#this is why it’s so important that he left “asriel” behind

[the-great-papyru]

so about those timelines where flowey helped everyone. i feel like there’s some kind of division in people’s minds between those ones, the “good timelines,” and the ones after his first kill, the “bad timelines.”

first off, i really don’t think any of those timelines were “good.” not really good for anyone, especially not good for flowey. the thing about those timelines: we don’t know too much about them, but it’s reasonable to infer that flowey didn’t exactly give others much agency in them. but i’ve already talked about that. point is, he never settled. he gave himself responsibility for everything, and he didn’t let anyone move on until everything was perfect. that’s probably why he got tired. he was bored of wondering “what can i slightly change so that this solution gets slightly better?” he was tired of barely any change but still feeling like he could improve. and because he could, he had to.

the dreemurr parents put a lot of pressure on their kids. “the future of humans and monsters.” “the prince of this world’s future.” they sound rather similar. as a prince, asriel was expected to someday lead monsterkind. he was expected to be like asgore, help his subjects at any cost. considering this, it makes sense that flowey tried over and over to make everyone perfectly happy, until he couldn’t try anymore.

[stainedglassthreads]

People have talked about how Sans receives a disproportionate amount of attention in AUs and fanfics compared to other characters, and have talked at length about the flanderization of certain characters, mostly Papyrus, Chara, and Asgore. But I don’t think people talk as much about who the major characters that get dropped from AUs most are, and why. Personally I think the two characters who get dropped most from AUs are Mettaton, and Toriel. 

Not to say that they just don’t exist in AUs that ‘drop’ them, but... they get downsized from ‘the final boss of an entire area in the Underground’ to ‘they exist, I guess, but let’s focus on someone else,’ or ‘they exist, I guess, but they’ve been reduced to their relationship with another character.’ 

One could argue that there’s a similar case to be made for Papyrus, but the fandom’s become a lot kinder with his treatment as of late. Not to mention how he remains a pretty huge driving motivator for Sans or other characters even when his actual role gets reduced, and may even get some action sequences. (One could also make a similar case for Alphys, whose genius gets shunted to the side so Sans and Gaster can shine. But often she’s still allowed SOME sort of role in those AUs, even if it’s criminal how she’s not allowed to be a genius in her own right, and how her depression isn’t... approached, the same way Sans’ is. Probably because Sans’ is mostly hinted at while Alphys’ is shown in all its messy, unromantic glory.) 

Toriel and Mettaton rarely get even that, however. Most often, Toriel is either The Mom or The Wife/Girlfriend. She is defined not by her grief and trauma, but her relationships with Frisk, Chara, Asriel, Asgore, or Sans. And most often, it’s the other party’s side of the relationship that’s more important. Her power, how she was once the ‘brains behind the throne,’ it gets left by the wayside as she just becomes the ‘reasonable adult figure’ who comforts her lover or child, or panics because her baby is gone. 

As a more specific, and interesting, example of how Toriel’s roles get downsized, take a look at the 11 animated XTale shorts. The first acts as an introduction to the miniseries, while the other 10 each focus on how a specific character is significant to XGaster, XFrisk, or XChara... except for Toriel’s. 

III, Toriel’s short, focuses on the two-day long timeline where she was king of the Underground instead of Asgore. We learn absolutely nothing about what she did during those days, or how the other characters feel about her. XGaster just spends that short monologuing about how much he hates branching timelines. Jerry could have been made King in that timeline and absolutely nothing could have changed. Monster Kid could have been King. XGaster could’ve said ‘fuck it’ and just let his kids run around as Kings. When Toriel’s role in downsized, she’s a cardboard cutout of a reasonable authority figure or a caring lover. Little else. 

Mettaton probably gets downsized because... well. He’s a much more entertaining and active character than Toriel, but it’s also even harder to come across any of his depth. You need to purchase a key from Catty and Bratty, backtrack, and then read diary entries implied to belong to him. Without that, it’s easy for Mettaton to come off as a much more shallow and selfish character than the rest of the cast, especially since, unlike Papyrus and Undyne, he has nothing resembling a hangout event. Nor are there many scenes where Mettaton, like Toriel, tries to genuinely bond with and protect Frisk. I’m sure he doesn’t hate them. It’d be cool if there were some AU out there where, instead of being a star, Mettaton decides to tag along with Frisk as a party member and explain the Underground to them. But... maybe it also leads people to believe that Mettaton isn’t a very genuine or interesting character? 

When Mettaton isn’t a major character in an AU, usually he still does exist. He’s just... off being a star in some area inaccessible to the plot. 

I think most people like these characters. Most people love Goatmom, and I’m sure a lot of people found Mettaton’s antics while acting to be hilarious and memorable. They just... don’t know what to do with them. Undertale’s strong point is its quirky and colorful cast, and the bonds between cast members. But due to Toriel’s exile and how little time was spent with Mettaton as a person and friend rather than an area boss, maybe people feel like those two just don’t fit with the rest of the cast? I dunno. 

...I don’t have a pithy way to end this I just wanted to talk about it. 

Unfortunately I don’t have many good Toriel-centric AUs(beyond the ones that exist in my head), but @nib-mettaton is a pretty fun Mettaton-centric AU. 

[squidhominid]

Deltarune thread: One More Final

So, a year and a half later, I've done it. I figured it out.

My Ralsei posts from October 2021, right after Chapter 2 came out, they gave METANARRATIVE threads as to Ralsei's actions. But not STORY-LEVEL MOTIVATION. The HOW, not the WHY.

I think I've cracked it.

Before we get started, if you haven't seen or don't remember my past Deltarune posts, here's a refresher: Part 1 Part 2

It all goes back to the theory that's been bouncing around the fandom for ages now, that Ralsei is the horned headband Kris had as a child.

For the sake of brevity, this video will take the place of an explanation. It's about a minute long

My realization is, this theory gives Ralsei CLEAR MOTIVATION for wanting to create an omni-narrative like I speculate about in these posts. That being that Ralsei, as the horn headband, is a literal manifestation of Kris' desire for wish fulfillment.

Ralsei, then, is acting in a way that he thinks satisfies Kris' desires. Kris demonstrably is the less-loved and less successful child. Asriel's side of the room is far more decorated, he's much more loved by his family and by the town as a whole. He is the model citizen.

Ralsei, then, by instigating the narrative of Deltarune, by having secret talks with Kris, who is then going on to create yet more dark fountains, may be acting in Kris' believed interest. Creating the framework for Kris to experience something fulfilling and interesting.

However, Kris seems offput by Ralsei. If we assume Ralsei is the headband this makes sense. Ralsei appears as the Kris Kris wishes they were. A boss monster, like their family. Like Asriel, their brother, the perfect child to their parents, who is everything they are not.

Even if we take Ralsei at face value and assume he is not behind the dark fountains, throw my theory out the window, the fact you are combining all the Dark Worlds into Your Castle Town, that Ralsei is bringing Kris on this adventure, is a sort of wish fulfillment.

No matter how we analyze this, either Ralsei and Kris are complicit, or their ends seem to run parallel to each other, even if on the surface their motives seem to be contradictory. And no matter how you slice it… This drives the point home, that Ralsei, and Your Castle Town, are representative of fans engaging with fiction. What is fanfiction, what is death of the author, what are collaborative canons like the SCP Foundation, D&D, Star Trek, Star Wars… If not ultimate wish fulfillment?

And so it all comes together. Whether Ralsei is complicit with opening the fountains, whether Ralsei and Kris are complicit or working together, both opening the fountains and building up Your Castle Town are narrative parallels to how fans interact with stories.

This even allows my theories to function free of the need for Ralsei to be dishonest. He can still be trying to fulfill his role in the prophecy, he can still be working towards sealing the fountains, as part of the narrative. Everyone playing their role.

Ultimately this fits with the themes we've seen so far beautifully. The player is not the protagonist, the player is an intrusive force in the world. But then, there is still the story. There are still forces beyond our knowledge or control. Gaster, Ralsei, the Knight.

As Toby said, there is only one ending. But there's something more important than reaching the end. The story would occur in the context of the world, with or without us. The forces inciting the narrative exist either way. We are interlopers, but also only participants.

So then, what is Ralsei? That's a question I think unanswerable until further chapters are out (this year, I hope?). But, these Tumblr posts have indicated some narrative threads left for us to pull at. And, well.

THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS VERY VERY INTERESTING

I'll see you all again when Chapters 3, 4, and 5 are out. :)

[unidentifiedflyingchoco]

What Are Chara’s Intentions Behind The Soulless Pacifist Route?

Picture this; You killed everyone, everyone who was supposed to be your friends. You showed them no mercy. Yet you think you are above consequences. You reset, hoping to yet again achieve a happy ending...but this time something changed. Chara appears, again, either with glowing red eyes in the dark, or surrounding your “friends” covered with red X’s. So what does this all mean? At first you may assume that everyone’s dead, but that’s far from the truth. Here’s why.

The Context Behind The Tainted Ending

Something that makes the meaning of this ending apparent is the context behind it. As previously mentioned this ending takes place after a murderboy route. A path which Chara shames us for taking. 

The soulless pacifist ending is essentially a way to constantly remind us of our sins, a way that we can never forget what we did. A nightmare we can never wake up from. How do we know everyone actually isn’t dead though? Our best friend, Flowey, can help us explain that.

Flowey And How Important He is To Proving Our Friends Are Still Alive

While at first our friends appear to be dead the game would suggest otherwise. Flowey specifically helps us see this. He claims everyone is happy on the surface, and that “Chara” can breath easy because everyone’s safe. 

This seems very out of place for an ending where everyone seemingly died, Flowey has no reason to directly state that everyone’s happy if they were really dead. Plus we’ve learned from the Undertale Alarm Clock Dialogue that Flowey ends up going to the surface with everyone else, this is also seen by the menu screen after the true pacifist ending, which shows that everyone left for the surface, even Flowey.

So this shows us that he without a doubt has knowledge of whether or not everyone survived, and in his own words everyone’s perfectly happy.

How Does Chara Do This?

You may be wondering how Chara is able to give us these endings if it doesn’t truly involve death. I think the answer is that they’re manipulating the way the player views things. As we see a similar thing happen with Asriel in the credits. 

They’ve been seen to have strange powers in the past as well, such as sensing how many monsters are in an area. 

The Soulless Pacifist Merch

Now while merch isn’t canon a piece of merchandise based off the soulless pacifist ending still seems to be an argument for some reason, but even assuming this has any merit whatsoever it is easily debunked. The merch in reference is this. 

It is gained through a now gone item called the determination combo. Flowey gave you the option of a one dollar discount, and if you took it you were rewarded with the soulless pacifist end card instead of the regular one. The argument here is that since they appear scared in the picture that must mean they were in danger, although this isn’t the case, as this card is taken out of context. The back of it actually read this:

Now why this is important is the part that says “this is all a bad dream and you’re never waking up”, that is Floweys dialogue from his Flowey X fight. This dialogue is very much here on purpose though, because it further proves the idea that Chara is manipulating the way we’re viewing things to haunt us with the memory of our dead friends, hence the “bad dream” dialogue. 

TL;DR

In conclusion the soulless pacifist ending was a way for Chara to punish us based on the context, and the fact that Flowey confirms that our friends are alive.

[shazos]

Rouxls is Hiding Something Big: A Deltarune Theory

FORENOTE- For some needed context, it may help reading my previous Deltarune theory here for important details that I will cover in this post. (My previous theory provides notable evidence on why Gaster is indeed the “Knight” figure talked about by multiple characters in Deltarune.)

Now, this is going to sound crazy. But after much time of poring over and analyzing Deltarune, I have come to a conclusion. One that I’ve been convinced of for awhile now. Something that’s been lying right under all of our noses without many of us even realizing it. We have all been bamboozled. Hoodwinked. Tricked. Why, you may ask?

Because the comically stupid and inept Duke of Puzzles is actually... not an idiot. No, he’s the complete opposite. He is a downright mastermind.

As collective players, we are all falling into the same trap once again. Putting faith into a character’s preconceived personality !

When their true personality turns out the complete opposite of what we expected...

It is here, my evidence for this claim begins—and we delve into the true identity of Rouxls Kaard. Buckle up everyone, cause this one’s gonna be a fun ride. 👀

So, to spill the beans up front, and get it over with. I believe Rouxls Kaards identity... is none other than W.D. Gaster in disguise.

Now. I didn’t immediately become invested in this theory—I was skeptical at first like everyone else. But, once I began examining Deltarune and all of its characters a bit closer...things weren’t exactly adding up about the Duke of Puzzles.

Point #1: Anagrams

I initially began to become suspicious of Rouxls Kaard because of his odd name. Sure, it is a play on the words of the term, “Rules card”. But it is spelt in such a peculiar way. If it were just simply a play on words, I think that there would be a much better way of going about spelling it rather than just jumbling a bunch of random letters together. There is a very intriguing reddit post found here that goes more into depth about his name that ties well into my theory. The thing that stood out to me in particular, is that Rouxls’s name is actually also an anagram for “A Dark Soul RX”, (with the left over RX typically being used in terms relating to doctors/medicine.) Not only is Gaster a Doctor, but he’s also always associated with darkness and the research of souls. Toby loves his anagrams—so I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if this was intentional. But it doesn’t end there.

I’ve noticed that Toby Fox has a tendency to tease certain things about his games through merch. And wouldn’t you know it—he has in fact, a particular item on fangamer of a “dark heart.” One which description describes the Angel’s Prophecy. Hm...

But let’s back on track onto my second observation, shall we?

Point #2: The Physical Resemblance to Gaster

Now, there seems to be some interesting foreshadowing related to inverted colors in Deltarune. Before Ralsei takes his hat off, he appears black. But once he takes his hat off, voila, his colors are inverted, and he is revealed to actually be a white goat highly resembling Asriel.

In addition, the entire Dark World is literally just. An inverted version of a normal world.

The Dark World could have hypothetically been the created world/experiment that Gaster had fallen into in the first place. After all, his experiment had to do with “darkness”, and “negative” photons--AKA the Dark Fountains, and the negatively/inverted landscapes of the Dark World.

