#frisk is ambiguous

[scramratz]

I just realized y’all probably don’t know I’m black

[justali-anne]

Undertale special interest kicking in... I swear I'm never getting tired of these guys...

I can imagine them sometimes meeting up Post-Pacifist for game nights. Like... board games, card games, video games... I have a few headcanons about it.

Card/Board games:

Let's address the elephant in the room: Monopoly is banned. Just straight up banned. They played once... Never again. Let's just say by the end of the night there were magic spears wedged deeply into Toriel's new wallpaper... and the wall... and the brick of the house... And the window was shattered. Yeah, Monopoly, it's banned, it's banned.

Papyrus has no poker face whatsoever. Meanwhile, Sans and Frisk have VERY impressive poker faces, and they're both aware of it. Once, they formed some sort of secret alliance and they dominated poker night. It was Frisk's first time playing, too!

I imagine Frisk would just be a natural at all games, hands down. Well, kind of. They don't always win, but they learn very quickly. Jack of all trades, I suppose.

Undyne has this habit of flipping boards (a classic) and shooting magic spears whenever she loses at a game or just gets EXTREMELY passionate about it. Although, if Alphys or Papyrus are the ones that beat her, she'll grit her teeth and act happy for them, just to make them happy.

Unfortunately, Papyrus picked up on Undyne's bad habit and bones started scattering the walls. Toriel had to ban magic bullets in the house after one of them almost gave Frisk a concussion.

Asgore is pretty good at card games, actually! I like to imagine he sometimes spends time with old friends of his, like Gerson and stuff, and they would have tea and play games while they chat, so he's had a lot of practice.

Toriel, on the other hand, hasn't played any board games or cards in AGES thanks to her isolation in the Ruins. She's not terrible, but she's not particularly GOOD at them either.

Sometimes, certain members of the group would try to break Sans' calmness, because while everyone had gotten annoyed at one point or another during game nights, Sans never did. Long story short, nope, he's just too chill. He's just happy to be here.

Once, Alphys bought a Mew Mew Kissy Cutie board game for game night, and she was so excited to show everyone the ropes (and dominate the night for once). She only won one game. And then she had an identity crisis afterwards!

Snacks! They do a rotation on who gets to be in charge of the food! Undyne and Papyrus are NO LONGER in this rotation after they brought in flaming spaghetti and almost set the couch on fire. Even then, you could only really trust Frisk, Toriel and Asgore with the snacks, since Alphys doesn't cook (she brings in store-bought cupcakes, it's the thought that counts), and Sans always forgets or is just too lazy to get snacks, so he orders pizza.

Video games:

They meet up to play stuff like Smash Bros, Mario Kart and Mario Party, but when they play online multiplayer games, like Minecraft, Terraria etc. they just stay home and go on a Zoom call or something. It's a lot less stressful for the introverts of the group (mainly Alphys, but I suppose Toriel could qualify [Undyne and Papyrus are absolutely extroverts; Sans and Frisk are moreso ambiverts, I think]) because they don't have to go out to do it! Yay!

They do all the things typical friends do when they're playing online games! They troll, they tease, they laugh, they help each other out, they TRY to work as a team (emphasis on TRY)...

One of the games I'd like to see them play is Human Fall Flat (I have that game and I play it with my sister :]). I want to see some RAGE. I'm sure Papyrus would love doing the puzzles, but at the same time, I'm sure the others not cooperating or knowing what's going on would tick him off. Yessss... Let Papyrus rage.

Sometimes Alphys and/or Sans would trail off into some scientific conversation or tangent, and after a minute or so, the others would start yelling over them, "NERD!!! NERDS! NERRDDD!!!" Alphys would get flustered, and Sans would desperately try to keep his composure and try not to burst out laughing.

Undyne and Papyrus have the extraordinary ability to make even the calmest, simplest games intense. ESPECIALLY Undyne, oh my goooood. Though I guess she could use the extra stimulation, she will NOT settle for a game with a slow pace. So much for Animal Crossing.

In addition, the gang can get VERY competitive at Mario Kart and stuff. Undyne is obviously the most competitive, but I think Papyrus and Alphys would want to try and impress her. Frisk and Sans? Nah, they're chilling. They don't care, they're just here to watch the chaos. Yeah... There's a reason why Asgore and Toriel don't often play games with these guys. Though they would watch and look upon them fondly. I dunno, it just seems cute.

