#anyways i wanted to make a more. powered up gaster? like hes got a human soul in him or some shit.

[prince-less]

Wanted to make him fucked up

Sorry these are messy I'll make them a bit more coherent if I wanna flesh this out more

[thedawnjester]

I made a Welcome Home/Undertale AU while I was high, and I can't get it out of my head. I've decided to call it Welcome Tale, and it's an AU where the Welcome Home cast are monsters in the Undertale world. They still look and act the same, though. They just have those cool attacks and stuff, lmao. (I'm still high while writing this, I'm sorry.)

Anyways, in this AU, Home basically creates this pocket dimension for Wally and the gang to protect them from the human vs. monster war because Home is just that powerful. We love you, Home! <3 (Home actually terrifies me outside of this AU, lol.) So, anyways, Home makes that pocket dimension, and it works for many years to keep Wally and the neighbors safe.

Until one day, somehow, Wally slips through the dimension and wakes up in, you guessed it, the underground! (*trumpet noises*) And, of course, Home is like, 'Ayo, what the fuck?' and tries to get him back immediately. But something (Gaster) gets in the way, and instead of Home getting Wally back, Home gets Frisk (that's right, baby, we're doing a swap). So now, Frisk is stuck in the pocket dimension, and Wally is now stuck in the underground. The whole AU revolves around that.

I might try to explain more later when I'm not high, lmao, but for now, I'll leave some facts that my brain won't leave me alone about.

- ok so I obviously think Wally is gonna be reminded of Poppy when he meets Toriel and vice versa with Frisk when they meet Poppy

- speaking of Frisk and Poppy Frisk definitely stays with Poppy while they’re in the pocket dimension cause Frisk was not comfortable living in well a living house (sorry Home) anyways Poppy adopting Frisk real

- Sans definitely reminds Wally of Barnaby so he tends to hang out with him a lot Papyrus tends to tag along

- speaking of which I like the idea of Papyrus seeing Wally for the first time and turning to Sans like “IS THAT A HUMAN?!�� and Sans just sits there like “I…I don’t know”

- Wally likes talking to Flowey

-Flowey doesn’t like talking to Wally (he finds it frustrating)

- Frisk and Wally are wearing each other’s shirts cause I said so also instead of the ascot Wally wears the Faded Ribbon around his neck like a cute bow

- I think Home would try to hide the fact Wally is missing for awhile but it couldn’t do much to stop the neighbors from seeing Frisk since Home couldn’t just lock Frisk up that’s just be rude! (looks at all the angst stuff of Home locking Wally up)

- it actually doesn’t take long for the Neighbors to notice Wally is missing Barnaby is definitely the first to find out noticing how weird Home was acting whenever he asked about him

- until Frisk tells them the Neighbors think the Human vs Monster war is still going on and Immediately start to panic upon finding out Wally slipped out of their Pocket Dimension (I’m not saying they thought he was dead but….I’m saying they thought he was dead lol)

- they actually couldn’t be sure if Wally was ok or not though cause well they have no way to contact him but Frisk tries to assure them that Wally was probably with Frisk’s friends so the neighbors hold on to that hope some not actually believing it (gotta have some angst am I right?)

- Frisk has a good time playing games and hanging with the neighbors but they really miss their friends and want to get back so they can help them get rid of the barrier

- oh yeah so basically in this au Frisk was doing the pacifist run ya know but they hadn’t gotten to Asgore yet before they got swapped with Wally so the barrier is still up

- Toriel definitely thought Wally was a child at first he politely corrected her when she did

- Wally definitely needed help with the ruin puzzles luckily Toriel is very patient with him

- Wally stays with Toriel for awhile before convincing her to come with him and leave the ruins (don’t ask me how he’s a very convincing little man how else do you think he got all these people hyperfixating on him?)

- Toriel is very over protective of Wally she’s very worried he’s gonna get hurt due to how passive he is

- Flowey is the only person to know Frisk is gone Flowey was the only person around when they got swapped after all everyone else is completely clueless

Ok that’s it for now this post is probably very messy (Edit: I tried to fix it a bit lol) I’m sorry lmao if you have any questions I’ll be happy to answer idk if I’ll make art for this au cause I’m not very good at drawing haha but I might try!

[undertale-writing-times]

Maybe some Gaster fluff, please?

It is done! Thank you for sending :)

You and Gaster knew each other before the war even started. It was when monsters and humans lived together in peace, and you were so happy to know him. He was a weirdo, a little dork, and strange but he was really sweet.

He would often come to see you whenever you weren't able to go to school, making sure to take your notes so you wouldn't miss anything. He said that it was because you needed to study. You had a feeling it was more because he just wanted to come and see you.

What a dork.

As the years flew by, you two got closer. You learned how to read his language so you two could talk to each other in a secret language that nobody else could know. He seemed flattered when you learned, embarrassed mostly.

He told you that you didn't need to do that for him, but it was very sweet.

Then monsters and humans started to drift apart, yet you and Gaster never let each other go. You would both sneak out to go and meet each other, and hang out during school, even if people seemed to find you two… strange.

You both didn't care.

As long as you had each other, it didn't matter!

It just seemed to get worse and worse as the years went on though, and by the time you were both out of school and older, humans and monsters seemed to be at each others throats… it was mostly humans starting it.

They feared the monsters, they feared the monsters because of the powers that they had but, honestly, you thought it was stupid! Yes, monsters had magic but so did a lot of humans! Hell, you had magic! It was healing magic but it was still magic.

You sat with Gaster today, your legs pulled up to your chest, your head rested against your knees. "Hey G? Do you think they're ever going to stop trying to pick fights?"

He looks over at you, tilting his head then shrugs his shoulders, starting to move his hands to sign to you. "I am unsure. Humans have always been quick to judge others based off their looks rather than their actions" When you stare at him, squinting a little, he paused "Other than you" That made you laugh.

It was all fine and dandy, until… the war happened.

Humans fought against the monsters, accusing them of so many bad things and slaughtering so many of them. A lot of dust was in the grass.

Gaster fought with the rest of the monsters, and his friend Grillby, and you helped them by healing them if they got hurt. Your magic was being spread far and thin, but if it was allowing them to keep fighting, you didn't care.

You hated the fact that you were a human.

Some of the younger monsters even seemed afraid of you… which you hated.

Things seemed to be going well, until the humans, a few of the strongest mages, got together to use a spell. They would create a barrier, keeping the monsters underground. They were pushed under, and you jumped down before the barrier could be finished. You knew what it would cause, you knew that you would die down here but… that didn't matter.

You've always felt safer near monsters than humans, anyway.

The fall knocked you out, and Gaster, of course, was the one to find you and he took you. The monsters, all of them, knew what you did to help them during the war.

Even though you were asleep, you were praised for your help, and Gaster decided that he wouldn't let you pass. There was no way he would just let his closest friend die like that! So… he started to work.

He became the royal scientist, and created something that would hold your body until you were able to wake up. It would keep you alive, keep you… safe. He would have to put in some of his own magic to spread through you, just enough since overload could be bad for you.

It was a thought that interested him but… you were you, and he couldn't use you as a test subject. They all learned that with 7 human souls, they could get out of the underground. And over the years, they got their souls. 6 of them.

He had the 7th but he wasn't going to let anyone take you away from him. You were his best friend! His only friend the only person that… he felt like he could love.

and if any of them thought he would just give you up, they were crazy. Instead, he protected you, and made the core! It would make the underground liveable.

Food, fresh air, water, everything that they needed.

As the years passed, he got older, got some cracks in his skull but nothing he couldn't handle.

And… He had children.

Ones he created himself, of course.

He would never take a datemate if they were not you! You owned his body, his mind, and his soul. Their names were Sans and Papyrus.

Sans the older.

Both created from his bones and magic. Annoyingly, Sans came out weak because Gaster didn't put enough magic. He learned his lesson, luckily.

Often, he would tell them stories of you, and things you did to help them. Papyrus liked to say "My mama's a hero!" Gaster got embarrassed at that, and never knew what to say to him. Sans thought you seemed cool… Often Gaster would hear him talking to you whenever he needed to bring his son to the lab.

Now, it had been almost 40-90 years since the war. All that had happened, and he decided to try something.

You didn't seem to be waking from the coma, so he needed to try to wake you up himself.

He created another machine. One that could attach to your soul, and he grabbed the bars, letting the machine suck out his own magic. He felt and t on his soul, an empty feeling starting to form. The machine beeped at him, telling him he was getting low, but your soul was shining brighter than he'd seen it in forever.

It was working.

Then boom! An explosion. It sent him flying back against the wall, his skull hitting against it with a sickening crack. He could feel another crack which made him groan, then couch from the smoke.

Damn it.

A failure… Again.

Yet, before he could even think of another word, he heard coughing.

"What the?" A voice says, between the coughs.

Gaster tensed at that, all pain quickly forgotten. He mumbles your name in a language that died with the rest of the skeletons pretty much, and pushed the button on the wall.

It turned on the fans.

There he saw you.

Sitting up, looking confused. He smiles, standing up hurrying over "Y/n, you're finally awake. I was starting to lose hope" he signed quickly. Two hands other than his own floating around him.

You stared at him, confused, before looking shocked "G?" The realization was clear on your face. "You look older! What happened? What happened to your hands? Where are we?"

He sighs, and sits, starting to explain everything. How they got human souls, how he was the royal scientist, and met Alpys and his sons were created…

You just nodded along…

"So… You decided to keep me alive, and gave me your magic?" He nods, then you smile "that's oddly wholesome for you, GG" you tease.

"Y/n, please, now is not time for your teasing" he grumbles, rubbing at his skull. You seemed to notice because you reach up, starting to heal it causing him to shut his eyes, leaning into the touch, his mind rushing.

That worked, it's amazing that it worked, that could keep monsters from falling down, right? He'll have to fix the machine.

"The boys would want to meet you, so whenever you feel good enough to… Their names are Sans and Papyrus"

"It's sweet that you told the boys about me, what did you say?" You suddenly ask, looking over at him tilting your head to the side.

And that was when Gaster started to question everything. He spoke about you as if you were their mother, his datemate… you were not…

"G… you okay?" you suddenly asked, knocking him out of his thoughts. He makes a soft oh sound, then nods in approval. "Yes, fine. Let us go" he stands up, helping you up, and starts to walk.

He would deal with it when the time comes, he supposes.

It came faster than expected, because the second the boys saw that you were awake, Papyrus got all excited "mom!" he runs over, hugging your legs, which Gaster expected so he had a hand on your back to make sure that you wouldn't get knocked over.

You blink, looking down at the tiny skeleton, then giggle, and crouch down hugging him back "Well hello there! Mom, though?"

"Mhm I, the greatest of Papyrus, was told that you were my mom" he paused, then tilts his head looking the smallest amount hurt, "Is that not true?" He looks over at Gaster, who had a deep purple blush on his face.

"Oh no no, it is" You say, and stand up holding the skelly against you then lean over, kissing Gasters cheek "It really is"

Gaster lets out a soft groan, turning his head away. Lord… what is he going to do now?

Over the next few years, you helped Gaster out so much. Before, he felt tired so often and he put too much of his energy into work. He would admit, that he was not the best father.

Then, you came around again, and he felt like he had enough energy to go around! He didn't need to drink coffee as much, even though he very much enjoyed to, and he spent more time with his sons.

Of course being the royal scientist, he had a lot of things he needed to do, and sometimes he couldn't spend as much time with them as he wished. It was why he was so happy that you were there with him, to help him and to remind him of a better time.

Together, they would tell so many stories of the above ground. Stories of heroes and the fight, and stars! Sans always seemed the most interested in that. You told him stories of the stars, and the different shapes that they made. "It's beautiful" you would tell the little skeleton, seeing his eyes light up, "a whole sky full of sparkles"

"Are we ever going to see the stars?" Sans would always ask, and you and Gaster would have to look at each other, until you nod.

"Of course you will" you kiss the top of Sans' head "You'll see all of the stars, no matter what, Sans."

Gaster was so happy that you seemed to be happy with his children. They had parts of him. Papyrus looked more like him, even more when he wore his glasses that Papyrus never wants to! Ahhhhhh!

Gaster reminds him every day but he says that the glasses aren't needed. Well, he believed that it was! Sometimes Papyrus would gasp and point at things "Is that a human?!" then it would just be like... a rock. It, at times, got on Gasters nerves...

[stellocchia]

Okay, okay, Undertale AU now. 

So... I’ve been playing Undertale again... as I do once a year since it came out. It’s tradition. So I was kind of thinking who from the Dsmp whould fit which role... and yeah... 

(I also wanted to add that none of the characters who are in a romantic relationship in the game are in this au. As a matter of fact, no romance in general here!)

First of all, we gotta give the role of Frisk to Ranboo, not because he played Undertale, but because of that one time that he told the story of how he flirted with his opponents in volleyball (was it volleyball? Maybe another sport. It’s irrelevant!) and that’s simply a very Frisk thing to do...

Then first monster we encounter is Flowey and... I mean... that’s c!Dream right there. All the focus on “fun” and “power” and seeing life as a “game” and the bloodlust... yeah, no that’s definitely Dream right there. 

Then Toriel comes in! Yay! Puffy is Toriel, no doubt. Both of them have a focus on protecting the children and they’re both really kind, but can get hella scary when angry... 

Also Niki is Napstablook ... mostly because she basically did end up haunting/being haunted by the Secret City for a while... also pretty sure both like music and are pretty soft spoken

Then we get the skeleton brothers! Well, Sans first... and who would fit Sans better then Wilbur! Both of their characters struggled heavily with mental health related problems and they are both really strong but somehow also weak at the same time... (strongest boss in the game with 1 hp and all that) not to mention that they both have way too many simps...

Also that means Tommy is Papyrus. I do not make the rules here. Hyper younger brother who is endlessly optimistic and soft hearted? Yep! That’s him!

Which, may have you think that Tubbo is Undyne because, you know, best friends, but no. Undyne is, in fact, Philza Minecraft everybody. They don’t call him Angel of Death for nothing, so he definitely gets to be the captain of the royal guard in this one! He’s just a much more laid back but equally deadly Undyne.

Also Techno gets the role of the socially anxious nerdy scientist, because he’s been ibernating under a pile of dogs for a few months now and also because he once got peer pressured into murder much like Alphys did into building a murderous robot... so yeah. 

Also, to complete the ghost family now: Jack Manifold gets the role of Mad Dummy, cousin of Napstablook, because they’re both short, bald and full of spite

And none other then Eret gets the role of Mettaton (other cousin of Napstablook) because they’re both absolutely fabulous and because they’d rock the Mettaton EX form...

Moving on,Schlatt is Asgore. He and Puffy are brother and sister. Why? Because they are both sheeps and it would fit... though admittedly Schlatt has had less moral qualms with killing children then Asgore so far, they do both have that in common as well

Which brings us to Tubbo inevitably being Asriel, because sheep guy, but also because, as a character, he has a history of being pushed around by power hungry people with more charisma then him, and also because Asriel in his God of Hyperdeath form has a f*cking rainbow laser cannon and I think that’s a very Tubbo thing to have...

Quackity is Chara. Both are pretty vengful and power-hungry characters who are not afraid of doing some seriously f*cked up shit to get to their goals, but also they both care about those close to them deeply and have a sort of tragedy to their character

Also Awesamdude gets to be Gaster, and no it’s not only because there is as much Awesamdad fan content as there was Dadster despite neither of them ever being confirmed as canon, but because both characters are brilliant inventors who got screwed over by their own creation...

For some other fun bonuses I could think about: 

Sapnap as Monster Kid just because of the absurdly chaotic personality

BBH gets to be Muffet, for no particular reason aside from general vibe

Foolish as Burgerpants because they’re both underpaid and extremely stressed

Punz as Grillby because: money and intimidating aura

Purpled as Nice Cream Guy because: money

And this is pretty much all I could think about... I would include others but I’m kind of stomped at the moment...

So here’s some revisited quotes instead (under the cut):

Flowey!Dream: “Howdy! it’s me Dream. Dream the Dreamon!”

Toriel!Puffy: “Did you want to hear about the book I’m reading? It’s called “72 ways to crack an Egg”. How about it?”

Papyrus!Tommy: “Ah yes, Music Disks, a great reference for theoretical battle scenarios and parties! To which I get invited just constantly!”

Papyrus!Tommy: “W-well, that’s not what I expected... but st- still! I believe in you prick! You can definitely do better! Even if you don’t think so! I... promise....”

Sans!Wilbur: “On days like this, kids like you... should be suffering in Limbo!”

Sans!Wilbur: “Just... don’t say I didn’t warn you. Well. I’m going to Punz’s. Tommy, do you want anything?”

Undyne!Phil: “...Forget it. Look mate. Tommy didn't come to his meeting today. Say what you want about him. He's loud, he's bit selfish, he's obsessed with disks... But Tommy has NEVER missed a meeting. (...) But now he's gone. And his brother isn't around, either. ... What did you do to him? What did you DO TO HIM? Tommy, who I have trained every day... Even though I KNOW he's too soft to ever hurt anyone. Tommy who is... was just a child... ... Go ahead. Prepare however you want. But when you step forward... I will KILL you”

Alphys!Techno: “A long time ago, I made a robot named Eret. Originally I built them to be a farmer robot for my potatoes... didn’t turn out quite right there. Anyway, recently I decided to make them more useful. Heh, you know, just some practical adjustments.... and I might have been carried away a bit and added some, um... Anti-human combat features?”

Asgore!Schlatt: “I'd like to ask, 'would you like a protein shake?' But... you know how it is”

Asriel!Tubbo: “I always was a pushover, wasn’t I, Quackity? I know... you’re not actually Quackity are you? Quackity’s been gone for a long time. Um... what... what is your name? Ranboo? That’s... a weird name bossman...”

Chara!Quackity: “Hey man. I am Quackity. Thank you man. Your power brought me back from Limbo. My "human soul"... my "determination"... they were not mine, but YOURS. At first, I was so confused. Our plan had failed, hadn't it? Why was I brought back to life? ...You. With your “guidance” I realized the purpose of my reincarnation: POWER”

[kiokodoodles]

More Incorrect Quotes but it’s long

Mal: Ew. What kind of tea is this?

Cyrus: I boiled gatorade.

—

Aster: Shouldn't get stressed out, it's not good for the baby.

Papyrus: What baby?

Aster, crying a bit: Me.

—

Mal, texting: Answer your phone

Paps, texting back: Wait a minute, I can’t find my phone

Mal: Understood

Mal, 5 minutes later: You’re a terrible person. You know you’re killing me. You’re killing me, Paps.

