#resident!gaster

[parniathedevil]

RT! gaster's timeline uniform xD

[spotaus]

Hello and welcome to I Doodled a bit because Boredom :) (ft. Phishbone, Pretender, and Carnival!)

[sysig]

In the fell! Handplates au what do you think gaster would do to protect the boys? If torial or asgore ever tried to hurt/take away or kill them would he finally snap and fight? I’ve always liked the idea that gaster (despite not being royal) is considerably more powerful then asgore or torial due to how versatile and complex skeleton attacks can be plus he is a boss monster who’s old af.

I would love to see fell! Asgore and torial absolutely get their asses handed to them by a protective gaster. Lol can you imagine their shock? (:

(I absolutely adoreeeee your art)

(Thank you! o/♥)

I think Fell!Gaster would still keep the boys as his secret project to start - Honestly, I really like the idea of him following the same basic beats as Classic Handplates Gaster! Constructing the lab, hole-punching his hands, bringing the boys to life and then experimenting on them in secret, now under the pretense of finding "inherent goodness in Monsters" or inducing it, bringing it forward, however he goes about doing that. So if they did find them, it'd at least be a while

But, I also really like the idea of Gaster still being hopelessly devoted to the Dreemurrs! That raising a hand against them would hurt infinitely worse than whatever they have to dish out against him, and that being why he takes their abuse - if he could only save them! If he could only show them a better way! Then they could all finally be happy, one big family! 💕

As for the boys and what Gaster would be willing to do to protect them, I think it would also be similar to what Classic does - put himself between the brothers and danger to the best of his ability. I do think it would be an interesting turn for him to have to choose between protecting them and his pacifism towards other Monsters if the Dreemurrs got ahold of them somehow - the internal conflict of finally having to face his own darkness! Even if he tried to justify it, I think that'd really be the tipping point for him :)

[whimsicalgoose]

fists tighten i need... saved!gaster befriending everyone on the surface... I need spooky old guy to learn to communicate and everyone else to realize ohhh he's silly. mb.

is this too niche. is there anybody out there. i need found family wing gaster pls pls i doesn't even have to be saved gaster it can be anything please

[thesassyspork]

Alright, so the Heisenberg x OC story I have been working on all year has officially been broken into two parts and is sitting at around 255k words right now. I still have a lot to go with that one but the first part is done and awaiting final edits. The mafiafell fic of Wing Dings Gaster x OChas taken off and I just broke 100k with that one and it's still got a way to go. The classic UT story has slowed down but is still alive I uust have to figure out what kind of a direction I wasn't to go in. I can say that I have learned so much this year when it comes to my writing and how to put a story together that I'm excited about it. I have also been growing an original story idea that I hope to publish one day. Thank you for being patient with me while I figure out my stories. ✨️🖤✨️

[meowing-at-u]

Why does Ralsei have a shape resembling a ♥︎ on his robe. what do you want, My Soul or something

[cas-spirit]

Give me more platonic affection.

Give me omega timeline residents approaching Asgores because they give the best hugs.

Give me Ink, learning about physical affection by observing people, having Blue explain the different ways people hold hands. Him tackling Top and Aster to the ground trying to figure out how hugs go.

Give me Dream who only cries when someone’s hugging him because it’s the only time he feels shielded enough to break.

Give me Nightmare and Error, who after years of working together, finally end their deals with a handshake.

Give me Blueberror who’s off button is any kind of physical affection.

Give me Core Frisk, still a child, clinging to people’s hands, holding a larger hand in both of theirs.

Givr me Nightmare falling asleep on a movie night and the rest of the gang can’t move because his tendrils lay on top of them like sleeping cats.

Give me Blue forcing his two semi-immortal friends into cuddle piles so they actually sleep for once.

Give me Fresh showing trust by letting people hold his head, so close to the eyesockets that hold his true form.

Give me Error and Geno readjusting to touch after the emptiness of their containments, telling the other that they’re there by knocking knees.

Give me Frisks in the omega timeline offering a shoulder to lean on for Charas, or anyone who asks.

Give me Underfell where the skelebros curl up around eachother to watch the other’s back, even in sleep.

Give me Outertales where handholding is common to make sure no one floats off into space.

Give me Gasters who use their many hands to give head pats to their sons/coworkers (Sans, Papyrus, and Alphys) as well as doing science work stuff.

Give me Nightmare who curls his tendrils on top of his subordinate’s heads like a strange pat on the back.

Give me Horror who will simply pick his teammates up and hold them like the wet cats they are.

Give me Cross who’s so unused to any physical affection he freezes up, and Killer using this to his advantage by grabbing his hand to distract him from the cow nearby or to get him to stop training for a bit.

Give me Nightmare laying a tendril over Dream’s shoulder to remind himself that his twin is there, and they aren’t fighting anymore.

Give me Dusts that will curl up on top of people like a cat.

Give me Inks who give surprise hugs to his friends.

Give me Errors who wrap his strings around people to give them hugs.

Give me Horror Papyrus becoming the center of hug piles in Nightmare’s gang because the boys miss their brothers a lot, and he’s the closest they’ll get with the gang’s reputation.

Give me Killer, just met Nightmare, and the baby goop clings to him while they explore the multiverse.

Give me Ink and Error pulling eachother along by the scarfs.

Give me Dancetale where duo dances end with a hug (or high five if too sweaty for a hug)

Give me Fell Papyrus holding Fell Sans’s hand out and about, using the excuse of making sure Sans doesn’t wander off when asked.

Give me post-truce spontaneous skeleton cuddle piles.

Give me Killer randomly tackling his teammates.

Give me Ink being so physically affectionate people think he’s flirting (he’s not).

Give me Papyrus calling Sans a cat while he curls up on his shoulder.

Give me Sans holding Geno’s hand carefully when things get a bit too much after his time of the Save Screen.

Give me careful fingers tracing the edges of Papyrus’s rarely-seen hands.

Give me Dust trying, and failing, to touch his Papyrus.

Give me Passive Nightmare’s ghost curling up around Dream’s shoulders like a purple boa, hugging him around the neck when things get rough.

Give me the gang curling up on Nightmare’s tendrils when he’s not paying attention.

Give me Dream learning about the different meanings behind touch after he breaks out of stone.

Give me Gaster’s who are almost too scared to embrace Sans and Papyrus incase getting out of the void was a dream, and Papyrus accidentally sending him to the floor with his enthusiastic hug.

Give me Undyines randomly carrying their Alphys around.

Give me Frisks who press their forehead onto people (Sans’s back, Papyrus’s thigh, Toriel and Asgore’s arm, Alphy’s side, Undyne hip) and lean on them.

Give me Frisks who randomly lean on people, almost falling over because Chara is a ghost and incapable of being my leaned on.

Give me Dust laying his head on Killer’s lap when Killer gets twitchy, because what’s he gonna do, move Dust?

Give me Error who’s glitching feels kinda like a massage, holding his hands to Nightmare’s back, Horror’s skull, or Geno’s wherever when they get pain.

Give me Ink who uses hand holding like a recalibration test after he goes blank.

Give me hand holding and head pats and hugs and cuddle piles.

Givemegivemegivemegivemegivemegiveme

[yeloenk]

I WANNA KNOW MORE ABT UR CROSS CCINO I AM INVESTED PLZ

GRABS YOU AND SHAKES YOU AROUND

where do i even.. start.... oh my goodness

OKAY so,, cross and ccino. first i'll go over how i think they would meet, then i'll go over how their relationship would be like.

i think cross, after the whole x-event is resolved, is now left without purpose. he doesn't know what to do; he tries to fit in with the other omega timeline residents, but he feels wrong and out of place after everything that he did. he feels undeserving of a "real home"—plus, the omega timeline feels too restrictive to him. since he was a multiversal threat not too long ago, he was put under rules & observation. it reminded him way too much of being controlled by X-Gaster, so he takes off to figure out things on his own.

he drifts from au to au for a while, trying to find one that sticks. when he stumbles across fluffytale, the weird friendliness/calmness of it draws him in.

i won't delve into the story i have for them too much after this point (i'm currently writing a fic about it!!!) but long story short, cross begins working with ccino at the cafe.