[acerikus]

Someone being extremely annoying in the replies of my flowey and clover gif and I'm running out of patience 😭

[themadxd127]

Their closeness doesn't matter because they are video game characters and will conform to whatever the game design needs them to. They don't matter because they are fictitious, and the game never calls attention to it, not even once. Not every single piece of game design needs an in-universe explanation, and Toby still has to this day avoids the questions of these humans' gender. "They" can just be a stand-in for ambiguous gender

This is not even mentioning the fact that Chara wasn't even in the underground for that long and is just refer to by the dreemurr family as a person they knew long ago, or the fact that Toriel had to borrow a library book to figure out how to even take care of Kris. Plus, even if there was an in-universe explanation for it. It still wouldn't matter cause people use "they/them" on people they know all the time, even when they know their gender identity isn't nb, so it could just be the default for monsters.

Also, I don't believe that any of them are their own person separate from us. They can still be stand-ins for us while still being a character in the universe, with backstories and friends. They don't have to literally be us for that to work. This is a common practice in many rpgs. It's a sliding scale of how much of these characters' attributes is up to the player to choose, and it's just that you can't choose certain aspects of these humans. This is exemplified in the fact that Chara has an interchangeable name and the fact that Kris and Frisk have racial ambiguous yellow skin, obscured eyes, and blank facial expressions. And I highly doubt Toby meant for Kris and Frisk to have jaundice or something.

Also, I think you misunderstood the mirror aspect. It is not a contradiction, Undertale is a *thematic* mirror to us, not literally in the universe' reality because we don't exist as a player in the literal reality of undertale. Take that Flowey scene after you've beaten pacifists. Thematicly, it represents the game trying to convince you, the actual player, to leave the game alone, but in the universe's actual reality, it's Flowey pleading towards Chara not to true reset the timeline (this even draws a further connection between us and Chara).

Basically, I did all of this to say that Toby intentionally designed his games and stories for us to draw our own personal conclusions and that all views are valid, and all I wish for is that people will respect mine without personally attacking me for it and to recognize that it's their personal interpretation not undeniably fact. I just prefer calling Kris a guy cause it's easier for me.

Hi, I've read your post regarding the interpretive gender of Kris, Frisk, and Chara, and I really love those posts. It helps remind me I'm not alone in think ling their genderis up to interpretation. But after seeing some recent reblogs. I was kinda worried that you don't believe that anymore, and I'm here to ask if you still do.

Well, after I reviewed all the evidence, I came to the conclusion that Kris and Chara are canonically they/them, while Frisk's pronouns are unknown. However, it is a nice and fitting headcanon that they too are they/them, imo.

It also is debatable whether, at the very end of the game, the others are already familiar enough with Frisk that they're no longer using they/them as a polite generic pronoun and rather as Frisk's personal pronoun. (And since Frisk never told Asriel their pronouns, only their name, I don't necessarily consider this to be the case yet.)

That said...

Depending on where in the timeline this line fits and how close of a friend Flowey is to Frisk at this point, it could be considered a confirmation.

[barra-400]

June pt. 11

[blackdragoncake]

Doodle paaaaaage, sorry fer the eyestrain💀

[chalkeater]

i have no clue what exploded on this blog but people trying to speak over literal asian history is actually ridiculous and i sincerely hope everyone shuts the fuck up

sincerely one of the many foc tired of you /nay

dont worry it was just me going “hey guys i dont think we should draw the utdr kids yellow anymore bc seeing Frisk be a walking racist asian stereotype is weird” and then people getting mad at me LOL..

But YEAH.. the amount of “ok but”s was giving me a headache. Like.. and i bet most of the people who are upset With me and other asians bringing this up are white. And if theyre not white / Not POC then they are either 1) privileged enough not to understand the depth of asian history and the racism against asians + xenophobia AND/OR havent experienced it in general 2) born and raised in their mother land where being asian is not the minority so they are of course privileged. It’s a privilege to live in your mother land and not experience racism!! Adoy??

