#$ speculation station

[deltaruminations]

Been musing on this, but I'm taking for granted that Gaster is akin to GodTM (personhood is on a metaphysical level, all-powerful & all-knowing, primarily referred not by name but by capitalized He, associated with creation, love/compassion, and authority). But most importantly, since I'm raised catholic, the utmost certainty that we will nver talk to him directly, and instead have all our messages redirected to his array of 'Saints' keeping tract of all this earthly BS. Part One

Part Two. 'Saints' being Gerson, Dess, Asriel, DEVICE_FRIEND, Kris, maybe Noelle, probably Ralsei, Seam, the Knight, sans & the Great Papyrus. Part 3. 'How can Gaster be God if he has Devil Motifs?' I said Gaster was all-knowing & all-powerful, not that he was all-good. One of the common arguments against an all-knowing all-powerful all-good God is that if God was all those things, evil wouldn't exist. And well, it wouldn't. So God can't be all-good. Even a kind God who calculated that evil existing was important for a greater good would either be not-all-benevolent or not-all-powerful. Which where Gaster is at.

that last note is interesting for sure. as far as gaster-as-god approaches go, that's a pretty interesting take in how it kind of aligns with other lines of thinking about gaster’s possible gray morality in pursuit of some greater good. like, whether or not gaster is *literally* capital-G God, he’s at least playing at it – and in his approach to godhood, benevolence can be traded for knowledge as necessary. he may ultimately be a figure of compassion, but from his outside perspective that spans a greater scale, “compassion” isn't simply a mundane, moment-to-moment choice to be kind as the choices arrive. it's a big picture thing that could require acts of evil or cruelty that to him are just drops in a bucket. i think that's a really interesting way of framing it and it feels like there's truth to this.

[deltaruminations]

@skymantle wanted to share your tags because yeah. super interesting stuff

#THATS WHERE THATS FROM?!?! another parallel... im going to lose it. #the cut manuals. thats your soul the [very] culmination of your being. the ralsei flower shirt announcement...... #i don't necessarily think there's some massive conspiracy it's just VERY interesting #speaking of lines that repeat did you know that every major character in undertale sans (lol) toriel says “Here we are” only once? #how its also the theme for the true lab. #how gerson says it after buying an item in the genocide route? how its the check text for the Real Knife? #we don't even know what it MEANS it drives me up the wall. if they say it in deltarune ill lose it. #CORRECTION. SUSIE *DOES* SAY IT WHEN REVISITING CASTLE TOWN IN CHAPTER 2... #undertale #deltarune #utdr #metatext #re: major i mean asgore undyne alphys sans and papyrus. #when first meeting him/when she hands you tea/when on all their hangouts respectively

also i’m guessing this is the flower shirt announcement? i never saw this… very cool.

so that's why

[alexriesart]

Two days to go on the Kickstarter for my art book 'Other Worlds'. I have included art I produced for Australian Geographic Magazine, which was a dream come true; I read my parents collection religiously.

Click here to support the Kickstarter!

The hotel in LEO services the extremely wealthy, with large microgravity research areas in the non-rotating sections. Below, the Earth is being ravaged by climate change, and some of the rich look to the sky for escape.

The sailprobe is exploring the ocean of a terrestrial world orbiting a red dwarf sun, sending its findings to a satellite in orbit for transmission to earth. Flyers overhead observe it curiously as it passes through a drift of wind driven siphonophore-like beings.

[styllwaters]

Rejoice, roleplay characters be upon ye

Been very occupied lately with playing toys in my discord server. These are all a part of the collaborative Space Station AU which I mentioned in my last art dump!!