FROM THERE !!! from there, their relationship is verryyy slow. cross is super hesitant about opening up about anything; at first, he dodges any personal questions from ccino. but over time, he grows more and more comfortable with him and sharing bits about himself. he slowly learns what it's like to be safe and happy again.

now, ccino. since ccino and nightmare are or were canon at some point in fluffytale, i believe ccino would be left with.. quite a bit of trauma from the relationship. he struggles a LOT with his self worth and motivation; he puts on a nonchalant, "happy" front to his customers. i think he would struggle taking care of himself, and would make self deprecating jokes to cope. he often misses meal times, making up excuses for himself. but, cross kinda sees right through his act, and can tell something's up.

cross would get ccino to let his walls down; it takes a while, because ccino is terrified of being vulnerable to another person again. he's afraid he'll be hurt again, he's afraid he isn't and never will be enough for cross. since cross was under nightmare's influence at one point, he has that to emphasize with ccino & make him feel better about himself.

they are a SLOWburn friends to lovers with miscommunication and mutual pining,,, they both think they aren't good enough for the other before one confesses giggle!!!!!

they both help each other see the best in themselves, and learn what it means to have safe love again. AND YEEWAHAHGGSHSGHS THEY MAKE ME SICKKKKKK SOBBING ON THE FLOOR I LOVE THEMEEMMM!!!!! i wanna share more of my thoughts about their story but again i dont wanna spoil the fic im cooking up

ALSO. I HAVE A SPOTIFY PLAYLIST FOR THEM. yoooouu should totes check it out if u wanna,,, hehe

link

im a freak about them. can you tell

[orbital-inclination]

Moltendreams - Error Sans Alias - Static Pronouns: he/him, they/them Personality: Petty, holds a mean grudge, Big Tsundere, Complete Shut-in, Quick Tempered and Moody, fanatic with his interests, externally aggressive when in actuality he is quite shy. An absolute troll. His favorite passtime is messing with others. Paradoxically touch starved and suffers from haphephobia. Reckless with his own well being.

This variant of Error is capable of both love and compassion, he just hides it under a grumpy exterior and several layers of denial and self-destructive dogma. Other Notes:

Reluctant to harm Papyrus directly, though Static can't articulate why, and will generally avoid encounters Papyrus in any given AU.

Had a good relationship with his dad/W.D Gaster, actually.

Relates to "pest" pets; rats, mice, snakes, spiders, beetles, he loves them all.

Would have a pet rat of his own if he wasn't afraid of it shocking itself by chewing on his wires.

His favorite kind of chocolate is mixed with a hazelnut filling.

Views Frisk as a younger sibling.

Into Parkour.

-More Info undercut! -

Abilities: Static uses wire instead of string. Wire and summoned attacks can and do hold an electric charge. His presence alone messes with electronic devices. Residents of a particular AU may get a few minutes or seconds of warning as sweaters get staticy, computer screens glitch out, and anything with a battery spontaneously dies or gets super charged. By creating a circle of alternating RED and CYAN bones, Static creates a sort of reverse faraday cage. While Static can produce electricity, he can't directly control the voltage. He can only hope to direct it. The voltage of a charge is directly influenced by his emotional state. If you touch him, you will find his clothes zappy with static. Do NOT attempt to fight him in humid or watery environments for, hopefully, obvious reasons.

About: Static originates from a pre-Pacifist timeline that was followed by a looping Genocide Route. Through repetitive iterations, and an escalating instability in the timeline, the monsters of the underground began to recall events they didn't witness and memories they shouldn't recall.

Working together, Static, at that point still Sans, and Alphys were able to pin point the root cause of their timeline's instability. They made a plan to save the underground and separate Frisk from the Anomaly but when it came time to execute their plan something went catastrophically wrong. As a result Sans was torn from reality, and caught in the space in-between. Eventually, he escaped but not unscathed. Static has vague conflicting memories of his past, and to this day, questions if any of it was real. He can't find his original AU and secretly fears it may have been the first world he destroyed. He is still looking for it.

Outcode Politics: Static views all outcodes the same way he views every iteration of the original timeline that even slightly deviates: as glitches to be terminated. Bugs in the code he needs to hammer out before it all goes to hell. Static believes that by destroying deviating timelines and AUs, he is preserving the stability of the original. He is “saving’’ it from corruption by trimming the branches back. Despite his position as the self proclaimed Destroyer, Static is not above biases and making exceptions. 

Static includes himself on his long list of glitches in the code to be terminated. Static has a different view on the Spirits of Creation that Fable/Ink does. (Spirits of Creation are the in-universe term and stand-in for the creator of an AU). He calls them eldritch parasites. Abominations that should be avoided at all costs. And absolutely should not be encouraged or interacted with. Though he won't admit it out loud, Static is terrified of them. OG Error @.LoverofPiggies/CrayonQueen) Moltendreams @.me Edit: he has been named! Edit 2: revised his profile a bit

[afterartist]

HELICALTALE MAIN CAST LINEUP!!

(Not ll of the characters but the most important ones to the plot)

‘And now: AU Infodump

BUT BEFORE ANYTHING!!

I will be answering any questions (within reason) any of you have about the au, even if it’s about some random side character only three people have ever heard of before

I live world building and any chance to expand on this world are treasured

I’ll probably answer with fun little doodles as well lol

So ask away :D!!

Basic AU overview:

Helicaltale is NOT a classic based Timeline.

The AU is set in a world where Mt Ebott was destroyed during the war, leaving a desert crater in its place, no protection for the Monsters to retreat and nowhere to seal them underground. In response, the Human mages put a spell on Monster kind, ‘Helios’ Curse’, forcing them to be unable to touch sunlight or else they’d burn (think Vampires or Minecraft Mobs)

The main story takes place 87 years after the war ended and 29 years after friendly communications between the two races begun, with the Monsters settled in a camp like city, made of tents and canvas buildings, around the oasis that formed in the desert that was now known as Ebott crater. Humans and Monsters have achieved peace between the races, regular trading routes and communications set up between the two cities.

Now all that was left was for both Humans and Monsters to find a way to break Helios’ Curse for good.

(None of them can touch Sunlight (minus the humans) but the ones more lightly dressed (Gaster, Alphys, Asgore) all live in the city, with proper buildings not at risk of being blown over at any second so can afford to not be covered up 100% of the time)

Locations:

Ebott City-

The capital city of the country, Ebott is a massive human settlement, overshadowing old ruins left by the war. It’s currently the main base of conferences between human and monster relations.

The Oasis-

The Monster settlement, made from tents and interconnecting canvas sheets, from above it looks like a colourful cluster of a campground, large sheets stretched over the streets. From within it’s only lit by lamps and magic, the sky completely blocked out by tarps and canvas to avoid accidentally getting burned by sunlight, to those not familiar with the city it’s a labyrinth, others, its home.

(A major inspiration for the Oasis is the Kowloon walled city, for those interested in a more accurate visual of the Oasis)

The Great Fence-

While the name conveys grandeur, the fence is a simple chain link fence acting as the border around the entire Oasis, topped with barbed wire and adorned with tarps, it’s designed to protect the residents against wild animals like Coyotes and be a barrier against sandstorms more than it is to keep people out, one of the most regular jobs for the Royal guard other than being general peace keepers is to uphold the fence, often sending patrols out after heavy storms to keep everything in order.

Central Oasis-

A mix between Newhome and Waterfall, it’s the main hub of the town, the Royal family living there along with the majority of schools and recreational areas, most Water based monsters (ie: Shyren, Aaron ect ect) also live in this area, a large lake of water being the centerpiece of the city.

Lights district-

To the west side of the city is the main shopping hub, while much more open than the majority of the Oasis, many stores foregoing walls on their tents entirely, its full of stores and restaurants, the most well known being Grillby’s and Muffets joint restaurant, many visitors to the Oasis come for the night life of the lights district, the monsters that live in that area making the camp around them as flashy and attractive as possible, neon lights and dancing flames lighting up the darkness of the district, the Celebrities Mettaton and Nabstablook have also been alluded to frequent the region and perform for onlookers.

Sandbank-

The Snowden equivalent of the AU, having gotten its name due to its position at the east side of the city, being the least protected by the walls of the crater, Sandbank often gets the brunt of the sandstorms that hit the desert, leading many of the Royal Guards live in this area in case of an emergency during the storms.

Southside (the Black Market)-

Technically not its official name, the Southside of the Oasis is whispered about in the dark of night, rumours telling of an illegal market place and shady monsters working in the south, many a monster wandering in and never coming out. While most likely just old wives tales, its best you keep your distance, just in case.