[n3felibata]

"Canon Frisk vs fanon Frisk" peeps when a character that's up for interpretation is interpreted differently:

[reblog-house]

Why do people cringe at their old art. genuinely. i'm going through my art from 2015 and all i can do is go aww. even at some 'bad takes'. my drawings weren't great, but oh my god were they adorable.

Also it's very cute to see a young queer me who didn't know it, draw 'yaoi' and sometimes 'yuri' (self-proclaimed at the time. didn't have to be about anime). it's cute how i didn't yet fear ship art, even same-sex. this was right before some classmates opened my sketchbook without my consent while i wasn't there and caught a gay wedding full on display. Since then, my ship art became subtle, only delegated to maybe some blushes.

And then, it disappeared.

I miss how young me wasn't afraid to explore queer themes in art. It's sweet to see the ship art, even if it's "badly done" or it plays into yaoi roles of the time in some areas.

I just hit the page with the gay wedding, and it's actually sweeter than I remembered. It's so sweet. I'm genuinely gonna cry. For a long time, I couldn't look back at it without cringing at the memory of my classmates huddling around the table where I'd left my sketchbook. And the way one of them asked me why two guys were getting married. But now, I'm hit with how sweet and utterly genuine my art used to be, and for that reason, I absolutely love it.

It's between the characters Riki Ryugasaki and Samuru Shigami from B-Daman Crossfire. I have no idea why I was so obsessed with that anime, but the ship had me at a chokehold.

The only time I cringed was when I looked at my drawing of Frisk and Sans laying with their heads on each other with the label of ship art on top, but I was a child who headcanoned Sans to be the same age as Frisk, so like. yk.

But that's the Only time I cringed through this whole experiment. Every single art piece besides that one has made me smile or in some cases laugh at the absurdity of it (oh god the vinscott with vincent taking off phone guy's phone MASK so you could see a bit of his face underneath. I laughed. and GODD the jeremike of mike lifting up jeremy shouldn't be as funny as it is. it's hilarious, but a bit sweet. and the little me on the next page with my palms open and a rainbow coming off from it like that one spongebob meme saying 'yaoi'. god i love you child me. i could NOT draw shit like that nowadays. keep it up i guess!)

Okay the cisswap Jeremike is actually cute. if only in the regular versions i didn't uh. make jeremy an... hm. yaoi term that starts with 'u' and ends with 'ke'. but anyway. The Michelle and Jenifer drawing is actually pretty cute.

AWWW I just encountered a 'pocky challenge' (unfinished) drawing, that's ADORABLEE. Okay my Maxaac / Imaax art was so cute... Isaac is thinking about him in classss... aww........

Anyway. Love your old art, guys. This has been a general PSA.

[dreamerchildunofficial]

hmm, it seems our time didn't match, you live there for 8 years... we on the other hand, if I count since the game released it has been... 7-ish years, that totally didn't match especially if we add the 1-2 years in your world that got resetted it seems your world move faster than ours... sometimes anyway since it seems like right now it either move at the same pace or slower than ours... this is weird

* Huh, that is really strange.

* That also explains the ask I got yesterday where someone said I saved an entire civilization in less than a day. It definitely did not happen in that short amount of time because the Underground is massive in my world. It takes a few months just to get from end to end without stopping!

[stainedglassthreads]

I feel like the four leads of Deltarune--Kris, Susie, Ralsei, and Noelle-are just. Somehow two different levels of queer-coded.

(Edit: Just to be clear: not saying any of this to disparage or insult shippers of Kralsei, Suselle, or Kriselle, I've just seen a lot of cool analysis about tropes, romance, and lack of choice in Deltarune and wanted to chime in with some of my own thoughts. If you ship any of those ships in Deltarune--fantastic! May you find a lot of content precisely to your taste.)

Like. On the one hand, if you're looking at tropes, they are very neatly set up into two romantic partnerships. Noelle is very blatantly interested in Susie, and Ralsei's feelings for Kris are often portrayed similarly. On a surface level, both pairings appear very clear. Noelle is a girl in love with another girl, while Ralsei is a very effeminate boy in love with a teen who doesn't appear to use pronouns. And a big deal isn't made of either pairing, there's nothing really in the way of Suselle or Kralsei on a societal level we've encountered so far. At least in terms of gender and sexuality. But if you look a little closer, it's kind of...'these are a very straight idea of queer ships', y'know?

