Dummy, which despite using second person pronouns, is clearly directed at the Dummy itself which would make sense if they were facing her personally "Wipe that smile off your face." The third case is when facing Monster Kid, with their encounter text, "In my way." The line "It's me, [Name]" reappears in both the lab camera and Asgore's mirrors. The Hotland Guards have their check text "I see two lovers [...] I couldn't stop laughing." The final notable instance is "(I unlocked the chain)."

That last one, in particular, is by itself actually an indication we are playing as Chara anyway. We are the one who presses interact on the keychain, and Chara unlocks the chain as a result. Is that not playing as Chara?

Chara's monologues are often the subject of the debate of "Who is Chara talking to?" I personally think its pretty clear that they're talking to the player. Nothing they say makes sense in-universe. The idea that they're talking to Frisk also runs into a problem when they suggest doing a different route if you recreate the world again. Frisk, just like Flowey, does not remember True Resets or completed genocide routes (unlike Chara who on the steam release can technically remember things from other installs of Undertale which further ties them and the player together, as Flowey/Asriel's dialogue implies that True Resets erase the memories/deja vu of everyone besides the one preforming them). Also, why would you be talking as if you were equals to a person you've been controlling the entire time? That feels a bit odd to me.

The behavior of out-of-player-control actions starting in Snowdin is vastly different in this route, and the implication is that this is Chara's doing. Rushing through introductions/cutscenes with Sans and Papyrus and refusing to do puzzles. Starting in Waterfall, the surprised encounter icon is replaced with a smile (associated with them by that being their sprite's default expression). Threatening Monster Kid & Flowey (with a "creepy face" associated with them by the True lab tapes). Slashing Sans and Asgore. Mercilessly & Sadistically cutting down Flowey. They are controlling or heavily influencing Frisk.

Chara controlling Frisk and claiming ownership of Frisk's body/action seems very similar to how Toby portrays the relationship between a player character and their player. While Chara is OUR player character, Frisk would basically be Chara's player character. Chara is controlling Frisk and claiming ownership of the actions they make Frisk do, exactly like a player would. They act as both player and player character. Your player character, and the player of Frisk.

To cite a funny quote (from a video) that boils down my arguments surrounding the genocide route quite well: "Because really, the concept of an entity bearing the player name possessing the player avatar to do evil stuff is so blatantly on the nose that you need to do some intense eyesight contortionism to not see what the game is telling you."

They call themself "the demon that comes when you call it's name," a direct reference to the naming screen of the game. They refer to themself as the feeling you get when stats increase. They ask you to "erase this pointless world" (delete Undertale) and "move onto the next" (play another video game). If you choose erase, they call you a great partner and say that you and them will be "together forever." This seems to imply that as you go through the genocide route, they start embodying an aspect of you that relates to grinding in video games, beating them, and erasing them to move onto others. This is another thing that makes them and the player inseperable.

Even with those two lines, I think this interpretation is extremely strong and seems to at least be close to Toby's intent. It also keeps getting reinforced:

Chara's monologues do contain lines that present a problem to this theory/interpretation. The first one is "Since when were you the one in control?" The second one is "But. You and I are not the same, are we?" The second happens directly after Chara calls themself an emotion you feel while leveling up in games (basically saying they're a part of you) and in context refers to how you keep playing through Undertale's genocide route instead of doing anything else. Chara stopped being able to understand you outside of your drive for power and completion they claim to represent, but I don't think this actually necessarily causes any problems for the rest of this theory.

The Important person shirt is in both Undertale and Deltarune's sections on fangamer's merch site, and while it is clearly Kris' shirt in design, its description should also apply to Chara because it's being sold as a shirt for them as well. This description of it from the newsletter is what added the "It will make you look like someone with an important connection to you." The "You" also gets replaced by whatever name you subscribed to the newsletter with.

This Twitter thread by Wandydoodles is where I got the Flowey/Asriel motivations from. Additionally, despite not agreeing with Oblivion theory's conclusions regarding Deltarune, I think its Undertale/Chara analysis is really great and deserves a read.

While the shirt has been used to argue about Kris' DR counterpart, I don't think the description is referring to that topic at all, as it focuses on specifically the connection the shirt's bearers share with the player. The only connection I can think of is that both Chara and Kris are player characters. If you think Frisk is the player character of Undertale and Chara is a third party, they don't really have any connection to the player at all. We also don't name Kris, unlike Chara. I would actually like to see other interpretations of this because I genuinely cannot think of any other possible "important connection" Kris and Chara could both individually share with the player.