And how does Rouxls Kaard appear inverted anyways? Well, he looks like THIS.

He even has the strange dangling lip thing—which another character said to directly resemble Gaster, Seam, has as well:

In addition, if you look at Rouxls’ text-box profile very closely, his eye colors are actually mismatched which is a rather interesting detail!

Point # 3: His Accent is Extremely put on.

I think anybody that has read any sort of Shakespearean/Old English writing, can instantly realize that Rouxls is as bad as imitating an Old English accent as a high-schooler reading Hamlet for the first time. Rouxls absolutely butchers it. He practically adds eth, and est at the end of any word he chooses, and calls the job done. What is even more interesting though, is when he gets nervous or panicked, he drops the act all together and talks normally.

Point #4: He is Pretending to be Dumb; His Puzzles are Actually Impressive!

I found it intriguing how there are countless puzzle traps in all the forest areas and in the Card Castle prison that were actually very well done. You have to flip the spades, diamonds, hearts, etc to unlock doors, and open secret chests. They require a decent amount of thinking skills, and are actually competent. But who made them?? Oddly enough if you observe one of them in the forest areas, it appears that Rouxls Kaard vandalized one of the puzzles to make it harder for the player to beat it—which further implies that he actually indeed made those puzzles himself. This shows that Rouxls is much more competent than only being able to make a single box shove puzzle that is comically easy. Where else do we see a place full of plenty of rather well made puzzles + traps seen? All throughout the Core in Undertale—a place which Gaster himself created!

Point #5: Rouxls IS Aware the World is a Game--AKA DON’T FORGET TO READ NPC DIALOGUE FOLKS!

I think it is well aware by now that Rouxls likely wants us as the players to underestimate him--and deem him a fool so we wouldn’t bat an eye at what he’s actually up to. But the most biggest give away to this is something that I have surprisingly seen no one mention at all. And oh boy, it is the most damning evidence that Rouxls is no idiot to be trifled with.

To the left of Seam’s shop, there can be found a little group of former puzzle-makers that used to live at Card Castle, until they were fired and replaced with Rouxls Kaard. They are now all out of a job, and are just barely scraping by since the Spade King didn’t give them any severance pay. However, Rouxls Kaard offered them a way to get money--by selling the tutorials he made.

These tutorials go over TP, stats, information about Susie, Ralsei,  and Kris. Rouxls Kaard has never once met any of the players yet--and he knows everything about them. He knows about stats. He knows the world is a game.

HOW??

In addition, when you talk to Rouxls in his shop, he calls you three the Heroes of Legend. He is well aware of the Angel’s Prophecy. He knows.

Whenever any character in the world of Undertale & Deltarune knows that the world is a game, it is an instant red-flag. It goes to show that they know much more than they let on. Flowey and Sans are big examples of this in Undertale. Pure hearted, dorky idiots that we trust earlier in the game--but wind up seeing the real side of them later on.

...So why should we treat Rouxls any differently?

Point #6: The “Control Crown”

Something that I immediately thought was kind of weird, was the fact that Rouxls Kaard was able to control the K. Round with a “Control Crown” device. If he is so stupid, how was he able to create a full on mechanical device that can brainwash a life-form into being violent/cause it to triple in size?! That is genius material right there!

But things start to take on a much darker side when you begin to look at the subtext of this realization, which I will get to in a moment...

First of all, Seam claimed these exact words.

The remaining king was the Spade King-- as the King of Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs are seen to be locked up in the Dungeon. Therefore, the Spade King put the Knight, and his strange son into power. IF it were the Spade King in power, the dialogue box WOULD have said “himself”. Therefore, the Knight, and his strange son were put in place to control the kingdom. And who are they?

Gaster/Rouxls Kaard, and Lancer.

Evidence to back this up:

Lancer calls Rouxls his “Lesser Dad”. And Rouxls calls Lancer, his Strange little darling/son.

The Spade King is not in charge. During his boss-fight, he states that he obeys the word of the Knight.

If you observe more of Lancer’s dialogue in the scene right before the gang enters Card Castle, he states that his dad, (Spade King), recently forced his troops to listen to Lancer instead. Therefore, Lancer is by all respects actually second in command to the Knight.

One of Rouxls main interests is...Lawmaking. Even though he is just supposedly an innocent Duke of Puzzles.

Another one of Rouxls main interests is...Cages, and long strolls in the dungeon... 

There are innocent puzzle-makers locked up in the Prison who are terrified--they were arrested for the simple act of making a puzzle without a license. HM, I wonder who could have possibly locked them up? *Wink wink nudge nudge*

And what ties this all together, is perhaps the most obscure, tiniest detail that no one would have likely observed on a first play-through. If you go to the first floor of Card Castle and click the description tablet next to the elevator to the Prison, it claims that the Prison used to just be a Basement Which Just Happened to Have a Lot of Cages. This is backed up by the caged animals in the basement, who say that they miss the “good old days” when they used to be the only ones there in cages, and not a bunch of people behind bars.

In summary, Rouxls is locking up a bunch of innocent people, and playing nice to our faces. He IS the knight. And he is not to be underestimated.

Point #7: Rouxls’ Plan is Already Set in Place

The part where this theory gets a little dark, ties back to my mentioning of the control crown earlier.

If you observe the throne room, it looks like it was recently torn apart in a sort of...conflict.

Why was the Spade King the only king left un-caged to begin with? Why wasn’t he locked up too?

Well...Rouxls Kaard needed someone to put him in charge. But not only that—he needed a scapegoat. Someone to blame. Someone to be “The Bad Guy” for the Heroes to fight.

The Spade King...is actually innocent. He is obeying the Knight, because he is being controlled by a Control Crown. The throne room is in ruins because the Spade King likely fought against this at first, but Rouxls won and successfully put the Spade King under his command. I thought it was strange how the King was so...violent. So irredeemably evil, and even murderous toward his own son Lancer. Yes, it could be argued that this is indeed his true personality, that he is a complete, abusive jerk. But, the whole ending battle of Deltarune chapter 1 feels so...set up in a way? It feels so starkly good vs evil, black and white. Almost like a play.

And oh boy. I think I was onto something.

If you pay close attention to the fight with the Spade King, there is a brief moment at the beginning where he is completely shrouded in shadow. Except. For. His. Crown. It glows stark white in comparison to himself. Like a Chekov’s Gun if you will.

And even more interesting, in the supposed good/pacifist ending, the Spade King is locked up in Prison, the other three kings are still locked up in cages, everyone else is freed, and Rouxls and Lancer now have full control of the kingdom...

Guys. We just played right into Gaster’s hands.

Point #8: Seam Knows that Rouxls is the Knight...

The final observation that genuinely makes me convinced in this theory, is a small detail I noticed at the end of the Pacifist run of Deltarune. Once you have beaten the game, and all of the prisoners are freed, everyone comes to celebrate at Card Castle for your victory. Everyone, except for Seam. That is because Seam knows what the “Strange Knight” did to Jevil. He knows who the Strange Knight is. And he knows what the Knight’s true intentions are.

Point #9: Extra Tidbits I noticed:

When compared to the other denizens of card castle, Rouxls seems out of place. He is the one vaguely humanoid character among a bunch of card and chess themed Darkners. 

His puzzle is... too easy.

Rouxls is oddly excited about overthrowing the king/taking his place. 

Rouxls is well versed in calligraphy of all things. (Relation to fonts + letters.)

Rouxls “sparkles” have an odd resemblance to the shining save states...?

He makes pop culture references, such as ones seen here and here. Could just be random throwaway jokes, but often times more “aware” characters such as Sans and Papyrus are keen on breaking the fourth wall at times/making references to relate with the audience.

His hair looks strangely out of place. Especially the hairline which is really receded to an unnatural degree on the left side. It’s a wig guys...

He gets a suspiciously new position for no reason at all. In any normal situation, he would be extremely unqualified for it if he were as stupid as he makes himself out to be.

Rouxls is literally wearing armor, akin to a medieval knights.

If you pay close attention, Rouxls has a few very subtle similar speech patterns to Gaster. They both occasionally repeat words twice. They both use the words wonderful and truly a lot, etc.

When Kris and the gang beat the K. Round, Rouxls said it was just to test their abilities.

Rouxls theme has leitmotifs from Gaster’s theme.

End of discussion. Deltarune’s finale is legit going to be Gaster getting his wig snatched.

[cellydawn]

sans IS gaster (OR the sans theory masterpost pt. 2)

Part 1 || ❤️ || Part 3

(drawn by me, color by @magenteel​)

Previously, we discussed: Sans and his hand in the destruction of a world, his connection to Ice-E and Deltarune, and how he relates to Gaster. We’re going to continue the thread we left off on.

Section III - Gaster (Cont.)

Snails are mentioned too many times throughout Undertale for them to not be of any significance. As it turns out, they are pretty important in unraveling the mystery behind Gaster and Sans.

When you enter the area with Napstablook’s snail farm, you’ll notice that Sans’s theme is playing despite him not making an appearance. 

In one of Papyrus’s phone calls, he mentions that Sans recently bought snail-shaped pasta and says “He’ll probably fill them with hotdogs and slime.” Toriel also owns a book called “72 User for Snails”. Track 72 in the Undertale OST is “Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans”. That’s multiple times that Sans is likened to snails. 

Snails belong under the taxonomic class Gastropoda. Gasterpods.

These long pauses between words and phrases are not unlike how Gaster speaks.

Here is Gaster speaking with us in the opening sequence of Deltarune. And...

Now. Let’s move on.

(More under the cut.)

Mus_smile is the track that plays in room_gaster. This is my personal opinion, but the character that is the most strongly associated with smiles is Sans.

And Sans is certainly intelligent enough to be the prime suspect for being Gaster. The proper name for his namesake is Comic Sans Microsoft, or Comic Sans MS. MS can also be used as a suffix for the name of a person who has a degree in a Master of Science.

Sans also owns quantum physics books. The subject of Gaster’s scientific research is revealed in Entry #17: “photon readings negative”. Photons are described as a "quantum" of electromagnetic energy, and are of course within the realm of study under quantum physics.

Gaster, like Sans, is brilliant yet slow-working. Slower than Alphys, who is repeatedly noted to have nothing to show yet as the royal scientist in the eyes of the people and is shown to slack off constantly.

Gaster is implied to have perished, and I suppose he did, in a way, if these speculations do end up being correct. However, there’s something more to this statement. Ghosts are sort of in the realm of being not-alive, and Sans and Napstablook have a surprising level of comparability.

They both:

Get likened to “garbage”

Have connections to snails (Napstablook runs the snail farm)

Speak completely in lower case

Pretend to sleep and say “Z’s” out loud

Have black “sclera”

And the black sclera is also a topic of its own; it’s equated with the status of being brought back to life. Being “determined”. (See: Asriel and Undyne)

Undyne is especially suspect due to the strange right-eye-phenomenon she has in common with Sans, with spears shooting out of hers. Spears that are actually colored light blue, not unlike Sans’s eye. 

To recap: 

Sans and Gaster are heavily involved in Deltarune

They have been displaced from time and space

They have connections to snails

They are both doctors with knowledge in quantum physics

They both “fell” into the abyss

They both talk similarly

They are both slow

They are both characterized by their smile

They are both some degree of dead

Sans is Gaster or a significant piece of him. Sans has Gaster Blasters because they belong to him. If all prior conjecture proves true, he is and will be responsible for the destruction of a world or THE world within Deltarune. After all, the Latin definitions of “gaster” and “sans” are to destroy and to be without, respectively. 

That brings us to the next subject: why is Sans Sans? More specifically, why is that his name? Why even change his name?

Below is the Japanese version of the fun event with Sans’s phone call. It features completely different dialogue from its English counterpart. 

Am I Licca-chan? (Select No) Then from now on call me Sans. I need to check every once in a while. I won’t know when my name has changed. 

“Licca-chan” is a well-known Barbie-esque dress-up doll in Japan, so popular to the point where it is even used as a synonym for other dolls from different companies. Perhaps it implies that Sans is adaptable due to Licca-chan’s nature as a doll and how she is in a constant state of change to reflect the times. It also seems to be a pun on “liquor” because Sans was talking about beer in the English version. I tried to scour the Japanese fandom for clues, but they also seemed stumped. If anyone has any ideas on what this could mean, please let me know!

Regardless, “Sans” doesn’t seem to be his actual name. Perhaps his true name was Gaster...?

Additionally, If the player changes the name of the fallen child via going into the code, this message appears in the stats menu. The vernacular is very Sans-like, with his frequent use of question tags at the end of his sentences (I counted 14 huh’s from Sans).

Finally, let’s talk about the number six. We know that it’s Gaster’s number--All of the explicitly Gaster-related fun events trigger for fun values in the sixties, Gaster’s stats are all comprised of 6′s, Gaster’s “typer-value” is 666--you get the idea.

The concept art Toby drew for the Alarm Clock’s character screen features what is presumably Sans and the number six.

“The Choice”--the track that plays during Sans’s judgements--is “Undertale” slowed down by 666%.

Section IV - Angels and Demons (The “Why”)

In modern day culture, 666 is closely associated with the devil. The Book of Revelation (13:17-18) asserts that 666 is “the number of a man” (this is important, and we’ll come back to it later) and is “the number of the Beast”. The Beast is mentioned as “coming out of the abyss”. 

Sounds a lot like someone else we know, doesn’t it? And how fitting for Sans, the one who judges our sins and demands us “to burn in hell”.

But if we go further, the Beast of Revelation is described to have seven heads representing seven kings. The beast itself is an eighth king who is of the seven and "was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition." 

Chara is an eighth of the seven fallen children. 

There’s something Chara, Sans, and Gaster all share, and it’s their association with demons.

Here is an excerpt from the Cutting Room Floor:

Among the four strings in version 1.0, the last one, designated by variable “demond”, stands out for two reasons. 

 The letter “d” is separate from the other letters denoting the demon variables--the rest, “x”, “y”, and “z” are in sequential alphabet order.

The speech pattern of the last string is different from the others. It has that signature question tag at the end of the sentence that a certain character is known for.