—

Papyrus: How many children do you have?

Cyrus: Biologically, legally, or emotionally? Because there is a difference.   

—

Rus: Aster just said "I have an appetite for destruction" and then they reached down and untied my shoe. 

—

Pine: Are you having another depressive episode?

Rus: A depressive episode?

Rus: I'm having a depressive series and we're just on season one. 

—

Sans: When do you usually go to sleep?

Papyrus: Whenever I collapse is entirely up to the gods. 

—

Junior: I made this friendship bracelet for you.

Mal: You know, I’m not really a jewelry person.

Junior: You don’t have to wear…

Mal: No, I’m gonna wear it forever. Back off. 

—

Jasper: *makes Aspen a cup of tea but puts salt in it*

Aspen: *sips tea*

Jasper:

Aspen: *finishes tea*

Jasper: Didn't it taste bad?

Aspen: Yeah, but I didn't want to hurt your feelings so I drank it all.

Jasper, tearing up: Oh, okay. 

—

Paps: You know what I’ve realized?

Pyre: Some thoughts are better left unsaid?

Paps: Nice try, anyways- 

—

Cyrus, confused and exasperated: Aster, how do you plan on telling a bear to go vegan?

Aster: Politely

—

Junior: I’m 80% awesome 20% water and 100% handsome.

Wings: That’s 200%.

Junior: I’m twice the man you’ll ever be. 

—

Sans: Hey Pyre, can you give me the opposite of these words?

Sans: Always, Coming, From, Take, Me, Down.

Pyre: Never, Going, To, Give, You-

Pyre: The fucking satisfaction. 

—

Pine: I’ve invited you here because I crave the deadliest game...

Paps, nodding: Knife Monopoly.

Pine: I was actually going to play Russian roulette, but now I'm really interested in whatever knife Monopoly is. 

—

Papyrus: So, Rus, do you have a crush on anyone?

Rus: The only crush I have is this crushing anxiety. 

—

Papyrus: What’s your favorite color?

Gaster: Stop asking stupid questions. Ask me something logical and mature.

Papyrus: How many moles of sodium bicarbonate are needed to neutralize 0.8ml of sulfuric acid at STP?

Gaster: My favorite color is pink. 

—

Papyrus: Do you have a self-care routine?

Paps: "Keep going bitch" said to myself in different accents. 

—

Papyrus: Damn, the power went out.

Sans: Don’t worry, I got this.

Sans: *shakes rapidly and starts to light up*

Papyrus: What-?

Sans: I swallowed a glow stick!

Papyrus, on the verge of tears: WHY WOULD YOU- 

—

Mal, ordering coffee: I’d like a light roast.

Paps: You're kinda ugly. 

—

Jasper: I’m proud to say I’ve come over my fear of ghosts!

Sans: Eyy, that’s the spirit!

Jasper: *gasps* whErE???!!!?? 

—

Aspen: Ah shit, I forgot.

Junior: Forgot what?

Aspen: How do you expect me to answer that? 

—

Papyrus: I can't imagine what Gaster is planning. But I can tell you two things. We won't like it and it won't be legal. 

—

Cyrus: We either die free, or die trying!

Rus: Are those the only choices? 

—

Jasper, holding in their laughter: Hey, how do you ask a glass of water what it’s doing?

Pine: A glass of water is an inanimate object. Therefore, it's incapable of having a thought process or understanding basic human language.

Jasper:

Jasper: Water you doing? 

—

Teacher: Your child was in a fight.

Morgan: Oh no, that’s terrible!

Pyre: Did they win? 

—

Rus: My only talent is being stress.

Papyrus: Don't you mean stressed?

Rus: No. 

—

Computer: Please enter a password.

Papyrus: *types in S/O’s name*

Computer: Your password is too weak.

Papyrus: How fucking DARE YOU- 

—

Junior: I think it's time to start fucking some shit up.

Pine: Oh no.

Junior: More like "oh yes!" 

—

@ivyprism

Cyrus, if he were drunk: Wait, what's going on? Are we all talking about how hot Hydrangea is? Because Hydrangea is a straight up sexual fox riding a red-hot nuclear bombshell right toward the yowza plaza in the heart of Babe City, Assachusetts, U S A. The last A just stands for more ass. 

—

Mal: You have an impressive pain tolerance.

Aster: Thanks, it's the trauma.

—

Sans: So, she kissed me.

Papyrus: And you kissed her back?

Sans: No, I kissed her mouth. 

—

Mal: This is horrible! This is the most humiliating thing to ever happen to me!

Sans: Oh-? Even more humiliating than-

Mal: We are not doing this! 

—

Junior: I need life advice.

Rus, sipping Gatorade and eating cookie dough: You came to the right person.

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

The Pie Was A Distraction (Deltarune Theory)

I just realized that Kris (or whatever other entity beside the player is controlling them) wasn’t just going to eat the pie....and they may have sneak out to break into the library just to create a dark fountain that would act as a portal to the cyber world. 

I also want to say that I saw a video that talked about a theory that Kris may have more than one soul in them, one being their own and other being the player and someone else, so I am not the only one who believes that theory and it’s nice that someone else ended up coming to the same theory.

anyway I believe that the whole Kris taking out a knife just to use it on the pie, and then eat it........might only be a distraction to make us think that is all that Kris did with the knife, but in truth as soon as we could no longer see them and the credits started for Chapter 1, that gave Kris enough time to leave their house and go to the library and do the same thing they did in the very end of Chapter 2. 

what took away the Player and Kris’s control, was the third entity who makes us think that the only thing that Kris did with the knife was use it on the pie,

but in truth Kris didn’t eat the pie until they got home from opening a dark fountain at the library.

I also still believe that the Ralsei we see in Chapter 2, is NOT the same one we meet in Chapter 1.

one, the Ralsei we meet in Chapter 1 is around the same height as Kris.

while the Ralsei that appears in Chapter 2, seems to be a little taller than Kris.

my other theory is that maybe Falsei didn’t imprison the Ralsei from Chapter 1, but instead left him all alone in the dark world behind the delta rune doors.

Falsei is what I call Chapter 2′s Ralsei.

that Ralsei is just a bit more suspicious than the one from Chapter 1,

sure we the fans always had the theory might be secretly evil or that he was tricked by the man who speaks in hands.

but what if the Ralsei who is secretly a villain, might be the one who appears in Chapter 2, the Faux-Ralsei aka Falsei.

another theory I have is that the secret videos we find in the true lab,

is that the video talks about how Toriel is excited to have the child,

might be referring to Ralsei, like it could turn out that Ralsei could be from the Undertale Universe and isn’t just Asriel’s Soul taking form once it ended up in Deltarune and into the Dark World.

but everyone ends up forgetting about Prince Ralsei in Undertale, but that theory might be more fanon than canon.

the Toriel in Deltarune and the Toriel in Undertale have some appearance differences to them.

like the Deltarune version has a turf of hair on top of her head, and might have purple eyes while the Toriel from Undertale has red eyes.

most Undertale AU versions of Toriel do either have red or purple eyes.

I think the shadow crystals could be parts of Gaster that were scattered through time and space, and end up falling into the different lands of dark world.

it’s possible that Gaster does have Nonexistent Physiology, Void Magic and Omnipresence, like some fandom wikia that has a list of super powers had listed him with some of those powers.

 also I think Kris’s true soul might be turquoise (the blue turquoise color)

I also think the Red Soul might be a Artificial Soul created by Gaster and he might of been the one who gave Chara the idea about how to free every monster in the first place.

or Chara could be the name of the Red Soul that Gaster created, and the name of the first fallen human could of been Kris.

the different color flowers at Asgore’s Flower shop/home

didn’t have a Red Flower, this could mean that the Red Soul isn’t a trait in Deltarune and the Red Soul in Deltarune, could of been the same one from the Undertale Universe.

the third entity taking control of Kris during nighttime and creating the dark fountains around the Hometown, could be either a dark split personality of Kris or it could be Gaster or even a New-Chara.

the end of Chapter 1, where Kris takes out the knife and looking our way all creepy like before going to the credits and then it showing in Chapter 2 that they only ate the pie, is obviously a distraction from what they were really up to.

they did eat the pie, but not until they got back from the library where they created a dark fountain portal, and the Knight that they work for went into the dark world where Queen is and they the Knight ended up making Queen more worse than she was, so it only took a full night before the next morning for the brainwashing from the Knight to be fully completely.

it’s possible that whoever else is in Kris besides the Player,

they might be working for the Knight.

and there really could be more than one Knight.

and they all work for the Head Knight, who might be Gaster...?

Kris seemingly creating a dark fountain in their home in Chapter 2,

might not really be the only time they have created a dark fountain.

the dark fountain at the school, could been created by Kris when they were Frisk/Chara’s age.

the dark fountains might act as portals to other worlds, that the Darkners/Tulpa live.

Deltarune is possibly a Alternate Reality and Timeline,

and it is the Humans in Deltarune were banished to the underground instead of the Monsters, and many fans might believe that is true.

the banishing of the Humans in Deltarune might not be in the same way that the Monsters in Undertale were, and it could be possible that the underground that the Humans were banished to, was a Dark World.

the Dark World they are trapped in, might behind that secret red door.

unlike in Undertale, it hasn’t been centuries when the Humans were banished.

and it could of first happen when Kris was just a baby.

Kris could be around 14 to 15 years old, while Asriel could be around 18 to 19 years old.

so the Humans being banished into the underground/Dark World and ending up having to live with Darkners, could of been either around 14 to 15 years ago in Deltarune.

I’m only guessing that Kris and some of their classmates could be around 14 and 15 years old.

I’m guessing that Papyrus wont be shown in Deltarune until either 2023 or 2024.

we just have to try to have some patience.

not everyone has to agree about theories I mention in this,

but it is possibly true that Kris (or the third entity controlling them)

wanted us to believe that all Kris did was eat pie, but in truth that was not the only thing they did, and they didn’t eat the pie until after they got back from breaking into the library and creating a dark fountain portal.

Kris might have no memories of creating the portals to the dark worlds

or know about the third entity, we will have to wait for the secrets to be revealed and see if the fan theories turn out to be true.

like when darkners turning to stone was predicted as well as the other dark worlds and the whole Kris eating the Pie.

those are one of the best predictions a fan can make that can turn out to be canon.

the Pie was a distraction, to keep us from figuring out that the portal to the dark world in the library was created by the third entity who was controlling Kris.

the pie was probably not eaten by Kris until after they came home from making a portal to a new dark world.

if the Player does a Geno Route, we might give more power to the third entity.

the more we do a Geno Route, the more we give the third entity more power to take over Kris and giving us only a little bit of control.

not everyone has to agree with the theory that has to do with Kris sneaking out at night to break into the library just to make a dark fountain portal to another dark world.

but I see that as headcanon, and maybe other fans have figured this out too and came to the same conclusion.                    

[vgfm]

Deltarune Theory: More Musings on Everyman and Gaster

Hey all, it’s been about a month since my big Everyman Analysis Post and I just wanted to make a quick follow-up that ended up being quite long.

This follow-up includes some things that I left out of the original post, as well as a couple of new revelations and developments I’ve uncovered since then.

This new post also segues into a theory I’ve been building about Gaster, since I feel like both characters are connected.

I recommend you read the original post (if you haven’t already) otherwise this follow-up may not make much sense.

Sections

Quick Recap

Further Foreshadowing

The Curious Case of Mettaton

“Strange” Times

Revisiting Reaper Bird

Creating Reaper Bird

Ice-E’s Odds and “E”nds

A Deeper Look into Father Alvin

Heroes of the Dark, Villains of the Light

A New Challenger Approaches!

Gaster’s Connection to the Knight

Creating a New Future

Gaster is ???

Gaster the ???

What are Skeletons, Anyway?

Conclusion

Quick Recap

If for whatever reason you haven’t read the previous Everyman post, here’s the cliff notes version:

Everyman was the bullet attack from the Reaper Bird amalgamate in Undertale’s True Lab (the one whose head got eaten by butterflies)

Everyman appears twice in Deltarune Chapter 1, implying a greater role in the full game

In Undertale, Everyman was likely an actual person/monster who became part of an amalgamate like Snowdrake’s mother and Shyren’s sister did

Everyman is likely to be “The Knight,” mentioned in Deltarune (see first post for full argument/evidence)

Jevil and the King of Spades are connected to both the Knight and Everyman, implying they’re the same person (again, see previous post)

The word “strange” is associated with Everyman; his sprite in Undertale is called “strangeman” and Seam refers to the Knight as a “strange knight”

The Knight may or may not have a “strange son”, according to Seam (it’s unclear because the line is worded vaguely)

The Knight/Everyman is probably connected to Gaster

If Everyman is an existing character, then he’s likely either Father Alvin or one of the Ice-E’s employees (long story, see previous post)

[Image transcript: Two text boxes from Rouxls Kaard. In order, he says: “Lost...? Frightened...? Confused...? GOOD!! HA HA HA!!!” end image transcript.]

Need some help? Otherwise, we’re moving on...

Further Foreshadowing

I wanted to touch a bit more on the concept of character foreshadowing in Undertale/Deltarune, since it’s one of my foundational arguments for why I think Everyman will be important in Deltarune.

I still can’t help but find it remarkable that Toby took the time to include multiple Everyman “cameos” in Deltarune Chapter 1. The Jevil fight cameo especially gets me because it’s in a secret fight that most players already won’t experience on their initial playthrough, and on top of that it’s a rare event in said fight. It reminds me of how the “Mysteryman” event in Undertale has a strong chance to not trigger even if you have the correct fun value. This all feels like a lot of trouble for Toby to go through for what is an otherwise extremely obscure character.

Last time I gave examples of how characters like Mettaton and Rouxls Kaard were foreshadowed before they were properly introduced, but I found another example of a foreshadowed character that better illustrates my argument:

Muffet was a fan-made boss included in Undertale as a backer incentive for the game’s Kickstarter. In other words, she was (presumably) not part of the initial plans for the game or its demo (which was released prior to the Kickstarter). In the finished game, Muffet, while not as important as other boss characters, still ties into the spider bake sale seen in the Ruins and she’s (possibly?) one of the mercenaries hired by Mettaton to kill you.

Muffet’s inclusion in the full game retroactively makes the Ruins’ spider bake sale serve as foreshadowing for her character. However, Toby didn’t stop there.

[Image transcript: Two side-by-side screenshots of Undertale. In the left one, the narration says “(It’s a spider web.)” In the right screenshot, the narration continues: “(There’s a flyer for a bake sale on it.)” end image transcript.]

Toby also added a bake sale flyer in Napstablook’s house as an additional reminder and gave Muffet her own introductory bake sale room in Hotland before she’s properly fought.

Note how once again Toby took the time and effort to foreshadow a character multiple times, even though that character wasn’t even part of his original plans. And, as was the case with MTT and RK, the foreshadowing wasn’t just a one-off hint or nod, either.

Muffet is also an example of how foreshadowing doesn’t need to include a character’s name or a direct reference in any dialogue or flavor text. Mettaton and Rouxls Kaard are both mentioned by name (or initials) by other characters, yet Muffet’s name is never spoken before her fight.

A first time player going in blind would have no way of knowing that Muffet exists as a specific character in the narrative, but her presence would still make sense and be foreshadowed from contextual clues. The spider bake sale, while not telling us exactly who Muffet is, clearly builds up to the eventual reveal of her role and motivations. This is what I meant when I said that some foreshadowing only makes sense in hindsight, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is foreshadowing.

The Curious Case of Mettaton

Think back to what I said last time about foreshadowing:

“For all we know there could be other, more-cryptic Everyman references already in Deltarune that we don’t have the full context to understand yet.”

While I didn’t specify it at the time, I meant this as a subtle hint that Deltarune’s mentions of the Knight would double as foreshadowing for Everyman (assuming they’re the same person, as my theory alleges). Obviously I didn’t start my original post with this argument because it would be putting the cart before the horse and I had to first establish why I think Everyman is the Knight.

Speaking of the Knight, another thing that I hinted at but didn’t fully spell out last time is the fact that the three most prominent characters who mention the Knight (Seam, Jevil, and the King of Spades) all coincidentally leave “clues” that point to Everyman as well. Seam uses the word “strange” more than any other character and is the first one to mention the “strange” Knight. Jevil mentions the Knight and has the rare Everyman bullet. The Spade King mentions the Knight several times, including as his final in-battle line, then right after allows his cloak to fly away as a butterfly (an image associated with Everyman, per my last post).

If my theory is correct then it would mean that Everyman is foreshadowed even more heavily in chapter 1 than just his two visual “cameos”. It would also mean that every mention of the Knight would serve as a “namedrop” for Everyman, like how Mettaton and Rouxls Kaard are namedropped before their introductions.

This type of foreshadowing, where namedrops are seemingly “unconnected” to visual cameos, isn’t unprecedented. Mettaton is namedropped several times in Undertale before Hotland, but we also see his rectangular form powering the Snowdin colored tile puzzle.

[Image transcript: An Undertale screenshot of Frisk looking at Mettaton’s deactivated body next to the colored tile puzzle in Snowdin. The narration says “(The machien isn’t working.)” end image transcript.]

I also want to clarify that, yes, that’s actually Mettaton--Papyrus mentions that Alphys designed the tile puzzle and you can see that Mettaton disappears from that room later on before eventually reusing the tile puzzle himself in Hotland.

[Image transcript: An Undertale screenshot of Frisk talking on the phone with Papyrus in the Snowdin colored tile puzzle room. Papyrus is saying “OH HO!!! THE PUZZLE THAT DR. ALPHYS MADE!” end image transcript.] 

But here’s something you may not have ever thought about: there’s absolutely nothing prior to Hotland that outright says that the mysterious “MTT” and the machine powering the tile puzzle are one in the same, just like how there’s no line of dialogue in Deltarune Chapter 1 that outright says Everyman is the Knight.

In fact, I’d argue there’s more evidence to suggest that Everyman is the Knight than there is to suggest (to a new player, pre-Hotland) that “MTT” and the tile puzzle machine are the same person (or even a person at all), and yet we know the latter is true. Just something to think about.

“Strange” Times

Something else I wanted to expand upon was the use of the word “strange”. I pointed out last time how Everyman is called “strangeman” in Undertale’s game files and how Deltarune’s dialogue uses the word “strange” very deliberately. 