(Bonus Si'Saak under the cut)

[wednesdaywarriorswc]

big looking forward to gerrard thinking buck is his safe straight white guy that embodies all the values he thinks is right in firefighters and like playing SUPER hard on it only for bucks hot pilot-firefighter boyfriend to turn up and make out with him

[deltaruminations]

someone on youtube layered ‘em together with gaster’s theme (though reversed d.ogg for some reason?):

i saw someone a while back speculate that deltarune might have some variation on the "eight melodies" idea from the mother games… i feel like d.ogg in particular seems to fit the vibe of that sound stone rhythm. i dunno! wild stuff!

here's something Very Very Interesting™

so in deltarune chapter 2, these two sounds are used...Somewhere. i don't exactly recall, but i'm fairly certain they're specific to snowgrave. take a listen:

some sort of wind sound effect

very strange sounding rock sample. i specifically say "sample" because the audio sounds slowed down already, and if you listen closely to the little key change, you can hear it's not actually baked into the audio so to speak, but just the one sample repeated and slowed down in post the second time - interestingly enough, pitched down by just one note specifically.

but, here's what i wanted to point out that i haven't seen anyone else mention. you may have noticed, despite these being straight from the files, i just labeled them "Audio 1" and "Audio 2." because, the thing is -

The filenames for these are "w.ogg" and "d.ogg". W.D. No other audio files are just a single letter. It's just W and D. And another thing, with the guitar sample -

It plays for one bar, and then plays again, pitched down by one semitone/note. This is exactly how Gaster's Theme is structured. (Although, you could say Gaster's Theme goes down after a whole measure, but, same difference. It's fucking weird.)

[starstruckbyacomet]

Three Firefighter Shows & Their Queers

Station 19 vs. 9-1-1 vs. Lone Star

A. THE FIREFIGHTER SHOWS

Station 19 is a TV show about firefighters, created by Stacy McKee with Shonda Rhimes as Executive Producer, launched by ABC in Jan 3, 2018. It's a spin-off of Grey's Anatomy.

9-1-1 is a TV show about firefighters, co-created by Tim Minear with Ryan Murphy as Executive Producer, launched by Fox in Mar 22, 2018.

Lone Star (or 9-1-1: Lone Star) is a TV show about firefighters, co-created by Tim Minear with Ryan Murphy as Executive Producer, launched by Fox in Jan 19, 2020. It's a spin-off of 9-1-1.

They sound repetitive? Wait until you get to the next parts.

B. THE TOKEN QUEER COUPLES

Station 19 has only one queer (bisexual) main couple: Maya Bishop (main character) x Carina DeLuca (main character) or MARINA. Maya Bishop is a member of Station 19, while Dr. Carina DeLuca is a medical doctor in... Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital (duh 🙄).

Cheating issue: Maya cheated on Carina with her ex, Jack Gibson.

Parenthood issue: Initially Maya didn't want to be a parent, but Carina wanted to. Maya changed her mind later.

Adoption issue: Marina's effort to adopt baby Liam was far from smooth. First, they needed to foster Liam. They also faced a risk of losing the baby.

9-1-1 has only one queer (lesbian) main couple: Henrietta Wilson (main character) x Karen Wilson (recurring character) or HENREN. Henrietta Wilson is member of 118 Firehouse, while Dr. Karen Wilson is an aerospace engineer.

Cheating issue: Hen cheated on Karen with her ex, Eva Mathis.

Adoption issue: Henren's efforts to adopt Denny, and later Mara, were far from smooth. They also faced a risk of losing their children with each adoption or child fostering 🙄.

Lone Star has only one queer (gay) main couple: TK Strand (main character) x Carlos Reyes (main character) or TARLOS. TK Strand is member of 126 Firehouse, while Carlos Reyes is a police officer, later a Texas Ranger.

Parenthood issue: Initially Carlos didn't want to be a parent, but TK wants to. Carlos might change his mind later.

(Potential) adoption issue: TK wanted to adopt Jonah, his little step-brother. By the time this piece is posted, Lone Star final season is still ongoing. We don't know yet what will happen to the adoption plan.

C. THE OTHER QUEERS: THE "ETERNAL BACHELORS"

Station 19 has only one other queer main character: Travis Montgomery (gay).