In version 1.001, the strings clearly reflect Chara’s speech pattern. This time, all the variables are in sequential order from “a” to “d”. 

Pieces of dialogue at the near-end of a genocide route from Chara and Sans. Recall that Chara is using the same “Now” from earlier with Gaster and Sans.

Chara makes a reference to Banana Yoshimoto's book “Kitchen”. Take note of the page number.

Chara is also linked to the number nine. It’s the highest achievable stat in-game. It’s the stat of the locket and real knife. It’s how much damage Chara deals. It’s also the number six flipped upside down. 

The connections are undeniable. 

And yet, it goes further. Let’s take a look at how Christmas comes in to play.

In Deltarune, there are a few references to it, the most foremost probably being the importance of Noelle Holiday as a character. We also get Lancer’s laugh and the joke with “Krismas”.

Back to Undertale, there is significant Christmas iconography represented by “Gyfmas” and Gyftrot (bearing a strong resemblance to Photoshop Flowey, the DT Extractor, and Gaster Blasters).

What I’d like to focus on is Santa.  Papyrus describes him as “a chubby, smiling man who loves to surprise people.” From the thank you note addressed to Santa we find in Sans’s room, we can assume that Sans is a Santa, at least to Papyrus. It’s pretty fitting, since Sans can be described as someone who “knows if [we’ve] been bad or good”. Maybe he can even tell if we’re sleeping or awake with how the Dark World appears to be linked with sleep and dreams (please read my theory on Sans being a Darkner for more on this).

So we can reasonably conclude that Sans presents himself as a friendly, child-oriented figure, in-line with the nature of Comic Sans, a font for children, and Ice-E, a mascot of a company marketed towards children.

…

Santa is an anagram of Satan. 

…

To recap: Gaster’s association with the number 666 marks him as a “demon”. Chara and Sans are also called demons and similarly have connections to the number 6. This is more evidence that Gaster and Sans is or used to be the same people, and Chara has some form of correspondence with them.

I failed to mention before that there is actually a second Beast of Revelation “from the Earth” with "two horns like a lamb”. From the “earth” like Flowey, with horns like Asriel. 

Asriel is most likely the “Angel” depicted in the prophecy within the scope of Undertale; he’s named similarly to Azrael, an angel of death, and one of his attacks is literally called “Angel of Death”. He also bears a striking resemblance to the Deltarune in his God of Hyperdeath form.

Surprise, surprise, he and Sans also share parallels. 

Let’s start with their introductions. “Flowey the flower”. “Sans the skeleton”. It’s a similarly alliterative greeting and they’re both using fake names.

Mirrored dialogue yet again...

…and similar meta-commentary.

These three characters--Sans/Gaster, Chara, and Flowey/Asriel--they have all fallen. Gaster fell into his creation. Chara fell into the Underground. Asriel had “fallen down”. (Sans and Papyrus are also the only sibling pair other than Chara and Asriel. I won’t talk about Papyrus in this part though because this thing is shaping up to be too long already.)

What does this mean for Sans? I have a personal theory.

Above the entryway of the Judgement Hall, there is a reversed Deltarune. The triangles are inverted and the wings are more bat-like. In the room where only Sans appears, the same room that plays a version of “Undertale” slowed down 666%.

I think Sans is a candidate for the Angel prophesized to destroy the world in Deltarune. I think he is Sans Serif, a seraph. He fell into his experiment and became a “fallen” angel, a demon. 

The Angel’s Heaven mentioned alongside, on the other hand...  Heaven can also be used to refer to God. Dog is an anagram of God. 

Sans has many, many connections with dogs, especially one Annoying Dog. More on this next time.

Part 1 || ❤️ || Part 3

[my-name-is-dre]

Mettaton is a False Prophet - Pt. 2

This is a continuation post from my older theory back when Undertale was still the big thing that Mettaton was a false prophet designed by Alphys and Asgore to fulfill the Deltarune prophecy, which explains all of his eerie similarities to Flowey and Asriel. Here is Part 1 if you wanna catch up!

[UPDATED INFO FROM DELTARUNE CH. 2]

With the debut of Deltarune Chapter 2 came a fan-favorite newcomer called Spamton, and the interesting thing about his character is that it has a lot of similarities with Mettaton, especially his secret form known as ‘Spamton NEO.’ Now, the general story behind his character is that he was once a spam email puppet account who was never able to make a deal. This was his life until he was called by a mysterious person who suddenly made him wildly successful by continually aiding his career over the phone, eventually causing his friends to leave him over their envy of his newfound success. This success eventually landed him a spot in Queen’s mansion until it all came crashing down one day, and the only remnant left of him was a dead phone line tied to him that only repeated static back at anyone who tried to call it.

As everyone’s likely aware of now, there is a hidden bossfight in which you can, once specific conditions are performed, fight Spamton NEO, a version of Spamton hooked up to a suit that unabashedly resembles the same form Mettaton took on in the no mercy route of Undertale. This suit has been referred to as ‘the machine’ which is described by Swatch as the creation of an unknown Lighter, “digitally visualizing their hopes and dreams which never came to be.” This then became an incomplete dream which was locked in Queen’s basement. In battle, the fight also resembles the fights the player had with Mettaton through Undertale, with their soul turning yellow and shooting projectiles to take Spamton down. But the similarities between the fight against Mettaton Ex and Spamton NEO don’t end there, as both fights involved taking apart components of the body gradually over the course of the battle, with Mettaton having his limbs blown off and Spamton having his strings cut.

Now, this backstory is all very important as it alludes back to the body’s origin in Undertale as a creation of Alphys to make its host proficient at killing and absorbing a human soul. The description of the body is textually different but similar, in that Mettaton NEO was designed for the purposes of killing explicitly whereas Spamton NEO’s body is described by Swatch as being an agent in which one can envision their hopes and dreams through an implicit power of determination.

It’s important to note here that, career-wise, Mettaton is quite similar to Spamton in that they both had great and newfound success upon accepting a deal that gave them some meta-knowledge of the world they inhabit, with Spamton being told that the world he lives in is a game that can be exploited (as implied by his dialogue), and Mettaton was granted some of the same abilities that Flowey possesses (changing the game’s name, being able to audibly speak, and being a monster soul possessing an inanimate object). Whereas Mettaton is a story of continued success, Spamton is a story of failure, but how does this fit into the context of the theory that Mettaton was a failed attempt to fulfill the Deltarune prophecy?

That quote from Swatch on describing the purpose of the body is important to explaining this, as it eerily resembles Mettaton’s role in Undertale’s story as a machine designed to harvest a human soul and potentially fulfill the Deltarune prophecy but was unsuccessful to do so because Mettaton is a false prophet. The theme of false prophecy and failed transcendence is exemplified by Spamton’s backstory, as the power of meta-textual awareness granted to him (by Gaster presumably) resulted in short-term success that rose him to the heavens only for him to fall down hard back into being forgotten. The fall he suffers from cutting off his strings is a dual-layer metaphor for how Spamton fell from success and how Mettaton was unable to fulfill the Deltarune prophecy unlike his parallel successor Flowey.

And if it wasn’t obvious that Mettaton’s constant desire for your soul is equivalent to Spamton’s desire for [hyperlink blocked], he goes on record describing all of the control he’d have over his life if he were to harvest your [hyperlink blocked], implying that the hyperlink is code for determination. Spamton also routinely refers to “heaven” throughout his dialogue, which could imply anything transcendental, but I believe this is also another direct allusion to the Deltarune prophecy and its description of an angel: The divine vocabulary fits. Perhaps Mettaton was trying to indirectly achieve this reception from heaven through his promulgation as an icon of monsterkind wanting so desperately to have a human audience? Perhaps this constant appeal ‘heaven’ is Spamtron’s version of Mettaton’s constant appeal to a nebulous audience? If that’s the case, it implies that the audience of Mettaton has divine power, which seems to suggest that it’s composed of far more than just monsterkind. Another minor thing to note here is that Spamton also refers to “the presses” if you defeat him by depleting his health bar: “WAIT!! [$!?!] THE PRESSES!”

“KRIS, DON'T YOU WANNA BE [Part] OF MY BEAUTIFUL [Heart]?” is a very unsubtle nod to the process Chara and Asriel underwent to bypass the barrier and return to the Surface. There must be something about the abilities that the NEO suit offers that is implicitly tied to the Deltarune prophecy. Spamton’s constant use of the phrase ‘big shot’ is another multi-layered metaphor. The ‘big shot’ in question is a triple entendre, as it refers not only to Spamton’s aspirations, but also the fulfillment of the Delta Rune prophecy and also more banally refer to the yellow soul’s newfound ability to shoot a charge shot.

After sparing Spamton NEO, he offers some dialogue that resembles Flowey’s plea to you after defeating his Photoshop form, in which he asks why you’re showing him mercy after all of the unnecessary cruelty he did to you to prove his worldview correct. He then goes on to make a reference to Pinocchio in which he asks you to cut his strings and make him a “real boy” (an even funnier phrase given that he’s a puppet). But this is also an allusion to Mettaton, as he reveals to you throughout the game that his robot body designed for him by Alphys is a form that makes him feel more like himself because it’s implied that Mettaton is an incorporeal ghost like Napstablook. He then makes one least appeal to Heaven and says he’ll live for himself and his friends, acting as a microcosm of both Mettaton and Flowey’s character arc.

In the “weird route”, Spamton also makes remarks prior to battling him that allude to Mettaton NEO’s fight in the no mercy route: “THANKS TO YOUR [Total Jackass stunts] I HAVE [Becomed] NEO.” “TO [$!$!] ME OVER RIGHT AT THE [Good part]!? WHAT ARE YOU, A [Gameshow Host]!?” “MY ESTEEM CUSTOMER I SEE YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO DEPLETE MY HP! I'LL ADMIT YOU'VE GOT SOME [Guts] KID! BUT IN A [1 for 1] BATTLE, NEO NEVER LOSES!!! IT'S TIME FOR A LITTLE [Bluelight Specil]. DIDN'T YOU KNOW [Neo] IS FAMOUS FOR ITS HIGH DEFENSE!? NOW... ENJ0Y THE FIR3WORKS, KID!!!” One line in particular references Asriel calling Chara’s name before Frisk lands in the bed of flowers in the Garbage Dump: “YOU MAKE ME [Sick]! MUTTERING YOUR [Lost Friends] NAMES AT THE BOTTOM OF A [Dumpster]! NO ONE'S GONNA HELP YOU!!! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR [Beautiful Head], YOU LITTLE [Worm]!”

This is an even more poignant line, as Spamton resides in Trash Zone, which is meant to resemble the Garbage Dump area of Undertale, which was a point in Waterfall where you were given a hint into the backstory of the game before landing on a bed of flowers. It’s also the area where you encounter Mad Dummy and where Alphys dates Undyne in the true pacifist route. Clearly, the symbolism of taking place in a dump is very important for connecting the worlds and stories of both of these games, given that it’s such an important spot for two major characters tied to Mettaton.

If it weren’t obvious at this point, Spamton damn near confirms that Mettaton was designed at least partially to fulfill the Deltarune prophecy but was unable to because he didn’t possess the same potential or determination that Flowey had due to his lack of relation to the original human and his focus instead turning towards an abstract human audience. The dialogue from Swatch about Spamton being the embodiment of a Lightner’s dream also implies that, keeping in line with the themes of desire in the Dark World, that Mettaton might be directly responsible for the creation of Mettaton. Perhaps this is why the NEO suit so eerily resembles the God of Hyperdeath if it’s directly tied to Mettaton’s desire to fulfill the Deltarune prophecy. If this is the case, isn’t it a bit odd that the God of Hyperdeath is also implied to be Asriel’s creation from flavor text in Kris’s room? What an interesting parallel.

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

His Dark Materials - Season 2 Episode 7 *FINALE* (Thoughts and Rambles)

We have a LOT to unpack here oh my god oh my god

When I say I was screaming and yelling during the episode, I mean I was LITERALLY screaming and yelling

This post is mostly screeching and capital letters, you’ve been warned

“So cold” “life or death meant nothing” - well shit. Accurate description of a Spectre attack damn

I didn’t know what those creepy noises were at first and I was sat here absolutely TERRIFIED because it was creepy as fuck. Then I realized it was cliff ghasts because they said something that I recognized from the book and I was like “oh shit”

Pan and Will talking is the sweetest omg

The fact that Pan told him that Lyra thinks he’s as brave as King Iorek Byrnison :’)

“She’s the best friend I’ve ever had” “You’re her best friend too” - STOP, MY HEART

Lyra was awake and heard the whole conversation :3

“I’m no longer an aeronaut” :( “I’m an insect” - LMAO

Hester and Lee’s banter remains my favourite thing and now it’s bittersweet tbh...

“You could never be an insect, Lee” “Okay, hare” - bless them

Marisa finding where Lyra was staying and then finding Lyra’s coat?? And crying with it pressed to her face?? :’(

In case I haven’t mentioned it already, I am incredibly gay for the witches/their aesthetic/costume. Absolutely beautiful queens, all of them

Oh hi, it’s Mary and the two kids!

The fact that Mary helped them find their adults :’)

Also, “We like you miss” - BLESS

I’m kind of confused as to whether the blue flower petals are important or if it’s just her smelling them? IDK

“I’m close to my father, it’s time I found him” - OOF OKAY UMM ARE YOU SURE

“I let my best friend down” - Noooo Lyra, no you didn’t! :( Your dad is a terrible parent and killed him, that’s not your fault!

“Maybe this is how I let you down” - Well done, Asriel and Marisa, you’ve fucked up a perfectly fine child is what you’ve done

Will telling Lyra that she hasn’t let him down :3

That witch turning up because she was trying to warn Marisa about the spectres, only for Marisa to torture and kill her... oof

FUCKING MONKEY I CAN’T DECIDE HOW I FEEL ABOUT HIM

“She’s MY daughter” - Okay, damn, lady...