(Yeah I made the Black Market an actual real marketplace because that will never not be funny to me)

Hotlands-

The north most section of the Oasis is best known as Hotlands, given the name as it’s the highest section of city but also the most shielded by the crater walls, leaving it boiling without any wind to seep out the heat’. There’s been speculation that Hotlands actually sits over an underground chamber of magma, adding to the blistering temperature.

Characters:

The Dreemurrs:

Frisk- (Any Pronouns)

Frisk is an 11 year old kid, a runaway from one of Ebott City’s Orphanages, known for its less than legal treatment of the children. Having joined Chara as the eldest helped them both escape, Frisk followed Chara into the desert, looking for shelter from CPS.

During the trek however Frisk falls sick with an illness, most common in Monsters but able to infect anyone with strong magic, called Icarus syndrome.

With Icarus syndrome being effectively Hyperthermia of the soul, any physical treatment is ineffective, needing a particular medication to have any hope of survival, leaving the crater as not just refuge but possibly their only chance of survival.

Chara- (They/Them)

Chara is 16 and the orchestrator of the escape from the Orphanage with Frisk, after having been in contact online with a kid from the Monster camp that offered assistance. During the escape Frisk fell ill, forcing Chara to locate and purchase the rare medicine. Ending up in the Monster equivalent of the black market, Chara found a monster begrudgingly willing to help, trading a magical glass eye, a prosthetic their grandfather made for both humans and monsters during the war, for a small vial of medicine. The trader warning them to keep out of the black market before dropping the two kids off safely at the center of the Oasis.

Asriel- (He/Him)

Asriel is the firstborn son of the Dreemurrs and heir to the Royal throne, at 16 he made contact and became friends with a kid online, the other telling him of the danger they and their sibling were in at the Orphanage. Quickly offering up his home, knowing both his parents had fostered and cared for many children in the past and wouldn’t turn away two more. Upon meeting them in the Oasis he makes fast friends with both Frisk and Chara, practically adopting them as siblings on the spot.

Toriel- (She/Her)

Queen of the Oasis at 143 years old, Toriel has seen her fair share of bloodshed and peacetime, giving her the knowledge to recognise that protecting young children is the best way to ensure their future, guiding them to Mercy and pragmatic solutions instead of Fighting. One of the first things she did after Monsters had finally settled into the Oasis being starting up a school, becoming the primary teacher for a good few years before other parents eventually began to join her staff. Though, with the two new children her son had brought to her doorstep, she’s begun to realise it’s not just the children of Monster kind that need protection.

Asgore- (He/Him)

King of the Oasis and 146 years old, Asgore grew up at the front lines of the war, the heinous acts shaping him into the pacifist he is today. Currently away from the Oasis, Asgore has turned his sights on communications with the Humans, staying at the city while conferences with the city leaders on trade routes and transportation commence. He is also overseeing the Monster half of the Science team, working closely with the Royal Advisor and Scientists Gaster in developing a cure to Helios’ Curse. He remains in frequent contact with the Oasis, making the trip back every weekend to see his now growing family and make sure Toriel isn’t overwhelmed with responsibilities.

-

The Fonts:

Dr. Gaster- (He/Him)

At 140, Gaster has spent his life developing weapons for war (the Gaster Blaster being his pride and joy) and perseverance for Monster Kind, having a massive distaste for all Humans and most Monsters. The sudden change from war efforts to restoration efforts throwing his life in disarray. Jumping at the chance to use Human equipment on government funded experiments, Gaster didn’t hesitate to leave his sons Sans and Papyrus (9 and 4 at the time) back at the Oasis to move to the city and begin work. He’s had a hand in creating many inventions helping Monster kind (both helping with the medicine for Icarus Syndrome and a magic Sunscreen that can briefly minimise the effects of the sun) and the head of the Selene Project, the project to break the curse.

Sans- (He/Him)

28 and thriving, Sans has made a name for himself as both the comedic slacker of the Royal guard and the savvy businessman as one of the Black Markets best traders. Having been forced to raise both himself and Papyrus from a young age, Sans became intwined with the black market at the age of 12, after Papyrus caught Icarus Syndrome and receiving no help from Gaster off in the city, Sans was forced to find his own way of getting medication. At the age of 12 he found his way into the black market, ending up trading his right eye, and subsequently some of his shortcut abilities with an underground doctor in exchange for the medicine, to this day he hasn’t told anyone what happened to his eye. From then on he found himself going back and getting into trading as a way of making money as a side job while both he and Papyrus worked to get into the Royal guard, quickly becoming infamous in the criminal world of the Oasis, though he had a rule that no kids were to ever be found trading in the market. A rule that quickly got broken when a young human kid stumbled into his shop, begging for help, offering a magic glass eye as payment. Unable to send the kid off without help (or turn down the irony of selling the meds for an eye) he made the trade before guiding the kid and their sibling to the Oasis center.

-

(Bonus:)

After dropping the kids off, Sans makes an attempt to use the prosthetic eye, yet upon fitting it into his socket, the magic activated and bonded with his soul, causing the eye to become fused with his being, immovable. Along with the eye he’s suddenly able to see things he, by all means, should NOT be able to see, including text bubbles from the creators (similar to error sans)

He also finds, magically in his pocket, a small golden key, only figuring out its use after stumbling across a door in the middle of nowhere, upon using the key on the door he finds himself in an entirely different AU, door closing and disappearing behind him.

This is what leads him to discover the Multiverse and travel between AUs (inconveniently ending up in Nightmares Castle more times than he’d care to count)

-

Papyrus- (He/Him)

The Great Papyrus, second in command of the Royal guard at the younge age of 23 (you may applaud now)

Having grown up with just himself and Sans, Papyrus always wanted to become something great to make his brother proud, despite Sans’ insistence that he’s already proud of him. When he was 13, while Sans was out getting food, Papyrus had been targeted and hunted down by a group of bullies from the Southside of town, the group of teens taking turns in beating him up, eventually escalating to the point where one of them pulled a mirror from their pocket and used it to reflect a beam of sun directly onto his face, leaving a permanent scar,

He was saved however, when a teen he recognised from the Oasis center came charging out from one of the nearby tents, picking up handfuls of sand and hurtling it at the other kids before beating them up with her fists alone. Once over, the girl had turned, helped Papyrus up and took him to see her grandfather, the current head of the Royal Guard, a job she loudly proclaimed she was going to have one day,

Ever since then he attempted and eventually got into the Royal guard, along with Sans and the teen, Undyne.

-

Gersons:

Undyne- (She/Her)

29, Captain of the Royal Guard, Wife of the best woman around, living the high life! Having been raised by her grandfather Gerson for longer than she could remember, she’s always looked up to the Royal Guard, no matter how her Grandfather told her it wasn’t all glory. She’d been sneaking out and training with one of the Royal Guards for 8 years by the time she was 19, stumbling across a fight, six of her classmates beating down on a young skeleton. She’d jumped to defense before she’d even registered it, helping the kid up and getting him patched up where eventually the kids brother, Sans, one of Alphys’ friends found them and thanked her profusely.

The three became fast friends, practically siblings, both of them there at her and Alphys’ wedding and her promotion to Captain of the Royal guard.

Alphys- (She/They)

27 and already one of the best Scientists in the whole country. Alphys’ having grown up in Hotlands would have never dared to dream she’d be working with a whole team of like minded scientists, especially not in the human city, though not being able to see her Wife as often was a dampener. Dr. Gaster was also a bit, overzealous, with the project, it was only a matter of time before the madman created some temporal superflux that blew up half the block, even if she wouldn’t be anywhere near as prestigious without his guidance, despite Sans’ reservations for letting them near him.

(I will be adding more to this AU btw, it’s in my top 3 faves lmao)

Bonus:

Animation I’ve done for Helical Sans to explain how his AU hopping works

[parniathedevil]

Finally I Made Resident!Gaster and Resident!Mariel XD

she is Gaster's wife

When they were children, they were very close friends, and Mariel had no one but Gaster, and Gaster had lost his father in the war between humans.