Noelle and Susie are both girls, but one is very effeminately coded, anxious, uses magic, and is more traditionally cute, while they other is crass, crude, intimidating, and physically strong. Ralsei and Kris are gender-noncomforming, but Ralsei is a sweet pacifistic healer who bakes cakes while Kris uses a sword, and keeps being mistaken for a boy by much of Youtube and Reddit. The active one and the passive one, the fighter and the mage, the one with cute hobbies and the one who eats moss, the one in pants and the one in a dress.

And here, I start thinking of some posts I've seen analyzing how, in Deltarune, romance is used to explore how Kris doesn't really get choices. Kris has been cast as the leader and knight, and Ralsei has been cast as the healer and Princess, even if he is a boy. The leader often ends up with the healer. The knight often gets the princess as a happy ending. But Kris doesn't seem to like this! Their reactions to Ralsei are constantly lukewarm at best, and that's not getting into how Ralsei seems to be in love with his idea of Kris, while being very. Asriel-coded, who the game describes often as Kris' brother, in sharp contrast to how ambiguous Chara and Frisk's relationships with the Dreemurrs were.

If we and Kris reject Ralsei as a love interest, we can a different romantic partner in Noelle...but this choice has a bodycount, traumatizes Noelle, doesn't seem to leave Kris any happier, and it's still a kind of straight-coded ship. Now it's the knight being paired up with the apocalypse maiden, for the doomed codepedent toxic tragedy lovers out there. But it kinda makes sense too, right? If Kralsei is the expected RPG romance, then Kriselle would be the expected romance if there were no Dark World and Ralsei weren't an option. They're childhood friends and neighbors in a small town, their families used to be very close, Rudy is still very fond of Kris. They're even extremely angel/devil coded.

But the most interesting part is. It's implied that there IS someone that Kris is very interested in, either platonically or romantically. It's Susie. Kris never seems frightened by Susie when they're bullied by her, and rejects Noelle's offers to switch seats. They seek comfort from Susie rather than Ralsei after the Spamton fight, they call her their friend when Toriel calls, they share moss with her, they refuse to think about her during Snowgrave when Ralsei prompts them, they make it clear that out of all the people they COULD go to the Carnival with, Susie is the one they'd ACTUALLY want to choose.

And this is the part that drives me crazy. Because while Kris is so tightly controlled by genre and narrative, and those things would usually push them towards Ralsei or Noelle, and Ralsei keeps encouraging Kris to stick to the narrative. Susie is the one who refuses to be bound to the narrative. Susie is the character of Deltarune who is most unapologetically herself--and isn't that a very queer thing, refusing to be anyone but yourself despite everything? She says no thanks to the prophecy, until she comes around to it on her own terms! She makes herself and Ralsei learn to take their own actions, and drags Ralsei off to have fun with him instead of letting Kris choose who to with! She doesn't stay in her box of the damage-dealing fighter, she insists on learning Healing magic, even if she's not particularly skilled at it at first! Even Ralsei is forced to admit that it's wonderful that Susie is Susie, and not anyone else!

I think Kris likes Susie a lot. And part of it may be admiration. That while Kris is controlled by the player and the narrative and the prophecy and humanity and divorce and a dozen things outside their control, Susie refuses to ever be bound by anything. And Kris and Susie together happen to be the two more masculinely-coded party members, the two melee fighters, the two troublemakers. It honestly makes me wonder a little if Susie and Kris might be able to make their own ending beyond the bounds of gender expectations and romance expectations together? It would be cool. And I think it would make Kris very happy to break free like that.

[utdrmv-confession-box]

Transcript: Most of the fandom forgot the players existence is ambiguous and that Frisk is an actual character...

Some will mention Flowey "speaking to the player" but that was already debunked

[seirindono]

So i have more question, what are the relationships between each one of the lord?

Who is friend with who?

Who hate who?

That kind of relationships not necessary love!

(Maybe do like one of those circle with link that connect each lord, eatch link with specific color for eatch lord, past lord and mel?)

Want to know more!

(I had to finish it with my mouse+keyboard so please bear with me)

Edit: Relationships before Frisk arrives. Some changes happen bc they get involved!