“EVE. She’s the mother of all” - OH FUCK YOU TOLD HER. OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK

THE SPECTRE ATE HER DÆMON OMG NO THIS IS HORRIFYING WTAF

Seriously, the way the witch went so grey and lifeless and just fell to her knees and down... Urgh, my stomach is turning

Just when I thought I hated the monkey again, he starts whimpering because he’s afraid of the Spectres :(

“Stop whimpering” - DAMN MARISA YOU ARE A STONE COLD BITCH HUH

Pan being the damn voice of reason and telling Lyra they should stay with the witches like yes, Lyra, listen to him for once!!!

Okay but why are the Magisterium soldiers lowkey dressed like German soldiers from one of the World Wars???

I’m not really surprised that BBC left out the detail of Ruta and Asriel fucking when she found him to be honest XD

So the witches think that the Æsahættr is a person but it’s actually the KNIFE. AND THEY DON’T REALIZE. RUTA YOU DON’T NEED TO GO ANYWHERE, IT’S LITERALLY RIGHT THERE

“...That’s not my dæmon.” “Run.” - OH SHIT OKAY MY WHOLE BODY JUST TENSED UP

So umm Lee got shot and FUCK NO FUCK NO I’M NOT READY FOR THIS EMOTIONALLY THANKS

I LITERALLY DO NOT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN OKAY

“You’re either with me or against me” Umm he’s your dæmon?!?!

THE WAY SHE SCREAMED AT HIM OH MY GOD SHE’S FUCKING TERRIFYING HOLY CRAP

“What are you frightened of?” - oh, I don’t know, Marisa, maybe because YOU FUCKING SCREECHED AT HIM. MAYBE HE’S FRIGHTENED OF YOU

Also I love the detail of Marisa getting onto her hands and knees, sort of crouching and mirroring the monkey’s body language. I just love the parallel

The way the monkey flinched from her when she went to touch him omg :( No dæmon should be THIS afraid of their person (or at all?!?!)

Honestly, I find this series’ portrayal of Marisa fascinating tbh

“We have to do whatever it takes to keep her safe” - Umm, like maybe drugging her and hiding her in a cave for months? 🤔

Also in case I didn’t say this before, the fact she has complete control of the Spectres is fucking scary and always has been from the very first time I read the books

Okay so Lee is fully aware that he’s going to die if he stays behind but he does it because he knows that it’s the best chance of making sure that Lyra ends up under the knife’s protection (because Jopari will find her). All Lee wants is for Lyra to be safe and that hurts my heart so much, he loves this child so much :’(

“I love that little girl like a daughter” - LEE STOP MY HEART IS ALREADY BREAKING AS IT IS

NO NO NO NO I AM NOT AND NEVER WILL BE READY

Oh hey Red PAN-da (sorry I know I keep repeating that joke but honestly LOOK AT HIM)

“Once I change, you’ll stop changing” - OH SHIT. So we’re having THAT conversation then

“What do you think you’ll be?” “A flea I hope” - LMFAO I LOVE IT

“Is it Will that’s changing you?” “I think” - FORESHADOWING FOR AMBER SPYGLASS ANYONE?!

All the meanwhile, while Lee is dying and shit is going down, Ms Mary Malone is just chilling in a cave on a mountain by a waterfall, just reading

I literally struggled to watch Lee’s final scenes. I literally didn’t want to watch it because I cried reading it in the book, and I knew I’d be the same here

The fact that Lee HATES taking away people’s lives but he says “it’s theirs or Lyra’s”... I love him. He loves her so much.

“Think about anything, think about bacon!” - LMFAO I LOVE YOU HESTER YOU ABSOLUTE GEM

THE BULLET CLIPPED HIS SCALP AND I HAD A HEART ATTACK 

“This is my fault, isn’t it?” - NO HESTER NO DON’T YOU DARE BLAME YOURSELF DARLIN’, YOU ARE THE BEST AND WE LOVE YOU AND LEE LOVES YOU

I do this everytime I read the book and I did here even though I know what happens, but I was praying mentally that maybe Serafina would reach Lee in time... just maybe...

I’m really sitting here crying over Hester and Lee on a Sunday night, love that for me

Hester limping :(

“Don’t you go before I do” - FUCK YOU BBC AND PHILIP I’M SOBBING MY EYES OUT

“Oh how far we flew” - STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT FUCKING NOW I SWEAR-

I literally yelled and cried out “NOOO” when Hester faded away and Lee died. I am so upset even though I KNEW it was coming. I am literally not okay.

Oh god no Will, now is not the time to be walking away from Lyra and that witch 

Also why is that witch asleep on guard?? Come on, love, do better, it’s not like these are the two most important children in all the universes.... 

To be fair to Marisa, I’d feel pretty invincible if I were climbing up a mountain while the Spectres were guarding me/on my side

WILL AND JOHN FINALLY MET AHHHH

“I was told I’d find my father here”  - YEAH AND THAT’S HIM WILL ASDFGHJKL;

I’m low-key disappointed that there’s no brawl between Will and Jopari here. Like they instantly recognize each other and... hmm. I know there has to be changes but still.

“Your mother, Will, where is she?” - Awww. John really didn’t stop loving her :’)

“My son... is the Knife Bearer” - oooooohhhhhhh

“You have a dæmon” - that’s right, Will. Don’t worry, you’ll get one next season

The way I audible went “oh shIT” when Mrs Coulter found Lyra fast asleep. Like I said, I knew what was going to happen but STILL

I’m not really surprised that those Spectres killed the witch who was supposed to be guarding Lyra and Will tbh like that’s what happens when only ONE witch guards two teenagers and that witch falls asleep

The way that Lyra panicked when she woke up and saw her mother stroking her cheek omg 

Off topic but I’ve only just realized that Jopari has a fucking man-bun LMFAO OKAY

The fact that Jopari tried to get back to Will and Elaine but couldn’t will always hurt me

“And you chose these people over your family?” - I MEAN-

“I’ve thought about you every day.” - Awww

So John tells Will that he has to go to Asriel and bring him the knife, and he tells him all about the war that’s coming and I have LITERAL chills because I’m so ready

“And then we go home?” “... And then we go home.” - RIP MY HEART OUT, IT WOULD HURT LESS

“I’m not strong enough” - yes you are, Will! I promise you, you are! And Jopari says, “Both of us were brought here” - exactly! You were brought there for a reason by fate or whatever you want to call it!

“Your duty was to be my father” - WILL REALLY CAME FOR HIS DAD LIKE THAT I GUESS

“Look what you’ve become without me” - Oh my god, just when I thought I wasn’t going to cry again

JOPARI HUGGING WILL, SEEING THE SOLDIER AIMING, AND THEN PUTTING HIMSELF BETWEEN THEM SO HE TOOK THE BULLET INSTEAD OF WILL ASDFGHJKL;

So in the book, Jopari is killed by a scorned witch who had once asked him to be her lover, but he had turned her down (because of Elaine and Will obviously), and she kills Jopari in front of Will and then he kills her (I think?). But here it’s just a soldier leftover from the Lee vs Magisterium fight, so... yeah. Kind of a little peeved about the change personally but whatever I guess.

“The night is full of angels, they will guide you now” - AHHHHH

Also, might just be me, but maybe that line would have been slightly more impactful if the scene had taken place at night

This show really said “fuck healthy parental figures” I guess

Except Will’s mum, she’s the best and if anything were to happen to her we’d all riot

SAYAN KÖTÖR FADING AWAY NOOOO I HATE SEEING DÆMONS DIE

Okay, last little gripe, but I just wanted to say that in the book, Will doesn’t realize it’s his dad until literally the last second before his dad dies - like they both realize and then BAM, Jopari is killed. And while I do love the father-son reunion, I am kind of annoyed by the change because it was such a huge punch in the gut in the book that Will searches for so long for his dad, only to lose him the second he finds him.

Serafina finding Lee’s body and kissing his forehead was yet another punch in the gut, thanks Pullman/BBC/BadWolf

The fact that Will had to bury his dad :(

Also, WILL WEARING JOPARI’S JACKET OH MY GOD MY HEART

Oof that shot of his amputated fingers...

So the narration, when it started I thought it was Jopari at first, like from one of his letters... but then as it continued, I went “hang on”, and then I said outloud “wait, is that ASRIEL?!”

DID MARISA REALLY PUT LYRA IN A FUCKING TRUNK?!? BITCH ARE YOU OKAY?!?

Will putting his hood up like his dad did just hits differently

Okay so um ASRIEL HI I WASN’T EXPECTING TO SEE YOU THIS SEASON OH MY GOD THE SCREAM I LET OUT

HIS MONOLOGUE BY THE WAY IS FUCKING ART AND A MASTERPIECE BUT I WAS TOO BUSY CRYING OVER JAMES MCAVOY TO WRITE THE WHOLE MONOLOGUE DOWN

Oh, hi Stelmaria!

It always makes me scream that this man is not only Lord Asriel now but he’s also fucking Mr Tumnus and MOTHERFUCKING BILL DENBROUGH LIKE HOW IS THIS MAN INVOLVED IN SO MANY OF MY FANDOMS?!?

ANGELS ANGELS OH MY FUCKING GOD-

“We stand with you, Asriel Belacqua” - AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

“Let us prepare for war” - FUUUUUUUUCK

(I was deadly serious when I said this was just me screaming and crying by the way)

I’m still reeling over the fact that Marisa put her daughter in a fucking trunk. Like I get you can’t exactly carry a drugged child about in the open but Jesus Christ, love, really?!?

Also Ruth Wilson / Marisa Coulter in a headscarf? *chef kiss*

The way that the screen went to black as she put the lid on the trunk down - SHIT OH SHIT GOOSEBUMPS

THE CREDIT SONG IS SO BEAUTIFUL BECAUSE IT HAS FUCKING ANGELS NOW I’M-

I WASN’T EXPECTING THE POST CREDITS SCENE OH MY GOD

ROGER?! ROGER! IT’S ROGER I’M NOT OKAY-

BBC YOU CANNOT JUST DROP THAT ON US LIKE THAT FUCK-

“What is this place?” - I’M SCREAMING SO LOUD I CAN’T HOLD IT IN

For anyone unaware, the reason I’m screaming so loud over the post-credits scene is because in TAS, while Lyra is drugged and in a groggy sleep, she has these visions of Roger talking to her from the Land of the Dead, which then later leads to her and Will actually GOING to the Land of the Dead and... well, the rest is even HUGER spoilers but YEAH I’M NOT OKAY.

Honestly, I’m just so happy and emotional because I’ve been waiting over a decade for a decent adaptation of not only NL but for TSK and TAS too, and we’re 2/3 there now. Just one more book/series to go... I wish we could have it now. I really hope that filming for the final one starts ASAP because if we have to wait two years just to see the conclusion to this series, I might cry.

This series is so amazing, and this season especially has been so incredible to watch. It’s been the highlight of my week for seven weeks, and I have no idea what I’ll do with my Sundays now that it’s over. I’ve asked for the DVD for S2 for my birthday already (since it comes out 29th December and my birthday is 13th January... just saying), and words can’t describe how much I do love this series. I know it sounds hollow since I say it about so many things I’m into, but this was such a huge part of my childhood and it’s one of my favourite fantasy series of all time. It’s truly one of the most incredible pieces of literature and now it’s making for incredible television... I love it so much.

[skellfamily]

Ralsei’s origin

this is a skele-centric blog but I had some theories regarding Kris, Ralsei, and the Angel that I wanted to share - figured I might as well post here since this is basically an UT/DR theory blog now 

First, I’ll talk about Ralsei. In Deltarune's code, there is some conspicuously unused text. It is listed in the files as "UNUSED" and was translated to Japanese, so despite not being in the game itself, it probably is supposed to be important. The text is as follows:

Where... Where... Where am I? Hello...? Anyone...? Is... is anybody out there...? Someone!? Anyone!? Can anyone hear me!? ... It's dark. It's so dark here. Someone, anyone, if you can hear me... Say something... please...

My theory on this one is actually a few that are tied together. 

First: I believe the person saying this is Ralsei. This text is extremely similar to dialogue from Undertale, where Flowey talks into an Echo Flower while mimicking Toriel. Considering that Flowey speaks about how - when he woke up as a flower - he cried out into the darkness for help with nobody coming, it's very likely that what he's saying to the Echo Flower is based on his own experiences.

So, that leads me to believe that whoever is saying the unused dialogue is a character who is, even if indirectly, connected to Flowey somehow. I don't think it would make sense for this to be Asriel (why would he be alone in the dark?) and Flowey presumably doesn't exist in Deltarune, so Ralsei IMO fits the bill the best. Especially considering Ralsei already has a few other parallels with Flowey.

Second: Ralsei's light world counterpart is the horn headband that Kris misplaced. Kris either threw the headband away or accidentally lost it in the supply closet. Ralsei's empty kingdom is in the supply closet, while the Great Door is the door that connects the closet and the abandoned classroom in the school. The reason Ralsei seems based on Asriel is because the horns were a way for Kris to imitate their brother and family, and so contain Kris's fond memories of their brother.

Third: The reason Ralsei is alone. If he's in the supply closet, there should be plenty of objects around to turn into Dark World inhabitants, right? My idea is that objects need to specifically be abandoned by Lightners in order to come 'alive' as Darkners. If a thing still has use to people, it remains inanimate. A supply closet should be filled with stuff like paper, pencils, chalk, etc. which are all regularly taken and used. It’s also possible that sentimental attachment might play a role, where something having been played with by Lightners/having good times associated with it impacts whether it will become a Darkner.

If Ralsei is truly Kris's headband, then he was left behind in the supply closet long ago, thus becoming the only Darkner there (and the lonely prince of his empty 'kingdom'). I also think Ralsei could have been the very first Darkner ever, if the supply closet was indeed the first place a Dark Fountain was made or popped up in. If that's the case, who knows how long he might have totally alone in the darkness.

[chocolatte-and-despair]

How do the boys(tale, swap, fell, swapfell and fellswap) feel about Alphys and Undyne? Both theirs and in general(if you don’t mind ofc)

(I decided to just do what they think of their own. I hope that’s fine. If you want any more, please ask away!)

UNDERTALE:

* Sans/Undertale Sans ‘ The Judge ‘ - Sans respects the job that Alphys does, but he believes that the fact that she doesn’t believe in herself gets in the way of her work and that if she only would accept his help, she could achieve so much more.