After a few years, they got married and had a child, and Sans was born with the love of two monsters, but after 10 years, when Papyrus was born, Mariel fell ill, and Gaster tried to save her, but she died after 2 or 3 years. And Gaster also gets depressed and pierces his palm and rarely see his sons :')

[duochromium]

collection of mildly funny chen related visuals that aren’t funny or detailed enough for an entire oneshot

ran buys chen a nintendo switch and within a month she’s already traded it off to tsukasa in exchange for whatever the gensokyo equivalent of a snickers bar is. yukari is absolutely fuming that there is now outside world technology somewhere circulating in gensokyo

chen is standing next to ran somewhere outside. ran turns a little too fast and her 500lb tails smash into chen at the speed of a baseball bat sending the bakeneko flying off into the sunset

chen randomly wants to try playing soccer so yukari forces several people in gensokyo to enroll their younger family/subordinates into a gensokyo soccer league so chen has teammates. all of the young’uns except koishi and chen hate it

ran, in a completely calm tone: “yukari please help chen is on fire”

chen being the catgirl she is kills Nazrin and leaves her corpse on the yakumo residence front doorstep. the only punishment she receives is being grounded for a week. yukari experiences months and months of stress due to byakuren now literally wanting the entire yakumo family dead

chen spends 3 hours explaining the skibidi toilet lore to ran and every single second of it ran grows less opposed to the idea of taking chen to the vet and getting her put down

the reason chen doesn’t have the yakumo family name is because yukari just doesn’t like her

chen and rin and mike have a gang where like half of their gimmick is just hating cirno’s gang. this beef is entirely one sided and cirno’s gang doesn’t even know chen’s exists

ran and yukari entrust ran to reimu as a babysitter while they go out and do something. the first thing chen asks when they return is “WHAT DOES FUCK MEAN” (heard from reimu)

chen screaming and crying as ran tries to bathe her

chen screaming and crying because yukari bought cucumbers

that aforementioned gang with the other two touhou cats get their paws on catnip and spend like 3 days having the most insane trip of their lives. yukari is convinced chen is dead

and to conclude, an out of context discord message i sent to w.d. gaster

[rubyroboticalt]

QBLR QUARTERLY part 2!

That's right, this report needed two whole posts. Onto the news!

Who let wizards on the server? Zpca's laboratory is discovered in far-off salt flats. Ruby terraforms a black sand beach and takes possibly the worst screenshots of it ever. My liege, you have advanced darkness on. Cheez returns home after a long while away.

And now, a reading from r/malelivingspaces. Orange acacia walls. Shroomlight peeking from above the ceiling and on the lower wall. Orange sandstone ceiling. Meaty red floor. Large desk on the right wall. Single acacia chair at the desk. Unidentifiable orange metal in the wall. This has been a reading from r/malelivingspaces.

Brie reaches a milestone of over 500 deaths, only 1/4 of which are the result of player kills. Dollie participates in a magic ritual with friends! Hivi crafts every single attainable plushie thrice. Ladel has some family bonding time.

Glitch finishes their gardens. Splat and their family convert an airship into a spaceship with airlocking and amenities! On the last two days of play, the Void Worm is unbanned. Residents jump at the opportunity to kill such an elegant beast. Berry organizes a room full of all the flowers in the game.

The mysterious salmon receives some hugs and love from Appie and the bog. Sweetpea tries and fails to go to heaven. Gummy shares the longest playtime of the server, totaling over 45 and a half days. Moo finishes a chapel for their religion.

Inc finishes a tower with which to escape impending apocalypse. Apple finishes the portalfolks garden and invites guests to leave a note in the guestbook. Popcorn celebrates a birthday in the last day of server time.

Oh my lord, audience, do you remember the call to keep a lookout for Spamton after the court case special? It's a good thing we did -- he tries crashing Popcorn's birthday party! And who is there to stop him but WD Gaster himself! I don't believe it!

In the last hours before the end, residents make final arrangements to escape to other worlds. Chunks begin to be consumed, as the Dark Magician harnesses the magic power and energy put into this world for one final clearing of things.

And with that, I'd like to thank Grace, Levlies, Crow, Lim, and Qrth for being an all-star admin team keeping the server running smoothly. Thanks to Ven, Vern, Angel, Cand, Elli, Jay, Mack, Neon, Niko, Percy, and Val for being a super-attentive super-supportive mod team making sure bugs got fixed and lost items were returned. Thank you to Mira, Danny, Jace, Inc, Roy, Glitch, Solaria, Appie, and Cassi for being an amazing bog commune. Thanks to all the other players I haven't mentioned for making the server such a beautiful, lively place. And thanks to you, humble viewer, for coming on this journey with me.

link to part 1

[ticklishshenanigansau]

LaughterLand - Chapter 31: Wake Up

(story by Mod Secret, art by Mod Kitty)

"...Five...

…Four...

…Three...

…Two...

…One...

Awaken!"

There was the sound of a snap, it seemed to echo off into the distance. A bright white light shone down from above. Although Sans could tell his eyes were closed, the harsh light still stung his sockets. He felt so confused … what happened? Did he finally pass out from the stress?

He shifted his bones, trying to get a grip on where he was or what was happening. His entire body felt stiff and heavy, all the way down to his toes. As if he had been in this position for hours. But … that just couldn't be, could it? His eyelids felt insanely heavy, like he was going to need every metaphoric muscle in his face to open them. The blinding white light wasn't helping.

He didn't want to force himself to open his eyes, he was certain that he was still in the empty white void with all of its evil inhabitants. He didn't want to face anymore horrors, didn't want to know who would be looming over him next. Suddenly there came a voice, it was deep and familiar. It spoke slowly and gently from right above him.

"That's it, S-1, open your eyes."

S-1 … there was only one monster in the whole world who knew him by that name.

Sans slowly opened his eyes. As to be expected, the light was blinding and painful. He fluttered his eyelids rapidly trying to get used to the overbearing glow. Against the light, he saw a shadowy figure leaning over him. He felt the remains of anxiety starting to build up in his chest, but was immediately relieved upon recognizing who the shape belonged to. As he adjusted to the light, the image of Gaster manifested before him. He never once thought that he would be so glad to see the old skeleton. But in that moment, he would have thrown himself into his father's arms if he had the physical strength for it.

"G…. Gas … ter?" His voice was weak, but surprisingly, not hoarse or strained in anyway.

“S-1, what do you remember?” Gaster’s tone was low and urgent, Sans could tell that he needed answers immediately, but honestly so did he.

He blinked several more times, allowing the light to slowly reveal the world around him. At first only small objects came into view, a coat rack, a desk equipped with medical tools, pictures of bizarre-looking x-rays on the walls. Gaster immediately noticed Sans’s tired eyes slowly scanning the room.

“S-1, do you know where you are right now?” he pressed on.

It took several minutes and a lot of readjusting of his concentration. But after some much-needed deep breathing, Sans was finally able to recognize his surroundings. He was back in Gaster’s True Lab, back in the Underground, he was home!

“I…. I’m … home?” He almost couldn’t say it. The relief was so immeasurable that he could almost feel tears welling up in his sockets.

“Well, of course you’re home, where else would you be?” Gaster asked, his voice sounding confused, but candid.

He turned to pick up his stethoscope before moving to Sans’s right. Confusion still plagued the exhausted skeleton’s mind. He had no idea how he ended up back in the Underground, or what had happened to all of the evil residents of LaughterLand. The last thing he could recall was being bound by the sticky web, watching as they all moved closer towards him and his brother. He drew in a sharp gasp as he suddenly remembered.

“Papyrus!”

He sat up way too quickly. The dizziness hitting him like a hard slap in the face that nearly sent him toppling over again. He groaned loudly as he forced himself to stay upright, but cradled his now throbbing skull into his hands.

“S-1, I’d advise you not to sit up so carelessly.” Gaster responded calmly. “You’ve been in a state of unconsciousness for the past six hours. Give your body time to recover.”

Sans’s sockets flew wide open, in an instant he was wide awake and aware. Although he was certain that he had heard his creator loud and clear, he still had to make absolutely sure.

“S… Six … hours?” His voice was stronger this time.

Although his tone and demeanor seemed calm, the inside of his mind was flooded with racing thoughts and questions. He was unconscious for the past six hours? But how? Was the stress of being endlessly tickled for so long enough to make him pass out for that long? But then, how did he end up here? Did Gaster find a way to save them? What day was it? How long was he gone for? More importantly, where was Papyrus?

“Please find a way to calm yourself S-1,” Gaster cautioned, pulling back his stethoscope. “P-2 is fine, he’s just coming out of it now.”