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This Youtube video by Grim Dreamer was a inspiration. While it is primarily a NarraChara debunk video, the creator proposes the same theory this post is about as a part of the analysis.

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Small followup to my prior "Kris is Deltarune Frisk" thing with far less convincing arguments:

The bonus scene at the end of True Pacifist when you select "I want to stay with you" occurs in "room_end_myroom." This also applies to its sprites/tileset/backgrounds. The tileset for the room uses "bg_myhouse." The door uses "spr_myroom_doorbg." The drawer sprite is "bg_mydrawer." The lamp sprite is "bg_mylamp." The window sprite is "bg_mywindow. The bed sprite is "bg_mebed" (for some reason, it's the only odd one out).

The usage of "my" here is fairly notable and distinct from the rest of the rooms in the game. It's in first person from Frisk's perspective. The room we see is their room, in their house. The only other instance (outside of variables) where I could find something similar is "ourheart" which is used during Flowey's neutral boss fight.

In Deltarune, we have a similar case with Kris's house, although it's far more inconsistent and only really for the backgrounds of 3 rooms. Kris' room is "room_krisroom" but uses "bg_myroom." The hallway is "room_krishallway" but uses "bg_myhallway." The bathroom is "room_torbathroom" but uses bg_mybathroom. There's an exception to this that uses the "_my" in both its background and room name. The end of chapter 1 takes place in a different room named "room_myroom_dark" and uses "bg_myroom_dark."

I personally think this is a deliberate reference to the ending house cutscene of the true pacifist, especially since the SOUL removal scene at the end of chapter 1 is already a direct reference to what can occur in that scene. These events happen in Frisk/Kris' house in their room. But this could also just be meaningless or me mistaking something. Interpret it how you will.

Take this one even less seriously: Toby, or whoever helps write the newsletters, has mistaken Kris and Frisk in the past. In the UT 8th anniversary newsletter, there's an illustration done by Temmie with what is clearly Frisk holding a cake, but in it's alt text is instead labeled "Kris with a cake." I don't consider this one to be a valid argument, but it is funny and worth bringing up.

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Warning for a lot of ranting about a specific Deltarune theory topic that will likely have next to no impact on the actual plot of the game at all.

A lot of the time in Deltarune fan content, the creators will have Kris meet a Deltarune version of Frisk, usually as one of Asriel's college buddies or something. I very much hate it (this is an exaggeration).

Kris IS the Deltarune version of Frisk. It's been pretty much told to us since Undertale launched (specifically Version 1.001) via Clamgirl.

"My neighbor's daughter looks about your age. Her name is "Suzy." I feel like you two should be friends. Not knowing where I live is no issue. Fate finds a way. In life's grand scheme, she might be why you came here in the first place..."

What does Clamgirl keep talking about? What is the purpose of her dialogue? Foreshadowing Deltarune. Talking to her is what spawns the "Don't Forget" note in Sans' basement. She's the one who went goner mode to break the 4th wall a month before Deltarune launched.

Everything she says about Frisk and Suzy foreshadows the relationship between Kris and Susie while also placing a heavy emphasis on the concept of fate, which is a big theme in Deltarune.

Suzy and Frisk are fated to meet each other. In life's grand scheme, Frisk's fall needed to happen for them to meet Suzy, just like how Kris and Susie were fated to meet and become heroes due to the prophecy.

Clamgirl says Frisk and Suzy "should be friends." Just like how Kris and Susie end up as friends extremely quickly.

Frisk "looks about" the same age as Suzy. Kris and Susie are in the same class and thus around the same age.

Frisk is just an anagram of Kris plus a single letter Kris -> Risk -> (F)risk. Suzy is phonetically identical to Susie, just with one less letter. They are the only notable characters to have changed names between universes so far. The UT names also do not have the anagrams to "Risk" and "Issue," which may be important.

We also know that "Suzy" isn't an early version of Susie's name, as Susie's name dates back to at least 2013. We can make a solid guess that Frisk's name is derivative of Kris's name due to this.

This isn't even talking about all of Kris and Frisk's numerous other similarities.

They have the EXACT same skin color and hair color.

While red eyes are commonly associated with Chara by the fandom, they only have red eyes when possessing Frisk's body in the post-genocide "I want to stay with you" variant of the True Pacifist ending. If we look at the colors of the sprites used for the scene, we can see that the sprite used in it uses Frisk's color palette. Despite it looking like Chara, it's still Frisk's body. Their hair and skin color are the same, so their eye color is also likely the same. This could mean that Frisk is actually the one with red eyes, just like Kris. Although it could also be that the red eyes are unnatural and caused by possession.