Sans never liked Undyne. He believes that she is just not good enough for Alphys. Alphys is a smart person, meanwhile, Undyne is an only muscle and no brain. Whenever he can, he tries to trash talk Undyne, even if she hasn’t ever done anything bad to him.

* Papyrus/Undertale Papyrus ‘ The Liar ‘  - Papyrus believes that Alphys is a very good person, but that she should avoid Sans. He is a very toxic person at this moment, and Alphys is very weak-willed, so he would be able to push her around, and Papyrus just doesn’t want that.

Papyrus respects Undyne and considers her one of his closest friends. It was because of her that he realized that being part of the royal guard was never something he wanted. what he wanted was to be liked by people. 

* Gaster/Undertale Gaster ‘ The Forgotten Scientist ‘ - Gaster believes that Alphys is a very talented person, and he is proud of her and what she had achieved after he had disappeared. He was worried that she won’t survive without him around, but he was glad that he was wrong about that.

Gaster knew Undyne’s father, so he is proud of Undyne too. He is very glad to see that she had reached what she always wanted. He knows that her father would be proud if he would still be around. 

* Grillby/Undertale Grillby ‘The Bartender ‘ - Grillby never got involved too much with Alphys. But from the stories that Sans tells him, he believes that she is talented. The fact that she is the royal scientist also says something.

Grillby believes that Undyne is very loud, but she is talented at what she does. If only she would be a little more understanding that drunk people are sensitive to loud sounds, that would be wonderful.

* Asgore/Undertale Asgore 'The Previous King' - Asgore feels like Alphys needs to get out of her comfort zone a little more to be able to reach her full potential. But he believes that having Undyne around her will help her become more confident.

Asgore is very proud of Undyne. Since her father had died, he took care of her. Because of that, he feels like he raised her right, seeing how justice is driven she is. He just hopes that she will keep helping everyone.

* Flowey/Undertale Flowey ' The soulless monster ' - Flowey feels close to Alphys. Even if he acted angry towards her, he is thankful to her that she saved him from a horrible fate. Of course, being a flower isn’t much better, but at least he’s alive.

Flowey absolutely hates Undyne. He believes that she isn’t good enough for Alphys. He also is very afraid of her, that’s why he avoids her whenever he does go visit Alphys.

* Asriel/Undertale Asriel ' The crybaby heir ' - Asriel is absolutely fascinated by the work that Alphys does. He never understood science all that much, but he always wanted to become someone very important to the kingdom, just like Alphys.

Asriel always thought that Undyne was the coolest person ever. He hoped to be trained under her one day, to become a strong and powerful king that would be able to rule the monster kingdom. 

* Mickey/Undertale Monster Kid ' The Undyne Fan ' - Mickey finds Alphys to be cool, but not cool enough to be with Undyne. Of course, he won’t say anything, as long as his idol is happy, but still. He really believes that Alphys isn’t good enough for Undyne.

Mickey is absolutely obsessed with Undyne. She was completely the best, and she still is. Mickey always wanted to become like her, and he knows that one day he will manage to do that.

* Ginger/Undertale Burgerpants - In a way, Ginger hates Alphys because she created a body for Mettaton. If not her, then he would be free from this slavery of a job.

Ginger honestly fears Undyne. She is the most frightening person underground, and he isn’t even sure why she is with someone like Alphys. He just hopes no one will find out how he feels towards Alphys or he will die, that’s for sure.

UNDERFELL:

* Red/Underfell Sans ‘ The Sentry’  -  Red fucking hates Alphys. Like, no offense, but the bitch is absolutely insane and he doesn’t understand why he has to work for her. Like, the reason he has even picked up drinking, was because of her treatment towards him.

Undyne is... a unique person. He believes that she is a good person, but because of Alphys, she needs to act cruelly. Undyne has a high moral compass and he cares about everyone. That’s why he respects her.

* Boss/Underfell Papyrus ‘The Guard Captain’  -  Boss believes that Alphys is a very talented woman, but he also believes that she has quite a few problems. He does believe that Undyne will be a very good influence on her.

Boss had a crush on Undyne before, but not anymore, thankfully. He believes that she is a very respectful person and one of the only good monsters underground. He wishes to become like her one day. 

* Aster/Underfell Gaster ‘ The Failed Scientist ‘ - Aster isn’t sure how to feel about Alphys. He feels resentment towards her, that she took his place, but he also needs to admit that she is quite good at her job, be it fierce, and usually puts her enjoyment before her job. 

Aster never understood why violence was needed. He believes that Undyne is a brute, that’s why he doesn’t really like her. But he won’t get in her way, especially knowing how her family reacts to people who do that. 

* Firefly/Underfell Grillby ‘ The Cold Flirt ‘ - Grillby dislikes Alphys. Because of her and her stupid experiments, he had lost quite a few clients, and he doesn’t like it one little bit. If she could just stop killing drunkards, that would be wonderful.

He believes undyne is way too uptight. If she would only loosen up a little bit, things would be better. Thankfully, she and a few of her guards do come and drink here now, which is very good. 

* Tenor/Underfell Asgore ' The Tyrant' - Tenor doesn’t care much about what Alphys does. She is insane and nothing will ever change that. As long as she doesn’t get in the way of his work, he won’t say anything. 

Tenor enjoys how loyal Undyne is. Because of her good job, no one ever dares to say or do anything against him. 

* Daffodil/Underfell Flowey ' The frightful flower ' - Daffodil fears Alphys with all that he has. The moment he could he ran away. He is so afraid of her catching him again, seeing as she is searching for him. He doesn’t want to be left alone with her again.

Undyne is frightening too, but at least she seems to have some morals. Because of that, Daffodil doesn’t exactly run from her, seeing as she doesn’t bring him to Alphys either. 

* Tuscan/Underfell Asriel ' The obsessive prince ' - Tuscan doesn’t like Alphys. He believes that the position of the royal scientist is wasted on her. Even Red could do a better job, and Tuscan hates Sans.

Tuscan always admired Undyne. He has been working hard to be able to become part of the guard and work alongside her. He knows he’s not getting the throne anytime soon, so at least, he wants to be useful.

SWAPFELL:

* Razz/Swapfell Sans ‘ The Lord ‘ -  Razz is embarrassed to admit it, but he had a crush on Alphys for a very long time. Of course, he now just respects her as his equal, but the past does embarrass him still. 

Razz doesn’t enjoy being around Undyne, but he is forced to, seeing that she is Mutt’s best friend. He tries to keep all his interactions with Undyne civil.

* Mutt/Swapfell Papyrus ‘ The Wild Dog’  - Mutt doesn’t really mind Alphys. She is Undyne’s girlfriend, and she is Razz’s only friend, so of course, Mutt could never really hate Alphys. 

Mutt likes Undyne quite a bit. They are best friends, though, he does find it weird how obsessive undyne is over him and everyone. But he isn’t exactly much better.

* Marigold/Swapfell Asgore ' The Unstable Caretaker' - Marigold finds Alphys to be very violent, and completely a brute. He does hope that she will soon be replaced by Razz, seeing as he is much better than Alphys.

Marigold finds Undyne to be quite a pleasant person to be around. He invites her to drink tea quite a bit. He would go as far as saying that the two are ever friends. 

* Pitch/Swapfell Chara ' The Cheerful ambassador ' - Pitch finds Alphys to be a cool person! The two train quite a bit, and seeing as he has so much energy to let out, he loves it! Becoming her friend was one of his best choices.

Pitch finds Undyne to be quite misunderstood. Sure, she loves to experiment on him, and he is sure that a third eye grew on his stomach, but she is quite nice outside of that! A little creepy but nice nonetheless. 

* Chartreuse/Swapfell Frisk ' The domineering prince ' - Chartreuse believes that Alphys is quite a good worker. Thought, he would want her to be crueler. If she would be, maybe then, criminals would stop doing what they do.

Undyne to him is too weak. It’s a mystery how she had survived this long. The moment that he becomes king, he will make sure that she disappears completely. He is sure that she is dragging Alphys behind too.

UNDERSWAP:

* Lucky/Underswap Sans ‘ The Manipulator’  -  Lucky enjoys being Alphys quite a bit. She is one of the only friends that he has, and that he actually enjoys being around. 

Lucky finds Undyne to be pathetic, especially with how she allowed Stretch to play with her however he wanted. Honestly, she doesn’t deserve to be with Alphys.

* Stretch/Underswap Papyrus ‘ The Puppet ‘   -  Stretch is scared of Alphys. After she broke his bones when she found out what he did to Undyne, he has been avoiding the two of them as much as possible.

Stretch and Undyne were best friends at some point until Stretch became a little too touchy. He thought that she wouldn’t mind. But getting his bones broken by Alphys was enough of an answer. 

* Dings/Underswap Gaster ‘ The RiverMan ‘ - Dings dislikes Alphys. How dare she hurt his boy? The only person that can hurt his boys is he himself, so of course he dislikes Alphys. Maybe even hates her. 

Dings hates Undyne. If only she kept quiet, and let Stretch do whatever he wanted, then he wouldn’t have gotten hurt and wouldn’t think twice before trying to do something like that again..

* Tawny/Underswap Asriel ' The friendly town guide ' - Tawny enjoys meeting with Alphys. He had only met her a few times, but she has been quite nice. He had showed her around Snowdin, and she was quite a nice to him while he was doing that.

Tawny believes that Undyne is quite a nice and smart person. He doesn’t really know her, but from the stories that Alphys has told at Muffet’s, he believes her to be good.

FELLSWAP:

* Blackberry/Fellswap Sans ‘ The WannaBe Guard ‘ - Blackberry doesn’t really like being around Alphys, but sadly, because of what his brother did, he still needs to work for the royal guard to have his crimes forgiven..

Blackberry finds Undyne to be a nice person to be around, but he tries to avoid her. She seems too similar to his brother for him to be comfortable around.

* Patch/Fellswap Papyrus ‘ The Loyal Pet ‘ - Patch doesn’t like Alphys. Because of her, his brother has been quite unhappy lately, and that never sits well with him. He’ll make sure to hurt Alphys one day.

Patch and Undyne are quite close friends, but since his brother started to work for Alphys, he has been avoiding Undyne. Though, they do talk on the phone from time to time.

[raguna-blade]

Ok and before I forget and i Likely will and I don’t have the attention span to actually try and take this anywhere right at this precise moment but there’s one musical thing that’s likely as not a just a musical ref cause haha I can do it it’s my soundtrack, my game you can’t stop me but-

There’s this song I ran across ages ago that toby fox did also compose. 74, Sung by Itoki Hana, and I Honestly have to wonder how much of it is also supposed to link in thematically. Like this wouldn’t be the first time Toby’s done this, what with Megalovania being from 1 and then 2 different stories and each pulling a generally similar vibe and intent behind them near as I can tell (there was an essay that explained this way better but I cannot for the life of me tell you where I actually read it save the greater seas of Tumblr so you know, that’s probably lost forever)

And I’m sitting here looking at the lyrics of this song, and Where I at least hear the music parts, it is in Welcome to the City, which is the bit where it’s just Kris, The Soul and Noelle, and given the whole song and all i have to wonder if there’s any intended link.

Cause man, looking at the picture used, and then the lyrics it certainly feels like it.

Now purposes of this here analysis I suggest you go listen to the song. 74, Itoki Hana, Toby Fox should get you where you need to be. If nothing else it’s a good song.

Now probably not, but it does at least put me in the mind to look at it like it does even if it’s only more a thing i vaguely heard that sorta sounds like this sparked an idea and honestly there’s worse places to grow your thoughts.

So, in 74, the song more or less comes from the pov of the Princess in a tower, watching a brave knight ascend to rescue her, through the various traps and trials that are within the tower...That she set and put there. And she is not (or she is in addition to being) actually a princess. She’s a dragon, pretending to be a princess to lure in knights to feel a degree of validation, to feel well...Important. Valuable. Special you know?

And I guess it’s not hard to see some potential parallels going on given that we find that Kris is opening the Fountains. Or is ALSO opening the Fountains. We’ve seen one for sure, and the implication SUGGESTS that they’re the one doing it in general, but we won’t know for sure til the game’s completely out. But for now, let’s assume they’re doing them all.

With that, We have Kris the Hero fighting through a land of trial and tribulation that he made himself to do...Something. Like in the song, the Knight in question looks gallant cool and really shows their stuff, even though in the end they bit it.

So that’s something, but then, we’re still asking why is Kris doing this? It’s shown that basically any Lightner can open a Dark Fountain whenever they want (Berdly got slapped out of it like 3 times in a row, and he seemed to be doing it pretty trivially as far as difficulty was concerned. Now that was in the Dark World, so perhaps it was easier there, but the Queen didn’t even really consider Berdly Strong enough to do it, though part of that likely as not had to do with her concern for Noelle.

But like...I dunno, I go back to the Knight in all this, and that’s a position of special import in the game. It’s very actively called attention to it, and the Knight is positioned as an apocalyptic force that’s...Creating Worlds, giving life and value back to the Darkners, who were cut off from the Lightners, which has seemingly left both sides lesser. The Darkners seeming to be doomed to fade into the dark, while the Lightners are unable to interact with this world that seems to have the ability to massively improve their wellbeing.

Like, Knights are typically heroes in stories with princes and heroes and kings and queens you know? When the story takes place in a kingdom, it’s the loyal knight who, while perhaps not the main hero, is a steadfast compatriot. Well that’s the general idea right?

But the Knight is positioned as a terrible force of ruin and destruction...Except in chapter 2 here, we get the notion that creating the Dark Worlds really can be an improvement life. Indeed, the game doesn’t even seem to suggest that creating more Dark Worlds is inherently a bad thing, but there’s the critical issue of the balance between the two being off and that’s a critical problem that at least as of now doesn’t seem to be able to be addressed.

Still, if this game is keeping on with Parallels to Undertale, The Knight isn’t all bad. Hell even the Spade King wasn’t all bad and he’s pretty objectively the most evil character in the normal route of the game.