More details on what the arrows are for

Friendly - On friendly terms, related or good impression. Either the Lords are close or their respective sins complement each other, making for harmonious cohabitation. (They can still fight and they're still demons but relationships are overall good)

Hostile - Open conflict. Occurs only on the king's orders. It is an official declaration that does not necessarily reflect the feelings of both parties, and usually concerns royalty and outcasts/fugitive/banished demons.

Tense - Animosity but unless the King's allows/requests it, Lords can't openly fight and have to tolerate each other. Usually involves conflictual sins, territorial disputes and past arguments.

/!\ It also includes "forced" tensions (bc of royal order), misunderstandings and big disagreement on one specific subjetc, making the overall relationship strained.

Wary - Unrelated to the "Lord" status, it's purely based on the individual's past and their feelings/interest.

Scared - Due to power struggle, status, reputation or past encounter

Admiration - Genuine admiration or fondness, as a Lord and/or individual

If there's no arrow, they don't know each other or are neutral (or I forgot, it's one messy diagram, sorry...)

If arrows have 2 colors, it's a mix and is ambiguous.

[under-lore]

The effects of LOVE are quite overstated.

It has been quite frequent to see the concept of LOVE mentioned by Sans in his judgments being interpreted as a force progressively depriving the person possessing it of all empathy or judgement until they are rendered into practical killing machines whilst approaching the cap of 20.

Whilst there are some truths to part of these concepts, interestingly, extrapolating implicit data from the game suggests that the effects LOVE have on a character's personality, whilst existing, are not as significant as they are generally believed to be.

Let's do a proper analysis of what we can say of LOVE's effects based only on the in-game content :

First, aside from Sans' words about it, do we dispose of any clear cut examples of changes relating to LV to analyse ?

That might seem like a silly question, but some of the lines that are often attributed to LV-induced personality changes turn out to not actually be LV-dependent once you check the game's code.

For instance, the narration of the bag of dog food is decided through kill count, not LV, meaning that it possible for instance to get the 'pessimistic line' despite not gaining any LOVE, and thus, this line cannot be attributed to changes related strictly to LV gain and isn't very useful to us here.

Actually, the amount of direct evidence we see of it having any effect at all which we can be certain off is quite small. But such a thing does exist via interactions relating to this dummy :

LV1 :

LV2+ :

LV5+ :

LV 8+ :

The only factor involved in deciding which of these lines will appear after deciding to punch the dummy is LOVE, it is notably distinct from other similar interactions like those mentioned above which tend to be governed by some variation of a kill count or a check regarding wether particular characters were killed.

As similar LV can be reached through killing various amount of monsters or varieties of monsters, unique or not, no equivalence can be built between the required LV for each of those interactions and particular character(s) or amount of monsters required to be killed to reach said LV.

We can thus only take the code of the game at face value and conclude that those changes are strictly caused by changes dependent on the influence of the LV we've gathered in our route so far.

The first pattern that can be established is that the narration in the left column reports Frisk punching the dummy with increasing levels of strength following our command as LV increases.

In the right column, there is a split between the four lines in the middle regarding the way the narration reports it.

The first two lines are narrated in the more common style, notably, explicitly reminding us that the actions or thoughts presented are Frisk's by refering to them as "you" as the subject of the sentence.

Those first two lines describe Frisk going from regret to a form of hesitant apathy regarding the fact that they've just punched a dummy as LV grows.

The latter two lines, however, mark a change in the narration type.

The "you" is dropped, and the thoughts presented are instead presented in a declarative form. This form is often used for first person affirmations, but can also be used outside of it in order to showcase a strong emotionally-driven reaction.

This ambiguity is particularly relevant here, as it blurs the line between wether those thoughts are Frisk's, the narrator's, or both. A detail that gains much importance under the NarraChara theory.

That being said, this nuance leads to a similar conclusion regarding LOVE in either case :

If the thoughts are fully Frisk's, then the last lines have Frisk moving from a hesitant apathy to a confident one before ultimately "feeling good". This would stay in line with the previous pattern.

(Although it is worth nothing that the "feel good" part may be at least partially due to a kind of natural endorphin release in Frisk's body from the physical exercise of "punching at full force", and thus could be only indirectly due to LV.)