Relationship journey: He became a widow after his husband, Michael Williams, died. Since then he had a string of failed relationships.

Final relationship status: By the end of the show, Travis got a brand new boyfriend (Dominic Amaya), whom he could build a relationship with.

It is an odd choice to make Travis went through a string of failed relationships until the end of the show (May 30, 2024), when other main characters got their one 'true love'. Sure, other main couples have their ups and downs during their relationships, but each of them got a 'soulmate', someone who audience assumed would be their end-game partner. Since Station 19 already had Marina set and settled, it is as if the show was afraid to upset the general audience if there were more than one queer couple had a lasting relationship with a happy ending.

9-1-1 has only one other queer main character: Evan Buckley ("Buck") (bisexual).

Relationship journey: He had a string of failed relationships with 4 women and 1 man during Season 1 to Season 8A (current season). Currently he is single.

Final relationship status: Yet unknown, since the show is still ongoing.

Other prominent queer (gay) character on 9-1-1 is Josh Russo (recurring character). He had one failed relationship portrayed on the show during Season 2 (Josh' 1st appearance) to Season 8A (current season).

Lone Star has only one other queer main character: Paul Strickland (transexual).

Relationship journey: Paul had one date with Josie on ep. 5x01 "Studs", but they didn't pursue a romantic relationship after that. Currently, he's in a relationship with Asha Fulton, whose appearance is almost as rare as UFO sighting 🙄. So far, Asha's only appeared in 5 episodes in total, all were in Season 4.

Final relationship status: Yet unknown. Currently the show is on its final season and has aired 9 of 12 episodes of the season. Paul's girlfriend has not yet made an appearance, but there is also no sign that their relationship is in trouble. If fans were lucky, Asha would make an appearance at the final episode of the show 🙄.

D. THE DIVERSITY QUOTA

All the three firefighter shows are marketed towards the general auidence. Each has only one queer couple who enjoys a lasting relationship, and (most likely will) get a happy ending at the end of the show. The other queer characters are not so lucky in love. Either they go through a string of failed relationships, or have an elusive romantic partner when the shows end.

What ABC did to Travis Montgomery of Station 19 is particularly telling. Why Travis didn't get a lasting romantic relationship with a happy ending? Station 19 has resolved any other problems with their characters, except for this one. The show tried to compensate it by giving Travis a major career boost and a brand new love interest. However, it means he had to build the relationship from scratch... again. And it still didn't answer the question: why didn't Travis get a lasting romantic relationship, when other main characters on the show did?

Paul Strickland's elusive girlfriend in Lone Star must sound familiar to Tevan fans, because that's how 9-1-1 treated Tommy Kinard during his term as Buck's boyfriend. Fans celebrated a less than one minute scene and zoomed his figure in the backgrounds, because Tommy's appearance was so few and far between.

Since Buck is bisexual, there's a chance that he'd get a lasting relationship with a woman. Another option is making Buck the Travis Montgomery of 9-1-1. He'd have a string of failed relationships throughout the show. When 9-1-1 ended, he could be in a brand new relationship with a man, because the show wouldn't need to portray the relationship any longer. Giving Buck an elusive boyfriend ala Paul Strickland seems unlikely, considering his personality. And by reflecting on what happened on other shows, the chance of Buck has a lasting relationship with a man is slimmer than celebrities on Ozempic.

It is as if there is a diversity quota for TV shows marketed towards general audience. If anyone disagree, let me ask this:

Why is there no show marketed towards general audience, which has more than one queer couple with a lasting romantic relationship & a happy ending at the end of the show?

'Coincidence' is not a logically acceptable answer, simply because the sheer number of shows marketed towards the general audience. The possibility of coincidence is also practically out of the window when we question 'why Travis of Station 19 didn't get a 'soul mate' while other main characters on the same show did?'