And the game really does seem to posit that the interaction between the dark world and the light world is inherently good for both of them. The Town looks Way healthier and lively in Chapter 2 than it did in 1. Susie’s Rude Stat has been dropping since go, and Even Kris, while we don’t get to see their thoughts, seems to be becoming considerably more expressive. Now admittedly pretty much every expression we do get to see from them that isn’t prompted from The Soul seems to be negative and frustrated and angry and all that, but then, I think that’s probably a better place to be than shoving everything down and being completely unresponsive and not acknowledging anything that they’re feeling, which seems to be the case whenever you start to touch on anything remotely intimate.

I mean The Soul seems to be a part of them as well as apart from them, which is confusing at the moment, but they’re capable of scarfing down a whole entire pie, slash their moms tires, and open up portals to parallel realites without it so it doesn’t seem to be something that they particularly NEED to survive or do anything.

Going back to the song though, and i suppose the most basic barebones aspect I wanna look at, is that Someone who’s Apparently In Trouble is actually the Threat, or more generally, that the Appearances Are Opposite to the Actual Reality of the situation I’m wondering.

Because last thing before I cut this off, is that We have the Queen going all in on her plan and being unaware that going through with it would lead to the end of all things, I have to wonder if the Knight is Similarly Ignorant as to what they’re actually doing.

I’m also wondering if Perhaps Asriel is perhaps actually the antagonist. Because while the game’s claim of your choices having no meaning is inherently unquestionably suspect, the game also makes it extremely clear, doubly so as of the point of chapter 2, That there are people you’re simply going to have to fight, and perhaps you’re going to have to fight them with the full intent of killing them, and that that is an option that you genuinely may need to consider. Or at least, that you may well need to destroy that relationship and cut them out of your life. Not everyone should be recruited, so to speak.

Which is advice that shows up, if my memory isn’t failing me this quickly, in the manual that Ralsei provides...And advice that, if taken to extremes as shown in the Corruption route, can cause genuine problems.

Or I suppose I guess to put this in another context, the first words of advice you’re given, that are a full on lie, in Undertale is that this is a world of kill or be killed. Asriel tells us this is a world where you do not have to kill anyone, and while the game has yet to have you actually bring the axe down on anyone in the Normal Route, it’s also extremely explicitly stated that it’s not so simple as spare everyone or fight everyone. There’s shades of grey here and you shouldn’t just ignore them. There are people you can’t just spare, you have to fight it out (and interestingly, those people do not include the secret bosses, who seem to have a greater level of understanding of the world, if also are borderline incoherent in both cases.)

I dunno. There’s more to percolate on here i think, though obviously some of this isn’t gonna be answered until we get the rest of the game.

And as a last note, there’s 7 showing up again as a recurring number so that’s...Interesting.

[you-are-my-neverland]

“That’s a shame,” Professor Laurier said. “If I may give you a word of advice, Ms. Beaulieu, I would say that you need to figure out what you want, not what you think you need to.”

- F I V E 

[ a/n: and we’re officially on november 20th, 2/3rds of the way through with national novel writing month twenty twenty. this novel remains unnamed, but my word count is, as of the 20th, 43.5k, which is a bit insane. i attempted to actually make this post nice to look at. we’ll see what happens ] 

songs i one hour looped to.

sleep thru ur alarms by lontalius

it’s not love by lontalius

wings by birdy

grace by lewis capaldi

nym by phlux

praying by kesha

girls by girl in red

writing thoughts.

i’m really proud to have kept up my average so far, especially since the middle is usually really lagging. i wrote almost four more chapters and half of it is literally just like pages of prose, thoughts, character introspection, and generally filler dives into the mind, but while i am a bit frustrated that it feels like this wip is really dragging it’s feet, i have been enjoying myself immensely. right now, it’s really just setting the stage and starting to build the bones of bare character dynamics/relationships that will all develop later on - necessary (i mean probably not 40k worth, but yeah...) but lengthy.

as excited as i am to get to some action, like even just the first teeny tiny start of the mountain, i am having a lot of fun fleshing out my characters. i feel like i’m really getting to know them (and also finding out that i am projecting onto ophelia and eden hard lol, geez). of course, i have a really large cast for this wip that will be of varying importance throughout at least this book, but that also is a bit messy, because i’m trying to weave them all together and make sure they get set up for later arcs.

on that note, i still want to call this wip these violent ends, but considering it’s technically the first of a trilogy idk how that would work out...i’m really attached to that title though lol. 

anyways, here are some favorite lines - tried to pick some out, might like chapter six a bit too much..

some favorite lines. 

three.

“So I’m throwing a fucking party,” Thaleia added. “And we’re all going to have so much fucking fun.”

four.

Ophelia opened it to find Sebastian methodically lacing up his tennis shoes, which looked too ordinary to be real against the soft white of his clothing, as if a medieval peasant had walked into a Nike shop and simply selected a pair of sleek shoes that matched.

“I love your dress, by the way,” the other girl added. “Red looks good on you.” “You, too,” Ophelia said, and then flushed, correcting, “I mean your dress looks good on you. It’s very pretty.”

five.

Ophelia hadn’t thought that he was the type to like to disappear, but then she had thought about it more, at a night when she’d missed home a little too much, and realized that not everyone wanted to disappear in the same way, that not everyone was like her brother to a T.

They had been six or seven or eight when the Red Revolution had started, and like their parents remembered how it had started in waves, they had been raised in a changing world and tumultuous times. She remembered the air raids, the practice lockdowns and the sheets that had come in the mail, demonstrating what to do in an emergency, or if they had to suddenly evacuate. Wanted posters, with constantly changing pictures. Missing posters—and those had been the worst. Ophelia remembered one coming in of a little girl her age, with pigtails and gap teeth. She couldn’t recall much from that period before eight—a few scattered memories of the Revolution, Des and Tian and her, but more emotions attached to events, short in her mind—but she remembered that girl on the missing person’s poster. They’d found her body a week later.    

Ophelia blinked, at a loss for words. “I do belong with my brother,” she said, finally. “There’s no situation where I wouldn’t actively choose to be with my brother.” “And does your brother, Sebastian, was it, feel the same way?”

six.

But Vincent was dirt poor and used to empty cabinets and red numbers on unopened bills, so he had stopped worrying about why his mother had left and died in the first place—all that mattered was that he was alone, now. He couldn’t hide the aura that surrounded him, that showed itself in his old clothes and his broken shoes and his undernourished body, in the bloodshot eyes and the slight tremble of his eyes and the smell of smoke that accompanied him wherever he went.

Well, his teachers back home probably thought his life would not amount to anything more than dying early as a drug addict, and Vincent wanting to do something more than that was seen as just daydreaming. It was funny, how they told kids like him they could be anything and then turned tail and said that they were shooting too high by wanting to ever get out of that town or their poverty line lifestyles. He was getting out of that town. He would never live at the poverty line again. 

“No,” Asriel cut in. His voice was calm and smooth as glass. “What was the government doing that was so wrong that some Mages felt the need to overthrow it in the first place?”

Happiness and warmth gave Vincent as much power as the other side to the coin, the wrath and the chaos that came after the smile, or the laugh. For Asriel, he thought smiling might be a bit of a death sentence, because when Asriel smiled, it gave the impression that he had given something up, taken down a bit of his walls, in order to do so, and that was dangerous.

Even if their ghosts didn’t remain, the memories mired in the streets he walked daily held him with bony fingers, reminding him of the pasts so many people had lived. Pieces of soul left behind, ghostly forms that stayed behind on scraps of emotion: vengefulness, anger, sadness, and regret; nobody died without one of them left behind. For all the brave stories Sebastian had read about soldiers or people who had died ready for it, embraced it with open arms, he had yet to meet a ghost that had been ready to leave.

They told him to hate the ghosts, and so by sheer power of will, Sebastian loved them instead.

taglist > @semblanche

if you think this wip is cool and would like sporadic updates, express your interest explicitly, please!

[butnobodycame627]

Flowering

Prologue: A Call For Help

I've been kind of worried about posting this for a while now, but it's Undertale's anniversary, so I decided I'd just go for it. I haven't worked on this story in a long time, actually, this is not recent. But if people like it, I might keep working on it. I have the first chapter done, but I'll probably check for mistakes before I post that. But uh... yeah, I hope this isn't too bad? I know I'm not the best writer, but I had been planning this story for a long time and I really want to finally post something about it. So... here is that. It's not too long, just a prologue. I'm not sure how long the chapters will be, I have difficulty knowing when to end chapters and they often end up being too short. I guess we'll just see when I post them.

Fresh air, a gentle breeze, fully bloomed flowers... This was an incredible day. Beautiful. The kind of day anyone would take to relax and unwind. The kind of day to go for a walk outside.

And for a normal day in a normal town, you would think just about everyone would be calm and collected, taking a break.

This is why the people all around town were shocked when they saw a mysterious figure run by. He was running so quickly that no one could really tell who he was or what he was doing. He was wearing a black cloak, which was not a very common thing for people to wear around town, especially not on a summer day where black would only make you more warm.

He seemed to be holding his hood down, as if it were important to hide his facial features with the shadow it cast.

He also stumbled every now and then, implying that he was injured or had trouble walking.

He was looking at every building, as if unsure where his destination was located, but yet it seemed that he had a place in mind somehow. Something he was looking for that he just could not find.

He had finally found it. The laboratory. No one knew why he wanted to go there or who he was. He knocked on the door three times.

The door opened, and as soon as it did, he rushed inside. As he closed the door behind him, he immediately blurted out "Dr Alphys, I seriously need your help, I don't know how to explain, but-".

"Woah, woah, woah! Wh-who are you? What's g-g-going on?" Alphys asked, startled. She, just like everybody else, did not know who this was. The only person she knew of that wore a cloak like this was the River Person. But the River Person never left their boat and had not moved to the surface yet. This was someone else. She did not know who. She did not know why he had come here. She was visibly alarmed.

He took a deep breath, then seemed to think about the best way to put his thoughts into words. "You.... you remember Flowey?"

"Hard to forget. Is he causing t-trouble or s-s-something?" She tilted her head, trying to figure out what this person was getting at. "I don't know what you've h-heard, b-b-b-but I'm not the best person to help with that."

"No, I..." He shook his head. Then, with eyes closed as if acknowledging how silly it sounded, said "I am Flowey".

It was obviously difficult to believe. This figure differed in size and shape compared to a flower and had a different voice than Flowey had. Alphys could easily assume this was some sort of joke.

"If you're here to make fun of me j-j-just because you th-think I'm some loser scientist that doesn't know what I'm d-doing, you know where the exit is!" Alphys was trying to sound like Undyne, it seemed.

"I'm not here for any reason like that. I just want your help. You're the only person that I think can help."

Alphys was stuck on that last sentence. When was the last time someone had told her that?

.... The Amalgamates. When they were dying. Their families had said the same thing.

"I can't help you. Please j-just leave..."

"Dr Alphys, seriously." He took off his hood to reveal the face of a Boss Monster. His eyes were black and he had horns, shorter than Asgore's, but longer than Toriel's. Another Boss Monster. Alphys did not know that there were any others. "I don't want to be like this anymore."

She was unsure how to react. All that she managed to say was "Who are you?"

The Boss Monster rolled his eyes in response. He had already given this information. "Flowey. I'm Flowey." Noticing Alphys' dissatisfaction, he decided a full explanation would be a good place to start.

"When a monster dies, they turn to dust. At funerals, their dust is spread on their favourite object so that their essence lives on in it."

"Where are you g-going with this?" Alphys asked, although seemingly less annoyed and more curious. That gave Flowey a good boost of confidence.

"You've heard the story of Asriel, right?" He shifted uncomfortably where he stood, looking disgusted, as if there were a strand of hair in his mouth. He clearly did not like thinking of that story. "From what I can tell, just about everyone has. He was the prince. He died. Turned to dust. And that was where the flowers grew."

Alphys froze. She understood now.

"You h-have Asriel's essence, then. B-B-But... that still d-doesn't explain this!" Alphys said, gesturing to him. "You were soulless. Asriel was not. There is no way you could have suddenly changed into him unless you absorbed seven human souls!"

"That's why I need help. I want to go back to being a flower."

Alphys could not understand why. It seemed Flowey had no intention to tell her.

Flowey knew that he was not telling the full story, but she did not need to know that he absorbed seven human souls. They were gone now, that was not the issue.

So what was the issue?

[moontheoretist]

HDM - Season 2 Finale

The moment when the Specter left the monkey alone after Coulter said "stop whimpering" sounded so much as if the thing which Spectres feed on is not only Dust. I mean we know they don't feed only on that, but if it was just Dust monkey wouldn't survive. Anyway, we know it also feeds on "something which makes us human" and in that one single moment I had a feeling that they are feeding on compassion and empathy and that's also why Coulter is safe from them. She either doesn't feel it, or rejects it so thoroughly that they cannot sense a human in her. She is an abomination to them. And they are intrigued.

It's funny to me that Serafina orders Ruta Skadi to find the AEsaheattr, I had thought "well, if you just had those tactical talks with Lyra and Will you would know you have already found it". This is so ironic that they didn't include the most important people in their inner circle. It reminds me so much that even if you are very friggin important child ever, adults will still treat you as a child.

NOOO! NO LEEE NOOO! TOT *cries*

And now even Will's dad! Why every good adult is adying?!

What a great mommy, yeah, treating her kid like an object. If you ever doubted that misogyny is something women can suffer from, then she is the exact proof we can internalize it and do horrible things to our fellow women in order to appeal to patriarchy. She really thinks that by controlling Lyra she can make her better, and then now when she knows Lyra is Eve, she is so bold to assume her abuse can prevent “the fall”, which wasn’t even a fall, but ofc she doesn’t care about that, because she is so deep in patriarchal bullshit she believes in it.

Also, fuck you Asriel. You nearly killed Eve to open your fucking portal. You nearly doomed everybody. If Rodger wasn't there you would doom the whole universe, you idiot. I know that Angels don’t have much choice if they wanna win the war with Authority, but why the leader of said war has to be a maniac?