What I didn’t touch on was how the word “strange” is used in Undertale. Long story short: it’s used a lot more often than in Deltarune but its usage also feels a lot less deliberate. On the one hand, “strange” is used to refer to important things like Alphys’ Lab, Sans’ room, Toriel already “knowing” humans after a reset, and the broken machine in Sans’ workshop.

[Image transcript: An Undertale screenshot of Frisk staring at a curtain in Sans’ secret room. The narration says “(There’s a strange machine behind the curtain.) (It seems to be broken.)” end image transcript.] 

On the other hand, “strange” is also used to refer to more mundane things like sleeping in Toriel’s house, quiet echo flowers, or Mettaton rattling off the features of the game-shaped bomb.

In truth, I don’t think the word “strange” has much meaning when it comes to dialogue in Undertale. However, Everyman is the only sprite in Undertale with the word “strange” in its title. Almost all of the non-dialogue strings with “strange” in their name also relate to Everyman. There are a couple of other strings referring to a “strangetangle,” but I’m not exactly sure what that is.

My personal theory is that Everyman and the True Lab may have been one of the later additions to Undertale’s programming, and by that point Toby had likely written most of the game’s dialogue and didn’t feel the need to retroactively limit the use of the word “strange”. That’s purely my own speculation, of course.

The point still stands that Deltarune uses “strange” in a way that feels much more planned. Unlike Undertale, Deltarune tries to limit “mundane” uses of “strange” as much as possible. I must also reiterate that the first mention of the Knight and the first usage of “strange” in Deltarune is Seam referring to a “strange knight” in bright red letters.

[Image transcript: A Deltarune screenshot of Seam saying “But, recently, a strange knight appeared... And three of the kings were locked away.” end image transcript.] 

On the flip side, Toby has gotten a lot more careful with filenames for sprites in Deltarune. There are no sprites named “everyman” or ”strangeman” in Deltarune’s game files, just as there’s no “Gaster” or “mysteryman” either (save for the vessel name flag that restarts the game). The Everyman bullet that appears in Jevil’s fight is simply “spr_carousel”, and the graffiti is part of “bg_alphysalley”. Toby left far fewer secrets in Deltarune’s files than he did in Undertale’s, likely as a conscious effort to avoid spoiling any future reveals.

Revisiting Reaper Bird

Speaking of covering tracks, when writing my previous post I was a little disappointed to find that Reaper Bird’s battle text was something of a dead end for clues. Almost all of the dialogue and flavor text in Reaper Bird’s fight is repurposed text from the Astigmatism, Final Froggit, and Whimsalot fights.

[Image transcript: An Undertale screenshot of the Reaper Bird battle. Reaper Bird has three text bubbles. In order, they say: “Someone finally gets it,” “Ribbit ribbit,” and “Courage...” end image transcript.] 

When you think about it, Everyman is the most noteworthy thing about the Reaper Bird fight. Without him, Reaper Bird would be the most forgettable amalgamate. Reaper Bird doesn’t even show up again during the True Pacifist “victory lap” walk-around. Endogeny, Lemon Bread, and Snowdrake’s mother all show up in the overworld and have additional dialogue (or dog noises) with their family members. Reaper Bird and Memoryhead are the only amalgamates never heard from again.

I do think that Reaper Bird and Memoryhead are meant to serve a purpose beyond being general amalgamates. Memoryhead at least has the distinction of being the first amalgamate fought, having the unique “bad memory” item associated with it, and (arguably) being the most mysterious of all the amalgamates due to having no easily-identifiable “component” monster parts. 

Still, there are a couple of Reaper Bird tidbits worth pointing out. First is the name: I find it interesting that Everyman has been associated with two different “reaper”-affiliated enemies (i.e., Reaper Bird and Jevil w/ his scythe). It’s also interesting how the artbook shows an early concept for Whimsalot that carries a scythe as well:

[Image transcript: Two entries from the Undertale Artbook. On the left is a spritesheet for Everyman. Beneath it says “spr_strangeman_losinghead.png by Toby Fox. Name: Everyman Description: Just a good guy who shows up on occasion. To the right of this entry is an image of a Whimsalot holding a scythe while wearing a skull mask. Beneath it says “spr_whimsun_reaper.png by Toby Fox. Different idea for Whimsalot.” end image transcript.] 

The sprite is even called “whimsun_reaper”. Funny coincidence how Whimsalot’s design was changed to become more knight-like in the end.

While we’re on this page, there’s something I wanted to take another look at:

Madjick and Knight Knight are grouped with Everyman and Whimsalot despite neither of them being represented within the Reaper Bird’s design or dialogue. This page is immediately after a page that shows concepts for Final Froggit and Reaper Bird:

Wouldn’t it make more sense for Everyman to be on the same page as Reaper Bird, rather than being grouped with with Madjick and Knight Knight? The only things that Madjick, Knight Knight, and Whimsalot have in common are (1) they’re Core enemies and (2) they have the strongest “knights and wizards” theming out of all the Core mercenaries. Final Froggit and Astigmatism’s designs are more ambiguous, and the latter isn’t even included in this section of the artbook at all (despite being a component of Reaper Bird!).

Looking at this page, the earlier design for Reaper Bird’s eye-mouth thing does remind me of something...

It’s a somewhat tenuous connection and could just be a coincidence. Then again, Spade King is connected to the Knight and I already made a big deal out of his butterfly-shaped cloak. Interestingly, Spade King never uses his Chain of Justice attack after his cloak flies away and instead resorts to basic spade bullets to put down the Fun Gang. If the cloak was a gift from the Knight, perhaps it was endowed with sort of power that heightened the King’s abilities?

It is odd how the Chain is the only part of the King’s sprite that’s grey instead of black, white, or blue. Lancer’s sprite doesn’t have any grey on it, nor does he have his own “Chain” appendage. As far as I know this shade of grey is not used on any other character. Grey seems to carry a very specific connotation in this series: New Home is entirely in grey, the overworld sprites for the Amalgamates are grey, and Gaster Followers/Goners are associated with the color as well. We don’t fully know what it means yet, but it seems to be significant. Best make a mental note of it, at least.

Creating Reaper Bird

What especially sticks out to me now is Toby’s line above Reaper Bird’s Artbook entry:

“I created Reaper Bird first but I realized it wasn’t creepy enough so I gave it longer legs in-game.”

Now, when Toby says he created Reaper Bird “first”, he doesn’t specify what that “first” is in relation to. Was Reaper Bird the first amalgamate he designed? Or does Toby mean that he designed Reaper Bird “first” and then designed the Core mercenaries afterwards so that they’d fit as “components” of Reaper Bird’s body?

That latter interpretation may seem like a bit of a stretch, but it’s worth noting that Reaper Bird is the only amalgamate shown in the art book whose concept art does not have a step-by-step “breakdown” of how it was created from the designs of its component monsters. Endogeny and Lemon Bread both have full-page spreads showing earlier concepts alongside the regular monsters that make up their components.

What’s especially interesting is the artbook also includes a scrapped “Royal Guard” amalgamate and a page for Snowdrake’s Mom, whose final design only takes inspiration from Snowdrake.

And yet despite the fact that Reaper Bird has one of the most obvious designs in terms of how its components “fit together”, Toby did not show his early design process and instead only shows three frames of Reaper Bird’s idle animation. Assuming Reaper Bird was designed first and the Mercenaries’ designs were created or modified afterward, this would fit with my theory that the Core Mercenaries were deliberately themed around Everyman and his “knighthood”.

Even the design of Reaper Bird itself evokes some traits of Everyman’s design. Namely, both characters are bipedal, both have long necks, both have a beak/proboscis, and both have a single visible eye mounted on the side of their head. That last part stands out the most to me, as every major character in Undertale and Deltarune has forward-mounted eye sockets, like a human would. Even among random encounter enemies and background NPCs it’s a rarity to find wall-eyed characters.

It could just be my over-eager imagination, but the fully-stretched Reaper Bird looks like it even matches Everyman’s proportions to a degree, almost like it’s a skeleton or outline attempting to regain its “true form” out of the cobbled-together mercenary parts.

I said before that Reaper Bird becomes the most “boring” amalgamate without Everyman. In many respects Everyman is the centerpiece of that amalgamate, and by extension he may also be the centerpiece that informed the designs of the Core mercenaries.

If that’s going too far out on a limb, consider how many places and characters in Undertale are connected to Gaster despite the fact he has no real role in the game’s main plot. Sans, Papyrus, the Core, and the True Lab are all “informed” in some way or another by Gaster’s “existence” even though he never properly appears. Is it so unlikely to imagine that another “unseen” character who may be important in Deltarune also had a large impact on aspects of Undertale’s world?

Ice-E’s Odds and “E”nds

Speaking of impact... I don’t really have a segue lined up, so let’s talk about Ice-E’s instead. In my last post I brought up the idea of Everyman being one of the Ice-E’s employees that we see in Hometown. The bulk of my analysis focused on The Warrior, but I neglected to talk about the other unknown mascot: the “purple guy”.

In truth, there’s not a whole lot to this character. He only has one line of dialogue and he seems to be a deliberate reference to the “purple guy” from Five Nights at Freddy’s. Still, he’s just as mysterious as The Warrior and could very well have a larger role to play in the full game.

Interestingly, the purple guy’s sprite is named “icemascot_fake” in Deltarune’s files, whereas Burgerpants and the Nice Cream Bunny are “icemascot1″ and “icemascot2″, respectively. This fits with Burgerpants’ line where he questions whether the purple guy “even works here”.

[Image transcript: Two Deltarune screenshots side-by-side. Both feature Kris talking to Burgerpants in Hometown. On the left, Burgerpants says “Purple Guy - Man, THAT GUY, you gotta...” and on the right he continues, saying “... actually, does that guy even work here?” end image transcript.] 

The purple guy is also the only Ice-E’s mascot whose costume’s body doesn’t match the color of the costume’s head.

His colors do match the Everyman/Ice-E graffiti, though. Judging from his “fake” costume, he’s apparently some sort of Ice-E’s fanatic who made his own Ice-E’s getup and pretended to work there. I’m not sure how that would tie into the Knight’s motivations, if at all, but it certainly fits the bill for being “strange”.

Ice-E’s is apparently strange and creepy enough in-universe to inspire urban legends about it

But Kris was only kidding, right?

Getting back to Ice-E’s as a brand, it’s interesting how the company focuses on the letter “E”, inserting it into the word p”e”zza and other places where it doesn’t belong.

[Image transcript: A Deltarune screenshot of Burgerpants saying “Ice E’s P’E’ZZA, You’re number ‘1′ Spot for a piping hot pe’E’ce of PEZZA.” end image transcript.] 

Could the focus on “E” be pointing towards “E”veryman’s involvement? Eh, mayb”E”. 

Something that was pointed out to me by gantaloupe on Reddit: In the Core we see two branching paths: the sage’s path and the warrior’s path.

[Image transcript: An Undertale screenshot of Frisk reading a sign in the Core. The sign says “(North, the warrior’s path.) (West, the sage’s path.) (Any path leads to The End.)” end image transcript.] 

While this could just be a coincidence, it’s an interesting factoid in light of how Everyman is connected to the Core mercenaries and possibly connected to a character named “The Warrior” in Deltarune.

One last thing that I noticed is how Everyman’s bullet sprite and the Ice-E’s costumes both have nubby arms and legs without any defined fingers or toes. Everyman’s body and Ice-E’s head would fit together like a glove. It would certainly be easier to picture one of the mascots abstracted into Everyman’s bullet design rather than, say, Gaster or Father Alvin. Speaking of which...

A Deeper Look into Father Alvin

Father Alvin kinda got the short end of the stick in my previous post when I said he was “less likely” to be Everyman than one of the Ice-E’s employees. I still hold that opinion, but that doesn’t mean he’s not worth exploring further.

One thing that I glossed over was the topic of Alvin’s potential connection to Gerson. Now, there’s nothing in chapter 1 that outright says Gerson and Alvin are related, but it’s easy to intuit based on the fact that they’re the only two turtle monsters that we see in the series. Both characters are connected to Hometown’s school, and one could infer that Alvin’s drawing in the supply closet could be a drawing of Gerson rather than a self-portrait.

[Image transcript: Two Deltarune screenshots side-by-side. Both feature Kris looking at a drawing on a cabinet in the unused classroom. In the left screenshot, the narration says “(It’s a yellowed, poorly-drawn picture of a green turtle.)” The right screenshot continues: “(It’s signed ‘Alvin’.)” end image transcript.] 

Gerson himself seems to have no connection to the Knight’s machinations, and it’d be difficult to imagine otherwise since he’s, y’know, dead. Still, it is eerie how Gerson was the only character in Undertale who provided any information on the deltarune symbol and now he’s “conveniently” absent from Deltarune’s narrative.

[Image transcript: An Undertale screenshot of Gerson saying “That’s the Delta Rune, the emblem of our kingdom.” end image transcript.] 

Instead we have a different turtle character who also makes mention of an “angel” like Gerson did.

[Image transcript: A Deltarune screenshot of Kris talking to Father Alvin. Alvin says “Let the Angel’s power light your way.” end image transcript.] 

We don’t know much about Alvin yet, but the impression I get from him is that he’s Gerson’s opposite--mild-mannered, patient, and more interested in divine matters than history or research. Alvin also shows reverence for the Angel, capitalizing the name, whereas Gerson uses the term “angel” with quotation marks and treats it as a quaint curiosity.

[Image transcript: Two side-by-side Undertale screenshots of Gerson talking. In the left screenshot, he says “Most people say it’s the ‘angel,’ from the prophecy...” The right screenshot Gerson says: “I jus’ think it looks neat! Wahaha!” end image transcript.] 

Getting back to Alvin’s drawing, it was pointed out to me that Alvin’s green turtle drawing and the drawing of three people smiling in Sans’ lab are both described as “poorly drawn” by the narration.

[Image transcript: Two side-by-side Undertale screenshots of Frisk in Sans’ secret room. In the left screenshot, the narration says “(It’s a poorly drawn picture of three smiling people.) (Written on it...)” The right screenshot continues: “don’t forget.” end image transcript.] 

This may sound minor, but these are the only instances where the descriptor “poorly drawn” is used in either game. It’s also significant because the drawing of three smiling people only shows up when Frisk talks to Clamgirl, who mentions “Suzy” and is eventually revealed to be a goner/Gaster follower. This means both drawings are tied to Deltarune’s world.

I’m not entirely sure what the significance of the drawings is, since we still don’t know for certain who the three smiling people are or which green turtle is in Alvin’s drawing. If Alvin is the Knight, I could see him using drawings to attempt to bring specific types of darkners to life with the dark fountains he pulls out of the earth. In the case of the turtle drawing, maybe he was hoping to bring Gerson back as a darkner by recreating his likeness?

In Deltarune we’ve already seen a possible darkner “counterpart” to a lightner in the form of Ralsei, so maybe the idea of “recreating” lightners as darkner doppelgangers will be explored further in the full game? Chapter 1′s dark world was in the school and Gerson was a teacher there before he passed away. Chapter 2 seems poised to take place in a hospital dark world, and we see Rudy in a poor state of health at the hospital just prior to chapter 2. It’s too early to tell, but maybe these “holy” fountains and darkner doppelgangers are the Knight’s idea of bringing about life after death, or an “angel’s heaven,” if you will.

It goes without saying that my ideas of the Knight’s motives are purely speculative, but one last note I’ll leave on is how Gerson is mentioned an awful lot in Deltarune, more so than he was in Undertale. Gerson’s name is also one of the names that triggers a special response in the vessel creation sequence. Seems like an awful lot of attention for a “dead” character with no further role to play in the story, and remember what I said earlier about repeated character foreshadowing. All I’m saying is, don’t be too surprised if we meet a darkner by the name of “Snorge” or “Resong” or “Goners” or--hmm... Goners...

Heroes of the Dark, Villains of the Light

Now’s as good a time as any to bring up something I and a lot of others have noticed: Deltarune’s heroes are dark. Ralsei is a prince from the dark with horns, Susie is a bully described as a “dark knight” in one of her equip screen titles, and Kris is described by some Hometown residents as “creepy,” to say nothing of how Chapter 1 ends. Others in the fandom have pointed out how Deltarune’s battle system places Kris & co on the left side of the screen, in contrast to many classic JRPGs where the heroes are positioned on the right side of the screen.

On the other end of things, Ralsei’s prophecy refers to the “heroes of legend” sealing the “holy” dark fountains in order to “banish the Angel’s heaven”. That doesn’t really sound like a typical “heroic” goal. There’s also the speculation that sealing Card Castle’s fountain may have had negative repercussions for the Castle’s inhabitants. I’m not saying this to argue that the fun gang is somehow “evil”, but merely to point out that they have the trappings of darkness. 

Angels, on the other hand, are typically associated with light and goodness, and we know that Alvin serves the angel (whether this is solely in an abstract/religious way or in a more direct way remains to be seen). We know that sealing dark fountains somehow relates to banishing the Angel’s heaven, so it’s not a stretch to assume that the Knight is in league with the Angel due to his desire to create fountains.

I already entertained the idea of the Knight and the Angel working together in my last post, but something else that ties into this is Toby’s refrain of describing Everyman as “just a good guy that shows up on occasion.” He uses this description in the Everyman tweet as well as Everyman’s entry in the Undertale art book. It’s clearly meant to be a significant phrase.

[Image transcript: On the left is a Twitter thread by Toby. On the right is an excerpt from the Undertale Artbook featuring a spritesheet of Everyman. In both images, Toby writes “Everyman. Description: Just a good guy who shows up on occasion.” end image transcript.] 

We can infer that the Knight will be a major antagonist going forward, and I’ve already argued that Everyman is the Knight, so this paints the picture of a Knight with good intentions--a “Knight in shining armor,” if you will. This could be another argument in favor of Alvin being Everyman/the Knight, since he at least tries to project the image of piety and fits this theme of "holy” villains to contrast the “dark” heroes.

Now that I think about it, a “villain” like that would be an interesting inversion from the likes of Flowey--instead of an antagonist who’s trying to kill people, we have an antagonist who threatens to smother the entire world with the unchecked new life he’s creating. His actions at Card Castle show that he doesn’t go out of his way to kill, given that the three kings were kept alive as prisoners, but we also see how his actions enabled an evil King to abuse his power in the name of protecting his “holy” fountain.

While Flowey illustrated the lesson of “don’t kill and don’t be killed,” perhaps this Knight would be meant to show the dark side of appeasement and how “good intentions” only get you so far? The Spade King definitely comes off as a subversion of the typical “don’t fight!” approach of Undertale, and if Alvin is the Knight then he might push that “lesson” further going forward.