'There is no such diversity quota. I live in LA and have been working in the industry for decades, so you should trust me' is also not a logically acceptable answer. My question starts with 'why'. Logically, the answer should start with 'because'. That kind of answer reminds me of the dispute between Galileo Galilei vs. the Catholic Church. When Galileo promoted the heliocentrism doctrine based on the phases of Venus, the Catholic Church basically answered 'the doctrine is wrong. We've been studying God and his creations for centuries, so you should trust us.' We know how the story ended.

[twocupsofsugar]

Another page of space encyclopedia completed, this time the Brakken.

"The creation of the Brakken was a point of contention among the Imsee, as some argued that by intervening in the natural evolutionary process they were upsetting the consciousness within the cosmic intellect and that any knowledge gleamed from their work with the brakken is obscured and illegitimate. Eventually Imsee curiosity overrode any moral quandaries they may have had." - Sagan-V

I'm honestly sort of happy with how this one came out in the end, I've got a few more alien species I want to make introductory pages for, so I've got some cooking to do.

[deltaruminations]

i love how you've laid this out!

this helped me untangle a few of my own thought-lines on Dark World Persistence, if you don't mind some braindumping haha

it's weird… for the most part, i think we're at least being led to believe that it's a Last Thursday situation. all of the language around it -- "making," "form," "Will," worlds being created and destroyed along with their fountains -- seems to imply that to be the case, and very little of what we see in the DWs seems to contradict it. Queen even confirms certain aspects of it in her monologues. the Last Thursday hypothesis is also the most immediately consistent with the theme of storytelling, Dark Fountains being metaphorical for the act of creating stories (though I think that metaphor can hold up regardless of the literal mechanics of "creation" in-universe).

i feel like the biggest wrench in the LT hypothesis is the Secret Bosses/Seam, because of course it is lol. Jevil seems to know about Queen before the computer lab Fountain is opened. Seam knows about an upcoming secret boss's elemental build. Spamton has some relationship with "Tenna" and "Mike." by Last Thursday logic, they should only know of these things retroactively.

maybe Last Thursdayism is the natural order of things, but possessing a Shadow Crystal (or what have you) allows certain Darkners to transcend that order? who knows!!!

this is more speculative, but to a certain degree, the actions and effects of the Secret Boss "Someone" by their nature seem to demand some amount of persistence (at least for the SB characters/seam) as Darkners, rather than as objects (however sentient they may be), since they seem very specific to lived experience as a Darkner, yet apparently pre-date the opening of the Fountains by some time. What does it mean, by Light World logic, to make a Joker card into a revolutionary? How does someone help a spam email succeed in business?

i guess the strict LT answer is that these backstories were just created retroactively like everything else, and don't need to have any basis in a "material" past. but that brings up an interesting implication: if the Secret Bosses' histories were created at the same time as the rest of their respective dark worlds, then does that make "Someone" a creation of the Knight as well?

...kind of an aside, but i guess it's also worth noting that, by bringing the objects to Castle Town, darkners are able to persist as the same Darkners-as-we-know-them after their fountains are closed. this doesn't really contradict the LT hypothesis, but it does lend itself to the idea (roughly consistent with option C) that maybe the Fountains don't create the Darkners so much as "hydrate" them, turning them from pure abstractions into something material, giving the extant stories "form." like how thoughts and dreams "exist" in someone's head whether or not they're ever penned down -- except that in the case of option C, those abstractions exist outside of any individual Lightner, forming sort of a collective "prototype" (love that wording) of a reality with its own internal order. by exerting its Will, the Knight isn't so much "creating" the narrative from the ground up as it's simply "telling" a story that already exists, the Knight's individual perspectives necessarily influencing how it tells it.

anyway i guess the point of the "hydration" logic is that the Darkners-as-we-know-them (and possibly their worlds) can be stood up and then collapsed more than once -- the same worlds' Fountains could have been opened and closed in the past. though, the Darkners seem to consider the current Fountains to be a completely new and unprecedented phenomenon... idk lol. food for thought

the deltarune discord server i joined recently was talking about darkner / dark world histories again earlier today, and i missed the main conversation, but it did prompt me to type out my understanding of the three options to the answer of "how do dark worlds seem to have pasts from before the fountains are made, when queen says the knight created the cyber world?"