If NarraChara is taken into account, then this would mean that this transformation in the tone of the narration in the last lines is due to LV related changes on Chara. And that this ambiguity in the phrasing of who those feelings belong to may indicate that the same observations we've just made on Frisk previously would apply to them similarly.

(Note : Given that the game code and files suggests that Chara and Frisk share their statistics, them both being affected by this same LV count would be coherent.)

In the official japanese version of the game, those lines for the dummy are mostly similar. However, the first two lines of the left column are a bit less distinct from each other, and the narration phrasing ambiguity seems to begin on the 2nd line of the right column rather than the 3rd.

Okay, so, what's wrong about the common perception, then ?

So far, it seems that LV does have some kind of trend that leads to growing apathy regarding the suffering of others and more aggressive actions being taken as a result of identical stimuli as it increases. That doesn't sound too far off ?

Well, sort of, but careless extrapolation made from those basic ideas have led to the emergence of theories and interpretations that treat those effects as being more consistent, generalised, and effective than can hold up to the scrutiny of our known cases through aggressive neutral routes.

Here is what i mean :

In some of the more aggressive variants of the neutral route, it is possible to attain a really high LOVE that comes close to what we see in the genocide route. Comparison between those routes and the genocide one, or sometimes content from these neutral routes themselves, can help show us incoherencies in some of those popular interpretations regarding how much difference LV really makes.

The first one that comes to mind is a popular one among 'Chara Defenders', suggesting that Chara's openly aggressive actions & narration which are specific to the genocide route in particular would really be a result of "corruption" induced by the LV-related changes which we would have forced onto them.

How well does this theory hold up through the aggressive neutral routes ?

Well...

Not very well.

To make a 'short' list :

Chara's "corruption" in genocide would generally begin to show as soon as LV3 at the end of the Ruins, however, they show no particular signs of this "corruption" in any neutral routes despite being able to reach much higher LV's of say, 14 near the end of the game.

It is possible to arrive at the end of the Ruins (or other areas) whilst having the same LV as in genocide during a neutral route, yet Chara shows none of those "corruption" lines in those cases either.

It is possible to finish many areas in the genocide route whilst having a lower/higher LV than usual by only fighting particular monsters who give you more/less EXP than average, yet none of Chara's genocide lines are changed to account for this lower of higher LV.

It is possible to abort the genocide route at many points by sparing a particular monster or failing to reach a kill count. When this happens, Chara's "corruption" lines suddenly disappear although the LV doesn't.

This still happens even if Chara's LV would have remained the same wether the monster was killed or not. Thus the lack of extra LV from the spared monter cannot explain this difference.

The aggressiveness shown by Chara does not seem to correlate with their growth in LV. For instance, they treat Toriel more harshly than Papyrus despite a past connection between Chara and Toriel and a lower LV at the time of that encounter.

Regarding some interpretations of the final genocide scene : Why would Chara oppose us for what we did at this point in time ? Shouldn't they still be "corrupted" ? The files at this stage still continue to list our LV as 20 indicating that they should.

Similarly, regarding some interpretations of the soulless pacifist route : If their previous behavior came from corruption, why would Chara kill at this stage or follow up on their previous plan ? By now our LV has long been reset to 1 and said corruption should no longer be in effect.

For all these reasons, it would not be coherent for the peculiarly aggressive behavior shown by Chara during the genocide route to be strictly caused by LV-induced changes.

To be fair, this time some minimum amount of LV is required to progress through the route and access many of those lines, meaning that a minor impact of said required LV cannot be ruled out, but this does mean nevertheless that the primary reason as to why Chara behaves this way in genocide is not related to their LV.

Actually, once you remove from consideration all those things, what you are left with in the rest of the genocide route is a Chara that hardly seems all that impacted by LV at all despite having a very high one.

In New Home, they still display some hints of emotional reactions in spite of a LV of 19.

And throughout the whole genocide route, NarraChara continues going through the regular encounters with the same jokes or sarcasm-filled comments as they would in any other route (If you take the time to ACT a bit or read the narration before killing that monster.) Once again, even with a LV of say, 15.

That doesn't make the very high LV's seem like they turn one into that much of a mind-numbed killing machine does it ?

Okay... Well, what about Frisk, then ? Our other example ?