At the mention of his brother’s experiment name, Sans whipped himself to the right where Gaster was standing over an unconscious Papyrus. He was twitching and whimpering too softly to make anything out. His brow was covered with a thin layer of sweat and he seemed to be trying to will himself out of this strange trance he was in. But he was okay! Alive, breathing, and in one piece. Sans nearly collapsed again from the relief, but kept his shaky arms firm as he tried to get up from the metal table.

“Papyrus!”

As Sans nearly launched himself from his resting place, he felt his unsteady knees immediately buckle beneath him, and he collapsed onto the floor with a heavy grunt.

“S-1, please get ahold of yourself,” Gaster said firmly, his tone raising to one of irritation. “You could very well give yourself a Soul-Attack if you don’t slow your reactions.”

Completely ignoring his father’s warning, Sans scrambled back to his trembling feet, gripping the side of the metal table that held Papyrus. As he watched his brother starting to shift out of sleep, he noticed that Papyrus’s favorite scarf was wrapped around his neck again, looking as if it had never even been moved. He glanced down to see his left glove was back on his hand as well. Somehow both of his accessories had been returned to him without so much as a speck of dirt or a tear. How was it possible?

Sans experimentally moved his hand down his shirt. Expecting to find the tear where the Chortlewocky had completely ripped it in half, but there was no tear. He looked down to see for himself, but sure enough his shirt was completely whole again. Not only that, his blue jacket had returned to him as well. Nothing about this made any sense. He knew that the both of them had lost their favorite articles of clothing in the tussle with the Tickle Monster. But even if they somehow managed to get them back, it didn’t explain how Papyrus’s glove returned from the dark abyss, or how Sans’s shirt became one piece again.

"Awaken."

Sans was so caught up in his own confusing thoughts that he didn't realize that Gaster had just finished counting backwards.

"Mmmnhh … uffmnh .... uhhhh…."

Papyrus's muffled whimpering became louder and louder, although neither skeleton could make out what he was trying to say.

"Deep breaths, P-2," Gaster quietly instructed. "Just open your eyes for me." Papyrus began to tremble, seemingly trying to force himself awake. "That's it, nice and easy," Gaster compelled.

Suddenly, Papyrus's eye sockets flew wide open. For a moment, the entire room was silent. But just as quickly as the quiet began, it was abruptly cut off as Papyrus let out an ear-piercing scream.

"NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!"

This immediately prompted a scream from the older skeletons until the entire lab became an impromptu screaming match. Papyrus, now startled out of his mind, sat up too quickly. As a violent rush of dizziness overtook him, he tumbled off of the metal table and landed to the ground with a heavy crash, abruptly ending the screaming match.

"Owwwie…," Papyrus quietly moaned, reaching a hand up to rub at his tender skull.

"Pap!!"

Sans immediately rushed to his brother's side. He nearly tumbled over himself, still not having fully regained his balance. But thankfully, he didn't have very far to go before kneeling down next to Papyrus.

"Ohhh, my head." Papyrus sighed deeply, trying to shake himself awake as well as readjust to the light.

"It's okay, Pap. I'm here, we're safe," Sans soothed, gently placing a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"S…. Sans...?" With sockets still partially shut, Papyrus reached a trembling hand up to grasp at Sans's. Comforted to at least know that his big brother was there with him. "What … happened?"

"You just snapped out of a six-hour trance," Gaster explained calmly. "You need to slow down and relax, P-2. Your body needs time to readjust to the—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Backup a minute." Sans held up a hand to his creator, his mind trying to make sense of what he just said. "What do you mean, a … trance?"

"S-1, do you not recall why it is you were called here this afternoon?"

Gaster looked at his sons quizzically, studying their faces to take note of their reactions. Both brothers looked at him, then at each other. Everything was fuzzy, they were having a hard time remembering just when they had come down to the lab in the first place. All that filled their minds were the colorful memories of that place … Laughterland. The bright unnatural colors, the extraordinary creatures and plants. But most of all … the horrifying enemies that they left behind, and all the different ways they nearly tickled them to death.

"Fascinating…," Gaster mumbled as he scribbled something onto his clipboard. "Apparently, the lingering effects cause a temporary lapse in memory."

"Okay, look," Sans replied bluntly. "We appreciate you pulling us out of that … colorful world of tickling hell. But … how exactly did you find us?"

Gaster's expression shifted to one of utter confusion.

"Find you?" he repeated, sounding perplexed. "What are you talking about? You never left."

"Yes we did!" Papyrus answered loudly. "We were taken away to this … this AWFUL place where the monsters, the animals and … even the PLANTS tickled us past the brink of insanity!"

He couldn't help but shout. Fear increasing the pitch in his voice as he recalled the dreadful events that took place in that world. He became so excited that he began stumbling over his words as he spoke.

"And—And we tried so hard to get back home … but we kept falling into more and more traps! And—And there was this spider, and this—these Ghost Children—oh! And the cat! The CAT! He was the worst!"

Papyrus was beginning to sound less like he had just woken from a trance and more like an over-active child who had just gotten into too much sugar. Sans firmly placed both hands on his brother's shoulders in an effort to calm him down.

"Whoa! Easy, Pap, it's okay. You're okay." He tried not to raise his voice too loudly over Papyrus's, but he somehow managed to put a gentle stop to his brother's mad rambling. "We're safe now, bro. They're not gonna find us here."

Gaster's jaw dropped, the brothers looked up as they heard him draw in an astonished breath.

"You mean … S-1 … you've had the same visions as him?"

Sans shot Gaster a dumbfounded expression. What exactly did he mean by ‘visions’?

"Yes?" he questioned, unsure of how to properly respond.

Gaster immediately turned back to his desk to flip through a series of notes. He scrambled for a pen to frantically add to them.

"Amazing!" he gasped quietly. "Somehow, the hypnosis allowed the two of you to venture into the exact same dream! But just how? I have no idea, somehow the sound waves intermixed within the—"

"Wait!" Sans again silenced his father's scientific mumbling. As he put the pieces together, he suddenly felt a warm tingling of a blue blush appear on his cheeks. "Hypnosis…. You mean … all this time…."

A red-hot mixture of embarrassment, amazement, and rage flashed through his mind. He suddenly remembered it all. He and his brother were part of another one of Gaster's insane experiments. They never left the Underground, they never even left the lab! There was no Cheshire Cat, no sentient flowers or feather-vines, no Tickle Monster or Witch or Ghost Children. There was no LaughterLand.

"You mean you just had us under a trance??" Papyrus finally caught up to Sans's realization. "The entire time?!"

"Well I certainly didn't expect you to sleep for that long, P-2," Gaster responded frankly. "The initial experiment was to see if a simple hypnotic suggestion would heighten one's sensitivity in … certain aspects."

"Their TICKLISHNESS by chance?!" This time Sans spat the word out through gritted teeth, he no longer cared.

"Well … yes." Gaster shifted his glance away, seemingly embarrassed to admit it. He cleared his throat authoritatively. "Well, I mean, I wasn't going to subject you to an endless sensation of pain or discomfort. An increase of ticklishness was ultimately the more harmless option."

"HARMLESS?!" Papyrus shrieked, nearly falling over a second time as he slapped his hands to his skull.

"I tried countless remedies to try and wake the two of you up," Gaster continued on as if he had not heard his youngest scream at the top of his lungs. He fumbled through his notes trying to remember his many failed remedies. "Splashing you with cold water, dousing your nasal cavities with pepper. Shaking you, wrapping you up with tight sheets. Laughing gas, herbal aromas, light deprivation. I tried this strange concoction of caffeinated beverages. Nothing was working."

As Gaster recounted all of his missteps, the brothers were hit with flashback after flashback of every crazy misadventure that their dreamt up journey had taken them. From the flash flood, to the fairies' tickle dust. The crazy cloud-ride, the snakes' binding coils. The botched magic spell, the flower's poisonous pollen. The dark cave, Dropwart's disgusting potion. All of it seemingly triggered by Gaster's meddling with their subconscious.

The more Sans realized what the old skeleton had put him and his brother through, the more unbridled fury burned in his Soul. His old man seriously had no idea the amount of stress, panic and torture he had caused them both, and it infuriated him.