They have similar light world equipment. Both of them wear different types of bandages. Frisk has a stick, while Kris has a pencil, which is a wooden stick-like object.

Their light world item throw-away narration has them performing the same actions to items.

Kris has blue and reddish-magenta themed colors in the dark world, which is just a more vibrant version of Frisk's clothing color scheme in Undertale. Their entire dark world room that Ralsei built for them has that color scheme, and Ralsei knew about Kris and Susie's interests and desires when he made their rooms.

They're both flirtatious. Frisk is incredibly apparent with this. Kris is showcased to be the only one in the team good at flirting in the Head Hathy X-Flirt sequence during chapter 1. They seem to also playfully flirt with other characters in certain interactions, such as when giving the snowring to Ralsei. Toby has also stated that Kris would get accidentally disbarred due to flirting with a witness in an ace attorney setting:

They're both mischievous as well. Kris' past is well described by Toriel, Rudy, and Noelle. They can prank Noelle in an incredible number of ways during chapter 2 and seem to enjoy doing it. Frisk has a general implied goofy demeanor and showcases mischief in a lot of small little moments, especially during ACTs or the hangouts with Papyrus, Undyne, and Alphys. You can also see an great example of this with the Hotel Door item trades, where they flatten a cinnabun and pour sea tea under the doors.

They share the "mainchara" designation. Frisk uses it in their sprites and code, while Kris uses it in the code.

They share a role as the main protagonist of the game. Even how we start the game with them is similar. You name the first fallen human ("TrueChara") or the Vessel and then seemingly begin playing as a separate character. Kris is just the natural progression of Frisk. In Undertale, during a blind player's first run, you are supposed to believe that you named Frisk, that they are your self insert into the world. That gets mirrored by Flowey, who believes Frisk to be the first fallen human. The game ends with Asriel and blind players realizing that Frisk isn't Chara/the player's self-insert. In Deltarune, Kris gets that revealed immediately at the end of the Gonermaker sequence, and they further that development by having their personality a lot more discernible without in-depth analysis.

Other theories that talk about Kris' Undertale variant don't make much sense. The only other one that even comes close is Chara, and the similarities Kris and Chara share aren't as deep as they seem.

The things that Kris and Chara share exhibit far more differently than the things Kris and Frisk share.

Chara has one comment about chocolate that is vague and seems to imply they like it, but they alao ignore the chocolate in Toriel's fridge despite their narration/dialogue already appearing at that point in the genocide route. Kris is extremely fond of chocolate and it is a much bigger part of their character than it ever was for Chara. We never get Frisk's opinion on chocolate.

The weapon that represents Chara is a knife and they seek them out during the genocide route for murder reasons. Kris doesn't use the knife they have as a weapon and seems to enjoy them as a hobby outside of murder. We never get Frisk's opinion on knives, but they are also associated with a slashing weapon.

The big one people like to point to Chara being the adopted child of the Dreemurrs. There are a lot of problems with this:

The first one is that, arguably, so is Frisk. Frisk seemingly shows interest in being Asgore's child when talking to Gerson in the TP epilogue ("Is ASGORE a goat" talk option). You can have them call Toriel mom immediately. The "I want to stay with you" ending has them adopted by Toriel.

The second is that we aren't actually sure Chara is a part of the family. They are distinctly and purposefully separated from the rest of the family every single time any of the Dreemurrs mention them. Asriel always calls them his best friend. In the winter alarm clock dialogue, Toriel talks about them starting with the phrase "a long time ago I knew someone " and, in the same conversation, talks about Asriel and calls him "my son." Asgore only mentions having a single child, a son, at the end of his battle. "I remember the day after my son died. [...] I just want to see my wife, I just want to see my child." He could have easily used the word "children" in either of these two instances, but did not. In the extended spare cutscene where Flowey does not kill Asgore, he again distinguishes Asriel as his child and Chara as someone else. "Young one, when I look at you... I'm reminded of the human that fell here long ago... [...] But I believe your freedom...... is what my son...... what ASRIEL would have wanted." It is only Gerson who calls Chara part of the family; the new home monsters only say they were 'like' family specifically.

Kris, unlike Chara, is universally treated as part of the Dreemurr family. Narration, Toriel, and other characters refer to Asriel as their brother. Narration, Asgore, and other characters refer to Toriel as their mother. Narration, Toriel, and other characters call Asgore their father.