Still, for every champion of the light there is one who waits in the dark...

A New Challenger Approaches!

That’s right, there’s a third Knight candidate to cover. I’m sure some of you have been eagerly awaiting this one, so give it up for...

spr_normalnpc!

Ok, in all seriousness a couple of people wanted me to talk about this character who shows up in the Hometown Library. Their name isn’t given in-game and they’re simply known as “spr_normalnpc” in the game files. As of right now their only purpose is to block Kris from visiting the upstairs floor of the Library.

[Image transcript: Two side-by-side Deltarune screenshots of Kris talking to Normalnpc in the Library. In the left image, Normalnpc says “I love reading books. Especially the books upstairs. You should really.” before finishing in the right image, saying “Read them!” end image transcript.] 

As far as we can tell, this character is the Deltarune counterpart to the elusive Gaster Follower 3 from Undertale.

Not all of the character design details line up, but both characters cut a similar silhouette and that’s good enough for me.

After my initial Everyman theory post, I’ve been asked whether I think normalnpc might be Everyman/the Knight. I never gave it much thought before now, so let me start with the points in this character’s favor:

Normalnpc shares some of Everyman’s basic design traits, namely a beak/proboscis, a single eye visible on the side of their head, and a long neck

“Normalnpc” and “Everyman” are both such generic names that they immediately arouse suspicion

Normalnpc acts “strange,” repeating placeholder-ish dialogue about reading books while simultaneously blocking you from going upstairs

Normalnpc maintains a positive tone, making them a “good guy”...?

Both characters are connected to Gaster, maybe?

Ok, look, I’m not saying that Normalnpc can’t be Everyman, but there’s very little to work with here besides the general design, the name, and vague Gaster connections. And even then, I’d say Normalnpc’s and Everyman’s designs have too many differences for my liking. While some of the basic features are there, their silhouettes, proportions, and stance/posture are all completely different.

Another complication is the fact that Normalnpc’s “goner” counterpart already exists in Undertale, and I said last time that Everyman would have to be a character who isn’t seen elsewhere in Undertale because he was busy being stuck inside Reaper Bird.

On the other hand, we do see goner counterparts for characters that already exist in Undertale, as is the case with Gaster Followers 1 and 2 (for the sake of simplicity I’m assuming that Gaster followers are the same thing as “goners”).

But I’m not sure whether these “goners” are meant to be alternate “versions” of these specific characters or whether they’re just other members of the same “species” as their counterparts. 

Monster Kid and Goner Kid, for example, have many differences in their designs, including different shirts, different spine arrangements, and slightly different facial features.

Clamgirl muddies things even further, undergoing a total transformation when she “becomes” Gonerclam. This raises the questions of what causes someone to “become” a goner as well as how and why their bodies change in ways beyond just turning grey.

So far we’ve seen instances of goners coexisting alongside their “originals,” like with the two Monster Kids, but we’ve also seen Clamgirl get “replaced” by her goner by becoming one. Based on our limited and seemingly-contradictory knowledge of how goners work, I can’t even say for certain whether Normalnpc’s presence in Undertale would be accounted for or not with the existence of Gaster Follower 3.

And that’s kind of the problem with Normalnpc as an Everyman suspect: we know far too little. Father Alvin and the Ice-E’s employees each have a smoking gun that makes them likely Everyman candidates: in Alvin’s case it’s the drawing in the closet, and for Ice-E’s it’s the graffiti plus the Warrior’s hospital stay potentially lining up with Chapter 2′s setting. The best things Normalnpc has going for them are a vague resemblance and having a more obvious (yet vague) connection to Gaster, the latter of which is hardly a unique thing in this setting.

Moreover, there’s nothing that specifically ties Normalnpc to being the Knight other than through Everyman, and the “connection” between Normalnpc and Everyman is already tenuous. Alvin is independently connected to the Knight by virtue of leaving his drawing as a “calling card” in an area the Knight has recently been. The Warrior’s roleplaying shtick would make him a natural fit among a “swords and sorcery” setting that the Knight evokes. Of the three candidates, Normalnpc definitely has the weakest claim to Knighthood.

That all being said, Normalnpc is still a character to keep an eye on. The name alone comes off as Toby hiding a secret in plain sight. Even if this character doesn’t wind up being Everyman or the Knight, I’m sure their role will be bigger than that of a mere NPC.

Gaster’s Connection to the Knight

Now for the moment you’ve really been waiting for! Truthfully, a lot of this is Gaster stuff that I wanted to talk about last time but didn’t have room to fit in.

I made clear in my last post that I favored Everyman being the Knight over Gaster being the Knight, though the two could be interchangeable in the event that the Knight has a “strange son” working alongside him (which is a prospect I still can’t fully commit to).

Still, a lot of Deltarune speculators have latched onto the idea of Gaster being the Knight. Near as I can tell, here’s the evidence:

Both characters are associated with darkness

Seam, who’s familiar with the Knight, uses the Entry 17 phrase “darker, yet darker” in reference to the “strange someone” Jevil met (who may be the Knight)

Jevil says “THE HAND OF THE KNIGHT IS DRIFTING FORWARD”, and Gaster is associated with hands

Gaster is believed to be the “man” who gives Kris an egg. The word “EGG”, in all-caps wingdings, is written as three hands pointing in the “L-shaped” movement pattern of a knight piece in chess

I can see how this evidence would be compelling, especially in the absence of any competing theory for the Knight’s identity. I can’t refute all of this, aside from saying that the “darkness” association is overly broad in a game where half the cast are darkners and the “EGG” thing, while neat, could be a coincidence. I do think this evidence could point to Gaster being connected to the Knight, but I have two main reasons for believing he isn’t the Knight himself.

First off, I don’t think Gaster’s goals align with the Knight’s. For this argument I’m going to assume that the mysterious voice from Deltarune’s intro, game over screen, and pre-release Twitter takeover is Gaster. Gaster, at least nominally, seems to be on the same side as the red soul, or is at least willing to work with them. The fun gang’s goal of sealing the dark fountains would almost certainly put them at odds with the Knight, if the Spade King’s reaction was anything to go by.

When you get a game over and continue, “Gaster” says “THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS”.

While he doesn’t urge you to continue like Asgore does during Undertale’s game over, he certainly doesn’t discourage it either. When you refuse to continue, Gaster says “THEN THE WORLD WAS COVERED IN DARKNESS” and the melancholic song “Darkness Falls” plays.

One could argue that Gaster is trying to maintain objectivity or “neutrality” when the red soul dies, like a scientist would in an experiment.

Nonetheless, I would imagine that if Gaster was the Knight then he would be adamantly opposed to anyone who threatened his creation. Ralsei mentions that the prophecy of legend was foretold by “time and space”, and Gaster is said to have shattered across time and space.

[Image transcript: Two side-by-side Deltarune screenshots of Ralsei talking to Kris and Susie. In the left image Ralsei says “A LEGEND that one day, two HEROIES of LIGHT will arrive.” In the right image he says “And fulfill the ancient prophecy, foretold by time and space.” end image transcript.] 

It would be odd for the Knight to deliver a prophecy that predicts the undoing of his own handiwork, and then deliver that prophecy to a prince who would assemble the heroes to do just that.

Creating a New Future

I want to touch a bit more on Gaster’s use of the word “future”. He also made mention of this during the Undertale Twitter account’s takeover just before Deltarune Chapter 1 released:

[Image transcript: A Tweet from the official Undertale Twitter account, dated the day of Deltarune Chapter 1′s release, saying in all-caps “I LOOK FORWARD TO CREATING A NEW FUTURE WITH YOU.” end image transcript.] 

For whatever reason and through whatever means, Gaster wants to help the red soul create a new future. Choosing to continue from a Game Over causes Gaster to reiterate this goal, while the “opposite” of that, i.e. giving up, is seen as allowing the world to be covered in darkness. This implies that the “future” Gaster wants to create is one where darkness isn’t running amok. Even if Gaster is trying to remain neutral or merely observe, it still sounds like he prefers for the fun gang to prevail.

All this emphasis on the word “future” reminds me of something from the Reaper Bird fight...

[Image transcript: An Undertale screenshot of Reaper Bird’s check text description, stating “REAPER BIRD - ATK ?? DEF ?? This relentless future finally looks brighter and brighter.” end image transcript.] 

Now, this check text is a combination of the three check texts for Astigmatism, Final Froggit, and Whimsalot. To wit:

[Image transcript: Three Undertale enemy check text descriptions arranged from top to bottom. In order they say “ASTIGMATISM - ATK 32 DEF 26 This relentless bully ALWAYS gets its way. FINAL FROGGIT 7 ATK 2 DEF Its future looks brighter and brighter. WHIMSALOT - ATK 34 DEF 12 It finally stopped worrying.” end image transcript.] 

But as I said before, Reaper Bird may have been designed first and then “informed” the designs of the Core Mercenaries afterwards, and that could hold true for their check text as well.

I find this use of the phrase “relentless future” interesting. A “relentless” future could mean one that’s inevitable or predetermined, and the phrase “finally looks brighter and brighter” could signify that the future has finally changed for the better. Gaster’s goal seems to be to create a “new” future, which would imply an outcome different from a “predetermined” future where your choices don’t matter, which is a running theme in Deltarune. I don’t think Gaster would describe the future as being “created” by people or “in your hands” if he felt that choice was an illusion.

This isn’t the first time that Gaster has been associated with unpredictability or defiance of “fate”. Most Gaster-related events in Undertale were tied with the fun value, a randomly-generated number that changed with each playthrough. Although this mechanic had little impact on the story, it did give each playthrough a greater sense of identity and made events less set-in-stone.

Now, compare this “optimistic” interpretation of Gaster to the “strange someone” that Jevil met.

[Image transcript: Two side-by-side Deltarune screenshots of Seam talking. The left image says “One day, he met a strange someone... and since then, he began to change.” The right end image continues, saying “ Soon, he began to see the world as a game, and everyone as its participants.” end image transcript.] 

Seam says that Jevil began to see the world as a “game” and everyone as its “participants,” which doesn’t imply a lot of agency. This mindset is a big red flag when we remember how Flowey viewed others when he saw them as part of a “game.”

[Image transcript: Two side-by-side Undertale screenshots. The left one shows Flowey tying Frisk’s friends, saying “This is all just a GAME.” The right image shows Flowey talking in New Home, saying “Sets of numbers... Lines of dialogue... I’ve seen them all.” end image transcript.] 

Seam’s own view of the world becomes “darker, yet darker” after talking to Jevil, and Seam asks “would I have found a little more purpose in my life...?” if not for the experience of locking up Jevil (and, presumably, the experience of listening to Jevil’s words).

[Image transcript: Four Deltarune screenshots arranged in a grid, all featuring Seam talking. From beginning to end the four images say “Since that time, the strange words he’s said have stuck inside my cotton... And my view of this world has become darker, yet darker. And I wonder, if I hadn’t been asked to lock him up... Would I have found a little more purpose in my life...?” end image transcript.] 

In order to understand what “darker, yet darker” truly means, we need to view the line in its original context:

ENTRY NUMBER SEVENTEEN

DARK DARKER YET DARKER

THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING

THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER

PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE

THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT

SEEMS

VERY

VERY

INTERESTING

...

WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK? 

The phrase “darker, yet darker” originally referred to something that Gaster was observing in Entry Number 17. Although the phrase has come to be associated with Gaster, it doesn’t necessarily refer to something that he’s causing or wants to happen--part of a scientist’s job is to observe and comment on results as they unfold, after all. And the “interesting” experiment Gaster refers to is something that’s happening “next”, which implies that the experiment is happening after or in response to whatever is causing things to become darker, yet darker. It also suggests that he’s not calling the “darker, yet darker” event itself “interesting”.

The impression that I get from all this is that Deltarune is meant to be a struggle against inevitability, with Gaster seemingly in the “choices matter” corner of the conflict. If the Knight is the “strange someone” Jevil met then that would imply that he’s very much on the opposite end of that spectrum. If, for example, somebody like Father Alvin is the Knight then I could see him rationalizing his position as fulfilling “fate” pre-ordained by the Angel. In this dynamic, the Knight would serve as an agent of faith and order to oppose Gaster as an agent of science and invention, further tying into the “dark heroes vs. holy villains” theme I posited earlier.

Okay, phew, that was all the first reason why I don’t think Gaster is the Knight. As for the second reason? Well...

Gaster is (Probably) a Darkner

Boy, that’s sure a loaded title, isn’t it? I made an offhand remark about this in my original post but didn’t want to get into it there. I only bring it up now because I previously argued that the Knight is a lightner and that would rule out darkner characters from filling the role.

So, why do I think Gaster is a darkner? Well, part of the reason is because I think that Sans is a darkner as well. Two Left Thumbs’ "Sans is a Darkner” video is probably the most accessible way to understand the theory, but there are several posts about it on Tumblr already if you look hard enough. Either way it’s not required viewing in order to understand my arguments for Gaster, but long story short there’s a lot of evidence to suggest Sans is a darkner and it’s strongly implied that Sans and Gaster are related (if not by blood then through other means), which makes it likely for Gaster to be a darkner as well.

Aside from the Sans connection, another reason I think Gaster is a darkner is due to the line about him being “shattered across time and space.”

[Image transcript: Two side-by-side Undertale screenshots of Frisk talking to Gaster Follower 2 in Hotland. Follower 2 says “Alphys might work faster, but the old Royal Scientist, Doctor W.D. Gaster? They say he shattered across time and space.” end image transcript.] 

We can infer from Deltarune that, for whatever reason, darkners are more difficult to kill than monsters due to Deltarune’s enemies all being unkillable. Whether this is an inherent trait of darkners or some “rule” of the dark world or Deltarune’s universe is unclear, but given that defeating Sans doesn’t contribute towards your kill counter in Undertale, there’s a strong likelihood that darkners are difficult to kill, if not outright impossible.

So how is this relevant? Well, it seems like a darkner would be far more likely to survive being “shattered across time and space” than a monster. When a monster’s body is broken apart it means they’ve either turned to dust or will soon, but the fact that “pieces” of Gaster persist (as seen with Gaster Follower 2) implies that he’s made of something sturdier than dust.

[Image transcript: Two side-by-side Undertale screenshots of Frisk talking to Gaster Follower 2 in Hotland. Follower 2 says “Ha ha... How can I say so without fear? I’m holding a piece of him right here.” end image transcript.] 

Not only do I believe that Gaster is a darkner, but I’m pretty confident that I know what “kind” of darkner he is. Most of the darkners we’ve seen in chapter 1 can be linked to real-world objects that exist in the Hometown school’s supply closet. While we don’t know what objects (if any) were used to create Ralsei or (possibly) Sans, at most those two are exceptions to the otherwise-universal rule that darkners come from inanimate objects. In Gaster’s case there’s definitely an object that’s associated with him:

Gaster the Egghead

[Image transcript: A Deltarune screenshot of Kris hidden behind a tree. The narration says “(You received an Egg.)” end image transcript.] 

In Scarlet Forest “a man” gives an egg to Kris before vanishing, much like how “Mysteryman” vanishes in Undertale. The song that plays during this scene is called “man” in the game files and sounds a lot like Gaster’s theme. The egg itself exhibits strange dimensional properties, reappearing when used, prompting the narration “what egg?” when you try to get rid of it, and becoming two eggs when put into Asgore’s fridge.

When Kris leaves the dark world at the end of chapter 1, their inventory turns into a “ball of junk”, i.e. the real-world objects that were given new form by the dark fountain.

[Image transcript: A Deltarune screenshot of the inventory menu open in Hometown. The only two items are “Ball of Junk” and “Egg” end image transcript.] 

The egg is the only other object that remains after chapter 1, implying that it’s a “real” egg and that the egg itself is not a byproduct of the dark world like the dark candies and other items are.

The fact that the “man” disappears when he hands you the egg implies that his presence or “form” is somehow contingent upon the act of giving you the egg. If Gaster is a darkner, if he’s “the man”, and if his form is based on an egg then it makes perfect sense why he’d disappear in that moment--he’s turning back into an egg and surrendering his “true form” (or a piece of it) to you for safe keeping. Given that Gaster seemingly wants you to seal dark fountains, it would make sense that he’d want to hitch a ride out of the closet’s dark world before its fountain goes caput.

This isn’t the only time we see mentions of eggs in Undertale and Deltarune:

[Image transcript: An Undertale screenshot of Papyrus’ dating HUD. On the left is a small white egg, labeled “EGG.” end image transcript.] 

Papyrus (who’s connected to Sans and likely Gaster as well) has a conspicuous “egg” on his dating HUD.

[Image transcript: Two side-by-side Undertale screenshots of Frisk talking to a Temmie in Temmie Village. In the left image, Temmie says “tem... WATCH EGG!!!” In the right image, the narration says “(It’s hard-boiled.)” end image transcript.] 

In Undertale, one of the Temmies is watching over a hard-boiled egg. However, in Deltarune we see a Temmie with a very different kind of egg.

[Image transcript: A Deltarune screenshot of Kris examining an egg on Temmie’s desk in their classroom. The narration says “(It’s a black-and-white hardboiled egg.)” end image transcript.] 

Specifically, it’s described as a “black and white” egg. Needless to say, that’s an odd way to describe an egg. Not all eggs have white shells, but most people wouldn’t describe a white-shelled egg as “black and white”. Of course, we know someone who’s also “black and white”.

[Image transcript: An Undertale screenshot of Mysteryman in his grey room.” end image transcript.] 

And he’s “black and white” in the very literal sense. Unlike the Gaster followers, Mysteryman solely uses pure black and pure white in his color palette, and he’s one of the only characters with an all black-and-white overworld sprite. Note also how Mysterman’s head is vaguely egg-shaped and has lines resembling cracks.

Out of all the objects that I could imagine a darkner being made from, an egg is one that I could picture “shattering” like Gaster did while still leaving some small pieces scattered around. I’m not sure whether this would be a “real” egg or a similarly-fragile facsimile like a Faberge egg--either could work in this scenario.

What are Skeletons, Anyway?

“Now wait,” some of you might be saying, “isn’t Gaster supposed to be a skeleton?”  Well, I don’t think Gaster being a skeleton is mutually exclusive from Gaster being based on an egg. Egg shells are made of calcium carbonate, one of the mineral components that make up bones.

We see in Deltarune that darkners’ forms in the dark world don’t have to match their “true” forms completely. Pretty much all of the darkners based on playing cards are abstractions that barely resemble a rectangular card. And while we don’t know what Ralsei’s “true” form is (if he has one), it’s very unlikely that he’s a small goat with a hat and scarf in the light world. If Sans is a darkner then there’s also the possibility that his “true form” isn’t a skeleton either.