"Who knew that the simple act of counting backwards from ten was enough to snap a monster out of a six-hour trance?" he mumbled to himself. "You two certainly didn't make it easy. You somehow managed to conjure up bone constructs in your sleep — and teleport, of all things."

That's when Sans finally remembered. Stopping for a moment to feel the pulsations of his Soul, he realized that it was once again filled to the brim with magic. Experimentally, he summoned a small bone construct to appear at his fingertips. It manifested so easily. There was no strain or exhaustion, but instead an immediate warmth and satisfaction in his Soul. Feeling the magic replenishing itself again, just like it was always meant to.

His attention immediately went back to Gaster, the arrogant old skeleton still yammering on about the curiosities of his experiment. Still harboring a need for vengeance, Sans's eye began to glow as he summoned a large Blaster, pointing it right at his creator. Papyrus covered his mouth as he let out a squeaky gasp, prompting Gaster to turn around facing down the snout of Sans's weapon.

"Sans, what are you doing?" His tone was dry and deadpanned. He stared at Sans with a look of apathy.

"Do. You. Have. ANY IDEA WHAT YOU JUST PUT US THROUGH, OLD MAN?!"

Sans growled with a sense of rage that was beyond abnormal for his usual laid-back demeanor.

Rolling his eyes, Gaster placed a hand on the snout of the Blaster. It immediately vanished into thin air with an electrical shock that literally jolted Sans back to reality. Stunned by the sudden zap, Sans was blasted straight back onto his tailbone with a loud THUD!

"Oww!" He sat up rubbing the harsh tingles out of his hand.

"Sans! Are you okay?" Papyrus immediately got up to go comfort him. But was swiftly reminded of his unsteadiness, and slowed himself down once he got to his feet.

"You completely forgot that I constructed those powers for you, didn't you?" Gaster asked curtly. "They're called 'Gaster-Blasters', Sans, you might want to come up with a different way of letting off steam."

Sans glared bitterly up at Gaster, keeping his low and gravelly tone as he responded.

"You almost killed us back there, G." He calmed down enough to avoid shouting, but was still very much angry over all the trouble his father had caused. "We may have been asleep as far as you could tell, but that place was WAY too real to the both of us."

"Yeah." Papyrus nodded with a heavy sigh. "Honestly, I can't believe how much I remember. Usually my dreams are relatively blurry, but I feel like I could retell the events of this one perfectly."

"Really?!"

Suddenly, Gaster's entire face lit up with intrigue. He turned and practically leapt back towards his desk fumbling mindlessly for a notebook and pencil.

"Okay, just start from the beginning. Don't leave out any minor details, even the most insignificant ones." He practically leaned into Papyrus with his pencil steadily placed on the paper, ready for note-taking.

"Oh, come on, G!" Sans rubbed two fingers against the top of his nasal cavity sounding aggravated. "We just got out of this nightmare, nobody wants to talk about—"

"Well, when we got there, there was nothing but white," Papyrus jumped into the beginning of the story, seemingly not having heard Sans's complaint.

"Papyrus…," Sans grumbled.

"I mean, there was just white everywhere, white sky, white ground, everything!"

Papyrus continued as Gaster feverishly took down notes. Too tired to put up with it anymore, Sans grabbed ahold of Papyrus's scarf to begin dragging him out of the lab. Although clearly on their way out the door, Papyrus didn't stop retelling the story, not leaving out a single detail just as Gaster had requested, and never even pausing to realize that his brother was pulling him into the elevator.

Gaster followed them every step of the way, seemingly oblivious to what his older son was doing as he jotted down every word from Papyrus. The elevator ride seemed so much longer to Sans as he just stood there listening to his brother ramble on about the Ghost Children and the chase into the forest. By the time the elevator had taken them to the top floor, Papyrus was just beginning to describe the ferocity of a feather-vine. As Gaster followed them right to the door, Sans practically shoved his brother outside, cutting off his dramatic retelling. He faced Gaster down with the same deadpanned expression he had when he first entered the lab earlier that day.

"Well, G, what can I say?" He talked as if he were in a rush. "It's been … a nightmare. A literal living nightmare so … y'know, don't be in a hurry for the next 'family reunion' okay?"

"Wait!" Gaster held up a hand to stop Sans from closing the door. For a moment, Sans paused, giving his father one last chance to say a proper goodbye. "Could we…."

Gaster also hesitated. He wasn't one to truly speak about what he was feeling. But Sans could already tell that he was still anxious to know and understand what went on during this extraordinary trance. At the sight of his loss for words, Sans took in a breath.

"Look," he began. "Next week, okay?" he practically mumbled. As much as he didn't want to give Gaster any more of his time, he could tell how important this discovery was to him. Beyond that, there was a part of Sans that didn't want everything that he and his brother had gone through to be for nothing.

"No experiments, no tables or lab tools. You bring the coffee, I'll bring the ketchup. We'll sit down and tell you everything, okay?" Sans looked him in the eyes, making sure the old skeleton understood the terms to this agreement. There was a lightness in Gaster's face, as if Sans had just laid out everything he was hoping for.

"Alright." He nodded, allowing Sans to peacefully exit the lab. "Thank you, Sans."

He cleared his throat, returning once again to his professional monotone acknowledging his sons as they left. Sans gave a light scoff as he closed the door.

"Later, G," he mumbled.

He knew that was going to be the closest thing to an apology that either of them were going to get from him. Refusing to let it get to him, he and Papyrus headed back to the River Person to catch the first boat ride back to Snowdin.

For the majority of the trip, they were quiet. Besides letting the overall shock and disbelief of what had just happened to them sink in, they were content with just sitting there and absorbing the cool silence in overcoming such an ordeal. The soft mist whipping up from the water felt soothing on their faces, and the gentle splash of the waves was more than just comforting ambiance.

As they were less than a minute from home, Sans turned back to Papyrus. Somehow, his brother's face looked to be an odd mixture of relaxed and exhausted. He could only imagine that he looked the same way, if not worse. Their bodies had told them that they had been sleeping for most of the day, but their minds were insistent that they go home to recover some actual sleep. Papyrus turned to meet his brother's gaze, he gave him a sleepy smile as well as a deep sigh.

"What's on your mind, bro?" Sans asked gently.

"I just…." Papyrus shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe we were gone for only six hours."

"Yeah," Sans scoffed lightly. "Feels like we've been gone for a month."

Papyrus stifled a chuckle in reply. "What about you?" he offered. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking...." Sans stretched out his arms to rest behind his head. It felt good to stretch out without fear of someone going after his underarms. "...I'm thinking that I'm gonna need to 'ketchup' with Grillby for dinner tonight," he joked, though at this moment nothing sounded better to him than a fresh bottle of Grillby's delicious ketchup.

"Ugh, really, Sans? Grillby's?" Papyrus groaned, though he smiled to know that Sans was still his lazy old ketchup-loving self.

"Yeah," Sans sighed happily. "Heh, don't worry bro. I'll get one for the road." Papyrus shook his head as the boat came up to the snowy shore, somehow he doubted that Grillby was just going to let Sans walk away with a full ketchup bottle.

"Come again sometime, tra la la," trilled the voice of the River Person.

Sans and Papyrus stepped off the boat and into the crunchy snow. The chilly sight of Snowdin had never before looked so welcoming. Most of the town's residents had gone inside already, all except for the usuals who were known for hanging around Grillby's establishment in the later hours of the day.

"Heh, guess it's a little later than I thought…." Sans sighed deeply at the warm sight of his favorite eatery.

He turned to Papyrus. Both wore a weary but content smile, happy to finally be home and out of danger. Their own cozy little spot in the Underground, chilly and cramped, but home nonetheless.

"So do you wanna head home and heat up some spaghetti or—"

Papyrus bent down to wrap Sans up in a tight hug, abruptly cutting him off. At first the older skeleton was taken aback by the fast movement, but immediately returned the hug, wrapping his arms around his brother tightly.

"I know it wasn't real," Papyrus said quietly. "But it still means so much that … even in dream form … I can always count on you."

Sans smiled warmly. He felt a little foolish for already feeling the need to fight back tears, so he buried his face into his brother's scarf to try and blot them away before anyone could see. He hadn't forgotten all of the amazing things Papyrus had done for him in dream form either. He wished he had the words to tell him how proud he was of him, but exhaustion was fogging his mind. There almost wasn't a need anyways, Sans could tell just from the embrace alone that Papyrus understood.