Third is that even if Chara is part of the family, they had an entirely different dynamic with UT-Asriel than Kris does with DR-Asriel. UT-Asriel looks up to Chara, while Kris looks up to DR-Asriel. Chara and UT-Asriel are around the same age, with Chara taking the more stereotypically older sibling role. Kris is notably younger than DR-Asriel, and Asriel takes the more stereotypically older sibling role.

We can reasonably guess that Frisk is also younger than Flowey from a age standpoint. Even if Chara & Asriel were the same age as Frisk when they died, Flowey spent an unknown but long amount of time doing runs before Frisk fell and he directly positions himself as someone who's "grown up" in the winter alarm clock dialogue. Chara and Asriel are around the same age. Frisk and Kris are younger than their respective universe's Asriel.

My final point is that the relative timeline just works better if Kris is Frisk. All the monsters in DR are monsters we know exist/existed in Frisk's time. Even the Holiday family, with the daughters still notably being kids, according to WAC-Asgore and DogCasino-Sans, the youngest one (UT-Noelle) likely being Frisk's age like Suzy & MK are.

Kris can be Frisk with a bit of Chara sprinkled on, but even if they are, Clamgirl's dialogue alone confirms that the two of them are alternate universe versions of eachother.

Here's a short follow-up to this covering some goofy arguments I don't consider very convincing.

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big fan of how when you use certain items susie and ralsei have normal reactions while noelle is stuck in the important lore character nightmare dimension

like 😭 it's always her

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loosely inspired by these very cool angel noelle drawings by Marnie

i couldn’t stop thinking about how much i would love a confrontation between a version of noelle whose lost herself in this role of the prophecised angel, and berdly, who has nothing except the fact that he is her friend. this person with all of this incredible cosmic importance vs. someone who was maybe never even meant to be a part of this story to begin with, considering he’s not one of the three delta warriors and the angel role is already taken. and he’s also probably scared out of his mind, but he’s gonna stay determined and reach out to her anyway. she has to be in there somewhere.

noelle and berdly’s friendship is really important to me personally, both in spite of and because of how dysfunctional it is. i know that it will probably never resolve in a manner quite this dramatic, and i can’t even say for sure how interested the actual narrative of deltarune is in it, at least relative to stuff like noelle’s friendship with kris. but damn it, they matter to me. so i just had to excorcise this one from my brain.

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Faint Courage

It's Halloween, and it's Deltarune's anniversary! What's more appropriate than scaring some kids?

This comic basically acts as a prequel to last year's A Deal With The Devil and Some Self Reflection. Hope you all enjoy!

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I tried designing a Dramatic Edgy dark world look for dess 💀 lol

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i hope everyone got home safe

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what if clover remembered their neutral routes

Images: A 7-panel comic featuring Clover and Martlet (from Undertale Yellow), taking place on the apartment complex's rooftop. The two are silhouetted by ominous lighting throughout.

Panel 1: The two are seen from the side and are facing each other, with Clover on the left of the frame and Martlet on the right. The image is animated to show wind lightly blowing their hair, feathers, and clothes. Martlet says, "You've gone through so much more than any child should." "And I think you can change for the better." "You can come stay with me and live a happy, violence-free childhood..."

Panel 2: Martlet is now drawn from Clover's perspective, from the front. Her eyes are visible now, and an animated gust of wind blows some golden flower petals behind her. She says, "What do you say, Clover?"

Panel 3: Clover from the front; they're looking away from the viewer mournfully, and no facial features are visible. The background is animated, and changes rapidly between TV static, many red silhouettes of Martlet being impaled by thorny vines, and the outline of a giant Flowey with a creepy smile.

Panel 4: Return to the side perspective. Clover runs towards Martlet with outstretched arms. Martlet says, "...?" "Clover, what are you..."

Panel 5: Clover is now hugging Martlet. The now-empty space on the left shows a conversation between the two. Clover says, "Please don't leave me again." Martlet says, "Huh?" "Clover, you know last time was a mistake!" "We don't have to go on the raft again if you don't want to." Clover says, "I just want both of us to be happy." Martlet says, "So do I."

Panel 6: Martlet is walking away to the left. Clover drops to the ground, facing away from Martlet and looking devastated with their hands on the floor. Martlet says, "Come on, Clover. Let's go to Snowdin."

Panel 7: An animated gif; the background turns into TV static, and a thorny vine comes in quickly from the right as the image fades to white. After this, Martlet's limp silhouette is visible, impaled by the vine. Clover is still on the ground, looking away. Martlet turns into dust, leaving the vine empty. end id!