The rules of the dark world and its inhabitants aren’t entirely clear, so in spite of my arguments I can’t say with certainty that Gaster is a darkner because I can’t even say with certainty that Sans is a darkner, despite him having much stronger evidence supporting that conclusion.

As compelling as Sans’ case is, it still invites questions like how he’s able to exist in Hometown without the apparent aid of a dark fountain, or why Papyrus turns to dust in Undertale despite being Sans’ “brother”. Similar concerns crop up with Gaster in light of his connections-by-proxy with Papyrus and his implied presence in the mysterious Hometown shed.

I still think the possibility of Gaster and Sans being darkners is one worth discussing and it’s a possibility that many fans are sleeping on. Moreover, it’d be fittingly poetic if Deltarune’s main conflict was engineered by a lightner trying to spread darkness and a darkner trying to seal away the darkness.

Conclusion

So this ended up being a lot longer than I originally planned--almost as long as my original Everyman post!

A lot of what I’ve said here is meant to provide further context and elaboration to my earlier theories, but I admit that some of this was pure speculation, namely in regards to Gaster/the Knight’s motivations and the “dark heroes vs. holy villains” theming.

While a good argument should have evidence to back it up, at the end of the day a work of fiction is still a story and is governed by the conventions of storytelling much more than it is by logic or the laws of physical science. This is one reason why I lean so heavily on Toby’s use of foreshadowing, since it’s a narrative tool he’s leveraged consistently in the past.

My attempts to second-guess the motivations of unseen characters and chart the plot’s trajectory would be downright conspiratorial if I were talking about some real-world event, but Detlarune is a story and stories have to go places. A well-written story doesn’t take the time to set up or foreshadow certain characters or exposition if it doesn’t plan to pay off that setup down the road.

Normally I wouldn’t make theory posts this long and esoteric about a work of fiction, since a large amount of writing consists of revision, retcons, and changing things as you go along. Undertale and Deltarune are partial exceptions to this rule in no small part due to Toby planning Deltarune before he began Undertale and planting many “seeds” referencing Deltarune in Undertale’s narrative as a result.

A lot of my conclusions haven’t significantly changed since my previous post: I still believe Everyman will appear again in the full game, I think he’s the character most likely to be the Knight, and I think the most likely Everyman candidates are the Ice-E’s employees and Father Alvin, in that order.

As far as which of my conclusions have changed, I’m now more apprehensive of the idea of the Knight having a “strange son” and of Gaster being the Knight himself. I still can’t discount either possibility entirely, however. I was always shaky about the “strange son” and I often went back and forth on it, but further probing Gaster’s motivations has made me far less convinced that he could be the Knight or in league with him. I’m sure there’s still a connection between both characters, like a shared origin or some past falling out that they had, but I no longer think that they would be on the same side.

Another thing I’ve (sort of) changed my mind on is that the “purple guy” Ice-E’s employee and Normalnpc have both risen in prominence in my eyes. I don’t know if I’d put either of them down as top candidates to be Everyman or the Knight, but something is definitely up with them and I’m sure Toby has plans for them in the future.

Deltarune is shaping up to be a much longer game than Undertale, likely following the mold of traditional RPGs whose stories span several hours. In the time that it would take to play through Deltarune’s story, we may see narrative payoffs to every loose thread and Everyman candidate I’ve brought up. If the identity of the Knight is meant to be a mystery then some candidates might even be deliberate red herrings set up by Toby. Who can say? We’ll just have to wait and find out.

I closed my previous Everyman post by remarking that I had said all that I can on this topic and hopefully this time I mean it. I can’t really think of much else to say about Everyman until Toby releases more information himself, and that’s not likely to happen until the next Undertale anniversary or Deltarune’s full release.

As I said before, my main goal with all this is to spark conversation within the fandom on what is an otherwise under-discussed topic. I might still make other theory posts in the future, but for now I think I’ve bled this topic dry.

[anfie-in-the-box]

X-tra Dark Cream Teaser

Notes

I’m still very much not participating in Dark Cream Week, yet somehow this thing is done right in time, so I’m posting it with respective tags.

The story of X-tra Dark Cream is going to be pretty big and serious. Like, plot-wise, lore-wise, so-many-other-aspects-wise, you have no idea what you’ve got coming. And I just really hope you all will enjoy the ride.

What you need to know now is that I’m kind of getting back to my very own idea that you can find right here. Though it’s a different timeline, not Genocide Route. What they share is a concept of both Dream and Cross being villains, at first sight their atmosphere and aesthetic are kind of similar, but that’s it. What exactly is happening here will be explained in the story, and let me tell you, Dream and Cross have a long way ahead of them before they reach the point described in this little teaser.

So I’ve got a question for you. Answer honestly.

Would you like your Cream extra dark?

。。。

Just a Bad Dream

Once the portal is safely closed and there’s no more negativity pouring right into Dream’s cursed soul, he hurries to Cross’ side, hugging him tightly. Dismissing his huge knife, Cross hugs Dream back with a weary yet content sigh. “My greatest hero, once again taking down the whole world in my name,” Dream murmurs, ever so appreciatively and very, very gently. Cross caresses his spine through the clothes and the gloop, and, although he never really bothers to use words after a foray to one AU or another, the tremble of his hands is telling Dream enough. So, as much as the fallen guardian wishes to hold Cross like this forever, he lets go.

“I believe you are due for a good rest now.”

Dream cannot help a smile when Cross doesn’t argue, merely lingering to give his spine one last stroke. One could say they are finally figuring out their routine, grasping the ways to make their complicated lives easier, if only a little bit. For Cross it’s definitely lots of sleep and lazing around after all the work he’s done; no matter how much he doesn’t like it, and despite all the bad dreams that he’s most likely to have with all the LV, both old and new, still raging in his soul.

Dream, on the other hand, won’t be sleeping any time soon. It would do him no good at all — this lesson he learned the hard way. There isn’t much to be done when Dream’s whole being is brimming over with shattered positivity of the whole AU, — agonising grief and fear from those who survived; absolute despair from the last moments of those who died; guilt of those who were supposed to protect their people, parents and rulers all the same; at last, contempt and helplessness of every single soul. Oh, the two of them truly are beneath contempt, aren’t they? Breaking entire worlds, taking away a mere possibility of them functioning like they are supposed to. Monsters who only seek to twist and corrupt.

That’s what they say, Dream knows it all too well, both from careful whispers that no one else was supposed to hear and from straightforward, provocative screams right in his face. It’s good, exactly how he wants it to be, but right now he couldn’t care less. Dirt on Cross’ clothes matters more than this.

Actually, that’s what Dream’s going to busy himself with. Cross’ new uniform is piled up beside their bed, soaked in humans’ blood and covered in monsters’ dust. There’s no doubt washing these will be a real pain in the neck, but that’s exactly what Dream needs right now. Something basic yet not too simple. Easy enough for Dream to be able to pay more attention to Cross, whose even breathing and serene expression bring peace to the fallen guardian’s rotting soul, too. This way his hands are occupied, all of the energy he’s gathered is guided in the non-destructive direction until it settles, and his troubled mind is resting even without sleep. It’s a nice bonus to be able to look after Cross, ready to help him break free from yet another nightmare, for the dreadful, horrific visions are always haunting him in reality as well… At least in the first moments after waking up, although sometimes it takes Cross much longer to snap out of it, even with the aid of Dream. Hopefully, this time won’t be so… troublesome.

It’s so obvious that Dream isn’t in the slightest used to doing the laundry — any laundry at all, let alone something as tricky as washing all this blood and dust out, — it’s almost funny. Although, to be fair, it really isn’t supposed to actually be useful — a mere distraction, nothing more, nothing less.

Cross will overwrite his clothes anyway. And, if that fails (though lately the number of failures has lessened significantly; the thought makes Dream’s chest tighten with warmth and pride in his most loyal ally and dearest fiance), they’ll just trade new armor in some AU for the delusive sense of safety. Material needs don’t concern them anymore.

Dream’s progress on washing the uniform is still close to none when he feels a sudden powerful wave of severe distress, and merely a moment later the air gets heavy with magic. Bones and blasters are everywhere, there are so many of them there’s no speck of whiteness left, everything bright red and purple instead. It’s not the first time — neither it is the last one, Dream’s under no illusion about that part, — yet it’s no less mesmerising. If only it weren’t so dangerous for both of them.

Dodging all the attacks, getting closer to Cross is the easy part, that Dream’s doing effortlessly, without sparing it much thought; it’s not like Cross is able to properly hurt Dream, neither in his sleep nor while being fully conscious. Especially not like that. Cross wouldn’t gather enough harmful intent, and considering Dream’s nature is far from ordinary…

It’s even easier to throw Cross out of their bed, his body light, though trembling violently. He jolts awake the moment Dream’s hand touches his chest to grab the fabric of his shirt, but his mind is still very far away. Out of reach. It’s only the lack of resistance that shows Cross has recognised him, if only a little, on some kind of subconscious level. Nothing other than that — just pure black hate pouring down his cheeks and LV raging on within his soul. No way Dream will stand such a state of affairs any longer. Cross is his and his only, he doesn’t belong to whatever hell he’s seeing. And so the fallen guardian growls, as if his own life depended on it, “Wake up!”

Please, please let this one end quickly. Dream hates hurting Cross more than needed.

“Wake up!”

Of course that doesn’t work, it rarely does, but Dream has to try anyway. Besides, it’s usually when the struggling begins. Not this time though; good. Dream feels every single bone directed at his back, oh so clearly hears the Gaster blasters charging. Nothing ever comes. Nothing ever would; not when he’s close enough for Cross to feel the familiar warmth and weight of his body, that Dream knows for sure.

Holding Cross’ hands tight, chanting “Wake up, wake up, wake up”, as if it were a spell (or a plea,  or a prayer), Dream reaches out to Cross’ chest with one of his tentacles, pressing firmly right in the middle of the ribcage, forcing his soul to appear. Cross sharply inhales, obviously in pain, and even tries to arch his back, — only Dream doesn’t allow it, keeping him in place. That’s when his tentacles come in handy…

Other than that, nothing much happens. “Thank stars,” Dream thinks, taking a deep breath. From now on, he needs to be extremely careful. Souls are not to be toyed with. Or, well, the souls of those he loves are not to be toyed with. All the others are perfect but hollow dolls to be filled with oh so very hurtful fragments of their shattered dreams.

That’s what Dream and Cross do. That’s what they’ll continue doing, and no haunting visions would ever take Cross away. They’re together in this.

With his gloved hand Dream cautiously touches the soul, pulsing with LV and shining red and purple, no trace of it ever being one of a monster. Cross’ eye sockets and mouth open wide… It’s almost like he’s screaming without a sound, or maybe the sound merely goes just as far away as his mind is.

Dream’s never asked. He’s not going to ask this time, either.

The charged blasters fire all at once, and the bones are falling behind his back, yet none of the attacks ever land as Dream bawls, “I am Dream, and you are the one who swore an oath of loyalty and love, the one who saw through me, and accepted me, and stayed by my side! You are Cross, and whatever hell you’re seeing, you do not belong to it!” Cross’ mismatched eye-lights get a bit less blurry for a second, and that’s Dream’s cue to finally act with all he’s got.

And so he lets Cross go, leaving utterly motionless body lying on the floor, only for all of Dream’s tentacles to hit the soul at same time before it disappeared once again.

This time Cross actually screams; there is unparalleled agony in his voice, unexpectedly hoarse, as if he’s been screaming like that for hours. It hurts so much to hear it.

Dream is certain it’s better than whatever Cross has just broken free from. As Cross himself once said, “At least in reality I’m in this mess with you.” Very vividly Dream remembers his own response — a warm smile and quiet, confident “Likewise.”

That was then. Now Cross is looking at Dream with lost, pained, vulnerable expression, and his eye-lights, though faded to white, are still blurry — only this time from exhaustion, not because he’s seeing something too much different from reality. That Dream knows how to deal with. He doesn’t help Cross get on his feet, picking him up instead, holding him with hands and tentacles the same.

It’s nice to feel Cross’ weight, and his soul beating more and more steadily. Soothing, really. And that is why Cross only squeaks a little, otherwise showing no signs of discomfort or desire to argue about his position. Not like an argument would lead him anywhere, even if he had enough energy to start one.

They don’t talk until both of them are back in the bed, so close to each other it’s still very easy to hear their souls beating, their breaths warming what little space is beetween them. Dream squeezes Cross’ hand and offers a smile. It’s a tender one, if only a bit teasing.

“Hush now, Cross. It was just a bad dream.”

No words can ever describe his immense relief when Cross smiles back. And all too clearly Dream sees the moment some kind of mischief sparks in his love’s eyes.

“Oh? Well, then I definitely woke up,” Cross says, almost nonchalantly, though there’s no way that would fool Dream, who knows exactly how much he weighs every word. “Because what I see now is not 'just a bad' dream but the worst Dream ever.” At that the warmth in Dream’s chest is blooming like a flower, bursting like thousands of fireworks. Then Cross adds, so gently, as if the two of them might break — and take the whole world with them. “You are my worst.”

And places a kiss on his forehead. Like a final blow.

That weird, silly fool. That wonderful idiot. Dream loves him so, so much.

It takes the fallen guardian a moment to find his words again, and to be sure his voice won’t be trembling as soon as he starts talking. For a moment Dream simply stares at Cross, who just looks back, so calm, so sure, so present.

“Good one,” Dream finally says. “Though if you're feeling fine enough to make flirty puns, we should go back to sleep.” It’s a perfect moment to return the kiss, only on the cheek. Cross seems content anyway.

“Yeah, let’s do that.” He chuckles. “Won't summon any more bones. Or blasters. Promise.”

。。。

Credits:

Undertale © Toby Fox

Dream © jokublog

Cross © jakei95 / xtaleunderverse

Shattered!Dream © shattereddreamsau

Dark Cream © zu-is-here

X-tra Dark Cream © me (anfie / anfie-in-the-box)

Link to the Russian version will be here!

。。。

Notes

I'm too sleepy to write down the references, but there are quite a few! I'll update them later.

But god and stars, do I love Cross' wordplay in the end. That's the first thing I got to know about this story. Then it became "Two villains who have the whole Multiverse terrified being idiots in love". Then I blinked, and suddenly it's huge and super serious. That was fun. It still is.

[theasianinfluence]

Ok so I’ve got some deltarune theories? Not really theories but like some loose and disorganized ideas and ramblings or headcanons or smth lol

and I think gaster is the one walking us through the character creation, and he says to "shape its mind as your own" and to name it and he says it's beautiful and wonderful "you've made an excellent form" and then another font and typing pattern is the one telling us that it's been discarded.

I kinda have this idea that Kris is prone to “possession” so to speak, as in we aren’t the first one to have outside control of their soul. Gaster might be aware of this, which is why he was adamant that we create our own vessel with our own determination, to keep existing people/monsters/lightners/etc. from being influenced or corrupted.

I think the “Knight” that keeps getting mentioned, the one telling powerful darkners secrets and such, is the one convincing Kris to tear out their soul (thus removing our/outside control) to open dark fountains, for some reason I can’t quite grasp. Kris seems kind of resentful of being human; they’re the only human in town that we know of, and we’re told that they used to wear a headband with horns on and was very upset to find out they wouldn’t grow their own horns like their family (also “accidentally” clicking on the “monsters4humans” pop up) and opening dark fountains may be a way for Kris to be something else, where it’s not separated by humans and monsters, but by lightners and darkners. And by the end of chapter 2, Kris KNOWS that two many dark fountains could be catastrophic, but opens one in the living room anyways. And they do this without input from the player and regardless of the choices we make during gameplay.

As for Jevil and Spamton and Seam??, I’m not really sure how they were influenced or went crazy. I can’t be sure if it’s Gaster or the Knight. I want to say that Gaster has intimate knowledge of this world, the “game”, but does have good intentions, but sharing that kind of information with those that can’t handle it makes them lose their minds and want to be “free” from the roles they may not have chosen. This kind of knowledge could also be used to sort of exploit the world they live in, kinda like in the matrix I think, I only saw that movie once. I think the Knight has the same knowledge but with more malicious intentions, using their knowledge of how to world works to sort of bring in “followers” kinda like making a deal with the devil, before finding somebody more powerful or with more potential, leaving the follower that they can no longer find a use for, like Spamton.

I might add on to this later but I hope it’s comprehensible and not straight up rambling lol

[owlheartt]

Star Sanses Extended Chapter 3: Error

Here is chapter 1 on AO3

“YOU CAN’T-” Undyne began, her face furrowing together in a sort of pure anger that felt very unlike her.

“PLEASE, WAIT FOR EVERYTHING TO CALM DOWN. MY FRIENDS AND I CAN EXPLAIN IN A BIT, BUT I CAN’T STAY HERE TALKING TO YOU.” Papyrus said, trying to be patient and not show how unnerved he was. It occurred to him that talking to Alphys might help her some, and he used blue magic to carefully grab her SOUL. Then, with full concentration, moved the blue bones and Undyne herself to the blubbering Alphys in the corner who had stayed where Papyrus had asked her to.

Behind him, he could hear a sound almost like a soft gust of wind. Turning around, he found Mettaton’s body collapsed on the floor. There were bones sticking out of his middle, solid ones. His arms looked burnt, like he had been hit with a Gaster Blaster and deflected it using them. Dream and Ink didn’t have blasters or bones, Dream had told him earlier. Therefore, Papyrus could assume Error had done this. Papyrus looked at the black boned skeleton. He had a scratchy grin scrawled across his face, and his expression was comically like a cartoon villain’s.

“Drreeaamyyy boyyy!” Error said, taunting. His voice was glitching in such a way that it sounded like an old radio’s version of nails on chalkboard. Dream threw a mourning glance at Mettaton’s crumpled body, which felt mildly excessive since he had only run out of battery.

“Error! Please! Leave this timeline alone!” Dream begged, stringing another arrow. He didn’t sound exactly desperate, more like he didn’t want to deal with any of these shenanigans.

“Pretty please?” Ink called from the ceiling, blinking his eye sockets and grinning.

“Can it squid!” Error said, his voice no longer sounding so ear-grating.

“FRIEND…” Papyrus trailed off, struggling to find the right thing to say. He wasn’t following what was happening. He wasn’t done training with Dream. He had just plunged into his first Alternate Universe and came face to face with a troubled skeleton he didn’t know that looked horribly like his brother. He just met Alphys for the first time and she was rude and terrified. He just met a grieving Undyne. The Underground felt like it had been flipped upside down and things were moving too quickly.