There are some more narrations out there who can bring us a bit more information about Frisk :

The Sans fight can only be triggered if all previous checks of the genocide route have all been properly met up to this point. This means that it is not possible to start this fight at any other LV than 19, as the NEO fight is scripted to send you to that LV if the criteria for Sans are met.

Therefore, the narration of the Sans fight talks about a Frisk that necessarily has a very high LV of 19.

And yet...

Even at this point, Frisk does not seem to be immune to thoughts regarding the morality of the actions their body has undertaken. It quite literally appears to weigh on them.

This isn't a one-off case either :

If the genocide route is aborted in Hotland, Mettaton NEO has some special dialogue that goes in the same direction :

he says it quite clearly :

And, the same thing also applies regarding the regular encounters too. The ACTs Frisk can take and their behavior whilst executing them remain unchanged compared to a pacifist route, even during the end-stages of genocide in Hotland.

Of course, it isn't like we could have expected Toby to adapt the ACTs and narration of all encounters to vary depending on LV either, that would have been very tedious to code, but such a pronounced absense of any change is definitely noteworthy.

This all leads us to a few conclusions.

It is correct that LV can affect one's personality to some extent, but :

The effects of LV are not consistent through time & situations, they show up quite sporadically. Most of the time, you could hardly tell the difference between someone with high LV or merely LV1 during an average interaction.

Even having an extremely high LV does not dehumanise you. One can still feel emotions and conserve proper judgment or capacity for self-reflection.

The growth in LV magnifies the impact of its effects when they do manifest, but it does not seem to alter the frequency of such events.

It is not possible for LV to be the determining factor in Chara's behavior during the genocide route.

As Sans originally said : LV is above all a capacity to hurt, not a permanent necessary degradation of perception.

[swe3tcoffe3]

Theatre Theory: Why Frisk Can't Be A Vessel Controlled By A Player (And How The Player Can Still Be Canon)

I often see people talk about the existence of a Player in Undertale. Specifically, people insisting that the REAL protagonist of Undertale is The Player, that Frisk is a non-character, a blank-slate vessel controlled by us who follows our whims; in short, a more compliant Kris. In this post I will set out to, as succinctly as possible, explain why this interpretation is just wrong, and that Frisk cannot be possessed by a Player at any point during Undertale (but that doesn't mean The Player isn't canon).

First of all, let us define how 'possession' works within the context of UTDR lore, and specifically what it means. 'Possession' refers to a state in which the person in question is unable to make decisions for themselves and is instead puppetted by a higher power who has taken over their Soul (specifically The Player, according to our current knowledge that is. It is unknown if other people are capable of this as of now). Our main example of this is Kris who rebels against our control several times throughout Deltarune.

However, The Player can't just possess anyone they feel like; this isn't a power that they possess. A connection must be established between host and Player (hence why it is also referred to as a 'connection' sometimes), one that is facilitated by a third party, someone who also is responsible for our save files. Without the help of this third party a Player cannot possess a person.

Using this knowledge and definition and taking a look at Frisk reveals that they don't match this criteria. There is nothing in Undertale that suggests the existence of any third party helping us establish a connection to the game's world, and we are explicitly told several times throughout the game that the save file belongs to Frisk, not The Player nor a third party managing things for us.

(Keep in mind that 'you' usually refers to Frisk within the context of UT)

This therefore leaves two possibilities:

1. Frisk is possessed, possession just works differently in UT than in DR

2. The Player is not possessing Frisk

In order for option 1 to be true sufficient proof must be put forward to show that Frisk is possessed in the first place via a different method, either by instances of them showing resistance or through dialogue about them being strange or off.

This scene is the only proof of something like this occurring, as Frisk ignores an inputted command. However, this isn't enough to prove that Frisk is possessed, as there are several possible alternative interpretations for what this could mean. It could be proof of Frisk being possessed and that this might be them rebelling against our control in this moment. It could also be Frisk choosing to ignore an inputted command if you believe that The Player is merely a spiritual guide and not directly possessing Frisk, and so subtly different to Kris' acts of rebellion. It could also be neither, with this dialogue only serving to set an eerie tone. It is an inherently ambiguous line open to several interpretations, leaving us back in the same situation with two possibilities once more: either Frisk is possessed in a way unique to Undertale, or they aren't.