here are the options i proposed:

Option A

pure last-thursday-ism / retroactive history. the darkners have no sentience until a fountain is made; their and the dark world's past is all a creation of the fountain, with the memories implanted into the darkners from the moment they become sentient, though it borrows from how the objects were interacted with by lightners (how it accesses that history (beyond the knight's own memories) i'm not sure; maybe the objects somehow store that data like memories, which are then accessed by the fountain?)

Option B

the darkners have some level of sentience as objects, but don't exist in their darkner form until a fountain is made; their memories from being objects are edited, given new/different context, by the fountain

Option C

the darkners pre-fountain exist as darkners in some proto version of the dark world on a lower level of reality, while simultaneously being objects in the light world. the proto dark world is essentially a mirror version of the light world where the stuff that happens to the objects in the light world is reflected in the dark world context (but darkners can also interact in the dark world without it being reflected in the light world, allowing for, say, spamton and jevil, a spam email and a playing card, to have a history with each other). when a fountain is made, it "remakes" that (section of the) dark world based on the knight's will, thereby keeping in line with queen saying the knight "create[d]" the cyber world. the proto versions of dark world may take their form less directly from the room the fountain is made in, which would make the sentiment of the knight "creating" a given dark world more accurate. it's still possible there's some memory alteration involved to make the darkners' memories of their pasts more cohesive, especially in the scenario that the proto dark world is, in appearance and structure, significantly different from the dark worlds we've explored thus far in-game.

got all that? good. now, let me ask...

[deltaruminations]

I was actually meaning to ask about what you thought about Sans and Papyrus’ deal was in DR, but then i saw your new post!

Personally, I’m of the mind that the Gaster we talk to in DR *is* from UT and that there did once exist a UT!Sans and UT!Papyrus as well. However, they potentially were the “you two” that Gaster was speaking to back in Entry 17 and while he was “lucky to survive” the accident (heavy emphasis on the quotation marks lol), Sans and Pap had perished.

Then, several years later (from the perspective of UT’s world since the two universes are not chronologically consistent), DR!Sans and Papyrus jump universes and end up stranded in UT. They, as far as we can tell, arrived some time before Alphys became the Royal Scientist considering Sans remembers that she was hoarding a ton of energy drink cans for a “secret project”, which would’ve been MTT’s body for her presentation to Asgore.

My angle is that so far we have seen that (presumably) every UT character has a DR counterpart and vice versa. Sure there are some weird situations like whatever is going on with Kris, but i think largely it should apply to all monsters. Ergo, there should’ve been, at least at one point, a Sans and Papyrus that originate from UT and for whatever reason are gone now.

Also, imo, I feel it’d add a degree of guilt to Gaster’s character if his dedication to Darkness had resulted in not only his life being ripped away from him, but as well as the loss of his closest family. This *could* be in part why he’s so keen on protecting DR’s world out of any other universe out there (or at least one of the reasons I speculate on). It could be a world where they’re all happy and healthy but is ultimately fated to end in destruction.

As for whatever is going on with DR!Gaster? As far as we know he *presumably* is just a regular guy, though he could still be heavily involved with researching alternate worlds and such, considering Sans’ dialogue in his fight regarding “*our* reports...”.

Y'know UT!sans and papyrus dying is pretty sad, but it would explain some things... the bit regarding the survivor's guilt is a good touch. Fair enough! Thanks for sharing!

[paracozmistari]

So are we gonna ignore the fact that Bobby had to LITERALLY ask Brad out??? Like imagine what was going on in Brads head while he got ready for the dinner(dinner not lunch!) Like myy handsome firecaptain is finally recognising me this is my chance i gotta make a move! Oml. Meanwhile Bobby is just annoyed he has to do this (he shouldnt have to in the first place)

And Brad was clearly actually turned on when Bobby put him into place like its no accident that he somehow ended up being allowed to shadow Bobby. Like he def arranged that.