“Friend?” Error said, laughing. The glitching in his voice made his giggles sound halting. “We’re not friends, you idiot. In fact, I will be your downfall,” Error reached his hands up to his eye sockets, his fingers snagging on something Papyrus couldn’t quite see. Then he pulled them away, dragging brilliant blue strings that matched the permanent tears streaming down his face. He appeared braced to move, and then Dream grabbed his forearm. Error’s expression of glee turned to shock, then the errors and glitches riddling his body multiplied until it was hard to see any bit of him. Dream drew back, looking relieved.

“So. Now you’ve met Error,” Dream said, sighing. “I’m ready to go home, how about you?” He gave Papyrus a tired grin, and his slump showed he was just about ready to drop on the spot. Papyrus nodded, and shot solid bones to cut Ink loose. He reached out his SOUL magic to catch his falling friend, but he missed. Somehow. It was almost like there wasn’t a SOUL there for Papyrus to catch. Ink hit the ground and rolled, coming to a full stop splat on the ground like a puddle.

“Thanks!!” Ink said, grinning. “Ooone moment!” He danced forward (yes, danced) and scooped his brush off the floor. He then splashed bright blue ink all over Error that solidified into chains.

“Ink, the SOUL.” Dream said patiently. Ink looked at him blankly for a moment, his expression mirroring Papyrus’s feelings, then a little light bulb went off on his eye light. He splashed a pool of ink on the floor, just like he had when he made the shortcut, but this time all he stuck was his hand in. Then he pulled out a Determined human SOUL, just like that.

“WHERE’D THAT COME FROM?! DO WE NEED TO RETURN IT?!” Papyrus said, alarmed.

“No, no.” Dream said, walking over to Ink and reaching a hand out. “This SOUL belongs to this timeline. Error took it so that the timeline couldn’t RESET.” Papyrus opened his mouth to ask a question, but Undyne interrupted him.

“Who the hell are you guys?! Let me go and we can have a real fight!!” She yelled from the other side of the room, where Papyrus had left her.

“RIGHT, SORRY FRIEND,” Papyrus said, reaching out a hand to dissipate the bones.

“Paper, wait.” Dream said. Papyrus turned to him questioningly, but before he could ask Dream continued. “I’m going to show you something, alright? Come here.” Papyrus strode over and crouched to see the brilliant red SOUL Dream was holding.

“WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH IT?” Papyrus said tentatively.

“RESET the timeline. Do you know about RESETs?” Dream said. Papyrus felt his SOUL drop past his ribcage. The word felt… familiar. It did not feel good. But for whatever reason, he couldn’t place it.

“I’M… NOT SURE. I THINK I DO, BUT YOU BETTER EXPLAIN IT ANYWAYS.” Papyrus said. Dream nodded, his expression saying that he was thankful Papyrus was honest.

“Determined human SOULs have the power to manipulate time itself. They can SAVE, LOAD, and RESET. SAVING is when they place a bookmark of sorts in time itself. They can LOAD and come back to the savepoint. RESETTING is when they go back to the beginning, typically when the human first fell into the Underground.” Dream explained. Pieces were beginning to come together in Papyrus’s skull.

“SO WE CAN BRING THIS TIMELINE BACK TO BEFORE OTHER ME… LEFT.” Papyrus said, exited.

“Exactly!” Ink said, jumping up to sling his arm around the crouching skeleton.

“WHAT ABOUT ERROR?” Papyrus said, looking towards the skeleton, still glitch-ridden.

“Eh, he’ll be out for a while. We could take him with us for lunch though, he might like that!!” Ink rambled. “Do you have any chocolate?”

“I BELIEVE SO, WHY?”

“We are not bringing Error for lunch.” Dream said firmly, nervously glancing at Error. “Ink, please take him back to his anti-void.” Ink pouted before making another shortcut and dragging himself and Error through.

“MAYBE HE JUST NEEDS A FRIEND,” Papyrus said ponderingly. Dream barked a dry laugh.

“Ink’s his friend. If either of the idiots can remember it.” He said.

“THEN WHY DO THEY FIGHT? AND WHY CAN’T WE BRING HIM FOR LUNCH?” Papyrus said. If Error was a friend, then why did he act the way he did? Error needed to take some friendship classes.

“You know how Ink forgets everything if he isn’t looking right at it?” After Papyrus nodded, Dream continued. “Error’s the same way. He can even do it staring right at you.”

“I WONDER WHAT IT’S LIKE TO NOT REMEMBER YOUR LIFE.” Papyrus said.

“I don’t know, and honestly? I’m too concerned already to find out. Now, I’m going to RESET then teleport us straight to your place. Don’t worry, we’ll come out right outside of your door.” Dream said, closing his eyes in concentration. Papyrus refrained from saying anything in case he broke Dream’s concentration. A small blip, then two glowing buttons appeared in front of the human SOUL. One said LOAD and the other RESET. Dream brought a hand up and brushed a finger along RESET. A white flash, tinged with gold and red, then they were in Snowdin.

Snowdin looked just the same as he had left it. Nothing was changed, nothing at all. It didn’t feel different like that red timeline. It felt so bizarre, having just gone on this adventure, and home was the exact same. What was he going to tell Sans? The truth, obviously, but where to start? Papyrus’s fantastic mind had barely been able to keep up with it all. But it was lunch time. He could pause and think over lunch. Surely, nothing would happen over lunch.

“Come on, unless you’d like to eat elsewhere?” Dream asked. Papyrus straightened, realizing he was still crouched.

“NO, PLEASE! COME IN. I WAS SIMPLY ENJOYING BEING BACK AT MY FANTABULOUS HOME.” Papyrus said, striding forward to the door. He heard Dream mutter something to himself that sounded a bit like “is… real word?” before his boots thumped in the snow behind Papyrus. Papyrus swung open the door, ready for food (and his brother). Sans was, in fact, inside, and right in front of the door.

“hey bro,” Sans’s eye lights were out, which made Papyrus pause. Sans’s eye lights didn’t go out often.

“SANS, IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG?” Papyrus said, concerned.

“nah, nothin’. but uh, did ya’ know we got some visitors?” He said, turning his skull slightly to the couch that had a broom thrown behind it.

“AH, MY APOLOGIES DEAR BROTHER! THAT’S MY NEW FRIEND. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO COME WITH ME, BUT I GUESS HE GOT EXCITED.” Papyrus said.

“... friend? as in singular?” Sans said, his eye lights flickered back on, but he still looked concerned.

“WELL I HAVE A SECOND ONE HERE, SAY HELLO DREAM!! THIS IS MY BROTHER SANS.” Papyrus said, only after realizing Dream knew this.

“then uh, why’s he got a buddy?” Sans said, waddling towards the couch. Well, he was really walking, but Papyrus liked to call it waddling. He did look like a penguin. Papyrus followed, with Dream in tow, only to find that Error had been plopped on the couch with Ink.

“Heyyy buddy friend pal!” Ink said excitedly. “What’s for lunch?”

“I thought I was clear, Error is not having lunch with us.” Dream interrupted, stepping in front of Papyrus and his brother.

“Aww come on, why not??” Ink whined. Dream began lecturing him as Sans sidled up to Papyrus.

“hey bro, i’m glad you're making friends don’t get me wrong, but could ya’ have picked… better ones?” Sans said, raising an eyebrow bone (honestly I don’t feel like googling the terminology just shhhh).

“THESE REALLY ARE GOOD FRIENDS! WELL, ERROR ISN’T, BUT I’M SURE WE CAN HELP HIM!!” Papyrus said, trying to be reasonable and look at it from Sans’s perspective. “THEY’RE VERY IMPORTANT, I CAN EXPLAIN OVER LUNCH.”

“aight, guess that brings us back to lunch, huh? whatcha want? i can make it today, so you can keep hangin’ out with your buddies.” Sans said.

“MAC AND CHEESE, PERHAPS?” Papyrus offered. Sans nodded, and was beginning to walk into the kitchen when there was a shout.

“SQUIIIIIIIIID!!!” Error shouted, his voice escalating and glitching hard. Ink paused, looking at the mad skeleton.

“Uhh… yea?” He said, an eye light flipping pale green.

“Why the hell am I here?!?” Error said, glaring at his ‘friend.’ It did not look like they were friends.

“Oh- I thought you might like lunch!” Ink said cherrily, throwing his hands up.

“You are perfectly welcome to leave,” Dream said in a voice that would’ve been icy had it been used by anyone else. Dream himself was so warm though that it was impossible for his words to have the same edge.

“Fucking hell squid, how many times do I have to tell you to leave me alone?!” Error growled, standing up. As much as he was pretending to not be listening to Dream, he seemed about to accept his offer.

“I HAVE CHOCOLATE.” Papyrus said, remembering what Ink had asked him. Error whipped around and stared straight at Papyrus, locking eye sockets. He glared for a moment, and Papyrus got worried that Ink had remembered something wrong (again). Then, Error sat back down.

“Fine, I guess I can stay for lunch.” He said, scoffing, pointedly not looking at Ink. Sans grabbed Papyrus’s arm, yanking him into the kitchen.

“papyrus, where did these guys come from?” Sans said, keeping his voice low enough that the others couldn’t hear.

“THAT’S… HARD TO ANSWER. ELSEWHERE, I SUPPOSE. MAYBE HERE. THEY ARE ABLE TO EXPLAIN BETTER.” Papyrus said. It felt like he was telling a lie, or avoiding the truth. Even though he just couldn’t find the right words. He hoped Dream would clear everything up. Sans just sighed.

“that’s aight. go back to the living room, i don’t want your glitchy buddy tearing up the couch,” Sans said. Seeing Papyrus’s look, he added, “i’ll get the chocolate for him, don’t worry. and i won’t burn anything.” Sans relaxed his expression, the previously strained smile looking a bit more natural. As Sans turned to the cupboards to search for food, Papyrus walked back out to the living room.

“MY CARING BROTHER IS TAKING CARE OF LUNCH, IT WILL HOPEFULLY BE READY SOON.” Papyrus said. Error scoffed again, turning to look at the door in what appeared to be longing. “ERROR, I DON’T BELIEVE I INTRODUCED MYSELF TO YOU EARLIER.”

“You did.” He said dryly.

“I- I DID? REALLY?” Papyrus said.

“I’ve got no clue if you did or didn’t, but I know who you are and I’m sure golden there told you who I am.” Without moving his head, Error drifted his eye lights back over to Papyrus. They were mismatched, Papyrus realized. Dream huffed.

“Don’t bother Paper. Error’s a prick.” Dream walked over to Ink, shoved him closer to Error, then sat down at the very edge of the couch.

“He’s not a prick per say…” Ink said in a wheedling voice.

“Sure, go ahead and talk about me as if I’m not in the room.” Error said, his eye lights gliding back to the door.

“I APOLOGIZE FRIEND. LOOK, I RECOGNISE THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO INTRODUCE YOURSELF, BUT I WOULD.” Papyrus stuck out a hand. Error glared at it. “GREETINGS! I AM PAPER. I BELIEVE I’M FROM UNDERTALE.”

“I’m Error. I’m an outcode. Leave me alone.”

“I call Error’s AU Errortale!! There are others from his timeline out there I think…” Ink said, trailing off into thought that would surely be forgotten.

“They don’t fucking matter.” Error grumbled, looking slightly uncomfortable.

“Would you lighten up on your language?!” Dream said, snapping a little. He had squeezed his eyes shut.

“Fuck shit damn,” Error said, and Papyrus could see a little smirk appear on his face. Error was proving to have… a difficult personality.

“keep the cuss words down in m’house please!” Sans called from the kitchen. Papyrus winced, realizing that this was Sans’s first impression of his new friends.

“HOW ABOUT THIS- DREAM AND I CAN FIND A BOARD GAME WE CAN PLAY WHILE WE WAIT FOR FOOD!” Papyrus threw a glance at Dream. His eye lights had reopened and he stood up. Error rolled his eye lights and Ink just looked passively happy. Papyrus walked behind the couch to a tired bookcase. It had puzzles, games, and cards that he and his brother played with when their free time lined up. Or when the snow outside was too much to go anywhere. While Papyrus and Dream pursued the games, Ink blathered to Error in the background.

“What about this one?” Dream said, pulling out a tan box titled “Munchkins” with cartoon humans on the front. Undyne had given it to him a few months ago, he and Sans had played it once.

“AH, ALRIGHT. FRIENDS! WE’RE PLAYING MUNCHKINS.” Papyrus said, walking back over to the couch and sitting down uncomfortable in front of the TV. Ink slipped to the ground happily, and Error made a big show of getting up and sitting back down, dragging a pillow Sans had left from the night before to the floor with him. Dream plopped down between Papyrus and Ink. It was game time, and Papyrus was ready to be competitive.

[the-judge-of-bones]

(my wrong, here is a question for them, seems I mixed up the wrong tabs. idk if these have already been answered before but here they go anyways!) Were Sans and Gaster hired like a human normally would hire an employee, or did they have to do some sort of test to become scientists? Or did they get their positions from some reputation they had earned over time? Is it possible for Sans to renounce his position given by the king? Is it a permanent job he's forced to do?

Both sans and gaster did have to apply to work at the lab though applications back then were petitioning their individual talents to what was then the king and queen, It wasn't that hard since both of them are from a time before the underground (Having been 9 and 5 respectively) when the war came to a close and they were sealed underground. Regardless about how royalty they needed workers, Competent people who could start working towards improving the undergrounds many needs. So age was rarely a consideration.

This really applies very heavily to sans specifically but he needed some way to support his brother and as soon as possible so sans took full advantage of knowing he was smart and used it to very quickly bypass a few grades in whatever schooling monsters had back then established underground and eventually graduated when he was only fifteen (From the monster equivalent of highschool) and got the job at the lab when he was just sixteen (papyrus was six). All of the scientists hired had a plethora of different projects they were working on, but all of them were banded under a common goal of finding some way to break the barrier.

They had to earn their current positions, Sans would have likely become the royal scientist if not for the fact that gaster was more efficient then him in certain regards and didn't have the same obligations sans did tying him down even though both of them were equal lead contributors on the core's creation and development.

----

As for sans, he will hold his position as the judge until the day he dies, The powers it grants is chosen by a unknown magic that even Asgore has no control over. Nobody knows WHAT qualifies someone to be a judge as it's not limited by magic power, Position or even species, In fact as far as history goes. Sans is the first skeleton to be the judge. The judge is a position of royalty, In some ways it is even higher then the king and queen as the judge holds reign over them all. No matter your lot in life, If you commit heinous enough acts, You will be taken down. Some of which you can read about here.

- Headcannon 1 - Headcannon 2 - Headcannon 3

The magic that makes up the judge's entire existence is considered old magic, Likely a bundle or collection of spells long before the war that while lost to time has continued to do it's duty. He has to be the judge, It is as much instinctual as it is trained, he never wanted the position, he hates the position but you don't have to like it, You don't have to want it. All it boils down to is if it thinks you are qualified. Though i will throw in a few HC's about a judge

- Judge's DO gain LV but it does not affect their soul in the same way. In fact it doesn't affect them at all.

- In sans's alt post game verse, he is the final judge of monster kind as nobody knows IF he'll ever die due to the determination active in his body

- The ability would select someone else in the monster population once Sans is dead. That is the only way for him to rid himself of it if he really wanted to.

- As a result of this, there is only ONE judge in the whole of monster society, there has only ever been one.

[silverryu25]

Ok ok here me out. So what if I’m the dragon au sans is invited to a ball. His lazy butt would rather nap with his big dragon skellie . But atlas his father is gently pushing him to find a prince. Dragon red feels jealous and possessive over sans but knows he’s not. A Prince Charming. He knows he’s not handsome, charming or princely. So maybe he finds a spell or potion that turns him normal and tries to impress sans at the ball ? I don’t know. Any ideas a what’s gonna happen next ?

Oh stars noony yassss! I love this!! >:3c

Ok lemme just share a tiny silly thing with you noony cause this idea made me so happy X3

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Let’s say Sans is lazing about under tree, napping (like in the pic the amazing @fuzzyzzz drew X3), while Red is off doing something (hunting or just dragon things). They don’t really expect any trouble cause I mean... who would mess with a dragon, right? And by then Red and Sans earned a reputation amongst the knights and princess to better leave them alone >;3

But one person is not ready to give up. Sans’ father, the king, Gaster >.>

He decides enough is enough. His wayward son was supposed to be “trapped” in the tower with that horrible excuse for a dragon (yes I wanna hit him for this too >:|) only for a short time. A worthy prince or knight was supposed to save him and marry him so Gaster doesn’t have to worry about a successor. He did have another son, but that one was just too kind and innocent for king work.

So king Gaster was determined to have Sans succeed after he marries.

And yet it just didn’t happen. That blasted nuisance of a dragon somehow kept chasing off all the princes and knights, and running Gaster’s well set plans (what he didn’t know is that Sans was the one helping Red chase them all of XD). Deciding enough was enough, it was time to change tactics, plan B so to say.

A ball.

If no one was worthy to “save” Sans, then he would be the one to choose the appropriate one at a ball. And Sans will have to be there, he had no choice. After all, Gaster wasn’t a horribly cruel man. He wanted to choose someone that would fit Sans at least a little, though that silly love thing that these kids were spouting about didn’t really matter. He will find Sans a comfortable enough spouse and that will be it.

Now he just had to get that wayward princess home.

So as Sans was lazing around, napping away, unattended, some knights kidnapped him and silenced him before he could call for Red. He was roughly carried home where his father, the king, made certain Sans knew what will happen. When Sans protested and tried to explain that he was in love with the dragon that kept saving him, Gaster had him locked up in a tower, with Sans’ magic locked so he couldn’t run ;^;

I don’t have to explain how pissed Red was when he didn’t find Sans! He tore down everything around the tower Sans was “trapped” in and searched and yelled for Sans for hours. When his stamina finally depleted, he crumpled to the ground absolutely furious but unable to do anything. Somehow, he managed to pull himself together and decided to search away from that place. Thankfully, in his rage he broke the magic that bound him to the tower (though it hurt... a lot >.>).

He quickly found some old friends that helped him find clues on where his princess could be. A ball. A fuckin’ ball??? He was ready to storm that bastard’s castle and take his tiny princess back! But one of his friends stopped him cause raiding the castle would lead to certain death. Red would have to be smart about this. He needed to get Sans without a fight. So... why not go to the ball and win his little princesses hand in marriage? >:3c

Red very reluctantly agreed.