And this leads me on to my final point on this matter, and the main reason why I personally believe interpreting Frisk as a vessel is wrong, and that is the narrative for both games.

Firstly, Undertale's diagetic Player possession, assuming that it is true, would be entirely redundant, simply because Frisk with their "because they can, they have to" attitude, would be fine with any route being done, so no additional drama or turmoil can be added by forcing them to do things they don't want to, simply because they'd still want to do whatever; they simply don't care. Frisk being possessed adds nothing to the narrative.

And while it can be argued that Sans' dialogue refers to The Player here, I'd say that by proxy it MUST also apply to Frisk too, given that they show no resistance to any of this (and even seem to revel in it, given the fact they willingly eat the Snowman alive of their own volition, and this is pretty early on into the Geno Route):

Contrast this with Kris, who has a strong moral compass and expresses clear distress about their predicament, and so their possession is able to create a more interesting plot and dynamic between Vessel and Player.

The Player existing in Undertale also contradicts Deltarune's metanarrative, and to proper illustrate how, I must first present to you an alternative to the 'possessed Frisk' proposal so that everything that comes after that makes more sense.

Imagine an interactive theatre play. The characters can interact with the audience and the audience can call out to them, yes, but the two are ultimately separate from one another, even if some characters may break the fourth wall on occasion. These characters may give long soliloquies to the audience, heartfelt pleas and speeches, but ultimately, the audience will never get to be a part of their world, regardless of how much they may love the play. This theatre play is Undertale. The audience is The Player.

Our instructions to Frisk are nothing more than us calling out to Frisk in the play; they then respond however they wish to. Flowey's and Chara's speeches happen within universe yes, but are also simultaneously fourth wall breaks where they speak to 'the audience'.

But the audience wants more. They want nothing more than to be a part of the play. They want to be part of the play's world, a character in the story.

This is when the devil appears, offering a  'survey program'. The audience may not be able to be part of this play, but they can be part of another one. They can be a character. The main character. They can have all the adventures they want, all the fun they want. They need only accept everything that happens from that point on.

The Player is diagetic to Deltarune because they wanted to be part of Undertale's world, but couldn't, so they became part of the next best thing. That's why they accept Gaster's offer in the first place, because they WANT to live in that world. It's their own form of escapism. In many ways, they parallel the Lightners in their love for fantasy and indulgence in it, who also want to share a world with their Darkner friends.

This is the heart of the conflict in Deltarune as a whole, especially our conflict with Kris, who wants to be free from our control but we The Player want to stay in their world to continue in our escapism. In a way, this is Deltarune's purpose: it's the next step for an unsatisfied player who wanted to join their beloved characters, a 'sequel' that isn't quite a sequel, if that makes sense. A way for their fantasies about joining their beloved world's realm to be real, and (most likely) one we must come to accept is impossible. Fiction cannot replace reality after all.

If the Player was controlling Frisk in Undertale, then all of this meta is ultimately pointless. There would be no need for Gaster to offer us his program if everything we already wanted (that is, to be diagetic and part of our favourite world) was already achievable in base Undertale.

In fact, The Player would actually be discouraged from accepting the survey program because Undertale would also grant The Player far fewer restrictions in what they can do and achieve within the game; they aren't necessarily discouraged from playing like they are in DR.

And this is the main reason why I believe Frisk cannot be a vessel, because Frisk being a vessel defeats the entire purpose of the message Deltarune is trying to say.

(Adding this last paragraph in at the end because I picked up Homestuck midway through creating this post and I feel like it's important to mention this, but a better analogy would probably just be Homestuck. There are these characters called "exiles" who can communicate with the players of "the game" known by the humans as Sburb. They can input commands to them that the players can either follow or ignore, and can also watch over this player, but are "exiled" or separated from this world. This is almost identical to what is happening with Frisk, according to this theory)

[lilybug-02]

A child of ambiguous gender

Child is friends with creatures people would be scared or freaked out of normally

Child wanders a bit and falls down a hole in a cave leading to the world those creatures are from Is this Frisk or Dewi

>:( Dewi is a boy!!! But all of the other ones are correct.

Darn my human art style looking ambiguous.