Ok, I don’t have much thoughts about the finale, other than Will doesn’t even know that Lyra is gone, and I think the ending would be more dramatic if they included the scene of him learning that Lyra was taken. The emotional stakes were already high after Lee and Will’s dad died, so Will learning that he is alone, that him venturing alone into the wilds exposed Lyra and endangered her and therefore also left him all alone, would be so friggin tragic and fitting for a finale.

But it wasn’t included. I feel so friggin sad for Will now. He is all alone again, he doesn’t have Lyra anymore, and he doesn’t even know that yet, and he lost the father he just found I cannot not think about the friggin tragedy of this whole situation. Not to mention this meeting HAD TO happen, which means that they had to be separated and that’s even more tragic, because it was not only Will’s choice, it was a destiny’s call that he met with his father there and then, so he could learn about his task, but in doing so he had unknowingly sacrificed Lyra.

How friggin tragic can it become? First Rodger’s death, now Will’s accidental sacrifice which was destined to happen if he was to learn his role in everything. I am afraid to ask what will happen next. Truly. But who I feel the morst for is Lyra, because she was friggin captured by her own parent, because Will went somewhere and left her alone, and now she is once again helpless against a person who will abuse her and force her to submit to patriarchy (Authority), so she as an Eve would not “fall again”. Also speaking of which, I don’t believe for even the slightest second that Eve had fallen. No, I think she discovered the truth behind the Authority’s bullshit and that’s why she is treated as an enemy.

Authority fears the truth, it fears people who can and will challenge its eternal rule and Lyra is that someone, while Will, even though he is a knife bearer, he would not challenge the Authority without Eve at his side, because Eve is the wisdom. The femininity, the freedom is the domain of Eve and Authority fears it, because it enables others, people under his rule to rebel against him. Maybe it’s even why Magisterium even exists in Lyra’s world? Because Authority knew she will be born in that world? And he needed total control over it to prevent her from rising armies against him, expose him and throw him off of his eternal throne?

[sharada-n]

Could you elabirate about why Papyrus reminds Flowey of Chara? I'm really curious.

Sure, but I want to preface this by saying its been ages since I’ve written Undertale Meta so excuse me for being a bit rusty. Also, there’s a lot of personal conjecture and interpretation here so feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt…

This is pretty much a counter argument to people claiming that Papyrus resembling Asriel is the reason why he’s Floweys favorite. I’ll get into why I think that isn’t true in a second (and why I think he actually is more like Chara) but first I’d like to point out that this theory doesn’t even make sense.

Flowey’s relationship with Asriel is complicated. On a technical level they’re the same person, yes, but in reality, they’re more like separate entities. While I do believe there is some Asriel left in Flowey, Asriel himself states at the end of the pacifist route that Flowey and he are not the same. More importantly though, Flowey talks about Asriel with clear resentment. He says Asriel was weak and blames the failure of the plan to free monsterkind on himself.

Keeping this in mind, it doesn’t make sense that Papyrus reminding Flowey of Asriel would be a positive thing to him. Especially considering the way Flowey speaks about his first encounters with Asgore and Toriel. Flowey doesn’t seem to want a constant reminder of his old life around, let alone a constant reminder of his old self. If Papyrus was like Asriel, I can only imagine Flowey would resent him too and not have him as a best friend.

“But Shara,” I hear you cry “Flowey is hardly a good friend. In fact, he's kind of a jerk and he manipulated Papyrus in the pacifist ending!”. Which, yes, that’s a fair point. I’m not saying he deserves a “friend of the year” award, but I’ve definitely been over why I feel their friendship is not just a charade on Flowey’s part. It might have started as such, but it's not anymore I think.

For example, the plan to use Papyrus to lure everybody into his trap at the end of the pacifist route wasn’t concocted until after Frisk fell, and they were friends long before that, so it can’t be the reason why Flowey befriended him in the first place.

Granted this is veering a little into headcanon territory, but there also is canon evidence to support this, such as the anniversary event where Flowey was the only one who knew what Papyrus’ favorite food was, and was seemingly annoyed at the fact that nobody else knew.

And also the dialogue you get if you keep doing neutral runs without ever attempting a genocide or pacifist run.

Here Flowey accuses the player of continually resetting and visiting him out of curiosity and boredom rather than a genuine desire to befriend him. This mirrors the part where he talks about his friendship with Papyrus being a result of his own curiosity and Papyrus (for some reason not actually properly explained in canon) being “fun to mess with” and a character that took a long time for Flowey to get bored off. Then we get this tidbit:

Not only is this line very interesting but the facial expression is important too. You can read it as discomfort, clearly, but it is also very much a guilty expression. This is the same expression Flowey has at the end of the pacifist route when addressing the player and compelling them not to reset anymore because it would take away everybody’s happy ending. It also happens to be the same expression he has when talking about the Flowey Fan Club as well as at the exact line I mentioned above, where he admits Papyrus was his “favorite”. 

Seems to me like Flowey is expressing guilt or embarrassment about his original intentions behind befriending Papyrus…

Now to get into the main thing: Why do people think Papyrus and Asriel are similar? The hard part is that we don’t know that much about Asriel when you think about it. He’s been long dead before the events of the game. We get some bits and pieces here and there but most info comes from Flowey himself, who is hardly an unbiased source. However, it's fair to say Asriel was very kind, innocent even, and pretty naive. A crybaby, in his own words. And if you take the most shallow, basic interpretation of Papyrus (the kind of fanon that makes me want to pull my hair out) what do you get? That Papyrus is kind, innocent and naive.

The only word in that list I do not take offense to is kind. Papyrus is undeniably a very kind person. But he is not innocent or naive. I could go into why I say this but honestly, it has been argued to death not just by me but by the entire fandom at this point, you’ve all heard it before. Papyrus is an actor. He’s good at showing people the parts of himself he wants them to see. It's unlikely that he’s completely faking it, I do believe Papyrus is genuinely a positive and quirky person. But he’s also playing up those parts to the extreme. Which leaves us with a lot of subtle clues as to his real feelings. Meanwhile, Asriel wears his heart on his sleeve. Crybaby, remember? And what about Asriel being a coward? Papyrus is anything but a coward.

So let's talk about Chara then. Once again we face the same problem we did earlier. Chara is long gone and we don’t know a lot about them besides what Flowey tells us, unless you subscribe to the “Chara is the narrator” theory, which I personally do, but since I know some people are still on the fence regarding this I’ll keep to strictly canon dialogue first. 

Asriel says Chara wasn’t the nicest person. True enough, their plan to destroy the barrier by means of killing themselves and then a bunch of humans wasn’t exactly a solid idea. However, it was made with good intentions. Chara was willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of freeing their newfound family. Chara wanted to help fix something they saw as undeniably wrong: the way humans treat others.

But this was also about revenge. Chara was bitter. They didn’t climb the mountain for a happy reason, according to Asriel. Asgore tells us something different too. He says he can see “the same hope in Frisk’s eyes that he saw in [Chara]”. So here we find what is both the big similarity and the big difference between Chara and Papyrus. Both of them are genuinely filled with hope, with belief, and with the motivation to make things better. They just manifested it differently.

Where Papyrus seems to maintain this disposition even in the face of adversary and unkindness, believing in you all the way until his death in the genocide route, Chara has already faced the kind of behavior that has made them resentful of things they consider unfair or unjust.

Both of them are willing to act upon these feelings of righteousness at least, however ill-advised, in contrast with Asriel (or ironically: Sans), who seems to be a more static, laid back person that didn’t like shaking up the status quo and just went along with what others did. Even Flowey himself only engages when he’s sure he has an ace up his sleeve and is unwilling to act thoughtlessly or impulsively. 

As the tape in the True Lab betrays, Chara was also a hard person to read, and both an excellent liar as well as an actor. They were hard to figure out, at the very least, and Asriel expressed joy at seeing a glimpse of their unguarded emotions when they smiled genuinely. Once again though, Chara seems to do this because they want to come across as colder and more emotionless than they really are, giving the impression that they don’t care about anyone or anything. While Papyrus is always trying to come across more happy and untroubled than he really is, and rather keeps his more negative feelings to himself.

The result for both of them is the same though: they are distanced from their friends and family, I’d almost go as far as to say that even those closest to them barely know them, and they are misunderstood in the most fundamental way. Their motivations are harder to figure out than those of most other characters, for sure. It would definitely go some way into explaining why Flowey was so fascinated by Papyrus from the start…

If you do believe in the Narra!Chara theory, there are some small details that match too. Chara is a rather goofy person actually and often makes jokes, but expresses disgust at puns and Sans’ rather lazy sense of humor where he goes for the most obvious wordplays. Just like Papyrus, who the fandom often portrays as hating puns when in reality he loves them, just not the kind Sans makes because they’re easy. Chara is also implied to be quite fond of books/reading and cooking, as is Papyrus. They both come across as inquisitive to me. The narrator's retorts can be unexpectedly sarcastic, or even dark, not unlike some of Papyrus’ dialogue. There’s some other minor things but honestly this post is way too long as is so I’ll just leave it there

Conclusion: Flowey made the same mistake the fandom made in assuming Papyrus was a one-dimensional person who is easy to fool, only be confronted with his new best friend being strangely similar to his old one and now he has no soul and a weird attachment to this strange skeleton who everybody underestimates. He even admits that Chara is the only person he would still care about now. Kind of a weird statement, except if you consider he has found somebody like Chara that sparked some kind of actual emotion in him (whether that be friendship, compassion, guilt, or something else)

What do you guys think? I’d love to hear your thoughts, or if you want to tell me this post was a horrible read from start to finish you can do that too

[dragon-kazansky]

Going North - Chapter two

Summery: You and Lyra meet. There is just something about her you like, you didn’t realise at the time what an impact she would have on you.

Chapter 2 - Lyra Belacqua

You had remained on Maggie's boat per Faa's request. It was the best thing you could do right now. You promised to keep an eye on her, unknown to you that Tony had left the boat. Your mind was more focused on his mother and what she must be going through to think of what Tony, Billy's dear older brother, must be thinking.

Maggie hadn't come up to see you, but you knew she was still in the boat. You feared going down and upsetting her again. You turned your gaze down the river, the people on the boat next to you turned their heads he same way, where a boat was coming up. You recognised Tony and swore under your breath, scolding yourself for not paying more attention as to where he had gone. On the boat with them was a girl, one you hadn't seen before. She was dressed in blue satin dress, around her was a small purse.

They came up alongside the boat and climbed on, you hurried over to help them, calling for Maggie to come up.

Tony told you to follow him as he guided the girl downstairs. You had so many questions but did as he asked, following behind the girl.

Maggie hurried over and scolded her son for disappearing like that, but calmed down when she realised he had company. She turned to her soon who quickly tried explain everything, but he kept apologising between his words.

You gestured for the girl to come over to other side of the and sit down, checking her for injury. She remained silent, but didn't object to your slight fussy nature in making sure she was OK.

"What's your name?" You asked quietly, having not met her before, though it would seem the others had.

"Lyra Belacqua. This is Pan." She gave a smile. You smiled back. You had heard of her from the Gyptians. You didn't want to freak her out by telling her that though. She didn't know you at all. It would be weird to talk about her family history, the one she wasn't supposed to know, with her. You could see that Lyra had no idea just how important she was. You felt incredibly honoured to even be in the same room as her.

"I'm Y/N L/N. This is Oliver." You nodded at your daemon. The two daemons acknowledged each other.

"Tony, please, just explain how you found her. From the beginning." Ma said, looking over at the two of you.

"We were just out getting supplies."

"What supplies?" She asked. You eyed him suspiciously.

"Well, there was this van, and then there was someone driving it, and there was, like, noises from the back-" He explained, sounding as if this information wasn't important.

You grabbed Lyra a blanket and draped it around her. She thanked you quietly.

"-muffled screaming and that. Obviously, we was like, 'yeah, we're going to have to stop it.' So we chased it and got lucky." Tony concluded.

"Tony rescued me, Ma Costa." Lyra looked up at the other woman with a solemn gaze.

"I don't understand." She said softly, looking at Lyra with a gentle gaze. You tucked some of her hair behind her ear and smiled at her. Lyra seemed grateful to have you there in that moment.

"I was just out with the guys, Ma!"

"Don't even think about lying to me, Tony Costa, because you know you know you're not very good at it." She went over to where he was sitting.

"We got one! We've finally got a clue to where Billy is!" Tony stood up to his Ma. "So close."

"Close isn't good enough, though, is it?"

"It's something." Lyra spoke up. "It's a start." She looked at Ma. "The start to beating them."

Ma smiled somewhat.

"I'll give you that."

The conversation was brought to a stop when the door open. Farder Coram peeked inside the room.  He was looking at Lyra.

"We need the girl."

Lyra furrowed her gaze at him.

"It's all right." You said.

She shook her head.

You held out your hand to her, never breaking eye contact with her. She stared right back, for a moment not doing anything. She gave in and reached for you hand, hopping off the counter. You reached behind you and handed her a coat as she slipped the blanket off.

"It's cold outside." You smiled and offered to help her put it on. Lyra didn't say anything, but she turned her back and put her arms into the sleeves, letting you help her. She fastened it up herself and looked at you again. You let her hold your hand. You lead her up onto the deck and followed Farder Coram, knowing he won't ask you to leave them.

You climbed onto the big boat beside Maggie's.

Farder Coram gestured for Lyra to climb downstairs. She was a little hesitant in her movement so you let go of her hand and climbed down first. You hoped it would coax her into following you down, lending you her trust. She began to climb down after you.

Lord Faa was sitting, waiting for her. You gave her a reassuring smile as you lead her over to where he was. Coram sat on the seat to the left, you stood just beside the empty chair, gesturing for Lyra to sit. She walked over and sat down, looking at Lors Faa across from her.

"You've had a fortunate escape, Lyra Belacqua, but now, I ask you to help us." Faa stated. "Did you have a sense of where they were taking you?"

"Is he not talking - the Gobbler?" She asked.

"Not as yet. So, anything you saw?"

"I didn't know where I was, and I didn't know where they were taking me. I'm sorry. I wish I could be of more help." She sounded firm in her words.