He didn’t know what kind of fire power this damn king Gaster had and he didn’t want to risk Sans getting hurt. So he accepted. But he had to look less... murder dragon for the plan to work. A favor from a witch and he got a potion that turned him “human”, or well less “big murder beast” and more “respectable monster” sized XD

But dear reader, there is one thing the potion couldn’t really change. It might have made Red look like a handsome knight or prince. Made his scary looks soften up and give him that strong but not terrifying appearance (he still had horns and a tail, though smaller, but his wings were gone). But the outside does not change the inside, you know? The dragon was still lurking inside that smaller, still powerful, frame. It’s hard to hide one’s nature after all >:3c

The ball came.

Everyone who was anyone came. The palace was overflowing with noble knits, princes from different countries, noblemen ready to show their best. To get the hand of the princess. And to become the next king besides Sans.

Sans was suffocating. It was horrible. He was stuck in an extremely frilly dress that made it almost impossible to move (part of Gaster’s plan to make it harder for Sans to run) and there was nothing he could do. He could barely pass trough a doorway for freaking sake! His mood was sour and it showed. Everyone he was introduced to him were ignored or scoffed at. Gaster even had to threaten Sans that he better stop it if he doesn’t want to cause an international incident.

So he toned it down but still didn’t pay attention to anyone. What was he use anyway, when his father wouldn’t listen? He had to get away. That was the only way he could avoid this miserable fate. He was sure Red would keep him safe once they were reunited. And he’d never let Sans be kidnapped again. Sans just had to get to Red, cause he knew Red was bound to that tower he was in. So Sans had to do his best and run.

While pondering how he would escape, Sans was walking around the big ballroom, trying to escape the different suitors. His plan was (mostly) working. Anyone who got in his way was ignored with an excuse that he was going to see someone else, or going to get some food at the buffet or whatever, just so he could run.

In his rush to run from an especially clingy noble, he wasn’t paying attention in front of him and he run into someone. With an umph Sans was knocked down on his boney butt, the dress piling up around him, practically burying him under the frills and layers. With a desperate struggle he tried to get out of the pile, but it was hopeless. Suddenly, there was a strong hand grabbing his (very gently) and pulling him up, like he weighed nothing. He quickly found his balance and flattened out his dress, making it possible to stand again.

With a deep breath to steel himself cause he knew he couldn’t get away from this one after they helped him, Sans looked up with a thank you on his teeth, then froze. There was a skeleton monster in front of him but all he could see was teeth. Big and sharp teeth smiling down at him. The monster in front was big, at least double Sans’ height. The size didn’t really scare Sans, he was used to Red’s size and this monster wasn’t nearly as big. But something in the monster’s eyelights and the way his teeth curled made Sans pause. He looked... familiar.

He snapped out of his surprise and thanked the monster. The other didn’t say anything just blushed and nodded. There was something... strange about him. He was wearing a suit that didn’t fit him right, as if it was rushed. It was expensive looking, like the rest of the guests were wearing, but the monster looked extremely uncomfortable in it. Sans could even see him pulling at the collar when he thought Sans wasn’t looking. Weird.

He was intrigued. And since he couldn’t run right now he could see why this monster made his soul pulse in a weird way. So he took the offered hand and followed the monster to the side. They stood there in silence a bit, it was as if the monster wouldn’t or couldn’t talk (he couldn’t, that’s one of the side effects of the potion... where would the fun be if there weren’t any consequences >;3).

Sans noticed the big monster eyeing the buffet, a little drool escaping between those sharp teeth and with a chuckle, he dragged the monster to the food-ladden tables. With a red blush, the big monster looked at Sans like he was waiting for permission. Sans gave him a smile and a nod and all hell broke lose! 

The big monster ate like he hadn’t seen food in ages, stuffing himself and making a scene. Sans could see his father frowning disapprovingly and he couldn’t help but laugh. When Gaster started storming towards them, Sans grabbed the monsters hand and ran! As much as he could in that blasted getup. The big monster was startled at first, not understanding what was going on, but when he noticed the angry king nearing them he quickly lifted Sans into his arms, making the dress crumple, and ran as fast as his long legs could carry him.

They ran through the crowd at full speed, knocking monsters left and right, outrage and curses following their steps. Until they burst onto a balcony. Thankfully it was empty. The big monster quickly shut the door and pulled a big stone vase to block it. Sans wasn’t sure how he even moved it, it was huge! Yet the monster did it with one hand.

With a raised bonebrow, Sans gave the big monster a closer look. With a gentle phalanges, Sans traced the scars on the monsters skull, being very careful not to hurt. He pet over the horns and scratched the base like he would do to Red. He didn’t know what made him do that, but it felt right. When the big monster started purring and nuzzling into Sans’ hand, he was startled. And when he saw a tail with a specific tip wagging behind the monster his eyelights practically turned into stars.

“red?” Sans whispered, almost unheard.

But the big monster heard it and he smiled, giving a sharp nod and a wink. Sans squealed let out a happy sound and hugged Red’s neck, almost strangling the bigger monster. He started showering Red with questions about how he got there, how does he look like that, why he didn’t say anything. Red shook his head and held Sans a bit closer, to make sure he was comfortable. He used his free hand to show that he couldn’t talk.

Sans’ face morphed into a worried frown. He was worried Red would stay like that, that Red sacrificed his voice forever just to save Sans. But Red quickly stopped that. He took Sans’ chin in his hands, and made the little monster focus on him. He shook his head, trying to explain that it wasn’t permanent. Sans, being a smart skelly, understood and asked how to undo it then? Red... blushed. Hard. And looked to the side. Sans was confused at first, but the way Red was acting and memories of old stories made the gears in head turn. Then he blushed right along Red.

“a kiss.” He concluded. Red snapped his head back, blushing even harder. But he gave a small nod, confirming Sans’ words.

Suddenly, the doors to the balcony started rattling. They were found! The guards were trying to bust onto the balcony and, knowing king Gaster, separate them. Quickly, Sans grabbed both sides of Red’s face, squishing his cheeks a bit (Sans would have giggled at this if the situation wasn’t urgent). They stared at each other and both saw the consent in each others eyelights.

With a gentle hand, careful with his claws, Red pulled Sans closer until their teeth met, sockets closing. A surge of magic spark between their teeth, spreading and engulfing Red’s whole body. With a ripping sound, the fancy clothes were torn to shreds as Red’s body grew bigger, into his full dragon form.

Just as the glow was subsiding, the door broke and the guards rushed out. But they were met with a fearsome roar that knocked them all on their asses. Red stood up on his hind legs and spread his wings, still holding Sans in one of his front paws, and glaring down at the knights.

With a curse at their incompetence, the king made his way between the knights, only to stop in front of the dragon and glare at him. With a authoritative voice he demanded that Red release Sans, but Red just glared back not moving at all.

Instead, Sans yelled down to his father that he won’t be coming home again. With a tap to Red’s ribs he looked up and nodded at the big monster. Red looked at him, held him closer to his ribs, making sure Sans is safe, and used his powerful hind legs to jump up, flapping his wings hard to lift into the air.

The king could only watch impotently as his son eloped with a dragon.

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Damn this practically turned into a fic... I have no self control noonies >.>

I really hope you like it noony!! This took forever but I love it! It was so fun to write!

[therewasatale]

Newborns

On Ao3. 

"I can do this; I can do this." The scientist's fingers run through the keyboard's keys as if he was playing a melody that only he could hear. Three monitors glowed with the information he required. More and more calculations followed each other, but all the simulations came up with the same result.

His chair squeaked slightly beneath him as he leaned back.

I should finally oil it, he reminded himself again for the up tenth time. The thought, however, vanished almost immediately as he focused on his studies again.

Everything was ready. He glanced over his shoulder. Silently gazed at the tanks and the prototype of the machine he created. It was reminiscent of a robust and a dozen times magnified injector into which two tubes were connected, they ran towards two tanks. Not far from him, a bluish and yellowish dot floated up and down, safely in their containers.

If it works, I will be able to progress much faster and much more efficiently.

He started typing another program, entering new lines data and preparing everything. Behind him, the structure buzzed like it was being alive.

I can do this, he repeated to himself as he pulled his arm out of his white lab coat. I must do this. His coworkers were already overworked. Moreover, the last human soul had the needed pattern. He was finally able to put his theory into practice. He was sure he would finally succeed for the first time.

I can do this!

At first the lights just began to flicker, then for a short time the whole lab was engulfed in darkness. Reserve energy got turned on almost immediately, but researchers still didn’t have time to get up.

The painful scream echoed throughout the building.

It didn't take all of three minutes until several monsters were at the door being busy to open it up. The code was hacked with great precision, but as the entrance was revealed they all stopped in shock.

There were three monsters inside.

"Why didn’t you kept an eye on Dr.Gaster ! I gave explicit orders not to leave him alone!" Asgore, the king of monsters, let his anger flare for a moment, but immediately put a lid on it when he realized it wasn't helping anyone anymore.

Taking large steps, he walked down the hall, his smoldering anger was stoked by concern for the doctor. Once again, a monster, he deeply cared about, got injured.

He was followed by Stol, one of the leading royal scientists. The feline monster nervously closed one of his ears, trying to get the king to calm down. He was well aware that they have really messed it up when they underestimated Dr.Gaster.

"I know, sir, but we thought he was focused on the development of the Core. We couldn't guess... it was all on a theoretical level. Your Majesty, we had no idea he was working on the project in secret!"

The king just shook his head with a huff and slowed down enough so the scientist could catch up him to show the way. After three turns, they headed towards a door, in front of which a couple researchers stood hesitantly.

"I assume he's in there."

"Yes, Your Majesty, they took care of his injuries and now they need to rest...all three of them."

Asgore glanced at the monster questioningly, but soon made a decision.

"I want to talk to him face to face."

"But sir-" Seeing the king's gaze, Stol blew a hasty retreat "of course, sir." He adjusted his glasses and gently pushed aside his colleagues, who tried to pay no attention to them, then opened the door.

The king entered and waited for the door to close, but even after, he was unable to move or utter a word. All the small bits of information he got from Stol, and Gaster had been hinting at in the past month, now come together and become a complete picture.

Dr. Gaster told him about a potential new project, it was after he felt he wasn’t moving fast enough with research regarding the Core and breaking the barrier. He began to study human souls and the souls of monsters. He developed a theory that the soul of a monster, if infused with the correct amount of human magic and power, could create an another creature.

It was a well-known fact that the souls of humans and skeleton monsters were the closest to each other. Gaster himself was just as good in using magic to actual combat as a human.

If one treats the soul gently enough, if a small piece is chipped away from the right place, he explained enthusiastically on a quiet afternoon. There might be a way to create another monster with a soul similar to the original one. This new being might even have some of the original one's experience and knowledge. This would make research much faster.

Asgore, on the other hand, opposed the whole idea on principle, he had a bad feeling about it from the start. He suspected that the scientist was much further along this research than simply discussing theoretical possibilities. And he was concerned that Gaster might cause serious damage to himself, just to try to help the monsters. Of course, the scientist never understood that if he crossed a line, he might never be able to help anyone anymore, not even himself.

The king cursed himself for not listening to his intuitions.

"Gaster..." Asgore heard his own voice, it was muffled by the noises of the room.

The royal scientist was lying on a wide bed. Cables of varying thickness were attached to his body, all connecting into a single monitor to keep an eye on every little shudder of his soul. Another medical system, connected to the same monitor, also to watch two other tiny and very weak hearts.

Asgore took a few steps to take a closer look at the three of them. It was then when he noticed that the anger that had been smoldering inside him so far had almost completely subsided, all that remained was concern.

"Your Majesty," dark circles deepened under Wingdings' eyes. Maybe he hadn’t been able to sleep for days, maybe the life-threatening procedure had exhausted him that much. The king would have guessed that it was due to both of those things.

There were two tiny skeletal monsters sleeping in Gaster's arms, one's chest glowed in blue and the other's in yellow. They were so tiny they would have completely disappeared if they were in the king's arm.

"I...didn't...I thought..." Gaster's voice trailed off slightly. He pulled the two little monsters closer to him with his arms "I thought they were...but I didn't...they just..."

"Gaster," the king found the ground under his feet again. Maybe it was his friend's desperate voice that shook him to place.

"I don't…don't…I know…I don't know what to do with children. They…they…should be older." The monster sniffed, still holding the two newborns as carefully as possible. "My calculations…I'm not…they should be bigger, they're, they're just so small. I've never been good with…I don't even know...I'm not…Asgore..."

"Gaster, it's okay." Asgore placed his hand carefully on his shoulder. He hadn't seen his friend acting like this in a long time. He felt his heart break, he wanted to sacrifice so much, just so they can get out a little sooner. "It's okay. Please take a few deep breaths for my sake," he tried to use his kindest voice.

"But I..."

"It's okay. They're really lovely...newborns," the king took a seat in the chair by the bed. "I understand that there might be a lot going on your mind right now, but I think we should concentrate on your new family." He said with a gentle smile.

Gaster closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, took a deep breath and glanced down at the baby skeletons. For long minutes, the only thing could be heard where the beeping of the monitors.

Despite the pain in his body, he gently caressed the heads of the two tiny monsters. He watched them taking their small breaths. One of them, glowing with yellowish light, snuggled into his clothes as much as possible, while his brother began to snore slightly. Two tiny, innocent souls. Both came from his own. He slowly stroked their heads and watched with the two new lifes with gently admiration.

"I understand if you are angry with me, Your Majesty." He said seemingly gathering himself. "I didn't anticipate every possibility and now it will take even longer to break the barrier." The scientist fell silent again and he could feel an invisible bond forming between the three of them. His voice became softer.

"But I... I can't regret it. These children ..."

Asgore shook his head with a smile.

"I understand, my friend. Although you have experimented in secret, I think it all ended as well as it could have. Don't worry about the barrier right now. And we're talking about you, I'll bet you'll be on your feet and working much sooner than that would be recommended anyway."

"Well, I-"

"But these children are now your responsibilities. It's rare for a new life to be born here. Please take care of them."

Gaster remained silent for a few moments, then sighed slowly.

"Heavens, what I got myself into."

The king chuckled deeply and it was filled with warmth.

"Parenting is one of the biggest and noblest challenges in life. But knowing your habits of not sleeping, I think you'll be fine."

"Your Majesty..." Gaster sighed heavily, but he couldn't suppress the faint smile when he heard Asgore chuckle again. "In the future I might ask some advice. If it's okay..."

"Any time you want, my friend. I'll try to help with everything I know."

The two small skeletons moved slightly in their sleep and snuggled closer to Gaster, who became bluish in his embarrassment.

"Try to relax a bit, we will talk more after you wake up." Asgore smiled at him.

"Well…maybe…" Gaster suppressed a yawn as he let his head fall back on the pillow. "The materials are all there on my computer, and then I'll explain everything…but now… I…"

"We'll talk when you wake up as I said. I have to go now, you three deserve some sleep."

"I... yes, I think you're right." Gaster replied slowly closing his eyes "Thank you...Your Majesty..."

"Good night, my friend."

The king carefully adjusted the blanket on the slowly breathing skeleton family. He made sure that no one would bother Dr.Gaster, but to inform him as soon as he is awake.

As he walked down the hallways, he began to hum an old children's song under his breath.  Memories he thought to be forgotten, flooded out filling his mind. For the first time in many years, the appearance of these memories filled his heart with warmth.

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Beneath an Aurora Sky ch. 20

Summary: The South Pole Station is equipped for research and Edge has always made sure things run smoothly for the inhabitants. His charges are meant to follow his rules and regulations, and in turn, he makes sure they survive in the arctic temperatures. It takes plenty of hard work and determination and Edge, along with his crew, can handle both.

He wasn’t counting on one of the newest researchers. He wasn’t expecting Rus.

Tags: Spicyhoney, First Time, Arctic AU, Hurt/Comfort

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Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four

Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve

Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17

Chapter 18 | Chapter 19

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Read Chapter 20 on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

As Edge was walking towards the vehicle shed, he caught an acrid hint of cigarette smoke in the air. He followed it, not inside but around the back and sitting in the shadows of the halogen lights was Rus.

Edge could hardly disguise his approach, the crunch of his boots in the hard-packed snow would have carried in the still icy air long before he came around the corner. But Rus made no attempt to hide. He stayed where he was, a burning cigarette dangling from his gloved fingers as he gazed up at the aurora-filled sky.

He’d already been out here for some time while Edge and the others spoke with Toriel and Gaster. The cold would soon be seeping through his outdoor gear no matter how good it was, sinking its chill into Rus’s bones. Monsters felt the cold less than Humans did but they were by no means immune to it. They could be sickened, frostbitten, and some, like Alphys, tolerated it even less than Humans. As a skeleton, Rus’s endurance should match Edge and Red’s.

Then again, who knew the boundaries of a skeleton from an entirely other universe.

Edge sat down next to Rus, drawing up his knees to rest his arms on them. He looked up at the swirling aurora overhead, the blur of colors rippling together in tangled waves, a sky ocean born of solar particles colliding with the atmosphere.

“it’s so beautiful here.” Rus’s voice was almost too loud in the hush.

“Yes,” Edge agreed in a voice to match.

It was. His intention when they’d first arrived here was only to find a safe place for those in his care, Alphys and Undyne and his still-wounded brother, and later, for Bonnie. Somewhere they could be certain of their meals and shelter. Nothing more than a job to replace the one he lost with the guard and a feeble attempt at that.

He hadn’t expected to find beauty in the glacial whiteness, nor in the endless night sky. He never anticipated the satisfaction that came with seeing another group off, knowing he’d protected them and guided them through this dangerous beauty. He couldn’t have known how Undyne and Alphys would blossom here, both their love for each other and their lives, settling into their place. Or that Red would slowly find his own footing and perhaps he’d never adore the Humans that came here, but he had his own pride in his work, kept all the equipment in top form and helped Alphys in her designs for new additions for the station. And Bonnie, who’d come to them later and never discussed her own inner wounds, yet still seemed to be healing from them. Together they’d created a place of safety for them, a home.

Even after all that, he never could have braced himself for Rus. Who’d settle into their home like he belonged here, their missing puzzle piece. Only it seemed as if he’d come not from their picture, but an entirely different box.

“he told you, didn’t he.” It was impossible to tell if the fog of Rus’s breath was from the cold or the cigarette.