I honestly cannot decide where the BobbyBrad arc is going. Is Brad gonna be just an idiot who finally matures while with the 118? or will he become a villain bc he wants the cookie so effing bad but the cookie dont want him back so he kidnaps Bobby and takes him to the house hes talked about? (Or will he kidnap Buck bc hes jealous at the attention he gets from Bobby?) Who knows

[lnc2]

I think that Kagami's father died after all, because the consequences of a broken Peacock Miraculous are different. To be honest, I doubt that Tomoe is really blind. It seems like she is just pretending to be blind

i disagree. we’ve never heard mention of kagami’s father but we are constantly told about how tomoe used to be a champion fencer. i think the price of the broken peacock is something important to whoever used it. felix’s dad died, gabriel lost his wife, tomoe lost her eyesight. for a while i thought chloe and andre were a part of this and andre lost his career/passion but it looks like that’s not the case.

but that’s my read on it

[deltaruminations]

speaking of echidna!!

the theory that someone proposed, of the Dreemurrs being chimeras, would make a lot of sense. this post goes into some depth about how chimera-Dreemurrs would play into the present Greek mythological and biblical themes in both Undertale and Deltarune.

cw: discussion contains Christianity.

the Chimera. she was a lion-goat sometimes-snake hybrid in Greek mythology who could breathe fire, and was often a symbol of Chaos. chaos, which is reoccurring in Deltarune, and is important within the creation of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Sky/Heaven) in Greek mythology. [more on that here]

the Chimera was also child to Typhon and Echidna. Echidna, a half-snake women, and Typhon... the "father of all monsters", who was described as having "a hundred dragons' heads", and was the last child of Gaia and Tartarus (who is the Underworld).

later, Typhon was defeated by Zeus and was cast away into Tartarus, or alternatively was buried beneath Mount Etna (which is also an active volcano). Mount Ebott and the Underground share parallels with Tartarus/Hades, and is beneath a mountain of a similar name. (Tartarus is also important to the ???? place in Deltarune, and the Titans. [more on that])

if the Dreemurrs are chimeras, it would make them the children of one of the primal forces that created the Titans. in another telling, however, Typhon is child of Cronus, who is king of the Titans, child of Gaia and Uranus, and who holds possible connections to Susie, Jevil, and the ocean.

although the Dreemurrs do not have prominent serpentine traits, the Chimera did not always have a snake tail. nonetheless, their possible connection to serpents may be through their satanic imagery.

fire magic, red pitchforks, goat-like appearances, and rulership over a subterranean realm all fit the classical representation of a devil. Satan is described as serpentine within the Book of Revelation, and furthermore is represented as a "Great Red Dragon" who had seven heads, seven diadems, and ten horns. a multitude of dragon heads, a trait similar to Typhon.

what this exactly means for the monsterkind and the Titans, i do not know. that's where i'm ending this post, i have nothing else rn lol

[saffitaffi]

Finally got around to designing Ize! They’re actually pretty important in the story so this is loooong overdue. Cass and Ize don’t speak any of the same languages so Ize ends up teaching Cass the imp version of sign language but their fingers are so different they get frustrated with Cass struggling lol ^u^

[rosemaryreality]

Hey so you know how everyone is talking about the train in the first Jujutsu Kaisen op? and it's foreshadowing?

Well in a post in reddit wondering about the connection between the train and the opening, the reddit user offhandedly mentioned that the train was flooded.

Why do i point this out? well, the train station on the last chapter didn't seem to have any water, which of course, doesn't necessarily mean anything, the water in the opening could have been meant to symbolize something else (most likely junpei?), HOWEVER, hear me out, when is the last time water has been important in the manga?