"Ma Costa has agreed to take you in, so if we could talk again tomorrow..."

"You're keeping me here?"

"For your own safety. We want to look after you."

"Why? I need to find my friend Roger!" She pleaded. "I don't know who you are! And as fun as it may seem to stay a prisoner again..."

"You may not know us, but we know you, Lyra." Farder Coram spoke up. "And have done since you were a baby."

"You are not our prisoner, Lyra, but you have always been important to us."

"Is this because of my father?" She asked. "Because he's Lord Asriel?"

Lord Faa, Coram and yourself looked at each other. You knew very well of Lord Asriel and his work in the North. You didn't find him to be all that likeable in the slightest, despite how anyone else may view him. You had heard Lyra thought he was her uncle, so to find out she knew the truth came as a surprise to you. As far as you knew, no one had said anything here.

"Who told you that?" You asked softly.

"Your father was good to us." Faa said. "He has always respected our way of life. But you are special on your own account."

"Why?!"

"Frustrating as it may seem..." Faa stood up. "...that's not a question for me to answer. I can't ask you to trust us, Lyra. I can only hope we'll earn your trust. We all want to find the missing children. So... will you stay with us?"

Lyra stared at him blankly for a moment, then she turned to you. You just looked her in the eyes, silently hoping she would agree. Lyra turned back to him and nodded.

With permission, you were allowed to return to Ma Costa. As you both climbed back onto the smaller boat, she turned to you.

"Will you be staying with us?" She asked.

"Yes. I've been helping Ma Costa ever since I found out Billy was missing." You smiled at her sweetly. "You're very brave, Lyra."

She smiled at you.

"I think we'll get along nicely." You grinned. "Now, why don't you go down and get changed. I think Ma said she would leave some clothes out for you." You watched her climb down. You remained up top and looked up to the other boat. Farder Coram was up there looking sat you. He gave a single nod. You turned your gaze away from him.

You sat down and decided to give Lyra time to adjust.

After a while Ma Costa came past you.

"Is she here?"

"Down below. Thought I'd give her time to herself." You smiled at the woman. She nodded and headed down below, herself. You got and followed her.

"Lyra?"

You both walked down to where her bed was. Lyra was sitting there with Pan beside her.

"Oh, look at you. You make a fine Gyptian." Ma Costa told her. "Much better. I'm cooking. Will you help?"

Lyra looked up at you. You just smiled at her.

The three of you go off into the kitchen together.

"My friend, Roger, he worked in the kitchens." Lyra said, watching Ma Costa do her thing. You leaned against the counter and listened to Lyra, interested to hear all about her. This girl was intriguing to you, and so very important to the people here. There seemed to be a weight on her shoulders she was unaware of bearing right now.

"Never thought you should learn?" Maggie asked, looking over her shoulder.

"What good it do me?" She asked, unsure where the benefit lay on her.

You both laughed.

"Oh, a Gyptian woman learns more than just cooking in our kitchens, Lyra Belacqua. We're armed." She claps her hands together and the ingreident on her hands floats down into the pan causing it all to light up in a big flame. Lyra jumps backwards with a grin. You all laugh. "There you go, girl! While you're stuck indoors we'll learn you some of our tricks." She gets Lyra to hold her hands out, palm up, and tips the powder into them.

Lyra grins and aims for the pan, clapping her hands and watching it spark up again in flames. You and Ma Costa laugh together.

"There lesson one learned already. You'll be a Gyptian woman yet." Ma told her proudly with a smile.

"Is that what I'm going to be - a Gyptian woman?" Lyra asks, not liking that her future had been decided by someone else. You look at her with a serious gaze.

"You'll be whatever you want to be." You told her. "Be your path. That's your choice, and yours alone." You tap her nose. She chuckles.

"I'm glad you're staying, Lyra." Maggie said with a loving tone. She had taken Lyra as one of her own. "You'll be safe as houses here. You'll see."

Lyra smiled up at her. Then she turned to you, who was still leaning against the counter watching her fondly. Lyra had really grown on you. You suppose you could see a lot of yourself in her.

"Do you cook?" She asked.

"A little. Though Oliver can surely tell you that I'm not a role model when it comes to looking after myself." You chuckle softly. "I get so invested in my work sometimes, I forget to eat."

Lyra chuckled.

"What do you do?"

"I'm an engineer."

"Cool! So, you make things?" She looked all excited now.

"Make them. Fix them. Take them apart." You give a shrug. "You interested?"

Lyra nodded her head eagerly which made you smile.

"Can you teach me?"

"I don't see why not. The more you learn, the more skills you gain." You tuck some hair behind her ear, much like you did earlier when she first arrived. Lyra smiled at you with a bright gaze. "I'll teach you everything I know in good time."

Ma Costa smiled and caught her attention again. Lyra still had some cooking to do.

A little later you and Lyra went up top to get some fresh air. You had wanted to keep an eye on her to make sure she was settling in OK, but she had requested your company specifically. It warmed your heart to know she wanted to be around you. The two of you were getting along nicely, it seemed.

Farder Coram had requested Lyra come ride on his boat while the Gyptians made a move up the river. You reassured Lyra you would ride with her. She chose to sit at the front of the boat, playing with something in her hands.

You caught a glimpse of it and wanted someone to pinch you. You couldn't quite believe what you thought you were seeing. An alethiometer. You had never actually seen one before, and God knows what you would like to do if you got hold of one. Not that you ever would. Only six were ever made and if Lyra really was holding one, you wouldn't take it from her. She must have it for a reason.

"We're not like Mrs. Coulter, you know." Farder Coram said from beside Lyra. "We just want to keep you safe."

"Yeah, she said something similar to me, too." Lyra replied, a little snappy. You couldn't blame her. That woman was wicked and deceitful.

"I'm sure she did." Farder Coram sat down by Lyra. "Maybe she even meant it, but maybe Mrs. Coulter isn't as powerful as she thinks. After all, you got away didn't you? Although I still haven't got to the bottom of why she has a monkey daemon. Then again, I'm often confused by daemons. I would never have guessed Tony Costa's daemon would have settled as a hawk."

"I think I'll settle as a mole." Pan spoke up. You chuckled as you looked down at him.

"Oh! A mole, is it?" Farder Coram looked at him with a curious gaze.

"Yes, so he can burrow underground and stay safe from all you grown-ups." Lyra said, glaring at Coram. He chuckled and you couldn't contain your smile. She needed to get to know you all. You were sure she would change her mind sooner or later.

"Very sensible." He tapped her shoulder with his hat, chuckling still. "But, er, not so good on the water, huh? Nowhere to burrow."

"I don't want Pantalaimon to settle." She said. "I want him to be able to change forever. And so does he."

"Well, there will come a time when you will be tired of him changing." You watched Pan go sit next to Oliver and Farder Coram's cat daemon. "When you come of age, and your daemon settles into it's final form, it will reveal what kind of person you really are." He explains.

You looked at Oliver. You had always been fond of his owl settlement.

"Suppose you don't like what the shape that your daemon settles as?" Lyra asked.

"Well, that would mean you are discontented. Many people would like to have a lion as a daemon, and they end up with a poodle." She chuckled. "No, I would not a hair on Sophonax, but that is not to say that sometimes I don't dream her different." At that the cat looked up at him. He smiled at her.

Lyra was quiet. He noticed.

"Now... would you like to see the man that took you?" He stood up.

Your gaze instantly went to Lyra.

She looked up at Farder Cora and stood up slowly. He led the way, his daemon following him. Pan hopped up to come to Lyra's side, you followed behind her, Oliver flying above you.

You stood back as Farder Coram let Lyra look though the door.

The man was tied to a chair as he was being questioned. The man wasn't saying anything.

"Is this alright, Lyra?" Coram asked.

"He wanted to do worse to Roger and Billy. Why would they take them and the other children if it wasn't to hurt them?" Lyra said, not taking her eyes away from the window.

Farder Coram, Lyra and yourself waited outside to hear news.

"Is he saying anything?" Farder Coram asked the young man.

"He said she's taking them North, but he doesn't know where."

"Of course. They can do anything they want with them there."

"But I saw, in her study, plans, papers." Lyra spoke up. "If we could just go get them..."

"No! We are not going to Mrs. Coulter!" Farder Coram stated.

"Maybe we could..." The young man started.

"Mrs. Coulter cannot know where we are." Farder Coram argued. "If you get captured, we'd risk her knowing everything. I forbid it!" He stated firmly. You agreed with him, but bit your tongue. Right now you just wanted Lyra safe. Going to that wicked woman's place would be too risky.

Any other discussion from there was interrupted by a siren.

"Go! Now!" Farder Coram nodded at you. You placed a hand on Lyra's back and gently pushed her out the door. That siren only meant one thing and they could not find her.

The Magisterium.

"By order of the Magisterium, we are searching all Gyptian boats in the area. Prepare to be boarded." An announcement called.

"Go, Lyra. We can hide you." You urged, keeping close behind her. You both got up top and looked up to see two airships and four boats coming your way. On any other day you would be wanting to look at those airships, seeing there mechanics and looking at the insides, today you wanted nothing more than for them to turn around and go away.

"By order of the Magisterium, we are searching all Gyptian boats in the area. Prepare to be boarded."

"Hurry, Lyra!" You urged her to jump across to Tony on the next boat over. Pan leapt over with her and Tony took them down below. You remained on the first boat, keeping an eye on the nearing enemy.

"By order of the Magisterium, we are searching all Gyptian boats in the area. Prepare to be boarded."

They come up along side every boat and began to climb on board. You crossed your arms and stared at the blankly as they began their search. You had faith in Tony that he would hide her well.

"Under whose jurisdiction dare you board these boats?" Faa asked. "Article Three of the Watercourse Bill. The Magisterium have no rights here."

One of the men from the boat held up a picture of Lyra.

"Never seen her." Faa replied, straight faced.

All you could do was stand by and watch as they searched the boats. There was a lump in your throat. The Magisterium always made you anxious. More so when one of their dog daemons started barking down the door over the next boat over. Maggie's boat. The one Lyra was hiding in. You closed your eyes and hoped with every fibre of your being that they would not find her.

You had faith in Tony and his Ma.

One of them went down.

You held your breath, sharing a look with Lord Faa.

"She's not here. Let's get moving." One of the others said. They couldn't find her. You suddenly remembered to breathe. That was far too close for comfort.

The Magisterium began to retreat.

"We'll search further down river."

As soon as they were gone you hopped on over to the next boat and hurried down. Tony watched you rush past him. You turned on your heel and looked at him.

"Where is she?"

Ma came over and knelt down in the corner, removing the panel that led behind the cabinets.

"It's safe to come out." She told Lyra. You waited.

Lyra crawled out quickly and and rushed past you all, climbing up above deck and hopping off the boat. You and Ma were quick to chase her. You didn't want to lose sight of her as you hurried after her. She ran across the bank, angry and upset.

"I'll never be safe!" She yelled, knowing she was being followed.

"Where are you going now?" You yelled after her, coming to a stop.

"Away from you! Away from all THIS!" She also stopped, turned around and faced you.

"I'm sorry we had to keep you hid like that." Ma called out.

"And it's HER! It's ALL her." Lyra rubbed her temples. You couldn't blame her for being so upset. Everyone had said she would be safe with the Gyptians, but that hadn't quite worked out. "And Farder Coram says she won't find me, but I don't think she'll stop until she does! And I don't know why, and I don't know if I can trust you. All I do know is that, on my own, everything makes sense, and when I'm with you, I'm just as much at risk!"

"You're right." You nodded. "She won't stop until she finds you."

"Why?" Lyra begged. She needed answers. It was frustrating that people kept hiding things from her. Hoe could she ever trust people if they were not honest with her. "Why am I so important to her?"

Neither one of you said anything. You looked at Ma with a pleading look. She looked conflicted.

"How am I supposed to trust you when no-one tells me the truth?!" Lyra yells.

"The truth is complicated!" Ma yelled back. "Some things, you're better off not knowing."

"I am so bored of BEING TOLD THAT!" Lyra screamed.

You looked Lyra in the eye.

"She's your mother, Lyra! That's what no-one is telling you." You didn't break eye contact with her. She was stunned. "She's your ma."

Lyra began to shake her head as she stepped backwards. "No. No, no." She began to pick up her pace and head off in the other direction.

"Lyra. Please listen. Wait!" You hurried after her. "It's time you knew." She began to slow down a bit. "As a young man, Asriel, your father, went exploring all over the North. He was high-spirited, quick to anger. Your ma, she was already married. As soon as they met, they fell in love."

You told her everything you knew of her parents. These were things you had learned from the Gyptians and you could believe it. You felt for Lyra. Everyone had lied to her from the day she was born. She didn't deserve that.

Lyra came to a stop. You came up beside her and looked at her.

"When she was pregnant with you, they thought they could get away with it, but as soon as you were born, there was no hiding the Asriel in you. Your father had estates, so he put you in the care of a Gyptian nurse." You looked up to where Ma was standing. She had slowly followed the two of you. "But Edward Coulter, your mother's husband, followed, determined to kill you."

"Kill me?" Her voice broke slightly.

"Men get funny about their shame. He ransacked the place. The Gyptian hid you well, but he'd have you found eventually. Asriel fought him there and then, and Edward Coulter was killed. The law didn't know how to respond. Asriel killed defending his home, but the law also allows a man to avenge the violation of his wife. Your mother was broken with the shame of it all. It's why she's like she is. She was a pariah for years. And they stripped all money, land and property from Asriel."

Lyra began to cry. It was breaking your heart to see her like this, but she deserved to know.

"You, the law placed in a nunnery, but in the great flood, Asriel stole you away..." You smiled at her. "...and took you to Jordan College. And that's all I know. That's all they told me." You looked at Ma again. She had come to stand beside Lyra.

"You were the Gyptian nurse." Lyra looked up at her in understanding. Maggie nodded.

"I held you for the whole night." Ma told Lyra, smiling. "I just want to keep you safe. I didn't manage it before. Let me manage it now."

Ma sent her one more smile for placing a hand on her shoulder and walking away. Her daemon flew overhead. You looked at Lyra once more before doing the same.

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