Edge said nothing. His promise to Toriel specified he couldn’t reveal what they’d spoken about. It did not preclude discussing it at all and he only waited as Rus chuckled bitterly, filling in the silence on his own.

“it’s funny,” Rus drawled, flicking ash into the snow, “i came all the way to the end of the world to escape my past and it still came after me.”

Edge thought of Toriel, currently cramped into one of the spare rooms and probably trying not to scrape her horns against the ceiling. “I know the feeling.”

“yeah, i know,” Rus said, grimacing, “i’m sorry. part of the deal of tori sponsoring me was i’d keep mum about back home. i promised.”

“I understand.”

“yeah, well, if i’d known they were gonna pop in unexpectedly, i would’ve warned you about that much, anyway.” Rus’s expression crumpled slightly, going brittle around the edges. “look, i love tori, she’s been nothing but good to me. moms her way into everything. but you guys got your reasons to not want her around, i get that.”

“Rus,” the cloud of his own breath briefly obscured his vision as Edge sighed, “even if they are here because of you, that doesn’t make it your fault.”

“doesn’t it? think what pissed me off most is i know dings is right,” Rus murmured. “he’s can be a little rough saying it, but he means well.”

The resignation in Rus’s voice made Edge bristle, “He accused you of being nothing more than a key made for a particular lock.”

“truth hurts.” It was startling to realize how he’d categorized Rus’s smiles in his own head, the bright, fake one and the softer, shyer truthful one that came with a measure of trust. This one was entirely new, tainted with deep bitterness, “bet big brother didn’t fill in the details, so let me give you the highlights of our family tree.”

“see, our pop was the royal scientist in our world, the real deal. i call him pop, but that’s mostly because it annoyed him. he wasn’t really our father, he was a dna donor. he didn’t even name us, we named ourselves.” Rus was sitting right next to Edge here in the deep cold and still seemed miles away, no, not miles, he was in another world entirely. “dings took his name. not like he really knew there were many options past that or just getting called number one. just as well, i guess, looks more like him than me or blue. dings named blue and they both named me.”

He slanted a glance at Edge, his bright eye lights dimmed behind his goggles. “dings was still really young when blue popped out, what did he know about names? baby bro’s magic was blue, so that’s what he went with. i came a few more years down the line and by then, they’d raided the librarby and found out that papyrus is a traditional skeleton monster name.” He chuckled then, some of the bitterness of his smile invading the sound. “like anything about us was traditional.”

“we were his own personal test tube babies, homegrown like fucking cabbages, and gaster made us to fulfill a specific role. see, the core was important work, sure, but what he was really trying to do was make a machine that could get us past the shield. turns out, third time is the charm for our old man. he made dings and blue first but neither of them could use void magic. i was his hail mary, his last shot, and whaddaya know, it worked.” Rus scowled, tamped out his burning butt into the snow. He dropped it into his little tin and lit another, inhaling deeply and breathing out a cloud of smoke. “he never let me forget what i was for, but dings and blue always tried to be the best brothers they could. after pops kacked, it wasn’t until dings got that machine working that it even came up again.” He shrugged, barely visible through the layers of his heavy coat. “i got to forget for a while, at least.”

Edge said nothing, what could he say? His childhood was hardly one ease and joy; it more resembled the fairy tales that Red sometimes read to him when he still the shorter of the two, listening with wide sockets to gruesome tales that seemed all too possible. It seemed Rus had his own experiences with a sort of wicked stepfather and it was every bit as terrible as those stories. The urge to pull him close, to keep him safe, was itching in Edge and he forcibly held it back, let Rus tell his story.

“i never expected the machine to actually work,” Rus admitted. “dings was messing with it for so long. then we were here. my bro was only supposed to talk to the royal scientist and we were gonna hightail it back. easy peasy lemon squeezy.” Rus chuckled darkly, “turned out the lemonade was too sour after all. dings was pretty upset to find out the guy he was looking for was gone and so was his successor.”

Rus’s smile eased into something warmer, familiar, “it was tori who got me to start studying, you know. my bros always kept me on a tight leash back home, it was dangerous to even go outside, but here? i went out, tried to make some friends, ended up sleeping around some. wasted time,” Rus admitted, “tori suggested i work on my degree. i didn’t see the point at first, our pop always told us our purpose. i was there to power the machine. but, tori has this thing about being everyone’s mom.”

“Indeed, she does,” Edge murmured, recalling his days imprisoned after the coup, with good meals and care instead of execution.

“i think maybe that’s why she’s such a good queen. she told me pops was wrong,” Rus laughed a little in a puff of smokey breath and shook his head. “told me he was an asshole, actually, and that i deserved to have what i wanted out of life.”

“we argued about it, me and dings. drove blue nuts. blue was…he was the failure, pops said. at least dings was a scientist, but blue couldn’t even manage that. dings always told him his purpose was to be our caretaker and he tried damn hard at it.” Rus sighed, dropping his head back against the shed siding with a muffled thunk, “he hates it when we fight.”

“But you did it,” Edge said softly, “you got your degree, you’re working on your PhD and you’re doing a good job of it, at that.” Even through the growing cold he felt an inner warmth at the smile Rus flashed him, the real one.

“i did. i got so close.” Rus’s voice broke slightly, “things were horrible when we left, i can’t even imagine how they are now. and dings, he needs to fix the core. that was the skill that was built into him.” His smile soured back into bitterness, “it’s a compulsion, i don’t think he can help it. he has to be better than our pop. he has to be the one to save us all. blue believes everyone is worth saving, but he’s a protector, and me? i’m just a battery. i was never meant to have any of this.”

A honey-tinted tear slipped out from beneath his goggles and wound its way down, slowly freezing against the chilled bone of Rus’s skull and Edge’s control broke. He crawled across the short distance between them, scuffled through the snow and pulled Rus into his arms. He held on briefly, achingly tight before drawing back far enough to shake him, a little, and Rus looked at him with wide, startled eye lights.

“You are more than simply your father’s intentions,” Edge told him fiercely. “You’re brilliant and kind, and…and funny…wonderful…” He choked, unable to express the wild emotions burning in his soul; if there were words for it, Edge did not know them. Love was too shallow a word, too small, it couldn’t possibly hold everything Edge was feeling, all of it strangled in grief.

Rus reached up and his gloved fingers were gentle against Edge’s cheekbone. “it’s okay,” he said, softly, “i always knew we’d have to go back. i got to see this. i got to be with you. it’s okay,” he said again, crooned it, as if Edge were the one in pain. Perhaps he was, his soul ached as fiercely as if it was threatening to crack. “i saw so much here on the surface. i got to see the stars, i got to come here and see this.” He looked up at the sky, at the brilliant colors still churning within it along with a million twinkling lights looking down on them. “i was never going to get to stay, but i got to see this.”

“It’s not enough,” Edge said hoarsely. Not enough, Rus was supposed to leave here and go back into the sun, and instead, he was going where Edge could never follow, couldn’t protect him, and again, Edge would have given a portion of his own grieving soul not to see that sadness infecting Rus’s smile.

“i love you, you know,” Rus told him, achingly soft. “i know it’s not fair to tell you now, but i can’t keep it to myself. i need you to know it.”

Edge closed his sockets, shutting out Rus’s face and the aurora, saw only blackness and it wasn’t the cold that sent a tremor through him. Then he opened them again, looked into Rus’s face and saw the truth of it, the yearning. And the hopelessness. The need to say it back burned, words already forming on his tongue, but instead Edge blurted, “Stay the two weeks.”

Rus blinked, startled. That was clearly not the reaction he expected to his quiet confession, “but, the people—"

“It’s been two years,” Edge countered, “two weeks means nothing to your world and everything to you. Don’t let your brother’s compulsion drive you. Toriel—"

He almost said she was on his side, couldn’t, his knowledge was gleaned from their talk and words already thickening in his throat, his promise threatening to choke him when Rus kissed him softly, stopping him.

“i can guess about tori,” Rus said quietly, then, softer, “two more weeks.” He looked up again and even behind his goggles, the auroras couldn’t match the soft beauty of his eye lights. “there’s no stars back home. i’m gonna miss them.”

He fell silent, leaning against Edge’s side. Edge wrapped an arm around him and pulled Rus in closer, holding him tightly through the layers of his coat. He was starting to shiver; they were both getting too cold and he was about to suggest they move into the vehicle shed at the very least when Rus spoke again.

“it got so bad towards the end,” Rus whispered, “we stayed holed up in the lab, mostly, but we could see what was happening. monsters were getting more violent, losing control, gaining lv. pops’ diagrams on the core were incomplete. it was dings’s idea to come to another world and check theirs. i had to come, of course and we couldn’t leave Blue alone, so we all came.”

Rus kicked one booted foot idly, scraping up snow with his heel. “s’weird. even the snow is different here. back home it seems…stale somehow. used. maybe it’ll be better when dings gets the core up and running.” Rus sighed. “i never would have come to the station if i’d thought he was close to a breakthrough. it’s weird, i thought i had enough time.” Rus drew back a little, looking at Edge with that soft smile back in place. “but it sure wasn’t a waste.”

Almost, Edge kissed him again, hesitated with their mouths a breath away. Something about what Rus said niggled, something… “Weird.”

“heh,” Rus chuckled, “it’s double weird hearing you say weird. doesn’t seem like your kind of slang, bossman.”

Edge barely heard him. His brother had a breakthrough on the core, Rus said, an unexpected breakthrough. Edge cursed himself, replaying what Rus told him. He'd been foolishly focused on the information about Rus and why they were here, not on what changed to bring them to the station.

"What was your brother studying, exactly?” Edge demanded. He took Rus’s shoulders in both gloved hands, holding him, “You said he was looking for information about the Core."

Rus blinked uncertainly, his browbone furrowing, “um, papers, mostly. tori has lots of stuff from the old royal scientist, dings was wading through tons of it. i didn’t see much, he didn’t want any help. he was afraid we’d miss something. guess he found what he was looking for.”

“Yes, I think he did,” Edge said sourly, “A patsy.” Edge climbed to his feet and held out a hand to help Rus, “I’d like to know what was in those notes your brother found and I think we should ask the former royal scientist.”

“what?” Rus wobbled for a second, catching his balance after sitting for so long, “seriously? you think they’d talk to you? tori said they don’t—

“I should hope so,” Edge said, dryly, “she’s in her lab.” And very likely watching them on her cameras.

Rus went still, croaking out, “alphys??”

“You didn’t know?” Edge slanted Rus a look, but he believed him.

“no!” Rus spluttered, already heading back towards the station, Edge trailing after him. “tori didn’t talk about it, i didn’t even think to ask anyone else, why would i?”

“Maybe your brother isn’t as discriminating,” Edge said, under his breath, letting the wind tear the words away. It was more than a little suspicious that his brother solved the issue of core technology when Rus was in the only place that possessed a replica of the original. Edge didn’t believe in coincidence.

“Rus,” Edge jogged to catch up, taking hold of Rus’s elbow to stop him as he asked, “Do you trust me?”

“yes,” Rus said, unhesitatingly.

“I trust you, too,” Edge said, softly, and leaned in to give him a brief, chilly kiss. “Come on. You’re freezing and I have questions.”

“you’re the boss,” Rus said. It was only a shadow of his normally teasing self, but it was something. He took Rus’s gloved hand in his own and together, they made their way to the main building.

tbc

[blueskywater-happiness]

”He never asked to be a generic anime boy anyways.”

So it has been a looooooooooooooooooong time since I last lurk in the undertale fandom. Have yet to fully contribute though hahaha

So I was just scrolling and it is when I found Axetale (credits: @ataleofaxes​, @uhhbananafrappe​ and @azulandrojo​) and I gotta say, the story, premise and the au intrigued me.

To be honest, this character was only meant for Axetale, to give Aliza a relief and a companion, but I then decided to make him my Frans child for any Frans AU.

So this is Arial, yes the font under Sans-serif, and he is half monster skeleton half human.

For Axetale, he is Aliza’s younger twin brother.

His hands, feet, and lower jaw are all bones. On his back, his spine is exposed, it is quite hard. He has no right eyeball in his eye socket but he can still see. Morbidly he can not feel any pain when his limbs are ripped as he can reattached it... a bit bloody to observe. Unlike Aliza, he is unable to call Ruby and his magic isn’t as powerful as hers. To make it up, he is quite a fighter and very agile. He can still use magic to temporary cloak his lower jaw with “skin”. His right eye socket has a red glow, perhaps a “gift” from.... C̸̜͙͉͉͉̦͐̃̊̀̓̑̃̌͛̒̂̿̃͘͠ȟ̵̨͇̭͎͓͓͍̱̟͂̾̾̃̑́̀â̵̖̩̺̙͓̩̐́͘͘ŗ̷̛̫̹̭͚̭͖̙̎̋͑͐̕͝á̶̙̣̦͚̻̼̳̋̾̍̽̆̇̿̓. In regular Undertale Timeline, he is raised in the surface. He is a troll, using his good looks (hiding his boney jaw with a mask) to trick people for a scare. He is very lazy when it comes to his schooling, much to the dismay of his grandmother Toriel, Uncle Papyrus, and mother. His father on the other hand is amuse.  “Oh? You want me to be your prom date...?” grins and pulls his mask down, ketchup drips out his mouth “Are you REALLY sure-- hahaha why are you running?” Arial’s favorite pastime is singing and dancing, perhaps influencing his “kpop” hairstyle. A bit rough around the edges, with the way he speaks can often offend a person but deep down he is a good child. He dreams to be an traveller, wandering aimlessly. Like his father, he has an easy going expression on his face, charming and chatty. Unlike his mother however, he isn’t entirely that merciful or forgiving, will throw hands with you forever if he has to. Though he is also as sweet, will not say no if you ask his help, albeit he will tease you for it. In Axetale, he was born 20 minutes after Aliza. Frisk’s entire energy is needed for Aliza’s survival especially with how the asylum treated her, so how was he able to survive? As stated in Axetale, Gaster is unable to directly interfere. In an attempt to help his grandson, he asks Asgore’s soul for help in the void before it returns to the cycle, who immediately accept as atonement, whether for himself or for Flowey, nobody knows. When he was born, he was weak. Doctors and nurses were horrified at his skeletal features before a weakened Asgore left an illusion to cover his boney parts with skin.  Majority took it as a joke, a symptom of their lethargic. There is no way a baby could be born with skeletal features. Every morning he has skin but at night, his true face emerges. As a child, he and Aliza were treated terribly and while he has no learning disabilities, he was a sickly child. He wears a mask to cover his boney feature, least his grandmother would direct her ire at him, calling him an abomination. His bangs cover his right eye. Unlike his spunky, positive, kind and adventurous sister, he is a pessimist, his jokes are quite cold and his language is more offensive than his Undertale self. He is quite cold and uncaring to strangers, only to his sister and those who managed to win him can see his kinder side. Only successfully making more enemies than friends. 

“It was us against the world, my big sister and I are on our own" In an attempt to buy his sister and himself some toys, gadgets and what not, when he got older and less sickly, he turn to street fighting and often terrorize fellow peers. The glow on his right eye gets brighter at every fight he is in, making him stronger... He goes to the library at random times, to further his knowledge and help his sister. Currently he is saving for his sister’s glasses... Until they fell.

[iced-souls]

I have decided to put theories I come up with here. I'm predicting that mostly all of them will be Undertale based.

anyways, so this ones mainly on sans, and it coming up from Unexpected Guests theorizing. (go check the comic out!).

so I was thinking that maybe way way back, the time where chara is settled into the underground, chara and sans would be buds, sans being around 15 years old and chara 10. I think there relationship would be like a “therapist” kinda thing (so just talking about stuff to each other that they don’t want their close ones to worry about, keeping them as a secret to each other.) and because of that, they care about each other, but sans doesn’t ever introduce himself to the other royals, just to make chara comfortable in a way. PS, they aren’t best friends tho, chara’s got Asriel to fill that role.

K so with that said, after a while, sans falls down. (my thinking is probably mostly towards him stressing about papyrus, since no parents taking care of them.). And then because chara cares about him, she wants to help him. Since the king and queen probably have a lot of meetings with the royal scientist, they probably heard a thing or 2 about determination, gaster probably hasn’t figured anything out at this time, but he probably has some theories. So chara probably knows that they’ve got DT inside of them, and because they’re a kid and don’t know how to get it out exactly, they end up taking out some of their blood and injecting it into sans.

I’m just gonna add, I think the humans blood would have a different kind of effect on monsters. So there’s pure DT that is taken from the soul, later on gaster probably finding out monsters have a liiiiittle bit of DT deep within there soul, therefore probably creating the DT extractor to try and extract it safely, but i don’t think he ended up using it. Anyways, so if chara did take some DT from their soul, it probably would give either an effect kinda like flowey, or if they gave too much, an effect like the amalgamates. Another thing would be absorbing the soul, which would make them like another being completely. However, I don’t think that would help sans because of his condition, and because when asriel and chara did it, asriel was a boss monster, meaning they were already more capable then sans. Then there’s Charas blood, which I think would be carrying DT, but somewhat “diluted” compared to the soul, and therefore not as ‘strong’ and pure DT, and I think that’s why gaster probably doesn’t think about it, well, and the soul reason that there isn’t a human around with DT anymore.

So, because of this, sans wakes up because of the DT, but in a certain amount of time (i don’t know whether it would be right away or a few days later or something in between) sans starts taking another form because of the DT. Chara and young pap would be with him when it starts, and because sans is scared that he might hurt someone, they move him into the forest.

I think his form would be like the blastagon from Unexpected Guests, but with a lot of cracks on the body. Cracks because sans is fragile due to falling down. And i think that the effect that the blood gave was doubling/boosting everything, so his HP, magic, agility, and so on. And in order to control all the doubling without basically falling to the ground every now and then, it makes him get into a new form that is capable of wielding its power. The abilities he gains are the ones he has currently, like short cuts, blasters, etc.

The form however does also change his mind to have ‘animal like instincts’, so basically act like the blastagon from UG, but because he was in a hell of a lot of pain, he’s a little more dangerous to approach, and also has more sans like instincts, if that makes sense. So it takes a while for chara to get sans to trust them and Papyrus.

(oh boy this is actually kinda fun typing this 0w0)

Then after a while, i would say between 3 weeks or 3 months, the DT part of chara’s blood starts to wear off, so sans starts changing back to normal. Beginning with “consciousness”, so no more animal instincts.

I’m gonna continue writing this theory that i have off of this theory, and it connects even more to UG, but I gonna post the first half now, just to get it out there. Hope you enjoyed, and stay tuned.

Have a good day!

(oh boy this is long.)