"I love you, bro," he said quietly.

"I love you too, Sans," Papyrus replied.

He pulled away and wiped away a tear of his own. He couldn't help but chuckle with embarrassment as he noticed Sans staring at him.

"Heh heh! I-I don't know why I got so emotional back there, sorry," he admitted bashfully.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Sans replied. "A nightmare like that would upset anybody."

"Yeah just … don't tell Undyne I was crying over a nightmare, okay?" Papyrus, again, tried to hide the blush on his cheeks, eliciting an amused giggle from Sans.

"Oh, why not? Afraid she'll try to toughen you up with even more tickle attacks?" he teased.

"Sans!" Papyrus nearly shrieked. "Seriously, don't! I'll never hear the end of it!"

"Ohh, I don't knoooow," Sans taunted. "I think it'll be worth it just to tell her everything that you fought against in dreamland."

"No way!" Papyrus laughed despite himself.

"Oh yeah, I'm telling her alright!" Sans grinned as he shifted away from his brother trying to push him over. "I'll tell her about how you were caught by a bunch of giant flowers...."

"Sans quit it!" Papyrus leapt for Sans, trying to grab ahold of him to get him to stop talking.

"And about how you were caught by sparkly fairies…." Sans continued to playfully dance away from him. "And kissed to death by a bunch of fish...."

"Oh, that is SO IT!!"

Papyrus catapulted himself at Sans, they landed with a crash right into a big pile of snow. Papyrus pinned his brother down to the ground and began digging his fingers into his ribs.

"Take this, you big-mouth-brother!! Nyeh-heh-heh-heh!!"

"Aaaahahahahaha!! Pahahap nohohohohoho!! Papyrus!! Aagh!! Hahahaha!!" Sans laughed and flailed in the snow.

Papyrus gasped and immediately pulled back, allowing his brother to breathe. After several moments had passed, the two of them stared at each other in tense silence. They both could tell they were thinking the same thing. Was it too much, too soon? Were they actually traumatized by this bizarre nightmare that they shared. The guilty look on Papyrus's face made Sans's Soul sink. He didn't want Papyrus to feel bad for playing with him. He wasn't feeling scared or anxious or even powerless. In fact, it was safe to say that laughing because of playful brotherly tickle fights was all the therapy he needed to recover from this.

He gave Papyrus a reassuring smile. One that shifted his brother's expression to one of relief, then to happiness, then to mischief. Sans let out an impish growl as he dove for his brother, knocking him into the snow and tickling at his ribs.

"Nyaagh!! Ahahahaha!! Sahahahahans!! Heeheeheehee!!"

They wrestled around in the fluffy coolness. Practically taking turns pinning each other down to go after their worst spots. As they laughed and screamed like two rough-housing children in the snow, a deep euphoria washed over them. They missed the joy that this weird bonding activity had brought them. They missed the mirthful laughter that only the two of them could draw out of each other. But if this strange misadventure had taught them anything, it was that they had missed the trust that they had in each other. Not tickling each other for food, or for personal gain, or for anything harmful. Just doing it to hear the other one laughing, just to play and have fun with the other.

As the tickle fight came to an end, they laid breathlessly in the snow, taking in the peaceful silence. Sans brushed away another tear and chuckled.

"Feeling better?"

"Yeah," Papyrus laughed in reply. He got to his feet and reached out a hand to help Sans off the ground. "Come on," he said as he pulled him to his feet.

"Let's get you that ketchup."

[parallax25]

Protagonism and the Nature of Fiction

A Deltarune Theory Essay

NOTE: THIS IS NOT FINISHED.

Before I start, I'd like to say that I originally intended to make this a video essay, but I don't have a microphone and there really isn't any good free editing software. So what else would I do but make an overly long Tumblr post that no one's going to see? Mostly this post just serves as a way for me to archive my thoughts on the matter of some of Deltarune and Undertale's biggest mysteries, but on the off chance that someone does see this post, I'd like to at least make it intelligible for someone else. When I say this is a long post, I mean this is a LONG post. I don't know if there's a character limit on Tumblr posts, but if there is I'll probably exceed it. With that said, read on.

:: I: The Nature of Fiction ::

One of the biggest things Undertale's known for is its frequent fourth-wall breaks. One of the biggest things Deltarune's known for is its clear implication of a diagetic player. Both of these games toy with subverting conventional video game expectations (especially within the context of RPGs) as well as deconstructing and critiquing tropes that are, at this point, ingrained into conventional game design. This aspect is great for both games, because it lends a very compelling meta narrative to them and allows for some rad worldbuilding opportunities. Making SAVEing and LOADing diagetic, for example, reminds the player that what they do has consequences within the world and is not just a part of the menu. So, the natural conclusion for most people playing these games is that these aspects must be fourth-wall breaks; that the game and the fictional world are one and the same. Examples of this notion in Undertale include things like "Flowey knows he's in a game," or "Sans knows what LV and EXP are that thus realizes he's in a game" or something like that. In Deltarune it's "Gaster took over Toby's Twitter account," "Ralsei knows he's in a game, that's why he mentions controls and knows there's a predetermined narrative," "Gaster's talking directly to the player," "Spamton and Jevil also know that the world is a game," etcetera etcetera.

But really, the idea that Undertale and Deltarune make fourth wall breaks at all just isn't true, and it's what I'd like to disprove here.

Sure, SAVEing and LOADing may be 'diagetic' in a way, but it has an analogue within the fictional world of Undertale. In Undertale it's just magical time travel that occurs whenever the being with the most determination in the universe dies or decides to 'LOAD' their 'SAVE'. It's not diagetic in the way most people think it is. Meta textually it's more literal, sure, but not within the fictional world. Flowey doesn't know he's in a video game. I doubt if he knows what a video game is. I think that he's come to see the world as a metaphorical game, or that he's aware that the fictional universe of Undertale is being manipulated by higher entities. It's also important to realize, however, that fourth wall breaks are, by the nature of fiction, impossible to do without completely breaking a fictional world and all semblance of immersion for the audience. You see, a game, a book, a movie, and a piece of art (to an extent) all serve the same purpose: to abstractly represent by means of gameplay, textual narrative, abstraction, or sequential narrative devices, a fictional world that resides in the collective unconscious of its audience. A fictional world does not really exist anywhere except within the minds of the people who engage with it. Characters represent fictional people and are wholly separate from them. It's the difference between a stage play depicting a real life event and the people involved, and the event and people themseleves. The game Undertale is wholly separate from its fictional world. In the game, when you enter a different room on the map, the previous one is no longer loaded. It's objects and processes within the GameMaker engine cease to be considered. Its collision physics are no longer accounted for. Does this mean that, within the fictional world, everything outside of Frisk's range of vision ceases to exist? No. Obviously not. If you were to perform a fourth wall break, then what you are doing is merging the fictional world and the game. Anything that happens in the game, is one hundred percent literal within the fictional world it represents. Anything that doesn't happen within the game literally never happened within the fictional world. History is erased. Canonically, people are made up horrifying almagamations of pixelated 2 dimensional sprites, half second long .ogg files, and lines of dialogue. It's a veritable ontological nightmare, as every person in existence is replaced with slightly different versions of themselves saying different things every couple of seconds. Everything that does not exist in the playable area does not exist in the fictional world, if you admit that the fictional world and the game world are synonymous.

(Now that I think about it, these kinds of concepts could be really cool to toy around with in a game like The Stanley Parable.)

You see what I'm getting at? Fourth wall breaks are impossible. Everything that seems like a fourth wall break in Undertale and Deltarune has to have an analogue in the fictional world that the games represent. The player is not diagetic within Deltarune, you're just controlling an eldritch, timeline-traversing entity that can take control of people's SOULs and annihilate timelines. I mean, sure it comes to the same thing, but it doesn't mean that YOU are diagetic to Deltarune. Jevil doesn't think that the world is literally a video game, he just knows that the universe is being manipulated by entities outside of it and that the fate of the universe is predetermined (literally by Toby Fox, meta textually a theme of freedom and destiny, and within the fictional world by a godly entity). Gaster didn't fucking take over Toby Fox's Twitter account, Toby just used his Twitter account as a way to implement a narrative device for the release of Deltarune. Gaster still canonically said that stuff, I think, but this just mean's he's contacting the interdimensional cosmic horror entity and speaking to them. Any meta fuckery has to happen on a metatextual or gameplay level in order for the fictional world to maintain its integrity. When Ralsei and those Froggits in the Ruins mention keyboard controls, it's just for player convenience. In universe it would make no sense to be like:

"Hey Kris, did you know that you can walk faster with [X]? I hope that's helpful . . . "

"Ralsei what the fuck are you talking about?"

I don't think Ralsei even knows what a keyboard is. And, yes, I know he's talking to the player here.

(Side note: Ralsei's general tendency to say stuff about controls, to be the only one to mention SAVE points, to have the notion that there's a predetermined narrative to follow, and something else I'll get to later, is, I think, a vague metaphorical allusion to the fact that he knows a lot about the nature of the Deltarune universe and is aware that something's controlling Kris.)

Yeah. So generally any kind of fourth wall break that's there for player convenience or humor I would just declare isn't canon. Like ... as in the characters literally never said it. 4th wall breaks by characters are wildly inconsistent anyways; Mettaton mentions an "on-screen keyboard" in Undertale during his fight, but uh ... that seems like it would have some pretty serious implications if he actually said that and understood what he was saying, and yet it's never mentioned again.

When someone engages with a fictional world and immerses themselves within it, they experience the narrative within the context of the fictional world. They see everything through the lens of someone that exists within that world. One does not consider the medium of the fiction anymore, they just consider the fiction being presented to them. A person playing God of War doesn't consider the fact that they're playing a video game, they just see the world through the lens of Kratos. It's analogous to a person getting closer to a screen until it fills their range of vision. It occupies their entire mind; they cease to consider anything outside of that ... they are simply engaging with the fiction as though it was real. When the fiction acknowledges the medium that it's in, or makes some reference to it, or clearly relies on it, the person engaging with it mentally takes a step back from this metaphorical screen and from there on considers the medium that the fiction resides in as an integral component of it. For most people this is what happened with Undertale. Undertale's meta-narrative is deeply intertwined with its conventional narrative, but the two never intersect. At no point are you, the player, actually literally implicated within the world of Undertale. Most characters defer to your actions to Frisk, while some like Sans don't actually speak to Frisk but instead what they perceive as just some otherworldly entity. Flowey calls you "Chara." Chara ... doesn't really make it clear what's going on with them. The relationship between Frisk, Chara, and the player is extremely ambiguous and isn't really the point of this thesis but suffice it to say, Undertale doesn't make any 4th wall breaks outside of a cheeky meta-textual level. My point is, the acknowledgement of a medium by a piece of fiction that resides within it destroys the integrity and internal logic of that fiction. The idea of a video game character realizing that they're in a video game is entirely, fundamentally paradoxical. That means you just kind of ... destroy the unseen, unspoken barrier between fiction and medium. Like ... there are no people that could "realize" anything! If they've broken out of the bounds of that fictional world, then the fiction itself acknowledges that these people never existed, that they literally cannot realize they're in a video game because there is no one that could realize anything. A fictional character cannot "deviate" from the narrative, because, by definition, the author of that fiction would have had to plan that bit of the story out. It is fundamentally paradoxical. It is the textbook definition of a paradox. Why, why, why, does everyone get the idea that a character could do this? It's absurd, and I hope you see my point because the nature of fiction is kind of a difficult concept to articulate in words.

So as a general rule of thumb, it's imperative that a fictional world and the medium it's being represented must be divorced from each other. Not that the medium can't be conveyed or acknowledged through storytelling or meta-textual elements, but the narrative, and, by extension, the characters and world must not rely on the medium. Games like DDLC break this. There's no other medium that game could possibly be represented in. It's a great game, and I love what it does and how it screws with the player, but what it means is that the fictional world and the game are one and the same, which could be problematic if you want serious storytelling and you want your audience to care what happens in the fictional world. I mean, I don't think it matters that much, in terms of how an audience will perceive it, but it certainly breaks serious immersion. My point is, it must be possible to convey the story of Deltarune in other mediums. Well, okay, the fact that Deltarune has a protagonist that we control is a crucial element to the story, but my point still stands. I guess if it was in another medium we would just follow Kris as they are suddenly possessed by Lovecraftian horror beyond their comprehension, but that wouldn't be nearly as effective or compelling storytelling. And while Undertale being represented in the medium of a retro-looking RPG is also part of the storytelling, it could definitely still be told through, like, a TV show or movie or something. It's just that Undertale's subversion of tropes and subtle jabs at the RPG genre in general make the narrative even more compelling, and lend it a really artful humor.

:: II: Narratives ::

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:: III: Protagonism ::

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[kamari333]

O great UTMV lore expert, would you mind explaining the differences between the korean farmtale and the meme farmtale? I find it hard to understand what aspects belong to which AU and would greatly appreciate the help

Oh! 0/////0 Well, I do like being helpful! I do not specialize in Farmtale lore, nor have I gotten around to compiling my thesis on it. I do not have any proper citations on hand, nor can I definitively say what came first.

but I can give you some basics!

Because I dont have any backdates to offer at this time, I'll tell you about "Farmtale" in the order I became aware of it.

That starts with the Japanese Translation.

During the earlier fandom, when the game was being translated, it came out that Sans used the pronoun "oira". (I do not know if this was a fan-spread rumor, a beta concept, or if it made it into the final game -- all I can be sure of is that "sans uses oira" got traction)

In Japanese, to my understanding, "Oira" is a pronoun that has a lot of rustic connotation. To my understanding, it is used (at least in popular culture) by the japanese equivalent of "country folk", being part of a sort of "country accent". (There is a specific demographic/region it is popularly associated with, but I cannot be confident in naming it at this time: i dont want to give you wrong information)

So when it came out that "sans uses oira", a LOT of memes and fanwork came out of Sans in a straw hat, in various kinds of farming clothes.

This started in the eastern side of the fandom and then found its way to the western side of the fandom, where the aesthetic shifted towards the more american-localized "southern rustic".

To start, this kind of AU was aesthetic in nature, and didnt have a concrete singular creator or agreed upon lore. That being said, it was very common at least at one time for the story to be "Post Pacifist", where the skelebros just became farmers after coming to the surface.

That is the "memetic" "Farmtale" and "Oira Sans". It is an aesthetic AU based around the loose idea of the skelebros settling into a rustic lifestyle, with no real solid design other than Sans wearing a straw hat.

This is very different from GuinongTale.

GuinongTale (known as "farmtale" in the english speaking fandom) is a Korean-made AU. It is a surface-AU (meaning the monsters were never underground to begin with). The story takes place in a rural korean farming town, where the main undertale cast reside (including, but not necessarily limited to, Sans, Papyrus, and Undyne).

The characters all have distinct redesigns, as well as Korean-Localized Names.

Sans is called Saejun. On top of the seemingly universal straw hat iconography, he wears flower-print pants and rubber-palmed farming gloves. His gaster blaster is just a cow's head. Instead of bones, he summons little farming tools (a specific kind used often on korean farms, which has a specific name i cannot recall). He also has one-strap sandals instead of slippers.

Papyrus is called Pilsu. He wears a floral-print neck-scarf and overalls with one patch on the left leg. He has been depicted carrying a rake.

Undyne (her korean name is unknown to me, but i know she has one because they all do) has been depicted with a sweater hanging off her shoulders and dog tags around her neck.

The themes of GuinongTale, to my knowledge, center around Nature vs Modernization. I have been told that the "pacifist" route is where the farming community is preserved through Frisk's actions, and the "genocide" route is where the community is driven off their land by the encroaching urbanism/gentrification. However, I have to clarify that I dont at this time understand Korean, so this is secondary information rather than direct knowledge I have gleaned from the source material.

TL;DR:

In the english-speaking fandom, content tagged as Farmtale is usually a rustic-aesthetic post-pacifist AU which is believed to have been inspired by memes from the japanese Oira Sans era. Western creators will often bring their own flair or spin to the worldbuilding, making it a highly variable AU.

However, the Korean Farmtale GuinongTale (which in the english side of fandom is ALSO tagged "Farmtale") also exists separate from that, with a distinct aesthetic and lore all its own, which has its own unique charm deserving of distinction.

Like I said before, Farmtale isnt quite my area of expertise. I unfortunately dont have much concrete data or backdates. I do hope this little bit of info is helpful! (and if i got anything wrong, i am always excited to learn new fun facts)